[ { "seq": 1, "page_number": "1", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. 1, in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 10 October 1947, Justice Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of military Tribunal I Military Tribunal 1 is now in session.\nGod save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. The Tribunal will now proceed with the arraignment of the defendants in Case no. 8 pending before this Tribunal. The Secretary General will call the roll of the defendants.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Each defendant will stand and answer \"present\" when his name is called. Ulrich Greifelt.\nULRICH GREIFELT:Present.\nTHE SECRETRY GENERAL:Be seated. Rudolf Creutz.\nRUDOLE CREUTZ:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Konrad Meyer-Hetling.\nKONRADMEYER-HETLING: Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Otto Schwarzenberger.\nOTTO SCHWARZENBERGER:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Herbert Huebner.\nHERBERT HUEBNER:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Werner Lorenz.\nWERNER LORENZ:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Heinz Brueckner.\nHEINZ BRUECKNER:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Otto Hofman.\nOTTO HOFMANN:Otto Hofmann.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Richard Hildebrandt.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Firtz Schwalm.\nFRITZ SCHWAML:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Max Sollmann.", "speakers": [ "OTTO SCHWARZENBERGER", "ULRICH GREIFELT", "HERBERT HUEBNER", "FRITZ SCHWAML", "THE SECRETRY GENERAL", "WERNER LORENZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "HEINZ BRUECKNER", "THE SECRETARY GENERAL", "THE SECRETARY GENERAL", "KONRAD", "THE MARSHAL", "RUDOLE CREUTZ", "RICHARD HILDEBRANDT", "OTTO HOFMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2, "page_number": "2", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "MAX SOLLMANN:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Gregor Ebner.\nGREGOR EBNER:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Guenther Tesch.\nGUENTHER TESCH:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:Be seated. Inge Viermetz.\nINGE VIERMETZ:Present.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL:May this Honorable Tribunal please, all of the defendants are present and in the dock.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. The prosecution will now proceed with the reading of the indictment.\nMR. MCHANEY:Your Honors, Mr. McHaney of the Prosecution:\nThe United States of America by the undersigned Telford Taylor. Chief of Counsel for War Crimes, duly appointed to represent said Government in the prosecution of war criminals, charges that the defendants herein committed Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes. as defined in Control Council Law No. 10, duly enacted by the Allied Control Council on 20 December 1945. These crimes included murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, deportation, enslavement, plunder of property, persecutions and other inhumane acts, as set forth in Counts One and Two of this Indictment. All but one of the defendants herein are further charged with membership in a Criminal Organization, as set forth in Count Three of this Indictment.\nThe persons accused as guilty of these crimes and accordingly named as defendants in this case are:\nUlrich Greifelt - Obergruppenfuehrer in Die Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as \"SS\") and General of Police (Lt. General); Chief of the Main Staff Office (Stabshauptamt) of the Reichs Commissioner for the Strenghtening of Germanism (Reichskommissar fuer die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums, commonly known as the \"RKFDV\"); Chief of Amtsgruppe \"B\" of the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "MAX SOLLMANN", "MR. MCHANEY", "INGE VIERMETZ", "GUENTHER TESCH", "THE PRESIDENT", "GREGOR EBNER", "THE SECRETARY GENERAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3, "page_number": "3", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Rudolf Creutz - Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the SS; Deputy to Greifelt and Chief of Amtsgruppe \"A\" of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV.\nKonrad Meyer-Hetling - Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the SS; Chief of Amtsgruppe \"C\" of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV.\nOtto Schwarzenberger - Oberfuehrer (Senior Colonel) in the SS; Chief of Amt V in Amtsgruppe \"B\" of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV.\nHerbert Huebner - Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) in the SS; Chief of Branch Office Posen of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV and local representative of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office (Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, commonly known as \"RUSHA\") for the Warthegau.\nWerner Lorenz - Oberguppenfuehrer in the SS and General of the Waffen-SS and Police (Lt. General); Chief of the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, commonly known as \"VOMI\") of the SS.\nHeinz Brueckner - Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) in the SS; Chief of Amt VI of VOMI.\nOtto Hofmann - Obergruppenfuehrer (Lt. General) in the SS; Chief of RUSHA, July 9 1940 to April 20, 1943; later Higher SS and Police Leader (HSSPF) for Southwestern Germany.\nRichard Hildebrandt - Obergruppenfuehrer in the SS and General of Police (Lt. General); Chief of RUSHA, April 20, 1943 to May 1945.\nFritz Schwalm - Obersturmfuehrer (Lt. Colonel) in the SS; Chief of Staff of RUSHA and principal RUSHA representative at the Immigration Center at Lodz (Einwandererzentrale Lodz, commonly known as \"EWZ\").\nMax Sollmann - Standartenfuehrer (Colonel) in the SS; Chief of Lebensborn, e.V. (Well of Life Society) of the SS; Chief of Main Department A of Lebensborn.\nGregor Ebner - Oberfuehrer (Senior colonel) in the SS; Chief of the Main Health Department of Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4, "page_number": "4", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Guenther Tesch - Sturmbannfuehrer (Major) in the SS; Chief of the Main Legal Department of Lebensborn.\nInge Viermetz - Deputy Chief of Main Department A of Lebensborn.\nCOUNT ONE - CHIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.\n1. Between September 1939 and April 1945, all the defendants herein committed Crimes Against Humanity as defined by Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, were connected with plans and enterprises involving and were members of organizations or groups connected with: atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, and other inhumane and criminal acts against civilian populations, including German civilians and nationals of other countries, and against prisoners of war.\n2. The acts, conduct, plans and enterprises charged in Paragraph 1 of this Count were carried out as part of a Systematic program of genocide, aimed, at the destruction of foreign nations and ethnic groups, in Part murderous extermination, and in part by elimination and suppression of national characteristics. The object of this program was to strengthen the German nation and the so- called \"Aryan\" race at the expense of such other nations and groups by imposing Nazi and German characteristics upon individuals selected therefrom (such imposition being hereinafter called \"Germanization\"); and by the extermination of \"undesirable\" racial elements. This program was carried out in part by\na) kidnapping the children of foreign nationals in order to select for Germanization those who were considered of \"racial value\";\nb) Encouraging and compelling abortions on Eastern workers \n for the purposes of preserving their working capacity as slave labor and weakening Eastern nations;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5, "page_number": "5", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "c) Taking away, for the purpose of extermination or Germanization, infants born to Eastern workers in Germany;\nd) Executing, imprisoning, in concentration camps, or Germanizing Eastern workers and prisoners of war who had had sexual intercourse with Germans, and imprisoning the Germans involved;\ne) Preventing marriages and hampering reproduction of enemy nationals;\nf) Evacuating enemy populations from their native lands by force and resettling so-called \"ethnic Germans\" (Volks deutsche) on such lands;\ng) Compelling nationals of other countries to perform work in Germany, to become members of the German community, to accept German citizenship, and to join the German Armed Forces, the Waffen-SS, the Reich Labor Service and similar organization.\nh) Plundering public and private property in Germany and in the incorporated and occupied territories, elg.\n, taking church property, real estate, hospitals, apart ments, goods of all kinds, and even personal effects of concentration camp inmates, and\ni) Participating in the persecution and extermination of Jews.\n3. Throughout the period covered by this Indictment, all of the defendants herein were associated directly or indirectly with the Main Staff Office (Stabshauptamt) of the Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism (Reichskommissar fuer die Festigung des deutschen Volkstums, commonly known as the \"RKFDV\"), with the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, \n commonly known as \"VOMI\"), with the SS-Main Race and Settlement Office (SS-Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, commonly known as \"RUSHA\"), and with the Well of Life Society (Lebensborn, e.V., commonly known as Lebensborn.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 6, "page_number": "6", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "4. Heinrich Himmler, Reichs Fuehrer of the SS and Chief of the German Police, was also the RKFDV. In his capacity as RKFDV he established the Main Staff Office (Stabshauptamt) with the defendant Ulrich Greifelt in charge. The Main Staff Office was responsible, among other things, for bringing \"ethnic Germans\" into Germany, for evacuating non-Germans from desirable areas in foreign lands, and for establishing new settlements of Germans and \"ethnic Germans\" in such areas. These activities involved transfer of populations, Germanization of citizens of other countries, deportation of Eastern workers, deportation to slave labor of members of other countries eligible for Germanization, kidnapping of so-called \"racially valuable\" children for Germanization, participation in the performance of abortions on Eastern workers, murder and plunder of property. Ultich Greifelt was Chief of the Main Staff Office and In personal charge of Amtsgruppe B, which consisted of the offices for economy, agriculture, and finance; Rudolf Creutz was Chief of Antsgruppe A; which consisted of the Central Office and the offices for re-settlement of folkdom, and labor, and was in personal charge of Amt Z (Central Office); Konrad Meyer-Hetling was Chief of Amtsgruppe C which consisted of the Central Land Office and the offices for planning and construction, and was in personal charge of Amt VI (Planning); Otto Schwarzenberger was Chief of Amt V (Finance); and Herbert Huebner was Chief of Branch Office Posen.\n5. The Office for Repatriation of Ethnic Germans (VOMI) was responsible, among other things, for the selection of \"ethnic Germans\", their evacuation from their native country, their transportation into \"VOMI\" camps, their care in these camps including temporary employment \n as well as ideological training, and their indoctrination after final employment or resettlement.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 7, "page_number": "7", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "It took large amounts of personal effects of concentration camp inmates and of real estate, for the use of resettlers. VOMI also played a leading part in the compulsory conscription of enemy nationals into the Armed Forces, Waffen-SS, Police and similar organizations. In addition, it participated in the compulsory Germanization of \"ethnic Germans\" and people of German descent, in the forcing into slave labor of individuals considered eligible for Germanization, and in the kidnapping of foreign children. Werner Lorenz was the Chief of VOMI; and Heinz Brueckner was Chief of Amt VI (Safeguarding of German Folkdom in the Reich Sicherung deutschen Volkstums in Reich.)\n6. The SS Main Race and Settlement Office (RUSHA) was responsible, among other things, for racial examinations. These racial examinations were carried out by RUS leaders (Rasse und Siedlungs Fuehrer) or their staff members, called racial examiners (Eignungspruefer), in connection with: cases where sexual intercourse between workers and prisoners of war of the Eastern nations and Germans had occurred, pregnancy of Eastern workers, children born to Eastern workers, classification of people of German descent, selection of enemy nationals, particularly Poles and Slovenes, for slave labor and Germanization, kidnapping of children eligible for Germanization, transfers of populations, and persecution and extermination of Jews. Otto Hofmann was the Chief of RUSHA from 1940 to 1943; Richard Hildebrandt was the Chief of RUSHA from 1943 to 1945; Fritz Schwalm was Chief of Staff of RUSHA; and Herbert Huebner was the RUS leader for the Warthegau.\n7. Lebensborn was responsible, among other things, for the kidnapping of foreign children for the purpose of Germanization. Max Sollmann was the Chief of Lebensborn and in personal charge of Main Department A, which consisted of offices for reception into homes, guardianship, foster homes and adoptions, statistics, and \n registration:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 8, "page_number": "8", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Gregor Ebner was the Chief of the Main Health Department; Guenther Tesch was the Chief of the Main Legal Department; and Inge Viermetz was Deputy Chief of Main Department A.\nMR. MCHANEY:Mr. Schiller will continue with the reading of the indictment.\nMR. SCHILLER:\n8. The RKFDV Main Staff Office, VOMI, RUSHA, and Lebensborn were inter-related in their operations, purposes, and functions. The Main Staff Office was the driving force for carrying out the program set forth above in Paragraph 2. VOMI, RUSHA and Lebensborn participated in the execution of various portions of this program. RUSHA, in carrying out racial investigations and examinations, took a leading part in the accomplishment of the program. Since negative results of racial investigations and examinations led to the extermination or imprisonment in concentration camps of the individuals concerned, the Main Staff Office, as well as VOMI, RUSHA and Lebensborn, acted in close cooperation with the SS Reichs Main Security Office (SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt, commonly known as the \"RSHA\"). The RSHA imposed capital punishment and imprisonment in concentration camps upon individuals designated by RUSHA, after examination, and upon those persons who resisted measures which the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RUSHA and Lebensborn sought to carry out.\n9. The ties between the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RUSHA and Lebensborn were not only organizational but also personal. Higher SS and Police Leaders, such as the defendant Otto Hofmann, after his resignation as Chief of RUSHA, represented at the same time the RKFDV. In some instances, RUS leaders also represented Lebensborn.\n10. The fundamental purpose of the four organizations described as set forth above in Paragraphs 4 to 9 inclusive, was to proclaim and safeguard the supposed superiority of \"Nordic\" blood, and to exterminate and suppress all sources which might \"dilute\" or \"taint\" it. The underlying objective was to assure Nazi dominance over Germany and \n German domination over Europe in perpetuity.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHILLER", "MR. MCHANEY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 9, "page_number": "9", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "In carrying out the plans and enterprises constituting a vast integrated scheme to commit genocide and thereby to strengthen Germany, the defendants herein participated in criminal activities, including but not limited to those set forth hereinafter in Paragraphs 11 to 21, inclusive, of this Indictment.\n11. Kidnapping of Alien Children. An extensive plan of kidnapping \"racially valuable\" alien children was instituted. This plan had the two-fold purpose of weakening enemy nations and increasing the population of Germany. It was also used as a method of retaliation and intimidation in the occupied countries. During the war years, numerous Czech, Polish, Yugoslav and Norwegian children were taken from their parents or guardians and classified according to their \"racial value\". Also included in this program were the illegitimate children of non-German mothers, fathered by members of the German Armed forces in the occupied countries. Those children considered to be \"racially valuable\" were selected for Germanization and placed in foster homes or designated children's homes. In carrying out this program, numerous birth certificates were falsified and German names were given to those children selected for Germanization. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Huebner, Hildebrandt, Hofmann, Schwalm, Sollmann,Ebner, Tesch, Viermetz, Lorenz and Brueckner are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n12. Abortions. All known cases of pregnancy among deported Eastern slave workers were submitted to RUSHA. Extinctions were conducted on the racial characteristics of the expectant mother and father. In the majority of instances, where the racial examinations yielded negative results showing that the expected child was not of \"racial value\", the Eastern women workers were induced or forced to undergo abortions. When the expected child was found to be of \"racial value\" it was taken shortly after birth, as described \n below in Paragraph 13.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 10, "page_number": "10", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "The desired results of this systematic program of abortions were immediately, to keep the women available as labor, and, ultimately, to reduce the populations of the Eastern nations.\nAbortions on Polish women in the Government General were also encouraged by the withdrawal of abortion cases from the jurisdiction of the Polish courts. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Hofmann, Hildebrandt, Schwalm, Huebner, Lorenz and Brueckner are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n13. Taking Away Infants of Eastern Workers.\nOften cases of pregnancy among workers were not discovered until too late for an abortion to be performed or until the child was actually born. Racial examinations of the expectant mother and father were carried out. When the child was determined to be of \"racial value\", it was taken immediately after birth by the National Socialist Public Welfare Association (NSV) or Lebensborn, for the purpose of Germanization. Numerous children not selected for Germanization were taken from their mothers and placed in designated collection centers for the purpose of extermination. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Huebner, Hildebrandt, Hofmann, Schwalm, Sollmann,Ebner, Tesch and Viermetz are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n14. Punishment for Sexual Intercourse with Germans Czechs, Poles and other Eastern workers or prisoners of war who had had sexual intercourse with Germans were examined by the racial examiners of RUSHA.\nThose who were found to be not \"racially desirable\" were imprisoned in concentration camps or executed. Those found \"racially valuable\" were Germanized. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Hofmann, Hildebrandt, and Schwalm are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 11, "page_number": "11", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "15. Hampering Reproduction of Enemy Nationals. To further weaken enemy nations, both restrictive and prohibitive measures were taken to discourage marriages slid reproduction of enemy nationals. The ultimate aim and natural result of these measures was to impede procreation among nationals of Eastern countries. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Hofmann, Hildebrandt, Schwalm, Huebner, Lorenz and Brueckner are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n16. Forced Evacuation and Resettlement of Populations. In occupied territories enemy populations wereforcibly evacuated from their homes and transferred either to other occupied territories, particularly to the Government General, or to Germany for slave labor, \n The were replaced by Germans and \"ethnic Germans\". The latter were systematically collected in foreign countries, either occupied or under German domination, brought to damps and then transferred to occupied areas from which the native population had been removed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 12, "page_number": "12", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Before resettlers were transferred to their final destination they were racially and politically examined by the Staff of the Immigration Center at Lodz (Einwandererzentrale Lodz). \"O\" Cases, i.e., those who were found \"racially valuable\" and politically reliable were transfrred to Eastern areas. \"A\" Cases, i.e., those who were found less reliable but \"racially valuable\" were brought to Germany proper. \"S\" Cases, i.e., those found not \"racially valuable\" were either sent to the Government General or returned to their native countries. In addition, special actions were undertaken in France and Belgium to transfer citizens allegedly of German descent from those countries either to Germany or to Alsace-Lorraine, depending on their political reliability. Those found \"racially valuable\" were given German citizenship and settled either in Germany or in the Eastern occupied territories; men of military age were inducted into the. Armed Forces or Waffen-SS; those found not \"racially valuable\" were brought to parts of France other than Alsace-Lorraine or placed in concentration camps. At the same time the populations of non-German descent in Alsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg, Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet were evacuated. The defendants GREIFELT, CREUTZ, MEYER*HETLING, SCHWARZESNBERGER, HUEBNER, LORENZ, BRUECKNER, HOFMANN, HILDEBRANDT and SCHWALM are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\nMr. Schiller: Mr. Schwenk of the prosecution will now take over.\n17. FORCED GERMANIZATION OF ENEMY NATIONALS. After the outbreak of the war, large numbers of nationals of other countries who were considered to be \"ethnic Germans\" or of German descent were classified and registered in the four DVL (German Peoples' List) Groups. These four DVL Groups may be broadly characterized as follows: Group I--\"ethnic Germans\" actively pro-German before the \n occupation; Group II--\"ethnic Germans\" who had been known as such before the occupation; Group III--persons allegedly of German descent who could easily be Germanized, and members of minority Slavic groups which were considered to have Germanic affiliations; and Group IV-persons allegedly of soma German descent who were actively anti-German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 13, "page_number": "13", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "Persons in Groups I and II were given full German citizenship while persons in Groups III and IV received German citizenship subject to revocation. One of the main purposes of this procedure was to procure men for induction into the Armed Forces, the Waffen-SS, the Police; and similar organizations, and, thus, to force them to fight against the countries to which they owed allegiance. Members of these groups who deserted were executed. Persons classified in DVL Groups III and IV were subjected to extraordinary limitations of their economic and civil rights. Individuals who refused to file application for Germanization under this procedure were placed in concentration camps, their children taken away, and their property confiscated. The defendants GREIFELT, CREUTZ, MEYER*HETLING, SCHWARZENBERGER, HUEBNER, LORENZ, BRUECKNER, HOFMANN, HILDEBRANDT and SCHWALM are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n18. Slave Labor. In addition to the DVL program, selected foreign nationals without any German ancestry were sent to Germany as slave labor and for possible future Germanization. Most of them were employed in agriculture, industry and as domestic help. Those who refused to submit to slave labor or Germanization were placed in concentration camps. The defendants GREIFELT, CREUTZ, MEYER*HETLING, SCHWARZENBERGER, HUEBNER, LORENZ, BRUECKNER, HOFMANN, HILDEBRANDT and SCHWALM are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n19. Conscription of Non -Germans. Nationals of occupied or dominated countries who were not of German descent were compelled to join the Armed Forces, Waffen-SS, Police and similar organizations. This conscription was done by VOMI in close cooperation with the SS Central Office \n (SS-Hauptant) and through associations such as the Association of Germans Abroad (Verein fur Deutschtum im Ausland, commonly known as the \"VDA\"). The defendants LORENZ and BRUECKNER are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 14, "page_number": "14", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "20. Plunder. The plunder of private and public property, both in Germany and in the occupied territories, formed a large part of the activities carried on by the defendants name herein. Great amounts of private property were confiscated for use of resettlers or for other purposes. Church property and cultural goods were seized for the same purpose. The value of landed property confiscated from Poles and Jews in Poland alone was estimated by the defendant GREIFELT at seven hundred million to eight hundred million marks. Personal effects confiscated from concentration camp inmates were distributed among resettlers. Lebensborn took over Jewish and Polish hospitals and Jewish apartments and goods. Concentration camp enterprises were founded by the WVHA (the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office) in agreement with the Main Staff Office and the proceeds placed in special accounts. The Main Staff Office was thus a partner in the exploitation of the slave labor of the Jews and other inmates of concentration camps and in the taking over of Jewish property in the Government General. The defendants GREIFELT, CREUTZ, MEYER-HETLING, SCHWARZENBERGER, HUEBNER, LORENZ, BRUECKNER, HOFMANN, HILDEBRANDT, SCHWALM, SOLLMAN, EBNER, TESCH and VIERMETZ are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n21. Persecution and Extermination of Jews. The EKFDV Main Staff Office was responsible for the evacuation of large numbers of Jews from the occupied and incorporated territories. RuSHA also participated extensively in the persecution and extermination of Jews. The Genealogy Office (Ahnentafelamt) of RuSHA prepared and retained in its files the names of all Jewish families in the Reich and persons having any Jewish ancestry. This office also participated in preparing similar files in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Danzig, and France \n where it worked together with the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office). These files were used for enforcing discriminatory measures against Jews and preparing transport lists of Jews to be taken from Germany and the occupied countries to the extermination camps in the East.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 15, "page_number": "15", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "The defendants GREIFELT, GREUTZ, MEYER-HETLING, SCHWARZENBERGER, HOFMANN, HILDEBRANDT, SCHWALM and HUEBNER are charged with special responsibility for and participation in these crimes.\n22. The defendant HILDEBRANDT is charged with special responsibility for and participation in the extermination of thousands of German nationals pursuant to the so-called \"euthanasia program\" of the Third Reich, from September 1939 to February, 1940.\n23. The acts and conduct of the defendants set forth in this Count were committed unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly and constitute violations of internation conventions, particularly of Articles 4, 5, 6, 7, 23, 43, 45, 46, 47, 52 and 56 of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and of articles 2, 3, 4, 9 and 31 of the Prisoner of War Convention (Geneva, 1929), of the laws and customs of war, of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, of the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.\n24. Between September 1939 and April 1945, all the defendants herein committed War Crimes, as defined by Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, were connected with plans and enterprises involving, and were members of organizations or groups connected with: atrocities and offenses against persons and property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including but not limited to plunder of public and private property, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, and ill-treatment of and other inhumane acts against thousands of persons. These crimes \n embraced, but were not limited to, the particulars set out in Paragraphs 11 to 21, inclusive, of this Indictment, which are incorporated herein by reference, and were Committed against prisoners of war and civilian populations of countries and territories under the belligerent occupation of, or otherwise controlled by, Germany.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 16, "page_number": "16", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "25. The acts and conduct of the defendants set forth in this Count were committed unlawfully, wilfully, and knowingly and constitute violations of international conventions, including the Articles of the Hague Regulations, 1907, and of the Prisoner of War Convention (Geneva, 1929), enumerated in Paragraph 23 of this Indictment, of the laws and customs of war, of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations, of the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed, and of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. COUNT THREE --- MEMBERSHIP IN CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION 26.\nAll of the defendants herein except defendant VIERMETZ, are charged with membership, subsequent to September 1, 1939, in the Schutzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as the \"SS\"), declared to be criminal by the International Military Tribunal and Paragraph 1 (d) of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.\nWherefore, this Indictment is filed with Secretary General of the Military Tribunals and the charges herein made against the above named defendants are hereby presented to the Military Tribunals.\n/s/ Telford Taylor TELFORD TAYLOR Brigadier General U.S. Army Chief of Counsel for War Crimes Acting on Behalf of the United States of America Nurnberg 1 July 1947", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 17, "page_number": "17", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The defendants will now be called upon to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges against then. Each defendant, as his name is called, will stand and speak clearly into the mircophone. At this time there will be no arguments, speeches or discussions of any kind. Each defendant will simply answer the question put to him and then plead Guilty or Not Guilty of the offense with which he is charged in the indictment.\nTHE SECRETARY GENERAL: ULRICH GREIFELT.\nPRESIDENT:Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nERICH GREIFELT:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nULRICH GREIFELT:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:Have you read the indictment?\nULRICH GREIFELT:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nULRICH GREIFELT:I am innocent.\nPRESIDENT:Be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: RUDOLPH CREUTZ:\nPRESIDENT:Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nRUDOLPH CREUTZ:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nRUDOLPH CREUTZ:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:Have you read the indictment?\nRUDOLPH CREUTZ:Yes.\nPRESIDENT:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nRUDOLPH CREUTZ:Not guilty.\nPRESIDENT:Be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: KONRAD MEYER-HETLING:", "speakers": [ "ULRICH GREIFELT", "SECRETARY GENERAL: RUDOLPH CREUTZ", "ERICH GREIFELT", "THE PRESIDENT", "PRESIDENT", "RUDOLPH CREUTZ", "SECRETARY GENERAL: KONRAD MEYER-HETLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 18, "page_number": "18", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "PRESIDENT:Judge Crawford will now propound the questions,\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Are you now represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANTMEYER-HETLING: Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANTMEYER-HETLING: Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Have you read the indictment\nDEFENDANTMEYER-HETLING: Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANTMEYER-HETLING: I am innocent.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: OTTO SCHWARZENBERGER.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Are you represented by counsel before the Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT SCHWARZENBERGER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT SCHWARZENBERGER:I am not guilty.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: HERBERT HUEBNER.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT HUEBNER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT HUEBNER:Yes.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT SCHWARZENBERGER", "DEFENDANT", "PRESIDENT", "DEFENDANT HUEBNER", "JUDGE CRAWFORD" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 19, "page_number": "19", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "JUDGE CRAWFORD:Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT HUEBNER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT HUEBNER:Not guilty.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: WERNER LORENZ.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT LORENZ:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT LORENZ:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT LORENZ:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT LORENZ:Not guilty.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: HEINZ BRUECKNER.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Are you represented by counsel?\nDEFENDANT BRUECKNER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT BRUECKNER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Have you read the indictment:\nDEFENDANT BRUECKNER:Yes.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:How do you plead, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT BRUECKNER:Not guilty.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:You may be seated.\nJudge O'Connell will now propound the questions.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: OTTO HOFMANN.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT LORENZ", "DEFENDANT HUEBNER", "JUDGE", "JUDGE CRAWFORD", "DEFENDANT BRUECKNER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 20, "page_number": "20", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "DEFENDANT HOFMANN:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT HOFMANN:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT HOFMANN:Yes\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT HOFMANN:Not Guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: RICHARD HILDEBRANDT.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this tribunal?\nDEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT:Not Guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: FRITZ SCHWALM.\nJUDGEO'CONNEL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT SCHWALM:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT SCHWALM:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "DEFENDANT HOFMANN", "DEFENDANT SCHWALM", "DEFENDANT HILDEBRANDT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 21, "page_number": "21", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "DEFENDANT SCHWALM:I have.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT SCHWALM:Not guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: you may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: MAX SOLLMANN\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT SOLLMANN:Not guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: you may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL: GREGOR EBNER:\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT EBNER:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT EBNER:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT EBNER:Yes. I have.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT EBNER:Not guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: you may be seated.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT SCHWALM", "DEFENDANT SOLLMANN", "SECRETARY GENERAL: GREGOR EBNER", "JUDGE", "DEFENDANT EBNER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 22, "page_number": "22", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "SECRETARY-GENERAL: Guenther Tesch.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT TESCH:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT TESCH:Yes, it was.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment?\nDEFENDANT TESCH:I have.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead the indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT TESCH:Not Guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.\nSECRETARY GENERAL:Inge Viermetz.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?\nDEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Was the indictment in the German language served upon you at least 30 days ago?\nDEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Have you read the indictment.\nDEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Yes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How do you plead to this indictment, Guilty or Not Guilty?\nDEFENDANT VIERMETZ:Not Guilty.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You may be seated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:For the benefit of counsel both for the prosecution and the defense, the Tribunal desires to make certain announcements.\nOn account of the time required for the translation of documents and final pleas, it appears to be necessary that they filed at some date in advance of the conclusion of the trial of the case. For that reason, after the case begins, a date will be fixed, of which you will \n have due notice, after which no documents or final pleas will be received.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT TESCH", "SECRETARY GENERAL", "DEFENDANT VIERMETZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 23, "page_number": "23", "date": "10 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-10", "text": "For that reason it becomes necessary that you get your documents and your final picas in order and ready to be presented early in the trial of the case. After this deadline date had been fixed, of which you will be notified,--that is, somethime after the beginning of the trial,-after that date, no documents or final pleas will be received.\nThere will be no recess after the conclusion of the presentation of the evidence on the part of the prosecution. We will move immediately after the prosecution had finished, into the hearing of the evidence on behalf of the defendants.\nThe Tribunal is of the opinion that reading excerpts from documents introduced in evidence will not be helpful to the Court. You will simply indentify your documents,-both for the prosecution and defense,-introduce them in evidence, and then in your briefs, call the attention of the Court to those portions of the documents you considered to be material.\nThe Trial will begin on the 20th of this month so that the Court will now be recess until 10 o'clock on the 20th of October.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will be in recess until Monday, the 20th of October, 1947.\n(Court in recess until 10 o'clock, Monday Morning, October 20, 1947)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 24, "page_number": "24", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I, in the matter of the United States of America against ULRICH GREIFELT et al, defendants sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 20 October 1947, Justice WYATT, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I Military Tribunal I is now in session.\nGod save the united States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nThe Prosecution will proceed with the opening statement.\nMR. MCHANEY:May it please the Tribunal, the crimes of these defendants, thirteen men and one woman for which they stand here accused, are the result of a vast and premeditated plan to destroy national groups in countries occupied by Germany. This program of genocide was part of the Nazi doctrine of total warfare, war waged against populations rather than against states and armed forces. Hitler once said that:\n\"The French complained after the war that there were twenty Germans too many. We accept the criticism. We favor the planned control of population movements. But our friends will have to excuse us if we subtract the twenty millions elsewhere. After all these centuries of whining about the protection of the poor and lowly, it is about time we decided to protect the strong against the inferior. It will be one of the chief tasks of German statesmanship for all time to prevent, by every means in our poser, the further increase of the Slav races. Natural instincts bid all living beings not merely to conquer their enemies, but also destroy them.\" 1/ -----------------1/ Rauschning, The voice of Destruction, 1940, P.G. Putnam's \n A.. of these defendants played an active and leading role in carrying out this broad program which had the two-fold objective of weakening and eventually destroying other nations while at the same time strengthening Germany at their expense, territorially and biologically, in order to secure German domination first of Europe and finally of the world.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "MR. MCHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 25, "page_number": "25", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "This program was based primarily upon the two Nazi concepts of Race and Lebensraum. Belief in German racial supremacy is not new in German thought. At the end of the 19th century it became crystallized in the theory of Aryan supremacy. The \"Aryan\" had long been used to denote that family of languages to which ancient Norse, Greek, and Sanskrit belonged. Now the term Aryan was applied to a mythical race which was creator of all the culture existing in the world.\nAs Hitler himself said in Mein Kampf:\n\"All the Human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan\". 1/\nThis theory of race played a prominent role in the rise to power of the Nazis. It convinced the German masses of Aryan supremacy and taught them that the Germans were more entirely Aryan than any other race. They were the \"Nordic Germanic race\", the Master Race. Thus, the German people, by purifying themselves, casting out Jews, Slavs, and other non-Aryans, were to become the foremost race on earth. Himmler, in a speech to high-ranking Army officers in 1935, said:\n\"I am a convinced supporter of the ieda that what matters in the world ultimately is only good blood... I have approached my task from this angle. It means that actually the only good blood, according to our reading of history, is the leading creative element in every state, and in particular, the blood engaged in military activity, and, above all, Nordic blood.\" ----------------1/ Mein Kampf, 1943 Edition, Haughton, Miflin &bCo. p. 290.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 26, "page_number": "26", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "This reconstituted Aryan people was to be the strongest race in the world. Therefore, in accordance with nature's law of survival of the fittest, the Aryan race would conquer the world, enslave all other races, and everywhere spread Aryan culture (for Aryans only, of course) in a new Pax Germanica.\nInside Germany this racial theory coordinated everything in public and private life according to the tenets of Nazism. In foreign affairs, it became the slogan for the unification of all Germans, holding out to them a glittering vision of world mastery as both a possibility and a right.\nThis theory of race matched with the theory behind Lebensraum. The Nazis made much of Germany's over-population with respect to its area. But they were not really concerned with over-population. In fact, the Nazis constantly proclaimed the duty of all food Germans to have an many children as possible. Lebensraum was not, as many think it, a cry of an under-privileged people for the possibility of existence. It was a demand for more and more land, in fact, for more land that the German People could use at the time. The Nazis felt that only by expansion into a great State territorially could Germany proceed to become mistress of the world. In short, Lebensraum was a slogan for an aggressive drive by the German people under the Nazi leadership to expand its borders regardless of economic need. This culminated in wars of aggression to gain territory and populations at the expense of neighboring countries.\nIn the course of the war, as the Nazis overran Poland and most of the rest of Europe, they gained the opportunity to put these theories of Race and Lebensraum, this crime of genocide, into practice. The main drive for expansion was in the East. Himmler, in 1942 explained it as follows:\n\"It is not our task to Germanize the East in the old sense, that is, to teach the people there the German language and German law, but to see to it that only people of purely Germanic blood lived in the Ease.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 27, "page_number": "27", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In November 1939, the Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party put forth a treatise with the weighty title of, \"The Problem of the Manner of Dealing with the Population of the formerly Polish Territories on the Basis of Racial-Political Aspects\". In this treatise, which formed in part the basis of actions taken by these defendants, it stated:\n\"The aim of the German policy in the new Reich territory in the East must be the creation of a racial and therefore intellectual-psychical as well as national-political uniform German population. This results in the ruthless elimination of all elements not suitable for Germanization.\n\"This aim consists of three interwoven tasks.\n\"First, the comp]etc and final Germanization of the population which Seems to be suitable for it.\n\"Second, deportation of all foreign groups which are not suitable for Germanization, and \"Third, the re-settlement by Germans.\"\nIt must be realized that under the Nazi theory of race, non-Aryans simply did not matter. Hitler stated this clearly in Mein-Kampf when he said, \"All who are not of good race in this world are chaff\". 1/ This is again clearly brought out in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal, whore it is stated:\n\"When the witness Bach-Zelewski was asked how Ohlendorf could admit the murder of 90,000 people, he replied:\n'I am of the opinion that when, for years, for decades, the doctrine is preached that the Slav race is an inferior race, and Jews not even human, than such an outcome is inevitable'.\" 2/\nIt may seem somewhat inconsistent for the Nazis to prate of race and purity of blood on the one hand and on the other to take Poles, Czechs, and nationals of many other countries and decide, upon the basis of physical characteristics such as blue eyes and blond hair, that these -----------------1/ Mein Kampf, 1943 Edition, Haughton, Miflin, & Co. p. 296. 2/ Trial of who Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 248.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 28, "page_number": "28", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "people can be Germanized. This was a measure to which the Germans were forced because they found that their own population was not sufficient to fulfil the Nazi schemes of expansion. This taking of non-Germans and calling them Germans was also justified on the ground that Germany was thereby taking the best blood from the other nations and thus weakening them as well as strengthening itself.\nThe seemingly insurmountable theoretical barrier of race was avoided very neatly. It was obvious, they said, that for a thousand years and more, Germanic peoples had gone forth over the map of Europe. Thus, when a Polish family showed no signs of any German ancestry for hundreds of years, if the physical characteristics were compatible with these of the mythical super race, it meant that sometime in the dim past Nordic blood had forgotten its heritage and become Polonized. Nevertheless, they said, this blood was still valuable blood and could be reclaimed and this Polish family could be Germanized. There was to be a gradual sifting of the peoples in the East Until finally all the Aryan blood had been reclaimed. Himmler, in a report distributed to Hitler and the defendants Greifelt, Creutz, MeyerHetling, and Hildebrandt among others, and entitled \"Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East\", was quite clear about the means and aims of this process. He said:\n\"---- There must be no centralization towards the top, because only by dissolving this whole conglomeration of peoples of the General Government amounting to fif teen millions and of the eight millions of the Eastern provinces, will it be possible for us to carry out the racial sifting which must be the basis for our consid erations; namely, selecting out of this conglomeration the racially valuable and bringing them to Germany and assimilating them there.\n\"Within a very few years - I should think about four to five years, the name of the Cashubes, f.i. must be un known, because at that time there won't be a Cashubian people any more (this also goes especially for the West Prussians)....What has been said for these fragments of peoples is also meant on a correspondingly larger scale for the Poles.\"\n....\n\"A basic issue in the solution of these problems is the question of schooling and thus the question of sifting \n and selecting the young.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 29, "page_number": "29", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "For the non-German population of the East there must be no higher school than the four grade elementary school.\nThe sole goal of this school is to be:\nSimple arithmetics up to 500 at the most; writing of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious and good.\nI don't think that reading should be required.\nApart from this school there are to be no schools at all in the East.\nParents, who from the beginning want to give their children better schooling in the elementary school as well as later on in a higher school, must take an appli cation to the Higher SS and Police leaders.\nThe first consideration in dealing with this application will be whether the child is racially perfect and conforming to our conditions.\nIf we acknowledge such a child to be as of our blood, the parents will be notified that the child will be sent to school in Germany and that it will per manently remain in Germany.\nCruel and tragic as every individual case may be, this method is still the mildest and best one if, out of inner conviction, one rejects as un-German and impossible the Bolshevist method of physi cal extermination of a people.\nThe parents of such children of good blood will be given the choice to either give away their child; they will then probably produc no more children so that the danger of this subhuman people of the East obtaining a class of leaders which, since it would be equal to us, would also be dangerous for us, will disappear - or else the parents pledge themselves to go to Germany and to become loyal citizens there.\nThe love towards their child, whose fu ture and education depends upon the loyalty of the parents will be a strong weapon in dealing with them.\"\nIn 1942 the defendant Meyer-Hetling drew up a broad plan for the ethnic reconstruction of Eastern Europe which was entitled the \"General Plan East\". According to this plan the regions around Leningrad, the Crimea and Cherson in Russia, and Memel and Narew in Lithuania were tobecome German colonies, and within 25 year to be resettled with a large German population. This plan was forwarded by the defendant Greifelt to Himmler who gave his wholehearted approval to it, and asked the defendant Meyer-Hetling to draft also a plan embracing the incorporated Polish territories, Bohemia and Moravia in Czechoslovakia, Alsace and Lorraine in France, and Upper Carniola and South Styria in Yugoslavia. This was to be a 20-year plan, so Himmler said, and was to bring about a thorough Germanization of Esthonia and Latvia, as well as of the General Government in Poland.\nThis then was the program of genocide. It was a coordinated plan \n aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 30, "page_number": "30", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "This destruction can be and was accomplished with the help of these defendants by a number of different means, which may be broadly classified as physical, political, biological, and cultural. They sought the \"disintegration of the political and social institutions of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups,\"1 In another courtroom of this same building, 23 leaders of the notorious Einsatzgruppen of Security Police and SD are being tried for the mass annihilation of Jews and Russians.\nWhile a number of the defendants in this dock also participated in those very same crimes and others of similar nature, their main efforts were devoted to the destruction of national groups by other methods. The technique of these defendants was the mass deportation of oppressed peoples, the deprivation of their means of livelihood by the wholesale confiscation of property, the forced Germanization of citizens of occupied countries, and the destruction of their national culture, folkways and educational facilities, the creation of conditions which increased the mortality rate and prevented increase of the population, and the kidnapping of children.\nThese techniques of genocide, while neither so quick nor perhaps so simple as outright mass extermination, are by the very nature of things far more cruel and equally effective. If crimes such as these are allowed to go unpunished, the future of humanity is in far more danger than if an occasional murderer goes free. It is the enormity and farreaching effects of these crimes that give this case its significance.\nTHE RISE TO POWER OF THE SS These ruthless aims needed ruthless executioners.\nHitler found them in Heinrich Himmler and his SS. In this dock are four Lieutenant 1 Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (1944), p. 79.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 31, "page_number": "31", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Generals (Obergruppenfuehrer), three Senior Lieutenant Colonel (Obersturmbannfuehrer), and two Majors (Sturmbannfuehrer) of the SS. They committed the crimes with which they are charged as leading members of three Main Offices (Hauptamt) and a department of the SS. It is therefore, necessary to understand something of the history and organization of the SS in general and in particular of the Main Staff Office (Stabshauptamt) of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism (commonly known as the \"RKFDV\"), the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (commonly known as RuSH A), and the Well of Life Society (commonly known as \"Lebensborn\"). To assist the Tribunal in this regard the prosecution has prepared and delivered to the Tribunal a brief containing basic information on the SS and the aforementioned offices thereof. This has also been made available to defense counsel in both German and English. It includes a glossary of German words and expressions which will be used frequently in the course of the trial, a table of equivalent ranks between the American Army and the German Wehrmacht and the SS, a map of those parts of Europe of interest in this case, and two charts showing the organization of the SS and the interrelation of the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RuSHA, and Lebensborn.\nThe Schutzstaffeln or SS was the protective guard of the National Socialist Party (NSDAP). It was formed in 1925 to protect leaders and speakers at Party meetings and above all to protect the person of the Fuehrer. As the \"Fuehrer\" or leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler was the \"Oberste Fuehrer\" or supreme leader of the SS.\nIn January 1929, Heinrich Himmler was appointed Reichsfuehrer SS. As such he was the commander of the SS and subordinated directly to Hitler as head of the Nazi Party. At that time, the SS numbered only about 280 men and was much less important than the Sturmabteilung or SA, which was a Nazi pari-military unit under the ambitious Captain Ernst Roehm. Patiently and unobtrusively, Himmler set about creating out of the SS an aristocracy within the Nazi Party. He called this aristocracy the German Order of Mon (Deutsche Maennerorden). Selection for member \n ship in the SS was based on the doctrine of \"Race and Blood.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 32, "page_number": "32", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "At the time of the seizure of power by the Nazi Party in January 1933, this self-proclaimed \"racial elite\" was 52,000 strong. Not, however, until the Roehm purge of 30 June 1934 did the SS become the ruling caste within the Party. On that bloody \"Night of the long Knives\", it was the brutalized in the SA who were said to be dissident elements in the Party. Thenceforth, the SS assumed the duty of ensuring the continued power of the Nazi regime, or, as it was officially stated, of \"protecting the internal security of the Reich.\"\nThe subsequent development of the SS was based primarily upon the tremendous increase in power of Himmler. Whereever Himmler went, the SS went with him. In June 1936, he was appointed Chief of the German Police (Chef der Deutschen Polizei) in the Ministry of Interior with authority over the regular uniformed police (Ordnungspolizei) as well as the Security Police, which was defined to include both the Criminal Police (Kripo) end the notorious Gestapo or State Secret Police.\nIn this connection, mention should also be made of the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsfuehrer SS or SD, which worked closely with the Gestapo. The SD was the espionage agency first of the SS, and, after June 1934, of the whole Nazi Party. Reinhardt, or as he was known abroad \"Hangman\", Heydrich was the Chief of the SD. Himmler, in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS and the Chief of the German Police, appointed Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police on 26 June 1936. This amalgamated the Security Police, a State organization, with the SD, a Party organization.\nBy a decree of 27 September 1939, the various State and Party officers under Heydrich as Chief of the Security Police and SD were united into one administrative unit, the Reich Main Security Office or RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) which was at the same time both one of the Main Offices of the SS Supreme Command under Himmler as Reichsfuehrer SS and an office in the Ministry of Interior under Himmler as Chief of the German Police.\nOn a regional level, Himmler appointed Higher SS and Police Leaders \n (Hoehere SS-und Polizeifuehrer) for each Wehrkreis who coordinated the activities of the Security Police and SD, Oder Police, and Allgemeine SS within their jurisdictions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 33, "page_number": "33", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In 1939 the SS and police systems were amalgamated by taking into the SS all police officials at equivalent ranks.\nThis unification of the SS and police enhanced the power of the SS. Its power and influence was further increased by the appointment of Himmler in August 1943 as Reich Minister of the Interior, a position which controlled the greater part of the vast German bureaucracy. Finally, in July 1944, he succeeded General Fromm as Commander in Chief of the Replacement Army (Befehlshaber des Ersatzheeres) and Chief of Military Armament (Chef der Heeresruestung). He then controlled all forces on the home front.\nParrellel with this developement of the SS, its influence was increased by the practice of appointing important State officials and other public figures to high rank in the SS. Industrialists, bankers, and business men were prevailed upon to contribute substantial sums of money to the SS in order to stand in well with the Party aristocracy. Through infiltration, the SS gained influence in every branch of German life.\nBy 1939, the Allgemeine SS, the original formation of the SS, numbered approximately 240,000 men. In addition, there were two other SS formations - the Special Service Troops (SS Verfuegungstruppen) and the Death's Head Formations (SS Totenkopf Verbaende) which together had a strength of about 40,000 men. The special Service Troops constituted a force of SS men who volunteered for four years' military service in lieu of compulsory service with the Army. It was organized as an armed unit to be employed with the Army in the event of mobilization. The Death's Head Formations were selected from SS volunteers and were used to guard concentration camps.\nAfter the outbreak of war, units from both the Special Service Troops and the Death's Head Formations were used in the Polish campaign.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 34, "page_number": "34", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "These troops came to be known as the Waffen or Armed SS. By 1940 the Waffen SS contained 100,000 men, 56,000 coming from the Special service Troops, and the rest from the Allgemeine SS and the Death's Head Troops, Concentration Camp Guard duties came to be performed primarily by members of the Allgemeine SS, The Waffen SS fought in every campaign with the exception of those in Norway and Africa. By the end of the war it is estimated to have comprised about 600,000 men. \tThus, it was numerically by far the larger branch of the SS, the Allgemeine SS having declined in strength to around 200,000.\nThe Waffen SS, including the Death's Head Formations, was in effect a part of the Wehrmacht and its expenses were a charge on the State. The Allgemeine SS, on the other hand, was an independent branch of the Party and its finances were ultimately controlled by the Party Treasurer (Reichsschatzmeister der NSDAP).\nSubject to the controlling authority of the Reichsfuehrer SS the work of directing, organizing, and administering the whole body of the SS was carried out by the Supreme Command of the SS (Reichsfuehrung SS). This Supreme Command consisted of twelve Main Offices (Hauptaemter). The more important of the Main Offices were the Reich Main Security Office or RSHA, the Operational Headquarters (Fuehrungshauptamt), the Economic and Administrative Main Office or\" WVHA, the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, VOMI, and RusHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 35, "page_number": "35", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "I have already described brieflythe amalgamation of the SD and the GESTAPO and Criminal Police under Heydrich as Chief of the RSHA. After the assination of Heydrich in 1942, Kaltenbrunner was made chief of the RSHA. For his criminal activites in that position, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal. The Gestapo, among other things, was responsible for the commitment of political prisoners to concentration camps. Our proof in this case will show the close cooperation between the Security Police and SD and these defendants.\nThe SS Operational Headquarters was the main office of the SS which was responsible for the training, organization and, to a certain extent, the operational employment of the Waffen SS and the Allgemeine SS.\nThe SS Economic and Administrative main Office or WVHA was in charge of the finance, supply, and administration of the whole of the SS. It also was engaged in large scale building projects and the operation of various industries in connection with concentration camps. The surviving leaders of this Main Office have been recently tried before Military Tribunal II. The defendant Lorenz had especially close connections with the WVHA , as VOMI received from it largo quantities of clothes of Jews murdered in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.\nOther important Main Offices were the SS Central Office (SS-Hauptamt), which handled recr uiting for the Waffen SS, propaganda, education physical training, and so-called Germanic affairs; and the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS (Persoenlicher Stab RFSS) which was an advisory and coordinating body responsible for all matters not within the province of the other Main Offices and for liaison with Government and Party officials.\nMain Staff Office, Vomi, RuSHA, and Lebensborn Iturn new to a description of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, VOID, RuSHA, and Lebensborn and the positions of these defendants in \n those organizations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 36, "page_number": "36", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Perhaps the most important organization involved in this trial is the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer of the SS and Chief of the German Police, was appointed the RKFDV by Hitler's decree of 7 October 1939. In this decree Hitler said:\n\"The consequences which Versailles had on Europe have been removed.\nAs a result, the Greater German Reich is able to accept and settle within its space German people who up to the present had to live in foreign lands and to arrange the settlement of national groups within its spheres of interest in such a way that better dividing lines between them are attained.\nI commission the Reich-Fuehrer SS with the execution of this task in accordance with the following infractions:\nI.\n\"Pursuant to my directions the Reich Fuehrer SS is called upon:\n1. to bring back those German citizens and racial Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return into the Reich.\n2. To eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community.\n3. To create new German colonies by resettlement , and especially by the resettlement of German citizens and racial Germans coming back from abroad.\n\"The Reich Fuehrer-SS is authorized to give such general orders and to take such administrative measures as are necessary for the execution of these duties.\"\nIn order to establish an agency to perform these new duties, Himmler transformed an immigration office, which had been set up earlier in 1939 under the defendant Greifelt for the resettlement of Germans in Southern Tyrolia, into the \"Office of the Reich Sommissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\" (Dienstelle\" RKFDV). In his order of 17 October 1939 establishing the Office of the RKFDV, Himmler said:\n\"I wish to mention particularly some of these tasks as well as the institutions and agencies which are charged with the solution and execution of these tasks;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 37, "page_number": "37", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "a) VOMI and Foreign Organization (Auslandsorganization) bring in the Germans and ethnic Germans.\nb) Reich Health Leader and RuSHA examine all Germans from the Reich and abroad in the new areas in town and country.\nc) The Security Police in cooperation with the Chief.\nof the Civil Administration establishes and takes care of foreign elements dangerous to the German Folkdom.\nd) The settlement of farmers will be carried out by the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture.\ne) Municipal building of apartment houses and suburban settlements will be handled by the Reich Labor Minister and the German Tabor Front.\n.....\"\nOn June 11 1941, Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV established the Office of the RKFDV as a Main Office of the Supreme Command of the SS with the name Main Staff Office (\"Stabshauptamt\") of the RKFDV. The Chief of the Main Staff Office was the defendant Greifelt and his deputy was the defendant CREUTZ. The Main Staff Office was divided into Three Amtsgruppen or departments: A, B, and C, each of which was further subdivided into aemter or offices. The defendant GREIFELT was also head of Amtsgruppen B. The defendant Creutz was Chief of Amtsgruppen A and Amt Z thereof, which was concerned with such matters as personnel, statistics, legal advice, propaganda, and reparations, among others. The defendant Schwarzenberger was chief of Amt V in Amtsgruppe B and was in charge of financial matters for both the RKFDV and Vomi. The defendant Meyer-Hetling, alias Meyer, was the chief of Amtsgruppen C and Amt VI thereof. Meyer-Hetling prepared the plans for the settlement work of the Main Staff Office as well as the \"General Plan East\", to which reference has already been made. Amt VIII, the Central Land Office of Amtsgruppen C under Meyer-Hetling, was concerned with the \n executive work in connection with the mass confiscation of land for resettlement.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 38, "page_number": "38", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The defendant Huebner was Chief of the Branch Office Posen of the Main Staff Office and a local representative of RuSHA in the Warthegau. He was in charge of the expulsion of Poles and resettlement of ethnic Germans in that area , among other things.\nHimmler in his capacity as RKFDV had jurisdiction over all matters connected with the Strengthening of Germanism, such as resettlements, racial screening, deportations, confiscations, and the like. In addition to the members of the Main Staff Office, Vomi , and the other offices of the SS, numerous government and party officials were subject to Himmler's authority insofar as their activities related to the Strengthening of Germanism. Thus, Himmler as RKFDV, and in practice the defendant Greifelt as his deputy, could give orders to the Gauleiters and Reich Governors. The Main Staff Office also had its own branch offices in the occupied territories and the General Government.\nThe Main Staff Office was in charge of planning and earring out the resettlement of so-called ethnic Germans in the Reich and in territories occupied by Germany. This included also all cultural and administrative planning and propaganda concerning resettlement. The Main Staff Office dealt with all questions concerning the assignment of ethnic Germans for settlement in Germany and in the occupied territories, and with all questions of administrative and economic character connected with resettlement. Its activities included the transfer of populations, Germanization of foreign nationals, deportation to slave labor, kidnapping of children, abortions on Eastern workers, plunder and murder. The resettlement of ethnic Germans was carried out by the Main Staff Office in cooperation with Vomi and RuSHA.\nThe Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Vomi) existed long before the outbreak of the war. The defendant Lorenz was appointed \n the head of Vomi on 1 January 1937 by Rudolf Hess and was subordinated to him and the Chief of the Foreign Office, Joachim von Ribbentrop.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 39, "page_number": "39", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Shortly after the appointment of Himmler as RKFDV in 1939, Lorenz was commissioned by Himmler with the task of carrying out the registration and evacuation of ethnic Germans fromtheir former homes and their transportation to collecting camps for Germanization. On 11 June 1941, the section of Vomi which was engaged in this activity was established as a Main Office of the SS, the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans, with Lorenz as its Chief. The defendant Brueckner was the head of Amt Vi of Vomi. He frequently acted as a liaison officer between Vomi and other offices and was connected with numerous resettlement and deportation actions.\nVomi was responsible for the registration of ethnic Germans, their evacuation from their homes, their transportation to Vomi camps, their care in the camps, and their indoctrination with Nazi ideology. Frequently resettlers were kept in these camps for months and even years awaiting the promised resettlement. In the middle of 1944 there were still one million ethnic Germans and Poles in the Vomi camps. In addition, it participated in the expulsion of citizens of Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, and France in AlsaceLorraine. Its activities also included plunder of property, conscription of enemy nationals into the German Armed Forces, compulsory Germanization of foreign nationals, slave labor, and the kidnapping of alien children.\nThe Main Race and Settlement Office (RuSHA) was one of the oldest Main Offices of the Supreme Command of the SS. Before the war, the main function of RuSHA was the translation into practice of the racial theories of the SS. It concerned itself with checking the proof of Aryan descent of candidates for admission into the SS. An SS Officer was required to provide a family tree going back to 1750 to prove his \"Nordic\" or at least \"Aryan\" descent. RuSHA also processed marriage applications of SS men, as they were not allowed to \n marry until the bride-to-be was approved.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 40, "page_number": "40", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Such approval was based upon \"racial purity\" and physical compatibility between the two partners likely to result in a fertile marraige. All this was part of Himmler's desire to make the SS a \"racial elite\".\nRuSHA's concern with and experience in racial matters made it the logical agency to take over the racial problems in herent in Himmler's program of genocide and Germanism.\nIt was apparent that someone had to screen the millions of people about to be uprooted from their homes and tossed about the map of Europe.\nThe activities of RuSHA in connection with the selection and welfare of SS men and their depen dents became of secondary importance to this new task.\nThe Race Office of RuSHA under Prof.\nBruno Kurt Schultz and his deputy Walther Dongus, both of whom We shall hear of frequently during the course of this trial, was particularly important.\nGuenther Pancke, now about to be tried in Denmark, was Chief of RuSHA in 1939 and 1940, The defendant Hofmann was Chief from July 1940 to 1 April 1943 when he was succeeded by the defendant Hildebrandt. Hofmann and Hildebrandt also served as Higher SS and Police Leaders at various times. The defendant Schwalm became chief of the Litzmannstadt Field Office in 1941 which, among other things, carried out racial examinations in connection with Germanization and resettlement actions. Later, he became Staff Leader of RuSHA in which capacity he acted as deputy to the Chief of RuSHA.\nThere were also RuSHA Field Leaders (\"Fuehrer in Rasse und Siedlungswesen\") who represented RuSHA on the staffs of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the various districts. The defendant Huebner served as the RuSHA Field Leader for the SS Administrative District \"South West\", with headquarters in Stuttgart and later was Field Leader in the Warthegau, with headquarters in Posen. RuSHA , through these Field Leaders and their racial examiners, \n decided the fate of hundreds of thousands of people in part upon the basis of whether the subject had high cheek bones and blue eyes, a proper \"political attitude\", and perhaps a great-grandfather of German nationality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 41, "page_number": "41", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Such racial examinations were made in connection with the Germanization of citizens of Poland and other countries, transfers of populations, abortions, slave labor, persecution of Jews, punishment for sexual intercourse between Germans and non-Germans, and kidnapping of children. In some cases the RuSHA Field Leaders also represented Lebensborn.\nLebensborn was a registered society which was founded in December 1935. It was at first a department of RuSHA, but in 1936 it became part of the Personal Staff of Himmler.\nThe early aim of Lebensborn was the perpetuation of the blood of the members of the SS. The minimum family expected of an SS man was four. Himmler expressed the reason for this very clearly in his \"Day of Metz\" speech when he said:\n\".....We stand or die with this leading blood of Germany and if the good blood is not reproduced we will not be able to rule the world.\nPlease understand: We would not be able to hold the great Germanic Reich which is about to take shape.\nI am convinced, that we can hold it, but we have to prepare for that.\nIf we once had not enough sons those who will come after us mil have to become cowards.\nA nation which has an average of 4 sons per family can venture a war; if 2 of them die, 2 transplant the name.\nThe leadership of a nation having one son or two sons per family will have to be fainthearted at any decision on account of their own experience because they will have to tell themselves:\nWe cannot afford it.\"\nThose unable to have children of their own were expected to adopt suitable children and bring them up on National Socialist lines. Lebensborn was to assist in this process and insure the support of both legitimate \n and illegitimate children of SS men.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 42, "page_number": "42", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Its tasks were to help large families \"valuable from the racial and hereditary and biological point of view\" and to take care of pregnant women and their children. The prerequisite of this care was an assurance through racial and health examinations of these women and their mates that the parents were of good health and race and that the future children would possess the same qualities.\nLebensborn tried to make more attractive the idea that it was no disgrace for a German girl to bear an illegitimate child provided she picked a healthy young Nazi to be the father. In a statement that attracted adverse comment even in Germany, Himmler once stated that it might be regarded as a noble duty for German women of good blood \"in all moral seriousness\" to become mothers of children by men about to leave for the front \"outside the limits of perhaps otherwise necessary bourgeois laws and conventions\".\nThe general program of Germanization called for a special effort to be made to get \"racially valuable\" children who could be bred as a contribution to the Greater German Reich. Moreover, children of foreign birth could be molded and shaped into Nazis much more easily than their parents. Thus, it came about that Lebensborn took over the kidnapping of so-called \"racially valuable\" foreign children.\nThe Chairman of the Board (Vorstand) of Lebensborn was Himmler. The Board itself included Dr. Grawitz, Reich Physician SS and Police; Gottlob Berger, Chief of the SS Central Office; Oswald Pohl, Chief of the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA); the defendant Ebner; and the Chief of RuSHA, that is, first the defendant Hofmann and then the defendant Hildebrandt. The defendant Sollmann became the Managing Director of Lebensborn on 15 May 1940. The defendant Ebner was the head of the Main Health Department and, for a short time, of Main Department \"A\". The defendant Tesch joined Lebensborn in 1941. He was Sollmann's personal legal advisor and acted as Sollmann's deputy. When the Main Legal Department wasset up, Tesch became head of that department.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 43, "page_number": "43", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The defendant Viermetz joined Lebensborn in September 1938. Soon after the outbreak of the war she reorganized and was placed in charge of the employment office for Lebensborn mothers. Early in 1940 she reorganized the department dealing with Homes and Adoptions and was in charge of both this department and the Employment Department until the beginning of 1941. Subsequently, the defendant Viermetz was placed in charge of the Main Department A which was set up in September 1941. The Main Department A was concerned primarily with reception into homes, guardianship, foster homes and adoptions, and statistics. From the middle of 1942 until the middle of 1943, the defendant Viermetz carried out special tasks for Lebensborn including netogitations with respect to the transfer of children to Germany from various countries and the extablishment of Lebensborn homes.\nMr. Schwenk will continue with the reading of the opening statement.\nMR. SCHWENK:In order to comprehend the true significance of the crimes charged against these defendants in Counts One and Two of the Indictment, it is necessary to understand what they were trying to accomplish. In their fight for the domination of Europe, the Nazis consistently pursued a policy which had a twofold objective, First, they wanted to strengthen the German people, both in numbers and in quality, the second, the weaken eventually destroy national groups in the occupied countries. Thus, so the Nazi planned, no matter whether the war was won or lost, the German people in the post-war period would be in a position to deal with other European peoples from the vantage point of numerical, biological, and spiritual superiority. To this end, elaborate and detailed plans for the forced Germanization of their conquered territories were made. It was in the execution of these plans that the defendants in this case worked so eagerly.\nThis \"Germanization\" policy was applied to all countries overrun by Germany, but it was carried out with the greatest ruthlessness and \n consistency in the conquered Eastern territories.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 44, "page_number": "44", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Poland, being the first nation to be conquered, became in a sense a testing ground for the practical application of these genocidal plans.\nAfter the conquest, Poland was divided into two parts. The four western provinces of Poland ware incorporated into Germany by Hitler's order of 8 October 1939 and became a part of the Greater Reich. In the correspondence and other \n documents which will be introduced in evidence in this case, this area of Poland is usually referred to as the \"Incorporated Eastern Territories\". The remainder of Poland, which was seized by the Nazi invaders was established as the Government General of Poland by an order of Hitler dated 12 October 1939.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 45, "page_number": "45", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The 400,000 square kilometers of Polish territories, together with some parts of the Russian territories which were also captured, were to provide for the possibility of an enormous numerical increase of German people and thus establish a firm foundation for the supremacy of the German people in Europe.\nThe Government General was reduced to a vassal state; unlike the Eastern Territories, it did not at once become a part of the German Reich but was used as a dumping ground for so-called \"undesirable\" racial elements. Its people and material resources were exploited in order to strengthen Germany and the Nazi war machines. According to Nazi plans, the Polish people in the General Government had to be mentally crippled, its intelligentsia and leadership completely annihilated. The Polish people had to become German slaves and \"Fertilizer for the German culture.\" At the same time the country had to be impoverished, its living standard depressed, and conditions created which would inevitably result in the increase of mortality and the decrease of birth-rate. At a later state, plans were formulated and in port carried out - for creating islands of German settlements in the more fertile regions Of the Government General in order to engulf the native Polish population and to speed up the process of Germanization.\nIn the Eastern territories the process of complete Germanization was started immediately after this part of Poland was incorporated into Germany. This was not a German country. According to the Nazi's own figures, the population of the four provinces incorporated into the German Reich in 1939 consisted of 86 per cent Poles, 5 per cent Jews, and only 7 Per cent Germans.\nThis lack of \"Germanic\" population was handled in part by mass murder.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 46, "page_number": "46", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In a memorandum received by the Main Staff Office under the defendant Greifelt, the plan was made clear. It said:\n\"The necessity arises for a ruthless decimation of the Polish population and, as a matter of course, the expulsion of all Jews and persons of Polish Jewish mixed blood.\"\nHimmler, in his \"Day of Metz\" speech, when he spoke as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, stated that the mass murder of the Polish intelligentsia had been carried out. He said:\n\"At the beginning it was necessary - please consider this as only meant for this small circle - that we, especially in West Prussia, where the atrocities of the Poles were worst and where the loss of German blood was heaviest, took very harsh measures.\nI know that I for this reason was attacked and still am being attacked by very many people who tell me this was un-Germanic.\nIt is my impression that for some people Germanic actually means to be duped as a good natured Germanic over and again and finally to fall down on one's back.\nThat would be un-German ic.\nI cannot help it, I think it right and I believe it is right.\nWe had first of all to remove the lead ing men of the enemy, these were the people in the Westmarkverband, in the insurrectionary units, they were the Polish intelligentsia.\nThey had to be done away with, there was no other way.\n.....\"\n\"........Just as hideous as it is, just as necessary has it been and will it be in many more cases that we carry it out.\n....\"\n\".......The Poles got the shock they had to get.\nNow, at present I think nobody will stir in West Prussia, Posen and within the New provinces.\n....\"\nAs to the remaining Polish population in the incorporated territories, it was determined to Germanize by force, where necessary, that portion of the population which was deemed \"valuable\", deport the remainder, and resettle the vacated areas with Germans. These defendants participated in that criminal program.\nThe German cultural pattern and laws were imposed on the Polish country. Polish cultural life ceased to exist in the Eastern Territories. Polish schools, from the elementary schools to the universities, were closed. More than that, even German schools, theaters, libraries, lectures, and the like, were closed to the Poles. Religious services in the Polish language were discontinued. The official language of all \n authorities, including courts, became German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 47, "page_number": "47", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The Polish press was suppressed. Publication of Polish books was forbidden, as were radio programs, concerts and other theatrical performances of any cultural value.\nOne of the most ingenious methods used in completing this process of forcible Germanization was the compulsory registration of Polish citizens in the so-called \"German Peoples List\" (Deutsche Volksliste), commonly known as the \"DVL\" procedure, and in the list of persons considered suitable for so-called \"Re-Germanization\" (Wiedereindeutschung) or \"WED\" procedure. These procedures were designed to bring about a \"selective Germanization\" of the most healthy, able and efficient elements of national groups of occupied countries, leaving only an amorphous group of people deprived of leadership, of real religion and spiritual life.\nA. THE DVL PROCEDURE The German peoples List was first introduced in the Polish territories, incorporated into Germany.\nIts alleged aim was to register and classify the so-called German population, who were, in fact, Polish and Danzig citizens. In reality it not only registered those who, in the Polish republic, were known as Polish citizens belonging to German minority groups, but made provision for forcible Germanization of those who, as the Polish Government report on German Crimes against Poland puts it: \".....had long severed their links with Germany and became loyal Polish citizens and parts of the Polish nation -- others were never Germans at all.\" One of the main reasons for hasty registration of a great number of Polish citizens in the DVL was the desire to swell the ranks of the German armed forces, as the defendant Greifelt stated in a letter of 15 April 1942 to the High Command of the Armed Forces.\nThe basic decrees concerning the DVL procedure originated in joint action between the Main Staff Office, the Ministry of Interior, and the RSHA. The registration was coordinated by the Supreme Court for \n Ethnic Classifications of which Himmler was president and the defendant Greifelt his deputy.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 48, "page_number": "48", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 49, "page_number": "49", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII One of the seven members of the court was successively the defendant Hofmann and Hildebrandt of the Race and Settlement Office. The court was located on the promises of the Main Staff Office which provided it with offices, personnel, and other facilities.\nThe persons who registered with the DVL were classified into four groups. Group I included those ethnic Germans who took active part in the struggle for Germanism in Poland before World War II. Group 2 comprised those ethnic Germans who had \"preserved\" their German character though they did not take active part in the national struggle.\nGroup 3 included persons of allegedly \"German stock\" who had become polohized (we use the defendants' word), but who presumably could become full-fledged Germans again; persons of non-German descent married to Germans; and those members of non-Polish Slav groups, such as Mazurs and Cashoubs, who were considered desirable by the German authorities so far us their political attitude and \"racial characteristics\" were concerned.\nGroup 4 comprised those persons allegedly of German stock who were not only Polonized but also were loyal and active Polish nationalists.\nThe persons listed in the two first groups were automatically made German citizens upon registration. The situation with the members of the last two groups was different. Soon after they were registered, they were subjected to a \"reaial examination\" by members of the RUSHA staff. They had to undergo a long process of indoctrination and education under constant supervision of the defendant Greifelt's Main Staff Office, the police, and the Nazi Party. Persons listed in Group 3 of DVL were imposed with German citizenship subject to revocation. Those of Group 4 were considered merely as candidates for \n COURT I CASE VIII citizenship as in a naturalization proceeding.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 50, "page_number": "50", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "As laid out in a decree signed by Himmler and prepared in the Main Staff Office under the supervision of the defendant Greifelt, the members of Group 3 were subjected to many Severe restrictions as far as their freedom of movement, occupation, education and marriage were concerned. Many of them were transferred to Germany, through the joint action of the Main Staff Office, VOMI, and other agencies, where their education for Germanism was to be completed. Those who Were permitted to remain in Poland were constantly subject to eviction and deportation whenever their land was needed for ethnic German resettlers, or their labor was needed in the Reich. They, along with members of DVL groups 1 and 2, were conscripted into the German army by the tens of thousands and forced to fight against their allies.\nThe treatment of the members of Group 4 was especially harsh. They were considered to be avowed enemies of the Third Reich and had to be broken or annihilated. Their property was confiscated and the amount realized put into a special account from which they were allowed to draw not more than 2,000 RM a year. Those of them who were engaged in intellectual work were reduced to menial tasks. Yet, as they were not considered politically reliable, they were not drafted into the army and thus had an advantage over the members of the other groups.\nThe Germanization of these \"Polonized\" people, in Himmler's opinion, demanded their complete separation from their Polish environment. They had to be resettled in Germany proper and, like DVL 3, many of them were resettled. This process was carried out jointly by the Main Staff Office, VOMI, and other agencies. Those of them who were \"politically heavily incriminated\" were put into concentrat \n *---*---* and their wives and children settled in Germany.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 51, "page_number": "51", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "If the wives hae a political record, they were also sent to concentration camps.\nThese who were not put into concentration camps were constantly under police supervision. After resettlement they had to join the affiliated organizations of the NSDAP; and their children, the Hitler Youth, Higher SS and Police leaders took punitive measures against recalcitrant persons, pursuant to instructions issued by the defendand Greifelt. If Germanization could not be attained even by means of coercion by the Gestapo, the obdurate Pole, whose only offense was loyalty to ins native land, was put into a concentration camp. The most cruel method of coercion brought to bear against these people was a constant threat to take their children away. If the parents did not yield, their children were taken away from them and brought up in Nazi institutions or in Nazi families where they were to be taught to become \"good Germans\".\nThe rules for the treatment of persons in Group 4 were established by Himmler and the defendant Greifelt.\nThe DVL procedure was first applied in the four Polish provinces incorporated into the Reich, but later this procedure was extended to the Government General of Poland and to France and Russia. In the Government General the concept of \"German stock\" had such a broad interpretation (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 52, "page_number": "52", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY MR. SCHWENK: - that it aroused protests from those SS leaders who thought it essential that persons put on the German Peoples List should have at least some relation to the German people. The main aim, however, was to get hold of the children of the persons registered.\nWe now come to the other technique of forcible germanization mentioned above, the Re-Germanization or \"WED\" procedure. Himmler and his staff, including these defendants, knew that the registration of Polish citizens under the DVL procedure would not solve the problem of Germanization of the Eastern Territories. The DVL procedure was, theoretically at least, limited to those persons with respect to whom there was some proof, however little, that they were of German descent. But, for all the liberal interpretation of the concept of \"German stock\" and \"German descent\", they realized that there were not enough inhabitants of Poland who could be listed in these categories.\nMoreover, the convenient theory that Poles were an inferior people \"completely uncreative in cultural as well as national political respects\" just could not be maintained. There were too many talented and courageous people to be found there. Neither did the theory of the physical superiority of the German superman over the Clav \"subhuman\" continue to hold. For in the incorporated Eastern Territories and in the Government General, the German soldiers and the young students of racial theories who invaded the country saw too many Polish men, women and children whose physical attributes corresponded to the Germanic beauty ideal much more than did the faces and figures of their own Goebbels and Himmler.\nIn order to include those people in the process of \n forcible Germanization, a new theory was invented.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 53, "page_number": "53", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "They just said black was white. They had the colossal concertto declare that even though a Polish family showed no trace of German acnestry, if its physical characteristics were compatible with the German racial ideal and the family was able and efficient, then they must be Germans. This led to the inauguration of what was later to become known as Re-Germanization or the WED procedure. The term \"Re-Germanization\" is misleading. It was deliberately introduced by Himmler and the defendants in order to camouflage the process of forcible transformation of aliens, that is nonGermans, into Germans. When the process started, this transformation was called \"assimilation\". The defendant Hofmann used that word in one of his first decrees, but the expression was soon dropped and replaced by the word \"Germanization\" (Eindeutschung). Still later the Nazis, in an attempt to lull themselves into the false belief that they were actually recovering \"lost German blood\", coined the term \"Re-Germanization\". To avoid misunderstanding and confusion, we will use this term, but we wish to call to the attention of the Tribunal that it is a misnomer, for in actual practice it was an assimilation of Poles and not a re-Germanization of \"lost German blood\".\nIn an introduction written by the defendant Greifelt to the decree of 9 May 1940 establishing the WED procedure, he made clear the alms of this new Germanization campaign and the \"theory\" reconciling it with the Nazi teaching of the purity of German blood as the basic foundation of the strength of the nation:\n\"One of the most important aims to be achieved in the German East is sweeping the incorporated German Eastern Territories clean of persons of foreign race.\nThis is the main problem from the point of view of population policy which the Reich fuehrer SS, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, has to solve in the incorporated \n Eastern Territories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 54, "page_number": "54", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Apart from the language, descent and allegiance, this task, which is linked so closely to the problem of nationalities (belonging to an ethnic group) in the Eastern Territiries must above all be influenced and determined by racial selection.\nHowever essential it is to the permanent purification of the German Eastern Territories not to allow members of alien races residing there to establish themselves there, it is just as imperative that the persons of German blood in these territories should be regained for Germanism even if they have been polonized -- in their language and allegiance.\nIt seems that from among those carriers of Germanic blood there rose these leaders for the former Polish state, who finally, be it by an ill union, became the most determined enemies of their own Germanic people.\n.....\n\"Therefore it is absolutely essential from the standpoint of population policy to comb the incor porated Eastern Territories, and later the Govern ment General, too, for such carriers of Germanic blood, for the purpose of bringing this Germanic bloow back to its own Germanic nation.\n\"What retaliatory measures should be taken against renegades is of secondary importance; what must be decisive is that the children, at least, must not be absorbed into nationhood but be edu cated in the German environment.\nHowever, a.\nregermanization cannot take place in the environment which so far has been Polish, but must take place in Germany proper and in Austria.\n\"The following are the two main reasons which make the regaining of this German blood, which had been lost, imperative:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 55, "page_number": "55", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\n\"1. Prevention of a future increase of the Polish intelligentsia through the influx of persons from families with Germanic characteristics, though they may be polonized.\n\"2. Increase of population for the German nation, desirable from the racial point of view, and pro viding of racially suitable labor for German agri culture and industry.\"\nThis same explanation stressing sometimes one, sometimes another of the following aspects of the question can be found in many other documents dealing with \"regermanization\"; 1) to deprive the Polish people of its potential leadership; 2) to get hold of the Polish children of \"good race\" (the Nazis firmly believed that the children were the only ones who could be Germanized effectively); and 3) last but not least, to provide Germany with much needed slave labor.\nThe WED procedure was directed by the Main Staff Office. RuSHA also played an important role, for this office was in charge of \"racial selection\" of persons to be re-Germanized, their registration, and, together with the Main Staff Office, was responsible for their allocation to Germany where they were to live and to work. The defendant Hofmann was especially active. He organized the work of RuSHA in connection with the WED procedure, gave innumerable instructions as to how to handle \"racial examinations\" and always insisted on the great role his office had to play in this procedure. Major responsibility also rests with the defendants Schwalm and Huebner. In 1941, the defendant Schwalm was chief of the RuSHA branch office in Lodz, where \"racial examinations\" of persons to be Germanized took place and from whence they were sent to the Reich. From March 1943, he was Staff Leader of RuSHA and was informed of all orders issued in connection with the WED procedure and made drafts of many of them. The defendant Huebner was chief of the RKFDV office and Field Leader of RuSHA in the Warthegau, \n one of the provinces in the Incorporated Eastern Territories where many of the candidates for \"re-Germanization\" came from and where their preliminary registration took place.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 56, "page_number": "56", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The families of candidates for \"re-Germanization\" had to submit to \"racial examination\". This examination was disguised as a medical examination. This deception was a general practice during racial examinations. As defendant Hofmann once put it, \"The racial examiner should carry out his task with delicacy and tact and use camouflage at work-put on white overalls -- whenever conditions permit it.\" Individuals and families who passed the test were sent by the Main Staff Office to the Reich proper or to Austria as laborers. Their allocation to work did not follow the normal channels via the labor offices but was handled by the appropriate Higher SS and Police Leaders who assigned them to those farms and factories whose owners or managers were politically suitable to supervise the indoctrination of these people so that they would become Germanized as quickly as possible. The managers were briefed as to their tasks by special publications issued by the Main Staff Office.\nThe \"re-Germanized\" persons were not free to choose their place of work. Under no circumstances were they allowed to return to the East. They were not free to marry whom they wanted -- they needed special permits for marriage from the Main Staff Office and were not allowed to marry Poles who were not included in the \"re-Germanization\" procedure. In addition they were subjected to police supervision. Local Gestapo offices made a special effort to watch over families who were considered politically unreliable.\nThe treatment accorded these persons may be seen from a menorandum issued by the Race Main Office of the Nazi Party:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 57, "page_number": "57", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"The basic idea of our policy towards the groups which seem to be suitable for Germanization ...must be to keep those groups by all possible means on the lowest possible cultural standard.\nThen, the Nordic, mainly Teutonic, part will by its own performance, based on Inherited qualities, work itself up to technical professions.\nTheir children can then be admitted to German schools, their eventual final Germanization is to be ex pected after their social rise and transfer to Germany proper.\"\nIt was not only the citizens of Poland to whom \"reGermanization\" was applied. Other nations also were in possession of some \"lost German blood\" which had to be recovered. The second largest group forcibly subjected to the WED procedure was found among the Slovenes -- inhabitants of the districts of Lower-Styria, South Corinthia and Upper Carniola, parts of Yugoslavia which were incorporated into Germany. The story of their ruthless deportation will be told at a later point. The Slovenes evicted from their country were processed by the Main Staff Office; the defendant Greifelt personally issued directives as to their treatment. The transport was handled by Vomi. They were screened, by the RuSHA offices of the defendants Hofmann, Hildebrandt and Schwalm, and those who were considered as being of \"good race\" were sent to the Reich for work, A similar procedure was also applied to citizens of Luxembourg and France - inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine.\nC. Forcible Nature of Germanization Our proof will show that the Germanization procedures described above were forced upon unwilling peoples in the occupied countries.\nEvery known method of coercion was used to force the citizens of these conquered nations to renounce their citizenship, their national culture and ways of life, and their loyalty to their country. These defendants practiced economic compulsion, fraud and deceit. They held out promises of reward and they Used threats of punishment in order to gain their ends. They promised social and \n economic advantages which they knew would not be obtainable.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 58, "page_number": "58", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "They threatened to and did send those who refused to place their names upon the DVL or to undergo the WED procedure to concentration camps or deported them as slave laborers; they threatened to and did kidnap the children of those who refused to renounce their own countries and to embrace the idealogy of Nazism. The cases were not rare when persons were put on the DVL or WED lists without being informed of it. Once a person had been included in the \"Germanization process\" through these illegal measures, the same methods were used to force him to remain and to continue in the mill.\nEconomic compulsion and deportation were among the most effective means of coercing Poles to register on the German Peoples List. All Polish citizens in the Incorporated Eastern Territories knew that, if they did not get on the DVL, their property would be confiscated and they would be deported to the dumping ground of the Government General. These defendants painted a rosy picture of the advantages to be gained by being entered on the DVL and held out the bait of security of person and property. But they hid from the prospective entrants the fact that once they were classified as belonging to Groups 3 and 4 their property would in any event be confiscated, if needed, and they would be treated as pawns to be moved about as their masters wished.\nIf the people refused to break under economic compulsion or be duped by these deceitful practices, sterner measures were used. As a matter of fact, Himmler and his assistants anticipated this resistance. The memorandum of the Race Office of the Nazi Party quoted above, when first outlining the program of Germanization stated:\n\"...the groups, which are the most valuable from a racial point of view in their majority of Teutonic or Germanic origin, will, on account of national political reasons, fanatically oppose a Germani zation.\n..\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 59, "page_number": "59", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In Himmler's first order where the procedure of registration in the German Peoples List was laid down, it was decreed that measures by the Security Police were to be taken against persons who refuse Germanization.\nOn 16 February 1942, Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV issued the following order:\n\"Subject: Persons of German Race who do not apply for the entering of their name into the German Peoples List.\n\"I. I request to instruct the subordinate offices, to report to the competent local State Police all persons of German descent who do not apply for the entering of their name into the German Peoples List.\nI re quest you to report all actions taken.\n\"II. The competent local State Police Central Offices and Offices should order the reported persons to prove, within a period of 8 days, that application for the entering into the German Peoples List was filed.\n\"If the person concerned is not able to prove that, he should be taken into protective custody and his transfer to a concentration camp should be arranged.\"\nThis order was sent to the Main Staff Office and distributed by the Race Office of RuSHA among the RuS field leaders. Its merciless execution is illustrated by correspondence between Himmler, the Main Staff Office, RuSHA, and VOMI. It concerned four individuals and a family of German descent who refused to be Germanized. Here is how Himmler described them:\n\"Enclosed I transmit to you a record of 5 Poles, resp.\nPolish families, of German descent.\n\"1. With regard to Johanna ACHIDZANJANZ, of Tomaszow:\nShe is of 50 per cent German blood, but is entirely of Polish allegiance.\nShe will be transferred within the Government General from Zamoc, as it lies in the German settlement area.\n\"2. Maria LAMBUCKI from Tomaszew-Lub is of 100 per cent German blood and entirely of Polish allegiance.\nShe has totally disowned her German blood.\nI decree immediate deportation to the concentration camp Ravensbrueck.\nThe two sons, aged 8 and 13 years, who are of very good race, \n will be brought to Germany by the Chief of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office with the assistance of the police and will, separated from each other, be transferred to 2 specially well-managed, boarding schools as pupils.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 60, "page_number": "60", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "I request a report on their conduct every 3 months.\nCorrespondence with the mother will be prohibited until further notice, till the mother has become conscious of the treason com mitted.\nIn thecase of the 2 boys of good race, teachers and school-fellows should do their best to convince them that they are by no means desert ing the Poles, but that they shall only profess the blood of their racial origin on account of their descent and racial worthiness.\nThis must be the basis for all tasks and experiments of that kind, in order to recover precious racial values, which politically and nationally went astray.\n\"3. Stanislaus KOCH of the estate Sitno is of 75 per cent German blood.\nHe disowns any con nection with Germanism.\nHe will be brought into a concentration camp to an armament plant, so will his wife and daughters.\nThey will if it is feasible be transferred to different concentration camps.\n\"4. Brunhilde KUSZYNSKI nee von WATTMANN will be transferred to the concentration camp.\nThe descent of the father will be examined as to sus picion of Jewish blood, This will be done with the greatest possible speed.\nThe two children, aged 4- and 7 years, will, provided that their geneological chart is all right, be brought to a German family, resp.\nthe older one to a boarding school by the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\n\"5. Ingeborg von AVENARIUS, nee WATTMANN, will be brought to a concentration camp.\nHer children to be accommodated in a similar way to the other children.\"\nIt resulted that detention in a concentration camp was too much for Maria Lambucki, the mother of two sons, She was broken and took her DVL card, Stanislaus Kock was terrorized into silence and left on the farm. Yet a daughter was taken away from him and brought to a German boarding school to be educated in Nazi idealogy, Johanna Achidzanjanz was sent to Germany proper. The fate of Brunhilde Muszynski and Ingeborg von Avenarios was especially tragic. With the help of RuSHA, their family tree was screened and some Jewish ancestors were discovered Which aggravated their case. They were taken to concentration camps; their children \n were taken away from them, sterilized, and given to foster parents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 61, "page_number": "61", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Once the Poles were put on the DVL it was practically impossible for them to get off. However, attempts to get off the list were frequently made. One of the most compelling reasons for this was the desire to avoid being drafted into the German army and compelled to fight against their allies. The Nazis conscripted, those who were in Groups, 1, 2, and 3 of DVL, but because those in Group 4 were not trusted, they were not drafted into the army. In may instances the people in the first three groups went so far as to admit membership in Polish organizations in order to be placed in Group 4 and thus avoid military service. A method used, by those who had already been drafted into the army and desired to get out was to speak only Polish, sing Polish songs and refuse to take the oath. Of course, when these people were taken off the list or were taken out of the army, they were transferred to concentration camps.\nWhat has been said with respect to compulsion in the DVL procedure is equally applicable to the WED technique of \"Re-Germanization\". Indeed, many of these people were selected for the WED procedure after they had already been evicted from their homes and deported from Poland, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, and Alsace and Lorraine. The agents of RuSHA, in white overalls over their black SS uniform and heavy boots, examined them and declared they were acceptable and should be deported to the Reich. An evicted, destitute family could not very well argue with the SS.\nThese people were moved to the Reich against their will and after being moved there continued to offer resistance to the Germanization which was being forced upon them. \"Certainly the desire for Germanization is often lacking\", said the defendant Creutz in one of his reports on \"Regermanization\". Time and again decrees and reports issued by the pain offices of the defendants, Vohmi, RuSHA, and the Main Staff Office, speak of the necessity for coercive measures against the \"recalcitrants.\" The Gestapo and SD were very active in assisting the Main Staff Office to make \"good Germans\" out of these foreign \n citizens.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 62, "page_number": "62", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "But many of those brought to Germany for forcible Germanization would not yield to threats and torture and would not renounce their allegiance to their people and their culture, The case of Kowalczyk is a good example both of the resistance offered to forcible Germanization and of the attitude of the office of defendant Greifelt towards this problem. The Higher SS and Police Leader in Wiesbaden forwarded a letter to the Main Staff Office under Greifelt concerning the resistance to Germanization offered by Boleslav Kawalczyk. The letter said that this 23 year-old person listed as of \"Polish nationality suitable for Germanization...\"\n\"....was accepted at the time for the Germanization procedure by your office (Office of HSSPF), even though he declared to the department fro foreigners of the Police Chief in Darmstadt in writing that he did not want to become a German but to remain a Pole. On 9 September 1944 the person in question was arrested because he did not fulfill his obligation to work on the Westwall. At the time of his assignment he even had the impertinence to 11k up the Kreisleiter of the NSDAP in Darmstadt and to declare to him that he would not go to the Westwall because he wag a Pole. I am going to turn the Pole over to concentration camp and request that his name be removed from the Germanization procedure.\"\nThe Higher SS and Police Leader suggested that the \"re-Germanization procedure\" be discontinued. The Main Staff Office replied that:\n\"The institution of criminal proceedings does not in itself justify removal from the re-germanization procedure. In my opinion, the fact that a certain amount of resistance is offered to the regermanization program by sources which are otherwise above reproach regarding race and behavior is not to be regarded as inferiority in character, and is not to be ascribed to the present political situation. If the transfer to the concentration camp should not bring a change about, then I request a new report.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 63, "page_number": "63", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Certainly very strong coercive measures were needed to break those people. They had to be hurt at the most sensitive spot. Here again our defendants used one of their chief weapons: children. Himmler, in his capacity as RKFDV in close cooperation with defendant Greifelt and his staff, issue don 16 February 1942 a decree ordering the taking away of children of those Poles registered in Group 4 of DVL who offered resistance to Germanization. A week before this decree was published, he ordered Greifelt to work out a similar decree against \"Poles suitable for re-germanization\" who \"present unusual difficulties\". The decree provided that their children should be taken away from them and brought to special institutions. The defendant Hofmann, who was present when Greifelt received this order and who wrote a memorandum about it, added:\n\"The Reichfuehrer expect that such measures would be of special educational value\".\nAmong the Poles forcibly brought to Germany for slave labor and Germanization there was one group whose treatment constituted especially grave crimes. The particular group against whom these crimes were committed were young girls and children.\nWhen, during the war, the shortage of domestic help in Germany became acute, the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV which was in charge of that section of the slave market which dealt in workers suitable for Germanization, decided to do something about it. They wanted to supply the need for domestic help entirely or predominantly from young Polish girls 16 to 20 years of age who we e suitable for Germanization. Thus, as Himmler formulated it, German housewives would receive much-need domestic help and at the same time, \"young women of good blood will be taken from the Polish people and added to the German people\". The defendats Greifelt and Creutz were especially energetic in the recruitment and selection of these girls and arranged for their transportation to Germany. Their families were usually left behind in Poland. In one of Ms reports to Himmler the defendant \n Creutz gave a rather illuminating picture of the life of these young girls in Germany:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 64, "page_number": "64", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"When the girls were brought to Germany alone and their families remained in the Eastern Territories, the results were rot favorable. It is hardly possible to prevent their correspondence with their families. Moreover, homesickness plays a big role. Many of the girls put to work have been obstinate and had to be punished. Several suicides took place....\"\nThis then was the process of Germanization as practiced by these defendants, criminal in its reception and execution.\nMS. SCHWENK:Mr. Shiller is going to read.\nMR. SHILLER:One of the crudest and most far-reaching crimes perpetrated by these defendants was the deportation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the occupied territories.\nIt was always part of the Nazi program to \"bring ethnic Germans back home to the Reich.\" After the occupation of Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia, France, Luxembourg and other countries, Hitler and Himmler decided to carry out this part of the Nazi program by expelling large population groups of those countries from their soil and resettling ethnic Germans on it. The organization of the Main Staff Office under the defendants GREIFELT and CREUTZ, together with VOMI under the defendant LORENZ and RuSHA under the defendants HOFMANN and HILDEBRANDT, were in charge of the execution of this program.\nIn his pamphlet entitled \"The Strengthening of Germanism as Central East Task\", the defendant GREIFELT formulated his assignment as follows:\n\"The very condition for the resettlement of hundreds of thousand of people was the acquisition of new living space which we gained after our victory over Poland by re-occupying all former German national and cultural soil.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MS. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 65, "page_number": "65", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"Without these settlement areas our people, already crowded for living space, could not have continued to exist, because through the annexation of these areas we also obtained the necessary living space for settling hundreds of thousands of fellow-Germans formerly living in prewar Germany. To secure these territories permamently for German people is not only an urgent national problem, but also a European necessity.\n\"The history of the areas between Warthe and Vistula has beerteaching us Germans a hard lesson, i.e., that it is not sufficient to be the external ruler and the bearer of a country's culture; simultaneously one must make a country into a bulwark of Germanism by taking measures which carry out racial policies without any compromise, Among many others, two main tasks consequently arose:\n1) A clean segregation between people of German and of foreign blood must be carried out without any compromise.\n2) It is indispensable to settle without exception these ancient Kultur territories, which once already belonged to the German people, to settle them with Germans again - and the best Germans at that. This has to be prepared in accordance with our racial-political principles. Their final goal can only be a merger into an inseparable union of our inherited German soil with the best of the Germans.\n\"For the realization of the first task the principle prevails that no foreign blook would be injected into German blood which would be injected into German blood which would destroy or endanger its uniform consistancy.\n\"On the other hand, a foreign race should not be permitted to make use of even a drop of precious German bloody This means: a most strict selection according to racial-political principles - i.e., in the fields of racism, biology, hygiene and character-evaluation.\n\"We believe that this victory of the ethnic principle is of symbolic value for the new era, in which we have the happiness to live; and that the whole of Europe will once reap the benefits resulting from \n it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 66, "page_number": "66", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "We are convinced that an organic order founded on the laws of blood and race will bring a new epoch of peace and will at last free the world from those dark forces: which in mask of promoters of the world's happiness pursue their Jewish-Capitalistic and Internationalistplutocrat interests ruthessly at the expense of the peoples forcibly pressed into their service, or which as Bolshevik hordes want to spread chaos, distress and death over the continunts\".\nIn the introduction to the collection of decrees and orders issued by RKFDV under the title \"der Menscheneinsatz\", Dr. Faehndrich, Chief of the Department \"Manpower Allocation\" in the Main Staff Office of the defendant GREIFELT, wrote as follows:\n\"The main weight of the work of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism in the field of 'Manpower Allocation' in the past month was without doubt in the field of resettlement. ****Besides the work pertinent to resettlement of racial groups this pamphlet contains other measures hich in general concern Strengthening of Germanism. It appears superfluous to discuss them here in detail. It rather should be sufficient to point out briefly their essential purpose. They concentrate upon questions of treatment of foreign nations and upon the problem of regaining lost German blood. Both questions are necessarily tied up with each other. If one takes off their partly complicated connections they can be phrased as follows: (1) In treating people of foreign bolld one must distinguish between those which being of foreign race will never merge into the German nation and such which became alienated to the German nation in regard to nationhood and language but belong to it by blood: (2) Any attempt to gain people of foreign race for Germanization or even to make him a German is necessarily in vain. A clear and u compromised distinction is, therefore, inevitable. Every mixture is of evil. Those of foreign blood who live on German soil must obey German leadership without any limitation (the treatment of foreign labor shall not be mentioned here). Minority rights or other liberal \n methods of reconsideration are not up to date within the German borders.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 67, "page_number": "67", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Nevertheless, a person of foreign race will have a chance to make a living sufficient and in accordance with his standard of living in the event that he does the desired performance of work. Any exaggerated care and every soft-hearted sympathy, however, are absolutely wrong and will be interpreted only as weakness. (3) In a completely different way, however, should be treated those who merged in their exterior attitude in a foreign nation but belong to the German nation by blood. He, or at least, his children, should be taken away from possible foreign leadership and reclaimed for Germanization. The Race-Germanization, however, can only take place in German environment. The supreme principle must be that no German blood should be of any use to any foreign nation and that no German blood should get lost.\" (p.VIII).\nThe Prosecution will show that the defendants carried out this program ruthessly and without regard to the life, liberty, and property of the peoples of occupied countries.\nAfter the occupation of Poland, the defendants started immediately to bring ethnic Germans into the incorporated Polish territories as resettlers and into Germany proper as slave labor.\nIn the above mentioned pamphlet, GREIFELT boasted about the fact that shortly after the establishment of the office of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism in October 1939, the resettlement of approximately 60,000 Baltic Germans was begun and carried out within two months. Out of 62,000 Baltic resettlers, 56,000 were resettled in the incorporated territory of Warthenland and 6,000 in the incorporated terriory of Danzig-West Prussia. Between December 1939 and February 1940, 130,000 ethnic Germans from Wolhynia, Galicia and Narew were resettled in former Polish territories. Immediately afterwards, 31,000 ethnic Germans from Cholm and Lublin were taken out of the Government General into the Wartheland and the Poles expelled from this territory were in turn forced into the \n Government General.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 68, "page_number": "68", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Between 5 September 1940 and Christmas 1940, approximately 237,000 ethnic Germans from Bessarabia, North Bukovina, South Bukovina and Dobrudscha in Rumania were resettled in Polish territories.\nAccording to a statistical survey of the defendant GREIFELT's Main Staff Office, over 507,000 ethnic Germans were taken by 15 January 1942 from a number of countries in the east. A proximately 289,000 of these were brought to the incorporated territories of Poland as resettlers and 9,480 as slave laborers to Germany. The remaining thousands were kept in Vomi camps which were scarcely better than concentration camps, vainly awaiting resettlement.\nAgain, according to the statistical survey of the Main Staff Office by January 1944 the number of ethnic Germans involved in the so-called East resettlement action amounted to 770,585 and that involved in the so-called West resettlement action to 73,750 into Germany proper as slave labor, By the end of the war, about 1,200,000 ethnic Germans had been evacuated from their homes.\nThe Prosecution maintains that a substantial number of these ethnic Germans had no choice but to go either to the incorporated territories as resettlers or into Germany as slave labor. In a letter dated 3 March 1943, the defendant BRUECKNER wrote to Einsatzgruppe D, one of the militant VOMI task forces for the registration of ethnic Germans in Russia, as follows:\n\"Resettlement is not carried out as a result of voluntary reporting but is ordered by RFSS. Therefore, those ethnic Germans who refused to be resettled shall be deprived of their identification cards, etc.\"\nIn a report of the Immigration Center in Lodz (LWZ) dated 14 September 1944, compulsory registration of ethnic Germans is mentioned. It was explained that compulsion was carried out by such agencies as the post office department, railways, labor office, and the municipal government which brought pressure on their \n employees to make them apply for registration as ethnic Germans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 69, "page_number": "69", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In another document dated 8 March 1944, an official of Vomi suggested that Catholic priests from Upper Silesia be utilized for the registration of ethnic Germans, He explained that the only possible way to regain thousands of ethnic Germans for German folkdom in the Government General would be by using Polish speaking, but German thinking, clergy. In a number of instances resettlers who wished to return to their native countries were prevented from doing so by orders issued from the Main Staff Office of the defendant GREIFELT.\nThe militant character of the registration and resettlement of ethnic Germans is perhaps seen most clearly in the operation of VOMI SonderkommandoR andVOMI Einsatz Kommandos in Russia in close cooperation with the extermination units of the Security Police. After registration of the ethnic Germans by VOMI, they were sent to VOMI camps. Afterwards, they were shoved through (\"durchschleust\") the Immigration Center in Lodz, commonly called the EWZ, or its commissions. EWZ consisted of the representatives of the SS Race and Settlement Office, the RSHA, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Labor and other agencies. In this EWZ the resettlers were processed in order to determine whether they were \"politically reliable\" and \"racially valuable\". At the end of the processing, the ethnic Germans from the so-called East resettlement action were classified in one of five groups distinguished as O, K, Ost, A, and S cases.\nThe O, K, and Ost cases were those resettlers who were found to be politically reliable and racially valuable, They were accordingly resettled either in the incorporated Polish territories (\"O\") or in Corinthia (\"K\") or in Upper-Styria (\"Ost\"). These individuals were supposed to obrain compensation in kind for the property which they had been forced to leave in their home countries.\nThe \"A\" cases were those who were found to be either not politically \n reliable or not racially valuable.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 70, "page_number": "70", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "They were brought to Germany proper as slave labor. As compensation for the property which they had to leave in their native country they received only bonds and other obligations of dubious value against the German Reich. The O, K, Ost, and A cases were all made German citizens. On the other hand the \"S\" cases were those who were found to be of foreign blood. They were brought to Germany as slave labor and received no compensation whatever for the loss of their property. In the so-called West resettlement action a similar procedure was followed, the resettlers being sent to Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, the incorporated Polish terriotires, or Germany proper.\nIt is obvious that the large scale resettlement of ethnic Germans in the occupied territories could not be carried out without the mass expulsion of peoples already residing in those areas. Thus, in order to provide the resettlers with land to till and homes to live in, citizens of Poland in parricular were plundered of their property and deported by the hunreds of thousands. For these palpable crimes including, indeed, the crime of murder - these defendants of the RKFDV, VOMI, and RuSHA bear the major responsibility.\nPrior to these mass expulsions, conferences took place in which the representatives of the aforementioned agencies decided which ethnic Germans should be resettled and where. The discussion of the expulsion of native populations took up a considerable part of these conferences.\nIn a letter of 2 September 1941 the defendant GREIFELT urged Reinhardt Heydrich of the RSHA to resume the deportation of Poles from the incorporated Polish territories in order to resettle ethnic Germans from Bessarabia, Bukovina, Dobrudscha, and Lithuania. He explained that he realized the difficulties of deporting more Poles to the dumping ground of the Government General but he felt that it would be much better to face this difficulty then to keep the ethnic Germans cooped up in camps during another winter. In many \n CourtI, Case VIII instances the defendant GREIFELT personally gave the expulsion order while in other instances it was the defendant HUEBNER as a local representative of the Main Staff Office for the Warthegau.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 71, "page_number": "71", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Moreover, the expulsion itself was carried out under the guidance and supervision of agencies of the Main Staff Office. So-called resettlement staffs and working staffs attached to the local representative of the Main Staff Office, in close cooperation with the UWZ or expulsion center, determined the particular area of Polish territory into which the ethnic Germans would be moved and from which the native population would be expelled. These resettlement and working staffs received their orders either from the Reichsstatthalter or from the Higher SS and Police Leader in their capacity as representatives of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nThese expulsions were carried out with extreme brutality. In a report by a unit of the German army in Poland, dated 6 February 1940, it was said:\n\"The resettlement scheme is causing particular and steadily increasing alarm in the country. It is quite obvious that the starving population, struggling for its very existence can regard the wholly destitute masses of evacuees, who were torn from their homes overnight, naked and hungry and begging shelter, only with the greatest anxiety. It is only too understandable that these feelings are intensified to immense hatred by the numerous children starved to death on each transport and the train loads of people frozen to death.\"\nIn a letter dated 20 February 1343, Zoerner, Governor of the District of Lublin commented on the evacuation from the District of Zamosc as follows:\n\"I. Course of the Resettlement The settlement of the district of Zamosc which had been planned for a long time by the Reich Commissar fro Strengthening of Germanism (RKF) began on 26 December 1912.\nUp until now about 9000 Germans \n from Bessarabia and other regions of the Southeast have been settled in the rural areas of the northern half of the district of Zamosc.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 72, "page_number": "72", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Through the settlement about 40,000 hectares of territory, which the agencies of the RKF (Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism) had especially chosen, were seized.\n\"The Poles affected through the resettlement, and in as far as they could be apprehended, were in their great majority sent to an SS-Labor Camp in Auschwitz (Hydrogenation plant), while a relatively small number were put at the disposition of the Labor Administration for other allocation in the Reich. Poles of the resettlement areas who were not sent to the Reich were put to \n work as farmers or farm laborers for settlers in so-called Z-villages which are situated between the German settlements.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 73, "page_number": "73", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Those incapable of work were put up in other districts in so-called \"Renten\" -- vil lages . The Ukrainians living mainly in the settlement areas of the Northeastern and Eastern regions of the Zamosc District were provisorily resettled in the immediately adjoining Western part of the District of Hrubieschow.\nAt present they are being settled in about 35 to 40 racially-mixed villages which through ejection of the Poles will become 100 Ukrainian.\nThe expelled Poles, inasmuch as they are capable of working, will be sent to the Reich.\n\"The expelled Poles had very little time to get ready and were only allowed to take hastily gathered baggage with them . They, therefore, lost almost all their property r through this resettle ment.\nOn the other hand the Ukrainians were given several hours notice and were able to take along a part of their domestic equipment and belongings packed on their own carts.\n\"The settlement and expulsion measures were for the greater part carried out by the agencies of the RKF.\n\" Flight of the rural Population \"Due to the reasons mentioned under II, the rural population shortly after the onset of the resettlement, undertook mass flights in order to escape the menace they consider directed towards their lives and their families and moreover to bring at least a good part of their belongings into safety.\nThe farmers flee at night with the help of their horse drawn carts taking along their families, parts of their equipment and belongings and above all their live stock.\nUsually they go along side routes and try, nine times out of ten with success, to reach the nearest partisan bands or the neighboring districts, where they seek refuge with relatives or friends in the cojntry.\nSince, as a matter of course, the flights were not planned beforehand, there are today a number of \n almost empty villages in the districts of Zanosc and Hrubieschow which will still be plundered to the last.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 74, "page_number": "74", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Apart from damage done in the agricultural respect which will be discussed later, these flights disturbed the settlement of these villages, as far as they were intended for Germans.\nBesides, the fact that only about 25,000 Poles were apprehended by the Police speaks an eloquent language since there should have been about double this amount.\nTen thousand, therefore, have fled.\nIn the entire territory surrounding the re settlement area ten thousand more farmers are packed and ready to flee in case the resettling should continue.\nThe livestock has al ready been greatly reduced due to slaughtering and black market dealings.\n\"III Agriculture \"The feeling that sooner or later he would lose his homestead and fields has caused a sentiment of deep distrust and despair in the Polish farmer, who until now had well fullfilled the tasks and duties imposed upon him by the Administration, which of course can not remain without negative results as to his efficiency.\nAlready the delivery of milk, butter, and other agricultural products has considerably dropped, especially in the districts of Zamosc and Hrubieschow.\nThe fact that the milk delivery went down greatly in Hrubieschow is very lucid; in November 1942, 2,500,000 liters, whereas in January of this year only 6000,000 liters were deliver ed.\nThis drop of 75% speaks a very eloquent language. The pig livestock in a large number of communities of this district has diminished 60%, that of fowl 90%, since the farmers try to get rid of and slaughter all they can in order not to lose it without compensation.\n\"IV Political \"Therewith Zamosc has become an inferno which throws its shadows far beyond the borders of the resettlement area and of the district.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 75, "page_number": "75", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The result is that Bolshevism has lost many of its terrors for the Polish population.\"\nIn a speech to officers of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler on the \"Day of Metz\", Himmler said:\n\"Very frequently the member of the Waffen-SS thinks about the deportation of this people here.\nThese thoughts came to me today when watching the very difficult work out there per formed by the Security Police, supported by your men, who help them a great deal.\nExactly the same thing happened in Poland in weather 40 degrees below zero, where we had to haul away thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands; where we had to have the toughness -- you should hear this but also forget it again immediately -- to shoot thousands of leading Poles, where we had to have the toughness, otherwise it would have taken revenge on us later.\nWe also had to bring in, in this winter of 40 degrees below zero, ten thousands of Germands of Germans, and had to take care of their needs -- that the women were warm; that, when they bore children, these children did not experience want and destitution, where we had to take care of their horses; where we had to take care of the baggage of these poor Germans from Volkynia; in many cases it is much easier to go into combat with a company than to suppress an obstructive population of low cultural level in some area with a company, or to carry out executions, or to haul away people, or to evict crying and hysterical women, or to return our German racial brethern across the border from Russia and to take care of them.\"\nOn 28 January 1943, Krueger, the Higher SS and Police Leader at Cracow, reported to Himmler that some Polish farmers tried to return to the village of Ciesyn located in the German resettlement area, He suggested that the resistance shown by Poles in the resettle ment area be broken by a large scale raid designed to exterminate the \n \"criminal villages\". Himmler agreed with Krueger's proposal and directed the the intended action should be carried out in such a way that this will have been the last attack on the German resettle ment area.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 76, "page_number": "76", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "If necessary entire villages were to be exterminated.\nAnother example of the brutality with which the agencies of the defendant Greifelt carried out the expulsion is given in a document dated 3 June 1943.\nIt was decided that up to that time the Poles were notified much too early of the proposed evacuation and were able to hide much of their property.\nTherefore, the procedure was changed so that the Polish family would beexpelled within 24 hours after the German resettler had arrived at the resettlers camp.\nA representative of the local land office took over the inventory from the Poles and delivered it to the German resettlers.\nIn a letter written by a member of the resettlement staff Kauen dated 1 March 1943, the following method for the expulsion of Poles from the Kowno area was suggested:\n\"Poles designated for expulsion shall be instructed through the district chief to report with a vehicle and male laborer to the proper railroad station in order to provide transportation facilities for the arriving resettlers.\nWhen reporting to the station, the Poles shall be ordered to transport the resettlers to the proper farms.\nUpon arrival at the farm, the resettlers shall inform the family of the arrested Pole that they should keep quiet and should report on a certain day to the local government or some other official since, otherwise, the arrested head of the family would bear the consequences.\"\n\"In addition to the mass expulsions in Poland, large scale deportations from Yugoslavia were also carried out by RKFDV, VOMI and RuSHA.\nOn 4 June 1941, Himmler issued a decree in which he ordered racial examination of all Slovenes from South Corinthia and Lower Styria by RuSHA.\nA few days later the defendant Greifelt gave \n more detailed instructions for this action.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 77, "page_number": "77", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "On 14 July 1941, Grei felt decreed that, in order to create room for the ethnic Germans from Gottschee, the necessary evacuations from the re settlement area of Styria and Corinthia in Yugoslavia should be carried out by the Chief of the Security police in accordance with the directives given by Greifelt.\nPrior to this decree Greifelt had issued \"Instructions for the expulsion of foreign elements from South Corinthia\" in which he ordered that the Slovene intelligentsia be examined, the racially valuable Slovenes be deported to Germany for Germanization, while those not racially valuable be deported to Serbia.\nBy 22 June 1942, 34,000 Slovenes had been uprooted from their homes and sent to the Reich, It was only natural that the mass expulsion resulted in hatred and resistance.\nHowever, those who resisted were shot and their wives and children incarcerated in camps which VOMI made available for that purpose.\nIn some instances, the children were separated from their mothers, and upon VOMI's suggestion, taken to Germany in order to be German ized in Lebensborn homes.\nIt happened from time to time that some of the Slovenes succeeded in escaping from the VOMI camps.\nBy an order of Himmler, VOMI was instructed to report to the Gestapo the names of relatives, children, and accomplices, as well as the names of those who escaped, so that they could either be placed in concentration camps or hanged.\"\nYour Honors, I would suggest that this would be a good spot for the noon recess.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Court will recess until 1:30.\n(The Court Recessed at 12:30)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 78, "page_number": "78", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION TThe hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 20 October 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the Courtroom will please find their seats. The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may proceed.\nMR.SHILLER: \"Mass deportation actions similar to those in Yugoslavia were carried out against citizens of Luxembourg. On 6 July 1943, Gustav Simon, head of the Luxembourg Civil Administration, wrote as follows:\n\"As a result of the incidents known to you of the pre vious autumn, it has been necessary for me to decree that the families who are not entirely dependable according to their political convictions are to be deported from Luxem bourg to Germany proper for the security and strengthen ing of an unequivocal ethnic border population, and for their own education in the spirit of the thoughts of Greater Germany.\nThe deportation, which will be carried out by the offices of the Reich Commissar for the Stren gthening of Germanism, should not, even if it is accom panied by hardship, be a punishment, but it is a politi cally necessary and expedient measure for the security of the ethnic community on the border.\nAfter a temporary stay in a resettlement camp, jobs will be assigned the de portees from the point of view of labor utilization.\nAs soon as they have found a new residence, they may make use of their movable property necessary for it; the other pro perty will be administered and converted into money by the German Resettlement-Trustee Company\".In the deportations of Luxembourgians, the Main Staff Office VOMI, and RUSHA played an important part.\nThe defendants LORENZ and BRUECKNER of VOMI participated in the planning of the expulsion measures. The expelled Luxembourgians were taken first to VOMI camps, where RuSHA carried out racial examinations in order to etermine which of them would be Germanized. They were then taken by the Main Staff Office either to Germany or to the Government General.\nIn the Government General Krueger, the Higher SS and Police Leader in Cracow, complained about some of the deported Luxembourg families in a letter to Himmler. He said that, out of 133 families, the heads of 36 had been committed to concentration camps as political prisoners, the heads of 11 families had been convicted and executed for \n political reasons, members of 8 families had served sentences for exhibiting a hostile attitude towards Germany and the remaining 78 families had carried out political activities against Germany.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "MR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 79, "page_number": "79", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Yet those defen dants will no doubt tell us that all these citizens of Luxembourg were really Germans at heart who were anxious to renounce their nation, lose their property, and go to Germany and occupied Poland to work for the greater glory of the Fuehrer and Third Reich.\nThose Luxembourgians who escaped deportation and were permitted to remain in Luxembourg were divested of their citizenship and made German citizens by a decree of 23 August 1943. As a result, many of them were forcible conscripted into the German Army. Understandably enough, some of them deserted rather than fight against their Allies. Those who were caught were sentenced to death. The families of those who were not caught were deported to an internment camp in Trebnitz with the knowledge of the Main Staff Office and VOMI.\nThe French provinces of Alsace and Lorraine were incorporated into the German Reich following the fall of France. Steps were immediately taken to eport all persons who refused to renounce their loyalty to France and to promote \"Germanism\". Between July and December 1940, 105,000 Alsatians were the victims of a German expulsion action. On 27 May 1942, Kaul, the Higher SS and Police Leader in Luxembourg, suggested to GREIFELT the deportation and re-Germanization of still more Alsatians. He proposed that those to be deported should be politically examined by the Security Police and racially examined by RuSHA, and that they should be resettled in Germany. On 4 August 1942, a conference took place between representatives of the Main Staff Office and Wagner, Chief of the Civil Administration, in which the groups of persons to be expelled were determined. In a memorandum of 2 September 1942, GREIFELT stated that the Main Staff Office had the responsibility of deporting all unreliable persons from Alsace-Lorraine.\nIn another memorandum of 6 October 1942, RuSHA reported that the deportation of politically unreliable Alsatians was underway and that \n the Race and Settlement Office was determining which of them were racially valuable and hence to be resettled in the East, or racially acceptable for resettlement in Germany, or racially inferior for shipment to France.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 80, "page_number": "80", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "On 23 March 1943, Wagner issued an order to the representatives of the Main Staff Office attached to the Civil administration of Alsace to return from France for military service all Alsatians born after 1900.\nIn Lorraine, similar measures were adopted. All men of military age were arrested and, together with their families, racially examined by RuSHA in order to determine whether they were a desirable, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory increase to the German population. On 3 October 1942, the defendant GREIFELT issued a secret order in which he stated that, for political and racial reasons, families and individuals from Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg had been evacuated and settled in the old part of the Reich because they refused labor service in the armed forces, participated in strikes, or took part in activities against the Reich by establishing connections with neighboring states. GREIFELT emphasized that although these individuals could not be placed on the same level as racial Germans, they should obtain German citizenship on a revocable basis and be treated like persons from the East who were Germanized. They were to be put to work and kept under surveillance by the Police. In addition, he stated that the deportees who expressed a desire to be sent to France or rejected German nationality or resisted work would be reported to the proper Gestapo office and sent to a concentration camp.\nOn 28 November 1942 a conference took place between representatives of the Main Staff Office and VOMI in which it was decided that 9,337 persons were to be expelled from Lorraine on 15 January 1943 and shipped to VOMI camps in Lowel Silesia and the Sudetenland. Racial examinations were to be conducted in these VOMI camps, the racially valuable to be resettled in the Government General, racially \n not valuable to be deported to France.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 81, "page_number": "81", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In the same conference, it was decided to place those of \"inferior race\" in armament factories, foundries and mines and to deport their dependants to VOMI camps. This latter action was speeded up by the Main Staff Office in view of the need for slave labor in armament factories.\"\nMR. SHILLER:Mr. Lamb will now continue with the reading of the Opening Statement.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, Mr. Lamb for the Prosecution.\n\"PLUNDER OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY\" In the course of their execution of the program of genocide and Germanization, all of the defendants participated in the plunder of public and private property.\nAs time will not permit a detailed discussion of all of these crimes, we will limit ourselves to the most important points.\nThe Main Staff Office under the defendant Greifelt was particularly active in the mass confiscation of property from Poles and other persons evicted from their farms. This served the dual purpose of depriving those people of their means of livelihood and providing land and houses for resettlers.\nAs the result of a decree of 19 October 1939 issued by Goering as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, an organization known as the Main Trustee Office East, commonly known as the \"HTO\", was established for the confiscation and administration of Jewish and Polish property in the incorporated Polish territories. However, by 10 November 1939 it had been agreed that the seizure and confiscation of landed property - as distinguished from industrial property - owned by poles and Jews would be directed and carried out by the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Amt V of the Main Staff Office under the defendant Greifelt was the Central Land Office and it, together with subordinate local land offices, carried out the plunder of real property.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 82, "page_number": "82", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In a directive of 12 December 1940, the defendant Greifelt emphasized that the Central Land Office and the local land offices were charged with the seizure and confiscation of real estate and that such offices had to be consulted before a final decision as to confiscation could be made. It was required that the Central Land Office be kept informed about all decisions reached by the local land offices as the Central Land Office was charged with the execution of the proper administrative measures.\nAn idea of the extent of the plunder engineered by the Main Staff Office can be obtained from the following figures. On 3 August 1942, the defendant Greifelt reported to Himmler that by 1 July 1942 a total of 626,642 enterprises (95% rural, 5% urban) covering an area of 5,849,987 hectares (a hectare being 2.47 acres)had been taken away from Jews and Poles in Danzig, Wartheland, Eastern-Prussia, and Silesia by the Central Land Office. In a pamphlet called \"Folkdom and Soil\" issued by the Main Staff Office it was noted that by 31 December 1942 a total of 193,427 enterprises covering a territory of 804,880 hectares had been registered for seizure and confiscation in Lowel Styria and South Carinthia, that a total of 2,998 enterprises covering an area of 99,175 hectares had been seized, and a total of 1,094 enterprises of 28,042 hectares had been confiscated. Also, it was pointed out that in Lorraine an area of 214,445 hectares had been registered for seizure and confiscation and in Alsace a total of 10,561 hectares. In October 1943 the defendant Greifelt estimated that the total value of the confiscated land amounted to from 7 to 8 hundred million marks.\nGreifelt was not content with confiscations carried \n out by his own agents and did everything in his power to have property confiscated by other agencies transferred to the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 83, "page_number": "83", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Thus, when property of the Polish State was confiscated by the Reich Food Ministry, he urged that it should be transferred to the Main Staff Office and this request was finally granted. In another instance, Greifelt complained to Himmler that the civil administration should transfer to him five agricultural estates originally owned by Poles and Jews and evaluated at about five million Reich-marks. In a third instance, he suggested that French property confiscated from \"enemies of the Reich and the people\" and administered by the Reich Finance Minister should be transferred to the Chief of the Civil Administration in Lorraine as representative of the RKFDV so that it would be available for the strengthening of Germanism rather than for general purposes.\nIn his desire to confiscate as much Polish and Jewish property as possible, Greifelt did not hesitate to take church property. For example, on 18 November 1940 the Superior of a nunnery, Mother Salesia, complained to Cardinal Bertram in Breslau that the convent for sick and infirmed sisters had been seized by a Mr. Steffens, an agent of the RKFDV. When the Mother Superior protested on the ground that the seizure was against the law, Steffens replied: \"For us no law exists. We yield only to force. I am using that force herewith and declare this building seized as of the 26th of this month. It is easier for sixty nuns to find shelter than it is for 500 racial Germans\". This complaint of the Superior was submitted to the defendant Greifelt and by him forwarded to Himmler. Himmler agreed with Greifelt's suggestion that the convent should remain seized. Himmler protested, however, the payment of a rental, but Greifelt replied that a way was found even to avoid that.\nGreifelt paid no more respect to cultural property than he did to church property. By a decree of 1 December 1939, Himmler as RKFDV ordered the seizure of all cultural property in Poland including archives, museums, public collections, documents, books, paintings and the like.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 84, "page_number": "84", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "This confiscation order, which was executed by the Main Staff Office, extended to all cultural property in the incorporated Polish territories as well as the Government General, unless it was owned in the amount of 75% or more by Germans or ethnic Germans.\nIn the Amt III, \"Industrial Economy\", of the Main Staff Office there was a division called \"Procurement of Furniture and Household Goods\", the primary function of which was the confiscation of personal effects of Jews for use by ethnic German resettlers. In an office memorandum of 18 September 1944 to Greifelt, it is pointed out that confiscated Jewish furniture supplied to the resettlers in Bohemia and Moravia alone was valued at 26 million Kronen.\nIn addition to the confiscation of property in Poland, the Main Staff Office plundered on a large scale in the South-east and in the West. In connection with the expulsion of Slovenes from Lower Styria and Upper Corinthia. the defendant Greifelt, the Main Staff Office, and Vomi deprived the expelled Slovenes of practically all their property Instructions issued by Greifelt provided that the expelled Slovenes could take movable property and furniture only to a small extent and within the scope of possible transportation. Moreover, all real estate, inventory, and stocks of merchandise were confiscated. Similar measures were taken with respect to the property of persons deported from Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. Moreover, not only did the Main Staff Office plunder property directly, but it also cooperated closely in the confiscation and disposition of huge amounts of industrial property by the HTO, which was turned over to resettlers.\nThe participation of RuSHA, under the defendants Hofmann and Hildebrandt, in the spoliation of property was primarily in execution of its policy of planting out SS men, especially ex-servicemen, as colonists. RuSHA was given exclusive jurisdiction by Himmler over the resettlement of members of the SS in rural areas. As far back as 1940, plans were drawn up by Hofmann for the settlement of SS men in the East. By 1942, he was prompted to say that he was \"sure that the East belongs \n to the SS\". These resettlements were made possible by the confiscation of large amounts of property, particularly in Russia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 85, "page_number": "85", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "For example, in a letter of 30 December 1942 Hofmann pointed out that SS men were managing 600,000 hectares of land in an area stretching from the Ukraine to the Baltic Sea.\nThe plunder of property by the Vomi and Lebensborn defendants will be dealt with in our discussion concerning the persecution of the Jews.\n\"PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS AND PLUNDER OF JEWISH PROPERTY\" We now come to the systematic and relentless annihilation of the Jewish peoples by the Nazis constitutes one of the blackest pages in the history of the civilized world.\nThis mad program of wholesale slaughter also included other groups considered racially inferior, such as the Poles, but the Jew was especially marked for destruction. This crime of genocide was part of the Nazi doctrine of total warfare, war waged against populations rather than against states and armed forces. One must search as far back as the massacres by Genghis Khan and by Tamerlane to find anything remotely comparable to the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis. Hans Frank, former Governor General of the occupied Polish territories, and a defendant before the International Military Tribunal, spoke the truth when he testified: \"A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased\".\nAn introduction to this crime of mass murder can perhaps best be given in the words of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler. On 4 October 1943, he said to a meeting of SS Gruppenfuehrers at Posen:\n\"I also want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30th, 1934, to do the duty we were bidden, and stand comrades who had lapsed up against the wall and shoot them, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it. It was that tact which is a matter of \n course and which I am glad to say, is inherent in us, that made us never discuss it among ourselves, never speak of it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 86, "page_number": "86", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "It appalled everyone, and yet everyond was certain that he would do it the next time if such orders are issued and if it is necessary.\n\"I mean the clearing out of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It's one of those things it is easy to talk about - 'The Jewish race is being exterminated' says one party member, 'that's quite clear, it's in our program - elimination of the Jews, and we're doing it, exterminating them.' And then they come, 80 million worthy Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has witnessed it, not one of them has been through it. Most of you must know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500 or 1000. To have stuck it our and at the same time - apart from exceptions caused by human weakness - to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written, for we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves, if - with the bombing raids, the burdens and the deprivations of war - we still had Jews today. in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators and troublemongers. We would now probably have reached the 1916/17 stage when the Jews were still in the German national body.\n\"We have taken from them what wealth they had. I have issued a strict order, which SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl has carried out, that this wealth should, as a matter of course, be handed over to the Reich without reserve.\"\nAnd so the arm of destruction was the SS. The SS organizations in which these defendants were leaders, participated in and received loot from the persecution and extermination of the Jews. As early as January of 1939, Heydrich, Chief of the Security Police and SD, was appointed by Goering to bring about a \"solution\" of the Jewish problem through furtherance of emigration and evacuation. The initial steps for \n the \"final solution\" of the Jewish problem, that is the extermination of the Jews, were taken shortly after the invasion of Poland.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 87, "page_number": "87", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "On 21 September 1939, Heydrich directed as follows:\n\"The first preliminary measure for the final aim is the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into larger towns\".\nThis has to be carried out with acceleration. It has to be discriminated:\n(1) between the area of Danzig and West-Prussia, Posen, Eastern Upper Silesia, and (2) the remaining occupied territories.\nThe area as mentioned under number (1) has to be cleared of Jews as far as possible, at least it has to be aimed at establishing only a few concentration towns. In the areas as mentioned under number (2), as far as possible concentration points are to be established, so that the measures later to be taken will be facilitated. It has to be considered that only such towns will be established as concentration points which either are railway centres or at least are situated at railway lines.\" At the time the defendant Hildebrandt was Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig-West Prussia and units under his command engaged in the evacuation of Jews from that area.\nOn 31 July 1941, Heydrich was ordered by Goering to bring about the \"final solution\" of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. Following the issuance of this directive, the wholesale slaughter of the Jews began. With the advance of the German armies in Russia, Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and SD murdered Jews and communist intellectuals by the hundreds of thousands. Otto Ohlendorf, the leader of Einsatzgruppe D operating in southern Russia, presently a defendant before Military Tribunal IIA, estimated that 90,000 men, women, and children were liquidated by his unit alone.\nAt the same time the Einsatzgruppen were being formed in July of 1941, Himmler issued an order to the defendant Lorenz, as Chief of Vomi, and Heydrich, directing Lorenz to take all measures necessary to register \n ethnic Germans in the occupied Russian territories and to lay the foundation for German domination by the assignment of reliable antiBolshevik agents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 88, "page_number": "88", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "It stated that this work was to be done in close cooperation with the Einsatzkommandos of the Security Police. This order also affected Lebensborn under the defendant Sollmann. A subordinate in that organization was directed to take care of children of \"good\" blood in the occupied Russian territories. Pursuant to this order, agents of Vomi were assigned to work directly with the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen carried out deportations of so-called ethnic Germans for Vomi. For example, an operational situation report of Einsatzgruppe A, dated 16 February, 1942, pointed out that people of German extraction were deported in the most considerate way possible, but that these people could not be permitted to take with them more than one piece of luggage. Property taken from Jews and Communists murdered by the Einsatzgruppen was turned over to Vomi for use in resettlement operations.\nThe Goering order of 31 July 1941 to Heydrich stated that, \"Whenever other governmental agencies are involved, these are to cooperate with you\". On 29 November 1941, Heydrich wrote to the defendant Hofmann, at that time Chief of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office, as follows:\n\"On the 31 July 1941, the Reichsmarshal of the greater German Reich commissioned me to make all necessary preparations in \n organizational, factual, and material respect for the total solution of the Jewish problem in Europe with the participation of all interested central agencies, and to present to him a master plan as soon as possi ble.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 89, "page_number": "89", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "A photostatic copy of this commission is inclu ded in this letter.\n\"Considering the extraordinary importance, which has to be conceded to these questions, and in the inter est of the achievement of the same view-point by the central agencies, concerned with the remaining work, connected with this final solution, I suggest, to make these problems the subject of a combined conver sation, especially since Jews are being evacuated in continuous transports from the Reich territory inclu ding the protectorate Bohemia and Moravia to the East ever since the 15 October 1941\".The conference mentioned in Heydrich's letter to Hofmann took place on 20 January 1942 and was attended by Hofmann; also were officials from the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice, the Office of the Governor General, and the Foreign Office, among others.\nHeydrich pointed out at the conference that \"the Reichmarshal's request to have a draft submitted to him on the organizational, physical and material requirements with respect to the final solution of the European Jewish problem necessitated this previous general consultation by all the central offices directly concerned, in order that there should be coordination in policy\". After reviewing the steps which had been taken to force the emigration of Jews from Germany, Heydrich stated that:\n\"In the course of this final solution of the European Jewish problem, approximately 11,000,000 Jews are in volved.\n...Under proper direction the Jews shall now in the course of the final solution be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor.\nIn big labor gangs, under separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to those areas and employed in road building in which task undoubtedly a great part will be eliminated through natural attrition.\nThe remnant that finally is able to survive all this since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest powers of resistance -- must be treated accordingly, since these people, representing the result of a nat ural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development, should they be allowed to go free\".The problem of the extermination of the Jews living in such satellite countries as Roumania and Hungary was dealt with and the conference notes state that:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 90, "page_number": "90", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"SS Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann intends to ask to have an official of the Race and Settlement Office sent along to Hungary for general orientation, when the affair is started there by the Chief of the Security Police and SD.\nA considerable portion of the conference was devoted to discussing the extent to which the final solution should be extended to Jews of mixed blood and Jews married to Germans. As to marriages between Jews of mixed blood, the conference report states that \"SS Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann is of the opinion that extensive use must be made of sterilization; since the person of mixed race, when confronted with the choice as to whether he is to be evacuated or sterilized, would prefer to submit to sterilization\".\nThe SS Main Race and Settlement Office assisted in the \"final\" solution of the Jewish problem by the compilation of elaborate files on full Jews and Jews of mixed blood in the Reich and German-occupied territories. These files were made available to Adolf Eichmann of the RSHA who was personally in charge of the Jewish extermination program under Heydrich. Captured documents show that such card files were maintained in the Netherlands, Norway, France, and Belgium, among other countries. The close cooperation between the Race and Settlement Office and Eichmann is shown by a cable from an agent in the Paris office of RuSHA suggesting that Eichmann be contacted in order to assign a deputy to that office. Since there were 60,000 Jewish families in the occupied part of France, the agent stated that the work would be plentiful.\nAnother indication of the activities of RuSHA in the persecution of the Jews is found in a letter of 27 May 1944 from a RuSHA official in Belgium to the Berlin office. The letter dealt with the fate of a German citizen Margarete Gertrude Sydower, and her Jewish husband. Both were German refugees, having fled to Belgium in 1939. The Genealogy Office of RuSHA was asked to check its Jewish files and advise whether the wife was of pure Aryan decent. This information was needed in order to determine whether the Jewish husband should wear the \n Star of David.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 91, "page_number": "91", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The letter ends with the following remark:\n\"Sydower does not reject the idea of voluntary steriliaz tion\".This was one of those \"voluntary\" solutions proposed by Hofmann to Heydrich where the Jew was offered the alternative of deportation and certain death or sterilization.\nThe extermination of the Jews was not limited to the Einsatzgruppen. Indeed, the slaughter in the channel houses of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdamek, Belzec, and Sobiber was on a vaster scale. These extermination camps were all located in Poland. After the invasion of Poland, all Jews were forced to register, live in Ghettoes, and wear the yellow star. The \"final solution\" of the Jewish problem could, therefore, be resolved with almost assembly line precision. Train loads of Jews were evacuated from the Ghettoes to such camps as Auschwitz where the test of life or death was physical ability to work. Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz, estimated that 2,500,000 Jews were exterminated and a further 500,000 died from disease and starvation between May 1940 and December 1943 in that camp alone. Hoess described the screening process in the following language:\n\"We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners.\nThe prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by.\nThose who were fit for work were sent into the camp.\nOthers were sent immediately to the Extermination plants.\nChildren of tender years were invaciably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work.\nStill another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavoured to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process.\nOf course, frequently they realized our ture intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact.\nVery frequently women would hide their children under their clothing, but of course when we found them and we would send the children in to be exterminated\".Extermination centers similar to Auschwitz existed at Treblinka, Majdanck, Belzec, and Sobibor in the vicinity of Lublin, and the procedure there was the same.\nThe victims were stripped of their clothing, money, and valuables. The hair of the women was cut off, later to \n be manufactured into mattresses.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 92, "page_number": "92", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Then, herded like so many cattle, the naked men, women, and children were driven to their deaths in the gas chambers. Gold teeth were pulled from the mouths of the corpses. An attempt was even made to manufacture soap from the fatty parts of the bodies, while the ashes remaining after cremation were used for fertilizer. This was indeed a gruesomely commercial exploitation of death on a mass basis.\nAs a result of this large scale extermination action, huge quantities of clothing and other valuables became available. A substantial quantity of this bloody loot was transferred to Vomi under the defendant Lorenz for distribution to persons resettled by the Main Staff Office, Vomi, and RuSHA. The administrative task of collecting and distributing the property confiscated from murdered and enslaved Jews, Which was known as action Reinhardt, was handled by the WVHA, the Economic and Administrative Main Office of the SS. Prior to December 1943, the WVHA had accounted fro personal property in excess of 180,000,000 Reichsmarks from Jews exterminated in the Lublin area alone. This included foreign currency from 48 different countries, not the least of which was $1,300,000 in United States bank noted and gold coin. Also carefully listed and evaluated were 162,711 articles of considerably value, among them Jewelry, watches, and gold spectacle frames. Nearly 2,000 freight carloads of clothes, linens and rags were disposed of on orders of the WVHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 93, "page_number": "93", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "On 26 September 1942, August Frank, Deputy Chief of the WVHA, issued basic instructions to the Auschwitz and Lublin Concentration Camps on what he termed the \"utilization of property on the occasion of settlement and evacuation if Jews\". It was stated that in all future orders, property stolen from Jews would be considered as \"goods originating from thefts, receipt of stolen goods, and hoarded goods\". Excerpts from this order read as follows:\n\"d) Men's underwear, men's clothing, including footwear, are to be sorted and valued.\nAfter covering of their own requirements for con centration camp inmates and in exceptional cases for the troops, the goods are to be delivered to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.\nIn any case, the proceeds will go to the Reich.\ne) Women's clothing, women's underwear, including footwear, children's clothing and children's underwear, including footwear, are to be delivered against payment to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.\nPure silk underwear is to be delivered to the Ministry of Economics, according to an order of the SS-Economic and Administrative-Main Office:\nthe same goes for the underwear, mentioned under d).\nf) Feather beds, quilts, blankets, suiting material, scarves, umbrellas, walking-sticks, thermosflasks, car protectors, perambulators, combs, handbags, leather belts, shopping bags, tobacco pipes, sun spectacles, made of leather and synthetic material, are to be delivered to the 'Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.\nThe question of compensation will be settled later on.\nAccording to their own requirements, Lublin and Auschwitz may obtain quilts, blankets, thermos flasks, car protectors, combs, cutlery and kna sacks against payment from budget funds.\ng) Linen, such as sheets, quilt covers, pillow cases, towels, dish-clothes, table cloths, are to be delivered against payment to the 'Volksd eutsche Mittelstelle'.\" The order concluded as follows:\n\"It has to be strictly observed that the Jewish Star is removed from all garments and outer garments which are to be delivered.\nFurthermore, items which are to be delivered have to be searched for hidden and sewed in values.\n..\"\nIn October 1942, the defendant Lorenz and the WVHA were advised by Himmler that Vomi was to be furnished \n COURT I CASE VIII utensils and clothing from the warehouses in Lublin and Auschwitz Concentration Camps for over 100,000 ethnic German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 94, "page_number": "94", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Each of those ethnic Germans was to be equipped with one dress or suit as well as other wearing apparel. In a letter of 6 February 1943, Pohl, the Chief of the WVHA, reported that 211 freight carloads of clothing had been made available to Vomi from the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Lublin for distribution among ethnic Germans. This shipment comprised more than two million separate articles. In the same letter Pohl stated that further deliveries designed for ethnic Germans in the Ukraine could not be carried out because of transportation difficulties, but that the whole delivery had been made to Vomi at Litzmannstadt from whence it would be distributed by Vomi as soon as the transportation situation was relieved.\nThe Main Staff Office under the defendant Greifelt also participated in the persecution of the Jews and the plunder of Jewish property. The destruction of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Poland is an example of this. As late as January 1944, over 80,000 Jews were confined there in an area of approximately 7.5 square kilometers. Sanitary conditions were catastrophic; there was no water supply, no gas, no sewage disposal. There were approximately 500 deaths per month.\nThe Jews in the Litzmannstadt Chetto were apparantly able to survive as late as 1944 because they were used to produce goods manufactured in plants within the Ghetto. But in the summer of 1944 it was decided that the Litzmannstadt Jews were to be exterminated and the Ghetto destroyed. Greifelt was advised of this decision by Greiser, the Gauleiter of the Warthegau, and the Main Staff Office was assigned the task of demolishing the Ghetto and confiscating \n COURT I CASE VIII the property of the Jews.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 95, "page_number": "95", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Greifelt directed the defendants Schwarzenberger, Meyer-Hetling, and Huebner to work out the necessary details. In August 1944, 60,000 Jews were sent from Litzmannstadt to the concentration camps for execution. The destruction of the Ghetto began in October under the direction of Sturmbannfuehrer Herschboeck, who was put in charge of the operation by the def ndant Huebner. In a report of 15 November 1944, it was stated that 18 buildings had been thus far destroyed and furniture, textitles, and other material had been removed from about 700 households. As a result of this Ghetto action, property in the amount of approximately one million Reichsmarks was confiscated from the Jews.\nA number of the other defendants also showed considerable interest in the Jewish Ghettoes. At a meeting in May 1944 of all the Race and Settlement Field Leaders the agenda included a discussion of the solution of the \"Jewish Problems\" in the Warthegau and a visit to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. As the report on the meeting put it: \"The participants in the meeting, in the course of the conducted tour which lasted several hours, had an opportunity to view not only the Ghetto's organization and its production, which from the viewpoint of war economy are considerable, but to make spontaneous studies on racial diversities and common features of Judaism.\" The defendant Schwalm of RUSHA was one of the participants in this meeting.\nOn 10 February 1943, the defendant Ebner wrote to Sollmann suggesting that medical instruments and furniture for a new Lebensborn institution in Otwock, Poland be obtained from the Warsaw Ghetto. Exactly six days later, Himmler ordered the evacuation and destruction of that Ghetto which was subsequently carried out with horrible savagery by Juergen Stroop, the Higher SS and Police Leader \n COURT I CASE VIII in Warsaw.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 96, "page_number": "96", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Ebner's letter to Sollmann also contained an interesting proposal concerning the treatment of Poles suffering from tuberculosis. He pointed out that it was planned to use one of the houses in Otweck as a tuberculosis hospital for recial Germans. Ebner opposed this and proposed that Poles be evacuated from a hospital in Warsaw and quartered in barracks. He stated that the health authorities were probably not interested in curing Poles so long as Germans were not satisfactorily cared for.\nMany of the Lebensborn homes were established and equopped with property taken from Jews. For example, the defendant Ebner and Tesch, together with Sollmann, engineered the acquisition of a Jewish sanatorium at Nordrach, Baden in September 1942. Other property which was known to have been confiscated from Jews was taken over in Germany, Austria, Gzechoslovakia, Holland, and Poland.\nMr. Neely will continue with the reading.\nMR. NEELY:Mr. Neely of the Prosecution.\nKIDNAPPING OF ALIEN CHILDREN In this very same courtroom crimes have been revealed which were so revolting and marked with such bestiality that the civilized world has been shocked at the extent of \"man's inhumanity to man\". The outrages committed by the Nazis against the Inhabitants of the occupied countries would be considered incredible except for captured orders and reports showing the fidelity with which these crimes were executed.\nAll who cared to read have been informed of the mass killing of the Jews, the atrocities in concentration camps, the savage medical experiments, and many more ruthless forms of torture and extermination practiced by the Nazi fanatics. But now we turn to a crime which in many respects transcends them all - a crime in which all fourteen of these defendants \n actively participated - the crime of kidnapping children.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 97, "page_number": "97", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "This crime was not of an occasional or casual character, but was planned and disciplined.\nHimmler said in a speech at Bad Schacher in October 1943 that:\n\"Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in out people, or gentlemen -you may call this cruel, but nature is cruel -- we destroy the blood\".In speaking of the conquered peoples in the East, he continued by saying:\n\"Obviously in such a mixture of people, there will always be some racially good types.\nTherefore, I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment if necessary by robbing or stealing them\".As early as 1939, a forewarning of the program about to be launched was given in a treatise prepared by the Office of Racial Policy in the NSDAP.\nIt stated:\n\"A considerable part of the racially valuable groups of Polish people, who on account of racial reasons are not suitable for Germanization, will have to be deported to the rest of Poland.\nBut here it has to be tried to exclude racially valuable children from the resettlement and to educate them in suitable educational institutions, pre perly like the former military orphanages in Potsdam, or in a German family.\nThe children suitable for this are not to be over 8 to 10 years of age, because as a rule a genuine ethnic transformation, that is a final Germanization, is possible only up to this age.\nThe first condition for this is a complete prevention of all connections with their Polish relatives.\nThe children receive German names which are ethnologically of accentuated teutonic origin.\nTheir des cendant certificate will be kept by a special department.\nAll racially valuable children whose parents died during the war or later, will be taken over in German orphanages without any special regulation.\n\"For this reason a decree prohibiting the adoption of such children by Poles is to be issued.\nAny keeping of biologically healthy children in church institutions is prohibited.\n\"Children of such institutions if no older than approximately 10 years are to be trans ferred to German educational institutions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 98, "page_number": "98", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"Poles with a neutral attitude who are willing to send their children to German educational institutions do not need to be deported to the rest of Poland\".The abduction of \"racially valuable\" alien children was thus a part of the greater program of destroying or crippling national groups in the occupied territories.\nIn turn, Germany itself would be strengthened by importing children selected in accordance with standards compatible with Nazi racial and biological theories. In addition, kidnapping of children was also used as a method of retaliation and intimidation against those who, for various reasons, invoked the Nazis' displeasure.\nMany times throughout this proceeding we shall hear the defendants say how well these children were treated and of the wonderful care afforded them. In comparison to the treatment of other children whom these defendants rejected for Germanization this may well be true. But it is no defense for a kidnapper to say he treated his victim well. Even more important, we must ask ourselves why they were so treated. The answer is simple -- these innocent children were abducted for the very purpose of being indoctrinated with Nazi ideology and brought up as \"good\" Germans. This serves to aggravate, not mitigate, the crime.\nIn general, Lebensborn preferred to handle children not over 6 years of age. This age limitation is easily understood. At these tender years, the children could be more easily molded into the Nazi way of life. Also, it was much easier to conceal the true identity of these children and to deceive the foster parents into thinking they were German children whose parents had been killed in an air-raid or some other form of military operation.\nIt was only natural that Lebensborn was designated as the organization to handle kidnapped children and to make \n COURT I CASE VIII all necessary arrangments for their placement into \"proper\" German families.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 99, "page_number": "99", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Here was an organization which had already been established to insure the support of legitimate and illegitimate children of SS men and had as its original purpose the creation of \"a numerous and healthy progeny of the SS\". The facilities such as the hospitals and children's homes could be easily utilized and enlarged for the handling of kidnapped alien \n children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 100, "page_number": "100", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "But more important was the existing staff of personal well trained in the care of infants and their placement with foster parents. Also, their training as to the secrecy with which this program was carried out in order to conceal the true identity of these children posed no problem -- Lebensborn from its very beginning stressed secrecy in the treatment of its cases because many children born and cared for originally in Lebensborn homes were illegitimate.\nThe steps employed in the abduction of alien children, their care, education and placement in foster homes is detailed in an order of 19 February 1942 by the defendant Greifelt. In outlining this program, Greifelt stated:\n\"In order to be able to regain for German Folkdom those children; whose racial appearance indicates nordic parents, it is necessary that the children, who are in former Polish orphanages and with Polish foster-parents, are subjected to a racial and psy chological process of selection.\nThese children, who are considered to be racially valuable to German Folkdom, shall be Germanized.\n........\n\"In agreement with the agencies concerned I am giving the following instructions for the execution of this regulation.\n\"I ..........\n\"2). The Reich Statthalter of the Reich Gau Wartheland (Gau self-administration will report the registered children to the Main Race and Settlement Office, Field Office Litzmannstadt.\n\"3). In order to determine whether these children are suitable for Germanization, they will be racial ly examined by the Main Race and Settlement Office, Litzmannstadt.\n\"4) Those children, who are racially examined by the Main Race and Settlement Office and described as suitable for Germanization, have to be examined thoroughly as to their state of health (a health record for each child, the Wassermann test, X-rays tuberculin test; thorough delousing of the chil dren, etc.)\nII 1). My representative will report the children from 2 to 6 years, have been considered suitable for Germanization, to the Lebensborn.\nThe Lebensborn transfers the children at first \n to one of its own childrens' homes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 101, "page_number": "101", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Subsequently the Lebensborn will see to it that the children are placed in childless families of SS members, with the purpose of a later adoption.\nThe guar dianship for those children transferred to the children's home of the Lebensborn is taken over by the Lebensborn.\n\"2. My representative at Posen will report all children from 6 to 12 years of age who have been considered suitable for Germanization to the Inspector of the German folk schools.\nThe Inspector of the German folk schools will ac commodate those children in special folk schools, which answer the children's needs.\nThose children, who leave the German folk schools with positive results, are to be lodged in rural homes of Germany proper (Altreich)..........\"4). At first all these children, who were staying in former Polish orphanages, are processed and provided with homes.\nAfter this action is finished, these children are examined, who were living with Polish foster-parents.\nIn order to avoid any alarm on the part of the Polish foster-parents, they have express ly to be told that the children will be given free places at school, respectively they will be accom modated in convalescent homes.\n.........\n\"III ............\n3.) Special attention is to be given that the expression \"Polish children suitable for Germanization\" may not reach the public to the detriment of the children.\nThe children are rather to be designated as German orphans from the regained Eastern Territories.\"\nWhile this order was limited by its terms to Polish children living in orphanages and with foster parents, our proof will show that subs tantially the same procedure was followed with respect to children taken from their natural parents.\nIn addition to selecting the children suitable for Germanization, RuSHA in many instances gave them German sounding names. Thus, in a letter of 17 September 1942 from RuSHA to its sub-offices with the Higher SS and Police Leaders, it was stated that:\n\"In agreement with the Main Staff Office of the Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism and Lebensborn, the SS-Main Office for Race and Settlement is competent for the Germanization of names (First and Second names) of orphans qualifying for Germanization.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 102, "page_number": "102", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"The SS-Fuehrer of the Office for Race and Settlement or the chiefs of the sub-officers are commissioned to carry out the Germanization and are to take care of the racial selection at the same time.\nWhen Germanizing names care must be taken that the new names are adapted as far as possible to the origin and sound of the pre vious name.\nIn cases where Germanization of the old names is not possible, new German names must be given.\nIn this case commonly used German names must be chosen (of course not of a religious nature). The use of ty pical nordic names must be avoided.\"\nThe children were then sent to one of the numerous homes operated by Lebensborn. Here they were taught German and indoctrinated with Nazi ideologies while awaiting transfer into German families. All correspondence with their relatives and homeland was strictly forbidden.\nIt was the duty of the defendant Ebner as Chief of the Health Division of Lebensborn to carry out physical examinations of these kidnapped children and to determine whether they should be adopted. Also, he was frequently called upon to establish the ages of children under his care. This was necessary because in the majority of cases no birth certificates were available due to the manner in which the children had been taken from their homes and parents. Ebner was often confronted by defendant Tesch with, as Tesch put it, \"another case where an expert opinion is required to find out the age of a child which is to be adopted\" After this determination of age, then a fictitious place of birth was selected by Tesch, Chief of the Legal Department of Lebensborn. For example, he frequently selected Posen as the place of birth of children from Polish areas. Then, after this data had been recorded, the children were given German sounding names if for any reason this had not already been done by RuSHA. Thus, with this fictitious and falsified information everything was in order for adoption papers to be completed under the guidance of the defendant Tesch.\nThese then were the steps employed in the commission of the crime of kidnapping of children as alleged in the Indictment. The defendants were entrusted with broad discretion and exercised considerable power \n in carrying out this program which involved the abduction of hundreds of Czech, Polish, Yugoslav, and Norwegian children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 103, "page_number": "103", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "But now we would like to turn from the procedures utilized in carrying out this program and briefly picture for the Tribunal a few instances showing where some of these children came from and the conditions under which they were obtained and selected for Germanization.\nAfter the Nazis invaded the Republic of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, the struggle which this small nation carried on against their oppressors, continued underground. By September 1941 the Nazis decided upon a policy of pacification through terror and on the 27th of that month Reinhardt, Heydrich, in effect, replaced von Neurath who was given \"sick leave\", as Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich was a man who shumned neither blood nor brutal violence. After unlimited power was placed in his hands, the wave of terror grow. Heydrich quickly became a man hated by the entire Czech nation.\nThe opportunity for revenge came. In the morning of 21 May 1942, Heydrich was driving to Prague from his country mansion in Panenske Brezany. He never reached his destination. In a suburb of Prague an armed attack ended his destructive activities. Heydrich was mortally wounded and died a few days later. It had been said by the physician who attended Heydrich that Hitler regarded his death as the equivalent of a German military disaster.\nThat which followed the assassination surpassed any previous conceptions of German fury. Searches, arrests, and executions had no end. But the worst was yet to come.\nOn the evening of 10 June 1942 were heard these biting words of a Nazi radio announcer:\n\"From official sources comes the following communique:\nIn the search for the assassians of SS*Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich definite clues were found showing that the inhabitants of the village of Lidice, near Klando had given support and assistance to the culprits.\nThis \n information was verified with he help from the in habitants.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 104, "page_number": "104", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Their attitude towards the assassination was emphasized by further acts unfriendly to the Reich, such as : the finding of forbidden printed matter, stores of arms and ammunitions, illegal ra dio sets, an exceptionally large quantity of rationed foods, and the uncovering of circumstances showing that several individuals were abroad in active ser vice against the Reich.\nBecause the inhabitants of this village, by their support and assistance to the assassins of SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich, broke the law so recklessly, the men have been shot, the women deported to concentration camps, and the children taken where they may have suitable upbringing.\nThe buildings of the village have been razed to the ground and its name erased\" Here was a mass murder, a crime which the Nazi Government claimed as its own before the entire world, an atrocity in contravention of every civilized conception of right and justice.\nThe Nazi regime now appeared in its true light and proclaimed with a voice that shocked the world: we are bandits, plunders, murders, and kidnappers of innocent children; we have power and are not afraid to use it against any who antagonize us.\nThe same night, radio stations throughout the world announced the news of the annihilation of Lidice. None could conceive of a worse accusation against Nazism than such a communique.\nThe Nazis wanted to erase the name of Lidice from the map forever; they desired that every member of its community be removed from the minds of mankind. They wanted to instill fear in the Czech people and bring them to their knees, but instead the name of Lidice became a symbol in the struggle of all democratic nations against Nazi Germany. This tragedy opened the eyes of all who doubted German criminality.\nHow this tragedy of Lidice came about is now shown by documents and the account of those few victims who are so fortunate to survive. From those we now from the complete picture.\nThe order for the annihilation of Lidice was transmitted by telephone from Karl Hermann Frank in Berlin, after a conversation with Hitler, to the commander of the Security Police and SD in Prague. This \n order, which was received at 1945 hours, 9th of June 1942, directed:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 105, "page_number": "105", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "1. All adult men to be shot.\n2. All women to be sent to a Concentration Camp.\n3. All children are to be assembled, and, as far as they are suited for Germanization, they are to be turned over to SS families in the Reich.\nThe re mainder is to be turned over for another education.\n4. The village is to be burned down and complete by leveled.\non the same evening at the Headquarters of the Kladno Gestapo, an order for a state of readiness was issued. Units of the German Police arrived; trucks were loaded with drums of gasoline, and just before midnight the order was given to set out for Lidice. The entire village had previously been surrounded with SS men and German Police. After arriving, the leaders met over Lidice's square where SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Wiesmann, Chief of the Kladno Gestapo, announced that the Fuehrer had ordered the complete destruction of the village.\nThen began the execution of the order. First the Mayor of Lidice was summoned so that he might deliver to the members of the Gestapo all cash in the public treasury, all deposit books, papers and other valuables. In the meantime, SS men entered each home awakening the sleeping families and giving them approximately ten minutes to gather their money and valuables and leave the house.\nAfter collecting the inhabitants in the village square, all possessions were taken from them. Then the terrified families were separated. The women and children were taken to the school building and the men to the Horak farmhouse. There the Gestapo grought the registration files and checked to determine whether all men of the village were present. In turn, the men, 173 in number, were lined up before a firing squad and killed. The remaining 11 who were not present because of employment on the night shift at a nearby factory were later executed in Prague, in addition to the 8 members of the Horak and Stribrnys families who \n were at the time held by the Gestapo.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 106, "page_number": "106", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "In all 192 men fell-- none were tried nor warned of their fate beforehand.\nBefore the execution of the men took place, the women and children who had been gathered in the Lidice school house were transported to the high school building in nearby Kladno. There, with German thoroughness, the women and children were registered separately. After two days, of anxious waiting the women were told that they were to be sent to a work camp where their husbands would join them. Also, they were deceived into thinking that their children would follow them when more comfortable means of travel had been provided. Slowly, as the name of each child on a prepared alphabetical list was called \n out, it was taken from its mother.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 107, "page_number": "107", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Numbed with pain, mothers were led into the school courtyard where they filed into trucks which took them to a train whose destination was the concentration camp Ravensbruck. There they either died or remained until the liberation by the Allied armies.\nIn Kladno, three children were originally selected as suitable for Germanization by the branch office of RUSHA, but one was later excluded. Escorted by SS men and women, the remaining 88 children were taken from the Kladno school house, placed into trucks which took them to Libochovice and from there by rail to Litzmannstadt in Poland. Here they underwent tests imposed by the head of the Race and settlement Office of Litzmannstadt, Walter Dongus, who divided them into two groups. In the first group were 7 children bearing the desired characteristics of the Nordic type and labelled for Germanization. Into the other group were placed the remaining 81.\nThe children chosen for Germanization were placed in a Lebensborn home in Puschkau near Posen where they not the other two Lidice children who were originally selected in Kladno as being of \"ggod race\". After proper re-education they were taken with new names and false papers and placed in German families as children of German origin. Of these 9 so selected all have been traced and returned to Czechoslovakia. Of these, two will appear before this Tribunal to give the account of their abduction and placement into foster homes.\nThe 81 children in the second group who were rejected as racially unsuitable by RUSHA were taken to 30 July 1942 to unknown destinations. In addition, the child originally selected for Germanization in Kladno, but later classified as \"unfit\", was deported on 23 July with the children of the destroyed town of Lezaky. Here ends all trances of those 82 \n children of Lidice.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 108, "page_number": "108", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "To the horror of the Lidice tragedy is added this further, perhaps the most painful, chapter. Nazi beastality struck even at the youngest children not a year old and some not yet born; the 7 less than one year were taken from their mothers and placed in the Foundlings Home and later in the children's home in Prague, where 6 were found after liberation.\nAt the time of the tragedy of Lidice, the Nazis did not even forget the 6 children yet to be born. Women who were pregnant were transported to a secret home of the Gestapo and confined until approximately three weeks after the child was delivered. Then the mothers were sent to Pankrae prison, later to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Their babies were given false names and handed to German families. Of these six children, five died and one was later found. A child was born to one of the Lidice women in the Ravensbruck Concentration camp, but was immediately taken by the SS after birth and never seen again.\nAnd so the final balance gives us these terrible facts:\n192 men and 7 women shot; 196 women taken into concentration camps; of whom 43 died from torture and mal-treatment; 105 children kidnapped, of whom only the fate of 22 has been established, 16 having been returned to their relatives. The village was burned, buildings levelled, streets taken up and all other sings of habitation completely erased. Those fortunate enough to survive this terrible tragedy and return once more as free people found no trace of their village, but only a silent plain over which now stands a cross with a wreath of thorns.\nSoon after the destruction of Lidice, the defendant Sollman visited Karl Hermann Frank in Prague to discuss the handling of \n Lidice children by Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 109, "page_number": "109", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "During the time those Czech children were in the Lebensborn home in Fuschkau, correspondence concerning them was carried on between the defendant Viermetz and the chief of the home. Visits were paid to the Puschkau home by the defendants Viermetz, Tesch, and Sollman on which occasions they saw the children. Even as late as 1944 Lebensborn and RUSHA were making efforts to get hold of some of the children who had been originally rejected for Germanization. In a letter of 13 June 1944 from the office of Frank to Himmler, it is stated:\n\"Sixty-five children of Czechs: who were executed under martial law, were housed collectively- forty- six of them in the internment camp at Swatoborschitz and Reuth.\nThese are mostly children whose parents were living in the former villages of Lidice and Lezaky, the inhabitants of which were shot or put in a concentration camp in connection with the measures taken after the attempt of SS Obergruppenfuehrer.\nMR. MCHANEY:If the Tribunal please the Interpretation Branch has not received a full translation into German. We think we will be able to get aht in a few moments, but would suggest we take the afternoon recess at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minute (A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "MR. MCHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 110, "page_number": "110", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY MR. LAMB:\nHeydrich. Seven of these children, selected at an examination by the branch section office Bohemia and Moravia of the Race and Settlement Main Office SS as being suitable for germanization, were housed in a children's home in the Warthegau.\n\"The Commander of the Security Police and the SD has tried as early as the beginning of the cast year, to obtain a decision through RSHA (Reich main Security office) on the further treatment of the children housed in Swatoberschitz and Prague-Reuth who were not found suitable for Germanization.\nIn connection with this, a transfer to the East had been proposed.\nToday a trans fer of these children from Bohemia and Moravia is no longer possible; because in the Meantime some of the relatives found out the whereabouts of the children and illegally established a hardly to be controlled communication.\nThis development was connected with the employment of Czech personnel which was necessary because of the lack of Germans.\nSome time ago a renewed examination of the children was carried out by the Branch section Bohemia and Moravia of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nOn this occasion three more children, who could not be valued before a account of their youth, were as a bearable addition to our population designated, and nineteen children as just bearable.\nIt is true, that the setting up of the valuation scheme was done on a generous scale.\n\"It is intended to have the racially bearable clements of the collectively housed children transformed through Lebensborn' to German families or to a children's home whereas the children over 16 years are to be sent to concentration camp.\"\nBut this is only the account of the Czech village of Lidice. There was not one, but many \"Lidices\" through occupied Europe. The Nazis, by the razing of Lidice only reported in Czechoslovakia the wrongs which they had committed and continued to commit in the Ukraine, Poland, Yugoslavia, and other countries. Even the village of Lezaky in Czechoslovakia not the same fate on 24 June 1942-- only two weeks after the annihilation which has just been described. Of the 13 children taken from this village only two were selected for Germanization by the Race and Settlement Office and sent to the Lebensborn home at Puschkau where they were later adopted by German families. Both of those children have been returned to Czechoslovakia, but the fate of the other eleven socalled \"undesirables\" is and will probably forever remain unknown.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 111, "page_number": "111", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "20,Oct.-A-JP-19-2-Love (Int.Simha) In an order classified \"top secret\" dated 25 June 1942, Himmler issued instructions for the execution of an action against so-called partisans in the area of Oberkrain and Untersteiermark in Yugoslavia.\nParagraph 3 of this order read as follows:\n\"The action has to prevent from doing further harm all elements having supported the bands of their own free will by men, provisions, arms and shelter.\nThe men of a guilty family, in many cases of the whole clan are to be executed on principle, the women are to be arrested and taken to a concentration camp, the children are to be removed from their homes and concentrated in that part of the Gau that had ori ginally belonged to the Reich.\nAs to numbers and racial value of these children I am expecting separate reports.\n......\"\nLebensborn's participation in this criminal program is evidenced by a letter of 14 September 1942 from the Deputy of the RKFDV in Yugoslavia to VOMI. This letter states that:\n\"By order of the Reichsfuehrer--SS, dated 25 June 1942 the children of partisans and rebels who were classified according to the recognized groups by the SS Main Office for Race and Settlement are to be transferred from Oberkrain and Untersteiermark into the Old Reich, there to be looked after by VOMI.\n\"The children of category 1 and 2 between 6 months and 12 years of age are to be handed ever by VOMI to the Lebensborn.\n..........which is responsible on its part for the cared and/ or adoption of these valuable children.\"\nThe letter also stated that the immediate transfer of the children through VOMI was agreed upon on 12 August 1942 in a conference at which the defendant Viermetz acted as representative for Lebensborn. At the time this letter was written the children had already been transferred to a camp located in Styria and it was stated that VOMI was to arrange for the transfer of these children to Lebensborn.\nAfter those Yugoslavia children were placed into the VOMI camps they were subjected to racial examination by agents of the Race and Settlement Office. During this time, the defendant Viermetz paid a visit to the camp and selected those destined for Lebensborn homes. According to the statement of an employee of Lebensborn, there was a race between Lebensborn \n and its counterpart in the Nazi Party as to who should get these children but it was made possible through the initiative and efforts of the defendant Viermetz to secure these children for Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 112, "page_number": "112", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Rumanian children were also among those kidnapped by Lebensborn as is evidenced by a report from the defendant Ebner to Sollmann dated 25 August 1941. Herein Ebner stated that 25 children had been brought from the Banat to Schloss Langenzell by Vomi, but \"In regard to race only a few children can be designated as a gain to our folkdom. As the result of a racial examination personally conducted by Ebner, he concluded that \n Only 2 of the children were suitable for adoption, 18 were unfit for adoption because of age and should be turned over to foster parents or put to work, and 5 of them should be completely rejected for racial biological reasons.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 113, "page_number": "113", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Of these five, Ebner, recOm mended that one young girl should be sterilized immediately since, as he said, \"The young men in thecamp become gradually interested in her\". He also proposed immeidate sterilization of two of the boys, one because of TB suspicion an the other because \"His skull looks degenerated, his ears are standing out and his shoulders are hanging.\"\nPoland was one of the chief sources of children abducted from their families and placed by Lebensborn.\nAfter Greifelt's order became effective the numbers grew in such proportions that a Special Police Report Center was installed, unknown to the public, to prevent the relatives of these children from contacting and find ing them.\nDuring the course of this proceeding the Prosecution will offer into evidence numerous documents containing lists of Polish children taken from their homes and placed with Lebensborn for adoption as well as correspondence between these defendants as to the change of names and other technical problems concerning their adoption by Germans.\nIn addition, two Polish children will testify before this Tribunal as to their abduction and placement into German families.\nMR. LAMB:Mr. McHaney will now continue with the reading of the opening statement:\nMR. MCHANEY:The Nazi theories of race led logically to a concern with pregnancies among Eastern women working in Germany and the incorporated Polish territories.\nAs a means of biologically weakening the Eastern nations and of keeping the women available as labor, an abortion program was decided upon.\nAbortions were forbidden in Germany under Paragraph 218 of \n the German Criminal Code.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "MR. MCHANEY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 114, "page_number": "114", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Yes , as early as November 1939, a report was sent to the Defendant Ebner that 33 Polish women and children of German descent had been taken into a Lebensborn home in Poland and abortions performed on three of them because they were pregnant by Polish soldiers. Later, this was systematized and German women were subjected to abortions when the putative fathers were nonGerman and the racial examiner decided that the expected child was not \"racially valuable\". This was supposed to prevent a \"pollution\" of the Nordic race.\nHowever, the program was primarily directed against foreign citizens . In March 1943 a decree was issued which purported to open the door to abortions on non-German workers end on 11 March 1943 the Reich Leader for Public Health ordered that abortions could be performed on Eastern workers at their request. Almost immediately Himmler decided that such consent was not absolutely necessary insofar as an SS man was involved. In a letter from his office, it was stated:\n\"The Reichsfuehrer-SS requests, that in these cases, where pregnancy is caused by sexual intercourse between a member of the SS or the Police and a non-German woman, residing in the occupied Eastern territories, an interruption of pregnancy is to be carried out positively by the competent physician of the SS or the Police, unless that woman is of good stock which is to be ascertained in advance in every case.\n\" The usual procedure was as follows:\nWhen a foreign woman worker became pregnant, it had to be reported to the camp leader in the camp where she lived or to someone in the factory where she worked. All illegitimate pregnancies of foreign workers were then reported by the employer to the Labor Office (Arbeitsamt) and by that office to the Youth Office (Jugendamt) and Gestapo.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 115, "page_number": "115", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "An application was then made out for the abortion, frequently by the Labor Office, a doctor, or the employer, rather than the woman herself.\nAfter the putative father had been located, racial examinations of the mother and father were conducted by the local RuS Leader and he determined whether the child would be \"racially valuable\" or not.\nIf the decision was in the affirm*tive, then the abortion could not be performed.\nBut if the RuS Field Leader decided that the child would not be \"racially valuable\" then he induced the women to have an abortion performed.\nAll abortions had to be approved by an agent of the RKFDV.\nHildebrandt, as Chief of RuSHA, in a circular of 13 August 1943 to all RuS Field Leaders, emphasized the necessity of a racial examination before abortions could be performed on Polish women.\nHe also ordered that the files of cases in which the Rus Field Leaders denied abortions were to be submitted to the Main Race and Settle ment Office for examination as to inclusion in the Re-Germanization program.\nIn March 1944 the defendant Hofmann, acting as a representative of the RKFDV, issued a letter outlining the procedure to be followed in connection with applications for abortions in the area within his jurisdiction.\nThe Nazis paid lip service to the idea that all abortions were voluntary but this was obviously not the case.\nThese unfor tunate women working as slaves under terrible conditions in a hostile country found themselves subjected to all manner of pressure, both direct and indirect.\nThey lived and labored under conditions which would not permit them to take care of their children.\nMore over, every pregnancy had to be reported to the dreaded Gestapo.\nThe suggestion of an abortion by that organization did not invite argu ment from Polish and Russian women.\nOn 18 February 1944, a letter went out from the SD Office in Koblenz to the Branch Offices stating that:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 116, "page_number": "116", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"As you know, racially sub-standard offspring of Eastern workers and Poles is to be avoided, if at all possible.\nAlthough pregnancy interruptions ought to be carried out on a voluntary basis only, pressure is to be applied in each of these cases.\n*** A pregnancy interruption should go off without incidents and the Eastern worker or Pole is to be treated generously during this period in order that this may get to be known among them as a simple and pleasant affair.\"\nB ut even if it be assumed that all abortions were voluntary, they still constitute a crime.\nThis was nothing more than another technique in furtherance of the basic crime of genocide and German ization.\nIt was even a crime under German law.\nThe responsibility for these abortions inquite clear. The consent of the representatives of the RKFDV was necessary in all cases.\nThe racial examinations and real decisions were made by the RuS Field Leaders in accordance with directives issued by RuSHA under the defendant Hildebrandt.\nTAKING AWAY INFANTS OF EASTERN WORKERS In many instances, cases of pregnancy among Eastern workers were not discovered until it was too late for an abortion to be performed or until after the child was actually born.\nSince these women were being utilized in the slave labor program, the time lost in caring for their children was regarded by the Nazis as an in tolerable interference with the demands of labor.\nAs in the case of the abortion procedure, racial examinations were conducted on the father and pregnant worker to determine whether \"racially valuable \" descendants could be expected.\nThus, the decision as to the future treatment of the pregnant women, as well as the expected child, was the responsibility, of the Race and Settle ment Office.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt, in outlining the duties of the Race and Settlement Leaders in this connection stated:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 117, "page_number": "117", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "\"Though I have already done so in the regulations on the decisions of the interruption of pregnancies, I want to point out once more the grave responsibility which has been assigned to the SS Leaders for racial and resettlement matters by this new order.\nI.E., to especially further all valuable racial strains for the strengthening of our people and to accomplish a complete elimination of everything racially inferior.\"\nIf the racial examination revealed that the pregnant woman was of especially valuable racial stock and met the high standards as set by Lebensborn, then the pregnant worker was sent to one of Lebensborn's maternity homes during the last stages of pregnancy.\nAfter childbirth, the mother was sent back immediately to work and the child was placed under the guardianship of Lebensborn to be brought up in one of its numerous children's homes or with \"proper\" German families.\nRacially valuable mothers were asked whether they were prepared to accept German citizenship.\nIf so, proceedings for Germanization were then instituted and the mothers were promised that after marriage with a German in Germany proper the child would be returned to her.\nIf the results of the racial examination were positive, but were not to such a high degree as that just mentioned, then the birth took place in the sick quarters of the transient camps which housed the workers.\nHere the treatment afforded her was in many cases, if not all, inadequate.\nTheir reception into a German hospital was only granted in exceptional cases or where it was necessary to further the training of students and midwives.\nMothers in this category also were forced to return to work immediately after delivery of the children.\nThe care of the child was then turned over to Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 118, "page_number": "118", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "The taking of these racially valuable children was stated by Kaltenbrunner as being necessary to prevent the loss of German blood to foreign populations and to assure their being educated as German children.\nIn the racial examinations concerning the expectant child proved negative and an abortion was not performed, then the pregnant mother was placed into the sick quarters of the barracks in which they were living.\nThese mothers were forced to work until a matter of days and hours before childbirth took place.\nAs soon as the child was delivered the mother was forced to return to work and the child placed into an assembly center for foreign children.\nThese centers were later referred to as \"Foreigners' Childrens Nursing Homes\" because as SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Meine stated, \"The Reichsfuehrer .... considers it proper to introduce a pompous sounding designation for the assembly centers for foreign children.\"\nButwhatever name they were given, it did not in any way change these dirty, ill-kept and ill-equipped barracks provided for the care of these children.\nThey were nothing more than subdivisions of billets provided for the housing of female workers; as Kalten brunner put it, they were \"institutions of the simplest kind\".These children could under no conditions be attended by German institutions, be taken into German homes, or be reared or educated together with German children.\nThe only care given them was by chosen female members of their respective nationalities who were not only incompetent in most cases, but also too few in number to give ade quate attention to the needs of these young children.\nAs to the fate of these so-called \"undesirable children\", there was a difference of opinion.\nSome of the Nazi officials were of the opinion that these babies of Eastern workers should be ex terminated or subjected to such inadequate care that normal death \n would result from neglect, whereas others favored their being brought up for use as slave labor in the future.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 119, "page_number": "119", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Himmler was asked to render an immediate decision on this matter. The urgency of this request was prompted by the fact that 62 infants of Eastern workers housed in a nursing home in Austria were living in overcrowded conditions and the babies were destined for certain \n death from undernourishment in a few months if the insufficient rations were not increased.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 120, "page_number": "120", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "It was suggested to Himmler that in the event he decided these babies should be brought up to be used for slave labor, then they should be fed properly; in the event that they should be put to death, then other measures were available rather than to expose them to a gradual starvation, thus wasting many liters of milk.\nHAMPERING REPRODUCTION OF ENEMY NATIONALS In accordance with the entire program of genocide, no means was overlooked whereby the ultimate aim of annihilation of the Eastern nations could be accomplished.\nMarriages between protectees of the Reich and non-protectees were prohibited. Marriage of Poles to other Poles of Ukrainian descent were prevented because RusHA feared that the Poles would thus be able to camouflage their Polish nationality. The marriages of members of Group 3 of the DVL with members of Group 4 and with other non-Germans was prohibited by order of the Main Staff Office under Greifelt. This order was distributed by RusHA to all its Field Leaders whose task it was to screen such marriage applications.\nOn 10 January 1944, Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV, continuing previous restrictions, issued a decree forbidding marriages of male Polish protectees before the age of 28 and of femal Polish protectees before the age of 25. This decree was enforced through the agency of RusHA. But of course this illegal limitation on marriages did not always prevent reproduction. Thus, a conference was held at the Reich Ministry of Justice to deal with the problem of claims of illegitimate Polish children against their Polish fathers. The defendant Brueckner attended for Vomi and RusHA was also represented. A memorandum on this conference made by RusHA's representative stated, in part, the following:\n\"********* \"Because of the raising of the marriage age for Poles the number of legitimate children is reduced resulting in an increase in the number of illegitimate children.\nThe information most recently obtained showed that the number of illegitimate children is increasing to an even greater \n Court I Case VIII extent than the number of liegitimate children is decreasing.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 121, "page_number": "121", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "It must be the purpose of the intended regulation to reduce the number of illegitimate children as far as possible, but in no way to cause a further increase.\n\"The demand of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office and the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans) that German interests in an individual case must be determined by the competent higher SS - and Police Leader in each case, thereby resulting in a decisive intervention on the part of the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, was approved. In deciding this matter, it must be determined whether this constitutes a desirable increase in population (Poles suitable for Germanization); this will then be determined by the SS Main Race and Settlement Office.\n\"With regard to the question of reducing the number of illegitimate children, it was the general concensus of opinion to allow the unwed Polish mothers a minimum subsistence for the care of the child, the subsistence to be paid for by the Polish fathers and to be paid out only if the care of the child is not assured by either the unwed mother or her family. This was to prevent any negligence. Here it must be the primary principle not to spend one German penny for Polish welfare. This method of putting the illegitimate, racially undersirable Polish child at a definite disadvantage, even though it will not, in general reduce the number of illegitimate children, will at least not encourage a rise in the number of illegitimate children. The Main Race and Settlement Office suggested that the father of the illegitimate child be required to make especially large payments, but that the money become part of a general fund from which the necessary sums might then be paid out. In cases where the paternity cannot be established, all potential fathers will be equally liable to payment. This measure is not likely to increase the pleasure of having an illegitimate child.\"\nPUNISHMENT FOR SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH GERMANS\nDuring the course of the war, millions of foreign workers and \n prisoners of war, particularly from the East, were brought to Germany to labor in the fields and factories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 122, "page_number": "122", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Naturally, sexual contact between these people and the Germans could not be prevented. This caused great concern among the guardians of the purity of the Nordic race. In July 1940 Pancke, then Chief of RuSHA, wrote a letter on this subject to the Fuehrer's Deputy. He said that RuSHA agreed with the Office for Racial Policy of the NSDAP that the purity of the German race was in danger. Pancke suggested that appropriate laws be issued and that propaganda be carried on among Germans.\nSoon a regular procedure was set up. If an Eastern worker who had had sexual intercourse with a German woman was unfortunate enough to be apprehended by the Gestapo, he was given a racial examination by an agent of RuSHA. In case he was declared to be racially undersirable, frequently he was subject to \"special treatment\". This term \"special treatment\" is a particularly fine example of the euphemisms so much in vogue among the Nazis.\nTo be blunt, it meant hanging. In the event the RuSHA Field Leader found the offender's racial characteristics to his liking, then his life was spared if he agreed to undergo the Germanization procedure. In a letter to the RSHA dated 27 August 1941, a subordinate of the defendant Greifelt stated that in cases where the Poles recommended for \"special treatment\" were recognized by RuSHA as suitable for Germanization, the competent SS and Police Leaders were to determine the addresses of the other members of their families and forward such addresses to RuSHA so that the whole family could be examined and included in the Germanization process.\nEastern women who had sexual intercourse with German men were not subjected to \"special treatment\" but shipped to concentration camps, a rather dubious mercy. The \"Special Treatment\" of male offenders was extended to Czechs as well as Poles in September 1942, according to a letter by Schultz of the Race Office of RuSHA.\nThe racial examination was entirely the province of RuSHA. The Race Office decided the procedures and RuS Field Leaders made frequent \n visits to the concentration camps in order to make these examinations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 123, "page_number": "123", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "Theoretically, it was the RSHA which decided to hang the man, but the decision of the RuSHA was the really important one. In a report on Re-Germanization which was sent to Hofman in October 1942 by the Race Office of RuSHA, it was stated that the RSHA wanted a quicker decision as to eligibility for Germanization. This report went on to say that:\n\"A Reichsfuehrer document is in preparation in conjunction with the Main Staff Office and Reich Main Security Office, according to which the consequences drawn from the establishment of the positive ancestry verdict will be carried out (Inclusion in the re-Germanization procedure obligation of marriage).\"\nThe defendant Schwalm, in a letter of December 1943 asking for free railroad tickets for RuSHA, stated that members of RuSHA were being constantly charged with the examination of cases of \"special treatment\" ordered by the RSHA. This checking, he said, must be done immediately and in every case because the RSHA could make no decision without having had the judgment of RuSHA.\nIn February 1944, the RSHA issued a circular, in agreement with with RuSHA, stating that ruthless measures must be taken against all severe offenses by foreign labor and that sexual intercourse with German women would be considered a severe offense. The RuS Leader on the Staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader for Danzig-West-Prussia in September 1944, wrote to the Race Office of RuSHA that more severe regulations on this subject had to be issued in that district. He said:\n\"If, with regard to sexual intercourse, most severe rules are not laid down, any control of the blood policy is impossible.\"\nThe Higher SS and Police Leaders played an important role in \"special treatment\" cases. The defendants Hofmann and Hildebrandt as former Higher SS and Police Leaders beer responsibility for numerous murders of Eastern workers through \"special treatment\". The main Staff Office under the defendant Greifelt also participated in these atrocities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 124, "page_number": "124", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "MEMBERSHIP IN A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION In Court Three of the Indictment it is charged that all of the defendants expect Viermetz were members of the SS, an organization declared to be criminal by the International Military Tribunal, and that such membership is in violation of Paragraph 1 (d) of Article II of Control Council Law No. 10.\nThe declaration of criminality by the International Military Tribunal applies to all persons who were officially accepted as members of any branch of the SS, and who remained members after 1 September 1939, with knowledge that the SS was being used for the commission of criminal acts, or who were personally implicated in the commission of such crimes, \"excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the state in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who committed no such crimes.\"* This Tribunal will be presented with no refined questions concerning voluntary membership in the SS or knowledge of its use for the commission of crimes.\nThe defendants in this dock were full time, professional SS men; the SS was their way of life. Of the thirteen defendants charged in Count Three, all but three of them joined the SS in 1934 or earlier.\nThat these defendants not only knew of, but personally participated in, the systematic commission of crimes by the SS will be abundantly proved by the evidence. All of the defendants charged in Count Three were in positions of power and responsibility, holding high rank in the SS; four were Lieutenant Generals (Obergruppenfuehrer) and none was less than a Major (Sturmbannfuehrer).CONCLUSION Civilized usage and conventions to which Germany was a party had prescribed certain immunities for peoples unfortunate enough to dwell in lands overrun by hostile armies.\nToday, we have briefly outlined before this Tribunal the crimes committed by these fourteen dedefendants in which man's dearest and most sacred rights were denied * Official English Transcript, p. 16950.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 125, "page_number": "125", "date": "20 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-20", "text": "to hundreds of thousands throughout Europe. These crimes represent but a partial fulfillment of their genocidal plans. One shudders to think how Europe would appear today if these defendants and their collaborators still remained in their positions of power.\nFrom these defendants we shall soon hear variously formulated and developed apologies and excuses in justification or mitigation of their crimes. When they are heard lot this Tribunal not forget that these crimes were not of an occasional or casual character but were deliberate and integrated parts of the sinister program of genocide, a program to strengthen Germany at the expense of other peoples and nations. To the successful fulfillment of this program, all of the defendants in the dock devoted their untiring efforts and abilities. Each held a position of responsibility which was endowed with the power to decide the fate of men and to destroy all which interferred with their conception of a Germanic world. For their crimes we seek from this Tribunal a just restribution and a reaffirmation of man's right to live in peace and dignity under the law.\nIf the Tribunal please, this concludes the Prosecution's opening statement. We are prepared at this time, if the Tribunal desires, to begin the submission of evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe we will take a recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 21 October 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 126, "page_number": "126", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I, in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 21 October 1947, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal. have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nThe motion to quash the Indictment in the case now before the Tribunal, dated 25 September 1947 was filed with the Secretary-General on 2 October 1947. The Tribunal has given due consideration to this motion and is of the opinion that the motion is without merit. Therefore, the motion is overruled.\nWe are now ready to proceed with the taking of testimony. We would like to again call counsel's attention to the fact that, as far as documentary evidence is concerned, all that the Tribunal desires is that the documents be identified and offered in evidence without reading from them or commenting about them. It will be the duty of the Court to study these documents. They will be in evidence and we are of the opinion that comment or reading from them at this time will not be helpful.\nWhen a document is offered it will be considered in evidence without any ruling from the court unless objections are interposed.\nThe Tribunal desires to call counsel's attention to the fact that the rules under which the Tribunal operates expressly provide that technical rules regarding evidence shall not prevail. That is true for the reason that the case is being tried before a court of judges and not a \n jury of laymen.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 127, "page_number": "127", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We are supposed to know the probative value of evidence.\nWe can assure you that when evidence is offered, whether objected to or not, if it has no probative value this Court will give it no consideration. You may be assured of that. You may proceed.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please your Honors, inasmuch as this case would be based, to a very great extent, upon official German documents, I would like now to outline the procedure to be used for the introduction of these documents and to establish the authenticity of the documents to be presented.\nIt will be the aim of the Prosecution also to present this case as expeditiously as possible. Therefore, in accordance with your Honor's statement, we will merely offer the document in evidence, identify it, and give it an exhibit number.\nEach of your Honors should have before you a number of manila folders marked \"Military Tribunal Case No. VIII, Prosecution Document Book No. 1, 2,\" etc. On the first page of each document book there is an index of contents thereof. German copies of approximately fifteen of these document books and already in the possession of the Defense Counsel far in advance of the 24-hour rule prescribed by the Rules of Procedure before the Military Tribunals; and we shall endeavor in the future to maintain this record. Also, advance copies of almost all of the documents to be used in this case were made available to the Defense Counsel in loose from several weeks agao. A few of the documents to be used are rather lengthy and we have extracted from these documents only those portions which we considered relevant in this case. The Defense Counsel have had, and will continue to have, access to the complete document and it is the complete document which will be offered as the exhibit. Thus, if Defense Counsel wish to use any other portion of that document, they may do so during the presentation of evidence for the Defense.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 128, "page_number": "128", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "In accordance with the procedure established in other Military Tribunals, and with the permission of the Court, the Prosecution will assume that a document is in fact admitted into the record if no objection is raised by the Defense counsel at the time that the document is offered in evidence.\nAs a document is offered in evidence, the identification number of the document will be mentioned and the Prosecution Exhibit number. A certified copy of the original document will be handed to the representative of the Secretary-General as the offer is made. These copies become the official exhibits and are subject to inspection by Defense counsel at the time of the offer, if they so wish.\nConcerning the authenticity, it should be noted that the documents fall into three broad categories: 1, affidavits; 2, German documents which were processed for use before the International Military Tribunal; and, 3, German documents which were processed for use before Military Tribunals such as this one.\nThe Prosecution now offers as Prosecution Exhibit No.1a certificate by the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes showing the authority of certain persons to administer oaths and to attest a number of the affidavits which will be offered in evidence before this Tribunal. This certificate will be found on Page 1 of Document Book No. I in both English and German.\nThe authenticity of German documents which were prepared for use before the International Military Tribunal was established by a certificate of Major William Coogan. It was introduced in that trial as United States Exhibit No. 1 and explained how German documents, records and archives had been captured, assembled and preserved by the United States Army and other Allied forces and how these documents were catalogued to identified them for use in court.\nI should now like to offer as Prosecution Exhibit No.2the Coogan \n certificate.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 129, "page_number": "129", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "It is to be found on Page 2 of Document Book No, I in English and on page 10 -- I am sorry -- On page 9 of Document Book No. 1 in English and on Page 10 of Document Book No. I in German.\nAll documents processed for trials before Military Tribunals are authenticated by a certificate of Mr. Fred Niebergall, Chief of the Document Control Branch. This certificate supplies substantially the same information as the Coogan certificate. I now offer the Niebergall certificate as Prosecution Exhibit No.3. It is found on Page 14 of Document Book No. I in both English and German.\nI would now like to proceed to offer in evidence a number of personal history affidavits executed by the defendants in this case. I offer in evidence document No.NO-3978, affidavit by the Defendant Greifelt, as Prosecution Exhibit No.4. This affidavit is found on Page 17 in Document Book No. I in English and page 16 in Document Book No, I in German.\nI offer as Prosecution Exhibit5Document No.NO-3823, personal history affidavit of the Defendant Creutz, which is to be found on page 19 of Document book No. I in English and page 19 in German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4762as Prosecution Exhibit No.6. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Meyer Hetling and is to be found on Page 21 in English Document Book No. I and page 22 in the German.\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling. May it please your Honors, I have to object to the introduction of this document. The Defendant, Meyer-Hetling, wrote that affidavit and on the same evening he added an amendment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment. Do you have a written objection?\nDR. BEHLING:No, I don't have written objection, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We cannot consider an oral objection. It is my understanding of the ruling. If you want to object to a document you have to \n file a written objection.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 130, "page_number": "130", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "DR. BEHLING:Yes, indeed, your Honor. Thank you very much; and I will make a written objection.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right.\nMr. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, I would just like to offer a suggestion at this point. As far as the Prosecution is concerned, we think it might be more expeditious to have the objection offered orally with respect to the exhibits. Certainly any written motions directedat such matters as the sufficiency of the proof against a given defendant at the end of our case in chief or things of that nature, such things as motions directed against the Prosecution's case with respect to a given defendant would have to be in writing, but we think that the objections to documents are apt to be rather numerous - we hope not too many - but to require them to be filed in writing and then individually considered by the Court we think might consume more time then handling such objections to the documents here in court orally. It has been handled that way heretofore and has worked rather well. Most of the objections can be handled orally quite expeditiously.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. In view of the statement of the Prosecution you may proceed with your oral objection.\nDR. BEHLING:May I object again, Your Honors. The Defendant, on that particular day, wrote this affidavit. However, he wanted to have that affidavit corrected. The interrogator told him to do that in writing and to write the amendment and also the corrections, and send it to the Tribunal or to the Prosecution respectively; whereupon the amendment would be attached to the affidavit and submitted to the Tribunal as a whole.\nThis amendment is of major and basic importance and unfortunately it is missing in the affidavit which was introduced now. The affidavit which was introduced now is, therefore, not complete. I object to this \n and I would appreciate it if the Tribunal wouldn't accept this affidavit in evidence as long as the amendment is still missing and has not been introduced by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 131, "page_number": "131", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will note the objection. Your client will have an opportunity on the witness stand, and in his statement, to make any explanation he sees fit to make or say anything that he sees fit to say about the manner in which the affidavit was obtained, Then, \n when the evidence is all in, the Court will give it, under all of the facts, such probative value as the Tribunal feels that it is entitled to have.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 132, "page_number": "132", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The objection is overruled.\nMR. SHILLER:I now offer in evidence Document No.NO-4364as Prosecution Exhibit No.7. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Schwarzenberger and is to be found on Page 23 in the English of Document Book No. I and on Page 26 in the German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4239as Prosecution Exhibit No.8. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Huebner and is to be found in the English Document Book on Page 25 and in Document Book No. I in German on Page 29.\nI offer Document No.NO-4701as Prosecution Exhibit No.9. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Lorenz and is to be found in Document Book No. I on page 27 in English and 33 in German.\nI offer DocumentNO-5041as Prosecution Exhibit No.10. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Brueckner and is to be found in Document Book No. I on Page 31 of the English and Page 39 of the German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4240as Prosecution Exhibit No.11. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Hofmann and is to be found in Document Book No. I on Page 33 in the English and 42 in the German.\nI offer DocumentNO-4241as Prosecution Exhibit No.12. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Hildebrandt and is to be found in Document Book No. I on Page 35 of the English and 44 of the German.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the Defendant Hildebrandt. May it please your Honor, I would like to object to the introduction of this document, not formally anyway. However, I would like to point out at this moment that this document contains two omissions which, in part, disturb the implications of the document. I would appreciate it if we may come back to that statement at a later date when we introduce \n the evidence for the defendant Hildebrandt.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 133, "page_number": "133", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Your client will be permitted to make any explanation he desires to make with reference to the affidavit. Then the Tribunal will consider the affidavit and the evidence together and give it such weight as the Tribunal deems it is entitled to.\nMR. SHILLER:I offer Document No.NO-4702as Prosecution Exhibit NO 13. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Schwalm and is to be found in Document Book No. I on page 37 in the English and Page 46 in the German.\nI offer Document No. No-2880 as Prosecution Exhibit No.14. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Sollmann and is to be found in Document Book No. I on page 39 of the English and Page 49 in the German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4207as Prosecution Exhibit15. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Ebner and is to be found in Document Book No. I on Page 42 in the English and 52 in the German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4362as Prosecution Exhibit No.16. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Tesch and is to be found in Document Book No, I on Page 45 in the English and 56 in the German.\nI offer Document No.NO-4138as Prosecution Exhibit No.17. This is a personal history affidavit of the Defendant Viermetz and is to be found in Document Dock No. I on Page 51 in the English and 64 in the German.\nThat concludes the documents in Document Book No. I. I now turn to Document Book No. 2A. I offer Document No.NO-4060as Prosecution Exhibit No. 18. This is a plan of organization of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV after 1 August 1942. It is to be found in Document Book No 2A on Page 1 in both the German and the English.\nI now offer Document No.NO-3478as Prosecution Exhibit No.19. This is a list of offices and mailing lists of the Main Office of the RKFDV as of 1 April 1944 and 8 December 1944. It is to be found on \n Page 54 in the German.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 134, "page_number": "134", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Originally it was left out in the English Book 2A but was distributed yesterday separately, so that everyone has a copy of this document in English.\nDR. HAENSEL:Dr. Karl Haensel for the Defendant Greivelt. I would like to ask the Tribunal to make a decision as to what is meant by the words \"introduction of the document before the Tribunal.\" When one says \"to introduce a document,\" then I understand it to mean that this document is being introduced against a specific defendant and for a specific purpose, I would like to point out to the Tribunal that in other Tribunals in this Palace of Justice a similar procedure is used by the Prosecution, namely, that they do not only introduce a document and give it an exhibit number, but they also state, either in writing or or*--*y, what this document deals with and which defendant in particular it implicates.\nOf course, you can do that in all sorts of ways, but we have to do it somehow because otherwise we won't be able to follow the introduction of evidence and every defendant would have to have a document against himself in particular and thus we would lose the time which we are gaining now by this brief introduction of evidence. I am quite sure we would save time if the defendants, once they are on the stand, would talk about the documents which are introduced against them rather than about all the documents. What I mean is that if we don't limit every document for every defendant, every defendant will have to take up his stand and give us ids point of view on every one of the documents. It is up to the Tribunal, of course,\nMR. SHILLER:May it please your Honors, in a case of this nature, it is very difficult, on introducing evidence dealing with organizations and dealing with crimes committed we contend by a number of the defendants acting together, upon introducing each document to list the defendants concerned in that document. This is not a Procedure followed before any of the other Military Tribunals and we contend that it is quite clear from the documents as to which organization they pertain and \n and which defendants are thereby affected.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 135, "page_number": "135", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The attorneys for the defendants will have to do just what the Court has to do, re d the document and determine for himself whether it applies to his client or not. Go ahead.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 136, "page_number": "136", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "DR.SCHWARZ (For the defendant Hofmann): May it please Your Honors, I would like to mention a point here in connection with this subject; namely, that inaccordance with the Ordinance of Military Government No. 7, thedefendant or the counter-party have the opportunity, according to Article 7, to object to this document. What I wish to point out in particular now is that they can object to the probative value of a document. However, the defendant Can only object to the probative value of that document if he knows whether the document is held against him or not, therefore, I consider it necessary that the Prosecution always mention briefly the probative value of the document without commenting on the document, of course, I can only object to the probative value of the document if I know whom the document is being held against.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The only way I know for you to find that out is to read the document.\nMR. SHILLER:Mr. Schwenk will new proceed with the further introduction of evidence for the prosecution.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution now offers documents contained in Prosecution Document Book No. II-B.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't seem to have that book.\n(Document Book II B is offered the President)\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution offers first Document No.NO-3075as Prosecution Inhibit No. 20. This is a decree by the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor for the conservation of German folkdom, dated 7 October 1939, Page 1 in the English and Page 1 in the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution offers now Document No.NO-3078as Prosecution Exhibit 21. This a document containing Himmler's first decree as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, establishing the Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, and appointing the defendant Greifelt as the Chief of the agency. It's on Page 4 of the English document Book and Page 5 of the \n German Document Book.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 137, "page_number": "137", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution offers now Document No.NO-2526as Prosecution Exhibit 22. This is a decree by the Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, dated December 8 1939, making the offices of the Reich Governors - the Reichstatthalter, and Supreme Presidents-Oberpresident available to Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, and to the Chief of his office, Greifelt. It's contained on Page 7 of the English Document Book and Page 9 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution now offersNO-4057as Prosecution Exhibit23. This is a decree extablishing the main staff office, Stabshauptamt, and the organization of VOMI as SS main offices. It is contained on Page 11 of the English Document Book and Pare 13 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution offers now DocumentNO-4237as Prosecution Exhibit 24. This is a Himmler decree establishing the administration of the so-called Buero fuer Volkstumsfragen, office for Folkdom questions and the jurisdiction of the four SS main offices in connection with the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism; namely, one, VOMI: twoo RSHA: three RuSHA; and four, the Main Staff Office, This document is contained on Page 16 of the English Document Book and Page 18 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution offers now Document No.NO-4026, as Prosecution Exhibit 25. This is a decree by the defendant Greifelt, dated 29 June 1942, concerning the jurisdiction of HSSPF's higher SS and police leaders over employees of the Main Staff Office--Stabshauptamt. It is dated June 1942. It is contained on Page 25 of the English Document Book and on Page 27 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution now offers the Himmler Decree dated 15 December 1939 appointing HTO, Haupttreuhandstelle OST, the Main Trusteeship Agency East for the purpose of seizing and confiscating cultural goods of Poles and Jews at the disposal of the Reich Commissioner for the \n Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 138, "page_number": "138", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This document is contained on Page 26 in the English Document Book and Page 28 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution now offersNO-4056as Exhibit 27. This is a Himmler decree dated 2 January 1940 concerning the seizure of cultural goods belonging to ethnic Germans. This document is contained on Page 23 of the English Document Book, and Page 35 of the German Document Book.\nThe Prosecution offers--pardon me--I call the attention of the Court to the fact that the Prosecution wishes to omit DocumentNO-4128in the English Document Book. Page 31, and German Document Book, Page 36, because it considers this document as immaterial.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4679, as Prosecution Exhibit 28 on Page 33 of the English Document Book and Page 37 of the German Document Book. This is a decree by the defendant Greifelt, dated August 15, 1940, and showing the importance of the legal department, finance department, planning department, and HTO; also, the importance of the seizure of the legal department.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4715as Prosecution Exhibit 29, on Page 38 of the English Document Book and Page 42 of the German Document Book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Greifelt concerning resettlement and Germanization of Poles.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just state who the affidavit is executed by and the date of the note of the contents.\nMR. SCHWENK:The affidavit by Greifelt is executed on July 1, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4713, as Prosecution Exhibit 30 on Page 40 of the English Document Book and Page 46 of the German Document Book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Schwarzenberger, executed on 30 June 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4714as Prosecution Exhibit 31, on Page 43 of the English Document Book and Page 51 of the German Document Book. This is another affidavit by the defendant \n Schwarzenberger, executed on 30 June 1947.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 139, "page_number": "139", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offersNO-4718as Prosecution Exhibit32, on Page 53 of the English Document Book and Page 60 of the German Document Book. This is a affidavit by the defendant Creutz, executed on 28 of June 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No. NO. 5049 as Prosecution Exhibit 33, on Page 56 of the English Document Book and Page 65 of the German Document Book, affidavit by the defendant Huebner, executed on the 29 of May 1947.\nThe Prosecution how offers an affidavit,NO-2555as Prosecution Exhibit No. 34, on Page 70 of the English Document Book and Page 90 of the German Document Book, affidavit by Hertha Suadicani, executed on 6 March 1947.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 140, "page_number": "140", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "May I call the attention of this Tribunal to the fact that the Prosecution omits DocumentNO-4188on Page 72 of the English Document Book and Page 92 of the German Document Book because the same document has been put in evidence under a different and old number already.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3511as Prosecution Exhibit 35, on page 77 of the English Document Book and page 96 of the German Document Book. This is a table of organization of the Office of the Deputy Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Government-General dated December 1, 1943.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3981as Prosecution Exhibit No. 36 on page 93 of the English Document Book and page 113 of the German Document Book. May I call the attention of the Court to the fact that the index and cover sheets have been reversed in its order; in other words, in the English Document Book, page 93 should follow 94.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4389as Prosecution Exhibit No. 37, on page 22 of the English Document Book and Page 144 of the German Document Book. This is an Ordinance numbered 85, Roman I, dated 9 December 1942, and signed by the defendant Creutz.\nThe Prosecution offers now Document No.NO-3840as Prosecution Exhibit No. 38, on page 123 of the English Document Book and page 145 of the German Document Book. This document contains directives concerning establishing of a fund for cultivation and promotion of Germanism.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3526as Prosecution Exhibit 39, on page 129 of the English Document Book and page 154 of the German Document Book. This is a table of organization, of the organization of the ethnic Germans in Europe.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4717as Prosecution Exhibit No. 40, on page 138 of the English Document Book, and 163 of the German Document Book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Brueckner executed June 30, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4725as Prosecution \n Exhibit 41, on page 141 of the English Document Book and page 167 of the German Document Book.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 141, "page_number": "141", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This is an affidavit by the defendant Brueckner executed on 30 June 1947.\nThis concludes the documents in Book 11-B. We are now turning to the documents contained in Document Book 11-C.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4047as Prosecution Exhibit 42, on page 1, of the English Document Book and page 1 of the German Document Book. This is a list of RuSHA offices and addresses dated March 1943, under the defendant Hofmann.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No,NO-2578as Prosecution Exhibit No. 43 on page 10 of the English Document Book and page 10 of the German Document Book. This is a list of RuSHA names and addresses dated 18 November 1944.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3495as Prosecution Exhibit 44, page 21 of the English Document Book and page 20 of the German Document Book. This document contains draft of instructions for EWZ.\nThe Prosecution now puts in evidence the document No.NO-1402as Prosecution Exhibit45, on page 29 of the English Document Book and page 37 of the German document Book. This is a report on a meeting of RuSHA leaders.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence Document No.NO-3600as Prosecution Exhibit46, on page 37 of the English Document Book and page 41 of the German Document Book. This document contains a monthly report by RuSHA leaders in France, dated 8 December 1943.\nThe Prosecution now offersNO-3123as Prosecution Exhibit47, on page 43 of the English Document Book and Page 47 of the German Document Book. This is a secret record of files in the office of the RuSHA. leader in France, undated.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentPS-2284(a) as Prosecution Exhibit 48, on page 44 of the English Document Book and Page 48 of the German Document Book. This is an excerpt from a book entitled \"The SS \n by Guenther D'Alquen concerning RuSHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 142, "page_number": "142", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution new offers DocumentNO-2791as Prosecution Exhibit No. 49, on page 46 of the English Document Book and page 67 of the German Document Book. The document contains correspondence between Pancke, fromer Chief of RuSHA and the RFSS--Reichsfuehrer SS -- concerning jurisdiction between RuSHA and the Office for Racial Policy, dated May 1940 and 3 of June 1940.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-2576as Prosecution Exhibit No. 50 on page 49 of the English Document Book and page 70 of the German Document Book. The document contains a draft of a memorandum concerning functions of RuSHA, dated 6 November 1941.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-2577as Prosecution Exhibit 51 on page 53 of the English Document Book and page 75 of the German Document Book. The document is a memorandum by the Chief of the RuSHA concerning the division of the Eugenics Office -- Sippenamt -- into four new offices, dated 26 November 1941.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO-4114as Prosecution Exhibit 52 on page 56 of the English Document Book and page 79 of the German Document Book, concerning a Himmler decree on settlement of SS men by RuSHA.\nMay I turn back to one document which I left out, to offer it in evidence -- the proceeding document. The Prosecution offers Document No.NO-4093as Prosecution. Exhibit 53 on page 55 of the English Document Book -- and I don't have available the page number in the German Document Book -- Page 78 of the German Document Book. This is a decree by the defendant Hofmann concerning camouflage in earring our racial examinations.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3939(g) as Prosecution Exhibit No. 54 on page 58 of the English Document Book and page 82 of the German Document Book. This document constitutes the appointment of the defendant Hofmann as acting chief of the Office for Racial Matters -Rassenamt--dated 16 December 1939. With regard to Document No.NO-3939, which I just put in evidence, I understand that the letter (g) has to be \n Court I Case VIII omitted.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 143, "page_number": "143", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "It's DocumentNO-3939.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3939as Prosecution Exhibit--oh, it has been offered -- the DocumentNO-3939is a document containing both the appointment of the defendant Hofmann as Acting Chief of the Office for Racial Matters and as the Chief of the RuSHA so both documents are contained in oneNO numberand one Prosecution Exhibit number, on page 58 and 59 of the English Document Book and on page 82 and 83 of the German Document Book. It's one document.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 144, "page_number": "144", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offers DocumentNO-4848as Prosecution Exhibit No. 55, on page 60 of the English Document Book and page 84 of the German Document Book. This is a document concerning the directives given by the defendant Hofmann to RuSHA and HFHPS over RuSHA leaders.\nProsecution now offers DocumentNO 5122as prosecution Exhibit No. 56, on page 62 of the English Document Book and page 87 of the German Document Book. The document is the appointment of the defendant Hildebrandt as Chief of RuSHA dated 20 May 1943.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 4745as Prosecution Exhibit No. 57 on Page 63 of the English Document Book and Page 88 of the German Document Book. This is a special ordinance numbered 16/44 by Turner, representative of the Chief of RuSHA concerning local jurisdiction of RuSHA leaders, dated 20 March 1944.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence DocumentNO 4699as Prosecution Exhibit No.58, on page 65 of the English Document Book and page 91 of the German Document Book.\nDR.SCHWARZ (for the defendant Hofmann): During the examination of the defendant I would like to reserve myself the right to supplement the affidavit because the supplement to the defendant Hofmann's affidavit is not contained in the document which has been introduced just now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may offer anything you want to when you get to the defense testimony and we will rule on it at that time.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you, your Honor.\nMR. SCHWENK:This document is affidavit by the defendant Hofmann executed 9 June 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 4716as Prosecution Exhibit No. 59 on page 67 of the English Document Book and page 94 of the German Document Book. This is an affidavit by the defendant, Hildebrandt executed 22 January 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 4153as Prosecution \n Exhibit No. 60, on page 73 of the English Document Book and page 99 of the German Document Book.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 145, "page_number": "145", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This is an organizational chart of the Lebensborn certified to by the defendant Sollmann on the 28th of June 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offersNO 4148on page 74 of the English Document Book and page 100 of the German Document Book. This is a chart showing the position of the Lebensborn within the SS, certified to by the defendant Sollmann on 28 June 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 3498as Prosecution Exhibit No. 62 on page 76 of the English Document Book and 107 of the German Document Book. This is a document containing the articles of collaboration of the Lebensborn E. V.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No 2884 as Prosecution Exhibit No. 63 on page 85 of the English Document Book and page 107 of the German Document Book. This is a Himmler circular concerning the collaboration between the SS and the Lebensborn and the objectives of the Lebensborn dated 8 August 1936.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No 3325 as Prosecution Exhibit No. 64, on page 86 of the English Document Book and on page 115 of the German Document Book. This is an instructural pamphlet No. 3 of the SS Health Office on the Lebensborn and the objectives of the Lebensborn, dated 31 May 1937.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentPS 2284as Prosecution Exhibit No. 65, on page 92 of the English Document Book and page 124 of the German Document Book.\nI understand this document has already been offered in evidence as Exhibit No. 48. I, therefore, omit this document.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 3919as Prosecution Exhibit No. 65, on page 93 of the English Document Book and page 127 of the German Document Book. This is an order by Himmler transferring the administration of the Lebensborn to Pohl dated 25 June 1937.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 146, "page_number": "146", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 1362as Prosecution Exhibit No, 66 on page 94 of the English Document Book and page 128 of the German Document Book. This is a letter by the defendant Ebner to Pohl concerning seizure of properties in Austria for the Lebensborn and dated June 21, 1938.\nDR.SCHMIDT (for defendant Tesch): May it please your Honor I do not wish to raise an objection but I would only like to point out something with reference to Prosecution Exhibit No.62which is NO. 3498. It was introduced as Statutes of the Lebensborn dated 10 March 1943. This is probably a mistake because from the Statutes it can be seen that the 10th of February 1938 is the correct date. I would only like to have that corected, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Of course the Tribunal doesn't know about that. The counsel will have to get together and sea if they can agree on a date.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I have an opportunity to look at the document in order to determine the date? It is dated March 24, 1938.\nTHE PRESIDENT:His observation of the date-----\nMR. SCHWENK:No, pardon me, 10 February 1938.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 3266as Proseccution Exhibit No. 67, on page 96 of the English Document Book and page 131 of the German Document Book. This is a letter by Himmler to the defendant Ebner concerning the transfer of Lebensborn enterprises to the WVHA and making the net profits of those enterprises\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are getting into the contents of the affidavit. Just simply describe it.\nMR. SCHWENK:This is a letter by Himmler to defendant Ebner dated 4 March 1940.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 1035as Prosecution Exhibit No. 68. This is a letter concerning the Inmates of concentration camps to be made available to SS enterprises. The \n date is 21 July 1942 and the date in the index of the document book is different and wrong.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 147, "page_number": "147", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The date in the index of the document book differs from the date of the document itself. The date on the document is the correct date.\nThe Prosecution now offers DocumentNO 2833as Prosecution Exhibit No. 69, on page 100 of the English Document Book and page 127 of the German Document Book. This is an office memorandum by the defendant Sollmann on Lebensborn financing for 1942 and the following year.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The court will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 148, "page_number": "148", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session. MR. SCHWENK: May I proceed? THE PRESIDENT: Proceed. MR. WCHWENK: I would like to put two more documents in evidence which I omitted in Document Book No. 11-B; it is Document No.NO-4057on page II of the English document book and page 31 of the German document book, and is an order by the Reichs Fuehrer SS in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism, concerning the establishment of the Main Staff Office, Stabshauptamt and Vomi, dated 11 June, 1941, as Exhibit No. 70. I also would like to offer in evidence Document No. NO-3088 as Prosecution Exhibit71, on page 19 of Document Book 11-B in the English document book and page 21 in the German document book. This is a memorandum by defendant Greifelt and Lorenz concerning the cooperation of the Stabshauptamt and the Main Office for the Racial Population of Germans, which is Vomi, with a cover letter by Greifelt.\nI am now turning back to Document Book 11-C. The Prosecution now offers in evidence Document No. NO.3267 as Prosecution Exhibit No.72, on page 102 of the English document book and page 139 of the German document book. This is a letter by the defendant Hofmann to the defendant Sellmann, dated 14 December, 1942, and concerning the appointment of RuSHA leaders as representatives of Lebensborn. The Prosecution now offers the document as Exhibit No. 72.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-3268as Prosecution Exhibit No. 73, on page 104 of the English document book and page 142 of the German document book. This is the answer of the defendant Tesch to Hofmann, dated 22 December, 1942 to the letter mentioned in the preceding exhibit.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4269as Prosecution Exhibit No. 74, on page 107 of the English Document Book and page 145 of the German document book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Sellmann executed 27 June, 1947. May I correct theNO numberof the document which I just put in evidence. It is notNO-4269, but NO-4209.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 149, "page_number": "149", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The exhibit number remains as it is.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No. NO.4075 as Prosecution Exhibit No, 75 on page 110 of the English document book and page 151 of the German document book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Sellmann, executed 28 June, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4707as Prosecution Exhibit No. 76, on page 113 of the English document book and page 155 of the German document book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Sellmann executed 26 June, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4703as Prosecution Exhibit No. 77, on page 116 of the English document book and page 160 of the German document book. This is an affidavit by the defendant Viermetz, executed 1st of July, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-4711as Prosecution Exhibit No. 78, on page 120 of the English document book and page 164 of the German document book. This is another affidavit by the defendant Viermetz, executed on 1st of July, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers Document No.NO-5043as Prosecution Exhibit No. 79, on page 121 of the English document book and page 166 of the German document book. Tills is an affidavit by Else Mayer, dated 8th of August, 1947.\nThe Prosecution now offers a document which it inadvertently omitted; namely, Document No.NO-4970, as Prosecution Exhibit No.80. This is an affidavit by defendant Huebner, on page 98 of the German document book and page 80 of the English document book.\nThe Prosecution will now continue to put the documents in evidence in Document Book No. III.\nThe last document offered in evidence is on page 71 in Document Book II-C, an affidavit, executed by Huebner,NO-4970. MR. NEELY: Mr. Neely for the Prosecution. May it please the Court, if you turn to Document Book No, III, the documents which we will offer into evidence will be found in that book. First, I would like to offer \n into evidence DocumentNO-5001, found on page 1 of the English as well as 1 of the German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 150, "page_number": "150", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This document is an excerpt from the IMT judgment, and is entered as Prosecution Exhibit No,81.\nAt this time I would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-3732, found on page 3 of the English and 4 of the German. This is a Treatise issued by the Racial Political Office of the NSDAP, dealing with the treatment of the Polish population, dated 25th November, 1939, and entered as Prosecution Exhibit No.82.\nThe next document is listed in the index of Document Book No.III as separate documents,NO-679-A and NO-679-B. This will be entered as one exhibit. It is found on page 39 of the English and 53 of the German, as well as page 40 of the English and 54 of the German. It is a cover letter from Rudolf Brandt to RUSHA enclosing the letter from Gross, Chief of the political Racial Office of the NSDAP, to Himmler; it is dated; the cover letter is dated 2 December, 1939; and the enclosed letter is dated 2nd of December, 1939. This document is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.83.\nI would like to correct that; it seems there is a misunderstanding. That document just referred to should beNO-1679.\nI would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-1880, which is found on page 41 of the English and 56 of the German, which document is entitled reflections on the treatment of peoples of alien racies in the east. It is entered as Prosecution Exhibit No.84. DR. HAENSEL: (For Ulrich Greifelt) I want to make an objection concerning Exhibit 82. First, this is a photostat of a letter, of an article written on the typewriter which is in no way signed or initialed, and, therefore, one cannot tell where, how and who ever received it. Furthermore, the introduction to the article in the photostat is headed by order of the Racial political Office of the Nazi Party, and not by order of the Racial and Settlement Main Office. Therefore, I want to make an objection concerning this document. THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will duly note your objection and give to \n the document such consideration and such weight as it appears that it is entitled to have.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 151, "page_number": "151", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Go ahead. MR. NEELY: I would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-1881, found on page 40 of the English and 62 of the German. This is a memorandum by Himmler concerning distribution of the Treatise on the treatment of peoples of alien races in the east, and is entered as Prosecution Exhibit No. 85. DR. BEHLING: (For Meyer and Hetling) I object to the presentation of this document, according to the photostat this is a document which bears no signature whatsoever, and by which one cannot tell whether it was ever sent out; nor, does one know who dispatched it.\nTherefore, I would like to register my objection. THE PRESIDENT: Your objections will be, duly noted and the document will be given only such weight as it is legally entitled to by the Tribunal. MR. NEELY: Your Honor, in connection with the object just made. I think the Court in taking these documents, as presented in a series here, that you will find the references to another. These were found in a file and within themselves we do not intend to show the true picture within itself, but in connection with other documents, 1880 and other documents which have been entered into evidence, I think our statement as to the distribution will be true. At this time I would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-2001, which is found on page 47 of the English and 65 of the German. This consists of four letters, two from Greifelt to Himmler and two from Rudolf Brandt to Greifelt, all concerning distribution of the Himmler treatise on the treatment of people of alien race in the east. These letters were all dated during the month of June, 1940, and entered as Prosecution Exhibit No.86.\nThe next document which I would like to offer into evidence is DocumentNO-4211, which is found on page 51 of the English and 70 of the German. This is a letter from Greifelt to Himmler, returning a \n copy of the Himmler treatise on the treatment of peoples of alien race in the east, and is dated 23 July, 1940, and is hereby offered as Prosecution Exhibit No. 87.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 152, "page_number": "152", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "DocumentNO-3348is found on page 53 of the English and 71 of the German, and excerpts from DocumentNO-3348, dated 23 October, 1941, which is a lecture by Meyer, Chief of Planning and Territory Department of RKFDV; it is hereby entered as prosecution Exhibit No. 88.\nDocument No.-2585 is found on page 65 of the English and 97 of the German and is a report on a meeting concerning Germanization, particularly in the Baltic countries. This was dated 7 February, 1942, and hereby offered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.89.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 153, "page_number": "153", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "DR.BEHLING: (For the defendant Meyer and Hetling) May it please the Tribunal, Exhibit No. 88 which the Prosecutor has just introduced contains a number of corrections in handwriting -- as I have just seen in the photostat.\nOn account of the short time available to me, it is impossible for me to compare the handwritten corrections with the original, but I have already found that there are also translating errors which distort the meaning and that words have been omitted. For example, on page 7 of the original the word \"uebertragen\" has been entered, whereas in the original it says \"* ueberzeugen -- convince -- naturally, that is a great difference; and in my view it is absolutely necessary for the Defense to have an opportunity to examine the original documents before they are offered to the Tribunal and received in evidence.\nWould you please take that into account or in this specific case, would you please give me a n opportunity to check up on the original document, and later again to tell you all my objections.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Court, the Prosecution has prepared photostatic document books, that is, the document book contains these documents, photostatic copies, for the Defense; a complete set of theft photostats is available to the Defense. The Document control Branch has informed me that yesterday morning the Defense Information Center was telephoned that these documents were available, and we will continue to make them available. They are at the disposal of the Defense, and may be taken by them at any time if they have not yet been taken. Furthermore, I would like to suggest that if the Defense has any objections as to translations, that if they will take them up with the Prosecution first, and if we could then not reach an agreement it could be brought up in court, but I am sure that many of these are due to oversight either by us or by somebody else, and that they can be ironed out without taking up the time of the Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 154, "page_number": "154", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Suppose you follow that suggestion and take the question of errors in translation up with the Prosecution. If you can't agree on it, then we will see what we can do about it.\nDR. BEHLING:Very well, Your Honor.\nMR. NEELY:I should now like to offer into evidence Document NO-2255, as found on page 69 of the English and 105 of the German.\nThis document consists of six letters from Himmler, Greifelt and Meyer, relating to the General Plan East. It is hereby of offered into evidence as Exhibit No. 90.\nDocumentNO-2915-PS is found on page 82 of the English and 120 of the German and is excerpts from the Deutsche Arbeit from June and July 1942, and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No. 91.\nThe next document which I would like to offer into evidence; there has been some mistake, that is as to 1918-PS. It isfound on page 85 of the English and 125 of the German. This was an excerpt from a speech by Himmler to party comrades and the excerpt given in the German document book was the wrong excerpt, but that has been corrected, or been distributed and with the proper notations made on that; and it should be 1918-PS instead of 1918-RPS. It is hereby offered into evidence as Exhibit No. 93 -- 92, I am sorry; as Prosecution Exhibit No.92.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (For the defendant Hofmann) I object to this document.\nThe document is not defined, nor is the place where the speech was held given. Please note my objections.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your objections have been duly noted.\nMR. NEELY:In regard to the remarks concerning the last document, this document, as you will see in proper perusal is marked as a speech; it is given as a document. Whether it was delivered that is something else, butit is listed as a speech in the notation.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will say to you what I have already said. We will consider the document and all evidence about it and give it such \n weight as it is entitled to, and no more.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "DR.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 155, "page_number": "155", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "MR. NEELY:Mr. Lamb will now take up Document Book IV.\nDR.BEHLING : (For Meyter and Hetling) Concerning DocumentNO-2255, Exhibit No. 90, in Document Book III, I want to object to it being presented in its present form.\nThis constitutes only a fraction of the whole of the document for the General Plan for the East. Statistical material is lacking and charts and also references are lacking which can be found in the letter itself. In particular, the document refers to a letter or a previous plan from the year 1941. Those documents are necessary in order to obtain a complete picture and a general idea of the plan. 1 assume that the Prosecution has the entire material available.\nTherefore, I ask the Prosecution, if they do not intend to introduce the whole of the material, to give me an opportunity to see the remaining document and to examine them so that ifnecessary I can introduce them on behalf of the Defense.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 156, "page_number": "156", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "MR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the defense counsel already have an established procedure whereby they may ask for documents which they wish, subject to the approval of the Tribunal. I suggest that this request be submitted through the established procedure, and such request need not he brought up in Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think that is proper.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, I will now proceed with the introduction of the documents contained in Document Book IV-A. We now offer in evidence -- May it please the Tribunal, I will not call out out the pages of this German Document Book for the reason that these all follow in order and they can follow along the index as they are found in the book here. It is sort of confusing to call out so many page numbers, so I will just give the page number in the English translation and the German follows along as it is in the index.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is all right if it's so they can follow.\nMR. LAMB:It's in order here and I think they can follow it.\nThe Prosecution next offers in evidence, the decree signed by Himmler, dated September 12, 1940, DocumentNO-3531, as Exhibit 93, shown on Page 1 of the Document Book.\nNext, on Page 5 of the Document Book, the Prosecution introduces a decree signed by Himmler, Frick and Hess, dated March 4, 1941, DocumentNO-4152, as Exhibit 94.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on page 10, a decree signed by Himmler, Stuckart and B ormann, dated 31 January 1942, DocumentNO-4618, Exhibit 95.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 13, an order signed by Stuckart as Reich Minister of the Interior, dated 4 May 1942, Document No.NO-4620, as Exhibit 96.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 17, order signed by Stuckart as Reich Minister of the Interior, dated 4 May 1942, Document No.NO-4621, as Exhibit 97.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 157, "page_number": "157", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer Document shown on Page 23, order issued by the Defendant Greifelt, dated 4 September 1942, Document No.NO-4622, as Exhibit 98.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 26, a Himmler decree, dated 9 February 1942, Document No.NO-4739, being Exhibit No. 99.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 33, a decree signed by Himmler, dated 31 October 1941, being DocumentNO-4869, as Exhibit 100.\nWe next offer the Document shown on Page 35 and on Page 36, being a cover letter, dated June 8, 1942, from RKFDV, and an order by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, dated 30 May 1942, being DocumentNO-4686, as Exhibit 101.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 40-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Do you offer 4686 (a) and 4686 (b) as one document?\nMR. LAMB:Yes, sir. That is one exhibit; 101.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 40, being an order issued by the RKFDV, numbered 50, dated September 30, 1941, being Document NO-4025, as Exhibit 102.\nWe next offer memorandum signed by Klinger, dated 7 April 1942 on Page 41 of the Document Book, and being Document No. 4041, as Exhibit 103.\nThe next exhibit is also in two parts, but is offered as one exhibit. It's shown on Page 45 and 46 of the Document Book. It's a cover letter sent by the RKFDV, dated April 18, 1942, and a letter from the defendant Greifelt, dated 15 April 1942. This is Document NO-4689 and is offered as Exhibit No. 104.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 48 of the Document Book, letter by the Supreme President of Upper Silesia, dated 9 June 1942, being Document No.NO-4815, and our exhibit No. 105.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 158, "page_number": "158", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer Document shown on Page 51 of the Document Book, being an order issued by the SS leader for race and settlement affairs, which has no date but which is Document No.NO-4186, as our Exhibit 106.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 53 of the Document Book, being a notice of decisions pertaining to seizure of property belonging to individuals entered in Group III of DVL and dated 18 May 1942, Document No.NO-4686, as our Exhibit 107.\nWe next offer Document shown on I age 55 of the Document Book, as order signed by Himmler as RKFDV, dated 16 February 1942, being Document No.NO-3091, as our Exhibit 108.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 61 of the Document Book, being a copy of a letter from the defendant Greifelt, dated May 17, 1943, being DocumentNO-2879, as our Exhibit 109.\nWe next offer Document shown on page 65 of the Document Book, being a copy of an order issued by Himmler as RKFDV, dated 1 July 1942, being Document No.NO-4279, as our Exhibit 110.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 69 of the Document Book, being a copy of Order No, 80, issued by the Supreme President of Upper Silesia, dated 11 December 1942, being Document No,NO-4668, as our Exhibit 111.\nWe next offer Document Shown on Page 70 of the Document Book, being a copy of a letter to the Reichstatthalter of the Wartheland, concerning the distribution of property by members of Group IV, DVL. This is DocumentNO-2648, as our Exhibit No. 112.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 72 of the Document Book, being a letter from the Kattowitz local office of RKFDV to the Main Staff Office in Berlin, dated 9 June 1943, being Document No.NO-3082, as our Exhibit 113.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 159, "page_number": "159", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We will now take up the documents contained in Document Book IV-B.\nWe next offer in evidence, Document shown on Page 1 of the Document Book, being on order signed by Himmler, dated 16 February 1942, Document No.NO-3092, as our Exhibit No. 114.\nWe next offer Document shown on I age 2 of the Document Book, being an order of the Race office of RuSHA, signed by Klinger, dated 28 September 1944, being Document No. NO-1393, as our Exhibit 115.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 4 of the Document Book, being an order signed by Mildner, dated 19 May 1942, being Document No.NO-3093, as our Exhibit 116.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 6 of the Document Book, being a memorandum signed by Mildner, dated 21 April 1942, being Document No.NO-3096, as Exhibit No. 117.\nThe next two documents will be offered as one exhibit: the documents shown on Page 8 and 10 of the Document Book, a letter from Dongus to RuSHA, dated 21 September 1944; and a letter to an ethnic German, Klemens Junker, dated 2 November 1944, being DocumentNO-4286, as our Exhibit 118.\nThe next four documents will be introduced as one exhibit and consist of correspondence, beginning on Page 11 of the Document Book, First, is a letter from the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Warthegau, Greiser, to the HSSPF, dated 16 March 1943; and the next is a letter from Brandt to Krueger, dated 21 March 1943. The next is an undated memorandum concerning the Greiser letter; and the last is a letter from Berg of Himmler's staff to Ehlich, dated 3 April 1943; this correspondence being Document No.NO-3992, as Prosecution Exhibit No.119.\nWe next offer the Document shown on page 16 of the \n COURT I CASE VIII Document Book, being e letter from Krueger to Himmler, dated 15 April 1943, being Document No.NO-3993, and Prosecution's Exhibit No. 120.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 160, "page_number": "160", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer Document shown on Page 18 of the Document Book, a letter from the Gauleiter Greiser to Himmler, dated 15 April 1943, being Document No.NO-2425, as our Exhibit 121.\nWe next offer Document shown on page 22 of the Document Book, being a memorandum signed by Krueger, dated 20 July 1943, being Document No.NO-3994, as our Exhibit No. 122.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 26 of the Document Book, being a letter from Koppe of HSSPF, Posen, to Brandt, dated 31 July 1943, being DocumentNO-3995, as our Exhibit 123.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 28 of the Document Book, being a letter from Himmler to Koch, dated 8 September 1942, being Document No.NO-2277, as Prosecution Exhibit 124.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 29 of the Document Book, being a letter from Wirsich of RKFDV to Brueckner of VOM, dated 3 February 1943 in Document No.NO-4030, as our Exhibit No. 125.\nWe next offer Document shown on page 31, being a letter from Wolfrum to Wirsich, dated 16 April 1943, being Document No.NO-4028, as our Exhibit No. 126.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 161, "page_number": "161", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer Document shown on Page 32, being a letter from the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories, dated 23 April 1943, being Document No.NO-4027, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 127.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 34, being a letter signed by Brueckner dated 14 April 1943 to the Reich Ministry of the Occupied Eastern territories, being DocumentNO-3693, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 128.\nI next offer Document shown on Page 36 being a letter signed by Book dated 11 May 1943, addressed to Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, being Document No.NO-3694, as Prosecution Exhibit129.\nWe next introduce document shown on Page 38 being a letter signed by Kinkelin addressed to the Reich Commissioner for the Ostland, dated 25 April 1944 and being Document NO.NO-3695, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 130.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 40, being copy of a cable from Vomi to Himmler, dated 16 March 1943, Document No.NO-2473, as Prosecution Exhibit No.131.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 42 being a copy of a memorandum by the Chief of the Immigration Office, dated 25 March 1943, being Document No.NO-3508, as Prosecution Exhibit No.132.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 47, being a report covering the months of May to August 1943 on the registration of persons of German stock in Northern France, being-Document No.NO-2478, as prosecution Exhibit No. 133.\nFor the benefit of those who are using the German translation, the next item, beingNO-2478(2) is omitted.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 78, of the Document Book, being a letter from Dongus, Chief of the Lodz Branch Office of RuSHA to Roedel, dated 13 April 1943, being Document No.NO-3509, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 134.\nWe next offer the document shown on Page 80, being a letter from \n Gauleiter Bohl to Lorenz, dated 7 August 1943, being document No. NO 2547, as Prosecution Exhibit No.135.We next offer Document shown on Page 82, being a letter from Lorenz to Himmler, dated 17 August 1943, being Document No.NO-2553, as Prosecution Exhibit No.136.We next offer document shown on Page 86, being a letter to Bohle on the acquisition of German citizenship, and written by Rudolph Brandt, being Document No.NO-2533, as Prosecution Exhibit No.137.we will now trice up the documents included in Document Book 4-C.The Prosecution offers in evidence document shown on Page 1, being an order signed by Himmler, dated 9 Kay 1940, being Document No. NO-5148, as Prosecution Exhibit No.138.We next offer in evidence a directive signed by Himmler.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 162, "page_number": "162", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This is shown on Page 5 of the Document Book. It is dated the 9 of November 1940. It is document No.NO-1682, as Prosecution Exhibit No.139.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 7, being a letter by Hofmann to Kuenzel, enclosing plan of selection of Polish Nationals, as Document No.NO-4324--pardon me just a moment, your Honor. That is document No. 4324 and it is introduced as Prosecution Exhibit No.140.\nWe next offer in evidence document shown on Page 9, being a draft of instructions for the selection of Poles in the new Eastern regions, being signed by the Chief of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office, being dated -- this instrument has no date - being numbered Document No.NO-4325and is offered as Prosecution Exhibit No.141.\nFor the benefit of those using the German translation, the next document,L-46, is omitted.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 12, being a memo by Haemmerlain concerning Germanization, dated 19 May 1944, being Document No. NO-3271, as Prosecution Exhibit No.142. DR. HEIM: Dr. Heim for the Defendant Schwalm. Your Honor, concerning the introduction of this document, I want to make the following objection: According to the index this document has been designated as a memo by Haemmerlein about re-Germanization. Now that I have read \n through this document, I have found that the first two pages are a document which has in fact nothing to do at all with the document named in the index.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 163, "page_number": "163", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This is in fact a report by a Hauptsturmfuehrer Goetz who was RUS leader in the Sector \"North\". This document quite evidently does not form part of the document named in the index and, therefore, I object to its introduction.\nConcerning the remainder of this document, I should like to point out that the document does not show that this is merely part of a bigger document. This document has not been described as an extract. Evidently, for proper understanding of the document which has been submitted, it is essential that the Prosecution should also submit the first part of the document and that is another reason for me to object to the introduction of this document. THE PRESIDENT: Your objection will be duly noted and the document will be given such weight as the document itself shows, and not the index. The Court will consider the document, of course, and not the indes; and whatever probative value the document has the Court will give to it. If it has none, it will give it none. DR. HEIM: Thank you. MR. LAMB: The Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 42, being a circular from RKFDV in connection with the labor allocation of Poles eligible for Germanization. It is dated 3 July 1940 and is Document No.NO-4681. It is offered as Prosecution Exhibit143. DR. HAENSEL: May I ask for the indulgence of the Tribunal? I want to discuss the question of our lunchtime recess, at the request of my colleagues. In all the other Tribunals the recess begins at about 12:15 and lasts for an hour and a quarter for the reason that we, the defense counsel, have to leave this building and have to go across to our mess; and if we only have one hour that makes our time very short. Therefore, I should like to ask the Tribunal to allow an hour and a quarter. Whether you wish that recess to begin at 12:15 and continue until 1:30, or whether you prefer it to start at 12:30 and go on un \n til 1:45, that naturally would be for the discretion of the Tribunal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 164, "page_number": "164", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "I merely want to ask you to consider that question. Really, if it is only an hour it makes it rather difficult for us. THE PRESIDENT: Well, I can understand that. I did not know before that you had to go somewhere else to eat. We will recess at this time until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 165, "page_number": "165", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 21 October 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, I would lkie to say with reference to the objection that was made just before we recessed at noon concerning document No.NO-3271, that there was an error made by which certain of the pages were left out of the document and I want to tell the defense counsel and the Court that those pages will be inserted and that the Court and the Defense counsel will have the benefit of those pages which were erroneously omitted.\nThe Prosecution next offers in evidence Document shown on Page 46 of Book 4-C, which book we are now using, letter from the Supreme President of Upper Silesia, dated 9 June 1942, Document No.NO-3076, as Prosecution Exhibit No.144.\nThe Prosecution next offersin evidence Document shown on Page 49 being a letter from RKFDV concerning racial examination in Silesia, being Document No.NO-4616, as Prosecution Exhibit No.145.\nWe offer document shown on Page 51, being a letter written by Hofmann, dated 21 January, 1941, being Document No.NO-4650, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 146.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 53, being a letter from RKFDV to RuSha, dated 10 January 1941, being Document No.NO-4654, as Prosecution Exhibit No 147.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 55, being an RKFDV memorandum re special treatment of Polish workers, dated 27 August 1941, being Document No.NO-3095, as Prosecution Exhibit No.148.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 57, being Hofmann's letter from Hofmann to SS-Hauptamt re selection of Poles, dated 10 July 1942, Document No.NO-1737, as Prosecution Exhibit No.149.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 59 being an order signed \n by Hofmann concerning racial examinations, dated 4 August 1942, being Document No.NO-4954, as our Exhibit No. 150.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 166, "page_number": "166", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer document shown on Page 60, being an RKFDV order concerning the Germanization of Poles, dated 8 September 1942, being Document NO.NO-2877, as Prosecution Exhibit151.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 62, being an RKFDV Letter concerning minors not on racial register, dated 26 September 1942, being document No.NO-4688, as Prosecution Exhibit No.152.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 64, being a cover letter from Harders to Hofmann, dated 6 October, 1942, and also document shown on Page 65, being Harders' report on the results of Germanization activities. These two instruments are shown by Document No.NO-1600and are offered together as Prosecution Exhibit153.\nDR. MAAS:Dr. Maas for the Defendant Schwalm. Your Honor, I would like to object to the introduction of this document on the grounds that the accompanying letter does have the signature, whereas the original was not signed by anybody. That is the reason why the document has no probative value for this proceeding.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your objection will be duly noted and whatever probative value the document has the Court will give it.\nMR. LAMB:For the benefit of those using the German translation, the next document shown on the index is omitted. That is Document No. NO-3996.\nThe Prosecution next offers in evidence RKFDV bulletin concerning the Germanization of Poles, Slovenes and others shown on Page 77 of the Document Book, dated 21 May 1943, being Document No.NO-4127, as Prosecution Exhibit 154.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on Page 79 of the Document Book, being a letter from Heintze to representatives of RKFDV dated 24 May 1943, being Document No.NO-2875, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 155.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR. MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 167, "page_number": "167", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "MR. LAMB: We will now take up Document Book 4-D. The first document is document shown on page 1. It is documentNO 2792. It is an order by Greifelt dated 31 July 1940 concerning Poles to be brought to Germany as Agricultural workers as Prosecution Exhibit156.\nWe next offer document shown on page 4, documentNO 4336, being a letter of RuSHA concerning Polish domestics dated 10 February 1941 as Prosecution Exhibit157.\nWe next offer document shown on page 6, document No.NO 2481being a letter from the defendant Greifelt to RFSS concerning the employment of domestics, being documentNO 2481, as Exhibit 158.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 9, being document NO 3938, being an order signed by Himmler No. 51, dated 1 October 1941 concerning the drafting of Polish and Ukrainian girls for domestics as Prosecution Exhibit No.159.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 11 and numberedNO 3090being a letter from defendant Greifelt to Himmler concerning Polish girls eligible for Germanization dated August 1941 and being Prosecution Exhibit 160.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 14 and numbered NO 2267 being a letter from Creutz to Reichfuehrer SS dated 20 February 1942 concerning the acquisition of maids for Germanization as Prosecution Exhibit 161.\nThe next two items are introduced as one Exhibit; they are shown beginning on page 17 which is a statistical survey of domestics eligible for Germanization. This is dated 30 November 1943 and the cover letter from the defendant Creutz to Brandt. This is documentNO 2480and is Prosecution Exhibit162.\nWe next offer document shown on page 20 being numberedNO 1404and being a memorandum by the defendant Hofmann dated 12 February 1942 concerning the methods used to intimidate Poles as our Exhibit 163.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 21 and number \n edNO 3737being correspondence relative to the Fortuna family dated in September 1941 as Exhibit No. 164.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 168, "page_number": "168", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Prosecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 26 being numberedNO 1669being a letter from Brandt dated 28 May 1944 concerning various individual cases as Prosecution Exhibit165.\nProsecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 38 and numberedNO 1416being Harders letter concerning Polish family in France written in 1944 as Exhibit 166.\nProsecution next offers correspondence shown on pages 49 and the following pages being documentNO 1399. This is document consisting of correspondence concerning the Kowalczyk case and dated in October and November 1944 as Prosecution Exhibit167.\nProsecution next offers in evidence correspondence shown on pages 52, 53, 54, 56 and 58, being documentsNO 2760, as our Exhibit 168, documentNO 2761as our Exhibit 169; document NO 2762 as our Exhibit 170; and documentNO 2763as our Exhibit 171. These four exhibits are all correspondence in connection with the case of the Sisters Sauter and is dated in November and December 1941. THE PRESIDENT: 1941 or 1944? MR. LAMB: I beg your pardon, 1944.\nThe Prosecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 60, being document 1101-PS and being letters concerning Baltic mothers dated in October 1943 as Prosecution Exhibit172.\nProsecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 62 being documentNO-4122, being a memorandum of activities of RuSHA in Bohemia and Moravia and being dated 25 January 1944 as Exhibit 173.\nProsecution next offers in evidence the document shown on page 75, being documentNO 3531; the document number on this document is NO-3531-g. It is a directive signed by the defendant Greifelt concerning the resettlement of Jugoslavians dated 7 July 1941 and is introduced as Exhibit No.174.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 77 being a \n letter from Himmler to Pohl concerning the indoctrination of inmates of concentration camps with Germanization dated 13 august 1944, is documentNO-3980, as Prosecution Exhibit No.175.Prosecution next offers document shown on page 78 being a letter from Pohl to Himmler in answer to the exhibit just introduced, dated 16 December 1944 being documentNO-3990as Prosecution Exhibit176. DR. MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, this document which was just submitted as 4122 was an Exhibit 134. I have examined it and here again I have to object to the introduction of this document by saying this document does not have any signature whatsoever. I would like to have this mistake noted in particular on the record. THE PRESIDENT: Your objection will be noted. If the document has no probative value we will give it none. MR. LAMB: For the benefit of those using the German translation the next documentNO 2443is omitted.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 169, "page_number": "169", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Prosecution next offers document shown on page 80 being documentNO 4017being a document ordering the release of racial German prisoners of war being dated January 10, 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit 177.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 170, "page_number": "170", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII Prosecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 81 being documentNO-4019and as document NO 4019 which is a cover letter together with a list of prisoners of war bearing German sounding names dated 21 January 1944 as Exhibit 178. That last exhibit includes, documents NO4019, 4019b and 4019a.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 93 being documentNO-2746being a letter of the defendant Lorenz to Himmler dated 14 February 1944 concerning a special camp for United States prisoners of war of German extraction as Exhibit 179. \tThat is numberNO-2746.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 95 being documentNO-3079being a summary of a conference on compulsory Germanization of Czech youth and dated 17 January 1942 as Prosecution Exhibit180.\nprosecution next offers document shown on page 98 being documentNO-4021being a letter from Fischer to Brueckner dated 4 January 1944 concerning the admission of Czechs of the Protectorate into German high schools as Exhibit 181.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 100 being documentNO-3736, being a cover letter and an enclosure written by Heissmeyer to Himmler, attention of Dr. Brandt, dated 21 September 1944 concerning the admission of Czech boys into German boarding schools. That is document NO-3736 and is introduced as Exhibit No. 182.\nWe next offer document shown on page 104 being document NO-4193 and the document has no date. It is a RuSHA registration card that was used for the Germanization of Polish girl and is introduced as Exhibit 183.\nWe next offer document shown on page 106 being document NO-4194 being a RuSHA registration card for the Germanization of a Polish child and dated 1 October 1943 as Exhibit 184.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 171, "page_number": "171", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Next We offer document shown on page 108, document NO-4206, the sane being a RuSHA registration card for Germanization of Polish girl dated 22 November 1943 as Exhibit 185.\nWe next offer document shown on page 110, document NO-4192, same being a RuSHA registration card for Germanization of Polish child dated 11 April 1944 as Exhibit 186.\nWe next offer document shown on page 112 being document NO-4196, being a RuSHA registration card for Germanization of Polish child dated 11 April 1944 as Exhibit 187 for the Prosecution.\nProsecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 115 being documentNO-4198being a RuSHA registration card for the Germanization of a Polish child dated 12 April 1944 as Exhibit 188.\nProsecution offers document shown on page 117, document NO-4197 being a RuSHA registration card for the Germanization of a Polish child dated 30 May 1944 as Exhibit 189.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 119 beingdocumentNO-4195being a RuSHA registration card for Germanization of Polish child dated 8 June 1944 as Exhibit 190.\nProsecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 121 being documentNO-4200being RuSHA registration card for Germanization of Polish child dated 13 June 1944 as Exhibit 191.\nProsecution next offers in evidence document shown on page 123 being documentNO-3531-Q, being a letter by the defendant Greifelt dated 29 November 1940 concerning settlement of Polish families eligible for Germanization \n COURT I CASE VIII as Exhibit 192.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 172, "page_number": "172", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We next offer document shown on page 124 being document NO-3531-R being a letter by Dr. Faehndrich dated 25 March 1941 concerning checking of employers of Poles eligible for Germanization as to their political reliability, as our Exhibit 193.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 125, documentNO-3531-S being a letter from Dr. Faehndrich concerning leaves to the Eastern territories for Poles eligible for Germanization dated 17 June 1941, as Exhibit 194.\nProsecution next offers document shown on page 126 being documentNO-5039, a memorandum signed by Bethge concerning treatment of members of Slovenian intellegentsia dated 3 July 1941 as Exhibit 195.\nWe next offer document shown on page 127 being document NO-3531-T, being a decree signed by Himmler dated 4 June and 9 June 1941, the latter being a supplementary instructions concerning the decree and signed by the defendant Greifelt, as prosecution Exhibit 196.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 173, "page_number": "173", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution next offers Document shown on page 130, Document numberNO-3531-U, the same being a directive signed by the defendant Greifelt on the 4th September, 1941, and concerned with the employment of persons eligible for Germanization who come from lower Styria, as Prosecution Exhibit No.197.\nThe lest document on the index to this document book is omitted.\nThat concludes the Document Book IV-A, B, C and D.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution next refers to Document Book No. V-A, The Prosecution now presents Document shown on page 1 of the English and page one of the German document book, No.NO-5049, copy of a regulation issued by RKFDV, re: Evacuation of Jews and Poles from eastern territories incorporated into the Reich and Seizure of their property. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 198.\nThe Prosecution now presents document shown on page 3 of the English document book and also page three of the German document book, copy of a circular by RKFDV in Poznan re: The Evacuation of Poles and Resettlement of ethnic Germans signed by the defendant Huebner. The document carries the numberNO-4632, and it becomes Prosecution Exhibit199.\nThe Prosecution now offers document shown on page 6 of the English document book and on page 8 of the German document book, copy of a teletype from Mueller to Himmler on the evacuation of Poles from the Lbulin area to make way for ethnic Germans, dated 31 of October, 1942. The document carries theNO number2477-(a), and becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.200.\nThe next two documents carrying theNO numbers2477 (b) and 2477 (c) also will receive the Prosecution Exhibit No.200and become 200 (a), (b) and (c.). So documents shown on page 8 of the German document book -- of the English document book and on page 11 of the German document book, NO. No. 2477 (b), being a \n cover letter from Krueger to Himmler, and dated 30 of October, 1942 is presented as Prosecution Exhibit No.200(b) ; Document -- The Prosecution now presents document on page 9 of the English ocument book and on page 12 of the Germandocument book, being a report on resettlement of Lublin area by Globocnick to Krueger, dated 1st October, 1942, theNO numberbeing 2477(c) as Prosecution Exhibit No.200(c).", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 174, "page_number": "174", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Is that 12 October or 21st October?\nMR. SCHWENK:It is the 1st October. The date in the index is not correct. It must be 1st of October, 1942 instead of 21 October 1942.\nThe Prosecution now presents Document shown on page 14 of the English document book and page 19 of the German document book, carrying the numberNO-2444, aletter from Himmler to Frank, Governor General on re settlement problems in Government General.\nThis document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.201.\nThe Prosecution now presents document shown on page 18 of the English document book and on page 23 of the German document book, carrying the numberNO-2416, a letter from Himmler to the defendant Greifelt in the Lublin district, dated 3 December, 1942. The document becomes prosecution Exhibit No. 202.\nThe Prosecution now presents a document shown on page 20 of the English document book and 26 of the German document book, being a Himmler decree concerning the designation of the first settlement area in the Government General, dated 12th November , 1942, and number NO-2562, becoming Prosecution Exhibit203.\nThe Prosecution presents next a document shown on page 25 of the English document book and page 33 of the German document book, being a copy of a letter from Governor Zoerner to Governor General Frank, through Dr. Bouhler, Staatssekretaer in the Government General, re: Effects of the resettlement in the territory of Zamosc, dated 24 February 1943. The document carries the numberNO-2418, and becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 204.\nThe Prosecution next presents in evidence a cover letter to \n attached report to Himmler by Lammers , dated 4 June 1943, and carrying theNO number2202 (a). This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit 205.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 175, "page_number": "175", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "May I suggest that this document becomes Prosecution Exhibit 205 (a) because we are going to combine the next document under the same number. The Prosecution now presents document shown on page 38 of the Englishdocument book and page 15 of the German document book, being a report on bad treatment of Poles to be evacuated from Government General by Frank; dated 25 May, 1943, carrying theNO number2252 (b). The document become Prosecution Exhibit No.205(b).\nThe Prosecution now presents Document shown on page 46 of the English document book and 62 of the German document book, being a cover letter to a memorandum by Blessau, distributed to Brandt, Daluege, Strackenback, Lorenz and the defendant Greifelt, carrying the NO number 2703 (a), and becoming Prosecution Exhibit No.206(a).\nWe offer next in evidence document shown on page 46 of the English document book and page 63 of the German document book, being a memorandum on meetings on settlement of ethnic Germans in the Ukraine at the Fuehrer's Headquarters and Ministry of Eastern Affairs, by Berger; undated. The document carries theNO number2703 (b), and becomes Prosecution Exhibit206(b).\nWe offer next in evidence Document shown on page 51 of the English document book and page 68 of the German document book, being a report on VDA work with resettlers from the Ukraine who do not speak German; dated 18th July, 1944, and carrying theNO number4011. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.207.\nWe now offer in evidence document shown on page 54 of the English document book and page 70 of the German document book, being a copy of a memorandum by Himmler, dated 21 of July, 1942, re: Ethnic Germans in the Government General Ukraine. The document carries the NO number 2279, and becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.208.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 176, "page_number": "176", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on page 56 of the German -- of the English document book and page 73 of the German document book, being a letter from the defendant Greifelt to Himmler on resettlement of Russian Germans, dated 17 of August, 1943, and carrying theNO number2772. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 209.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on page 58 of the English document book and page 75 of the German document book, being an answer to Greiser's letter to Himmler on the settlement of Russian Germans, carrying theNO number2734. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit 210.\nWe now offer in evidence document shown on page 59 of the English document bock and page 76 of the German document book, being a letter from Gauleiter Greiser to Himmler on questions of resettlement of the Russian-Germans, dated 18th of February, 1944. The document carries theNO number3735, and becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 211.\nWe now present in evidence as office memorandum to an oral report by Greifelt to Himmler on 23 May, 1943, 25th May, 1943, concerning the Government General; on page 60 of the English document book and page 78 of the German document book. The document carries the numberNO-3173and becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.212.\nThe Prosecution now presents a document shown on page 61 of the English document book and 79 of the German document book, being a letter to the Regierungspraesident in Kattewitz, on requisition of polish estates for ethnic German resettlers, by Dr. Boeckmann, dated 12 August 1942, and carrying NC number 2878. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 213.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 177, "page_number": "177", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "We now offer in evidence document shown on page 63 of the English document book, and page 82 of the German document book, being a copy of the order No. 26 / I issued by Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, re: Anseidlungestab Ostmark, dated 21 January, 1941; carrying theNO number4129, and becoming Prosecution Exhibit214.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on page 70 of the English document book and page 88 of the German document book, being a copy of a letter addressed to the District Commissar Gewecke from an officer of the Ansiedlungsstab Kauen, re: Evacuation of Poles, dated 1st March, 1943, and carrying theNO number4677. This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.215, We now offer in evidence a document shown on page 72 of the English document book and page 90 of the German document book, being notes for oral reports to be given by the Commander in chief east to the Commander in Chief of the Army, on 15th February in Spale, carrying DocumentNO 3511, This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 216.\nThis concludes Document Book V-A.\nWe now are going into Document Book V-B. The Prosecution presents a document show on page 1 of the English and also on page 1 of the German document book, being, a letter from Amberger to Kaaserer concerning treatment of German immigrants of alien blood, dated 19th November, 1940, and carryingNO number1405. This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.217.\nWe now present in evidence document shown on page 3 of the English document book, and page 3 of the German document book, being a letter to Schwalm from a member of RuSHA mobile commission at the immigration center in Lodz, re: Screeing of ethnic Germans from Ozernewitz; dated 11 February, 1941; carryingNO number3602, and becoming Prosecution Exhibit No.218.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 5 of the English \n and also an page 5 of the German document book, being a summary of conference proceedings of the Main Base and Settlement Office, re:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 178, "page_number": "178", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Treatment of German immigrants from Rumania; dated 15 of January, 1941, carryingNO number1406. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 219.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on page 16 of the English and page 19 of the German document book, being a copy of a memorandum initiated by orders of SK, with letterhead EWZ Commission XV on results of racial examinations: dated 28 February 1943, and carrying theNO number3210; the document becomes Prosecution Exhibit 220.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 18 of the English and page 21 of the German document book, being regulations re: Acquisition of the German citizenship by ethnic Germans; dated 23 May 1944, and carryingNO number3738. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit221.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 21 of the English document book and page 27 of the German document book, being instructions for district representatives of the Office for Ethnic Protection Work, issued by the representative of Vemi at the Gau Munish; carryingNO number3476. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 222.\nThe Prosecution now presents in evidence a document shown on page 46 of the English and 59 of the German document book, being a letter from the defendant Greifelt to Himmler on transfer of people of German stock to Prussia; dated 26th March, 1944, and carrying NO number 4004. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.223.\nThe Prosecution now presents a document shown on Page 48 of the English and page 62 of the German document book, concerning total of Germans living in Galicia and Lublin, carryingNO number4005. The document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No.224.\nWe present next in evidence a document shown on page 49 of the \n English and page 64 of the German document book, being excerpts of Directive No. 21 of the Immigration Center; dated 27th of September 1943, and carrying No number 4006.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 179, "page_number": "179", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 225.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Court will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A Recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 180, "page_number": "180", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again is session.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I proceed? The Prosecution now presents a document shown on Page 52 of the English and on Page 66 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a circular issued by defendant Greutz of the Stabshauptamt of RKFDV, re: Priority for Settlement; carrying No-4223, the document becomes Exhibit No. 226.\nWe now offer in evidence, a document shown on page 53 of the English and Page 68 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Hofmann to Dietrich, Immigration Center Lodz, on settlement of ethnic Germans in Eastern territories; carryingNO-4326; the document becomes Exhibit No. 227.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on Page 55 of the English and Page 70 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Weibgen to the Main Office VOMI, concerning the influencing of ethnic Germans in the Government-General by Polish-speaking, but German-thinking clergymen; dated 8 March 1944, and carryingNO-3903, the Document becomes Exhibit No. 228.\nWe offer next in evidence a document shown on Page 57 of the English and Page 72 of the German Document Book, being a circular on anti-religious attitude by VOMI, dated 30 June 1939, and carryingNO-3827, the document becomes Exhibit No. 229.\nDR.HESSE (for the defendant Lorenz): I object to the submission of this document in evidence. The Document is dated the 30 June 1939, but the time for which the defendants are being held only begins on the first of September of that year. Therefore, this document dated from a time prior to the one to which the Indictment pertains.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution takes the position that the date is not exclusivley decisive. In spite of the date being prior to September 1939, the document might have \n COURT I CASE VIII probative value for the time after the date.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE MARSHAL", "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 181, "page_number": "181", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Your objection will be noted, and if the Tribunal determines that it deals with a period of time not covered in the Indictment, it will not be considered by the Court.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution now offers a document shown on Page 58 of the English and Page 73 of the German Document Book, being a copy of the order No. 84/I, issued by the Stabshauptamt of RKFDV, re: Settlement of resettlers from Estonia and Latvia, dated 9 December 1942, and carryingNO-4392, the document becomes Exhibit No. 230.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on Page 59 of the English and Page 75 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter from Himmler to the defendant Greifelt on Lithuanian Germans, dated 31 of January 1942 and carryingNO-2668, the document becomes Exhibit No. 231.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 61 of the English and Page 77 of the German Document Book, being a memorandum on results of a censum of inmates at Baltic-German refuges camps, by Greifelt, dated 22 September 1941 and carryingNO-3097, the document becomes Exhibit No. 232.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on Page 63 of the English and Page 79 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter from Himmler to the Reich Commissioner Lohse on resettlement of Germans from Lithuania, dated 31 January 1942, and carryingNO-2671, the document becomes Exhibit No. 233.\nThe Prosecution now presents in evidence a document shown on Page 65 of the English and on Page 81 of the German Document Book, being (a) file copy of an order issued by RKFDV, by Stier; and (b), Three forms to be used for resettlement purpose; re: Settlement and entry into \n COURT I CASE VIII Lithuania of resettlers; dated 16 April 1943, and carrying NO-4639, the document becomes Exhibit No. 234.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 182, "page_number": "182", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 71 of the English and Page 91 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter by the defendant Greifelt to the Chief of SIPO and SD, Immigration Center in Lodz; re: Return to Lithuania of resettlers: dated 23 September 1943 and carryingNO-4640. The document becomes Exhibit 235.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on Page 73 of the English and on Page 93 of the German Document Book, being a copy of order, No. 43/AS, issued by the Stabshauptamt of RKFDV, re: Treatment of refuges from Estonia and Latvia, carryingNO-4674, the document becomes Exhibit No. 236.\nWe offer next in evidence a document shown on Page 76 of the English and 97 of the German document Book, being a copy of a report by the defendant Greifelt to Himmler; re: Resettlement of ethnic German in Lithuania; and carryingNO-5033, the document becomes Exhibit No. 237.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 183, "page_number": "183", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 80 of the English and on Page 103 of the German Document Book, being a letter to the Defendant Hildebrandt on settlement of Bessarabian Germans by Himmler, dated 19 July 1942 and carryingNO number4045. The document becomes Exhibit No. 238.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on page 82 of the English and on page 105 of the German Document Book, being an information bulletion issued by RKFDV concerning resettlers from Rumania, Russia, and Poland, and carryingNO number3077. The document becomes Exhibit No. 239.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on page 86 of the English and on page 114 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter from RKFDV to the Reich Minister of Finance by Defendant Greifelt resettlement of ethnic Germans from Bessarabia and carrying NO number 5012. This document becomes Exhibit No. 240.\nThis document concludes Document Book No. 5B. We now come to Do cument Book 5C.\nThe Prosecution presents in evidence a document shown on Page 1 of the English and on Page 1 of the German Document Book as well as a document shown on Page 2 of the English and Page 2 of the German Document Book, the first being a cover letter to attached memorandum from Defendant Greifelt to Brandt, dated 28 May 1942 and carryingNO number3182 (a) the letter being a memorandum on a report by Defendant Greifelt on utilization of former Polish State domains and holding of Poles for labor, dated 28 May 1942 and carryingNO number3182 (b). The document becomes Exhibit No. 241.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You mean both of those document together?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, sir. The Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on page 7 of the English and on page 10 of the German Document Book, being a copy of Order No. 82/I issued by the RKFDV, re:", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 184, "page_number": "184", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "resettlement from Bosnia, dated 8 December 1942 and carryingNO number4131. The document becomes Exhibit No. 242.\nWe offer next in evidence a document shown on Page 11 of the English and page 13 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Defendant Lorenz to Himmler re: resettlement of ethnic Germans from Bosnia, dated 10 December 1942 and carrying NO Number 3012. The document becomes Exhibit No. 243.\nThe Prosecution now presents in evidence a document shown on Page 13 of the English and Page 15 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter from RKFDV Main Office Vomi by Defendant Brueckner, concerning ethnic Germans who had been repatriated from the South East, dated 18 October, 1944, and carryingNO- number3497. The document becomes Exhibit No. 244.\nThe Prosecution then presents in evidence a document shown on Page 15 of the English and Page 18 of the German Document Book, being a cable from Defendant Lorenz to Himmler, dated 27 January 1945, and carrying NO Number 3021. This document becomes Exhibit No. 245.\nThe next document, being a cable from Himmler to Lorenz on evacuation of South East, on Page 19 of the German Document book and page 15 of the English Document Book, dated 28 January 1945, and carrying Both documentNO-3021(1) and 3021 (2) appear under one exhibit number.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 18 of the English and page 20 of the German Document Book, being order No. 58/I, issued by the Defendant Greifelt re; ethnic German refugees from Soviet Russia, dated 21 November 1941, and carrying NO Number 3933. This document becomes Exhibit No. 246.\nNow the Prosecution presents in evidence a document shown on Page 19 of the English and on page 21 of the German Document Book, being a circular order issued by Defendant Creutz acting for RKFDV re: reset \n tlement from Serbia, definition of the term \"resettler\" and carrying No number 4133.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 185, "page_number": "185", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The document becomes exhibit No. 249.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 24 of the English and on Page 28 of the German Document Book, being a copy of a letter bearing letterhead of VOMI, Berlin, to Staff Hdq. of RKFDV, attention Stier, by Defendant Brueckner, re: Resettlers returning to Croatia, carryingNO number4815. This document becomes Exhibit No. 250.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on Page 25 of the English and on Page 29 of the German Document Book being a letter from Defendant Lorenz to Himmler, re: ethnic Germans in Croatia, dated 14 January 1943 and carrying NO Number 3013. This document becomes Exhibit No. 251.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 29 of the English and on Page 33 of the German Document Book. This is a copy of a circular by Defendant Creutz containing an extract from a letter form Defendant Greifelt to DUT and VOMI re: settlers and refugees from the Soviet Russian Zone of Interest, dated 18 June 1940 and carrying NO Number 4290. This document becomes Exhibit No. 252.\nThe Prosecution now presents in evidence a document shown on page 32 of the English and on page 36 of the German Document Book, being a copy of Order No. 83/I issued by RKFDV re: settlement of resettlers from Eastern territories, dated 9 December 1942 and carrying NO Number 4393. This document becomes Exhibit No. 253.\nMay I call attention to the fact that the Prosecution will, for the time being, omit the next three documents, 2417 (1), (2) and (3).\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on Page 40 of the English and page 45 of the German Document Book, being a circular letter from Himmler concerning resettlement in the Crimea, dated 20 January 1943 and carrying NO Number 2209. This document becomes Exhibit No. 254.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 186, "page_number": "186", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The Prosecution now presents in evidence a document shown on Page 42 of the English and on Page 48 of the German Document Book, being a cover letter from Heintze to Defendant Hildebrandt, dated 31 May 1944 and carrying NO Number 4009 (a). This document, together with the next document, namely, report on the activities of the Commando assigned by the RKFDV to the SS and Police Leader Crimes for Carrying out tasks of the RKFDV, dated 31 May 1944, becomes Exhibit No. 255.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 187, "page_number": "187", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nWe present now in evidence a document shown on Page 76 of the English and on Page 99 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Defendant Lorenz to Himmler re: resettlement of Ethnic Germans from the Caucasus to the Halbstadt Region, dated 15 January 1943, and carrying NO Number 5090. This document becomes Exhibit No. 256.\nThe Prosecution now offers in evidence a document shown on Page 77 of the English and on Page 100 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Wolfrum to Dr. Walrabe, via VOMI representative Godzik, re: evacuation of ethnic Germans, dated 27 July 1943 and carrying NO Number 5070. This document becomes Exhibit No. 257.\nThe Prosecution next offers in evidence a document shown on Page 78 of the English and on Page 101 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Defendant Brueckner to VOMI in Landau, attention Hoffmeyer, re: resettlement of ethnic Germans from the Caucasus to the Halbstadt Region, dated 21 January 1943 and carrying NO Number 5088. This document becomes Exhibit No. 258.\nThe Prosecution offers next in evidence a document shown on Page 79 of the English and on Page 102 of the German Document Book, being a letter from the RKFDV to VOMI, attention Brueckner, by Stier, carrying the NO Number 5059 (a) together with the next document, namely, copy of cover letter from VOMI AMT IV to Godzig, initialed by Defendant Brueckner, re: resettlement of ethnic Germans from Russia, and carrying NO Number 5059(b). Those documents become Exhibit No. 259.\nFinally, the Prosecution presents in evidence a document shown on Page 82 of the English and on Page 105 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Defendant Brueckner to the HSSPF South Russia Prutzmann, re: resettlement of ethnic Germans from the Caucasus to the Halbstadt Region \n and carrying NO Number 5089.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 188, "page_number": "188", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "This document becomes Exhibit No. 260.\nThis concludes the documents in Document Book 5-C.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Dr. Schmidt, counsel for the Defendant Tesch. Your Honor, on behalf of my colleague, Dr. ThieleFredersdorf who is away and who is counsel for the Defendant Ebner, I wish to object in connection with a document which the Prosecution has already submitted. It concerns the defendant Ebner. I am referring to DocumentNO-1362, Exhibit 66 and it is in the Prosecution Document Book 2-C. This Document is a letter from the Defendant Ebner to the then Vorstand of Lebensborn e.v. SS-Gruppenfuehrer Pohl. The letter is dated the 21 of June 1938. The letter deals with the work of Lebensborn in Austria. In Particular it deals with the taking over of Jewish property. That letter and the connection in which it is placed date back to a time prior to the period covered by the indictment, that is to say, prior to the first of September 1939 and, therefore, I am of the view that the document should not be admitted in evidence. For that reason I object to the document.\nDR. SCHWENK:The date of the document itself cannot be decisive, but the contents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, as I have already stated on behalf of the Court, these objections to this letter will be noted. If the letter appears to deal with a date or subject matter that is not covered by the indictment, the Court will not consider the document nor give it any weight whatever. We can't tell about that until we get around to it and if we discover that to be the fact about it, if it does not illustrate in any way the charge in the indictment, it will not be considered by the Court.\nAnd while I am talking I might say for the benefit of \n counsel for both sides, as I stated this morning in the beginning, technical rules of evidence do not apply in this court.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHMIDT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 189, "page_number": "189", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "The judges who are presiding are presumed to know the probative value of evidence and evidence that is offered by either side that has no bearing on the charge in the indictment or is without probative value is a wast of time for everybody concerned because the Court will not consider evidence of that character when it comes to write its judgment.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I add something of principle nature to this objection which might come up several times:\nThe date of a document is not the decisive point as to whether the action took place prior to 1939 or after 1939. It is the action referred to in the document. Therefore, any possible objection can be presented by the defense counsel only if they maintain that the action referred to in the document has been finished and terminated prior to that time, namely, 1939.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel for both the Prosecution and the Defendant are engaged now in what should be reserved for the argument in the case and should not be presented on the question of the probative value of the evidence at this time.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal pleases, Document Books VD and V-E have not yet been bound and delivered in English. The Prosecution has ready Document Book V-E in English but the German of this was not distributed to Defense counsel until this morning and, therefore, does not come within the technical 24-hour rule. However, we are ready to proceed if Defense counsel will waive any objection.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, unless there is objection we will go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 190, "page_number": "190", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:Dr. Haensel for Defendant Greifelt. On behalf of my colleagues and on my own behalf, I have to object to the presentation of documents which we did not have in our possession 24 hours ahead. I would ask the Tribunal to bear in mind that in any case on account of the many documents that we have we find ourselves in a very difficult situation. Therefore, we cannot waive our opportunity of studying these documents at least for a period of 24 hours.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The rules are perfectly clear that the documents must be served 24 hours before they are offered.\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If there is objection they cannot be received at this time.\nMR. SHILLER:Notice of the Prosecution's first witness was not served on the defense counsel until this morning. The case has proceeded rather more expeditiously today than the Prosecution anticipated and we would suggest that the Court adjourn at this time so that we can abide by all the rules and present our first witness tomorrow morning.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There is no reason for that situation to have arisen. The Court was perfectly explicit in its announcement on the date of the arraignment as to exactly how the Trial would be handled.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 191, "page_number": "191", "date": "21 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-21", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, we just have not beet able to prepare these documents in sufficient quantity to take care of presenting them at such a rapid pace; the pace today has been approximately three times that of any military tribunal up to this point. If the defense counsel would not object we could call the first witness. The cross-examination could not take place until tomorrow.\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Tribunal to bear in mind, when it comes to cross examination of a witness one must at least have a twenty-four hour limit; otherwise one cannot work out the questions; therefore, we cannot waive the twenty-four hour rule.\nTHE PRESIDENT:He is entitled to twenty-four hours if he insists upon it according to the rules laid down for their protection and I think they are entitled to have it. I will not hear any evidence that has not been submitted to the attorneys for the defense as the rules require otherwise.\nMR. SHILLER:The cross-examination will not take place until tomorrow. However, the prosecution at this moment has no more evidence prepared to introduce today.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Under those circumstances the court will be compelled to recess until tomorrow morning, but I warn you that this will not be repeated. You must get your evidence in shape and proceed with the trial or quit with what you have.\nMR. SHILLER:We shall do our best, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The court will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will recess until 0930 hours tomorrow morning.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 192, "page_number": "192", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I, in the matter of the United States of America against ULRICH GREIFELT et al.\n, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 22 October 1947, Justice Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the courtroom?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the Courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nThey say it will take about fifteen minutes to get the sound system straightened out; so we will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 193, "page_number": "193", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the Prosecution.\nMR. MCHANEY:The Prosecution requests that the witness KENO WIRSICH be called to the stand.\nDR.HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm): I object to the witness Wirsich being called now. The Prosecution has not adhered to the 24 hour limit between naming the witness to us and calling him to the stand. Yesterday afternoon at half past three here in the court room I heard for the first time that the witness Wirsich was to be called to the witness stand. According to regulation No. 7, 24 hours have not elapsed between the announcement that the witness is called and the moment he is called.\nMR. MCHANEY:If the Tribunal pleases, I have in front of me the receipt which the Prosecution received from the office of the Secretary-General and also from the defense center which is noted as 21 October, 11:00 A.M. That means that the defense have exactly one hour. If he wishes to press that point We will proceed to put on documents now. We would prefer to put the witness on now. He will testify all day. Certainly he will be on direct examination until this afternoon. If, under those circumstances, defense counsel wishes to press his objection we will ask that the witness be removed and we will put on our documents. We would prefer to put on the witness now but the 24 hour rule obviously runs from the time as of which the Prosecution files its notice with the Defense Information Center. We can not be put under the burden of notifying each defense counsel individually and have the date from the last one notified.\nDR. HEIM:Now, your Honor, I notice that the witness Wirsich who would be examined did not appear on the bulletin board of the Defense and the subject of this examination \n COURT I CASE VIII of the witness is unknown to me and therefore I will have to insist on my objection.", "speakers": [ "MR. MCHANEY", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 194, "page_number": "194", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The rule simply requires that the notice be filed with the Defense Center 24 hours before the witness is called. I will permit the witness to testify at 11 O'clock, if you desire to insist upon the fact that it is one hour now from 11 o'clock of course you can do so.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, it says in the ruling here--it is headed Organizational Procedure No. 7 of Defense Center-under number II: \"The Defense Center must sign a dated receipt translates the announcement and notifies the defense counsel. In parenthesis: notification has to be made 24 hours ahead. That notification was not received by the Defense Center and has not been received up to how. I am sorry, Your Honor, I do not know whose fault it is but none of the defense counsel has been notified about the witness Wirsich being called and up to now we have not yet been told what he will be examined on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Do you raise the point that it is one hour before he will be permitted to testify?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I am not concerned with the matter of just one hour but the notification has not been received up to this very hour. I am referring to a notification from the Defense Center, that is to say, the witness can only be examined when such announcement has appeared on the notice board and that is adhering to the 24 hour limit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am entirely familiar with the rule. All I want to know is whether you raise the point that it is now 55 minutes before the witness can be legally called?", "speakers": [ "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 195, "page_number": "195", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "DR. HEIM:Your Honor, I believe our views differ for the reason that up to this moment we have not been notified that the witness Wirsich was to be called here. If the Defense Center has itself received such notification, on the other hand it is a fact that the Defense Center has not imparted that information to us.\nTHE PRESIDENT:As I stated a Very few minutes before, the rule requires that the documents be filed with the Defense Center. When that has been done the rule has been complied with. Again, I ask you, do you raise the question?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I insist on my objection.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead with your documents.\nMR. MCHANEY:We ask that the witness be removed.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution would like to offer in evidence a document which we omitted in Document Book V-c. It is shown on page 35 of the English Document Book and carries theNO number2417. This document has been mis-assembled in the English Document Book but not in the German Document Book. Page 1 of this document is shown on page 38 of the English Document Book. I repeat page 1 of the document is shown on page 38 of the English Document Book. Page 2 of the document is shown on page 36 of the English Document Book. Page 3 of the docunent is shown on page 37 of the English Document Book. Page 4 of the document is shown on page 35 of the English Document Book and page 5 of the document is shown on page 39 of the English Document Book. This document constitutes a letter from Himmler to Gauleiter Frauenberg on settlements in the Crimea and in part an answer of Frauenberg to Himmler; further a letter from Himmler to Frauenberg on the same subject and the circular letter from Himmler concerning resettlement in the Crimea. A correction:", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. MCHANEY", "DR. HEIM", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 196, "page_number": "196", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII the last document Is a letter from Himmler to Frauenberg on the same subject. This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit No. 261.\nThe Prosecution is now turning to Document Book (5-D) V-D. Does the court have V-D before it? It has been distribued this morning, your Honor. The Document Book V-D (5-D) has been distributed this morning.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The only thing that we have before us is Document Book (V-f).\nMR. SCHWENK:May I then proceed with Document Book V-f? The Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page I of the English and also on page 1 of the German Document Book being a copy of a letter by Hintze to HSSPF, South East. Re: people sent to Lubin from Luxembourg, carryingNO 2670. This document becomes Prosecution Exhibit262.\nWe now present in evidence a document found on page 4 of the English and on page 3 of the German Document Book being a cable from Krueger to Himmler on settlement of persons from Luxembourg in the Lublin District, dated 9 November 1942 and carryingNO number2400. This document becomes Exhibit No. 263.\nWe now present in evidence a document shown on page 6 of the English and page 5 of the German Document Book being a copy of a letter from Robert Wagner to Keitel, re: Forbidding soldiers from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg to return home on leave, dated 21 January 1944, and carryingNO 2770. This document becomes Exhibit No. 264.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 9 of the English, and also on page 9 of the German Document Book being a letter and three appendices from Gauleiter \n COURT I CASE VIII Gustav Simon, Gauleiter of the Mosell District to Generaloberst Fromm, re:", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 197, "page_number": "197", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Handling of Luxembourg deportees, dated 8 February 1944 and carryingNO 2771. This document becomes Exhibit No. 265.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 198, "page_number": "198", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "The Prosecution next offers in evidence a document shown on page 22 of the English and on page 21 of the German Document Book being a letter from Gauleiter Simon of the Mosell District to Himmler on treatment of Luxembourg deserters and Himmler's reply, 22 February 1944, the former being dated 8 February 1944. This document carries the numberNO 2775and it becomes Exhibit No. 266.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 23 of the English and also on page 23 of the German Document Book being a letter from Himmler to Juettner re* Handling of Luxembourg volunteers, dated 22 February 1944 and carryingNO-2776. This document becomes Exhibit No. 267, We now present in evidence a document shown on page 24 of the English and also on page 25 of the German Document Book.\nThis is a letter from Col. Gen. Fromm to Juettner on sentences passed on Luxembourg soldiers charged with desertion. It is dated 29 May 1941 and carriedNO-2777. This document becomes Exhibit 268.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 26 of the English and also on page 26 of the German Document Book being a 36 page correspondence on resettlement and conscription in Luxembourg dated Between 31 May 1941 and 6 July 1943. This document carries the numberNO 1792and becomes Exhibit No. 269.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 57 of the English and on page 70 of the German Document Book, being a cover better from the defendant Hildebrandt to Distribution List III, re: Granting of German citizenship to Alsatians, Lorrainians and Luxembourgians evacuated to Germany carrying the numberNO 4091and becoming Exhibit No. 270.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (For the defendant Hildebrandt): Your Honor this document which has just been offered as Exhibit 270 \n indicates that there were two appendices, 2 enclosures, with that letter to the original.", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 199, "page_number": "199", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Therefore, I would ask the Prosecution to make available to the defense the two enclosures which are mentioned.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What do you say to that, Mr. Schwenk?\nMR. SCHWENK:If the Prosecution is in a position to produce those documents it will certainly do so.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you.\nMR. SCHWENTK:The Prosecution now offers a document shown on page 58 of the English and on page 72 of the German Document Book being a letter from Amt Kameradschaftsarbeit to VDA Gau Association, Kameradschaftsarbeit section re: Refusal to grant leave to go home to foreign workers. This document is dated 18 July 1944 and carried the numberNO 4031. It becomes Exhibit No. 271.\nWe wow offer in evidence a document shown on page 60 of the English and on page 74 of the German Document Book being a letter from Berndt to RKFDV, attention: Wolff, on intelligentsia of Alsace and Lorraine dated 20 May 1942 and carrying numberNO 2472. This document becomes Exhibit 272.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 32 of the English and on page 75 of the German Document Book being a letter from Kaul to Himmler, attention: defendant Greifelt, re: Germanization of Alsatians dated 27 May 1942 and carrying the numberNO 2247. This document becomes Exhibit No. 273.\nNext we present in evidence a document shown on page 63 of the English and on page 78 of the German Document Book being an excerpt from note for files by defendant Greifelt, re: Deportation of unreliables from Alsace and Lorraine dated 2 September 1942 carrying numberNO 2246and becoming Exhibit No. 274.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "MR. SCHWENTK", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 200, "page_number": "200", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "We now present in evidence a document shown on page 84 of the English and on page 79 of the German Document Book being Notes on conference on deportation of Alsatians dated August 1942 and carrying the numberPS 1470. This document becomes Exhibit No. 275.\nNext we present in evidence directive from the defendant Hildebrandt to Higher SS and Police Leader West and South West on resettlement of persons in Alsace Lorraine and Luxembourg dated 15 July 1943 carrying numberNO 1381. This document becomes Exhibit No. 276.\nThen we present in evidence a document shown on page 71 of the English and page 92 of the German Document Book being a memorandum on Tasks of RuSHA in the West-Alsace, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Eupen, Malmedy and Moresnet dated 28 September 1942 and carrying numberNO 1499. This document becomes Exhibit No. 277.\nDR.SCHUBERT (For the defendant Lorenz): May it please the court, I object to documentPS 1470which has been introduced as Exhibit 275. I have just noticed from the original that these are file notes that bear no signatures and therefore it is impossible to tell whether any author has responsibility for the contents, or who they are signed by. Therefore, I believe that these documents, if they cannot be proven genuine, should be rejected.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will take your objections under consideration when we get to consider this evidence. If it appears to have no probative value it will be given none.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution now offers in evidence the document shown on page 74 of the English and on page 96 of the German Document Book being a copy of an order issued by the RKFDV on evacuation from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg dated \n 3 October 1942 and carrying numberNO 5208. This document becomes Exhibit 278.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 201, "page_number": "201", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "This concludes the evidence in Document Book V-f.\nI understand you have received Document Book v-D in the meantime and probably V-E too.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 202, "page_number": "202", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Which book do you propose to take up now?\nMr. SCHWENK: Five D, Sir.\nThe Prosecution now presents -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Proceed.\nMR. SCHWENK:We will now turn to Document Book V-D. The Prosecution offers first a document shown on page 1 of the English and also on page 1 of the German Document Book being a letter from Himmler to Lammers on resettlement of the ethnic Germans in Alsace and Lorraine; dated 18th of June 1942, and carrying NO Number 2475. This document becomes Exhibit 279.\nNext we offer in evidence a document shown on page 3 of the English and on page 3 of the German document book, being a letter from the Auswaertiges Amt to Himmler, re: Resettlement of persons of German descent from France to the Reich; dated 7th August, 1942 and carrying NO number 2560. This document becomes Exhibit No. 280.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that 2460 or 2560?\nMR. SCHWENK: 2560.\nThe Prosecution now offers a document shown on page 4 of the English and page 5 of the German document book in evidence. The document is a copy of a Himmler order, re: Resettlement of people of German extraction from France; dated June, 1942, and carryingNO number2552. This document becomes Exhibit No. 281.\nNext we present in evidence a document shown on page 6 of the English and page 7 of the German document book, being a copy of a letter by Himmler to the Foreign Office, Berlin, re: Resettlement of people of German descent from France to the Reich, and a covering letter from the defendant Brueckner, dated July 14, 1942; the first letter having the date 15th June, 1942, The document carries the numberNO-2559, It becomes Exhibit No. 282.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 7 \n of the English and on page 11 of the German document book.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 203, "page_number": "203", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "This is a letter from Radunski of VOMI addressed to Himmler, re: Resettlement from France. The document is dated 25th February, 1943. It carried the NO Number 2554, and becomes Exhibit No. 283.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence documents shown on page 9 of the English and page 14 and 17 of the German document book, being a copy of a memorandum by Brueckner concerning naturalization of ethnic Germans registered in northern France, and dated 21 March, 1943; and a cover letter to the above memorandum by B.K. Schulz to Reedel, dated 24 April, 1943. The documents having the NO Numbers 3597 (a) and (b), and becoming Exhibit No. 284.\nDR.HEIM (For the Defendant Fritz Schwalm):\nMay it please the Court, I see fromNO-3507(b) that these letters originally had three covering letters attached to them. Therefore, I ask the Prosecution to produce those three covering letters because the document which the Prosecution has introduced by itself lacks coherency.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The way to have documents produced is not to call upon the Prosecution to do so in the trial of the case, but to follow the proper procedure that is necessary in order to have documents produced in Court.\nGo ahead.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution now offers a document shown on page 12 of the English and on page 19 of the German document book, being a letter from Luther of the Foreign Office to Himmler, re: Resettlement of people of German descent living in France. The document is dated 6th August, 1942, It carries the NO Number 2511; it becomes Exhibit No. 285.\nwe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 15 of the English and page 24 of the German document book. This is a letter from \n Karmasin to Himmler on stationery with letterhead of the Leader of the German Group in Slovakia, re:", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 204, "page_number": "204", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Deportations. The document is dated 29th July, 1942. It carries the NO Number 1660. And it becomes Exhibit No. 286.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 17 of the English and on page 27 of the German document book, being part of the copy of a letter from RKFDV to Himmler, re: Racial examinations of inmates of camps for Baltic refugees, dated 8th September, 1941, and carrying the NO Number 5010. This document becomes Exhibit No. 287.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 18 of the English and page 28 of the German document book, being a copy of a letter from RKFDV to Himmler by Hintze, re: Racial examinations of inmates of camps for Baltic refugees. The document is dated 31 of July, 1941. It carries the NO Number 5009; it becomes Exhibit No. 288.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 20 of the English and page 31 of the German document book. This is a copy of a letter from RKFDV to Himmler by defendant Preifelt, re: Racial Examinations of inmates of camps for Baltic refugees. The document is dated 2 July, 1941; it carries the NO Number 4008, and it becomes Exhibit No. 289.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 22 of the English and on page 34 of the German document book, being a copy of an order from Himmler as RKFDV an ofrced resettlement. The letter is dated -- the order is dated, correction 11 October, 1939, and carries the NO Number 4613. This document becomes Exhibit No. 290.\nThe Prosecution offers next in evidence a document shown on page 23 of the English and on page 35 of the German document book. This is a copy of a letter from General Milch to Gauleiter Koch on transfer of ethnic German female interpreters. It is dated 31 May, 1943, and carried \n the NO Number 2773.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 205, "page_number": "205", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "This document becomes Exhibit No. 291.\nWe now offer in evidence a document shown on page 24 of the English and on page 36 of the German document book, being a memorandum from Amt IV of VOMI on a meeting held in Berlin on 2nd June, 1944, re: Assignment of ethnic Germans from Russia for work in the armament industry of the Luftwaffe. The document is dated 7th June, 1944; it carries the NO Number 5056, and becomes Exhibit No. 292.\nNow the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on page 26 of the English and on page 40 of the German document book. This is a copy of a letter from VOMI, Amt IV, to Himmler's personal Staff, by the Defendant Brueckner, re: Housing and Working Conditions in the VOMI Camps, dated 9th June, 1944, and carrying theNO number5058. This document becomes Exhibit no. 293.\nNext we offer in evidence a document shown on page 29 of the English and on page 43 of the German document book, being a letter of complaint to Himmler by thirty-five resettlers assigned to work at the RobepBerning Company, re: Housing and Working Conditions at the VOMI Camps. This document carries the NO Number 5057. It becomes Exhibit No. 294.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 206, "page_number": "206", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. SCHWENK:The Prosecution offers now in evidence a document shown on Page 32 of the English Document Book V-D, and on Page 47 of the German Document Book, being a letter from wolfrum to VOMI in Cracow; Attention: Weibgen; Re: Allocation of Foreign Labor; and a covering letter from Rudolf Brandt to defendant Lorenz, dated 15 May 1944. This document carries the numberNO-5066. It becomes Exhibit No. 295.\nThe Prosecution now offers a document shown on Page 33 of the English and on Page 48 of the German Document Book, being a letter from the defendant Brueckner to Brandt; Re: Assignment of ethnic Germans from Russia to the aircraft industry. The document is dated 11 October 1943, and carries the number,NO-5065. The document becomes Exhibit No. 296.\nNext, the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on Page 35 of the English and on Page 52 of the German Document Book. This is a letter from Wolfrum to Hoffmeyer: Re: Ethnic German labor from Russia for the Luftwaffe industry, dated 10 September 1943, and carrying the number, NO. 5067. This document becomes Exhibit No. 297.\nNext the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on Page 36 of the English and on Page 53 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Wolfrum to Lohr, Lemberg; Re: Transfer of ethnic Germans from Poland to the Reich, and dated 19 May 1943. This document carries the number,NO-5075, and becomes Exhibit No. 298.\nNext, the Prosecution offers in evidence a document shown on Page 37 of the English and on Page 54 of the German Document Book, being a letter from Wolfrum to Chief of VOMI; Attention: Hoffmeyer; Re: Allocation of 10,000 ethnic German girls from the Ukraine for labor, dated 15 November 1943, and carrying the number,NO-5064. This document becomes Exhibit No. 299.\nThis concludes the documents in Document Book V-D.\nYour Honor, may we now request the High Tribunal to call the \n witness Kune Wirsich to the witness stand.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 207, "page_number": "207", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:All right. Let the witness go to the stand.\nKUNOWIRSICH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follow's:\nTHE PRESIDENT:YOU will raise your right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. W CHWENK:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your name.\nA.My name is Kune Wirsich.\nQ.When Were you born?\nA.On the 9th of January 1908.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.At Liewisch, in the province of Brandenburg.\nQ.Will you please tell us briefly about your background: which schools you attended, including universities.\nA.First of all, I attended public school and then I went to the Humanist Gymnasium, and after that from approximately 1926 until 1930--I attended various universities. Then, for approximately four years, I took the legal preparatory service, and here I was a Referendar with various courts and district attorneys' offices, and things of that sort. After passing my state examination in 1935, I spent three years with a German settlement bank at Berlin and here I was the legal expert. Subsequently, for approximately a year and a half, I worked as an attorney's assistant on the practical preparation for the profession of an attorney at the office of a Berlin attorney. In April 1940, I was employed as an attorney at the District Court of Berlin.\nQ.Witness, when did you get in contact for the first time \n with the organization of the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "KUNO" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 208, "page_number": "208", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.That was on the 16 of January 1940. At that time, I began my work with the Reich Kommissar.\nQ.In which capacity were you employed at that time?\nA.First of all, I was a legal expert, and I was the deputy to the head of the legal department, in approximately the middle of February 1942.\nQ.Who was your chief at that time--your immediate chief?\nA.My direct superior was the head of the legal department, attorney Goetz.\nQ.Were you promoted afterwards, and when?\nA.In the middle of February 1942, attorney Goetz, within the Agency, was given another assignment, and I occupied his position as the head, of the legal department. This was sometimes called the Chief Legal Advice Department Staff Office.\nQ.Was the legal department a part of one of the Aemter?\nA.The legal department, in any case after the reorganization of the Main Staff Office in 1942, was a part of the Central Office within the Main Staff Office.\nQ.How long were you chief of the legal department of the Main Staff Office?\nA.I was the head of the legal department in the Main Staff Office from the middle of February 1942 until the end of the war.\nQ.Did you have any insight in the various activities of the Main Staff Office in your capacity as Chief of the Legal Department?\nA.In my capacity, I was able to get a rather close insight into the activities of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Are you also familiar as to how the Main Staff Office went into being?\nA.I was unable in the first phase of the establishment of the Main Office directly to observe; however, by means of the documents which I was able to look at later on and also by means of re \n ports which came to my attention, I believe that I had a correct fundamental picture of the establishment of an agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 209, "page_number": "209", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Will you please tell us briefly how, according to your knowledge, the Main Staff Office came into being?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 210, "page_number": "210", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.In order to describe the establishment of the Main Staff Office, I must go back to the summer of 1939. In June 1939, if I am not mistaken, I believe it was the 22nd of June 1939, Hitler and Mussolini had concluded the so-called Brenner Agreement. Through this agreement, the frontier between Germany and Italy which was located at the Brenner was to be anchored there for all times. In connection with this agreement, the people of German descent who lived in southern Tyrol, on the Italian side of the frontier, were to be given an opportunity to voluntarily be resettled in Germany. As far as I know, it was intended that in this way the problem of minorities at the German-Italian border was to be eliminated.\nIn connection with this first case of resettlement, an agency was established in Berlin for the repatriotee, which was directed by SS Oberfuehrer Greifelt at the time. Later on, in September or October of 1939--if I am not mistaken--I think it was in the middle of September, an agreement was concluded between the Reich Government and the Government of the Soviet Union with regard to the limitation of the interests of both parties. In connection with this pact, Hitler saw the necessity of repatriating those Germans from Estonia and Latvia, who were living on the other side of the border, into the Reich. For this purpose, in Estonia and in Latvia, agreements were concluded between the states as to the resettlement of Germans to these territories. These Germans were usually called or described as being Baltic Germans.\nAt the beginning of October 1939, Hitler made a speech before the German Reichstag-\nQ.Would you be kind enough to make your statements more brief because this is merely preliminary.\nA.In the beginning of October 1939, Hitler decided \n COURT I CASE VIII that in the entire area of central Europe another big resettlement action was to be carried out.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 211, "page_number": "211", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "By means of a decree of the7th of October 1939, he ordered the Reichsfuehrer of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, to carry out a task. This task included, first of all\nQ.One moment. Will you please tell us, witness, which title was attached to Himmler at that time when he was appointed for the resettlement and other tasks?\nA.From that time on, Himmler had the title of Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Will you tell us what this meant: strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Under the strengthening of Germanism, according to the idea of the Hitler Decree of the 7 of October 1939, three different tasks were understood. First of all, the resettlement of the Reich Germans and the German minorities from abroad to Germany; secondly, the exclusion of the harmful influence of so-called components of the population which were alien to Germany and which would mean a danger to the German Reich; and thirdly, the formulation and establishment of new settlement areas, in particular, by placing the repatriotee from abroad.\nQ.Will you now tell us, witness, which steps Himmler took immediately after his appointment to carry out these functions?\nA.Soon after he had received his assignment, Himmler issued his first general order. In this first general order, which he issued in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, he ordered that for the execution of his tasks he would establish an agency with the title: Reich Commissar's Office for the Strengthening of Germanism, and that he was placing SSOberfuehrer Greifelt in charge of it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 212, "page_number": "212", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "In this first general order; it was also decreed by Himmler that there should be several departments within this agency and first of all, amongst others, there would be a central land office; there would be a department for compensation; there would be a finance department; and a planning department. I cannot say with certainty whether this includes all the departments which were mentioned at the time.\nQ.What was the position of the defendant Greifelt at that time, as the Chief of the Dienststelle?\nA.The defendant Greifelt was the chief of this newly created agency, and by order of Himmler, he had to take care of the business matters of that agency.\nQ.How did defendant Greifelt sign at that time?\nA.At that time, or ever since the time when I was a member of the SA--that is, since the middle of January 1940--Greifelt would sign: The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism: By order of \"In Auftrage.\" However, I cannot say with certainty whether he didn't also use some other forms.\nQ.Do you remember how Greifelt signed his orders in Greece, after his Dienststelle was converted into the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes. In June of 1941, Himmler issued an organizational order, and in this order he gave the signature of the Reich Commissar, the title: Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Main Staff Office. In the same decree, it was also expressed that the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, theVOMI, would bear the title: Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Main Office, VOMI.\nQ.May I interrupt for a moment? What was the importance of the fact that the VOMI became Hauptamt--Main Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 213, "page_number": "213", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.VOMI, as far as I am informed, originally was an agency of the NSDAP or it was an agency which, collaborated with the NSDAP. Ever since the establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissar, it was detailed by the Reich Commissar to carry out the resettlement actions. This condition changed through the Himmler decree of June 1942, and I see the difference in the fact that from that period of time on, VOMI became a competent of the Reich authorities of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. However, I do not want to say by that that perhaps as a sideline it did not continue to maintain its original character.\nQ.Is it correct that as a result of the decree you are referring to, which I believe is dated 11 June 1941, the Main Staff Office and VOMI became SS-Hauptaemter?\nA.That is a question which was never answered quite clearly even before 1945.\nQ.Do you remember the decree of 11 dune 1941? Do you remember that by this decree, which by the way has been offered in evidence as Exhibit 70 in Document Book No. II-B, expressly mentions that the two offices became SS-Hauptaemter?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 214, "page_number": "214", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.I can recall this decree very well indeed. However, I cannot say any more whether this special order was mentioned in that particular decree. A number of indications show that the Staff Main Office in the Main Office VOMI, from that period of time on, were considered to be components of the Reich Administration of the SS.\nQ.My question concerned merely the fact whether you remember the contents of the decree. The question is easily settled because we have offered the decree in evidence and you might have forgotten that the decree itself speaks of SS-Hauptaemter.\nA.I cannot recall this particular sentence which was contained in the decree.\nQ.Let's turn now to a decree of 28 November 1941, in which the Main Office for Ethnic Germans is determined and also the jurisdiction of the four main offices, namely, VOMI, Race & Settlement Office, Main Staff Office and Reich Security Office, a document which has been offered in evidence as Exhibit 24 in Document Book 2-A. Do you remember this decree?\nA.Yes, I can remember this decree very well indeed.\nQ.Will you please tell us about the importance of this decree?\nA.In November 1941, or maybe some time before, Himmler, also in the scope of the NSDAP, was the commissioner for questions with regard to ethnical problems. Soon the decree which has been mentioned before, in his new capacity as a party official and Party commissioner for ethnic questions, he established a new party agency with the title: Main Office for Ethnic questions of the NSDAP. This Main Office for Ethnic Questions was composed of four different departments which consisted of one expert each of the 4 main offices which were concerned with these questions. Here we had an expert from the Main Staff Office, an expert from VOMI, an expert from the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office and an expert from RuSHA, Race and Settlement Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 215, "page_number": "215", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.What were the functions of this Hauptamt Fuer Volkstums fragen this, Main Office for Ethnical questions?\nA.This Main Office for Ethnical questions was to represent the party in Ethnic questions and it was to direct the ethnical activity of the Party.\nQ.Did this office have any decisive influence on the Main Staff Office VOMI, RuSHA, or Lebensborn, namely, the four offices involved in this case?\nA.That is impossible to say. The Main Office for Ethnical questions of the NSDAP had authority, as I have already stated with tasks falling within the sector of the Party. However, the predominating work was in carrying out state assignments which had to be dealt with by the Reich Commissar and the other agencies concerned with it.\nQ.Witness, which is the importance of the second part of the decree of 28 November 1941 in which the jurisdiction of the four main offices was determined, namely, of VOMI, Race and Settlement Office, Main Staff Office and Reich Security Office?\nA.The second part of the decree of November, 1941 contained a limitation of jurisdiction which was decreed by Himmler himself, between the four Main Offices concerned. As far as I can recall today, in this decree the Staff Main Office was assigned the main task of carrying out the settlement of German people and the strengthening of the settlement thought amongst the Germans. It was the task of VOMI to carry out the resettlement of Germans from abroad and to take then back into the Reich. The German ethnical groups abroad Were to be taken care of by that agency and, if I am not mistaken, it was also to become active in taking care of the people who were to be Germanized within the territory of the old Reich.\nThe SHA, the Reich Security Main Office, as far as I can recall, was given the assignment of carrying cut the policy with regard to alienization and the Race and Settlement Main Office, RuSHA, was \n charged with a selection of so-called \"valuable people\" or people who were of value as far as their race was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 216, "page_number": "216", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Why did Himmler issue this decree determining the jurisdiction just of these four offices? Did this have any influence on the Main Staff Office or the Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Actually this decree of November, 1941, only made permanent a condition which had already prevailed in a more or less unsettled way, in practice ever since the Fall of 1939.\nQ.We are now turning to the organization of the Main Staff Office. Can you briefly tell us how the Main Staff Office was organized?\nA.I don't know quite exactly any more today to say just how the Staff Main Office was organized during the first few years of its existence. However, in 1942 a re-organization of the Staff Main Office was carried out and as a result of this the Staff Main Office was divided into three office groups. Each one of these three office groups included three offices and altogether, consequently, the Staff Main Office consisted of nine offices.\nQ.Do you remember the jurisdiction of AMT I?\nA.Office I had the title of Registration of People. Its task was mainly to control and supervise the movement of people in the various directions.\nQ.Will you please tell us what was meant by the term \"Menscheneinsatz\".\nA.The term \"Menscheneinsatz\" referred mainly to all the movements which were carried out in line with the resettlement.\nQ.Did this term also include the \"guide\" of people who were to be Germanized?\nA.This task also was a part of the field of work of Office I, as far as the Staff Main Office was competent in these matters.\nQ.Witness, do you remember two books, the Bible of the Main \n Staff Office, called Der Menscheneinsatz, which I have now here in my hands?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 217, "page_number": "217", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A. (No response)\nQ.Will you please tell us why these two books received the title \"Menscheneinsatz\"? In other words; doesn't this term \"Menscheneinsatz\" cover more than only resettlement?\nA.Yes. Under Menscheneinsatz, in apart from resettlement, we understood the movement which was directed by the Reich Commissar and this was the movement of various groups of people who moved in various directions. This also included the people who were to become re-Germanized.\nQ.Will you now tell us about the jurisdiction of AMT II?\nA.Office II, as far as I know, had the title Labor Allocation. Its task was to be, above all, to take those people who would be resettled and who could not be resettled immediately and temporarily they were to be given some sort of work.\nQ.Will you now tell us about the jurisdiction of AMT III?\nA.Office III, Economy, above all had to deal with the execution of the assimilation of properties in the case of those people who were being resettled who did not come from agricultural professions, for example, the people who were resettled who had professional or industrial property in the place from which they were being resettled.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 218, "page_number": "218", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.What were the main functions of this office in connection with the resettlement of ethnic Germans?\nA.This office was to see to it that the persons who were being resettled and who had agricultural property in this place of origin, that in the new area where they were being resettled they would receive an object of reimbursement. For example, a Baltic German who was being resettled and who owned a house at Riga, after his resettlement at his new place of residence he was also to receive a house which had approximately the same value of the one which he left behind.\nQ.Where was the new domicile of those resettlers who were to be compensated in which territories?\nA.The main resettlement area for persons who were being resettled was situated in the so-called Incorporated Eastern Territories. However, only certain groups of persons who were being resettled were concerned, with this.\nQ.What was the designation of those resettlers who were to be compensated in the Incorporated Territories? How ware they called after they went through EWZ?\nA.These persons who were being resettled, who appeared suitable to be resettled in the Eastern Territories, were called \"O\" Cases. \"O\" was the abbreviation for Ostgebiete in the Eastern Territories.\nQ.Is it correct then that \"O\" stands for Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nA.I don't know whether this close meaning can be given to the title. It could also be possible that the title \"O\" Case included the justification of settling these resettlers further to the east of the Incorporated Territories, for example, in the settlement area of Lublin.\nHowever, I cannot answer this question with certainty.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 219, "page_number": "219", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Do I understand correctly that those resettlers who were classified \"O\" cases were to be resettled in newly acquired territories?\nA.It meant that these resettlers were considered suitable to live in newly acquired territories. However, there was also the possibility that an \"O\" case of resettlement would be given a house in Berlin if such a house could be found.\nQ.What then do you understand by an \"A\" Case? Does not \"A\" stand for Altreich and do I understand correctly that Berlin is located in the Altreich?\nA.The title Resettler \"A\" Case meant that such a resettler could only be resettled within the area of older Germany.\nQ.Will you please tell us in which way those \"A\" cases were compensated for the property which they left behind?\nA.As far as I know, in \"A\" cases of resettlement it was also attempted that these resettlers, just like the resettlers in \"O\" cases, were to be compensated in kind to the fullest extent with regard to the property which they had left behind. However, this was only possible for a small part of the cases to find in Germany proper houses or other objects of compensation and that they could be given to A cases of resettlement.\nQ.What did the bulk of these \"A\" cases receive in regard to compensation? Was it compensation in kind or compensation in money, bonds or obligations?\nA.As far as I know, the resettling \"A\" cases would receive a compensation for their former property; for the most part they would receive Reich bonds. However, as far as questions of property compensation are concerned, I am not sufficiently informed in order to answer \n your questions with certainty.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 220, "page_number": "220", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Turning back to the jurisdiction of AMT III, do you remember that there was an office attached to AMT III which was in charge of procurement of furniture and household goods?\nA.Within Office III, Economy, there was a department for the procurement of furniture. For the most part the resettlers had left household goods behind in their countries of origin and now it was necessary, as far as I know, to procure approximately one hundred thousand pieces of furniture and this had to be procured for the most part through the German furniture industry so that the resettlers in the Reich would be given a compensation for the household goods which they had had before.\nQ.Can you tell us in detail what the functions of that office were?\nA.I am not informed precisely about the details of Office III, the procurement of furniture.\nQ.Don't you know to which extent that office obtained furniture and household goods from concentration camps or from Ghettos?\nA.I cannot answer this question.\nQ.Now, will you please give us a short description of the jurisdiction of AMT IV?\nA.Office IV had tasks which corresponded to those of Office III. However, this was solely limited to agriculture. Office IV was to give to the farmers, amongst the resettlers, some sort of compensation. That is to say, in their new resettlement areas they were to be given another farm or agricultural estate.\nQ.Will you now give us a short description of AMT V?\nA.Office V had to administer the finances of the \n Reich Agency of the Reich Commissioner's office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 221, "page_number": "221", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.In which respect did Office V have to do with other offices?\nA.As far as I am informed, the chief of office V was at the same time the chief of administration of VOMI.\nQ.Who was the chief of AMT V?\nA.The chief of Office V was the former SS Oberfuehrer Schwarzenberger.\nQ.Did AMT V have necessarily to deal with all the other offices in order to carry out properly the function of financing?\nA.Well, the situation was usually that Office V, prior to the execution of any actions, was not concerned at all. Office V later on had to pay the bills and it had to see to it and supervise whether the funds of the Reich which had been used had been correctly spent in line with the budget and whether they had been spent economically. Of course, this resulted in the fact that for all branches which were concerned in the activity of the Reich Commissar there was only one finance administration and and this was Office V which, since it had to render all the payments was of course concerned in everything that happened in all the other offices.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, you said AMT V was active only after a certain transaction was carried out and was not consulted prior to the time. Is that correct?\nA.I can only say that as far as my experience is concerned, the custom usually was that Office V later on had to pay the bill whenever something had happened. It is possible that occasionally, in cases which were of a predominantly financial character, Office V was included from the very beginning and perhaps it even had to issue \n the orders.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 222, "page_number": "222", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Do you remember, for example to which extent AMT V had to do prior to a transaction in regard to obtaining property from the Ghetto Litzmannstadt?\nA.With regard to the Ghetto Litzmannstadt, it was at one time mentioned in a discussion of office chiefs which took place between December 1943 and April 1945 and I cannot give you the time of the conversation precisely -\nQ.I wanted to ask you only whether you know of any cases in which AMT V was consulted prior to the time when the transaction was carried out.\nA.Some actions of some sort?\nQ.Well, I mentioned the Ghetto, as an example.\nA.For example, I can recall that on one occasion negotiations took place under the decisive participation of Office V between the Reich Commissar and the Gauleiter or the Reichstatthalter in Styria, Kernten. Big barracks had been built which the Reich Commissar wanted to use as temporary housing for resettlers. For the most part this was a financial matter and here were big differences of opinion with regard to the purchasing price and the expenses of these barracks and in this case Office V had decisively participated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 223, "page_number": "223", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "QIf I understand correctly there were instances in which Office 5 was consulted prior to the time this action was carried out?\nAI consider it possible that there were several cases of that sort. However, I believe that office 5 was only participating before whenever a matter was of a predominantly financial nature.\nQThat settles this point. We can now turn to Amt 6. Will you please give us a picture of the Jewish question on Amt 6, main Staff Office.\nAOffice 6 had the title, Planning Office, and this Planning Office was located in Berlin, some place in the suburbs and as far as I am able to look into that it dealt for the most part with the working out of more or less theoretical plans for settlement tasks and things of that nature. In general this office for the agency was considered as being a club, which did not perform any practical work.\nQDo you know whether any plans produced in Amt 6 were carried out. Is the answer yes or no?\nAI consider it possible that, for example, the general order was worked, out by Office 6 about the agricultural development incorporated in the Eastern Territories which would be given some attention in different places if in the Eastern Territories during the war any development or reconstruction took place at all. However, I can not even state with certainty one single case where the leading fundamentals or practical ideas of Office 6 were ever realized.\nQWill you tell us briefly the jurisdiction of Amt 7 please.\nAOffice 7 had the authority over buildings. It was to control and supervise the building activity of the outside agencies and other agencies in the office of the Reich Commissioner. Such a construction activity, for example, could be considered whenever a resettler would be assigned a farm site where the buildings were in need of repair and this conversion was necessary.\nQCan you tell us about the jurisdiction about Amt 8 of the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 224, "page_number": "224", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AOffice 8 of the Main Staff Office had the title Central Land Office. It was the task of the Central Land Office to look at the soil and land which could be considered for resettlement, above all in the incorporated Eastern Territories and to inspect it, to seize it, and perhaps confiscate it. Furthermore, the Central Land Office had to collaborate, if in exceptional cases a transfer of the properties was necessary. If an inventory had been made of soil which had already been confiscated.\nQAfter this description of the eight offices of the Main Staff Office, will you please tell us about the Amtsgruppen into which these offices were included?\nAThe establishment and the ideas of the office groups never were quite clear to me. The tactical significance of the establishnent of the Amtsgruppen was, as far as I as an outsider could see, only of importance to Office Group C or 3. That was the office group which included the Planning Office, the office of construction and the Central Band Office.\nQWhat was the reason for this fact?\nAI believe that the reason for this was that the Planning Office, and the Central Band Office, that these offices were relatively far away in every sector of Berlin, that they had their own registration office, already because of separation they had a certain amount of independence. Consequently it was close to the soil that the Central Office and the Central Planning Office, since these were subordinated to the Chief of Office Group Meyer, they were more independent than most of the office groups.\nQNow, after this short description of the main office and Amtsgruppen of the Main Staff Office, would you please shortly identify the particular defendants as far as their positions were concerned, which was the position of the defendant Greifelt within the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 225, "page_number": "225", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:That will take some time, won't it?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, sir.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will be necessary for the Tribunal to adjourn for two hours today instead of one so that it seems that this question would call for a rather lengthy answer, the Tribunal will, therefore, recess now until 2:30 (A recess was taken until 1430 hours).\n AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1430 hours, 22 October 1947.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 226, "page_number": "226", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You may proceed with the examination of the witness.\nKUNO WIRSICH - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, will you please identify the position of the defendant Greifelt which he held in the Main Staff Office?\nAThe defendant Greifelt was Chief of the Staff Main Office, Chief of the Amtsgruppe-A in staff headquaters, and as far as authorities were involved which were up to Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for Germanism, he was his deputy,\nQBy which decree, if you remember correctly, was he appointed as the representative of Himmler as Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism?\nAAs far as I recall, the defendant Greifelt was made Himmler's deputy as Reich Commissar when the Main Staff Office was instituted; that is, either at the sane time or approximately with the decree which Himmler enacted in June 1941.\nQIs it possible that certain decrees or orders signed by Himmler were drawn up in the Main Staff Office by Greifelt?\nAYes.\nQCan you explain which way the relations existed between the defendant Greifelt and Himmler in regard to drawing up and signing documents or orders and decrees?\nAIt happened that if a definite compilation of questions was brought to the Main Staff Office or by some other means required settlement--it happened that in such a case the defendant Greifelt did not feel himself authorized, as far as he was concerned, to make such a decision; and it happened in such instances that the defendant \n Oct.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 227, "page_number": "227", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "47-A-GJ-17-2-Gaylord-(Steuer)Greifelt and the Staff Main Office applied to Himmler or submitted a draft, which, subject to Himmler's approval, was signed by Himmler.\nQDo you remember any orders or decrees which were drawn up by the Main Staff Office but signed by Himmler?\nAI remember several such instances. For example, a decree which, if I remember correctly, carried the designation: VI-W-G, and referred to the settlement of certain property of ethnic Germans in the eastern territory. I believe that this document was drafted and handled in the Main Staff Office and signed by Himmler; or a general decree concerning the treatment of those persons recorded in Department I, II, III, of the German People's List -- also, such general decrees were drafted in the Main Staff Office and were later signed by Himmler.\nQWitness, if you had a document before you which was signed by Himmler, how would you determine whether the document was actually prepared in the Main Staff Office?\nAMost probably I would not be able to do so in all cases; but in a number of cases I could answer such question.\nQIf you find on the head of the stationary the address: Kurfuerstendamm 142, would you say that the document originated in the Main Staff Office?\nADo I understand this question correctly, namely that if the locality is shown on the document as being Kurfuerstendamm 142, then it can be assumed that such a draft was drawn up and completed in the Main Staff Office?\nQIs it correct to say that the reason for your explanation is that Himmler, himself, had no office on Kurfuerstendamm 142?\nAYes.\nQWill you now tell us, witness, how the defendant Greifelt was informed about the activities of the various offices under him?\nAThe defendant Greifelt had a number of means to inform himself of current work carried out by the various agencies. With certain \n regularity every month, there were discussions of the chiefs of offices under the chairmanship of the Chief of the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 228, "page_number": "228", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "In these discussions, the Chief of the Staff Main Office discussed matters and the various chiefs of offices reported on their individual spheres of work on matters which were of general importance. There was another possibility of informing himself; namely, the so-called daily reports.\nEach Chief of Office, and I believe also other department heads and experts, were committed daily on a special form from to report on discussions at which they had participated or to report on important events which they dealt with. These so-called daily reports were issued every evening or the next morning--I don't remember exactly--to the Chief of the Staff Main Office, and he studied them. There was another possibility of information; namely, the days on which reports were made every chief of office and individual department chiefs to the defendant Greifelt. There was a definite day of the week and a definite hour at which a definite office chief had to attend and be present for this report and discuss such matters as had occured within his sphere of work and which appeared significant.\nQDo you, therefore,say, witness, that the defendant Greifelt was informed about all essential activities carried out by and within the Main Staff Office?\nAI cannot say so because the bulk of matters handled would not permit an exhaustive information on his part, but it must be said that the defendant Greifelt had means of informing himself extensively on the most important events.\nQThat is what I say. I said, would you say that the defendant Greifelt was informed about all essential activities?\nAYes.\nQWould you say, witness that also the other chiefs of the offices were informed about activities carried on in the other offices at the occasion when they met on Mondays, at least?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 229, "page_number": "229", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Oct.47-A-GJ-17-4-Gaylord-(Steuer)\nAThe Monday discussions furnished a certain means for the individual chief of office to inform of work carried on in other offices. But this means of information--this course--must not be exaggerated in its significance. It happened comparatively often and sometimes with rather embarrassing results that the office group next to each other had not interlinked and had not sifficient contact.\nQIn regard to matters which related to various offices, Aemter, would you say that those affairs were repaired and worked out by those various offices?\nAThere was an internal organization, according to, which in such instances documents from the various departments involved had to be countersigned.\nQWhat was the importance of the co-signature of the Chief of the legal department in regard to matters prepared by other offices, or even by the defendant Greifelt himself?\nAThe purpose of these co-signatures by the legal department was primarily one of taking note of the contents for the purpose of coordinating the work of the individual offices. I believe that this significance also appears in a service decree which was conducted rather early--say 1940 or 1941--and is there explicity stated and determined.\nQThe co-signature, therefore, if I understand correctly, did not have the importance of certifying that the particular action or measure was legal?\nANo.\nQCan you now say what the relations were between the Main Staff Office and other offices, particularly between the Main Staff Office and the Reich Governors--the Reichsstatthalter--and the Supreme Presidents--Ober-Prasidenten--and the higher SS and police leaders--Hoehere SS und Polizeifuehrer?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 230, "page_number": "230", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "In the immediate structure of organization the Main Staff Office and the Reich Commissar respectively had large offices, field offices, in the form of so-called deputies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The deputies were either the Reich Governors or Supreme Presidents or, in individual areas, the higher SS and police leaders.......\nQ.May I interrupt for the benefit of all present here? You, as a lawyer, might remember that in the original decree setting up the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, certain provisions were made for agencies subject to the orders of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Is my question clear to you?\nA.No; I did not understand it correctly.\nQ.Do you remember that in the decree setting up the office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism it is provided that the Reich Commissioner for Strenghtening of Germanism may avail himself of all existing government agencies?\nA.Yes. In the [Munich] Decree of Hitler, 7 October 1939 it says, according to the sense, \"The Reichsfuehrer SS avails himself for carrying out his tasks of the existing institutions of the State, of the Party, including settlement companies.\" That, as far as I know, was the approximate wording of a decree of the original Hitler enactment,\nQ.Can you elaborate on this provision? Explain it, please.\nA.The larger resettlement movement made it necessary that a large number of different agencies and authorities had to collaborate. As far as I am informed, it was one of the purposes and tasks of the Reich Commissar to coordinate these various agencies and their work, and bring them into proper position; but the Reich Commissar was not to do the entire work with a new, bigger staff of agencies at his own expense in his own name, but to use existing facilities and authorities as far as possible.\nQ.The purpose of this provision was not to create any new agencies \n for the newly created office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism but to use the existing government agencies?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 231, "page_number": "231", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.Without doubt it was the basic thought of this decree, of the Hitler Decree of 7 October 1939, that this thought was not put into practice and was interrupted in practical life very soon as a matter of fact counteracted.\nQ.Can you explain this, why it was not kept up?\nA.It proved that for certain tasks which were completely new the apparatus of agencies, as it existed, was insufficient to handle such new tasks, for example, such new tasks with property distribution and there were suitable authorities and examples or precedents were not available.\nQ.You mean, if I understand you correctly, the compensation to be given to resettlers?\nA.Yes; that is what I mean.\nQ.Will you please go ahead with your explanation? Which agency was created for this purpose?\nA.For carrying out property distribution very early, I believe already in the winter of 1939 and '40, the German Resettlement Trustee Company was called into being which, on its part, called into life subsidiaries in Estland and Latvia, and, as far as I know, in suitable institutions in South Tyrolia, but I am not quite sure of all this.\nQ.Which was the office which cooperated with the DUT within the Main Staff Office? You mentioned it this morning already.\nA.There existed the closest cooperation between the Economic Office of the main Staff Office and the DUT.\nQ.Would you say the DUT was an instrument of the main Staff Office?\nA.An instrument, yes.\nQ.Is it correct that the main Staff Office issued the essential regulations and decrees according to which the DUT had to treat resettlers and persons to be Germanized?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 232, "page_number": "232", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Now, turning back to the relationship between the Main Staff Office and the Reich Governor - Reichsstatthalter - Supreme Presidents and Higher SS Police Leaders, what were the relations \"between the Main Staff Office and these offices?\nA.The agencies of the deputies in the various provinces and Gaue were subordinated formerly to the directives of the Main Staff Office,\nQ.Would you say that the connection between the higher SS and Police Leaders, on the one hand, and Main Staff Office on the other, were closer than the connections between Reich Governors, Reichsstatthalter, and Supreme Presidents, on the one hand, and the Main Staff Office on the other?\nA.I don't think that you can draw such a distinction. They were hired as SS and Police leaders who were very independent personages and would not take directives from the Main Staff Office and there were Reich Governors of the same type of character.\nQ.If I understand correctly, in theory at least, all these agencies were subject to the orders of the Reich Commissioner for the Strenghtening of Germanism, that is, Himmler; and, therefore, to the orders of his representative, Defendant Greifelt.\nA.According to my opinion in theory this is correct.\nQ.Now, which regulations between -- may I come back once more to the question of relationship. Do you remember that in the organization table of the Main Staff Office, dated first of August 1942, which has been offered in evidence as Exhibit 18 in Book II-A there is a list of so-called Dienststellen of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism and of the Main Staff Office, mentioning all Reich Governors, Supreme Presidents and HSSPFs, Higher SS and Police Leaders, Hoehere SS und Polizeifuehrer, subject to the order of Himmler and the Main Staff Office?\nA.I remember that in this organization schedule, dated 1942 there \n was a largernnumber of addresses attached to it but today I can no longer tell whether this address-list actually listed only agencies, if at all agencies with regard to which the Main Staff Office was authorized to issued directives.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 233, "page_number": "233", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.May I read to you page 44 of the document to which you just referred and which has \"been placed in evidence, the heading reads: \"Dienststellen des Beauftragten des Reichsfuehrers-SS, Reichs Commissar fur die Festigung Deutschen Volkstums'.\" Is that correct according to your knowledge?\nA.The designation \"Dienststellen\" or agencies of the Reich Commissar Deputies is a technically unmistakable term.\nQ.What importance would you attach to your statement? Will you explain it, perhaps?\nA.If the heading in this list read: \"Agencies of the Commissars of the Reich Commissar,\" then I assume that if the list was drawn up properly and correctly, the agencies listed therein might actually be agencies of the Commissars, that is such agencies over which, in theory, the Reich Commissar had authority to issue decrees and directives, but without knowing the details of this listing I am unable to tell whether it is correct or not.\nQ.I have asked you about the importance of your interpretation of the heading and not the correctness of the list. So I take your answer that if it says \"Dienststellen\" it means \"Dienststellen\". Is that correct?\nA.That is correct.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 234, "page_number": "234", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "QWill you now please tell us about the position which the Defendant Creutz held in the Main Staff Office?\nAThe defendant Creutz was deputy to the defendant Greifelt in his capacity as Chief of the Main Staff Office. Moreover, he was chief of the Amtsgruppe A and Chief of the Central Office in the Staff main Office.\nQWhat were his main functions?\nAHis main functions were, according to my point, internal organization of the Main Staff Office and its field offices.\nQIs it correct that at least in the absence of the chief of the Main Staff Office defendant Creutz acted as his representative?\nAYes.\nQWill you now tell us about the position of the defendant Meyer-Hetling in the Main Office?\nAThe defendant Meyer-Hetling was chief of Amtsgruppe C and chief of the Planning Office in the Main Staff Office.\nQDo you know whether, at one time or another, defendant Meyer-Hetling was also chief of the central land office, Zentralbodenamt?\nAI consider that improbable, namely, that the defendant Meyer-Hetling had been chief of the Central Land Office.\nQWould you know about it if this occured prior to the time when you joined the Main Staff Office?\nAThat does not absolutely have to be the case. There are many things pertaining to this time unknown to me.\nQWould you say that the defendant Meyer-Hetling acted also in regard to affairs concerning the Central Land Office in his capacity as chief of Amtsgruppe C?\nAI had the impression that the defendant Meyer-Hetling, at least temporarily, in his capcity as chief of Amtsgruppe C had exercised influence on the Central Land Office which belonged to this Amtsgruppe .", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 235, "page_number": "235", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "QWill you now tell us something about the position of the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nASchwarzenberger was chief of Office V, Finance, in the Main Staff Office, and in personal union he was chief of finance administration of the German Etnical Agency.\nQFinally, will you also tell us something about the position of the defendant Huebner?\nAAs far as I know Huebner was Stabsfuehrer or chief of StaffI don't know the exact designation -- in the agency of the Commissar in Posen.\nQNow, which connections existed between the Main Staff Office and the VOMI, SS Race and Settlement Office, Reich Security Office and Personal Staff? First, perhaps connections between the Main Staff Office and VOMI.\nAIn the time from 1939 to June 1941 I would like to say that the German Etnical Agency, by order of the Reich Commissar, exercised certain functions.\nFor a time subsequent to June 1941 the German Ethnical Agency was a factor independent of the Main Staff Office subordinated to the Reich Commissar.\nQWhat were the main functions of VOMI, according to your knowledge?\nAI only know that the VOMI Primarily dealt with the actual resettlement movement, that is, in registering those people who were willing to resettle and their transport into the Reich, including billeting in temporary assembly camps - reception camps - in the Reich but this also does not apply to all areas.\nIn fact, in Tyrol VOMI was not active in these functions.\nQDo you know about the functions of VOMI in regard to persons to be Germanized, Poles and Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorranians?\nAI have heard that within VOMI or, as an appendix to this \n agency, there existed an apparatus supposed to have existed which is called Ethnic Protection Agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 236, "page_number": "236", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "I don't know what that involved in detail but I have heard that these agencies were supposed to be used in careing for people in the Altreich who aere supposed to be Germanized.\nQIs it known to you that the defendant Lorenz and Brueckner participated in transactions which did not concern resettlement but also expulsion of Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians, Lorranians and questions of re-Germanization of these people?\nAAt the moment, at least, I don't remember anything about this.\nQWhat connections existed between the Main Staff Office and the SS Race and Resettlement Office?\nAThe Race and Settlement Office had to cooperate in selecting of so-called people who were subject to re-Germanization and in taking up certain groups of people into the German Peoples' List. It may be that the Race and Settlement Main Office had other functions within the framework of its entire task of that of strengthening Germanism, but for the time being I cannot give you a listing of such further activities.\nQWould you say in a correct statement to say that the SS Race and Settlement Office was active whenever and whereever racial examinations were carried out?\nDR. HEANSEL:Objection. The question is -\nTHE PRESIDENT:I did not understand you.\nDR. HAENSEL:Will you permit me to make an objection? This must be considered a leading question. What the witness is supposed to answer has been insinuated to him in a completely leading form. The witness, from his own knowledge of affairs, must give his answer but he should not repeat what has just been told him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your objection as to the witness' answer being hear- say is well-founded. The witness should state he knows himself and not what he has heard.", "speakers": [ "DR. HEANSEL", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 237, "page_number": "237", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, do you know in which respect racial examinations were carried out by the SS Race Settlement Office?\nAI have already mentioned the selection of people subject to re-Germanization. Furthermore, accepting people into the German People's List, in certain cases the decision there depended on the result of the racial examination. Furthermore, as far as I know, racial examiners of the Race and Settlement Office were used in the processing of resettlers by the Immigration Central Office. It is possible that there were similar tasks in which the racial examination played a decisive or important factor or constributed toward making a decision.\nQWitness, what were the connections between the Main Staff Office and the Reich Security Office?\nAThe Reich Security Main Office already, pursuant to the First General Decree of 1939, was entrusted with Alian Racial Policy, that is, essentially it had the task which the Hitler Decree of 7 October 1939 described in detail as elimination of pernicious influence of alien parts of the population which represented a danger for population and Reich.\nQDid you say that the Reich Security Office had to carry out functions concerning folkdom?\nAThis task too, which was within the schedule of the Reich Security Main Office belonged to that concept, to that entire sphere of tasks, which involves the strengthening of Germanism if you observe the Hitler Decree of 7 October 1939 and make it a basis of this interpretation.\nQWas the connection between the Reich Security Office, on the one hand, and the Main Staff Office, on the other, close? Can you tell us who cooperated with the Reich Security Office? Which were the persons of the Main Staff Office who actually dealt with the Reich Security Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 238, "page_number": "238", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AThere existed comparatively many points of contact between Office A of the Main Staff Office and Amtsgruppe III-B in the Reich Security Office. Other offices of the main Staff Office had less contact with the Reich Security Office, perhaps no contact whatsoever. The same applies to the Reich Security Office, that is to say, there were agencies there which had a little contact with the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 239, "page_number": "239", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.As far as there was a connection with the offices of Main Staff Office and Reich Security Office, was that connection close?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, we are turning to the various charges made in the indictment. First, I would like to discuss with you the subject matter or resettlement. Will you please tell us which meaning was attached to the term \"Umsiedlung\" and then to the term \"Aussiedlung\" and then \"Absiedlung\". Umsiedlung I would call evacuation, Aussiedlung, Expulsion, and also Absiedlung, Expulsion. Will you please tell us what wasunderstood by the term \"Umsiedlung?\"\nA.The term of \"evacuation\" meant, as a rule, bringing of ethnical Germans, Reich Germans, from a broad, bringing them into Reich territory.\nQ.What was the meaning of the term - one term which I left out\"Ansiedlung?\"\nA.The term \"Ansiedlung,\" settlement, meant the resettlement of groups of people who were anxious to resettle and applied for resettlement.\nQ.What is meant by the term \"Aussiedlung\"?\nA.Especially meant to signify the removel of alien Nationals, folk who were undesirable elements in their present localities, that is, with the aim in mind to transfer them abroad.\nQ.What was understood by the term \"Absiedlung\"?\nA.Absiedlung, that is expulsion, meant as a rule the transfer of people who were capable of being Germanized in the broader sense of the word and particularly so from the frontiers of the Reich into the interior of the Reich.\nQ. would you say more concretely to which groups of people the term \"Absiedlung\" was referred to, and to which groups or Nationals the term \"Absiedlung\" was referred to?\nA.Absiedlung meant to signify the evacuation of Poles, from the incorporated Eastern territories, to the Government General, for \n example:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 240, "page_number": "240", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Of Slovenes, from South Syria to Serbia. Absiedlung, on the other hand, to use the same example, would mean the resettlement of German human beings irrespective of Aryan descent from the Frontiers of the Reich, Western Prussia, Danzig, into the interior of the Reich, with the aim in mind that the frontier area be liberated from people of indefinite racial descent and with the further aim to place them into the safer interior portion of the Reich. That would be Absiedlung.\nQ.Do I understand you correctly that the term \"Absiedlung\" was used in connection with the expulsion of Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians? The term \"Absiedlung\" was used in connection with Poland. Is that correct?\nA.That is essentially correct.\nQ.Now, turning to the question of resettlement. Will you tell us, please, briefly, how the resettlement actions took place?\nA.Essentially I could only give you a fictitious rendering. I never experienced----\nQ.I don't mean a concrete case. I mean in general. How people were resettled.\nA.In general the resettlement was started by a conference being made between Nationals, by the frontier office of the German Reich and the respective foreign governments, the subject of which was to find a resettlement area; the subject of resettlement and furthermore determine it in terms of resettlement in the Reich. Then in the respective time the resettlement area as we find in the contract as a rule the subjects, women to be resettled, were gathered, were registered, their previous property was registered.\nQ.How?\nA.By the registration of property and the parties willing to be settled was carried out by so called \"Absiedlung resettlement Kommandos.\nQ.What was this?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 241, "page_number": "241", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.By the VOMI. In fact VOMI through special squads.\nQ.What happened then to the people who had been registered as the so called \"ethnic Germans\"?\nA.Then as a rule within a definite period of time they were transported away, and that part of their property which was permitted to be taken along with them by contract was also taken along, horses and carriages were used; partially by boats by the Eastern WZ, by the Danube by rail. After the transportation had taken place they were temporarily billeted in special resettlement camps in the Reich.\nQ.The so called VOMI camps?\nA.These are the so called VOMI camps.\nQ.Were there any VOMI camps in the incorporated territories?\nA.I think there was a VOMI camp in the vicinity of LODZ but I don't know definitely.\nQ.What happened to the resettlers in the VOMI camps?\nA.The resettlers were taken, from time to time, from these VOMI camps to be settled in the new territories.\nQ.Haven't you left out the EWZ procedure. Will you please explain this shortly to us.\nA.When the transportation took place then the present natives of a country, the resettlers, were subject to a processing, and this processing was carried out by the Immigration Central Department which was subordinated to the Chief of the Security Police and SD.\nQ.In which respect?\nA.I don't know in which respect. The influence of the SD and the Security Police became effective. The Chief of the Security Police and SD---\nQ.Would you say whether you know this man merely in a disciplinary respect or also that the chief could give any direct orders and directives to the representatives of the various offices within EWZ?\nA.I don't know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 242, "page_number": "242", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Will you please go on explaining the EWZ procedure.\nA.In the course of this screening of the Immigration Central Department the resettlers, according to certain prospectives, were subject to examinations and classified. The aim of this screening process was to give them German nationality, that is, repatriation, and at the same time so called Ansatz-Entscheidung, that is a decision as to whether the resettlers were capable of being settled in the Eastern territory or whether they could only be permitted to settle down in the Altreich. This screening by the Immigration Central Office took place either in this office at EWZ. Because the resettlement transport took their passage through larger areas through the immigration office, it used a special train which carried special groups for the various sections in the Immigration Central Office. These trains carried them to the resettlers in the various reception camps and they were screened there.\nQ.Do you know which agencies participated in this process called Durchschleusung?\nA.In this screening process there participated among others, the examiners, physicians, men of the security police, and probably also other agencies which I can not name in detail.\nQ.What did these representatives of various properties do?\nA.These representatives of the various offices examined the respective resettling family, each one according to his discretion.\nQ.Also for instance if he had to stay in the resettlement office?\nA.They carried out a racial examination.\nQ.Was he told when they were examined that they would be subjected to a racial examination and that this racial examination and some other elements would be determining as to whether they would go to the incorporated territories as so called O-cases or to Germany proper as so called A-cases.\nA.I don't know that exactly but I consider it improbable \n that the resettlers applying to the actual resettlement were told that they would be classified into two groups.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 243, "page_number": "243", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 10 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 244, "page_number": "244", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. MCHANEY:If the Tribunal please, before we proceed with the examination of this witness, I would like to ask the Tribunal to direct defense counsel that so long as the witness is under direct examination by the Prosecution that there is to be contact between defense counsel and the Prosecution witness, He will in due course be turned over for cross-examination and they may then ask him any questions they choose but when they call their own witnesses we shall not attempt to contact them during their direct examinations and we would like to have that made clear at the outset.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I hardly think that is necessary.\nMR. MCHANEY:Well, if the Tribunal please, there will be several occasions during the course of the trial when witnesses are called by the Prosecution who are former members of the organizations which are involved in this case and they are not necessarily to be regarded in every instance as being friendly witnesses and we think that it is not going too far to sequester the witness so long as he is under direct examination. I don't think defense counsel should be afforded the right of submitting him to a private interrogation before he is cross-examined. Of course after we release the witness I think they may contact him as they choose.\nTHE PRESIDENT:So far as contact between the witness and the defendants themselves is concerned, I think your point is well taken, but I see no reason why any such restriction should be placed around reputable attorneys.\nMR. MCHANEY:Very well your Honor.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "MR. MCHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 245, "page_number": "245", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, we were discussing the question of resettlement, and in particular the EWZ procedure. Now after once the resettler was examined by the various agencies within EWZ, what happened to him? What was his so-called \"Ansatz entscheidung\"?\nAThe \"Ansatzentscheidung\" either went to the effect that the person concerned was a so-called \"O\" case, that is to say that he also could be resettled in the eastern territories; or, he was an \"A\" case, that is to say he could only be settled within Germany proper.\nQWell, were there any other classifications besides \"A\" and \"O\" cases?\nAI don't know that.\nQDo you remember whether there was a classification \"S\" or \"LU\", or \"LO\"; or \"K\"?\nAI can't recall any of these classifications.\nQNow, after the resettler was classified \"A\" or \"O\", what actually happened to him in the majority of cases?\nAWhenever a resettler was classified as being an \"A\" case, then he and his family, usually together with other resettling families were called away from the camp and were taken to the new place of resettlement; there he was assigned a certain piece of real estate or a place to live, depending upon what claims he had; this was according to the property which he had left in his place of origin.\nQAre you now discussing the \"O\" cases; or, the \"A\" cases; or both?\nAAs a rule that was the treatment which was given to \"0\" cases, in \"A\" cases there were certain difficulties; it was very difficult to find possibilities of resettlement in Germany proper in accordance with the resettlers claims with regard to his financial position before resettlement.\nQNow, why did those difficulties not exist in regard to \"O\" cases?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 246, "page_number": "246", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AIn the \"O\" cases the resettlement for the most part took place in the incorporated eastern territories.\nThis was done on properties or in living apartments from which the previous owners had been removed.\nQWhat happened to those Poles and Jews in the incorporated eastern territories who were expelled prior to the resettlement of the ethnic Germans?\nAThese Poles or Jews as a rule, as far as the incorporated eastern territories were concerned, were deported to the Government General.\nQNow, which importance has the agency called UWZ in connection with the expulsion of those Poles who had to give up their property to the resettlers? And others of course who had not to give up property because they had none.\nAI haven't quite understood the question.\nQIn which connection acted the UWZ, \"umwanderzentrale\", in regard to those Poles who left the incorporated territories?\nAThe activities of the UWZ escaped my knowledge. According to what I have heard, the UWZ agency had to examine whether the Pole concerned could be expelled or not.\nHowever, I can't tell you these things with certainty.\nQWere those Poles who had been expelled subjected to the process of Germanization or re-Germanization?\nAAs far as I know, the large majority of the evacuated Poles were sent to the Government General. However, it is possible that in connection with the evacuation an examination took place and that in connection with this, those persons who had been expelled and were considered suitable for re-Germanization were sent into Germany proper to be Germanized.\nQYou say that may have been so. Are you familiar with the subject matter of the so-called Germanization as far as it concerns the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 247, "page_number": "247", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AYes, I know the field of re-Germanization in the broadest outlines. However, I don't know to what extent this re-Germanization was connected with the resettlement proceedings.\nQWas it -- will you then tell us about what you know about the so-called re-Germanization of Poles as far as it concerns the Main Staff Office.\nAAs far as I am able to recall, already in the year 1940 or 1941 the Staff Main Office, or Himmler, issued a decree about the registration of people who were considered suitable for re-Germanization. The selection of people who were suitable for re-Germanization took place as far as I know usually through a field office of the Racial and Settlement Main Office, which was located at Lodz. The people who were selected and who were found to be racially valuable were sent into the very heard of the German Reich, and there they were given a home and work.\nQTo what extent did the Main Staff Office participate in this procedure?\nAThe Main Staff Office above all had to deal with the representatives in the Reich as far as the care for these people for reGermanization was concerned.\nQYou say the representatives in the Reich?\nAYes, the representative within the Reich.\nQDo you mean the higher SS and police leaders?\nAI am referring to the higher SS and police leaders, or the Reichsstatthalters in their capacity of representatives of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in Germany proper.\nQDo you know whether the Main Staff Office was a top agency in regard to this whole procedure] in other words, was the Main Staff Office a leading agency?\nAI think so. I believe that the Staff Main Office issued the guiding lines for the re-Germanization measures; and that by its \n representatives within the Reich it participated considerably in the work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 248, "page_number": "248", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "QDo you know who worked out the principles within the Main Staff Office according to which this procedure of Germanization was carried out?\nAI know that a number of regulations which dealt with reGermanization were formulated within the Main Staff Office. Other regulations for example came from the Main Office for Ethnic Questions of the NSDAP; I also consider it possible that the Race and Settlement Main Office, within the scope of the jurisdiction and its collaboration, also issued decisions concerning these measures.\nQDo you know to which extent the Race and Settlement Main Office participated in the so-called re-Germanization procedure?\nAThe,Race and Settlement Main Office within the scope of this proceeding had the selection of the people who were to be reGermanized.\nQNow, on which occasions did this procedure of Germanization start? If I may express myself more clearly, were there any other cases but those of expelled Poles in which re-Germanization took place?\nAYes. For example, a drive took place in order to find domestics from the incorporated eastern territories who could be Germanized and to bring them into the Reich.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 249, "page_number": "249", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Do you know the groups of persons who were preferable used for the purpose of Germanization besides the domestic helps--besides the domestics?\nA.Agricultural workers and their families as far as I know were also given preference in examinations for suitability for reGermanization.\nQ.Do you know how those people reacted after they were placed into the process of Germanization?\nA.Several cases came to my knowledge which gave cause--I must correct myself here, which awakened the impression as if the people capable of being re-Germanized were objecting to the re-Germanization process and wished to remain Polish.\nQ.Can you give us some more concrete facts?\nA.I can't give you any individual cases; however, I do recall that the attitude of the people who were suitable for re-Germanization gave cause to point out to the agencies in the Reich, which were to take care of the people, that they should be patient with them; the work of re-Germanization should not be given up immediately if there was some resistance.\nQ.Do you know a memorandum signed by the defendant Creutz to the effect that those people who resisted most would be most fitted for re-Germanization?\nA.I don't know whether the defendant Creutz signed such as orders; however, I do know that the basic principle was stated that in particular the people who resisted had the most character and were the most valuable people with whom we should have all the more patience.\nQ.Do you know of any instances within Germany proper in which a Germanization process was started in regard to Poles?\nA.I can't give you an individual cases of that nature.\nQ.Perhaps I can put my question more clearly. What happened in instances in which sexual intercourse took place between a Pole and a German woman?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 250, "page_number": "250", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.I am not informed in detail about the regulations that applied. I repeatedly came across individual instances where special treatment was mentioned. These letters were not understandable to me, and I heard that within the scope of special treatment action, also the question of re-Germanization suitability of the alien party was examined. In this connection the person capable of being Germanized was actually Germanized.\nQDid you say that this special procedure in case of sexual intercourse called \"sonderbehandlung,\" which means special treatment?\nA.I heard this expression repeatedly-special treatment; and I connected this phrase with the sexual intercourse, which was prohibited at the time, between Poles and eastern workers on the one side and Germans on the other.\nQ.Witness, when did you happen to find out about this socalled special treatment? Which was the occasion on which you heard about it?\nA.Occasionally letters came into my hands in which a representative of a higher SS police leader from the Reich informed me of the fact, under the subject special treatment agency, that a certain man, mostly with a Polish name, was examined for suitability for reGermanization, that the result was favorable and that further action would be taken. I did not know what to do with letters of that kind, and then I would find out from various experts in the office that these matters had to be passed on to AMT II; on this or a later occasion I heard from hearsay that in contrary cases, after sexual intercourse had taken place and the alien party was not found racially valuable, they were subjected to severe punishment; it was also mentioned that the Pole of the Russian in question had been hanged.\nQDo you know who determined the punishment of those Poles, Russians and other people of foreign blood in those instances?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 251, "page_number": "251", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Do you know whether the procedure took place in the German courts?\nA.No.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, you don't know the answer.\nA.No, I don't know whether any proceedings took place before a German court or who imposed the punishment.\nQ.Do you know, as a German lawyer, whether there was any provision in German law providing for a punishment of the Pole who had sexual intercourse with a German woman?\nA.I am not adequately informed about these provisions.\nQ.Have you ever seen any such provisions?\nA.I consider that quite probable. As far as I can recall, quite generally in the press it was pointed out that sexual intercourse of that type was prohibited and that strict punishment would be meted out for offenses as far as I know punishment was imposed upon the German party too.\nQ.We are discussing the question of punishment by decree by RSHA, my question is do you know any provision in German law providing for the punishment of such persons?\nA.I can't recall that in the old German Penal Code such a provision was contained. However, I believe that during the war some provisions of that sort were issued.\nQ.Yes, we are not discussing decrees by any agency such as RSHA; my question is do you know of any provisions of the German law-\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Interposing) He has answered that question by saying that he doesn't remember any such provision. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Now, do you know what sort of treatment those people received who were subjected to Germanization?\nA.I do not know anything about individual cases. I can only assume that these people just like all other people who were \n suitable for re-Germanization were given work within Germany proper, and that they were treated just like other Germans, in general.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 252, "page_number": "252", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "Q.Now, when those instances of sexual intercourse took place, who carried out the racial examination? In other words, who determined as to whether the person the Pole, is eligible for Germanization or not?\nA.I do not know how it was done in individual cases.\nQ.You mentioned the term special treatment. What was understood by special treatment?\nA.In this case, as I have already stated, I heard that by special treatment one understood that they were being subjected to re-Germanization procedure or that it meant the punishment of the alien party; I doubt beyond that there was any more extensive concept of special treatment and what it meant, I only heard after 1945. Before 1945 this term only came to my attention in connection with those instances of sexual intercourse.\nQ.When those letters came to your desk, which gave rise to the forwarding of them to somebody else, who took charge of those letters in the Main Staff Office?\nA.That was Office II, Labor Allocation.\nQ.Who was the person? Can you give us his name?\nA.That was Oberregierungsrat Bethke or, one of his experts.\nQ.Which position did Bethke hold in the Main Staff Office?\nA.Bethke, as far as I am informed, was Chief of Office II, Labor Allocation; or, he was deputy chief of that office.\nQ.Now, we are now turning to another question; to the question of \"absiedlung\"; Were other than Poles subjected to the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.It has come to my knowledge that expulsion also took place in Alsace Lorraine, in Lunembourg, and in Slovenia.\nQ.Do you know whether and to which extent the Main Staff Office participated in the Germanization of Slovenes in Yougoslavia, \n Lorranians in Lorraine; and Alsatians in Alsace, and so on?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 253, "page_number": "253", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "A.I am not fully informed about these happenings. I can only repeat here what I used to hear. In the case of expulsion in the western territories, in Luxembourg, in Alsace and Lorraine, the initiative, as far as I know, was with the local authorities, the chiefs of the Civil Administration.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 254, "page_number": "254", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "This was done because there was no requirement for resettlement.\nQDid those chiefs of the civil administration act, according to your knowledge, within their own jurisdiction, if I may say so, or as representatives of the Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of Germanism?\nAI don't know in what capacity the chiefs of the civil administration carried out these measures. I must assume that the chief in person would make the decision, and I don't know in what capacity he acted in those cases.\nQNow is it true--pardon me, for that question. When those expulsions of Slovenes, Alsatians, Lorrainians, and so on, took place, did the Main Staff Office participate, at least to the extent to which it was interested in allocation of labor--or, as it is called, \"Mensheneinsatz\"?\nACertainly. I believe I can recall with certainty, that the Staff Main Office dealt with the task of taking care of the expillees from the western territories, and after they had been temporarily accommodated in the Reich, they would try to get them work as for the other expellees. I also believe that the Staff Main Office, or its agencies, collaborated to a large extent in determing the property of the people who had been resettled, and that some sort of compensation was to be given to these people within the Reich.\nQWill you tell us, please, what the so-called \"Absiedlung\" meant?\nAAbsiedlung expulsion meant that the person concerned had to leave his place of residence and was taken into the interior of the Reich.\nQWill you please tell us which so-called Absiedlung took place from which people were taken as eligible for Germanization?\nAI don't know from what parts of Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg people were expelled.\nQI meant just by countries.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 255, "page_number": "255", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AExpulsions were carried out in Luxembourg, Alsace-Lorraine, and in Slovenia, in part also from Western Prussia and Danzig.\nQNow turning to the so-called \"A siedlung\" in Yougoslavia--the expulsion of Slovenes--do you know to what the Main Staff Office participated in that expulsion?\nASometime after the expulsion in Slevenia took place, it came to my attention that this drive was directed by an SS_Brigadefuehrer by the name of Hintze, who was the chief of Office II in the Staff Main Office.\nQCould you characterize perhaps the nature and character of this SS_Brigadefuehrer Hintze?\nAHintze, according to the stories which he told, formerly was an agricultural worker and had spent several years tramping around. He was a member of the National Socialist fraction in the Reichstag. He had the Party emblem in Gold. He was a man of medium height but very strong.\nQI meant to say, was he a tough person or was he a soft person?\nAHe was not very brutal acutally, but certainly he did harbor a certain amount of brutality. He was a somewhat primitive and uncultured mixture.\nQDo you know what happened to those Slovenes who were expelledto their wives, and to their children?\nAI don't know that as far as individual cases are concerned. I heard that some of the people who were expelled had been sent to Serbia or Croatia. The majority, however, were sent to camps in the Reich.\nQTo what camps were they brought?\nAIf I remember correctly, they were sent to camps in Wuerttemberg or Baden, and either directly or in some other form, these camps were subordinated to the Staff Main Office.\nQWho managed those camps?\nAI don't know that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 256, "page_number": "256", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "QWere those camps occupied by resettlers prior to the time when the Slovenes were brought to them?\nAI believe that those were camps which originally had been established in order to house resettlers. They were established by the VOMI, and by means of some agreement they were turned over to the Staff Main Office for this specific purpose. However, I don't know the conditions which prevailed in detail.\nQNow do you know about the effect of that Absiedlung in Yugoslavia, of that expulsion in regard to so-called partisans? In other words, do you know which action was initiated by the expulsion action?\nAI am of the opinion that this expulsion was one of the reasons why the Yugoslav resistance movement was able to get such a large number of men.\nQDo you then know what happened to those so-called partisans, or, as they are called in documents \"bandits\" -- their wives and their children? Did they reels this process of Germanization and expulsion?\nAI didn't receive any detailed information about that.\nQDo you know anything about the expulsion action called \"Absiedlung\" in Luxembourg, Alsace, and Lorraine?\nAOn some occasion or other, Index cards came to my attention. Some were in the Staff Main office, and on the back of the cards it was stated for what reason the expulsion had taken place.\nQWould you tell us, please, what reasons were stated on those cards of persons expelled?\nAA rather frequent reason was that a member of the family, who was eligible for military service, had tried to escape the draft into the German Armed Forces, and that he had escaped to France, Switzerland, or some other place. Another reason was, for example, the refusal to use the German salute, or refusal to give contributions for purposes of Germany.\nQDo you know why Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians \n were supposed to serve in the German Army, that you just mentioned in your proceeding answer?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 257, "page_number": "257", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "AThese people--the population of these territories--to a certain extent had passed through the re-Germanization procedure, this was initiated by the Chief of the Civil Administration, and now they had become German nationals subject to revocation. Consequently, according to the German Conscription Law, they had become subject to military service in the German Army.\nQDo I understand you correctly, that by a decree of the Chiefs of the Civil Administration, these people whose countries had been invaded were made citizens of Germany by a civil decree and then obligated to serve in the German Army?\nAI cannot say with certainly whether these regulations were issued by the chiefs of the civil administration. I believe that was the case. However it's possible that these regulations issued by the Ministry of the Interior.\nQIn any event, I understand that those people were made citizens of Germany and therefore had to serve in the German Army, is that correct?\nAIt is correct that some of these had German nationality or had German nationality subject to revocation and consequently had become obliged to serve in the German Armed Forces.\nQDid I understand you correctly to say that some of these people deserted the German Army and therefore their families were expelled, and the cards of the expelled were found by you in the Main Staff Office?\nAYes, that is correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 23 October 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 258, "page_number": "258", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 23 October 1947, Justice yatt Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. I, Military Tribunal I is now in session.\nGod save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nThe persons in the court room will be seated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court.\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor all defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the attorney for the Prosecution that quite often you begin your question before the interpreter is through with the answer to the previous question. please watch out for that.\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor.\nIn checking the language of yesterday's examination, the English part of the language, I noticed in the last part some sort of misinterpretation of the answer of the witness, in the last part of the examination. May I, therefore, repeat my questions in order to make the record clear.\nKUNO WIRSICH - Resumed:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, we discussed yesterday, the expulsion of Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians. At the end of yesterday's examination I asked you, and I would like to repeat this question: What cards did you find in the Main Staff office referring to the expulsion of \n Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE MARSHAL", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 259, "page_number": "259", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.The Main Staff Office, as far as I am acquainted with matters was connected with the expulsion of Luxembourgians and Alsatians, --\nQ.Pardon me, witness, you misunderstood my question. What cards did you find in the Main Staff Office? You were referring to yesterday at the end of the examination related to the expulsion of Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians?\nA.The question is not clear to me as to the tasks of ---\nQ.What cards, identification cards? You said yesterday that you had occasion in the main office to find certain identification cards in the office.\nA.Index cards. On one occasion I saw a large number of file cards which obviously had not been issued by the Main Staff Office. On the reverse of those index cards there was a column reading \"reasons for expulsion\" and among these reasons for expulsion there appeared fairly frequently the statement that a son or another member of the family had failed to register for the Army Draft or for Labor Draft. As far as other reasons for expulsion are concerned I remember refusal to give the German salute and refusal to contribute to public collections.\nQ.Do you know why members of families of Luxembourgians who were drafted into the Germany were expelled?\nA.I don't know any more of these indicents except what I found in brief remarks on the reverse of these index cards.\nQ.How did it come about that people, Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians were drafted into the German Army, the question which I had put to you yesterday and which I am repeating in order to clear up the record.\nA.Due to a drive of the local Chiefs of Civilian Administration or due to a deive of the Reich Minister of the Interior, certain groups of the population of Alsace and Lorraine and probably also of Luxembourg had either acquired German nationality revokably or irrevokably. Hereby, \n according to German Conscription Law they were subject to military conscription.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 260, "page_number": "260", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.If I understand you correctly, therefore, those citizens of Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine were made German citizens by a decree and as a result of that decree and their German citizenship were drafted into the German Army?\nA.Yes, however I cannot judge whether it is correct to use the term here \"made German Nationals.\" I can only state that they acquired German citizenship. How this came about, I couldn't say in detail.\nQ.Are you familiar with the decrees providing for the German citizenship of those citizens and published in the Reich Ministerialblatt des Innern?\nA.Obviously I used to know these decrees formerly but today I am unable to say any more what the special ruling was in regard to the drive to Germanize, that is, to transfer German Nationals in Alsace and Luxembourg. These questions were handled differently in almost every area involved.\nQ.I am not interested in the details of those questions. The only question I am interested in and I will repeat: Do you know whether the citizens of Luxembourg and Lorraine received citizenship revokably or irrevokably by operation of the law?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And do you know whether as result of that fact those citizens were drafted into the German Army?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you also know whether those of the former Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians who did not enter the German Army were caught and were arrested after they were caught?\nA.I heard nothing to that effect.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I say to the Prosecuting Attorney, your voice comes and goes and I think it is because you stay a little too far away from the microphone.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 261, "page_number": "261", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Do you know whether my of those Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians who were made German citizens and drafted into the Army were executed because they deserted the Army?\nA.I cannot remember any such incident.\nQ.Do you know any details about the expulsion in Alsace and Lorraine?\nA.I don't know any specific details.\nQ.May I now supplement some of the questions that I put to you yesterday in regard to the office procedure of the in Staff Office. Did you ever notice that a general treatise was circulated among the members of the Main Staff Office? I mean a treatise or outlines of policy in regard to Poles and so on.\nA.It happened that matters of general significance were passed on from one person to the other.\nQ.Do you remember whether an article or a treatise by Amtsgerichtsrat Dr. Wetzel concerning the treatment of the Polish population, or if I may put it to you in German: \"Die Frage der Behandlung der Bevoelkerung der ehemaligen polnischen Gebieten von rasse-politischen Gesichtspunkten.\"\nIf I make that statement literally, the question of the treatment of the population of former Polish territories according to racial policy view points, whether this was circulated among the members of the Main Staff Office?\nA.This treatise by Amtsgerichtsrat Dr. Wetzel from the racial political office I can remember and I believe to be able to state with certainty that it was circulated within the office but I don't know whether it was circulated in all departments or only in individual departments.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 262, "page_number": "262", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.At any event if I understand you correctly, you received this treatise?\nA.I received these directives as well as others.\nQ.Did you read it at that time?\nA.I read it.\nQ.Can you still remember the contents of this treatise?\nTHE PRESIDENT:It seems to me that you are going into very unnecessary detail. It doesn't matter whether he remembers it or not.\nA.I can remember one definite item, that is, this treatise which I personally consider the personal opinion of an irresponsible man, mentioned that the Poles, by making sufficient quantities of Alcohol available to them and similar matters, should be damaged in their health and that school facilities should be curtailed and similar matters.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You needn't answer further to that question. It is not necessary to recite what you remember as to the contents of these papers. They show what they are. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Yes, Your Honor, I realize that. In regard to Amt 2 of the Main Staff Office, you said yesterday that the offices are concerned with man power and labor allocation in regard to resettlers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was this office also concerned with persons to be Germanized and used as man power?\nA.This office was also competent for the welfare of people suitable for Germanization who were allocated for labor in the Alt Reich.\nQ.In which respect were resettlers considered as valuable manpower for Germany?\nA.I cannot judge this.\nQ.Do you remember any decrees which provided that those resettlers should be used as man power even while they were in VOMI camps and that \n they would be punished, one way or another, if they would not submit themselves to labor?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 263, "page_number": "263", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.I don't believe that this reached me. People subject to reGermanization were not as far as I know in resettlement camps of VOMI and I don't believe either that there was any exception made.\nQ.I am referring to resettles, other than persons to be Germanized.\nA.Resettlers' A-cases who were in VOMI camps, were to be allocated for labor and in that connection I heard that these resettlers obstinately insisted that, according to their former property, they were to be resettled and allocated adequately, for example, a former farmer had no inclination now, even if only temporarily, to became a dependent worker, a factory or agricultural worker.\nQ.I think there is a misunderstanding in your answer. I am referring to resettlers in VOMI camps, while they are still in VOMI camps, do you remember that these resettlers had to work and if they did not work they were punished?\nA.No, I know nothing of any punishment provided for resettlers who were still in VOMI camps.\nQ.Witness, you, as a lawyer, and as the head of Department 3, the legal department, have you ever had an opportunity to read these two volumes \"Menschen-Einsatz\" which were placed in evidence by us?\nA.I know these books from the outside very well but I never took the trouble to read them in their entirety. There was too much contained therein which according to my opinion was redundant or was nonsense.\nQ.Does your statement constitute a judgment of the work of the main office? In other words, do you mean today that things which were carried out according to those books contained in \"Menschen-Einsatz\" were nonsense?\nA.Yes, I am of that opinion.\nQ.Coming to another question concerning the resettlers, do \n you remember what happened to resettlers who were satisfied O-cases and wanted to got married to A-cases?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 264, "page_number": "264", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.I don't recall at all that there existed difficulties in the case of the marriage of O-cases and A-cases. I know nothing of that, at least I do not remember it now.\nQ.You discussed yesterday the question of the decree which set up four agencies under the Reich Commissar, Main Staff Office, VOMI SS Race and Settlement Office, and RSHA. If I understood you correctly you said that that decree determined the jurisdiction of those four offices?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Does this decree mean more then determination of jurisdiction of these four offices?\nA.If you refer to the decree which Himmler as Reich Commissar for questions of ethnics issued in November 1941, I am of the opinion that the second part of this decree on the subject of jurisdiction of the main four participating offices hassignificance also for the tasks in which these four main offices in their capacities as Reich agencies had to collaborate.\nQ.Did this decree put the defendant Greifelt in a position above the position of Chief of the SS Main Office?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is there ambiguity about the terms of that degree?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this decree according to the position of the Prosecution means not only the position of the four offices mentioned in the decree but elevates the position of the defendant Greifelt above those four offices and I want to ask the question if he knows about that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Doesn't that depend on the language of the decree itself?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Then the decree will show.\nMR SCHWENK:It also depends on the actual practice.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "MR SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 265, "page_number": "265", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT :You were not asking him about practice; you were asking him about what the decree meant. The decree will show for itself. BY MR SCHWENK:\nQ.Now, could you tell us what happened to the resettlers, Ethnic Germans, who went through the EWZ procedure and were of military age?\nA.These resettlers, who were subject to EWZ procedure, received, as far as I know, a certificate as to their Nationalization as Germans or an allocation testimonial and they were either classified as an O-case or an A-case; but it may be other decisions were made in the course of this procedure.\nQ.My question was, do you know whether those people who were made citizens within the EWZ procedure were drafted into the German Army immediately because they were of military age?\nA.I can only assume that as everywhere, German citizens were subject to Army draft, that is, also resettlers were subject to conscription and became so, if they had been processed through EWZ and had beennationalized but I do remember that the Main Staff Office repeatedly, and I believe successfully, endeavored that the new Nationalized resettlers for one or several years were exempt from conscription.\nQ.Was there a close connection between the main staff office and the Army concerning the military service of those resettlers?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT ", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 266, "page_number": "266", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "AI don't consider it right for me to say that there was a close contact, but certainly a series of negotiations took place on this subject and I am sure there must have been an exchange of correspondence.\nQMy last question in regard to the resettlement, supplementing this question of resettlement, you say yesterday that Poles and Jews, if I understood correctly, were expelled from the incorporated territories to make room for the ethnic Germans, and that those resettlers, that those Poles were brought to the Government General. Is that correct; did I understand you correctly?\nAThat is correct.\nQDo you remember whether a greet number of poles and Jews who were expelled were not brought to the Government General but to the extermination camps in Poland?\nAI know nothing of that. I always heard merely that the evacuated Poles from the incorporated eastern territories were brought into the Government General and there they were unloaded somewhere.\nQI am leaving now this part of the discussion and come back to one question of the persons to be Germanized; the Germanization procedure. Could, you tell us Which groups of people were used for Germanization besides the Poles whom you mentioned yesterday?\nTHE PRESIDENT:If he mentioned it yesterday, there is not any use to go over it again today.\nMR. SCHWENK:I beg your pardon -\nTHE PRESIDENT:If he mentioned it yesterday, there is not any use to go over it again today; he stated yesterday about that.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, my question was whether he can summarize the groups of people who were subjected to Germanization from all countries in Europe.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Didn't he do that yesterday afternoon?\nMR. SCHWENK:He stressed only one or two countries; I don't believed he brought it out clearly enough from which countries people were \n brought to Germany for Germanization.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 267, "page_number": "267", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You may ask him if he left cut any countries yesterday and if so, name them, but don't go over the same ground again.\nAI don't know other details of these drives, and, therefore, I cannot definitely state exhaustively all those areas and territories from which at some time or another people subject to Germanization were selected and brought to Germany. It may be in Estonia racially satisfactory people were selected.\nQCan you just name the other countries?\nAThe main country of origian for people suitable for Germanization was Poland.\nQWere any persons brought from Yugoslavia for re-Germanization?\nAFrom Yugoslavia a number of \"Absiedlers\" also with the aim of Germanization were brought into the Reich.\nQWere any people brought from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg for Germanization?\nAFrom Alsace and Lorraine and Luxembourg \"Absiedlers\" were brought into the Reich with the aim of re-Germanization.\nQI am now turning to a new subject matter. The DVL procedure. Will you please explain, witness, what the \"Deutsche Volksliste\", DVL, meant? A Those parts of Poland incorporated into the Reich in 1939 that is particularly the old provinces of Posen, West Prussia and Upper Silesia contained a certain number of people of German racial descent. In addition there were a number of people whose descent and ethnic origin was obscure. The aim of the German People's list was that those people who were of German descent and of German ethnical descent were to be ascertained and were to be Germanized.\nQWhich were the basic decrees for the \"Deutsche Volksliste\", the German People's List; how did it come into existence?\nAThe \"Deutsche Volksliste\" existed already since the fall of 1939.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 268, "page_number": "268", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "The local agencies, Landraete, and similar organizations, at an early stage recognized the necessity for people of German descent residing in those territories, the so-called ethnic Germans, being furnished adequate identification papers. For the time \"being there was no uniform settlement for the entire territory, due to the lack of uncontrolled issue of such ethnic German identification papers on the part of the various agencies, there arose a certain confusion. For that reason a decree was enacted by Himmler in September, 1940, and which according to my knowledge was drafted in the Staff Main Office, certain basic principles were set up so that the examination and checking up of ethnic Germans in the western Polish territories would be brought into a uniform routine. This decree of September, 1940, whether explicitly or by its meaning, I don't know, was addressed to the Reich Minister of Interior and was the cause for the decree on the German People's List which was published in early March, 1941, in the Reich Law Gazette. By this decree and a very extensive subsequent decree of the Minister of the Interior, dated 13th March, 1941, the proceedings for the Germanization and selection of ethnic Germans were regulated in detail.\nQWitness, can you give us a short description of the four classes of the DVL?\nAAccording to this decree on the German People's List, the applicants for German citizenship were to be sub-divided into four classes. Class I was to comprise such Polish nationals who during the time of 1919 to 1939, that is , as was said at the time, had been under Polish government and yet had actively worked for Germany, that is who had belonged to German societies or unions in Poland during that period. Class II of the German list comprised those people of German racial descent who could prove that they had maintained their German characteristics; for example, who had uninterruptedly during the Polish regime maintained their German tongue. In Class III of the German People's List various groups of people were \n to be registered; first of all, such people of German racial descent who in cultural or other respects had certain contacts with Poland.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 269, "page_number": "269", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Moreover, such Germans who were living in a so-called mixed marriage, with a Polish man or woman; finally , the children of such racial marriages. In Class III there were to be registered certain racially valuable parts of the large mixed population of upper Silesia and Danzig and West Prussia, who having been a part of Prussia for 150 years, had strong German characteristics, but nevertheless had never yet entirely lost their original contact with Poland. Therefore a group of people in connection with whom it was not possible to say clearly whether they belonged to this or that nation. Class IV of the German People's List was the registry of those people who despite their German descent, under the Polish regime, had actively worked in a manner hostile to Germany, the so-called renegades . These were the four classes of the German People's List.\nQWitness, could you tell us to which extent, whether and to which extent, the Main Staff Office. RUSHA and VOMI participated in the establishment and issuance of the decrees concerning the German People's List?\nAThe original initiative for the decree concerning the German People's List dated September, 1940, was due to a decree of Himmler which he signed in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. In the future course, the German People's List was dealt with in the Reich Ministry of Interior and by the agencies of the Interior Administration; but in the course of negotiations concerning the enactment of the German People's List there were a very large number of agencies and offices infolved, among these I am sure the Main Staff Office and the Reich Main Security Office; perhaps alsok but I can't say for sure, VOMI and RUSHA. Furthermore, in the Main Staff Office the abency on the highest level within the scope of the agencies, was set up, namely, the supreme court of examination on ethnic questions; whereas the first three levels in this procedure of examination were established with the agencies of the interior administration, the fourth level was with the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 270, "page_number": "270", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Witness, were you particularly familiar with the DVL procedure; and, if so, why?\nA.In the Main Staff Office I was charged with the final examination of these ethnic questions.\nQ.Are you familiar with one of the basic decrees called XII-C, and dated February 12th, 1942, offered in evidence here as Exhibit 99?\nA.The date seems strange to me of 12th February; I know a decree of February 9th.\nQ.That is XII-C?\nA.I know the decree of the 9th of February.\nQ.In order to identify the decree, will you tell us briefly what it was.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute; wait a minute. Are you asking him what the decree provides?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe there is no doubt about the identification of XII-C, as there was one decree XII-C; only one decree XII-C. May I ask the witness whether it is correct that there was only one decree XII-C, so we know that we are talking about the same decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, you may identify the decree, but don't ask the witness about the contents of the decree; they show for themselves what they are about.\nA.There was only one general decree under the title of XII-C, and the approximately heading general decree referring to the treatment of those people registered in the Departments 1, 2 and 3 of the German People's List, dated the 9th February, 1942.\nQ.Why is it that this decree carries the number XII-C?\nA.XII refers to the series, the number of series which were passed in a certain section; and \"C\" signifies that this decree was duplicated in the legal department which bore the designation \"C\" in the organizational schedule.\nQ.Do you know whether the original of the decree XII-C, signed by Himmler, was in the hands of the Main Staff Office or in the hands \n of Himmler himself; or any other agency?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 271, "page_number": "271", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.The original of the decree signed by Himmler himself, XII-C, I myself saw in the files of the Main Staff Office. The decree was duplicated and mailed by the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the defendant Greifelt personally show the decree XII-C as well as the subsequent decree concerning the treatment of DVL-IV people to the members of the Main Staff Office?\nA.XII-C dealt only with Departments 1 to 3; the decree concerning Department IV dealt with the remaining questions belonging to it.\nQ.I asked you whether the defendant Greifelt showed the decree XII-C and the subsequent decree concerning the treatment of DVL-IV to the members of the Main Staff Office shortly after it had been signed by Himmler.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please explain how it happened?\nA.The general decree XII-C was sent to the Main Staff Office after consulting a great number of participating agencies, primarily a number of Reich Ministers. It was compiled there in the Main Staff Office, and the defendant Greifelt submitted the draft to Himmler. In any case, early in February, 1942 the defendant Greifelt came and at a meeting of office chiefs submitted the original which had just been signed; namely, the original of that decree which was later known as Decree XII-C. I think I can remember that this was pursuant to a personal visit of Greifelt to Himmler, but it is possible that the draft and the original had been submitted in writing by the Main Staff Office to Himmler and had been returned by him.\nQ.Does the same apply to the decree concerning treatment of DVLIV members?\nA.As far as I recall, the decree on the subject of Department IV was signed by Himmler on the same day, and returned, but I am not sure who drafted the decree. I can only assume from the exterior picture of it and the wording of it that it was handled by the Reich Main Security \n Office, there was a confusion as to files and archives , inasmuch as the decree concerning the Departments 1, 2, and 3 was published on the 9th of February by the Main Staff Office and the subsequent decree of the Recih Main Security Office concerning Department IV was dated the 16th of February.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 272, "page_number": "272", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Was there a number of decrees concerning the DVL which were issued by the Main Staff Office subsequent to those basic decrees?\nA.In addition to the general decree of XII-C of the 9th February 1942, there were also passed a number of executory decrees; the majority of these executory decrees were signed by the respective expert of the respective agencies involved and handled by them; but individual questions pertaining to this sphere of work, as far as I know, were also handled later on by the Main Staff Office in detail.\nQ.Do you remember any such decrees signed by the defendant Greifelt and concerning 'the DVL? And probably brought out in the legal department of the Main Staff Office of which you were the head?\nA.I remember that negotiations were conducted with the Reich Ministry of the Interior because according to the general decree XII-C, members of Department 3 were not permitted to become officials. It showed, and particularly in upper Silesia -\nTHE PRESIDENT:He simply asked you if you remembered seeing any decrees signed by this particular defendant; you can answer that without going into so much detail.\nA.I don't remember any specific decree which was signed by the defendant Greifelt in execution of decree XII-C.\nQ.Were there any lists -- DVL lists besides the list which applied to Poland?\nA.There were other similar directives for nationalization almost in all territories over which the Reich government or German military exercised influence; the designation varied.\nQ.Was there for instance a DVL Ukraine?\nA.There was a so-called German People's List in the Ukraine, not \n approved by the Reich Minister of the Interior; as far as I remember it was unimportant even from the German point of view.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 273, "page_number": "273", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Witness, I asked you whether there a DVL list for the Ukraine, and I expect the answer yes or no; if you then want to add something, then go ahead.\nA.Yes, there was such a list.\nQ.Was there another DVL?\nA.There was a so-called branch office of the German People's List in Deaine in Northern France.\nQ.Do you remember any other DVL lists?\nA.There was a further so-called subsidiary of the German People's List in Metz.\nQ.Now, will you tell us what the effect of the DVL procedure was, briefly.\nA.DVL, that is German People's List procedure, was an examination of the population with the aim of bestowing German citizenship on them, or bestowing it subject to revocation.\nQ.What did a person have to do in order to be accepted in DVL list?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 274, "page_number": "274", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.A person had to file an application and to add a questionnaire.\nQ.Do you remember the questions asked in the questionnaire?\nA.I remember some questions very well, but not all of them.\nQ.For instance.\nA.One of the most important questions was that pertaining to descent: the applicant had to state his name, and I believe also dates as to the birth and place of birth of his grandparents. Then there was also a question as to membership in German societies in Poland or in German parties.\nQ.Did the Race and Settlement Office have anything to do with the DVL procedure?\nA.The Race and Settlement Main Office was to cooperate, and did so, in some areas of the Eastern territories. In respect to the racial examination of Department III of the German People's List. Certain groups had to submit to this racial examination.\nQ.Now, if I understand you correctly, the DVL procedure started with an application and ended with the citizenship of the Polish or Russian or French citizen?\nA.My answer, if correct, would have to be as follows: the procedure concluded with the furnishing of a certain identify paper, and if the person acquired this paper, irrevocable citizenship was thereby automatically bestowed in certain cases.\nQ.Would you please tell us what kind of citizenship those Poles, Russians and French received who were accepted in the DVL?\nA.That depended. Members of Department I and II of the German People's List in the incorporated Eastern territories, for example, together with a blue identification paper, automatically received irrevocable citizenship.\nQ.What about DVL-III?\nA.Members of Department III, when they received the green identity. paper, automatically became revocable German citizens.\nQ.What about DVL-IV?\nA.Members of the German Peoples' List IV were furnished with a red \n identification paper which had no influence at all, as far as the nationality was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 275, "page_number": "275", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "It was intended that members of Department IV were to be subjected later to individual procedures for Germanization and to be bestowed revokable citizenship in due course.\nQ.Was the effect of this obtaining of citizenship by DVL I to III again the fact that those people were drafted into the German Army, provided they were of military age?\nA.These persons who acquired German citizenship, either revocably or irrevocably, thereby become subject to military conscription.\nQ.Does that mean that these persons who were originally Poles, Russians and French, and so on, had now to fight against their own country?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think that rather calls for a conclusion.\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor, I will withdraw the question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Can you now tell us, witness, about the connection between DVL and seizure and confiscation of property owned by Poles and Jews-Poles, particularly? Was there any connection?\nA.The property of members of Departments I and II of the German Peoples' List was exempted from confiscation. Members of Department III of the German Peoples' List, as far as I can remember, were not to lose their property in a formal respect, namely, their property was to be blocked in the case of real estate. The seizure of property was not to take place; on the contrary, any loss of property sustained previously was to be compensated.\nQ.Witness, for the benefit of all present, would you please tell us something about the basic decrees on seizure and confiscation of Polish property, because I am afraid we might not understand your explanation unless we know the background. I am referring to what you know and what everybody else knows as the so-called Polish Vermeegens-Verordnung.\nA.The first basic principles, as far as seizure of Polish property was concerned, were passed already at the end of September or early October \n of 1939 by the local agencies or the military commanders.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 276, "page_number": "276", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Pardon me for interrupting. I just want a short explanation and not a detailed explanation. Was the property of Poles and Jews in Poland seized?\nA.The property of Poles and Jews in the incorporated eastern territories was subject to seizure according to the Polish property decree.\nQ.And now will you please go on with your explanation of DVL I, II, III and IV.\nA.I mentioned settlement as far as Department I, II, and III was concerned. In regard to Department IV, seizure of property was provided, but in this instance too, compensation was taken into consideration. The property of the Poles who were not accepted for legislation in the German Peoples' List was subject to the general decrees concerning seizure, according to the Polish property decree.\nQ.Di I therefore understand correctly that the property of Poles who were accepted in the DVL, was exempt from seizure and confiscation, except in DVL-IV?\nA.That is correct.\nQ.Would you now tell us for what reasons a Pole or a Russian or any other person--but particularly a Pole, as we are now discussing the seizure and confiscation of property--might have applied for acceptance in the DVL list?\nA.I believe that in a certain number of cases, application for registration in the German Peoples' List was made for the sake of genuine devotion to Germanism. In another group of cases, the reasons might have been to exploit the -\nTHE PRESIDENT:He didn't ask you the reasons. Just a minute. He didn't ask you the reasons. He just asked you what they did; how it applied.\nMr. SCHWENK: Your Honor, pardon me. I put the question to the witness to the effect that he should state what reasons, particularly economic reasons were existing for Poles who applied for DVL; in other \n words, what advantages they would take if they applied and were accepted.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 277, "page_number": "277", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Well, he has explained in detail exactly what would happen if they went into these different classes.\nMR. SCHWENK:I wanted to bring but, Your Honor, what would happen in general to those Poles who would not apply for DVL.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, ask him that question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Would you tell us, witness, about the difference of a situation of a Pole who was accepted in the DVL and a Pole who did not apply and was not accepted in the DVL.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You need not answer that question. Don't tell the difference; tell what happened if it did not apply. That is the only question that remains to be answered.\nTHE WITNESS:Whoever did not apply for registration and acceptance into the German Peoples' List, according to the general decrees in effect, was dealt with accordingly. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.What happened to those Poles who did not apply for DVL or were not accepted in the DVL, in regard to their personal life and property, and so on?\nA.Their property, pursuant to the Poland decree, could be seized. They personally, if certain conditions were existent, were in danger of evacuation. They received the lower food rations of the Poles and they were exposed to other unpleasant incidents. Which resulted from the general inferior conditions of the Polish people as compared to that of the Germans.\nQ.Did I understand correctly that according to that in German \"Unannehlichkeiten\"-- which means unpleasant things - even if it meant for them to be expelled from their homes and placed either into the Government-General or into Germany proper as slave labor?\nA.When I used the word \"Unannehmlichkeitenx\" --unpleasant things-I did not wish to describe these hard facts but merely much rather I was \n thinking of these little special regulations; for example, in using street cars, and similar.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 278, "page_number": "278", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "In any case, in many spheres of life there were special regulations existing for Poles.\nQ.Are you familiar with the decree providing that if a Pole does not apply for DVL, although he is of German descent, he will be placed in protective custody and in a concentration camp?\nA.I know this decree.\nQ.Did you know this decree in your capacity as chief of the legal department?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you now tell us briefly about the Supreme Court for ethnic questions in regard to DVL--Volkszugoerigkeitsfragen?\nA.The Supreme Court for ethnic questions was the fourth and highest level. It could determine, either on complaints of the people affected, which reached it, or it could also deal with individual cases of basic significance.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 279, "page_number": "279", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I caution counsel for the Prosecution to speck slowly and distinctly and please let's get down to the facts of the case and get away from so much detail. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, we mentioned a decree which provided that a person who does not apply for DVL, although he or she is of German descent, would be placed in protective custody or in a concentration camp. Will you please tell us whether you had an opportunity to apply this decree either affirmatively or negatively?\nAI had no opportunity whatsoever to work with this decree in any way.\nQWere there any cases where you had to point out that the decree should not be applied by the Main Security Office?\nAI can recall one case where this decree according to my opinion, was applied unjustly by the RSHA or an boner State police agency. The case was that a Polish citizen of German origin was accepted in Department 3 of the DVL and refused to accept that identification card because he was of the opinion that he should have been put into Department 2. That man who was of age to be in military service was then taken into protective custody by a state police agency because it was assumed that his refusal to accept that identification card was due to the fact that he intended to dodge the draft.\nQDo I understand you correctly that in this case you pointed out, as the chief of the legal department, that the decree did not apply?\nAI know for certain that in that case I have written to the Main Security Office -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he asked you a simple question and you can answer it yes or no.\nAYes. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQI therefore understand that you had occasion to interpret the \n decree and to apply it?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 280, "page_number": "280", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:He just answered that he did. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQTurning to another point, do you happen to know, in your capacity as chief of the legal department, any measures or steps which were taken against people of foreign blood in regard to marriage, marriage age, children, support of children?\nAYes.\nQWould you explain, this, please, which measures were taken?\nAAmongst other things I can remember one decree issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior which directed that the marriage age for Polish women was to be at least 25 years and the minimum marriage age for a Polish man would be at least 28 years.\nQWhat was the purpose of this measure?\nAThe purpose of this measure was to stop early marriages and thus be able to keep down the birth rate of the Polish population.\nQDo you know whether, and if yes to which extent, the Main Staff Office, RUSHA, and VOMI, participated in these measures?\nAI can recall that I personally participated in a session of the Ministry of the Interior in which session many agencies were represented. I do not know whether the RUSHA and the VOMI were represented in that meeting.\nQDo you know of any other measures of the same or similar nature?\nAI remember a meeting in the Ministry of Justice. Some agency had complained about the fact that the German courts in the incorporated Eastern territories had to deal increasingly with cases claiming support of children which Polish women brought against the fathers of their illegitimate children.\nQDo I understand you correctly that there were complaints about the fact that the Poles had too many children?\nAThese complaints also were raised.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 281, "page_number": "281", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWhat happened at these conferences?\nAIn this conference and the previous correspondence it was suggested that the German courts should not deal with such support of children cases, whereupon other agencies stated that such a non-acceptance of such cases for the support of Polish illegitimate children would lead to the following, namely, that the man who was responsible for the illegitimate children or all the Polish men altogether would tend to have more and more illegitimate children.\nAs far as I know, the following detour was chosen, namely, that the man responsible for such an illegitimate child had to pay the alimony but the child itself or the mother, however, would not receive the alimony. This sum was to be sent to some sort of a public treasury.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 282, "page_number": "282", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.So I understand correctly that the illegitimate Polish father had to pay alimony but the alimony had to be paid to the German Reich?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He has just answered that question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Do you know of any other measures which were taken in order to prevent childbirth?\nA.I know that for a period of time there were difficulties for Poles to get married at all because no registrars had been installed to act and that church marriages which had been in effect in certain parts of the Polish western territories, prior to that time, were no longer recognized by the government.\nQ.Do you know whether any measures were taken permitting abortion on Eastern workers?\nA.It heard on one occasion that such a decree existed. However, at the present moment I couldn't tell you anything further about it.\nQ.Do you believe that the occasion occurred at the time when you were chief of the legal department and in your capacity as chief of the legal department?\nA.That decree came to my knowledge in connection with a German Reich decree or a German Reich law concerning the protection of the German family and legal childbirth.\nQ.Do you know any details about any procedure concerning abortion on Eastern workers which took place at that time? In other words, did you road the decree you are referring to and do you remember what it provided?\nA.I assume with certainty that I probably read that decree at the time. Today, however, I cannot remember the details of its contents nor do I know which agency had issued that decree; whether it was the Reich Health Leader or some other agency, I really don't know.\nQ.I am now turning to another point, the activities of the Central Land Office. Could you, witness, tell us briefly how the Central Land \n Office operated?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 283, "page_number": "283", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.The Central Land Office was competent for the registration seizure, and confiscation of agricultural Polish property in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and also to a certain extent also for the turning over of such agricultural property to anyone who was interested in it.\nQ.Will you please repeat the sentence once more because I believe it came out wrong in the English translation in one term? Will you please repeat it, witness? One term was translated, I believe, in a different way.\nA.The Central Land Office was competent for the seizure, the confiscation, the turning over of Polish valuables. They were also responsible for the turning over of such plots a restricted extent to anyone who was interested in purchasing it.\nQ.What did the Central Land Office understand by the German term \"Erfassung\"?\nA. \"Erfassung\" in German consisted of the fact that in the villages or communities of the Incorporated Eastern Territories it was ascertained which plots were there, to whom they belonged, how much belonged to each estate. And I believe that in this seizure there were also statements concerning cattle and the composition of the property in other words, whether it contained areable land, meadows woods or other pieces of land.\nMR. SCHWENK:Tour Honor, May I make a suggestion in regard to the translation of certain technical terns so that the translation corresponds approximately with the terns used in the English American Law?\nI would call the German term \"Erfassung\" in English, registration. I would call the term \"Beschlagnahme\" a seizure; and the term \"Einziehung\", confiscation. If we don't keep this straight we might get nixed up here. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, we were talking about \"Erfassung\", registration of property and you explained how this was done; is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 284, "page_number": "284", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Will you now please explain how the seizure of the property was carried out?\nA.The seizure of the property, of a Polish property, was carried out in the following manner, namely, the Central Land Office would issue a decree which was posted in a certain place. Based on that decree a slip of paper or ft note was attached to the file cover of that plot from which it could be seen that that property had been seized in favor of the German Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom.\nQ.Can you tell us now how the confiscation of Polish and Jewish property was carried out?\nA.The confiscation also took place through a decree of the Central Land Office which again was posted publicly. Based on that confiscation order then, in Department I of that particular land registration book, a note was entered that the property or, rather, the ownership of that property had been transferred to the German Reich represented by the Reich Commissioner.\nQ.Witness, which was the basic decree under which the Central Land Office operated in regard to this registration, seizure and confiscation?\nA.The basis for this work of the Central Land Office was the decree concerning Polish property.\nQ.To what extent did this decree shift the tasks of registration, seizure and confiscation to the Central Land Office?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The decree itself will show that. You need not answer it.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I put this question to the witness in order to explain to all people present here the complications of the property involved. We will have some more agencies involved in the seizure and confiscation of property and I wanted to point out that the Central Land Office had functions different from those other agencies.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You simply ask him the meaning of the decree. That \n is the only possible construction put on the question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 285, "page_number": "285", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Do not, I repeat again, ask the witness what the content of the decree is or what it means.\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Were there any other agencies which also seized and confiscated property?\nA.Yes, there were.\nQ.Which one?\nA.The Main Trusteeship Office, East, the HTO, had the right, also based on that decree concerning Polish property, to seize non-agricultural property from the Polish population to confiscate it, and to have it administered by a trustee.\nFurthermore, the Reichsland GmbH - also sometimes called the Eastland GmbH - was an institution of the Reich Food minister. By a special law dated 4 February 1940 that food minister had become the general administrator of the entire agricultural area in the occupied territories. This decree also had the character of a general seizure.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 286, "page_number": "286", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.As far as the work of the Central Land Office was concerned, that is, as far as the Legislation, seizure and confiscation of agricultural property was concerned, do you happen to know any data or figures pointing out the size of the property registered, seized, or confiscated?\nA.I point to the last statistics at the Central Land Office which I can remember at the moment there were approximately one million plots with roughly six or 8 million hectares which had been seized. It is possible that this figure of 1 million varied between 100,000 above or 100,000 below this level.\nQ.Did the registration, seizure and confiscation of Polish and Jewish property under the Poland Vermoegens-Verordnung also include church property?\nA.This question was not entirely cleared up and with reference to the seizure of church property a certain, restraint was observed.\nQ.The work ox the Central Land Office in regard to seizure and confiscation included both private as well as State property?\nA.I couldn't answer that with certainty; I believe that the registration also extended to church property. As far as the seizure was concerned, however, there were certain doubts as to competency and there were also misgivings of a general political nature.\nQ.Did you understand my question correctly? I was asking whether the seizure and confiscation work of the Central Land Office included both private and state property?\nA.Oh, I see. The seizure and confiscation activity of the Central Land Office comprised the private agricultural property. However, not State property.\nTHE PRESIDENT:He asked you a simple question. Does it include both classes of property or not. You can answer that. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Did the main Staff Office have anything to do with the seizure and confiscation of cultural property?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 287, "page_number": "287", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.To Which extent?\nA.I couldn't tell you that for certain.\nQ.Do you remember the person, the main staff office, who had to rule on this subject matter, to whom one had to deal with?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who was that man?\nA.That man was the man in charge of cultural matters in Office I, his name was Walter.\nQ.Do you remember to any extent which functions Walter had to carry out?\nA.Walter was in charge of the subject matter of culture in Office I, of the Main Staff Office. I do not know the exact outline of his field of tasks in particular, especially since he was in charge of that agency since 1940 or 1941.\nQ.How was the property seized and confiscated supposed to be used?\nA.The seized cultural property was to be administered by the Ahnenerbe. I do not know the further regulations.\nQ.How about the other property handled by the Central Land Office supposed to be used. In other words which use was made of the property registered, seized, and confiscated by the Central Land Office.\nA.Seized and confiscated property could not be used at all. Confiscated property could be sold.\nQ.Was that property given to resettlers?\nA.The transfer of plots to resettlers was not in connection with seizure and confiscation of the property.\nQ.In which connection did it take place?\nA.The transfer of he property to a resettler was nothing but a handing over. The legal procedure was carried out in the following manner: That the resettler had to come to the trustee, within the framework of the public administration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 288, "page_number": "288", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Did the Central Land Office turn over that property to the resettlers?\nA.No.\nQ.Who did it?\nA.According to my opinion the resettlement staffs or the working staffs did that.\nQ.Do you know the connections between the resettlement staffs end working staffs on the one hand and the Main Staff Office or the local representative of the Main Staff Office on the other, in order to determine the connections?\nA.The resettlement staff or the working staffs were subordinated to the delegates of the Reich Commissioner for the strenghening of German folkdom.\nQ.I am leaving this point now and turn to the Lebensborn organization. Have you over heard, in your capacity as Chief of the Legal Department of the Germanization of so called Polish orphans?\nA.Yes, I have.\nQ.Will you explain this to us?\nA.Within the frame work of those numerous applications which were submitted to me I also remember a case where a woman coming from Poland complained about the fact that we had suddenly taken away from her a foster child that had lived in her home for a long time because it was nice and blond. I believed that this letter had some to me by mistake. Whereupon, I transferred the matter to the expert of the Race Office in the RuSHA, if I am not mistaken.\nQ.Do you know why you turned this matter over to the SS Race and Settlement Office and not to any other agency?\nA.Would you repeat please.\nQ.Do you remember why you turned over this letter just to the Race and Settlement Office and not to any other agency?\nA.The passage in this letter written by the Polish woman mentioned \n that the child was blond and beautiful; made me think that the whole matter had something to do with the selection carried out by the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 289, "page_number": "289", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.I am now turning to my last question, your Honor. In connection with DVL, did you ever come across a case of the Count von Alvensleben?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you explain this matter to us, please.\nA.The old Count of Alvensleben was the owner of a large estate in Danzig, Western Prussia. As far as I can remember he was not on good terms with his son or his relatives. After the entry of the German troops into Poland Count Alvensleben was arrested because he was being charged with having denounced or vaived his rights to German citizenship and had became a Polish citizen. However, after a short while he was released from custody and later on he was included in Department 3 of the DVL before a court.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 290, "page_number": "290", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court I Case VIII\nQWhat happened to the counsel of Count Alvensleben finally?\nACount Alvensleben - or some family members of his had requested a counsel whose name was Briesbon. This counsel was of the opinion that the arrest of his client Alvensleben ---\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, all he asked you was what happened to him, not the details. Just what happened to him.\nAHe was arrested. BY DR. SCHWENK:\nQWhere was he brought to?\nAHe was brought to a concentration camp.\nQDid he ever come out of the concentration camp?\nAI believe that certain points were found in the files that he no longer came out, of that camp; that he died there.\nQWhere did all this happen?\nAIn western Prussia.\nQWho was in charge of this measure at that time, which Higher SS and Police Leader?\nAHildebrandt.\nQYour Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Counsel may proceed with the crossexamination. BY DR. HAENSEL (For the Defendant Greifelt):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQMay I proceed with the cross examination your Honor? The basic term which we are talking about here is that of the ethnic German. Is that a legal term, i.e. a term which is contained in decrees, laws and so on, and described therein?\nAI don't think so.\nQDo you remember the decree of the Reich Chancellor and Fuehrer of the 8th of October 1939 concerning the set-up and administration of the Eastern territories?\nAYes, I do; that is where it appears for the first time.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 291, "page_number": "291", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWhat portions does this decree have?\nA (No answer.)\nQPerhaps I can help you. Can the development of all those things which we are discussing here be understood if one does not know those decrees.\nANo one can understand all those things.\nQThe decree was not yet introduced by the Prosecution. I did not receive the Reich Law Gazette; I have a copy of the decree and I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would permit me to show it to the witness. Witness; will you please quote the part where the term \"ethnic German\" appears?\nAIn paragraph 6 of this decree it is stated that the people of German blood and German --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are doing the very thing that I stopped the Prosecution from doing, that is, going into the question of this witness construction of what the decree means. The decree speaks for itself and the Tribunal will be governed by the language of the decree.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, unfortunately the Tribunal does not have the decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will have the decree. Don't go into the contents of the decree. Go ahead.\nDR. HAENSEL:Then your Honor, I shall take the liberty to submit that law. There are also interpretation difficulties, your Honor. Sometimes you cannot interpret a law according to its wording but you have to interpret it according to the handling. Perhaps we would have to ask him a few questions about one interpretation or the other of this decree. However, I shall try to submit this decree to the Tribunal as soon as possible.\nQDoes the term ethnic German also have a certain definition in the International law, that is to say, in State agreements between Germany and other countries, and if so what other countries?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 292, "page_number": "292", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "AI assume with certainty that the term ethnic German is contained in approximately every resettlement agreement that was signed.\nQFor you, as a lawyer, and in charge of a legal department, in an important position, was there any legal misgivings whatsoever that the term ethnic German, was secured from an Internation point of view. I mean International law?\nANo.\nQWere you of the opinion that based on the resettlement agreements the German Reich without violating International law had the opportunity to give German citizenship to these so called ethnic Germans?\nANo.\nQWould you say that the term which was inflated here of Germanizing, I will put the German word there: Germanisieren, means something other than the fact of just giving German nationality other than to ethnic Germans?\nAYes, I would.\nQIn how far was the Main Staff Office for which I have to talk only as the counsel for my client Greifelt, how much did that have to do with granting citizenship to these ethnic Germans?\nAThe Staff Main Office did definitely participate in the highest level and decisions, could also be to the effect that somebody was granted German citizenship today. It is also possible that the Main Staff Office worked out principles for citizenship for resettlers through the EWZ. However, I couldn't answer that question with certainty.\nQDid it practically carry out the granting citizenship through the EWZ?\nANo.\nQWho was the EWZ subordinated to witness?\nAI don't know that for certain; Its name was EWZ was \"The Chief of the Security Police and the SD, EWZ.\"\nQYou say that you don't know for certain. However, you will know for certain whether the EWZ was subordinated to that office of which \n you were the Chief of the Legal Department, that is to say of the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 293, "page_number": "293", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "You will know that?\nAIn spite of the fact that the name of EWZ was unmistakable I couldn't tell you that for certain.\nQExcuse me, witness, but you must know if you are the legal adviser of an office, whether that office was subordinated to an agency like EWZ.\nASubordination is a manifold term. It can be interpreted in many ways. It could be subordinated to the Nation; it could be subordinated in a disciplinary way or any other way. I am not familiar enough with the situation.\nQLet us now speak about subordination, witness. In the decree which I consider to be the start of the Reich Commissioner for the strength of German folkdom dated 7 October 1939, exhibit 20, three fields of tasks are mentioned. One of them is the Main Staff Office; the second one is RSHA, Reichs Security Main Office and the third is VOMI. Was there any aright to issue orders from the Main Staff Office concerning the VOMI or the RSHA, witness?\nAI think it possible that such an authority to issue orders existed on paper.\nQDid it exist in practice?\nAI consider that impossible.\nQFor that authority, be it weaker or stronger, the authority to issue orders, the persons are of importance rather than the paper,\nAThat is a legal question according to my opinion which I, as a witness, am not in a position to judge.\nQDid the persons who were at the head of the VOMI and the RSHA have more or loss in their authority than Greifelt?\nAThey had more authority than Greifelt.\nMR. MC HANEY:I suggest that Dr. Haensel and the witness pause between the question and answer. I would like to have the last question and answer repeated.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. MC HANEY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 294, "page_number": "294", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:And I would suggest to the witness that he do not start to answer until the question is completed. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, we were speaking about the authority to issue orders, and I asked you in this connection, what your answer stating that the position of the Chief of Vomi and RSHA was based on, was stronger than Greifelt was.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 295, "page_number": "295", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.The chiefs of VOMI and the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office and speaking of the latter I am mentioning Heydrich, within the SS they were higher according to their senior rank than the defendant Greifelt who according to my knowledge joined the SS Only in 1933.\nQ.Generally speaking, what is the difference in the tasks between these three agencies, and I mean starting from the tern of the ethnic Germans and from the term German folkdom; ethnic folkdom Germans and alien folkdom; etc. did the Staff Main Office deal with the folkdom in the German sense of the word? Or did it have anything to do with foreign folkdom people, and what is the difference according to your opinion?\nA.The Main Staff Office for the main part had to deal with the German folkdom. The RSHA, for the largest part with the Ethnic Germans.\nQRight behind you, witness, you have a chart where in the middle you will find Himmler as the Reich Commissioner and Reich Fuehrer SS and\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are travelling too fast. You are talking to fast; they can't keep up with you.\nTHE INTERPRETER:No, Your Honor, it is not too fast; he has walked away from the microphone.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are away from the microphone instead of talking too fast.\nQ.And below in one line you will find in those large squares those agencies which we were just referring to. Now, if you start with Himmler and you run through the chain of command to the RSHA, or whatever these lines are, then you will find the line in red; it means the authority to issue orders as Reich Fuehrer SS. Do you think that this just exhausts everything?\nA.No I don't believe it is.\nQ.Why not?\nA.The chart is limited, but in its implementation it is cor \n rect.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE INTERPRETER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 296, "page_number": "296", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "However, outside of these connections which are contained on this chart there are other ones also between Himmler and the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, which, however go beyond the framework of this chart.\nQ.I don't quite agree with you, witness. I don't believe that they exceed the chart, but if you look at the connections between Himmler and the VOMI for instance, you will see it is reduced to that dotted black line with a bend in it. Perhaps you could tell us, witness, how VOMI was connected with Himmler and I mean from the authority point of view; if you consider that the task of that chart is not only to describe us to show the position of the Reich Fuehrer SS but also that of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German folkdom.\nA.I consider it correct that between the brown square Himmler and the VOMI only the black connecting line should be drawn which points to the fact that the VOMI was subordinated to Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissioner. I already mentioned yesterday that is is doubtful that VOMI and the Main Staff Office were also Main Offices of the Reichsfuehrung SS. That is the general SS.\nQ.Do you consider it doubtful?\nA.Yes.\nQ.If it were an agency of the SS?\nA.Then it would have to have a red line next to the black line.\nQ.And how about the RSHA?\nA.Well, the RSHA within the framework of this here chart where Himmler only is mentioned first as Reich Leader SS, and then as Reich Commissioner, you only should have a connecting line, in red. As the Reich Fuehrer SS or Reich Leader SS because one cannot say that the entire office of RSHA was subordinated to Himmler as the Reich Commissioner. That is the reason why I consider the dotted line as more correct, but generally speaking, one can be of differing \n opinions concerning such charts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 297, "page_number": "297", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Yes, quite so, witness. We simply wish to discuss the points of view on this chart and that points of view whether the office of Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of German folkdom was a state agency, a Reich agency; or, whether it was a party agency, or an SS agency.\nA.The office of the Reich Commissioner was a Reich agency; one of the highest Reich authorities.\nQ.And how was it with the RSHA?\nA.The RSHA, as far as I could judge these things, had various other capacities; it was pars of the General SS and subordinated to Himmler as Reich Fuehrer SS, Reich Leader SS; it was part of the police which was subordinated to the Ministry of Interior; the security police, and they were subordinated to Himmler in his capacity as chief of the German police and so far it was a Reich agency and the RSHA, at least with a few offices, participated in the work of the Reich Commissioner. They also used the letterhead of the Reich Commissioner, partly, not always.\nQ.If you are referring to the letterhead of the Reich Commissioner, then, of course, you are thinking of a letterhead which had nothing to do with the Main Staff Office.\nA.Yes, that is correct; the letterhead according to my recollection was as follows: Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German folkdom, RSHA, Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.Apart from the term of the ethnic German, which has been so often mentioned here, we also think of the terms incorporated eastern territories and Government General; and other terms. Would you like to tell us, witness, first of all by remembering the time of September or October, 1939, what is meant by incorporated eastern territories or Government General. Are these parts of the former polish state?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 298, "page_number": "298", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Did the entire polish country consisted of these territories; or, were they only part of Poland?\nA.They are only parts of former Poland.\nQ.And the last part of this Polish state, what happened to that in September, 1939?\nA.This had become Russian territory.\nQ.Do you remember that at the time the exact date was 28th September, but you will only remember the general time around that period of time, do you remember that a state treaty between Germany and Russia concerning this separation of Poland had been published?\nA.I don't know whether the treaty has been published at the time; I believe it was only published a short while ago. However, it was known to me at an earlier date that Poland had been divided at the time.\nQ.And what was the difference now between the incorporated eastern territories and the Government General?\nA.The incorporated eastern territories comprised for the largest part the former Prussia territories, that is to say which had been Prussian up to 1919. By decree issued by Hitler, dated the 8th October, 1939, they were incorporated into the Reich. Therefore, they became part of the Reich territories. On the other hand, what still is considered as a subsidiary territory of Germany, and some sort of independence had been granted by the Reich government and the Ministry.\nQ.Who according to your knowledge was the moving power in the conception of this eastern policy. Did that go as far as the highest level; or, what? Where could the engine be found?\nA.I assume that these basic decisions were made by Hitler personally.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 23 October 1947)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 299, "page_number": "299", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 23 October 1947.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nKUNO WIRSICH - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the witness. BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, do you know that Hitler personally was very much interested in all eastern questions?\nA.No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:MY earphones are not working proceed\nQ.Witness, do you remember having heard that prior to the appointment of Himmler to Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism a fierce struggle took place for power between him and Daree?\nA.Yes I do.\nQ.Do you remember that not only Daree and Himmler dealth with those problems, but also a whole number of other powerful Nazi leaders like Rosenberg, koch and the other ones whoever they may be.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did Himmler consider the position of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism to be very important; did he occupy himself very much with that question?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you Know whether Himmler at any time appointed a deputy for himself?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me from your recollection from what you can deduce this fact?\nA.Approximately around the same time when the Main Staff Office was established, in June, 1941, the defendant Greifelt was appointed Hitler's deputy in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 300, "page_number": "300", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.I would like to show you now, witness, Document Book II-B, and you will find there on page 14 and on page 28 two decrees by Himmler which have already been mentioned here concerning the jurisdiction of the Staff Main Office VOMI, and all the other agencies. However, there is not a single word mentioned there about Greifelt being Himmler's deputy.\nA.Yes, that is correct. I stated that that occurred approximately at the time of the establishment of the Staff Main Office which was in June, 1941.\nQ.Do you mean there was a special decree on that should be a special decree which is not here at the moment\nA.What I meant is that there either should be another decree; or, perhaps Himmler made that decision orally.\nQ.Witness, did you have the experience in practice in your office or anywhere else that Greifelt deputized for Himmler; I mean deputized for Himmler according to the sense of the word.\nA.The defendant Greifelt several times Signed letters using the title: \"The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, with the words: deputizing for InVertretung.\nQ.I believe that we all have signed letters before for other persons without actually being deputy or deputizing for a person in the actual meaning of the word; it could have been a special order, a special assignment.\nA.I remember that the defendant Greifelt at the same time when the Himmler decree dated June, 1941, was published informed the chiefs of office of the Staff Main Office that he, Greifelt, now had the authority to sign as deputy for Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Did this announcement to the office chiefs also refer to the jurisdiction of the Staff Main Office or did Greifelt in your opinion express in this way that he had Himmler's authority as far as other offices were concerned also.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 301, "page_number": "301", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.As to how far this statement went was never mentioned; in any case, I cannot remember any details.\nQ.Do you remember that some other offices at any other time, for instance, the RSHA or RuSHA, or with the permission of the defense, the VOMI at any time asked whether Greifelt was to make a decision as Himmler's deputy.\nA.I cannot recall any such case.\nQ.During your direct examination you said; something about the administration on the medium level and as you expressed yourself that there existed a certain authority on the part of the Reich Commissar to issue directives to the Reichstatthalter; do you want to tell us now, witness, which Reichstatthalter you were referring to? After all, there were only very few.\nA.According to my recollection, the following Reichstatthalter and Oberpresidenten had been appointed representatives. The Oberpresident in Eastern Prussia; the Reichstatthalter in the socalled Warthe-District; the Oberpresident in Kattowitz; Furthermore, if I am not mistaken, the Reichstatthalter in Styria; the Reichstatthalter in Kaernton. It is possible that the last two had been appointed representatives because they were the chiefs of the civil administration. I cannot think of any additional Reichsstatthalter at the moment.\nQ.Witness, could you now tell us something about these peoples' personalities; can you give us a description of their SS and party rank compared to that of Greifelt? Did they hold a higher rank than Greifelt or were they people who had to subordinate themselves unconditionally?\nA.As far as I was able to look into these things all four or five of the aforementioned Reichstatthalter and Oberpresidentan had much more power than Greifelt.\nQ.If one would say that they had more power then this would mean that he, Greifelt, in spite of his authority to issue direc \n tives could not do anything against the serious wish of some of these people?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 302, "page_number": "302", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Therefore, one can only speak of a theoretical authority to issue directives; is that correct?\nA.No, I would speak of an administrative legal authority to issue directives.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 303, "page_number": "303", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "COUT I, CASE VIII\nQ.Let's take an actual example here, witness. During the direct examination, you spoke of so-called expulsions. You spoke of expulsions of Slovenes; for instance. Was this action instigated by Greifelt or by any other levels, for instance the Reichstatthalter or whoever they were?\nA.I don't know how the expulsion was carried out or handled in Slovenia. I was only informed of those incidents at a later date, and I heard about them for the first time through a driver.\nQ.Do you remember the conditions in the Warthegau? Was the Reichstatthalter there Himmler's representative as Reichs Commissar and was he in direct contact with him?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was Greifelt placed before completed and established facts on many occasions through this direct contact?\nA.In some cases.\nQ.How was it with the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the Reich? Were they also all party members or SS members with more power than Greifelt?\nA.I would like to say that the Higher SS and police Leaders in the Reich, general speaking, had succeeded in getting more consideration in the SS in general than the defendant Greifelt who, comparatively speaking, was younger and lower according to his rank on the seniority list.\nQ.Do you remember what the conditions were with regard to Upper Silesia and Danzig witness?\nA.In Danzig, during the first years which we are referring to now, the defendant Hildebrandt was in charge. I gained no insight whatsoever into the personal relationship or the point of view of power between the defendant Hildebrandt and Greifelt.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt. With the permission of my colleague Haensel, I see myself compelled to discuss a question of major importance here. The Pro \n secution, this morning, at the end of their direct examination spoke about the case of Count von Albensleben.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 304, "page_number": "304", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "My colleague Haensel just asked the witness explicitly about the Higher SS and Police Leaders in Danzig and Western Prussia. Mr. President, the defendant Hildebrandt is not charged here with any matters for which he can be held responsible in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader. According to the official information which I received from the Polish delegation, the defendant Hildebrant is to be turned over to the Polish authorities for crimes or alleged crimes which he committed in his position as Higher SS and Police Leader after the completion of the trial. I am of the opinion that if the agreements between the U. S. and Poland should be kept up and if Hildebrant was to be extradicted to Poland, it is not very fitting to have Hildebrandt's capacity discussed here when he was higher SS and Police Leader.\nTherefore, I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would make a formal decision on the fact whether my opinion is shared by the Tribunal because this point is very important for the defense of the defendant Hildebrant. It is of fundamental importance -- if my opinion is agreed to by the Tribunal, because all the other defense counsel and the Prosecution would not be in a position to ask the defendant Hildebrant questions which incriminate him with regard to his activity as High SS and Police Leader. If the Tribunal does not agree with my opinion, then of course I have to deal with the entire subject of Hildebrant's activity as Higher SS and Police Leader exactly as the Prosecution would do. I would appreciate it if the Tribunal would possible give me its opinion on this.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The only thing that this Tribunal has before it is this Indictment and the charges contained in the Indictment and that is all that we can deal with.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Then, Your Honor, I believe that this question which the defense counsel for the defendant Greifelt has just put to the witness is not admissible.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 305, "page_number": "305", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Objection is overruled. Go ahead.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:My colleague Haensel just asked about the position of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the Reich and in particular that was the last question -- about the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig and Western Prussia and I don't consider that question admissible. I believe the Tribunal has just stated, that the activity of the defendant Hildebrant is this capacity is not part of the charges contained in the Indictment against him here.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I participate in the discussion with the Tribunal? I am not really interested in Danzig and Western Prussia. The only thing I am interested in is the position of the defendant Greifelt. I shall withdraw the question regarding Western Prussia and Danzig and I shall limit myself to the other Statthalter and SS Leaders. That is the question I am interested.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:At the present moment, I can no longer agree with the withdrawal of this question because the Prosecution this morning also touched upon this matter. In any case, I could only deduce that from the last word which the witness has said in this connection, namely when he mentioned the name of Hildebrant. I have to have a fundamental decision of the Tribunal on this question, Your Honor. What should be done actually is to have the question stricken from the record which was submitted this morning by the Prosecution and also the reply of the witness as not being admissable.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The object is overruled. Proceed. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, we were just comparing Greifelt's position concerning all the other medium levels with respect to the authority to issue directives. Would you summarize briefly how you compare the position of the defendant Greifelt to all the other medium levels concerning the party power he had and so on?\nA.I am of the opinion that the defendant as compared with \n the representative in the medium level, politically speaking was the person who was weaker than the others, and furthermore that he had to make his decisions very, very carefully in order to possible be able to maintain his position in the Third Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 306, "page_number": "306", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Do you believe, witness, if you remember the situation now, that Himmler would have actually appointed this man as his deputy?\nA.I cannot forget that during the establishment of the Main Staff Office, the defendant Greifelt stated that now he had the authority to act or to sign as deputy and furthermore that he actually made use of this authority in certain cases.\nQ.Witness, let us now turn to the Government General. What were the conditions there? Did Greifelt as Chief of the Staff Main Office have anything to say there or did he have any authority there?\nA.If this question means whether he had the legal authority to issue directives there, then I will have to say yes. However, if your question means whether he would take the risk to say anything over there, then I will have to say no to the question.\nMR. McHANEY:If the Tribunal please, I would like to have Dr. Haensel be directed to make his questions just a bit more pointed. I am having considerable difficulty following the examination. The last question was: did Greifelt have anything to do with conditions in the General Government? Well, I just don't know what is meant by that question and I certainly was not informed by the witness's answer. If he means to ask him whether the defendant Greifelt had anything to do with the deportation of Poles from the incorporated Eastern territories into the General-Government, I suggest he put the question to him. If he is concerned with confiscation of property, we might deal with that question but just to ask him generally whether Greifelt had anything to do with the conditions in the General-Government is a bit broad.\nDR. HAENSEL:It is correct, yes. I wanted to include all the activities of the defendant Greifelt by asking him such questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. McHANEY", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 307, "page_number": "307", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Now if he had no power in the Government-General, then of course he didn't have any power to expell people. However, let me ask you a direct question, witness. During your direct examination, you stated-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait just a minute. While this question is up, I think it is well for the Tribunal to say both to the Prosecution attorney and the Defense attorney and the witness that all three could be much more specific than you have been up to this date, and the Tribunal will have to insist that the questions and answers be more pointed and not so general in their scope.\nGo ahead.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 308, "page_number": "308", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, in your direct examination, you spoke about the reGermanization procedure, and you mentioned something pertaining to the competence of the Main Staff Office. When the re-Germanization took place, you told us that the tasks were distributed over those two other agencies. What I want to know is who exactly stated what persons were to be re-Germanized?\nA.As far as I know, the basic regulations concerning this procedure had been issued by the Main Staff Office. The selection of the people was taken care of by RuSHA.\nQ.Who decided whether a case was to be an \"*---*\" case or an \"A\" case?\nA.The EWZ.\nQ.In your direct examination, you testified upon a question that special treatment was ordered for instance by the Higher SS and Police Leader. Did the Staff Main Office have any influence on this, or did the SS and Police Leader act in this matter as in one of his other functions?\nA.I don't know exactly whether I stated at all that the Higher SS and Police Leader was the one who carried out those measures, nor do I know in which function he could possible have acted in that connection.\nQ.Did the Staff Main Office have anything to do with the \"S\" cases? who decided upon those?\nA.At the moment I don't even know what \"S\" cases are, Mr. Counsel.\nQ.With reference to the Central Land Office, do you recall any cases where confiscations took place?\nA.No, I can't give you any individual cases.\nQ.Can you state anything at all about confiscation here from your recollection or are you only thinking of seizures in general?\nA.I velieve I can remember with certainty that until the end \n of the war a few hundred thousand Hectars of land had been confiscated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 309, "page_number": "309", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.With regard to prohibited sexual intercourse witness, I would like to ask you, whether you in your activity in the Main Staff Office had any contact whatsoever with any such cases or was the Main Staff Office absolutely exluded from this?\nA.I have already stated before in my direct examination that I remembered a few cases which were in connection with that. However, these were cases of prohibited sexual intercourse which were not dealth with by punishment but by taking the persons and placing them back into the re-Germanization procedure.\nQ.With reference to the Central Land Office, witness, if I am not mistaken you made the statement, that a lot of literary work was being carried out there in contrast to any practical work?\nA.This statement did not refer to the Central Land Office but to the Planning Office.\nQ.Do you see a certain contrast there in the activity of your own office which you probably do not consider to be a literary job but a practical job, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was the administration of that office handled in such a manner by Greifelt that the work was always carried out according to regulations?\nA.Generally speaking, yes, and for the largest part yes.\nQ.Were there any other lawyers, several of them, employed apart from you in that office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you discuss politics there or did you only stick to your own job?\nA.In the main office discussions took place with regard to our official duties, but we didn't discuss any politics there. However, we did discuss politics in the mess hall.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 310, "page_number": "310", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Do you know anything about the direct relationship between Himmler and the defendant Greifelt? Was it a personal relationship or only an official relationship and if it was a personal one, was it very ideological?\nA.As far as I could look into those conditions, the relationship between Himmler and the defendant Greifelt was friendly. However, it was not based on ideology.\nQ.You spoke of a meeting at the Reich Ministry of the Interior, regarding the raise of the minimum age for marriages of Polish citizens. Who had the initiative in this matter?\nA.The initiative in this connection came from some Oberpresident or from some Reichstatthalter in one of the incorporated Eastern territories, and I believe it was the Reichstatthalter in the Warthegau.\nQ.Witness, you spoke about a meeting concerning alimonies of Polish children in the Reich Justice Ministry, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who had the initiative there?\nA.Unless I am mistaken, the question of alimony and also other questions in this connection had been raised by a Gauleiter of the NSDAP, the National Socialist German Labor Party through the Party Chancellery.\nQ.You spoke about abortions, witness; did the Main Staff Office participate in any way in issuing decrees and so forth in this connection?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.You don't know? You mean to say that it didn't come to your knowledge?\nA.That is correct. No such decree came to my knowledge, at least I can't remember today whether any such decree was issued by the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Witness, as far as the Polish property was concerned, I \n would like to ask you a question in connection with that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 311, "page_number": "311", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Do you remember which laws were used as a basis for a general seizure?\nA.The general administration of the Polish agricultural territory which had the character of a general seizure took place by a decree of the Four-Year Plan dated the 12th February, 1940.\nQ.Now somebody else appears to be striving for more authority in the East. They are the authorities of the Four-Year Plan. Do you recall the other decrees, the first one dated the 5th of October, 1939, that is to say two days before the establishment of the office of the Reich Commissar and the one dated the 30th of October, 1939, concerning the extension of the four-year-plan to the Eastern territories?\nA.I do remember the first one, yes. I do not remember the second one, however.\nQ.Did that practically mean that the Four-Year Plan or shall we say Goering, and his representative in this case Winkler, had first choice on the property? Is that it?\nA.Yes, you could actually put it that way.\nQ.As far as the authority was concerned between Goering, Greifelt, and Winkler, was there any possibility on the part of Greifelt to exert any sort of influence on this development?\nA.The defendant Greifelt himself certainly did not have a possibility of directly interfering in this struggle.\nQ.Did you, witness, in your activity over come across a small fraction of the decrees concerning the administration issued by the HTO or don't you know anything about this field?\nA.I did gain an insight in those parts of our task but I couldn't give you an absolutely expert answer on this.\nQ.As far as the expulsion of Slovenes is concerned, can you tell us whether you obtained this information from hearsay so that possible we can put the question to your colleague Stier or do you really think you can answer the question in a competent \n manner?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 312, "page_number": "312", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.As far as the expulsion of the Slovenes is concerned, my knowledge is based on hearsay. I mentioned that the first source of my Knowledge was one of the drivers of the SS Brigade-fuehrer Creutz.\nQ.No further questions. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.Dr. Merkel for the defendant Creutz. May I have the permission of this Tribunal to ask a few questions of the witness? Witness, what brought about your assignments to the Main Staff Office?\nA.I was transferred to the Main Staff Office from the Waffen SS.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, you mean that you were not transferred voluntarily, is that it?\nA.Yes, I do. I tried to get that job.\nQ.What was your relationship to the Main Staff Office?\nA.I was an employee.\nQ.And according to which regulations were you paid?\nA.I was paid according to wage scales for employees and civil service.\nQ.Apart from employees in the Main Staff Office, were there also officials? You were an employee, for instance, but were there officials?\nA.In the Main Staff Office, there were also officials, yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 313, "page_number": "313", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWas membership in the SS one of the compulsory regulations for getting employment in the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQWitness, will you please make a short pause after my question - for the interpreters, you know? Was a difference made in the treatment of SS members and non-SS members in the Main Staff Office, witness?\nAGenerally speaking, no.\nQWas it considered important to have a positive ideology about National Socialism and a positive attitude?\nATowards the outside, yes.\nQOtherwise?\nAOtherwise there was quite a free attitude in that agency which was rather surprising.\nQWhat do you mean by \"free attitude\"?\nAFor instance, it was absolutely possible, at least since 1942, to discuss quite openly in a circle of five or six people and particularly at noon, the fact that the war night be last, that Germany might lose the war. It was possible that for weeks may daily work started with the following, namely, that Brigade Fuehrer Creutz or shall I say the ex-Brigade Fuehrer Creutz - would sicuss with me the latest enemy reports that came through the radio. I consider that a somewhat free attitude, don't you?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Aren't we getting rather far afield from the charge contained in this indictment, going into the question of how he and his fellow employees and associates got along?\nDR. MERKEL:Very well, Your Honor. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQDo you know the defendant Creutz, witness?\nAYes, I do.\nQWas Creutz Himmler's deputy in his capacity as Reich \n Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 314, "page_number": "314", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "ANo.\nQCould Creutz independently intitiate measures of the Main Staff Office?\nADuring periods of time when he deputized for someone else, yes.\nQCan you recall any such instances when he dud that?\nANo.\nQDid any of the Monday discussions or Office Chief Discussions take place under the chairmanship of the Defendant reutz?\nAThe Office Chief discussions, during the absence of the Defendant Greifelt, usually were discontinued. In some instances they were carried out under the supervision of the Defendant Creutz as chairman.\nQCan you remember any such discussions which alledgedly took place under the chairmanship of the Defendant Creutz?\nANo, I can't.\nQNor do you know how many there were?\nAThis only occured on one occasion which was an exceptional case.\nQWas the Defendant Creutz always present when you reported to when you had discussions with the Defendant Greifelt?\nANo, he was not.\nQWhat was the purpose of the co-signature of the legal department when decrees were issued by the Main Staff Office?\nAThat was in order to preserve a uniform line towards the outside and also in order to inform the legal department on the entire work that was being carried out. That was known as coordination.\nQWere important decisions of the Main Staff Office also issued in the absence of the Main Staff Office chief.\nAIf possible such decisions were held back until the Main Staff Office chief returned.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 315, "page_number": "315", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWere Offices 1 and 2 subordinated to the defendant Creutz even prior to August, 1942?\nANo.\nQDo you know what the Settlement Staff Germany proper-Austria (Ansiedlungsstab Altreich-Ostmark), was? Do you know what that was, witness?\nAThat was an institution which had been established under Hintze. He was later chief of Office 2. I couldn't answer that question with certainty in the first place.\nQDo you know when it was established?\nANo.\nQWhether Creutz was actually in charge of that?\nANo, I don't\nQWas the legal department subordinated to the defendant Creutz even prior to the first of August, 1942?\nANo.\nQTo what extent did that subordination change with the organizational chart which was created in 1942?\nAIn the organizational chart of 1942 the legal department became part of the Central Office.\nQAnd the Central Office?\nAThe Central Office was subordinated to the defendant Creutz?\nQAs of August, 1942, of course?\nAYes, ever since the new organizational chart became effective in 1942.\nQWhat was the purpose of the establishment of the central Office which took place in 1942 under Creutz?\nAI don't know that.\nQAnd donyou know perhaps what the effects were of the establishment of this new Central Office within the Main Staff Office?\nANothing changed for me throught that practically speaking.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 316, "page_number": "316", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "As far as the effects on other agencies, were concerned adequately informed to testify about that.\nQNow, this question is only natural for us, but I want to ask you about it anyhow as a means of classification: Did Himmler, apart from his position as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism hold any additional positions?\nA well, yes, of course; yes.\nQFor instance?\nAHimmler, as Reichsfuehrer-SS, was the supreme chief of the so-called SS, the Schutz-Staffeln of the Central SS. He was, furthermore, chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Later on he was the Reich Minister of the Interior and Plenipotentiary General for the Reich Administration. At the end, as far as I know, he was the chief of the reserve army.\nQThat is sufficient, witness. Were the tasks and competencies of the Main Staff Office clearly kept separate from the beginning of his activity?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nAThe Main Staff Office or the Office of the Reich Commissar respectively, in 1939 entered a State Reconstruction Institution which existed for a long time.\nQAnd that were the effects on the organization of the Main Staff Office?\nAAlmost in every field of work in the Main Office there were agencies andinstallations which, f r a long time, had already dealt with those matters.\nQWas there a plan which had been initialed in advance, which was clearly kept, of the work of that department?\nAApart from the Hitler Decree dated 7 October 1939, which contained a compilation of basic ideas and also a few decrees of Himmler \n where certain plans were being referred to, I can't remember any basic and detailed plans for the entire task of the Reich Commissar's Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 317, "page_number": "317", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWho was appointed the representatives of the Main Staff Office, witness?\nAI don't know that for certain. I assume it was Himmler.\nQDo you know whether this was done by suggestion of the Main Staff Office?\nAI don't know that.\nQDid these representatives receive for their tasks instructions from the Main Staff Office exclusively or were there any other agencies involved?\nANo.\nQWho else participated in this?\nAFor instance, they received instructions from the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQDo you know what the position of the representative was in the Government-General?\nAThe position of the representative in the GovernmentGeneral, the Higher SS and Police Leaders, was a somewhat independent one.\nQIndependent from whom?\nAIndependent from the main tasks of the defendant Creutz in the Main Staff Office?\nAIt was the inner organization and also deputization for the Main Office Chief in case he should be absent.\nQDo you wish to go into more detail with reference to the inner detail organization which you just mentioned?\nAWhat I mean by that is the distribution of the various departments, personnel department, employment and release of employees, promotions, preliminary work on disciplinary action to be taken, statistics, files, and similar things.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 318, "page_number": "318", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Witness, was the RSHA in a position to issue orders under the signature of the Reich Commissar?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was the EWZ an independent institution?\nA.No.\nQ.Were those resettlers at the time when they were put into two categories - A and O Cases - by the EWZ, were they still foreign citizens or did they already have the German citizenship?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know whether the resettlers volunteered for the resettlement to Germany?\nA.Generally speaking, certainly, because the were \"voluntarily\" has several meanings. Of course, there was no one there who gladly left his place of birth, possibly.\nQ.Do you understand the term Ghetto, witness?\nA.I have heard about it.\nQ.When was that?\nA.That was in Schweikelberg. That was between December 1943, and April 1945.\nQ.What did you understand by that term Ghetto?\nA.All I can remember is that during an office-chief discussion which took place in Schweikelberg, it was stated that the Reich Commissar had the possibility to requisition furniture from the destroyed, dismantled Ghetto of Litzmannstadt. As far as I can recall, the main thing which was discussed in that conference was whether the Gau administration in Posen, which at the time wanted to sell this furniture, could ask for payment front the German Reich or from the German. Reich Commissar or not.\nQ.Had the Litzmannstadt Ghetto already been diamantled at that time, witness, and evacuated?\nA.I couldn't tell you more than I have already stated. I believe I can remember that the Ghetto had already been dismantled at that time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 319, "page_number": "319", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Did the Main Staff Office seize furniture in the Ghetto of Litzmannstadt?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Witness, yesterday you mentioned that approximately 100,000 various furnitures were procured. How were they procured for the resettlers?\nA.Certain requisitions and orders were sent to the German furniture industry. I don't remember the details.\nQ.Who sent those orders to the German furniture industry?\nA.As far as I know, it was the Department for the Procurement of Furniture in Office 3 of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Do you know anything about the fact or as to how the financing was carried out, the financing of this whole matter, namely, the payment of those German furniture factories?\nA.I don't know any details but I did hear that the Reich Commissar had orders for delivery of furniture amounting to something in the millions. I believe 30 to 80 millions.\nQ.Do you know anything about whether clothes were procured for the resettlers by this Main Staff Office?\nA.I never heard anything about that.\nQ.Did you ever hear anything about the fact that concentration camp inmates' clothes were used for those resettlers?\nA.No, I didn't.\nQ.Do you know whether those who were eligible for re-Germanization received clothes and furniture?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Do you know whether there was a constant and close collaboration with the Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.You wish to say you don't know it?\nA.No, I don't that is right. It is possible. I don't know.\nQ.To what extent did the defendant Creutz, when dealing with the \n DVL and working it out, participate in this whole thing?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 320, "page_number": "320", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.According to my recollection he did not participate at all.\nQ.Witness, yesterday in your direct examination --- I have to correct myself; it was this morning -- you discussed the decree according to which persons submitted applications to the DVL for not being accepted although they were a part of those who were to be re-Germanized and that they were taken into protective custody, witness. Who issued that decree?\nA.Himmler did.\nQ.And who ordered the protective custody to be imposed?\nA.I assume it was the RSHA or some other agency of the Gestapo.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office order protective custody to be imposed?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not.\nA.It did not have the authority to do so.\nQ.Were those persons who were accepted in the DVL, the German. Peoples List, Frenchmen, Poles, etc., etc., or were they ethnic Germans who, so far, had Polish or French citizenship?\nA.Well, I can't very well answer your question with yes or no, Mr. Counsel. The DVL as such, the German Peoples List, was to be used only to write down the names of so-called ethnic Germans that I mentioned before; but other people were also taken in, people of a doubtful nationality or ethnic origin and those cases in particular prevailed.\nQ.Was the defendant Creutz a member of the Supreme Examining Court for Racial Classification?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he ever deal with any questions of the Supreme Examining Courts for Racial Classification?\nDid he ever discuss them with the defendant Creutz?\nA.Possibly so, but not officially; outside of the office, yes.\nQ.Witness, I am interested here only in what happened in an official capacity.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 321, "page_number": "321", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.What is the answer?\nA.The answer is no.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz have any influence on the field of tasks of the Central Land Office and on its work?\nA.Possibly in periods of time when he acted deputy for someone else.\nQ.Can you recall any such instances which really occurred?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Creutz participate in the issuance of the decree concerning abortions on Eastern female workers?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Did he participate in the punishment of prohibited sexual inter course?\nA.I don't know that either.\nQ.Did he participate in the execution of the decree concerning the seizure of Polish property?\nA.Possibly during periods of time during which he deputized for someone else.\nQ.Can you recall any such particular instance?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz participate in the seizure of cultural property?\nA.I don't believe so.\nQ.The last question to you now, witness: You mentioned at the beginning that you had several conversations with Herr Creutz outside of the office. Were you under the impression that he agreed with all the decisions of the Main Staff Office and that he actually carried then out or what did you think was his personal attitude about those things?\nA.Well, the defendant Creutz did not at all agree with all the things that occurred within the agency or which were ordered by Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 322, "page_number": "322", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "DR. MERKEL:Thank you. No further questions.\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. May I continue with the cross examination, your Honor, for the defendant Meyer-Hetling?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 323, "page_number": "323", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, you told us that on the 16th of January 1940 you entered the Main Staff Office as a legal advisor in the legal department and that since the middle of February 1942 you were in charge of the legal department. Do you know also the defendant Meyer from that period of time or when did you become acquainted with him?\nAI don't know when the defendant Meyer was introduced to me for the first time or when I met him for time first time. However, I believe I can state with certainty that that was already back in 1940.\nQDo you furthermore state, witness, that the defendant Meyer was Chief of Amtsgruppe C and the Planning Office. Simply in order to clarify matters I would want you to confirm that the Planning Office was part of Amtsgruppe C and that there were not two different fields of tasks as far as that is concerned. Is that correct?\nAYes, it is.\nQWitness, do you know that the defendant Meyer was a full-time Professor at the University of Berlin in the first place and his activity with the Reich Commissar was simply an honorary and part-time job?\nAI know that the defendant Meyer was a Professor at the University of Berlin. However, I did not know whether carried out his task with the Reich Commissar as a sort of part-time job. I do not know the financial aspects of his task.\nQDo you know that the defendant Meyer, apart from his activity in the Main Staff Office, also had scientific and organizational tasks as the man in charge of the agricultural, scientific council in the Reich Research Council?\nAI did know that the defendant Meyer also held the positions which you just mentioned, apart from the other ones.\nQHow did that part-time activity of the defendant Work out? I mean is it correct that the defendant Meyer, due to his scientific activity as a teach on a higher school of learning was kept busy by these tasks most of the time as compared with his activity in the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 324, "page_number": "324", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI can't judge that. I did not work in his immediate surroundings.\nQDid you meet the defendant very often in the buildings of the Main Staff Office?\nAI met the defendant Meyer almost regularly in the so-called Monday discussions. Outside of those discussions and conferences on the other hand I only saw him very seldom.\nQDid the defendant Meyer participate in the so-called Monday discussions regularly?\nAIt never did strike me that the defendant Meyer was absent from them more often than any of the other office chiefs.\nQDo you wish to state by that then that the participation of the so-called Monday discussions was only on a small basis or what?\nANo, I do not wish to say that; all I want to say is that every one of those office chiefs who had the right to participate would be absent from there once in a while; either for personal or official reasons.\nQOn the occasion of the evacuation of the Main Staff Office to the Schweikelberg, you were also transferred there, weren't you?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever see the defendant Meyer in the discussions of the office chiefs which took place at Schweikelberg?\nAI believe I never did see him there.\nQAnd can you tell me when the transfer or evacuation occurred to Schweikelberg?\nAA few departments of the agency, according to my knowledge, had already been transferred to Schweikelberg in August 1943. The grestest part was transferred at the end of November or early in December 1943.\nQWitness, can you confirm that the Planning Office, after the transfer or evacuation of the Main Staff Office to Schweikelberg remained in Berlin?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 325, "page_number": "325", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAYes.\nQDo you know, witness, the so-called General Plan (East)?\nAI saw a preliminary draft of this plan sometime ago.\nQDid this General Plan, according to your knowledge of matters, at any time gain any practical importance?\nANo.\nQMay I complete my question, witness, and in particular was anything worked according to that plan or do you consider the things contained in that plan to be nothing but a theoretical and scientific study of the Planning Office or carried out by the Planning Office which you mentioned yesterday to be a literary club?\nAThe general plan East was nothing but theory.\nQCan you tell me, witness, whether the defendant participated in the DVL procedure. I would like to correct myself. What I want to know is whether one of the departments subordinated to the defendant was competent for dealing with the DVL procedure?\nANo.\nQWas one of the defendants, Meyer, a member of the Supreme Examining Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQDid he in any way directly or through his department participate in the confiscation of cultural property?\nAI don't think so.\nQCan you tell us, witness, how that decree of Hitler's dated 1943, which was called a \"Stop\" decree which affected the department of the defendant Meyer-Hetling as they were dealing with the planning.\nAI no longer can recall that.\nQYou do know, witness, that such a Stop Decree was issued at the time?\nAYes, I do know that some sort of a general \"Stop\" decree was issued which stopped all the planning for the duration of the war.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 326, "page_number": "326", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nIt either stopped it entirely or restricted it to a great extent and I also remember that conferences took place concerning the use of the so-called General Stop Decree on the planning office.\nQWitness, in your direct examination you were asked a few questions concerning the land property and the legal side of it. You said that the basis of the registration of Polish property, was an order or decree of the 12th of February 1940. Isn't there a mistake here and don't you think that the decree by the Ministerial Council for the Reich defense dated the 17th of September 1940 was the one that was used as the basis for it.\nAI don't believe there is a mistake. I remember the question which was asked me this morning so well and I believe I was asked what was used as a basis for the first general confiscation rather, and the first general confiscation was carried out by the Four Year Plan decree which I mentioned before, dated the 12th of February 1940.\nQHowever, we do agree, witness, don't we, that the decree, which was actually used as a basis, to which the property of former citizens of the Polish State was taken care of from a legal basis and that the decree issued on the 17th of September 1940 was the basis for it?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I interrupt. The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 327, "page_number": "327", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, please permit me to continue with the cross examination of this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well; proceed. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, the last question prior to the recess put to you by me pertained to the decree of 14th September, 1940, which formed the basis for the work of the Central Land Office; is that correct?\nAThat is correct, but the date is 17th September.\nQI correct it. The 17th of September is correct. Will you kindly tell me who was the chief of the Central Land Office?\nAThe chiefs of the Central Land Office were one after the other various men. The first chief was as far as I know Freiherr von Holzschuher; later, a man by name of Mundt; later, a man by name of Gebert, I believe these were all.\nQThen it is right that the defendant Meyer as far as the Central Land Office was concerned was subordinated to him only in his capacity as chief of the Amtsgruppe.\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 328, "page_number": "328", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQCan you further limit this time during which this activity was exercised on the part of Meyer? The beginning most probably will coincide with the creation of the Amtsgruppen?\nAYes.\nQTherefore, that would be, witness, what time?\nA 1942.\nQDo you know that the defendant Meyer later went to the Wehrmacht; and, can you approximately specify the date?\nANo.\nQDo you know that he was drafted into the Wehrmacht?\nANo.\nQThen let us determine the beginning of this special activity occurred in the summer of 1942?\nAYes.\nQPrior to that, had there occurred seizures and other measures of importance based on the decree of 17th September, 1940, had these been carried out?\nAPrior to that and thereafter I can't say when the decisive, important activity took place.\nQWouldn't you say that particular pursuant to the occupation of Poland activities based upon the decree of 17th September, 1940, and the measures therein decreed were carried out?\nANo. The measures pursuant to the Polish property decree started slowly because at this time the nationality of the persons concerned had not yet been clarified in each individual case.\nQCan you specify the geographical area of competency of the Polish property decree?\nAThe Polish property decree was valid in the so-called incorporated eastern territories and beyond that in the Reich area including Austria.\nQThis decree, therefore, applied -- it did not apply to the Government General.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 329, "page_number": "329", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. It seems to the Tribunal; it seems to the Tribunal that you are covering ground that has already been fully covered, so please don't repeat what has already been gone over in previous examinations. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, there were, for example, in the Protectorate state agencies; were these estate bureaus subordinated to the Central Land Office in any way or form?\nAI only know one estate office in the Protectorate which was originally a Czech agency which after the occupation by Germany was never subordinated to the Central Land Office or to the Main Staff Office.\nQDo you know whether a similar decree, similar to the Polish property decree, which applied, to the east also existed for the western territories?\nANo.\nQCould an estate office in Strasbourg or Metz, for example, could they also decree seizures; or were those just agencies of the CDC, which served for the sake of registration?\nAI don't know that exactly.\nQIs it right that the Polish property decree did not apply to foreigners; not even for members of the Reich or the Reichland?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQIs it correct that by the seizure the previous owner merely lost the power of disposing of the property?\nAYes.\nQTherefore, the actual ownership, the title was not affected?\nANo, it was not touched.\nQThese seizures, did they cause the right of disposition to be transferred to the agency decreeing the seizures?\nANo.\nQWho was authorized to dispose of the seized property within \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 330, "page_number": "330", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "the sphere of farming?\nAThe Reichsland GmbH, formerly called Ostland GmbH.\nQWitness, you then spoke of cases in which seizure was pronounced. May I say, to start with, that the main task involved was probably to gather the land in the registers, and to seize it in form only; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that confiscation actually took place in exceptional cases only?\nAIf I am not mistaken, it happened in the case of several hundred thousand hectar out of approximately six to eight million hectars of the seized area.\nQWere these confiscations not in the public interest; and was the seized property confiscated not fully utilized for the purpose of road construction, of athletic grounds and similar constructions?\nANo. There is some confusion here. The resale of confiscated property to third parties happened in exceptional cases in the manner mentioned.\nQIs it correct that in view of the importance of the confiscation the Land Office had to refrain from confiscating any estate property, and that to that extent Himmler himself and his deputies respectively had reserved these decisions to themselves?\nAI cannot remember such a decree.\nQWitness, you know the internal directives for the application of the Polish property decree dated 15 April, 1941?\nAYes.\nQTo help your memory, may I recall to you directives contained therein; namely, in reference to Paragraph 9, Figure 2, it reads there -and this is only a short quotation: With a view of the significance of the confiscations, the Land Office despite their competence as it may exist had to refrain from all confiscations of Polish real estate to the extent that I myself via the Central Land Office do not decree differently;", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 331, "page_number": "331", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nand Figure 7, pertaining to the same paragraph No. 9, reading as follows: \"As decrees pertaining to confiscations of real estate are reserved to me in each individual case for the time being, I prohibit explicitly all promises in respect to any later dispositions on property to be confiscated provided that I do not decree differently in a specific case.\"\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are engaging in an argument with the witness as to what the meaning of this language in the decree is. That argument should be addressed to the Court, and not to the witness; and would be considered by the Court, if your position is correct, in passing upon the weight to be given the testimony delivered by the witness. So don't argue with him about what the meaning of the term is, but make that argument to the Court.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 332, "page_number": "332", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Witness, is it correct that confiscation of real estate, therefore, was not exclusively in the hands of the Central Land Office?\nA.According to the decree just quoted, certainly not.\nQ.Witness, the Central Land Office--did it not have decisive importance in regard to the handling of real estate questions or as far as actual activity was concerned-did this not also concern other departments?\nA.Yes, Department 4 for Agriculture.\nQ.Would you please kindly explain the jurisdiction of Department 4-Agriculture, and of the Land Office?\nA.Office 4--Agriculture had jurisdiction for the settlement of resettlers within the sphere of agriculture, that is for the practical allocation fo these resettlers, The Central Land Office on the other hand and the Land Offices had to provide the land registration and by that they had to create the prerequisits for any change of legal titles for the later transfer of titles to newly settled resettlers.\nQ.Was it Department 4 or the Central Land Office which carried out the seizure and utilization of agricultural enterprises and who concluded any lease agreements involved?\nA.The seizure of agricultural enterprises was carried out by the Central Land Office. The utilization of agricultural enterprises was carried out essentially by Amt IV, Department IV, in conjunction with the Central Land Office. Lease agreements for agricultural enterprises were carried out by Department IV alone.\nQ.Is a lease agreement not a disposition?\nA.Yes, certainly.\nQ.I note, witness, that in the distribution of work referring to the year 1942, explicitly seizure and utilization of seized property pertain to the sphere of work of \n COURT I CASE VIII Department Agriculture, whereas the Central Land Office according to this distribution schedule for work had no tasks whatsoever of this kind.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 333, "page_number": "333", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "This does not surprise me because, based on internal directives, I have already discussed sphere of competence with you. Are you of the opinion that based on these contradictionary minutes and transcripts as they exist of the distribution of work that your opinion, as expressed, has not to be changed?\nA.I don't think so.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I object to this question and call the attention of the defense counsel to the fact that the document referred to by him in regard to Central Land Office-it is stated as the main task \"registration of the total territory eligible for germanization.\"\nTHE PRESIDENT:There seems to be a rather useless argument. The witness says he doesn't change his opinion anyhow. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, as the head of the legal department did you ever wonder whether this Polish property decree collide with international law or not?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's not get entirely into the field of speculation what he might have wondered or thought. Let's get down to what the fact in the case was, what he might have thought doesn't have any bearing on the issue here. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Is it correct, witness, that in the legal department, in your legal department, expert reports of the foreign office were available from which there resulted that the introduction of the Polish property decree did not collide with any principles of international law?\nA.I heard of this that such an expert opinion of the \n COURT I CASE VIII foreign advice is supposed to have available with the four-year plan office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 334, "page_number": "334", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "I myself at that time was not yet chief of the legal department.\nQ.Witness, will you please comment to the following items? Did the defendant Meyer himself or any of his departments have anything to do with the handling of questions pertaining to the kidnapping of alien children?\nA.No.\nQ.I repeat my question referring to abortions?\nA.No.\nQ.What were the tasks of the defendant or of any of his departments in regard to the so-called taking away of infants from their mothers?\nA.I cannot imagine that any expert of the Amtsgruppe C had anything to do with these matters.\nQ.To simplify the matter, may I summarise: were either the defendant himself or any of his departments-were they competent for questions referring to illegal sexual intercourse--prevention of reproduction of children on the part of foreign workers, forceful evacuations and resettlements, slave labor, or conscription of non-Germans as well as for the persecution and extermination of Jews?\nA.I consider it improbable.\nQ.Does this also apply to the so-called forceful germanization of foreigners?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Finally, one more question. Can you, witness, confirm to me that the defendant Meyer was only an honorary member of the SS with the rank of \"Ehrenfuehrer\", honorary leader?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.I have no further questions, your Honor. BY DR. GAWLIK:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 335, "page_number": "335", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Dr. Gawlik for the defendant Schwarzenberger, Witness, since when do you know the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nA.Since he entered the Main Staff Office. I don't know the date. It may have been approximately 1941.\nQ.Could it possibly have been November, 1940?\nA.That too is possible.\nQ.What were the tasks and what was the activity of Schwarzenberger in the Staff Main Office?\nA.Schwarzenberger was Chief of Office V, Financial Administration.\nQ.And what were the details of its activity? Will you please describe them?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 336, "page_number": "336", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "A.The activity of Office V was rather an extensive one. Office V was responsible for salaries to be paid to the employees, the control of the entire expenditure of the Reich Commissar and his Field Officers as far as finances and actual outlays were concerned. The exact sphere of work of Office V is not known to me.\nQ.Do you know who furninshed the money for the Staff Main Office, who made the money available?\nA.The Reich Minister for Finance.\nQ.Do you know whether Schwarzenberger was authorized to make any independent decisions as to the use of the funds or whether this was done by the Reich Finance Minister and determined by him?\nA.To talk of independence is rather relative in a way. The Reich Finance Minister exercised a certain influence, I think that there was something similar in existence as a domestic adjunct although the Reich Commissar did not have a definite budget; the extent to which the defendant Schwarzenberger himself disposed of Reich funds and was authorized to dispose of them and the extent to which he required the approval of the Reich Finance Minister or of the Chief of Staff Main Office is unknown to me.\nQ.Was Schwarzenberger's activity prescribed by law and regulation issued by the Reich Finance Minister?\nA.The activity of the defendant Schwarzenberger was subject to the decrees of the Reich budget order and of the Reich cash order as far as I know.\nQ.Is it correct that the staff Main Office was a Supreme Reich Agency?\nA.The Staff Main Office was a part of a Supreme Reich Agency, namely the \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\"\nQ.Please tell the Tribunal what you understand under a Supreme Reich Agency.\nA. ASupreme Recih Agencies, according to my opinion, are state agencies of the German Reich which are subordinated directly to the \n Reich Chancelor.", "speakers": [ "A. A", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 337, "page_number": "337", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.In your direct examination, you spoke of Schwarzenberger having at the same time been Finance Chief of Vomi. Do you know that this was a title which was only on paper but Schwarzenberger actually did not exercise any such activity?\nA.I don't know that exactly but I consider it most probable.\nQ.Furthermore, in direct examination, you spoke of a purchase of huts and Schwarzenberger is supposed to have participated in the negotiations involved. To whom did these huts belong?\nA.They belonged as far as I know to the City of Graz or the Reich Governor, the Reichstatthalter in Styria, or to some other public agency.\nQ.You further spoke of the Ghetto-Action Litzmannstadt. Do you know at the resale of furniture from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto has never occurred?\nA.As far as the further development and the final treatment of this operation is concerned, I know nothing about it. I could only state what, according to my memory, was discussed in that one Monday conference.\nQ.The defendant Schwarzenberger is charged under Count II of the indictment, that he is supposed to have kidnapped foreign children. Did the defendant Schwarzenberger over carry out any such measures?\nA.I don't think so. It might possibly be that the Reich Commissar via Office V had to pay for any measures.\nQ.Is that an assumption or do you have any concrete facts?\nA.This is to restrict my testimony. I cannot clearly say that the defendant Schwarzenberger had nothing to do with it.\nQ.Did you ever hear that any such measures went via Office V?\nA.No.\nQ.Under count 12 of the indictment, the defendant Schwarzenberger is charged that he had participated in abortion measures against female \n workers of the Eastern territories.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 338, "page_number": "338", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Did Schwarzenberger ever participate in any such abortions?\nA.I consider that out of the question.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger ever issue any orders to carry out any such measures?\nA.I consider this most improbable.\nQ.The carrying out of such measures -- did it belong to the activities and tasks of Schwarzenberger at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Under Count 13 of the Indictment. Schwarzenberger is charged that he is supposed to have forcibly taken infants from Eastern female workers. Did Schwarzenberger ever take any infants away from Eastern female workers?\nA.I consider this out of the question.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger ever issue any orders to carry out such measures?\nA.I don't think so either.\nQ.Under Count 14 of the indictment, Schwarzenberger is charged that Czechs, Poles and other Eastern female workers were punished by him for sexual intercourse with Germans. Did you ever hear that Schwarzenberger carried out any such measures?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you think this possible at all?\nA.No.\nQ.The carrying out of such measures--were these among the tasks which. Schwarzenberger was responsible for?\nA.No.\nQ.Under Count 15 of the indictment, Schwarzenberger is charged to have prevented the reproduction of foreigners--did Schwarzenberger ever carry out any such measures?\nA.I consider that most improbable.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 339, "page_number": "339", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q.Did you consider it out of the question?\nA.I consider it impossible.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger ever issue any orders for such measures?\nA.I don't think so.\nQ.Did these measures belong to the activities sphere of Schwarzenberger at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Would Schwarzenberger have been able to prevent such measures if they were carried out by other agencies or other departments?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, he has answered that question one time already. Let's not cover the same territory. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Did the defendant Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the forcible evacutationa dn resettlement of parts of the population-that is, with the measures assuch involved?\nA.The practical carrying out, no, certainly not.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the deportation of foreigners as slave laborers to Germany? That is, with the measures as such?\nA.Certainly not with the measures or with their practical application.\nQ.Did the defendant Schwarzenberger have any authority to issue orders towards Vomi?\nA.That may be.\nQ.A factual authority of issuing orders to carry out any measures?\nA.I can't judge that. I don't know the position in detail which the defendant Schwarzenberger had in Vomi.\nQ.Your answer there would be you don't know?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.You then spoke in direct examination of the decree by which the age of married women making them elegible for marrage was estab \n lished as being 25 years for women and 28 years for Polish men?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 340, "page_number": "340", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Did Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the enactment of this decree?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the carrying out of this decree?\nA.No.\nQ.You also spoke of a session in the Reich Ministry of Justice concerning the settlement of alimony claims on the part of Polish mothers. Did Schwarzenberger have anything to do whatsoever with these measures?\nA.No.\nQ.Did this belong in any way to the sphere of work of the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nA.No.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I call the attention to the fact that the prosecution is charging the defendant Schwarzenberger for the payment of those activities and not for carrying them out and I have not heard a single time a question put to the witness whether the witness knows--whether the defendant Schwarzenberger has paid for those activities.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 341, "page_number": "341", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "DR. GAWLIK:I am very grateful to the Prosecution for making this statement. It is the first time that the Prosecution has specified the allegedly punishable offense of the defendant Schwarzenberger and I, therefore, ask the witness the following question: BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQDid the defendant Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the payment for these occurrences just mentioned by me?\nAI consider that probable.\nQCan you give us further clarification of the question? We last spoke of the session in the Ministry of Justice concerning Polish alimony claims.\nAIn this case there was no financial requirement involved which had to be settled via the Reich Commissar.\nQAnd we also spoke of the decree whereby the marriage age of Polish women was established as being 25 and that of Polish men as being 28. Was there any financial requirement connected therewith?\nAI am sure that cost no money either.\nQTherefore, the answer to my last question would be no?\nATo the last two, no. THE PRESIDENT: May I suggest to counsel that he is travelling rather rapidly for the interpreters and getting too far away from the microphone at times. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWas the defendant Schwarzenberger in any manner connected with the Central Land Office?\nATo the extent that the Central Land Office cost money itself or required money, he did have contact.\nQDid the defendant Schwarzenberger have any connection with the registration or confiscation or seizure? Did he have anything to do with these measures?\nAWith the practical carrying out, no; as far as it cost money, yes.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 342, "page_number": "342", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "Q Did the defendant Schwarzenberger, as far as funds were limited, have any independent right of his own to make decisions, namely, in the sense that he could say: \"I will give money\", or \"I won't give money\", or was that decreed by higher agencies?\nA I consider it possible that the defendant Schwarzenberger, to a certain extent, was authorized to make his own decisions but I don't know the extent of his powers.\nQDo you think it possible that the defendant Schwarzenberger, for example, said, \"I will not give this agency, the Central Land Office, any money\"?\nANo, I don't consider that possible.\nQDo you consider it possible that the defendant Schwarzenberger, of his own initiative, was able to furnish other agencies with, funds no longer? In other words, that he could say on his own initiative, \"I will not give the VOMI any funds as of today\"?\nANo.\nQDo you consider it possible that the defendant Schwarzenberger was able to make such decisions towards other agencies who received funds via the Finance Office of the Staff Main Office?\nANo.\nQDid the defendant Schwarzenberger have to contribute his activity to the Supreme Reviewing Court on Racial Classification?\nA No.\nQDo you know the extent to which the defendant Schwarzenberger had a survey into the activity and the details of activity of other agencies?\nAI don't know.\nQWhat do you know of the general political attitude of Schwarzenberger?\nA I can only say that the defendant Schwarzenberger also belonged to that circle in which for previous years criticism had been exercised quite openly and which had also propagated comments of a defeatist \n nature.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 343, "page_number": "343", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QI assume that your answer is to be interpreted as follows. Please correct me. Schwarzenberger did not belong to those men who carried out everything without criticism which was ordered on the part of Himmler.\nAYes, that is correct.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you, Your Honor. I have no further questions.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, you mentioned yesterday the decree of the Fuehrer dated 7 October 1939 which contained three points which specify the principles of strengthening of Germanism. Do you remember that?\nAYes, I do.\nQCan you tell me, for which of these points did VOMI have jurisdiction?\nAThe jurisdiction of VOMI existed in regard to Point 1, namely, resettlement of ethnic and Reich Germans from abroad into Reich territory.\nQWitness, apart from the term \"resettlement\", in your examination the word \"Eindeutschung\", that is, Germanization, was mentioned frequently. I think we agree that there is a sharp distinction to be drawn between these two terms?\nACertainly so.\nQYou mentioned VOMI in regard to Germanization or maybe you did so on the surface only, namely, in connection with an agency, Voelkische Schutzarbeit, that is, an agency for the ethnical protection of Germans. Do you know that?\nAYes.\nQ Do you know it or do you consider it possible that this agency, Voelkische Schutzarbeit, was not an agency of VOMI but of the socalled VDA?\nAYes. In direct examination yesterday therefore I used the non \n technical and non-juridical term \"Anhaengsel\" - appendix - of the VOMI because it wasn't clear to me whether and to what extent this agency for ethnical protection was connected with VOMI.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHUBERT", "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 344, "page_number": "344", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QIn regard to resettlement you mentioned that VOMI had to register the resettlers and had to determine property involved. We have to distinguish between different types of resettlement. Do you know whether the facts you established in regard to the work of VOMI also apply to the first resettlement of the so-called Baltic Germans or did it not apply to them?\nAIn regard to the resettlement of the Baltle Germans from Estonia and Latvia, the registration of the property left behind by the resettlers, as far as I know, was not made by VOMI but rather by special institutions which were connected with the German Resettlement Trustee Company.\nQThese resettlers in their preponderant majority, did they involve Germans or members of other nationalities?\nAThe resettlers from abroad were, in a preponderant number, people of German stock, Deutsches Volkstum.\nQWould you agree with me if I say that the resettlement is a measure not for Germanization but for the retransfer of people affected, that is, their repatriation and their absorption into German nationality?\nAI would agree with you but I dislike the word \"Rueckfuehrung\" transfer or repatriation. This word may cause some confusion.\nQDo you know that the resettlement from the Baltic states and from Bessarabia and Buchenland was made pursuant to international contracts?\nA I can't say whether international contracts had been concluded about all of these resettlements. In the case of Wolhynia I am not absolutely sure about it.\nQDo you know that in connection with such resettlement drives mixed commissions were established locally and the resettlers, that is, those \n persons who were eligible for the resettlement, had to declare before these commissions whether they were willing to resettle or not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 345, "page_number": "345", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "AYes.\nQDo you know that the international contracts had been concluded to the extent that such persons which decided in favor of resettlement lost their former nationality and citizenship thereby?\nAThat was an essential point of the resettlement contract.\nTHE PRESIDENT:TheTribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning. (The Tribunal adjourned until 24 October 1947, at 0930 hours ) \n Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United Stated of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 24 October 1947, Justice Wyatt, presiding.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 346, "page_number": "346", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judgesof military Tribunal No. I.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will be in order. Mr. Marshal have you ascertained that ail defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court room.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; proceed with the testimony.\nKUNO WIRSICH - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHUBERT: (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz)\nQ.Witness, yesterday you confirmed the fact that there were state agreements concerning resettling, and it had been mentioned that the resettlers had lost their citizenship they had had so far. I would like to ask you now in connection with that wasn't that a necessary result that these resettlers had to have a new citizenship?\nA.Yes, that was quite obvious.\nQ.Witness, do you know of cases where resettlers complained against receiving the German citizenship?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever see one of the resettler's camps of VOMI.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you become acquainted with that VOMI camp well enough to tell the difference between that and a concentration camp; that it wasn't the same thing?\nA.No.\nQ.I shall now come back to the DVL, witness, Did VOMI have any competency based upon the decree concerning the DVL in any of the incorporated eastern territories?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 347, "page_number": "347", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Was VOMI participating in the DVL procedure in the practical execution?\nA.In the incorporated eastern territories, no.\nQ.Did the VOMI have any competency whatsoever in registering, seizing and confiscating properties in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.No.\nQ.Did VOMI, practically speaking, participate in measures of registration, seizure and confiscation in the eastern incorporated territories?\nA.No.\nQ.Did VOMI in any way participate in the resettling and working places?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned yesterday that there was a meeting in the Reich Justice Ministry during which occasion the alimony was discussed which Polish fathers of illegitimate children had to pay and you mentioned in that connection that a proposal and a suggestion was made according to which the payments for the alimony of Polish fathers of illegitmate children would go to the state treasury. Do you know whether this proposal was actually put in action?\nA.I no longer remember that today.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann) May I continue the cross examination, Your Honor?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nQ.Witness, I would like to add to your first words in the direct examination; in your opening words you stated that your knowledge of the organization and of the connections which concern this case come in part from your personal experiences within the activity of your legal \n department; and in part from the official conversations and discussions which took place among your colleagues; as well as from documents and certain correspondence which came to your knowledge at a later date; is that correct, witness?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 348, "page_number": "348", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Your knowledge, therefore, does not originate from documents which were shown to you after the collapse of the German Reich possibly by the Prosecution.\nA.No.\nQ.Therefore, you know about most of the basic general decrees which were issued within the framework of the organization for Strengthening of German folkdom.\nA.No.\nQ.Why not.\nA.You say do I know about all of them.\nQ.No, I mean only those general and basic decrees.\nA.My memory is not infallible.\nQ.Then, witness, I would like to ask you in a concrete manner. Did you at any time during your official activity or even unofficially, ever see any decrees of the RuSHA of a general nature which were binding for the Main Staff Office, and the other agencies and offices and which were of a decisive nature; in other words of an authorative nature.\nA.I cannot recall any such decrees of the RuSHA.\nQ.In the basic decree which has been mentioned here several times; namely, the basic decree dated 7th October, 1939, is the RuSHA mentioned in any connection there, or the tasks for the RuSHA contained there?\nA.The RuSHA according to my knowledge is not precisely mentioned.\nQ.Aren't the tasks contained in there for the RuSHA? I could show you the decree in order to support you in your thought.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I caution Counsel not to get into a discussion with the witness as to what the decree provides; the decree itself will \n show that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 349, "page_number": "349", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.All rights witness, then I would like you to tell me from memory or to answer my question from memory.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute; that is another way of doing the very thing that I cautioned you not to do.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Just a minute, please, I haven't got my channel on.\nQ.Witness, in the direct examination you mentioned which tasks were contained in the decree dated the 7th of October, 1939, would you repeat that, please?\nA.In the decree dated the 7th of October, 1939, according to my recollection the following main tasks are included: THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute. You need not repeat what the decree showed, as the decree itself will disclose its terms.\nQ.In your direct examination, witness--I will now come back to a different field. In your direct examination you stated that RuSHA was responsible for the racial selection and that therefore it had racial examiners for that purpose. Did I understand you correctly, witness?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know, witness, whether apart from the position of these racial examiners there was also an additional participation which resulted in issuance of orders in the RuSHA?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know whether the activity of the RuSHA or the racial office did not restrict or limit itself to the selection, the training and general professional instructions for the execution of the racial examiners?\nA.I don't know the inner organizational structure of the RuSHA and it's tasks well enough.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 350, "page_number": "350", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQBut do you know, witness, whether outside of this inner organization of the RuSHA whether they were active in any way with the exception of this position which we mentioned before of these racial examiners, and, all I want to know, witness, is what you know.\nAI can't recall any details.\nQWhich offices did the Main Staff Office collaborate with in the RuSHA?\nAFor the most part I presume with the Race Office.\nQCan you call that office a collaborating agency of the Main Staff Office?\nAWell, this point could be argued.\nQWitness, I would like to show you a chart of the Main Staff Office, and I would like to ask you whether this organizational chart, if it contains the Race Office as a collaborating agency, could be competent?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I would like to ask for permission to show the witness Exhibit No. 19.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may show him the exhibit, but I caution you again not to go into the contents of the exhibit itself with the witness.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Yes, indeed.\nQI have just shown the witness Exhibit No. 19, on page 72.\nAIf in this section of the organization chart, as collaborating agencies, certain agencies are mentioned, among them the SS Main Office; or the Main Staff Office; or the Police, then you can include the Race Office as a collaborating agency also.\nQDo I understand you correctly, witness, if we can include all the agencies which were used in that connection, if they could be termed as collaborating agencies?\nAI don't quite know about the sense of this term collaborating agencies.\nQWill you let me turn to another question, witness. Do you \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 351, "page_number": "351", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "know of any direct collaboration between the Main Staff Office with RuSHA; or were all the contacts carried out through the agency of the RuSHA?\nAI don't know what to make of the difference; the contact between the two offices of course takes place through the man in charge of those respective departments, the experts; those are part of the internal offices of the governments and also part of the Main Office as such.\nQDid the RuSHA at any time act as an agency for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German folkdom and signed as such?\nAI believe I have heard that the RuSHA sometimes would also use the letterhead of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German folkdom race and RuSHA.\nQCan you tell me one such decree from memory; of one such decree from your memory?\nAI can't think of any single decree in this connection.\nQCan you give me the contents of one of those decrees?\nANo, I can't.\nQWitness, I will have to show you a document in here; just arbitrarily selecting a decision from Himmler here where in the distribution list many agencies were mentioned. Will you please tell me, witness, whether in this document the RuSHA is mentioned as an agency of the Reich?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't answer that question. The document itself will show whether it does or not. Tell him not to answer that question because the document itself will show that.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Excuse me, Your Honor. If I may say something; I am not quite familiar with the American lar, but according to my experiences so far, according to my experience in the Tribunals here so far, the idea of the cross examination is to get the opinion of the witness, which he stated in direct examination, and to examine it and possibly to refute those statements made in the direct examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 352, "page_number": "352", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTherefore, I would, appreciate if the Tribunal would permit me to show the document for that purpose.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Under no circumstances, according to the view of this Tribunal, is it permissible for a witness to state the contents of a written instrument. The instrument itself is the best and highest evidence of what it shows, and the Tribunal is supposed to be able to read. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, you also know limitation decree which was issued on the 28th of November, 1941; at least you mentioned it, didn't you? Is the task of the RuSHA contained there as an agency which could issue orders?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. Did you ask him what the decree contained? DR. SCHWARZ: No, Your Honor, I simply wanted to ask the witness how the decree could be interpreted. It is not quite obvious for someone who does not know German law what those technical terms mean, and I believe it is necessary to show to the Tribunal, by way of the witness, as to how to interpret those terms.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will become the duty of the Court to interpret the instrument, and we can't have all the witnesses that are to testify in the case giving their interpretation of the language used. You may show what the document itself is by introducing the document itself, and show by the witness what action was taken under the document or under the decree; but I must insist again that you do not go into the contents of the decree with the witness. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, I would like to ask you what was the practical result of this decree. Did the RuSHA gain any authority to issue orders by this decree, or did it simply get the authority to carry out things?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't answer that question. The decree shows what authority was given. You may show by the witness, if you care, what \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 353, "page_number": "353", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "was done; but not what was authorized to be done. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, what was it that actually was done then.\nAI believe I recall that after this decree became effective the experts of RuSHA considered themselves to be more part of the Reich Commissioners than before.\nQTherefore you mean only part of these people or you mean an executive organ?\nAI mean those experts of the RuSHA with whom I had contacted since 1941 or 1942, by participating in meetings or having correspondence contacts with them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 354, "page_number": "354", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Witness, let us turn to another matter now. What was the position of the RSHA, The Reich Security Main Office, withing the framework of the task of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think that ground has been pretty well covered. The witness has described that in previous examination rather in detail. So let's not cover the same territory twice. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, now let me just ask you a short question which was not dealt with so far. You stated that the RSHA, The Reich Security Main Office, also signed as an agency for the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism. You mentioned the fact that the letterhead read the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom, RSHA, The Reich Security Main Office. Is that correct?\nA.No, not quite. I believe I can recall that I stated that the Reich Security Main Office also used such a letterhead and I stressed the \"also\"; and it was not the only agency using it. It was not the only letterhead used.\nQ.Witness, in order to identify documents I shall put the following document before you. It has the Number R-143.\nDR. SCHWARZ:All I want to have shown by the witness, by asking him this question, is whether this decree was issued by the Reich Security Main Office. This cannot be seen very easily from the letterhead. I would therefore appreciate it if the Tribunal would permit me to show this document to the witness.\n(Document handed to witness.)\nA.I could not answer this question with certainty \n because this document is dated December, 1939, and from that time, in the Reich Commissioner's office, I don't remember the letterhead used and all the other file marks.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 355, "page_number": "355", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, during the first few words which you mentioned this morning, you stated that you base your knowledge of matters also on documents and correspondence which existed before your time. Is that correct?\nA.Quite so. A series of things seem to indicate that this decree originated with the RSHA.\nQ.Will you please just read to the Tribunal the letterhead?\nA.The letterhead: \"The Reichsfuehrer, the Reich Leader SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom.\"\nQ.And what is the file note for the record?\nA.It is a capital S, a Roman number I, Roman Numeral V, Arabic 1, Number 844, Roman Numeral III, a dash, 39-\nQ.That is enough.\nA.Etcetera.\nQ.Thank you. Referring to the decree dated the 7 of October, 1939, and also based on your testimony so far concerning the Reich Security Main Office, I would like to ask you, witness, to turn to the organizational chart behind you and to tell me in an another question in this subject matter, what the position of the RSHA is at the edge of this organizational chart. It is on the left hand side. What I would like to ask you, witness, is whether, based on the actual position of the RSHA or the Reich Security Main Office, this shouldn't be moved a little bit more towards the middle of the organizational chart, and I mean \n within the framework of the main task of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom end also whether the RuSHA should be more on the edge of the organizational chart.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 356, "page_number": "356", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.I am of the opinion that this really doesn't make any difference.\nQ.In the direct examination, witness, you spoke about the collaboration with Group 3-B of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office. Would you like to tell the Tribunal what the task of Group 3-B was?\nA.According to my knowledge of matters, Group 3-B of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, amongst other things, also played, a certain influential position on questions concerning citizenship, that is to say, issuance of citizenship, nationalization of resettlers and also inclusion in the DVL, the German People's List. Furthermore, it also played a part in the treatment of Department 4 of the DVL.\nQ.How did the collaboration take place now with this Department 3-B?\nA.The collaboration was carried out in the usual manner which is also used amongst official agencies, either by correspondence, by telephone or by conversations of the experts and discussions.\nQ.Did you ever deal with any questions concerning Group 3-B.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Would you tell us about some of those problems you dealt with?\nA.The chief of the RSHA, was a member of the Supreme Reviewing Court on racial classification. Ehlich was the man in charge of Group 3-B in the RSHA. As I had to deal with expert matters of the Supreme Reviewing Court \n on Racial Classification I had a lot of things to do with Ehlich for that reason.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 357, "page_number": "357", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Ehlich was the man in charge of Group 3-B.\nQ.Do you remember any other fields of tasks?\nA.At the moment I can't think of anything.\nQ.Witness, let me turn to something else now. Which other agencies, apart from the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, the RuSHA, were also used by the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom? I don't want you to enumerate all the agencies; just give me a few examples.\nA.As an example, for those agences which were used by the Reich Commissioner or interpolated in its work. I would like to mention the following: The Reich Traffic Minister for the Transportation of resettlers, the Reich Health Leader for the medical care of the sick and the aged resettlers while on the transport.\nQ.Thank you. That is sufficient. In your direct examination, witness, you mentioned that there was a DVL in the Ukraine as well. Do you know that the racial examiners of the RuSHA did not participate in this selection?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Don't you know from your knowledge that the racial-political office was interpolated in this connection?\nA.I can no longer recall that.\nQ.According to your opinion what were the functions of the Settlement Office of the SS? Did it have the right to carry out any seizures or confiscations?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know that for the duration of the war it was strictly against regulations to settle down SS members?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 358, "page_number": "358", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.I don't know that for certain nor did I ever hear that it happened.\nQ.What were the tasks of the Main Office of the NSDAP for questions of folkdom?\nA.The Main Office of the NSDAP for Folkdom questions, as far as I know, had the task within the framework of the work of the NSDAP to see to it that there would be a uniform dealing in questions of folkdom.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 359, "page_number": "359", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Do you know who was responsible for the establishment of this Main Office, witness, or whom you assume to be responsible for its establishment?\nA.I assume that Bormann was the one who instigated this; either Bormann or Himmler established this office, according to my opinion.\nQ.Don't you know who actually carried out or initiated this? After all, Bormann had only carried out the establishment.\nA.I remember to have heard on some occasion that the man in charge of Amtsgruppe 3-B of the RSHA, whose name was Ehlich, showed a certain initiative in this connection.\nQ.May I show you this document for identification purposes, witness? This is documentNO-4237, Exhibit No. 25. All I would like to know from you, witness, is whether this is Dr. Ehlich's signature. I imagine you can identify the signature. (Document handed to witness.)\nA.As far as I can judge, as a man who is not an expert in graphology, this name was signed by Dr. Ehlich. I used to see his signature quite often.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned the Supreme Reviewing Court of Racial Classification of the DVL quite often. Can you tell us now, witness, whether that court was often called upon to perform its task or not?\nA.The Supreme Reviewing Court of Racial Classification altogether only held four to six sessions.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Hofmann, based on his position as chief of the RuSHA, was a member of the Supreme Reviewing Court on Racial Classification and whether he ever participated in one of the sessions of this Supreme Reviewing Court?\nA.I don't think so.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 360, "page_number": "360", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:Thank you. No further questions.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Foerchmann for the defendant Hildebrandt. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hildebrandt personally?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How long have you known him?\nA.I believe I met the defendant Hildebrandt for the first time in December, 1943.\nQ.In what official capacity did you make his acquaintanceship?\nA.That meeting took place in December, 1943 and if it was the first one then my official capacity was that I was a member of the Supreme Reviewing Court on Racial Classification.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt participate in any such session of the Supreme Reviewing Court on Racial Classification?\nA.I believe that the defendant Hildebrandt only participated in one such session. It could be, however, that he just happened to be in the railroad carriage which was being used in order to transport all the members of the Supreme Reviewing Court on Racial Classification.\nQ.Did you ever have any further official contact with the defendant Hildebrandt, witness?\nA.I can't recall any additional official contacts with the defendant.\nQ.Do you know from your activity when Hildebrandt started in his new position in Danzig as a Higher SS Police Leader?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Witness, yesterday you mentioned the agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union, dated 28 September \n 1939, which was the basis for the resettlement actions; and you also mentioned that that agreement only became known to you now.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 361, "page_number": "361", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Is that correct?\nA.I don't believe that I testified in that manner.\nQ.Now do you wish to be more precise about your testimony, witness, concerning the knowledge about this agreement?\nA.I believe that the basic outlines of this agreement, that is to say, the limitation of lines of spheres of interest somehow had become known already at the time. But, however, the entire contents of that agreement only became known and really became of interest a few weeks ago.\nQ.Witness, are you sure you didn't make a mistake here? The agreement dated the 28 of September 1939, which you mentioned yesterday is the so-called German-Russian Boundary and Friendship Agreement and that agreement - and I am asking you in that connection - is contained in the Reichsgesetzblatt, in the Reich Legal Gazette, of 1940 and it was published there. Do you remember the publishing of that agreement at that time?\nA.That is possible. I also have the Reichsgesetzblatt Part 2, and I currently studied it, out I forgot quite a bit of it.\nQ.I can imagine that with all the events that occured in that short time; but I'd like to come back to my question, witness. Don't you think that there is some mix-up here? Don't you think that you made a mistake, namely, referring to your statement yesterday when you spoke about the German-Russian Secret Agreement which had been concluded, the contents of which, of courst, was found and introduced in court by the German defense counsel before the International Military Tribunal and which was published only a few weeks ago in the press. Do you think \n that you made a mistake?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 362, "page_number": "362", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.It is possible that I made a mistake in these agreements.\nQ.According to your activity at the time, or even later on, did it become known to you that in this secret agreement Germany and Russia, with reference to European countries which are between Germany and Russia, concluded an agreement according to which the Baltic States, that is to say, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, were considered spheres of interest of the Soviet Union and recognized as such by the German Government, and Germany showed its disinterest in these territories? Did that become known to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you find out that Immediately after those agreements were concluded, in the course of 1940 and 1941, also, the Soviet Union incorporated these territories as part of the Soviet Union?\nA.I do know that these republics became parts of the Soviet Union's Republics. However, I am not in a position to use the term \"incorporated.\"\nQ.Well, I don't think it that important, witness, anyway, as to which international definition we use. The facts speak for themselves.\nDo you know, witness, that based on the incorporation of these territories together with the Soviet Union, several agreements were concluded between the Soviet Union and Germany concerning the resettlement of German nationals who were living in those former free countries and also to the population of German extraction?\nA.I know that a resettlement agreement of this kind was concluded. It is possible that several of them were concluded.\nQ.Just in order to refresh your memory, witness, \n may I remind you of the following and also ask you in this connection, that on the 5 of September, 1940, an agreement was concluded between Germany and the Soviet Union concerning the resettlement of German parts of the population from the areas of Bessarabia and North-Bukowina?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 363, "page_number": "363", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Is that correct?\nA.Yes, I have heard about such an agreement.\nQ.Did you hear anything else about the agreement which was concluded on the 10 of January, 1941, between Germany and Russia concerning the resettlement of the German nationals who were residing in Lithuania and which were taken to the Reich, and vice versa, namely, the expulsion or resettlement of the Lithuanians who were living in the Reich and there, of course, were taken to Lithuanian territory?\nA.Yes, I do.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 364, "page_number": "364", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "QDo you finally know, witness, that on the same date an additional agreement was concluded between the Soviet Russia and Germany concerning the resettlement of the German nationals living in Estonia and in Latvia?\nAYes, I remember that agreement also. There was such a thing.\nQWitness, are you in a position to tell both the Tribunal and me what the reasons were which compelled both states and Germany to carry out such a resettlement action? Do you know any official reasons for that? Did they ever come to your knowledge?\nAI only knew these motives which were known to the public; Namely, that diplomatic relations between the two states were to be of minorities which existed on both sides of the border and which would mean nothing but trouble.\nQThis burden, therefore, according to your opinion is nothing but a source of trouble which would interfere with the peace of these two countries and were the order of these two countries?\nTHE PRESIDENT:It appears to the Tribunal that we are getting into the field of arguments and not facts. I want to give you all the latitude that we can but please produce the facts now and we will hear your arguments later.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I do not wish to argue, your Honor. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQThe Reichgaus incorporated in March 1939; that is to say, Danzig and western Prussia in 1914, were they part of the German territory?\nAFor the largest part, yes.\nQDo you know how long they had been part of the German Reich?\nAI believe since the second partition of Poland, which was in 1785.\nQThese countries--I mean, Danzig and western Prussia--had they been taken away from the German Reich by the Versailles Treaty?\nAYes. Danzig and the old German province of western Prussia.\nQDo you know, based on your official activity, that in the \n peace conference which took place in 1918, Lloyed George and Clemencau warned the victor states about separating those territories from Germany and turning them over to Poland because these territories they said had been part of the German territory for centuries and therefore contained several, millions of German citizens.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 365, "page_number": "365", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "MR. MC HANEY:I object to the question, your Honor. It's immaterial and also argumentative.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is not too much interested in what anybody's views might have been about things of this sort. We are interested now in determining the facts only, and you will have ample opportunity to argue.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I didn't quite understand that, your Honor. Would you please repeat it?\nTHE PRESIDENT:We are not interested inother people's views about matters just now.\nDR. FROESCHMENN:Your Honor -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute; let me get through. We want to get the facts applicable to the charges as contained in this indictment. We will be very glad to hear your arguments at a later date. Please stick to the facts now.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I do not wish to contradict the Tribunal, but I only put that question to the witness and considered it important because it is part of the introduction of evidence of the defendant Hildebrant, who will explain and show that the German policy between 1939 and 1943, during which time he was in Danzig, was started by the Polish policy of previous times, and these Polish policy had, as a result, a very simple thing so that the warning issued by Lloyed George and Clemenceau was not observed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The objection is sustained. Go ahead. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, do you know that during these two years -- 1938 and 1939 -- in the former German territories and those territories belonging \n to Poland since 1919, there were constant provocations, on the part of the Poles against the Germans which resulted in bloody revolts, and riots, and that this led to the blood Sunday of Bromberg?", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMENN", "MR. MC HANEY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 366, "page_number": "366", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "AI have no knowledge whatsoever about such incidents.\nQThese territories which I mentioned before, namely Danzig and western Prussia, were they reoccupied by Germany in the Polish campaign?\nAYes.\nQThe resettlement of those resettlers from Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, did it make it necessary for you to give new territory to these resettlers and new property?\nAThe resettlers had been promised to receive all those things.\nQDid Germany proper offer enough space for all the people who came from Bosnia and Wolhynia?\nAThe term \"Raum-Not\" means nothing else but a lack of space, and is not very definite.\nQYes, but the relativeness of this attitude will be contained in my following question: do you know, witness, from your official activity, that the German Government considered it necessary to place these territories at the disposal of the resettlers, which since 1918 had been taken away from the Germans by the Poles?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Again I must warn you not to engage in argument at this time. Let's get at the fact and then we will hear your argument about the necessity for these things. Let's just prove now what happened. DR. FROESCHMANN: Your Honor, again I do not wish to argue. All I want is facts.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled on it. Let's not argue about it after the ruling.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Yes, indeed, your Honor. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQDo you know, witness, that lower Silesia and Pamorania were \n German territories ethnically and culturally -- perhaps, from a territorial point of view?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 367, "page_number": "367", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "AYes.\nQDo you know that Poland expelled the entire German population from the aforementioned territories since 1945?\nMR. MC HANEY:I also object to that question. It's completely immaterial.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think, myself, that it's slightly argumentative; but I believe I will let counsel ask the question for as he seems determined to get a little argument, I will let him get it in now. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQAll right, witness, answer my question.\nAI don't know that all the Germans had already been expelled from those territories.\nQWitness, now let's turn to another question. Yesterday you mentioned the activity of the RuSHA as far as the resettlement was concerned. I would only like to discuss one little term with you, witness; namely, did the racial examiners have authority to be of decisive importance or only of an expert importance in that section -in the EWZ?\nAI believe I answered yesterday that I did not know the inner organization of the EWZ well enough. I don't know what kind of rights to make decisions the racial examiners had in the EWZ.\nQTherefore, witness, you don't know which points of view these racial examiners used in their selection - I mean, according to racial and eugenic points of view, and so on?\nANo, I know nothing about that either -- nothing conclusive.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. MC HANEY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 368, "page_number": "368", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\n- CROSS EXAMINATION continued\nQWitness, the last question I put to you was whether you know the point of view according which the EWZ carried out the racial examinations. You answered that question in the negative. Now, I am asking you, do you know of similar situations in the EWZ. Do you know what principles on this selection were used concerning the immigration question.\nANo.\nQDid RUSHA consider methods of examination to be applied an concerning other questions with resettlement bound upon it by the directive of the Main Staff Office? Have you understood my question?\nAYes, I have understood your question. I cannot give you an answer to this legal question with any certainty.\nQBut can you answer my other question as to whether the representative of the Reich Commissioner was bound by the directives?\nAYes, he was.\nQThe representatives of the Reich Commissioner in questions of resettlement, did they ask on their own initiative or at the instructions of the Main Staff Office?\nAI don't know.\nQWitness, you mentioned his name in answering question of the Prosecutor. Who was Toma von Albensleben?\nACount Toma von Albensleben was the owner of the estate of Ostro-Metzko, in the district of Cholm in West Prussia.\nQDo you know how it was that he was sent to a \n concentration camp or he was arrested at the instigation of influential relatives of his.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 369, "page_number": "369", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "QDo you know the reasons for his arrest?\nAI believe I can recall that there had been a family dispute for the ownership for the ostro-Metzko estate.\nQDo you know that Count von Albensleben was disliked by the circles you mentioned because as personal friend of the former German Emperor, Wilhelm II; he had taken a great interest in the colonisation policy in Poland?\nAI don't know.\nQDo you know whether Count von Albensleben had been discharged from the concentration camp at the time when the defendant Hildebrandt assumed his office in Danzig as leader of the SS?\nAI do not know the defendant Hildebrandt assumed that office but I do know that Count Albensleben was discharged from the concentration camp after a relatively short period of time.\nQDo you know that concerning the discharge of Count von Albensleben, particularly the defendant Hofmann had made great effort.\nAI don't remember that point.\nQDo you know that the affair Albensleben was dealt with by Himmler personally?\nAYes.\nQIf the defendant Hildebrandt assumed his office in Danzig only in the middle of October do you then on the basis of your knowledge consider it possible that Count Albensleben had been discharged previous to that date?\nAI can't tell you.\nQThe mention of Hildebrandt's name in yesterday's \n examination did you mention that name at your own initiative or were you asked about that before your examination here?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 370, "page_number": "370", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "ADuring my interrogation, before I was examined here, I was asked about that point.\nQYour Honor I have no further question to ask. BY DR. HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm):\n- CROSS EXAMINATION\nQWitness, between the defendant Schwalm and the Main Staff Office, was there any cooperation?\nAI don't know.\nQDo you know of cases where racial examinations were performed by the Race and Political Office of the NSDAP?\nAI can't remember cases of that kind.\nQDo you know whether racial examinations were carried out by RuSHA only in certain definite cases?\nAI believe that these schemes within the framework of which racial examinations were performed were laid down, in detail.\nQCan you tell me in what cases Department 3 of the German people's list DVL, racial examination, were intended to be carried out by RuSHA, and that on the basis of legal provisions.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question.\nI have asked the witness the same question and he answered that he did not know.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think that question has been asked both by the Prosecution and by the defense several times. Let's not cover the same ground again. BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, I will turn to another question. Do you know what office or agency carried the racial examinations of ethnic Germans from the Reich Commissar for the Ukraine?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 371, "page_number": "371", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "AI cannot remember what agency carried out those examinations.\nQWitness, under cross-examination you said that the Main Staff Office mainly, if not exclusively, collaborated with the racial office of RuSHA. Are you able to give me the names of the person or the persons in the race office of RuSHA?\nAThe name of Schulz and Harders I remember.\nQI am now coming to the last questions which were put to you on direct examination. You spoke of a beautiful, blond blue-eyed child from Poland, who is supposed to have been taken away from her foster mother. You further stated that in that connection there was a letter written by the foster mother to your office and that you had forwarded it to the race office of RuSHA. Now, I want to ask you whether you can remember the name of the man in that office to whom you forwarded the letter in question?\nAProbably I did not forward the letter to any definite person but to RuSHA as such. I believe I can remember that I previously had to discuss that case with Harders.\nQI am now coming to my last question, witness. Was RuSHA, within the whole sphere of work for the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism? Did it within that framework work with its own initiative or did RuSHA act less by its own initiative and more at the instructions of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nAI have to say that the persons at the Race Office whom I got to know in so-called racial matters displayed a certain amount of initiative of their own.\nQThank you, I have no further questions to ask.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 372, "page_number": "372", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "CROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch and also deputizing for the defense counsel of the Defendant Sollmann):\nQ.- Witness, from the statements you have made so far I believe I can gather that concerning the organization of the Main Staff Office you are informed very accurately. Therefore, I want to ask you was there in the Staff Main Office an office \"L\", Lebensborn?\nA.- I didn't hear about it. Nor can I say that concerning the organization of the Main Staff Office I was very accurately informed.\nQ.- Witness, were these Staff Main Offices in a position to issue any orders or directives to Lebensborn?\nA.- I am of the opinion that the Main Staff Office was not in a position to issue instructions to this organization which was independent.\nQ.- Now, my last question and I want to refer to a question which was asked by my colleague Dr. Heim and which concernes the event which you mentioned in connection with aletter from a foster mother in which she complained. That letter you passed on to RuSHA. Was that incident in any way connected with Lebensborn? I am asking you that question because yesterday on direct the Prosecutor mentioned that case in connection with Lebensborn.\nA.- I cannot remember that the name Lebensborn was mentioned in that letter but I cannot know whether Lebensborn had anything to do with that case.\nQ.- I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions on the part of the defense? Anything further for the Prosecution?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Limit your examinations strictly to rebuttal.\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 373, "page_number": "373", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "REDIRECT-EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.- Witness, did the term \"Volksdeutscher\" mean persons of foreign citizenship but of German descent of German volkstum?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Did those volksdeutsche obtain German citizenship as a result of EWZ procedure?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, did the main Staff Office have any influence on their classification as O or A cases?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, could the Main Staff Office change this classification under certain circumstances?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, did the Main Staff Office make any payments to EWZ, Einwandererzentrale?\nA.- I believe I heard that EWZ was financed by the Main Staff Office from Reich funds.\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office Amt V make any payments to EWZ?\nA.- I don't know.\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office, Amt V make any payments to UWZ Umwandererzentrale?\nA.- I don't know.\nQ.- Witness, did the Main Staff Office make any payments to the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the advancing of Germanism?\nA.- Yes, to the representatives, the delegates.\nQ.- I meant the representatives.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, have you ever heard of a camp Hinzert as a concentration camp for people to be Germanized?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 374, "page_number": "374", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- The name of Hinzert Camp I did hear but I don't know what it is all about.\nQ.- Have you heard of Camp Hinzert:\nTHE PRESIDENT:He just told you he heard about it. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office have anything to do with this concentration camp?\nA.- I don't know.\nQ.- Witness, was the Central Office, Zentralamt, under the defendant Creutz?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Pardon me, I haven't finished my sentence. Was the Central Office under defendant Creutz in charge of statistical surveys?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Was defendant Creutz, therefore, concerned with statistics regarding manpower, allocation, resettlement, registration, seizure and confiscation of property, procurement of furniture and household goods?\nA.- I don't know.\nQ.- Witness, was the defendant Creutz your superior?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Were you personally in charge of the treatment of all legal questions within the scope of the office of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You went very thoroughly into that on the main examination. Don't go over it again. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.- Was your superior informed about the functions which you carried out as Chief of the Legal Department?\nA.- Not, in detail.\nQ.- Were you so informed as to essential things, essential functions \n about your essential activities?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 375, "page_number": "375", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- In broad outlines, yes.\nQ.- Did the jurisdiction of the Central Office under the defendant Creutz include treatment of problems of foreign volkstum from the legal point of view?\nA.- Creutz in his superior position concerning the legal department took effect from a factual point of view only during the periods when he acted as deputy.\nQ.- Did the jurisdiction of the central office, under the defendant Creutz include exchange of destroyed property in Germany for the property in the incorporated territories.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I remember very well you went over that in detail in your main examination. Don't ask questions that you have already asked and cover territory that you have already covered. This is a rebuttal examination and rebuttal only.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor when I asked the question on direct examination. I did not relate that question to defendant Creutz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled. Don't argue after the Tribunal has ruled. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.- Witness, did the jurisdiction of the Central Office of the defendant Creutz include the giving of notices to be placed in public land registers, in regard to seized property?\nA.- I beg your pardon: I am afraid I didn't get that question.\nQ.- was part of the jurisdiction of the Central Office to deal with so-called sperrvermerke, to be placed in public land registers?\nA.- I believe that that came within the sphere of work of the main department of wiedergutmachung, for compensation.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 376, "page_number": "376", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "QWitness, you said in cross examination that you did not see the defendant Meyer-Hetling in Schweikelberg after the Main Staff Office moved there.\nWas that due to the fact that the office of defendant Meyer-Hetling did not move to Schweikelberg butr remained in Berlin?\nAI believe that first I have to make it clear that I did see Meyer-Hetling in Schweikelberg as least once. The fact that MeyerHetling didn't go to Schweikelberg more frequently is due to the fact that his main office probably was not evacuated to Schweikelberg but remained in Berlin.\nQWitness, you said in cross examination that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was not chief of the Central Land Office. Do you know where the Central Land Office was located in Berlin?\nAThe Central Land Office was in the northern part of Berlin, in Neue Friedrichstrasse, if I am not mistaken.\nQHave you ever been to Neue Friedrichstrasse, the building of Central Land Office after Mundt resigned as chief of the Central Land Office?\nAI don't think so.\nQCan you therefore say with certainty that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was not in charge of the Central Land Office after Mundt resigned?\nAI think I recall with almost certainty that Mundt was replaced by a man whose name was Bebert, who took the direction of the Central Land Office from him, but it is possible that I am mistaken.\nQWitness, could a Polish person whose property was seized dispose of this property?\nAHe could as far as public planning and economics allowed him to do so; he could sell produce, etc; however, he could not make legal dispositions concerning the real estate register.\nQAre you familiar with Section IV of the Polish Vermoegensordnung?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 377, "page_number": "377", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:What difference does it make whether he is familiar with it or not.\nMR. SCHENK:Your Honor, I wanted to clarify his asnwer because his answer was not clear to me.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I do not think whether he is familiar with this decree or statute will illustrate anything to the Court. You can talk to the Court about that. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, have you ever seen the form, the form which was used by the local land office for the seizure of Polish or Jewish property?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that this form was used in individual cases for the seizure and confiscation of property for the seizure of that property first?\nAYes.\nQWas this form served on those Poles or Jews whose property was seized?\nANo, not generally speaking.\nQIn other words, if I understand correctly, was the property seized without giving any notice?\nAThere were public posters put up instead of informing people directly.\nQWitness, have you over seem the form was used by the local land office for the confiscation of Polish property or Jewish property?\nAYes.\nQWas this form served on those Poles or Jews whose property was confiscated?\nAYes.\nQWitness, was there a decree or an order issued by the Main \n Staff Office providing that seizure of property of Poles or Jews who claimed to be American citizens should not be cancelled because their documents should be considered as invalid?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 378, "page_number": "378", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Now you are asking him about the contents of the decree that I have ruled time and time and time again the Defense could not do. If you have any decree you can introduce it in evidence.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the decree, the decree I an referring to was as far as I recall issued by the foreign office, and turned over to the Main Staff Office. I would like to find out whether the Main Staff Office received that decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can show him the decree and ask him if they received any such decree without going into the contents. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did the Main Staff Office ever receive a decree providing that seizure of Poles who claimed to be American-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are doing just exactly what I told you you could not do.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I don't have the decree present at the moment, and I therefore thought that I couldask the question and the witness in general could answer whether this decree was received by the legal department of the Main Staff Office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you had any such decree you can offer it in evidence. It is manifestly unfair to go into the contents of soemthing by this witness that is not even before you. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, were any payments received by defendant Schwarzenberger as rent from properties in the incorporated territories?\nAYes.\nQWitness, was the defendant Schwarzenberger in charge of the financing of all administrative offices, not only of the Main Staff Office but also of the branch of ice of the RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 379, "page_number": "379", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are covering the identical territory that you covered in the main examination. Please don't continue to go over things that have already been proved. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did the defendant Schwarzenberger have any jurisdiction ever procurements.\nAYes, possibly.\nQDo you know whether he had anything to do with the procurement of clothing?\nAI don't know.\nQDid the defendant Schwarzenberger, according to your knowledge make any payments to Lebensborn for the execution of the kidnapping program?\nAI don't know.\nQWitness, did the defendant Schwarzenberger receive any payments from properties confiscated in connection with the expulsion of Slovenes, Luxombourgians, Alsacians and Lorrainians?\nAI don't know.\nQWitness, were any persons resettled from countries with which no treaties or agreements existed in regard to resettlement?\nAYes.\nQWitness, did the treaties between the German Government and foreign governments provide that the ethnic Germans were to be resettled in the incorporated territories on property taken away from Poles and Jews?\nAI don't know.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 380, "page_number": "380", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, did VOMI, assume the supervision of Poles taken to Germany for re-Germanization?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I remember very distinctly that you vent into that in the main examination. The truth about it is that all of these questions that you are now propounding have to do with the general set-up that you went very much into detail in the main examination. If you didn't bring these things out then, you should have; and they are not in the nature of rebuttal. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, you said in the cross examination, and that is the reason why I want to put to you a preceding question, in order to refresh your memory, that the office celled Voelkische Schute Arbeit, was part of the VDA for Verein Deutschtum in Ausland. Do you know what connections existed between the VDA and VOMI?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That question I know was asked on the main examination. You are just following track by track your proof on the main examination. Please do not cover territory that has already been covered. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, do you know who represented RuSHA in the sessions of the Oberste Pruefungshof, the supreme court for racial Questions?\nA.I didn't quite get the abbreviation for the office.\nQ.The SS Race and Settlement Office.\nA.Race and Settlement Office, RuSHA. The chief representatives of RuSHA as the supreme court for racial matters, as far as I remember, were the defendant Hofmann and later the defendant Hildebrandt; or, may be vice versa.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the Defense? All right; let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, the Prosecution would now like to call Erich von Bach-Zelewski as a witness.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 381, "page_number": "381", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nERICH VONBACH-ZELEWSKI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nYou will raise your right hand and repeat after me the following oath: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, what is your name?\nA.Erich von Bach-Zelewski.\nQ.When were you born,; and where?\nA.I was born on the 1st of March, 1899, in Lahnburg, in Pommerania.\nQ.What education did you have?\nA.I attended the Humanist Grammar School; and afterwards I took an examination.\nQ.Witness, were you a member of the SS?\nA.Yes, I was.\nQ.When did you join the SS?\nA.In 1930.\nQ.What was the last rank that you held in the SS?\nA.The last rank I held was SS-Obergruppenfuehrer General of the Waffen SS and Police.\nQ.Witness, were you ever a higher SS and police leader?\nA.Yes, I was from 1939, that is to say from the time when higher police SS leaders were appointed at all first of all in upper Silesia, when the war with Russia broke out until in the middle of 1942 I was sent to Russia.\nQ.As higher SS and police leader, were you also a representative of the RKFDV?", "speakers": [ "ERICH VON", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 382, "page_number": "382", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes, I was. In 1940, I cannot remember the exact date, I was entrusted by Himmler with the position of representative of the Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism in upper Silesia as long as the Oberpresident and Gauleiter Wagner was in Silesia, and -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. I caution the witness that for reason of the fact that your language has to be translated, speak one sentence, pause; sneak another sentence in order to give the translator an opportunity to keen up with you.\nA.In 1940 I became the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism for upper Silesia. When the portions of upper Silesia became independent provinces, and when Bracht took the place of Wegner as Gauletier of upper Silesia, the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, that position then was given to Gauleiter Bracht and I became his deputy.\nQ.Witness, did you have a branch chief of the RKFDV on your staff as higher SS and police leader?\nA.I am sorry, I didn't get that question.\nQ.As higher SS and police leader you had a staff of officials, did you not?\nA.Yes. The Stabsfuehrer, to begin with, was the SS Stabsfurhrer Mueller-Altenau; and later on under Gauleiter Bracht it was Gauamtsleiter Alt; that is as far as I can remember.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal briefly what were the functions of this branch chief of the RKFDV; who was on your staff?\nA.The work he did was this. At the instructions from the Ober Gruppenfuehrer, I think at that time it was Ober Gruppenfuehrer Greifelt, a labor staff was set up in upper Silesia in Kattowitz; that labor staff was in accordance with Greifelt's instructions. And it was Altenau who was in charge of the labor staff and later on Alt was in charge. The directives were received from Greifelt.\nQ.Very well, witness. Did you know the defendant Greifelt \n personally?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 383, "page_number": "383", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes, I did.\nQ.Will you please point out and identify the defendant Greifelt in the dock?\nA.He is the first person to the left, looking at the dock from my corner of the courtroom.\nQ.Thank you, witness. What was the defendant Greifelt's position in connection with the RKFDV so far as you could tell from your position as higher SS and police leader?\nA.That agency of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, naturally I only knew in its beginning; as far as I was able to observe matters in that short period, Greifelt in that sphere was Himmler's deputy who at the instructions of and deputizing for Himmler issued orders concerning all expulsion and evacuation matters and concerning all the plans for such campaigns.\nQ.Just a moment, witness. Please answer the questions briefly and to the point. I shall bring out different matters as we come to them. Why was the defendant Greifelt chosen for this position by Himmler?\nA.Greifelt in the circles of higher police leaders was well known and had been known for some time as Himmler's expert on economics. He once held a lecture in Berlin at the house Der Fliegerrabout the Four Year Plan and similar questions of economics, and we all were present at that lecture. In our circles he was considered an expert on subjects which were alien to us as soldiers.\nQ.Witness, in your capacity as a representative of the RKFDV, did Greifelt have any authority over you?\nA.No, he was not my superior; my immediate superior was Himmler, but he was the chief of that sphere, the agency, which passed on Himmler's orders.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 384, "page_number": "384", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Witness, did you receive orders, directives, or other instructions from the defendant Greifelt or the Main Staff Office?\nA.Would you please repeat that question? I didn't understand it.\nQ.Witness, in your capacity as higher-SS and police leader, did you receive any orders, directives, or instructions from the defendant Greifelt or the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes. I received quite a number of basic orders, and Greifelt quite frequently came himself to Upper Silesia, and with the use of planning charts he issued directives as to the execution of the resettlement campaign.\nQ.Witness, did all the orders which you received from the RKFDV come from the defendant Greifelt?\nA.Yes, only from that agency. I never received any orders from Himmler himself in that connection.\nQ.And will you please repeat very briefly in what capacity did Greifelt issue these orders?\nA.Greifelt, on orders of the Reich Fuehrer, in his capacity as Chief of the Main Staff Office, or something like that -- I can no longer remember the exact designation of his office -- but it was in his capacity as Deputy for the Reich Fuehrer, in that sphere of work.\nQ.Witness, was any one else in a position to issue orders which carried the same authority as the defendant Greifelt's in connection with the RKFDV?\nA.Yes, his position was the same as that of the other Hauptamts--the other chiefs of the main offices; for instance, Chief of RSHA, chief of RuSHA, Chief of the regular uniform police. Greifelt's position was more or less on the same level.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 385, "page_number": "385", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, did Greifelt also have authority to issue orders to Gauleiters or Reich Governors, in so far as they were representatives of the RKFDV?\nA.Yes. In his capacity as Himmler's representative, he could issue directives to the Gauleiters in their capacity as representatives of the Reich Commissar. He could issue orders and directives for them.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether Greifelt's orders could be disobeyed by a Gauleiter or a Reich Governor?\nA.Yes, considering the anarchy which prevailed among all the other higher leaders of the Party, it was quite possible that a Gauleiter, on account of special relations--for example, with Himmler--simply did not carry out? orders and protested against them.\nQ.But a Gauleiter without special personal connections with Hitler would have to obey the defendant Greifelt's orders, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were there many Gauleiters who had special connections with Hitler and could therefore disobey the defendant Greifelt's orders?\nA.The Gauleiter of whom we are specking, that is to say, the Gauleiters in the eastern provinces, rather varied in their position concerning. Party Policy. Thus, for example, the Gauleiters Greiser of Wartheland and the Gauleiter Bracht of Upper-Silesia were very closely connected with Himmler from the Political point of view and from other points of view, and probably there were no troubles with them. But, on the other hand, I know for example in West Prussia there were great differences of opinion between the Gauleiter Forster and Himmler, as that there, opposition was possible.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 386, "page_number": "386", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, did Himmler always agree with the defendant Greifelt's orders?\nA.Naturally, Himmler always agreed with Greifelt. He was not only the man who passed on his orders, but as far us we--or rather I--could look into matters, he was also the person who shared Himmler's ideas.\nQ.Witness, in connection with the evacuation from the countryside of Poles and Jews, who first determined the area to be cleared?\nA.May I ask you whether you are referring to the province, or what are you referring to?\nQ.I am referring to the evacuation action in Danzig, West Prussia.\nA.Yes, I see. I think the first evacuations occurred from the Warthegau, and afterwards from West Prussia, But the evacuations took place on a much smaller scale from West Prussia than the Warthegau.\nQ.Yes, but witness, may I repeat the question. My question is not where the evacuations took place nor on what scale; my question is: Who first determined what area in Warthegau or Danzig, West Prussia, or some other district should be cleared of Poles and Jews?\nA.That evacuation occurred according to a plan. I remember that the defendant Greifelt gave me a chart showing the exact plan, and on that chart you could see the whole eastern area, far into Russia, and that area was divided up into so-called, settlement areas by which the Slav area was to be split up. A start was to be made with the provinces of West Prussia and Warthegau, and then on a smaller scale, Upper Silesia was to be evacuated.\nQ.Witness, would you say then that the evacuation program was planned in the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 387, "page_number": "387", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes, that plan was worked out at the Main Staff Office by Greifelt.\nQ.Witness, do you know on what grounds or with what ideas the Main Staff Office made the determinations for this plan?\nA.There were so many groups of interests; that is to say, there were the ministries, and there were agencies who participated in the execution of the plan, that the execution was only possible if all those various agencies in some way collected together, and that concentration was performed by Greifelt end his Main Staff Office--his own organization. I should like to put it like this: his was the roof organization under which the other branches had to work, and he had to work for one uniform aim.\nQ.Witness, I am referring now not to any specific action but to evacuation actions in general. In general, who executed the orders of the Main Staff Office with respect to evacuations?\nA.That was Greifelt.\nQ.Witness, did you ever personally see an evacuation action or a resettlement action being carried out?\nA.Yes. When that settlement started in UpperSilesia and was first working under Gauleiter Wagner, that is to say, when I was the representative--and that was at the time when they were dealing with more theoretical matters and planning--at that time, that is to say, shortly before I went to Russia, I say such evacuation action being carried out in Upper-Silesia--an action which was organized by Greifelt. It was supposed to be an example for all agencies in Upper-Silesia which dealt with such matters, and to show them how such resettlement actions were to take place. I can't remember the exact name of the place out it was somewhere near Saibusch.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 388, "page_number": "388", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, would you state approximately where Saibusch is and the approximate date of this action?\nA.That action took place either in the autumn of 1940 or the beginning of 1941. It's rather a long time ago, and a great many things have happened to me since then; therefore I can't give you the exact day. Saibusch is in the southern region of Upper-Silesia, on the fringe of the mountains. The resettlement staff itself had offices in the court of Saibusch, and I can remember that Breifelt took me around himself and he and Gauleiter Bracht told me about the workings of their machinery in the presence of other people. There were a great many Landraete among them--heads of rural administration. Subsequently, people were evacuated from the village, and the next day the Germanw were settled there.\nQ.Witness, do I understand you correctly that the defendant Greifelt directed this evacuation and resettlement action with you, witness?\nA.Yes. All who participated in that action were laymen, and the idea was to show them how in practive such resettlement was to be performed; that is to say, all preparations, all measuring out of land, and all that, had been layed down by Greifelt down to the very detail; for instance, he had laid down how many farms were to be put together so as to get one farm which would work. The entire organization of the settlement village had been determined by Greifelt down to details, and according to that, Greifelt, himself, carried out the evacuation.\nQ.Witness, who were these people who were evacuated?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until onethirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 389, "page_number": "389", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_13_1_Gaylord_Simha AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 24 Oct.\n1947.)\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, before I resume the examination of this defendant, I would like the record to show that the witness, Bach Zelewski, correctly identified the defendant Greifelt this morning in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I preseume the record does show that.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the witness stated that the defendant Greifelt was the first man on the left, but I am afraid the record does not have a picture to show that that was correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think the record discloses that he was identified.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor.\nERICK von BACH-ZELEWSKI - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued\nBY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, before we adjourned this morning, I had asked you a question which you did not have time to answer.\nI will not repeat that question:\nWho were the people who were evacuated from these rural areas?\nAPeople were evacuated who either pretended or actually themselves stated to be Poles, or those who, by virtue of the racial examination, were declared to be racially inferior.\nQWitness, who examined these people to determine whether they were racially inferior or not?\nAA special examination commission decided on that, which existed with every immigration staff.\nThose were men and leaders of RuSHA--the se called RNS leaders-- who according to the directions of the RuSHA had to examine the population and select them and put them in special categories.\nQWitness, I should like to ask you some questions as to the details of the evacuati n of these people.\nFor instance, how much warning, that is how far ahead of time were these people told that they were going to be evacuated?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "BY MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 390, "page_number": "390", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_13_2_Gaylord (Simha)\nAAs the regulations stated that the period of time for that should be as brief as possible, depending on the camp, it varied. It either happened two hours ahead of time or a day ahead of time, but in any case they weren't giving them more time, in order not to enable them to take along any movables which could be turned over to the resettlers, and so that they couldn't sell them.\nQWitness, what were these people allowed to take with them?\nAIt was stated in the regulation that they were permitted to take along as much as they could possibly carry themselves, or that it could be taken along in small carts.\nQWho determined what these people could take with them?\nAThe settlement staff also decided on that: that was the organization Greifelt--which means that as far as I know and as far as I saw, the remaining movables were distributed amongst the German resettlers without leaving anything behind.\nQWitness, you have said the remaining movables were distributed amongst the German resettlers. What happened to the land?\nAThe land had already been distributed according to plans in advance. It had been distributed in agricultural plots according to the regulations of the Reichs Fuehrer, according to their size. The farmers were to remain in a position to take care of themselves, and that was the reason that the size was prescribed in advance and exactly. The result was that several agricultural plots were put together and converted into one big piece. That large agricultural plot then received the entire German resettler's family.\nQWitness, I should like to make it clear: do you mean that the rural areas given to farmers were given to ethnic German farmers from elsewhere?\nAYes, indeed. In that particular area where I had an insight, it was given to esthnic Germans; but I know, for instance, that in the Wartheland, also larger areas were turned over to so-called Baltic Germans.\nQWitness, what happened to evacuated Poles? Where were they taken to?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 391, "page_number": "391", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_13_3_Gaylord (Simha)\nAFrom my own knowledge, I know that at the time an order existed to take them or to push them off into the Government-General after their selection by the racial commission. Should they be declared unsuitable for Germanization, they were transferred to the GovernmentGeneral on special collective transports.\nQWhere were the evacuated Jews taken to?\nAI don't know that from my own experience because in the lower Silesian villages there we e no Jews. There were only Jews in the Upper-Silesia industrial areas where no evacuation took place. But I know that it was known all over the leadership circles where in the Warthegau or in Western Prussia, Jews could be found in the plains; also those that worked as small artisans, I know that those people were taken to ghettos and placed there along with the other Jews.\nQWitness, these Jews who were artisans had tools and small establishments, no doubt. What happened to these tools and small establishments?\nAWould you repeat that, please?\nQThese Jews who were artisans in the countryside no doubt had tools and small establishments, such as shoemaking shops. What happened to these tools and small establishments?\nAI remember that the order read that, of course, all establishments had to remain where they were because at the same time German artisans and shoemakers and so on came from Germany - apart from those who were farmers -- and they had to remain there, either as carpenters or something else.\nQWitness, did the defendant Greifelt ever issue orders stating that he wanted so much land, so many villages, so many shoemaking establishments, so many barns, and so forth?\nAYes. That was all precisely included in the basic order; namely, how many establishments were to be kept in each village.\nQTo whom was this basic order issued?\nAThese orders were given to the resettlement staffs; for instance, \n 24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_13_4_Gaylord (Simha) the resettlement agency of Kattewitz, and also to Posen and Warthegau, and also in Western Prussia.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 392, "page_number": "392", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QWere these orders then carried out?\nAYes, indeed. These orders, as far as the Upper-Silesian area was concerned, or course, were carried out by the resettlement staffs.\nQDid the defendant Greifelt know what happened to these people when they were sent away from their homes without their belongings and their tools?\nANaturally, because this action was carried out by the security police. Of course, the security police had received detailed orders from Greifelt. All that had to be carried out in an exact manner. Let me give you an example: it had to be stressed from above where all these things had to be transported: and as far as I can state that, of course, all these measures were discussed by Greifelt with all the other main offices and the Reich Secuirty Police, and so on, and they had been fundamentally ordered by him, and they were also held as basic orders, and the lower levels were also informed by him of all those things and they were also supervised in their actions.\nQWitness, you stated this morning that you knew about the resettlement of ethnic Germans upon these areas cleared of Poles and Jews, is that correct?\nAThe question is not quite clear. Would you repeat it, please?\nQI will rephrase the question. Did you know, witness, about the resettlement of ethnic Germans upon this land cleared of Poles and Jews?\nAYes, indeed.\nQWho resettled these people?\nAWould you repeat that, please?\nQWhich agency or what officials resettled these ethnic Germans?\nAOh, I see. The VOMI, of which Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz was in change, brought them in from all the other countries, and then these ethnic Germans of various age groups were distributed over various \n 24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_13_5_Gaylord (Simha) provinces and were there taken care of by a special organization-Besondere Organization--until they were placed at the disposal of these resettlement staffs for resettlement.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 393, "page_number": "393", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QWitness, where did these people come from as far as you know-the ethnic Germans, that is?\nAThe ethnic Germans came from the Baltic states. They came from Buchenland, from Siebenbuergen, from Yugoslavia, from Burgenland; in other words, they came from all the areas of the eastern and south eastern areas where there were German resettlement areas and where foreign countries had been in charge of these places before.\nQWitness, were these people willing to settle in these areas?\nAWell, those ethnic Germans whom I saw myself in Silesia and those camps there, and who were resettled, of course all were greatly enthusiastic, because after all they were being given a chance to make a living which was much better than the one which they had left behind them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 394, "page_number": "394", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_14_1_Goldberg (Simha)\nQWitness, what happened to those ethnic Germans who were not considered suitable for resettlement in these areas?\nAI know that all those ethnic Germans were also examined by racial commissions just like all the other Poles who were resettled and those who were not on the same level racially speaking, that is, as the Reichsfuefrer wanted to have them for resettlement in the east, were then sent farther into the heart of the Reich; and, as far as I know, they were used as agricultural workers or as employees.\nQWitness, were there any officials of the Race and Settlement Office on this commission that examined these ethnic Germans to determine their suitability for resettlement?\nAYes, indeed, there were. This organization was carried out in the following manner, that every race or settlement leader with the Higher SS Police Leader in his field, would organize this selection and according to regulations of RuSHA.\nQWitness, do you know what the German People's List or DVL is?\nAI don't remember in detail this DVL, this German People's List, but I know there were all sorts of groups of those who were racially superior, in other words, those who were a hundred percent German. That is why there were several levels. I knew those things before but today I couldn't give you any detailed information from my own knowledge.\nQThat is all right, witness. Just answer the questions and if I ask you for any details you can then state whether or not you remember them. Was this German People's List put into effect in your district?\nANo. In Upper Silesia, as far as I can recall, both Gauleiters worked on that. First Gauleiter Wagner and then Gauleiter Bach objected to this because the Polish workers in particular were being used for the coal mines and the heavy industry and there was the danger, of course, that their willingness to work would suffer from that and these DVL's would be started or at least made public during the war.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 395, "page_number": "395", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_14_2-Goldberg (Simha)\nQWitness, do you have any information or knowledge as to how this German People's List was carried out in any other district?\nAYes, indeed. I know that in the Warthegau and also in Western Prussia these People's Lists were carried out. To be quite certain, in the Warthegau it was carried out in a particular severity, that is to say, according to the sharp outline by the Reichsfuehrer and without making exceptions and only racially valuable Germans were resettled while in West Prussia Gauleiter Forster, in this connection, made certain exceptions and gave them concessions and tended towards Germanizing the Poles.\nQHow did you obtain the information which you have as to the German People's List in the Warthegau and other districts?\nAI learned all those things as far as Western Prussia is concerned. I based it on letters which I received from relatives of mine or sometimes from tours which I carried out myself. In 1943, for instance, I travelled through Prussia and I studied those conditions personally.\nQWitness, in West Prussia then were persons forced to register in the DVL?\nAYes, indeed. That occurred. If the result of the selection showed that, shall we say, a Pole was particularly valuable racially Speaking, that is to say, if he was of a Germanic-Nordic race, then he was forced to register. In other words, he was told that he would just become a German citizen.\nQWhat happened to any Pole, told that since he had Germanic blood or was thought to have Germanic blood he must register, if he refused to register?\nAWell, if he directly refused to become registered in some of the lists then he was sent to a concentration camp or at least he was sent over to the Government-General.\nQCan you give the Tribunal any specific examples of persons who refused to register in the DVL and what happened to them?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 396, "page_number": "396", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_14_3_Goldberg (Simha)\nAMy family comes from Western Prussia. They have been living there for centuries. It is, of course, natural that, based on the Versailles Treaty, many of the members of my own family who remained in Western Prussia at the time became Poles. That is to say, they became Polish citizens. Therefore, I realize that I felt that in the individual national groups, even my own family, some of the families were found to be racially superior or of value and they were permitted to keep their property and were declared Germans upon my instigation with the Reichsfuehrer. Others again were found to be a mixture of a race. Again there were others who had been Poles since 1918 and who, in the meantime, had served in the Polish Army who now, of course, stuck to their own and they wanted to remain Polish citizens. These Poles were either taken to a concentration camp or sent over to the Government-General.\nI also remember another instance of a cousin of mine who had the same name as I. He was a Catholic priest and he worked in Western Prussia and he was sent to a concentration camp for the very simple fact that he was a Pole.\nQWitness, who examined these people to determine their racial qualifications?\nAThe delegated leaders of the Race and Settlement Office with the Higher SS and Police Leader did that. In other words, upon investigation by the Police Leader and under the supervision of the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQWitness, do you know the defendant Otto Hofmann, personally, that is?\nAYes, yes, I know him personally -- well.\nQWill you please point the defendant Hofmann out to the Tribunal?\nAI would have to get up for that. (Witness rises). He is right in the middle there. He is right in front of the window (indicating).\nTHE PRESIDENT:In order to avoid the trouble that you thought might happen, suppose you have the particular defendant identified stand.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 397, "page_number": "397", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_14_4_Goldberg (Simha)\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, your Honor, I shall do that in the future. Would you like to have that done now, your Honor?\n(Defendant Hofmann rises)\nTHE PRESIDENT:I didn't hear you.\nMR. SHILLER:I didn't notice if the defendant Hofmann stood up at this time or not, your Honor. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, what do you know about the defendant Hofmann's activities as chief of the Main Race and Settlement Office?\nAI know that Obergruppenfuehrer Hofmann, who was the successor of Pancke in 1941, for several years was the chief of the RuSHA and Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt then became his successor as the chief of RuSHA. According to instructions by the Reichsfuehrer-SS he had to issue the orders and directives according to which, first of all, these examining commissions had to work and also in cases where sexual intercourse occurred between Poles and Germans and he had to issue the racial examination results of these people.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I caution the witness again to speak slowly and pause between each sentence so that the translators can keep up with you. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, were you familiar with the extermination of the Jews by the German Government?\nAYes, indeed.\nQHow did you gain this knowledge?\nAI gained that knowledge in all sorts of ways. First of all, it was generally known, as I testified before the International Military Tribunal at the time, that at the front in combat Jews were being exterminated exactly as everyone could see in the Eastern territories; that Ghettos were being established.\nQWould you say then that the extermination of the Jews by the German government was a matter of common knowledge among the SS men?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 398, "page_number": "398", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 1947_A_MSD_14_5_Goldberg (Simha)\nAWell, let me limit it. I am not talking about the total extermination but the fact that numerous Jews were being exterminated was common knowledge to all SS men and all Germans altogether who were somehow used in the East.\nQWell, witness, would you say that the program of extermination of the Jews was a matter of common knowledge among the Higher SS officials, such as the chiefs of the Main Offices?\nAWell, the total extermination of Jewry, as it was carried out in practice in the concentration camp like Auschwitz and so on, was not known; the extermination in part, yes. In other words, in order to be quite precise about it the entire leadership corps, the SS and the Generals and so on knew about the Einsatzgruppen activities, if that is what you mean.\nQWitness, was the Main Race and Settlement Office connected with this extermination of the Jews and, if so, would you please tell the Tribunal in what way?\nAI do not know that the Main Race and Settlement Office or RuSHA in any way were connected with the practical execution of this Jewish extermination program, but I am convinced that RuSHA fulfilled the prerequisites for this extermination, in particular from an ideological point of view. Therefore, the SS participated in this because without such an ideological schooling, which lasted over a period of many years no man would have volunteered or been ready to carry out this extermination.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 399, "page_number": "399", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, what was the connection between the RSHA and the problem of sexual intercourse between Germans and non-Germans.\nA.Immediately after the beginning of the Polish campaign an order was issued by the Riechsfuehrer-SS which dealt with that matter explicitly. Every Pole, for instance, or Czech, therefore, - a race which was considered inferior who had had sexual intercourse with a German girl or a German woman was automatically arrested by the State Police. This foreign worker was then racially examined. He was examined according to special written specifications which had been issued by RuSHA to the Race and Settlement Leaders in the upper levels and which contained many details about how they were to be photographed and what sizes and so on. In other words, it contained all the factors could be used in order to evaluate a man for his race. This Race and Settlement leader and his commission were also physicians who participated and gave a special diagnosis, a racial judgment that stated whether the man was of a Nordic, Baltic or any other race. All the racial specifications were contained there and the concluding judgment then read either racially valuable, that is to say, he could be used for Germanization; then racially medium or racially inferior. This judgment, if I may call it a judgment, was then sent to the Higher SS and Police Leader who then, based on those various factors, could make up his mind and say that they were superior or inferior or medium and then he would write his opinion on the matter on the files. Such a racial judgment was sent to the Race and Settlement Office. The Race and Settlement Office or RuSHA, after adding their own racial judgment, would then send this judgment to the Reichsfuehrer-SS, personally, who, based on all those specifications, made \n COURT I CASE VIII his judgment.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 400, "page_number": "400", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "He was either satisfied with that or he was not satisfied. If he was not satisfied the RuSHA was again asked to check up on the matter but if the Reichs Fuehrer was satisfied with the judgment, then he stated that persons would be sentenced to death by hanging, should they be racially inferior, should the persons be of a doubtful racial case they would be sent to a concentration camp and if the racial judgment considered him good enough for Germanization, then nothing happened to the man. On the contrary, he was even given the choice of becoming a German citizen. I don't know how it worked the other way around because I never did experience such a case, but I know there were certain regulations for other cases; in other words, vice-versa, that, for instance a German had had sexual intercourse with a Polish girl and I believe that the idea was about the same there, but there were no death sentences. I believe that the racially inferior Polish girl was in this case sent to a concentration camp. Nothing else happened to her.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned that a racial examination was carried out on this Pole by a RuSHA Field Leader. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Was this RuSHA Field Leader on the staff of the Higher SS and police Leader for that district?\nA.No. He was a member of the staff of the superior level of the province. However, he was one of the leaders, one of the men, of the RuSHA. Exactly as all the other leaders or officers of the Security Police, all SS leaders were subordinated to the Main Office of the Security Police exactly in the same manner as these Race and Settlement leaders received their professional directives directly from", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 401, "page_number": "401", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, what was the main factor, the main deciding factor, in judging whether or not the Pole was racially qualified? Was it the decision of the RuSHA field leader?\nA.Well, according to the judgments which I saw myself, and I worked on three cases myself, one could understand that the judgment of the Race and Settlement Leader of RuSHA was the one that was decisive. The chief on the superior level however, was in a position, by showing additional points, to fight against that judgment. In other words, he would have been in a position, under circumstances, to have such death sentences cancelled.\nQ.Witness, returning for a moment to the extermination of the Jews, in connection with RuSHA, do you know whether RuSHA maintained card files on Jews of mixed blood?\nA.Yes, that was known to the entire leadership corps of the SS that in Berlin RuSHA had a card index for Jews and that would give information on each racial consistence of a group or an entire family. It would give information from centuries back.\nQ.Did questions arise in the extermination program as to how a Jew of mixed blood, 75% or 50% Jewish blood, for instance, was to be treated?\nA.Yes, indeed. That was very important. That was very important for the entire racial regulations whether a man was half Jewish or one quarter Jewish. That could be seen from the index cards.\nQ.Do you know whether these RuSHA card files were used to establish the degree of Jewish blood of some particular person and thus determine his fate under the extermination program?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 402, "page_number": "402", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.I know from speeches by Reichsfuehrer Himmler personally that, for instance, based on those files, this card index for Jews, the preliminary work was done by the Security Police prior to the entry into foreign territories, that is to say, before invading the Protectorate, Czechoslovakia, or before entering Austria or Poland. The Security Police, based on those card indexes, had already taken the necessary steps in order to be able to hit hard and fast.\nQ.Witness, did you know the defendant Hildebrandt, Richard Hildebrandt, personally?\nA.Yes.\nMR. SHILLER:Will the Tribunal please ask the defendant to stand?\n(Hildebrandt stands.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the defendant stand. All right. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Is that Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, yes, that is Hildebrandt all right.\nQ.Witness, do you know anything about the defendant Hildebrandt's activities as Higher SS and Police Leader in the District Danzig, West Prussia?\nA.I know tha t Hildebrandt was the Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig. I know that he had a policy of his own which was the policy of the Reich Leader which was opposed to the policy of Gauleiter Forster. I furthermore know, from the trips which I took in western Prussia, and also from the letters and the correspondence which I received from my parents, exactly what Hildebrandt's activity was, what his work consisted of.\nQ.Witness, as Higher SS and Police Leader, do you know whether or not the defendant Hildebrandt put any \n COURT I CASE VIII persons Into concentration camps for refusing to register in the German People's List?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 403, "page_number": "403", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes. A Catholic priest von Zelewski, upon Hildebrandt's instigation and demand, was sent to a concentration camp. The Reichs Fuehrer-SS personally showed me that application.\nQ.Witness, do you have any knowledge in connection with the defendant Hildebrandt and the s o-called euthanasia program?\nA.In 1943 I visited Neustadt in Western Prussia which is called Vajhorovo in Polish. I visited that place where I spent my youth in a gymnasium there and in this connection, or while I was there, I visited the Lunatic Asylum there which was in Neustadt, Western Prussia, and I found out that in the past years, upon Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt's request, all the insane persons had been evacuated for the euthanasia program.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 404, "page_number": "404", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.- Your Honor the Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any cross-examination by the defense. BY DR. HAENSEL (For the Defendant Greifelt):\nQ.- May I continue your Honor? After 1940 as you stated yourself you had been appointed deputy Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism of the Reichsfuehrer Himmler. Where was your office at the time?\nA.- At Breslau.\nQ.- Didn't you have to have an office for your functions in Upper Silesia?\nA.- I stated before -\nQ.- What was the name of the agency?\nA.- The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. It was signed with large letters just like all the other agencies, for instance with the RuSHA Police Leader, Reich Police Leader SS and the other was the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism and that's all.\nQ.- Those instructions which you just mentioned, what was the channel of command from which they came? Did they come to Breslau or Kattowitz?\nA.- I am sorry; it is impossible for me to remember all that. I was in charge of three corps and civilian army units. Am I to remember every detail? In any case they were never sent to Breslau. They couldn't have been sent to Breslau because I had no office of my own there.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, the translation of the remarks of the withess does not work. What my colleague says can be understood but the witness can't be understood. It has been that way for about ten minutes. I believe the channel is out of order. I will appreciate it if the Tribunal will issue orders that this be corrected.\nMr. McHANEY: If the Tribunal please, I don't think the channel is out of order. I think if the defense counsel and witness would take it a \n little slower and give the interpreters an opportunity to translate every thing would go along all right but the give and take is a little bit too fast.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 405, "page_number": "405", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Can you hear now?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No, I didn't understand that. I am sorry your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Can the defense counsel, only the defense counsel try your head phones and indicate whether you can hear the translation or not.\nDR. HAENSEL:I can hear it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is there anybody that cannot hear it?\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor may I listen to the whole thing with my ears? BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.- I am terribly sorry that these channels are all stuffed up and particularly in such a moment when the witness is ready to make a few statements from his own memory. Witness, we spoke about the list, and also the signature of your agency in Kattowitz and I would appreciate it if you could tell me again what your answer was, perhaps you would tell me slower and in such a way and manner that we can understand you.\nA.- Among 15 other titles which I had I wrote the title under all 15 of them. Still I couldn't answer what the address was at that time. You know it was very, very complicated at that time. However, if you were to ask me where this mail was sent to before asking me what the letter head was like, then I would tell you it was sent to Kattowitz to the agency there. In Breslau I simply had a little home with my little family and I didn't have to deal with State matters in my little home.\nQ.- Let's get back to those 15 other titles; you told me you had 15?\nA.- Yes, in the course of the war, yes, yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go a little slower and stay in front of the \"mike\" please.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 406, "page_number": "406", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.- I am now referring to your function as SS Police Leader. You must have had a great big field of tasks which you had to deal with regard to the Reich Commissar.\nA.- As a Higher SS Leader I was not necessarily a Police Leader but the Higher SS Leader.\nQ.- I am terribly sorry; the titles are very complicated.\nA.- Yes, there was a higher Police leader, yes, yes, Mr. Defense Counsel.\nQ.- Now, as to the extent of your work how would you separate the work which you did for the Reich Commissar and all the other functions you performed in your capacity of Higher Police Leader. Would you say one-tenth, one-quarter, one-half, or what, approximately?\nA.- I didn't compile that in percentages.\nI was in Upper Silesia only for five days; that's all.\nQ.- Now, you received instructions from Himmler, did you not; also in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader or did you only receive them in your capacity as a representative of the Reich Commissar from Himmler himself?\nA.- Well, I received orders from the main offices depending on whether it was the General SS because after all I was in charge of 40,000 men in Silesia; there were all sorts of subsidiary tasks.\nQ.- Do you understand -\nA.- - yes I understand. On the question of the Prosecution before I stated from Himmler personally; I did not receive any instructions in this field of tasks but those instructions came directly from Greifelt.\nQ.- How far did you assume that those instructions of Himmler's were from Himmler himself?\nA.- Yes, yes, of course, they had been issued by Himmler; I stated \n that before, naturally.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 407, "page_number": "407", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.- If they did not come from Himmler but only from Greifelt then they would have made the same impression on you?\nA.- No, of course not, because the Reich Commissar was Himmler and no one else. He was the so-called State Minister -\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will be compelled to talk at one time if you expect the translator to get it all. When a question is asked the witness will please not answer the question until it has been translated and when the witness gives an answer counsel will please not propound another question until the answer has been translated.\nDR. HAENSEL:We will soon learn that, Your Honor. I am quite sure. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.- Witness, you stated that the first few weeks of your work for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism were more or less of a theoretical nature. What was the extent of this theoretical work you mentioned?\nA.- Mr. Defense Counsel first of all let me give you a differentiation on the different things. I would like to point out to you that the Chief person at the time of Silesia, at the time, was Josef Wagner. He and his entire staff all lost their lives on the 20th of July.\nA.- Well, I am talking about the resistance; you remember that attempt on Hitler's life.\nQ.- Does it have a date?\nA.- Yes; 1944.\nQ.- That happened on that date in 1944?\nA.- That is quite correct; that is quite correct, quite correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Both counsel and the witness will have to slow up or we will not get this testimony in the record.\nA.- Mr. Defense Counsel, let me finish my statement. It was my first sentence. There are more to come. I had to point it out because at the \n time he was relieved from his duties, this man Wagner, he was released in particular because he worked against this Himmler policy in Upper Silesia.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 408, "page_number": "408", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "This whole matter only took shape when Bracht became Gauleiter who was one of Hitler's men. Therefore, that is a personal point because a man like Bracht never did collaborate with the representative of Himmler like Greifelt. That was the reason there were so many conferences with all the persons participating in this, even down to the farmer who had to administer the country and even down lower to the agency who had to carry out those orders. All those negotiations took time in order to result in anything.\nQ.- Now, witness, let us now try to reconstruct the whole thing. Let us go to the place you mentioned before. Saybusch. When I say Saybusch, then I am referring to the estate.\nA.- When I spoke about that I did not speak about the estate but I spoke about the area there.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 409, "page_number": "409", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "24 Oct 47_A_PM_17_1_Love (Int. Simha)\nQ:And in this conversation which took place you were shown plants and plans and is that correct?\nA:Yes, I was shown those things all the time; Greifelt only came not on one occasion but came to see me all the time at Kattowitz and the Staff leaders came to see me a few times a week, even came to our place in Berlin; that was nothing but a shuttle service.\nQ:Where were these maps worked out; in Kattowitz or Berlin?\nA:The great planning was carried out in Berlin; however the local planning or mapping as far as that area was concerned was carried out in Kattowitz.\nQ:How then did you know that Greifelt was there right often. Did you actually concern yourself with this work which was being carried on in Kattowitz; were you interested in it?\nA:No, I was not there to deal with those things and was not there to be interested in it. I stated before that I became the representative then. Of course, I was a representative of the representative of the representative. It was not up to me to deal with those things but the staff leaders had to deal with those matters, the business managers and so forth. Do you understand me?\nQ:Yes, I understand that you were the Higher SS Police Leader?\nA:Yes, absolutely and once in a while I had to Inform myself about what matters were.\nQ:You were more or loss the boss around the house, weren't you?\nA:Well, actually I was the boss around the house at all times.\nQ:I understand of course, that is what I wanted to point out. Well then a plan was set up to resettle the place down \n 24 Oct 47_A_PM_17_2_Love (Int.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 410, "page_number": "410", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Simha) there. Did you see the plan before?\nA:Surely.\nQ:Did you agree with it?\nA:Well --\nQ:Do you understand?\nA:Yes, of course; of course.\nQ:How was it actually put into practice? You say the people were expelled. In othe words people who lived in those homes were simply asked to leave. Is that it?\nA:Well, I mean after all I didn't follow each policeman to whatever house he want to. That was up to the Field Police down there.\nQ:Why excellent, excellent, and all of a sudden we are in connection with constables and that is what I wanted to point out. Who forced these people to move out of their homes if they didn't want to go?\nA:Oh, I know what you are trying to get at, Mr. Defense Couns l but the Higher Police leaders who were not in change of the police at the time unfortunately. That was after 1941 during the Russian campaign.\nQ:Mr. Witness, I don't have anything against you. What I want to know is to whom was the Police subordinated?\nA:To the Landrat or then to his superior who was the Oberpraesident--\nQ:Let's go a little bit higher -\nA: --- Yes and Higher Police Leader was in charge of all the sections of the SS but he was not in charge of the police -\nQ: ---- Let's go a little bit higher up, witness. Who was in charge of the Police, higher up.\nA:The Minister of the Interior, that was not Himmler at the time yet, Mr. Defense Counsel; it was Himmler later on. I \n 24 Oct 47_A_PM_17_3_Love (Int.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 411, "page_number": "411", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Simha) mean I told you all that, didn't I?\nQ:It says there RSHA. What is that?\nA:Reich Security Main Office.\nQ:In other words that had something to do with the police? --\nA:Only with Security Police and not with the constables.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness and the attorney will please slow up and stay in front of the \"Mike\" and when those lights flash that means Slow Up. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ:We were now speaking about the police and I believe that you wanted to tell me about those various levels, that the police authority was not the office which was subordinated to Greifelt?\nA:Yes, that's right; I understand.\nQ:Yes, of course, did you ever see such an expulsion order?\nA:Yes indeed.\nQ:Do you know who signed it.\nA:Greifelt.\nQ:Whom was it sent to?\nA:To the Staff leader, to the agency. In other words to Mueller Altenau und Arlt.\nQ:Then what happened, the people were expelled?\nA:The people were expelled.\nQ:Who told them to move out?\nA:I don't know; that is asking too much. I was not in charge of the technical work; therefore, I could not tell you the details and all those things. I can't tell that, you see. Emphatically speaking it did work out that the Landrat passed on the order through the Police after the Commission had \n 24 Oct 47_A_PM_17_4_Love (Int.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 412, "page_number": "412", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Simha) fixed the plan locally. In each case, you see, Mr. Defense Counsel, not only in Kattowitz there was a Commission which would work exactly according to Greifelt's instructions. Everything was contained in there, the Landrat was mentioned there and it was stated there, the man of the Security Police were in charge, etc. etc. etc.\nQ:Now, will you tell me, witness, perhaps your memory will start jumping again and ticking, do you know anything about the policy with regard to alien races? Do you understand that word? It is Fremdtumspolitik in German. Does it make something click in you?\nA:No, it doesn't.\nQ:Do you understand it when I way Volkstumspolitik. That deals with the Germans, doesn't it?\nA:Yes.\nQ:And the Premdtumspolitik does not deal with Germans but with alien races. Do you understand now?\nA:Yes.\nQ:You spoke about a commission and in this commission you mentioned a few people who undoubtedly were not subordinated to Greifelt's agency and I mentioned the alien policy to you?\nA:Yes.\nQ:And I wanted to have you tell me that the RSHA, Reich Security Main Office, played a large part in those matters. Can you tell me anything in connection with that.\nA:Mr. Defense counsel, I am sorry; I can't say yes to that. After all I simply can't stand here and watch how one agency passes the buck to the other because only one main office will be held responsible for the whole matter and that is the Greifelt Main Office and all the other ones of course did act \n accordingly and they followed his instructions but there was only one responsibility which could be held and that was by the Office Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 413, "page_number": "413", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q:Witness, that is a conclusion you are enjoining. You have to work along with us and cooperate with us and tell us facts. You know we want facts, that's all. However since we are speaking about offices and so on please do take a look at that chart up above; you will find Himmler and then on the next line you will find a series of offices.\nA:Uh huh.\nQ:The man in charge of that, or the man who drew up those charts drew a horizontal line and not a diagonal line.\nA:That is the way it should be - on the same level.\nQ:Quite so; isn't that your opinion?\nA:No; it is not right.\nQ:And RSHA is not under the Staff office but on the same level.\nA:That is correct.\nQ:Well you see we have to agree on that.\nA:Yes.\nQ:You spoke about the DVL, the German People's List, do you remember that?\nA:Yes.\nQ:Do you think this DVL, this German People's List, did not become practical in Silesia; it wasn't carried out?\nA:Yes, I said that while I was there; it was in the beginning; I couldn't tell you for the entire period of time.\nQ:Can you recall since you know about the other Districts what are the Gauleiters and so on; can you recall if the handling of the DVK varied and also the time in which it was introduced varied?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 414, "page_number": "414", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A:Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ:Do you remember the decree by the Ministry of the Interior, this great decree--\nTHE INTERPRETOR:I am sorry, your Honor, it is absolutely impossible to follow these two men at the same time, especially when they are talking so rapidly, at the same time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I wouldn't think it would be necessary to constantly warn both counsel and the witness not to talk at the same time and not to talk so fast. This examination will be useless if it does not get into the record and surely counsel wants it in the record. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ:We were speaking about the German People's List, what I wanted to ask you was whether you read how this German, Peoples List or, DVL was established. First of all, tell me whether it started in the individual Districts when such administrations were carried out, not very systematically but carried out anyway and later on the entire system was introduced or can't you answer my question.\nA:Mr. Defense Counsel as far as I can recall it worked in the following manner. The DVL was ordered from up above, but down below when this chart appeared all the Gauleiters down below tried to interpolate and make valid their opinions because they did not all agree with that and an Army did not agree with the way in which the groups were being set up.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE INTERPRETOR", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 415, "page_number": "415", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Do you know whether in the DVL there was a compulsion to register; I mean was it contained in the decree?\nA.Let me think for a minute; well, let's see. I believe as far as I can remember -\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution would like to object to the Defense Counsel asking the witness with respect to the contents of the decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, it has been stated in rather plain language by the Tribunal several times that you would not go into the contents of the decree.\nDR. HAENSEL:Yes, Your Honor, I understand, but you see sometimes it might be important to find out just what a witness knows about the decree; it could be that I am right; may be you are right, but that is not the contents of the decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may ask if he knows about the existence of a decree but not about the contents. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness who was compelled to register the DVL as you mentioned; and who carried out the measure?\nA.Mr. Defense Counsel, in order not to duplicate our work here, after all the question is not how it was formulated, but the results are in question here. That such a DVL existed, there is nothing else but a compulsion. After all, Mr. Defense Counsel, place yourself in our position, we who are along the border line; the fact that the DVL was there was a compulsion for us to register if we wanted to live or we would lose our lives or our homes or whatever there was. All the other things are formulations that you are asking me about.\nQ.Excuse me, witness, that is quite correct, but the question is whether the DVL, Point III or IV, was to be applied under certain persons that after all was dictated by some one in particular, and that is what created the compulsion; isn't that correct?\nA.Mr. Defense Counsel, please don't make my position as a German citizen any more difficult. I was very clear and I don't wish to be \n clearer than that.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 416, "page_number": "416", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.Witness, you stated that your family had been living in western Prussia for many centuries.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore you and the other inhabitants repeatedly changed masters, as one would say; isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, quite so.\nQ.But in spite of that you consider yourself a member of Germany.\nA.I wouldn't know, Mr. Defense Counsel, if a man, say a fifteen year old boy volunteered to fight against Russia; if a man received all those medals during the war; then today you don't have the right as a German citizen to ask me all those things because I have several decorations and I won several of them in this war.\nQ.Witness, you don't my story and I don't know yours; so that is the reason why I wish to develop the whole thing here; and the Tribunal knows it even less than I do. We are here in this struggle for the People; you have been in that struggle since you were ---\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's not have any more argument between the Counsel and the witness. Let's get down to the facts in this case. Your feelings are not of interest to the Court at all.\nQ.Therefore you changed masters repeatedly, as we said before.\nA.I didn't say that.\nQ.The country is what I mean. Would you tell us how many centuries these struggles can be traced back. Will you say one century; is that about right? Which century ?\nA.Well, it starts with the first century; actually with Henry the First.\nQ.Give me the time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The translation people are not getting what you say. You are wasting your time and breath talking without any record being made. If you want this evidence to appear in the record, you will have \n to conduct your examination in such a manner so that it can be heard and translated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 417, "page_number": "417", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "MR. SHILLER:If Your Honor please, the Prosecution wishes to object to Defense Counsel going back for several hundreds of years relating to matters which are not charged in the Indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I fail to see how that illustrates any facts which the Tribunal is called to pass upon in this case. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, did you object to the measures or did you have anything to do against those measures which were told you by the office of Greifelt; for instance, concerning this resettlement. Did you pretest in any way?\nA.Mr. Defense Counsel, you as a lawyer will probably know that it is proved here very clearly; for instance, let me remind you about the Government General which Sauckel testified and their families; and let me remind you of my attitude in the Slavic *---* question. May I point the book to you which is called the persons who were not linguists; it was a book which was published in Warsaw.\nQ.Let me tell you something, witness; I mean after all this is not a private discussion, and all those questions are only put in order to inform the Tribunal. After all, my opinion does not matter at all, but what the Tribunal thinks, what the Tribunal understands from our conversation is what counts here. You remember this Saybusch action, don't you, witness; do you know what the term was; disposal of the people to be expelled; when did they have to leave?\nA.They had to leave the same day.\nQ.And how was it with the racial examination that you mentioned?\nA.I stood, it was together with Greifelt, separated from several chambers where they had to walk the gauntlet; you could see them walk the gauntlet in alphabetical order, and I saw that myself and every one was examined there, the entire population.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 418, "page_number": "418", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.And this examination was carried out by the Race and Settlement examiners; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And they decided on that and they made their decisions public?\nA.Well, I don't know whether they made it public, but they received some forms; all those forms had been prescribed for it, far up above; they were nothing but forms which came from the higher levels; and everyone in Germany knows these thousands of various forms which existed.\nQ.Where were these people sent to first?\nA.First they were sent to collective centers; I know before that they were sent to the Government General.\nQ.And those Race and Settlement examiners then went to RuSHA; is that it?\nA.Yes, approximately; of course all directives concerning how they had to carry out the resettlement were received from RuSHA. They didn't receive the job order from the RuSHA as they couldn't tell this one is going to be such and such a racial examination.\nQ.Now, as far as your personal relationship is concerned with Greifelt, I would like to ask you, witness, you are an old SS leader, aren't you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is Greifelt an old SS leader?\nA.According to his rank, no; he is nothing but an opportunist to come up.\nQ.Did that play any role in his position, I mean.\nA.Well, he was just an SS leader.\nQ.And the other Gauleiters and Stathalters which you mentioned in the Warthegau, Forster or Greiser, for instance, and all these, what was the relationship there ?\nA.Greiser from the SS point of view was also an old SS man.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 419, "page_number": "419", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "I mean there is no certain type; Mr. Defense Counsel, you don't understand me; you don't know how the whole thing worked.\nQ.I am not speaking about promotions here, Witness, but I am simply speaking about the possibility of having his role go through.\nA.Of course, Mr. Defense Counsel, a Gauleiter from a power point of view is more like a main office chief of the SS, if he has a will of his own, but, Mr. Defense Counsel, Greifelt did not issue orders from the Gauleiters, but he simply gave the order to the representative of the Reich leader who happened to be Gauleiters; it wasonly in that capacity that he had the right to issue orders only in his own field of tasks; otherwise, he had no right at all to issue orders.\nQ.The question, however, is whether if he issued an order and if the Gauleiter did not like the order, he Greifelt, had the possibility to enforce his will.\nA.Well, it depended upon the position at the time whether Himmler or the Gauleiter in charge was more powerful and it depended entirely on the time.\nQ.And now of course you are on Himmler's level, aren't you? You are in Himmler's level, aren't you; Greifelt was alittle lower down.\nA.Yes, Greifelt was Himmler's representative. After all, he did not of his own wish issue orders; he only complied with Himmler's wishes. Himmler and Greifelt were one and the same person as far as that went.\nQ.But even that was not such at all times, was it?\nA.Well, if Himmler wasn't there; well, no, not always.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will suspend here to take our fifteen minutes recess.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 420, "page_number": "420", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let's start this session by going slow.\nDR. HAENSEL:We always start with the best determinations in the world, Your Honor. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Herr von Bach-Zelewski, do you know anything of the HTO--the Main Trustee Company, East? Did you know anything of this company during your activity?\nA.During my activity? No. But I know that it existed in the East and afterwards in Russia, in the Government-General.\nQ.In direct examination you said something about industrial enterprises.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that the HTO exercised control over these industrial enterprises?\nA.Yes, that was well known.\nMR. SHILLER:If Your Honor please, the Prosecution feels that the defense counsel is now going beyond the scope of the direct examination. The HTO, for instance, was not brought up during the direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will see how far it goes. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Therefore, was the authority of power of Greifelt's agency in essential poings limited, in connection with the question as to how and for what purpose the disposition of properties was carried out?\nA.I don't know. I have no idea nor knowledge. I don't know what was the economic effect of this. It went over a number of years. I know nothing about it. This involved a number of years, and God knows I had other worries.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It is necessary to caution the witness again to talk into the microphone, and please talk slowly.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 421, "page_number": "421", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE WITNESS:I really know nothing of such details. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Can we agree at all on the following basis, witness, namely that many subjects involving agencies--mainly the complicated agencies and their organizational of structure, was unknown to you?\nA.The Greifelt was known to me. I only spoke of its responsibilities.\nQ.You were in Breslau and from there you saw how affairs went?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And in Berlin and elsewhere, how did things develop? You only heard of these things or had them from Greifelt personally or from the Reichsfuehrer?\nA.I don't accept any orders from anyone of whom I don't know exactly whether he has authority to issue them.\nQ.One more question only in regard to the position of Saybusch. Do you know where this was located? Was it situated in an incorporated eastern territory, or was it in Germany proper?\nA.In 1914, it belonged to German territory still, but it belonged to that part of Germany, which according to the peace treaty of Versailles, had to be ceded to Poland.\nQ.And later, was it incorporated?\nA.It was incorporated into the newly established Gau, Upper-Silesia.\nQ.And you and your people were of the opinion that this belonged to the greater German Reich?\nA.Belonged? No. But we wanted it.\nQ.You wanted it and you thought that you were authorized to have it?\nA.Of course, as a frontier territory; we wanted to have the old territory back.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 422, "page_number": "422", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "DR.BEHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling): I have a very few questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Meyer-Hetling personally?\nA.I don't remember.\nQ.You can probably not say then anything as to his work?\nA.No.\nQ.You also don't know whether he was involved in any of the agencies or offices indicted before this Tribunal?\nA.I don't remember him at all.\nQ.Witness, I will now just come shortly to the discussion in Saybusch. As the defendant, Meyer-Hetling, is not personally known to you, you will also be able to confirm to me that he was not present at the discussion in Saybusch?\nA.I don't know him; I can't say anything at all. I can't say whether he was there or not.\nQ.You then said that on the occasion of this discussion in Saybusch, definite plans concerning the resettlement problem were submitted, and that according to your opinion, the so-called large planning--Grosse Planung--of Berlin, and the small planning--Kleine Planung--originated with local agencies and was carried out by them. Now what do you understand under large planning and what do you understand under small planning? And on what is your assumption based that the so-called large planning originated in Berlin?\nA.Now first of all, attorney, the difference between large and small planning: the large planning is the plan of Himmler involving the entire eastern territory which was \n COURT I CASE VIII to be Germanized.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 423, "page_number": "423", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "This plan had been drafted and handled for years, even prior to the war, and there was a very specific carbographic material available on the subject with most intensive previous studies, because we did not stumble on to the settlement problem. But very definite determinations had to be made in advance; say, this geographical area was suitable for agricultural purposes, and another area was more suitable for large-scale settlement. Besides that, political factors were also involved--political points of view--according to which settlement was to be carried out. For example, take the Upper-Silesian industrial territory which was of such essential and vital importance to German industry. A frontier line of German settlers was to separate this area from the area of the Slavs and the Poles. All these different factors caused the greater planning to arise not only in Saybusch, but of course, attorney, from the very first day on, that was the first thing that Greifelt submitted to me--this larger planning--from which you can See what they were thinking about in higher levels; for after all, we didn't know; we were just amateurs; we had never heard anything of settlement.\nQ.If I understand you correctly-\nA.May I continue? The smaller settlement, that was local, involved in connection with these problems, received orders from Greifelt, probably pursuant to his report to Himmler. If Greifelt told them: Now let us take the area Saybusch--or it could be elsewhere, other territories-Let us take this as Goal No. 1, and settle it. Then in accordance with this discussion with this settlement staff, he sent a research force out for information purposes. There were settlement experts from Berlin who handled this and determined whether the area was suitable for settlement at all. At the same time, special people--experts in \n COURT I CASE VIII Berlin--studied whether the properties involved were really suitable for agricultural purposes, for settling down.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 424, "page_number": "424", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Old Germanic examples were used. I am not an expert, but I still remember how one village was grouped around the community house--whether it was longitudinal or whether it was thrown together or whether it was singly spaced-and there were thousands of problems like this involved, and all these facts were ordered by Greifelt.\nNow the local execution: this was done by the settlement staff in conjunction with the commission which was established.\nQ.Witness, you said that this type had already been developed prior to the war. What agencies, before the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, had been called into existence at all?\nA.Attorney, you know that that was the basis of the entire NSDAP: the thought of expanding toward the East. That is how Hitler named Arlt. Hitler gained and Seized power in Germany with his eastern area promises. This started the expansion movement in the east. Germany was an overpopulated territory. That was an election motive by means of which all deputies of the NSDAP gained votes, and there were innumerable such agencies which dealt with this. It's not an accident, attorney, that it was Arlt who particularly became Geschaeftsfuehrer--manager-In the Gauleitung, because this Arlt, who was executive in Upper-Silesia, was racial Referent there. This all goes hand-in-hand. The racial theory and the settlement policy are linked, and of course, from the very start the NSDAP handled these problems. You can't just deny all that today.\nQ.We don't propose to do that. You said there were innumerable agencies involved to handle these questions and also innumerable persons. I have the impression, \n COURT I CASE VIII therefore, that they wished to reach a goal they had put to themselves.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 425, "page_number": "425", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Can you now give me practical and actual figures from your activity in Upper-Silesia? Can you tell me what was the form already before the war on which this planning went into effect?\nA.In Upper-Silesia, of course, not at all. I have already stated today the Upper-Silesia is a Very bad example for this, because I am of the opinion that probably-\nQ.Can you ascertain, from your own Knowledge, that you only noticed the one example of Saybusch and can you confirm to me that in Upper-Silesia there were no other plans carried out of this type?\nA.Please, I don't know them, because I never came to Upper-Silesia.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It becomes necessary to caution this counsel and the witness that they can't both talk at the same time.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I have concluded my cross examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 426, "page_number": "426", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "DR.MUELLER (for the Defendant Huebner): May I continue this cross-examination?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.- Herr von Bach-Zelweski, at the beginning of your testimony, you mentioned that the Ansiedlungsstab -- the settlement staff -- was located in Kattowitz, whereas you were located in Breslau. Do you know that this was handled differently in other Gaus?\nA.- No, I don't know the details of this. I can't know it.\nQ.- In your further testimony, you mentioned the incident of an evacuation and resettlement. Is it correct that in the later stages of the resettlement drives, and particularly so in the various Gaus, the jurisdiction was distributed in a different manner, particularly to different agencies?\nA.- The agencies carried out these measures in detail. Of course, this could have been determined differently. I am only speaking of the main organizations.\nQ.- You, therefore, consider it possible that the execution of these actions was distributed in a different manner in other gain?\nA.- I don't consider it probable, but I don't know it.\nQ.- Therefore it can be that in other Gaus, the settlement staffs -had a more limited jurisdiction, but you will probably not know anything of this brom your own knowledge.\nA.- I have already told you that I only know from my own sphere of work from the exchange of correspondence, and then of course I knew the R and S and police leader, Keppl, and occasionally we met, and then he informed me on general lines. But I don't know how this was handled local ly in specific areas.\nQ.- I have one more question. Herr von Bach-Zelewski, in your testimony, several times you referred to the jurisdiction of theR andS Fuehrer in the Oberabschmitte. Do you know that in the individual Gaus, \n apart from the race and settlement fuehrer in the Oberabschmitt of the SS, there were special sub-agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office?", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 427, "page_number": "427", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- I heard of that.\nQ.- Do you know, therefore, that part of the jurisdiction of these sub-abencies were, for example, the racial examinations for re-Germanization which you have mentioned?\nA.- Attorney, questions which involve that which was below my own agency cannot be answered by me. I can only give you specific information on my own level. You ask me questions which I cannot answer.\nQ.- One more question. You said that every SS Fuehrer in Race and Settlement matters with the SS Oberabschmitt had to undertake racial examinations of members of certain groups of the German People's List in his specific area by means of registration commissions, and had to organize them accordingly. Do you know whether this applied to the Warthegau in the same form?\nA.- Are you referring to aliens? You are referring to registration of aliens and not registration of Germans? There are two ways of settlement: those that were to be settled into the area or evacuated from the area -\nQ.- I was not speaking of the Ansiedlung -- or settlement -- but I was speaking of the German Peoples' List. In making your testimony in direct examination, did you not mention commissions in connection with the German People's List? Did you not think of them?\nA.- In answer to questions concerning western Prussia, referring to German Peoples' List in Prussia, this was the case: in connection herewith, the chief agency was the Race and Settlement Fuehrer in the Oberabschmitt.\nQ.- Was this the same in the Warthegau?\nA.- Yes, it was the same everywhere.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 428, "page_number": "428", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:May I caution counsel and the witness once more, please, do not both talk at the same time. Now may I make this suggestion the witness will, please, when a question has been propounded, pause before answering the question long enough for the translation to be completed; and may I suggest to counsel that when an answer has been given, that he pause long enough for the answer to be translated before propounding another question. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.- Can you make any statements as to whether, particularly in the Warthegau, this task was not within the jurisdiction of the previously mentioned branch agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.- No, I can't do that. I can neither answer in the affirmative nor the negative. I don't know.\nQ.- I have no further questions, Your Honor. DR. SCHUBERT (For the Defendant Lorenz): BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.- Can you tell me whether Lorenz and his agency, VOMI, respectively carried out compulsory resettlements or only voluntary resettlements?\nA.- I can only say that all of us were of the opinion that everything was on a voluntary basis.\nQ.- You mentioned that ethnic Germans were resettled from Siebenbuergen. Those would probably be the Roumanian areas or partly Hungarian areas. Do you have definite information that from these areas, resettlements were carried out?\nA.- No, I only used this as an example where I knew that there were Germans residing, but this is nothing definite.\nQ.- Then you said that the conditions of living of the ethnic Germans in the Settlement areas were generally better than in the country from which they originated. Can you maintain that generally?\nA.- In my area? In the areas of which I spoke.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 429, "page_number": "429", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that he does not pause at the end of the question. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.- Witness, you also mentioned the evacuation which we must distinguish from resettlement.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And you particularly mentioned the case Saybusch. In this case of evacuation, did VOMI participate?\nA.- I can only see a participation of VOMI in the fact that people in Kreuzberg and Annaberg in Upper Silesia -- the people who were assembled in a camp -- were settled by VOMI. They had been introduced into the Reich by VOMI. I, therefore, know from this fact that VOMI was involved. VOMI brought the people.\nQ.- Witness, deputies or commissioners of VOMI, if I understand you correctly, did not participate in the evacuation project of the local population?\nA.- No; if at all, in only taking care of the German involved.\nQ.- Witness, in your capacity as Higher-SS and Police Leader, did you receive any VOMI orders?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Not even in your capacity as Deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.- No, I did not.\nQ.- Do you know the defendant Lorenz?\nA.- Very well, yes.\nQ.- Do you know, witness, what political part Lorenz played in VOMI?\nA.- I would like to make a cautious testimony to the effect that in the circle of colleagues, Lorenz was considered only as a drawingroom without any practical political activity.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 430, "page_number": "430", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.- Then would you say the same in regard to his political influence?\nA.- Yes. I would even make this more strong, as far as my judgment goes.\nQ.- Your Honor, I have completed my cross-examination.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (for the Defendant Hoffmann): Will you permit me to continue the cross-examination, Your Honor?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.- I now propose to ask you a number of questions, and will you not take this in a personal way as any agressive action of mine against your person. I would like to establish some facts for the information of the Tribunal. In direct examination, you stated that in 1930 you came to the SS, is that right?\nA.- Well, I know the number 9,000. That refers to the year 1930.\nQ.- That is sufficient. Now in what locality was this where you joined it?\nA.- In Duringshofen, on the Ostbahn; in the area of Frankfurt on the Oder.\nQ.- What were your reasons to join the SS?\nA.- I can tell you specifically that the reasons were national ones.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution wishes to object to this line of testimony. The witness' reasons for joining the SS are obviously irrelevent.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, will you please permit me to comment on this? I think that it is permissible in cross-examination to address personal questions, if only few in number.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not think that the witness' reasons for joining the SS or any other organization would illustrate any issue before this Tribunal. I sustain the objection.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 431, "page_number": "431", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q.- Witness, when you joined the SS did you know the intentions which this organization promoted? What did you imagine these intentions were?\nA.- The intentions were to form an elite of the Party and the Party program was known.\nQ.- What did this elite consist of? What do you understand under racial selection with in the SS?\nA.- It was rather primitive. There was a minimum of prescription only. At that time there was no Race and Settlement Main Office and no racial referent.\nQ.- How did this develop in the course of time?\nA.- I remember that approximately at the same time when I joined the order was given to create a Race and Settlement Main Office, but for the time being this was all elementary, at the time of the struggle, the first initial NSDAP struggles.\nQ.- Witness, do you agree that this racial selection, at least before the war, was limited to the SS exclusively or at least predominantly?\nA.- Before the war?\nQ.- Yes.\nA.- Well you can't say that because the Nurnberg laws were known.\nQ.- What did the SS have to do with the Nurnberg laws?\nA.- The SS was part of the Party.\nQ.- What were the tasks of the SS in regard to the Nurnberg law? Will you please make specifications in this regard?\nA.- Tasks? I never spoke of tasks. I spoke of aims. The SS, of course, had no tasks, How could it? The Nurnberg laws referred to the entire German people.\nQ.- And the Race and Settlement Main Office had no special task in connection herewith?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 432, "page_number": "432", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- No.\nQ.- Witness, you mentioned that in Higher Fuehrer circles there was an anarchy of considerable dimensions; is that right?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Jurisdiction, therefore, was not definitely fixed, is that what you want to say?\nA.- There was a settlement as to jurisdiction but in the struggle which was carried on within the movement itself for leadership, many unfortunately did not adhere to this settlements.\nQ.- Therefore, witness, it depended on the personal position of the leader, whoever it was at the time?\nA.- Yes, the personal position and situation of power as it existed within the movement and was subject to constant changes.\nQ.- To refer to the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the various territories, who depended on the specific situation of power existing at the time, did their jurisdiction very?\nA.- Yes. It depended on the Gauleiter and on relationships to the Gauleiter. I would say it depended on the confidence which the Gauleiter and the OberPraesident gave to the higher SS and Police Leaders. If there was any hostility between these two, the Gauleiter and the Higher SS and Police leader, then, of course, it was possible for them to restrict each other very much in exercising their individual powers.\nQ.- Witness, in regard to the deputies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, you mentioned that the former SS and Police Leaders, whoever they may have been, had a special agency established which was generally under the staff leader of the administrative area of the SS. Is that correct?\nA.- No, that is wrong. A Staff Fuehrer of the Administrative District existed in addition to that and had nothing to do with it.\nQ.- Did you exercise considerable influence on the work of this staff \n leader or of this chief of agency?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 433, "page_number": "433", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- No. At that stage my influence was small.\nQ.- Had the same circumstances prevailed in the remaining area of Germany?\nA.- Yes, where resettlements were carried out. For example, I know of a Stafsfuehrer Koeppen. He told me so personally, but particularly this matter applied in the Warthegau. In the new area there was a General SS available for the time being, whereas in the Reich area the gravity was always with a General SS, as I already said, with the SS men who had to be taken care of, with the 40,000 SS men involved.\nQ.- You mentioned the Ansiedlerstab, the Settlement Staff. Can you still remember how it was composed?\nA.- No, I can't.\nQ.- Were racial examiners at the Race and Settlement Main Office employed there?\nA.- Yes, during the registration they were present.\nQ.- What registration are you thinking of particularly?\nA.- The case at Saybusch at which I was present, the evacuation of that one village.\nQ.- But beyond that you don't know anything specific?\nA.- There were always such people employed who had to do the work.\nQ.- Did the Race Commissions, as you called them, select and examine all ethnic Germans?\nA.- No, only those that were to be registered, that is, those that were to be evacuated in those areas where settlements had to take place. Where such things did not come into consideration those people were left alone for the time being.\nQ.- Therefore, the ethnic Germans were evacuated?\nA.- We were, first of all, speaking of Upper Silesia, but if you are talking in general, then I have to include the entire Eastern ter \n ritory and then the situation is different.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 434, "page_number": "434", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Kindly make your question more specific.\nQ.- Which agencies screened the ethnic Germans before they came into the Reich?\nA.- The ethnic Germans which came into the Reich?\nQ.- Yes.\nA.- These were assembled in camps and in those very camps where they were located they were examined by commissions of the Race and Settlement Main Office and the selection was made in those very camps. That is, these were not concentration camps. These were homes, buildings where these people were billeted.\nQ.- Do you know the resettlement center at Silesia?\nA.- In Litzmannstadt?\nQ.- Did this agency have anything to do with these tasks?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What groups existed in the German People's List?\nA.- In my first examination I already stated that I don't know the details.\nQ.- Then I don't have to enter into this question any further. And now another special question. You mentioned that a cousin of yours, a Catholic priest, was brought into concentration camps. Can you give the Tribunal reasons - was this for racial or political reasons?\nA.- In this case for both reasons. With Himmler race and politics was the same thing. Of course, it is generally known, it is no secret. The entire German people know that the mass of Polish clergy was arrested and committed into camps. This went into thousands and this cousin of mine was among them. It is not really a cousin. It is a relation of mine only to the seventh degree.\nQ.- I now come to the questions of Jews. You know that there existed a special racial legislation; is that right?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 435, "page_number": "435", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- Yes.\nQ.- In Cross-examination you stated more in detail that it was a special task of the NSDAP, namely, this legislation; is that right?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- For example, this Racial Referent Arlt, was he a member of the political leadership?\nA.- Yes, until he was made staff chief of this office. Arter he had been appointed to staff chief he also received a rank in the SS, a service rank.\nQ.- Who in the NSDAP represented these racial ideas?\nA.- I said it was the Gauamtsleiter.\nQ.- I wanted to ask you in general which agency within the NSDAP existed for these racial questions?\nA.- The office Rosenberg.\nQ.- Do you also know the so-called racial political office?\nA.- Under Gross, yes.\nQ.- Do you know that between Darre and Gross there existed a considerable discrepancy?\nA.- Yes, that was known.\nQ.- Can you perhaps tell the Tribunal what was the subject of this discrepancy?\nA.- Gross was more interested in the negative side of the racial questions, that is, the elimination of Alien races, whereas, Darre represented a peasant's attitude and he was thinking of the structural idea. He wished to promote his own race, whereas I remember that there was hardly any talk of Jewry in those discussions and writings, whereas the office of Gross only stressed the negative, the destruction and hatred.\nQ.- Is it correct that Darre wanted to restrict the racial question to the SS?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 436, "page_number": "436", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.- This would go too far. Of course, even the most humane representative of racial trends like Darre, desired to remove the Jews from the soil, but this was a side aim. His main aim, of course, was the racial selection within the SS itself.\nQ.- Witness, you know the exaggerated organization of the so-called Third Reich. Each agency had its individual jurisdiction. Is it correct that the Racial political office specialized in questions of Jewry, that is, negative selection; and that it obstinately maintained its jurisdiction in this field?\nA.- Yes. Of course, I don't know the details of internal struggles for jurisdiction between these individual offices.\nQ.- Witness, do you know that the office for ideological training was a part of the SS Main Office?\nA.- Yes. At the end, for a certain period of time, it came under Berger.\nQ.- Was this before the war?\nA.- I can't remember that. I think it may be simultaneous.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 437, "page_number": "437", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Q:What means of propaganda did the training office of the SS use in order to gain outside influence?\nA:Mainly the so-called pamphlets, small pamphlets, which was a means of propaganda most generally propagated within the SS itself and then also by means of promoting and distributing other National Socialist literature and then by instructive lectures and training courses.\nQ:But this only referred to the training within the SS\nA:The training office, yes. This was devoted to the task within the SS.\nQ:Witness, unfortunately I don't have all these SS pamphlets here to be able to ask you whether in any one of these pamphlets there is mention of the extermination of Jewry. Do you know whether at any time in these SS pamphlets, which were known to you, there was mention of the extermination of Jews?\nA:No, nothing was said in these pamphlets about extermination but the racial distinction and the ideological interpretation to be given to these ideas was constantly mentioned in these pamphlets. Just think of the illustrations. For example, they were shown the nordic-Germanic man, the ideal type and pictures were shown of people which we disliked, which the SS rejected from racial point of view and these were mostly pictures of Jews. In this respect, of course, there was an anti-Semitic tendency to be seen.\nQ:But isn't it correct that these were destined only for selection within the SS itself?\nA:Yes, of course. These pamphlets went outside the SS afterwards and they could be purchased in bookstores.\nQ:Can you not restrict one of the statements you made in direct examination. You said the Race and Settlement Main Office, by its training courses, was one of the main causes \n for the extermination of the Jews?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 438, "page_number": "438", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A:Can you restrict this statement to the effect that ideological training in the SS was confined to the positive selection within the SS only?\nA:Counsel, I would like to formulate the sentence once again as follows: The ideological training, not only of the SS but as a whole, is of course a prerequisite for this racial catastrophy.\nQ:I only asked you on the special SS training.\nA:Attorney, the SS training is a part of the entire anti-Semitic policy. I can't just exclude the SS from this general aim of the NSDAP as it existed.\nQ:What did you understand by partial extermination of the Jews as compared to total extermination? Did that mean to you only the removal or the elimination of Jews?\nA:No. Attorney, I must either make lengthy statements on this subject or I can't answer it at all. It can't be done in one sentence. Maybe this should be submitted to the Tribunal. I think it is a question of principle. Today we, who have been imprisoned for years, have to notice that after two and a half years the question is still being asked: Who was it? Nobody wants to know of anything. I am willing -irrespective of whether this is harmful or good to me, to state the truth namely that now, finally in the interest of the German people in this enormous catastrophe the truth be finally determined clearly in order to avoid another legend to be created. And here I would like to state the following to the entire German people: I am the German general who perhaps travelled most extensively, during the war in Europe, on the basis of the total task assigned to me, namely the struggle against the partisans. I have spoken with hundreds of generals and thousands of officers of all categories and it is a fact \n that from the very first day of the war exterminations started.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 439, "page_number": "439", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "That is the truth and everything else is just emphernism and modification of the truth.\nOf course, not a systematic destruction -- you must distinguish there, because even the impulsive actions of all these troops who had been trained in ideological respect, had this effect, in an anti-Semitic sense, in an anti-racial sense and whoever travelled around knew from the very first day the Jews were exterminated, not in an organized manner the beginning.\nQ:Is that what you understand under partial destruction?\nA:Not organized and later -- and this had to be stressed -- when the Russian campaign started this was intentional -commanded knowingly with the aim to exterminate definite parts of Jewry. The final goal, of course, was not the Jews at all, but a creation of living spare and, most important of all, suppression of the Slavs which were a danger to the Germans. This has already been mentioned by me.\nQ:Witness, we will now speak of another problem. You spoke of the prohibited sexual intercourse. Is it right that this prohibition originated from the Reich Security Main Office?\nA:Yes. It originated with Himmler via the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ:You stated that the Race and Settlement field leaders undertook racial examinations.\nA:Yes.\nQ:Do you know that primarily this prohibition was issued and that only after sometime the Race and Settlement field leaders were linked with this campaign after Himmler had been from all these photographs mentioned by you that there were also racially valuable people, according to his definition, \n among these people?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 440, "page_number": "440", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A:Of course, that is possible, attorney. I remember seeing 3 or 4 such files. Of course, I don't know what the general handling was.\nQ:The Higher SS and Police Leader, according to your testimony, commented on this decision. In what area did this come to your knowledge?\nA:I commented on this myself.\nQ:Where were you at that time?\nA:In Silesia.\nQ:Can you definitely state whether in other areas took, this same regulation was in force and I point out to you that you already previously stated that within the framework of the general anarchy among the higher leaders the general sphere of jurisdiction fluctuated depending on the relationship between the Gauleiter and the Higher SS and police leader. Can you imagine that this was different in other areas?\nA:No.\nQ:But you don't know that definitely?\nA:No.\nQ:Witness, do you know what perjury is?\nA:Attorney, I want to say one thing in answer to that. If I were to say everything which one has to retain anyway as a German --- the only one who has the courage to say we discussed this among each other? Attorney, you talk perjury to me and You say this has no sense. This involves human lives and then, attorney, we are not even supposed to have discussed these things?\nQ:Witness, we are not concerned with discussions here but with your exact knowledge of facts. Do you know for sure that in the area southwest of the Higher SS and Police Leader \n in Stuttgart the respective person who held this office in 1 43 had to comment on this decision of the Reich's leader?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 441, "page_number": "441", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Attorney, I was talking of the ardus ---\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that he get hold of the microphone just like this and hold it right up in front of you. I think it will serve two purposes: Maybe it will slow you down and keep you in front of the microphone.", "speakers": [ "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 442, "page_number": "442", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honor, will you please ask defense counsel to reformulate his question. These long questions, I assume, are rather difficult in German; anyway, the translations do not make too much sense to us at the present time because the sentences are so long and involved.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It is the opinion of the Tribunal that it would be more helpful if you would make your questions more pointed and short.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Yes, your Honor, I will endeavor to do so.\nA.Attorney, I stated how the regulations of the Reichfuehrer had to be carried out by the Race and Settlement Main Office concerning these investigations on prohibited sexual intercourse. I never said and never could have said that I checked this in detail in specific cases because after all I was in the East at that time and not in the West.\nQ.Thank you, you admit, therefore, that is is possible that in the Southwest Area there was a different regulation in view of the condition of power prevailing there among the competnet person.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution would like to object on the ground that the witness has already said he did not know and therefore asking him whether or not it is possible is certainly immaterial.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think the witness has previously answered that question. I just want to caution counsel that I think a considerable of the territory that you are now covering has been covered in previous examinations by attorneys for the defense. The Tribunal would like to ask the cooperation of all defense counsel. While each has the right to cross-examine witnesses, we do request that a counsel will not examine the witness about questions that have already been covered by other defense counsel.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I have no further questions. BY DR MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm):\n- CROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, in direct examination and also in cross examination you stated that prior to the evacuation, the evacuees were subjected to a racial examination and later you testified that after the evacuation had \n taken place a racial examination took place for the suitability of reGermanization.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 443, "page_number": "443", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "Now, it is not clear to me what is correct, maybe you can give me a clear answer now.\nA.I described it carefully, how it happened. People were taken out and processed, that was one action. You cannot make individual racial examinations on the people's own farms or estates but after an entire village had been evacuated then the population was processed and screened. That was the procedure.\nQ.How did the evacuation of such villages take place? Were these people gathered and driven to a definite point and then immediately registered or did they first come into a camp?\nA.When I arrived, I saw people screened for examination. They had just arrived very peacefully with their luggage which was put down in the court and then they were registered. They were of course accompanied by police.\nQ.Do you apply this testimony particularly to this one instance to Saybusch?\nA.Of course.\nQ.You can, therefore, not say that this procedure of carrying out racial examination on the very place of the evacuation was held in the same manner elsewhere?\nA.Counsel, there are a thousand possibilities as to the sequence.\nQ.In the course of your direct examination you once drew a distinction between ethnic Germans and Baltic Germans. May I ask you what is this difference according to your opinion?\nA.Those who were in the East know that we are meaning the Baltic barons, owners of big estates, in the Baltic countries; these people who have large real estate holdings but do not wish to be settled as farmers. That is why this difference was made. The estate involved was much larger.\nQ.In your direct examination you stated that the resettlers in the VOMI camps were examined for the Germanization in the VOMI camps by the R and S settlers and on what do you base this knowledge.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 444, "page_number": "444", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.I have already told you that those people had identity cards -this involved settlement in upper Silesia.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel will have to speak into the micropnone in order for the interpretors to hear it; and also the witness.\nDR. MAAS:I shall take care of it, your Honor. May I now repeat my question. Your Honor, unfortunately I cannot come any closer to the microphone than I am; I have a list before me and the technical matters do not provide for all cases that might arise. However I will try to make it as clear as possible and to make it comprehensible. I shall talk louder.\nQ.I now, again, refer to the question which was only answered in part. I asked you, witness, whether in these VOMI camps the resettlers were checked by the local Race and Settlment Field officers of the purpose of re-Germanization, I also asked you how do you know this, what do you base your knowledge on and as far as I know you answered that you know these people had identity cards ---\nA.Yes, I saw identity papers and of course many people came to me later who were dissatisfied in some way or other. They said, \"Why do I get a red slip and why does he not got a red slip, \" and so on and that's where I got my information. I knew there was a certain distinction.\nQ.Now, from what you said it seems that the deputies of the Race and Settlement Main Office carried out this re-Germanization. May I ask you in connection herewith, whether you ever heard anything of an immigration center (EWZ)\nA.I never spoke of Germanization; I always spoke of racial screening, which was done by these experts.\nQ.Then it was the EWZ which carried out this re-Germanization?\nA.Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Too fast.\nDR. MAAS:I will try to talk more slowly.\nQ.Witness, do you have any knowledge of the fact that the German \n People's List or the procedure respectively was handled in a different manner at different times?", "speakers": [ "DR. MAAS", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 445, "page_number": "445", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "A.Yes, I already told that to the other counsel.\nQ.Do you know the decree of March 1941 concerning the German People's List?\nA.Yes, I know there was such a decree but I don't remember it any more.\nQ.Therefore, you cannot say.\nA.I don't know the text of it.\nQ.You, therefore, cannot tell me who enacted this decree?\nA.No, I don't know who signed it.\nQ.I would now like to refer to the prohibited sexual intercourse. In your direct examination you stated that the racial examiners and the race and settlement field office respectively, were instructed to pass an expert opinion on more persons who had prohibited sexual intercourse with German women and to have photographs taken of them and medical examinations carried out. Can you specify the decree which passed such orders?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 446, "page_number": "446", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "QIs it not possible that the activity of the Race and Settlement field leaders and the racial examiners respectively referred only to the racial examination and had nothing to do with the medical check-up and with any photographs being taken.\nAThere were always photographs in these files taken from various sides; I know that, but whether the doctors whose opinion I saw worked in their capacity as doctors or racial examiners, I can't say but very often the doctors of the SS and particularly in race and settlement field were racial examiners naturally.\nQDo you wish to say thereby that the doctors were also racial examiners?\nAThat happened, too.\nQCan you tell me where did you gain your knowledge that the expert opinion that was supposed to have been passed by the race and settlement office was submitted to Himmler for his decision?\nA.Yes, because I told you that I myself had handled three files and of course they were returned to me in due course, and I noticed that as a fact, that was a special case; it would take too long to describe the whole thing clearly. THE PRESIDENT: Just a minute; may I suggest to Counsel that that ground has been thoroughly covered already by other defense Counsel. DR. MAAS: Yes, Your Honor.\nQIn this connection I think I have one more question which was not put to the witness, and which appears to be of significance. Do you know whether Himmler, who according to your statements, made the final decision, made known his decision to the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAI can't say that. I know definitely that Himmler's decision was passed on to the Gestapo agency which had jurisdiction in the case.\nQIn your direct examination you spoke of an index pertaining to persons of mixed Jewish races, contained in the files of the Race and Settlement Main Office; did you ever see this index yourself?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 447, "page_number": "447", "date": "24 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-24", "text": "QDid you ever hear anything of the Reich Geneological Office?\nAYes.\nQWhere did this office belong to?\nAI don't know; I can't answer that question.\nQYou therefore don't know to whom this office was subordinated?\nANo.\nQIs it possible that you are confusing a Central Jewish Index File with an interned file which was developed in the Geneological Office of the SS in cases Jewish ancestors were discovered?\nAI was never in the Race and Settlement Main Office; I don't know how they kept their files.\nQ.Therefore, you can't give any detailed information on this index file?\nAI don't know how it originated but the question that was put to me confirms the fact that such an index was kept.\nQBut not an index to such an extent as you have mentioned which served for identification for the entire extermination of the Jews.\nAWell, it was a large index file; it must have been if you could get any information you desired on Jews.\nQIs it your opinion that this index file in the Race and Settlement Office contained information for all Jews in the Reich?\nANo, I don't think so.\nQDon't you admit the possibility that such an index file as you seem to think might have been kept somewhere else and not in the Race and Settlement Office?\nAThere may have been a larger and more detailed index file available elsewhere; I admit that, but I don't know.\nQDid you receive practical data or did you notice in the Race and Settlement Office such a centralized index file?\nAThat is a conclusion of mine drawn from my activity in my agency through correspondence, because I myself heard of hundreds of cases of people with Jewish descent, where information was asked from there \n and received, and this information arrived quickly and was also correct.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 448, "page_number": "448", "date": "14 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-14", "text": "QThat is what I wanted to hear from you; you gained your knowledge from such cases involving Jewish descent of SS members and only in connection with this geneological research among SS members.\nAYes, by these means I gained knowledge of the existence of this large index file.\nQYou will then admit to me that my assumption is correct; namely, that this index file in the Race and Settlement Office was limited in demension only and was created by the gathering of data resulting from individual cases of racial examinations of the SS members or their ancestors.\nAThat is the conclusion you draw; why should I draw the same conclusion?\nQOne final question, please. Who was Arlt, whom you describe as being a racial referent of the Gauleitung; can you not describe this Arlt as being Gauamtsleiter of the Racial Political Office?\nAYes, as far as I remember, that is what he was.\nDR MAAS:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 27 October 1947, 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "DR MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 449, "page_number": "449", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 27 October 1947.\nJustice Wyatt presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. 1 Military Tribunal I is now in session.\nGod save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is there further examination of this witness on the part of the defense?\nERICH von BACH-ZELEWSKI - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQWitness, how long have you known the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAI have known Hildebrandt since sometime shortly after the seizure of power. I think it was in 1934 that we met.\nQHave you been in contact with him since that time?\nANo, I haven't.\nQBut you used to invite each other and meet each other in your further work, didn't you?\nAFor some time we worked together in Silesia. That was in 1936.\nQAnd you used to invite Hildebrandt to attend leaders conferences in Silesia?\nAYes, certainly, all higher police and SS leaders used to be invited to such conferences and Hildebrandt was too.\nQDuring such visits, did you exchange your experiences that you had made in your official positions?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 450, "page_number": "450", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, we used to do that.\nQWere your mutual relations supported by a feeling of comradship?\nAYes, they were.\nQDid you maintain such relations until your last meeting in the summer of 1946, in the military prison here?\nANo. These relations had been broken off since the beginning of the war because we didn't meet any more except for occasional conferences.\nQBut in 1946 you did talk to each other again here in the military prison?\nAYes.\nQYou had already testified to the IMT, had you?\nAYes, I had.\nQIs it correct that since that time when you gave your testimony before the IMT large numbers of your former comrades had already withdrawn?\nAYes, they had.\nQDid Hildebrandt, contrary to that, at your last meeting prove himself to be your old comrade who did not let himself be influenced in his attitude toward you?\nAYes. At the request of the SS leaders he came to me and told me that a mediation would be possible if I were to revoke my testimony before the IMT, as far as it incriminated the SS.\nQAt what time were you Higher Police officer in Prussia?\nAFrom the beginning of 1934 until the beginning of 1936.\nQTo whom were the higher SS officers subordinate, in general?\nAAt that time there were only Obersbaschnittsfuehrers, and they were subordinate to Himmler personally.\nQDid you, in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, let all other persons receive your instructions from Himmler, and in what capacity?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 451, "page_number": "451", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AAt that time, from Himmler, in his capacity as Oberabaschnittsfuehrer of the General SS; and later on as Higher SS and Police Leader: from Himmler and the Hauptamtschefs of the various sections.\nQDid you have to carry out those directives and instructions and order that were given to you?\nAYes, I did.\nQWas there a possibility to oppose orders and instructions?\nAWithout danger to life, it was not possible.\nQWho was the Gauleiter in East Prussia at the time that you were Higher SS and police leader?\nAIt was Koch.\nQ what was Koch's policy in East Prussia concerning the citizens of other countries who were living there?\nAApart from the East-Prussians who were also Germans, there were no citizens of other countries.\nQWhat were your orders from Himmler from East Prussia concerning Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nAI had been ordered to cooperate with the Gauleiter Koch.\nQAnd what were your relations with Koch?\nAI waged a struggle with Koch which almost led to him being dismissed, but afterwards I was sent on leave.\nQWas the general position of the Higher Police and SS leaders the same all over the Old-Reichgaus?\nAYes.\nQWas that true also for the newly incorporated Reichgaus?\nAIn the new territories, I believe Himmler used to give directives which exceeded the scope of the old Reichgau.\nQWho was in 1939 and the following years the Gauleiter in Danzig and West Prussia?\nAIn Danzig it was Gauleiter Forster.\nQDo you know that Danzig and West Prussia, from October 8 1939, were incorporated into the Old Reich by decree as Reichgaus?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 452, "page_number": "452", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, I know that.\nQDid as a result of this, the position of a Higher SS and Police Leader have to be established in these territories?\nAYes.\nQDo you know what was Forster's policy concerning the Germanization of former Polish citizens in these territories?\nAI have to make a rather long statement in reply to that. I can't tell you in one sentence. Forster's policy in that respect was contrary to the policy of Himmler. Forster, who from his work as Gauleiter of Danzig, for years before the war, was inclined to the view that by a skillfull policy of tolerance and waiting, gradually the population of West Prussia, which for the most part prior to 1919 had belonged to the German Reich, could be brought to German folkdom. From that attitude of his, he directed his policy of Germanization towards turning the entire population into Germans; that is to say, he was against inhabitants who before 1918 had lived in West Prussia and who were now being made Poles, being made to lose their property and being sent away to the Government-General. On the other hand, the much much more severe policy of Himmler's, that is to say, from my point of view I don't know how the Poles talked about it -- Himmler's policy amounted to the fact that Himmler, quite independently from the historical develop ment of that eastern area, adhered strictly to the exaggerated racial theories. He did not mind whether any of the people who lived there had formerly been Germans, had perhaps in the first World War gained German declarations; but all he wanted was to act according to racial selection. He wanted to make every individual, quite independent of the fact as to his previous attitude, either a German or a Pole. People who had been branded Poles for no account were to have property of their own, in this new territory and were to be sent to the Government-General, that is to say, to the remaining Poland. These were the two opposing political views of Himmler and Forster.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 453, "page_number": "453", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QAnd, who was the Higher SS and Police Leader from 1939 and on?\nAThat was Hildebrandt.\nQHildebrandt, according to you, was bound to Himmler's orders. Did he get into difficulties with Forster for adhering to Himmler's policy.\nAOh, yes, he was certainly a great opponent of Forster's.\nQWas Forster also an opponent of Hildebrandt?\nAForster repudiated Hildebrandt.\nQDo you know any details about that from conversations with Hildebrandt?\nAI only heard about it afterwards during conversations here in the prison. I heard details from him at that time. But in the past, I only heard it from Himmler and from Hildebrandt's reports to Himmler.\nQMay I remind you that Hildebrandt, concerning the difficulties which he had, came to you for advice as to what he was to do?\nANo, I have to answer that in the negative. I know that in 1946, he told me that he used to come for advice to me. But --\nQOn the direct examination and just now you have spoken of the difficulties which would come arise for the Higher SS and Police Leaders if they wanted to follow a different policy from the one that the Gauleiter and the Reichstatthalter issued. Was the Higher SS and Police Leader, is position that of a Gauleiter and the Reichstatthalter quite in general? (Sic.)\nAFormerly, he was subordinate to him, but in fact, according to the reputation which the Gauleiter had with Himmler and according to the reputation of the Higher SS and Police Leader with Himmler, his position and his political power varied. (Sic.)\nQWhat was, generally speaking, the task of the Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nAGenerally, he was the representative of the Reich Fuehrer in his province in all affairs which concerned the Reich Fuehrer; that is to \n say, he was the superior of the \"General SS.\"", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 454, "page_number": "454", "date": "01 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-01", "text": "He was -- I should gular uniform police, the security police -- as far as they were members of the SS. And naturally, he took care of the entire policy of the Reichsfuehrer.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 455, "page_number": "455", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Did the Higher SS and Police Leader, so to speak, have a representative position?\nA.Yes, yes, he had that kind of a position too.\nQ.Was the Security Police subordinate to the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.No, the Security Police, in the execution of its task as a Security Police, pure and simple, were not subordinate to him; but as far as they belonged to the SS at all, they were subordinate to him.\nQ.Was the same thing true of the uniform police?\nA.Yes, it was.\nQ.Also for the Gestapo?\nA.Yes, for the Gestapo too.\nQ.Also for the SD?\nA.Yes, for the SD too.\nQ.And were the concentration camps subordinate to Higher SS and Police leaders?\nA.No, they were not.\nQ.Were the tasks of the organizations which we have just mentioned coordinated or did they intersect, and were they opposed to each other in some way?\nA.They intersected and in some way they were in opposition, and it was, after all, the task of the Higher SS and Police Leader to settle such differences.\nQ.Witness, to whom were the organizations which we have just mentioned subordinate?\nA.To their main chief, and Himmler was the supreme chief.\nQ.Himmler, in what capacity?\nA.Himmler in his capacity as Chief of the German Police.\nQ.Was the same thing true of the regular uniform police?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And was the some tiling true of the Gestapo?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 456, "page_number": "456", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.And how was it about the SD?\nA.The SD was not an institution of the State. It was an institution of the Party. It was an SS intelligence service, and it was subordinate to the Chief of the Security Police and also to Himmler.\nQ.Is it correct, therefore, that Himmler combined in his own person a number of positions which could oppose each other?\nA.Yes, that was actually the very meaning of these various institutions.\nQ.Did the Higher SS and Police Leader have authority to issue orders concerning the local leaders of the organizations which we have mentioned, even if they were incorporated in the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.Generally speaking, he had no authority to issue orders, but naturally, he could interfere as the representative of the Reich Fuehrer.\nQ.Was it the task of the Higher SS and police leaders to establish concentration camps or to be charged to take the responsibility?\nA.No, but I don't know what development occurred during the further course of the war.\nQ.Was a Higher SS and Police Leader entitled to issue protective custody orders and could, on the basis of such an order, Germans or aliens be sent to concentration camps?\nA.No, he could not make out such protective custody warrants, but naturally he could approach the Gestapo and say that he expected them or that he demanded of them to make out such a warrant.\nQ.In such a case, was the Gestapo under an obligation to follow the suggestion?\nA.No, if the Gestapo was of a different opinion it could refuse to issue such a warrant and could ask the Chief of the Security Police for his decision.\nQ.Were there general service instructions for the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the Reich?\nA.No, there were no such instructions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 457, "page_number": "457", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.According to your knowledge, did the Higher SS and Police Leaders attend conferences or discussions of all these organizations which we have mentioned?\nA.They did not attend conferences of the Security Police. They did locally-- in the provinces--attend conferences of the regular police.\nQ.In East Prussia or Silesia, were there any institutions for the mentally sick?\nA.Yes, there were.\nQ.Were those institutions subordinate to the Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nA.No, naturally not.\nQ.To whom were they subordinate?\nA.To the civil administration.\nQ.That was the Reich Ministry of the Interior?\nA.Yes, probably.\nQ.Do you know in whose hands was the official and administrative supervision of these institutions?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Do you know who could give instructions for such institutions to be evacuated?\nA.Under law, I don't know.\nQ.It should have been the Minister of the Interior, shouldn't it?\nA.I don't know. It's not a question I can answer.\nQ.Do you know of Himmler's orders of the first of September 1939, according to which Professor Dr. Karl Brandt and Reichsleiter Buhler were placed in charge of the responsibility to authorize the doctors to perform Euthanasia in cases of incurable diseases?\nA.I know of that order because of the trials. It has become generally known since then and to us too; but at the time, details were not known-only rumors.\nQ.Did you know at that time, or did you find out Later that Brandt and Reichsleiter Buhler, with the aid of some of the staff of the Fuehrer's \n Chancellery, established an organization through which in the course of 1939, 1940 and 1941 many mentally sick were subjected to Euthanasia?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 458, "page_number": "458", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.I know of that through the medical trial.\nQ.You have heard of it only through that?\nA.Yes.\nTherefore you didn't know before that trial either that during those years, that is to say 1939 to 1941, Euthanasia could only be allowed if several experts had been unanimous in their expert opinions and had established beyond all doubt that the life of the patient could be described as not worth living?\nA.Within the territory of the Old Reich, that was so.\nQ.Do you know how Euthanasia was performed? Do you know whether it was done through gassing or through shooting?\nA.At the trial here, gassing was mentioned ill the time.\nQ.Do you know how that has been described now, recently?\nA.Yes, it has been called Euthanasia.\nQ.You, in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, did you ever concern yourself with Euthanasia?\nA.No, I wasn't concerned with it, but I saw it happen, how Himmler issued such orders?\nQ.When was that?\nA.That was in 1941.\nQ.Can you remember the actual month?\nA.Well, I think it must have been July or August.\nQ.Are you thinking of-\nA.No, I am not thinking of any particular scheme. I am thinking of a personal order of the Reichsfuehrer to the Fuehrer Nebel that concerned an individual institution.\nQ.That is to say, Euthanasia did not fall within the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether for the purposes of Euthanasia at that time, \n certain institutions were selected and were provided with the necessary installations for Euthanasia?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 459, "page_number": "459", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.I know about that only from the medical trial.\nQ.Do you know when the Euthanasia action started?\nA.No.\nQ.From East Prussia, do you know of so-called wild Euthanasia drives\nA.Yes, in West Prussia.\nQ.No, but I am asking you about East Prussia.\nA.Well, East Prussia, that was long before the war -- it's been since the beginning of 1936 that I haven't been in East Prussia.\nQ.And do you know of such Euthanasia actions from East Prussia?\nA.Yes. The people talked about that.\nQ.About what time did they talk about it?\nA.Well, in 1943 when I passed through West Prussia people were saying that at the beginning of the war the asylums had been evacuated and liquidated by the SS.\nQ.In other words, it was only in 1943 that you heard about the fact that at the beginning of the war, in 1939, the asylums had been evacuated?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And unless I am wrong, last Friday you stated it was at the very moment when the system here failed-that mental patients in Neustadt were shot at that time?\nA.Yes, that was announced, and I heard a bout it myself.\nQ.Did you hear about it in 1939?\nA.No. No, I never said that it was in 1939. I wasn't in West Prussia then.\nQ.You only heard about it in 1943?\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I caution counsel and the witness that you must ask your questions and permit the witness to answer before asking another question, and may I suggest to the witness that after a question has been asked to please pause long enough for the translation to be made \n before answering.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 460, "page_number": "460", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. FROESCHMANN:Very well, Your Honor. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Of what nationalities were the people who were shot as far as you knew?\nA.They were Polish citizens.\nQ.In 1943 you heard that they were Polish citizens?\nA.Well, in 1939 they must have been Poles. There can't have been any Reich Germans in the institutions in West Prussia.\nQ.Under whose orders were those people supposed to have been shot?\nA.People said that it had been done on orders of the Higher SS and Police Leader Hildebrandt.\nQ.May I now put this to you. The evacuation of an institution could only occur at the instructions of the Reich Minister of the Interior. Hildebrandt did not belong to the Reich Ministry of the Interior. He had no functions at that time end therefore I don't think it can be correct that it was Hildebrandt who gave the order for the evacuation and for the shooting of the mental patients.\nA.Counsel, I never said that that action of his was based on the law. Naturally, it was illegal. According to the law, it could not have been done that way, for apparently Euthanasia only concerned mental patients in Germany. But Himmler did not always in his orders adhere to the law. Gradually that became known in the East, and at the time I did not doubt, on the basis of my own experience, that the population were right about what they were saying.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 461, "page_number": "461", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QBut you had no positive reason for saying that the defendant Hildebrandt in effect himself gave the order for the shooting of the mental patients? No statements here are based on what you heard in West Prussia in 1943?\nAThey are based on what the Kreisleiter, the Ortsgruppenleiter, and so forth, reported to me.\nQWitness, were you in Silesia a representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes, I was.\nQFrom whom did you receive orders and instructions?\nAFrom the Main Staff Office?\nAYes, from the Main Staff Office.\nQWhat work did you do as the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAI have already told you that at the beginning I only dealt with planning.\nQWhen you carried out measures, whatever they may have been measures which you had been told to take by the Reich Commissioner, did you, in carrying out those measures, avail yourself of the organi zation of the regular police of the Gauleiter or of the RSHA or did you use the machinery of any other organization?\nADuring the last cross examination, counsel, you yourself ascertained that in Upper Silesia the DVL, the German People's List, that is to say, the whole of that plan was never carried out with the exception of that one, which was supposed to be an example. I think it would be going much too far and it wouldn't help the defendant either if I were to say exactly why, in Upper Silesia, this plan failed.\nQNo, witness, you are mistaken, for prior to today I never took part in the cross examination. Furthermore, I don't want to hear any details from you on the subject.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Let's not argue with the witness.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 462, "page_number": "462", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Just ask him the facts. Go ahead. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQAll I want to know is whether in your capacity as Reich Commissioner in connection with any measures which you had been ordered to take from Berlin, whether, if necessary, you availed yourself of the machinery of the organizations which we have mentioned here, of the offices which we have mentioned here.\nANo.\nQWitness, on the one hand, you were Higher SS and Police Officer, and, on the other hand, you were the representative of the Reich Commissar. On account of combining these two positions in your person was it possible for you to separate your work in the two capacities?\nANo, no it couldn't be separated.\nQDo you know of a conference at the Webelsburg which was held I believe in 1942 and which was attended by Himmler's confidents as collaboratoes?\nAYes, I do know of that.\nQDid Hildebrandt attend that conference?\nANo, he didn't.\nQDid you attend the conference?\nAYes, I did.\nQDid Himmler make a basic speech in which he spoke of the necessity of dessimating the Slav population in the East?\nAIt wasn't a speech but we had an informal discussionsdiscussions around a fireplace - and in the course of those conversations around a fireplace Himmler made such remarks and I have testified to that before the IMT.\nQDo you know the man called Liebehenschel?\nANo; but I know him by hearsay.\nQSoon after that conference on the Webelsburg did you become a chief of the anti-guerilla activity in the East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 463, "page_number": "463", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "ANet -- my appointment as chief of the anti-guerilla drive occured in 1942.\nQWitness, you have said that Hildebrandt sent a distant relative of yours to a concentration camp.\nAYes.\nQWhen did you hear of it and through whom?\nAThe Reichsfuehrer himself showed me the files.\nQWhen was that, please?\nAI can't tell you the month but it was at the beginning of 1943.\nQWitness, is it correct that, according to an order from Himmler, all sexual intercourse between Germans and Eastern Workers was prohibited?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that transgression of that prohibition was punishable by death?\nAWhether in principle -- well, there were exceptions but I should like to say that that too was punishable by death and I would like to stress the word, \"too\" - that transgression too.\nQIs it correct that Himmler in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS or some other capacity, reserved to himself the decision on all such cases after various agencies, by examination and investigation of all factors, had given expert opinion?\nAYes, Himmler alone could do that.\nQIs it correct that although the death sentence was mandatory it was in many cases not passed?\nAYes; that is correct.\nQIs it correct that the death sentence was not executed if the man or the woman in the case was a Pole of whom could assume that on account of their racial, biological and eugenic qualities, and in view of their political attitude, they could be re-Germanized?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 464, "page_number": "464", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, if they were capable of re-Germanizaticn.\nQWas every Eastern worker, when he was given employment, told by the Gestapo personally about Himmler's order and did the Eastern worker have to acknowledge that he received such information?\nAI don't know anything about the technical arrangements but the Eastern workers certainly were told about Himmler's order.\nQIf a report came in that forbidden sexual intercourse had taken place were investigations instituted for the purpose of instituting further proceedings against them?\nAYes. The Gestapo conducted proceedings.\nQWere leaders within the Staff of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in fact the racial examiners involved in the investigation?\nAYes, they were.\nQWhat were the tasks of the racial examiners in those investigations?\nAIt was their task to examine the person concerned from a racial point of view and to give an opinion and evaluation concerning the racial qualities of the person.\nQIs it right, therefore, to say that an expert opinion by the racial examiners, according to which the persons concerned had characteristics which made it appear likely that they were capable of re-Germanization, was the basis for saving the persons concerned from being sentenced to death?\nAYes. The expert opinion provided the basis for either a death sentence or an acquittal.\nQI'd like to become a little more exact, that is to say, if the racial examiners in their expert opinions stated that, according to their general characteristics, according to the general criteria, the persons concerned were capable of re-Germanization, then that was a positive factor to make Himmler decide not to have the death sentence passed on the person concerned?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 465, "page_number": "465", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, I have already said so.\nQNow I should like to draw a conclusion from what we have said so far. Why did you, in spite of the fact that you said at the beginning that your relations were friendly, not tell Hildebrandt up to 1946 that one of your relatives had been sent to a concentration camp? It would have been obvious to tell him so.\nANo, it would not have been obvious to tell him so. Counsel, I believe you have the wrong picture of the situation in a prison or in a concentration camp. It is a fact that there is a certain amount of terror that goes on among ourselves. During the struggle that is quite usually concerning the struggle that everyone has for their own life and therefore there is no frankness the people in the same prison.\nOn the contrary, never have so many lies been spoken as they are being spoken in prison now and, therefore, there is no reason to put confidence into a person who suddenly approaches you with some request. I think that one's own experiences are mere important.\nQNo, no witness.\nAI didn't contradict because it was difficult for me. My former comrade, Hildebrandt, is mistaken and he makes combinations today and he tries to invent groups of friends and groups of resistance which never existed. He is exaggerating.\nQWitness, but question was perfectly simple. Concerning all those combinations which you have just mentioned, you have nothing to do with them --no. no, I am talking now. I merely asked you why, until 1946, you had never told Hildebrandt that alledgedly one of your relatives had been sent to a concentration camp because he can't remember the incident. That is why I am asking you now.\nAI didn't talk to him about it because i knew that since 1939 he had persecuted my family down to the last. I knew perfectly well who was the enemy of my family and if he made with me here in the prison he did so to try and make me certain that he had led an SS resistance group and which I could accept as fact.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 466, "page_number": "466", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QWitness, you have already stated that Hildebrandt's work, concerning the evacuation of esheimer, Asylum in Neustadt, that you only knew about Hildebrandt's connection from hearsay. Therefore you cannot say that Hildebrandt actually had given that order.\nAI can only repeat what I have said before, that I, when I visited cannot be understood on soundtrack I heard this from people and from the Orts gruppenleiter, that Hildebrandt had given that order O never said that I saw it myself.\nQWitness, do you know that it was the task of the Lebensborn, the Well of Life, to take care of the children of partisans who had been killed, to see to it that they were accommodated somewhere?\nAI know very little about Lebensborn. I only know one of the children's homes of Lebensborn. That was in Bobruisk in Russia That children's home had to take Care of Russian children who were racially valuable.\nQWitness, do you knew of a notification from the ReichsFuehrer SS dated 13 July, 1943, which gave a survey of the care being taken of the children of partisans who had been killed?\nANo, I don't know about that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 467, "page_number": "467", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, will you allow me to quote from Document Book VIII-C of the Prosecution, Page 41?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Do not quote from documents. They are in evidence and you can make your argument to the Court about that. The witness says he is not familiar with it, so pass along. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWell, I would like to ask you this: Do you know that the competent agencies of Lebensborn and similar organizations were having thousands of such children of partisans sent to than all the time?\nANo, I don't know about that.\nQThat survey, that chart, did you not receive it in your capacity as chief of the partisan combatting unite?\nAIf such reports were made at all they would have had to be sent to me.\nQBy the statement you made just now do you mean to say that such reports were not made by the Reichsfuehrer?\nAI do not believe that Himmler made reports of such kind to Hitler. I don't know. Anyhow, I believe that the Prosecution has all my reports on the partisan combatting activities.\nQWitness, what steps did you take in the three cases of prohibited sexual intercourse in which you took part concerning the quashing of the special proceedings?\nAI always approached Gauleiter Wagner and last time I told you that the whole of the Oberpraesidium in Breslau concerning the sabotage was liquidated because it had sabotaged Himmler's policy.\nQBut I am asking you about something else. In your capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar or as Higher SS and Police did you make suggestions to the higher authorities, that is to say, to the Reichsfuehrer SS saying that that special treatment should be stopped?", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 468, "page_number": "468", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AI made opposition.\nQOn the basis of the knowledge which you had gained because you personally had taken a part in the proceedings?\nAYes naturally.\nQWhat sort of suggestions did you make?\nAIn those three cases I proved that the so-called Poles were Germans and that according to Himmler's racial theory the so-called German women whose honor was to be protected were Polish by descent. Actually that is how the racial theory of RuSHA was.\nQDid you, from that, draw the consequences and did you draw Himmler's attention to it?\nAYes. That is why the court files show that I was not altogether all right from the idealofical point of view, as Rosenberg called it.\nQWhat steps did you take to try to eliminate the hardships in evacuation?\nAThose evacuations were never carried out, not the way it was done in the example of which we spoke in Upper Silesia.\nQDid you, yourself, take any steps?\nAYes. And the result was that the Gauleiter resigned. We have already cleared up the fact that that was necessary. I had backed him up.\nQWitness, I know ask one question in which I am interested in my capacity as defense counsel for Hildebrandt. Last Friday you said that the intention of the Higher Leadership to destroy the Jews was known, according to your opinion, in the circles of Higher SS leaders Is that right?\nANo, no, I didn't put it, the way you are putting it now, counsel.\nQWell, what did you say?\nAWhat I said was - I mentioned Auschwitz. Now, counsel, the \n plan, such as it has been uncovered by the trials here, was really not known --- for if a bigger circle had known of it, I would have heard about it too because I really tried to find cut and, as for myself, I can say if I had known about that when we laid down our arms, I would not have allowed myself to be taken prisoner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 469, "page_number": "469", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "But what the Higher Leadership of the Party really knew was that Jews were being destroyed. That was a general conversation, counsel, but everybody was bound to assume that that extermination only referred to certain regions and was restricted to a certain extent of the total extermination of Jews. That plan, as it was actually executed in practice, was not known.\nQI must have misunderstood you on Friday in that case, for on Friday the general impression here was that the plans for the destruction of the Jews in the East were known among the Higher SS leaders. Now you say, if I understand you correctly, that people did know of the extermination of Jews and Poles and ether people; that some such people were being destroyed in some places; but as for the plans of the Higher Leadership, those plans for a complete destruction of Jewry, they were not known to the Higher SS and Police Leaders\nAI reiterate that we did not know extermination of Jews, yes. The number doesn't matter. It is bad enough as it is.\nQI suppose I may assume that if you had know of the plans for the total extermination of Jews, you and Hildebrandt and all others would have drawn the consequences and would have turned you back on Himmler or not?\nAI believe that decision to turn one's back on Himmler would no longer have been sufficient, but I believe that there was only one duty and that was to eliminate him.\nDR. FORESCHMANN:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by any member of counsel for the Defense? May I suggest to counsel that he will please not cover territory that has already been covered?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. FORESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 470, "page_number": "470", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. RATZ:Dr. Ratz for the defendant Sollmann. Your Honor, there is only one question which I should like to ask the witness and my question which I should like to ask the witness and my question is intended to correct a mistake of the witness. The witness said that he knew that Lebensborn in Bobruisk, Russia or elsewhere in Russia, had had a children's home which had had the duty of receiving valuable children - children or valuable race, that is. That must be an error for in effect Lebensrobn did not have any children in Russia. BY DR. RATZ:\nQI want to ask you, witness, where did you gain your knowledge?\nAI saw the children myself and there were nurses there. There were about a dozen nurses and I was surprised that in the middle of a war, with the shortage of medical personnel, I suddenly found a beautifully equipped children's home, there I visited it myself.\nQMy questions is merely whether that was a Kinderheim of Lebensborn.\nAWell, that is what I was told it was.\nQI see. That is what you were told.\nA (No response.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions on the part of the defense counsel? anything further from the Prosecution. Strictly rebuttal, please.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, with report to the subordination of concentration camps to higher authorities were the concentration camps, to your knowledge, generally subordinated to the Main Economic and Administrative Office of the SS, that is, the WVHA.\nAAt the beginning of the war the concentration camps were under the WVHA. At the end just before the collapse I hear a different arrangement was made.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 471, "page_number": "47", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Were there concentration camps, witness, in the occupied territories which were not subordinated to the WVHA during this period?\nA.No, I don't know about that.\nQ.Well, for example, do you know whether some of the camps which used to incarcerate Poles were subordinated to Higher SS and Police Leaders in some instances?\nA.As far as I know, for example, the Lublin Camp, was subordinated to the district SS and Police Leader there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 472, "page_number": "472", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Witness, would you say that it was possible that at the beginning of the war a concentration camp in Danzig would be not under the WVHA but under the Higher SS and Police Leader in that area.\nA.Yes, there were such cases.\nQ.Did the defendant Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader thus have jurisdiction or authority over the concentration camp Stutthof?\nA.I should like to call it a duty of supervision.\nQ.Witness, you have testified that the defendant Hildebrandt had a relative of yours put in a concentration camp. How did he have the authority to send him to a concentration camp?\nA.He had to do that through the Gestapo or in this case because he knew although I was in a high position he had to turn to Himmler personally.\nQ.Witness, did you attend the meeting of the SS Gruppenfuehrers in 1943 at Cracow where Himmler made a speech?\nA. 1943? No, in Posen.\nQ.Very well. This speech in Posen-do you remember whether the defendants Greifelt, Hildebrandt, Hofmann, and Lorenz were there?\nA.Yes, with very few exceptions all Higher SS and Police Leaders were there and all higher ranking people of the SS were there.\nQ.Witness, do you remember the subject matter of this speech?\nA.Himmler so to speak gave a report justifying actions of the past period of the Russian campaign and Polish campaign, and he also looked into the future and he gave directives for the future. I can remember----\nQ.That is sufficient. Did you attend Himmler's \n COURT I CASE VIII Day of Metz speech?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 473, "page_number": "473", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.No.\nQ.This was a speech made to the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Do you know about this speech?\nA.Yes, it was known.\nQ.Do you know when this speech was made?\nA.That must have been in Russian either in the approximate area of Charkow. I don't know but I know in general that people in Higher SS circles were talking about that speech at the time.\nQ.Could you give an approximate chronological date, witness?\nA.As far as I can remember it must have been in the year 1942.\nQ.Witness, do you know where this speech was made by Himmler?\nA.I believe it was just near Charkow, that is to say in the Southern sector of the Eastern Front.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, the Prosecution has no further questions. BY DR. GAWLIK (For the defendant Schwarzenberger):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Your Honor, in regard to the questions which the Prosecution has just put to the witness I would like to ask the witness a few questions and that on account of the fact that the Prosecutor has now discussed quite a new subject, that is to say, the speech at Posen.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Witness, you say that the Higher SS Leaders attended that speech at Posen?\nA.Yes, I did.\nQ.Could you tell us exactly who attended that speech?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 474, "page_number": "474", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.The Higher leaders of the SS, that is to say, the Generals of the Waffen SS, of the regular uniform Police, of the Higher police Leaders from the home land and from the Front.\nQ.Will you forgive me if I interrupt you but isn't it correct that only the Obergruppenfuehrers and Gruppenfuehrers attended that?\nA.Approximately the Obergruppenfuehrers and Fuehrers and Brigadefuehrer and perhaps a few others.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Schwarzenberger. attended?\nA.I don't know the defendant Schwarzenberger.\nQ.I have no further questions. BY DR. HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, you said just now on cross examination to the Prosecutor that the concentration camps at the beginning of the war were subordinated to the WVHA of the SS? Can you tell me what was the office of the WVHA to which, at the beginning of the war, these concentration camps were subordinated?\nA.I only know the name first Eikel, then Gluecks. I don't know any details beyond that.\nQ.Witness, do you know that the Inspectorate of the concentration camps and particularly Eikel and Gluecks on the 1st of February 1942 were incorporated in the WVHA.\nA.I was of the opinion that Gluecks was always a full member of Pohl's people.\nQ.But you are not properly informed on that?\nA.No, I am not.\nQ.Witness, in your cross examination by the Prosecutor, you mentioned the speech in Posen. I suppose you still remember that Posen speech?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 475, "page_number": "475", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Yes, I do.\nQ.Witness, since you listened to that speech at Posen why did you not draw the consequences, why did you not resign from your office, why did you not leave the SS?\nA.Counsel, you don't know whether I knew the consequences or not. The other day, quite briefly, but I was interrupted, I said, well now may I ask you to have a look at the diary of the Governor General Frank concerning the speech which I made at Cracow in front of all the leaders of the SS. That speech there does not mean that I began to struggle then; there is no opening up of a struggle at that time; I stigmatize those things as made necessary for us, as Germans, well let us not mention the term criminal but the point which concerned me as a political soldier was the fact not that crimes were being committed but something which was even worse, that is something incredibly stupid, peoples and nations which would like to have gone along with us, nations which at that time like ourselves believed that there was only one danger, that was Bolshevism, that those nations be exterminated. I would go to far, counsel, if I were to describe to you similar cases. Please believe me that I have to justify myself as to why.\nQ.Witness, if you considered the SS criminal and mean and base why did you not leave the SS?\nA.Well, what are you saying about the SS? I was speaking of Himmler. You were speaking of Himmler's speech. I will tell you, one can vary one's opinion after things happen. The oney true consequences which would have been correct according to what we know today and I think today all decent Germans realize that, were actions, deeds, that I didn't belong to that you know because you know the history of the 20th of July but there was an opposition which was \n COURT I CASE VIII not successful and that opposition was based on these ideas which came to be mine.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 476, "page_number": "476", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "For example, to assume that a railway goes down a slope and because of this something is wrong with the line; the passengers jump out but the responsible staff cannot jump out.\nQ.Witness, in other words you mean to say that you are responsible for that matter up to a point?\nA.We are all responsible; We are all guilty.\nQ.Thank you; I have no further questions. BY DR. VON DER TRENK (for the defendant Greifelt):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, concerning the Posen speech, there is one question I would like to ask you. You mentioned all Higher SS leaders with very few exceptions, in particular all Gruppenfuehrers and Obergruppenfuehrers attended. Can you remember for a fact that the defendant Greifelt attended?\nA.No.\nQ.You can't tell that.\nA.No, I can't.\nQ.Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nThe Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 477, "page_number": "477", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution would like to call the witness Adolf Roegner,R-o-e-g-n-e-r.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nADOLFROEGNER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nYou will raise your right hand and repeat after me the following oath: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nYou may be seated.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Please state your name.\nA.My name is Roegner, Adolf.\nQ.What is your age?\nA.I am forty-three years old.\nQ.What is your nationality?\nA.I am German.\nQ.Where is your residence?\nA.I live at Munich, Grosshardern.\nQ.Were you ever an internee in Auschwitz concentration camp?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Please give the dates.\nA.From the 6th of May, 1941 until the 16th of January, 1945.\nQ.Prior to the time that you were first arrested, where did you live; and, what was your business?\nA.At that time I lived et Munich, Passing, in Passing, and there I dealt in textiles.\nQ.For what reasons were you first arrested?\nA.The main reason why I was arrested was that at Passing I had \n a business and having refused to enter the Party and since I was persecuted because I went bankrupt; at the time I received a punishment because of the bankruptcy.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "ADOLF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 478, "page_number": "478", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Before that time I had a severe fight with the SA at Munich. This fight was instigated in order to make it impossible for me at Passing. At the time the NSKK, was established, I had a car and a motorcycle. The party or the NSKK tried to get these vehicles, and I not wanting to turn them over to them received the hostility of these people; and in March of 1934, in the brewery I had a fight with the SA. This was instigated at the time by a certain Kirmaier and Rauscher of Passing. I was imprisoned for several days and was then released, but I lost my business and went bankrupt.\nQ.I want to caution the witness to talk just a little slower, please.\nA.Yes.\nQ.After you were convicted of the bankruptcy charge, what sentence did you receive?\nA.I received three and a half years imprisonment.\nQ.Where were you sent to serve this sentence?\nA.I was sent to the penal institution at Crailsheim, and then I was sent to Mrrr, and a camp at Esterwegen, located in the swamps.\nQ.Were you later transferred to a concentration camp?\nA.In April, 1940, I was sent to Munich, and there I was sent to the authorities for examination and afterwards I was sent to the concentration camp Dachau.\nQ.You have stated that you were later on an inmate of the concentration camp Auschwitz -\nA.Yes.\nQ.To what work were you assigned at Auschwitz?\nA.First of all I had to take care of the irrigation there; and later on I became an electrician at the headquarters in the construction management of the concentration camp.\nQ.While you were at this concentration camp, did you have \n occasion to know any of the internees who were sent there?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 479, "page_number": "479", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Did you know any internees who were sent there because they had refused to be registered on the German People's List?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How did you obtain this information concerning the reasons why these people were interned?\nA.We received this information in part from our fellow inmates because most of them told us why they had been sent to the camp; and, secondly, we received this information through the interrogations in the political department; and, thirdly, we had this information through the Jewish protective custody inmates of the political department there.\nQ.Where, in which office did these Jewish women work?\nA.The Jewish women worked in the police department; they worked for the SS.\nQ.State whether or not they had access to the registration cards?\nA.Yes, these women had access to all the personnel files.\nQ.Of these people who were there because they had refused to sign the German People's List, were any further attempts made to force them to become registered on this list?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know of any particular case where a person was encouraged to be Germanized?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal of the case of one -- I will have to spell his name because I can't pronounce it. It is Kaczarowski, K-a-c-z-a-r-o-w-s-k-i-.\nA.Oh, Kaczarowski, yes. Kaczarowski at the time came into the concentration camp, he came from Cracow. A short time after his arrival there he was sent to the electrician's department where I \n also was working, and we received precisedinformation from him when he told us why he had been sent to the concentration camp.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 480, "page_number": "480", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "He told us that he had been sent into the camp because he had refused to be entered on the German People's List and to sign it. Kaczarowski was one of the inmates who were not immediately interrogated by the chief Gestapo agency but he was first interrogated by the political department of the concentration camp Auschwitz. This was done by Obersturmfuehrer Wolschnitza. Wolsehnitza at the time carried out the interrogation and I happened to be a witness to it; in part I stayed in the room because I had to carry out some work there and after a short time I was told to leave the room, and I had to wait outside. Within the room I only heard how Wolschnitza asked Kaczarowski whether he knew why he had been sent to the concentration camp. Kaczarowski first of all didn't say anything and only after he had been repeatedly asked. Wolschnitza then told him that he had been sent there because he had refused to give his signature to the German People's List, the DVL. Among other things, he threatened him that some other things would be charged against him, but first of all his refusal to sign would be held against him. He had to give his life's history briefly and then he had to give a description of his political activity; and after that Wolschnitza and I believe Oberscharfuehrer Klausen told Kaczarowski what advantages he might obtain under the circumstances if he would register in the German People's List. Kaczarowski could not make up his mind to do that. Since he refused repeatedly to give his signature, Wolschnitza threatened him with placing him under solitary confinement, in darkness. Wolschnitza went to the wooden portion of the political department and they brought Kaczarowski in there, in Room 2. In Room 2 they had this socalled swing. Oberschwarfuehrer Klausen who was also assigned to the political department was also present. This interrogation I can recall particularly clearly because there I was better able to listen to it than in the stone building where they originally had him; and they \n said once more:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 481, "page_number": "481", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "\"I ask you whether you are ready now to sign the German People's List. Several charges and other material has been collected against you and that under possibility we can make you a Catholic.\" Then I heard the sound of several slaps given out. Kaczarowski answered in the negative; he remained firm and some time later Kaczarowski was tied to the swing. Here he received a rather severe beating and I counted from up to twelve to fourteen lashes that he received. The lashes were given with the bull whip. After this interrogation, and maltreatment, Kaczarowski had to be carried out of the building, and the was sent to solitary confinement in Block 11. Approximately seven days later Kaczarowski was again released, and he war went back to the electrician's detachment. He was constantly subjected to pressure, through repreated interrogations, but he constantly refused to give his signature; and then, he remained unmolested and he continued to work in the x detachment. That is all I can say about the case of Kaczarowski.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 482, "page_number": "482", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Do you know of any cases where the internees agreed to sign the DVL after they were put under pressure?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Tell what happened before they agreed to be put on the list?\nA.The inmates who refused to sign the German People's List always had to pass through the department of political interrogation in Auschwitz. Obersturmfuehrer Wolschnitz, Scharfuehrer Brock and Oberscharfuehrer Klausen were always in charge of these interrogations. These were the special departments which were unexcelled in their brutality and their way of imposing maltreatment on these inmates, and had been especially trained for this task. I know of one case, Kurtak. Kurtak also was sent to the camp and as far as I can recall Kurtak came from Cracow. He also worked in the electrician detachment, and he was frequently interrogated. In the course of these interrogations I was a witness when Kurtak was well treated in a very severe manner, and further more he was threatened with having to bear the consequences for his refusal to sign the list. Kurtak was sent into solitary confinement in the dark, and after he was released from solitary confinement he was sent back to the detachment, but after that he was assigned to the punitive company. We were able to get him out of this punitive company; that was done in agreement with Sturmbannfuehrer Rudolf Hoess who was in charge there and we were not given any other support because all of the other requests in order to have this fellow inmate released were refused by the SS. They made the statement that it was impossible for then to help us because of our participation in the various things and our attitude. He was sent to the punitive company and then to the detachment Koenigsgaaben within the punitive company. This detachment had a very bad reputation because this was called the detachment of death. The working hours there were extremely high and the treatment very inhumane. After three or four months had passed Kurtak was again sent back to his old detachment. When he was sent back to the punitive company, later on, this was done for \n the following reason; Kurtak was sent there because he allegedly listened to illegal radio broadcasts, but there was no evidence to that effect.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 483, "page_number": "483", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Then, further questions were put to him and these questions aimed at whether he had now decided to sign his name to the list, and Kurtak again refused to do so. Kurtak had to pay for his refusal with his life\nQ.Do you know whether any of the internees were committed to the concentration camp because they had had sexual intercourse with German women?\nA.Yes.\nDR. GAWLIK:Your Honor, I object to this question as long as the Prosecution does not state just what the conditions were in the concentration camp and what these conditions possibly have to do with this trial. The concentration camp Auschwitz is not subordinated to any offices which are named in the indictment here; and furthermore acts are mentioned here which were carried out by officials of the Gestapo; the names which have been mentioned here are those of members of the secret state police, but the Gestapo is not mentioned in the indictment here. therefore, the Prosecution would first of all have to prove what connection existed between the acts which have been the subject of the discussion here and this trial here; the concentration camp Auschwitz was subordinated to a completely different organization; it was subordinated to the inspectorate of the concentration camps in 1942; after April 1942 it was subordinated to the WVHA. These offices might be held responsible for what happened in the concentration camp Auschwitz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will admit the evidence but I can assure you that when we come to study the evidence as a whole, unless it illustrates some charge contained in the indictment against some of these defendants, it will be given no weight whatever.\nDR. GAWLIK:I only want to say one thing. It will be a waste of time here if we hear the state of affairs -\nTHEPRESIDENT (Interposing); Just a minute. We will try our best \n to take care of the time feature.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 484, "page_number": "484", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.I believe you were just about to answer the question: Do you know whether any of the internees had been committed to this concentration camp because they had had sexual intercourse with German women.\nA.Yes. In 1940 in October of that year, I met two Poles who had been sent to the concentration camp Dachau because they bad engaged in illegal sexual intercourse with German women.\nQ.Did you also learn of the reasons why these Poles were sent there through the registrar's office?\nA.I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.I will ask you another question. Did you learn of any persons who were sent to the concentration camp for having had sexual intercourse with German women through the Registrar's Office; in other words, was the information which you obtained as to the reasons -\nA. (interposing): Yes. That would be the political department in this case. I can name two cases to you which happened at Dachau and two more cases which happened at Auschwitz. These inmates were assigned to Auschwitz with the usual transport, and at the time, in part, they were sent to Auschwitz together with the files. We had a Pole there in the installation repair shop for water supply. He came from Lembeg. This Pole told us about his case, He told us that he had already been imprisoned once before, and that he had been released; the second time he was sent to the concentration camp Auschwitz and taken to the political department for interrogations. This interrogation lasted for approximately a half hour. Afterwards he was taken to the hospital. The person who interrogated him gave him so severe a beating and he used sexual expressions. However, our fellow inmate could only tell us the state of affairs after he had been released from the concentration camp hospital and when he was returned to us.\nQ.Well now, what I want to know is why was the man sent to the \n concentration campl make that clear to the Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 485, "page_number": "485", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.The inmate was sent to the concentration camp according to his story because he had engaged in sexual intercourse with a German woman.\nQ.Do you know whether any representatives of the Race and Settlement Office ever came to the Auschwitz concentration camp; and, if so, for what purpose did they come?\nA.I only know of one case. As far as I can recall this must have happened at the end of 1943 . At that time some men came to the main camp, at Block 28, in the hospital of the Auschwitz concentration camp; there were two or three men and they would take cast impressions of the Jews and Gypsies in the hospital. For what agency this commission had been sent, I do not know. These taking of facial plastic casts lasted approximately three or four days.\nQ.Do you know whether or not these people were representatives of the Race and Settlement Office?\nA.No, I don't.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution has no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by any members of Counsel for the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand. I beg your pardon, there is cross examination by Dr. Gawlik.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 486, "page_number": "486", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for the defendant Schwarzenberger):\nQ.Witness, you mentioned the Political Department.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Please tell the Tribunal just what the Political Department was an agency of.\nA.The Political Department was the department through which, first of all, all the inmates had to pass when they were placed in the camp.\nQ.Please excuse me for a minute. What sort of an agency was it? As to the officials of the Political Department, what were they members of?\nA.In part they were members of the SS and of the Gestapo.\nQ.What department of the SS?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.You just told us you know that they were only Gestapo officials.\nA.No, those officials who were directly connected with the Gestapo were known to us, but we also had liaison officers there and SS men. The Gestapo members for the most part went around in civilian clothing, Hauptscharfuehrer Westfal would walk around in SD uniform; Wolschnitza would walk around in civilian clothes because he was transferred to the Gestapo. All the other people there were uniforms.\nQ.What was the SD uniform? What sort of a uniform was worn by the SD?\nA.The SD uniform would be provided with an SD stripe, and it would have a very small black figure.\nQ.If I put to you now that the officials of the Gestapo also were the insignia of the SD-\nA.That is possible. We were not able to gain that \n much information about uniforms.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 487, "page_number": "487", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Therefore you mean to tell us that you don't know exactly?\nA.I can't answer that question precisely.\nQ.But you do not want to exclude the possibility that therefore all the people there, including those who were the SD uniform, were members of the Gestapo?\nA.I am not informed about that.\nQ.You further were known to say, when you spoke about the assignment to the concentration camps of people who had sexual intercourse-\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who was responsible for the fact that people were committed to concentration camps?\nA.As far as we, as inmates, were informed, all these inmates were sent to concentration camps of the Gestapo.\nQ.Please take a look at the chart above you. Was one of the offices mentioned there responsible? Was it RuSHA, or the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism? Did you ever hear of them in that connection?\nA.No, we didn't know anything about that.\nQ.It isn't known to you at all?\nA.No, we didn't get our information about that through the Political Department. Through the Jewish women there we were only able to hear that people were committed there by the Gestapo. I don't know anything about it.\nQ.You will agree with me, then, that so far as everything that was done there, the Gestapo was responsible for It?\nA.Yes. I don't know of any other designation. I know of some other designations from the protective custody orders. However, one had to be extremely careful. If you \n were able to get any information at all, it was at the risk of the lives of the women there, as well as of our own lives.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 488, "page_number": "488", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. GAWLIK:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (Counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.You mentioned the case of Kacarowski, witness.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did I understand you correctly, to say that Kacarowski came from Cracow?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore he was a resident of Cracow?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know the year that Kacarowski was sent to the concentration camp?\nA.How do you mean that?\nQ.Can you give us the year? I would like to know the year when he was sent to the concentration camp, when he was sent to Auschwitz.\nA.As far as I am able to recall, that must have been in 1941.\nQ.In 1941? Could it have been 1942?\nA.No.\nQ.Was it before 1942?\nA.Kacarowski had been in the camp for a short time when I was sent to the camp. I arrived at Auschwitz on the 6th of May 1941.\nQ.Do you know when the German People's List was put into effect in the Government General?\nA.No, I don't have any close information about that.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. MAAS (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm):\nQ.Witness, you told us that you had been assigned \n to an electricians detachment at Auschwitz.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "DR. GAWLIK", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 489, "page_number": "489", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Can you give me any closer information about the kind of work which you had to perform in this electrician's detachment?\nA.The work consisted of performing all the repair work, the construction of lighting facilities, the supervision of the electrical work which was done in agriculture, and repair and maintenance under the supervision of the SS, who had to see to the repairs about the camp.\nQ.Thank you, that is sufficient for me.\nWere there certain hours in which you had to work?\nA.Yes, we had to keep general working hours just like the rest of the camp, and in emergency cases we also would have to work at night if the SS did not have an emergency crew ready.\nQ.What were your working hours; from what until what time?\nA.In the summertime we would work from six to twelve, and from one to six or seven in the afternoon.\nQ.Were you able to leave this detachment without permission?\nA.I was a foreman in the detachment at the time, and we would receive certain passes. As a foreman, I had permission to walk within thechain of posts within the camp or to go to the places where we had to do some work. We had to carry out three or four checks, and we would have to leave the main camp in order to carry out our checks. As electricians we had access to every building. The SS was strictly prohibited from entering the telegraph agency, the telephone agency, and the radio station, but we were able to go there.\nQ.However, you were only able to leave your work \n when you had a certain mission to perform, a certain job?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 490, "page_number": "490", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Yes, that was true too, but there was no prescribed time for checks: I was able to go for spot checks at any times. Therefore, we had the opportunity to get information about cases concerning our fellow inmates, especially in cases were people worked in the construction management, which was subordinated to the Garrison Administration.\nQ.You gave us a very precise description of an interrogation, and I am now referring to the interrogation of this Kacarowski, when he was sent to the room of the torture instrument.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where were you standing at that time when you made these observations?\nA.Directly at the entrance of the wooden barracks --that was room No. 2--in the doorway.\nQ.Were you able to look into the barracks from that point?\nA.Yes. I was well acquainted with the room from other incidents, and, furthermore, the wooden barracks had very thin walls. Therefore, I could listen to practically every word and every blow that was given there. I could hear quite clearly everything that occurred there. I couldn't see all the action there, but I could hear everything.\nQ.Therefore you were not able to observe the occurrences there with your eyes?\nA.No, since I was outside. However, it sometimes happened that in other cases I was called upon to do some repair work, because there was a special bell system which was used whereby whenever additional officials of the Political Department were needed they could be called, or \n whenever severely injured inmates had to be carried out.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 491, "page_number": "491", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Was it possible that you were standing around there for some time, and that you could simply stand near this room without being discovered by some SS guard?\nA.There were no SS patrols there at all. SS patrols only existed at the road construction work, as far as they took patrols in order to guard inmates. However, no patrol ever passed by there.\nI have already stated that it was possible for me to enter every office. I only had to know what I was supposed to be doing in that particular room. That was possible for the electrican's department in particular, otherwise no detachment was able to do that. The carpenters and locksmiths were also permitted to do that, but not to the extent that we were.\nQ.Before the time of your imprisonment, did you ever hear anything about the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know that organization at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Can you tell me once more the exact time when you were at Dachau?\nA.I was in Dachau from May of 1940 until the 6th of May 1941.\nQ.Do you know what agency had to deal with the Poles whom you have mentioned here, who engaged in prohibited sexual intercourse, and what agency sent these people to the concentration camp?\nA.No, I only have the information which I received from the women in the Political Department. I don't know of any other designation of the agency which sent them there. Perhaps there were some other statements contained \n on the paper sending these people to concentration camps, but I don't know anything about them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 492, "page_number": "492", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. MASS:I have no further questions, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "DR. MASS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 493, "page_number": "493", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "BY DR. von DER TRENCK (For the Defendant Greifelt):\nQ.- Witness, you mentioned two cases, Kacarowski and Kurtak, who were sent to concentration camps because they refused to have themselves entered on the German People's Lists.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- You said that Kacarowski had come from Cracow.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And was Kurtak also from Cracow?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- You only mentioned these two people as examples, but you also said that you knew of further cases.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- In the camp of Auschwitz, unless I am mistaken.\nA.- Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.- Amongst these people, do you know of any cases of people who did not come from the Government General? I mean, people who did not come from Cracow or similar towns?\nA.- No, I actually cannot recall any such cases at the moment.\nDR. von DER TRENCK: Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further from the defense?\n(No response.)\nDoes the Prosecution have anything further?\nMR. LAMB:We have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire.\n(Witness excused.)\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, at this time the prosecution requests that the witness Maria Heinze-Wisswede be called to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMARIA MARTHAHEINZE-WISSWEDE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "MARIA MARTHA", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 494, "page_number": "494", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You will raise your right hand and respect after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION -----------------BY MR. NEELY:Q.- Witness, would you please state your name to the Tribunal?\nA.- My name is Maria Martha Heinze-Wisswede.\nQ.- When and where were you born?\nA.- On the 2lst of March 1920, at Neustadt-Weser.\nQ.- Would you state very briefly the educational institutions which you have attended?\nA.- I attended public school, high school, and a higher school of learning.\nQ.- After completion of your schooling, by whom were you employed?\nA.- I was employed by the Prussian Electricity Company, Ltd, at Kassel.\nQ.- Did you ever work for Lebensborn? If so, when?\nA.- Yes, in the fall of 1942. At that time I went to the Lebensborn for approximately one month; and then from May of 1943 until the end of the war.\nQ.- In which department did you work in Lebensborn?\nA.- First of all I worked in Main Department A, and then, after the reorganization, I worked in the department of the treasury.\nQ.- What problems did the department R-IV concern itself with?\nA.- R-IV? R-IV was the agency which dealt with sending ethnic German orphans to foster parents.\nQ.- While you worked with this department R-IV, how many people were employed there?\nA.- There was the chief of the department, and there would be one or two secretaries.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 495, "page_number": "495", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.- Who was in Charge of Department R-IV?\nA.- That was subordinate to the Main Department for Legal Matters.\nQ.- In carrying out your duties, did you work with any card files kept by this office?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What information was listed on these card files?\nA.- The names of the children, the date of birth, the place, if it was known, thus, from what institution they came, and just how long they had stayed there. After they were sent to the foster parents, the cards would also list the address and the name of their foster parents.\nQ.- When these files were kept there, before the foster name was recorded, did they have another name? Did they have two names at the beginning, other than their true name?\nA.- The Polish name would be listed, and the Germanized name, Q.- Was there any racial classification listed on this card?\nQ.- Yes, we subdivided them according to SO, O, T and things of that sort.\nQ.- What did \"O\" mean on this card?\nA.- Under \"O\" we listed those children who came from the Warthe District, the Warthe Gau.\nQ.- And \"SO\"?\nA.- \"SO\" came from Lower Styria.\nQ.- And \"T\"?\nA.- \"T\" meant that they were Czech.\nQ.- Was there any description of the child on that card as to his weight, eyes, or hair?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Where did this information which was listed on these file cards come from?\nA.- We requested material.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 496, "page_number": "496", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.- From whom did you request this material?\nA.- In the case of children from the East, we would request it from Dr. Bartels.\nQ.- He was an employee of Lebensborn, is that correct?\nA.- No.\nQ.- From what other source did you get this information?\nA.- Well, we already had the material available in part; we had it on lists.\nQ.- Witness, the question I am trying to put to you is this. Who sent you this information? Who sent you these card files?\nA.- We tried to obtain the necessary material. We made inquiries about it, but in some cases we did not receive it.\nQ.- Was this information sent to Department R-IV before or after the children were placed in Lebensborn homes?\nA.- Afterwards, yes.\nQ.- Was that true in all cases?\nA.- No, in the end it was organized in such a way that the material would arrive together with the children.\nQ.- By whom and for what purpose was this information which you had on the files -- for what purpose was this information used?\nA.- So that we could determine whether the children could be sent to foster homes.\nQ.- Did you keep up the files on the children after they were placed with German families?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What information was then recorded on the file card?\nA.- The names of the foster parents and their place of residence, and the date when they were sent to their foster home.\nQ.- Were there any reports made which were added to these files as to the conduct of the child, his willingness and ability to learn German, \n for instance?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 497, "page_number": "497", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.- No.\nQ.- Was Department R-IV responsible for this change of name of the child to that of its foster parents?\nA.- The Germanization of the name -- that is what I want to call it right now-- had already been carried out before that, when they came into the ROS. We didn't have anything to do with that any more.\nQ.- But I mean -- I am talking about the change. We realize that there was one change of name when the child came to the Lebensborn, but after he was placed with the foster parents, then did Department R-IV, rather, change the name of the child again to that of its foster parents?\nA.- When the foster parents decided to do so, then certain certificates were issued by the Reich Commissar to the effect that the child was a foster child in that family.\nQ.- Whose permission or consent and signature was necessary for this change of name?\nA.- This certificate by the Reich Commissar had to be signed by an SS Leader.\nQ.- Were there any names in particular which you thought were necessary for this? Who was the responsible head of this department which changed the name?\nA.- Department R-IV? In my time it was Heinzel, and then it was Snaeckel.\nQ.- Was this true in all change of name cases? Were there ever any cases which someone else had to be consulted on?\nA.- Only in particularly difficult cases.\nQ.- And who was consulted in these particularly difficult cases?\nA.- Then the department head would have a discussion with Dr. Tesch and also with Heinzel.\nQ.- And the ultimate decision, then, lay with the head of the de \n partment, Dr. Tesch, is that correct?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 498, "page_number": "498", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.- The ultimate decision, I think, was given by Sollmann, because he also decided whether the children were to be returned.\nQ.- From what countries did the children who were listed in your files come?\nA.- They came from Warthe District, the Warthe Gau, and from Lower Styria, and Czechoslovakia.\nQ.- Did the file cards which you worked with note this information as to the country which the child was from?\nA.- That information would not be contained in our own files, but we would know whether they were SO cases or O or I Cases.\nQ.- Then from what source of information do you know from which countries these children came other than O, SO and T?\nA.- Well, in the case of the ethnic German orphan children from the Warthe District? we would receive the necessary material. In the case of the SO children, we would have material on the lists from the Vomi. In the T cases, there would not be any material available.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 499, "page_number": "499", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QWitness, where was Department R-IV located while you worked there?\nAFirst of all at Munich. After we were bombed out, at SteinHoering for some time, and then at Oberweiss.\nQOf what main department of Lebensborn was R-IV a division?\nAIt was the Main Department, Legal Division.\nQAnd who was the Chief of the Main Department Legal Division?\nAIt was Dr. Tesch.\nQDo you know the defendant Tesch?\nAYes.\nQWitness, would you please point out the defendant Tesch in the dock and give the description as to his place in the dock, either the number as from right or left.\nAHe is sitting next to the woman there.\nQWould the Tribunal ask the defendant who has been pointed out to stand, please?\nTHE PRESIDENT: Let the defendant stand.\n(The defendant Tesch stands.) BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, is this the man whom you recognize as Dr. Tesch?\nAYes.\nMR. NEELY: May the record show that the defendant Tesch has been properly identified.\nQDid the defendant Tesch ever come to Oberweiss to inspect the files and work of Department R-IV?\nANo, he did not come there for that purpose, but merely introduced Frau Merkl there at my time.\nQBut he did come to Oberweiss while you were there?\nAYes.\nQDo you know for whet purpose he came? Was there anything else other than to introduce Frau Merkl?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 500, "page_number": "500", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AI don't know that.\nQWere regular reports sent from your department to the defendant Tesch?\nAHe would compile statistical figures and would pass them on to Munich.\nQDid you assist in the preparation of these reports?\nAYes. After all, I Worked at the card index files and I had to compile the figures.\nQThen what information did these statistical reports contain? What were these statistics concerned with?\nAThe total number of children which Lebensborn had taken ever so far; just how many of them were sent to foster homes, and just how many were still located in the childrens' homes, and just how many of them had been returned.\nQWas this report made out as to how many Czech children were left or how many polish children, or any other breakdown other than what you have given?\nAYes, they were subdivided according to SO and T.\nQWho selected the children who were to be sent to Lebensborn homes?\nAI don't know that. After all, they would come from Kalisch.\nQAnd did your office ever have any correspondence with Kalisch, and if so, to whom was this correspondence directed?\nAAs far as I am able to recall, we would make inquiries tto Dr. Bartels for the material or to Kalisch. We had correspondence with him about that subject.\nQDo you know whether these children had been examined in any way to be selected for Lebensborn?\nAYes, we would receive ROS on the ethnic German or foreign children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 501, "page_number": "501", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QNow you say that you are well aware of the fact that these children had been examined before coming to Lebensborn halls, is that true?\nAYes.\nQNow ould you say that this examination was based on the child's outward appearance or on a study of his racial descent?\nAWell his appearance was the decisive selection.\nQDo you know of any cases which support this answer?\nAIn what respect:\nQThat it was made from the child's outward appearance rather than as to the study of his racial descent andhis family background?\nAWell, on the cards the EWN would say -- that is, Western race, Eastern race, and Northern race, and so on, and here a check mark was placed at the proper spot.\nQDo you know of any Jewish children who happened to get in to the Lebensborn home by mistake?\nAYes, I know of one case.\nQWould You tell us about that, please?\nASiegumund Raschke wasapproximately 14 years of age. He was still located at Oberweiss when I went there. Then we were able to get him an apprenticeship.\nQWas this shown on his card and in any way that Siegmund was of Jewish descent?\nAYes, we would receive our files from the youth office, and it also contained the file of Siegmund Raschke, and there it was stated that he was Jewish.\nQThen that selection, would you not agree, must have been made on the child's outward appearance?\nAYes.\nQWitness, where were the Czech children located when Lebensborn took them over?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 502, "page_number": "502", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AThey came through the home at Puschkau, but as far as I am able to recall the Lebensborn did not have them passed on to foster homes; only afterwards, when they took over the correspondence.\nQAnd where were the Yugoslav children located when Lebensborn took them over?\nAThey were located in VOMI camps.\nQWhere were these VOMI camps located?\nAAs far as I can recall, in the vicinity of Bayreuth.\nQAnd as to the Polish children, where were they located when Lebensborn took them?\nAThey came from Kalisch and Grettau also from Achern, and Niodern.\nQDo you know who made the necessary negotiations for Lebensborn to obtain the Czech children?\nAWith regard to the children of the East, I can't tell you.\nQDid you ever see any report or letter saying that arrangements had been made to obtain these Czech children, and who was to make the necessary arrangements to bring these children into Lebensborn homes?\nANo.\nQDo you recall having talked to Herr Eising at any time about his going out to obtain children for Lebensborn?\nANo, we did not recruit children.\nQI am not asking about recruiting, but was he ever sent on any assignments to make the arrangements to bring these children into Lebensborn homes?\nANo, on one occasion he was at Kalisch and he took a look at the children there; however, the decision had been made at the time.\nQHave you ever heard of the name Uberschar?\nAYes.\nQ in what respect have you ever seen any correspondence in your office concerning Mr. Uberschar?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 503, "page_number": "503", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AThere used to be a file note in connection with the Czechoslovakian letter.\nQAnd what did this file note contain, witness?\nAI can't remember precisely. I think it contained the names of the children between 7 and 10.\nQIt didn't state anything concerning arrangements being made about these children?\nANo, I can only remember ten names, one below the other.\nQThen as to the Yugoslav children, do you know who made the negotiations for these children to come to Lebensborn homes?\nAWell, we accumulated the material on these children in R-IV, in an old file. We were also able to determine that Frau Viermetz was in charge of the first negotiations. I don't know any further details about that, however.\nQThank you, witness. After the negotiations were made, where were the children taken by Lebensborn? Into what homes were these children placed?\nAOberweiss, then the Czech children were not sent to homes at all, they were sent to Pusckau; SO children would be sent to Sonnenwiesen.\nTHE PRESIDENT: We mil suspend here, The Tribunal mil be in recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 504, "page_number": "504", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 27 October 1947)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness.\nMARTHA HEINZE-WISSWEDE - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, in your work in Department R-IV, did you ever come across the name of Walter Dengus?\nAYes, on the ROS cards there was his signature: Dongus.\nQWas it your understanding that Dongus had anything to do with the selection of these children which came into the Lebensborn homes?\nAWell, we got his documents concerning the selection made in Litzmannstadt.\nQThen Dongus to give you this information must have conducted some sort of an examination upon these children, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDo you know which office Walter Dongus worked for?\nARuSHA, Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQNow, witness, this morning you said that the card files were kept in these categories: O, SO, and T. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQI would like to ask you one more question concerning this classification. This is in connection with the Polish children. In the Department R-IV, did you have any other classification of these Polish children for your own use in R-IV?\nAWell, they could be subdivided into Polish children who were suitable for Germanization, and these who were not. The first group was the larger.\nQThe ones which were suitable for Germanization, how did they differ from the other group?\nAWell, we had documents concerning the application to be entered on the DVL, or one of the parents had been German.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 505, "page_number": "505", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QThen on the files which you had here in this subdivision, one showed that the father of the Polish child had been German at one time or another, is that correct?\nAWell, yes, sometimes it could be seen from the files.\nQBut there was this division as to, shall we say, ethnic Germans and those who were suitable for Germanization?\nANo, we did not have separate lists, but we just said so from the point of view of routine. But we didn't actually make any subdivision in writing.\nQDid you note that on the card in anyway?\nANo, we didn't.\nQWell, how did you keep this? Just in your mind?\nAWell, I can't tell you that anymore today.\nQWell, what I am trying to find out is that you did have a different breakdown concerning the Polish children other than O, OS and T, is that correct?\nANo, we didn't.\nQBut it was known to those in the office which ones were, say, ethnic Germans and which ones were not, is that correct?\nAConcerning those children for which we had the files from the juvenile office, or others we could ascertain that, but we had a lot of children for whom we had no files and no documents.\nQVery well, but in this subdivision which you spoke of, which you made by some way or other or kept in your own mind, into which category did most of the Polish children fall? In which category were most of the children placed?\nAThey were orphans who were ethnic Germans.\nQWere the Czech children classified by Department R-IV into say other groups than O, OS and T?\nANo.\nQAnd as to the Yugoslav children, were there any other subdivisions than what we have just stated?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 506, "page_number": "506", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "ANo, there weren't either.\nQFor what reason were the Polish children subdivided while the others were not?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Dr. Ebner): May it please the Court, I want to object to this question. The witness has just said that the children were not kept on separate registers and therefore this question is inadmissible -- this question concerning the reason why there were separate registers.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I will have to caution counsel not to continue to go constantly over the same thing. Just don't go over the same thing.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, in this connection when I am referring to any subdivision I do not mean in any way the witness has just stated -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. I think 1 understand what you mean, but don't go over the same thing twice. BY MR. NEELY:\nQWho held the responsibility for the placement of these children into foster homes?\nAThat was Department R-IV. That department was responsible.\nQWas the defendant Tesch as head of the Main Legal Department was he ever asked to give his approval in any case?\nAIf there were any difficulties or if suddenly it was found that there were some relatives; in these cases we referred them to Dr. Tesch and Herr Solemann and asked for their approval and received their approval for us to return the children.\nQWhen you first began working for Lebensborn, by whom were you employed?\nABy Friedrich, who was the chief of the personnel department.\nQDo you know who Friedrich's superior at that time was?\nAIn the main department A, I worked for Frau Fritsch in the Harz Home and at that time Ebner was the chief.\nQDo you know the defendant Ebner?", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 507, "page_number": "507", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, I do.\nQWould you please point out the defendant Ebner in the dock showing his position in the dock as from right or left.\nALooking at it from the right, he is the second -- the second man from the right.\nQWhat was Enber's position in Lebensborn?\nAThe last position he held was that of Chief of Health department.\nQWhat were his duties as Head of the Main Health Department?\nAI can't tell you because I did not work under him.\nQWell, did you ever hear it discussed as to just what he did in Lebensborn?\nAHe supervised the medical personnel and the nurses and engaged them and he was also in charge of sanitary installations.\nQDo you know whether it was Ebner's position to examine the children in order to decide whether they were fit for adoption or not?\nAIn cases of doubt, when it was a case of ascertaining the age of the children, we asked him to see to it that the children were examined, but that happened only very infrequently.\nQDo you know just what sort of an examination this consisted of?\nAWell, when it was a case of having to ascertain their ages, an x-ray of their hands was made. It was a Professor in Marburg who made the X-ray. I think his name was Professor Steckel, or something like that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 508, "page_number": "508", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QWitness, you stated previously that Dept.R-4was located in Oberweiss. Was the department there housed in a building all to itself or with some other Lebensborn agency?\nANo, at that home at Oberweiss.\nQIt was with a children's home at Oberweiss? Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDid you have a chance to see and observe these children in the children's home in Oberweiss?\nAYes.\nQIn which way did you have a chance to see them?\nAWell, for example, we had our meals with them. I could see them as they were playing.\nQWhat ages were these children?\nAThey were from six to 14, that is to say, they were of school age.\nQHow were these children treated in the home?\nAThey were treated well.\nQDid the children wear uniforms of any kind?\nANo.\nQWhat languages did these children speak?\nAWell, that varied according to the transport. There was one transport of children which spoke German very well but the last batch hardly spoke any German at all.\nQDid you hear Polish spoken there?\nAYes.\nQDid you hear any Czech spoken there?\nAWe had one Czech at Oberweiss and he spoke German very well.\nQThen would you say, witness, that from the languages which were spoken there, that it was easy to realize that these children were not children from Germany proper, of German parents?\nAWell, the last place where they had been had been Polish orphanages and Polish homes and for that reason it is impossible to arrive \n at any conclusion in regard to that question.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 509, "page_number": "509", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QAs to the Czech children now, you heard one child speak Czech. By his speaking the Czech language do you think that that child was of German parentage?\nANo. With the Czech I don't believe it. Anyway, we weren't informed.\nQThank you. What did these children do all day long while they were at the children's home in Oberweiss?\nAWell, there was a fixed program for them. In the morning there were sports, games; then there were lessons, singing, walks, games.\nQDid these children attend school while in the home in Oberweiss?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether they were taught German in their school?\nAYes, naturally for the mistress was German. The only language she spoke was German.\nQDid you see any attempts at the children's home to force these children to speak German?\nANo. They were not forced. They were admonished but they weren't forced.\nQWhat do you mean by \"admonished\"?\nAWell, they were told that they were to use the German language because, after all, they were being taught it at school.\nQDid you see any of these children forcefully reprimmanded for speaking a language other than German?\nANo.\nQDid these children show in any way that they resented the people who were caring for them and their treatment in the home?\nAWell, naturally a few children wanted to go into some foster parents' homes as quickly as possible to be with a father and a mother again at last. Well, after all, there are some children who like being in a home. There are other children who don't like being in a home.\nQWell, did you ever see any of the children cry or express any \n desire to return to their parents or relatives?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 510, "page_number": "510", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "ANo; not really.\nQCould these children correspond with their parents and relatives? Could they write to them?\nAAt the beginning they couldn't, but later on we allowed them to write.\nQWas this allowed on someone's own initiative? Was it done on the side and contrary to the established rule that they could not correspond with their relatives?\nAI can't give you any exact information on that point because I was only there as a typist. I know nothing about any negotiations on that subject.\nQAt the home in Oberweiss did you ever see the defendant Sollman visit this home?\nANo, not in my time.\nQDid Ebner ever visit this home?\nAYes, on one occasion when we had had difficulty with the water supply and the sanitary installations.\nQBut you know of not time he investigated at this home and examined the children who were there?\nAYes, he did have a look at them.\nQDid you know the results of any examination there, whether any which he examined were found unsuitable to be placed into foster homes?\nAWell, some children had to rejected because they used to wet their beds or because they had any other physical defects.\nQDo you know what happened to the children when they were rejected by Dr. Ebner?\nAWell, they were sent back to Poland.\nQDid the defendant Tesch ever inspect the children's home in Oberweiss, not DepartmentR-4as you stated this morning, but the children's home?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 511, "page_number": "511", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "ANo, only that one time when he brought Frau Merkel with him.\nQDid. the defendant Viermetz ever visit this home while you were there?\nANo; I know nothing of that.\nQWitness, you have explained that you were very familiar not only with the files of DepartmentR-4, but that you personally saw, knew and observed some of these children in the various homes. Now, could you recall the names of any Polish children and give a little summary of what happened to this child as to its placement into a home, if that did occur?\nANo. The placement was arranged for at Oberweiss. That is to say, the forster parents came to Oberweiss and there picked out the child whom they would like to have. The child was given clothes, the papers were made out and were given to the foster parents. For example, there was Marian Gartner. He was a nice small blond boy, he was going to Esslingen. I don't recall the name of the foster parents. He was very well looked after.\nQDo you recall the name Christine Glaeser?\nAYes, I do.\nQCould you tell us a little about this child?\nAChristine was about 13 years old. Her father was a German. He was a baker. I think he died of cancer of the stomach. Her mother was Polish and for some family reasons Christine came to the home at Kalesch and from there to the home at Oberweiss. From Oberweiss, first as a foster child, she went to Munich as an apprentice inLanchold work to the Heinze home and later on she went to Dr. Tesch. Afterwards she did her labor service. As far as I know she has in the meantime returned to Poland.\nQBut at one time she was in the home of the defendant Tesch; is that correct?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 512, "page_number": "512", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QDid the records in your office show that the mother was Polish; that the mother was alive?\nAYes, and I believe actually that the mother wanted Christine to be away from home for some time.\nQDo you know where this child was placed in Poland? Where did it come from?\nAI believe she went back to her mother, but I can't tell you for certain.\nQWitness, I believe you have misunderstood my question. The question is where was this child obtained from? Where was it before Lebensborn got this child?\nAShe came from Kalesch.\nQAnd Kalesch was the Polish orphanage. Before she came to Kalesch was she in a Polish orphanage?\nAI don't know.\nQThank you. Do you remember any more of the names and the happenings as to adoption as to the other Polish children?\nAAs far as I know, not one Polish child was adopted.\nQBut they were placed with foster parents; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDo you remember any of the names of the children from Yugoslavia?\nAFor example, Fischkowicz.\nQWhat was your opinion of these children? What were they called, do you remember?\nASO children.\nQI do not mean as to their classification. I mean under what conditions do you know that these children were taken? Who were their parents supposed to be?\nAWell, their names have been entered in lists but we didn't have any exact statements concerning the parents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 513, "page_number": "513", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QI do not mean any exact statement, necessarily. Did you ever hear the name \"bandit\" in any tray applied to these children?\nAI can remember that in one file I did see that word but we did not use that word.\nQWhat did the files say in reference to this word?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 514, "page_number": "514", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.I can't remember.\nQ.But you did see the name \"bandit\" in some way or other, through a file memorandum, applied to these children?\nA.Or in a letter; I couldn't tell you.\nTHE NEELY:I am sorry; would you repeat the witness' answer?\nTHE INTERPRETER:Or in a letter; I couldn't tell you. I can't remember. BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.As the the Czechoslovakian children, do you have any knowledge of where these children came from and who their parents were?\nA.Two came from Prague and with some of them it said Lidice or Kovno or something like that. I can't remember.\nQ.And this information was listed on their cards; is that correct?\nA.No; not on the cards.\nQ.But you did have a file memo to say that these children were from Lidice?\nA.Yes, that was in that old file, that one old file.\nQ.Did it say anything as to where their mothers were?\nA.No; I can't remember that.\nQ.Had you ever heard, while working in Dept.R-4, as to these children's mothers being in concentration camps?\nA.I can't remember for certain.\nQ.Did any of the parents of the Yugoslav or Czeck children ever correspond or come personally to the office in hopes of having their children returned?\nA.Yes, that happened a few times with the SO children. The grandfather came or the uncle came along and the children were allowed to go with them or they were sent afterwards; and they wrote.\nQ.Was there an examination conducted as to this grandfather of which you speak, to determine whether he was a proper person to place this child with?\nA.Well, naturally we found out what the relationship was. They \n had to identify themselves.", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "Q.", "A.", "THE NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 515, "page_number": "515", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Identify themselves in which way?\nA.Well, they had to show their identification card or something like that. I wasn't there. I didn't actually see it.\nQ.Did you ever hear of the name of Maria Hanf?\nA.Who?\nQ.Maria Hanf, H-a-n-f-.\nA.Yes, yes. As far as I know, she was in Posen. She has a family there and her brother came to Oberweiss.\nQ.Of what nationality were these children?\nA.It was a T child.\nQ.Was she one of the children who were considered as being from Lidice?\nA.Yes, or perhaps from the surroundings.\nQ.Witness, you have stated that these children were well taken care of in the home of Oberweiss. How did you feel when you observed these children as to what was going on? Just how did you feel when you knew, or your records as you have stated showed, that in some cases the parents were still living?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Counsel, we can't go into the feelings of everybody about this sort of thing. Let's have the facts.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, I shall dismiss that question. I did not exactly mean that. I just wanted to know from the knowledge of the people there that these children did have parents living.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can ask them that without asking their feelings about it.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you, sir. BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, would you say from the files that the People in DepartmentR-4and those who had access to these files in any way were aware of the fact that the parents in some cases were still living?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 516, "page_number": "516", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Whenever that was known the children were returned.\nQ.Would you say in all cases the children were returned when the parent was known?\nA.Well, the work and the investigations hadn't yet been concluded but it would have been done for certain.\nQ.Then how do you account for the child Christine Glaser having not been returned to her mother?\nA.The mother herself wanted the child to be away from home and later on they were to be united.\nQ.Wasn't it true that this child, when she gave it up because of her dire financial standing at that time, was turned over to a Polish orphanage in Poland?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Going back to the card files again, did the name of the true parent appear on that card file?\nA.No.\nQ.But the place of birth and where this child came from was on there, was it not?\nA.On the ROS cards, yes.\nQ.Then don't you think it is strange that these children who were listed from Czechoslovakia were in Oberweiss if you were making an effort to locate their parents?\nA.Well, there was only one Czech child in Oberweiss or, rather, two boys, Wenzel Hantz, who was returned by the fosterparents, and Wenzel Salinko, who was sick and could not be placed at first.\nHe came, to us from the East because there the war was coming closer and the children's home was in danger.\nQ.And do you say that Wenzel Hantz was returned during the war?\nA.Returned to whom?\nQ.To his parents or relatives in Czechoslovakia.\nA.Well, in the case of Wenzel Hantz, we didn't know the parents.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 517, "page_number": "517", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.But they knew that Wenzel Hantz came from Czechoslovakia?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And he was brought to Germany, as you say, to find his parents?\nA.No; I didn't say that, no, I didn't.\nQ.Would you say that the purpose of your department was to run down or to find the parents?\nA.The main purpose was to find a foster home for children who had no family ties, who had been long lost but naturally we made investigations to find out whether the children actually were without family ties. If that was not so, if they were not without ties, they were returned.\nQ.Would you give me an example of some effort which was made by your department to find a true parent?\nA.Well, for example, we wrote to Posen. We asked for files and we did receive the files from the juvenile offices in several cases.\nQ.At the home Oberseiss did you not have children there who had been taken from the Polish orphanages in Rland?\nA.Maybe, but I don't know anything about that for certain. We got the children from Kalesch.\nQ.But did your files show that they had been in Polish orphanage before going to Kalesch?\nA.Well, if we did get files from the Juvenile office that meant that the juvenile offices had taken care of them. They had been foundlings or orphans who had bean either in orphanages or with foster parents.\nQ.And were brought to Germany to find their true parent or relative; is that correct?\nA.No; it wasn't like that.\nQ.Well, what would you say that the main purpose of your office was? Was it to place these children with foster homes? Yes or no?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 518, "page_number": "518", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "ADepartmentR-4had the task to place orphans in German foster homes, orphans who had no family ties.\nQTo place children may I add in addition to your statement and to see whether it meets your approval or not, to place children who were contained in your files and not restricted as you say to Polish children or orphanages who had no families.\nANo.\nQThen you would say whatever children were in your files it was the purpose of DepartmentR-4to place them into foster homes. Is that correct.\nAYes.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Any questions by the defense? BY DR. MERKEL (For the defendant Creutz):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQWitness, if I understood you correctly you mentioned certificates from the Reich Commissioner. What was the purpose of those certificates?\nAThat was supposed to give us aid in case of the parents having any difficulties with schools, etc.\nQWhere did the certificates come from?\nAI don't know.\nQWho made out those certificates and where were they made out?\nAIt was the office that signed them.\nQYour office?\nAYes, by Tesch.\nQLebensborn office?\nAYes.\nQDo you remember the letter head of those certificates. Was there any print on them?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 519, "page_number": "519", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AYes, it ms printed but I can't tell you exactly what it said. Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, Office L, maybe. I am not certain.\nQDo you know whether that addition of this \"L\" wad made at your office or was it that of the original head?\nAIf it was thereit was part of the proper letter heading.\nQDo you know approximately how many of such certificates were made out?\nANo, I don't.\nQDid these letters not play any part when the children's names were changed?\nAWell, a certificate was made out that a child was, shall we say, with such and such a family since such and such a date.\nQFor what groups of children could those certificates be used?\nAFor the children from the East.\nQOnly for the Eastern children?\nAYes, only for the children from the East.\nQI want to ask you about something else. You mentioned documentary material which was used or requested for the children from the East. Where did that material come from? Can you tell me about that?\nAWell, those were the files from the Juvenile offices and those were those RSO cards from Litzmannstadt and reports from Kalesch.\nQWho sent out that material or who requested it? Do you know?\nAAs far as I remember Dr. Bartels in Posen; the RSO reports came along with the transport. They came to us with the children.\nQYou just mentioned Dr. Bartels' name. Where was he?\nAHe was in Posen.\nQWas there any direct contact between Lebensborn and Dr. Bartels?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 520, "page_number": "520", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AI think so. We wrote to him in his capacity as Lebensborn deputy for the Warthegan.\nQThank you I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Huebner):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQI want to follow up the last question which was asked by my colleague. Can you tell us to what agency Dr. Bartels belonged quite apart from his work as representative for Lebensborn?\nAHe belonged to the Administration of Warthegan.\nQDid I understand you properly; did you say that the documents for the Eastern Children you always got from Dr. Bartels?\nAWell not in all cases. Once we got 52 files altogether from Dr. Bartels.\nQDid you hear of Huebner in connection with the children's scheme?\nANo.\nQIn your direct examination you spoke of the preparatory work for the Germanization, down at Litsmannstadt. Can you tell us what office it was that did that preparatory work? A A The RSO cards we received from the RuSHA field office at Litzmannstadt from Dongus.\nQFrom the field office Litztmannstadt from Dongus?\nAYes.\nQI have no further questions. BY DR. SCHUBERT (for the defendant Lorenz):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQWitness, you have told us that Yugoslavian children came from VOMI camps. The other children, the so-called children from the East, they did not come from those camps, did they?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 521, "page_number": "521", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QI now only want, to ask you about the so-called Yugoslavian children. From what camps were they supposed to have come from? Where ware the camps located?\nAI can only remember the camp from Bayreuth. I don't know anything about other camps.\nQDid you know what sort of organization VOMI was?\nANo.\nQDo you know the defendants from VOMI, two of them here in the dock?\nAI don't know them.\nQHow was it that you knew at all that there children that came from VOMI camps?\nAIt said on the list itself or on some file note; I can't remember for sure.\nQWhat files did you get concerning these Jugoslavian children. I imagine first of all you got lists which came along with the whole transport of children. Is that what you are referring to?\nAYes.\nQDid you also see the directives on the basis of which the children had to be received in the Lebensborn homes?\nANo, I didn't see them.\nQYou didn't see them?\nANo.\nQYou don't know then from whom the directives came?\nANo, I don't know who?\nQWho was in charge of the transport from the VOMI camp to Lebensborn?\nAI don't know that either.\nQHow long had the children been in the VOMI camps before they came to you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 522, "page_number": "522", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AI can't tell you because that was finished. During my time there -- we didn't receive any new transports.\nQWhen did all that happen? When were the Jugoslavian children taken over by Lebensborn? Can you recall that?\nAI don't know.\nQYou remember the year?\nAI worked there just in the autumn of 1943 and nothing happened then.\nQWhat condition were the children from the Jugoslav areas in, I mean as far as nutrition was concerned, what sort of clothes did they wear?\nAI didn't see any of those children, but we received reports saying some children were very ill and they had hereditary diseases and were not suited for placing.\nQWhat I want to know is what state of health were these children in when they reached you from the VOMI camps?\nAI can't tell you.\nQThank you. BY DR. FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Dr. Ebner):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQI would like to ask some questions on behalf of Dr. Ebner. Witness, do you remember that Dr. Ebner came to visit the Oberweiss home?\nAYes.\nQDuring the time you were there did Dr. Ebner come over once or did he come several times?\nANo, he only came once.\nQYou said that he had looked at the children when he was there?\nAYes.\nQDid he subject them to a thorough medical examination or did he just try to obtain a general impression of the children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 523, "page_number": "523", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "COURT 1 CASE 8 A Well, I wasn't there; I merely know that we had to give him the RSO cards and the files but he and the children were in another room.\nQ You were not present when he examined the children? A No, I wasn't. Q You said before that on the cards which were made out for the child ren, there were notes made concerning the racial criteria.\nThose notes concerning the racial appearance of the children, were they made by Lebensborn or were these notes made by your own depart ment?\nA Those notes were already on the RSO cards and came from the Litz mannstadt.\nQ Lebensborn itself did not make any statements concerning racial qualities?\nA No, it didn't. Q You also said that in doubtful cases Dr. Ebner's advice was asked, to get medical opinion on certain children concerning the fact whether those children were suitable for adoption or for being sent to a foster home or foster parents.\nTo what did Dr. Ebner's opinion refer, what was doubtful, what were the actual reasons that one might think it was doubtful whether these children were suit able to be sent to foster parents or not?\nI think you already gave us some indication before.\nA Yes, I can recall one case where he discovered subsequently that the mother had died of epilepsy and we asked Dr. Ebner or his opinion as to whether the child was to be allowed to stay with its foster parents or whether there was a danger that it might nave inherited the disease and, therefore, not suitable to be in a foster home.\nQ. And what was the natural reason why children who were infectious or had other serious diseases were not sent to foster homes.\nA Well, that was dangerous to health. Q World foster parents have taken sick children?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 524, "page_number": "524", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "COURT 1 CASE 8 A No. Q. You also spoke of Dr. Ebner's work in some different sphere, con corning medical opinions.\nYou spoke of the cases where the ages of children had to be ascertained; you mentioned that Dr. Loner was consulted to ascertain the age of children or to have it ascer tained.\nWhy did that become necessary? A Well on the files we received from Posen the information concerning ages were defective; also on the files from juvenile office, there were contradictions, sometimes a difference of a whole year, etc.\n, sometimes of months.\nQ If I understand you correctly the files which alone could give in formation about the ages of the children frequently showed discrep ancies concerning the birthdays of the children?\nA Yes. Q And therefore it became necessary to fix one date? A Yes, that was very necessary, particularly for the school it was important.\nQ After all other opportunities had been exhausted, that is other opportunities to ascertain the children's age such medical opinion was requested?\nA To begin with we always tried to get the right information from Litzmannstadt and only if that did not yield any results.\nQ You asked for a medical opinion? A Yes, that is so. Q Was it your impression that those children who came to the home and whom you saw personally were all of blue eyes, of fair hair, - did they all have Northern Germanic appearances?\nA No, there were other types; but most of them did have blue eyes. Q How did you explain that to yourself, if they all did not have blue eyes?\nA Well I know from history that in former times Germans lives in Posen. Q You have already mentioned that because of their bad health, child ren were considered unsuitable for placement with foster parents \n and you have said that such children were returned.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 525, "page_number": "525", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Did you hear whether that happened only in the case of children who cane from former Polish territories or was that also done with children who came from Germany proper?\nA Well, children from the old Reich, if they had any hereditary diseases were also rejected by Lebensborn.\nQ. In that respect no difference was made between children in the former Polish territory and other German children?\nA No. Q And quite on principle the children went back to where they had come from,is that right?\nA Yes. Q On your direct examination the relationship between the children and their parents was mentioned and the correspondence between then was mentioned.\nI believe it was always a question of foster parents?\nA Yes. Q You did mean the foster parents? A Yes, I did. Q If these children were placed with foster parents, if they came to new parents, they would gradually develop a relationship as their own parents.\nWas it in such cases, quite apart from nationality of those children, advisable that these children should have a great deal of contact with their former background or would it be easier for then to get accustomed to their now family end their new background if they were not reminded too much of their previous background.\nWhat sort of experience did you gain in that respect?\nA Well naturally the children were torn this way and that if they still had contact with their Polish foster parents.\nQ Was there a difference between children of former Polish territories and children from the old Reich or would it be the same?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 526, "page_number": "526", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A I think that would he the same; you are quite right.\nQ I understand you had an opportunity to observe that that is in accordance with human experience in general ? A Yes it is.\nQ On your direct examination you mentioned a difference which one could have made with the so called Eastern children, that is, to say, children who came from the families of ethnic Germans, and who had come from Polish territories to Germany and children who were suitable for Germanization.\nYou soy that no such difference was made in the way the files were kept?\nA Also this was not entered on the card files. Q It was not entered on the card files; I see. Concerning these children of ethnic German descent from Polish orphanages did you have any doubts in this case as to whether these were the children of ethnic Germans?\nA As far as we have the files we were able to find out about that. Q Did you find from the files or from the children themselves that attempts had been made in the Polish orphanages to make Polish these former German ethnic children, and to bring them up like Poles?\nA I have no exact information on that subject; I can imagine that may have been so.\nQ Did you ever hear of children who had been taught Polish, children of this type?\nA Yes. Q And did they, therefore, partly forget the German language? A Yes. Q Did you often sec it happen that after a medical examination carried out by Dr. Ebner that a child was considered unsuitable for Ger manization?\nA Not often, only occasionally. Those were exceptions. Q When Dr. Ebner visited the home at Oberweiss were you present when \n Dr. Eoner discussed the children with Frau Merkel.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 527, "page_number": "527", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Do you remember about that?\nA Well, he told us about the examinations, yes I was there but I can't remember the figures.\nQ Can you remember that Dr. Ebner asked Frau Merkel if all these children had come from orphanages in Czechoslovakia?\nA No. Q Thank you, I have no further questions. BY DR. SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch):\n- CROSS EXAMINATION Q Witness, on your direct examination you testified that first of all you worked in the main department A, and that in that depart ment you worked on the subject of reception into homes?\nA Yes. Q I would like to know something about the principles according to which mothers were received in maternity homes of Lebensborn, were there political points of view that played a part in the selection of the mothers?\nA No, not political points of view. The mothers and fathers had questionaires sent to them which they had to fill in and the mothers had to give an affidavit.\nQ On those questionnaires which were sent to the mothers were there any questions concerning race?\nA Not on the questionaires; a health certificate had to be introduced and this addition had to give a description in broad outlines of the racial criteria.\nQ How long were the mothers allowed to stay in a maternity home and how long could the children stay?\nA The mothers at first I believe could stay for three weeks and later on the time was extended to 12 weeks for a mother and child and the children could stay for six months to a maximum of 1 year.\nMR. NEELY:I want to object to the question at this time; I \n do not believe it was the subject of direct examination by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 528, "page_number": "528", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Well it is not a thing that you asked him about exactly, but you did as about this particular organi zation, so I will permit him to show the whole operation.\nGo ahead.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 529, "page_number": "529", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "BY DR. SCHNIDT:\nQ You said, that, afterwards you went toR-4where you worked in the placing of ethnic Germans who were orphans; when did you change over to that?\nA Approximately in the fall of 1943. Q And how were the files kept; how had they been kept when you arrived? A There was a great deal of confusion. Q Well, evidently the files and the documents were not as complete as they should have been; if things had been done in the proper way.\nA No, not at all; some of the children were listed there two or three times in the office list and consequently according to the statistics there were far more than the number actually taken over.\nQ Witness, for example in the children's list for health insurance, the children had been numbered by figures which are somewhere around one hundred, two hundred, three hundred or four hundred.\nDoes that mean to say according to your opinion these numbers do not correspond to the number of children who were actually there?\nA Well, it could happen that the number 58 appeared, and then the next number was 72.\nQ Now, if I understand you correctly, in effect there were fewer children under the care of the Lebensborn that one would have thought from the figures.\nA Yes. Q Can you give us any exact information about the number of children who had come from the Warthegau to Oberweiss?\nThat is to say during the period when you worked there?\nA Well, the largest transport arrived in December 1944. Q And how many children were there in that transport? A Approximately forty children. Q Was that the only transport that arrived while you were working at Oberweiss?\nA No, I believe during the time I was there two transports arrived, \n but I can't remember for certain.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 530, "page_number": "530", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q. These children from Kalisch, were they collected by employees of the Lebensborn, or were these transports carried out by lenders of the Kalisch home?\nA Well, the Kalisch institution sent the escort personnel. Q And if I understood you correctly, Kalisch was not a homo of Lebens born, but was subordinated to whom?\nA I think it was subordinated to the Gau Administration. Q Was it your impression that Lebensborn generally speaking restricted its work to placing children in foster homes; or, did it also have them adopted?\nA Adoption was hardly ever planned. Q As a rule they were placed with foster parents; is that right; they were not adopted; is that right?\nA Yes, that is right. Q When the foster parents were selected, did one apply points of view such as membership of the SS or party membership as such?\nA No. Statistics were worked out and I believe it Was found that there were about ten or fifteen per cent who were members of the SS.\nQ Did you come to hear of any case during your work there where Lebensborn had taken away a child from foster parents because of the foster parent's political unreliability?\nA No. Q When the child had been placed with foster parents, were the foster parents enlightened as to the origin of the children or were they left in the dark on that subject?\nA While I was in Oberweiss the foster parents were submitted the re port from Kalisch, and that was mentioned in those reports as a rule.\nQ Were the foster parents told that possibly if any relatives of the children were to appear they would have to return the children?\nA Yes, in every case they were told that we were still looking for information and documents and that if any relatives were to turn \n up, we would be compelled to take the children away from them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 531, "page_number": "531", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q Under direct examination you mentioned that from Oberweiss to the Central Office at Munich statistical reports were sent every now and them; is that correct?\nA Yes, it is. Q And in those reports the children are supposed to have been classi fied as to their origin.\nNow, I want to put to you that the placing of SO children after all had been completed at the time when you dealt with this work at Oberweiss.\nA That is not quite correct because until the very last SO children could not be placed.\nQ And those were entered in the statistical reports? A They were entered in the statistics. Q This morning you mentioned the case of a child of the name of Sig mund Raschke, a child of half Jewish origin.\nYou used him as an example for the fact that in selecting the children it was not the racial origin but their outward appearance that counted.\nHow then, can you tell us whether in the case of that child Raschke you were concerned with a child whose appearance was typically Nordic or whether he was a child who showed any typically Jewish characteris tics.\nA He was a slim, tall boy; he was dark-haired; he had narrow features, but there were some features, for example, the ears.\nQ What do you mean; what features, the ears. A The ears. Q Well, the features; I mean the features; what kind, Jewish? A Jewish. Q Jewish. Well now, after it had been found that he was a child of Jewish origin, was that child kept in the Lebensborn home or was that child returned to Posen or to Kalisch?\nA No, he was not returned; we kept him and we found him a place as an apprentice.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 532, "page_number": "532", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "COURT 1 CASE 8 Q You found him a place as an apprentice in the Altreich? A No, in the vicinity of Gmunden, in Austria. Q Do you know of cases or can you name us a number of cases where children were given the names of their foster parents once they had been placed with them?\nA No, Counsel, I can't remember properly. Q Do you know how many cases where birth certificates or some documents of that kind were made out for the children?\nA No, I can't tell you for certain. Q You can't tell that for certain. A No, I can't. DR. SCHMIDT: Well, in that case I have no further questions.\n- CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH: (For the defendant Viermetz) Q Witness, this morning you testified that you were in charge of the card files concerning those children who had been taken care of by Lebensborn.\nCan you tell me how many \"O\" children were being taken care of in Lebensborn?\nIn all. A In all about two hundred. Q How many \"T\" children about did Lebensborn look after? A Only a very few; perhaps seven or twelve, something like that. Q And how many SO children did Lebensborn look after? A Approximately twenty. Q Other children who did not come from Germany Proper were not looked after by Lebensborn, were they?\nA I don't know about that. Q Did the defendant Viermatz work in DepartmentR-4? A I don't know; I didn't meet her. Q You didn't meet her? A No, I didn't. Q You did not work together with her, did you? A No, I did not.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 533, "page_number": "533", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "DR. ORTH: Thank you very much; I have no further questions. THE PRESIDENT: Any further questions for this witness by the Defense? Has the Prosecution any further questions? MR. NEELY: Yes, Your Honor. THE PRESIDENT: May I inquire how many questions you have? MR. NEELY: About four, sir.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY: Q Witness, you have just stated that the number which the child had on its card file did not necessarily mean that was the number of children who had been brought to the Lebensborn; for instance, if a child we shall call \"X\" had number 58 that did not necessarily mean that 58 children had been brought to Lebensborn; is that correct?\nA Yes. Q Then how do you account that the child got the number 58 and yet 58 children had not been brought to Lebensborn?\nA In the autumn of 1943 when we were looking through the files many, many lists and files were there, and we were looking for details as to where the children were and naturally we sent inquiries to t he homes, where the children had passed through and we found many names had been reported to Lebensborn but that the children had never appeared at all.\nQ Then the number which was assigned to the child was placed on there by the - we shall say the Race and Settlement Office, as you stated in connection with children who came from Dongus, did they give that number to the child?\nA No. Q Who gave this number to the child? A Well, to begin with I was not concerned with those matters; I did not work on those matters.\nI think all that started in 1942, and apparently at that time all children were provided with numbers which \n were reported automatically; it was only afterward that we looked through all these files and found out what children were actually there and what children were not.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 534, "page_number": "534", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.The question which I have is; Did you in Department 4 assign this number to the child or was it assigned some place else?\nA.The number was already there, and we found that a number of children had never turned up with Lebenborn, and therefore, we took their names off.\nQ.May I interrupt; but this number, say 58, then you feel sure that somewhere there had been 58 children; do you not agree?\nA.Well, how can I explain that?\nDR.SCHMIDT: (For the defendant Tesch):\nI want to object to this question because the witness has already stated the numbers did not correspond to the actual number of children.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think so, Mr. Prosecuting Attorney. Go on to your next question.\nBY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, did you ever hear of any children being placed into foster homes through the Race and Settlement Office?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.In the case of the child which you said was not suitable to be placed into a foster home, because Dr. Ebener had found out that its mother had been subject to epileptic attacks, I would like to know whether this child was sick itself.\nA.The child was very young, and consequently there were no outward manifestations.\nQ.Then, the only reason that it was rejected was because of its mother's medical history; is that correct?\nA.She died of these attacks.\nMR. NEELY:I have one more question, sir.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The film is about to run out; you will have to ask it quickly. The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 535, "page_number": "535", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; proceed. BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, just before the recess I asked you about the child who was not placed in a foster home because its mother died of epilepsy. Do you know what happened to this child after it was refected?\nA.Af far as I am able to remember it was sent back again. However, negotiations were not fully completed.\nQ.Did you ever see any recommendation that this child should be sterilized?\nA.No.\nQ.One more question, witness, and that will be all. You stated that children were not placed with German families because of political reasons. I would like to ask you now were not children, that is German children, from the Greater Reich who were placed with German foster parents, were they not at some time or another; were there some cases where these children were taken away and placed with other German foster parents?\nA.I can't give you any information about that because I did not work in that particular department.\nMR. NEELY:That is all, witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything furthre for the defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to ask the Tribunal something with regard to an organizational matter. In the court prison there, is a witness by the name of Gunther Pancke. This witness was turned over by Denmark to appear here in this case, and on Thursday morning he must be taken back to Denmark. The witness has already been interrogated by the Prosecution and he has already given then an affidavit Further more, for the defendant Schwalm and Hofmann he has been approved by the Military Tribunal as a witness for them. I therefore make the re \n quest that this witness Pancke be called on Wednesday, the 29th of October 1947, us a witness before Military Tribunal I, and that he should be called here by the Prosecution in order to testify.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 536, "page_number": "536", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "I want to give the following reasons for my request. The witness Pancke during the years 1939 and 1940 was chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, and he alone is able to tell us just how the Race and Settlement Main Office was organized in the decisive years at the beginning of the war, and how it was included in the activities of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. We have various documents here by the Proseuction which bear the signature of Pancke; he alone is able to testify regarding that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:See if we can't shorten this some. Is there any objection on the part of the Prosecution?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the prosecution has no objection to this witness Pancke being called by the Defense on Wednesday morning our of order.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, you will be permitted to do so. You will be permitted to do so; unless they call him, you may call him.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have another question in this connection. I ask that I be permitted to interrogate the witness Pancke without the presence of the Prosecution staff. I would like to interrogate him today.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Did you say without the presence of the Prosecution.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Without the presence of a member of the Prosecution staff, just asit has been done up to now, since he has been approved as a witness for me.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What does the Prosecution say to that?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, there is an established procedure here whereby witnesses, even after they have been approved for the Defense, as long as they are prisoners here, the Prosecution is allowed to have a representative at these interrogations, and we do not waive this privilege.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 537, "page_number": "537", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:That is my recollection of the rules. You will be permitted to examine him in the presence of some member of the Prosecution.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have just been informed, Your Honor, that perhaps there was a mistake in the translation. I requested that the witness Pancke be called Wednesday morning. I have just been informed that the Interpreter spoke about Thursday. I only want to correct this mistake.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think it was Wednesday; that was my understanding.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution now wishes to call the witness Ernst Hitzfelf.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nERNSTHITZFELD, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows.\nBY THE PRESIDENT:\nYou will raise your right hand and repeat after me the following oa oath: I swear by God, the Alimghty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n( The witness repeated the oath.)\nYou may be seated.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, when and where were you born?\nA.I was born on the 25th of March, 1903, at Waldkirch, in Baden.\nQ.What education have you had?\nA.I received my education at a public school, and at high school.\nQ.Witness, were you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever a member of the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever a member of the German Armed Foreces?\nA.No, I was assigned to a police unit.\nQ.To which police unit were you assigned?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "ERNST", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 538, "page_number": "538", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.I was assigned to the 12th Police Guard Battalion.\nQ.What was your last rank?\nA.I was an Oberwachtmeister, which is a noncommissioned rank.\nQ.Witness, were you ever in Yougoslavia while serving with this police battalion?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When were you in Yougoslavia, that is what period of time?\nA.From the middle of June, 1941 until March, 1944.\nQ.Under whose command was your unit of police?\nA.The unit was subordinated to the higher SS and police leader at Gratz.\nQ.Witness, while you were in Yougoslavia, did you gain any knowlege as to the deportation of Yougoslav citizens from that country?\nA.Yes. Our unit in part was occupied with the carrying out of the deportations.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 539, "page_number": "539", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Witness, in this connection, did you learn of the deportation of Yugoslavs who were considered by the Germans to be politically unreliable? That is, they were not pro-German?\nA.They were so-called politically unreliable persons.\nQ.And did you learn of a deportation action concerning these persons?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How did you gain this knowledge?\nA.My unit had to escort several transports of these deported people.\nQ.When did this evacuation take place?\nA.It took place from the middle of June 1941 until approximately September or October 1941.\nQ.From what district of Yugoslavia were these people taken, witne\nA.That happened at Marburg on the Drau, and in the vicinity.\nQ.Where were these people taken?\nA.The transports went to Serbia and Creatia.\nQ.Witness, were these people deported from their homes by force, or did they go voluntarily?\nA.They were taken away from their home by force.\nQ.How were these people kept in the areas to which they were take\nA.The camp was in a shcool, in Marburg on the Drau, and they were separated from their surroundings by a barbed-wire fence.\nQ.Witness, how many people were deported in this particular action by your company alone?\nA.There were approximately 8 to 10 thousand persons.\nQ.That is by your company alone?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Approximately how many people would you say were deported altogether during the course of this particular action?\nA.I can't give you the exact figure because other police units \n also were engaged in the same occupation.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 540, "page_number": "540", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Witness, can you give the Tribunal an approximate figure for the total?\nA.In my estimation, the total number amounts to approximately 20,000.\nQ.Witness, what sort of people were deported in this action; that is, were they farmers, merchants, or what?\nA.For the most part, they were the so-called intelligenticia; they were officials, teachers, members of the clergy, town majors, and things of that sort.\nQ.And what was the purpose of this evacuation?\nA.The purpose of their evacutation in my opinion was to prevent that unrest might arise amongst the population.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I have a picture here which I wish the defendant to identify; copies of this picture have been distributed this morning, and I am not therefore introducing this in evidence, but I would like to offer it for identification.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\n(Picture is offered the witness.) BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, is this picture known to you?\nA.Yes, I know the picture, because I, myself, took it.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal when and where you took this picture and what it represents?\nA.I took this picture approximately in June 1941, and it shows a policeman carrying out the seizure decree in a farm- house, the owner of which who was a Mayor for sometime was deported.\nQ.Was this picture taken during the course of this deportation action concerning which you have just testified?\nA.Yes.\nQ.That is, this is the home of one of the persons considered to \n be politically unreliable?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 541, "page_number": "541", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.I haven't quite understood the question.\nQ.That is, this was the home of a so-called politically unreliable person, is that correct? You have just testified, witness, concerning the deportation of people, politically unreliable.\nA.Yes, we were not told any details about the individuals who were dealt with.\nQ.Very well. Your Honor, I should like to wave this picture marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.300.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, let it be so marked.\nDR.HOUSE (for the defendant Lorenz): May it please the Tribunal, I request that these photographs should also be shown to the defense. The Defense have not yet seen them. After all, when the witness is being examined about these things, the pictures should also be shown to the defense.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, 14 copies of this picture were left with the Defense Information Center at 11:30 this morning. However, if defense counsel have not taken these copies, I have a few other photostat copies-not 14, but perhaps three or four, which we are willing to give them at this moment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Let them have some of the copies that you have.\n( Picture is offered the witness.) BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, is this second picture, which on the back bears the numberNO-5293, is this picture known to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, will you please tell the Tribunal when and where this picture was taken and what it represents?\nA.This picture was taken approximately at the same time as the first one, and it shows the **ported people on their way to the assembly \n center.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 542, "page_number": "542", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.Your Honor, I should now like to have this picture, No. NO5293, marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.301.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked.\n( Picture is offered the witness. ) BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, this third picture which on the back bears the number, NO-5291-D, is this third picture known to you?\nA.Yes, it is.\nQ.When and where was this picture taken, witness?\nA.This picture was taken in August of 1941 in Marburg on the Drau, in the yard of the deportation camp.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal, witness, what this picture represents; that is, who are the people shown in this picture?\nA.The pricture shows the preparation of a transport of people who are to be deported.\nQ.Your Honor, I should now like to have this picture, which as Document No.NO-5291-D, marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 302.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, while you were in Yugoslavia, did you gain any knowledge as to the deportation from the border areas of Yugoslavia of all Yugoslavian citizens who were not of German descent?\nA.Yes, I did obtain knowledge of these so-called resettlements. Our unit itself carried out such resettlement.\nQ.Witness, will you please tell the Tribunal from what particular districts these people were deported.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 543, "page_number": "543", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AThese people were deported from the area along the German - Croatian and German-Italian border which existed at that time.\nQWitness, for what reason were these people deported?\nAIt was intended that this border strip was to be only occupied by people of German descent.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt. Your Honor, I reauest that the Prosecutor ask once more when the third picture which he handed us was taken.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may ask the witness that on crossexamination.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I only wanted to clarify a mistake which has apparently been made. If I understood the witness correctly before, this was in August of 1941. However, this picture shows snow on the ground.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will have an opportunity to make any clarification you want to on cross-examination. Go ahead. BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQWitness, I should like to repeat the last question. For what reason were these people, that is, the Yugoslavs, not of German origin, deported from these border areas?\nAIt was intended, according to what we were told, that a border strip was only to be occupied by people of German descent in order to insure complete security in future times.\nQWitness, in connection with this deportation, did you ever hear of the German Settlement Company, that is, the DAG?\nAYes, I did.\nQWitness, who advised the police units as to which farms, shops, and so forth, were to be evacuated?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 544, "page_number": "544", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AThe police units, that is to say, our units, received a number of card files with the names of the persons and the families who were to be deported from our highest superior and, as far as I know, our superior received these cards from the German Settlement Company.\nQWitness, did some people refuse to leave their property?\nAIt sometimes happened that individual families claimed that the mayor of the village had told them that they could stay on their farms.\nQWhat did the police unit do then, witness?\nAWe reported cases of that nature to our superior and our superior passed on the report to the representative of the German Settlement Company who was stationed in that particular area.\nQWitness, were these people eventually deported anyway?\nAIn some cases in spite of everything they were deported.\nQWitness, who would you say had the final decision, therefore, with respect to deciding which people should be deported?\nAI believe that the German Settlement Company, the representative of the German Settlement Company, had to make the final decision about these cases.\nQWitness, how much advance notice were these people given that they would be deported?\nABefore a public announcement was made these people would be notified, approximately two days before.\nQWitness, you mentioned a public announcement. Was that with respect to any specific individuals or merely stating that they were all subject to deportation at any time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 545, "page_number": "545", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AOn this public poster the area was mentioned precisely from which these people were to be deported and there were no restrictions with regard to any individuals.\nQWitness, once this poster had been publicly set up how much notice was then given to the people before they were deported?\nAAfter this poster was displayed the people were not given any particular sort of notification.\nQWell, if the police went to a home and told the people that they were to be deported, how long were they allowed to have in order to gather their clothing and things like that?\nAWell,if their things had not been packed yet we used to give these people up to six hours to pack.\nQWitness, what were these people allowed to take with them?\nAThese people could take along all their personal belongings and this included smaller tools and machines, food, jewelry, clothes, with the exception of the larger pieces of furniture, livestock and things of that sort.\nQWitness, did you ever see any forms, that is, paper forms listing the specific items of property which had to be left behind by these people, that is, in their small establishments or on their farms?\nAYes, I did see forms of that kind and a special commission was to take care of the objects which had remained behind, the house, the fields, the livestock; and then later on, once they had arrived in Germany, these people were to receive a farm of approximately the same size as the one which they had left behind or if they were craftsmen, they were to be compensated by money.\nQWitness, we are speaking now of Yugoslavs who were \n not of German descent.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 546, "page_number": "546", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AWell, these people were Slovenes and other Yugoslavs some of whom had only settled in these areas after 1918.\nQWitness, where were these people taken in this deportation action?\nAThese people were taken to the camp at Reichenburg on the Saale River.\nQWere they taken there by force?\nAYes.\nQHow were they kept there, witness?\nATheir camp was surrounded by barbed wire and it was guarded by SS men.\nQWhat was done with these people then, witness? Were they put to work there or sent elsewhere?\nAFrom this camp at Reichenburg these people were sent away in several large transports into the interior of Germany and here they were divided into separate camps.\nQWitness, do you know in what camps these people were put in Germany?\nAYes. Some of them were sent to Thuringia, to Mecklenburg and others went to camps which were located in Baden.\nQWitness, do you know to what organization these camps you have just mentioned belonged?\nANo, I don't.\nQWitness, approximately how many people were deported by your company alone during the course of this particular action?\nAIn my estimation the figure must be somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand.\nQApproximately how many people would you estimate were deported altogether during the course of this action?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 547, "page_number": "547", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "AI don't know that because other units also took such transports to Germany.\nQWitness, can you give the Tribunal an approximate figure for the total deported during this action?\nTHE PRESIDENT:If he did it would be simply a guess, wouldn't it?\nMR. SCHILLER:Very well. BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQWitness, is this picture which bears on the back the NumberNO-5290-A known to you (handing document to witness)?\nAYes it is.\nQWhen and where was this picture taken?\nAThis picture was taken by me in the Spring of 1942. I took it in the vicinity of (?Bruchfeld) on the Saale River.\nQWitness, will you please tell the Tribunal what this picture represents?\nAThis picture shows a number of resettled persons on their way to the assembly camp.\nQWitness, would you say that these people were the Yugoslavs not of German origin concerning whom you have previously testified?\nAThese people were Slovenes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I ask the witness a question? Who are the people that appear to be in uniform?\nTHE WITNESS:These people wearing uniform are police officials. BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQWitness, is this next picture with the notation on the backNO-5290-B known to you?\nAYes.\nQWhen and where was this picture taken?\nAI took this picture on the same occasion.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SCHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 548, "page_number": "548", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QWitness, would you say then that this again represents an actual picture of the deportation of non-Germans from the border area?\nAYes.\nMR. SCHILLER:Thank you. Your Honors, I should like now to have these two pictures,NO-5290-A and B, marked for identification together, as Prosecution Exhibit No.303.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let them be so marked.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SCHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 549, "page_number": "549", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQWitness, while you were in Yugoslavia, did you gain any knowledge as to the deportation of the members of families of so-called partisans?\nAYes.\nQHow did you gain this knowledge, witness?\nAOn one occasion my unit was used as an escort in the course of an action where the families of partisans were deported.\nQWitness, when did this deportation action take place?\nAThis action took place in August 1942.\nQFrom what areas were these people, and that is these families taken?\nAThese people came from the close vicinity of Celi.\nQWitness, were these families allowed to stay together during the course of this deportation, that is, not all families but members of individual families?\nANo.\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal, witness, what was done with the people between the ages of 18 and 50, approximately?\nAThe people between the ages of 18 to 50 or 55 were segregated from the others and in one collective transport were sent to Auschwitz.\nQWitness, approximately how many people were sent to Auschwitz in this transport?\nAThere must have been approximately 2,000.\nQWitness, what was done with the people who were older than 50 or 55 and with the sick people?\nAThe older people and those who were sick were taken in a special transport and were sent to a camp in Buch, in Bavaria.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 550, "page_number": "550", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QWitness, do you know to whom this camp belonged?\nANo, I don't.\nQApproximately how many people were there who fell in this category?\nAI do not know the exact number but there may have been 700 or 800.\nQWitness, if some people between the ages of 18 and 55 were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and the older and the sick people sent to another camp, what was done with the children?\nAThe children were taken away from their parents at Celi and these children, in turn, were taken away to a camp in a separate transport and this camp was located at Frohnleiten, in Austria in Styria.\nQWitness, were these children separated from their families by force?\nAI assume so.\nQWhy do you assume so, witness?\nAThe children had already been separated from their parents when we took over the transport.\nQWere they already under guard, that is, you took over as a guard, did you not, witness?\nAYes.\nQAnd were the children already under guard before you came there?\nAThey were already under guard.\nQWitness, for what reason were these children separated from their families?\nAI believe that it was not intended to kill them, and as I heard later on it was planned that these children were to be turned over to German families.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 551, "page_number": "551", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "QTo be brought up as Germans, witness?\nAYes, that is what I was told.\nQWitness, approximately how many children were involved in this action?\nAThere must have been 200 or 250.\nQWitness, you have stated a moment ago that you belonged to the guard which escorted this transport and that the children were taken to Frohnleiten, Austria, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQYou also stated that they were taken to a camp at Krohnlagen Austria. Do you know to whom this camp belongs?\nAAs far as I am still able to recall that, it was a camp which belonged to VOMI.\nQWitness, is this picture which bears on the back the numberNO 5289-B known to you?\nAYes.\nQWhen and where was this picture taken?\nAThis picture was taken on the 11th of August 1942 at Frohnleiten.\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal what this picture represents?\nAThis picture shows how the children's transport was assembled to march into the camp.\nQWitness, is this picture which boars on the back the numberNO 5289-A known to you?\nAYes.\nQWhen and where was this picture taken?\nAThis picture was also taken on the 11th of August 1942 at the railroad station of Frohnleiten.\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal what this picture represents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 552, "page_number": "552", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.This picture shows the arrival of the train at Frohnleiten and it shows the children getting off the train.\nQ.Witness, is this picture which bears on the back the number NO-5289-C known to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, when and where was this picture taken?\nA.This picture also was taken on the 11th of August, 1942 at the railroad station at Frohnleiten.\nQ.Witness, will you please tell the Tribunal what this picture represents?\nA.This picture shows some of the infants, the youngest of whom was two months old.\nQ.Witness, these are the children whom you mentioned as having been taken from their families and being brought to Frohnleiten, Austria; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, I should like to have these pictures, numberNO-5289-A, B and C, marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 304.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let them be so marked.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense for this witness?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. HESSE: (Attorney for the defendant Lorenz)\nQ.Witness, I didn't understand quite correctly what sort of children these were individually. Did they come from two different areas, Marburg, Zilly or, just where did they come from?\nA.They were the children of partisans who had either been shot or fled, and all these children were collected in one single action.\nQ.From what area did they come?\nA.They came from the vicinity of Zilly.\nQ.You told us before in the course of your direct examination \n that these children had been taken away from their parents.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 553, "page_number": "553", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Just where did you obtain this knowledge?\nA.When we took over the transport at the school in Zilly, we inquired and we were told that the children had been taken away from their parents and that it had happened on the day before.\nQ.Who told you that?\nA.The comrades who guarded this school until the time that we came, and they had been present when these people were separated from their parents.\nQ.In reply to another question of mine you stated that some of the parents of these children had been shot or that they had escaped.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore, you cannot say that all of the children's parents were still alive.\nA.Well, the people who had been killed were only individual members of the families.\nQ.Can you state positively that these infants lying in the baskets had been taken away from their parents and that the parents were still alive?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where did you obtain that knowledge?\nA.We ourselves, as escorts, took part in this action.\nQ.You misunderstood me; I am now only referring to the infants, who are lying in the baskets. It is something especially brutal, to take away these infants from their mothers and that is why I asked you the precise question as to how you know about it; were you present when these infants were taken away from their parents?\nA.I was present; we took these families to the camp; and afterwards we were told by our comrades that these children had been taken away from their parents. We did not have any doubt that their statements were correct.\nQ.Therefore, you were not an eye-witness to that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 554, "page_number": "554", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "A.Not directly; no, I was not an eye-witness.\nQ.Or, did you also take a child away from its mother?\nA.No, all that had happened before.\nQ.Who took these children to the VOMI camps?\nA.Red Cross nurses went along, and first aid men, and there were six policemen as escort-guards.\nQ.Under whose orders were the escort; to what organization did they belong? To the Red Gross or.....?\nA.Yes, we had Red Cross nurses; and first aid men; they came from the Red Cross in Zilly.\nQ.How were these people accommodated; did they travel in cattle trucks or passengers cars?\nA.Well, they were just passenger cars.\nQ.Were these children taken care of during the transport?\nA.Yes. No particular incident occurred; in an emergency the Red Cross nurses and the first aid men would have taken care of them.\nQ.Do you know by whose orders these children were taken to VOMI camps?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether any negotiations took place between officials of the VOMI and the police agencies?\nA.No.\nQ.To whom was the camp, the school at Zilly, subordinated? To put the question more precisely, was this camp also subordinated to VOMI?\nA.I don't know that; however, I don't think so.\nQ.For what reasons were these people deported?\nA.The deportations took place in order to establish so-tospeak a living frontier wall.\nQ.Were you told that these were ethnic Germans? What were you told?\nA.The deported people were Slovenes, usually they were Slovenes, and so-called ethnic Germans were resettled.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 555, "page_number": "555", "date": "27 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-27", "text": "Q.What were you told about what was to be done with these children?\nA.Officially we were not given any information at all. However, in the camp at Frohnleiten, I made inquiries from the staff of the camp and I was given the information that these children in a very short time would be taken into German families.\nQ.What rank did you have?\nA.I was Oberwachtmeister of the Reserve, a noncommissioned grade.\nDR. HESSE:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 28 October 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HESSE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 556, "page_number": "556", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 28 October 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nMay it please your Honors, all defendants are present in the court room.\nThe persons in the court room will be seated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness.\nERNST HITZFELD -- Resumed. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK (for the defendant Greifelt):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, you told us yesterday about the evacuation measures in Jugoslavia. Would you be please be kind enough and clarify these things once more. If I understood you correctly then three different actions took place. Isn't that right? The first one was the evacuation of a group of members of the intelligentsia profession from June to November 1941 which were sent to Croatia, and Serbia, the beginning was the deportation of a border strip and these people were sent to the Reich, and canyou give me the exact time when that took place?\nA.The first phase of the evacuation of so-called politically unreliable people took place from the middle of June 1941 until approximately September or early October 1941. The evacuation of the second group of people, the evacuation of a border strip along the then German-Croatian \n COURT I CASE VIII and German-Italian border took place from the fall of 1941 until the fall of 1942.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 557, "page_number": "557", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Of course there were certain intervals between that.\nQ.And the third action was that the action concering families of partisans which if I am not mistaken took place in the second half of the year 1942, to be exact in August?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.You told us yesterday that the deportation measures had fundamentally taken place under the orders of the Higher SS Police Leader at Graz. Did I understand you correctly?\nA.That is probably not quite correct in this form, Our unit or the police units which were stationed in the then lower Styria were subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader at Graz.\nQ.Has there been such a Higher SS and police Leader? Wasn't there only an Inspector of the Security Police and the SD?\nA.No, we only had to deal with the Higher SS and Police Leader in Graz.\nQ.Who had the power in that territory? Who was in charge of the administration there besides from the Police?\nA.That was an agency at Maribor on Drau.\nQ.What was the designation of that office?\nA.I don't know that any more; I believe it was a civil Governor but I don't know his exact title any more.\nQ.You probably mean the chief of the civilian administration.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, may I again go briefly into the individual actions. Who has ordered this first action to be carried out according to your opinion?\nA.It was not known to us just who ordered that action. We were only executing orders in that case.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 558, "page_number": "558", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.The Prosecution yesterday showed a picture which was taken by you where it was shown just how a decree of seizure was posted up on a house. Who has signed this decree?\nA.It was the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. I believe that was his title.\nQ.In this connection you also spoke yesterday about the German Settlement Company. Did this company come to your attention and can you give us any details about it.\nA.This German Settlement Company only came to my attention when the second group was deported. That was when the border strip was evacuated of people.\nQ.I am now coming to the second action. Can you tell us any details about the area, and also the size of the area concerned in that action?\nA.Yes, since my unit was not the only one which was active there, I cannot tell you the exact extent of the area.\nQ/ In this connection did you ever hear the term of Save-Sottla strip?\nA.No.\nQ.Yesterday you told us that this measure was carried out in order to make the border land secure. Was there any specific cause for that? Was there any unrest in that border area before?\nA.On the other side of the border there was some serious Partisan unrest.\nQ.Do you know or can you explain why the expulsion of that group took place at the time but why they were not sent to Croatia like the first group?\nA.I assume that this was done because this expulsion was not to be a punitive measure, to be but was supposed to be a measure for State political reasons as was \n COURT I CASE VIII announced in the roster.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 559, "page_number": "559", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Who gave you orders in this case?\nA.We received our orders from our superior agency.\nQ.Do you know where this agency received its orders?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.You also told us yesterday when you were discussing this action that the people were given some previous notice about the deportation, did I understand you correctly?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You further stated that on the whole they were able to take along their movable belongings. Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you stated that everything that they had to leave behind was entered in lists so that later they couls be given some compensation?\nA.Yes, at the beginning these things were handled according to regulations, later on I don't know whether this was the case.\nQ.And these people then were sent to the camp at Reichenburg on the Save River. Besides the fact that they were surrounded by barbed wire, do you know whether they were treated very badly there.\nA.I don't know that because we did not have anything to do with this camp.\nQ.It varied; that varied from several days until two or three weeks, until a new transport could be organized.\nQ.Altogether they only stayed there for a very short time; it was only a transit camp?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know in what form the transports went on from that camp? Were passenger trains used or were freight \n COURT I CASE VIII cars used?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 560, "page_number": "560", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No, regular passenger cars were used and there would also be freight cars going alone to take along the people's belongings.\nQ.In summing up you can confirm to us that this measure was taken because it had been ordered by Higher agencies for political and military reasons and that the people were rather generously and considerately treated. No more was taken away from them than had to be taken away?\nA.Yes, apart from the deportation from the homeland, the measures were carried out in a rather considerate manner.\nQ.Witness, can you please answer three questions of mine in regard to the third action. In what area did the deportation of families of Partisans take place?\nA.That was a rather big area; in the close and further vicinity of Cilli.\nQ.Was a lot of fighting going on there before?\nA.You can't call it fighting exactly; small skirmishes took place, robberies, and sometimes murders took place.\nQ.Who issued the order at that phase? Did that come to your knowledge?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you, no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 561, "page_number": "561", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "BY DR. MAAS (For the defendant Schwalm):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, what profession did you have prior to the war?\nA.I was a book salesman.\nQ.Therefore, you are not by profession a police official?\nA.No.\nQ.Where did you carry out your profession?\nA.Frankfurt on Main.\nQ.Did you belong to any organizations of the Party or any affiliated organizations?\nA.Not aside from the N. S. V.\nQ.Were you a member of the NSKK or SA?\nA.No.\nQ.In your direct examination you testified yesterday with regard to the actions and you gave individual figures. I would like to ask you once more in that connection how many people were deported in the course of the first action according to your estimation as a total figure?\nA.According to my estimation, altogether approximately 20,000 people were deported.\nQ.And how many people were deported by your particular unit?\nA.That may have been approximately half of the total figure.\nQ.I would also like to ask you, did you give the Prosecution any different figures before?\nA.Not as far as I know.\nQ.I have an affidavit, only in the English language though, which was given by you, and if I correctly understood the contents of this affidavit, then at the time you stated that your particular unit in the course of the first action had helped in deporting 600 to 800 people. Of course there is a considerable difference, whether I say 10,000 or whether before I said 600 or 800. I can't make you say anything definite with regard to the total figure because you may not have the actual over-all picture; however, the figure in which your unit directly participated, I \n may ask for some decisive information.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 562, "page_number": "562", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Now, which figure is correct?\nA.Our unit helped in deporting approximately 8,00 to 10,000 people in transports to Serbia and Croatia. In this connection I never mentioned any other figures.\nQ.Can't you tell me why you gave a different figure before?\nA.There must be a mistake here. In individual transports there were 800 to 1,200 people and altogether approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people were deported by my unit. Of course I can't give you any exact figures.\nQ.Just how many transports did you carry out with your unit during the first action?\nA.I don't know how many transports were carried out by my particular unit. I only took part in one transport.\nQ.If you yourself were only present at one transport, how is it that you can give us a figure of how many people were deported by your unit?\nA.According to my recollection two transports would leave every week and they would have an average strength of approximately 1,000. Over several weeks, that would be the figure. Of course the other unut which was stationed at Maribor - how many people they deported I don't know.\nQ.How long did such a transport take to arrive at its destination?\nA.That varied according to the distance.\nQ.I want to ask you a specific question; just how long did the transport take when you were present in the first action?\nA.To go to the destination and back took approximately five days. That included our stay there.\nQ.And the entire first action took up approximately eight weeks?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did you do during the remaining time?\nA.During the first weeks the transport were not sent away yet, but people were only assembled in the schools and camps at Maribor. In the meantime we guarded this camp.\nQ.You were a guard at that camp?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 563, "page_number": "563", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.You testified that the first transport consisted of people who were politically unreliable. How was it determined that they were politically unreliable?\nA.That was not our duty to find that out. We were only told that these people were so-called politically unreliable persons.\nQ.As far as the first action was concerned, were some of the deported people sent to Germany?\nA.No.\nQ.Who actually had the executive authority with regard to the entire action; you don't know?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the SS used in the course of these actions?\nA.No, the SS was only used in order to guard the camp at Reichenburg and they had the higher supervision at the camp at Maribor.\nQ.The first and the second action overlapped as far as the time factor is concerned, do they?\nA.No, the second action followed after the first one.\nQ.In the case of the children of whom you gave such a detailed description yesterday, these children came from the third action and only the third action?\nA.Yes, they came only from the third action.\nQ.Can you say that the comrades who told you as you described to us yesterday, that the children had been taken away from their parents, can you say that these comrades were eye-witnesses of these incidents?\nA.Yes, they were eye-witnesses.\nQ.Just what did the comrades tell you about the details of this action?\nA.My comrades told us upon our questioning just how the parents acted when this was done to them. They were horrified of course and many of them cried when the children were taken away from them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 564, "page_number": "564", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.However, you stated yesterday that for the most part those children were taken away whose relatives had been shot or had escaped. This testimony is contradictory; because if the families had escaped, it is quite probably that they left the children behind and after all you can't take the children away from their parents when they are absent; just as you can't take them away from the dead. How do you explain this contradiction?\nA.That is not a contradiction at all. In the case of the escaped relatives or these who had been shot they were only individual members of such families. In this case it was either thefather or the son who had been shot as partisans or communists or from whom it was known for certain that they were with the partisans.\nQ.Since you were not an eye-witness to these incidents, how can you say that these children whom you are referring to were the children whose father was shot. These are conclusions or opinions; however, these are not facts.\nA.They are facts, since I myself participated in this action when these families were taken away and after all when that happened, the children were still with the families. Several days later we took away these children by themselves.\nQ.Were you there when these children were separated from the families? Did you know at all what child belonged to what father and what mother?\nA.We did not know that precisely in individual cases because after all we had only seen their parents for a half hour or an hour. However, we still could remember individual children from the transport from the places to here they lived in the village when we took them to the collecting point.\nQ.Were you present there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.According to your first description, for the most part only those children were concerned who in a certain way did not have any family \n ties any more because their parents were dead or because their parents had escaped or who for other were not with their parents any more and, therefore, needed somebody to take care of them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 565, "page_number": "565", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No, I can only repeat that I myself was present when the entire families, with the exception of the family member who had escaped or who had been shot, were fetched away, and how then three or four days later we took the children alone without any members of their family to the camp at Frohnleiten.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 566, "page_number": "566", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Therefore you are trying to say that at the time you were able to determine the family membership of persons; you believe that you were able to determine the parents of one particular child who had been separated from his father and that you could do this in the group of about a thousand persons that you took.\nA.I am not talking about the mass here, but I am talking about the individual families in whose cases I was present when they were arrested, in their homes. Furthermore, I don't doubt the statements of my comrades from other units.\nQ.Were you personally in agreement with these measures?\nA.No.\nQ.What was your opinion about it at the time?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. That doesn't make any difference; what his opinion might have been will illustrate no facts in this case. Let's get at the facts.\nDR. MAAS:I withdraw this question, Your Honor.\nQ.In reply to my questions you have stated that the SS had the highest supervision at the camp Maribor. Do you know what unifroms were worn by the Security Police in action?\nA.No. I don't remember.\nQ.Therefore, you cannot say with certainty whether these people were members of the Security Police or the SS.\nA.As far as I am able to recall both institutions participated in that action. After all I can remember quite clearly that there were SS men in the camp.\nQ.Could you not have confused the SS people with members of the Security Police if you didn't know their uniforms? Then after all you cannot say that this person is a member of the SS and the other is a member of the SD, of the Security Police.\nA.I only know the uniforms of the SS.\nQ.Therefore, you don't know the difference between the \n uniform of the SS and the uniform of the Security Police.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 567, "page_number": "567", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No.\nQ.I must put something else to you. It was put to you yesterday already, but I want to do this as a matter of form.\nYesterday you said that one picture of of the camp at Maribor was taken in August , 1941.\nNow it is quite apparent from this picture that snow was on the ground at the time.\nTherefore, to that extent your testimony cannot be correct; or, do you want to claim that at Maribor there was snow on the ground in August?\nA.No, I am not claiming that at all. This is a mistake because this is not snow, but this is sand in the glowing heat of the sun.\nThat is also evident from the fact that there are various men standing around without blouses or jackets, and the women are using some protection from the sun; they have umbrellas over them.\nQ.Are you trying to claim by that on the panels of the trucks and the roofs there is also sand?\nA.These are tents from a prisoner of war camp, and they would reflect that color.\nAfter all it is impossible that this is winter because at the latest, early October, we left Maribor.\nQ.May I point out to you that on the window sills, according to your description there is also sand?\nA.It is probable that these are reflections; or, it may be the white color of the window frames.\nQ.Do you claim that you are a good photographer?\nA.I don't claim that at all; I am not. However, my camera was only a simple box camera and of course I was unable to take very clear pictures.\nDR. MAAS:Well, the picture actually speaks for itself. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions on the part of the Defense?\nAnything else from the Prosecution?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 568, "page_number": "568", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nYour Honor, I feel that this picture speaks for itself and we will therefore not go into any further details whether it was taken in winter or summer. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, who actually was in charge of the police units?\nA.The police units in the vicinity of Maribor on the Drau River, which was called Lower Styria at the time, were subordinated to the higher SS and police leader at Graz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It seems to me like you have been over that, Mr. Prosecutor.\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor. I merely would like to know the name of the witnesses' superior officer and of the higher SS and police leader.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, ask him and let's move on. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.What was the name of your superior officer?\nA.My superior officer was a captain by the name of Schmutzler, and he in turn was subordinate to a Major Maiwald.\nQ.Very well. In connection with the first evacuation, was this, that is the evacuation of those considered to be politically unreliable, did the Prosecution ever suggest any figures to you?\nA.No.\nQ.In your affidavit given to the Prosecution at an earlier date, witness, did you not say that each transport of these politically unreliable persons\nTHE PRESIDENT:The affidavit will show what it says.\nMR. SHILLER:Since we have put the witness on the stand personally, we are not introducing the affidavit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Then you will be denied the use of what is in it. I will not let you prove the contents of the affidavit.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 569, "page_number": "569", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in connection with this first evacuation action were these people all transported at once or were there several transports?\nA.There was a large number of transports.\nQ.And how many persons would you say were there in each transport?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He has answered that question very definitely already.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor. Your Honor,I have here several posters and seals which were in the possession of the witness, and the Prosecution has been unable due to mechanical difficulties to process these as yet. I would like if the Tribunal would give permission merely to have the witness identify them at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.This is Document numberNO-5247; it is a poster. I will not go into the details, Your Honor. Witness, is this poster known to you?\nA.Yes, it is.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal during the course of which action you procured this poster?\nA.This poster was used in the second action in villages to which it applied; it was publicly displayed there in the course of the action. That is why I was able to obtain a copy of it.\nQ.For the second action, witness, you mean the deportation of persons; Yugoslavs not of German descent; is that correct?\nTHE PRESIDENT:There is no use to go over with him again what he has already described; he has described what the second action was.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor. I should like to have this Document No.NO-5247marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 305.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 570, "page_number": "570", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.This is Document No.NO-5248, consisting of certain regulations. Witness, is this document known to you?\nA.Yes, it is.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal during the course of which action you procured this document ?\nA.This document also deals with the second action.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like to have Document No. NO5248 marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.306.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.This is Document No.NO-5249, a certain seal. Witness, is this document known to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal during the course of which action you procured this document?\nA.This document is a seal of the Security Police which was used in the first action in the course of the seizures of the property of socalled politically unreliable people. They were placed on the keyholes of the particular houses.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well. Your Honors, I should like to have Document No.NO-5249marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 307.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.This is Document No.NO-5250, consisting of a certain proclamation. Witness, is this document known to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal during the course of which action you obtained this document?\nA.This document pertains to the first action.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 571, "page_number": "571", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Very well. Your Honors, I should like to have Document No.NO-5250marked for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 308.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let it be so marked.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the defense. Let the witness retire from the stand.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 572, "page_number": "572", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:May I now request the high Tribunal to call Hans Ehlich as a witness for the Prosecution.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; let the witness come to the stand.\nHANSEHLICH: a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nYou will raise your right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, what is your name.\nA.Hans Ehlich.\nQ.When were you born?\nA.I was born on the 1st of July, 1901.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.In Leipzig.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you join the SS?\nA.In the year 1932.\nQ.What rank did you attain in the SS?\nA.In the SS I last had the rank of Standartenfuehrer.\nQ.What was your profession prior to the time when you joined the SS?\nA.Before I joined the SS I was a physician.\nQ.When did you become a member of the RSHA?\nA.On the 1st of February, 1932 I joined the SD., the Security Service on a full time basis.\nQ.What position did you hold in the Reich Security Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HANS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 573, "page_number": "573", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.In the RSHA, Office III, I was first the expert for racial policy, and public health, and from the end of March, 1940 on, I was first head of the department and then I was the Group Leader for the ethnic questions and public health.\nQ.Were you chief of Amt III-B of the RSHA?\nA.I was in charge of the Group III-B of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.How long were you chief of Ant III-B?\nA.From March 1940 until the end of the war.\nQ.What functions were performed by Amt III-B?\nA.Office, Group III-B and to take care of the intelligence tasks in the following fields: In Department III-B-1 questions of Germanic and German matters were taken care of; German national groups abroad; questions of reGermanization, of the DVL, the German People's List; then ethnic questions of the territories which were occupied during the war, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, in part France. Then, we had Department III-B-2. In this department they dealt with questions of alien folkdom; with questions of the following ethnic groups: Estonians, Latvians, Lithouanians, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Slovenes; these are the most important ones. Department III-B-3 dealt with questions of public health and population policy. Department III-B-4 dealt with questions of nationality in general, citizenship matters; and the immigration, EWC, and questions of naturalization.\nQ.Did any working relationships exist between your office and the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.With which members of the Main Staff Office did you have contact?\nA.I would like to sub-divide this into those \n COURT I CASE VIII collaborators of the Main Staff Office with whom I was in constant contact and those with whom I only had occasional official contacts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 574, "page_number": "574", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "I had constant contact, as far as our work was concerned, with Dr. Fehndrich, Schubert, Dr. Stier, Dr. Betke, then Dr. Wirsich. These are the main ones with whom I had contact for the most part. I would have occasional working contacts, or I would meet in the course of conferences or discussions;-the following: Greifelt, Greutz, Professor Meyer, Attorney Goetz, and I think that is all.\nQ.In what matters did Amt Group III-B and the Main Staff Office work together?\nA.The working contact between my group III-B and the Main Staff Office consisted for once of in the fact that the intelligence reports and information which the SD received from these spheres of work which the Staff Main Office handled would be reported and submitted there. Further more, that I myself or my collaborators would attend conferences which dealt with these subject matters. Furthermore, I myself as representative of the chief of the Security Police and as an associate on the supreme classification authority for racial classification was a member of the D.V.L.\nQ.Witness, my question was: in respect to what matters, what affairs did Amt III-B and the Main Staff Office work together?\nA.The spheres of work in which this contact existed were as follows: Questions of resettlement, questions of expulsion, questions of re-Germanization, questions pertaining to the DVL, the German People's List and questions of citizenship and naturalization.\nQ.What did you have to do with the defendant Greifelt?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 575, "page_number": "575", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.The principle contact which I had with the defendant Greifelt consisted of the fact that he was the chairman of the chief court of racial classification, of the German People's List, for which I was active as an associate. Furthermore, I used to meet him on the occasion of various conferences which dealt with individual spheres of work which I have mentioned before.\nQ.In what respect did you to deal with the defendant Greutz?\nA.I did not see Greutz very frequently, but occasionally I would discuss the same questions with him, but with the exception of questions concerning the supreme court for the racial classification.\nQ.In what respects did you have to deal with the defendant Meyer?\nA.One cannot speak of negotiations there. But here we of the intelligence service were interested in the question of what work was done by Professor Meyer in the planning office, so that we met occasionally, perhaps two or three times. We would go to see him, and there we would take a look at his planning work.\nQ.Why were you interested in the planning work of the defendant Meyer?\nA.Because the planning work which was carried out in the Main Staff Office was connected with the general development of the incorporated eastern territories, and these things were closely connected with the ethnic questions which we in the intelligence service had to deal with.\nQ.Witness, are you familiar with the so-called general plan east?\nA.Yes, I can recall that this General plan East in large outlines.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 576, "page_number": "576", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Was General Plan East one plan; or, did it consist of two plans?\nA.As far as I am able to recall, the General Plan East consisted of a plan for the near futrue and a plan for the distant future.\nQ.Can you explain the immediate plan and the longdistance plan?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 577, "page_number": "577", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "AYes. The immediate plan, as far as I am able to recall, dealt with the questions which were closest at hand as far as the time was concerned, of expulsions and resettlement in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. It was a plan for the closest brief period of time, whilst the long distance plan dealt with fundamental questions of the entire population of the Eastern Territories and resettlement there.\nQTo what extent was the General Plan East carried out?\nAThe General Plan East was in my opinion only carried out as far as the immediate plan was concerned.\nQCan you tell us in which territories the plan was carried out?\nAThis plan was carried out only in the incorporated Eastern territories.\nQWas it also carried out in the so-called Government General?\nAI believe that the resettlement measures which were carried out in the Government General, were not carried out within the scope of the General Plan East, but they were carried out as special measures.\nQWitness, did you have anything to do with the defendant Huebner?\nAThe defendant Huebner is known to me, or let me say I know about him. I know that he was assigned to the Warthe District, or the Warthe Gau, and I may have seen him there on one or two occasions. However, I did not have any direct official contact with him.\nQWhat was the position of the defendant Huebner in Warthe Gau?\nAAs far as I am informed, he must first have dealt with the tasks of the Race and Settlement Main Office;", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 578, "page_number": "578", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "afterwards, later on, he was the staff officer of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQHow would you describe the position of a staff leader for RKFVD?\nAIt is very difficult to answer that question in general because the tasks of a staff leader were not always firmly determined. Actually, the tasks of a staff leader, normally, are those of the organizational and technical administration of an agency. However, beyond that, there were also staff leaders who worked in professional fields of work. To what extent this applies to Huebner is very difficult for mo to say.\nQDo you know or don't you know whether the defendant Huebner carried out the directions given to him by the Main Staff Office in regard to deportation of Poles and resettlement of ethnic Germans and other subject matters?\nAWell, if he was a representative of the Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Warthegau, the Warthe District, then of course he must have dealt with the execution of orders which had been issued by the central agencies.\nQWith which members of VOMI did you have to do?\nAIn this case also I would like to differentiate between the persons with whom had contact as far as our work was concerned, and those with whom I only had occasional contact. My group III-B had constant contact, as far as my work was concerned -- that is, not only I personally, but also the rest of my group, with the following persons: Behrens, Kubitz, Riemann, Brueckner, and occasionally contact with Lorenz, Ellermaier, and Radunski. I believe that were the main people.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 579, "page_number": "579", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Course I Case VIII\nQIn regard to what matters did you have to deal with VOMI?\nAWe had contact with VOMI in questions concerning the German ethnic groups, secondly in questions pertaining to German folkdom in the territories which were occupied during the war, then, also in questions pertaining to the work of national security.\nQWhat were the problems or questions concerning Voelkische Schutzarbeit?\nAThe problems of Voelkische Schutzarbeit were once, the education of ethnic Germans into an attitude which would respect German traits and observe German customs and certain tasks within the scope of re-education of people of German descent from the occupied territories to become Germans again.\nQDid this education of people from other countries include Germanization?\nAIt probably was the case that originally a plan, or perhaps an order, existed to that effect, that the care of people who were suitable for re-Germanization, with regard to re-education as Germans, was to be carried out by the VOMI. However, as far as I can remember, this was never carried out in practice because this task was taken over later by the NSDAP, for the party had stated that it was solely able and competent to re-educate and administer to people.\nQDo you mean to say that VOMI was never consulted in regard to matters concerning Germanization, DVL?\nANo, that was not what I was trying to say at all. VOMI, for example, certainly participated in discussions which pertained to these questions, and it would comment in regard to these questions. However, I was only trying to say that the execution of these measures, as far as the education of these people was able to take place at all during the war, \n was not carried out by VOMI.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 580, "page_number": "580", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QWitness, in regard to what matters did you have to deal with the defendant Brueckner?\nAThe worked together with the defendant Brueckner, first of all, because of the fact that he was present in the course of the discussions which concerned the subjects which I mentioned before. In these discussions we would discuss questions of the Voelkische Schutzarbeit with him, which was part of his work.\nQDo you remember whether you had to deal with him in regard to deportation of Luxembourgians, Alsatians, Lorrainians, and Slovenes?\nAYes.\nQWitness, did Amt III-B have any working relationship with the SS Race and Settlement Office?\nAYes.\nQWhat was it?\nAThe working relationship between Group III-B and the Race and Settlement Main Office consisted, for the most part, of a connection with the Race Office.\nQCan you tell us with which members of the SS Race and Settlement Office you had to deal?\nAYes. In this connection I would like to differentiate in the same way between those collaborators with whom we had constant contact, and those persons with whom we only dealt occasionally. A certain regular contact existed with the members of the Race Office. That was Schulz and Hauwers. We would have occasional contact with Hofmann, Hildebrandt and Schwalm.\nQCan you enumerate the subject matters in regard to which you have to deal with the SS Race and Settlement Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 581, "page_number": "581", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "AYes. Here we dealt with the spheres of work in which the Race and Settlement Main Office was interpolated because of the racial examinations, and that was the case with the activities of the EWZ, the resettlement agency, and all the other re-Germanization measures.\nQDid you say EWZ, Einwanderer Zentrale?\nAYes, I did.\nQDoes that concern the resettlement of the ethnic Germans, racial examination?\nANo. EWZ dealt with the registration and naturalization of the ethnic Germans who had returned and been resettled from other countries.\nQWitness, you were -\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 582, "page_number": "582", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, can you tell us in what respect racial examinations were carried out?\nAYes. Racial examinations were carried out amongst the resettlers within the framework of the EWZ, of the UWZ, in the case of resettled Poles, in the re-Germanization procedure, generally speaking; then, in cases when citizenship was granted.\nQDo you mean in connection with DVL?\nADVL, yes. I had forgotten that. That is right. That is also part of it, also in the scope of the DVL, in certain cases.\nQDo you remember whether racial examinations were carried out in connection with sexual intercourse between Poles and Germans?\nAYes, indeed, they were also carried out. I had summarized that before when I used the term \"re-Germanization\", because those examinations were also carried out in respect to possible re-Germanization.\nQDo you remember whether racial examinations were carried out when children were born to Eastern workers?\nAYes. There must have been decrees according to which such racial examinations were to take place in case one of the parents was German.\nQWitness, what contacts did you have with the defendant Hofmann?\nAThey were only occasional contacts at meetings and discussions of a general nature in connection with the German folkdom work.\nQDid you discuss with the defendant Hofmann the racial examinations you mentioned before?\nAI cannot remember details of the conferences after five or six years, but as far as problems arose, they were mentioned, yes.\nQWhat contacts did you have with the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAWe had the same contacts at the time when he was Chief of the RUSHA but I knew him prior to that time; that is to say, from the period of \n time when he was Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig - West Prussia.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 583, "page_number": "583", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QDid you have to deal with the defendant Hildebrandt while he was Higher SS and Police Leader fer Danzig - West Prussia?\nAYes.\nQ In regard to what matters?\nQAt the time when Hildebrandt was in Danzig - West Prussia, he did have great difficulties with the Gauleiter Forster there, concerning Forster's folkdom policy which was tended to an extremely severe reGermanization of Poles In connection with the DVL, the German People's List. Hildebrandt at the time had asked the SD that we should oppose this pure Germanization policy of Forster's in reports to be sent to other agencies, and this also was done by us. That was our actual collaboration while he was in Danzig -West Prussia.\nQWitness, did you have to deal with the defendant Hildebrandt while he had a special mission in Russia?\nANo.\nQ Witness, did you have to deal with the defendant Schwalm?\nAYes. First of all, at the period of time during which he was at the head of the agency of Litzmannstadt, of the RUSHA, the first reason was because, for a certain period of time, the racial examinations in the EWZ were also directed from there and also because at the time we were generally interested in the resettlement questions through the EWZ in Litzmannstadt, and later on, when he was Staff Leader in the RUSHA, not often, but occasionally in connection with the general question which I mentioned in connection with Hofmann.\nQIn other words, if I understand correctly, the defendant Schwalm was in charge of racial examinations in EWZ as well as in UWZ in Lodz?\nAWell, yes, he was in the EWZ not in charge of the racial examinations but of the EWZ; the RUSHA, the Agency of Litzmannstadt sent special examiners to the EWZ who were working there and the assignment of racial examiners who were carrying out the examination that was part of Schwalm's former tasks.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 584, "page_number": "584", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QAnd the same applies to UWZ?\nA No, as far as the UWZ was concerned, organizationally it was somehow different. Because here where the racial examinations were carried out by the agency at Litzmannstadt the position was different from that within the EWZ. Here also the racial examiners of the RUSHA worked but the RUSHA had a certain task which differed from that of the EWZ, because apart from the racial classifications they also had to carry out classifications of these families from the political, social and economic points of view which were reported through the various channels to the Staff Main Office.\nQDid defendant Schwalm supervise all these activities?\nAHe was in charge of the outside agency of Litzmannstadt, and as such I was not working in Litzmannstadt myself - as I only went there on official trips - he was in charge there, and he had the supervision there.\nQWe are coming now to different subject matters. Was the resettlement of ethnic Germans closely connected with the expulsion and deportation of Poles from the incorporated territories?\nAThe resettlement, as such, was not directly connected with the deportation of Poles; that the resettlement - that is to say, the settling of all of these people in one of these eastern territories as far as not sufficient accommodation possibilities for these resettlers was available, they were also connected with the previous deportation of Poles.\nQIf I understand you correctly, you are using two German terms: Umsiedlung and Ansiedlung; and you mean by \"Umsiedlung\", the registration of ethnic Germans, and the fact that they were brought to VOMI camps; and by \"Ansiedlung\", you mean the process of actually resettling them in the incorporated territories. Is that correct?\nAYes, generally speaking that is correct. These were the terms used at the time in all the decrees and regulations. \"Umsiedlung\", was the registration - was the procedure from the moment they were register \n ed in their old former place of living until they were actually brought to the camps in Germany and made citizens; and from then on, the procedure was called \"Ansiedlung\" - in other words, the process of resettling them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 585, "page_number": "585", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QWill you now explain to the Court, please, how the deportation of Poles was connected with the actual resettling of ethnic Germans in the incorporated territories?\nAJust a moment, please. I believe there was a slight translation mistake. If I understood you correctly, Mr. Prosecutor, you said \"Poles\", and I was just told that something was done with the resettlement of Jews. Would you like to repeat your question?\nQWould you please explain to the Court how the deportation of Poles from the incorporated territories was connected with the actual resettling of ethnic Germans?\nAIt was connected in so far as the people who were being resettled had been brought to the resettlement camps. After their transportation to camps they could only be accommodated when prior to that, the necessary space had been provided in the incorporated eastern territories by deporting Poles.\nQWho was in charge of the resettling of ethnic Germans, on the lowest level?\nADid you mean resettlement, or evacuation?\nQResettlement.\nAResettlement from the old living place until they were taken to the VOMI camps, you mean, that was the task of the VOMI.\nQI meant who was in charge of the actual settling of ethnic Germans in the incorporated territories, the lowest level?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 586, "page_number": "586", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "AAs far as the resettlement was concerned in the incorporated territories, the so-called resettlement or settlement staff was the one that was in charge.\nQTo what organization were the resettlement staffs - Ansiedlung subordinated?\nAThe resettlement staffs were subordinated to the representation of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism within that special area.\nQAnd to what organization or to whom was this local representative of RKFDV subordinated?\nAThe deputy for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism wan subordinated to the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQNow what was the connection between the resettlement staffs Ansiedlungsstaebe - in regard to settling ethnic Germans in the incorporated gerritories and the deportation of Poles?\nAThe procedure was approximately the following in broad outlines: if the resettlement staff had be accommodate a certain number of resettled people in a certain area, then they would submit the lists of the objects to the UWZ. The UWZ, with the help of their outside agencies, reported whether a deportation of the families from these farms or those other objects that they had selected was possible, because there were certain regulations for certain professions which prohibited, the evacuation there were people who were of German descent and who could be made to register in the DVL. The list from the UWZ went back to the resettlement staffs and they finally compiled the final lists of the farms and so on which could be used for an accommodation of resettled people and which had to be vacated for that purpose.\nQBefore the resettlement staffs made up a list of the homes, farms and buildings of Poles to be deported, did they go into the village end look at those farms and buildings?\nAAs far as I know, yes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 587, "page_number": "587", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QAnd after they looked at them, they put them on the list, is that correct?\nAWell, yes. I was not active in one of the incorporated eastern territories, myself, but according to what I know from the reports, that is the way it was handled, yes.\nQAnd then that list was sent to the UWZ?\nAYes, indeed.\nQAnd the UWZ examined as to whether the people listed were Poles or ethnic Germans, or people accepted in the DVL or exempt from deportation for other reasons, is that correct?\nAYes, as I stated before.\nQWho gave the orders for resettlement of ethnic Germans in the incorporated territories and for deportation to the resettlement staffs?\nAAccording to my opinion, the resettlement staffs received, the directives from the Reich Commissioners for the Strengthening of Germanism in the occupied territories.\nQAnd from whom did they get these orders?\nAThe central, planning as to which groups of resettlers were to be accommodated, in one Gau was carried out by the Main Staff Office.\nQHave you ever observed an action concerning deportation of Poles and resettlement of ethnic Germans?\nAYes. In the summer of 1940, I was present at one of these resettlement actions because I wanted to gain an impression myself as to how the procedure was.\nQWill you tell us your experience from your observations?\nAYes, I can briefly describe to you what I saw at the time. Early that morning we left Litzmannstadt, that is to say, I was driving together with the man in charge of the resettlement central office or UWZ, and we drove to a village which was about 40 kilometers distant from Litzmannstadt. When we arrived near the village there, there were approximately 40 to 50 men of the regular police, and the uniformed police occupied the most important exits of the village in order to \n prevent escapes, should the action begin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 588, "page_number": "588", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "In the village itself, certain officials, who had the respective lists, went to the farms concerned and they informed the inhabitants that they had to leave the place within , I believe - I can no longer recall the exact number of hours, but I believe it was two or three hours - by taking along certain things, that is to say, clothing and also household equipment up to a certain amount, and then they were to get ready for deportation. After that time, these deportees were loaded on trucks - and as far as women withchildren were concerned, they were taken into buses and they were drivento Litzmannstadt together with their belongings. Then I didn't see the following procedure in the village itself, but I do know that the resettlement process, that is to say, the accommodation of the ethnic Germans to be resettled, took place a few hours later. If I am not mistaken, this was done in so brief a period of time, because on certain occasions prior to that, thefts occurred in the empty farms and also because the cattle which was left behind had to be taken care of. The deported Poles were then sent to the UWZ in Litzmannstadt.\nQYou said the village was surrounded by police in order to prevent Poles from escaping?\nAYes.\nQWhy did they want to escape?\nAWell, it was this way; after the first deportations were carried out in the eastern territories, the so-called wild deportations which were in no connection with the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, it occurred that the people were afraid to be deported to the Government General; they therefore tried to remain in the Warthegau or in the incorporated eastern territories and be able to ge taken up by relatives of theirs.\nQWhy were they afraid to be deported to the Government General?\nAIt can be understood that these people wanted to \n stay in the territories where they used to have their former home, tories because they had their relatives there, and because a farmer likes his hoemland anyway, and also because they knew that in the Government General, under certain circumstances, they would have to encounter certain difficulties in the accommodation.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 589, "page_number": "589", "date": "23 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-23", "text": "QWould you say that those deportations were voluntary on the part of the Poles?\nAThose deportations which I mentioned here were not carried out on a voluntary basis.\nQWhat happened to The Poles after they were deported and brought to Lodz? A These Poles were there sent to the collective camp of the UWZ, and I am now talking about the days when I was there, I saw it -- I don't know whether it was always done this way -- they were immediately after their arrival placed together in family groups; that is to say, that all the people who belonged to one family, were together. Then the racial examiner of the outside agency of the Litzmannstadt of the RUSHA carried out a family examination.\nQWould you please tell the Court what the UWZ was in Lodz?\nAThe UWZ, Litzmennstadt or Lodz, was an agency of the Inspector of the Security Police which had been established - I can't remember the exact date - it was in 1940, upon Himmler's direct instructions in order to carry out the orderly deportation in the Warthegau.\nQNow what happened then in the UWZ to the Poles?\nAThe Poles who were not or could not be used for re-Germanization during this first examination were left in the collective camp, and at that time, after certain transports had been compiled, and after certain arrangements had been made with the office of the Government General, they were sent to the Government General in special trains.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 590, "page_number": "590", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.And those who were considered not suitable for Germanization, what happened to them?\nA.They were then sent to a special camp and they were re-examined carefully; apart from the racial examination they also had a medical examination which was carried out exactly. Furthermore they were given an examination of their social and economic conditions and also their professional background in connection with their use in Germany. They were also subjected to another general examination. Then in the course of these examinations a number of people who could not be used for reGermanization were turned over to the UWZ and the remaining ones were then turned over to the Main Staff Office as people who could be resettled and reported to the homeland.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office pay for the activities of UWZ?\nA.I was not active in the administration of the agencies of the Chief of the Security Police. From a conference of a general administration nature of the RSHA in the finance administrative office there, I do remember that there was a special account entitled Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and with that account I am quite sure that the EWZ office was paid. I believe that the UWZ was also paid by that fund. The reason for that I believe was that this account, as far as I know, compensated with the Staff Main Office and as far as I can recall the reason why this was done was that the Reich Finance Commissioner and the Reich Court of Finance had the total amount for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and were supported by him by one agency and not several agancies along with each other.\nQ.Witness, do you know of any conferences which the defendant Greifelt, Creutz or both participated in concerning the deportation of Poles and the settlement of ethnic Germans.\nA.Well, yes, towards the end of January 1940 the Chief of the Security Police Heydrich called a big session or conference where all the questions concerning departation of Poles from the incorporated Eastern territories were discussed. The reason for that meeting was that \n the Government General, that is to say, the Governor-General had complained about the fact that all sorts of agencies and offices in the incorporated Eastern territories were carrying out their work without following a uniform line and they were carrying out resettlements into the Government General, matters which had nothing to do with the resettlement tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 591, "page_number": "591", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "That was one of the reasons. The second reason was that the billeting of the resettlers, who in the meantime had arrived in Germany from Estonia and Latvia, the resettlement had now to be carried out and that was the reason the two measures had to be coordinated with each other. That was the reason for that conference.\nQ.Was the subject of this conference also the deportation of Jews?\nA.Yes, during that meeting the fact was also mentioned about the deportation of Jews within the framework of the entire tasks for the incorporated Eastern territories.\nQ.Were all the participants in this conference discussing the question as to where those Jews had to be deported?\nA.Something was said about a deportation to the Government General.\nQ.Where to in the Government-General?\nA.I believe something was mentioned about the billeting in labor camps.\nQ.Was there no discussion about concentration camps or Ghettos in connection with the deportation of Jews?\nA.I can't recall anything concerning concentration camps but I believe something was mentioned about labor camps with some sort of military construction projects. I believe Ghettos too were mentioned.\nQ.Who participated in that conference of January 1940?\nA.The Circle of participants was rather large; according to my estimation there were approximately 50 people present. Of course I only remember a part of the names today.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 592, "page_number": "592", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.What part did the defendant Greifelt and Creutz play in that?\nA.Well, today, after such a long time I couldn't tell you in a detailed manner as to which points Greifelt or Creutz made statements on. The decisive fact was that they had to describe the extent of the resettlements and the billeting of the resettlers which was necessary and at the time a certain part was played during the conversion between the exchange of resettlers between Warthegau and the Lublin area of the Government-General. I believe that also played a part in the conference.\nQ.Was VOMI also represented at that conference?\nA.I believe that a representative was there. That could be found out under circumstances from the list of participants, but the VOMI did not play a part during those conferences.\nQ.Was VOMI not interested in a discussion of those problems for the reason that they had to deal with ethnic Germans?\nA.VOMI was only indirectly interested in the fact that the camps were not over-crowded and also that the German resettlers could be sent out of the camp as soon as possible, but nothing further.\nQ.Was the Race and Settlement Office represented in that conference?\nA.I don't think so.\nQ.Do you remember whether the defendant Hildebrandt was present at that conference?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leaders from the incorporated Eastern territories had been invited to this conference in any case. whether Hildebrandt was there I couldn't tell you with certainty.\nQ.You mentioned also another conference which took place in March 1941 concerning also the deportation of Poles and ethnic Germans. Will you please tell us what took place in that conference?\nA.In March 1941, I believe it was March, a conference took place which dealt with the fact that further deportations into the GovernmentGeneral could not be carried out anymore, because the Governor-General on one occasion stated that a further billeting could no longer be carried \n out from a technical point of view and also because the Reichsbahn at the time due to the fact that it had to carry out large transports could no longer furnish railway carriages in order to transport these deported Poles.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 593, "page_number": "593", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Who presided at that conference?\nA.This meeting took place in the Main Staff Office and Greifelt was the President.\nQ.Were any other members of the Main Staff Office present?\nA.Yes. I know for certain that Fehndrich was present. Then Schubert also, according to my belief and Betke. There must have been several others there but I can't remember all these names in detail.\nQ.Was VOMI represented?\nA.I don't think so.\nQ. RSHA?\nA.I couldn't tell you that with certainty any more. Primarily, the representatives of the four commissioners were there to say, the incorporated Eastern territories, Western Prussia, Warthegau, East Prussia and Upper Silesia were represented.\nQ.We are not coming to another subject, Germanization.\nAre you faminiar with the procedure of Germanizing Poles?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I shall not discuss with you questions which I have already put to you in regard to UWZ but please tell us what agency was in charge of the Germanization of Poles, Slovenes and other people of so-called foreign blood?\nA.The decree and regulation concerning re-Germanization of socalled lost German blood was issued by the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office also supervise the process of Germanization from the very beginning to the end?\nA.It is sort of difficult to explain that from an organizational point of view because several agencies participated in this procedure but I do recall that the first basic decree concerning the re-Germanization \n was issued by the in Staff Office and fixed the exact competencies, and clarified them within the framework of this procedure.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 594, "page_number": "594", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Then the individual agencies which by virtues this basic decree had been ordered to do certain things carried out the measures with their own competency. I shall put it that way: In the Main Staff Office, this procedure was carried out by several organizations, there was a plan for all of them, a sort of holding position but one could not say that the Main Staff Office alone and exclusively was competent and had the authority to issue orders in this matter.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 595, "page_number": "595", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q:Who else participated in the Germanization of Poles, Slovenes and other people of foreign blood besides the Main Staff Office.\nA:First of all those agencies participated which carried out the deportations and in these cases they were the local agencies of the highest political leadership, then those aresa in the civil administration with the representatives, of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, then as far as the racial selections were concerned of those people who could be used for re-Germanization there were racial department chiefs of the Higher Department Police Leaders or experts perhaps. Then the billeting of the people for re-Germanization within the Reich proper was handled by the Department of Hippke and the procurement of the billeting possibilities, that is to say, the preparation of the billet ing accommodations in Germany was up to the Higher SS Police Leaders as the representatives for the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism; then according to the basic principle the Security Police had some sort of a police supervision over persons eligible for re-Germanization and finally the care of the resettlers as I mentioned before which had been planned originally and was guided and carried out by the VOMI. It was transferred to respective agencies of the Party. Altogether there were a large number of agencies which participated in the total procedure.\nQ:A few more questions in regard to the resettlement of ethnic Germans. Did the Main Staff Office resettle ethnic Germans not only as a result of treaties but also in the absence of any treaty?\nA:The resettlements which were done without any agreements were the exchange resettlements carried out between \n Lublin and the Warthegau; I remember that very well because there was no single Party.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 596, "page_number": "596", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Then there is also the resettlement of ethnic Germans from Lublin as well as that Which was carried out on an agreement of the occupation force. They were Italians; there was no agreement with Jugoslavia because Jugoslavia no longer existed. Those are questions which I am not too familiar with but the agreement was concluded with the occupation force at the time, the Italians.\nQ:That was occupied by the Italians?\nA:Yes.\nQ:A treaty on the agreement was entered into between the German government and Italy. Is that correct?\nA:Well, whether the agreement was concluded between the Governments or locally between military governments I couldn't tell you today; I have forgotten that.\nQ:Do you know of any resettlement of ethnic Germans from France and Belgium?\nA:It was planned that Alsatians, Lorrainians, and people who lived in Northern France in the industrial areas of Dinais that is to say, Germans who had moved to those territories after the First World War areas were to be taken back again. That was the reason why the registration of these people took place. No noticeable resettlement took place of Alsatians or Lorrainians from France and I believe that the number which came from Dinais was not very large either.\nQ:Would you say that the figures of the Main Staff Office in the statistical survey would be the correct figures as to the number of resettlers from France and Belgium?\nA:Well I don't remember the figures at the present moment but if you have the figures they are probably correct.\nQ:Do you know whether any resettlement of ethnic Germans \n from Greece took place?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 597, "page_number": "597", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A:Well I can remember that something was mentioned in connection with Greece that I believe 100 or something around that figure were Germans and that they lived in a small certain area in Greece because many, many years ago their ancestors came to Greece and something was mentioned in connection with the fact that they were to be taken back to Germany. Whether they were taken back to Germany actually I couldn't tell you for certain.\nQ:Do you know whether any resettlement of ethnic Germans from Russia took place after the war between Germany and Russia had broken out?\nA:I cannot recall any definite resettlement, that is to say in the manner in which resettlements were usually carried out then large masses of people were resettled. At the present moment I do not remember from a chronological point of view when the resettlements took place but I am of the opinion that they were probably carried out between 1939 and the beginning of the Eastern campaign. Apart from that within the Russian area certain collective resettlements were carried out but no direct deportations or resettlements into the Reich; then with the retreat of the Germany Army a large number of ethnic Germans came along from Russia into Germany as refugees.\nQ:Did those ethnic Germans from Russia go voluntarily to Germany or were they brought to Germany by VOMI?\nA:Well I believe there is no contradiction there. They came voluntarily and then they were brought to Germany by the transports of the VOMI.\nQ:I mean was there a special organization of VOMI built up in RSHA to get hold of all ethnic Germans in Russia and take them back to Germany in order to prevent them from falling \n into the hands of the Russians?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 598, "page_number": "598", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A:There was an organization of the VOMI in the occupied territories of Russia and particularly in the Ukraine. That organization was called the Hoffmeyer Commando. This Hoffmeyer Commando had the task of resettling those Germans who lived in closed communities there; first of all to take care of them; then to help them out with all sorts of things, for instance schools were established there and German hospitals were established; nurses and medical officers were sent over there, etc. etc. That was also the agency which in part placed together certain German villages and that was necessary because personslly in the summer of 1942 I saw villages where only women and small children could be found because all the men and the male youth from 10 to 12 years of age and older had been deported by the Russians. A little bit later on though, when the retreat began the organization of this Hoffmeyer Commando took along all the Germans. At least I assume that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that you are going very much more into detail than is helpful to the Tribunal. The questions are rather direct and it seems to the Tribunal that you should be able to answer them more directly.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 599, "page_number": "599", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nBY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, would you say that all those ethnic Germans from Russia were asked whether they would like to go to Germany voluntarily before they were brought to Germany?\nAI wasn't personally present at this period of time; I couldn't tell you that, but I believe that according to the experiences which we had before, they all went back voluntarily.\nQDo you know of any incidents to the effect that Russians caught ethnic Germans at that time tried to escape the Hoffmayer Commando?\nANo, I know nothing of that.\nQDo you know whether not only ethnic Germans but also Russians who were not ethnic Germans were brought back to Germany at that time when the Russians progressed in regard to the fighting against the Germans?\nAYes.\nQDo you know what role was played by the defendant Hildebrandt in that connection?\nANo, I don't.\nQComing back to the ethnic Germans, after they were registered, they were brought to VOMI camps; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhat were the functions of the EWZ -- briefly, in connection with the ethnic Germans.\nAThe EWZ was an agency, a collective agency, which had the task of registering all these people, that is to say from the police reports until the possibilities could be found for them in the form of labor assignments, and billeting also up to the moment when the document was issued which made them citizens of Greater Germany.\nQWhat citizenship did the resettlers obtain in EWZ?\nAThe resettlers as far as they were of German extraction received German citizenship. Along with the resettlers once in a while a mistake would occur in carrying out the registration, also due to the fact that \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 600, "page_number": "600", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "these people somehow had managed to smuggle their way into the resettlement; certain non-ethnic Germans were also included and then particularly special decisions were then made on these people. It occurred once in a while that some people did not receive the German citizenship.\nQWhat kind of examination was made by the EWZ; of political and racial screening of the ethnic Germans; what sort of examination was made by EWZ after the ethnic Germans were politically and racially examined in EWZ?\nALet me point out first that the first examination by the EWZ did not only concern the racial and political point of view, but also the entire social condition of the resettled human being, that is to say from his capital, from his professional point of view, and also the physical condition of the resettler played a certain part. Then a final decision was made and that final decision consisted of several categories; there were the so-called \"O\" cases, \"A\" cases and then there were certain cases which were either called \"S\" cases or \"F\" cases; they were special cases which varied once in a while and where a decision from the higher authorities was necessary.\nQWhat was an \"O\" case?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Hasn't that been pretty thoroughly covered by the evidence heretofore; there is no dispute about it.\nMR. SCHWENK:There is no doubt about it, but I will withdraw the question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDid the Main Staff Office deal directly with EWZ?\nAWell, yes. The Main Staff Office also had direct connections to the Central Office.\nQDid the Main Staff Office make payments to EWZ?\nAI believe I really answered your question before.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think so.\nQThat is correct. We are now turning to another subject matter. Deportation of Slovenes. Are you familiar with the deportation of citizens \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 601, "page_number": "601", "date": "22 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-22", "text": "of Yugoslavia?\nAYes, in general broad outlines.\nQWhat was the purpose of the deportations?\nAThere were many deportations which were based on many and varying reasons and they pursued a special particular purpose. The first deportations which were carried out from the so-called territory of lower Styria in 1941 immediately after the campaign against Yugoslavia, were carried out for purely political reasons mainly, and almost exclusively. It applied to Slovenes who emigrated to Yugoslavia during the first years after the First World War. In other words, people who did not live there before. These people were resettled to Croatia or Serbia. Then, there was a second resettlement in the same area, in lower Styria, which was carried out within the framework of the resettlement of ethnic Germans from Gottschee; this resettlement took place in the most southern tip of lower Styria. Then in the territory of Oberkrain, two main resettlements were carried out, apart from the smaller measures. One of them was for political security reasons and took place in 1942. The higher SS and police leader there directed this measure to be carried out in an area which extended to fifteen kilometers near Laibach because he thought he would be able to stop the crossing of partisans from Italian territory to the German territory. This resettlement was discontinued due to the intervention of several agencies. Then a resettlement of Slovenes took place within the same area which comprised the members and relatives of partisans who had either been killed in the struggle against the partisans or who had been killed in connection with partisan action or people who had been sent to concentration camps. Those for the most part were the resettlement measures which were carried out in those areas.\nQDid the Main Staff Office participate in these acts against the Slovenes?\nAThe Main Staff Office participated in the second procedure which was the deportation of Slovenes in connection with the resettlement of \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 602, "page_number": "602", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "of Gottschee Germans, and the local representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism participated in the resettlement measures at the Oberkrain, in connection with deporting the members of families of partisans mentioned before.\nQDid they also participate in deportations concerning AustrianCorinthia, Oesterreichisch-Kaernten?\nAIn the so-called former territories of Oberkrain, which was former German territory, a number of -\nQWitness, my question was did the Main Staff Office participate? Yes or no is the answer.\nAWell, I can't tell you; I couldn't tell you that for certain.\nQWhat happened to the Slovenes who were deported?\nAThe Slovenes who had been deported to Germany were placed into vacant VOMI camps because no other means of billeting them were available.\nQDid the SS Race and Settlement Office participate in these actions against Slovenes?\nAI believe that a selection of people eligible for re-Germanization was in part carried out but I don't believe it was done with everybody.\nQDid VOMI participate in these acts?\nAYes, insofar as they placed the camps at the disposal, as far as they were available.\nQAre you familiar with the actions against the partisans; or as they were called at that time, bandits? -- in Yugoslavia.\nAWell, without your telling me the exact areas, I couldn't tell you what it was all about.\nQThe time when a border line of twenty or thirty kilometers was supposed to be occupied by ethnic Germans, partisans came into existence because they had resisted their deportation. Can you remember that?\nAYes, That partisans existed in those areas of lower Styria, I know that there were such actions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 603, "page_number": "603", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDo you know what happened to those partisans if they were caught?\nAAccording to my knowledge although I wasn't working in the executive office there, partisans were treated exactly the same way as partisans of all other territories.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 28 October 1947.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 604, "page_number": "603", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "CASE VIII, COURT I C O R R E C T I O N S H E E T 28 October 1948 29 October 1948 \n Counsel for defendant Dr. Otfried SCHWARZ Otto HOFMANN (Case 8) Nuernberg, 15 December 1947 To The Secretary General Military Tribunal I N u e r n b e r g I r e q u e s t the following errors in the transcript be corrected.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 605, "page_number": "603", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Some of these errors distort the original meaning to such a degree that the opposite of what has been said was taken down. In some cases RuSHA has for instance been mixed up RSHA. Thus, distorted evidence has been submitted to the Tribunal. Tribunal I ruled, however, that cumulative evidence shall no longer be accepted. If, however, evidence has already been incorrectly translated and taken down respectively, the danger exists that evidence might be rejected as cumulative though it has not been proffered previously. Furthermore, the danger exists that the Tribunal on the basis of such distorted evidence arrives at on erroneous opinion. I therefore request to compare the sound record with the German and English minutes prior to the drafting of the transcript. Inaccurate translation constitutes a considerable restriction of the rights of the defendant.\nEach of the defense counsel has been granted one assistant and one secretary only. Checking of the transcripts as to their correct translation is however impossible without the help of qualified interpreters.\nIn the following I list a series of incorrect translations:\n1) The question \"Waren Sie einmal Chef des Sicherheitshauptamtes?\"\nOn to of page 639 of German transcript should read: Waren Sie einmal Chef des Rassen- u. Siedlungshauptamtes?\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 606, "page_number": "603", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "2) The question: \"Did you yourself have any influence over RuSHA?\"\non top of page 660 of the English transcript should read \"RSHA\" (Reich Security Main Office) 3) The question:\n\"Was there any planning in RuSHA for the event of war in the East?\"\nin the middle of page 661 of English transcript should read \"Race Office\". The same applies to the next question on the same page.\n4) At the bottom of page 645 of the German transcript (at the bottom of page 661 of the English transcript) the phrase:\n\"auf gelegent liches Zusammentreffen bei irgendwelchen groesseren Zusammenkuenften\" has been incorrectly translated with \"on some public functions\". 5) In the middle of page 669 of the English transcript (middle of page 651 of the German transcript) in the question:\n\"Wieviel Angestellte beschaeftigte das Sippenamt, wieviele das Rassenamt und wieviele das Siedlungsamt?\"\nthe word \"Siedlungsamt\" has been incorrectly trans lated with \"Evacuation Office\". The same has been done in the answer to this question.\n6) In the answer on top of page 671 of the English transcript (on top of page 653 of the German transcript) the year 1830 is erroneously rendered with 1930.\n7) In the answer at the bottom of page 671 of the English transcript (at the bottom of page 653 of the German transcript) the phrase:\n\"Nachdem ich jahrelang mit RuS-Sachen nichts mehr zu tun hatte\" has been incorrectly translated with:\n\"with the genealogical office.\" 8) The question \"was there activity not confined\" in the middle of page 673 of the English transcript (middle of page 654 of the German transcript) should read \"Your activity\" instead of \"There\". 9) The second next answer on the same page:\"\nRuSHA exercised control over EWZ\" should read \"RSHA\" (Reich Security Main Office.)\n. 10) The question:\"Wann hatte Gottberg das Bodenamt uebernommen\", at the bottom of page 655 of the German transcript, should read \"das Bodenamt Prag\". 11) The answer:\n\"Das Bodenamt Prag war eine reine Privatbehoerde\" in the middle of page 656 of the German transcript should read \"war eine reine Protektoratsbehoerde\". 12) On page 676 of the English transcript (page 657 of the German trans cript ) the last four questions and answers before the recess are missing in the German text). 13) In the question in the middle of page 658 of the German transcript (on top of page 678 of the English transcript) whether the letter to Heydrich of 3 March 39 refers to personal preliminary work of Gottberg, the word \"personal\" is missing in the translation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 607, "page_number": "603", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "14) In the second next answer in the English translation of the sen-\ntence : \"Ich habe diesen Entwurf Gottbergs woertlich weiterge geben an Heydrich.\n...\" the word \"literally\" is missing in the English text.\n15) In the middle of page 661 of the German transcript ( in the middle of page 681 of the English transcript) translation of the answer:\n\"Diese Vorarbeiten wurden nun, nachdem der Krieg ausgebrochen war und dort landwirtschaftliche Betriebe verwaltet werden mussten, in der Hereinnahme von Siedlungsgesllschaften, die in den Jahren 1938/39 erfolgt war, konstruiert\" is contrary to its meaning.\nIn the next question: \"War das denn wieder eine persoenliche Sache Gottbergs?\"\nthe English text contains the incorrect word \"permanent\" for \"persoenlich\". 16) The question:\n\"Bedeutet der Ausdruck\"soll\" bezueglich der der Taetigkeit des Sippenamtes gegenueber dem Reichs-Kriminalpoli zeiamt einen Befehl?\"\non top of page 663 of the German transcript (on top of page 683 of the English transcript) the English text is reproduced incompletely.\n17) The question:\"Sie sagten, dass das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt zwar durch seine *---*gnungspruefer an der EWZ beteiligt war.\n.....\nund dass nur eine Weisungsbefugnis HIMMLERs an die EWZ bestanden habe,\" at the bottom of page 675 of the German transcript (at the bottom of page 697 of the English transcript) has been translated incompletely and incorrectly.\n(s) Dr. Otfried Schwarz (Dr. Otfried Schwarz) \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 608, "page_number": "604", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 23 October 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, proceed with the examination.\nHANS EHLICH - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, we were discussing the deportations against partisans in Yugoslavia. Do you remember what happened? Witness, we were discussing the deportation actions against partisans in Yugoslavia. Do you remember what happened to the wives and children of those partisans?\nAThe wives and children of partisans, that is members of partisan families, as already mentioned by me this morning, were deported.\nQWhere were they brought to?\nAIf they were deported to Germany, as far as I recall, they were brought into the resettlement camps of VOMI.\nQWere any of those wives and children brought to concentration camps?\nAI am not able to say this for sure; it is possible.\nQDo you Know what happened to those wives and children after they were brought to VOMI camps?\nAThe members of families of partisans who were evacuated and brought into VOMI camps in Germany to be resettled, were in some cases of allocated to labor assignments.\nQWere they racially examined?\nAPartly, I think, yes, they were. Whether all of them were subjected to racial examinations I can't recall.\nQWho ware the racial examiners? By whom were they racially examined?\nAIf a racial examination was carried out, then this was done by the racial examiners of RuSHA.\nQDo you know whether it was up to VOMI to release those wives \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 609, "page_number": "605", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "and children from their camps, or to keep them in their camps?\nAThe wives and the people in these camps altogether as far as I know, and according to my opinion, were not subject to any treatment on the part of VOMI, but if I recall correctly, VOMI only made these camps available and administered them.\nQDo you know of any directions given by Himmler to VOMI, particularly to the leaders of the VOMI camps, to the effect that any one who had escaped, that is Slovenes, in VOMI camps should be executed.\nAAccording to my opinion there were no guards in these camps because I remember -\nQWitness, I asked you whether you knew of such directions?\nANo.\nQAre you familiar with the deportation of Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians?\nAYes.\nQDid the Main Staff Office participate in those actions?\nAYes, it did participate.\nQIn what respect did it participate?\nAThe deportation of Alsatians, Lorrainians and Luxembourgians in which the Main Staff Office participated were originally purely local affairs, which resulted from decrees being issued in regard to the nationality of these people and to their recruitment for labor service and military service.\nQWill you please explain what you mean by citizenship of these connected with citizenship of those people?\nAThe local chiefs of the civil administration or the Reich Commissar in Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg, I believe in 1941, or perhaps early in 1945, issued decrees according to which the population in the area was to acquire German citizenship, and having acquired German citizen ship, the male inhabitants could be conscripted for labor and military service.\nQYou say they could be drafted; what do you mean?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 610, "page_number": "606", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAAccording to German regulations they were drafted.\nQThey were forced to; is that what you mean?\nAOnce they were German citizens they were drafted because there was general conscription in Germany.\nQYes, go on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go on about what? It seems like he has covered it pretty well.\nQWhat happened to those Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians as far as the Main Staff Office was concerned?\nAThe chief of the civil administration and the local agencies, after people who were to be conscripted for military or labor service had escaped, and thus withdrawn from the service, applied even to Hitler himself that members of families belonging to these people should be deported from the areas involved. The local commanders, some of whom were representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, applied to the Main Staff Office to undertake measures for the repatriation, and then in conjunction with other participating agencies the deportation was discussed and ordered; namely, the deportation into the Reich territory.\nQWere those Luxembourgians, Alsatians or Lorrainians deported by the Main Staff Office?\nAThese Alsatians and Luxembourgians were sent to Germany; also into VOMI camps which had been made available because in the meantime other deportees who had been there previously had been sent on to some other place.\nQWere they also brought to the Government -- General according to your knowledge?\nASome of these people I believe were settled in the area of Lublin.\nQDo you know whether in connection with these actions Luxembourgians and Alsatians and Lorrainians were executed?\nAIn connection with these incidents of escape, proceedings were instituted before local police tribunals, and I believe in connection \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 611, "page_number": "607", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "herewith death sentences were passed and executions carried out.\nQDo you know whether relatives of those Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians who resisted conscription into the army, were kept as hostages in the camps of VOMI, and under the jurisdiction of the Main Staff Office?\nANo, I don't know anything about that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 612, "page_number": "608", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDo you know whether RUSHA participated in these actions against Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians?\nAIn a discussion and in a decree, respectively, which I still remember and which referred particularly to the Alsatians, there was talk of a racial examination, I cannot state the extent to which these racial examinations were actually carried out in regard to these groups of persons; I am not sure about that.\nQDo you know what happened to the property of the deported Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians, and Lorrainians?\nAI believe that a decree existed on the subject whereby--in any case, in Luxembourg--the German Resettlement Trustee Company had to safeguard this property with the aim that if the respective persons were finally allocated and settled in Germany, if at all possible, the following was to be reinstituted and made available to them, namely, equipment and similar things such as pieces of furniture, or some other form of compensation had to be made.\nQCould they take their property along?\nAI believe that, according to the regulations in effect, they were permitted to take a certain quantity of personal effects along with them to the extent that it could be carried out on such a transport, but of course nothing in large quantities.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It appears to the Tribunal that this very thing was gone into very thoroughly this morning by this witness. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQAre you familiar with the DVL procedure?\nAYes.\nQDid the Main Staff office participate in the establishment of the Deutsche Volksliste?\nAYes.\nQIn what respect?\nABefore the DVL was drawn up for the entire Incorporated Eastern Territories by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, preliminary discus \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 613, "page_number": "609", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "sions took place in the Ministry of the Interior which were also attended by Main Staff Office representatives. Later the Main Staff Office took over the activity of the Supreme Reviewing Court for Ethnic Classification, and then, later on, the Main Staff Office had to check decrees on the treatment of members belonging to Department III and IV of DVL, and had to issue such decrees, provided that they did not involve questions of police security measures.\nQDid SS Race and Settlement participate in the DVL procedure?\nARUSHA did participate in DVL to the extent that in the case of mixed populations in Danzig, West Prussia, and in Upper Silesia, a racial examination of these groups of persons was to be carried out, provided they had been accepted into the German People's List. In addition, the Supreme Reviewing Court was assigned an assistant judge by RUSHA.\nQWas one of the primary purposes of DVL to permit conscription of Poles into the German Army?\nANo, that was not the original aim. The original aim of DVL was the following: In the East and in the Incorporated Territories a clear distinction was to be drawn between the Germanic population and the Polish population. Only by establishing the members of DVL and their acquiring German nationality irrevocably was it possible for them to become subject to German conscription laws.\nQThen the purpose of DVL was to determine who was an ethnic German and who was not?\nAYes.\nQWhy was it necessary, then, to subject members of DVL-III and IV to Germanization?\nAThe concept of Germanization is incorrectly applied in this connection, and was never applied in this connection. This involved persons who, partly or entirely, were of German stock and who, only in the time between 1919 to 1939, had acted, to a larger or smaller extent, in the interests of Poland.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 614, "page_number": "610", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQI don't believe you answered my question correctly. If those people who were members of DVL-III and IV were ethnic Germans, why was it necessary to make them Germans?\nAI am sorry, but I can only repeat what I said previously in answer to this question. I think that we are here proceeding from two entirely different concepts on folkdom or nationality.\nQMay I ask you more concretely, were there any measures taken to bring members of DVL-III and IV back to Germanism?\nAYes.\nQDo you remember any steps which the Wehrmacht took in order to expedite the DVL procedure?\nAYes, I remember that in connection with the lengthy examinations that took place in some territories--I believe this was early in 1942-the German Wehrmacht applied to Himmler for DVL to be expedited.\nQDo you know which part the Main Staff Office played in expediting the DVL procedure?\nAProbably Office I and the department of Dr. Wirschi respectively.\nQDo you remember any conferences in which the Main Staff Office participated, among others, and in which the question was raised as to how the DVL procedure could be expedited?\nAYes. There was one discussion which I remember in detail, because I was present myself--that was in the spring of 1942--with Himmler. As I have previously stated, at that time the question was that the German Wehrmacht wished to expedite these measures, and besides that, the Gauleiter of Upper Silesia, Bracht, also stressed the over-lengthy procedure of the Germanization of members of Department III of DVL.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It appears to the Tribunal that you are just about covering identically the same territory you did this morning. Please move on from where you stopped at the recess and do not go back over the same territory that was covered this morning.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have not discussed DVL as yet, this morning.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 615, "page_number": "611", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are going into vary many of the very same details that you want into this morning. Just get to the material things that you have not covered, and please get away from so much useless detail. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, who was your superior?\nAMy superior in Chief of Amt III, Ohlendorf.\nQWas your superior in charge of the so-called Einsatz Commandos?\nANo; my chief of Office, Ohlendorf, from the summer of 1941, until the summer of 1942, was Chief of Einsatzgruppe D.\nQAnd had you ever read his reports which he sent to the RSHA in his capacity as Chief of Einsatz Commando D?\nAYes.\nQDid those reports contain the number of so-called Communists and Jews executed in Russia?\nAThe collective reports of the Einsatzgruppen--not only those of Ohlendorf but also of the others--also contained, in those parts provided for the purpose, information on executions which had taken place.\nQWere so-called VOMI Einsatz Groups attached to those Einsatz Commandos?\nANo.\nQWas there any connection between the Einsatz Commandos of VOMI and the Einsatz Commandos of RSHA?\nAI think, yes, there was some such connection, and, according to a description which I know myself, it must have been as follows: After the Einsatz Commandos were within the sphere of the Army groups, the main problem involved was the welfare of the ethnic German villages which were found, and this was up to the Einsatz Commandos and was then transferred to the Commandos of VOMI.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 616, "page_number": "612", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:May the Tribunal request cooperation of the defense counsel to this extent? Up to now the Tribunal has been very liberal with both the prosecution and the defense about repeating testimony that has already been gene over. In the cross-examinations from here out, when one defense counsel has covered a subject, the Tribunal respectfully requests that other defense counsel will not cover the same territory. You may, of course, ask any questions additional about the same subject, matter, but do not cover the same territory.\nAnd while the Tribunal is talking, we want to caution the prosecution that from here out, likewise, you must not cover the same territory twice.\nAll right. Any questions for this witness by the defense?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. VON DER TRENCK: (Counsel for the defendant Ulrich Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, you spoke of the highest reviewing court for ethnic classification, which was attached to the Main Staff. Who was Chairman or President of that organization? Was it Greifelt?\nA.In the Highest reviewing court, so to speak, there were two chambers. There was one first chamber, the chairman of which was Himmler, and there was a second chamber, the chairman of which was Greifelt.\nQ.Can you tell us this? How did these two chambers overlap in their activities?\nA.I do not think you can talk of any overlapping of activity here because, as far as I recall, the first chamber, under the chairmanship of Himmler, was only in session two or three times, I believe, whereas all other cases were handled under the chairmanship of Greifelt.\nQ.What were the tasks of this reviewing court in general? That is, which cases did it have to deal with, and which cases were assigned to and reserved for this first chamber?\nA.First of all, the highest reviewing court dealt, in general, \n with all those cases which represented, decisions of the main offices and against which decisions appeals had been lodged.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 617, "page_number": "613", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Secondly it dealt with such cases which the highest reviewing court, knowing certain developments, reserved unto itself for the sake of uniform handling and procedure of all agencies involved with DVL. Particularly those cases which were reserved to the highest reviewing court by a decree of Himmler's, the so-called high nobility cases. Particularly, these latter cases were probably discussed in those sessions over which Himmler presided.\nQ.You mentioned a second special group of cases, What kind of cases were those which were intentionally reserved for the highest reviewing court?\nA.Those cases which the highest reviewing court reserved for itself dealt primarily with Danzig-West Prussia, in connection with which it had become known that by the measures of Gauleiter Forster, people were coerced into applying for registration in the DVL.\nQ.Which were the lower levels involved in this procedure of DVL?\nA.Starting at the bottom, the lower levels were the Branch Office, within the sphere of a Landrat, of a Regional Administration; the District agency, referring to the area of a Regierungspraesident; and the Rain Agency, for the territory of a Reich Governor or Gauleiter respectively.\nQ.These levels were all within the framework of internal administration?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know the reason why, apparently in opposition to this fact, the highest level, the reviewing court, was attached to the Main Staff Office?\nA.No. Unfortunately, I can say nothing on this; I know nothing about it.\nQ.Could you please answer a Question for me as to who estab \n lished the immigration center and when it was started?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 618, "page_number": "614", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.The immigration center was created by a direct order of Himmler early in November of 1939, and by creating this agency it was to be avoided that evacuees were to be subjected to an over-lengthy procedure, namely, that of Germanization by the various agencies and offices involved.\nQ.And to whom was this immigration center subordinated?\nA.The immigration center was subordinated to the Chief of the Security Police, but actually orders were received by the various departments of the immigration center from the respective superior agencies.\nQ.In direct examination before you mentioned certain direct contacts of the Main Staff Office with the immigration center. What did these contacts consist of, and what did they refer to?\nA.These referred, first of all, to the following: The immigration center reported current results of a registration of ethnic Germans to the Main Staff Office. Furthermore, in questions of Ersatzentscheide--namely, decisions determining allocations--Himmler, in some cases, had to be applied to for his personal decision. These problems had to be discussed with the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Now, on the question of deportations, you mentioned that, particularly in the Incorporated Eastern Territories, there were socalled haphazard deportations, and that these particularly were the reasons for the discussions of January 1940. Can you tell me, only approximately, what was the extent of these deportations, and afterwards, to what extent did evacuations have to take place, or could they take place?\nA.Unfortunately, after such a long time I have no data available, and am therefore not able to give a specific answer. Large scale deportations, were carried out only up to the spring of 1941.\nQ.What was the relationship between deportations prior and subsequent to this conference? Were the first deportations not on a \n much larger scale?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 619, "page_number": "615", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.I don't think you can say that.\nQ.After this discussion of January 1941, who was competent for these deportees?\nA.At the discussion of the 30th of January 1940, the jurisdiction concerning these deportees was turned over to the Chief of the Security Police.\nQ.I have one Question pertaining to re-Germanization. You said that the basic orders originated with the Main Staff Office. Do you know who signed these orders?\nA.I could not say that in detail.\nQ.Do you perhaps recall whether these were signed by members of the Main Staff Office or signed by Himmler?\nA.I think the first basic order on re-Germanization was signed by Himmler. Subsequent orders, pursuant to this first order, were probably not signed by him.\nQ.Thank you. Can you tell me this? Who published the basic directives concerning nationality in the individual Incorporated Eastern Territories? Who enacted them?\nA.The decrees on nationality in the Incorporated Eastern Territories were surely enacted by the Ministry of the Interior. As far as the others are concerned, I could not say whether they were passed by the Ministry of the Interior or by the respective local Reichstathalter, that is, Reich Governors or Chiefs of the civil administrations.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 620, "page_number": "616", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Can you tell me anything as to the position of the chiefs of the civil administration in their respective territories, particularly so in regard to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.The chiefs of civil administration were subordinated directly to the Fuehrer. The chiefs of the civil administration were, some of them, simultaneously deputies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, but not everywhere, not in all territories.\nQ.Do you know whether the chiefs of the civil administration had dependent or independent jurisdiction in regard to the activity of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I can hardly make any comment on that.\nQ.Can you tell me in particular about the deportations in Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg? Who had the initiative in connection with these?\nA.In these territories, it is clear that the respective chiefs of the administration took the initiative.\nQ.Do you know of discussions on the subject of such measures which took place?\nA.Yes, I know some of those conferences.\nQ.Can you remember the position and the comments made by the agencies involved who participated in these discussions?\nA.Yes; for example, I know that in Alsace in 1942, Wagner referred to a directive of Hitler and discussions which took place between the participating main offices within the scope of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. A substantial amendment of the original desires and directives was achieved by Wagner; namely, towards making these measures stringent.\nQ.Can you tell me anything on the various agencies which worked within the scope and field of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germany--their sphere of work, their relationships amongst each other, and to Himmler?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 621, "page_number": "617", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.May I perhaps ask you to be more specific in your question. I don't quite know what you mean.\nQ.Within the sphere of work of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, various agencies acted; thatis, the Main Office, VOMI, and in part also the RSHA, if I remember correctly.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me, just in a few words, what was the distribution of work?\nA.Yes. The sphere of work of VOMI comprised the entire evacuations and ethnic protection within the spheres outlined this morning, RSHA had to issue decrees according to a decree of February 1942, and later on increasing it so in December 1942 according to these decrees. I even believe I remember the exact working: The RSHA was responsible for counter-intelligence work against danger directed against German folkdom and arising from the allocation of aliens in German. I think this was the working of the one decree; and moreover--\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the witness is now being asked about the contents of decrees which have been submitted in evidence and which determines the jurisdiction of all these offices.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am sorry, but I did not comprehend your objection.\nMR. SCHWENK:The witness is being asked as to the jurisdiction of various offices which is determined by decree. The decree has been submitted in evidence and I cannot expect the witness to know the contents of these decrees.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If I remember correctly, if the Tribunal remembers correctly, you went rather into detail in direct examination on these very subjects, so I will permit counsel to do likewise in cross examining.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Thank you, Your Honor.\nQ.What was the collaboration that existed between these various agencies? Of what kind was it? These agencies which were active \n for the Reich Commissar, particularly what was their independence as far as their own work was concerned and what was their relationship to Himmler?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 622, "page_number": "618", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.The chiefs of office of the individual main offices were all personally subordinated to Himmler and they were responsible to Himmler for their sphere of work. This was personal responsibility.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, there was an equal distribution of responsibility of these agencies so that none of them was subordinated to the Main Staff Office?\nA.No, there is no question of the remaining offices being subordinated to the Main Staff Office. There were definite problems which had to be dealt with by several main offices, and in these cases, it happened frequestly that the Main Staff office, as we call it, had a predominant position. But this does not involve any subordination of the remaining staff offices to the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Can you perhaps use a characteristic term to describe the position of the Chief of the Main Staff Office in this connection?\nA.Yes. I can describe this position first by using a Latin word: primus inter pares--that is, first among equals.\nQ.And did the Main Office have the right to issue directives to the other offices, particularly to the RSHA within the sphere of I work of the Reich Commissar?\nA.Yes, the facts are as follows: we didn't have a completely equipped and organized administration from the start, but particularly I believe it was October 1941--up to that time, when the Main Staff Office was finally created as a Main Office, up to that time the right to issue directives and orders was frequently confused. It happened that there were no actual regulations in force. Directives were issued, but these may not have adhered to definite principles of jurisdiction.\nQ.Yes, but was there a general right to issue directives throughout the entire time? Did this exist?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 623, "page_number": "619", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No, it did not.\nQ.Now one more Question pertaining to DVL. DVL was based on voluntary consent apart from the territory of Gauleiter Ferster, already mentioned. That is right, isn't it?\nA.According to decrees and regulations of the Ministry of the Interior, application to DVL was voluntary.\nQ.Can you now tell me what was the application of DVL, particularly in the East?\nA.In the East, DVL was limited to the incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.Was it ever applied in the Government-General?\nA.In the Government-General, there was a similar procedure in effect, but I don't believe that this was called the German People's List. There was a registration of ethnic Germans carried out there, out I don't believe that this was according to the same system as DVL.\nQ.It didn't have this name there, did it? Namely, what we understand under DVL and the procedure which we understand to be governed by DVL didn't exist there?\nA.No, not as far as I remember.\nQ.Thank you.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL (for the defendant Creutz):\nQ.Witness, since when were you with the Reich Security Main Office?\nA.February 1937.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Creutz personally?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you make his acquaintance?\nA.That may have been at the end of 1939, possibly early 1940.\nQ.On what occasion did this take place?\nA.I wouldn't know that any more today.\nQ.Where was the defendant Creutz at the time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 624, "page_number": "620", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.When I made his acquaintance he was already with the agency of Greifelt.\nQ.But that wasn't the Main Staff Office at the time?\nA.No.\nQ.What do you know of the defendant Creutz's activity in the Main Staff Office.\nA.If I recognized its activity as it actually was, Creutz was a kind of staff leader, and at the same time he was the deputy of Greifelt.\nQ.And what was his activity in detail in the Main Staff Office; particularly, what did he do there in detail? Do you know anything about that?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Was Creutz, Himmler's deputy as Reich Commissar?\nA.No.\nQ.Kindly insert a short pause Between my question and your answer. Was Creutz authorized to have deportations carried out on his own initiative?\nA.I don't think so.\nQ.Do you know the organizational chart of the Main Staff Office of August 1, 1942?\nA.I saw it at the time but today I can't remember details well enough to be able to refer to it from memory.\nQ.Can you perhaps remember the plan that several of the spheres of work mentioned therein, which were indicated as being the tasks of the Main Staff Office, that you raised complaints about these on the grounds that these were matters which belonged to the jurisdiction of RSHA?\nA.Yes, I do remember that RSHA at that time, and I believe also other main offices expressed the desire that as the Main Staff Office had now been created as a main office of its own, its organizational plan was to clarify and distinguish clearly between these tasks, or \n tasks referred to by me before, and this chart was to show proper distribution of work, and I believe that this was done after this discussion.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 625, "page_number": "621", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Pursuant to the complaints that the jurisdiction of RSHA was affected by the Main Staff Office here in its organization charts?\nA. whether this complaint was in the chart or in the draft only, I am unable to say today, but I can remember that the demarkation of jurisdiction was discussed at that time in connection with these matters.", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 626, "page_number": "622", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QWas the defendant Creutz a member of the highest reviewing court which you mentioned at various occasions?\nAI saw him attend sessions of the supreme court, reviewing, but I don't believe he was an assistant judge.\nQDo you know of any decisions made by the defendant in this respect?\nANo, he had no right to make decisions anyway. None of the assistant judges had such a right. Therefore, if he wasn't an assistant judge he couldn't have made any decisions.\nQDo you know when the first basic directives were passed on to the institution of re-Germanization procedure?\nAYes, this must have been in the summer of 1940.\nQAnd procedure itself, when did this start?\nAApproximately at the same time.\nQAnd at whose initiative was it started? Who gave the order to start it?\nAThe basic order was passed by Himmler.\nQAccording to your knowledge, how many persons were transferred into Germany proper on the basis of this procedure?\nAIt's very hard for me to say so. I don't know these figures. I can't recall them. I think I remember a figure referring to the fall of 1942, according to which there were people suitable for re-Germanization -- approximately 30,000 -- but I can't give you any specific information.\nQDo you know who was the person handling re-Germanization problems in the Main Staff Office?\nAOriginally, according to my opinion, it was Fehndrich, then Schubert, and later I think Dr. Speer.\nQDid the RSHA guard these people who were eligible for reGermanization at their locality where they lived?\nAIn the basic decree, there is mention of guarding to be undertaken by the security police, but the extent and the manner in which this \n was carried out is unknown to me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 627, "page_number": "623", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "I don't know specific details. But doubtlessly, such supervision was carried out.\nQDo you know which office of the RSHA handled this matter?\nAYes, the Security Police, as far as supervision was concerned, and Department IV.\nQAnd were reports drawn up in connection herewith?\nAThat is possible, but I didn't see any.\nQDo you know whether such reports were submitted to Himmler in their entirety or in excerpts?\nAI don't think that supervisory reports of the security police referring to people eligible for re-Germanization were submitted to Himmler, but it is possible.\nQDo you remember any concret cases: A report in February or March of 1943, allegedly submitted to Himmler. Apparently you don't remember that?\nANo.\nQNor do you remember the contents of these reports?\nANo.\nQYou said before you mentioned Dr. Fehndrich. Did you know him?\nAYes.\nQCan you remember whether Dr. Fehndrich particularly functioned as liaison officer between the Main Staff Office and the RSHA? That he was mentioned such function?\nAYes, I believe there were provisions for such a function.\nQDo you know whether this was actually carried out or was there such a provision as you say?\nAEssentially this was in theory only; namely, this function of a liaison officer because common questions were handled between the individual persons in charge of the departments and not with the liaison officers.\nQDo you know whether Dr. Fehndrich was supported by the defendant Creutz?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 628, "page_number": "624", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "AI don't know.\nQIn your direct examination by the Prosecution you stated that among other things you had also negotiated with Creutz. How often was this the case?\nAThis happened very rarely. I can't really give you a figure today, but this happened perhaps three or four times a year that we met, at the utmost.\nQIn the course of a year?\nAYes, not more.\nQDid you go to Himmler or did he go to you?\nANo. I either went to him -- he was far higher in rank than I -- or we met at a third location, on some other occasion, and we then discussed questions of this type.\nQWhat official matters did you discuss with Creutz?\nAIt's very hard for me to say today because this did not involve special sessions on a special subject. But this involved current questions which arose at the time, and I don't remember them today.\nQAccording to your opinion, were these very important subjects or of subordinate significance?\nAQuestions of subordinate significance--no, hardly, because these were handled by the various persons in charge of the departments. They must have been questions of basic significance.\nQBut you don't remember details?\nANo.\nQWitness, you previously referred to a discussion at the end of January 1940 with Heydrich?\nAYes.\nQYou say that the defendant Creutz was present there. That is right. Do you remember whether Creutz participated in the discussion or addressed this session in any manner?\nAI am not sure about that today, but I don't think so, because the entire discussion, on the occasion of this session, referred to the \n highest level, and only the personages of highest rank present participated in the discussion.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 629, "page_number": "625", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "QAccording to your memory, the defendant Creutz only listened to the discussions?\nAYes, well he was there together with his chief.\nQYour further referred to a second discussion in the Main Staff Office of March 1942 on the question of deportations. Can you tell me whether the defendant Creutz was present at this conference?\nAI am not sure about this. I don't know it anymore.\nQDo you know who was in charge of Department IV or DVL?\nAMeasures of a security police nature in connection with members of DVL were handled by the RSHA. As far as it referred to purely economic measures, that is property and so on, this was handled by the Main Staff Office.\nQAnd which was the first in time, that is, in the RSHA or in the Main Staff Office?\nAYou can't judge that by looking at it in timely respect because the matters involved were of different kinds. It depended as to whether these were security police measures or whether these had been carried out, or whether any decrees had been passed, or were already in existence as to property, and only in the course of the entire procedure did the security police measures perhaps become necessary.\nQOn principle, surely it would have been as follows: property would follow security police measures, namely the handling of property questions involved?\nAI wouldn't care to agree to this because otherwise the impressi* might be gained as though all members of Department IV of DVL were subjec to security police treatment. That isn't the case.\nQI only mean these where security police measures were carried out.\nAIn that case, yes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 630, "page_number": "626", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.And which agency of the RSHA carried out did you say four?\nA.Four, of the Security Police measures.\nQ.Witness, do you know anything to the effect that RSHA also signed under the Reich Commissor for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes, this was the case and this was based on a decree of Himmler after the Main Staff Office had been created. According to this the other main offices who had participated in the task of the Reich Commissor for the Strengthening of Germanism, these other agencies, if they handled parts which referred to the entire field of work of the Reich Commissar, were authorized to use the stationery and signature of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and issue their decrees under that name.\nQ.Were all directives under that name?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Since when did this happen according to your knowledge?\nA.I believe it was early 1942.\nQ.Do you know the percentages of the DVA of the demarkation of the jurisdiction of the four main offices in 1941?\nA.This can only be seen from the development of the entire working board since 1939. It can only be understood from that aspect, that angle. New spheres of work had constantly arisen and in the course of time dualism was rampant partly between the main offices themselves, so the it became necessary to demarkate the jurisdiction in detail and this was actually done when the main office was created.\nQ.Witness, you said before when my colleague van der trenck examined you that the immigration center as far as you recall was created in November 1939. Is it not correct that it had already been created in October 1939, that is, at the time when Baltic deportations were first started?\nA.It may have happened a few weeks before but in any case it was created for the purpose of registering the Baltic Germans.\nQ.Yes, that is what I wanted to hear. Mention has been made \n repeatedly in your examination of deputies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 631, "page_number": "627", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Do you know who appointed these deputies?\nA.As far as I know Himmler appointed the deputies.\nQ.Do you know who was deputy of the Reich Commissar in Alsace-Lorraine?\nA.In Alsace it was Gauleiter Wagner for certain and in Lorraine although I am not sure but I think it was Gauleiter Buerckel.\nQ.As you obviously knew these men by name and position, do you know the relationship that existed between Himmler on the one hand and these two deputies on the other.\nA.No. it is very hard for me to say. I don't know.\nQ.Do you know which agency bestowed German Nationality in Alsace-Lorraine and also Luxembourg?\nA.It was bestowed by the Chief of the Civil Administration, the Reichsstatthalter respectively.\nQ.In the categories just mentioned who was responsible for the deportations from the territories just mentioned?\nA.Also the chief of the Civil Administration.\nQ.Do you know whether there were any discussions and if so between who on the subject of restricting or reducing as much as possible these deportations.\nA.There were discussions I think in the Main Staff Office in Estonia; at any rate also on the subject of Luxembourg. I don't remember Lorraine exactly but I am sure there must have been a discussion or perhaps several of them and I definitely recall that the main offices in Berlin, at least were present, all of them, at least the persons in charge of handling these offices. Measures which were undertaken by local agencies may possibley have been considered incorrect and it was endeavored to amend the orders already passed.\nQ.One final question: If I understood you correctly, you were a Standartenfuehrer in the SS?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 632, "page_number": "628", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.The witness bach-Zelewski, who was on examination here asserted that from the very beginning all higher officers, of the SS knew of the general fact that the Jews were to be exterminated. Is that correct?\nA.The SS and the SS Leadership in general did not know as far as I know that the Jews were to be exterminated.\nQ.Thank you. I have not further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 633, "page_number": "629", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness. BY DR. BEHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQ.I would ask the Tribunal to continue the examination for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. Witness, in your direct examination you stated that you came in contact constantly with several men of the Main Staff Office, mainly, Fehndich, Schubert, and Dr. Stier. Did one of these gentlemen deal with the field of tasks which defendant Meyer-Hetling had to administer in the Main Staff Office?\nA.Not according to my knowledge, no.\nQ.How long have you known the defendant Meyer-Hetling, witness?\nA.I believe I met him for the first time in 1941.\nQ.Do you know that the defendant was working at the University of Berlin as a Professor?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you confirm to me the fact that he did his tasks in the Main Staff Office as a secondary job. Is that correct?\nA.No, I couldn't tell you that because I don't know anything about it.\nQ.In your direct examination you stated that approximately two or three times you met the defendant Meyer-Hettling. When did you see Meyer-Hetling for the first time or when did you visit him for the first time?\nA.Today I no longer recall the exact date when this happened--", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 634, "page_number": "630", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.- Witness, I asked you to tell me when you first met the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nA.- I answered to your question, Counsel, that I no longer recall the exact date, because my meetings with Professor Meyer had nothing to do with any actual questions which are important at the moment; but my meeting only dealt with matters pertaining to my office and agency, with reference to planning questions, and which questions were dealt with by the office of the defendant.\nQ.- In any case it couldn't have been prior to 1941, could it, witness, as you stated that you only met the defendant Meyer-Hetling in 1941 for the first time.\nA.- I stated that I assumed that it was in 1941; of course previous to that, concerning the date, I can't remember the exact date.\nQ.- Therefore, it couldn't have been prior to that.\nA.- Quite so.\nQ.- Where did you go to after that; or where did you go to see the defendant Meyer-Hetling?\nA.- I went to see him in his agency which was in Gerlin, Dahlhem and I don't remember the name of the street.\nQ.- Which office was it that you had a current contact with, as far as the billeting of resettlers of labor allocation was concerned?\nA.- Originally it was in the agency of Greifelt, with Main Department and later on with Office I, Amt I.\nQ.- Who was it subordinated to, witness?\nA.- Main Department I was subordinated to Dr. Fehnrich.\nQ.- And Office I?\nA.- I believe at the beginning it was also subordinated to Dr. Fehnrich, and later on to Dr. Stier.\nQ.- Did the defendant Meyer at the Main Staff Office hold a very strong position? Was it a position of decisive importance in the admi \n nistration?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 635, "page_number": "631", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.- Unfortunately as an outsider I cannot judge that.\nQ.- When you were in the agency of the defendant Meyer, witness, whom did you see there first; whom did you speak to?\nA.- That was not a meeting, as you called it first, Counsel, it was more of scientific discussion, where my chief of office, Ohlendorf and perhaps three or four other gentlemen also participated who came from Meyer's agency, and we discussed questions pertaining to the administrative planning, economic planning, and other similar matters which were being dealt with by that agency. It was more of a discussion rather than a conference or meeting.\nQ.- Were those questions concerned with the general traffic planning and economic planning and so on?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Were there questions which particularly referred to the extension of settlement questions and so on?\nA.- Yes, we discussed questions of planning of villages and also planning of certain agricultural districts and similar matters.\nQ.- You didn't discuss any problems of rural communities, cooperatives?\nA.- It is possible that we also spoke about cooperatives; however, this is a special economic question, and I no longer recall the details.\nQ.- Witness, can you also confirm the fact for me whether concerning the shaping of the countryside, for instance the preservation of woods and patches of grass, and also the way in which the settlement was to be established, did you discuss those matters also?\nA.- Yes, indeed; those questions were also touched upon. Certain drafts with pictures were shown to us too.\nQ.- According to your opinion was the scientific work, more or less directed for the future or was it merely a clarifying of problems \n of the present that existed at that time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 636, "page_number": "632", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.- The most important part dealt with was planning which only could be begun after the end of the war. There were also questions of new constructions, of farms or barns; it was stated there that they were being carried out and they would be carried out in the meantime.\nQ.- As far as these constructive constructions were concerned, were there exemplary construction projects; or, what?\nA.- I believe there were, because I believe they were the first ones to be established.\nQ.- Witness, did you also deal with the defendant Meyer in questions concerning settlement, deportations, and foreign peoples? Were these questions of any concern in your office?\nA.- No.\nQ.- When you visited the defendant Meyer's agency, did you also see certain plans which pertaining to the settlement of certain areas?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Were they maps?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And would you please tell the Tribunal what those maps looked like?\nA.- Well, there was a large wall there, and the maps were nothing but general staff maps, army maps, where certain things had been shown by construction of villages and so on, and houses in certain districts, with a different color; the plan as it was imagined for the future was also contained there with a different pattern. Apart from that, there were also smaller maps where special local agencies had drawn their projects which they wanted to carry out at a later date.\nQ.- Is it correct that the Department IV-B, in the first place, was competent for the settlement of certain people and not the department of which Profesoor Meyer was in charge?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 637, "page_number": "633", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.- I never heard nor did I experience it during conferences that the department or the office of Professor Meyer was competent for any questions of resettlement.\nQ.- Witness, then you spoke about the General Plan East, and you said you had seen that General Plan East in its broad outlines/. Can you tell me what the date was when this plan had been established or originated?\nA.- The General Plan East originated in 1940.\nQ.- In 1940?\nA.- Yes, 1940.\nQ.- Do you know which agency established this General Plan East?\nA.- The General Plan East, as far as it referred to deportations and evacuations, of foreigners, that is to say of Poles in that particular case, had been established by Office I V of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office; who dealt with the other parts as far as the structure and general matters were concerned of resettlement, I no longer recall for certain, but I do believe to be able to say that the General Plan East in part was discussed with Dr. Fehnrich.\nQ.- Can you tell me, witness, whether apart from this General plan dated 1940 there were also other General plans?\nA.- Whether other plans existed which were called general plans, I couldn't tell you Counsel; but that there were also a series of other plans for resettlement and so on of the eastern territories is certain.\nQ.- Certainly, I see, and these other plans were they established and worked out by various other agencies; or, who drew them up?\nA.- Well, other plans which had been worked on, I believe for the most part dealt with a certain theoretical planning of new settlement area* to be settled in various states. Those plans I believe for the larger part originated in the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 638, "page_number": "634", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.- Witness, I would like to put to you that the General plan which is called the General Plan of this trial, originated in 1942, and was established by the institute for agricultural matters and agricultural policy, of the University of Berlin. Is my question justified as to whether the General Plan which you mentioned, dated 1940, established by Office IV, Amt IV, of the Reich Security Main Office, RSHA is identical with those general plans?\nA.- No, that is absolutely impossible because those are two entirely different matters which we are discussing here, Counsel.\nQ.- Oh, I see. Do you know the General Plan dated 1942, witness?\nA.- No.\nQ.- No?\nA.- No, I don't.\nQ.- You don't. Is it correct, therefore, that particularly at that time the word planning was a word which was used considerably, and that it was considered fashionable to use it, and also that each agency was developing more or less large numbers of plans.\nA.- I believe that a lot of planning was done, yes.\nQ.- And also by all sorts of agencies?\nA.- Yes, indeed.\nQ.- In order to avoid a misunderstanding, witness, I would like to come back to what you stated before; namely, with reference to your direct examination and the aims of the general plan. You stated at the time that there was an immediate plan and a long distance plan. After having clarified that point, namely, that the plan called General Plan in this trial is not identical with the one which you mentioned before, I don't believe you will be able to tell me, witness, whether the official general plan contained an immediate aim and a long distance aim.\nA.- Well, I can't tell you any instances because I don't know the plan of 1942.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 639, "page_number": "635", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Witness, can you tell me when the deportations in particular took place?\nA.The deportations for the most part took place in 1940.\nQ.On the basis of that, of course, was the General Plan, dated 1940, which came from Office IV of the RSHA, the Reich Security Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer-Hetling have anything to do with the deportation planning?\nA.Not according to my knowledge; he didn't.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer-Hetling have anything to do with the DVL procedure and the Germanization procedure?\nA.No.\nQ.Witness, among other things you mentioned that Slovenes were resettled, and the Main Staff Office, as far as it dealt with the second action was interpolated. Which department of the Main Staff Office participated in this?\nA.I believe it was Office I, or Office II, but as I do not recall the organizational set-up very well, I don't believe I can give you an exact answer to that question.\nQ.Furthermore, you stated, witness, that the Central Planning was carried out in the Main Staff Office. With reference to the misunderstanding which exists the moment planning is mentioned, I would appreciate if you would tell me, witness, whether by that you are trying to say that the defendant Meyer's department was the central guidance office of the Main Staff Office.\nA.No, according to my knowledge, that was not a fact.\nQ.Witness, do you know the stop decree by Hitler, dated the 13th of January, 1943? I may refresh your recollection by saying that this decree immediately stopped all work which referred to future planning for peace time. Do you know that decree, witness?\nA.Yes, indeed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 640, "page_number": "636", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Can you tell me what the effects of that decree were on Professor Meyer in his field of tasks?\nA.Of course I couldn't tell you all that in detail because I was not working there, but I do know that in this connection a member of the Professor Meyer's agency whom he had to release, based upon that stop decree by Hitler, immediately was sent on emergency service to Department III of the Main Office of the RSHA so that I can understand from that fact that his activity at the time had been limited.\nQ.Do you know that the defendant Meyer had to join the Wehrmacht in Autumn 1944?\nA.No, I didn't know that.\nQ.The Prosecution, witness, charges the defendant Meyer-Hetling with participation in a number of crimes and I would like to ask you, witness, whether the crimes he has been charged with, or the matters in that connection, were part of the field of tasks of the defendant Meyer-Hetling whether the defendant Meyer-Hetling had anything to do with kidnapping of foreign children, infants.\nA.I can't imagine what connection he had with that.\nQ.All you have to say is yes or no.\nA.No, I don't believe so.\nQ.You don't believe so. Did he have anything to do with abortions on female foreign laborers?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he have anything to do with questions preventing the reproduction of foreigners?\nA.No, I can't imagine what he had to do with that.\nQ.Did he have anything to do with questions in connection with extermination or persecution of Jews?\nA.No, I can't imagine his having anything to do with that.\nQ.Did he have anything to do with kidnapping of little children; infants, I mean.\nA.No, I can't imagine that either.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 641, "page_number": "637", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Did he have anything to do with the deportation of foreign workers and other foreigners into the Reich area for slave labor?\nA.No, I know nothing about that.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I have to withdraw my law question; that was already stated in the direct examination.\nI have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK: (Attorney for the defendant Schwarzenberger)\nQ.Witness, you spoke about an account which was lodged with the RSHA under the title Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and from which money, and from funds were drawn for the EWZ and UWZ and were transferred to these respective agencies. What is your knowledge based upon, witness, with reference to this account?\nA.My knowledge is based upon the fact that we, namely, Office III had the official supervision over EWZ and over UWZ and we were also entrusted with the administration with reference to the several points, and so far I know that the Central Administration of these funds were handled by our office too, AMT II; however, as I said before in my direct examination I was not one of the members of the administration, and, therefore, I didn't have an accurate knowledge concerning all these questions pertaining to the accounts.\nQ.Did the RSHA, that is to say the Department II of the RSHA, receive the funds directly from the Reich Finance Ministry?\nA.I couldn't tell you that with certainty.\nQ.And did Office II, Amt II transfer the money directly to you with EWZ and UWZ.\nA.I know that with regard to EWZ for certain, but I am not quite certain about UWZ, because they were not part of my field of tasks.\nQ.Therefore, you don't know whether money was sent to UWZ at all; is that what you want to say witness?\nA.That the RSHA financed the UWZ is certain.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 642, "page_number": "638", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.But now the question is whether those funds went through those accounts?\nA.The question is I don't know which account you are referring to; went through what account?\nQ.Therefore, if I understand you correctly, you say the following: You can't tell me whether these funds for the UWZ went through this account called the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and so on.\nA.I don't know that for certain because I no longer recall the details of the conference or the discussions we had at the time.\nQ.The men in charge of the Finance Administration of the Main Staff Office, was he in a position to have knowledge of the use of the funds?\nA.I can't tell you that, Counsel, because I did not deal with those administrative questions.\nQ.What is your personal opinion based upon, the knowledge which you have?\nMR. McHANEY:If the Tribunal please, the Prosecution objects to the question. I don't think that this witness' opinion about the matter is of interest to the Tribunal. I would further suggest that the defendant is the best person to testify about what knowledge he had concerning the use made of money.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal of course would not be interested in this witness' opinion about the matter. We would like to have the facts. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.The man in charge of the Finance Administration, of the Main Staff Office, did he have any authority to issue orders concerning the use of this money?\nA.As far as EWZ was concerned, as far as I can say, no.\nQ.Would the man in charge of the Finance Administration, of the Main Staff Office, have been in a position to stop the transfer of \n of this money?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. McHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 643, "page_number": "639", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No, because I only consider his position an administrative office.\nQ.Therefore it is correct that the transfer, as such, was carried out or ordered by a superior office?\nA.Well, yes, because the basic decree, dated the 7th October, 1939, concerning the establishment of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, stated the fact that the Reich Finance Ministry has to place the funds necessary for the carrying out of those tasks at their disposal.\nQ.Witness, I shall pass on to another subject. Did you at any time hear that the defendant Schwarzenberger participated in racial examinations?\nA.No, I didn't.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 644, "page_number": "640", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.Did you at any time hear that the defendant Schwarzenberger participated in the deportations described by you?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you at any time hear that the defendant Schwarzenberger participated in the re-Germanization which you mentioned before?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you at any time hear that the defendant Schwarzenberger participated in deportation measures, which you spoke of before?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the defendant Schwarzenberger participate in any conferences in the Finance Administration of the Main Office Staff, which you spoke of before?\nA.I never saw the defendant Schwarzenberger in conferences where I participated in connection with these questions.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Schwarzenberger at all, witness, or did you know him at any time until the end of the war, I mean?\nA.Yes, I believe I saw him some time. I met him for just a short time at an occasion which I can't remember exactly anymore.\nQ.Do you agree with me, therefore, witness, that the defendant Schwarzenberger did not participate in all these measures which you described here as a witness?\nA.As far as I can judge that, he did not participate in these measures.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you. No further questions, Your Honors. BY DR. MUELLER (Counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Witness, can you tell me who was the representative of the Reichs Commissioner in the Warthegau?\nA.Gauleiter Kaiser.\nQ.And who was his deputy in the Warthegau?\nA.At first the deputy was the Higher SS and Police Leader Koppel.\nQ.I believe that position was occupied at all times by Oberfuehrer Koppel, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 645, "page_number": "641", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.Yes. Well, I said \"at first\" because I meant it from a chronological point of view, you see.\nQ.Therefore Koppel was relieved later on, wasn't he?\nA.Obergruppenfuehrer Bergelmann was the next man.\nQ.In your direct examination, witness, you stated that Huebner was Stabsfuehrer, in other words, staff leader. In this connection you used the phrase \"if Huebner would have had the authority to act as deputy\". Did you wish to state by that, witness, that you did not know how the deputizing was carried out within the agency? Is that it?\nA.Yes indeed. I wanted to say that I was not quite certain whether Huebner was a deputy or not.\nQ.In your direct examination, witness, you stated that the UWZ was subordinated to the Inspector of the Security Police and the SD. Can you tell us, witness, in addition to that, who was the superior of the Security Police and the SD?\nA.The Inspector of the Security Police and the SD was subordinated to the RSHA; in other words, the Chief of the Security Police.\nQ.And who was the Higher SS and Police Leader subordinated to?\nA.He was subordinated to the Reich-Leader SS, Himmler.\nQ.The UWZ, therefore, apparently received its instructions through those channels of command?\nA.Well, that does not quite apply to those questions of the UWZ, because the police channel of command was replaced, or ran right into the channel of command of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and there the UWZ acted as an executive agency within the framework of the whole thing. It also received instructions from the Higher SS and Police Leader in his capacity as deputy of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in connection with registration and also resettlement.\nQ.In your direct examination, witness, you spoke about a settlement procedure. Do you know that the settlement staffs were not at the lowest level, but rather that they also had the labor staffs, \n whichwere below them?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 646, "page_number": "642", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.Well, as far as I know, there were only a few settlement staff for certain areas or for certain departments. Then, as the lowest and the smallest unit, we had the labor staff, just exactly as it applied to the EWZ, with reference to the outside agencies.\nQ.Do you know that the labor staffs, according to a decree by Gauleiter Kaiser, were considered to be apprentices, if you can call them that?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Do you know that farm cards were established prior to the settlement actions, and that these labor staffs did that?\nA.Yes, I spoke about that, and I heard about such farm cards.\nQ.Do you know that these farm cards were submitted to the UWZ for a decision as to which farms had to be evacuated?\nA.Yes, I know that. I believe I mentioned that this morning in the course of my examination. I did not speak about farm cards, but I spoke of lists.\nQ.Therefore you meant lists which contained the farm cards, is that it?\nA.Yes, sir.\nQ.On those farm cards, I understand, there was a special column concerning figure decisions by the UWZ, is that correct?\nA.I cannot recall what such a card looked like, but the UWZ must have placed their decisions somewhere on this little farm card.\nQ.Where di you gain your knowledge, witness, about the working procedure used by the settlement staffs?\nA.First of all I know that from the reports, through the SD, from the Warthegau, and secondly, because I was there personally, as I stated this morning, and because I watched such a working procedure.\nQ.Do you know, then, whether the execution of the settlement in the lowest lever was the same everywhere? I mean, the same as you described it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 647, "page_number": "643", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.No. These procedures varied, of course; they were not always the same. That is the reason why I stressed the fact, this morning, that I was only describing the things which I saw at the time.\nQ.Therefore, changes could be possible both chronologically and locally, is that correct?\nA.Yes, of course.\nQ.Do you remember that in the competent decrees concerning settlement, which were then compiled into a book, the assignment of human beings was always referred to that agency which carried out the necessary deportations, namely, the Chief of the Security Police and the organs under his supervision?\nA.Yes, quite so.\nQ.Can you tell us, witness, when the mass of settlements took place?\nA.The most important part of the settlements took place in 1940 and also in 1941, in part, but I believe it started declining as of the middle of 1941 and then it ceased completely.\nQ.I believe that only a few stall settlement actions were carried out then, isn't that so, witness?\nA. well, a few settlements were carried out, but not to a large extent, certainly not.\nQ.Do you know that in 1942, at least, in the Government-General or in other territories, people were settled for the following reason, namely, because it was the opinion that in the Warthegau there was no more space for these people?\nA.Well, yes, it was mentioned in connection with the planning in Lublin that the settlement had to be carried out there because there was no longer very much space left in the Warthegau.\nQ.When did this exchange settlement take place at Lublin?\nA.I am not speaking about the exchange settlement, Counsel, but I am speaking about a special plan of the SS and Police Leader of Lublin, whose name was Globocnik, who appeared in the picture only in \n 1942, whereas the exchange settlement took place earlier.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 648, "page_number": "644", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.When was it, approximately, witness?\nA.I believe that the exchange settlement took place in 1940;\nQ.In your direct examination, witness, you stated that a meeting took place under the chairmanship of Greifelt--and I believe that was in 1940--where certain questions of deportation were discussed, and you stated that representatives of the deputies of the Reich Commissar participated in that meeting. Do you know whether Huebner participated in these conferences? I mean, in this particular one?\nA.I can no longer recall that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 649, "page_number": "645", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.In your direct examination, witness, you stated that Huebner, in particular, at first dealt withR andS questions in the Warthegau, is that correct, and that later on he became Reich Commissioner? Would you leave the possibility open that you might have made a mistake in that connection, witness?\nA.As such a long period of time has elapsed since then, it is quite possible, but I don't believe I was very positive about it, I simple said it was an assumption on my part.\nQ.In your direct examination you brought theR andS leaders from the superior levels in connection with the Germanization procedures. Do you know that in the Warthegau and in Lodz, in particular, there was a branch office of the RUSHA, which made it its task to have competency over these matters?\nA.Yes.\nDR. MULLER:No further questions. BY DR. SCHUBERT (Counsel for the defendant Lorenz)\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Lorenz?\nA.Yes, indeed.\nQ.Do you know whether Lorenz had great political influence?\nA.I can't judge those things very well, because that is somewhat beyond the sphere of my personal activity.\nQ.In your testimony, witness, you stated that the task of the VOMI consisted of duties in connection with the procedure ranging from the resettlement until the persons were taken to the VOMI camp. Due to the many competencies which existed in this complex matter, commonly known as resettlement, I would like to mention a few fields of tasks of the Resettlement Office, and I would appreciate it if you would tell me whether the VOMI participated or had any basic competence in those matters.\nFirst of all, the finding of the money that the resettlers had.\nA. whether the fortunes of the resettlers were fixed or found out by the VOMI before the resettlement, or before they left their \n original living places, or whether these resettlement commandos had certain officials from, other agencies do that task, I don't know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. MULLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 650, "page_number": "646", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Q.How about repaying or compensating the resettlers for their losses?\nA.That was a task which, later on, according to my knowledge, fell within the competency of the German Resettlement Office.\nQ.And therefore not the VOMI?\nA.Yes, it was not the VOMI.\nQ.The racial examination?\nA.The VOMI had nothing to do with that.\nQ.EWZ procedure?\nA.No, the VOMI had nothing to do with EWZ, at least directly.\nQ.Making German citizens out of the resettlers?\nA.No.\nQ.Settlement of these resettlers?\nA.No.\nQ.Deportation of those persons who had to make room for those resettled persons?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know, witness, whether the resettlement which was carried out by the VOMI was a so-called compulsory deportation or whether that deportation was carried out on a voluntary basis?\nA.The resettlements carried cut by the VOMI were resettlements on a voluntary oasis, namely, agreements, with a few exceptions.\nQ.As far as there were agreements, witness, there was, of course, the agreement of those countries of which these resettled persons or deported persons had been citizens before, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know, witness, whether the VOMI had camps outside of the continental limits of Germany? When I say the continental lim \n its of Germany, I am referring to what belonged to the German Reich at the beginning of the war, including the Incorporated Eastern Territories.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 651, "page_number": "647", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.The VOMI, according to my knowledge, had nothing to do outside of the limits which you just mentioned, with the exception of one instance, during which it had a camp near Belgrade, near Vengin, within the framework of the large resettlement or deportation actions of the Bessarabian Germans, because the resettlers there were transferred by boat and rail transportation.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, witness, this was nothing but a transient camp where the resettlers were not kept for a long period of time.\nA.That is right, just for a short period of time.\nQ.Did you see VOMI camps?\nA.I was in camps of the VOMI near Lodz.\nQ.Can you tell us anything about the condition of the camp which you saw?\nA.I didn't notice anything in particular at that time which could possible remain in my memory, and I would not remember it today.\nQ.Could those resettlers move about freely?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, I want you to tell me something now concerning the deportations (Absiedlung). Today you spoke about a meeting which took place in 1940, and which was presided over by Heydrich, and you stated that a representative of VOMI was present at that meeting or conference. Do you know whether that was Lorenz?\nA.No, I don't believe it was Lorenz.\nQ.Witness, surely you must remember that in connection with the exaggeration of official offices, an exaggerated participation procedure was used, in particular amongst the SS and Party agencies, and that therefore, when there were conferences, there was quite a \n large number of officials present and also representatives of the agencies; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 652, "page_number": "648", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "A.That is absolutely correct. It occurred quite often that when the Ministry of the Interior, for instance, had a meeting where it was believed that some agency would participate which came from the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, then, out of pure concern for that, all the main offices were invited to come and participate, justifying this by saying that at least the correct agency would be there.\nQ.Therefore, if I understood you correctly, an invitation to such a meeting did not mean that the person invited had professional competency for the problem which was going to be discussed at that meeting.\nA.No.\nQ.You also spoke about the deportation of Slovenes. I would like to clarify that point in connection with this, witness, as to how far the VOMI participated in these deportation actions. Did the VOMI participate in finding out which persons were to be deported?\nA.The circle of persons who had to be deported in connection with this deportation action of Slovenes was fixed, according to my opinion, by the local agencies.\nQ.Did VOMI participate in the actions by virtue of which the people concerned were deported from their homeland?\nA.You mean about the executive carrying out of this action? No.\nQ.Did they participate in the transportation? Did VOMI participate in the transportation of these people?\nA.I cannot tell you that, but I don't think so.\nQ.Witness, do you know anything about how the Slovenes were billeted in these VOMI camps? were they treated like resettlers, or what?\nA.I can still recall, from those conferences, that originally \n the VOMI did not want to place these camps at the disposal of these people, for the very simple reason that they were of the opinion-by that I mean VOMI--that these people concerned were not resettlers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 653, "page_number": "649", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "I mean, they were not resettlers according to the actual term of \"resettlers\". However, it was then clarified that these people were not to be treated like inmates of a concentration camp, but they were to be treated like resettlers. In other words, there was not to be a special guard detail for the camps, no special supervision, and the camps would then, and only then, be placed at the disposal of these people.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 654, "page_number": "650", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQTherefore I can understand from your answer, witness, that the Slovenes in the camps could move about freely, exactly like all the other resettlers? Is that correct?\nAI can't give you details on that question because I didn't see any of these camps myself, but I assume that.\nQWhen these persons--I mean these Slovenes--were employed for labor, do you confirm, witness, that during the war every person who was in Germany had to work?\nAAccording to my recollection, yes.\nQIs it therefore correct, witness, if I understand your testimony to have been so far, that the VOMI, with reference to these Slovenes, had the position of an innkeeper? Was that correct?\nAWell, yes, just about.\nQNow to come to the resettlements in Russia. Did I understand you correctly, witness, to say that when the German Wehrmacht advanced, it cared for the ethnic Germans in Russia at first, and only later on representatives of the VOMI followed and took care of these ethnic Germans?\nAYes.\nQWho was the representative of VOMI in the Ukraine?\nAAt least at the time when I was there, that was in the summer of 1942, and I believe also in the period of time that followed, it was Brigadefuehrer Hofmeyer.\nQDo you know, witness, whether Brigadefuehrer Hofmeyer was subordinated to the higher SS and police leader for Russia south?\nAI can remember that there were certain doubts at that time concerning the subordination status of Hofmeyer and that certain negotiations were being carried out in that connection. As far as I can remember, the Reich Commissar Koch also wanted to have him subordinated to his Reich Commissar's office. Whether this was done, I couldn't tell you.\nQWitness, do you know whether Hofmeyer resigned from the VOMI and \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 655, "page_number": "651", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "was subordinated to someone else in the VOMI?\nAI don't know that.\nQDuring your visits in Russia, did you find out that Hofmeyer, only during the first period of time, signed with VOMI and later on assumed the title of German Administration Office--VOLI?\nADuring the period of time when I was there, the term used or the signature used was still VOMI. Whether the term or the signature changed, I couldn't tell you.\nQDo you know whether Himmler issued direct orders to Hofmeyer?\nAAs Himmler was in the Ukraine often, it is quite possible that he gave Hofmeyer direct orders.\nQWitness, you surely must know that in 1944, under the pressure of the advancing Russian armies, resettlements took place from the southern part of Europe?\nAYes.\nQDo you know the persons who were resettled went voluntarily or whether they did it upon the instigation of some German agency which forced them to do so?\nAAs far as I know, they did that on a voluntary basis. They came back voluntarily. I am quite certain there was no orderly resettlement at that time.\nQTherefore I agree with you, witness, don't I, when I say that had there been a compulsion when these people were taken back this was due to the circumstances at the time and not to the agencies, is that correct?\nAAs far as I could see these things, yes.\nQWitness, now we come to Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg. You already mentioned that the local chiefs of the civil administration carried out sometimes certain deportations from there. Do you know whether the VOMI agreed with the execution of these deportations?\nANo. On the contrary from the conferences in which I personally participated, or from which I heard about it through my collaborators \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 656, "page_number": "652", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "who were there, I can only say that the representatives of the VOMI, generally speaking, were against these deportation measures during those conferences.\nQDid the VOMI participate in the transportation of these resettlers?\nAAs far as I know, no.\nQWitness, you also mentioned a few individual cases. You spoke about the exchange settlement between Lublin and the Warthegau. Did the VOMI participate in that?\nAAs far as I can recall, that was not carried out by the VOMI.\nQAnd how about the resettlement from Gottschee?\nAI believe that the resettlement from Gottschee was carried out with the assistance of local help, but I no longer recall all those things very clearly.\nQDo you recall that answer now?\nANo, I am sorry.\nQCan you tell us anything about the resettlements of a few German citizens from the area of Duez in France?\nAAs I stated this morning on the direct examination, I do remember that a small number of people were resettled from that area, but that was nothing but a small incident which I did not recall in detail.\nQTherefore you can't tell us anything about the participation of the VOMI in that action?\nANo.\nQNow to come back to the re-Germanization procedure, witness, you stated this morning that the VOMI, by an original and basic decree by Himmler, had been declared competent for these matters, but that later on these things did not materialize for the VOMI. Did I understand you correctly, witness?\nAYes, I believe that in the first decree, dated the summer of 1940, amongst the agencies which participated in the re-Germanization procedure, the VOMI was there. However, in connection with the estab \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 657, "page_number": "653", "date": "28 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-28", "text": "lishment of an agency for ethnic questions, in 1942 something was also done within the Party; namely, the Party requested that these measures were part of the tasks of the Party and therefore had to be carried out by the Party.\nQCan you therefore say, witness, that the competency of the VOMI as contained in the Himmler decree became obsolete due to the fact that new competencies arose for other agencies; in particular, the one which you have just mentioned now in connection with the Party.\nQYes, you see the VOMI, although it had representatives in certain districts lacked a lower organizational structure which could have carried out these measures.\nQNow another question in connection with the DVL, witness. You were one of the members of the Supreme Court of Racial Classification?\nAYes.\nQWas the VOMI represented there?\nANo, it was not.\nQThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 29 October 1947, 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 658, "page_number": "654", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al.\n, defendants sitting at Nuernberg, Germnay, on 29 October 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the courtroom will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like to make a very short statement before we begin with the witness Pancke. The Prosecution wishes to introduce into evidence which film was Prosecution Exhibit USSR 370 before the International Military tribunal. Now, since the court room does not have the facilities for showing this film, I have made tentative arrangements for it to be shown in the main court room No. 1 at 4:45 today. If that is agreable to the Tribunal --\nTHE PRESIDENT:How long does it take to show the film?\nMR. SHILLER:This film will take approximately seven or eight minutes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Suppose we determine that matter after the recess.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann) Will Your Honors oermit me to call the witness Guenther Pancke?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGUENTHERPANCKE, a witness called out of order, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "GUENTHER", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 659, "page_number": "655", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:\nYou will raise your right hand and repeat after me the following oath: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann)\nQWitness, kindly give your full name to the Tribunal, and your date of birth.\nAMy name is Guenther Pancke; born 1 May, 1899.\nQWitness, were you once chief of RuSHA?\nAYes.\nQAt what time?\nAFrom 1938 to 1940.\nQI would like to confine my examination to this period of time. Witness, did you have proper training for this office?\nANo.\nQDo you know why you were called to this office?\nAI don't know. I assume that the Reich Fuehrer SS considered me suitable.\nQFor what reason did he consider you suitable?\nAI don't know.\nQWhat was RuSHA like in organizational respects at the time you took over?\nAWhen I took over Office, RuSHA was being reorganized.\nQCan you further details as to the manner in which, according to your knowledge, this reorganization was carried out?\nAWhen I took up my Office with RuSHA, the training office, Schulungsamt of RuSHA was detached from RuSHA and attached to the SS Main Office. Apart from that, all chiefs of office had to resign from their offices.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 660, "page_number": "656", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QWas Lebensborn subordinated to RuSHA?\nANo.\nQWas Ahnenerbe subordinated to RuSHA?\nANo.\nQWhat were Himmler's words when he appointed you to take over RuSHA?\nAThe Reichsfuehrer SS used approximately the following words literally: I hand RuSHA over to you. It is the best office which the SS is able to assign anybody to because its tasks are of a purely positive nature, whereas RuSHA is on the negative side whereas RSHA has to combat damaging influences, RuSHA on the other hand has to deal with and promote the valuable and beautiful wherever possible.\nQWhat were RuSHA's tasks at the time you took over office?\nARuSHA's tasks at the time I took office, were purely SS internal matters.\nQFor example?\nAFor example, Sippenpflege, (care of genealogical matters,) that is, dealing with genealogical records, of documents referring to genealogical health for the purpose of accepting members, that is applicants, into the SS, and for the purpose of handling marriage documents. Further more.\nQ (interposing) Will you please explain to the Tribunal why marriage documents, for example, had to be dealt with there? Pursuant to what decree of Himmler did this take place?\nAThe Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler as far as I recall in 1931, issued the so-called Heirats Befehl,)marriage order, which was later on amended to the marriage and engagement order of the SS, (Heirats and Verlobungsbefehl.) Pursuant to this decree, members of the SS were only permitted to marry subject to the approval of the Reichsfuehrer SS and this approval depended on the racial and health value of the marriage partner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 661, "page_number": "657", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QIs it correct to state comprehensively that the tasks of RuSHA were confined to selection within the SS?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQOf what agencies was RuSHA composed?\nAAt the time I took over office and during the time while I was in Office it consisted of three offices, the Sippenamt), genealogical office, the racial office and the settlement office.\nQLater on I will refer to the significance of these three agencies. Witness, I would like to ask you what effect did the reorganization of RuSHA have at the time you took over office?\nABy detaching the traning office, naturally the significance of RuSHA was considerable reduced.\nQWhy did RuSHA not take over the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at the beginning of the war?\nAAccording to my opinion, the Reichsfuehrer SS intentionally wished to separate the official tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism; the internal tasks of the SS.\nQWitness, I would like to ask you to insert a small pause between each question and answer.\nAYes.\nQIs it right that various ambitious members of RuSHA attempted, in spite of that, to take over the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes, that intention was in existence.\nQDid it fail?\nAYes, it failed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 662, "page_number": "658", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QWas there any planning in RUSHA with a view to strengthening Germanism in the east?\nANo.\nQHow was RUSHA nevertheless inserted into official tasks during the course of the war?\nADue to the events which occurred after the Polish campaign, that is after incorporation of the former territory of the Polish state into German Reich area had been determinated, a large resettlement of ethnic Germans was undertaken to these areas. These ethnic Germans were examined under racial points of view and points of view of health and racial examiners of RUSHA were used for the purpose.\nQWitness, I wasn't asking you for details, but I would rather hear from you how it came about that RUSHA was inserted into this procedure?\nAThere were no other trained experts available in any other agency, except RUSHA.\nQWas RUSHA from the very beginning involved in evacuations from the east?\nANo.\nQEvacuations from the occupied territories?\nANo.\nQAt your time, that is prior to 9th July 1940, was RUSHA already involved in examinations concerning illicit sexual intercourse between Germans and Poles?\nAI don't know that exactly. It depends upon the date of the corresponding order of the Reichsfuehrer.\nQYou don't remember that order, do you?\nANo. I know of the order, but I don't know at what time this order was issued.\nQTherefore you don't know whether you received this order in your capacity as chief of RUSHA.\nANo, but I believe I can remember that this order on sexual intercourse between Poles end German women first became known to me by a \n publication in a newspaper; and, therefore, I assume that it only occurred after I had left RUSHA, but I can't say for sure.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 663, "page_number": "659", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QDo you mean the time when racial examiners were appointed for racial examinations; is that what you mean; examination of Poles?\nAYes.\nQYou don't mean the prohibition as such, that is the prohibition which as you just explained, only became known to you by newspaper reports.\nAYes.\nQCan you remember what this newspaper report said?\nAIt said that pursuant to a decree or order of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, or the Reichsfuehrer SS, as chief of the German Police, I don't remember exactly, sexual intercourse between Polish workers in the Reich area and German women and girls was prohibited and that violation of this decree could be subject to punishment by death.\nQDid you also read newspaper reports to the effect that due to violation of this prohibition executions had been carried out?\nAYes.\nQThat was published?\nAYes.\nQIn the decree of 7th October, 1939, did you receive official notice of this decree? For this purpose I am going to hand this decree over to you and I would like to hear whether you officially received this decree in your capacity as chief of RUSHA. This decree is in Document Book II-B, Exhibit 20,NO-3075.\nAI know nothing whatsoever of this decree.\nQThanks. Was RUSHA therefore not involved immediately pursuant to this decree?\nANo.\nQBasically, did RUSHA have any executive power or any authority to issue orders, pursuant to which other agencies had to go into action?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 664, "page_number": "660", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "ANo.\nQNot even in regard to the strengthening of Germanism?\nANo.\nQDid you yourself have any influence over RUSHA?\nANo.\nQWhat directives was RUSHA authorized to issue?\nARUSHA could only give directives to its own subordinated agencies.\nQWhat did these directives pertain to?\nAThey referred merely to the factual matters in which RUSHA had to be active.\nQI now refer to individual agencies. What were the tasks of the office for racial matters of the SS?\nAThe Office for Racial matters was a so-called scientific office. In peace time it employed one or several scientists, and one scientist was at the head. Its main task was to train racial examiners and educate them. Furthermore it was its task in doubtful cases to pass expert opinions and determine whether the doubts which arose in the handling of genealogical records were justified or not.\nQWhat did these racial examiners have to do?\nAThe racial examiners had to examine applicants to the SS, that is, those men who wished to become members of the SS, not in medical respects, but with a view to race.\nQWho at the time was chief of the racial office?\nAA certain Dr. Karl.\nQDid he have the proper training?\nAYes.\nQDo you know what he styled himself; what was his field of science that he alleged to be a member of?\nAI don't know.\nQWas he an anthropologist?\nAYes, he was an anthropologist or an eugenics man, but, I don't know \n this exactly.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 665, "page_number": "661", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QDo you know the practical tasks, apart from his scientific activity, that he carried on?\nAAs I already said, he passed expert opinions in cases of doubt, merely within the scope and framework of RUSHA, that is of members of the SS.\nQWhat was the training of these racial examiners?\nAThey were given short training courses, carried out in a school in Berlin.\nQDid recognized professors lecture at this school?\nAYes.\nQCan you perhaps remember the name of a professor?\nAI remember a professor Fischer, and I think I can recall a Professor Reche.\nQWas there any planning in RUSHA for the event of war in the East?\nANo.\nQYou spoke of a so-called planning. Were you ever notified of such a plan of RUSHA?\nANo.\nQNot being an expert, did you have to rely in scientific aspects on Dr. Karl?\nAYes.\nQHow, what was the relationship to the Office for Racial policy of the NSDAP?\nAThere was no direct contact to the Office for Racial Policy. Of course I knew one person; maybe Dr. Karl knew one of the other persons but there was no official contact, and as far as personal contact is concerned, on my part, it didn't exist either because we only met occasionally on some public functions.\nQWas there ever any demarcation of the respective tasks?\nAYes.\nQCan you remember when approximately this took place?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 666, "page_number": "662", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "AIt must have been in 1940. I assume in the spring of 1940.\nQWas there any conference then?\nAYes, there was a conference.\nQAt whose initiative?\nAAt the initiative of the Office for Racial Policy.\nFor what purpose?\nAThe Office for Racial Policy desired to participate in the selection and examination in the east; and desired to make its own racial examiners available to VOMI and the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism respectively.\nQWhy did you attend this discussion?\nAI was compelled to attend this discussion as the Office for Racial Policy and Dr. Gross respectively secured the intervention of Greifelt and the meeting was arranged there.\nQWhat was the result of this discussion?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 667, "page_number": "663", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- The result was a demarcation of the tasks involved, namely, RuSHA had to take over the practical carrying out of racial examinations, whereas the Office for Racial Policy had to take over the propaganda side of this work within the Reich.\nQ.- This refers to document No. 2791, Exhibit 49, Document Book II-C.\nIn this document there is mention of the word \"elimination\". Did this word \"Ausmerze\" actually mean extermination?\nA,- No; the word \"Ausmerze\" actually means quite different from extermination.\nQ.- What does it mean?\nA.- \"Ausmerze\" refers to breeding and it means, in common usage, that a distinction must be made between, let us say, the good and desirable elements, and the undesirable elements.\nQ.- Thank you.\nA.- Applied to the East and applied to this case specifically, it meant that polish nationals in Germany who represented desirable elements were permitted to remain in the Reich, whereas the others had to be \"ausgemerzt\", that is, removed from the Reich.\nQ.- Furthermore, this document states that it was the task of RuSHA to participate in legislation pertaining to this branch. At your time, was there any such participation?\nA.- No, there was none.\nQ.- Early in July of 1940, did you sign a letter to the Deputy of the Fuehrer referring to intercourse between German girls and aliens?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Did you wish to interpose yourself, by these means, into legislation, or how can you explain this letter?\nA.- I say this document here, and with the help of seeing this document I was able to recall the matter. This refers to an inquiry, or let us call it the transmission of a proposition, nade by the Office for \n Racial Policy to the Deputy of the Fuehrer, submitted to me for comment by the Deputy of the Fuehrer, and I then commented on it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 668, "page_number": "664", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.- Was this something exceptional?\nA.- Most exceptional, because direct official contact between the Fuehrer's Deputy and RuSHA was prohibited and did not exist in the normal course of business.\nQ.- What would have been the normal procedure?\nA.- Normally this would have had to go via the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQ.- This was an individual case then, just one incident?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- This refers to document No. 3033, Document Book XI of the Prosecution. The document has not been introduced as yet. Normally, RuSHA did not participate in legislation at all?\nA.- No, it did not participate, with the exception of one case known to me, namely, in reference to an internal SS matter as to orders to be given to public registry offices not to undertake any official marriage of members of the SS unless approval of the Reichsfuehrer SS was presented to them.\nQ.- Otherwise, at least in your time, there was never any participation?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Do you know Himmler's Decree of 9 May 1940, called Decree 17-2, referring to the evacuation and resettlement, respectively, of Poles from the occupied Eastern Territories?\nA.- Yes, I was shown this decree here.\nQ.- Can you remember whether, during your time, you were notified of it?\nA.- May I see this decree 17-2?\n(Document submitted to witness)\nQ.- Decree 17-2 is in document book IV-C, Exhibit 138, document No. 5148.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 669, "page_number": "665", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- I must have known of this decree.\nQ.- Did you participate in passing this decree?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Now, how were the racial examiners injected into the tasks in the East?\nA.- The racial examiners were injected at the order of the Reichsfuehrer SS. After evacuations in the East had begun, the Reichsfuehrer probably had convinced himself that among the persons to be evacuated there were also valuable people, and consequently he considered it necessary to undertake an examination of these people.\nQ.- What the special order did you receive from Himmler and Greifelt, respectively, in regard to this matter?\nA.- I don't know what you mean, counsel.\nQ.- I mean in regard to the racial examiners. How did RuSHA become involved in that procedure?\nA.- The racial examiners were ordered and assigned to the immigration center, which was located in the Llodz, EWZ (Einwandererzentrale), and there they carried out their expert tasks under the supervision of EWZ (immigration center).\nQ.- Is it correct that you received the order that so and so many racial examiners were to be assigned to such and such a place?\nA.- Yes, that is correct.\nQ.- Apart from this order, did you receive any others?\nA.- As far as I recall, no.\nQ.- Now, these people who were eligible for re-Germanization were examined by the racial examiners and a selection was made from among them. Did you have any influence on these selected people?\nA.- No, I had no further influence whatsoever on people eligible for re-germanization.\nQ.- Do you know on what basis these people were selected for reGermanization?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 670, "page_number": "666", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- Yes, I know that it was necessary for them to apply voluntarily for re-Germanization.\nQ.- Then they had to be asked whether they were willing to go to Germany?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Do you remember an inspection trip with Himmler to Lotz in regard to this matter?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- When Himmler inspected these racial examiners, what did he say?\nA.- I remember an inspection trip approximately in the spring of 1940. In any case, it was still rather cold, and the inspection was carried out in a factory building which, as far as hygienic requirements were concerned, was unsuitable. The rooms -- well, we can call them dirty. The Reichsfuehrer criticized these conditions and ordered, among other things, that the racial examiners, for hygienic reasons, wear white aprons. Also, for reasons of tact, they had to camouflage their racial examinations in a manner which would give the impression that it was a medical examination, so that people who were subjected to this examination would not become aware of the fact that it was a racial examination.\nQ.- Himmler decreed so at that time, did he?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Did you read Himmler's memorandum on the treatment of aliens in the East? Did you receive it, and do you remember it?\nA.- I saw it here, and I must assume that it was received by me at that time, but I do not remember it.\nQ.- Do you know whether any of your subordinates contributed in drawing up this memorandum?\nA.- I don't know anything about this; I don't think that was the case. In my time there was no suitable man available for such work.\nQ.- Why not? Dr. Karl could have done it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 671, "page_number": "667", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- Dr. Karl was drafted right at the start of the war and, as far as I remember, he died in the Polish campaign.\nQ.- Did the Office for Racial Policy, previous to that, issue a treatise on the treatment of the populations of former Soviet territories according to racial political aspects? This treatise was sent to you for your comment; do you know what happened pursuant to that?\nA.- I don't remember this any more. The deputy of Dr. Karl, a Hauptsturmfuehrer Klinger, must have handled this treatise, but, as I have already said, I don't remember it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 672, "page_number": "668", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.This refers to Exhibit 83, document book III, document No. 1679.\nNow, comprehensively, witness, can we say that RUSHA was the intellectual originator of this procedure?\nA.No, you cannot say that. In this field RUSHA exercised no initiatives towards the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler, and did not make any suggestions as to policies in the East.\nQ.Did RUSHA have anything to do with the extermination of Jews?\nA.No, nothing at all.\nQ.In regard to Jews, in what manner were the tasks of RUSHA confined?\nA.As a whole, the tasks of RUSHA in regard to Jews were confined to the following: The SS was to be cleaned of Jewish blood and any Jewish influence in racial respects.\nQ.What was one attitude of SS training towards antiSemitism?\nA.Anti-Semitism as represented by Streicher and his tnedencies was absolutely denied and considered dirty, and that applied to all intelligent members of the SS.\nQ.Will you please describe the tasks of the genealogical office, the Sippenamt?\nA.The Sippenamt, or genealogical office, was probably the most important and the most predominant of the offices in RUSHA. It had the duty of carrying out examinations and checks of ancestral documents with a view to making the SS an elite and to preserve that character of being an elite.\nQ.When did Hofmann receive this office? I mean the defendant Hofmann.\nA.Hofmann received this office several months after I took over office, that is, approximately in December of 1938, or perhaps January of 1939.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 673, "page_number": "669", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Can you specify what the reasons were for his getting this office?\nA.I knew the defendant Hofmann from the time when I served in Hamburg. I knew him as a conscientious man who had talents for organization, and he appeared to me to be most suitable for the reorganization of the genealogical office. In addition, I knew nobody at all who appeared more suitable to me, and for that reason I requested him.\nQ.Was Hofmann an expert in racial questions?\nA.No.\nQ.How many employees did the genealogical office employ; how many employees did the recial office employ; and how many did the evacuation office employ?\nA.The genealogical office employed several hundred employees: I calculate that they were between two or three hundred. The evacuation office or the settlement office, in my time, employed approximately 20 employees; the racial office employed approximately 7.\nQ.The main activity of RUSHA, therefore, referred to genealogical matters?\nA.That is right.\nQ.Confined only to the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me what the duties were of Main Department I of the genealogical office were the examination of genealogical documents.\nQ.Was this the so-called genealogical department?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this Main Department I, was there any index file for persons of mixed Jewish descent?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the purpose of it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 674, "page_number": "670", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.This so-called file index for persons of mixed Jewish descent had already been drawn up a long time before I took over office. It was used mainly in connection with the handling of genealogical documents of SS members. This file served to faciliate the work of the racial examiners, and it was kept up to date.\nQ.Did this file index refer not directly to Jews, but to persons of mixed Jewish blood?\nA.It referred to the ancestors of members of the SS who had been Jews. It consisted, therefore, mainly of data referring to non-living Jews.\nQ.Can you tell me how this file index was drawn up?\nA.As I have already stated, it arose in connection with the handling of genealogical documents. Jewish ancestors which appeared in connection with these documents were entered in this file index of Jews so that if the same race should show up in the case of other members of the SS, work would be facilitated in due course.\nQ.Therefore there must have been two index files, namely, one of German ancestors and one of possible Jewish ancestors?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, these two index files were confined and restricted to members of the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore not all the Jews of Germany were shown in this index?\nA.No. This was not a file of living Jews; it was not an index of Jews living in Germany at that time. Rather, it was an index of the ancestors of SS members, among whom there were Jews. It was a genealogical index.\nQ.And as to ancestors of non-members of the SS, their data were not kept in this file index?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 675, "page_number": "671", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Of course, since the 19th century, let us say around 1930, there may have been some Jewish ancestor of a member of the SS who may have descendants living now who were not members of the SS. That, of course, could not be avoided, but it wasn't of any significance in connection with this index or with the work it referred to.\nQ.According to your knowledge, was this file index used for the persecution of Jews?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Hofmann participated in the persecution of Jews?\nA.I know that Hofmann, in my time at least, did not take part in the persecution of Jews.\nQ.Did the genealogical office also take an interest in Gypsies, and for what reasons?\nA.Yes, and the reasons were likewise of a genealogical nature. There were quite a number of members of the SS who were Gypsies, and for the time being it was doubtful whether these Gypsies were of alien blood or not. For this reason, the genealogical office took an interest in these Gypsies, when it became known that the Reich Criminal Police Office was responsible for dealing with Gypsies and the work in connection with Gypsies was centered there.\nQ.Did the genealogical office participate, or perhaps wish to participate, in legislation against Gypsies?\nA.Three months ago, when I was interrogated by Prosecutor Deepers, I answered this in the affirmative because a document had been shown to me which I had signed. I would like to say that this was, so to speak, put into my mouth more or less because I had not handled any matters connected with the genealogical office for years, and therefore I was utterly unprepared, when taken \n COURT I CASE VIII into this interrogation, and had nothing to support my memory with.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 676, "page_number": "672", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "As far as any activity or participation in legislation is concerned on the part of the genealogical office, as well as of the other offices of RUSHA, this was utterly out of the question because there was no suitable man with sufficient juridical training available in RUSHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 677, "page_number": "673", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Would this not have been contrary to the tasks of the Geneological Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The Geneological office of the SS, was it ever inserted in to the persecution of Gypsies?\nA.Not at my time.\nQ.Witness, I have several more questions pertaining to the racial office. What contact was there between RuSHA and the racial examiners assigned to Lodz? Of what nature was this contract?\nA.The racial examiners assigned to Lodz had only factual contacts with them. RuSHA had the authority to issue directives to these racial examiners, and it was responsible for sufficient replacement men being under training.\nQ.Now what were these professional authorizations, apart from the training of replacements?\nA.Particularly in regard to Lodz, on the order of the Reichsfuehrer, his directives were applied in regard to racial examination, and these directives were passed on to the racial examiners.\nQ.Was there activity not confined; one, to furnish the necessary number of racial examiners; and two, to issue the necessary blanks and forms to enable them to carry out the examinations?\nA.Yes, that is just what I wanted to say.\nQ.Now who supervised the Immigration Center, the EWZ?\nA.The RuSHA exercized control over EWZ.\nQ.The racial examiners assigned to EWZ were subordinated to EWZ?\nA.Yes, to EWZ.\nQ.And as far as professional work is concsrned, to RuSHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The racial examiners in Lodz, who were they paid by?\nA.They were paid by EWZ.\nQ.In regard to directives pertaining to their work to be issued to racial examiners, did you have any influence on the racial office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 678, "page_number": "674", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.I don't remember this to be the case.\nQ.We now refer to the third office -- the Settlement Office. Will you please describe the tasks, in short, which this agency had?\nA.The tasks of the Settlement Office in peace time were for the SS within the agricultural, farmer sector, as well as in regard to municipal settlement. As far as the population policy aim of the SS was concerned, the housings and farm estates had to be made available, which served to materialize this aim.\nQ.Did you remember any practical settlements carried out?\nA.Yes, there was one settlement: Mehre, near Berlin; and Schliesstaedt near Braunschweig. These are two settlements which were taken from state domain and made available for new settlements.\nQ.And who was in charge of this office?\nA.The settlement of this at my time was under the SS-Oberfuehrer von Gottberg.\nQ.Was he an expert in this field?\nA.Yes, he was an expert.\nQ.What makes you come to this conclusion?\nA.Herr Gottberg had already, a long time before he came into the Settlement Office, been manager of private settlement companies.\nQ.Please give us a short description of the character of this gentleman.\nA.Herr Gottberg was a most impulsive man, very ambitious, and it can be said that he had a great lust for power.\nQ.What was his relationship to Hofmann?\nA.As far as the personal relationship between those two gentlemen is concerned, I know nothing about it; but in any case, according to my opinion, there was not a very good relationship there.\nQ.When did Gottberg take over the land office Prague?\nA.May I ask you when did the occupation of Czechoslovakia take place?\nQ.In March 1939. Were you at that time in active service when \n he took over this land office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 679, "page_number": "675", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.No, Gottberg took over the land office in the summer of 1939 is that right -- '38? Let me ask you again, Czechoslovakia was occupied in 1938?\nQ.Sudentenland was '38.\nA.No, this refers to Czechoslovakia. That was '39. Then it's correct -- in the summer of 1939.\nQ.We are continuing. Now what caused Gottberg to take over the land office Prague?\nA.Gottberg took over the land office Prague upon order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler.\nQ.Did you agree to that?\nA.Of course, I had to agree to it.\nQ.Did he, when he was in charge of the land office Prague, take over confiscated Czech property?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you undertake anything against this?\nA.No.\nQ.To whom was this land office Prague actually subordinated?\nA.It was a protectorate office subordinated to the Reich Protector.\nQ.What makes you draw that conclusion?\nA.The land office Prague had a budget for personnel and other exponditures. It had its own stationery and hundreds of Czech employees who worked under a small number of German employees.\nQ.And Gottberg took over this office in personal union only?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The members of this land office were therefore not all of them members of the SS?\nA.No, the largest number were not SS members.\nQ.Now where did Gottberg take the German members from?\nA.Some of the German employees were taken by Gottberg from the settlement companies of which he was the president.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 680, "page_number": "676", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.And you, yourself, did you exercise any influence over this office?\nA.No, I had no authority to issue any orders, and I had no means of exercising any influence.\nQ.Now were Gotberg's preparations for further settlement schemes; for example, in the Memelland?\nA.I don't know anything about that. I don't know whether he made any preparations, and if so, of what kind they were.\nQ.Did these preparations consist in availing himself of private companies which were available to him and were at his disposal? Can you imagine this to be the case?\nA.Yes, due to the fact that the settlement companies were made use of, and afterwards at a time that we considered suitable, this was construed to have been preliminary work.\nQ.And you, as chief of RuSHA, knew nothing of individual preliminary work?\nA.No.\nQ.Were these settlement companies of Gottberg's, SS agencies?\nA.No, they were merely private companies.\nQ.Is it right that a director of the Deutsche Ansiedlungsgesellschaft -- German Settlement Company -- was a person of mixed Jewish descent?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore he could not have been accepted into the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know of any orders of Himmler on the carrying out of preliminary work in the field of settlement in the occupied territories?\nA.No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 681, "page_number": "677", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. von der TRENCK: May it please your Honors, in the name and on behalf of all the Defense counsel and all defendants, may I object to the intorduction of the film which was to be introduced by the Prosecution concerning the destruction of the Village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia?\nNone of the defendants has been charged with being responsible for this destruction or participation in this destruction and the facts of this destruction are not denied by any of the defendants here. The charges preferred against the defendants concerning Lidice are only directed towards taking over a few children which were left over from the population and I don't believe that anything is contained in the film concerning that fact.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal would not be in a position to rule on that motion since the Tribunal is not familiar with the contents of the film. The Tribunal will review the film and if it illustrates no question to be decided in this trial, of course the Tribunal will not consider it in making up its judgment.\nWith further reference to the showing of the film, and the conference had with counsel during the recess, the Tribunal was acting, during this conference, under a misapprehension or at least this member of the Tribunal was. We thought the request was for 4:15 and we did not want to shorten the day since this is the only day this witness will be available; but it appeared that the request was for 4:45 which is after the session is over, and will not shorten the day.\nTherefore, the picture will be shown at 4:45 in the courtroom-I do not know what the number is-- where the Farben trial is now being conducted.\nDR. von der TRENCHK: Thank you.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to continue with the examination of Guenther Pancke, your Honors.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 682, "page_number": "678", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQAs far as this preliminary work was concerned, witness, which is described in the letter to Heydrich dated the 31 of March, 1939, were those preliminary tasks of Gottberg?\nAYes.\nQHow was it that this letter to Heydrich came about?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to inform the Tribunal that this is Document No. 3162 contained in Document Book No. 13-B.\nAThis letter to Heydrich, which I signed, was submitted to me by Gottberg, as Gottberg intended at a certain time to establish a Reich Settlement Commissariat, and for that purpose he wished first of all to place the Land Office of Prague under his jurisdiction. Personally, I did not wish to make any difficulties to Gottberg in any way, as I knew that he would try and get his intention through even if it would necessitate fighting me or against my will, I passed on this draft of Gottberg's to Heydrich by simply suing my letterhead, after Race and Settlement Main Office, changing Settlement Office into Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQWitness, if I understood you correctly on this draft, the letter-head mentioned the Settlement Office; is that correct?\nAIt was a letter by Gottberg to Heydrich which he submitted to me as his chief, which letter, however, I did not consider a letter of the Office Chief, I did not pass it on to the office with his signature but I passed it on with my name signed to it.\nQWitness, in this letter something is also stated about a Main Department 3.\nAYes.\nQIs that a Main Department of the RuSHA or is it a department of the Settlement Office?\nAThis Main Department 3 is a main department of the Settlement Office. I forgot to change this Main Department 3. I forgot to correct it and to call it Settlement Office because, in RuSHA, there \n were probably two or three Main Departments 3 because those were subdepartments of the offices.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 683, "page_number": "679", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QWhat happened as a result of this letter, witness? Did Heyrich react to the letter?\nAThe letter was not successful at all and Heydrich did not react to the letter. But Gottberg succeeded in keeping the Land Office by a detour or by going a direct way respectively, without my further participation in it.\nQThe action which is mentioned in the letter, Memelland, was it also a personal affair of Gottberg's?\nAYes.\nQHe had carried out this with the help of his Settlement Agencies, didn't he?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever go to the Memelland to inspect this action?\nANo, I didn't. I was never in the Memelland.\nQHowever, it would have been your task, as chief of the RuSHA?\nAOf course, it would have been my task as chief of the RuSHA to also visit this small area of Memelland and supervise taks of the RuSHA or the Settlement Office respectively, just as it happened with almost all the other Settlement Offices in Germany proper.\nQDid Gottberg stay in the Settlement Office or did he resign?\nAIn the winter of 1940, that is to say, between 1939 and 1940, which would mean approximately January or February 1940, I received from the Reich Leader SS the order to carry out an investigation against Gottberg and the Reich Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia and the Reich Leader SS sent me to Prague for that purpose. The investigation showed that there were quite a few deficiencies and in particular with reference to the personal life of Gottberg, needless expenditures of money, drinking parties and so on.\nBased upon my report to the Reich Leader SS, Gottberg was immediately relieved from his position without being given another assignment.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 684, "page_number": "680", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "QWho was it that then took over that Land Office?\nAThe Land Office Prague was then taken over by one Dr. Gross who, according to my recollection, was an Austrian and who had been assigned to that task by the Reich Protector with Himmler's agreement.\nQDid that Dr. Gross have anything to do with the RuSHA?\nANo; nothing at all, nor was he a member of the SS, as far as I know.\nQWhat was the importance of the Settlement Office of the SS after Gottberg's resignation?\nAAfter Gottberg's resignation the Settlement Office lost all importance and, as far as I know, only dealt with the training of SS men who had been injured in the war for agricultural work.\nQEarly in September, 1939, did you sign a letter addressed to Hildebrandt?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 685, "page_number": "681", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Did this letter touch upon agriculture and so on? Do you recall that?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this letter something else was also mentioned in connection with preliminary work; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me how this letter came about?\nA.The correspondence was submitted to me and I remember it very well. General Hildebrandt, on one occasion, sent me a circular letter from the Reich Food Ministry and which was addressed to the Oberpraesidenten, the provincial authorities; and in this circular letter it was requested that persons be pointed out who could be used for the administration of agricultural property in the Eastern territories, whereupon I answered General Hildebrandt by thanking him for sending me that and by also telling him that the RuSHA had already done the preliminary work and that it was in position to provide the necessary forces for agricultural administration.\nQ.What did they mean by this preliminary work, witness?\nA.After the war broke out and after occupied territories existed, and therefore agricultural enterprises had to be administered, this preliminary work meant that settlement companies had to be established which took place in 1938 and 1939. It would construct all those things.\nQ.Was that a permanent matter of Gottberg's?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, in your examination you stated that you wrote an affidavit.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Approximately three months ago?\nA.Yes.\nQ.This affidavit in many points contradicts your statement so far.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 686, "page_number": "682", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.I do not recall the affidavit at the present moment well enough to be able to answer your question in any war. During that time, of course, my mind was refreshed in many ways by showing me documents and correspondence and so on, but today, of course, I can remember details better than I did about three months ago. Therefore, it is possible that there are certain discrepancies in the affidavit.\nQ.Do you know whether all the Ethnic Germans were examined in connection with the DVL or only certain groups of these people?\nA.As far as the DVL was concerned, the German People's List I believe -\nQ.I am satisfied. That is all I wanted to know, withess. In any case you did not know all those things exactly when you signed your affidavit?\nA.I don't even know it exactly today.\nQ.Before this statement was made did you remember the activity of the Sippenamt of SS in connection with the Gypsies?\nA.I did not remember this activity before the enterrogations. It was only after the letter was shown to me which was addressed to the Reich Criminal Police Office that I could recall this incident, but only vaguely; and I stated that during the interrogation.\nQ.Did you draw up this affidavit yourself?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you mean to say that the text was drafted by the Prosecution?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, is it correct that the text of your affidavit corresponded to the documents which were introduced to you?\nQ.May I ask you which document's you are referring to, Mr. Counsel?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel, Mr. Witness, the affidavit and the documents themselves would show whether they overlap enough and this witness' opinion about it would not be helpful to the Tribunal. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Therefore, you didn't know, witness, from your own knowledge as \n to what you wrote in that affidavit, did you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 687, "page_number": "683", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Based on all the things shown to me I tried to reconstruct the truth and to bring it back in my memory and when I signed the affidavit I did it according to the best of my knowledge and belief.\nQ.The German word \"soll\" concerning the activity of the Genealogical Office -- was that in order?\nA.No. It only meant that the Genealogical Office had found out something about the activity of the Reich Criminal Police Office.\nQ.Is it correct that on the 9 of July, 1940, you were released from your position as Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.According to the documents shown to me, yes; but personally I can no longer recall the correct date.\nQ.How then, witness, can you state in your affidavit that in 1940 - to be quite exact in the month of August, 1940 - registration cards for Gypsies had been established and written out in the Reich Criminal Police Office; and furthermore, that the Genealogical Office intended to use these index cards for their own purposes?\nA.I don't quite understand how this statement was interpolated in my affidavit. There must be some sort of a mistake both on the part of the interrogator as well as on my part because this is impossible.\nQ.What were the facts which were known to you, witness, with reference to the Genealogical Office which, under Hofmann, participated in the drafting of racial legislation for Gypsies?\nA.I do not know of any facts with reference to that.\nQ.How then could you sign this affidavit stating that Hofmann's task, according to this statement of the Reich Criminal Police Office, was to find out amongst Gypsies whether they were racially pure Gypsies or racially inferior Gypsies?\nA.The interest of the Genealogical Office or General Hofmann's respectively, concerning the Gypsy question I stated before. It was limited to the genealogical part of it because in the SS also there were \n gypsies as SS members and in the interest of these Gypsies who were SS men the whole problem it was to be investigated and clarified whether the further recruiting of Gypsies as members of the SS would be compatible with the purpose of the SS or not because it is known that all over Northern Europe there are many Gypsies who are not Gypsies from a racial point of view and that there are many human beings amongst the Gypsies who, from a racial point of view, could very well be considered and used as members of the SS in such cases.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 688, "page_number": "684", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.An additional question, Mr. Witness; with reference to the children of Polish women, the fathers of whom were Germans. Were you shown a document in connection with that also, witness?\nA.I don't know which period of time you are talking about, Mr. Counsel, but such a document was shown to me now.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 689, "page_number": "685", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.In order to refresh your recollection may I show you this document. This is Prosecution Document No. 3033.\nA.I have document No. 1680.\nQ.I am terribly sorry; I must have given you the wrong one. Your Honor, this is Document 1680. Do you know this document, witness.\nA.Yes, this document was submitted to me a few days ago. Therefore, it is known to me, yes.\nQ.Can you recall facts which originated on this decree within the RuSHA?\nA.I cannot recall the facts which originated from this document. This document was written on the 4th of May 1940 and issued as such. There were only two months at our disposal in order to take measures.\nQ.According to your recollection was any such file index cards system used for children within the RuSHA?\nA.Not in my time; I hardly think so, because during these two months I don't believe it would have been possible to include and register all these children which originated from intercourse between Poles and Germans.\nQ.Did you as Chief of the RuSHA in all these cases propose to the Reich Leader SS that these people be taken over to Germany proper?\nA.As I stated before I don't believe any measures were taken upon this decree, at least in my time.\nQ.In your affidavit, however, you stated that this did take place.\nA.Well the following thing probably did take place, namely, the publication of this matter and the passing on of necessary decrees and instructions but according to my opinion nothing else could have happened within that short period of time.\nQ.Would you please give us a short description of the character of the defendant Hofmann.\nA.I knew Hofmann during the period of time which we collaborated in Hamburg and also in the RuSHA, that is, for a period of time of three to four years. In his private life Hofmann is a very modest man who \n leads a wonderful family life and who actually intends to be as modest as possible.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 690, "page_number": "686", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "According to my opinion and with all his modesty he is a man who has the necessary amount of ambition to carry out his tasks and to comply with the tasks which he is assigned to. He works personally; he cannot be bribed and he is just. There is not much more I can add concerning the character of the defendant Hofmann.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor I would like to state the document number of the letter of the witness to Hildebrandt. This is No. 1392. I have no further questions to the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions from defense counsel? BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF (For the defendant Ebner):\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to all counsel, both for the defense and Prosecution, that this witness is available for today and today only and in fairness to everybody concerned, including the Tribunal, please let your questions be purely supplemental to the examination that has already been conducted, short and to the point. If counsel will be as direct in their questions as this witness has been in his answers I think we will get along more rapidly than we have. BY DR. THIEL-FREDERSDORF:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.I have only a few brief questions to put to the witness.\nWitness, do you remember that for a certain period of time you were a member of the so-called Supervisory Board of the Lebensborn. Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who, apart from you, was a member of the Supervisory Board?\nA.As far as I can recall it was the Reich physician SS Dr. Grawitz, the Chief of the WVHA, Economic and Administrative Main Office, Oswald Pohl, and I can't recall of any other persons who were also members of that board.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 691, "page_number": "687", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.This Supervisory Board, did it at any time gain a practical importance?\nA.No, the Supervisory Board was nothing but a formal matter and during my time there it never did hold any meetings.\nQ.Did you personally at any time have a decisive influence on the Lebensborn Society in your capacity as a member of that board?\nA.No.\nQ.After the Supervisory Board was dissolved and the defendant Sollmann at the same time was called upon to become a member of the Lebensborn, a so-called Kuratorium was established. Do you remember who was a member of that Kuratorium?\nA.According to my opinion these same men who were mentioned before became members of that Kuratorium, that is the members of the Supervisory Board.\nQ.Did the Kuratorium have any practical value or gain any such influence or was it simply a matter what was on paper.\nA.No, the Kuratorium was established on paper and it never did have any conferences or any time gain any influence on the Lebensborn.\nQ.Can you tell me in a few brief words the basic tasks and aims of the Lebensborn?\nA.The Lebensborn was a society which was created on the particular interest of the Reich Leader SS, and was established in order to deal with the political question with reference to population that they become active in a social and care respect and in particular it stopped the illegal abortions which prevailed quite a bit at the time. Lebensborn with reference to women who were not married regardless of the racial descent of the person was to protect the women merely considering the human angle of the woman and also give the woman the opportunity to bear the child in good conditions. Apart from that the Lebensborn was to support families with many children, was to help with funds and contributions and collections which were at the disposal of that office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 692, "page_number": "688", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.I believe, witness, that that is sufficient to give us a brief description of the aims of the Lebensborn. Can you confirm that the Lebensborn society within the SS was a more or less independent office, that is, of an independent position with reference to these tasks?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct. The Lebensborn was independent; had nothing to do with the actual SS. It was one of the Reich Leader SS' pets so to speak.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 693, "page_number": "689", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, I think the articles of the incorporation of the Lebensborn society would show the tasks and purposes and aims of this organization and we do not feel that it is necessary to ask this witness now on the stand for this information.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The examination seems to be for the purpose of determining this witness' knowledge of the actual operation. Over-ruling the objection. Proceed. BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQ.Witness, do you remember anything about the relationship of the defendant, Dr. Ebner, with reference to the first administrators and managers of the Lebensborn society?\nA.I can only tell you very few things about that. However, I do know the former business manager Pflaum and I also know Dr. Ebner. Pflaum's personality within the SS was a very much discussed matter because he was a man who was trying to obtain power and therefore he abused his contacts with the Reich Leader SS. I only know that the relationship between the two was not a good one.\nQ.May I ask you an additional question, witness. After you withdrew from the management of the RuSHA you became Higher SS and Police Leader Braunschweig-Mitte.\nA.Yes.\nQ.During that time did you have any sort of contact with the Lebensborn?\nA.Yes, in the area in which I was the Higher SS and Police Leader there was a home of the Lebensborn, it was called Wernigerode. I visited the place twice or three times a year, that is to say, approximately twelve times in the three years and I was furthermore interested in the aims of the Lebensborn. Of course I was particularly interested in the things which were going on within the Home of \n Wernigerode.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 694, "page_number": "690", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.During which time was that, witness?\nA.That was between 1940 and 1943 in the summer.\nQ.Can you tell us now that during that time nothing changed in the matters which were described before, namely, the practical tasks of the Lebensborn and that as far as you couls observe it, there.\nA.Yes, I can.\nQ.If I am well informed you became Higher Police Leader in Denmark later on?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you remember the fact that the Reich Leader SS Himmler insisted upon the fact that the Lebensborn society also established a home in Denmark in order to permit Denmark to benefit from the Lebensborn work?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Can you tell me what was done by the Lebensborn thereupon.\nA.When I arrived in Denmark for the summer of 1943, the Reich Plenipotentiary Dr. Best informed me there that the Reich Leader had given the order to establish Lebensborn societies in Denmark as well as in Norway. As far as I could recall I believe thereupon I repeatedly went to visit the Lebensborn administration and asked him to send--\nQ.May I interrupt you for just one moment--\nA.I asked the people at Lebensborn to send representatives to Denmark in order to carry out the negotiations there. It was only after a longer period of time, therefore, in the autumn of 1934 a representative of the Lebensborn came to see me in order to discuss the matter with me. However, the success amounted to nothing so that up to the surrender in Denmark no Lebensborn home was established. I believe that this can be brought back to a passive \n resistance to the management of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 695, "page_number": "691", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.And why do you believe that the Lebensborn management or administration, and I believe the defendant Sollman was responsible, and competent at the time, why do you believe that they gave such passive resistance to this insistance of Reich Leader Himmler.\nA.I did not know the reason because I only saw Sollman once. I can't even recognize him among the defendants. Why? I simply don't know. I thought that maybe there were financial or other reasons in connection with the work which stopped them from doing that.\nQ.With reference to the time after that can you tell us that according to your observations the fields of task and the practical aims of the Lebensborn society did not change in any way.\nA.I remember or I found out nothing about it. Up to this day I considered the aims of the Lebensborn to be the same ones as the ones which were known to me from the time between 1939 and 1940 and no other aims ever came to my knowledge in the meantime.\nQ.Therefore, you can say that according to your observations and your experiences which originated from a higher position you would not say that the Lebensborn Society had any particular task in an ethnic program.\nA.No, I know of no such particular ethnic task.\nQ.Thank you, no further questions. BY DR. MAAS (for the Defendant Schwalm):\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, with reference to the question of the hostorical development of the RuSHA I have to ask you just a few brief questions. Can you tell me who was your predecessor as the office Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.My predecessor was the Reich Minister Darre.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 696, "page_number": "692", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Did Darre actually shape the line of the RuSHA?\nA.Yes, absolutely.\nQ.Would it, therefore, be correct to say that Darre's efforts were simply aiming at re-inforcing the position of the German farmers, that his ideas were based on farm work?\nA.One can say that Darre's ideas for the largest part were aiming at a reinforcing of the position of the German farmers.\nQ.Is, therefore, the way the name RuSHA is explained?\nA.Yes, that is what we mean by the term RuSHA.\nQ.This term which can be traced back as far as 1940, therefore, does not contain any principles for aggression towards other people's estates?\nA.No.\nQ.But it only confirms the internal program.\nA.Yes, that is the way we interpreted it.\nQ.Did the defendant Schwalm prior to your time as Main Office Chief of the RuSHA or during your period of time, did he work there?\nA.Herr Schwalm during my time worked in the RuSHA. Whether he worked there before my time I don't know.\nQ.Therefore, you do know the defendant Schwalm from that time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What can you tell us about his person and about his character?\nA.All I can say is that Herr Schwalm is an absolutely decent, honest and orderly person. I did not know his actual intimate relationships but in any case I never heard anything that was in any way deragotory to him.\nQ.Thank you, no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 697, "page_number": "693", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "BY DR. FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.I only have a few brief questions. Witness, do you know the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How long have you known him?\nA.I cannot tell you that for certain; I assume that I have known him since 1937.\nQ.Did you have any personal relationship with him?\nA.No, I had no personal relationship with him other than comradeship.\nQ.What can you tell us about his personality as far as you knew him?\nA.All I can say about him is that ex-General Hildebrandt was an absolutely respectable and respected man who had a good character, fair character,, and who had all the prerequisites which are necessary to make a human being.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 698, "page_number": "694", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.As chief of the RuSHA, did you have any particular relationship with Hildebrandt when he became higher SS and police leader in Danzig, Western Prussia?\nA.I don't know when General Hildebrandt became the higher SS and police leader in Danzig, and in Western Prussia; but I believe that I only had contacts with, him when he was in southern Germany, when he was in charge of some sector there.\nQ.That was between October, 1939 and 1943; is that it? That was during the time when you were in Danzig, Western Prussia.\nA.The period of time between 1939 and 1940, during which time I was a Main Office chief, I had no contacts with the higher SS and police leader at Danzig, that is to say General Hildebrandt.\nQ.Therefore, you know nothing about his relationship with Forster and Himmler.\nA.No, I don't.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I have no further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY DR. HESSE (Attorney for the defendant Lorenz)\nQ.Witness, you must spoke about the VOMI. If I understood you correctly you stated that RuSHA had racial examiners who were placed at the disposal of VOMI. You probably mean the ethnic examinations of Germans. Did you express yourself wrongly?\nA.I believe I did make a mistake. The racial examiners were not placed at the disposal of VOMI, but were placed at the disposal of EWZ.\nDR. HESSE:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY DR. VONDER TRENCK (Attorney for the defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, in your examination something was mentioned \n COURT I CASE VIII in connection with decree No. 17-2, which was also shown to you, and which is dated 9th May, 1940.", "speakers": [ "DR. HESSE", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 699, "page_number": "695", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "You furthermore spoke about an inspection tour with Himmler in the east where among other things you examined the work of the racial examiners.\nA.Yes.\nQ.That took place in the spring of 1940. Can you give me the exact date, approximately?\nA.Unfortunately I cannot give you a more exact date. All I can say is that it was still rather cold. Therefore, it must have been between the months of march or April.\nQ.Something is said in decree 17-2 about the fact that some people of foreign nationalities, aliens, therefore, could be used for Germanization and therefore I order that it be enacted and a selection be carried out according to the lines which I prescribed and that a racial selection of these people take place, among these families in compliance with the directives I issued. Himmler is speaking here about directives which had already been issued; he is speaking about this racial examination, What do you know about that, witness? These directives must have existed with RuSHA.\nA.There were directives of RuSHA concerning the racial examination of human brings only be the racial office, as it had been taking place for quite a number of years. But unfortunately I no longer recall the details about these directives, nor can I tell you anything about them. These directives concerned,size, appearance, build and similar things. There was some sort of a differentiation made as far as these directives were concerned for the SS, for the people who were desirable as SS members and those who could not be used for the SS. And as far as I can understand, these \n COURT I CASE VIII matters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 700, "page_number": "696", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "I believe that these directives were Issued by the Reich Leader SS and also concerned examination of people who were to be re-Germanized and they were to be applied in these cases; It is possible, however, that the Reichsleader, based upon his personal order, would move this differentiation either to the one or to the other side.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, witness, you know nothing about special directives concerning these aliens, at least you didn't know anything about it in the spring of 1940.\nA.Yes, that is quite correct; I didn't.\nQ.Decree 17-2, as you stated before, was issued after your visit there, when you and Himmler made this tour. Wasn't this visit and the problems which were touched upon the reason for this decree to be issued?\nA.This tour which I am speaking about was carried out in the other camps of VOMI, ethnic German camps and at the camps of the so-called resettlers, of people from the newly incorporated eastern territories and the Gaus, Posen in particular. They were ethnic Germans, and on that occasion the Reichsleader did not speak about the problems of resettlement of Polish citizens, or former polish citizens, There is a possibility that he, during his tours in those areas, touched upon the problem, namely that among the people who were to be resettled there were many people who were racially valuable and they would not force them to be resettled, but would simply give them a choice of again becoming German citizens, therefore, being re-Germanized.\nQ.You know nothing about the re-Germanization procedure; when it was established?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.In your direct examination you stated that the \n COURT I CASE VIII racial examiners in connection with, the re-Germanization procedure, that is to say with examination of these people eligible for re-Germanization, and their selection had been transferred to the EWZ; are you quite certain about that, that is to say about the EWZ?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 701, "page_number": "697", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Well, there are two things, namely, the EWZ and the UWZ, and in this particular case there was a misunderstanding, or a mistake on my part, namely, I got the two agencies mixed up with each other.\nQ.Thank you. With reference to the re-Germanized people, they were transferred to the UWZ.\nA.It is bound to be the UWZ.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions in this connection. Your further more stated that this Decree, 17-2, dealt with the deportations. I believe that that also was a mistake on your part. They only dealt with the deportation of a certain number of people, among those resettlers.\nA.I don't recall exactly what I said in this connection, but it can be seen from this document what it was all about.\nQ.Thank you. Now, a question as to whether you know when the EWZ was established.\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.You stated that Ru SHA with the help of the racial examiners participated in the EWZ, but that it had no authority to issue orders to the agencies as such, and it was, the only authority to receive orders from Himmler. Did you mean Himmler or did you mean his agency as well which at the time was the agency of the Reich Commissar, and which later on became the Main Staff Office.\nA.In this connection I meant the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office because the EWZ, as far as I can recall, \n COURT I CASE VIII was subordinated to the RSHA, (the Reich Security Main Office.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 702, "page_number": "698", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Thank you. Now a question concerning these instructions which you could give to these racial examiners, as you stated before, they Were only professional ones.---\nA.Yes.\nQ.--While these racial examiners, financially and from a supervisory point of view, were supervised by the EWZ agency or the UWZ; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore, did the Main Staff Office have any influence With reference to the Selection?\nA.With reference to the selection, according to my opinion, the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German folkdom had no possibility whatsoever to interfere and influence it.\nQ.Do you know Kerr von Holzschuher?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was his position in the RuSHA?\nA.He was von Gottberg's successor.\nQ.In the RuSHA or in the land office in Prague?\nA.In RuSHA.\nQ.Thank you. Now, if I am not mistaken, Herr von Gottberg received the order from Himmler to establish a central land office in Berlin; is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is quite possible.\nQ.You don't know the text of this order, nor do you remember the date?\nA.No, I don't recall the details about the whole thing, and I only remember it vaguely. I remember, for instance, that Gottberg had received some sort of an order which was aimed at the things you just mentioned.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 29 October 1947)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 703, "page_number": "699", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 29 October 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions for this witness by the Defense?\nGUENTHER PANCKE - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. VON DER TRENCK: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, the last thing we were discussinb gefore the recess was the land office in Prague and all the land offices in general, and also the Central Lana Office in Berlin which was later on established. In your direct examination you furthermore stated that the land office in Prague carried out the seizure of land property in the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia. How is it now with the seizure of land in the incorporated eastern territories; who carried cut those seizures; do you know anything about it?\nA.I didn't realize saying that the land office in Prague carried out the seizure of Czech property. I would like to know for certain whether those are facts. I stated that the land office had to administer that territory.\nQ.Oh, I see. I shall correct that. The land office in Prague just administered that property.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Concerning the incorporated eastern territories, witness, in your affidavit, Document No. 5132, you spoke about the seizures when the German army entered Poland. Do you know in what respect you spoke when you said that?\nA.No, I would appreciate it if you would read that passage to me.\nQ.You stated there that when the Germans entered Poland it was the task of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom to carry out certain inquiries as to which property was to be \n seized, in that territory, and it was that agency which decreed the seizure of those properties; and as far as I know the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German folkdom personally initiated the seizure of these enterprises.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 704, "page_number": "700", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Do you wish to stick to that statement, witness? I would like to point out to you that it is stated that when the Germans entered, the agency for the strengthening of German folkdom was only established, there, on the 1st of October, 1939.\nA.In my affidavit I stated to the interrogator that I am only making those statements based upon my recollection; and that I do not know the details exactly. And in the affidavit I did add \"as far as I know,\" or \"as far as I can recall\". Therefore, I do not assert anything of the kind, but it was only an assumption on my part.\nQ.Thanks for this explanation, witness. With the addition, \"as far as I know\", however, your testimony only refers to the two sentences, which is the execution, of the seizures. Therefore, you do not know about the details, and particularly you don't know about the so-called H. T. O., the Haupttreuhandstelle Ost.\nA.Noo I don't know under which circumstances the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom was established. However, I don't know how his official activity then was performed, nor do I know who the agents were or the organs for the execution of his tasks. All I know is what he did, in broad outlines, and based upon that knowledge, I gave my affidavit and signed it, and even now I am only speaking about the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Furthermore you mentioned a letter which you passed on to Heydrich. This letter had been drafted up by Herr von Gottberg.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You stated before that the objections contained therein and all the suggestions did not result in anything at all. Do you know, however, whether Himmler knew all those things you mentioned, \n among other things, that Herr Gottberg, through the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom, wanted to get his ideas through.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 705, "page_number": "701", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Do you know anything about that from your connections with Himmler, namely, that his ideas influenced him in any way,namely, that he tried, with this Reich Commissioner's office, to fight Darre?\nA.I know that the SS Oberfuehrer Gottberg, for a longer period of time, that is to say since the occupation of Sudetenland, which was in October, 1938, dealt with this Reich Settlement Commissar and that he wanted to become the Reich Settlement Commissar himself.\nQ.Thank you.\nA.This Reich Settlement Commissar, as far as I can recall, was to take over the settlement tasks in German in particular, and also later on when Austria was annexed along with the Sudetenland; as the highest Reich Central Office in Germany, there were a whole number of people who had the right to resettle, and a whole lot of offices with the same task, that is the Reich Food Ministry, there were also the provinces and districts, the so-called laender; there were also many settlement companies and also the settlement offices; and in order to simplify matters and centralize the direction, all those intimate tasks, Gottberg wanted to have a Reich Settlement Commissar in charge of all those agencies, and that Reich Settlement Commissar was of course to act according to Gottberg' s point of view; and he was to be a member of the SS. As a matter of fact, Gottberg wanted to be that man. Gottberg, according to my opinion, discussed those matters with Reichsleader SS Himmler. That was in the summer of 1939 in the area of southern Tirol, and it was on that occasion that he received the job of the land office from the Reichsleader. During that time I was on leave, and the office chiefs personally were deputizing for me in their respective fields, so that this conference between Gottberg \n and Himmler took place without my knowledge, and when I returned from my leave, I was placed before the fact that Gottberg was the man in charge of the land office in Prague.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 706, "page_number": "702", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "In how far these conferences between Gottberg and Himmler influenced the creation of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom, I couldn't tell because the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom went further than those of the Reich Settlement Commissar. I assume, however, that this \"invention,\" (as the witness puts it) of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of German folkdom, which gave the Reichsleader in all fields the possibility to exert his influence, was a matter which was up to the Reichsleader himself.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 707, "page_number": "703", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "During my presence there; no establishment of such a large agency was mentioned. The establishment of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Folkdom was quite a surprise and a disappointment to the RuSHA, I must admit that.\nIs that sufficient?\nQ.- Thank you, yes.\nNow, will you tell me just briefly what the position Herr Greifelt had during the first six months of 1939 was -- just approximately?\nA.- I saw very little of General Greifelt, but, as far as I know, he was working at the time on the resettlement of the people from Southern Tyrolia, based on an agreement with the Italian Government. However, I couldn't really tell you for certain.\nQ.- Witness, I was speaking about the first six months of 1939. If I may refresh your recollection, Herr Greifelt was still active in questions of the Four Year Plan. However, you don't know about that?\nA.- Yes, I do know a little about it, but I don't know when, and so on. I am not too familiar with it.\nQ.- While he was in charge of that, or while he had that position do you know whether he dealt with questions of re-settlement and strengthen ing, and so on, from the Reich Leader?\nA.- No, I know nothing about it.\nDr. von DER TRENCK: Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions for the defense?\n(No response)\nFor the Prosecution?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.- Witness, were you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.- Yes, I was.\nQ.- When did you join the Party?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 708, "page_number": "704", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- In 1936.\nQ.- When did you join the SS, witness?\nA.- In 1931.\nQ.- Witness, you believed in the correctness of the Nazi principles did you not?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, concerning the defendants as to whom you testified this morning, that is, in connection with their character--the defendants Hofmanh, Hildebrandt, Schwalm-- you considered them to be good Nazis also, did you not?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, to be exact, you became Chief of the RuSHA on 1 July 1938?\nA.- Yes, as far as I can remember from the documents, yes.\nQ.- Have you ever heard of the fuehrer or leader principle which required obedience from subordinates to their superiors?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Wasn't this principle one of the cardinal tenets of the SS?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, when you became chief of RuSHA, this was not an empty title, was it? That is, you were actually in charge of RuSHA?\nA.- Would you repeat that, please? Whether I was chief of the RuSHA, or what?\nQ.- Well, as Chief of the RuSHA -\nA.- I was the Chief of the RuSHA.\nQ.- That meant that you had some authority over the members of the RuSHA, is that correct?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Witness, you testified this morning, on direct examination, that the main task of the RuSHA was the selection of members for the SS, and \n similar related internal tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 709, "page_number": "705", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Is that correct?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Now, witness, you also testified this morning to the effect that racial examiners of the RuSHA participated in the re-Germanization so-called, of foreign nationals.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Now, witness, do you consider that internal affairs of the SS?\nA.- No, I don't.\nQ.- Witness, you testified on direct examination this morning that the RuSHA was not involved in resettlements from the beginning; is that correct?\nA.- Yes, I said that, as far as I could remember.\nQ.- Now, witness, you also stated this morning that you assume that you must have received a copy of Himmler's treatise concerning the treatment of alien peoples in the East, but that you do not remember this.\nA.- Yes, I said that.\nQ.- Now, do you mean, witness, that you do not remember the contents of this treatise, or do not remember receiving it?\nA.- Would you repeat that, please? Just the last sentence, or the last question.\nQ.- Witness, do you mean that you do not remember receiving this treatise, or you do not remember the contents thereof?\nA.- I cannot remember having received the decree. I do remember the contents in general, broad outlines; of course I can remember that.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, that is document No.NO-1830, in Document Book III, Exhibit No. 84.\nQ.- Witness, do you remember showing this treatise to any of your subordinates?\nA.- No, I don't.\nQ.- Witness, do you remember an order from Himmler to suggest to him some of your co-workers to whom this treatise should be shown?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 710, "page_number": "706", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- No, I don't.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors this is document No.NO-1881, in Book III, Exhibit No. 85.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I hardly see the necessity of identifying the documents again.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.- Witness, do you know whether the defendant Hofmann ever saw this treatise?\nA.- No, I don't.\nQ.- The defendant Hofmann was appointed head of the Genealogical Office of RuSHA, on 17 January 1939?\nA.- That is possible, the date could be correct; I said in the winter of 1938 or 1939.\nQ.- Very well. And in December 1939 -- on 1 December, to be exacthe became head of the Race Office as well?\nA.- Yes, that is possible.\nQ.- Witness, this morning on direct examination you testified that you thought a deputy of Dr. Karl had seen this memorandum.\nA.- That is the memorandum of the Racial Political Office which I am thinking about.\nQ.- Very well, witness.\nWitness, do you remember Himmler's plan to use the population of Riga, the city of Riga as the nucleus for the cities of Gdynia and Posen after expelling the Poles from the latter two cities?\nA.- I do not remember any such plan of Himmler's. I do remember that after the beginning of the war with Poland this attempt was made.\nQ.- Witness, do you know how this attempt was carried out?\nA.- No, I don't.\nQ.- Do you know what the defendant Lorenz did in connection with this plan?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 711, "page_number": "707", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- No, I don't, but I assume it.\nQ.- What do you mean you \"assume it\", witness?\nA.- I know that General Lorenz was the man in charge of the VOMI and the transfer of the German minorities from the Baltic countries to German territories, had been placed in this charge. That, therefore, was the reason why he also participated in this resettlement action.\nQ.- Witness, what did Greifelt do in connection with this action?\nA.- I do not know whether Greifelt participated in connection with this action.\nQ.- Witness, wasn't the defendant Hildebrandt the Higher SS and Police Leader -\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- -- I mean in this area at that time, witness?\nA.- I believe I stated this morning that I no longer remembered whether General Hildebrandt, during that time, was in Dantzig in Western Prussia as a Higher SS and Police leader. However, I stated that I knew him from my activity in the RuSHA in Southern Germany, namely, in Wiesbaden, I believe.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 712, "page_number": "708", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honors, the plan I have just mentioned is contained in documentNO-4613, book V-D, Exhibit No. 290.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not think it is necessary to encumber the record with a statement that is already in evidence and identified.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may direct the Court's attention to it in your brief.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honor. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you stated on direct examination this morning that the task of the Race Office of the Rusha, aside from its scientific functions.....\nA.What did you say, other than or outside of scientific functions?\nA. .....aside from scientific functions.....\nA.Yes.\nQ. .....included only the task of training racial examiners?\nA.It is correct that I said that, apart from the fact that the Race Office also had to give its opinion in doubtful cases, which were not covered quite clearly by the ancestors' trees.\nQ.Witness, was it not the task of the Race Office of the Rusha to issue directives to these racial examiners as to how they should select people on the basis of their racial qualifications?\nA.Yes, that was part of the tusks of the Race Office.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that the racial examiners at Lodz, at the immigration center, EWZ, received from you merely planning forms, or that is, the forms to be used in their work.\nA.As far as I can recall, I also said that we received instructions as to how the selection was to be carried out. In other words, we received the directives.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 713, "page_number": "709", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Well, witness, I should like you to clarify for the Tribunal what directives you received in this meaning. Did you receive directives as to the technical process of racial selection, or merely directives telling you to be a little more lenient or a little more strict?\nDR.MAAS (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm):\nYour Honor, X object to this question and I would like to point out that this question was answered absolutely clearly this morning by the witness. He stated that Himmler had issued directives for the internal training of these racial examiners, which directives aimed at finding out the size of the person, the build of the person and the general appearance. I believe that that question was answered this morning; I don't believe it will become any clearer if more questions are put to the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am rather inclined to the view that the testimony already given is more detailed than the general question that you asked now. I don't see anything to be gained. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you stated this morning in your direct testimony that the Racial Policy Office of the Nazi Party desired at one time to have its own racial examiners; isthat correct?\nA.Yes that is correct.\nQ.For what reason did they wish to have their own racial examiners?\nA.What, of course, I don't know. It is true that the Racial Political Office wanted to extend its activities, and also, in the practical field, they wanted to penetrate that. What I mean by that is that they wanted to participate in the practical selection of these people.\nQ.Witness, the Racial Policy Office of the Nazi Party failed in this attempt to invade the field of activities of the Rusha, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 714, "page_number": "710", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.Therefore all racial examinations continued to be made by the RUSHA employees, is that Correct, witness?\nA.The term which you use, \"all racial examinations\", is too far-fetched. It is possible, of course that somewhere some racial selections were carried out by someone of which I don't know. Of course there might have been the possibility that racial selections were carried out amongst the Hitler Youth and the Labor Service, or any other organization. That is the reason why I can't simply say that the RUSHA was responsible for all racial examinations.\nQ.Witness, you stated this morning on direct examination that while you were chief of the RUSHA that organization did not participate in legislation on racial matters. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Witness, this morning you ware shown a document dealing with the demarcation of spheres of work of the Racial Policy Office of the Party and the RUSHA, in which document is a reference to the RUSHA dealing with legislation. Now, witness....\nA.May I see this document?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, if I may return to this after a moment, I will have the document identified by that time. BY MR. SHILLER\nQ.Witness.....\n(Document submitted to witness.)\nA.First of all, let me ask you, Mr. Prosecutor, from which paragraph you actually deduct a legislative activity on the party of the RUSHA. Which paragraph do you think proves that?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, let's not have an argument between the witness and the counsel. Counsel, you may ask whatever question you want to ask.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well. BY MR. SHILLER:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 715, "page_number": "711", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Witness, can you say, since this document is dated 25 May 1940, that the RUSHA did not participate in the framing of racial legislation after your departure on 9 July 1940?\nA.I have a document here dated the 3rd of July 1940.\nQ.That is a reply, witness. If you will turn to the second Page you will see your letter of 25 May....\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, may I point out to the witness the particular sense that I rely upon?\nQ. (Continuing) witness, on page 3 of that document....\nA.Yes.\nQ. .....there is a subparagraph numbered 2.\nA.Yes.\nQ.There are three sentences under that subparagraph headed \"Main Race and Settlement Office\". I am referring to the last sentence.\nA.That must be some sort of a different document. I don't have the document which you are referring to, Mr. Prosecutor.\n(A document Was submitted to the witness.)\nA. (Continuing) Now may I ask you, Mr. Prosecutor, to report your question, please?\nQ.With the Tribunal's permission.\nI have asked you, witness, whether you can be sure that the RUSHA did not participate in the framing of racial legislation after you left the office, approximately a little more than a month after this letter.\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning concerning the reGermanization or WED procedures. What were the defendant Hoffman's duties as Chief of the Racial office in connection with re-Germanization?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 716, "page_number": "712", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.The task of General Hofmann as chief of the Race Office, With reference to the re-Germanization procedure, was the following: to place racial examiners at the disposal of these people for that purpose.\nQ.Witness, are you familiar with directives as to methods of racial examination issued by the defendant Hofmann in March 1940 to racial examiners?\nA.Well, they were shown to me a few days ago.\nQ.Witness, did not the defendant Hofmann give these directives to the racial examiners at the Immigration Centers, EWZ, so that they might screen Poles in order to determine which could be sent to Germany and Germanized, and which Should be sent into the Government-General.\nDR.MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, I would like to object to the formulation of this question on the grounds that it contains an apparent mistake. I would like to point out that questions concerning reGermanization We re not dealt with by the EWZ. This morning on one accasion the witness got UWZ and EWZ mixed up, and the two fields were brought into one and the same connection, This is not so according to the documents introduced.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I Should like to make that correction. It should be UWZ.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nMR. SHILLER:The witness has not answered my last question, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:So much has been said that I doubt Whether he knows what it was. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, did the defendant Hofmann, as Chief of the Racial Office of RuSHA, give directives to the racial examiners at UWZ, so that these racial examiners could \n COURT I CASE VIII make their examinations?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 717, "page_number": "713", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes. Well, as far as I know General Hofmann did that.\nDR.SCHWARZ (for the defendant Hofmann): Your Honor, I would like to object to this question for the very simple reason that the UWZ did not have racial examiners for the RuSHA.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Now it seems as if we have turned this thing into the proposition that the attorneys are testifying instead of the witnesses. It's all right to make an objection, but not to testify. Go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Will you please answer the question, witness.\nA.I already answered it by saying and also by confirming that General Hofmann had something to do with the selection of the people who could be used for reGermanization, and that he issued directives to the racial examiners, which directives he received from the Reich Leader SS.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning and this afternoon concerning a treatise issued by the Office for Racial poles of the Nazi Party. Now did not Rudolf Brandt Send this treatise to you for you to summarize and comment upon?\nA.Yes, Well, as far as I know, it's correct, yes. I believe there was an official letter enclosed in there where I had been asked to give my opinion on something, and that opinion of mine should be compiled in three pages and not exceed three pages--or are you talking about a different memorandum?\nQ.I am talking about the memorandum of which you made a summary.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 718, "page_number": "714", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Now, witness, did the defendant Hofmann ever see this memorandum of the Racial Office of the Party?\nA.I couldn't tell you that.\nQ.Witness, the defendant Hofmann was at that time the Chief of the Racial Office of the RuSHA, was he not?\nA.That is the period of time during which this document was submitted to me. Of course I can't recall the date.\nQ.Witness, the Chief of the Race Office of the RuSHA was a logical person for you to consult in connection with this treatise, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Did you consult with the Chief of the Race Office of the RuSHA?\nA.I assume that for certain.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that people eligible for re-Germanization, so to speak, had to apply voluntarily in order to be re-Germanized.\nA.Yes, that came to my knowledge later on; that is to say, while looking through the documents during the past few days. From my own knowledge, however, I do not know about details concerning re-Germanization.\nQ.Witness, who showed you these documents during the past few days?\nA.Dr. Schwarz showed them to me and he had them in one of those document books.\nQ.Witness, do these treatises, concerning which you have testified, Contemplate giving Polish Citizens-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't go into what the treatise shows. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you were asked this morning on direct examination whether you recalled a letter dated 3 July 1940 from you to the office of the Fuehrer's deputy concerning \n COURT I CASE VIII relations of German girls or women with non-Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 719, "page_number": "715", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Do you recall this letter?\nA.Yes, I recall this letter, allright, but this letter did not concern German women and Polish men, but it concerned German men and Polish women, as far as I can recall.\nQ.Witness, did you consult with the defendant Hofmann, who was then head of the Race Office of the RuSHA, when you wrote this letter?\nA.You mean the letter to the deputy of the Fuehrer?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Well, probably I discussed the letter with General Hofmann. However, I can't recall the conference itself.\nQ.Witness, as Chief of the Race Office, he was the logical person for you to consult, was he not?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is not concerned so much about what is logical. We'd like to know what happened. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you left the RuSHA approximately a week after this letter, but you know, do you not, that decrees were subsequently issued according to which non-Germans were punished for having had sexual intercourse with German women.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are asking him about the contents of decrees.\nMR. SHILLER:I am asking him if he knows that there were such decrees, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can't do that without going into the contents of the decrees. You can ask him about whether he knews if things like that happened, but if you want to prive the decrees you will have to do that by the decree. BY MR. SHILLER:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 720, "page_number": "716", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.I am not trying to prove the decree, Your Honor. Witness, as Higher SS and Police Leader Center, did you have occasion to gain any knowledge of cases of Polish men who had been caught because they had had sexual intercourse with German women?\nA.You mean executed? Well, of course I heard about that.\nQ.Witness, as Higher SS and Police leader, did any such cases pass through your office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, witness, now that you have heard of these cases, what procedure was followed in these cases?\nA.These cases concerning illegal Sexual intercourse, which were of Poles and German women, came to my knowledge in the following manner: while I had the position of Higher SS and Police Leader, the Commander of the Security Police of my area sent me the files and the records concerning the interrogations of those cases along with his opinion for the treatment of that man. Before I would pass on these files to the Reich Leader SS, I had to write my opinion and my idea concerning this case; so that I had a clear picture of them. I don't know whether you want any further details or if this is sufficient.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 721, "page_number": "717", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Witness, when you gave your opinion, was this a recommendation as to what the sentence should be?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In formulating your recommendation, witness, you gave a great deal of consideration to the racial judgment of the racial examiner, did you not?\nA.Yes, indeed.\nQ.Witness, do you know of any of these specific cases you have mentioned where the man in question was hanged?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Approximately how many men do you know from your own knowledge were hanged?\nA.Two of them.\nQ.That is in your area, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know of any figures for other areas?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning concerning files kept by the Geneological Office with respect to gypsies, is that correct?\nA.I don't believe that is quite correct. I believe that I stated that files concerning gypsies were kept with the Geneological Office. Did I understand you correctly, Mr. Prosecutor?\nQ.I don't see any discrepancy, witness.\nA.Yes, well, then, I didn't say that this morning. What I said this morning was that such index card files were to be established; in other words, that there were no files whatsoever concerning gypsies or index files at my time. I believe there is a slight difference there.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether any such files were later established?\nA.No, I don't.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 722, "page_number": "718", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Witness, the Geneological Office, according to your testimony this morning, kept files on Jews.\nA.That is correct.\nQ.You testified this morning, witness, that these files concerned dead Jews only, is that correct?\nA.I did not say that they only concerned dead Jews, but there might have been living Jews among them. This index card dealt with ancestors of living human beings - the parents and ancestors - and if a 17 or 18 year old SS man applied to be taken into the SS, it is possible that some of his living ancestors, should they be Jewish, would of course be contained in those index file cards.\nQ.Witness, do you know of many SS men whose fathers or mothers were Jews?\nA.No\nQ.Well then, witness, for the most part these concerned dead Jews, did they not?\nA.Yes, indeed.\nQ.Witness, what did you mean this morning when you said that these files were kept up to date? Did you mean that the Jews were entered as soon as they were killed?\nA.No. (hesitatingly)\nQ.Witness, do you know of files compiled with respect to the Jews in the Netherlands and in Norway?\nA.No, I know nothing about that.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning and this afternoon that a man named von Gettberg was in charge of the Settlement Office of the RUSHA.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, witness, you also testified that you had to sign whatever letters he put in front of you. Was that true about all letters put in front of you, witness?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 723, "page_number": "719", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Would you please repeat that? I didn't understand that.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that you had to sign whatever letters Gettberg put in front of you because otherwise he might have been antagonized. Now was that true about all letters put in front of you?\nA.No, as far as I can recall, I didn't say that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Attorney, I think when you ask the witness if he didn't testify to so and so this morning, you ought to state it as he testified. That is an unfair sort of examination to ask a man if he didn't say a certain thing that he didn't say; so unless you remember what he said, don't ask him. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, did you not testify this morning that, for example, a letter sent to Heydrich was placed before you by Gettberg, and that you did not agree with this letter but that you had to sign it because otherwise he might have taken steps against you?\nA.I didn't say that this morning.\nQ.Well, if I am incorrect in my recollection, will you please explain.\nA.Yes. I will gladly explain it to you. The letter which Gettberg had written to Heydrich and shown to me for my agreement was signed by me, and therefore I agreed with it; in other words, it was my opinion as well. I agreed with the letter which had been written by Gettberg. I simply changed his name and the letterhead, which was in the Geneological office, into something else which was my name and office.\nQ.Witness, when you say that you agreed with Gettberg, do you mean that the statements contained in this letter are correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that you knew of \n those decrees by Himmler concerned with this so-called preliminary work?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 724, "page_number": "720", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes\nQ.When, witness, this preliminary work done with respect to Memell nd must have been done on the initiative of the RUSHA, is that correct?\nA.May I state the following concerning this question: The Memelland, as far back as 1935, on the occasion of votes which here held obtained 85 per cent of German votes.\nQ.Witness, I fail to see the relevence of that in connection with my question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:When you ask a witness a question; must have been, you are simply arguing it. You can argue your \"must\" to the Court or \"must have been\". BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, with respect to the confiscation of property in Czechoslovakia, what agencies took over plans and properties in that country?\nA.I do not know that in detail. According to my opinion, I assume that it was the Land Office. Whether any additional agencies participated in that - namely, in that king over of these plants and land property - I do not know.\nQ.Witness, if I am not mist ken, you testified this morning that the land office administered these properties but did not actually seize them, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is all I know about it.\nQ.Witness, do you not recall that there were certain settlement complies - SS Settlement Companies - which seized these properties?\nA.Where were such settlement companies, yes, but they were not authorized to seize any property. This could only be done by a police institution, and finally a Reich Court could \n actually transfer the property.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 725, "page_number": "721", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "The settlement companies could possibly use a trusteeship administration of the property, but it wasn't a too far-reaching one.\nQ.Witness, were any of these settlement companies, which you have just mentioned, controlled by the RuSHA?\nA.They were controlled by a settlement office and the Chief of the Settlement Office respectively, namely, von Gottberg, and therefore they were also subordinated to the RuSHA.\nQ.Witness, didn't the RuSHA make preparations for the seizure of property in Poland even before the war broke out?\nA.No.\nDR.MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm):\nYour Honor, I would like to object to this procedure of examination on this basis: I am objecting fundamentally because they touch upon a subject which occurred prior to the period of time which is being discussed here and within which period the charges are made against the defendant.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 726, "page_number": "722", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honor -\nTHE PRESIDENT:I overrule the object. Go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning on direct examination concerning a letter to the Defendant Hildebrandt in which some mention was made to the effect that the RuSHA had prepared men to take over agricultural enterprises in the East. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.What agricultural enterprises in what Eastern territories did you have in mind at the tine, witness?\nA.Well, that letter was written after the outbreak of the war between Germany and Poland and I was thinking of territories which became part of Poland after 1918.\nQ.Witness, while chief of RuSHA did you learn of the DVL procedure in the Warthegau?\nA.I would like to repeat: DVL, is that what you want to know, the German People's List? Yes.\nQ.Witness, were not racial examiners of the RuSHA active in the DVL procedure?\nA.I don't know about that.\nQ.Witness, did you know about this three months ago?\nA.I don't hink so.\nQ.Witness, do you know about the Germanization of Polish girls? Just girls, that is.\nA.You mean to say where they were being employed as domestic employees?\nQ.Yes, witness.\nA.Well, yes, According to my opinion other people were also used for that, not only girls, men as well. Of course, not as domestic employees but they were being used as laborers, workers, gardeners and so on.\nQ.Witness, do you know of any program whereby Polish girls were \n to be admitted to German households as maid servants for Germanization?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 727, "page_number": "723", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Who ordered this program?\nA.As far as I Know it was Reichsleader Himmler.\nQ.In what capacity, witness?\nA.I assume in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of German Folkdom.\nQ.Do you know approximately when this was done?\nA.In 1940 or 1941.\nQ.Were these girls screened by RuSHA racial examiners?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know what happened to any girls who refused to go to Germany under this program, witness?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning on direct examination concerning the children of Polish mothers and German fathers.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You stated, if I am not mistaken, that decrees and orders were issued but that you left two months after this was started and, therefore, do not know if any measures were taken?\nA.Yes; that is correct.\nQ.Witness, did you know about such measures three months ago?\nA.No, I didn't.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that you were a member of the Board of Lebensborn. will you please tell the Tribunal when you left this board?\nA.In 1940 when I resigned from the RuSHA and automatically was released from the Kuratorium.\nQ.Witness, you testified this morning that the basic tasks of Lebensborn never changed. Once you had left the board of Lebensborn what connection did you have with that organization other than the one home which you visited?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 728, "page_number": "724", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.I had no other connection With the Lebensborn with the exception of the one that I stated this morning, namely, that I would visit the home which was called Werningerode which I went to visit twice or three times in three years and that I met Dr. Ebner there while visiting. I Know of no other connections.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution has no further Questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else from the Defense? DR. SCHWARZ: Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, you stated that the defendant Hofmann was the chief of the Race Office. Do you know that he only had to manage the enterprise?\nA.Yes, that is correct. That is the way it was usually, namely, that one could not be the chief of two offices at the same time and, therefore, be a judge of two planning agencies at the same time because otherwise General Hoffmann would have had to receive two salaries. That was why he only administered the office.\nQ.How was it then that the defendant Hoffmann had to administer that office?\nA.As I stated this morning, the tasks of the Racial Office, after the beginning of the war, were more or less of a small nature. The tasks were few.\nQ.Had Dr. Karl been killed?\nA.Yes, he had and his successor, Klinger, was a small man, if I may use that expression. He was a subordinated personality so that actually I considered it correct to have these five or six employees of that office subordinated to the Genealogical Office, which Genealogical Office did not mind having these six or seven men. They had about 300 employees.\nQ.Is it correct to say, therefore, witness, that Hofmann, due to that fact, was placed in charge of the disciplinary actions of that \n office?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 729, "page_number": "725", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.That is absolutely correct.\nQ.The formal tasks, of course, were taken over by Klinger whom you mentioned and he kept them?\nA.Yes, that is correct. That is exactly correct.\nQ.Is it possible, therefore, that with reference to professional questions you discussed them with Klinger?\nA.That is possible.\nQ.Do you remember the memorandum, for instance, issued by the RuSHA, and did you discuss it with Klinger who was a department chief I mean if you received it?\nA.If I discussed that memorandum in question then I probably discussed it with Klinger. However, in my experience so far in courts I have found out that reconstruction, regardless of how logical they are, would lead to wrong conclusions. I can't remember this memorandum nor can I remember having shown it to Hofmann or to anybody else and I can't even remember having read it myself, although I would admit that I would have had to read it. Whatever conclusion may be drawn from this is up to all the others and they can do Just as well as I can and I don't believe I have to testify about that.\nQ.Witness, all I wanted to ask you really was whether the possibility existed.\nA.The possibility existed, yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think he has made it fairly clear that he doesn't remember anything about it. So let's leave that.\nAt that time the Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 730, "page_number": "726", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, is it possible that the memorandum of Himmler was given by you to the defendant Hofmann and Klinger for his attention?\nA.Yes that is certainly possible.\nQ.Witness, I asked you in direct examination whether the Land Office at Prague had seized property in Czechoslovakia.\nA.As far as I know, no.\nQ.At your time in the Main Department III of the Settlement Offive was there a certain Dr. Reichert?\nA.I don't know Dr. Reichert and I don't believe that he was in the Settlement Office at my time or in the Race and Settlement Main Office at all. Otherwise I would certainly have to know him.\nQ.Witness, do you know about the organization as it existed in UWZ and EWZ? Do you have specific information?\nA.No, I have already said that I am not informed on that subject.\nQ.Therefore, you only have general knowledge as to the assignment of racial examiners at Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, do you know that apart from these racial examinations by racial examiners other examinations of this character were also carried out.\nA.Yes, I know that.\nQ.Can you name any such examinations?\nA.There examinations made by the Security Police which were preliminary in time, or possible they were subsequent in time.\nQ.Can you state only the points of view according to which examinations were carried out, not by whom they were carried out?\nA.Examinations were carried out in regard to membership, to the German stock, and I would like to mention that medical check-ups \n were also carried out.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 731, "page_number": "727", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Was any political examination necessary?\nA.That is what I mean by saying examination in regard to the German stock of the respective person.\nQ.Also in regard to racial descent?\nA.Racial descent only in respect to descent from German ancestors or parents.\nQ.Witness, do you know who carried out the racial examination in the case of violations of illicit sexual intercourse between Poles and Germans? Who ordered these examinations to be carried out?\nA.The Reichfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police.\nQ.Do you remember at what time this occurred, approximately?\nA.As far as I can remember in the Spring of 1940.\nQ.Witness, is that an assumption on your part?\nA.That is possible; I am just saying this is only as far as I can remember.\nQ.But you don't know any facts, do you, that you were occupied with here within your capacity as Chief of RuSHA.\nA.I know as Chief of RuSHA I was occupied with these things.\nQ.Do you know that the Poles had to be notified of this prohibition.\nA.I know that for a fact.\nQ.The Poles, therefore, knew exactly that they were subject to punishment in the case of violation of this prohibition?\nA.The Poles ought to have known that for that purpose as Higher SS and Police Leader in recommending preparations to the Commander of the Security Police a special clause had been inserted wherein it says that the respective Pole who violated this decree had to be asked by the Security Police whether he had had knowledge of the decree and from whom he had received notification of the decree. I know that a Pole who had not been notified by his employer or by the Police of this decree and the prohibition contained therein was not \n sentenced to death.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 732, "page_number": "728", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Apart from this Were there other determinations which had to be considered?\nA.Yes, of course it was necessary to know the facts and circumstances which lead to illicit sexual intercourse. For example: It was mentioned that a juvenile Pole who engaged in illicit sexual intercourse with an elderly German woman had to receive milder punishment because it had to be assumed that he had been seduced by the German woman, but in the reverse case, that is, an elder Pole and a young German girl, this of course could not generally be assured to be the case, but much rather there were alternating circumstances accompanying the case. Apart from this there were other racial expert opinions necessary as I have already said before. I think these are the three or four diverse points of view which were decisive in judging violations against this decree.\nQ.Was there any political examination?\nA.As far as I know, no.\nQ.Did the RuSHA field leaders and the racial examiners respectively propose punishment or the Commander of the Security Police?\nA.The racial examiner had no authority to this effect, namely to propose any punishment but this was exclusively in the jurisdiction of the Inspectorate of the Security Police or the Reich General Headquarters in Lodz; I don't know which. In any case it was within the jurisdiction of the Security police and I had to pass an expert opinion and comment on these and pass it on to the Reichfuehrer.\nQ.Witness, is it possible that at some other time, say approximately after 1943 and in another territory there was a different method of procedure in regard to examination with the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.Yes, it is possible that this was so.\nQ.Witness, the letter of Gottberg to Heydrich was signed by you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 733, "page_number": "729", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Is it right that you did this quita naturally for the purpose of getting rid of Gottberg?\nA.I signed This letter in order to comply with Gottberg's wish that he achieve and gain a position in the Reich Settlement Commissariat. At this application he, of course, would have left the settlement office and RuSHA.\nQ.In the letter to Hildebrandt was it the preliminary work mentioned therein, namely the preliminary work of Gottberg within the settlement office, that you had in mind?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, you spoke of the German People's List three months ago saying that ethnic Germans had to be subject to a racial examination. Witness, I have to oppose this statement by saving that the German People's List was only created in 1941. Is it possible that using documents or hearing arguments you lead yourself to make such a statement that at your time orderly racial examinations had been carried out?\nA.First of all it is possible that the German People's List was confused by me with people eligible for re-Germanisation and secondly it is possible that by being submitted documents or hearing arguments I was lead to draw a wrong conclusion to the effect that the German people's List had already been in existence at my time. I can't remember that.\nQ.Witness, do you wish to rectify your affidavit to the testimony you gave today?\nA.Today I gave testimony to the best of my knowledge and belief and I attempted to say the truth. Three months ago I tried to do the same and I can't do more than that. From what I saw in the last few days I believe that I can say that the testimony which I made here today is right. I can't say any further to that.\nQ.Thank you I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 734, "page_number": "730", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "BY DR. DOETZER (for Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz):\n- REDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.General I wish to address a few questions to you in your capacity as Police Leader and Chief of RuSHA. On the second question brought up by the Prosecution, namely: Himller's Hitler's Plan in regard to Resettlement of Germans in Riga, Gdynia and Posen. Witness, did you ever work in VOMI?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have a proper idea of VOMI's activity?\nA.No, absolutely none.\nQ.Do you know when the resettlement of the so-called VOKI Germans was carried out?\nA.Without receiving any help to my memory I cannot specify any date. It seems to me, at least that is the way I remember it, that this settlement had taken place in 1939.\nQ.Thank you. Do you know whether this resettlement was carried out based on an agreement signed between another power and the German Reich?\nA.Yes, I believe this to be the case.\nQ.Do you remember whether this resettlement drive and the agreement was signed came back suddenly and unexpectly?\nA.Yes, that is the impression I had.\nQ.What organization was charged with the registration of Germans in Riga and in the Baltic countries, Are they re-transfers to Germany into certain camps?\nA.As far as I know it was VOMI, Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle.\nQ.Did VOMI have anything to do with the resettlement of these Germans from Riga in the Gedingen and Posen area according to what you know of the facts?\nA.Nothing at all.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 735, "page_number": "731", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "BY DR. MAAS (For the defendant Schwalm):\n- REDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, today in direct examination in answer to a question by my colleague von der Trenck, you gave the following answer: \"According to my opinion the Race and Settlement Main Office was responsible for making a selection for re-Germanization.\" In connection herewith I have to ask you whether you have any clear idea of the entire procedure of re-Germanization and whether perhaps you do not confuse and identify the concept of re-Germanization with the concept of racial examination?\nA.As far as the procedure of re-Germanization is concerned the following is my opinion: The inhabitants of certain areas in Poland, in the former Poland, were evacuated. They were assigned to camps and there the racial examiners of RuSHA examined them as to their suitability for re-Germanization. After this examination had taken place those people who were found and designated to be suitable for re-Germanization were assigned for re-transfer, \"Wiederrueeksiedlung,\" in the so called Reich territory. Those people not found to be suitable for re-Germanization were made available for further evacuation schemes.\nQ.I have to oppose this statement of yours with the fact that previously you stated that the racial examination was only one factor in the question of re-Germanization in a certain way.\nA.Of course there were further factors besides.\nQ.Therefore, who made the decisions as to re-Germanization. Surely not RuSHA but UWZ, the resettlement factor.\nA.I only said that RuSHA and the racial examiners respectively designated certain persons to be eligible for re-Germanization and others as not fit for re-Germanization.\nQ.I believe, witness, you are always recurring into the same error, the representatives of RuSHA, the racial examiners did not decide as to the question of re-Germanization but only racial fitness of the people examined.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 736, "page_number": "732", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honor, may the Prosecution object and ask defense counsel not to argue with the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It sounds very much like an argument to the Tri bunal.\nJust simply propound questions and let him answer them.\nBY DR. MAAS:\nQ.Witness, you made a correction by saying that the decision as to re-Germanization was made by UWZ.\nA.Yes.\nQ.And not by RuSHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.That is, today, in the morning, you stated that RuSHA was confined exclusively to SS internal matters consisting of examining applicants into the SS by racial examination as to their racial fitness. When the Prosecutor requested you to do so you retracted the statement insofar as you admitted that the racial examiners were active in UWZ, resettlement sector. I, therefore, have to oppose this statement by saying that you were aware in correcting your opinion by saying that the decision for the re-Germanization --\nTHE PRESIDENT:That likewise sounds very much like argument to the Tribunal.\nTHE WITNESS:Your Honor, may I answer this question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nA.The task of RuSHA was confined to SS internal matters. Individual members of RuSHA, that is the racial examiners, were ordered and assigned to other agencies, namely, with the police and they made their expert knowledge available to these agencies and not at the order of RuSHA but by Higher order of the Reichfuehrer SS. The same as a physician, maybe ordered to make himself available to the police by a medical association but the agency to which he was assigned did not become a medical agency. He was only assigned to work there in just the same manner the racial examiners were assigned to be auxilliary staff of the police for the task which was limited in extent and which was absolutely outside the juris \n diction of RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 737, "page_number": "733", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "These persons were lent to the police, the same as I am being lent to the Americans but thereby I do not become an American Prisoner of War. BY DR. MAAS:\nThank you witness, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the defence?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like the Tribunal's permission to present the witness' affidavit to him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may present it for the purpose of identification only. BY MR. SHILLER:\n- RECROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, is that a true and correct photostatic copy of an affidavit which you signed on 8 August 1947?\nA.Yes, it is.\nQ.Did you sign this affidavit of your own free will?\nA.Yes.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like to offer this affidavit as Prosecution Exhibit No.309.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any objection?\nMR. SHILLER:This is Document No. 5132 and may be found in the English Document Book XI on page 53. This document book has not yet been presented to the Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 738, "page_number": "734", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "DR.SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann) Your Honor, I object to the introduction of this affidavit.\nThe witness was examined in detail today on the respective circumstances; he was taken under cross examination and rectified the affidavit. Consequently, this affidavit is not needed any longer nor is it necessary to submit it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The affidavit will be admitted along with the testimony of the witness concerning the affidavit, and the evidence as a whole will be considered by the Tribunal.\nLet this witness retire from the stand. Call your next witness.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I request the high Tribunal to call Hans Ehlich for cross examination by the Defense.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is the witness who was on the stand when this witness was called?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; let him come to the stand.\nHANS EHLICH - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner) Your Honor, may I continue the cross examination?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nQ.Herr Dr. Ehlich, in the direct examination you mentioned members of VOMI with whom you had constant contact or occasional contact, and you mentioned names like Behrenes, Kubitz, Ellermaier, Rimann, Lorenz and Reudenski. Were these collaborators of the defendant Brueckner in his Department VI?\nA.No.\nQ.This VOMI member Lorenz whom you mentioned, was that the defendant Lorenz. Was there not another person by that name?\nA.The defendant Lorenz was not a collaborator of Brueckner.\nQ.Did Brueckner in his Department VI have to take care of the ethnic Germans in the Reich?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 739, "page_number": "735", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.I think so.\nQ.Can you remember whether Brueckner, because he was only in charge of taking care of the ethnic Germans in the Reich, when he took office, changed the name of the agency, and did not call this Voelkische Schutzarbeit, but rather Kameradschaftsarbeit?\nA.I can remember the name Kameradschaftsarbeit in connection with Brueckner's activity, but I cannot say whether this was a designation which his agency carried or whether here any change of designation took place.\nQ.Thank you. Witness, do you still remember what was Brueckner's conduct when he was present at conferences in which re-Germanization measures were also discussed?\nA.Yes, I remember both discussions and conferences, as well as personal discussions with him, in which re-Germanization problems were dismissed and on the occasion of which Brueckner discussed re-Germanization measures and was in opposition to them on the whole, because he was of the opinion that membership in folkdom could only be based upon a purely voluntary basis.\nQ.Witness, the representative of the VOMI mentioned by you who opposed the evacuations carried out by chiefs of the civil administration in Alsace and Lorrain, who was that?\nA.As far as I remember, there were several of them, I know for example that I spoke on this subject negatively with Behrens too. Brueckner also took part, but now I can only remember one discussion, namely, that on the evacuation of Alsaceians; just now I cannot remember other discussions, in detail.\nQ.Witness, do you still remember that the defendant Brueckner not only opposed theevacuation as chief of the civil administration, but also that he issued a memorandum of VOMI to Himmler sharply criticizing these measures?\nA.No, I don't remember any such memorandum.\nQ.Do you still remember that after these discussions he telephoned you several times and spoke with you on the subject what could be done \n against these evacuation schemes?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 740, "page_number": "736", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes, I remember that we also telephoned with each other and discussed the problem as to what else could be done against the orders by the chiefs of the civil administration.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether the defendant Brueckner participated in the evacuation in Luxembourg; whether he promoted it; whether he called it to be done and had it carried out; or, whether he had any influence whatsoever on those measures in a positive sense, and made any suggestions to the chiefs of the civil administration.\nA.No, I can't remember that.\nQ.Witness, in your examination you mentioned that VOMI in Yugoslavia had a camp; do you remember that?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know when this camp in Yugoslavia was errected?\nA.Various camps were constructed in that area; It must have been in 1940.\nQ.And was this particular camp or camps established with the approval of the Yugoslav government, or was this done after the war broke out and Yugoslavia had been occupied.\nA.No, this civil occupation took place prior to the outbreak of the war, and it must have been available before that, but here I have to say I don't know any facts. It must have been established with the consent of the Yugoslav government.\nQ.Thank you. witness, do you remember the well-known movie which was shown on the resettlement called \"Die Grosse Heimkehr\"? (The Great Return.)\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know based on the examinations which you may have carried out in your office, whether this movie was in accordance with facts or whether it was factitious.\nA.There was no examination on that projection.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 741, "page_number": "737", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "CourtI Case VIII\nQ.Thank you. witness, did those Russian-Germans brought in by the Red Army belong to those national groups who had the right of repatriation in Russia, that is to say, did those national groups which are mentioned in the various manifestoes or the peace treaty Brest-Litowsk, have the right to return to Germany at any time from Russia.\nA.I can't say that for certain right now, but I think the answer is yes.\nQ.Do you know whether the racial Germans also had the right to refuse to serve in the army against their native Germany?\nA.I don't know it.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MAAS: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQ.Witness, yesterday in direct examination you stated that there was a regular collaboration between Group III-B of the RSHA and departments of RuSHA; that these contacts existed only with the racial office, and you stated two names in connection therewith, Professor Schulze and Harders; is that right?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether the racial office and its representatives acted upon their own initiative or whether in the questions which are under discussion here they were committed to the special directives of the chief of the Main Office?\nA.I can't give you details, but I assume that on basic questions they were committed to observe the directives issued by their chiefs.\nQ.We can therefore say that the representatives of the racial office, in general, acted in behalf of RuSHA, but it is a fact that they were free to act according to their own discretion and to make their decision. Am I right in saying that?\nA.I don't know the internal organization of RuSHA. I don't know it well enough to be able to give you any details, but in negotiations \n with Schulze and Harders I gained the impression that in part they acted very independently.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 742, "page_number": "738", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "This refers particularly to Harders \n Q.- Can you give me a short description as to the personality of Harders, and also as far as his activities were concerned?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 743, "page_number": "739", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- Yes. Harders was a man who\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe the character of Harders was not the subject-matter of the examination and it is of no importance in this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, I don't see where that would illustrate anything.\nDR. MAAS:Your Honor, I put this question to the witness in order to clarify the activities which the defendant exercised, and particularly with reference to the fact that activities in RuSHA were carried out by men like Harders and Schulze at their own initiative. For that reason I desired to get a short survey as to the personality of these two people so that we should be able to say that these two persons and thier fields of activity respectively did not absolutely have to be charged to RuSHA.\nTHE PRESIDENT:As I understand, your question was not concerning one of the defendants but somebody else. Is that correct?\nDR. MAAS:That is correct, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; I sustain the objection.\nDR. MAAS:Therefore, Your Honor, I may not put this question.\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Nodd.) BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.- Do you know that at a certain time the Racial Office was bombed out in Berlin and was working in Prague?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Do you know when this happened?\nA.- I am not sure about that.\nQ.- Do you know that the other agencies and offices of RuSHA, in the course of 1942, had to be transferred from Berlin and that there was only a regional headquarters of the Chief of the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "DR. MAAS", "THE", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 744, "page_number": "740", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- Yes, that is known to me.\nQ.- Do you know the defendant Schwalm?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- When did you meet him, and where?\nA.- I met him for the first time --it must have been in the course of 1940. Then I met him at irregular intervals, I don't remember any special occasions at which this occurred.\nQ.- Do you know Schwalm from his activities as Stafsbuehrer for RuSHA?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- In this capacity, was he deputy for Hofmann and Hildebrandt?\nA.- I am not sure about that.\nQ.- Was he a deputy externally; that is, in external relations?\nA.- For a long period of time I had my office in the same building, and I did not gain the impression that he was acting as a deputy externally.\nQ.- In your capacity as a doctor, do you know whether the racial examiners of RuSHA were physicians?\nA.- No, the racial examiners were not physicians.\nQ.- Were there any principle directives or basic directives which provided for the participation of the RuSHA in questions of citizenship?\nA.- I cannot say so right now, because as far as nationality problems were concerned there existed such a large number of decrees and regulations that I cannot recall them in such a short time right now.\nQ.- I now have several questions pertaining to EWZ. Yesterday you confirmed, in answer to a question by one of my colleagues, that EWZ belonged to the jurisdiction of the Chief of Security Police and SD. Is that right?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Who decreed the activity of the racial examiners in EWZ?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 745, "page_number": "741", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.- As far as I know the organization of EWZ, the actual directives were issued to the staff -\nQ.- May I interrupt you? I think you misunderstood my question. I am only interested in this: Who decreed that racial examiners be assigned to EWZ?\nA.- The technical assignment, as to where they were to work, was done by the chief of the EWZ.\nQ.- Namely, the fact that racial examiners were to be allocated for work there at all?\nA.- The basic directive that RuSHA was to assign racial examiners at all to EWZ originated with Himmler.\nQ.- That is just what I wanted to hear. Therefore, from the start, EWZ and RuSHA did not propose or intend to asign racial examiners?\nA.- You can't say that because at the start, when EWZ first took up its activities, racial examiners also took up their activities, Therefore, it was not the EWZ which was capable of speaking for or against an assignment of racial examiners.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe defense counsel goes far beyond the scope of the direct examination. If he does so, I will reserve my right to cross-examine the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't know so much about that, but it seems to the Tribunal that counsel is covering rather familiar territory. It seems that I have heard questions already from defense counsel about the very subject that you are dealing with. Please don't do that.\nDR. MAAS:Your Honor, may I refer you to the fact that in part, perhaps, my questions may be duplications, but I find it necessary to put these questions particularly to this witness because those witnesses who answered these questions previously were limited and unreliable as to their experience and expert knowledge.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just bear in mind the Tribunal's request and go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "DR. MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 746, "page_number": "742", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "DR. MAAS:Your Honor, I will do my best to comply with your order, BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.- Witness, do you know who the chiefs of EWZ were?\nA.- Yes. During the entire time of EWZ's activities there were only two chiefs: First of all, Obersturmbannfuehrer Sandberger, and, after that, a Standartenfuehrer von Maidenbonikau.\nQ.- Did either of these two belong to RuSHA?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did Schwalm have any decisive influence on EWZ, or did he just fulfill a duty specified for EWZ?\nA.- According to my knowledge, for a certain period of time Schwalm controlled the activity of racial examiners in EWZ; that is, for such time as he was chief of the branch office at Litzmannstadt for RuSHA.\nQ.- You stated yesterday that the aim of EWZ was the repatriation of the resettlers. Do you know the regulations of other states as to nationality, which might possibly be compared with the activities of the EWZ?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. The witness cannot testify about laws of other countries in regard to citizenship.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No; I believe the Tribunal has enough to deal with just to stick to this case and not get out into other fields.\nDR. MAAS:Your Honor, I wish to explain by this question -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal has ruled; don't argue about it. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.- Do you know how many different agencies collaborated with EWZ?\nA.- There were approximately six or eight of them.\nQ.- Are you able to name the individual agencies?\nA.- Yes, I think I can still do it.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I cannot see the importance of these questions. The organization of EWZ itself has no bearing on the case.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "DR. MAAS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 747, "page_number": "743", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "The witness has answered all questions concerning EWZ.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The only trouble about that is that you went into it on the direct examination.\nGo ahead. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.- Will you please answer my question?\nA.- The first agency was the Polizeiliche Meldungsstelle, the Police Registration Office.\nThe second agency was the Tesundheitsstelle, the Health Examination Office.\nThe third was Eignungspruefer Zentralhauptamt, the Racial Examination Office of RuSHA.\nThe fourth was Vermoegenserfassungsstelle, the Property Control Office.\nThe fifth was Arbeitseinsatzstelle, the Labor Assignment Office.\nThe sixth was Staatsangehoerigkeitsstelle, the Citizenship Office.\nYes, those are all.\nQ.- The people employed in these various abencies were subordinated to their respective organizations; that is, the Labor Office, the Land Administration office, etc? Is that correct?\nA.- They were subordinated to their main offices.\nQ.- Do you know of any case in which a resettler of German descent, due to a negative expert opinion on the part of a racial examiner, was not repatriated?\nA.- There were hundreds and thousands of cases which went through that office, and I cannot state that today.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 748, "page_number": "744", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Based on RuSha's activity, can it be charged and held responsible for initiative and the carrying out of resettlements and evacuation schemes?\nMR. SCHWENK:This question is a conclusion rather than a question of fact.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. I think you are getting into the field of speculation. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.I now have several questions as to the UWZ -- which have not yet been clarified. Was there any close organizational connection between RuSHA and its branch office Lodz on the one hand, and UWZ Resettlement Center on the other hand?\nA.According to my knowledge, there was no direct organizational connection.\nQ.Do you know when the branch office Lodz was established?\nA.In 1940.\nQ.In these branch offices of UWZ that you mentioned, were there racial examiners there -- that is, branch offices of UWZ, Resettlement Center?\nA.No.\nQ.Were there racial examiners in the resettlement offices.\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Did the racial examiners of the branch office Lodz only occasionally come to UWZ and only if they were required there?\nA.As far as I know, they came to UWZ if resettlers or evacuees had to be examined there.\nQ.Do you know whether the branch office Lodz specifically questioned the families as to their voluntary readiness to be re-Germanized?\nA.As far as I know from reports, this was probably done -- that these people were questioned.\nQ.Do you know that persons who refused to accept re-Germanization \n were not forced to accept it, nevertheless?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 749, "page_number": "745", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.Yes, As far as I am acquainted with the facts, these persons were again subjected to the regular evacuation scheme.\nQ.Did the branch office Lodz, only become active as a suboffice of RuSHA after these people had been evacuated; that is, after these people were assembled in resettlement camps?\nA.Yes, after the evacuation took place.\nQ.Did RuSHA have other field offices?\nA.As far as I know, only one more, in Prague.\nQ.I now have a few questions as to the DVL procedure. Did RuSHA participate in decrees concerning DVL?\nA.I can't remember that at sessions on the subject of preparing the decrees on DVL, RuSHA was present or participated in any way.\nQ.This procedure of DVL, was it handled differently in every gau?\nA.Yes, it depended on the time, because DVL procedure, as decreed by the Reich Minister of the Interior, obviously went into effect in March 1941, and prior to that, there were procedures for registering ethnic Germans, and these were handled differently in the various gaus. Even within one gau, for example, the Warthegau, in the administrative area Litzmannstadt, this was handled differently than in the administrative area Posen -- at least for a time.\nQ.Thank you. Do you know the decree 50/1 of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Unless you give me the essentia text of it, I wouldn't be able to remember it.\nQ.I think it refers to the procedure regarding racial examination of Group III of DVL.\nA.Yes, I remember it now.\nQ.Was the racial examination of Group III carried out pursuant to this decree and applied only in very specific cases?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 750, "page_number": "746", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.This decree on the facial examination was to be carried out only if nationality was bestowed revocably, and if this clause of revocability was to be cancelled prior to the time provided, then Himmler had a conference on the subject mentioned by me yesterday, I believe, in direct examination.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, a racial examination was provided in the case of Group III only if nationality was bestowed revocably, and this clause was to be cancelled prematurely and the nationality was to be changed into an irrevocable nationality.\nDR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this witness has answered this question. He said that this --\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am quite certain that that territory has been covered more than one time already. May I request again, counsel, do not continue to cover the territory that has already been covered. That is about all you are doing. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.Do you know the basic decrees of the security police referring to illicit sexual intercourse?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the security police work without racial examiners at the start?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, in my examination of the witness, I have not touched this field at all. If defense counsel wants to go into the so-called illegal sexual intercourse, then he makes the witness his own witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It seems to me that I remember you saying something about it in your examination.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I remember clearly and distinctly that I left this field out after I interrogated this witness outside the Court and he told me he did not know the details.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may have left it out as to this witness, but it \n is in the case, and they have got a right to ask this witness about it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 751, "page_number": "747", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:Yes, Your Honor, I am referring to this witness only.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I am talking about the case. Go ahead. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.May I ask you to answer my question whether the security police previously, without participation, worked out the participation of racial examiners in this field?\nA.I am not sure about that any longer.\nQ.Do you know the two decrees as Roman numeral IV-D, 208/44 of 21 February 1944, and the decree of 7 December 1942 submitted as Documents PS-3040 to this Tribunal? To help your memory, I will show you those decrees.\n(Witness is offered the documents.)\nPardon me, I gave you a wrong copy. (Witness is offered document.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions to this witness?\nDR. MAAS:I wanted to permit the witness to persue the documents first of all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Ask him whatever you want to ask him. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.I have already asked him whether he knows these documents.\nA.Yes, I know these documents.\nQ.Cand we therefore say that the Security Police was responsible for handling matters of illegal sexual intercourse?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I know that's been in too. I know more than once defense counsel has covered that very territory.\nDR. MAAS:Yes, Your Honor. BY DR. MAAS:\nQ.Is it right that the security police, in questions of pregnancy of eastern workers, also had the initiative and responsibility for the same reasons?\nA.Not only pursuant to this decree of 7 December 1942, but also \n prior to that time, the matter was as you said in this decree only confirmed the procedure--namely, that counter intelligence - in dangers arising against the German people -- arising from allocation of alien workers -- was within the jurisdiction of the security police.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. MAAS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 752, "page_number": "748", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "Q.Were there any abortions on eastern workers carried out voluntarily, namely, with the consent of the pregnant women?\nA.As far as I know, yes.\nQ.In handling these questions, did the Reich Fuehrer for Public Health, Conti, in March of 1942 issue a directive?\nA.Whether this was in March 1942, I couldn't say, but I can say that Conti, not in his capacity as Chief of Public Health but as Staff Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, passed a decree on the question of pregnancy interruptions of alien female workers -- that I know.\nQ.Was there any special connection between RuSHA and this agency of Conti's?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Do you know the details of regulations as to cases in which racial examinations were to be carried out on pregnant women?\nA.I don't know the details.\nQ.Can you tell me whether in all casesof pregnancy interruptions a racial examination took place?\nA.No, I think what happened was that if both parties were aliens, there was no racial examination.\nQ.These cases in which racial examinations were carried out were, compared to the total number of pregnancies, very small, is that right?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.I have one further question only referring to the person of Schwalm. Can you tell me whether after the first of March 1943, that is at the time when he became Stabsfuehrer, he still dealt with details of various agencies of RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 753, "page_number": "749", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "A.In organizational questions of technical character -- because we were both in the same building, I called on him several times in connection with such questions, and from what I saw there I did not gain the impression as though he would have had enough time to do that.\nQ.Thank you, Your Honor. I have no further question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:With reference to the request of the Prosecution to exhibit a movie picture to the Tribunal at 4:45, such picture to be shown for the purpose of being used as evidence, if it appears to have any evidentiary value to the Tribunal, the Tribunal is of the opinion that the defendants will have to be present at the showing of the picture.\nMR. McHANEY:If the Tribunal please, it wasour thought that we would in effect just adjourn the complete courtroom to Tribunal I, including the defendants, and then of course everyone would have an opportunity to view the picture. After it is shown, we will make our offer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I just wanted to be sure that the defendants would be there. The Tribunal will adjourn to Courtroom I for the purpose of seeing this picture.\n( The Tribunal adjourned to Courtroom I.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. McHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 754, "page_number": "750", "date": "29 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-29", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Are you ready to proceed with the picture.\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, your Honor, out this film is technically not perfect and in order to avoid the distortions we have provided three seats in front for your Honors.\n(THE FILM WAS SHOWN)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that all?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, that is the complete film. I should like to offer this film USSR 370 as Prosecution Exhibit310.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Objection has already been lodged to the introduction of the film. We will pass on those objections first thing in the morning.\nThe Tribunal will be in recess until 9:30 tomorrow mroning.\n(A recess was taken until 0930 hours)\n(tomorrow morning)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 755, "page_number": "751", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United.\nStates of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\n, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 30 October 1947, 0930-1630 , The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate After viewing the picture yesterday afternoon, the Tribunal held a conference concerning the objections to the admission oft he picture in evidence.\nIt is the unanimous opinion of this Tribunal that the picture has no probative value so far as this case is concerned and would serve no purpose except to unnecessarily encumber the record. For that reason the objection is sustained and the picture is not admitted in evidence.\nProceed with the testimony.\nDR.ZAPP (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann): May I please continue with my cross-examination?\nHANSEHLICH (Resumed) CROSS-EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. ZAPP:\nQ.Witness, concerning Hitler's basic decree of the 7th of October 1939, relating to the establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, I want to ask you whether RuSHA had been allotted any tasks on the basis of that decree.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this decree speaks for itself.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. Do not go into the contents of the decree; it will show what it does.\nDR. ZAPP:Very well, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "HANS", "DR. ZAPP" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 756, "page_number": "752", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "BY DR. ZAPP:\nQ.Witness, do you know whether RuSHA ever functioned as an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.I cannot tell you that for certain.\nQ.Do you know whether RSHA ever delegated an agency for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes, from a certain date onward, as far as tasks were concerned which fell within the total sphere of tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.I have here a photostat of the decree of the 16th of December 1939,R-143. I am going to show you this document and I want to ask you whether the file note indicates that this document was issued by the RSHA. This document relates to the confiscation of archives, collections, and so forth.\n(Document submitted to witness)\nA.I believe that I can tell you from the file note that that is a file note of the RSHA.\nQ.I now come to the decreeR-112, contained in document book IV-A, under NO. 3091. This document relates to the German People's List, in particular to Group IV. Witness, would you please tell us whether the file note or anything else tells you for certain that this decree was issued by the RSHA?\n(Document submitted to witness)\nA.Yes, I believe I can tell you from the file note that this decree was issued by the RSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 757, "page_number": "753", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Witness, can you tell me whether the provisions concerning Group IV in this decree which I have shown you just now were put into effect?\nA.I have only looked at the decree now from the point of view of the file note; that is to say, I didn't read it through. At the moment I an not familiar with the various provisions of the decree, but, as far as I can remember, evacuations of members of Department IV of the German People's List from the Incorporated Eastern Territories to the Old Reich hardly ever occurred at all.\nQ.How a personal question concerning the defendant Hofmann, Did Hofmann personally attend sessions of the Highest Reviewing Court for the Examination of Citizenship Questions?\nA.I cannot remember having seen the defendant Hofmann at such conferences.\nQ.Witness, can you fur her tell me whether, and if so what, authority the RuSHA had to issue orders concerning evacuation, deportation, resettlement, and so forth?\nA.According to my knowledge, RuSHA had authority to issue directives only in so far as racial examiners of RuSHA participated in these measures, and then it only had authority to issue directives to them.\nQ.Witness, can one say that between the various agencies of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism there was a certain amount of cooperation with RuSHA from the very beginning? And were they joint plans, or was it only in the course of carrying out the necessary measures that various offices and agencies were involved?\nA.One cannot say, in a general way, that from the outset, in all cases, there was cooperation all around. That varied according to the problem at hand.\nQ.Witness, apart from RuSHA, were there other agencies which dealt with racial problems?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 758, "page_number": "754", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.Not within the SS, but outside the SS there was, for example, the Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. We have no doubt that many other agencies--in fact, all Germany dealt with racial problems at that time. I cannot see the importance of those questions in this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am inclined to the view that this matter has been very thoroughly gone into by the other members of defense counsel, so let's not cover the same territory twice.\nDR. ZAPP:Your Honor, the prosecution has broached the problem of the sphere of tasks of RuSHA and therefore I find it necessary to get an answer from this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is of the opinion that this question has been thoroughly covered already, so don't go into it any more. BY DR. ZAPP:\nQ.Witness, did the State Public Health authorities have anything to do with the racial question?\nA.The Public Health authorities-\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the prosecution does not deny that many other agencies in Germany dealt with racial questions, so I cannot see the importance of those questions again.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will permit that question to be answered.\nGo ahead.\nTHE WITNESS:As far as I can remember, the Public Health Office--for example, in the case of marriage between Germans and foreigners--cooperated in making investigations before approval was granted, and they also gave their opinion on the racial question. BY DR. ZAPP:\nQ.Do you know whether they also played a part in examining people who were to be settled in Germany, whether they helped with \n the examinations of settlers?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPP" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 759, "page_number": "755", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AI believe so, but I cannot remember details from the instructions and directives to the Public Health Office.\nQWitness, is it correct that Dr. Conti's Office for Public Health and I am only interested in the time from 1940 to 1943, or up to 1945 was subordinated to RUSHA? Is that correct?\nANo, it was never subordinated.\nDR. ZAPP:Thank you.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQWitness, I have only a very few questions to ask you, and would you please be as brief as possible in your answers?\nYou mentioned the name \"Art\" in your direct examination. Was he the Gauamtleiter of the so-called Office for Racial Policy?\nADr. Art, as far as I know, was also Gauamtleiter for the Office for Racial Policy. At first he was in Breslau, and later on in Kattowicz.\nQThat is enough for me, witness; that is enough for me.\nWhat were the tasks of the Office of Racial Policy of the Nazi Party?\nAThe Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party dealt with educational and training questions within the Party and its formations, with the exception of the SS. It also dealt with questions relating to a practical racial and population policy within the Nazi Party. However, beyond that, it also exerted influence on the same questions in the Administration and in the Government.\nQBy your latter remark you indicated that there was influence on the RUSHA, is that correct?\nANo, I do not know that the Office for Racial Policy of the Nazi Party exerted influence on RUSHA.\nQI wanted to check your testimony, and I wanted to find out whether perhaps those were only attempts. Is that correct?\nAI can't tell you; I know nothing about that.\nQDid the Office for Racial Policy of the Party have any \n Court I Case VIII contact at all with the SS offices, in particular with RuSHA and RSHA?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "DR. ZAPP", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 760, "page_number": "756", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.I don't know whether there were any contacts with RuSHA, I don't believe so. As concerns the RSHA, as far as I know there were contacts in connection with information and intelligence.\nQ.Did problems concerning foreigners fall within the jurisdiction of the RSHA?\nA.Yes. Yesterday, under cross-examination, two decrees were shown to me which expressed that quite clearly.\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Do you know him, in particular, from his work as representative of the Reich Commissar and Police Leader for DanzigWest Prussia?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What were Hildebrandt's relations with Forster, the Reichstatthalter there? May I point out that von dem Bach-Zelewski, a witness who was examined before you, stated that relations between Forster and Hildebrandt were supposed to have been tense. I am interested in the question as to whether you know that Hildebrandt, also on his part, had tense relations with Forster. Can you tell us something about that?\nA.As far as I know, for almost the entire time of Hildebrandt's term of office in Danzig-West Prussia relations between him and Forster were very bad.\nQ.What opinion can you give us about Hildebrandt's character and his work as Higher SS and Police Leader and as representative of the Reich Commissar?\nA.As I myself did not work in Danzig, and as I only knew of Hildebrandt's duties concerning his work as representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, I can only tell you about that. Concerning him in that capacity, it was my impression that, above all, he was against all compulsory Germanization in \n Court I - Case VIII West Prussia and Danzig, and that he tried not only to stand up for that opinion in Danzig and West Prussia, but also to prevail over the competent authorities in the Reich with his point of view.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 761, "page_number": "757", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Was the SD subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.The SD was not subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader. The Higher SS and Police Leader, in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, was largely the representative of Himmler for the whole machinery, but he could not issue instructions to the SD.\nQ.Could he give instructions to the UWZ?\nA.Probably not as a Higher SS and Police Leader, but perhaps as the representative of the Commissar for the Strengthening of G Germanism.\nQ.You don't know that for certain, do you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 762, "page_number": "758", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI cannot tell you for certain how these affairs were organized in Danzig, West Prussia.\nQWitness, you have been asked a great deal about the activity of the RS leaders. I do not want to deal any further with these questions. There is only one more question which I would like to clear up, which I don't think has been cleared up sufficiently so far. I will ask you; the work of the RUS leaders in proceedings concerning prohibited sexual intercourse, was that merely the work of an expert who was supposed to give an opinion which is more or less the same as the work of a medical expert in penal proceedings, when it is a case of establishing whether the defendant is fully responsible for his acts? Was that activity of a similar nature?\nAI do know the basic decrees, but as I myself did not work in the executive and therefore did not deal immediately with these matters, I cannot tell you anything final in connection with that question. But I believe that largely those opinions rendered by the racial examiners of RuSHA constituted just one opinion among several other opinions.\nQTherefore the opinion rendered by the RuSHA examiners-\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to these questions. The witness said he had no experience whatsoever in regard to this subject matter, and I cannot see that his belief as to how things happened is of any importance in this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I would suggest to counsel that so far as the Tribunal is concerned, opinion will not have any weight. We will decide the case strictly by the facts and it will be very helpful to the Tribunal if you will bring out the facts as concisely as possible.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Very well, Your Honor. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, in those last questions today and the other day you mentioned the so-called Germanization policy of Forster. What do you mean by Germanization policy?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 763, "page_number": "759", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nABy Germanizing, during all the time we worked on that problem, we always meant the Germanization of people of alient origin, and who showed no sign whatsoever of being of German descent.\nQAnd what was Himmler's policy?\nAA leaflet of a German magazine which I can remember--a leaflet for which Himmler had written the introduction--shows that Germanization of people of entirely alien descent who neither by descent nor by race had any relations with the German race, that was always repudiated as useless and wrong, particularly when it was done compulsorily.\nQDid not Himmler's policy, concerning that whole question, and on the basis of your knowledge of the matter -- am I right in interpreting Himmler's policy if I say and if I now ask you whether Himmler, by resettling Germans from abroad, by bringing back those Germans to the Reich, by evacuating the border areas -- whether by that he wanted to achieve security, and whether he wanted to draw a line between the Slav peoples and the German peoples? Is that correct?\nAYes, that was the intention.\nQThank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions on the part of the defense? Does the Prosecution have any further questions.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe that many of the questions raised in the cross-examinations are clearly answered by the documents which the Prosecution has offered in evidence. I shall therefore confine myself to only a very few questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will be very helpful to the Tribunal by following that procedure.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, in the cross-examination you said that the deportation of Poles was carried out by the Chief of the Security Police and SD. Were the orders of the activities of the Chief of Police and SD given by the defendant Greifelt?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 764, "page_number": "760", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAThe basic instructions as to whether in the case of certain resettlement drives the Chief of the Security Police, through the Resettlement Centers was to carry out such resettlement, such instructions were issued by RuSHA. As far as I know, the decrees were all signed by Himmler.\nQWitness, may I refresh your memory by showing you one of the documents containing such an order?\n(Witness is offered the document.)\nThis is a book called \"Menscheneinsatz\", 1940. Will you please read to the Tribunal that part of the decree which is circled.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think it's necessary for him to read it to the Tribunal. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWill you now reconsider your answer in view of the fact that this decree is signed by defendant Greifelt?\nAYes. I said before that generally speaking, as far as I know, these orders were signed by Himmler. By that I wanted to say that there were probably also a few which Greifelt signed.\nQDo you know how many of these decrees were signed by Himmler and how many signed by Greifelt?\nAI can't give you any details about that, but I can remember that for example the resettlement decree concerning the resettlement of Germans from the Gottschee was also signed by the defendant Greifelt.\nQWitness, you said in the cross examination that the deportation from Luxembourgh, Alsace and Lorraine was initiated by the chief of the civil administration. Do you know whether the chief of the civil administration was a representative of RKFDV?\nAAs far as I remember, not all the chiefs of the civil administration were at the same time the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQI am asking you: do you know whether the chiefs of the civil administration in Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine were at the same time \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 765, "page_number": "761", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "representatives of RKFDV?\nAWell, that was what I meant by my previous answer. I can't remember for certain whether Wagner, Burkel and Siebert at the same time were also representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQDo you know whether and to what extent the Main Staff Office, VOMI, and RuSHA were consulted prior to the deportation of Luxembourgians, Alsacians and Lorrainians?\nAYes. In my view it was like this: the letters from the chiefs of the civil administration concerning this question were addressed to the Main Staff Office and than at the Main Staff Office discussions ware held of the main offices.\nQIn the cross examination you said that the citizenship decrees were issued by the Ministry of the Interior. Do you know whether the Reich RKFDV participated in the issuance of such decrees?\nAIf I understood the Prosecutor correctly he is referring to the basic decree on the German People's List.\nQThe defense counsel put the question to you in German terms. He had asked you: were the citizenship decrees issued by the Ministry of the Interior, and you said, \"Yes.\" And now I am asking you: do you remember whether those decrees concerning, for instance, DVL citizenship of Luxembourgians, Alsacians and Lorrainians were published by the Ministry of the Interior in consent with the RKFDV?\nAYes.\nQDo you mean to say you don't know or the answer is \"Yes\"?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He said \"Yes\" just as plain as he can speak. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQIn the cross examination you said that the DVL, the German People's List was a voluntary affair. At the same time you said in the cross examination that Gauleiter Forster placed whole villages and towns under DVL. Which of your answers is correct?\nAFrom the decrees of the Reich Ministry of the Interior con \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 766, "page_number": "762", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "cerning the German People's List, it is quite evident that it was a voluntary affair. According to my recollection under cross examination, I did not say that whole villages and cities were compulsory by Forster placed on the People's List. All I said was that Gauleiter Forster in many cases had Poles forced to make such an application that was contrary to the rulings of the German People's List, and therefore the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, as well as the Reich Ministry of the Interior, again and again protested against such procedure.\nQAnd, witness, do you know the effect of those protests?\nAYes, I know about the effect. The effect of such protests was, and I believe that the chaos which reigned in the German administration has been mentioned a great many times before the Military Tribunal here, but particularly the Ministry of the Interior had great difficulties in carrying through their measures. Therefore the effect was purely a farcial effect.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 767, "page_number": "763", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Witness, are you familiar with the fact that in 1942 Himmler signed a decree providing that people who do not apply for DVL should be placed in protective custody and concentration camps?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me now whether your answer is correct or not, or whether you want to revise your answer?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are just arguing with the witness and not being helpful to the Tribunal at all. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.In the cross examination, witness, you said you were familiar with both General Plan East of 1940 and General Plan East of 1942. Is that correct?\nA.No. As I remember correctly, in reply to counsel's question, I stated that General Plan East from the year 1942, issued by some agricultural research station, was not known to me. That is how I remember it.\nQ.But you are familiar with the General Plan East of 1940?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who made this plan?\nA.As far as I remember, that plan was in part worked out, and I believe I have already spoken about that, by the Main Office IV of the RSHA. As far as it concerned the evacuation of foreigners and the office which later on became the Main Staff Office, at that time it was Greisfelt's Agency -- as far as I remember it participated in part. I believe in that connection under cross examination I mentioned Dr. Fehndrich's name.\nQ.Yes, but my question is: did the office planning of the Main Staff Office participate?\nA.I don't know, but I believe that I can remember a distribution of work plan, and according to that, in the spring and summer of 1940 there wasn't a planning office yet, but I believe I remember that, but I don't know for certain.\nQ.Did thedefendant Meyer participate?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 768, "page_number": "764", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.I can't tell you; I don't know.\nQ.Witness, in the cross examination you said that VOMI had nothing to do with Germanization, DVL, and so on, is that correct?\nA.I don't believe so. I believe I said that originally in the first orders it had been laid down that VOMI was to carry out the Germanization measures in the camps, etc.-- it was to take care of these people but later the Party began to participate, considering itself the proper agency, and that therefore the Party began to take over the care of these people.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that he simply ask the withess any additional questions that he desires to answer without going back and asking him all that he testified to heretofore. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Yes, Your Honor. Witness, I would like to show you now a table of organization of VOMI, dated June 15, 1944, and showing that the office of the defendant Bruckner -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, don't state what it shows. It shows for itself. If you want to show it to him, show it to him.\nDR.DOETZER (For the defendant Bruckner): Your Honor, I object to this question concerning the defendant Bruckner and VOMI, which was not discussed by the defense with the witness. It was only discussed when the prosecutor had the withess under direct examination. Therefore, I don't think that he is entitled to ask this question now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The only thing he has done so far is to hand him a document. I don't know what he is going to ask yet. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Would you say, in view of this document, that VOMI did not handle questions of Germanization and DVL on June 15, 1944? That is the date of this document.\nDR.DOETZER (for the defendant Bruckner): I object to this question because this question was not discussed with the witness in cross examination by the defense counsel. It was only discussed under direct exami \n nation by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 769, "page_number": "765", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:This particular organization was discussed rather in detail. I will let him answer the question. Go ahead. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Please answer the question.\nA.Yes. I now see that in the organization chart which has just been shown to me under Office VI of VOMI, re-Germanization is mentioned as one sphere of duty.\nQ.Witness, in cross examination you said that in regard to the exchange of ethnic Germans from Lublin and Poles from the Wartegau, VOMI was not involved, is that correct?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, Mr. Prosecuting Attorney, that is the very thing I cautioned you about a minute ago. You go backover the whole testimony and say; now did you testify to that? Ask him what you want to ask him in addition to what he has already testified to. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.May I show you now a document contained in \"Menscheneinsatz,\" 1940, Page 41, and dealing with the exchange of ethnic Germans.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The document itself shows what it deals with. Just show it to him, if you want to show it to him. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Would you now say that the VOMI was not involved -- the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle?\nA.In this decree which has just been shown to me it says that the evacuation of the ethnic Germans -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, just answer his question. Don't talk about what the decree shows. The Court will read the decree and find out what it shows, so you can just answer the question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Would you now say that VOMI was not involved?\nA.No, according to this document, VOMI did deal with the matter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 770, "page_number": "766", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.In regard to EWZ and UWZ, which had been so thoroughly discussed here, I have only one question; were the racial examiners belonging to the branch office of RuSHA in Lodz under the direction and orders of the chief of the branch office?\nA.As far as technical questions regarding their work were concerned, yes.\nQ.Was the chief of the branch office in Lodz under the direction and orders of the chief of RuSHA, which was at one time Hofmann; another time Hildebrandt?\nA.In my view, Yes.\nQ.I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 771, "page_number": "767", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "DR. DOETZER:Dr. Doetzer for the defendant Brueckner. Your Honor, may I please ask a few questions - questions which the Prosecutor broached in his redirect examination for the first time?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will hold this examination down strictly to rebuttal to any additional matters that were brought out by the Prosecution. This rebuttal examination.\nDR. DOETZER:Yes, your Honor.\nRECROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.Witness, the conference concerning evacuation from AlsaceLorraine and Luxemburg, did they take place before the evacuations had been carried out or after they had been carried out?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. I asked the withess the very same question and he answered it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am inclined to the view that that particular question had been asked several times by both sides; so let's not go over it again. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.Witness, your answer that the conference were held before the evacuations from Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, do you want to maintain that answer or not?\nA.Well, generally - naturally such conferences were held before the evacuations had been carried out.\nQ.You can't tell us anything for certain; you can only talk about the matter in general terms, can you?\nA.Well, at the moment I can remember the transcript of one such conference which shows that the conferences had been held previous to the evacuations and that referred to the Alsace evacuation.\nQ.Thank you very much. You can't remember the other instances, can you?\nA.I can't because as a rule I did not attend the conferences or, rather, I don't remember the transcripts now.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 772, "page_number": "768", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.I see. Was it the purpose of the conference, as far as VOMI was concerned, to prevent those evacuations from taking place in Alsace?\nA.I believe I have already said that it was the general policy of VOMI, and in particular of the defendant Brueckner, as far as possible not to carry out those evacuations.\nQ.Thank you very much. Witness, the Prosecutor has shown you an organizational chart of VOMI concerning Office VI, which shows that Office VI dealt with questions of Germanization. Now I ask you, did you have any knowledge of the work of Office VI concerning the work they did on Germanization questions or didn't you?\nA.No; I didn't have any good insight.\nQ.Do you know why in particular -- under Bruckner -- those questions of Germanization were handed to him to deal with because you have just described him as being an opponent of Germanization?\nA.No, I can't tell you.\nQ.Thank you very much. Witness, a document, which I don't know because the Prosecution didn't show it to me, was shown to you. It was the document dealing with Menscheneinsatz, the allocation of people, and from the document you concluded that VOMI participated in the compiling of the German People's List. Do you know whether, in effect, that was so?\nA.I can't remember to what extent VOMI played any part in compiling the German People's List unless it had played any part in issuing basic decrees concerning the resettlement of members of Sections 3 and 4 of DVL into the Reich.\nQ.Do you remember that for certain or are you only assuming that?\nA.I don't remember it for certain and, furthermore, the resettlement of such persons hardly ever took place.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you very much.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Dr. von der Trenck. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQ.Witness, you told the Prosecutor in reply to his question about evacuations that the basic orders concerning whole schemes of evacuation \n had been issued by the Reich Commissar and you said that as far as you remembered as a rule they had been signed by Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 773, "page_number": "769", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Did those orders in that respect contain more than the usual sentence that the chief of the Security Police and the SD will carry out the necessary evacuations?\nA.That was the customary formula in these orders as far as I remember.\nQ.According to your insight into conditions does that constitute an order from the Reich Commissar to the Chief of the Security Police and SD? I mean that formula, that one sentence, does that constitute an order or an instruction?\nA.Yes, it is that.\nQ.But it was the Chief of the Security Police and the SD who gave orders for the various measures to be taken; is that so?\nA.Well, as a rule those orders contained no further details apart from just that one sentence.\nQ.Well, that is just what I was referring to; the detailed orders were given by the Chief of the Security Police and the SD.\nA.As far as I know, yes.\nQ.You have also spoken of letters from the Chiefs of the Civil administration in the West to the Reich Commissariat and Greifelt's agency concerning evacuation questions. Have you got any certain recollection of such letters or are those only assumptions on your part?\nA.I know, for example, that the chief of the Civil Administration in Alsace, Wagner, in connection with his plans for the evacuation of Alsacians in 1942, wrote letters to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, letters which were read out at the conference.\nQ.Those evacuation measures of Wagner's were based on an order from what agency, please?\nA.As far as I can remember the letter shows that Wagner had received the order from Hitler or had received instructions from Hitler.\nQ.In other words, he didn't get it from the Reich Commissar?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 774, "page_number": "770", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.No, not from the Reich Commissar.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Thank you.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, in reply to a question from the Prosecutor whether the the chief of the Branch Office at Litzmannstadt acted directly under instructions from the Chief of RuSHA, you gave a general answer and now I would like to know whether you were only assuming that or whether you knew for a fact that the Chief of the Branch Office Litzmannstadt was working directly under instructions of the Chief of Rushau or whether he was working with the Racial Office.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor I object to this sort of questioning. My question was clear and the answer was clear too.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It becomes necessary for the Tribunal to caution this counsel just as we did counsel for the Prosecution. If you have any additional questions to ask you may do so, but don't go back over the testimony that has already been delivered.\nDR. MUELLER:Dr. Mueller for the defendant Huebner. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Witness, one additional question. Under redirect examination you said that the basic orders for evacuation were signed by Himmler or the Main Staff Office and that it had always been pointed out -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel, please do not go back and recite all that the witness has testified heretofore. If you have an additional question to propound, simply propound the question. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Can you confirm that the representative of the Reich Commissar did not participate in issuing those orders for evacuation?\nA.Naturally he did not participate in the orders issued by the Central Offices.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 775, "page_number": "771", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 776, "page_number": "772", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with your next witness.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution would like to call as its next witness Reinhard Breder.\nREINHARDBREDER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will raise your right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATIO BY MR. LAMB:\nQPlease state your name.\nAReinhard Breder.\nQWhat is your age?\nAI am 36 years old.\nQAfter the war what did you do?\nASince 1931 I studied law at various universities and last I was a Gerichts Assessor in Hamburg.\nQPrior to the war what was your profession?\nAI was a Gerichts Assessor at Hamburg.\nQWere you ever admitted to practice law in Hamburg?\nAYes, since the summer of 1939.\nQDuring the war were you ever stationed at Frankfurt/Main? Please give the dates.\nAYes. Since 1943 I was in charge of the Gestapo Agency in Frankfurt/Main.\nQWhat was your official title?\nAI was a Regierungsrat, a government counsellor, and I was an SS Sturmbannfuehrer by assimilated rank.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "REINHARD", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 777, "page_number": "773", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Were you chief of Police there ?\nA.Yes, I was in charge of the Gestapo agency of the Government Distirct of Wiesbaden.\nQ.Please give the dates in which you held that position?\nA.From the middle of September 1943 until the arrival of the American troops, towards the end of March 1945.\nQ.Were there foreign Eastern workers, Poles and Russians working in the factories in your district during that time?\nA.Yes, we had a total of 83,000 foreigners in our district.\nQ.Were there women among these foreigners?\nA.Yes. We also had a large number of women among them. Q. Did your office receive reports of pregnancy of these women in this troup of laborers?\nA.Yes, we received a decree from Berlin and according to this decree, which I passed on to the Landraete and foreman in charge of these foreign workers, there were Russian and Polich women mentioned in this case, the men in charge of the labor camps had to tell the foreign women, if they were pregnant and if the male partner was also a foreigner that they could have an abortion performed. The procedure was that the men who were in charge of the foreign labor camps had to determine the names of the pregnant women and they had to tell these women that they should have an abortion performed. If they agreed to this then the name was submitted with a statement that the woman was in agreement with it to my agency, and my agency then would pass on the name to the Higher SS and Police Leader, and the Higher SS and Police Leader would send representatives of the Race and Settlement field leader to the labor camps so that an examination could be carried out there as far as race and ethnics were concerned. If it became evident as the result of this examination that the Race and Settlement field leader was not interested in the woman in question, then he would negotiate with the competent labor offices and, as far as I am informed, the women were taken to German \n families so that there they could assimilate themselves to German conditions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 778, "page_number": "774", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.In other words the purpose of this examination by the Race and settlement Office which you have described was to determine whether or nor the pregnant woman and her expected offspring were desirable from the standpoint of being Germanized. Is that true?\nA.Yes, that is my opinion.\nQ.Now, you have been discussing the cases where the pregnancy of these women or both parties to the pregnancy were foreigners, that is, where both the man and the woman were Poles or Russians. Is that right? These particular cases that you have just discussed?\nA.Yes, of course a man in question could be another foreigner, for instance a French civilian worker and so on.\nQ.But in any event they were foreigners?\nA.Yes.\nQ.With reference to cases where the woman was a foreigner and the man was a German or vice versa, where one party was a German and the other was a foreigner, a Pole or a Russian, what was the procedure in these cases?\nA.As far as I know at the outbreak of the war the procedure which was followed was different from that which was carried out at the end of the war. In the years 1940 and 1941, when I was the Personal Referent with the Reich Security Police and SD at Hamburg, I read a number of decrees which ordered that Poles were prohibited from having sexual intercourse with Germans, and it stated that punishment would be imposed for violations. Severe cases were subject to punishment of death. The Poles who came to Germany or who were discharged as Polish prisoners of war, had to sign a statement that they had been informed that this prohibition existed and if, nevertheless, such a case did occur, then the Gestapo agency would be notified and then it would carry on an investigation and find witnesses and things of that sort and then the file would \n be passed on to the Higher SS and Police Leader, who gave an expert opinion on that, and later on the leader would pass on that file to a representative of RuSHA in order to have both people in question examined.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 779, "page_number": "775", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "If he reached the result in regard to the foreign part that the person would and should be Germanized, then the foreigner in question, or the foreign woman in question, would be released to the RuSHA and would be released from imprisonment. If the examination showed that the Germanization wasout of question, then the file together with the comment of the Higher SS and Police Leader would be passed on to the RSHA, and the RSHA or the Reichsfuehrer SS would then carry out the final decision. While I was in Frankfurt, that is towards the end of the war, as far as I know, no death sentences were pronounced any more, but in these cases according to the severity of each individual case, whether for example force had been used or if the girl was a minor, the person concerned would be committed to a concentration camp.\nQ.You spoke of cases when you were at Hamburg where the death penalty was imposed. Was the decision of the RFSS as to whether or not to impose the death penalty based in part upon the report of the Race and Settlement Leader as to the desirability of the Party for Germanization?\nA.The procedure we followed was that in case it was discovered that the person in question could be Germanized, the Gestapo would release the foreigner in question and they would not carry on any further proceedings against him.\nQ.In connection with the cases with which you are familiar and which arose during your time at Frankfurt, did the Race and Settlement Office also examine these people and make recommendation as to what should be done with them?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leader would comment on the case. The comment of the Higher SS and Police Leader, as far as I know, of course also included the considerations from the police angle. Under the police \n point of view here I understand the question whether this case was of particular severity or whether any special excitement had arisen amongst the population as a result.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 780, "page_number": "776", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.In cases where a party who had been recommended for Germanization refused to be Germanized, were threats made against them to put them in concentration camps if they continued to refuse to be Germanized?\nA.The procedure would then take its normal course, that is to say, the file was then passed on to the USHA which in accordance with the penalty provided would announce a penalty according to the seriousness of the case and in many cases this meant that the person concerned would be committed to a concentration camp.\nQ.Well, I want to get this straight now. Were there some cases in which a person who was eligible for Germanization and who refused to be Germanized, were there any of these cases where that person would be threatened with a concentration camp if they continued to refuse to be Germanized?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 781, "page_number": "777", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.I can't remember any case of that nature. Since of course the foreigners by the possibility of becoming Germanized received a lot of advantages as the result, I therefore, can't recall any case where any person refused. In particular since this being Germanized would also result in being released from custody.\nQ.In other words these people were in custody at the time of the examination. Is that what, you intended to say?\nA.Yes. Whenever a person involved was a German then as a result both parties were taken into custody until the conclusion of the investigation was reached or until the RSHA made a decision.\nQ.In all cases other than the cases in which the death penalty mi might be imposed, was the recommendation of RuSHA conclusive?\nA.It was conclusive in so far that if the person could be Germanized, no further investigation would be carried on. To what extent the RSHA, when it made its decision, would give consideration to the question of fitness for Germanization, is unknown to me, since I did not work in the RSHA nad therefore can't give you any details about that.\nQ.The Prosecution has no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense? BY DR. MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, in your examination you stated that at a later period of time a racial examination took place. Can you give me that time precisely?\nA.Of course I can't give you the exact date. However, as far as I am able to recall the first decrees about penal prosecution of sexual intercourse between Poles and Germans were issued in the fall of 1940 or it may have been in the winter of 1940 or 1941. These decrees first of all only referred to prosecution by police authoirties. Later on a supplementary decree was issued, it must have been several weeks later, in which it was stated that the Higher SS and Police Leaders had \n made representations to the Reichfuehrer SS and that they wanted to be included in this procedure.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 782, "page_number": "778", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "It therefore was ordered that the Gestapo was to pass on the files of such cases; first of all to the Higher SS and Police Leader and only then this file whould be passed on to Berlin for further decision.\nQ.And according to your knowledge, when were the Race and Settlement leaders included in this procedure?\nA.For us as State Police, the Higher SS and Police Leader also signed as Race and Settlement Leader. To what extent he included his staff internally, I am unable to tell you.\nQ.If I have understood you correctly in your direct examination you stated that only during the time of your activity in Frankfurt it came to your knowledge that a racial examination took place.\nA.No, these racial examinations had already taken place before. In any case after the Higher SS and Police Leaders were included in the procedure.\nQ.Therefore, for sometime were these cases dealt with without any racial examination?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they lead to any punishment?\nA.Yes, several weeks or a few months elapsed until a supplementary decree was issued to which I have just referred.\nQ.Witness, are you quite certain that all cases of pregnancy were reported to the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.Cases of pregnancey of this nature where one person was a Russian woman or a Polish woman and the other party would be a German certainly were reported.\nQ.The cases where both parties were foreigners, were they reported to the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.No, they were not reported to him with the exception of those cases to which I have referred in the beginning, where interruption of \n of the pregnancy was taken into consideration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 783, "page_number": "779", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "However, this only began towards the end of 1943.\nQ.In this decision did you ever hear the name of the Reich Office for Public Health of Conti?\nA.No, we have had no contact whatsoever with the Reich Office for Public Health.\nQ.Therefore, you don't know anything about the facts, whether the Health officers were included in this procedure?\nA.Since the employment offices were involved in this procedure, of course the possibility exists that the health office also participated in dealing with these questions. However, I can't say anything about this positively.\nQ.Is it correct that the judgment of the Race and Settlement Leader only referred to the racial evaluation and not to the punishment as such.\nA.It only extended to the racial evaluation and of course it did not have any influence on the police judgment given in that case. The Higher SS and Police Leader in that capacity and in his capacity as Chief of the Police of course would also take into consideration the police aspects and the seriousness of the case and so on.\nQ.In order to consider the question now whether punishment was imposed also other, factors had to be taken into consideration?\nA.Yes, I have stated that for this seriousness of the case was very devisive, for example, whether force had been used; whether the girl concerned was still a minor, or whether any other offenses had been committed at the same time, which would have to be prosecuted according to the regular German penal law.\nQ.Could the judgment of the Race and Settlement Leader in the best case only have the result that the person concerned would be safe from having any punishment imposed on him.\nA.Yes, as far as the practice in Frankfurt was concerned, he \n would be released from custody or he would be placed at the further disposal of the Race and Settlement Leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 784, "page_number": "780", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Thank you I have no further questions. BY DR. RATZ (for the defendant Sollmann):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, did you ever see a specimen of such a racitl evaluation?\nA.Are you referring to a proper evaluation, duly filled in on a form?\nQ.Yes.\nA.No, I have never seen such an evaluation.\nQ.Have you ever seen a form that was not filled in?\nA.My agency as such was not interested in the racial aspects, after all we did not deal with questions of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Witness, do you know that in the case of interruptions of pregancy, in the case of female Eastern workers, the consent of a Higher authority had to be obtained?\nA.Are you referring to a higher German authority?\nQ.Yes.\nA.We received this decree from the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office. About the negotiations which were carried on in Berlin prior to the decree I, therefore, can't make any statements.\nQ.Thank you. BY DR. FROESCHMANN(for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, you have just now spoken about the Higher SS and Police Leader as Chief of the Police. Now tell me was the Higher SS and Police Leader Chief of the Police at all?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leader was the representative of the Reichfuehrer SS in his Army Corps area and consequently police units in that area were subordinated to him and he was able to issue instructions \n to these units.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 785, "page_number": "781", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.However, with this statement, you are in contradiction with the testimony of several witnesses who have appeared here and I, therefore, want to ask you were you acquainted with the exact authority of command of the Higher Police Leader from practical life or did you only obtain that information from hearsay?\nA.I know it from practice and I also know it from directives which I received from Berlin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 786, "page_number": "782", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QWas the chief of the security police, wasn't that the inspector of the security police?\nAThe inspector of the security police would be the local intermediary superior to whom I had to report first of all, and he in turn would be the main collaborator of the higher SS and police leader, and he would report to him and report all matters which pertained to the security police. The legal status of the higher SS and police leader in my opinion, however, was not defined so clearly in writing that a uniform practice was in existence. For example, in Frankfurt I had two higher SS and police leaders, one whom dealt very little with matters in which we were interested, and the second higher SS and police leader was very much interested, so very frequently there ware differences and arguments.\nQTherefore, I don't think that there were any instructions which led to any definite conclusion as to the position of the higher SS and police leader.\nAYes there were directives to that effect. For example, there was a standard order of procedure for the inspector of the security police which was issued towards the end of 1939, and from this standard order of procedure it also becomes evident just what the position of the higher SS and police leader was. Further more, a number of individual decrees were also in existence from which one could gather the authority and the status of the higher SS and police leader.\nQWhen were these decrees issued?\nAThis standard order of procedure for the inspector of the security police was issued in the late fall of 1939. It also was published in the book of Dr. Best, Die Deutsche Polizei.\nQAnd this standard order of procedure for the higher SS and police leader, when did that appear?\nAI was only referring to directive of the inspector of the security police, and I stated in that connection that it also defined the position of the higher SS police leader.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 787, "page_number": "783", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QTherefore, you are just giving us your own conclusions here; is that right?\nAYes, that is right.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further from the Defense? Anything further from the Prosecution?\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution has nothing. The Prosecution has no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Go ahead with your next witness.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution now wishes to call the witness Richard Maiwald.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nRICHARDMAIWALD; a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me the following oath:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, -\nAYes.\nQWhen and were were you born? And what is your name, please.\nAMy name is Richard Maiwald; I was born on the 24th of October 1894 at Kronau, Silesia.\nQWhat education did you have?\nAI attended public school; after wards I went to an agricultural school and took an agricultural training course.\nQWitness, were you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nASince May, 1937 I was a member.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "RICHARD", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 788, "page_number": "784", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QWere you ever a member of the SS?\nAThrough assimilation of rank, by virtue of the decree with regard to Austria.\nQWitness, when you said assimilation of rank, you meant of your rank in the police, did you not?\nAYes. This was an assimilation to my rank in the police. I was not a specific member, but only by assimilation of rank.\nQWhen did you join the police, witness?\nAI joined the police in the year 1919.\nQIn what unit did you serve during the war, the last war witness.\nAIn the first World War I served in the 2nd Guard Regiment.\nQIn the second World War, witness.\nAIn the second World War I was a police officer, and later on I was in combat with several police units. First of all we were with the 1st Battalion of the 19th Police Regiment, and later on I was the regimental commander of Police Regiment No. 6.\nQWhile you were with the 1st Battalion, witness, were you ever in Yugoslavia?\nAYes, I was in Yugoslavia.\nQWhat was your rank at that time, witness?\nAIn Yugoslavia I was a major.\nQWhat period of time were you in Yugoslavia?\nAApproximately from 1941 until 1943.\nQUnder whose command were you at the time?\nAWell, originally the battalion was independent, and after wards a regiment was formed and this was Regiment No. 19. I was subordinated to the commander of the regular police, and he in turn was subordinated to higher SS and police leader.\nQWitness, while you were in Yugoslavia, did you gain any knowledge as to deportations from that country of Yugoslav citizens not of German origin?\nACould you please repeat the question once more?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 789, "page_number": "785", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QWitness, while you were in Yugoslavia, did you gain any knowledge as to the deportation from that country?\nAYes.\nQThat is the deportation of Yugoslav citizens not of German origin?\nAYes, the higher SS and police leader assigned detachments to the staff of Hintze which appeared there at the time, and these detachments had to carry out the deportation from Save and Sotna Strip under the direction of Hintze.\nQWitness, when did this deportation take place?\nAI can't give you the exact time any more, but this must have taken place in the middle of 1941.\nQWhere were these people first taken, witness?\nAThese detachments of the regular police which had been ordered by Hintze to take these people from their homes, these people were taken to the Trapist Kloster at Reichenburg, where the Hintze staff had its headquarters.\nQWere these people taken there by force, witness?\nANo, according to what Hintze told me, these people had been notified by the commandant, city mayors, in various districts that on the following day the deportation was to be carried out. Then Hintze would send the detachments from the regular police there, and among them members of the Hintze staff would go there also, and here the following happened; namely, that a large part of the people would be ready there waiting with their luggage, and some of them were not ready yet, and here we had to wait for them until these people had finished their packing, and a small part would be missing altogether, which meant that they had escaped. Things were not handled so severely with the people who escaped in the beginning, as they were later on when a lot of them were missing.\nQWitness, these people were taken to this Kloster at Reichenburg under a police escort; is that correct.\nAYes, these were detachments of the regular police which would take these people along in busses and small trucks, and they would help \n these people in loading their luggage and bring it to the Kloster.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 790, "page_number": "786", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QWitness, were these people, when these people were brought to the Kloster at Reichenburg kept there under guard, were they not?\nAYes, of course this was not a case of specific guarding in the case of these people who assembled here. This was just a small detachment of approximately five, six or seven men. Of course, these people were not allowed to leave; these people were not allowed to leave the camp and go to the villages in the vicinity. As far as I can recall, there was a fence around the camp.\nQWitness, approximately how many people would you say were deported altogether during the course of this action?\nAI can't give you any axact figures; however, in my estimation there were fifteen to twenty thousand people in that entire strip of land.\nQWitness, who was in charge of this camp at the Kloster at Reichenburg?\nAThat camp was subordinated to the staff of Hintze, and as far as I am able to recall, and after all five years have passed in the meantime, a very long time, at the exit of the Kloster there would be a sign which I believe bore the designation representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQWitness -\nAAnd the camp was subordinated to the staff of Hintze because after one or two days, depending on the transports that arrived, these people were sent to Germany in the transports.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 791, "page_number": "787", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Witness, you have mentioned the organization of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism. Did this man Hintze represent that organization?\nA.Well, I cannot say with certainty whether Hintze was the representative or whether he only carried out the measures there. I don't know that. I personally assumed that Hintze was the representative of the person.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether Hintze ever made any trips to Berlin?\nA.Yes, I believe that Hintze went to Berlin on one or two occasions. I am certain that he went at least once. At the moment I cannot tell you that for certain; that may have been after the deportation measures had been completed, but I know he went to Berlin at one time.\nQ.Witness, did Hintze ever tell you to whom he reported in Berlin?\nA.Well, he didn't tell me that, but he mentioned the name of Greifelt. Whether he went to see Greifelt, I don't know, but I can assume that.\nQ.Witness, did Hintze ever tell you that he reported to Lorenz, a man named Lorenz?\nA.Well, in any case he also mentioned the name of Lorenz. Whether he reported there, I don't know. In any case I believe he said that he had discussions with Lorenz.\nQ.Witness, while this action was carried out, were your troops completely separated from your command and put under Hintze?\nA.According to the order of the higher SS and police leader, these troops were under the command of Hintze; and I myself could not give any orders to these people, but I told them for humane reasons to be very tolerant and patient with these people, and, as far as I know, this was done.\nQ.Witness, who selected the people to be deported in this action?\nA.Are you referring to the persons that were deported?\nQ.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 792, "page_number": "788", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.I beg your pardon; would you say once more what people you are referring to?\nQ.I am referring to the people who were deported from Yugoslavia.\nA.The detachments received complete lists by the staff of Hintze. Who selected these people there I don't know. However, some card index file must have existed there, and that is where the names were obtained from the lists.\nQ.Witness, did you ever hear of the German Settlement Company, D.A.G.?\nA.Yes. The German Settlement Company, DAG as far as I know, arrived approximately at the same time as the staff of Hintze. This company also sent out detachments, and sometimes they would go along with a detachment of the regular police who deported these people; some times they would even go ahead of them and it was their task to take an inventory of the property of these people and to make a survey of the general property.\nQ.Witness, did the D.A.G., German Resettlement Company, have an office in Reichenburg?\nA.Yes, they did have an agency at Reichenburg.\nQ.Where was this office?\nA.I can't tell you whether this office was together with Hintze's staff in the Cloister from the very beginning, but I believe that it also might have been situated in the village of Reichenburg, but later on it was located within the Cloister itself.\nQ.Witness, do you know where these people were taken to after they left Reichenburg?\nA.I can't tell you individually to what locality these people were sent. In any case, Hintze on one occasion told me that usually these people were sent to VOMI camps in Germany.\nQ.Witness, what happened at Reichenburg if the deportees brought too much luggage with them or items which they were not allowed to take.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 793, "page_number": "789", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.In general the weight of the luggage they could take along was prescribed. Of course people would take along things in excess of the authorized luggage, and this was also tolerated by the detachments of the regular police. As a matter of fact they would help them to take along whatever they could. I don't know what happened in detail in the camp of Reichenburg itself. However, I do know that sometimes there would be a lack of space in the freight cars so that the luggage which was not urgently necessary had to be left behind. I believe, for example, that on one occasion several bicycles had to be left behind. Just what was done with the luggage I do not know.\nQ.Witness, do you know who brought in the resettlers who were placed on the farms thus cleared of Yugoslavs?\nA.Could you please repeat the question once more?\nQ.Witness, do you know who, that is what agency, brought in resettlers to be settled in the areas thus cleared of Yugoslav citizens?\nA.Well, later on a small staff was sent there. This was generally called the resettlement staff. Just to what agency this staff belonged, I can't say. And this resettlement staff later on would assign newly arrived resettlers to individual houses and farms.\nQ.Witness, do you know where these ethnic German resettlers came from?\nA.As far as I know, these people who were settled in the Save River came from Bessarabia originally.\nMR. SHILLER:No further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. VONDER TRENCK: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, do you know by whom this deportation action was ordered?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know the reason for this order; or, did you ever think about the reason for that order?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 794, "page_number": "790", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.Hintze told me on one occasion that this strip was to serve the resettlement of ethnic Germans who came from Bessarabia, and German farmers were to be used in resettlement of this strip of land. I don't know anything further about it.\nQ.Did it ever come to your knowledge in this connection that this resettlement of German farmers was to be a security measure?\nA.This was not discussed specifically; I think it was the purpose of the whole matter.\nQ.Was there any reason for this security measure as a result of the consitions that prevailed there?\nA.This was a border strip which bordered at the demarcation line on one side between the Save River and it was jointly occupied by Germany and Italy in Yugoslavia; and secondly it was on the border.\nQ.You have further stated that the transportation took place with trucks and busses; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And were people put into cars or put on trucks?\nA.Yes. As far as the busses were adequate this was done. Of course some times it happened that the busses were not quite adequate and then of course trucks were also used.\nQ.What is your general impression about the execution of these deportation measures. Was this done in a regular manner, in a very orderly manner as far as it was possible?\nA.Yes. Actually when these people were fetched from their homes and farms, as far as I know, no incidents occurred. That is part of the people escaped -- on some occasions they would cross the Austrian border; some times they would cross the demarcation line - that I have mentioned before, and it was also stated at the time that some of the maen had gone over to the partisans. Aside from that, I did not receive any particular information that any incidents had occurred when these people here fetched from their homes and taken to the assembly centers.\nQ.You also spoke about the luggage. To what extent were these \n people allowed to take luggage along with them?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 795, "page_number": "791", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.I myself tried to figure that out, but today after five years have passed, I do not know how much luggage they were allowed to take along with them. I don't know whether they were allowed to take one hundred pounds or one hundred kilograms. I am unable to tell you that any more today.\nQ.You further more mentioned the members of the D.A.G., German Resettlement Company, who had to take an inventory and a survey of the property which was left behind. If I understood you correctly, this property consisted of land titles, large pieces of furniture and livestock.\nA.Yes. Here the land was concerned and the furnature in the houses, and of course the livestock. Later on the livestock was assembled at large estates so that somebody could take care of it. Further more, at the collecting points which were designated for the particular deportation, there would also be people from the German Resettlement Company, and they would issue certificates as to the property which had been left behind. I was told that these certificates were issued according to statements made by the deportees.\nQ.Witness, please wait a minute.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 796, "page_number": "792", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Will you please continue with your answer, witness?\nA.These property certificates, so far as I know, were handed over to the deportees. As to the detachments of the German Settlement Company which surveyed the properties and the furniture, this task actually was to be carried out before the deportation took place. However, it sometimes happened that they arrived at the same time as the detachments of the police.\nQ.Witness, do you know for what purpose these property certificates were issued to the deportess?\nA.Yes, I believe that Hintze told me on one occasion that these people were to receive some sort of compensation in Germany. Hintze told me that these people were to be Germanized if they fulfilled the necessary prerequisites, and then they were to be resettled somewhere in Germany. That is what Hintze told me on one occasion. I don't know any more about that.\nQ.Did you hear that an inventory was made of the property so that these people could be reimbursed for it later on?\nA.Yes, I believe that Hintze told me that on one occasion.\nQ.And can you still remember whether this deportation action was based on a treaty which had been signed by Germany, or the German occupation forces, with another party?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:I have no further questions. BY DR. MERKEL (Counsel for the defendant Reutz):\nQ.Witness, you mentioned before that in the scope of this action some of the people had gone over to the partisans. Do you know whether there was a partisan activity in that territory at the beginning of this action?\nA.In that territory itself from which the deportations took place there was no partisan activity. The partisan movement had already been in existence in the Western part of this area, however; strong partisan movements took place on the other side of the demarcation line, \n which was in the territory occupied by Italy, and there was a strong partisan movement in the Croatian territory.", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 797, "page_number": "793", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "From time to time they would cross the border and they would make their appearance in that area.\nQ.At what distance were these partisan units from this area which was evacuated, approximately?\nA.That varied. After all, here were individual groups who would make their appearance in that vicinity and then they would just as quickly disappear. They were hiding in the woods; they would return to their main camps and would carry out their operations from there. It is very difficult for me to say just what the distance was from us to the main camps.\nQ.Do you agree with me to the effect that there was danger of partisan activities in that particular area?\nA.Yes, you can call it that.\nQ.And do you know anything about the fact that the evacuation of that particular strip was carried out in order to lessen the danger from the partisans?\nA.Well, I don't believe that I heard anything to that effect; that was not discussed.\nQ.You personally did not hear anything about it?\nA.No.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you; I have no further questions. BY DR. BEHLING (Counsel for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQ.Witness, you referred to the DAG, and by that you mentioned the surveying of properties and the taking over of other agricultural properties. Were the properties which were seized by the DAG marked in any way?\nA.I believe the following is the procedure which was followed: These properties would receive a certain number, and the person who was being deported also received the same number. Unless I am mistaken, this number was given to the deportee afterwards and he had to wear it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 798, "page_number": "794", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.What I am referring to is whether there were any outside markings to designate these properties as having been seized.\nA.Yes; I believe that the keyholes were sealed.\nQ.Were any posters placed there?\nA.I can remember rather vaguely that some markings were put at individual farms with a strip of a seal. However, I cannot say any more as to just who placed these posters there, what these posters stated, or who signed them. I cannot recall that any more.\nQ.Was this an action by the SD? That is, this matter of the DAG, this security measure.\nA.No, I don't think so. I don't think that it was a matter which was carried out by the SD.\nMay I add something else in this connection?\nQ.Go ahead.\nA.I don't think so because, after all, the property -- and above all the agricultural property -- was administered by the German Settlement Company afterwards. A higher administration was established and administrators and custodians were appointed.\nQ.What was the purpose of sealing up the properties?\nA.Well, in order to protect them from thefts.\nQ.So that no unauthorized persons could enter them?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever hear whether the so-called Central Office was included in this in any form by the German Settlement Company?\nA.I don't know anything about that.\nDR. BEHLING:I have no further questions. BY DR. HESSE (Counsel for the defendant Lorenz):\nQ.Witness, you stated before that according to your recollection the names of Greifelt and Lorenz had been mentioned.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You stated that in connection with the fact that Hintze had gone to Berlin.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 799, "page_number": "795", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Do you know by what agency the VOMI was ordered to accept these deportees in their camps?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Did Hintze tell you anything about just why he visited Berlin, and in particular, the VOMI had approached him very bitterly about the fact that VOMI was to accept the deportees in its camps?\nA.Hintze did not tell me anything about having had any discussions with Berlin. In this connection I would like to say that he only told me what was necessary because, after all, he directed this action quite independently and I was only consulted very rarely. That only happened when he sent out the lists, at the very last moment, and these lists had to be passed on to the detachments very quickly. Otherwise I had hardly anything to do with Hintze, and I hardly discussed the entire action with him.\nDR. HESSE:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions from other defense?\n(No response)\nBy the prosecution?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nThe Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HESSE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 800, "page_number": "796", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 30 October 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, at this time the prosecution requests the Tribunal to call to the stand the witness Ruzena Petrakova.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nRUZENAPETRAKOVA, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will indicate that the interpreters being used at this time are civil service employees, having had the civil service oath, and it will not be necessary to swear them at this time.\nThe witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nAll right, you may proceed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, would you please state your name?\nAMy name is Petrakova, Ruzena.\nQWhen and where were you born?\nAI was born in Beloky, Prague outskirts, on the 29th April 1906.\nQOf what country are you a citizen?\nAI am a Czech citizen.\nQDid you ever live in the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia?\nAI lived there for fifteen years.\nQWere you living in Lidice on the 9th and 10th of June 1942?\nAYes, I was.\nQCould you tell me what happened in the Village of Lidice on \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "A", "RUZENA", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 801, "page_number": "797", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "that date?\nAYes, I can.\nQWould you please state just what did happen oh the 9th and 10th of June 1942 in the Village of Lidice?\nAYes.\nOn the 9th of June, around 10 o'clock in the evening, several trucks came to Lidice and they encircled the village. I was alone at home with three children. My husband was on the night shift in the Kladno Iron Works. At about ten o'clock in the evening, when our village was encircled, according to the police registrations, all the inhabitants of the village were collected. Mothers and children were collected in a schoolhouse. In a family where there was a husband at home, the men were collected and taken to Horakova's farm. I and my three children were taken to the schoolhouse around Koligyen, around four-o'clock in the morning, where I found out that almost the entire village was collected in the schoolhouse.\nWhen I came to the schoolhouse my money and my jewelry, my wedding ring and watch, were taken away; and I, with my children, was locked up in one of the school classrooms. We were again counted by the Germans, if all the children and women were in the schoolhouse.\nAt about 5 o'clock in the morning we were reloaded on to trucks and taken across the village where we saw all the damage done, how our village was destroyed, and we were taken in the direction of Bustehrad, on the state road to Kladno, to the Realniho Gymnasia, to the high school. Here the children and the women were locked up, and we were billeted in the gymnasium of the high school, with straw on the floor ready for us. There we stayed from Wednesday up to Friday night.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 802, "page_number": "798", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "On Wednesday when we came to the school house, they registered us all the day. They asked us to whom the children belong, how manh sicknesses they had had; were our husbands working, if I had parents, if the husband had parents. When they had made this registration they sent us back to the gymnasium, and all the women and children took their stands - the mothers and the grandmothers, and all of us.\nQWitness, let me interrupt for just one moment. When you were interrogated in Kladno, did they ask who your mother was and your father's mother and father?\nAYes, they did.\nQDid they ask whet nationality they were?\nAYes, they did.\nQDid they ask you which one of the parents your own children favored most?\nANo, they didn't.\nQWhen you turned in your jewelry, did you ask for e certificate of any kind when you turned your jewelry over to these German officials?\nAYes, I did, and they laughed at me.\nQWould you describe the conditions of the school house in Kladno where you were housed after you had been taken from Lidice.\nABach of us found our little corner with our children because we were told that we were to stay there for three days, and we hoped that after the interrogation we would be released. The children were asking for their fathers. They wouldn't eat end they wanted to go home.\nQWould you tell us when and how your children were taken from you?\nAThis happened on Friday, on the 12th of June, at about six o'clock in the evening, when about 14 or 16 Gestapo men came in. They locked the door behind them, and one of them told us in Czech: \"Do you know what happened in Lidice? You will go for some time to a working camp and your children will be transported there after you.\" Because we Czechs like the truth, we believed them. In spite of this, we gave \n up our children with great pain - gave them into the hands of the Gestapo men who mistreated them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 803, "page_number": "799", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Because I was a mother of three children. I said \"Good bye\", and one of them came hack to me. One of the Gestapo men jumped after the child and threw it on the floor and ordered me to kneel. During this, we all cried, and one of them shot into the ceiling to warn us.\nQHe shot with a gun?\nAYes, he shot with a gun.\nDR.THIELE- PREDERSDORF (for the defendant Ebner): May it please the Tribunal, as far as I know the material of the Prosecution, I Cannot gather at all whether the Prosecution intends to connect one of the defendantsor which with the events of Lidice, concerning which the witness has been testifying. It would make things a great deal easier for the defense if the Prosecution would inform us as to what connection they claim exists between any of the defendants and the action taken at Lidice.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That will become the duty of the Tribunal after hearing the testimony, and any statement the Prosecutor might make would be immaterial.\nBY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, after the children were taken away from the mother, then what happened to you and the other mothers from Lidice?\nAWhen they took the children from us, they locked the door, counted us up according to the police registration, took us to the yeard of the high school where there were trucks ready for us, and we were lorded on the trucks under military guard, and through closed streets we were taken to the railroad station in Kladno. Here, directly from the trucks, we mounted the train which was already waiting. All the way around, there were German guards posted. We were not allowed to talk to anyone. In about half an hour the train started moving towards Prague, Terezin, and then to Ravensbrueck. Here we came on the 14th of \n June at about seven o'clock in the morning.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY MR. NEELY", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 804, "page_number": "800", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "On the station in Ravensbrueck, we were already expected by the SS and by their dogs. We had to stand in line in five rows. Some of the girls were called up and asked whether they could speak German, end they interpreted for us. Then we had to walk to the Ravensbrueck Concentration Camp. We also had with us women who were older than 80 years, and we had to carry two of the oldest women, but these were requested also to walk. When they saw that these old women were not able to walk, they were left in the station in Ravensbrueck, and then later on we saw a truck passing which look our old grandmothers to Ravensbrueck.\nQWitness, may I interrupt for just one moment? While you were at the Concentration Camp Ravensbrueck, did you correspond in any way with your children?\nANo, only with my mother.\nQWhat are the ages and what are the names of your three children?\nAIrene, 15 years old; Mireslav, 11 years old; Zdenek, 10 years old.\nQWhat happened to your 15 year old girl? Did she go to the concentration camp Ravensbrueck?\nAThat was my daughter, Irene.\nQYes.\nAMy daughter Irene did not go with me to the concentration camp. She was only 15 years old.\nQThen the last time when you say you heard from your three children was the time that they were separated from you in Kladno?\nAYes. I believed that it was true that we would meet our children again in Ravensbrueck.\nQDid you try to correspond with your children while in Ravensbrueck?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 805, "page_number": "801", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.The first letter I wrote was to my mother, who lived about 15 minutes away from Lidice, and the second month I received a letter from her, in which my mother told me that the children were well, they were thinking about me, and that my husband was working just in the same capacity as I, and that I should keep well and come home once again. I believed this for all these three years that I would see my children again and that I would also see my husband, and that we would live happily again as we used to back in Lidice.\nQ.But when you returned to Czechoslovakia, did you find that none of this was true?\nA.When I walked to Czechoslovakia after the liberation, I found out about this in Zitava. Here I asked if they would take us to Prague. This time the official asked me where I was coming from. I said that I lived in Lidice, and he said, \"You poor woman\". Well, I just laughed, because I didn't know what happened in our house, and I said, \"Well, I am no more a poor woman, for after three years I am coming home to my children and to my husband.\" He looked at me and he even coundn't tell me what happened in our village. He said, \"Good bye,\" without a word, and he promised that if he would take anyone to Prague he would take me. At that time I did not know what happened, and he said he knew the truth of what happened at Lidice. When I returned home I found only a field -- just a grave of our men, and my lost children haven't been returned to me yet.\nQ.Witness, where are you living today in Czechoslovakia?\nA.I live in Kladne.\nQ.And with whom are you living?\nA.With my niece.\nQ.Would you give her name, please?\nA.Marie Dolezalova.\nQ.Was she living at Lidice at the time of the action of which you have just described?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 806, "page_number": "802", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.Yes, her father was my brother.\nQ.When did she return to Czechoslovakia?\nA.On the 7th of October 1946.\nQ.Was she in good health when she returned to Czechoslovakia?\nA.She returned from Germany where she was operated upon, and she has a cut from her breast to below the abdomen.\nQ.Have you had her examined since this operation?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was there any diagonsis as to the purpose of this operation?\nA.One cannot find out why her stomach is not touched.\nQ.But to this day, witness, the three children which were taken away from you in Kladno have never been heard from, is that correct?\nA.No, I never heard from them.\nQ.Thank you, witness, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\n( The witness is excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Call your next witness.\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, at this time the Prosecution requests the witness, Maria Hanfova be called to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMARIAHANFOVA, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n( The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Would you please state your name, witness.\nA.Maira Hanfova.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MARIA" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 807, "page_number": "803", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QHow old are you, Miss Hanfova?\nA 17.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.In Lidice.\nQ.Were you living in Lidice on the 9th and 10th of June 1942?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Then if my figures are correct, you would have been 12 years old at that time, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Would you please describe what happened on the 9th and 10th of June in the village of Lidice?\nA.On the 9th of June the German soldiers surrounded Lidice, and on the 10th of June, in the morning, they woke us up at three o'clock. After this, we were led to the school house, and from the school house we were loaded in trucks and they transported us to Kladno. In Kladno, we were left in the high school. Then on Friday we were separated-mothers were separated from their children. After this, we were transported in trucks to the railroad station, and we were told that our mothers would follow us.\nQ.Witness, when you were separated from your parents in Kladno, were all the children placed in the group with you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And where did you go from Kladno?\nA.From Klandno, we went to some station.\nQ.Do you remember where this station was?\nA.We didn't know where it was.\nQ.And then what happened after being taken to this station?\nA.Then we were loaded on a train and taken to Litzmannstadt, Ledz.\nQ.How many children were with you when you were taken to Litzmannstadt?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 808, "page_number": "804", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A. 104.\nQ.On your way to Litzmannstadt, how were you treated?\nA.Very badly.\nQ.Would you describe what you mean by your \"bad treatment?\"\nA.We were given a little bit to eat--just black coffee and bread, and the little children were hungry. They cried and asked for their mothers.\nQ.Were there nurses on this train to take care of the younger children?\nA.There were nurses with us and they took care of the little children, but very badly.\nQ.And then from Kladno you went to Litzmannstadt, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you ever examined while in the camp in Litzmannstadt?\nA.No.\nQ.How long did you stay in this camp at Litzmannstadt?\nA.We stayed in Litzmannstadt for a week with the rest of the children.\nQ.And then were you ever separated into groups in Litzmannstadt?\nA.Then they came and selected seven of us.\nQ.Would you state the name, if you remember, of these seven children?\nA.Yes. Marie Hanfova, Anna Hanfova, Marie Dolezalova, Vera Vokata, Emilie Freyova, Vaclav Hanf.\nQ.And how were you treated while you were in the camp in Litzmannstadt?\nA.We were treated very badly.\nQ.And after leaving Litzmannstadt, where did you go?\nA.Then we went to Litzmannstadt, in a town.\nQ.Another camp in the same city?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 809, "page_number": "805", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.Another camp in the same station.\nQ.And how long did you stay here?\nA.We stayed here about two months.\nQ.But only the seven who had been selected, as you say, with you?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 810, "page_number": "806", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.What happened to the other children after you were separated? Do you know?\nA.We were not allowed to question about them. We don't know what happened.\nQ.Have you ever seen any of those children or heard of these children since the separation took place?\nA.I never saw them.\nQ.There are none living in Czechoslovakia that you know of; is that correct?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.And after leaving Litzmannstadt where were you seven children taken?\nA.Then they took us to Poznan, Puschkau.\nQ.And did you meet any other Czech children in Puschkau besides these seven?\nA.Children were there from Prague; other children from Lezaky: Vaclav Zelenka dna Hana Spotova.\nQ.The last two that you mentioned, Zelenka and Spotava, they were children from Lidice?\nA.Yes; those were two Lidice children.\nQ.And they had been with you at Kladno in the beginning; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.While you were in the home Puschkau did you see any other children there which you would say were Polish or who spoke Polish?\nA.They spoke Czech and they spoke Polish and German.\nQ.How many children altogether were there in home Puschkau?\nA.About 72.\nQ.Were there any German children in this home or children who spoke German?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 811, "page_number": "807", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Were these children who spoke German treated differently than you Czech children were?\nA.The German children were treated differently than the Czech children.\nQ.Were they treated better than you Czech children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember the name of the person in charge of the children's Home in Puschkau?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Would you give me her name, please?\nA.Martha Hepfner.\nQ.Do you remember any of the other names of the employees in the home in Puschkau?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Would you state those names?\nA.Otto, Lorenz, Wetzel.\nQ.While you were at the home in Puschkau what did you do all day long?\nA.We had to go to school, learn German, write, count, read, greet and we had to work too.\nQ.What type of work did you do?\nA.We worked in a garden.\nQ.While you were at this home did you have any ceremonies where you had to give the Nazi salute and so forth?\nA.There were festivities in Hitler Jugend.\nQ.Were you forbidden to speak Czech while in the home in Puschkau?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever forget and speak Czech at any time?\nA.No, I didn't.\nQ.Well, if any of the children ever spoke Czech were they punished in any way?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 812, "page_number": "808", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.They were not given any food and they were beaten.\nQ.Did this at any time ever happen to you?\nA.Yes, it happened to me and to my brothers too.\nQ.In the home Puschkau would you say that most of your schooling was to learn German to speak and write German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did they tell you about Czechs in the home Puschkau?\nA.They told us that we would be Germans; that we would probably never come back to Czechoslovakia; that we would become Germans.\nQ.Did they ever say anything about Czechs being inferior, no good?\nA.No; we never were told that.\nQ.You were never told that?\nA.No; we weren't.\nQ.Not while you were in Puschkau?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever make any remarks about your father and what had happened to him; also your mother?\nA.We never knew. No one ever told us.\nQ.Did you ever try to write to your mother or father?\nA.We tried to but we were not allowed to.\nQ.Were you ever puntished for trying to?\nA.No, I wasn't but we were not allowed to write.\nQ.What did they say when you told them, if you ever did, that you wanted to go back home?\nA.I was always told that we were not to go back and we were to stay in Germany.\nQ.And after you left the home Puschkau where did you go?\nA.Hepfner took me to a family.\nQ.And where was this family? What was the name of this family?\nA.This family was in Dessau and the name was Richter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 813, "page_number": "809", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.But going back to Puschkau once more, witness, how long were you in Puschkau altogether before going to the Richter family?\nA.There we stayed about a year.\nQ.And by what name were you known in home Puschkau?\nA.Hanf.\nQ.How did you spell your name there? Was it H-a-n-f or H-a-n-f-f?\nA.Two F's.\nQ.When you went to Richter's house what name did you go under there?\nA.Marga Richter.\nQ.And you were never called Maria Hanf or Hanfova?\nA.No.\nQ.How did the Richters treat you?\nA.Badly also.\nQ.Did they ever say anything about being a Czech?\nA.Yes, they did?\nQ.What did they say?\nA.That I am from Czechoslovakia and now I have to listen to Germans; that I will become a German; that I have to be against the Czechs.\nQ.Did they say that you should be proud to become a German?\nA.Yes; they told me that.\nQ.What did you do while you were with the family Richter?\nA.I had to go to a German school.\nQ.Did you go to school with other German children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How were you treated by these German children?\nA.At the beginning it was bad because I was a Czech and I didn't belong among them. I also was given a German Hitler Youth uniform. I had to go to Hitler Jugend. Then, later on, when the children became more friendly to me, it was much better.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 814, "page_number": "810", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "Q.Did you ever work while you were with the family Richter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you were always made to speak German while with the family Richter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And if you did not, what happened?\nA.I was told I never should talk Czech.\nQ.Did anyone, witness, ever come around to inspect the home in which you were living while you were with the Richters?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What sort of questions did they ask you or Mrs. or Hr. Richter?\nA.How they treated me and if I was a good girl.\nQ.When did you return to Czechoslovakia?\nA.On the 22 November, 1945.\nQ.And who returned you to Czechoslovakia? How were you returned?\nA.Two women found me.\nQ.With whom are you now living?\nA.With my father's sister.\nQ.And you are living where in Czechoslovakia?\nA.In Krocehlavy-Kladno.\nQ.Is your sister living with you?\nA.No.\nQ.Where is she living?\nA.On the frontier in Podmokli-Decin.\nQ.Did she live in Germany during the war?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know the family who she lived with?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the name of that family?\nA.Straus.\nQ.And where is your brother today?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 815, "page_number": "811", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "A.Near where I live.\nQ.Witness, in the beginning you named seven children who were separated with you in Litzmannstadt; also two other names: Spotova and Zelenka whom you met in Puschkau. Have you seen these children since you have returned to Czechoslovakia?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 816, "page_number": "812", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QHave you talked with these children?\nAYes.\nQDid they all live in Germany during the war?\nAYes.\nQDid they seem to have the same general experiences which you have told us here?\nAI cannot tell.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you, witness. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution requests that the Tribunal now call the witness Marie Dolezalova.\nMARIEDOLEZALOVA, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, will you please state your name?\nAMaria Dolexalova.\nQHow old are you?\nAFifteen.\nQWhere were you born?\nALidice.\nQWere you there on the 9 and 10 of June, 1942?\nAYes.\nQWith whom were you living at the time?\nAWith my parents, my grandmother and my brother.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. NEELY", "MARIE", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 817, "page_number": "813", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QDo you remember what happened in Lidice at that time?\nAYes.\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal what happened to you?\nAOn the 9 of June, about ten o'clock in the evening, a Gestapo man came to us and they ordered us to take our papers and our money and that we have to go the schoolhouse for several days. When we took everything with us we were led to the Korak's farm. Here we stood for several hours.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think these machines are making so much noise that it is impossible to hear the witness. I suggest that you get through taking the picures and then we will go ahead with the examination of the witness. Go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWill you please continue, witness?\nAThen we were led to the schoolhouse and the Horak farm. In the schoolhouse they had taken our money and our gold and about five o'clock in the morning we were loaded in trucks and transported to Kladno Schoolhouse.\nQWitness, how long did you remain in the Kladno schoolhouse?\nATwo days.\nQWhat went on during those two days?\nAWe slept on straw which was ready for us and we waited our fate.\nQWitness, were you separated from your mother in Kladno?\nAYes.\nQWere you also separated from your brother?\nAI saw my brother the last time in Kladno.\nQWitness, after these two days in Kladno where were you taken?\nAThe second day in the evening they took us to another room and registered us there. Then we put around our neck a tagewith a number.\nQWhat happened next, witness?\nAThen we were loaded into buses and transported to an unknown railroad station.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 818, "page_number": "814", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "QWhere did you go from this railroad station?\nAFrom this station we went to Litzmannstadt.\nQWitness, while you were in Litzmannstadt were you over examined?\nANo.\nQWere you ever examined in Kladno?\nANo.\nQHow were you treated in Litzmannstadt?\nABadly.\nQWill you please explain what you mean by \"badly\"?\nAWhen we came there, there was a great big factory and they had two rooms ready there for us. Here we had to sleep on concrete. We were just given a little piece of bread for breakfast. For lunch we were given some soup which only consisted of water and here and there we found a piece of potato or a piece of bone. For dinner we were given again a little piece of bread. The little children were crying and we tried to hide the bread for them and German woman took it away from us and we were not given anything to eat.\nWe also asked about our parents but we didn't get an answer to that question. On the first floor there were some Polish women billeted. We asked them for some food and with what little they had they helped us out. Some of this we saved for the little children, for the infants.\nHere we stayed about a week and then we came to Litzmannstadt and another camp.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 819, "page_number": "815", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_Sampson (Mandl) There were only Polish women who took care of us.\nQWitness, when you went to the first camp in Litzmannstadt, were you together with all the other children or most of the other children from Lidice?\nAYes.\nQDid you stay together in that camp, witness?\nAJust about a week.\nQWere you separated from the other children?\nAYes.\nQHow many children were with you after that week?\nAAll the children from Lidice were there.\nQWitness, after you had been there for a week, were you and the other children separated from most of the others?\nASome of us were separated.\nQWitness, do you know for what reason you were separated from the other children?\nANo.\nQBefore you were separated from the other children, witness, did any one look you over, that is, give you some sort of an examination?\nAWe were not examined. There were only three SS men who came in and asked our race and selected seven of us, and the second day a truck came and we were transported, to Litzmannstadt to another camp.\nQWitness, these men, these SS men who selected the seven of you, how did they do it?\nAThey just came and looked at us and just took our names.\nQThank you. Witness, how long were you in this first camp Litzmannstadt?\nAIn the first campt I was a week.\nQAnd how long were you in the second camp in Litzmannstadt?\nAA month.\nQWhere were you taken to after the second camp in Litzmannstadt?\nAThen seven of us were transported Puschkau.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 820, "page_number": "816", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_18_2_Sampson (Mandl)\nQYou were taken to a children's home in Puschkau; is that right?\nAYes.\nQWhat other children were with you in Puschkau? Do you remember the names of them?\nAEva Kubikova, Vera Vokata, Milka Frejova, Anicka Hannfova, Venousek Hauf, and me.\nQWitness, do you remember the name of the person in charge of the camp Puschkau?\nAMartha Hepfnerova, Liselotte Otto, Lorenz and Mueller.\nQWitness, do you know which one of these people was in charge of the home?\nAHepfner.\nQAnd the others were employees; is that raight?\nAYes.\nQWhat did you do while you were at this home in Puschkau?\nAWe had to go to school and then we had to work in the garden.\nQWhat did you learn at school, witness?\nAWe learned how to write, read German, count, and then we had gymnastics.\nQWitness were you ever allowed to speak the Czech language?\nANo.\nQDid you ever speak Czech at this home?\nAIf we tried to speak it we were beaten and we were not given any food to eat for three days.\nQWitness, were you allowed to correspond with your family?\nANo.\nQHow long did you stay at the home Puschkau?\nANot quite a year.\nQCan you give us the approximate date for the time when you left Puschkau?\nA 11th June.\nQWhat year?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 821, "page_number": "817", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_18_3_Sampson (Mandl) A 1943.\nQAfter leaving Puschkau, witness, where were you taken?\nATo Poznan.\nQWho took you to Posen, witness?\nAThe family Schiller.\nQWas this a German family?\nAYes.\nQWhile you lived with this family, witness, what was the name you had to use?\nAInge Schiller.\nQHow did the Schiller family treat you?\nABadly.\nQWill you please explain what you mean by badly?\nAI had to go to school and after school I still had to go and work; and then when I did something that they did not want me to do, they beat me.\nQWitness, did any one ever come from Puschkau or elsewhere to see you while you were with the Schiller family?\nAHepfnerova came to see me once.\nQWhat did she want, witness?\nAI don't know.\nQDid you have to go to school while you were with the Schiller family?\nAYes.\nQIn this school, witness, were you allowed to speak Czech?\nANo.\nQWere you allowed to speak Czech at home with the Schillers?\nANo.\nQWere you allowed to correspond with your family while you lived with the Schiller family?\nAI had no address.\nQWitness, did you ever have to join the Hitler Youth Movement?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 822, "page_number": "818", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_18_4_Sampson (Mandl)\nAWhen I was in Puschkau I had too but with the Schillers I didn't.\nQWitness, were you ever sick while you were in the home at Puschkau?\nANo.\nQWere you ever sick while you lived with the Schiller family?\nAOne day when I came from school Schiller to k me to the hospital and I was operated on. Why, I don't know. Now at home I was X-rayed but no doctor could find out why I was operated on. The cut is about fifteen centimeters long.\nQWitness, will you indicate to the Court approximately where this scar is at the present time? (Witness stood up and indicated). Witness, when did you return to Czechoslovakia?\nAOn the 8th of October, 1946.\nQWho took you hack to Czechoslovakia?\nAAt Berlin the Czech office. The papers in Berlin wrote that they were looking for children which were given for education to families. Schiller went with me to Berlin, and in Berlin they showed me pictures from Lidice which I immediately recognized. They left me there and then the major from Prague took me to Czechoslovakia.\nQWitness, where do you live now?\nAKrocehlavy.\nQWith whom do you live now?\nAWith my aunt.\nQWhat is your aunt's name, witness?\nARuzena Petrakova.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\nThe Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 823, "page_number": "819", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed for the Prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:My it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution now offers in evidence the documents contained in book 5-E.\nThe Prosecution first offers in evidence the document shown on page 1, being document No.NO-4222, it being a copy of a letter from RKFDV to the Gauleiter and Pberpraesident of Upper Silesia, dated 16 January 1943, as Exhibit 310 for the Prosecution.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 4, being document No.NO-1397, a memorandum from the head of tie Race and Settlement Office, dated 21 December 1940, as Prosecution's Exhibit 311.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 6, being document No.NO-3181(a) and (b), a cover letter dated 19 May, 1943, and the report attached thereto by Greifelt, dated 12 May 1943, as Exhibit 312.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 21, being document No.NO-3688, a statistical report on settlement dated 15 November 1941, as Prosecution's Exhibit 313.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 38, being document No.NO-3222(a) and (b), a cover letter from Greifelt to Himmler covering a report on settlement and resettlement dated 3 August 1942, as Prosecution's Exhibit 314.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 63, being document No.NO-3570, being a report on resettlement by the office of RKFDV up to January 15, 1942, as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 315.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page \n 78, being document No.NO-3568, being a report on resettlement of persons dated January 1944, as Prosecution's Exhibit 316.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 824, "page_number": "820", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 86, being document No.NO-3098, copy of a telegram sent by Creutz to Brand on resettlement, dated 7 August 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 317.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 88, being document No.NO-3726, being a memorandum from Rosenberg, as Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories, to Hitler, dated August 27, 1941, as Prosecution's Exhibit 318.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 89, being document No.NO-3220, instructions from Himmler on the treatment of families of men escaping from internment camps in Silesia, dated 21 September 1942, being Prosecution's Exhibit No. 319.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 91, document No.NO-3086, being a notice on expulsion by Hofmann, dated 24 May 1941, as the Prosecution's Exhibit 320.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 93, document No.NO-4281, copy of a certificate of release by Schathauser, Chief of the Himmelberg Camp, dated 24 February 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 321.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 94, being document No.NO-4282, being a letter from Krelitz of VOMI headquarters in Berlin to VOMI in Bayreuth, dated 30 September 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 322.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 96, being document No.NO-4283, being a copy of a letter from Altena of VOMI headquarters in Berlin to VOMI in Bayreuth, dated 1 February 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 323.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page \n 97, being document No.NO-4280, being a letter from Krelitz of VOMI to RKFVD, re relatives of partisans shot in Lower Styria, dated 23 September 1943, as Exhibit 324.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 825, "page_number": "821", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 99, being document No.NO-4291, a letter from Winzer, Chief of Baumgarten Camp, to VOMI in Bayreuth, dated 14 December 1942, as Exhibit 325.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 100, being document No.NO-4391, being a letter from the Camp Commander Seeberger to the Branch Office of VOMI in Bayreuth, dated 29 May 1943, as Exhibit 326.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 101, being document No.NO-4390, copy of a letter by Altena to VOMI in Bayreuth, concerning relatives of partisans shot in Lower Styria, dated 14 April 1943, as Exhibit 327.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 103, being document No.NO-4292, list by woman named Fischer, Secretary of Camp Marianum, containing names of relatives of partisans shot in Lower Styria, dated 27 April 1943 as Exhibit 328.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 109, being document No.NO-4294, copy of letter by Altena of VOMI to VOMI in Bayreuth, dated 28 January 1943, as Exhibit 329.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 110, being document No.NO-4397, copy of a letter by Krelitz of VOMI to VOMI in B ayreuth, dated 8 September 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 330.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 826, "page_number": "822", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "We next offer the document shown on page 111, being document No.NO-4675, copy of letter by Vogt, Commander of SIPO and SD in Lower Styria, to Resettlement Section D of VOMI with RKFDV, dated 2 December 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 331.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 113, being document No.NO-4698, letter by Panzer to VOMI at Metten, concerning relatives of partisans shot in Lower Styria, dated 24 February 1943, as Exhibit 332.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 115, being document No.NO-5040, copy of a circular from Himmler by Greifelt re the deportation of individuals of alien blood, dated 7 July 1941, as Exhibit 333.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 116, being document No. No-4266, teletype by Panzer to RKFVD dated 7 July 1943, as Exhibit 334.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 117, being document No.NO-4261(a), (a) and (b) of this document number being introduced as one exhibit, and being a letter from the VOMI official Blattner dated 10 October 1942, and an undated standard form of cable to be used by VOMI camp leaders for reporting escaped Slovenes to the Gestapo, as Prosecution's Exhibit 335.\nThat is all of the documents in document book 5-E, and we will now go to document book 6-A.\nIn this document book 6-A, the first document in this book, being document No.NO-4689, has already been introduced in evidence as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 104, and is contained in document book 4-A.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 4, being document No.NO-4687, a circular letter by RKFDV with attached copies of OKW orders concerning the drafting of \n resettlers into the German armed forces.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 827, "page_number": "823", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "This correspondence is dated 17 July, 11 September, and 29 September 1942. That is Prosecution's Exhibit No. 336.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 8, being document No.NO-3026, report of a meeting at the SS Hauptamt on 8 October 1942 concerning reviewing Germanic work in various countries, dated 8 October 1942, as our Exhibit 337.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 14, being document No.NO-682, correspondence between Himmler and Berger concerning the development of the RAD in Eastern areas and Belgium, being dated 21-25 November 1942, as our Exhibit 338.\nThe next document, being document No.NO-4668, as shown on page 17, has already been introduced in evidence as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 111, and is shown also in book 4-A.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 18, document No.NO-1650, being a memorandum on the conscription of racial Germans, dated 29 May 1943, as Exhibit 339.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 20, document No.NO-1649, being a letter of inquiry from Reinecke to the SS Hauptamt concerning the conscription into the German armed forces of racial Germans of foreign nationality, dated 12 July 1943, as our Exhibit 340.\nTHE PRESIDENT:According to what I have here, you skipped, in your exhibit numbers, from 337 to 339.\nMR. LAMB:According to what I have, Your Honor, the document shown on page 14, beingNO-682, is our Exhibit 338.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Which one?\nMR. LAMB:NO-682, which is shown on page 14, is our Exhibit No. 338.\nTHE PRESIDENT:And the next,NO-4668, had previously been introduced?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 828, "page_number": "824", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "MR. LAMB:Yes, that is right.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, all right.\nMR. LAMB:And our Exhibit 339 isNO-1650.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What is your exhibit number ofNO-4668, that was previously introduced?\nMR. LAMB:The previous one is Exhibit No. 111.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is in Book IV-A.\nMR. LAMB:We next offer the document shown on page 22, being document No.NO-2015, information bulletin issued by the RLD concerning recruitment of racial Germans into the Waffen SS, dated 28 December 1943, as our Exhibit 341.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 35, document No.NO-4092, circular by Turner concerning admission into the Waffen SS and SS Volunteer Corps, dated 22 February 1944, as Exhibit No. 342.\nThe next document, being the document number shown on page 37 of this document book and being document No. NO-3738, has already been introduced as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 221, and is shown in book 5-B of our documents.\nThe Prosecution next offers the document shown on page 40, document No.NO-2640, letter from OKW concerning the placement of Eastern minors serving as auxiliary personnel in the Waffen SS and/or Police, dated July 1944, as Exhibit 343.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 42, being document No.NO-2876, letter addressed to representatives of the RKFDV concerning the registration of stateless persons for military and Reich labor service, dated 19 October 1944, as Exhibit 344.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 829, "page_number": "825", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 44, Document No. NO-3639, a letter from the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces to VOMI, conerning the recruitment of racial German auxiliaries for the Wehrmacht, dated 20 October 1944, as our Exhibit 345.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 47, Document No.NO-3638, a letter from Brueckner to RSiHA concerning recruitment of racial German auxiliaries for the Wehrmacht, dated 26 October 1944, as our exhibit 346.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 49, Document No.NO-3896, monthly circular issued by the VDA, concerning evacuated racial Germans from Southeastern Europe, dated 25 November 1944, as our Exhibit 347.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 58, Document No.NO-2038, letter from Bender to Brandt concerning conscription of Germans of foreign citizenship for military service, dated 19 February 1945, as our Exhibit 348.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 60, Document No.NO-4155, being an order showing the assignment of Reedel of RuSHA to VOMI for carrying out recruiting in Slovene internment camps, dated 25 May 1942 as our Exhibit 349.\nThat is all of Document Book VI-A. We how take up Document Book VI-B.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 1, Document No. NO-3316, copy of Himmler order concerning reenforcement of the SS and police troops in the Government-General and occupied Eastern territories, dated 17 August 1942, as Exhibit No. 350.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 3, Document No.NO-3318, being a Himmler order extending the order of 17 August 1942 to the territory HSSPF Serbia, dated 24 August 1942, as Document No. 351.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 4, Document No.NO-3319, being a Himmler order extending the order of the 17th August 1942 to the Protectorate of Czechoslovakia, dated 27 August 1944. That is Prosecution's Exhibit 352.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 830, "page_number": "826", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 5, being Document No.NO-3320, a letter of inquiry from the Foreign Office to VOMI, concerning the Himmler order of 17 August 1942. This document being dated 23 September 1942, as Prosecution's Exhibit 353.\nThe Prosecution offers Document shown on Page 6, being Document No.NO-2048, memorandum concerning recruiting for the Waffen-SS in Croatia, dated 25 November 1942, as Prosecution's Exhibit 354.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 10, being Document No.NO-2047, a letter from Berger to Luther concerning Drafting of members of the labor service into the Waffen-SS in Croatia, dated 21 November 1942, as our Exhibit 355.\nThe Prosecution offers correspondence shown on beginning on Page 13 and subsequent pages, DocumentNO-4474to 80 inclusive. Correspondence concerning the conscription of resettled Baltic nationals, dated 27 February, 13 March, 7 October, 7 October again, 18 November, 22 November, 3 December 1943, as our DocumentNO-356.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You saidNO-356.\nMR. LAMB:I beg your pardon, Your Honor. As our Exhibit 356. I read these numbers so much they sort of go around in my head.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 32, being Document No.NO-3067(a) and (b); (a) being a letter from Berger to RFSS, concerning compulsory labor and military service in Slovakia, dated 24 January 1944; and (b) being a report from Letsch to Berger concerning the transfer of Slovakian nationals serving with the Slovakian forces to the Waffen-SS, as our Exhibit 357.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on Page 38, Document NO4643, a Himmler order to VOMI concerning conscription of racial Germans in Transnitria, dated 4 February 1943, as our Exhibit 358.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 39, Document No. NO-4184, a telegram from Kaltenbrunner to RFSS concerning Resettlement of racial Germans from Halbstate, dated 6 March 1943, as Exhibit 359.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 831, "page_number": "827", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 44, Document No. NO-3096--the copy is not clear. Is it 3096? My mimeographed copy is not very clear. I want to check and see what that document number is.\nTHEPRESIDENT: 3096 seems to be correct.\nMR. LAMB:I think that is correct, Your Honor. She wants to get it straight here for a minute.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That, is what it shows on the original document in the book.\nMR. LABM:I think we are going to have to skip that one, Your Honor. If you wait just a second -\nTHE PRESIDENT:You might got it straight if you turn to Page 44 in your Document Book.\nMR. LAMB:Yes, but we are looking for the original exhibit that she had, which is out of place here. In other words, she doesn't have it to put it in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, let's give it 3096 now. If it's wrong, we will go back and change it later.\nMR. LABM:Yes. I will have to, if you get it.\nThis document numberNO-3096, being a memorandum signed by Mildner, concerning treatment of persons subject to conscription refusing to render military service, dated 21 April 1942, is Exhibit 360.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 46, Document No.NO-3093, Circular by Mildner concerning treatment of persons of German origin who attempt to evade military service, dated 19 May 1942, as Exhibit 361.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE", "MR. LABM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 832, "page_number": "828", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "The Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 48, Document No. NO-2473, cable from VOMI to RFSS suggesting the granting of German citizenship to Volksdeutsche of Northern France, dated 6 March 1943, as Exhibit 362.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 50, Document No. 4276, being a report on the attitude of Polish and Germanized population of Danzig, dated April 10, 1943, as Exhibit 363.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 62, Document No.NO-1499, memo on the tasks of the Main Race and Settlement Office in the West, signed by Harders, and dated 28 Sept. 1942, as Exhibit 364.\nWe next offer correspondence shown on Pages 65 to 77, being documents No.NO-3065to 3871 inclusive, being correspondence and file notes concerning conscription of Baltic resettlers, dated 27 Febuary, 13 March, 19 May, 27 September, 7 October, 12 October, 9 November, 1943, as Exhibit 365.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 79, Document No.NO-4012, letter by Rimann concerning the drafting of Anton Bonecik into the Waffen-SS, dated 1 April 1944, as Exhibit 366.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 80, Document No. NO-3015, being a letter from Berger to Himmler concerning conscription of Flemish people, dated 6 March 1941, as Prosecution's Exhibit 367. That completes the documents in Document in Document Book VI-B.\nAt this time, your Honor, we will omit Document Book VI-C which will be introduced *later and now take up Document Book No. VII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The members of the Tribunal do not seem to have copies of VII. I, myself, do have a copy but the other two members do not.\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor, the young lady says they have been delivered and the Marshal has gone out to get copies.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. We have them now. You can go ahead, counsel.\nMR. LAMB:In Document Book No. VII, the Prosecution next offers \n document shown on Page 1, being the affidavit of Jersy Skotniscki the eviction of Poles and ill-treatment of Jews, as Document No.NO-5257, as Exhibit 368.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 833, "page_number": "829", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "DR. VOGEL:Dr. Vogel for Sollmann. I object to the admission of DocumentNO-5257. The document is an affidavit which has been given by a Polish Government representative for the re-colonization of children in Germany. I am not acquainted with the rules of procedure which this Polish official had to follow. I don't know either whether the standard order of procedure is known to the Tribunal or whether they agree with the rules which have to be followed by this Tribunal. I, therefore, request that this document, which I have named, be not admitted in evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your objection will be duly noted. The document will be considered by the Tribunal in the light of your objection. Whatever probative value it has will be given to it and no more. Go ahead.\nMR. LABM:The Prosecution next offers document shown on Page 6, Document No.NO-5254, affidavit of Leokadia Szymanska on the kidnapping of Polish children, as Prosecution Exhibit369. I beg your pardon I'd like to make a correction. That document is shown on Page 4 of the Document Book and not on page 6.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on Page 5, Document No. NO-5256, affidavit of Feliksa Dzieginska on the kidnapping of her child, as Prosecution Exhibit370.\nThe Prosecution next offers affidavit of Wanda Dobiecka on being Germanized, shown on Page 8, being Document No.NO-5255, as our Exhibit 371.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 10, affidavit of Julian Hammer, on refusal to sign DVL and kidnapping of his children, Document No.NO-5253, as our Exhibit 372.\nThe Prosecution next offers Document shown on Page 12, Document No.NO-5252, being affidavit of Josef Schwakopf on refusal to sign DVL and kidnapping of his children, as Exhibit 373.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. VOGEL", "MR. LABM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 834, "page_number": "830", "date": "30 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-30", "text": "We next offer Document shown on Page 14, Document No.NO-5251, being an affidavit of Jan Sulisz on being Germanized, as our Exhibit No. 374.\nDR. VOGEL:Dr. Vogel for the defendant Sollmann. My objection with regard to Document 5257 also applies to the Prosecution Documents 5253, 5254, 5255, 5256, and 5257.", "speakers": [ "DR. VOGEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 835, "page_number": "831", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_24_1_Sampson (Garand)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The Tribunal will make the same ruling as to all of them.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution next offers document shown on page 16, Document No.NO-5258, being an affidavit-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that 5258 or 5288?\nMR. LAMB:NO-5258 is correct, that is the original, being an affidavit of Karl Faust on co-participation of RKFDV in the DVL and Ru SHA, as our Exhibit 375.\nWe next offer document shown on page 18, being an affidavit of Rudolf Kleindienst on persecution of churches in Poland and spoliation document No. 5267 Exhibit 376.\nWe next introduce document shown on page 20, Document No. NO5274, being an affidavit of Eugeniusz Chojnacki on racial examinations of himself and his family as our Exhibit 377.\nWe next offer an affidavit of Josef Rembacz on forcible Germanization and racial examinations, shown on page 21 of the document book, being No. NO_5266, as our Exhibit 378.\nWe next offer document shown on page 26, being an affidavit of Lidia Konrad on her Germanization Document No. NO_5270 as our Exhibit 379.\nWe next offer document shown on page 28, the affidavit of Zygryd Chmiel on forced signature to DVL, Document No. NO_5271, as our Exhibit 380.\nWe next introduce a document shown on page *0, being document No. NO_5272, affidavit of Wladislawa Krata on kidnapping of her niece, Document No.NO-5272, as our Exhibit No. 381.\nWe now offer document shown on page 32, Document No.NO-5268, being the affidavit of Zofia Wawelska on procedure of Germanization for children, Document No. NO_5268, as our Exhibit 382.\nWe next offer document shown on page 39, Document No. NO_5269, being the affidavit of Zofia Pierkarska on her Germanization, as our Exhibit No. 383.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 836, "page_number": "832", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_24_2_Sampson (Garand) May it please the Tribunal, that completes the documents in Document Book VII.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann) I object to the admission of Document No. 5266.\nThis is a transcript which is allegedly signed by the witness in question. As far as I can see, however, it does not become evident from the photostatic copy that this signature was actually given. There is only a signature there by the official who was making the record. I therefore object to the admission of this document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your objection will be duly voted. If the Tribunal upon examination of the instrument finds that it has no probative value, you may be assured that it will be given none.\nMR. NEELY:The documents which I would like to introduce at this time, Your Honors, are found in Document Book VIII-A, I will proceed. I think, Your Honors, that it has been turned in to the Secretary General; if she will check on it.\nDR.BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) Your Honors, I would like to raise an objection against Document No. NO_5267, Exhibit 376.\nAs far as I am able to see, from the photostatic copy of the Polish text, this record has not been certified at all. If, however, the signature should be considered as being a certificate of veracity, then I believe that for this document and particularly for this form in which this certificate is given, the same should apply that has already been objected to by my colleague.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will become the duty of the Tribunal to examine all of these documents and when one is found to have no probative value, that is exactly what will happen.\nMR. NEELY:Does the Tribunal have Document Book VIII-A before it now?\nTHE PRESIDENT:We have.\nMR. NEELY:First I would like to offer into evidence Document No. 1_70, found on page 1 of the English and page one of the German \n 30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_24_3_Sampson (Garand) document book.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 837, "page_number": "833", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "These are excerpts from a speech by Himmler at Bad Schachen; it is dated 14th October, 1943, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.384.\nNext I would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-946, found on page 2 of the English and 56 of the German document book. This is a letter from the chief of the Racial Office of RuSHA concerning the Germanization of orphans of foreign blood. It is dated 17th September, 1942, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.385.\nNext I would like to offer into evidence Document No.NO-950, found on page 3 of the English and 57 of the German. This is a letter dated 17th September 1942, from the Main Race and Settlement Office regarding the responsibility of RuSHA for the Germanization of names of foreign orphans, and it is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.386.\nNext is Document No.NO-3269, found on page 4 of the English and 59 of the German. This is a letter from Teitge to Poppendick concerning the examination of children of the Government General having fifty per cent German blood. It is hereby entered into evidences as Prosecution Exhibit No.387.\nThe next document which is listed in the index will be omitted; NO-4822. This person having appeared here as a witness before this Tribunal.\nNext I would like to offer into evidenceNO 1403. This is a memorandum; it is found on page 15 of the English and 82 of the German. This is a memo by Dr. Tesch to Sollmann concerning the changing of names and places of birth of foreign orphans who are to be Germanized. It is dated 4th June, 1943, and it is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 388.\nNext I would like to offer into evidence Document No NO_5260, foud on page 17 of the English and 84 of the German. It is an affidavit by Hilmar Staudte, and it is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 389.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 838, "page_number": "834", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "30 Oct 1947_A_MSD_24_4_Sampson (Garand)\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch) Your Honor, I suggest that in the place of the affidavit, by the witness Staudte himself should he called here in person.\nI had the opportunity of talking to the witness and I was able to determine that he might be able to clear up and correct to the Tribunal many formulations contained in this affidavit. The witness is at present located in the court prison, and he can be interrogated at any time. I believe that the basic principle of presenting the best evidence would be best applied in this way in this case by calling the witness and hearing him orally before the Tribunal instead of submitting written evidence in the form of an affidavit.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, the man Staudte, it is true what Defense Counsel says about his location. He has been listed as a defense witness. At that time, if necessary, we will present this document at the time when he is brought here as a defense witness. He is classified as adefense witness at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You do not want to offer the affidavit at this time then, as I understand it.\nMR. NEELY:No, Your Honor, we will not offer it into evidence at this time because he is listed as a defense witness, and we will hold it back and suggest that it be struck from the record.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nMR. NEELY:For the purpose the record then, the Prosecution withdraws Document NO_5260, which is found on page 17 of the English and 84 of the German, and which is an affidavit by Hilmar Staudte, and which was presented as Prosecution Exhibit389. This will be struck from the record.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will suspend here. We will adjourn until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 31 October 1947)", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 839, "page_number": "835", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\n, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 31 October 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in the Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed for the Prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to make some corrections in Document Hook VI-B. Yesterday afternoon, when we were introducing these documents, a little confusion resulted which I can straighten out in just a minute, if the Tribunal will permit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that the last document book you were on?\nMR. LAMB:No, sir. This is VI-B. It was one of the first ones that I introduced.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just what is the correction? The reason I ask is that I do not have that document book before me.\nMR. LAMB:You remember when we had some discussion about Document NO_3096, Miss Johnson couldn't find the document. Well, it had already been introduced, so it would change the number of that document too and the two succeeding documents. Therefore you may want to make these notations in your book.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right.\nMR. LAMB:Also to be clear on DocumentNO-4774, shown on page 13 of Document Book VI_B, and Documents No. NO_4475, 4476, 4477, 4478, 4479 and 4480. I would like, for the record, to show that all of these \n 31 Oct 1947_A_MSD_1_2_Gaylord (Garand) documents are included in Exhibit 356.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 840, "page_number": "836", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "I think the record is clear on that anyway, but I want it to be positive.\nNow on Page 44 of the Document Book VI-B, DocumentNO-3096has been introduced in evidence as Prosecution's Exhibit 117, and is shown in Book IV-B. Document shown on Page 46, DocumentNO-3093, had previously been introduced an Prosecution's Exhibit 131, shown in Book IV-B; and DocumentNO-1499, shown on Page 62 of the Document Book had previously been introduced as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 277, shown in Book V-F. That is all, Your Honor.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I proceed? May I requ st the High Tribunal to call Edgar Hoffmann as a witness for the Prosecution?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nEDGARHOFFMANN, a witness, to k the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQYour name is Edgar Hoffmann?\nAEdgar Hoffman.\nQYou were born on October 6, 1903 in Ulla, Estonia?\nAYes.\nQYou're a lawyer by profession?\nAYes.\nQWhen were you addmitted to practice law?\nAIn April 1932.\nQWere you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nANo.\nQWere you ever a member of any of its affiliated organizations?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "EDGAR" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 841, "page_number": "837", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "31 Oct 1947_A_MSD_1_3_Gaylord (Garand)\nAYes, I was a member of the NSV, and of the NS-Lawyers' League, and of the Air Raid Precautions Society.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 842, "page_number": "838", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "31 Oct 1947_M_MSD_2_1_Gaylord (Garand)\nTHE PRESIDENT:It seems that it will take some several minutes in order to get the sound system working, so the Court will recess subject to call.\n(A recess was taken.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is a*ain in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will announce at this time: it appears that several of the attorneys for the Defense were also attorneys in the case in which the judgment is to be rendered on Monday. This Tribunal will not be in session on Monday so that they will be privileged to be present.\nAll right. Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, were you ever a member of the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you over hold a position with the Main Trustee Office East-- Haupttreuhandstelle Ost?\nAYes from June 1940 until November 1941, I was with the Main Trustee Office East at the branch field office at Litzmannst dt.\nQDescribe briefly the work you performed with the Main Trustee Office East.\nAFirst of all, I worked in the Legal Department, and then afterwards, I was in charge of the Legal Department. It was a part of my field of work in particular to deal with legal matters; that is to say, to give advice to the trustees in legal questions. WE had to legally examine the purchase agreements which the Main Trustee Office Best and the Field Office at Litzmannstadt had concluded. We also had to engage in trials concerning compensations where somebody sued for damages. We had to do that against unreliable trustees. Then we had to deal with penal matters against trustees, and we had to examine demands by creditors abroad which they had on enterprises whch had been served.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 843, "page_number": "839", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "31 Oct 1947_A_MSD_2_2_Gaylord (Garand)\nQWhat position did you take following November 1941 when you left the Main, trustee Office Last?\nAAfter that, I was employed by the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissar.\nQIn which office were you employed?\nAIn Office III; that was Economy.\nQWas Amt III a part of Amtsgruppe B within the Main Staff Office?\nAYes.\nQWho was the Chief of Amtsgruppe B?\nAThat was the defendant Greifelt.\nQWho was your immediate superiorin your position as Chief of the Property and Credit Section of Amt III of the Main Staff Office?\nAThat was Attorney Goetz.\nQDescribe briefly your activities with the Main Staff Office.\nAFirst of all, I was an expert and from the was 1943 on -from the spring of that year -- and I was the Acting Chief of Office III; and from December 1944 until the office was dissolved, in April 1945, I was in charge of Office III.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 844, "page_number": "840", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "It was part of my field of work to deal with all matters pertaining to the DUT, the German Resettlement Trustee Company, which occurred in Office III; that is to say, I had to carry out the preliminary examination and the drafting of suggestions about directives with regard to property assimilation. Then I had to deal with questions of doubt which concerned the DUT, the German Resettlement Trustee Company and which had been turned over to Office III of the Staff Main Office by the DUT.\nQ.Witness, as you held a position with the Main Trustee Office East as well as a corresponding position with the Main Staff Office, would you say that you are familiar with the relations between HTO, which is the Main Trustee Office East and Main Staff Office in regard to the disposition of property seized and confiscated by HTO?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you describe briefly the organization and functions of the HTO, the Main Trustee Office East.\nA.Very well. The Main Trustee Office East was an agency of the Four Year Plan. It was created for the purpose of taking care of administering the industrial enterprises served in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and , if possible, to utilize them. The headquarters of the Main Trustee Office East was located at Berlin. The Main Trustee Office East had various field offices within the Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nQ.Who was the chief of HTO?\nA.That was Winkler.\nQ.Max Winkler?\nA.Yes, Max Winkler.\nQ.What type of property was seized and confiscated by HTO?\nA.The property of Poles and Jews in the Incorporated Eastern Territories, to the extent that it was not agricultural property.\nQ.Who was in charge of the seizure and confiscation of Jewish and Polish rural or agricultural property?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 845, "page_number": "841", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.That was the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Staff Main Office.\nQ.Witness, what is the difference between seizure and confiscation as handled by the Main Trustee Office East?\nA.The difference between seizure and confiscation consists of the fact that the legal owner in the case of a seizure lost all rights, but retained the title of ownership. In the case of confiscation he would also lose the legal title of ownership.\nQ.In practice was there any difference? --\nA.Yes.\nMR. SCHWENK:I understand the translation of the witness' statement did not come through correctly. May I repeat my question? BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.What is the difference between seizure and confiscation as handled by the Main Trustee Offices?\nA.In the case of a seizure the former owner retained his legal title of ownership. In the case of a confiscation he would lose the legal title of ownership.\nMR. MCHANEY:If the Tribunal please, perhaps the translation is just incorrect. The distinction which we are trying to draw between seizure and confiscation, if I understand it correctly, is that in the case of the seizure legal title remains in the former owner, but he is deprived of all other rights in the property, the primary one, of course, being use. In the case of a confiscation all rights in the property are lost, including title.\nNow, if that had been translated in German to the witness, I think it would be quite simple to ask him the admittedly leading question my statement of the distinction is correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Iam inclined to the view that the witness understood the question and answered it, not exactly in your language, but I think he understood the question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. MCHANEY", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 846, "page_number": "842", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "THE WITNESS:Yes; that is correct. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.In practice, witness, was there any difference between seizure and confiscation?\nA.Yes. The difference was that in the case of a confiscation the property became property of the Reich and, consequently, became subject to the disposition of the Minister of Finance. So that whenever this property was utilized, the consent of the Ministry of Finance or of the Oberfinanzrevidenter (chief finance supervisor), to whom the right of approval had been delegated , had to be obtained.\nQ.But as far as the disposition of property was concerned, was there any difference between seizure and confiscation? In other words, could HTO dispose of the property by sale regardless of whether the property was only seized or also confiscated?\nA.Yes; it was able to do that.\nQ.Witness, insofar as the Jewish or Polish owner of the property was concerned, was there any practical difference between an effected seizure and confiscation of that property?\nA.Yes. The difference was in the fact that the owner retained the title to that property and, therefore, in theory he had the possibility of receiving his property back.\nQ.You mean to receive back his possession?\nA.Yes. After all, he still had had the title.\nQ.Now, did the owner whose property had been seized or confiscated receive any payment whatsoever?\nA.During the time when I was with the Main Trustee Office East, he did not receive any payment.\nQ.Witness, what was the reason for using the theoretical device of seizure of Polish and Jewish property?\nA.It is possible that this was done in order to camouflage these happenings. However, I can't tell you that precisely because I had \n nothing to do with the drafting of the decree pertaining to Polish property by virtue of which the seizure would be carried out.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 847, "page_number": "843", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.You said a while ago that in case of seizure the owner retained title to the property, and, therefore,in theory at least he could get back his property?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did any of the Poles or Jews whose property was seized ever get this property back?\nA.None of the Jews received his property back. Of the Poles those did who were subsequently entered into the German People's list in Group 1 or Group 2.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office take any part in the disposition of property seized or confiscated by HTO?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 848, "page_number": "844", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AYes. The Staff Main Office played a part in the drafting of the decree pertaining to Polish property. Furthermore, the Main staff Office took care of the interest of the resettlers in dealing with the Main Trustee Office East.\nQWhat disposition of the property seized or confiscated by HTO was made in regard to resettlers?\nAThe Main Trustee Office East sold to the resettlers property which it had seized. Furthermore, the Main Trustee Office East appointed resettlers as trustees of the property which it administered and which it had seized.\nQHad the Main Staff Office to give its consent if the enterprise exceeded the value of 500,000 Marks?\nAYes. Whenever an enterprise was utilized which had a value of more than 500,000 Marks by the Main Trustee Office East, the Main Staff Office had to give its consent.\nQDoes your answer apply regardless of whether the property was sold by HTO to resettlers or to other persons or corporations?\nAYes.\nQIn other words, who had to give the consent if the property had a value of less than 500,000 Marks?\nAIn this case the representative of the Main Staff Office had to give his consent.\nQAgain, regardless of whether the property seized or confiscated by HTO was sold to resettlers or other persons?\nAYes.\nQDid the Main Staff Office or the local representative of RKFDV respectively play any part in selecting the resettlers to whom property was sold?\nAThese resettlers frequently were suggested as \n prospective buyers by the German Resettlement Trustee Company, by virtue of their former property, to the Main Trustee Office East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 849, "page_number": "845", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QWhich part did the Main Staff Office play in choosing resettlers, selecting them? Did they supervise the choice of the resettler ?\nAYes. The Main Staff Office or the representative of the Main Staff Office took care of the political screening of the prospective buyer.\nQWhat do you mean by the political screening of the purchaser?\nAThe person was screened whether he was a reliable National Socialist.\nQWhat was the reason that only reliable National Socialists were selected by the Main Staff Office?\nAThe reason was based on the fact that it was desired to eliminate Polish influence in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and for this reason good National Socialists were needed in those areas, for that particular purpose.\nQWas the consent of the Main Staff Office to the sale by HTO necessary regardless of whether the property was seized only or seized and confiscated?\nAYes, that did not make any difference at all. The Main Staff Office had to give its consent in all cases.\nQHad the majority of the property seized and confiscated by HTO been used for resettlers in the manner in which you described it?\nAYes. As far as enterprises were utilized, as far as the number is concerned, they were mainly given to resettlers.\nQYou are contrasting number, I suppose, with volume?\nANo; I am referring to the number of enterprises.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 850, "page_number": "846", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QAnd you are making a difference between number and volume?\nAYes. I have to make the difference because particularly valuable enterprises were also sold to German corporations within the Reich and this was done particularly for armament purposes.\nQWith the consent of the Main Staff Office?\nAYes, with the consent of the Main Staff Office.\nQWitness, was there any priority in regard to which resettlers were entitled to buy property which was seized or seized and confiscated by HTO?\nAYes. There was a decree which determined the priorities in which these properties were given to the resettlers. However, this decree did not only refer to the resettlers but also to ethnic Germans, and, as far as I can recall also to Reich citizens.\nQWas this property determined by defendant Greifelt?\nAIt was done by the defendant Greifeldt in collaboration with Max Winkler.\nQDo you know of any further measures in regard to property seized by HTO, in regard to which both Winkler and Greifeldt had to sign or to give their consent?\nAYes. Agreements were reached between both of them which referred to the overlapping interests of both offices, for example, the turning over of seized enterprises to resettlers.\nQComing back to the determination of priority provided by Greifelt and Winkler, was this priority in obtaining property from HTO determined in each case or in general?\nAThis was determined in general for all sales by \n the Main Trustee Office East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 851, "page_number": "847", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QHad defendant Creutz anything to do with the determination of priority in regard to property seized by HTO?\nAThere was an executory decree with regard to the priority decree. As far as I can recall, it bore the date of November, 1941. This executory decree was signed by the defendant Creutz.\nQConcluding this part of the examination, would you say that the relationship between HTO and the Main Staff Office was very close?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 852, "page_number": "848", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AIn the fields which I have described the relations were relatively close.\nQWill you kindly tell us which offices within the Main Staff Office participated in the disposition of property which you described?\nAAbove all, that was Office III; however, in addition to that office, Office V also participated in regard to the payment of the respective property, and also Office IV participated with regard to the differentiation between industrial property which came under the competence of the Main Trustee Office East and agricultural property which came under the competence of the Main Staff Office. Office I of the Main Staff Office also participated in these cases on questions of priority, which for example, also fell into the field of work of Office I, namely manpower allocation.\nQWitness, I am now turning to something else, very briefly. Were there any connections between the Ghetto Lodz and the Main Staff Office?\nAYes. The office of Winkler at Lodz, which dealt with the procurement of furniture and household goods for the resettlers, gave orders for the manufacture of furniture to the ghetto at Lodz.\nQIf I understand you correctly, there was a branch office of the Main staff Office in Lodz.\nAThere was a field office which had a special mission.\nQWhat was the special mission of that branch office?\nAThe special mission consisted of the fact that this field office had to deal with the procurement of furniture and the procurement of household goods for resettlers.\nQAnd that branch office had utilized the work of the Jews who had been placed in that ghetto; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 853, "page_number": "849", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AYes, that is quite correct. In this connection I would also like to say that of course not all the enterprises of the ghetto and not the entire ghetto were working for the field office.\nQThe Jews in the ghetto, where did they come from?\nAThe Jews in the ghetto for the most part came from the city of Lodz.\nQHad they been evicted from their property in Lodz?\nAYes, their property had been seized, and they had forcibly been taken into the ghetto.\nQWhat happened to their property? Enterprises, buildings, and so on?\nATheir property was administered by the Main Trustee Office, and it was also utilized in part.\nQUsed for whom?\nAIt was used for resettlers and the other purchasers of that property whom I have mentioned before.\nQWitness, have you over seen that ghetto? -- since you were in Lodz?\nAYes, I saw the ghetto.\nQWill you briefly describe to the court what you saw?\nAI myself did not enter the ghetto at Lodz. A main road led through the Ghetto; it was the road which led to Warsaw, so that the ghetto was divided into two parts by that road. It was not allowed to walk through this particular road; however, one could drive through there. For this reason I travelled through the ghetto several times by streetcar .\nQWhat did you see there?\nAOn both sides of the strdet I saw the Jews who were living there behind barbed wire.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 854, "page_number": "850", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QIs that all you saw?\nAWith regard to this question, could you just give me an explanation of what you are referring to?\nQDid you notice anything worthwhile to describe here in regard to the status of those Jews?\nAYes. That ghetto made a very bad and frightening impression on me. We were able to see from the street that these peope were undernourished, and that there were too many people within the limited living space there. We had the impression that the ghetto there was overcrowded.\nQDo you happen to know how much food was given to them. Did you compare,for instance, the food given to the Jews at the ghetto with the food given to the German prisoners in German prisons?\nAThe following figures were given to me: I was told that the food of the Jew in the ghetto cost to eighteen pfennigs; and I know that before the war in the German prison institutions in order to feed one prisoner there thirty-three to thirty-five pfennigs were expended.\nQWere there any other ghettos in the district in which your office operated?\nAYes. There was some other ghetto at Babjanice, and then from the train we were also able to see a ghetto at Kutno.\nQWere the conditions in those ghettos similar to those in Lodz?\nAFrom the outer impression which we gained, yes.\nQWitness, for the benefit of the Tribunal, Litzmannstadt is the German name of Lodz; is that correct?\nAYes, that is the German name for Lodz.\nQSo both Litzmannstadt and Lodz are identical?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 855, "page_number": "851", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "ALitzmannstadt and Lodz are identical.\nQNow, coming back to the branch office at Lodz, of the Main Staff Office. When did this branch office start furnishing the Main Staff Office with goods manufactured in the ghetto at Lodz?\nACould you please repeat the question for me? There was some noise in my earphones and I couldn't quite hear your question.\nQWhen did the branch office at Lodz start its operations furnishing the Main Staff Office with furniture and so on manufactured in this ghetto?\nAThe branch office in my opinion must have begun its operations in the year 1940.\nQDo you know how long it operated? For which period of time?\nANo, I am unable to tell you that. I believe that the branch office in the year of 1943 was transferred to Joachimsthal near Berlin. In this connection I would also like to say that it was not a sole task of the branch office to procure furniture from the ghetto and to have it manufactured there, but this branch office was created for the general purpose of providing the resettlers with furniture and household goods.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 856, "page_number": "852", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, I have only a few more questions. Do you remember any conferences in the Main Staff Office in which you participated and in which the use of property was discussed that would be available as a result of the breaking up of the ghetto?\nA.In the summer of 1944 I participated in conferences, which conferences referred to the purchase of furniture and various other things, as well as construction material, from the Lodz ghetto.\nQ.In what room did the first conference take place?\nA.The first conference in which I participated took place in the room of the defendant Schwarzenberger.\nQ.The participated in that conference?\nA.The following persons participated in that conference: The defendant Schwarzenberger, the defendant Huebner, Obersturmfuehrer of the SS Gruen, attorney Goetz, and myself. There may have been more participants, possibly, whose names I can no longer recall.\nQ.What was discussed in that conference in the summer of 1944?\nA.The purpose of that conference was to discuss the technical handling of the purchase of the assets mentioned before, and, apart from that, to fix the price of purchase.\nQ.What preceded that conference?\nA.Another conference is supposed to have preceded this one, between the then Gauleiter of the Warthegau Greiser and the defendant Greifelt. In the course of that conference, Greiser offered Greifelt the various objects for sale.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 857, "page_number": "853", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.That property you are referring to was property contained in the Ghetto Lodz which was owned by Jews who were evacuated from the Ghetto Lodz to the extermination camp of Auschwitz, is that right?\nA.I don't know whether the Jews who had left the ghetto were taken to Auschwitz.\nQ.Witness, my question was, was it property belonging to the Jews who were evacuated from the ghetto at Litzmanstadt?\nA.Yes, the property belonged to the Jews who had been evacuated from the ghetto at Litzmanstadt.\nQ.What was the result of the conference in the summer of 1944?\nA.The conference had the following result, namely, that there was another conference with the Gauleiter concerning reduction of the price, The additional result of that conference was that the technical execution of the purchase contract was established.\nQ.Was there any other conference concerning the same subject matter?\nA.According to my recollection there were two conferences in the summer of 1944 concerning this matter.\nQ.Do you remember the subject matter of the second conference?\nA.That conference probably referred to the same thing.\nQ.Do you remember the result of the second conference?\nA.I believe it is possible that the result only showed up in the second conference, and when I speak of \"results\" I mean the result I mentioned before.\nQ.Do you know what property was turned over to the Main Staff Office as a result of all those negotiations and \n conferences?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 858, "page_number": "854", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Do you mean the articles, or whether they were turned over?\nQ.Both.\nA.The whole thing related to furniture, stoves, and it also concerned construction material. I do not know for certain whether the articles were turned over. However, I assume that part of the furniture was transferred, yes.\nQ.Do you know, can you estimate the value of the property under discussion in those two conferences which you mentioned?\nA.I believe that I can remember a purchase price of approximately one million Marks.\nQ.Do you know which offices in the Main Staff Office were interested in participating in the destruction of the Ghetto Lodz?\nA.The following agencies participated or were interested in the purchase of furniture and other material: Office V--, Office III.\nQ.Office V is Finance, is that correct? Office V is Finance?\nA.Office V is Finance, yes; and Office III -- Office III is the Economic Office; and the Construction Office participated as well.\nQ.The Amt Bauten had what office number?\nA.I think it was Office VI.\nQ.By whom was it headed?\nA.It was headed by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Noell.\nQ.To what Amtsgruppe did it belong?\nA.It belonged to Amtsgruppe C, which was headed by the defendant Meyer.\nQ.Amt III, headed by Goetz, belonged to which Amtsgruppe?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 859, "page_number": "855", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Office III belonged to Amtsgruppe B, which was headed by the defendant Greifelt.\nQ.And the Finance Office was headed by whom?\nA.By the defendant Schwarzenberger.\nQ.That Amt belonged to which Amtsgruppe?\nA.I presume it also belonged to Amtgruppe B.\nQ.Amtsgruppe B was headed by whom?\nA.The defendant Greifelt.\nQ.Now, my last question. Do you know whether any property seized from Poles or Jews was taken by Lebensborn?\nA.When I was transferred to the Main Trusteeship Office East, namely, the HTO, in Lodz, I found out that Lebensborn had seized material in several Lodz enterprises without paying for those articles. At that time the quanities of goods were fixed approximately and Lebensborn was asked to pay for those goods. During my activity with the HTO, Main Trusteeship Office East, payment of those goods did not take place. Lebensborn tried to avoid payment by making objections.\nQ.Will you briefly describe the nature of the merchandise?\nA.For the main part there were textiles, and I also remember that there were toilet articles, and perfume in particular.\nQ.Do you know what purpose was supposed to be served by this merchandise, particularly by the perfume?\nA.Would you repeat that please?\nQ.Do you know what purpose was pursued by Lebensborn in taking that perfume?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Did Lebensborn ever pay for that?\nA.While I was with the HTO, no.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 860, "page_number": "856", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Was that property seized or confiscated property?\nA.As far as I know, that property had not been seized.\nQ.Did it belong to Poles or Jews?\nA.It belonged to both Poles and Jews, yes.\nQ.Could you estimate the value of that property?\nA.I believe I can recall a figure which was approximately five hundred thousand marks.\nQ.My last question: Can you give us the date when that action took place?\nA.Well, yes, that must have been in 1941.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense?\nDR.HAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Greifelt): May I begin with the cross-examination, Your Honor?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, you were not a member of the Party, and in spite of that fact you had an important position in the Main Staff Office. Were there any other officials of the Main Staff Office who were not Party members?\nA.Yes, there were a number of other officials who were not Party members.\nQ.Witness, were you permitted to carry out an additional activity, apart from the activity which you carried out in the Main Staff Office, namely, your private practice as a lawyer?\nA.Yes, I was permitted to do so.\nQ.Do you consider that an accomodating attitude, that is a generous personnel policy?\nA.Yes. However, all the officials whom I knew at the time persued the same personnel policy.\nQ.You were with the HTO in Litzmannstadt at first, as you stated. Now, will you please tell us, witness, with whom this HTO office at \n Litxmannstadt concluded sales contracts?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 861, "page_number": "857", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.The HTO at Litzmannstadt concluded sales contracts, in the first place, with resettlers.\nQ.In order to clarify these matters, witness, let us now remember existence of the following namely: First of all, of the Polich property owners; secondly, of the HTO; thirdly, of the Main Staff Office; and fourth, of a resettler, or, shall we say, a purchaser. Those are four people altogether.\nNow, will you just tell us, witness, when these sales contracts were concluded, who was it that participated? Did (a), the former owner participate, did the HTO participate, did the Main Staff Office participate, and did the purchaser participate?\nA.The three last ones participated, but the first one did not.\nQ.The original owner did not sell. Who was it, then, that signed as the person that was selling the goods?\nA.The trustee.\nQ.And who appointed him?\nA.The Main Trusteeship Office East, namely, the HTO.\nQ.The HTO? Therefore the HTO acted as seller?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what did the Main Staff Office do when these contracts were concluded?\nA.The Main Staff Office had to agree with the contract.\nQ.Do you have an approximate picture? Can you imagine what the purpose was behind it? Why was it that the Main Staff Office had to agree or participate in this?\nA.Well, the reason was that part of the function of the Main Staff Office was the new organization of the Eastern Territories.\nQ.Why so conplicated -\nA.Just a minute, please.\nSo the Main Office was interested in the people allocated in the Eastern Territories. I stated before that the political reliability of \n the purchaser, when considering the allocation, played an important part.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 862, "page_number": "858", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.You stated before, witness, that the Main Staff Office wanted to preserve and take care of the interests of the resettled persons.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In order to make that simpler, could one say that seller was HTO; the Main Staff Office had ben interpolated into this as an approving agency to safeguard the interests of the resettlers?\nA.If you mean the interest of the resettlers, and if you are referring to the people who were going to the Eastern territories, then it is correct; what you say is correct.\nQ.I think we can see that best if you recall the following, namely, if there were any differences of opinion between the HTO and the Main Staff Office concerning the purchaser who was to be selected. Can you recall any such cases?\nA.Yes, people did not always agree.\nQ.Fine. Now let's become very exact. There was a large textile industry in Lodz, was there not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Possibly one of the largest in Europe?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How was this industry utilized? Who purchased the industry? Did the resettlers purchase the industry, or who?\nA.So far as there were resettlers who had corresponding property claims who also had the professional skill -- these people received the textile enterprises. In other words, they purchased them. However, it did occur that textile plants were sold, for other reasons, to Reich firms and also to ethnic Germans.\nWould you please repeat your question, Mr. Counsel? BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You have testified that prior to the sale the interests of the owner were taken care of by the DUT and not by the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 863, "page_number": "859", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.That is the only thing I am interested in.\nA.Yes, quite so.\nQ.Now, as far as seizure was concerned, I would like you to clarify one more point. Due to the concise way in which you put it, you made a distinction between seizure and confiscation, and you only referred to the property title. What I would like to ask you now is whether seizure entailed any restriction with reference to the owner concerning the profits derived from his property, or whether he could possibly continue to receive these profits after the seizure had taken place.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 864, "page_number": "860", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.As far as the seizures were concerned which were carried out by the HTO, the owner had no right whatsoever to the fruits of his property.\nQ.Did not some Poles -- or shall we say, many Poles or most of the Poles -- remain on the seized property at first?\nA.Not in the industrial sector. It only occurred that the owners were permitted to continue working in their enterprises as enterprises as employees or workers.\nQ.You stated that the Main Staff Office, when allocating the resettlers into the enterprises seized by the HTO, tried to only take into these enterprises good National Socialists. As far as you know, witness, weren't professional points of view and also characteristic points of view regarded during the selection?\nA.Yes, those things also were considered. Apart from the policital reliability of the purchaser, his professional skill was also checked.\nQ.Do you remember that resettlers of Jewish stock were resettled in the Eastern territories?\nA.Do you mean that they were allocated to the eastern territories?\nQ.Yes.\nA.No. I am afraid I don't remember anything of the kind.\nQ.Do you remember that the differentiation made between \"O\" and \"A\" cases took place? Do you know whether the decision was made by the Main Staff Office?\nA.No, the EWZ did that.\nQ.Therefore, there was an additional agency which checked an the political matters before the Main Staff Office received these resettlers?\nA.Yes. As far as these resettlers were concerned, there was also the EWZ interpolated, which was an agency of the RSHA -- the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.And can you recall any cases where the Main Staff Office, with reference to the resettlers which it was taking care of, wanted to acquire \n such enterprises, and the HTO had a different opinion of that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 865, "page_number": "861", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Yes, such cases occurred.\nQ.Were there any struggles for power between these two agencies at all?\nA.Yes, quite frequently there were differences of opinion concerning authority and competencies.\nQ.You touched upon the decree concerning Polish property. Do you know who created that decree? I mean, which agencies?\nA.According to my opinion, the Four-Year-Plan issued it.\nQ.Correct. Now what was the influence of the Main Staff Office on the establishment of this Polish property decree?\nA.I can't give you any information on that because I didn't collaborate in the issuance of the decree for Polish property. All I know is that apart from the Main Staff Office, the HTO, the Justice Ministry, the Foreign Office, and presumably also other agencies, participated.\nQ.Can you tell us, witness, whether the main weight in the policy enacted by this decree for Polish property was born by the Main Staff Office or by other agencies?\nA.I can't tell you that because I did not participate in the negotiations concerning the enactment of this decree.\nQ.Can you remember a Generalreferent of the RK with the HTO?\nA.Yes, Galke.\nQ.Would you tell us something about that -- whether this general referent, with reference to this decree for Polish property -- whether he participated in it?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.You quoted the decree concerning priority. Office III, of which you were a member? did it participate in the consultation?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they participate strongly, on essential aspects of the Main Staff Office?\nA.According to my opinion, yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 866, "page_number": "862", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.And they submitted this decree, which had been initiated in their office, to the Chief, Greifelt, for his agreement?\nA.Yes, that is probably the way it was, because the priority decree, which is probably dated summer 1940, originated at the time when I was not as yet in the Main Staff Office.\nQ.However, as you stated before; Office III carried out the draft?\nA.Yes. I have to assume that due to other similar circumstances which were dealt with in a similar manner.\nQ.You spoke of the Lodz ghetto. Do you know the name of the agency in Lodz, and how it was established -- I mean the agency of the Main Staff Office? Wasn't it some sort of a luggage central office?\nA.That is quite possible because that agency in Lodz also dealt with taking care of luggage of the Baltic resettlers.\nQ.That is quite correct. Did that agency have anything to do with the Lodz ghetto -- I mean, apart from the things we are talking about -now I mean from an administrative point of view?\nA.I don't believe so.\nQ.Do you know who was in charge of the ghetto?\nA.The Lodz ghetto had an administration of its own. That ghetto administration was subordinated to the city administration of Lodz.\nQ.Do you remember to whom, the job orders previously mentioned were sent to -- which agency they were sent to? Did the agency of the Main Staff Office negotiate directly with the ghetto or not?\nA.As far as I know the circumstances, the job order must have gone to the ghetto administration, which again would distribute the jobs in the ghetto.\nQ.This field agency in Lodz, was it also subordinated to Office III?\nA.It was subordinated to the Main Staff Office, and in the Main Staff Office was subordinated to Office III. In any case, as far as the procurement of furniture and household goods was concerned, the handling \n of the luggage was up to the legal department of the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 867, "page_number": "863", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.These job orders, which we just mentioned which went via the city administration inhabitants of the ghetto in main, did they influence the living conditions of these inmates in a bad or good sense?\nA.When I was in Lodz, I was told that those Jews who were working would receive an additional food ration.\nQ.The agency of the Main Staff Office in Lodz, did it have any influence on the billeting of Jews in the ghettos, or with the occupation of the Jews, or the living conditions of the Jews in the ghetto?\nA.No.\nQ.I shall now come to the second business which was carried out, which was the purchase of furniture and construction material from Lodz, Do you know that the ghetto at the time was to be dismantled by Greiser's orders?\nA.Yes, that was the reason why the sale of these goods took place.\nQ.Do you remember whether it was to be sold block by block?\nA.That I don't know.\nQ.Do you remember whether the Reich Commissar had been offered to purchase it en block (as one whole) at a price of five millions?\nA.That is quite possible.\nQ.During those negotiations, was the purchase price fixed in a normal, manner and paid according to commercial rules?\nA.I know that a purchase price was negotiated. Whether it was paid, I don't know.\nQ.Concerning these negotiations in which you participated, of course you did report to your chief, Griefelt, didn't you?\nA.I assume that Herr Goetz did that, because he participated in these negotiations as my chief and I only assisted him in the task.\nQ.Did you and Goetz have any misgivings then as to advising Griefelt not to buy it because you considered it to be unprofitable business, or don't you remember anything about it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 868, "page_number": "864", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.As Goetz submitted the matter to the defendant Greifelt, I did not know whether he mentioned any misgivings.\nQ.During your participation in that work in Lodz -- and I mean as far as the sale to resettlers is concerned, end so on -- were you then and I don't mean today, but then, under the impression that you had acted in the correct manner according to prevailing laws?\nA.I was certainly of the impression that what was doing was justified by law.\nMR. MCHANEY:If the Tribunal please, we object to the question asked and ask that the answer be stricken on the ground that it's immaterial and irrelevant. I don't think that the subjective feeling of the witness as to the propriety of the transaction is material to the issue here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:This is cross examination. The Tribunal will permit the question and answer to remain in.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you. No further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL (for the defendant Creutz):\nQ.Witness, during the cross examination by my colleague Dr. Haensel, you mentioned these large textile plants in Lodz. Is it correct that these enterprizes were first supervised by a special committee, and that the Reich Ministry also participated in this matter?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. MCHANEY", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 869, "page_number": "865", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.I mentioned before that I could not recall the committes; however, it is possible; because now that you are putting the question to me, I suddenly recall that the Economic ministry was somehow engaged in the utilization, but I couldn't tell you anything further on that.\nQ.Would it refresh your memory, witness, if I mentioned the name of President Kerrl in this connection?\nA.Yes, I just remember the name; that was President Kerrl. Somehow he had something to do with these things.\nQ.Do you know whether the reason came through the HTO?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know anything about the fact whether also other agencies as well gave job orders to the Lodz ghetto?\nA.Yes, because in the Lodz ghetto, there was a more or less large industry, so that surely, apart from Winkler's agency, a large number of other private firms, and probably also state firms and state agencies, gave job orders to that place.\nQ.Do you also know that the OKW sent orders of a large nature?\nA.Yes, in the Lodz ghetto, they were also working for armament purposes.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office have anything to do with these orders?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the delivery of the furniture produced in the ghetto paid for originally?\nA.Yes, and that was paid to the ghetto admiministration which distributed the money.\nQ.Who was it that carried out the payment or that made the payments?\nA.That must have gone through Office V of the Main Staff Office, in other words, the Finance Office.\nQ.Are you certain?\nA.I am not certain. Of course, I can only assume it according \n to what things were, because that was not part of my field of tasks.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 870, "page_number": "866", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Do you know which purpose the field agency Lodz served at first--and I stress the point: at first?\nA.It is possible that orginally, or at first, it served for the purpose of handling the luggage from these Baltic resettlers; however, I couldn't answer that question for certain because at the time I was not employed with the Main Staff Office as yet.\nQ.Therefore, you don't know either that in the organizational chart this agency is contained there as a \"luggage control agency Lodz\"?\nA.I did not know that, but I consider it possible.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, your opinion is the following; namely, that the whole thing dealt with the distribution of large pieces of luggage to the resettlers?\nA.That is probably the way it was.\nQ.Do you know why those agencies had been established in Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.Did this field agency in Lodz have anything to do with the procurement of furniture and household equipment, or did it only have something to do with the distribution of those articles?\nA.I believe that originally they only dealt with the procurement, and later on, only with the distribution.\nQ.Do you know whether the field agency was later on transferred to Berlin?\nA.Yes, it was transferred to Joachimsthal near Berlin.\nQ.When was that?\nA.It must have been in 1943.\nQ.Could it have been in the winter of 1942 to '43?\nA.Yes, it could have been in the winter of '42 to '43.\nQ.Was that done for transportation reasons?\nA.Well, that is quite possible that it was due to transportation reasons, yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 871, "page_number": "867", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Because of the distribution---\nA.Because the distribution was to be taken care of more centrally and that was the reason why Lodz was acting as a central agency of resettlement ans was considered as such. The largest part of the resettlers from the Baltic countries were living there.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, witness, you stated before that the field agency was subordinated to Office III?\nA.Yes, within the Main Staff Office it was subordinated to Office III.\nQ.Then the field agancy in Jeachimsthal, wasit also subordinated to Office III?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now the last question with reference to this problem, witness: do you know what the amount was of furniture procurement, generally speaking of course, in the Main Staff Office; and in particular, the amount of the total procurement of furniture as compared with the furniture procured from the Lodz ghetto?\nA.I couldn't tell you that for the following reason: because I did not know as to how much furniture was produced in the Lodz ghetto. All I know is that the total procurement of furniture, according to my estimates, amounted to approximately 70 million--but the figure is somewhat wrong; it's being quite generous, I imagine.\nQ.And would you say that half of the amount was procured in the Lodz ghetto?\nA.According to my opinion, I should say that it was an essentially smaller percentage than what you just said.\nQ.Witness, do you know when the Amtsgruppen were established in the Main Staff Office?\nA.I believe it was in 1942 or 1943.\nQ.Do you know how the organisation of the Main Staff Office was prior to that date?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 872, "page_number": "868", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Up to the establishment of the Amtsgruppen, all offices were directly subordinated to the defendant Greifelt.\nQ.And afterwards?\nA.Afterwards, the individual Amtsgruppen were subordinated to the Amtsgruppen chiefs-- and they again were responsible to Greifelt.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, witness, you stated before that the defendant Greifelt was interested, together with Winkler, in issuing the priority decree?\nA.What I said was that they signed it together.\nQ.Do you know why then the defendant Creutz signed the carrying out order winch you mentioned and why was it that the defendant Greifelt had not consigned it?\nA.I assume that the defendant Greifelt, on that particular day when the carrying out order was signed, was not present.\nQ.Then how far did the defendant Creutz participart, generally speaking, in the negotations which you repeatedly mentioned and which took place with the HTO? Do you know anything about that?\nA.I can't remember that the defendant Creutz participated in these negotiations.\nQ.And whether he participated in the colloaboration between the Main Staff Office and the HTO, you don't know that either, do you, witness?\nA.Well, I was always under the impression, with reference to the defendant Creutz, that he did not know anything about these matters-that he was not well oriented in these matters.\nQ.Now a few last questions with reference to the personality of the defendant Creutz, Do you know what position he held in the Main Staff Office, witness?\nA.He was deputy chief of the Main Staff Office that is to say deputy of the defendant Greifelt. As long as the Amtsgruppen existed, \n he was Amtsgruppen chief of the Central Department.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 873, "page_number": "869", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Apart from that, he dealt with the personnel matters of the Main Staff Office and he was also responsible for the organization.\nQ.Do you know how he usually signed?\nA. \"By order of:\".", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 874, "page_number": "870", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.And when Greifelt was absent?\nA. \"Deputizing for.\"\nQ.Was the defendant Greifelt absent for a longer period of time?\nA.The defendant Greifelt on several occasions was on official trips and during my activity in the Main Staff Office he once took long sick leave.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Creutz participated in the so-called Monday Conferences?\nA.The defendant Creutz participated regularly in the so-called Monday Conferences.\nQ.Did he participate in the conferences of the individual officies on certain days of conferences?\nA.No; in any case not when Office III had to report. I was not present in other conferences.\nQ.Did he personally carry out any conferences either in the presence of Greifelt or in the absence of Greifelt?\nA.As far as it referred to Office III, no.\nDR. MERKEL:No further questions.\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. May I continue with the cross examination, Your Honors? BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, you mentioned the basis of the right of seizure in your examination. You mentioned in that connection the decree concerning the seizure of Polish property. Is it correct that that decree had been preceded by other legal regulations?\nA.I could only answer your questions with reference to the industrial sector.\nQ.Please go ahead.\nA.The decree concerning Polish property was preceded by regulations issued by the Military Commanders concerning the seizure.\nQ.Can you recall the decree concerning the seizure of the pro \n party of the former Polish State, dated 15 January, 1940?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 875, "page_number": "871", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Yes, but that decree, according to my knowledge, referred to state property, therefore not to private property.\nQ.Can you confirm the fact for me that already on the 10 of November, 1939, a decree was issued which referred to the HTO's activity and which comprised the HTO's activity?\nA.Are you referring to the decree concerning the establishment of the HTO?\nQ.No; that decree was issued at a later date I think.\nA.Well, all these decrees originated during a time while I was not with the HTO. Therefore, without your giving me further points I could base my opinion on, I couldn't answer your question and I can't remember the decree.\nQ.Do you know the decree concerning the public administration of agricultural property, and estates dated 12 September 1942?\nA.Only by name because I did not have to work with the decree.\nQ.Therefore, you cannot confirm for me that in that decree a seizure had been ordered by law?\nA.I believe I can recall that this dealt with a seizure for the benefit of the Ostland, GmbH.\nQ.By law?\nA.Yes, based on that decree.\nQ.Therefore, individual seizure actions were not necessary but the seizure resulted from the decree itself?\nA.That is a question which I cannot answer, Mr. Counsel, because it refers to agricultural matters with which I am not familiar and I had nothing to do with it.\nQ.Can you confirm the following for me, witness, namely, that the decree concerning Polish property did not apply to the Government General area?\nA.Yes. A special regulation applied to that area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 876, "page_number": "872", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Did the Reich Commissar have anything to do with that?\nA.Not in the Government General.\nQ.Is it correct that the decree did not apply to the Western Territories either?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it correct that this decree did not apply to the Southeastern territories either?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, can you tell me anything further about the decree of the Military Commanders, dated September, 1939, and also whether, based on that decree, certain seizures had already taken place before the Reich Commissar started his activity?\nA.I know that the Military Commanders to a large extent carried out seizures based on that decree which you just mentioned.\nQ.That was prior to the time of the Main Staff Office?\nA.In any case these decrees had no connection with the Main Staff Office whatsoever.\nQ.Witness, I would like to ask you a few more questions concerning the factual competencies of HTO. Was HTO responsible for dealing with and registering agricultural enterprises? I am talking, for instance, about brick factories.\nA.The HTO was competent for brick plants and was also competent for sugar factories. According to my recollection the line drawn with reference to their competencies between HTO and Main Staff Office had been taken care of by regulations. The decisive fact thereby was as to whether the agricultural or the professional character of the enterprise prevailed.\nQ.How was it with rural enterprises which had an organic connection with industrial enterprise?\nA.The question then was whether the rural or the industrial character prevailed. However, I would like to add that I am not quite \n certain about that because I no longer recall the details.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 877, "page_number": "873", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Then, in these rural enterprises where it was doubtful whether the HTO was competent or some other agency, was the Main Staff Office competent or was it the Ostland?\nA.I don it know that.\nQ.You also worked according to the internal directives concerning the Polish property decree?\nA.I did not work on that matter with the Main Staff Office as much as I worked somewhere else because the directives for Office III hardly played any part.\nQ.And during your activity with the HTO, witness?\nA.Of course, I did work according to those directives there.\nQ.How was it with gardening enterprises?\nA.Gardening enterprises, as far as I know, were subordinate to the HTO.\nQ.And how was in in regard to municipal construction areas?\nA.Municipal construction areas were not rural property and, therefore, was subordinated to the HTO. Q Q. Can you tell me who had to decide on cultural property?\nA.No.\nQ.Was that activity part of the fields of task of the Central Land Office, for instance?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.How was it with so-called clergical property?\nA.I don't know anything about that either because I never dealt with these questions; neither in the HTO nor the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Witness, you stated that in the case of seizures pronounced by the HTO, the owner no longer was in a position to dispose in any way with reference to the enterprise.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether this procedure applied also to the seizure \n of rural property?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 878, "page_number": "874", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.I was told that the procedure with reference to rural property was different. I was told that the proprietor could stay on his property and according to my knowledge he had to make a certain payment in connection with that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n( A recess was taken unti 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 879, "page_number": "875", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 31 October 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Are there any further questions of this witness?\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. Your Honor, I would like to continue my examination of this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nCROSS EXAMINATION (CONTINUED) BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, shortly before the recess of the morning session we discussed the difference between the seizure of industrial property and the seizure of agricultural property. You confirmed to me that the owner still could have a disposition over the agricultural seized property. Was that as far as you can recall?\nA.Well, if by disposition of it you mean that the owner retains the fruits of it. On the other hand, of course, he was unable to sell that property.\nQ.Therefore, in practice it was actually a purchase?\nA.Yes, you would call it that way.\nQ.It was something similar as is specified in Law No. 52 of the Allied Government today?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your honor, I object to this Question. Law 52 of the Allied Control Commission has nothing to do with this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, whether it does or not would be question that addresses itself to this Tribunal and not to the witness. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.It is correct, witness, that the HTO, the Main Trustee Office, utilized seized property?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it further correct that agricultural property, no matter whether it was seized or not, would be subject to the control of the Reichsland or Ostland?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 880, "page_number": "876", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.I am not precisely informed about this question. I was of the opinion that the Ostland or the Reichsland only was the trustee of the agricultural property which had been seized.\nQ.What was the organization of the Reichsland or the Ostland? what was its status towards the offices of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.The Ostland was a company of the Reich Food Ministry.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar have any authority to issue instructions toward the Ostland or the Reichsland?\nA.As far as I know he did not.\nQ.Can you confirm to me, witness, that the public administration of the agricultural property, was carried out through a trustee general of the Reich Food Ministry?\nA.If by trustee general you are referring to the Ostland, then I would like to confirm that, yes.\nQ.Did you ever hear that any complaints were voiced about the administration of seized agricultural properties?\nA.I don't know that. After all, this was completely outside my field of work.\nQ.Just how was the confiscation of industrial property carried out? Can you please tell me once more whether this seized industrial property was actually confiscated by the HTO, by the Main Trustee Office East?\nA.I know that the Main Trustee Office East at Litzmannstadt confiscated property.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar or the Staff Main Office have to fulfill any function in this respect?\nA.It did not play any part in the confiscation as such.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned the Ghetto action at Litzmannstadt. In this connection I would like to ask you the following: In your official capacity did you in any form participate in this action?\nA.What Ghetto action are you referring to, counsel?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 881, "page_number": "877", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.I am referring to the action where the procurement of furniture wasinvolved and finally when the Ghetto was town down.\nA.You are referring to the Ghetto action of the year 1944?\nQ.Yes.\nA.At the time I participated; in so far as I participated in the two sessions which I have mentioned before as the assistant of attorney Goetz.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer also attend these meetings?\nA.No.\nQ.Did it ever come to your knowledge or were you ever able to determine just to what extent the defendant Meyer was connected with this action?\nA.No: with the exception of the fact that he was the chief of Office Group C, to which the Construction Office belonged.\nQ.To what extent the Chief of the Construction Office informed the defendant Meyer probably escapes your knowledge?\nA.I can't say anything about that.\nQ.When did this session in question take place?\nA.In the summer of 1944.\nQ.Isn't it correct that this session only took place on the 15 of November, 1944?\nA.No.\nQ.At that time where was the Construction Office located?\nA.It was located on the Schweifelberg near Filshofen in lower Bavaria.\nQ.Did you ever see the defendant Meyer at Schweifelberg?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you see him frequently or only very rarely?\nA.I can recall having seen him there on two or three occasions.\nQ.Did you see the other men in question more often?\nA.The defendant Meyer at that time was still at Berlin. In the other hand, the other men, with the exception of the defendant Huebner, \n were s tationed on the Schweifelberg.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 882, "page_number": "878", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Witness, you were referring to the office groups and in t his connection you stated that these office groups had been created approximately in the year 1942. Can you tell me just how long these office groups were divided in this manner?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 883, "page_number": "879", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.I am unable to tell you that. I only know that when the Main Staff Office itself was transferred, approximately in November 1943, Schweiflelberg became impractical\nQ.Since the action in question at Litzmannstadt took place in the summer of 1944, therefore, accordingly, the influence of the chief of the office groups did not exist any more.\nA.I want to limit my previous answer to some extent, and I would like to say that the division of the office groups, from November 1943 on, did not have any particular effect any more, so that I assume that I can state that the influence of the defendant Meyer in the year 1944, with regard to the construction office, probably must have been very small.\nQ.Can you confirm to me, witness, that in spite of the establishment of the office groups, the heads of the individual offices could report directly to the chief of the Main Office?\nA.I don't know that because Office III was directly subordinated to the defendant Greifelt.\nQ.Did the sub-divisions of the office groups have any special importance at all?\nA.I am unable to answer this Question for the same reason which I have just mentioned.\nQ.Did the construction office participate in giving orders for the procurement and manufacture at Litzmannstadt?\nA.That escapes my knowledge.\nQ.Did such activity, according to the standard order of procedure, fall within the competence of the construction office?\nA.I am unable to tell you that either.\nQ.Do you know the defendant key or very closely?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know that he was a full-time professor at the University of Berlin?\nA.I heard about that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 884, "page_number": "880", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Do you know whether he was only active in the Main Staff Office as a side-line and on a part time basis?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Did he seem to be extremely active in the course of these sessions where you met him?\nA.I did not see that he was particularly active in any conference. I did not see him at any conference.\nQ.I am now coming to something else. Witness, can you tell me something about the field of work of the planning office?\nA.I only know that the planning office dealt with planning work in the eastern territories.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest, Counsel, that he do not go into detail over the same territory that has been covered. This Question has been very thoroughly gone into. You may ask any additional Questions about it, but do not have the witness, ask the witness to go over the whole field again. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, I have one more Question on that subject. Would you consider the planning office to be a central supervision agency of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I am unable to answer that Question because I do not know the precise activity of the planning office.\nQ.Witness, the prosecution has charged the defendant Meyer, among other things, that he or one of his offices had participated in the kidnapping of children, and deportations of foreigners; and resettlement and expulsions, deportations and things of that nature. Do you know whether any of these matters fell within the field of work of his department?\nA.I have already stated that I hardly know anything about the field of work of the planning office. I am not informed about it; I don't know anything about it; and I can't know that the Staff Main Office had something to do with the kidnapping of children and the \n compulsory abortions on female eastern workers; things of that sort.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 885, "page_number": "881", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "DR. BEHLING:Thank you, I have no further questions. My cross examination is completed.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. DINNER: (Attorney for the defendant Schwarzenberger)\nQ.Witness, previously you mentioned the decree and the executive orders to the priority decrees, and I would like you to tell me whether the office V or Schwarzenberger had something to do with the purchases by the Main Staff Office.\nA.No.\nQ.Did he have anything to do with the fixing of the purchase price?\nA.He had nothing to do with the fixing of the purchase price.\nQ.You said before of Office V that their files were used in this case that existed.\nA.Yes.\nQ.If Schwarzenberger's office did not set the purchasing prices, when the purchasing agreement was concluded, then directives to that effect must have come from some other agency which was that agency?\nA.That was the agency which was responsible for the conclusion of the contracts in question.\nQ.Could the Office V or Schwarzenberger have prevented payment?\nA.I hardly think so.\nQ.Now, I am coming to something else. Before the fact was mentioned that the ghetto administration at Lodz received orders from the field office at Lodz and its chief, respectively to manufacture furniture. Could the field office in Lodz give these orders independently?\nA.I cannot tell you anything certain from my own knowledge. However, I must assume that the general consent for the issuing of orders had to be issued by the finance office.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 886, "page_number": "882", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Were not these orders issued by Office III, Economy?\nA.Yes, they were issued through Office III, Economy; however, Office III whenever larger financial business transactions were involved, it would have to contact Office V.\nQ.Was Office V able to decide independently?\nA.No; it could not make decisions. Whenever there were differences of opinion, the chief of the agency had to make the decision.\nQ.Now I am coming to the tearing down of the ghetto. You stated that furniture was procured through the tearing down of the ghetto in 1944.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you say that with certainty?\nA.Yes, I know that with almost certainty.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to Counsel that he will have to talk slowly and into the mike.\nQ.Were you present when the contracts were concluded?\nA.Are you referring to the first negotiations between Greiser and Greifelt where the fundamental agreement was reached?\nQ.I am referring to the final conclusion of the agreement.\nA.When do you think that happened?\nQ.That is what I am asking you.\nA.In my opinion this contract was already concluded between the defendant Greifelt and Greiser; it had already been concluded before, and further negotiations in which I participated only referred to the execution of the contract which had already been concluded before.\nQ.Who were the parties in that contract?\nA.It was Greiser in his capacity as Gauleiter, and the defendant Greifelt in his capacity as chief of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.At the time you were office chief of Office III, Economy?\nA.No. At the time I was the deputy of the office chief.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 887, "page_number": "883", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QCan you tell me according to your opinion for what amount of money furniture was procured at the time from the ghetto?\nANo. After all a standard price had been set, and I do not know if this price was divided into the various branches of the agency.\nDR. DINNER:I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER: (Attorney for the defendant Huebner)\nQWitness, is it correct that the consent for the purchasing contracts of the Main Trustee Office East, first of all, was not issued by the Main Staff Office and its representative, but it had to be obtained by the representative general of the SS and his representative?\nACounsel, are you referring to the GVSS, Galke; this is the title of the general expert of the SS. At that time the man's name was Galke; he was with the Main Trustee Office East. Originally he was competent for issuing of the consent of the purchasing contract.\nQAnd on the level of the district of the field office, wasn't this his representatives?\nAYes, they were his representatives.\nQHow long did this take place?\nAUntil Galke was recalled; it probably was in the year 1942; however, I don't want to state that year for certain; I am not quite sure about it.\nQThen, when the purchases occured below hundred thousand marks, and then the representative had to give his consent in those cases to what main department; in what main department did this take place?\nAThat took place in Main Department III of the representative.\nQDo you know that in Poznan the former representative of the GVSS was taken over into the Main Department III and that there he independently continued in his activity?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DINNER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 888, "page_number": "884", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AI don't know that as far as Poznan is concerned. On the other hand, I heard about that case having occured at Lodz.\nQDo you know whether the defendant Huebner participated in that field of work?\nAOnly in his capacity as staff leader of the representative.\nQAre you acquainted with this closer field of work as staff leader?\nANo, I can't describe it at all.\nQBefore the consent was given by the representative, wasn't only a political sreening carried out, but did the representative on the district level also make inquiries about the man's professional capabilities?\nA before he gave his consent to the purchasing contract, he also would make inquiries as to the man's professional capabilities with the competent professional authorities.\nQIs it correct that directives concerning the field of tasks of office III were issued by Office III in direct written correspondence and that they were passed on to the representative?\nAI don't think that one can generalize it in that way; however, I do know that this has happened.\nQThe field office at Lodz of the Main Staff Office which you have mentioned, and where you stated that it had given orders for the procurement of furniture to the ghetto, was this field office subordinated directly to the Main Staff Office?\nAYes.\nQTherefore, it was not subordinated to the representative at Poznan?\nANo.\nQNow, I have several questions with regard to the purchase of furniture from the ghetto. Is it possible that in this connection only one conference took place where Huebner participated?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 889, "page_number": "885", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AYes, that is possible.\nQDo you know from the agency of the representative in Poznan on this occasion there was not only Huebner there but also some other persons of the agency of the representative of Poznan had attended, for example, the chiefs of Main Department III was also present?\nAYes, it is possible; however, I cannot recall that.\nQDo you know who actually reported about natters there?\nANo.\nQDo you know what part of the ghetto was left to the Reich Commissar in the purchase contract?\nANo.\nQHowever, you are left of the opinion that only a part of the ghetto was Mentioned in the purchasing contract?\nAI can't say that.\nQDo you know that in a report of November 1944, Untersturmfuehrer Gredl reported to the Main Staff Office that a Sturmbannfuehrer by the name of Hirschberger was going to negotiate with Gauleiter Greiser about whether the inventory could be left behind without any charge?\nABo, I don't know that.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (For the defendant Hofmann)\nQWitness, was the Settlement Office of the SS authorized to carry out any seizure or confiscations?\nANo.\nQDid the Race and Settlement Main Office seize any of the property to be used by the resettlers?\nAThat didn't come to my knowledge.\nQDid the Race and Settlement Office carry out any confiscations involving cultural items and clergical property?", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 890, "page_number": "886", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AI don't know that; I know nothing at all about that field.\nQWitness, in the course of youractivity in the legal department, you probably became acquainted with many decrees by the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Did you ever see a decree of RuSHA which had the letterhead \"the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism,\" and below that, Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAI have never seen a letterhead of that nature.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that all for the Defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH: (For the defendant Vier Metz)\nQWitness, if I have correctly understood you this morning, then you stated that the Lebensborn took away certain goods and that you were able to determine that when you took over your office at Lodz; is that correct?\nAI was able to determine that during my activity at Lodz. That was not immediately when I took over my office.\nQWere these goods taken before you took over your office or later on?\nAThat happened before I took over the office.\nQCan you say whether this had happened a long time before or a short time before?\nAI assume that it must have happened in the turbulent times after the occupation of that area by German troops, that is to say at the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940.\nQWitness, can you say for what reasons Lebensborn refused to pay for the goods which it had taken over?\nANo.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION \n BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)", "speakers": [ "DR. ORTH", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 891, "page_number": "887", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QI would like to ask one more very brief question which has resulted from the examination by my colleague. Witness, I asked you about the General Referent or the Plenipotentiary of the Reichsfuehrer SS with the Main Trustee Offices, and on that occasion you could not recall his name.\nHowever, in the course of your further examination suddenly the name Galke occured to you again. Can you still recall that the appointment of Galke, who was an SS Obersturnfuehrer at the time, was brought about a decree of Heinrich Himmler? He issued that decree as Reichsfuehrer SS and chief of the German police?\nAI believe that Galke originally was the representative of Himmler. Later on as the GVSS, he was subordinated to the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 892, "page_number": "888", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QThat is the same Galke who had to give consent to the purchases and sales which were mentioned here?\nAYes.\nQBefore that subordination which you have just mentioned, under the Main Staff Office, do you know whether he Was subordinated directly to Himmler at that time?\nAI believe so, yes.\nQAnd do you know when this subordination took place?\nAI am unable to tell you that.\nQYou talked previously with regard to the procurement of furniture in the Lodz Ghetto. I think you said you believed that an agreement was reached between Greifelt and Greiser even during the first discussion about this business. However, you were not present, and you did not see any file notes?\nAI was not present. * cannot recall ever having seen a file note about this discussion.\nQAs a lawyer you should know about Roman law, which starts from the superstition that a sale is only concluded when people are in agreement about the goods and the price involved. Do you think that the two persons were in agreement about the price of the goods and about the goods themselves?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Let's not have counsel and a lawyer-witness got into a discussion about the law. Talk to the Court about that. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDo you believe that in this discussion Greifelt and Greiser reached an agreement about the pirce and about the size of the transfer of goods concerned, or was it just pour parle a discussion between the chiefs?\nAThe object of the contract, as I was able to ascertain from the negotiations later on, was never exactly described because \n nobody knew just what values still existed in the ghetto.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 893, "page_number": "889", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "The price was negotiated upon in the course of conferences later on. From this it became evident that no agreement could be reached in Posen as to the price. Of course, a purchasing contract between two authorities must be judged differently than a purchasing contract between two private parties.\nQYou mean that the authorities can't complain about each other?\nAThe regulations which applied in each individual case with regard to the authorities were not specified so precisely as was done in the case of private persons.\nQOn this occasion, in conclusion, can you tell us just what your personal impression was of Greifelt, who had been your superior for many years? Was he a man who very carefully consulted lawyers before he took any action?\nAI only know Greifelt from my official contacts with him, and I did not have any personal relationship with him. Therefore, I can only give my judgment about him with regard to the official contact which I had with Greifelt. I did not consider Greifelt to be a fanatic. I thought he was a confirned National Socialist. He was unusually zealous in official matters, and he tried to do things in as precise a manner as possible in accordance with existing regulations, which regulations were issued by Himmler. He did not want, in any respect, to voice any criticism about these regulations and orders. In official matters Greifelt had many moods.\nHe could no extremely kind and gracious; however, on the other hand, he could be exactly the contrary. I had the impression that he was trying to work in as factual a manner as possible.\nQAnd what was his opinion on the laws and orders? Did he ever listen to your advice?\nAGreifelt was an autocrat.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 894, "page_number": "890", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QHowever, there are independent rulers who have their ministers of justice.\nAThat is quite correct, but in this case the minister of justice, in the case of a dictator, in general, has not very much to say.\nQAnd you took that silently?\nAWe had to.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe this is a very personal discussion, which has very little to do with case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes; the most that has been said sounds like somebody introducing a man to make a speech. I don't think it would be very helpful to the Court.\nDR. HAENSEL:I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\n(No response)\nBy the Prosecution?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, there was so much discussion about the contract made between Greiser and the Main Staff Office, and particularly as to whether the purchase price was fixed or not. Do you know whether the determination of the purchase price made any difference at all in regard to the execution of the contract?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are getting very far in regard to the execution of the contract?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are getting very far in the field of conclusions there, it seems to me. Let's go ahead with the rebuttal examination, pure and simple. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWas the payment of the purchase price a budgetary matter merely?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 895, "page_number": "891", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "AYes, it was a budgetary matter.\nQRegardless of whether payment was made or not, wasn't it money , money of the German Reich?\nAWell, in this case that was not entirely so, because the purchase price was to be paid to the self-administration of the Gau, the District, and this was a Party agency and it was not an agency of the Reich.\nQYou say that the Gauselbstverwaltung was an affair of the Party? You mean of the Nazi Party?\nAYes.\nQWasn't the Gauselbstverwaltung the provincial administration?\nANo, the provincial administration was the Reichsstatthalter in the War the District or in the Warthegau.\nHowever, the Gauselbst verwaltung, on the other hand, was an agency of the Gauleiter.\nHe was in personal union, Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter, he held both offices.\nQIs it correct that the professional qualifications of the resettlers for the purpose of obtaining property from HTO, with the consent of the Main Staff Office, were adjudged by DUT?\nTHE PRESIDENT:We have been into that.\nTHE WITNESS:No.\nMR. SCHWENK:Never mind, all right. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWhen the ghetto action of 1944 was concerned, did you and some of the other people concerned with it have the feeling that it would be better to keep hands off this action?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think this witness's feeling would help this Court any.\nLet's get down to a strictly rebuttal examination, not over this same territory again.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 896, "page_number": "892", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQYou were asked, in the cross-examination about the Ostland and Reichsland. Did the supervision of the trustee by Ostland and Reichsland have anything to do with the seizure and confiscation carried out by the Local Land Office under the direction of the Central Land Office?\nAI don't know that.\nQWas the seizure and Confiscation of agricultural property under the jurisdiction of the Central Land Office -\nTHE PRESIDENT:He answered that question, and in addition he said he didn't have anything to do with it, so let's not hear any more about it. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQThere was quite some discussion about Galke. Do you know whether Galke was dismissed by the defendant Greifelt?\nAI don't believe that the defendant Greifelt could dismiss Galke. However, I heard that he played a part in Galke's dismissal.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 897, "page_number": "893", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QWhen Galke was appointed as Referee General, \"General referent\", after he was a liaison officer for some time, did he become a member of the Main Staff Office?\nAI assume so.\nQHe became a member of the Main Staff Office and he was dismissed? Would you then say that he was dismissed by the defendant Greifelt?\nAYes; in the formal sense I am able to answer that question in the affirmative. However, the situation was such that such that in any case a man like Galke, who had relations with Himmler, could not simply be dismissed like an employee of the Staff Main Office, like a man, for example, who did not have any name at all.\nQAs long as Galke was Referee General and had to consent to the purchase of property, did he consent in his capacity as member of the Main Staff Office?\nAThat escapes my knowledge, and I can't tell you that because at that time I was not yet with the Main Staff Office. When I came, I believe Galke had already left.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, you need not do any further explaining if you don't know; that is sufficient. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWe will discuss now the property taken by Lebensborn. Do you remember the date when you sent the bills to Lebensborn?\nANo, I don't recall that. However, it must have been early in 1941.\nQWas there any further correspondence?\nAYes, yes. On various occasions corespondence went back and forth; in this case the Main Trustee Office East repeatedly asked for payment to be made, and the Lebensborn consistently refused to carry out the payment.\nMR. SCHWENK:My last question.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 898, "page_number": "894", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:All right. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQYou said that the Army had seized and confiscated property prior to the time when HTO into operation. Is it correct that when HTO came-- Pardon me, I would like to rephrase my question.\nIs it correct that even that property seized and confiscated by the Army was taken over by HTO handled in the manner in which you described it?\nAYes.\nMR. SCHWENK:Thank you; that is all.\nRECROSS*EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, may I caution counsel? This is about the third re-cross, or something, so hold it down.\nDR. HAENSEL:The witness has made a mistake here, and I am trying to correct it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, when you spoke about the Gauselbstverwaltung you mentioned the Party. Will you please recall whether this could possibly be correct? Wasn't the Gauselbstverwaltung the same thing as the provincial administration, that is, the communal administration, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Party?\nAThat is possible, if you put it to me in such a definite manner. Up until now I held a different opinion. However, I may be mistaken in this case because I did not occupy myself very closely with the Party agencies.\nQBut my dear man, if you didn't know that, how did you ever pass your examination as a lawyer?\nAWell, I took my examination prior to 1933.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 899, "page_number": "895", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "It is possible, however. I don't know that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think this discussion is enlightening to the Tribunal at all about the issue at trial. Let's get on with the facts.\nAny further questions by the defense?\n(No response)\nLet the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nDR.SCHWARZ: (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann):\nMay it please the Tribunal, I would like to make a correction which is made necessary by the presentation of documents by the Prosecution. I would like to make that correction at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am sorry, I didn't get it. State your question again, I didn't got it.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to make a correction with regard to the presentation of documents by the Prosecution. I believe it is necessary for me to do so in order to avoid a mistake.\nThe Prosecution, in document book D, has presented the following documents and named them wrongly. There were documents numbered-\nMR. LAMB:Excuse me. Your Honor, I wanted to find out which document book it was. It is 5-D; he just said \"D\".\nDR. SCHWARZ:I beg your pardon. I meant to say 5-D.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let me ask you a question. Is it your contention that the exhibit numbers are wrong? Is that what is the matter?\nDR. SCHWARZ:The exhibit numbers are correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What is the trouble?\nDR. SCHWARZ:The documents have been given wrong number.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, suppose you see if you can't get together about that. That is a mechanical matter; that makes no material difference.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 900, "page_number": "896", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:I would have liked to have the corrections in the transcript.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, see if you can't got together with counsel about it, and if you can't, why then we will work it out.\nProceed for the Prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution now calls the witness Ferdinand Gerbel.\nFERDINANDGERBEL, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQWill the witness please state his name?\nAMy name is Gerbel, Ferdinand.\nQWhat is your age?\nAFifty-two years of age.\nQWhere do you reside?\nAI live at Tuerkheim, on the Weltach, in Schwaben.\nQWhat is your nationality?\nAI an German.\nQWhat schooling have you had?\nAI went to public school for four years; then subsequently I went to the Humanistic High School of Learning for nine years at Ansbach and Wuerzburg. In July of 1914, when I passed my examination, I graduated. I wanted to become a lawyer like my father. However, as a result of the first World War, which broke out soon afterwards, I was prevented from continuing with my studies.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "FERDINAND", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 901, "page_number": "897", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QDid you serve in the German Army from 1914 until 1918?\nAYes. As I have just stated, immediately after graduating I became a soldier, and then I served as a soldier in the German Army and became an officer later on, during the first World War, until December 1920.\nQAfter the World War I, or after December 1920, what was your occupation?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 902, "page_number": "898", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.In 1920, by virtue of the decrees concerning the reduce of the strength of the Army, in accordance with the Versailles Peace Treaty, I was discharged from the Army. Several months after, I was discharged from the Army -- it was in the Spring of 1921. I then went to Wuerzburg and I entered the newly created Bavarian State Police as a Lieutenant in the Police.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Hildebrandt in this case?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you see the defendant Hildebrandt in this courtroom?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Will you please point him out to the Court?\nA.Yes.\n(The defendant Hildebrandt stands.)\nThat is he. He is the sixth defendant from the end.\nQ.From which end?\nA.When I look at him, he is the sixth defendant from the right.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the record will indicate that the defendant was identified.\nMR. LAMB:All right, sir. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Did you ever serve under the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, I did.\nQ.At that time, what position did the defendant Hildebrandt hold?\nA.The defendant Hildebrandt at the time held the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader, Schwarzes Meer -- Black Sea.\nQ.When and where was this service under Hildebrandt?\nA.I was subordinated to Hildebrandt from the beginning of the time when he took over that position, and as far as I am able to recall it, this was either in December '43 or January 1944.\nQ.And where was that?\nA.He had his headquarters at Nikelajov, in the Ukraine.\nQ.That was a part of Russia that was occupied by the Germans at \n that time?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 903, "page_number": "899", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Yes, it was a part of his area, and at the time three general districts belonged to his jurisdiction: that was the peninsula of Krim, the Crimea, and also Thauria; then the general district of Dnepropetrosk, as far as this had not already been reoccupied by the Russians at the time when the defendant took over his duties; and thirdly, the general district of Nikelajev.\nQ.What rank did you hold at this time?\nA.At this time I was a Major in the Field Police.\nQ.What are the normal duties of the Order Police or the Field Police?\nA.Are you referring to the task which existed at that particular period of time in the occupied territory, or are you referring generally to the field police in peace time?\nQ.I am referring to their duties in peace time.\nA.In peace time, the field police had to carry out the duty of the regular police in rural districts, and also had to take care of the security duties there.\nQ.What additional duties were given to these peace officers or policemen under Hildebrandt?\nA.Under Hildebrandt, at the time when I began duties at Dnepropetrovsk, the situation prevailed that large components of the regular police had been released from their previous assignments because the field of work up to that time, in these particular areas, had been reoccupied in the meantime by the Russians. For these parts of the regular police, their previous tasks in the areas under civil administration had become completely superfluous. For that reason, the Higher Police agencies, that is to say, the SS and Police Leaders, and the Higher SS and Police Leaders, ordered that these police units who did not have any assignment any more now should be given a new field of work.\nQ.Witness, the Higher SS and Police Leaders were looking for new assignments for these police units not at home but in the occupied territories?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 904, "page_number": "900", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Now these police units received the additional tasks, first of all, in my area at this particular time, in the general district of Dnepropetrovsk, which had not been reoccupied so far by the Russians. Here the Higher SS and Police Leader of Dnepropetrovsk reassigned these police units which did not have any other assignment at the time. They were given an assignment with the First Armored Army which was operating in that area in order to carry out the compulsory deportations.\nQ.Now, witness, when you speak of compulsory deportations, I would like for you to explain to the Tribunal just what the military situation was with reference to the Russian counter offensive which was going on.\nA.The military situation -\nDR.FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt): Your Honor, up to now, I didn't know just why the witness had been called upon to appear here. The witness is now being asked by the Prosecution about happenings which have allegedly happened in southern Russian where Hildebrandt was located and active as a Higher SS and Police Leader. However, the activity of Hildebrandt as a Higher SS and Police Leader is not the subject of the charges in the Indictment against the defendant Hildebrandt. I, therefore, object to the continuation of the examination of this witness, and I request that a ruling be made as to my objection.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If the facts testified to by this witness have no application to the charge as contained in the indictment against the defendant Hildebrandt, you may be assured that the Tribunal will not consider them in passing on his guilt or innocence. Go ahead.\nTHE WITNESS:The military situation was the following: in the general district of Dnepropetrovsk at the time I assumed my duties there that was towards the end of September -- at the time I was transferred from the Crimea to the general district of Dnepropetrovsk. When I arrived at Dnepropetrovsk, the so-called evacuation movement was in full swing at the Dneper River. Actually, it had already been concluded, because when I came to Dnepropetrovsk, the Russians had already arrived an the \n other side of the Dnepr River.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 905, "page_number": "901", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "When the Rissian armed forces saw the situation on the Dnepr River -- first of all, our retreat was halted for sometime.\nQ.Witness, when you speak of deporations in front of the advance of the Russian armies, please tell the Tribunal who was being deported and to where were they being deported?\nA.First of all, in the primary combat area, all men and women were deported who in any way could be considered as being able to work or being able to bear weapons. The order went to the effect that on the one hand, no person capable of carrying arms and no person capable of performing work should fall alive into Russian hands, in any case, so that he would mean an increase in the strength of the Russian manpower in the Russian armed Forces or as a Russian worker.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 906, "page_number": "902", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. LAMB:Before I continue with my examination of the witness I would like to request that he try to make his responses to my questions a little more concise so we can get along with this. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.During the time of this Russian counter-offensive Which you mentioned and during the time of the deportation and evacuation of the men, women and children that you mentioned, were you in Russian territory that had been occupied by the Germans? Were these people that were being evacuated and deported Russian civilians?\nA.I didn't understand the first part of your question clearly enough, Mr. Prosecutor. Would you repeat it, please?\nQ.I will ask you this: Were there people who were being deported and evacuated from this territory which you mentioned? Were these people Russian civilians?\nA.Yes, indeed.\nQ.Was force used to evacuate and deport these people?\nA.Under emergencies, yes.\nQ.What was the purpose in evacuating these civilian men, women and children?\nA.As I stated before, as far as the men were concerned who were first evacuated, it was done in order not to let them fall into Russian hands so that they couldn't be used by the Russians either as soldiers or as laborers; and the second purpose was to be able to use these people for a labor assignment in Germany.\nQ.Were any of these people to be used in the German army?\nA.I don't know that.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 907, "page_number": "903", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Did any of these -\nA. (Interposing) I have to correct myself. A few indigenous members of the police volunteered for evacuation to Roumania and part of these people were also taken to Germany because there was another task for them. Another part of them again stayed behond in Roumania for further assignment and from these indigenous forces an additional part was transferred to a Waffen-SS division. That was in Roumania.\nQ.Did any of these Russian civilians attempt to escape the evacuation and deportation which the Germans were enforcing upon them?\nA.Yes, of course.\nQ.What happened, to these people?\nA.These people in part, in order not to be captured, had fled from the villages into cities and town and there they had to be found. The people, of course, even then tried to do as much as possible in order to prevent being transported away and, according to the general instructions concerning the execution of this forced evacuation or deportation, the units had to proceed ruthlessly which meant that under circumstances they also used force.\nQ.What was the term \"Slave hunting\" used generally with regard to these people?\nA.Would you repeat that, please? I didn't understand the first few words.\nQ.Was the term \"slave hunting\" used with regard to the method of finding these people who tried to escape the Germans?\nA.Yes, that is correct. That term was generally used amongst the units which were used for that task and the Wehrmacht also used that term. The Wehrmacht knew about this task.\nQ.Were these things that you have described with \n reference to the evacuation and deportation of these civilians done under the orders of the defendant Hildebrandt?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 908, "page_number": "904", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Not at the beginning because these forced evacuations had already begun under the orders of the predecessor of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt. That was SS Gruppenfuehrer von Alvensleben then the SS and police leader in Dnepropetrovsk and an SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Police, Schaefer. That, therefore, took place approsimately in September, 1943.\nQ.Well, did these practices continue and were they forced evacuations and deportations in the manner that you have described after the defendant Hildebrandt took charge of the area?\nA.Yes, indeed.\nQ.Did you ever attend any conferences with the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, I did.\nQ.About how many?\nA.I can remember having participated in two conferences. That was in Nikolajev.\nQ.Did you ever participate in any conferences at any other place with the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes. Later on there was a conference in Odessa and also in Roumania there were several conferences.\nQ.At any of these conferences did you call the attention of the defendant Hildebrandt to the methods which were being used in the forced evacuation and deportation of these Russian civilians?\nA.Yes. I did that in the course of the conference which took place approximately towards the end of February, 1944, in Nikolajev.\nQ.Did you call his attention to the fact -\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 909, "page_number": "905", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q. -- that people among these civilians who tried to escape the evacuation were sometimes shot?\nA.Yes. At the time, I had to report to him personally on the retreat from Krivoi Rog, that is the area where I had been stationed, and it was oh that occasion that I spoke about those bad conditions which developed in the course of these forced evacuations by our units.\nQ.Did you protect against the methods that were being used?\nA.Yes; not only myself.\nQ.What was Hildebrandt's answer?\nA.During that conference his adjutant at the time I believe he also had the position of the chief of staff or something - he was a jajor of the Schutzpolizei - they were also present and that major of the Schutzpolizei knew me from my time in the Crimea when I was subordinated to Alwensleben and when I told him about my misgivings he said something like this: \"Well, we know Gerbel from the Crimea. He is very soft.\" And Hildebrandt somehow agreed to that remark, namely, that I was too soft and that it would be much better to proceed ruthlessly and severely rather than to proceed in a soft manner. On that occasion he pointed out that it was the purpose of the whole thing not to let any of our people fall into Russian hands.\nQ.Did he also say that it was the purpose not to let the Russian civilians fall into the Russian hands?\nA.Yes; that was mentioned repeatedly.\nQ.During Hildebrandt's term in this area were there any orders in force with reference to the treatment of Russian women who had had sexual intercourse with German soldiers or police and who, as a result, had become pregnant?\nA.There was a basic order which, however, did not originate with the defendant Hildebrandt but was dated as \n far back as the occupation of Poland.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 910, "page_number": "906", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "That order strictly forbids all members of the uniformed police to have sexual intercourse with indigenous women. Later on I found out, not through an order but by some incidents which occurred, that there were instructions issued by higher authorities of the police, by the highest authorities, that is the Higher SS and Police Leader, saying that members of the police who, in spite of that provision concerning sexual intercourse, with indigenous women, would indulge in such sexual intercourse and if there should be any results from this sexual intercourse these people were to report that. I do not know any written orders to that.\nHowever, I do remember two cases where I was told by my superiors - in one case it was SS Gruppenfuehrer von Alvensleben and in the other case I was told that by one of the officers of the Staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader Hildebrandt, namely, that the people were to make up reports concerning results arising from sexual intercourse with indigenous women so that an examination could take place with reference to the evaluation as to how racially valuable these people were and to see whether the child could be accepted or not.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 911, "page_number": "907", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "In one of these cases I was told that it should not be held against someone if sexual intercourse was indulged in with one of these indigenous women by one of the police members but that he would have to expect severe punishment if the results of such a sexual intercourse would not be reported to the proper authorities for the reasons I just mentioned.\nQIf these women and their expected offspring were not considered racially valuable was it required that an abortion be performed?\nAYes. That is what I found out, not from any orders which existed, at least not in my time - I never did see any orders - but much rather from the conversations which I was present at concerning these two cases, conversations which took place with the Higher SS and Police Leaders. In one case it was SS Gruppenfuehrer von Alvensleben.\nQThis practice with reference to abortion was in force during the time that the defendant Hildebrandt was in charge there. Is that true?\nAAre you asking me whether abortions took place?\nQI am asking you whether the rules with reference to the abortions which you have described, were in force then.\nAThat I couldn't tell you because I only know of two cases. One of them took place before the defendant Hildebrandt started his term in the Crimea and I do not know what the result was of that case because in the meantime I was transferred to the general area of Dnepropetrovsk. In the second case, which took place during the time which Hildebrandt was in his term, the following thing happened: I was ordered by the Staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader Hildebrandt to find out who the woman was in question. A letter had been found by the Wehrmacht Police, the Military Police, from which it could be seen that one of the members of my unit had had sexual intercourse with the woman who was indigenous and it could also be seen from that letter that there were to be results from that sexual intercourse. I had the order to try and find out who the woman was because it could be assumed from the letter that that woman was one of the women \n employed by one of our units and was either an interpreter or was working in the kitchen or somewhere.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 912, "page_number": "908", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "There were quite a few women employed there and she might have returned to Rumania with one of our units.\nI carried out the investigations according to the order, but without any results. So that in this particular case no abortion was enforced. At least I know nothing shout it. Not only I but other unit leaders had also been ordered to find that woman. Whether they found her, I don't know. In any case, I was told on that occasion - I asked them why there was so much trouble about it -- one of the officers of the staff told me that that woman had to be found so that the necessary measures could be taken against that woman, as I stated them before.\nQDid he say that Hildebrandt wanted to find the woman so that an abortion could be made?\nAWhat?\nQDid the staff officer tell you that Hildebrandt wanted this woman found so that an abortion could be performed?\nAYes. That is what I was told because I left the matter in my drawer for quite a long time and was ordered to come to report to the office and they asked me why I hand't done it and that's on the occasion of that that I told them -\nQWere you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nANo, I wasn't.\nQWere you ever a member of the SS?\nANo.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution has no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions from the Defense?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 913, "page_number": "909", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QWitness, you were police major?\nAYes.\nQAt that time?\nAYes.\nQDo you know Hildebrandt's position when, around the end of the year 1943 and early in 1944, he was transferred to the Crimea or Southern Russia, in other words?\nANo, no.\nQDo you know whether Hildebrandt at the time, as deputy Higher SS and Police Leader, had been transferred to an army group, Heeresgruppe, in Germany?\nAYes, that was probably the position as Higher SS and Police Leader in the Black Sea area. That is the address which he had given me and that is where all the Higher SS and Police Leaders were the liaison men to the army groups; and they also had their field office there exactly where the army unit was.\nQWhich army unit was that that was operating in Southern Russia at that time?\nAAccording to my recollection it was Heeresgruppe A or Army Group A. However, I could not tell you that for certain.\nQWho was the commanding general of this Army Group A?\nAI can't think of the name at the present moment.\nQBut you should know that, witness.\nAWell, I just can't think of it. It is a rather surprising question you are asking me, Mr. Counsel. That was the first Tank Army and at the time it was General Field Marshal von Mackensen. Then there was a Sixth Army. It was General Field Marshal Kleist, I believe, who was in charge of the Army Group. I just can't think of the name at the present moment.\nQThe man in charge of Heeresgruppe A was General Field Marshal von Kleist?\nAOf the Heeresgruppe A.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 914, "page_number": "910", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Yes. And do you know that Hildebrandt was transferred to that Army Group as deputy, higher SS and police leader?\nA.According to my knowledge he was not transferred there as deputy, but we all thought that he was SS and police leader of the Black Sea area.\nQ.In your position as major in the police, did you have an opportunity to gain any insight into the conditions and relationships of the higher SS and police leaders in that area.\nA.As far as issuing of orders was concerned, with reference also to the subordination of the uniform-police.\nQ.I did not ask you about that, witness, but what I asked you was whether you could gain any insight into the position of a higher SS and police leader Who had commanded or was commanding an army group? Just answer my question with yes or no.\nA.No, I didn't gain an insight into the details.\nQ.Therefore you as just a small police major saw the conditions as they were from the outside; is that correct, witness?\nA.Well, it is not quite correct. After all I was subordinated directly to the higher SS and police leader and therefore I was nevertheless quite close to the staff as far as subordination was concerned. But again with reference to the structure of these staffs and where they received their orders from, whether they received their orders from the Wohrmacht or from the higher SS and police chief; or directly from Berlin, I really don't know too much about that.\nQ.You stated before that Hildebrandt at the end of Decrmber 1943 or early 1944 began his position there. Is it correct that around that period of time, the Krimea, the peninsula of Krimea had already been cut off from the communications with the remaining fronts.\nA.I don't remember exactly the date, but it could be correct. I mean with reference to the perios of time which you stated.\nQ.Is it correct that due to the fact that the Drimea had been \n sepearted from the remaining fronts that there was in that area what is known as an operational area and therefore a fighting area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 915, "page_number": "911", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.The Krimea was never under civil administration; it was always an operational territory. In other words during the period of time which I mentioned, it was more so than before, but even prior to that, ever since 1942, it was not a civil administration territory.\nQ.Since the occupation of the Krimea and the advance of the German armies as far as the Volga River, did the conditions change or at least quiet down in the meantime in the Krimea?\nA.From the period of time after the occupation of the Krimea until the German troops reached the Volga, generally yes. There were only partisans fighting in the Jaila Mountains, near the coast, otherwise it was rather peaceful.\nQ.And didn't the Krimea become a part of the operational area again when the German armies had in part been destroyed at the Volga and in part were retreating or had been forced to retreat?\nA.Well, you mean operational area or fighting area. The Krimea at all times was an operational area. It became a fighting area again.\nQ.Isit correct that in the southern part of the Ukrain even prior to the end of 1943 in the vicinity of the Dniepr area there were continued fights, with changing military advantages and positions.\nA.Yes, that is correct. There was only a small lull in the battle after the Russians reached that point, and then in 1943 the fights were still going on in the Dniepr area itself, Krivoi Rog, and so on.\nQ.Is it therefore correct that around that period of time it could not longer be prevented, that Russian units, gained certain advantages and important positions.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.The superiority of the Russians as seen from a numerical point of view, wasn't it very large compared with the German troops?\nA.I can't judge that, The superiority in any case was rather \n large with reference to the assignment of panzer units.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 916, "page_number": "912", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.As a result of this, did one have to suspect that the Russians would be able to break into the German front.\nA.At least we counted with that.\nQ.Is it correct that due to those current military set-backs, large parts of the Ukrainians there endeavored to escape the advancing Russian armies?\nA.That is also correct. The part of the population concerned were those who did not want to fall into Russian hands because they had worked with the Germans, and then again in particular with reference to our police units, as far as the personnel was concerned, it consisted of indigenous volunteers from the areas, Tatars and so on, and they also tried to flee from the Russian advance and some along with us and they would bring right along with us their own families so that their families and they wouldn't fall into Russian hands.\nQ.Witness, you would help the interrogation if you would answer my questions briefly with yes or no, because all the things which you just mentioned now, I will have to come back to that in order to give the Tribunal a very clear picture of the conditions there. Is it correct, therefore, that Russian men, who could bear arms and who --- like nowadays people in Germany working for the Americans--- far collaborated with the Germans were afraid to fall into the hands of the Russians, and they were afraid that if they fell back into their hands they would be killed.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Do you know that the higher command of the armies gave orders to direct the traffic of the retreating German forces and the civilians?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it correct that for that purpose Russian civilians who were traveling back and the retreating Germans were assigned special roads?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 917, "page_number": "913", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Which organization wasit that was subordinated to the defendant Hildebrant in his capacity as higher SS and police leader? I asked you, witness, which army, which organization was it that was subordinated to the defendant Hildebrandt at the time in his capacity as higher SS and police leader?\nA.He was in charge, first of all, of the entire forces of the uniform police, and in other words the gendarmery, schutzpolizei; of course we have to include these indigenous police forces, so called schuma battalions and on the other hand he was also in charge of the SS units or agencies as can be seen from his position, and he was in charge of those two general areas.\nQ.Now this order police, did it have to enforce the army group orders concerning the evacuation of these streets that people could use?\nA.Yes. A very few commandos, or hardly any were used; some were utilized I know that; I know that some units of police of the defendant Hildebrant were used for that.\nQ.Do you know that from the administrative point of view and as far as the billeting of the civilian population was concerned, in billets, in camps and so on, the civilian administration from the Eastern Ministry were interpolated in their task?\nA.Yes, indeed. I know that basically speaking this decree had been issued by the highest authority; that is, from the Eastern Ministry; also from the labor ministry and all other agencies which were dependent for any labor allocation in the Reich, and they were issued to the agencies of the Wehrmacht and the police, and they went to the East Ministry as far as I know.\nQ.Do you know in particular, witness, that in Nickolajev there was a Generalkommissar, from the Eastern Ministry?\nA.Yes, I know that.\nQ.This general commissar, was he in charge from an administrative point of view of the entire areas of the southern Ukrain?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 918, "page_number": "914", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Not in charge of the entire Ukraine but the southern Ukraine consisted of several general areas, and their chiefs at all times were in each particular case one general commissioner, commissar. In the Krimea we had Nicolajev; there were three general commissioners, Nicolajev was one of those general commissars.\nQ.Is it correct that the general commissar received his orders from the East Ministry?\nA.That is correct. He received his orders from the Eastern Ministry; that washis superior agency.\nQ.Now, let's come to the second task of the uniform police. Is it correct that it was an additional task of the plice to help the large evacuation, of large military deposts which were in danger of falling into Russian hands?\nA.I know that, even though in my sector we did not use them because no forces were available for that task, but I do know that some other places certain forces were used for that purpose.\nQ.When wasit that you personally, witness, arrived in that particular area which we are talking about?\nA.I was transferred to Krimea, according to my recollection, in the month of September, 1942, and in the month of September, 1943 I was transferred from the Krimea to General Bezirk. Duepropetroske.\nQ.Ever since that time that entire area was subordinated to General Bezirk:\nA.No.\nQ.Was it?\nA.No. The German civilian administration, as I have stated before, was not in charge of the Krimea.\nQ.I am talking about the general administration, regardless of whether it was civilian administration of military administration.\nA.Yes, then it was subordinated to the German administration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 919, "page_number": "915", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "Q.Is it correct, therefore, that several members of the population there in the course of time voluntarily joined the German order police units as voluntary workers; is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 920, "page_number": "916", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QThese people who worked voluntarily were also married, in part, weren't they?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQIs it correct , witness, that furthermore, in the course of this general retreat, these voluntary police helpers not only tried to escape themselves, but they also tried to take along their families in order not to permit them to fall into the hands of the Russians?\nAYes, that is correct, too.\nQTherefore I can state that in the course of this retreat not only the German troops but also these Schutzmannschaften, or police forces, were included in the retreat along with their families?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct, then, that at the beginning, at least, everyone who lived down in that area could do whatever he wished to do and could make his own choice? That is, he could either stay in that area or he could follow the German troops? Then, in the course of further retreat operations, they were trying to locate and use these people who, as you stated before, could be useful to the Russians as human material because they could bear arms and could work!\nANo, that is not quite correct. As early as 1942, during the time when I was in the Crimea, recruiting was carried out amongst the indigenous population for voluntary assignment to the Reich.\nQWitness, I am not interested in that. That would lead too far. All I asked you was whether, in 1943 or 1944, around that period of time, these people in those areas had been left to do whatever they wanted to do, choose to stay or follow the German troops; and whether it was also attempted to take these people so that they couldn't fall into the hands of the Russians.\nAI would like to repeat your question, Mr. Counsel. You mean the people of the voluntary units?\nQNo, I am talking about the entire civilian population.\nANo, that was not left up to the people, as far as they were \n people who could bear arms or work, and this did not only apply to men, but women as well.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 921, "page_number": "917", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "That is what I just said.\nQNow, is it correct that in the month of January 1944, at an increasing number daily, the entire front line was in movement and one could not speak of secure military operations in the area of Army Group A at any time? Is that correct?\nAThat is correct. In the month of January 1944 a new phase of retreat began in that sector where I was.\nQIs it correct, furthermore, that in the month of February 1944 the Russians succeeded, after carrying out partial offensives, in breaking through the line?\nAYes, that is also correct. That was in the particular area where I was; that was Kirvoi Rog.\nQIs it correct that as a result of these partial offensives or break-throughs the Army group also saw themselves forced to transfer their headquarters from one area to another?\nAYes, that is correct. First it was Odessa and then it was Tiraspol.\nQDo you know, witness, that in the course of these retreat operations, discussed in detail here, the defendant Hildebrandt had received the order from Army Group A to evacuate, and that, up to the last man, he was to use these order police and also those volunteer battalions in order to be able to guide the retreat operations well?\nAI know, from conferences which took place, that those units of the uniform police who were not dealing with the forced evacuation were used for the task which you just referred to, Mr. Counsel.\nQIs it furthermore correct, witness, that in April of 1944 the large-scale attack began on the part of the Russians against the Crimea, and that the last portions of the police, as far as they were at the disposal by order of the Army Group, were then involved in the struggle for the fortress Sevastopol?\nAYes, that is correct. Even I had to transfer forces to that area.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 922, "page_number": "918", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QIs it furthermore correct, witness, that during the first quarter of 1944 an additional great retreat took place, and that was the retreat of the Transistrian Germans, the so-called Black Sea Germans, under the supervision of the VOMI, or Brigade Leader Hofmeyer, respectively?\nAI know about that, but I do not know the details. When I arrived in that area all the villages had already been cleared by the VOMI, and I am referring to the ethnic Germans.\nQSome time ago you spoke about the registration of the male civilians who could bear arms and who could work in Southern Russia. During what time was it that this registration took place, or should I say their making them prisoners?\nAYou mean those who could work and fight?\nQYes.\nAWell, if you are asking me about the date, then I have to differentiate here between people who could work and people who could bear arms, because the registration of those who could work took place as of the beginning of 1942, when I was in the Crimea; whereas the registration of the people who could bear arms only started, according to my knowledge, of course, in September of 1943. That was the Dnieper area.\nQThat was at a time, therefore, when the defendant Hildebrandt was not even in that area?\nAYes, that is correct, he was not yet there. That was in September 1943.\nQI can therefore state that as far as the deportation of people who could work was concerned, it took place in 1942, at a time when Hildebrandt was still in Western Prussia; and the registration of the people who could bear arms took place in September of 1943; at a time when Hildebrandt was not SS and Higher Police Leader in that area?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWitness, you furthermore touched upon the following very briefly-and I do not wish to go into detail. I am now talking about the retreat \n operations to Roumania, and also the setbacks of the German Army.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 923, "page_number": "919", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "As a result of this, the German troops, and also Hildebrandt with his uniform police, were marched back to Roumania.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQDo you know that in Roumania the Air Force, the Luftwaffe -commanded by Gerstenberger, if I am not mistaken--approached Hildebrandt with the request that the oil area be protected and repaired because it was being damaged daily by the heavy raids on the part of the allies?\nAYes, I know that. However, the units were not assigned to the Luftwaffe for the protection of the oil area, but some of those units were also assigned to construction tasks on the Roumanian air fields and air strips.\nQFinally, is it correct, witness, that in the struggle which took place there during that time, parts of the order police or uniform police were also used as infantrymen?\nADo you mean the Roumania sector or Russia?\nQI mean Roumania.\nANot in Roumania, no, because in Roumania, on the 22nd of August 1944, I believe it was, the government was overthrown and this resulted in the immediate of almost all our units in that same evening, or the following, and the day after that. Thus it meant nothing else but the total loss of all our forces in Roumania.\nIn Russia, however, the police, of course, was used in the struggle, and in particular in these evacuations because these forces, even up to the end, had to carry out evacuations from the fighting areas. It was only then, later on, that they were also used to go with the Wehrmacht for fighting purposes.\nQNow, with reference to Southern Russia, was the Security Police also represented there?\nAAs far as I was informed, the Security Police was represented by the agencies of the SD, the Security Service. They called themselves field agencies of the SD and also the members of the Security Police of \n the SD in both cases, of the Higher SS and Police Leader.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 924, "page_number": "920", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "QApart from the members of these Schutzmannschaften, these protective groups, were there any additional groups of the Russian population who were fleeing that area in 1943 or 1944?\nAYou were asking me whether they were fleeing?\nQYes.\nANo, I don't know anything about that. You are probably speaking about groups of the population who did not consist of volunteers of these uniform police. You mean to say you want me to tell you whether they voluntarily fled?\nQYou don't know anything about it?\nANo, I don't.\nQHowever, you will agree with me that around that period of time there was terrific havoc out on that front in Southern Russia?\nAYes. That was due to the fact that the retreat was carried out in such a rapid manner that considerable havoc was caused.\nQIs it correct, furthermore, that all these measures took place under purely military points of view?\nAAs far as I know, yes, because my units were also subordinated to the Army and to the Army units from an operational point of view. They were absolutely out of my jurisdiction. I had no authority whatsoever.\nQWas it a fact that the civilian parts of the population were sort of roaming about and also had to be fed by the German Army?\nAYes. Well, we fed thos parts which consisted of members of the voluntary Schumas. We had to feed them also.\nQDo you know that Hildebrandt tried his best to take care of these returning civilian population groups regardless of whether they were civilians or military personnel?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 925, "page_number": "921", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.I would like to answer that question in the affirmative. I remember that he personally permitted, in the course of a conference, that we, from our own food supplies and stocks, feed the members who were retreating along with us.\nQ.You mentioned an order before, which originated during the time when Poland was still occupied; according to which order, all the people who could bear arms, in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy, had to be arrested and taken back. Are you referring to that order?\nA.No, you misunderstood me, I was speaking about an order which had been issued at the time when we marched to Poland and which did not refer to the seizure of labor forces but to the sexual intercourse between these indigenous people and the police units.\nQ.I shall come back to that, but maybe I was wrong; you also stated that all people who could bear arms and who were caught while the German Army was retreating had been arrested?\nA.No, I do not know about that.\nQ.Then I would like to ask you a direct question, witness. Do you know an order by Keitel, dated 1942, which ordered this measure?\nA.No, I don't know of any such orders, and I couldn't gain any insight into them.\nQ.Of course, I shall now come back to the area which you touched upon.\nA.May I correct your last question? In 1941, I was in Posen for a short while - that was in the government area Posen and I found out from conversations and conferences that in those occupied areas as well, labor forces were transferred to the Reich.\nQ.Now a question which will touch upon this. Is it correct that all armies, when advancing in enemy territory, evacuate certain areas in the field of advance for security and military reasons? Do you know anything about that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 926, "page_number": "922", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.You mean when advancing?\nQ.Yes.\nA.I don't know anything about it.\nMR. IAMB:I object to what \"all armies do\". He couldn't possibly know what all armies do.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. I think it would be more helpful to confine it to what is now under investigation. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, if I understood you correctly, then you only heard of two cases where German members of the police had had sexual intercourse with Russian women?\nA.Yes. I knew, of course, that these things occurred quite often, but only these two cases can be considered insofar as they were the trigger which released the measures taken by my superior agencies, for the reasons which I mentioned before.\nQ.And did I understand you correctly, witness, that the first of such cases occurred during the time during which Hildebrandt was not in southern Russia as yet, but it was Herr von Alvensleben who was there?\nA.Yes, that is correct. That was prior to that time of the Crimea.\nQ.And did I also understand you correctly, witness, to the effect that you cannot say whether the second case led to any abortion?\nA.That is also correct. I couldn't tell about the results of this matter because I couldn't find that woman; at least as far as I was concerned, I couldn't find that woman at that time.\nQ.May I ask you now, witness, when was it that this second case occurred, which you mentioned? What period of time did it fall within?\nA.The second case occurred in Rumania, and that is where I \n dealt with that matter.", "speakers": [ "MR. IAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 927, "page_number": "923", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "This case happened a long time ago. The subject matter then was that the man had had sexual intercourse either in Odessa or somewhere else, but in Rumania - by a letter that was caught......\nTHE PRESIDENT:He didn't ask for all those details. He just asked you when it was and where it was.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, your Honor. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Do you agree with me, witness that the execution of an order, according to which sexual intercourse which was apt to take place between soldiers and the indigenous population was to be prevented by all means is just?\nMR. LAMB:I object, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I sustain the objection. His opinion about it wouldn't help the Tribunal any. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, after you have been giving me such negative answers in the course of this examination, let me ask you a positive question. Is it correct that due to your non-membership in the SS, the SA, or the Party, you had considerable difficulty in your professional and military career?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Is it also correct that contrary to many others, you followed all these retreat operations right on the side of Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it correct, that Hildebrandt esteemed you very highly for that reason?\nA.Hildebrandt, in Nikolajev, when I had returned with my units from Krivoirog, thanked me for it.\nQ.And is it also correct that Hildebrandt, as the Higher SS and Police Leader, in spite of the fact that you were not a member of the SS, SA and NSDAP, saw to it that you were promoted, and you \n received the promotion which you were waiting for for years?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 928, "page_number": "924", "date": "31 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-31", "text": "A.Yes, that is correct. I have to admit that, and I know, from members of the staff that Hildebrandt was the first man who after many years tried to support me in Berlin in order to finally get through my promotion, and I really appreciated it highly.\nQ.No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty, Tuesday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 4 November 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 929, "page_number": "925", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tri bunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurmberg, Germany, on 4 November 1947, at 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in the courtroom?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Proceed.\nFERDINAND GREBEL - Resumed\nDR. DOETZER:Dr. Doetzer for Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz. Your Honor, may I put some questions to the witness in cross examination?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nCROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.Witness, the area of Transnistria belonged to the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader with the Army Group I Black Sea, didn't it?\nA.Originally it did not.\nQ.Thank you. That is sufficient. What time elapsed between the allocation of your units in Dnepropetrovsk and you personal arrival in the area Transnistrien?\nA.Dnepropetrovsk -- do you mean the city itself?\nQ.I mean the area, the district.\nA.The area of Dnepropetrovsk, we departed from \n that area in the last days of February and then early in March we were in Nikolajev for a short period of time and then in Transnistria we arrived approximately the middle of March, 1944.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 930, "page_number": "926", "date": "04 October 1947", "date_iso": "1947-10-04", "text": "That is, the period in between ranged from end of March -- rather, end of February to middle of March, 1944.\nQ.At the same time was there pressure on the part of the Red Soviet armies on that front?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you find the ethnic German villages in Transnistria, at the time you arrived there, evacuated by the ethnic German population?\nA.I arrived in an area of Transnistria where originally there had been only ethnic German settlements and these villages had already been completely evacuated.\nQ.Did you hear at that time as to the time at which these villages were evacuated?\nA.I did not know the exact period of time. This evacuation may possibly have taken place not long before that and I assumed this to be the case because my units and myself, after the compulsory evacuations had been concluded in the general area of Dnepropetrovsk, arrived in this Transnistria area, that is, the retreat road from Nikolajev to Tiraspol which was used for the retreat of troops, and we were supposed to repair it and I was assigned manpower to do the job, and was told that I was to use the ethnic German population, being told that these people being ethnic Germans would probably hold themselves available for the purpose.\nBut afterwards, what actually happened was that in these settlements we could not find any such ethnic German population which was supposed to help us in repairing the \n road and, therefore, I assume that this evacuation in question must have taken place just a short time before, due to the pressure on the part of the Russians.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 931, "page_number": "927", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Do you know the Commando which took care of the ethnic Germans there and led them back?\nA.It was VOMI.\nQ.And what was the Commando?\nA.I only knew it under the designation of VOMI. I otherwise had nothing whatsoever to do with these agencies, only occasionally.\nQ.That is sufficient; thank you. You do not have any view as to the manner in which the ethnic Germans were returned?\nA.It had to be assumed that this was done in proper order. That is the impression we had. These people were even permitted to take their cattle and their furniture along. We could ascertain that from the conditions as we found them, namely, looking at the apartments and at the houses.\nQ.Did you hear at that time whether this was a compulsory evacuation or was it voluntary?\nA.I don't know, but as far as I am informed and as far as I heard subsequently on the part of the ethnic Germans whom we met later on, what happened was that we had ethnic unit Germans actually as volunteers in our own unit and I, therefore, heard from these people that these ethnic Germans had left voluntarily.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? Or the Prosecution?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt. Your Honor, I have one additional question to my examination.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 932, "page_number": "928", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, do you remember that in connection with matters which were discussed on Friday there was mention of a report made at the time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.For the purpose of identifying your signature only, may I show you this document which isNO-5128and ask you to identify your signature (document handed to witness)?\nA.Yes, I know this report.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you, your Honor. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? Any by the Prosecution?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Mr. Gerbel, do you have any personal animosity against the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.I already had occasion, in cross examination by the Defense Counsel of the defendant Hildebrandt, to state that as far as I am concerned there is no question of any personal animosity against the defendant Hildebrandt. At this time I would like to state emphatically once more that on the contrary, Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt is really a person to whom I am particularly obliged for the fact that he was the first and only person of higher rank who was my superior and who was in the SS who, after I had persistently refused to join the NSDAP and the SS, had always for twelve years been humiliated and subjected to ignominious treatment and been excluded from promotions and had been economically harmed; but after all these incidents he was the only one who intervened in my behalf; and this intervention of his was not successful but it is not his fault because later on I heard that my promotion, which he had supported, \n had been made dependent in Berlin on my becomina a member of the NGDAP and also on a statement to be given by me, a responsible statement, as to my marriage being childless, which had been requested three or four times before from me, but as I refused to furnish such a statement my promotion was turned down, but it is not his fault.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 933, "page_number": "929", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he simply asked you if you had any animosity against this man. You can answer that yes or no. It is not necessary to go into all the details.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 934, "page_number": "930", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "THE WITNESS:No, I have no such animosity but, your Honor, in connection with this question and in connection with this entire complexity of questions by the Defense Counsel put to me, please allow me to make a correction and a supplementary statement to a statement made by me under cross examination recently. This correction and amendment respectively are very important to me.\nThe fact is that the Defense Counsel, in connection herewith, desired me to confirm, pursuant to his questions, that Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt had been just and generous in his attitude towards me and in the same connection he reproached me, but I don't remember the exact wording, but this is the sense of it. He said: \"At that time you were a sincere follower of the defendant and you have been with him at the time of these retreats and you supported him and due to that he intervened in your behalf.\"\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are not helping the Tribunal by all those details about your personal relationship with this man. Just answer the question. BY MR. LAMB:\nQWitness, you can just answer my questions by saying yes or no. Did you support the policies of the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAI did not support them and that is just what I wanted to say.\nQAll right. Did you protest against the policy which he used and about which you testified in this case?\nAOriginally I not only protested to the superior agencies of the police, that is, the Higher SS and Police Leaders, the regular uniformed police.\nQDid you protest of the defendant Hildebrandt in person that his policies were wrong?\nANot personally because I only had occasion to speak with his deputy; but these protests later on were discussed in Nikolajev with the SS and Police Leader as a consequence, and pursuant to this discussion an examination was to be made as to what changes could be made in the assignment.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 935, "page_number": "931", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QDid you attend conferences with the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAYes. As far as I remember on this subject there were two discussions, one in Krivoi Rog with this commander who had come there for the purpose; and consequent to that there was this discussion in Krivoi Rog with the Higher SS and Police Leader in Nikolajev.\nQWell, at these conferences that were attended by you and by Hildebrandt and on one occasion when his adjutant was present, did you report atrocities to him and protest against them? You can just answer that yes or no.\nAYes. I can't answer this question with yes or no. The facts are that this discussion took place because again and again I referred to this improper assignment and to the difficulties which a rose therefrom for my units.\nQYou testified about that on Friday, I believe.\nAYes.\nQWell, you testified on Friday that you had protested to the defendant Hildebrandt. Was that true?\nAYes.\nMR. LAMB:I have no further questions, your Honor.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt.\nRECROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, you have just stated that as far as Hildebrandt's policy was concerned you had protested. What do you understand by Hildebrandts policy?\nAI understand by Hildebrandt's policy the use which was made originally of the regular uniformed police, particularly the units under my command there in connection with the assignment of compulsory evacuation in the former district general of Dnepropetrovsk.\nQOn this occasion were you told that this assignment of the regular uniformed police units was being made at the command of Army Group A?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 936, "page_number": "932", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AI didn't understand the last part of your question.\nQWere you told at that time that the assignment of the regular police troops was being made at the command of Army Group A?\nAYes. I knew that before.\nQI am asking you whether you were told that.\nAWhether I was told that at this conference and the renewed conference which took place subsequent to this, I don't know; but I did know from discussions which had taken place prior to that, which caused an assignment to be ordered, I knew that the regular uniformed police was to be assigned.\nQAnd to what extent did you consider this assignment to be undisputed for the police?\nAOf course, it is a question of opinion. It was my personal opinion that this assignment was degrading to the German police, the manner in which they were assigned.\nQDid the police now have the general task of keeping order?\nAYes, of course. That is the main task of the regular uniformed police, the Ordnungspolizei, as is stated in the name itself.\nQAnd were these measures on the whole not within the general scope of keeping order?\nAYes, of course; you could say yes.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nMR. MAYER:Mr. Mayer for the Prosecution. May I request the Tribunal to call the witness Otto Uebe?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nOTTOUEBE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the \n pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. MAYER", "OTTO", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 937, "page_number": "933", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may be seated.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. MEYER:\nQWitness, will you give the Tribunal your name?\nAOtto Uebe.\nQWill you state your nationality?\nAGerman.\nQWhen and where were you born, witness?\nAIn Strassbourg -- on the 22nd February, 1888.\nQWere you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nAYes.\nQWhen did you join the Party?\nAIn 1932.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 938, "page_number": "934", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QWhere were you living in the summer of 1942?\nAIn Bayreuth.\nQWhen did you first think of adopting a child?\nAIn 1942 before my son was killed in combat. He requested me if he were to be killed in the war I was to adopt a child and that I was to bring him up as a monument to him and devote myself again to living with my wife.\nQWhen did you first apply to Lebensborn for an orphan child?\nAAs far as I know early November 1943.\nQWith whom -\nAJust a minute please. I must correct myself. It was 1942.\nQWith whom did you correspond in Lebensborn?\nAWith a certain Miss Edelmann.\nQWhat did you do as a result of this correspondence?\nAI was requested to go to the children's camp of Korensaalis and there look at several children. There I was shown approximately five or six boys and two girls. I picked out one of the girls because I had been told that the other one, probably still had a mother. Apart from that I didn't like that child and I therefore took the other one. Later on however -- I didn't take the child along with me right away because I wanted to discuss it with my wife first and later they wrote me that this child had already been promised to another family.\nQWhat nationality were the children first shown to you?\nAI was told that these children were of Polish descent.\nQDid you continue to correspond with Lebensborn after this?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 939, "page_number": "935", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AYes, I repeatedly requested that a child be assigned to me. Later on I requested an acquaintance in Munich that he would personally speak to Lebensborn and thereupon both he and Lebensborn informed me that I was again to go to Korensaalis and there were two children available there, not two years of age yet, one a boy and one a girl. My wife and I, therefore, on the 7th of June went there because just on this day I was anxious to take over the child this being my son's birthday and there together with my wife I took the boy.\nQWitness, what were you told about those two children and about their parents and what nationality they were?\nAI was told that those children came from South Krain. I wasn't interested any further in the girl but I was told about the boy, that his parents had probably been murdered by Serbian bands; that this was a full orphan.\nQWitness, is the child sitting at the Prosecution table, the child you selected?\nAYes.\nQWitness, would you have taken this child if there would have been any doubt in your mind that the parents of this child were living?\nANo, I desired to adopt the child and this could only be done if it was a full orphan.\nQWitness, did you ask Lebensborn to have the name of the child changed?\nAYes, I was asked whether I was anxious that the child be of my name immediately. This could be done I was told and then I replied in the affirmative and in Korensaalis the child was taken off the register under the name of Wolfang Uebe and registered again in that name in Bayreuth.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 940, "page_number": "936", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QDid you have any further correspondence with Lebensborn after that?\nAAll I did was to request Lebensborn to confirm to me that I was taking care of the child myself and that I could get a reduction of tax and furthermore that I would get children's assistance from the place where I worked. I received another letter thereupon in which it was confirmed that the child Mathias Potnuchik, now called Wolfgang Uebe had been taken into my family and that I alone was responsible for the welfare of the child as there were no other people alive responsible for taking care of it.\nQAfter that did Lebensborn ever let you know that anyone else, or the parents of this child,were living?\nAYes, at the end of 1944 I was notified that the father had been found and was claiming that the child should be returned to him. I was informed about it and if and when I was willing to turn over the child to him. On that point I replied that I loved the child; that it was in our family, had become used to us and would they kindly give me the address of the father so that I could contact him personally. In answer to this I received a letter that I was to do nothing whatsoever; the matter would be submitted to the Reichsfuehrer of the SS personally for his decision. Thereupon I heard nothing further from Lebensborn on the subject.\nQWitness, after the war did you register this child as a foreign child adopted by you?\nAYes, when the order was issued that children were to be registered I made the notification that I had such a child which was actually not adopted; it is a foster-child still in the care of my family but the adoption had not \n formally taken place.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 941, "page_number": "937", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QDid you later hear from Mr. Mathias Potnuchik?\nAYes, I was told by the municipal administration at Oberhausen, where live that UNRRA by order of Mr. Potnuchik at Gelovitch, St. Veiterstrasse 77, was enquiring as to the welfare of the child and thereupon knowing that Potnuchik was the father, I wrote to him and months passed before a Mr. Fahrenberger notified me that Mr. Potnuchik was the father and he demanded that the child should be returned to him; as a matter of fact the letter was very nice in the manner it was drawn up. The father himself did not know the German language well and therefore the gentleman, an uncle and relative was taking up negotiations with me; his father and mother had been in a concentration camp and the mother had died there while the father had come back and now wished to have the child.\nQWitness, where are you taking the child from here?\nAI am going to take the child to the German-Austrian frontier and there I will hand it over to Mr. Fahrenberger who will turn it over to the father.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense? BY DR. SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQWitness, you said that the child was given your name. Were you issued a proper birth certificate in that name?\nANo, I never received any certificate for the child, just one vaccination certificate which was issued by the doctor of the children's institute and read in the name of Wolfgang Uebe.\nQYou said that the child was taken by you with the intention of adopting it later on?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 942, "page_number": "938", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AYes.\nQWas this desire of yours made known to Lebensborn?\nAYes.\nQAnd what answer were you given thereto?\nAAs I have already stated they wrote to me that I was to go to Korensaalis and there have a look at the children. Since none of these children seemed acceptable as I have already said, in June 1943 I once again went there and then chose the little Mathias Potnuchik, later named Wolfgang Uebe.\nQI understood you to say that you wanted to convey that later on, after you had chosen this Wolfgang Uebe you again approached Lebensborn with respect to his adoption. Is that right?\nANo, the entire exchange of information conveyed that I had the intention of adopting the child.\nQBut you actually did not conclude an adoption contract?\nANo.\nQWhat was the reason that you did not realise your intention?\nABecause the Lebensborn no longer wrote me and from the very beginning they had stated that some time had to elapse before the adoption could be carried out, so that the child could become used to us and we could become used to the child and would also know the child was suitable for our family, and whether it had the suitable qualities which we desired it to have and whether it was a child which would fit into our way of living and which was suitable to be trained for a higher profession and educated accordingly.\nQYou yourself did not negotiate with the father himself?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 943, "page_number": "939", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "ANo, only through the intermediary of the brother in law he wrote me a brief letter in very poor German thanking me for the care I had taken of the child and that we had brought it up to be a decent child.\nQAre you sure that the alleged father is really the father of the child?\nAThere is no doubt. First of all the identity of names; then the fact that the people knew exactly when the child had been born; they knew where it had been born; then they also sent the photograph of the sister which shows great family likeness in features and apart from that I asked for a physical defect which the child has and which could only be known to the closest relatives and they named the physical defect. Yes, it is beyond all doubt that this child is the child of Mr. Potnuchik in Yugoslavia.\nQYou mentioned that prior to that you had already been in this institution of Korensaalis in order to select a child and you stated that you had been told in regard to a girl that you could not be given this child because most probably the parents were still alive. Is that correct?\nAYes, I was advised not to take the child which was, as I already said, not acceptable to me anyhow, because probably a mother was still alive.\nQIn regard to the other children, were you told they were orphans?\nAI had no interest in the other Polish children because we were determined only to accept a girl, and the boys -- I liked some of them but they were not paid any attention by me; they were sent away, but the two girls stayed and at that time I was told that the one girl, which later I couldn't get, was a full orphan and about the other girl they told me, that probably the mother was still alive.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 944, "page_number": "940", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Did the director of this orphanage tell you that these children were Polish children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And was there any talk of ethnic German children?\nA.No, of course it was understood that it had to be a child of German blood.\nQ.You mean to say that even those children designated Polish were of German origin, or were ethnic German?\nA.Yes, the names which were given to me, although I don't recall them any more now, were definitely German. For example, the child I desired to select was called Theresa.\nQ.And this little boy whom you did take into your family later on - is he, according to your opinion, a Serbian or Croatian or Slovenian child, or is it a child of ethnic Germans?\nA.Probably ethnic German; he is blond; blue eyes and rather tall and he went through various homes and was checked by the Racial Political Office - or whatever its name was - as to his membership to a ethnic group and as to his descent.\nQ.This uncle whom you mentioned several times is the man by the name of Fahrenberger?\nA.Yes, the name is Fahrenberger.\nQ.This seems to be a brother-in-law of the real father of the child?\nA.Yes, and I assume that the relationship is as follows: Mr. Potnuchik, from Gaberg - but I don't know this for sure but it seems to be judging from the exchange of correspondence - is a brother of Frau Fahrenberger of Klagenfurt.\nQ.Are you able to indicate the address of this Mr. Fahrenberger?\nA.Yes, Klagenfurt, St Veiterstrasse 77-79.\nQ.I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the Defense? Any \n by the Prosecution?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 945, "page_number": "941", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "BY MR. MEYER:\n- REDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, that change of names which was done by Lebensborn in Korensaalis, was that change of name sufficient for the German authorities in your town?\nA.Yes, originally in Bayreuth we registered the child and stated it was a child which had been assigned to me by Lebensborn and that they had some special decree the details of which I - as a layman - don't know, according to which it would be given my name immediately. They agreed to it and they registered the child in the name of Wolfgang Uebe and he was issued with various coupons for garments. The child had nothing whatsoever and later on when he had to move from Bayreuth due to bombing damages.....\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, witness. Strictly rebuttal, please, sir. BY MR. MEYER:\nQ.Witness, were you sure that the name which was given to you by Lebensborn concerning the Polish children was the original name?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind, witness, don't answer that. You are going over the same territory you have already covered. Let's not do that.\nMR. MEYER:No further questions. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\n- RECROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.I have one more question, referring to the question of the Prosecutor in redirect examination. Witness, you said that the change of name in the Korensaalis orphanage had been sufficient for you to cover you as far as all agencies were concerned and for taking proper care of the child. If I remember correctly in direct examination you said that you had once approached Lebensborn in \n order to secure a, confirmation which you received in due course and which you used for the purpose of securing a tax reduction and child assistance.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. MEYER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 946, "page_number": "942", "date": "03 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-03", "text": "Is that right?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You said that in this confirmation the original foreign name of the child was shown?\nA.Yes, it was there beyond doubt; I don't remember the exact wording of course at this time but it said beyond all doubt: He has taken the Mathias Potnuchik under the name of Wolfgang Uebe into his family.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I request the High Tribunal to call HEINZ FIEDLER as a witness for the Prosecution?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHEINZFIEDLER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Let the witness raise his right hand and repeat after me:\n\"I swear by God.\"\nA.I swear by God.\nQ. \"The Almighty and Omniscient.\"\nA.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ. \"That I will speak the pure truth.\"\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ. \"And will withhold and add nothing.\"\nA.And will withhold and add nothing. BY MR. SCHWENK:\n- DIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, your name, please.\nA.My name is Heinz Fiedler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HEINZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 947, "page_number": "943", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.When were you born?\nA. 30 January 1909.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.In Posen.\nQ.What was your profession before you joined the Main Staff Office?\nA.I was Chief of the legal department of the Deutsche Siedlungs Bank, German Settlers' Bank.\nQ.When were you employed by the Main Staff Office?\nA.On February 1940.\nQ.In what department of the Main Staff Office were you employed first?\nA.In the Central Land Office.\nQ.From when to when?\nA.From 1 February 1940 to February 1942.\nQ.Who was your superior while you were with the Central Land Office?\nA.From February 1940 to the middle of 1940 Baron von Holzschuher; from the middle of 1940 to approximately the end of 1941 or early 1942 the defendant Meyer; for the last few weeks Mund.\nQ.Is it then correct that the defendant Meyer was Chief of the Central Land Office from the end of the year 1941 to the beginning of 1942?\nA.I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.Is it then correct that the defendant Meyer was the Chief of the Central Land Office from the middle of 1940 to the beginning of 1942?\nA.Yes, but I must restrict my statement to saying that I don't know whether he was there up to the end of 1941 or whether it was early 1942. I don't remember the exact date when he resigned from the Post of Chief.\nQ.Did the Central Land Office belong to Amtsgruppe C?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 948, "page_number": "944", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Was Amtsgruppe C headed by the defendant Meyer?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was the position of defendant Meyer as Chief of Amtsgruppe C and as Chief of the Planning and Central Land Office a full time or part time position?\nA.Actually it was a full time position; however, the defendant Meyer told me that he was there in an honorary capacity.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 949, "page_number": "945", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Did the defendant Meyer-Hetling in his capacity as Chief of Amt Planning, issue any decrees which were actually carried out?\nA.I can't hear very well. Could you please repeat the question?\nQ.Did defendant Meyer issue any orders or decrees which were actually carried out?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I mean orders and decrees in his capacity as Chief of the Planning Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you state any?\nA.The General Decree 72.\nQ.Can you briefly, tell us the contents of 72?\nA.I can only remember that the General Decree 72 dealt primarily with the size of the agricultural resettler enterprises and determined their size.\nQ.Do you remember any other decrees or orders issued by the defendant Meyer in his capacity as Chief of the Planning Office, and which were actually carried out?\nA.The General Decree 11/II.\nQ.Will you briefly tell us the subject matter of eleven two?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The decree itself will show its subject matter and what it contains.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, we don't have the decree in evidence we never obtained it from any sources. I don't have the document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There is nothing before the Court to show that that is true. We don't know that?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have to rely on the oral evidence given by this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You must first show that there was such a decree and that the decree was lost and destroyed or something. You \n can't just go into the contents of the decree without laying any foundation.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 950, "page_number": "946", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, does the High Tribunal permit me to show by oral evidence that a decree has been issued to a certain effect, as the Prosecution is unable to present this decree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Aren't you familiar with laying the foundations for proving a written instrument that has been lost or destroyed? Lay your foundation. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, did the defendant Meyer carry out the composition of agricultural property and preparation of public land registers?\nA.I didn't understand the question. You say composition of agricultural property. I don't know what you mean by that.\nQ.Was the defendant Meyer concerned also in regard to what is called in German, \"Flurbereingigung\"?\nA.Yes, by issuing directives on the accelerated carrying out of such \"Flurbereingigungen\"?\nQ.Witness, I have here a document which has not been offered in evidence yet. May I show it to you and ask you whether this has been carried out too?\nA.Yes, this deals with the General Decree 13/II.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You can't testify what it deals with, as the instrument shows what it deals with. All he wants to know is whether it was carried out or not.\nA.Yes, this decree was carried out.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this is called in English\"Directives for the planning and forming of cities in the incorporated German eastern territories, General Decree No. 13/II, dated January 30, 1942.\" It will be offered in evidence. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, was the scheme of Amtsgruppe C on paper only;", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 951, "page_number": "947", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "or, did it actually exist?\nA.Yes, at least up to the evacuation of the Main Staff Office to Schweifelberg.\nQ.And now only a few more questions in regard to the task of the Central Land Office. What was the task of the Central Land Office?\nA.The registration of the entire agricultural property in the incorporated eastern territories, encluding German property; recording it in proper public records, and furnishing all data as to productivity, etc. Furthermore, directives as to the carrying out of seizures and confiscations.\nQ.Who carried out the registration, seizures, and confiscation of agricultural property?\nA.The local land offices.\nQ.Were those local land offices subordinated to the Central Land Office?\nA.They were a sub-division of the Central Land Office. In organizational respects, as well as - as far as personnel is concerned, they were subordinated to the agencies of the deputies.\nQ.The person in charge of what you called the Dienststelle, the branch office, on his part was subject to the orders of the Central Land Office?\nA.Yes, he was committed to observe the directives of the Central Land Office.\nQ.Who in the Central Land Office directed the local land offices, through the local representatives of RKFDV, to seize and confiscate certain property?\nA.Yes, the Central Land Office issued such directives in specific and individual cases or in cases of doubt.\nQ.Could you estimate how much agricultural property was seized during the war?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 952, "page_number": "948", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.When I left the Central Land Office, as far as I remember, it involved several thousand hectars which had been ........\nQ.Just a moment .....\nA.Almost the entire Polish agricultural property in the eastern incorporated territories had been seized.\nQ.Could you tell me whether and to what extent seized agricultural property was also confiscated?\nA.Yes, when I left the Central Land Office, as far as I remember, it involved several thousand hectars. Whatever was added later on is unknown to me.\nQ.When did you leave the Central Land Office?\nA.February 1942.\nQ.I have here a pamphlet called Folkdom and Soil, Volkstum and Boden, and which gives a statistical survey up to December 31, 1942. May I show it to the witness? Do you see the item concerning confiscation?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please tell us the figure which is stated ....\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Interposing) Wait a minute, wait just a minute. Does the Tribunal have to continually tell you not to go into the contents of written documents that show themselves what they are?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I just wanted to refresh his memory and ask him for an estimate.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am not hearing you. I don't know what you said.\nMR. SCHWENK:I wanted to refresh the witness' memory in order to obtain an estimate in regard to confiscated property up to the end of the war.\nTHE PRESIDENT:As I understood you, you asked him nothing about his memory, but asked him a plain question what that paper showed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 953, "page_number": "949", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, would you say that the figures stated here in regard to confiscated property in the incorporated eastern territory that means exclusively of Yugoslavia and other countries - amounted to 145 thousand hectars until December, December 31, 1942?\nA.Yes, up to the end of 1942 there were according to these figures approximately 145 thousand hectars. May I add that the confiscations .........\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor .......\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will save you the trouble. You needn't make the objection. I will rule out what he says about what it shows.\nThe Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 954, "page_number": "950", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_7_1_Daniels (Garand)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, after the eviction of the Poles and the Jews who owned the agricultural property who administered, temporarily, the seized or confiscated property?\nAThe Ostland Company, which was later on called the Reichsland Company.\nQWere there several possibilities?\nAYes. In part, whenever larger enterprises were concerned, the Reichsland Company would appoint custodians to take care of the property. Sometimes the resettlers who were placed there were trustees of the Reichsland Company, or they worked under the supervision of the Reichsland Company. In some cases they were under the supervision of the settlement companies.\nQIf the resettler proved himself able and reliable, was he authorized to manage the agricultural property on his own account as what is called, under German law, \"Eigenbesitzer\" ?\nAYes.\nQWho appointed him as so-called \"Eigenbesitzer\", that is, as manager on his own account?\nAAs a rule, this was done by the agency of the local representsative, and in important cases this was also done by the agency under the direction of the Main Staff Office, that is, the Department of Agriculture.\nQDid the Food and Agricultural Ministry in Germany have to consent to the appointment of those resettlers as managers on their own account? That means as -- as called, in German--Eigenbesitzer?\nANo, he had to comply with these directives.\nQCould the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture object to the oppointment of those resettlers as managers on their own account?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 955, "page_number": "951", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_7_2_Daniels (Garand)\nAIt may have occurred that it raised certain objections, where a particular settler was not capable of administering the property in a businesslike manner.\nQWhat happened on such cases?\nAIn such cases, the Reich Commissar had to carry out negotiations with the Reichsland Company, and he had to coordinate the matter.\nQWere objections raised in the majority of cases, or in exceptional cases?\nAOnly in exceptional cases.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense?\nDR.BEHLING: (Counsel for the defendant Meyer-Hetling): I would now like to begin my cross-examination on behalf of the defendant.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, is it correct that already in September 1939, that is, a short time after the military occupation of Poland by German troops, the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture appointed district farming experts and sent them to the former Polish territory?\nAYes.\nQDid these district farming experts, who were appointed by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture--have the task of registering the agricultural products which were produced in the occupied Polish territory, by order of the Wehrmacht, and did they have the task of securing these products for the German people?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that, at the same time, these district farming experts had the task, by command of the Commander in Chief of the Army, to seize the agricultural property?\nAI don't know that.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 956, "page_number": "952", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_7_3_Daniels (Garand)\nQCan you recall the decree of the Commander in Chief of the Army of 29 September 1939, by virtue of which seizure of that sort was confirmed, and custodians were appointed for the properties?\nAI don't know that decree in detail. However, I can recall that decrees and regulations to that effect existed.\nQCan you recall precisely a decree which was issued by the Chief of the Civil Administration of 5 October 1939, by virtue of which property was again seized by the Chief of the Civil Administration and was placed at the disposal of the custodian?\nANo.\nQCan't you recall that? Or do you mean to say that this decree did not exist?\nAI wanted to say that I cannot recall this decree.\nQAccording to your experience as an expert in the Central Land Office, you probably are aware of the fact that even before the establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissar an orderly seizure of Polish property had been put into effect and decreed; is that correct?\nAI know that. However, I don't know on what laws this was based in individual cases.\nQIs it correct that the main trustee agency, at first, did not only take care of the industrial enterprises there but it was also competent forall the agricultural matters?\nAYes, I can recall that.\nQDid you ever hear that the Main Trustee Office East rescinded the seizure order which had been imposed by the Commander in Chief of the Army or by the Civil Administration?\nANo.\nQCan you recall that Goering, through a decree of 19 October 1939, expressly approved the seizure which had been ordered before and that, furthermore, he strongly opposed so-called wild seizures?\nAI can only remember that very faintly. All these things happened before the time when I entered the Office of the Reich \n 4 November 1947_M_MSD_7_4_Daniels (Garand) Commissar.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 957, "page_number": "953", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QIs it correct that later on the competency was transferred from the Main Trustee Office East to the Main Staff Office as far as rural property was concerned?\nAYes.\nQAs to the industrial enterprises and the smaller agricultural enterprises, subsidiary companies, distilleries, farms, nursery gardens and things of that sort, as well as homestead settlements, did they remain under the HTO?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that through this so-called Ostland Decree of 12 February 1940 the public administration of agricultural properties and lands in the Eastern Occupied Territories was ordered?\nAYes, as far as properties were concerned which were not in the hands of ethnic Germans.\nQDid this decree come from Goering as the Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan, or did it come from some other agency?\nAIt came from the Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have to object in this case too, inasmuch as it has been objected to in my case, that decrees and orders are made the subject matter of discussion.\nTHE PREISDENT:Yes. You are propounding questions that have to do almost exclusively with the contents of these decrees. That, as has been several times stated, is not proper. The decrees will show what they provide for.\nDR. BEHLING:However, the fact that the decree was issued and by whom it was issued can be clarified; or does the Tribunal believe that this question is not admissible either?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled in rather clearly-understood language, it seems to the Tribunal, that you cannot go into the contents of the decrees. You can show by this witness anything that was done, but \n 4 November 1947_M_MSD_7_5_Daniels (Garand) the decree shows its own terms.", "speakers": [ "THE PREISDENT", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 958, "page_number": "954", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "BY DR. BEHLING:\nQIs it correct that, by virtue of a decree--the so-called Ostlands Decree--to the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, general custodians were appointed over the seized properties?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this very same question also concerns a decree, which shows by itself what has been done.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. You continue to ask the witness if, under the terms of a decree, something wasn't done. You can show by the witness anything you want to that was done, but the decree itself will show whether that was under its terms or not.\nDR. BEHLING:Yes.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, through the Ostlands Decree, a general custodian was appointed. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQCould any agency of the Staff Main Office give directives to the Ostland or Reichsland GMBH?\nANo, they could not give directives.\nQThank you.\nWas the Land Office in Prague ever subordinated to the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQYou stated before that on the 1st of February, 1940, you entered the Central Land Office. At that time was the Central Land Office an independent department?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 959, "page_number": "955", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AThe Central Land Office had a certain amount of independence, but it worked in accordance with the regulations of Greifelt's office.\nQWas it connected with Greifelt's agency as far as rooms and locality were concerned?\nANo; as far as rooms were concerned, it was separated from Greifelt's agency.\nQDid the Central Land Office have its own mail distribution center, where mail arrived and was distributed?\nAYes. That became evident because they were separated as far as location was concerned.\nQDid it have its own registration department?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that Department I, Planning, was originally completely independent from Department V, which was the Central Land Office?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that after Baron von Holzschuher left, first of all, his permanent deputy, Mund, deputized for him as far as the business management was concerned?\nAYes, until such time as the defendant Meyer was appointed.\nQYes. Is it correct that the deputy head, Mund, became seriously ill and, for health reasons, he had to go on furlough for an extended period of time?\nAI know that the acting chief, Mund, became ill. Whether he was put on leave for a long period of time during that time, I don't know, In any case, he was frequently absent due to his illness.\nQWasn't it as a result of the absence of the acting chief that the defendant Meyer was appointed to take over \n the administration of the Central Land Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 960, "page_number": "956", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AI am unable to tell you that.\nQIs it correct, however, that with the recovery of Mund in the year 1941, the Central Land Office again succeeded in regaining its complete independence, and the Planning Office again functioned as an independent Department II, which was in charge of the defendant Meyer?\nAI am unable to tell you that. Please ask me this question in a somewhat clearer form.\nQMund had become ill, and he returned in the yar 1941, after he had been on convalescent leave for some time. The Central Land Office, which had been temporarily designated as Department II, Planning and Land, and which was subordinated to the defendant Meyer, now again was taken out of Department II and was again made independent, and the Planning Office alone was subordinated to the defendant Meyer as an independent Department II. Is that correct?\nAI can't recall all of the particulars involved.\nQHowever, you were in the Land Office at the time?\nAYes, but all this happened more than five years ago.\nQHowever, you admit that the possibility exists that this may have happened?\nAIn my experience, this Central Land Office did not -\nMR.SCHWENK (Interposing): Your Honor, the witness said he doesn't know. I can't see the sense of asking him whether he considered that possible.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. The Tribunal is not interested in possibilities and what might have happened. We are interested in what really happened. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQIs it correct, witness, that in May of 1943 Gebert \n became the head of the Central Land Office, after Mund?", "speakers": [ "A", "MR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 961, "page_number": "957", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AI know that Gebert became the successor of Mund. However, I cannot recall the date any more.\nQIn the end, was Gebert succeeded by Hicke, Chief of Department IV, Agriculture, who was also in the Central Land Office?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that because of the dangers of bombing, and because of the attacks which had been made on Berlin, very important components of the Main Staff Office, or of the Central Land Office, went to Schweifelberg, especially the card file unit?\nAAs far as I can recall, the Central Land Office was transferred to Schweifelberg even before the Main Staff Office was evacuated. I believe that was in the summer of 1943, but I am not certain.\nQDid the defendant Meyer often go to Schweifelberg after the transfer, or did he continue to maintain his office at Berlin?\nAHe maintained his office at Berlin, and he only went to Schweifelberg very rarely.\nQDid the Polish Property Decree -- I withdraw the question.\nDid the Central Land Office have the authority to issue directives to the DAV?\nAI don't know what \"DAV\" stands for.\nQOh, I meant DAG; I beg your pardon.\nANo.\nQWas the registration by virtue of the Polish property Decree only a registration of properties according to titles and ownership conditions?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 962, "page_number": "958", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AYes. This included the buildings, inventories of furniture, and so on.\nQIs it correct that in Germany, in many cases, furniture and property was assigned as a compensation measure; and was a public announcement made of that?\nAYes.\nQWitness, in your direct examination you stated that as long as you were active in the Central Land Office, approximately several thousand hectares were probably confiscated. Can you tell me in how many individual cases this was done; just an estimate of how many times this measure was carried out?\nANo, I can't recall that any longer.\nQCan you confirm to me that a number of confiscation actions were the result of interference by Nazi big shots?\nAYes. In these cases Unterfuehrer were involved, who, as representatives of the Reich Commissar, misused their functions.\nQIs it correct that the defendant Meyer always turned against them?\nAIn my opinion, the defendant Meyer repeatedly turned against them in the course of official conferences.\nQIs it correct that the confiscations, aside from some special cases, were only carried out for reasons of public interest or because of reasons which were made necessary by the war?\nAIf by that you also understand the resettlement actions, that is correct.\nQWas the activity of the Chiefs of Resettlement and Expulsion completely separated from the activity of the Central Land Office?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 963, "page_number": "959", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QIs it correct that the Expulsion and Resettlement staffs, without consulting the Central Land Office, would simply, on their own initiative, resettle persons on certain properties?\nAYes.\nQDid you try to refer to that in your direct examination when you gave the description of managers on their own account, or were you referring to some other measures?\nANo; when managers on their own account were appointed, then this was the assignment of resettlers as managers on their own account. That was something different than the establishment of resettlers on properties which had been evacuated.\nQHowever, though they were appointed managers on their own account, they did not actually become property owners?\nANo, that did not mean that they obtained that title as yet.\nQDid the Central Land Office have anything to do with the seizure of cultural objects; that is to say, archives, museums, public collections, documents, books, paintings, or similar objects?\nANo, only in so far as these objects were located on agricultural properties, and then they were subject to seizure since they belonged with the furniture there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 964, "page_number": "960", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_9_1_Gaylord (Garand)\nQHowever, seizure actions and the authority to administer them was only held by the owner exclusively?\nAAs far as those objects were located in those properties, they were administered by those people for the task of administering them publicly; that was, in many cases, the Landrat. The resettlers also appointed custodians of these objects whenever they were assigned to that property?\nQWitness, did you ever work in the Planning Office?\nAI did not work in the Planning Office itself.\nQTherefore, if today in your direct examination you testified as to knowing anything about it, you only know that from hearsay?\nAYes, and from my general knowledge about the activities of a Main Staff Office.\nQAccording to the directives which were issued with regard to planning, which have been shown to you before, was any city or village constructed? or were these directives only used in order to inform rural planners to developments on the part of allocation of space?\nAThey were directives which were apssed on to all competent agencies working within the occupied territories. Which were acutally put into practice, as to what cities were to be built etc. I do not know.\nQDid you ever hear of any town or village that was built in accordance with these plans?\nAI heard that several model villages were planned to be built. Whether this was acutally put into effect, I don't know.\nQWitness, you stated that the defendant Meyer had an honorary position in the Main Staff Office; however, that he carried it out on a full-time basis. Can you remember that the defendant Meyer, as far as Main Staff Office activities were concerned, was a university porfessor at Berlin?\nAYes.\nQCan you recall that the defendant Meyer also had other extensive tasks in the Reich Research Council, in the Academy of Science, and in other important institutions?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 965, "page_number": "961", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_9_2_Gaylord (Garand)\nAI only know his assignment in the Reich Research Council. Just whatever assignments he had to take care of besides that. I don't know. However, I believe that besides his activity in the Reich Research Council, he also had a great number of similar tasks.\nQIs it correct that the defendant Meyer, on the first of September 1944, was consripted into the Wehrmacht?\nAI know that the defendant Meyer was conscripted into the Wehrmacht by way of the Waffen_SS; however, I can't give you the exact date.\nQI am now coming to the decision regarding the organization of the office groups. Can you tell me just when this organization of the office groups was put into effect?\nAI don't know it exactly any more, but according to my recollection, this must have been either at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942.\nQIs it correct that with the evacuation of the offices to Schweifelberg, the organization of the office groups only existed on paper at that time?\nAIn general, I can't say anything about the organization of the office groups. I only know it from the activity of Office Group C. I have already stated before that with the evacuation of the Main Staff Office to Schweifelberg, the main tie of this organization with the office groups was dissolved.\nQNow I have a final question, witness. Did the departments which were headed by the defendant Meyer or Office Group C have anything to do with the handling of the fields of work: the kidnapping of foreign children, the carrying out of abortions on female foreign workers, the taking away of infants from their mothers, measures to prevent the reproduction of foreigners, the punishment for intercourse between foreigners and Germans, the utilization of foreigners for slave labor, and the conscription of non-Germans into the Wehrmacht?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. The table \n 4 November 1947_M_MSD_9_3_Gaylord (Garand) of organization of the Main Staff Office shows the jurisdiction.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 966, "page_number": "962", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Of course, it does not state in any detailed way the crimes committed by the defendant.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, the defendant Meyer-Hetling has been charged with this, although the prosecution states that according to the business distribution plan he had nothing to do with it. Since the prosecution has forced me to go into the subject. I request permission that I can obtain information from this expert witness whether Meyer's department was competent for the handling of these matters?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The policy seems to have been adopted and followed up to now by both the prosecution and defense to ask these questions that call for purely a conclusion. It seems to be the shortest way out of it, so the Tribunal will let you go ahead with it, but I just warn both sides that you're wasting your time, for conclusions will not control the Tribunal; it will be facts. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, did you, as Referent in the Central Land Office, ever handle any question which dealt with the subject?\nANo.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. KARL HAENSEL (for the defendant Greifelt):\nQWitness, you spoke about settlement companies. Can you tell us just to whom these settlement companies were subordinated?\nAThose settlement companies were subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.\nQDid these settlement companies play an important part in practice? Were there many of them, or were there only very few?\nAThe settlement companies had the task of helping the resettlers when they were assigned new property. They played an important part in that particular sort of work. According to my recollection, in the former province of Poznan, there were three settlement Companies; and in East Prussia, there was one company; in Danzig - West Prussia, \n 4 November 1947_M_MSD_9_4_Gaylord (Garand) there was one company; and there was One company in Silesia.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 967, "page_number": "963", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QDid these settlement companies already exist before the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was appointed?\nAThe companies which were active in the province of Poznan were only established after the war had broken out with Poland. According to my recollection, however, the East Prussian Land Company, which existed in Koenigsberg, in East Prussia, before that time took the place of the settlement office in the Zichenau territory which was incorporated into East Prussia. Just what happened in East Prussia and Silesia. I don't know any more.\nQYou have just now referred to resettlers. Did they become the owners or did they only manage the property on their own account?\nAI have already stated that the resettlers, whenever they would prove their worth in economic matters, became the owners. I mean that in thelegal sense.\nQCan you recall for what reason this method of administration was introduced?\nANo, I can't judge just what reasons were decisive for this method of administration.\nQYou stated that the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture played an active part, and had to comply with the reassignment of these resettlers to these properties. Can you recall that decrees existed which explicity stated that every decree about rural property could only be carried out in agreement with the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question because the question concerns abain general decrees and orders.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I say something in this connection? I refer to decrees which have not been dealt with yet in the course of the trial. I am not talking about decrees which were submitted by the prosecution, but I am asking generally whether decrees of that sort existed. I don't know how to introduce this fact into the trial in any other way.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "DR. HAENSEL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 968, "page_number": "964", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_9_5_Gaylord (Garand)\nTHE PRESIDENT:I know of no better way to prove what a decree contains than introducing the decree itself. That is the highest evidence; that is the best evidence; and that is the only evidence that is admissible.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I humbly point out to you that we would then have to introduce libraries. This legislation is extremely large. Perhaps we can formulate this question as to just how these things were handled.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can prove by this witness anything he knows about what happened, but what is in papers can be proven by the papers themselves. Prove by him what he did, what he knows about what was done; but a written instrument--the contents of that paper cannot be proven except by the paper itself.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 969, "page_number": "965", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_10_1_Gaylord (Garand) BY DR. HAEHSEL:\nQWas the approval of the Reich Fo d Ministry obtained for disposition of agricultural property?\nAPlease explain to me what you mean by the word \"disposition\".\nQA disposition is, for example, the assignment of resettlers.\nAI can't recall that whenever resettlers were assigned, the agreement of the Reich Minister of Food was obtained.\nQBeyond that, however, disposition is the transfer of property.\nAI don't know either that whenever property was transferred, the agreement of the Reich Minister of Food have to be obtained. It only had to be obtained in those cases where the public administration by the Reichsland discontinued and here it had to be agreed with the Reichsland that the property in question was released from public administration.\nQAnd to whom was the Reichsland subordinated?\nATo the Reich Minister of Food.\nQTherefore, if I understand you correctly, you mean that in the case which you have just mentioned, probably this case mostly occurred in practice, the consent of the Reichsland was required?\nAOnly for the release from public administration.\nQThe Reichsland before had a different title. Just what was its title before?\nAI have already stated that in the beginning it was called the Ostland Company.\nQDo you know when and why the designation of this firm was changed?\nANo.\nQDo you know Herr von Holzschuher?\nAYes. After all, he was my chief during the first few months.\nQDo you know what rank he held in the SS?\nAAs far as I can recall, he was an SS-Gruppenfuehrer.\nQThat was in what year?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 970, "page_number": "966", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_10_2_Gaylord (Garand)\nAIt was in the year 1940.\nQAt that time, if I am not mistaken, Greifelt was a Brigadefuehrer?\nAYes, that is quite possible.\nQIs this a high rank or a lower rank?\nAIt's a lower rank.\nQWhat did you do in Herr von Holzschuher's office?\nAI was an expert on legal questions.\nQAnd what tasks were you assigned by Herr von Holzschuher?\nAI had to deal with all legal questions which accumulated within the jurisdiction of this central land office.\nQDid the central land office have its own channels?\nAPlease tell me what time you are referring to.\nQPlease refer the Question to the time when you were working in the central land office.\nAThis varied. I have already stated in my direct examination that the central land office under Herr von Holzschuher had a certain amount of independence. At that time, there was a direct correspondence between the central land office and the land officers. After Hoszschuher left, this procedure was changed.\nQWere you still in the office at the time?\nAYes. After all, Holzschuher already left in the middle of the year 1940.\nQUnless I am mistaken, later on you were sent to the Main Legal Office. Can you tell us what tasks you dealt with there?\nAThere I dealt with all Questions of agricultural and settlement law, as far as the chief of the department assigned me these tasks and if he did not handle them himself. Amongst these tasks there were also the legal questions which came from the central land office to the legal department. Furthermore, I had to deputize for the head of the legal department whenever he was absent.\nQIn the Staff Main Office, besides you, were there any other \n 4 November 1947_M_MSD_10_3_Gaylord (Garand) lawyers working?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 971, "page_number": "967", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AYes, there were a great deal of them.\nQDid the tasks of the Main Staff Office have much to do with legal matters?\nAYes, one can say that.\nQDo you know Himmler's position towards jurists and lawyers-the fact that he didn't like them?\nAI don't know it from my personal experience, but I heard about it.\nQDid you also hear about the fact that Greifelt had difficulties in keeping his numerous lawyers in the office?\nANo.\nQAfterwards, you worked in another office, after you left the Main Legal Department?\nAApproximately in the summer of 1944, I was transferred to the agricultural office.\nQWhat was your field of task there?\nAI had to deal with all agricultural questions which had some sort of a legal aspect, and I also had to deputize for the head of the office whenever he was absent.\nQDid you ever hear of the designation__Landjaeger?\nAYes.\nQWhat did that designation mean?\nAThis designation meant that unauthorized persons were trying to get hold of property in the incorporated eastern territories.\nQAnd what was the attitude of your office towards these people?\nAIn official conferences, we repeatedly objected to the attempts of these people.\nQCan you recall that you also opposed deportations?\nAYes, within the agency.\nQDid you also oppose compensation?\nAYes, likewise.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 972, "page_number": "968", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_10_4_Gaylord (Garand)\nQAnd did you also object to individual actions by Party members which were unauthorized?\nAYes.\nQWas it your duty to enforce the existing regulations without giving preference to Party members?\nAYes. BY DR. MERKEL (for the defendant Crautz):\nQDr. Fiedler, is it correct that the figures about the registrations, seizures and so on, which had been carried out, that is, the working reports of the central land office, were compiled every month by the central land office itself?\nAYes.\nQTherefore, if the statistical reports of the Main Staff Office include figures about the activities of the Central Land Office, is it correct then that these figures came from the Central Land Office and were then passed on to the Office of Statistics?\nAYes; however, I don't know to what extent the Office of Statistics obtained its own information beyond that.\nQIs it also correct that these figures, which came from the Central Land Office, were only given out for information by the Office of Statistics?\nAWhat the Office of Statistics did with these figures, I don't know. It is possible that they merely published these figures. I never had any contact with the Office of STatistics.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions to this witness by the Defense? Any further questions by the Prosecution?\nMR. SCHWENK:No, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused)\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, May I request to call Hans Joachim Goetz, as a witness for the Prosecution?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 973, "page_number": "969", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 November 1947_M_MSD_10_5_Gaylord (Garand)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness Come to the stand.\nHANS JOACHIMGOETZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQYour name, please.\nAMy name is Hans Joachim Goetz.\nQWhen were you horn?\nAI was born on the 20 of July 1909.\nQWhere were you born?\nAI was born at Berlin-Zehlendorf.\nQWhat is your profession?\nAI am an attorney at law.", "speakers": [ "HANS JOACHIM", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 974, "page_number": "970", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.When were you admitted to the bar?\nA.In the year 1936.\nQ.Where ?\nA.In Berlin.\nQ.Were you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.Yes, I have been a member of the Party ever since the year 1938.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.Yes. I was a member of the Waffen-SS.\nQ.Were you a member of any of the affiliated organizations of the Nazi Party?\nA.I was a member of the SA, of the National Socialist Organization of Lawyers and I also was a member of the NSV.\nQ.When did you join the SA?\nA.In October 1933.\nQ.What was your last rank in the SA?\nA.I was a Rottenfuehrer.\nQ.Did you ever join the Plain Staff Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Then did you become a member of the Main Staff Office?\nA.That was in December 1939.\nQ.What position did you hold in the main Staff Office?\nA.From the date of my entry there until February 1942, I was the head of the legal department. From that time on, until the time I loft, in December 1944, I was in charge of the department of economy.\nQ.Are you familiar with the organization of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, on the whole.\nQ.Would you say briefly whether the so-called Amtsgruppen existed actually or were merely on paper?\nA.In my opinion the Amtsgruppen did not only exist on paper.\nQ.Who were the chief of Amtsgruppe C?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 975, "page_number": "971", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.The chief of Office Group C was the defendant Meyer.\nQ.Was the defendant Meyer also chief of the Central Land Office?\nA.Yes, for some period of time.\nQ.From when to when?\nA.In my opinion, from early simmer of 1940 until 1941.\nQ.Could you tell us briefly whether the Main Staff Office and VOMI, as well as RuSHA, participated in the preparation of orders and decrees leading to DVL?\nA.Yes. Representatives from these agencies participated in the negotiations.\nQ.Was the Main Staff Office particularly concerned with the treatment of people belonging to Class 3 and 4 of the German People's List?\nA.The Main Staff Office dealt with this question.\nQ.Did you ever participate in a conference in which coercive measures were discussed in regard to people of German descent who would not join DVL?\nMr. SCHWENK: Your Honor, I suppose the translation is not entirely correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that he speak a little closer to the microphone and a little slower and more distinct?\nMR. SCHWENK:Very well, Your Honor. BT NR, SCHWENK:\nQ.Did you ever participate in a conference in which coercive measures were discussed in regard to people of German descent who would not join the German People's List?\nA.Yes. In the summer of 1942 I accompanied the defendant Greifelt to a conference where economic questions were discussed. I accompanied him to Kattowitz. On that occasion a discussion of that nature took place.\nQ.Who participated in this conference?\nA.The following people participated in this conference: Gauleiter \n Bracht; the chief of the Agency of the Commissioner at Kattowitz; Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Alt; Government President Faust; the defendant Greifelt, Attorney Wirsich from the Main Staff Office, myself and, as far as I can recall, some other persons whose names, however, I cannot remember any more.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 976, "page_number": "972", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.What was the subject matter of that conference?\nA.As far as I can recall, the chief of the Agency of the representative, Sturmbannfuehrer Dr. Alt, gave a report on several cases where persons of German descent had refused to make an application in order to have their names included in the German People's List.\nQ.What was the result of that conference?\nA.The cases were discussed and the result was that the persons in question were requested once more to fill in an application in order to have themselves included in the DVL. In case they should continue to refuse they would be committed to a concentration camp.\nQ.You mentioned the name Alt. Do you remember when Alt was appointed chief of the Branch Office Kattowitz of RKFDV?\nA.I cannot exactly recall the date any more. However, as far as I can recall, this happened in the year 1940.\nQ.How long did he keep that position?\nA.As far as I am informed, he kipt that position until the end of the year 1942 or the beginning of 1943.\nQ.Witness, let me turn to a new subject matter. Are you familiar with what happened to the property of the deported Slovenes in Yugoslavia?\nA.Yes, I know something about it in general outlines.\nQ.Can you tell us briefly what happened, asbriefly as possible?\nA.The property of the Slovenes who had been deported was, according to my recollection, taken over by virtue of a decree of the Chief of the Civil Administration and it was seized. The administration of the property which had neen seized was turned over to the agency of \n the representative.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 977, "page_number": "973", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "The rural property was taken over by the German Settlement Company. The remaining municipal or industrial property was administered by the agency of the representative with the inclusion of the German Resettlement Trustee Company.\nQ.Are you familiar as to what happened to the property of the deported Luxembourgians?\nA.This property in my opinion was also turned over by virtue of decrees of the chiefs of the civil administration, the property subject to seizure, and then the property offices of the CdZ in Lorraine and in Alsace would administer these properties. In Luxembourg the German Resettlement Trustee Company was charged with the administration of these properties.\nQ.And how was it in Alsace and Lorraine?\nA.In Lorraine the Property Office of the CdZ would administer these properties. In Alsace the administration was also placed in the hands of the Real Estate Office of the CdZ with the inclusion of the agency of the representative.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 978, "page_number": "974", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 4 November 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nHANS JOACHIM GOETZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, we were discussing the property owned by the deported Slovenes, Luxembourgians, and Lorrainians. You said that in Yugoslavia the Chief of the Civil Administration whom you called CdZ seized the property and it was then administered by the branch office of the representative of RDFDV. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQIn regard to Luxenbourg you said that property was administered by DUT.\nAYes.\nQAnd now we turn to the property owned by the deported Alsacians and Lorrainians. Will you repeat once more as to what happened to the property?\nTHE PRESIDENT:IT is not necessary to repeat it. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWas the property of the deported Alsacians also seized by the CdZ?\nAYes.\nQWhat happened afterwards?\nAThe property office of the CdZ, administered this property by participating the German Resettlement Company.\nQWhat had the DUT to do with this property?\nAThe property which was to be assigned to resettlers had to be registered and be appraised by DUT.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment. These questions are not coming through on my phone at all. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQAre you familiar as to what happened to the property of the deported \n Lorrainians?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 979, "page_number": "975", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AThere existed here a settlement similar to that prevailing in Alsace; that is to say, here likewise the property office of the CdZ administered this property by participating the German Resettlement Trustee Company.\nQNow, do you know whether the CdZ, as far as I can recall, acted as deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQAnd my last question as to this point: Was the DUT a company which received its instructions from the Main Staff Office?\nA DUT worked in accordance with directives of the Main Staff Office.\nQTurning to something entirely different, did the Main Staff Office obtain furniture from any concentration camp?\nAYes. I remember that in 1941 or 1942 the German Equipment Workshops, DAW, had ordered a certain quantity of furniture with the Dachau camp. Part of this furniture was actually delivered but, as far as I remember, larger deliveries did not take place because there was a shortage of the necessary raw materials and necessary machine equipment.\nQCan you estimate as to how much was delivered from concentration Camp Dachau?\nAIt may have been several hundred sets of room furniture.\nQWas the Ausruestungswerke Company managed by WVHA -- SS Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt Pohl?\nAAs far as I know, yes.\nQWhich offices of the Main Staff Office participated in that transaction?\nAThis transaction was handled by Main Department III at that time.\nQWhich other offices were concerned with that transaction?\nAIn addition to that, with regard to payment, the Office Finance was involved.\nQDid the defendant Schwarzenberger, as the Chief of Amt Finance, know where the furniture came from when he paid the bill?", "speakers": [ "A DU", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 980, "page_number": "976", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "DR. GAWLIK:Your Honor, I object to this question. This witness cannot tell what knowledge Schwarzenberger had. The witness cannot know what went on in Schwarzenberger's head. The question would have to be worded differently. He must be asked a question on the basis of which, from his answer, we can conclude as to his knowledge. I have no objection if the question is worded suitably but nobody else can say what somebody else knew. That is impossible.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I will rephrase my question. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWhen defendant Schwarzenberger paid the bills, were there any indications on the bills to the effect that those bills were paid for furniture from Concentration Camp Dachau?\nAThe bills revealed the origin of the furniture.\nQDid the Main Staff Office obtain any property which was seized from German Jews?\nAYes. In 1941 or 1942 there a lot of old furniture was taken over by the Oberfinanz Presidents in Berlin and Dresden for resettlers via the Fachgruppe Altwarenhaendler - old secondhand dealers.\nQI will turn to another point. Did you ever participate in a conference which defendant Greifelt and Greiser held in Posen concerning material from the Ghetto Lodz?\nAYes.\nQWill you tell us who participated in that conference and in which year?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 981, "page_number": "977", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A, The discussion took place in 1944. Present at this discussion were: Greiser, a deputy of the Commissar in the Warthegau, the defendant Greifelt, various representatives of the Gau, and myself.\nQ.What was the subject matter of the conference?\nA.Greiser, at this conference, first of all, raised complaints concerning the inadequate supply to the Warthegau, of furniture, household equipment, and stoves for resettlers. At that time I described the difficulties to him which existed in connection with procuring and transporting the goods and I furthermore explained to him that the Main Staff Office was not able to proceed with larger deliveries. Greiser finally accepted the situation asit was. He then turned to the defendant Greifelt and told him that the apporval of the competent agencies for tearing down the Ghetto Litzmannstadt had been received by him. In connection with the tearing down of the Ghetto, material like beams, windows, doors, stoves, as well as furniture and household equipment would become available and the Reich Commissar would be able to utilize all this equipment for resettlers.\nQ.Did Greiser indicate as to what was planned for the Jews in the Ghetto Litzmannstadt, directly or indirectly?\nA.No. Greiser in this discussion did not mention this question at all.\nQ.Did Greiser omit mentioning this question because those who participated knew about it?\nA.The reasons as to why this question was omitted was not known to me.\nQ.What was the result of the conference?\nA.As a result of this conference a basic agreement was reached to the effect that equipment which became available would be uitilized and taken over by the Reich Commissar for resettlers.\nQ.Were there any further conferences in Schweickelberg where the Main Staff Office was located?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 982, "page_number": "978", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.Yes. After the Posen discussion the rest of the discussions were always in Schweickelberg.\nQ.How many conferences can you remember?\nA.I remember two conferences.\nQ.Who participated in the first conference in Schweickelberg?\nA.The first discussion was attended by Schwarzenberger, Grehl of the Office of Construction, Huebner of the Posen Branch Office, as far as I remember another representative of the Posen Branch Office, Attorney Hoffmann and myself. Q. Is Huebner identical with the defendant Huebner?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the subject matter of that conference in Schweickelberg?\nA.The subject matter of this conference was the following: It was to be endeavored by taking up negotiations again with Greiser to induce him to take over the costs of tearing down the Ghetto and to receive more detailed information on the equipment which was to become available.\nQ.And I take it this was also the result of the conference?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were there any further conferences?\nA.Yes; I remember another conference which took place after that. In this conference it was ascertained that the taking over of the works for the tearing down of the Ghetto, was refused by Greiser, and questions were discussed as to the practical taking over of the equipment which would become available.\nQ.Who participated in the second conference that you remember?\nA.This second conference was attended by the same people who were present at the first conference but I am of the opinion that in the place of the defendant Huebner there was another representative of the Posen Branch Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 983, "page_number": "979", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Was then the Ghetto actually broken up under the directions of the Amt Bauten?\nA.The tearing down of the Ghetto was then started.\nQ.Was it done under the direction of the Amt Bauten?\nA.This was done according to the directives of the Amt Bauten, the Office of Construction.\nQ.Do you remember when the breaking up of the Ghetto started?\nA.According to my memory this started in the fall of 1944.\nQ.What material did the Main Staff Office obtain as a result of the breaking up of the Ghetto?\nA.The Main Staff Office or the deputies respectively received material from the breaking up of the Ghetto, for example: windows, doors, beams, also to a smaller extent stoves, furniture, and household equipment.\nQ.Who received the building materials?\nA.The construction Staffs took over the building material.\nQ.Were the Construction Staffs subordinated to the Amt Bauten?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who received the furniture and stoves?\nA.The local deputy in the Warthegau.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It occurs to the Tribunal that you are going into painful detail about this matter. You can show the facts and substances without such detail as to what went with every stove and piece of lumber and everything else.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, that was my last question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense? BY DR. HESSE (for the defendant Lorenz):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, is it correct that VOMI was only involved in the preliminary negotiations for DVL?\nA.I don't understand the distinction you wish to draw with this question.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 984, "page_number": "980", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Was VOMI involved in the practical carrying out of DVL as it developed in due course?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know the attitude taken by the representative or representatives of VOMI in the preliminary negotiations?\nA.In view of the long period of time which has elapsed I am unable to answer this question.\nQ.Did the defendant Lorenz participate in the conference at Schweickelberg, the one you mentioned before?\nA.The defendant Lorenz was not present at this discussion.\nQ.Was there any VOMI representative present at this discussion.\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever meet the defendant Lorenz at such conferences?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Lorenz at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Who was responsible for the deportation in Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg? Who gave the order?\nA.I am not informed about this question.\nQ.Who carried it out?\nA.As far as I know the local representatives of the CDZ.\nQ.Were these evacusations carried out by VOMI?\nA.Whether VOMI was involved is unknown to me because I have no proper information of the facts involved in this question.\nQ.Do you know the reason as to why the evacuation in Luxembourg was carried out?\nA.All I know is from hearsay.\nQ.I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 985, "page_number": "981", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "BY DR. DOETZER (For the defendant Brueckner):\nQ.Witness, when did the preliminary negotiations take place which lead to the later and subsequent negotiations of DVL?\nA.At the end of 1940 and in the course of the first few months of 1941.\nQ.I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (For the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Witness, I have one question. Were these negotiations on the Ghetto drive mentioned by you attended by Dr. Lindner of Office III of theCommissar in Posen.\nA.May I ask you to which discussion you are referring?\nQ.First of all the discussion in Schweickelberg.\nA.I already stated that I don't remember who was present at the first discussion apart from the defend ant Huebner and who was a member of the Posen Branch Office.\nQ.Do you know that further persons participated?\nA.I do know that other persons were present.\nQ.I have no further questions. BY DR. SCHWARZ (for the defendant Hofmann):\nQ.Witness, did you personally know the defendant Hofmann?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether he was even present at a session of the supreme reviewing court?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Can you recall when the DVL decree was passed?\nA.The decree concerning DVL, as far as I remember, was passed in March 1941.\nQ.And the discussion mentioned by you took place after that?\nA.It took place prior to the enactment of the decree.\nQ.Then I must have misunderstood you; I understood you to say that the discussion took place in November of 1941, is that right?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 986, "page_number": "982", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.I don't remember having said so.\nQ.Do you know who was present at this discussion from RuSHA?\nA.I don't know that any more today.\nQ.Did that strike you particularly during the conference?\nA.I don't remember such details any more.\nQ.Another question: Was the settlement office authorized to undertake seizures or confiscations?\nA.No, as far as I know it did not have any such authority.\nQ.According to your knowledge did it carry out seizures?\nA.I didn't hear anything to that effect.\nQ.Did RuSHA participate in the Ghetto drive?\nA.As far as I know, no.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions. BY DR. GAWLIK (For the defendant Schwarzenberger ):\nQ.Witness, since when have you known the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nA.Since 1940.\nQ.Was Schwarzenberger in any way involved in the seizure or evaluation of the property of Lorrainians and Alsatians?\nA.In the carrying out of these measures he was not involved?\nQ.You further stated in your direct examination about household furniture which was ordered in Dachau. Did the defendant Schwarzenberger order this furniture?\nA.No, he did not give the order.\nQ.You further stated that you had seen the bills. What did these bills say on top? What was shown as the business firm?\nA.As far as I know Deutsche Ausruestungswerkstaetten, Dachau .\nQ.In what way did this tie in with the concentration camp enterprise?\nA.The Deutsche Ausruestungswerkstaetten was in the Dachau concentration camp.\nQ.But how did the bills show this?You said one had to gather from \n the bills that the furniture came from a concentration camp.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 987, "page_number": "983", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "How did the bills give you that information?\nA.According to my opinion thename revealed the Deutsche Ausruestungswerkstaetten.\nQ.How can you maintain that the Deutsche Ausruestungswerkstaetten could be an enterprise which did not employ inmates?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the witness stated clearly his answer and he said the Ausruestungswerkstaetten were very well known as an enterprise managed by WVHA.\nDR. GAWLIK:Your Honor, the witness did not say that; he said one had to gather from the bill that the Deutsche Ausreustungswerkstaetten was a concentration camp enterprise and this is incomprehensible to me because those words do not reveal it is a concentration camp enterprise and I am asking him to explain that in detail. After all the important thing is not what the witness knew but what the defendant Schwarzenberger knew.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The trouble with both of counsel is that you are engaging in argument. You have asked the witness if some sort of thing could not have possibly happened in some sort of condition. Well, that doesn't help us any. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQOne more question on the same subject. Did the bill say concentration camp enterprise?\nA.As far as I remember it did not say so.\nQ.If I understood you correctly you said that this purchase of furniture took place in 1941 or 1942?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And that this enterprise was subordinated the WVHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, I will show you the verdict in the Pohl case which has been pronounced yesterday; do you agree that this enterprise at that time was not subordinated to WVHA?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 988, "page_number": "984", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.I am unable to come to any decision on this question.\nQ.You further said that a concentration camp discussion was had in 1941 or 1942 in Posen. Was Schwarzenberger present at this discussion?\nA.In 1941 or 1942?\nQ.Yes, a conference in Posen.\nA.As far as I know no such conference was mentioned.\nQ.Then I must have misunderstood you; You further mentioned a discussion of the subject of Litzmannstadt Ghetto and you mentioned several discussions in connection herewith. Which discussions were attended by Schwarzenberger?\nA.He took part in the discussions in Schweickelberg.\nQ.Were there other discussions besides?\nA.I previously said that there was a Posen discussion.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger attend this discussion?\nA.As far as I remember, no.\nQ.As to this Schweickelberg discussion I will ask you the following question in connection herewith: Was any agreement reached with Greiser?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did Office V pay for tearing down of the Ghetto?\nA.Whether and what costs were actually paid is not known to me.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a document,NO 2665which I desire to show you here. This document says - --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind what the document says. It will show about that. You don't have to prove by the witness what the document shows. The document shows by itself.\nDR. GAWLIK:All I desired to do was to show him the copy, as to whether he will maintain his answer or whether he wishes to amend his answer, on the basis of this document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What you said was that the document shows so and so. I don't know what you intended to ask him but you started out by \n saying this document shows.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 989, "page_number": "985", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Now, don't prove by the witness what the document shows. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Witness, I show this document to you and refer you to page 2 in which statements are made as to the costs of tearing down the Ghetto.\nA.I have read the document.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 990, "page_number": "986", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Do you have your answer ready in regard to the cost of tearing down the Ghetto and do you wish to amend your answer?\nA.I said that I did not know whether and what costs had been paid, and after reading the document I have nothing to add to the answer I previously made.\nQ.You don't know who had to pay thecosts?\nA.In the original discussions, the basis was that the Reich Commissar would pay the costs.\nQ.And who paid them in fact?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Was the defendant Schwarzenberger involved in any manner in taking over the material?\nA.No.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BEHLING (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Witness, since when have you known the defendant MeyerHetling?\nA.Since 1940.\nQ.Is it correct that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was a professor in Berlin?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you confirm to me that his activity with the Main Staff Office was only in an honorary dapacity and on a part -time basis?\nA.As far as I know, it was an honorary capacity.\nQ.As far as the part-time basis is concerned, you are unable to give me any facts?\nA.No, I can't.\nQ.Witness, in the direct examination you said that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was temporarily chief of the Central Land Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 991, "page_number": "987", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Can you remember the circumstances that existed at that time which led to his being appointed chief of the central Land Office?\nA.As far as I remember, he was appointed chief of the central Land Office after the Central Land Office had been incorporated into the Main Staff Office, that is during the summer of 1940.\nQ.Was the department planning and the Central Planning Office combined into the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, I think that these two departments were combined for a certain period of time.\nQ.Was the Central Land Office still subordinated to department chief Mundt?\nA.It was subordinated to the defendant Meyer. Mundt was only in charge of business.\nQ.In what way did he manage business?\nA.I can't give you any details on that subject.\nQ.Is it correct that the Central Land Office was always independent in a certain way?\nA.It was independent as long as it was not incorporated into the Reich Commissar agency, the Main Staff Office.\nQ.After it was incorporated into the Main Staff Office, did it continue to have its own filing department and its own in-coming and out-going mail department?\nA.Yes, because as far as space was concerned, it was separated from the agency of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Was it also separated physically from the Bureau of Planning, which was probably in Berlin?\nA.Yes, for the largest part of the time it was also separated physically.\nQ.And did that prove to be an obstacle in the handling of business between the Central Land Office and the remaining offices?\nA.I don't understand your question, Counsel.\nQ.By this separation, insofar as location of offices is concerned, \n not prove to be an obstacle in handling business between the main agency of the Main Staff Office , the Central Land Office Friedrichstrasse, and the Bureau of Planning in Dahlem?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 992, "page_number": "988", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.No important contacts were necessary.\nQ.Is it correct that the Central Land Office and the Bureau of planning were combined only in the way of a temporary solution, and that later on when Mundt was restored in health, the Central Land Office was separated from the Bureau Planning and became independent?\nA.I know that the Central Land Office became independent later on.\nQ.You then spoke of the division into Amtsgruppen. Is it correct that when the individual agencies were transferred to Schweickelberg, this division, into Amtsgruppe which had taken place in 1942, practically became irrelevant?\nA.As far as Amtsgruppe C * is concerned , yes, this was the case.\nQ.The offices of Amtsgruppe C, which had been transferred to Schweickelberg, were they independent in their work, particularly did the chiefs of the individual offices have the right to submit their case directly to the chief of the Office?\nA.Yes, after the transfer to Schweickelberg had taken place, the offices again had the right of direct presentation and contact.\nQ.Are you informed as to the fact that on 1 September, 1944, the defendant Meyer was drafted into the Wehrmacht?\nA.I don't know when the defendant Meyer was drafted, but I do know that he was conscripted.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer participate in the Katowicze discussion which was mentioned by you today?\nA.The defendant Meyer did not take part in this discussion.\nQ.Did he have anything to do at all with the handling of the DVL procedure?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 993, "page_number": "989", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Did the Central Land Office or the Bureau of Planning have any right to issue directoves to the DAG?\nA.I know nothing about this.\nQ.Were these two offices which I mentioned authorized to issue directives to DUT?\nA.I wouldn't know in what sense.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer either directly or by way of his agency have anything to do with procuring furniture in Dachau?\nA.As far as I know, he did not.\nQ.You then mentioned that in 1941 or 1942 various Oberfinance presidents, the ones of Berlin and Dresden, furniture belonging to Jews was procured. Was the Central Land Office , the Bureau of Planning , or the Bureau of Construction involved in this?\nA.No.\nQ.I am now referring to the ghetto action Litzmannstadt in 1944. Did the defendant Meyer attend the Posen discussion?\nA.No.\nQ.You further mentioned two Schweickelberg conferences. Was the defendant Meyer present at those?\nA.No.\nQ.According to your knowledge of facts, can it be said that the defendant Meyer had any knowledge whatsoever of these matters?\nA.I can't answer that question.\nQ.Did Grehl tell you anything to the effect that as chief of the Office Construction he was committed to obtain directives and orders from Meyer?\nA.Grehl never spoke to me about this matter.\nQ.Did Grehl make independent decisions as chief of the Office for Construction?\nA.I can't judge that.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you; I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 994, "page_number": "990", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Creutz)\nQ.Herr Dr. Goetz, you said before that in December 1939 -you had entered the employment of the MainStaff Office.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In December 1939 was the e a Main Staff Office?\nA.There was an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.You mean the agency of Greifelt.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was there at that time,namely in December 1939, in the agency of Greifelt already a legal division?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what was the task of this legal department?\nA.It had to handle and comment on laws and decrees. It had to handle specific, individual legal questions involved in resettlement.\nQ.That was its field of work.\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 995, "page_number": "991", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.Will you kindly tell me as shortly as possible, at that time, in December , 1939, when you came into the Greifelt office, what was the organization of that office like?\nA.InDecember, 1939, when I entered employment with this agency it was small and there were only few employees there at the time.\nQ.If I will give you the names of various people, would you be able to tell me in a very few words what their tasks of work were; for example, Fehndrich.\nA.Fehndrich was chief of Main Department I, (Amt 1)\nQ.And the defendant Meyer, was he there at the time?\nA.I don't think so; not at the time when I came to this agency; I don't remember it.\nQ.Sick?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was his field of work?\nA.Dr. Sick handled questions of compensation for damage to German property.\nQ.Was there also a finance section and an economics section?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember any other departments?\nA.I don't know to what other agencies you are referring.\nQ.Well, do you remember any other agencies -- from memory?\nA.No, not at the moment.\nQ.Can you remember the plan of organization of the Main Staff Office, dated summer 1940?\nA.Yes, in broad outlines.\nQ.Can you give us a short description of it ?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 996, "page_number": "992", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.The Main Staff Office was divided into the Offices I to VIII.\nQ.Do you know the individual functions?\nA.Office I handled Menschenfuhrung(Allocation of people according to vocational qualifications and former property).\nOffice II, allocation of labor (Arbeitseinsatz); Office III economics, Office IV, agriculture, Office V, finance. Office VI, planning. Office VII, construction. Office VIII Central Land Office. In addition to this there was a legal department, a statistical department and a filing department, and that is all.\nQ.Were there Amtsgruppen already at that time in the summer of 1940?\nA.No, not in the summer of 1940.\nQ.When were these created?\nA.As far as I remember, it started in the summer of 1942.\nQ.And in the summer of 1940 was there already a Main Office or when was this created? (Fentralamt)\nA.As far as I know, this was created in the fall of 1941 when the Main Staff Office was called into life. They were created simultaneously.\nQ.Since when do you know the defendant Creutz?\nA.Since I entered the agency.\nQ.At that time what function did the defendant Creutz have in December of 1939?\nA.He was deputy of the defendant Greifelt.\nQ.Can you call him a personal referent?\nA.No.\nQ.Was he also responsible for the structure and the organization of the agency?\nA.Yes, he was responsible for the organization.\nQ.What was your authority to sign in official capacity, in your function as chief of the legal department?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 997, "page_number": "993", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.There was no definite procedure set up in writing. All important decisions were submitted, and signed by the defendant Greifelt. Less significant matters were signed by me.\nQ.Is it correct that at that time you recieved your working directives from the defendant Greifelt exclusively?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you regularly present matters to him or were you ordered to do so.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you remember that the defendant Creutz was always present at these discussions?\nA.No.\nQ.In your capacity as chief of the legal department, what were your relationships on business matters to the defendant Creutz?\nA.Practically speaking I had nothing whatsoever to do with him in business matters.\nQ.And did this change in any way by February 1942? That was always the same as long as you were chief of the legal department?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever report to Himmler directly together with the defendant Creutz?\nA.No.\nQ.The Main Office (Zentral amt,) if I understood you correctly, was established in December, during the year 1941; at the end of 1941.\nA.During the year 1941; the end of 1941.\nQ.You knew Dr. Fehndrich?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that Dr. Fehndrich went to Himmler and was able to induce him to make decisions with or without the presence of the defendant Greifelt?\nA.I don't know; I don't remember it.\nQ.Do you know the book Menscheneinsatz, (manpower allocation), and the supplement thereto?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 998, "page_number": "994", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.I know that there was such a book, and I know it on the whole.\nQ.Do you know who wrote and published it?\nA.Dr. Fehndrich.\nQ.Can you describe Dr. Fehndrich's personality in a very few short words?\nA.Dr. Fehndrich was a very active man, and due to being occupied with questions of Volkdom, he had formed certain opinions and convictions.\nQ.Did Dr. Fehndrich work according to directives which he received from the defendant Creutz; do you know anything about that?\nA.No.\nQ.Witness, when you testified early in my examination, I think you made a mistake. I asked you what the organization was like in the summer of 1940; and you mentioned eight offices.\nA.That referred to the Main Staff Office.\nQ.The Main Staff Office, wasn't this existent from 1942 onwards?\nA.Yes, 1942 onwards and I understood your question in that way.\nQ.You then agree with me that in 1940 there were only four offices?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Manpower, Planning and Land, economics and agriculture.\nA.Yes, I think that is correct.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz have any influence on Himmler? Did you make any observations?\nA.No, I couldn't answer that question.\nQ.The defendant Creutz was Greifelt's deputy, and when did his function as deputy become effective from your knowledge of the* facts?\nA.It became effective in the defendant Greifelt's absence.\nQ.Do you know anything to the effect that in Greifelt's absence the defendant Creutz postponed important decisions up to the time when Greifelt returned?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 999, "page_number": "995", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.In my field of work such important decisions were generally postponed.\nQ.Do you know whether the Main Staff Office also negotiated with the higher and highest Reich agencies?\nA.Yes, on the occasion when legislation was discussed.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Creutz was present at such discussions with these higher and highest Reich agencies?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.You can't positively say it was the case that he had been present.\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether the measures of the Main Staff Office generally speaking were based on a predetermined fixed plan?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Do you know whether Creutz obeyed and approved of all directives of Himmler without reserve, namely, Himmler in his capacity of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.I can't answer that question.\nQ.Well, let me ask you more specifically, did Creutz ever criticize any measures to you?\nA.Yes, he did not agree to all measures.\nQ.Herr Dr. Goetz, do you know whether the agency as such was supervised by the SD?\nA.I wouldn't be able to tell you.\nQ.If I mentioned the name of Dr. Zuehran, would you know whether he was connected with any SD supervision of the agenccy?\nA.Yes, I remember Dr. Zuehran, was temporarily active in the Bureau of Economics for some time and on the occasion of this activity it was revealed that he was acting as an informer of SD. I believe he had the responsibility of making general situation reports as informer of SD.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1000, "page_number": "996", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.And was Dr. Fehndrich such an informer?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Or Schubert?\nA.I can't say that either.\nQ.And now another subject matter, Herr Dr. Goetz. Were the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration exclusively committed to observe the directives of the Main Staff Office?\nA.No, as Chiefs of the Civilian Administration they were not subject to directives of the Main Staff Office, only in their capacity as deputies.\nQ.Did they not pursue a policy of their own in their areas and, in connection therewith, refer to direct orders received from Hitler? Do you know anything about that?\nA.Yes, as Chiefs of the Civilian Administration they did.\nQ.Do you know whether there were large-scale evacuations from Alsace Lorraine in a western direction, that is, towards France?\nA.All I know is that, after hostilities with France had ceased, evacuations into France were carried out.\nQ.And did these evacuations to France take place pursuant to directives of the Main Staff Office, or did the Main Staff Office have previous knowledge?\nA.Not as far as I know.\nQ.What were the possibilities of the Main Staff Office to prevent measures in this field -- that is, measures of the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration in regard to evacuations?\nA.The Main Staff Office, according to my opinion, was not able to issue any directives to the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, you said that \n the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration administered the property of the evacuees in their capacity as deputies of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1001, "page_number": "997", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Did the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration receive any respective directives from the Main Staff Office, or did they do this on their own initiative?\nA.The administration was carried out in agreement with the Main Staff Office.\nQ.The seizure proper was carried out by the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration?\nA.Yes, by the Chiefs of the Civilian Administration.\nQ.A few more concluding questions, Herr Dr. Goetz. According to your knowledge, was the defendant Creutz a participant in deliveries of furniture from the Deutsche Ausruestungswerkstaetten?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.Did he participate in the purchase of furniture, formerly of Jewish property, for the purpose of resettlers, which was acquired by the Oberfinanz Praesidenten in Berlin and Dresden?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.And finally, did he participate in the matter described by you, referring to the tearing-down of the Loden ghetto?\nA.I know nothing about that either.\nQ.Namely, that he participated in that in any manner?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK (Counsel for the defendant Ulrich Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, you spoke before of the organizational \n structure of the Greifelt agency at the time when you took office in that agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1002, "page_number": "998", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "If I understood you correctly, even as early as December 1939 there was a legal department there. That is, it was created with your entry.\nA.Yes; I was the first one who was assigned to the legal department.\nQ.And later on, this legal department was extended?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can any conclusion be drawn from the fact of the existence of this legal department, on the manner in which this agency of the Reich Commissar functioned? That is, this agency which was, later on, the Main Staff Office?\nA.I don't understand your question.\nQ.The entire field of work of this agency was subject, in general, to legal control by your department, was it not? And the work of the individual offices was also guided by legal principles, was it not?\nA.The legal department had its own sphere of jurisiction. In general, it had no direct contacts at all with the other offices. However, if the other offices undertook legal measures, they would notify the legal department for the purpose of coordination and arranging of the necessary measures.\nQ.That is just what I wanted to hear, that all legal matters were subject to a check on the part of the legal department.\nA.Yes, all legal matters.\nQ.There was also mentione before of a Dr. Zuehran. Do you know whether he belonged to the Main Staff Office for a long time or not? And what was the reason for his resigning from office there?\nA.As far as I remember, he was a member of the agency from 1942 to the spring of 1944.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1003, "page_number": "999", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Q.And you don't know the manner in which he resigned from office?\nA.He resigned after the agency had been transferred to Schweickelberg.\nQ.According to your knowledge, for practical reasons?\nA.I don't understand your question, counsel.\nQ.Namely, the practical reason was the transfer of the agency? There was no other reason?\nA.Even after the agency had been transferred, he was still active in Berlin for a certain time. Then he resigned from office.\nQ.Thank you.\nMoreover, the DVL, German People's List, was discussed. Do you know anything as to why it became necessary to regulate questions as to membership in national groups in the Incorporated Eastern Territories? After all, in the fall of 1939 -- 8 October 1939, and later, in November of 1939 -- there had been procedures ruled on the subject. What was the result of this?\nA.Procedures in regard to questions of nationality?\nQ.Is it not correct to say that pursuant to this procedure as established in the fall of 1939 the attitude taken in various localities towards this problem was different?\nA.Originally there was no uniform procedure on the subject of treatment of ethnic Germans. Rather, in the various Gau areas, in Upper Silesia, in the Warthegau, and in Danzig-West Prussia, the local agencies of the Party and of the Administration handled these problems pursuant to different ideas and principles. Therefore, these people were registered in accordance with these different principles and classified into certain classes. Dur to this difference in procedure, naturally, inconsistencies \n resulted.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1004, "page_number": "1000", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "That is the reason why a uniform procedure was ordered later on.\nQ.Thank you.\nAs far as the procurement of furniture is concerned, mention was made concerning the acquisition of furniture formerly owned by German Jews. By what means did this acquisition take place?\nA.I stated previously that furniture which was suitable for resettlers was acquired via the Eachgruppe Second-Hand Dealers (Altwarenhaendler), by the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Therefore a certain selection was made, as the entire available stock could not be used.\nA.Only simple furniture could be accepted for the purposes of resettlers and not particularly elegant furniture, more suitable for city dwellers.\nQ.Now, was the total acquisition of this property of considerable dimensions?\nA.No; I have already stated that, compared to the entire procurement, this was of small dimensions.\nQ.And the Reich Commissar acquired this via the Oberfinanz Praesidenten. How did this property get into the hands of the Oberfinanz Praesidenten?\nA.Pursuant to existing laws, according to which the Oberfinanz Praesidenten were authorized to seize and utilize this property.\nQ.Furthermore, mention was made of orders of furniture placed with the Deutsch Ausruestungswerkstaette. Did these orders not represent only trial orders, which were made pursuant to an offer made by this firm?\nA.First of all, this involved an order for sample sets of furniture. At that time I was not yet occupied with the procurement of furniture. However, the files revealed \n that the furniture offered was a collapsible type of furniture.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1005, "page_number": "1001", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Several sets of furniture could be packed, measuring only one cubic meter, and this represented an economy in transport space. This was a new type of furniture at that time.\nQ.So this was only a trial order, or did larger orders follow subsequently?\nA.I stated that, according to my opinion, there was only one order placed.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1006, "page_number": "1002", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with this witness. BY DR. von der TRENCK (for the defendant Greifelt):\nQMay I continue with my cross examination? Witness, we spoke of various driveshere which were carried out for the procurement of furniture for the resettlers. Can you tell me just how the furniture waw procured in general? Can you tell me how the major part of the furniture was obtained for the resettlers in those years and did these drives cover a small or large share of the entire requirement?\nAIn the year 1941, with the Agency of the Reich Commissar, a central agency for the procurement of furniture was established. In general, new furniture was ordered from the German furniture industry. The quotas for that were made available by the Reich Ministry of Economics, who also furnished the Reich Commissar with a list of the factories manufacturing furniture, with whom the orders were then placed. The furniture which was ordered in this way, by far amounted to the largest part of the furniture which was procured altogether. As far as I can recall, at the time I left, the orders amounted to 75 million Reichsmarks. The furniture which was procured outside of this formal industrial procurement only represented a very small percentage of approximately three to five per cent.\nQThank you. Could I refer once more to the Ghetto drive? This drive -- the tearing down of the ghetto, to be precise -- had been ordered by whom?\nAThe initiative for this, in my opinion, originated with Greiser.\nQIf I remember correctly, it is stated in one part of a report about these matters that Greiser had received the consent to carry out this drive. Do you know from what higher agency he received the permission to carry on this drive?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1007, "page_number": "1003", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AI have stated myself that Greiser had stated that he had received permission from the competent authorities for the tearing down of the ghetto. Just what agencies these were individually, I am unable to tell you. However, I believe that the consent for the tearing down of the ghetto at the time came from the Ministry of Armaments.\nQWho was in charge of the administration of the ghetto before?\nAAbout details of the question of the administration of the ghetto, I am not very well informed. As far as I know, the administration was in the hands of the Chief Mayor Lodz.\nQIf I understand you correctly, then the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism or the Main Staff Office would not have any influence administration or on the tearing down of the ghetto than the Mayor of the city?\nAIt did not have any influence on the administration. With regard to the tearing down of the ghetto, as I have already stated before, the Staff Main Office participated.\nQBut this was only after the announcement of Greiser that he had received the permission to tear down the ghetto?\nAWith that, the entire drive was initiated; and the tearing down of the ghetto, as I have already stated, as far as I can recall, took place in the fall of 1944.\nQDid you, yourself, obtain any closer information about the tearing down of the ghetto by personally carrying out an inspection?\nANo.\nQIf you consider that from the tearing down of the ghetto until the end of the war, only a span of a few months elapsed, do you think that the Reich Commissar was able to procure worthwhile lots of objects from this material?\nAJust what was torn down individually and wat was taken over consequently, I am unable to tell you; particularly, since I was only with the office until the end of November.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1008, "page_number": "1004", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "QTherefore you don't know whether this had a large extent or only a very small extent?\nAAs long as I was there, the extent, in my opinion, was not very big.\nQYou participated in a conference where the tearing down of the ghetto was first mentioned. Were you present there?\nAYes.\nQIn general, as Chief of Office III, you were also interested in the procurement of furniture for resettlers?\nAThe procurement of furniture was one of the tasks of Office III.\nQAt the time, in your capacity as an office chief and as a jurist, did you have any misgivings about the procurement from the source?\nAThese objects were acquired by the Main Staff Office through the Gauselbstverwaltung, (Gau Self-Administration) and in practice it amounted to the same thing, as for example, the purchase of seized Polish and Jewish furniture.\nQTherefore you did not have any misgivings and you did not voice any misgivings?\nAI was not even able to voice any misgivings. I did not have the opportunity to do so, and no misgivings about this drive were expressed at the time by any other agency.\nQI now have one more question. Did this drive apply to the entire ghetto or was only one part of that district concerned in this drive, which was to be utilized by the Reich Commissar?\nAAs far as I can recall, at the time the tearing down and the procurement of furniture of the entire ghetto was mentioned.\nQTherefore you don't know whether any other agencies also made requisitions for the utilization of objects? Whether they received these from Greiser and other agencies which participated in the tearing down of the ghetto.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1009, "page_number": "1005", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "AI don't know that; however from the document which was presented to me before, it becomes evident that a part of the material was utilized by the Waffen-SS.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Can the witness give the Tribunal some idea as to the size of the ghetto about which you speak? Approximately how many inhabitants or how many people were there, if you know?\nTHE WITNESS:About the size of the ghetto, I cannot give you any statements. Iriginally, at one time, approximately between 100 and 200 thousand people may have lived there.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions to this witness? BY DR. HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm):\nQWitness, I only want to ask you one single question. In the course of the direct examination, and also in the course of the cross examination, the conferences have been repeatedly mentioned for the preparation of the German People's List -- the DVL. Can you tell me who called these meetings or these conferences?\nAThat was the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? Does the Prosecution have any further questions?\nMR. SCHWENK:We don't have any further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused)", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1010, "page_number": "1006", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "MR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, at this time the prosecution would like to offer into evidence documents found in Document Book VIII-A.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is the document book that you were on?\nMR. NEELY:That is correct, yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, until we see about getting the book. All right, go ahead.\nMR. NEELY:The first document in Document Book VIII-A, which we would like to offer into evidence at this time is Document No. 3020. It is found on Page 25 of the English, and 98 of the German Document Book. This is a draft by Himmler concerning the execution of the action against Partisans in Oberkrain and Untersteiermark. It is dated 25 June 1942. It is entered as Prosecution Exhibit389.\nTHE PRESIDENT:About thatNO-4821, you purposely omitted it?\nMR. NEELY:I have purposely omitted that, Your Honor.\nDocumentNO-681, which is found on Page 27 of the English and 100 of the German is an order by Himmler concerning the suppression of bandit activities on the territories of Oberkrain and Lower Styria. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.390.\nNext we would like to offer into evidence, Document NO-4708, and affidavit by Inge Viermetz, found on Page 32 of the English and 105 of the German, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit391.\nNext is a documentNO-3018, found on Page 34 of the English and 108 of the German. It is dated 19 of July 1943, and is a letter from Tesch to Brandt concerning the deportation of children from Oberkrain and Untersteiermark \n to Germany proper.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1011, "page_number": "1007", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is entered as Prosecution Exhibit392.\nNext is DocumentNO-3195. It is found on Page 36 of the English and 109 of the German. It is a series of correspondence from the 16th of August to the 14th of December 1943, concerning the age and adoption of the child Hans von Mann. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit393.\nDocumentNO-3019is found on Page 42 of the English and 116 of the German. It is a letter from Obersteiner to VOMI concerning the deportation of children of Partisans from Oberkrain and Untersteiermark into Germany. It is dated the 14th of September 1943. It is hereby offered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.394.\nNext is DocumentNO-4819. It is found on Page 45 of the English and 119 of the German. It is an affidavit by Albert Limmer, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit395.\nNext is Document No.EC-310. It is found on Page 47 of the English and 122 of the German. It is an order by Himmler, dated the 26th of October 1942 concerning the extermination of Partisans in the East. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.396.\nYour Honor, the index on the next document was incorrect. If it has not been changed, that should beNO-4173. It is found on Page 48 of the English and 124 of the German. It is a letter from Himmler to Sollman concerning the children of executed members of the Czech resistance movement. It is dated 21 of June 1943, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit397.\nNext is a documentNO-4171, found on Page 50 of the English and 125 of the German. It is a letter of reply to \n Himmler from Sollmann concerning the children of executed members of Czech resistance movements.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1012, "page_number": "1008", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is dated 7 of July 1943, and is entered as Prosecution Exhibit398.\nThe next document will be omitted,NO-5221.\nThe next document I would like to offer into evidence is DocumentNO-435. It is found on Page 56 of the English and 132 of the German. It is dated the 13th of June 1944, and is a letter from Gies to Brandt concerning the seizure of Czech children. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit399.\nNext we would like to offer into evidence Document NO-4709. This is an affidavit by Inge Viermetz, and is found on Page 60 of the English and 135 of the German. It is hereby offered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit400.\nNext is DocumentNO-5227. It is an affidavit by Meta Hoepfner, and is found on Page 63 of the English and 140 of the German and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit 401.\nDR.VOGEL (for the defendant Sollmann): I request that the affidavit by Meta Hoepfner be only admitted with the reservation that the prosecution should give the opportunity to the defense to call the witness Meta Hoepfner to this courtroom to be cross-examined here.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, the prosecution will recognize the best evidence rule. Meta Hoepfner is located in the Russian zone. We will, upon request, try to obtain her to testify before this Tribunal, but as we have stated, she is not in the American zone.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the only thing the Tribunal can do is to say to you that we will be all the help we can to you in getting this witness if you want the witness.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1013, "page_number": "1009", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "DR.DOETZER (for Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz): Your Honor, the Prosecution, as Exhibit 395, has offered Document No. 4819, an affidavit of Albert Limmer. I also would like to reserve for myself the right, on behalf of the defendant Lorenz, to have Limmer called here as a witness for cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's get that proposition straightened out now so that there won't be any trouble about it in the future. There is a regular procedure followed both by the prosecution and the defense for the obtaining of witnesses, and that procedure is open to you with reference to any witness at any time, so it won't be necessary to reserve the right. You have the right to make application for any witness you want to.\nDR. DOETZER:Your Honor, it is different in other courts. There we had to reserve for ourselves the rights specifically in order to obtain the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You do not here.\nMR. NEELY:Next I would like to offer into evidence DocumentNO-4460. It is found on Page 67 of the English and 146 of the German. It is a letter from the Main Legal Department of Lebensborn to Ella Spermagel concerning adoption of the child Eva Kubik. It is dated 16 October 1944, and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No. 402.\nDocumentNO-4450is found on Page 69 of the English and 148 of the German. It is an affidavit by Max Sollmann and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.403.\nThat concludes Document Book No. VIII-A.\nAt this time we would like to offer documents found in Document Book NO. VIII-B. The first document found in \n Document Book VIII-B is Document NO*1680.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1014, "page_number": "1010", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is found on Page 1 of the English as well as Page 1 of the German. It is a directive by Himmler concerning the treatment of children of German men and Polish women and is dated the 6 April 1940; and is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No. 404.\nThe next is Document NO. 3188 found on Page 3 of the English as well as 3 of the German. It is a letter dated 18 June 1941 from Himmler to Greiser concerning the collection and placement of selected Polish children. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.405.\nThe next is DocumentNO-3074. It is found on Page 9 of the English as well as 9 of the German. It is a letter by Creutz to the Reich Statthalter in Wartheland dealing with Germanization of Polish children. It is dated 12 August 1941 and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.406.\nThe next is Document No.NO-1615. It is found on Page 11 of the English and 12 of the German. It is Order No. 67/1 signed by Greifelt concerning the Germanization of children from Polish families and Polish orphan homes. It is dated 19 February 1942 and is Prosecution Exhibit No.407.\nNext is DocumentNO-4704found on Page 20 of the English and 22 of the German. It is an affidavit by Inge Viermetz and is Prosecution Exhibit No.408.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1015, "page_number": "1011", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Document No.NO-4332, found on Page 23 of the English and 26 of the German Document Book, is a letter to Josef Schwakopf concerning his deportation and the taking away of his children. It is dated the 26 of June, 1942, and is Prosecution Exhibit No.409.\nDocument No.NO-3731is found on Page 25 of the English and 28 of the German. It is correspondence between Hofmann, Rudolf Brandt and Janowsky concerning the care of Polish children eligible to become Germanized. This correspondence is dated the 15 and 17 of April 1942. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.410.\nThe next is Document No.NO-5005found on Page 29 of the English and 33 of the German. It is an affidavit by Rheinhold Grabow. It is Prosecution Exhibit411.\nDocument No.NO-1400is found on Page 31 of the English and 35 of the German. It is dated 13 May 1942 and is a letter from Greifelt to Himmler concerning the seizure and care of children whose parents had been deported. It is Prosecution Exhibit412.\nThe next documents which are listed in the document book, which areNO-4896through NO-4903 inclusive, will be entered into evidence as one exhibit. This correspondence begins on Page 34 of the English and 39 of the German. It is correspondence and file memos concerning the transfer of the Polish child Helena Bukowiecka from her home to the care of Lebensborn. These eightNO numbersare entered as Prosecution Exhibit No.413.\nDocumentNO-2793, which is found on Page 42 of the English and 47 of the German, is dated 10 December 1942 and is an order signed Bader concerning the installation of a special Police Report Center in the Gau children's home in Kalisz to prevent detection of children by relatives. It is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.414.\nDocumentNO-2798, found on Page 43 of the English and 50 of the German, is a letter from the Reichsstatthalter in Posen, informing the Regierungspraesident in Lodz that Lebensborn is charged by Himmler with carrying out Germanization of Polish orphans. It is dated 23 \n December 1942 and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit415.DocumentNO-4950, found on Page 46 of the English and 53 of the German, is an affidavit by Klara Keit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1016, "page_number": "1012", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit416.\nNext is DocumentNO-5229, found on Page 49 of the English and 58 of the German. It is an affidavit by Heinrich Hauser and is entered in evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.417.\nDocument No.NO-2678, found on Page 55 of the English and 70 of the German is a letter by Dr. Arlt inquiring as to the care of foreign minors. It is dated 10 March 1943 and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.418.\nDocument No. 1126, found on Page 57 of the English and 71 of the German is a memo dated 10 March, 1943, signed Harders, concerning the conference dealing with treatment of illegitimate children of Polish race. It is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.419.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann. May it please the Tribunal, I do not want to object to this document, but in order to affirm the probative value of that document I would like to point out that in the face of this document this is not the official transcript of a meeting; but it is only a file note of one member who participated in the meeting. I would like you to give due consideration to that fact.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May the Tribunal suggest to counsel that in the first place, the Tribunal will give to this document and all other documents, only such probative value as in the opinion of the Court it is entitled to have. I state further that now is not the time to argue those questions. When you come to make your argument to the Tribunal that would be the proper time to point those things out and would be more helpful to the Tribunal.\nMR. NEELY:Document No.NO-4335is found on Page 62 of the English and 76 of the German. It is a letter from RuSHA concerning the Germanization of two Polish children and is dated 16 March, 1943. It \n is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.420.There has also been a correction made on the next document as found in the index.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1017, "page_number": "1013", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "The next document is Document No.NO-4946. It is found on Page 63 of the English and 77 of the German. It is a letter from the Welfare Office Litzmannstadt concerning the forcible removal of two Polish children. It is hereby entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.421.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1018, "page_number": "1014", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Next is document No.NO-4935. It is found on page 65 of the English and 79 of the German. It is a letter from the SIPO to the Youth Office stating that the parents and brother of the two children Zjadel have been taken to concentration camps for refusal to be listed on the SVL. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.422.\nNext is document No.NO-2677and is found on page 66 of the English and 80 of the German. It is a letter dated 28th of April 1943 concerning the Germanization of Polish children and is signed Dr. Arlt and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.423.\nDocument No.NO-4706is an affidavit by Max Sollmann. It is found on page 68 of the English and 82 of the German. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.424.\nDocument No.NO-1371, found on page 71 of the English and 86 of the German is a letter informing Ebner of a conference concerning the changing of names of children from Polish to German. It is dated 16 July 1943 and is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.425.\nDocument No.NO 4978found on page 73 of the English and 89 of the German is an affidavit by Franziska Ranzinger. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.426.\nDocument No.NO 2871found on page 76 of the English and 95 of the German. It is correspondence among Ebner, Tesch, and Mrs. Ilse Braeuer concerning the probable age of the child Hedwig Paczkowska. It is Prosecution Exhibit No. 427.\nDocument No.NO-1369is found on page 80 of the English and 99 of the German. It is a letter dated 2 August 1943. It is a letter from V. Wenzen requesting Ebner to make out a birth certificate for the child Alexander Claus. It is entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No.428.\nDocument No.NO-5228is found on page 81 of the English \n COURT I CASE VIII and 100 of the German Document Book.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1019, "page_number": "1015", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is an affidavit by Ingrid Saenger, and it is Prosecution Exhibit No.429.\nDocument No.NO-2872is found on page 85 of the English and 106 of the German Document Book. It is correspondence from 4 August to the 14 December 1943 concerning the ascertainment of the age of the child Alexander Claus. It is Prosecution No. 430.\nDocument No.NO-2869is correspondence which is found on page 94 of the English and 115 of the German Document Book. This correspondence concerns itself with the probable age of the child Hermann Luedeking. It is dated from the 11 August to 14 December 1943 and is Prosecution Exhibit No431.\nDocument No.NO-4974is found on page 100 of the English and 123 of the German Document Book. It is an affidavit by Jacob Pfaffenberger. It is Prosecution Exhibit No. 432.\nDocument No.NO-2870is found on page 105 of the English and 122 of the German Document Book. It is correspondence between Ebner and Staudte concerning the Eastern child Rosala Klaczynski. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.433.\nDocument No.NO-5238is found on page 108 of the English and 132 of the German. It is an affidavit by Norbert Schwab and is Prosecution Exhibit No,434.\nDocument No.NO-2790is found on page 111 of the English and 137 of the German Document Book. It is a list of persons eligible for re-Germanization, settled in the Gau Salzburg. It is Prosecution Exhibit No.435.\nThe next document will be omitted from the document book VIIIB.\nThat concludes Document Book VIII-B and Mr. Shiller of the Prosecution will now take up Document Book VIII-C.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1020, "page_number": "1016", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Document No. 3632 found on page 1 in both the English and the German of Book VIII-C is a letter dated 14 July 1941 from Wolfram of VOMI informing Ebner of the transfer of 185 children to VOMI camp at Schloss Langenzell. This is offered as Prosecution Exhibit No.437.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for Dr. Ebner): May it please the Tribunal. I would like to object to the presentation of this document book in evidence. The Prosecution's indictment against the defendants only includes the charge of attempted Germanization of Jugoslavs, Polish and Czech children. No charge has been raised because it dealt with cases of Rumanian children. This document, however only refers to ethnic German children from Rumania. I, therefore, consider the document to be irrelevant in the proper presentation of evidence as to the charges contained in the indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may be assured that when the Tribunal goes to write its judgment if this document does not tend to prove something charged in the indictment it will not be given any consideration whatever and we shall be very pleased to have you point out your position in your briefs or arguments in the case.\nMR. SHILLER:I have one slight correction to make. This should be Prosecution Exhibit No.436instead of 437.\nThe next document is No.NO 3633found on page 3 of both the English and the German of Book VIII-C. This is a letter dated 2 August 1941 from Altena of VOMI informing Ebner that 25 children are to arrive at Langenzell. The Prosecution offers this document as Prosecution Exhibit437.\nDocument No.NO-4820is an affidavit by Georg Kuester to be found on page 5 of the English and on page 4 of the German. This is offered by the Prosecution as Prosecution Exhibit No. 438.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1021, "page_number": "1017", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Next is document No.NO-1387, a report dated 25 August 1941 from Ebner to Sollmann concerning the surveying of the 25 children located at Schloss Langenzell. This is on page 7 of the English and page 8 of the German and is offered by the Prosecution as Prosecution Exhibit No.439.\nDocument No.NO-4710found on page 19 of the English and page 25 of the German of Book VIII-C is an affidavit by the defendant Viermetz. This is offered as Prosecution Exhibit No. 440.\nDocument No.NO-952(1) is a memorandum dated 17 August 1941 concerning the deportation of two Russian boys to Berlin to be placed in the care of RuSHA. This may be found on page 20 of the English and on page 29 of the German and is offered by the Prosecution as Prosecution Exhibit 441.\nDocument No.NO-4274dated 25 August 1941 may be found on page 22 of the English and on page 30 of the German. This is an office note by Pflaum with an attached copy of order by Himmler addressed to Lorenz and Heydrich re: Registration of the population of German race in European territories of Russia and cooperation with Einsatzkommandos. This is offered by the Prosecution as Prosecution Exhibit 442.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1022, "page_number": "1018", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "Next is Document No.NO-3727, which may be found on page 24 of the English and 32 of the German. This is a letter dated 19th July 1942 to Rusha, concerning the selection of Russian children for German boarding schools. I now offer this as Prosecution Exhibit443.\nNext is Document No.NO-5003, an affidavit by Karl Schafhauser. This may be found on page 26 of the Eeglish and on page 35 of the German. It is offered by the Prosecution as Prosecution Exhibit No.444.\nDocument No.NO-2513may be found on page 29 of the English and on page 39 of the German. This is dated 13 July 1943, and is a summary of orders and suggestions, re: Accommodations for children of Partisans. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit445.\nDocument No.NO-2462may be found on page 35 of the English and on page 46 of the German. This is a letter dated 17 November 1942, from Reinecke to Wolff, noting that Lebensobrn has been placed on the OKW distribution list for documents pertaining to children of members of the German Armed Forces. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 446.\nDocument No.NO-2218may be found on page 36 of the English and on page 47 of the German. This is a letter dated 20 May 1944, from Himmler to Phleps, re: Deportation of orphans from Baltic countries to Germany. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.447.\nNext document is No.NO-4000, which may be found on page 38 of the English and on page 49 of the German book VIII-C. This is dated 20 May 1944, and consists of the fourth paragraph of Himmler's letter to Phleps, which had been separated for security purposes, re: Deportation of Baltic youths into Germany. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 448.\nThe next document is No.NO-3178, which may be found on page 39 of the English and on page 50 of the German. This is a letter dated 2 December 1942, from Erika Wittman to Dr. Ebner, concerning the death of the child Juergen Hoerst, H-o-e-r-s-t. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.449.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1023, "page_number": "1019", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "The next document isNO-4837. This may be found on page 40 of the English and on page 51 of the German. It is a letter dated 20 May 1940, from Sollmann to Ebner, concerning the transfer of pregnant Norwegian women into the Reich. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 450.\nNext is Document No.NO-4836. This may be found on page 42 of the English and on page 53 of the German. It is a letter dated 22 May 1940, from Ebner to Sollmann, suggesting that Labensborn care of Norwegian children and mothers transferred into the Reich. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.451.\nNext is Document No.NO-2916; this may be found on page 44 of the English and on page 56 of the German. It is a letter dated 4 January 1943, to Meine, transmitting a draft report on the welfare of the children of Germans in Norway, and is signed by a Lebensborn official. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.452.\nDocument No.NO-3175may be found on page 47 of the English and on page 59 of the German. This is a telegram dated 21 February, 1943, from Tiedgen to Sollmann, concerning the transportation of children. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.453.\nNext is Document No.NO-3186. This may be found on page 49 of the English and on page 60 of the German. It is a letter dated 11 March 1943, from Dr. Feith to Ebner, concerning the arrival of Norwegian children in Sonnenwiese. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 454.\nDocument No.NO-4609, which may be found on page 51 of the English and on page 61 of the German, is a letter dated 14 March 1944, from the Munich branch of the Berliner Verein, an Insurance Company, concerning an additional list of Norwegian children to be insured which have been received from Lebensborn. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 455.\nDocument No.NO-3185may be found on page 52 of the English and on page 62 of the German. This is a letter dated 30 March, 1943, \n from Dr. Feith to Dr. Ebner, concerning the health of the children at Sonnenwiese.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1024, "page_number": "1020", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.456.\nNext is Document No.NO-4608. This may be found on page 54 of the English and on page 65 of the German. It is a letter dated 8 February 1944, from Lenner,L-e-n-n-e-r; that is incorrectly spelled Lennard in the index of the English; to the Berliner Verein concerning acceptance of children of other areas into the group F Insurance Plan \"Eastern Children.\" I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.457.\nDocument No.NO-4973is an affidavit by Adolf F-o-e-h-l, which may be found on page 55 of the English and on page 67 of the German. I now offer this affidavit as Prosecution Exhibit No.458.\nDocument No.NO-1390may be found on page 58 of the English and on page 70 of the German. This is correspondence dated 15th October, 1943, 25 May -- it should be 1944 -- in the English, and 30 May, 1944. This correspondence concerns illegitimate children of the German occupation forces on the Channel Islands. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 459.\nDocument No.NO-3218may be found on page 61 of the English and on page 73 of the German. This is a letter dated 24 May 1944, from Zwickler to the Chief of RuSHA, concerning the deportation of children from the Channel Islands. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 460.\nNext is Document No.NO-929. This may be found on page 63 of the English and on page 75 of the German. It is a letter dated 24 May, 1944, from Zwickler to Turner, concerning illegitimate children of members of the German occupation forces. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 461.\nNext is Document No.NO-3217. This may be found on page 65 of the English and on page 77 of the German. It is a letter dated 8 June, 1944, from Zwickler to Klinger concerning the settlement of Yvonne Schwalm. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.462.\nNext is DocumentPS-031. This may be found on page 67 of the \n English and on page 79 of the German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1025, "page_number": "1021", "date": "04 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-04", "text": "It is dated June, 1944, and is an inner-office report to Rosenberg concerning the deportation of foreign juveniles from occupied territories. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.463.\nNext is Document No.NO-4604. This may be found on page 70 of the English and on page 84 of the German. This document is undated; it is a list of children placed into foster homes, found in the files of the Berliner Verein, Insurance Company. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.464.\nNext are threeNO numberswhich should be considered as one document. These are document numbersNO-4601, 4602 and 4603. These documents begin on page 76 of the English and on page 91 of the German. The Prosecution wishes to offer these three as one exhibit. These documents, to begin with, are a coverletter dated 1 December, 1944 from The Berliner Verein to the Legal Office of Lebensborn, with an attached list of children who have left the Group Insurance and also the names of those still remaining with the Group Insurance of eastern children. The Prosecution offers these three documents together as Prosecution Exhibit No.465.\nThat concludes Document Book VIII-C.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 5 November 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1026, "page_number": "1022", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I, in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 5 November 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor all defendants are present in the court room.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the Prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution would like to call as its next witness Dr. Zygmunt Klukowski. The native tongue of the witness is Polish and we have arranged to have a Polish interpreter sit with him. She is a civil service employee and is taking the oath.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Have you ascertained the oath to be administered to the witness?\nMR. LAMB:Yes, sir.\nTHE PRESIDENT:German?\nMR. LAMB:The oath is in Polish; she will interpret the oath. It is the same oath that you have administered to the German witnesses.\nDR. ZYGMUNTKLUKOWSKI; a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God.\nA.I swear by God.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "DR. ZYGMUNT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1027, "page_number": "1023", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nA.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ.That I will speak the pure truth.\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ.And will withhold and add nothing.\nA.And will withhold and add nothing. BY MR. LAMB:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Will the witness please state his name.\nA.Zygmunt Klukowski.\nQ.What is your nationality?\nA.Polish.\nQ.Where do you reside?\nA.In the District of Zamosz, in the little town of Sebrsebrzeszyn.\nQ.Is that in Poland?\nA.In Poland.\nQ.For how long have you lived there?\nA. 28 years.\nQ.What is your profession?\nA.Medical doctor.\nQ.What position did you occupy prior to the war?\nA.A director of a hospital.\nQ.Did you occupy this position when the Germans invaded Poland?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you continue to occupy this position during the occupation of Poland by Germany?\nA.During all this time I had the same position.\nQ.Is the Zamosz area in what was known to the Germans during their occupation as the Government General?\nA.Yes, so it is.\nQ.After the German occupation of this area in the town in which \n you lived did you personally witness forced evictions and resettlement of the areas evicted?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1028, "page_number": "1024", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.Yes, so it is.\nQ.Did you in addition to what you witnessed personally make a study of the evacuations or evictions and resettlement of the Zamosz area. I didn't get the answer to that.\nA.The evictions started in 1942.\nQ.Wait just a minute now. The question was: Has he made a study of the evictions or evacuations that were made in that area?\nA.Yes, so it is, very thoroughly.\nQ.As a result of these studies and investigations have you written any books about this project?\nA.Yes, so it is; I have written books.\nQ.How many books has he written on this subject?\nA.Five books.\nQ.Were any of these books written under the auspices of the Polish government?\nA.Four books I wrote on my own initiative and the fifth I was requested to write at the request of the Polish government as specialist on the problem of evictions.\nQ.Will you please give the title of the books that you have written on this subject?\nA.The books have been edited for a history of events in the Zamosz area in the war years 1939 until 1945 and edited by Dr. Zygmunt Klukowski\nQ.Will you please state what happened with reference to evictions after the Germans had occupied this area which included the town in which you lived?\nA.Do you want to know how my special district was affected?\nQ.That's right.\nA.In the place where I lived eviction took place in 1943 at two different periods.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1029, "page_number": "1025", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Could you tell me how many villages in this area of Zamosz were evacuated?\nA.In the whole of the Zamosz area in all the four districts 297 villages, were evicted.\nQ.What is the area of this area in square kilometers?\nA.Well the size in square kilometers of the whole area is 607,000 square kilometers.\nQ.How many villages were in this area?\nA. 691 villages.\nQ.About half of these you stated were evacuated?\nA.Yes, so it was, nearly half.\nQ.Will you please describe to the Tribunal the methods which were used in evacuating these villages?\nA.It usually started in this manner: During the night the whole village was surrounded by surprise and all the houses were entered into and the whole population was driven out to some square in the middle of the village. From 15 to 20 minutes were given to leave the dwellings. It was not allowed to take along anything, only very little food. The people were driven out of their houses. Those who objected were kicked with the foot, beaten with clubs and with butts of rifles and sometimes they were driven by dogs. Sick people who couldn't move themselves were asked to be carried out and in some instances those who objected or very old people who didn't want to leave their homes were shot on the spot. After everybody had been driven away on the square they were held for several, sometimes many, hours. It didn't matter whether it was winter or summer. Children who were very poorly clad suffered most thereby. It often happened that small children at their mother's breast after many hours standing in the snow froze to death; while the rest were standing on the square a selection was carried \n out.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1030, "page_number": "1026", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "People were chosen about 10 to 20 who stayed behind as farm hands. They were going to be farm hands to those people who were going to be resettled, newcomers. All workers who were occupied in construction of the airport, stayed behind. During such an eviction usually very much was looted. When all had gone out together on the square they were taken to a camp, a transient camp in Zverinec. After arriving at the camp they were all taken before a Commission and there they were segregated and distributed over several groups, or rather allocated to several groups. There were several groups. These people who were considered of Nordic or Germanic race was the first group. The second group were those people with certain German traces of Germanic traits which could be discovered. Those two groups received special treatment and they were sent to Germany in order to be Germanized completely. The third group were those, everybody from 14 years onward to 60 years, who were able to work. People from this group were sent to work to Germany. The first group were old people, sick people, invalids, children up to 14, and everybody who was not fit to work. All these people were sent to districts surrounding Warsaw. There we were distributed in different settlements which were called Rentendoerfer, which were called pension villages and sometimes they were also given houses which had been left by the Jews. Apart from that, from the third group, people were chosen particularly, sometimes whole families, who were suspected and they were sent to concentration camps in Majdanek or Auschwitz. After such a commission took place every family was divided up and the children were always separated from their parents. If the parents refused to give up their children then the children as well as the parents were beaten. After they all had \n been divided they were put into different huts and the parents were not allowed to see their children any longer.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1031, "page_number": "1027", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "If the parents tried to approach the wires surrounding these huts then they were beaten, children and parents. There were even incidents when they were killed and conditions in the camp were very bad. The food was insufficient. If they tried to get anything from outside, so the person who received it and those who provided it both were punished.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1032, "page_number": "1028", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "During the summer they were suffering under heat and lack of drinking water. During the winter they were suffering from severe frost. Children suffered most as the result of insufficient nourishment, and as a result of the cold and being there was not enough room. There were fleas and lice; there were very many illnesses. Mortality was especially high among children. After a certain time when the larger group had gathered together, transports were formed and they were sent away in different directions. They were all cramped into goods wagons very tight, and the carriages were sealed. When such a train arrived at its place of destination, near Warsaw, and after having been opened, several bodies had to be removed. During the winter it was particularly high the number of bodies that had to be removed, and particularly children's bodies. Those who were sent to Oswiecim and Majdanek even more perished, and instances are known that whole families were gassed in Oswiecim after they arrived. And in some villages when families were evicted, even stricter methods were applied. Before the eviction took place a great quantity of people were murdered; that was an eviction combined in a so-called purification, and in some villages during one hour 150 or 180 people were killed, murdered.\nQ.Dr. Klukowski, when these people were evicted from their farms and residences, by whom were they occupied; and, how soon after the eviction were the occupants moved in there?\nA.Usually it happened that those people who were evicted were moved out one side of the village and the new arrivals moved in on the other side of the village so that they shouldn't meet on the way.\nQ.Who were these new arrivals?\nA.They were Germans from different zones, from Bessarabia, Corinthia, Ucraine and Russia, near the Volga; and the ethnic Germans from Polish territories, usually from the Biezow district.\nQ.Did they take over the personal property as well as the real property of these people who had been evicted?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1033, "page_number": "1029", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.Those who were evicted were not allowed to take anything with them; they had to leave everything behind.\nQ.Well, who took this property that was left behind?\nA.Well, it was just the resettlers who received everything that was left behind.\nQ.Dr. Klukowski, did you have occasion to know about the German People's List, commonly known as DVL?\nA.Yes, I know very much about it.\nQ.When did that start in your district?\nA.In 1942.\nQ.Will you please describe how this operated?\nA.Usually some German in uniform, usually an SS-man, suggested to register with the German People's List. If somebody objected then they started to threaten. Threats were different, either they only consisted in words in order to frighten the epeople; or, the first was held on the table -- they were sort of putting the fist in their face. In some instances people were beaten or kicked. If somebody refused to sign they often had to bear the consequences. The consequences were of a different nature. Some were dispossed; they were thrown out of their flats; their furniture was taken and all their personal belongings were taken. There were also instances when after refusing to register with the Volksliste they were arrested and kept in prison, or in a camp, or sent away to Oswiecim. I know several incidents where people were sent for that to Oswiecim, and there they died.\nQ.Dr. Klukowski, in the district of Zmosz, how many people would you say were evicted?\nA.In Zamosz district about one hundred ten thousand people were evicted.\nQ.Could you tell the Tribunal how many of these numbers never returned?\nA.I cannot say that exactly.\nQ.Can you give an approximation of how many people failed to return?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1034, "page_number": "1030", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.He doesn't like to commit himself.\nQ.Were there many people who never returned?\nA.Yes, there were many people who never came back.\nMR. LAMB:If the Court will pardon me a minute. The Prosecution has no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION. BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, you stated that among the people who were evicted workers had been evicted, who were to be employed in the construction of airfields. Was an airfield constructed in that particular district?\nA.Yes, in several places airports were built.\nQ.Did these airfields occupy a large amount of space?\nA.Yes, they took up quite a lot of space.\nQ.And were these airfields constructed for military purposes?\nA.Only for military purposes.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1035, "page_number": "1031", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Can you recall just at what time that happened?\nA.The airports were built twice; once, before the war, before the German-Russian war; and, later before the war with Poland.\nQ.You spoke of two eviction groups. Can you tell us what was the first one and where did the second one take place?\nA.The first eviction was from the end of November 1942 up to March, 1943. Later on there was an interval of a few months, and at last the worst eviction, the so-called Grossaktion took place in June and July 1943.\nQ.You were a physician in a hospital in that particular area?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have a lot to do with authorities?\nA.Yes, he did.\nQ.Consequently, are you in a position to tell me just what authorities were involved in the administration?\nA.Well, there was a local administration and there was a mayor. The hospital was our administrative authority; and as regards the medical side we were under the German doctor, Doctor of the District.\nQ.If it is possible, let us go into details with regard to the political authorities. I would like to help you somewhat, so that you will see just what my question is aimed at. I would like to determine just what sort of German authorities were in charge of the administration in that particular area, and to whom these authorities were subordinated.\nA.Well, do you mean the whole political point of view?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Counsel, under the circumstances under which this testimony is being delivered, \n I think you will be required to make your questions a little shorter and more pointed; not so that until he forgets by the time you get to the end, what you said in the beginning.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1036, "page_number": "1032", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Just tell me who was the district commissar.\nA.He knows there was a mayor; that was Mr. Weienmeyer.\nQ.And who was the superior; what was his title?\nA.That was a governor.\nQ.Where was the governor located?\nA.In Lublin.\nQ.And who was the superior of this governor?\nA.General-Governor Frank.\nQ.I understood you to say that all these authorities were officials of the government general.\nA.Yes, so it is.\nQ.The people who worked for the German authorities in the eviction action were in uniform, weren't they?\nA.Well, do you mean those working in the airports?\nQ.No, I am referring to the persons who carried out the evictions, the German officials who were in charge of fetching the Poles out of their houses.\nA.Yes, they were in uniform, partly.\nQ.Do you know what type of uniforms these uniforms were?\nA.No, he doesn't know what uniforms they were.\nQ.Do you know the difference between police and military personnel?\nA.Yes, he knows the difference.\nQ.Were these people members of the police or were they members of the armed forces?\nA.Schutz Polizei, SS, field police, and some were resettlers who had arrived previously.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1037, "page_number": "1033", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.Did you determine whether these officials were subordinated to the Governor-General?\nA.I am sorry, because you spoke of officials you see, and this gentleman doesn't consider these people as officials.\nQ.Well, we must agree on that. A man who wears the uniform of the police according to my terminology is a police official; however, if you like it better, let us call him a policeman. Were these policemen subordinated to the Governor-General?\nA.The gentleman is not familiar with the organization of German organizations.\nQ.Did any of the people concerned ever raise a complaint?\nA.Yes, everybody complained who was evicted.\nQ.Did anybody turn to an agency on the higher level?\nA.That would have been without any result.\nQ.I am asking this question in order to find out what the official channels were.\nA.There was an eviction commission which was not under the authority of the local office administration, and they carried out the evictions.\nQ.Do you know just who gave the orders to that commission?\nA.That came from higher up, in the Lublin district. Globocnik gave these orders.\nQ.Does the name of Globocnik mean anything to you; are you acquainted with it?\nA.Yes, it is very familiar.\nQ.Can you tell me what position Globocnik occupied?\nA.I cannot describe that thoroughly. He was chief of police.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1038, "page_number": "1034", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.Do you know who Globocnik's superior was?\nA.He doesn't know.\nQ.If I remind you of the name of Heinrich Himmler, does that mean anything to you?\nA.He doesn't know anything in particular; he knows that Himmler visited Lublin.\nQ.Do you know how the orders were passed on from Globocnik to the lower levels?\nA.No, that he doesn't know.\nMR. LAMB:Excuse me, just a minute. May it please the Tribunal, I would like to remind the interpreter when she answers a question just to answer in the first person rather than saying he doesn't know in order to keep the record straight.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1039, "page_number": "1035", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Would you please give us, once more, the figure of the number of Poles who were evicted from the Zamojski area?\nA.Approximately 110, 000 people were evicted in the Zamojski District, including thirty and some odd thousand children.\nQ.Just how many Germans were settled in Zamojski?\nA.I don't know as to all of the Zamojski area; if you mean only my local home village, it was three hundred and something.\nQ.If I tell you that there were seven thousand, what would your comment be on that figure? What I am referring to is Germans who were resettled in that area.\nA.That I cannot say in detail.\nQ.Do you know how many Germans were again evicted from that area after 1945?\nMR.LAMB:May it please the Court, we object to that question; it has nothing to do with the lawsuit. He asked what happened in 1945.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, it might. I don't know his purpose in asking the question, but it might illustrate how many were there in 1945.\nGo ahead.\nTHE WITNESS:I don't have these figures. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.However, you must have some approximate idea of the number. I am referring to the Germans who were resettled in that area.\nA.I have an idea, but since I don't have any correct figures, I would not like to commit myself.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I remind counsel that this witness has made it rather clear already that he doesn't like to guess, so don't ask him for opinions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.When the German People's List was put into effect -- can you still \n recall the date when that took place?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR.LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1040, "page_number": "1036", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "You said it was 1932.\nA.No, it was 1942.\nQ.Did all people refuse to have their names included in the German People's List?\nA.No; a certain group was afraid and signed under duress, because they were terrified of the consequences.\nQ.Can you say with certainty that nobody signed voluntarily?\nA.There were some exceptions, before the whole action started, who came forward themselves. However, there were only a few exceptions.\nQ.Where did you live during this period of time?\nA.All this time, in Sebrsebrzeszyn, in the District of Zamojski.\nQ.I don't want to know the district, I want to know the exact name of the locality.\nA.In Sebrsebrzeszyn.\nQ.And just how many inhabitants did that locality have?\nA.Five thousand inhabitants.\nQ.Was the German People's List also introduced in that locality?\nA.Yes, it was.\nQ.Do you have any ideaabout the number of people who were registered in the German People's List?\nA.Yes, in Sebrsebrzeszyn there were altogether about two hundred.\nQ.And how many refused?\nA.I have no data about that.\nQ.It is a pity that you always forget the figures which are the most interesting.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, let's not argue with him. Ask him about facts. What you think about it doesn't make any difference. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Can you recall how many people were arrested by the police for that particular reason?\nA.I cannot give figures in that respect either.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1041, "page_number": "1037", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.And can you still name the police agency which occupied themselves with the German People's List?\nA.That was a special commission which was registering for the German People's List.\nQ.Will you please think over once more whether the German People's List was not dealt with by those authorities which were also in charge of the district administration?\nA.As far as I know, that was a special commission which only dealt with racial examinations, and also with this action; it was a special commission.\nQ.As far as you are concerned, was the registration in the German People's List identical with the racial examination?\nA.No.\nQ.Therefore, did different agencies carry out the racial examinations, and did they differ from those whichdealt with the German People's List?\nA.Yes. The examinations were carried out by the Eviction Commission and the Racial Commission.\nQ.And who was in charge of maintaining the German People's List?\nA.That was a special commission.\nQ.And that was not the chief of the district?\nA.All these activities of the Germans were shrouded in a certain secrecy, so that we didn't know anything about them in detail. We knew the administrative authorities.\nQ.Were you acquainted with the office of the Chief of the District Administration?\nA.No.\nQ.Was anybody in your family affected by the German People's List?\nA.I myself was asked to sign it.\nQ.And who told you to sign it? What authorities told you to sign it?\nA.An SS man in uniform came to me, but I refused to sign it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1042, "page_number": "1038", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.And to what agency was this man subordinated?\nA.I do not know.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the Defense?\n(No response)\nAny further questions by the Prosecution?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Dr. Klukowski, what was the population of the town in which you lived before the German occupation?\nA.There were around eight thousand inhabitants before the Germans arrived, but after the eviction of the Jews, only five thousand remained.\nQ.In other words, the figure five thousand that you gave the defense counsel was calculated after three thousand Jews had been sent out?\nA.Yes, that was the population at that time when there were no more Jews left and the eviction action started.\nQ.Dr. Klukowski, do you speak German?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you understand the German when it is spoken?\nA.A little.\nMR. LAMB:We have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nThe Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1043, "page_number": "1039", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Next Tuesday, November 11th, being a legal holiday, this Tribunal, of course, will not be in session. The Tribunal has received many inquiries as to whether the Tribunal would be in session on Monday or not. During a conference at the recess, the members of the Tribunal have reached this conclusion: if the Prosecution has finished , there will be no session of the Court on Monday; if the Prosecution has not finished, we will go right along Monday.\nProceed.\nMR. SCHILLER: Your Honor, the Prosecution requests the Tribunal now to call the witness Rudolf Meyer.\nRUDOLFMEYER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath).\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHILLER: Q Witness, when and where were you born? A On the 16th of October 1892 at Velpke. Q When did you join the Nazi Party? A 1 April 1938. Q How long have you been registrar of births and deaths at Velpke, Germany? A From 1 January 1936. Q Witness, when was a home for children of foreign workers established in Velpke? A April or May 1944. Q Do you know who established this home? A No. Q Did you register the deaths of children which occurred at this home?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "RUDOLF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1044, "page_number": "1040", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A Yes, I did. Q How many such deaths did you register? A 84 of them. Q During what period of time did these deaths take place? A From 10 May 1944 to 25 December 1944. Q Was there any cause of death that you remember as having been given very frequently on the death certificate? A Yes. Q Will you please state it. A Yes. Weakness, gastro-enteritis. Q The Prosecution has no further question.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Any questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand. (The witness is excused).\nMR. SCHILLER: The Prosecution requests the Tribunal now to call the witness Emma Hoppe.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Let the witness come to the stand.\nEMMA HOPPE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHILLER: Q Witness, when and where were you born? A 16 January 1898 in Seggerde. Q That is in Germany, is it not? A Yes. Q Do you have any children, witness? A Yes. Q How many children? A Nine of them still living.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1045, "page_number": "1041", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q Do you know when a home for children of foreign workers was opened in Velpke? A In April 1944. Q Do you know what organization ran this home? A No. Q Did you see any Polish women, approximately in June of 1944? A Yes. Q Will you please tell the Tribunal when and where you saw these women. A We lived directly on the main road. Q Did these women stop at your home? A No, many of them passed through. Q I mean, witness, did you talk to them when they passed your home? A Not with all of them; only with the one whose child I had. Q Will you please tell the Tribunal the name of a Polish woman who spoke to you. A Veronika Plutkaca. Q What did this woman ask you to do, witness? A She asked me to accept the child. She was afraid it would die in the home. Q Witness, was this woman taking her child to the home? A Yes. Q Why was she taking this child to the home? A She told me she was forced to do that. Q What was the child's name, witness? A Bruno. Q How old was this child? A Eight months of age. Q Did you take this child in your home, witness? A Yes. Q Did you tell this woman you would take care of it for her? A I did.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1046, "page_number": "1042", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q How long did you keep this child? A For three days. Q What happened after three days, witness? A Mayor Noeth and Ortsgruppenleiter Mueller came. Q What did they say to you, witness? A Frau Bolata and I had taken in a child. Q What did they say about your keeping the child, witness? A They said we had to turn over the child immediately, and didn't we know that that was subject to punishment? Q Did you then take this child to the home, witness? A First of all, I said, \"We must feed and wash the child.\" Q What did they tell you then, witness? A Then the Mayor said, \"No, the child must be taken there immediately\". Q Did you then take the child to the home, witness? A Yes, I washed it and fed it and took it to the home. Q What day was this that you took the child to the home? What day of the week was this? A Sunday morning. Q Did you go back to the home to see this child again, witness? A Yes, the next day I went there, and on Wednesday. Q When you went there on the next day - that is Monday, witness, did you see how the child was taken care of? A It wasn't taken care of well. Q When you first brought the child to the home on Sunday, witness, did you give any food to be given to the child? A Yes, I gave a bottle of good milk along with the child. Q What did you see when you returned to the home on Monday, witness? A The same milk was still there in the bottle, but sour. Q And, witness, did you say that you visited this home again on Wednesday? A Yes. Q Will you please describe to the Tribunal the conditions at the home.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1047, "page_number": "1043", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.When I entered the home, it made a very dirty impression on me.\nQ.Will you please give a few more details, witness, as to the conditions?\nA.The first entrance was the kitchen, which was over-heated, and then there was a big room, which due to the weather conditions was very hot and the child was there naked and dirty lying in a box--where all of then were in a box. The paillasse as well as the covers, were dirty -very dirty.\nQ.Witness, do you mean to say that each child had its own box?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What were the children lying on in the box, a mattress?\nA.No, it was a paillasse.\nQ.Witness, what was the condition of the children, so far as you could see?\nA.From what I saw, the children were absolutely starved and very much neglected.\nQ.Witness, what were the physical signs on the children by which you could tell that they were neglected?\nA.They were very thin and they looked very old--their faces did.\nQ.Witness, did you ever go back to the home to see the child Bruno after you paid this visit on Wednesday?\nA.Yes, three weeks later, together with the mother of the child, because the child had fallen sick, and I notified the mother and asked her to come.\nQ.When the mother came, witness, were you both permitted to see the child?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever see the child again, witness?\nA.Only on my urgent request, on that day. On that day they showed us the child through the window.\nQ.After this, witness, did you ever see the child again?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1048, "page_number": "1044", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.No. Fourteen days later I was told that it had died.\nQ.Was the mother called to the child's deathbed, witness?\nA.No. I had to notify the mother, and this was at the time when the child had already been buried.\nQ.Thank you. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MAAS (for the defendant Schwalm):\nQ.Witness, how far removed from your apartment was this home?\nA.Approximately ten minutes.\nQ.Did you not know who had established this home?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Kreisleiter have anything to do with it?\nA.We assumed he did because he visited me.\nQ.And didn't you hear from acquaintances as to whom the home was subordinated?\nA.No.\nQ.In your direct examination you said that you had repeatedly been at the home.\nA.Yes.\nQ.The home where you delivered the child.\nA.Three times.\nQ.Was it easy for you to enter the home?\nA.Ar first, yes; but at the end, no longer.\nQ.How many children were there in the home altogether?\nA.When I was there, there were 54 children.\nQ.Do you know that many of these children died?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How do you know that?\nA.Because the corpses had to be carried by us on the road, on the way to the cemetary. We lived directly on the main road.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1049, "page_number": "1045", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.And when were the corpses carried by?\nA.At first, every week--every eight days--later on, it was more numerous.\nQ.And you were always present at the time?\nA.Yes--most of the time, because we live on the road.\nQ.Were these corpses not taken away directly they died?\nA.I can't answer that question exactly.\nQ.Isn't it unusual that corpses were carried by every eight days, in view of the fact that so many children died?\nA.At the beginning, we saw them almost every day; and later on, they were carried by back roads.\nQ.Do you know whether the Kreisleiter, as he was in charge of this home, was sentenced to death?\nA.No, I can't answer that question.\nQ.I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like now to proceed with the documents in Document Book No. IX.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right proceed.\nMR. SHILLER:The first document is Document No.NO-5130, which may be found on page 1 of Document Book IX in both the English and German. This is paragraph 18 of the German Criminal Code which forbids abortions. The Prosecution offers this as Prosecution Exhibit No.466.\nDocument No.NO-1370may be found on page 2 in both the English and the German. This is a report dated 25 November 1939 by Dr. Dueker, Head of the Lebensborn home Polzin, to the defendant Ebner, concerning three abortions. The Prosecution offers this document as Prosecution Exhibit 467.\nNext is Document No.NO-3089, which is subdivided in the Index into parts (A) and (B). This is found on page 5 in the German. It was not \n prepared at the time this document book was distributed and has since been districted separately with a note stating that it should be inserted as Page 4 and following pages in Document Book IX in English.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1050, "page_number": "1046", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This document cnsists of a letter dated 9 March 1942 from Conti to Himmler suggesting that abortions to Poland should be encouraged by withdrawing such cases from the Polish Courts.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1051, "page_number": "1047", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "The second part of this document is a letter dated 21 March, 1942. The English translation has a typographical error and says 1943. It should be 1942. This is a letter from Himmler to Conti agreeing with Conti's suggestion and stating that he has written to Krueger to withdraw such cases. Attached is a copy of extracts of the Polish penal code concerning abortions. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No 468.\nDocument No.NO-1622may be found on Page 5 of the English and on Page 12 of the German. This is a directive dated 26 March, 1943, from Himmler ordering that abortions be performed on non-racially valuable Eastern women when the father is a member of the SS or Police. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.469.\nDocument No.NO-3520may be found on Page 6 of the English and on Page 13 of the German. This is an order dated 9 June 1943 by Kaltenbrunner to the effect that the consent of the Higher SS and Police Leaders as representatives of the RKFDV does not have to be obtained for abortions when the father is not of German Race. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.470.\nDocument No.L-8may be found on Page 8 of the English and on Page 16 of the German. This consists of four documents date respectively 9 June, 1943, 23 June, 1944, 18 February 1944, 24 June 1944. These four documents consist of letters on abortions on Eastern workers signed by Conti and Kaltenbrunner. I now offer Document No.L-8as Prosecution Exhibit No. 471.\nDocument No.NO-1384may be found on Page 17 of the English and on Page 25 of the German. This is a directive dated 1 August 1943 by Kaltenbrunner broadening the scope of the decree of 9 June 1943, which may be found above in DocumentL-8. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.472.\nDocument No.NO-3557may be found on Page 19 of the English and on Page 27 of the German. This is a circular dated 13 August 1943 by Hildebrandt concerning abortions on Polish women. I offer this document \n as Prosecution Exhibit No.473.Document No.NO-933may be found on Page 20 of the English and on Page 29 of the German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1052, "page_number": "1048", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This is a cover letter dated 23 August 1943 by Hildebrandt to memo concerning treatment of pregnant women workers. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.474.\nDocument No.NO-5007may be found on Page 22 of the English and on Page 32 of the German. This is a letter dated 9 October 1942 from Himmler to Gauletier Eigruber concerning the treatment of children of alien origin and stating that he has had abortions carried out on women pregnant by inferior alines. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 475.\nThe next document is document No. 1753-PS. TheNO shouldbe omitted, it is incorrect. This may be found on Page 24 of the English and on Page 35 of the German. It is a report dated 30 October 1943 by the Security Service the SD, to District Office for Public Health on opinions among physicians as to the program for abortions. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.476.\nDocument No.NO-4140may be found on Page 29 of the English and on Page 40 of the German. This is a circular letter dated 17 January 1944 from the Chief of the Gestapo in Frankfurt ordering that all pregnancies of Eastern workers and Poles be reported to his office. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.477.\nDocument No.NO-4369may be found on Page 31 of the English and on Page 43 of the German. This is a circular letter dated 20 January 1944 by the NSDAP Reich Directorate concerning the treatment of pregnant foreign workers and their children, and abortions. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.478.\nDocument No.NO-1364may be found on Page 36 of the English and on Page 47 of the German. The index is somewhat misleading here in that it only gives a description of one part of this document. The first part of this document is a letter from Dongus dated 5 January 1945 to the WuSHA field leaders; the second part of this document is a directive \n dated 27 November 1944 by Himmler concerning sexual intercourse of foreign workers and PW's and all abortions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1053, "page_number": "1049", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.479.\nDocument No.NO-3556may be found on Page 41 of the English and on Page 50 of the German. This is a circular dated 19 December 1944 signed by Dongus of the RuSHA concerning abortions on married Eastern workers and Poles. I now offer this, document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 480.\nDocument No.NO-4141may be found on Page 42 of the English and on Page 51 of the German. This is a letter dated 24 March 1944,from the defendant Hofmann as Higher SS and Police Leader outlining the regulations on treatment of foreign workers and PW's in connection with sexual intercourse, children and abortions. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.481.\nDocument No.NO-3288may be found on Page 46 of the English and on Page 56 of the German. This is a circular dated 17 August 1944 by Ahrens, deputy local officer for Race and Settlement problems in the SS district Vistula (Danzig-West Prussia) concerning reports by employers on pregnancies of foreign workers. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 482.\nDocument No.NO-1380may be found on Page 48 of the English and on Page 58 of the German. This is a directive dated 6 April 1944 by Klinger in the RuSHA Office in Prague, stating that the decision as to an abortion in \"special treatment\" cases is now a responsibility of the RuSHA. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.483.\nDocument No.NO-3454may be found on Page 49 of the English and on Page 59 of the German. In the English this consists of excerpts from register of applications for abortions on Eastern workers on Oberfranken, which was kept from May 1943 through April 1945. This has been inserted in the German Document Book in full. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.484.\nDocument No.NO-3550may be found on page 58 of the English and on \n Page 179 of the German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1054, "page_number": "1050", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This is a request dated 28 February 1945 to the RuSHA Field Leader with the Higher SS and Police Leader Nurnberg for immediate action in the case of a pregnant Polish woman. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.485.\nDocument No.NO-3084may be found on Page 59 of the English and on Page 180 of the German. This consists of six letters dated from October through December 1943 from the Kattowitz local office of the RKFDV accompanying requests for abortions on Eastern workers. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.486.\nDocument No.NO-3534may be found on Page 66 of the English and on Page 186 of the German. This is a letter dated 22 December 1944 from Dr. H esslen, Chief of the Medical Association of Oberfranken to Dr. Goldwitzer, stating that doctors must perform abortions in cases of pregnancy up to 21 weeks. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 487.\nDocument No.NO-3523may be found on Page 67 of the English and on Page 187 of the German. This is a cover letter dated 17 April 1944 from Schmauser, Higher SS and Police Leader Southeast, in his capacity as representative of the RKFDV in Breslau to the Race and Settlement Leader on his staff, accompanying a request for an abortion on a Polish worker. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.488.\nDocument No. 3517 may be found on Page 69 of the English and on Page 188 of the German. This is a cover letter dated 3 December 1943, from Dr. Baumgart of the Reichs Medical Cham ber at Kattowitz to the Kattowitz Soap Plant for an abortion on an Eastern worker. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.489.\nDocument No.NO-3518may be found on Page 71 of the English and on Page 189 of the German. This is a cover letter dated 28 October 1943 from Dr. Baumgart to the representative of the RKFDV, accompanying an application by the Labor Office Beuthen for an abortion on an Eastern worker. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.490.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1055, "page_number": "1051", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Document No.NO-3513may be found on Page 74 of the English and on Page 191 of the German. This is a letter dated 1 August 1944 from the Labor Office Kattowitz to the RKFDV, Kattowitz, listing 8 pregnant Eastern workers transferred to the sick quarters of the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz for abortions. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.491.\nDocument No.NO-3512may be found on Page 76 of the English and on Pass 194 of the German. This is a letter dated 29 Sept. 1944 from Bermaisch the RUSHA Field Leader, to Gauleiter and Oberpraesident in Kattowitz, representative of the RKFDV, permitting an abortion on an Eastern Worker. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.492.\nDocument No. 4823 may be found on Page 77 of the English and on Page 195 of the German. This is an affidavit by the defendant Schwalm which I now offer as Prosecution Exhibit No.493I skip the following document and come to DocumentNO-5127. This may be found on Page 84 of the English and on Page 204 of the German and is an affidavit by one Walter Spoehring.\nI now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit494.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1056, "page_number": "1052", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "I am omitting the last document in the Document Book. This concludes the documents in Document Book No. 9. Mr. Lamb will continue with the documents in Document Book 10.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, in Document Book No. 10 the Prosecution first offers, Document shown on Page 1, Document No.NO-2447, parts 1 and 2, the first part being a memorandum by Mueller to RFSS, dated 23 December, 1942, on suggestions as to treatment of pregnant foreign workers and their children, as Prosecution Exhibit495.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 5, Document No.NO-1383, being a directive by Kaltenbrunner concerning the treatment of pregnant foreign workers and children born in the Reich by foreign workers, dated 27 July, 1943, as our Exhibit No. 496.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 11, Document No.NO-4665, a letter from Hilgenfeldt to the RFSS concerning the ill-treatment of babies of Eastern workers, dated 11 August 1943, as Prosecution Exhibit No.497.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 13 being an affidavit by Otto Hofmann, dated 28 June 1947, Document No.NO-4712, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 498.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 16, Document No.NO-1413, being a directive from the Reich Minister of Interior concerning illegitimate children of foreign female workers, dated 5 June 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 499.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 22, Document No.NO-1366, being a letter from Ahrens to Klinger concerning the consequences and punishments in cases of sexual intercourse between Germans and foreigners, dated 13 September 1944, as our Exhibit No. 500.\nWe next offer Document shown on Page 27, Document No.NO-1378, a circular signed by Althaus concerning pregnancy of foreign workers and their children born in the Reich, dated 20 Oct. 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 501.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 29, Document No.NO-1385, memorandum by Ahrens concerning the treatment of pregnant foreign \n workers and their children, dated 2 January 1945, as our Exhibit No. 502.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1057, "page_number": "1053", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "We next offer document shown on page 31 Document No.NO-4370, a letter from the HSSPF concerning the expected illegitimate child of the Polish worker Barbara Koscielinak, dated 15 April 1944, as our Exhibit No. 503.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 32, Document No.NO-4371, a letter from the HSSPF concerning application for abortions of the Polish worker Katarzyna Batycka, as our Exhibit No. 504.\nWe next offer document shown on Page 33, Document No.NO-2491, being a report by Drs. Etzel and Gallmeyer concerning an inspection of Latvian children's homes and suggesting \"special treatment\" for some, dated 1 Dec. 1944, as our Exhibit No. 505.\nWe next offer Document shown on Pages 37, 39 and 41, Documents numberedNO-2488, NO-2489 and NO-2490, and being a series of memoranda signed by Wetzel dealing with accommodations of Eastern and Latvian children in German NSV kindergartens. These are dated 16 December, 3 November and 4 December respectively, as our Exhibit No. 506.\nThat completes the documents in Document Book No. 10.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should now like to put in the documents in Document Book No. VI-C. The first document is Document No. NO-1386 which may be found on Page 1 in both the English and the German. This is a letter from Schmauser to the RFSS Himmler dated 20 April 1942 concerning slave laborers at Kattowice. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.507.\nDocument No.NO-3915may be found on Page 4 of the English and on Page 6 of the German Document Book. This is a letter dated Oct. 9, 1940 from Mueller to the RKFDV drafting Polish workers. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.508.\nThe next is Document No.NO-3224. This is on Page 6 of the English and on Page 8 of the German. It consists of a cover letter dated 11 November 1942 and a report to the chief of the RuSHA dated 25 Oct. 1942 concerning the recruitting of female workers. I now offer this \n document as Prosecution Exhibit No.509.The next is Document No.NO-2279which may be found on Page 11 of the English and on Page 14 of the German.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1058, "page_number": "1054", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This is a letter dated 24 February 1943 from the defendant Lorenz to Himmler concerning Russian workers in aircraft factories. I should like to call the Court's attention to the fact that the translation, through a mistake, says, \"signature illegible\" but that the Prosecution claims this is the signature of the defendant Lorenz. The Prosecution now offers this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 510.\nDocument No.NO-2860may be found on Page 14 of the English and on Page 18 of the German. This is an order by Keitel dated 24 July 1943 to send able-bodied labor to the Reich. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.511.\nDocument No.NO-1738may be found on Page 16 of the English and on Page 20 of the German. This is an order dated 8 July 1943 concerning labor for coal mines. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit 512. That concludes Document Book No. VI-C.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1059, "page_number": "1055", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "I should now like to offer the document contained in Document Book No. XI.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What has become of V-E?\nMR. SHILLER:I believe V-E has been previously introduced your Honor. One moment please. According to our records the Document Book V-E was introduced by Mr. Lamb of the Prosecution on the 30th of October.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am very much afraid your record is wrong.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, your Honor, we will check on that at the noon time recess. If it has not been introduced we will do so.\nDocument Book XI begins with Document No.NO-3033which may be found on page 1 of both the English and the German. This is a letter dated 3 July 1940 from Pancke to Bormann's office suggesting the issuance of laws and propaganda to prevent relations of German girls with foreigners. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.513.\nDocument No.NO-4634may be found on page 3 of the English and on page 4 of the German. This consists of six orders, one of which is dated 25 June 1944 by the Gestapo office in Duesseldorf. This order dated 25 June 1944 is order No. 2 and states that the bodies of foreign workers subjected to \"special Treatment\" should be cremated if possible. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.514.\nDocument No. 3040-PS may be found on page 7 of the English and on page 6 of the German. This consists of excerpts from a general decree collection issued by the RSHA. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.515.\nDocument No. NO*850 may be found on page 14 of the English and on page 22 of the German. This is an order \n dated 5 March 1942 from the SS Recruiting Office directing that racial examination take place elsewhere than in recruiting offices.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1060, "page_number": "1056", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 516 Document No.NO-3296may be found on page 16 of the English and on page 24 of the German.\nThis is a memorandum dated 20 May 1942 from the Gestapo concerning sexual intercourse between Germans and Poles in the incorporated Eastern territories and special treatment. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.517.\nDocument No.NO-1391may be found on page 20 of the English and on page 26 of the German. This is a memorandum dated 13 June 1942 from the RSHA concerning sexual intercourse between Czechs and Germans. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.518.\nDocument No.NO-3290may be found on page 22 of the English and on page 29 of the German. This is a circular letter dated 7 September 1942 from the deputy chief of the Race Office of the RuSHA concerning special treatment of Czechs and Polish workers in Germany. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.519.\nDocument No.NO-1389may be found on page 24 of the English and on page 30 of the German. It is dated 7 September 1942 and consists of directives from the RuSHA concerning sexual intercourse between Czechs and Germans and also providing that \"special treatment\" be applied to Czechs as well as to Poles. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 520.\nDocument No.NO-2873may be found on page 26 of the English and on page 32 of the German. This is a copy of a letter dated 20 February 1943 from the RKFDV to Higher SS \n and Police Leaders concerning the treatment of Poles and other Eastern workers eligible for Germanization who have had sexual intercourse with Germans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1061, "page_number": "1057", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.521.\nDocument No.NO-1531may be found on page 28 of the English and on page 34 of the German. This is an order dated 9 March 1943 from Himmler to concentration camp commandants dealing with racial evaluation by camp physicians. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.522.\nDocument No.NO-1452may be found on page 29 of the English and on page 35 of the German. This is an order dated 17 November 1943 from the WVHA to the concentration camp commandants directing them to facilitate racial examinations of inmates by the RuSHA representatives. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.523.\nDocument No.NO-2864may be found on page 30 of the English and on page 36 of the German. This is a letter dated 3 December 1943 from the defendant Schwalm to the personal staff of Himmler concerning examination by RuSHA representatives of cases of \"special treatment\" ordered by the RSHA. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 524.\nDocument No.NO-1457may be found on page 32 of the English and on page 37 of the German. This is a letter dated 14 December 1943 from the RuSHA to the RUSHA field leaders concerning \"special treatment\" I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.525.\nDocument No. 2483-PS is an affidavit by one Lindow. This may be found on page 33 of the English and on page 38 of the German. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 526.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1062, "page_number": "1058", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Document No.NO-1458may be found on page 35 of the English and on page 41 of the German. This is a letter dated 20 December 1943 from the Race Office of the RuSHA to the RuSHA field leaders concerning racial examinations of concentration camp inmates.\nThe next document is listed in the index in three parts and is document No.NO-1356(A), (B), and (C) which will be offered as one document. This may be found on page 36 of the English and page 42 of the German. Part (A) is a directive dated 10 February 1944 by Kaltenbrunner of the RSHA concerning the punishment of foreign workers for sexual intercourse with German women. Part (B) is a document dated 13 March 1944 from the Race Office of the RuSHA concerning \"special treatment\" procedure. Part (C) is a sample form, the date illegible, concerning forbidden sexual intercourse between foreign workers. I now offer this document consisting of Parts (A), (B) and (C) as Prosecution Exhibit No. 528.\nDocument No.NO-3605may be found on page 48 of the English and on page 58 of the German. This is a telegram dated 16 March 1944 from the RuSHA field leader notifying the Gestapo at Frankfurt of a coming examination of persons for whom special treatment was proposed. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.529.\nDocument No.NO-3352was inserted in the English document books after the English document books have been distributed. It, therefore, may be found beginning on page 48a of the English and on page 59 of the German. This is a circular dated 26 April 1944 from the RuSHA containing directives for speeding up investigation of special treatment. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 530.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1063, "page_number": "1059", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Document No.NO-3349may be found on page 49 of the English and on page 60 of the German. This is a letter dated 10 May 1944 from the RuSHA to the RSHA concerning \"special treatment\" in the incorporated Eastern territories.\nDocument No.NO-3350may be found on page 51 of the English and on page 62 of the German. This is a circular dated 2 August 1944 from the RuSHA concerning \"special treatment\" of Eastern workers and PWs. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.532.\nThe next item in the index of the English and German has been crossed out and omitted in the document books, previously introduced in document book IV-C.\nDocument No.NO-5132may be found on page 53 of the English and on page 54 of the German. This is an affidavit by Guenther Pancke and was introduced into evidence during the cross-examination of Pancke as Prosecution exhibit No. 309.\nDocument No.NO-5133may be found on page 59 of the English and page 73 of the German. This is an affidavit by one Proksch which I now offer as Prosecution Exhibit No. 533.\nAnd that concludes the documents on Document Book No.XI.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30 (A recess was taken until 1330 hours) \n AFTERNOON SESSION The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1064, "page_number": "1060", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal the Prosecution requests the Tribunal to call the witness ERICH SCHULZ to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nERICHSCHULZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God.\nA.I swear by God.\nQ.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nA.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ.That I will speak the pure truth.\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ.And will withhold and add nothing.\nA.And will withhold and add nothing. BY MR. NEELY:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, will you please state your name?\nA.My name is Erich Schulz.\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.I was born on the 6th of June 1901 at Berlin.\nQ.Would you state very briefly the educational institutions which you have attended.\nA.First of all I attend high school at Koenigstadt in Berlin and after that the University of Berlin; then the University of Tuebingen and then I passed my examination as a lawyer at Tuebingen. Then I also received the title of doctor and on the 16th of June 1932 I passed my examination as an associate judge, before the Prussian State Justice \n Office in Berlin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "A.", "ERICH", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1065, "page_number": "1061", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.Then you are a lawyer by profession.\nA.No, that is not correct. I am a full legal expert working for Lebensborn. During that time I worked as an associate judge at the District Court of appeal for six years.\nQ.Thank you, witness. Were you ever a member of the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When?\nA.I joined the SS on the 1st of March 1944.\nQ.What was your last rank which you held in the SS?\nA.I was Hauptsturmfuehrer, specialist.\nQ.Were you ever employed by Lebensborn and if so during what time did you serve with Lebensborn?\nA.Yes, I worked with Lebensborn from the 8th of June 1938 until the third year, 30th April 1945.\nQ.Would you explain in detail your duties while working for Lebensborn?\nA.First of all I worked in the office for guardianship which later on was included in Department A. My activity there included the handling of files, guardianships, and other legal porocedures. Then I had to include in my duties reimbursing contracts, alimonies, and things that arise in connection with guardianship matters. Then I was employed from late fall 1940 in taxation matters. Then on the basis of a law of the 5/11 1938 I also had tomake applications for changes of names, examine the law in regard to the changing of family names, and first names, and later on I had to do with registration of names, I also had to take care of the examination of alimonies from the 6th of April 1943 I was a Registrar at the Registration Office in Munich.\nQ.Witness, did you ever serve in the capacity as deputy to the director of Lebensborn?\nA.Yes, in the year 1941-42, to approximately March 1943 I was a \n deputy member of the board of directors of Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1066, "page_number": "1062", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.What were your duties as deputy director of Lebensborn?\nA.The expression \"director\" is wrong.\nQ.Deputy manager then. Is that correct?\nA.As a deputy manager of the board of directors I alone could not carry out any action by myself but I had to work together with another deputizing member for a member of the board of directors. With the exception of two contracts which were concluded with real estate purchases my deputizing was purely of a formal nature.\nQ.Who was the other deputy during this time?\nA.That was Dr. Tesch.\nQ.Was Dr. Tesch' position also a formal position as deputy manager?\nA.As a deputy manager I have already stated he alone could not do anything by himself but he also had to act with another deputy manager. Furthermore the board of directors itself was entitled to take action there and I want to emphasize the board alone.\nQ.Witness, you stated that you were appointed Registrar of Lebensborn in 1943. Would you explain in detail the functions of this office and the duties you performed while working in this capacity?\nA.To call it registration, that is wrong too. It was the Registration Office \"L\". As a Registrar first of all I had to certify birth certificates and things of that sort also I dealt with cases where fathership was admitted.\nQ.What information did the files in your office contain, the card files. What information was listed on these cards?\nA.Well, I don't know what files you are referring to.\nQ.In your card files I believe that you kept the names of children. Isn't that correct?\nA.Are you referring to the children from the Warthegau?\nQ.Yes, I am referring to the children of the Warthegau.\nA.The files contained the Christian names and the family names \n of the children, the birthdate of the children, and then sometimes files would contain information about the origin of the children registered sometimes this information would be lacking.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1067, "page_number": "1063", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "That is all the information that I had in the files about the children. Then in connection with this personal information there would be the reports on the guardianship. This would come from Dr. Sonder in the children's home at Kalisch. Then there would come a psychological report. This was extent of the files which we had at the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1068, "page_number": "1064", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QWould you state where this information came from; how did this information which you had in your files, how did it get into your hands?\nAWhenever I had to take some action, according to Paragraph 26 of the German Penal Code, then the files were usually added. Of course these things were handled in a ways. Sometimes I went to the department and got the files and sometimes the files were brought to me, by Miss Saenger, or some other person brought them who happened to be employed in the other department.\nQTo what main department of Lebensborn was your office subordinated to?\nAStandesamt-L, registration office, approximately from the end of August, 1943 on, by virtue of a circular which was signed by Dr. Tesch, and before it was subordinated to the Main Department for Legal Matters. At the time, on that occasion because it had seemed to be wrong as far as the organization was concerned, I had a discussion with Dr. Tesch and I told him this organization was completely impossible. Then Dr. Tesch told me that this was purely a formal matter which was not important in any way. Then I asked him can I believe you on that, and then he replied you can believe what I am telling you. Then, subsequently, he never interfered in official matters as far as I was concerned.\nQWas this the only person or department to whom you were responsible?\nANo, after all as a registrar I was subordinated to Sollmann who was a ministerial official; he was my superior as far as the supervision of my work was concerned.\nQWas Dr. Tesch thoroughly informed as to the work of your department?\nAHe was informed as to the extent of the work done by the registration office. Whether he knew about individual cases, I don't knew; however, he was informed about the extent of the work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1069, "page_number": "1065", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QDid you ever discuss the children from the Warthegau with Dr. Tesch or Sollmann?\nAYes, that happened towards the end of 1942 or early 1943. Dr. Tesch asked me on that occasion whether I had ever looked at the files; I answered in the negative. He told me just take any file that is available; there is something I would like to discuss with you in that connection. I did this and looked at the files in his room, and then he asked me just how do you think about the question whether these children can be adopted. First of all I gave him a lecture about the legal statue of these children and I went into many details. Then I told him about state law, international law, international private law, and civil law, and then I looked at the facts which were contained in the files. Then I told him the files can be interpreted in three different ways. First of all, everything here can be quite legal; however, we don't know that for certain, and it doesn't become evident from the files. The other case was that everything could be contrary to law; however, that also was not evident from the files. And, thirdly, there was the possibility that the files had only been written down in a haphazard manner and everything otherwise could have been in the best of order. Since, however, this situation prevailed, and since we could not interpret towards one or the other direction for certain, I, of course, suggested that these files might be contrary to law, and I gave my legal advice accordingly. I told him that I couldn't do anything with these files; that adoption was out of the question because above all it had to be determined what the origin of the children were, and where the families were, and whether they were alive and all of these thinhs were very unclear from the individual files.\nQWitness, did you state to Tesch, gathering from what you are saying now, did you inform him that the facts and the amount of information which you had available, that it was illegal according to German law to have these children adopted -- with the amount of information \n which you had available at that time; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1070, "page_number": "1066", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AI told him that adoption was impossible with this state of affairs. The facts which we had available we couldn't carry out an adoption on the children; that was out of the question.\nQThank you, witness. But in spite of your warning, did children continue to come in from the Wartergau?\nAWell, that is correct, the children arrived after I discus sed the matter with Dr. Tesch; I believe that two transports arrived after that.\nIt must have happened in April or May, or June 1941.\nQDid you ever state to Dr. Tesch that under the present conditions, as to the amount of information which you had, that you did not want to have any part in handling the adoption of these children.\nAWell, I didn't discuss this question with Dr. Tesch any more. This refers to a discussion which took place in April or May 1943 when I as registrar had to deal with these things. On that occasion, in the presence of Dr. Tesch, I told Standartenfuehrer Sollmann that as a legal expert and registrar, I was unable to do anything with these files. I told him that I refused to carry out any legal functions in that respect, and I pointed out once more in that connection that under no circumstances would I take any independent part in this case. I told him that for reasons of the facts which we had available. However, another factor was that according to law and under Paragraph 26, as a registrar, I was unable to carry out such activities because there was no legal provision for me to do that. I was unable to carry out this function without orders from the minis terial representative.\nQBut in spite of all of your legal advice to Herr Sollmann and Tesch, children still continued to come in from the Warthegau; is that correct?\nACome in is not the correct word; after all, they were sent in. We did not send for them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1071, "page_number": "1067", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QJust one moment -\nAThey were send to us.\nQI think that must have been a mistranslation on that. They came in, but you have answered my question. We will go on. Did you ever hear the term ethnic German children used in referring to the children who were to be placed with German families?\nAYes. All these children were sent to us as ethnic Germans, orphan children without any families. Even if this was not mentioned in the files, they were sent to us as ethnic Germans without any family.\nQCould the racial descent of these children be determined from the information in your files?\nANo.\nQThank you.\nAThat would have been impossible. After all, as far as I can recall, the files did not contain any information about the appearance of the children.\nQWitness, do you knew Dr. Gregor Ebner?\nAYes, I know him.\nQDo you know what his duties were in Lebensborn and which department he was associated with?\nAYes. In the year 1938, when I entered Lebensborn, Dr. Ebner was the business manager and the director at the time was Obersturnbannfuehrer Flaum. Dr. Ebner at the same time was in charge of the children's home at Steinhoehen. When Main Department A was established and Frau Inge Viermetz left this Main Department A, Dr. Ebner as far as I can recall for approximately six months was the head of the main department, and he was in charge of the main department in that capacity. When afterwards the Main Department for Health Service was established, he became the head of the Main Department for Health; however, at the same time, besides all of these activities, \n he also worked as the man in charge of the children's home at Steinhoehen.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1072, "page_number": "1068", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QWitness, do you know Frau Inge Viermetz?\nAYes, I do know Frau Inge Viermetz.\nQWould you explain what her duties were in Lebensborn?\nAAt the time when I entered Lebensborn, Frau Inge Viermetz dealt with the department which was working on the taking of children into homes. When Main Department A was established. she became the deputy head of the Main Department, and when she left Department A, Main Department A, she was given personal orders to take care of certain matters by Sollmann.\nQWhile Frau Viermetz was deputy in Department A, was she-\nAThat is my department.\nQYes. Was she actually in complete charge of this department; or was her title merely a honorary title.\nAYes, in practice she was actually in charge. Sollmann had the Main Department subordinated to himself; however, at the time she was actually in charge of the Main Department.\nQJust one more question, witness. You spoke about being deputy to the manager of Lebensborn. I would like to ask you one more question concerning that. Did you ever see any circular issued by Sollmann in regards to Teach's duties as his deputy?\nAYes, it was not the board of supervisors, but it was the borad of directors. On one occasion Herr Sollmann signed a circular, and this circular stated that in case he should be absent, Dr. Tesch would be his deputy in office.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you, witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything by the Defense?", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1073, "page_number": "1069", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch)\nQ.Witness, as a result of your activities which you carried on for many years at Lebensborn, can you tell me something about the task of that organization?\nA.Yes, I can do that. The Lebensborn had the task of a child birth clinic. It did not matter in this case whether the women were married or whether these pregnant women were single. All women had the possibility without any difference as to tank, membership in the party or any other formation, to utilize the institutions. For the most part according to the differing individual cases, women would come after five or six months of pregnancy and would enter the homes at that time and then they would look after them through their difficult hours; and then sometimes for four months or six months after they gave birth to their child, they were allowed to remain in the homes. Particularly then if a mother was able to provide the child with milk. Great emphasis was placed upon the fact that their children were able to obtain milk from the mothers.\nQ.Witness, was the purpose of Lebensborn to further illegal births? Or, was the purpose to help unmarried women?\nA.Yes, the latter was the case.\nQ.Were only those pregnant women accepted in Lebensborn who were expecting children from members of the SS?\nA.No, it did not make any difference whether a father was a member of any formation of the party or whether he was not a member of the party. No emphasis was placed on that at all. It was only a question of whether the father's name could be discovered, and that he admitted his paternity, and that he did not deny that he was the father from the very beginning. That was the important factor.\nQ.Before being accepted in a home of the Lebensborn, did the women have to pass an examination by a classification officer from the Settlement Office? Witness, please wait a second before answering so that the interpreter will be able to catch up with us.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1074, "page_number": "1070", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.Yes.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, we object to this line of questioning. We feel that it has nothing to do with the testimony, in the direct examination of the witness. It concerns Lebensborn, but it has nothing to do with the phase of the examination which we have just undergone. It concerns only the maternity homes which in no way was the subject of the direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The trouble about that is, the Defense when you put a witness up for any purposes has a right to cross examine him about anything that is charged in the indictment. I over-rule the objection.\nGo ahead. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.Witness, I believe you were just about to answer my question whether before being accepted in a home of Lebensborn, these women were examined by a Racial and Settlement expert. Was there a racial classification at Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.Were the children which were born in the Lebensborn home subject to any classification?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know that the collaborators on the staff of Lebensborn at the same time had specialist grades in the Waffen SS and in the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Such specialist officers were classified in their own respective organizations and these grades they kept then. However, it had nothing to do with the activity of the Lebensborn, nor does it have anything to do with Race and Settlement Office of the SS. After all I was a specialist officer, and after all I was classified as being a member of the press, war economy. I had nothing to do with the press, nor did I have anything to do with the war economy, because the whole thing seemed so much strange to me. On the occasion when I visited the \n personnel press staff at Berlin, I discussed this question with a competent man in the personnel office there, and he told me then that for such a classification only budgetary reasons were responsible.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1075, "page_number": "1071", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "He explained to me that we were given our pay according to a special article, and regulations of the budget, and for every occupation only some positions are contained in the budget. If an officer was to become a specialist officer, then he simply was put into that occupation where the table of organization for such a position was open; this could not be done otherwise. It had to pass a purely budgetary regulation, and that has nothing to do with the Race and Settlement Main Office, or press, or war economy, and things of that sort.\nQ.Was the Lebensborn dependent upon the directives of the Race and Settlement Main Office with regard to the selection and classification of ethnic Germans?\nA.No.\nQ.Besides the tasks which you have already mentioned, what other tasks did Lebensborn have. I am speaking of the Main Department for orphans.\nA.The Main Department for orphans, caused by the war, was established as a result of the war. It was established approximately in the year 1940, and it served the sole purpose of providing homes for children who had lost their parents as a result of the war. It also gave aid to the widows sometimes in legal respects, by helping them to make the necessary applications for the Wehrmacht, welfare offices, and also to the fact that in emergencies, in case of an emergency this office would give them support; for example, I can recall that widows of men who had died in the war, with their families, were sent for several weeks on a vacation so that their mental pain would be eliminated in that way. This main department for war orphans was purely the result of the war, and it was caused by the war conditions.\nQ.Witness, did any rumors come to your attention which already for many years have been going around about Lebensborn, and \n which described the Lebensborn as an institution for the furthering of immorality?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1076, "page_number": "1072", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.Yes, unfortunately I am aware of these rumors.\nQ.Can you give us any details about that?\nA.These rumors vary. One rumor stated that whenever a mother gave birth to a child in Lebensborn -\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, I object to rumors the witness is now testifying to. It has nothing to do with this indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Speaking for myself only, I have been impressed with the fact that both the Prosecution and Defense have used so much time talking about reports and rumors and heresay testimony. That, so far as I am personally concerned, is worth absolutely nothing, so I do not see why both sides continue to resort to that sort of testimony because it is without any probative value. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.I then would like to ask you the following question, witness. Do you know whether children who had been born in the home of Lebensborn were taken away from their mothers at Lebensborn and whether they were brought up at the expense of the state or the SS?\nA.No, things of that sort never happened. To the contrary we always urged the mothers to take along their children, but after all, from the economic situation of the mothers, and frequently because they were unable to care for the children because they worked, that is why our children's home was established. That was the reason why, for example, in the year 1941 a children's home was established at Korensalis. We were glad whenever the mothers took their children along with them.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn have homes or institutions which served for the purpose to give men and women the opportunity to have sexual intercourse?\nA.Counsel, we did not engage in professional pimping; and, after all that is what this would have amounted to. Things of that \n sort did not occur within Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1077, "page_number": "1073", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.I am now coming to the ethnic German orphans. Were these children from the Warthegau classified and examined as to their racial values?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1078, "page_number": "1074", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.In the Lebensborn, was the possibility given to investigate the origin of the children, or did you have to depend upon the statements of those agencies from which the children had been turned over to the Lebensborn?\nA.The latter is the case.\nQ.Were these children from the Warthegau considered to be foreign children, or were they considered to be ethnic German children? I mean, in particular, did you refer to them, for example, as Polish children?\nA.No, we never mentioned Polish children. We always looked at these children from the point of view that they were ethnic German orphans without any families.\nQ.In the Lebensborn, were the children from the Warthegau separated into different categories, for example, children of German origin and children of Polish origin?\nA.No, that did not occur.\nQ.Witness, on one occasion did you visit the Lebensborn home at Oberreiss?\nA.Yes, I was there twice.\nQ.Just a moment, please. Were you there at the time when Herr Heinze was turning over the ethnic German children to foster parents?\nA.Yes, I was there.\nQ.From your own observations on that occasion, can you say whether the foster parents received any adequate information from Herr Heinze, or from any other collaborator of the Lebensborn, with regard to the origin of these children?\nA.Yes, Herr Heinze informed the foster parents in my presence, and I personally witnessed one or two cases where he discussed the matter with the foster parents. On those ossacsions he told the foster parents whatever was contained in the files. He did not tell them any more and he did not tell them any less.\nQ.A while ago you also referred to the fact that you had a discussion with Dr. Tesch concerning these children from the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1079, "page_number": "1075", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "You stated that on one occasion you gave him legal advice in that respect, and you said that you had voiced various legal misgivings about it.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did this warning or these misgivings on your part refer to the adoption of such children of the Warthegau, or did it refer, in general, to the taking over of such children into the care of the Lebensborn?\nA.It referred to the adoption as well as to the taking over from the registrar's point of view.\nQ.You referred to the adoption, and in that connection I would like to ask you this. Do you know whether, in any case, adoption of such children from the Warthegau was carried out?\nA.No, I don't know of any case.\nQ.And your legal misgivings referred to the field of work of the registrar?\nA.Yes.\nQ.May I ask you to give us a little more detail?\nA.As I have already stated, because the files gave such an inadequate picture, we had some doubts that perhaps something was not quite in order in all legal respects. Consequently, when I gave my legal advice, I had assumed that something illegal had occurred here. Of course, I stated, in the course of the discussion, that the opposite might also be true. However, that factor was not known. I then maintained the point of view that if a certificate was to be issued according to Paragraph 26 of the German Law, it had to be determined first, in a positive manner, that the personal status of this or that particular child could not be discovered. That is, it had to be determined objectively, first, that no information was available for these particular children, and that had to be done within a certain period of time. I thought, of course, when I made my statement, that some information could still be ascertained in a definite manner only that it was not possible personally to discover something.\nQ.And were you of the opinion, at the time, that the measures \n which were then taken in connection with these children were not in accordance with your legal opinion?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1080, "page_number": "1076", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Or were measures involved at the time which were only carried out on a temporary basis as a result of the war?\nA.The measures under Paragraph 26 of the German Personal Status Law were only of a temporary nature. At the time I did not have only a legal difference of opinion, but it was simply a question of the finding of facts. In the very end, there, we had to decide whether to rely upon the statements and information of the Gauselbstverwaltung or not. I was of the opinion, at the time, that I could not rely upon the information which we had received in the files. Of course, the other party could also say, \"After all, these are German authorities and they believed the information.\"\nQ.In the various cases did you not turn to the Gauselbstverwaltung in order to find out the facts, and, beyond that, didn't you also gather information from juvenile courts or registrar offices in the Warthegau?\nA.Yes, At one occasion, in an individual case, when we had an order under Paragraph 26, I, as the registrar, had the duty to examine the question, first of all, of whether two files existed on the same person. Since our files did not give any information about that, and since birth certificates were not enclosed therein either, before I made the entry, first of all, I requested information from the juvenile court at Litzmannstadt, as well as the files. In one case I received notifications three times, with the statement that the files were not available. I then turned to the guardianship court at Litzmannstadt. I did that because I had been an associate judge in guardianship matters before, and I was precisely informed about the fact that German guardianship courts had the duty, by way of a guardian, to request the birth certificates. In all the cases where I did this, I was unable to obtain a single birth certificate in the files of the court at Litzmannstadt. In two or three cases it even happened that I was notified by the court at Litzmannstadt that no guardianship existed. I then tried to obtain the \n guardianship files from the guardianship court at Poznan, because it was possible that these children might have come from the Polish orphanage at Poznan.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1081, "page_number": "1077", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "However, in this case I also received a negative answer.\nAfter it had been determined that two files were kept, which is punishable by law, only when this danger had been removed, by virtue of an order by Dr. Sollmann, I made the entries.\nQ.And as a registrar, in the cases which you have described, you did not voice any legal misgivings as to the making out of certificates?\nA.I did not express any legal misgivings. The misgivings I had only voiced as regards to the information about the children.\nQ.When you made out the certificates according to Paragraph 26, you stated, if I understood you correctly, you stated that this was only done on a temporary basis?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What do you mean by that?\nA.I mean that these were new files on the personal status of the individuals, according to German law made arbitrarily. In this case the objective file -\nTHEPRESIDENT (Interposing): I think you can answer his question more directly without going so much into detail. BY DR. SCHMIDT?\nQ.I asked you, witness, what you mean by \"temporary measures\" in making out certificates according to Paragraph 26 of the Personal Status Law.\nA.You mean new files on persons?\nQ.That is, whenever a person changes his status, the old one is immediately rescinded and a correction is made accordingly?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You have already stated that the registrar's office was incorporated into the Main Legal Department.\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1082, "page_number": "1078", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.And you stated that this only had a formal importance. The responsibility of the defendant Tesch, therefore, with regard to your activity as a registrar, should be excluded?\nA.As far as I worked within the framework of Paragraph 26, the responsibility there was on the part of the ministerial official. As far as my activity was not based on that paragraph, every registrar -my deputies as well as myself -- had to act on his own free responsibility, just like all other registrars in other agencies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1083, "page_number": "1079", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.Witness, was the purpose of the establishment of Registration OfficeL thecarrying out and the making up of certificates for these ethnic German children?\nA.No.\nQ.Well, what was the purpose of that department?\nA.Originally the Registration OfficeL wasintended to take care of births which occurred abroad, of children of parents of German nationality, who, because of secrecy reasons, were unable to have the certificates made out by the Registrar's Office in Berlin.\nFurthermore, during the war, the necessity arose because persons who came back from the front wanted to have their parenthood acknowledged quickly before a registrar's office, and they did not like to go to a notary public about that.\nQ.You just mentioned something about secrecy, witness. What was the reason for the so-called secrecy of the Lebensborn?\nA.The reason for the secrecy was that the mothers could be given the possibility of giving birth to a child without, as a result of this, being condemned by society.\nQ.And how was this secrecy carried out in practice?\nA.It was carried out so that, first of all, the birth certificate for the child was made out in the registrar's office of the home, and the police registration went through the police registration office at Munich, so far as the mother was concerned. These were the important reasons which led to the secrecy.\nQ.According to the registration laws, it was described that a case of birth also had to be reported to the registrar's office at the locality where the mother resided.\nA.Yes, that is correct. That was the retroactive report. This was done with the express approval of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. It was suspended until such time as the reasons for secrecy were no longer important, and after the reasons no longer existed, the child was registered there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1084, "page_number": "1080", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.The secrecy which you have just described in detail with regard to birth -- did this also apply to cases where certificates were made out for ethnic Germans?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know of any cases where birth certificates were issued by the Registrar's OfficeL forethnic German children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How many of these cases occurred, in you estimation?\nA.At the most, approximately thirty. However, the number may be lower, it is not above that, in any case.\nQ.And you say that these birth certificates were issued in accordance with Paragraph 26 of the Personal Status Law?\nA.Yes.\nQ.According to your knowledge of the facts, did the Reich Ministry of the Interior have any special authority in this case?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you give us any more details about that?\nA.Yes. This authority on the part of the Reich Ministry of the Interior was announced by telephone by Ministerial Counsellor Eckelberg. I entered the office of Dr. Tesch just when the telephone conversation was about to be concluded. He put down the receiver and he said: \"I have just talked to Herr Eckelberg. He has given the authority to Registrar OfficeL tomake out birth certificates in the names of the foster parents of the children.\" Then I said to Dr. Tesch: \"Herr Eckelberg, first of all, cannot give any authority to Registrar Office L. He can give the authority to Herr Sollmann, within the scope of Paragraph 26, to follow this procedure. The registrar can only carry out his duty if he receives a written order.\"\nFurthermore, I said that actually it could only be handled in such a manner, but at the time I acted with regard to this authority which had been delegated by telephone.\nThen, after several weeks had passed, Dr. Tesch requested contents \n of his telephone conversation confirmed in writing, and he did not receive any answer to his request.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1085, "page_number": "1081", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Quite independently of Dr. Tesch, I also made an inquiry to Herr Echelberg, and I did not receive any reply either. Then, in the fall of 1943, we received a visit from Herr Eckelberg. We then actually nailed him down to this teltphone conversation, and we said to Herr Eckelberg, \"After all, it must be correct that you delegated this authority by telephone.\" He answered in the affirmative, and he told us, \"the present state of affairs will continue. However, I have personal reasons which are anything down in writing.\" That was sufficient for us because, after all, we were given the authority even though we were not given it in writing and, after all, there had been a witness to it.\nQ.Witness, in cases where birth certificates were issued for the children, which you estimated amounted to, at the very most, 30 cases, was the original name of the child still kept in the files in your registrar's office, or was the original name of the child completely dropped?\nA.Of course, we kept it in our files. After all -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, wait a minute, witness, When you say \"of course we kept it in our files\" that answers the question. There is no use to give the history of your life about it. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.In what form did you keep the original name of the child in your files?\nA.That was contained under the extracts from Paragraph 26.\nQ.If I have understood you correctly, you mean by that that according to Paragraph 26, the original Polish name of the child also appeared?\nA.Yes, yes.\nQ.Can you say, with that, that then the publicity of the original name of the child was maintained?\nA.No, not with that alone, However, another factor was also \n important here.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1086, "page_number": "1082", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "In the case of all these measures we had to make it clear just how this publicity appeared towards the outside, and it would appear in the police registration system, at the time, in all cases of police registration and otherwise. I also told the Police Registration Officer, Kalisch, by means of a written communication, that the child who had been reported there under such and such a name had a different name now. Then, in my correspondence with Frau Director Zander, I emphasized that it was necessary, by way of a retroactive registration office in the area where the child had resided before. Upon repeated written inquiries, Frau Director Zander confirmed to me that she was following my recommendations. Therefore, I did not have any doubts that the publicity of the child was actually being maintained in this was, as it only could be maintained under the circumstances.\nQ.Would the possibility have existed, in this way, for members of the family of the children -- if they had made their appearance to look after the fate of the children?\nA.Yes, they could do that at all times.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, you have answered the question. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.Whenever birth certificates were issued in the name of the foster parents of the children, was this a measure which showed itself to be necessary, or was this done in a systematic manner so that the origin of the child should remain secret?\nA.No, the latter is out of the question. After all, there had to be some very remarkable reasons for -\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, Mr. Witness. When you say \"no, that is out of the question\", you have answered the question. There is no use for all these details. I understand how hard it is for a lawyer to keep from talking, but you can at least answer the question. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.Witness, what were the reasons for the fact that you of the Lebensborn, in certain cases, issued new birth certificates for these \n children?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1087, "page_number": "1083", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.The police registration offices demanded that whenever the children of foster parents were certified. Furthermore, if they had to go to school, the director of such a school would also ask for such a birth certificate.\nQ.Were these certificates, as a rule, only issued if the foster parents were able to bring forth such reasons to Lebensborn?\nA.Yes, they were only issued in such cases.\nQ.Therefore, it is not true that the Lebensborn, on its own initiative, issued these certificates in a certain way, automatically and systematically, for all these children whenever they turned them over to some foster parents?\nA.No.\nQ.On one occasion before, witness, you mentioned the name of Pflaum. Do you know Herr Pflaum?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it correct that this Herr pflaum left the Lebensborn at the very moment when the defendant Sollmann became the manager?\nA.According to that report of the directors, when Sollmann came there -- he left for good in December or January 1941, as far as I can recall.\nQ.Was it December or January?\nA.Yes, 1940 or 1941.\nQ.After Herr Pflaum left finally, were there any difficulties between him and the Lebensborn Society?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1088, "page_number": "1084", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QI now would like to ask you several questions which refer to Herr Tesch. You already mentioned the fact that Tesch, by virtue of a decree of Herr Sollmann, was appointed his deputy in office.\nAYes.\nQDid this only apply to certain fields of work, or was he able to make independent decisions, or did this deputizing affair only apply to individual assignments which Herr Tesch was carrying out according to the decision of Sollmann? Witness, can you tell me briefly with what legal matters the Main Legal Department dealt, for after all Tesch was its director?\nALegal matters which were dealt with there varied considerably; taxation matters had to be dealt with here; real estate titles, and adoption cases -- these things which usually happened in a lawyer's office -- and these things were submitted to us; for example, we had to deal with war damage cases.\nQDid you also deal with cases of illegitimate parenthood?\nAYes.\nQDid you have to obtain confirmation of paternity, and things of that sort?\nAThey were turned over to Main Department A.\nQHow id you deal with the classifying of illegitimate children classified as legal?\nAWe were interested in those things also.\nQHow about the decisions of giving damages for illegitimate children?\nAI cannot give you any information for certain in regard to your last question.\nQDid dealing with these legal matters mean that the Legal Department worked on all the things which you cited here as an example? Could it make its decisions independently, or did this mean only that it just gave legal advice and that then the applications for decisions were passed on to the competent agencies?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1089, "page_number": "1085", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AIn this connection, I would like to say that whenever a lawyer becomes active, of course he takes over the responsibility for the legal aspects of his activity. It is only natural. However, of course the person who gives the assignment is responsible for the assignment itself. That is exactly the difference between the client and his lawyer.\nQIn your direct examination, you used the expression, \"locality of registration.\" I think this was in connection with the birth certificates.\nANo, it was in connection with the entries of the birth.\nQWhat do you mean by that expression: locality?\nAThat is the locality where the person was registered who afterwards became the subject of the certificate.\nQIs this expression a technical expression?\nAIt is not a technical expression of law, but it is a terminology used in the administration.\nQFor example, in directives?\nAYes.\nQTherefore it does not mean that \"seizure\" is actually meant by that or \"robbery\"?\nANo, it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.\nQIs it known to you, witness, that a pregnant worker from the east was ever accepted in a home of the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQOr a child which had been born by one of the female eastern workers?\nANo.\nQI have no further questions.\nDR.RATZ (for the defendant Sollmann):\nQWitness, you were at the head of the Registrar's OfficeL inthe Lebensborn? I believe it is necessary for you to tell us briefly the difference between a normal certificate and the birth certificate which is \n issued according to Paragraph 26.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1090, "page_number": "1086", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AAccording to the directives for registrars, and according to the law also, a certain group of persons in a certain sequence have the duty to register the birth of a child. The person who has to register the birth has to appear personally before the registrar and there, from his own knowledge, he announces the birth of a child so that a certificate can be made out. He himself, after this record has been read to him and after he has agreed to it, has to sign it, and then of course at the end of this procedure the registrar has to sign this statement also. Whenever certificates were issued on the basis of Paragraph 26, of course the person who has to register the birth is missing, and in his place, the lower administrative authorities take his place as the authority which takes the corresponding action. Consequently, in the certificate it is specifically pointed out that an order by some authority has to be issued; for example; this birth certificate was issued by order of such and such a person, on that and that date. Then the certificate is signed by the registrar.\nQTherefore the difference is, if I understand you correctly, that in the case of a formal certificate, this certificate is issued as a result of the announcement of the birth by a person; whereas, a certificate according to Paragraph 26 is issued by virtue of the fact that a person appears whose status is not verified?\nANot only is not verified, but it can be discovered. That is correct.\nQI don't know if you can quote the exact text of Paragraph 26, but perhaps you can tell us what legal pre-requisites have to be fulfilled by the law so that the procedure of Paragraph 26 can be initiated.\nAThe text of Paragraph 26 is the following: in the case of foundlings, as far as I can recall, the registrar, without an order of the lower administrative authorities is not allowed to make the corresponding entry.\nQI believe you are referring to Paragraph 25, which refers to \n foundlings.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1091, "page_number": "1087", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "But Paragraph 26 deals with something different and has different pre-requisites; namely, that a person is concerned here with matters which cannot be clarified.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that I believe the Tribunal has all of the details about registration that we think would be of any help to us. Let's not cover the same territory over and over and over.\nDR. RATZ:I only would like to ask the witness now, that with regard to a legal respect, just what pre-requisites had to be fulfilled in his practice so that he could make the corresponding entry according to Paragraph 26.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. That is the very thing that I tried to make it plain that we have heard enough about. Let's move on to something else that hasn't been talked about. BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, as a registrar, you had the duty, before making the entry to associate the material. What documents did you introduce whenever you had to make an on to Paragraph 26? Who ordered the entry?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment. This is the third time I have called your attention to the fact that we didn't want you to go into that any further. Now don't do it.\nDR. RATZ:Your Honor, I believe I have to ask this question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment. The Tribunal ruled. Don't argue about it after we have ruled on it. Go ahead to something else. BY DR. RATZ:\nQAnother question, witness. In the case of these entries, did this involve a change of name, or wasn't the entry made, first of all, primarily for the change of name?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1092, "page_number": "1088", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR. THIELE FREDERSDORF:Dr. Fredersdorf for the defendant Ebner. BY DR. THIELE FREDERSDORF:\nQWitness, were you in the Lebensborn in a position in which you had to have knowledge of all the homes of Lebensborn and had to know them?\nAI visited most of the Lebensborn homes.\nQDo you know the Lebensborn home in Helmstadt?\nANo.\nQWas there a Lebensborn home in Bobruisk in Russia?\nANo.\nQYou spoke of the Kuratorium which had been formed for the Lebensborn. Was this Kuratorium very active?\nAI don't remember having spoken of a Kuratorium in today's proceedings.\nQI beg your pardon if I have misunderstood you. But in spite of that could you tell us something about the Kuratorium?\nAEarly in the war it met occasionally. Later it did not meet.\nQYou spoke of your visit to Kalisch for the purpose of making sure that changes in name were reported in order to make investigations easier.\nAI wouldn't like to use the term \"change in name.\" It is rather a matter of giving new names. It is correct that I was there and I ascertained in the book of the home that, according to what I had ordered, the original name had been erased and the new names had been written on top of that.\nQIn this connection I only wanted to know one thing from you. The defendant Sollmann, did he give the instructions for this visit on your suggestion?\nAYes, on my suggestion Mr. Sollmann agreed. I told him that it was necessary to make sure that everything got in order in that home.\nQCan you say that Sollmann too was of the same opinion as you were, \n Defense Counsel Nurnberg, 20 November 47 Herbert THIELE-FREDERSDORF To:The Secretary General Military Tribunal 1 N u r n b e r g I kindly request the German and English transcript of the interrogation of witness Erich SCHULZ on 5 November 1947 be rectified.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. THIELE FREDERSDORF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1093, "page_number": "1088", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "On page 1044 of the German transcript, the last line but one should read \"geroetet\" instead of \"radiert\".In the English transcript the corresponding line on page 1088 reads \"erased\".(s) Herbert THIELE-FREDERSDORF \n that everything should be done in order to make it possible to find the children?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1094, "page_number": "1089", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AYes, certainly. Those were the intentions.\nQYou have spoken in detail about the question of making birth notices of foundlings or children who had no ties at all. Do you remember that in certain cases it was necessary, if there were any doubts regarding the date of birth, because the documents which were in existence gave different information regarding the date of birth to examine the child?\nAI only remember one case in which there was a discrepancy between the age given in the document and the actual appearance of the child and in this case Professor Dr. Becker in Marburg was ordered to give an expert opinion as to how old this child was in fact; and on the strength of an X-ray he arrived at the result that the age given in the documents corresponded to the actual age.\nQIn this question did the defendant, Dr. Ebner, contribute to the solution of this question, that is, the medical expert opinion regarding the correctness of the birth age?\nAYes; he corroborated by sending the documents to Dr. Becker.\nQDid the defendant, Dr. Ebner, apart from this very modest contribution, have anything to do with these questions of the state of the personal registry?\nANo.\nQYou talked about the legal misgivings which you personally had and which you also reported regarding the adoption off children from the Warthegau whose files were not complete and were not completely accurate. You talked about the legal difficulties which were encountered in keeping the personal registry in order regarding these children. Were these legal misgivings and opinions a contributing factor in deciding that these children, without ties, were not cared for or were these reasons against caring for these children on a charitable basis?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1095, "page_number": "1090", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AThey were not reasons against charitable care for these children, but this charitable care should have been carried out by the official agencies in the Warthegau.\nQThe concept \"children without ties\" is frequently useddtoday. Could you, for the purpose of clearness, tell us what \"children without ties\" means?\nAThe concept is rather oscillating. I, myself, would say that this would be a case of children who have no people to care for them. I should take this concept in its broadest form.\nQAnd this is the way you understood this concept in the Lebensborn?\nAYes, I suppose it did so certainly.\nQDo you know anything about what happened to these files of the registry after the truce?\nANot from my own knowledge. I heard that on the order of the American Military Police they were thrown into the River Inn.\nQCan you tell us from your own knowledge whether there was ever any intention of destroying these registry files?\nAThe opposite is true.\nQIt was done to protect these files from loss?\nACertainly, yes, from air-raids, etce.\nQI will now ask you a few questions regarding the defendant Ebner personally. You mentioned that Dr. Ebner was acting chairman of the Lebensborn. Who really managed the business of the Lebensborn?\nAHerr Pflaum.\nQDid Dr. Ebner have any say in financial administrative matters? Did he have any experience and ambitions?\nANeither experience nor ambitions. His whole position as managing director gave me the impression of his being just an ornament.\nQDid you have the impression or the experience that Pflaum ever asked Ebner for advice before he took anysteps?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1096, "page_number": "1091", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "AThis is very difficult for me to say because at that time, as a lawyer, I had not found my way in the Lebensborn yet and had not established contact with the gentlemen concerned.\nQFrom your knowledge of the personality of Pflaum could you tell us something regarding this question? Was Pflaum a fellow who asked a lot of people for advice?\nAHe certainly was not that kind of person.\nQAfter Pflaum had left the Lebensborn and the defendant Sollmann took over the management of the Lebensborn, Dr. Ebner left as managing director, did he not?\nA Yes. The whole position of that managing director was discarded.\nQDid Dr. Ebner then more than before if that was at all possible limit himself to the medical sector?\nAHe limited himself to his activity in Steinhoering.\nQDo you remember the role Dr. Ebner played in the taking over of the Nordrach home? What was the reason why he was bothered about it at all?\nAI don't know that in detail but he only went to Nordrach to advise in medical matters when the home was opened.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1097, "page_number": "1092", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Q.Now, going one stage back further. Who was taking over another home when these transactions were discussed? Was it Dr. Ebner's task to decide whether the buildings were suitable for the purposes from a medical point of view?\nA.Yes; I have heard about that.\nQ.Did Dr. Ebner, in the case of contracts for adoption, take any part in these contracts?\nA.I can't remember that.\nQ.Before adoption contracts were concluded did he give medical opinion as to whether the children in question, from a medical point of view, could be recommended to the foster parents or not?\nA.Our children of the Lebensborn were always healthy. In my opinion no such medical opinion was necessary.\nQ.Is that your opinion or do you say that according to experience that Dr. Ebner took part in the legal transactions and the registry or when children were adopted or whether he was obliged to report?\nA.Dr. Ebner had no interest in legal matters.\nQ.Before you answer a question may I submit a document to you? This isNO-3187; this is Document Book 8-C. Can you tell us from this document which were the children in - may I say for the record this is Prosecution Exhibit449- can you tell us from the document whether the children in question - was it a German child or Reich German parents or Reich German nationality? If you read, that this child came from the home of Wernigerode?\nA.As far as I know this must be a German child.\nQ.Why do you assume that?\nA.Because in Wernigerode only German children were kept.\nQ.Was the home of Wernigerode a children's home?\nA.No, this was a maternity home.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1098, "page_number": "1093", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "DR. ORTH:Dr. Orth for the defendant Viermetz. BY DR. ORTH:\nQ.Witness, you have stated that you know the homes of the Lebensborn. Was Puschkau a home of the Lebensborn?\nA.No\nQ.Was there a Lebensborn home in Kalisch?\nA.No.\nQ.Was there a Lebensborn home in Velpke?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Mrs. Viermetz ever work in the registrar's office at ?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Mrs. Viermetz have a position on the Lebensborn which gave her the opportunity to look into all matters?\nA.No.\nQ.How long did Mrs. Viermetz act as deputy chief of Main Division A?\nA.As far as I remember, until the Spring of 1942.\nQ.Starting when?\nA.I can't tell you exactly; at any rate from the time when the Main Division A was founded.\nQ.During that time in which Mrs. Viermets was acting chief of Main Division A was this Main Division reorganized?\nA.Well, I can't tell you. I don't know that.\nQ.In her capacity as acting chief of the Main Division did Mrs. Viermetz have the right to make independent decisions or was she bound by the directives of the management?\nA.I am not informed about the practice obtaining there and between the conditions obtaining for the corporation between Mrs. Viermetz and Dr. Sollmann.\nQ.When did Mrs. Viermetz leave the Lebensborn?\nA.That must have been December 1943.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. ORTH" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1099, "page_number": "1094", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "DR. ORTH:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, is it correct that Polish children names were changed into German names?\nA.When the foster parents wished it, yes; otherwise they were not altered.\nQ.And was your office competent for these matters?\nA.My office was not competent. This was merely ordered. It was in the framework of Paragraph 26.\nQ.Witness, from your activities do you remember and do you know whether the Racial Office or the RUS Leaders of the Field Offices of RuSHA had the possibility for carrying out changes of name?\nA.Regarding the activities and their extent of the RuSHA, I don't know anything and I can't tell you anything regarding it.\nQ.But for these registrar activities your office was competent, wasn't it?\nA.The expression \"competent\" does not quite apply. We were, unfortunately, in that position that we had to do it, but you can't really say that we are competent to do it.\nQ.Do you know whether another office had to do with these matters?\nA.No.\nQ.Is it correct then that only your office dealt with these measures?\nA.I had implicitly answered this question, hadn't I?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. MUELLER:Dr. Mueller for the defendant Huebner. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Witness, who gave the orphans from the Warthegau to the Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. ORTH", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1100, "page_number": "1095", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.From the Children's Home Kalisch.\nQ.Do you know who was responsible for the Children's Home in Kalisch?\nA.As far as I remember it was administrated by the independent administration of the Warthegau.\nQ.Did you ever ascertain that the defendant Huebner, who was working for another agency in Posen, had anything to do with the orphan matters?\nA.The defendant Huebner is not known to me at all.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. WENDLAND:Dr. Wendland for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. WENDLAND:\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Meyer-Hetling?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever meet with his name in office matters? May I add that the defendant Meyer Hetling was formerly only called Professor Dr. Conrad Meyer?\nA.If you can't give me a clue I can't answer your questions.\nDR. WENDLAND:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Dr. von der Trenck for Ullrich Greifelt. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQ.Witness, according to your knowledge was there an organizational tie between the Staff Main Office and RuSHA and, if so, in what direction?\nA.I can't answer you that question because this is a letter for this investigation here and I don't know anything about it. I have never negotiated. I don't know Dr. Greifelt. I don't know what were the connections between the Main Staff Office and the Lebensborn.\nQ.Thank you. I just wanted to know whether you had anything to do with Dr. Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. WENDLAND" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1101, "page_number": "1096", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "A.No, I don't know Dr. Greifelt.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further for the Defense? Any rebuttal for the Prosecution?\nMR. NEELY:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Strictly rebuttal, please, sir.\nMR. NEELY:Mr. Neely of the Prosecution.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, did Dr. Tesch ever give you any orders concerning registration of children from the Warthegau?\nA.I don't understand this question. Could you repeat this question, please?\nQ.Yes. Did Dr. Tesch ever give you any orders concerning the registration of children from the Warthegau?\nA.Yes. In one or two cases he gave orders, not to me but in my absence. He sent orders to the registrar's OfficeL andMiss Singer registered these orders. Unfortunately I only learned of this too late, the 24th or 25th of April, 1945. Otherwise I would have had these cancelled at the Amtsgericht Munich. I couldn't do that because we had to reckon with all cessation of judicial activities in a couple of days.\nQ.Witness, I have one more question which can be answered yes or no. Can you say for certain whether Polish people oould look into the registration of the Police Department in the Children's Home in Kalesch?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. VON DER TRENCK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1102, "page_number": "1097", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QWitness, I have one more question which can be answered yes or no. Can you say for certain whether Polish people could look into the registration of the police department in the Children's Home in Kalisch.\nACould you kindly repeat that question.\nQCould you say for certain, witness, and be absolutely sure in your answer whether polish people could look into the registration of the police department in the Children's Home in Kalisch?\nAI can't tell you that with certainty.\nQThat is sufficient. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else for the defense? Then let the witness retire. Just a minute back to the stand. BY DR. SCHMIDT: (for the defendant Tesch):\nRECROSS EXAMINATION\nQI have one question which refers to the question of the Prosecutor. It is not quite clear to me what you have described in which Dr. Tesch in one or two cases in your absence made birth registration?\nANo, he signed the order under paragraph 26 and thereupon Miss Saenger made the entry.\nQAnd you said if I understood you correctly that later you thought that this entry was cancelled?\nANo, I said that unfortunately it was too late. I noted it on the 24th or 25th of April. I could not ask for a cancellation because all judicial activities ceased.\nQYou were of the opinion then that in this case the move of Dr. Tesch could not have any legal significance?\nAIt could be ambiguous at least and in practice one doesn't risk these things.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1103, "page_number": "1098", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "QDr. Tesch had no power of attorney acting for Dr. Sollman as a delegate of the Minister?\nAWhen I questioned him he always answered in the negative.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. MR. LAMB: If it pleases the Tribunal the Prosecution would like to introduce Document Book XII, and Document Book XIII-A and XIII-B.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There doesn't seen to be but two of those books up here.\nMR. LAMB:Which two do you have, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We have two of XII.\nMR. LAMB:I thought you meant you just had XIII maybe. Let's see.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nMR. LAMB:In Document Book XII, the Prosecution first offers documents shown on page 1, document No.NO 3739, an order issued by Klinger concerning marriages between protectees of the Reich and non-protectees, dated 26 July 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit No.534.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 3, document No.NO 3592, a circular letter issued by RuSHA, Prague, notifying its subordinate agencies of the age limit requirements imposed upon protectees of Polish Nationality for the purpose of marriage dated 5 August 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit535.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 5, document No.NO 3295, a memorandum signed by Klinger concerning marriages of Polish citizens of Polish nationality to Polish citizens of Ukranian nationality, dated 6 August 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit536.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1104, "page_number": "1099", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Prosecution next offers document shown on page 7, document No. No 3593, circular letter issued by RuSHA, Prague, concerning marriage between protectees of Polish nationality, dated 22 September 1944 as Prosecution Exhibit 537.\nThe Prosecution next offers document shown on page 9, document No.NO-3297, a directive signed by Klinger prohibiting marriages of members of Group 3 with members of Groups 4 of the German People's List, dated 30 September 1944 as Prosecution Exhibit538.\nWe now take documents included in Book XIII-A. The Prosecution next offers documents shown on page 1, document No.NO 2610being an extract from judgment of International Military Tribunal concerning persecution of Jews, as Exhibit No. 539.\nWe next offer documents on page 10 being document No. 3363-PS, Heydrich teletype to Eastern SIPO groups concerning treatment and collection of Jews dated 21 September 1939 as Prosecution Exhibit540.\nWe next offer documents shown on page 17, being document No. 710 PS, Goering charges Heydrich with \"complete solution\" of Jewish problem dated 31 July 1941, as Exhibit 541.\nNext we offer document shown on page 18, document No. 709-PS, Heydrich to Hofmann inviting him to attend conference of 20 January 1942 on final solution of Jewish problem, as Prosecution Exhibit542.\nNext we offer document shown on page 20, document No. NG-2586, minutes of conference on final solution of Jewish problem attended by Hofmann dated 20 January 1942, as Exhibit 543.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1105, "page_number": "1100", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "We next offer document shown on page 30, document No. 1919 PS, Himmler's speeches at Posen and Cracow dated 4 October 1943 and May 1943 respectively, as Prosecution Exhibit 544.\nWe next offer document shown on page 54, document No.NO 3591, letter to Eugenic Office of RuSHA concerning extract of christening of Jews from Dutch Church registeries dated 24 September 1941 as our Exhibit 545.\nWe next offer documents show on page 56 of document No.NO 3643being communication Ten Cate to Psiander of RuSHA concerning report on racial examinations of Dutch SS recruits and photostating of Jewish archives, dated 25 February 1941 as Prosecution Exhibit546.\nNext we offer document shown on page 58, document No.NO 4038, memorandum on work of Genealogical Department of RuSHA at the Hague dated 25 February 1944 as Prosecution Exhibit 547.\nNext we offer document shown on page 62, document No.NO 4044, letter to Schwalm of RuSHA stating requested film on Jews has been found, dated 1 June 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit 548.\nNext we offer document shown on page 63, document No.NO 3807, report on card file on persons of mixed Jewish blood of Genealogical Department of RuSHA in Holland, dated 23 August 1944 as Prosecution Exhibit549.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1106, "page_number": "1101", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "We next offer document shown on page 65, Document No.NO-4034, Osiander of RuSHA to Ballensiefer, inquiring about location of Jewish records directed by Hildebrandt, 25th August, 1944, as our Exhibit 550.\nWe next offer document shown on page 67 Document No.NO-4033, being a report by Neumann-Reppert of RuSHA on securing of card index on partly Jewish persons in Holland, dated 20th September, 1944, as our Exhibit 551.\nWe next offer document shown on page 70, Document No.NO-4032, letter Osiander to Aust of RuSHA concerning card index on partly Jewish persons in colonies, dated 21 September 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit552.\nWe next offer document shown on page 71, document No.NO-4039, letter from Osiander to Hildebrandt of RuSHA on screening of Norwegian church records for evidence of mixture of Jewish and Norwegian blood, dated 3 June, 1943, as Prosecution Exhibit553.\nWe next offer document shown on page 73, Document No.NO-4040, letter Osiander of RuSHA report on racial investigations in Norway, including card index on Jews; dated 5th July, 1943, as Prosecution Exhibit554.\nWe next offer document shown on page 77, Document No.NO-3025, being a communication from Dannecker to Osiander of RuSHA, stating Mayer of Reichs Sippenant intends to transfer his activities to Paris, dated 21 March, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit555.\nWe next offer document shown on page 78, Document No.NO-1494, letter from Aust to Genealogy Division of RuSHA, asking for Aryan descent of wife of full Jew, dated 27th May, 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit 556.\nWe next offer document shown on page 80, Document No.NO-2647, being a letter from Magoy of VOMI to Arlt of RKFDV, asking for assistance in obtaining assignment of thirty Jews to take care of horses, as Prosecution Exhibit 557.\nWe next offer document shown on page 82, Document No.NO-1624, being a letter to Hildebrandt of RuSHA concerning labor assignment of Jews in occupied eastern territories, dated 9th September 1943, as Prosecution Exhibit 558.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1107, "page_number": "1102", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Next we offer document shown on page 85, Document No.NO-3083, being a letter from Brehm of RKFDV to Office of HSSPF, South-East, asking for return of five hundred to six hundred Jews who were being used in work in upper Silesia, as Prosecution Exhibit559.\nWe next offer document shown on page 86, Document No.NO-3080; letter Kattowitz office of RKFDV to Gestapo asking for assignment of Jewish shoe makers, dated 8th August, 1943, as Prosecution Exhibit560.\nNext we offer document shown on page 87, Document No.NO-3777, a report on Ghetto Action Litzmannstadt by Branch Office Litzmannstadt of RKFDV; dated 10th December, 1943 as Prosecution Exhibit561.\nWe next offer document shown on page 88, Document No.NO-519, a letter from Gauleiter Greiser to Pohl of WVHA, stating Litzmannstadt Ghetto is not to be made into concentration camp, as Prosecution Exhibit562.\nWe next offer document shown on page 111, Document No.NO-3778, being a letter Schwarzenberger of RKFDV to Hueske, concerning fund originating from Litzmannstadt Ghetto Action, as Prosecution Exhibit563.\nWe next offer documents shown on pages 112, 114, and 116, being documents numberedNO-3774, NO-3776, NO-3775, correspondence of RKFDV concerning fund from Litzmannstadt Ghetto Action, dated 29th September 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit564.\nWe next offer document shown on page 118, Document No. 1166-PS, report on number of prisoners in concentration camps showing sixty thousand new arrivals from Litzmannstadt Ghetto; dated 15th August, 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit 565.\nWe next offer document shown on page 122, Document No.NO-2665, memorandum by Grehl of RKFDV concerning the demolition of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto; dated 15th November, 1944, as Prosecution Exhibit566.\nWe next take up the documents included in Document Book XIII-B. We first offer document shown on page 1, Document No.NO-3162, communication Pancke to Heydrich concerning the transfer of confiscated Jewish estates in Bohemia and Moravia to RuSHA; dated 31 March, 1939, as Prosecution Exhibit No. 567 \n We next offer document shown on page 4, Document No.NO-2666, memorandum, stating that Reichert of RKFDV Kattowitz is in charge of confiscation of household goods of Jews; dated 17th June, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit 568.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1108, "page_number": "1103", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "We next offer document shown on page 5, Document No.NO-2700, communication Labes to Reichert of RKFDV, complaining of lack of textiles and household utensils in concentration camp Theresienstadt and suggesting more thorough confiscation of Jewish property; dated 31 August, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit 569.\nWe next offer document shown on page 6, Document No.NO-1943, correspondence between Greifelt, Pohl and Himmler, concerning disposal of Jewish real estate in general government; dated in November, December, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit570.\nWe next offer document shown on page 13, Document No.NO-2679, correspondence between Greifelt and Reichert, concerning the confiscation of Jewish furniture in Bohemia and Moravia, dated 13th September, 1944, 6th August, 1944, respectively, as Prosecution Exhibit571.\nWe next offer document shown on page 17, Document No.NO-724, being a WVHA directive on disposal of Jewish property from Action Reinhardt, dated 26th September, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit572.\nWe next offer document shown on page 20, Document No.NO-606, being correspondence from Himmler to Lorenz alloting material from Lublin and Auschwitz concentration camps to VOMI; dated 21st October, 1942, as Prosecution Exhibit 573.\nWe next offer document shown on page 25, Document No.NO-1257, report from Pohl of WVHA to Himmler, reporting delivery of Auschwitz and Lublin loot to RKFDV, as Prosecution Exhibit574.\nNext we offer documents shown on pages 30, 32 and 34, being documents numberedNO-056, NO-060, and NO-061, being a letter from Globocnik to Himmler attaching accounts of proceeds of Ghetto Action Reinhardt up to 3 February, 1943, up to 3rd February, 1943; Jewish property valued at 100 million Reichsmarks. These are respectively Exhibits 575, 576, and 577.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1109, "page_number": "1104", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "We next offer the document shown on page 38, document No.NO-725, being a directive by Pohl of WVHA concerning Action Reinhardt to all chiefs of SS Main Offices, dated 9 December 1943, as Prosecution's Exhibit 578.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 40, document No.NO-2714, being an affidavit by Pohl stating Action Reinhardt was the securing of property of Jews exterminated in Auschwitz and Lublin, as Prosecution's Exhibit 579.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 43, document No.NO-5160, affidavit of Hagen re Action Reinhardt, as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 580.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 46, document No.NO-3201, being a letter from Kaul to Ebner concerning Lebensborn acquisition of Jewish tubercular sanatorium at Nordrach, as Prosecution's Exhibit 581.\nThe document just preceding that was omitted.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 48, document No. NO-3199, letter from Tesch to RSHA requesting that Jewish association be directed to transfer title to Nordrach Sanitarium to Lebensborn, as Prosecution's Exhibit 582.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 50, document No. NO-3198, letter from Ebner to Kaul making arrangements for taking over Nordrach Sanitarium, dated 1 October 1942, as Prosecution's Exhibit 583.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 51, document No. NO-3753, being a letter from Herfurth to Sollmann reporting on Lebensborn homes in Holland, as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 584.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 54, document No. NO-2913, being a letter from Knipp-Merkel to Ebner, stating textiles for Lebensborn in Cracow are being obtained from Jewish properties, as Prosecution's Exhibit 585.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 56, document No.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1110, "page_number": "1105", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "NO-3500, letter from Ebner to Sollmann, suggesting material for Lebensborn home in Otwock should be obtained from Warsaw Ghetto, as Prosecution's Exhibit 586.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 58, document No.NO-3499, being a letter from Knipp-Merkel to Ebner requesting list of medical instruments to be obtained from Jewish property by RKFDV, as Prosecution's Exhibit 587.\nWe next offer the document shown on page 59, document No.NO-4269, affidavit by Sollmann on spoliation, as Prosecution's Exhibit 588.\nThat completes all the documents in Book 12 and 13 A and B.\nMR. SHILLER:I should like now to offer the document's contained in document book No. 14-A.\nDocument No.NO-4672may be found on page 1 in both the English and the German, This is a decree dated 17 September 1940, by Goering, on the treatment of the property of citizens of the forme Polish State. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.589.\nDocument No. 1707-PS may be found on page 12 in the English and on page 21 in the German. This is a decree dated 19 October 1939 by Goering on the establishment of the Main Trustee Office East, HTO. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.590.\nThe next document, No.NO-4396, consists of two parts, (a) and (b): (a) may be found on page 14 in the English and on page 24 in the German, and is a cover letter by Creutz dated 26 June 1940; (b) may be found on Page 15 in the English and 26 in the German. It is an order dated 12 June 1940, by Goering, concerning the establishment of the HTO. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 591.\nDocument No.NO-2676may be found on page 18 of the English and 31 of the German. It is Himmler's directives dated 10 November 1939, concerning confiscation of property in the East and cooperation of SS agencies and HTO. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.592.\nDocument No.NG-1912may be found on page 21 of the English and \n 36 of the German.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1111, "page_number": "1106", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This is an order dated 29 November 1939 by the HTO concerning the confiscation of brickyards in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 593.\nDocument No.NO-4663may be found on page 22 of the English and page 38 of the German. This is a memorandum dated 10 April 1940, signed by Heydrich, concerning the registration of the property of the former Polish State and of private Polish and Jewish owners. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.594.\nDocument No.NO-4664consists of two parts, (a) and (b). (a) may be found on page 24 of the English and 41 of the German. It is a cover letter dated 20 June 1940. (b) may be found on page 25 of the English and 42 of the German. It is an order dated 14 May 1940, by Himmler, concerning cooperation between the HTO and the RKFDV. I now offer both (a) and (b) as Prosecution Exhibit No.595.\nDocument No.NO-3934may be found on page 29 of the English and on page 46 of the German. This is an order dated 4 April 1941 by Himmler, concerning the forms of cooperation between the HTO and the RKFDV. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.596.\nDocument No.NO-4682may be found on page 32 of the English and page 48 of the German. This is a circular letter dated 11 November 1940, by Galke, concerning the sale of confiscated property in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 597.\nDocument No.NO-4289may be found on page 39 of the English and 55 of the German. This is a table of organization dated 31 July 1940 of the German Resettlement Trust Company (DUT). I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.598.\nDocument No.NO-4221may be found on page 43 of the English and 60 of the German. This is an Information Bulletin dated 15 January 1943, issued by the RKFDV. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 599.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1112, "page_number": "1107", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "Document No.R-92may be found on page 46 of the English and 66 of the German. It is dated 15 April 1941 and consists of instructions by Greifelt on the application of the decrees on confiscation of Polish property of 17 September 1940. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.600.\nDocument No.NO-4130may be found on page 52 of the English and 103 of the German. This is an order by Greifelt dated 12 December 1940, concerning seized land property. I offer this as Prosecution Exhibit No. 601.\nDocument No.NO-4435is in two parts, (a) and (b). (a) may be found on page 54 of the English and 106 of the German. It is a cover letter dated 10 October 1940. (b) may be found on page 55 of the English and 107 of the German. It is a circular by Greifelt dated 4 October 1940, concerning property rights of the non-German and nonPolish population of the former Polish State. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.602.\nDocument No.NO-4661may be found on page 57 of the English and 108 of the German. This is a letter dated 8 September 1942, by Greifelt, to the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture concerning the property of the former Polish State. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.603.\nDocument No.NO-4388may be found on page 59 of the English and 110 of the German. This is a letter dated 8 October 1942, by the Reich Minister of Agriculture to the RKFDV Central Land Office concerning property of the former Polish State. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.604.\nDocument No.NO-4387may be found on page 61 of the English and 112 of the German. This is a circular of the RFSS-RKFDV -that is, Himmler -- dated 24 October 1942, concerning property of the former Polish State. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 605.\nDocument No.NO-2601may be found on page 62 of the English and \n 114 of the German.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1113, "page_number": "1108", "date": "05 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-05", "text": "This is a letter dated 21 October 1943, from Greifelt to the RKFDV, concerning a mortgage on confiscated Polish property. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.606.\nDocument No.NO-4736may be found on page 67 in the English and page 120 in the German. That is a supplement to a previous report concerning the transfer of confiscated property in the East, and is dated 24 November 1943. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 607.\nDocument No.NO-2561may be found on page 68 of the English and page 121 of the German. This is a memo on a meeting concerning Poles who profess to be American citizens, and is dated 14 August 1941. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.608.\nDocument No.NO-4685may be found on page 70 in the English and page 124 in the German. This is a circular dated 2 January 1942, issued by the Chief of the Provincial Administration of Upper Silesia, the Chief of the Trustee Office, concerning the seizure of property of United States citizens. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 609.\nThat concludes the documents in document book No. 14-A.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(At 1635 hours, 5 November 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 6 November 1947)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1114, "page_number": "1109", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal No. I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 6 November 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the prosecution.\nMR. SCHWENK:May I request the high Tribunal to call Barbara Mikolatczyk as a witness for the Prosecution.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand and be sworn.\nMR. SCHWENK:She is present.\nBARBARAMIKOLATCZYK, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nMR. SCHWENK:Will you please tell us what she said? Will you please tell us what she said?\nTHE INTERPRETER:I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I shall speak the pure truth and add and omit nothing, so help me God.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.What is your name?\nA.Barbara Mikolatczyk.\nQ.Where were you born?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE INTERPRETER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BARBARA", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1115, "page_number": "1110", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Lodz.\nQ.When were you born?\nA. 4 December 1930.\nQ.December 4, 1930?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.In Lodz.\nQ.In Poland?\nA.In Poland.\nQ.Are you a citizen of Poland?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you have parents now?\nA.No, I do not.\nQ.When did your mother die?\nA.My mother died in 1940 and my father died in 1941.\nQ.Do you have any sisters?\nA.I have three.\nQ.What are their names?\nA.Stefanina, Kristina, Janina.\nQ.Did you live with your parents while they were alive?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where did you live after your parents died in 1941?\nA.In Ulica Zengzovska 12.\nQ.With whom did you live after the death of your parents?\nA.With my aunt.\nQ.Where did your aunt live?\nA.In Zengzovska 12.\nQ.In Lodz?\nA.In Lodz.\nQ.Did your aunt furnish you sufficiently with food and clothing?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1116, "page_number": "1111", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.At the time when you were taken to Germany, did you have any close relatives besides your aunts who could have raised and supported you sufficiently?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember how many aunts or relatives you had at that time, approximately?\nA.Eight.\nQ.Where did your other three sisters live after the death of your parents?\nA.In Lodz.\nQ.With whom?\nA.With aunts.\nQ.How long did you and your sisters live with your aunts?\nA.Two months.\nQ.Did you and your sisters receive a postal card some day telling you and your sisters to appear on a certain day and at a certain time at a certain German Government office in Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where did you have to appear in Lodz?\nA.In Ulica Piatkowska 313.\nQ.Was it stated on the postal card that you had to appear for an examination?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember whose signature appeared on the postal card?\nA.That of Dr. Grohmann.\nQ.Were you sick before you received this postal card?\nA.No.\nQ.Were your sisters sick before they received the postal card?\nA.No. Nobody was sick.\nQ.Were your aunts sick before you and your sisters received the postal cards?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1117, "page_number": "1112", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.No.\nQ.When you and your sisters appeared at the German Government Office, how many people did you see there?\nA.Very many; I don't remember all of them.\nQ.Did you see a Doctor?\nA.Yes, I saw Dr. Grohmann.\nQ.Did he have any assistants present?\nA.Yes, two ladies.\nQ.Did the Doctor wear civilian clothes or a uniform?\nA.I didn't notice, but he was wearing officer's boots.\nQ.What did the Doctor do to you?\nA.He examined me.\nQ.Could you go home after this examination the first day?\nA.Yes, the first day I could.\nQ.Were you told to reappear on the next day?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you also examined on the next day by the same Doctor in the same office?\nA.Yes, we were examined, X-rayed and samples of our blood were taken.\nQ.Were you then also looked over by some other people?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1118, "page_number": "1113", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Did you see some officers afterwards?\nA.Yes, I saw some.\nQ.How many?\nA.Three officers in green uniforms.\nQ.What did they do?\nA.They told us to walk about in the room in order to watch our movements.\nQ.Did they look at your hair?\nA.Yes, hair, eyes and hands.\nQ.Did they make any notes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they make those notes on cards or charts?\nA.Yes, on red cards or a chart with lines across it.\nQ.Could you go home after you were looked over by these officers?\nA.No.\nQ.What happened to you?\nA.We were taken to an institution.\nQ.Where to?\nA.To Na Koperinika Street.\nQ.What was that, a children's home?\nA.Yes, it was for Polish children.\nQ.How long did you stay at that children's home on Na Koperinika Street?\nA.Eight days.\nQ.What happened during those eight days........?\nA.We were photographed there from all sides and then sent to Brokau.\nQ.Did some officers appear at the children's home in Lodz?\nA.Yes, one in a black uniform and one in a green uniform.\nQ.What did they tell you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1119, "page_number": "1114", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.That we have to go with them to Brokau.\nQ.Will you repeat that?\nA.That we were going with them to Brokau.\nQ.Were you then taken to Brokau?\nA.Yes.\nQ.By those officers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember the names of persons in charge of the camp Brokau?\nA.Fraeulein Schulz, and Frauelein Boschfeld.\nQ.Frauelein Boschfeld?\nA.Frauelein Boschfeld.\nQ.And Frauelein......\nA.Frauelein Panimie.\nQ.And Frauelein......\nA.And Frauelein Schramm.\nQ.Did you find other Polish children in Brokau?\nA.Yes, there were very many.\nQ.At Brokau were you permitted to write to your aunt in either German or Polish?\nA.It was not allowed.\nQ.In Brokau were you permitted to speak Polish?\nA.No.\nQ.In Brokau did you have to learn how to read and to write German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have to sing German songs?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What kind of songs?\nA. \"Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles\", \"Heute Wollen Wie Marschieren\".\nQ.Did you also have to sing the Horst Wessel Song?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1120, "page_number": "1115", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.How did you have to salute?\nA. (Standing and Saluting) Heil Hitler.\nQ.Were girls over beaten because they did not speak German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you personally ever beaten?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was your sister Kristina ever beaten because she could not read German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you looked over in Brokau by any officers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did they do?\nA.They asked us whether we were well, and they observed our movements.\nQ.How long did you stay in Brokau?\nA.Two months.\nQ.Where were you brought afterwards?\nA.To Achern-Baden.\nQ.Achern-Baden?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember who was in charge of the children's home in Achern-Baden?\nA.The director was Frauelein Keit.\nQ.Anybody else you remember?\nA.Ackermann, a teacher; and Tatz, also a teacher.\nQ.Frauelein Ackermann?\nA.Yes, Frauelein Ackermann.\nQ.Did you find many other Polish children in AchernBaden?\nA.Yes, very many.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1121, "page_number": "1116", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Were you permitted in Achern-Baden to write letters to your aunts in either German or Polish?\nA.No.\nQ.Did girls try to write letters in German or Polish to their relatives?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What happened if any of those girls or boys were caught writing letters to relatives?\nA.Then they were beaten.\nQ.Do you remember an instance where a girl was beaten because she wrote letters to relatives?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember the name of the girl?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What is the name?\nA.Alina Antczak.\nQ.Did you also have to learn how to read and write German in Achern-Baden?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you also have to sing German songs and give the Nazi salute?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How long did you stay in Achern-Baden?\nA.One year.\nQ.Where were you taken afterwards?\nA.To Salzburg.\nQ.Were your sisters also brought to Salzburg?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you find many Polish children in Salzburg?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was your name changed in Salzburg?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1122, "page_number": "1117", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.By whom was your name changed in Salzburg?\nA.Two officers arrived and changed it.\nQ.Did those officers have a list of names in their hands?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Miss Mikolatczyk, what were you called after your name was changed?\nA.Berbel Mika.\nQ.You remember any other names which were changed?\nA.Yes, I remember that the name of Renata Sosnowska was changed into Renate Sosemann.\nQ.Renata Sosnowska was changed into Renata Sosemann, and other names?\nA.Vaswavasuva was changed into Walter Schubert.\nQ.Were you and the other girls told they were now German citizens after their names were changed?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you leave the Salzburg camp?\nA.After two months.\nQ.Where were you brought then?\nA.Folmgau Neumarkt, near Salzburg.\nQ.Were you brought to several farms?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How many?\nA.Three.\nQ.You remember the name of the last farmer?\nA.Johann Klammer.\nQ.Where did he live?\nA.Folmgau Neumarkt, near Salzburg.\nQ.Who brought you to those farmers?\nA.Frau Teinhammer.\nQ.Frau Teinhammer?\nA.Yes, Frau Teinhammer.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1123, "page_number": "1118", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Did she tell you when she brought you to those farmers you should say father and mother to them and their wives?\nA.Yes, she told me that when she took me to the last farmer.\nQ.Did you actually call them father and mother?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not?\nA.Because I couldn't.\nQ.Were your sisters also brought to farmers?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1124, "page_number": "1119", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QDid they also have to say \"father\" and \"mother\"?\nAYes.\nQWere you repatriated after the occupation of Salzburg by the Americans?\nAYes.\nQDid you report to the American Forces upon your own free will?\nAYes.\nQAre you happy to be back in Poland with your aunt?\nAYes, very.\nMR. SCHWENK:No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense?\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm):\nQWitness, do you know the name of the office in which Dr. Grohmann worked?\nAHealth.\nQWitness, could you kindly repeat that name?\nAWell, it was called \"Gesundheit\" something, \"Health\", where people were examined for their health.\nQWhen did this examination take place in Petrovska Street and in Kopernikus Street?\nAIn 1942.\nQWhich month?\nAI do not remember; I only remember it was during the summer.\nQCan you remember when you were in Brokau -- that is, the exact date?\nAI remember I was there in 1942, but I do not remember which month.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, you had to learn to read and write German in Brokau?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1125, "page_number": "1120", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "ANo.\nQYou said, in your direct examination, that you had received a postcard, and that on this card you had read the name of Dr. Grohmann. If you could not read German, how could you read the postcard at that time, and how could you decipher the signature?\nAMy uncle knew German very well.\nQContrary to your statement in the direct examination, you did not read the signature yourself?\nAWell, my uncle read the card, but I read the signature, which I was able to read. That is not difficult.\nQYou said that this incident took place in 1942, when you received this card and when you were examined in Kopernikus Street?\nANo, I was examined in Petrovska Street, 113.\nQWas that in 1942?\nAYes.\nQAt that time you were twelve years old?\nAYes.\nQHave you got such a good capacity to recall these events that you can remember all these names and happenings?\nAWhose names?\nQUnfortunately, I have made no notes, but you mentioned the name of Fraulein Schulz.\nAI remember it.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. SCHMIDT (Counsel for the defendant Tesch):\nQWitness, you told us that you were at a school in Achern, and that many other Polish children were there apart from you. Could you give us the approximate number of those Polish children?\nAAbout seventy.\nQThank you. What year were you at school in Achern?\nAIn 1943.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1126, "page_number": "1121", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QI now want to submit a photograph to you and I would like to ask you to tell me who is shown on this picture.\n(Photograph submitted to the witness)\nAI recognize it.\nQAnd who is it?\nAI don't remember her surname; I remember her Christian name. I know that her Christian name was Irene. She is dead.\nQHer Christian name?\nAYes.\nQWas this girl also at the school in Achern when you were there?\nAYes, she was together with us.\nQAnd what was the fate of that girl at that time?\nAI do not remember, because I was sent to Salzburg and she stayed there.\nQAnd did you never hear anything from your comrades about the fate of this Irene?\nAShe went to some family and had a very bad time because the food which she had to give to the ducks she had to eat herself.\nQAnd who told you that?\nAA colleague who lived near her.\nQAfter returning to Poland, did you correspond at any time with anyone in any place in Germany or in Salzburg, either a schoolmate or a farmer?\nAIn Germany?\nQYes, either with the school at Achern or one of the homes or the farms near Salzburg?\nANo. Why?\nQNo?\nANo.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. ORTH (Counsel for the defendant Viermetz):", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1127, "page_number": "1122", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QWitness, when did you come to Salzburg?\nAIn 1944.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\n(No response)\nAnything further by the Prosecution?\nMR. SCHWENK:No, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution requests the Tribunal to call the witness Alina Antczak to the stand at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nALINAANTCZAK, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\n(The witness stated the oath, through the interpreter, as follows:\nI swear by God, the Almighty, and Omniscient that I shall speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing, so help me God.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ORTH", "ALINA", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1128, "page_number": "1123", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, will you please state your name?\nAAlina Antczak.\nQWhen were you born?\nAThe 5th of January 1931.\nQWhere were you born?\nAIn Lodz.\nQDo you have any brothers and sisters?\nAI have two brothers and one sister.\nQWere you and your brothers and sisters living with your mother and father until 1937?\nAYes. In 1937 we were given to an institution because my father was ill and we were in a difficult financial position.\nQWere you and your brothers and sister still living in this institution in the spring of 1942?\nAYes.\nQIn the spring of 1942, were you and your brothers and sister taken from the institution and examined?\nAIn 1942 we were taken to a German institution and then to Petrovska Street and examined by Dr. Grohmann.\nQDuring the examination, did they take pictures of you and look at your hair and make notes as to the color of your eyes, and so forth?\nAAt Dr. Grohmann's office we were looked at from all sides. Our hair was looked at, and our skin.\nDR.HEIM (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, I object to the further examination of the witness. As can be seen from the testimon so far offered, the witness is saying exactly the same thing as the previous witness. This is cumulative testimony, since she is saying the same thing as the previous witness.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1129, "page_number": "1124", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal knows of no rule of law anywhere that would prevent proving the same thing by two witnesses. We overrule the objection.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, Your Honor. BY DR. NEELY:\nQYou said, witness, that you were examined in Lodz. Can you remember whether the examination was conducted by men in uniform or in civilian clothes?\nAWhen I was examined by Dr. Grohmann he wore a white apron, but I observed his officer's boots.\nQThank you, witness. After the examination, then, where were you taken?\nAAfter the examination we were taken to an institution on Kopernikus Street, 36.\nQAnd how long did you stay at this institution on Kopernikus Street?\nAI stayed there more or less for one month.\nQAnd after you left this institution on Kopernikus Street, then where were you sent?\nAI was sent to Brokau.\nQHow many other Polish children were sent along to Brokau?\nAThirty, together with boys.\nQIn brokau did you have to learn to speak, to write, and read German?\nAIn Brokau we learned to read, write, and to speak German, and to sing.\nQWere you Polish children forbidden to speak Polish at the institution, that is, to speak among yourselves?\nAIn Brokau it was not yet prohibited because we didn't know German as yet.\nQHow many children were at Brokau altogether during your stay there?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1130, "page_number": "1125", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "AThere were only about thirty, because they were sent in groups.\nQHow long did you stay at Brokau?\nASix weeks.\nQWhere were you sent after leaving Brokau?\nAFrom Brokau I was sent to Achern-Baden.\nQWere the boys separated from the girls?\nAYes, the boys and the girls were sent off separately.\nQWhere were the boys sent?\nAI don't know; I don't know up to this date.\nQDid the other Polish girls who came from Lodz with you accompany you to Achern-Baden?\nAYes, they all went with us together.\nQIn Achern-Baden you were placed in a school called a home school for ethnic Germans, is that correct?\nAYes, that was a school for ethnic Germans.\nQWho was in charge of this school?\nAKlara Keit was in charge.\nQIn Achern-Baden did you attend school during your stay there?\nAYes, I went to school. There was a school in the home.\nQWhat subjects did you study at the school?\nAI learned the German language and all other subjects in school.\nQWere you allowed to speak Polish?\nAIn Achern-Baden we were not allowed to speak Polish.\nQAnd if any of the Polish children did speak Polish, were you punished?\nAThey were slapped in the face.\nQWere you ever punished?\nAI was not punished, because I knew German quite well.\nQWere you allowed to write letters to your parents or relatives in Achern-Baden?\nANo, it wasprohibited.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1131, "page_number": "1126", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QAnd if any of the children did write, were they punished in any way for writing to their parents?\nAYes. I myself wrote, and I was slapped in the face by Fraulein Tatz.\nQDid your parents ever write any letters to you while you were in Achern-Baden?\nAYes, they wrote.\nQDid you receive the letters?\nANo, I did not receive these letters.\nQWhere did you find out this information that letters had been written to you?\nAWe had a girl who had to clean the director's room, and she saw that there was a letter addressed to me, but she was not allowed to hand it to me.\nQWere you compelled to sing German national songs and to give the Nazi salute?\nAYes, we had to.\nQDid you have to enroll in any Nazi girl's organizations?\nAYes, we were all registered.\nQWhat organizations did you join?\nAThe BDM, a German girl's group.\nQWould you give me that again, please?\nAAn association of German girls, Bund Deutscher Maedel.\nQDid you wear uniforms while at Achern-Baden?\nAYes, we wore a uniform.\nQWould you describe these uniforms for us?\nAA white blouse and a navy skirt, and a black tie, with a knot -and a brown jacket.\nQHow many girls were in this school at Achern-Baden while you were there?\nAAltogether we were about fifty Polish girls while I was there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1132, "page_number": "1127", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QDid all of these girls in the home come from Lodz?\nANo, they also came from Poznan.\nQWere you children from Poland, while you were at AchernBaden -- were you referred to as \"Ostkinder\"?\nAYes, we were called \"Ostkinder\".\nQDid you go by the name of \"Aline\" while in Achern-Baden?\nANo, Hilga.\nQWas your last name changed while you were in Achern-Baden? Were you called Hilga Ant*zak?\nAWould you please repeat the question?\nQWas your last name changed, or wasjust your first name changed to \"Hilga\" from \"Aline\"?\nAIn Achern-Baden only my Christian name was changed.\nQHow long did you stay in Achern-Baden?\nANot quite a year.\nQWas your sister with you during this time?\nAYes, my sister was together with me.\nQWere you ever given the name of Hilga Antzinger?\nAI was given the name Hilga Antzinger when I was sent to a German family.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1133, "page_number": "1128", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Where was this German family where you were sent to?\nA.They lived at Oftensheim.\nQ.And what was the name of the German family to which you were sent?\nA.Fritz Mehnert.\nQ.Did the Mehnert's ever visit the home school at Aachern-Baden before you were placed in their home?\nA.No, they did not visit it.\nQ.Were you told that the Mehnert's would be your parents when you were placed with them?\nA.When Frau Mehnert came, she said that they would be my parents.\nQ.Did the Mehnert's ever come to Aachern-Baden and examine your sister while she was at Aachen-Baden?\nA.Yes. She wanted to have my sister but my sister didn't want to go, so she took me.\nQ.Was Frau Mehnert good to you while you lived with her?\nA.She was good as long as Herr Mehnert was alive, but later on, she was not good.\nQ.Did she ever call you a \"Polish swine?\"\nA.Yes, she beat me and called me \"Polish swine.\"\nQ.Did your father die while you were living with the Mehnert's?\nA.No. My father is still alive.\nQ.Were you allowed to go to church while you were living at the Mehnert's?\nA.I was not allowed to go to Catholic Church.\nQ.Were you allowed to write to your parents while living with your foster parents?\nA.No, it was prohibited.\nQ.Did you ever receive any mail from your mother?\nA.No, not when I was with that German family.\nQ.Did you ever see a letter which was marked \"Lebensborn\" and signed: Klara Keit?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1134, "page_number": "1129", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes, I saw it.\nQ.Could you tell me about this letter, please?\nA.A letter came from Klara Keit, and it stated that my father was not alive and the exact date was written. Some more was written in it, but the Germandidn't give it to me to read; I read it myself later. It stated that it would be a good thing to tell me that my parents were not alive any more, because then I would become a German quicker.\nQ.Witness, when you told Mrs. Mehnert that you wanted to go home to your parents, did she ever say that your parents were no good and that you should be proud to become a German?\nA.Well, they didn't tell me that because there was no question that I could go home. I was to stay there forever.\nQ.Was your sister placed with German foster parents?\nA.My sister was also with German foster parents in the same village.\nQ.What was the name of the German foster parents?\nA.Georg Staud.\nQ.After the war, how were you returned to your home in Poland?\nA.Through the American Red Cross.\nQ.Are you and your sisters now living with your parents?\nA.Yes, now we live together with our parents.\nQ.When was the last time that you saw your younger brother?\nA.I saw my younger brother last in 1942.\nQ.Has your mother ever received any information as to where your brother is now?\nA.Yes, she has.\nQ.What information was this? Would you tell us just where your mother thinks the boy is today?\nA.He is now in Spain.\nQ.Thank you witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION \n BY DR. ZAPF (For the defendant Hofmann):", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1135, "page_number": "1130", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Miss Antczak, what was the name of the institution to which you were sent in 1937?\nA.That was the social welfare home in Karolewska Street.\nQ.And in that home were there any children who spoke German?\nA.No, that was a Polish town, and in Polish homes they didn't speak German.\nQ.In your town, did you know any people at all who spoke German?\nA.Before the war? No.\nQ.What was the name of the office in Petrovska Street, 130?\nA.It was the Health Home, but I do not know it correctly.\nQ.Is it possible that that was called \"Health Office?\"\nA.Yes.\nQ.When you were taken to Brokau, were there any children who spoke German there?\nA.No, because they were all Polish children.\nQ.Was your name already changed before you came to Germany?\nA.No, my name was always Alina Antczak until I came to that German family.\nQ.Did you meet any children whose names had been changed into German names before they came to Germany?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know Sperna Street in Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.No further questions. BY DR. HEIM (For the defendant Schwalm):\nQ.Witness, who told you in 1942 that you would be examined in the State Health Office by Dr. Grohmann?\nA.We were in the Polish home, and German officers came in uniform, and they selected us, and from there we went to the German institution.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1136, "page_number": "1131", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "BY DR. SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch):\nQ.Witness, you told us that you had two sisters and one brother?\nA.I have one brother who is one year younger than I, and he was together with me; and then my small brother is five years old, and he was with my mother all the time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1137, "page_number": "1132", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.I am afraid I haven't heard the translation. Might I ask you to repeat the answer?\nA.I have a brother who is one year younger than I, and I have a small brother who is five years old -- who was all the time staying with my mother.\nQ.Have you still two more brothers who are older than you?\nA.I have two more brothers, but they are sons of my stepmother.\nQ.You want to tell us that you have two stepbrothers? Now what is the relationship?\nA.The first wife of my father died, and there were two sons from their first marriage.\nQ.Yes. You tell us that your name is Antczak. Apart from the name which was changed into the German \"Antzinger,\" did you ever bear at any time another name?\nA.My name was Antczak only. Now my name is changed to that of my father's.\nQ.And what is the name into which the name of Antczak was changed?\nA.That which was changed was Antczak.\nQ.That is to say, before you were called Antczak, you had another name, is that right? Witness, when did you return to Poland?\nA. 1946.\nQ.The Polish children who were with you at Aachern, were they only returned in July 1946 or were they returned in 1945?\nA.I do not know that because we were all distributed to different places.\nQ.After you left the family of Mehnert, where were you taken?\nA.The American Red Cross took me to Aglasterhausen.\nQ.And when were you taken there, please?\nA.In 1946\nQ.So that you stayed with the Mehnert family until 1946, is that correct?\nA.Yes, until May.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1138, "page_number": "1133", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.You told us that after the death of Herr Mehnert, you were treated badly by Frau Mehnert.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now what was the nature of this mistreatment?\nA.She shouted at me and called me a Polish swine, and I had to work very hard with her -- not only in her house, but she also sent me away to farmers to work.\nQ.Was the cause for any corporal punishment not anything you had done yourself?\nA.It was a small transgression, but it wasn't justified. I was a child. It was not necessary at all that she should call me a \"Polish swine.\"\nQ.How does it come about that according to my information, it can be stated that you were supposed to have stolen money through ration cards, not only from Frau Mehnert but also from neighbors?\nA.That was my sister.\nQ.Where was your sister?\nA.With the Staud family.\nQ.That is your older sister, Venceslava?\nA.My younger sister.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1139, "page_number": "1134", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR. SCHMIDT:May I continue with my cross examination, your Honor? BY DR. SCHMIFT:\nQYou stated previously, in asnwer to my question, that approximately in May of 1946 you had been brought into a camp of which the American Red Cross was in charge. After this time you once again take up any contact with the school Achern?\nANo. Klara Keit lived in the same village with me, yes, but not in the school.\nQMay I now ask you whether you had any connection once again with Fraeulein Keit?\nAYes; I spoke with her.\nQAnd on that occasion did Fraeulein Keit give you anything to take along?\nAWhat?\nQWell, you told us before that in the school in Achern you had to sing National Socialist songs.\nAYes.\nQWas there any text book for songs used for the purpose?\nAYes.\nQAnd when you left the school did you take this book of songs along with you?\nAYes, I had it with a German woman.\nQIs it not right to say that at that time, when you returned to Oftersheim from the UNNRA Camp and paid a visit to Fraeulein Keit, this \n song book was handed out to you to be taken to Poland by you?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHMIDT", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1140, "page_number": "1135", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.After I was at Aglasterhausen I didn't see Fraulein Keit, only the family Mehnert. After I left Aglasterhausen I didn't have any connection with Fraulein Keit. I only had connection with the family Mehnert.\nQ.You stated that in the home in Achern you were forced to assume a German Christian name.\nA.Yes.\nQ.At that time did you, yourself, choose this Christian name?\nA.They told me that I have to have another name but I, myself, choose it.\nQ.You further stated that in the home in Achern you already spoke German very well.\nA.But I knew that what I had learned.\nQ.And where did you previously learn German?\nA.In Bruckau and in Achern.\nQ.Is it correct to say that prior to your examination on the witness stand today you already made testimony to the Prosecution in Nuremberg and you also made a written statement on that subject which you signed in the form of an affidavit?\nA.I made a statement that I signed.\nQ.And in that testimony which you gave did you mention a comrade of yours whose Christian name is Irena?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When giving your written statement at that time what did you say as to the fate of this comrade?\nA.Irena was in the same village as I was and she was with a dentist and she had a very bad time. She had to work very much because they had children and in spite of the heavy work she received very little to eat, so that she fell ill, and had lung trouble.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1141, "page_number": "1136", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "QAnd what was the name of the dentist family?\nADiemer.\nQAccording to your knowledge how long did this Irena stay with the family of Diemer?\nAMaybe two months; I don't know it exactly.\nQDid this Irena not later on come into some other family?\nAYes, she did.\nQAnd when was this, as far as you can remember?\nAThat was in March. I know that she died in March of 1945; and before that she was staying with another family.\nQYou are, therefore, saying that prior to her death Irena was also placed with another family. How long was she there previously with this other family?\nAWhich one, the first one or the second one?\nQThe last family prior to her death.\nASix months.\nQFor the purpose of identification, may I show you a photograph and will you please ascertain who the person on this photograph is? (Document handed to witness.)\nAThat is Irena Kreschik. She was called Irena Kreschik but her name was changed to Irena Greissig.\nQIf I were to tell you that this picture was taken approximately four months prior to her death, from what you know of the facts, would this be correct?\nAYes.\nQDo you know what the cause of death was in this instance?\nAI don't know, but the German woman said that it was caused by her lungs.\nQMay I now refer once again to what has not become \n clear to me, namely, the circumstances reigning in your own family.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1142, "page_number": "1137", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "You said that the name of your father is borne by you. Now, what is the name of your father?\nAMokras.\nQMokras. But you call yourself Antczak.\nANow I am called Mokras.\nQSince when is your name Mokras.\nAFrom the time when came back from Germany.\nQAnd why do you write your name or do you still call yourself Antczak today if your name is Mokras?\nABecause all my papers are Antczak and nobody knows me under another name.\nQYou say that since having returned to Poland your name is Mokras. Why then were you called Antczak before?\nABecause my father at the time had not married my mother yet.\nQFor the purpose of identification I will now show you a document; but before doing so I want to ask you one more thing which is of interest to me. You stated that when you stayed with family Mehnert you had to call your foster parents father and mother, or did I misunderstand you?\nAWe had to say uncle and aunt.\nQI will now show you a letter and will you please tell me whether you wrote this letter? (Document handed to witness.)\nAYes, I have written it.\nQWill you please state to whom you addressed this letter and when it was dated?\nATo the German family where I stayed, Mehnert.\nQAnd what date does this letter bear?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1143, "page_number": "1138", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A 21 July 1947.\nQIf you will look at that letter carefully you will see that there is a second letter there. Who wrote the second letter.\nAI wrote it.\nQIn whose name and by whose order did you write this second letter?\nAFor my sister.\nQAnd to whom was this second letter addressed?\nAThis letter was addressed to the family where my sister stayed.\nQAnd do you agree with me that in both letters there is a special gratitude shown on the part of you and your sister towards the former foster parents?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't argue with the witness. You can argue that question to the Court.\nAYes, for my sister but not much for myself. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQBut previously you told us that the foster parents of your sister did not treat her well either at that time.\nAThe sister was well-treated; only I wasn't.\nQMay I now refer to the statement you made in regard to the attendance of religious instructions? Did you attend religious instructions in Achern or didn't you?\nANo.\nQDid you attend religious instruction when you were with the family Mehnert?\nANot during the war; after the war they allowed it.\nQDid you regularly attend religious instruction?\nAYes.\nQTherefore it is not right that you missed religious \n instruction or skipped it?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1144, "page_number": "1139", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "AWhen there was a lesson I went; and when there wasn't I didn't go.\nDR. SCHMIDT:I have no further questions, your Honor.\nINTERPRETER ZBOROWSKA:The witness wants to explain another question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Let her go ahead and say anything she wants to say.\nTHE WITNESS:I took some ration cards from the sister because the sister said when I came back from school to her I was very hungry and she told me to take them and I took them; but not from other people, only from the family where my sister stayed.\nDR. ORTH:Dr. Orth for the defendant Viermetz. BY DR. ORTH:\nQWitness, when did you come into the school in Achern?\nAIn 1942.\nQWhen, approximately, was this?\nAThis was in the Fall.\nQAnd when did you leave Achern and join the family Mehnert?\nAThe next year at the same time.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? Anything by the Prosecution?\nMR. NEELY:Mr. Neely for the Prosecution.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nWitness, I just have two or three short questions. When you were taken to the Health Department in Lodz, were \n you ill?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. NEELY", "DR. SCHMIDT", "INTERPRETER ZBOROWSKA", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ORTH", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1145, "page_number": "1140", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "ANo, I was not ill.\nQHad you been ill before this time?\nANo.\nQThen would you say that the purpose of your being taken -\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are not asking the witness for facts. You are asking for conclusions, arguments. The facts will determine the purpose. BY MR. NEELY:\nQDid you receive any medical treatment when you were taken to the Health Department?\nANo; I was quite healthy.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1146, "page_number": "1141", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.I should like to clear up you name. Your first name was Alina Antczak?\nTHE PRESIDENT:So far as the Tribunal is concerned I do not think that is necessary. I think the Tribunal understands the facts about the child's name very well.\nMR. NEELY:Very well, sir. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. NEELY:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution requests that the Tribunal call to the witness stand at this time the witness Slavomir Grodomski Paczesny.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nSLAVOMIR GRODOMSKIPACZESNY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nI swear by God the Almighty and Omnisicient, that I shall speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing, so help me God. BY MR. NEELY:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, would you please state your name?\nA.Slavomir Grodomski Paczesny.\nQ.Where were you born?\nA.In Lodz.\nQ.When were you born?\nA. 11 November 1931.\nQ.Are your mother and father living today?\nA.Yes, they are alive.\nQ.In 1942 did a woman come to your home or your parents and take you to a Children's Home in Lodz?\nA.Yes, in Kipernika Street.\nQ.Do you remember the name of this woman who took you from your home?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "A.", "SLAVOMIR GRODOMSKI", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1147, "page_number": "1142", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.No, I don't.\nQ.Were your parents at this time financially able to support you?\nA.Yes, they were.\nQ.Had you been ill at this time; were you at this time?\nA.No.\nQ.Was your mother or your father ill at this time?\nA.No.\nQ.Where was this Children's Home where you were taken to located?\nA.In Kopernika Street.\nQ.That is in Lodz? Is that correct?\nA.Yes, it is in Lodz.\nQ.How many children were in this institution when you were taken there?\nA. 40.\nQ.Were you ever ill in the Children's Home?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever examined in Lodz?\nA.Yes, I was.\nQ.Were pictures taken of you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were these profile pictures?\nA.It was in three positions.\nQ.Did they examine and take down notes as to the color of your eyes and hair?\nA.Yes, they did.\nQ.Do you remember who examined you at the time?\nA.Yes, Dr. Grohmann.\nQ.Was anyone else with Dr. Grohmann at this time?\nA.I do not remember.\nQ.Did your father try to get you away from the Children's Home?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1148, "page_number": "1143", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes, my father wanted to.\nQ.What did they tell your father when he tried to take you from the Children's Home?\nA.That I do not remember.\nQ.Did your mother ever visit you while you were in the Children's Home in Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you get to talk to her while you were in the Children's Home?\nA.Yes, I could but through the fence.\nQ.She could not come in and talk to you inside. Is that correct?\nA.She couldn't; only on Sundays, when there was no supervisor.\nQ.Then she came but was not allowed to come? She came when the supervisor was not there. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, she came in front of the house when the supervisor was not there.\nQ.Where were you sent after leaving the Children's Home in Lodz?\nA.To Kalisch.\nQ.How many children were in the Home in Kalisch?\nA.About 30.\nQ. 40? Is that correct?\nA. 30.\nQ.Were you taught to speak and read German in Kalisch?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you Polish children allowed to speak Polish among yourselves?\nA.Yes. We were not allowed to do it, but I did it secretly.\nQ.If any of the children spoke Polish, what happened? Were they punished?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1149, "page_number": "1144", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Were you ever punished?\nA.Yes, I was.\nQ.What did they do to you?\nA.They shut me up in a room and gave me neither dinner nor supper.\nQ.Did your mother come to see you while you were in Kalisch?\nA.Yes, may mother came.\nQ.Did you get to speak to your mother while you were in Kalisch?\nA.No, I did not.\nQ.How did you know that she came to Kalisch?\nA.Other children saw it.\nQ.But you never saw your mother in Kalisch?\nA.No.\nQ.How long did you stay in Kalisch?\nA.Six months.\nQ.And where were you sent after leaving Kalisch?\nA.To Luxembourg.\nQ.And how many children were with you in Luxembourg?\nA. 15.\nQ.Were these all boys or were part of them girls?\nA.Boys and girls.\nQ.And how long did you stay in Luxembourg?\nA.One month.\nQ.Where were you sent after leaving Luxembourg?\nA.To Salzburg.\nQ.And While you were in Salzburg were you told that you would be sent to German families?\nA.Not in the beginning.\nQ.Were you told that you would not return to Poland and should forget all about it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1150, "page_number": "1145", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Were you ever given cards in Salzburg with new names?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the name which was given to you?\nA.Karl Grohmann.\nQ.Do you know who gave you these cards? Were they people in uniform?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What color uniforms did they wear, do you remember?\nA.Black.\nQ.Did you use this name, Karl Grohmann, all the time after it was given to you?\nA.Yes, I had to.\nQ.And after you received this name were you placed with a German family after leaving the Home in Salzburg?\nA.Yes, immediately after I received the name.\nQ.What was the German's name with whom you were placed?\nA.I do not remember.\nQ.Was he a farmer or just what did he do?\nA.Yes, he was a farmer.\nQ.Did you work on the farm while you were there?\nA.Yes, I had to.\nQ.Do you remember where this farmer lived?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And how long did you stay with the farmer?\nA.Four months.\nQ.Were you told to call the farmer and his wife mother and father?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And after you left the farmer's house where did you go?\nA.To Bischofshofen.\nQ.Do you remember the name of this farmer?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1151, "page_number": "1146", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "A.Yes, I do.\nQ.Do you know the reason why your place was taken away, while you were with the first farm, and taken to the home of the second farmer?\nA.Yes I do.\nQ.Would you please tell us what that reason was?\nA.Because I had contact with Poles in the first place.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1152, "page_number": "1147", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Q.Do you mean connection with the Polish children in the neighborhood?\nA.No, there were Serbian soldiers who could speak Polish.\nQ.And what was the name of the second farmer whom you lived with?\nA.That was a woman.\nQ.What was her name?\nA.Maria Stiller.\nQ.How were you returned to Poland after the end of the war?\nA.Polish soldiers came to this peasant woman.\nQ.And do you now live with your mother and father in Poland.\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Just one more question, witness. While you were away from Poland were you allowed to write or contact your parents?\nA.Not always.\nQ.Were you allowed to while you were with your foster parents?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And did you hear from your parents?\nA.Yes, I received letters.\nQ.But was this allowed or did someone bring these letters to you?\nA.No, I received them by mail, by the Postman.\nQ.But you were told not to write any letters; wasn't that correct?\nA.No, in Kalisch I was not allowed to write any letters; in Salzburg I wasn't allowed to do it either.\nQ.But you did just the same as when you spoke Polish when you were not allowed to, you did it anyway. Isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, I did.\nQ.The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1153, "page_number": "1148", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "BY DR. ORTH (for the defendant Viermetz):\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, would you please once more tell us Where you were taken from Kalisch?\nA.To Luxembourg.\nQ.Where is Luxembourg located?\nA.Between France and Belgium.\nQ.When did you come to Salzburg?\nA.In 1943.\nQ.What month of that year apporximately?\nA.I do not remember.\nQ.And when did you leave Luxembourg and when were you transferred to that peasant?\nA.I went to the farmer from Salzburg.\nQ.And when was that?\nA.That was in the summer of 1943.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense? Anything further from the Prosecution? Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I request the High Tribunal to call Mrs. Leokadia Simanska as a witness for the Prosecution.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR.SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch):\nMay I refer the Tribunal to the fact that the witness just announced by the name of Leokadia Simanska is not on the list of names of witnesses. Therefore, it was not known to me and I don't believe I am ready to hear her since her name did not appear on the bulletin board of the Defense Center.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What do you say to that?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, it is possible that the announcement of this witness has been delayed. If the defense objects to this witness, \n we will have to withdraw her.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1154, "page_number": "1149", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Do you object?\nDR. SCHMIDT:The subject matter on which this witness is to speak is not known to me and again I wish to raise an objection.\nTHE. PRESIDENT:All right; let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I point out that this witness will testify merely about office files which she found in Lodz. I don't know whether the defense will maintain its objection in view of this fact.\nDR.HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm):\nYour Honor, I wish to object on principle. Yesterday the witness was in the office and according --\nTHE PRESIDENT:It is not necessary to state your reasons. If you object they cannot put the witness on the stand. Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:I should like to proceed with the introduction of the documents, Document Book No. XIV-B.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I didn't hear your Book number.\nMR. SHILLER:Document No. XIV-B Your Honor. Document No. NO3189 may be found on page 1 in both the English and the German. This is a letter dated 13 December 1940 by Greifelt concerning confiscation of estates belonging to Jewish and Polish owners. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.610.\nDocument No.NO-5149may be found on page 3 of the English and on page 4 of the German. This is an excerpt from the 1940 volume Menscheneinsatz signed by Greifelt and Winkler concerning the handing over to resettlers the land of the evicted Poles and Jews. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.611.\nDocument No.NO-1412, may be found on page 7 of the English and 12 of the German. This consists of two letters, one dated 3 March 1943 by von Sammern, Warsaw representative of RKFDV, and one by Pakebusch \n in connection with the seizure of a Polish tubercular hospital in Otwock and of a Jewish tubercular hospital in Zofiovka.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHMIDT", "MR. SCHWENK", "DR.", "THE. PRESIDENT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1155, "page_number": "1150", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.612.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1156, "page_number": "1151", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Document No.NO-2697may be found on page 10 of the English and page 16 of the German. This is a letter dated 4th March, 1942, by Butschek on the staff of RKFDV in Bielitz, concerning confiscation of livestock from Poles. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.613.\nDocument No.NO-2667, may be found on page 11 of the English and 17 of the German. This is a letter dated 16th March, 1942, to the settlement division of the RKFDV in Bielitz, concerning the confiscation of livestock from Poles. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.614.\nDocument No.NO-2698may be found on page 12 of the English and 19 of the German. This is a letter dated 28th March, 1942, from the farmer's section of the Settlement Division of RKFDV in Bielitz concerning the confiscation of livestock from Poles. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit 615.\nDocument No.NO-2696is divided into two parts, one and two. Part I may be found on page 13 of the English and 20 of the German. It is a letter dated 6th June, 1942, by Greifelt to the Oberpresident of Upper Silesia concerning the confiscation of livestock from Poles in Bielitz. Part 2 may be found on page 14 of the English and 21 of the German, and is a letter dated 22 May, 1942, by the Reich Minister of Justice, signed Freisler, to the RKFDV, on the searching of Polish homes in Bielitz. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.616.\nDocument No.NO-2695may be found on page 16 of the English and on page 24 of the German. This is a letter dated 16th June, 1942, by Dr. Arlt, representative of the RKFDV in Kattowitz to the RKFDV concerning the operation in Bielitz. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.617.\nDocument No.NO-2694should not have the arabic numeral one in parenthesis after it in the index. This may be found on page 18 of the English and 28 of the German. It consists of two letters, dated 17th and 18th of June, 1942. One, a letter from Greifelt to the Reich Minister of Justice concerning the confiscation of Polish property in the Bielitz district, and the other part is a covering letter to the Gauleiter and supreme president of upper Silesia. I offer this document as Prosecution \n Exhibit No. 618.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1157, "page_number": "1152", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Document No.NO-3203may be found on page 20 of the English and 31 of the German. This is a memorandum dated 22 May, 1942, by Greifelt on the securing of French property in Lorraine for Germany. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.619.\nThe next document is incorrectly numbered in the index. The index hasNO-4623. This should be R-143. The confusion has arisen because both the numbers refer to the identical document, but the inserts in the document book are numberedR-13. This may be found on page 21 of the English and 33 of the German, and is a decree dated 16th December, 1939, by Himmler concerning the confiscation of art objects, archives, etc., in the incorporated eastern territories. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 620.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You said that wasR what?\nMR. SHILLER:R-143, Your Honor. Document No.NO-1726may be found on page 25 of the English and 40 of the German. This is a report dated 31 October, 1941, to the RKFDV on the securing and collecting of cultural goods on the occasion of the resettlement of ethnic Germans in the province of Laibach Gottschee. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 621.\nThe next document isNO-1883, which is subdivided into four parts. Part A may be found on page 27 of the English and page 43 of the German, and is a letter dated 16th November, 1940, addressed to VOMI, by Cardinal Bertram, concerning the housing of ethnic German resettlers in church institutions of the Diocesse Breslau. Part B is a letter dated 20th November, 1940 concerning the same subject, and may be found on page 28 of the English and 44 of the German. Part C may be found on page 30 of the English and 46 of the German and is a letter dated 18th November, 1940, addressed to Cardinal Bertram by M. Salesia, the Mother Superior of Ursuline Convent, concerning a request to retract a confiscation order. Part D may be found on page 31 of the English and 47 of the German, and is a letter dated 20th November, 1940, from Cardinal Bertram to Dr. Lammers.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1158, "page_number": "1153", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "I offer all four parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.622.\nDocument No.NO-1884may be found on page 35 of the English and on page 50 of the German. This is a letter dated 17th December, 1940, from Greifelt to Himmler, on the confiscation of church property for housing settlers. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.623.\nDocument No.NO-1886may be found on page 38 of the English and 54 of the German. This is a letter dated 7th January, 1941, from Brandt to Greifelt, concerning the requisitioning of quarters for the settlers. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.624.\nDocument No.NO-1889may be found on page 39 of the English and 55 of the German. This is a letter dated 6th April, 1944, from Dr. Lammers to Himmler, concerning church property in the annexed eastern territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.625.\nDocument No.NO-1890is subdivided into two parts. Part A may be found on page 40 of the English and 56 of the German, and is a memorandum dated 19th September, 1944, to Brandt on the administration of confiscated church land property. Part B may be found on page 43 of the English and 60 of the German, and is a letter dated 1 July, 1944, from Greifelt to Himmler, on the same subject. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.626.\nDocument No.NO-2663may be found on page 45 of the English and on page 61 of the German. This is a copy of a letter dated 4th April 1944, from Brehm to the Main Staff Office. It incorrectly says to VOMI. Attention Wirsich, concerning the confiscation of church property. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit627.\nDocument No.NO-2752may be found on page 48 of the English and page 65 of the German. This is a letter dated 18th August, 1943, by Hildebrandt to the RFSS Himmler concerning the appropriation of property of concentration camp inmates. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.628.\nDocument No.NO-2754may be found on page 49 of the English and on page 67 of the German. This is a copy of a letter dated 3 December, 1943, from Brandt to Pohl, concerning the distribution of watches and fountain \n pens among SS personnel.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1159, "page_number": "1154", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 629.\nDocument No.NO-4191may be found on page 51 of the English and 69 of the German. This is a report of 30th March, 1944, on a revision of the VOMI pay office Stockerau. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 630.\nThe Prosecution wishes to omit the last document in this book, and that, therefore, concludes the documents in Document Book No. XIV-B.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 6 November 1947.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1160, "page_number": "1155", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 6 November 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the prosecution.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, the Prosecution now wishes to proceed with the introduction into evidence of the documents contained in Document Book XIV-0.\nI will begin with Document No.NO-1647, which may be found on page 1 in both the English and German, and consisting of the letters dated 21 November and 24 December, 1942, by Sollmann, R. Brandt and Dr. Conti, concerning the confiscation of a Polish gynecological clinic in Cracow for the use of Legensborn. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.631.\nDocument No.NO-3634may be found on page 8 in the English and 13 in the German. This is a letter dated 16th September, 1943, from Viermetz to Ebner, concerning the use of five former Polish children's homes by Lebensborn in Poland. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 632.\nDocument No.NO-1392is subdivided into three parts. Part 1 may be found on page 12 of the English and 20 of the German. It is circular dated 29 August, 1939, of the Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture, on preparation of agricultural enterprises in the territories to be occupied by the German army. Pardon me. Part 2 may be found on page 13 of the English and 22 of the German. It is a cover letter dated 6th September 1939 to the circular just mentioned, from Hildebrandt to the Chief of the RuSHA, at that time Pancke. Part 3 may be found on page 14 of the English and 23 of the German, and is the answer by Pancke to Hildebrandt, dated 8th September, 1939. I offer the three parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.633.\nDocument No.NO-4106may be found on page 15 of the English and 25 of the German. It is a letter dated 27th December 1940, to Luening on settlement in the east. This letter is from Hofmann. I \n offer this letter as Prosecution Exhibit No.634.Document No.NO-4120may be found on page 16 of the English and 27 of the German.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1161, "page_number": "1156", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "It is a cover letter dated 22 March, 1941, to Himmler's order on the settlement of members of the SS and was sent by Tesseraux. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.635.\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz) Mr. President, may I say something regarding Prosecution Exhibit No. 632.\nThe photostat does not bear any signature, but only bears the note in typewriting: \"signed: Viermetz.\" This is obviously not the original letter which is submitted here as a document.\nMS. SHILLER:Your Honor, this is obviously a copy of the original letter and this copy is the original which we are submitting inasmuch as the copy is what was discovered in the captured German files.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will bear your suggestion in mind. When we come to consider the evidence, and if it appears to be of no probative value, we will give it none.\nMR. SHILLER:Document No.NO-4121may be found on page 17 of the English and 28 of the German, and is an order by Himmler, dated 4th March, 1941, on the settlement of members of the SS. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.636.\nDocument No.NO-4100may be found on page 18 in the English and 29 of the German. It is a letter dated 21 June, 1941, to Major Grosze Leege, on the settlement of SS men, and was signed by the defendant Hofmann. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 638.\nDocument No.NO-4119may be found on page 20 in the English and 34 in the German. It is a memorandum dated 20th March, 1942, on labor allocation, for agricultural experts of the SS and Police. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.639.\nDocument No.NO-4105may be found on page 21 of the English and 36 of the German. It is a report dated 24th July, 1942, by Tesseraux \n on his trip to the Ukraine and Poland.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MS. SHILLER", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1162, "page_number": "1157", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.640.\nDocument No.NO- 4169may be found on page 23 of the English and 38 of the German. It is a letter dated 24 July, 1942, to Hofmann, on agriculture problems concerning RuSHA's Center, and was signed by Tesseraux. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.641.\nDocument No.NO-4880may be found on page 25 in the English and 41 in the German. It is a letter dated 23 July, 1942 from Pohl of the WVHA to the HSSPF Leader, dealing with settlement of members of the SS in the eastern territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 642.\nDocument No.NO-4099may be found on page 26 in the English and page 43 in the German. It is a letter dated 24 August, 1942, from Hofmann to Thole on the settlement of SS men. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.643.\nDocument No.NO-4104may be found on page 27 in the English and 45 in the German; it is a memorandum dated 25th September, 1942, to Schill and the Settlement Office, from Hofmann, on the managing of farms in the occupied eastern territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.644.\nDocument No.NO-4103may be found on page 29 of the English and 46 of the German. It is a letter dated 28th September, 1942, from Hofmann to Lt. Hohensee on SS enterprises in the Ukraine. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.645.\nDocument No.NO-4111may be found on page 30 in the English and 47 in the German. It is a letter dated 1 October, 1942, from Hofmann to Spengemann on SS enterprises in the Ukraine. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.646.\nDocument No.NO-4113may be found on page 31 in the English, and 49 in the German. It is a letter dated 12th November, 1942, from Hofmann to Hans Raeder on SS settlement in the east. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.647.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1163, "page_number": "1158", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "Document No.NO-4107may be found on page 32 of the English and 51 of the German. It is a letter dated 14 November 1942 from Hofmann to Lubkowitz on the settlement of SS men in the East. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.648.\nDocument No.NO-4108may be found on page 34 of the English and 53 of the German. It is a letter dated 30 December 1942 from Hofmann to Berkmann on the settlement of SS men in the East. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.649.\nDocument No.NO-4115may be found on page 36 of the English and 55 of the German. It is a cover letter, dated 4 March 1943, to an enclosed letter from Tesseraux on the settlement of wounded veterans of the SS. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.650.\nDocument No.NO-4116may be found on page 37 of the English and 56 in the German. This is a letter dated 22 February 1943 from Hofmann to Haoftel on the settlement of wounded veterans. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.651.\nDocument No.NO-4098may be found on page 39 of the English and 59 of the German. It is dated 23 January 1945 and consists of balance sheets, outstanding debts, and claims on the RuSHA agricultural enterprises, property and states. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 652.\nDocument No.NO-2558may be found on page 42 of the English and 64 of the German. It is a letter dated 28 October 1942 from Meine to Hofmann concerning children's clothing being sent by von dem Bach from Russia. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 653.\nDocument No.NO-4853may be found on page 43 of the English and 65 of the German. It is a letter dated 25 September 1944 from Aust to Osiander on the spoliation of Dutch property. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.654.\nDocument No.NO-3821may be found on page 45 of the English and page 67 of the German. It is a letter dated 28 October 1944 from Neumann-Reppert on the removal from Den Haag of a genealogical library, \n the property of the Dutch State.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1164, "page_number": "1159", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 655.\nDocument No.NO-3571may be found on page 47 of the English and 69 of the German. It is dated 31 December 1942 and is a survey of the registration and confiscation of land in the areas incorporated into Germany. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.656.\nThis concludes the documents in document book 14-C. And, Your Honor, the Prosecution at this moment has no furhter evidence prepared. We should like to ask for an adjournment until next week.\nDR.ZAPF (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann): Mr. President, a little while ago objections were raised, and I will repeat them now. These documents now submitted are not signed by the defendant Hofmann, either in ink or in pencil. Those just bear the typewritten signature or a rubber stamp signature. The documents in question are:NO-4106; NO-4100;NO-4099; NO-4103; NO-4111; NO-4113; NO-4107; NO-4108.\nThank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal, when it comes to writing the judgment in this case, will very carefully examine all of this evidence, and any evidence that appears to the Tribunal to have no probative value will be given no weight at all. And when the attorneys come to make their arguments, both written and oral, we invite counsel to point out just such things as you are now talking about. That will be very helpful to us.\nDR. ZAPF:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:With reference to the request that the Tribunal adjourn until next week in order to give counsel time to get more evidence ready, in view of the announcement made at the beginning of this trial, ordinarily this request would not be granted. But, since we have been assured by counsel that the remaining evidence to be offered can be served so as to comply with the rules and be ready for introduction next week, the Tribunal, after discussion, has determined that a recess will be taken until 9:30 o'clock Monday morning, and \n at that time we will permit you to continue to offer evidence.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. ZAPF", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1165, "page_number": "1160", "date": "06 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-06", "text": "But no further adjournment will be had then or after that for the purpose of preparing evidence to be introduced. So the Court would admonish counsel to get such evidence as he desires to introduce ready by Monday.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, Your Honors.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(At 1355 hours, 6 November 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 10 November 1947)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1166, "page_number": "1161", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 10 November 1947, 0930-1630, The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMR.MARSHAL, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nThe Office of the Secretary General has submitted to the Tribunal requests from defense counsel with reference to certain witnesses, the testimony of these witnesses having been offered by the Prosecution in affidavit form. The request was made that the Prosecution be required to call such of these witnesses as are available for the purpose of cross-examination by the Defense. The Tribunal is not inclined to grant this request because it would unnecessarily delay the closing of the Prosecution's case. However, any witness from whom the Prosecution has submitted an affidavit, that is available, the Defense will be permitted to call that witness for the purpose of cross-examination; and the witness will be called by the Defense, not as a Defense witness, but as a Prosecution witness, with the privilege of the Defense cross-examining. And if the Defense makes application for any of these witnesses, simply show in the application that an affidavit has been offered by the Prosecution by the witness involved, and the Court will \n approve the subpoenaing of the witness.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "MR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1167, "page_number": "1162", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Go ahead with the Prosecution.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the Prosecution would like to call Dr. Dr. Camille Kasel as a witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness be sworn.\nDR. CAMILLEKASEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me -\nMR. SCHWENK:Yoir Honor, may I make a statement before the witness is sworn?\nMay it please the Tribunal, this witness is a citizen of Luxembourg. He wished to testify in French, which would have slowed the examination considerably. However, the witness has agreed to testify in German, provided that I made it clear to the Tribunal that he does not use the German language by choice.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We understand that request and appreciate your attitude in being willing to cooperate with the Court.\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWENK:\nQWhat is your name?\nAKasel; my first name is Camille.\nQWhen were you born?\nAOn the 2oth of May, 1896.\nQWhere were you born?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "DR. CAMILLE", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1168, "page_number": "1163", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AIn Luxembourg.\nQAre you married?\nAYes.\nQAre you a citizen of Luxembourg?\nAYes.\nQWhat is your present profession?\nAI am a director of printing.\nQDo you hold any offices in Luxembourg at the present time?\nAI am a member of the Chamber of Delegates, and I am the first Deputy of the Buergermeister of Luxembourg.\nQAre you a Doctor of Philosophy?\nAYes.\nQWhat position did you hold prior to the war in Luxembourg?\nAI was the owner of a printing workshop in Luxembourg.\nQDid you hold any offices in Luxembourg prior to the war?\nAYes; I was a member of the Municipal Council of Luxembourg.\nQDr. Kasel, what sort of administration was established in Luxembourg after the invasion?\nAThe Luxembourg invasion took place simultaneously with the invasion of Belgium and Holland, on the 10th of May, 1940. At the beginning of the military operations in the West, and while such operations were continuing, the military administration was in power.\nQWhat sort of administration was established afterwards?\nAThe military administration continued up to the 1st of August 1940. Afterwards, the civilian administration \n came into power, which was headed by the Chief of the Civilian Administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1169, "page_number": "1164", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWho was the Chief of the Civilian Administration?\nAThe Chief of the Civilian Administration was Gustav Simon, the Gauleiter of Gau Moselland.\nQWhat steps did he take immediately after the invasion in regard to the Luxembourgians?\nAImmediately after the Chief of the Civilian Administration took office, the Chamber of Delegates was dissolved. In the same way, the Municipal Council members were relieved of their positions. He prohibited the use of the word \"Grossherzogtum\" (Great Duchy) or the use of the word \"Luxembourg\". In the same way he prohibited the use of the official French language, which was customary in Luxembourg up to that time. He maintained that this language was the language of a \"Negro tribe\". He did away with the Luxembourg police and introduced the regular German Police into Luxembourg. The Luxembourg voluntary companies were transferred into Weimar and they were compelled there to enlist into the so-called \"Schutzpolizei\", the regular German Police.\nQDr. Kasel, did Gauleiter Simon carry out a plebiscite on October 10, 1941?\nAYes. Throughout the German Reich there was introduced, on the 10th of October, 1941, a so-called census which was called registration of the population. In the case of Luxembourg a special form was added to the abundance of forms to be filled out, where there were four principal questions to be answered.\nThe first read: \"What is your present citizenship?\"\nThe second question was: \"What was your former \n citizenship; until when did you hold that, and what was it?\"", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1170, "page_number": "1165", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "The third question was: \"What is your native tongue?\"\nThe fourth question was: \"To what nation do you belong?\"\nDuring numerous meetings for the purpose of enlightenment, and in numerous articles which appeared in the adjusted Luxembourg press, it was made clear to the Luxembourg people, and it was imposed upon them, to answer especially the questions 3 and 4 with the word \"German\" The Luxembourg people were threatened with the severest reprisals if they refused to answer questions 3 and 4 with the word \"German\" and substituted \"Luxembourgish\" instead.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1171, "page_number": "1166", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Q.Dr. Dasel, was this plebiscite carried through?\nA.On the 10th of October, 1941, this plebiscite was actually carried through. The forms had to be filled out, and they had to be collected by the evening of the 10th of October. In a few villages these forms were collected as a test and thereafter investigated. During this investigation it became evident that in spite of the formidible threats, approximately 98 percent of all the voting slips had the answer \"Luxembourgish\" to questions 3 and 4.\nSubsequently, Gauleiter Simon was called to Luxembourg by telephone from Koblenz.\nQ.Witness, will you be kind enough to shorten the story as much as possible and not go into too many details?\nA.Yes. Thereafter, the plebiscite was called off and the rest of the voting slips were not collected. It was announced, however, that a card index registration of the population would be enacted.\nQ.Was this registration of the population, called \"Volkstumskartei\", carried out?\nA.Yes, that is right. This registration of the population, so-called \"Volkstumskartei\", was carried out from December 1941 until July 1942 in the Duchy of Luxembourg.\nQ.What was the purpose of that registration of population called \"Volkstumskartei\"?\nA.Both of these operations--the operation of the 10th of October, 1941, and the registration of the population-had as their purpose to cause the Luxembourg people to declare themselves German. That would have had as its consequence a full incorporation of the Luxembourg Duchy into the Greater German Reich, and also the introduction of military conscription.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, were you ever taken as a hostage?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1172, "page_number": "1167", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "A.Yes. On the 18th of October, 1941--that is, after the plebiscite had failed--I was taken as a hostage.\nQ.What was the reason for that?\nA.In connection with the plan for the plebiscite, on the 10th of October, 1941, they endeavored to place the population of Luxembourg under pressure even before the plebiscite took place. The Germans, or German friends, painted the Luxembourg towers with Luxembourg colors. Because of this coloring of the towers, the City of Luxembourg received a penalty of one million Luxembourg francs. In order to assure the payment of that penalty, twelve hostages were arrested, among them I also. After an arrest of eight days, and upon the payment of a hundred and fifty thousand Luxembourg francs, I was released.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, do you know whether Gauleiter Simon was ever appointed representative of the Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes, I know that, The announcement of that fact was proclaimed by the German authorities in the Luxembourg press.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, do you know whether Berkelmann, Higher SS and Police Leader in Luxembourg, or for Luxembourg, rather, was also appointed representative of RKFDV, which is Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes. I know that. My own deportation paper was signed personally by Commissar and General of the police Berkelmann.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, what happened on August 30, 1942?\nA.On the 30th of August, 1942, the Chief of the Civilian Administration, Gustav Simon, proclaimed in Luxembourg, on the occasion of a public meeting, the granting of German citizenship to a number of Luxembourg citizens.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1173, "page_number": "1168", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII He also introduced the compulsory military conscription for five age groups of young Luxembourg citizens.\nQ.How did the Luxembourgians react?\nA.The Luxembourgians were very annoyed about that fact, and on the 1st of September, 1942, there was an open general strike in Luxembourg.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, how did the Civil Administration for Luxembourg react to the fact that the Luxembourgians resented Germanization?\nA.The German Civilian Administration--that is to say, the Chief of the Civilian Administration, Gustav Simon-after the general strike had broken out, introduced martial law, The Chief of the Gestapo in Luxembourg was presiding over these courts, special courts were instituted, and during the first days of September 1942 they sentenced a number of luxembourg citizens to death.\nQ.Were there any further measures announced?\nA.Those who were not sentences to death by this court martial were handed over to the Gestapo. Furthermore, on the 9th of September, 1942, a proclamation was made to the effect that the heads of the Luxembourg resistance movement would be expelled and deported from Luxembourg and sent to the eastern border of Germany.\nQ.When were the first families--Luxembourgian families-deported?\nA.The deportation of the first Luxembourg families took place on the 17th of September 1942.\nQ.Were you and your wife among them?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please describe briefly how you and your wife were deported?\nA.Early in the morning, shortly after 6 a.m., we were awakened by the Gestapo, and we were told that we would be \n COURT I CASE VIII deported, and that within a period of two hours we would have to leave our home and country.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1174, "page_number": "1169", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "We were allowed to take with us fifty kilograms of luggage.\nOn the list of those to be deported were judges, prosecutors, professors, industrial directors and also workmen, who, as a result of their resistance, had become conspicuous.\nWe were taken to a railway station which had been blocked by the Security Police, and from there we were taken, under guard, to a special closed car, which took us to Lower Silesia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1175, "page_number": "1170", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I have here a picture which was turned over to me by this witness. I shall offer this photo merely for identification at the present time. It will be offered in evidence later. May I show it to the High Tribunal?\nQ.Dr. Kasel, do you recognize this picture?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Will you please explain what it is and how you got hold of it?\nA.This picture shows the railroad station Luxembourg-Hellerich which was always requisitioned for purposes of deportation and sealed off. This picture shows us shortly before entering the special car. The photo was taken by a German photographic agency at Koblenz-Trier. The Luxembourg Security Police found it at Koblenz and an agent of this Security Police handed it to me.\nQ.This photo carries theNO number5537.\nWitness, how many families were deported on the first day of the deportation?\nA.Twenty-three families were deported in that manner.\nQ.Where were you and your wife brought to?\nA.We were brought to Lower Silesia into the Camp of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle No. 158 at the Monastery Leubus.\nQ.How do you know that that camp was a camp of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle?\nA.All camps in which deported Luxembourgians were housed had a white enamel shield on which one could read VOMI Camp No. 158. Of course, the number of each camp was different. Then, the location, Leubus, Lower Silesia.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, who was the chief of that camp?\nA.The head of that camp had the name of Henniges.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1176, "page_number": "1171", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Q.How many more deportees from Luxembourg arrived later?\nA.In the course of the months September, 1942 to January, 1943, approximately 550 Luxembourg citizens arrived at Leubus.\nQ.Do you know for what reasons those 500 deportees were deported?\nA.Yes. The German agencies, in many articles appearing in the Luxembourg press, had stated that the heads of the Luxembourg resistance movement, resisting the incorporation into Greater Germany, were no longer tenable within the borders of that Reich and, for that reason, would have to be sent to the Eastern border of that Reich for purposes of Germanization.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, were there any deported Slovenes in the VOMI Camp Leubus?\nA.Yes. When, on the 18th of September, we arrived at Leubus, several hundred Slavs were present there.\nQ.Could you tell us why those Slovenes were deported from their native country?\nA.These Slovenes, who mostly came from Styria, had been deported from there approximately eleven months ago because a border strip, with a depth of fifteen kilometers, was to be liberated from the Slovenes. All of these Slovenes had been evacuated from there, whereas the deportation of the Luxembourgs only limited itself to a number of individuals who had become conspicuous.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, how was the treatment of the Luxembourgians in the Camp Leubus with regard to food, freedom and other respects?\nA.The nourishment within the Camp Leubus was very bad. It was worse there than in other ramps. When the Luxembourgians who had stayed at home sent us food packages, \n in pity for us, such packages were only handed over to us for a period of eight days.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1177, "page_number": "1172", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Thereafter, they were either stopped immediately, or partly taken by the camp administration.\nQ.Could you move freely?\nA.We could move about freely to a certain extent, but we had to move within certain limits and whenever we exceeded such limits or whenever we disregarded the censorship, we were subject to severe penalties.\nQ.Could you freely accept and send mail?\nA.No. Mail was censored by the camp administration which applied to incoming and out-going mail.\nQ.How was the treatment of the Slovenes?\nA.The treatment of the Slovenes was even worse that that of the Luxembourg citizens because the Slovenes, by reason of their lack of knowledge of the German language, were not in a position to defend themselves.\nQ.Witness, would you say then that the VOMI acted as a host, as a Herbergsvater?\nA.I certainly cannot say that or even admit it. Every VOMI camp was certainly not a Herberge, not a hostel, but a penal institution.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, was there a racial examination in Camp Leubus?\nA.Yes. One day a commission appeared which was to examine us racially. We had to appear on roll call per family and the members of the commission examined us and divided us into what race we belonged to.\nQ.How did they carry out that racial examination?\nA.At first, the formation of our skulls was examined. The face angle was examined from every side. We had to open our mouths and they examined the way our teeth were formed in our mouths. They also examined whether one \n person had thicker lips than another or, perhaps, curly hair.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1178, "page_number": "1173", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "If both thick lips and curly hair was found, such a type was designated as a Negro and registered in that manner.\nQ.Dr. Kasel, did it happen that members of the examined families laughed about that examination?\nA.Yes, this happened at the Camp of Leubus, as well as in other camps as, for instance, at Boberstein, that during such racial examinations, a number of persons to be examined burst into laughter because many symptoms of such examination appeared to them to be rather ridiculous. In such cases, the chairman of the commission was extremely annoyed and he always used to say: \"Don't laugh. If you only knew how important this examination really is for you, you would do your best to remain serious.\"", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1179, "page_number": "1174", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QDr. Kasel, what was the result of the so-called good racial standing and what was the result of a so-called bad racial standing?\nAOnly in the course of the later months we found out to what extent this racial examination influenced the deported persons. Those Luxembourgs who were racially beyond reproach could later be released from the camps. They could look for a job and a house in Germany under the supervision of the Higher SS and Police Leaders. Those, however, who were not beyond reproach from a racial point of view could, under no circumstances, be released from the VOMI camps.\nQDr. Kasel, did you ever hear that the defendant Greifelt and Mr. Hinze of the Main Staff Office, appeared in the Vomi Camp Leubus?\nAYes, I saw both Hinze and Greifelt at least once, if not twice, at Leubus. They arrived in October 1942, with a High Commission at Leubus and they tried to recruit Luxembourg citizens for work in the German Reich.\nQWould you be able to identify the defendant Greifelt out of these fourteen defendants?\nAI don't believe so. At that time, these gentlemen were uniforms and during this entire period we saw so many higher SS officers that it is really impossible for me to recognize them here today.\nQDr. Kasel, did you ever hear the defendant Bruno Lorenz and Mr. Altena of the VOMI appeared in the Camp Leubus?\nATheir visit had been announced frequently. However, I cannot state with certainty whether they actually appeared at Leubus. On the 8th of November, the day the Allies landed in Africa, a very high personality appeared \n at Leubus Monatery.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1180, "page_number": "1175", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Whether it was one of those two personalities I cannot say with certainty.\nQWhere were you brought to from Leubus?\nAFrom Leubus we were sent to Boberstein and then to the Camp of Flinsberg.\nQPardon me. Which deportees were brought to Boberstein and which to Flinsberg?\nAThose persons who were fit for work were sent to the Camp 103, Boberstein, whereas those who were unfit for work and all elderly persons were sent to the VOMI Camp Flinsberg?\nQI take it, witness, both Camps Boberstein and Flinsberg were VOMI camps?\nABoth were VOMI camps.\nQWas there another racial examination while you were in the VOMI Camp Boberstein?\nAIn the Camp of Boberstein there were repeated racial examinations. The first of these again extended to all persons who were housed in the Camp of Boberstein, even to those who were already examined racially at Leubus.\nQWhat was the reason for a second racial examination in Boberstein?\nAThe reason for that second examination was that apparently the card index, with respect to the racial examination undertaken at Leubus, had been lost.\nQDr. Kasel, were there any further VOMI camps filled with Luxembourgians besides Boberstein and Flinsberg?\nAYes, there was a large number of other camps into which Luxembourg citizens were sent when the other camps were filled. I mentioned VOMI Camp Warta, VOMI Camp Mittelstein, VOMI Camp Glatz, VOMI Camp Hirschberg, VOMI Camp Tuppendorf, VOMI Camp Schlauphof and other camps. Among \n then were two camps in the Sudeten-Gau, Restomitz and AussigSchreckenstein.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1181, "page_number": "1176", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QDr. Kasel, what is your estimate in regard to the number of deported Luxembourgians?\nAOn the basis of the deportation numbers which accumulated during the course of the thirty-four months, about 1400 families were deported which means approximately 5600 persons. A great number of families were intended to be resettled, but could not be transported off because the military situation became worse and because the necessary means of transport were lacking.\nQDr. Kasel, were the transported Luxembourgians given German citizenship, subject to revocation?\nAYes. In the course of the year 1943 we found out that the German citizenship was granted to us subsequently, subject to revocation, valid as from the moment we crossed the Luxembourg-German border.\nQDr. Kasel, were you or any of the other Luxembourgians asked whether they wanted to become German citizens before they were made German citizens?\nANo.\nQDr. Kasel, were all Luxembourgians willing to accept the German citizenship certificate?\nANo, in the VOMI camps we opposed the acceptance of such citizenship.\nQWhat happened if any of the Luxembourgians did not accept the German citizenship certificate?\nAAs long as the Luxembourg deported persons were in the VOMI camp the question regarding the acceptance of German citizenship did not become acute. Only starting from the time when the deported persons received a job and \n a place in Germany, either on their own initiative or when they were officially transferred from the camp into such a job by the labor office of the Lower Silesia Gau in Breslau this question came up.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1182, "page_number": "1177", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "The Luxembourgs were asked to accept the so-called identity card. Whenever a Luxembourg citizen refused, and most of them, did so, to accept that identity card, they were arrested by the Gestapo and placed in a concentration camp.\nQDr. Kasel, do you remember the name of a Luxembourgian who refused to accept the identification card and was brought to a concentration camp.\nAA number of such Luxembourg citizens were sent into the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen, among them the Luxembourg forester Paitsch with his wife and a number of other Luxembourg citizens the names of whom I now do not remember.\nQWhy was Paitsch placed in the concentration camp Gross Rosen?\nAPaitsch was sent to Gross-Rosen because he refused the acceptance of an identity card.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1183, "page_number": "1178", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QDid it happen that Luxembourgians were also brought to the concentration camp Gross-Rosen because they received or they sent mail which was not checked by the chief of the camp?\nAWhenever mail was sent off or received by the circumvention of the camp's censorship department, such Luxembourg offenders were arrested by the Gestapo and transferred into the Hirschberg prison. In a special case, however, where a Luxembourg citizen from Boberstein sent off a letter disregarding censorship to Luxembourg and where this letter was found when the security service made a raid, the sender of the letter Bassing was sent into the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen and as a result of his treatment in that camp he died.\nQDr. Kasel, do you know of any other instances in which Luxembourgians were brought to either concentration camps or prisons because they were determined to remain Luxembourgians?\nAYes, a great number of Luxembourg citizens who were distributed all over Germany were also sent into concentration camps because of refusing to accept identity cards. Sometimes they were sent into prisons.\nQWere there any old, elderly people among those who were deported?\nAYes, already when the first transport was departed, there were persons there over seventy years of age. One of them a certain contractor called Schradel died after three weeks at Leibus. One single woman eighty-one years old was on the first transport; she died at the end of 1943 in the camp of Boberstein.\nQWould you say that the deportation contributed to the deaths of those people?\nAThere can be no doubt that the mental and physical suffering and the deprivations as a result of the deportation caused the early death of such deported persons.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are asking the witness now for pure and simple argument. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDr. Kasel, was there a Vomi penitentiary in existence for \n Luxembourgians?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1184, "page_number": "1179", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "ALater, a penal camp was created to hold Luxembourg citizens who made themselves conspicuous in the Vomi camps because of resistance? This penal camp was affiliated to the Vomi and was called Jeschuetz. It was situated in the Kreis of Trebnitz.\nQWho was the camp leader of Jeschuetz?\nAThe camp leader of Jeschuetz was called Stoffregen.\nQDid he ever beat up Luxembourgians?\nAYes. The mistreatment of Luxembourg citizens at Jeschuetz was frequently repeated. One Luxembourg citizen, the farmer Jaquet from Holzen, once had a dispute with the camp leader Stoffregen. He was beaten down by the camp leader; then he was handed over to the Gestappo head office Breslau and he died at Breslau as result of his treatment there.\nQDr. Kasel, was there any further change of treatment after July 20, 1944?\nAAfter the 20th of July, 1944, the date of Hitler's attempted assassination took place, the treatment of the Luxembourg citizens in all the Vomi camps became more severe. In connection with the introduction of the German greeting in the Wehrmacht, the German greeting \"Heil Hitler\" was also introduced into the Vomi camps. We, just as before, refused to salute with the German greeting; in order to make us salute that way, we were asked to salute in that way whenever we were to accept a package or a letter from Luxembourg, and that we would not receive such a package or letter unless we did make such a greeting; when we still refused and rather forfeited such letters and packages, we were in large numbers sent to the Polish frontier on the 29th of August, 1944, where the so-called action Barthold was going on. This meant the erection and digging of tank ditches and various other fortification work.\nQDr. Kasel, do you know whether special treatment was given to other Luxembourgians as a result of the plot against Hitler on July 20, 1944?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1185, "page_number": "1180", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AYes. All Luxembourg citizens who had been released from the camp and who were located somewhere in the Reich engaged in work were immediately arrested by the Gestapo after the assassination took place in cases where they had been politically active or were parliamentary representatives. They were sent into the closest concentration camps or prisons.\nQDo you remember any specific individuals or persons?\nAAmong those who were arrested after the 20th of July, 1944, there was the delegate Fernand Loetsch who was brought into the concentration camp of Dachau from Wiesbaden-Frankfurt. There was representative Johann Vormann, the trade union secretary; he was sent into the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen. Both of them were only released during the year of 1945 by the American or Russian troops.\nQDr. Kasel, when you were used for armament work in connection with the so-called enterprise Barthold, did you also find there deported Slovenes and deported Alsacians and Lorrainians?\nAYes. In the same district Zeidel, Kreis, Militsch, there were limits which comprised Slovenes and people from Alsace-Lorraine. The first camp which was allocated to us at Zeidel had been a large cowshed before, from which the animals had been taken away only a few hours before.\nQDid you later return to the camp Boberstein and when?\nAOn the 20th of January, 1945, the Russians had approached the Polish border so closely that the SS department leader and the heads of the units of the Barthold enterprise, left us and we, left to our own wits, started the march back into our camps.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1186, "page_number": "1181", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal would like to suggest to both counsel an and the witness that you can be very much more direct in both your questions and answers without going into so much unnecessary detail.\nMR. SCHWENK:Very well, your Honor. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDr. Kasel, while you were in the Vomi camps in Leubus and Boberstein did you hear of the main staff office, \"Stabshauptanst.\"\nAYes, I have. At the beginning of our stay in Leubus we were given the address of of the main staff office and other addresses as well in case we wanted to write to the main staff office. If I recall that correctly, the address of the main staff office was Kufuerstendamm 100. Later we were not allowed to correspond directly with the main staff office.\nQDr. Kasel, did you also hear of the camp Hinzert?\nAYes, I did. The camp Hinzert in the Eiffel Mountains, not far from Luxembourg, started out to be a labor camp for people who were not willing to work. Later it became the special concentration camp for Luxembourg citizens.\nQWhen were you liberated?\nAWe were liberated by the Russians on the 8th of May 1945. On the evening of 6 May 1945. The SS camp leadership excaped and took all the foodstuffs away as well.\nQI have only a few more questions in regard to the property which you owned. Did you own property in Luxemborug before you were deported?\nAYes, I did. I had my own house. I had a printing shop and I owned a piece of land.\nQWhat happened to your real estate and printing shop?\nAThe printing works was assigned to a Tyrolian, since the business of all the people who had been deported was given to Tyrolians and people from Buchenwald who were loyal to the Reich. The Tyrolian who had taken over my printing shop did not sufficient technical training and ruined \n two printing machines.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1187, "page_number": "1182", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "The remainder of my possessions was saved with a few exceptions because we had divided it up and the legal position regarding the real estate and the house was somewhat complicated.\nQWhat happened to your banking account?\nAThe Tyrolian used up my banking account up to a few hundred marks. My motor car was taken over by the DUT, the German Resettlement Company. In the German retreat, the DUT took my motor car back to Germany. My banking accounts and my savings account were seized at the beginning of the year 1944 and confiscated, and were transferred to the DUT. The monies disappeared and did not turn up again.\nQDr. Kasel, were similar measures in regard to property carried out by the DUT in regard to other deported Luxembourgians?\nAThere were Luxembourg citizens who were even treated worse than I was. It often happened, for instance, that during their stay in the Vomi camps a number of Luxembourg citizens received the news that their entire property had been seized and confiscated for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Folkdom.\nQThank you, Doctor. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT (Counsel for defendant Lorenz):\nQDr. Kasel, you still have the photograph which was given to you a while ago. Are you on that photostat?\nAYes.\nQCan you tell me who you are on that photograph? Count from left.\nAIt is best if you take the window on that station building on the left. There you see the heads of two men. I am the person at the back wearing glasses and looking towards the left.\nQThank you. And the second sheet behind that, attached to that photograph--does that refer to you?\nAThe second sheet represents the back of the photograph and on the original strip of paper had been fastened on which something had \n been written with a typewriter, bearing the note:", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1188, "page_number": "1183", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "\"Boarding the special car in the Luxembourg station.\"\nQWitness, during your direct examination you said that your deportation took place on the 17th of September 1942.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQOn the back of the photograph was taken?\nAIt says with rubber the date of \"19 September 1942.\"\nQThank you. May I ask you to tell me which official agency carried out your deportation? Do you know that?\nADoes the defense counsel want to question me as to which persons fetched me from my flat?\nQNo. I rather want to say, which agency was responsible for your being taken from Luxembourg? Was it the Chief of the Civilian Administration?\nAIt was the Chief of the Civil Administration, on behalf of the Reich Commissionor for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQYou cannot say then that Vomi had anything to do with this action.\nAI cannot say that. I don't know it. I only know that on my deportation order it says that this had taken place on the order of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism and the signature was \"Berkelmann.\"\nQNow, witness, tell me in how many Vomi camps have you been in all?\nAI have been in two Vomi camps, in Leubus and in Boberstein.\nQWhat has happened in other camps you did not describe from your own experience but from what you heard from your compatriots?\nAWhat I said about other camps I learned, first of all, from the statements of my compatriots who were in those camps; secondly, because the camp leader of Boberstein repeatedly discussed these happenings with me direct since from the beginning of May 1943 until May 1945. I was liaison officer between the SS and my Luxembourg compatriots.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1189, "page_number": "1184", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWhat was the reason for making you liaison officer? Were you made liaison officer by your compatriots?\nANo.\nQBy whom were you made liaison officer?\nAI was made a liaison officer by the leader of a camp commandant, without my having anything to do with it.\nQThat was in Boberstein?\nAYes, in Boberstein.\nQAnd then did you work as a liaison officer also in the Eastern Wall?\nANo, there I have been just an ordinary digger.\nQYou just said from May 1943 to May 1945.\nAYes.\nQBut, if I understood you correctly, from September 1944 to May 1945, you worked at the Eastern Wall.\nAThat you must understand this way. With the exception of my work at the Eastern Wall, I was liaison officer in Boberstein from May 1943 until the end of August 1944. And then again from January 1945 after we had marched back from the Eastern Wall to Boberstein, I was again liaison officer.\nQWitness, could you give us some details about the installation of the camp at Leubus. We always talk about camps here. You said it was a monstery; that was a firmly built house?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWere you accommodated in cells or in rooms in Leubus?\nAIn monastery cells and monastery rooms. The defense counsel must not forget that the monastery was no longer a proper monastery, but before it was made into a Voni camp it had been a district lunatic assylum.\nQWere you and your family in one room?\nANo, several families lived in one room. The room we lived in contained, apart from ourselves, five other families.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1190, "page_number": "1185", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, you said that the food had been very bad. You said that of Leubus.\nAYes.\nQCan you say whether the rations you received there were less than the rations of the German civilian population?\nAYes, I can say that.\nQHow do you know that?\nAThis was very easy to ascertain because we in Luxembourg had the same rations as the German civilian population. On top of that, it was very easy for us to ascertain that we only got part of the official rations. The food was so had that even the Einsatzleader Schnitzler from Breslau complained about it in our presence to Henniges.\nQWhere did that Einsatzleader Schnitzler come from?\nAFrom Breslau.\nQFrom which agency?\nAFrom Vomi. Einsatzleader Schnitzlerwas the leader of all Vomi camps in the Gau of Lower Silesia.\nQDid he supervise the camp?\nAYes.\nQAnd did he mind the state of affairs which could be traced to Leubus?\nAYes, he found several things which were bad and he complained about them, but nothing was ever done about them.\nQWas the food in Boberstein better?\nAYes, it was better. It tasted better. It was not the full ration. I often had discussions about the food with SS Untersturmfuehrer Korte.\nQWitness, it is therefore correct if I assume that at least regarding food the state of affairs can in some parts be traced partly to Henniges?\nAIn all camps we received the impression and we also proved it \n that part of the rations which were due to us were given to the camp personnel and their families.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1191, "page_number": "1186", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, do I understand you correctly -- this was the case of personal embezzlement of the camp management; it was supplied to them and they were actually entitled to it? Is that correct?\nAYes, it is like that. We only received one part and the other part without the approval of the Einsatz leadership went somewhere else.\nQThank you witness; you have answered my question. You said that this happened without approval of the Einsatz leadership. You just stated that a gentleman of the Einsatz leadership, whose name I cannot recall, complained about this and this leads us to the assumption that the Einsatz leadership did not agree with this system.\nAI can only answer that I do not understand why the Einsatz leadership should not have been in a position go give us the official food rations if it really had an interest in doing so.\nQWitness, you said that partially you could move about freely. Could you go to Leubus?\nAWe were in Leubus. After all, the monastery was situated in Leubus.\nQYou could freely move about the town?\nAYes, it was a small locality.\nQCould you, for instance, go to the cinema?\nAThere was no cinema there.\nQThere was no cinema there? Did you get pocket money for your small needs?\nAIn Leubus we did not get any pocket money. Towards the end of our stay in Leubus there had been talk of giving us pocket money but we were only paid in money after our arrival in Boberstein and we were only paid it as long as the resettlers concerned did not work. As soon as they started working they were deprived of their pocket money and from the pay for their work, the food as well as the accommodation \n in the camps of all the families had to be paid.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1192, "page_number": "1187", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, you spoke about the postal censorship. Did you know whether the censorship was exercised by the Vomi orby the Gestapo?\nAI cannot answer that question. I only know that the postal censorship was carried out by the camp commandant or by the personnel of the Vomi.\nQWitness, did not the camp commandant at Boberstein whom you frequently met tell you anything about it?\nANo, he did not.\nQYou said that at first you could receive parcels but that was prohibited later on?\nAYes.\nQA little while later you stated that in 1944, after the attempt on Hitler's life, you had to give the German salute when receiving parcels. That means that the prohibition on parcels was rescinded in the meantime.\nAI might point out to defense counsel that in the treatment of Luxembourg citizens in the camps and in the introduction and carrying out of all these measures no definite line of policy was ever followed. What was true today was false tomorrow and what was permitted in one camp was at the same time forbidden in another camp. The camp commandants carried out their office in a very autonomous manner and were allowed to do as they pleased in many instances.\nQWitness, you can only have learned that the camp commandants did as they pleased but you can't tell us whether they were allowed to do so.\nAI can only say that it was very difficult for us to climate bad conditions by, for instance, compaining to the Einsatz leadership because later on we had to go through the official channels. Everything had to go through the camp management and the camp commandant could decide at any time to hold back complaints to the Einsatz management.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1193, "page_number": "1188", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, you have not yet answered my question regarding the parcels, that is, the matter of stopping parcels, was that recinded at Leubus or did that happen later?\nAIt was like this. In Leubus for one or two weeks we received our complete parcels. Later on the parcels had to be opened in the presence of the camp management or camp leaders and several items, for instance food stuffs, were removed. Then, once as a punitive measure the receipt of all parcels was forbidden; and then again, as I have already said, it was allowed again, partly at least. This was the situation in Boberstein. There were periods when you were not allowed to receive parcels and then you had times when you could receive at least part of the contents of your parcels.\nQWere the parcels which were not issued in Boberstein, confiscated?\nAYes.\nQHow do you know that?\nABecause I saw it myself; as a liaison officer I saw the parcels which had arrived in the camp from the post office and which were not distributed; that is, they must have been confiscated and we were frequently threatened with this measure by the camp management and this threat was frequently carried out.\nQWitness, you said that the parcels must have been confiscated, and also said that the camp management threatened such measures, and then you said these measures were frequently carried out. Did you see whether these measures were carried out?\nAYes, I did, very often.\nQWhat did you see?\nAI said that I saw that these parcels which had arrived in the camp in my presence were taken into a room of this camp and were never seen again.\nQYou saw that they were taken into a room, but you did not see anything else?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1194, "page_number": "1189", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AYes, on the days....\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this sort of questioning and arguing with the witness. The witness has repeatedly expressed himself very clearly.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. I think you laid a pretty good pattern, a pretty good foundation for it in your examination but don't go any further with it. I think it is argumentative now;he has given you the facts. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, you told us about racial examinations. Who made these racial examinations? I would like to know whether you can say which official agency was responsible for that?\nAI can't tell you that. I am not sufficiently informed unfortunately about these several uniforms which, I saw. I can only say that in Leubus a commission arrived, while later in Boberstein repeatedly only one SS_Untersturmfuehrer carried out this racial examination.\nQYou can't tell us then that these were employees or officials of the VOMI?\nAI can't tell you that.\nQAnother question, who announced the visit of Lorenz and Altena?\nAThe Camp Commandant Henniges. Before important persons came, he always had a talk with the representatives of the Luxembourg inmates, and then the necessary orders were given for keeping the camp clean.\nQIf I understand you correctly, you would have belonged to the leading Luxembourg personalities in Leubus.\nAYes, I can say that, but less than in Boberstein, there it was the trade union official who was the liaison officer; I mentioned his name a little while ago.\nQCould you give us the present address of Henniges?\nANo, I could not do that.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1195, "page_number": "1190", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QDid you work in Boberstein?\nAIn Boberstein I was liaison officer and did not work.\nQYou then stated that in 1944 you were given German citizenship.\nAIn 1943.\nQDid you get a document to that effect?\nANo.\nQWhich official agency gave this German citizenship?\nAAs far as I remember, but I can't tell this with one hundred per cent certainty, it was the Reich Minister of the Interior Frick on the the suggestion of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism SS for Himmler.\nQThen, you mentioned the case of Peitsch.\nAYes, Peitsch, P_e_i_s_c_h.\nQWas Peitsch in a camp?\nAI have already stated that these difficulties with the citizenship and the identificationcards only took place if one lived outside of a camp.\nQYou can't say that VOMI had anything to do with the case of Peitsch?\nANo, I don't know that.\nQThen you mentioned that special case in Boberstein where the sender of a letter was transferred to the concentration camp of Gross-Rosen.\nAYes.\nQHave I understood you correctly that this letter was found during a raid by the security service SD?\nAYes. This security service raid took place in Luxembourg; this raid took place in the flat of a person who received the letter.\nQIn this case too, I can assume that the VOMI had nothing to do with this?\nAThis was the Gestapo. The VOMI was only informed of this by the Gestapo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1196, "page_number": "1191", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QSchradel who died shortly after having been brought to Leubus, how old was he?\nASchradel was probably about seventy-four years of age.\nQWas he ill?\nAWe made inquiries in Luxembourg; he had not been ill. When I was deported on the morning of the 17th. I was taken from my flat by a municipal bus, and it was with the same bus that collected the family of the Luxembourg public prosecutor Sevenich and then the family of Schradel.\nQYes, that is all right. We don't want to go into all these details right now.\nAI just wanted to say that when Schradel appeared in the doorway, he looked awful; I mean that he was very excited and I assume that the man died as a consequence of his deportation.\nQYou don't know the cause of his death?\nAThe man just received a mental shock; he was not actually ill. He had to go to bed at once, and he was taken to the hospital where he died.\nQWas there any care of the sick in the camp?\nAYes, one might put it that way that the Luxembourg citizens were taken care of, but only in a very rudimental way. I should like to add that on the 7th of May, 1945, after the escape of the camp SS, we found whole rooms full of medicaments which came from Litzmannstadt, while previously the SS had been very mean as regards the supply of medicaments.\nQWitness, do you know when these medicaments arrived from Litzmannstadt?\nAThese pharmaceutical medicaments arrived from Litzmannstadt all the time. In Litzmannstadt there was the central depot for pharmaceuticals, and this was the supply center for all the camps, and our own compatriot had to collect these consignments from the railway or the postoffice.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1197, "page_number": "1192", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, did not a considerable part of these pharmaceuticals arrive in January or February, 1945?\nAI cannot say that.\nQYou then mentioned a woman. I just want to find out her age. She was 83 years of age?\nAYes, 83; it may have been 82.\nQAt least she was very old?\nAYes, she was very old.\nQThen you talked of the operation Barthold. You will certainly be able to confirm, Witness, that a large part of the German civilian population was assigned to this enterprise.\nAThat is correct. And I want to say that this labor assignment of the German civilian population took place only on Sundays, and the enthusiasm of the Germans for this digging work on Sundays was so slight, and their work was so bad that we had to do it all over again on the week days.\nQPlease answer only my questions. Mr. Witness, is it not known to you that from all German enterprises in Silesia persons were assigned to this work for lengthy periods of time, not only for Sundays?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question because it's argumentative.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think so. He asked him a fact-if certain people weren't assigned to work there. It sounds like a feet to me. Go ahead. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQYou may answer.\nAI can only say that workers were taken from German enterprises but that the German enterprises opposed this assignment.\nQWitness, would you kindly answer my question?\nAI answered your question, Mr. Defense Counsel, but I assume that I have the right to describe the details. I believe that I am entitled to say...", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1198, "page_number": "1193", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Counsel, when you have propounded the question you will not interrupt the Witness in giving his answer. He is entitled to answer the question that you propounded in his own way, without any interruptions.\nAI am interested to tell the Tribunal that the work which we as Luxembourg deportees had to do on the Eastern Wall, in violation of International Law, cannot be compared with the same work if performed by German citizens. We suffered under this the more as we had to perform this work while our home country was already liberated by the American troops.\nQWitness, did VOMI have anything to do with the Operation Berthold?\nAYes, certainly.\nQAnd how far?\nAI might inform the Defense Counsel that the selection of the Luxembourg citizens assigned to the Operation Barthold was carried out exclusively by the camp commandants of VOMI.\nQAnd who asked for these people?\nAI don't know that.\nQThank you.\nABut I know that, for instance, our camp commandant had declared his willingness to furnish 210 Luxembourgian male and female citizens for this operation.\nQI assume that these people had been asked for?\nANo, I want to tell the Defense Counsel that I know this because of a very particular circumstance. As liaison officer, together with a young Luxembourgian, I succeeded in opening and reading the official mail of the German camp commandants for a period of many months. In one of those letters which I had opened and later on sealed again, the camp commandant, Korte, complained about the fact that the 210 Luxembourgians picked by him would have to be reduced to 55 because the plant leaders of the German enterprises had opposed the reassignment of all these Luxembourgians.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1199, "page_number": "1194", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWitness, what you say now is very interesting. You had to take the mail which had been written in the camp to the Post Office?\nANo, I had succeeded sometimes in looking through the in-coming and out-going mail in the post office itself, and the material which seemed interesting to me I opened. It will probably be clear to the Defense Counsel as to what would have happened to me had anyone learned of this.\nQWitness, you want to say, then, that the post officials allowed you to look through in-coming mail, that is to say mail already received, to open it, to read it, and then to give it back to the post officials?\nAI did not say it in that way.\nQCan you tell us which post official supported you and would you give his name?\nAI could give you the name of this post official who was very helpful, but I won't give the name for very understandable reasons.\nQI have no further questions. BY DR. MAAS (For the Defendant Schwalm):\nQWitness, I have only a very few questions.\nCan you tell me whether until your deportation you were allowed to carry out your profession?\nANo. It may seem incredible that the Gauleiter Simon issued a decree, according to which plant leaders who were hostile to Germany could be dismissed and removed as leaders of their own enterprises. In May, 1942 this measure applied to me also.\nQHow did the authorities ascertain that you were hostile to Germany?\nAMy hostile attitude was ascertained by the fact that I refused to do anything which could be documented as support of the German plans of annexation.\nQHad you been approached in this connection?\nANobody, in fact, found it necessary to ask me whether I wanted to do that or not. My conduct was quite open and clear without being provoking. I have never undertaken any action hostile to the German State, \n but I have shown quite clearly that I was a Luxembourg citizen and that I wanted to remain one.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1200, "page_number": "1195", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QBefore the invasion and during some time subsequent to it, did you belong to a party?\nABefore the invasion I belonged to the Catholic Rightist Party.\nQThe Catholic Rightist Party?\nAYes, that was the former Center party.\nQCould you tell me whether Luxembourg was within the German Customs Union.\nAYes, it was.\nQIn your direct examination you said something about a commission which carried out the racial examination in the first camp.\nAYes.\nQCould you tell me the number of persons of which this commission consisted?\nAFour to six men.\nQDid the members of this commission wear a uniform?\nAYes.\nQDo you know the uniform of the political leaders?\nANo.\nQThen, you cannot state whether the members of this commission wore the uniform of the political leaders.\nAIf you mean by a political leaders' uniform the brown jacket, I can say that the members of this commission did not wear a brown uniform.\nQWere you also medically examined in the camps?\nADoes Defense Counsel refer to the official medical examination?\nQI'm referring to the medical examination of the camp.\nAWhen we were committed into the camp. or while there?\nQNo, I mean medical examination in general.\nANo, only if we were ill we could go to see the doctor.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1201, "page_number": "1196", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QYou cannot tell us then whether the examination which you termed as a racial examination was not a medical examination?\nAI can say with certainty that that was not a medical examination, for a medical examination was carried out once; that was the taking of X-rays of our lungs. But as to the rest, the term \"racial examination\" was often used by the camp management in conversations with me.\nQYou stated a little while ago that you had not been examined medically, and now you state that an X-ray examination took place. That is a contradiction, isn't it?\nAI want to be more explicit in my statement. A general medical examination did not take place at all until the end of 1943; and then this so-called X-ray van of the VOMI came, but the racial examination had nothing to do with the medical examination nor with this X-ray examination.\nQCould you have a look at the index card which was according to your information carried with regard to the racial examination.\nANo, I only know that there was such a card index, and I know that the camp leader had such a card index for the examining official.\nQHow do you know what kind of entries were made on these index cards?\nAI don't know what kind of entries were made on these index cards. I only know the effect of these entries.\nQIn your direct examination you stated by giving an example that, for instance, thick lips and crinkly hair led to the description \"negroid.\"\nAIf I used the term \"negroid\" I used it not on the strength of my knowledge of the card index, but after the persons concerned left the room this expression \"negroid\" was exchanged between the camp management and the examining official.\nQYou were not present during the examining of other persons?\nAFrom a certain moment onwards, in my capacity as liaison officer, I was present at all examinations which were called \"racial examinations.\"\nDR. MAAS:I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. MAAS", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1202, "page_number": "1197", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Judge O'Connell desires to ask the witness certain questions. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQMr. Witness, what was the total population approximately of Luxembourg?\nAThree hundred thousand.\nQAnd what was the common language?\nAThe Luxembourgian language.\nQIs that distinct from either German or French?\nAIt is a German dialect.\nQDid Luxembourg enjoy an independent nationhood at the time that Germany made its invasion?\nAYes, it did.\nQWhat was its form of government?\nAA democratic government. The head of state was the Grand Duchess.\nQWhat comprised the legislative body?\nAThe chamber of representatives.\nQHow many members?\nAFifty-one.\nQOne single chamber?\nAYes, one single chamber, but there was also a state council, consisting of fifteen men who were not elected by the people.\nQHow was the Grand Duchess elected as the head of the state?\nAThe Grand Duchess, reigning at present, was elected in 1919 Grand Duchess in a free election with seventy-six percent of the vote.\nQThank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense? BY DR. HAENSEL (Counsel for defendant Greifelt):\nQWitness, you talked of confiscations carried out in Luxembourg. Can you tell us who ordered the confiscations, to start with?\nAI cannot give official information in this connection, but I can \n remember that shortly after, the Luxembourg press said-I want to reemphasize that the Luxembourg press was under censorship, and could not write as it pleased -- that the right of the deportees to dispose of their property, which had been guaranteed at first, had been cancelled subsequently by the D.U.T. The later confiscations, as the camps inmates had been informed later were, as far as I remember, ordered by the chief of the civil administration, as Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1203, "page_number": "1198", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I noticed a mistranslation of a certain term used here in regard to this witness. It is the term \"Absiedlung.\" This term was translated into \"resettlement\". We have used the term resettlement in connection with the transfer of ethnic Germans, rather than in connection with the deportation of Slovenes, Luxembourgians, Alsatians and Lorrainians.\nMay I suggest, Your Honor, that the term \"Absiedlung\" would be translated with deportation?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal can do nothing except rely on the translators. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQI would like to ask you whether you remember that in the newspapers a name was mentioned as a signature under this confiscation decree?\nAI don't remember that.\nQDo you remember who was this chief of the civil administration?\nAYes, I do.\nQAnd who was it?\nAIt was Gustav Simon, Gauleiter of Gau Moselland.\nQDo you remember since when he was Gauleiter?\nAThe Gauleite came in the beginning of August 1940.\nQDo you know when he was made Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism?\nAI cannot answer this with certainty.\nQWas there an office of the Reichs Commissioner for the \n Strengthening of Germanism in Luxembourg?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1204, "page_number": "1199", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AI must try and explain to Defense counsel that for a real Luxembourgian it was not advisable to approach too closely to the building of the civil administration. In consequence, I do not know anything about the secrets of this building.\nQI didn't want to hear any secrets of this building, but rather if a confiscation took place, this must be done by an office involved which is publicly known. It could, for instance, happen that you could have had anything to do with this office?\nANo, Defense counsel cannot know at what very neck-breaking speed things were done in Luxembourg. I may point out that the word \"deportation\" was used first of all officially in the Luxembourg press on the 9th of September 1942, and that on the 17th of September I was deported without any previous contact with any German authority.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1205, "page_number": "1200", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 10 Nov.\n1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal desires to announce to everybody concerned that on the first day of taking testimony in this case, when there was a breakdown because of failure to give the twenty-four hour notice required by the rules, the Tribunal announced that it would not adjourn again in order to give counsel an opportunity to comply with that ruling. Then there was a breakdown again Thursday afternoon of last week for the same reason the Tribunal agreed to come back today to allow the Prosecution to finish, after having been assured by the Prosecution that it would not take over two or three hours to finish. The Tribunal, therefore, has determined that this day's session will continue until the Prosecution has finished, even if it takes until daylight tomorrow morning, so that unless counsel for both sides want to do some night work, you'd better hold your examinations down to strict limits.\nAny further questions by the Defense for this Witness?\nAnything else for the Prosecution?\nDR. DOETZER:Dr. Doetzer for the Defendant Brueckner. BY DR. DOETZER: WITNESS CAMILIE KASEL - Resumed CROSS-EXAMINATION - Continued\nQWitness, I should like you to reply to a few questions of mine. Witness, where did you study?\nAI went to secondary school at Luxembourg, then I went to university and studied from 1915 in Switzerland at the Universities of Bern and Freiburg.\nQThank you, Witness. What kind of a degree have you, are you a doctor of law or of philosophy?\nAOf philosophy.\nQThank you. In other words you have no legal training?\nANo.\nQWhat was your income in the year 1939 when you owned a printing \n plant in Luxembourg?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1206, "page_number": "1201", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "AI can no longer exactly remember the figures.\nQThank you, that is sufficient.\nWitness, when, after your deportation, did you return to Luxembourg?\nAOn the 25th of June 1945.\nQAnd since when did you hold the office of the Deputy Buergermeister?\nASince the year 1946. I entered on my office in September.\nQHow many Reich Germans were deported from Luxembourg in the year 1918?\nAI cannot tell you this figure, but I believe that the figure was exceedingly small.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to these historical questions because I don't think they are related to the subject-matter to which this Witness testified.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, I do not see why 1918 has anything to do with this matter now under investigation. Objection sustained. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, how many Germans were deported from Luxembourg in the year 1945?\nAI am afraid I don't know. Only those Germans were deported who, during the years of war--1940 to 1945 -- misbehaved by persecuting Luxembourg citizens. Even today there is a large number of Germans in Luxembourg who behaved very decently during the war. Their property has not even been requisitioned.\nQHow much luggage could the deported Germans take along with them?\nAI think that their property was requisitioned upon Allied decisions which were not under the jurisdiction of Luxembourg.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I don't think that the expulsion of Germans after this war is a subject-matter of any charges in this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think so. I don't see that it illustrates anything.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1207, "page_number": "1202", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, what German agency undertood investigations regarding the registration of ethnic Germans?\nAI 'm afraid I can't answer that with certainty.\nQThank you.\nI have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\nAnything else by the Prosecution?\nLet the Witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I request of the High Tribunal to call Ludwig Metzger as a witness -- our last witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nLUDWIGMETZGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: \"I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold end add nothing.\" (THE WITNESS REPEATED THE OATH) You may be seated.\nDIRECT-EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQYour name please?\nALudwig Metzger.\nQWhen were you born?\nAOn the 18th of March 1902.\nQWhere were you born?\nAIn Darmstadt.\nQAre you a citizen of Germany?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever join the Nazi Party?\nANo.\nQDid you ever join any of the affiliated organizations of the Party?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "LUDWIG", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1208, "page_number": "1203", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "ANone, with the exception of the NSV, and the National Socialist League of Lawyers.\nQWhat is your profession?\nAI am a lawyer by profession and at present a member of the Executive Council.\nQYou're a member of the Bi-zonal Executive Council at the present time?\nAYes, the Directive Council of the Bi-zonal Administration.\nQDo you hold any other offices at the present time?\nAI'm the Oberbuergermeister of Darmstadt, but I am at the moment on leave.\nQWere you ever employed by the DUT?\nAYes, I was the head of the Legal Department at Luxembourg, and later I was active in the Legal Department of Strasbourg.\nQIn what year were you employed by the DUT?\nAFrom 1943 up to the beginning of 1945.\nQHow long was your office located in Luxembourg?\nAFrom January, 1943 until the liberation by the Americans.\nQWas your office also located in Alsace?\nAYes, that was Strasbourg, but I went there only in the year of 1944.\nQWitness, can you tell us briefly how the DUT handled the property of the deported Luxembourgians, Alsacians, and Lorrainians?\nAYes, on the evening before the deportation the DUT received information who was to be deported.\nQAre you referring to Luxembourg?\nAYes, I'm referring to Luxembourg. On the following morning those to be deported were sent to the railway station at Hollerich. There they made statements to employees of DUT which were entered on a form. Subsequently employees of the DUT went into the homes of those being deported. They took inventories of the property they found and then sealed the homes. The movable property and other property was entered into card \n indexes, and I, as head of the legal Department, primarily had the task to see to it that the deportees appointed a Plenipotentiary, a representative, to deal with the property.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1209, "page_number": "1204", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "This representative was usually a relative or an acquaintance of those who had been deported.\nQAre you referring now to furniture if you talk of Plenipotentiary, or are you referring to any sort of property?\nAI didn't quite get your question.\nNo, the Plenipotentiary was appointed in order to receive furniture, but of course he represented other interests of the deportees. His authority, however, specifically was meant to deal with furniture. As the head of the Legal Department, it was thus my task to hand over the furniture to the trustees, to the Plenipotentiaries of the deportees.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1210, "page_number": "1205", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QWhat happened to the real estate of the deported Luxembourgians?\nAAs far as we were concerned with agricultural property, the Reichs Commissar, if I remember rightly, took over, but municipal real estate was administered by the DUT. With reference to real estate, it was assigned to many racial Germans.\nQDo you know from where those other Germans came?\nAYes, from the Southern Tyrol and from Romania.\nQDo you know who seized the property of the deported Luxembourgians?\nAThere was an ordinance of the chief of the civilian administration referring to deportation; on the basis of this ordinance the confiscation of the property went into effect automatically after every deportation. In other words, the moment the Luxembourg citizens were deported their property was confiscated.\nQWas there no notice given to the particular Luxembourgian who was deported?\nAI don't believe so. We didn't know anything about the deportation itself, but I think it is quite out of the question that they did. If they did receive any notice in a case of that kind, at any rate, I never heard of it.\nQWhat happened to the movable property besides furniture?\nAFurniture or movable property was handed over to the plenipotentiary. These plenipotentiary went into the apartments. Usually an employee of DUT was present. The furniture was handed over, and the plenipotentiary stored it.\nQWhat happened to the bank accounts?\nABank accounts stayed with the bank, but as far as I remember a collective credit was instituted at the Bank of German Labor. If I am not very much mistaken, the individual bank accounts were amalgamated into this collective credit.\nQDid the Luxembourgians ever get back any part of the seized property?\nAIn a few cases it happened that movable property was sent to \n Germany, but these cases were very isolated.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1211, "page_number": "1206", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "QHow was the property of the deported Alsacians and Lorrainians handled?\nAYou are referring to the property? As I said before, the furniture was handed over to the plenipotentiary.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, Mr. Witness, was it handled in the same way as the property you have just described?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe the witness didn't understand the question. He didn't notice that I referred to Alsatians--\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will ask you if there was any difference in the way the property was handled in one country or another?\nMR. METZGER:No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, ask them altogether and get them over with. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWas there any difference in the treatment of the property of the deported Lorrainians and Alsacians?\nANo. The ordinance in Alsace was similar to that for in Luxembourg. It was therefore handled in approximately the same manner.\nQDo you know whether the Luxembourgians were made German citizens and afterwards went into the army?\nAI don't know that officially; I only know that as a result of conversations I had with Luxembourgians, as far as I know, they were drafted and therewith they received the German citizenship, but I am not quite certain about that.\nQDo you know whether any Luxembourgians were executed because they resisted drafting in the army?\nAYes, I have been told that. That was in the year of 1942, that is before my time. Quite a number of Luxembourgians were executed at that time.\nQAnd my last question, do you know what happened to their relatives?\nAThe relatives were deported, I think most of them, if not all of them.", "speakers": [ "MR. METZGER", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1212, "page_number": "1207", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:I have no further questions, Sir.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense?\nDR. SCHMIDT:No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like to proceed now with the presentation of the documents contained in Document Book 5-G.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You say 5-G?\nMR.SHILLER: 5-G, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Mr. Schmidt, Counsel for the defendant Tesch. Your Honor, I should like to point out to you that we only received this document book this morning. It has not been in our hands until then. I think it is our right to receive it or have it announced, 24 hours before its presentation.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What do you say to that, Mr. Prosecutor -- what do you say to that, Mr. Prosecuting Attorney?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I have here a receipt for 14 German copies of Document Book 5-G signed by First Lieutenant Charles N. Peige at 1000, 8 November 1947.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that a member of the Defense Center?\nMR. SHILLER:That is the officer in charge of the Defense Center, Sir.\nTHE PRESIDENT:And what is the date?\nMR.SHILLER: 8 November 1947.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That would seem to comply with the rules.\nDR. SCHMIDT:At any rate, Mr. President, the book was only distributed this morning. We cannot influence the time of distribution in any way.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, there doesn't seem to be any provision in the rules except that it must be furnished the Defense Center.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution has no means of influencing the distribution either.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR.", "DR. SCHMIDT", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1213, "page_number": "1208", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the document.\nTHE PROSECUTION:I should like to begin with the third document listed in the Index, Document No.NO-5139to be found on page 3 of the English book. Unfortunately, I do not have the German citation, but we shall take them in order then there shall be no difficulty. That is Greifelt's instructions dated 10 September 1940 concerning the settlement of racial Germans from Lithaunia in Danzig-Western Prussia. I offer this document as Prosecution's Exhibit No. 658; Document No.NO-4876found on page 7 of the English is a cover letter by the defendant, Creutz, dated 3 July 1942. It is a cover letter to Document No.NO-4877which may be found on page 8. This is a letter dated 3 July 1942 from Creutz to the RFSS Himmler concerning the settlement in the Government General. I should like to offer these documents as two exhibits, Document No.NO-4876as Prosecution Exhibit NO.659, and Document No.NO-4877as Prosecution Exhibit 660. Document No.NO-2780found on page 10 of the English, is a teletype dated 28 January 1943 from Krueger to Himmler reporting an attack by Polish farmers and punitive measures to be taken. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.661. Document No.NO-2781found on page 11 of the English is a copy of a telegram dated 1 February 1943 from Himmler to Krueger in answer to Krueger's teletype on 28 January 1943. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.662.", "speakers": [ "THE PROSECUTION", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1214, "page_number": "1209", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO-5319, found on page 12, is a certified copy of a letter dated 5 April 1943 from Weibgen to RKFDV-VOMI, concerning the number of persons who are registered in the DVL. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.663.\nDocument No.NO-5320is a memo dated 15 April 1943 by Wolfrum concernin the same subject as the previous document. I offer this document, found on page 13, as Prosecution Exhibit No.664.\nDocument No.NO-5063, found on page 14 of the English, is a file copy of a report dated 3 July 1943, presumably from the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, on an official visit to the District of Flatow from 31 May to 3 June 1943 in connection with the evacuation of the Poles. I offer this document, as Prosecution Exhibit665.\nDocument No.NO-4678, found on page 16 of the English, is a letter dated 7 July 1943 from Greifelt to the RFSS, Himmler, concerning the settlement of resettlers in the area of Zichenau. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.660.\nDocument No.NO-4879, found on page 18 of the English, is an unsigned draft of a letter dated 17 July 1943 to Gauleiter Koch concerning the settlement of resettlers in the area of Zichenau. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.667.\nDocument No.NO-5298, found on page 20 of the English, is a letter dated 23 May 1944 from Meyer, of the Planning Office of the RKFDV, to Rudolf Brandt concerning resettlers' groups. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.668.\nDocument No.NO-5299, found on page 21 of the English, is a letter dated 27 May 1944 from Meine to Meyer concerning the transmission of duplicate files. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.669.\nThe next document is No.NO-5218, which is divided into two parts. Part (a) may be found on page 22 of the English. It is an extract, dated 9 August 1944, from a report on registration of persons of German stock. in the Lublin District, which report was made by the EWZ. Part (b), immediately following, is a cover letter, dated 16 August 1944, from \n Brueckner to Dr. Weibgen concerning the activities of VOMI in Poland.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1215, "page_number": "1210", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.670.\nDocument No.NO-5219, found on page 25 of the English, is a letter dated 14 September 1944 from the EWZ to Brueckner concerning the activities of VOMI in Poland. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.671. Document Ho.NO-5011, found on page 28 in the English, is a letter dated 2 September 1944 from Greifelt to the SIPO and SD concerning the evacuation of Poles from the Incorporated Territories. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.672.\nDocument No.NO-5150, found on page 30, dated 19 October 1940, consists of statistical data on evacuation and resettlement and is an extract from the Menscheneinsatz. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.673.\nDocument No.NO-5306, found on page 31 of the English, is a memorandum dated 26 June 1942 from Altena to Ellermeier concerning the Slovene action. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,674.\nDocument No.NO-5512, found on page 32 of the English, is a letter from Creutz dated 30 December 1942 concerning the naturalization of Slovenes. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.675.\nDocument No.NO-5513, found on page 33 of the English, is an order by Himmler dated 15 December 1942 concerning the naturalization of Slovenes. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.676.\nThe next document isNO-5514, subdivided into two parts. This translation was not ready at the moment when the document book was put together and it was therefore distributed separately, with a notation attached that it was to be inserted at page 35 of this document book. Part (a) ofNO-5514consists of a report, dated 12 January 1943, on a conference at the Main Staff Office concerning the screening and naturalization of deported Slovenes. Part (b) is a cover letter, dated 14 January 1943, to this report, which cover letter was sent by Creutz. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.676.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No. 676 or 677?\nMR. SHILLER:I am sorry, Your Honor, 677.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1216, "page_number": "1211", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO-5515, found, on page 36 of the English, is a memo dated 28 January 1943 from Altena to Brueckner concerning the drafting of Slovenes into the Waffen SS and Police. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.678.\nDocument No.NO- 5517, found on page 38 of the English, is a letter dated 1 April 1943 from Dr. Stier to VOMI concerning the treatment of departed Slovenes. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.679.\nDocument No.NO-5516is subdivided -into two parts. Part (a) begins on page 39 of the English and is a letter dated 19 December 1944 from Dr. Bethge to Brueckner concerning deported Slovenes. Part (b) is the answer by Brueckner dated 7 January 1945. I offer both parts of this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.680.\nDocument No.NO-3531-e is a memo dated 4 July 1941 by Greifelt concerning the settlement of ethnic Germans from Cocevie in Lower Styria. This is on page 42 of the English, and I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 681.\nDocument No.NO-4649, found on page 47 of the English, is an order by Greifelt numbered 86/I, dated 15 December 1942, concerning the return of ethnic Germans to Lithuania. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 682.\nDocument No.NO-5317, found on page 55 of the English, is a copy of a letter dated 21 January 1942 from Lorenz to the RFSS, Himmler, suggesting that ethnic German girls from Russia be sent to the Reich as housekeepers. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.633.\nDocument No.NO-5318, found on page-57 of the English, is a letter dated 30 January 1942 from Meine to Lorenz containing Himmler's approval to the suggestion contained in the previous document. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.684.\nDocument No. 5097, found on page 58 of the English, is a teletype dated 16 April 1942 from Behrends of VOMI to Hoffmeyer concerning ethnic German military units in Halbstadt areas and resettlement there. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.685.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1217, "page_number": "1212", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO-5080, found on page 59 of the English, is a teletype dated 20 April 1943 from Wolfrum to Dr. Wallrabe, VOMI representative with Einsatzgruppe B, of SIPO at Smolensk, concerning the registration of ethnic Germans. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,686.\nDocument No.NO-5069, found on page 60 of the English, is a teletype dated 2 August 1943 from Wolfrum to the VOMI representative in Landau, in the Ukraine, concerning the deportation of ethnic German orphans from Transnistria. I offer this document as prosecution Exhibit No, 687.\nDocument No.NO-5081, found on page 61 of the English, is a teletype dated 10 April 1945 from Brueckner to Dr. Brandt concerning the registration of the ethnic Germans from Russia, I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,686.\nDR.SCHUBERT (Counsel for the defendant Lorenz): Your Honor, with respect to Exhibit 683, I should like to raise an objection. As can be seen from the photostatic copy, we are here concerned with a document which bears no signature; the name has merely been typed. There is no notation on the document as to its circulation; one cannot even assume that it was circulated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:When the Tribunal comes to write its judgment these documents will all be very carefully considered, and, when found to be documents that are not proper to be admitted in evidence, not proper to be considered as evidence, the Court will give them, under those circumstances, no consideration. In your arguments to the Court, to the Tribunal, at the conclusion of the evidence and before we go to write our judgment, we would welcome having our attention called to these things that you are now talking about.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1218, "page_number": "1213", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Document No.NO 5207found on page 62 of the English consists of a decree dated 20 April 1942 by Gauleiter Wagner on return of fugitives from Alsace and instructions dated 20 April 1942 and 11 May 1942 concerning this decree, I now offer thid document as prosecution No. 689.\nDocument No.NO-5093found on page 66 of the English is a teletype dated 10 September 1942 from Behrends of VOMI to HSSPF Luxembourg, Berkelmann, concerning deportation from Luxembourg. I offer this document as prosecution No. 690.\nDocument No.NO 5211found on page 67 of the English as Office memo dated 5 December 1942 concerning a conference in Main Staff Office RKFDV on evacuation of Lorrainers. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.691.\nDocument No.NO 5307found on page 69 of the English is a letter dated 12 April 1943 from RKFDV, Hintze to VOMI Branch Resettlement D concerning assignment of deported Lorrainers to work in Upper Silesia. I offer this document as prosecution Exhibit No. 692.\nDocument No.NO 5308found on page 70 of the English is a letter dated 14 April 1943 from Wofrum to RSHA, attention Hummitzsch, concerning repatriation of Alsatians from France. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.693.\nDocument No.NO 5210found on page 71 of the English is a copy of a letter dated 28 April 1943 from Brueckner to Ehlich concerning the emigration of Lorrainers to France. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.694.\nDocument No.NO 5203found on page 73 of the English is a letter dated 20 May 1943 from Brueckner to RKFDV, attention Dr. Stier, concerning repatriation of Alsatians from France. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 695.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1219, "page_number": "1214", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO 5208found on page 74 of the English is a copy of a memo dated 27 May 1943 from Party Chancellery II B 4 Confidential Information concerning military service of Absiedler, that is deportees from Alsace Lorraine, Luxembourg, Lower Styria and Upper Carniola. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.690.\nDocument No,NO 5212found on page 75 of the English is a directive dated 19 April 1944 from the main Staff Office RKFDV signed Dr. Stier to representatives of RKFDV and VOMI concerning resettlement of ethnic Germans from Dobrudja to Lorraine and Luxembourg, I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 697.\nDocument No.NO 5054found on page 77 of the English is a copy of a memo dated 22 October 1942 from VOMI to Behrends, by Brueckner, concerning the return of Luxembourg Nationals. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 698.\nDocument No.NO 5082found on page 78 of the English is a teletype dated 6 April 1943 from Brueckner to BdS Paris, Bonifer, concerning deportation of Luxembourgers. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.699.\nDocument No.NO 5296, subdivided into parts A and B. A begins on page 79 of the English and is a report dated 11 March 1944 from the representative of RFSS as RKFDV, Luxembourg, Metz, to the Main Staff Office of RKFDV and VOMI concerning the deportation of Luxembourg families. Part B which begins on page 84 of the English consists of a list of Luxembourg families deported on 7, 8 and 9 March 1944. I offer both parts of this documents as Prosecution Exhibit No. 700.\nThat, Your Honor, concludes documents in Document Book No. 5-G. I should like now to take up the documents contained in Document Book 8-D.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1220, "page_number": "1215", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "The first document is Document No.NO 4322. This translation was not available when the document book 8-B was being prepared but was distributed separately again with a notation that it should be inserted separately as page 1 with this document book.\nDocument No.NO 4322is a letter dated 15 March 1943 from RuSHA to the Oberburgermeister of Lodz concerning the Germanization of a Polish child Eugen Bartezak. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.701.\nDocument No.NO 4947found on page 2 of the English is a letter dated 27 January 1943 from the Branch Office of RuSHA in Lodz to the Youth Office concerning the racial examination of children for the purpose of Germanization. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.702.\nDocument No.NO 5004found on page 3 of the English is an affidavit by one Karl Schafhauser. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.703.\nDocument No.NO 5079found on page 8 of the English is a teletype dated 19 April 1943 from Brueckner to VOMI concerning a conference concerning an Alsatian child. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.704.\nDocument No.NO 5115found on page 9 of the English is an affidavit by one Georg Albert Roedel. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit705.\nDocument No.NO 5180found on page 12 of the English is an affidavit by one Dr. Robert Dueker. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.706.\nDocument No.NO 5201found on page 15 of the English is a memo dated 10 February 1943 from Klingsborn to Brueckner concerning the treatment of people deported from Upper Carniola and Lower Styria. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.707.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1221, "page_number": "1216", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO 5223found on page 19 of the English is an affidavit by one Hans Willibald Zwirner. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,708.\nI should like to skip the next three documents and resume with Document No.NO 5285found on page 30 of the English. This is a file memo signed by Brueckner dated 20 December 1944 concerning the guardianship of children from the Government General. I offer this as Prosecution Exhibit Ho. 709.\nDocument No.NO 5304may be found on page 31 of the English. This is a letter dated 5 September 1942 from Creutz to VOMI concerning the treatment of children from Upper Carniola and Lower Styria. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.710.\nDocument No.NO 5305found on page 32 of the English consists of excerpts of a letter dated 5 October 1942 from the HSSPF of Military District 18, signed OBERSTEINER concerning the Germanization of children from Lower Styria and Upper Carniola. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 711.\nDocument No.NO 5325found on page 33 of the English is a teletype dated 4 March 1943 from Brueckner to VOMI concerning deportation of Eastern children. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.712.\nDocument No.NO 5362found on page 34 of the English is an affidavit by one Arnulf Panzer. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.713.\nDocument No,NO 5364found on page 36 of the English is an affidavit by one Hermann Alois Krumey. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.714.\nDocument No.NO 5414found on page 41 of the English is a letter dated 16 August 1942 from the matron of the Children's Home Puschkau to Lebensborn concerning a request \n COURT I CASE VIII for clothes for children to be Germanized.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1222, "page_number": "1217", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.715.\nDocument No.NO 5415found on page 42 of the English is a letter dated 26 August 1942 from Lebensborn to the Children's Home, Puschkau, granting request for clothes for six Czech children. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.716.\nDocument No.NO 5423found on page 43 of the English is a letter dated 1 July 1943 from the Reich Governor of Warthegau to Children's Home, Puschkau, requesting reports on six children from Bohemia and Moravia. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.717.\nDocument No.NO 5420found on page 44 of the English is a letter dated 3 November 1942 from the defendant Viermetz to Children's Home, Puschkau, requesting photographs and reports on the education of six named children. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.718.\nDocument No.NO 5416found on page 45 of the English is a letter dated 4 September 1942 from the Children's Home, Puschkau, to Lebensborn, requesting clothes for seven children transferred to Puschkau by RuSHA. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.719.\nDocument No.NO 5418found on page 46 of the English is a letter dated 12 October 1942 from Viermetz to Children's Home Puschkau concerning clothes for children to be Germanized. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 720.\nDocument No.NO 5422found on page 47 of the English is a letter dated 12 March 1943 from Meta Hoehhner to Lebensborn concerning the adoption of a child Hanna Spott. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.721.\nDocument No.NO 5424found on page 48 of the English is a letter dated 10 July 1947 from the Adoption Department \n COURT I CASE VIII of Lebensborn to the Children's Home, Puschkau, requesting information in connection with the possible adoption of five children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1223, "page_number": "1218", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 722.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1224, "page_number": "1219", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO-5508found on page 49 of the English is a letter dated 14 January 1943 from representative of the Reich Youth Leader at the RKFDV, Hornung, to VOMI, attention of Brueckner, concerning the registration of the youth from Lower Styria. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.723.\nDocument No.NO-5509found on page 51 of the English is Bureckner's reply to the previous document dated 19 January 1943. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.724.\nYour Honor this conlcudes the documents in Document Book No. 8-B.\nI should now like to proceed with the documents in document Book No. 8-B.\nDocument No.NO-5425found on page 1 of the English is a letter dated 23 August 1943 from Lebensborn to the Children's Home. Puschkau, stating that five children have been assigned to foster homes. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.725.\nDocument No.NO-5427found on page 2 of the English is a letter dated 29 September 1943 from Meta Hoeffner to Lebensborn concerning transfer of Maria Hanf and Emily Frejova to foster parents. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.726.\nDocument No.NO 5428found on page 3 of the English is a letter dated 3 November 1943 from the Legal Department of Lebensborn to the Children's homa, Puschkau, requesting information on the child Maria Stulik. I offer document as Prosecution Exhibit No.727.\nDocument No.NO-5430found on page 4 of the English is a letter dated 26 August 1944 from the ReichsGovernor of Warthegau to the Children's home, Puschkau, requesting photographs for RuSHA of three children. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.728.\nDocument No.NO 5459found on page 5 of the English is an affidavit by one Wilhelm Robert Schneider. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.729.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1225, "page_number": "1220", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO 5463found on page 9 of the English is an affidavit by one Vaclav Hanf. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 730.\nDocument No.NO 5464found on page 14 of the English is an affidavit by one Vera Vokata. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 731.\nDocument No.NO 5466found on page 16 of the English is an affidavit by one Anna Hanfova. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 732.\nDocument No.NO 5467found on page 20 of the English is an affidavit by one Emily Frejova. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 733.\nDocument No.NO 5468found on page 23 of the English is an affidavit by one Marie Mulakova. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 734.\nDocument No.NO 5469found on page 26 of the English is an affidavit by one Magdalena Felichovska. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.735.\nDocument No.NO 5470found on page 28 of the English is an affidavit by one Frantiska Bronikova. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit736.\nDocument No.NO-5471on page 30 of the English is an affidavit by one Anna Kohlickva. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 737.\nDocument No.NO 5431is another document which was not prepared in the translation when this document which was not prepared in the translation when this document book was being bound but was distributed separately with a notation it was being inserted in page 31 of this book. This document is a memo dated 10 June from the Reich Prosecutor of Bohemia Moravia to the Czech Minister of Interior concerning the annihilation of the village Lidice. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.738.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1226, "page_number": "1221", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "And, this, your Honor concludes the documents in Document Book 8-E.\nI should like now to proceed with the documents contained in Document Book 15.\nDocument No.NO 5386on page 1 of the English is a letter dated 2 February 1942 from Brueckner of VOMI to Stier of Main Staff Office suggesting that ethnic German Girls from the occupied territories of Russia be sent to Germany as housemaids by the Einsatzkommandos of VOMI. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.739.\nDocument No.NO 4545found on page 2 of the English is a report dated 16 February 1942 on the activities of the Einsatzgruppen of SIPO stating that Einsatzgruppe A carried out deportation of Russians of German extraction. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 740.\nDocument No.NO 5095found on page 4 of the English is dated 6 July 1942 and was sent by Behrends of VOMI to the Chief of Einsatzgruppe B of SIPO stating that General von Schenkendorf had ordered postponement of action by VOMI detachment and stating that the VOMI detachment was to closely with the Einsatzgruppe B. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.741.\nDocument No.NO 5094found on page 5 of the English is a letter dated 20 July 1942 from the defendant Brueckner to Hoffmeyer of VOMI stating that Kommando Mitte of VOMI should not start operations.\nI offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.742.\nDocument No.NO 5092is dated 30 September 1942 and if from Brueckner to VOMI Offices in Rumania, Serbia and Croatia giving the names of the leaders of Filed Offices together with assignments, may be found on page 6 of the English and I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 743.\nDocument No.NO 5109is found on page 7 of the English dated 19 December 1942 and was sent by Lorenz to Himmler stating 307,096 racial Germans had been requested by the \"Russland Kommando\" of VOMI.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1227, "page_number": "1222", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution No. 744.\nDocument No.NO 5331found on page 8 of the English is a letter dated 18 February 1943 from Brueckner to the OKH stating that Wehrmacht should not evacuate racial Germans but that such persons should be handed over to the Einsatzgruppen of VOMI. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.745.\nDocument No.NO 5332found on page 8 of the English is dated 3 March 1943 from Brueckner to Einsatzgruppen B of SIPO stating that resettlement of ethnic Germans in Russia was not voluntary but was ordered by the Reichsfuehrer SS. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 746.\nDocument No.NO 5334found on page 10 of the English is dated 9 March 1943 and was sent by Brueckner to VOMI Einsatzstab Litzmannstadt stating that Einsatzkommando Smolensk has dispatched 436 resettlers to Litzmannstadt. I offer this document as Prosecution No. 747.\nDocument No.NO 5337found on page 11 of the English is dated 20 March 1943 and is from Wolfrum of VOMI to representative in Lemberg stating that 1,182 resettlers had been sent by Einsatzgruppe Nikopol from Kronau to Lemberg. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 748.\nDocument No.NO 5071found on page 12 of the English is dated 15 July 1943 from Wolfrum of VOMI requesting reports of SS officers who had been assigned to Einsatzgruppe D of SIPO in 1942.\nI offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.749.\nDocument No.NO 5395found on page 13 of the English is dated 24 October 1942 and is from Himmler to Lorenz and Pohl directing that Christmas presents of clothing and other items be made to resettlers from Russia and in Lublin from goods in the Lublin and Auschwitz concentration camps. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.750.\nDocument No.NO 2680found on page 15 of the document book in English is extract from the judgment of IMT concerning euthanasia. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.751.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1228, "page_number": "1223", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO 5294found on page 16 of the English is an extract from judgment in the case of United States vs. Karl Brandt at al concerning euthanasia. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 752.\nDocument No.NO 2275is somewhat incorrectly indentified in the index. It should be subdivided in to parts A and B; A being a cover letter 10 January 1941 from Hassmeier of Himmler's personal staff transmitting a letter (part B) dated 9 January 1941 from Hildebrandt to Himmler reporting that Wachsturm bann Eimann had eliminated 3,400 incurable mental cases in asylums in Danzig, West Prussia and assisted in the deportation of Jews and Poles. This document begins on page 21 of the English and I offer it as Prosecution Exhibit No.753.\nDocument No.NO 5507found on page 28 of the English consists of extracts from the judgment of the IMT concerning Germanization and plunder. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.754.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1229, "page_number": "1224", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Your Honor, this concludes the documents in document book 15. I should now like to introduce, a number of documents, which have been distributed in loose form, that is, we did not have time to bind them in the form of a document book.\nI should like to begin with document No.NO-4975...\nTHE PRESIDENT:There does not seem to be any document such as that on my desk.\nMR. SHILLER:I am sure it has been distributed, Your Honor. Perhaps the representative of the Secretary General has that document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What was the number again?\nMR. SHILLER:No.NO-4975. Perhaps Your Honors will allow us to offer these documents. The defense has their copies and we will provide you with copies this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Alright, go ahead.\nMR. SHILLER:Document No.NO-4975is an affidavit by one Karl Birkel. I should like to offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit 755.\nDocument No.NO-4977....\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand you will have the document numbers put on each one of them?\nMR. SHILLER:The document number is on each document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The exhibit number?\nMR. SHILLER:We will have the exhibit number put on each copy, Your Honor.\nDocument No.NO-4977is an affidavit by one Karl Hellmuth. I should like to offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit756.\nDocument No.NO-5002is an affidavit by one Friedrich Fabricius. I should like to offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit757.\nDocument No.NO-5113is an affidavit by one Fritz Volkenborn. I should like to offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit758.\nDocument No.NO-5114is an affidavit by one Franz Lanner. I should like to offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit759.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1230, "page_number": "1225", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No.NO-5222is an affidavit by one Michael Brandmeier....\nDR.SCHUBERT (Counsel for defendant Lorenz): Your Honor, if it was difficult to follow the presentation of the prosecution document books in view of the speed, it is completely impossible for the defense to follow them now. We have received a heap of documents in this order early this morning and I have now tried to pick out the individual documents according to their numbers; however, I have failed. The defense is unable to ascertain whether the documents, which are being presented, have actually been handed over to the defense.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I can see the point in what he has to say, so that the Court will require you to do the same thing with reference to these documents to members of the defense as to the Tribunal, that is supply each of the defense counsel with a copy of the documents, with the proper document number and the proper exhibit number,\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, may I suggest that I have approximately 25 more of these exhibits, so that after these are over we will have nothing more this afternoon, so if I may proceed slowly we will let the defense counsel follow them. I have 25 more sets of documents and I should think if we went slowly, we would have plenty of time to finish this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think in view of the fact that it is almost time for the afternoon recess we will allow you during that period of time to get these documents straightened out with the defense counsel in the order in which you expect to offer them, so that they can follow.\nTHETribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1231, "page_number": "1226", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, I should like to proceed now with DocumentNO-5222. This is an affidavit by one Michael Brandmeier. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.760.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: What was the number that you gave?\nMR. SHILLER:Document No.NO-5222.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are these arranged in sequence so we can pick them up?\nMR. SHILLER:They should be arranged in numerical order, your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Mine don't seem to be arranged in numerical order. Can it be understood that ultimately the prosecution will put the exhibit numbers on each document?\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor. We will supply you with a copy of each document with its exhibit number on it.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right.\nMR. SHILLER:I should like now to proceed with Document No. NO-5224 which is an affidavit by one Anita Annamarie Rieder. I now offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.761.\nThe next document is Document No.NO-5230. This is an affidavit by one Else Heine. I offer this document as prosecution exhibit No, 762.\nNext is Document No.NO-5232, This is an affidavit by one Friedrich Wilhelm Radusch. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 763.\nDocument No.NO-5237is an affidavit by one Hermann Ratering, I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,764.\nDocument No.NO-5242is an affidavit by one Alfred Kulemann. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,765.\nDocument No.NO-5243is a supplementary affidavit by Alfred Kulemann. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,766.\nDocument No.NO-5244is an affidavit by one Emil Behr. I \n offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.767.Document No.NO-5245is an affidavit by one Kurt Kleinschmidt.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1232, "page_number": "1227", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.768.\nDocument No.NO-5246is another affidavit by Kurt Kleinschmidt. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.769.\nDocument No.NO-5261is an affidavit by one Fritz Wendler. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.770.\nDocument No.NO-5262is an affidavit by one Fritz Wendler. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.771.\nDocument No.NO-5284is an affidavit by one Margaret Rahner. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.772.\nDocument No.NO-5349is a letter dated 7 January 1944 from the NSV to the Baroness von Schlippenbach concerning the matter of her living with some half-Jewish people. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.773.\nDocument No.NO-5351is an affidavit by one Melchier Kune von Schlippenbach. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No. 774.\nDocument No.NO-5363is an affidavit by one Willy Gamser. I offer this as Prosecution Exhibit No.775.\nDocument No.NO-5350is a letter from the HSSPF for Bohemia and Moravia as representative of the RKFDV dated 19 January 1944 to Captain von Schlippenbach in connection with the residence of his wife. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.776, Document No. of that isNO-5350.\nDocument No.NO-5365is an affidavit by one Lieselotte Ganser. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,777.\nDocument No.NO-5440is an affidavit by one Konrad Morgen. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.778.\nDocument No.NO-5441is an affidavit by one Johann Numberger. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.779.\nDocument No. 5442 is an affidavit by one Jakob Soluk. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.780.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1233, "page_number": "1228", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "Document No,NO-5483is an affidavit by one Lee Reichert. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No,781.\nDocument No.NO-5486is an affidavit by one Franz Pfeffer. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.782.\nDocument No.NO-5536is a decree dated 23 August 1942 concerning citizenship in Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.783.\nDocument No.NO-5538consists of directions in connection with Citizenship, Police Department for Passports and Foreigner Affairs, in connection with the decree previously mentioned. I offer this document as Prosecution Exhibit No.784.\nYour Honors, this concludes the loose documents we have. I have one other point which I wish to bring up at this time. During the interrogation of a witness sometime ago a number of documents were marked for identification. They had not at that time been distributed in Germany and in English 24 hours ahead of time. This technical requirement has long since been met. I should merely like to have, these exhibits now entered into the record as official exhibit rather than as just being marked for identification. The exhibit numbers are number 300 through 308 inclusive.\nWould your Honors like me to read the document numbers? Very well. The prosecution has no further evidence in the case in chief, your Honors.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1234, "page_number": "1229", "date": "10 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-10", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:There has been transmitted to the Tribunal from the Secretary General's Office a written request signed by Dr. Haensel on behalf of himself and all Defense Counsel., with a request that a recess of three weeks be made at the conclusion of the case in chief by the Prosecution.\nThe Tribunal announced at the beginning of this trial that there would be no recess at the conclusion of the Prosecution's case, but that we would move immediately into the presentation of evidence by the Defense. We, at that time, felt that no recess would be necessary; but we live and learn.\nIt appears to the Tribunal during the course of the trial that since practically all of these documents served on the Defense Counsel during the course of the trial, that they manifestly have not had a fair opportunity to examine the documents in order to prepare the defense for their clients.\nAnd out of a sense of fairness we have determined that we will grant a recess. We feel, however, that the 20th of November, which will be Thursday of next week, should give sufficient time; so the Tribunal will now be in recess until 9:30 Thursday, November 20th.\n(The Tribunal adjourned at 1535 until 0930, 20 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1235, "page_number": "1230", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 20 November 1947, 0945-1630, The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of Greifelt.\nDR. CARLHAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Ulrich Greifelt): The defendant Greifelt is charged with having participated in genocide, having committed or instigated atrocities which include, but not exclusively, murder, extermination, slavery, deportation, and other inhuman actions. The events, which alone are the subject of this trial according to international law, took place during the war from 1939 to 1945.\nWe all experienced a terrible tragedy. The statistics tell us that during the time after 1 September 1939, nearly thirty million human beings have perished or suffered injury to their health. The statistics cannot register what immeasurable misery further millions of human beings, one can rightly say the whole of mankind, had to suffer. It was a time of war. \"War is a rough and violent occupation\", says the German poet Friedrich Schiller. Nevertheless, it is a recognized institution of international law. In all text books dealing with international law, the laws of war \n COURT I CASE VIII are treated.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. CARL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1236, "page_number": "1231", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "All the actions of mankind are divided and enigmatic. Mankind has acknowledged a condition which permits the killing of human beings, the taking away of their property, the depriving of their liberty, Therefore, there is not yet sufficient proof shown for a crime if an indictment describes the violation of life, liberty and property of members of a state involved in war at this time and, on the other hand, states that a man, a member of another belligerent state, wore a uniform or issued orders which set in motion other wearers of uniforms, also not in the case of an aggressive war, which makes its instigators responsible according to the verdict of the IMT. Only these are personally responsible. For all others, soldiers as well as administrative officers, the fact of the outbreak of war is a protection against the charge of illegality, that is, for all violations of alien life or property caused by the exigencies of war.\nIn the much discussed verdict of the Kiel Appellate Court of 21 March 1947, which, however, has also been recognized in principle by the occupation authorities, it says, and I quote:\n\"The fact that a state commits crimes does not cause all its measures and laws to become invalid or void. The authoritative actions of a state are subordinated to the rules of the administrative law. Administrative actions can simply mean legality and validity and are also otherwise independent of faults in their construction, and are only disputable in cases of doubt, but are not void.\nI refer to: Jellinek, \"Administrative Law.\"\n\"The practice relative to constitutional law of Germany and foreign countries assumes, therefore, that in general the laws issued and the actions undertaken by the authorities \n COURT I CASE VIII in Germany from 1933 to 1945 are legally valid and binding.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1237, "page_number": "1232", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "End of quotation.\nThe evidence submitted by the Prosecution shows that the defendant Greifelt signed decrees and directives, dictated records, gave orders and wrote letters, that is, in his capacity as chief of a part of an administrative authority of the Reich, the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Any kind of a direct personal interference in alien life, liberty, or property has not been proved, Whatever he did, he did in his capacity of an official. He did not do it for himself but for the state which he served. His personal integrity is without blemish. His personality and his human qualifications in this connection shall be discussed during his interrogation.\nThe evidence submitted by the Prosecution did not prove that the defendant Greifelt himself, or for selfish motives, hurt a human being's life or health. It has not been proved that he personally was present when such things happened. According to the statement of the witness von dem Bach-Zelewski--page 412 of the German transcript-the witness was present together with the defendant Greifelt at the time when an evacuation action on a small scale took place in Saybusch. At that time a small number of Polish farmers were evacuated in Saybusch. This event took place in public; the local officials had carried it out. The persons in question had received their signed and sealed orders to leave their houses, in the form of orders by the state. It will be proved that Greifelt was not the drill-master of this action.\nIn order to be successful, the Prosecution must prove that the defendant Greifelt used the apparatus of the state in order to commit crimes. As personal enrichment can be \n COURT I CASE VIII excluded, these crimes could be committed only in Greifelt's capacity as a representative of a state which, by misusing its rights of sovereignty, committed crimes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1238, "page_number": "1233", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "There arises at once the difficulty that a strict distinction has to be drawn between the line of activity of the state and its representative, and the behavior of the single individual. The single individual has to obey the laws and orders; the life of the state lies in the creation of laws and the issuing of orders. The European attitude is laid down in the English postulate; \"The King can do no wrong.\" The American attitude is a fundamentally different one. Mr. Justice Jackson summarized it in his statement on 7 June 1945, in the following way, and I quote:\n\"We adhere to the principle of the responsible government, as expressed already three hundred years ago by the Lord High Justice Coke, to King James, with the words that even a king is still subordinated to God and his law. \" However, even if we claim the most direct responsibility of the head of the state for his authoritative auctions, we have to enter into the discussions of two problems:\n1. Who is the responsible carrier of the state authority --in our case, Greifelt?\n2. Were the measures which had been undertaken in the scope of resettling measures in the form of state and people's guadance, and only on this high level can this subject be discussed--crimes? That is, did they violate a valid law? And which law?\nThe Prosecution characterized Greifelt as the deputy of Himmler. I will be obliged to set forth that the defendant Greifelt was never anything more than an executive organ of Himmler, not more than an official who obeyed and \n COURT I CASE VIII forwarded orders, drew up drafts which were ordered, and later on approved or altered, and who, at the most, issued regulatory statutes to the principal orders of his superiors.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1239, "page_number": "1234", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "This is not only true for Greifelt, but also for that part of the state authority of which he was the chief, and his co-workers. I will show that in all individual counts of the indictment which are not proved by individual facts, the design and initiative did not originate with Greifelt, but that he was only a subordinated medium which had been set up later than other organizations. In that respect, a careful explanation of the manifold authorities and offices, with their overlapping and constantly clashing competency, is necessary.\nThe defendant Greifelt, too, has become aware of many facts only now; he can understand clearly only now the connections which were formerly unknown to him due to the secrecy which was prescribed for all offices, the mistrust and personal rivalries. By drawing an anatomic simile, I submit this picture to the High Tribunal as a kind of skeleton which later on, by the interrogation of the defendant Greifelt, through the descriptions of the actual happenings, the events, and the persons participating in same, should be provided with flesh and blood, thus giving the impression of a whole, living body. without such an optical impressive condensation it is quite impossible to comprehend the individual documents, individually considered. With regard to correspondence, one has to investigate inquiries and replies; regarding measures, one has to find out how these measures had been carried out.\nIt is clear that it is impossible to submit everything, and that a selection has to be made. The Prosecution \n COURT I CASE VIII submitted a large number of decrees, laws, directives, records, and letters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1240, "page_number": "1235", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It proved, therefy, how exteremely difficult it is to unravel the whole network of state authorities and offices. In the documents of the Prosecution, however, this selection has been made one-sidedly according to the incriminating aspects. The Prosecution submitted only a small fraction of the decrees issued by the various state authorities and offices since the beginning of the war; it did not enter into the basis for this code of legislature, as, for example, the Four Year Plan, Cabinet Council for National Defense, and others, it principally submitted only such documents and correspondence which had been issued after the beginning of the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1241, "page_number": "1236", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The documents of the Staff Main Office which were sent from Vilshofen on the Danube via Eassel to the Document Center in Berlin are reported to have filled six large railway vans. It is obvious that the documents submitted in the 15 document books can present quite a limited extract only. In addition, laws and ordinances, service directives and regulations of every kind have been issued in the collections of the authorities concerned, spread among hundreds of volumes, Whole libraries have been written on the ideological questions of folkdom and nationality, settlement, race, taken up in these proceedings, few excerpts of which have passed over into the document material of the Prosecution. It is the task of the Defense to supplement this material in order that the text of what I mentioned may become refined and the understanding of the actual events may at least be established. The task of the Defense is immensely difficult since it has no access to the documents which were confiscated by the Allied authorities. An index has been compiled of the documents of the Staff Main Office seized in the Schweikelberg monastery near Vilshofen. This list was submitted at the interrogation of the defendant Greifelt on 5 May 1947. In my application for documents of 21 July 1947 I applied for the procurement of this document for the purpose of the Defense, in order to be able to designate additional material from this list that might serve for elucidation. My application was rejected on 28 July 1947 so that my efforts to procure further document material are limited to ordinances and decrees, published in print, as well as to affidavits from the memory of those involved. I shall submit this evidence material to the Tribunal arranged in document books. It is not complete nor fully satisfactory.\nBut the wording of all laws, ordinances and decrees does not give a true picture of what actually happened. Such regulations as are available in a printed or written form prove nothing else to begin with than that someone compiled, signed and maybe also published such \n ordinances.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1242, "page_number": "1237", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It is, however, not essential for the proceedings what some people have devised who sometimes remain concealed and who cannot be trailed behind the anonymity of offices with more or less complicated names, but the essential point for the proceedings is to what extent the defendants themselves issued such regulations upon their own initiative, out of their personal free will, how these ordinances were then enforced and how they themselves understood and carried out existing ordinances. It must be explained how the actual power relations were; whether the defendant Greifelt could assert himself or whether his efforts were limited to ordinances existing only on paper and which could not be carried out. In addition, it must be explained whether other powers interfered with the carrying out of the ordinances and whether these interferences interrupted the inter-dependency of cause and effect between the ordinances and the carrying out of the colonizations and have perverted the original aims.\nFurthermore, we shall have to investigate to what extent the ordinances and correspondence which have been submitted under Greifelt's name or under the name of his office are connected with his personal work and how they came about. Even when reading the numerous documents for the first time in which the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism is mentioned, one is struck by the variety of subjects with which this office in its entirety or Greifelt for his part is alleged to have dealt with. Only a careful study of the letterheads, sometimes also of the file numbers, may shed light on who actually bears the responsibility and to was the author of the document. Always and everywhere the \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\" appears; however, that is then not per chance Greifelt and his office but the Reich Main Security office, Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans, Reich Governors, Oberpraesidenten, Chiefs of the Civil Administrations and Higher SS and Police Leaders who compete with one another --and I am by no means sure that this catalogue is complete. One \n believes oneself to have been transferred to an image out of the bushes of which from right and left one hears alluring calls that seem wellknown, but if one reaches out after them one finds nothing.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1243, "page_number": "1238", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Only one thing seems sure when one reads the documents for the first time; that is that the defendant Greifelt did not lay out this diabolic image. One is rather inclined to picture him to oneself as a gardener, wandering about, applying his tools here and there, trimming and watering, without actually recognizing the mysterious object, much less being able to master it.\nWho is this mysterious magician in the background of all this? This was already the great question of the IMT trial.\nIn his opening statement, the U.S. Chief Prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, said on 21 September 1945, \"Some 20 broken men are sitting in the dock. Taken as individuals their fate matters little. The proceedings are, however, of such importance because the defendants represent disastrous forces which will continue to prowl about in the world after they themselves have been reduced to ashes.\"\nThese disastrous forces must be unmasked not only for the purpose of preventing further disaster; this we may leave to the politicians or to the historians. The English philosopher Macaulay once said that world history was a trial in which the past was judged before the tribunal of the present. Only for such an historical trial in the sense of Macaulay, the fate of the individuals matters little. In our trial they form the focal point. The disastrous forces of which Mr. Jackson speaks are of importance for our proceedings in a different connection; to wit, for the question as to whether a personal guilt exists at all if a person has acted under the coercion of these forces. I do not intend to cite the theories which try to explain man by means of his environment alone and who regard his actions as being solely the reaction to the various situations. Just as if one holds a man fully responsible for his commissions and emissions the disastrous forces are significant \n that rule his time and the power and predominance to which he was subject.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1244, "page_number": "1239", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Centrol Council Law No. 10 stipulated in Article II, 4 b, in conformity with Article VIII of the London Statutes, according to which the IMT had to pass its sentences: \"The fact that a defendant acted by order of his government or of his superior does not preclude his guilt; it may, however, be taken into consideration, as an extenuating circumstance.\" In addition to this command, however, the existence or non-existence of which is essential for meting out the punishment, the IMT acknowledged the genuine state of emergency by saying: \"The actually decisive point which is to be found in the criminal code of most nations in different degrees is not the existence of such a command but the question whether a choice corresponding to the moral law actually was possible.\"\nThe command in itself can represent an extenuating circumstance; it is, however, never a justification of obviously criminal actions; the coercion, however, under which a person acted may exclude the responsibility in the case of a collision of duties. Thus one can never establish a guilt under criminal law of a defendant who is not being charged with an actual deed but only with the cooperation in a very complicated procedure, if not also his leading role or a role corresponding to one of the legal forms of participation has been proved. It may happen that such a man was no more than a small cog in a large machine, in the working of which he exerted no influence, into which he had been installed without a possibility to withdraw, and in which he had to continue to rotate long after he had ceased wishing to do so, since \"a choice corresponding to the moral law\" was actually no longer possible for him. Therefore the construction of the entire apparatus and his position in it must be investigated.\nThe conception of robbing and plundering implies that the robber, by violating the divine command: \"Thou shall not steal\" regards the right of his fellow-man as of lesser importance than his selfish wishes and desires. If, however, a man has no direct connection with the \n appropriation of other people's property or with interferences into the living sphere of other people, but only has connections with them which for him only exist on paper, in written and printed ordinances, then it has to be proved beyond the sphere of the tasks legally assigned to him that he did not act within the limits of his duties and that he foresaw all consequences resulting from the practical performance.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1245, "page_number": "1240", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "He was not personally interested in the personal fate of those affected by his ordinances. He did not know these people. In his conception that mankind would finally be advanced and peace would become more permanent and sure, he believed that he had to issue his ordinances. Every government official exercises coercion. It is the definition of the state that it also leads the resisting one to give up his selfish desires in the interest of super individual aims-above all, during the war, and much more during a war which by the disastrous forces to which the defendant Greifelt did not belong in spite of his position as chief of the Staff Main Office, had been extended into a total war mobilizing all human power of the state.\nTotal war is not the conception of one individual brain. From World War I on, the great strategists and. politicians have in many countries discussed it and written about it. Even if they warned against it, they asserted its reality. An old proverb says, \"Talk of the devil and his imps appear.\" Now it is not like that that the devil finally appears because he is talked of, but he can only be talked of because he is due to come, because the trend of fate-the supernatural power-urges these \"disastrous forces,\" because the time is ripe for an eruption and a breaking out from the depths.\nThis trial deals with resettlements that belong to the ethnological conflicts in Europe. The events handled by the Prosecution cover a short period of five and one-half years. These five end one-half years represent only a very small part of the entire development of these conflicts, which may be traced back for centuries--even for a thousand years. It is not attempted in this connection to give a historical \n analysis of these thousand years.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1246, "page_number": "1241", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "we are all fed up with the \"thousand year Reich.\" It is, however, impossible to understand the idea of the colonization, resettlement and repatriation, end thus all actions relating to it, if the development is not known which urged the resettlements which have not yet been completed today and are still going on from day to day. One cannot judge \"Germanization\" if one does not know anything about \"Polonization.\" One cannot fully understand the necessity, the state emergency and the pertinent viewpoints if one does not have a rough idea at least of the ethnic-political struggle at the German frontiers and, in particular, in the areas around the Vistula with which in this case we are mainly concerned.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1247, "page_number": "1242", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Prosecution accuses the defendant Grefelt of having participated in a \"systematic program of genocide\" that had as its goal the destruction of foreign peoples and ethnic groups. It is clear that the individual person cannot as an individual commit a crime against an entire people. The conception of the murder of peoples -- the \"genocide\" which, up, as far as I remember, for the first time at the Lisbon Congress in 1933, did not find proponents and was not recognized. For the first time thereafter, it was again discussed in the literature on international law in the forties; that is after the outbreak of the war. According to newspaper reports, the Secretariat of the UN had submitted, on 10 July 1947, a draft for an international convention for the punishment of government officials who tried to exterminate racial, religious, national or political groups. This draft for an internation convention shows, in my estimation, in an unrefutable manner, that at any rate such an international convention was not in existence to date and does not exist. If, therefore, the Prosecution charges the crime of genocide, it ought to have proven first of all that there is such an institution within the international law. Les I be misunderstood: murder is always murder, already from the time of the Tablet Law of Moses, and there is no doubt in that respect. But it is equally clear that a single individual cannot murder an entire people or part of a people. On the level of the individual, only individual deeds are possible and punishable. One may recall the time before the beginning of the war: when a man had murdered somebody, one read with horror about it in the newspaper. A double murder already exasperated the people, and in the case of a massmurder, psychiatrists of all countries gathered in order to view this pathological degeneration of mankind.\nThe conception of genocide cannot be regarded on the plain of the conventional penal law. An individual cannot murder an entire people. If one wants to arrive at this legal construction, one has to start out from the premise that a people can only be murdered by a people. Since, however, any penal guilt is the guilt of an individual and thus the collective \n guilt cannot lead to punishment of an individual, the individual cannot become guilty of genocide by leading his people to genocide.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1248, "page_number": "1243", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "A prerequisite is that he can exercise a decisive influence on the development of the criminal will of the people that is being led toward genocide. The existing international law holds responsible for offenses against international law only those in the administration of a state. Also the IMT judgment refers in its opinion on the responsibility of the then accused to the \"Position which the defendants held in the Government of Germany.\" (Paragraph 5).\nIn his plea of 17 January 1946, morning session, the French Chief Prosecutor, de Menthon, gave expression to the following legal conception: \"It is clear that in a state organized on modern lines, the responsibility is confined to those who immediately act on behalf of the state since they alone are in a position to judge the legality of their orders. They alone can, and are to be, apprehended.\"\nI am using this interval to offer an exhibit. This is a clipping from a newspaper which reports about the UN convention.\nMR. SCHWENK: Your Honor, we object to the submission of any sort of evidence at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Of course, nothing that is said or done now is evidence. Go ahead.\nDR. HAENSEL: May I submit it for identification? I will, introduce it when I come to the presentation of evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT: The purpose of this proceeding now is the opening statement. You may have it identified and offer it in evidence when we get to the point of taking evidence.\nDR. HAENSEL: I shall then introduce it as soon as I present my evidence.\nThe above mentioned draft which was submitted to the UN speaks of government officials as possibly guilty offenders. (Greifelt, December 1, Exhibit 1). This formulation does not seem to offer the necessary preciseness. The Prosecution only speaks of the \"part of a systematic \n program.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1249, "page_number": "1244", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "This formulation is even less precise. In. this respect it is necessary, in my opinion, to first think out, formulate, and then recognize as international law, clear legal conceptions; for law is not the product of a clever brain, but law requires recognition, either by the individual state or by the entire civilized world, when international law is concerned.\nSince, however, this indictment has been made and has thus been reasoned, an investigation is necessary to ascertain to what degree the shifting of entire parts of a people, also against the will of individual personalities, is admissible under existing international law. It is to be pointed out that there exist numerous practical examples, according to which such population which included many millions of persons, shifts, were carried out after 1945 and before 1939. I mention, only for the sake of giving examples, the Greek-Turk resettlement after the First World War, and the forced evacuation of Germans from the formerly German Eastern territories, now claimed by Poland, and from Czechoslovakia, In international law, usage plays an important role. I refer to the discussion in the best commentaries. Later on, I shall have to conduct detailed legal discussions.\nIt is the object of this, my opening statement, to submit to the Court the line of my defense and to explain the basis of certain parts of the evidence which, I think, I have to present, With the permission of the High Court, I shall at first call the defendant Greifelt on the fitness stand in order to question him as to this person and curriculum vitae. Thereupon, I shall ask him to explain in a uniform way how, in his point of view, the Staff Main Office under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism came into being, how this office worked, and what role he played in this work. It will be important to see how the work of this office overlapped that of other offices, how it was limited, how it collided, and how it could be carried on at all. The defendant Greifelt had neither in this position nor personally any initiative in the ethnological policy. He was a civil servant who did what he was told; nothing more and nothing less.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1250, "page_number": "1245", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Finally, I shall question the defendant regarding the document introduced by the Prosecution and I shall ask him to state whether he knows them, how he came to know them, What he did on the basis of these documents, or to what an extent he has any connection at all with them.\nOne can, however, understand this mass of chronologically closely-related, contradicting and overlapping laws, decrees, ordersaand ordinances only when one hears a number of vivacious people on the subject of how this paper war was conducted within the offices, to what an extent Greifelt participated therein and is connected with acts which have been termed \"crimes\" by the Prosecution. Withethe permission of the Court, I shall call in quite a number of witnesses. I request to reserve the right to file, before the end of the proceedings, a trial brief on one subject or another, and I request that they be kindly considered while it Will not be necessary to include their full text in the minutes.\nThe Prosecution has, at various places of its presentation of evidence, for instance in document Book V E, introduced statistical material which shows that in the eastern territories, occupied in September 1939 by the German armies and which to that time had belonged to Poland but for the main part had been German territory prior to 1918, there was a great number of such people who spoke German, and who, according to their ethnic origin, felt as Germans despite their Polish citizenship. In these territories, Poles and Germans lived side by side. That had been that way for centures. Governments changed. At some time the country was Polish; at other times, German; and the distribution of the population by percentage changed as did the influence of the two groups. But the fact that human beings of different language and different ethnic origin lived side by side remained. whoever in 1937 visited the Worlds Fair in Paris will remember that the statue of the great astronomer, Kopernikus, stood in the Polish Pavillion, and that at the same time his work was claimed for Germanism in the German Pavillion.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1251, "page_number": "1246", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "There exists between Germanism and Polandom a fight through the centuries and which cannot come to an end because the object of the fight -- that is, the country and the population -- prevent it. The Germans claim, that they have colonized the country, that they have imported the idea of Christianity and the higher ethics. As striking evidence, the refer to the Cathedral at Gneseu, the Town Hall (The Rathaus) and the Marienkirche at Cracow, where the altar by the Nurnberg citizen Veit Stess stands, to the Town Hall, the Rathau, and the Cathedral at Posnan with the memorials by the Nurnberg citizen, Peter Vischer, the old Johanni, at Warsaw and many others more.\nThe fight between Germanism and Polandom was conducted up to the 19th century with the then customary means of state policy. This fight came to an end with the termination of the Polish state. The Polish territories were distributed in the 3rd Polish Partitioning, and then once more in the Peace Treaty of Vienna among Austria, Russia and Germany. But the Polish song \"Poland isn't lost as yet\" characterises the perennial tenacity of Polandom which carried on the fight only as an ethnological fight. The Pole who had the Prussian citizenship continued to consider himself a Pole and tried to settle with Poles as much agricultural property as possible and to push out German settlers. He also tried to Polonize and win for the Polish language and views, people who spoke German or were of German origin. According to a report by the Prussian Major General Beguslawski, 200,000 Germans were Polonized in the Province of Poznan in the second half of the 19th century. Such a fact is important for this trial, since it alone explains why among sensible people one could at all speak of re-Germanization and subject to it somebody who spoke Polish. The race theoretician and the ethnological practitioner were actually confronted in this area with the descendants of people who were of German origin and who in their early youth or through their parents had discarded their Germanism externally. This settlement policy, the ethnological war by peaceful means, by way of \n advertising, buying and change in the property register, was taken up by the German authorities as this situation was realized.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1252, "page_number": "1247", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It developed also into a battle for the schools. This fight was carried into the parliaments. In the Prussian Landtag, there existed a Polish party, the same as there was after 1920, a German union with a considerable number of votes in the Polish Seim. The well-known History of Poland by E. Hanisch (Published by K. Schroeder, Leipzig 1923) ends with this sentence: \"That the Pole can never be the brother of the German till the end of time, that is the very Polish proverb for which no German equivalent can be found\" The frontiers drawn by the Versailles Treaty, you see listed in the conclusion of the Basic Information presented by the Prosecution, on which, by the way, I reserve for myself the right to make some correcting remarks.\nAs regards these frontier lines, the doubt very soon was voiced, especially in England, that the German-Polish antagonism had not been tempered through this solution; on the contrary, it had grown more intense. The purely German town of Danzig, town like Thorn -almost purely German -- were politically subject to Polish domination: East Prussia was separated from the main territory of the Reich. The basic principle of the Versailles Treaty is the protection of minorities. Through treaties for the protection of minorities with a binding force similar to that of international law, citizens belonging within the respective successor states were supposed to have been secure.\nThe political success which Hitler achieved in German through his propaganda can, to a considerable extent, be attributed to the fact that through numerous experiences gained by everybody who had to do with the Polish territories, the opinion had established itself in the German people that the protection of minorities was an insufficient remedy. Expulsions of persons having voted for Germany took place; German landed property was broken up by means of a land reform legislation made up as associal measure; workers and employees were dismissed; artisans and \n business men were boycotted; acts of violence ware committed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1253, "page_number": "1248", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Subject to this coercion, approximately one million Germans emigrated from the territories restored to Poland during the years following 1920.\nAt the Peace Conference, 1919, the British Premier, Lloyd George, pointed out that through the cessation of the German eastern territories to Poland about 2.2 million German-speaking people would come under Polish control. This figure did not include the strong Germanspeaking population groups in the Polish territories formerly belonging to Russia or Austria (the industrial center of Lodz, Volhynia, Galicia, etc).\nAlready in 1921, the Polish census could establish a figure of now only 1,059,000 German-speaking inhabitants. By German authorities, the number at that time, based on private estimates, was given as about 1.2 million. From 1921 until 1939, the number decreased further, declining to less than a million due to suppressive measures taken by the Polish state. The single province of Poznan, during the occupation from 1939 to 1945, called Wartheland, reduced its German-speaking population by more than 600,000 people. During the period from 1939 till 1941, approximately 400,000 German-speaking inhabitants were supposed to be brought into these territories. This figure is not high as compared with the number of German-speaking persons displaced from the, at that time newly-acquired Polish western territories, in the years from 1919 till 1939.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1254, "page_number": "1249", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII Prior to the rise of National Socialism - already in 1917 the tendency is evidenced in literature through a book of Kranz - another political method was recommended to supercede the protection of minorities; exchange of populations and separation of Nationalities. The basic principle of the resettlement program was to eliminate the friction caused by the interspersion of nationalities by assigning certain territories to Germans and certain territories to Poles or Russians, Latvians or other nationalities, and by removing the minorities from these territories. The German government at that time was faced with the necessity of receiving and placing Ethnic Germans, for whom no more space could be found in the densely populated main Reich. A national emergency, or one could say an ethnic emergency, existed.\nAt this paint we end in the large stream of migrations which started with the Balkan War in 1912, growing to a flood after the outbreak of the Russian revolution in 1918, and rising to an irresistible tidal wave through the events following 1939.\nSince 1918 more than one million Russians were roving all over Europe and China without work and without means of existence. In 1921 the Council of the League of Nations, acting on an appeal from the great philanthropic organizations, decided to intervene and utilize its entire authority for organizing relief work. Dr. Fritjof Nansen was appointed High Commissioner for the aid to Russian refugees and commissioned to bring about a final arrangement as to their future destiny.\nThe relief work for the benefit of the Russian-refugees had hardly been put into operation on a satisfactory basis when the Turkish-Greek was in 1922 forced the Greek population of Asia Minor to flee to Europe. The Treaty \n COURT I CASE VIII of Lausanne (1923) contained a clause stipulating that an emigration of Greeks living in Turkey to Greece and a repatriation of the Turks, who had so far been living in Greece, should take place.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1255, "page_number": "1250", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "This is the precedent of a resettlement, without asking the persons concerned, sanctioned by international law. The consequences of the treaty were that close to 1.5 million Greeks had to emigrate from Turkey to Greece and approximately 53,000 Turks were transferred from Greece to Turkey.\nThe first resettlement agreements concluded by the German Reich were those with Estlonia and Latvia. They became necessary as a saving measure in order to make possible the emigration of the German Balts prior to the final incorporation of their native countries into the territory of the Soviet Union, which took place in the summer of 1940, preceded by a chain of events resembling a civil war and constituting a great danger to the Balts. These antecedents still need some detailed elucidation as they have never yet been explained in public, and yet the whole resettlement and the racial policy described as criminal cannot be understood without this explanation.\nThe negotiations in Moscow between Germany and the Soviet Union, and between the latter and the Baltic States started already in August, 1939. They resulted in a series of sensational state treaties and secret agreements creating a completely new situation for Europe and in particular for the Baltic countries, thus also forcing the German Balts to leave their home countries.\nOn 23 August 1939 the Soviet-German non-aggression pact, and at the same time a secret agreement, were signed. Only conjectures were made at that time as regards the existence and the text of this agreement. The contents \n COURT I CASE VIII became generally known only in the course of the IMT trial.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1256, "page_number": "1251", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "In the secret agreement Germany acknowledged the territories of Estlonia, Latvia, and Eastern Poland as a Soviet sphere of interest in the event of territorial changes in Eastern Europe. Already at that time the evacuation of the German Balts and the liquidation of their entire property to be disposed of by the German government were agreed upon by Moscow and Berlin.\nOn 28 September 1939 the Soviet-German frontier and friendship treaty was concluded in Moscow. The secret agreement on the demarcation of the respective spheres of interest was, forthe benefit of the Soviet Union, extended also to Lithuania. On the same day (28 September 1939) Estlonia signed a pact of mutual assistance with the Soviet-Union, which a few days later (5 October 1939) concluded a similar pact with Latvia. In these treaties a military occupation of both countries by the troops of their big contracting partner was envisaged.\nThis was the political situation before the Reichstag speech of Hitler on the evening of 6 October 1939, in which he proclaimed the resettlement of the German ethnic groups in the Baltic countries.\nOn 10 October 1939 negotiations were already initiated in Riga and Raval with the respective governments by German special plenipotentiaries on the conclusion of resettlement agreements; and they were signed with Estlonia already on 15 October, and on 30 October with Latvia.\nOn 18 October 1939 the first steamer with resettlers left Estlonia. The dizzying speed of this introduction to the liquidation of a more than 700-year-old community representing an old culture, and in spite of every-thing a considerable degree of wealth, proves in itself that \n COURT I CASE VIII the evacuation was actually a kind of flight.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1257, "page_number": "1252", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It is the flight of Germanism on the move from theEast towards the West, a movement which in the course of one generation abandoned the settlements of a thousand years. The impulse is not to be found in National Socialism, neither has the movement ended with its annihilation. In the progress of this development Germanism is the losing partner. The active victorious power is in the East. It is a terrible and amazing realization when it becomes clear that all settlement positions within the territory of Eastern Europe were lost by the Germans, and that in a development incomprehensible in its singular structure they were lost already before Hitler let loose his -----crimes against the nations in his struggle for power, in which he was predestined to succumb.\nAlready that repatriation of the Germans in Italy was a regressive movement of Germanism. The exchange of populations which is the subject of this trial, the exchange between the \"Government General\" and the \"Incorporated Eastern Territories,\" was actually, as we can now see, the last attempt of securing once more an area for the Germans, near Germany proper, at the same time abandoning the territories further towards the East - the ethnic enclaves. The attempt failed. This represents the last convulsions of the body of a doomed nation whose fate was actually sealed already before the last operation was initiated. Anybody who, in this turmoil in individual cases, has made himself liable to punishment according to existing criminal laws, who in criminal wantonness has trampled human rights underfoot, must be condemned rightly and justly. The defendant Greifelt does not belong to this group of criminals. The setting \n COURT I CASE VIII of the great aims appears to me, however, to reach already the level of what constitutes historical necessity; it is not criminal in the sense of a penal code.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1258, "page_number": "1253", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Prosecution has explained everything that happened in the East since 1939 as a deliberate crime involving murder of nations. It must be a duty of the Defense to establish the reasons which induced well-intentioned men to offer their services to a policy even though it was unsuccessful in the end. It will be the task of the Tribunal to decide to what extent each individual defendant was altogether involved in the events to which the Prosecution has drawn attention, and to what extent they are guilty according to existing law.\nIt would considerably facilitate the task of the Defense if the Tribunal would indicate which legislation will be made the basis of its decision: American law, the law of the territory within which each crime was committed, the law of the native country of the defendant, or international law. Material for argumentation with reference to this point, which I have submitted to Military Tribunals II and III, I may be allowed to present also to this High Tribunal.\nFurther, I may be allowed to invite the attention of the High Tribunal to some of the petitions which in these days have been filed with the High Tribunal IV in Case No. 5 against Flick, et al, which have been substantiated for the records. In so far as these petitions cover the presentation of evidence, the extent of evidence, and the means of evidence, the decision passed upon them will affect also the present proceedings. I request that we, the Defense Counsel, be permitted to reserve for ourselves \n COURT I CASE VIII the right to present the grounds of detailed petitions and argumentations with reference to this point, which go far beyond the scope of this opening plea.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1259, "page_number": "1254", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "But already now, and without considering the lastmentioned arguments, I propose:\nTo declare that for purely legal reasons the indictment is based on insufficient grounds in so far as it is upheld by the contention of an \"organized program of genocide\" - i.e. in Count II.\nAs I have stated already, it has not been proved by the Prosecution that this legal institution was established as such by existing international law. Law is not what is useful to the people. This presumptuous saying has come into discussion after it has been contradicted by itself. But law is not simply all that is useful to mankind. Who can believe himself to be omniscient as to be able to decide which actions will ultimately serve the great aims of mankind?\nWithin the limited scope of the present trial we see how acts of a seemingly arbitrary design become parts of a greater chain of events as ruled by a necessity superior to individual desires and powers. International law is always only what is being realized and acknowledged as such by civilized nations. Two different kinds of international law do not exist as maintained by evil-minded skeptics: that of the victors and that of the conquered. Only one international law exists: a true law that has been realized and acknowledged. Even though we look upon the work of the UNO commission to bring about the planned convention for prevention of power politics against whole nations with unqualified sympathy, and even though we are filled with deep gratitude towards the work of the \n COURT I CASE VIII \"Committee against Mass Expulsion\" in which noble-minded men have united in New York, yet we cannot adopt the view that the future text of a convention which is to be agreed upon -- or can we say which we hope will be agreed upon -and the aim of philanthropists be acknowledged as existing international law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1260, "page_number": "1255", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1261, "page_number": "1256", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement for Creutz.\nDR.MERKEL (for the defendant Rudolf Creutz): May it please the High Tribunal: The indictment vharges the defendant Rudolf Cruetz with participation in the execution of systematic program of genocide. His defense will be therefore obliged to establish the proof that this accusation of the prosecution is not true and that especially a large part of the measures with which Creutz is charged had been initiated already or were even at the point of being carried out at the time when Creutz came in contact with the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism for the first time. His defense counsel will further prove that by no means did he take over, out of his own free will, this new activity, which was completely new to him, which partly is the subject of these proceedings. From this fact alone the conclusion must be drawn that he could not have acted according to a previously rigidly fixed plan. Furthermore, the defense will prove that by no means did he take over, out of his own free will, this new activity, which was completely new to him, which partly is the subject of these proceedings. From this fact alone the conclusion must be drawn that he could not have acted according to a previously rigidly f fixed plan. Furthermore, the defense will prove that the defendant Creutz in his position and in his activity was able to survey only a part, a small segment of the entire proceedings, and that it was impossible for him to establish whether and to what extent actions were carried out according to such a uniform plan, if such a plan existed at all.\nIn this connection the defense intends to set forth that it was impossible for the defendant Creutz to influence in a decisive manner the events which are the subject of these proceedings and that he, being aware of this lack of power of judgment and possibility of influence, - took the utmost pains to remain reserved and strictly adhered to this reservation. The collaboration regarding the resettling \n and the care of the resettlers which were ordered could not be considered by the defendant Creutz as a criminal act because the carrying out of the resettlements is nothing new according to international law and was executed on the basis of an agreement between the participating states.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1262, "page_number": "1257", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "If it came thereby to irregularities or even abuses then these happened without any action on his part or without his knowledge. His actions, which were only ordered and apart from that, were strictly regulated by a multitude of laws, legal edicts, decrees and directives, of which the prosecution in its presentation of evidence submitted only an insignificant small percentage. There can be no discussion about an awareness of illegality, that is an awareness of having committed crimes against humanity or war crimes through the fulfillment of the tasks which were entrusted to him; therefore, a responsibility of the defendant Creutz according to criminal law has to be rejected even out of this general consideration. According to the text of the indictment, Creutz is made responsible for almost all the individual counts. However, in the evaluation of the entire evidence submitted so far by the prosecution, I must state that concerning the following indictment counts, not even the slightest participation of the defendant Creutz could be proved by the prosecution.\nNo. 8 - The Staff Main Office had been the driving power for the exection of the entire program;\nNO. 10 - Proclamation of the superiority of the Nordic race;\nNo. 12 - Abortions on Eastern workers.\nNo. 13 - Depriving the Eastern workers of their infants;\nNo. 14 - punishment for illegal, sexual intercourse;\nNo. 15 - Prevention of reproduction of foreigners;\nNo. 21 - Persecution and estermination of Jews;\nRegarding the No. 11 - Kidnapping of children;No. 16 - Forced evacuation and resettlement;\n No. 17 - Germanization of foreigners;No. 18 - Slave labor; and No. 20 - Spoliation; it might be possible to impute some kind of formal incrimination to the defendant Creutz if one interprets the submitted evidence in the widest possible manner because some of the submitted documents are signed by him.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1263, "page_number": "1258", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "In that respect it will be the task of the defense to show, by submitting the evidence, that these counts do not represent at all facts which can be defined as crimes against humanity. Over and above that, proof will be furnished to this Tribunal that in any case a participation of the defendant Creutz, punishable according to criminal law, be it as perpetrator, accomplice or instigator or in any other form has not been proved by the prosecution, nor can it be proved by an objective evaluation of the incriminating evidence of the prosecution.\nUp to now the prosecution has omitted intentionally substantiating, the responsibility of the individual defendant, as charted in the indictment. Therefore, in examining the question, upon what circumstnaces the prosecution wishes to fix a criminal responsibility on the part of the defendant Creutz, the defense must rely on conjectures and inferences. Obviously the prosecution intends to prove the responsibility of the defendant Creutz for the counts of the indictment in each case, at least partly, by submitting such documents which are in connection with such counts of the indictment. It will be the task of the defense to express its views concerning these documents and to establish, whether any measures at all and if so, which ones, had been affected by these documents.\nIt is obvious that the prosecution tries furthermore to construe the responsibility of the defendant Creutz by identifying him as the permanent and responsible deputy of the defendant Greifelt. Nothing would be more erroneous than this.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1264, "page_number": "1259", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It goes without saying that the defendant Creutz accepts the responsibility for the signatures affixed by him in the scope of his official duties and competency. However, the presentation of evidence will show that this concerns in no case the initiation of such measures, which viewed by itself, could be interpreted as criminal. In no case can a criminal responsibility of the defendant for all the measures be inferred from these few documents.\nRegarding the question of the responsibility as deputy of the defendant Greifelt, the defense will furnish proof that this representation cannot be considered as a permanent, responsible representa tion of the Chief of the Main Office. This representation which, by the way had at no time been made in Writing or had been officially announced or had been fixed in any other way and had never been confirmed by Himmler, was only evident in exceptional cases and during a short, transitory absence of the Chief of the Main Office and was confined to a deputizing in minor matters. All important matters or even basic decisions were help up by the defendant Creutz until the Chief of Office had resumed his duties. It will be proven that the so-called Monday conferences, which were held regularly under the chairmanship of the defendant Greifelt and during which in the presence of the chiefs of Office the current questions were discussed and prepared for the decision by the Reich Commissar Himmler, were never conducted by the defendant Creutz and that besides they were not adequate to convey a through knowledge of all occurrences. Creutz never acted as representative in extra-office negotiations, he it for instance in conferences with other authorities or office chiefs, other headquarters or higher Reich authorities, etc. It will further be proven that Creutz never acted as representative of Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism. He never was allowed and was unable to act in that capacity.\nIt will be the further duty of the defense to clarify the tasks \n of the defendant Creutz.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1265, "page_number": "1260", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It is correct that from 1939-1945 he was working in Greifelt's office (which later on was the Staff Main Office). Against that it will have to be proven that from 1939 to August 1942, while the Staff Main Office was reorganized, he was only concerned with the internal organization and expansion of the Staff Main Office. The presentation of evidence will show in detail what his activities were. The presentation of evidence will particularly show that during that time Creutz was not in charge of any division or main division of Greifelt's office and or the Staff Main Office, but that, essentially, he was office manager of the headquarters which was still in the process of organization. It will be proven that although in the course of the reorganization of the Staff Main Office in August 1942 socalled Amtsgruppen (Groups of offices) as well as 8 Aemter (offices) and one Zentralamt (Central office) were created this division was not carried through in actual practice and, thus, a transfer of the responsibility of the Chiefs of Office was prevented. The presentation of evidence will show that, as before, the Chiefs of Office and the Chief of the Legal Division continued to report directly and receive their instructions from the Chief, Main Office while by-passing the Chiefs of the Amtsgruppen and that, besides, at this time (August 1942) the measures termed criminal by the prosecution had already been carried out, or at least been initiated.\nIt will be the particular task of the defense to clarify down to the last details the tasks of the defendant Creutz in his capacity as Chief of the Central Office, a position which he held since August 1942, in order to convey to the court a true picutre of the activities of the defendants. In this connection it will have to be stressed that, as before, it was Creutz' main task to work on organizational matters, within the Staff Main Office. Not only did he himself draft and finish off from August 1942 on the comprehensive organizational plan of the Staff Main Office, which consisted of 53 pages, but he was also con \n cerned with all organizational questions within the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1266, "page_number": "1261", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "From that time on, he nearly exclusively had to devote his time to personnel matters which from 1942 on absorbed all of his time on account of the increasing intensity and the length of the war and the big increase in the size of the office (deferments, personnel economy drives, etc.) It was amere question of lack of time due to the comprehensive scope of his work that he did not find a chance to consider questions outside of his sphere of duties even superficially not to speak of getting involved in details.\nI am fully convinced that through the presentation of evidence in my case I can prove to the High Court in an unobjectionable way that the defendant Creutz is not guilty of any crimes against humanity or of any war crimes as the prosecution has charged. Nor can Creutz be sentenced before this court for his membership in the SS since he neither participated in such crimes nor otherwise knowingly supported them nor had any knowledge of such crimes. Besides, as member of the Waffen-SS Creutz was unable to give up his position or quit out of his own initiative.\nIn closing may I make the following statement:\nIn its Opening statement the prosecution quoted a statement made by the former Governor General Dr. Hans Frank before the IMT. It is agreed that that statement is correct. Yet I think it is my duty to b bring to the attention of the court also those words that the same defendant Dr. Frank stated 4 months later in his Final Plea before the IMT, and the public of the world and I quote:\n\"I have only to correct one word. On the witness stand I spoke of 1,000 years which would be unable to eradicate the guilt of our people due to Hitler's behavior during this war. Not only the attitude against our people and its soldiers by our enemies of the war, which has been carefully kept out of these proceedings, but the gigantic mass crimesof the most horrible kind which, as I have learned now, \n have been committed and are still being committed above all in Eastern Prussia, Silesia, Pomerania and Sudetenland by Russians, Poles and Czechs against Germans have already now paid to the last any guilt whatsoever of our people.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1267, "page_number": "1262", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement in behalf of Schwarzenberger.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1268, "page_number": "1263", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "DR.KLINNERT (for the defendant Schwarzenberger): May it please the Tribunal: In order to make possible a decision concerning the question whether the defendant Schwarzenberger is guilty in the sense of the indictment we shall need, to start with, a detailed description of the duties and activities of the defendant Schwarzenberger in the Main Staff Office.\nThe only matter which the prosecution has brought up in this line up to date is the statement that the defendant Schwarzenberger was the chief of Office V, finance administration. This evidence is, however, in no way sufficient. I shall, therefore, give a detailed description of the activities and the scope of the defendant Schwarzenberger's work. I shall, first of all, prove that the defendant Schwarzenberger deal with financial matters only, and had nothing to do with operational duties (fuehrungstechnischen Aufgaben) of the Main Staff Office. For that reason neither Schwarzenberger or any member of his staff was ever invited to attend meetings which concerned themselves with operational duties. He has also never carried on negotiations of any kind with the Reich Ministry of Interior, the Reich Security Main office, the Race and Settlement Main Office or any similar office about operational duties (Fuehrungstechnische Aufgaben) of the Staff Main Office. His duties were merely of an administrative and financial nature.\nThe defendant Schwarzenberger had also no right of decision concerning the use of the funds which were transferred by him. The funds came from the Reich Ministry of Finance. The Reich Ministry of Finance issued orders about distribution of these funds to the respective offices.", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1269, "page_number": "1264", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Schwarzenberger had to act according to these orders.\nThe distribution to the respective offices was based on a law, that is to say on the decree of 7 September 1939.\nHe has neither exercised a consulting function concerning the use of the funds.\nFollowing orders given in this decree the necessary funds were issued by the Reich Ministry of Finance. Strictly speaking, the Reich Minister of Finance ought to have forwarded the necessary funds straight to the offices to which they had been granted. However, as the Reich Minister of Finance tolerated one cashier's office only in each of the highest Reich offices, all funds had to pass through office V of the Main Staff Office.\nThe defendant Schwarzenberger has, therefore, neither ordered transfers to the particular offices, nor could he have prevented these remittances, Already for this reason punishable participation of the defendant Schwarzenberger ought to be regarded as disproved. Furthermore, the defendant Schwarzenberger was up to the time of the remittance completely unaware of the purposes to which these funds would be put. Even after these funds had been disposed of he had no way of finding out details about the use to which they had been put. From his vouchers he could only sec in a very general way how the money had been used. Especially did the vouchers not give any indication of the fact that these means were used in carrying out actions referred to in the indictment under count I, sub-paragraphs 11-18 and 20-21.\nBeyond this I shall prove in detail that the defendant Schwarzenberger has never granted any funds for purposes of carrying out abortions on non-German women workers, for the kidnapping of babies, for the punishment of sczual \n intercourse of non-German people with Germans or for purposes of hampering reproduction of enemy races.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1270, "page_number": "1265", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It has not even been asserted that funds for such purposes were transferred via these offices. Nor has there been produced any evidence to this effect.\nThe prosecution has also not been able to prove that funds were being issued for purposes of forced evacuation or resettlement of some sections of the population. Should any of the offices which were issued with funds by the Office V have used these for such purposes the defendant Schwarzenberger had, as I shall prove, no knowledge thereof. It was, especially, quite impossible for him to find this out from any of the vouchers which were sent in to his office. Anyhow it was beyond his power to prevent the use of these funds for such purposes.\nOffice V has also not issued funds for purposes of forced Germanization of Non-German people and for the transportation of persons for purposes of forced labor.\nThe defendant Schwarzenberger has neither taken part in the confiscation nor in the handling of the property of concentration camp inmates. The finance-administration had nothing whatsoever to do with such measures. Nor did Office V ever deal with any funds which had their origin in such measures. Office V has certainly never taken over any property of concentration camp inmates.\nThe present state of evidence has also to be considered insufficient proof of the participation of the defendant Schwarzenberger in the persecution and extermination of the Jews. The prosecution has brought no evidence for this. The defendant Schwarzenberger has also in no way participated in the administration of pieces of property belonging to \n Jewish owners.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1271, "page_number": "1266", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "This refers in particular to the Ghetto-action in Lodz. Negotiations about acquisition of material from the demolition of the ghetto between the Main Staff Office and Greiser came to no result. This in itself is proof that a punishable offense is out of the question here. Anyhow these negotiations were not carried on by Schwarzenberger. Exhibit 566 of document No 2665, vol. XIII A, page 100 of the German and page 124 of the English text produced by the prosecution, proves this. This document proves that it was intended not to use any Reich Commissioner funds for the carrying-out of these demolitions, but funds from the Economic and Administrative Main office.\nI shall produce evidence that the defendant Schwarzenberger was not guilty of any of the crimes against humanity of which he has been accused under Count I. Consequently, count II cannot apply either.\nThe defendant Schwarzenberger does not belong to the group of persons who were declared criminal in the International Military Tribunal. The defendant Schwarzenberger was a member of the SS. This fact is, however, not sufficient cause for punishing defendant Schwarzenberger for reasons of membership in a criminal organization. This was positively stated in the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. For two reasons the defendant Schwarzenberger did not belong to the group of persons declared as criminal: 1.) The defendant Schwarzenberger was not a voluntary member of the SS after 1 September 1939. After this date his participation was based on a legal order, that is to say the service-regulations. 2.) The prosecution has brought no evidence that the defendant \n Schwarzenberger was aware of the criminal activities of the SS and that he was a member of the SS after the 1 September 1939 or of his having taken part in the criminal activities of the SS during his time of membership.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1272, "page_number": "1267", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "DR.HAENSEL (for the defendant Greifelt): Your Honors, I have one request to make. Gould the defendant Greifelt be excused from the afternoon session because I want to prepare my examination of this defendant which will take place immediately after the conclusion of the speeches. I would like to talk to him this afternoon and perhaps tomorrow but first of all I would like to talk to him this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your request will be granted. Proceed with the opening statement for the defendant Huebner.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1273, "page_number": "1268", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Dr. Durchholz for the defendant Huebner.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:May it please the Tribunal, the United States of America, according to the Control Council law No. 10 which is binding for then, have made serious charges against the defendants who are present here, accusing then, of crimes against humanity and war crimes. It has always been the highest and noblest aim of mankind to make law and justice a basis of life. If the Court undertakes to apply the law subsequently to a clearly defined circle of an already bygone era my duty as defense counsel will be clearly the following: To add that material to the statements by the prosecution, and to change then according to those facts to which the defendant rightly and justly is and has to be entitled to.\nWith reference to the defendant Herbert Huebner, this will mean to clear him from associations, connections, responsibilities in which he was -- according to the indictment -- involved; to describe his duty and work according to facts; last but not least, to explain how the defendant Huebner saw and had to see all the events from his pshere of activity.\nThe prosecutor has given a general description of the actual facts of the crimes which, he claims, disclose some kind of participation as defined by Control Council Law No. 10. In this connection, he enumerated the following items with respect to the defendant Huebner:\n1. Forcible Germanization, by a Re-Germanization (WED).b The procedure of the German People's List (DVL) (counts 17 and 18 of the indictment).2. Forcible evacuation and re-settlement of parts of the population (count 16 of the indictment).3. Spoliation of private and public property (count 20 of the indictment.)\n4. Persecution of the Jews and destruction of Jewish property (count 21 of the indictment.)\n5. Kidnapping of alien children (count 11 of the indictment.)\n6. Interruption of pregnancy (count 12 of the indictment).\n7. Depriving female Eastern workers of their babies (count 13 of the indictment.)", "speakers": [ "DR. DURCHHOLZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1274, "page_number": "1269", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "8. Rendering more difficult the propagation of nationals hostile to the state (count 15 of the indictment.)\n9. Finally he charged the defendant Huebner with having been a member of an organization, the SS, declared criminal by the judgment of the IMT.\nThis then is the unilateral viewpoint of the prosecution. As it is here a matter of procedure which is governed by international agreements, all the rules on which any such criminal procedure is based must be applied here too. Before deciding on the proportion of guilt which should be allotted to the defendant, the Court will have to examine to what extent the defendant Huebner actually participated in deeds which the prosecution considers crimes, and furthermore, in what capacity, manner and compass he took part, and in particular, whether he committed the deed on his own volition or b order and commands of his superiors. If this examination proves that the Defendant Huebner was actually an accessory in any of the deeds stated, then the Court will have to decide in addition on whether the deeds as such were war crimes or crimes against humanity. The recognized rules of international law and the principles of criminal law which are common to all civilized nations will have to be taken as guides in this respect.\nWhen deciding on whether acts of the defendant as such were unlawful, the Court will have to take into consideration the question also of whether they had for their only aim the setting aside developments which had been brought about deliberately and knowingly by other states and their rulers in previous years. Such an examination will become especially important as regards the charge of forcible Germanization, evacuation, resettlement and spoilation.\nFinally, the court will have to consider to what extent state necessities appear to have been responsible for changes of the principles of international life in the course of the revolutions and evolutions of our century. In this connection, it will be necessary to draw the attention of the Court to actions of member-states of the United Nations which either happened in the recent past or are still happening at present \n and which, as regards aims and scope, appear to offer points of comparison with the actions mentioned in the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1275, "page_number": "1270", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "In order to prevent an unnecessary accumulation of evidence, I shall produce evidence relative to these general problems only insofar as the various defense counsels pleading before me have not already exhausted the subject under consideration.\nIn order to form an opinion of the guilt of the individual defendants, the Prosecution has stated that every one of them did his work conscious that his activity was part of a systematic program of whole-scale murder of nations. Against this I shall show proof that:\na. The defendant Huebner, by virtue of his position and rank, was not authorized to take part in the decisive deliberations of the supreme leaders. Nor did he have any opportunity to listen to, or even to learn of, the decisive speeches of the supreme leaders, particularly those of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, which have been submitted as evidence for the Prosecution. His knowledge of the plans of the Reich leadership was limited to the same sources as were accessible to any other German.\nb. The defendant Huebner knew only very few of his present co-defendants in 1939, some others he cane to know only during the war, while others again he did not met until his detention. With none of the leading personalities of the Reich, such as the Reichsfuehrer-SS, did he have any contact whatever.\nc.The defendant Huebner's activities were restricted to the Warthegau, a province which essentially includes the territory of the Province of Poznan, which was part of Germany up to 1919.\nMy argumentation, therefore, will show that the defendant Huebner, neither by his personal participation in the decisions of the Reich leadership nor by any personal acquaintance with the leading persons, nor by having an insight into the over-all events in the Reich, was in a better position to realize the fact of a systematic program of wholesale murder of nations and the aims of the war in detail than was any other German.", "speakers": [ "c." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1276, "page_number": "1271", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Prosecution in the individual counts of the indictment does not explain which specific share of personal guilt it lays to the defendant Huebner's charge. However, by designating--as does the opening statements also--the defendant Huebner as Chief of the Poznan Field Office, or Branch Office, of the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism (Rkfdv) and as RUSleader (Race and Settlement Leader) for the Main Sector Southwest of the General-SS in Stuttgart, and later on for the \n Warthegau, the Prosecution makes it rather plain that it intends to hold him responsible for all the actions belonged to the jurisdiction of these offices.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1277, "page_number": "1272", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Aganst this I shall show proof that:\n1. The defendant Huebner was not the chief of the Field Office, or Branch Office, of the Staff Main Office at Poznan, an agency with which he had neitherofficial nor personal contact. On the contrary, he was merely staff leader of the agency of the Delegate of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism at Poznan.\nI shall outline the sphere of work and the scope of the position of the staff leader more closely in the course of my argumentation. It will prove that the defendant was not senior party official but principally and mainly chief of the internal organization of his office and its subordinate branch offices.\n2. The defendant Huebner will not contest that he was RuS (Race and Settlement) Fuehrer at a certain period. However, I am going to offer evidence that in this function in the territory of Germany proper, especially in Stuttgart, during the period in which the actions contained in the indictment could have been carried into effect, he has not exercised any functions at all, and that he therefore had no responsibility as far as the Stuttgart office of the Rus Fuehrer was concerned. As far as his activity in Posen is concerned, my evidence will prove that it had nothing to do with the main points on which the indictment is based, because for this sphere of activity a special office, the Branch Office Lodz of the Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) had been established in the Warthegau, in contrast to all other SS-Main sectors. The RuS-Fuehrer in Posen had to confine his activities during the war with a minimum of personnel to internal SS tasks only.\nHow far the Prosecution is going to charge the defendant over and above the general responsibility with his own participation in the individual actions had been made clear only from the opening statements and from the reading of the evidence of the individual counts.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1278, "page_number": "1273", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "1. As a reason for the participation in the Germanization process, the opening statements says that in the Warthegau where the defendant Huebner had been Chief of the RKFDV-Amt (Office of the Reich Commissar for strengthening of Germanism) and RuS-Fuehrer, many applicants for Germanization had been selected, and that it had been there that the first registrations had been made.\nI am going to prove that the positions of Rus-Fuehrer in the Warthegau does not constitute a participation in the Germanization process because competent for the carrying out of this process was, as I mentioned previously, not the race and settlement leader but the Branch Office Lodz of the RuSHA (Race and Settlement Main Office.)\nAs proof for the participation of the Office of the Deputy of the RKFDV (Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism) which the Prosecution probably means when calling it, as above, the RKFDV Office, the Prosecution Document No. 161 is being offered, wherein the Staff Main Office reports to the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, that, in the Warthegau the Office of the Deputy of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism had named girls for the purpose of Germanization as domestics.\nI am going to prove that this in truth was not the case, that particularly the defendant Huebner had no connection whatever with any function of this kind, and that the sentence mentioned in the above document does, above all, not allow any conclusion as to a general participation of the office of the Deputy of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism in Posen in the Germanization process.\nWith regard to the question of participation in the procedure pertaining to the DVL, the German People's List, I am going to prove that the defendant Huebner was not expected to function personally in this field nor to have any responsibility in this connection. Moreover, I am going to prove that the Office of the Deputy of the Reich Commissioner \n for the strengthening of Germanism with itsmain departments was interpolated only insofar as it had to see that for the persons on the German People's List, the confiscation of property in accordance with the Act concerning Polish property was eased or cancelled in accordance with existing regulations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1279, "page_number": "1274", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "2. The opening statement maintains that the defendant Huebner had been in charge of the deportation of the Poles and the settling of ethnical Germane in the Warthegau, and that he as the local Deputy of the Staff Main Office had signed orders of expulsion for the Warthegau.\nA.As far as the indictment wants to demonstrate the responsibility for the evacuation on the basis of the document; Exhibit 199, I will establish the proof that this regulation presents a single case which was caused by the special circumstances of housing the German refugees from the Black Sea and does not allow any conclusion as to the general jurisdiction of the defendant Huebner for \n evacuation orders.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1280, "page_number": "1275", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I am further going to prove that the document in question is not a proper regulation from the office of the representative of the RKFDV (Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism) in Poznan, but merely the transmission and repetition of an order from other authorities, who are responsible for it. In addition, I am going to prove the following facts relating to the question of evacuation:\na. The indictment wrongly imposes the responsibility for the evacuation of Poles on the Settlement Staffs. The responsibility and execution rather belonged to those agencies which were subordinated to the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, especially to the Chief of the Security Police and of the Resettlement Center (UWZ).\nb. But even the question discussed under \"a\" would be irrelevant for the defendant Huebner, because the Settlement Staffs were under his direction only with regard to the personnel and the organizational side, but not with regard to the work in their own field.\nc.Finally, it will be seen that the defendant Huebner did not yet belong to the Poznan office at the time when the main evacuations of the Poles took place.\nB.As far as the question of the resettlement of ethnic Germans is concerned, I am going to prove that the defendant Huebner neither had any responsible part in the planning of the resettlement actions in general, nor is the distribution in the individual districts. His work rather comprised the supervision of the social care for the resettled persons, who had already been brought to the individual districts by other agencies. Such care, however, which had no influence on the preceding evacuation of the resettlers from other countries, can never be defined as criminal.\n3. In order to substantiate the indictment of spoliation, the defendant Huebner evidently is to be charged with the execution of the decree regarding Polish property in the Warthegau. Here, too, I shall be able to prove that defendant Huebner had no part in this activity, either by his work or by his shouldering the responsibility. My argu \n mentation will demonstrate that the administration and utilization of Polish property was handled by the Main Trustee Office Ost, where city and industrial property was concerned, and by the Ostland GMBH, later called Reichsland GMBH, and the Farmers Resettlement Associations, where agricultural property was concerned.", "speakers": [ "c.", "B." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1281, "page_number": "1276", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "As far as the approval of the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism in Poznan was necessary for this, my evidence will give a clear insight into the fact that the responsible decision for this approval belonged to the functions of the Main Section Chiefs III and IV of the Office of the Representative of the Reich Commissary for the Strengthening of Germanism in Poznan, but did not come within the jurisdiction of the Staff Leader.\nIn regard to the possibility of carrying out the confiscation of agricultural property as a preliminary to its later administration or utilization, I shall be able to prove that it was not the Office of the Representative of the RKFDV (Reichs Commissary for the Strengthening of Germanism) which had been empowered by the Central Office to make such confiscations, but the Planning Office, the Bodenamt, which was affiliated to it but worked independently.\n4. In order to prove that the defendant Huebner has been involved in the persecution of Jews, the prosecution has referred to his participation in the negotiations regarding the utilization of the property in the Lodz Ghetto, by presenting Prosecution Exhibit No.566and the testimony of the witness Hoffmann.\nConcerning this point, it must be emphasized in advance that the utilization of this property was discussed at a time when the Ghetto inmates had already been evacuated by the RSHA Offices (Reich Main Security Office). It therefore was from the beginning only a question of the utilization of objects which already were definitely lost to their former Jewish proprietors. Besides, the utilization of the Ghetto furniture had not been embarked upon, as the defendant Huebner had no knowledge at all of any contract, such as would have had to be concluded between the Staff Main Office and Gauleiter Greiser, and \n which is dubious even according to the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1282, "page_number": "1277", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Besides, however, the evidence produced by me will show that the participation of the defendant Huebner in this ghetto action was limited to the following points:\na. Participation in a discussion in the Staff Main Office. However, defendant had to present himself at the Staff Main Office in regard to other business, and so just took part in this discussion jointly with the competent official of the Office of the Representative in Poznan, without actively entering into it or receiving special orders.\nb. Participation in a discussion regarding the utilization of the part of the Lodz Ghetto which was to be ceded to the Staff Main Office. The report of Untersturmfuehrer Grehl, submitted as Prosecution Exhibit No. 566, refers to this discussion. I shall bring proof to the effect that the remark made by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Hirschboeck mentioned therein; namely, that he had received instructions from the defendant Huebner to start demolition work, is erroneous. On the contrary, we will see that the deputy Commissioner of the RKFDV in Poznan, SS Gruppenfuehrer Reinefarth himself participated in the meeting in Lodz and issued instructions. Furthermore, it will be proven that this was but a provisional measure in order to safeguard the furnishings of the place. It is already obvious from the indictment, especially from the testimony of the witness Hoffman, that the defendant did not participate in the manufacture of furniture in the factories of the Lodz Ghetto.\n5. The defendant Huebner is further charged by the Prosecution with having kidnapped foreign children. As to his activities as RuS Fuehrer in Poznan, I shall bring proof that for all questions dealing with that subject in the Warthegau, the Branch Office Lodz of the RuSHa had jurisdiction, so that the defendant Huebner as a RuS Fuehrer could alone for this reason not have taken part.\nIn order to prove participation of the office of the Commissioner of the RKFDV in Poznan, the prosecution submitted as Prosecution Ex \n hibit No. 407 regulation No. 67/I of the Staff Main Office dated 19 February 1942.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1283, "page_number": "1278", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "with reference to this, I shall bring the following evidence:\na. Regulation No, 67/I refers only to the re-Germanization of a small number of children who came from Polish orphanages and had no ties whatsoever, and whose German origin was proved not only by racial medical examinations but had very carefully been investigated on the basis of documents.\nb. Participation of the Commissioner of the RKFDV in Poznan in the manner described by Prosecution Exhibit No.407did in reality never take place. For this special case Dr. Bartels, a member of the Gau self-administration Poznan, was in fact commissioned with the task in question, which according to the prosecution exhibit was to be carried out by the deputy of the RKPDV.\nc.The prosecution wants to represent prosecution Exhibit No. 407 as containing a distribution of tasks which had been applied not only in the Germanization of the children from the orphanages, but in all attempts at the Germanization of children. I shall prove that this attempt to amplify the contents of the prosecution exhibit is Quite without any basis.\n6. Although the prosecution also charges the defendant Huebner with having ordered the abortions to be carried out oh foreign women and 7. with having taken away babies of female workers from the East, it did not mention a single concrete case referring to the Warthegau in its presentation of the indictment.\nIt is to be assumed, therefore. that the prosecution intends to prove a participation by the defendant Huebner solely by presenting the relevant general directives. Although such an argumentation could not suffice to prove a concrete guilt, I shall adduce proof that the relevant directives of the Reich agencies did not apply in the annexed Eastern territories. Any share of the defendant Huebner in these matters is therefore out of \n the question.", "speakers": [ "c." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1284, "page_number": "1279", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "8. To what extent the defendant Huebner, as staff leader of the office of the deputy of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism or as Race and Settlement Leader may have been concerned with the implementation of directives obstructing the procreation of enemy aliens has not become obvious from the indictment.\nI shall therefore restrict my argumentation to prove that the defendant Huebner was not concerned with such tasks. Regarding the question of marriage licenses for persons whose re-Germanization was under consideration, this is proven, to quote only one instance, by the fact that all re-Germanizable persons were allocated for work in Germany proper, which means that the authorities there had to deal with any marriage licenses.\n9. A responsibility of the defendant Huebner in regard to Count III of the indictment concerning membership in a criminal organization cannot be assumed unless this Court should come to the conclusion that the offices to which the defendant belonged represented criminal groups within the proclaimed criminal organization of the SS. However, this question need not be discussed in my place because I shall adduce proof for the following points:\na. Within the narrow limits of his tasks as staff leader and local Race and Settlement Leader, the defendant Huebner was not able to survey the whole situation so as to discern its possible criminal nature. Here again I shall prove that his activity as staff leader by no means implied the comprehensive responsibility imputed by the prosecution.\nb. Furthermore, I shall prove that within the possibilities at his disposal the defendant Huebner took immediate action against any wrongs which came to his knowledge.\nI shall produce evidence in support of the enumerated points by presenting documents, in particular, affidavits; by hearing the defendant as witness in his own case; and by the interrogation of further \n witnesses.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1285, "page_number": "1280", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The sentence, however, which this Court will pass after the proofs pro and con have been adduced will hit this man Huebner. It is he and his fate, not only his actions, upon which you pass judgment.\nTherefore, in the course of the argumentation, I shall describe Huebner the man as the head of the family, a personally modest and unselfish man, who devotes himself completely to the care of his wife and children; the man in public life, restraining himself in all party strife and respecting his apponents' opinion, and who, even after the NSDAP seized power, keeps his eyes open for errors and deficiencies and does not lack the courage to censure them; the official devoted to his duty and incorruptible, who hates any kind of corruption and dishonesty, and who is absorbed in the social work for the people in his trust, who sacrifices all his possessions at the end of the war to set an example; the German who loves his Fatherland with all his heart, truly and honestly, in a way which has been considered honorable by all peoples at all times, and who does neither believe nor see that this very devotion could lead to his getting entangled in a net of dark powers.\nAnd I request you now to pass judgment on this man Huebner, the man who himself wanted only the best and did nothing dishonest, who got involved by a tragic situation in an external chain of events resulting in serious reproaches.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1286, "page_number": "1281", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of the defendant Hofmann.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann.\nMay it please your Honors, in dealing with the theoretical side of the defense of Hofmann I am stating, to start with, that the Prosecuting Authority has not in a single case found him guilty or has even accused him of personally ordering or committing one of the crimes defined in the Control Council Law No. 10. With the exception of subsections 19 and 22 of the indictment, however, he is being accused of special responsibility for these crimes and participation in them.\nIt is, therefore, my task to clear up the question of his responsibility, or, in other words, the competence and actual activities carried on by the offices which were under his command, that is to say, RuSHA from 9th July 1940 to 20 April, 1943 and the facts only up to the 13th of March, 1943, and the Higher SS and Police Leader Suedwest from 21 April 1943 to the end of the war. According to the nature of the indictment this responsibility can only be understood with reference to international law. May I in this respect cite the words of the French prosecutor on the IMT of 17th January, 1946. He said, and I quote:\n\"It is clear that in a State organized on modern lines all responsibility rests with those who directly negotiate for the State as they alone are able to judge the legality of the issued orders; they alone are able to take action and ought to be prosecuted.\"\nFrom this point of view only can one judge the work done by the RuSHA and the activities of its individual executive members within the framework of the activities of the RKFDV, Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Far be it from me in dealing with this problem to burden another Main Office with responsibility for the RuSHA, as the prosecution witness Bach-Zelewski has predicted. I shall try to make it possible for Your Honors to get a clear picture of the actual position, but, of course, one which is purged of phantastic and boasting \n statements made by ambitious people.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1287, "page_number": "1282", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "On the other hand, this statement of the non-competency of RuSHA is on no account to be taken as an admission of an illegal action committed by the authority who bears the actual responsibility.\nI am referring to the statements made in the sentence passed by the IMT. According to this the RuSHA was responsible together with branch offices for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans, VOMI, but at another spot the following statement is made, and I quote: \"RuSHA of the SS, together with VOMI was busy carrying out Germanization plans in the occupied territories in accordance with the racial principles of the Nazi Party, and also with the deportation of the Jews and other foreign nationals.\" Even the evidence produced by the Prosecution proves the incorrectness of this description.\nThe indictment too draws its conclusions from Hitler's political attitude, especially from the most cruel mass-extermination of the Jews. We also have to deal with the lasting effect of war-time propaganda which turned against the toughest enemy in the field, the SS. That the SS consisted of the most hetergenous elements, that, for instance, the Gestapo and the SD wore the same black uniforms as the general SS and the Waffen-SS, only with different flashes, that their spheres of action had nothing to do with each other even though Himmler, as was only natural, wanted to simplify his organization in order to be able to rule it. All this could be hardly understood by a German, let alone an American. The outsider was bound to see in the SS an organization for the destruction of races, and the Race and Settlement Main Office was the guiding force behind this political creed.\nIt is, according to German opinion, the task of the defense to show up the true criminals as it is. On the other hand, it also should be the task of the prosecuting authority to duly consider the evidence in favor of the defense and to put it at its disposal. It is impossible to understand how the prosecuting authority which had an immense quantity of documents at its disposal could have drawn such a distorted picture \n of RuSHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1288, "page_number": "1283", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Even the witness for the Prosecution Bach-Zelewski had to admit that, and I quote: \"Whereas Gross, the leader of the race-political office of the NSDAP, RPA, more strongly concerned himself with the negative aspects of the racial idea than with the extermination of foreign races. Darre, the leader of RuS activities of 1932 - 1938, has promoted the racial idea more constructively from the peasant angle. He wanted to promote his own race.\" The work of RuSHA was, therefore, concerned with race-hygienical, eugenic problems, not with that of racial struggles.\nI shall, therefore, prove that RuSHA concerned itself only with the selection of the elite among the SS. The activity of the RuSHA was comparable with the functions of the headquarters which had to look after the recruiting of the guards and had to decide upon the granting of permission for marriages. Above and beyond this an effort was made to win back the members of the SS to the ranks of the peasantry and by way of settlement activities, to check the very general migration from the country. In racial questions the RuSHA steered clear of an exaggerated anti-semitical attitude like that of Streicher or in the line of the RPA. Even the training of the SS which was, however, no longer under control of RUSHA after 1938 kept strictly apart from these groups, a fact which may sound strange to outsiders. Therefore, before I start discussing details of the various counts, I shall have to present Your Honors a clear picture of the real tasks and activity of RuSHA.\nIt probably happens to every authority or organization than an ambitious official over-steps his authority and expresses thoughts which do not conform with or are going far beyond the tasks, activities and plans of his superiors. It is not astonishing that this was the case to a still higher degree in a young organization like the SS which in its fast development had to accept within its ranks many duds and many over-ambitious people. One cannot deny either that Hofmann himself in \n his capacity as chief of the RuSHA has made remarks in his private letters which gave a picture of his own very personal wishes but which did not conform with the actual work done and with the reality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1289, "page_number": "1284", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It is difficult at present, especially considering the possibilities of finding evidence, which I shall discuss later on, to put truth aid fiction into their proper place. That this is necessary is shown by the hearing of the witness Pancke about the ambitions Von Gottsberg. There was also a referent employed in the race office by the name of Harder, a very active man, whose ambition reached far beyond the scope of Ms actual duties, a person trying to give preponderance to his ambitious ideas. The documents of the Prosecution which are not decrees or official records of meetings have only questionable value insofar as they represent the personal ideas and suggestions of these ambitious people, since such plans were not realized.\nThe most difficult task consists in bringing the ideas of Himmler himself which have only now become known to a larger part of the SS members in agreement with the facts. His speeches -- they were mainly only talks delivered before a very restricted circle -- now disclose his criminal designs that is true, and point to many crimes. The defendant Hofmann also listened to the speech in Poznan in October, 1943, that is, after his suspension from the position as chief of RuSHA, although he did not hear the speech in its entirety. Is it possible on such grounds to hold him responsible for all of Himmler's crimes which the letter had committed in secrecy together with a small circle of selected and silent henchman? The witness Pan eke has already testified that the tasks of the RuSHA were purely positive in distinction to the negative tasks of the RSHA, the strong-arm of Himmler. The conflict between good and evil, which was fought actually only in the breast of Himmler, the RSHA and RuSHA were his organizations, but no close connections existed between them and they carried out their tasks by orders directly from Himmler. This conflict is being reflected in most phases of the happenings which are here the subject of the indictment. The antagonism \n becomes manifest in the very same speech of Himmler Poznan:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1290, "page_number": "1285", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "\"I am now speaking of the most important virtues which I have years ago started preaching to and impressing upon this order, the entire SS, for they are the foundation of the order: 1, loyalty; 2, obedience; 3, bravery; 4, truthfulness; 5, honesty; 6, good fellowship; 7, joy at responsibilities; 8, diligence; 9, abstention from liquor.\"\nOn the other hand he is speaking of extermination of Jews, etc. Perhaps one could describe RuSHA as his good and the RSHA as his evil face. Himmler appeared with both faces. He only is responsible, even though he succeeded in shirking the responsibility. But RuSHA cannot here be held responsible for the activities of the far more important RSHA.\nRuSHA and Himmler's Activity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism(RKFDV).\nNot until after the outbreak of the war and sometime after the appointment of Himmler as RKFDV were racial examiners of the SS Office for Racial Matters assigned to each single agency of the RKFDV. RuSHA itself, however, attended to its old tasks as before, to which later in particular the care of families of SS-men drafted for military service was added. The \"borrowed\" racial examiners, as it was expressed by the witness Pancke, were, however, put to work directly for the RKFDV in the same way as the branch offices (AST) of the RuSHA. Their official activity was completely absorbed by the RKFDV, but from a professional point of view they were still connected with the Office for Racial Matters. Their number was rather small, approximately fifty altogether at any given time. The Prosecution has alleged that they were responsible for the racial screening of millions of persons who had been torn away from their native country. To master such a task would have been impossible even by using the number stated of racial examiners. In fact, they were also only used in certain cases which I shall subsequently specify.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1291, "page_number": "1286", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The following comparison might elucidate the relationship between RuSHA and its trained employees and the activity of the RKFDV: The Hollorith, A.G., did not sell its machines but only loaned them to other firms. To operate these machines experts who alone knew how to handle them were sent out from the parent company accompanying the machines. Machine and expert remained property and employee respectively of the Hollorith A.G. But the borrowing firm benefited from their work output. If any unlawful act was carried out by means of the machines or the experts, the Hollorith A.G. cannot be held responsible for such acts.\nTHE PRESIDENT:How much more do you have?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have only read one-third of my speech.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30. (A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 20 November 1947.)", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1292, "page_number": "1287", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 29 November 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nDR.SCHWARZ; (Attorney for the Defendand Hofmann) I continue with my opening statement.\nPerhaps exactly the case of Lidice is characteristic of the nature of the activity of RuSHA agencies. The destruction of Lidice was a pure police action, or, if you please, a horrible retaliatory measure. The idea of wishing to justify this measure in any way could hardly occur to anybody. But now to see an occasion in this to name this trial thereafter, and to throw the blame on persons completely anaccountable in regard to these events, that appears incomprehensible and must be repudiated as not serving the gravity of this trial or the finding of the truth.\nThe fact must here be pointed out that it was not a question of implementation of part of an over-all program of so-called national murder, as alleged by the Prosecution, but of an isolated action in consequence of which individual instrumentalities effected on a purely professional basis, such as the examining physician, the transport agencies, and perhaps a racial examiner had to be utilized. On similar grounds the Reich Health Leader or the Minister of Transport could have been prosecuted; the person who issued the order for the annihilation of Lidice, and those carrying out this order knowingly and wilfully are not to be seen in the dock.\nIt is true that it appears from Exhibit 399 that in one case the branch office for Bohemia and Moravia, that means not the branch office in Lodz, Litzmanstadt, is said to have declared seven children eligible for Germanization. But nowhere in the entire presented correspondence is RuSHA itself \n mentioned.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1293, "page_number": "1288", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Nothing was ever reported to Hofmann concerning these events. According to the explanation of the Prosecution, which, however, has not been proved, in Cladno apparently a racial examiner was called upon to undertake a racial screening and is said to have selected three children. But this racial examiner could not possibly have been informed of the true facts of the case, this being a secret state operation, but was required to base his findings solely on physical characteristics. As it is a well known fact that the German and the Czechoslovakian population groups in Czechoslovakia are strongly intermixed, the racial examiner concerned could hardly find anything strange about an examination like the one referred to. Even when assuming that the superior authority to which he was subordinate, the branch office for Bohemia and Moravia, had been informed of what was actually going on, this, however, has not been proved; this knowledge cannot without any evidence to this effect be imputed to RuSHA. I shall prove that the branch office held a position completely independent of the RuSHA. It carried out the orders of the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia without prior notification of the RuSHA. Therefore, the RuSHA had no possibility of intervening.\nBesides, the action of the racial examiner did not cause the disappearance of the remaining children. It at all an examination was made by the AST (Branch Office) Bohemia and Moravia or Lodz- a claim that could not be confirmed by any of the Czech children on the witness stand, it was due to this selection that seven children were saved. Without the activity of the racial examiners these children would have met with the same fate as the other Lidice children.\nThe case of Lezaky has to be judged the same way.\nOne Roedel was to carry out the examinations of the so-called Yougoslav bandit children as an E. Pr. (Racial \n Examiner). This, too, occurred without order or knowledge by the RuSHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1294, "page_number": "1289", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Himmler's order of 25th June, 1942, Exhibit 390, was not given to the RuSHA. The order for the examination of 14th September 1942, Exhibit 399, was issued by the local representative of the RKFDV, Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Obersteiner, in execution of Himmler's order. As a coicidence, this Obersteiner exercised at the same time the functions of RuSHFuehrer (Race and Settlement) which obviously caused the Prosecution to mistakenly conclude that also in this matter he acted in his capacity as representative of the RuSHA. I shall prove that this was not the case.\nIn the case of the children from Polish orphanages, the order 67/I of the Staff Main Office is on hand, Exhibit 407, and which confers over the head of the RuSHA directly to the Branch Office Lodz the task to ascertain the eligibility for Germanization. The AST, Branch Office, thus has been assigned a task of the RKFDV and is not accountable in this case to the RuSHA. The RuSHA merely lent its expert organization which was also financed for its activity by the RKFDV.\nThe Prosecution has further claimed that in many cases the RuSHA gave German sounding names to children who were eligible for Germanization. They still owe the necessary proof. Besides, I shall prove that there existed no such authorization.\nThe WED Procedure, Re-Germanization procedure. The identical official position of the AST Lodz towards the RKFDV and the RuSHA is evident in the WED procedure. The order 17/II of 9th May 1940, Exhibit 138) was issued by the RKFDV, accordingly, not by the RuSHA. It is self-evident that the previous special principles as to selection, which were in force for SS applicants, could not automatically be applied to Polonized former Germans. Therefore, Hofmann had \n to cause new special directives to be issued.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1295, "page_number": "1290", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Prosecution even speaks of innumerable; however, it lacks the necessary proof. Outside of these special instructions the RuSHA itself had no opportunity to exercise any influence on the AST Lodz whose activity was completely within the scope of the RKFDV and there in a rather independent way. For this purpose it was also financed by the RKFDV. This can easily be proven on the basis of the documents introduced by the Prosecution.\nThe AST Lodz was included in the WED procedure in the case of the evacuations only after the evacuation was already completed. It can easily be understood that the lot of the expelles was similar to that of the millions of Germans who in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement of 1945 were expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia, only the number was lower, that is to say about 400,000. The AST Lodz was not responsible for their evacuations. From this number it selected about 20,000 as eligible for re-Germanization, and who volunteered for WED (re-Germanization) and who for instance could not emigrate to France or the United States. Today these people will declare that they were evacuated by force, be it only in order not to lose the status of displaced persons and the privileges connected therewith. But again I shall be able to prove that at least in the territory of the HSSPF, Southwest, Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest, the WED's volunteered and that their treatment did at least equal that accorded to the native population, and that they were not subjected to special political surveillance. Any other treatment could never have obtained the desired goal, that is to regain Polonized persons of German origin. They could, therefore, not be treated like slaves. It can never be avoided that there are everywhere some dissatisfied people not that some outrages are committed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1296, "page_number": "1291", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Punishment of Sexual Intercourse with Germans. To forbid sexual intercourse with Germans was clearly one of the negative tasks of the RSHA; for the RSHA was responsible according to the Decree of 7th October 1939 for the elimination of harmful foreign racial influences. The purpose of this order was to prevent an infiltration by persons of foreign racial origin and to forestall a fraternization. The Prosecution, however, claims this had been part of the program of genecide. I shall introduce again documents which will reveal that all over the world similar restrictions existed, particularly during the war. It is, therefore, questionable whether these restrictions were contrary to international law, particularly since the eastern worker had to sign a certificate to the effect that he had been instructed as to these restrictions.\nThe activity of the racial examiner consisted of ascertaining physical traits which probably at times were condensed in an expert opinion by the Race Office.\nThe ascertaining of the facts, the evaluation of the character, the medical opinion, etc., were reached by the Gestapo and other headquarters. The final decision about life or death was dealt with by Himmler himself. When the Prosecution draws the conclusion that a negative evaluation by the Racial Examiner usually was followed by the death of the person concerned, it has disregarded the basic laws of cause and logic, for without the collaboration of the racial examiner death or concentration camp would have been called for automatically.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1297, "page_number": "1292", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Due to the activity of the racial examiner, the offenders never experienced a deterioration of their situation, but in many cases an improvement; that is to say, they were kept free from punishment.\nI shall further prove that the restriction on sexual intercourse with Germans was introduced long before the racial examiners were included in the procedure. The historical development will thus show that the racial examiners merely caused an improvement in the position of the people concerned and did not form a conditio sine qua non for the punishment.\nThe Prosecution also has been unable to prove that Hofmann, in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader participated in the execution of this restrictive order. In contrast with other districts, the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest did not get the files of the Gestapo in solicitation of his opinion with the effect that he could make no proposal as to punishment. I shall prove that he merely passed on the communication of the Gestapo about the execution literally to the Gauleiter without ever having the possibility to intervene.\nAbortions:\nThe cases brought before indictment here were previously made legal. I will prove that in various states abortion was and still is legally permissible today. A contradiction to internati on law, therefore, may not be maintained.\nThe RSHA, Amt. IV, was also responsible for the ruling, since it had jurisdiction over all questions which applied to Eastern workers. The racial examiners and the Higher SS and Police Leader were included in only a negligible number of cases, not in all cases as the Prosecution maintains, namely, not in those cases when both partners were Eastern workers. The racial examiners had merely to determine the physical characteristics when the male partner was of German or racially similar blood. If this determination resulted positively, he cast his veto against the abortion. Here, too, his activity constituted no conditio sine qua non for the abortion which was performed, \n for without his collaboration, which, in addition was given only relatively rarely, the abortion would have been performed anyway.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1298, "page_number": "1293", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I will take pains to prove that the abortion took place by request of the pregnant woman. To the objection of the Prosecution that under the labor conditions during wartime voluntary action of the Eastern workers was not possible, I oppose with the same right the idea that even under different circumstances these workers would have wanted the abortion of illegitimate children for economic and, above all, for social reasons.\nDepriving the Eastern female workers of their infants:\nThe order concerning the treatment of the children born to foreign workers was likewise issued through the RSHA, Amt. IV-D. As additional responsible offices, we may also consider Sauckel as General Plenipotentiary for the labor Allocation and the Reich Health Leader. The racial examiners should again only be included in cases in which the father of the child was of German or racially related blood. If the racial examiners arrived at a negative determination, the pregnant woman or the child was treated in the same manner as the other Eastern workers and their children, thus, as if the racial examiners had not been active at all. When the determination was positive, on the other hand, the mothers were accommodated in the best possible places of confinement and the children were cared for by the National Socialist Welfare Organization, thus better than in the foreign children's nurseries. However, mother and child could never be separated without the consent of the mother.\nIn no case did the Prosecution offer proof against Hofmann personally to the effect that he over participated as Higher SS and Police Leader in one of the crimes named in Point 13 of the Indictment. The above-mentioned order of the RHSA--Exhibit 496--was issued on 27 July 1943, thus, after Hofmann had left the RuSHA. I propose, therefore, that the claim of the Prosecution be declared insufficient and No. 13 of the Indictment against Hofmann be struck out.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1299, "page_number": "1294", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Impeding propagation of enemy citizens:\nI make the same proposal for No. 15 of the Indictment against Hofmann for the following reasons:\n1. The prohibition of marriage between protectees and non-protectees was issued as a decree of the state and published in the Reich Law Gazette of 25 April 1943. Hofmann had already left the RuSHA at this time. The Prosecution does not charge him with any sort of cooperation in his sphere of duty as Higher SS and Police Leader.\n2. The prohibition of marriage between members of Group 3 of the German People's List and members of Group 4 of the German People's List was issued through the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism on 9 February 1942 -- Exhibit 99. This does not mean that the RUS Fuehrers were authorized to check petitions for permission to marry, as the Prosecution maintains. In Exhibit 538 too, no jurisdiction of that sort of the RUS Fuehrers is regulated. The latter were only referred once more to the observation of the prohibition of 9 February 1942. No witness confirmed the claim of the Prosecution in any one case.\n3. On 10 January 1944, Himmler, as Reich Minister of the Interior, issued an order in which marriage between male Polish protectees under 28 and female Polish protectees under 25 was forbidden. The Prosecution maintained that the RuSHA was entrusted with carrying out the prohibition. The sphere of duties of the RuSHA shows that it had nothing to do with marriage consents for Poles. That was an affair of the RSHA or of the competent administrative authorities. The prohibition was only relayed to the RUS Fuehrers for their information so that they would not act against the prohibition when petitions were submitted to them for exemption from this prohibition. This is to be taken from Exhibit 536. The evidence of the Prosecution is therefore irrelevant. Hofmann had already left the RuSHA before this decree was published. The Prosecution has not accused him, in his capacity of Higher SS and Police Leader, of any practical case.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1300, "page_number": "1295", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "4. The discussion in the Reich Ministry of Justice of 10 March 1943, cited by the Prosecution, did not take place in the manner in which the zealous representative of the RuSHA, Harder, stated in his one-page file note, which was not authorized by the RuSHA--Exhibit 419 --and besides, as may be seen from the document, it had no result. It is therefore unnecessary to introduce a counter-proof with reference to this.\nCompulsory Evacuation and Resettlement:\nThe responsibility of the RuSHA is seen here in the work of a RuSHA office within the EWZ. This RUS office was one of the seven offices of which the EWZ was composed. The EWZ itself was an office of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, thus, an office under the supervision of the RSHA. It was purely a naturalization authority. I will take pains to prove that the racial examination by the RUS office had no influence on the naturalization itself, and only formed a point of departure for the distribution of ethnic Germans in the area of the German Reich. In itself, this proof is superfluous for the following reasons:\n1. Each state may regulate its immigration according to the way it sees fit, thus also according to racial points of view.\n2. The distribution of ethnic Germans would have taken place even without the cooperation of the RUS office.\n3. The RUS office was completely incorporated into the EWZ, for the activity of which the leader of the EWZ was alone responsible.\n4. Neither the RUS office in the EWZ nor the RuSHA itself participated in the mass deportations which had to precede the settlements of the ethnic Germans.\nThe German People's List:\nThe German People's List came into being by a decree of the Reich Ministry of the Interior of 4 March 1941. It is possible that a representative of the RuSHA had been consulted previously concerning a special technical question. The political and legal question, however, \n could only be decided by the responsible minister.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1301, "page_number": "1296", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Criminal responsibility of the RuSHA for the German People's List must be disregarded from the bery beginning because the German People's List would have been established just as well without the consultation of the representative of the RUS.\nThe racial examiners were active, as the cases demanded, within the responsible state administrative organizations. Their cooperation took place only within the sphere of Department III of the German People's List and only in three cases in which the state authorities had waived their right of retraction. The classification in one of the four departments of the German People's List was not contingent upon the judgment of the racial examiner. The classification was made exclusively by reason of the political activity or appraisal. Regarding the persons of German blood, who were classified in Department IV in the German People's List, the racial examiners had no influence whatsoever.\nRegarding the alleged coercion, neither the RuSHA nor the racial examiner can be made responsible. Himmler's order of 16 February 1942 --Exhibit 114--had been issued via the Reich Main Security Office, RSHA. It is regrettable for the entire proceedings here that no representative of the RSHA is in the dock.\nSpoliation:\nIt has already been established by witnesses for the Prosecution --Wirsich, Hoffmann and Goetz -- that the Settlement Office of the SS was not authorized to undertake requisitions and confiscations.\nThe Prosecution has charged that the RuSHA participated in spoliations in that it settled SS men in the East, and that it managed large acreages of cultivated land. However, this has not been proved in a single case. The documents which have been submitted show only that the Settlement Office trained the settlement applicants and sent them to agricultural enterprises in the East. I will take careful pains to prove:\n1. That these enterprises were subordinated to other author \n ities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1302, "page_number": "1297", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "2. That these enterprises before the occupation were community farms, etc., (Kolchosen) which belonged to the Russian State.\n3. That they served for the supply of the combat troops.\n4. That the Settlement Office, at the time of Hofmann's activity, had not acquired one square meter of ground as property.\nMoreover, such a management is unobjectionable with regard to international law and has been recognized also by the allies as permissible.\nHofmann could only be made, responsible for the activity of the Settlement Office insofar as he issued direct orders which could create the effect of a war crime. However, an indictment in that respect can never be founded merely on privately made utterances of the defendant. If Hofmann made such utterances, then they did not represent official directives or orders or even officially expressed opinions. It has never happened that a statesman has been made criminally responsible for purely off-the-record statements or has been brought before a court martial. I will therefore prove:\n1. That Hofmann practically issued no directives.\n2. That the Settlement Office, in its own technical field, worked completely independently because its chief was an expert, whereas Hofmann was a non-expert.\n3. That the practical activity of the Settlement Office was an entirely different one, as one may assume from the off-the-record opinions.\nPersecution of Jews:\nThe biggest mistake of the Prosecution can be found in the fact that it makes Hofmann responsible for the persecution of the Jews. All of us desire nothing more ardently than to find out the guilty and to see them sentenced. It is, therefore, all the more repugnant to see a man connected with it who was active in an entirely different field.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1303, "page_number": "1298", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Hofmann had been invited by Heydrich to the conference for the final solution of the Jewish problem, without any action on his part and without any pertinent connection, obviously out of a personal whim of Heydrich. Nothing was left to him but to accept the invitation of the most important man next to Himmler. During the conference Hofmann, in contrast to Heydrich, intervened for the benefit of the Jewish persons of mixed blood of the first degree. If he had been a Jew-hater, then he would have agreed with Heydrich's opinion. Due to his objection, the matter was postponed. The conference ended without any result, Sterilization of persons of mixed blood did not ultimately take place.\nThe Main Race and Settlement Office at no time had anything whatsoever to do with the treatment of the Jews. The only thing which was in connection with Jewry at all was a card index of persons of mixed blood, which was handled at the Genealogical Office, and later on at the Genealogical Record Office. It contained the ancestors of SS applicants who had been found to be Jewish, by way of investigations at the Reich Genealogical Office or other offices. Because the applicants had to prove that there were no Jews among their ancestors as far back as the year 1800, this card index was intended to make the research easier. For the same reason, attempts were made-in those European countries where men volunteered for service with the Waffen SSto contact such offices of the Reich Security Main Office which had seized card indexes of Jews. Contrary to this, the Prosecution reversed the facts and charges that the card index of Jews of the RuSHA had been put at the disposal of the RSHA for the execution of the persecution of the Jews.\nMy task, to fix the limits of responsibility of the various offices and to find out the guilty, has been made very difficult by the actions of the Prosecution. It reconstructs, seen from the point of view of today, a grandiose program of extermination and submits as evidence for it various memoranda which had been kept top secret and \n which had not been made known to Hofmann.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1304, "page_number": "1299", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "These memoranda had been drawn up only after the beginning of the war, after a part of the resettling had already been accomplished. This alone shows clearly that it was only the bitter reality of the facts which were brought about by the return of the ethnic Germans and the complete subjugation of Poland, the result of which was the establishment of the Offices of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Unfortunately, the Prosecution did not deal with the historical development of the old political tensions in the East, especially in Poland. The areas of conflict existing there always led, in bygone centuries, to wars.\nCharacteristic for World War I was the battle of Panslavism against Germanism, which became, in World War II, the fight between bolshevism and National Socialism. In addition, the borders fixed by the Treaty of Versailles had created numerically large minorities in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Italy, which were in natural opposition to the main populations of those countries. The United States of America has removed that condition through the transfer of Indians to reservations, the enslavement of the Negroes, and through strict regulation of immigration, quite some time ago, which brought about the peaceful cohabitation of the various nationalities and races. The present day citizens of the United States of America, therefore, will not be able to understand the persecutions which take place even today in Eastern Europe for ethnic, national, and racial reasons.\nThe Prosecution has accepted Professor Lemkin's theory of the socalled crime of genocide. That theory had already been submitted by Lemkin, in October 1933, to the International Conference for the Standardization of Criminal Law. It was not, however, considered valid. In the trial before the IMT the Prosecution also based its arguments on that theory. It was not referred to in the verdict, however, or it would be necessary to state that every form of war represented the crime of genocide. Above all others, however, one of the most cruel forms of war, the economic war which was carried on during World War \n I by means of the food blockade and the black lists, whose victims were millions of innocent women and children, and the war through bombardment, are not included in the crime of genocide.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1305, "page_number": "1300", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "In order to explain the present position of international law in regard to this, I shall introduce sufficient evidence.\nIt is necessary, for the same reason, to discuss the racial question. Far be it from me to defend it on scientific grounds. It cannot be denied, however, that the population may be classified into various races. Neither can it be denied that those races became the subject of legislation in those states where racial contrasts made such legislation necessary. It is quite natural that no people and no race considers itself as the worst one. If Hitler in his own book Mein Kampf, the Office for Racial Policy in its memoranda, and Himmler in his speeches have given themselves over to the theory of the Master Race, it undoubtedly represents a presumption without equal. One cannot, however, concur in the conclusion which was drawn by the Prosecution, that the above-named had had visions of world rule. Much more credible seems the explanation that Hitler wanted to give a new ideal to the German people after it was town into many parties, whose economic and moral standards had dropped after losing World War I, in order to revitalize the people. At least this is proven by his speeches, which stress superficially that every people had a right to build its own destiny according to its own desire.\nIt is doubtful whether Hofmann's position as Chief of the RuSHA can be considered as a leading and responsible position in the overall framework of the genocide program. I do not want to make him appear of a lesser stature than he actually was. However, this trial concerns the determination of his personal guilt and not possibly Himmler's. Hofmann was the chief of a purely administrative, technical office, and not of a political office. It would be worthless to debate whether or not Hofmann or his subordinates had carried out their assigned duties properly. That would be the duty of many experts. It \n merely remains to be determined how far he interfered with the normal development of matters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1306, "page_number": "1301", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Hofmann, like his predecessor Pancke, was no expert on racial matters. He had to rely on the technical directives of this office to the branch offices and to the racial examiners. Himmler personally issued the basic orders. Hofmann never had any influence on those orders.\nI am going to skip one paragraph.\nHis relations with Himmler never were of a closer nature. He was constantly watched by him with distrust and was censured by him severely for the slightest reason. It is also characteristic that Hofmann did not become the permanent chief of the RuSHA, but was appointed only for the duration of the war. Since the duties of the RuSHA had been greatly restricted after the departure of Darre and especially after the outbreak of the war, Himmler believed it possible to entrust Hofmann with this meaningless position. Hofmann, however, fell into disgrace in 1943 because of the intrigues directed against him by ambitious persons, and was transferred as Higher SS and Police Leader to Stuttgart.\nIt will be shown by the official and personal position of Hofmann that he was in no position to interfere decisively with matters, or even to deter Himmler or other offices competent to issue orders, from carrying out their intentions. He was merely able to mitigate and to protect the good from the bad.\nI would not fulfill my duty as a defense counsel if I did not point out the difficulty of the Defense in regard to the procurement of evidence. While the Prosecution has been able to work on the preparation of this trial for over two and a half years, the Defense has come into possession of a portion of the Prosecution's documents only a few days ago. Under German procedure the Defense is permitted access to all documents, including the exonerative ones, immediately following the presentation of the indictment. All the documents were confiscated by the allies after the collapse. Until now, however, the \n Defense has not been given access to them, and especially not to the document center.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1307, "page_number": "1302", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It is shown in the Kogan affidavit -- Exhibit 2 -- that merely the incriminating material has been utilized out of all the masses of documents. The Defense has no means to utilize the exonerative material. In several cases I have attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain specifically named documents which have been accepted as evidence by the Tribunal.\nIn addition, it is impossible to present important defense witnesses. Some of them are dead; a large number of them are in Russian captivity. Already in July 1947, this Tribunal approved six of my witnesses. Though in some cases I was even able to supply their locations in Russian territory, I was told that it was impossible to produce these witnesses. This group mainly includes the department chiefs (Amtschefs) who alone are informed of the events which are under indictment here.\nThe majority of the men who are in the dock here do not have to defend themselves as the main culprits, but rather as participants. The main culprits are either dead or are not on trial. It is noteworthy that in this trial the representatives of the RSHA, Reich Main Security Office, are not in the dock, but in many cases appear as witnesses for the Prosecution. The most important thing, however, is to determine the main act. In many cases the participants are unable to justify it, so that they are put in a worse position from the start. Above all, the reaching of a verdict, however, must refer to the main deed, and sets a precedent for other trials. For all the more reason must the maxim in dubio pro reo apply in this case.\nIn closing I wish to recapitulate once more my proposals to drop Sections 13 and 15 of the Indictment against Hofmann. I consider that essential in the interest of the speeding up of the trial and its simplification, since I would have to introduce a considerable amount of evidence in case the Tribunal should not agree with this, my legal \n Opinion.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1308, "page_number": "1303", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement for Brueckner.\nDR.DOETZER (Counsel for the defendant Brueckner): May it please the Tribunal, the Tribunal has been appointed on the basis of Control Council Law No. 10 and Ordinance No. 7 for trying and sentencing the crimes established in Control Council Law No. 10. Thus it has the same international status as the International Military Tribunal. It is not lower in authority; neither is it in principle, nor in general, dependent upon the latter's statements and opinions.\nMy client, Hans Brueckner, has, above all, been charged with a crime against humanity according to Article II-1-c of t he Control Council Law.\nAs far as I can see, the conception of a crime against humanity as a charge under criminal law was unknown in the world of civilized nations and in the international science of criminal law up to the year 1945. The moral conceptions on the basis of which it has now been established have, however, been the common property of many cultured nations for about 50 years.\nIt is striking that the wording of Control Council Law No. 10 in Article II-1-c, and that of the Statutes of the International Military Tribunal in Article 6 (c). show divergencies which I, however, do not intend to discuss in detail in this connection.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1309, "page_number": "1304", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The legal standardization clearly shows that in the enumeration in Article II 1c - the character of which is still being disputed different types of crimes against humanity are listed side by side, to wit: individual crimes and mass crimes as well as persecution for racial, political and religious reasons. By mentioning these crimes under the definition of crimes against humanity they should in my opinion he given a specific meaning.\nIn the judgment of the Military Tribunal No. II against Pohl and others (German Transcript Page 7967) the interpretation of crimes against humanity as \"cruelty against human life, degradation of human dignity or destruction of human culture\" has been approved. This contribution toward the solution of the problem to be discussed here, in my opinion, however, only constitutes one step. It seems to me that another definition of crime against humanity as \"misuse of political power\" likewise is of little avail although it conveys the correct understanding that the human individual must have been hurt in its being by the political power. The decisive factor is, however, still whether the crime against humanity can be interpreted uniformly in international law as a central conception of international criminal law, since this alone can, in my opinion, be the task of the Tribunal; or, in other words: Was there, at the time when the defendant Brueckeer performed the deed, or is there today a generally acknowledged international. uniform interpretation of what is misuse of political power, degradation of human dignity, destruction of human culture and cruelty against human life? Without doubt mankind would like to answer this question in the affirmative but the warning by Oliver Wendell Homes to us jurists - \"voluntarily to restrict ourselves and to consider the facts and the laws\" - leads one to the bitter realization that this is only wishful thinking on our part which has not yet materialized in the common legislation of the world. A good illustration of this, in place of many others, are the proceedings against the Bulgarian politician, Petkoff. According to the Anglo-Saxon legal conception his \n being sentenced to death by a Bulgarian Court is a crime against humanity \"being a persecution for political reasons.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1310, "page_number": "1305", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "According to the view of the Bulgarians Petkoff has committed high treason and treason and has justly been sentenced to death and executed. Both legal views assert, which is especially remarkable, that they meet the fundamental principles of democracy and thus of humanity.\nWe must, therefore, establish the following: 1.) The criminal fact of crime against humanity has been established uniformly by the signatory powers; 2.) The criminal fact of crime against humanity can, however, at present not be interpreted uniformly with regard to international law by the signatory powers.\nThis means for the jurist that the crime against humanity in its practical application lacks the fundamental principle of the criminal law of all cultured nations, that is, security before the law.\nIt is now intended to imply, what would be natural, that this legal standard of justice, therefore, solely had an ethical value and lacked legal importance. It seems, however, absolutely necessary to infer from this that in a practical application of this standard of justice one must not proceed from a certain political, economic, cultural or ideological conception, although it may be ever so difficult, almost impossible, to fulfill this.\nAll of Brueckner's actions, which have been charged with being crimes against humanity must, therefore, be examined with, a view to whether they violate rules of the international law generally acknowledged. In addition, it is necessary to ascertain whether my client knew of them and whether he, in defiance of these rules, without a reason, arbitrarily and maliciously violated the individual rights of persons or participated in such deeds by abetting them. This problem which has only been briefly touched in this connection does not become clearer in its outlines, much less is it being solved, by the Prosecution's introducing conception \"genocide\" in regard to \n the crimes against humanity with which Brueckner is being charged.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1311, "page_number": "1306", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "A comparison between the verbal charge of the Prosecution with the analysis of \"genocide\" published by Raphael Lemkin in 1944:\n\"A new expression and a new conception for the extermination of nations\" shows that both agree in their ideas and in their motives, even in the quotations. The charge has, however, even been extended since Lemkin does not mention the resettlement or repatriation of groups of ethnic Germans residing outside of the borders of the Reich as being \"genocide.\" This would also make his train of thought entirely inconsistent as the very aim of his work is the rescue of ethnic groups.\nQuite apart from this, the deposition of Lemkin shows unequivocally and doubtlessly that the conception \"genocide\" is no generally acknowledged conception in international law. As early as in October 1933 it was rejected in its initial form presented by the author at the international conference for the simplification of criminal law in Madrid. Lemkin himself draws the conclusion from this that charge of \"genocide\" as a crime is not possible, because an international convention does not exist. This was probably the reason for the Prosecution's attempt to nut the concept \"genocide\" as a crime on the same level as a crime against humanity. Thus we have the same question before us again, namely the question which we asked at the beginning during the investigation of the concept crime against humanity, and the same misgivings remain. In addition, this coupling together of terms violated the basic principle of justice determined by the International Military Tribunal \"nullem crimen sine lege, nulla peena sine lege\", which needs no further explanation.\nObjectively speaking, the basic problem of these proceedings is, whether resettlement, evacuation and deportation are contrary to international law as such. The assertion of the prosecution that these measures constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity through violating international law of the Hague Convention, forgets that inter \n national law has always recognized resettlement, evacuation and deportation as legal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1312, "page_number": "1307", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I do not consider it necessary to discuss such transfers of groups of people in so far as they occurred before the last terrible war. It should, however, suffice to state that in the Potsdam Agreement of 2 August 1945, which was concluded when the military forces of Japan allied with the German Reich were still at war, the transfer of the German population - regardless whether they were Reich or ethnic Germans from Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia - was decided on by the three large signatory powers of Control Council Law No. 10. Thus, it necessarily follows that forced resettlement, evacuation and deportation of national groups is, objectively speaking, in agreement with international law, and the only point can be, whether during the execution of such forced transfers any crimes against humanity and war crimes were committed.\nThus, if such forced transfers of national groups are legal according to international law, all the more is resettlement legal on the basis of the state agreements on a voluntary and mutually guaranteed basis and the repatriation of German national groups in view of the advancing Red Army. What I mean to say is, the returning of ethnic German groups to the Reich and their housing in camps, because this was the only concern of VOMI.\nThe defendant, Heinz Brueckner, took part in these actions in a subordinate capacity as a civilian drafted to VOMI emergency service on 9 November 1939 until April-May 1941. In the case of resettlement of ethnic German groups from Volhynia. Galicia and the Narew territory pursuant to an agreement, he dealt with the property lists of the resettlers. During the negotiations concerning the resettlement of German national groups from Bessarabia and northern Bukowina he was an auxiliary worker. The sudden resettlement of the ethnic German group from Lithuania, pursuant to an agreement arising from the political situation, was handled by him in the capacity of deputy subject to instructions. Since the prosecution has generally claimed that these \n actions were deportations from the home country and compulsory Germanization, I am going to give contrary evidence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1313, "page_number": "1308", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Contrary to the additional assertion by the prosecution that my client was the liaison man of VOMI during the deportation actions which is not the case - and that he had a responsible position, which gave him the power to decide the fate of people, the statement of the defense mil show his true subordinate position in VOMI, first as Referent, later the department head, and beginning with 1943, as manager of Ant VI, but not as \"Office Chief,\" (Amtschef) The testimony of the prosecution witness Ehlich - English Transcript Page 735 - has already established that Brueckner was an opponent of Germanization and that he again and again stood up for his point of view, that membership in a national group could only rest upon a voluntary basis.\nI will also prove that through this attitude he became involved in many discussions and thus incurred many disadvantages. Especially because of this testimony by a witness friendly towards the prosecution, all documents which were submitted in the case Brueckner and all of which were taken out of context, must be considered by especially strict standards. Because of the testimony of the prosecution withess, Ehlich, it is the duty of the prosecution to submit unequivocal proof beyond any reasonable doubt that Brueckner acted against this general attitude in an individual case, through his own decision, in a responsible and decisive position and thus either himself committed a crime against humanity or a war crime or took a consenting part in it by promoting it and agreeing to it.\nWithout discussing details, which my colleague Dr. Schubert has already brought out in his opening statement for the defendant Lorenz, I will prove the following: 1.) The camp leadership and camp administration of VOMI were not under Brueckner but under Amt XI. 2.) Brueckner neither instigated nor executed the deportation of Slovenes, Luxemburgians, Alsatians and Lorraines nor of ethnic Germans \n from France.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1314, "page_number": "1309", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "3.) He did not take part in the creation of the German People's List nor did he have anything to do with the German People's List procedure. 4.) Brueckner did not work together with the notorious Einsatzgruppe of the SD. The repatriation of ethnic Germans fleeing from the Bed Army was the duty of the VOMI - Einsatzkommando. He was not liaison leader at the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans to this command, but Dr. Wolfrum was. Only occasionally, when Wolfrum was absent, did he have anything to do with this repatriation and then only according to individual direct instructions.\nHe never instigated, caused or executed a compulsory repatriation of ethnic Germans - also not for slave labor. 5.) He had no part in promoting the drafting of ethnic Germans into the Wehrmacht or into the Waffen SS. 6.) Brueckner did not cooperate in, instigate or approve of the kidnapping of the so-called bandit children of Yugoslavia. 7.) During the meeting at the Reich Ministry of Justice, mentioned by the Prosecution, with respect to alimony obligations of Polish fathers, he not only stated that VOMI was not competent in this matter, but he also expressed himself against every one of the suggested taxation measures. There is no evidence at all against him in the counts of the indictment: \"Abortion and Spoliation.\"\nBrueckner is also accused of membership in a criminal organization. I will prove that he was not a member of the SS when he came to VOMI, which at the time of his being drafted for emergency service employed only a few SS members. He neither took an SS oath, nor did he pay SS dues. According to the official position he held with VOMI he was also an SS Fuehrer with the same rank. The same happened when he was drafted into the Waffen SS. It has not been proved that he had even any knowledge of the crimes committed by the SS, nor that he, through his knowledge, supported or promoted them. He also was in too subordinate a position to gain insight or a general Picture of \n the large plans for genocide, as has been asserted by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1315, "page_number": "1310", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Through witnesses, affidavits and documents, the defense will prove that Brueckner is not guilty in the sense of the indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of Lorenz.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1316, "page_number": "1311", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz. May it please the Court:\nFrom the beginning of April, 1945, the defendant, Werner Lorenz, was commissioned as General of the Waffen SS to lead the military police with the Army group Vistula. In May, 1945, he was taken prisoner by the British troops and was put into a British prisoner of war camp. He has been temporarily put at the disposal of the American authorities by the British camp. He did not lose his status thereby and his rights as a British prisoner of war. He also receives the salary due him, which is paid out in England. Only in this prison did Lorenz have to learn from the newspaper that he was discharged from the Wehrmacht by the American authorities. Lorenz never declared himself in agreement with this and gave his signature, if at all, only in ignorance of the intended measures; he also immediately protested against it at the Prison Office.\nAccording to this, it is clear from this trial that the defendant Lorenz has now, as formerly, the status of a prisoner of war and can claim those rights for himself which are his due as a prisoner of war according to international law and American martial law. According to Art. 8 of the Hague Convention of Land Warfare of 1907, the prisoners of war are subject to the laws, provisions and orders which are valid in the army of the state in whose power they find themselves. According to Art. 63 of the Geneva Convention of 1929, a judgment against a prisoner of war may be pronounced only by the same courts and according to the same procedure as a judgment against the persons belonging to the armed forces of the custodian state.\nThe Articles of War of the United States, which took effect 1 April 1928, specify in Par. 16 that officers may be put under only the highest military courts and special military courts and that in no case may an officer, in so far as it is avoidable, be sentenced by officers who are below him in rank. I will submit appropriate evidence in my presentation of evidence.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1317, "page_number": "1312", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Therefore, I make the complaint first and foremost, that the defendant Lorenz has been indicted by the Prosecution before a court having no jurisdiction. The court is called a Military Tribunal, to be sure, but it is not a supreme military court or special court composed of officers, in the sense of Pars. 5 and 6 of the Articles of War of the USA.\nThese are my objections as regards form.\nII.\nAs regards the subject, I consider it necessary to preface my arguments with a few historical remarks, since I am of the opinion that the central problems of this trial are only to be understood within the frame of reference of historical development.\nThe Deceased President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, laid down the demand for the so-called right of self-determination of peoples toward the end of the first World War. The peace treaty of Versailles and the other peace treaties which brought the First World War to a close were written from this point of view. On the basis of the Versailles Treaty, plebescites were held in order to enable the population in several border areas of the German Reich to determine their future citizenship, and these were in North Schleswig, in parts of East and West Prussia and in Upper Silesia. The result of this was the separation of a number of areas from the German Reich, so far as such a separation had not already been prescribed without plebescites by the peace treaty. With respect to politics and economics the German people felt especially seriously the separation of the Province of East Prussia from the remaindder of the Reich by a so-called Corridor, which included the former Province West Prussia, and the separation of valuable parts of Upper Silesia, although the Plebescite area there had decided to remain with the German Reich in a ratio of 60-40. The areas just mentioned were incorporated into the newly founded Polish Republic, together with the former Prussian Province Posen and several parts of East Prussia. The \n result of this action was that a good three million, ethnic Germans, who up till then were citizens of the German Reich, lived in Poland, in addition to which a further number of about 400,000 Germans were added to the area of the free city of Danzig.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1318, "page_number": "1313", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "These Germans had formerly lived within the boundaries of the Reich.\nHowever, the problem of the so-called ethnic Germans in foreign countries was not exhausted with that. By the splitting up of the AustroHungarian monarchy, which until the year 1918 under the rule of the house of Hapsburg had an essentially German orientation, further considerable ethnic German population segments went to newly founded national states of foreign, in particular, Slavic nationality, namely, approximately 3.5 millions of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, approximately 480,000 ethnic Germans in Hungary and approximately 600,000 ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia, I might further mention around 780,000 ethnic Germans in Roumania and the six millions of Austrians, who to be sure lived in German-Austria, but to whom the Versailles Treaty denied the right of uniting with the German Reich, although the Austrian National Assembly, and in agreement with it also the German National Assembly, had passed a resolution of unification of Austria and Germany. Thus, the result was that over 14 million ethnic Germans were living outside the boundaries of the German Reich, not courting the ethnic Germans in Russia. A large part of these ethnic Germans was located after 1918 in newly created states with a powerfully increasing national feeling, who regarded the Germans as a foreign element which they tried either to drive out or to assimilate.\nIt is only too understandable that the German people and the German State had an interest in maintaining and supporting the ethnic German elements living in foreign countries. This interest was of a political nature as well, since the important German minorities outside Germany of course exerted an influence on the relations between their new home country and the German Reich. On the other hand, this interest was also of an economic nature, since these ethnic Germans were buyers and importers \n of German goods and securities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1319, "page_number": "1314", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "And finally, this interest was cultural in its nature, since a common culture knows no national boundaries.\nThe authoritative and most important representative of ethnic German interests outside of Germany was the so-called Union for Germandom Abroad (Verein fuer das Deutschtum im Ausland), which from 1933 bore the name Volksbund fuer das Deutschtum im Ausland, known in this trial as VDA. The VDA was a private organization. It is understandable that the government of the German Reich, and even the governments before 1933, took a lively interest in this organization.\nThe National Socialist State, which always proclaimed the strengthening of national feeling as an essential point of its policy, devoted its special attention to nurturing Germandom abroad. As a result of this, in the course of 1936 the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) was founded, besides the VDA, which took over important parts of the tasks of the VDA. The Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans, known in this trial as VOMI, was set up by the NSDAP. It was under the direction of the deputy of the Fuehrer at that time, Rudolf Hess, and thus directly under Hitler. Its leader was at first Herr von Kursell of the Reich Ministry if the Interior, and from the beginning of 1937, the defendant Lorenz. Its duty consisted of the care, support and maintenance of Germandom in European countries other than Germany, which was seriously threatened in its existence in a great number of states, especially however in Poland.\nAt first the VOMI was a very unimportant office with about 20 workers, including the technical employees. Its importance began only with the beginning of the second World War, when a new responsibility arose for it in connection with the resettlement. This duty too the Vomi did not perform as an authority of the State, but as an office of the Party. Not until the year 1941 was a part of the Vomi put under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism as a Reich authority and received the title Hauptamt Vomi (Main Office, Vomi). This office was not, as the \n prosecution maintains, a Hauptamt of the SS, since it was subordinate to Himmler, not in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS, but in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1320, "page_number": "1315", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "As a result of this, Himmler too, in his order of 11 June 1941 (Prosecution Exh. 23) did not make the Hauptampt Vomi a Hauptamt of the SS, but specifically stated that it was on the same level with the main offices of the Reichsfuehrung SS.\nIII.\nThe most essential charges of the prosecution are raised against the Vomi and in this connection against the defendant Lorenz, in connection with the compulsory evacuation and resettlement of parts of populations. Here I would like to establish, first of all, that the defendant Lorenz, whose political importance was characterized as very slight by the witness von dem Bachzelewski, who is not overly friendly to the defense, had nothing to do with the principle decision about the resettlement, but that, rather, after this decision had been made he was only entrusted with duties connected with the resettlement. The Vomi was one of the establishments of which the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism made use. The duties of the Vomi lay essentially first in the sphere of their temporary accommodation and maintenance, as long as they had not yet again finally found a new home and a new sphere of activity. It has already been set forth substantially by the presentation to date of evidence and I will corroborate it with further proof that the Vomi had nothing to do with the racial examination of the resettlers, with the EWZ process, in particular the classification of the resettlers into A, O and Scases, the granting of German citizenship, the deportation of population segments, which had to give way to the resettlers, and the ascertaining of property, as well as the property settlement. This already shows that the task which had been assigned to the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans did not include anything that can be the subject of war crimes and crimes against humanity.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1321, "page_number": "1316", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "We have to distinguish between two kinds of resettlements: 1) Resettlement on the basis of government treaties.\nSuch were concluded for the resettlements from the Soviet Russian sphere of interest, thus particularly from the Baltic countries, from Eastern Poland and North-east Roumania. The following principles were always observed in connection with the resettlements:\nVoluntary option of the persons involved;\nLoss of citizenship for those deciding for Germany;\nCompensation with regard to the property left behind by the Resettlers.\nI cannot see any violation of international law if two sovereign states conclude a treaty with regard to a resettlement of their subjects. In so far as treaties were concluded with Soviet Russia, the principle of mutuality applied; in the case of the resettlement agreements with Estonia and Latvia there was no need for that. It is out of the question that here a plan for the debilitation of other nations was carried out since the resettlements always took place spontaneously as the result of the political and military events and were always based on free volition. It must not be overlooked that this resettlement movement was not the first of its kind. After the so-called Balkan War, which preceded World War I, and after World War I, resettlements on a very large scale took place in the Balkans and in Asia Minor, e.g., between Greece and Turkey.\nThus these resettlements may by no means be regarded as a violation of international law, especially as the persons involved were not hostile foreigners, as the Prosecution asserts, but nationals of friendly or neutral countries.\nThere are no crimes against humanity to be discussed, either in principle or in practice. The Prosecution has asserted that the camps of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans were hardly any better than concentration camps, but it has not furnished any proof for this assertion, and I shall prove the contrary in my presentation of evidence. In this \n connection the following should be borne in mind:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1322, "page_number": "1317", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Even though National Socialist policy sometimes - and not seldom - was contradicting and incomprehensible, yet it did not go that length and was not so silly as to treat those persons who should be accepted into the Reich as new citizens badly from the beginning and that without necessity and without reason thus offending them and causing them grief. By no means would, however, the defendant Lorenz have adopted such means which would have defeated their purpose, He had no special technical knowledge for his task and no political ambitions, but as a former regular Prussian officer and farmer he had, on the other hand, a good deal of common sense, a sense of decency, especially a fine sense for right and wrong and a warm heart for those who were in need, as I shall prove.\nWe need not state in detail that actions on such a large scale do not always run smoothly; that they are connected with inconveniences and great difficulties for those concerned. Surely - and this was at that time generally known in Germany - many resettlers suffered due to the length of their stay in the camps of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans and due to the fact that they could not, for a long time, or not at all, get proper compensation for the property left behind and for their place of work. But all these \n are things for which at any rate the office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans cannot be held responsible since it was not within its sompetency to renew possible irregularities in this field.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1323, "page_number": "1318", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "2) Resettlement of evacuation without a government treaty.\nThe evidence up to now has already proved, and I shall continue to prove, that in all cases of that nature the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans had nothing to do with the deportation or evacuation itself; indeed, it even protested against such actions, but it was not in a position to carry its point due to its small political influence. It also resisted when the duty was forced upon it to accommodate people in its camps who had been taken from this native country. Neither could it carry its point on the case, and the fact actually was that the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans, with its large camp organizations, established for the first resettlements, was the only office in Germany that had space in which the evacuated persons could find accommodations. It follows from the political aim of these evacuations that the accommodation in the camps of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans was actually nothing more than a host, and in the worst case a transportation agent; the latter, however, only within the borders of the Reich. The treatment of the evacuated persons, especially of the Slovenes and to a smaller extent of nationals of the western states, corresponded to the treatment of the resettlers. As I shall prove, the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans also advocated that these persons should be granted full resettler's rights. If in individual cases the stay in the camps, which absolutely was against the will of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans, often dragged on for a longer time than originally had seemed necessary, and thus gave rise to criticism, then this is accounted for by the large number of camps (about 1500), and by the fact that the organization had to be set up in the shortest time conceivable and that suitable personnel for the administration of the camps had naturally already become scarce \n during the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1324, "page_number": "1319", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I offer, however, proof that all was being done to make the stay in the camps as pleasant as possible for those involved; that food supplies, above the average rations, and supplies of clothing were aimed at and furnished; that the camps were supervised through regular inspections and interventions were made where this was necessary.\nThe Prosecution had introduced a series of documents dealing with the resettlement of parts of the population from Russia, especially from the Ukraine. It attempts in this connection to establish relations between the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans and the SUEinsatzgruppen assigned to these territories. At first glance, it may actually seem as though an activity on the part of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans and a corresponding connection had existed. As a matter of fact, it was the question of a special action which first was carried on under the name of Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans (VOMI): later, however, for the purpose of an express distinction from the VOMI under the name of Volksdeutsche Leitstelle (Local Headquarters of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans). The SS Brigadefuehrer Hoffmeyer was in charge; he had originally belonged to the VOMI Berlin, but left the office subordinated to the defendant Lorenz for carrying out this special action, and was subordinated to Himmler directly or to Himmler's local commissioner, the highest SS and police leader Preutzmann. Since Hoffmeyer had formerly belonged to the VOMI Berlin, and since the spheres of the tasks of the staff of Hoffmeyer, on the one hand, and of the VOMI Berlin on the other hand, were similar, it is comprehensible that a certain contact existed between the two offices, which however, as I shall prove, did not result in VOMI Berlin exercising a leading influence on the Hoffmeyer group and that VOMI Berlin or Lorenz was given any influence or competency within the scope of the Hoffmeyer action. The fact that according to the business distribution plan, a liaison leader (Obersturmfuehrer Dr. Wolfram) was appointed to the VOMI Berlin, is a further proof that two separate offices were involved.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1325, "page_number": "1320", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "An additional migration of people resulted from the advancing of the Russian armies, especially in Russia and Hungary. This was a spontaneous flight movement where the only need was to direct this movement into regular channels by setting up an organization. Here again the VOMI was mobilized due to its wide experience in the field of moving extensive parts of populations. If in this connection in a document once the expression \"compulsory evacuation\" has been used, then this expression can only be understood to mean that it was an evacuation under the pressure of the situation, not under the pressure of the VOMI or other German offices. I shall submit corresponding evidence in my presentation of evidence.\nAt the close of this count, the following general indication seems important to me:\nIn the immense number of more or less convincing documents submitted by the Prosecution, the name of the VOMI appears frequently as is comprehensible, The latter was often consulted by discussions and conferences; it was informed of documents even if it neither participated in the proceedings nor had any competence whatever. This is a characteristic feature of the swollen German official apparatus during the war. The witness Ehlich confirmed this. I. therefore, wish expressly to warn against inferring a participation of all offices possibly approached, especially of the VOMI represented by me and of my client Lorenz, from a participation in a conference or from a document forwarded for information. As I shall prove, Lorenz also had an extraordinarily large field of activity. He was not even in a position to take note of all measures of his own office, much less of all measures of other offices from where carbon copies were sent to the VOMI. As far as it is possible, I shall prove of which actions Lorenz was not informed. In this connection, I must, however, state categerically that any documents being addressed to the VOMI or to Lorenz are informed about it and that by the submission of such a document the Prosecution cannot oblige the Defense to produce counter evidence.\nThese are my statements with regard to Point 16.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1326, "page_number": "1321", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "IV Compulsory Germanization (Point 17) Apparently the Prosecution does not raise a charge, in so far as resettlers by the resettlement in accordance with the treaty became German nationals.\nNeither did the VOMI participate in the granting of citizenship to these resettlers.\nThe main charge of the Prosecution is directed against the procedure of the list of persons of German descent (Deutsche Volksliste). In the Document Exhibit 24, the task of carrying out measures for the acceptance of persons eligible for Germanization (German Racial Registers III and IV) and of persona of foreign origin eligible for Germanization into the German national community, is also assigned to VOMI, a fact which is mentioned once more in the outline of competency set down by Greifelt and Lorenz. Acutally, however, VOMI never gave any orders nor did it function or was it given final authority in this matter. This was laready confirmed by the statements of the witnesses Wirsich and Ehlich. I shall submit further evidence.\nIn connection with re-Germanization, the Prosecution has also made reference to cases concerning some American prisoners of war, and an order by Himmler was produced requesting examination of their eligibility for re-Germanization. Actually these measures have never come into effect and VOMI's resistance has played quite a big part in delaying this really ridiculous measure, and it was due to it that it was officially dropped in the end.\nV Slave Labor (Count 18) Resettlers or evacuated persons who came to Germany were naturally subject to German law just as they, themselves, could make use of the German law for their own benefit.\nGerman law decreed that every person living in Germany was subject to compulsory labor service. VOMI had nothing to do with this law; it had neither issued it nor could it prevent it. Persons living in Germany were registered by \n state employment offices and were drafted into some kind of work by them, naturally with due consideration of their abilities and state of health, VOMI had no influence on this, except on temporary work contracts during the time which people spent in the camps:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1327, "page_number": "1322", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "to a certain degree, the Main Staff Office took care of the relevant labor allocation of the resettlers. Therefore, a basic responsibility of the VOMI cannot be constructed here.\nCompulsory labor service can certainly not be called an offense against the principles of humanity; the decree of the Control Council No. 3 of 17 January 1946 has even ordered compulsory labor service for all Germans. This can be taken as proof of the fact that the allied nations do not see in such orders either an offense against humanity or against principles of international law (Hague Convention of Land Warfare).\nIn this connection, the Prosecution has produced documents about the allocation of a number of female domestic servants and interpreters (Sprachmittlerinnen) and participation of the Main Staff Office therein. However, nothing in these documents seems to prove that these female domestic servants and interpreters members of the group of ethnic Germans in Russia, were recruited in an illegal way and that compulsion was used in bringing them to Germany, quite apart from the fact that acutally a very small group of people were concerned herein. Among the ethnic Germans in Russia, ther were many who were anxious to work in the German Reich for once. I am going to produce evidence for this in my argumentation.\nDrafting of non-German labor (Count 19) The accusation which the Prosecution makes with reference to this has obviously nothing to do with resettlers but only with ethnic Germans in the south east of Europe.\nI shall prove that VOMI only took action there because it had to look after the interests of the ethnic Germans; that especially the defendant Lorenz had urged the drawing up of contracts with the states to which these ethnic Germans \n belonged in order to create an indisputable legal basis; that such contractw were actually made and that invariable the principle of service on a voluntary basis was kept up either by these persons volunteering for the Germany army or by their voluntarily asserting their adherence to Germanism, on the basis of which the drafting into the German armed forces was then carried out by the authorities of the States in question.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1328, "page_number": "1323", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "One can, therefore, not speak of a violation of international law, especially not where VOMI was concerned, or with the consent of VOMI, or of the defendant Lorenz. The VDA was only active in connection with ethnic Germans living in the German Reich.\nVII Looting (Count 20) There are three measures concerned in this:\n1) Confiscation of buildings in Germany for purposes of housing resettlers.\nThis concerns itself with an inner German measure which can, therefore, not be counted as a war crime. There can also not be a question of a crime against humanity.\nThe confiscations which were necessary for purposes of housing resettlers were arranged for on the basis of the Reichsleistungsgesetz (law concerning general requesitioning) by the auxiliary offices set up by the Reichsleistungsgesetz, The fact that Himmler authorized VOMI to make requisitions had not had any real effect, as I shall prove further on. Confiscations which were actually made were made according to German law. The Reichsleistungsgesetz, already mentioned by me, is still in effect. It will have to be considered in this connection that, due to resettlement measures, great numbers of resettlers suddenly streamed into Germany, in the specially severe winter 1939-40; that these people could not be left out in the streets and, therefore, had to housed somewhere, and that no measure which was taken in dealing with this urgent need could be termed a crime against humanity. In the possible conflict of interests between those who were affected by this confiscation measure and the dire \n need of the resettlers who were arriving in this wintry weather, the interests of the latter ought certainly to have been decisive.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1329, "page_number": "1324", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "2) Confiscations based on the order about Polish property The VOMI was not concerned with this; the Prosecution has brought in no evidence of VOMI's responsibility in this sphere of action or of VOMI's participation in it.\n3) Appropriation of property of concentration camp inmates The Prosecution has produced some documents, according to which the clothing and other personal property of concentration camp inmates from the concentration camps Auschwitz and Lublin, as well as from concentration camp Hertogenbosch, had been allotted to the VOMI by the so-called \"Reinhard Aktion.\"\nThe amount actually concerned here was no more than 10-20 waggonloads, as I shall prove later on. The greater number mentioned in one of the these documents was allotted to Actions Hoffmeyer and Preutzmann and was also passed on to them. As I have laredy stated in full, these two were not under order of VOMI in Berlin. No proof can be brought that Lorenz has put in a request for these shipments, has helped in them, has had any knowledge of them and has made any use of them based on his knowledge of them. I shall bring counter evidence for this.\nVIII Kidnapping of foreign children(Count 11) This count concerns itself mostly with Slovenian children who were temporarily housed in VOMI camps.\nThese children were sent to VOMI by order of Himmler, like those other Slovenes mentioned before. The VOMI had to house and feed them. This has been done by VOMI, especially where infants were concerned, with all due care. VOMI had nothing to do with the political intentions which were attached to this kidnapping. Neither was this within its sphere of action nor had it in its employ, personnel suitable or trained for such purposes. The VOMI was, therefore, only a transit station for these children. During such periods, VOMI has taken every care of these \n children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1330, "page_number": "1325", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Evidence for this is going to be presented.\nTransportation of orphaned children from the Banat to Germany (Prosecution Exhibit436) was a social welfare action, and thus neither a war crime nor a crime against humanity.\nVOMI can only be connected with this count because of the minutes of a meeting which took place in the Reich Ministry of Justice and which concerned itself with the alimentation duties of Polish fathers or illegitimate children. In this meeting, VOMI was represented by Brueckner. Here, too, VOMI was only invited and had no authority concerning the problem which was under discussion. I shall bring evidence that VOMI has opposed the anti-Polish ideas which were expressed in this meetings, X Abortions.\n(Count 12) To this count no evidence was produced which could bring VOMI into connection with any of the accusations made by the Prosecution.\nI, therefore, move that the evidence to this count be declared insufficient in the case of the defendant Lorenz.\nXI Membership in criminal organizations (Count 26) It is correct that the defendant Lorenz was Obergruppenfuehrer in the SS.\nHowever, he left active SS service on 1 January 1937. Because of his unimportant political influence and the very special activities, which had nothing at all to do with inhuman actions, Lorenz had no information about the crimes which were committed by some parts of the SS. He certainly did not approve of any of which he may have heard. I shall bring evidence that Lorenz, who as a former active officer had no friends in the office which had been allotted to him, had again and again volunteered for service in the Wehrmacht (Luftwaffe) (Air Force) and for service at the front. But his request was always turned down, just as his request to be allowed to work as a farmer on his own estate. If Lorenz would have quit Himmler's service at \n that time he would have had to make the very sacrifice which, on principle, the IMT does not ask for as being an unfair demand.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1331, "page_number": "1326", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I shall also bring evidence that in all cases in which any injustice came to Lorenz's knowledge, he turned against it and prevented it as far as his influence reached.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken).", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1332, "page_number": "1327", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is agin in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement for Schwalm.\nDR.HEIM: (for the defendant Schwalm): way it please the Tribunal, the opening statements for the defendants Hoffmann and Hildebrandt have already dealt with the fundamental problems concerning the acitivities and criminal responsibility of the Main Race and Settlement Office, so that the explanations in regard to the defendant Schwalm may be res tricted to a few points of general importance.\nFor in regard to certain fundamental problems, the same applies to him as to both of the abovenamed defendants Hoffmann and Hildebrandt, because these three defendants form a group of persons, which is covered by the indictment, i.e. a specific group, that of the former SS Main Race and Settlement Office.\nThe focal point of the indictment of the prosecution against this group of persons consists mainly of the question of resettlement and in connection with that of the attempts at germanization and regermanization.\nThe question of fundamental importance within the defense of the defend no Schwalm appears to me to be, to what extent, the areas, in which the acts, of which he is accused, occured or originated, may be considered as parts of the territory of the German Reich. I shall present evidence, that the decree concerning the annextion of certain, formerly German, parts of the territory of the former Polish state, which was proclaimed by Reich Law, in no way constituted a violation of International law, and that persons, not trained in civil or international law could not immediately recognize or suspect an illegality, assuming that the illegality of that annexation be presupposed. For the idea, that those areas with a German population in German villages and towns formerly belonged the Germany was too deeply rooted in the German people. The expulsions and outrages committed by the poles since 1919 have not been able to alter this in any way.\nIf thus the question of the legality of the resettlement and the deportation of portions of the population of those areas may be contested, \n it is generally of little or no importance in the final analysis for the activity of my client in the Main Race and Settlement Office, quite apart from the fact-and mentioning it only in order to justice to historic truth-that deportations and expulsions of Germans after 8 May 1945 took place and to a much greater extent and by methods unequaled in history.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1333, "page_number": "1328", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I also shall prove this by presenting documents and examining witnesses. If now those \"refugees,\" as they are called at the present time- persons who have been exiled and deprived of their rights - arrive in the British or American Zone, are registered, given a physical examination, and if they have been National-Socialists, who fall under Control Council Law No. 10, are screened in regard to their political background in yet another way and possibly are even interned, do the British and American offices, who are concerned with the above mentioned problems pertaining to those persons, also have a fundamental connection with the fact and manner of their expulsion? I do not want to refer at this point to the Yalta agreement, I merely want to point out the practical application and not the political expediency of such concessions. In regard to the legality or illegality of evacuation and resettlement, I beg leave to point out the extermination of the Armenians in 1915, the deportation of 2 million Greeks from Asia Minor on the basis of the Lausanne Treaty, and the expulsion of 13 million Germans from the Eastern territories on the basis of the Potsdam agreement.\nThe presentation of evidence by the prosecution has not proved conclusively that the RuSHA had participated in the preparation and the actual execution of the evacuations, which took place in those areas. In regard to RuSHA, the prosecution has made the fact of the racial examinations, the focal point of the participation claimed by them. Therefore it will be necessary to clarify in the course of the presentation of evidence, whether the fact and the execution of those investigations and the issuing of certificates represents a punishable act according to any law, if the criminality of the executed resettlement and evacuations is presupposed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1334, "page_number": "1329", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "It should be sufficient to state at this point, that without doubt any state, i.e. any community of human beings, who live not only in a de jure, but also in a natural association, has the undisputed and undisputable right to issue regulations of which it assumes, that they will serve to protect the state or to avert dangers, which might threaten the people of that state.\nIt must be stressed for the legal comprehension, that according to the evidence presented by the prosecution, the racial examinations, which have been stressed so strongly, were not the only examinations or investigations, which were ordered. It will be proved by me, insofar as it is not proved already by the evidence presented by the prosecution, that the other investigations are beyond the critical eye of the indictment, since the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of the Interior which its diverse authorities and other offices also participated in them.\nI shall also show in the course of the presentation of evidence, that in connection with the resettlement, the racial examinations took place under the auspices of a collective authority, called the EWZ (Einwandererzentraistelle, Immigration Center) at a time, when the resettlers had been in Germany proper for months, i.e. that the resettlement had already been effected, since those persons by that time were entitled to be naturalized. The prosecution has failed to prove, that any resettler was not naturalized, i.e. except for the specific case. No resettler was not naturalized due to the decreed co-operation of the RuSHA with the EWZ.\nAs has already been proved by the documents and by the witnesses presented by the prosecution, the racial examination of the evacuees took place only after the evacuation had been properly organized by setting up the UWI- (Umwandererzentralstelle, Resettlement Center. Insofar as it does not follow conclusively from the evidence, presented up to now, I shall prove that the racial examination of the resettlers took place only after the resettlement had actually taken place, and that the facto, the racial examination was not carried out on all the \n resettlers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1335, "page_number": "1330", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The fact, which was proved by the prosecution, that the racial examination took place at Lodz, only the collecting point for the evacuees of the UWZ, shows that after the actual days or weeks evacuation the racial examination took place.\nIn addition to the evidence presented by the prosecution had even been intended in connection with the German People's List; further that the different practice in the two areas Danzig-West Prussia and Upper Silesia in the opinion of Himmler necessitated a decree under which only members of Group III of the DVL (German People's List) were examined. It is proved by the documents presented by the prosecution alone, that the examinations were carried out only in the few cases, where unrestricted citizenship was to be granted in lieu of revocable citizenship, i.e. the right of revocation was renounced before the normal 5 or 10 year period had expired.\nFurthermore, the documents presented by the prosecution show that group IV of the DVL were exclusively Gestapo cases which had no practical importance.\nIn regard to the measures taken by the Gestapo against those foreign workers, who violated the general prohibition on sexual intercourse with German women and girls, the prosecution has proven exactly the opposite of their claims in the indictment through the evidence material which they presented, insofar as they held the RuSHA responsible for them. For it follows from those documents, that the racial examination took place only after the person concerned had on principle become liable for punishment, that the racial examination in case of positive results led only to the suspension of the incurred punishment, and finally, that in case of positive results led only to the suspension of the incurred punishment, and finally, that in case of a negative result of the examination no punishment more severe than that ordered by the Gestapo was incurred.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1336, "page_number": "1331", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I shall further show, that the activity was restricted to subordinate offices, which were in contact by mail with the Gestapo Regional and Local Headquarters.\nI will also prove that in the case of abortions carried out on female Eastern workers, the racial examiners participated only in a fraction of the total number of cases, and that, only if the Eastern worker herself made on application for abortion, and also only when a German or a member of a North- or West-European people had been determined as the father of the child. As has already been shown by the prosecution's documents, the investigation was the basis for the approval granted in about 60 per cent of the applications for all the cases presented to the RuS-Leader; only in 40 per cent of the cases was the application rejected, since the child could be considered as a valuable addition.\nIt follows from the documents presented by the prosecution that this was not one of the duties of the RuS-Main Office proper at all. It was prepared and executed exclusively by the offices, which on the level of the experts' office of the physicians health insurance assotiations, or of that of the Health Departments cooperated with them.\nIf the prosecution claims in section 9 of the Indictment, that \"negative results of the racial examination led to the extermination of the persons concerned or to their confinement in a concentration camp\", the following must be said in regard to it: It was not the \"racial examination\" which led to the extermination or to confinement in a concentration camp, rather it was caused by the orders of the Reich Main Security Office, which had been formulated and issued without the cooperation of the Main Race and Settlement Office. The \"negative results\" of racial examinations merely unintentionally and without the knowledge of the examiner verified the accuracy of the applying orders of the Security Police. The positive results, however, as has been established now (post festum), saved, the lives of many of \n the persons who were affected in principle.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1337, "page_number": "1332", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Reich Main SecurityOffice proclaimed death sentences, or confinement in concentration camps not \"of persons designated by the Main Race and Settlement Office on the basis of carried out examinations\", but had proclaimed or at least threatened those punishments before in principle; the examination in many cases merely suspended the sentence.\nIn regard to the other actions and intentions mentioned in the indictment, the prosecution has neither shown, much less proven to what extent they constitute an activity of the RuSHA on its own responsibility, or of the defendants and therefore also of the defendant Schwalm, as members of that Main Office.\nAnd finally, I would like to touch lightly upon the card-file on the Jews, referred to by the Prosecution, It seems proper to point out, that a genealogical card-file, which at best records only a fraction of the total number of the living on its file-cards, is not suitable for a possible utilization as construed by the prosecution. I shall present proof, which will show, that it was merely a genealogical card-file, and that a branch of research, such as genealogy (in this case the genealogy of the families and lineages) has and did not have anything to do with the duties of the political police.\nThese problems were not created by National-Socialism or even by the SS, I will attempt to prove, that this card-file was merely a file, which was created through the transfer of information from genealogical tables to file-cards, and which shows for each living person at best two living parents and perhaps also one of the four grandparents as alive, while at the same time showing 16 ancestors of the 4th and 32 of the 5th generation. Since those, however, had been dead for many years of decades at the time of the preparation of the Card-file that card-file conceivably could not be a possible means of persecution by the political police.\nIn regard to the personality and the duties of my client, Schwalm, \n the prosecution has failed to present any kind of document, which in the least would prove the suspicion of special responsibility voiced in the indictment, nor has any witness testified in that direction against Schwalm, not one witness has as much as mentioned the name of the defendant Schwalm, here.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1338, "page_number": "1333", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Neither the activities of the defendant Schwalm from September 1940 until September 1941 at the Branch office Lodz of the RuSHA and the EWZ, nor in his position as Staff Leader of the Main Race and Settlement Office from 1 March 1943 alone are sufficient to condemn the defendant Schwalm for crimes against humanity or for war crimes. It would have been the task of the prosecution in consequence of their duty to prove its contentions, to prove that the defendant Schwalm had made himself in any way guilty of war crimes or crimes against humanity. In regard to the position of the defendant Schwalm, the prosecution has claimed, that as the Staff Leader, he had been the deputy of the Chief of the RuSHA. But it failed to prove that also. By considering all the evidence submitted during the presentation of evidence and by assuming the innocence of the defendant as well as the fact that the prosecution has offered not one single proof for the truth of the accusations in its indictment, I propose that the trial against the defendant Schwalm for the alleged commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity be dismissed. Even though Schwalm had been a member of the SS, the prosecution has presented no evidence to show that the defendant had any knowledge of the criminal activities of the SS, or that he remained a member of the SS after 1 September 1939 despite that knowledge on the contrary I shall prove that Schwalm's being drafted into the Wehrmacht at the outbreak of the war - he served as Battalion Adjutant in the Army until September 1940 - interrupted his membership in the SS, and that he was transferred in the course of time without any action on his part from the Army to the Waffen-SS. Neither has ti been proved that \n during the time of his membership in that organization Schwalm participated in criminal activites, in short, the prosecution has failed to prove that the prerequisites for punishment as established by the IMT apply to the defendant Schwalm for punishment because of membership in a criminal organization.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1339, "page_number": "1334", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Therefore, I propose that the case against Schwalm be dismissed already at this time and that the defendant be freed, since the indictment is not conclusive.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of the defendant Ebner.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Dr. Ebner):\nMay it please the Tribunal: When in 1940, due to a fundamental difference of opinion with the then business manager of the Lebensborn Pflaum, Dr. Ebner asked the Chief of the SS for his discharge from the Lebensborn service in order to join the Wehrmacht, Himmler's decision was: \"Who is to deliver the mothers if it is not Dr. Ebner? Pflaum must go.\"\nI place this quotation, which will be corroborated by a witness, at the head of my statement because it shows more drastically than all further testimonies which was the task Dr. Ebner fulfilled in the Lebensborn association, which was the part he played. For Dr. Ebner is a general practitioner, and an obstetrician, and this not only by profession, but by vocation; his entire life and work was devoted to help sick people and young life. I shall produce only a few testimonies as illustrations of the many dozens which the simple and unsophisticated villagers of his upper Bavirian native place have given their physician, to whom he throughout his whole life has been an active and unselfish helper whereever he could, regardless of their social position or their political views, regardless of his own health and the strain of the great load of work by day and by night.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1340, "page_number": "1335", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "I shall show that Dr. Ebner did not take over the activity in the Lehenshorn for any other ambition than for passion to his medical profession and that he never regarded and performed this activity otherwise than as a service on behalf of people who needed help.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1341, "page_number": "1336", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "For a short period of time, namely, from 1938 until the beginning of 1940, he had shared in the director's work of Lebensborn. All those who are acquainted with the conditions there can testify that this was. a mere title of the society and only served purely representative aims. Despite this, Dr. Ebner, as I shall prove, has always fought for his point of view in whatever questions came to his knowledge. These were the charitable social aims of Lebensborn. In one case he brought about the dismissal of the business manager Pflaum when the latter attempted to depart from the original aims of Lebensborn. Temporarily, approximately in the second half of 1942, Dr. Ebner was in charge of Main Department A, apart from the duties of his medical tasks. I shall prove that in this department no questions referring to foreign children were dealt with; that there were neither matters of their adoption nor their being sent to foster homes. I shall show that Dr. Ebner's primary and special task was the supervision of sanitary affairs of Lebensborn and the administration of a model hospital maternity home, and that he performed this medical task with devotion, and that he was qualified to carry it out. In all nations of the earth, at all times one creed of physicians held a special place. It is the privilege of the doctor and his solemn duty to give medical aid to all people whenever help is required; the doctor's help must never be dictated or handicapped by considerations other than those of humaneness and charity. All systems comply with this duty of the physician to the common mortal, even for deeds of pure charity and compassion.\nAs I shall prove by facts and laws this restriction to the purely medical quality and activity precludes the possibility of making the defendant Ebner responsible for participation in murder of nations, genecide, or kidnapping of children.\nHowever, the defendant Ebner need not resign himself to this defense. The Defense will show that the Lebensborn society did not at all participate in the program of ethnic work which the Prosecution has described as genecide. It will prove that between Lebensborn on \n the one hand and the security police, the SD, and RuSHA on the other hand, contrary to the assumption of the Prosecution, there was no state connection at all.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1342, "page_number": "1337", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "Furthermore the Lebensborn society was at no time a component or a subordinated organization of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The Defense will clarify that conception of the subject, which the Prosecution based on a misunderstanding of several documents presented by the Prosecution wherein an OfficeL hadbeen mentioned in the Main Staff Office. It will become evident that this OfficeL neverexisted in reality, but only on a few letterheads, which were used by Lebensborn in order to simplify certain tasks.\nThe Defense will furthermore show that the Lebensborn society, in taking care of approximately 150 German children without families, from the former German provinces of Poland did not undertake the task for the Strengthening of Germanism but they wanted to consider it their duty to help orphans of German brothers and sisters which were made Polish citizens after the Treaty of Versailles, and Lebensborn took care of this charitable task to the best of its ability.\nThe Defense will further show that it cannot be called a crime against humanity if a medical opinion is being obtained for the purpose of fixing the age of children in doubtful cases, in a few cases of orphans and strays or foster children or if foster children are given the name of their foster parents which they might have been given at a later time automatically by way of adoption.\nThe defendant Dr. Ebner had up to the time when he was brought to Nurnberg, as I shall prove later on in detail, never heard of the fact that Lebensborn had taken care of seven Czech children whose parents and relatives, through a cruel retaliation and terror measure of the police had been either killed or taken into concentration camps. Even if it were true that the manager of the Lebensborn reluctantly made up his mind to take over these seven children, this would, according to the statements of the prosecution, have been the cause for the fact that these seven children were the only ones among 100 little companions in \n misfortune who could safely return to their home country.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1343, "page_number": "1338", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The Defense will have to prove that even this consequence would justify the resolution to take charge of these children.\nI shall prove that the defendant Dr. Ebner had no knowledge and could not have had any knowledge of the fact that a few stray children were taken over by Lebensborn in the bandit territory of Yugoslavia.\nThe defense will show further on that, contrary to the statements of the Prosecution, Lebensborn never had anything to do with children from Russia; that Lebensborn never accepted any so-called Ostarbeiterinnen, female workers from the east, for confinement in its homes or looked after the infants of such women; that finally, Lebensborn had never anything to do at all with abortions which were being performed on such female workers from the east.\nThe Prosecution has introduced a document,NO-1370, Vol. IX, Exhibit 467, which it brings in connection with the fact that it contains a doctor's report about the interruption of pregnancy of three women in a Lebensborn home. I will have to show that these women of German descent were victims of terrible assaults which Polish soldiers and civilians made at the beginning of the war in the surroundings of Bremberg on Polish citizens of German descent, in which more than 25,000 innocent civilians were murdered. I shall prove that these extraordinary interruptions of pregnancy, carried out at the desire of the persons concerned, were justified by the fact that these women had been brutally raped.\nThe Prosecution has further introduced a report by Dr. Ebner about a medical examination carried out on Rumanian-German children, in the camp of Rumanian-German settlers; it is DocumentNO-3632. At the time of the introduction of this document, I pointed out to the Court that the indictment does not deal with Rumanian children and that I consider this document to be outside the scope of the charges in the indictment; and therefore, that I would consider it to be irrelevant. For full measure I shall prove that Dr. Ebner examined the state of \n health of these children following special orders which had nothing to do with Lebensborn as such, and that these children had come to Germany at their own wish and with knowledge and approval of the authorities of the Rumanian State which was then on friendly terms with Germany.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1344, "page_number": "1339", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "The indictment accuses the defendants from Lebensborn of having annexed alien property by way of looting. The Defense will prove that this taking over of pieces of property which had been confiscated by other state authorities was carried out according to regulations and that it would have been beyond the opportunity and competency of the defendants to examine the legal facts of the confiscations carried out by the competent state authorities, based on laws issued according to regulations, let alone examine their justifiability according to international law. Apart from this I shall show that Dr. Ebner was in each case concerned in such acquisitions only as far as he had to give his expert advice as a doctor as to whether the buildings and objects were suitable for the medical purposes in question.\nFinally, I shall bring evidence to the Court concerning membership in a criminal organization; that Dr. Ebner from the very beginning of his membership in the SS, belonged to it only in his capacity as physician. He never commanded a unit of the SS. His rank was that of a physician and his insignia an Aesculapian staff. His promotion to the rank of Oberfuehrer, senior colonel, must be ascribed to the fact that he--Himmler's bundesbruder, fellow in a student's organization, was Himmler's personal physician, when he was still an unimportant, small and impecunious man, and that his medical efforts and successes won him Himmler's recognition and gratitude.\nI shall prove that Dr. Ebner had no more knowledge of the criminal aims, such as were laid down in connection with the SS in the IMT judgment than any other inhabitant of his rural home district and that, expecially, he had no knowledge of the ill-treatment of inmates of concentration camps.\nI shall prove that Dr. Ebner for his part, when he got into touch \n in his capacity as physician with the prisoners who were working in the Lebensborn, treated them humanely and cared for them in the same way as for any other patient and did everything he possible could to help them, The picture which these testimonies give of the personality of the philanthropist and physician Greger Ebner, will prove beyond doubt that he is as innocent on this Count, as on all the other Counts of the Indictment,", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1345, "page_number": "1340", "date": "20 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-20", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:How long does Counsel for the defendant, MeyerHetling, think it will take to present his opening statement?\nDR.BEHLING: (For the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) I believe that I will need at least an hour.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I might state now that this morning I asked the leading counsel about how long these opening statements were going to be. If all of the attorneys were going to make a statement, unless the time by agreement had been divided, thirty minutes is the limit, but I guess it is a little late now to enforce that.\nDR. BEHLING:I would have to hurry up, but I do not think that would serve the purpose here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Court will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 21 November 1947.)", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1346, "page_number": "1340", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Correctionsheet for English Transcript 21.\nNov. 47 \"M\" submitted by Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt with approval of Mr. Daniel Shiller Case 8 21 November 1947 Line 10 on page 1328 of the German transcript reads correctly:\n\"in ein grossangelegtes Programm\" which means that line 11 on page 1376 of the English transcript instead of; \"in the largescale program\" should read \"in a large-scale program\". Line 4 on page 1329 of the German transcript reads correctly: \"so waere sie jedenfalls mit der Gewahrsamsbegruendung durch die deutschen Behoerden bereits vollendet\". The English translation of this reads in lines 8 - 10 on page 1377 of the English transcript \"then it has at any rate already been completed by the reasons which the German authorities gave for taking charge of them\". This translation reveals that the translator was obviously not acquainted with the legal term \"Gewahrsamsbegruendung\". \"Gewahrsamsbegruendung\" means as much as \"Gewahnsamserlangung\". The meaning of the German wording could probably be translated into English as follows: \"then it has at any rate already been completed at the time when the German authorities had taken charge of them\". Line 10 on page 1332 of the German transcript reads? \"Esmoegen diese frueheren Namensbezeichnungen, deren Berechtigun uebrigens dahingestellt sein mag, bereits im Warthegau verdeutscht worden sein\" whereas line 5 - 7 on page 1331 of the English text read; \"their former names may have been Germanized already in the Warthegau the justification for which may be left undecided\". For clarity's sake the subordinate sentence should follow in the English text after the word \"names\". Line 15 on page 1332 of the German transcript reads: \"in derartigen night aufzuklaerenden Faellen\". Line 11 on page 1381 of the English transcript reads: \"in cases which could not be classified\" instead of \"clarified\".", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1347, "page_number": "1341", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 21 November 1947, 0930 1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHALL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I, Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of American and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMR.Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHALL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nDR.HEIM (Counsel for the Defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, at the beginning of the session, I would like to make a request. Upon my request a witness by the name of Poppendick has been taken to the court prison here in the Nurnberg prison upon the request of Schwalm. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in the medical case here because of his membership in the SS. In spite of my repeated requests and applications at the prison office that I should be given the opportunity to give the witness document books and documents in order to prepare his examination on the witness stand, all these attempts on my part have not met with any success. I therefore see myself compelled, Your Honors, to make the request here in the court room to the Tribunal that the Tribunal should see to it that the same conditions should apply to the witness Poppendick as apply to all other witnesses, because otherwise I shall be severely hampered in my defense.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Have you made a written request to this effect?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I have made two written requests to the prison office and to the Secretary General.\nTHE PRESIDENT:When did you make your request to the Secretary General", "speakers": [ "MR.", "THE MARSHALL", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1348, "page_number": "1342", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "DR. HEIM:One application three weeks ago, and the ether two weeks ago.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will investigate the matter during the noon recess -- I mean the morning recess, and we will give you some information about it just after the recess.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, Your Honor.\nDR.BEHLING (Counsel for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling): May it please the Tribunal:\nThe charges preferred against the defendant Meyer-Hetling are serious. Particularly serious as they are directed against a man who until now as a scholar of high standing was wearing, himself out in the service for mankind, being always prepared to make an effort to serve for social advancement and the common welfare.\nIt is a rather bitter and tragic fact that a scholar esteemed in foreign countries no less than in his own country for his scholarly achievements in the field of adjustment of social conflicts, today has to defend himself before this High Tribunal against charges based on facts essentially the same as those Once establishing his world-wide reputation.\nThe defendant Meyer-Hetling is charged with a number of crimes against humanity and war crimes considered by the prosecution to be part of a systematic genocide.\nThe conception of genocide has so far not been clarified in the literature of international law. In recent times this conception has been the subject of much comment launched through a book by an American author to be classified as propaganda rather than as a legal publication. But not even the legal committee of the UN has so far been successful in finding a binding definition. Neither has the Prosecution so far been able to give a definition; it has confined itself to summarizing certain groups of facts under this heading. But it represents a violation of the sentence recognized in all civilized countries. \"Nulla poena sine lege\" to make a crime cut of certain facts \n that does not exist at all.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1349, "page_number": "1343", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Apart from this legal objection, Konrad Meyer-Hetling is being held responsible for a series of crimes which either as a principal or as an accessory he is alleged to have committed as Oberfuehrer of the SS, as chief of Amtsgruppe C of the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and finally as personal chief of Amt VI (planning) of the Pain Staff Office.\nThe basis of the legal judgment of the defendant is Control Council Law Number 10 in connection with various rules contained in the Hague Convention concerning Laws and Customs of Land Warfare. The Dofense intends to prove that the defendant has not made himself guilty of violations of Article II, Sub-paragraph 1-a of Control Council Law Number 10 as he did not participate in preparations for an agressive war. In this point the Defense believes to share the view of the Prosecution since they did not charge Konrad Meyer-Hetling with this count. In consideration of a thesis formulated by one of the present Tribunals, the Defense is not going to deal further with this particular group of questions.\nOn the other hand, the Defense intends to establish proof that the defendant did not make himself guilty in the sense of Article II, Sub-Paragraph 2-d either. The Prosecution in the trial against Altstoetter, et al, (Case No. 3, current proceedings) has commented on dotails of this passage of the law. According to this a criminal offense exists:\n\"when plans or enterprises in pursuance of Law Number 10 are proved to be criminal, in the execution of which the Nazi Government was involved acting through individuals in their official capacity.\n\"The criminal 'offense or activity' of each individ ual defendant is established if he had knowledge of the said 'plan or enterprise' and then 'was connected therewith' or 'participated therein through his con \n sent' (page 9216 of German transcript.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1350, "page_number": "1344", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Subparagraph 2-d of Article II then deals with a special form of committing a crime. The planning activity of the individual offender is not declared criminal, but rather the participation in a planning activity of the Nazi government which was established to be criminal, in which the said government was involved although acting through individuals.\nThe defense intends to prove that the defendant Meyer-Hetling did not make himself guilty of participation in war crimes or crimes against humanity neither through his work concerned with scientific planning nor through other parts of his work.\nApparently the Prosecution is primarily of the Opinion that the defended through his work of planning assisted in the preparation for the execution of a series of events, which execution has been declared criminal. Apparently the defendant is considered to have been the intellectual instigator of the operations which are the subject of judgment in these proceedings, through his works of scientific planning, in particular the \"General Plan East\" which was prepared in the Institute for Agricultural Science of the Berlin University under his supervision.\nIn order to weaken this charge, I shall first clarify the idea of \"planning\" in general. The word \"planning\" became a fashionable expression during recent decades, being adopted in the languages of all countries. Also in America the word \"planning\" is being used more and more, that is, National Planning Board, National Resources Planning Board, State Planning Commission, Social Planning. Only recently a section for political planning was set up in the State Department.\nThe word \"planning\" has become an indefinable collective term, covering all kinds of contemplation, a collective term which is to be interpreted differently as to its nature and effective sphere according to the attitude, the purpose, and the final aim of the individual planners and their planning tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1351, "page_number": "1345", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Through the preceding part of the trial we have now already become acquainted with a four-year plan and various general plans, have heard about planning authorities, planning agencies, and planning offices, about close plans and remote plans. The common feature of all these institutions and plans is only the grand, but rather confusing facade. The effects of this confusion of ideas are noticeable also in other trials in process here, in which terms occur such as \"central planning with the Plenipotentiary for the Four-Year-Plan\", \"psychological planning\", \"planning pertaining to labor allocation\", and so on.\nAs varying as the purport and meaning of the word \"planning\" is in general, as manifold is the application of this conception in connection with the questions that are the subject of these proceedings. Each one of the organizations that are here being tried did \"plan\" in one way or the other. But not only these organizations but almost every office and every department had their separate planning. Just to state an example, I remind the High Tribunal of Document Number NO-3981, Prosecution Exhibit36, dealing with planning by the Bepatriation Office for Ethnic Germans, or of DocumentNO-2477, Prosecution Exhibit 200-c, which says that the overall planning of the resettlement had to take place through the department headed by Dr. Stier. Even subordinate agencies, such as the settlement staffs, as shown by DocumentNO-2209, Prosecution Exhibit254, had their own planning sections, which had nothing to do with the activity of the defendant, just like all other agencies of this nature. The Defense is going to demonstrate this also in connection with the presentation of evidence.\nIn order to present a general view of the activity of Konrad Meyer-Hetling, I intend to prove that the Amt Planning was not a central controlling agency, but a working instrument, a \"Referat\" with a specific professional character. In particular, it was not used for the direction of the tasks generally assigned to the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1352, "page_number": "1346", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "For this purpose the Defense intends to give the High Tribunal an idea of the field of activity of the defendant through introduction of documents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1353, "page_number": "1347", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The defendant is a scientist of world-wide reputation due to his research work in the field of sociology and planning on agricultural settlement. I shall prove that because of his achievements in this field of science he still today enjoys a reputation as great in foreign countries as in his won country.\nThe Amt Planning, as I am going to prove, had chiefly to do with purely scientific, theoretical examinations of rational forms of human settlement. The results of these examinations could have been published at the rarliest time after the end of the war. In contrast to this, the tasks of other offices of the Main Staff Office consisted mainly in the direction of the stream of German re-settlers pouring into Germany from numerous parts of Europe. Whereas the planning had completely uncertain, vague, and distant aims in view, the other offices were concerned with immediate aims that had to be achieved directly.\nIn consequence of the different nature of their aims the Amt Planning could never support the other offices through plans or suggestions. Therefore it was no central directing agency on the lines of the general staff of an army. Their work was on an entirely different level. The planning office led a completely separate existence by this means even in the Staff Main Office. Any sort of influence on the other offices could not be exerted by it.\nThe work of the planning office was of a purely scientific and theoretical nature. It resulted of necessity from the defendant's field of teaching and research in the agricultural and social sciences at the University of Berlin and corresponded in important details to the American concept of \"social planning.\" This activity served the purpose of developing principles of planning for the creation of ideal relations between town and village, as well as for the best possible locations of villages, village grazing areas and farms. Beyond that, it served the goal of working out suggestions for a new order of the administrative construction. Of all these plans, practically nothing was carried out; they remained the dreams of an idealist..", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1354, "page_number": "1348", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The Defense will prove that neither this activity nor the other tasks had any tiling to do with distributing the land to resettlers. Further it will be proved that neither the planning office, nor the other offices subordinate to the defendant had anything at all to do with compulsory evacuation, or any other sort of evacuation. In this connection it will be the task of the Defense to set up the boundaries of the jurisdiction of the planning office in relation to the sphere of duties of the other planning authorities which worked independently alongside it, and to explain this.\nIf the defendant thought at all of a settling in the eastern theater, he did not go beyond theoretical discussions. This is especially true also for the elaborations which had to be submitted in 1942 by order of Himmler under the motto \"General Plan East.\" The purely theoretical character of this general plan will be especially emphasized by the fact that it had no connection with the general plan which had already been developed in 1939 by the Reich Main Security Office. Moreover, the General Plan East was also not developed in the planning office of the Staff Main Office, but arose in the Agricultural Scientific Institute of the University of Berlin, having, therefore, practically speaking, nothing to do with the sphere of duties of the Staff Main Office or the Planning Department. With regard to the ideas developed in the General Plan East, I will prove, moreover, by submitting documents that similar scientific trends of thoughts regarding settlement are being earnestly discussed in other countries also, above all, in South America. The lecture held by the defendant in Posen (Document NumberNO-3048, Prosecution Exhibit88) must also be understood from this point of view.\nBesides submitting documents, the Defense will also call a witness for this subject.\nIt will have an equally decisive effect on the judgment of the scientific planning activity of the defendant according to criminal law whether anything at all of his plans was actually used. The \n Defense will prove that not a brick was used in building nor was a settier put onto a farm in accordance with the plans of Meyer-Hetling or those of the planning office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1355, "page_number": "1349", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "\"Thoughts are free\", that is a recognized human right and may be one of the few principles about the general validity of which there would be no argument from anyone taking part in this trial. Moreover, Military Tribunal I expressly confirmed this consideration in the case against Brandt and others with the judgment of Pokorny by not punishing the latter, since his plans and suggestions were never put into practice (page 11,743 of the German Transcript).\nIt will therefore not be possible to establish a connection between the defendant Meyer-Hetling in his capacity as leader of the planning office and the actions designated in the indictment as criminal which may be considered as criminal from the point of view of the groups of criminals or participants in the sense of Control Council Law No. 10.\nThe Defense will furthermore prove that no criminal responsibility falls on the defendant in his capacity as leader of Amtsgruppe C for possible criminal actions within the Central Land Office or the Construction Office, which likewise belonged to Amtsgruppe C.\nThe Central Land Office was concerned, as its name implies, only with questions of real estate. Thus even by theory, its sphere of duties excludes a connection with those other deeds cited in the indictment under Count II, Numbers 12 to 18 and Number 21, such as kidnapping, abortions, etc. The Prosecution has up to now not been able to prove connections along these lines. Their charges are limited, according to their statements, to the charge of spoliation.\nIn order to oppose this accusation, I will prove that the Central Land Office did not undertake any sort of administrative acts which may be construed as spoliation in the sense of common law or international law, as derived from treaties in particular of the Hague Convention of Land Warfare.\nThe Defense will have to throw a more powerful light on the position according to national and international law of the so-called \n incorporated eastern areas.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1356, "page_number": "1350", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "By submitting documents we will present evidence according to which the defendant, who is a layman in legal matters. could at the very least be of the opinion that his conduct is subject to no misgivings as far as international law is concerned.\nAfter the Provinces in question, which until the year 1919 had been essentially parts of Germany, had come again to the Reich by the Decree of Hitler concerning. the incorporation of the eastern areas, they represented Reich areas according to national law. I will prove that the German Reich as the result of the conquest of Poland was justified from an international point of view in incorporating the areas in question. After the annexation which thereupon took place, Germany could also issue the laws in those parts of Poland which had fallen to it according to the agreement with the USSR. In these areas, Reich law was valid. The defendant was bound by this development according to national law. If, therefore, the administrative acts of the Central Land Office stayed within the scope of the Reich laws, which I will prove, they were legal. The Reich laws were binding upon the defendants as administrative officials. This is recignized national law. In thus far I refer to the arguments of professor Jerusalem in the South German Jurists Journal (Sueddeutsche Juristenzeitung) 1946, Page 109, where it says as follows:\n\"The legal positivism of the 19th century saw in the law the only expression of a legislative will.\nwhen the legislator had spoken, everything was in order.\nThe theory which formed the basis for the Weimar con stitution simply modified this concept in its exter nal aspects.\"\nEven the Prosecution has not claimed until now that the actions of the defendant would have violated Reich law.\nThe defense will further refer to the fact that in the legal handling of the matters which came to the Central Land Office, the defendant was advised by a number of jurists who are not sitting in the dock. He had to be able to rely on the judgment of these Referenten. Beyond that, \n basic legal questions were centrally handled and decided by the legal department, which did not belong to Amtsgruppe C. Characteristic is DocumentNO-2694, Prosecution Exhibit618, which contains a correspondence between the witness Wirsich and the Reich Ministry of Justice concerning the legality of measures in which Wirsich, as legal export of the Main Staff Office, as well as the Reich Ministry of Justice, expressed some kind of doubt in this connection as to the legality of the decree concerning Polish property which were taken by virtue of the decree concerning Polish property.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1357, "page_number": "1351", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "How should the defendant, who had no possibility whatsoever for a legal inquiry, although he was a university lecturer, be able to invalidate the judgment of these legal experts?\nIn case the High Tribunal does not follow this line of proof, the Defense will also evaluate the conduct of Konrad Meyer-Hetling from the viewpoint of general international law. In doing this, I presuppose that the provisions of the Hague Convention of Land Warfare may be applied to the relationship of Germany to Poland, a fact which, when one considers Article II of the Hague Convention of Land Warfare may only be applied among the treaty powers, and only if the belligerent powers are all parties to the treaty. This is not the case where Poland is concerned.\nWith the occupation of Poland, the area in question became an occupation area. According to general views of international law, the occupying country has the full right of legislation, unlimited by the constitution of the occupied state, like an absolute monarch. This power, in itself unlimited, may be limited in only two ways: by the internal law of the occupying country and by international law.\nThe internal law of a state defines in particular which person or authorities are responsible for exercising power in the occupied area. According to German Reich Law, all military force is rooted in the power of command of the chief of state. By virtue of special decrees it is transferred to the supreme military commander of the occupied area or to the chief of the civilian administration.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1358, "page_number": "1352", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Thus, according to German constitutional law, the whole legislature (Rechtsnormengehung) in the occupied territory is exercized through regulations and orders of the competent organs.\nThe defense will prove that these directives have been followed and that, so far, no offences pertaining to international law can be stated either, especially since the occupied country definitely has the possibility to change the existing legislature for the occupied territory unrder certain viewpoints. The legal basis for that can be found in the customary international law and in the continuation of the norms of the Hague Land Warfare Convention set up after the first World War. In this connection I refer to the statements of Scholz: \"Private property in occupied and non-occupied enemy country,\" Berlin 1919. Page 143, who points out the change of international law through economic warfare and verbally states as follows:\n\"Thereupon new rights of defense emanate from the now warfare.\nThe principle that war is only waged against an armed power, not against defenseless citizens, will then no longer hold true and the principle of the sanctity of private property will be reversed into the contrary.\n\" If the attitude of the defendant is considered under this viewpoint, it will not be possible to find any guilt, either. c) However, if these alternatives too, should, for some legal reasons, not find the approval of the tribunal, the defense finally will estimate Mayer-Hetling's attitude also under the viewpoint of the Hage Land Warfare Convention. In this connection it will be necessary to examine in detail Meyer-Hetling's activity in the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt).\nThe local competency of the Land Pain Office (Zentralbodenamt) was limited to the so-called annexed Eastern districts. The prescriptions of the Polish Property Regulation dated 17 September, 1940, were neither valid for measures in the Government General nor in Western Europe or in \n the Balkan countries.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1359, "page_number": "1353", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) thus had no competency of instructing authorities, Chiefs of Civilian Administrations or the DAG who may have confiscated landed property in other parts of Europe.\nThe defense will, moreover, affirm this present result of evidence by summoning a further expert witness.\nThe competency of the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) relative to this matter extended merely to agricultural property. But even here the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) could not decide on the subject on its own authority; it was rather Office IV - Agriculture - which was competent as is shown by the duty-distribution-plan (DocumentNO 4130, Prosecution Exhibit601). The Land Main Office was no office for the administration and utilization of agricultural property, but it was merely entrusted with the keeping and cataloguing of the property in the sense of a cadaster.\nOther offices were competent for the entire industrial and other private property and the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) had no influence on them.\nThis is true in the first place of the Main Trustee Office East which administered as a trustee all industrial enterprises including the industrially oriented agricultural branch enterprises, and it also made use of them to a larger extent.\nNor bad the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) any influence on the handling of church property. The defense will prove that neither the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) nor any other department which ever was under the management of Meyer-Hetling had anything to do with the requisition of church estates. The documents which the prosecution, submitted in this respect all show the initials of the legal department.\nNor is it the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt) which is responsible if church property was confiscated by others. It never took part in these proceedings. The documents dealing with the convent in Liebenthal, in so far cannot be used as counter-evidence since, as will be \n proved, the requisition did not occur on the basis of the Polish property regulation and the convent itself lies in a district which was never separated from the Reich.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1360, "page_number": "1354", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Nor was the Land Pain Office (Zentralbodenamt) concerned with cultural property, such as museums, archives, public collections, libraries, works of art and similar things. Cultural property was registered by other offices, such as, for example, by the Main Trustee Office East (compare documentR 143, Prosecution Exhibit26) or by the Ahnenerbe. These offices were in no connection with the and Main Office (Zentralbodenamt).\nNor was the public property of the former Polish state subject to registration and confiscation by the Land Main Office (Zentralbodenamt). The handling of this property was done according to the regulation of 15 January 1940. It was transferred to the German Reich or the other newly formed self-administrative corporations.\nTherefore, I only have to prove that the Land Main Office, in the field of private agricultural property, did not undertake actions of administration which may be considered as plundering or illegal infringement upon agricultural property.\nThe Land Main Office had the task to register and \"confiscate\" the Polish landed property subject to the Polish property regulation. In individual cases, Himmler, moreover, claimed the right actually to collect landed property with the assistance of the Land Main Office.\nThere is no need of any special explanation that the registration of landed property is unimportant from the point of view of penal law. Therefore, also, the defense will not particularly deal with this count.\nOn the other hand, it shall be proved that also those confiscations which were made by the Land Main Office are still within the framework of the prescriptions set by the Hague Land Warfare Convention. The great Swiss international lawyer Bluntschli, too, was of the opinion that the occupying force is entitled to seize also the private and public real estate property, but that the question of property depends on \n the end of war; (compare Bluntschli:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1361, "page_number": "1355", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The right of booty in tines of war and the right of naval booty in particular, second edition 1878 a.646). I further refer to one of the best American international jurists, Moore, who says in his Digest of International Law, volume VII, Washington 1906:\n\"The amount of requisition is fixed at the will of the invader.\"\nIt therefore results that the occupying force, the sane as the owner, could dispose of the real estate property. The question of the formal transfer of property, after all, is of no particular importance in the case of real estate property because the state of the \"res Sita,\" after regaining the respective district, can again fully claim ownership of his real estate property with the help of his legislature.\nWhen contemplating the cases under discussion here it, however, has to be especially considered that the entire Polish landed property had already once, in the fall of 1939, been confiscated by the High Command of the Army. A further confiscation of the sane property was then arranged by the Chief of the Civilian Administration. Finally, on the basis of the regulation of 12 February, 1940, there was a third confiscation by the Reich Food Ministry which was followed by the fourth confiscation, the Polish Property Regulation of 17 September, 1940, with a confiscation ex lege. Now, if the Land Main Office again became active in this respect and if it \"confiscated\" once more the already four times wholly confiscated Polish landed property, this is to be regarded as only a mere declaratory act without any legal importance. Also, for this reason the defendant cannot be held responsible since he merely acknowledged an already existing condition which had arisen without his cooperation.\nMoreover, the defense will have to prove that the requisitions, which were kept at a minimum, were within the framework of the prescriptions of the Hague Land Warfare Convention. In this connection it may be anticipated that the requisitions amounted only to 1 per cent of the registered and 1.3 per cent of the confiscated Polish landed property.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1362, "page_number": "1356", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "It has already been pointed out that the land Main Office was not competent for requisitions. These, in fact, were always Made upon obligatory order of other authorities or upon specific order of Himmler or Hitler. The functions of the land Plain Office were limited to the formalities pertaining to the registering of landed property. The further dealing of the matter was the task of the competent special departments on which the defendant Meyer-Hetling had no influence. This, too, I shall prove with documents and witnesses.\nThe requisitions were kept, in the majority of the cases, within the framework of the necessities of war. In the first place, Polish landed property was requisitioned for troop training camps, airfields or bomb release grounds. Such requisitions are admitted according to the Hague Land Warfare Convention, which admits infringements upon the property substance of the population of an occupied country if this is necessary for the requirements of the Wehrmacht. In the case of establishing grounds for troop training and other purposes there is no doubt of this necessity.\nAdditional Polish real estate had been requisitioned in order to extend the net of communication in Poland, This measure, too, can be justified according to points of view of international law and according, to Article 55 Section 2 of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare. The war in the East necessitated the traversing of great distances for the supply of war materials. For this purpose, the construction of new railway lines was necessary. Furthermore, the mechanization of the supply vehicles necessitated the extension of a suitable not of highways, the more so, as for the modern warfare the motorized traffic is almost equal in importance to that of the railways. The recent literature, therefore, acknowledges generally that the means of transportation on highways and the highways themselves are to be treated regarding the laws of war in an equal manner as the foiling stock of railroads and real estate (see Scholz No. Page 117).\nThe defense has no doubt that improvements of the net of communi \n cations are to be considered legally in the same manner as measures which have to do with the maintenance and extension of the rail network.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1363, "page_number": "1357", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Aside from everything else, measures for the improvement of the communication network, which was especially in Poland in very bad shape, should exclude theoretically the characterization of spoliation, because they constitute a constant value for the national wealth.\nThe defense will bring forth an additional point of view for the vindication of the defendant. Waltzog: \"law of Land Warfare\", Berlin 1942 on Page 105 acknowledges explicitly the right of the occupying power, in such cases where military necessities afford it, to acquire the property rights of a requisitioned object, and if necessary, to transfer those rights, because the interests of the occupied state are sufficiently covered by the compensation obligations which are charged to the occupying power.\nIndependent of this author it has to be considered that most of the European constitutions permit expropriations for reasons of the common welfare. I refer to the Prussian constitution of 31 January 1850, Article 9, the Belgian constitution, Article II, the French constitution of 1830, Article 56, the Dutch constitution, Article 4 the Italian constitution, Article 29, Page 14 of the original, the Spanish constitution, Article 10. If now, according to Article 43 of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare, the legislature of the country remains in existence despite the occupation laws, then the national expropriation right of the occupied state remains in force too. In the relationship between Germany to Poland this would mean that the occupation power, Germany, was entitled to exercise the expropriation right stipulated in the Polish constitution. Thereby, however, the end result will be achieved just as well as with a requisition. I will prove that the Polish constitution contains a right for expropriation and that, therefore, also the expropriation measures for certain purposes are permissible.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1364, "page_number": "1358", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nFinally, the defense will take up the question of the donations and the expropriations which were undertaken in the scope of these measures. In that respect even the Document NO-5363, Prosecution Exhibit775, shows that the distribution was not carried out by the Central Land Office but by the Amt IV, Agriculture. I will prove that the defendant, when he was informed of measures of that kind, protested most sharply against them. He used all possible ways of objections open to him. Therefore, he is not responsible for these measures.\nIn connection with the charges against the Central Land Office are also the accusations against the defendant as far as they concern his activity within the Amtsgruppen, relating to the Amt construction.\nIn that respect, the defense will claim that this Amt also was a construction office of a purely technical nature. As the architects had in the main no experience concerning the rural style of buildings, the Amt construetion was supposed to have acquainted them to a greater extent with the practical demands of the rural architecture. A further duty of the Amt construction was to make investigations in order to find out in what way the rural settlements which were contemplated after the end of the war could be constructed in the most suitable manner. In that respect the questions of construction, material economy, the testing of cheap construction materials, etc. played the decisive role.\nThe Amt construction would never have been involved in this proceeding if it had not been active on the outer edge of the so-called ghetto action at Litzmannstadt. This action took place in the year 1944. The witness of the Prosecution, Goetz, testified already that according to his knowledge of the events, the defendant Mayer-Hetling had nothing to do with this matter. The defense will furnish proof that \n this testimony of the witness of the Prosecution is correct.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1365, "page_number": "1359", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Actually this action took place in the late summer and fall of 1944. At that time the Amt construction was located at Schweiklberg, whereas the defendant regarding the conference on 11 October 1944 cannot be known to the defendant, because at that time he was already a soldier with the Wehrmacht. About the two previous conferences he was likewise never informed. He became aware of the entire happenings only now in the course of these proceedings.\nThe defense will further take into account the organizational position of the defendant Meyer-Hetling in his capacity as Chief of the Amtsgruppen. The prosecution defines from this position the responsibility of the defendant for the Aemter subordinated to his Amtsgruppe and concludes furthermore, that the defendant was informed to a large degree about the measures taken by the Main Staff Office and the other Aemter.\nWith regard to time, the prosecution restricts the responsibility of the defendant for the activity of the Central Land Office and the Amt construction to the time during which the defendant was the Chief of the Amtsgruppe C. Therefore, the period in question is limited to the time from 1 August 1942, the date when the new business distribution schedule came into force, until the fall of 1944 at the latest, the time when the defendant left the Main Staff Office.\nThe presentation of evidence will show that the structure of the Amtsgruppen was practically of no importance and existed only on paper. This may become clear for once by the fact that when the new business distribution schedule was issued no inter-office regulations were made, which fixed in detail the competencies of the Chiefs of the Amtsgruppen or which revoked the standing orders of 15 August \n 1941 which had been in force up to that time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1366, "page_number": "1360", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "On the other hand, the new Chiefs of the Amtsgruppen received no power of authority which would fix the limits of their scope of responsibility. Actually the new classification of the Amtsgruppen became only a matter of mere representation. It was done less for reasons of official necessity but more for some kind of organizational fancy. Therefore, it remained practically without any effect. The inter-office activities continued completely independent as before. This was shown also by the fact that the Aemter, as previously, made direct reports to the Chief of the Main Office and that no new file numbers were introduced, etc.\nThe insignificance of the Amtsgruppen will be shown also by the fact that they had no mail receipt or delivery of their own. The outgoing mail of the Aemter which was not directly subordinated to the defendant was never seen by him. The outgoing mail was signed either in each case by the Chief of the Amt or in important matters by the Chief of the Main Office, but in no case by the defendant in his capacity as Chief of the Amtsgruppe. It is, therefore, not surprising that among the approximately 800 documents which have been submitted by the prosecution there is not a single document of the Central Land Office which was initialed or even signed by the defendant.\nThe defendant also cannot be made criminally responsible by the so-called \"monthly conferences\" held by the Chief of the Staff Main Office directly or only by way of conversation, of detailed knowledge, regarding events which took place in other Aemter, not subordinated to him.\nThe defendant participated in these conferences, in so fat as they took place in Berlin up to 1943, only in a very irregular manner, and not at all after the Staff Main Office \n had been moved to Schweiklberg.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1367, "page_number": "1361", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "I will also furnish proof for this fact. Neither was this condition altered by the introduction of the business distribution schedule of 1942. The defendant explicitly stipulated, when he took over his position, that a permanent deputy had to be named for the Amt planning, in order to be free from any small tasks subject to time limits and not to be obliged to participate in conferences which had nothing to do with his field of activity.\nThe documents which the defense intends to submit and the offered witnesses will coincide in proving that the defendant, inasmuch as he participated in conferences, never accepted a proposed measure without making his resistance known and that he always voiced his strong criticism.\nThe presentation of evidence will show further that neither at this opportunity nor otherwise, the defendant had heard of any matters which are now the subject of the indictment.\nThe defendant denies also that he had ever seen the secret decree of Himmler regarding the treatment of foreign people. The documents which were introduced do not permit a conslusion in this direction either, for the fact that Himmler's document was to be forwarded to the defendant is no proof yet that it was actually done. The further presentation of evidence will show that the defendant really had no knowledge of the memorandum.\nThe general knowledge of the defendant as to cruelties committed also cannot be deducted from the fact that some cases were delivered to him through the so-called intraoffice distribution. None of the letters introduced by the prosecution and delivered through the intra-office distribution permits the conclusion as to any atrocities. The letters essentially deal with organizational questions. In \n this connection it seems significant that the Chiefs of the Amtsgruppen are not listed in the intra-office distribution.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1368, "page_number": "1362", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "In referring to the witness von dem Bach-Zelewski and general cases which are in no connection with the defandant's activity in the Staff Main Office, the prosecution finally thinks it can draw the conclusion that the defendant, in his capacity as SS-Fuehrer and from occasional conferences, must have obtained knowledge of the events which now form the basis of the indictment. This indirect proof as offered by the prosecution is bound to lead to an illusory conclusion as will be shown by the further presentation of evidence. In contrast to the statements by the witness von dem BachZelewski, Dr. Kogon, who for years was a political inmate in a concentration camp and who has been called in as witness by the prosecution in other trials in Nurnberg and Dachau, points cut explicitly in his much publicized book, \"The SSState\" that the circle of those who, within the leadership corps of the SS knew about the atrocities, had been negligibly small. The defendant, at least, did not belong to this circle. The witness von dem Bach-Zelewski had to confirm this much: that at any rate he had never seen the defendant in any important conference and that he did not know him otherwise either. At a matter of fact, the defendant never participated in conferences which had as their agenda measures new under indictment. The conference of Summer 1942 (Doc.NO 2703b, Pros. Ex. 206b) does not imply an incrimination against the defendant inasmuch as it was merely concerned with the fate of German settlers who lived dispersed in the Ukraine.\nIt is a fact that Meyer-Hetling did not know anything of any atrocities. He, therefore, also did not become a particips criminis or accomplice. In particular, there has \n been no proof offered that he had any connection with any possible criminal plans or operations or participated in them through giving his agreement.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1369, "page_number": "1363", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The fact alone that he belonged to the Staff Main Office, even though temporarily in the capacity of Amtsgruppenchef (Chief of a group of offices) does not, in the opinion of the defense, suffice to declare him guilty.\nFinally the defendant is charged with membership in a criminal organization after 1 September 1939, to wit, the SS. The defense will draw a picture of the political career of the defendant in order to disprove this charge. The conclusion will be evident that the defendant was guided only by idealistic viewpoints. Particularly his amazingly fast academic career was not a consequence of his party affiliations. As early as 1930 he received, at the age of 29, on the ground of his outstanding scientific attainments, the venia legendi. In 1931 he received his first offer to lecture at an agricultural university. As many others he, too, saw in the Hitler movement, after the failure of the party system in force, the possibility of a new spiritual rising and expected from it the salvation of the peasantry. In using as a starting point the German Philosophy of Idealism of the 19th century, ha believed as a young scientist, not uninfluenced by Romanticism, in a German Rennaissance.\nHis scientific works in agriculture brought the defendant into contact with the leaders of' the peasantry and led to his appointment in the Reichsbauernrat (Reich Council of Farmers). In that connection he was made an honorary Fuehrer in the SS. As such, he also later on belonged to that organisation without ever performing active duty in the SS. His merely superficial membership in the SS is particularly apparent from the fact that he never gave the oath in the SS.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1370, "page_number": "1364", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The defense will prove this in detail and thus make it clear that the defendant was not a professional SS-Fuehrer, as is claimed in the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1371, "page_number": "1365", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The scientific attainments of the defendant were so important that already at the age of 32 he lectured as a professor first at Jena and soon thereafter in Berlin, Through his publications he became world-renowned. From all European and verseas universities colleagues in the field took up contact with him and went to see him in his Berlin institutes. I shall introduce a number of references, among them those of winners of the Nobel Prize, which will convey to the court a picture of the personality of the defendant.\nAround the New Year 1938-39 the members of the venerable and famous Prussian Academy of Science elected the defendant into their midst. In view of the conservative character of the Academy this act meant the highest recognition of the human and scientific qualities of the defendant.\nWith the beginning of the war the majority of the German university professors was drafted as experts for collaboration in the Ministries, a fact apparent also in the other countries. At this time, the defendant Meyer-Hetling was called into the Staff Main Office by Himmler. In view of the example set by his numerous colleagues, the defendant thought it impossible to balk at this appointment, but he made it a point that his now duties were to be only secondary and that he were not to be alienated too much from his main scientific task. To complete the scientific task of his life meant for the defendant more than personal honors.\nFurthermore, a brief look into the activity of the defendant as university teacher into his work as Chief of the agricultural and dietary research sector of the Reich Research Council will give proof that the defendant was an unstinting champion for the freedom of science who always retained his scientific-critical attitude. His disputes \n COURT I CASE VIII with Hess, then Deputy of the Fuehrer, which were a result of his attitude, will be reflected in the documents and will offer a picture of his personality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1372, "page_number": "1366", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "I shall further prove that he abstained completely from the political machinery of the Party and thereby soon came into conflict with the local party functionaries.\nHis attitude and his views were formed by the realization of his inner obligation to serve his fatherland unselfishly in hare times. When the war grew in intensity and he, thus, saw no further possibility to devote his time to scientific research he volunteered for service as a common soldier. Thus, the picture of Meyer-Hetling becomes Wellrounded to show who he actually was: one of the most capable German scientists, of pure character, who in love for the soil which had borne him, honestly tried to advance humanity.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement of Max Sollmann.\nDR.RATZ (for the defendant Max Sollmann) : Your Honors, the defendant Max Sollmann was since 1940 director of the \"Lebensborn\" society and in this capacity appears as defendant in this trial. Three of his former assistants are next to him in the doc as co-defendants. The heavy responsibility for everything that happened under his direction in \"Lebensborn\" and through \"Lebensborn\" since 1940 lies with him. He does not intend to shirk this responsibility, and above all he Wants to assume the responsibility together with and for his assistants. This he finds all the easier as to the best of his knowledge and conscience he does not feel any criminal guilt lying heavy neither on himself nor on his assistants.\nThe \"Webensborn\" Society was founded in 1936 as a private association and remained a private association until the collapse of Germany. The foundation took place on the \n COURT I CASE VIII initiative of Himmler, who here translated a special, i.e. a charitable idea into action.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1373, "page_number": "1367", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "This idea had a double aspect; support of families with many children and care for expectant mothers; his primary object was to fight against the helplessness and the social prescription of the unmarried mother and at the same time to oppose a most ominous sign of the times: the abortion. The idea of a public support of particularly the unmarried mother was rather contrary to the traditional views of bourgeois respectability. But the realization of this idea certainly met a practical need.\nThe question whether immorality was encouraged through these measures is not to be discussed here; it is a fact, however, that the activity of the \"Lebensborn\" Society met with the grateful acknowledgment of numerous unmarried mothers far beyond the circles of the SS. Through maternity homes and infants' homes, through legal protection free of charge, through economic support of mother and child, but also through temporary secrecy measures in ease such appeared necessary in the interest of the persons concerned, and through arranging for foster and adoption homes the \"Lebensborn\" Society found a rich and comprehensive field of activity. It is quite well possible to believe the persons working in \"Lebensborn\" when they maintain that they regarded their work as a completely unpolitical activity, finding full satisfaction in the human care for mother and child and having no desire for further tasks.\nThe work of \"Lebensborn\" was not only unpolitical, the society was also, as mentioned before, organized on the lines of a private association. This society had no powers as a corporation under public law, it had no power to issue orders to any individuals or agencies; neither had it any jurisdiction in such a sense that everything having to do \n COURT I CASE VIII with children in the work of the SS main offices would have come under its field of jurisdiction.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1374, "page_number": "1368", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Neither did it ever work in the field of the so-called Germanization work, not even in the form of an experiment. The reputation enjoyed by \"Lebensborn\" everywhere on account of its beneficial work appears, that is true, to have produced the erroneous assumption in many central official agencies that \"Lebensborn\" was in charge of all questions pertaining to children, which again had the consequence that in many documents \"Lebensborn\" was quite incorrectly mentioned as having participated or being responsible in all possible connection without any provocation or knowledge thereof on its part. Another consequence is that the Prosecution has taken possession of this circumstance inventing a close connection between \"Lenbensborn\" and numerous SS main offices. It will be shown that this invention is an error. It would also be incorrect to assume something else, or to consider \"Lebensborn\" as being something else than a society for the pursuance of charitable tasks, merely because it was a foundation of Himmler, and because it was affiliated to the entire group of SS-offices as \"Mt L\" in Main Office Personal Staff.\nYour Honors, today the responsible men of the \"Lebensborn\" Society appear before you, charged with serious war crimes and crimes against humanity, above all of the crime of kidnapping of children. The Prosecution declares that this crime surpasses all other crimes committed by National Socialism in other fields, citing a speech by Himmler in Bad Schachen in October 1943, in which Himmler describes it as his task to kidnap racially desirable children of the Slavic nations if necessary. The Prosecution apparently wants to establish a connection between this announcement and the \"Lebensborn\" defendants in order to prove their \n COURT I CASE VIII guilt.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1375, "page_number": "1369", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "That the leading men of the Third Reich frequently did not only use words but also proclaimed actions that were without moderation, without restraint and without any moral inhibition, is a well-known fact and even a characteristic of the National Socialist regime. But it is not permissible to use this as a proof of the criminal guilt of men to whom Himmlerls intentions such as those referred to were completely unknown, and who moreover only feigned to comply with orders if they had realized their iniquitous or doubtful character, and who nevertheless always in their actions unconditionally kept within the limits of legal and moral laws. The defendant Sollmann and his assistants belong to this category of credulous and decent people, and the answer to the question whether the activity of \"Lebensborn\" was ever in any respect criminal, must also in this trial be an unconditional \"No\".\nIt is further in pursuance of the tactics of the Prosecution to interpret the facts as if the \"Lebensborn\" Society had played a part in the general program of genocide and had also carried out this part correctly in its field, as though the forced Germanization of children by using the method of kidnapping had been its speciality and its contribution to the destruction of the vital foundations of the national groups. If we take the most important exhibit against \"Lebensborn\", Greifelt's ordinance of 19 February 1942, the so-called Decree 67/1, the following brief explanation must be given: This decree pertained only to such orphans whose parents had been Germans and who had been Polonized intentionally or unintentionally through being placed in Polish orphan homes or with Polish foster parents up till 1939.\nThe statements concerning this did not come from the National Socialists at all but from the German Protestant \n COURT I CASE VIII parsons who worked in the areas which were Polish at that time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1376, "page_number": "1370", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "After the Regional Youth Office (Landesjugendamt) had been set up in Posen, the leader of the German Protestand Youth Office in the Polish national area reported there and informed them that in previous years Polish Youth Offices, in spite of objections on the part of the German Protestant Youth Office, had directed German orphans to Polish, not German, orphan asylums. Since the names were changed immediately upon entering the Polish orphan asylums it was, however, no longer possible to determine where the individual children were now and what names they received. Therefore, it was decided to undertake a check of the Polish orphan asylums and to determine which children, were of ethnic German stock. Scrupulous care was to be taken in this connection, that no Polish children be registered too, since the latter were not to be made ethnic Germans. On the occasion of the dissolution of the Polish orphan asylums at that time, the question of the future fate of these ethnic German children arose. And now the above mentioned Decree 67/I was issued. Accomodating these children in the homes of the Lebensborn, and disposing of the children to German foster parents through the Lebensborn meant, then, nothing more than a rectification, a restoration of their nationaltiy, suppressed in violation of international law. Really, the cooperation of so many offices and of such a complicated procedure would not have been necessary, if they had been bent on kidnapping and certainly they would also have included special precautions for preserving secrecy.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1377, "page_number": "1371", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nDR.RATZ: (For the Defendant Sollmann) After the children had been selected by the national or municipal youth offices, in doing which strict care was taken that no unattached Polish children should be inadvertently included, and after the children had been checked for their ability to be educated and trained in the Children's Home Kalisch of the local Gau, administration, they were given into the keeping and care of the Lebensborn.\nThe Lebensborn received every child as a needy orphan who was sent there by a national office; should the Lebensborn, perhaps, have refused to receive the child and hove checked the points of view according to which the Child was selected, it is difficult to understand how these defendants could have arrived at the idea that in this single temporarily limited action, where 200, or at the most 300 children from Polish orphan asylums which had Just been dissolved were concerned, criminal ideas were being put into practice, ideas which to them, the workers at the Lebensborn, were just as unfamiliar as to anyone among the German people. The evidence will show in detail how unfounded the claims of the prosecution are in the case on those children from the Warthegau, and will bring to light much evidence of compelling logic; for example, the fact that the defendant Sollmann immediately ordered the return of the children when it developed through the appearance of a relative that the child in question had been erroneously considered unattached; or, as a further example, the fact that the so-called changing of names was in reality conferring of names on the basis of legal coercion, which was done \n COURT I CASE VIII exclusively in the interest of the child; these so-called changes of names took place, moreover, in only 15 or at the most 30 cases, in which the legal prerequisite for conferring a name was given without doubt on the basis of the German Law concerning Personal Status.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1378, "page_number": "1372", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Instead of citing further conclusive facts for basing their charge of mass kidnapping of foreign children through the Lebensborn, the Prosecution gave a detailed description of the tragedy of Lidice. Here only the one fact can be of interest, namely, that 7 to 12 of these children came into contact with the Lebensborn after being transported away from their homeland and that all 7 to 12 returned to their native land healthy and unharmed. The contact with the Lebensborn came about through the Children's Home Puschkau, which did not, however, belong to the Lebensborn, but to the local Gau administration Posen. This children's home turned to the Lebensborn to obtain clothing, linen and shoes for the Czech children, and then with the further request that the Lebonsborn aid them in sending these children to reliable German foster parents; above all, by checking the suitability of the foster parents, which is what really happened. What would have happened to the 7 to 12 children if they had not been declared fit for being Germanized? They would probably have disappeared without any trace. I will, of course, not maintain that the happy ending alone was a proof for the legality of the conduct of the defendant Sollmann and his colleagues, but I maintain that there is also no evidence against these defendants which could justify the assumption of a crime of kidnapping or other inhumanities against them in the ease of the Czech children. Certainly this assumption is also not able to \n COURT I CASE VIII justify the word \"Germanization\". This was probably the slogan under which the children came under the protection of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1379, "page_number": "1373", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "For the Lebensborn, however, this did not change anything in the facts that in this Instance children came under its protection and care who had required help and who had to be helped with particular readiness, no matter from what motive they had been turned over to their jurisdiction.\nI must, however, mention the following: The Lebensborn with its maternity and children's homes was not set up at all for the care and keeping of older and in addition foreign children. Therefore, but also for the further reason that he only wanted to care for German children, the defendant Sollmann took a negative attitude to an order of Himmler in 1943 to care for more Czech children. The opposing attitude of the defendant Sollmann will be clearly brought out in the presentation of evidence and it will be shown clearly in detail by this, as well as by all circumstances, that the defendant Sollmann and his colleagues may not be charged with any sort of punishable guilt, not even with regard to the Czech children.\nMay it please the Court, this in reality, is the extensive plan to kidnap foreign children with which the Prosecution would like to charge the Lebensborn. I must also mention the Norwegian children, with reference to whom the Prosecution stands on still loss firm ground; and the Jugoslavian children, with reference to whom essentially the same thing must be said as about the children of the Warthegau. The alleged spoliation of Jewish and polish property by Lebensborn will be explained in the Defense presentation of evidence to the effect that here again the defendant Sollmann, and incidentally his assistants, too, behaved correctly and legally in every respect.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1380, "page_number": "1374", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "I would like to conclude with the statement that also Sollman's American friends -- he lived for five years among North Americans -- do not consider him capable of such actions, which, according to the American concept, would have exceeded the normal practice of patriotism and faith in his fatherland. I hope that after the conclusion of my presentation of evidence this will also become the opinion of the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement on behalf of the defendant Tesch.\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch) May it please the Tribunal:\nIn my reply to the indictment I wish to make the preliminary remark that the Lebensborn, although it was the subject of the trial before the IMT, was neither designated as a criminal organization nor as a part of such in the sentence of the IMT. In like manner, the Lebensborn has not been listed in the German Law for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of 5th March 1946, which is in force in the Laender of the U.S. Occupational Zone of Germany as an organization covered by the law.\nAs a former co-worker of this organization the defendant Tesch is charged with the participation in the kidnapping of foreign children.\nContrary to this, I shall show in my presentation of evidence that the defendant Tesch neither participated in a program for the kidnapping of children nor did he take part in such actions in individual cases.\nTo begin with, it seems doubtful as to whether there existed at all a plan for the deportation or kidnapping of foreign children except perhaps as a future plan in Himmlerls brain. Insofar as this does not already follow \n COURT I CASE VIII from the documents of the Prosecution, the Defense Counsel for the accused former co-workers of the Lebensborn will prove that the Lebensborn at any rate did not participate in such a plan or at all in a large program for the transplantation of persons of other nationalities.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1381, "page_number": "1375", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Apart from proofs in individual cases, this will become evident from the basic purpose and the actual duties of the Lebensborn to be set forth, which cover fields quite apart from those which form the subject of this trial.\nIn addition, the presentation of evidence by the Defense will include proof that there was no participation in the plan, as asserted by the Prosecution, by way of an organizational inclusion of the Lebensborn in the Main Offices, which above all are charged with the carrying out of such measures, especially the Main Race and Settlement Office and the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The Lebensborn was neither in a relation of subordination nor of coordination to them. According to its nature, the Lebensborn was an office which in regard to its organization was not on a level with the mentioned Main Office; was not charged with making plans; could not issue directives to outsiders; but merely acted within the limits of its statutes or the tasks assigned to it additionally by the chairman of the Kuratorium, Heinrich Himmler.\nThe assertion of the Prosecution connected with the plan, stating that the Lebensborn had participated in intended or even completed genocide is most clearly refused by the number of children which become manifest during the Prosecution's presentation of evidence, Children who had been taken care of by the Lebensborn during the entire war period.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1382, "page_number": "1376", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The witness for the Prosecution, Heinze Wiswede, stated the number of children originated from Upper Garniola or Lower Styria to be 20; from the former Protectorate Bohemia-Moravia between 7 and 12, and from the Warthegau about 200. The presentation of evidence will show that the total of 230 children essentially corresponds to the facts and that at any rate a number of 250 children is not surpassed. If, in addition, the Tribunal will be presented with evidence according to which that number does not represent the beginning of a major action, but a final figure, the surpassing of which had been neither planned nor tackled, then We shall have the most unequivocal proof that an inclusion of the Lebensborn in the large-scale program of genocide, by which three different nations should be weakened in their folkdom and Germanism should be strengthened, is out of the question. No one with in the Lebensborn could have entertained the idea that by caring for these children he offended against another folkdom.\nIf, on the other hand, in view of this figure it is taken into consideration that the Lebensborn at the same time had to take care of about 6,000 illegitimate German children and over 10,000 orphans and children whose fathers had fallen during the war, and their mothers, then it is obvious that the activity of the Lebensborn in the field of taking care of ethnic German children represented an additional activity of no significance. It did not even amount to two per cent of the total amount of work. A similar ratio is also shown in the number of employees engaged in this field. In view of these figures it would be an untenable supposition if one intended to assert that the Lebensborn in the course of the war had switched from its activity devoted to the protection of illegitimate children and war orphans to ethnicpolitical aims.\nAS to the children who had been taken over to the Lebensborn, in my opinion, the presentation of evidence by the Prosecution had not proved that the removal from incorporated territories into other parts of the then Reich territory could be regarded as kidnapping or even as \n seizure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1383, "page_number": "1377", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "A long time before the Lebensborn had been charged with this task, German authorities had assumed the responsibility for the children. In this connection it would lead too far if I would attempt to go into details as to how these measures of the German authorities should be evaluated from a legal standpoint. At any rate it is an established fact that the taking over of the protection of the children by the German authorities was an action complete in itself. If one wished to regard this as a criminal act, then it has at any rate. already been completed by the reasons which the German authorities gave for taking charge of them. The Lebensborn, however, did not participate in this action.\nIn view of this the transports into the territory of the Old Reich merely represent a subsequent fact which is beyond legal appreciation. For the annexed districts were considered as parts of the Reich just the same as the other territories of the Reich, and, therefore, it was not necessary to transport children from one part to another if one wanted to kidnap them.\nNot even at the stage of the transports into the territory of the Old Reich do we see the Lebensborn getting active, much less so in the initial stages which took place in a territory inaccessible to the Lebensborn. Thus it was at least in these cases induced by events of war, of events conditional by war. By this I mean the cases of these children from the Upper Carniola or Lower Styria and from the Protectorate Bohemia-Moravia, of that time. Apart from the fact that contact with the Lebensborn was only established much later, also the complete difference in the nature of the causes entirely speaks against a preconceived plan. The Lebensborn was asked for assistance only when the children already were under German projection and when the local offices were about to decide where the children might best be accomodated.\nAlso in the case of the children from the Warthegau of that time it was essentially the same, although here the events took place under more peaceful conditions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1384, "page_number": "1378", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "As in the above-named two cases, the children who finally came into contact with the Lebensborn had here, too, previously been under the protection of German authorities who claimed them as German or ethnic German children, declared them as such to the Lebensborn and put them under the car of the Lebensborn. The children represented unattached needy orphans for Lebensborn from the moment it took them over. By providing for and accomodating them it fulfilled a social and not a political task. If the taking over the care had been made dependent on a previous clarifying of the conditions of the Personal status of the children, it would have been equal, under the conditions of that time, to a refusal of caring for the children. The Lebensborn thus would have belied its character as a social relief organization.\nIf in the same cases, the designation \"Germanization\" or 'reGermanization\" were used, this was not caused by the Lebensborn or done its approval or assistance. The care for the children was exercised on the part of the Lebensborn neither has anything to do with these designations nor was it exercised according to a special directives in the sense of a Germanization or re-Germanization. The Lebens born neither had the right nor the possibility to a irm or deny this supposition already stated before.\nNor therefore, did it have at its disposal institutions or trained employees who could have served for Germanization. It will be the task of the Defense to disprove, for instance, the assertion of the Prosecution that the Lebensborn had particular homes in which children were forced to learn the German language or were educated in the sense of a national-socialist ideology. The duration of the stay of children in Lebensborn homes depended on the fact whether foster parents were at their disposal or not. As far as this is not already proved by previous evidence, it will further be demonstrated that the Lebensborn maintained no homes in the Warthegau and all the institutions there which were mentioned by the Prosecution were installed by the self-administration of the Gau or other authorities \n of the Warthegau; further more, also the so-called home schools in the Reich territory were not subordinated to the Lebensborn, but the inspection of the hom schools within the organization of the Reich Ministry of Education.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1385, "page_number": "1379", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The Lebensborn itself assumed in no way a special procedure in the nature of accomodating and caring for children. Since the children were needy in a sense which results from numerous documents by the Prosecution, where there is a question of single children, children without parents, unattached children and orphans, they were entrusted to foster parents, that is, the Lebensborn gave them the care which in such cases is not only customary, but also is the most suitable one for the well-being of children in such a situation. Such a procedure corresponds with the general principles of the Lebensborn which always considered education in homes an evil to which recourse should only be had in an emergency case. If forced education or forced Germanization had been planned, the Lebensborn would have had to go in for home and not for family education. The lebensborn did not even make it a condition that the forster-parents were active of the National-Socilaist Party or members of the SS. The fortser homes were rather selected with a view how the forster parents could best find a purely human contact with the children. There were never issued any directives to influence the children in the sense of a Germanization and, on the whole, one never went beyond the principles which are customary everywhere and not only in Germany when playing children into forster or adopted homes and which principles are being observed by such institutions.\nNor is it a peculiarity which has to be brought into connection with measures of Germanization or rules existing for such a procedure that, on principle, there was the intention on the part of the Lebensborn as well as on the part of the forster parents to adopt the children. There is no better possibility of safeguarding the future of an orphan.\nThe Lebensborn tried to meet the uncertain circumstances with respect \n to the origin and the missing personal records of the children by abstaining on principle from any adoption for the duration of the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1386, "page_number": "1380", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "All other measures such as the issuance of certification, in some cases also birth certificates, were improvised and emanated from the need to safeguard the necessaries of life of the children in the meantime and until the final clarification of their circumstances.\nHere, too, there was no uniform system fixed according to directives, but in every individual case whatever was best suited to the special emergency was done.\nThe thesis of the Prosecution, which is kept in rather general lines, that the Lebensborn veiled the origin of the children and falsified birth certificates can already now be considered disproved.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1387, "page_number": "1381", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "How can there be any talk of veiling since the Prosecution witnesses Heinze-Wisswede and Uebe have already distinctly testified that the children retained the names under which they came into custody of the German authorities while on their way to the homes and even while in the care. of the foster parents? Their former names may have been Germanized already in the Warthegau, the justification for which may be left undecided, but never did the old name of the child disapper.\nWherein is the veiling of the personal status to be detected, if the Registrar OfficeL appliedArticle 26 of the Law of Status, that is, a procedure which was in force since the year 1875 for children in Germany, in cases which could not be classified?\nOn this point, the export witness, Dr. Schulz, who was produced by the Prosecution, gave convincing evidence, When issuing birth certificates it was a provisional measure which was subject to correction at any time. Official measures of the Registrar OfficeL safeguardthe retention of the original names, which in addition were also known by the forster parents. Although, in view of the fact that the personal status could not be clarified in the near future, there would have been plenty of cause and justification to apply to a vast extent the procedure according to Article 26 of the Law of Status, this has only been done in very few, namely, in only about 10 percent of the cases; in fact, only when the forster parents convinced the Lebensborn of the indispensible necessity of producing to the authorities a certificate pertaining to the personal status.\nThe activity of the Lebensborn in this domain, I may concluding state here, was thus opposed to a veiling, rather than advocating it or making it possible.\nAlso, the question of the nationality plays a big part for the Prosecution. It pretends that there was a question of children from abroad. Although questions of nationality should be of no importance in the care of children, the Defense will also prove in this case that, the question of the nationality was dealt with by the Lebensborn and has to be estimated in the sense of a mitigation.\nIt is proved that the children came from districts, at that time, were part of the Reich territory.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1388, "page_number": "1382", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "In spite or that, Lebensborn did not claim these children as German citizens and treat them as such, but when it was necessary for any reasons to list their citizenship, it was indicated as \"stateless\". This practice shows distinctly that the Lebensborn thereby merely took into consi deration the de facto status of the territories concerned and employed a special term which left the door open for all possibilities of a final settlement later on.\nNo change in the citizenship of the children occured by their being quartered in the territory of the Old Reich. Not even through the process of adoption could the child, regardless of the territory of origin, lose its former citizenship, which possibly was still valid. Thus, here too the Lebensborn abstained from doing anything that would have been necessary for a final settlement of the citizenship question, but it maneuvered as well as was possible, without eliminating the temporary status.\nWith regard to the further count of the indictment concerning the taking away of infants from female Eastern workers, the Prosecution has introduced, in this connection, merely a decree of the Reich Security Main Office dated 27 July 1943, Document No. 1383, Prosecution Exhibit 496, which mentions the Lebensborn. No proof whatsoever has been offered that the Lebensborn accepted into their homes or cared in any other way for women or children of that category.\nThis has never been the case either. As is evident from the Very documentary material introduced by the prosecution, it was not the Lebensborn but the NSV that was compet ent in such matters, as on all questions concerning care of children whose foreign origin was beyond doubt.\n(Compare DocumentNO-5007, Exhibit 475, and DocumentNO-933, Exhibit 474.)\nWith regard to the count of the Indictment concerning spoliation of private and public property of Jews and Poles, I would merely like to mention that the legal concept of spoliation means the unlawful appropriation of foreign property. The Indictment, however, has in no instance proven that the defendant Tesch himself in any way participated in such an unlawful appropriation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1389, "page_number": "1383", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "May it please the Court, I would now like to turn to some explanations as to the person and activity of the defendant Tesch.\nYou are faced, in the person of the defendant Tesch, with a jurist whose career is typical for conditions in Germany prior to and during the war; a man without political ambitions, but who could not evade contact with the Party and its organizations since they were altogether the prerequisites for anyone who wanted to engage in the legal profession in the Third Reich. That will be something extraordinary for American conceptions; in the Germany of that time it was forcibly so, and normal. In various trials before local American Military Tribunals it has been pointed out repeatedly, through evidence--and I shall introduce pertinent evidence also in this trial--that only a jurist who was already firmly established in 1933 could perhaps afford to go his own way independent of the Party; and even them we have sufficient examples of attorneys whose practice was endangered or destroyed through the influence of the Party.\nIn 1933 the defendant Tesch was Referendar (law candidate). That means he was in the process of his juridical training and had completed his university schooling and passed the first state bar examination. As a college and university student he had not belonged to any party. Now, however, he could neither remain Referendar nor take the second state bar examination without being a member of the Party or one of its organizations.\nWhile he joined the Party and the SA in order to protect himself against the charge of being politically unreliable, he did not take any active part in the political life. Also, his induction into the Wehrmacht, when war broke out in 1939, fell within the general civic duties of a German.\nThe fact that the defendant later on came into relationship with the SS can be explained out of his natural desire to complete, after one and a half years of combat duty, his four years of pre-law practice as Anwalt-assessor (law candidate), a prerequisite to being finally devote his life to the legal profession.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1390, "page_number": "1384", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "After his acceptance into the SS, which was made retroactive as of 30 January 1941, he received a rank which corresponded to the professional of lawyer which he had reached in the meantime, and thus, his prmotion was not political.\nIt will be shown, by his renunciation of a fulltime position in the SS and the provilege connected therewith, as well as by the afore mentioned characterization, that he did not consider the SS as the purpose of his life, as is claimed by the Indictment. It is in conformity with the attitude of the defendant that he confined his activity in the Lebensborn to professional collaboration as a lawyer and merely acted as a legal advisor.\nWhen in May, in consequence of a sudden change in personnel, there were no specialists available to arrange for forster for ethnic German children, Dr. Tesch came, for the first time, in contact with this sphere of acativity. That was at a time when the obligation for Lebensborn to take over such children had already been established.\nThis shows that the defendant Tesch had to accept a situation which was already in existence, and which was beyond his power. Nor did he have the possibility to call a stop to accepting further children by the Lebensborn, or to return to the assigning authorities children already accepted. It stands to reason that, as a jurist, the defendant Tesch was not concerned with actually arranging for forster homes for children. His task, thus could only lie in trying to alleviate difficulties which resulted for the children and the forster from the circumstances as outlined above.\nWhatever in this direction by the collaboration of the defendent Tesch was, under the circumstances, only of a temporary nature.\nAnd the defendant neither carried out orders nor issued such orders -which purported to cloud the origin of these ethnic German children.\nAs the witness Schulz has already stated the defendant Tesch was not at all in a position to issue binding orders to the registrar's office of Lebensborn. Besides, I shall prove that the activities of Lebensborn in this field, \n which in numbers was negligible, caused very little work in the Main Division for Legal Matters and represented only one of seven of activity of the Main Division for Legal Matters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1391, "page_number": "1385", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "As for the Lebensborn altogether the care of the ethnic German children was also, for the defendant Tesch, a secondary field of activity in view of the entire scope of his duties.\nDuring his association with Lebensborn, the defendant Tesch never dealt nor had deal with ethnological mattersm which form the focal point of this trial, since ethnological work was of no significance to theproblem of how to place the children best.\nWhen I was asked to take over the defense of the defendant Tesch, and I had to assume on the basis of the material handled in this trial, that I would have to deal with problems entirely new to me, I asked the defendant Tesch to give me some idea about race and ethnological questions; for instance, to explain to me the DVL procedure and the WED procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1392, "page_number": "1386", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII \"I am afraid I can't help you either\", was his reply. \"I can give a lecture on all problems of the German laws pertaining to illegitimate children; I can tell you what has to be done in order to bring reluctant fathers to acknowledge paternity, how the suits have to be conducted in order to ensure the support of illegitimate children, etc.; I can also explain to you the procedure relative to pensions for widows of soldiers killed in the war, what has to be done in order to secure allowances for their children in the best possible way; and finally, I can also tell you, as we know how to do it in Lebensborn, how to overcome bureaucratic resistance for the benefit of other children in the face of unclarified origin or nationality and lack of records, in order to help these children to their rights and their forster parents to children's allowances and tax rebates. In other word, how, despite war and all circumstances connected therewith, one found, for all these children, the respective modus vivendi in every individual case in order to ensure, in the first place, their elementary necessities of life.\"\nFrom this reply of the defendant Tesch I gained a picture of his actual activity, which showed me how remote he was from all problems of racial and ethnological policy which play such an important part in this trial, I shall present to the High Court evidence for the correctness of this picture, and thus give the possibility to decide whether the defendant Tesch acted in a criminal way when he was active as a jurist within the Lebensborn and within this scope became a member of the SS.\nInasmuch as the presentation of evidence on the part of the Prosecution has not already made it apparent that the charges originally raised in the Indictment are untenable. I believe that I shall be able to show, through my line of \n COURT I CASE VIII defense, as outlined above, that conviction of the defendant Tesch would not be justified on any counts of the Indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1393, "page_number": "1387", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement for the defendant Viermetz.\nDR.ORTH (Counsel for the defendant Viermetz): Mr. President; Your Honors. In the fall of 1938 Frau Inge Viermetz had the intention of taking a position. On her inquiry at the employment office, the Lebensborn Society was mentioned to her as looking for female workers. She did what every reasonable person is sure to do in such a situation. She asked what the Lebensborn was, which at that time was unknown to her, and what aims and tasks it pursued. With inward satisfaction, Frau Viermetz then found out that, on the basis of the statutes, it was the task of the Lebensborn Society to support the great number of children of the SS, to protect and care for every mother of good blood, and to take care of mothers and children who needed help. The Society served no other aims than those of the common good and charity.\nI repeat: With inward satisfaction, Frau Viermetz found that to be the case. For what is closer to a woman than the care of mothers and children who are in need of help? And what was closer to the defendant Viermetz at that time than this welfare work, to her who, disappointed by her first unfortunate marriage, was now socking comfort and satisfaction in an activity suitable for a woman?\nIn this way Frau Viermetz came to Lebensborn. There she found a field of activity which, in the years to follow, gave her life its meaning: The work and the care for expectant mothers, for poor children, whose need and suffering she looked upon as her own.\nThe work of Frau Viermetz was never determined by any \n COURT I CASE VIII other concern or any other aim; neither was it the case during the later years in which she carried out the work, on account of which she was brought before this High Tribunal by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1394, "page_number": "1388", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The charges raised against Frau Viermetz are only slight in consideration of the entire load of charges brought forward by the Prosecution.\nFor the defense of the defendant Viermetz it is of first importance to clarify and to establish truthfully her position within the Lebensborn Society. The Prosecution is trying to make this position much more important than it actually was.\nFrau Viermetz entered the Lebensborn Society as a stenographer. Then, later, she worked her way up, through her knowledge and ability. That she succeeded in this respect, although she was not even a member of the Party and had no connections with the SS, is due primarily to the fact that she had the inner urge to help other people in distress, this urge lending wings to her ability. Nevertheless, she did not hold any leading responsible position, as admitted by the Prosecution itself when it declared, in Count 7 of the Indictment, and expressly stated that Max Sollmann was personally responsible for the direction of Main Department A. That was also the case at the time when Frau Viermetz, as deputy, was only in charge temporarily and, only for purposes of reorganization, was the head of Main Department A.\nIf, in Count 7 of the Indictment already referred to above, Lebensborn is being held responsible for the kidnapping of foreign children for purposes of Germanization, this accusation itself does not really apply to the Lebensborn Society, and in no case does it affect the defendant Viermetz. She had nothing to do with the kidnapping of foreign children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1395, "page_number": "1389", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "COURT I Case VIII She only did her feminine duty. She took care of children entrusted to her as ethnic German children or unattached children. Whatever might have \"been the aims of the persons who carried off the children from Polish orphan homes or from Lower Styria, Frau Viermetz did not Know these aims, and they were of no interest to her and of no importance. She only knew that here there were children whom nobody cared for, children who had no parents to be concerned about their fate, or, in some cases, children whose relatives could not do anything for them because they had been sent to concentration camps or other camsp by authorities that had nothing at all to do with the Lebensborn Society.\nWho would make a charge out of this work of the defendant Viermetz? Quite to the contrary, would it not have been justified to charge her with failure to fulfill responsibility if she had not taken care of these children, if she had left these children to an uncertain fate instead of taking charge of them? Who knows what would have become of the children if Lebensborn had not taken care of them? For it is a fact that the children who were under the care of the Lebensborn Society are still alive, but nobody knows where the children who did not come to Lebensborn are to be found.\nIn this connection, however, it must also be pointed out that the number of foreign children cared for by the Lebensborn Society is much, much smaller than assumed by the Prosecution. The witness for the Prosecution, HeinzeWiswede, on being interrogated, testified expressly that a total of approximately 200 children from the Warthegau, about 20 children from Yugoslavia, and 7 children from Czechoslovakia were under the care of the Lebensbor Society. Even this small number of children contradicts the assumption of a plan to kidnap foreign children for purposes of Germanization. We are going to prove that no such plan existed \n COURT I CASE VIII as Lebensborn was concerned, and that Lebensborn only took over children individually, as cases occurred, and without any plans of Germanization.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1396, "page_number": "1390", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Otherwise it could not be explained why Lebensborn refused to arrange adoptions when one or both parents of the children were still alive, and otherwise the fact would be incomprehensible that Lebensborn-as testified to by the witness before this Tribunal--demanded the return of a foster child the moment it learned that the father of the child was still alive.\nAnd once more I must emphasize: The children taken over by the Lebensborn Society were given into its charge as ethnic German children. This fact is substantiated by the practice that the selection and the racial evaluation of the children did not take place through the Lebensborn Society, but through other state agencies.\nIn No. 8 of the Indictment, it is alleged that the Lebensborn Society worked in very close cooperation with the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, with the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (VOMI), and the Main Race and settlement Office. This is not all in accordance with the facts; apart from occasional consultations and occasional correspondence, such as may occur among all state authorities, no further relations existed.\nIn No. 13 of the Indictment, Frau Viermetz is charged with special responsibility for or participation in the taking away of infants from female Eastern workers. The Prosecution has not produced a single document which would substantiate this charge with reference to Frau Viermetz. Neither could such a document possibly be produced, because the Lebensborn Society had nothing at all to do with the taking away of infants from female Eastern workers, and \n COURT I CASE VIII because Frau Viermetz in particular was not connected therewith.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1397, "page_number": "1391", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "As a woman and mother she would also have repudiated such an action with the most energetic determination.\nFinally, in No. 20 of the Indictment, Frau Viermetz is being held responsible for the looting of private and public property, for the alleged confiscation of Jewish and Polish hospitals, and of Jewish apartments and goods.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1398, "page_number": "1392", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "By presenting evidence I shall prove that these accusation too are unfounded. Frau Viermetz neither confiscated nor did she act as intermediary in the confiscation of Polish or Jewish hospitals for the Lebensborn. On one occasion only was she on Polish territory in connection with the establishment of children's homes. That did not even concern possible Polish or Jewish hospitals which were to be used as children's homes, but a number of empty buildings which were not in use. This is shown by the report presented as DocumentNO-3634, Exhibit 632. However, those children's homes de facto were neither established nor opened by Lebensborn, so there could have been no question of spoliation.\nIt is true that the Lebensborn confiscated goods after the occupation of Poland in 1939. Who carried out the confiscation, whether or how the goods were paid for, or for what reasons this did not take place -- all that is not known to Frau Viermetz, since she had nothing to do with it. She knew only that those goods were the property of the Lebensborn.\nAt this point I feel it necessary to refute with emphasis the accusation that Frau Viermetz had feathered her own nest with the property of the Lebensborn. We shall completely invalidate that accusation which is more offensive to her person than any other during the presentation of evidence. Any, who like Frau Viermetz, gives all her personal toil to aid suffering fellow-humans, and beyond that also alleviates the needs of other out of her personal funds, would not think of enriching herself with someone else's property.\nIf the Prosecution indicts Frau Viermetz, under counts 24 and 25 of the indictment, of the commission of war crimes, it is completely unfounded since the details, as stated in counts 13 and 20 of the indictment, are not true. Frau Viermetz did not violate the international agreements of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare or the prisoner-of-war convention. It need not be stressed that she did not know those regulations at all, and that she had neither the possibility nor the capability of examining or investigating legal problems of that kind. She could not nor need she concern herself with investigations of that sort. That was a man's duty.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1399, "page_number": "1393", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Her duty was to intervene wherever she, as a woman, had to intervene in the name of humanity. That duty she carried out. She gave all her strength as a woman to that task. And more yet, she sacrificed her health. If that manner of acting is a crime, then all such crimes must be blessed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The counsel who made the request with reference to the witness this morning is not present, is he?\nDr. Schmidt, will you give him this message? We did not seem to have enough facts from his statement this morning to act on the matter. If he will report to my office when we have finished this afternoon or when he has finished lunch with an interpreter, so that I can get the facts, then we will see what we can do for him. There seems to be only one more opening statement to make, and for the benefit of everybody, the Tribunal will announce now that when that opening statement has been made after the lunch hour, that the Tribunal will adjourn until Monday and will not begin the taking of testimony until Monday morning at 9:30. The Tribun will now adjourn until 1:30.\n(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1400, "page_number": "1394", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 21 November 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the opening statement in behalf of the defendant Hildebrandt.\nDR.FORESCHMANN (Counsel for the Defendant Hildebrandt): May it please the Tribunal:\nMy colleague Dr. Schwarz has already described the tasks and importance of RuSHA within the framework of the indictment against the defendant Hofmann and Hildebrandt in their capacity as chiefs of this office and the duties and importance of this office and the sphere of activity of the defendant Hofmann.\nWhat applies to Hofmann during the time from autumn 1939 to April 1943 applies also to the time when the defendant Hildebrandt who was Hofmann's successor as chief of office, albeit with this limitation that during the time of office of Hildebrandt the former sphere of action of the RuSHA was steadely diminishing because of the general and special conditions which had been caused by the war and that more and more stress was laid on the organization of care and welfare activities for the dependents of members of the SS.\nI am therefore able to refer to the statements of my most honored colleague and emphasize what he says about the completely misleading description of this office as Race and Settlement Office which gives the outsider a completely wrong picture of the tasks and the importance and position of the RuSHA within the complex with which the indictment concerns itself.\nAs Hildebrandt's defense counsel lam also accepting what Hofmann's defense counsel has stated about the collaboration of the RuSHA in the framework of the sphere of action of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, by putting at its disposal its racial examiners. However, the production of evidence for Hildebrandt will elaborate his statements in sofar as one cannot separate from it the \n activity of Hildebrandt as deputy of the Reich Commissar and Senior SS and Police Leader in Danzig, West Prussia and South Russia, in case, after considering the present state of the evidence the Prosecution does not prefer to refrain from making further charges against Hildebrandt on this count.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1401, "page_number": "1395", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "I can also refer myself to the very true statements of a general nature which Hofmann's defense counsel has made concerning the WED procedure. the collaboration in the examinations about prohibited sexual intercourse and the interruptions of pregnancy of Polish women, and I wish to emphasize especially the positive, life-preserving activities of the racial examiners referred to by Hofmann's defense counsel.\nConsidering the extraordinary number of documents produced by the Prosecution and the speed with which this trial has been carried on up to now, none of the defense counsel had any chance of going carefully through the documents in question. I am therefore also unable today to apply the theory of the evidence for the defendant Hildebrandt to every detail in the documents which particularly concern his case.\nNaturally the German defense, too, is interested in a speedy winding up of the trial. Due to my long experience in forensic practice and the experiences made in the trials carried on here by the IMT and the American Military Government courts, I cannot refrain from pointing out the dangers which may arise from such a summary procedure for the statement of the true facts of the case, the necessary clarification of the regulations and reports contained in the documents for the safeguarding of the principle of procedure. To this suggestion I should like to add the request to grant to the defense a more independent argumentation, also concerning the contents of the documents as, otherwise, efficient defense would be completely impossible.\nThis request is particularly justifiable for the reason that the Prosecution in its opening statement, followed by the German defense counsel with great interest, on its, own accord pointed out the great \n importance which the far-reaching consequences of the alleged, crimes has lent to this judicial procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1402, "page_number": "1396", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "The Prosecution was quite right when it gave the activities of the defendants, as far as it was connected with the Main Staff Office and the VOMI and the RuSHA a place in a development of world-wide importance, although not a \"program\" as the Prosecution calls it, which was supposed to secure for Germany for all times a predominance over Europe and afterwards over the whole globe. This characterization only proves the truth of the eternally true says of Goethe: \"and where ideas are completely absent, words are rushing in at the right time.\"\nSuch fantastic ideas may have taken shape in the heads of a few leading men of that time, but the activities of the defendants belonging to the RuSHA did not knew anything about such trends of thoughts. The defendants have, at least, if they had any knowledge at all of such irrational thoughts, rejected them even as the mass of the German people did, and with then all the men and women who put their strength at the disposal of this office.\nIdeas like \"Race\" and \"Lebensraum\" which were not understood and not digested and were the slogans of phony writers and repeated in the speeches and reports of crazy people who ran amok, were misrepresented by the Prosecution as a criminal \"trend towards the East of the German people\" born by a natural craving for conquest, and were taken as proof for the conceited idea of a racial superiority over all the other peoples of the world ordained by the deity to resist to the Poles like a \"rock thrown by the Lord on to the Bulwark.\"\nSuch a judgment, following humdrum lines, and found by way of deduction of the plans and measures referred to in the indictment must naturally lead up to unhappy and wrong conclusions. Such a theory misrepresents sense and origin of the German-Polish neighborhood which came into being in the first centuries of our millennium.\nIt does not know anything about the German colonization of Poland in the Middle Ages which brought to this country which was situated on \n the borderline of two worlds, the Byzantine and the Romanseque, quite some time after its appearance in the limelight of history the GermanRoman culture, festered economic and business relations with the old Russian Empire, the present Ukraine, and gave rise to the development of the first German cities in Poland.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1403, "page_number": "1397", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "This theory is equally unaware of the fact of the German selective immigration in the Golden Ages of the Polish-Lithuanian twin-empire at the beginning of the 15th century with its German industrial and trade creations which called German representatives of Humanism, German scientists and teachers into the country, and by mixing Polish and German folkdom had created Poland's predominance in Eastern Europe.\nThe theory does not realize the immense dynamics of the onset in the 17th century of the peoples from the steppes in the East, the Cossacks, the Russians the Tartars, against Poland's eastern territories which turned the face of Poland under its pressure towards the West in spite of the resistance of the Poles and the German mercenary troops.\nThe theory does not recall the historical fact that after the victory of Peter the Great of Russia over the Swedish King Karl XII at Pultawa, the new great power in the East was created under which superiority the hegemony of Poland up to that time, was destined to a slowly collapse. Finally it knows nothing about the new deployment of German reconstruction forces, which after the partition of Poland to Prussia, Russia and Austria, opened up for agriculture the sandy and marshy territories of Poland by way of rural settlements.\nThis stubborn German colonization work which had been effectively encouraged through centuries by the Poles, laid at the same time the ground for the German-Polish popular inter mixture which resulted in disaster for both states in the 19th and 20th centure. Through the Vienna Congress of 1815 Poland and Western Prussia became a part of the Prussian state. Under the influence of enlightenment and the dissemination of democratic ideologies and not at last through the Polish clergy and Polish emigrants in France and England, the national con \n sciousness of the Poles and the desire for the re-establishment of an independent state against the every-increasing pressure of Russia was strongly revived among the Polish part of the population of these new German provinces.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1404, "page_number": "1398", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "It resulted in the struggle for folkdom which the Polish people lead successfully in the 19th century which, however, Prussia and Germany waged in a stubborn but ineffective defense by way of an appeasement policy.\nThis appeasement policy strengthened the demand of the Poles for their self-determination and their own state, which in the end, found its fulfillment with the support of the Western powers in the treaty of Versailles.\nSince that time, the German provinces, German people regardless of ethnographic and political points of view, had been assigned to Poland, the Polish state started a planned de-Germanization policy which extended from the year 1919 to 1939. and which load via the treaty between the allied and associated high powers with Poland of 28 June 1919. the common declaration of the German and Polish government of 26 January 1934. and the corresponding declaration of both governments regarding the protection of the mutual minorities of 5 November 1937. to the disastrous events of September 1939.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1405, "page_number": "1399", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "This is the great historic event which is touched upon in the opening statement of the prosecution, but which is expressed there in a totally distorted form. It will be the task of the German defense to prove the historic connections, to furnish facts in the desire to elucidate the real conditions in Eastern Europe and to create an understanding for the \"Unknown Europe.\"\nNot the \"Drang nach Osten\" of the German people, but the successful consolidation endeavours of the Polish people in its defense against the Russian desire to find a direct accession to Western Europe by the subjugation of Poland, are responsible for the national hatred of the Poles against the Germans, which filled the interval between the two world wars in an ever-increasing manner.\nThere are hardly any two states in Europe which had less war-like conflicts with each other then Poland and Germany. Pilsudski's word of the thousand year old hatred of the Poles against the Germans, can be explained only out of the influence of the polonization endeavours with which the attitude of the great statesman was tainted. However that may be, hatred and revenge have always been bad counsels. Their result was the estension of the Polish territory by depopulation of German land in the East, the infiltration of Bolshevistic ideas in Poland, as acknowledged only a few days ago by the former leader of the Polish Peasant Party, Mikolajczik, and the expansion of the boundaries of the power and ideology realm of the Soviet-Union, which today are drawn up on the Elbe but may possibly reach the Rhine in a few years.\nTo banish this apprehension, which today fills Western Europe and the USA - as already indicated by the prosecution witness Ehlich and which furthermore the defense intends to prove, was the aim of the German resettling and evacuation policy after the conquest of Poland within the scope of the agreement with the Soviet Union, which still existed at that time. This intention was served by the many bilateral treaties with the Soviet Union and which were already the \n subject of the hearing of evidence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1406, "page_number": "1400", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "Through the Reich Main Security Office the destructive influence of the alien population was to be excluded and a group of settlements of German ancestry was to be created from the ranks of such Ethnic German groups who had lived in foreign countries and who had been brought back.\nIn the course of this policy the defendant Hildebrandt contributed his small part out of a deep and honest conviction in his capacity as Chief of the RuSHA, as deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and as Higher SS- and Police Leader. Not assistance in a \"Drang nach Osten\" or world rule, but strengthening of the German boreder territory against the advance of pan-slavism and pacification of the regained former German provinces was his endeavor. It may be that certain severities have occurred, especially during the first weeks after the bloody Sunday of Bremberg on 2 September 1939: Hildebrandt did not participate in same.\nWhat later on happened took place in a war which, on both sides, was waged disregarding the standards of international law, which did not exclude the non-belligerent population, but rather condemned hundreds of thousands to perish. The situation must not be considered ex nunc but rather ex tunc, within the frame of the frightful defense struggle against the danger threatening Europe from the East; if the question as to Hildebrendt's activities should be judged historically, unequivocally and justly from the stand point of crimes against humanity. Hildebrandt never had and does not today harbor any hatred against the polish people.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That concludes the opening statement on behalf of all the defendants.\nAs announced this morning, we will not begin the taking of testimony until Monday morning at nine-thirty.\nThursday of next week is Thanksgiving, a holiday, and of course there will be no session of this Tribunal on that day. It is rather our \n custom to also take Friday as a holiday following Thanksgiving, and in this instance we will follow that custom.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1407, "page_number": "1401", "date": "21 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-21", "text": "There will be no session of the Tribunal either Thursday or Friday of next week.\nThe Tribunal will now recess until nine-thirty Monday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 24 November 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1408, "page_number": "1402", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United.\nStates of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\ndefendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 24 November, 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United Sates of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the Defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nBefore we begin the taking of testimony on behalf of the defendants, the Tribunal desires to make a statement. For exphasis we state again that this Tribunal is not interested in opinions, conclusions or hearsay testimony; even though such testimony gets into the record it will not be considered.\nUnder our system of jurisprudence a defendant is presumed to be of good character until the contrary is made to appear. His character cannot be put in issue unless he elects to do so, and then it is permissible to simply prove that his character is good, The positions of honor, trust or prominence he may have held cannot be proved. This is true for the reason that good character is not dependent upon positions of honor, trust or prominence but is most often to be found in its purest type among the humblest of people. we believe this rule of evidence to be sound.\nThe defendants are not charged with planning aggressive warfare or conspiracy. This inquiry, therefore, narrows \n COURT I CASE VIII down to the simple proposition of whether or not the defendants are guilty of the specific charges in the indictment and, if so, was it a crime.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1409, "page_number": "1403", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "This phase of the case is simply one of fact-finding. Did the defendants commit the acts charged? If, during this fact-finding phase of the case, it should be found that they did commit the acts alleged then, whether or not it amounts to a crime, becomes one of law.\nThis Tribunal can and will take judicial cognizance of treaties, international agreements, international law, public documents and the law of every kind here involved. It follows that these matters should be discussed in the arguments and briefs and not in the evidence.\nThis Tribunal is interested in one thing and one thing only, and that is the discovery of the truth. We believe this result can best be accomplished if the record of the evidence is not encumbered with irrelevant and immaterial matter. We have now travelled far enough to know that counsel in this case are men of ability and experience. We earnestly request the cooperation of counsel for both sides in the effort to confine the record of evidence to material and relevant matter.\nProceed with the evidence on behalf of the defendant.\nDR. HAENSEL:Karl Haensel for Ulrich Greifelt. May I voice a request, your Honor? I would like to ask you for the translation of the statement you have just announced to be revised. It didn't come through properly. Above all, the difference between facts and crimes was not made clear and that was a difference which the Court wanted to make clear. Perhaps it would be helpful to have the English text. It will be possible, from the transcript, to make a proper translation.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1410, "page_number": "1404", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Do you desire to have this statement translated into German for your use?\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Court, could the translation, which came over the system just now, be revised and checked with the transcript? That would be sufficient.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Would it be sufficient if I furnished you with the English version?\nDR. HAENSEL:Yes; your Honor, I now call Ulrich Greifelt to the witness stand for his examination..\nTHE PRESIDENT:Call the witness to the stands\nDR. HAENSEL:Before I start to examine my client, I should like to hand two exhibits to the Tribunal. One is an extract from the Neue Zeitung and the other is a chart of which the Tribunal has already received copies. (Documents handed to Tribunal) Exhibit No. 1 and No, 2 are the numbers which I would like reserved.\nMR. SCHWENK:Pardon me, your Honor. We have to object to the submission of this evidence. We have not received this evidence 24 hours ahead of time, if it is evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Do I understand that it is documents that were introduced by the Prosecution?\nMR. SCHWENK:These are documents introduced by the Defense at this moment.\nDR. HAENSEL:I am only asking you to mark them for identification. I shall introduce them tomorrow.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nULRICHGREIFELT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will \n COURT I CASE VIII speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "ULRICH", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1411, "page_number": "1405", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal your full name, Herr Greifelt? Will you give the Court the date of your birth and the place of your birth?\nA.My name is Ulrich Greifelt. I was born on the 8th of December 1896 at Berlin.\nQ.What was your father's profession?\nA.He was the owner of a drug store.\nQ.When did you lose your father?\nA.My father died when I was nine years old but before the time of his death he had been seriously ill for many years.\nQ.Who was responsible for your bringing-up?\nA.My mother was the person who brought me up with care.\nQ.Will you tell us something about the schools you attended?\nA.First of all, I attended a preparatory school for three years, Then I went to the High School at Berlin, Lichterfelde.\nQ.Were you good at school?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1412, "page_number": "1406", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "AI was one of the best students during my whole career at school.\nTHEPRESIDENT; Does counsel think that will be helpful to the Tribunal, whether he was good at school or not. Whether he went to school at all or not doesn't seem to make much difference in this inquiry. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWere you brought up in the Christian faith in your family?\nAYes, I was. My parents' home was a Christian home.\nQWere there other boys at your school who belonged to a different faith?\nAYes, At our school, which was situated in one of the Western suburbs of Berlin, there were a number of Jewish boys.\nQWhen did you become a soldier and why did you become a soldier?\nAI matriculated on the first of August, 1914 and at the outbreak of the first World War, when in all belligerent nations all people joined the armed forces voluntarily, I joined the infantry.\nQDid you remain with that branch of the armed forces?\nANo; I didn't. I had decided to become a professional soldier but, because with the infantry I could not make use of my technical talents, in 1916 I changed over to the air force.\nQWere you satisfied with the profession of a soldier?\nANo, not even with the air force was I really satisfied, and during the last few years of the war, the first World War, that is, I had made up my mind not to remain a professional soldier but to choose some practical profession.\nQWhat profession did you choose and what was the post you received after the war?\nATo begin with, I worked with a Reich agency as an employee of the Higher Grade. I worked in the Fahndungs, the investigation department of the Reich Commissioner for the control of National Culture. That was a post which, in the post-war period of 1919 to 1920, dealt with important exports and was to stop black market \n dealings.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1413, "page_number": "1407", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QWho was it who taught you? Who initiated you into the science of economics?\nAIn 1920 I joined the service of a private banker whose name was Siegfried Hirsch and that was where I was initiated into the science of economics.\nQWhat was the other Jewish firm with which you took up contact in 1922?\nAAt the beginning of 1922, as an unpaid employee and as an assistant I entered the services of the firm of Gebrueder Israel in Berlin. That was a joint stock company. I stayed with that firm for more than ten years and during those ten years I worked myself up to the position of independent technical chief of the main factory. I was always on very pod terms with the owners of the firm, the Israel brothers. Their names were Felix and Eli Israel. With them I did work which dealt with all technical manufacturing pursuits. The entire manufacturing construction and laboratory affairs of the factory were under my direction and that factory, at times employed as many as 1,600 people.\nQWhy die you give up your work for that firm?\nAIn 1931 I became one of the many victims of the economic collapse which occurred in Germany at that time. In 1931 there occurred the collapse of Germany's big tanks and in the whirlwind of that general chaos of credit affairs, banking affairs, I tooklost the position which I had acquired over many years of work. The last position I hold was that of a Prokurist in the joint stock company about which I have told you.\nQYour attitude to a Jewish firm, as the firm of Israel was, did you change that attitude in any way from an ideological point of view? Did you engage in anti-Semitic activities?\nANo, I didn't. I never was an anti-Semite for, during the time \n when I was a soldier at the front, during the most heavy fighting which any soldier in the first World War could have experienced, that is to say, in the heavy fighting around Fort Duomonte, and the fortress of Verdun, I got to know Jewish soldiers who were just as brave as superior officers and as ordinary soldiers as we, all of us, were brave.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1414, "page_number": "1408", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QAfter the collapse of the firm of Israel and after you became unemployed, a new man appeared on the scene. It was Hitler. How did you make the acquaintance of his plans? How was it that you got involved in them?\nAIn 1932 I was unemployed and when the year 1933 began I was still unemployed. I was an unemployed wan who was losing hope more and more. You have to remember that we young soldiers had experienced the first collapse in 1931 and that the majority of us also experienced the collapse in 1931 of which I have told you before. Now, all of a sudden, a new man appeared on the scene, Hitler, and in addition he had been called to office by Hindenburg who was a leader to us former soldiers. This new man opened up new prospects to the people and that is how one can explain that I, too, who up to that time, had stayed outside all political work and who had not even occupied myself with political ideas, for the first tine dealt with political questions.\nAt that time Hitler appealed to the German people to cooperate. That appeal was similar to the appeal which had been made in 1919. to us soldiers who had returned from the war. That tine it was the new republic that had made that appeal to us. That appeal was for us to work for and with the German people and I complied. I followed that appeal. That is to say, in April of 1933, after the so-called seizure of power, I joined the Nazi Party. I think I was probably most impressed by the Day of Potsdam in which I took part as a spectator.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1415, "page_number": "1409", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.That is to say you first served the Empire and then the Republic and at that time joined up for the new state which was beginning to develop under National Socialism. Do you know these expressions like \"March violet,\" \"Somebody who fell in March;\" did that mean that those were flattering terms. Did it mean that by joining one gained great advantages?\nA.Those slogans you have just mentioned like \"March violet\" originated from the Party's vocabulary. This slogan was specifically aimed at those people who joined the Party after the seizure of power and I was one of these people and after I had applied for membership with the Party I did not do any work for the Party.\nQ.As early as 1930 you did come in contact with the National Socialist cell in your firm. Can you tell us about that?\nA.Well, I as an economist and technicial have always believed it to be wrong to carry political problems into industry, trade and commerce. All during the war I was of the opinion and am of the opinion now that trade and industry come first and not politics. Then in 1930 in the factory of which I was in charge, - an attempt was made to set up a National Socialist cell, that is to say, to carry politics into the ranks of the employees, bringing politics into the factory; I stopped that and say to it that the organizer of that scheme was dismissed.\nQ.Before you joined the National Socialist Party had you ever belonged to a political Party?\nA.No, I never had the time or interest to occupy myself with political problems in any way; so I have lived exclusively in the sphere of politics.\nQ.But one lives and learns as the Americans say. Have you changed at any time, that is to say, did you, in \n 1933 begin to deal with politics?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1416, "page_number": "1410", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "A.No, I did not; all my efforts continued to be directed at regaining a profession in the economic life of the country. Unfortunately in 1933 after the seizure of power that was not possible.\nQ.Did you study the National Socialist literature; did you read \"Mein Kampf\" and did you make any propaganda?\nA.I have already told you I did not engage in any political activity and I should like to point out that the tasks of the standard works of National Socialism included for example \"The Myth of the 20th century\" and I never read these books and I should like to say that even at this time I cannot give you any information as to what those books say.\nQ.How was it that you came to the SS?\nA.Not for reasons of political conviction but truly speaking for reasons of pure distress. As I have already told you in spite of all my efforts it was not possible in 1933 to find a new position. In June of 1933 quite by chance I met an old comrade of mine whose name was Dittmarsch. He was a comrade from the first World War. He knew of my decision and he asked me to come to him and work for him. I did not know what he was doing at the time and I was told that he held a high position in the SS. It was understandable that a person who for 15 or 18 months had been without work and who has to look after his family and his relatives would make use of any possibility to earn a living which, even though modest was adequate.\nQ.What unusual thing was there about the uniforms in the group or were there other political organizations at that time that wore uniforms?\nA.Well, I don't know that; there was the SA and there was a Red Front Fighters League and the Stahlhelm and the Reichsbanner. We saw all these formations on the streets.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1417, "page_number": "1411", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "As for the purpose of the organizations or formations or whatever you want to call them I was not acquainted with them at the time and as to the SS I knew as little about them as I did of the other organizations. By my old comrade from the first World War I was persuaded to join the SS, all the more so as he told me that he wanted to make me his personal adjutant. I die my work as an Adjutant merely by doing office work.\nQ.Were you told about any secret aims on which the SS was working? Did you have to make any secret promises?\nA.No, I didn't. I was in Berlin as Adjutant. The Reich Leadership SS at that time was stationed in Munich and that meant that I did not come into close contact with the main leadership of the SS nor did I have an opportunity to become acquainted with whatever idealogical or political aims they might have had.\nA.As far as I know Dittmarsch died. When did he die and what happened next?\nA.Dittmarsch died, I believe, in February 1934 and following that I was wondering what I was to do next. I was wondering whether I should remain in the service of the SS or whether I ought to return to trade and industry. At that time I had my first talk with Himmler and asked him to let me go as I wasn't able to see how I was to be of any use in work for the SS because my heart, as before, was still in technology and in trade and industry. Himmler told me that he believed I was not yet sufficiently informed about the nature and good intentions of the SS. He said that he thought it advisable for me to become an executive or Stabsfuehrer of an Oberabschnitt of the SS and in that capacity to obtain more information. I asked him to give me some time to think the matter over and I talked the matter over with my friends in industry in Berlin in particular \n with my friend Schwarzer who repudiated National Socialism.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1418, "page_number": "1412", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Only when he advised me in view of the fact that the economic situation was very fluctuating. for the time being to remain with the service of the SS I became Stabsfuehrer with the SS Administrative District at Koblenz.\nQ.And that position did not satisfy you for any length of time. How did your career go on after that and how was it and when was it you returned to Berlin?\nA.When I was in Koblenz I made every effort to return to economic life and as in fact I was still unable to see what purposes the general SS in its organization of that time actually had I was considering the question whether I should re-join the Air Force because I believed in the Air Force my technical ambitions might find satisfaction. When I had placed my application to rejoin the Air Force I received an order to go to Berlin to the Reich Leadership-SS in order there to deal with the re-organization of the SS Main Office which happened in the meantime to return to Berlin from Munich. I complied with the order and my reason was above all my hope that in Berlin I would again get more contact with those tasks which were more to my liking and that in Berlin I might have a chance to return to industry.\nQ.Were you something like an officer or did you have to do work in the organization in the matters of command, etc?\nA.No, my work there was just office work which dealt exclusively with questions of internal organization within the main office. In my position I did not have any particular influence on the leadership of the organization.\nQ.We shall have to talk quite frequently of the FourYear Plan. Will you tell us whether you had any contact with the Four-Year Plan at that time? What sort of plan was it?\nA.To describe the Four-Year Flan or rather to explain its tasks briefly here is something that I cannot do.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1419, "page_number": "1413", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "In 1937 I did have contact with the Four-Year Plan insofar as Himmler called me to his personal staff there to work for his entire self-competency, not only for the competency over the police but all other institutions as well with which he was connected in any way.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1420, "page_number": "1414", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nFor instance they said I was to deal with all the questions that affected the Four-Year Plan, that affected private people as well and I was to work on that plan in that aspect.\nQ.By that you became the Chief of the agency in a way even if it was only on a small scale. What size was your staff and where did you do your work?\nA.I can't say that I became the Chief of the Agency by obtaining that position. The employees of that agency included telephone girls and lithographers and various people and in itself was not very expensive. If I may put it briefly the tasks were as follows: The distribution of raw materials and building materials which were controlled and supplied in quotas had to be carried out and this was the distribution to the people who had to be supplied within the sphere of Himmler's Competence and the German SS Police. Secondly, I had to deal with the checking and examination of inventions which had been made when there had been an appeal under the auspices of the Four-Year-Plan to all people in public life and Himmler received replies for that appeal and as he didn't understand anything about technical matters but knew of my reputation in dealing with technical matters, such ideas for inventions were passed on to me to check. The third task was to deal with matters concerning the indistrial police, the trade police concerning details where political cooperation was required and finally I was also to deal with another problem, organization of schools, private persons were to be harnessed for agricultural work in connection with Springtime sowing and harvesting. There was a great shortage of manpower and that shortage was to be overcome. These were the various questions with which I had to deal in the FourYear-Plan.\nQ.When an outsider heard of Heinrich Himmler he was always inclined to think of the Police and the Gestapo. Did \n you have anything to do with police tasks in that executive sense?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1421, "page_number": "1415", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "A.No, never; there was no question of that; it was purely an economic office.\nQ.What about the raw material office?\nA.Later on the raw material office developed from that control agency of which I told you first. As the war progressed provisions and rules concerning the control of materials of all kinds became more and more extensive and gradually a big agency developed but I was not in charge of that office. Later on the office passed to other hands.\nQ.What interests us here concerns the resettlement task. Now what was the task allotted to you in that connection?\nA.I should like to correct you insofar as that was not something which developed from the task which I have just described to you now but in June 1939 suddenly an entirely novel task confronted me. That was a task which in every resepct was outside the scope of the police and SS. It was a work which was entirely the nature of a Reich agency. I am referring to the work of resettling the Reich Germans and ethnic Germans from Southern Tyrol, that is to say, from the outer territories.\nQ.Can you tell us about what time this was?\nA.I can fix the actual day. The agreement under which the resettlement of the Southern Tyrolians was arranged, an agreement which was arranged for when Hitler paid a visit to Himmler, the final agreement was made on the 23rd of June 1939, an agreement was reached between Himmler and the Italian Ambassador at the time in Berlin who was named Attolico.\nQ.In other words that was ten weeks before the outbreak of the war, wasn't it?\nA.Yes, you are quite right, But, retrospectively one connects that date with the war but if you look ahead \n naturally there was no connection between the outbreak of war and these measures.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1422, "page_number": "1416", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.By that do you mean to say the outbread of war came as a complete surprise to you?\nA.It certainly came as a complete surprise to me as late as 31 August 1939 I never thought that war might break out. The war was never popular with the German nation and to experience the First World War --\nMR. SCHWENK:I object to the answer of the defendant. He is not answering the question but refers to general feeling of the German people which has nothing to do with his case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well of course as the Tribunal stated in the beginning with such testimony as that will not be considered and may I suggest to counsel that it seems to me that he is very mush at this time getting into the field of evidence that would be construed if this defendant was charged with planning aggressive war; but he is not. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.When war broke out you, as an alert officer, were called up were you not? How was that order worded, that order calling you up?\nA.I was a reserve officer with the Air Force and approximately three weeks before the outbread of war I received a new order, according to which in the case of mobilization I was to be placed at the disposal of the ReichfuehrerSS and Chief of the German Police and would have to obey him.\nQ.At the beginning of the war were you able to continue with your work concerning these settlements? What developments occurred?\nA.The resettlement of the people in the Southern Tyrol was to be continued. I received instructions from Himmler expressly telling me so and I personally did not believe that it would be possible to continue with this work.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1423, "page_number": "1417", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.At the beginning of the war had most of the work been done or were you in the middle of it?\nA.No, the whole matter had just started. We were in the initial stage. After that time nothing had happened beyond the population in the Southern Tyrol having been asked to vote on the question and the time limit for that referendum was set for the 31st of December 1939 and that meant when the war broke out that the vote itself had not been taken yet.\nQ.You realized that that work couldn't suddenly be discontinued but you did continue with it for quite a time, didn't you?\nA.Yes, that work was continued mainly at the instigation of the Italians who desired to have the territory under their sovereignity cleared up.\nQ.What was the position that you held at the outbreak of war?\nA.It was called Leitstelle Fuer Ein Und Rueckwanderung, Main Agency for Immigration and Repatriation.\nQ.We shall have to discuss the subject of resettlement a great deal. Can you tell me about the agency for Immigration and Repatriation, whether that later on became the nucleus for other settlement work, whether any plans for future work had been made, was it intended to resettle more people from Italy? What exactly was the situation at that time?\nA.No. there were no such plans at any time. I myself and my agency continued purely with the practical work concerning the resettlement of Southern Tyrol. As concerns the political decisions for these matters they had to be taken before I was placed in charge of this work and I was directed expressly to the effect that I would not have to deal with political matters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1424, "page_number": "1418", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the Prosecution would like to make a statement. The Prosecution does not want to charge any of the defendants for the evacuation of the ethnic Germans as a result of any valid Treaty or agreement. This is a binding statement by the Prosecution. We, therefore, consider our own evidence presented as to the evacuation of ethnic Germans as immaterial, provided that this evacuation of ethnic Germans from the native countries was carried out as a result of a valid treaty or agreement between the German Government and the foreign government.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1425, "page_number": "1419", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:That would be true whether you made any such statements or not; that is the law about it, and it seems to me that Counsel could save considerable time by not going into those matters that are covered by treaties, excepting in your arguments and briefs. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Herr Greifelt, you have heard that the Prosecution attaches importance to the question of an agreement. Now, can you tell us something as to whether any agreement had teen entered into by the German Government and the Italian Government concerning this evacuation or resettlement?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, if there is any such agreement as that, you don't have to prove it as a matter of evidence. It is a matter of which the Court can and will take judicial cognizance. Simply call it to our attention in your arguments or briefs.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, may I just ask you. in what way do you want me to prove whether an agreement had been entered into or not? The Prosecution says it does not try to charge any defendant provided that agreement has been entered into, How am I to prove this matter?\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the Prosecution has placed in evidence two volumes called Menschen Einsatz. the first volume -\nTHE PRESIDENT:A matter of which the Court can take judicial cognizance does not have to be proven as a matter of evidence. You can submit it to the Court whether there is any evidence about it or not and the Court will take judicial cognizance of it.\nDR. HAENSEL:I don't have that agreement between the States; I don't have it available\nTHE PRESIDENT:Then certainly you can't prove anything about it.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the last statement of Defense Counsel is not correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't get into an argument now; we will argue after the evidence is in.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1426, "page_number": "1420", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQAfter the outbreak of war, in October, you went with Himmler to Italy on an official trip. What happened at that occasion?\nAIt was the 13th of October, maybe it was the 12th, anyhow, it must have been the 12th or 13th of October, 1939. Hitler wanted to go to Italy, and wanted to have further discussions there concerning the evacuation from the Southern Tyrol. I was ordered to go with him. During the trip Himmler sent an officer to me to hand me a document, and with the document came an order to me to familiarize myself with this document because later on he wanted to discuss this matter with me.\nQWas that the document which is before you now. that refers to October, 1939, doesn't it?\nAYes.\nQVolume XX, II B, page 1, Exhibit 20, Was that the document which Himmler sent to you at the time?\nAYes, that is the document which was handed to me at the time; before I was called to Himmler I familiarized myself with this decree.\nQAnd what did you tell Himmler when you talked the matter over with him?\nAAt a later time Himmler asked me to go to see him, and then asked me for my opinion about the decree.\nQAs I had no idea that I myself or my sphere of work was to be connected with this decree, I to begin with merely congratulated Himmler on this new and responsible task.\nQThe date is the 13th of October?\nAYes.\nQWell now, tell me about a week before on the 6th of October, Hitler had made a speech, hadn't he: and do you remember the speech at the time: and, what do you remember of it?\nAI think you are referring to Hitler's speech in the Reichstag which he made on the 6th of October, 1939. In that speech in the Reichstag -", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1427, "page_number": "1421", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "MR. SCHENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. I cannot see what the use of this question is supposed to be. The speeches of Hitler are well known and are made a public matter, and I cannot see to what extent the witness can testify in regard to the speeches.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Objection over-ruled. Proceed. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQPlease continue.\nAWhen I read through this Exhibit No. 20, I did recall Hitler's speech inasmuch as Hitler in his speech of the 6th of October had pointed out that in the East and in the Southeast of Europe there were large groups of ethnic Germans, groups which were to be moved back to the Reich in order to contribute towards peaceful resettlement in Europe. The intention was to make a contribution towards the reorganization or resettlement of Europe. That is roughly how I remember Hitler's words.\nQWhat did Himmler say when you congratulated him on the decree of 7th October?\nAHimmler told me: Well, do you think I can do all that by myself? You will have to help me, and at the same time Himmler told me that the various tasks enumersted in this decree of 7th October had already been allotted to various agencies. He said that the resettlement of the Reich Germans and the ethnic Germans abroad would be the task of VOMI, which had already been charred with that task, and which had already initiated the appropriate steps. The second task, that is to say the elimination of harmful influences of foreign elements, that task he had already allotted to Heyrich. And the third task, which dealt above all with economic affairs, that was to be allotted to me.\nQWhen Himmler allotted that task to you, did you regard the job you had for the evacuation the same, or did you think this new jot was going to be of a similar nature?\nAThe tasks as Himmler explained them to me at the time were \n on the same plane as those in Southern Tyrol.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1428, "page_number": "1422", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "According to this plan I was not to deal with political aims, but I was to occupy myself with the economic affairs of the people who were to be resettled.\nQYou have said, \"Himmler told me that he wouldn't be albe to cope with everything himself\". that applied to you, too, didn't it?\nAIf I understand you correctly, you mean to say that Himmler realized that I would have to set up an organization for the carrying out of this work, that is correct. Hitler said to me: \"You will have to have assistants; I will leave you a free hand. Can you name anybody to me whom you particularly want?\" - said yes, I should like to have Creutz made available. I remembered Creutz at the time because I knew him from work we had done together at an earlier period. I knew that he was a calm person. who was. taken to chasing phantoms, and I knew that as human beings we could get on well and be in harmony. and he was the type of person who I thought would be the right person to deal with the new work which was new to me. When Himmler heard me mention Creutz' name, he first of all drew back and exchanged a few whispered words with his adjutant, and then said to me: all right, I will agree to that because you can work together in that sphere.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes. (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1429, "page_number": "1423", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "MR. MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWe stopped at the order from Himmler regarding the settlement of the resettlers under the decree of 7 October, and we shall begin with the document book which I handed to you. The next exhibit will be Exhibit 21, which is a decree regarding the organization of the Office of the Reich Commissar.\nDid you draft this decree?\nANo, I did not draft this order. After my return from Italy I saw it for the first time when Himmler gave it to me.\nQMay I ask you to throw your mind back to the 13th of October, when you saw Exhibit 20 for the first time? Where did you meet Himmler at that time?\nAI accompanied Himmler in his service coach in a train from Berlin to the Brenner, where the Italian frontier was located.\nQOne would assume that it would have been only logical for Himmler to have taken you along to Italy in order to discuss these messures with you. What actually did happen?\nAHimmler had this very brief conversation with me, which I related some time ago. He did not take me to Italy, but 1 had to leave the train at Innsbruck, and had to await further orders from him. Himmler did not give me any details regarding his negotiations with the Italians.\nQWhen did he return from Italy?\nAThat must have been on the 17th of October.\nQAnd where did he meet you the next time? Did you speak to him? Did you see him?\nAI was with him on the way back, and on this occasion he did not talk to me about my new task. I had the impression that he was not quite clear himself as to how he was to tackle the new task. On the 22nd or 23rd of October I saw Himmler again for the first time in Berlin.", "speakers": [ "MR. MARSHAL", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1430, "page_number": "1424", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QDid he then hand you the decree, Exhibit 21?\nAYes. On this occasion I received this so-called first directive.\nQThe document bears no date. Do you know its date?\nANo, I don't know that, but I believe that from another document -- which I cannot recall at this moment -- one might fix the date at being that of the 17th of October.\nQThat is, only a few days later you were asked to see Hitler and you were given the directive. It is important now to tell us what Hitler said.\nAMay I rectify this? You said \"Hitler\", and this is really only a matter of seeing Himmler. You have twice said \"Hitler.\"\nQHimmler.\nAHimmler told me the following, when handing me this first directive: The Central Land Office had already been founded by me; the Chief of the Settlement Office in the RuSHA had been charged with its supervision. May I observe in this connection that I don't know whether the name of Gotteberg or Baron von Holzschuher was mentioned on that occasion. At any rate, at a later date Baron von Holzschuher directed the Central Land Office.\nQDid Himmler tell you something about planning on that occasion?\nAHimmler did not give me an explanation regarding his planning. At that time I had no idea, and was not able to form any ideas, as to what Himmler wanted to have planned. I was even surprised, because there was an organization in the Reich competent for all planning, and it would have been the task of this central organization to carry out this kind of planning. That was the Reich Central Office for Area Planning.\nQDid Himmler give you any instructions regarding the concept of restitution?\nAIn this connection Himmler said to me that it was his idea \n that the Germans driven out of the territories in 1918 -- territories which had now been reconquered -- he wanted to resettle the original settlers in these territories, and he wanted to recompense the settlers for the damage done to them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1431, "page_number": "1425", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "On this occasion I pointed out at once that considerable difficulties would arise from any such action, that it would be necessary to postpone the solution of this question until after the end of the war. My misgivings caused Himmler to institute a kind of registry for claims for restitution.\nQSuch a new office needed money, I expect, and quite a lot of money. What did Himmler tell you regarding the financing of this organization; who was to pay for it?\nAHimmler ordered me to get in touch with the Reich Finance Ministry regarding the financing of this project. According to Exhibit 20, the Reich Finance Minister was, in any case, obliged to finance this new Reich agency.\nQWere any other offices mentioned which were to be approached and were to be used in connection with these new tasks?\nAIn his first directive action Himmler put it quite clearly that, first of all, the Reich Governors in the Incorporated Eastern Territories were to carry out the tasks.\nFirst of all, Himmler had a high opinion of the Governors, and, on the other hand, he looked upon them as so-called bearers of sovereignty, that concept stemming from Party phraseology.\nQI am afraid that you might cause a misunderstanding with your last sentence, and I therefore ask you, were the Reich Governors Party agencies?\nANo, the Reich Governors were governmental offices or agencies, but, at the same time, they were Gauleiters. That is, seen from the Party point of view, they were in personal union, the bearers of sovereignty of the Party.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1432, "page_number": "1426", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.Which other agencies were to be considered in this connection?\nA.As to the Ministries, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Labor. As to the Party agencies, the following were mentioned in the directives: The NSV and the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.At that time, what did you know of the Race and settlement Main Office?\nA.Actually, I did not know any more about it than that it existed. Until that time I had had no dealings with it. I really had no connection with what it was doing or with its tasks.\nQ.In this talk with Himmler on the 21st, or the 22nd, or the 23rd of October, did you have the impression that Himmler had a clear picture regarding the tasks of this new Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism?\nA.No, at that time Himmler had no clear ideas regarding this. Undoubtedly he oscillated within his own concepts of his plans. The only thing I carried away form this conversation was that a part, a very definitely limited part, was to be taken over by me.\nQ.Did you gain the impression that Himmler wanted to appoint you as deputy, or that he looked upon you as his deputy; that is, as Deputy in the entire Reich Commissar's Office?\nA.No, I could not get that impression because, in the first directive, so many ministries and offices of superior importance were mentioned as cooperating agencies that it would have been presumptuous for me to have the idea, to even the slightest extent, that I would be able to be Himmlet's deputy or even his advisor in this extensive complex.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1433, "page_number": "1427", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.If not you, Himmler could have created another central organization, or was that contrary to his intentions?\nA. as far as I know, Himmler always refused, on principle, to appoint a deputy for himself for any field of work. I cannot remember a single case in the great domain of activities of Himmler where a deputy was appointed at any time. In my view, it was Himmler's opinion that he 'would never create a central agency. He did not want anyone to ever recognize the extent of the measures issued by him.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object. It is impossible for the witness to testify as to the intentions of Himmler except by pointing out facts material in this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That will be fine argument for your grief.\nBY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.That is not an expert opinion but a fact, where Himmler would have had to form such a central agency but refused to do so?\nA.I do know that in 1938, among the higher circles of the SS leaders - and I was not yet a member of that circle at the time - the question was raised with Himmler to create a so-called chief of staff agency. Himmler did not comply with this request, which was discussed and with which Himmler was approached by higher leaders of the 38.\nQ.According to the discussion which you described, did you assume that now you would have been able to issue orders to VOMI, RuSHA, and other agencies, under the authority of the Reich Commissioner?\nA.That was the impossibility for me. A powerful man like Heydrich, as Chief of the RuSHA and at the same time \n Chief of the Gestapo, would hardly have accepted orders from an Oberfuehrer.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1434, "page_number": "1428", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Also, the Chief of VOMI, as an Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS, would most probably have refused to accept any directives from a young junior SS leader. To that has to be added the fact that, actually, I had no knowledge whatsoever concerning racial German policy.\nQ.At any time did you reflect and have your doubts with regard to the question as to why Himmler did not appoint Heydrich or one of the top men as Chief of the Agency of the Reich Commissar?\nA.At the time 1, at least, could not draw any such conclusion. However, one fact became quite apparent, namely, that doubtlessly a man like Heydrich had the aim to get himself as far as possible into this whole field of tasks. For instance, in the field of the question of racial German policy he tired, and entirely succeeded in getting matters into his hands. The other agencies which worked under Himmler as Reich Commissar, for instance, such as VOMI and my agency, saw out did not understand this attitude in Volkstum Politiks, the policy of Germanism, because our viewpoint was that questions of Germanism policy could not be directed with the police baton and Heydrich's only means of policy was always the police. However, Himmler certainly refused to live Heydrich further powers in this field, because Himmler certainly saw him as his strongest opponent, or at least assumed that Heydrich would become his strongest competitor.\nQ.With your agency - which, at the time, was not yet a main office of the state but was only a government agency were you to get the monoply for the treatment of resettlers? Were you the only man who had been commissioned to deal with that question?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1435, "page_number": "1429", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "A.No; a parallelism of several government agencies with well-defined fields of tasks had been created, VOMI, EWZ, and my agency, in order to just pick out three of the agencies.\nQ.The new agency you gave us was the EWZ. Now, in order to get matters clearer, Will you please tell us what kind of an agency that was?\nA.The EWZ. which means Immigrant Central Agency (Einwanderer-Zentrale), was created during the period from the 8th to the 10th of October, 1939, that is, during the period when my commissioning had not yet been carried out. The agency was under the Chief of the security Police end the SD, in other words, under Heydrich. It was its task to supervise the resettlers who had been brought from abroad, to see to it that they were resettled within the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1436, "page_number": "1430", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QWas the EWZ under your authority?\nANo. the EWZ was not under my authority and I had no power whatsoever to issue directives or to even influence this agency.\nQIn what capacity, and how, did you build up your agency?\nAThe establishing of my agency had to comply with the decree of 7 October 1949; in other words, it had to be created as a Reich agency but not as an agency of the SS -- may I point out in this respect, that in the basic information which had been issued and submitted at the beginning of the proceedings, the agencies of the Reich Commissioner for the Protection of Germanism -- that is VOMI - and my own agency which later on was called \"Main Staff Office\" were listed as main offices. This doubtlessly is a misconstruction because those agencies are definitely Reich agencies and not SS agencies. That this is true can be seen also from the fact that Himmler told me that it was not his desire to see his activity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism interpreted as some kind of a liaison with the SS. He did not want to see it connected with the SS neither organizationally nor With the individual members of the SS, and wished neither of them to derive any advantages from his new position as Reich Commissar. This line of thought from the very beginning was complied with by me, and again and again my collaborators had it pointed out to them that their work had to be in line with government agencies in principle and not with some kind of SS principles or Party principles.\nQYour misgivings with regard to the basic information are directed against the listing ascompiledon page 3 of \"Basic Information.\" Will you please tell me now from what the Reich agency nature of your government agency can be derived? nor instance, how were difficulties in the field of tasks dealt with: questions of wage scale, of the Reich seal, and so on and so forth?\nAMy government agency had the specific nature of the government channels as its rule. Whenever difficulties within the field of tasks \n would arise, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery had to be called on the telephone, My agency had the Reich seal, had its own government budget, and had its own official agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1437, "page_number": "1431", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "The employees were paid in accordance with the wage scale for public servants.\nQWhat were the viewpoints with which you chose your officials?\nADecisive for me, there were only factual and professional points; for no employment was the primary requisite that the man had to be a member of the Nazi Party. From there it became apparent very soon that as far as the factual question wasconcerned, my employees and officials showed a very homogeneous picture, but as far as the ideology was concerned, we very soon had what I would like to call heterogeneous -- to a point which can rarely be found in an agency of the Third Reich.\nQThat training did some or most of your directors have?\nAAs it was a question of officials for most of them, they had legal training and werelawyers, because most of the public servants come from the legal field.\nQWhy did you stress particularly the hiring of lawyers?\nASeveral viewpoints were decisive for me in that respect. First of all, I wanted to create a legal department which was fully staffed in order to be prepared for all events and to be able to do my work in compliance with the existing legal proscriptions. This legal department was to be, what I might call, my legal conscience. Another reason for the hiring of lawyers was the necessity to have the work of the agency comply with the administration norms established in the Reich and to synchronize them with these norms. The third reason -- and I almost would say an even more important reason -- was the following: the welfare of all those human beings who had been repatriated from abroad by VOMI was under the care of my agency. Every single human being in every field of human life had to be cared for by my agency, be it in an economic respect, in the cultural field, or with respect to social \n welfare.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1438, "page_number": "1432", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "In a modern state, all human relations have somehow been put into a pattern by law, and a man who is to be resettled can only be assigned to the right spot and be brought on the right way if he is treated in compliance with these legal regulations of his new home country and if a newsecure way of existence is granted to him in accordance with those laws.\nQCan you give me an example or a few examples of such legal experts who worked in your agency?\nAA number of those lawyers in my agency have been brought to this Court as witnesses of the Prosecution already. The directors of my legal department were, first of all, the witness Goetz; later, the witness Wirsich. The professional affairs were also handled by lawyers: by Goetz, whom I have just mentioned, by the witness Hofmann, and by other lawyers. In the agricultural field, lawyers worked also -- and particularly the witnessFiedler has to be mentioned there. He had intentionally been called into my agency because he was an export of real estate law and for many years he had been the legal expert of the German Settlement Bank.\nQNow what was Himmler's attitude to this choice of civil servants?\nANormally, Himmler left me quite a degree of freedom in the choice of my collaborators. It is true that at times there were a few clashes between Himmler and me because I employed so many lawyers in my agency. Himmler, himself, was an opponent of the jurists. I think that that wasin his very nature, because every legal foundation was rather disagreeable to him.\nQDid Himmler come to see you in your agency often?\nAHimmler did not even come to my agency once.\nQHow did official relations develop between you and Himmler?\nAIn general, we would receive written or verbal directives. The personal contact was comparatively little.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1439, "page_number": "1433", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QWas the collaboration with Himmler on good terms?\nAI would like to answer that in the negative, because there were too many differences of opinion between Himmler and myself. The one question was that Himmler really had no understanding or no comprehension whatsoever of economic questions; and the third reason was that Himmler was too easily inclined to bring one matter into relation with another, which can not reasonably be brought in such a fashion. From that tendency in 1942, a considerable tension arose between Himmler and myself.\nQHow often during the war did you go to Himmler personally to report to him, for you just told us that he, himself, never came to your agency.\nAWell, I can't give you an exact figure, but I would assume that during these years I went to Himmler in the Field Command Post about ten times; while he was in Berlin, I may have been there another ten times for a short report or conference. I had been ordered there in most cases,\nQWhen you established your agency, did you create an extensive apparatus?\nANo, I couldn't even do that, because in the conference I had with Himmler, when I received the first decree, I didn't even have an exact survey of how large the task would be which I would be entrusted with. I started to work with about 20 people, including the necessary auxiliary staff. First of all, my competencies and tasks had to be defined clearly.\nQYou were a government agency. Now what wereyou usual channels?\nAThe channels of authority were only clearly defined after Himmler, himself, had come to the conclusion that only with civil servants and government channels he could work properly, I would like to refer there to two documents which have been submitted to this Tribunal. Those, I think, are Exhibits 22 and 23. They are on pages 9 \n and 12 of the German Document Book II-B. These two documents are in direct connection with each other.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1440, "page_number": "1434", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "First of all, the Reich Minister of the Interior, on the 8 of December, issued his decree concerning the channels of authority, and only when he wasurged by the Minister of the Interior and the channels of authority of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Himmler on the next day -- on the 9 of December -- issued the document submitted on page 12 as Exhibit 23; namely, the General Directive 2 - I.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1441, "page_number": "1435", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.Together with what government agencies did you have to work?\nA.As usual, all highese government agencies would work together at one occasion or the other. The Reich Commissioner was no exception. As for my part in the government agencies., the main agencies concerned would be the Reich Ministry of Labor, the Reich Ministry of Economics, the Reich Ministry of Transportation and the Statistics Reich Office.\nQ.Were government officials transferred from these other agencies to yours?\nA.Yes, in accordance with the principles of professional selection, I had other government agencies transfer officials to my agency.\nQ.Well, can you tell me when your government agency was set up?\nA.Well, as far as the readiness for assignment was concerned my agency, I think, was set up at the beginning of 1940; but I have to stress here that at that time not all the professional branches had been fully staffed and all of them didn't even exist yet. But I can say that since the beginning of 1940 my agency could be considered ready for assignment.\nQ.Did you have officials also who were non-Aryans, because you were generous in your policy of hiring people?\nA.My generosity in the policy of hiring personnel certainly existed, but at the time I can only remember two individual instances where such generosity can certainly be pointed out. One of the cases was a diplom-engineer, Von Schaureth. He was of non-Aryan descent. The other one was a Doctor Cristalla, whose political reliability was strongly doubted by the Gestapo or the SD. Both employees, however, were not bothered and could carry on their professional work within my government agency", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1442, "page_number": "1436", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.You said that at the beginning of 1940 you could consider your agency as sufficiently set up to start work. When did the first resettlers come -- the resettlers whose settlement was your field of task?\nA.The first transports of resettlers arrived on the 20 of October 1939 in Germany. That is during the period when my government agency didn't even exist and was not even ready to operate.\nQ.What happened to those people who arrived there? After all, they had to be lodged. Who took care of that?\nA.Well, originally Himmler had entrusted the Reichstatthalters with the resettling of these repatriated persons. The first Baltic transports of resettlers, therefore, were channelled through Danzig and Gotenhafen, and from there they were supposed to be under the care of Reichstatthalter and Gauleiter Forster, who was to place them within the Gaus. Only when it became apparent that Forster, the Reichstatthalte and Gauleiter, was unable and not inclined to take care of these matters, my government agency was forced to deal with all the details of resettling the repatriated.\nQ.How this resettling, of what did it consist? Would you please describe to us what it was? What was the concept of resettlement?\nA.The racial Germans from abroad and the German nationals from abroad, had to be taken out from their economic structure and all connections that had existed up to that point for them had been severed. Now care had to be taken that in their new fatherland there had to be erected again, and if possible by building up again, the socia conditions and the social links which had been lost.\nQ.Now what about the fortunes? I mean the persons who were repatriated had come from quite different social classes. Were they put into one pattern or was a difference made?\nA.There you open the question of the synchronization of for \n tunes -- a problem which is of incredible importance -- and was of such importance for the work of my agency, and which at the same time created such an amount of difficulties that it is hardly possible to describe the problem in a few short words and to even approach a description of everything that was connected with it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1443, "page_number": "1437", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "When these persons were resettled, they had been promised -- I don't know what agency had promised it because these measures were not at all within my competency -- but they had been promised that their whole status of property and fortune would be maintained or this fortune would be restituted to them. This promise which had been given by a Reich agency had to be held by the property control and the property synchronization; in other words, a farmer was supposed to have his own farm again; a business man was supposed to have his business of the same branch again; a doctor should I have his doctor's study again, according to what specialty was his; and a ship owner should get ships again; and the real estate owner should again get real estate; while a capitalist should receive bonds and shares and other securities again; a cicar should receive his congregation again; insurances had to be transferred into the Reich from abroad and claims for pension had to be settled, which also was important; the purchasing value had to be taken into consideration when the fortune was to be restituted, for it was not sufficient to take the stock exchange rate of the individual foreign currency and to apply it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1444, "page_number": "1438", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "The purchasing value had to be created in such a way that none of the resettlers had an economic disadvantage and his fortune was restored.\nQ.In other words, that was a task for a life-time which included the whole life and all the relations of the resettlers. What was the basic principle?\nA.It was really a task the volume of which can hardly be imagined. I would like to mention that only and alone for the resettlement of the Baltics not less than three and a half times the perifery of the world had to be traversed with the fleet placed at the disposal for the resettlement in order to repatriate them with all their holdings and personal property to Germany. Nothing in the field of human existence was left untouched in our task and this task was the main task of my government agency., namely, to resettle these human beings.\nMy collaborators, as well as myself, devoted all our time during all these years to this task. The further duty assigned to us, as mentioned in the decree, namely, the creation of new German colonization areas, that is, the planning for that, had - and that was compulsory to be left for after the war because it had only second importance as compared with the necessities of life of the people who had been assigned to our care.\nQ.Why didn't you wait with that tremendous task until the war was finished because all these means of transport and ships were already used considerably by the movements caused by the war.\nA.The amassing of the resettlement was not done by myself or by my government agency, but doubtlessly it was impossible to put these resettlements of German men and women which were considered important off. Behind all these questions of resettlement was the fear and the threat of Bolshevism. The question was doubtlessly connected with political development which I had not the insight and which perhaps Vomi had, Vomi, the agency which registered these people in their country of origin, but doubtlessly these human beings had to go and wanted \n to leave and, therefore, the resettlement could not be delayed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1445, "page_number": "1439", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.How, Will you tell us in a tangible way how you had the first contact with these people whose care had been entrusted to you?\nA.The first occasion for any contact with the resettlers for us was the time when they had already arrived in the Reich, when they were in the camps there and they were already dealt with by the Central Immigration Office and had received their German nationality.\nThe first resettlers, as I said before, we found in Danzig, West Prussia, where we accepted them, partly also in Pommerania where the transports were channelled on account of the obstruction made by Gauleiter Forster.\nQ.You are referring to the Baltics now?\nA.Yes; those were the resettlers from Latvia and Estonia,\nQ.Now, what about the other resettlers, the other racial Germans? Where were they settled and how were they lodged at the beginning?\nA.The question of housing the resettlers was not dealt with by my agency but by Vomi. The channels were always the same: registration of these people in their former country of origin, transport into the Reich and housing in camps by the Vomi. The second agency was the Immigration Central Office in order to give them the German nationality. And the third phase was the actual resettling and the care by my government agency.\nQ.At the time did you hear that the state agreement had been passed with the other countries, the state agreements which have been mentioned in the discussion before and on the strength of those agreements the people were repatriated to Germany?\nA.Yes; those were interstate agreements and apart from that doubtlessly the bulk of the bulk of the resettlers came on a voluntary basis. Later, in the course of the development I had to deal with such resettlers and I do not remember one single case where complaints were made that a pressure was exercised on the resettlement. That can be \n seen also from the fact that in all the areas of origin of the resettlers remainders of the racial Germans stayed and later on, when further resettlements look place, when the Bolshevist pressure increased, other resettlers were also repatriated to the Reich and tried to get into the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1446, "page_number": "1440", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "And the more the pressure of Bolshevism increased the larger and stronger the will of these people to be repatriated to Germany became, and this even extended to persons of other race and several waves of these people flooded into the Reich and I think: that just from the Baltic countries where the resettlement started we have today, among the guards who are guarding us here, quite a number of people who also, under the pressure of Bolshevism, fled under the protection of the Reich at the time.\nQ.How, in practice how were you informed concerning the resettlers which were to be settled?\nA.Vomi or EWZ informed my agency of what groups of resettlers were to be placed and their readiness for placement as settlers.\nQ.And could you resettle these repatriated persons according to your own decision, for instance, as far as the locality of resettlement was concerned?\nA.My government agency did not have that possibility. The situation was that when these people received their German nationality through the channels of the EWZ a certain selection was made. They were split up in \"0\" and \"A\" cases. A third possibility existed in the so-called \"S\" cases, but my government agency had not to deal with those cases.\nQ.Under whose authority was the EWZ?\nA.The EWZ was under the chief of the Security Police and the SD.\nQ.And now, if you summarize in a few brief words, what was your actual task?\nA.The aim of the work of the EWZ was to give these resettlers German nationality.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1447, "page_number": "1441", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.And there were other government agencies participating in t this?\nA.Yes. In the EWZ quite a number of government agencies had been coordinated, for instance, the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Reich Health Institute, the Reich Ministry of Labor, the Race and Settlement Main Office, RuSHA; those are the main agencies.\nQ.In other words, you' had to resettle these people. Now the question is where, within the German territories, could that be done?\nA.Himmler personally issued clear-cut directives with regard to that question. He decided that the \"0\" cases were to be resettled in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and that the \"A\" cases, on the other hand, should find their new fatherland in the old German territories.\nQ. well, there you have to tell us what your concept of the Incorporated Eastern Territories is,\nA.The Incorporated Eastern Territories are such territories of Poland which, on the strength of the law issued by the Reich government on the 8th of October 1939, that is, by an act of the state sovereignty, had been annexed and incorporated into the German Reich. For us it was a matter of course that such an act of state sovereignty was binding as far as we were concerned, In other words, these incorporated territories were parts of the German Reich, substantial parts. we were strengthened in that belief by the fact that at the end of September, 1939, a border and friendship treaty had been passed between the Soviet Union and Germany and the publication was made of this treaty at the same time with the publication of the joint government declaration of both people.\nIn this joint statement it had been expressed that it was exclusively the task of the Soviet Union and of the German Reich to administer those territories which had been allotted to them and which had fallen into their hands after the Polish state had collapsed and to reorganize those territories and, finally - and as a German I should not forget \n in October, 1939, everybody in Germany welcomed the recovery of those territories which, until 1919, were a part of the Prussian state and considered it no tiling else but a sort of reparation.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1448, "page_number": "1442", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "All the more, even, voices which generally were not too favorably inclined to Germany, had expressed themselves in favor of the rectification of the borders established in 1919.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go right ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Now, in these eastern territories, was there space enough for these racial Germans which were brought into Germany on account of the pressure?\nA.According to my view there was sufficient space for the first resettlers of these waves. I personally cannot tell you from my own knowledge but I do know that in the course of the invasion of Poland by the German troops a strong wave of refugees of Poles from these very former Prussian parts had started. All these are questions connected with the struggle for racial supremancy conducted at the border of every country.\nAfter 1919, just as in these former Prussian territories, Poland had taken into its hand these territories and had carried out a very strong Polonization policy and they had assigned men in these territories who were opposed to Germanism and I think that the concept of Polish Westborder politics has become known internationally and in the course of this Westborder policy of Poland, Poles had immigrated into these territories who had not felt at home yet in these former German territories. And then, when the German armies entered this territory, these Poles just fled and doubtlessly, at the very minute when our troops marched into those territories, there were evacuations of Polish population and the responsibility for these evacuations today can hardly be established as a certainly. In other words, there doubtlessly was space and, therefore, in the course of the resettlement of the \n Baltics certainly no evacuation of the population would have become necessary.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1449, "page_number": "1443", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:It will become necessary to change the recess slightly today. The Tribunal will be in recess until two o'clock.\n( A recess was taken until 1400 hours. ) \n AFTERNOON SESSION The hearing reconvened at 1400 hours", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1450, "page_number": "1444", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness.\nULRICH GREIFELT - resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.We have talked about the Flight of Polish people after the invasion of the German troops. Do you know anything about the concept of the Poniatowken?\nA.Under Poniatowken we understood the small settlement.\nQ.Offices which had been instituted by Polish authorities for Polish settlers, principally along the now frontier. The new settlements had been left by their inhabitants to a large extent.\nQ.Did all the inhabitants of these settlements go voluntarily? I want to recall to you the Port of Gdynia. What happened there?\nA.I know that the town of Gdynia was evacuated in its entirety by the Polish population. That was a military measure; the Reich Government issued a law according to which the town and port of Gdynia were made a navel port and in the course of this measure it decreed a total evacuation. The evacuation took place in the course of the month of October 1939; the Same is true of a more extensive area in the Gau of Danzig, est Prussia for purpose of providing space for troop training in the name of Mariensee.\nQ.Were such evacuations carried out in order to provide space for the settlement of Reich Germans coming in from the Reich?\nA.Such measures took place at a considerable later date. I presume they took place until March of 1940 with \n respect to evacuations; they were not intended to provide space for settlers from the old Reich.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1451, "page_number": "1445", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q. who issued the order of evacuation?\nA.There orders were issued as all initiative emanated from Himmler personally, and since these were measures intended for a foreign population the channel of Command ran through the Reich security Main Office.\nQ.Would you kindly have a look at the third document in Document Book 5-A. This is a document which bears no date or signature. General orders of the Reich Commissar. Do you know this document?\nA.In my opinion one cannot represent a general directive as these were issued.\nQ.Why not?\nA.The document bears no letter heading, no file number, no number in the general order of the document. There were never any documents of this kind which had the heading of general orders and directives in the plural. I can't imagine that this document is a file note which may be Himmler's for his own use. As far as I can remember my agency in 1940 or 1941 received quite a number of such notes without signature by Himmler's secretary and he said that these were notes of Himmler's which he had found while clearing up Himmler's desk or Himmler's file cabinet with which, however, he could not do anything and for that reason he was passing them on to my agency. It is possible that this document belongs to this collection of notes. I personally, however, don't know it, whether it regards its contents or its formulation.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with deportations?\nA.My agency had nothing to do with deportations because \n all matters relating to foreign populations were matters of principle, a matter for the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1452, "page_number": "1446", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.It was once stated that a deportation order signed by you was in existence. Can you tell us something regarding this?\nA.When calling these orders deportation orders a mistake has been made, I believe. I believe these are also called settlement orders which in their overwhelming majority were drafted by Himmler personally. But, it is possible and in one case I can quite clearly recall it that I took once signed one of these orders on express directives from Himmler. I can clearly remember one case. This is a case of settlement order in Lower Styria.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1453, "page_number": "1447", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "I have not seen this order among the documents. In exactly the same form, as was usual with Himmler, this order was issued by him and was sent to him for signature. Himmler returned this order to me and told me over the telephone to sign this order. As the reason he gave the following: \"A question is touched upon here which hinged upon Italian interests; I don't want to come into conflict with the Italians regarding my own person, For this reason I ask you to sign this order. I mean your action is covered by my consent as given to you.\"\nQWe will come to Lower Styria in another connection. I want to ask you now, did you give general orders in what way the deportation was to take place?\nANo, I could not give any such directives since it was outside my competency.\nQBut there were general directives regarding deportation, weren't there. Which agency issued these directives or dealt with them?\nASuch things were dealt with exclusively by the Reich Main Staff Office. I remember that at the end of January, 1940, in the Reich Security Main Office under the chairmanship of Heydrich, a large conference took place during which for the first time Heydrich on Himmler's order, deportation plans for the incorporated eastern territories were made public. In the course of the study of the documents submitted now, it has become clear to me that in the same agency, that is the Reich Security Main Office, already in 1939, a socalled over-all plan for deportation measures had been drafted. This over-all plan has for the first time been mentioned before this High Tribunal on the occasion of the testimony of the witness Ehlich. The existince of this plan is proved also by a number of other documents submitted here, among them the DocumentNO-2585, submitted as Exhibit 89, in Document Book III. Regarding the deportation measures themselves, and regarding this over-all plan, I want to add that deportations were carried out also in territories where there was no thought \n of settling re-settlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1454, "page_number": "1448", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "It seems to me, therefore, necessary to treat quite separately deportation measures and settlement measures.\nQDid the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar get any directives from you regarding deportations?\nANo, that wouldn't have been possible since my agency did not decide or carry out any deportation measures; no corresponding directives could pass through my office to the local plenipotentiaries.\nQ who were the plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar?\nAThat is such a complicated question that I cannot answer it in spite of my considerable knowledge of the relationships, because the persons as well as the offices of the individual plenipotentiaries was so different in the different areas, but I may add here, Dr. Haensel, you asked me who issued general directives regarding the carrying out of the deportations. This question I have not so far answered. These organizational measures, too, were dealt with by the Reich Security Main Office. In the Reich Security Main Office for this purpose, and this becomes clear from the transcript on the Session of the 30th of January, 1940; I believe this is Exhibit 656, in Document Book V-G; a special department for the carrying out of deportations was set up. In the order of the chief of the Security Police and the SD, which has so far not been submitted as means of evidence, but which will be submitted. I expect, there are detailed statements regarding the setting up of the UWZ, that is the Resettlers Central Office, as well as regarding the measures which will be taken in order to provide the people to be evacuated the necessities of life following their deportation.\nQWe want to revert now to who was the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar. In Hitler's order, mentioned this morning, Exhibit 21, it is mentioned that the Higher SS and Police Leaders are deputies, are to become deputies for the Reich Leader SS. Did this actually take place?\nAThe general directive referred to by you applies exclusively \n to the incorporated eastern territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1455, "page_number": "1449", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "It is correct that first of all the Higher SS and Police Leaders were appointed in these areas as plenipotentiaries. In 1940, however, I believe, about April or May, the Reichsstathalers were appointed as plenipotentiaries and the Higher SS and Police Leaders became their deputies. This however is only valid, as I said, for the incorporated eastern territories, and here, too, I ask your pardon for explaining this very difficult matter; there is an exception, and this exception is the Gau Danzig, West Prussia. In the Gau of Danzig, West Prussia, the Higher SS and Police Leaders always remained plenipotentiaires of the Reich Commissar. The reason for this was of a personal nature. There had been personal differences of opinion, and it was also due to the presumptuousness of the Reich Governor there, by the name of Forster, who, as I know from a report, made the following statement: He as Reich Governor could not possibly subordinate himself to a man like Himmler.\nQWell now, who gave the order for the appointment of these plenipotentiaries?\nAThe appointments of the plenipotentiaries were exclusively carried out by Himmler personally. Often his subordinate offices only gained knowledge of these appointments weeks or months after they had taken place.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1456, "page_number": "1450", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.Were these offices subordinated to your office, that is later to the Main Staff Office?\nA.That is quite impossible. The description which I have just given of the attitude and the political position of power of the Reich Governor in the Gau of Danzig, West Prussia, was similar to that in the other Gaus. It is impossible that a Reich Governor would subordinate himself to a governmental branch agency as my office was.\nQ.What was the connection between your office and these plenipotentiaries?\nA.She Reich Governor concentrated in his person all authorities of the Reich Central agencies, and since the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the person of Himmler was also the highest Reich office, the task of that Reich Commissar was contained in the office of the Reich Governor as a provincial agency.\nQ.You evidently are trying to make it clear to us in this manner that the Reich Governor could carry out tasks belonging to the field of work of the Reich Minister of Interior or the Ministry of Justice, as well as the tasks belonging to the field of the Reich Commissar.\nA.That is correct.\nQ.And regarding the task of the Reich Commissar, work that did not only belong to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, but also tasks belonging to RuSHA, or RSHA or any other agency.\nA.That is correct, but here with reference to RuSHA, I have to mention that this Race and Settlement Main office, we have to deal not with a Reich governmental office, but with a party office, and so far we cannot establish a direct subordination or connection to the governmental office of the Reich Governor. There was a connection, a horizontal connection by the fact that the Higher police Leader who was deputy plenipotentiary was at the same time the local SS Leader; and, therefore, between the RuSHA and between the deputy of plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar, there was an official channel.\nQYou just excused yourself regarding the complicated nature of \n this question, and I am sure this is very, very difficult and that we have here the key for many misunderstandings.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1457, "page_number": "1451", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "What is the position of the plenipotentiary which we have so often mentioned here?\nA.The provincial office of the Reich Governor comprised offices of all governmental agencies, as an example, I may here give the Department IV which was the department dealing with agricultural cuestions Within the office of the Reich Commissar. The Reich Food Ministry, therefore, via this Department IV had a direct connection to the top administration level of the provincial agencies, and as an analogous case, within the office of the plenipotentiary with the Reich Governor, we have the counterpart to the top Reich government agency in the person of Himmler as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Did these Reich governors have to comply with the directives of this Central office?\nA.This question is a very difficult one: theoretically yes, and in practice, no One has to know the conditions in order to understand this The Reich governor as a top agency on the provincial level supervised the interior administration, that is the entire administration, but in all cases he was at the same tins Gauleiters and bearer of the sovereignty of the party. Apart from that, the Reich Governor was also Reich defense Commissar, and this division comprised the most extensive powers which were in existence after the outbreak of the war. Therefore, the Reich Governor was in a position according to use I might say according to his whim, the different official channels in order to bring about what seemed suitable to him. For instance, if the Minister of the Interior issued a directive which did not please the Reich Governor, he simply used his position as a Gauleiter and turned to the Party Chancellery in order to try by way of the Party Chancellery, which was independent of the Reich Minister of Interior, and thus prevent the execution of this Ministry of Interior order, and to bring about what he himself wanted to do. It was really like this \n that the Reich Governor in the incorporated eastern territories was more or loss an independent person, and even a Himmler could occasionally find it difficult to influence him; that my office, or an office on the same level, for instance, VOMI, could have succeeded in effecting its own plans was therefore impossible.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1458, "page_number": "1452", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.Theoretically, the Central Offices and your office was among them who had general authority to issue directives, but in practice, you could not give these orders. Now was it important for practical matters that you personally had no support in the party and the SS and that you were dependent exclusively on the powers of your office in the face of these powerful party executives. Perhaps you could give us an example.\nA.First of all, it was even more difficult for us as a new Reich government agency to get our will in the face of the position of these people since you have just referred to my personal position I can only answer this question that I myself and my associates experienced great difficulties in being heard at all by the Reich Governor. You asked for an example. In 1941 I wanted to take the opportunity to introduce my leading officials to the Reich Governor in the Warthegau, Greiser. Though he knew of the purpose of my visit, he did not receive my associates, but kept them waiting in his anti-room for over an hour, and when I reproached him for this he answered that the recognized me personally as an associate of Himmler's, but that he was not interested in the heads of my department. This is not an isolated instance. I also know that Professor Meyer-Hetling in the Gau Danzig--West Prussia, wag in danger of being arrested and expelled from the Gau only because the local governor disliked him.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1459, "page_number": "1453", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Q.It would really have been in order, would it not, that the Governors, as Plenipotentiaries, dealt with your office if they had to discuss any matters relating to the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germanism? How was that in practice? I would like you to look at Document Book V-A, Exhibit 210, page 75, and you can demonstrate it to us at ecules.\nA.It was in reality like this: The Reich Governors, as plenipotentiaries, in all questions which seemed important to them, were in a position to use the direct way to Himmler, and actually did so. The Reich Governors had received such extensive powers from Hitler that they could ignore all subordinate offices, and they really did not need them because they always found a way which gained them success. The document before me is a typical proof for this. Especially in questions of population policy, every Reich Governor had his own policy, according to his discretion, without ever going to the offices competent for these questions and without even asking for their expert opinion.\nQ.You have repeatedly mentioned Herr Greiser--that is, the Governor Greiser. Did he discuss matters of alien populations, etc. with you?\nA.I have already said that matters relating to foreign populations were outside my competency, so these measures were not submitted to me. The work of my office was altogether concerned, not with alien populations, but only with German people, and only in the case when Germans were transferred to us as a welfare agency, from other competent offices in order to have us take care of them. This was true not only for resettlers, but also -- and this matter will be discussed later on--for people who were contained in the German People's List, or who had been assigned to us to be taken care of in the process of being made German citizens again.\nQ.That is to say, you had nothing to do with alien populations?\nA.No; only very rarely we came into contact with individuals of foreign nations, if, ofr example, men of foreign blood, quite under \n standably misunderstood our position and turned to us.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1460, "page_number": "1454", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "May I add here, quite briefly, a few examples from which we can see that my associates and I took care to give humane treatment to people of foreign races as well? May I cite one example for each of the three Gaue in the Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nIn the Gau Danzig-West Prussia, there lived a naval officer by the name of von Unruk who had formerly been a German naval Officer under the monarchy and later became a Polish citizen. Von Unruk--that is, in the German way of writing it, von Wnruh--in this war, made a name for himself by defending; the westernplatte for the Poles. when this man, who was undoubtedly a Pole, had to give up his landed property in order than an air field could be constructed thereon, my office assigned another estate to him as a substitute although, legally speaking, there was no reason for so doing.\nIn the Gau of Wartheland, Prince Ratziwill had large estates. Prince Ratziwill himself lived in Berlin during the war. Since his extates were confiscated by the Ostland, payments for pensions to his old employees and to his old farm workers had been stopped. I got in touch with the Ostland and saw to it that these pensioners were again paid their pensions.\nIn the Gau of Upper Silesia there was also an estate of Mrs. Guzy, nee Janosc, and this estate had been confiscated, also by the Ostland. This was definitely a Polish family. The husband of Mr. Guzy had been Polish public prosecutor, and he was killed, as an officer of the reserve, in the German-Polish war.\nQ.Could you kindly condense your statements?\nA.Yes.\nI rescinded this confiscation; at least I saw to it that Mrs. Guzy could again live on her estates.\nQ.Very well. Now let us revert to the Office of the Plenipotentiary. Could you tell us what level the Office of the Plenipotentiary was on?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1461, "page_number": "1455", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "A.That was definitely an office on the level of the Provincial Administration.\nQ.And what was the technical structure?\nA.The technical organization could he carried out by every plenipotentiary according to his own views. With regard to the larger and more important offices, the structure adapted itself to the organization of the offices in Berlin.\nQ.In order to give us a picture, could you tell us briefly what was the structure of the subordinate offices of the Plenipotentiary?\nA.In the Government District there was a so-called Settlement Staff, in the Kreis--that is, in the County--a so-called working staff. This working staff was an instrument of the Landrat, that is, the official governing the county. Thatis, it belonged to the interior administration, and therefore did not represent a formation of the SS.\nQ.And now let us come back to your own level and concern ourselves with the definition of the competencies within the office of the Reich Commissar. Who was active, apart from your office? You can tell us that quite briefly because we have heard about it from the Prosecution.\nA.VOMI, Reich Security Main Office, my office, and then the Race and Settlement Lain Office, RuSHA.\nQ.These agencies were on the same level-\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1462, "page_number": "1456", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQBefore the recess, I started to introduce the plan. We talked about the agencies on the same level with your office.\nAMay I correct something here? I made a mistake before that a direct connection went from the office of the Plenipotentiary to Himmler.\nQIn order to understand this difficult material, I want to say one tiling. The channel of the offices in the Reich Commissariat, which were on the same level with you, how did it go on into the Gau levelthe provincial level?\nAThis channel varied since the tasks of these offices on the same leve varied very much.\nQTalking about the RSHA, what was the channel from the RSHA to the provincial offices?\nAThe RSHA dealt with so many tasks that here again were various channels; namely, an SS channel which led to the SD -- a police channel which led to the Inspector of the Security Police and to the Commander of the order Police and finally, a Reich channel, namely the channel of the Reich Commissariat which partly went immediately to the Plenipotentiary or again to the Inspector of the Security Police and the SD.\nQMay I now suggest to you that you be good enough to look at the plan and show us this channel. Perhaps you can start with the RSHA, I may suggest. Although we only have a small plan behind you, if you point it out, perhaps then afterwards everybody can see it on the large plan in front of them. I therefore suggest that you point it out and you follow it here. Let us start with the RSHA.\nAAbout this plan, may I say the following: The plan was designed by me and the writing on it was done in German by me. I now have the English plan in front of me -- the English writing. May I state my opinion to the effect that the description \"For the Strengthening of Germanism\" may not be quite appropriate and does not give the same sense as the original in German, and may I suggest therefore to use the \n the English words \"Consolidation of German Folkdom.\"", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1463, "page_number": "1457", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "I believe that this \"Consolidation of German Folkdom\" is a more verbal translation of the German original.\nMR. SCHWENK:I object to this translation. In my opinion, the term \"Strengthening of Germanism\" is absolutely proper and correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Since the witness is doing the testifying, it's his privilege to use the language that he thinks proper. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWould you please now show us the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office, on the very left -- or wherever you would like to start.\nAAt the top of this plan, in the center, there is a small part of the positions of power held by Himmler. It is subdivided in black and represents his state task as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. In blue, there is a channel of command as Chief of the German Police; and in red, the channel of command as Reich Fuehrer SS. I did not mention all the numerous other field of task of Himmler and did not include them in this plan because otherwise it would be so confusing that hardly anybody could find their way through it.\nAll black lines on this plan indicate the Reich channel of command of Himmler as Reich Commissar. In the center, the black central line going down shows the direct connection, which I mentioned before, from Himmler to his Plenipotentiary, who were either Reichstatthalters or Senior Presidents or CDZ of their regions.\nQPlease explain CDZ?\nAThat means Chief of the Civilian Administration. Where this Chief of the Civilian Administration was assigned will be discussed later on. In the following horizontal line, the next lower one, the subordinate offices of Himmler are included, which dealt with tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism on the same level. The Reich Security Main Office is on the very left. The optical impression of this shows that in the Reich Security Main Office all colors are concentrated. None of the other offices or agencies show such a great number \n of channels of command as the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1464, "page_number": "1458", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "From the Reich Fuehrer as Reich Commissar, a black line is then continued either to the Inspector of the Security Police and the SD or immediately to the Plenipotentiary. The red line from the SS leads to the Reich Security Main Office and would continue, lower down, to the Office of the SD. The blue line, which ends in the Reich Security Main Office, originates with the Chief of the German Police, and is continued on a lower level to the Inspector of the Security Police and the SD, as a police organization, and apart from that is connected with the RSHA which dealt with the tasks which were important for the Immigration Central Office--the EWZ. The VOMI is the second office connected with the state sector. The channel going down is a special channel. I can not give any more detailed information about this.\nI do not want to interfere with representatives of other offices. The next office within the official sector is the Main Staff Office, which was called so since 1941.\nNot immediately connected but still to receive orders from Himmler as Reich Commissar, there is in the State Sector the Race and Settlement Main Office. To make a differentiation between the organizational and the business connection. I have chosen for RuSHA the black and white dotted line. To the Main Staff Office, my agency was connected not in an organizational way but concerning the work, with the German Resettlement Trustee Company the DUT. A similar concentration as we have here on top of the plan can be seen in the center of the third line down.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1465, "page_number": "1459", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "The reason for this is, first of all, that the Reichstatthalter or the Senior Governor or the CDZ is the deputy of Himmler. His deputy is the Higher SS Police Leader, who for his part also had police authority and tasks in blue, and SS tasks, which are indicated in red. This Reich Governor, the Senior President of the CDZ and his deputy are connected with the Office of the Plenipotentiary, which is part of provincial authority of the Reich Governor.\nAbout the association Lebensborn, may I leave this out because I do not know much in detail about this, and the members of that organization will state their opinions on this. The RuSHA is an SS agency, and therefore they had a direct channel of command to Himmler as Reichsfuehrer SS. The channel going down is continued as an SS channel to the Race and Settlement leader, who simultaneously, to a smaller extent -- and therefore the line is thinner--dealt with tasks of the Reich Commissar Himmler, via the official channel.\nApart from that, the RuSHA has the branch agency Lodz, which is also connected with the RuSHA here.\nQ.Would you describe the UWZ to us briefly?\nA.The UWZ dealt with deportations and had the responsibility for these. That was an organization of the police connected with the RSHA via the Inspectors of the Security Police and the SD. This is the entirely blue channel. The EWZ as mentioned before, was a special agency for the granting of citizenships which was subordinate to the RSHA immediately. But since it is nt a pure police organ I designed it in a special manner.\nSince in both offices--the EWZ and the UWZ--racial selections were carried out, there have been added two parts of the branch office of the RuSHA. This means that this was not a subordinate relationship between the UWZ and the branch agency Litzmannstadt, or the EWZ and the branch agency Litzmannstadt; but this branch agency Litzmannstadt assisted the UWZ and the EWZ in carrying out racial examinations and selections.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I do not know, has this chart been placed into evidence?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1466, "page_number": "1460", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:I haven't heard anything about it if it has.\nDR. HAENSEL:I introduced this plan as Exhibit No. 2 for identification because the 24 hour term was not kept. I shall introduce it tomorrow unless the Prosecution objects.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand you simply offer it new for the purpose of identification tot it has not been introduced into evidence, That is my understanding. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.How was it in the Government General? You said briefly that what you described in the plan is the normal situation in the incorporated eastern territory?\nA.That is the normal situation in the incorporated eastern territory. Conditions change immediately as soon as we go into the Reich, into Germany, or to Austria, or to the Government General. The conditions vary everywhere. In spite of all technical considerations, I have not been able to include all this in one plan. I had to recur to a special example.\nQ.I refer, if Your Honor please, to this plan which is enclosed to the basic information. There is a difference between the incorporated eastern territory and the Government General. Will you tell us briefly how the position in the Government General concerning the Reich Commissar differed from that in the incorporated Eastern Territories? If I may again remind you, in 1939 Himmler had issued a decree, according If which the police matters of the Reich Commissar were to be dealt with by the higher SS and Police Leader.\nA.Yes. The legal position of the Government General is a very special one. I am not a lawyer to be able to explain this in detail, but in my case, as an ordinary human being, a layman, one could say that the Government General was a completely independent government within a completely independent country. In 1939, with the agreement of the Governor General Himmler instructed the Higher SS and Police Leader to take orders from him and to become his deputy as Reich Commissar. This higher SS and Police Leader \n was his deputy from the very beginning, and Himmler gave him immediate instructions without consulting the other agencies -- that is, my office or the VOMI, or the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1467, "page_number": "1461", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "They were not at all consulted.\nIn the spring of 1942, there was the discussion between the Governor General Frank and Himmler which formed the basis for a law which was published in the Reich Law Gazette and which instituted a State Secretary for the Security with the government of the Government General. This State Secretary at the same time was the Deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strenghening of Germanism not the plenipotentiary and was appointed for that office.\nQ.In your office, did you give any instructions to the Government General, and were you able to do so?\nA.I could not even do this before the new regulation; in particular, I could not do this because in the Government of the Governor General there was a kind of Second Reich Commissar. The Deputy of Himmler set up a complete official apparatus for the task of the Reich Commissariat.\nQ.In the document we come across the name Globocnik. Was he part of this regular channel of command in the Government. General?\nA.Globocnik was an SS and Police Leader in a certain area. I don't know how these areas were called in the Government General, whether they were called districts or areas, and there he acted very independently. Globocnik was a very close friend of Himmler's. Himmler constantly gave Globocnik immediate instructions over the head of the Governor General and his deputy. Globocnik governed according to instructions by Himmler in his district as a completely independent Governor. Himmler, himself, visited Globocnik repeatedly. My office had no right to issue any orders to Globocnik. We rejected Globocnik, as a man and as an official all the time. Globocnik was one of the worst acoundrals in the Government General.\nQ.How was it in the so-called Ostmark, that is Austria?\nA.In Austria, it was relatively simple, because the Reichstatthalter-", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1468, "page_number": "1462", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "the Reich Governors were plenipotentiaries and the Higher SS and Police Leaders deputy plenipotentiaries, The tasks which occurred in the Ostmark, in Austria, were of such minor importance that a large organization was not at all necessary.\nQ.And how was it in Germany proper?\nA.In Germany proper, the Higher SS and Police Leaders were plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar for the Strenghening of Germanism, but here one has to remember that in Germany proper the field of tasks of my agency, for example, the Staff Main Office, were of such minor importance that the Higher SS and Police leaders had very little work to do in the sphere of task of my office. The main sphere of task of the Higher SS and Police Leaders as plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar in the Reich proper originated with the RSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1469, "page_number": "1463", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "May I mention here, while studying the documents submitted here, I realize only now how many persons and how many agencies and offices dealt with tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and gave instructions in this sphere. The documents show a great number of letterheads, of various file marks and signatures which all come under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, I quite realize that there must be great difficulties to understand this confusion of descriptions here.\nEven I, who believed to know something about all this. have not yet succeeded in taking up all the threads of the work of the Strengthening of Germanism. One really must consider the headings and the signatures and the dates and file marks, in order to evaluate a document properly,\nQPlease give me an answer to one question to clear things up Did the Higher SS and Police Leader act as a plenipotentiary of the Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes; sometimes, but not exclusively.\nQIn what sector?\nAAs plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar he could act in the sector of the RSHA. He could act in the sphere of the Staff Main Office and he could become active in the sphere of RuSHA. There was no unified office of the Reich Commissar; and the Higher SS and Police Leader had to become active for all these departments, on the same level.\nQ would you look at Exhibit No. 26?\nAI have it in front of me.\nQAbout this problem, you may give us a clue.\nAMay I ask what you mean?\nQThis problem of the many jobs the Higher SS and police Leader had, the problem of these many offices.\nAThis document bears the letter head Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Actually it is not at \n all possible for Himmler in his person is Reich Commissar but the Reichsfuehrer-SS and the Chief of the German Police never held that office But still that letterhead appears.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1470, "page_number": "1464", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "The file mark is merely that of the Reich Security Main Office, The decree is addressed exclusively to police offices and pure police measures are concerned therefore, For information, this decree was sent to a great number of agencies which might have had something to do with it and might not.\nThe one before the last mentions my name. The contents of this decree concern the confiscation of art objects, archives, documents and collections; a measure with which nearly all the defendants are charged, is ordered by the ETO (Main Trustee Agency East), carried out by the Reich Security Main Office and sent for information to offices which have nothing to do with it.\nQYou consider your agency one of these?\nAYes; mine is one of them.\nQ would you please tell us briefly how it was in Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg?\nAAlsace-Lorraine, Luxembourg and also the lower Steirmark and Oberkrain were CDZ territories. In these CDZ territories the chiefs of the Civil Administration had been instituted by Himmler as plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar. The CDZ had all authority which was given to them by Hitler and acted in that territory quite according to their discretion, I see from these documents now that the CDZ have dealt with many things under the firm of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism about which the other agencies did not know anything and which, in turn, since the events were carried out under the firm of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, were blamed on these offices of the Commissar's.\nQYou just talked about Hitler who appointed the CDA. Let us talk about Himmler now. As what appointed Himmler the CDA?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1471, "page_number": "1465", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "AAs his plenipotentiaries in his capacity of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQDid you help in this? Did your agency become active here?\nANo. The appointment of these plenipotentiaries was exclusively done personally by Himmler and, as I have already stated, my co-workers and myself only heard about this weeks or months later, about these appointments.\nQPreviously you explained to us that in the Eastern territories the settlement and working staffs were sub-divided under the higher provincial offices. Was there a parallel subdivision in these CDZ territories?\nANo; there was no such subdivision in these CDZ territories. The treatment of the special departments within the CDZ authority was left up to the CDZ in each case. The requirements varied mainly so that a general picture of the general organization within the CDZ territory simply cannot be given.\nMay I just give one example. In Luxembourg no office at all and no expert at all of my office existed. In other offices again they Were active.\nQWill you tell us who was the CDZ in Luxembourg?\nAIn Luxembourg Gauleiter Simon was the CDZ.\nQWhom we have mentioned here repeatedly. This concludes the subject of the set-up of the organization in general and we now come to the next important point, namely, that the Prosecution charges you with spoliation. I want to say that we first want to deal with the infringments on property about which the Prosecution talks and then about infringments on humane and personal things. Obviously the Prosecution understands spoliation to mean any intervention in property affairs on the part of your office in the occupied territory. I will ask you whether you personally have any property from this territory for yourself or obtained any such property there?\nANo; I never obtained anything there or took anything away \n from there or earned anything from there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1472, "page_number": "1466", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "QWere you only active there officially?\nAI only became active there officially. merely as an authority.\nQWere the incorporated eastern territories considered by you occupied territories?\nANo The Incorporated Eastern Territories could by no German be considered occupied territory after 8 October 1939, because of the Sovereign Act of the Reich Government they had been incorporated in the Reich Territory.\nQFrom the International Law point of view did you have any misgivings or doubts about this? Did you think about it?\nANo I already explained this morning that various clues were given to people for considering all measures legally well founded and based on international law. Apart from that I think I can remember that in the year 1940, an expert opinion of the foreign office was given which examined the whole matter once more in detail and this expert opinion finally determined that no hesitations from the viewpoint of international law existed. A great number of my lawyers, all of whom became active in these territories and had to work there, never expressed any doubt as to the legality of this.\nThe witness Hoffmann, who has testified before this High Tribunal, before coming to my office, was with the Haupttreuhandstelle East in Lodz and has worked in these territories directly. During the IMT proceedings he gave an affidavit to the effect that he, as a lawyer, never had any hesitations, any misgivings about the legality of the incorporation and all measures carried out by my office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel again, please, do not mix the evidence and the law. This is evidence now. We will be glad to hear from you about the law after the evidence has been concluded.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1473, "page_number": "1467", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nBY DR. HAENSEL:\nQLet us talk about the events in the incorporated Eastern territory. Let us start with the property; how about confiscation?\nAThe confiscation problem includes a great number of laws and decrees which have not been introduced as evidence yet. The first confiscation of the entire property in the incorporated Eastern territories was carried out on 5 October 1939 by a decree by the Military administration, after previously the entire agricultural property has been confiscated and administrations for same has been appointed. The next confiscation action occurred as far as I know, on 19 October 1939 by the foundation of the Main Trustee Agency East. The next confiscation happened in February 1940 by the establishment of the Ostland, a company instituted to deal with forest property in the Eastern territories. Between this enemy-like confiscation and the appointing of trustees Polish administrators, in forest-economy. A great number of confiscation measures took place therefore, which one cannot explain here in detail. I do not know all the legal prerequisites on which these measures were based. I know that the first legal basis for intended confiscation by the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was given by the Polish property decree of 17 September 1940.\nQMay I suggest the following: I hope that tomorrow I will submit to the Tribunal a summary of all the laws, decrees and ordinances which I shall bring in my documents books and which are not yet contained in the document books of the Prosecution. This is only for our proceedings here so that the High Tribunal can see what material will be dealt with. Now, Herr Greifelt, I would like to ask you, start with your personal experience and do not talk about the legal situation but talk about what you remember. In October 1939 you were called to Himmler's office, please start there. That was at a time when your office as you told us before had not been set up yet but everything was still being set up and you got to know Winkler of the HTO.\nAIt is right, in October or November 1939 I was called to Himmler's \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1474, "page_number": "1468", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "office. Although I had reported that I was coming I was not admitted but had to wait in the ante room. After sometime Himmler appeared accompanied by a man I did not know but he introduced me to him; he was Dr. Winkler, Chief of the Main Trustee Agency East, an Office of the Four Year Plan under the Special Protection and attention of the Reich Marshal Goering. For Goering by decree of 19 October had confiscated the entire Polish property of the incorporated Eastern territory.\nQDo you remember what reason Goering gave for this decree?\nANo, I cannot say that any more.\nQBut you remember the discussion which took place between you and Himmler When you met Dr. Winkler for the first time? Was it discussed at the time that this property confiscated by Goering was only to be administered by the HTO and was the Reich Commissar to participate in any way in this administration?\nAA discussion between three people, that is, Himmler, Winkler and myself did not take place after that but afterwards Himmler told me when we were alone that he had agreed with Winkler to the effect that the Main Trustee Agency East would renounce the administration and evaluation of the agricultural property confiscated already in the Eastern territory and that the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism should deal with it.\nQOf course you can only remember details if one refreshes your memory a little. I am giving you now Book 14-A and I ask you to look at pages 31 and 21. Let us start with page 31; these are exhibits 392 and 590.\nAMay I know the other page again.\nQFirst page, 31, and then page 21. The question is now were you told at the time or do you remember the HTO was set up?\nAHimmler told me immediately afterwards that HTO existed and that the entire property was confiscated by the HTO.\nQIf you look at page 31 and remember the date of the document, this document shows that obviously what was discussed between Himmler and \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1475, "page_number": "1469", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Winkler later became action. By action I mean instruction.\nAThis is again a typical example for the so-called administrative confusion which existed at the time. This document originated not with my office but this document again originated with the Reich Security Main Office which is shown by the letter head. The latter is directly addressed to the Reich governor and the higher Reich authorities without contacting the office of the Reich Commissariat and in the distribution list I appear as number 8 and I also got a copy of this.\nQMay I explain here that during the presentation of documents I asked that the agreement between Winkler and Himmler be submitted. It is not in these volumes but it does exist. I hope I can show this later. If we had it now it would be much simpler. All the documents are not hare. This document was submitted in the Pohl case by Prof. Kempner but it was not introduced. We are now in October. When you heard that Winkler and Himmler agreed that the administration of the agricultural property in some form should not be handled by the HTO alone but should also be handled by the Reich Commissariat, did you do anything about this?\nANo, I did nothing to stop this because this was not part of my sphere of tasks. My sphere of tasks was the settlement of the resettlers and fixing up new settlement areas. I had nothing to do with agricultural administration or such things.\nQWhat other offices or agencies or ministries ware interested in the agricultural property and dealt with it or had already dealt with it during the time of October?\nADoubtless the Reich Food Ministry already previously had made arrangements for carrying out measures in the incorporated Eastern Territories. In the course of the occupation of the Polish territory trustees were appointed immediately who ware subordinate to an organization of the Reich Food Ministry which was not yet completely shaped. This administrative organization of the confiscated agricultural territories, I believe on 12 February 1940, received a legal basis by the establishment of the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1476, "page_number": "1470", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Eastland Company for the Administration of Agricultural and Forestry Enterprises.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1477, "page_number": "1471", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQMay I point out to you Exhibit 633, in Volume 14-C, page 20, 633. What is the date of this, and did you know this document or did you See it here for the first time?\nAThis document is of the 29th August, 1939; I didnot know it; I read it here for the first time as a document, and I was surprised to see this.\nQMay I return to Exhibit 299 again. This is the decree mentioned before; by Himmler of 10th November, 1939. Was this drafted by you? And submitted to Himmler for signature?\nAThat is Volume?\nQ 14-A.\nAOf 10th November?\nQPage 31.\nANO, I did not know this decree. It comes from the RSHA; it has their letterhead, and their file mark, that is quite obvious.\nQIf you will look at page 35, letter \"H\"; what is the situation with respect to that?\nAI was given a copy of this decree. This decree was reprinted and it was sent to me to take notice.\nQWhy isn't your office mentioned there?\nAAt the time my office did not have a name yet because the name office for Immigration and Emigration did not exist any more. This name had been given up. For that reason these first decrees are all addressed to me personally as Oberfuehrer Greifelt.\nQIn this decree an agreement with the other offices was included. You will see this on page 33, the paragraph at the top. Did you have such a discussion with Himmler for the Reich Food Ministry?\nANo such discussion took place because the Main Staff Office and the Reich Commissar did never deal with utilization and administration of agricultural property. They did not do this because they were warned repeatedly because the administration of agricultural enterprises had only to be dealt with by experts and not by any other authorities. Apart \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1478, "page_number": "1472", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "from that, we approach here the subject of the fight for power which took place between the Main Trustee Office East, that is Goering, Himmler, Darre, the Food Ministry, Reich Ministry of Economics and of the details of which I am not informed, but the first measures from October and November, 1939 reveal this fight.\nQBut you do remember this first decree, this decree of 12 February 1940 about the administration of agriculture. How is the development of this decree to be understood.\nAOne has to know this decree in order to see how apart from the confiscations by the Main Office on 19 of October, another confiscation took place in February, a third or fourth one ex lege.\nQIn the decree of 10th November, Exhibit 592, there is mentioned the decree by the Main Trustee Office East concerning the property which was to be transferred to the Reich Commissariat. Was such an office founded, and, if so, was this done with or without your assistance?\nAMay I ask Where this is mentioned?\nQThat is on page 33, the first paragraph, 14-A; page 33, the first paragraph.\nANo, it says here about administration; no special office was set up.\nQThe next sentence?\nAThe next sentence deals only with a possibility.\nQThat is what I am asking about. Was this possibility evaluated?\nANo, that was not made use of.\nQCan you imagine why this was not evaluated?\nAThat is a question of the fight for power which I can't judge now, Dr. Haensel.\nQYou are trying to say that the Reich Food Ministry was dealing with the agricultural properly and you had nothing to do with this?\nAI cannot judge as to what fights of power and what positions resulted thereof. At the time I could not see what happened and I do not quite know now what happened, even if I look at things now from a distance.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1479, "page_number": "1473", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWhat about the Eastland Company? When was it founded?\nAThe Eastland Company was established in February, 1940; the purpose was to administer the entire agricultural property.\nQYou said the property was only to be administered; it was not sold?\nAThe agricultural property in its entirety was not sold; neither by the Eastland Companies or later by the decree about Polish property; it was not sold by the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or his organizations, only some exceptional cases did occur which don't play any importance in the general idea.\nQWho appointed the trustees who administered the property?\nAThe trustees were appointed by the Eastland or they already existed when the Eastland was founded because immediately behind the advancing troops trustees were already appointed for the enterprises, and they were active as trustees under the supervision of district agricultural experts. The Eastland was the legal basis for a situation which prevailed from September 1939 until January 1940.\nQDid you have any influence as Reich Commissar, in your position, for the Reich Commissar to appoint certain persons as trustees; and, what group of people could you appoint?\nAIt was our task, I would like to say, to resettle the German people who came from other parts. They were to be settled permanently by giving them property; this could not be done during the war, of course, but to help these people we saw to it that the resettlers according to their ability ware appointed trustees with agricultural enterprises. This was not done by means of orders or by duress because there was no means of giving such orders, but in agreement with Eastland, resettlers were appointed as trustees on these confiscated farms.\nQWas it easy to influence this or was there a lot of competition at the time for this? Were people eager to become trustees?\nAThe eagerness to obtain such trustee positions was very great, so that it did take a lot of persuasion to have these resettlers become \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1480, "page_number": "1474", "date": "24 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-24", "text": "trustees.\nQ was there also competition from people from Germany proper who wanted to have such positions?\nAI don't think there were people who did not suddenly find they loved agricultural work, either because they were people who had lived there once before and wanted to return, or whether they were opportunists who thought they saw an opportunity to obtain farms easily, or they were people, adventurers, soldiers who had nothing to do with agriculture really but who thought that during the times of war they would be able to feed better in the country.\nQI presume on the basis of your sphere of tasks that you helped the resettlers rather than the opportunists.\nAIn my office the slogan of the opportunists was issued, and together with my co-workers I did everything in order to stop all opportunists, and it was our opinion that the conditions in the incorporated eastern territories could only be properly straightened out after the war, but nobody thought that the war would take so long.\nQHow were the resettlers established on the fares? What was the legal structure of these contracts?\nAThe resettlers were trustees of the Eastland; the Eastland appointed these resettlers and explained to them how they had to administer the enterprise for the Eastland in return for a certain amount of money they received by the Eastland.\nQThat was at the beginning; how was it handled later on?\nALater on the farmers were given the farms to be operated at their own cost, that is they had to pay for the upkeep of them themselves. There were many reasons for this.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 25 November 1947.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1481, "page_number": "1475", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\ndefendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 25 November, 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session.\nGod save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the our room,\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors all defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Dr. Haensel, for your information the written request for privilege to in terview your client during the recess has reached the court and has been approved in writing and filed.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you your Honor. May I go on with my ques tioning?\nTHE PRESIDENT :Go ahead.\nULRICH GREIFELT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - (Continued)\nBY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Yesterday we stopped at the settling of repatriated persons in the seized real estate property.\nNow, will you please tell us what is the meaning of running the real estate on one's own account?\nA.The introduction of this system was due to various view points.\nPsychologically it will be easily comprehensible that the resettler who has been in a camp for a long time and who for \n several years had worked as a trustee on this soil expressed the desire to have the responsibility for this soil now and to work on his own initiative.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE PRESIDENT ", "BY DR. HAENSEL", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1482, "page_number": "1476", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Were there any advantages as far as the management of the enterprise was concerned?\nA.Yes, this psychological incentive to a large extent became an advantage for the Food Administration because directional exploitation of the agricultural enterprises in the incorporated Eastern territories played a large part in the war economy as far as food administration was concerned. Insofar, therefore the Reich Food Ministry had a considerable interest in promoting the individual initiative of the resettlers and of introducing the autonomous exploitation of the soil and eventually a third viewpoint had to be added. All resettlers who had a claim on restitution of the property in the Reich had a claim on payment of interest for this claim of restitution. Therefore, as soon as the resettler started to work the soil on his own account this claim of interest became void and thereby considerable alleviation of the charges arose for the whole payment of interest to theresettlers. Therefore, the German resettlers Trusteeship Company had an interest also, that is, the DUT had an interest also in this measure,\nQ.Now you and your agencies, have you concluded these exploitation agreements with the resettlers or what agencies concluded these agreements?\nA.No, the contract for this autonomous exploitation was concluded by the resettler companies?\nA.These resettler or resettlement companies in the incorporated Eastern territories are foundations of the Reich Ministry for Food, Doubtlessly these companies were originally intended to be a weapon in the hands of Minister Darre against Himmler. Darre wanted to use these resettlement companies in order to expel Himmler again from the field of tasks of rural settlements, a field into which Himmler bid maneuvered \n himself through his decree of 7 October 1939.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1483, "page_number": "1477", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "At the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940 these resettlement companies had been founded and kept into existence. The Reich Commissioner or his plenipotentiaries used these resettlement companies in order to provide professional care for these resettlers. Essentially speaking these measures were well considered by my workers and myself because it provided the possibility to do away with the annoying tension between the Reich Food Ministry and Himmler as Reich Commissioner or at least to alleviate it.\nThe resettle ment companies, in other words, were under the authority of the Reich Food Ministry and not under the Reich Commissioner.\nQ.Therefore, the task of these resettlement companies was the resettling properly speaking. Now once the contract for autonomous exploitation had been concluded did you go on looking after these matters or did you take no longer an interest in them?\nA.Of course our task of welfare for the resettlers could not be terminated by these measures; at least not in a final way because the committment for exploitation on their own account did not constitute a final settlement of their restitution claims. The professional care or these people their capacity as farmers of course was transferred then to the resettlement companies; that is true, and these companies provided the resettler with the necessary laons for the exploitation of the enterprise and with the necessary installations and tools for the enterprise.\nQ.What is of particular interest to us here is the question of whether the resettler had eventually become owner of these agricultural enterprises and red estate property.\nA.This question has to be answered emphatically in the negative. Until the collapse of Germany the resettlers in the agricultural sector were not considered owners of these enterprises and did not be come owners The settlement of this question possibly had to be reserved for the period after the war.\nQ.But you sent so-called committment slips to these resettlers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1484, "page_number": "1478", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "What did these committment slips contain?\nA.The committment slips which the resettlers would receive were issued also by reason of exclusively psychological considerations. The resettler would receive a slip on which it was noted that he was committed to a certain enterprise which he was to exploit on his own account and that he would have a prospect to possibly purchase or acquire this enterprise et a later date.\nThis very contents showed clearly that no transfer of property had taken place.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1485, "page_number": "1479", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDo you mean to say by that, if the people had been registered in the real estate register than they wouldn't have to receive a committment slip because than they would have had their title?\nAOf course; that is rights and this so-called committment slip had no legal consequences at all.\nQWe are talking now of agricultural property; now let's turn to the urban enterprises enterprises and to professional property owners rather than enterprises. To whom was this field of urban and professional property subordinated?\nAThe whole non rural property, be it of an industrial nature or of a professional nature or be it urban real estate, was under the administration and care and exploitation of the main trusteeship agency East. This agency thereby disposed of by far the largest share of the fortunes which had been confiscated. It had a vary extensive administration apparatus and founded subsidiary companies which had to administer individual parts of the seized property. As far as the urban and professional property is concerned a basic distinction had to be made as compared to rural property, namely, in the case of urban and professional holdings, the exploitation, that is; in other words the sale or the transfer of title was carried out, while, as already explained a while ago in the case of the rural holdings this did not take place.\nQNow, to put the matter quite practically, how did these resettles receive those urban real estate properties or enterprises?\nADr. Haensel, I think that in order to make the matter clearer and for the guidance of the Tribunal it would be better if I preface my explanation by the following: First, regardless whether rural or professional property was concerned the whole matter has to be considered in such a way that every resettler had a claim against the Reich. I may assume that the question of the cause of this claim will be made the subject of a later question from you. All I want to say here is that we used seized property in favor of the resettlers and that this cannot be considered in any other light than the used property at the disposal of \n the Reich, and the legal basis on which the use of this property could be disposed of by the Reich was and had to be without any interest for my government agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1486, "page_number": "1480", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Therefore, even in the industrial field the use of the property at the disposal of the main trusteeship agency East was carried out. And the question you just put to me has to be answered in short as follows: The resettlers approached the DUT and this company in agreement with the HTO decided the committment of the resettlers as trustees and and obtained it.\nQAt a later stage we are going to discuss the construction of the DUT. Now for the time being let's discuss the channels. The resettlers approached the DUT you said. Now did they have their own wishes and desires and did they express them to the DUT?\nAOf course the resettlers, as time went on, got an onsight into the property resources which were at the disposal of the DUT and on their own initiative they suggested that they be assigned as trustees for certain enterprises. These applications were brought to the knowledge of the DUT by the resettlers and the DUT may be called the safeguarder of the interest of the resettlers as far as property was concerned.\nQIn other words that was a transaction between DUT and the resettlers. Now, how did your agency and you personally come in,\nAExcuse me Dr. Haensel, but I would like to avoid any misunderstanding and I would like to rectify something here. It wasn't the transaction between the DUT and the resettlers. That was impossible. The transaction was between the HTO as the agency at the disposal of which the property was and the resettlers; and the DUT was only the broker between them.\nQAnd how did you come in, you and your government agency?\nAThe only purpose my government agency served in that connection was a channeling. After all it is impossible that a central agency in Berlin can have an insight in the numerous small and smallest enterprises of this tremendous number of resettlers and can commit the resettlers to \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1487, "page_number": "1481", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "the individual enterprise. The HTO as wall as the DUT in the provisional properties had their individual organizations and the transactions took place between this e provisional organizations and only in cases when difficulties arose or when complaints were made or if matters made a basic settlement necessary, then my central agency was called in and approached with these matters and by conferences math the HTO and the DUT these difficulties were straightened out.\nQNow during these first negotiations which the resettler conducted via the DUT, was there a basic difference between the treatment given to rural enterprises or to industrial enterprises or was it the same procedure.\nAAt the beginning it was exactly identical because the resettler was appointed trustee of the enterprise, professional or industrial enterprise.\nQWith whom did these resettlers who were appointed trustees make their accounts. Now, I am speaking of the industrial sector. I could imagine that tiny made their accounts with the DUT. After all that was the first agency they approached.\nANo, certainly not. The DUT could on no account have a contract with the resettler in his capacity as trustee. The trustee in his function as such was an employee of the HTO. He would receive a remuneration in the form of wages for his activity as trustee and he was responsible for this towards the HTO to conduct the enterprise according to the principles of an honest merchant. The very nature of the trusteeship enterprise caused considerable anxiety to all government agencies because many of these people who had been assigned as trustee and particularly those amongst them who were not resettlers properly speaking and therefore were not under our care and supervision had a tendency towards using their activity as trustee in order to gain unjustified personal profits, and that is the explanation for the fact that Himmler, I think, on two occasions, issued written decrees by which he emphatically drew the resettlers attention to the fact that he would punish every violation against the honorable concept of trustee without any mercy.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1488, "page_number": "1482", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QIn other words the resettlers were officials, employees; no officials is wrong, these were employees.\nAYes.\nQNow, tell me in this field; I am speaking of the rural sector, was there something -- I am sorry, I mixed that up. I mean the industrial; was there something identical to the autonomous exploitation in the rural field?\nAWell, I cannot quite. remember this question any longer, but I think that from some of the submitted documents I can assume that there was such a thing. The fact that my recollection in this question is very dim can be seen also from the fact that on the provincial level or with the individual instances I had no connection. Of my own knowledge I can give you these matters only from the level of the supervising or directing agency; that is, from the top level.\nQIn other words, you were connected with these matters only when difficulties arose. Now, for instance, if the DUT did not agree with the HTO concerning the resettlers who were to be appointed as trustees, then they would approach you; is that right?\nANo, in this very field very often considerable differences of opinion arose, and these differences were caused by the difference in the interests these agencies had.\nQYou said that there was a difference of the interests these agencies had. Now, the HTO as a financial agency, did they urge payment and did they prefer therefore if somebody came who could pay for the enterprise in cash and prefer to do that in the case of one of your resettlers?\nAThe differences of opinion were based on the one hand on the differences of judgment with regard to the qualifications of the applicants, but beyond that, it is true that the HTO had an interest, had made it a point to get such trustees into the enterprises of whom they knew or could expect that at a later stage they could get as high a price as possible for the enterprise and of whom they could expect they might be able to pay cash for it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1489, "page_number": "1483", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QDid the HTO dispose of many such people; was there considerable demands?\nAThe demand for work in the incorporated eastern territories in the industrial sector was as strong as in the agricultural sector. The reasons therefore are of an economic nature. On the one hand fiscal and tax alleviations had been provided in the incorporated eastern territories for industrial enterprises. On the other hand the business men hoped that these newly opened markets, which had considerable stocks still, they could gain a very favorable field of business; and that was the reason why there was a considerable demand and even a very strong competition for these enterprises administered by the HTO.\nQTherefore, it became necessary to fix a scale of priorities between the applicants. What agency suggested that?\nAThe suggestion to settle these constantly arising disputes by agreement in a final way was made by the DUT because the DUT was the first level where the difficulties or differences arose, namely, the difficulty to help these resettlers to get a new means of existance.\nQWhat did you do thereupon? Would you please look at the document which I have put in front of you. I am offering Exhibit 611; it is page 4 of the German, in Document Book XIV-B.\nAThis document contains a priority scale decree for the commitment of trustees, and of purchasers for the enterprises in the incorporated eastern territories. The scale of priorities had been established bcause of the situation just described, between the director of the HTO, Dr. Winkler, and myself. This decree regarding priority as I know from my preliminary interrogations, unfortunately led to this misleading conclusion, or at least, to the wrong interpretation that this priority decree had been used by the Reich Commissioner to gain a decisive influence over the HTO to the effect that from the property at the disposal of the HTO sales should be made. This, however, was not the reason for the decree. Further more, it was not the result of the decree either.\nQThis priority scale decree, therefore, was applied for the comitment of trustees or exploiters, autonomous exploiters or even for the \n sale on the one hand, and it was applied also to rural property as will as industrial enterprises; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1490, "page_number": "1484", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "AThe priority scale decree did not apply to agricultural enterprises because these agricultural enterprises were no longer under the authority of the HTO, but the decree applied and covered all property values at the disposal and under the supervision of the HTO, and it covered as well the commitment as trustees as the exploitation on their own account and also the sale.\nQIf one considers your field of task, one should assume that your desire was that your resettlers would be considered first. Did you succeed in that aim?\nANo, the first persons to be considered in that scale of priority were the racial Germans who lived in the incorporated eastern territories. That was the express desire of the HTO or of its director; he himself originated from these previously Prussian and later Polish territories and he still had strong links with his former compatriots.\nQYou are referring to Dr. Winkler?\nAI am referring to Dr. Winkler.\nQNow, we last referred to the system of autonomous exploitation in the industrial enterprises. Did this system grow, or, doesn't there the old saying apply: Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg.\nAThe question of autonomous exploitation in the industrial sector is similar to that in the agricultural field. The autonomous exploitation in industrial enterprises, however, seems to me still more necessary than in agriculture because an industrial enterprise is based on real values, on goods and on possibilities of turn-over; while on agricultural there is the weather and other conditions on whom man has no influence which may influence on the shole enterprise. In the case of an industrial enterprise the trustees is tempted very often to use the stocks and thereby not to maintain the enterprise on the level on which he has taken it over. Therefore, in the industrial field the exploitation on \n the own account of the trustee is much more appropriate even if one doesn't take into consideration the important fact that the autonomous initiative in these matters can be of decisive importance.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1491, "page_number": "1485", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1492, "page_number": "1486", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QI think that the question opened by you just now of the stocks even forced the government to take another step because the economic exploitation is always an exploitation which is only meant for a short term policy, that is which would use up the stocks. Now, if one has the interest of the enterprise as a primary consideration, then one has to have stronger ties with the enterprise; and, what was the consequence drawn from this experience?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. May I suggest to Counsel that he is getting into the field of argument and philosophy rather than giving us facts. BY DR. HAENSEL;\nQIn the industrial field was the autonomous exploitation the last step?\nANo, the HTO to a large extent sold enterprises.\nQNow, there, we come to a decisive point. The question arises: Did the former Polish owner not completely lose his property when this sale took place?\nAThe title, that is the property in itself he would lose: the object of course he would lose, but his claim for indemnification for the real value would not lose. Here is the basic difference which I have mentioned at the beginning, namely, in agriculture there was no sale, whereas in the industrial sector sales took place, carried out by the HTO, but at the same time sale for the benefit of the person concerned; at least that is the way it operated because time and time again I was assured of this by the HTO.\nQBut were the Polish owners indemnified?\nAThis question of indemnification was until the very end decided in a positive way, but during the war, of course, it couldn't be carried out.\nQWho concluded these sale contracts -- the former owner with the new owner, with the resettlers, for instance?\nANo, that wasn't possible, because the right of disposal over the \n enterprise was no longer in the hands of the former owner, but on account of the seizure the HTO was the agency empowered to dispose only and alone of this enterprise.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1493, "page_number": "1487", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Therefore, only the HTO could conclude sale contracts. The conclusion of the sales contract, therefore, took place between the HTO on the one hand and the resettler on the other hand; or, any other applicants who would purchase the enterprise.\nQAnd what did the DUT do; I mean in the negotiations of this contract.\nAThe DUT sort of took care of the resettlers and acted as a broker on account and on behalf of the resettled. They took care of the resettler's interests.\nQAnd the HTO was the agency which received the purchase price, if I understand you correctly.\nAYes, the HTO received the purchase price. The value of every acquired object was fixed by experts who were sworn in, and it had to be paid to the HTO in full.\nQNow, what about your agency; what connection did you normally have for the conclusion of such a bill of sale?\nAHere again what I said before applies. As I said there again we were only the higher level, that is we had to supervise and channel the matters. With the exception of very large holdings; for instance, holdings of the value of 500,000 RM, and more. Such enterprises had such an economic importance that it had to be checked with much care whether the purchaser had the professional qualifications to conduct a enterprise so important for the German economy, and to conduct it properly. Therefore, in the case of large enterprises, the approval of my government agency had to be obtained first. But in all other cases such sale contracts were only submitted to my agency if difficulties arose and difficulties which could best be straightened out through the Central Agencies.\nQI always remember that you were charged with trying to get as many objects through acquisition as possible. What can you say as to that?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1494, "page_number": "1488", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "ADr. Haensel, this expression that I was lusting for these enterprises was used in the opening speech of the Prosecution, and I personally at the time when I heard it was deeply hurt by it. This expression that I lusted for such enterprises seems to me, who was only an official in the government agency and only as such concerned with these matters, really not appropriate. The expression was not used in connection with professional and industrial enterprises, but -\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I would suggest that the witness stick to the facts rather than to criticism of the opening statement.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Refuting a statement made in the opening statement is a fact. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQMay be you could tell us whether in accordance with our conception of officialdom an official has to know about every work in his field of task, and generally is not delighted if he has much work in his field of task, at least he is more delighted if he has little work.\nAIn general the situation certainly is that considering the manifold tasks of of importance with which one is approached, one certainly welcomes it when matters which are already settled as far as the principles are concerned can be arranged on the lower level without friction and one sighs with a certain relief if that is possible.\nQNow, in accordance with your description, the former owner did not play any part in the sale.\nAThat is correct because we had the right to dispose of the property.\nQNow, in your field of task did you come into any contact with the former owners at all?\nANo. I never had any contact with the former owners because this was a matter of holdings which were exclusively in the hands of the HTO, and as far as the contact with the former owners was concerned, that is the human beings themselves, I had nothing to do with them; only the Central Administration, the internal administration and the Nazi Party, too.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1495, "page_number": "1489", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QWell, what do you call internal administration?\nAWell, you see, Dr. Haensel, I am not a lawyer and I am not an export in political science; it is certainly very difficult to answer that question. Internal administration certainly had the task of taking care of all persons living within the area of the state or administration, and of directing them into the general living norms of human beings. Perhaps as long as human beings comply with regulations and laws existing everywhere, they are subordinated to the internal administration in the positive sense of welfare and care, but as soon as they violate existing laws then we have another part of the internal administration, the negative part, the punitive authority, and so on and so forth.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1496, "page_number": "1490", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QNow, according to this definition one could have the idea that, in a positive sense at least, your government agency was a part of the internal administration.\nANo, my government was not part of the internal administration. With my remarks of a while ago, when I described the internal administration, I really aimed at the field of tasks of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and, in a few words, I described that. My government agency was a special agency, an expert, which had to deal with clearly defined tasks in the economic field. It might be compared with the Reich Ministry of Economy, or I might say the Reich Ministry of Agriculture or perhaps an even better comparison would be with the professional angle of the Reich Ministry for Traffic and Transportation, or the Reich Post Ministry. Those are difinitely expert activities, and that also is the only way you can evaluate my agency.\nQIn other words, your activity was aimed only at the resettling of repatriated persons. However, contact could hardly be completely avoided between you and the former owners. I think that you gave us some, instances yesterday. Whar was your general attitude there?\nAIt is correct that in exceptional cases there was contact with the former owners, and they would approach my experts or myself. I gave a few examples yesterday, but, you took me to task because I went a little bit too far and gave too many details.\nPerhaps I can just refer to what I said yesterday, and then we won't lose so much time. am referring to the cases of Frau Guzy, Prince Radziriel, and Herr von Unruh.\nQWhen you contacted these people, did you have any idea that they would eventually be indemnified? You just told us so. Now, can you give us more tangible example?\nAIt is my definite conviction--and I have had this conviction from the very beginning that an indemnification for seized properties and properties which were eventually expropriated, especially from the \n industrial sector, had been provided for from the Very beginning.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1497, "page_number": "1491", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "The contents of all the decrees issued in this field, including the decree concerning the property of Poles, provided for such an indemnification. Furthermore, since you asked me for a tangible example, may I point out that such seizure of property and trusteeship and exploitation for the account of the person who was the trustee played an important part in the First World War too, if you want historical examples, and that all states had seized enemy property and channeled it into a later exploitation. There again the question of indemnification was put off until after the war.\nQYou just mentioned the decree for the Polish assets. Is that a basic law of great importance? What do you mean by that law? That is, the Polish property decree.\nAAccording to my view, it is not possible to consider this Polish property decree of 17 September 1940 as a basic law for measures of seizure, because this decree was not the beginning of seizures. before this decree was issued, four or five different kinds of seizures had already taken place, and these seizures were later centralized in the Polish decree and previously arranged amtters were rearranged.\nOne might say that the polish property decree was a complement of other previous decrees in order to clarify the muddle created by the various decrees which had preceded it.\nQI am putting this Polish property to you. It is exhibit 589, in Volume 14-4, at page 1 of both, the English and the German. If you look at the second paragraph one can conlucde from the contents of this decree alone that what you say is correct because there it states that the seizure has to be decided. Every normal reader would assume that it was only because of this decree that the seizure could be pronounced. How can you explain this contradiction?\nAMay I repeat that this decree only summarized measures which had already been issued and clarified the carrying out of such measures which had previously been issued. Only in this sense can you understand Paragraph 2, \n because there is no dount whatsoever, and it has been proved by a great number of decrees that the entire assets were already seized.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1498, "page_number": "1492", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QDo you think that, in some points, Himmler had imagined the seizures differently from what this decree issued by Goering really established?\nAI think this polish property decree was to contribute towards the aim of terminating the struggles for power between Himmler and Darre and other agencies, by a decree issued by Goering.\nCertainly, Himmler originally had imagined that in the Incorporated Eastern Territories the entire rearragement could be accomplished by him, without any other government agencies. I recall that 1 pointed out yesterday that before I had a commission in that field at all, Himmler had already created the Central Land Office, the Zentrale Bodenamt.\nWith this Central Land Office Himmler certainly wanted to set up his own agency for a new resettlement and rearrangement policy in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. However, the various competitors and authority-holders would often foreshall him, and one of these would take these settlements in his hands before Himmler created his resettment companies, and so on and so forth. All this struggle for power and all this competition was terminated by this Polish property decree, which was drafted and drawn up mainly by the HTO, as far as I know.\nQWhat were the tasks of the Central Land Office? I mean, not the tasks of the Central Land Office as Himmler had planned them, but as they were actually arranged.\nAAs far as the tasks of the Central Land Office were concerned, I can only give you an explanation from the period onwards when it was incorporated into agency, that is, from the summer of 1940. Until that period the Central Land Office led an independent life. With regard to its tasks, it had ideas which did not materialize. From the summer of 1940, the Central Land Office exclusively had the task of administering the old real estate and agriculture property within the Incorporated Eastern Territories, as Well as registering it in the file. Only in this limited capacity of registering the agricultural property -- and \n those were all the tasks I knew of--only in this limited field of tasks did the Central, Land Office work within my agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1499, "page_number": "1493", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QWhat was the purpose of that registration?\nAThe first purpose was a general registration of the assets, a general inventory, It should not be forgotten that within the Incor porated Eastern Territories there were Prussian territories for which proper registrations were already in existence.\nPart of these territories had previously Austrian, and there the documents were not as complete as a German administration would have desired. Eventually there were also territories -- that would be the eastern parts of the Warthegau and the eastern parts of Upper Silesia--which originated from Poland, where there were no documents with regard to registration whatsoever. Now, in order to have an inventory there and in order to clarify the situation in a final manner in regard to the holdings as they existed at the beginning of the war, a careful registration was carried out.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1500, "page_number": "1494", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Before the recess we talked about the question as to just why these properties were registered. Will you finish answering the question?\nA.The purpose was that we wanted to have an inventory of all the existing agricultural properties and we wanted to find out just what there was in existence. We also wanted to deal with the question of paying some sort of compensation later on.\nQ.From what can it be concluded that these documents were also to serve for compensation later on?\nA.Even the smallest piece of property and real estate--even if it only amounted to a fraction of an acre--was precisely registered in the card index file, which was assembled in German as well as in Polish; here it was not only stated just how many acres the enterprise occupied, but here also the entire inventory was listed and the stocks on hand. When the inventory was made, even the smallest livestock was made note of, and in the inventory of machines, etc, all simple tools were also registered. If we had not thought or providing material for compensation later on, then it would have been logical--and from the technical and economic point of view it would have been much simpler--that we would just have ignored most of this so that what existed before could not be discovered any more later on.\nQ.And what happened to the card index file?\nA.As far as I know, this card index file, which my agency always carefully guarded and preserved, must have fallen unharmed and undamaged into the hands of the \n COURT I CASE VIII occupying powers.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1501, "page_number": "1495", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "The card index file was located at the Cloister at Schweikelberg, and here it was kept in iron safety boxes. In 1943, these files were the first ones to be removed from Berlin to Schweikelberg so that this material would be saved from potential air attacks under all circumstances. It really is regrettable that some of these index cards cannot be presented here in evidence because these cards would show, without any doubt, to be the best evidence to prove the truth of the statements which I have just made. The card index file in itself was something unique. It shows the ownership conditions which prevailed when the German occupation troops reached Poland, in such a precise manner that now for these territories it would be extremely helpful to have them in order to clarify the ownership conditions according to the desires of the present rulers.\nQ.Did you, yourself, supervise this card index file?\nA.No, of course I was unable to do that and that was not my duty either, Occassionally, I would show this card index file to visitors who came to see my agency from other offices, and here I would make on-the-spot checks in order to see to what extent complete material was available, I was able to find to my extreme satisfaction that actually it only took very few minutes until I was able to hold in my hands the card of any arbitrarily chosen real estate property within these extensive territories.\nQ.Was the establishment of such a card index file an act of seizure?\nA.The establishment of a card index file cannot be considered as constituting a legal act; furthermore, I must always point out that the entire real estate property of former Polish nationals within the incorporated eastern \n COURT I CASE VIII territories had already been subject to seizure repeatedly before we even began with establishing the card index file and registering these properties.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1502, "page_number": "1496", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.This card index file, besides the purposes which you have already mentioned, also served other authorities?\nA.Of course, In its utilization it could also be used by many other authorities who were interested in the subject. I also believe that this was the ease, as far as the Statictical Reich Office was concerned and I believe also the were used by the Reich Ministry of Finance, for the purpose of carrying out the land classification which was customary throughout Germany, This was done in order to determine the richness of the soil.\nQ.And also for the time after the war?\nA.Yes, also for the time after the war; however, already during the war other authorities and agencies utilized this card index file.\nQ.In order to resettle the resettlers, wasn't agricultural property also confiscated?\nA.No, the confiscation for the resettlement of resettlers was not carried out. In order to help the authorities of the Reich Commissar, that is to say, for the resettlement of resettlers, no confiscations took place, although the legal basis for this was given already before and also after the Polish property decree was issued. However, this action was not taken so that the new order which was to be established after the war would not be handicapped. The concept \"rearrangement\" in this connection must be understood very extensively, and by that I don't only mean the settlement of the compensation question but also measures of planning and measures of reconstruction development, because in particular the two factors which I have mentioned last were expressly tasks which were to be carried out after the war for the Reich \n COURT I CASE VIII Commissar.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1503, "page_number": "1497", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "If any confiscation took place, then it was only carried out for purposes outside of the official interests of the agency.\nQ.Please tell us for what other purposes expropriations occurred according to Your knowledge?\nA.It is not possible for me to give you an exact list of all these measures; however, the emphasis for all confiscation measures was in the military field. This was done in order to establish troop training ground and air fields. I can recall that an area of approximately 240,000 or 260,000 hectars alone was used in order to establish training centers within the incorporated eastern territories. Beyond that, confiscations were carried out in order to enlarge and develop the communitications, the railroads, the highways, and furthermore, also for the enlargement of industrial areas.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1504, "page_number": "1498", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QI am now going to put Exhibit 600 to you. You will find it on page 66 of Document Book XIV-A. These are internal directives for the execution of the Polish property decree. Do they come from your agency? What was their purpose and was the KTO concerned in the drafting of these measures?\nAThis document must be understood in the following way: as a result of the Polish Property Decree of the 17th of September 1940, for the first time the Reich commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism received the authority to carry out seizures. Now this measure had to be carried out in a uniform manner. This was the activity of the land offices and all the other professional departments of my agency in order to insure that this measure could be applied without fiction and that the measure would be executed in a legal manner. for this reason, in my agency these internal directives were issued for the application of the Polish Property Decree. This was done under the supervision of my legal experts, and first of all, under the supervision of the attorney Goetz. By means of these internal directives, we made certain that no arbitrary confiscation measures would be carried out on the provincial level in so far that all confiscation measures had to be submitted, to my agency as being the top level authority in the field; furthermore, these internal directives, in my opinion, constitute a legal commentary on the Polish Property Decree.\nQWere these directives also applied within the area of the Government General?\nAThere was no possibility for that at all within the Government General because in the Government General the Polish Property Decree, as for as I know, was not valid. At the outbreak of the war, or early in 1910, the four Year Plan was also introduced for the Government General. The corresponding decree, however, was again rescinded afterwards because the administration of the Government General considered itself to be autonomous and consequently on its own initiative \n it established a law of seizure.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1505, "page_number": "1499", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "In this connection an exchange of letters or a directive of Himmler is contained in the document, which was addressed to me, that I was to draft an order for him with regard to the utilization of the seized property within the Government General for purposes of the Reich Commissar, Unfortunately, I am unable to state the exhibit number. However, in this connection, I would like to state that this decree was drafted by my legal department in accordance with the order. and it was submitted to Himmler. That, however. did not have any further consequences.\nQ.Did this procedure, as it was developed here, only refer to agricultural property in contrast to the urban and the industrial sector?\nAMay I ask you what procedure you're referring to?\nQThose that result from the internal directives.\nAThe internal directives refer - and they can only exclusively refer - to agricultural property. because the Reich Commissar for the Strnegthening of Germanism did not have any authority beyond that of Agricultural rural property.\nQ.How was it with the property which belonged to the church? Was this also subject to these directives?\nAAs far as I am able to recall - and. I am unable to recall the seizure law in all its details - the property of the church was subject to the decree with regard to the seizure of former Polish national property. Therefore. it could not come under the Polish Property Decree and the internal directives which have just been under discussion. The church property, aside from the formal and. legal seizure, was always subject to the special attention and. treatment of the RSHA - the Reich Security Main Office - and the Party Chancellery. I can recall that the church property in the incorporated eastern territories, upon the direct order of Hitler, was turned over to the Gau self-administration in order to strengthen the financial reserve of these newly established self-administrative \n authorities.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1506, "page_number": "1500", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QIf you look at page 75, Article 3, will that refresh your memory?\nAYes. I am of the opinion that this shows that a competency for church property did not exist.\nQWas the Polish Property Decree also applied in the Reich proper\nAI cannot make any precise statements here either? in particular, whether the Polish Property Decree was actually applied within Germany proper. the main trusteeship agency East, the KTO, within the territory of Germany proper and Austria seized all the property of former Polish nationals. It appointed custodians to administer these properties and it sometimes sold them. In order to complete this statement, I would like to point out that within Germany proper and. in Austria also, agricultural property fell under the competency of the KTO and in Berlin it had a special department for Germanyproper - the Alt Reich - where these tasks were dealt with. I am only aware of the existence of these agencies through the fact that they were established in order to insure the uniform turning over of property to resettlers, and the inclusion of the DUT also was based on these masses of property which existed within Germany, and that individual objects were utilized for that purpose.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1507, "page_number": "1501", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QThe question is, mainly, did your agency play any part in this, in Germany proper?\nANo; my agency did not play any part in it.\nQHow as it within the area under this power of the chiefs of the civil administration? Did your agency play a part there and was the Polish property decree applied here?\nAThe application of the Polish property decree was non possible because the areas under the chief of the civil administration were not Polish territories. In the areas under the chief of the civil administration seizures only took place under the legislative power of the locally competent chiefs of the civil administration without any influence being exerted by any agency.\nQMay I say in this connection that from the legal point of view this is not as simple as you believe at the moment, because here we are dealing with nationals of the former Polish state whose property had been seized and thus has been stated elsewhere.\nAWell, I don't know anything about that and I can't recall any individual case. I admit that I did not give any consideration to the very precise legal ways of thinking.\nQNow, what was the HTS which has been so often mentioned here? Will you explain that to us very briefly?\nAThe Main Trusteeship Agency East, the HTS, was an instrument of Goering and nothing else. It constituted a part of the entire complex of the Four Year Plan. In establishing the Main Trustee Agency East. Goering wanted to exert a certain amount of influence on the economy and the real estate values which existed in the Polish State which had been occupied. In order to establish an executive organ in an agency to legally handle these measures of which he was thing, he established the HTS under the supervision of Dr. Winkler. Without any doubt the situation was that also around this problem some severe struggles took place because in particular Himmler, as I have already \n stated before, probably had the intention that he alone wanted to have decisive influence on the happenings within the Incorporated Eastern Territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1508, "page_number": "1502", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "By establishing the HTO Goering was somewhat ahead of him and since Himmler could not do anything against Goering, he then tried, by means of his agreement with Winkler, at least to realize a part of his aims, which was the exerting of his influence.\nQJust how did Himmler do that?\nAI have just mentioned the agreement between Himmler and Winkler and already yesterday this has been under discussion. Beyond that, however -- and this is a symptom of Himmler's entire tactics -- he established within the agency of the HTO the office of a general plenipotentiary or, a general referent, that was his name, in order to got an insight into the business and the field of work of the HTO.\nQI would like to ask you in the name of the interpreter, Dr. Greifelt, always to speak the verb as quickly as possible and then bring the rest. This doesn't sound very nice in German, but this will help the interpretation a lot.\nAI shall try to make my sentences as brief as possible.\nQAbove all, put the verb first.\nAYes, I shall use the verb as quickly as possible.\nQWell, you were discussing the influence which was exerted by Himmler on the HTO and you were just about to tell us how it was a symptom of his character, how he went about it. How was it with your agency? Was your agency also used in exerting this influence?\nANo. My agency only received knowledge of these measures later on.\nQWill you please look at Page 31, Exhibit 31 of Document Book 14-A? There on Page 33 you will find the name of Galke.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1509, "page_number": "1503", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "AI beg your pardon. I believe the exhibit number you gave is wrong. This should be Exhibit No. 592 and the page is Page 31.\nQWell, there is a mistake in my copy.\nAYou must be referring to Exhibit 592 on Page 31 of Document Book 34-A.\nQYes, on Page 31; that is correct. Yes, that is what I an referring to,\nAThis exhibit shows once again just how important it is to look at the letterheads and file notes of the individual decrees. Whenever the title Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism may appear, one cannot as a matter of course, identify all offices of this agency with that or bring it in connection with this, Exhibit No. 592 bears the letterhead the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police. Below that we have the title, The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. That is to say, neither VOMI nor my agency had anything to do with this exhibit but solely the Reich Security Main Office wasconcerned with this correspondence. By means of this exhibit the position of the general referent is established within the HTO. I did not have any previous knowledge of his appointment.\nQWho was the general referent?\nAThe general referent was a man by the name of Galke whom I did not knowup to that time. In my opinion he was an ambitious man who had direct connections to Himmler, Probably on his own initiative, and with Himmler's and Heydrich's, help, he was able to create this position within the HTO.\nQTherefore he did not come from your agency. Did he come from the police?\nAI do not know Galke's career before he entered that agency. He did not come from my office and, as far as I know, he was not before a police official either.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1510, "page_number": "1504", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QDid Galke as general referent his own channels to the lower level?\nAGalke had his own channels to the provincial level. We must recognize these things clearly here in order to understand what Himmler and Heydrich tried to achieve by establishing the position for this man.\nThe appointment of Galke took place through the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA. In this way the possibility was to be established that the Security police was to gain an insight into the business transactions of the HTO. According to my present conviction that is the actual reason for the appointment of Galkainto this office. And the interest of the Security Police also extended to the provincial level and here Galke also established his own channels here and this was not done by way of the plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar but by way of the agencies of the HTO.\nQWere these people subordinated to you, the people which Galke used for his official channels?\nANo. Such a subordination was completely out of the question.\nQDid you consider Galke's functions to be very important or did they seem to be very superfluous to you, and on impediment?\nAFor my task his position was completely superfluous. I did not then understand why Galke's appointment took place at the time Only now, when I am reading over these documents, I have reached the conclusion that it was not decisive what work was carried on by my agency, but this was an infiltration of the security police into the HTO, the Main Trustee Agency East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1511, "page_number": "1505", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Was the situation now that you only negotiated as a liaison man with the HTO official for Galke?\nA.No, Himmler or Galke may have planned that or they may have thought of it, However, I am of the opinion that one does not need any liaison man in order to carry out one's official duties and that the contact between two bearers of responsibility would have been here more helpful in order to reach a clarification much quicker than if a \"gobetween\" is used. I did not only consider Galke's position to be superfluous, but I thought that he was obstructing our work,\nQ.However in spite of it. your personal influence apparently was not sufficient in order to have Galke removed from his position. Just who was able to do that, that he disappeared again?\nA.As a result of his attitude in the year 1940, I believe, Galke had a very severe dispute with the Reichstatthalter in the Warthegau. Galke had forgotten that even by using the authority of man like Heydrich, he was unable to read his aims against the dictatorial measures of a Reichstatthalter. A very severe clash occurred between Greiser and Galke, and Galke had to go.\nQ.In order to understand this matter completely, will you please tell us, did the agencies of the HTO in the provinces - the Trusteeship Agencies of the HTO - and your agencies, have any direct contact with each other or was all this channelled through the central offices in Berlin?\nA.No The provincial agencies worked directly together. It would have been impossible for every resettler to get his economic and financial conditions brought into order by the central office. The central office of the HTO, as well as my agencies, were only supervisory and directing offices.\nQ.In the indictment the figure of seven to eight hundred million has been stated as given by you with regard to expropriated Polish property. will you please tell us briefly just how this figure is to be understood?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1512, "page_number": "1506", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Was this expropriated property, confiscated property or seized property?\nA.This figure which I have mentioned refers to a vague estimate of the value of the urban property which was seized by the HTO. All these estimates refer to a somewhat Utopian plan which, at the time, was under discussion in the Reich Ministry of Finance; I rejected it and on this occasion I mentioned the value of seven to eight hundred million.\nHere the following was involved: The Reich Minister of Finance, or one of his experts -- because I thought that the Reich Minister of Finance, Graf Schwerin von Krosigk was much too clever, that he would have reached such ideas -- had made the suggestion that the financing of the war should be facilitated by means of taking the urban property which had been seized by the HTO and, by putting a compulsory mortgage on it. These mortgages then were to be sold through the German mortgage banks, the Deutsche Hypotheken Bank, and the funds derived from this would be used in order to finance the war. It is quite clear that if real estate property, which has a value of eight hundred million, is to be mortgaged even up to the mortgaging limit of fifty per cent, then only an extremely small value is placed at the disposal of the financing of the war, because four hundred million, when we look at the war which took place in the form of the last war, does not represent any considerable lightening of the border of war expenditures. In this connection, quite outside of my actual field of work, this figure was mentioned by me in a report to Himmler.\nQ.We are now coming to the DUT. Was the DUT a government authority?\nA.No. The DUT was a GmbH. It was a company with limited liability and it was established by using Reich funds.\nQ.Just how was it established?\nA.Just like in all fundamental decisions under Himmler, I can also report here in a general manner because the first measures of Himmler in this direction were exactly like his agreements with the HTO. All this happened without my knowledge and without any part being played by me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1513, "page_number": "1507", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "I heard of the establishment of the DUT by means of a letter which Himmler wrote to under Secretary of State Keppler and of which I received a copy. The following became evident from this letter:\nHimmler declared himself ready to establish a resettlement bank for the resettlers with the aid of Hitler. He ordered Keppler to take the necessary steps. I, myself, was instructed that I was to establish contact with Keppler. When I discussed the matter with Keppler he informed me of the fact that the necessary preliminary work had already been accomplished and that furthermore, in Latvia and in Estonia, special companies had been established according to the national law of the foreign states concerned. So that there in the countries of origin of the resettlers they had to represent property rights and to take care of them. In this case I was also confronted by an accomplished fact.\nQ.What was the function of the DUT in general, in one short sentence?\nA.It had to safeguard the interest of the resettlers with regard to their property rights and the execution of the restitution of property.\nQ.Just how did the claim for indemnification of the resettlers arise?\nA.When the resettlers were called upon to volunteer for a resettlement action to the Reich, they were told by other agencies that after their repatriation into the Reich they would receive full indemnification for their properties, which they had left behind.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1514, "page_number": "1508", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.We were just talking about indemnification claims.\nA.Yes, whether these promises and assurances were actually carried out within the scope of ordinary legal claims or whether they went beyond the ordinary measures, that I am unable to say. In any case the claim for indemnification of properties arose at the very moment when the people declared themselves willing to be resettled.\nQ.Wherefore DUT began its difficult work by having a figure set for this indemnification or just how did it go about doing its work?\nA.Of Course it had to be the primary and first task of the DUT to inform each resettler of the amount which he was to receive for indemnification. This was a very difficult task-to tell them the figure of the indemnification-because the real estate was composed of very different components. It was still very simple in Estonia and Latvia, where surveys were carried out by means of the companies which were extablished right on the spot. However, this task became much more difficult when resettlers were moved without a careful survey carried out right on the spot. All measures of the DUT were fundamentally aiming at helping the resettlers and giving them wholehearted support and care.\nQ.In practice then the situation was that the resettlers first came to the DUT and not to your agency?\nA.Yes, that is exactly how it was. To give you an example: when I want to get some money from my account I go to the bank and I don't go to the town hall.\nQ. as a result of this did the DUT have to use a large apparatus?\nA.The DUT had to establish a large organization. With the large number of areas of origin and that of the areas of settlement which varied considerable it became necessary to establish a large organization which was functioning smoothly. In order to make another comparison here, a big bank could only work if it has deposit offices at the vital spots.\nQ.And of course something else was needed. These were general business instructions according to which this big machine could function.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1515, "page_number": "1509", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Did that exist?\nA.A large amount of material was dealt with in order to deal with the manifoldness of the tasks which accumulated here. I have already described yesterday just how extensive the work was which had to be carried put in order to care for the resettlers. All the work of my agency, as well as that of the DUT was aimed solely at helping the people who had been brought into Germany from foreign countries to again establish their own existence and to advise them. For the entire indemnification which was different according to the country of origin of the resettlers, directives had to be drafted and worked out which could be used as a basis for all measures which had to be taken in this connection. These directives about the indemnification and many other basic directives were printed and they appeared in book form for the orientation of all agencies and people concerned.\nQ.And just how well did you determine to do that or what other agency drafted or issued these directives?\nA.Of course we have to consider here just what importance may be attached to the measures which were taken. The basic property indemnification directives were discussed by the board of supervisors and finally they were subject to Himmler's personal approval. The board of supervisors in its composition gave a guarantee that the interests of the Reich as well as the interests of the resettlers were safeguarded.\nQ.Did these directives contain any details like for example the orders about foreign exchange and so on which were very complicated in our country?\nA.The working directives of the DUT are books, and they are bound to lead into all the details which could serve the aforementioned purpose of taking care of the resettlers. I believe that an insight can be gained of a working procedure of the DUT by the big social task which was connected with the resettlement work.\nQ.And now what happened to the property which the resettler had \n left behind.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1516, "page_number": "1510", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "I don't know to what extent such provisions were contained in the resettlement contract. However, I do know that payments were carried out by Latvia, Reumania, and as far as I know, the USSR paid the first installments.\nQ.To whom were these payments made to you or to the DUT?\nA.They certainly were not made to my agency, that is to the payment office of the Reich Commissar. These payments want to the Reich but I am not sufficiently informed whether some of these payments, by order of the Reich minister of Finance, were not directly turned over to the DUT.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours).", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1517, "page_number": "1511", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1300 hours) ULRICH GREIFELT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - (continued)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal desires to give counsel and the witness all the latitude that is necessary and we do not desire to restrict you in any manner that would impede in any way your defense. But, we do believe that it would be more helpful to the court if counsel would be a little more direct in his questions and not go quite so much in detail and in many instances we are of the opinion that it would be just as helpful if the witness, when he can do so, would simply answer the question yes or no when it does not require a lengthy explanation. We simply ask the cooperation of the parties in that respect. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Very well, your Honor. Now lets turn to the DUT again. You said that was a company under the supervision of the Reich; that the money the DUT paid out in the last analysis were Reich funds and the money which came into the treasure of the DUT came from the funds of the Reich also. Now, if you take the matter in the broad outline, what was the result of these resettlement actions? Once in a while you stumbled upon the opinion that during these resettlement actions the Reich made money and that one of the incentives of the whole action was the financial gain. Now, what was the financial result of the whole matter?\nA.All of the resettlement actions taken together doubtlessly incurred a tremendous loss for the Reich.\nQ.Well, how can you explain these losses; for instance \n was the Reich wholly responsible for the transportation cost?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1518, "page_number": "1512", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.The cost of transportation of course incurred to the Reich. However, that is only a small fraction of the expenditure caused. Whatever the resettlers left in their countries of origin had to be restituted to them fully. The agreement fixing these indemnification figures was not only based on economic standards. First of all it was a matter of giving the persons involved the possibility of getting out of the threatened home areas in time and the economic considerations and interests of the Reich could not be complied with as would be customary in the case of an economic treaty.\nQ.Well, what did the settlers get from the DUT in cash, right away? I mean how did the whole payment matter start?\nA.From the very day of their repatriation all resettlers got some pocket money to have means at their disposal to cover the personal expenses and needs. Later loans were granted to them to build up their existence again. The multitude of the expenses incurred for the benefit of the resettlers I could hardly describe here.\nQ.Wouldn't it have been simpler to call the DUT resettlers' bank because according to what you say all they did was pay out money to the resettlers. Why did they call it resettlers trusteeship agency then? A. The DUT had much more the nature of the custodian than that of a bank because its task was to find for the resettlers objects of exchange for the restitution and to make efforts to create a new existence for them. Other fields of task too, as for instance the transfer of insurance from abroad into the Reich and the settlement of pensions \n and similar matters were in the sector of custodianship and not a mere matter of payment as would be affected by a bank.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1519, "page_number": "1513", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.In other words the German Reich placed at the disposal of the settlers the DUT, an agency, but not a sort of trusteeship bank which would defend their interests; out on the other hand there was the HTO safeguarding the interests of the Reich. Now, you come along with your agency. Now, will you please tell the Tribunal how you were called into these matters, what insight you got into the deals and what were your official connections with them. You were not the supervisory agency over the HTO. Were you a supervisory agency over the DUT?\nA.My agency's task was to deal with all questions of basic importance while the details were dealt with by the DUT. You are right if you say that we had no possibilities of supervision over the HTO in such a matter. Of course, essentially speaking, my agency had no supervisory possibilities over the DUT either, but in my capacity as deputy chairman of the Aufsichtsrat of the DDT, it is true, I had quite knowingly a strong interest in the tasks of the DUT. The reason was that it was actually unique and perhaps even the first time that such a task was given namely the task of creating for hundreds of thousands of human beings chased from their former home country new bases for their whole existence. This was the task of my agency and at the same time the task of the DUT.\nQ.The chart of your agency in detail will be described by some of the other defendants, but in your organization you had an Amt III, an office 3, Economy. Isn't that right?\nA.Yes, that office was the office which had to deal with all questions of industrial economy and therefore it \n was the agency within my part agency which afforded and maintained the liaison between the DUT and the Reich Commissioner.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1520, "page_number": "1514", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.How what did the settlers receive through the DUT as far as cash or kind payments could not be effected?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1521, "page_number": "1515", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.Essentially the aim was to give to all resettlers reparations and restitutions in kind for the holdings they had left behind in their home country. That it was not always possible to do so was mainly caused by the fact that the resettlers were committed to certain areas of resettlement, that therefore not all the resettlers could be placed in areas where appropriate objects of restitution were available in sufficient number.\nQ.You are referring here to resettlers, for instance, who were not sent to the incorporated eastern territories, but into Germany proper.\nA.Yes, I am thinking here, too, of the decisions of commitment \"A\" and \"O\" in which my agency had no part. The \"A\" case could not be sent to the incorporated eastern territories and had to be resettled in the old German territories, in the Altreich. The resettling in the Altreich quite naturally met with considerable difficulties because there the offer of real values had been reduced to the utmost. The reason, if nothing else was the tendency which can be observed during every war to keep as many property values as possible in one's hands.\nQ.You already told us that the DUT, as far as possible, directed their decisions on the strength of the qualifications of the resettlers. Now you are referring to the commitment decisions \"A\" and- \"O\". These commitment decisions were they in any way connected with qualifications of the settler?\nA.No, the qualifications did not play a part at all in those decisions. Decisive only and alone for these decisions were considerations outside of the question of professional qualifications and also outside of my competency. Two main considerations, that is, one; question of the security police; and one, racial and heritage - biological considerations.\nQ.Did the DUT have anything to do with these decisions of commitment?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1522, "page_number": "1516", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.No, the DUT was in no way connected with those matters. The DUT had to accept these decisions of commitment as facts, and that is the reason why the \"A\" cases after some failures in their attempts to restitute these holdings by the same kind of holdings had to resort to the means of compensating by other means of restitution; and mainly by Reich treasury bonds, However, it has to be stressed that this is only a deviation caused by the war, and not a normal measure which had been intended from the very beginning.\nQ.But apart from this decision of commitments, the authority was quite independent concerning the assignment of settlers.\nA.Yes, that they could freely decide that together with the agency of the HTO.\nQ.Yes, but with one exception. I remind you of this limit of 500,000 RM.\nA.Yes, that is the limitation which I have already mentioned this morning, and I gave you the reason already.\nQ.I would like to discuss an example with you. I would like to remind you of the sugar factories and of the fact that Himmler in one of the few reports you made at his offices, said that this sugar factory was to be acquired. Can you tell us something about the sugar factory?\nA.That is a problem which is outside the normal compensation for the resettlers. In the field of sugar factories certain conflicts of interests arose between the HTO on one side and the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism on the other side. The HTO had the aim to realize the shares of sugar factories as stock exchange papers, to place them on the German stock exchange, and thus to transform them into ready cash. In contradiction to that aim, Himmler, my experts and myself were of the opinion that the shares or holdings in sugar factories should only and alone got into the hands of such persons as were interested and had experience in the extension of sugar \n beet culture; in order to make the yield of the sugar beet production available to the sugar farmers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1523, "page_number": "1517", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "In other words, the shares in these sugar factories once the final settlement of the assets was to be taken care of in the incorporated eastern territories was to be brought into the hands of the farmers who produced the sugar beets, and Himmler's decision in order to safeguard these shares for the sugar farmers was that during the first stage the sugar factories should be in public hands, that is in the hands of the Reich, and thus safeguarded because the RTO thought of sale, and liquidation of these values, and as they were urged for such transformation into cash by their supervisory organs, that is the Four Year Plan; or, the Reich Commissioner or probably by public agencies.\nQ.Therefore, if I understand you correctly, the acquisition of those sugar factories is not a political measure but only economic one, be it on a cooperative or a state, political basis that is at least an economic measure.\nA.It is merely an economic measure which had nothing to do with state socialism, and which only was a preparatory measure for the settlement of the matter after the war.\nQ.Reference is made to DAG, German Settlement Company; was that a foundation of Himmler's?\nA.No, the German Settlement Company had been in existence for decades, and there were quite a number of such companies in the Reich, In the year 1940 Himmler issued the directive that the shares of this company should be purchased. I cannot tell you what considerations were decisive for Himmler in this decision. The situation most probably must have been that Himmler saw in this resettlement company a connter-weight against the settlement companies of the Reich Ministry of Foods which I have dealt with this morning already.\nQ.What was the task of this DAG before and after it was purchased by Himmler; or, after its shares were purchased by Himmler?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1524, "page_number": "1518", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.May I answer the second part of the question first? The field of task of the DAG underwent no changes after it was acquired by Himmler. The DAG was dealing with normal settlement projects within the German Reich, and to have them carried out? on the strength of the law for the restitution of German peasantry; further more, the DAG had been called in by the OKW for the resettlement of such farmers as had on account of measures for the procurement of real estate, for the purpose of the armed forces, had to be expelled from their former holdings and former land. Those tasks were standard tasks of all settlement companies. After the shares had been acquired by the Reich, that is to be more precise, by the DUT, the field of task of this company at the most might have been extended to the effect that on an industrial and professional basis they took care of special commissions which were given to them.\nQ.In order to clarify that by an example, I would like to recall to you one such special commission, namely, the Slovenes. Will you tell us where these Wolga Germans came from and who took care of the intermediary administration of them?\nA.The intermediary administration in the evacuated areas of lower Styria was taken care of by the DAG. The commission had been given to them by the Reichsstatthalter, --- no, not the Reichstatthalter the ZWZ in lower Styria; through his central district agencies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1525, "page_number": "1519", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Did the DAG receive pay for that work; and how?\nA.Certainly the DAG were idemnified because they were under the commercial point of view in their work and for every work they did for this or that agency, they would claim indemnification; they would send their bill and these bills would be paid.\nQ.You as Aufsichtsrat of the DAG, did you receive a salary?\nA.Neither in the DUT or in the DAG did I receive any payments.\nQ.In other words your position was merely administrative within the field of tasks of your work as an official.\nA.Yes, this task was in the framework of my work as an official.\nQ.Well, now I am passing on to another field. A while ago you mentioned that it had been planned to give the resettlers restitution in kind. I think that most of the resettlers or all of them left their household goods and their homes. Now, who procured the furniture they couldn't take along, and which they needed in their resettlement. Did the DUT procure the furniture?\nA.No, the DUT only was connected there as far as the restitution of or the compensation for property was concerned. In itself this procurement of furniture during the first stage was done on a merely local basis because during the very first, the repatriation from the Balticum quite a lot of the furniture was taken along, and, therefore the Central Agency who had knowledge only at a later stage of the necessity of procuring furniture could not know about it yet; the first measures were on a merely local basis.\nQ.Now, you heard about it and that gave you the idea of settling this procurement which was reasonable in itself on a crntral basis and to rationalize it thereby.\nA.After that the following resettlement actions brought with them the necessity of centralizing because these resettlers were no longer in a position to take along their furniture. They were without furniture and of course furniture had to be procured for them. The decision \n was reached thereupon to create a central procurement agency within my government agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1526, "page_number": "1520", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.A while ago we were speaking of Office III of your agency, Office for Economy.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did that office have anything to do with the furniture?\nA.Yes, the furniture procurement office was part of this Office III.\nQ.What did this agency do; how did they work?\nA.This was merely a commercial proceeding. The furniture was the subject of contracts with the industry involved. The furniture factories would get their raw material requisition slips, allotment of wood, allotment of iron; the furniture was produced, shipped and paid for.\nQ.Was there an important turnover involved? What would you think that amounted to; I mean this furniture turn-over for the procurement of furniture?\nA.From the documents submitted here I have seen one list where an extensive procurement of sixty million marks is mentioned; the total I would think might have been between 75 and 80 million marks.\nQ.Could you give us the name of the man who was in charge of the furniture procurement agency?\nA.The chief of the furniture procurement office within my agency was the Government Counselor Dr. Reichert.\nQ.Was he a lawyer?\nA.Yes. As far as I recall he worked also in the Reich Ministry of the Economy for a short period before he came to our agency.\nQ.Now, what happened with the furniture left behind by the Poles who fled in the Government General?\nA.In the Government General nothing at all because in the Government General we were not competent and we didn't undertake any \n measures either.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1527, "page_number": "1521", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.And in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.In the incorporated eastern territories, well, that was different. All the furniture and the household equipment of the Poles who fled were seized forcibly by the HTO. The HTO seized the furniture, but as they couldn't lose their time with a multitude of small pieces of furniture, and as apart from that, their tendency was to strengthen the financial backing of the municipalities in the incorporated eastern territories, they placed the seized household goods and furniture at the disposal of the municipalities and left it with them.\nQ.Well, you told us that the settlers needed furniture and needed it as quickly as possible, and you told us that your agency in Berlin gave contracts for the production of furniture to firms. Well, could you get this furniture immediately from the industry?\nA.No, the central procurement office in my agency as far as I remember was set up only as late as the autumn of 1940. Before that t the local plenipotentiaries initiated furniture drives in the Gau Wartheland where the bulk of the in-coming settlers arrived. I of course do not know the details of those procurement drives as well as I know the broad outlines, because due to the multitude of these important tasks incumbent upon me I could not deal with the individual plans of procurement; after all, I had my experts for those tasks, and my offices and departments; lawyers were in charge of those departments and also furniture exports wherever it was necessary.\nQ.Now, at the end of 1940, or in 1941, did you find out that in the workshops of the Litzmanstadt Ghetto such furniture was repaired and transformed?\nA.I can't tell you whether that was the period when I already heard about it. Certainly I heard about it, but if my recollection is correct, the plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissioner in the Warthegau had brought it from various communities and shipped it to Litzmanstadt where they were to be repaired in the so-called work shops of the \n Ghetto, and where they had to be transformed wherever it was necessary.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1528, "page_number": "1522", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.You spoke of local agencies; do you mean, for instance, the plenipotentiaries for the Posnania in the Warthegau?\nA.I think that the initial measures were taken as early as 1939, but then there was no fixed set-up of an organization yet. Later on the plenipotentiary in the Warthegau took care of those matters.\nQ.Didn't you have a so-called luggage central agency in Litzmanstadt very early?\nA.In Litzmanstadt there was such an agency, a luggage agency in Litzmanstadt composed and created because of the normal needs. This agency had not been planned and prepared by a big organization; it was only an incorporation of an existing condition into a new organization. The luggage of the repatriated persons from the Baltic States had arrived. Now, this luggage had to be collected first; it had to be stored, and then, once these resettlers had found their new homes, these pieces of luggage had to be channeled to their owners. The collecting point of that luggage was at Litzmanstadt, and eventually it was set up as a field agency of my agency and was finally taken over by my organization.\nQ.Could that have been in 1941; the beginning of 1941?\nA.Well, about that period it must have been, but it might have been at the end of 1940, too. During this period the necessity arose to have this organization extended because new arrivals of luggage and of settlers had made it necessary to have a central agency for it.\nQ.Was this new agency which you had taken over also incorporated into Office III, Economy?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1529, "page_number": "1523", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.Well, there again an answer is difficult. When the first procurement of furniture took place in the Warthegau, the Plenipotentiary had charged the Luggage department with the carrying out of this procurement task. Because the forces on the spot had specialized in this field of tasks, they were eventually taken over by Office III for the procurement of furniture. The luggage questions, however, were not in the field of tasks of Office III, they were in the Legal Department, because legal questions were involved in matters concerning indemnification for lost or damaged luggage, and similar questions. However, as far as the procurement of furniture was concerned, these tasks, and the persons entrusted with them, were clearly subordinated to Office III.\nQ.Now, in this new field agency of Office III, did they issue orders or contracts for the procurement of furniture to the ghetto?\nA.No, no orders were given to the ghetto for the procurement of furniture. But I would like to point out from the very beginning, in order to clarify in advance the plans for procurement in the ghetto, that according to my information even the local Plenipotentiary did not issue any direct orders to the ghetto. The ghetto was subordinated to the President of the Local Government in Litzmannstadt. The various economic enterprises within the ghetto were in the hands of the mayor of the town of Litzmannstadt, and, as far as I know, contracts for these economic enterprises were only handed to the communal administration of the town of Litzmannstadt, and the payment and shipment also went via this administration.\nQ.And these negotiations with the municipal administration of Litzmannstadt were also carried out by the llcal agency and not via Berlin?\nA.We never negotiated about those matters.\nQ.As I understand you, you heard about it only after the fact.\nA.I heard about it only after the fact and, as far as I remember, I heard about it because Dr. Reichert, whom I just mentioned, made a report about it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1530, "page_number": "1524", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.According to your general attitude, did you have an interest in these old pieces of furniture? I mean, where was your own interest?\nA.I really had no interest in the procurement of second hand stuff. A resettler who was repatriated to Germany was to be furnished with aesthetic and appropriate household goods. Therefore, after the procurement agency had been set up in my organization, I had special blue-prints made for appropriate furniture, and the factories then worked in accordance with these prints. In itself, the dealing and turnover concerning second hand material was not one of my specialties.\nQ.Well, even if you didn't like the dealing, you knew about it. Did you have any reason to take your officials to task because they had concluded deals with the ghetto in Litzmannstadt about the procurement of second-hand furniture?\nA.I saw no reason to take them to task, because, in my view, these were quite legal deals and the experts who reported to me on the state of affairs saw no reason to point out that they had any misgivings concerning these dealings, in spite of the fact that these experts were really lawyers and had had long experience in the field.\nQ.Did you hear anything about upholstered furniture which had been sent into the ghetto for transformation with special material?\nA.Well, I have seen the directive here in an affidavit which was submitted in the files, but I had had no previous knowledge of it and I cannot imagine that that was a directive issued by a government agency. The furnishing to resettlers of upholstered furniture was not thought of because it was very, very difficult, to procure even the most primitive pieces of furniture, and to furnish the resettlers with the essential goods.\nQ.Well, as to these contracts passed to Litzmannstadt and about which you heard after the fact, did they play an important part, or any part, in the whole complex of the procurement of furniture?\nA.Well, this Question is not quite clear to me. Do you mean as far as the value is concerned, or as far as the percentage is con \n cerned?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1531, "page_number": "1525", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Yes, as far as the value or the percentage is concerned.\nA.Well, I cannot get a clear picture about that, out I can hardly imagine that large quantities were produced down there in the ghetto, especially since there was no production of new furniture; it was only a question of the transformation and repair of old furniture which had been legally acquired by the HTO.\nQ.Did you hear about the fact that the local Plenipotentiary in Upper Silesia also bought furniture from the HYO?\nA.I have a dim recollection that in Upper Silesia too, before the Central Procurement Agency was set up, measures of procurement were carried out via the HTO. However, I don't remember the details; I really couldn't deal with every single chair down there.\nQ.Did you hear anything about procurement by German Equipment, GMBH, at Dachau, from the DAW?\nA.Yes, I know about that because there was an offer for a new kind of collapsible furniture and there was a test contract given to the DAW. I don't know which of my experts dealt with that question or approached me about it. I, as a technical expert, was rather skeptical from the very beginning when I was approached with suggestions about this now kind of furniture. However, I think a test contract was passed for one freight car of this collapsible kind of furniture. The first shipment, however, was so much of a failure and of such inferior quality that no further contracts were passed.\nQ.In the Reich, were second-hand pieces of furniture purchased from former Jewish property?\nA.It is true that the Senior Finance Presidents purchased secend-hand furniture. I remember that affair only because, in the meantime, I have seen the statement made by Dr. Reichert in the files. Certainly the situation was not that I issued directives to hunt for old furniture, but in reality I had too many other tasks in my large sphere of duties than to go around as a commercial agent for second-hand furn \n iture.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1532, "page_number": "1526", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Certainly some of my experts approached me with a suggestion of that kind, and it is not comprehensible to me that these experts today-these experts who are lawyers themselves--think that they have to shirk the responsibility for measures which were perfectly legal.\nThis second-hand furniture was in the hands of the Reich. That is, it was in the hands of the Senior Finance Presidents. If the Reich wanted to sell furniture against cash, furniture which was legally in its hands, then it cannot he the task of a government agency interested in purchasing these things, to check up on whether the selling agency was legally the owner.\nQ.At least you didn't check, did you?\nA.No, we didn't check, and we had no reason to dose.\nQ.Did you hear anything about how the resettlers who were placed in the Protectorate received their furniture?\nA.The same applies with regard to that, as I just stated a while age heard about this matter, but only after Dr. Reichert had reported to me and had checked the matter on the spot. He had come to an agreement with regard to the settlement of these matters. The procurement of those pieces of furniture was carried out in a centralized manner by the Prague Land Office in the Protectorate. Again, that was a government agency, of whom nobody could assume that they would sell goods for which they had no title.\nQ.You spoke of the Land Office at Prague. Now, this morning you mentioned the Central Land Office. Is there any connection between those two agencies?\nA.No, there is no connection whatsoever between them, except that there might be some similarity in the name, as would occur between one man and another, even if they were not related. The Land Office at Prague was a government agency of the Government of the Protectorate. I didn't even know what its tasks were. It was not connected with my agency, and it was not connected at all with the Central Land Office either.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1533, "page_number": "1527", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Do you have any knowledge of any other orders passed for furniture in other ghettos, apart from this case of Litzmannstadt?\nA.No, I have no knowledge of any such incident.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1534, "page_number": "1528", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "QWe have talked about the furniture; now let us talk about the procurement of clothes for these resettlers. Did you have anything to do with that?\nANo, we did mot procure the clothes for these resettlers.\nQWell, I see here that Herr Reichert, whom you have mentioned, in an affidavit, slightly deviates from what you just said. I ask you to explain your views about it.\nDR. HAENSEL:I am now referring, Your Honor, to the supplementary volume, and it is Exhibit 781. I am now handing it to the witness. It is at the bottom of the page.\nQ (Continuing) Is what Reichert says there correct? What can you say to it?\nAWell, what Reichert says here is not correct. He speaks of the procurement of clothes for racial Germans in the Ukraine, Zitomir, and he connects my agency with that. I think that if you use the other documents have also been introduced in these proceedings, you mil find them sufficient in order to clarify the fact that my government agency had no part whatsoever in these matters. The procurement of clothes for these racial Germans in the Ukraine, as can be seen, from the other documents--the exhibit numbers of which I do not have in my mind right now--was partly done directly through Himmler's office, or through a special detachment, whatever the name may have been, of a certain Brigadefuehrer Hoffmayer. At any rate, my government agency never had any part in such procurement of clothes and never carried it out.\nQWell, Reichert also refers to a distribution of underwear in the autumn of 1944. Can that be correct?\nAYes, I have seen that in the document too. I cannot remember it, and I don't believe it either, for in the autumn of 1944--that is the period Reichert refers to, the autumn of 1944--there was hardly any possibility of procuring and distributing underwear to the resettlers because of the transportation situation in Germany and also because \n of the scarcity of underwear on account of the war.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1535, "page_number": "1529", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "If Reichert thinks that he heard something about it, them that probably refers to stocks which had been brought back into the Reich in the course of the general evacuation of the Eastern Territories, and especially of the Government General. At any rate, I have no recollection of such an occurrence, and I don't believe that anything of that kind occured, because quite considerable quantities would have had to be involved and quite considerable amounts of money too, and I would certainly have at least a dim recollection of that fact.\nQAll right, that will do with regard to that topic. However, that brings me to something else, which again is connected with the Litzmannstadt ghetto. It is true that this is a few years later, but since we are speaking of the ghetto of Litzmannstadt, I will cover this item now. That is the so-called \"Abbruch Aktion\", the so-called tearingdown or demolition action of the Litzmannstadt ghetto.\nIn the summer of 1944, did Greiser offer you demolition material?\nAAccording to my recollection, the whole matter was as follows. When I was in Posen I went to see Reichstatthalter Greiser, as was my habit, and on that occasion as Attorney Goetz was present, as the chief of my Office III, Greiser complained about the fact that the resettlers placed in his Gau, and the refugees who still had to be placed there, did not have sifficient stoves and could not get sifficient stoves. He was referring to refugees and not to resettlers. The need for stoves was known to my agencies, but it was not possible to procure these stoves. In time, when we informed Greiser of that situation, he spoke of the demolition measures which he had intended to take in the Litzmannstadt ghetto, and he suggested that the Reich Commissioner should take over part of the demolition material for a total sum. Then, the construction material obtained therefrom and the stoves and similar items which could be recovered would be used by him, Greiser, for the refugees who were to be evacuated into his Gau.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1536, "page_number": "1530", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "I listened to that suggestion of Greiser's without commenting upon it in detail, because, again, it seemed to me to be one of those numerous attempts of the Reichstatthalters, who were normally not competent for those matters, to get additional funds at the expenses of Reich agencies, and to thus strengthen their autonomous administration of the Gau. That seemed all the clearer to me because Greiser was throwing around with figures which moved on the level of three to five million Reichsmarks. Since you could purchase quite a bit of demolition material for from three to five million Reichsmarks, it seemed to me that this deal was meant for a certain purpose, and that it was perhaps a little bit fishy. I did not accept his proposal. All we could call it would be initial negotiations on the matter.\nQDid you have any knowledge at the time that the ghetto of Lit zmannstadt was dissolved, or had already been dissolved?\nAI did not know about it. Greiser only told me at the time that he had obtained the approval for tearing down part of the ghetto. I even think that, at the time, he spoke of the plan to improve the aesthetic appearance of the town of Litzmannstadt by these demolitions. As late as 1944, such a plan did not seem exactly appropriate to me, but Greiser himself was the man who could dispose of it.\nQ.- The Prosecution have submitted a letter which Greiser sent to Pohl, as the Chief of the WVHA, dated 14 february 1944. That is Exhibit 562, and it is in Volume 13-A, at page 90 of the German. If I may put it to you, would you please look at it? It deals with the dissolution of the ghetto, and I ask you whether, at that time, in the summer of 1944, you knew that letter or a similar letter.\nANo; this letter is completely unknown to me.\nQNow, did you conclude a deal on a smaller scale with Greiser, concerning this demolition material, after you had rejected this large scale deal?\nAAfter this thalk I do not think that I even saw Greiser again, and I never concluded any deal with him either. The other matters which \n have been submitted as documents are partly on the provincial or Gau level, and I cannot tell you anything about them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1537, "page_number": "1531", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "The other part deals with talks and conferences which took place in my government agency.\nQWould you tell us where these talks took place, so far as the location is concerned?\nAIn Schweichelberg.\nQIn Schweichelberg?\nAIn Schweichelberg, in Lower Bavaria.\nQI mean, that would indicate the period when they took place.\nDid you take part in the conferences in Schweichelberg?\nAI think that during one of the Monday conferences, already mentioned several times during these proceedings, the question was briefly discussed, but I did not deal with it any further, I referred it to my export for further consideration. All I know is that again and again on the part of the Warthegau authorities -- probably under the influence of Greiser, who was out for these millions of Reich funds from the treasury of the Reich Commissioner -- the attempt was made to come to a conclusion there. In order to clarify the whole matter eventually, in November 1944, I think, I dispatched an architect to the spot in order to get the whole thing cleared up, to find out what was involved and whether it was worth while at all to deal with the matter, and to deal with it in such detail. I believe there is a report on this visit of the architect, Grael; I think it is a file note which has been submitted as a document.\nQNow please turn back to Document Book 13-A, and look at page 87 of the German. Well, would you state the exhibit number?\nAOh, you mean Exhibit 361.\nQYes, that is a final report on the ghetto action of the field agency at Litzmannstadt.\nAYes, that is right.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1538, "page_number": "1532", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Was that report sent to you at the time? Do you have any recollection of it?\nA.No, I haven't seen the report, and when I studied the files, I had already made a note that this final report which deals only with account matters was not submitted to me and I had no knowledge of it.\nQ.At the time did your lawyers report the matter to you and did they have any misgivings, and vented them or didn't they talk about it at all?\nA.No, the whole affair went only through the hands of the lawyers and no real misgivings or doubts were submitted to me at any time. I only know that the financial department was very angry because in contradiction with every severe regulation an illegal fund was created which could have caused severe punishment to the persons involved.\nQ.Do you have any recollection--and that is the last question with regard to the funiture--do you remember that the lawyers had still some anxiety and annoyance with regard to these furnitures because they granted the loan? Do you remember that they were to be held responsible because of that loan or were reprimanded?\nA.Oh, I see what you mean. That is something else, Dr. Haensel. One of the people in my office who had run the office for professional economy in my agency before Dr. Geotz, a lawyer Ludwig, was anxious to provide the resettlers as quickly and as fully as possible with furniture, and to put it mildly, he had been a little bit evergenerous in his loans to not very productive firms of the furniture producing industry. The firm went bankrupt, and because of this, let us call it, ever-generous granting of loans, the Reich Treasury incurred a great less, about 80,000 marks or even more; and as the Reich Treasury \n COURT I CASE VIII regulation provides that an official whose carelessness with Reich funds can be held responsible also with his private fortune, the necessary measures were initiated on my orders to hold this Senior Governor Councillor Ludwig responsible, because when this firm which he had so generously provided with illegel loans had gone bankrupt, he had retired from my service.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1539, "page_number": "1533", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "That was already several years back. The Senior Governor Councillor Ludwig can thank the collapse of Germany that he avoided being held responsible for this matter.\nQ.Oh, that is the kind of anxiety your lawyers had. That brings me to the topic of church property. Your Honor, should I start that now or would you rather nave a recess?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go right ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.The Prosecution charges you that you used church property and cultural valuables for the purposes of your resettlers, is that correct?\nA.No, that is not correct. I had nothing to do with the seizure or with the confiscation of church property; neither had any government agency.\nQ.Not even--well, you mean--officially, you had nothing to do with it, but you still could have special powers to use this church property for temporary lodging of the resettlers?\nA.I beg your pardon, Dr. Hanesel, I had only an official capacity, and I only acted in my official capacity. Unofficial measurers were impossible for my agency--and I think that is not what you mean. Probably you are referring to a power of attorney issued for the use of church property. That existed, but this power of attorney was not issued to \n COURT I CASE VIII my agency; it was issued to VOMI.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1540, "page_number": "1534", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Perhaps there is where you got mixed up and you probably got the idea that it was not officially connected with my agency but with VOMI.\nQ.Well, look at Exhibit 623 and see what you have to say on that. Is that the document you are referring to? It's on page 50 of the German in Volume XIV-B and it's Exhibit 623. Is that in any way connected with you?\nA.In itself, this document is not the power of attorney, The exhibit refers to a power of attorney issued by Himmler. The document itself originates with my government agency and it deals also with the question of using church property for the temporary housing of resettlers. But the matter has to be clarified and it needs a long commentary to do this, Unfortunately, the documents collected in these document books very often misrepresent the connection and the missing parts have to be reconstructed and added from memory in order to really clarify these matters.\nQ.However, we have to try and get the matters straightened out anyhow and therefore I ask you to look at the volume you have just there before you--I mean XIV-B. Look at the index. Under the Charier \"Church Property,\" on Page 2 of the Index, you haveNO-1883--oh, no, NO-1384. Then you have a gap, and you come again toNO-1333; another gap, andNO-1889; in other words, there are a few documents in between. Do you remember that I put to you some of those documents which are in between? Do you remember that?\nA.As far as I remember, these loose documents, submitted to us before the document book, did not show the complete development. I think that by mistake the Prosecution has failed to introduce some of those documents in the book, and the fact that these documents are missing is the reason for \n COURT I CASE VIII the difficulty to show the real connection there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1541, "page_number": "1535", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Well, therefore I would like to ask you to describe the whole development to us as you see it and we will see then how we have to supplement these documents.\nA.Well, the whole development is the following: When the numerous resettlers poured in, camp lodgings had to be available for these resettlers. Himmler, I think, in December 1939, issued an order to VOMI and gave them an additional power of attorney in order to see to it that in case of emergency the available space for the housing of human beings could be used by government seizure. Now in order to prevent any ambiguity from the very beginning. I would like to point out that these measures covered only the area of Germany proper. It does not deal with seizure in the sense of the right of seizure within the incorporated eastern territories which has been discussed so often before this court. In the course of 1940, several government agencies were approached, and that refers to VOMI as well as to the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery and my own government agency, with complaints concerning the use of church property for the purposes of lodging these resettlers. The complaints caused the VOMI, as well as my government agency, to have investigations made with regard to the question of how the arising difficulties could be countered. Since at the time the VOMI did not have any legal experts appropriate for such investigations, my legal department took care of the matter, and at the time that was attorney Goetz. We afforded the necessary help to the VOMI in this respect.\nThe first step in order to clarify the matter is the letter sent to Himmler by my agency, as can be seen in Exhibit 623. The basis for this letter were the letters \n COURT I CASE VIII of complaints addressed to various agencies by the Archbishop of Breslau who mainly complained about the use of the nunnery Liebenthal.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1542, "page_number": "1536", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "First of all may I point out that Liebenthal is within Germany proper and therefore it seems questionable whether this problem should be introduced into the complex of this charge because this is a mere dispute of administration--that is, between church and administration--within the territory of Germany proper.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1543, "page_number": "1537", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, before the recess we discussed the sequence and supplements of theNO documentsin the Exhibit No. 623. Will you please now continue where you left off?\nA.I stated that through my agency I wanted to assist the Vomi because my agency actually had nothing to do with these happenings. The advice was given that the church property in question was to be dealt with in accordance with the law which applied to the entire Reich proper and I, in order to be quite certain, wanted to know Himmler's attitude on the subject. There is a letter from Goetz which is Exhibit 623.\nQ.What was Himmler's attitude?\nA.Himmler's attitude was exactly contrary to what I intended. I intended to reach a peaceful and legal settlement -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, suppose you just tell us what happened and not so much about what was intended and people's intentions. Just give us the facts. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Please continue with Exhibit 624. Now comes the gap in the affidavits. Of course, it goes on. Just how does it continue?\nA.Then I succeeded, and in spite of the disapproving attitude of Himmler all the burdens which were connected with the church property in question were taken over. There were expenditures for maintenance, repairs and things of that sort. This document is missing. However, I saw it once in document form and with that document I achieved that for the church institutions no economic disadvantages resulted as a result of the utilization of this church property. And, on the other hand, no unjustified gains could be attained by the utilization of this property because, already before in the case of church property, this always was used for charitable purposes.\nQ.To sum it up briefly, the situation was that these refugees were \n placed into church buildings in the capacity of refugees and was paid?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1544, "page_number": "1538", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.Yes, that was a final wolution.\nQ.Now, let us come to the other case of church property which you are charged with as the only one, according to the documents. Can you recall that on one occasion in Upper Silesia some incident took place? Here a local authority interfered. Unless I am mistaken this was in 1944. And then the church authorities were complaining. Did these incidents in Upper Silesia occur upon your orders?\nA.No. I can recall the incident. My agency did not issue any directives to interfere.\nQ.Well, who was behind these complaints? Was it the Higher Reich authorities?\nA.The origin of the complaint, as far as I know, came from the Archbishop Bertram of Breslau, It was addressed to the Chief of the Reich Chancellory, Lammers, and he in turn addressed Himmler about it.\nQ.But you heard something about the matter and you were able to do something in time about it?\nA.Through some way my agency was also informed about this unjustified interference.\nQ.Would you please explain to us what you mean by interference? Was this an expropriation or just what was going on?\nA.The following situation had arisen, In Upper Silesia they were rather large church establishment and, besides the pastor's home with a garden, there would be some small agricultureal enterprise there. The local agencies believed that if they exerted their influence on the clergymen they would be able to use these establishments in order to house resettlers on a temporary basis.\nQ.It is sometimes easier for your memory if you recall some names. Can you still recall the name of the official who interfered here?\nA.Yes. I can recall this name. It was a Dr. Teske, T-e-s-k-e.\nQ.Does the name appear in the document which I want to show to you? It is Exhibit No. 625, the next document. Does the name of Dr. Teske appear \n in this document?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1545, "page_number": "1539", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Well the document will show that, if that appears. He doesn't have to tell us about it. We can see it in there. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Do you know that the name which is not mentioned in the document is Dr. Teske?\nA.As I have already stated before, Dr. Teske was the employee who caused this very digusting incident.\nQ.What did you do then?\nA.As soon as I was informed of this incident, I immediately took a motor vehicle, accompanied by two legal experts, the Chief of my legal department, Wirsich, and the chief of Office 3 of my agency, Goetz, because both had been proven legal experts and we went from Upper Bavaria to Upper Silesia by motor vehicle, so that we would be able to interfere personally and to settle the matter once and for all.\nQ.What did you do with Dr. Teske?\nA.Dr. Teske was immediately dismissed and, on the other hand, I saw to it that the illegalsteps were again rescinded.\nQ.Were you glad to be able to do this for the church and was the church satisfied about your action?\nA.I did not discuss the subject with the local church authorities but I, myself, was glad that I was able to act on behalf of the church in this incident because it cannot be the task of the administration to engage in hositlities with the church.\nQ.Was an emergency method used on Teske to dismiss him from this job?\nA.Certainly. After all, as far as I can recall, Teske had been in that office for more than four years, ever since that office had been established. Of course, it really meant a severe reprimand for him.\nQ.Can you tell us who signed the next exhibit, Exhibit No. 626?\nA.No.\nQ.Does the document state who signed it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1546, "page_number": "1540", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.No. There is no signature below it. There is no signature whatsoever.\nQ.Do you know who signed it?\nA.No; I am unable to say that. The document did not originate with my office.\nQ.In your opinion where could it have originated?\nA.I believe that I can assume that this is a file note which must have come from Himmler's immediate vicinity.\nQ.Will you please tell us what sort of a document a file note is?\nA.A file note is nothing else than a note in order to refresh the memory of the person who deals with that subject.\nQ.Will you please take a look at the letter of the first of July, 1944 which goes together with the file note. Now in the German copy it says the first of July 1946. Can that be correct, first of July, 1946?\nA.No, of course, that cannot be correct. It should read 1944, most likely; yes, 1944.\nQ.Does the document show who signed it, your copy of the document?\nA.There is no name below it, but I assume that the original will bear my signature. I would probably be able to tell you that if I had the original document.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1547, "page_number": "1541", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.This letter refers to an enclosure which is not here, however.\nA.No, this enclosure is not added to the document.\nQ.Do you know what may have been contained in this enclosure which you do not have here?\nA.Could I take a brief look at the document? I believe that I can assume with certainty that this enclosure is of considerable importance because it contains a directive to the deputies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. It instructs them that in the future they are to refrain from interfering in any way with church property because the document itself is a copy in the report about the measures which have occurred in Upper Silesia and the report which I submitted to Himmler.\nQ.At the time did you hear anything about the fact that the Gauleiters who only had initiative in their respective districts, had done anything against church property?\nA.Perhaps it would be quite appropriate if you say \"against church property.\" The gauleiter attempted, in his capacity as Reichsstatthalter, to have the church property transferred to the autonomous district administration because the Reichsstatthalters tried to develop their own autonomous organization financially in any way they were able.\nQ.I have now come to the end of the spoliation subject. Now, will you please tell us once more whether you consider yourself guilty in any way of this count of the indictment?\nA.No, I do not consider myself to be guilty. I believe that spoliation can only be carried out by a person who unjustifiedly tries to take something away from another person in order to further his own ends. Neither my agency nor I personally did our work with the aim of enriching ourselves and we did not take anything away from anybody else; but we only dealt with the property of the Reich in order to carry out indemnification on behalf of the Reich.\nQ.We now want to turn to the treatment of human beings. You are charged in the indictment with having placed your strength in the service of \n Germanization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1548, "page_number": "1542", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "This count in the indictment is charged under the concept of genocide. What do you mean by the so-called Germanization? Is that a concept to you?\nA.Up to now this expression did not mean anything to me. If by that it is understood that nationals of foreign countries are oppressed on the part of the Germans or are to be exterminated by them, or the foreign nation is to be denied its existence, then I, as a human being, can only say in that connection that I never harbored any thoughts of that kind, in that all my activity during the war was never guided by any ideas of that sort.\nQ.Did you have anything to do at all with foreign countries, because after all one can only Germanize foreign elements?\nA.No. I want to repeat that my field of work solely dealt with German people. These were German people who had been turned over to us by another agency to take care of them.\nQ.In order to put the matter more concretely, we want to deal with Count 11 of the indictment which deals with the kidnapping of foreign children. Did you know anything about the extensive plan to kidnap foreign children?\nA.I don't know of such a plan and I am of the opinion that such a plan never existed.\nQ.Do you know anything about the taking away and racial classification of Norwegian children?\nA.That matter is completely unknown to me.\nQ.Do you know anything about the taking away and racial classification of Czech children?\nA.I don't know anything about that either.\nQ.What about Yugoslav children?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, he says he doesn't know anything about taking any children away from anywhere. So why do you have to go over each one separately? He said he just didn't do it at all to anyone.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1549, "page_number": "1543", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:Yes. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you deal with illegitimate children of non-German mothers whose fathers were members of the Wehrmacht?\nA.No; I cannot recall ever having occupied myself with that subject. However, I know for certain that my agency had nothing to do with that.\nQ.However, the indictment brings you into connection with Polish children from the Warthegau. Can you tell us anything about the ethnic German children? Did you occupy yourself with that subject?\nA.With ethnic German children from the Warthegau, yes. However, I had nothing to do with Polish children from the Warthegau.\nQ.Well, how is it possible that in the formerly polish territory you can speak about ethnic German Children?\nA.In the territories of Poland which fell to Germany, according to the official statistics from Polish sources, at the outbreak of the war in 1939 there were still one million German people living there. Of this one million, approximately 600,000 people lived in the so-called Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nQ.Were these people Polish nationals?\nA.These people were Polish nationals who, however, belonged to the internationally recognized German minority group in Poland.\nQ.Had these people always been Poles?\nA.No. These people were ethnic Germans who previously had been German nationals and they were Prussians and after 1919 they had to obtain the Polish nationality.\nQ.And it is a natural happening in a nation that there are orphans in such a group as a result of the fact that their parents died?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What happened to these orphan children?\nA.The orphans were placed into orphanages by the Polish State. As far as I am able to say about the situation in 1941 the Protestant clergy in the Warthegau complained about the fact that during the time of the Polish \n regime the orphans who came from the German minority group had been put into Polish orphanages and that there they were Polonized.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1550, "page_number": "1544", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "It was the clergy who made the request that after the occupation of this territory by the German troops somebody should care for these children.\nQ.When the Germans marched into Poland these orphanages were intact. Now, what happened? Can you tell us what happened to the administration of the orphanages or how did you get into that matter at all?\nA.I personally heard for the first time and for the only time about this question when my experts informed me of an order which I was to sign. This order dealt with the living provisions pertaining to German orphans in Polish orphanages and with Polish foster parents. It was a general order which has been presented. Order No. 67-I, which has been submitted in the Prosecution documents.\nQ.That is on Page 17, Exhibit 407. Now, just what brought about this decree?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1551, "page_number": "1545", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.- Of course I am unable to give you all the details because the finished draft was submitted to me for my signature. However, I know exactly that when this draft was submitted to me I examined it and my conscience and I signed this order with the firm conviction that here I was doing something that was perfectly legal for the welfare of children who were suffering from need and want. The entire thing as far as I was concerned was something only natural for me; it was natural care for the children.\nQ.- Who made this suggestion for the drafting of the order 67-I; what was the authority for that; was it the autonomous administration of the Gau?\nA.- Without any doubt this directive was initiated by the Gauselbstverwaltung and arose from the discussion which apparently took place between Himmler and Reichsstatthalter Greiser. However, I only know that now that I have been able to look at the document. Previously this fact was unknown to me. As far as I can recall these things were brought to my agency through a letter from the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Warthegau. However, as I said before the preparatory negotiations, and the correspondence I did not write and I believe that perhaps other collaborators might be able to describe the matter more clearly since they can recall the matter better than I can.\nQ.- However, you will be able to tell us whether you thought it was only natural that these were children of German descent?\nA.- Yes, it was obvious for me. That is why I have said before that before I signed this decree I simply examined the material which was available and my conscience, whether I was able to stand up for the things it represented.\nQ.- Now the Lebensborn also played an active part in this. Was this based on a directive by Himmler?\nA.- I assume so. I assume such a directive must have been issued. Of \n course that was part of the preparatory work which did not pass through my hands.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1552, "page_number": "1546", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "However, there were no misgivings on my part that the Lebensborn should be included in this work. Of course the Lebensborn is a registered society as the result of a decree issued by the Minister of the Interior and has been in existence since the year 1941, that is before this decree 67-I had come, and this adoption agency which was nationally recognized and therefore it was together with all youth offices and had the same status.\nQ.- What picture do you have now about the prectical application of this order as to just what happened at the time?\nA.- I didn't quite understand your question, Dr. Haensel.\nQ.- Well, we don't only know what it states here but what exactly happened. For example, the clearly Polish children taken away from their parents and relatives or were any other extensive measures taken of that sort. As far as you are concerned is the whole matter limited to the signing of this decree 67-I.\nA.- First of all as far as my agency was concerned this was quite an adaptable procedure from the organizational point of view so that I did not have to undertake any further steps and I could not find out anything further about it. However, now that I have studied the documents which have been presented I have gained the impression as if apparently children of really Polish nationality have been included in these measures. At any rate one might at least have a suspicion that here and there the child may have been taken away from his parents or relatives. And, that perhaps either later on some measures were put into execution with some children which did not come under the provisions of the decree 67-I. I do not hesitate from stating that in recognition of this fact I felt a horror that perhaps irresponsible elements had committed deeds which were not within the scope of the naming of this decree 67-I.\nQ.- As far as the number is concerned just how many children were \n involved when you put your signature to this order.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1553, "page_number": "1547", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.- From the material which was submitted to me when I signed this order it became evident that the measures referred to a figure from up to 300 children.\nQ.- Was this figure liable to draw your special attention in regard to the size of the German minority group?\nA.- I am not a geo-politician and therefore I cannot make any definite statement about that. However, I believe that in the case of a minority group of 600,000 people within a period of 20 years accumulation of 300 orphans in the various age groups can be considered as being very slight. I believe that in general the accumulation of orphans must be much greater.\nQ.- If you will look in this document book at exhibit 409 on page 26, here it deals with a case of taking a child from the Government General. Did you deal with that matter?\nA.- I read the document here and the matter does not concern my agency nor myself.\nQ.- If you look further, then on page 35, you will find Exhibit 412. Coes this document bear your signature?\nA.- What page was that again, Dr. Haensel.\nQ.- It was page 35; the signature is put down as illegible on page 38. Did you sign that?\nA.- Yes. I assume that this document bears my signature. It says here \"signature illegible\" but from the context I must assume that I signed the letter.\nQ.- Now just what brought about this letter. You apparently wrote it and you also refer to the decree No. 67-I here. Apparently you made some mistaken interpretations in this letter.\nA.- Here also we are dealing with a measure of the customary aid given to the authorities as it was customary in general among German administrative agencies. The Higher SS and Police Leader in the Reich Com \n missioner's district Ostland had addressed my agency with an enquiry of what was to be done with children of German descent, a large number of whome were without any family ties, without any parent or family within his field of jurisdiction, and upon this enquiry my expert sent a copy of their decree 67-I to the Higher SS and Police Leader for his acknowledgment and he asked him to think ever the fact, whether a similar drive could be launched with regard to his children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1554, "page_number": "1548", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Since, however, my agency was not competent in the Reich Commissar's district Ostland a report was sent to Himmler about this. Exhibit 412 represents this report in the course of the letter to Himmler.\nQ.- Please explain the title Ostland to us. Just what did the word \"Ostland\" mean. Where is Ostland situated approximately. Just how was it separated and so on?\nA.- The Reich Commissar's district Ostland included part of the territory which comes from some Russian occupied territory and came under the competency of the Reich. Ministry of the occupied territories in the East. As far as I am informed it included the former territories and states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lituania. It is one of the Reich Commissar's districts as we had also had a Reich Commissar district, White Ruthenia, the Ukraine, and others.\nQ.- And did you not have any competence with regard to these Ostlanders?\nA.- No, I did not have any authority over those.\nQ.- Can you give us an explanation of the following fact in this letter. It is mentioned that up to now, in this document, 1,167 children were taken care of in Lithuania, and 3,950 in Latvia and at that time only children, in orphanages, 300 of them came under the auspices of the order 67-I. 1,167 children and then 3,950 children in Latvia, and as compared to the 300 children in Poland in the occupied and incorporated Eastern territories, this is a monstrous difference. Just how do you explain that fact?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1555, "page_number": "1549", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "A.I can explain this by saying that before the establishment of the Reich Commissar's District Ostland, these territories had been occupied by the Russians, and that the Russians carried out a deportation of the local population on a very large scale. That is why I can imagine the large number of orphans, orphan children in these territories without any family ties.\nQ.In the document on page 50, this is Exhibit 415, the establishment of a special reporting agency is mentioned. Did you have anything to do with it?\nA.This reporting agency only came to my knowledge here in Nurnberg when I read through the documents. The document itself is a decree by the Reichstatthalter in the Warthegau. My agency never had anything to do with these measures.\nQ.I believe you can say in conclusion that outside of the things we have discussed here you led nothing to do with any other measures. The Prosecution charges you according to Count XII of the Indictment that you had something to do with abortions; is that true?\nA.No, from the very beginning in the course of my interrogations I have told the Prosecution that in the course of the war I once heard about measures which were taken in this field, but I did not have any clear ideas about this, and that in my case, officially. I had nothing to do with these abortions.\nQ.By means of the presented documents, were you a ble to recall these things more clearly?\nA.I found a letter which Himmler. I believe, sent to the Gauleiters of the District Oberdenau, and in which he deals with the problem of children who are born out of wedlock. Just why I received a copy of this letter and why a large number of other persons and agencies also received a copy, whether it was for acknowledgement. I don't know; among them was Obergruppenfuehrer Wolf. And up until today I still cannot explain to myself why this was done. After all no measures were mentioned here, and as I have stated before, I had \n nothing to do with abortions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1556, "page_number": "1550", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.Did you take any action upon this letter?\nA.No, there was no reason for me to do so. First of all, I was not competent in that matter at all, so that my agency could have taken any action; and furthermore, I could not do so, do anything if between Himmler and the Reichstathalter in Oberdenau some correspondence took place about things which did not even concern me. These things were completely outside my field of work. I cannot even recall any more today whether I read this letter at the time, but I never saw it again afterwards, and I believe that it was filed some place and as far as my agency was concerned that settled the entire question\nQ.Will you please tell us what exhibit we have here on page 32; that is Book IX, page 32 of the German text.\nAThis is Exhibit No. 475.\nQ.In these documents which are before you now in Document Book IX, did you find any documents among them which, you personally dealt with or were sent to you?\nA.I first of all must take a look at the document book and read it ever.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is a pretty general question, Dr. Haensel.\nDR HAENSEL:I don't think that will be necessary. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Then, I would draw your attention to Document 470 or page 13: will you please take a look at it, Document 472 on page 35; a letterhead of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nA. 470.\nQ. 470 and 472, on page 23 and 25: the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and Reich Security Main Office, RSHA. This one is on page 25, Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism, and above that we have the Reichsfuehrer SS and below the title RSHA. Reich Security main Office. What does that title tell you?\nA.That these two decrees have nothing to do with my agency, \n and here again the channel which goes to the left over the RSHA, which is put down here in black, which represents the channel which Himmler has over the RSHA, but it did not pass through my agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR HAENSEL", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1557, "page_number": "1551", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "The letterhead and the file note by themselves already speak for themselves. In this connection I would like to draw your attention to the signature on both the documents. In Exhibit 470 Kaltenbrunner has signed as Reich Commissar; in the case of Document 472, the same thing applies. Both exhibits deal with questions of interruption of pregnancy.\nQ.Will you please tell us briefly who Kaltenbrunner was and what office he held?\nA.Kaltenbrunner after Heydrich's death, was the chief of the RSHA.\nQ.And will you please tell us something about the File Note 4-D; what does that mean?\nA.The File Note 4. I can tell you something about that. This means Gestapo; that was the file designation for the RSHA, Reich Security Main Office. Just what the sub-division letters \"B\" or \"D\" are. I don't know.\nQ.But how is it possible that in the documents which have been presented the deputies of the Reich Commissar have been mentioned?\nA.Also in this case you will find a most simple solution by looking at the chart which I have compiled. They went to the black channel of command from the Reich Security Main Office to the inspector of the Security Police and the SD, and from there to the deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. So far in this case the deputy acted for the RSHA and he worked exclusively on behalf of the RSHA, and it would lead to strongly mistaken conclusions if any other agency of the Reich Commissar is brought into connection with these measures only because the title of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism has been mentioned here.\nQ.In other words to avoid all misunderstandings, I want to point out that yet another agency of the Reich Commissar has been \n mentioned in the letter, that is the Race and Settlement Main Office, This is on page 15.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1558, "page_number": "1552", "date": "23 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-23", "text": "Do you believe that no other Reich agencies of the Reich Commissar have been mentioned?\nA.Well, I overlooked that; at the moment I didn't think of it. The RSHA collaborated accordingly on the channel from the higher representative to establish liaison with the competent race and settlement leader who occupied an accessory position in the investigations there. Furthermore we have a contact here to the Race and Settlement Main Office which I mentioned already yesterday, and which also leads directly to the Race and Settlement Leader.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1559, "page_number": "1553", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "Q.And this matter becomes even more complicated when I say that the Reich Ministry of the Interior also dealt with this question.\nA.Could you please give me a short reference, Dr. Haensel, because I can't tell you all these things from memory, it is impossible for me to do that.\nQ.Let us not get too much involved in this matter just because the Ministry of the Interior has been mentioned. Let us take a look at page 180 of the document book, and page 187. Now those documents deal with the Reich Chamber of Physicians. This was also a government agency which belonged to the circle?\nA.Yes; without any doubt, the Reich Chamber of Physicians also played a part in dealing with the question of interruptions of pregnancies, because you must not forget that the actual agency which initiated all those measures was actually the Reich Health Leader. That was the top level of the medical profession.\nQ.On page 181 you will find the date \"31 September, Kattowitz.\" Just where could that document have come from?\nA.When I heard your reference to 486, it became clear to me that I would have to try once again to clarify an organizational pattern. This was a case of two provinces, Upper and Lower Silesia. There were two senior presidents, but for both provinces there was only one Higher SS and Police Leader, as a representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. This Higher SS and Police Leader had his official residence at Breslau, where the central agency for the province of Lower Silesia was also located. At Kattowitz, the capital of Upper Silesia, all administrative agencies were in existence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There is some trouble because you are not speaking into the microphone. Get it more in front of you, if you can, or else get in front of the microphone, if it won't move. You talk towards Dr. Haensel and away from the microphone, and we are not getting it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1560, "page_number": "1554", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "One other thing. When you start talking about the chart on the back of the wall, invariably you get away from the microphone. You will have to point at the chart, but talk into the microphone.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, I will raise the microphone.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nTHE WITNESS:May I continue?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go right ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL.\nQ.We have just reached an extraordinarily complicated point, which, however, is very important. This concerned Kattowitz. Now, you will have to explain to us that in Kattowitz there was an agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar, and the question now is whether that agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar was an agency of the Staff Main Office, your office.\nA.I would like to state fundamentally that the Staff Main Office did not have its own provincial offices, but that, as I have described in detail yesterday, the agencies of the Reich Commissar-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, I must agree with the witness that he did describe in detail yesterday just, what you are talking about now. You are just arguing with him about it now. He has explained this chart. I think, so that everybody understands it, and I don't see any use in going over it again.\nDR. HAENSEL:Well, there is one very fine point in this.\nTHE WITNESS:May I perhaps finish my statement about the two provinces, Upper and Lower Silesia? BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Well, you mentioned that previously yesterday.\nA.But not the consequences, which arise from the documents which have been presented here.\nWe were able to determine that in cases of interruptions of pregnancies, the Higher SS and Police Leader, in his capacity as deputy representative of the Reich Commissar, started actions. The same thing \n would have functioned smoothly also in Upper Silesia if this province had had its own Higher SS and Police Leader, as representative of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1561, "page_number": "1555", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "However, since this was not the case, but since both provinces had only one deputy of the Reich Commissar and since he had his official seat at Breslau, there were difficulties in many fields with regard to the business procedures, because the top provincial authorities who were located at Kattowitz did not have a direct channel of command to the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nI would like to give you a practice example now, in order to explain my point.\nQ.The Reich Chamber of Physicians is referred to on page 180 and 187.\nA.In the course of the procedure which was followed concerning interruptions of pregnancies, the Reich Chamber of Physicians in Upper Silesia was officially concerned with the competent Higher SS and Police Leader, and therefore it should have turned to Breslau. However, that meant a great difficulty for the channel of command, and that is why the Higher SS and Police Leader at Breslau established an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Kattowitz and ordered this agency to take care of the purely formal correspondence in this field in his behalf.\nThat is how Exhibit No. 486 explains itself, as well as 487 and 489. On the other hand, Exhibit No. 483 is the best evidence to prove the somewhat complicated statement which I have just made and will show that my statement is correct. Actually, the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with abortions.\nQ.That is correct, but this field of work still belonged to the tasks which were carried out outside of your Main Staff Office from some other agency of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I don't know just what brought about this matter, Dr. Haensel. All this was in the hands of the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1562, "page_number": "1556", "date": "25 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-25", "text": "The fundamental decrees were issued from the Reich Security Main Office and from the RSHA also, and the necessary measures were carried out, Since the Race and Settlement Main Office, as I have stated before, occupied itself with certain tasks in that field, I believe that the defendant concerned with that field of work will be more able to give you a statement about connections in that respect than I, who actually had nothing to do officially with these things?\nQ.I would only like to draw the conclusion now that from these statements it may be concluded that here we find a letter where it states, in the left-hand corner, Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\", and the signature reads \"Dr. Kaltenbrunner.\"\nA.Well, yes: that is what I explained yesterday. No body could state just what capacity, from the beginning the Reich Security Main Office had had from case to case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, you did explain it yesterday, I remember it very well, so don't go into it again. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In concluding this subject, will you please tell us this? Did you know Exhibits 486 and 488 Did you see them here for the first time, or did you know them before?\nA.Of course, I only saw this entire correspondence here for the first time, because it did not pass through my central agency. After all, this was only a local task which was submitted to the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nDR. HAENSEL:We have now concluded the subject of abortions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(At 1630 hours, 25 November 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 26 November 1947)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1563, "page_number": "1557", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nOfficial Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\ndefendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 26 November 1947, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nThe persons in the court room will be seated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor all defendants are present in the court room with the exception of the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of the witness.\nULRICH GREIFELT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQNow we come to point 13 of the indictment, the kidnapping. In point 13 of the indictment you are charged with participation and robbing Eastern Female workers of their infants. Did you have anything to do with this?\nANo, I had as little to do with this as with the matters we had dealt with previously, that is, abortions.\nQWould you kindly tell us which office or agency dealt with these matters? I expect you to say Reich Main Security Office of the Police.\nAThe Reich Main Security Office dealt with these questions. The Gestapo in the Reich Security Main Office took charge of this field.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1564, "page_number": "1558", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nOther agencies were involved as well.\nQI hand over to you Exhibit 495, Document Book 10, page 6, as a letter of the 31 December 1942, a letter from Mueller. Is your name mentioned there and why?\nAThis is a teletype from the Reich Security Main Office. Why a copy of this teletype was sent to me for my information I cannot understand because officially I had no dealings regarding this complex. May I point out that I personally certainly did not see this letter because this letter must have arrived during the first days of January, 1943, and at that time I had a break-down in health and I was not in my office. I started work again only on the 1st of May 1943, I am not mentioning this for the purpose of evading responsibility in this matter but it is merely a statement of fact that I did not see this letter. If I had been in my office and I would have seen the letter among all those many letters which reached me, I could not have issued any orders regarding this because these measures were outside the competency of my agency and interference in measures dealt with by the Gestapo was not possible for my agency.\nQDid only the Gestapo have to deal with these measures? Would you kindly refresh your memory by looking at Document 499 and page 24 of this document book.\nANo, government agencies as well as other offices dealt with these questions. The document you are referring to proves that the Reich Ministry of the Interior also had a part in this. Apart from that, via the Higher SS and Police Leader as Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, the RuSHA had also a part in this whose former employees will, during this trial, give their comments to this question in detail. The Plenipotentiary General for Labor, also the NSV, and the Reich Food Organization somehow particpated in these measures, but my agency was not assigned any tasks in this connection.\nQWe can conclude this complex of the Prosecution with one \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1565, "page_number": "1559", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "question. I will have to put that question. Please look at Exhibits 505 and 506, that is, page 40 in this volume. Will you kindly have a look and see whether these exhibits will refresh your memory with regard to the agencies which participated.\nAThe correspondence and papers submitted here emanate from the Reich Ministry for the occupied Eastern territories. The title Leader Group, Germandom, points unequivocally to the fact that these are agencies of the Ministry just mentioned and that they can have nothing to do with the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The Reich Ministry for Eastern territories has worked together with the Reich Security Main Office and with the Party Chancery regarding this complex as can be seen from Exhibit 506, page 48 of this volume.\nQNow we are leaving this point and now we are coming to point 14 of the indictment, punishment of sexual intercourse with Germans. The indictment charges you that you participated in punishments for these offenses. Is that the case?\nANo, it is not correct that my agency had anything to do with this procedure. It neither had anything to do with the initiation of the procedure nor with its execution or with the punishment of the people in question. It is difficult for me to deal with these matters here because I have always looked upon them as something intimate and delicate but as far as I know about it I must comment on these questions in this trial in public.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1566, "page_number": "1560", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWhich agencies did have anything to do with the punishment for sexual intercourse?\nAI know that sexual intercourse of foreign workers and of POWs was a punishable offense, in this point, but it was not necessary to have official knowledge. The fact had been made know quite generally in Germany by publications in the press and by broadcasts. I remember that the measures drew comments from the press and the wireless. At that time, already, I did not like the fact that these things were dealt with in public, but I thought that under war conditions such preventive measures might be necessary because it is quite clear that through intimate sexual relationships espionage and enemy propaganda might reap a benefit. It is well known that in the espionage cases which have become universally known intimate relationships played a decisive role.\nQI don't believe that one wants to construe a crime under international law of the fact that sexual intercourse was being prohibited. Now, if such punishable sexual relationships came to the knowledge of the authorities, was your agency interpolated in the then following procedure?\nANo, this was a matter for the State Police, and possibly also for the Administration of Justice. These things did not belong to the field of tasks for my agency. And we have to state here again that the Reich Security Main Office, I might almost say camouflaged itself under the name of Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and through this fact it was possible that people who were not initiated could he given an opportunity for mixing up these matters.\nQMay I point out to you in that connection that sexual intercourse was forbidden and the courts punished these people.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe that statements like the last statement is a matter of argument rather than a discussion with the witness.\nDR. HAENSEL:I am quite unable to present this case if I cannot help to produce the necessary knowledge.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "DR. HAENSEL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1567, "page_number": "1561", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal doesn't agree with either one of you. We don't think it is argument, but it sounds very much like the attorney testifying instead of the witness.\nSimply propound the questions and let him answer. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDid you have anything to do with these measures when the question of whether these people were to be punished or not had already been decided upon by the Gestapo or by the courts, etc?\nAWith the actual criminal proceedings and the punishment, my agency had nothing to do, but it had to deal with the people who had committed the offense, that is in such cases where on the basis of an expert opinion by the RuSHA punishment was not meted out. In these instances these people were called racially valuable, and they were declared to be in a position to become Germans again. The way back to normal life was to be opened to them again, and for this reason the people had to take up work and the possibility had to be given to them to make a living, and this was the satisfying solution from the humane point of view for my agency. It also fell within our competency to do this. There may be a difference of opinion here whether the prerequisites for making these people Germans again were present in all cases. I myself would not like to answer this question in the affirmative, but in any case the positive task of taking care of people cannot be termed as something which is contrary to humanity.\nQThat is to say you had nothing to do with the punishment of foreigners because of sexual intercourse. But after the people had been punished or after one had decided not to punish these people, in individual cases, you had to do something in a positive way for the person in question. How was he treated by your agency?\nAAs a matter of course he fell under our care, that is to say he was a person who could be made into a German again; to put it quite briefly, he was given the possibility for leading a normal life in the same way as they were given to any indigenous persons.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1568, "page_number": "1562", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQThe documents mentioned the camp Hinzert; can you tell us something about this camp?\nAAs far as I recall, this was a work and educational camp of the Reich Security Main Office or of the Gestapo. I remember from one instance that the people who were just mentioned who had committed this offense, but who were not punished, were from a certain date onwards, on personal orders of Himmler, sent to these camps for a certain period of time before they were put under our care.\nQCould your agency and did your agency send people to the Hinzert Camp?\nAThat was impossible because the commitment of people to this camp was exclusively a part for the Gestapo. Apart from that, my agency had no contacts with these people.\nQDid your agency receive directives of the Reich Security Main Office regarding these questions?\nAI remember now after looking at the documents that such directives were received by my agency. As far as I know at a very late date only; I believe the first directives were received in the year 1944, that is at a date when the procedure was already underway.\nQWould you kindly look at the document just submitted to you, that is exhibit 528, Volume 11, page 42. If you look at it now you may perhaps tell us whether you received it at that time.\nAI cannot remember whether I really held this document in my hands. However this document shows that my agency received it, but the distribution list also shows that this copy was only sent to us for the purposes of information. This directive cancelled quite a number of directives in this field, and I do not believe that these previous decrees of the chief of the German Police were received by my agency. I believe that towards the end of the year 1944 a further decree was sent to my agency for the purposes of information which also dealt with the questions of forbidden sexual intercourse.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1569, "page_number": "1563", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.I now submit to you Exhibit 479, Volume IX, page 47. This is Kaltenbrunner's directive. Is this the directive of Kaltenbrunner which you had in mind?\nA.I believe, that I was referring to this directive, because I had in mind that at a certain date the racial examinations weredispensed with for this procedure, and this document contains this statement.\nQ.How did you receive this directive? Was it as an official directive, or as a directive for purposes of information? In what manner did you receive it?\nA.Again, this directive was received by us only for purposes of information, since my agency had to take part in the care of the persons in question. Both documents submitted show that this was purely a police matter; the headings and the file notes show that quite clearly.\nQ.Now we conclude this chapter and cone to the next point, point 15 of the Indictment, Prevention of Propagation of Foreign Enemy Nationals. According to the Indictment, you are supposed to have participated in these measures. Did you have anything to do with this?\nA.I heard of this charge for the first time during my preliminary interrogations, and I have tried very hard to refresh my memory in this respect. However, only after reading the documents now submitted I remembered that Himmler, as Minister of the Interior, issued a decree in 1944 according to which the marriage age for Poles was raised. This directive gave expression to the fact that these measures were taken in agreement with the Party Chancellery, and that Himmler, as Minister of the Interior, issued these measures also in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Undoubtedly, the office dealing with this matter was the Ministry of the Interior.\nQ.Did you take part in preliminary discussions?\nA.I cannot remember any such preliminary conferences, but this is not to say that perhaps one of my experts did not at any time take part in such a conference; that is not known to me, however, and, furthermore, \n I do not know that a report was made to me regarding this matter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1570, "page_number": "1564", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "It is possible that before the directive just mentioned was issued, a similar directive was published, also originatin from the Ministry of the Interior. I could not find it among the documents, but in order to complete the picture I want to mention the fact that I seem to remember it, I cannot, however, give you an exact date or give you some idea of the contents.\nQ.We shall submit this document later.\nNow, I want to refer to Volume XII, page 3. I believe we can conclude the subject of prevention of propagation, and we now come to a very important sector, which is the German Poeple's List. Under point 17 of the Indictment you are charged with participation in the compulsory Germanization of foreign enemy nationals, and the Prosecution has expressly referred to the German People's List. The German People's List, then, is brought in in connection with the naturalization procedure. Which agency first touched upon the question of naturalization procedure?\nA.The directive of 8 October 1939 regarding the incorporation of the Eastern Territories, already touches upon the question of the possibility of acquisition of German nationality by inhabitants of the Incorporated Eastern Territories. However, this basic decree does not yet give any details for the procedure.\nQ.Is this directive contained in the documents submitted to us by the Prosecution?\nA.As far as I know, it is not contained therein; so far, I have not seen it. However, I am of the opinion that this directive is significant in order to trace the further development in this field, that is to say the question of the German People's List, to understand it, and to be able to judge it.\nQ.We shall submit it. What agency in Germany was competent for questions of naturalization?\nA.The only agency competent to deal with all matters regarding \n citizenship was the Ministry of the Interior.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1571, "page_number": "1565", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Did the Reich Ministry of the Interior in accordance with its competency arrange for a satisfactory solution of this question?\nA.In the course of the war a multitude of directives were issued which dealt with questions of citizenship. What is under discussion here are the Incorporated Eastern Territories, and as far as I knew, a basic decree was issued on the 25th or 26th of November 1939, by the Ministry of the Interior, based on the decree of 8 October 1939.\nQ.Did you participate in the setting up of this decree; I mean as a consultant or in any way?\nA.No, my agency did not take any part in this. It was not in a position to do this for reasons of time, because at the end of October my agency was not in a position to do any work; it was not yet known nor recognized.\nQ.Did this decree create a clear picture in regard to this question?\nA.The original purpose was to regulate everything quite clearly in a well defined manner, but this was an attempt that failed at first, at least, because difficulties would arise in all border territories, especially with regard to the membership of national minorities and national groups; and this was, of course, to a very large extent, the case in the Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nQ.Who tried, first of all, to solve these doubt full cases?\nA.These attempts were undertaken by the Reich Governors or the Senior Presidents, but at first it did not go beyond attempts because the chiefs of the local provincial administrations, who have been mentioned just now, wanted to solve these questions according to their own views, which of course differed from place to place. Therefore, first of all, even greater confusion was created in the field of the citizenship of the people concerned. Even I -- who was active in the agency of the Reich Commissar, but who, until that time, had not dealt with questions of ethnic relationships or ethnic struggles -- even I had to witness a \n state of affairs, which could only be called grotesque.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1572, "page_number": "1566", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "In the Gau Danzig-West Prussia the Reich Governor followed a definite policy of Germanization. He was not guided by factual viewpoints, but he believed that he had to shine before Hitler and thus to present his Gau as a Reich German Gau as quickly as possible.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1573, "page_number": "1567", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Do you remember the German People's List, the DVL?\nA.These are the prerequisites for the German People's List. This policy was the last resort, the cause for the fact that, later on, as, regards the German People's List, the Reich Security Main Office was forced to take compulsory measures against people who did not voluntarily put down their names for the German People's List. It is astonsihing that in the Gau Danzig-West Prussia the Reich Governor boasted of having contributed three divisions to the German Wehrmacht by his Germanization measures. This Germanization policy had to be opposed by all reasonable people. There was no lack of voices warning against these measures or of people who wanted to alter this procedure. However, Himmler failed in this respect, and he did not oppose this Germanization policy which was to be a part of the procedure under the German People's List.\nIn the Warthegau, on the other hand, a very clear line of policy was followed, based upon the view of the Reich Governor that the basis for the German People's List could only be the proof of German descent, of the people concerned.\nIn Upper Silesia conditions were quite different, since the so-called Water Poles and other ethnic splinter groups like the Gorals represented a population regarding whose ethnic membership there are doubts even today, even among scientists.\nThe different ethnic policies in the different Gaue were the cause which had to lead to a uniform solution, and the attempt to create a uniform solution led to the concept, for the first time, of the German's People List in the Reich Gau Wartheland, where Greiser as the first one created this instrument. Whether he was influenced in this by other agencies, I do not know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1574, "page_number": "1568", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.In order to understand these very complicated matters, a simple question is now necessary. After a country had been incorporated under the decree by Hitler, which was mentioned-that is, after it was annexed--did one say then that the inhabitants of that country were Germans?\nA.No, such total grant of German citizenship did not take place, as far as I know.\nQ.Were principles established, from which the German People's List originated, according to which not all inhabitants of the territory were to be Germans?\nA.Yes. The German People's List was based on the thoughts which Greiser had established for his Gau. In his Gau German and Polish people had lived together and side by side for centuries, and in the course of these centuries certain so-called floating sectors of the population had developed. I mean, looking at it from the point of view of descent. It was the purpose of the German People's List to make a clear distinction between Germans, and Poles, and Greiser established the principle that entry into the German People's List was to be permitted only to people who could prove German descent of at least 50 percent,\nQ.May I again remind you, witness, that in the case of long sentences you should not bring the verb in too late? You again did it just now.\nA.Yes, I know, it is a basic defect of the German language to construct too long sentences, I shall try.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Just commenting upon what counsel said, It does seem to this member of the Tribunal that the witness is devoting four-fifths of every answer to argument. The questions are sufficiently direct to bring forth a substantially direct answer. Generally the answer comes in direct, and then it is elaborated upon with a lengthy and unnecessary argument.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1575, "page_number": "1569", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "The witness must realize that, after all, the office of the attorney is to argue the case, and he should rely upon his attorney to argue the case. Each one of these issues cannot be argued on every question, or substantially every question. We are now well into the third day of direct testimony. All of this broadening of argument in answers is surely going to give to counsel for the Prosecution the right to ask the same privileges in respect to crossexamination. That should not be done. It will become necessary for the Tribunal, I assume, through the presiding judge, to make sure that even in cross-examination we shan't go into such a broad scope as commenting upon things which are purely argumentative.\nThis member of the Tribunal, I am sure, shares the same judgment as the other members, that we realize each defendant is under a heavy strain in trying to have his side of the case presented, and allowance is made for that, but there is a limit to patience and there is a limit to what should be permitted so far as it is argumentative and trespassing purely into the field reserved for the lawyer.\nThen again, as it appeals to me, this witness is the first of fourteen defendants to be heard. I am quite sure that many of these defendants will want to cover, by testimony, parts of testimony which this witness is covering. Therefore the answers should be brief, reasonably brief, and not argumentative. I have made notes of at least a half dozen questions, which contain not more than fifteen words, and yet the answers would run up to five and six and seven hundred words. There is no need for that.\nI would urge, in my individual view, speaking for the Tribunal, that the witness realize that he must rely upon his attorney eventually to argue this case. There is going to be a presentation of briefs, where many of these statements \n COURT I CASE VIII can be set forth in briefs; they will then be fresh in the minds of the judges reading them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1576, "page_number": "1570", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "And we are going to have the benefit of oral arguments, or arguments carefully prepared. Therefore, there is no occasion for the witness to feel, even though he is under a strain, that he must argue and explain everything.\nI have hesitated to make this statement; nevertheless, I feel it is necessary that I should express my view of it, and I ask the presiding justice to allow me the opportunity to say this. I have hesitated to interrupt because, after all, the presiding judge should be the one who should direct, that is the American custom. But, nevertheless, there must be some realization that too much time cannot be taken up by reason fo witnesses trying to argue their own case as they go along, and particularly in respect to each question.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I just make one comment in this respect? The trial here has been rendered exceedingly difficult by the very complicated documents, the plenitude of decrees, ordinances, records, etc., of which the Prosecution has submitted a small part, and of which we will have to submit a very considerable number. It is quite correct that it is exceedingly difficult to disentangle these matters verbally; they are much more likely to be solved in a satisfactory way in writing and they would then become quite clear.\nIf we had the possibility of submitting the utterances of the defendant in documentary evidence in the same way as the Prosecution has submitted the documents, then everything would be very simple. Now, however, in order to bring in statements under oath, we are forced to go through everything in detail and to have the statements made there to. I realize that this makes matters very difficult, but how are we to solve this difficulty?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1577, "page_number": "1571", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "JUDGEO'CONNELL: I also realize the difficulty of counsel in each instance, so do my colleagues, I am sure; but the point I wish to make is, first, that the witness must rely upon the lawyer to do the lawyer's part of the trial--that is, to argue the case. I realize also, as would any judge of any experience, that the average witness, whether it's here or in America, if given the privilege will always try to argue his case from the witness stand. Now the lawyer is engaged for that purpose; that is his taskl and also the lawyer should endeavor to make clear to the witness that it is the lawyer's side of the case, not the witness' side of the case, to argue. I have kept rather a close check on the questions and answers this morning, as I did yesterday -- but more so this morning-because after all we are using a great deal of time in answers which are argumentative. Now the Court, as I an quite sure experienced counsel well realize, weighs all these facts. They are entitled to draw the inferences which are warranted. It doesn't require in each instance the witness to argue on an answer; probably it isn't done intentionally. I can quite understand it's largely influenced by that heartfelt interest of one who is defending himself on a serious charge, but it can be done by cooperation of the lawyer's advising the witnesses--their clients -- to leave to the lawyer the lawyer's side of the case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In his People's List, Greiser determined that only people could be entered in this list who were German by 50 per cent, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Was it the tendency of this German People's List to keep foreign elements at a distance and to allow only those elements to be naturalized of whom one assumed that they had German blood, as they expressed it.\nA.The purpose of the German People's List was to eliminate from the German Population the fleating sector of the population -- this floating sector which always tended from more opportunism to the stronger Party.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1578, "page_number": "1572", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.The word \"floating sector\" is now to us. So does this word refer to areas with very mixed populations and to people who do not know or who do not want to know or change their idea to which of the two sectors they belong?\nA.We nay understand it in this way: In all border territories -I an recalling Alsace-Lorraine-there are such parts of the population; and in German you call these people the floating sector.\nQ.You said that in principal questions of naturalization were matters for the ministry of the Interior, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a document. I will hand it to you. It is Exhibit 93, Volume IV-A, page 1.\n(Document is offered the witness)\nThis is a decree of Himmler's regarding the examination and selection of the population in the incorporated eastern territories. That is a decree by Himmler which is by right a matter for the Reich Ministry of the Interior. How does this cone about?\nA.Himmler at that time was not yet Minister of the Interior. He believed that as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism he was in a position to decisively influence these matters.\nQ.Was it a decree?\nA.It was a decree -\nMR. SCHWENK:It's impossible for the Prosecution to see how the witness can testify about intentions on another person which he has done in several instances and which extend this examination to a great extent.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I call counsel's attention to the fact that one of the things the Tribunal tried to emphasize Monday morning in its statement was that we are not interested in conclusions, heresay, or opinions, and that time devoted to that feature of the testimony is simply wanted because the Court will not consider it.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1579, "page_number": "1573", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you at that time receive this document or did you see it here for the first tine?\nA.No, I know this document. It was also sent to the Plenipotentiaries for their information, but it was also a help for the Reich Minister of the Interior for publishing his basic decree.\nQ.Was it a decree of Himmler's directed for instance, to your agency of to any other agency which had to be acted upon?\nA.The document had no practical results. It was not binding, as it was out-dated by the decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior regarding the establishment of the German People's List.\nQ.Did at any time any difficulties arise due to the differences in carrying out nationalization in the Gaus and from the introduction of the German People's List?\nA.Yes, difficulties arose in nearly all spheres of life because the different handling of the naturalization regulations caused a strong fluctuation within the population.\nQ.Would you kindly give us examples of the different ways of handling this matter? I just told you that Greiser demanded that epople who were to be naturalized were to be at least 50 per cent German in their descent.\nA.In contrast to this, we have the Germanization policy in the Gau Danzig - West Prussia.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe that this historical background of the German People's List to that extent is immaterial. The extent to which the defendants are charged with the establishment of the DVL is clearly defined in the indictment and these documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is inclined to the view that the reason why it was established or what the results were from its being established makes very little difference. The question is whetheror not this defendant had anything to do with it, and that is the sole question.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1580, "page_number": "1574", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did it happen that those people fluctuated, as you say, that is to say they changed their place of residence because they were to be entered into the German People's List; or, on the contrary, did they want to have their names entered on the German People's List?\nA.The German People's List was established on a voluntary basis, and the fluctuation was caused by the fact that the people wished to have their names entered on this list.\nQ.At this first stage, did your agency have anything to do with the German People's List?\nA.No, the directive establishing the German People's List was issued by the Reich Ministry of Interior, and their offices had to supervise the carrying out of these directives.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal will recess for 155minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1581, "page_number": "1575", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "THS MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Before the recess we were discussing the DVL, the German People's List. Will you please tell us what the Supreme Classification Court actually was and whether your agency had anything to do with it?\nA.The Supreme Classification Court was established by an order of Himmler after it had been provided for in the decree by the Reich Minister of the Interior. Its establishment took place in agreement with the Reich Minister of the Interior. The office of the Supreme Classification Court was annexed to my agency.....\nQ.Did you agency to which the Supreme Classification Court had been annexed also, have anything to do with the lower agencies of the German People's List?\nA.The Supreme Classification Court actually was not included in the business procedure. The Supreme Classification Court was working as a supervisory agency where fundamental questions were to be decided on. The composition of the Supreme Court for Racial Classification consisted of various representatives of the different departments and the administration was with my agency.\nQ.With what agencies were the lower levels of the Supreme Classification Court located?\nA.The three levels of procedure of the German People's List were with the authorities of the internal administration, i.e. the Landraeten; had the branch office; the Government President had the district agencies; and the Reichsstatthalter or the Senior President had the central office.\nQ.When you subdivided into three parts, into the district, the provinces and the land, is this necessary in order to understand the German system of administration?\nA.It is the basis of the organization of the entire German administration. In the incorporated Eastern territories, the higher agencies \n were called Reich Gau and in Germany proper that corresponds to the term of province.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "THS MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1582, "page_number": "1576", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Can you give us any reason for the fact that the Supreme Court for Racial Classification, after three levels had been with the internal administration, that the fourth and highest level had been established in your office, and why it did not belong to the internal administration?\nA.It was one of Himmler's principle that he would not leave decisions in one special field to one individual department of the Reich and he did not want to have one administration have the sole right of decision in any fundamental question. Himmler himself at the time had not yet become Minister of the Interior. If he had held that position at the time then probably the Supreme Court of Racial Classification would have been incorporated into the Reich Minister of the Interior. The people who reported for the DVL, the German People's List, were to be considered as being Germans and the care of all Germans was to be carried out by my agency and this consideration also may have been a factor in placing the Supreme Court for Racial Classification in my agency.\nQ.Did the Supreme Court for Racial Classification meet frequently?\nA.No, under Himmler's Chairmanship I believe two different sessions took place, and in the second set-up, when I presided there were perhaps six terns.\nQ.Can you tell us just how many cases would be decided on in the course of such a session.\nA.The number night have been between 12 and 20.\nQ.Therefore, the entire number of cases should have amounted at the most from 100 to 200?\nA.I believe that the lower figure is more correct. However, I an unable to tell you that precisely.\nQ.I am now going to put to you Exhibit No. 98, Volume 4-A on page 41. You told us that the carrying out of the DVL, the German People's List, was the task of the Reich Minister of the Interior, with the exception \n of the agency of the Supreme Court for Racial Classification.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1583, "page_number": "1577", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "I am now going to put to you the tentative positions in the formal Exhibit 98. Were these handled, within the Reich Minister of the Interior or in your office?\nA. his Exhibit 98 cannot be considered, to be an executive regulation for the decree concerning the DVD. This letter provides for the collaboration of the agency of the Plenipotentiaries.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor I believe the document speaks for itself as so many other documents and if the defendant goes into a discussion of this document and the others I will have to do the same thing in the cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, neither one of you are going to do it. The document shows it for itself.\nDR. HAENSEL:I believe that I an asking questions which show that other things happened which are not mentioned in the document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are not asking that but-what appears in the documents. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You call these executive regulations. Will you please give us a description of what the legal nature was in this case which was expressed here. Was it a decree, were they executive regulations in contrast with what is directly shown in the document?\nA.This was directive ---\nMR. SCHWENK:I am sorry to object again. This is a legal question of administrative law. Whether it cam be considered as an executive decree or not is not for the witness to say.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think you are arguing out with the witness what you should argue out with the Tribunal. The witness doesn't pretend to be a lawyer as I understand it and if he did that is not the way to prove the law. BY DR. HAENSEL:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1584, "page_number": "1578", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Who was the expert who worked on this document?\nA.The expert was a Dr. Kirchert who worked under the supervision of Wirsich who was here as a witness. Actually Wirsich was at the head of the administration of the Supreme Court of Racial Classification.\nQ.Can you now give us a reason for the fact that an expert from your agency and not an expert from the Minister of the Interior was used in order to draft this document?\nA.The registration in the DVL and the thus ensuing naturalization whether it was a definite one or whether it was only temporarily and could he revoked, certainly had economic effects, which frequently led to differences with the resettlers who had been settled in the incorporated Eastern territories. Since all economic questions of the resettlers had been placed into the hands of my agency, my agency also had to settle these matters and make provisions for them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1585, "page_number": "1579", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWill you please tell us that your agency did not have anything to do with this matter on account of naturalization, the DVL, but because due to the naturalization differences arose with your resettlers?\nAAbove all my agency was confronted with the task of economics.\nQWill you please describe this conflict to us. How did it come about? From what you have told us so far it does not become evident. Did the inclusion in the German People's List, the DVL, have any influence on economic matters which then came into conflict with resettlers.\nAThe case could occur that resettlers ware temporarily assigned to these enterprises which originally had been owned by persons who first of all were considered as Polish Nationals but who later on by virtue of the DVL procedure were recognized as being Germans. There were, of course, conflicts of interest in these cases between the two parties in question and these differences, of course, had to be settled according to reasonable economic points of view and that was a task of my agency.\nQIn Document Book 4-B which you still have before you at this time you will find Exhibit 102, on page 54- of the German text. This is a decree of Himmler about the racial examination of persons which were to be included in Section 3. This is document book 4-A and not 4-B. Was this decree drafted by you or in your agency?\nAI cannot tall you that for certain but I don't think so. Probably this, decree in its present form originated directed with Himmler. The racial selection of human beings according to racial and hereditary biological principles fundamentally came under the competency of the Race and Settlement Main Office. In this exhibit 102 also shows and establishes the competency of that office.\nQIf you will take a look at the next exhibit in order to refresh your memory, this is Exhibit 103. The question of marriages between Germans and Poles is being dealt with here. Did your agency handle the discussion and settlements of these problems?\nAMy agency did only from time to time take part in the preliminary \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1586, "page_number": "1580", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "discussions. I can remember quite well that approval for marriages and mixed marriages and prohibited marriages were discussed and that negotiations took place about them between the individual agencies. A leading part in this respect as far as I can recall was played by the Party Chancery. I personally did not occupy myself with these questions because I consider regulations of that kind as being contrary to the laws of nature and therefore far impossible and wrong, and finally there were more important things for me to do in my field of work than just to consider the possibilities of matrimony which had to be observed in all the details, and to put them down in the form of regulations. This order itself only came to my knowledge here when I studied the files.\nQThe document has a final note, it is a note about a discussion. Did you personally participate in any other discussions about the problem of Intermarriages?\nAI cannot recall, having attended any. I don't think so. I don't believe that I personally was ever present at such a discussion.\nQThe German People's List, the details of which will become evident from the documents, and which I Shall now assume that they are well known to everybody, also contains a section 4. Did you have anything to do with section 4 of the DVL, the German People's List?\nAIn the general decree 12-C it has been mentioned that a special order------\nQMay I interrupt you at this time. You over-estimate our knowledge of the documents. The decree 12-C is a certain defined prospect for you. However, it would be recommendable here if you could record the exhibit; it is Exhibit No. 99, if I am not mistaken.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind, wait a minute. Don't prove by the witness what appears in the document itself. We can read. We will find out. Let him testify to any facts you want him to but not what appears in the document.\nDR. HAENSEL:It will only facilitate the case here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will handle that.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1587, "page_number": "1581", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nBY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWe were just discussing 12-C, and section 4 in that connection.\nAThe general section 12-C provided that a special order in connection with the work of section 4. in the German People's List be issued. This order was issued but it was not issued by my agency but through Himmler in his capacity as Chief of the German Police. The measures which were provided for in this order were not turned over for execution to my agency but they fell under the competency of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQWith your last statement you referred to Exhibit 108 of Document Book 4-A, on page 73, or did you think of something else?\nANo, I was referring to the decree which has become Exhibit 108 here and it was issued again under the letterhead which is liable to lead to wrong conclusions, on the letterhead \"The Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\", and this decree also was only sent to my agency for information.\nQYou told us that fundamentally these questions were to be handled by the Reich Minister of the Interior and the business management of the Supreme Court for Racial Classification had its Own agency. Now we also find the Reich Security Main Office involved and dealing with the DVL. Why was the Reich Security Main Office included here?\nAHimmler and Heydrich considered the people who were registered under section 4. to be politically unreliable and sometimes they even considered them to be dangerous elements and people who had a hostile attitude towards the state. They probably believed that these uncertain elements could only be supervised by the police authorities, and things of that sort.\nQTherefore, this was a part of the ethnic policy. Is this a technical term which was used at the time in the work of Himmler and the agencies which were subordinated to him? Did this play an important \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1588, "page_number": "1582", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "part there and how were you involved in that problem.\nAWhen we hear the term Volkstumspolitik, racial policy, we must also specially consider the racial policy with regard to alients. And when this section 4 of the DVL, the German People's List, included persons who were considered to be dangerous or politically unreliable, so they changed over this into the field of the policy in regard to aliens. This policy in regard to aliens or alien races unfortunately came under the influence of both Himmler and Heydrich and there it was a policy which came under the police, and was carried out with the big stick.\nMR. SCHWENK:Tour Honor, the witness was asked how he was or he or his office was involved in DVL, 4. I have not heard his answer as yet. There are two possibilities to answer this question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, never mind about the possibilities. That is the witness' job. I would suggest to the witness to come a little more directly to the answer to the question. These preliminaries and detailed facts about what other people did and why they did it really doesn't illustrate anything. Just get down to the answer as to what your connection with the agency was and the question directed to you. We are not concerned with other people now.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1589, "page_number": "1583", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQMay I help you to some extent. Would you say what was your attitude with regard to this policy or what did you do in practice? Were you for it or against it? What did you do against it or what did you say on behalf of it?\nAI personally opposed this kind of racial policy and I already expressed that towards Himmler early in 1940. In this case I supported myself on the experiences which I had gained during the first World War with the population of the areas which were under discussion here. At the time Himmler criticized my ideas very severely in a very sharp voice and he told me literally, and I quote, \"Just please don't worry about things which are none of your business.\"\nQI am not going to put Exhibit 114 to you, Document Book IV-B on Page 1. Will you please tell us just what sort of document this is or whether this document came to your knowledge at the time, and whether you were able to take any steps against compulsory measures against people who refused to have their names entered in the DVL?\nAExhibit 114 is a decree by Himmler-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, when you tell us the document number and exhibit number, that is sufficient. Do not describe the document further. You can say anything you want to about the document except what it contains.\nA (Continuing) It probably wasn't sent to my agency. However, the distribution list is not contained in the copy which I have in my hand here. Compulsory measures by Himmler against the people who refused to have themselves registered in the German People's List did dome to my knowledge, but I was not able to take any steps against the will of Himmler which had been clearly expressed in this case. After all, this was an order which fell outside of my field of competence. This order again came under the field of work of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQWere these compulsory measures against residents of the area which according to the Hitler decree of the 8 October, 1939 had been in \n Court No. I Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1590, "page_number": "1584", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "corporated?\nAThese were measures against people of German descent who refused to have their names entered in the German People's List and who lived in the areas which you have just mentioned.\nQWill you please take a look at the next document, that is, Exhibit 115, and at the same time will you look at Exhibit No. 117? Did you play any part in the drafting of these documents?\nAExhibit 115 only came to my knowledge here. This is a decree -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, never mind, witness. He simply asked you if you had anything to do with the drafting of it. That can be answered very simply.\nA(Continuing) I had nothing to do with the drafting of this decree, Exhibit 117 did not originate with my office either. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDid you in any way belong to the local Gestapo Agencies at Kattowitz?\nAI never have been a member of the police in any way and I never had anything to do with the police authorities at Kattowitz.\nQMay I remind you of the fact that the witness Goetz once spoke about a meeting at Kattowitz and he alleged that on the occasion of a Visit in other matters you became involved in a discussion which took place at Kattowitz. Could this have had anything to do with these exhibits?\nAIt is quite possible that on the occasion of a visit when I took an official trip to Kattowitz from the circle of collaborators of Senior President Brach, some questions were also discussed pertaining to the DVL, the German People's List. After all, the people who dealt with this matter always liked to take the opportunity, in line with a larger discussion, to also discussquestions which had arisen in other fields. Therefore, it is quite possible. However, I cannot recall anything of that sort having happened. I cannot recall that when I visited the Senior \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1591, "page_number": "1585", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "President, who at the same time was the chairman of the Central Office of the DVL for Upper Silesia, I discussed these matters with him.\nQThe Prosecution maintains the point of view that the German People's List had served the purpose and was to serve the purpose that the manpower of the Reich should be increased for military service. Is that correct?\nAThis concept already becomes absurd by the fact that the German People's List towards the end of the year 1940 was laid down in its main points and that it was introduced in March 1941. At that time, Germany did not have any requirements of additional men for military service, on the contrary, at that time a large number of German divisions were deactivated. And I also know that at that period of time my industrial friends were worried about just how they would be able to reconvert their enterprises to peace-time production because armament orders had been withdrawn and rescinded. That is why I believe that the German People's List could not have been based on the idea that a new recruiting reservoir was to be established.\nQWere the people who came under section 4 to be conscripted for military service at all?\nAAll people who came under section 4 could not be conscripted for military service.\nQAnd how was it with section 3?\nAThe people who were included in section 3 came under the general conscription in Germany.\nQCould one gain the idea that the ethnic Germans who had been included in section 3 would be made to fight against their old homelands?\nAI don't think so because, first of all, the war wirh Poland was over and no combat actions took place against Poland any more and, after all, these people had been formerly Polish nationals. Furthermore, these people volunteered for the DVL and, therefore, nobody could be forced to fight against their former homeland.\nQIn Document Book IV-A please take a look at Document 104 on \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1592, "page_number": "1586", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Page 61. Can you tell me now, did you know this document or did you see it here for the first time?\nADid you say Exhibit 104?\nQYes, Exhibit 104, on Page 61 of Document Book IV-A of the German text.\nAI know the document and I signed it.\nQDid you dictate it or was it perhaps submitted to you for your signature? Could you recall just what the situation was?\nAThe questions pertaining to military service and conscription problems were handled by the Legal Department and by Office 1. In this case it was a matter which was handed by the Legal Department.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1593, "page_number": "1587", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Do you want to make any explanation or comment with regard to the document or do you think that if the document actually will speaks for itself. Do you want to say something in this connection?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, whether he thinks so or not, we do. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Do you know anything about a German People's List within the Government General, because up to now you have only referred to the Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nA.As far as I know there was no German People's List at all in the Government General. There was only a registration drive of all people of German, descent, I don't know any details about this, and it was impossible for me to have any influence on the developments and happenings within the Government General. I was able to know of some things which happened there as a result of these documents and that was a direct correspondence between Himmler and Greiser and the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Government General, Krueger,. This correspondence is interesting because it is proof of the fact that a direct correspondence took place in all fundamental questions between the persons whom I have mentioned here without my agency obtaining any knowledge of this correspondence and that, furthermore, ethnic questions were dealt with in different ways.\nQ.How is it with the extension of the German People's List to the Ukraine? Do you know anything about that? In order to help your memory I am now going to put to you Exhibit No. 124. It is in Document Book IV-B on page 38.\nA.I don't have IV-B: I only have IV-A.\nQ.On page 38.\nA.Oh, yes, the Ukraine. Yes. Himmler issued a decree to the effect that in the Ukraine the German People's List procedure was also to be carried out in the Ukraine. However, I cannot recall even if I am included in the distribution list here that I ever saw this decree in 1942. I could \n not have done anything for it or against it either because these measures were put into effect within the field of work of the Reich Ministry for the occupied territories Rosenberg:", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1594, "page_number": "1588", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "and I did not have any competency in these fields.\nQ.Did you in your agency gain knowledge of any correspondence which took place between various other agencies with regard to the so-called Schwedendoerfer, the Swedish villages?\nA.I can recall that I heard this by way of discussion. Here we are concerned with the expert opinion of various agencies submitted to the Reich Ministry for the East, as to whether the so-called Schwedendoerfer, Swedish villages were to be considered as being German settlements or not.\nQ.Here these Swedish villages situated within the Incorporated Eastern Territories or were they situated elsewhere?\nA. they certainly were not situated in the Incorporated Eastern territories, they could only have been located somewhere in the Ukraine because, after all, they were brought into connection with the DVL procedure in that area.\nQ.Yesterday you referred to the Reich Commissar's office, Ostland, and that again is something different from the Ukraine. Did you as Staff Main Office do anything there for the preparation or introduction of the German. People's List?\nA.As far as I know there was no German People's List in the Reich Commissar's district Ostland. I believe that a registration drive took place there for all people of German descent similar to the one which took place in the Government General. There was no connection between these measures and my agency, as far as I know.\nQ.The Prosecution spoke about re-Germanization procedures in northern France and they presented an Exhibit on two different occasions: once in IV-B and once in Document Book VI-B. In IV-B it is on page 49 of the German text, and here your agency has been mentioned. Can you tell us whether you had any initiative in this case or just why you were mentioned \n in this respect?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1595, "page_number": "1589", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "It is on page 49 of Document Book IV-B. It is Exhibit No. 131.\nA.The initiative for the registration measures of the racial Germans who were living in Northern France originated with the military commander. The execution, as far as I know, was put into the hands exclusively of the Vomi and the EWZ. My agency probably only participated in a preparatory discussion of the experts without assuming any official tasks.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the execution itself afterwards?\nA.I had nothing to do with the execution of this registration drive. The purpose and the results -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he didn't ask you the purpose. He just asked you if you had anything to do with it and you answered that. You have answered his full question. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You want to say that you had nothing to do with it. The answer is no?\nA.Well, unfortunately the question cannot be answered simply with yes or no. In the case of ail these measures you have to look at the procedure and the individual fields of assignments. A procedure is carried out, it can also be concluded from the purely legal angle, but from the results of the procedure then we have other measures which then have to be dealt with by some other agency. And that is exactly what applies in this case was. If you ask me, did you have anything to do with the procedure, then, according to the truth, I must say no. But whenever we look at the results and the consequences of this procedure, then we will find that there was some connection with my agency and that is what I wanted to describe here briefly.\nQ.May I, In order to refresh your memory, show you Exhibit 133? At the same time I ask that you include this in what you are just about to say:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1596, "page_number": "1590", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "This is in Document Book IV on page 57 and the following.\nA.By virtue of this drive which was carried out in Northern France, a few ethnic Germans were repatriated from France on a voluntary basis and sent back to Germany. I can recall a few individual cases. In their entirety only very few families could have been concerned in this case. Only for those Germans who actually were repatriated from France did my agency interfere and again it had to take care of then and had to secure their livelihood.\nQ.From your memory can you still tell us whether these people were French nationals, the people who were concerned in the entire drive, were they ethnic Germans who had been Frenchmen as far as their nationality was concerned?\nA.I don't know that. I am unable to tell you that.\nQ.We now come to the end of our discussion of the DVL. And I am now coming to the so-called re-Germanization procedure. The Prosecution has charged you that even outside the scope of the German People's List which we have just discussed also were foreigners taken for labor to Germany so that they later on could be re-Germanized. Were people sent to Germany for the sole purpose of labor assignment by you? Were you concerned in this?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1597, "page_number": "1591", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.I can answer this question with a clear no, although in this case I should also clarify the matter by making a few brief explanations.\nQ.Can you tell us in this connection, did the deportation of people to Germany for purposes of labor allocation fall under your field of work? I am referring to foreigners here.\nA.The deportation of foreign nationals into the Reich has unfavorable repercussions with regard to the field of work of my agency. It was our task to settle the resettlers, and also the \"A\" cases in Germany proper. As a result of bringing a large number of foreign workers into Germany through the plenipotentiary for labor allocation, our attempts were very severely hampered, I don't want to go into any further details here, in view of the short time which I have at my disposal.\nQ.In order to make the matter more comprehensible to us, can you tell us the following: There was a competition between various agencies and which had different aims. Your agency in this respect, as I understood you to say, was thinking of those people who were at least fifty percent of German descent; and the other agencies were interested in people who were not ethnic Germans in that sense but still foreigners; is that correct?\nA.The German People's List, that is to say persons who were at least fifty per cent of German descent can be left out of these considerations. From the purely economic point of view the situation was such: the German industry Which needed workers preferred to employ pronounced foreign elements who had been brought into Germany through the organization of the plenipotentiary for labor allocation to our resettlers, because accommodation had to be secured \n COURT I CASE VIII for our resettlers, that was a condition Sine qua von.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1598, "page_number": "1592", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "The plants in a manuever which corresponded to those of other Germans and the enterprises had to take over the care for the resettlers. The more foreign workers there were at their disposal, the less readiness there was on the part of the industry to accept workers from the ranks of our resettlers.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, as I understood the question of Defense Counsel put to the witness sometime ago was concerning the Germanization of persons to be Germanized. The witness is now discussing resettlers.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think the answer of the witness was directly in response to the question. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Please explain to us in one sentence just what people were concerned by the re-Germanization procedure with regard to their descent?\nA.The re-Germanization procedure included all these people who were of German descent up to fifty per cent. In the case of people where these fifty per cent racial origin could not be clearly proven, but where the German descent became evident from other factors which I cannot recall in all their details, that is to say if they had shown German characteristics.\nQ.And who had initial influence on their re-Germanization procedure?\nA.The initiative for the execution of that measure was without any doubt with Himmler himself.\nQ.You said that it was with Himmler himself. Are these racial ideologies not much older then Himmler or National Socialsim?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not believe that history will help us very much in this trial.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1599, "page_number": "1593", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.The Prosecution has presented Exhibit 133 here in Document Book IV-C, on page 1. I am now going to hand you the document book, and I ask you to comment on this document. When did you see this document for the first time; and, what is your comment on it?\nA.I don't want to go into the contents of this document. I only want to say that on pages one to three, a preface has been reproduced which at the time was written by Dr. Faehnrich, the chief of my Main Department I. I cannot consider this preface to be an official statement from any official source, It originated in the document \"Der Menscheneinsatz\", the \"Assignment of Human Beings.\" I myself did not understand anything about these things, and I still do not understand anything about them so that I had to let Dr. Faehnrich have his way in that field, especially since he published this book on his own responsibility.\nQ.The document, I understood you to say, contains on the same paper and with the same letters two completely different things. First of all here we have a private piece of literature and a prefact of a book; and, further more, we have a decree of Himmler; is that correct?\nA.That is quite correct. The Himmler decree begins at the bottom of page 3, under the heading Decree No. 17-II.\nQ.Can you tell us approximately what time these Faehnrich ideas have been laid down?\nA.Faehnrich had these ideas probably when he issued the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz\", which must have been probably toward the end of the year 1940, that is the time when he compiled the material for this book.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1600, "page_number": "1594", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Was this order 17-II which you have before you now, and which you mentioned, was this the first step in this field of re-Germanization?\nA.No, that certainly was not the case. I hesitate to quote a few words from the contents of this decree, but it is stated there; \"I have therefore ordered\", as proof of the fact that already previously similar measures must have been ordered before this Order 17-II appeared.\nQ.However, you probably can tell us for certain whether prior to the issuing of this Decree 17-II you have received any corresponding directives from Himmler in this respect, or, your agency; or, is it possible that Himmler could have given these instructions to other agencies and, if so, to which agency?\nA.Certainly before this time no directives or instructions were given either to me or to my agency. I am of the opinion, however, that the first steps of Himmler were within the field of work of the Race and Settlement Main Office. That agency must have received corresponding directives already before that.\nQ.In order to refresh your memory, I ask you to take a look at Exhibits 140 and 141, in Document Book IV-C, and they are located on page 9 of the German text; from page 9 to 11 in Book IV-C.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 26 November 1947.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1601, "page_number": "1595", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 26 November 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness.\nULRICH GREIFELT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.We were talking about the decree 17-II, do you have any clues for the fact that this did not represent the first steps in the matter of the Germanization?\nA.I have looked at a few documents which show that already in the spring of 1940 preparatory work was being done.\nQ.I now submit to you Exhibits 140 and 141, Book IV-C, pages 9 to 11.\nA.These are the documents which I was thinking of just now. These are directives for the racial examination of those people who were eligible for re-Germanization. The first measures in this field took place in March, 1940.\nQ.Who selected the people, the families, who were chosen for re-Germanization? Did you choose these people?\nA.No, the selection was carried out by the field office Lodz, of RuSHA, in cooperation with the UWZ.\nQ.Do you know the details of the procedure?\nA.No, I do not know the details; I never visited the field office and I only now got to know the forms which were used from the documents.\nQ.At that time was there some kind of confusion among the offices entrusted with this work? Would you kindly look at page 19, Book IV-C. Do you know the author of this document?\nA.I do not know the author of this document; concerning the variety of the procedure adopted, some confusion must have arisen among the offices charged with its execution.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1602, "page_number": "1596", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Now what did the agencies concerned confuse in this instance?\nA.It happened auite easily that the procedure of the German People's List and the procedure adopted for the re-Germanization were confused.\nQ.And what was the basis for these mistakes; what did the agencies fail to see?\nA.The reason was that the groups of people concerned were two quite different groups.\nQ.Did you have a perfect survey of the details of this reGermanization procedure at that time, and did you know of the details?\nA.No. My office did not deal with the re-Germanization measures, and I personally did not know of any of the details until the end.\nQ.But your agency had also to deal with the re-Germanization measures?\nA.The same is true with regard to the fact that the procedure itself took place without cooperation from my office, and that after the examination procedure had been concluded my office was used for the taking care of these people.\nQ.Would you like to have a look at Exhibit 143, page 66 of Book IV-C; did you at that time know of the document of July, 1940, or, was there any reason for you to concern yourself with it?\nA.The document is a directive which emanated from my office regarding the welfare measures to be carried out.\nQ.Can you tell us why you, although the re-Germanization itself was not one of the matters which you took care of, your office was brought into contact with the channels dealing with re-Germanization; what were the channels; perhaps you would like to look at page 69 and page 70 of this volume, where competency is dealt with.\nA.For reasons of economy of work we thought that we would not set up two parallel organizations charged with the welfare of these people. The welfare of the resettlers had in any case to be carried out and for \n this reason the people eligible for re-Germanization were also taken care of under this procedure.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1603, "page_number": "1597", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "The work of my central agency consisted in suppling the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar with directives and to interpolate other Reich agencies in this welfare work.\nQ.May I ask you to consult page 50 of this volume. On page 50 again we find a distribution of tasks, the same as we find it on page 70, and if one just glances at it, we might think that this schedule was the same. But there is one essential difference which concerns the Main Staff Office. On page 50 the Main Staff Office is mentioned and on page 70 it is not mentioned.\nA.This difference is the result of a simplification measure. The people eligible for re-Germanization from Lodz were assigned directly to their places of accomodation.\nQ.Could you tell us how this was handled in practice, was it as it is represented by page 70, or by page 50 rather?\nA.Practice is represented by page 70, that is by the simplified procedure.\nQ.Do I understand you correctly, that then the assignment of people eligible for re-Germanization into Germany proper took place via the SS Administrative Offices through the labor office?\nA.I believe it was like this; I cannot remember the details.\nQ.Do you still remember whether the re-Germanization measures were carried out on a voluntary basis?\nA.I was always told that only such persons would be dealt with who had voluntarily submitted their names.\nQ.Do you know how these people were treated when they came to Germany; regarding their pay, their ration coupons, etc.; perhaps you would like to refer to this exhibit on page 66, page 67 at the bottom especially.\nA.It was like this. The people eligible for Germanization were treated in exactly the same manner as the Germans, the German laborers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1604, "page_number": "1598", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "They had additional care regarding accomadations. If they were working in agricultural enterprises they got a certain allotment, and especially we saw to it by making various presentations to the Ministry of Economics that these people were provided with the necessary clothing, furniture, etc.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1605, "page_number": "1599", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Their pay was the same as that of German workers.\nQ.Do you know anything regarding their living accommodations?\nA.Before a family eligible for re -Germanization was assigned to any special work, we had to be sure of suitable living accomodations.\nQ.Do you remember that six hundred marks were paid?\nA.The six hundred marks was an arrangement which was valid for those persons in the Reich who had decided to move from a town, that is, from industrial work, back to agricultural work. These people received the six hundred marks in order to adapt themselves to agricultural conditions. This arrangement was also valid for the people eligible for re-Germanization, and it could be applied to all of them, and for those as well who actually originated from the land.\nQ.After what you saw regarding re-Germanization, did you have any occasion to make objections to this procedure for reasons of humanity?\nA.I have never heard complaints from persons dealt with in this procedure. The measures taken represented the best possible solution for a person during the war as regards economic and social conditions.\nQ.From your industrial experience in Germany, before this time, before the war, do you know of any economic occurrences which were affected by the invasion of a bulk of Eastern workers into the area of Germany?\nA.I know of the so-called invasion of laborers into the territories under discussion here from the time after the first world war when German labor was, so to speak, displaced. The industries in Berlin especially, in which I was active as a plant manager, experienced this pressure from the East. And from times even further back, I know that even before the first World War labor always moved from East to West.\nQ.Would you lkie to look at Exhibit 154, at page 92 of Volume \n IV-C? Do you have any ideas regarding the figures which would be be actually experienced during the re-Germanization measures?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1606, "page_number": "1600", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "How many people do you think were re-Germanized?\nA.I believe the number from the Eastern Territories was about 20,000 people. It may also have been 22,000. The document you have mentioned originates from former times; this does not represent the final figures.\nQ.Do you believe that the people mentioned on the 31st of July 1942, 20,000 -- that is, among whom there were only 13,000 Poles--do you believe that this figure was extensively surpassed?\nA.I estimate the number of people from the Polish territories to be 20,000 to 22,000. This represents about five thousand families.\nQ.According to your experience as to the figures of Poles seeking work in Germany in pre-war times, were these figures smaller or larger if distributed over five to ten years?\nA.I cannot have any clear idea, after so many years, but I believe that in times of boom--which, unhappily, we did not have in Germany before the war--there would have been even more people coming from the East.\nQ.Do you think the biological force or strength of the Polish people was weakened by such a drive towards the West?\nA.I don't believe--\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's not conduct a case in biology. This is a courthouse, not a schoolroom.\nGo ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ? Would you please look again at page 17 of Volume IV-C, regarding the Germanization measures? Did you know any of the booklets or publications on re-Germanization measures which are given here in the excerpt, or did you learn of those here?\nA.Up until now I did not know this booklet. This is apparently \n the work of a private individual.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1607, "page_number": "1601", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Here many booklets of this kind written in Germany, or was this a subject not of general interest, but only for specialists?\nA.I never heard that the public took any interest in this problem\nQ.When did you hear for the first time of the existence of national groups of Slozaks and Gorale? I refer you to page 75 of IVC, Exhibit 140 to refresh your memory.\nA.I certainly learned of the existence of such splinter groups, for the first time only after the beginning of the war; that is, in September 1939 I may have heard this name once.\nQ.Who signed this document? The signature is not given. It only says \"Signed: By order.\" Where does this document come from?\nA.Without doubt, the document originates from my agency. The author is a certain Dr. Faehnrich.\nQ.Did your office take care of these Slozaks and Gorales? Or, what prompted Faehnrich to take an interest in them? Is he still alive?\nA.From 1939 until, I believe, the middle of 1941, Faehnrich was the head of my Main Department I. I discharged him. I believe he was killed in the war shortly before the collapse, as an officer of the reserve, as I have heard during my imprisonment. As to your question concerning how Faehnrich was prompted to deal with these measures in regard to Gorales and Slozaks, I may answer by saying that he received corresponding directives from Himmler personally.\nQ.Did he also receive directives from you as well, or did you show no interest in these matters?\nA.This is a unique incident. I believe no one today knows exactly what the Slozaks and Gorales are from the ethnic point of view. I never did concern myself with these problems since they were looked upon as alien ethnic groups and therefore fell with the competency of the Reich Security Main Offive.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1608, "page_number": "1602", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.According to your knowledge, did dealing with these groups exceed pure theory? Did you actively take any steps?\nA.I do not know of any measures against Slozaks or Gorales, and I believe the Huzules also belonged to that group. I do not know of any such measures.\nQ.Did your associates concern themselves with this, or did they reject the whole thing as something which could not be taken seriously but were mere racial theories?\nA.I only know of these things from this one incident, and I don't believe that anybody concerned themselves with this measure. There may have been individuals especially interested who looked at it from the point of view of private studies, but so far as I know nothing happened officially.\nQ.Would you kindly look at Exhibit 147? That is on page 78, a few pages further on. In our book it says, under \"signature\", \"Signed: Illegible.\" It may be of interest to ascertain whether you know this signature. Do you know who wrote this?\nA.This letter also originates from my agency. As to who wrote it, I cannot, unfortunately, tell from this document. Here again we are dealing with a unique occurrence of which I had no knowledge until this document was submitted. The person who dealt with it was an Oberregierungsrat, Dr. Behtke, who was delegated to my agency from the Reich Ministry of Labor.\nQ.Are you yourself, or is your agency, involved in the contents of this letter?\nA.I myself had nothing to do with it. I have the impression that this represents work which was really destined for the Reich Labor Ministry by Dr. Behtke, who originally came from that Ministry. I don't think my office caused any action to be taken in this matter.\nQ.Your agency again appears in connection with re-Germanization measures, and we have to discuss this now in detail. I may recall to \n you the prohibition of sexual intercourse.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1609, "page_number": "1603", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Since we don't want to quote the documents, would you kindly tell us briefly what your agency did in this connection?\nA.People eligible for re-Germanization could also be dealt with in the procedure with regard to prohibited sexual intercourse. In the police procedure, which was carried out by the Reich Security Main Office, people guilty in this respect could be exempted from punishment on the basis of an expert opinion from the RuSHA, These persons then were again called eligible for Germanization.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe this matter has been throughly discussed this morning in connection with Camp Hintze.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think so, Dr. Haensel, you have covered it already. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.What we are now coming to is this. According to what rules and regulations did the procedure then take its course?\nA.People exempted from punishment were treated in the same manner as people eligible for Germanization. That is, they fell under the care of my agency,\nQ.I submit to you Exhibit 156 in Volume IV-D, at page 1. Glancing through this document, could one arrive at the erroneous opinion that your agency took part in the planning and carrying out of an evacuation?\nA.No, this is just a repetition or a restatement of a directive given by Himmler. Subsequent to the directive given by Himmler, the welfare measures were then ordered by my agency.\nQ.Can you tell us whether the subject which is now being dealt with-that is, the domestic workers--was a special hobby horse of Himmler's?\nA.From the very beginning Himmler was interested in the procurement of domestic workers for German households with many children.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1610, "page_number": "1604", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Can you tell us whether this was an invention of Himmler's to bring domestic workers from the East into Germany, or do you have any personal recollection of similar occurrences even from the time of your childhood?\nA.The former German territories which later were Polish---that is, the Provinces of West Prussia and Posen--were the reservoir for the bulk of domestic workers even before the first World War.\nQ.Do you still recall what the figures were of domestic workers, with which Himmler concerned himself? Will you kindly look at Exhibit 159, at page 16?\nA.I don't believe the figures tally. In my book it is Exhibit 161, at page 16,\nQ.Yes, you are right.\nA.The number of girls who came to Germany as domestic workers was within certain limits until the end of 1941. It was 550, and later statistics mention the figure of 1700, if I am correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. Will the attorney from whom the guard took away the notes a few minutes ago please come to the Bench?\n(The attorney approached the Bench.)\nThe Tribunal sees no reason why the defendants should not pass notes to their attorneys if they desire to do so. To nobody else, but they can pass notes to their attorneys.\nTo ahead.\nTHE GUARD:We had orders that no letters were to be passed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am giving the orders in this courtroom.\nGo ahead.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I continue?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.If you now look at Himmler's directive on page 10 of the document book, will you tell us whether this ceremonious directive \n refers to the domestic workers, to these 550 girls, or does this apply to quite a different complex which we cannot survey at this moment?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE GUARD" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1611, "page_number": "1605", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.This is Himmler's decree regarding the question of domestic workers. Previous to that, individual operations took place regarding workers by way of formal assignment of labor. Here again we must remember that in the Incorporated Eastern Territories the legal labor administration was active and tried to establish certain balances between the labor forces available.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1612, "page_number": "1606", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Would you refresh your memory by looking at Volume IV-D, Page 21?\nA.These are the statistics which I recalled sometime ago when I said that at a later date the figure of the domestic workers used in Germany had become larger, but I overestimated this number. This statistical table shows the figure of 1127 domestic workers.\nQ.Did you ever receive any complaints from these domestic workers concerning their treatment?\nA.Dr. Haensel, I did not concern myself with the procurement of domestic workers. I had no personal contact with the domestic workers, officially I did not receive any complaints.\nQ.Would you kindly turn the page and you will find Exhibit 163 on Page 22 of Folume IV-D. Did you ever receive directives from Himmler that Poles eligible for Germanization should be robbed of their children? Do you know this document?\nA.When I saw this document in the document books for the first time I was shocked that my name was brought in contact with such a measure. I must decisively reject it from my inner conviction that I ever received such a directive. It would conflict with all my views regarding human life. Any person who is respecting death as we learned to do during war has, as a Christian, a much higher respect for the young growing life.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I believe it is sufficient if the witness states that he denies the correctness of the document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think this is very argumentative in its nature. State the facts.\nTHE WITNESS:I did not know this letter. I never received such a directive and never gave such directives. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you submit a decree to Himmler according to which Poles eligible for Germanization and who complained were to be robbed of their children?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "MR. SCHWENK", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1613, "page_number": "1607", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.I have never submitted such a decree.\nQ.If you now look at Exhibit 165 in the same volume -\nA.May I ask you for the number of the page?\nQ.Page 27. The incident which I am now questioning you on is an incident connected with people from Lublin who were to be Germanized. Do you know it? Do you know the person who signed it?\nA.I have endeavored to put some chronological order into the whole incident. This is a measure of the Reich Security Main Office on the strength of a report of the police and SS leader in Lublin, Globocnik by name.\nQ.Mr. Greifelt, will you tell us this now: are you referring to the first letter? You're talking now about putting something into order, that did you put into order?\nA.The number of exhibits dealing with the same question -- or rather different pages dealing with the same question.\nQ.Of the same exhibit?\nA.Yes, of the same exhibit.\nQ.Would you kindly separate the pages so that your statement gets quite clearly into the record?\nA.Page 37 and page 38 represent the initial stage of the incident.\nQ.Do you know who Globocnik is who is mentioned on Page 37 as the addressee?\nA.That is the SS and Police Leader in Lublin.\nQ.Did you have official contacts with him?\nA.No, no direct contacts. He was the subordinate of the deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Government General by name of Krueger.\nQ.All right. That is the initial stage of the incident. The whole matter extended over a period of two years. My agency had nothing to do with it except for the fact that two letters or decisions from Himmler personally were also sent to my agency for purpose of information.\nI probably did not see any of this correspondence and there was \n no necessity for us to cause any action to be taken in this respect.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1614, "page_number": "1608", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.You're talking of directives by Himmler. From a mail point of view, who sent these directives? Were they sent from his office in the Albrechtstrasse or where do you think they came from?\nA.No, they were dispatched from field headquarters as is shown by the letter head. Yes, that is right, both of them came from the field headquarters.\nQ.And why do you think they were received by your agency?\nA.I draw my conclusion from the distribution list at the end of this letter, on Page 29, and I also conclude this from the distribution list on the other letter -- at the top of that letter, on Page 34.\nQ.And now can you tell us under oath that these letters which were sent to your agency according to the distribution list were also received by your agency?\nA.I cannot, of course, do that because I do not remember having seen these letters.\nQ.Did you take any action in this matter or did you hear anything about it except for these letters?\nA.This was outside of any competency of my person or of my agency.\nQ.Do you know the procedure adopted for the racial examination of people eligible for re-Germanization?\nA.No, the procedure is not known to me.\nQ.Do you now know it?\nA.Even today I have no clear picture of that actually did take place. From the documents I only saw that index cards and registration forms were filled in with regard to the persons concerned, but I am not in a position to evaluate such a card index and to draw any conclusions from it.\nQ.Would you kindly look at Exhibit 186, page 3, in Volume IV-D. when did you see this letter for the first time?\nA.I only know of this incident from the documents submitted here.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1615, "page_number": "1609", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Do you know of any other index cards which have been filled in in great number from your former practice -- Index cards which are enclosed with this document?\nA.I do not know these cards and never saw them at any date prior to that?\nQ.Would you like to look at the subsequent exhibit, Exhibit 167? Did you gain knowledge of this incident? Will you have to look at the whole document? May I help you? On page 56, that Main Staff Office is mentioned.\nA.I only learned of this incident during the course of these proceedings here. This is an individual case regarding the re-Germanization of a Pole fromthe Warthegau. The decision in this individual case, which was made by my agency is wrong, and if this incident had been submitted to me I would not have approved this decision and would not have allowed it to go out. I cannot go into the details of the contents of this document, but as regards the form as well as the factual contents, it has to be condemned.\nQ.I believe that it is admissible if you clearly express your opinion which, as you say, deviates from the documents, because the document doesn't tell me what your opinion is.\nA.I believe in any case that it is wrong to punish a person who openly declares his membership to his ethnic group.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, the witness has been asked several times what he thinks today about events in the past. I don't thinks that those questions are pertinent to the case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal on Monday morning, gain by Judge O'Connell today, by myself three or four times, tried to make it clear that opinions, conclusions, and things of that sort will not unnecessarily encumbering the record when the Tribunal will not consider it. Go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1616, "page_number": "1610", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:May I have a brief intermission in order to consider this matter?\nDR.HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm): Mr. President, may I utilize this interval in order to show the Tribunal what were the papers the guard took away from me a little while ago? These were three letters addressed to me ...\nTHE PRESIDENT:We are not interested in that. You have the right to pass the notes. The Court doesn't require that. Go ahead with the examination of this witness. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWould you kindly look at Exhibit 180, on Page 109 in Document Book IV-D? Did you gain knowledge of this document at the time? Did you receive it?\nAI do not know this letter nor is it addressed to me. It has nothing to do with my work and probably found its way into the documents here because a Plenipotentiary for the Reich Youth Leadership appears at the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQDid you have anything to do officially with such an agency?\nAThe Reich Youth Leadership had made an agreement with Himmler that it was to act as a kind of liaison man for the whole field of work of the Reich Sommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. This liaison man did not only maintain connection with my agency but also with the VOM and the other agencies on the same level of the Reich Commissar. The man that is the liaison officer merely had been furnished with one room in my office.\nQWould you kindly look at Page 120 of Book IV-D, there you will find a number of charts. Did you at any time \n know of this card index work or did your agency know of it?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1617, "page_number": "1611", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "ANo, I never had anything to do with the card index files of such a nature. I have seen them here for the first time.\nQIf you look at Page 138, Exhibit 93. Subsequent to a directive 17, were there further decrees issued regarding Germanization, and by whom? Would you kindly tell us whether you signed this letter?\nAThis document bears my signature. This is here a matter of welfare measures for people eligible for Germanization and it refers especially to the fact that if the head of the family is punishable for offenses, the family shall get relief in Germany.\nQIs this work of a less favorable nature than that usually carried out by German workers?\nADo you mean the people eligible for Germanization?\nQYes. I am referring to people eligible for Germanization who had to work in Germany according to Regulation 72, and the following.\nANo, the conditions of work followed, on principle, the regulations developed for people living in the Reich. One might almost say a person eligible for Germanization was better off in this respect; namely, that he was always able to be supported by official welfare agencies.\nQIf you look at Exhibit 196, Page 147 of Document Book IV-D, will you kindly tell us whether you signed this document?\nAOn Page 147, on the top, there is a directive signed by me which also has to do with welfare work.\nQDid you also issue the following directives? If you turn the page there are other signatures. Are any of \n these signature your own signature?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1618, "page_number": "1612", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "ACould you kindly give me the page again?\nQPage 147. There apparently is a whole sequence of different ordinances which probably are not all of the same nature.\nAThe basic ordinance is, as usual, signed by Himmler on Page 149, and the executive regulations are signed by me. My signature is to be found on Page 151.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, I see no necessity to ask the witness if he signed documents when his name appears on them, unless you want to deny that he signed them.\nDR. HAENSEL:It might be that his name was incorrectly there.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if you want to question any of them, that is all right; but where there is no dispute about it, I don't see why the question should be as to whether he actually signed them, unless ther is something to the contrary.\nDR. HAENSEL:I believe that in the case of a document at least the signature must be recognized or it must be disputed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:These documents are already in evidence unless you want to question them.\nDR. HAENSEL:I have not yet made any statements regarding the signatures.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, unless it's disputed, if you concede that he signed the document don't ask him if he signed it; if you don't concede it, them you are permitted to ask him questions regarding it. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDid you ever issue an ordinance regarding the \n deportation of alien elements from south Corinthia?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1619, "page_number": "1613", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "This is Document Book V-E. In order to refresh you memory, I submit to you Exhibit 330, Page 167 -- the same document we find as Exhibit 174 in Document Book IV, page 82. What is the origin of this document and have you issued it?\nAThis is the reproduction of directives which were issued by Himmler personally and that can be shown from the document.\nQDid you make any suggestions to Himmler regarding this document?\nAThis is an arrangement between Himmler and the competent chief of the civil administration.\nQCan you remember what your part was later on in this arrangement, and why we find your signature here?\nAI cannot clearly recollect that, but like in many cases it was probably like this: I probably received these ordinance in order to make them public.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1620, "page_number": "1614", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.With this I conclude the Germanization complex. The Prosecution charges that you, by way of evacuation and deportation contributed to the conscription of non-Germans into the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. Will you tell us now whether this motive played any role as far as your person was concerned in this whole complex?\nA.Resettlement has nothing to do with the question of conscription into the armed forces.\nQ.Did you not, on the contrary, have resettlers exempted from conscription or have them favorably treated?\nA.Yes, that is correct. That happened repeatedly. In the beginning they were completely exempted from conscription.\nQ.I now submit Exhibit 336, Page 6, Volume VI-A in order to refresh your recollection. Will you kindly tell me how resettlers were treated in a more favorable manner as compared with other people liable for conscription? Did you participate in the drafting of this ordinance of the OKH?\nA.The ordinance was written not only with our cooperation but also with the help of Vomi and my agency.\nQ.Did it first of all contain a complete exemption from conscription?\nA.As far as I remember, resettlers were far the time being completely exempted from conscription.\nQ.In spite of that did many resettlers volunteer for conscription?\nA.That varied. That depended on the groups of resettlers. I believe that many of the Baltic resettlers volunteered for the Wehrmacht and also many members of the South Trolian group; whereas, in the group of Gotschee Germans only a small number volunteered for service.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1621, "page_number": "1615", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Was voluntary enlistment on such a scale that in order to avoid interference with the whole resettlement process these measures with regard to volunteering had to be announced?\nA.I believe I remember that, especially to the intention to use large number of interpreters from the resettler groups for the Wehrmacht. The interests of the Wehrmacht were in conflict with our intentions to settle these people and we agreed that if a larger number of interpreters was to be picked out from these groups, the agreement of the agencies who took care of them was to be obtained in each case; but I cannot give you details from memory.\nQ.Would you be able to say more about this if we were able to submit to you the booklet, \"Meunchencuisatz\", Allocation of Human Beings\"?\nA.I believe also that in this publication documents regarding this complex were probably published. I believe that if you will study the army ordinance directive you will find a number of these publications.\nQ.Kindly look at Exhibits 115 and 117 of Document Book IV-B. (Documents handed to witness.) Now, what do you understand by the concept of objectors to military service in connection with the German People's List? Is it not in contrast with the fundamental attitude which you have just mentioned here?\nA.We must make a difference between resettlers and German People's List.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think you have gone fairly over both of those questions. It is not necessary to make that distinction. He had already made the distinction between these two groups. He says now that he was connected with \n COURT I CASE VIII an agency that had nothing whatever to do with enlistment in the army or conscription.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1622, "page_number": "1616", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "So you are continuing to talk to him about something that he had nothing on earth to do with, according to what he has already answered.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I should also like to direct the attention of counsel to a consideration what I, as a members of the Tribunal, give and I am quite sure my colleagues probably share the same judgment. The mere fact that a document has been introduced doesn't mean in every instance it is material or relevant. Now, the Tribunal must rely upon you experienced lawyers in each instance to use your own sound judgment in saying whether or not a document is material or relevant and you have a right later to argue upon it.\nNow, there have been seven hundred and some-odd document introduced here. Frankly, I would say of my own judgment there are many score of those document which, in my judgment, are immaterial, irrelevant, cumulative in effect in some instances, repetitious.\nNow, it is expected of experienced lawyers - and I say this for the benefit of the lawyers who are going to follow you have got to assist the Tribunal in determining in your own way what you believe to be material, what is relevant, what you have got to meet. Now, if we are going to take time to go ever every document that refers to a defendant's name and in which has name appears in any way, it is going to utilize a 11 to of time and it is not going to benefit the Tribunal to the extent that you gentlemen probably figure it will.\nThe point I wish to emphasize is that the fact that a document is in doesn't mean that the facts therein contained are accepted by the Court as a probative value or of value \n COURT I CASE VIII which is going to control the determination of the Court in respect to any particular charge.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1623, "page_number": "1617", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Again repeating what I said, I am appealing, so far as my judgment is concerned, to the judgment of experienced lawyers to, in their own minds, separate the material from the immaterial, the relevant from the irrelevant, and also, so far as you can, to guide the witness to more direct answers. I am quite sure your practice here must be the same in substance as on our side of the ocean in respect to what we term a leading question. The Tribunal will be disposed to permit counsel to ask what we term a leading question if it draws the attention of the witness just to the particular thing which the attorney has in mind and which he wishes answered. It saves time. It is a procedure which, in our courts, is within the discretion of the judge to permit, but it is a time-saving and also a very helpful means of getting the proper facts before any tribunal.\nI bring that to the attention not only of the attorney examining at present but also to guide those who follow. I do hope you can see the force of these observations that I have endeavored to make. It would be beneficial to all concerned.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I suggest that the Court recess now for fifteen minutes?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Court will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1624, "page_number": "1618", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I once again burden the patience of the Tribunal by raising one principal question. During the recess I have also spoken to my colleagues and it would be good if clarification was made by the Tribunal for certain points in the procedure in this trial.\nYour Honor has pointed out to us, justifiably, that there are relevant and irrelevant documents. The Tribunal will have to decide for themsolves just what different documents are relevant and which ones are not. We, on the other hand cannot take it upon ourselves to know just what documents seem to be relevant and which ones do not. After all, the ideas about that vary, and every attorney sometimes received big surprises in this respect. One might consider some matter to be quite unimportant, and later on one discovers that it is of decisive importance for the Tribunal.\nIf we are now dealing with a large number of documents then there are only two procedure that can be followed. Either the Tribunal or the Prosecution can facilitate the presentation of evidence by making it clear just what emphasis is placed upon what particular document; or defense counsel have to go through each individual document. After all, if some of these documents do not involve my client, I shall not touch upon them. I have been engaged in many different cases in many parts of the world and also in Nuernberg and there it was handled differently. An an attorney I must receive a certain line in which I can carry our my work. I have already suggested that the Prosecution should mark individual documents against Greifelt, against Creutz and against Schwarzenberger, and then Defense Counsel can limit themselves to these particular documents. If, however, the Prosecution maintains that all the defendants worked together and that Greifelt had the initiative for the entire work done by the agency, then it becomes necessary for me to go into all the details and possibilities and to find proof and facts.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1625, "page_number": "1619", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "That is a very long and boring procedure, and perhaps it can be shortened, but I also would like to know that some consideration is being given to our responsibility. I would like to say one more thing. A document is not clarified by being translated. There is not only the difference in language between the nations, but there is also a difference in ideology. One cannot make a German document comprehensible internationally just by translating it. One must have the possibility to say something about it, and to explain just how these linguistic expressions are to be understood.\nWe have the best desire to comply with the rules of the Tribunal, and I understand that the trial should be carried on as expeditiously as possible. However, the simplest way to speed up the trail would be if a certain limitation were placed upon the material which has to be discussed in this trial, either on the part of the Prosecution or on the part of the Tribunal. Then we could limit ourselves to the subjects which are relevant.\nI request the Tribunal to hear some of my colleagues; or, perhaps to give us the opportunity to have a discussion outside of this courtroom so that we will be able to clear up this matter.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think the Tribunal has already made very clear its position, and I do not see how there should be any misunderstanding about it. The Tribunal can of course not go through all of this evidence and advise counsel the weight they think should be given to each piece of evidence. If so they might as well write the judgment first.\nThere is some duty on Counsel to determine the weight of evidence and the value of evidence, and certainly an attorney of your experience and ability ought to be able to do so.\nWe have made it very clear that we will not consider conclusions opinions, or any other evidence of that kind. That is true in the trail of any case. The jury or the judge, when it is all ever, must take the evidence and weigh it bit by bit, piece by piece, and in that manner \n try to arrive at the truth.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1626, "page_number": "1620", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "That cannot be done by any fair Tribunal before the case is over and the evidence is all before the Tribunal.\nThe materiality of the various phases of evidence the counsel must deal with as he presents his case, and he is supposed to be trained and prepared to do that, and to help the Court determine the weight, value the evidence and every character of the evidence. The only thing that this Tribunal has been insisting upon is that evidence without weight, without probative value and immaterial in its nature shall not unnecessarily encumber the record in the case, and thereby make the labors of both counsel in presenting their briefs and he Tribunal in reaching its judgment unnecessarily burdensome.\nIf you will just cooperate with us in the request we have made, I think we will get along all right.\nGo ahead.\nDR.BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) May it please the Tribunal the Tribunal has just given a very nice and big task to the Defense, and I am convinced that all my colleague, including myself, will want to cooperate in order to achieve the aim which the Tribunal has just expressed quickly as possible.\nHowever, on the part of the Prosecution a giant amount of evidence has been presented. With regard to the volume and also the contents, this presentation of evidence to k place in a form which has not been customary in any of the other cases presented here in Nurnberg. Defense Counsel, therefore, have a special responsibility to examine the evidence in detail in order not to expose themselves to the reproach that they have neglected their defense in the case against their clients.\nThere are a number of documents which also in the opinion of the Defense are absolutely irrevelvant, and perhaps-\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Interposing) May I suggest to you that you are talking about something now that we would like to hear from you in \n yourbriefs.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1627, "page_number": "1621", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "You are arguing about a matter now that is not ready for argument; it is a problem which should come up in your briefs. I know your jobs is a hard one, but you must remember that the Tribunal also has a hard job.\nGo ahead with the examination of this witness. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQYou told us, Herr Greifelt, that you had nothing to do with the conscription of resettlers for military service. You also told us that you did everything in your power in order to prevent the conscription of the resettlers because of the resettlement tasks which you had to handle. Inspite of this, in later documents your name is also mentioned where people are concerned who refused to serve in the military service. Do you see any contradiction in this?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1628, "page_number": "1622", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.No, actually there is no contradiction there. After all, the resettler was naturalized and consequently from the moment of his naturalization on he became subject to conscription for military service, and then, if he tried to evade his duty by leaving the territory of the Reich, he became a deserter or if he had not as yet been conscripted, at least one could assume his intention to evade military service.\nQ.Were such people then punished or could they do anything against being punished?\nA.Well, I cannot discuss any individual cases now. I can't even discuss the subject on the whole; I cannot remember it very well. After all this was only handled by the military authorities; this was never handled by any other agencies.\nQ.I am now going to put to you Exhibit 365, in Document Book VI-B , and in this document the Main Staff Office has been mentioned. I was unable to determine the signature of this document. What sort of document is it?\nA.This document represents a note from the Reich Ministry for the Occuppied Eastern Territories. The document, however, is connected with another document which I do not have available at the moment. However, it seems to be necessary to clarify something at this time. In order to clarify it completely. I do not want to say that I never had anything to do with the subject with which we are dealing at the present. In the subject which we are dealing with a present the following is involved: Baltic Germans had volunteered in 1939 for resettlement in the German Reich. In the Reich they received a claim for indemnification. For the most part they became German nationals, but some of them had not as yet been naturalized. After the war with Russia broke out, and after the Baltic countries had been reoccupied, a large number of these Baltic German resettlers returned to their country of origin Latvia and Estonia for the majority of cases, without proper permission. In the incorporated eastern territories they had received indemnification for their property, and according to the information we received, they again took possession of their possession which they had left behind before in their country of origin. Of course we had to see in this \n at least an attempt at illegal enrichment at the expense of the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1629, "page_number": "1623", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "In order to master this attitude of individual persons and in order to stop them from carrying out this infamous activity, an agreement was reached with the supreme commander of the Wehrmacht that these persons were to be conscripted for military service in order to bring them back to their respective settlement areas so that all their attempts at enriching themsalves could be stopped. That is my explanation for these happenings which are also referred to in the document which you have just quoted.\nQ.Will you please tell us briefly now just to what extent you occupied yourself with that matter. First of all, you mentioned the approval to return to their country of origin. Can you explain this term to us?\nA.The approval was only granted in exceptional cases whenever the presence of that particular person was required for special economic reasons and whenever the presence of that person seemed of importance. The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories had to make an application for this approval. The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or, my agency, had no interest in having Baltic German settlers returned to their country of origin, and accordingly orders were issued repeatedly.\nQ.What happened to the resettlers who returned illegally whenever they were conscripted by the Wehrmacht?\nA.I cannot tell you whether these people were actually conscripted for military service. In any case all possible attempts were made by my agency in order to master the economic matters which I have just mentioned, and in order to bring about the return of the Baltic Germans who had illegally returned to their homeland from the Reich.\nQ.Did any cases come to your attention that ethnic Germans had had themselves registered in the DVL and that they liked this condition as long as everything went well, but whenever they were to be conscripted they renounced their German origin and did not comply with the conscription orders. I have now seen from the documents and I believe I heard about two instances, \n which deal with cases of that nature.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1630, "page_number": "1624", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "This happened in the provice of Upper Silesia.\nQ.Did you yourself take any action against these people?\nA.N o, after all that was a task for the police, this was in the hands of the state police.\nQ.We now have to discuss several individual subjects. In the documents at various places there appears repeatedly the term of Slovenes, in connection with resettlement and deportations. Will you please tell us first of all just what group of people was involved here?\nA.These measures extended to a part of the population in the territories under the chiefs of the civil administration in Lower Styria, and Oberkrain. In these areas there completely separate deportations drives were carried out.\nQ.Will you please talk somewhat more slowly. You were referring to Oberkrain Lower Styria. To what country did these areas belong at the time?\nA.These areas belonged to the former Yugoslav State. After the war of 1918 the Austrian Provinces, Corinthia and Styria, were incorporated into the newly established Yugoslav State.\nQ.For some legal explanations which can be made later on, it is important whether these areas were near the frontier which was established at the time or not. Were they frontier areas?\nA.Yes, they were very definitely border areas, south of the previous state frontier of Austria.\nQ.And toward what country?\nA.Well, it was the border of Yugoslavia. The CDZ territory comprised the most northern area of the Yugoslav State which had been reoccupied during the campaign in the Balkans, and had formerly belonged to Austria.\nQ.You say the Balkans campaign. Unfortunately, there have been many Balkans campaign. Just which one are you referring to?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1631, "page_number": "1625", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.I am now referring to the German campaign in 1941, and if I remember correctly it began on the 20th of April 1941.\nQ.Very well. And what orders were given in that area? Who ordered what was to happen there?\nA.Well, first of all, these two areas came under the jurisdiction of the civil administration. Those areas of the chiefs of the civil administration were Lower Styria, which was the part of Austria which had been ceded in 1918, and Oberkrain, which had formerly belonged to Corinthia and which had also been ceded. In both areas the chief of the civil administration was appointed simultaneously Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of the two aforementioned areas.\nQ.And what people resided in these areas?\nA.I personally cannot give you any exhaustive information about that, but, in any case, as always in the struggle between national minorities, after 1919 a strong infiltration had occurred here of the Slovene population into the areas which had formerly been Austrian.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, this defendant is not charged with planning aggressive warfare, participating in aggressive warfare; he is charged with the specific acts named in this indictment. Now you will be very helpful to the Court if you will confine your examination to that. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.What are Slovenes? What does the term \"Slovenes\" means?\nA.I cannot give you any information about that either.\nQ.But the driver which has been mentioned here was directed against the Slovenes, was it not?\nA.Yes, this drive was directed against the Slovenes as an alien part of the population.\nQ.Now just what did the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism have to do with this drive against the Slovenes?\nA.The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism -- that is to say, Himmler -- instructed the two chiefs of the civil administration \n to act as his representatives in these areas, and these representatives then took various measures under this title which they now held.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1632, "page_number": "1626", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Was the name of one of these representatives Eubereiter?\nA.Dr. Eubereiter was the chief of the civil administration in Lower Styria.\nQ.And what reason did Eubereiter use for the measures which he introduced against the Slovenes?\nA.I had nothing to do with all these agreements. I was not present then, and consequently I cannot give you any information about that. Without any doubt, the highest authorities had certain instructions as to just how these measures were to be carried out.\nQ.Who were the highest authorities?\nA.I considered them to be the Government of the Reich, and finally, Hitler.\nQ.And did Hitler order that?\nA.I wasn't there, Dr. Haensel, I don't know.\nQ.Did you hear what particular order Dr. Eubereiter referred to?\nMR. SCHWENK:I object to this question. The witness stated that he didn't know, and any hearsay is immaterial.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just as plain as he could speak, he told us he didn't know anything about it. Now, what somebody else did, we are not interested in; what this defendant did is the only thing that concerns this Tribunal, we are not trying anybody else. And certainly when he says \"I don't know anything about it\", then further questions are futile.\nGo ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.What did Eubereiter say to you or to others, or didn't you ever talk to him?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well now, you are still asking him about the very thing he said he didn't know anything about. I didn't care what Eubereiter did or anybody else, I don't think the Tribunal does. We are interested in \n what this defendant did, and he says \"I don't know anything about that.\"", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1633, "page_number": "1627", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Is your statement to be understood to mean that you didn't know anything at all about the deportations of the Slovenes?\nA.Of course, afterwards I heard about reasons -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, didn't tell us what you heard about, tell us what you know yourself. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.To what extent did you or your agency deal with the deportation of the Slovenes?\nA.We were concerned with the deportation drive insofar as we tried to find work for these people within the Reich Territory, and we also had to take care of them otherwise.\nQ.You mentioned one drive. Are you now talking about one drive among several drives?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I remember very well, Dr. Haensel, when you were talking about resettlement, that this witness made it very clear just what his duties were in that connection, and his agency and organization, and he said that was all they had to do with it, simply provide for them. They had nothing to do with these things that you are talking about now; he has made that clear. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Which one of your people had to deal with this matter? Which one of the people who were subordinated to you had to deal with this?\nA.That was Office II, which was responsible for all labor allocation matters.\nQ.Can you give us the name of any person who might be called here as a witness?\nA.No. I know that the name of Hintze was mentioned here by the witness Wirsich, who referred to him in connection with this particular drive. However, I can state that when the deportation measures were carried out, Hintze was not subordinated to me but, for the execution of \n these measures, he was placed on detached service with a special group.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1634, "page_number": "1628", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.You told us yesterday and today that your field of work dealt with the German element there. Can we assume that the Slovenes were not part of the German population, or were you in doubt about that?\nA.That was a special drive which came outside of my usual scope of work. As to these Slovenes-\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I object to this question. The witness stated just a while ago that he didn't know what the Slovenes were.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, I want to let him get to it and see what this is.\nGo ahead and answer the question.\nA. (Continuing) I believe there are different opinions about the Slovenes; I don't think there is any clear international judgment about that. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.As you say, this was a special drive. Now the question is this: To what extent did you have to do with the later care of the Slovenes and not with the deportation action itself? Just what happened to these people who were deported from these areas?\nA.The deported Slovenes were sent into the Reich, and here they were placed in camps.\nQ.In order to refresh your memory it might perhaps be well if I ask you to take a look at Exhibits 675 and 676 in Document Book Ve.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, what is your question? He has looked at it. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did Himmler himself make this decision?\nA.Yes, in all cases Himmler had to make the decision because no one else knew what his intentions were concerning this deported population. His decisions varied considerably, so that we ourselves did mot know exactly what was to be done with these people. In any case, they were put on an equal basis with the resettlers. They were not treated as foreigners but they enjoyed all the advantages of the resettlers.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1635, "page_number": "1629", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Q.Will you please take a look at Exhibits 677 and 679? Did you write that correspondence? There is no signature on those documents.\nA.Could you please give me the exhibit numbers once more?\nQ.These are exhibits 677 and 679, on page 59 of the document book.\nA.The letter was not written by me, but it originated in my agency. It confirms what I have just said with regard to the treatment accorded the Slovenes.\nQ.If the letter came from your agency, were you in charge of that at the time, and do you remember the incident? Was this matter reported to you? Did you give these orders? What happened?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1636, "page_number": "1630", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nA.Particularly these incidents could not have been subject to my decision because they occurred within the period of time when I was severely ill and I was unable to attend to my duties. I mentioned that this morning.\nQ.What happened to the frontier areas from which these Slovenes had been deported?\nA.These areas, first of all, were put under the custodianship of the DAG, acting on behalf of the Chief of the Civil Administration and his district office. I don't recall the exact title any more, but at any rate it was an agricultural authority. Later on, in this area, a part of the resettlers from the Gottschee was resettled.\nQ.Could you tell us what these Gotschee Germans were? Where is Gottschee situated?\nA.Gottschee is a small area within the former Yugoslav State where a small German minority group had settled and preserved its characteristics for many centuries. I can not give you a geographical description in detail without having any maps at my disposal.\nQ.That is not important. Was Italy interested in this area where the Gottschee Germans used to live?\nA.Yes, this was within the Italian zone of occupation and the government authority there was exercised by Italy.\nQ.In order to refresh your memory, please take a look at the exhibit on page 57 of Document Book ve. It is Document 681, and it was signed by you. Please tell us in just what way your agency participated in the resettlement of the Gottschee Germans.\nA.At the time I received the order that under the auspices of the Foreign Office, and with the cooperation of the Reich Departments which were interested in this problem, I was to negotiate with Italy on the resettlement of Germans from the Gottschee. The negotiations were in the hands of the \n Italian ambassador, and they were carried on in Rome in 1941.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1637, "page_number": "1631", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "This led to an agreement between the German Reich and the Italian Government.\nQ.Was this resettlement drive based on the German diplomatic negotiations?\nA.I was only ordered to carry on this matter because it was not considered desirable that different agencies should negotiate with Italy on the resettlement question. Furthermore, an agreement was reached between the two states with regard to this settlement.\nQ.We can now leave that subject, and I turn to another special topic. This is the count of the indictment which charges you and brings you into connection with the persecution of Jews. This is count 22 of the Indictment. I am now going to put to you Document Book 13-A, and I want to ask you to take a look at Exhibits 540 and 541. They are located on pages 7 and 11 respectively. Will you please tell us what sort of letters these are and whether they came to your knowledge? Did you receive any copies of them, or did they never come to your knowledge?\nA.I did not know either one of the documents, and I have only seen them here in this collection of documents.\nQ.Will you please take a look now at Exhibit 542 on page 13? Will you tell us whether your name is mentioned there?\nA.My name is mentioned there.\nQ.Do you know this letter? Did you know it at the tie?\nA.I did not see this letter, and as far as I can recall I did not receive a similar letter of invitation.\nQ.Here it is claimed that you were invited to attend a discussion, which you dispute. Did you participate in the discussion on the 20th of January 1942?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1638, "page_number": "1632", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.No, I did not attend this meeting.\nQ.However, you now have the record of this discussion before you. What do you have to say about its contents?\nA.I do not wish to support myself with some very base evidence, and I don't want to claim that I was an outspoken friend of the Jews. However, I must say that after having seen the contents of this document, it becomes clear to me that things were discussed there which have nothing to do with humane ethics. I am thinking here, for the most part, of the problem which came to my particular attention, that of compulsory sterilizations.\nQ.Were you furnished a copy of the minutes of this meeting at the time?\nA.No, I did not know anything about what was discussed there.\nQ.Then, as the next exhibit, the Prosecution has offered Exhibit 544, on page 33. It is an excerpt from the meeting of Gruppenfuehrers at Posen, of October 1943. Did you participate in this meeting?\nA.No, I did not attend this meeting.\nQ.After this meeting, did you ever see the minutes or a copy of Himmler's speech?\nA.I am of the opinion that I did not receive it. As far as I can recall, it was only stated that I once received a written copy of a speech of Himmler's for my information. However, that was another speech which he held when he took over his office as Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army. At the time he made that speech before the Commanding Generals and of course this speech dealt with a completely different subject.\nQ. was this speech at Posen published in the press. or was it announced over the radio so that you had the opportunity to learn of its contents?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1639, "page_number": "1633", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.Such speeches were never published.\nQ.Exhibit 577, on page 78, has been presented in evidence. Will you please take a look at it? Did you have anything to do with that drive?\nA.This matter has only come to my knowledge here. In this case thirty men had to be furnished to VOMI to take care of horses. This was purely a local administrative matter, which of course would not be channeled through one of the Main Offices.\nQ. did any similar drives come to your attention in your agency, or were they ever carried out there?\nA.No, I cannot recall anything of that sort.\nQ.Will you please turn, now, to page 86? Do you have the page?\nA.Page 86? Yes.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with that drive?\nA.No, that was a purely local matter in Silesia, some body requested some assistance there. This was not channeled through my main office either. After all, it was not the task of the Main Office to deal with these things.\nQ.Yesterday, on one occasion, you mentioned the name of Reichert. This probably was a man who belonged to your agency. In document Book 13-B, the Prosecution submitted a note for Regierungsrat Reichert. Did he have anything to do with your agency? This is Exhibit 569.\nA.Without any doubt, this note originated in my agency.\nQ.Will you please take a look at who signed this? Can you clarify for us who signed it?\nA.I believe the man's name was Labess, but I cannot tell you that for certain any more.\nQ.Can you see any initial by you or any other indication that you were informed of this matter or that you had \n read this document?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1640, "page_number": "1634", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "A.No, this is a file note which was merely circulated internally from on expert to the chief of his department. I was not informed of this matter; I don't actually know what it deals with.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1641, "page_number": "1635", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "QIf you look at the first page there is another mark in handwriting. It says: \"Main Department III.\" Can you identify this? Did it originate with your office, and what is it?\nAThis also is a file note of Main Department III. According to the dictation mark, it can be concluded that it came from Attorney Goetz, who has been here as a witness. He is the man who dictated it and had it signed by two of his collaborators. This matter itself was not submitted to me and I cannot recall it. I never had anything to do with such internal organizational matters within a main department.\nQThen in you agency the problem was dealt with, which was mentioned in Exhibit 570. Please turn over a few leafs in this document book and you will find it. This document consists of several pages and we will have to put them into order so what we will be able to discuss it. Please tell us just what happened here. You will have to start with the words: \"Government-General.\"\nADr. Haensel, may I ask you to address several brief questions to me because I might tend too easily to begin discussing the contents of these documents, which is to be avoided.\nQWell, first of all, you will find the words: \"Government-General,\" and actually your agency had nothing to do with the Government-General; is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQTherefore this must have been an exceptional case when you were conconcerned with the Government-General. Who included you in this matter?\nAThis was done by Himmler's orders. Whenever somebody estimated this matter, then he immediately gave the impression that this was a technical leg 1 assistance of my legal department by order of Himmler. Himmler usually did not like my legal experts but in this case they drafted for him a general order which was only to be used by the GovernmentGeneral, Frank and Himmler's representative, in his capacity as Reich Commissar, and this was Krueger. This general decree was drafted by my \n legal department under the direction of the witness Wirsich.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1642, "page_number": "1636", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "QOn Page 13, I see that somebody has signed here by the name of Brandt. You were referring to Himmler's orders. Just what did Brandt have to do with the Himmler order?\nAWell, Brandt was Himmler's secretary, and after all he only passed on directives and instructions of Himmler. It is stated here that: \"Today I have requested Greifelt to have a decree drafted.\"\nQAnd you did draft this decree but your legal exports did, if I understood you correctly, and then it was submitted to Himmler?\nAIt was not passed on to Himmler as I see from the documents here but since I had to report to Himmler at that period of time I myself save Himmler this decree for his signature.\nQAnd your legal experts continued to deal with this order and its execution once you had drafted it?\nANo, that was not possible; after all, it only referred to the territory of the Government-General, and we were unable to start any operations there; however, as far as I am informed, nothing ever came of this entire decree. This was another phase in the struggle for power which always took place between the individual rulers there; in this case, between Frank and Himmler.\nQDid Frank usually draft his own decrees in the Government-General, and wasn't this done by you?\nAI never had any contact with Frank and I don't even known Frank; I never talked to him; I never saw him; furthermore, the Administration of the Government-General was autonomous. I must correct my testimony here. I did see Frank on one occasion. I would like to state that quite clearly, and I once shook hands with him; I don't want to give any false testimony here.\nQIn this document book, the Prosecution submitted a number of documents, among them Exhibit 572.\nAWill you please give me the number again?\nQIt is 572. Will you please take a look at the document. Did \n you see the documents at the time when they were drafted and did you have anything to do with the incidents mentioned in these documents?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1643, "page_number": "1637", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "ANo, this entire Reinhardt Action, to which these documents refer, was completely unknown to me, and I only heard of it for the first time when I read these documents.\nQIn. order to conclude the subject of persecution, of Jaws, how did you personally act towards the Jews, and during the time in question, did you have anything to do with them in the line of duty or unofficially?\nAUnofficially, I had contact with some people of Jewish descent. I know the family of a dentist, by the Name of Heimann; and otherwise, I did not have any reason, to maintain a hostile attitude towards the Jews. Perhaps to discuss my official activity in this respect would be more important. I can recall a special case from the resettlement action which took place in Tyrol. In southern Tyrol, there was a full-blooded Jew--I believe he had been the director of a Court of Appeals in the district--his name was Hess. This man Hess, I believe in 1938 emigrated to southern Tyrol with the approval of the Reich Government, and there he enjoyed his retirement pay. When in the year 1940 or 1941, Italy issued legislation against the Jews, and Italy urged that this Ernst Hess was to be deported again to his country. of origin, and Hess returned to Germany and established his residence in Munich. He was able to do that because he had a sort of protection letter from the Reich Government, and this letter was signed by Reich Minister Lammers.\nIn the year 1942, when measures against the Jews became more severe, Hess also was to be included in these measures. I cannot give you all the details here but I saw to it towards Himmler that in accordance with the protection letter which he had in his possession, Hess received decent treatment form that time on, although the Reich Security Main Office and the Gestapo had already initiated action against him. Himmler at that time called me a friend of the Jews when I reported the matter to him, but finally he gave in. However, I was only successful in doing this by telling him that the word of the Reich Government probably should be worth \n more than any anti-Semitic ideology.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1644, "page_number": "1638", "date": "26 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-26", "text": "QIn conclusion, could you tell us something about the treatment of half-Jews as resettlers?\nAI would like to make a very brief statement here. Within the Groups of resettles, there were also non-Aryan resettlers, and they also came into Germany. I always saw to it, within my agency, that those groups of persons also received the full indemnification which was due to them and that they were naturalized as Germans. In order to give you several names as examples: amongst the agricultural people we had the family group Huebschmann, who came from Korff, K-O-R-F-F; from the trade industry we had the Rathenauer Brothers, the firm Tillmann and Sons; the banker Claus School; I believe the owner of a mill, Rottermann; and from the free professions, we had the Priest Gurlan, who also was not fully Aryan, All these people were accorded the same treatment by my agency as all the other resettlers, although other agencies-above all, the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office-were very skeptical and disapproved the attitude of my agency.\nQWe now have exhausted the problem of the persecution of Jews. I now have only a few more questions which we will discuss in the course of the next day. A little later my colleagues will be able to begin their examination, of my client.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty Monday morning.\n( The Tribunal adjourned until 1 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1645, "page_number": "1639", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 1 December 1947, 0930-1630, The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United State of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom,\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nProceed with the examination of the witness.\nULRICE GREIFELT (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQIn Count 16 of the Indictment, the Prosecution has charged you with having collaborated in the deportation by force of the enemy population from the occupied territories, In this connection Exhibit 199, in Document Book V-A, on page 3, has been presented. It bears the initials \"SMD\". What does that mean? What does \"SMD\" stand for?\nAYes, \"SMD\" stands for Germans from the Black Sea; \"Schwarz Meer Deutsche.\"\nQWas that resettlement action?\nAThat was a repatriation drive; the Germans who lived in the area of the Black Sea were evacuated before the approaching Soviet Russian armies. The Germans had been living there for centuries.\nQDo you know that from your own knowledge?\nAYes, I knew of that fact because in 1914 and 1918 I was staioned in the Ukraine as an aviator, for a period of four months, and I found out that entire German settlements existed in that region.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1646, "page_number": "1640", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QWere you acquainted with the details of this drive, and did you yourself supervise it?\nAI had nothing to do with the repatriation drive. Amongst other things, the Reichstatthalter in the Warthegau had declared himself willing to settle a number of these people, who were being evacuated, in his own district; and, on his own initiative, he also carried out the accommodation of these people.\nQDoes the document bear your signature? On the copy it only states \"Signature not legible.\"\nANo, I did not sign this document; it did not come from my agency either.\nQIn Exhibits 211 and 210, on pages 75 and 76 of this Document Book V-A, Russo-Germans are mentioned. There is no further description to show just what Russo-Germans are concerned here. Are these RussoGermans the same as have been mentioned here as the \"SMD\", as Germans from the Black Sea area?\nAThis must be the same group of people. This again is direct correspondence between Greiser and Himmler, and my agency was only informed of that after the decision had been reached.\nQI am now coming to another subject. The Prosecution has offered a large number of documents here concerning the incidents which took place in the district of Lublin. They also called the witness Klukowsky in this connection. Deportation drives took place in the district of Lublin. Just who carried out these measures?\nABy the personal order of Himmler, the drive was carried out by the SS and Police Leader who was competent for the district of Lublin, whose name was Globocnik.\nQWas Globocnik subordinated to you?\nANo.\nQTo whom was he subordinated?\nAHe was subordinated to the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Government General. That was \n the State Secretary for the Security Service.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1647, "page_number": "1641", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QIn order to understand this matter, it will be easier if you will tell us the name of this man.\nAThe name of the State Secretary?\nQYes.\nAHis name was Krueger.\nQKrueger, Was there any direct contact between Himmler and Globocnik, or did this contact go through this man Krueger, whom you have mentioned in this connection?\nAHimmler very often went to Lublin personally, and he would give immediate instructions to Globocnik.\nQWere you informed about the measures which were taken in the district of Lublin on the whole?\nAI was not informed about all the measures. I did receive some information to a very small extent, but only in so far as the competent agencies believed that the collaboration of my agency was quiet to some extent.\nQJust what did your potential collaboration consist of?\nAMy collaboration only consisted of furnishing the ethnic German resettlers.\nQDid you furnish these resettlers upon your own initiative?\nANo; in this field we also received direct instructions from Himmler, contrary to my personal conviction.\nQWhen did the first procurement of resettlers take place?\nAThe first procurement took place on the 10th of October, 1942.\nQJust why do you know this date?\nAWhen I studied the documents I was able to ascertain that on that date my agency--and not I, personally--furnished the first resettlers for this resettlement program.\nQDoes this become evident from Exhibit No. 247-in Document Book 15 on page 21-or are you thinking of smething else?\nAMay I please take a look at Document Book 15?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1648, "page_number": "1642", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "(Document book submitted to witness)\nYes, I am thinking of this document. We procured the resettlers upon the express order of Himmler.\nQNow, please take a look at page 8, and take a look at Exhibit 203. Were you at Cracow on the 4th of October 1942. when Himmler issued the directives there?\nANo, I was not at Cracow at that time.\nQWhat attitude did you maintain at the time with regard to the settlement of resettlers in the district of Lublin?\nAI disapproved of such measures. I could not understand just why, in the year 1940. German people had been taken out of that area so that, two years later, other Germans could be resettled in the same area as a group.\nQIn your examination you stated that the Government General was to be left to the Poles, and, in particular, Poles were deported from the Warthe District and taken to the Government General. Now, just what was the status of the ethnic Germans in the district of Lublin?\nAThat exactly proves the fact that I disapproved of these actions, because our ideas of the ethnic separation of the national minority which was the basis of our work, was interrupted as a result of these measures.\nQDuring that period of time, did a discussion take place between you and Globocnik and State Secretary Krueger, who has been mentioned before?\nAYes. Towards the end of the year 1942 both of these people came to see me, and they asked me to furnish large numbers of resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1649, "page_number": "1643", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QDid they also discuss with you the resettlement and deportation questions with regard to this particular district?\nANo, these questions did not have anything to do with my agency.\nQDid you reach any agreement?\nANo, I announced what groups of resettlers were still available in their entirety. However, I did not make any assurances that I would be able to procure them.\nQWas Krueger satisfied with your explanation?\nANo, he was very much annoyed, and at that time he told me, in a somewhat threatening voice, that now he would turn directly to Himmler for a final decision in the matter.\nQDid he raise any complaint with Himmler about your attitude?\nAYes; a short time later I receive an unusually sharp letter from Himmler. This wason the 8th of December, 1942. I can recall this date extremely well because this very sharp letter happened to reach my hands on my birthday.\nQAre you referring to the letter which you will find here as Exhibit 202, in Document Book V-A, on page 23, or is that another letter?\nANo, it is the same letter.\nQDid you accept this letter quietly, or did you have a dispute with Himmler as a result of this letter?\nAOn the 30th of December 1642, when Himmler ordered me to come and see him, I took the opportunity to object to various points which were made in this letter.\nQJust what points are you referring to in particular?\nAPrimarily, it was the unjustified attack of Himmler on my office chief, Dr. Stier. Himmler described Dr. Stier as being a young man who should first become a soldier. In fact, Stier was an officer in the Reserve, and as far as I know he had taken part in the campaign in France. Furthermore -", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1650, "page_number": "1644", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. All this description of other people, and what other people did, and what their relationships were, and where they had been, and all they had done doesn't illustrate anything in this case. Let's get down to the facts in this case. We are not trying anybody except these defendants.\nDR. HAENSEL:I asked him just how he objected, and in my opinion that is a fact.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't think so, I heard what you asked him, and I heard the answer, and I don't think it illustrates anything that is before us.\nGo ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQJust how do you know the exact date of this discussion?\nAMy clash with Himmler wasso very severe, that on the very same day I had a heart attack. I beg your pardon for using the medical term in English instead of in German. I am still suffering from that today.\nQIn factual respects, did you also voice your disapproval towards Himmler? Did you succeed in carrying through your point?\nAAt the time I did whatever I was able to do towards a man like Himmler. An outsider cannot imagine just. what difficulties I had to face in this respect. It was only through very skillful handling and through skillful attacks that one could fight a decision once it had been reached by Himmler.\nQDid you make any attacks in that direction later on?\nAIn May 1943, after I was able to resume my duties, I again discussed the question with Himmler.\nQAnd can you recall the date in May?\nAYes. In a pre-trial interrogation, in some other connection, the date was pointed out to me.\nQAnd what was Himmler's decision at the time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1651, "page_number": "1645", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AHimmler listened to me, and finally he told me that according to the prevailing possibilities the measures should be continued.\nQDid this mean that Himmler gave in to you?\nAHimmler usually had his own way, and he would never admit, upon first attempts, that his orders were not feasible or could not be carried out. What I said just now meant that Himmler gave in.\nQLater on, did he discontinue his drive in a definite manner?\nAYes; he expressed the fact to the other agencies that the orders which he had previously issued were now to be changed. Amongst the documents here there is also a letter from which this fact becomes evident.\nQThat is Exhibit 203, Document Book V-A, at page 48, if I am not mistaken. Is that what you are referring to Exhibit 205, Document Book V-A, at page 48?\nAYes, that is the letter to which I am referring.\nQTherefore, according to this letter, the deportation of Poles was discontinued through Lammers, by order of Himmler, What affect did this have upon the resettlement of the resettlers, with which you were connected?\nAExcuse me please, Dr. Haensel, but I had nothing to do with the resettlement of these people in the district of Lublin. I was only connected with the procurement of resettlers who may have been requested. Of course, we had prepared for the procurement of these resettlers in vain.\nQBut by \"procurement\" you mean they were to be procured for resettlement?\nAYes, they were to be procured for resettlement purposes.\nQBeyond the general objection, did you raise any difficulties, and did you prevent resettlers being procured?\nAYes, I was able to prevent the resettlement of Slovenes, Luxembourgians, and Lorrainians, which had been planned by Himmler, and \n I was able to see to it that these people were not settled in the district of Lublin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1652, "page_number": "1646", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QIs what you are trying to say now the same as is contained in the file note about your discussion with Himmler on the 12th of May?\nAIn this file note I recorded the individual points of my discussion with Himmler. I believe it even contains the exact text. As far as I can recall, on that occasion I reproached Himmler with the fact that it did not seem feasible that Lorrainians, Alsatians, and Luxembourgians, as people who were on a high level as far as their culture was concerned, should be sent to a territory of the East, where they were certainly not suitable, and where they certainly would not be satisfied. I remember his words quite clearly, because at the time Himmler told me \"Finally, however, we will be able to get some volunteers.\"\nQI would like to recall something else to you in this connection. I refer Exhibit 312, in Document Book V-E, at page 7 and the following pages. In this connection, can you recall the Slovenes? Please take a look at paragraphs 3, 5, and 7, in order to refresh your memory.\nAYes. In Himmler's opinion, the Slovenes also were to be settled in the district of Lublin. One understands the official terminology correctly, it becomes evident that the resettlement of the Slovenes could also have been prevented.\nQIn order to make this examination as brief as possible, I believe that we do not have to discuss the vast number of individual documents with regard to the resettlers in the district of Lublin, because your general statements apply to all these documents. However, I must ask you the following question:\nIn Exhibit 203, Document Book V-A, at page 26, we have the Decree 17-10. If one reads this document, one may wrongly conclude that you were responsible for the planning with regard to measures in the district of Lublin. This decree is signed by Himmler. Did you draft this order?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1653, "page_number": "1647", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "ANo, this decree was not drafted in my agency. My legal department dealt with it according to the legal aspects, and compiled it according to the style used by my agency.\nQPlease give us a few expressions used in this decree; that is, expressions which did not originate in your agency, but which were used. Give us some words from the terminology of another department.\nAThe concept \"Land Formulation Plans\" did not originate within my agency. Also, for example, the letters \"GG\", and the abbreviations and numbers which were used for the resettlement program did not come from my agency. Globocnik had his own big planning department, from which these letters must have originated.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1654, "page_number": "1648", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.- When one reads this official terminology, must one also conclude from the document on page 32 that Globocnik was actually the originator of this idea?\nA.- Yes, Globocnik was interested to a very great extent in having this decree signed, and finally he would inform Himmler that these measures were being executed. He would inform him by teletype.\nQ.- And this is why we have this teletype to Globocnik?\nA.- Yes, that is where this teletype to Globocnik originated.\nQ.- You stated that you were severely opposed to Himmler's settlement plans at Lublin. Is that in any connection with this teletype?\nA.- Yes, that is correct. All these things are directly related to each other.\nQ.- In May 1943, that is the day which you gave us before, Himmler discontinued this drive. Now what happened to the resettlers who were to be used for this enterprise?\nA.- I had to try once again to find a new policy for settlement. Since these people as a result of the utopian plans of Himmler and the infeasible plans of Globocnik were sitting around in camps for many months.\nQ.- And what solution did you achieve?\nA.- I tried to find a settlement area near Zichenau for these people.\nQ.- Just where is Zichenau situated?\nA.- Zichenau is the most southern part of the province of East Prussia.\nQ.- Is that the same Zichenau which is involved in the problem which is discussed in Exhibit 66 in Document Book V-E?\nA.- Yes, this document deals with this particular area of Zichenau.\nQ.- I am now coming to another subject. In Exhibit 208, on page 70 of Document Book V-A, there is a file note of Himmler's of the 22 of April 1942. According to the last sentence in the document, a copy of \n this document is to be passed on to you for your own information but it was not to be used for discussions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1655, "page_number": "1649", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Did something of that nature happen?\nA.- According to the distribution, I must have received a copy.\nQ.- Did you take any action?\nA.- No, I was not allowed to do that. After all, the directive stated that this document was not to become the subject of any discussions.\nQ.- However, later on did a discussion at Himmler's office take place on the same subject?\nA.- Yes, this was in the summer of the year 1942. At that time a discussion took place at Himmler's Office.\nQ.- Was that the discussion which is mentioned in Document Book V-A, Exhibit 206-A, on page 53?\nA.- Yes, this file note deals with the game discussion.\nQ.- Did Himmler order you to come and see him for this particular purpose?\nA.- The reason why I had to go and see Himmler was another one. Together with Professor Meyer-Hetling, I had been ordered to have a discussion with Himmler about the decree concerning the agricultural planning. During our presence at Himmler's office, both of us were invited to attend this particular discussion.\nQ.- However, in the file note you are mentioned by name on two different occasions; first of all, in connection with the group settlement that is a new word of the ethnic Germans. Just what does the word \"Zusammen-Siedlung\" mean?\nA.- In the Ukraine area around Shitomir where Himmler's field headquarters were situated at the time, there were a large number of ethnic Germans living, but not as a group. Those people were endangered as a result of the partisan activity which occurred there to a large extent. Himmler wanted these people to live as a group, as far as their area was \n concerned, so that he would be able to protect them easier.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1656, "page_number": "1650", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "At the same time he issued orders that the Russians or the Ukranians, who were affected by this movement of the population, were to be treated just as decently as the Germans. This group settlement actually was nothing but an exchange, which in the end was suitable for both parties.\nQ.- Did you take care of these people right on the spot?\nA.- I was unable to do that since I was situated in Berlin. Himmler used an expert to handle these tasks.\nQ.- Was this expert subordinated to you?\nA.- No, if I remember correctly, he, first of all, belonged to Himmler's staff, and then later on he was subordinated to the Supreme SS and Police Leader locally.\nQ.- According to Paragraph 4 of the file note which we have just discussed, you are alleged to have received instructions from Himmler at the time to draft a plan of the settlement of Germans from Transnistria.\nA.- Such an order was given to me; however, no action was taken on it, because when we examined this question on the whole we found out that it was completely unfeasible. My planning office was able to rescind this projected measure by turning to Himmler on the subject.\nQ.- And I understood you to say that no action was taken?\nA.- Yes, that is correct.\nQ.- In Exhibit 208, Document Book V-A, on page 72, and paragraph 12, Himmler ordered that the resettlers should be refurnished with household goods and clothing and that this was to be procured by the camp at Lublin. Did you have anything to do with this?\nA.- No, this was a personal affair of Himmler's with which my agency had nothing to do whatsoever.\nQ.- Does this became evident also from the Reinhardt document -- the document which refers to the Aktion Reinhardt which we discussed previously -- does it become evideny that you had nothing to do with it?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1657, "page_number": "1651", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.- Yes, it also becomes evident from these documents which I only say here for the first time.\nQ.- Now, documents are located individually in various document books which we must discuss in entirety so as to got a uniform picture. I am now thinking of Document Book V-B, of Exhibits 232 and 236, and Document Book V-D, Nos. 77, 78 and 79. All these documents deal with the examination of people living in Baltic refugee camps, and these documents do not specify just what they are referring to. Did you have anything to do with that?\nA.- With these refugees from the Baltic countries, I had something to do, as far as their care was concerned.\nQ.- Were these refugees who are mentioned here, were these people resettlers?\nA.- No, these people were refugees. They were completely disorganized and they were trying to escape from Bolshevism, and that is why they left their countries of origin and came to Germany.\nQ.- Did any German agency, either your agency or some other agency, try to get these people into Germany?\nA.- No, these people were actually running away from certain death.\nQ.- And of what circle did these people comprise?\nA.- These people came from all spheres of society. They were various groups of the population, but in the majority they were people who were not of German descent.\nQ.- Now what did you have to do with these people individually?\nA.- Himmler gave instructions to my agency that these people were to be examined as to the possibilities for their care and the accommodations which would be given to them in Germany, and it was to be ascertained just what could be done with these people.\nQ.- Will you please take a look at Exhibit 236 and will you please tell us whether this is a definite specification of an oral order which \n was given in April.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1658, "page_number": "1652", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "It's Exhibit 236. Does this mean that this is the written form of oral instructions which were already issued in April? Who carried out this examination?\nA.- The Security Police took care of the examination with the collaboration of the ethnic German experts from the Baltic ethnic groups.\nQ.- Therefore your agency did not have to decide just how these people were to be classified?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Just why did you submit the reports which have been presented here by the Prosecution?\nA.- Himmler ordered that this was to be done, especially since once the decision had been made we had to care for these people; we had to find work for them and we also had to give billetting accommodations to them.\nQ.- I am now coming to a different subject. Did any planning suggestions with regard to the Crimea, made by a Gauleiter Frauenfeld, came to your attention?\nA.- I know of a correspondence between Himmler and Frauenfeld, and I received a copy of it for my own information. This was done because in this correspondence the resettlement questions of the Southern Tyrolians were discussed, and I was specifically charged with the care of the people from southern Tyrol.\nQ.- Did anything come of it?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Please take a look at Exhibit 261 in Document Book V-C. I believe you have it before you: V-C.\nA.- Will you please give me the exhibit number once more. I don't have the document book before me.\nQ.- It is Exhibit 261 in Document Book V-C. Did you have anything to do with the planning regarding the resettling of Germans from Palestine, in the Crimea?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1659, "page_number": "1653", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.- One certainly cannot speak about any planning activity in this respect. In Palestine, as far as I know, there were approximately 2,000 Germans who lived there. As a result of the Jewish settlement in Palestine, those people were put into great financial difficulties. Then the war broke out, there were approximately 600 Germans from Palestine in Germany. At the time those people tried to find a new way of earning a Living for the entire group of the Germans in Palestine. I believe that the authorization of the Party which dealt with problems of foreign countries pointed out this group to us. Frauenfeld also must have heard of this on one occasion and he also occupied himself with this problem.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1660, "page_number": "1654", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QIn practice, were Germans from Palestine settled on the Crimea?\nANo, no practical measures resulted from these discussions.\nQDid you and Himmler travel through the Crimea? I'm referring to the end of Document 254 where this has been referred to.\nAWe did not take any journey of that kind. The whole matter did not have any results whatsoever. It was completely forgotten.\nQIn Document V-B, on page 49, you will find Exhibit 255. This is a report of 40 pages, It is on page 49 of Document Book V-B, Will you please tell us just how this report came about?\nABy orders of Himmler, after the occupation of the Crimea, a research planning division or detachment was placed with the SS leader there, and I didn't know any details about this man's work, and only after we had lost the Crimea again was I able to see this report which was very long.\nQI do not want to ask any further questions with regard to the contents of this report, We recently discussed the affair of Douai in northern France. In this connection, please take a look at Exhibit 285' in Document Book V-B. Your name has been mentioned in this connection. From this document it does not become evident that any action has been taken. Why in particular was your name mentioned there? Can you give us an explanation of that?\nAFirst of all, I would like to make a correction. This document does not deal with the matter of Douai but it deals with the question of the repatriation of Germans from France. For a general understanding of the matter, one must separate these two problems. The foreign office, which was represented by Luther, had a dispute with Himmler about a fundamental question. My name was known to the foreign office as a result of my activity in southern Tyrol, and when this general dispute occurred with Himmler, probably the expert from the foreign office recalled my name and he must have included my name there without any real connection, my part, with that respect.\nQWell, you mentioned the foreign office. In the problem dealing \n with southern Tyrol, were there any difficulties between you and the foreign office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1661, "page_number": "1655", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A when I worked on the question of southern Tyrol, we always recognized the policy of the foreign office so that our work could be carried out smoothly, and from this satisfactory collaboration, I believe that my name has also been mentioned in this document from the foreign office.\nQI have now concluded the discussion of this matter. I am now coming to the deportation actions in Alsace. Just who carried out the deportation from Alsace?\nAThe deportation actions were ordered by the Chief of the Civil Administration, Robert Wagner.\nQWere such deportation actions carried out in order to have resettlers accommodated there?\nANo, never.\nQDid you have knowledge of these deportation actions before they took place?\nANo, the CDZ always would carry out these drives suddenly and surprisingly.\nQWhen did you hear for the first time of these deportations?\nAAs far as I can recall, this must have been in the middle of the year 1942. Here I received knowledge of them as a result of a letter of the local Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQYou were referring to a letter just now. Are you referring to the letter which is contained in Document Book V-F as Exhibit 263?\nAYes, that is the letter which I was referring to.\nQWhat reasons were given to you for these deportations?\nAI only heard that the reason for the intended deportation was based on the hostile attitude these people took towards the Germans. Consequently, they constituted a considerable danger in time of war.\nQWas this a police measure?\nAIt was exclusively a matter of the police.\nQDid you have any influence whatsoever on these police measures?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1662, "page_number": "1656", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "ANo.\nQDid Wagner adhere to the principle that he should only consider the point of view of the police?\nAMy experts heard that Wagner based himself on the authority which he received from Hitler and that he also used the authority for other factors in geo-politics, and things of that sort.\nQWere you opposed to these measures?\nAIn my agency, the fundamental opinion was maintained that deportation drives from the western territories should not be carried out unless there were urgent reasons, as far as the police were concerned, in individual cases.\nQNow just what steps did your agency take against these measures?\nAIn a discussion of our referents together with those of other agencies of the Reich Commisar, steps were taken in order to prevent the measures which Wagner had planned.\nQWas it the same discussion which is mentioned in Exhibit 275, in Document Book V-F on page 79?\nAYes, that is the discussion which I Was referring to.\nQAnd just what success did you have?\nAAs a result of a disapproving attitude of the various agencies of the Reich Commisar, the RSHA, the VOMI and my agency, Wagner's plans were again limited to the extent to which they had been limited before.\nQDid Wagner intend to punish the people concerned by issuing these measures?\nANot in my opinion -\nMR. SCHWENK:I object to this question. I cannot see how the witness can know anything about the intentions or plans of a certain person.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, Dr. Haensel, in the first place his opinion about it would not be binding on anybody, and in the next place, what difference does it make whether somebody else intended to punish him or not? If you would get down to the facts you would help the Court. We are interested in what this man did. We would get along better and you would thus help the Court.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1663, "page_number": "1657", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQAccording to your knowledge, what was done with the property of the people concerned?\nAAs far as I know, the CDZ charged the DUT with appointing custodians for these properties.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1664, "page_number": "1658", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.Did this mean any expropriation?\nA.No. It just meant that custodians for these properties were appointed.\nQ.Did these properties have to be......\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. It seems to me that I have heard some testimony similar to this already in this case, from this witness. Just what was done about these things?\nDR. HAENSEL:The DUT is something which fell into the field of work of the defendant. If the DUT is involved in something then he must give us some information about it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have gone very thoroughly into all of these organizations. I allowed you great lattitude in the respect in the beginning. You took up each of them and described its functions and its relationships one to another. The Tribunal allowed you very great latitude in that respect because we felt that this witness was probably the best qualified to give the Court the information about these various agencies and their relationships one to another, and that all of the other defendants would not have to go over the same thing. Now, let's not go back over it again, please. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you play any part in the expropriation or the seizure or the administration of the property of these persons?\nA.No.\nQ.In the exhibit which I have just mentioned, 275, there is another file note contained which has not been signed and which does not bear any date. Did you know this file note?\nA.No; I did not know this file note.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1665, "page_number": "1659", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.However, your name is mentioned in this file note even though you don't know it. Just how can you explain this fact?\nA.It is quite possible that my name may appear in the file note without my having any knowledge of it and without my having been assigned any task as a result of this file note.\nQ.Did Himmler order you to take care of the accommodations of the people who had been deported by Wagner?\nA.I did receive such an order in the year 1942.\nQ.In the file note contained in Exhibit 274 on page 78 it now deals with the resettlement of these people in the Ukraine. Was this ever done?\nA.No. This was completely out of question. This was a Utopian idea on Himmler's part.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if it was not done there is no use saying anything else about it.\nDR. HAENSEL:I beg your pardon, your Honors. If the Prosecution offers a document in which the charge is contained that this man had done something, then it is impossible for me to clarify this matter unless I ask him whether he did it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You did ask him whether he did it and he said he did not do it and then went on to talk about it being a Utopian dream of somebody else. When he says he didn't do it that is enough. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Just what was done with these people?\nA.An order was issued that these people were to be taken care of.\nQ.Now, just how were these people treated in as far as you Were connected with them?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1666, "page_number": "1660", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.If they were able to find accommodations and work in the Reich proper, then these people could do that. If they did not succeed in doing so, then we would find some work and accommodations for them.\nThis was done in a similar manner or in the same manner as it was done with the people who were suitable for re-Germanization.\nQ.Wasn't a part of this people also sent to France?\nA.For Security Police reasons such deportations to France were carried out through the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.What did you have to do with these people in France?\nA.Nothing whatsoever.\nQ.Did you commit people to concentration camps?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you competent for doing so at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Whenever you saw file notes did larger figures of people concerned come to your attention or were only small numbers, concerned in these cases?\nA.As far as I can recall, there were only a few hundred people concerned in each case.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the naturalization of Alsacians, Lorrainians and Luxembourgians when they renounced their former citizenship?\nA.No; that was a matter handled by the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQ.In Exhibit 693 in Document Book V-G on page 107 your name has been mentioned in that respect. This is connected with the repatriation of Alsatians in France. Did you have anything whatsoever to do with this problem? Will you please take a look at the date?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1667, "page_number": "1681", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "had arrived.\nQApart from the planning office, did you ask other agencies or other offices to plan?\nAWithin my agency or outside my agency, Dr. Hensel?\nQWithin your agency, Amt I.\nAWithin my agency, Amt I, dealt with the question of the distribution of the people who had returned to the Reich as resettlers. This work was not carried out in the planning department.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1668, "page_number": "1662", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "to your agency that you should see to it that decisions of the EWZ should be changed?\nA.Yes, we did receive such requests?\nQ.Just what did you do upon these requests?\nA.We passed on these requests for a decision.\nQ.You have not told us yet just what \"S\" decisions were with the EWZ and what they meant. Can you tell us that?\nA.The letter \"S\" stands for Sonderfall which means special cases. These people were refugees. They were not ethnic Germans who had joined the resettlement drive.\nQ.In order to gain workers after all these people should have been kept in Germany, but what was done with them?\nA.If it was possible these people were sent back to their countries or origin.\nQ.Just what did you have to do with this question?\nA.I was only concerned with them in the field of economics. Here sometimes my agency had to intervene. I can recall one particular case and here I had to negotiate with the Rumanian government so that the refugess who returned were given back their property which had been confiscated. They were to receive their property back upon their return. Here I was acting in the interests of these people who had, by mistake, also gone to Germany.\nQ.With regard to the indemnification work carried out by your agency, I want to ask you whether the classifications into Category A or O meant any difference.\nA.No.\nQ.Will you please take a look at Exhibit No. 219 in Document Book V-B? It is on page 5 of the following pages. This is a report of Herrn Kaaserer from Litzmannstadt. One could come to a different conclusion when reading this document.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1669, "page_number": "1663", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.Kaaserer was not subordinated to me and he had nothing to do with property and real estate titles. He, therefore, was not informed of this matter. Decisive for the treatment accorded to A cases, with regard to their properties, were directives issued by Himmler.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1670, "page_number": "1664", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWe were talking about the deportation and alsations and we concluded that phase of it. We will now come to the deportations of Lorrainians and I will put a few questions to you regarding this. Who caused the deportation of the Lorrainians?\nAThe Chief of the civilian administration, Buerkel.\nQDo you know whether Himmler approved measures of Buerkel?\nAThese measures lead to sharp differences of opinion between Himmler and Buerkel; even Himmler could not get this way in the face of Buerkel's arbitrary actions.\nQYou have volume 5-G in front of you. I will put to you Exhibit 691 on page 103. There is a file note with an illegible signature. Did this note file originate in your agency?\nANo, this note file did not originate in my agency.\nQAnd if you turn this page you will come to page 105, Exhibit 692. Do you know of this incident? How do you explain it if you don't know it?\nAThe date shows that I could not have any knowledge of this incident. I was not working at that time.\nQExhibit 272 in volume 5-F is also concerned with the Lorrainians. Will you please look at Exhibit 272 on page 74, the signature of this document is given as Berndt, by the people who copied this document. What was your connection with Berndt?\nAI had no contact with Berndt.\nQWho was Berndt?\nABerndt was Ministerial Director in the Ministry of Propaganda.\nQDid he send this letter to you?\nANo.\nQI have gained the impression from this document that he, Berndt, concerned himself with ethnical questions. Is that correct?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1671, "page_number": "1665", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AThese agencies were concerned with ethnic questions of foreign aliens but my agency did not deal with the ethnical questions.\nQWho dealt with the questions of citizenship in Lorraine?\nAThe Ministry of the Interior.\nQWere you ever in Lorraine or Metz in an official or private capacity?\nAI was not there during this war.\nQWe can conclude the chapter of Lorraine can now turn to Luxembourg. The earliest document submitted by the Prosecution is contained in volume 5-F, Exhibit 269. It is a question here of 9,000 Italian workers who had immigrated to Luxembourg. Was this a forced consignment?\nAThere was no question of that. The Italians had been living there for many, many years, many decades. Italy always supplied labor for these industries.\nQBut difficulties seem to have resulted from the fact that these people wanted to keep their Italian nationality and citizenship.\nAThis is a matter of ethnic difficulties in the European area.\nThese people wanted to remain Italians in spite of the fact that they lived abroad.\nQWhat did you have to do with this matter?\nAI was merely informed of the correspondence which was sent to me because of my work in South Tyrol; I was informed about all ethnic questions which had any connections with Italians.\nQDid you cause any steps to be taken in the question of the Italians?\nANo, nothing was done.\nQThe exhibit 269 which we have just mentioned extends to page 64. Did you have anything to do with the settlement of people in Luxembourg which one of the witnesses mentioned here.\nAMy agency had no Dart in these measures. This was a matter for the Chief of the Civilian Administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1672, "page_number": "1666", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QIn this exhibit under the 19 September 1942 resettlement measures were mentioned for the first time. Did you have anything to do with these resettlement measures?\nANo, I had nothing to do with them.\nQBut in the letter of the Chief of the Civilian Administration of 6 July 1943 we find something about the resettlement measures to be carried out by the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Ger manism.\nIsn't it your agency which is mentioned there?\nANo, there can be no connection with my agency because I had no branch office in Luxembourg. The Chief of the Civilian Administration is issuing instructions to himself in this case.\nQThe witness Dr. Metzger, who was examined here was manager of the DUT, Luxembourg. Do you agree with what he said about these indicents. I am referring to page 1,156 of the transcript.\nAAs far as I remember his testimony Dr. Metzger was head of the legal department; whether he was a member of the management at the same time I do not know. As far as I remember after so many years he described the state of affairs in Luxembourg as regarding the property titles in a proper manner but I myself was never in Luxembourg.\nQI submit Exhibit 700 to you. This is a matter of Luxembourg deportations and it is addressed to the Reich Commissar of Vomi, Regierungsrat Lohmann. What were your contacts with him. Exhibit 700, volume 5-G, page 106.\nAI believe the page should be 108 and not 106 as I see it from the table of contents. The Dr. Lohmann mentioned here was the head of my statistical department.\nQThe witness Wirsich said something about deportations of Lorainians which one could see the reason for. Do you know anything about these card index files?\nAI never saw such cards.\nQDid you see any connections between these cards and this letter?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1673, "page_number": "1667", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AThese are probably statistical data which were sent together with this letter.\nQThe witness Dr. Kasel of your visit in the camp of Leubres. The transcript shows on page 1,139. Were you ever at Leubers?\nAYes, I once visisted Leubers.\nQAnd for what purpose?\nAAs an official trip in Silesia. It was reported to me that deported Lorrainians were accomodated in Leubers and I just wanted to inform myself briefly as to what kind of professions were represented among these Lorrainians in order to direct them to the proper channels. These were welfare measures which my agency was obliged to perform.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1674, "page_number": "1668", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QDid you have anything to do with the question of Luxembourg deserters with which Exhibit 265 on page 59 deals?\nAMy agency never had anything to do with Luxembourg deserters.\nQWe will conclude this chapter of Luxembourg and now come to Lithuania. Do you know anything about State treaties between Lithuania and Germany regarding resettlement?\nAThe resettlement of ethnic Germans from Lithuania was based on a State Treaty or an International agreement.\nQThen we don't have to concern ourselves with these exhibits and documents as far as this treaty is concerned but we have not exhausted the subject. Part of the Germans from Lithuania returned to Lithuania. Who ordered their return?\nAThe directive came from Himmler as far as I remember in the fall of 1941 after Lithuania had been re-occupied by German troops.\nQDo you know of the reasons or of some of the reasons for Himmler's directive?\nAThe farms evacuated by the Ethnic Germans in Lithuania were still empty and for economic reasons it seemed feasible to start stocking these farms again.\nQDid your agency work out any palns for the execution of these measures?\nAYes, that is what happened.\nQExhibit 272, page 97 in volume 5-8. Is that part of these suggestions?\nAYes, these are the basic proposals worked out by my agency.\nQAnd by what viewpoints were you directed in working out these proposals?\nAThe Lithuanian production had to be started again and if people were brought back to empty farms it seemed suitable to carry out at the same time the separation of the ethnic groups which was also present in this area in order to do away with renewed friction.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1675, "page_number": "1669", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Basically speaking this was an exchange settlement and every participant was to benefit by it.\nQExhibit 215 in Document Book 5-A has some connection with this. This is a letter without date, without letter heading, and iwhtout a signature. Do you know it and can you identify it?\nAI only know this documents here.\nQIs it addressed to District Commissar Gewecke? What is a District Commissar?\nAThe District Commissars were individuals of the administration ------\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you have a letter without a letter heading, without a date, and without being signed by anybody, you are wasting more time with it than the court will; they will pay no attention whatever to it.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I direct this question to counsel. Approximately how much longer do you expect to take on direct examination? We are now well into the fourth day of direct examination of this witness.\nDR. HAENSEL:I believe that I shall conclude this examination during the course of the afternoon.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWe have heard that your agency worked out proposals for the carrying out of the return measures. Now we meet with a District Commissar Gewecke who belongs to a different agency. Did he have anything to do with the return of the settlers?\nAYes, the Administration of the Commissar General in Lithuania and the Commissar General von Rentelen took decisive part in carrying out these measures since Rentelen had been appointed as Plenipotentiary by Himmler for the return of the Germans in Lithuania.\nQThe measures mentioned in the letter to Gewecke, did they follow the directives worked out by your agency?", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1676, "page_number": "1670", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "ANo, these are quire wild and irresponsible measures.\nQIn connection with the resettlement of Lithuania the Prosecu tion submitted Exhibit 235, volume 5-B, page 91.\nThis is a letter from your agency to the EWZ. Isn't it a directive? Up to now you said that you had no powers to give directives.\nAThis is not a directive. This is merely information of the EWZ regarding what would happen to the German settlers from Lithuania.\nQNow in order to conclude the matter od deportation. We will have to say something about a few things said by the Prosecution. I submit to you Exhibit 290, volume 5-D, page 74. This is a letter from Himmler which you must have received according to the distribution list.\nHave you seen it?\nAYes, I did.\nQDid you receive it?\nAI cannot say that today. The letter is dated 11 October 1939. I may have received it but I had no official function in the field of the Reich Commissar at that time.\nQThis letter mentions Gotenhafen and Posen. Is Gotenhafen identical with Gdinyia?\nAYes, it is the same city.\nQWould you kindly look at Exhibit 672, page 49 of volume 5-G. Did you write this letter?\nAI did not write it but I signed it. It was at that time submitted to me. In view of the fact there is a large number of resettlers who did not have any opportunity to find or to receive any emergency accomodations, hundreds of thousands of people had to be provided with accomodations and that was my task and this emergency prompted me to sign this letter. This letter represents a proposal to provide accomodations opportunities by evicting Poles and sending them to the Government General.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1677, "page_number": "1671", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.This Exhibit 673, on page 52, in Volume V-G, this is a document submitted by the Prosecution. Did you provide these statistics?\nA.No, it was provided by the Reich Statistical Main Office.\nQ.The statistice regarding the evacuation of the Poles, were these deportations carried out on your orders?\nA.No, not on my orders.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, this question has been asked several times before about evacuation of Poles; the witness said he had nothing to do with it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Objection is over-ruled. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.I also submit to you Exhibit 216, Volume V-A, page 90. Did your work have any connection with these matters?\nA.No, the report cannot refer to activities of my agency. It originates in the first days of February, 1940, and it deals with matters happening in 1939 in the Government General, matters with which my agency couldn't have had any connection at all.\nQ.In connection with the points with which you are charged, Exhibit 213, on page 79, of Volume V-A, was submitted. Do you know this document?\nA.No, this is an internal matter of Upper Silesia administration.\nQ.I want to put a few short questions to you regarding the testimony of the witness Von der Bach. Did you work our any deportation plans for Upper Silesia?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know the over-all plan for the deportations?\nA.No, this plan was unknown to me.\nQ.Where did it originate?\nA.It originated with the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1678, "page_number": "1672", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.When?\nA.In the year 1939.\nQ.How do you know that? Maybe I can refresh your memory by directing your attention to Exhibit 753, Volume XV, page 40, and Exhibit 89, Volume III, and Volume XV it is page 40 and in Volume III it is page 89.\nA.Both documents show that this over-all plan for deportations originated in the Reich Security Main Office, and was already in existence and must have already been in existence at the end of 1939.\nQ.Bach spoke of deportations from Saibusch. Did you give any instructions regarding this and did you direct this deportation?\nA.No, when I arrived in Upper Silesia I did not know anything regarding this.\nQ.Did von Bach receive direct orders from Himmler?\nA.Yes, quite certainly he also received immediate directives from Himmler.\nQ.I understand that among these directives there were some which had no connection whatsoever with your agency?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Could you give me some examples characterising this very important feature?\nA.I know for certain that Himmler visited the resettlement camp in Annaberg in upper Silesia, accompanied by the witness von der Bach-Zelewski. Subsequently Himmler and Bach-Zelewski went by car to the Castle Weichsel in Beskiten. There Himmler spoke at great length with the witness Bach-Zelewski without my being present and without consulting me.\nQ.Was Bach a close associate of Himmler's?\nA.According to my view he was one of the very closest \n COURT I CASE VIII collaborators of Himmler, and for this reason I believe he received the commission as chief of the Beskiten units to mop up and clear the areas into which the resettlers were to return.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1679, "page_number": "1673", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.How is it that you can tell us that a discussion took place between Bach and Himmler on the occasion of Himmler's visit to Annaberg?\nA.I myself traveled in another motor car, in this car convoy and in the Castle Weichsel I sat in another room with another gentleman while Himmler talked to Bach.\nQ.Did Bach receive orders from Himmler regarding the work of the Reich Commissar? Perhaps we will recall Document XIV-A.\nA.Yes, this document is evidence for this question.\nQ.Two last questions regarding Saibusch. You told us just now -\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I didn't understand the last question and the last answer. The document shows the opposite. Perhaps there is a mistake on the part of Defense Counsel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can make the argument at the conclusion of the evidence. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Regarding Sailbusch, two more questions. Who took the preparatory measures for the work mentioned?\nA.Only in the agency in Kattowicze was the work being worked out.\nQ.And to whom was this agency subordinated, among others?\nA.This agency was subordinated to the witness von der Bach.\nQ.Do you remember that Bach personally intervened in Sailbusch on that day?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1680, "page_number": "1674", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.I know that the witness at the station in Saibusch welcomed German resettlers with a very hearty speech of welcome.\nQ.Now, we have dealt with this matter. What is the settlement staff Altreich?\nA.This was created on orders from Himmler in order to accommodate the \"A\" cases as quickly as possible without friction.\nQ.Was there any forced labor connected with this?\nA.No, the \"A\" cases were subject to the same labor conditions and regulations as every German.\nQ.Will you kindly look at Exhibit 214, Volume V-A, page 82, there we find a directive 26-1, and on page 4129 there is a copy of a letter from Dr. Faehnrich, without a date. Do you know this letter of Faehnrich?\nA.It is probable that I saw this letter at that time.\nQ.What was the purpose of this letter?\nA.It concerns the humans welfare of the old and sich people. There must, however, be a difference. The document as regards time, there is no causative connection between them.\nQ.I must put a few brief questions to you regarding details of other documents submitted regarding the treatment of Jews. Exhibit 239, on page 105, in Volume V-B; under paragraph 2 it says: that Jews should not be granted any property compensation. Property compensation was granted to resettlers. How do you explain this discrepancy?\nA.You are overlooking the fact that these persons had been deprived of their resettler card or status, and thus they had lost their character as resettlers.\nQ.Did you cause this to be done?\nA.No, I wasn't in a position to do that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1681, "page_number": "1675", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QBut you told us that people of Jewish descent had been granted property compensation by you. How do you reconcile these two statments?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, of course you are very definitely now going into a subject which you dealt with already. In view of the answer that you gave to Judge O'Connell's question, the Tribunal will permit you to do that, but we will expect you to live up to your answer to the question. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQRegarding this document which I put to you, 239, Volume V-B, is that a directive emanating from you; or what have you got to say regarding this document in your opinion.\nAThis is not a directive emanating from myself or my agency. It is rather a transcript of a statement which was made by the DUT.\nQAnd who made this transcript?\nAThe witness Edgar Hofmann, an attorney.\nQIn Exhibit 312, Volume V-E, pa e 7, under paragrpah 1; and a copy of this paragraph we have just mentioned is also to be found in Exhibit 1212 on page 78, Volume V-A. This is a statement of Himmler's that there was an intention to remove three to four hundred thousand Jews from the Government General. Did you have anything to do with this?\nANoo it was not one of my duties to concern myself with any of these exacuation measures.\nQIn Document, in Exhibit 241, Volume V-C, on page 5, an organization Schmeldt on page 12 is mentioned, which is brought into connection with your Staff Main Office. What kind of an organization was that?\nASchmeldt was a special plenipotentiary of the chief of the German Police for the carrying out of large labor assignment in Upper Silesia.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1682, "page_number": "1676", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QWas this organization Schmeldt subordinate to you?\nANo.\nQWhy does it say here that work is being carried out for the benefit of the Staff Main Office?\nAThis is a very inacurate way of putting it which may occur in these kinds of note files. No work was carried out for the Main Staff Offices, but we did work for the plenipotentiary in Upper Silesia, regarding the reconstruction of farms destroyed in the war in order to create accommodations for resettlers.\nQAnd how is it that there were any surpluses of which you speak in your report to Himmler?\nAHow these surpluses came about, I cannot tell you. When Himmler appointed this Schmeldt, he ordered that the administration of the Reich Commissar should advance money to Schmeldt and this advance had to be repaid, and when this happened, the administration found out that Schmeldt had gotten surplus moneys; the treasurer of the Reich Commissar could not accept such surpluses, and this led to an inquiry at Himmler's office about what was to happen to this money. Himmler decided that this was a matter for the Ober-President and the gauleiter of Upper Silesia. The whole matter was definitely concluded insofar as the money was to be paid to the Reich Commissar.\nQDid you have anything to do with the confiscation of property of people hostile to the State?\nANoo that was a matter for the Ministry of Justice.\nQBut Exhibit 240, Volume V-B, page 116, says something about putting at somebody's disposal the landed property of people hostile to the State for the purpose of settling resettlers. This seems to prove that resettlers were settled on such property; is that correct?\nAYes, it might happen because this property was at the disposal of the Reich by virtue of legal or police measures, and the Reich by furnishing individual property form its funds, it fulfilled the task of restitution.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1683, "page_number": "1677", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QThis letter only deals with the bookkeeping between the various agencies.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQApart from this property of people hostile to the State, did you acquire property for the settlement of resettlers in the Government General, for instance?\nASuch objects were not acquired by the agency of the Reich Commissar, but resettlers were the responsibility of the DUT; this is similar to the case I have just described.\nQDid you find out how these properties got into the possession of the Government General?\nAI did not check it, as you said just now, and my agency was not entitled to check on this, but there was a directive in existence of the Government General regarding seizure of the private property dated the 24th January, 1940, published in the Gazette of the Government General, No 6.\nQNow, we conclude this matter, unfortunately, I don't have this directive here, otherwise, I would submit it. The Prosecution presents all these view points here under the heading of a systematic program, and all these individual measures they contend are of a criminal character. By this, was the system the basis for all these measures according to your view?\nANo, from my point of view we had a definite separation of fields of work, and in this we could always observe conflicting tendencies which clashed occasionally.\nQAnd what tendencies did you represent?\nAI did not have to represent an attitude of my own; I was not interested in any ideologies of a biological or racially or any other kind of nature. My task was of a purely economic nature, that is the accommodation of the resettlers which were sent to me by third parties. As far as program of ethnical nature played a role in this context, they could not be represented by me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1684, "page_number": "1678", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QWere you the director of the program of RuSHA, Lebensborn, RSHA?\nAI couldn't possibly have been that, because I did not have the required knowledge and secondly, I did not have sufficient insight into these various fields of work.\nQDid conferences between the heads of these different agencies take place regularly?\nAThere was a single conference of the heads of the agencies just mentioned.\nQDid you frequently talk to Heydrich, the head of the Reich Security Main Office, apart from the conference just mentioned?\nAThe 30th of January, 1940. Otherwise, I never talked to him.\nQAnd with his successor, Kaltenbrunner?\nAOfficially, as far as I remember, I once spoke to him at the beginning of 1945.\nQDid you frequently met Lorenz?\nADuring the whole course of the war, three times for short conferences.\nQAnd with Hofmann?\nAAbout two or three times.\nQAnd with the head of the RuSHA, Hildebrandt?\nAI never had any official contact with Hildebrandt as long as he was he d of RuSHA.\nQIn Point III of the indictment, a memorandum regarding the treatment of the Polish population, you are charged with this by the Prosecution in Document III. Did you know of this memorandum?\nANo, I cannot remember it. If I had seen this memorandum, some of the cruelties which are mentioned in it would still be present to me. I am principally thinking of the expropriation without compensation, the lack of medical care, and the prohibition of the church and similar measures. Such measures contrast with every human and personal feeling.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1685, "page_number": "1679", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QThe witness Wirsich believed that he once came to see you in your office.\nAI believe that must have been the mistake of Wirsich. I can imagine that Wirsich saw me in another office, because he went about among these various offices quite a lot.\nQHow is it that in June 1940 you passed on a note of Himmler's regarding the treatment of alien populations?\nAThis note was sent to me and contained very exact directives as to what I had to do with this document. I acted on strict orders which I had to comply with.\nQWhat did you say about this note at that time?\nAWhen I submitted it to my closest associates, -- and I remember this well -- I told my associates, \"Thank Heaven, we have nothing to do with this. These are matters concerning alien populations.\"\nQDid you have anything to do with the execution of Himmler's orders; that is, with passing on this order; Did you do any damage by passing on these orders?\nAI can answer this question in the negative, because the persons to who I had to send this order had nothing to do with the policy regarding foreign nations, and they had as little to do with it as I myself.\nQDid the contents of Himmler's order provoke ironic comments as far as other people were concerned?\nAI briefly talked about this with one of my associates. The comment contained in it, that one was supposed to count up to 500 and should only be able to write his name, shows how perverse and how crazy these ideas were, because if he can count to 500, he can count just as well up to 1,000,000.\nQDid Himmler receive this note back?\nAI received the order, as far as I remember, in the beginning of July to return this document.\nQWe heard of an over-all play a little while ago in Charge III.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1686, "page_number": "1680", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "We again find an over-all plan in Exhibit 90. Is that the same overall plan in both instances?\nANoo these over-all plans show basic differences.\nQCan you briefly tell us the difference, and who drafted these two over-all plans?\nAThe over-all plan dated Dorm 39 of the Reich Security Main Office deals withe negative problems, while the over-all plan appearing now of the Main Department Planning of my agency deals with positive reconstruction measures.\nQWas this over-all plan in your agency drafted on your initiative, or who suggested it?\nAIn the spring of 1941, Himmler positively gave directives for the creation of a so-called over-all plan.\nQWhen was this over-all plan thought to give effective results?\nAFirst of all, there is no question regarding time limits in which this over-all plan was to be executed. These were principally technical inquiries in the incorporated Eastern territories in order to give us some data for the settlement plans in Eastern and occupied territories after the war.\nQWas this plan realized partly, at least?\nANoo this plan showed no effects at all.\nQBut in your agency, you had a planning office. What was the prinicpal task of this planning office?\nAWith preliminary planning for the reconstruction of a healthy economic structure within the incorporated Eastern territories after the war. We had to find out which economic and administrative structure would he the most suitable in order to give definite homes for the resettlers who had been accommodated in emergency localities during the war.\nQWhen did you plan -- I mean as far as time is concerned before the first resettlers came or after they had arrived?\nAThe planning began several months after large resettler transports \n had arrived.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1687, "page_number": "1681", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QApart from the planning office, did you ask other agencies or other offices to plan?\nAWithin my agency or outside my agency, Dr. Hensel?\nQWithin your agency, Amt I.\nAWithin my agency, Amt I, dealt with the Question of the distribution of the people who had returned to the Reich as resettlers. This work was not carried out in the planning department.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1688, "page_number": "1682", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 1 December 1947.)\nULRICHGREIFELT - Resumed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nQHow were the collaborators in the planning office.\nAThe collaborators consisted of district planners, people who were to take care of statistics, architects and legal experts. For honorary collaboration, we used scientists and professors of repute. Amongst them, there were Professor Widken Jurgensmann, who wasone of the best known builder of gardens; Professor Goessner, expert in the financial system; Professor Glom and Professor Rollfess.\nQWas the Planning Office able to determine final planning according to which the work had to be done?\nANo. Their final plans with regard to the area to be allotted to this project had to be determined, then they had to be recognized by a Government agency which had to deal with this special assignment. That was the Reich agency for the allotment of areas and space.\nQI am now coming to the last count of the indictment; that is, Count III. Here the Prosecution charges you with having been a member of the SS, that is to say, a member of a criminal organization. You have already told us in the course of your examination just what brought you to join the SS, but you were repeatedly promoted and you had the rank of Obergruppenfuehrer at the end. Just on what were your promotions based?\nAEver since the year 1937, these promotions were connected with my assignment and my position. Since I had to negotiate with the Italian Government and other foreign governments and authorities within Germany proper, these promotions were to give me a certain amount of support. I believe that this is generally customary in the field of diplomats \n and public servants.", "speakers": [ "ULRICH", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1689, "page_number": "1683", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QDid you ever serve in the SS during the war, or were you ever in charge of any SS unit?\nANo. I was in charge of a part of a Government agency, and for that reason I mostly wore civilian clothing.\nQAnd you also received the rank of a general in the Police. Just on what was this promotion based?\nAThis also was purely an honorary matter, No person was more surprised about this fact that I was.\nQDid you ever carry out any police functions?\nANever.\nQDid you ever have anything to do with the criminal aims with which the SS in charged, or did you know anything about them?\nANo.\nQYou have already told us that you were not acquainted with the speech of Poznan. Do you know the speech which Himmler made at Bad Schachen or Metz? I am referring to Exhibit 92, Document Book 3, on Page 127 of the German text.\nAThe two speeches which have been mentioned in this document only came to my knowledge here in the course of the past year.\nQWas your capacity as a general in the police, decisive for your authority?\nANo. As far as my identity papers were concerned, I travelled around with a ministerial pass, and this was an identification paper which showed that I was a high Government official. It had a sort of diplomatic character and it had been issued to me by the Foreign Office.\nQIn the basic information, the Main Staff Office has been described as one of the main offices of the SS. Is that order correct?\nANo. The Staff Main Office and the Reichskommissar was always a component of a main Reich agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1690, "page_number": "1684", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QCould you know at all or did you know just what happened in the police or what happened in the SS as far as the organization was concerned and just what work the individual main SS offices did?\nANo, I was unable to know that.\nQLet's now use an example. In Exhibit 319, Document Book 5E on Page 144, the Prosecution has offered an exhibit which is an order by Himmler that partisans were to be destroyed in Lower Styria. Did you have any knowledge of that order?\nANo, I did not receive any information about this decree.\nQWhy not?\nABecause no duties resulted for me from this decree.\nQDid Himmler discuss measures of this note with you officially or unofficially? Did you consult him or did you talk to him about these things?\nAYour question leads me to conclude that you estimate my relationship to Himmler wrongly. Our discussions only referred to official matters, and they extended solely to my particular field of work. He never let me look into other fields of work, and he did not inform me about them.\nQWere there any differences of opinion between the SS agency and your agency?\nAI would like to use an example here. I received information of the fact that all resettlers who had been accepted in the SS were to be transferred to the care of competent SS field officers, I did not approve of this, although I had received a written order from Himmler which allowed for this possibility. Such differences of opinion quite frequently occurred.\nQFrom the military point of view was Himmler your superior?\nAI was subordinated to Himmler, first of all, in my capacity as an SS officer and then as a general of the Police and also my mobilization order expressly stated that I was to give military obedience to his \n orders.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1691, "page_number": "1685", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QIf you had failed to obey his orders, what would have happened to you?\nAThen without any doubt I would have been placed before courts martial.\nQDid Himmler concern himself with details in the execution of his orders?\nAAs far as he was ablt to do so, without any doubt he did that. Above all, he did this during the initial period of time when he was given his new task. However, as time went on, he had so many tasks to deal with and he had received such a great amount of responsibility that he wasunable to look into matters and into all the details. From this, as far as my agency and myself wasconcerned, we had the possibility to lower certain harships and to help me in carrying through my point of view.\nQAnd didyou make use of that possibility? Did you avail yourself of that possibility? Were you able to prevent unjustified orders by Himmler individually?\nAIn this respect, the same thing happened to me that happened to a large number of German officials and generals, who, in the course of the development, with the over-increasing position of power which Himmler occupied were placed under his orders -- at the end, Himmler was the commander in chief of the reserve army, he was Minister of the Interior, he was Chief of the German Police, and in addition to that he was also in charge of a number of other agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1692, "page_number": "1686", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "All the people who worked together with him were under martial law during the time of the war, and to some extent they had to go along with the orders which had been issued by Himmler. Everyone was trying, according to the best policies in his opinion, to supervise things and to steer them in a manner which seemed most appropriate to him.\nQ.How was it concerning the matters which you classified as secret? Did you know just what work was being done in the other departments and what happened concerning these secret matters?\nA.As far as secret material was concerned, very severe regulations existed in Germany even a long time before the war. They were all contained in an order which stated that everyone was only to know as much as was necessary in order to carry out his essential duties. Therefore, we were unable to look into the work which was being done by the other agencies.\nQ.Now, let us remain with your department for the time being, Just what opinions of yours were mostly in conflict with these of Himmler?\nA.The main conflict arose from the fact that Himmler invariably mixed up economic measures with ideological points of view.\nQ.In practice, did you draw any consequences from that?\nA.Yes, I always did my work according to the economic and organizational point of view, and I always excluded ideological aspects from these practical matters. I was able, as far as possible to avoid them.\nQ.Did Himmler's orders always adhere to the law and to the legal code?\nA.This is where we had our greatest difficulties in working with Himmler. After all, Himmler was a man who did not adhere to the provisions of the law, and he thought that he did not have to comply with them. He wasof the opinion that one could organize and control \n an organization and state without always adhering to the provisions of law.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1693, "page_number": "1687", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.Were you successful with Himmler in maintaining of your opinion?\nA.To stand up to a person like Himmler, was hardly possible. However, I was successful in maintaining my own opinions if I was independent in one particular field, and if I acted on my own initiative and on my own responsibility.\nQ.Was Himmler's position towards resettlement problems clear to you from the very beginning, and did this attitude change during the course of the war?\nA.Himmler was always somewhat unbalanced in all of his opinions, and this also applies to the field of resettlement problems. Himmler was a man who was very easily influenced by the opinions of other persons who seemed to him to be important. He would then use the ideas which seemed opportune to him, and he would consider them to be his own ideas, and be would try to realize them in that way.\nQ.As to the file note which we discussed this morning in Document Book III, can we use that as an example for the passing on of ideas of other people?\nA.If I understand you correctly, you are referring to the memorandum of Professor Gross in connection with the ideas which Himmler then put down himself. I believe that the thoughts which Himmler wrote down there could have originated in the memornadum of Professor Gross.\nQ.Did Himmler also accept ideas which came from you whenever you brought them before him?\nA.As far as Himmler was concerned, I was always only his subordinate, and it was extremely difficult to bring an idea to him from the position of a subordinate, or to make suggestions to him.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1694, "page_number": "1688", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "I did try to do that, and when I did not succeed in doing so, then I had to try to act on my own responsibility and try to do the best thing possible under the circumstances.\nQ.Did Himmler finally lose interest in your work?\nA.At the beginning he was very much interested in my work. However, as time went on, he became disinterested in the economic matters, which were also included in these problems, he did not deal with economic problems any longer, but only went chasing after ideological phantoms.\nQ.Did he want to dissolve your agency?\nA.In 1944 this lack of interest finally drove him to decide to dissolve my agency. He was not able to do that by himself, but he was putting it forward for consideration. Actually, it was in the very character of this man who was really influenced by a certain amount of amateurism, that he was trying to get away from ideas and questions whenever he himself had the feeling that they would not lead to the goal which he had intended. It was a great difficulty for his collaborators that they suddenly found themselves independent whenever a task had to be executed. Above all, this was true in those cases when it was ascertained that one had approached the work in good faith, but the original aims which were to be pursued could not be brought into agreement with the existing facts.\nQ.Just why wasn't your agency dissolved when Himmler lost interest?\nA.That was caused by the fact that I pointed out to Himmler the impossibility and impracticability of such a measure. After all, it was impossible to suddenly try to dissolve an agency which had been functioning for years and which, for a number of years, had been an agency which took care of hundreds of thousands of people. Especially as at that time, in 1944, these people once again had to leave the lands \n where they had settled and they were actually left without any place to go.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1695, "page_number": "1689", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.Because of the fact that your agency was to be dissolved, was it also important for Himmler to give you and your collaborators some sort of consideration?\nA.I don't think anyone could expect any such consideration on the part of Himmler for his collaborators, especially from the year 1942 on. While he had been quite humane towards us in the earlier years, as a result of the set-backs which were suffered during the war, he became a completely changed personality; he became extremely difficult, and it was most difficult for us to do our duties under him.\nQ.But just why did you keep on doing your duties? To whom did you give your consideration?\nA.These are the same ideas which I stated before. After all, all the refugees and all the resettlers were under our care, and we had to help these people and care for them. - Q. Now, my last question. Why didn't you separate from Himmler? Wasn't it possible? Why didn't you do it?\nA.During the war it was impossible for me to take such a step. After all, we were all under martial law. I myself had the firm intention---and I always voiced it to my closest collaboratorsthat after the end of the war I would immediately leave the public service. After all, during the war we had to use our abilities on behalf of the German people. I believed that I would serve my country in the best possible manner if I were to work in the special field of resettlement to the best of my ability and to the best of my capabilities with the experiences which I had gained. I certainly did not give any consideration to Hitler, Himmler, the Party, or myself, but, as far as I was concerned, it was only a matter of caring for the persons who had been resettled.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1696, "page_number": "1690", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:I have no further questions, your Honors.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead on the cross-examination.\nDR.SCHUBERT (Counsel for the defendant Lorenz):\nYour Honor, may I ask the witness a few questions?\nTHE PRESIDENT:If at any point this witness has testified against your client, of course you would be permitted to crossexamine him if you desire to do so; but, very clearly, we cannot have fourteen direct examinations.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Your Honor, the witness did not testify against my client. However, I would like to make him my witness for several questions. That has been declared permissible before all the Tribunals.\nTHE PRESIDENT:This Tribunal wants to make it very clear now that our responsibility is to try this case and this one only. Other Tribunals might have different ideas from ours; they might be better ideas than ours, but we will have to try the case according to our own ideas.\nThe Tribunal mill per, it you to ask the witness material questions that have not already been covered, but do not cover ground that has already been covered. In doing this, we are going much futher than we do in our country. There, when we try a number of joint defendants, they have to agree on one lawyer to conduct the examination on behalf of all defendants where they are jointly indicted. So that we are giving you a privilege that is over and beyond what we are accustomed to doing, and we will ask you to hold your self in strict limits.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1697, "page_number": "1691", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Herr Greifelt, there was a separation of the competencies of both agencies, with the defendant Lorenz representing VOMI?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not believe that anybody could improve upon what Dr. H aensel did in describing in complete and minute detail the competency of all of these agencies. I think that ground has been very thoroughly covered.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Your Honor, I do not want to talk about the competency of the Main Staff Office which the defendant Greifelt represented, but I only want to talk about the competency of the VOMI, which was represented by my client.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may ask him anything about the competency of VOMI that has not already been proved. There is no use to prove it again if he has already testified about it. You asked him the general question about the competency of VOMI. That is not permissible. If you can think of some fact about VOMI that he has not testified about, then you can ask him that fact. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, you reached an agreement with the VOMI and the defendant Lorenz according to which the VOMI was to play an active part in the Supreme Court for Racial Classification. Can you tell me, did it ever actually plany an active part there?\nA.No, the VOMI did not play any active part in the Supreme Court for Racial Classification.\nQ.In the same agreement as to the competencies, the VOMI was declared to be competent to issue directives for giving work to people who were suitable for re-Germanization?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I remember very well, the witness has covered that territory already.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Your Honor, I beg your pardon; he only talked about the Main Staff Office, but not about VOMI. My questions are aimed \n at determining whether any agreement was reached here between Lorenz and Greifelt, according to which certain authorities were given to the VOMI.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1698, "page_number": "1692", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "I want to know whether this agreement was actually put into effect and whether this authority was exercised by the VOMI and my client. As far as I know, the witness has not said anything on that subject up to now.\nTHE PRESIDENT: I think you are mistaken; you were either out of the courtroom or not listening, I think he has. But I will let you ask him that question if you will make it pointed and get through with it. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ. Witness, did the VOMI have anything to do with giving work to people who were suitable for re-Germanization?\nA. As far as I know, it did not have anything to do with it.\nQ. And how was it concerning the political and social care for people who were suitable for re-Germanization by the VOMI? Does the same apply here?\nA. Originally the participation of the VOMI was planned as a result of its work in protecting the national authorities. However, later on this work was carried out by the Party and its organizations.\nQ. Did the VOMI have the political leadership and the social care of persons who came under Department III and IV of the DVL, the German People's List?\nA. No, that was not the task of VOMI.\nQ. Witness, were the so-called district allocation leaders subordinated to the VOMI, and were they subordinated to the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or were they independent?\nA. As is illustrated by my skethc, the VOMI had its own channels.\nTHE PRESIDENT: Now, Mr. Witness, you have been over that one time already; don't go over it again. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ. Did the VOMI have the authority to issue directives to the \n Gauleiters or the Reichsstatthalters?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1699, "page_number": "1693", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Do you know whether VOMI gave any assurances to the resettlers, when the resettlement took place, that restitution would be made to the resettlers?\nA.It escapes my knowledge whether the VOMI made any assurances of that kind.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nDR.MERKEL (Counsel for the defendant Creutz): Your Honor, may I ask several questions with regard to the person of the defendant Creutz and his position?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Bearing in mind what the Tribunal has announced, you may.\nDR. MERKEL:Very well, Your Honor. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ. witness, you stated that you had requested Creutz as a collaborator, from Himmler. when did that happen?\nA.That was on the 13th of October, 1939.\nQ. when was Creutz then transferred to your agency?\nA.I believe that was on the 19th or the 20th of October.\nQ.Before that time, did you discuss your work with Creutz?\nA.No.\nQ.Therefore he did not know that you intended to request his assignment to your agency?\nA.No, he was unaware of that fact.\nQ.Is it correct that Creutz was a member of the Waffen SS?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Just what rank did he hold at the time?\nA.I believe he was a Sturmbannfuehrer or an Obersturmbannfuehrer. I don't know that exactly any more.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. MERKEL", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1700, "page_number": "1694", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.And did Creutz remain a member of the Waffen SS until the end of the war?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Just what assignment did you give him when he entered your agency?\nA.He was to look after the organizational development; he was to be in charge of organizational procedures and he was to help me in my tasks.\nQ.Did you appoint him your deputy at the time?\nA.With a small agency of only twenty collaborators, one does not usually appoint any deputy. As the senior in time of service and rank, he would deputize for me whenever I was absent. However, as the agency grow, he also grew into the position of my deputy.\nQ.Is it correct, then, that you made Creutz your personnel advisor?\nA.He was given the title P-1-- No, that is a misunderstanding. I considered him, first of all, to be a personal Referent to me.\nQ.Can you recall the designation P-1?\nA.Yes, there was a file note \"P-1\".\nQ.Do you recall, witness, just what the organization of the Main Staff Office looked like in the summer of 1940?\nA.Yes, I can give you a general outline.\nQ.I am going to put Creutz Document No. 1, for identification, to you. This is an organizational chart from August-1940. Please tell me, quite briefly, whether this chart is correct.\n( Document submitted to witness).", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1701, "page_number": "1695", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AI can't tell that by looking it over so quickly because there are a large number of dates contained in here and also names which I have to check first before I can make any statement under oath on the contents of this chart.\nQCan you at least recall that an organizational chart of approximately the same contents was submitted by you to Himmler and that Himmler approved it?\nAIt is correct that we had the Main Departments I-N and the departments which are listed here. On one occasion, I submitted such a plan to Himmler and he approved it.\nQAnd when was that approximately?\nAThat must have been in the summer of 1940.\nQIs it therefore correct for me to say that at the time all departments and main departments were subordinated directly to you as chief of the agency?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQDo you know how long this type of organization remained in effect?\nAIt probably remained that way until 1942.\nQWitness, is it correct that in the years 1939 and '40 you also charged the defendants to deputize Fehndrich for you?\nAI can't recall that. It is possible that Fehndrich as chief of Main Department I did deputize for me on some occasions, but I certainly did not appoint him my deputy.\nQWas Dr. Fahndrich, as Chief of Main Department I, subordinated to the defendant Creutz before 1940?\nANo.\nQThen how was it with the legal department under Goetz, prior to 1942? Was the legal department subordinated to the defendant Creutz?\nANo.\nQI have a few more questions with regard to the organization. After 1942, the office groups A, B and C were established.\nAOn paper, yes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1702, "page_number": "1696", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QAnd actually?\nASeveral fields of work were joined together; however, this had very little effect in practice.\nQAnd what assignments did you give to the chiefs of the office groups?\nAWith this organizational measure, we tried to exert some influence on the official duties of the offices.\nQWhat authorizations did the defendant Creutz receive as the Chief of Office Group A?\nAFor these tasks he did not receive any special authorizations and no such authorizations were issued.\nQDid you give him any special privileges?\nAWell, that actually is the same question. You should keep yourself informed about these fields of work.\nQWhat authority did Creutz have with regard to the work which was done by the legal department under Wirsich?\nAWhat I have just said before applied from 1942 on.\nQEven after the stablishment of the office groups, did you receive the office chiefs of I and II without the presence of the defendant Creutz?\nAYes.\nQAnd did the same thing apply to the Chief of the Legal Department, Attorney Wirsich?\nAYes, the same being applied to him.\nQCan you still recall whether In the fall of 1942 you had the intention of having Creutz appointed by Himmler to be Staff Leader of the Main Staff Office?\nAI cannot recall that any more.\nQAnd can you recall that in 1940, on the occasion of the announcement of Himmler's memorandum about the treatment to be accorded to the Poles, he told you that he did not want to collaborate with this and that he asked you to release him from his assignment?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1703, "page_number": "1697", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AI cannot recall that. I talked to Creutz about this memorandum as I have already stated before in the course of my direct examination and I testified that we had nothing to do with the carrying out of these tasks, but I don't know whether such a discussion actually took place.\nQDo you know anything about the fact that Creutz later on again asked you to release him from your agency?\nAI am unaware of the fact that such precise demands were made on me. We sometimes discussed our points of view and agreed that we could not be content with all things that were being done without any reservations.\nQWere the tasks in the Main Staff Office divided in any way between you and the defendant Creutz?\nAThere was no definite separation of tasks between the two of us.\nQDid Creutz in any way participate in any negotiations with the HTO--the Main Trusteeship Agency East?\nANo, that was the task of Office III.\nQAnd in the negotiations with the Reich Ministry of the Interior? How about the introduction of the German People's List?\nAThis was handled by the Main Legal Department.\nQDid Creutz participate in the negotiations about the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo, he was not a member of that agency.\nQNow my final question: Did Creutz play any part in any negotiations about the administration of rural property?\nAThat was a task of Office IV and it was not one of Creutz's tasks.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. BEHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQI only have a few brief questions on behalf of the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nWitness, When did you meet the defendant Meyer-Hetling for the first time?\nAThat was in November 1939.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1704, "page_number": "1698", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QWhen was the defendant Meyer-Hetling given a position in the agency of the Reich Commisar?\nAThat was also in November 1939.\nQDid you know that Professor Meyer was a regular professor at a school Of higher learning and that consequently he was also a public servant?\nAYes, I knew that.\nQEven after his entry into your agency, did he continue to exercise his teaching profession?\nAYes, he continued in that profession.\nQCan you confirm to me that Professor Meyer did not receive any pay or allowances for his activity in the Staff Main Office and consequently he was only working there on a part-time basis?\nAProfessor Meyer did not receive any allowances or pay from the Office of the Reich Commissar.\nQTherefore he was only working there on an honorary and on a parttime basis?\nAYes, that becomes evident from my statement.\nQDid his honorary and part-time activity have any influence on your agency?\nAWell, he was free to dispose over his time.\nQWas he a full-time officer in the SS?\nANo.\nQDo you know that Professor Meyer also had some other functions to take care of; for example, in the agricultural research center, which also took up a lot of his time?\nAI know that Professor Meyer also had to take care of some other assignments in which I was also interested privately.\nQCan you tell me where the planning office was located?\nAThe planning office was located in Berlin-Dahlem, Podbielski-Allee.\nQIs that the same location as that of the Main Staff Office?\nANo, it was separated from the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1705, "page_number": "1699", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QDid the planning office have its own incoming and outgoing mail system?\nAYes, as far as I know.\nQDid the planning office therefore have a certain amount of independence?\nAYes.\nQWere the personnel in the planning office for the most part experts and scientists?\nAYes, that already became evident from the task which this agency had to fulfill.\nQIn the direct examination you mentioned the names Kristalla and von Schauroth. Is it correct that these two people, who were considered politically unreliable at the time, were actively working in the planning office?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQCan you also recall the name of Krause?\nAYes, there was an employee by the name of Krause in the Planning Office. Professor Meyer once discussed him with me.\nQAnd that was for political reasons?\nAI didn't quite understand your question. Was he employed there for political reasons, or what do you mean? Professor Meyer came to see me because there were some personnel difficulties with Krause. I do not know exactly what happened at the time.\nQDid the planning department occupy itself with the movements of entire national groups?\nAThat was not the task of the planning department and it was just as little its task as it was that of the Main Staff Office.\nQDid the planning office have to deal with questions of racial selection or the policy which was to be applied to foreign and alien nations?\nANo.\nQIs it correct that the tasks of the planning office were placed in \n the background as compared to the questions of the day since the planning dealt with the task which was to be put into effect only after the war?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1706, "page_number": "1700", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "AThe tasks which confronted us suddenly during the war made it necessary for the planning work to be placed into the background since many immediate measures had to be taken in line with the resettlement.\nQConsequently the planning office was not the center of the agency actually, and therefore it could not be considered as constituting a central directing agency?\nAThere was never a central directing agency with the Main Staff Office.\nQIs it correct that the planning work only referred to general questions and that it dealt only with the peaceful development of the economic life, and consequently it represented peaceful work of development and reconstruction after the war?\nAThe planning office dealt with reconstruction work.\nQThe Prosecution has offered a document here. It isNO-2562, Exhibit 203, in Document Book V-A, on page 26 of the German text. This document refers to General Order 17-C, and it boars the title, \"General Order of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police and Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\" about the establishment of a first settlement area within the Government-General. It bears the file makr: C 2-28-3. Is it correct that this general decree was issued by the legal department, which I conclude from the file mark: C?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1707, "page_number": "1701", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.Without first looking at the documents I cannot give you any definite answer.\n(The document is offered the witness.)\nThis file mark \"C\" is the file mark of the legal department. This general decree, however, was not compiled in the legal department, but as I have already states in detail in the course of my direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, just don't quote it again. I, myself, remember that you described that document very well in your direct examination. There is no use in going over it again. Please don't go over things that have already been gone over.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I asked this question because the defendant Meyer-Hetling, whom I represent here, was in charge of Office Group C.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand, but the witness has just said that he explained this very thing that you are talking to him about in his direct examination in detail. There is no use in going over it again BY DR. BEHLIN:\nQ.Can you recall that in January 1943 a general stop decree was issued by Himmler for work which was not vital for the war effort and that after that the work of a planning office was also limited to a greater extent and in part it was completely discontinued?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Is it correct that the agencies which were competent for the incorporated eastern territories--the District Communal Planning Commissions--drafted plans for the allotment of land?\nA.As far as I know, yes.\nQ.Did the planning office of the Main Staff Office have the possibility to give any directives and instructions to these agencies?\nA.No.\nQ.Does this also apply to the occupied eastern territories? Was there any contact between the Main Staff Office and the planning department and the corresponding departments in the various ministeries?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1708, "page_number": "1702", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.I don't know that, but I don't think so.\nQ.Can you tell me whether according to the planning of Professor Meyer new villages were to be constructed, new farms were to be established, cities were to be rebuilt, or whether any other changes were to be carried out within these territories?\nA.The general decrees which were issued from there only pertained to individual construction enterprises of the communities or of the settlement companies, They probably only had a stimulating effect on these projects. However no big construction projects were actually involved.\nQ.Were the different planning agencies in the Government-General, for example, the one at Lublin or at Zaborsch, field offices of the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Were the planning agencies in the southeastern territories or the western territories field offices of the planning office?\nA.The planning office did not have any field offices in those areas.\nQ.Is it correct that the planning office with Professor Meyer in November 1943 remained at Berlin when the Main Staff Office was transferred to Schweikelberg?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Just what reasons caused this agency to remain at Berlin?\nA.Professor Meyer was unable to leave his other fields of work.\nQ.I would like to refer once more to your direct examination and the testimony which you gave this morning. I believe that perhaps we had a misunderstanding there, I would like to clarify it at this time. This morning you spoke about the fact that the planning work was done immediately after the arrival of the resettlers. Afterwards you Went over to another subject and said that this planning work was handled by Department I. Since, however, there were several questions in between that, it did not become quite clear--at least not as far as I \n am concerned--whether with this planning work you referred to the planning work done by the planning department or the planning work which was done by Office I.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1709, "page_number": "1703", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.The first question was when the planning work was actually begun--whether that was done before or after the arrival of the first resettlers. I replied to that question that only months after the arrival of the first resettlers the first planning work could be began. The second question dealt with the planning which was done on the distribution of the people who had come into Germany as resettlers. I stated on that subject that these distribution measures, which can not actually be called planning, were not carried out by the planning of fice but that they were carried out by Office I.\nQ.I then would like to ask you several questions about Himmler's memorandum pertaining to the treatment to be accorded to alien nationals. Can you still recall whether you personally submitted this memorandum to the defendant Meyer or whether you saw to it that this decree was submitted to him? It is well-known that this memorandum originally was only intended to be submitted to a certain group of persons and Meyer was not part of that circle, and you only obtained permission to do so later on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think you have mixed your own testimony and the question up so that the witness probably doesn't know how to answer it. Just ask him a direct question and don't testify yourself and he can answer it more directly. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Did you submit to the defendant Meyer, Himmler's memorandum personally, or did you see to it that this memorandum was shown to him?\nA.I can not say that any more today. I will have to support myself on documentary material which however is not available to me. I cannot recall having shown this memorandum to Professor Meyer.\nQ.You said this morning that you talked with one of your collaborators about the contents of this document. Was he Professor \n Meyer?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1710, "page_number": "1704", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.No, it was not Professor Meyer.\nQ.It is correct that the so-called General Plan East was drafted in the department for agricultural research in the university there?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.As a result of this memorandum, was Himmler satisfied or did he issue new directives?\nA.Himmler continued to make new demands.\nQ.Did you and Professor Meyer work along these lines?\nA.I cannot give you the individual phases of the development any more solely from my memory. However, I do know that the exaggerated demands of Himmler were not taken seriously by us anymore and consequently we did not work on them.\nQ.And later on was the entire matter forgotten?\nA.I did not hear anything further about it.\nQ.Did the planning department or Professor Meyer participate in the planning on the Crimes?\nA.No.\nQ.To whom did you, in the summer of 1944, turn over the supervision of the Central land Office?\nA.Mundt became the chief of the Central Land Office. He was appointed to that position; however, since he became severely ill, Professor Meyer was charged by me to take over the Central Land Office on a temporary basis.\nQ.And who became the Chief of the Central Land Office after Mundt?\nA.I believe that was Dr. Gehbert.\nQ.Is it correct that finally from the summer of 1944 on, Hieke became the chief of the Central Land Office?\nA.I believe that this was in the late summer of 1944 when for reasons of simplification Gehbert took over the Central Land Office \n besides his other duties.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1711, "page_number": "1705", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.And Gehbert up to that time was in charge of the Office for Agriculture, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.I would like to correct page 918 of the German record. The witness Fiedler was asked on that subject, and here there must have been a mistake in the record because Fiedler mentions in the place of the name Hieke, the name Nickel, N-I-C-K-E-L. Witness, can you confirm to me that there was not such as expert by that name? Can you tell me that there was not a man by the name of Nickel in the Main Staff Office, or if you cannot tell me that precisely can you say that in any case no man by the name of Nickel was put in charge of the Central Land Office?\nA.He could not have held that position because after all then I would be acquainted with this name. As far as I know, I haven't heard the name of Nickel for decades.\nQ.Is it correct that the same man Hieke later on also became an advisor in the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture?\nA.That was not later on, but already before. He was not only an advisor but he was also a department chief in the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture, He held this position simultaneously with his activity in my office.\nQ.Of what people was the personnel in the Central Land Office composed?\nA.They were lawyers and persons who had received preliminary professional training.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think he has covered that territory very well. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Was the Central Land Office located in the same building as your agency?\nA.No; that is to say, as long as my agency was in Berlin they did not occupy the same house; however, in Schwikelberg, it was \n located in the same building.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1712, "page_number": "1706", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.Were the offices of the Central Land Office and the Planning Office together in the same building?\nA.No, both agencies were separated.\nQ.Therefore there were three different agencies: the main office was located on the Kurfuerstendamm in Berlin, the Central Land Office was in the center of Berlin, and the Planning Office was at Berlin-Dahlem a suburb of Berlin?\nA.Yes, that is correct.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1713, "page_number": "1707", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.When the Polish property decree was issued were the seizure measures which had taken place before rescinded?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I know he has covered that ground very, very well.\nDR. BEHLING:I shall withdraw the question. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Did the Central Land Office seize the properties, which had been seized before, once more?\nA.No.\nQ.Did its activity only refer to the official announcement of the seizure measures which had already been carried out previously?\nA.The measures of the Central Land Office were only of a pure declarational character.\nQ.What department reached the decision whenever the utilization of real estate was concerned?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I know he has covered that ground very, very well. That ground has been very thoroughly covered already. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Did the activity of the Central Land Office only deal with these formalities or did it have something to do with the real estate registration?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He answered that about three minutes ago. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.In your direct examination you mentioned the fact that, among other things, land was used in order to enlarge industrial enterprises which were already operating. Can you give me an example for that?\nA.When I gave this testimony in my direct examination I was thinking of two cases which happened at Poznan. Here we dealt with the enlargement of the manufacturing facilities of the firms Bersich and the German Arms and Ammunitions Works which had a subsidiary manufacturing plant at Poznan.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1714, "page_number": "1708", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.In the business distribution plan of 1942 the establishment of the office groups was carried out. Did this reorganization have any effect in practice?\nA.The same applies here what I have already said before in my direct examination, in reply to the question by the defense counsel for Creutz.\nQ.Was this business distribution plan over approved by Himmler?\nA.I am unable to say that today.\nQ.When did you appoint the new chiefs of the office groups?\nA.We did not appoint them formally in writing, In an agency which did practical work we did not place any emphasis on such formalities.\nQ. well, actually, every mail-carrier when he was promoted would receive a certificate?\nA.Well, after all, I did not have any mail carriers in my agency.\nQ.I did not try to insult you by saying so, but I only wanted to say that it is customary that a promotion is usually certified and documented through some sort of a paper.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, we are not so much interested in customs or what might have been done some time or some place. We are interested in what was actually done in this case; nothing else. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Did you give any authorizations to the chiefs of the office groups and, if so, what authorizations did you give to them?\nTEE PRESIDENT:Well, you have already asked him what authority ho gave your client, Meyer-Hetling. It doesn't make any difference what authority he gave anybody else. You have asked him that question already. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.After the establishment of the office groups did the old business procedure of the 15 August 1940 continue in force or was a new \n business procedure established?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "TEE PRESIDENT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1715, "page_number": "1709", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.I don't think that a new standard order of procedure was issued.\nQ.Did the chiefs of the office groups, in their capacity, have their own channels of mail?\nA.No. They only had a central incoming and outgoing mail system. Did the newly established office groups receive their own file marks?\nA.Personally I did not care what file marks were used.\nQ.When and with what decree did you order that matters which were to be submitted to you for your signature had to pass through the chiefs of the office groups besides the office which was interested?\nA.I did not issue any decree of that kind. Is it correct that with the evacuation of the Main Staff Office to Schweikelberg. Office Group C became completely superfluous?\nA.Professor Meyer, who was located in Berlin, certainly could not exercise supervision over an office which was located in Lower Bavaria, that is to say, 800 kilometers away.\nQ.When your agency was transferred to Schweikelberg just how big was the construction office?\nA.I believe there were three or four men working in that office.\nQ.Was the defendant Meyer informed about the demolition of the Ghetto at Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.In your direct examination you mentioned the fact that it is possible that in the course of a Monday discussion at Schweikelberg you dealt with that subject. Did Professor Meyer participate in this Monday conference at Schweikelberg?\nA.No.\nDR. BEHLING:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1716, "page_number": "1710", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions to this witness by the defense? BY DR. GAWLIK: (for the defendant Schwarzenberger)\nQ.Witness, since when was the defendant Schwarzenberger active in the Reich Main Staff Office?\nA.Since the fall of 1940.\nQ.What was Schwarzenberger's position in the Main Staff Office?\nA.He was head of the Main Department of Finance from which the Department Five Administration originated.\nQ.What was Schwarzenberger's task as head of Department 5?\nA.In directing the administrative business of the Main Staff Office in supervising the administration of the offices of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar as far as they received budget funds from the Reich Commissar.\nQ.During your direct examination you stated that it was the task of the Main Staff Office to settle the resettlers, to care for them, and to create new areas of settlement for them. For the directives and the carrying out of these measures was Schwarzenberger's consent necessary?\nA.No.\nQ.Was there no necessity for this approval if expenses of part of the Main Staff Office were connected with the Staff?\nA.No.\nQ.Could Schwarzenberger independently decide the spending of such monies?\nA.No, he was bound by general directives.\nQ.What was the reason for the obligation on the part \n COURT I CASE VIII of Department 5 to pay such posts?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1717, "page_number": "1711", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.They were based on general directives, ordinances, decrees, these form the basis for the expenditures approved. It was the task of the administration to check whether the Reich budget regulations and the Reich fiscal regulations and other administrative ordnances could be reconciled with the tasks and the expenditures involved.\nQ.Would Schwarzenberger have been in a position to refuse these payments.\nA.As far as the were within the frame-work of the legal ordinances, no.\nQ.Do you remember the directives and the administrative distribution plan according to which the finance department had to take part in all plans which require the means of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I cannot recall at this moment to which paragraph of the regulation you are referring.\nQ.It is DocumentNO 4679, Exhibit 28, page 26.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will have to speak into the microphone.\nQ.I beg your pardon; it is Document 4679, Exhibit 28, page 39, Volume 2 D. I shall submit this to you in order to refresh your memory. Does this ordinance refer to the measures mentioned by you, the measures of the Main Staff Office, that is, to settle the resettlers, to take care of them and to open up new areas of settlement?\nA.This paragraph of the administrative ordinance does not refer to these expenditures.\nQ.To what measures does it refer?\nA.This directive refers to measures within the actual administration, that is, within the internal administration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1718, "page_number": "1712", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Q.Who provided the means for the Main Staff Office?\nA.From the Reich Minister of Finance.\nQ.On the basis of which ordinances did the Reich Finance Minister pay the demands to the Reich Commissar?\nA.On the basis of the decree of 2 October 1939.\nQ.In what manner did the approval of the individual payments take place by the Reich Finance Minister?\nA.Sufficient means were furnished without a specified purpose; approval was given by the budget plan.\nQ.In the organization plan Schwarzenberg is mentioned as the Finance deputy of the DUT, DAG, and the Reich Chamber of Finance and of the EWZ and UWZ. Is that correct?\nA.While studying the documents I have been struck by this term as being impossible and not suitable. This term Finance Plenipotentiary was a completely new concept for me. I had never heard it until that date.\nQ.Can you give us more detailed reasons why this term is incorrect?\nA.The independence of the two companies was limited liability mentioned by you, that is, the DUT and the DAG, and the different relationships of subordination of the offices and agencies mentioned, like for instance, the Reich Chamber of Finance, EWZ and UWZ, etc, precluded independent competencies and Schwarzenberger's part regarding the means of this institution.\nQ.Could Schwarzenberg dispose of the monies of this institution?\nA.No, that would have been impossible. In order to give you an example the statute of the DUT as a company with limited liability precludes interference from outside.\nQ.What were Schwarzenberger's tasks in relation to those agencies?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1719, "page_number": "1713", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "A.Schwarzenberger only had to provide the means required by this agency from the Treasury of the Reich Commissar. There was no duty for him or no right for him to supervise these agencies and companies, nor did my agency have any right or duty to do this.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1720, "page_number": "1714", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "QDid Schwarzenberger have any right to decide independently about the payments with regard to these agencies?\nAThe right to dispose of these means had been given by the budget plan.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I suggest to counsel who is now interrogating and also for the benefit of other counsel in subsequent examinations, would it not be well to defer until a particular defendant is called for that defendant to state the scope of his duties, what he did, and what he was obligated to do rather than to take one witness and have him crosspexamined on every phase of a particular defendant's scope of duties. It simply invites cross-examination by the Prosecution on subjects relating to the charge before the particular has himself testified. It simply contributes to some confusion. For instance: If the Prosecution exercising its right of cross examination undertaken to cross-examine this witness ultimately on Schwarzenberger what he has done, that will be done before Schwarzenberger has uttered a word in his own defense. To some extent it takes away from the weight; it is also open to the defense ultimately on re-direct to bring out anything which is challenged by cross-examination. Would it not be more advisable and helpful if each counsel for each defendant endeavored to restrain himself and be patient until his own client tells his story and tells the scope of his duties, his acts, until they are attacked by the Prosecution they stand admitted and if attacked by the Prosecution they stand admitted and if attacked ultimately by the Prosecution there is then the right of redirect examination. I mention that as a helpful procedure which I think is going to be just and beneficial to the dfense as it is going to be beneficial to the Tribunal in having the case presented in a manner where there is some sequence to it. For instance, personally, I will be interested in hearing from Schwarzenberger's own lips what his story is, what his duties were, what his obligations were, what his acts were, rather than to hear what another defendant, at this point, has to tell about \n Schwarzenberger.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1721, "page_number": "1715", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "I mention Schwarzenberger simply as one. It applies to the others. I see no particular reason simply because this witness may have a general knowledge of the duties of all in the acts of all why the cross examination should spread over all the dfendants before the defendants themselves tell the story. That is simply in the nature of a suggestion, gentlemen. It is confortable to the procedure which is followed in American courts. I see no reason why it couldn't be followed here and I think it would be a benefit to you. I am not directing this wholly to the present counsel who is interrogating. I intend it to be applicable to all, the counsel who will follow, and not only in respect to this particular defendant on cross-examination so-called by defense counsel, but, to each and all defendants as they are called.\nAfter all the first witness always tells the major portion of the story of any case, so why be tempted into a cross examination of every particular thing rather than relying on the affirmative side of a defense and each defendant has a right to present affirmatively his defense.\nDR. GAWLIK:May I make some comment: I agree with your Honor that this would be the best kind of procedure, but for the following reason we don't adopt it. Until now it was the rule before Tribunals that we were allowed once to direct questions to a co-defendant and to a witness and when the dfendant had left the stand when, while discussing our case, we were not allowed to direct questions to a codefendant regarding the case of our client, if, I have the right during the discussion of the case on Schwarzenberger to examine the defendant Greifelt again as my witness then I think it is more correct if we don't discuss our cases now but if I don't have this right later on, if it is lost to me, that I must of course put all my questions which I want to put to the defendant Greifelt as my witness and we are only doing this because this was the general rule so far \n but I agree with your Honor that it is better and makes the case more intelligible to the Court if there is a certain sequence of the discussion on cases.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1722, "page_number": "1716", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "This is merely for the court to decide whether I may later call Mr. Greifelt as a witness for my client Mr. Schwarzenberger.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I know of no rule that controls this Tribunal, or any other Tribunal, denying a right to redirect if there is a subject that is to be met onredicrect.\nI am not sure how much was heard prior to the interruption in the translation. Therefore, I shall repeat what I have said before. I know of no rule to guide or control this Tribunal or any other Tribunal which will deny the right to a redirect if there is a redirect warranted but I am in no way trying to abridge your right or the right of any defense counsel to examine this witness or any other witness to the fullest scope to which you are entitled but I do press upon you, the advisable course when examining or the other defendants to wait and allow your own respective clients to tell the story of what their duties are and what the scope of their duties is and what their acts are rather than trying to bring it out through another co-defendant. That is a matter of judgment to be exercised by experienced counsel. Experienced counsel ought to know what is material to bring out through a co-defendant and what is material to wait for until your own client tells his story when the Tribunal gets it direct, fresh from his lips.\nDR. GAWLIK:Yes, could I ask for a ruling then? When discussing the case of my client Schwarzenberger if I am going to be allowed to call Greifelt as a witness in my case? Judge Crawford will confirm that in the doctor's case, Tribunal 1, that every defendant had to direct his questions at once to the defendant in the stand and no defendant could twice enter the stand. But, if I am allowed to call Mr. Greifelt to the stand again after Schwarzenberger, I, too, believe it is more fessible to beg off my examination now.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1723, "page_number": "1717", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "JUDGE, O'CONNELL: I shall allow the presiding justice to declare the ruling of the court. The presiding justice speaks for the Tribunal and therefore I will allow him to make such ruling as he desires.\nMR. LAMB:May I say just a word there, may it please the court. Our objection to the co-defendant Greifelt testifying after Schwarzenberger and the other defendants have testified is because he is present in the court room and he would hear their testimony and for that reason if he does testify later we would ask that he be required to testify before any of the other witnesses. We would ask that the court rule that the co-defendant Greifelt be required to testify before any of the other witnesses. We would ask that the Court rule that the co-defendant Greifelt be required to testify before the defendant Scharzenberger testifies.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I have an idea that you would be permitted to recall this witness to testify about anything chat was not covered by your client himself. But, on such matters as are covered by your client himself I do not think it would be permissible to recall him and I do not think it would be worth anything to the Tribunal either then or now to have this witness go over the same things that your client will go over. So, my suggestion would be to you and to all other counsel that fater your clients have testified and there are matters they do not know about or cannot clarify then you would be permitted to call this witness for that purpose.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1724, "page_number": "1718", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt)\nQWitness, I only have four brief questions. I should like to ask you to answer these questions, if possible, either yes or no in order not to trespass upon the time of the Court too much. I ask you, did you ever exercise an activity if only in an informatory sense in the office of the Reich Government or in the office as Oberpresident?\nANo.\nQIn the office of the Higher Police and SS Leader?\nANo.\nQIn the office of the Reich Security Main Office?\nANo.\nQIn the office of the RuSHA?\nANo.\nQThe second question, can you therefore judge the official activities of these agencies from your own knowledge?\nAOnly as far as I have got knowledge of the activities of these agencies by way of ordinances.\nQIs the same answer valid for my following question: On the basis of personal activity can you testify as to the connections of these agencies among each other?\nAOnly as far as I know them from the practice of official agencies, and as far as I know from the ordinances.\nQAnd now the last question. The chart submitted by you, which we see on the wall, was that drafted by you not as a result of practical experiences in these offices, but just a figment of your imagination, your ideas?\nAI drafted this chart and its correctness was confirmed to me by my co-defendants.\nQThis answer does not answer my question. My question was quite explicitly whether you had drafted this chart without practical and definite \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1725, "page_number": "1719", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "experiences; yes, or no.\nAThis question then will receive the same answer as the other questions. This chart is based upon the experience of the work of the other agencies in the course of my official duties.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Huebner) Mr. President, I have only two very brief questions to the witness.\nQWitness, how often did the defendant Huebner visit the Main Staff Office after it had moved to Schweikelberg?\nATwice.\nQDo you know when that happened?\nAThe first time in the late fall of 1944; and the second time in 1945; it may have been March.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm) Mr. President, I have only one question.\nQWitness, this morning you talked at great length about check-ups in the camps of the Baltic refugees. Did you mean racial examinations as given in the table of contents of Volume IV-B?\nAI did not look at the table of contents. The examination took place according to the security view points and I did not have any racial points of view in mind when those examinations took place.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\nBefore the Prosecution begins the cross examination, I invite the Prosecution's attention to what we are about to now say. What we see on the table of the Prosecution prompts the Tribunal to make a statement. This Tribunal does not desire and will not permit a rehash of this case on cross examination. This Tribunal does not desire and will not permit colloquy and argument between attorney and the witness about the meaning of documents or the construction of documents.", "speakers": [ "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1726, "page_number": "1720", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nA cross examination to be helpful to the Court by no means depends upon its length; unless something new can be brought out as a result of the cross examination, it will not be helpful to the Court.\nThus far I have been speaking for the Tribunal, and now I would like to make a personal observation for the benefit of both Prosecution and Defense; and in order to give this personal observation I have to deal in personal terms.\nFor seventeen years I stood right where you gentlemen are, and engaged in a general practice of law that included the trial of all kind and character of cases, representing both sides -- of course, not at the same time.\nFor twelve years following that I presided over a trial court. For the last four years I have presided over a Supreme Court or Court of Last Review for the purpose of reviewing trial courts.\nI think during that experience and as a result of that experience I have learned one thing that I would like to pass on to all of you, Many, many times have I seen a lawyer with a good case, or, a good defense, so completely cover up his case or his defense with irrelevant, immaterial and, may I say, trash evidence to the extent that his real case or his real defense would become lost and never discovered. That, of course, is more largely true in jury trials than before judges; but, I remind you the judges are also human beings and subject to the frailties of human beings.\nI make this statement for the sole purpose of impressing upon both Counsel for the Prosecution and Defense, if you would present your positions to this Court in the most effective manner, you will do so by clear and concise evidence of pertinent and material facts, and leave out those things that are immaterial and irrelevant, inadmissible and without probative value. An entirely too much of that character of evidence is already in the case.\nWe believe that the suggestion will be helpful to you as to the Tribunal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1727, "page_number": "1721", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nProceed with the cross examination.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I don't wish to frighten the Court, but what the Court has seen on the table is to the greatest extent a set of documents introduced already in this Court; one set for me, and one set for the defendant or witness. There are only a very few documents which will be introduced here for cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is quite a relief.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, in order to shorten the cross examination, and to make it as sufficient as possible, will the Court permit me to conduct the cross examination in the German language?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't know how the Defense feels about that, Dr. Haensel, I will delegate you to speak for all the rest of these fellows, and if they don't like it they can throw you out of here.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, I believe I have seen it in many courts that the Prosecution was permitted to conduct their cross examination in the German language, and I personally find it expedient because there are many expressions are not subject to the risk of double translations.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, Dr. Haensel. I don't know that whether that came though very clearly; I did not get exactly what you said.\nDR. HAENSEL:I personally have no misgivings that the examination in the German language would be detrimental because in various courts in this building we have had this practice. I see the advantage in the fact that various professional expressions and terms can reach the ear of the defense in his own language, and that these terms are not subject to double translation from English to German and German to English.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; go ahead.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, during your examination you said that during the assignment of volunteers, that the two volumes mentioned, Menscheneinsatz, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1728, "page_number": "1722", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "represents a private work of Faehnrich. I now submit to you the two volumes mentioned, Menscheneinsatz, and I will let you have an opportunity to look at them. Will you kindly look at the first volume, 1940, a cover page; do you see there where it is confidential and only for the internal official use, published by Main Department 1 of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism; is that a private work?\nAThe words you asked about are present. I have said that the compilation of these brochures, especially the supplements, contained therein are the private work of the head of the Main Department 1, Dr. Faehnrich, but that the books in themselves are a compilation of official decrees and ordinances.\nQDid you not yourself write the preface for this compilation?\nAYes, this compilation contains a preface by me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1729, "page_number": "1723", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd did you not in the preface say that the Volume 1940 was to support and deepen the work in the -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't answer that question. It shows what it says; you don't have to prove by the witness what the book shows. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, you said that you had nothing to do with foreign populations. Did you not occupy a special position in the Main Office which concerned itself with foreign ethnic groups?\nAThere was no such department in the Main Staff Office.\nQWill you please look at the organizational plan of the Main Staff Office, that is Exhibit 18, in Book II-A, and it starts on page 2; and page 34 of the organizational plan under the office planning it says as one of its tasks it mentions foreign or alien ethnic groups.\nAMr. Prosecutor, would you give me the page of that again?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. Don't tell him anything about what it shows. The book itself shows that. If you want to ask him any questions, ask him; don't prove by him what the book shows.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I can't impeach a witness unless I tell him what he said and I show what the effect is.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What he said is in the record. You get the answers and the effect will take care of itself.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, may I ask this question. Here is an essential question; my purpose is to impeach the witness; I cannot impeach a witness unless I show here that he did not tell the truth.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All on earth you have to do is to get him to answer something different. You don't have to remind him of what he's already said.\nMR. SCHWENK:The translation did not come through.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I say all you have to do in order to impeach a witness in that manner is simply have him testify something different to what he has already testified. You don't have to call his attention to what he has already testified, and it is not a very good way, in my opinion, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1730, "page_number": "1724", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "to go about impeaching a witness. You are just getting into an argument with him then. If you want to impeach him, one of the principal methods of impeaching a witness is to have him testify to different things or facts, but in order to get him to testify to a different state of facts, you don't have to go back and call his attention to what he has already testified. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, what does the term alien ethnic groups mean in the office planning?\nAThis is not known to me that the office planning concerned itself with alien ethnic groups.\nQYou want to say then that the note in the directives of 1940, foreign ethnic groups is wrong?\nAOn the page which you have given to me, Mr. Prosecutor, I have not been able to find such a note, that is on page 34.\nQI am sorry; it is page 37.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What is your question? BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWhat did the head of the planning office have to do with the office for alien ethnic groups?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Oh no, Oh no; you can't go back all over that again. You have been through that very, very thoroughly.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I don't understand. The witness testified that the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with foreign folkdom. I now ask the witness what had the planning office to do with foreign folkdom, which is limited as one of the tasks of the Planning Board.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think it is incumbent upon the Tribunal to tell Counsel how to try his case, but I would suggest that if you have any facts that are different from what he has testified to, ask him about that fact and not what the set-up was.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I am unable to follow this suggestion. My question was whether the witness, the planning office had anything to do with foreign folkdom. This, I believe, is a pertinent question in this \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1731, "page_number": "1725", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if we follow your suggestion, you would go back and go over every step of ground that the Defense has covered in the direct examination. Now, we are just not going to permit that.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I will not do that, but I will pick out the most important points, of which one of them is that the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with foreign folkdom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You contended it did; is that correct?\nMR. SCHWENK:I contend that it did have something to do with it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if you have facts which can refute his testimony, ask him a specific question whether that is true or not. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, what did the office for planning have to do with foreign folkdom?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that any different from the question you just asked? I can't differentiate if that is any different. What I am trying to tell you is that if you contend it had anything to do with it, ask him if it had the competency or whatever it is that you have in mind; if you have that in mind, ask him if it did that. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDid the Main Staff Office have jurisdiction regarding foreign folkdom problems?\nAMay I ask for an explanation regarding jurisdiction; do you mean a legal means?\nQWhat I mean here is competency.\nAThe Main Staff Office had no influence on the treatment of foreign ethnic groups.\nQNow what then were the tasks of the planning office?\nAThe planning office made scientific investigations of a general nature.\nQDid these scientific investigations of a general nature pertain to foreign ethnic groups?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1732, "page_number": "1726", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI cannot say that in detail; scientific research can also take place regarding the constitution of the population of Germany, but, as I said, I don't know the details.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1733, "page_number": "1727", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQIf the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with foreign folkdom, for what reason did Himmler select you of all people to look into the document regarding the treatment of foreign ethnic groups?\nAI wasn't the only individual who got to know of this document. Himmler sent this document to an extensive circle of people.\nQWhy did Himmler choose you to show this document to these other people?\nDR. HAENSEL:The prosecutor has repeatedly interrupted me with the objection that I could not ask about the motive of Himmler or of other people. I ask the Court to remember its previous decisions and to decide in the same way now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think anybody else's opinion about what Himmler's motives were would be just as good as this witness'. Motives, opinions, conclusions, hearsay -- for probably the twenty-fifth time since we started this case, I say again, will have no effect on the judgment in this case. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDo you know, perhaps, whether this assay on the treatment of foreign nationals was sent to any other agencies by Himmler personally?\nAI don't know that from my own experience.\nQWitness, before the outbreak of the war against Russia, did you already know that the war against Russia would break out and that you then would settle resettlers, that is, ethnic Germans, in the occupied Russian territories?\nAThat is not known to me.\nQWitness, I am now submitting a document to you that is a letter from Brandt, the personal secretary of Himmler, addressed to you, in which he tells you -----\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind what he tells him, the letter will show that.\nMR. SCHWENK:It is No. 4994.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1734, "page_number": "1728", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nBY MR. SCHWENK\nQWitness, is it correct that this letter was sent to you before the war against Russia started?\nAI cannot remember this letter, but I cannot see from this letter that it mentions the outbreak of war against Russia.\nQNo, this letter deals with the operation Barbarossa. It is not known to you that this was the code word for the war against Russia?\nANo, that is not known to me.\nQThen you did not understand this letter at that time?\nAI have already said that I do not remember having read this letter if I had received it. The operation could have been an operation of all that type.\nMR. SCHWENK:I offer this document in evidence.\nA (Cont'd) That Barbarossa was a code word for the war against Russia is not known to me.\nMR. SCHWENK:The exhibit number would be 785. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, were the relationships between the Main Staff Office and the Reich Security Main Office, which as you said, so often interfered with the policemen - were these relations of a very close or of a very loose nature?\nAThere was the usual cooperation between official agencies.\nQDid you appoint one of your employees as a liaison man between your agency and the Reich Security Main Office in order to render as close as possible the relation between your agency and the Reich Security Main Office?\nAThe appointment of such a liaison man, is no abnormal measure within German official operations.\nQWitness, would you kindly answer this question with yes or no?\nAAfter the Reich Security Main Office nominated a liaison man to me, I also nominated such a liaison man.\nQDid you, by this measure, aim at an especially close \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1735, "page_number": "1729", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "collaboration between your agency and the Reich Security Main Office.\nACertainly not particularly close collaboration.\nQWitness, I am now submitting a document to you which shows that you appointed Frehnrich as Liaison man in order, as you said, to render as close as possible -- it is No. 4125 -- the collaboration between your agency and the Reich Security Main Office and the Reich Security Main Office service, etc. Is it correct, what I have just said?\nAI did not deny that a liaison man was appointed by me, or rather, was nominated by me.\nQWitness, in your decrees did you not yourself use the word \"concentration camps?\"\nAMay I ask you to put this question more accurately?\nQDid not only the Reich Security Main Office, which you condemned so frequently, but did not you yourself also use the word \"concentration camp\" in your directives? Did you not use it frequently in order to intimidate those people who would not give in?\nAThe concept of concentration camp would probably have cropped up once in a while, but I cannot remember any intimidation on my own initiative.\nQIn your decrees, were people who did not agree to be Germanized threatened with concentration camp, or at least, was this threat contained in your directives?\nAI cannot, on the spur of the moment, recall such a document. Transfer to concentration camps certainly was not ordered by me.\nQCertainly not. Of course not, but in order to refresh your memory, I should like to submit to you the document Exhibit 192, in Document Book 4D, on Page 138. It is the last paragraph I am talking about. This paragraph deals with recalcitrant Poles in the case of Germanization, and that these Poles were transferred to concentration camps.\nAI don't know whether I am permitted to go into the details of this document. Only if I do so is it possible for me to answer this question.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1736, "page_number": "1730", "date": "01 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-01", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Ordinarily you would not be and you will not be any more, but since he went into it in the question, I will let you go into it in the answer.\nAThis paragraph says that the dependents of people eligible for Germanization who, by the transfer of the recalcitrant persons into concentration camps or because the man was put into prison -- if such people became subjects for welfare, they were to be handed over to the welfare agencies. It dies not say here that the Main Staff Office had transferred individual cases to concentration camps or had imposed prison terms. It merely says that if such persons had become liable to such penalties, that then their dependents were to be handed over to the welfare agencies.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel for the Prosecution, you have just finished doing what we cautioned you in the beginning would not be permitted, engaging in an argument with the witness about the meaning of a written document.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I agree -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, You can ask him whatever questions you want to ask him, and then when you get to arguing what that document means and what his testimony means, the Tribunal has got to decide what the meaning of that thing is, and the construction that either you or the witness puts on it is no help to us. We will have to construe it ourselves.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I agree with the testimony of the witness. The witness is testifying absolutely correct. That is all I want ed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What I am wanting you to do is to quit going into the documents. Whether you agree with him or not, I don't care anything about that, but I do want you to stop it.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(Whereupon at 1630 hours, 1 December 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 2 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1737, "page_number": "1731", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 2 December 1947, 0930-1630; The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom?\nTHE PRESIDENT:There has been transmitted to the Tribunal a request on the part of Dr. Haensel, Dr. Schubert, Dr. Doetzer and Dr. Orth for a recess on Wednesday, December 3rd, and Thursday, December 4th because of the fact that the judgment in Case No. III will be read on those dates and these attorneys are interested in that case or represent clients in that case. The Tribunal has had this request under discussion and has reached the following conclusion: If these attorneys have assistants, which I presume they have, we see no reason why the assistants could not act here with the understanding, of course, that their clients will not be put on the stand in their absence. I would like to inquire of you, Dr. Haensel, if you know whether or not the attorneys named all have assistants?\nDR. HAENSEL:All the named defense counsel have assistant counsel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, that being true, the Tribunal will not be in recess, but as before stated, the defendants represented by these attorneys will not be put on the stand during those two days.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1738, "page_number": "1732", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Proceed with the cross examination of this witness.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I omitted yesterday to introduce into evidence two documents which were made the subject matter of the cross examination. It is this Document No.NO-4125, which becomes Exhibit No. 786; further, DocumentNO-3531which becomes Exhibit No. 787; and Document No.NO-3531, which becomes Exhibit No. 788. The last document, I understand, is Part I and the preceding document is Part 2 ofNO-3531.\nULRICH GREIFELT - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - Continued BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, when you were head of Amt I in the Office of the Four Year Plan, did you ever make a speech regarding the field of work at this office? That must have been in January 1939.\nA.I was not chief of an amt. There was an amt of a referent or expert of the Reichsfuehrer SS in the office of the chief of the German police. I gave a lecture on the field of work in which I was working at that time.\nQ.Do you in this lecture mention--that is in January 1939--that the Reichsfuehrer SS would return the ethnic Germans by way of VOMI in order to use them, and I quote, \"as a source of German labor?\"\nA.I cannot recall the verbatim contents of my lecture at that time, but I could not have spoken at that time of a leading back of ethnic Germans; that couldn't have been possible.\nQ.Thank you. Did you in this lecture likewise say that the utilization of concentration camp inmates, and I am now quoting your words, \"represents the utilization of--\"?\nA.I didn't understand the last words.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1739, "page_number": "1733", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.That the \"utilization of concentration camp inmates represents the most ideal realization of the allocation of productive labor.\"\nA.I have already stated that I cannot recall in detail what I said at that time. This happened eight years ago, so I cannot confirm the verbatim contents of my lecture.\nQ.Before you gave this lecture, did you show it to Himmler in draft form, and did Himmler write on this draft: \"Good. Heinrich Himmler. 23 January 1939.\"?\nA.I only know that the lectures which were given at that time had to be submitted to the personal staff of Himmler. What Himmler wrote on this draft, I don't know.\nQ.I now offer Document No.NO-5591as Exhibit 789 in evidence showing that the defendant--\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind what it shows. We will find out.\nMR. SCHWENK:We are unable to distribute the English translation at this time, but we will do it as soon as we have it. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQ.Witness, in camps in Upper Silesia, did all \"0\" cases present there refuse to settle in the newly acquired territories in Upper Silesia because they wanted to return to their homeland of Rumania?\nA.I cannot remember that.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office agree with VOMI that the leaders of those people who refused to be settled in the newly acquired territories were to be put into concentration camps?\nA.Nothing is known to me of such an agreement between my agency and VOMI.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office further agree with VOMI that \n COURT I CASE VIII all resettlers in the camp of Zater in Upper Silesia were to lose their classification as \"O\" cases and that corresponding steps would be initiated with the EWZ?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1740, "page_number": "1734", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1741, "page_number": "1735", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AI do not know of any camp Zater in Upper Silesia. I don't know that I could have agreed on any matters concerning this camp. The name \"Zater\" appears here for the first time, as far as I am concerned.\nQI now offer Document No. 54-32 as Exhibit 790 in evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQDid you, yourself, not say that a letter signed by yourself and addressed to the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the Alpine District, Danube, Elbe, and so on--did you not give in this letter the number of the people assigned in Germany proper, on the 30 of November 1942, as approximately 26,000?\nAI cannot tell you now what numbers I gave in a letter.\nQWould you kindly try and recall these facts if I submit this document to you now?\n(Witness is offered the document)\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that it seems to the Tribunal rather useless to ask the witness if he didn't put certain things in a letter when evidently you have the letter or the letter is in evidence. It is just consuming time to show something that the letter itself shows.\nMR. SCHWENK:I am able to misinterpret the letter because the language of a letter is not always clear.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be compelled to interpret the letter according to the language that it contains. Now if you want to waste your time at that you may do it, but I am warning you that you are going to run into a limitation as to time, if you don't mind.\nMR. SCHWENK:I introduce this document as Document No.NO-5391which becomes Exhibit 791.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Have you any other questions?\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1742, "page_number": "1736", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did not your Main Staff Office see to it that persons who--in order to verbally use the language of the Main Staff Office-were asked to enter their names in the German People's List and who refused to do so--to accept the German People's List identification card--that these people were treated in a state political way, which in the language of the Gestapo was equal to a concentration camp?\nAThe directive concerning the treatment of people who refused to enter their names on the German People's List did not eminate from the Reich Main Staff Office but from the Gestapo.\nQWitness, you're not answering my question. I asked you whether the Main Staff Office caused measures to be taken--that is, measures of a state political nature--against people who refused to accept the identification of the German People's List, after previously they--I quote now the Language of the Main Staff Office--\"were asked\" to enter their names in the German People's List.\nAMay I, first of all, correct that. It should be \"state police measures and not \"State political measures.\"\nQThat is correct.\nAI don't know to which kind of directive you're referring. If a letter of the Staff Main Office mentions this measure it could only be the fundamental measures of the Reich Staff Main Office on which these directives are based. I have not got this letter before me so I cannot go into it in detail.\nQI now submit in evidence a letter of the head of the legal departmeat of the Main Staff Office, by name of Wirsich, addressed to the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service, which deals with-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Give it a number and introduce it.\nMR. SCHWENK:This document carries the numberNO-5454and becomes Exhibit 792.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now if you had done that to start with and nothing else the Tribunal would have been just as well off than these questions \n that you have asked about what the letter itself shows.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1743, "page_number": "1737", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "I am telling you again that that is not helpful to the Tribunal.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, I am sorry, I didn't understand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you had simply introduced that written document without these questions that the witness couldn't answer, the Court would have been just as well off.\nMR. SCHWENK:Yes, very well.\nMR. McHANEY:If the Tribunal please, I must say that I think that the Prosecution is entitled to put such questions to the witness. He asked this witness in effect if the Main Staff Office did not in fact have state political action taken against persons who refused to have their names put on the DVL. This witness has previously testified at great length that the DVL procedure was entirely voluntary.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the Tribunal has been in the courtroom all of the time and knows exactly what has happened up to now, and I think I understood the question that was asked, and the Court adheres to its ruling.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, in view of the circumstances in which this cross examination can be carried out, I will shorten my cross examination as much as possible, and will then walk out.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I didn't understand your Last words.\nMR. SCHWENK:I say that I will shorten this cross examination as much as possible and will then leave this courtroom, because I feel unable to go on with this.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is not interested if you stay in the courtroom or not, but if you do you will have to conduct this case in accordance with the views of the Tribunal. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, was there ever a conference of the main department chiefs in the Main Staff Office in which lectures were given on the problem of abortions and the interruption of abortions?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "MR. McHANEY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1744, "page_number": "1738", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:The Prosecution has a letter submitted about this conference which will clearly show what happened during this conference. I am of the view that the Prosecution should submit this letter and then the Court will decide whether this problem of-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Of course, the Tribunal does not know what is in the letter. All the Tribunal can do is to request counsel not to go into the contents of written documents. That has been the rule uniformly enforced by this Tribunal from the beginning of the trial.\nMR. SCHWENK:Your Honor, up to the present time I have not referred to any document as yet.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, go ahead with your question.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1745, "page_number": "1739", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, I repeat my question. Was there any conference in the Main Staff Office of the leaders of the main departments in which the question of the interruption of pregnancies was discussed?\nAI cannot remember that a special meeting was called for this subject within the Main Staff Office.\nQMy question was not whether a special meeting had taken place but whether, in one meeting of the main department leaders, the question of the interruption of pregnancies was discussed.\nAIt is, of course, possible that the question was dealt with in connection with the tasks which the Main Staff Office had to deal with in the framework of its entire tasks, that is, when the father of the child had to be given work and had to be taken care of. I can certainly not give you any details about this today.\nQWitness, in the secret file of the Main Staff Office did you have documents of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, of the Reich Ministry of Justice, of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, as well as of your own Main Staff Office regarding abortions in the case of female Polish nationals?\nAThat documents of other ministries should be kept in secret files in my office, I can certainly not imagine. Some letters regarding these matters which we have received were present in my office and they may have been put into the secret file and I believe that in direct examination I have already referred to some ordinances which my office had received by way of information.\nQDid not the Main Staff Office express in these \n documents the fact that in the case of female Polish nationals abortion was not to be punished?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1746, "page_number": "1740", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AThe Main Staff Office could not issue such directives.\nMR. SCHWENK:I now offer for identification BBT 685 which will become Exhibit 793. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did the Main Staff Office concern itself, among other things, with furniture and equipment which Jewish immigrants had stored in Antwerp in order to have them forwarded to their land of immigration?\nAI beg your pardon. One word didn't come through: in the -\nQAntwerp.\nAThat is not known to me.\nMR. SCHWENK:I now submit Document 5590 for identification. It becomes Exhibit 794. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did the Main Staff Office, already in 1941, have knowledge of the manufacture or rebuilding of furniture for the Winkler Baggage Central Office in the Ghetto of Lodz?\nAI cannot give you the date exactly. I don't know whether it was 1941 or 1942. The affidavit of Dr. Reichert was in the files about this. I cannot give you the exact date.\nQWas not this furniture, with the knowledge of the Staff Main Office, sold with considerable profit and the profit resulted from the fact that the Jews in Lodz, in the Ghetto of Lodz, were practically not paid for their work by the administration of the Ghetto of Lodz?\nAIt is impossible for me to answer this question because I did not give any orders and, as far as I am \n informed, the enterprises within the Ghetto were enterprises of the municipal administration of Lodz who probably received orders.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1747, "page_number": "1741", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Regarding the business of the various enterprises I cannot give any details here.\nQWitness, would you remember, if I submit it to you, a note file by Dr. Reichert, the head of the department for furniture, addressed to you? (Document handed to witness,)\nAI can see the file note. Whether I received it I do not know. It is not signed and it is not addressed to me either.\nQWere you head of the Main Office of the Main Staff Office?\nAI was head of the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQIf it says here to submit to the head of the Main Office via the Main Department Finance, do you want to say then that you were not the head of the Main Office?\nAI cannot see the connection of this question. If an unsigned note says to be submitted to me via another office, this does not mean that I am not the chief of the Main Staff Office and neither does it prove that I actually received this note. An unsigned note I would certainly not have received or accepted because I have to know who is the responsible person dealing with this matter.\nQWitness, were you head of the Main Office or were you not head of the Main Office?\nA have already answered this question in the affirmative.\nQWitness, if this document bears the initials Dr.R., was it not clear to you then that this letter emanated from a Dr. Reichert, especially if the letter did not only bear \n the initials Dr. R., but furthermore the note \"Main Department Economy\"?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1748, "page_number": "1742", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AIf I really had received this note I would probably have concluded this from this file note.\nMR. SCHWENK:Thank you. I now offer Document No. NO-5585 in evidence as Exhibit No. 795. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did you never, or did you ever give directives to numerous Higher Police and SS Leaders regarding the compulsory resettlement and the assignment to work of the members of Department 4 of the German Peoples List in Germany proper?\nASuch directives were, as far as I know, not issued by the Main Staff Office.\nMR. SCHWENK:Thank you. That is sufficient. I now offer Document No.R-112as Exhibit 796.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I ask counsel for the Prosecution how many more documents you expect to introduce?\nMR. SCHWENK:Only a very few more, your Honor; about four more.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Very well. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did you agree with the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service that evacuations or deportations of people who were members of the German people's List 1 to 4 were to be rescinded?\nAI cannot remember this incident. Furthermore, I do not understand the question. It would only have been a case then that people who had been received in the German People's list from Department 1 to 4 and who by mistake, during the first weeks after the war as a consequence of \n wild-cat action, had been taken from their farms, were to be returned.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "JUDGE", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1749, "page_number": "1743", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Nothing else can be under discussion here.\nQWitness, the question is clear. Persons were deported and you notice perfectly well yourself who subsequently entered their name in the German People's List or had to enter their names in the German People's List. Did you agree with the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service that the deportation of these people was to be rescinded after they had been accepted as members of the German People's List?\nAI cannot remember any such agreement, but I have already explained how such a thing could have come about.\nMR. SCHWENK:Thank you. I now offer Document No. NO-5600 as Exhibit No. 797. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did Himmler order the Main Staff Office to direct these deportation actions in the Save Sector in Slovenia?\nAAs far as I remember, Brigadefuehrer Hintze, who was active in my office, was appointed head of a special command which had to carry out this operation.\nQWitness, you did not answer my question. I did not ask you anything regarding Hintze, but I asked you whether the Main Staff Office was commissioned with the deportation of the Slovenes in the Save Sector.\nAAs far as I remember it was not charged with this operation.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1750, "page_number": "1744", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "MR. SCHWENK:I now offer Document No.NO-5562as Exhibit 798.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I say now, before I forget it, that these documents are being given to the members of the Tribunal in most instances after you have announced the Exhibit number and theNO number. Therefore we can't put it on. I request that during the recess this morning we will leave these documents on our desk and please have the exhibit numbers and theNO numbersput on each one of them during the recess this morning.\nMR. SCHWENK:Very well, your Honor. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, did you or did the Main Staff Office settle Germans from Bessarabia in the so-called Protectorate?\nAThat is quite possible.\nQYou say this is possible -\nTHE PRESIDENT:He just got through saying it is possible. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQFor this settlement, in agreement with the so-called Reichs-Protector, did you take approximately 3000 hectars of agricultural property from Jewish hands, Czech, Aryan hands and others?\nAThis property had already been turned over to the government of the Protectorate and the Government of the Protectorate has used this property for the purpose of the settlement of the ethnic Germans.\nQDid you know whether these 3000 hectars were the property which was really the property of Jews and Czechs?\nAThe Government of the Protectorate was probably told this.\nMR. SCHWENK:I now offer Document No.NO-5012for identification as Exhibit 799. I have two more questions. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, in Alsace did the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism order the confiscation and seizure of the property of the people who were deported?\nAI don't remember the legal procedure in Alsace. As far as I remember, the siezure was carried out by the Chief of the Civil Administration. It may be possible that he, in his capacity as plenipotentiary of \n Himmler, ordered seizure in individual cases.", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1751, "page_number": "1745", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWitness, my question is not whether the Chief of the Civil Administration ordered seizures or whether the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, as an official agency, was competent for the seizures and confiscation in Alsace.\nAI do not know in which function the person of the Reich Governor, who in his person united both functions, was active. That I do not know.\nMR. SCHWENK:I now offer Document No.NO-5380as Exhibit No. 800 in evidence. BY MR. SCHWENK:\nQWitness, were not all orders signed by Himmler dealing with the deportation of Jews, Poles, Slovenes, and the re-Germanization inclusive of directives concerning the Government-General drafted by your Main Staff Office and submitted to Himmler for his signature?\nAI can answer this question in the negative.\nMR. SCHWENK:I now offer Document NO. SS-5196 as Exhibit No. 801 for identification. I am unable to distribute the English translation at this moment. Your Honor, this concludes my cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions in sur-rebuttal by counsel?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHWENK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1752, "page_number": "1746", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:I have a few questions only. May I suggest to your Honors that perhaps we could take a recess now and I could take the opportunity to go over my documents to prepare for the next witness. It will only take a few minutes. I have quite a number of documents here and we also have to have witness here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The recess period works out better if it is on time for everybody concerned at the same hour. Now I must caution you that this is strictly surrebuttal. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQThe Four Year Plan was made the subject matter for the examination. Can you tell us, witness, whether the Four Year Plan and its executor, Goering, over transferred any function or office to you where you were office chief in this connection or something similar?\nANo, I did not exercise any functions with regard to the Four Year Plan.\nQIf you lectured on the Four Year Plan was this on the order or on the suggestion of the sphere of work of Himmler's?\nAI was export for questions of the Four Year Plan with the Reichfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police. The field of work with which I was charged at that time I outlined accurately in my direct examination. What I said at that time took place at a meeting of the leaders of the Upper SS sectors and the various experts from Himmler's sphere of influence. All those present had to report briefly on their activities and that is what I did.\nQAnd what you said was said under the orders were directives of Himmler's?\nAYes, that is correct; I had to submit this in advance.\nQIn Exhibit 785 the operation Barbarossa is mentioned. Could you tell us now according to the knowledge you acquired later whether this was military term, which was only known to the military authorities in 1941?\nAThe code name of Barbarossa, - I heard for the first time last \n year in the camp of Ludwigsburg.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1753, "page_number": "1747", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "When the document was submitted to me yesterday I remembered this again.\nQIn June 1941 did you connect anything with the innocuous word Barbarossa, that is, an emperor with a big beard, - did you connect this term with the war progress against Russia?\nANo, when war broke out with Russia and when it became known one morning I learned of it from my driver and I was more than stupified that this conflict had broken out.\nQIn the German administration was there a so-called liaison officer only between agencies on the same level which were not subordinate to each other, that is?\nAThe so-called liaison officer or liaison man is a custom between agencies of the German Internal Administration irrespective of whether there is subordination or whether the agencies worked under the same level. My agency nominated such liaison men with quite a number of other agencies, while those in return nominated liaison men this facilitated business among various agencies.\nQAccording to the custom of official agencies did the fact that liaison men or liaison officers existed signify a specially close collaboration of the agencies?\nANo, that was quite usual.\nQExhibit 786 was submitted to you, an official directive signed by you regarding liaison officers. Did you dictate this official directive yourself?\nANo, Dr. Fehndrich did that; he was nominated in this directive as a liaison man.\nQThe somewhat \"high-faluting\" language of the directive corresponded to your desires. Why did you sign it?\nAIt is only an internal official directive within my agency. I gave a free hand to the young and ambitious Dr. Fehndrich who wanted to own his own comfort and I signed it because this directive could not have any effect outside my own agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1754, "page_number": "1748", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QA file note was submitted to you which was not signed but in the upper left hand corner it bears file note Dr. R. Was it the custom of official agencies that such notes were submitted to the Chief unsigned?\nAI believe that not only the Chief of an agency but even every department chief only accepted a note as the person responsible for it had signed it. Since 1943 it was an official regulation that a letter addressed to agencies on the same level had to boar the full name of the expert on the top of each letter.\nQThe fact that a signature was required did this not only point to the official who had written the letter but also to the fact that he took responsibility for it only if he had signed it?\nAYes, that is a matter of course because that was the reason why a signature was required.\nQWas it customary in your office if you received a note in the proper way that you initialed it?\nAGenerally I initialed everything that was submitted to me or of which I learned by way of information.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1755, "page_number": "1749", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THEMARSHAL; The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In Exhibit 793 which was submitted today, there is a signature that says Dr. Stein, and it says in parenthesis behind it that it was written on a typewriter. Will you please tell us in a few words whether Dr. Stein was one of the officials?\nA.No, Dr. Stein was a medical man; he was a member of the Reich Health Leadership, and he was in charge of the general medical care within my agency.\nQ.The file note of 7th September 1942, which was submitted to you, was it meant for your agency and was it sent to your agency too?\nA.I didn't see the file note yet.\nQ.Well, I will show it to you. Do you have anything special to say about it?\nA.Well, this is not a file note from my agency and it was not intended for my agency either. Dr. Stein writes to his deputy chief here, and this department chief of course must have been in the Reich Health Leadership, and not in my agency.\nQ.Just a question referring to Exhibit 792. In German official language if one agency writes, to another that this other agency is to inform a third agency of directives concerning something, does that mean in the German official language that the agency which wrote the instructions is not competent for the matter?\nA.I think that the German meaning not only of official language, but it is even logic if one is used to logical reasoning; I can think one will come to that conclusion immediately.\nQ.Do you remember the DocumentNO-5012which was submitted today, and do you remember that it has been submitted before already; did you see it before in some other document book?\nA.Yes, it is contained in another document book already, and I \n think that yesterday in the direct examination I have already testified with regard to that, namely, when the question was raised of whether this involves only the settlement of the compensation for household goods You probably remember that, Dr. Haensel.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1756, "page_number": "1750", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:This is Volume V-B and it is Exhibit 240 and I think that it has been submitted twice. I would like to raise an objection against the cummulative submission of this document as an exhibit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will consider it only one time.\nDR. HAENSEL:Well, of course that satisfies my purpose. That concludes my examination, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the witness stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, I ask that the witness Max Winkler be called.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the prosecution has received no notice by the Defense Counsel of the calling of this witness.\nTHE RESIDENT:That do you say about that, Dr. Haensel?\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, this witness has been approved by the Tribunal, and thereby the Prosecution has been informed of course for weeks.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Defense Counsel in their procedure when they request witnesses of the Tribunal, of which we are informed, those are merely requests to bring the witness to Nurnberg, and are not notices to the Prosecution such as the Prosecution gave to the Defense that such and such a witness will be called.\nDR. HAENSEL:It is not customary, Your Honor, that we post up the witnesses of the Defense on a poster in the courtroom; I don't know that procedure. I think the custom that applies for the witness is that the Position explain their position and then the Tribunal grants the witness, but when I produce him here it is a question of procedure. The marshal was \n informed, for instance, that these witnesses would come today.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE RESIDENT", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1757, "page_number": "1751", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Defense Counsel altogether, I think, have asked for between fifty and one hundred witnesses. Now, I am sure that upon screening these witnesses they will not call them all to the stand; and the Prosecution cannot prepare its case on the basis of assuming that every witness whom the Defense screens will be called as a witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:This raises a question that the Presiding Judge does not care to rule upon alone. I will confer with my associates before making the ruling; and we will be in recess for just a minute or two for that purpose.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1758, "page_number": "1754", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "get rid of you and to take over the funds which were under your administration?\nA.Right after the 30th of January requisition was made at my home; however, as early as the 12th February 1933 I was called to the then State Secretary of the Reich Chancellery, Lammers, and he on behalf of the Reich Chancellor asked me whether I was prepared to inform the government concerning my activities for the previous governments and whether I was also ready to hand over the files of the administrations which were entrusted to me. I answered this question in the affirmative because I was of the opinion that it was my duty to serve the Reich government whatever it might be, and to give every information to the Reich government; and also I thought it was my duty that if I was told to hand over these files to hand over my files and the substance under my administration.\nQ.Did you then on the orders of the Nazi Government continue to administer all these funds, and, did you get new tasks of administration?\nA.On the 6th of March, 1933, the day after the Reichstag election, I was called to the State Secretary Funk and he on behalf of the Reich Chancellor asked me whether I was prepared to work for the Hitler Government. I stated thereupon that I would have to make a statement first because I was of the opinion that in that case if I had made the statement the question would be put to me probably. I stated that I had favored Hindenburg's election fund of about eight million marks for that purpose, and that thereby I had been active against Hitler. I went on to say that I was not a member of the Nazi Party and I had not the intention to join the party either. Funk answered and countered that by saying that they knew perfectly well that I had collected these funds, but he still repeated the question stating at the same time that no point was made about my joining the Nazi Party. Thereupon I answered yes and I added that it was very important for me to go on with my work because this work meant something to me; and I had been able to help many Germans by it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1759, "page_number": "1753", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.Until the end of the first world war I didn't deal with politics at all, but then I ran for the democratic party for the legislative branch in the Prussian Landtag. I was elected, and from that moment on I took an interest in politics while I was with the legislative body. However, after the area had been handed over to the poles I retired from politics and I even rejected being a candidate for positions in other election circles and other districts.\nQ.Did you promote Nazi ideologies?\nA.No, I did not; it wasn't in my line.\nQ.Have you had special experiences in the administration of state funds?\nA.Ever since I was seventeen years old and until I was elected municipal counselor, for about twenty years I had been a postal official, and of course there I had already to deal with finance. Then, as I already explained, I was a financial expert and, therefore, of course I had considerable interest always in finance. Then, in 1920 the then Reich Government appointed me economic consultatnt concerning the cessation of eastern territories, and I was called into the negotiations. That developed into an activity as an economic trustee which continued from 1920 until the collapse of the Reich after this World War.\nQ.Did you have considerable confidence and considerable orders or responsibility on behalf of the democratic government before 1933?\nA.From the end of 1919 until 1933 I worked as a trustee for nineteen different Reich governments, and during some periods these tasks were on a very large scale, when banks of cooperatives were to be rehabilitated financially.\nQ.If you can give an estimation in large outlines, what did the state funds amount to which you were entrusted with?\nA.That varied, but I might say that the average would be between fifty and one hundred million marks.\nQ.Now, did the Nazi Government after their seizure of power try to", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1760, "page_number": "1752", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:With reference to the objection raised concerning this witness, the Tribunal has determined that we will hear this witness at this time, and that we will proceed throughout the day without reference to whether the twenty-four hours' notice has been given or not.\nThe Tribunal will enforce the twenty-four hour notice in all cases where documents are concerned, and hereafter we think it better to give the twenty-four hours' notice as to the witness.\nGo ahead with the examination of this witness.\nMAXWINKLER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HANESEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal and also tell us where you last lived; where you were born, and how old you are.\nA.Max Julius Winkler; born on the 7th of September, 1875 at Karasch, in the district of Rosenberg, Western Prussia. My last residence was at Sudaburg in the district of Guelzen in Lower Saxonia.\nQ.What was your profession, witness?\nA.Until my home area was ceded after the first World War, I was mayor of a province, and after that I was an economic trustee of the Reich Government there.\nQ.In what field were your interests?\nA.As a mayor I was financial expert and decided financial questions for the economic enterprises; therefore, my answer should be that my field of interests was in economy and finance.\nQ.Did you deal with politics?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MAX", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1761, "page_number": "1755", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "MR. SHILLER:The prosecution fails to see the relevancy of this line of testimony.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I had just finished passing notes to my associates about the same question. It seems to me, Dr. Haensel, that this might be rather interesting as a history of this man's life, but I have been waiting patiently to hear something that had something to do with this case.\nIt seems that you are going very much more in detail than is necessary about who he is. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Who entrusted you with the administration of the seized Polish property?\nA.Reichsmarshal Goering, on or about 12 October, summoned me-\nQ.Well, give me the year, too.\nA.Oh, October 1939. He summoned me to his offices and told me that in order to maintain the order and security in the area of Poland from which the troops were being evacuated again now, he had to set up an establishment for the administration of property in order to prevent a chaos which threatened. He thought that this should be a trusteeship administration, and on the suggestion of the Reich Minister of Economies, he had decided to entrust me with this task.\nQ.How did Goering get the idea to entrust you with this task; I mean, on the strength of what position of his?\nA.Goering did that in his capacity of plenipotentiary for the Four-Year-Plan.\nQ.Will you in a few brief words outline the tasks of the FourYear-Plan in one sentence for the benefit of the Tribunal, and will you tell us also how long the commission had existed already?\nA.As far as I know, the Four-Year-Plan was established in 1936. Its tasks were to clarify the economic conditions in Germany and to adapt them to the modern terms. Therefore, the plenipotentiary of the Four-Year-Plan considered himself, in a way, as the highest economic agency in Germany.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1762, "page_number": "1756", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.The seizure of the property over which you were to be the trustee -- had it taken place on a legal basis and had it been regulated legally?\nA.It had taken place upon a directive issued by the military occupying authorities, a directive of 5 October 1939. Then it Was carried out by the establishment of the HTO and it was set up by a new regulation of the Four-Year-Plan dated 19 October 1939, and 17th of September 1940 it was definitely established by another new directive concerning the administration of Polish property.\nQ.What was the HTO?\nA.As the name implies already, it was a trusteeship agency which worked as an agency of the Four-Year-Plan.\nQ.Was it a government agency or was it a company?\nA.It was an agency created ad hoc by the Four-Year-Plan.\nQ.What was your position in this agency?\nA.I was the director of the HTO.\nQ.Was it one of your tasks as a trustee to see to it that the property which had come into your administration and into your holding be administered normally?\nA.Yes, that was the task the HTO, according to the legal regulation, had been entrusted with, the administration and exploitation of the property. -he exploitation, however, teak place only on a very limited scale. Our main task was the administration.\nQ.How, what happened with the proceeds of sale, with the returns in cases of exploitation?\nA.Well, the HTO would cash these funds and would invest them in as secure a manner as possible. Mainly, they placed them with banks in Berlin, in bark accounts, and when the amounts increased considerably, then we issued orders to purchase Reich Treasury bonds.\nQ.These returns - were they paid to the Reich immediately?\nA.No, they remained in the holding of the administration of the HTO. They were not paid over to the Reich. Repeatedly, officials \n which the Reich Minister of Finance had delegated to the HTO had applied to me to pay the money to the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1763, "page_number": "1757", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "However, I refused to do that and the reason I gave was that this was a trusteeship administration and that the Reich had no title over this property. At a later date, the Reich Minister of Finance with whom I discussed this matter at one occasion or the other and who was quite in agreement with my position, requested me to pay over these funds to the Reich insofar as I was not to keep the funds in the banks but to deposit them with the Reich Main Treasury. He stressed particularly that in the same manner as the bank deposits would have the characteristic, the HTO would be able to dispose of any amounts they needed, even if it were hundreds of millions, and that the payment would come about immediately as in the case of every bank.\nQ.As you knew all these legal bases and these legal regulations for indemnification of the former owners of this property, what was your opinion about them?\nA.During the first applications Goering made to me to take over the administration of these trusteeships, I asked him whether private property was to be subject to indemnification, and he answered that in the positive. In the regulation concerning the establishment of the trusteeship agency of 19 October 1939, as well as in the enlarged regulation concerning the administration of Polish property of 17 September 1930, the indemnification has been provided for by law. In the wording of these regulations, it says that indemnification is provided for, or at least is planned.\nQ.You said that exploitation of property took place, too. Were industrial enterprises or real estate properties sold, for instance?\nA.On a comparatively reduced scale, that took place, because from the Baltic countries Germans had been brought to those areas and they had left their fortunes in the Baltic countries, and these Germans were to get those property values. It had been done in some cases, because for the many thousands of objects of trusteeships, we could not receive so many trustees, and therefore on a very limited scale such \n transfers of title took place.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1764, "page_number": "1758", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.Was it in the very nature of some of these property values that if they were not transferred to a new owner, they would have been threatened in the very substance?\nA.Yes, in many cases that is the way it Was. Almost all open shops, for instance, could not he administered and kept going if it was not possible to get new stocks, and that again was hardly possible for a trustee. Another link with procurement firms and the Reich, etc., was necessary and therefore in many cases it was absolutely essential to get professional people into these shops who on their own account and with a lot of personal initiative and interest would try to keep these shops going.\nQ.In your practical experience as an administrator, did you see a series of difficulties with the appointed trustees, and did you see therefore that this system of mere trusteeship was hardly possible if one looked far ahead?\nA.The difficulties were mainly that because of the considerable drafting into the armed forces, appropriate trustees could not be found. For a certain period, and I would say about for a year, it would have been possible perhaps to keep these enterprises going, but as the decision dragged along and dragged along, the length of time increased the necessity to exploit these enterprises because the exploitation on a trusteeship basis seemed impossible in the long run, and it proved impossible also.\nQ.Was it in the nature of your administration in the HTO, and was it possible that after the war the former Polish owners be indemnified?\nA.Yes, from the very beginning we had established our agency in that way. Every enterprise which was taken over for administration was registered in an orderly way and an inventory was made, files were established, at least a file of all the establishments in the enterprise. If the enterprise yielded profits, then the provisional admin \n istrator had to pay over these profits to the trusteeship agencies and to the local trusteeship bureaus, in the districts, and these funds then were administered in to to.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1765, "page_number": "1759", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "But as far as the written accounts were concerned, they were registered quite separately for every enterprise, and therefore it would have been quite possible to settle the accounts at a later date with the former owners.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1766, "page_number": "1760", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.Now, this whole immense account and bookkeeping work wouldn't have been possible and wouldn't have been necessary, would it, if the exappropriations were to take place?\nA.Well, the whole trusteeship agency wouldn't have been necessary.\nQ.From your long years of experience -----\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution would like to object at this time to the defense counsel's practice of making leading questions to the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't know that the questions are so leading, Dr. Haensel, but it seems that they are more numerous than is necessary.\nDR. HAENSEL:I will try to do better. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.From your long years of experience in state administration, have you knowledge of the needs for the state to exappropriate private property and to indemnify the former owners? Is this something normal or something extraordinary?\nA.Well, in Germany, that was quite customary. I have had the experience already in the administration of my municipalities where in order to build streets or other necessities of public service, exappropriation had to be carried out. The state did that for railroads, for airfields, and so forth and so on. There was nothing extraordinary in\nQ.From your work in the administration of polish property, have you knowledge that essential parts were used for military necessities? You were just talking of railroads and airfields and so on and so forth.\nA.Yes, but as I did not work on the agricultural administration within the HTO, I didn't have anything to do with it, but of course now I have knowledge that the military authorities would make use of such property.\nQ.You spoke of Germany, but do you know about international relations now, about big state agreements, and do you know in that con \n nection that the states took ever private property and that other states indemnified them?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1767, "page_number": "1761", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.On a large scale, that had been done by the Versailles Treaty, and it applied at least partly to the area where I lived there and on that occasion, the Germans had to emigrate and had to leave the country, and afterwards the German Reich would indemnify them while the property went to the polish state.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, may I suggest that your present examination is dealing with elementary legal questions that this court ought to know more about than the witness does. Let's get down to this particular case that we are trying. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Do you know the incorporated territories of the East from your own experience?\nA.Well, I had worked there in the earlier stage and therefore I knew them, of course. The incorporated Eastern territories, after 1933, I only made the acquaintance of in a very vague way. I went down there for three or four times a year for meetings, but I didn't have any close knowledge of them.\nQ.But before 1939, you knew them well?\nA.Well, I mean until 1920, until I emigrated from the area. Then I knew them well, but during the period from 1920 to 1939, I had no possibility to see the area. I never went to Poland, you see.\nQ.And why did you leave these territories in 1920? After all, you were a mayor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I doubt that that will interest the Tribunal at all, why he left in 1920. I don't think that illustrates it.\nTHE WITNESS:The poles didn't take me over in 1920.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind, witness, that question was ruled out.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, that concludes my questioning of this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1768, "page_number": "1762", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, I have only a few, a very few, questions. In a few brief words, I would like to discuss and to clarify the historical dates of the individual states of exappropriation and seizure, beginning with September, 1933. Is it correct that already as early as September 1939 --that is only a short period after the Polish territory had been occupied by the military authorities--the so-called district farmers, Kreislandwirte, were dispatched by the Reich Food Ministry into the former Polish territories?\nA.I don't know that from my own knowledge.\nQ.Do you recall that the supreme commander of the army issued a directive on the 29th of September 1339 which had been reprinted in the bulletin of the military authorities in the occupied Polish territories, and that in that directive seizures were carried out and that administrators were appointed for these territories?\nA.I only recall the seizure ordered on the 5th of October 1939 by the military commander. I cannot recall any such matter of 29 September.\nQ.What I mean is that this directive of the 5th of October was a directive issued by the Chief of the Civilian Administration, or am I mistaken?\nA.That is possible.\nQ.Oh, you mean it is possible? Therefore, you admit the possibility that before this directive of 5 October there were other directives?\nDR. BEHLING:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the defense?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution, due to the failure of the defense counsel to comply with Rule 19 of the Uniform Rules of Procedure of the Military Tribunals, as revised to 3 June 1947, is unable \n at this time to continue with the cross examination of the defendant Winkler.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1769, "page_number": "1763", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "We therefore request that the Prosecution he allowed to recall the defendant Winkler after 24 hours in order to cross examine him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will cross examine him now or not at all.\nMR. SHILLER:Prosecution will waive cross examination of the defendant Winkler.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Call your next witness.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, may I request that defense counsel now inform the prosecution of the witnesses they intend to call this afternoon and tomorrow?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled on that question already and had a recess for the purpose of doing it and announced the ruling.\nMr. SHILLER: What I had in mind, Your Honor, if I may explain, is that the defense counsel probably have witnesses for this afternoon, and while the Tribunal has ruled that those witnesses may proceed, it did not rule, and the defense counsel have not informed the Prosecution as to which witnesses they will call this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, Dr. Haensel, do you know which particular witness you will call this afternoon for examination?\nDr. HAENSEL: with pleasure, Your Honor. I will gladly give that information.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just call their names and let us get them.\nDR. HAENSEL:We have already heard Winkler. The next one is Mense, then Krub, then Stier, Schaefer, Gelling, Schallermaier, Wolff, and I reserve the right to print out Pfeiffer and Reichert. How long the individual witnesses will take, of course, I cannot foresee at this stage. Today I think we will start with Mense now, and then Krub after that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let this witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Call the next witness.\nDR. HAENSEL:The witness Mense.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1770, "page_number": "1764", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.)\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, wall you please state your full name for the benefit of the Tribunal and tell us when and where you Were born.\nAMy name is Traucett Mense and I was born on the 13.7.15 at Milostowe in the district of Poznan.\nQWill you please tell us in what political district Milostowe was in 1915?\nAIn 1915, Milostowe wasa part of the Prussian state of the German Reich.\nQAnd what happened to Milostowe in 1918?\nAIn 1918, Milostowe became Polish property, Polish area.\nMR. SHILLER:I object to defense counsel's habit of bringing in the changes made by the Versailles Treaty. Those changes have nothing to do with this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, Dr. Haensel, the Tribunal has ruled several times that we are not interested in those things. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWhat was your father's and your family's nationality after 1918?\nAMy father and my family after 1918 had Polish nationality. My father had opted for Poland.\nQAnd why did he opt for Poland?\nABecause part of the members of his municipality had opted for Poland, and he wanted to remain with them.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution again must object to this line of testimony.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1771, "page_number": "1765", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Yes, Dr. Haensel, when you show that he is Polish in origin, he is Polish. I think that is enough. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Where did you go to school?\nA.I went to the German private high school at Bromberg and later the same kind of private high school at Graudenz.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1772, "page_number": "1766", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.Now, what were your plans for your future after you got through with school?\nA.I wanted to become an editor on a German newspaper in Poland.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, I do not see how all that could possibly illustrate any issue in this case.\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Tribunal, it is my aim to demonstrate the political and economic situation in that area, and that is what brings me to the measures taken later by the German Administration, which were caused by that very situation, in so far as there were reasons for it at all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's get down to that and not concern ourselves so much with where he went to school and why, and what his life's plans were. That doesn't illustrate anything in this case. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you have the possibility of getting a state function in Poland?\nA.No, as a, German I did not have that possibility.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution feels that if defense counsel wishes to qualify this witness as a pertinent witness in connection with economic and social and political conditions in that area before 1939, he should do so. However, if he is not going to do so, I ask that he get down to the matter at hand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal would like to say to counsel for the defense exactly the same thing that was stated yesterday. If this witness knows anything material, if you don't mind you are going to cover it up with immaterial matters so that we can't find it. It would be very helpful if you will get right down to what he knows about the charges contained in this Indictment.\nDR. HAENSEL:Yes, your Honor, I will try.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.What nationality was contained in your Polish military pass?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1773, "page_number": "1767", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.In my Polish Military papers I had entered \"German\" in the column titled \"nationality\", because that right was given to me in the International Minority Treaty.\nQ.What were the practical consequences for you because you put your nationality as German in that paper?\nA.The consequences would have been that in the event I was drafted into the Polish Army, I would have had to join a special regiment.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the Prosecution must object again to this line of testimony on the ground that if Dr. Haensel, the defense counsel, wishes to justify or explain away the crimes committed by the defendants, he may do so in his argument. However, here we are interested only in the facts concerned in the Indictment.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, I will try to argue, but, after all, I must get a few facts as a basis for my Argument later on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, Let's lay the foundation right quick, please and get on to the real facts that he knows about. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you try to become a erman national, and did you succeed?\nA.Yes. At the beginning of 1940 I made efforts to become a German, and I succeeded later on. I did that because I did not wish to remain a stateless person any longer.\nQ.Did you make efforts even before 1940?\nA.No, not before 1940, because I wanted to go back to the Germans in Poland, and I wanted to become an editor on a German newspaper.\nQ.In what manner did you receive your German nationality? Was it with your family, or without?\nA.It was only on an individual basis, without my family. I received my German nationality in 1940. I had applied for it to the Police Presidium, Suhl, in Berlin, while my family went to live near Bromberg.\nQ.What legal instrument served you for your nationalization?\nA.At that time I only made application.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1774, "page_number": "1768", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.Application to whom?\nA.Application to the Police Presidium competent for aliens in Berlin. At that time, as a young fellow, I had no insight into legal matters. I just tried to get out of that situation of a stateless person because otherwise I would not have made any progress in my profession.\nQ.I see. Do you know anything about the German People's List, the DVL?\nI am sorry, your Honor, that is a leading question, but I don't see any other way to get into that.\nA.Yes, I know about this DVL because my parents and other members of my family, at a later stage, received German nationality on the strength of this DVL.\nQ.Do you and your family and friends welcome this German People' s List, or did you feel that you were forced to enlist on it?\nA.We racial Germans knew that even under international law there had to be a settlement for us in this connection. And since the German People's List provided for a voluntary application to be entered in the DVL, we considered it a settlement which was serving the purpose of the development and history of the space down there.\nQ.Did you consider yourself a part of the fluctuation of people? And what is the meaning of that?\nA.No; quite clearly, in spite of the fact that we had had Polish nationality before, my family and I had remained Germans, However, there were many people in that area who after centuries went by and disputes went on between the two peoples - had links partly with the Poles and partly with the Germans. In this connection I am thinking especially of the Kaschubes and part of the Upper Silesian population, the so-called Water Poles. In their descent, as well as in their culture, these populations were neither a part of the Germans nor a, part of the Poles. That is the reason why we thought it was best for every individual to have the chance to personally and voluntarily decide to what peoples he wanted to \n belong, and therefore we also considered it appropriate for the development if that space if, in Department III, these groups of persons had the possibility to decide.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1775, "page_number": "1769", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.When did you first hear of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.After I had finished my studies in Berlin in 1940, I was called to the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, in Danzig. At that time I had had no insight as yet into that agency, and I considered the name as meaning that a Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism had to strengthen something in that space which had been weak up to that point. As time went on, this impression was strengthened in my mind, namely, that the measures of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism were defensive measures, caused by the development which had taken place in that space as far as the peoples were concerned.\nQ.Did you imagine, or did you have the experience, then, that this agency wanted to Germanize the Poles?\nA.No; entierh theoretically nor practically could I see anything of that kind.\nTHE PRESIDENT:How, Mr. Witness, \"no\" is a complete answer; no use to explain it. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In your practical work in Danzig, did you hear something about the seizure of cultural items or of church property?\nA.No, I never heard anything about it. The cultural department in which I worked as an expert dealt with the--how shall I express it? Let me call it \"cultural measures\".\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, I don't think it is necessary to express it. If you said \"no\", that is sufficient. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.For how long did you work at Danzig?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1776, "page_number": "1770", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.I worked in Danzig until June 1941, and then I was drafted into the Waffen-SS.\nQ.Did you take part in the campaign?\nA.Yes. After I had been trained for a short period, I took part in the campaign against Russia, until I was wounded in the spring of 1942. I then went into the hospital, then into the reserve battalion, and then to a training school at Toelz, in order to be used for war work.\nQ.Were you transferred to the Staff Main Office, then, and how did that come about?\nA.Yes, after I had finished my training I was given military orders and was transferred to the company of the Staff Main Office, because I was wounded and I was no longer able to be used at the front. In the Staff Main Office I was transferred to the Cultural Department of Office I of the Staff Main Office.\nQ.What was your work in the cultural department? Did you take any measures against Polish culture?\nA.No. The Cultural Department--in a similar manner to the Cultural Department in Danzig at the time--dealt with measures which made it possible for the resettlers to find their way into the cultural life of the Reich.\nQ.How long did you remain there, and what happened to you afterwards?\nA.I remained in the Staff Main Office until December 1943, and then, in December 1943, I was sent to the Main Office for Ethnic Questions, as a representative of the Staff Main Office.\nQ.Will you briefly tell us what the Main Office for Ethnic Questions was?\nA.As I saw later on, the Main Office for Ethnic Questions had the task of dealing with such questions of the people which the Nazi Party was faced with, and to forward the suggestions to the state agencies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1777, "page_number": "1771", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 2 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nTRAUGOTT MENSE (Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Who were the representatives of the other Main Offices in the Main Office for Ethnic Questions?\nA.In the Main Office for Ethnic Questions, the following were represented: Representatives of VOMI, a representative of the Main Staff Office, and one from RuSHA. I was the representative of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Was there any collaboration between these representatives of the Main Offices?\nA.Just as little collaboration took place between these representatives of the Main Offices, as did -- as far as I could ascertain -- between the Main Offices on the governmental level.\nQ.And how was this Main Office for Ethnic Questions represented at the lower levels?\nA.The so-called Gau Offices for Ethnic Questions originated from the Gauleiter's offices.\nQ.In order to eliminate any confusion, would you kindly tell us whether, under \"Gau\", you understand \"Party Agency\"?\nA.When I say a \"Gau\", I mean a Party office. The Office for Ethnic Questions was built up under Party agencies. These offices were directly subordinated to the Gauleitung; they received factual directives and information from the VOMI.\nQ.In this trial we have heard a lot about the Warthegau and a lot of other Gaus. Are those something quite \n different from the Gaus of the Party which you have mentioned?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1778, "page_number": "1772", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.As far as I know, Gaus like the Warthegau and Danzig-West Prussia were just as much Gaus as the Gaus of the Reich territory, that is, the division of the Gaus within the NSDAP, and, as far as I know, at least, they coincided with government districts.\nQ.Did the Main Office for Ethnic questions issue directives or information to these lower offices?\nA.The Main Office for Ethnic questions had to forward information, which is clear from the directives for the structure of the Office for Ethnic Questions.\nQ.Do you mean information or directives? There is a difference.\nA.Yes. The thing that was essentially involved was information, since the Main Office for Ethnic Questions was not entitled to give directives, but merely had to give information respecting the field on question.\nQ.In your office, as a representative of this Office for Ethnic Questions, did you receive any instructions regarding your duties?\nA.I was not especially instructed, but when I entered on my office I was told that I should go to the Main Office for Ethnic Questions and report there, and that I would there be instructed accordingly.\nQ.What were you told there, and what did you do there?\nA.There I was told as little as I was told in the Main Staff Office. The documents in existence were pointed out to me, and that was all.\nQ.In what way did you get the material for the information issued by the Main Office for Ethnic Questions if nobody told you anything about it?\nA.Every four or five weeks I myself traveled to the Main Staff Office, and there I established contact with \n associates and talked to them, and I received suggestions and pointers which I thought would be valuable for my work.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1779, "page_number": "1773", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.Do you have the impression that you have made especially clear to me, as well as to the Tribunal, exactly what your tasks were and exactly what you did?\nA.The Main Office for Ethnic questions dealt especially with the care of those persons within the Reich Territory who fell within the competency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. As far as I can recall, the governmental offices of the Reich Commissar were only represented up to the Gau level. The actual social welfare was carried out locally, and these local offices received suggestions from us. That was our task, and we did that by issuing information in our bulletins.\nQ.By \"welfare\", do you mean political pressure, in the sense, that the people who were taken care of had to join the Party?\nA.No, I don't mean it in that way, but rather, this: Within the Reich the Party had taken over the social welfare of German nationals by means of its Party offices, and for this reason social welfare measures were exercised by the Party.\nQ.Was your work only concerned with collecting information for the bulletins, or did you concern yourself with practical, individual cases if you received inquiries from other agencies?\nA.Of course, beyond that we dealt with personal inquiries from the Gau offices for Ethnic Questions, and we forwarded them to the Main Office. As far as their contents were concerned, they dealt with the same matters which had already been dealt with by the information bulletin. However, these individual cases needed more detailed explanations, and as far as my own work was concerned, I accomplished this by writing to these people.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1780, "page_number": "1774", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.During your work, did you gain any knowledge concerning the rules governing re-Germanization measures?\nA.I only knew the re-Germanization procedure in outline during my activity at that time. The basic fact of the welfare measures was that all these people had to be treated like Germans.\nQ.After the experience and knowledge which you had gained in the East, did you welcome this Re-Germanization plan, and did you gladly cooperate?\nA.The historical antecedents of the Eastern area were the cause for many people, for many reasons, having economic, social and cultural ties with the Polish State or with the State in which they were residing. They had not yet lost the feeling that by descent, and as far as culture was concerned too, they belonged to the German people and to the German living space. It seems quite understandable to me that these people now, after having been deprived of the conditions which had caused them to lose contace with their country of descent, wished to reverse this step. For this reason they made application to be entered on the list for people eligible for reGermanization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1781, "page_number": "1775", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.- Did you experience any case in which people were plundered and deprived of their children?\nA.- No, there -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. witness, \"no\" is a complete answer. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.- Did the Main Office for Ethnical Questions ever assume considerable importance or was it just something on paper?\nA.- The Main Office for Ethnical Questions did not gain any importance because its intermediate positions between the Party and official agencies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was very happily chosen.\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office use the Main Office for Ethnical Questions in order to gain influence on the Party?\nA.- I did not have that impression; on the contrary, I ascertained in the course of my work that the Main Staff Office issued no instructions to me and showed themselves desinterested in my field of work.\nQ.- Is it also true as far as office chief Greifelt is concerned?\nA.- Yes, that is also true as far as he is concerned. I only saw him a few times personally during the whole course of my work.\nQ.- When during the war were you in your home country in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.- At the end of September 1939 I went home to Schubin near Bromberg in order to visit my parents there for the first time after the outbreak of war, since in Gerlin I had had no contact with my parents since the spring of 1939.\nQ.- Did you, during your visit, observe how the Polish part of the population had fared in the meanwhile? Had some of them fled the country or what did you see?\nA.- I found that in September and October 1939 many Poles had fled into the so-called interior of Poland and many houses and farms stood empty.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1782, "page_number": "1776", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.-By \"fled,\" you mean that they voluntarily left for some reason or other?\nA.- Yes, that is what I mean by this expression, and it seemed comprehensible to me that the Poles fled before the German armed forces and went into the interior of Poland.\nQ.- I have no further questions. BY DR. MERKEL (for the defendant Creutz):\nQ.- I have only a few questions. Mr. Witness, in 1943 you were active in Office I of the Main Staff Office?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Can you tell me to which office group office I belonged?\nA.- I don't know anything about office groups within the Main Staff Office; therefore I cannot tell you to which group Office I is supposed to have belonged.\nQ.- You did not learn of any existence of office groups then or later, if I have understood you correctly?\nA.- No, I did not hear anything of it. I heard if for the first time in Nurnberg.\nQ.- Did you ever see the organizational chart 1942 which contains the office groups?\nA.- No, I did not see it.\nQ.- Did any member of this office appear as chief of an office group?\nA.- No, no member of this office was designated to me as such, because if that had been the case, I would have turned to such a person during my visits.\nQ.- From December 1943 onwards, you were active in the Office for Ethnical Questions?\nA.- Yes, that is correct, from December 1943 onwards.\nQ.- Who issued directives to you at that time? Which agencies?\nA.- I have already stated that I did not receive directives.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1783, "page_number": "1777", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Do not cover ground, that has already been covered by the other attorneys. This, I think, is rather going far, to allow other attorneys for other defendants to cross examine every witness that is put on the stand. If you expect to do that, you will have to hold the examination down. He is not appearing here as a witness in your case at all. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.- Do you know the defendant Creutz?\nA.- Yes, I do know the defendant Creutz.\nQ.- What position did he occupy in the Main Staff Office?\nA.- I know that he was deputy of the Main Office Chief and especially that he dealt with the personnel matters of the members of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.- With whom did you negotiate when you visited the Main Staff Office?\nA.- Usually I dealt with the individual experts; among others, with Mr. Wirsich and with Dr. Stier.\nQ.- Did you ever ask for decisions or directives from the defendant Creutz or did you receive any?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you ever see the signature of the defendant Creutz?\nA.- I recall signatures of the defendant Creutz; chiefly these were signatures relating to internal matters of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.- Did Creutz exert considerable influence on the work of the Main Staff office?\nA.- As far as I can decide this question he did not have decisive influence.\nQ.- Thank you. I have no further questions. DR. BEHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQ.- Witness, the Office \"Planning\", did it ever appear in the course of your work?", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1784, "page_number": "1778", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "of your work?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you ever see any letters or directives of the Main Staff Office; that is, did you receive them signed by the defendant, Professor Meyer?\nA.- No, I never received such letters.\nQ.- Do you know the defendant Meyer personally?\nA.- No, I do not know the defendant Meyer personally.\nQ.- Thank you. No further questions. DR. FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.- Mr. Witness, you told us that from the end of March 1940 until the spring of 1941 you were an employee in the office of the Plenipotentiary for the Office of the Reich Commissar in Dantzig, is that correct?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Who was the Plenipotentiary for the Office of the Reich Commissar in Dantzig?\nA.- Gruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt was the Plenipotentiary for the Reich Commissar at that time.\nQ.- What tasks did Hildebrandt or his office deal with during your tenure of office?\nA.- As far as I remember as cultural expert, Hildebrandt, or his office, generally and chiefly dealt with the settlement of the Germans from the Baltic countries.\nQ.- Were these Germans from the Baltic countries already in Dantzig when you arrived?\nA.- Part of them were there and part of them were in the process of arriving in Dantzig.\nQ.- Did you have an opportunity to gain an idea regarding the official relationship between Hildebrandt and Reich Governor Forster?\nA.- I can only answer this question by saying what is generally known \n in Dantzig:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1785, "page_number": "1779", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "that the official relationship between the Gauleiter at that time, Forster, and the Plenipotentiary for the Reich Commissar, Hildebrandt, seemed to, be rather tense.\nQ.- Why was there a tense relationship between these two men?\nA.- The reasons were, as far as I can say today, that these two men followed different policies in ethnical questions.\nQ.- Do you remember from that time, or did you know at that time what Forster's policy was? Quite briefly.\nA.- Yes, it was well-known in the city that Gauleiter Forster wanted to make the then Gau Dantzig-West Prussia into a German Gau within ten years; while the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, in accordance with the historical development of this area, aimed at a gradual ethnical policy which strove for a clean separation between the ethnical groups and which wanted to create quite clear and well-defined conditions in this area.\nQ.- Did this policy of Hildebrandt's correspond to the views of the former German and later Polish population in west Prussia and Dantzig to which you, yourself belonged?\nA.- In conversation with many ethnical Germans I found out that the ethnical policy of Gauleiter Forster was rejected by them as much as by the Poles themselves and that we, ourselves, only welcomed an ethnical policy as natural, which took into account the independent convictions of the people in this area.\nQ.- Do you know a statement of Hildebrandt's which he also made in his official capacity, according to which the Poles were to remain Poles and the Germans were again to become Germans?\nA.- I know this view of Hildebrandt's because he expressed it at every occasion, but I cannot remember any special case.\nQ.- Witness, you stated this morning that you grew up in West Prussia, at that time Polish territory.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1786, "page_number": "1780", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.- Yes.\nQ.- I just want to put one more question to you in connection with this: Is it correct that during the time during which West Prussia was Polish, every young man from the age of 21 upwards had to serve in the Polish armed forces without regard of his ethnical membership?\nMR. SHILLER:I object.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Sustain the objection.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1787, "page_number": "1781", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQDo you know anything about Germanizations in individual cases?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel, this is a witness subpoenaed on behalf of of the Defendant Greifelt. The Tribunal cannot permit a complete examination of this witness by every counsel in the case. If you want to ask him anything he knows about your client, ask him that, but nothing else. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, while you served in your office you had opportunity to observe the defendant Hildebrandt for one year, and in conclusion I would like to know from you what was his official attitude at that time with regard to questions of the ethnical policy concerning the Poles which we mentioned before, and what can you tell us about the character and personality of Hildebrandt?\nAAs far as I as a cultural expert got to know him, the then Gruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt always adhered to the directives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, as I have described them in their effects previously. I found that he dealt with all persons who approached him in a very correct and just manner. I, personally, as a young man made him an example for myself because in the matter of his conduct and the matter of his family life-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, you consider the defendant Hildebrandt to be a man of good character, do you?\nTHE WITNESS:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is sufficient.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further for the Defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, what was your last rank in the SS?\nAI was Oberscharfuehrer in the General SS and Obersturmfuehrer of the Reserve in the Waffen SS.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1788, "page_number": "1782", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWitness, do you know how the German People's List, the DVL, was handled in practice? Actual cases?\nAI know it from the experience of my family because my parents as well as my sisters and brothers were members of the German People's List.\nQDid your family join the German People's List voluntarily, witness?\nAYes, my family voluntarily applied to be entered into the German People's List.\nQWitness, do you know what happened to people who refused to register in the German People's List?\nANo, because I did not experience a single case of this nature.\nQThank you. Witness, for how long a period of time did you work in Amt I of the Main Staff Office?\nAFrom August -- that is, the end of July, the beginning of August 1943 -- until December 1943. That is only a few months.\nQI am sorry. It seemed to me that the dates that I got through the ear phones were 1940 and 1943. Would you please repeat them?\nAFrom July, August 1943 to December 1943.\nQThank you. Witness, in that short period of time did you learn in detail what were the duties of the defendant Creutz?\nANo.\nQWitness, turning to the period of time that you spent in Danzig, Vilest Prussia, you were a subordinate of the defendant Hildebrant, were you not?\nAYes, in his capacity as Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQApproximately how often or how many times did you have official contact with the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.It didn't happen frequently.\nQWitness, were you a subordinate at any time of the Gauleiter Furster?", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1789, "page_number": "1783", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AI have not completely understood this question.\nQDid you at any time act in a subordinate capacity towards the Gauleiter Forster.\nANo, I did not act in any such capacity.\nQIn your duties in Danzig-West Prussia, did you have any duties relating to the relationship between the defendant Hildebrandt and Gauleiter Forster.\nANo.\nQWitness, in your answers to the questions on the relations between the defendant Hildebrandt and the Gauleiter Forster, did you speak from your own knowledge or from your memory of some things which you might have heard at some time?\nAWhat I stated a little while ago was known all over the city of Danzig every German residing in Danzig knew about them. I did not learn it from direct official experience.\nQWitness, did you have any personal contact with the defendant Hildebrandt outside of official matters?\nAThe defendant Hildebrandt took great personal interest in our personal matters and he always addressed us if he chanced upon us in the office, and in this manner I often briefly met the defendant Hildebrandt.\nQThat is you met him in the office. Did you not have any personal contact with the defendant Hildebrandt outside of the office: at his home, or at a club, or any such matter?\nANo, I only know from talks of colleagues who met him in his home in what way he conducted his personal life.\nQWitness, so far as you know, the defendant Hildebrandt always behaved very well towards Germans and ethnic Germans, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDo you have any direct knowledge as to how he behaved towards Poles, Jews and non-Aryans?\nANo, no.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1790, "page_number": "1784", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWitness, did you consider the defendant Hildebrandt to be a good Nazi at the time in question?\nAYes.\nQBy that, witness, do you mean that you believed that he believed in the tenets of Nazism?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, naturally that is what he means.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Call the next witness.\n(Witness is excused.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1791, "page_number": "1785", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:I now call the witness Kurt Graebe.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let him come to the stand.\nKURTGRAEBE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows;\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Mr. Witness, will you kindly give us your full name and your present residence?\nA.My name is Kurt Graebe. I live in Munich-Pasing at Kirchenstr. 7.\nQ.Did you belong to the Party or any formation of the Party?\nA.No.\nQ.What was your profession?\nA.Originally I was an active officer. Later I entered political life. I became one of the leaders of the German group in Poland. I became deputy in the Polish Sejm (Parliament), President of the union of the German Ethnical Groups in Europe, one of the presidents of the Nationalities Congress in Geneva, member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and chairman of the German League of Nations Union in Poland.\nQ.In order that it is possible for the Tribunal to put you into the proper category, I'd like to ask you for the names of some leading statesmen with whom you had contact.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't think that would help us any, not at all. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.I was born in Kalischewo, District of Gnesen, a former province of Posen which later was the Warthegau and which is now Poznan.\nQ.How long are the struggles for settlement in the Eastern territories \n known to you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "KURT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1792, "page_number": "1786", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.These struggles are known to me from my earliest childhood. I am today 73 years old and I thus have experienced them all the time.\nQ.You said that you were born in the district of Gnesen. Could you tell us briefly what is the political fate of Gnesen and the surrounding territory?\nA.Gnesen belonged, since the partition of Poland, to the Province of Poznan and was district capital -\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, counsel is going into the political background again with this witness and we think it has nothing to do with this case. These defendants are charged with certain crimes and they are going into the politics of the situation, and we think that that is purely a legal question; and, as a matter of fact, it has been settled by the IMT that this has nothing to do with these crimes as charged.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. Dr. Haensel, you would be very much more helpful to the Court if you would get right down to what these defendants are charged with in this indictment. History we are not interested in. We want to know the facts about the charge contained in this indictment and everything else that you put into the record has the effect of covering up the real facts and real defense that you are trying to present, and makes it harder for the Court to find, and, as I have said before, might cause it to get entirely lost. So let's please get down to the facts in this case. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In this area were Germans and Poles living side by side?\nA.Yes. There were about 60 per cent Germans and about 50 per cent Boles?\nQ.What are you by descent? I mean, what was your father?\nA.My father was the owner of an estate in the District of Gnesen. My mother also originated from that neighborhood.\nQ.Did the German and Polish families in your district live in different communities or did they intermingle?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1793, "page_number": "1787", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.They intermingled. We had two Polish neighbors and, apart from that, German neighbors.\nQ.What about language? Did the population speak Polish as well as German or did one language predominate?\nA.Polish as well as German was spoken.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Court, he is still going back about 75 years about what kind of language was spoken, and so forth, and that is exactly the objection we made before.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, the Tribunal has tried very hard to make its position clear about these matters and it is hard for me, as one member of the Tribunal, to understand why counsel insists upon placing in the evidence and in the record matters that will not be considered by the Tribunal. Please get down to what you expect to prove by this witness about this case.\nDR. HAENSEL:I owe an excuse to the Tribunal but I believe I must answer the indictment and the indictment charges the defendants with genecide and if I am charged with the murder of a person it is certainly an excuse if I say that he was after my life too. That is true before every court. I cannot understand why we shouldn't be allowed to tell how these things developed.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Court, these defendants are not charged with genocide in the indictment. They are charged with certain crimes that are specified in the indictment. These things go to make up genocide, but the crime of genocide is not charged in the indictment within itself.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That should be a complete answer. If they do not insist upon genocide, why certainly that should end your troubles on that score.\nDR. HAENSEL:Well, I have made an application that the Prosecution shall be asked to withdraw its indictment as far as genocide is concerned. I did not receive a positive decision from the Court so I still have to assume that genocide is still a charge under the indictment.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1794, "page_number": "1788", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "MR. LAMB:May it please the Court, we stated that the indictment does not charge the crime of genocide as such. What the indictment charges are crimes, murders, abortions, and many other things that go to make up what is commonly known as genocide. These things are specifically charged. That is what we have proven in the case and that is what their defense should be.\nDR. HAENSEL:I believe that the Prosecution has not drafted the indictment, in a way so that it specifies certain crimes. In the evidence I have only found directives, laws, et cetera; but not special cases, as is usual in a criminal case. The defendants are charged that they participated in governmental measures which, in their execution, led to things which the Prosecution terms spoliation, et cetera, but no concrete cases are quoted.\nAccordingly, I can only take my stand on the question of how were these directives made; how did these directives originate, what is their justification and what is their pupport. One can this briefly, but one cannot in any way understand what happened in this area, if one doesn't know what happened previously. It is the answer to what has happened, seen historically.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have a statement in open court by counsel for the Prosecution, by which they are bound, that genocide is not changed in this indictment. The Tribunal, at the beginning of the case, and several times since then, has emphasized the fact that these defendants are charged only with certain specific acts and crimes named in the indictment and it would be so helpful if counsel on both sides would confine the evidence to those criminal acts named in the indictment. History, the relationship of one people to another, the feelings of one people against another or for another illustrates absolutely no issue involved in this trial.\nI see no reason why we cannot, as the Tribunal has pleaded both with the Prosecution and the Defense from the beginning, get this investigation down to the simple criminal acts charged in the indictment. Go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1795, "page_number": "1789", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "2 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_1_Goldberg (Jacobsohn) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Have you been a Polish national?\nAI automatically became a Polish citizen.\nQWhen?\nAAt the beginning of 1920.\nQDid you menawhile become a German?\nASince 1937, no since 1941 I am again a German citizen.\nQWhich date is right of the dates you mentioned, 1937 or 1941?\nA 1941 is correct, 1937 I moved to Germany. In 1938 I lost my Polish nationality. For two years I was stateless, and in 1941 I became a German national.\nQWhat was the procedure which gained you German citizenship?\nAI acquired German citizenship by way of the German People's List.\nQDid you voluntarily ask to join the German People's List?\nAI had made an application in Berlin to again become a German citizen but because of difficulties with the Reich Security Main Office I did not receive the consent for this, In 1941 I was drafted into the army and suddenly, in 1941 I was drafted into the army and suddenly, in 1941, I was informed that I was a member of the German People's List.\nQ.Do you know a number of people among your German and your Polish acquaintances who became Germans by means of the German People's List?\nAQuite a number of my acquaintances became German citizens by means of the German People's List, but Poles were among those too who became Germans.\nQ.What do you mean by Poles? All of them had been Poles as far as their national status was concerned. Now you tell us a number of such Poles, that is, a number of Polish citizens became German citizens by means of the German People's List, and a number of People became Germans through the German People's List whom you \n 2 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_2_Goldberg (Jacobsohn) don't want to designate as Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1796, "page_number": "1790", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AThe minority lived abroad irrespective of whether they were Germans, Poles or Russians. The view that one must be a Pole, ethnically speaking, just because one is a Polish national is not shared by me.\nQIs this opinion your private opinion, or that of a club or is this an opinion which you met with.....\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, it doesn't make any difference what it is. The Tribunal has tried to tell counsel over and over and over that we are not interested in opinions, conclusions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDid you ever visit Geneva?\nAI visited Geneva every year for at least four times since I took part in all sessions of the council of the League of Nations.\nQIn what capacity did you take part in these sessions?\nAAs representative of the German minority in Poland. I had repeatedly submitted petitions there and have taken my stand for them before the tripartite committees.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You needn't make the objection, Mr. Lamb, I think I can rule. I think if somebody who did not know what was taking place here were to walk into the courtroom he would think you were trying this man. We are not interested in what he did or what his views are. We are interested in what these defendants did in so far as the charges in this indictment are concerned. Please get down to that. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDo you know how many ethnical Germans arrived in the Incorporated Eastern Territories after 1939, that is, Germans who had not lived there before 1939?\nAWould you kindly repeat the question?\nQDo you know how many ethnical Germans went to the Incorporated Eastern Territories who had not lived there in 1939?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1797, "page_number": "1791", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "2 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_3_Goldberg (Jacobsohn)\nAApproximately 600,000.\nQDo you have any idea or do you know where these people came from?\nAPartly from the Polish territories, partly from the Baltic countries and partly from other Eastern states and in part they were people who had been expelled previously and had returned from the Reich proper.\nQDo you know a number of these people personally?\nAYes, I know quite a number of them personally.\nQDid you hear from these persons? What was their motive that led them to give up their homes in one of the countries in the East, mentioned by you and which prompted them to return to German protection?\nAMost of them didn't want to live under Bolshevist rule.\nQCan you give us any reason for this, that these people who returned were not settled in Germany proper But in these Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nAThey had ties with the East and they certainly settled there in a better manner than in the Reich proper. Apart from that there is sufficient room for them there.\nQYou mean in the Reich or in the Eastern territories?\nAI mean in the Eastern territories.\nQAnd how about the Reich?\nAIn the Reich there is quite a population pressure.\nQYou say there was more room in the East? Could all these people be settled there if the population residing there hitherto remained in this area or did they have to leave?\nAThe Poles who had been settled there had fled to the greater part and had returned to the East. There was quite a lot of land which could be settled on right away.\nQWas this sufficient for the number you mentioned, that is, 600,000?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1798, "page_number": "1792", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "2 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_4_Goldberg (Jacobsohn)\nANo; that wasn't of course sufficient if more space had not been created. Deportations took place on account of that.\nQDo you know that the resettlements took place according to the view point of the separation of nationalities and does this principle correspond to the experience which you have gathered during 70 years?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am compelled to remind counsel again that we are not interested in this man's experience or his viewpoints. We want the facts in this case. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQDo you know, from your very thorough knowledge of the Eastern territories that, in order to make room, people were killed or that they were deprived of their children?\nANoo I don't know anything about that, I would certainly have learned of it if something like this had happened.\nQAccording to your experience of the East were resettlements of such a type carried out for the first time in the years of the war or did something similar happen before?\nAResettlements were constantly taking place.\nMR. LAMB:We object. Anything that happened before the war in not in the indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, Dr. Haensel, we are not concerned here with what appeared before 1939 to 1945, and that is all.\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Tribunal, if somebody has pinched a watch and he has stolen it at 23 hours and he says that it has been stolen from him in the morning, then I cannot see why this objection should not be gone into. If the High Tribunal says there is nothing before 1939 I should like the High Tribunal to put this quite clearly and then I shall not put qny questions regarding this period any more.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The indictment makes it very clear that the \n 2 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_5_Goldberg (Jacobsohn) period in which, these defendants are charged with the commission of crimes is from 1939 to 1945.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1799, "page_number": "1793", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:But a crime must have a preparation. I can certainly he charged with a crime in 1939 and, in order to clear up the motive, I have to know the previous history. I know from the English practice quite a number of decisions......", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1800, "page_number": "1794", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:This Tribunal is not interested in history. We are interested in what happened between 1939 and 1945 as far as these defendants are concerned. We have said that over and over and I know that you are an able enough lawyer to understand what the Tribunal means.\nDR. HAENSEL:After this decision of the Tribunal I have no further questions to address to the witness Graebe. BY DR. FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQMr. Witness, is it correct that after the 1st of September 1939 wild evacuations of inhabitants of Danzig and West Prussia took place --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. I remind counsel again, the witness on the stand is a witness subpoenaed on behalf of the defendant Greifelt. The court cannot permit a complete examination of this witness by fourteen counsel. If you want to ask him anything about your client specifically, specifically your client, you may do so. But nothing else.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Mr. President, I put the question because the defendant Hildebrandt in October 1939 was transferred to Danzig as Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar, and he was charged --\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand that. That is already in evidence. We understand that; we know that; if you want to ask him anything about what Hildebrandt did, do that.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:And, he was charged that at that time Poles were evacuated --\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand that; the Tribunal understands that. If you want to ask this witness anything about your client specifically do so; otherwise we are going to have to stop this examination except for the man \n for whom he is subpoenaed.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1801, "page_number": "1795", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "DR. FROESCHMANN:I than see no possibility to defend my client.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else? BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Dr. Gregor Ebner):\nQMay it please the Tribunal, I would like to put some questions regarding Lebensborn. Witness, do you know where the children came from who were placed in Polish orphanages, or orphans who were with Polish foster parents, - were these children in all cases children of Polish descent, members of the Polish folkdom?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are covering territory that has been very thoroughly covered already by the witness. If you want to ask this witness anything about your client we must confine it to that.\nDR.THIELE*FREDERSDORF: May it please the Tribunal, the defendants of the Lebensborn Corporation are charged by the Prosecution that Lebensborn has taken Polish children of Polish descent from Polish orphanages in order to make them Germans compulsory, in order to strengthen the German folkdom. What I wanted to ask the witness is whether children who were transferred to the care of Lebensborn must always have been Polish children who were to be made Germans by force or whether they were not really children who formerly had been robbed during the Polish-German ethnical struggles and had be compulsory put into Polish orphanages in order to be polonized by force.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The very length of your question indicates that you want to go entirely into that organization again. When a witness is on the stand that has not been subpoenaed here by you at all.... If you want to ask this \n witness anything that your client did, you may do so but we cannot permit going into the organization of these various set-ups by every witness that is subpoenaed by every defendant.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1802, "page_number": "1796", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Confine your questions strictly to what your client did.\nDR.THIELE*FREDERSDORF: No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else for the defendant? All right, go ahead with the Prosecution.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQWitness, did you leave Poland prior to 1937?\nANo.\nQWhen did you leave Poland and come to Germany?\nAOn the 1st of April 1937.\nQRepeat that please.\nAOn the 1st of April 1937 I left Poland and moved to Germany.\nQWhen did you next go back to Poland?\nAI only went back to Poland for a visit, since I had relations there --\nQWhen did you next go back to Poland?\nAIt was in 1939, shortly after the beginning of the war, in order to visit my sister-in-law who was living in Bromberg.\nQWell, I am not interested in that. How much time did you spend in Poland from 1939 until 1945?\nAOnly a couple of days.\nQSo you did not actually see these deportations which you said occurred?\nAI saw these relatives because I went to the country to visit them and I saw these deportations.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1803, "page_number": "1797", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QSo you know of your own knowledge that deportations did occur in Poland?\nAWhat kind of deportations are you referring to? I don't understand this.\nQYou testified that there was not room enough for all the Germans that were going to be sent into Poland and that it was necessary to deport people from Poland to make room for them. You testified that a few minutes ago. You know that that occurred, don't you?\nAYes, I do.\nQYou stated that you were drafted into the German Army when you were 66 years of age and when you were not a citizen of Germany. That's true, isn't it?\nAYes, that is true; I was at that time Stateless.\nQYou know of people that voluntarily registered with DVL and accepted German citizenship, but do you know what happened to people who refused to register with DVL?\nAI only know that people have volunteered on this list.\nQBut do you not know what happened to the ones that refused?\nANo, I cannot say anything regarding that.\nQIsn't it a fact that in 1920 an option had to be made by a person as to whether he became a Pole or not?\nANo, those people who had been born there or who had been resident there before 1908 became automatically Polish citizens without being asked. They could become Germans if they asked for German citizenship. I was not one of them. I became automatically a Polish citizen without being asked whether I wanted to or not.\nQBut you could have become a German if you had asked \n to become a German?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1804, "page_number": "1798", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AI had time to think until 1927 about whether I wanted to become a German or not.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1805, "page_number": "1799", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions for this witness? BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, a question was put to you and you answered it as to whether in 1920 you had the possibility of opting for Germany and becoming a German again. My question now is whether all the Germans who lived in the territory given to Poland had the possibility of opting for Germany.\nA.All those who had emigrated into the area after 1918 had to leave the country again, about 800,000 people...\nTHE INTERPRETER:I am sorry, Your Honor, but the witness is not audible over here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, may I suggest that you talk rather slowly and into the microphone so that it will come through to the interpreter. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In other words only those who were there before 1908 could opt for Germany.\nA.Only those who were there before 1908 could opt for Germany; and all such persons who were born in the area.\nQWhat consequences would have arisen from such an option for you?\nA.If I had opted for Germany I would have been expelled like the others, and I would have incurred considerable loss of my property.\nQ.When you were asked by the Prosecution you stated that you went to Bromberg in 1939 in order to see your sister-in-law; is that right?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you worried about the security of the sisterin-law?\nA.Yes, we were very worried.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE INTERPRETER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1806, "page_number": "1800", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "MR. LAMB:Your Honor, the Prosecution objects to whether he was worried about his sister-in-law.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, that, Dr. Haensel, doesn't seem to illustrate anything.\nDR. HAENSEL:I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. HAENSEL:Hans Schaefer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHANSSCHAEFER: a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name for the benefit of the Tribunal, and tell us where and when you were born.\nA.My name is Hans Schaefer; I was born on the 12th of November 1901, at Leissen, Upper Silesia.\nQ.What is your profession; and, will you give us a brief description of your career?\nA.I went to high school at Breslau, Oberrealschule, and I left school at Easter, 1918; became an apprentice in a bank and towards the middle of 1924 I left that profession. In the meantime I had first of all studied national economy and later on I passed a lawyer's examination. In the year 1930 I graduated, and in January, 1934 I got my diploma; then I became a lawyer. Shortly afterwards I took \n COURT I CASE VIII a position as a member of the Vorstand in a Real Estate Limited Company.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HANS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1807, "page_number": "1801", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "From 1935, that is at the end of that year, I resigned from that position and I remained a lawyer.\nQ.How and when did you make the acquaintance of the defendant Greifelt?\nA.On the suggestion of a friend of mine, in January 1940, I was called to Berlin and I joined, first in the capacity of an employee, the office of the Reich Commissioner.\nQ.Were you called into this office because you were a member of the SS; or, were you a member of the SS?\nA.No, I was not a member of the SS, and I didn't know at all that this office was connected with the SS. If I had known that it was, I wouldn't have gone there. It wasn't an SS agency, and I had convinced myself first of all that is wasn't.\nQ.Who was your first chief under whom you worked in the Greifelt office?\nA.First of all it was Dr. Faehnrich; there I worked provisionally for a short period.\nQ.What was your work?\nA.I saw to it that the resettlers from the Baltic countries, who were lawyers, physicians or teachers would receive adequate professional possibilities in the Reich. In other words, I negotiated with the Reich Physicians chambers, with the Reich Ministry of the Interior and with the Lawyer's Association.\nQ.What was the name of the department in the agency in which you were employed; can you give us the number?\nA.Department I.\nQ.Did you remain in that department or were you transferred later on to another department?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1808, "page_number": "1802", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.After about two months I should say I worked together with Regierungrat Ludwig who was in charge and who set up the Department Economy.\nQ.What was your main task in this department?\nA.I had to see to it that resettlers who were brought into the Reich would find bases for professional and industrial work and for professions in the incorporated eastern territories; in other words, that they would get some sort of a position as trustee on behalf of the HTO and they were assigned to some plant or some enterprise. That was my main task. Apart from that I dealt with the question as to whether and how far co-operatives could be admitted against which a certain animosity existed in the Reich, or at least, a negative attitude. I was in favor of these co-operatives who were mainly partisans co-operatives.\nQ.Witness, this assignment in the east in professional and industrial enterprises, was that very difficult or easy; or, did it create difficulties with other agencies?\nA.Well, at least at the beginning it wasn't easy to establish some reasonable relationship with the HTO. The HTO, at least as far as I could see it, saw its main task in getting as much money as possible for the Reich, and, therefore, they had a tendency, or at least it looked like it, to find prospective purchasers with as large fortunes as possible and to assign them as trustees in the enterprise in the incorporated territories of the east.\nQ.And what was your own tendency?\nA.My own tendency was to give the resettlers the possibility of having certain privileges or at least a certain priority and if that was not possible to bring them at least on the same level with any firm which had tendencies to expand itself and therefore wanted to go to the east.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1809, "page_number": "1803", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.But weren't you backed by Himmler?\nA.Yes, that might have seemed so, but Himmler as far as I saw, did not like the idea of making the frontal attack right away; he seemed to prefer to use detours If possible what I might call black channels to get to his aim. Therefore, it wasn't easy towards the RTO to show our hand as strongly as everybody would think that the Reich Commissioner could have shown his hand, for the very reason that Himmler was thought by many to be the strong man.\nQ.The October decree concerning the appointment of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism gave Himmler a very strong position; didn't it?\nA.As all of us thought, the decree gave Himmler a very strong position.\nQ.Did he use that strength?\nA.No, I did not have that impression; at least I was under the impression that he could have exercised or exerted influence in a much stronger way; but, Goering doubtlessly was the more powerful.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1810, "page_number": "1804", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWhat was your impression about Herr Greifelt; was he the strong man or was he more in favor of the other tendency, the more moderate tendency?\nAIt seemed to me that Herr Greifelt was more in line with Himmler's cautious manner.\nQWell, what was Greifelt's main task as far as you had an insight into it?\nAHe had to take up connections with the director of the HTO, Winkler and to explain to him that in the east the resettlers had to be assigned because in the rest of the Reich they had no chances of having any kind of an adequate position and profession, a position and profession in line with what they had in their former residences.\nQNow, who had the initiative in this business? Was the initiative always with Greifelt and his office; or, who did make the suggestions?\nAThe suggestions mainly came from the DUT. The DUT was the agency which had to see to it that the resettlers would get nearly at least the same sphere of activity as they used to have, and from this experience of the DUT difficulties arose. The HTO very often enough seemed inclined to prefer other applicants.\nQWhat was the staff of officials of the HTO, and what was the staff of the DUT; and, you can take the staff of officials in the Main Staff Office as a comparison if you want to.\nAThe HTO had a considerable staff of workers and employees; in general they employed many lawyers and attorneys; there were officials from other agencies also who had been delegated into the HTO. On the other hand, the DUT had been set up as an apparatus which showed considerable more forces than the Main Staff Office. The Main Staff Office intentionally was kept a small agency as far as personnel was concerned because it did not have to deal with tangible individual cases. The intention was that the Staff Main Office should only direct the work of the other agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1811, "page_number": "1805", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QCould you give us a sort of help by giving us some figures. Were there hundreds or were there thousands of employees in the HTO and the DUT; what size can you give us?\nAWell, that is not very easy because at least at the beginning things were developing themselves yet; and on the other hand in March, 1943 when I was drafted into the armed forces, I already resigned. About in 1942 I would estimate that the staff of employees of the DUT was certainly considerably over a thousand. I have figures in my mind of about two thousand. As a matter of fact, the HTO cannot be kept in figures with three digits. The central agency of the Reich Commissioner in Berlin, that is the Staff Main Office, part of the Land Office, of which I have no conception at all, was an office with a staff of well, I would say a figure of about three digits again.\nQDid you interfere with the practical work of the DUT or, what was your position towards the DUT; what did you do?\nAI concerned myself with the DUT on how we could best come to an agreement with the HTO in order to give such people as had to be taken care of by the Main Staff Office the possibility of being placed without any friction.\nQAs a lawyer you know that one cannot serve two masters.\nAYes.\nQWell, which master did you serve - the resettler or the HTO?\nAAt all times the resettler was the person who had to be given priority in all matters, at least as far as the Office \"Economy\" was concerned, all the rest was only apparatus and had to take secondary importance as compared with the welfare of these people who on the strength of international agreements were to be brought back into the Reich.\nQDid you have anything to do with finance and economy in your field of tasks?\nANot any at all; only, perhaps that we had an interest to see how \n the resettlers estimated and appraised the objects they had left in their country.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1812, "page_number": "1806", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWas that checked very carefully? Was that done in a very orderly manner?\nAAs far as I have an insight into it, it was done very carefully and very cautiously. At that occasion doubtlessly the resettlers met with a certain generosity on the part of the Reich; therefore, the appraisals were done rather in favor of the resettlers.\nQWas there much friction with those people or were you under the impression that basically they considered themselves well treated?\nADoubtlessly the large majority of resettlers were quite in agreement with our matters. The only difficulties I can recall were caused in the cases of very rich Baltics.\nQYou knew a colleague Ludwig who took you into that office.\nAYes.\nQDo you remember that Ludwig had certain difficulties because of the contracts to the furniture industry?\nAYes, I know that.\nQCan you give us the reasons for this occurrence?\nAThe furniture industry in the whole of Germany towards the end was assigned to step up the production to the necessary level. At the time the ready cash on account of the financial measures of the Reich had become considerably scarcer, and, therefore, we had to find our way to give these entrepreneurs means of financing the production; and that was done in the following manner: The wood they needed for their work was pawned for the lean. In one case Ludwig had granted a lean in a very generous and credulous manner. At the end, when the enterprise was dropped, there was not enough money to cover the expenditure. I think that the wood had even become the property of another entrepreneur or had been pawned elsewhere. Therefore, there was a claim of the Reich amounting to six figures.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1813, "page_number": "1807", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QDid Greifelt intervene on behalf of the Reich in this matter; and did he insist on that claim and, did he insist that the official be held responsible?\nAI do remember that Greifelt was very ticklish on questions of Reich funds; he was that in all matters. I do recall that Herr Greifelt made it understood quite clearly that he would hold Ludwig responsible for the loss incurred by the Reich. I do not know the exact ending of the story. I had only some knowledge of it when I came back on furlough and I heard somebody tell about it.\nQDid Greifelt insist that the government regulations of the law be strictly complied with within his office?\nAHerr Greifelt was extremely sensitive as far as all regulations and laws were concerned, and I would like to say that I think he was a man who was extremely law-abiding.\nQAnd this furniture contract, as I understand you, was a matter of construction of new furniture?\nAYes, new furniture.\nQDo you know that used furniture was also bought, or, was that rare?\nAAs I can dimly remember, it was attempted at the beginning to use used furniture for the resettlers and have it reconditioned; it was repolished and changed wherever necessary.\nQDo you know whether the Litzmannstadt Ghetto played a part in that affair; or, was that according to your knowledge a matter of secondary importance for you?\nAThis matter for me was really of secondary importance; only Ludwig and Herr Reichert were very intensely interested in this matter. Reichert was the director of the furniture procurement agency. I have a faint, recollection of a conversation in which the re-conditioning and repolishing of furniture was discussed and this re-conditioning took place in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto; but whether it was a matter of inspecting \n this furniture, or whether it was a really tangible contract already, I couldn't tell you.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1814, "page_number": "1808", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "At any rate, there is no doubt that an agency like the Ghetto Litzmannstadt could not be expected at all to take care of any kind of adequate procurement of furniture for the resettlers.\nQFrom your own activities can you have an insight into the practices according to which resettlers were permitted to engage in profession 1 and industrial enterprises; in what manner was that done?\nAThe resettlers were sent to the DUT first. As time went on all the resettlers would go to the DUT on their own initiative, and they would not apply to the Main Staff Office any more. The DUT then took the documents, namely, the information concerning the amount of the property and the kind of enterprises and approached the HTO with these documents, and now the negotiations started as to whether the substance, the property could be turned over at all and under what conditions. In most of the cases an agreement was reached; and only in such cases when the HTO created difficulties the DUT approached us with the request to take a part in the negotiations between the DUT and the HTO.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1815, "page_number": "1809", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AHowever, those were aonly cases where the HTO remained stobborn. If the deal was concluded, then it was of no interest any more at all for the Office \"Economy\"1. I remember in those offices some sort of an according between the DUT and the HTO took place.\nQDo you remember that there was once a dispute concerning seasonal profite which was very typical of the above business? can you explain that to us?\nAYes, I think it was at the end of 1941 or at the beginning of 1942 that the following came to light: An agreement had been reached for a certain amount to be paid by the resettler when he took over the enterprise. This was to be done by accounting and crediting the resettler's claim against the Reich to the HTO and there it became apparent that the resettlers apparently had made considerable profits. I have already stated that the resettlers was appointed trustee of the enterprise and the result was that the resettler had a part in the profit; however, he had no right to put the whole profits in his pocket. This participation in the profits, which was so considerable as I said, had arisen from the fact that the resettlers very often found considerable stocks of merchandise and they had no difficulties whatsoever to turn these stocks into money. These profits the HTO termed seasonal profits Konjuncture profits and not profits in line with the rentability ns had been accounted for. Negotiations were started, and I cannot give you any details about the end of these negotiations and how compensation was found. But I do recall that that Reich Commissar as well as the DUT admitted that profits were involved here which the Reich would rather be entitled to have instead of the resettler.\nQWith whom did the resettlers who had been appointed trustees account? Did they account with you, the DUT or the HTO?\nAOnly with the DUT. The DUT was the general trustee, the lawyer, or the broker or whatever name you want to give to it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1816, "page_number": "1810", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "QWas the Staff main Office connected with the procurement of clothing in any time?\nAI think that I can answer that in the negative with certainty. I do not recall that the Department of Economy, the only department which I can sue can have an insight into that question, was connected with it.\nQDo you mean to say that that according to your knowledge, you think that it is impossible?\nAAccording to my knowledge, it is out of the question, but I think that it is possible that we thought it over, what could be done in that question.\nQDidn't you once lose your love of work and why?\nAYes, I didn't like the work any more at all, because....\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think that will help us out, whether he loved to work or not. Not many of us like to work, but we have to.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, I think that is one of the most difficult facts of life, that one loses one's love of work, but it is a fact all the same. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWhat reasons did you have to be dissatisfied with the kind of work you were doing?\nAThat was the fact that the Department of Economy was nothing else but a sort of supervisory organ over the DUT and it could do it better than the Main Staff office namely, to judge all such questions and to try to solve them by negotiations with the HTO. For the rest my attempts to solve, for instance, the question of the co-operation failed so badly because all sorts of agencies opposed me with strong political pressure. That was mainly the Reich Group Commerce at the time was under Dr. Halder.\nQThe other agencies with which you had to deal--did they cling to the regulations and laws as strongly as you have told us about Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1817, "page_number": "1811", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "or was there a certain chaotic situation where every agency to do its own?\nACertainly, every agency complied with the laws very strictly, but at the same time every agency tried to run wild and struggle for power, and in this struggle for power, the Reich Commissar was anything else but the man who could be expected to be the winner.\nQWas the reason the personal backing or the lack of personal backing of Greifelt in the SS or were there other reasons there other reasons involved, too?\nAWell, I wasn't under the impression at all that Herr Greifelt had any backing from the SS. My impression was rather that Herr Greifelt would rather have liked it if he had found a little more recognition and backing in the higher circles of the SS than he really did. Herr Greifelt strictly with the directives issued to him and he certainly was not the representative of an idea of ruthless pushing in the struggle for power in order to gain big positions?\nQCan you remember when the in the Main Staff Office racial questions and racial ideologies were preached?\nAThe contrary is the case everybody would smile when the question of racial checkers indulging in funny manipulations somewhere arose. This smiling went to the point that I was even under the impression that Herr Greifelt would look at everybody in a stern manner to try and prevent their smiling, because after all, an order is an order.\nQ.But what was the position of the Main Staff Office towards the chiefs of the civilian administration in the West? Did these chiefs comply with the directives issued by the Main Staff Office?\nA.For quite a period of time, we didn't have any news from the west at all. I remember one of these well-known Monday conferences during which the fact was discussed that in the West and particularly in Lorraine some questions of ethnics were being dealt with, and that this \n acted like an explosion in the conference.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1818, "page_number": "1812", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "They shrugged their sholders and shook their heads because matters took place down in Lorraine which should have taken place exclusively within the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Well, when you speak of these matters, do you speak of the deportation which Buerkel had ordered?\nA.Yes, that very thing.\nQ.Well, what were the opinions expressed with regard to Buerkel, for instance?\nA.Well, they did consider -Buerkel an outsider who was running wild.\nQ.What about Simon?\nA.Well, in a similar manner.\nQ.Do you remember that your colleague Hoffmann once was dispatched to Strassbourg in order to get information on the question of what had happened down there at all?\nA.Yes, I do remember that.\nQ.Was this trip only ordered because it was the only way to gain an impression of what happened there and what the chief of the civilian Administration was doing?\nA.As I was under the impression that this trip had the aim of finding out at all what was going on -\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I should like to object to these leading questions by defense counsel in connection with the trips by Hoffmann. This man Hoffmann has already appeared in this Tribunal and testified at length about his activities\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't know so much about the leading part of it. I wish you would lead a little more and get right down to the facts. You are going very much into detail. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You and Hoffmann were jurists, weren't you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were there many jurists in your agency, and what was the part they \n played in regard to Greifelt, for instance?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1819, "page_number": "1813", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.Ludwig and myself made it a very strong point to have jurists and legal experts in the Department for Economy, because we thought that they afforded a guarantee to see to it that the existing regulations, decrees and laws were complied with in an expert manner.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1820, "page_number": "1814", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Q.- And what about Freifelt?\nA.- Greifelt had the hobby of not appraising jurists very highly when he talked about them, but in reality he wouldn't deal with any question unless he had it considerably checked in an expert manner by all the lawyers and legal experts in his department.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, that concludes my direct examination.\nDR. MERKEL:Dr. Merkel, for the defendant Creutz. I ask permission to address a few questions to the witness.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.- Dr. Schaefer, do you know the organization as of 1940 of the Staff Main Office?\nA.- Yes, I think there were two organizational charts. First of all, the chart I found there and then in summer 1940 there was a reorganization.\nQ.- For identification, I am showing you an organizational chart drawn up by the defendant Creutz in 1940. Will you please tell us whether this plan is correct?\nA.- This plan is correct as the status was in August 1940.\nQ.- Therefore in 1940 all the departments and main departments were under the department chief directly?\nA.- Yes, Herr Greifelt was the chief and all departments were directly under him, also the main departments.\nQ.- Witness, will you please as far as possible answer the questions only with yes or no?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What was the official position of the defendant Creutz at that time?\nA.- He was personal referent.\nQ.- Do you know how the relations between Creutz and Dr. Faehnrich were?", "speakers": [ "DR. MERKEL", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1821, "page_number": "1815", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.- Yes, I had an impression of what it was. Herr Creutz did not seem to like Herr Faehndrich because of his characteristics: vanity, presumption and lack of expert capacity. Faehndrich doubtlessly pursued his work without informing Creifelt, Creutz -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, What seems to be the trouble?\nCOURT INTERPRETER TREIDELL:The witness is going a little bit too fast.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Speak slowly.\nCOURT INTERPRETER TREIDELL:Will you repeat?\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, Herr Creutz did not have a very high opinion of Herr Faehndrich because of HerrF aehndrich's vanity, of his domineering manner, and because he was not very capable in his field. Faehndrich worked -\nTHE PRESIDENTI doubt that the reasons for the differences between these two men would be very helpful to the Tribunal. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.- In 1940, was Creutz already the deputy of Greifelt?\nA.- Yes, but only when Herr Greifelt was absent.\nQ.- Did Creutz have a decisive influence on the work of the Staff Main Office?\nA.- I wasn't under that impression. He had no great influence on the work of the departments and main departments.\nQ.- How can you briefly describe the activity of the defendant Creutz at that time?\nA.- On the one hand, he was the internal organizer. He had a great interest in registration and the whole organization and the staff and for the rest he can best be compared with the so-called ante-room man in the ministries.\nQ.- This activity of the defendant Creutz -- did it change after August 1942?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "COURT INTERPRETER TREIDELL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1822, "page_number": "1816", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.- I -wasn't under that impression.\nQ.- The organizational chart of 1942 was also drawn up by the defendant Creutz. Are the office groups contained in that plan -- had they been actually activated?\nA.- No, they were never put in operation as far as I can judge. The Office \"Economy\", as before, was directly under Herr Greifelt. That the Department I, with, which I had dealings once in a while, was directly under Herr Creutz and asked for his decisions directly, is not the impression I gained.\nQ.- Did you approach the defendant Creutz in official matters?\nA.- Only extremely rarely.\nQ.- At what occasions?\nA.- Basically speaking, only when I wanted to find out how was Herr Greifelt's attitude towards some kind of a suggestion, in order to avoid that a suggestion of mine be rejected by Herr Greifelt.\nQ.- During the official conversations with you, did Herr Creutz show special knowledge of the individual fields of tasks of the Staff Office?\nA.- He showed a certain knowledge, but not a knowledge which would have been sufficient to settle questions, at least of Office III and to decide them.\nQ.- Had Creutz any connections with Office III?\nA.- I can anwer that in the negative.\nQ.- Did Creutz have any negotiations with the HTO?\nA.- No, I don't remember one single case of that.\nQ.- What about negotiations with the Reich Ministry of Economy?\nA.- Even less.\nQ.- Did you know the so-called priority scale decree?\nA.- Yes, I had knowledge of it.\nQ.- Do you know the regulations of execution issued in November 1941 for this decree?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1823, "page_number": "1817", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.- No, the date doesn't mean anything to me. The priority scale decree was a decree which, if I am not mistaken, had been formulated already as early as 1940 and as the time went on, changes had been made and supplements had been issued to the decree. However, these supplements and changes did not modify its main contents, therefore, they were of only secondary importance. I assume, therefore, that the decree of November 1941 also was a decree of secondary importance.\nQ.- Do you know where these execution regulations were elaborated, in what office?\nA.- Office III was the office which had the main interest in the execution of these matters, but on a very large scale Office I, that is the legal department, collaborated in this matter.\nQ.- Do you know whether through these regulations the HTO was caused to sell property?\nA.- No. That was not even possible\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are getting away from your -\nCOURT INTERPRETER TREIDELL:I am sorry, Your Honor, but between the witness and the defense counsel there never is any interval.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are getting away from your client now into a general direct examination of this witness which we cannot permit. Now, may I suggest that between the question and the answer and between the answer and the question there be a pause. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.- Did you take part in the Monday conferences, witness?\nA.- Yes, on several occasions.\nQ.- Did Creutz speak there?\nA.- Very little.\nQ.- And how did he speak?\nA.- He made little marginal remarks, generally of sarcastic content.\nQ.- Did you have knowledge of any decisions of the defendant Creutz?", "speakers": [ "COURT INTERPRETER TREIDELL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1824, "page_number": "1818", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "A.- I do not know any decision of Herr Creutz.\nQ.-Only a few more questions. Did you discuss political questions with Creutz too?\nA.- To discuss politics was a thing I avoided whenever I was with a superior of mine, because I was too cautious, but Herr Creutz occasionally explained his view about political questions and I was very much surprised to hear such a political opinion from a man who after all had considerable rank in the SS.\nQ.- If I understand you correctly, therefore he did not make any positive statement as far as his attitude towards National Socialism was concerned?\nA.- I should rather say that he made a lot of reservations and was very critical.\nQ.- I am putting to you now Exhibit 252, It is in Volume 5C of the document books, and the only question I have there is, what is the importance of the signature of the defendant Creutz which is under the signature of the defendant Greifelt here?\nA.- The only importance this signature can have is that of a certification, because I have often seen such certification by Herr Creutz.\nQ.-Then I submit to you Exhibit 34 in Volume 2B of the document book. This organizational chart, is it correct?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1825, "page_number": "1819", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AI see that this organizational chart is intended to show the organization of the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissioner in Poznan. I did not take any interest in the organization of agencies at provincial levels.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he simply asked you if that chart was correct. It is or it is not. Just state whether it is correct or not.\nTHE WITNESS:I don't think it is correct, your Honor. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQWhy?\nABecause under the Reich Commissioner we have the Field Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office, the VOMI, the EWZ. That is not correct, because all those were agencies on the Reich level which were certainly not under the Staff Main Office nor the Reich Commissioner.\nQWas Creutz a member of the Waffen SS?\nAYes he was, because in 1940, at the occasion of a conversation, he showed me his pay book.\nQDo you know how long he was a member of the Waffen SS?\nACertainly until March 1943, which was the time when I was drafted into the armed forces.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions by the Defense?\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I have an affidavit by this witness, and normally I would limit myself to submitting this affidavit in my case in chief. However, if the Tribunal makes it a point for me to ask the witness about the matters dealt with in the affidavit, and which are directly connected with the defendant I am defense counsel for, then I am ready to either replace the affidavit by questions to the witness, or to supplement it by such questions.\nDR. HAENSEL:If your Honor please, before this praejudicium is expressed, I ask that the general topic be discussed, because in my defense, up until now, I have had in mind the basis that if a witness is brought on to the stand, all the affidavits deposed by the same witness \n up to that point are by-passed, that is, they are either to be reaffirmed or brought into his testimony.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "DR. MERKEL", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1826, "page_number": "1820", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "And I can hardly imagine, in this procedure that a witness can have a series of affidavits which are submitted and at the same time give testimony which is not in line with his affidavits.\nTHE PRESIDENT:On this witness, as I understand it, no affidavit has been offered up to now. Of course you may offer an affidavit, but if you do so, then, of course, the Prosecution would have a right to cross-examine him with reference to that affidavit. If you examine him now as a a witness, since he is called only as a witness for Greifelt, you will be limited strictly to those things that are directly connected with your client.\nGo ahead. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, did you come to know the field of task of the Planning Department under the defendant Meyer?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that the relations between Professor Meyer and the Planning Department on the one hand, and the other departments of the Staff Main Office on the other hand, were rather difficult, only because the rooms were separated?\nAThe relations were certainly not too close.\nQDo you have knowledge of a case where the Planning Department and the defendant Meyer made proposals and suggestions referring to the activities of the other departments, or which were connected with the extermination and destruction of entire peoples?\nAI remember only one case in which I was interested, which constituted some sort of planning. The Planning Department had dealt with the question of how an area, for instance, of the size of a district, was to be organized as far as ethnic questions were concerned. It had discovered that a certain number of towns of secondary importance belonged to a district capital, and again, these towns were surrounded by municipalities, and these municipalities by smaller villages. Furthermore, they \n had established a plan whereby the branches of the different industries had to be settled; for example, what industries had to be located in the district capital, what other industries had in a town of a secondary importance, what enterprises had to be brought into a main village and what enterprises into a secondary village.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1827, "page_number": "1821", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "Of course, in that connection, one had an interest in the construction of roads. All these matters were tried on an example, later on, in an area that really existed, the name of which I do not remember any more; I don't know where it was, I only know that this region had a river of minor importance, and the district capital was also located on a river. This investigation, however-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, may I suggest that you are going very much more into detail than the question called for.\nTHE WITNESS:I see, your Honor.\nA (Continuing) This plan was considered a theoretical play, and the Office of Economy did not place any high value on it as far as the practical use of it was concerned. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWas the work of the Planning Office of an especially scientific nature?\nAYes.\nQWas it intended more for the present time, or was it more for the future?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are getting away from your client now, into a general direct examination of this witness, which cannot be done. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWhen the resettlement and the deportation actions were involved, did you see the defendant Meyer or visit his office?\nAI do not remember one single instance.\nQIs it correct that the treatment of the ethnic question with regard to aliens was not in the field of tasks of the planning office nor of the defendant Meyer, but only in the field of tasks of the RSHA?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1828, "page_number": "1822", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "AEthnic questions concerning aliens were only under the competency of RSHA alone.\nQDid the field of tasks of the defendant Meyer and of the Planning Office also cover questions of racial selection and re-Germanization, or were other agencies competent for these matters?\nAOnly the RuSHA had to deal with racial selections.\nQDid the defendant Meyer have anything to do with the resettlement action itself?\nAI never saw that he did.\nQDid the defendant Mayer have anything to do with the direction and channeling of the flow of resettlers?\nAThere again, I have not made any observations.\nQIs it correct that all ethnic questions in connection with ethnic Germans, and aliens were not dealt with by the defendant Meyer but by another office?\nAI ask that the question be repeated.\nQIs it correct that all ethnic questions concerning German and alien ethnic affairs were not dealt with by the defendant Meyer but by another department of the Staff Main Office, if they were dealt with at all those?\nAOffice I was the office concerned there.\nQWere questions of resettlement also in the competency of somebody other than the defendant Meyer?\nAI would not have looked for any competency in the Planning Department.\nQAs far as you had an insight into this, didn't the defendant Meyer only deal with constructive settlement matters, that is, with the creation of healthy economic conditions and the formation of landshapes, or did he rather deal with destructive plans?\nAI only observed that Herr Meyer had an interest in constructive plans.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1829, "page_number": "1823", "date": "02 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(Whereupon at 1630 hours, 2 December 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 3 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1830, "page_number": "1824", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the Matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Creifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 3 December 1947, 0930, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the Courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling, for the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute before you start. The translators had a good deal of trouble yesterday because of the fact that there was no pause between the questions and answers or between the answers and questions. Quite often a second question would be propounded in the midst of the translation to the answer for the previous question. Both the witness and the counsel will please cooperate in that respect. Go ahead.\nHANS SCHAEFER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.If the Tribunal permits I would like to ask only two more questions to the witness in so far as it concerns the defendant Meyer -Hetling. Witness, yesterday I asked you whether you had an insight in the planning activities of the defendant Meyer-Hetling. In this connection you gave us some lengthy explanations concerning the space \n plans of a district and I asked you further whether those were projects and plans involving the extermination and destruction of Whole people or of a whole group of a population.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "THE MARSHAL", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1831, "page_number": "1825", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "You haven't answered that question yet. Is it your opinion that what plans you had been could be conceived as plans of extermination of foreign eithnic groups?\nA.At no time did I gain such an impression.\nMR. SCHILLER:The Prosecution objects. The question is for the Tribunal to decide and not for the witness to decide as to what his opinions of these plans are.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think the question calls for a conclusion and may I remind counsel again that this is a witness subpoenaed by Greifelt. Dr. Haensel has conducted a very thorough direct examination. The Tribunal has requested counsel to restrict their examinations to positive facts connected with that plan and, unless counsel or counsel for defendants will respect this request of the Tribunal it will become necessary to limit direct examinations to the counsel who had the witness subpoenaed. Go ahead.\nDR. BEHLING:Well, that leaves one last question for me. Is it correct, witness, that the ethnic questions in as far as they involved the Main Staff Office and in so far as they were concerned with German ethnic groups were not dealt with by Meyer-Hetling but by Department I?\nTHE WITNESS:The questions of competency for dealing with such questions I always looked for in Office I.\nDR. BEHLING:No further questions.\nBY DR. KLINNERT:\nQ.Klinnert for the defendant Schwarzenberger. Your Honor, I have only three questions. Witness, the financial administration of the Main Office Staff, had it also been called in in the negotiations carried out by Office III with the DUT or the HTO concerning \n the committment of industrial enterprises?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "MR. SCHILLER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY DR. KLINNERT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1832, "page_number": "1826", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "A.I never observed that the financial administration had been directly concerned in these negotiations.\nQ.Did the financial administration have a decisive influence at all on the directive tasks of Office III?\nA.No.....\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, is a complete answer. BY DR. KLINNERT:\nQ.Was there a plan also to the section for the procurement of furniture taken care of by Office III?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the financial administration have no influence either on the question where Office III ordered the individual pieces of furniture?\nA.I had no insight into that question.\nQ.Witness, I was now referring to the following: was it possible for Office V to take an influence on the question of what firms would receive the contract from Office III for the production of furniture?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you. No further questions.\nCONTINUED DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Dr. Durchholz for the defendant Huebner. Witness, on the strength of your official position have you ever gone to Poznania to the agency of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.I was in Poznania once and that might have been in June 1940.\nQ.Did you make the acquaintance of the defendant Huebner there?\nA.No, I don't recall it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1833, "page_number": "1827", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.Do you know him?\nA.No, I don't know him.\nQ.Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHILLER:\nQ.Witness, were you ever a member of the SS?\nA.In the beginning of 1941 I received the title of Untersturmfuehrer of the General SS.\nQ.What was your last rank in the SS?\nA.This very title of Untersturmfuehrer.\nQ.Witness, who was your superior in Office III?\nA.In the beginning Ludwig. Afterwards, Goetz.\nQ.Were you ever the so-called \"Acting Chief\" of Office III of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, how many divisions were there to Office III?\nA.I don't recall that.\nQ.Would you say that there were at least seven divisions?\nA.In Office III, you mean?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Seven seems quite a lot to me.\nQ.Witness, was not there a Division 7 of Office III? Division No, 7?\nA.I really don't know.\nQ.Do you recall, witness, whether a division which I will call Division 7 co-operated with the principal office of the Main Staff Office in Lodz in order to obtain furniture from the Ghetto Lodz?\nA.There was a furniture procurement section. This section dealt with the procurement of furniture and it's possible that in Lodz, too, this section procured furniture. However, we had only a very dim insight and on even fainter interest in this operation.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1834, "page_number": "1828", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.Witness, did, in this furniture procurement section, as you call it, have business relations with the Deutsche Ausruestungs Werkstutter of the Concentration Camp Dachau?\nA.I don't recall that. I am almost certain that could not have been the case.\nQ.Witness, are you sure that the section did not obtain furniture and household goods from that source in the Concentration Camp Dachau?\nA.No. I ask you to take into consideration that as early as March 1943 I retired from my position.\nQ.Witness, do you know the relationship between the HTO and the Main Staff Office and the relationship between the DUT and the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, I think that I know these relationships.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1835, "page_number": "1829", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q was not the consent of the local representative of the Main Staff Office required when a re-settler was made the trustee or owner of real estate other than agricultural property which had been seized by the HTO and had a value of less than 500,000 Reichsmark?\nAThere were a few passages of your question which were not quite clear to me. What I did understand was the question whether the approval of the Main Staff Office was needed if the HTO sold enterprises of less than 500,000 Reichsmarks of value. Is that correct? Is that what you meant?\nQYes, the consent of the local representatives of the Main Staff Office.\nAWell, if we talk of the approval of the representative on the provincial level -- is that what you mean?\nQYes.\nAWell, that I couldn't tell you with certainty any more. All I recall is that enterprises of a value exceeding 500,000 Reichsmarks needed the approval of the Staff Main Office, to a certain extent, in cases where they were to be sold.\nQThank you, witness. Witness, did not Office III work out the main regulations for the DUT?\nAWell, I don't quite understand what you mean by that question. Do you refer to the organization of the DUT?\nQNo, witness, I am referring to a volume known as the Arbeitsgrundlagen of DUT.\nAI sec. The procedure followed by the DUT in taking care of the re-settlers and promoting their interest with the HTO had been set up and clarified to a certain extent. There were the regulations of priorities scale \n which I recall in this connection.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1836, "page_number": "1830", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QWitness, were these regulations not signed by the defendant Greifelt?\nAYes, they were.\nQWas not the DUT bound by these regulations?\nAYes.\nQWitness, would you say that Kulimann and Kleinschmidt, the managers of the DUT are qualified to state the relations between the Main Staff Office and the HTO and the Main Staff Office and the DUT?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That would certainly be his opinion which would be worth nothing.\nMR. SCHILLER:Witness, was the Central Land Office concerned only with the registration of agricultural property or also with the seizure and confiscation of that property?\nAThe only thing I know is that the Central Land Office was a registration office. In other words, they would register the real estate and for the rest I never took an interest in this institution which was of a peculiar nature.\nQWitness, you said, during the course of your direct examination that Office III had nothing to do with the procurement, of clothing. Is that correct?\nAThat's what I said.\nQCan you say that no other office of the Main Staff Office dealt with the procurement of clothing?\nAI don't know that.\nQ witness, do you know of any orders signed by the defendant creutz?\nANo, I don't remember any orders.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SCHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1837, "page_number": "1831", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QThank you. Was the defendant Creutz generally present at the Monday meetings?\nAYes.\nQWitness, on direct examination you testified with regard to the organization of the offices of the Main Staff Office at Lodz. Were you familiar with that organization on the provincial level?\nAI have never had a perfect insight and perfect possibility of making distinction between these organizations altogether. Too many treshholds were there and to many peculiar names invented for these organizations.\nQThank you. On direct examination you gave one example to the Tribunal of a plan made by the Planning Office. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are spending about half your time getting the witness to confirm what he has already testified. That is not necessary.\nMR. SCHILLER:Thank you, your Honor. Can you state that the defendant Meyer-Hetling and the Planning Office never made suggestions or gave plans to other offices of the Main Staff Office which resulted in action being taken?\nANo.\nQWere you intimately acquainted with the duties of the defendant Meyer-Hetling and with the sphere of competency of the Planning Office?\nANo, my insight was too small as far as this office was concerned and I never took that office seriously, anyhow.\nQDid you have much to do with racial selection, witness?\nAYou mean from the point of view of the Office of Economy?", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SCHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1838, "page_number": "1832", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QYes. In your official capacity, witness.\nANo, not at all.\nQDid you have anything to do with the channelling of ethnic Germans and with re-settlements?\nAOffice III had an interest only in the procurement of a post for the re-settlers as a trustee in an enterprise of the HTO. That was the only interest Office III had to take in that connection.\nQThen, witness, did you have anything to do with ethnic questions and deportations and matters of such nature?\nANo; not the slightest.\nMR. SCHILLER:No further questions for the Prosecution, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further from the defense?\nRE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQThe Prosecution asked for general regulations and decrees concerning the working procedure of the DUT, Now, witness, do you know any printed regulations which were collected in larger or smaller volumes? Printed regulations dealing with the procedure of work of the DUT?\nAThe only thing I know is that there was a black folder in which all of the regulations of the Main Staff Office and other agencies of interest for the office were contained.\nQIs that the black folder, you mean? (Indicating)\nAWell, I know a black folder which looked exactly like it but I don't know this one.\nQWell, was it of the same nature? Will you describe it? What was the volume? What were the contents?", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SCHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1839, "page_number": "1833", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AWell, it looked exactly alike and it had been arranged in the same manner, too.\nQIs it possible, I mean, printed volumes are often existing in several copies? Is it possible that it is another copy of the black folder?\nAWell, you see, the folder was not printed in the same small letters and it didn't have the same heading.\nQWell, will you read this heading?\nA \"Principles of Work of DUT.\"\nQAnd what was the title of the folder you remember?\nAI am sorry but I don't know.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1840, "page_number": "1834", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQBut similar, wasn't it?\nAYes, it was similar. I think it gave information concerning the fact that in the folder all the regulations were contained which pertained to matters of interest of the Reich Commissioner.\nQAnd these regulations were printed and were in a folder of several hundred pages, is that right?\nAIt looked exactly alike.\nQAnd these printed regulations, were they secret or were they available for every official who had to deal with these matters and known to him?\nAYes, they were known to every and accessible to every official.\nQAnd in the DUT they were also accessible to every official.\nAWell, the DUT was not a part of the office, and I am afraid I don't know whether this folder was also intended for the DUT. Unfortunately, I cannot recall with certainty whether that was the fact or not.\nQBut were these regulations not intended for the DUT? I mean, couldn't you always be certain that the people of the DUT would receive the regulations which they were to comply with?\nAYes.\nQYou mean you could assume that?\nAYes.\nQDo you know the two volumes of the publication \"Commitment of Human Beings\"? I mean, that has to do with these regulations.\nANo, I don't remember that, I don't recall that.\nQThe individual groups of tasks as we might call them of the Office 3 had they a very extensive exchange of information and ideas, did they know exactly what the other group of tasks did do?\nAExcuse me, you mean within Office 3?\nQYes, within Office 3.\nAWell, the main features were known generally, I would say.\nQWhat about between the offices, the relationship between \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1841, "page_number": "1835", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Office 3 and 1, 2 to 4, and so on and so forth, Was there a clear, correct separation or did one know exactly what the other's fields of tasks was?\nAOffice economy, if it took an interest in other matters in the fields of tasks of other offices at all, it took an interest only in a very vague manner and most of all for matters pertaining to Office 1 and to the office of agriculture. But a general knowledge of the activities of those offices, even in a half-way satisfactory manner, I did not have.\nQNow, what about the superiors of these offices? I mean those officials to whom the offices were subordinated. Did they have an exact knowledge of the individual events? Or did these offices rather independently?\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, the prosecution objects to this question as calling for a conclusion on the part of the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, it is clearly a conclusion. Dr. Haensel, this is surrebuttal. This is not direct examination. You are going back into a regular direct examination. On a surrebuttal you confine yourself to such things as the prosecution brought up.\nDR. HAENSEL:Well, according to my recollection, Your Honor, just in the case of Meyer Hetling, during cross-examination, it has been discussed in detail --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I understand that.\nDR. HAENSEL:I wanted to have that repeated and clarified.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have been over that one time yourself in direct examination. We can't sit here all day and just say, \"Yes, you did. No, you didn't. Yes, you did. No, you didn't.\" We never will get through.\nQYou told us, witness, that Reichert was the manager of the furniture procurement agency. Now was Reichert a lawyer?\nAYes.\nQWas he very domineering or was he easy to direct?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1842, "page_number": "1836", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAHe had an especially domineering manner.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We are not interest ad in his personality in the slightest. Go ahead.\nQWitness, you told us that the planning office had nothing to do with questions of ethnics of aliens because this question had been put to you only for the planning office. Now, when we speak of alien ethnic questions, could the same apply also to the other offices of the main staff office?\nAAt no occasion could I observe that even one office dealt with alien ethnic questions.\nQIn your office did you work independently or did Greifelt deal with every detail?\nAAt the beginning, Herr Greifelt took considerable interest in the details, but later on he didn't take as great an interest in these matters.\nDR. HAENSEL:No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honors, I want to make an announcement, namely that the witness Keffar, who gave an affidavit for the prosecution, has arrived here and that I have the intention of hearing that witness after the witnesses I have already announced to the prosecution. And now, with the permission of the Court, I call the witness Guenther Stier and I ask that my assistant be permitted to interrogate this witness because I have been called to the Justices Trial.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal desires to make an announcement, so that there may not be any misunderstanding about what happened yesterday when we proceeded to hear witnesses when the twenty-fourhour rule had not been complied with. We did that yesterday in order to move along orderly, but we do not mean to establish a precedent that we will continue to do that. The twenty-four-hour rule will have to be complied with, by both sides, hereafter. Call your witness.\nGUENTHERSTIER, a witness, took the stand and testified as \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "GUENTHER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1843, "page_number": "1837", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:For the Defendant Greifelt. May I start with the interrogation of the witness?\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQWitness, will you please state your full name and your place and date of birth.\nAGuenther Stier, born on the 20th of April 1906, in Berlin.\nQAt the beginning of the examination, may I ask you the following, Witness. Will you please make an interval after my question until the interpretation has finished.\nAYes, I will,\nQWill you tell us, in a few brief words, your career and your education?\nAI went to high school first and then I studied law, national economy, and I went to a commercial high school too. I worker then for three years with Siemens-Schuckert as a commercial electricity expert. Then I was a lecturer at the University of Frankfurt, at the Institute for Corporation Law. At the same time, I made a publication concerning privately owned property and corporation property as judged under Roman, German, and English law.\nQWell, after you had finished that period, what were your professional plans?\nAMy intention was to become a professor at the university.\nQDid you do so?\nAAt the beginning I had no possibility to get a paid job as lecturer and therefore I got a job in the Ministry for Education and \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1844, "page_number": "1838", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Instruction where I was concerned with matters pertaining to schools and also with questions of Germans abroad, where I could apply my knowledge concerning the corporations as in line with the old German corporation law, and I gained more experience in that field.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1845, "page_number": "1839", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQFor a certain time you worked at the Vomi then, didn't you?\nAYes, I worked in a department of the Ministry of Education which as I mentioned already dealt with the schools of Germans abroad and matters of a similar nature, and as an employee of that department I was taken over by Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz into an agency which later on developed into the Vomi.\nQDid you then make an attempt to get into the work concerning the resettlement in the South Tirol?\nANo, I couldn't state that in this manner. This was an emergency solution. In the sense, the kind of work I wanted to have, I didn't advance into Vomi and Dr. Faedndrich who at the time represented Herr Greifelt, offered me to work with him and that showed an interesting field of task for me.\nQThen you worked there for a certain period of time and if I remember wall you were drafted into the armed forces then.\nAYes.\nQWhen were you transferred to the Main Staff Office?\nAAfter I had fallen ill and was exempted from military service I was transferred to the Staff Main Office, and because I had formerly worked with the agency of the Four-Year Plan on the resettlement of the South Tirol Germans, I was exempted from military service by Herr Greifelt.\nQWhat was your first position in the Main Staff Office?\nAI worked with Dr. Faehnrich and my job was the registration of the resettlers brought into Germany from abroad, The registration had the aim of finding out their social, ethnic, legal, and historic structure and to explain this position to such agencies as later on would be entrusted with the resettlement proper.\nQHow long did you take care of that task?\nAUntil 1942.\nQWhat was your position as from 1942?\nAAt the end of 1942 I became Amtschef of the office resettle \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1846, "page_number": "1840", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "ment and ethnic questions.\nQWas that always the designation of that office?\nAWell, at the time it had just been created. It developed from the former main department Menscheneinsatz, Commitment of Human Beings, which at the time was split up into two parts--namely, my office \"Resettlement and Ethnic Questions\", as already stated, and Office 2, \"Labor Commitment.\"\nQWhat were the tasks for which Office 1 was competent? In this connection may I put to you Exhibit 18 of the prosecution, namely the organization chart of 1943; and I ask you to state whether the fields of tasks were actually those which you had to deal with.\nARegistration and channeling remained the same. That is Department 1. Information and Advice also remained. Department 3, Ethnic Questions, was dissolved at a later stage. I think at the same time as its chief resigned. As to culture, the same thing applies to that office. Of the office Culture there were only, a few remainders, namely the assignment of professors and a few details, teachers and professors. Basic questions of principle. Wall, resettlement contracts, the formulation there is not quite in line with what we actually did there. It really wasn't a preparation of organizational and technical matter. It rather was nothing else but an occasional part taken into the drawing up of the contract, sort of a lisison office with Vomi. That is what I would like to term it. After all, Vomi had to take care of the negotiations concerning the resettlement contracts. Recognition of the capacity of a resettler, that remained. That office remained in the same place. Naturalization and questions of nationality, they were dealt with, that is true, but I have to remark that it refers only to the resettlers proper--that is in connection with the EWZ. Legal questions over and above that field ware taken care of by the Legal Department. Change of names, well, I don't know anything about that. I never saw that. Military service for the resettlers. Yes, that was dealt with, and it mainly referred to the exemption from military \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1847, "page_number": "1841", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "service for the resettlers. Priority seals and right of resettlement, immigration and passes, well, yes, all these matters we took care of.\nQThank you. Now, in general, did your office deal with the individual resettlers or was it rather only in charge of general regulations?\nABoth. The organizational chart and the chart of competencies shows that quite clearly. We had to deal with both the individual and the general aspects.\nQYour contact with individual cases in general was limited to complaints and other direct controversies of resettlers?\nAWell, I'd like to enlarge this circle a little bit. \"Complaints\" is too limited. I would say applications of all units that is the wishes expressed by the individual resettlers of a personal and factual nature. My contact with individual resettlers pertained also to the preparation of the assignment to the various resettlement areas. In this connection, I had to take into consideration the desires and suggestions expressed by the resettlers.\nQWhen did the work in your office start, as far as the resettlement is concerned?\nABasically speaking, it started the moment when the resettlement, I mean the withdrawal of resettlers from the state they had lived in up to that time, was terminated.\nQIn other words, if I understand you correctly, you mean the moment when these resettlers were in the camps in Germany?\nAYes, that is right.\nQNow, how did the registration of resettlers in the camps take place?\nAThe registration was carried out on the strength of document which the Vomi placed at our disposal. Also on the strength of reports which I received directly or via Vomi from the confidential trustees of the resettlers. Such spokesmen of the resettlers as, for instance, the directors of the professional associations of the teachers, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1848, "page_number": "1842", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "deputies, and special experts. Furthermore, through the channels of the EWZ, mainly by receiving reports of the EWZ on the channeling and the selection of the resettlers. In these reports there were also statistics on professional questions, on the age of the resettlers and so on and so forth.\nQWhat facts did these registrations deal with?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1849, "page_number": "1843", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AIt mostly concerned the number of people and families - how many children, how many old and sick, and it concerned nationality and belonging to Ethnic Groups. In order to explain that I have to add that the resettlers abroad had much more a clan character than the individual Germans. That is, for instance, there would be southern Germans, Swabs, Thuringians, and they were much more split up into these groups than they are in Germany proper. Therefore, the rural Germans very often spoke only their dialects but couldn't speak good German. Therefore, we attempted during the resettlements to avoid mixing up Swabish colonies with Thuringians or southern Germans because speaking only their own dialect end because of their customs and habits they had difficulties to find the proper contact with each other. In connection with the Ethnic questions, the economic and regional questions and the habits of the resettlers living in the woods or in the plains, near the towns and far from the towns, had to be taken into consideration.\nQAnd this long preparation was necessary if resettlement was to be successful and if persons concerned and areas concerned should be secured a satisfactory future?\nAYes, and I would like to supplement that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I think \"yes\" is a full answer to that question. It is not necessary to supplement that. I suggest to the witness that he is going very much more into detail than is helpful to the Tribunal. Giving clear and concise answers, stating facts only, would be very much more helpful.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Very well, your Honor. BY DR. von der TRENCK:", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1850, "page_number": "1844", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QNow, what happened to the resettlers when the distribution of the individual groups had been established by you?\nAWell, I didn't establish any distribution at all. The main selection was done by Himmler himself. Selection according to groups was taken care of by the Chief of the Staff Main Office. After this had been done the further care and work for resettlement was passed on to the agencies of the plenipotentiaries.\nQ what agencies at the time conc erned themselves with ethnic polities within the Reich?\nAThe leaders of the Nazi Party, Himmler personally as Reich Commissar, and above all the State, the Chiefs of civil Administration, and the Gauleiters or Reichstatthalters of the areas of the border.\nQThe work of the Main Staff Office was it limited to the registration work concerning resettlers, as you have just described it?\nAI am sorry the question is not quite clear to me.\nQWas the work of the Staff Main Office in ethnic polities limited to only the registration of the resettlers which you just described?\nAWell, I would say it was the main sphere of work but for the rest there was a certain participation in the German Volksliste (people's list) DVL and if one speaks of racial questions, there was no actual part taken but a certain part was taken in the deportation work of the Chief of Civilian Administration.\nQDid you or the Staff Main Office have the possibility to decide whom you wanted to resettle?\nAOnly within the scope of the directives which Himmler had issued.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1851, "page_number": "1845", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QThe naturalization or committment slips were issued by another agency?\nAYes, by the EWZ.\nQThe ever increasing flow of resettlers as the years went on, was it welcomed by the Staff Main Office or was it a burden which Slowly but surely could no longer be taken care of?\nAFor the Staff Main Office it was a burden which constantly increased as far as the work was concerned and as far as areas of resettlement were concerned there was increasing difficulty if you take into consideration only the question of housing and accomodations.\nQWas that the reason why until the end of the War there were still innumberable resettlers remaining in the camps\nAYes as far as the second part of what I said is concerned.\nQWhen you speak of the field of task of the Staff Main Office does that basically refer to the channeling of people sent to the office by other agencies and had to be improvised in an increasing measure?\nAYes.\nQDid the Staff Main Office have only to deal with German Nationals as far as clearing was concerned?\nAYes.\nQ was this principle neglected in the case of smaller groups?\nAYes, in the case of the individual resettlers which I have already mentioned.\nQWas there a general planning of resettlements and was the initiative and the directives a matter for the Staff Main Office or was it always in the hands of the superior \n agencies, that is the highest agencies?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1852, "page_number": "1846", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AYou cannot talk of general planning at all. In most oases there were very surprising orders which we always received from the higher agencies.\nQWas the resettlement not always the first thing that happened and only then plans of resettlements were then worked out or were resettlements done because certain plans existed before that?\nAAt no time did we have the latter situation.\nQYou are a lawyer, did you have any misgivings at any time concerning the legal basis of this?\nMR. LAMB:We object.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We do not care what his idea about-the legality is. It would be of no benefit to the Tribunal. He might be mistaken. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQWas the resettlement known to you as an International feature?\nAYes.\nQAt the beginning of your work did you or your collaborators deal with that already by means of expert literature.\nAMainly only as the work went on.\nQThe resettlements based on contracts were generally only resettlements of German Ethnic groups into the Reich?\nAYes.\nQWere these resettlements met by a considerably strong pressure caused by history with respect to flight or escape from the East towards the West?\nAI can't judge that.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1853, "page_number": "1847", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:He says he does not know so--- go ahead. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQIn view of this increasing flow of resettlers was there nothing else left but to make a similar separation of ethnic groups in the border areas as the one made on a voluntary basis in the East by bringing Germans back into the German Reich?\nMR. LAMB:I object to this question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The fact is that it is argumentative in its nature.\nDR. von der TRENCK: I see, your Honor. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQIn the incorporated territories of the East were deportations of Poles into old Polish territories carried out to a certain extent?\nAAs far as I know, yes.\nQAccording to the agreements, especially with Russia was there the intention to take care of this movement of people by the means of an exchange, partly by direct exchange, partly by a triangular exchange?\nAYes.\nQWas this principle adhered to? Can you give us an example?\nAI have heard that Ukranians from the Government General were deported to Russia. Then in the so-called resettlement of Kolmar and Lublin the German population was exchanged against the Poles.\nQDid the Main Staff Office itself carry out evaluations?\nANo, I have no knowledge of that.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1854, "page_number": "1848", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\nTHE MARSHAL:There will be a 15 minute recess.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1855, "page_number": "1849", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. von der TRENCK: von der Trenck for the defendant Greifelt.\nMay I please continue with my examination of this witness. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQWitness, at the time did it come to your knowledge that the Staff Main Office urged that deportation actions should be carried out?\nANo.\nQDid you yourself on various occasions urge that a deportation drive should be limited or that it should be prevented?\nAOn one occasion in a matter dealing with Lower Styria I urged that this should be done. I urged that these measures should be prevented. On other occasions I had nothing to do with deportation drives.\nQWhen did you first hear of deportations in Lower Styria?\nAThat was a short time after Ueberreiter was appointed Chief of the Civil Administration, and it was a short time after the establishment of Lower Styria as an area under civil administration.\nQAlready at the same time did it become known that the Germans from the Gotschee were to be settled in that area?\nAI believe that this happened a short time later.\nQDid you see the order about the deportations from Lower Styria?\nAI did not see any direct orders to that effect. However, six months later I saw a file note by Ueberreiter which dealt with the discussion which he had with Hitler, and it was stated there that Hitler had ordered Ueberreiter to clear a border strip of southern Germany of all unreliable people of enemy nationality, and to settle reliable German people there.\nQWere these Germans from the Gotschee considered to be reliable Germans?\nAIn a majority, yes.\nQIn the case of the Gotschee Germans was any selection made similar to the one which was applied in the incorporated Eastern territories by \n the decisions of the H.T.O.?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1856, "page_number": "1850", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AThat was intended in the beginning. However, later on at the request of the Staff Main Office and the Gotschee Germans themselves this was not put into effect.\nQWas the Chief of the Civil Administration in that area acquainted with the plan of settling Gotschee Germans there, and did he approve that plan?\nAHe approved the measure in principle. However, his agencies in particular maintained a very hostile attitude toward the Goshen Germans.\nQFinally were any other resettlers also settled in that area?\nAYes.\nQWas this originally intended by the local authorities?\nANo. The local agencies objected to the arrival of any resettlers there because they were only maintaining the interests of the people of Lower Styria.\nQAnd who finally was resettled in that area?\nAGermans from the Gotschee and other resettlers, and people who came from Upper Styria.\nQDid the Staff Main Office object to the deportation of the Slovenes although this was justified as a security measure in a war?\nAYes.\nQWhen did this happen for the first time?\nAImmediately after the order was made public.\nQWhy did the Staff Main Office dissaprove of this measure?\nABecause it had the feeling that this measure was in contradiction to the aims of resettlement, that in an appeasement in the various areas.\nQDid this first protest of the Staff Main Office have any success?\nANo. We were informed that no objection could be raised to an order which had been issued by the Fuehrer.\nQWhere were the Slovenes supposed to be taken?\nAThe district of Gotschee was mentioned, Croatia and Serbia.\nQWere these plans or any one of these plans actually ever carried out?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1857, "page_number": "1851", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "ANo.\nQAnd why not?\nAThe district of Gotschee was too small, and the Italians refused to accept even part of the resettlers. Perhaps some space could have bean procured in Croatia if the Croatian plan for the resettlement of Serbs to Serbia had ever been carried out. Uprisings had occurred in that area and we could not ask the Slovenes to move into such an area where fighting was taking place. This same thing applies to emmigration to Serbia and Serbia in any case was over populated.\nQWas there also a sharp controversy between the Slovenes and the Serbs because the Slovenes belonged to the Central European sphere of culture?\nAThe Slovenes and the Croatians?\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor, I want to object to this kind of testimony for the reason I don't think it is competent to bring in testimony about the Croatians and the Slovenes and what their controversy was.\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, I do not think that the difficulties or the differences or the feelings between these classes of people would illustrate any issue that this Tribunal is called upon to pass upon. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQIn any case did anybody give any thought to the fate of the Slovenes?\nAYes. Of course, we tried to find a decent place for them.\nQDid the Main Staff Office intervene for a second time?\nAYes. When it was announced that the deportation was to be carried out and that the Germans from the Gotschee were not to be settled in that area.\nQAnd how did the Main Staff Office intervene?\nAIt was formed out that the property question was completely unclari fied and, after all, the Main Staff Office had to take over the property values for the people from the Gotschee, and that was why the Main Staff Office made an application to Himmler stating that these questions were as \n yet unclarified and that no indemnification for the Slovenes was regulated.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1858, "page_number": "1852", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QAnd what steps were taken upon the suggestions of the Staff Main Office?\nAAn order was issued by Himmler that the Slovenes were to be treated decently; that for the time being they were to be placed in VOMI camps and that full indemnification for their property was to be given to them. Later on they ware to be resettled somewhere in the East,\nQTherefore, the Slovenes were to stay in the Reich only on a temporary basis?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQ when and where did you hoar for the first time of any deportation measures which were carried out in the Lorraine?\nAI heard of it in Metz in the Spring of 1942. I had been sent there because an order had been issued that the Main Staff Office was to look for resettlement possibilities for resettlers from the Lorraine and then heard from Obergruppenfuehrer Bergmann that Buerkel, the C. D. Z., had carried out a wild deportation drive all of a sudden. I then refused to make any statement about resettlement possibilities, and I reported the matter to the Main Staff Office where there was a general indignation about this matter. Greifelt then ordered that no resettlers were to be sent to him and to France.\nQApproximately how many resettlers were waiting for a resettlement area at the time?\nAI believe there were approximately 80,000.\nQBut then inspite of this large number of people for whom a place had to be found, no resettlement in Lorraine was put into effect?\nANo.\nQWhat did the Main Staff Office do about the deportation?\nAThen Greifelt established contact with Bergmann who, perhaps on his own initiative, lodged a complaint with Himmler about Buerkel's \n measures.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1859, "page_number": "1853", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Herr Huegel from the Main Staff Office used his contacts with the Reich Ministry for Food, and he saw to it that the Reich Ministry for Food also lodged a complaint because they claimed that the harvest would be endangered.\nQWhat was the success of all these protests with Himmler?\nAHimmler promised us that he would establish personal contact with Buerkel in the near future.\nQAnd did he ever realize his promise?\nAYes.\nQAnd what was the result of this discussion?\nAHimmler informed us that Buerkel had received authorization from Hitler to clear Lorraine from undesirable elements, and Himmler told us that in the meantime a deportation drive to France which had been under way had been stopped, but the Reich Commissar would have to accept all those people whom Buerkel didn't want to have in his area. He then informed us of some individual regulations about the treatment which was to be accorded to these deportees.\nQAnd what happened then after this discussion?\nABuerkel, first of all, without announcing the fact to us, sent deportees who were placed into VOMI camps. Later on we tried to achieve some sort of settlement, and we always tried to put some obstacles in his way.\nQHow was the treatment regulated which was to be accorded to the people who had already been deported?\nAWell, they received the same treatment as the resettlers.\nQI am now coming to Alsace. When did you hear about deportations which were carried out in Alsace, and who ordered that they were to be carried out there?\nAAlready in the year 1942 after my first discussion at Metz, but before the discussion which took place between Himmler and Buerkel.\nQWhat did the Chief of Civil Administration in Alsace plan in this direction?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1860, "page_number": "1854", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AFirst of all, we heard quite generally that he wanted to carry out deportations on a larger scale in part into the Reich, and in part to France.\nQDid you then hear of a conference between Hitler and Wagner concerning the deportations?\nAYes, However, that was much later on. This happened after the discussion between Himmler and Buerkel.\nQAnd what was the subject of the discussion between Hitler and Wagner?\nAAs far as it become evident from the file note of Wagner, which was shown to me, approximately 200,000 persons were to be deported from Alsace, The majority of these people were to be deported after the War. However, a considerable number was already to be deported during the War, insofar as Wagner considered this to be necessary.\nQDid the Main Staff Office do anything against this deportation plan?\nAYes, the Main Staff Office tried in every respect to limit these deportations to the minimum; especially the Main Staff Office wanted to prevent all the deportations which were carried out on the ethnic politica basis.\nQDid the Staff Main Office deal with other interested agencies on this subjects?\nAYes. A discussion took place in August, 1942, in which all agencies which might be interested participated. This was done because nobody actually felt competent, and no agency wanted to have anything to do with the subject. In view of the Fuehrer Order shown by Hinrich and the order by Himmler which had been issued in the meantime about the Lorrainians, we saw ourselves forced to do something because if we fully objected to all these measures, we had no chance of success whatsoever, after all, we had seen that example when we dealt with Lorraine.\nQI would like to put to you Exhibit 275 from Document Book No. 5. It is Document Book 5-F. It is Exhibit 275, Do you know where this \n document originated which does not bear any signature?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1861, "page_number": "1855", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AThis document originated with me.\nQIt is stated here with regard to the evacuation plans that they could be agreed to and that the deportation action should be agreed to. Did you have the opportunity to tell the Chief of Civil Administration anything different?\nAThis was not a statement to the Chief of the Civil Administarion, but this was just a file note for my memory about a conference between experts of the Main Offices, and none of these experts had the right to make a decision there. This document only contains comments which perhaps were to be submitted to the respective office chiefs. Now it says here that the deportation plans could be agreed on principle and this is under B-2. In this connection I must say that especially in those days, as I have already mentioned before, a prohibition had been issued against the deportation of people to France.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1862, "page_number": "1856", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.May I interrupt you for a moment? Who had issued this prohibition?\nA.As far as I can recall, it was issued by the Foreign Office.\nQ.Thank you...\nA.However, it may have also been issued directly either by Himmler or Hitler. In any case, this was done at the instigation of the Foreign Office, and it was announced to us via the Foreign Office.\nQ.What were the practical results of this discussion?\nA.The principles of this conference were used in order to have them passed on to Hinrich, the representative at Strasbourg so that he would have a basis for his work. He then could have a discussion on this subject with Wagner. He had told us before that Wagner would be more accessible to us than Buerkel, if we would limit him to some extent in his measures, while of course he would not be satisfied if we opposed all his measures. That is exactly what was done. Through his personal contact to Wagner, Hinrich was able to represent our point of view to him.\nQ.What was the relationship of the figures of people who were supposed to be resettled by the C.D.Z. to those who were actually deported?\nA.The immediate plan of the Gauleiter included approximately 100,000 persons. According to this plan only, perhaps, three to four thousand people were agreed upon. This becomes evident from the fact that the groups which have been mentioned here varied in strength to a considerable extent, and that the evacuation was only agreed upon in the formal sense so as not to annoy Wagner. Naturally, this was not feasible at all and the resettlement of the Patois varied until the end of the war. The Patois population amounted to approximately 45,000 people; of these people approximately 90 percent could be \n considered for deportation to the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1863, "page_number": "1857", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "In Article 2 practically the entire deportation was disapproved, and it is clearly put down here in a very cautious form. In practice, there only remained the alien population, and in this connection it must be pointed out that only those members of alien races were concerned here who were not actually entitled to reside in Alsace. After all, the Alsacians who spoke French and who lived in Alsace were listed under the term of the Patois population. Therefore, the group belonging to an alien race belongs to the circle which would suffer the least in case their place of residence should be changed. Furthermore, a fundamental difference was made between the immediate plan, which has been mentioned here in B-2-3, which contains the suggestion that only those individual persons or families are to be deported whose resettlement was already necessary at this time, while Wagner originally had maintained the point of view that the entire group of persons were to be deported in the immediate future.\nQ.Now, only a drive was carried out which represented a security measure in time of war. This was only a police action?\nA.Yes, that as to be added-\nMR. LAMB:Your Honors, she is going into a document here that there is a report that he made a document signed by him, and he is saying that apparently he did not mean anything that he said in the document. He has explained the whole thing and I think it would save time if he would just say that this document is not true or it is true. And on the last question she just put the words in his mouth as to what she wanted him to say. I would like her not to lead the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I say to the witness that it will \n become the duty of the Tribunal to construe these documents.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1864, "page_number": "1858", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "This, you, as a lawyer, should know. So it will not be necessay for you in your testimony to attempt to construe the language contained in the document.\nMay I suggest to you again that you are going very, very much more into detail than is necessary. Please state the facts in a clear, concise way, and do not argue the question.\nWITNESS:Very well, Your Honor. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK (Counsel for Greifelt):\nQ.Was the plan which becomes evident from the record here actually put into effect?\nA.Yes; it was put into effect, for the most part.\nQ.Was it only changed in practice insofar as beyond the Himmler order full indemnification was to be given to the resettlers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the deportation drive in Luxembourg correspond to what you have just described to us?\nA.Fundamentally, the same thing happened there, with the exception that Luxembourg had stated from the very beginning that they would limit themselves to people who had to be deported urgently for police and security reasons.\nQ.In all these groups of deportees, did the Staff Main Office see to it that the deportees were able to take along their personal goods? A. Yes.\nQ.When did the chiefs of the civil administration in these territories become the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.As far as I am able to recall, Buerkel began to act in that capacity after the conference with Himmler at Wiesbaden. As far as I can recall with certainty, it was not yet \n when I went to Metz for the first time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "WITNESS", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1865, "page_number": "1859", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Wagner had become representative already before as Reichsstatthalter. However, I believe that for the C.D.Z. area he became representative at the same time when Buerkel did. I can't give you any information whatsoever about Luxembourg.\nQ.What was planned with regard to the resettlement of the deportees from the West?\nA.Himmler had issued an order that these people were to be resettled in the East.\nQ.Was this order carried out?\nA.No.\nQ.Why wasn't it carried out?\nTHE PRESIDENT.Well, the reasons, I do not believe, would be helpful. If it was not carried out, that would seem to be sufficient.\nQ.What was done instead with these deportees?\nA.Just like the resettlers in Germany proper, they were given a place of work and they were given apartments to live in, as far as possible.\nBut the majority of them also remained in the camps.\nQ.Did they declare themselves willing on their own initiative to work in Germany during the war?\nA.Yes, at the same time with the request that they did not want to be resettled in the East.\nQ.Did they have the possibility, if they wanted to, to look for a place of work for themselves in Germany proper?\nA.I cannot give you any information about these details.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1866, "page_number": "1860", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.- In the Western territories in the course of time, were other resettlers settled in these areas for the people who had been deported?\nA.- Approximately one or two years later, after the deportation drive had been stopped, some resettlers were assigned to Lorraine. Whether they were assigned the same places from which Lorranians had been deported to the Reich, I don't know, or whether Lorranians went to France in the course of the first drive, that I am unable to tell you. Only very few resettlers went to Alsace, Luxembourg, by the special request of the C.D.Z.\nQ.- Can you give us any individual example for what you have just stated? Can you tell us in an example that the Staff Main Office, by not giving any resettlers to the chiefs of the civil administration, prevented deportations?\nA.- Yes, In one case in Luxembourg, we succeeded in doing that. Here resettlers were requested for two entire villages. The Main Staff Office immediately made an inquiry that this could not possibly agree with the deportation regulations, because it was hardly thinkable that an entire village had committed an offense against the State Police. The matter was later on clarified by Obergruppenfuehrer Berkelmann who was in a certain way our liaison officer. He objected there and the deportation was not carried out, and therefore it was not necessary for us to furnish the resettlers.\nQ.- Thank you. Did you ever have any contact with the so-called drive against people of German descent in northern France?\nA.- Yes, I did have some connection with this on one occasion.\nQ.- Who initiated this drive?\nA.- As far as we were able to judge, it initiated with Vomi; however, I don't know where Vomi received its instructions from.\nQ.- Do you know what group of people was to be included in this drive?\nA.- There were miners from the Ruhr area, for the most part, who \n when the Ruhr Area was occupied by France, had gone to France in 1923.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1867, "page_number": "1861", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.- Did these people for the most part have German and Polish nationality, but not the French nationality?\nA.- As far as I know, yes.\nQ.- To what extent was this drive actually put into effect?\nA.- As far as I can recall, only very few of those people at all were repatriated.\nQ.- Did you have anything to do with the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Was Himmler's plan known to you, that domestics were to be gained by the plan of re-Germanization?\nA.- I heard about this.\nQ.- Do you know to what extent this plan was actually carried out?\nA.- I cannot give you any figures; however, I know that originally a large drive was planned and that afterwards only very few people arrived.\nQ.- Were Polish domestics something new in eastern Germany, or was this drive only a quite customary economic process which had already taken place before?\nMR. LAMB:We object, Your Honor, whether this was customary or not to bring these domestics in.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, these defendants are charged with specific acts under this indictment. There is only one question before this court, whether they committed those acts or not. What somebody else did at some other time or what the customs were illustrates nothing. And may I suggest that this examination would indicate that the witness is on trial. It deals almost wholly with his activities, when we are concerned with the activities of these people in this dock. Go ahead.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Well, especially the drive which has just been discussed does not refer to the witness, but it refers to the defendant.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1868, "page_number": "1862", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQ.- The indictment charges the defendant further, amongst other things, with having carried out resettlement drives in order to find people for the German armed forces. Did Herr Greifelt carry out any work in that direction?\nA.- I never heard anything about it.\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office repeatedly negotiate with agencies of the Wehrmacht in order to have resettlers deferred from military service?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What was the initial settlement with regard to the conscription of resettlers?\nA.- First of all, all resettlers were exempted from military service. Then, upon the pressure of the OKW, the deferment of the resettlers was limited to, first of all, two years, and then only one year. Finally, the limitations became still more severe, but intil the end of the war we achieved that resettlers who had not yet been given a new place to live could not be conscripted, apart from the very low age groups without a household of' their own.\nQ.- The Prosecution documents mentioned conscriptions of Baltic persons who returened. What group of persons does this refer to?\nA.- Baltic persons who returned? That was not a technical term with us. I know Baltic resettlers and Baltic re-resettlers; however, Baltic persons who returned to their countries of origin doesn't mean anything to me.\nQ.- Do you know that amongst the Baltic resettlers, there were some people who, after their countries of origin had been occupied by the German Wehrmacht, returned to their countries?\nA.- Yes, this was one against orders and by circumvention of the passport regulations. A large number of resettlers from the Baltic countries returned to their countries of origin, although they had been re \n settled already in part, and although they had already received full indemnification for the property which they had left behind in their country of origin.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1869, "page_number": "1863", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.- Why were these people to be registered?\nA.- As a result of their illegal residence, they had evaded military service; and furthermore, they were engaging in large-scale black market activities in the Baltic countries and Estonians and Latvians raised complaints about them.\nMR. LAMB:Being conscripted into the army because they were dealing in black market activities, etc., had nothing to do with this case at all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't know, it might. Go ahead. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQ.- If I am informed correctly, the point of view was also considered, which is also economic, that the resettlers on the one hand had received full indemnification for their claims in Germany, and on the other hand, they again tried to regain their property which they had left behind in the Baltic countries.\nA.- This is only indirectly connected with their conscription into the Wehrmacht insofar as their return to the Reich became necessary for that particular reason, and consequently they had proven that actually they had returned to their countries of origin in the Baltic countries with the intention of committing illegal acts.\nQ.- Did the Staff Main Office now demand the conscription of these people, or only their registration; that is to say, that the names were to be put on lists so that these people could be taken back to the Reich where they had gone before a resettlers under certain obligations and voluntarily?\nA.- The Wehrmacht demanded that these resettlers were to be conscripted, This was not done by the Main STaff Office. The Staff Main Office only said that, \"If you do not permit us any more to exempt all resettlers from military service, then do not only take the decent resettlers who are fulfilling their duty here in any case, but take also those elements who have acted contrary to orders.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1870, "page_number": "1864", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:They seem to have exhausted the steam, so you can go ahead. BY DR. von der Trenck:\nQ.Was it the duty of the Main Staff Office in many cases to counter sharp ratio and tendencies of Himmlers orders in favor of a humane treatment?\nA.Yes, the Main Staff Office had made it a task to counter Himmler's orders, otherwise there would have been no task.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.\nDR.DURCHHOLZ (counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Witness, as chief of office 1 with whom did you discuss factual questions, and can you explain to us how you were connected with the agency of RKEDV?\nA.I was attorney there.\nQ.Did you also meet the defendant Huebner there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you discuss factual things with him?\nA.No. Occasionally we would discuss an individual question in advance, and perhaps an individual person in whom he was interested.\nQ.Was Huebner competant for factual questions?\nA.Not so far as I was able to see, in any case, he was not competent in my field.\nQ.Was the agency of the RKFVD in Poznan competent to see to it that Polish women should be sent into Germany as domestics for re-Germination?.\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.Was the main Staff Office competent for that?\nA.I don't know anything at all about that.\nQ.Don't you know anything about that?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1871, "page_number": "1865", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.Do you know whether the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the strengthining of Germanism in Poznan had something to do with the putting into effect of the DVL, the German People's List?\nA.So far as I am informed, that was not the task of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commisar, but that was the task of the Reichsstatthalter.\nQ.In his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar, or as a government agency?\nA.In his capacity as Reichsstatthalter.\nQ.Now one question in regard with the evacuation measures. Do you know anything about the fact of whether even after the resettlement of groups, there was still some farms left which had not been re-occupied?\nA.What do you mean when you refer to \"group resettlement\"?\nQ.I am talking about the so-called Baltic Germans where groups were resettled?\nA.If I understand you correctly, I can say that at the end of the war, with the Russians already approaching, there were still thousands of vacancies. I know that. Is that what you are referring to?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And who occupied these farms at the time?\nA.So far as I know, custodians had been appointed for. that purpose.\nQ.Were these farms evacuated in connection with some sort of resettlement?\nA.I know that there was a constant struggle between the staff main office and the trusteeship agencies, the Ostland, when we tried to get vacant farms for the re-settlers.\nQ.Now my final question to you. To whom was the representative of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germany subordinated?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1872, "page_number": "1866", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "A.He was subordinated to the Reich Commissar who was Himmler.\nQ.Was he subordinate to the main staff office?\nA.No.\nQ.And who issued instructions and directives to the representative?\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that he is engaging in a general direct examination?\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:No further questions, Your Honor.\nRE DIRECT EXAMINATION GUENTHER STIER BY DR. ZAPP, counsel for the defendant Hofmann:\nQ.Witness, in the course of your official business which you mentioned before, did you have something to do with a certain Harter, as Chief of the Racial office?\nA.I know Harter. So far as I know, however, he was not Chief of the Racial Office.\nQ.But you did have something to do with him?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you able to ascertain, if Harter, suggestions were identical with those of his chief, the defendant Hofmann, or was Harter extremely independent?\nA.Harters was extremely independent.\nQ.Did you turn down Harters as a deputy because of his attitude.\nA.I made a complaint to his chief, that was Schulz.\nQ.What success did you have?\nA.He did not come to see me at all any more.\nQ.That is sufficient for me. Was any great emphasis placed on the racial examination, so far as they fell into your field of work, or in the field of work of the Main Staff Office?\nA.What are you referring to now?", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1873, "page_number": "1867", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.I want to know whether the results of the racial examinations, as far as you were connected with them, played a decisive part, so far as you are concerned?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is a direct examination if I ever heard it. This witness has already been examined directly. If you want to ask him anything about Hofmann, you may do so, but unless counsel, and all counsel, will respect the request of the court that that be done, we will be compelled to limit the direct examination to one man. BY DR. ZAPP:\nQ.Witness, do you know whether Hofmann, in his capacity as a higher SS-police leader, reported Alsacian resettlers to the Gestapo so that they could be sent to the Concentration Camp on the basis of Prosecution Document No 5028, Exhibit 278, in Document book No 50, may I please hand the document to you for this purpose?\nA.I have never seen this document before, and I cannot imagine that something like this could have even been put into effect.\nMR. LANB:If he has never seen the document before, I do not think he can testify about it.\nDR. ZAPP:May it please the Tribunal, I wonder whether we can call this witness again later on, on behalf of the defendant Hofmann, if he should be approved as a witness for the defendant Hofmann?\nTHE PRESIDENT:No, you will have to get through with him while he is on the stand now.\nMR. ZAPP:Your Honors, I have no further questions.\nDR.MERKEL: (Counsel for the defendant Creutz) Your Honor I only want to ask one question of the Tribunal, the witness Stier has already been approved to me as one of the most important witnesses for the defense. This was done on the 3rd of September. I would like to be informed by the \n COURT I CASE VIII Tribunal whether I should ask the questions of the witness now on behalf of my client, or whether I can call this witness in, according to the presentation of evidence for the defense?", "speakers": [ "MR. LANB", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "MR. ZAPP", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPP" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1874, "page_number": "1868", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:No, we will finish with the witness now, while he is on the stand. And your client and Greifelt being in the same agency. I presume is the reason that this witness was approved as a witness for both, so you may examine him, but please do not cover territory that Dr. Haensel has already covered. He has gone rather into detail as to the competency of these different agencies and the set-ups. Please do not cover that territory again.\nThe Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(Tribunal in recess until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1875, "page_number": "1869", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION WITNESS GUENTHER STIER BY DR. MERKEL COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENDANT GREITZ:Your Honor, I hope that.\nI will be able to terminate the examination of this witness within about half an hour.\nQ.Who determined that there should be a distinction made between an A and an O case?\nA.Himmler.\nQ.Did that mean discrimination against the A cases, or did the A cases lose their rights or was this intended at least?\nA.No, these people had the same rights and were entitled to examination in the same manner as the O cases. The only thing was that they did not have the right to be re-settled in the incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.What were the decisive reasons for putting somebody into the A category?\nA.Health, deficiency, which made it necessary that special medical care be given to the person; a criminal record, which would make a special police supervision necessary; deficiency as far as knowledge of the German language was concerned, which made it necessary that the person be trained first in this respect, and also certain racial characteristics.\nQ.Did the staff main office accept these decisions without any discussion?\nA.On various occasions the Main Staff Office attempted to change the basis for these distinctions.\nQ.Did the Staff Main Office recognize racial values as the only decisive factor for the decision, whether the \n COURT I CASE VIII person should be put into category O or A?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1876, "page_number": "1870", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "A.The Main Staff Office could not intervene directly in the immediate decision whether a person were to be put in A or O category. However, in the very field of racial characteristics, the office attempted to reduce these racial prerequisites to the minimum.\nQ.And who made the actual decision for commitment?\nA.The EWZ.\nQ.You refer to the fact that the Staff Main Office attempted to alleviate these measures? What was the purpose of these applications to Himmler, to the Race and Settlement Office, and to the EWZ?\nA.The purpose was the admission of a larger number of resettlers for commitments to the incorporated eastern territory; main attention was given to the fact that satisfactory assignments in Germany proper were not possible, that was particularly in the case of the farmers, the peasants, who could hardly be placed in Germany proper.\nQ.How many A cases were changed into O cases on account of these efforts made by the Staff Main Office?\nA.I cannot give you the definite figure, but so far as the percentages are concerned, I would say about 50% of the cases which prior to the measures of the Main Staff Office had declared A cases, and thereby they were not split up into different professional groups, but the main emphasis was given to the peasants, as I said, because the other groups rather liked to remain in Germany proper.\nQ.Beyond that were other A cases admitted to residence in the Eastern territory?\nA.Yes, there were. Where our efforts failed to get the decision of commitment changed, and where at the same time it had to be considered a hardship to leave those people \n COURT I CASE VIII in Germany proper, the Staff Main Office and the Resettlement Staff, with the approval of the Staff Main Office, gave permits for the persons to remain in the incorporated Eastern territory.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1877, "page_number": "1871", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.In Exhibit 236 of Volume 5b, on page 93 of the German, an order was given, amongst others, that such A cases which had been changed into O cases should be resettled in the east only, when all O cases proper had been already resettled.\nQ.What was the reason for that? (Document handed to witness)\nA.First of all, technical reasons. Thanks, I know that document by heart, I do not need the document. Oh, no, I don't know it, after all. Excuse me, I have to look at the document. I seem to be a little bit mixed up there Counsel, I think you have given me the wrong document. I do not know it; I have never seen it in my life.\nQ.Oh, apparently that is another number, but anyhow you know about this decree. You told us about it?\nA.Yes, I know about tills decree anyhow without having any document in front of me.\nQ.And why was this Decree issued?\nA.Well the reasons first of all, were of a technical nature. The O cases had already been channeled to the resettlement staffs and distributed. The registration of property, the professional group, the regional location had already been established, and the distribution to the various staffs of resettlement the labor staffs, to the various villages and areas had already been settled. Now if right in the middle of this process other groups arrived, then of course they would disturb the whole settlement, and that would be detrimental to everybody.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1878, "page_number": "1872", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.Did the A cases all have the desire to be declared O cases and to be resettled in the eastern territories?\nA.Oh, no, not at all. Those who were not independent workers, rather liked to remain in Germany proper because there conditions of work and life were more favorable. This attitude was subject to changes as the period of time changed. At a later stage, the tendency to go to Germany proper was stronger than the tendency to go to the Eastern territories. I would like to make an exception there, so far as the one group I have already mentioned is concerned, - mainly the peasants.\nQ.You were just speaking about the commitment in the Altreich, in Germany proper; in other words, were there A cases who were resettled in Germany proper, or did they all have to remain in the VOMI camps?\nA.As far as humanly possible, these people in category A were resettled in the Altreich, Germany proper as well as it was done in the East.\nQ.Did these A cases receive compensation in kind?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were there also O cases which were resettled in Germany proper?\nA.Yes, that would happen occasionally, upon special request by the person.\nQ.That was just my question. Were such requests of the resettlers taken into consideration?\nA.Yes, as far as it was not detrimental to the A cases, because the A cases had priority in Germany proper, because the East was not open to them.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz explain his position to you concerning the value of racial selection?\nA.Yes, he was against that screening, and he did not consider it a suitable means to form a true judgment on the \n COURT I CASE VIII majority of these persons.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1879, "page_number": "1873", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Q.Amongst the resettlers, were there only racial Germans or were there also aliens?\nA.There were also persons of alien race.\nQ.Why were they admitted for resettlement?\nA.Well there were various groups; first of all there were members of families which were recognized as racial Germans, for instance brothers, sisters, in-laws, and wives or husbands; second there were domestice who for a long time sort of belonged to the family because they had lived in the house for a long time. I mean when I speak of family, I mean \"Familia\" in the Latin sense. Then there were various persons who expected political, difficulties because the Bolsheviks were advancing, and who often procured for themselves false identity papers, - fake Identity papers, or by some other means succeeded in joining the resettlement action.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1880, "page_number": "1874", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "QNow, these persons of alien race, were they naturalized, too?\nAYes, insofar as they applied for it and had the necessary papers.\nQWhich agency was in charge of their naturalization?\nAThe ENZ.\nQYou just mentioned the domestics and the houseworkers. Did they also have race settlement identity cards?\nAYes, this was especially provided for in the German-Russian agreement that had been mentioned. Therefore, they were recognized as old resettlers in as far as they remained in the family of the farmer or other person concerned.\nQI am now putting to you the Exhibit 310, in Volume 5-E. Why have these respective identity cards been withdrawn from those people if they separated themselves from their former masters?\nAAs I see, this involves household workers who separated from the community of the house. That is what is called, \"Familie,\" in the Latin senses.\nMR. LAMB:If the witness is testifying, which he appears to be doing, just as to what is contained in the document, we object and we don't think it is necessary.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your answer is not responsive to the question. The question is all right. If you will just answer the question that was propounded...\nTHE WITNESS:I am very sorry. If the question could be repeated, it would be helpful. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQYes, I will repeat it, please just answer my question. Why were the identity papers taken off the domestics after they separated from the house community -- Why? Just give the reason.\nABecause by separating from the community they themselves gave up the means by which alone they could become resettlers.\nQThank you very much. That will do. Now, such resettlers who \n remained with their families and who had not been naturalized, would they receive proper compensation, too?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1881, "page_number": "1875", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "AI never heard complaints about the fact that they had not received compensation, even if just now I cannot remember any definite decree dealing with the compensation.\nQDo you know whether the approval for the proper compensation of these resettlers could be issued by the Main Staff Office, or would it need the approval of other agencies?\nAInsofar as I know, these matters needed the approval of the Vorstand of the DUT and also Himmler's approval,\nQJust a few more questions to the deportation of Slovenes. If I understood you correctly, you told us already that the deportation of Slovenes from the Slav area was not ordered by the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQYou were speaking of a certain Hinze. Why was Hinze put in charge of carrying out that deportation?\nAI couldn't tell you.\nQBy whom was he entrusted with that task?\nABy Himmler himself.\nQWas the full compensation of property promised to the Slovenes?\nAYes, and there were even directives issued in that connection.\nQI am now putting to you Exhibit 305. It isn't in a document book. It was just submitted as a single document. On the strength of Exhibit 305, why did the Chief of Civil Administration make several reservations? Will you tell me why?\nAI do not remember any directive issued by Himmler or by the Main Staff Office which could give the reason for these reservations. The Chief of the Civil Administration Office was in a position to take such a decision himself. He could make such decisions himself, because he was competent for them.\nQI am now submitting to you Exhibit 676, in document book 5-B. Why \n were the Slovenes to receive nationality subject to revocation?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1882, "page_number": "1876", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "What was the consequence of that provisional naturalization?\nAAs far as I am informed, at that time the Chief of Civil Administration had ordered to make out a sort of racial list of all people registered, in which the majority of the Slovenes in Lower Styria had received their citizenship subject to revocation. This decree here, takes care of those people who were no longer in Lower Styria, and therefore, were under the care of the CWZ.\nQWhat was the effect of granting nationality provisionally?\nAThere were general regulations regarding nationality.\nQHad the people with provisional nationality a status equal to that of the other resettlers?\nANot by this decree, no. The equality of status with the resettlers is also mentioned in this decree, they were given an equal status additionally, this was a second action.\nQThe same document book contains Document 675 and there Himmler issued the Decree among others, that the Slovenes in a proportion of 2:10 be resettled together with German resettlers. What was the result of this decree for the Slovenes?\nAThat referred to the resettlement in Lublin, Globocnik had the idea to have all these settlers and deportees and Slovenes resettled there together, all mixed up in one area. We had rejected this idea for those areas where the Main Staff Office was competent for the resettlement.\nQWere Slovenes resettled in Lower Styria?\nANo, that was never carried out.\nQWhy?\nAThey didn't want to. They made an application that they wanted to remain.\nQIn Exhibit 660 in the same document book again, Himmler is requested, among other things, by the Main Staff Office, to make available the \n Government General for the accommodation of resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1883, "page_number": "1877", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Why was that application made?\nAThat originates with the suggestion of Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger. At the time, he had reported that he still had the possibility of letting quite a number of resettlers, and, particularly Germans or peasants in enterprises which had already been liberated from their former owners, or in enterprises where the former owners were still there but were not managing the enterprises in a proper manner.\nQWas that to be a final resettlement?\nAKrueger or Globocnik had the intention of making final the resettlement, especially in the neighborhhod of district capitals and in business centers, The Staff Main Office took rather a negative attitude towards this whole affair. However, for the time being, they wanted the possibility to accomodate those resettlers who were still in the camp.\nQWhy did they have to ask Himmler first?\nAOn principle, measures were never taken without specific order or approval by Himmler.\nQJust a minute.\nAThis applies especially here because the Government General was not directly within the administrative area of the Reich Commissioner of the main Staff Office.\nQIn Exhibit 247, in Document Book 5C, the Staff Main Office declared that certain resettlers should be sent to Lublin. Was that on account of a certain order by Himmler?\nAWill you please give me the date or the groups of resettlers? Oh, I see, the 7th of October. This is the result of an order issued by Himmler from Cracow. This order of Himmler was kept in rather furious tone, and he said that in Lublin, everything had bean prepared for the resettlement, and that the only thing that was missing were the resettlers.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Since the steam seems to have gotten from the whistle into the courtroom, we will have to recess a few minutes until the matter \n is straightened out.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1884, "page_number": "1878", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "Court will recess for a few minutes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1885, "page_number": "1879", "date": "03 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-03", "text": "THE MARSHAL:All persons in the courtroom will find their seats.\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It appears that the difficulty with the sound system cannot be cleared up for several hours. Therefore, it becomes necessary to adjourn until 9:30 tomorrow morning.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1886, "page_number": "1880", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_1_Fox (Garand) Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 4 December 1947, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honor, all defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with examination of the witness.\nGUENTHER STIER-- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. MERKEL (for the defendant Cruetz):\nQDr. Stier, when we were interrupted yesterday, we were just discussing the question of procuring resettlers for Lublin, In Exhibit 247, in Document Book V_C, Creutz expressed the fact that certain resettlers have been put into readiness for Lublin.\nAYes.\nQDid Himmler give a previous order to that effect?\nAYes as far as I can ecall that this was done by teletype from Cracow which I have already discussed, towards the end of yesterday's session. I believe that it was several days prior to the tenth of October.\nQWas Himmler personally in Cracow at the time?\nAAs far as I could assume from the teletype, yes.\nQThis teletype is not available to us any more today. Did you yourself see the teletype at the time?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1887, "page_number": "1881", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_2_Fox (Garand)\nQCan you still recall the approximate text of the teletype?\nAThe most important sentence which remains in my memory was, som thing was said about Lublin and then the teletype stated, I quote: \"Everything has been prepared, only the resettlers have not arrived yet.\" Then an order was expressed in a very severe form. This was the order that several groups of resettlers were to be put on the way and these groups were mentioned in this connection.\nQJust how many resettlers were involved in this case?\nAI cannot give you the exact figure but in my estimation there were approximately six thousand.\nQDo you know how many resettlers Globocnik had requested originally?\nAYes.\nQHow many?\nABe wanted approximately one hundred thousand.\nQWas it impossible for you to avoid the furnishing of resettlers to Lublin?,\nANo. We had already received the initial order from Himmler, which we received approximately two months before and then we did not take any steps because at that time we wee still trying to delay this measure as much as possible so that first of all, winter time would come, and it was our experience that these somewhat wild plans were easier to appease as time went on. As a result of the teletype from Cracow, which I have mentioned before in this connection, I established contact once more with the Reich Security Main Office, Herr Illich, and he also told me that the Reich Security Main Office was extremely powerless in that respect and Clobocnik had extremely good relations with Himmler and he was able to do everything that he wanted to.\nQWere the resettlers asked previously whether they were willing to go to Lublin?\nAYes, that was always done.\nQIn the Document Books before you, there are three letters by \n 4 Dec 1947_M_MSD1_3_Fox (Garand) the defendant Creutz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1888, "page_number": "1882", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "They have the date of 9 December 1942 In these letters, resettlers from Bosnia are mentioned as being sent to Lublin. This is Exhibit 37, in Document Book II-B. Exhibit 230 in Document Book V-B.\nAYes.\nQAnd Exhibit 253, in Document Book VAC.\nAYes, I found it.\nQWhat was the basic cause for these three letters by the defendant Creutz?\nAA short time before this a letter had been received from Himmler and in this letter he reproached the Main Staff Office severely that the procurement of resettlers was going forward too slowly and that too few resettlers were being furnished. At that time he ordered that, effective immediately, other groups were also to be moved.\nQDid Himmler usually, whenever he issued orders for deportation measures to be taken, also did he deal with the areas of assignment for the resettlers?\nAYes, that is also mentioned in this order with regard to the resettlers from Bosnia. The Germans from Bosnia at that time had not even arrived in the Reich yet.\nQAnd the Baltic resettlers?\nAUp to that time they were not even permitted yet to enter the east. There existed a special order at that time.\nQWhat was the purpose of these orders by the Main Staff Office which have been signed by the defendant Creutz?\nAThis form of decree was issued in every case whenever Himmler had given the Main Staff Office an order pertaining to a resettlement of a group of resettlers in a certain area. Himmler's orders for the most part lacked all form and they would arrive in a very brief teletype or in the form of a letter. These orders however had to be distributed to many different agencies, the resettlers had to be \n 4 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_4_Fox (Garand) informed so that they could send their trustees into the areas, working contracts had to be delineated, files records and other documents had to be prepared.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1889, "page_number": "1883", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "And that is why these decress were sent to many different agencies.\nQDid Creutz approve of this resettlement drive at Dublin?\nAInitially, when it was mentioned that various people were to he settled there on a temporary basis, on vacant estates, he considered this to be an emergency solution so that the people in the camps could have some place to live. However, later on when permanent and large scale resettlement was to take place there, he was definitely against it.\nQNow. I have a few questions on another subject. Did the Main Staff Office introduce military consc iption in Alsace Lorraine and Luxembourg?\nANo.\nQDid the Main Staff Office agree with this introduction of military conscription?\nAThe Main Staff Office had nothing whatsoever to do with it.\nQDid the M ain Staff Office see to it that people in AlsaceLorraine and Luxembourg were given German nationality?\nANo, that was the task of the CDZ and the task of the Ministry of Interior.\nQDuring your activity in the Main Staff Office, were you subordinate to Dr. Fehndrich?\nAFor the time being, yes. At first.\nQWas Fehndrich subordinate to the defendant Creutz?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether Fehndrich was also the deputy of the defendant Greifelt?\nAOn tow or threetrips which Greifelt had to take, during that time deputized for him by Fehndrich. However, I never saw any written orders to that effect.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1890, "page_number": "1884", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_M_MSD_2_1_Fox (Garand) For identification, I am going to put to you Creutz Document 1. This is an organizational chart for 1940.\nPlease take a look at it and see whether this organizational chart is correct.\nAI see a difference here. As far as I can recall, the Restitution was under Department 4. I believe that otherwise it agrees with the chart which I recall.\nQWhen was this chart put into effect?\nAThat must have been in the fall of 1940.\nQAt the time were all departments and main departments subordinate to the chief of the agency?\nAAs far as I know, yes.\nQHow long did this plan continue in force?\nAIt was changed to a considerable extent in the fall of 1942. Some very small, unimportant changes probably were carried out before that.\nQWhen did Dr. Fehndrich leave the Main Staff Office?\nAIn the spring of 1942.\nQWhen did you yourself take over Office 1?\nAIn the fall of 1942.\nQDid the organization of Office 1 have to be changed when you took over your new position?\nAYes.\nQWhy?\nAThe distribution of work between Office 1 and 2 was not yet quite complete and furthermore the tasks of the VOMI overlapped to a certain extent, especially with those of the newly established Main Office for Ethnic Questions. And then we also carried out some small changes.\nQIn the organizational chart of Office 1, were also tasks mentioned there which actually did not belong there?\nAYes. For example, the cultural tasks and the entire field which came under the department for Ethnic Questions and Culture. And \n 4 Dec 1947_ M_MSD_2_2_Fox (Garand) after a while there was nothing left of that field to deal with.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1891, "page_number": "1885", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QDid you take over all the personnel who worked in Office 1?\nANo. Schubert, the man who was in charge of this Office for Ethnic Questions, was not taken over by me because I had a considerable amount of disputes with him, form the professional and personal point of view. I only took over the office on the condition that he and his entire work would be excluded.\nQCan you still recall whether the VOMI and the RSHA complained about the tasks of office, which are contained in the organizational chart of 1942 because this work overlapped with that of the two other agencies?\nAThey already objected to the title and then especially in regard to the work which was done on ethnic questions, they objected to the fact that, if I recall correctly, some questions which only dealt with the care given to ethnic problems and alien policy questions had appeared in the chart.\nQWhat was done about it?\nAAs I have mentioned before, these fields of work were isolated and, if I recall correctly, a new declaration of competencies between the VOMI and the Main Staff Office was issued.\nQOffice I was part of Office Group A and in this way you became simultaneously the director of Office 1, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhat effect did the establishment of Office Group A under the defendant Creutz have on your position? How did it affect you?\nAThis was a matter which was never formally determined or put or put down in writing. I considered this rule to be a support for me actually, because sometims I was able to get support and advice from Creutz. Creutz never gave me any factual instructions.\nQIn his capacity as chief of the Office Group, did he ever give you any signature? Did he ever submit papers for signature to you?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1892, "page_number": "1886", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_M_MSD_2_3_Fox (Garand)\nQWho decided about your tasks and plans?\nAGreifelt did.\nQAfter the establishment of the Office Group, were you still told to go on reporting to Greifelt?\nAYes.\nQWas the defendant Creutz present when you reported to Greifelt?\nAAside from a very few cases when there was a special reason, he was not present.\nQWhen was the defendant Creutz the deputy of the defendant Greifelt? I want to know from what time on.\nAEver since 1942, the spring of 1942. However, I cannot give you the exact time.\nQAnd when did this deputizing become effective?\nAWell, whenever the chief was not in the office. Whenever ho was absent.\nQIs it correct that Creutz, as a member of the Waffen SS, was a soldier?\nAYes.\nQMy last question. In Document Book II. B, Exhibit 34, this is an organizational chart. Is this chart correct?\nANo, there are many things wrong with it. It is very funny. It is wrong at the very begining. The Reichsfuehrer was not the Plenipotentiary of the Fuehrer, but had plenipotentiary powers in that field. Race and Settlement Main Office should be at least put in here and it should be at least put in here and it should be stated that it only worked in a very limited field it had tasks of a Reich Commissar. Instead of putting that agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, it should read \"Main Staff Office.\" This should be done in order to clarify the fact that there were also additional agencies. Then for Posen, it should state here, agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar. Then it is completely wrong here, that the EWZ has been placed under the agency of Kopper. Also VOMI at Litzmannstadt. I don't know \n 3 Dec 1947_M_MSD2_4_Fox (Garand) anything about the UWZ.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1893, "page_number": "1887", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Race and Settlement Main Office, Field Office Lodz, in my opinion was also subordinate directly to the Race and Settlement Main Office. As to the UWZ, I can add that this was an agency of the Reich Security Main Office. This sketch is not correct at all. It is correct that the Settlement staff at Lodz was subordinate to the agency of Kopper. The subdivision of the Settlement Staff I cannot recall in detail any more at this time. However, it may be correct.\nMR. MERKEL:Thank you. Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nDR. DOETZER:Your Honor, I would like to ask several questions. BY DR. DOETZER: (For the defendant Brueckner)\nQDr. Stier, do you know the defendant Brueckner?\nAYes.\nQDid you meet the defendant Brueckner in the course of conferences?\nAYes, frequently.\nQCan you recall, Witness a conference which took place in August 1942 in the Main Staff office where the deportation drives were discussed which the chief of the civil administration in Alsace had planned?\nAYes, that has been mentioned already in this connection.\nQWas Brueckner present at this conference?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "MR. MERKEL", "A", "Q", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1894, "page_number": "1888", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Did Brueckner agree with these measures which were planned by the Chiefs of the Civil Administration in Alsace? Did he agree with these measures or did he object to them?\nA.He objected to them as we all did.\nQ.Do you know whether in the course of this conference there was a clash between Brueckner and the representative of another agency?\nA.I do not know exactly whether this happened at that particular conference, but Brueckner had a severe clash with a representative of the RSHA with regard to accommodations and transport facilities to be granted to deportees.\nQ.What was that difference of opinion?\nA.First of all Brueckner did not want to occupy himself with the whole matter. Since, however, he know of the orders which had been issued he discovered that he had to deal with the matter after all. He stated that at least he didn't want to have anything to do with the transportation of people. He did not want to take over transportation for Vomi.\nQ.Who issued the orders that the deportees were to be deported to Vomi camps?\nA.I didn't understand the question.\nQ.Who issued the orders that deportees were to be placed in Vomi camps?\nA.Himmler.\nQ.Witness, can you recall that you, together with the defendant Brueckner, also objected to deportation measures in Alsace Lorraine?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.Can you still recall what happened in that connection?\nA.I think that I have discussed that in detail, this entire question, yesterday.\nQ.May I interrupt you - I only wanted to know just what part Brueckner played in it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1895, "page_number": "1889", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.He objected to these measures in a very energetic manner and he stated that Vomi did not have a lot of authority and competency in taking steps in this matter. However, as far as I can recall he approached the Foreign Office in this concern and it is probably due to his activity in that connection, or in any case it played an important part, that subsequently the order was issued that these people were to be deported to France.\nQ.Then I have another question on another subject. Witness, do you recall that on the part of France, during the War between Germany and France, French students of the University of Strassbourg were removed from Strassbourg for State Police reasons and sent to the interior of France?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether Brueckner when he heard of this deportation saw to it that these students were again allowed to study at Strassbourg?\nMR. LAMB:We object to that question, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nA.Yes, I recall that.\nQ.Do you know what German agency opposed him in that respect?\nA.As far as I know the Reich Security Main Office was taking care of this matter.\nQ.Do you know whether in thecourse of his efforts a large number of these French students were allowed to return to Strassbourg during the German occupation?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you. Witness, do you know whether accommodations which were given to the Slovenes in the Vomi camps were dealt with by Brueckner or whether some other office dealt with that problem?\nA.The Camp Administration dealt with that problem.\nQ.Do you know whether Brueckner intervened on behalf of the Slovenes in that direction, that they were to be returned to the country of their origin?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1896, "page_number": "1890", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.In several instances he mentioned that fact. However, it was impossible to do that.\nQ.Do you know whether he saw to it when he found out he could not repatriate these Slovenes that these Slovenes were given the rights of settlers and were to be taken out of camps as quickly as possible?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether he saw to it that in particular with regard to the indemnity which was given for property and in the accommodations of these Slovenes the same conditions were to apply as applied to the German resettlers who were recognized as such?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did Brueckuer ever deal with questions of alien races and nationalities within Vomi?\nA.I never saw or heard anything about that.\nQ.In the course of the discussions you had with Brueckner did you have the impression that he was in favor of Germanization and re-Germanization or that he was a severe opponent of Germanization and re-Germanization measures?\nA.He was opposed to a considerable extent to these measures.\nQ.Witness, in your direct examination you mentioned the fact that in Northern France certain measures were taken by Vomi when the repatriation drive took place. In this connection I would like to ask you whether you can recall this matter for certain or whether these measures were not initiated by the Military Commander in Belgium or EWZ?\nA.I would like to make a marked difference here. If I recall correctly I stated yesterday that through Vomi we had some contact with these matters. I believe that I also added, and I want to repeat it just to make certain, that I am not sufficiently informed about this entire subject.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1897, "page_number": "1891", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.I wanted to know just who initiated these measures. Thank you. That is sufficient.\nWitness, since you had a lot of official contact with Brueckner I would like to ask you, on the basis of the testimony which you have given today, whether it is correct that his attitude was always such that he was opposed to deportations and re-Germanizations and that, as far as he was able to exert his influence, he always stood up for his views like a man and, as far as it was possible for him to exert his influence, he was able to achieve his aims.\nA.Yes that is quite correct in general.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. KLINNERT (for Schwarzenberger):\nQ.Dr. Stier, did Schwarzenberger have anything to do with the official tasks of Office I?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger or Office V have any influence on the measures which were taken by Office I in the field of resettlement or deportation or settlement in general or in the field of Ethnic questions?\nA.No.\nQ.Did measures of that nature of Office I depend at all on the approval of Office V, or its head Schwarzenberger?\nA.No.\nQ.Was it customary that whenever such measures were planned, inquiries were made to Office V previously?\nA.No.\nQ.Was Office V at all informed about measures of that kind?\nA.They were not informed by me.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Witness, who made the factual decisions of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germany at Poznan?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1898, "page_number": "1892", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.This was done by the Reichsstatthalter in fundamental matters and otherwise, in the majority of the decisions by Obergruppenfuehrer Kopper.\nQ.Was the field of tasks of the agency at Poznan the same as the field of tasks of the Main Staff Office?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. You are getting into the field of a complete direct examination. The Tribunal -- wait a minute -- The Tribunal dislikes very much to be required -- just a minute -- to continuously and continually call counsel's attention to the fact that these witnesses who have been completely examined on direct examination cannot be completely examined by every other defense counsel and if each defense counsel desires the privilege of examining these witnesses who have not been subpoenaed in so far as his client is concerned he must restrict himself rigidly to the activities of his own client. The Tribunal, if this practice continues, will be compelled, as I have stated several times before, to restrict direct examination to the attornies representing the client for whom the witness was subpoenaed. The Tribunal must insist that all counsel comply with this request. Go ahead. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Was the field of work of the agency at Poznan of which the defendant Huebner was a member discerned as parallel to that of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1899, "page_number": "1893", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "BY DR. BRACH (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.Witness, yesterday you were asked a question with regard to racial examination. Is it correct that the results of the racial examination were really limited by the so-called \"Opinion on working efficiency\"?\nA.The results of the racial evaluation were, to a large extent, nullified by the \"Opinion on Working Efficiency\".\nTHE PRESIDENT:That's direct examination. If you want to ask him anything about your client do so.\nDR. BRACH:I have another question, witness. Do you know the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.No.\nQ.With whom in Department I of the Office of the Reich Commissar in Danzig, West Prussia -- this is Hildebrandt -- did you work with officially?\nA.With Dr. Handrak, and later with Professor Liebrand.\nQ.In this connection can you recall the name of Dr. Roehrich?\nA.I did hear this name on some occasion or other but I cannot give you any information about it at the present moment.\nQ.Did members of Department I in the Office of the Reich Commissar in Danzig, West Prussia, come to visit you at the Main Staff Office in Berlin?\nA.Yes.\nQ.With what other department of the Office of Reich Commissar in Danzig, West Prussia, did you have official contact, with what department?\nA.I did not have contact with any other departments.\nQ.Witness, can you comment on the question whether the Ethnic conditions in the district of Danzig, West Prussia, were normal as they were in other districts?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. BRACH", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1900, "page_number": "1894", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Never mind, witness. That's a general question. You must confine your examination to your client and his activities individually. BY DR. BRACH:\nQ.Do you know, witness, that there were strong contradictions in Danzig, West Prussia, between the attitude of the defendant Hildebrandt as representative of the Reich Commissar and Reichstatthalter Forster?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Could the Main Staff Office do anything against the attitude of Forster?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We are ready for the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Dr. Stier, how many people were brought in from the countries surrounding Germany, Yugoslavia, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Roumania and other countries, for the purpose of resettlement? Give me the approximate number?\nA.Approximately 800,000, as far as I can guess. You mean who were taken into Germany: did I understand you correctly?\nQ.How many people were handled in this resettlement program? How many people were moved about from one place to another?\nA.Approximately 800,000 resettlers were brought into Germany. Here I am not counting the deportees which figure I cannot give you an estimate of.\nQ.There were approximately twomillion people handled by the Main Staff Office in this resettlement program, weren't there?\nA.Two million? I don't believe there were two million.\nQ.A million and a half?\nA.No, I wouldn't say a figure higher than one million. However, I am unable today to give any exact figures.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1901, "page_number": "1895", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Dr. Stier, the Main Staff Office handled all of these people, did it not?\nA.Cases of resettlers? Yes.\nQ.And you were the expert on resettlement in that office, weren't you?\nA.I was in charge of the department which carried this out, yes.\nQ.Now these forced evacuations and forced deportations that took place and this policy of forced Germanization was ordered by Himmler, is that what you testified to?\nA.I don't quite understand your question.\nQ.There were forced deportations, were there not?\nA.Yes, from the Reich to other countries, yes.\nQ.And there was forced Germanization, a program of forced Germanization was there not?\nA.I know nothing about it?\nQ.Didn't you testify a moment ago that the defendant Brueckner opposed this forced Germanization?\nA.We never talked about compulsory Germanization.\nQ.What did he oppose then?\nA.He was opposed to Germanization as such, After all, at the time the majority of the population in the frontier areas was actually trying hard to obtain German nationality and, we placed various objections in the way.\nQ.Oh, you were trying to prevent people from becoming Germans? Was that your program?\nA.Yes, if they were not of German descent.\nQ.Now, you have testified that Slovenes who were not of Nordic blood, who were not German, were forced to come into Germany, were not those Slovenes put in camps and was not there a decree which stated that if these Slovenes escaped they would be hanged?\nA.It is correct that I stated that these Slovenes were brought into \n the Reich by force.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1902, "page_number": "1896", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "However, I never heard a single word about any hangings.\nQ.Now, of all these people that were brought into Germany from foreign countries, these foreign people who were not Germans, a part of them were to be resettled in the Eastern territories and a part of them would remain in Germany -- that's true, isn't it?\nA.Amongst the Ethnic Germans who had been resettled a part remained in Germany proper and part of them went into the newly incorporated territories.\nQ.Now the ones that were to remain in Germany were people who were not considered reliable enough from a political standpoint to be put in the Eastern territories or on the out-skirts of the German Reich?\nA.Not only because of this reason were they sent to Eastern districts but yesterday I mentioned in detail groups and reasons why some of these resettlers were not allowed to move into certain areas.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1903, "page_number": "1897", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.And that is one of the reasons you gave, their political unreliability?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now when these people who remained in Germany as the \"A\" cases were brought in from these other countries, these foreign countries, they were promised that they would be resettled, and when their property was taken from them in these foreign countries, it was promised that they would be given property in Germany equivalent in value to what they had had in their own country. That is true, isn't it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And these people who were kept in Germany were not given what they had been promised, were they, these \"A\" cases?\nA.Until the end of the War these promises had not been kept in all cases.\nQ.That is all I wanted to know. Now I don't want to know what you intended to do but what you actually did.\nNow how many of these people remained in Germany as so-called \"A\" cases?\nA.I cannot give you the figure any more at this time.\nQ.Can you estimate it?\nA.I don't want to give you an inaccurate figure because I may be mistaken to a considerable extent.\nQ.You were the export on resettlement, and you have been able to sit on the witness stand and remember verbatim a telegram or teletype that was sent by Himmler, but you can't estimate the number of \"A\" cases, is that true?\nA.I can recall all the things pretty well where I myself played an active part. However, I myself did not \n COURT I CASE VIII personally deal with the \"A\" oases, and the number of \"A\" cases varied continually, and that is why I am uncertain.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1904, "page_number": "1898", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "If you do have to have a number, I can give you one, but I have pointed out before that I would like to make a strong difference between what I know or know approximately and what I have to guess at.\nQ.That is all right.\nA.But if you want to have an approximate figure -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I think you have said enough to indicate that you don't want to do it. BY MR. LANB:\nQ.Now among these people that were brought in to Germany there were a great many people who were not Ethnic Germans who had no Nordic blood. That is true, is it not?\nA.I would not say that this was a large number. It was just a small percentage.\nQ.Regardless of what your intentions were after the War, these people who were brought in as \"A\" cases were used as forced labor after they were brought into Germany, were they not?\nA.No, I never heard anything about slave labor at all. I never saw anything of it.\nQ.They were made to work, were they not?\nA.According to the general laws and regulations, all Germans had to carry out a certain amount of work.\nQ.Yes, and people who were not Germans and who lived in Germany had to carry out a certain amount of work, did they not?\nA.I am not informed about that. As soon as these persons left the resettlement program, I did not have any control over them anymore, or knowledge of their activity.\nQ.Well, you have testified a lot about the Slovenes here. You know that the Slovenes were made to work, do \n COURT I CASE VIII you not?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1905, "page_number": "1899", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Yes, they had to work.\nQ.Yes, and those Slovenes wanted to go back to their home country, Yugoslavia, didn't they?\nA.They wanted to go back to Lower Styria where they came from, yes.\nQ.Yes. Now you have testified about deportations in various countries. Now the Main Staff Office knew when they brought these million or so people in to resettle them that they were going to have to be resettled on somebody's land, didn't they, that somebody was going to have to be moved out, isn't that true?\nA.I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.The Main Staff Office and all of its officials knew that in this program whereby over a million people would be resettled that somebody would have to move from their farms, some people would have to be moved from farms in order to make room for these million people that were going to be resettled?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you know now that a great many of those people who were moved out of these farms were forcefully moved out?\nA.That they were deported by force?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Who was deported by force?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is what he asked you, Mr. Witness, if you knew whether anybody was or not.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes. BY MR. LANB:\nQ.Now you have testified that everything that was done that was wrong, such as deportations, and so forth and so on, \n COURT I CASE VIII was done by Himmler; that is true, isn't it?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1906, "page_number": "1900", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A. as far as I am informed, yes.\nQ.The Main Staff Office was headed by the defendant Greifelt during its entire existence, was it not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And these other defendants whom you have mentioned here who were against everything that was done that was srong, were also in that office almost during the entire time of its existence, weren't they?\nA.No. Schwarzenberger came later on, and Huebner was not in the Main Office.\nQ.All right. Himmler had the right to discharge any of those people, did he not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did he discharge anyone?\nA.Well, since they were still there, they couldn't have been dismissed.\nQ.Now you also stated that in opposing everything that Himmler did which was wrong, that these people disagreed with it, but isn't it a fact that they went ahead and did those things inspite of their opposition to the idea?\nA.They did not oppose all measures, but they only opposed certain things which have been discussed here in detail.\nQ.But regardless of the opposition, these things did transpire, did they not?\nA.In some part, yes.\nMR. LAMB:I have no further questions.\nDR. von der TRENCK: von der Trenck for the defendant Greifelt.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Strictly surrebuttal, please.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1907, "page_number": "1901", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "DR. von der TRENCK: Yes, sir.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQ.Witness, the Prosecutor asked you for figures. May I complete the picture very briefly. Just approximately how many people were dealt with in the course of the reGermanization procedure?\nA.I am not acquainted with these figures either.\nQ.Approximately\nA.I may make such substantial mistakes here that I don't like to testify about these figures.\nQ.Very roughly.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness has made it very clear to Counsel on both sides that he doesn't like to tell things that he doesn't know about. BY DR. von der TRENCK:\nQ.You gave the figure of approximately 800,000 for the resettlers.\nA.Yes. I can give you that figure with certainty. There may have been a few more, but not many.\nQ.Just how many of those resettlers came into Germany as a result of international agreement?\nA.All of them with the exception of those people from the Russian territories to the East of the old Russo-Polish border.\nQ.And how many people were included in that?\nA.Approximately 150 to 200,000.\nDR. von der TRENCK: Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nThe Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\nTHE MARSHAL:There will be a fifteen-minute recess.\n(a recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1908, "page_number": "1902", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. VON DERTRENCK (Counsel for Greifelt): May it please the Tribunal, may I call the witness Golling to the stand?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\n(SIEGFRIED GOLLING, a witness, took the stead and testified as follows:)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:May I start with the examination of the witness?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nSIEGFRIED GOLLING DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQWitness, would you kindly give your full name and the date of your birth to the Tribunal?\nAMy name is Siegfried Golling. I was born on the fifth of August 1906, in Stettin.\nQWould you kindly give us your education, in brief?\nAI went to high school and graduated in 1924. I studied law and in 1927 passed my first State Examination. Six months after that I attended the University of Marburg, and was an assistant there at the Institute for the German Affairs Abroad. In 1931 I became an assessor-that is, I passed my second legal examination. Subsequently I assisted a number of attornies.\nFrom 1932 to 1935 I worked in the Land Office Stettin. In 1935, until 1938, I worked as a legal expert in the legal department of the Reich Food Office. In 1938, until 1939, I worked as a legal expert in the German Settlement Bank, in Berlin. From the end of 1939 until the end of the war I worked in the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, first in the Central Land \n Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. VON DER", "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1909, "page_number": "1903", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Since September 1940, in the department which later became the Office Agriculture.\nQWho caused you to enter the Office Agriculture?\nAThe chief of the Office Agriculture at that time was Mr. Hieke. Previously Hieke had been manager of the German Settlement Bank.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute please. The Tribunal at the end of the recess had in mind making a statement which we could not do at that time because counsel involved were not in the court room. What we want to do is to compliment Dr. Merkel, for the Defense, and Mr. Lamb, for the Prosecution, for the excellent manner in which both Dr. Merkel and Mr. Lamb conducted the examination of the witness previously on the stand.\nThe witness was subpoened by Dr. Merkel as his witness and he has demonstrated that a direct examination can be held very successfully by sticking strictly to the facts. And Mr. Lamb on cross-examination has demonstrated that a cross-examination can be held by sticking strictly to the facts.\nWe wish to compliment both of these attornies and to express our appreciation for their very fine cooperation in our effort to discover in this case facts--and facts only. We trust it will be a shining example for other counsel in the future.\nGo ahead.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Mr. President, I shall try to follow this shining example. BY DR. VON DERTRENCK:\nQHieke was an expert then?\nAYes.\nQWill you tell us briefly the origin and the extent of the Office Agriculture?\nAThe Office Agriculture was newly established in September 1940. Until then it was only a welfare office regarding the agriculture: of the \n resettlers on the part of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1910, "page_number": "1904", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A great part of the resettlers had somehow been placed in the eastern territories, but the conditions under which they were placed were very obscure. It was the task of the Office Agriculture to bring some order into these very obscure conditions.\nQAs regards the staff, what was the extent of the office?\nAFor a considerable time it consisted of Mr. Hieke and myself. Subsequently three more experts entered the office.\nQNow, what of the actual task of the Office Agriculture?\nAQuite briefly, the placement of resettlers in agriculture and as independent farmers.\nQThat was a completely new problem, is that correct?\nAYes; it was a completely new problem.\nQWas the Reich Commissar the first and only agency working in this field?\nANo; the Ostland, which was later called Reichsland, and the Farmers' Settlement Societies worked in this field. Apart from that, numerous party agencies cared for the resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1911, "page_number": "1905", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QWhat were the predecessors of the Ostland?\nAThe Ostland was established at the beginning of the war, and it had its origin in an organization of farmers which the Reich Food Ministry had sent into this territory during the Polish campaign. It was their task to secure the harvest for the year 1939. Later, this organization, on the strength of a decree of the 12th of February 1940, changed or was reorganized into the Reichsland.\nQAnd what were these farmers' settlement societies?\nAThese settlement societies were newly established by the Reich Food Ministry in the incorporated eastern territories in the beginning of 1940. It was their task to take steps to settle the resettlers.\nQDid the Office Agriculture have the task of solving the problem of placement in individual cases, or was its task rather to find a general solution?\nAWe were not in a position to take care of individual cases. What we had to do was to bring some order into the confusion of all the organizations involved by lining out the fields of work.\nQIn how far and for which reasons did the Office Agriculture deal with individual cases?\nAWe only dealt with individual cases when we received complaints and only if the complaints were of a somewhat weighty nature. Apart from that, we concerned outselves with Individual cases of resettlers who claimed larger areas of agricultural land.\nQDid you always try to see to it, and was it difficult to achieve a complete compensation?\nAWe couldn't take account of that. As far as possible, we placed the resettlers in line with their agricultural knowledge and capacity. What they had owned previously as we could see from their files was an indication for their agricultural capacities.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1912, "page_number": "1906", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QIf it became known that resettlers were partly of Jewish origin, were they treated in the same manner as the other resettlers?\nAYes; I remember a few individual cases: the family of von Huebschmann, a family of von Korv, a resettler called Klaus School, a resettler called Tillmans, and others as well.\nQDid racial points of view play any part at all in your work?\nAThey did not play any part in our work; that is the work of the Main Staff Office.\nQAnd what about Mr. Greifelt?\nAI reported these cases which I have just mentioned, and some others as well, and he discussed how we could bring it about to treat these settlers in the same way as the other resettlers, in spite of the shortage which was generally known.\nQNow, how did you work out the general rules regarding the resettlement? Was the Main Staff Office entitled to dictate in these matters, or was it necessary to negotiate with all the other agencies involved?\nAWe were strongly impeded by differences of opinion with the Reich Food Ministry. In this situation we only succeeded by the fact that Hieke was a personal acquaintance, in his former capacity in a large settlement company and as head of the Settlement Bank. In this capacity he succeeded in starting a conversation with people involved and this personal contact grew into official conversations, and only after this contact had been established could we arrive at agreements.\nQWhat was the main point of difference with the Reich Ministry of Food or the Ostland?\nAThe background was a difference of opinion between Himmler, as Reichs Commissar, and Darre, the Reich Food Minister. Darre claimed to direct the settlement of farmers all by himself. The difference of opinion was based on the somewhat obscure version of paragraph III of \n the decree of the 7th of October, 1939.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1913, "page_number": "1907", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QAnd what was the practical question in which you clashed invariably with the Ostland?\nAIn the incorporated eastern territories, the Ostland had already appointed their own trustees. We intended to place the resettlers as trustees of the Reichsland in their fields of activity. According to that, however, the people who had so far been trustees of the Reichsland had to give way. The Reichsland did, of course, find it very difficult to separate themselves from the people with whom it worked together so far.\nQWell, how did you succeed in finding a solution?\nAWe were helped by the decree of the 7th of September 1940. That was the so-called Polish Property Decree; because a form of competency was justified in this decree we succeeded in finding a basis for discussions with the Reichsland.\nQAnd what was the success, in practical terms, regarding the individual resettlers?\nAIn the confusion existing at that time we got our way after all, and the result was that the resettlers were trustees of the Reichsland. This was the legal basis on which they worked their farms during all those years.\nQWas this agreement valid? That is, that the resettlers were trustees of the Reichsland. Was this valid for all enterprises or was there a difference between large estates and between peasant farms?\nAThere was a considerable difference. The Reichsland gruadually came to take only an interest in larger estates. The small farms it left to the care of the settlement companies. The settlement companies received, by means of a special decree, the same rights as were enjoyed by the Reichsland. Among themselves they had established their divisions of work according to an agreement, but mainly according to the fact of \n whether an estate was larger or whether the land involved was only a smaller farm.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1914, "page_number": "1908", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QIn what way were the settlement companies implicated in this process, assumed from the point of view of the Reich Commissar?\nAThe settlement companies did not only have to appoint the settler and supervise him, but they had to support him economically as well.\nQIn what way?\nAFor instance, they had to build all buildings; they had to buy seed, fodder, tools; briefly they had to provide all the things which were necessary for the running of an agricultural enterprise.\nQWhat was the size of the expenditure created by this commission?\nAIn the summer of 1940, the sum exceeded 200 million marks.\nQWho bore these costs?\nAThe Reich Food Ministry had paid this expenditure, but we had to repay this sum to the Reich Food Ministry.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, the Reich really paid these costs by way of any of the agencies involved?\nAYes, the Reich Finance Ministry held us responsible for this expenditure.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1915, "page_number": "1909", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "(Dr. von der Trenck)\nQ.What were the sums needed by the Administration through the Ostland?\nA.The financial conditions of the Ostland are not known to me in detail, but I know that in 1942, it incurred a debt of 110 million marks in 1942.\nQ.Can you briefly describe to us the way of the resettler from a camp, when he finally landed on his farm?\nA.The resettler was first of all taken from the resettler camp to a transient camp in the district in which he was to be settled later on. There he was taken over by the District office at our Plenipotentiary. It took him to the farm which he was to occupy, and there he was taken over by the Settlement Company or the Reischland.\nQ.This way of putting these people on to their farms took place at some distance from the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes. There was another office, as a supervising station from the District office; there was the Provincial office of the Plenipotentiary, and the office of the Reich Commissar was above this Provincial Agency.\nQ.You said previously that the resettlers had been appointed either as Trustees of the Reischland or of the Settlement Companies. Was this form of running the farms always adherred to?\nA.Well, it created difficulties because the resettlers had so far been independent farmers and had hot been officials. Because of that we adopted another procedure, that is, the resettlers who had proved themselves altogether good farmers, were more or less set free of the control of the Reichsland or the Settlement companies. Subsequently they ran the farms on their own account but they were supervised all the same.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, such a procedure was only \n adopted after every individual case had been carefully checked?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1916, "page_number": "1910", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.We called this procedure \"Einweisung\". (Committment) Before this happened, the farmer concerned had to be checked carefully by the Reichs Peasant leader, and by other agencies and also by our District Office in order to determine whether he was a good risk.\nQ.Can you give us a rough figure as to how many enterprises, expressed in a percentage, were administered on their own account?\nA.For the resettlers who worked on larger farms, it may have been just 50 per cent. In the case of settlers of smaller farms, one can only term this measure an initial measure. Directives for this measure were issued in the winter of 1942 and '43. Because of the progress of the war they were no longer extensively carried out.\nQ.And what is the proportion of the larger farms as compared with the smaller farms?\nA.I should like to give the figure of the resettlers on the larger farms as between 500 and 1000. In the smaller farms, the figure may have been between 50 and 100 thousand.\nQ.Thank you. Were farms given to resettlers outright?\nA.No.\nQ.So far as other farms were concerned, were agricultural enterprises handed outright to resettlers in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.Yes, there have been quite a number of cases.\nQ.I believe that the translation was not quite correct just now. The word, \"resettler\" was mentioned in the translation, but in this case it is a question of handing over agricultural property to people who are not resettlers. When wasproperty so handed over to people?\nA.First of all, we have to eliminate a group of cases in which the Reichs Governors, during the first period when they were chief \n of the civilian administration, and had decisive authority, had handed over properties.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1917, "page_number": "1911", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Then there are some cases which we can summarize by calling them donations.\nI remember the case of Guderian and the case of Daluege. In these cases Hitler had presented these gentlemen with an estate which we had to give to them, and for which we were paid by Hitler.\nQ.How many cases do you think there were taken over altogether?\nA.So far as genuine donations are concerned, I remember only these two cases.\nQ.In what other cases was land transferred to a larger extent?\nA.There were some cases, for instance, on Hitlers orders, where the former estates in Mecklenberg, were to be taken care of by us. Hitler personally had bought his estate, and we were instructed to sell him a substitute estate.\nThen there were transfers of property, in some cases for reasons of military necessity.\nQ.What do you mean by that?\nA.For instance, the areas of a number of troop training grounds.\nQ.How large were the areas taken altogether, and hom many troop training grounds were involved?\nA.I can name 6 large troop training grounds, apart from smaller drill grounds and airdromes. The training grounds were the Grounds Isier in Upper Silesia--\nQ.I think we can dispense with the enumeration. They are all grounds in upper Silesia and in the incorporated eastern territory, aren't there?\nA.Yes, but the total area of these training grounds comes to about 300,000 hectares.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1918, "page_number": "1912", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Were apropriations carried out with this aim also in the remaining Reich territory?\nA.In the Reich area that was a very extensive work carried out by the Reich Resettlement Company, which had been established in 1935 for this purpose. Similar grounds had been established in various localities.\nQ.The Ministry had the possibility to oppose giving land for these purposes?\nA.There could have been no question of that.\nQ.Apart from the cases just mentioned by you, that is the donation, the troop training grounds, and I believe you mentioned other transfers necessary for military purposes, was any other property given away in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.No.\nQ.I must correct myself, - rural property.\nA.Yes, of course.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar receive anything in return for these transfers?\nA.We got nothing in return for the troop training grounds. As for the rest, the money was transferred to our account.\nQ.In what form did it exist, and how was it administered?\nA.It was simply the account of our finance department.\nQ.Did it bear a special name?\nA.Yes, it was called, \"Land Transfer Account\".\nQ.Is it correct that in this account smaller payments were also received, and for what reason?\nA.Yes, it is correct. The payments were paid into this account by people who could not buy farms just now, and who for some reason or other had to leave the farms. In order to clarify the question of ownership we had to clarify the question of land books first of all, and this created great difficulties, and in such cases we had to operate with provisional lease payments.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1919, "page_number": "1913", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Excuse me, you said previously that rural property was not transferred, and in this case it must refer to a special group of cases which you will have to explain to us?\nA.I had mentioned gravel pits. I said previously that these were things necessary for the war effort, within this framework.\nQ.What we are concerned with now, are smaller rural areas which were to be utilized for industrial pruposes?\nA.Yes, this happened.\nQ.And the payments into the accounts were made for such purpose?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you. Did the Main Staff Office reject any attempts to acquire land and property in the east by the Reich Commissar, and did it succeed in this effort?\nA.Many people approached us as they desired to acquire land and property, partly with the support of the most influential personages. My Department Chief, Hieke, used a lot of time, in order to reject these requests. He often succeeded by spending days of work on them, to refuse these requests.\nQ.Can you name a single case?\nA.Yes, for instance, the Ministerial Director Guett, who had a promise from Hitler, and in spite of that we succeeded, in long negotiations, to refuse this request.\nOn the basis of the Foundation Decree of the 7th of October, 1939 for the provision of land and property for resettlers, did the Reich Commissar have the possibility of providing land and property for the Wehrmacht?\nA.Yes, according to this Decree, this law was applicable as far as we were concerned.\nQ.Was it applied in practice?\nA.We could not apply it because in the meantime the 4-year plan had made plans for the issuance of the Polish Property Decree of the \n 17th of September, 1940.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1920, "page_number": "1914", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "I had drafted plans in the sense of the old Ex-propriation Law of 1935. However, attorney Goetz at that time as head of the legal department, pointed out that the HTO demanded the proper regulation of the Polish Property Decree.\nThere was to be no division of the field of work of the HTO and of Agriculture. Legally, these things had to be settled in the same way, and for this reason, paragraph 12 of this Polish Property Decree was created, which defined the competency of the Reich Commissar, with regard to confiscation.\nQ.Who were the predecessors of the Reich Commissar with regard to the confiscation of the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.Measures of the Chief of the Civilian Administration in September, 1939, proceeded to the measures of the Reich Commissar. Then there was general confiscation on the part of the HTO.\nQ.At about what time?\nA.The first of November, 1939.\nQ.When and how did the Reich Commissar take part in this seizure?\nA.On the 10th of November, 1939, Himmler and Winkler, the head of the HTO, agreed that the field of Agriculture, and all the work therein were to be transferred to the Reich Commissar. On this basis, the competence of the Reich Commissar in the Polish Property Decree was founded.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar on the strength of this right of seizure, - did he do anything in practice?\nA.That was very difficult because this right of seizure was and remained restricted by the right of the Reich Food Ministry and of the Reichsland.\nQ.The administration of these agencies remained then, did it not?\nA.The Reichsland, and partly also the Settlement Comapnies, \n derived their rights from a Decree of the 12th of February, 1940, and the Decree of the 17th of September, 1940, expressly stated that the rights of the Reichsland were to be respected.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1921, "page_number": "1915", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Did the Reich Commissar, after the transfers of the seizure s have any alterations made in the real estate registers?\nA.The seizure on the part of the Reich Commissar was nothing but a registration, of the activity of what the Reichsland did in the field of running Agricultural enterprises; in the real estate registers no entries were casued by the Reich Commissar. However, the seizures according to the Decree of the 17th of September, 1940, were communicated to the Real Estate Registry Office.\nQ.What was the Settlement Order Agreement regarding the former public property of the Polish State?\nA.Regarding public property, that is, regarding the property of the state or of the municipalities or communities, etc., there was a special Decree of the 15th of January, 1940, if I correctly recall the date. According to this Decree, the administration of public property in Germany took over the property of the Polish State, and also the property of public bodies in Poland. We had settlement plans for a later date.\nIn the Reich we had experienced the fact that the administration of the Reich properties was very unwilling to hand over its property for the purposes of settlement, and consequently we offered to establish a claim at an early date for later settlement plans.\nQ.Did you ever exploit this claim?\nA.No, we never came to the date when we settled these people.\nQ.Was there a special regulation regarding this list of property which had been taken away from the state property under the rule of the Polish State?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1922, "page_number": "1916", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Generally speaking, we prevented the reversal of the seizures of land from the Polish national property. We prevented that the successes of the Polish agricultural reforms were reversed after 1939, also with regard to the property of the State we could point to efforts on the part of the administration of state property. It happened that small settlements created by this agricultural reform were destroyed by the administration of state property.\nQ.And you tried to prevent that?\nA.We tried to prevent it on principle, but we did not succeed in all cases.\nQ.Did you ever make the acquaintance of so-called blocking notices?\nA.Blocking notices were dealt with by the department of compensation or restitution, that is, with the attorney Dr. von Bohlen. I collaborated very closely with him.\nQ.And what was the meaning of these blocking notices?\nA.They represented a note in the files of the Main Staff Office, according to which the applicant was assured that his wishes as regards reacquisition would later find consideration.\nQ.The people who applied then were only people who had formerly had property in these territories, if I understood you correctly?\nA.The people concerned were exclusively Germans who had been expelled by the Poles after 1918.\nQ.Did these blocking notices result in any exchanges of property?\nA.No.\nQ.Were these blocking notices entered into the real estate register?\nA.No, they represented merely a note in the files.\nQ.Was this institution only in existence for agricultural property?\nA. von Bohlen tried to create something like this for indus \n trial enterprises as well.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1923, "page_number": "1917", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Whether he succeeded in that, I can no longer recall.\nQ.Do you know how many blocking notices were approved in toto?\nA.I estimate the figure to be about 250.\nQ.And how many applications for such blocking notices did the Main Staff Office receive?\nA.The number of applications was extremely high. A couple of thousand.\nQ.Among those people who received a blocking notice, Were there also trustees of the property in Question?\nA.The Reichsland had employed numerous trustees who formerly had been settled in the incorporated eastern territories and wanted to settle there again. If people of this kind applied for a blocking notice for themselves, they had to give up running the estate they had formerly owned.\nQ.And what was the reason for this procedure?\nA.We wanted to prevent the transfer of properties even in such secret ways via the trusteeship, and we forced the Reichsland to include in their business directives a corresponding directive.\nQ. when did you stop approving of blocking notices?\nA.It must have been in the spring or the summer of 1943. This was connected with the development of the war.\nQ.Thank you. Now, another question. Which department of the Main Staff Office dealt with the question of the exchange of farms destroyed by the war?\nA.This was likely dealt with by the Restitution Department.\nQ.May I ask you again to make a pause after each question of mine. How did this procedure of the exchange of farms destroyed by the war originate?\nA.The Reich Ministry of the Interior had to settle war damages, and it had received the idea instead of building up a farm d estroyed by the war to compensate the people concerned by giving them another \n farm, and they had approached our office with this proposal.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1924, "page_number": "1918", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "On the basis of this a directive was issued.\nQ.On the strength of this directive were such exchanges carried out?\nA.We only attempted it. First of all, we used two cases as experimental or test cases, and it appeared that the technical difficulties regarding entries in the landed estate book, etc., for instance, the transfer of mortgages from former owners to the new owners, that these difficulties could not be overcome.\nQ.That is, nothing was carried out?\nA.We never got beyond these two attempts.\nQ.With this sentiment, did you also think of compensating peasants or farmers in the Reich proper with farms of the Polish farmers?\nA.Nobody was thinking of that because in 1940 there was no such thing\nQ.Thank you. Did you know anything about the seizures in the areas of the chiefs of the Civil Administration in Lower Styria and Corinthia?\nA.The special decrees of the chief of the Civil Administration were valid. They differed principally from the incorporated eastern territory by the fact that the seizure in Lower Styria and Corinthia were carried out in favor of the Reichsgaue Styria and Corinthia, that do, not in favor of the German Reich as represented by the Reich commissar.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar have any influence on the use of the property seized?\nA.The influence on the chief of the Civil Administration, especially in Lower Styria and Corinthia, was very insignificant. We were not in a position to issue directives.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1925, "page_number": "1919", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 4 December 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal would like to suggest to both counsel and the witness that from the Tribunal's viewpoint, much detail is being dealt with that will not be helpful to the Tribunal. The Tribunal has not interfered, but we feel it only fair to counsel to state at this time, the time is rapidly approaching, and would probably be here now except for the absence of Dr. Haensel, when further cumulative evidence will not be heard. Application has been made for approximately a hundred witnesses, and it will be impossible and impractical and without benefit to the Tribunal to continue to pile cumulative evidence into the case; so that very seen a very definite restriction will be laid down as to cumulative testimony. I make this statement so that counsel may utilize the time left by getting right down to the facts.\nGo ahead.\nSIEGFRIED GOLLING -- Resumed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION -- Continued. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQ.Witness, we were talking about the right of carrying out seizures. What happened in the territories which were under the chiefs of the Civil Administration in the West? Was it possible for the Main Staff Office to exert any influence or to gain any insight on the seizure regulations which were in effect there?\nA.The decrees of the Chiefs of the Civil Administration in the West were extremely confusing. In spite of all my efforts, I did not succeed in trying to look through all this prevailing confusion. Actually I can't tell you anything about it.\nQ.Was the only success of the Main Staff Office in this field the execution of a right of seizure on the property of the people who had been deported as a basis for the property indemnification?\nA.Yes, it did. It was included for that particular purpose, \n and very long negotiations took place on the subject.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1926, "page_number": "1920", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "It is very difficult for me to give you any details about that subject.\nQ.The Prosecution has charged that deportations were carried out in connection with settlement drives. Can you give me some information about that? First of all, for what reasons and to what extent were already before the beginning of all the settlements farmsteads vacated in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.At the outbreak of the war a large number of poles had fled. Furthermore, the district councilors in the various districts had asked the native ethnic German population there to look after farm estates which had been administered before by Poles. As a result of this many Poles had left or had been forced to leave. Furthermore, already during the actual campaign, the Security Police had deported numerous persons. This drive then was continued in the winter of 1939 and throughout the year 1940.\nQ.Are there any statistics which include these deportation drives?\nA.Yes, the Main Staff Office compiled statistics in this connection.\nQ.In this connection are you referring to the \"Menscheneinsatz\"?\nA.Yes, that is what I am referring to.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Those statistics which deal with the State Police deportations are Exhibit 673 in Document Book 5-G. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQ.In order to accommodate the resettlers from the Baltic countries, did any farm estates have to be vacated?\nA.That was not necessary because at the time there were sufficient farms available for the Baltic resettlers of which there were not many. Here they were appointed as custodians.\nQ.Were deportations necessary in order to carry cut the exchange resettlement at Lublin?\nA.With regard to this exchange resettlement of the Lublin Ger \n mans, I don't want to use the term \"deportations\" at all because the situation here was that a German and a Pole would exchange their farms.", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1927, "page_number": "1921", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "As far as I was concerned, I never considered this to be any deportation measure at all.\nQ.Were deportations necessary in order to resettle Germans from Bessarabia?\nA.The Germans from Bessarabia came in 1942 and 1943, and then they were taken to the incorporated eastern territories. During this time, no deportation measures were carried out.\nQ.Does the same thing apply to the resettlers from Bukowina?\nA.The resettlers from Bukowina were settled in Upper Silesia for the most part. With the ownership conditions in that territory, there was sufficient space in order to accommodate all these people and take care of them there. Furthermore, most of these resettlers came from larger cities and moved into the neighborhood of the industrial area of Upper Silesia. There Were sufficient facilities in order to find a place of work for them.\nQ.Did sufficient accommodations exist for Germans from Russia who came into the Reich in the middle and end of '44 with the retreating German armies, or were any deportations carried out?\nA.The Germans from Russia were only given shelter whenever it was possible for us to do so.\nQ.Therefore, the only group for which any deportation drives were necessary, were the Germans from the Welhynia?\nA.When we assigned the Welhynia Germans, it is possible that the assignment and accommodations of the resettlers steed in some connection with a deportation drive.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office or any subordinate agencies carry out any deportations?\nA.The Main Staff Office did not carry out any deportation drives, nor did it have the authority to do so.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1928, "page_number": "1922", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Who was competent for deportations?\nA.The Reich Security Main Office, with the UWZ, one of its subordinate agencies.\nQ.Did the working staffs have any influence on the selection of the people to be departed?\nA.The working staffs did not select the persons to be deported.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office, in order to pacify the areas in which it had to work, avoid all movements of the population which were not necessary?\nA.In several points we exerted our influence to the effect that no movements of the population should be carried cut. I want to give you a special example for this. That is the general decree in order to improve the conditions for ethnic Germans in the districts. This was Decree Number 94. We had just issued this decree in order to stop the orders of the district councillors that these Germans were to take care of other properties as custodians.\nQ.Was it intended that the people who were deported should be given some sort of indemnification?\nA.Yes, I have already mentioned before that on the basis of the law about expropriation of real estate on behalf of the Wehrmacht, I had already drafted several suggestions. Later on, on another occasion I submitted these suggestions once more. I did this together with Attorney Wirsich.\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, may it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution wishes to object to the testimony of the witness as to what he would have liked to have done. We feel that the testimony here should be concerned with the facts as to what was done.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, that sort of testimony will not be helpful to the Tribunal in any respect and the only reason that the Tribunal is not limiting it itself without objection is that counsel has been warnod that the time for taking this sort of testimony is about over and we determined that you can use the remainder as you see fit.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1929, "page_number": "1923", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Could I ask you to give me some information about two incidents which have been discussed hare by the prosecution? First of all, the drive in the district of Bielitz, the seizure of furniture and household goods, when the Ministry of Justice had addressed to the Main Staff Office a complaint about this drive. Did that come to your knowledge at the time?\nA.As far as I am able to judge at this time, this must be a measure which Stebsfuehrer Arlt, who was situated at Kattowitz, had ordered. At the time he himself came to Berlin. The agency at Kattowitz had taken measures against polish persons on whose estates resettlers had been appointed as custodians by the Upper Silesian Resettlement Company. When taking over these properties, the resettlers allegedly were to receive the household goods and the furniture. However, as Arlt described it, this had not been carried out in accordance with existing regulations so that the resettlers did not have all the pieces of property with which they had been charged.\nQ.What steps were taken in order to remedy the situation?\nA.The agency at Kattowitz took matters in its own hands by enforcing the seizure law.\nQ.Would it have been competent to do so or Would it have been some other agency?\nA.The Upper Silesian Real Estate Company would have had to take care of that ordinarily.\nQ.And what happened when the complaint about this drive was received by the Main Staff Office?\nA.Of course we had to notify Arlt that the office in Upper Silesia had not acted in a correct manner. On the other hand, something had not been done in the proper way before had been remedied now as a result of this measure, so that the Main Staff Office informed the Ministry of Justice to take any action in this matter.\nQ.Was this drive an exceptional matter?\nA.Yes, it was a unique case.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1930, "page_number": "1924", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Now I am coming to another subject. The witness von dem Bach-Zalowski stated in the course of his examination that a deportation drive had taken place in the district of Seybusch. In this connection he mentioned local resettlement plans which were the basis of this drive. Do you knew anything about such plans?\nA.I talked to the representative of the Upper Silesian Real Estate Company and on these occasions I also saw plans. These plans dealt with the fact that the ownership conditions of real estate in the district of Seybusch must be clarified and these plans were to show that later on the property which had been split up into many parts should be consolidated.\nQ.These probably were development plans and they were customary also in the Reich?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And who initiated the drafting of these plans?\nA.This work was done by the former staff leader at Kattowitz. His name was Mueller-Altenau and he gave the order to the Upper Silesian Real Estate Company to carry out this work.\nQ.When these plans were submitted, who was the representative of the Reich Commissar in Upper Silesia?\nA.Mueller-Altenau was the staff leader as long as Herr von dem Bach-Zalewski was the representative of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Was the settlement staff in that area which was charged with carrying out this drive composed differently than the other settlement staffs?\nA.Yes, Staff Leader Mueller-Altenau did not organize the settlement staff as a field office of this agency but as a working community and in addition this agency collaborated with the district councillor, the district peasant leader, and the local police authorities.\nQ.Was this fact of importance for these deportation rives?\nA.Yes. After all, the deportation drive took place now in the district of Seybusch in direct connection with the accommodation of the \n Germans from Galicia who were to be settled in that area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1931, "page_number": "1925", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.This was done because of a special case?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was this deportation drive, in spite of Greifelt's presence as a spectator, a purely local affair?\nA.At the time this unique or new principle was to be introduced; it was to be an example towards the other methods which were employed in the Warthegau.\nQ.And who had the intention to give this example?\nA.That was the agency at Kattowitz. However the man who had the idea, Mueller-Altenau, was not with that agency anymore. His successor, Herr Arlt, had already arrived.\nQ.Was your work of accommodating rural resettlers subject to an ever-growing pressure in the course of the years, as a result of the numerous waves of resettlers who arrived?\nA.From the very beginning it was not possible for us to take care of the many rural resettlers in agriculture. The more resettlers arrived, the more difficult it became for us to find a place for them.\nQ.Were any resettlement drives carried out in order to realize settlement plans which had already been planned previously, or was it vice versa?\nA.I can only say that the new waves of resettlers who arrived constantly actually overwhelmed us.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Thank you. I have no further Questions.", "speakers": [ "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1932, "page_number": "1926", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Court1, Case 8 4 Dec 1947_A_15_1_Fox (Garand)\nDR. MERKEL:I have only a very few questions on behalf of the defendant Creutz. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQWitness, during year activity in Office 4, did you ever ask Creutz why settlers were to be assigned to Lublin?\nAInitially we had no connection at all with Lublin. Afterwards a resettler came from the Baltic countries whom we had excluded from the Warthegua.-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, I can well understand the lawyer's desire to make a speech every time a question is asked. But he asked you a question that calls for a smiple answer.\nTHE WITNESS:May I hear the question once more, please?\nQDaring your activity in Office 4, did you have a discussion with the defendant Creutz, did you negotiate with him about the question of the assignment of settlers in Lublin?\nAYes -\nQThat is sufficient. And why did you do that?\nABecause there was a resettler from the Baltic countries who pointed out to us that resettlements were taking place in that area. We then sent an expert from Office 4 to Lublin in order to investigate the matter and in order to find out what was happening there. When we received his report we had a conference with Creutz about the situation.\nQAnd what did the defendant Creutz state at the time?\nAHe said that we were not interested in the measures which were being taken at Lublin. He advised us not to occupy ourselves any further with this matter.\nQWitness, for identification I am now going to put to you Creutz' document 1. This is an organizational chart of the defendant, of August 1940. Is this chart correct?\nAIn general, yes. However, I would count the Finance Department as being one of the main departments. It does not became quite \n 4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_15_2_Fox (Garand) clear to me at this time whether the individual fields of work are listed here correctly and completely.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1933, "page_number": "1927", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QWitness, I am not interested in that. I only want to know whether the chart corresponds to the organization at that time in general, as it was drafted by the defendant Creutz.\nAYes.\nQAt the time, were all departments, all main departments, subordinated directly to the chief of the agency?\nAYes.\nQWhat changes were brought about ny the new organizational chart of the defendant Creutz of August 1942?\nAPrimarily, the office groups were established and some offices were taken out of the departments which had existed prior to that time.\nQWhat did the establishment of the office groups mean, which is provided for in this chart of 1942?\nAI never correctly understood the idea of this subdivision. I would like to say that in this organizational change I only saw the desire that something was to be construed artificially which actually did not exist.\nQWere the fundamental documents signed by Greifelt or Creutz?\nAFundamental letters were usually signed by the chief of the main office.\nQAnd who signed the mail usually?\nAThe chief of the main department or later on the office chief would sign the mail.\nQDid this change through the establishment of the office groups later on?\nAHardly.\nQDo you know whether and for what periods of time the entire Legal Department was subordinated to the defendant Creutz?\nAThrough a business distribution plan of 1942 the legal department was included in the Office Z. Herr Creutz was in charge of Office Z.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1934, "page_number": "1928", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_15_3_Fox (Garand)\nQDid Creutz have the possibility of having any influence on the work of the legal department?\nAHerr Creutz was not legal expert and the legal department was impossible for Creutz to do anything about legal matters.\nQWas this only the case with regard to the legal department or also with regard to other departments of the central office which you have just mentioned, which was subordinated formally to the defendant Creutz?\nAThe department heads of the Department of Restitution and the Department of Statistics had direct access to the chief of the main office.\nQWas the central office under Creutz consequently a unit just like all the other offices?\nAThe central office contained different individual departments. They were consolidated here strictly from the organizational point of view.\nQAnd who represented the Main Staff Office twoard the outside?\nAThat was the chief of the main office.\nQWas Creutz able to make independent decisions?\nAI would like to put it this way; he did not do it.\nQDo you know what the relation was between Creutz and the chief of Office 2, Hinze?\nAHerr Creutz did not agree with Hinze's occupying that position.\nQWhy not?\nAWe were a government agency and all our collaborators had been selected accordingly. Herr Hinze did not fit into that group.\nQWhat influence could Creutz exert on Office 4 or the Central Land Office?\nAI can say with regard to Office 4 that he did not have any influence there. Herr Heike, the office chief, always worked very closely with the chief of the main office and he refused any interference on the part of Creutz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1935, "page_number": "1929", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_15_4_Fox (Garand)\nQAnd finally what influence did Cruetz have on the main department for the allocation of People, \"Menscheneisatz,\" under Dr. Fehndrich?\nADr. Fehndrich was a young man who wanted to have his own way. Without having any experience on the subject, by handling matters skillfully, he tried to get ahead in his position. Furthermore, he had been one of Greifelt's collaborators for many years so that it was impossible for Creutz to interfere in the relationship between Breifelt and Fehndrich.\nQDo you know what the attitude of Creutz was, in general, with regard to the work done by the Main Staff Office?\nAOn several occasions he descussed general questions with me. For this reason I know that he welcomed our efforts that the many disturbances in Eastern Europe should he removed, as a result of the resettlement drive. He always mentioned the fact that the fate of the resettlers was so important that everything should be done in order to assist them. He just had a humane interest in them. He did not show any particular interest in the individual work which was being done.\nQNow, my last two questions. Did Creutz frequently have discussions with Himmler?\nAI know -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he simply asked you if he had frequent discussions with Himmler. That is all.\nANo, he tried to avoid them.\nQWas Creutz Himmler's deputy in his capacity as Reich Commissar?\nAThat is not the subject under discussion. No.\nDR. MERKEL:Please restrict yourself to answering my questions. Thank you. Your Honor, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1936, "page_number": "1930", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_1_Gross (Garand) DR. BEHLING for the defendant Meyer-Hetling:\nYour Honor, this witness has been approved for the defense of my client so that I can call him as my own witness. With the permission of the Tribunal I shall now examine this witness as briefly as possible so that I shall not need him again later on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, you may examine him at this time because you would not be permitted to examine him at any other time. Please do not cover territory that has already been covered by other counsel in the case. Now I might make this statement for your benefit. I do not believe you were in the courtroom at the time it was made. The time for this cumulative testimony is about over. We cannot continue to proceed under cumulative testimony, I mean with reference to all the various organizations. We are going to move very soon on to the individual activities of these defendants. I just caution you in that particular that you may use this little time that is left as you see fit.\nDR. BERLING:I understand very well, your Honor, and that is why I shall only address questions to the witness which have not yet been discussed by my colleagues. I shall only go into these questions as far as is necessary in order to clarify the position of Herr Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. BERLING:\nQWitness, you were talking about the activities of the agricultural experts immediately after the conclusion of the campaign in Poland. Is it correct that through these agricultural experts seizures had been carried out?\nAYes, numerous seizures had been carried out by these agricultural experts.\nQIs it correct that prior to the CDZ decree which you mentioned seizures had already been carried out as a result of decrees of the Commander in Chief of the Army and that at the time custodians had already been hired to administer these properties?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. BERLING", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1937, "page_number": "1931", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "AThe activities of these district agricultural experts were based initially on orders issued by the Commander in Chief of the Army. Then the chiefs of the civil Administration issued subsequent orders. The activities of the district agricultural experts during this period of time can be described as an extensive seizure drive.\nQDid you yourself later on find signs on farm estates which confirmed the fact that such seizures had been carried out.\nAI do not want to go into detail with regard to the dates of the seizure decrees. However, it was a fact, if I understood you correctly, that in spite of the so-called Polish Property Decree of 9 September 1940 the authority to carry out seizures continued on the basis of the order of 12 February 1940 and the activities of the Reichsland Company remained unrestricted.\nConsequently, was the activity of the Main staff Office only a registration of properties which had already been subjected to this seizure?\nAIt was nothing else in reality. In order to explain this matter I want to point out that not even Herr Hieke or myself were allowed to inspect individual properties without first obtaining permission from the Reichsland Company.\nQConsequently, it is correct that this activity of the Central Land Office was purely declarational?\nAYes, I consider it to be just that.\nQAnd how was this registration carried out?\nAThe Central Land Office had compliled questionnaires of registration where the size, composition, and survey of the inventory and value of the agricultural property had to be stated.\nQWere these questionnaires filled out in close collaboration with the Polish mayors of the individual localities?\nAThe registration questionnaires were printed in two languages and the officials of the Land Office were to work on them with the collaboration of the Polish Mayors.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1938, "page_number": "1932", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QWhen did the registration of real estate which had already been seized begin?\nAThe registration of real estate began in 1940. Only after this had been done the so-called seizure began. I am unable to give you the exact time when this took place.\nQThen you spoke about confiscations. Who had to decide when and where a confiscation had to be carried out. Was it the Central Land Office or the defendant Meyer-Hetling or some other agency?\nAThe Central Land Office received its instructions to what extent it had to carry out confiscations or in what individual place a confiscation was to take place. It received those instructions from the Chief of the Main Office if instructions were not issued by a higher agency. The Chief of the Main Office issued his instructions only after having made an inquiry previously and after the agricultural office had recommended this action.\nQDid the Central Land Office consequently only have to carry out the real estate registration procedure in this respect?\nAYes, the Central Land Office just was charged with the carrying out of orders. The fundamental decision had been made previously.\nQIn the Central Land Office was there ever a department for the turning over of land?\nAThe Department \"Landabgabe\", the department of turning in land in exchange for real estate, was located within Office IV.\nQJust who dealt with the legal questions of the Central Land Office?\nAFirst of all there was a legal Department in the Central Land Office itself. Later on the Legal Department of the Central Land Office was consolidated with the general legal department.\nQDid it ever come to your knowledge whether the Land Office carried out confiscations for resettlement purposes?\nAI never heard anything about that.\nQIs it correct that in the areas under the control of the Chiefs \n 4 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_4_Gross (Garand) of the Civil Administration, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Alsace, Southern Corinthia, and Styria, special orders, were put into effect which were to regulate seizures?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1939, "page_number": "1933", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AHere the Chiefs of the Civil Administration gave the necessary orders.\nAI read a part of them and a part of them was not quite comprehensible to me, especially those issued in the West. I was never able to completely llok at the decrees which were issued there.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1940, "page_number": "1934", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQYou then spoke about the confiscation of real estate for deportation purposes, as donations. Can you confirm to me that the defendant Meyer turned against arbitrary acts when somebody tried to dispose of this property.\nAI can recall things which took place in the District of Zichenau where Senior President Koch had given a very large estate to the so-called Erich Koch Foundation. This was at the beginning of the war when ha was still Chief of the Civil Administration. Herr Meyer took it upon himself to lodge a protest with Koch. However, Koch remained completely inaccessible as it was always the case.\nQKoch was inaccessible?\nAYes, it was Koch.\nQWas Koch a strong man in a political sense?\nAWe never succeeded on any occasion in enforcing our will against the will of Koch.\nQI do not want to go into any further details with regard to the organization of the Main Staff Office for the time of 1940 to 1942. I only want you to tell me one thing, witness: Can you confirm to me whether the defendant Meyer or the Central Land Office had anything to do with the assignment of the German resettlers?\nAThe Central Land Office was only a real estate registration agency and that is why it was not included in the work of the Main Staff Office to accommodate resettlers.\nQDid the defendant Meyer or his department have any decisive influence in the field of work of any other agency or department?\nAThe Planning Office which was directed by Meyer was a scientific agency. It was more of a research office. Consequently there was no real opportunity to include him in the factual work.\nQWas the Planning Office a control agency for the general policy of the Main Staff Office?\nAWell, the Planning Office was a scientific research agency. I don't quite understand your question. It doesn't seem to fit in here.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1941, "page_number": "1935", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWas the Planning Office decisive in influencing the daily work of the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQYou stated before that the office groups which had been newly established did not cause any practical change in the previous business procedure. Were any special offices established in the office groups?\nAThe chiefs of the office group did not have any special office.\nQCan you confirm to me that the defendant Meyer carried out an honorary activity in the Staff Main Office?\nAHe told me that on several occasions.\nQIs it correct that the Central Land Office was not authorized to confiscate cultural goods or church property or to seize it?\nAThe property of the church, as far as I know, was subject to the order of 15 January 1940, with regard to public property. The seizure of cultural objects was carried out by the HTO.\nQConsequently the defendant Meyer had nothing to do with it?\nANo, he did not.\nQIt is correct that the Planning Office, as a result of the so-called Stop Decree slowly disintegrated in 1943? Will you please answer that?\nAYes, the simplification measures almost brought the work of the Planning Office to a complete halt. That was in the year 1943.\nQIs it correct that Office Group C after the Main Office was transferred to Schweikelberg was practically dissolved?\nAYes.\nQCan you tell me who after the departure of Freiherr von Holzschuh in June 1940 became chief of the Central Land Office?\nAI am not quite informed about that. Herr Mundl who had been the deputy of Holzschuh after that time was in charge of the business that was carried out. Then the consolidation took place between the Main \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1942, "page_number": "1936", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Department Planning and the Central Land Office. It was then called Main Department Land and Planning. I am not quite certain whether this consolidation took place immediately after the departure of Herr von Holzschuh.\nQDid this temporary consolidation between Main Department Planning and the Central Land Office bring about an actual consolidation of these two offices or was this only a purely temporary organizational measure?\nAIt was a temporary organizational measure.\nQIs it correct that after the introduction of the organizational chart of 1942 Mundl took over the position of Chief of the Central Land Office?\nAAccording to the business distribution plan of 1942 Mundt became chief of the Central Land Office.\nQDid the defendant Meyer occupy himself to a considerable extent with business transactions of the Central Land Office?\nANo.\nQAnd just what leads you to assume that?\nAFirst of all he was a Professor at the University of Berlin. Beyond that he was the scientific consultant for this planning assignment in the Central Land Office and a real estate registration agency did not arouse his interes.\nQCan you tell me just in what field in particular Meyer had carried out his work?\nAHe took it upon himself to find new idealistic forms about the development of farm estates. After that he himself tried to find the proper forms for an ideal farming community. Then he began to investigate the organizational development of an entire rural district. That was his particular field of interest.\nQWas this planning work only to be put into effect after the war?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1943, "page_number": "1937", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWas any of this planning ever realized?\nAI cannot recall that.\nQWitness, you were talking about plans of the Upper Silesian Real Estate Company in connection with the drive at Seybusch. To whom was this company subordinated?\nAIt was subordinated to the Department of Agriculture with the Senior President at Kattowitz.\nQDid the Staff Main Office have anything to do with this company?\nAThis department of the Senior President was subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Food and not the Main Staff Office.\nQConsequently the defendant Meyer had nothing to do with these plans?\nANo.\nQCan you recall any collaborators of the defendant Meyer in the Main Staff Office who, according to the political understanding at the time were considered to be politically unreliable?\nAYes, I can give you the names of Herr Kristalla, Herr von Schaureuth, Herr von Nagowy, and also Herr Krause.\nQWere these people acclaimed enemies of the NSDAP and were they under Gestapo observation?\nAIt was well known of Herr Kristalla. Herr von Schauroth told me about it himself. I know it from Herr Meyer with regard to the other people.\nQDid the defendant Meyer have difficulties in order to cover up for these people and in order to keep them in his office?\nAYes, he complained frequently about difficulties which confronted him as a result of that.\nQIs it correct that the defendant Meyer had a severe dispute with Herr Backe of the Reich Ministry of Food so that the Reich Ministry of Food refused to collaborate any further with the defendant Meyer?\nAAfter the Reich Minister Backe had taken over the direction \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1944, "page_number": "1938", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "of the Reich Ministry of Food there was a certain amount of collaboration for the time being with Herr Meyer. However in the year 1943 this relationship changed completely, so that the Reich Minister of Food did not want to go on working with him.\nQNow, my last question. Was the defendant Mayer ever the deputy of the Chief of Main Office or was he the deputy of the deputy of the Chief of the Main Office?\nAI know nothing about that.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. I have now concluded my direct examination.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1945, "page_number": "1939", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "DR. KLINNERT:Klinnert for the defendant Schwarzenberger.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. KLINNERT:\nQ.Witness, did Office 5, the Financial Administration, or Herr Schwarzenberger as Chief of the Financial Administration have any influence on the measures which resulted from the tasks of Office 4?\nA.To thecontrary. Herr Hiege expressly refused such an influence. Even on one occasion when Schwarzenberger expressed misgivings about an order of Hiege, he refuted that with sharp words. Ever since that time Schwarzenberger did not exert any influence.\nQ.Was the assignment of resettlers to settlement properties dependent on the agreement and approval of the Financial Administration?\nA.No.\nQ.Was Office 5 consulted at all when negotiations took place about these measures?\nA.No.\nQ.Who appointed the rent to be paid and other payments to be made which resulted from the assignment of the resettlers and which were to be paid to the accounts of the people who had turned in the property?\nA.This was handled by the D.U.T. through an agreement with the Agricultural Department.\nQ.And for what agency did Office 5 receive the instructions to accept these payments?\nA.It received these instructions from the Department of Agriculture.\nQ.Then was it tied to these instructions?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know what agency fixed the surveying fees for the DAG?\nA.These fees were fixed by the Agricultural Department upon the request of the DAG.\nQ.Were the instructions from the Agricultural Department also \n obligatory to Office 5 to that extent?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. KLINNERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1946, "page_number": "1940", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Office 5 had to comply with instructions from the Agricultural Department.\nDR. KLINNERT:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. MUELLER:Mueller for the defendant Huebner.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Witness, from what position do you know the defendant Huebner?\nA.He was a staff leader of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar at Posen.\nQ.And to whom was the agency subordinated of which Huebner was a member?\nA.The agency was subordinated to the Reichstatthalter as representative of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.And who was actually in charge of the agency?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leader of Posen was actually in charge and he was the deputy of the representative of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.What tasks did Huebner have as Staff Leader?\nA.He was in charge of the organization of that agency. The personnel section was also subordinated to him. He was in charge of the personnel section there and the utility section, for example, the procurement of vehicles and things of that sort. He was not only in charge of that with regard to the agency in Posen itself but also with regard to the working staffs.\nQ.Beyond that did this Staff Leader have any influence on the factual work of the agency?\nA.The factual work of the agency was handled by the chief of the agency, that is to say, in practice by the higher SS and Police Leader and all department chiefs or the chiefs of the Main Department.\nQ.Whenever you came to Posen with whom would you discuss your factual questions?", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. KLINNERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1947, "page_number": "1941", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.I would discuss factual questions with the chief of the Main Department of Agriculture. It was either Herr Eichinger or Herr Schroeder.\nQ.Were you able to observe from whom these men received factual instructions within the agency?\nA.In the course of these discussions it happened frequently that they had to make some inquiries. They were usually telephoned Koppe, who was the higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.Thank you. Whenever you want to Posen did you also establish contact with Huebner?\nA.Naturally. I would pay my first visit at Posen to him. This was just a matter of courtesty. After all, he was the senior department chief.\nQ.Who signed the letters of Main Department IV at Posen which were addressed to the Main Staff Office as far as they contained official information?\nA.Official letters were signed by the Chief of the Main Department Agriculture. This would be Herr Eichinger or Herr Schroeder.\nQ.And who signed factual correspondence?\nA.The most important letters were signed by Koppe who was the Higher-SS and Police Leader.\nQ.Did the agency of which Huebner was a. member deal with the same field of work as the Staff Main Office?\nA.I beg your pardon? I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.I asked you whether the factual competency of the agency of which Huebner was a member was the same as that of the Main Staff Office, or was it larger?\nA.The field of work of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar corresponded to the field of work of the Main Staff Office.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1948, "page_number": "1942", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "DR. PRACHT:Pracht for the defendant Hildebrandt.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. PRACHT:\nQ.Witness, did you have anything to do with the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar in Danzig-West Prussia?\nA.Yes.\nQ.With what departments of the representative in Danzig-West Prussia, did you collaborate?\nA.I worked with the Agricultural Department, and at the time it was subordinated to Herr Duckart.\nQ.Was the factual work between the corresponding departments in Berlin and Danzig-West Prussia, clarified and settled directly?\nA.Duckart went to Berlin very frequently, and there he would obtain instructions and advise from us. Consequently, there was a direct close collaboration. The same thing applied to Herr Boog who later on took over the department.\nQ.In this connection did any difficulties arise, for example, with the Reich Food Ministry and other agencies?\nA.The difficulties with the Reich Food Ministry and the District Peasant Leader at Danzig -- I have forgotten his name in the meantime -were very great.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Hildebrandt personally?\nA.On one occasion on an official journey I paid a short visit to him.\nQ.Can you give me any information as to whether Hildebrandt was able to always carry out the instructions and orders from the Main Staff Office in the district of Danzig-West Prussia?\nA.The Main Staff Office had had the bad experience that the representative there was not able to achieve anything against Reichsstatthalter Forster.\nQ.Thank you. Can you answer my last question now? Just who established the DAG and who was in control of it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1949, "page_number": "1943", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.The German Settlement Company -- the DAG -- was an old settlement company which, I believe, was established in 1920 by the Dresdner Bank. In 1938 it was always the only recognized independent settlement company, and at that time it was the generally authorized settlement company in Austria, and that, for example, explains its activity in Styria.\nQ.And who was in charge of it, if I may ask?\nA.All the settlement companies were under the supervision of the Reich Ministry of Food.\nDR. PRACHT:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further from the Defense?\nThe Tribunal this afternoon will be required to recess a little longer than usual, so that the Tribunal will recess at this time for twenty minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1950, "page_number": "1944", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nSIEGFRIED GOLLING - (Continued) CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in direct examination you testified that when you worked on the problem of resettling people you did not consider racial qualifications. When you worked on the problem of resettling people, wasn't this generally after these persons had been classified as \"A\", \"O\", and \"S\" cases?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you. In connection with the properties which had not been given to so-called trustees by the Reichsland, was it not the Main Staff Office which appointed trustees for these properties?\nA.No; this happened in the case of the peasant resettlers through the working staff which brought them to the farm and handed them over to the settlement companies there, and in the case of larger farms it happened in connection with the Reichsland. Perhaps I may have misunderstood something. I am not quite clear what you are driving at.\nQ.Witness, you testified on direct examination that before the Main Staff Office took an active part in connection with the appointment of trustees for property in the Eastern Incorporated Territories, that in many cases trustees had been appointed by the Reichsland organization. I am now interested in property which did not have trustees appointed by the Reichsland. They had obviously not covered all the property in that territory.\nA.The right of the Reichsland referred to the entire property in the Incorporated Eastern Territories except the property of Germans, that is, people who had been settled in that District. The Reichsland had appointed a trustee for \n every property.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1951, "page_number": "1945", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "In the case of larger farms, farms that had done so directly, in the case of smaller farms, it had installed a supervising body or person.\nQ.Witness, when the Main Staff Office became active in this connection, didn't the local representative of the Main Staff Office have to agree to the trustee appointed by the settlement companies?\nA.No.\nQ.Witness, are you familiar with the resettlement of the so-called \"A\" cases?\nA.I am not very familiar with the \"A\" cases.\nQ.Do you know who supervised the resettlement of the \"A\" cases?\nA.The placement of \"A\" cases in agriculture as independent farmers took place through Department IV, that is as far as direction is concerned through the Department of Agriculture. In the Reich proper the provincial settlement companies were at their disposal in order to help in this work. As far as farmers are concerned who did not work independently, the direction of this placement was in the hands, first of all, of the so-called Settlement Staff in Austria, which later developed into Department II.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1952, "page_number": "1946", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QWitness, you testified on direct examination that some resettlets in the Incorporated Eastern Territories were released from the control of the Reichsland or settlement companies. Can you tell the Tribunal who then supervised these resettlers?\nAThese resettlers too were subordinated after this so-called allocation to the farmers settlement companies.\nQDid these resettlers who had been, so to speak, released from some control, then own their farms? Or were they still considered trustees?\nAThey were still trustees.\nQDo you know, witness what happened to the owners from whom these properties had been taken?\nAPart of these owners belonged to that group which already, at the beginning of the war, was no longer settled in the places concerned. Another part belonged to that group which had been evacuated to the Government-General. A third part remained in their homes and they were only pushed aside. Partly, they remained under farms which a resettler managed.\nQWitness, in any of these cases did the original owner get any compensation for his farm?\nAThis happened within the framework of Directive No. 12, No. 12-C. As for the rest, it was a case of projects-\nQI haven't quite understood your answer, witness. I would like to repeat the question; Did the original owners get anything?\nATo what extent Directive 12 was carried out, I do not know.\nQDo you know whether the owners got anything, witness? Just answer Yes or No, please.\nAI don't know anything about it.\nQThank you. Witness, you spoke of certain properties being given to individuals by the Main Staff Office the legal owner?\nAIn these cases the property had been confiscated previously, and in these cases the Main staff Office had previously become the \n owner, according to the registry of landed property--that is, the German Reich represented by the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1953, "page_number": "1947", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QWitness, you testified that this money received for these properties was put in a certain account. Do you know what happened to it afterwards?\nAThe land transfer account conducted by the office was an account of the German Reich, and the money was transferred to the German Minister of Finance.\nQWitness, in the cases of land taken for military use, did you transfer the ownership--that is, the legal title as well as the possession--to the German armed forces?\nAI didn't quite understand you.\nQWitness, you mentioned in direct examination that certain property was confiscated and turned over to the armed forces for military maneuvers and other military purposes. Is that not correct?\nAYes.\nQWhen that property was turned over, witness, was legal ownership transferred; was the legal title transferred?\nAYes; the armed forces became owners and proprietors--the German Reich, as represented by the Finance Department of the armed forces.\nQWitness, you mention certain cases where the property was leased by trustees because it could not be sold to them. Were these trustees resettlers?\nAThere were two kinds of possibilities of leasing farms. The first was carried out by the Reichsland which had quite a number of lease agreements. The second possibility comprised a few cases in which, for instance, as I mentioned, a gravel pit was to be sold but for some reason it was not yet possible to sell the gravel pit; and in such a case the Land Office concluded a lease agreement.\nQWitness, I am not quite interested in as much detail as the defense counsel. All I would like to know in this case is were any of these leases signed with resettlers?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1954, "page_number": "1948", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "ANo lease agreements were concluded with resettlers.\nQThank you. Witness, you testified that the so-celled \"blocking notice\" was merely a promise of future consideration. In cases where a trustee was appointed for the property, wasn't that trustee to be given consideration in the future when it came to the permanent possession of that property?\nAThe term \"promise\" did not refer to the transfer of a property but rather it referred to the fact that consideration was promised.\nQYes, witness, I understand that. What I mean is when a trustee was appointed, did not that trustee understand that at some later date he would be given consideration when it came to getting permanent possession of the property; I don't mean a promise that he would have the property.\nAThere were many trustees who were of this opinion, and we took great pains to fight this opinion which was completely erroneous.\nQWitness, in settling these people in the eastern territories, you appointed individual trustees for farms and other enterprises, agricultural enterprises, did you not?\nAThe Reichsland appointed trustees but we did not appoint them.\nQWitness, did you have nothing to say about who should be a trustee of a certain farm when you wanted to put a resettler on that farm?\nAYes, we got our way as far as resettlers were concerned, as far as the Reichsland dealt with these matters, but in those other cases-\nQWitness, when you asked the Reichsland--or ordered them I am not interested in that now--to put a certain resettler on a farm, was not that done with a view to resettling the man on that farm permanently and not temporarily?\nAIt was merely our hope--but we could not assume any fixed position in this respect, nor did we want to do this.\nQWitness, wasn't it the real reason for the objection by your \n office to these so-called \"blocking notices\" which were given in behalf of Germans coming back from Germany, the fact that you had so many resettlers from other countries whom you wanted to resettle in this area?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1955, "page_number": "1949", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "ANo; the reason was that we did not desire any changes in proprietorship during the war.\nQWitness, did this \"blocking notice\" bring about any change in proprietorship?\nANo.\nQI should like to discuss now the point that was brought out on direct examination of the exchange of destroyed or damaged farms for undamaged farms. To whom did the destroyed farms belong?\nAThe destroyed farms, for which an exchange was envisaged, belonged to ethnic Germans settled in the eastern territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1956, "page_number": "1950", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "QAnd to whom, witness, did the undamaged farms given in exchange, belong?\nAThe substitute farms, so to speak, were to be provided by the Main Staff Office.\nQWitness, where did the Main Staff Office intend to get these substitute farms?\nAAt the time we thought of using farms among the many enterprises which were subject to seizure.\nQThank you, witness. Witness, on direct examination you mentioned A man named Hinze. Do you know what Hinze did in Lower Styria and Corinthia?\nAHe, as well as my office chief, Hiege, told me that he, Hinze, had carried out an evacuation in broader territories of Styria.\nQDo you know, witness, the functions of the UWZ?\nAI believe I do.\nQDo you know the relationship between the YWZ and the Main Staff Office?\nAI believe there was no connection.\nQDid you ever learn, witness, of any directives from the Main Staff Office to the UWZ to clear any areas by deporting the inhabitants thereof?\nANo.\nQIn connection with the exchange of farms known as the Lublin action, witness, did all of the Polos affected thereby get farms in exchange for their own farms?\nAIt was in the operation Lublin so far as I know, that the office of the Plenipotentiary in Posen was active.\nQWitness, the question was, do you know whether or not the Poles who had to give up their farms in this action, got other farms in return?\nAI believe that was the case.\nQDo you. have any idea, witness, where the farms were situated which were given to those Poles?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1957, "page_number": "1951", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "AIt was to be those farms which the Ethnic Germans who formerly were in Lublin had left.\nQWitness, do you know whether this trade or exchange of farms was made on A voluntary basis?\nANo, I don't know that.\nQWitness, did you ever see Ethnic Germans being settled, - that is, were you ever present when this was done?\nANo, I was never present.\nQDo you know, witness, that Greifelt personally directed the deportation on the resettlement action at Seybusch?\nAStabsfuehrer Arlt had A memo on the occasion of Greifelt's official trip to Upper Silesia. This memo showed that he had been present at the experiment, as it was previously called.\nQWitness, you have not quite answered my question. My question was, do you know that Greifelt personally directed this a ction, or do you know that he did not?\nAI am of the opinion that he did not conduct it, but that he was A spectator. That is how I recall it.\nQBut you were not there, were you, witness?\nANo, I was not present.\nQWitness, did the defendant Creutz, ever sign any orders?\nAI cannot remember that.\nQDid the defendant Creutz know of the activities of the Central Land Office and of Office IV?\nAHe was informed regarding its task and activities, but not about the daily work.\nQWitness, would you say that the defendant Creutz knew of the important matters carried out by the Central Land Office and Office IV?\nDR.MERKEL (for Creutz): Mr. President, the witness is being asked about the knowledge of another person, and I object. He can only be examined about facts.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, I think that calls for A conclusion.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1958, "page_number": "1952", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQWitness, was the defendant Greifelt A legal expert?\nANo, he was not A Jurist?\nQWas Himmler A legal expert?\nANo, Himmler was not A Jurist.\nQOn direct examination, witness, you testified that the defendant Creutz could have had no influence on the activities of the legal department of the Main Staff Office, because he was not A legal expert. Do you now wish to reaffirm that statement, witness?\nAYes.\nQThank you.\nWitness, for how long A period of time did you stay with the Central Land Office after the defendant Meyer-Hetling became the head of that office?\nAIt may have been one or two months, as I said before. I am not quite clear whether he was the immediate successor of Holzschuher, or whether between the creation of the main planning department and the resignation of Holzschuher, there was an interval.\nQYes, witness, but for how long A period were you with the Central Land Office after the defendant, Meyer Hetling, had been appointed the Department head of the office?\nAWell, if I am restricted in this way I cannot say, because it is not quite clear to me. I stated that it was one or two months, as representing Holzschuher's resignation, and then I left for Agriculture,\nQThat is quite clear, then witness, you were there only one or two months after Holzschuher resigned: is that correct?\nAHolzschuher resigned in June, and I left in August.\nWell, let's say about three months,\nQThat is quite clear now, Thank you. Did you know A man named Fiedler, witness?\nAYes.\nQWhat was his position? Just A very brief statement.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1959, "page_number": "1953", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "ALegal expert of the Central Land Office subsequently; at the same time, legal expert in the Legal Department.\nQWitness did you know more about the Central Land Office than this man Fiedler?\nAI believe that Fiedler--\nDR.BEHLING (for Meyer Hetling): I object.\nMR. SCHILLER:I object to the counsel for the Defense having the witness stopped, waving for him to stop.\nTHE PRESIDENT:They are entitled to have him stopped until they get their objection in.\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I object. The witness cannot judge whether he or the witness Fiedler, who was being questioned here, had A greater knowledge on the questions which have been discussed here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am afraid he would be A rather biased witness on that question, and his opinion wouldn't be worth much.\nMR. SCHILLER:Very well, your Honor.\nQI should merely like to ask you then, was the defendant Fiedler in A position to know intimately the work of the Central Land Office?", "speakers": [ "MR. SCHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1960, "page_number": "1954", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Yes, Fiedler had to know it.\nDR. BEHLING:I protested here and I object here again, and would like to have the question and the answer stricken from the record, because the witness is being examined here regarding the internal process of the thinking of a third party, about which he cannot know anything.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think this question is proper on cross-examination. Go ahead. BY MR. SCHILLER:\nQ.Witness, can you state of your own knowledge that the Land Office did not carry out confiscations of land for resettlers?\nA.As far as that is concerned I have to go by the general directive and I am sure that the Central Land Office adhered to these outlines. I have never had any doubt on that score.\nQ.Witness, I asked my question not in connection with the Central Land Office alone, but with the so-called Land Offices, that is on the lower level, the provincial land offices,\nA.I did not control the work of these land offices.\nQ.Witness, you testified on direct examination that the defendant, Meyer-Hetling protested against the giving of land to individuals, etc. so-called donations. Can you tell the Tribunal, witness, whether the defendant Meyer-Hetling protested against the confiscation of that land or against the giving of that land to these individuals?\nA.Are you discussing the case of the estate of Krasnik? In this case no confiscation had been carried out by the Land Office; it was rather an independent act of the Oberpresident Koch as Chief of the Civil administration, in the area which later became Government-District Zichenau. The question of confiscation, therefore, does not arise here.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether these cases of donations of land interfered with the plans of the defendant Meyer Hetling?\nA.I do not know that.\nQ.Witness, you testified on direct examination that the defendant \n Meyer - Hetling once told you that he carried out an honorary activity in the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1961, "page_number": "1955", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "How did you understand by that, that the defendant, Meyer-Hetling did nothing, or that he was not paid by the Main Staff Office, but gave his services without payment?\nA.I was under the impression that he carried out his activities without pay.\nQ.Witness, after the main office moved to Schweikelberg, were you in Schweikelberg or in Berlin?\nA.I was in Schweikelberg temporarily, from December, 1943, until August, 1944, as far as the major part of that time is concerned.\nQ.During that period of time, witness, did you have much contact with the planning office in Berlin? A. No\nQ.Witness, in direct examination you mentioned a man named Mundt. Was he a well man physically, or was he a sick man?\nA.Mundt was sick, and he was seriously ill.\nQ.Witness, could Mundt devote his full time to the Central Land Office?\nA.Because he was so often absent from the office on account of illness, Mundts management was not of a very orderly character.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned certain employes of the Main Staff Office in your direct examination, and stated that these men were under Gestapo observation as the result of political unreliability. Do you know who reported these men to the Gestapo?\nA.They did not tell me that, and I do not know it in any case.\nQ.Witness, did you consider the defendant, Meyer Hetling, to be a good Nazi?\nA.Meyer Hetling was a Professor of Agriculture -\nQ.Witness, please answer the question with Yes or No. If you want to qualify it you may then qualify it.\nDR. BEHLING:I object to this question regarding the attitude of political views. I have put no questions on direct examination, Since \n the cross examination is based on the direct examination, the question is not admissible in my view.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1962, "page_number": "1956", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The trouble is, some of your colleagues did. Go ahead. MR. SCHILLER:\nQ.Will you please answer the question?\nThe question is, did you consider at the time, the defendant Meyer-Hetling to be a good Nazi?\nA.His aim was promotion and support of farmers and peasants, and were partly in conformity with the aims of the National Socialist Party; partly there were differences of opinion, and the question whether he was a good Nazi or not I should like to answer by saying that Professor Hetling pursued his aims. I would not like to answer by an unqualified Yes or No. That does not suit the case here.\nQ.Very well, witness. Are you well acquainted with the order and duties of the Settlement staff at Posen?\nA.The Settlement staff in Posen had only an initial and later on minor importance, because it was located in the same place as the office of the Plenipotentiary. I did not concern myself with it.\nQ.Witness, were you well acquainted with the organization and duties of the working staff in Posen?\nA.No.\nQ.How often were you in Posen, witness?\nA.Two or three months.\nQ.Witness, do you know approximately how much time Creutz the Higher SS and Police leader, devoted to the Settlement staff in Posen?\nA.I believe I may say that Creutz devoted his main work to the activities as Pleipotentiary or as deputy Plenipotentiary.\nQ.Witness, do you know who parepared the letters for copy to sign in his capacity as representative of the Main Staff Office? I do not mean the typing by that, witness, I mean who worked and prepared letters for them to sign.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1963, "page_number": "1956", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Counsel for Defendant Dr. R. MERKEL Rudolf CREUTZ (Case 8) Nurnberg 17 December 1947 To The Secretary General Military Tribunal I (Case 8) N u r n b e r g Subject:\nCorrection of transcript The transcript covering the afternoon-session of 4 December 47 in case 8 contains on page 1956 of the English and on page 1872 of the German transcript an error which changes the real meaning. In the cross-examination of witness GOLLING the Prosecutor asked the question: Witness, do you know approximately how much time CREUTZ the Higher SS and Police leader, devoted to the Settlement staff in Posen? The witness replied: I believe I may say that CREUTZ devoted his main Work to the activities as Pleipotentiary or as deputy Plenipotentiary. In the transcript the question and the answer contain the name of defendant CREUTZ instead of the name \"KOPPE\". I request this error which changes the real meaning be corrected. The Prosecution agree on this request for correction.\n(s) Dr. MERKEL Attorney-at-Law", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1964, "page_number": "1957", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Of course I can only answer this as far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned, and the persons who prepared their letters were Herr Schroeder or Herr Eichinger, as a rule that is, of course. The dictation initials were often on these letters.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1965, "page_number": "1958", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Witness, do you know whether or not the defendant Huebner ever prepared any such letters?\nA.I do not know that.\nQ.Do you know, witness, whether the defendant Huebner ever signed any letters?\nA.As far as agriculture is concerned, I cannot recollect any such letter.\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you spoke about the DAG. Would you say that the Main Staff Office never gave any orders to the DAG?\nA.Of course, it is true that the Main Staff Office gave instructions to the DAG.\nQ.Thank you, witness.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further cross examination?\nDR.HEIM (counsel for the defendant Schwalm): May it please the Tribunal, Dr. Heim for the defendant Schwalm.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Herr Golling, I have only one question, and this refers to the first question in cross examination on the part of the Prosecution.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution will object to this defense counsel examining this witness at this time. The defense counsel for the defendant Schwalm did not examine in direct examination at any time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That doesn't make any difference. Go ahead. BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, in classifying the resettlers into \"A\", \"O\", or S cases, was this classification exclusively a racial affair.\nA.I believe that this was only part of the examinations taking place in the EWZ.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION \n BY DR. VON DER TRENCK (counsel for the defendant Greifelt):", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1966, "page_number": "1959", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.Witness, the Prosecutor asked you regarding the activity of Hinze in Lower Styria. Do you know who gave Hinze the order for this operation, that is, to whom he was subordinate?\nA.I believe that I am able to remember Hinze. Once he told me his whole life story, and he told me -\nTHEPRESIDENT: witness, I don't believe we would be interested in life stories. You can just answer her question.\nA.I am sorry. This was a special order which he had received from the Reichsfuehrer Himmler.\nQ.The Prosecutor asked you about the plan of the exchange of war damaged farms by fair payments. Was any action ever carried out?\nA.I am sorry, I haven't understood you.\nQ.The plan of the exchange of war damaged farms, apart from the two experiments which you mentioned, was this plan ever carried out?\nA.No.\nQ.The Prosecutor further asked you about donations. May I again ask you how many donations were carried out according to your recollection?\nA.I only remember the two cases mentioned.\nQ.You were also asked regarding confiscations. Were confiscations exclusively carried out in cases which you mention on direct examination for transfer of property, that is, donations, troop training grounds, and the small estates of rural property which were transferred to the industrial enterprises?\nA.I was of that opinion, and I am still of this opinion.\nQ.You have designated Dr. Fehndrich as a collaborator and associate of Dr. Greifelt's of long duration. Do you know anything also or is it true that he collaborated with Dr. Greifelt since July 1939?\nA.I think he has acted with Dr. Greifelt a long time previous to that date.\nQ.So then you don't know exactly, do you?\nA.I don't know it from him personally.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1967, "page_number": "1960", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Q.When did Dr. Hinze leave the Main Staff Office?\nA.In the winter of 1941 and 42.\nQ.And now one further question. Is it correct that Himmler on the suggestion of the Main Staff Office issued an order, according to which no trustee was to purchase the enterprise he was running as a trustee?\nA.Yes.\nDR. VON DER TRENCK:Thank you, no further questions.\nDR.BEHLING (counsel for the defendant Meyer-Hetling): Mr, President, there is some difference of opinion regarding dates in the management of the Main Staff Office and the Land Office which have appeared in the cross examination. May I be permitted to clarify these differences as regard to dates?\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have both covered that field very thoroughly.\nDR. BEHLING:Yes, it is going to be rebuttal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Limit it to that.\nDR. BEHLING:Yes.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, after June 1940, Baron von Holzschuber was the head of the Central Land Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.A successor was his deputy until that time, Mundt, is that correct?\nA.That is just the point about which I am not quite clear.\nQ.Is it correct that due to the illness of Mundt in the year 1940, the Office Planning and Land was created?\nA.I should like to say it seems very probable to me.\nQ.Can you remember that Mundt recovered and that in the summer of 1941 he took up his full activity in the Central Land Office?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Did this cause again the division of the Department Planning and Land into the Central Land Office and into the Department Planning?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. VON DER TRENCK", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1968, "page_number": "1961", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.In the Summer of 1942 the Office Groups were formed?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Was anything changed in the management of the Central Land Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Is it correct, rather than in 1943 Mundt as head of the Central Land Office, was replaced by Gebert?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Finally in the summer of 1944 was Gebert replaced by Hiege as head of the Central Land Office?\nA.In the spring or in the summer of 1944.\nQ.Then it is correct that the defendant Meyer in the division of the Office Planning and Land had nothing to do directly with the management as far as we leave out of account his activity as Office Group Chief?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, one last question. You mentioned that the defendant Meyer-Hetling had been active in an honorary capacity, and you concluded that from the fact that he was not paid. Can you confirm to me that he also worked in the Main Staff Office, that is, that he taught at the University of Berlin?\nA.Yes, he continued to teach in the university.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused).\nDR.HAENSEL (counsel for the defendant Greifelt): Mr. President, I will call Franzdfeffer as a witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The recess this afternoon -- we will not take up another witness, Dr. Haensel. The recess this afternoon \n was extended in time somewhat, the purpose being the members of the Tribunal desired to reach final conclusions concerning certain matters we have had under discussion.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1969, "page_number": "1962", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Before making the announcement of the conclusions reached, for the purpose of triple-emphasis, we wish to call counsel's attention on both sides of this case that these defendants are not charged with planning agressive warfare, they are not charged with conspiracy, they are not charged with Genocide. There is no comparison in the scope of relevant inquiry in a case such as this on trial. There is no comparison in the scope of the relevant inquiry in a case such as the one on trial, and an indictment in which those things are charged.\nThe defendants in this case are all charged with the commission of specific acts alleged to be either war crimes or crimes against peace. The acts with which they are charged are specific in nature, and the field of inquiry should be limited so far as this fact finding phase of the case is concerned, to whether or not they are guilty of those specific acts. Now, the Defendant Greifelt when on the witness stand, in a very detailed, painstaking, very efficient manner went into the agencies involved in this case and the competency of all of these agencies, as well as the channels of authority from the defendant's viewpoint. He also dealt in the same manner with the alleged deportation measures, the alleged resettlement matters, the alleged racial questions, allowed military conscription, and the alleged unlawful handling of property. We have spent the entire time since he left the stand examinating witnesses whose testimony have all been altogether cumulative of what Greifelt testified about.\nThe Tribunal is of the opinion that further cumulative testimony about these matters will not be helpful to the Tribunal. We now have a clear picutre of the contention of the Prosecution and the contention of the defendant concerning these matters. Other testimony of a cumulative character would not be helpful.\nFrom today on, the only witnesses the Tribunal will be interested in hearing will be such witnesses as may have knowledge of some overt act of any of the defendants. Other testimony about the competency of the agencies, \n or any of the other matters previously mentioned will not be helpful to the Court.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1970, "page_number": "1963", "date": "04 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-04", "text": "Then the other defendants named in the Indictment come to testify, it will not be necessary for them to go into the competency of these various agencies or discuss generally any of the things mentioned in this statement; but simply give us the facts with reference to their own activity. We have determined that this course will be of assistance to the Tribunal in trying to ascertain what the truth of this inquiry is, and that is what the Tribunal wants to know.\nNow, the Prosecution saw fit in its direct case to introduce a number of affidavits executed by witnesses who were available as witnesses. The Tribunal has laid down the rule that the defendants will be permitted to cross examine such of those witnesses that are available, but the cross examination will be limited to the matters contained in the affidavit, and the Prosecution will be permitted no further examination of the witness.\nOne other thing that the Tribunal desires to call to the attention of the Prosecution. In the examination of the defendant Greifelt the practice was resorted to of holding documents in reserve until after the witness had been examined about them, and then presenting them to him. The Tribunal frowns on that practice. That has no application to anybody now in the court room because they did not participate in it; but we simply want to state to counsel for the Prosecution, it is the view of the Tribunal that all documents should have been introduced in the case in chief. That's the fair way to try a case. We will permit the introduction of no other documents unless they are strictly and wholly contradictory to some evidence that has been adduced from the witness.\nDid you get the last part of the statement?\nThe Tribunal felt it should make this announcement before adjournment this afternoon, so that we would know how to proceed tomorrow.\nThe Tribunal will now recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal recessed at 1640 hours, 4 December 1947 until 0930 hours, 5 December 1947).\n Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the Matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 5 December 1947, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1971, "page_number": "1964", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No. I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Whom will you call next?\nDR. HAENSEL:Franz Pfeffer has submitted an Affidavit, Exhibit 782; I have called him in order to cross examine him on his affidavit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Does any one have a copy of this affidavit?\nMR. SHILLER:I have one copy, Your Honor.\nFRANZPFEFFER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, this affidavit is in the book of documents that were introduced separately. The other ones, if the Tribunal would like us to get some \n copies, we can do that.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. LAMB", "FRANZ", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1972, "page_number": "1965", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "We probably have them in the office if you want to get that last volume.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Are they not in the last folio that was submitted to the Court?\nMR. LAMB:They were introduced as loose documents; they may not have been put in a folio for you; I am not sure; but they were introduced as loose documents and not as a document book.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQWhere did you reside until 1942?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, there is no use to go into all that; that is in the affidavit. The only purpose of this is cross examination about the contents of the affidavit only.\nDR. HAENSEL:I cannot find in the affidavit there where he has resided until 1942.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It doesn't matter then, because your cross examination is about what is in the affidavit.\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Tribunal, I am of the opinion that what is correct in the affidavit I shall not question, but if anything is in error, I want to go through the whole affidavit. I think I shall confine myself to what has been not quite clear in the affidavit and what may have to be added or corrected.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the ruling of the Court is very clear. Go ahead and confine yourself to the ruling of the Court.\nBY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWhen did you leave your home country Croatia?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY DR. HAENSEL", "Q", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1973, "page_number": "1966", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AOn the 20th October 1942.\nQWere you known there as an ethnic German?\nAYes.\nQWhy did you leave there in 1942? Witness, you must make a pause after my question until the interpreter can translate it. When he stops talking, you can start. Why was the situation dangerous in your neighborhood?\nAIt was dangerous because of the partisan war.\nQAnd why was it dangerous for you?\nAIt was dangerous for ethnic Germans and not only for myself.\nQWere there any instances where ethnic Germans were killed by the partisans?\nAIn my locality nobody was killed, but in the neighborhood some were killed.\nQWell, were there many of them; do you remember any figures?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, you are going into an examination about some matter that does not appear in this affidavit or anything about it. The only -\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now you wait a minute. The only thing contained in this affidavit is what happened to him. Now, unless you confine your examination to what appears in this affidavit, we are going to prohibit the cross examination at all. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWere you told at that time that if you did not leave your home country you would no longer be protected by the German troops?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1974, "page_number": "1967", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QDid you consider this right?\nAYes, I did.\nQWas there any possibility of protecting you if you had stayed on?\nAThat is very much a question.\nQDid you have a large family?\nAYes, eight persons.\nQAnd you decided on going away because your wife and children wanted to go away?\nAUnintelligible\nTHE INTERPRETER:Your Honor, I cannot translate unless Dr. Haensel tells the witness to make a pause before he answers.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, witness, witness, witness. When the attorney has propounded a question, pause until the translator gets through translating the question before you start your answer. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWas the transport to Germany, did that take place together with many other ethnic Germans?\nAYes.\nQWere you treated well on this transport?\nADid you say on the transport?\nQYes, on the transport.\nANo, we were not treated too badly, but not well.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, there is not a thing in this affidavit about how he was treated on the transport that I see. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWhat were you told in Lodz?\nAI don't understand that; what do you mean?", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1975, "page_number": "1968", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QWere you settled from Lodz, and were you told that; or, were the only other people settled at Lodz?\nAWe were examined by a commission, all of us, and those people who could speak German got some documents regarding their settlement, but those ethnic Germans who could not speak German and could speak very little German, they were told to go back to the Reich in order to learn German and then they could be resettled.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1976, "page_number": "1969", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.And to these people who could not speak proper German, you belonged to that group?\nA.Yes, I belonged to that group.\nQ.Were you told that in the Reich proper you would acquire German nationality after seven months?\nA.We got a special notice from the commission which I have got on me, but in the locality to which we were assigned in the Reich proper, we could make an application for acquiring nationality.\nQ.Did you make this application for acquiring German nationality?\nA.No.\nQ.Why didn't you make this application?\nA.Because I wanted to secure my property first before getting naturalized.\nQ.You first wanted your money and then you wanted to be naturalized?\nA.I wanted my property and at the same time I wanted to be naturalized.\nQ.Would it have been necessary for you to become a soldier?\nA.In the Home Guard.\nQ.Home Guard; and you didn't want that?\nA.Yes, I didn't want to do that.\nQ.You had been told that you had lost your nationality when leaving your home country.\nA.No, that was not clear to us. I was only told that after six months I was told that by an employee of the Reichstreuhandgesellschaft; and this application was signed by my sixteen comrades; and I was told the on that day I went to Germany I would lose my property and my nationality\nTHE INTERPRETER:Your Honor, this man's German -- he doesn't really speak German, and he speaks with a very foreign accent; not only that, I mean his grammar is completely haywire.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I suggest to the witness that he speak rather \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1977, "page_number": "1970", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "slowly; that will help somewhat. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQTalk more slowly please, because of the translation. Did you vote in Germany now?\nAYes.\nQThat is, in the meantime you became a German.\nAThat is not quite clear yet.\nQBut if you vote in a country, one assumes that one is a citizen of that country.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's not argue, Dr. Haensel; let's not argue with the witness. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWhen you left Croatia, were you given an inventory of the farm and the potatoes and the wheat which you left behind?\nAI only got such an inventory after many months from the trusteeship company.\nQAnd then you made an inventory yourself?\nAYes.\nQWith higher prices?\nANo, the inventory of the trustee company was somewhat incorrect.\nQAnd you corrected their inventory?\nAYes, I did.\nQDo you know the name of this office which transported you from Croatia to Germany?\nAI didn't know the name. A comrade from Pomerania told me that we were subordinated to a trustee company which had its seat in Marburg.\nQAnd what are you now doing?\nAI am a farm laborer.\nQWill you please repeat your answer?\nAI am a servant and my whole family, and of my property I haven't received a single mark yet.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1978, "page_number": "1971", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQRelatives or friends of yours who were also ethnic Germans, did they remain in Croatia?\nAYes, some of them remained, and part of them emigrated.\nQAnd what happened to those who stayed behind?\nANot my relatives, but my fellow comrades lost their lives; and some remained.\nDR. HAENSEL:I have no more questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom will you call next?\nDR, HAENSEL: I call the witness Leo Reichert. Ha has submitted Exhibit 781, which is an affidavit.\nLEOREICHERT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, will you kindly give the Court your full name, but will you also make a pause after every question of mine so that the interpreters can follow.\nAYes.\nQWhat is your name; when ware you born?\nALeo Reichert; born on 16th of February, 1905, in Neuen-Air.\nQWhere were you professionally active until you came to the office of the Reich Commissar?\nABefore I came to the Reich Commissar I was active in the Administration of Justice.\nQIn the days before you came to the Reich Commissar, did you have any difficulties with any agency?\nAYes, on the 24th of September, 1938, because of violation of \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "LEO", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1979, "page_number": "1972", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "the duty of loyalty to the National Socialist State, I was fired, dismissed, from the Administration of Justice. In March, 1940 I succeeded in getting rehabilitated, but at the same time I was to be transferred to the District Court of Appeal of Breslau. I looked upon this as a punitive transfer. I approached the Reich Ministry of Justice in Berlin and stated there that I had no longer any confidence in this kind of justice. The personnel chief told me it would be better if I tried to get into another profession. I would not have a career as far as the Administration of Justice was concerned. Since, however, he took pity on me, as I had been arbitrarily dismissed because I had made a stand against the gauleiter. He told me he would not forward the file in my case to any other agency; it would be best for me to go to the Administration or some other agency.\nQDid the Reich Ministry of Justice send you to go to the Main Staff Office?\nAYes. I was....\nQThat is quite sufficient.\nAYes.\nQWhen did you start your employment in the Main Staff Office?\nAOn 15 April 1940.\nQWhat kind of work did you do there?\nAI was assigned to Office III, that is the Office Economy; and first dealt with credits for resettlers for the purpose of founding a new living.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1980, "page_number": "1973", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.In order to make a news tart, was it necessary to provide furniture as well?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was the resettler supposed to buy the furniture from the credits granted by you?\nA.Yes. In June, 1940, we issued a directive to the effect that resettlers who had left property in the land from which they came would receive credit up to 3,000 marks if they made an application for it. These of the resettlers who had not left any property behind were to receive an uncovered credit of up to 1,000 marks.\nQ.Did you hear any complaints to the effect that it was not possible for the resettlers to buy furniture for this money?\nA.Yes. Only a short time subsequent to this, we received complaints from resettlers who had been settled in Lodz and in the neighborhood of Lodz, and they wrote to us that with 3,000 marks they could only buy the furniture for one or two rooms, but they could not buy the whole furniture for two rooms and a kitchen. They demanded an increase of the credit up to 5,000 marks.\nQ.Since this was not possible, what did you do then?\nA. At the end of 1940, I received the order to find out whether seized Polish and Jewish furniture was still in existence. At that time, I went to Posen and Danzig and the plenipotentiaries found out through the mayors and the county councils whether Polish and Jewish furniture was still in existence in that district, but with the exception of Gotenhafen and Bromberg, that was no longer the case. The furniture in Gotenhafen which was being stored in the central market hall, I viewed and I ascertained that this was furniture which was greatly damaged and practically unusable. Apart from that, the town of Gotenhafen demanded so high a purchase price that we did not want to take the responsibility for buying this very poor furniture. The same was true as far as Bromberg was concerned. Now, we looked around for other possibilities and I was asked to contact the Reich Minister of Economics and \n other Reich agencies in order to have new furniture constructed by furniture factories in Germany.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1981, "page_number": "1974", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "The first discussions took place at the end of January, 1941.\nQ.Did you then order furniture on a grand scale with the German furniture industry?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was this your main task at that time?\nA.Yes. In April, 1941, I only had the procurement division for furniture and household goods. We had first of all 233 firms in Germany who delivered all their production to us. Later, after the total war began, we were restricted to 64 large firms.\nQ.Did you carry out this work independently? What was the nature of your cooperation or collaboration with Greifelt?\nA.The procurement department for furniture and household goods was affiliated with office III. In all important questions, the office chief was of course consulted, and beyond that, in questions of a fundamental nature, the chief of the whole office was also consulted.\nQ.You yourself dealt with that kind of work independently?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, who dealt with the furniture in the incorporated territories?\nA.The old furniture in the incorporated territories was dealt with by the HTO.\nQ.Did your office have anything to do with any kind of seizure?\nA.No.\nQ.When, in 1941, you travelled around in order to get furniture which was immediately available, and when you came to Bromberg, did you also go to Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.How did you get the idea that in Lodz orders for repairing furniture had been given to the ghetto?\nA.The first furniture which we had ordered from Berlin had been completed about three months later and was transported in large consign \n ments to Lodz.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1982, "page_number": "1975", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "A few months previously, a field office of the Main Staff Office had been set up which originally had the task to distribute the luggage of the resettlers which had been primarily transported from Vienna to distribute to these resettlers. In the autumn, 1941, I visitsed this field office and checked the store of furniture. The purpose of my checkup was to ascertain that only new furniture which we had ordered and which had been supplied us was being given, out to the resettlers. When I visited the various camps, I found that in one camp there was furniture which we had not supplied. All furniture supplied by us had a special number and was listed in our central card index file, but this was not the case as far as this furniture was concerned. I asked the head of the field office ---\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. witness, what you are trying to say is that you saw some furniture from the ghetto, is the reason you thought that was true? All this detail is not necessary. Tell us why, not the history of the whole thing. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you then hear that this old furniture which did not come from Berlin originated from the ghetto?\nA.Yes, I was told that this furniture had been --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he just asked you if you heard that. That is a full answer.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did that surprise you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You never had given a previous directive that negotiations were to be taken up with the ghetto regarding furniture?\nA.No.\nQ.When you were told that, what did you order then?\nA.I at once ordered that no furniture was to be ordered from the ghetto. At. the same time, I reported to Berlin and I caused that a complete checkup was made of stock in the various camps.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1983, "page_number": "1976", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Was Greifelt as much, surprised as you were, or didn't he hear about this matter at all?\nA.I assumed that he also did not know anything about it and was surprised as much, as we were.\nQ.I submit to you Exhibit 795, which is a note which bears on the top a dictation note to Dr. R., but it bears no signature. Do you remember whether you ever dictated such a note or do you not recall this?\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal pleases, the Prosecution object to this question on the ground this clearly has nothing to do with the matters contained in the affidavit. It is in connection with the examination or cross examination of the defendant Greifelt.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, I see nothing in the affidavit about any note being dictated. I hear that it doesn't from your question. It would appear to be something that is not contained in the affidavit. Sustain the objection. Go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You need not answer this question.\nA.I can't answer it.\nQ.No, but you are not supposed to answer it. Apart from Lodz, did you discover orders of old furniture in any other camps during an occasional checkup of which you did not know anything in Berlin?\nA.Yes, that was in Upper Silesia, in Kattowice.\nQ.Did you intervene there as well and put some order there?\nA.Yes. The head of the Department Economy had come to see me and he told me that 135,000 marks ------\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind, witness. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did you also concern yourselves with the settlement of finance questions?\nA.No. After we had suffered a considerable loss in the case of one manufacturer ----\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he asked you if you had and you said \n no.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1984, "page_number": "1977", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "That answers the question. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did. you have any contacts with other agencies regarding the procurement of furniture?\nA.Yes.\nQ.To which, for instance?\nA.To the Main Office of Economy and Administration.\nQ.What was the origin of your contacts with this agency? Who suggested these contacts?\nA.Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl suggested these contacts.\nQ.Did he approach you with the request to issue orders?\nA.No, he approached the Obergruppenfuehrer Greifelt. We gave orders to the Deutsche Ausruestungswerke, the German equipment works in Dachau.\nQ.What was the result of this order?\nA.We had ordered a thousand sets of furniture. The model room was carried out with great precision, the sample was very satisfactory, but the resettlers in Innsbruck complained when the first deliveries were delivered, and they said they did not want to take delivery of this furniture because it was too expensive. I do not believe that the whole order was carried out; in any case, we did not give them a second order.\nQ.Did you deal with this order in completely and purely commercial matters, or did you take into consideration the fact that the firm concerned was an SS firm?\nA.No, the order was dealt with on a commercial basis.\nQ.Did you know where this furniture had been manufactured by the Economy Administration Main Department?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where was that?\nA.In the concentration camp at Dachau.\nQ.Did the furniture give the impression that it had been pro \n duced by experts?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1985, "page_number": "1978", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "A.Yes. I only saw the sample room. I myself did not see any further deliveries. The sample room was excellent.\nQ.Did you also buy furniture abroad?\nA.We only bought furniture from Belgium if furniture firms in Germany could not supply us.\nQ.Could you kindly explain to us this so-called transfer of orders; that is, if German firms couldn't supply you with what you had required?\nA.There were German firms who had received orders for munitions, especially for the production of airplanes, who could not at the same time accept and deal with purely civilian orders. These firms established contact with firms abroad and transferred to them the orders they themselves had received. The material was supplied by Germany, wood, metal, etc. In the foreign country, the furniture was merely manufactured in the factory.\nQ.Was this a regular kind of business according to the usage at that time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were currency restrictions and regulations complied with in this kind of business?\nA.We had no thing to do with this. We paid in German currency and we paid this money to the German firms. The German firm had to pay the deliveries of furniture in foreign currencies.\nQ.Do you remember the time, 1942, 1943, when the position was very difficult and 800,000 man from the wood industry were to be drafted?\nA.Yes, they were supposed to be drafted.\nQ.Did this raise difficulties for your procurement of furniture?\nA.Yes, every month instead of 2,000 bedrooms, 2,000 kitchens and 1,500 drawing rooms and thousands of beds, we only received a fraction of all these.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1986, "page_number": "1979", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.How did the offices on the provincial level help themselves who were supposed to procure furniture for the resettlers?\nA.The largest requirements had already been covered just before our activity had started. The offices on the provincial level had tried to find furniture themselves, or to give out orders for furniture.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1987, "page_number": "1980", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Did these agencies on provincial level also accept second hand furniture?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they do this on their own initiative in order to help the people under their care or on your instructions?\nA.They did this on their own initiative. After setting up the furniture they were only allowed to obtain furniture through us.\nQ.Were you ever struck with the fact that the Land Offic in Prague had never ordered furniture from you and what did you do when you discovered this?\nA.Yes. From the applications I ascertained that from Prague no requests for furniture had come in but I assumed that in Czechoslocakia no settlements were to take place. I believed that that was correct. Only at the end of 1944 thirteen hundred families from south Tyrol were settled in the territory of Prague. These families received furniture from seized stocks.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Hannzel, the Tribunal in the spirit of fairness has laid down a rule that you could examine witnesses about these affidavits. That's a right that the Court has granted you but it doesn't have to - it is not required to do it. We want to be fair but the Court earnestly requests in doing so that the examination be restricted to the affidavit and not a general examination of the witness because we are not going to allow any further examination by the Prosecution. Now unless counsel will cooperate in that respect we will have to change that rule.\nDR. HAENSEL:May I read here what the affidavit says?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind that. I know what is in the affidavit. I have just made a statement to you, Dr. Hannsel. You are a good lawyer and you know what I mean. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.In your affidavit you say that the office in Prague would \n have to procure furniture, that is, they had received seized furniture.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1988, "page_number": "1981", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Did this happen on your orders?\nA.No. The assignment of furniture had already taken place after we gained knowledge of this fact. We were approached for the payment of this furniture. The order of October 1944 says that the furniture delivered was to be comprised in the compensation of property.\nQ.That was a subsequent measure?\nA.Yes, that was after the furniture was delivered.\nQ.In your affidavit you said that the furniture manufacture in the Ghetto at Lublin had been carried out by Higher SS and Police leader Krueger at Cracow.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office give instructions for this measure or did it only hoar of them subsequently?\nA.We only heard of these after it had happened. No new orders were given by us.\nQ.In your affidavit you have said that in the Ghetto Kowno in Lithuania the Commissar General and the Deputy of the Reich Commissar ordered furniture to be manufactured.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have any previous knowledge of this and did you order it?\nA.No.\nQ.Apart from furniture and household goods did you provide clothing for resettlers in your office?\nA.No we did not do this on principle.\nQ.Was there any exception to this and how did it come about?\nA.The resettlers from Shitomir at one occasion received clothing. The reason was at that time that Reichsfuehrer Himmler had \n established his headquarters in Shitomir.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1989, "page_number": "1982", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "He had been struck by the fact that resettlers were poorly dressed and he desired that they would sort of look different from the rest of the population. He got in touch with SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Pohl and ordered him to provide these people with clothing. Since we had contact with Shitomir we issued a directive to the effect that this clothing was to be requested via SS-Economy Leader Russia South. He had his seat in Kiev and this is what happened.\nQ.Was this an express order by Himmler?\nA.Yes.\nQ.According to your affidavit a consignment of clothing was in the fall of 1944 offered for distribution to resettlers. Has this a case of stocks which had been left behind?\nA.Yes at that time an SS-Fuehrer Meyer was in Schweikelberg and told us that he had stocks of clothing which were to be distributed. I assumed that this was to be done because of the risk of otherwise falling into the hands of the Russians. Obergruppenfuehrer Greifelt ordered that this clothing was to be distributed in the districts of Breslau and Fulmik. Whether the clothing was distributed I do not know because I left the office.\nQ.Before you left the office did you experience any political persecution?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What role did Greifelt play in this?\nA.In March 1944 I was being investigated on account of a defeatist utterance. Obergruppenfuehrer Greifelt told me at that time that you nearly have got your head in a noose.\nMR. LAMB:If it please the Tribunal, we object to this question and to this answer. Can't see where the defendant Greifelt's attitude toward him and his political connections had anything to do with anything in the affidavit.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1990, "page_number": "1983", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "DR. HAENSEL:May I say here that the affidavit deals with his character and with his experiences in the Main Staff Office and that belongs to these experiences.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Haensel, I see your view point and think it is well taken but under our procedure and circumstances of this kind you are permitted to show that the feelings were not good as between the two men but all the details is not permissible under our procedure except to simply show the feelings. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Did Herr Greifelt help you?\nA.Yes he did.\nQ.I have no further question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, may I be permitted to put a question?\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will not allow cross examination on a mere affidavit. Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I want to put a question in connection with his affidavit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has laid down a rule that as far as affidavits are concerned we will permit one counsel for the defense to cross examine the witness -- no examination by the Prosecution. That is as far as we can go.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, may I ask for an exception in this case for the following reason. The Prosecution has charged the defendant Hofmann with taking part in the distribution of seized furniture.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Counsel, the Tribunal cannot lay down a rule and then make an exception to it in anybody's behalf. It wouldn't be fair. You wouldn't have any rule and the rule is about these affidavits that we will permit one counsel for the defense to cross examine \n the author of the affidavit about the contents of the affidavit and that we will permit no examination by the Prosecution about it at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1991, "page_number": "1984", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Now that's as far as we feel justice requires the Tribunal to go about these matters. The witness will retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, may I say here that this restricts the rights of the defendants.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled on the matter. Don't argue the question as the Court has already ruled and decided.\nThe Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1992, "page_number": "1985", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_M_MSD_7_1_Fox (Treidell)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. HAENSEL:I am Calling the witness Schallermeier.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal wishes to state, with reference to these affidavits and the cross examination with reference to them that these witnesses have been subpoenaed by counsel representing individual defendants, for the purpose of cross examination. Now that attorney will be the only attorney permitted to cross examine the the affiant. But of course there is no reason why other counsel cannot advise that particular counsel of any questions they desire propounded. He can do so for them. Generally, about these affidavit appears to be dated November 22, 1947, obtained at a time when this trial was actually in progress, and from a witness that could have been very easily produced by the prosecution. The precedent established by this Tribunal is the only precedent that I know anything about on earth that would permit this to be done. The precedents established by this Tribunal are -- I mean, by other Tribunals here in Nurnberg are the only precedents that I know anything about that would permit the use of affidavits under these circumstances. The Tribunal simply desires to suggest to counsel for defense and prosecution that the affidavits are in evidence, but from the viewpoint of this Tribunal it is the weakest sort of evidence and about the only thing that a very detailed cross examination can do will be to add dignity to evidence that the court considers very weak.\nWill you call him in?\nDR. HAENSEL:I am calling the witness Schallermeiger, Your Honor.\nLUITPOLDSCHALLERMEIER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "LUITPOLD", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1993, "page_number": "1986", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_M_MSD_7_2_Fox (Treidell) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, will you please state to the Tribunal your full name, your date any place of birth.\nAMy name is Luitpold Schallermeier. I was horn in 1911, in Muncih. I graduated from high school and then I worked in the commercial field. I was unempolyed and the unempolyment was occasionally interrupted by work as auxiliary workers, as newspaper boy, and so on and so forth. In 1933, I reported to and joined the SS in Munich and after a few months I was called to a training course for leadership candidates for the SS special task troops.\nQWhere were you then active, mainly until 1939?\nAIn 1933, on the occasion of an inspection of this training course by Himmler, I received the order to work in Hitler's adjutant's office after Christmas. Then until 1939 I remained in Hitler's adjutant's staff and a later personal staff of Himmler as \"Referent\" and later eventually as a personal \"Referent\" of the Chief of Staff.\nQWhat happened to you when the war broke out?\nAAt the end of 1939, there were personal and factual disputes and I tried to resign from my work in the main office. However, that was not granted to me and in January 1940 I was drafted into the armed SS, the Waffen SS, as a private. My activity in the Waffen SS consisted of my going to a Junker School, a training school for officers of the Waffen SS. Then I had an accident and for a certain period of time I was declared exempted from armed service. Thereupon, in May 1941, I was ordered to join the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar and there I worked as an informant in the main departments I, III, and IV. My main work was in main department III. In October 1941 I was transferred to Marburg, to the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar there, and there I was charged to build up the department for commercial settlement of the Gottschee Germans and to take over this department.\nQDid you have special qualification and knowledge for this job in Styria?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1994, "page_number": "1987", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_M_MSD_7_3_Fox (Treidell)\nANoo I had no previous knowledge and on the strength of an order issued by the main personnel office I was ordered to join the office of the Reich Commissar.\nQWhat was the situation you found when you joined those offices?\nAI was transferred to Marburg with the order to take over the settlement staff for the Gottschee Germans. When I arrived there, apparently against the better knowledge of the Main Staff Office, the settlement staff was already working and therefore during the first weeks I had no work.\nQWho had set up this settlement staff down there?\nAAccording to my knowledge, the agency down there of the plenipotentiary. This agency was subordinated to a man named Seltschnek.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, you are proceeding to do exactly what the Tribunal ruled yesterday afternoon that we were not further interested in.\nQWitness, we are not speaking of the deportation now. We have heard about that already. We are talking about the resettlement. In other words, who was resettled down there?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr., that is the very thing we said yesterday afternoon that the Tribunal up to now has a full and complete picture presented by the defendant Greifelt and corroborated with some three or four days of testimony, your contention as to how all of these matters were handled and the competency and channels of authority with reference to all of these matters and that any further testimony about any of these things would be purely cumulative and a thousand more witnesses could not possibly give the Court any more information than it now has on the subject. And we stated that from now on the Tribunal is interested only in those witnesses who can testify as to some overt act as to some of these defendants. Please confine yourself to that rule.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1995, "page_number": "1988", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_M_MSD_7_4_Fox (Treidell)\nQDid the defendant Greifelt, whom you know, don't you, have any activity for the benefit of the SS?\nAI know Herr Greifelt from his various activities in the SS before that time, personally, and before I was transferred to Marburg, Herr Greifelt informed me personally of my task down in Marburg.\nQOn that occasion were you told that in accordance with the regulations, laws, and decrees, you had to proceed in line with these regulations or did you got any secret orders?\nAI did not receive any secret orders or secret instructions. I only received the instruction to give my main work in the Steiermark for the interest of the resettlers because Herr Greifelt was under the impression that the plenipotentiary down there, the Reichstatthalter Uebereiter, neglected the resettlement as such and especially the Gottschee Germans as an ethnic Group, which he didn't like particularly; and I was told to comply with the regulations issued with regard to the resettlement of evacuees -- regulations the acquaintance of which I had made in the Main Staff Office.\nQIn your functions down there, did you consider yourself a member of the 33 or an official of the Reich agency?\nAIn the first place, I felt a human being in that task, not an official and not an SS member.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Dr. Haensel, may I suggest that this man is not on trial. Let's hear about Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1996, "page_number": "1989", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Can you tell us something about Greifelt's attitude, which you ought to know because you are a good acquaintance of his and and have been so for years. I am not referring to you. I am referring to Greifelt now.\nA.In the directives he issued, Herr Greifelt quite clearly took into consideration the difficult situation of every evacuee group because in all cases where I had difficulties in Lower Styria, for instance, I could approach the Main Staff Office and from the very top level of the Main Staff Office I received directives which showed humane care for these groups of resettlers.\nQ.Did you derive the conviction from Greifelt's remarks that he had knowledge concerning the persecution of Jews in the East and particularly in Auschwitz?\nA.In my conversations with Herr Greifelt, the question of Jews was never touched because the time I had for conversations with him was very short and was filled with the discussions concerning the problems of resettlers. The Jewish problem was never touched upon in discussions between the two of us, particularly as in Lower Styria I never found that this question was of importance, because I never found any Jews down there.\nQ.From your long years of acquaintanceship with Greifelt, can you give us any caseswhere he showed a very severe and persecuting attitude against the Jews?\nA.I have no knowledge of that.\nQ.Was the atmosphere in his office such that only factual work was important, or was political propaganda of primary importance?\nA.Herr Greifelt always made it a point that everybody knew that the Main Staff Office was a highest Reich authority and from my knowledge of the composition of the workers of that office I can also say that for the majority there were officials there who only as tine went on were taken over into the SS in order to synchronize matters. A political tendency of this main office could not be seen -- at least not more than \n in any agency as customary in Germany at that time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1997, "page_number": "1990", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.The resettlement of the Gottschee Germans in Styria, was it caused by the need of these people who had no home any more, or was it in line with the long-prepared SS program?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. You are running into the ruling of the Court again, Dr. Haensel. Those matters have all been covered and the Court understands your position about it. Any other testimony will be purely cumulative and will not help the Court, so let's get down to Greifelt's activities.\nDR. HAENSEL:But, Your Honor, I am now speaking of Count 3 of the indictment, resettlement -\nTHE PRESIDENT:I know that, but you covered all of that territory. The only thing the Court is interested in from now on is the activity of these defendants. We know and understand your contention about how all these matters have been done. They have been very thoroughly explained by seven days of testimony.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, in that case, that concludes my direct examination.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann. I ask to be permitted to ask only a few short questions after, to the direct examination of the defense counsel who preceded me. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hofmann?\nA.Yes, I know the defendant Hofmann.\nQ.In what capacity do you know him?\nA.According to my recollection, Hofmann during the years before 1939 commanded several Standarts and s ections in the general SS, and I think particularly in Hamburg.\nQ.Thank you, that will do. Do you know that Hofmann, as chief of the RuSHA, was also the chief of the settlement office of the SS?\nA.The settlement office was a part of the RuSHA. Whether at the \n time when Hofmann was chief of the RuSHA it was still under his orders, I don't know because during that period I was no longer in Berlin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1998, "page_number": "1991", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.During your activity in the Steiermark,did you have any contact with the settlement office of the SS?\nA.No, the settlement office of the SS was not a part of this organization in Lower Styria.\nQ.Witness, you made a few short remarks on the Jewish question, too. Do you know whether Hofmann took a part in the persecution of the Jews?\nA.This question is perhaps too general. All I can say is that I have no knowledge of any specific cases. In my activity with Himmler any specific cases where Herr Hofmann showed himself an enemy -- or I should better say a persecutor -- of the Jews are not known to me.\nQ.Were you at the same time as Hofmann in Munich during the period when the Anti-Jewish Pogrom took place?\nA.I was in Munich during the festivities of 9 November 1939. I was accompanying, in my official capacity, the Reichsfuehrer Himmler.\nQ.Was Hofmann in Munich too at that time?\nA.I cannot recall that today with certainty, but if he was chief of the senior sector at that time then he must have been ordered, exactly as the colleagues, to go to Munich and he must have been there.\nQ.What was the position of these section commanders in Munich at that time?\nA.The section commanders at that time had been summoned to take part in the festivities and the culmination of these festivities for the SS was that from 9 to 10 November the young recruits of the SS and of the SS task troops and the candidates of the general SS were sworn in.\nQ.In other words, the SS men at that period did not take part in the Anti-Jewish pogrom?\nA.From my statement before, in International Military Tribunal, \n it can be seen already that the SS at midnight were gathered in the Feldherrnhalle in Munich or in other locations.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 1999, "page_number": "1992", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "All of the SS at the time had come together to be sworn in and therefore had not even the po sibility of taking a part in the Pogroms against the Jews.\nQ.Do you know whether a Jewish file existed in the RuSHA? That is, a file containing all the Jews in Germany.\nA.The only think I know is that in the RuSHA, on the strength of the genealogical proof submitted by the SS members, those Jews were listed who had turned up in the descent chart of the SS members; but according to my knowledge only in the RSHA was there a file containing the names of all Jews in the Reich, because all requests and demands which Himmler received -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. RuSHA was all he asked you about.\nQ.During your activity in Lower Sytria, Witness, you made the acquaintance of a certain Obersteiner, didn't you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2000, "page_number": "1993", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAYes. During one period I had official contact with Obersteiner.\nQWhat was the position of Obersteiner?\nAObersteiner for the territory of Sourthern Krain and Southern Carinthia was Plenipotentiary, but there he was in charge of the settlement tasks as Staff Leader of the Plenipotentiary who in Lower Styria was Gauleiter and Reichstatthalter Reiner.\nDR. SCHWARZ:That concludes my examination.\nDR.ORTH for the defendant Viermetz.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH:\nQWitness, I am putting to you a document. It was submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 390,NO-683. Look at the heading on pages 1 and 4 of the document and look at the distribution list on page 3. Is it correct that that is a top secret matter?\nAAccording to the distribution list and according to the symbol, this must have been a top secret matter.\nQAs a former adjutant in the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, are you acquainted with the significance and the nature of a top secret matter?\nAI am acquainted with the significance and the nature of a top secret matter, particularly because the dealing with top secret matters in the personal staff of Himmler was one of the reasons why in 1939 I wanted to and I had to resign from this staff.\nQAmong those who received these top secret matters was the Lebensborn?\nAI cannot find the Lebensborn as one of the addressees listed.\nQTherefore, do you think according to your experience that the defendant Viermetz or other members of the Lebensborn could be informed of the contents of this top secret matter?\nAInspite of the fact that the Lebensborn was an office in the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, and, therefore, the strict \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2001, "page_number": "1994", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "regulations of the personal staff would apply also to the Lebensborn, according to my view, the Lebensborn, especially as it is not listed in the distribution list, was not informed of this order, unless one or the other points contained in this order, which I cannot read now because we are in A hurry, was brought to the information of the Lebensborn as an extract for the execution of an order for the Lebensborn. But in that case there would have been A file note on this top secret matter to that effect.\nQAs from July, 1942, you worked in Southern Styria?\nAYes, as from the 13th of October, 1941, already I was in Styria.\nQDid you have knowledge of this order?\nAI see this order for the first time here. I have never seen it before. I don't know it, and as far as I can see now when I glance through it in A few seconds, it concerns the extermination -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind what it concerns. You said you didn't know anything about it, so that is sufficient.\nDR. ORTH:No further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else from the Defense?\nGo ahead with the Prosecution on cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. IAMB:\nQMr. Schallermeier, you stated that from your observation of the executives at the Main Staff Office that they were very conscientious workers. That is true, isn't it?\nAYes. I said that, and I could even give you examples to show that.\nQWell, that is allright. They were doing everything they could to carry on the work of this office, weren't they?\nAMay I ask whether when you say \"they were\" you refer to me or you refer to the officials and employees of the Main Staff Office?\nQI am referring to the officials and executives whom I just \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. ORTH", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2002, "page_number": "1995", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "referred to in my previous question,\nAYes. The organs and the executives of the Main Staff Office did everything they could for the resettlers as well as in the case which I personally worked on for the deportees from Styria.\nQI am not referring to any particular things, I mean did these executives and officials do everything they could in all the work connected with the Main Staff Office? Were they conscientious workers?\nAWell, it is my firm conviction that they were.\nQAnd they did everything they could to promote this program for the strengthening Germanism, did they not?\nAI don't think that it served the strengthening of Germanism if these officials did their duty. They fulfilled their tasks because they were dealing with human beings who had bean dragged out of their customs and homes and for whom a new home had to be found then.\nQNow, just wait a minute.\nAWe had the War already at that time, and it was rather difficult.\nMR. LAMB:I want the witness to just answer my questions and not go into something else.\nQI mean you just answer what I ask you; that's all. If you have any explanation, why, I won't keep you from giving that, but you are not responsive to what I am asking you.\nThese officials were working in an office that dealt with the strengthening of Germanism. That is true, isn't it?\nAYes.\nQAnd they devoted their best efforts to all of the work of this office. That is true, isn't it?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQAnd they cooperated to the best of their ability with the Reichsfuehrer-SS who was the head of this office; that is true, isn't it?.\nAThe Reichsfuehrer-SS, according to my knowledge of the affairs, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2003, "page_number": "1996", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "issued only the basic directives or the basic ideas, his own or Hitler's, and passed them on to Herr Greifelt.\nQThat's right.\nAAnd the carrying out, the elaboration and the drawing up of the individual regulations was a task for the Main Staff Office. Certainly as every other official would do, the workers of these offices did their duty, but I don't think they did more than their duty.\nQDo you know anything about the taking of these children from these bandits, partisans?\nANo, I never heard anything about it.\nMR. LAMB:We have no further questions, Your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQYou were just asked whether it was the task of the Reich Commissar to strengthen Germanism. Do you think that that is a very clear-cut task?\nAWell, that was the reason why I answered the way I did because I considered that the question was too vague, and especially all these resettler groups who poured into the Reich had come on a voluntary basis, and the Main Staff Office only had to deal with the question of getting them new homes. The situation was that the bulk of these resettlers were of German descent and, therefore, came back to the Reich, and they came into the Reich on their own volition.\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, we object to the answer because it is just taking up time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. Mr. Witness, if you would just pay attention to the questions propounded by Counsel and just answer those questions in a concise sort of way, we would get along a lot better. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQThe task of strengthening Germanism in your conception and according to your experience -- did it include the looting of foreign property, the deportation and dragging away of children and other such deeds?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2004, "page_number": "1997", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo.\nMR. LAMB:Now may it please the Court, I asked this witness about the broad program, and that's all. I didn't ask him any details. I asked him if this office worked on that program which has been shown here what it was by documents, witnesses and everything else. I didn't go into any details about looting or anything else. I just asked if these defendants worked on that broad program, and he said they did.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. I rather doubt that all of these details are surrebuttal.\nDR. HAENSEL:I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, at this stage I would like to call the witness, General Karl Wolff.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witnessbe produced.\nGENERAL KARLWOLFF, a witness, was examined and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, will you state your full name to the Tribunal, give the date and place of your birth and give us in short your career?\nAMy name is Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff, Wolff with two f's; and I was born on the 13th of May, 1900, at Darmstadt as son of a county judge. In April, 1917, I graduated from highschool, and after that I became an active officer of the guards. Until 1920 I remained a professional officer, and from 1920 to 1925 I was an apprentice and later a commercial employee in the banks, and then a commercial employee in other branches. From 1925 to 1933 I was an independent merchant and \n Court No. I, Case No. V III.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "GENERAL KARL", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2005, "page_number": "1998", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "sole proprietor of antransportation house toward the Americas.\nQHow did you join the SS from these professions?\nAUntil 1931 I was never a member of any political party. In 1931 in October I joined at the same time the Nazi Party and then guard of that Party, the SS. In an honorary position I worked there without pay until Spring, 1933. During the so-called seizure of power in Bavaria, I was adjoined to the then Reichstatthalter and Prime Minister General Ritter von Epp as an adjutant. As from the middle of May, 1933, Himmler fetched me from this position and from that moment on I became his adjutant in an official capacity.\nFrom 1933 to 1936 I was First Adjutant and then Chief Adjutant of Himmler, and from 1936 until the 18th of February, 1943, I was Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS. When the war broke out, I was transferred to the Fuehrer's headquarters as liaison officer of the Waffen-SS, and because of the war I continued to work as the Chief of the Personal Staff. On the 18th of February, 1943, I practically resigned in my capacity of Chief of the Personal Staff after I had been sick for several months. I was ordered to Italy in September, 1943, as Highest-SS and Police Leader, and from the 26th of July, 1944, I became Military Commander in addition to that. I remained there until the end of the war.\nQDid you play a certain part during the capitulation negotiations?\nAYes. In Spring, 1943, I initiated the capitulation of the German Army in Italy, and I prepared it.\nMR. SHILLER:I should like to object to this inasmuch as the Prosecution fails to see its relevance to the charges in the Indictment of this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, a great deal of the testimony about the background of these witnesses really doesn't help the Tribunal much, because a man's ability to speak the truth is not determined by who he is or the positions he has held or the education he has had. Very often \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2006, "page_number": "1999", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "the contrary is true, but this particular thing that you are asking about now I think would probably be of interest to the Tribunal, so you may go ahead. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQGeneral, we want to turn now to the points of contact with Greifelt. Now when he was still an expert for the questions of the Four Year Plan in Himmler's offices, can you give us information as to his personality?\nAYes. I remember that period. He was expert in charge of all matters pertaining to the Four Year Plan for all the branches of the SS and of the Police.\nQWas that an economic or a political function?\nAThat was an economic function.\nQFurthermore, can you remember that Greifelt became Chief of this agency?\nAYes.\nQDo you remember the field of tasks of this agency?\nAAt the time Greifelt mainly had to deal with the adaptation and resettlement of the Southern Tirol people, and he was Chief of the Office for Re-emigration and Immigration in Southern Tirol.\nQWas that a political or an economic organizational task?\nAI would say that it was political and economic.\nQAccording to your view was the political decision, namely, the taking over of the Southern Tirol people to Germany, made already before Greifelt intervened, or did Greifelt influence that decision?\nAThe Fuehrer had decided that the only political point of friction existing at that time between Italy and Germany, namely, the question of the Southern Tirols, should be decided by a plebiscite and thereby eliminated; and Greifelt in accordance with his duties had this plebiscite and resettlement of the Southern Tirols carried out in accordance with the treaties between Italy and Germany.\nQDo you have any recollection as to the question of how \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2007, "page_number": "2000", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Greifelt came into contact with the higher agencies of the SS? Was he an old Nazi Party member or what is your recollection there?\nAI remember that Greifelt in Summer, 1933, was contacted by an SS Gruppenfuehrer and thereby joined the SS. There he held various positions in the staff, and its main tasks were in the field of office work and technical questions.\nQWas he a member of the old Nazi Party Guard, or was he a new figure?\nANo. After all, he had joined the Party and the SS only after the so-called seizure of power and he was what they called a socalled \"March violet\". That was the nickname they had for them.\nQBut, after all, he was promoted, wasn't he? He got up to higher rank. Was that on the strength of his very active National Socialist attitude or what were the reasons for these promotions of Greifelt?\nAGreifelt's promotions were in line with his official positions. As he got into higher official positions, it was quite natural that at the same time he would get higher ranks, because these agencies were to be represented by him to the outside world, for instance, in Italy towards the Italians; and considering the incredibly -- how shall I say -- clever plebiscite and resettlement negotiations that took place down there, I remember that at the time he received his promotion to SS Gruppenfuehrer when he was in Rome by telegram. Later when he was Chief of a Main Office, then, of course, the further promotion to Obergruppenfuehrer took place also.\nQMay I remind you of the fact that he received a police rank too? He became General of the Police, isn't that correct, after he had another rank before that? Did he have police tasks and police powers, too?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2008, "page_number": "2001", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AHimmler did not only give to Greifelt but also to a series of other high SS leaders during the war an official rank of General of the Police because the persons involved were neither members of the armed forces, nor of the WaffenSS, and Himmler wanted to increase the authority of the persons involved, and the German concept during the war makes that only possible when you have broad ranks and general's rank.\nQAccording to your knowledge, did Greifelt have any party political functions or tasks?\nANo.\nQYou knew him very well, didn't you?\nAYes, I did.\nQCan you tell us how the relationship between Greifelt and Himmler was, as far as the human basis was concerned? Were they friends? were they indifferent; or what was their human relationship?\nAI wouldn't say that they were friends. Both of them were too much of different natures, and they were different kinds of human beings. Himmler liked Greifelt's ability, his reliability, and his love of work; and in the interests of the SS he wanted to see these capacities of Greifelt's used.\nQWas Greifelt known to you as an expert in racial questions?\nANo; we never discussed racial questions either.\nQWere the racial questions important in the Tyrole resettlement?\nANo, not at all. They did not play a part at all because at the time it was only a question of bringing in German ethnic groups back to Germany from the Italian \"vital \n space\" in order to eliminate friction in the future.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2009, "page_number": "2002", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QWas there a big difference between Himmler's relationship to people like Bach-Zelewski, whom we have heard here as a witness, and Himmler's relations to Greifelt?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the difference?\nABach-Zelewski must certainly be counted among the old Nazi Party and SS Guard members, and apart from that he, as a Higher SS and Police Leader for Central Russia, and later as chief of the entire partisan units, had definitely a confidential position.\nQAnd such a definitely confidential position was not held by Greifelt with Himmler?\nAWell, the human contracts between Greifelt and Himmler were missing; while, in the case of Bach-Zalewski, they existed.\nQAccording to your knowledge of this person, did Greifelt belong more to the office personnel and bureaucratic natures -- while Bach-Zalewski was more of an active man in the field?\nAThat seems to me the right description.\nQAnd the tasks of the Main Staff Office were in the field of activity outside the personal, or in the field of the bureaucrat?\nAIn the conscientious and carefully preparing and constructing.\nQCan you remember whether there was an Office \"L\" in the office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAAccording to my knowledge, there was not such an Office \"L\" in the agency of Greifelt's, or of the Reich \n Commissar of the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2010, "page_number": "2003", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QAccording to your knowledge of the conditions, was Greifelt Himmler's deputy as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAAccording to my knowledge, he was not.\nQCan you explain that knowledge of his a little bit by the general tendency of Himmler's? Did he appoint such deputies as general deputies for himself at all?\nANo; Himmler's password was \"Divide and Rule\", and he avoided, as a rule, first of all within his 12 main offices and toward his 12 main office chiefs, the appointment of a permanent deputy. In his absence, a chief of a main office would deputize for the Reichsfuehrer only within his own main office.\nQ.Therefore, if you would read a signature under a letter \"Reichskommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, I.V. Greifelt\" --would you conclude that Greifelt was always Himmler's deputy?\nANo, According to my view, this just means customary office procedure, and I also know that in order to avoid delays Himmler sometimes commissioned Greifelt to sign these directives in his name. In those cases, however, a personal directive by the Reichsfuehrer had always been issued previously. And as I judge Greifelt, in view of his conscientiousness, Greifelt would certainly not have misused this directive and authority.\nQWhen Greifelt became chief of his agency, did he have the right to report orally to Himmler, directly?\nANo, he only received that authority when he became chief of the Main Office.\nQAs he did not have the right to report to Himmler \n directly, was he in a worse position than Heydrich or Lorenz?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2011, "page_number": "2004", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "ADuring that period -- certainly.\nQWas he in a position to issue directives to these people?\nANo. That would not have been possible, even if you consider simply the ranks, because Greifelt's rank at the time was lower than that of Lorenz or Heydrich.\nQHave you any knowledge of the general eastern planning, the so-called division and establishment of the \"eastern space\" for the period of pacification after the war, and so on?\nAI cannot recall anything of the kind.\nQPeople like Bach-Zalewski -- did they have an eastern policy aiming at a resettlement of Germans in the \"eastern space\", and did they promote such a policy?\nAAccording to my recollection, Bach-Zalewski, the chief of the Main Section Silesia, had been for a certain period the Reichsfuehrer's representative for these ethnic questions.\nQIn that capacity, did he receive directives from Greifelt, or was Greifelt no member of these intimate circles: Himmler, Bach-Zalewski, etc.?\nAAccording to my knowledge and recollections, from this first period of the ethnic work, Bach-Zalewski received his orders, and mainly the basic directives, directly from Himmler. It is possible that, as far as details are concerned, he might have received directives for the carrying out from Greifelt's agency. But, a right of Greifelt's to issue orders to Bach-Zalewski did not exist, and it is unknown to me, and I cannit even imagine that it could have existed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2012, "page_number": "2005", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QWas Himmler always in agreement with Greifelt's views?\nANot at all. After all, Himmler had been, at his origin, a farmer, and had very well-defined, pro-conceived opinions in this connection, especially as agricultural planning was concerned.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until onethirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2013, "page_number": "2006", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 5 Dec.\n47)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR.HAENSEL: (Counsel for Greifelt): I shall have to offer my apology to the Tribunal. Sometime ago I misunderstood a comment of the Court; I had put a question to General Wolff in connection with his participation in the truce negotiations, and I had understood the Court to reject this question because it was not interested in it. After the recess I heard that the Court was interested in the question, and I shall threfore now take the opportunity to put this question to the witness. I am sorry that may be previously for sometimes misunderstood the opinion of the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) KARL WOLFF - Resumed BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, I had asked you regarding your participation in the truce negotiations. Would you kindly tell us something briefly about this?\nAI had said before that in the spring of 1945 I independently and on my own initiative--because I realized that this war was lost for Germany and that it was senseless to continue it--initiated truce negotiations in Switzerland, and that I carried them out. This first German capitulation on a large scale, which was signed in Caserta, Italy on the 29th of April, 1945, resulted in the complete capitulation of Germany. As Field Marshal Alexander has confirmed, this complete capitulation of Germany would, under differ at circumstances, have taken place at least two months later.\nQAnd what was your position at that time, General?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2014, "page_number": "2007", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AAt that time I was Highest SS and police Leader, and I was the military commander in Italy, that is, I was commander of the entire rear-army and the entire German military administration; and I believe that it is not due to chance that it was an SS leader-- a high SS leader--who was the first and only person to have been courageous enough to carry out such extensive task.\nAnd I believe I gave proof of our holy conviction that the SS was not, generally speaking, an organization of criminals--but that it represented an elite.\nQWould you kindly answer the following question in connection with this? Did you and the Higher SS leaders, subordinate to you in Italy have knowledge of the extermination actions against Jews in Auschwitz?\nANo.\nQWas that kept strictly secret?\nAThere was strict secrecy regarding this subject and the people who knew about it were confined to a very small number.\nQDoes the same apply to Greifelt, according to your conviction that he did not know anything about the persecution of Jews?\nAYes.\nQNow, two brief questions regarding subjects to which BachZelewski has testified here. Within the jurisdiction of the Higher SS leaders Silesia, were there 40,000 members of the SS during the war?\nANo; the overwhelming majority had been drafted for service in the war.\nQWas Gauleiter Wagner dismissed because he forbade the application of Himmler's policies in Upper Silesia especially evacuation policy or was he dismissed for quite different reasons?\nAAs far as my certain knowledge goes, he was not atall dismissed because of the evacuation policy in Silesia, but rather because of his entire ideological attitude and in the last resort because of a family dispute regarding the marriage of his daughter--and in this matter he had shown a complete impossible behavior toward his daughter, according to the view of the Fuehrer.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2015, "page_number": "2008", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QNow, one 1st question. How was it, according to your recollection, as far as time goes? Did Himmler take an interest in the resettlement question after the first resettlers--that is, the Balts-\ncame to Germany? Or did Himmler first draft extensive plans them all for these people to come to Germany?\nAHimmler was supervised by the development and had to improvise the resettlement and the placement of the ethnic Germans from the Baltic countries.\nQOne last question. Were you and the Higher SS leaders surprised by the outbreak of war, or did you assume it as definite fact in your calculations?\nALike most of my Higher SS comrades, I was surpised by t he actual outbreak of war. We had believed that Hitler's diplomatic capacities which had had been proved so often, and which we had experienced in cases of Memel, Sudetenland the protectorate, Austria, etc., that this ability would again achieve a bloodness solution to the pro blem of German claims.\nBY DR.MULLLER (Counsel for defendant Huebner)\nQGeneral, do you know from your activity in the office of the Reichsfuehrer-SS the office of the representative the Reich Commissar in Posen, to which the defendant Huebner belonged?\nAYes.\nQWas this office of the plenipoetentiary of the Reich Commissar a field office of the Main Staff Office, or was it a subordinate office of the Reich Commissar for the strenthening of Germanism?\nAIt was subordinate office of the Reich Commissar.\nQDo you know who was the plenipotentiary for the Warthegau?\nAYes; Gauleiter Greiser was the plenipotentiary.\nQAnd who was his permanent deputy?\nAHis permanent deputy was the Higher SS & Police Leader of the Warthegau, from 1940 to 1943 Obergruppenfuehrer;", "speakers": [ "A", "BY DR.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2016, "page_number": "2009", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "from 1940 to 1943 Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, from the Fall of 1943 to the end of 1943, Obergruppenfuehrer Berthemann; and from then onwards, Gruppenfuehrer Major Generak of the Waffen-SS Reinparth.\nQWhere was the business of the Reich Commissar dealt with?\nAIn a spcecial office in Posen.\nQWho was the office chief?\nAThe Higher SS & Police Leader was chief of office.\nQDo you know the distribution as regards work in this office?\nAYes; I know that in outline and as regards essentials.\nQIs it correct that the action was distributed to several main departments, whereas the tasks of the inner organization were dealt with by a staff department?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2017, "page_number": "2010", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No.VIII.\nQDo you know who was head of this staff department?\nAThe staff department was headed by Oberfuehrer Doering from 1940 to 1943; from 1943 to the end of the war by Standartenfuehrer Huebner.\nQThese were the staff leaders?\nAYes.\nQCan you outline the field of task of these staff leaders? I mean in this context the field of task of the defendant Huebner.\nAThe staff leader had the task of directing the entire inner organization of the office, especially dealing with all matters of personnel, accommodation, transportation and internal order and the proper business of any office.\nQBeyond the tasks described by you, did the staff leader have any powers for giving decisions and directives?\nANo.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, he could not give factual directives to the main departments.\nANo, he could not do that. May I give two examples? He could neither order the main department, to whom any particular piece of real estate was to be assigned, nor could he give any directives or issue orders to the effect that a particular person was to be suggested for the assignment of any enterprise.\nQIf such factual orders were received by the staff leader, as head of the internal organization, what were his tasks then?\nAIn such a case he had to forward the directives to the departments concerned.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank You. I have no further questions.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, do you know the defendant Lorenz?\nAYes.\nQSince what date do you know him?\nASince 1933.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2018, "page_number": "2011", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDo you know the reasons why Lorenz was entrusted by Himmler with the management of VOMI?\nAYes. Himmler himself had neither the necessary time nor inclination to carry out any social representation on any large scale besides his other duties in Berlin, nor was his wife inclined to assume such social duties. For that reason he had selected Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz to direct a so-called SS-House in Berlin which would comply with the highest requirements of social intercourse.\nLorenz, who at that time was carrying out a very independent activity in Hamburg which he liked very much, did not at first want to assume this new position. Himmler and I, myself, had to talk to him several times in order to persuade him to assume this new position.\nQWitness, so far you have only told me that Himmler used Lorenz for social, that is, for representative purposes.\nAYes.\nQBut why did he then appoint him as head of the VOMI?\nAIn order to provide corresponding official background for Lorenz; the office of the VOMI was to be freshly staffed at that time and, since its task was the welfare of the ethnic Germans abroad in Europe, much social intercourse was connected with this task as far as the foreign diplomats were concerned.\nQWas Lorenz an expert in ethnical questions or was he an expert in the administrative field at all?\nANo, certainly not. Because of that the Reichsfuehrer Himmler provided Lorenz, for the preparation and carrying out of the practical work, with one of his best people, that is, the SS Gruppenfuehrer Behrens as staff leader. In reality Behrens carried out the entire necessary work and prepared it.\nQDo I understand you correctly that Behrens was in fact the actual professional head of the VOMI and the expert there?\nAYes.\nQYou said, witness, that Lorenz did not for some time like to \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2019, "page_number": "2012", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "accept the position offered to him by Himmler. Was there any possibility for Lorenz to seriously refuse the position?\nAIf the Reichsfuehrer insisted on his accepting it he could not in practice refuse it and the Reichsfuehrer did insist on it.\nQDid you have any opportunity of observing Lorenz' activities when he was entrusted with resettlement matters?\nAYes; I accompanied the Reichsfuehrer and together with Lorenz and we were present in Gotenhafen when the provisions were made for the resettlement of the ethnic Germans in 1939/40. And I witnessed also the return of the Germans from Wolhynia near Przemysl in 1939-1940.\nQCould you ascertain that the steps taken by the VOMI for this purpose were faultless?\nAAll measures which we checked very thoroughly were clear proof of the honest determination to do everything humanly possible for the welfare of the resettlers in order to relieve their hard lot.\nQDid this correspond with the desires and the character of Lorenz?\nAYes.\nQNow, one last question, witness. Did Lorenz, during the war, approach Himmler on several occasions in order to serve at the front?\nAYes.\nQWas he successful?\nANo, he was not successful as most of us Higher SS and Police Leaders.\nQDid Lorenz make serious efforts to get to the front?\nAHe made repeated and serious attempts and he repeatedly implored me to support his petition to the Reichsfuehrer.\nQIn your view did Lorenz have actual knowledge of the persecution of the Jaws and the extermination of the Jews?\nANo.\nQNow, one last question. Was the VOMI an actual SS main office?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2020, "page_number": "2013", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWas the VOMI not part of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes. As far as I can judge it, the VOMI was in any case not an SS agency though Himmler declared it to be an SS main office; but as far as I know, the means were not provided from an SS fund.\nQIf I understand you correctly it was not an SS but a government agency.\nAIt was a government agency.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I have no further questions.\nDR. BEHLING:Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQGeneral, do you know the defendant Meyer-Hetling personally?\nAYes.\nQWhen did you make his acquaintance?\nAAs far as I can recollect, in November, 1939.\nQOn which occasion?\nAAt that time Himmler offered professor Meyer-Hetling the position of planning within his office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQWas that an offer which was generally assumed to be honorable?\nAAt that time, certainly.\nQDid the defendant Meyer accept this officer immediately?\nANo. In my presence Meyer raised quite a number of weighty objections. First of all, he pointed out to the Reichsfuehrer that he, Meyer-Hetling, was principally a scientist and wanted to remain one under all circumstances. Then he added that without the approval of the Reich Minister of Education he could not possibly accept such a very honorable offer. When Himmler told him that this obstacle could be overcome Meyer added that beyond this, in order that it be possible for him to continue his scientific activity, he would have to ask that he would have to be dispensed of all personnel trifling kind of work and that, regarding the choice of his expert associates, he would be free to choose as he pleased.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2021, "page_number": "2014", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Was this the extreme limit to which any possible and polite rejection of Himmler's offer could go?\nA.Yes; that was my definite impression at that time.\nQ.Would an open refusal not have meant at least an impediment to the university activities of the defendant Meyer-Hetling?\nA.Yes, that would have been the case.\nQ.Is it correct that the defendant was always quiet and collected and that he thought on quite a professional line and that he was only guided by scientific points of view in his lectures?\nA.That is correct.\nQ.Is it correct that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was only an honorary leader in the SS without any official function and that he did not carry out any SS activities?\nA.Yes; that is correct.\nQ.What is the meaning of being an honorary SS leader?\nA.An honorary SS leader had the right to wear the SS uniform even if he was a scientist like Professor Meyer. He was to show, by wearing his uniform, that he belonged to this elite of the SS, in this case in the field of science. That was the meaning of granting honorary ranks to people who were not professional soldiers.\nQ.Do you know of any cases in which the so-called honorary leaders of the SS, one or the other, among them the defendant Meyer, were not sworn in the SS?\nA.I do not possess any personal knowledge regarding the case of Meyer as to whether he was sworn in or not. But on the strength of my experience I can confirm that such a thing happened repeatedly because it depended --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, what happened to other people would not concern this Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2022, "page_number": "2015", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "COURT I CASE VII BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Can you confirm to me, witness, that the defendant Meyer repeatedly tried to serve at the front?\nA.Without having my memory refreshed, I cannot recall this. It is possible that he may have done this after my time.\nQ.Thank you. Did the defendant Meyer belong to the conservative representatives in the ranks of the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, in Document Book V-E the Prosecution has submitted document 2703, Exhibit 206-B containing a note about a discussion in which you, as well as the defendant Meyer, are alleged to have taken part. I am submitting this document to you and I'd like to ask you to tell me whether you can remember what decided Meyer at that time to take part in this discussion.\nA.As far as I can recall, at that time there was a definite emergency among the various Splinter Groups of ethnic Germans in Russia who were being exposed to persecution, especially on the part of the partisans. They were supposed to be settled in some capital points in order to prevent these attacks on the part of the partisans. On the planning of this settlement in central points Professor Meyer was, in my opinion, asked to come to this discussion.\nQ.The somewhat high-sounding thoughts in this note, do they originate from the ideas of the defendant Meyer or were they connected with any other things?\nTHE PRESIDENT:This witness could not possibly give the thoughts of the defendant Meyer. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.How did the defendant Meyer conduct himself in this discussion?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2023, "page_number": "2016", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "A.As far as I remember, he was not very prominent in this discussion?\nQ.Did he deal with questions of every-day practice or with questions that dealt with the future?\nA.I havt to excuse myself here. Your question is not quite intelligible to me.\nQ.He had to devote his time to scientific tasks?\nA.He had to concern himself with any planning that might become necessary. I cannot recall the details of this discussion and this discussion was one of many hundred discussions.\nDR. BEHLING:All right. Thank you very much.\nDR. RATZ:Dr. Ratz for the defendant Sollmann. BY DR. RATZ:\nQ.General, since when do you know Sollmann?\nA.As far as I remember, since 1934.\nQ.Did you cause Sollmann to enter the SS?\nA.Yes\nQ.Since when and in which functions was Sollmann active under you in your capacity as chief of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS?\nA.According to my recollection Sollmann was, from 1934 onwards, active in the Department Economic Aid which was subordinate to me, as an associate.\nQ.May I ask, witness, if you have not made a mistake as regards the year?\nA.In what connection?\nQ.Since when Sollmann was active in the Department Economic Aid?\nA.It may also have been 1935 or 1936.\nQ.May it have been 1937?\nA.Would you kindly take into account that I cannot \n COURT V CASE VII possibly remember here all these personal details with absolute certainty.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "DR. RATZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2024, "page_number": "2017", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "I can only say, according to my own recollection, that since counsel can question the defendant, I am only too prepared to correct any errors in my recollection.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2025, "page_number": "2018", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_1_Gaylord (Jacobson)\nQThe economic aid then was transferred to the SS administration office. Was Sollmann transferred to the SS administration office as well?\nAYes, temporarily until the Reich Fuehrer observed it, he was transferred but then his transfer was reversed.\nQDid Sollman once ask you to be allowed to leave the SS?\nAYes, he had differences of opinion with his superior of a professional nature and he wanted to leave the SS, but I asked him to remain and I told him that there might be another field of work for him and actually I got him another position. This was an activity of short duration as economic expert in the office of Greifelt, if I remember this correctly.\nQAnd when did Sollmann become head of Lebensborn?\nAAccording to my recollection, in the spring of 1940.\nQGeneral, would you give us a brief statement regarding the foundation and organization of Lebensborn?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That will not be necessary. Those matters have already been very definitely covered by any number of witnesses, so just the activities of your client in connection with Lebensborn is the only thing we are interested in. BY DR. RATZ:\nQThe fact that during the war, some SS members of Lebensborn were transferred to the staff company in RuSHA, does this represent any change in their membership of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS or does this mean any change of structure of Lebensborn?\nANo, this measure was purely prompted by technical questions for because of the scarce number of position in the SS, the people who were indispensable to the SS would be placed there. At that time, the Reichsfuehrer SS was afraid that the few posts which he could dispose of could not be filled, and for this reason he established the temporary activity of this office.\nQWas that also the case as regards the person of the defendant Sollmann?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2026, "page_number": "2019", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_2_Gaylord (Jacoboon)\nAYes, that was the case as far as I can recollect.\nQDid the defendant Sollmann insist on the independence of Lebensborn and did he defend this independence?\nAYes, repeatedly, and successfully.\nQAfter Sollmann was appointed head of Lebensborn, a Kuratorium was founded. Were you, General, also a member of this Kuratorium?\nANo.\nQA certain Pflaum was a member of this Kuratorium. Can you tell us about the significance of the appointment of the former manager Pflaum to this Kuratorium?\nAAs I remember it, it was an act of courtesy.\nQDo you know whether the Reichsfuehrer SS was personally interested in Lebensborn?\nAHe showed a great personal interest in Lebensborn.\nQWas it necessary on the part of the Vorstand of Lebensborn to take into account Himmler's mentality?\nAYes, because Himmler did not tolerate any constant and continuous objections and in order to bring a good thing to a good end it was necessary sometimes to take into account the peculiarities of the Reichsfuehrers and to suit it to one's technical activities.\nQNow what is the nature of this technical conduct?\nAIf continuous objections could not cause the Reichsfuehrer to rescind an order, there is nothing else but to say: \"Yes\" to this order. But in the carrying out of this order, the necessary changes would have to be carried out at one's own risk.\nQDid you, yourself, experience such situations?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:This examination under the rule that the court has repeatedly announced where you desire to examinea witness who was not subpoenaed on behalf of your client, you will restirct the examination strictly to the activities of your client. This examination would sound like you were trying Himmler.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2027, "page_number": "2020", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_3_Gaylord (Jacobson) BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, according to your experience and observation, was Lebensborn and association which allowed itself to be abused for indecent and criminal purposes?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He needn't answer that. We are not interested in his opinions about those matters. If you want to ask this witness anything with reference to your client, please confine it to that. BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, what can you tell us about the personality and the activities of Sollmann's as Vorstand of Lebensborn?\nAIn the years in which I had official contacts with Sollmann, I always looked upon him as a man of more than average intelligence, a man who likes work, a man who was conscientious, and a man who is humane--an examplary superior to all his subordinates, and a comrade without a fault. The welfare of the persons entrusted to him-mothers and children--was of special interest to him.\nQDo you know anything in order to ask you about an example, which would characterize the personality of the defendant Sollmann. Therefore I want to ask you whether you know anything about a loan which was given to the defendant Sollmann and which he had to repay?\nTHE PRESIDENT:He can't go into the private transactions of the defendant. He said that he considered the man to be a man of good character, a kind man. That is sufficient. BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, do you know anything about the fact that the children's home in Bobruisk, in Russia, was a home of Lebensborn?\nANo, I don't know anything about the fact that it's supposed to have been a home of Lebensborn.\nQGeneral, what do you know about the attitude of the defendant Sollmann with regard to those homes of Lebensborn which had been set up or which were to be set up abroad?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2028, "page_number": "2021", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_16_4_Gaylord (Jacobsohn)\nAFirst of all, I know the basic fact that Sollmann avoided, on principle, to set up homes of Lebensborn in foreign countries during the war. At the end of 1943, at the beginning of 1944, he visited me in Italy. I had offered to furnish him with a recovery home in the famous district of Meran or in Southern Tyrol by supporting his application with the Gauleiter Hofer. To my surprise, Sollman rejected this offer. He was of the opinion that his institutions in the Reich proper sufficed.\nQNow one last question, General. In 1945--Lebensborn received a consignment of textiles from Italy. Do you know about this consignment and what is the origin of these goods?\nATowards the end of the war, there was a definite lack of diapers in Germany and other articles for mothers and children-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, he didn't ask you about the supply of anything in Germany. He simply asked you if you knew where this shipment came from.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes. On the order of the Reichsfuehrer. I had taken them from the potential of Upper Italy. I bought these articles and I bought quite a number of them, and as far as I can remember, Ambassador Rahm, as Plenipotentiary of the Reich for Italy, provided the finances for this. These articles were purchased in an orderly manner and they were paid for and they were bought with the assistance of the RUK in Milan. BY DR. RATZ:\nQThat was the origin of the goods.\nAAs far as I can recollect, this is the origin of the goods about which you asked me just now.\nQNo further questions.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2029, "page_number": "2022", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_1_Gaylord (Jacobsohn) BY DR. THIELE_FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Dr. Ebner):\nQGeneral, do you remember that in 1938, the defendant Dr. Ebner was appointed as so-called \"Managing Vorstand of Lebensborn?\"\nAYes.\nQDo you remember the cause of this appointment?\nAYes, as far as I can recollect, the reason was a change in the statute which Pflaum had at that time suggested for the Lebensborn association.\nQDr. Ebner was a physician, wasn't he? And if I am properly informed, he was only active in Lebensborn as a physician?\nAThat is correct.\nQWell, how does it come about then that the physician, Dr. Ebner, became and was appointed the Managing Vorstand of Lebensborn?\nAAt that time the Reichsfuehrer wanted to have Lebensborn represented by the serious physician, Dr. Ebner, and apart from that, by appointing Dr. Ebner he wanted to have Pflaum supervised by Dr. Ebner, who was his superior in years.\nQWas Dr. Ebner to take upon himself any responsibility towards the Reichsfuehre in his capacity?\nANo, all persons concerned ---\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, \"No,\" is a complete answer to that question. BY DR. THIELE_FREDERSDORF:\nQAccording to your recollection was there any agreement regarding the correspondence which Pflaum, asmanager, had to conduct, as who was to sign these letters?\nAYes, in the case of all correspondence which Pflaum as manager conducted with this so-called \"supervising Vorstand,\" Ebner had to sign as well, in order to act as a check.\nQAccording to your knowledge, was this correspondence with the supervising Vorstand of any importance?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2030, "page_number": "2023", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_2_Gaylord (Jacobsohn)\nQCan you tell us quite generally about the relationship between Ebner and Pflaum?\nAThe relations between Ebner and Pflaum were rather tense from the start. Ebner correct and cautious--a slow country physician-while Pflaum was a revolutionary type who wanted to achieve as much as possible in as little time as possible and who would in fact transgress the actual tasks of Lebensborn and this caused Ebner to object, and finally the collaboration between the two failed altogether.\nQGeneral, do you still remember what was the final cause for this break between Ebner and Pflaum?\nAYes, it was the fact thar Pflaum in Bromberg--in the newlyincorporated Warthegau--besides his proper activity in the Lebensborn he took over the welfare of the widows and orphans of the ethnic Germans who had lost their lives during the so-called \"Blood Sunday\" and in the process of so doing he set up a large store of goods which had been confiscated. This activity, of course, had no proper and orderly connection with the tasks of Lebensborn.\nQAnd Ebner objected to the extension of Pflaum's activities into this field?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the consequence which Dr. Ebner drew from this break with Pflaum?\nADr. Ebner in my presence asked the Reichsfuehrer to allow him to resign from his office and he asked me to be allowed to go to the front. The Reichsfuehrer refused this request and he decided that Ebner was to remain and that Pflaum was to go.\nQCan you remember the utterance which Himmler made on this occasion regarding the indispensability of -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind about that, witness. We can't go into every word of every conversation between these people. You have proven what you set out to; now let's move on.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2031, "page_number": "2024", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "5 Dec 1947_A_MSD_17_3_Gaylord (Jacobsohn) BY DR. THIELE_FREDERSDORF:\nQGeneral, you have not only had experience in the SS and in the Waffen SS, but you also had some experience behind you in the army, and therefore I want to ask you this: in the SS, Dr. Ebener had a physician's rank. Is such a physician's rank to be evaluated in a similar manner as the military rank of physician -- in the case of Dr. Ebner, the rank of a Senior Colonel -- equivalent to a purely military Oberfuehrer or Senior Colonel, or are physicians to be locked at from a special point of view, on account of their profession, in the same way as staff doctors? Is it not looked upon in the same manner as his military colleage let's say, a major is not the sameas an Oberstabsarzt?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if he's stumped you with this, just say so.\nTHE WITNESS:I have just got to think about this. This really represents a doctor's thinking. This is something quite fundamental. There is the attitude of the Reichsfuehrer SS which was that every physician and every administrative leader as well was not only to have this professional rank but also that he should represent the service rank of the soldier. This is quite a fundamental question and there are occasions for differences of opinion between-\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think, witness, that further discussion about it being a fundamental question would not help. If you know the answer, just tell him; and if you don't -\nTHE WITNESS:May I say quite briefly. In Dr. Ebner, we saw, of course, the physician and not a soldier in the shape of a Brigadier General.\nDR.THIELE_FREDERSDORF: Thank you. No further questions.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2032, "page_number": "2025", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch)\nQ.General, do you remember that the defendant Dr. Tesch in the year 1941 was transferred from the Wehrmacht, the armed forces, to Lebensborn?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know anything about the transfer to the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember that Dr. Tesch at that time on the suggestion of the defendant Sollmann was transferred to the personal staff of the Reichfuehrer SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did this mean that Dr. Tesch joined the General SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.But the transfer and the admittance to the General SS was blocked during the war.\nA.That is correct, but that was the only possibility to defer the draft of Dr. Tesch by putting him into the General mobilization Plan of the SS and to prevent him from being drafted into the armed forces.\nQ.Was the defendant Tesch later transferred to the Waffen SS?\nA.Yes, as far as I remember, at the beginning of 1942 when the professional schools were initiated within the Waffen SS.\nQ.General, what is the significance of the transfer to the Waffen SS as far as the membership of the defendant Tesch in the General SS is concerned?\nA.While he belonged to the Waffen SS he was no longer, and that is quite general, a member of the General SS in the same way as if he had been a member of the armed forces.\nQ.And now my last question. Was the defendant Dr. Tesch ever appointed by you or Reichs Fuehrer Himmler as deputy of the Vorstand of Lebensborn?\nA.Certainly not by me, and I would have been in a position to do \n so; and, as far as I know, he was not appointed as such by Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2033, "page_number": "2026", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "DR. SCHMIDT:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann) May it please the Tribunal, General Wolff has been subpoenaed for the defendant Hofmann.\nI only wanted to call him as a witness when presenting evidence for Hofmann. If the Court desires it, I shall now examine him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, we will get through with the witnesses as they come to the stand, regardless of how many different defendants may have subpoenaed him.\nMay I remind you again of the request the Court has repeatedly made: That although he is your witness, do not cover territory that has already been covered, which, in the Tribunal's opinion leaves very little territory.\nGo ahead.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Yes, Your Honor, I shall try to adhere to this. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.General, in its opening statement the Prosecution went into some detail about the SS. On the strength of your position in the SS and your relationship to Himmler, you can judge whether what the Prosecution has said is correct. One preliminary question now. Is it correct that in the trial b efore the IMT that you were not examined as a witness for the SS, in spite of the fact that you were prepared to do so, and that on the strength of your position you would have been a key witness for the SS?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.The prosecution has stated in its opening statement that in January, 1929, Himmler was appointed Reich Fuehrer SS; and, as such, he was immediately subordinated to Hitler. What is correct in that statement, and what is wrong?\nA.It is correct that Himmler on the 6th of January, 1929, was \n appointed Reichs Fuehrer SS, but it is wrong that he was immediately subordinated to Hitler because he was subordinated until the year of 1934 to the chief of staff of SA Roehm.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. SCHMIDT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2034, "page_number": "2027", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.The Prosecution has also stated that the SS after the Roehm putsch on the 30th of June, 1934, became the ruling class within the Third Reich\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Interposing) May I suggest to counsel he continues to quote from statements made by the Prosecution in its opening statement. Unless there is some proof in the case of those facts charged, you needn't go to the trouble of answering them because the Tribunal will not consider a statement made by the Prosecution in its opening statement unless it is supported by evidence.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, the defendant Hofmann is charged with membership in the SS. This charge is based upon the verdict of the IMT. This witness here was not heard before the IMT.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I can get you straight right quick on that. Whether he is criminally guilty of being a member of -- any man on trial here is guilty of any crime by reason of the fact that he is a member of the SS -- will be determined on the evidence in this case.\nAll the IMT did was to declare it to be a criminal organization, but membership in it does not mean that it is a crime unless it measures up to the rules laid down with reference to membership, and that will have to be proven not by an opening statement, but by evidence. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hofmann?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was he chief of the RuSHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What were the tasks of RuSHA?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Counsel, that is the thing that the Tribunal tried to make clear yesterday afternoon -- that any further evidence would be culmulative. The Tribunal has a complete picture of the contention of \n the Defense as to the competency of all of these agencies, and any further evidence about that would be simply cumulative, and could not be helpful to the Court.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2035, "page_number": "2028", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "The activities of these defendants is the only thing that we are now interested in.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May it please the Tribunal, I do not doubt in any way that the Tribunal is sufficiently informed about the competency of the individual defendants, but I must state here that the defendant Greifelt is in no way competent to declare anything as regards the competency of RuSHA, The defendant Greifelt has expressly stated that he does not know what were the tasks of RuSHA. That is in the transcript. For that reason I feel I have to go into the details of this question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has had this matter very carefully under consideration, and there is an abundance of evidence in the record as to the competency of all of these agencies, as well as the channel of authority as to all of them.\nAfter all, the Tribunal is charged with the responsibility of making this investigation and trying to arrive at the truth about it, and our sole purpose is to try to do that in an orderly and business-like way. We must ask the cooperation of Counsel in that endeavor.\nThe ruling has already been made. BY DR. SCHWARZ: Witness, -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2036, "page_number": "2029", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, how did the appointment of Hofmann as Chief of RUSHA come about?\nA.When Hofmann's predecessor SS-Gruppenfuehrer Pancke terminated his activity asChief of RuSHA, Hofmann was the senior office chief in the RUSHA and in that capacity he was nominated by the Reichsfuehrer-SS to become the successor of Pancke.\nQ.Was he appointed chief definitely or only provisionally?\nA.Only for the duration.\nQ.Did that have a significance?\nA.Yes it was to be expressed by this provisional appointment that the measure was only limited in time.\nQ.Was there a close relationship between Himmler and Hofmann?\nA.No.\nQ.How often did Hofmann go to Himmoerto report orally?\nA.According to my knowledge during the War, as a result of the strongly diminished singificance of the office, he would only go to report to Himmler on rare occasions.\nQ.Other main Office chiefs would come to Himmler much more often, is that correct?\nA.Yes, For instance, the chiefs of the R.S.H.A. --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, never mind about other agencies. We are just interested in this defendant now. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.When was he forced to retire from office?\nA.According to my recollection in 1943.\nQ.And why?\nA.According to my knowledge Himmler was not completely sat \n isfied with the work and the personality of Hofmann.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2037, "page_number": "2030", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "There might have been intrigues against Hofmann, too.\nQ.Do you know a certain Hertel?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it possible that this man Hertel intrigued for the removal of Hofmann and obtained it?\nA.I think that is possible.\nQ.How did Hofmann's appointment to the Higher-SS and Police Leader of Stuttgart come about?\nA.After the chief of the Main Sector Stuttgart Kaul had failed in his position and a new appointment for Higher-SS Police Leader in that sector had become necessary; Himmler thereby removed Hofmann from his inner circle of collaborators and at the same time filled the gap at Stuttgart.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether Himmler issued a prohibition that RuSHA could not issue any publications or propaganda on racial questions?\nA.Yes.\nQ.But what was to be the field of activities of the RuSHA?\nA.Do you mean the RUSHA?\nQ.Yes, that is what I mean.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is the question I ruled on just before we a adjourned.\nDR. SCHWARZ:If Your Honor please, I have not submitted any evidence in this question so far.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled very definitely and it should be easily understood that we will not hear cumulative evidence about the competency of these agencies and especially is that true with reference to this witness. Go ahead.\nDR. SCHWARZ:In that case, Your Honor, I don't think I am in a position to submit any evidence in this matter. I will go on with my \n cross examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2038, "page_number": "2031", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ? Was the RuSHA participating in the deportation of Jews?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind about the RuSHA. If you want to ask him what your client had to do with it you may do so, but not RuSHA. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Do you know whether Hofmann had participated in the deportation of Jews?\nA.I have no knowledge that Hofmann was participating in the deportation of Jews.\nQ.Could he have participated in that deportation on the strength of his official capacity?\nA.On the strength of his official capacity there was no reason and no contact with that task at all.\nQ.Witness, what was the difference as far as appearance is concerned between an SS man on the one hand and a member of the SD or Gestapo on the other?\nA.He would wear the SS uniform and on his sleeve he would have either a rectangle with the letters SD or an arm band with the inscription SD Main Office. But both of these would not have been recognizable by laymen particularly. Apart from that, during the War under his epaulets he would have a green color, a piece of green cloth to support them.\nQ.Could a layman easily make the distinction between and SS man and a member of the Gestapo without any study?\nA.Without having special experience in that field he could not easily make that distinction.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2039, "page_number": "2032", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Witness, do you know whether Hofmann participated in the anti-Jewish program?\nA.If counsel refers to the 9 November 1938, then I can confirm my knowledge to the effect that Hofmann had no part in the probram because, as far as I know, he was at Munich at that time to take part in the ceremony at the Feldherrnhalle where the SS were sworn in.\nQ.According to your opinion today, what was the intention with respect to the solution of the Jewish question, according to your own knowledge?\nA.In 1938, the intended solution was emigration and at the same time transfer of the property to foreign countries in foreign currency. The initiative was taken by a personal enquiry by the late President Roosevelt from Reich Minister Schacht of how this Jewish solution was to be brought about.\nQ.Just a minute, Witness. Will you please tell the Tribunal in what capacity you were informed of that?\nA.At the time a committee was formed charged with the execution, and especially the preparation of these measures, and as far as I know the committee was presided over by the Ministerial Director and later State Councillor Wohltat. All the ministries involved had sent a prominent representative to this committee and so had the Reichs bank. And all the merely technical matters of exit permits etcetera were dealt with by the RSHA, according to my knowledge. Unfortunately this offer, made by Dr. Schacht, to President Roosevelt and forwarded to the latter, was not used to any extent worth mentioning. But the emigration of Jews to Africa was repeatedly planned and even announced. Only apparently in 1942-43 the horrible final solution of the Jewish question was carried out and of this horrible final solution we had no knowledge during the war. Until about 1941, according to my recollection, about five hundred fifty thousand Jews emigrated from Germany and several hundred thousands also from Austria.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2040, "page_number": "2033", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "The emigration took place via France, Spain, and Portugal. At any rate, the emigration, according to my certain knowledge, was promoted from the German side in every way possible, at least at that time.\nQ.Witness, during your activity in the inner circle of collaborators of Himmler's or Hitler's, did you hear that there was a plan to systematically exterminate the Jews?\nA.No, at no time.\nQ.Were there certain regulations of secrecy in this circle?\nA.Yes. They were applied with the utmost severity and I think that the Tribunal has knowledge of that.\nQ.The defendant Hofmann attended a conference at the Wannsee and in this conference the final solution of the Jewish question was dealt with. In the minutes of this conference mention is made of the fact that only the central agencies could take part in this meeting. From your own knowledge, are you in a position to tell us whether Hofmann's office could be considered a \"central agency\" in the sense mentioned above?\nA.According to my knowledge, I cannot consider it a \"central agency.\" It had some connection with the matter, according to my view.\nQ.As the Tribunal does not permit me to ask what you mean by this \"sort of connection with the matter\" because that would bring us into the field of competency, I shall pass to another question. What was Hofmann's attitude and relation to Heydrich and to Himmler? What was Hofmann's importance as compared with that of Heydrich?\nA.Heydrich as chief of the executive organs of the political police had constant daily contact of the most urgent nature with the Reichsfuehrer SS. I think that he had the most overwhelming importance within the SS during the war. The tack and importance of Obergruppenfuehrer Hofmann, as compared with Heydrich's importance, had become of only secondary nature on account of the war, and in the same way \n the contact and the importance of the relationship between Hofmann and Himmler had diminished in importance also.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2041, "page_number": "2034", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Witness, do you know the prohibition of sexual relationships between Poles and Germans which had been issued by Himmler?\nA.Yes, but it is true that I do not know whether it was issued by Himmler or by the Ministry of Justice.\nQ.Is that prohibition within the framework of Heydrich's tasks or within that of Hoffmann's?\nA.As a task dealing with alien ethics, it is mainly in the field of tasks of the RSHA.\nQ.Now what agency pronounced the punishments in these cases?\nA.The Reichsfuehrer SS personally.\nQ.But did he look through every file personally? Did he have the possibility to do that?\nA.Yes, he just took the necessary time for that as well as he dealt personally with all applications for marriage of all his SS leaders and all of his SS NCO'S.\nQ.Do you know what these files contained? Can you remember that?\nA.According to my recollection, the files contained the denuciation concerning the occurrence of the prohibited sexual intercourese in itself, the testimony of both parties, photographs of both parties, and an expert opinion by the racial selection officials of the RuSHA offices.\nQ.Do you know at what stage these expert opinions of racial quality issued by the Race and Settlement leaders were requested?\nA.Not from the very beginning but only after the war had reached already an advanced stage. I would say about in 1941 or 1942. That is as far as my recollection goes.\nQ.The basic order concerning the prohibition, therefore, did not provide yet for this calling in of the racial selectors?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2042, "page_number": "2035", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "Q.Do you know whether the higher SS and police leader had to make a suggestion, for the punishment? If you do not know for certain, better don't answer.\nA.Well, I cannot testify to that -- under oath, at least.\nQ.Thank you. As far as the issuing of orders went, were the security police and the SD and the regular police under the orders of the higher SS and police leaders?\nA.No, the security police and the regular police received their directives direct from their main offices in Berlin. The higher SS and police leaders were left aside in the channeling of orders because very often they would only receive information after the fact or would not be informed at all.\nQ.Was it possible for Hofmann to have his own policy against Himmler?\nA.No.\nQ.If he had attempted to have that policy, what would have happened?\nA.It would have depended of course on the clear manner in which he showed this opposition or did not show it. If he showed it clearly, he would have been punished very severely and at least very great disadvantages would have arisen perhaps.\nQ.Witness, would there have been a Tribunal which would have protected the defendant Hofmann if he had wanted to fail to comply with Himmler's orders?\nA.Unfortunately not.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution objects to this question as calling for a tentative probing into what might have been, by the witness.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2043, "page_number": "2036", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:I think at least it would call for a conclusion.\nGo ahead. BY DR. SCHWARZ (Counsel for defendant Hofmann):\nQDuring the war, was it possible at all to have a dispute with Himmler?\nAIf Defense counsel, by speaking of a dispute, means resignation, unilateral resignation of an SS member from the SS, then this question must be answered absolutely in the negatives\nQWhat possibilities did exist during the war to resign from the SS?\nAThere were practically no possibilities. But in very few casesbut that was mainly in peacetime-permission was given for a resignation in cases where the SS member insisted upon marrying a woman not approved by the Reichsfuehrer-SS, or could not desist from that marriage for some reason or another.\nQIs it correct that Himmler would punish his own relatives without a compromise?\nAYes, even in that matter he was a fanatic. I heard that in 1944 he had a first cousin shot because he was a homosexual.\nQThank you. BY DR. HEIM: Dr. Heim for Strolm.\nQMr. President, I have only a few short questions. They refer exclusively to the tasks and activities of the defendant Schwalm as as staff leader in the Race & Resettlement Main Office.\nWitness, do you know the field of task and the activities of the chief of staff in the RuSHA?\nAIn broad outline, yes.\nQCould you describe the tasks and activities in a few brief words?\nAWell, I am sorry, but isn't that a question contradictory to the Tribunal's decision?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I must say, the witness comprehends the ruling of the Court better than the attorney.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2044, "page_number": "2037", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QWitness, could you tell us whether the defendant Schwalm at any period was deputy of the chief of the RuSHA?\nANot according to my knowledge.\nQThank you. No further questions. BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for defendant Hildebrandt):\nQGeneral, for how long have you known the defendant Hildebrandt?\nASince 1931.\nQHow do you judge the former Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt as far as his reputation and his personality are concerned?\nAI think that he is a very good man in every respect.\nQWhat directives did Hildebrandt receive from Himmler before he took over the office of Higher SS & Police Leader in Danzig, Western Prussia?\nAAs local representative of the Reichsfuehrer SS, Hildebrandt was to take charge of bringing about as good an understanding as possible between the local authorities and party, state, and army. First of all he was to try to bring about as good an understanding as possible with the very difficult Gauleiter Forster and to build quietly his agency in Danzig. Over and beyond that, he was to see to it that in this area, which had newly been incorporated into the Reich, a general SS be set up from the Reich Germans and the racial Germans,\nQDid Hildebrandt have powers to issue orders to the units of the Waffen-SS stationed in his area or to other armed units stationed in the same area?\nANot according to my knowledge.\nQIn Hildebrandt's capacity as Higher SS & Police Leader, were the units and the concentration camps in the areas of Danzig and West Prussia under his knowledge?\nANot according to my knowledge.\nQHave you any knowledge of whether the intervention into the affairs and into the management of the concentration camps was strictly prohibited to the Higher SS & Police Leader?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2045, "page_number": "2038", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AIf they had no power to issue orders, then they could not intervene in those affairs either.\nQGeneral, the defendant Hildebrandt is charged by the prosecution of having been connected with the home protection in western Prussia. What was the position and nature of the Selbstschutz West Preussen?\nAAfter the outbreak of the war and after it became public that atrocities had been committed by the Polish population against racial Germans, it had been set up as a home protection on orders from Berlin, and was under the exclusive command and orders of Heydrich in Berlin-that is, the R.S.H.A.\nQWas Hildebrant in a position to interfere in the activity of the Selbstschutz in his capacity as Higher SS & Police Leader?\nANo. Heydrich would have objected very strongly to that.\nQGeneral, what about the relationship between Hildebrandt and Himmler, and vice versa?\nAIn 1931-32 the relationship was good. Himmler was very satisfied with Hildebrandt's work. The first considerable dispute arose at the end of 1932, beginning of 1933, when Hildebrandt, on the orders of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, discussed the so-called Stegmann affair with Gauleiter Striecher, at Nurnberg, and there he opposed Streicher's orders and refused to comply with them. And he objected very strongly to the threats of the riding stick of Streicher, and he pulled his gun. At the time Hildebrandt was not backed up by Himmler for his showing of character, and only after a long period of time had elapsed could he again receive a higher position. As Hildebrandt is a man who, even towards his superiors, does not hide his convictions, his relationship with Himmler, especially as the war went on, deterioriated more and more because before 1933 and even before 1939 Himmler was quite a different man from what he was in 1941--\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, I do not think a description of the character of these men would help any.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2046, "page_number": "2039", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "QWell, just keep it in a few short words.\nAWell, as I said, the relations deterioriated more and more.\nQNow, what we re the reasons for Hildebrandt's being appointed chief of the RUSHA in April, 1943?\nAOn account of differences concerning the ethnic work, Hildebrandt had had a considerable dispute with Gauleiter Forster, who was a very difficult man to get along with. Apart from that, the Reichsfuehrer needed a successor for Hofmann, who resigned from his position and therefore he chose Hildebrandt.\nQWas Hildebrandt thereby put on a dead track, so to speak?\nAYes, you can put it that way\nQMy last question: While Hildebrandt was in office in the RuSHA did the field of tasks of this office concentrate on certain well-defined areas, and, if so, on which areas?\nAMainly on care and welfare of orphans and widows and the incapacitated.\nQMr. President, that concludes my questions. I have one more question to ask on behalf of a colleague who was prevented today from asking this witness himself. Maybe I can add it to my question.\nGeneral, the witness von dem Bach-Zelewski has asserted that the plan for the extermination of the Jaws was known to the whole leadership corps of the SS. A while ago you stated that that was not the case, as far as you were concerned.\nAre you in agreement with the opinion of the witness von dem BachZelewski as far as all the other SS leaders were concerned, or do you differ?\nAI cannot agree with Bach-Zelewski's opinion. As a matter of fact, on behalf of the overwhelming majority of all the SS-men and leaders who are not in a position to reject such an assertion-even on behalf of the dead.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2047, "page_number": "2040", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "DR. RATZ: Dr. Ratz for Sollman. Your Honor-\nTHE PRESIDENT: Am I correct in my impression that you have already cross-examined this witness?\nDR. RATZ: Your Honor, I would like permission to ask the Court something.\nTHE PRESIDENT: All right.\nDR. RATZ: I wanted to supplement my previous examination by informing the Tribunal that the witness Wolff was also granted to me as a witness for my defendant, Sollmann, by a ruling of 4 August, 1947. And I ask permission to ask whether, in view of that fact, I may be authorized to ask three more questions of the witness. It is true that they refer to the organizations but, in my opinion, they are relevant and should be admitted because the decisive questions in that matter have not been discussed at all yet.\nTHE PRESIDENT: The trouble is the Tribunal doesn't agree with you about that. We have gone into that question and have determined that any other evidence with reference to these organizations and the competency of the would be purely cumulative and couldn't help the Tribunal. So we will not permit my further questions.\nMay I make this suggestion to counsel for the Prosecution? The Tribunal will be compelled to adjourn this afternoon at 4:15 instead of 4:30 for satisfactory reasons. If it could be possible to shorten this cross examination and get through with this witness this afternoon, it would prevent having to bring him back Monday.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, would you say that von dem Bach-Zelewski was in a position to know what he was talking about in connection with SS matters?\nAYes.\nQWere you, witness, intimately acquainted with the duties and organization of the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2048, "page_number": "2041", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AIn broad outlines, and as far as the basic questions are concerned, I was, as I said. But quite a number of things I knew in detail, as it happened,\nQWitness, on direct examination you testified that the defendant Greifelt was not Himmler's deputy. I should like to clarify that. Do you mean that he was Himmler's deputy in Himmler's capacity as Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAWhat I mean is the following: It did not come to my knowledge that Greifelt was the permanent deputy of Himmler in Himmler's capacity as Reichs Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQWitness, don't you know that the defendant Greifelt gave orders to RuSHA, the RSHA, Lebensborn and other organizations in matters concerning resettlement, for example?\nAAs far as my knowledge goes, Greifelt had no authority to issue orders or directives to the other main offices.\nQWitness, all I asked was do you know whether or not he ever did issue orders to other offices in fields in which the Main Staff Office was active? Just answer that yes or no. If you wish to qualify it you may do so.\nAI have no recollection of any instance where Greifelt issued such orders independently or on his own initiative.\nQWitness, do you know of instances in which he issued such orders in the name of Himmler as the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAI do not know in detail any such cases.\nQWitness, didn't Himmler respect Greifelt's ability and his capacity for hard work?\nADoubtlessly he appreciated these capacities.\nQWitness, didn't Himmler accept advice and suggestions from Greifelt in connection with matters on which Greifelt worked?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2049, "page_number": "2042", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AThe directives of a general nature forthis field of task, which was quite now and for which no precedents had yet been established, were all issued by Himmler. The only thing I can imagine is that Greifelt, when he elaborated the orders given by the Reichsfuehrer, he submitted drafts of these laws and decrees to the Reichsfuehrer.\nQWitness, do you know that the defendant Greifelt personally directed a deportation and settlement action at Seybusch?\nANo; I have no knowledge of that.\nQWitness, do you know whether or not actually the defendant Greifelt ever gave any orders to Bach-Zelewski?\nAI have no knowledge of any such instance.\nQWitness, did you ever work with the Posen offices ox the Main Staff Office?\nANo; but I inspectedit accompanied by the Reichsfuehrer SS and Gauleiter Greiser and I listened to the Statement concerning the inner management and service of the station.\nQIs your knowledge, therefore, based on that single inspection?\nANot only on this inspection but also on my general knowledge in my capacity as chief of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQWitness, in direct examination you mentioned a man named Behrens. Do you know that this man Behrens had been sentenced to death in Yugoslavia?\nAI have heard that with regret.\nQWitness, wasn't VOMI treated as an SS Main Office by Himmler?\nAYes, After, all, it was an SS Main Office.\nQWitness, on direct examination you mentioned the defendant Meyer-Hetling's lectures. Did you ever attend any of those lectures?\nAYes, I did.\nQWitness, in connection with Lebensborn, did you over observe the work of Lebensborn after the defendant Sollmann became the head of that organization?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2050, "page_number": "2043", "date": "05 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-05", "text": "AYes.\nQIn what capacity?\nAIn my capacity as chief of the Personal Staff Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQIn this capacity, witness, you dealt with promotions and personnel of Lebensborn, did you not?\nAQuite; not within the Lebensborn, I would say, but all the promotions and matters and so on and so forth had to be submitted to me by Sollmann and I had to decide them as far as I was competent. As far as I was not competent I had to submit them to the Reichsfuehrer for his approval.\nQIn what other respects did you observe the work of Lebensborn?\nAI visited and inspected several establishments of the Lebensborn together with the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQWitness, did the defendant Sollman report to you in connection with his activities as head of Lebensborn?\nANo. In this matter he was not under my orders. He was under my orders only as far as SS disciplinary matters were concerned.\nTHE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty Monday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 8 December, 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2051, "page_number": "2044", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nuerberg, Germany, on 8 December 1947, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal No,.1 Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT.Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal have you ascertained that all defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor, all defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nKARL FRIEDRICH OTTO WOLFF - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION (continued) BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, at the close of the session on Friday you testified that after the defendant Sollmann became the head of Lebensborn your duties in connection with Lebensborn had to do only with promotions and personnel, but that you had visited several children's home with the Reichsfuehrer SS. Now, witness, in addition to this did you observe the work of the defendant Ebner after the defendant Sollmann became the head of Lebensborn?\nANot in detail, I would say.\nQWitness, did you observe the work of the defendant Ebner in general?\nAYes.\nQHow did you do this, witness?\nAThe defendant Ebner is an old acquaintance of the Reichsfuehrer SS and the Reichsfuehrer SS had quite a lot of confidence in him.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2052, "page_number": "2045", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "On the occasion of various conferences and particularly when questions of disputes were involved or difficulties which had arisen within the scope of the Lebensborn, the Reichsfuehrer called me into these conferences as a witness and from these conferences, from the inspections, for instance, in the oldest home of the Lebensborn at Steinhoering, which was under the medical supervision of the defendant Ebner, I know his activities and his calm and quiet ways and I have talked to quite a number of mothers in or out of wedlock and wherever possible I asked them concerning the treatment given to them, what were their desires and what suggestions for improvement they could make.\nTherefore, I can have an expert judgment on the defendant Ebner.\nI am quite prepared, if the Prosecutor is interested, or if the Tribunal wants to hear something about it, I can give a few words concerning my basic responsibility as far as the Lebensborn is concerned,\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't know about the Prosecution, but the Tribunal is not interested. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, did you know anything about the taking of children of non-German nationality by Lebensborn?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, Mr. Prosecutor Attorney, we have held the defense in the examination of this witness down to the activities of these defendants and surely you will have to confine your cross examination to the same thing. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, do you have, any knowledge concerning the activities of the defendants Sollmann, Ebner, Tesch and Viermetz in connection with the taking of non-German children, children not of German nationality?\nATo the best of my knowledge and belief and to the best of my recollection, no.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2053, "page_number": "2046", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QHave you ever heard of the Sturmbannheime in Danzig, West-Prussia?\nATo the best of my recollection I haven't until the Prosecution in this building questioned me about it.\nQWitness, on direct examination last Friday you testified that you didn't know about the persecution and extermination of the Jews until the end of the war. Is that correct?\nAI don't think that I said that I had no knowledge of the persecution of the Jews. I think this word persecution is vague and leaves quite a bit of margin, but the rest is correct, namely, that I had no knowledge of the extermination of Jews.\nQWitness, will you please look at this document (handing document to witness)? This is document No.NO-2861. This consists of a cover letter dated 26 February 1943 sent to you from Dalugue, then head of the regular police, the Orpo, and a report on the work of the Orpo during the year 1942.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I had no time to have translations and copies made of this document, but I shall do so as soon as possible. BY MR. SHILLER:\n(Continuing) Witness, will you please look at page 12 of this document. Have you found the page marked 12 at the top, witness?\nAYes, I have found it.\nQDo you see the first full paragraph, witness?\nAYes, I see the first full paragraph. It is the second paragraph on Page 12, prbably. Do you refer to Page 11 or 12?\nQPage 12.\nAI see it.\nQIsn't there a statement in this paragraph, witness, that apart from --\nTHE PRESIDENT:Never mind what is in the affidavit, document or whatever it is. It shows what it is. If you want to impeach him by it, all you have to do is simply let him testify to something else.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2054, "page_number": "2047", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Then youccan argue to the Court whore the conflict comes. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, doesn't this paragraph mention the cleaning up of the Warsaw Ghetto?\nTHE PRESIDENTWait a minute, Mr. Attorney. That is the very thing I just ruled on. He can't testify about what it shows. The document itself shows that. If you think he is testifying about something to the contrary, there is no use to argue with him about it. You call that to the attention of the Tribunal.\nMR. SHILLER:Verywell, Your Honor.\nTHE WITNESS:Maybe I may point out to the tribunal that it is quite unnecessary to deal with this document because the date is 26 February 1943 which is ten days after I had personally fallen ill and I was brought into the hospital at Hohenlychen, and I did not take care of my official business any longer. Therefore the document cannot incriminate me in the least because it dates after I had resigned from my position as chief of the personal staff and not only was it written after that but also received.\nMR. SHILLER:I offer this document No.NO-2861for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.802. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, will you please look at this document, Document No. NO-2207. This is a letter dated 28 July 1942 sent to you by Ganzenmueller, Secretary of State to the Reich Ministry of Transportation.\nAJust a minute, just a minute. May I point out to the Court that the document NC-2207 is a letter written by the Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories of 12 October 1943. Maybe you have got mixed up with the documents there. (Document handed to witness.) Yes, I have the document now.\nQWitness, wasn't this document shown to you in the Pohl case?\nAYes, it was; and I think that I have answered and explained it in an adequate manner in the Pohl Case too.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2055, "page_number": "2048", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QWitness, will you please look at the second page, your reply of 13 August, 1942?\nAYes, I see it.\nQWitness, for what reasons were you especially pleased to learn that 70,000 Jews had been shipped to Treblinka from Warsaw?\nAAlready in the Pohl trial on 5 June 1947 in the morning I testified in a very extensive manner that I have not indicated this letter myself, as can be seen from the dictation, symbol, BA/MZ. I have shown to the Tribunal that at the time I was near Winniza at the Fuehrer's headquaters and I had no secretary, neither male nor female secretary, to deal with my written work because there wasn't enough space available. Therefore, who I/received a letter from State Secretary Ganzenmueller on 28 July, as I see here, I could only deal with it as I did with all the mail I received, that is, I put in a few words on it and then I sent it 80 miles north to the field command post of the Reichsfuehrer SS at Sitomir for preparation of the answer, which was to be all ready for my signature.\nAt the time, the expert in charge -- and that I have to admit ---used very vague, ambiguous and, if I may say so, unfortunate wordings which are not in line with my own way of expressing myself and, as can be proved, the dealing with this case of correspondence took from the 28 of July until the 13 of August. If I had sent it back again, this letter, which was quite sufficient for the factual settlement of this matter, then It would have taken another two weeks to settle the affair and, therefore, I ask that I not be incriminated personally because the letter is worded in such an unfortunate manner.\nThe whole matter dealt only with the settling of transport difficulties and Himmler, as an exceptional case, had ordered me to take care of this matter without my having knowledge of the background for which the transport was to serve.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2056, "page_number": "2049", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QWitness, you read the letter which came to you, did you not?\nAYes, I did.\nQAnd you read the letter which was sent out with your signature, did you not?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Counsel, you are getting into the same trouble that a number of the defense counsel did. If I would walk into the courtroom now I'd think this man was on trial. These people over here are the ones that are on trial.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I am not trying to impeach this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand that; but you have the evidence in and now you are arguing with him and giving him a fine opportunity to explain. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, didn't you know that Treblinka was a horrible extermination camp?\nANo.\nQWitness, didn't you know that Globocnik was in charge of the extermination camps?\nANo.\nQFor what reason then, witness, did you send Globocnik a copy of the letter which you received as shown by your handwritten note?\nAGlobocnik was the man who was in charge in this field of traffic bottlenecks and on a regional level he was the SS and Police Leader in charge. It was his duty to deal with the matters and, of course, he had to be informed of the doing away with the traffic bottlenecks.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I now offer Document No. NO-2207 for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.803. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any sur-rebuttal, Dr. Haensel?\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, I have only a very few things to settle with this witness.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2057, "page_number": "2050", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQThere has been an ever so slight misunderstanding in your testimony, witness. When I asked you in direct examination what the agency of the plenipotentiary for Poznania was and in cross examination, when the Prosecution asked you, you spoke rather of a field agency of the Main Staff Office in Poznan. Now, these matters are rather complicated but maybe in a few brief words you can rectify that.\nAWhen counsel for the Prosecution asked me I paid more attention to the contents of my answer and I was not so much concerned with the wording of the preliminaries. Of course, I fully maintain my statement in direct examination when defense counsel questioned me. There I stated that the agency in Poznan, was the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in Poznan.\nQThank you. Now, during the examination by my colleagues you repeatedly spoke about some of the defendants concerning their character. You have given that information, from your best personel knowledge and, as far as Greifelt is concerned, I only hinted at that question and maybe you can give us a little bit more information now at the end of your testimony.\nASince for about two years I worked in the SS field and was on the SS level, the defendant Greifelt's superior from 1939 to 1941 until the point when Greifelt became independent chief of the Main Staff Office, I would like to give you some information on what I considered the official and humane qualification of Greifelt and I would like to limit myself to that.\nAs every old SS man who had joined the SS already before what is called the seizure of power and who had risked his head and his life for his political convictions, my attitude to him was cautious and reserved because he had joined our ranks only after the political victory had been won. However, it didn't take me very long to find out, to my greatest joy, that we had found in Greifelt a conscientious, calm, factual man of over average -", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2058, "page_number": "2051", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. The Tribunal is compelled to remind you again that the only question this Tribunal is interested in is whether or not, in the opinion of this witness, Greifelt is a man of good character. His speeches on the subject don't help the Tribunal any. He testified that he is a man of good character. That is all the information that he can give the Tribunal that will help us in making our judgment. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWell, in that case, witness, will you just conclude by giving your opinion on some facts concerning von dem Bach-Zelewski who has been repeatedly mentioned here, facts which you know from your own knowledge, I mean.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal pleases, the Prosecution objects to this question on the ground that the witness Bach-Zelewski is not here on trial, If the defense counsel has any specific question in mind he might ask that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Are you asking him about the character of somebody not on trial?\nDR. HAENSEL:No, I am not asking him concerning his character but concerning facts which might characterize the credibility of Bach-Zelewski. After all, Bach-Zelewski is a witness for the Prosecution and Wolff knows that man perfectly. I am not speaking of the character at all; I am speaking of facts and facts only.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the way to impeach a man is for the witness to testify that he is a man of bad character and that, from that character, he would not believe him on oath. That is the only kind of impeachment that would help the Court.\nTHE WITNESS:Your Honor, may I request the interpreter to repeat the ruling of the Court to me slowly?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE WITNESS", "DR. HAENSEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2059, "page_number": "2052", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:I didn't have my switch on. The ruling of the court was that if it is the desire of the counsel to impeach this withess by your testimony the proper way to do it is to prove by you whether or not you know his general character and then if you say you do, the next question would be whether or not you would believe him on oath in answer to that question, and that is the only way it would be helpful to the Tribunal.\nAI can prove by facts that for the least Dr. Zelewski is a very weak and according to my conviction even a very bad character. I am ready to prove my assertions but I would hate to say it while Dr. Zelewski is not present here. If I do it----\nTHE PRESIDENT:Either way you do it; he is not present, so that doesn't make any difference. The only question is we can't undertake to try the characteristics and disposition of all the witnesses there are testifying in the case. If he wants 15 testify to his character let him do that.\nDR. HAENSEL:In that case that concludes my questioning. I have no further questions for this witness at this stage. BY DR. RATZ (for the defendant Max Sollmann):\nQWitness, counsel for prosecution last Friday asked you whether you were in a position to issue directives to the Lebensborn, either with regard to general facts or with regard only to disciplinary matters and you answered you had the right to issue directives in disciplinary matters. Now, as far as the official capacity was concerned, by whom did Sollmann get his factual directives?\nAHe received them from the Reichfuehrer SS directly.\nQFor the rest was Sollmann independent in his actions or depended perhaps on Hofmann or Lorenz or Greifelt?\nASollmann was absolutely independent and in no way was he dependent on directives issued by either Greifelt or Hofmann.\nQIn other words the defendant Sollmann was only your subordinate as far as SS matters and disciplinary matters were concerned he was \n only subordinate to the Reichfuehrer SS?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2060, "page_number": "2053", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AYes.\nQNow, in spite of that if Sollmann received an order for instance from Greifelt, would he have to comply with it or how is it to be understood if he did comply with it?\nAHe did not have to comply with an order issued by Greifelt. If he followed any kind of suggestion or complied with any kind of demand of Greifelt's, then this compliance with Greifelt was doubtless called by a preceeding direct order by the Reichfuehrer SS which ordered Sollmann to collaborate with Greifelt in certain matters.\nQWell, one more question, witness, you said that as from February 1943 you were only in a formal manner Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reichfuehrer SS. After that period had you any further contact with Sollmann, or not?\nAOn the strength of our excellent and vary comradely cooperation Sollmann repeatedly came to visit me while I was sick and after that period also he took advantage of every possibility to visit me while he passed through Munich or when I came from Italy through Mumich to the Fuehrer's Headquarters and he tried to see me and talk to me on those occasions. As I have already testified, at the end of 1943 or at the beginning of 1944 he came to see me in Italy too.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't go over what you have already testified, Mr. Witness.\nAQuite, your Honor. BY DR. RATZ:\nQMy only remaining question, witness, is, as you said, you were fully informed concerning the field of tasks and the activities of the defendant Sollmann even after the period when you resigned?\nASollmann would tell me about his worries and successes. He came to me as a comrade who was older in life and older in experience, I, myself, approached him with a very friendly attitude.\nQThank you, that will do. I have no further Questions at this \n time.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2061, "page_number": "2054", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "BY DR. ORTH (for the defendant Viermetz):\nQWitness, did you at any time have any official dealings with the defendant Viermetz?\nANot according to my recollection.\nQBefore 1945 had you made the acquaintance of the defendant Viermetz at all?\nANot according to my recollection.\nQThank you; no further Questions. BY DR. HESS (for the Defendant Lorenz):\nQOnly one question. It is in order to clarify a contradiction that has arisen. Witness, in cross examination you said VOMI was an SS agency while in the direct examination you testified that VOMI was not an SS agency but an official Government agency. Will you please clarify this contradiction?\nAMy testimony in the direct examination is the correct one. This is really a very complicated matter of distinction between various official functions assumed by the Reichfuehrer SS party as leader of all the SS and other official functions where he appeared as the Chief of the top level government agency. In cross examination I only had a lapse of the tongue and I did not take care to make this very refined legal distinction.\nQDo you mean to imply that the VOMI was the main office of the Reichfuehrer SS in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes.\nQNo further Questions. BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for the defendant Ebner):\nQGeneral, just a few minutes ago, in your cross examination you were questioned as to whether you had the opportunity to observe Dr. Ebner's work in general and you have already testified that you had the possibility of observing his work while you made an inspection \n tour of the Home Steinhoering and also during occasional talks and conversations in the surroundings of the Reichfuehrer SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2062, "page_number": "2055", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "If I understood you correctly you were in a position to find out during these conversations and inspections that, basically speaking, and in a very regular way, what Dr. Ebner was as a physician. Was this observation confirmed also when you had to look into the correspondence which Dr. Ebner in his capacity as physician of Lebensborn had with the Reichfuehrer SS? Can you recall that from this correspondence also the capacity of Dr. Ebner as a physician of Lebensborn was confirmed?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2063, "page_number": "2056", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nA.Yes, Dr. Ebner in longer intervals would send medical reports dealing mainly with statistics concerning his work as physician and these reports were sent to the Reichfuehrer SS.\nQ.In cross examination you said that Dr. Ebner enjoyed the full confidence of the Reichfuehrer SS Himmler. Could you specify that statement by saying that this confidence Himmler had in Ebner he had in him as a physician?\nA.Yes, that's what Himmler on various occasions told me, and he was full of praise for Ebner in this capacity.\nQ.Did that statement connect Dr. Ebner with him as a political friend and deciple of Himmler's?\nA.No, I didn't mean to imply that.\nQ.Thank you; that concludes my examination; no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nA.Excuse me, your honor. Hay I ask a question? Is it permitted for me to make a short remark on SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Behrens, the staff leader of VOMI?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, you appear here as a witness, not as counsel.\nA.Quite your Honor; I apoligize.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else?\nDR. HAENSEL:No, your Honor, I have no further witnesses. May case in chief is thereby concluded. As Exhibit 1 for identification I have submitted my document No. 1. It had not been translated up to this point but now it is submitted in translation. Therefore, I ask that the identification number be changed into a proper exhibit number as Exhibit 1.\nDuring cross examination the Prosecution has submitted a number of exhibits. I have not received them all yet and I would like, at this point ---", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2064, "page_number": "2057", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "MR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal the Prosecution has received no copies of such translation.\nDR. HAENSEL:That's not my fault. The English translation is in existence now and has been submitted to the proper authorities and therefore I ask that the Prosecution's objection be disregarded and not heard.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the only proper authority to accept service upon the Prosecution is the Prosecution.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honor, the Prosecution takes the view that if documents have gone to the Defense Information Center, they have been received by the defense, we claim the same right as far as the Prosecution is concerned. If we get the document from the Center as translated then we have to assume the Prosecution has received it. After all we can't run after every single exhibit and bring it to the Prosecution counsel ourselves.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal the practice in every case in this court house has been that since there are so many defense counsel a single agency was appointed to accept service for them and that is the Defense Information Center but there is no agency appointed to accept service for the Prosecution, We are not asking that the Defense serve copies upon every lawyer or every attorney for the Prosecution but we do ask and we have agreed with the Defense Information Center that Room 217, and if no one is in 217, Room 218, are the rooms which service is to be made through Defense Information Center.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I have just conferred with my two associates about this matter. It appears to this Tribunal that if Defense counsel must get their translation from the Defense Center there is no reason why the same rules should not apply \n to the Prosecution and as you have just stated have an agreement where a copy is to be sent by the translation department which will serve as being satisfactory service on all Prosecution counsel.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2065, "page_number": "2058", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "If they don't do that you are then in the same place that the defense counsel are if they haven't served them which seems to have happened several times. In other words this Tribunal is of the opinion that what is fair for the goose is also fair for the gander.\nMR. SHILLER:May I make one additional statement. The defense counsel are in daily contact with Defense information Center. The Prosecution has no direct contact with the Defense Information Center.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I would suggest that you have better contact with the Translation Department and have them give you copies of these documents as they are translated.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, I would like to call attention to the uniform rules of procedure which call for a 24 hour delivery to the Prosecution.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal has ruled.\nDR. HAENSEL:I, therefore, ask that Exhibit 1 be accepted.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nDR. HAENSEL:During the cross examination a certain number of exhibits have been submitted by the Prosecution and the Defense, up to this point, have not received the copies which are provided for by the rules of procedure. I would like to notify the Tribunal of the exhibit numbers involved in order to prevent that the exhibits be accepted without objection. As soon as I receive the copies my objection is eliminated. These are Exhibits 787, 788, 793, 798, and 801.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else?\nDR. HAENSEL:At the proper time, your Honor, I will \n submit my document books and I have prepared a certain number of judicial notes concerning the laws to be submitted by me and by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2066, "page_number": "2059", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Further judicial notes concerning the legal questions of the crime of organizations and the participation in the punishable act.\nTHE PRESIDENT:As to your last statement: We much prefer to have all matters dealing with the law, or your views of the law, in your argument and brief and not in the evidence at any course. Now, with reference to documents, I note you say at the proper time you will produce them. The Tribunal is of the opinion that right now is the proper time, at least I want to, on behalf of the Tribunal, advise all defense counsel as well as Prosecution counsel that at some time, not in the too distant future, there will be a dead line laid down after which no documents, final statements, or anything else requiring translation will be received in evidence. This statement is made in order that both sides may know that it is incumbent on them to be busy now getting their documents translated. Anything else?\nDR. HAENSEL:No, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal, just before convening this morning, received from defense counsel a written request concerning the future conduct of the trial in certain respects. The Tribunal die not have the time to consider this before the convening of court. It appears too maybe to have the possibility of arriving at a plan that would be helpful in expediting the trial in a business like manner. At least the Tribunal would like, before proceeding to the next defendant, to consider this request and for that reason and for that purpose the Tribunal will now recess subject to call. May I request Dr. Haensel, Dr. Merkel, and the two Prosecution counsel present in the court room to remain near by so that we may call you in if necessary.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2067, "page_number": "2060", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:As a result of the written request received by the Tribunal this morning and as a result of a conference just completed with both Defense counsel and counsel for the Prosecution, an agreement has been reached with reference to the time to the allotted for the remainder of this trial. On behalf of the Tribunal, I Will now read the agreement into the record, which is as follows:\nAt the request of Defense counsel and upon their agreement, the taking of evidence in the trial of this case from this point will be limited as follows: For the remaining defendants of the Main Staff Office, Greutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, and Huebner--ten trial days, For the defendants Lorenz, Brueckner, of VOMI--six trial days. For the defendants of RuSHA, Hofmann, Hildebrandt, and Schwalm--twelve and a half trial days. And for the defendants of the Lebensborn-Sollmann, Ebner, Tesch, and Viermetz--nine trial days.\nThe above limitation as to time includes the time consumed by the cross-examination with the provision that the Prosecution will be limited to tem minutes' cross-examination of each witness and to thirty minutes' cross examination of each defendant. The Prosecution will be allowed six hours for rebuttal testimony at the conclusion of the above periods of time.\nThis concludes the reading of the agreement reached between counsel for Defense and counsel for Prosecution.\nNow, on behalf of the Tribunal, may I state that very largely counsel will be permitted to use this time in just a manner as they deem up be in the best of their clients. The Tribunal would, however, request counsel, so far as they are able to do so, to confime themselves to material matters. However, it will be largerly your judgment as to whether you do that or not.\nIn fairness, we simply feel that we should state that only material evidence will be consider, regardless of what may be proven. In other words, again stated, the Tribunal will not consider conclusions, opinions, \n rank hearsay evidence, and evidence without probative value.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2068, "page_number": "2061", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Finally, may we say that while this amount of time has been allotted to these defendants and to the Prosecution, it does not mean that you have to consume the full time.\nWe appreciate the cooperation of counsel thus far, and we believe that this agreement will expedite the trial; and we wish and request the fine cooperation of counsel for both sides from this point out. Under this ruling the time consumed in making objections would naturally be largerly wasted.\nSince we are starting on a now schedule and in order that we may start evenly, the Tribunal will now adjourn until one-thirty, (The Tribunal adjourned until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2069, "page_number": "2062", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 8 December 1947).\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal desires to state what was not read this morning but was understood during the oral discussion, that is, as to those groups of defendants. For instance, the next four, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger and Huebner were allotted a total of ten days. We understand that counsel Will divide that time among themselves and the Tribunal will simply enforce the rule of ten days as to those four defendants unless counsel should agree on a division of time and ask the Court to enforce it. Otherwise, if one man gets over into the other's territory, it will be too bad for him.\nGo ahead with the next defendant.\nDR. MERKEL:Dr. Merkel for the defendant Creutz. Your Honor, at the beginning of my case in chief I asked permission to call the defendant Creutz in the witness stand on his own behalf.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the defendant come to the stand.\nRUDOLFCREUTZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness reported the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL:\nQWitness, when and where were you born?\nAI was born on the 6 April 1896 in Trieste. In other words, I am 51 now.\nQWill you please describe your curriculum vital in a few short sentences?", "speakers": [ "DR. MERKEL", "RUDOLF", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2070, "page_number": "2063", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AIn 1901 my parents re-immigrated into Germany and I went to high school at Hamburg, and Karlsruhe in Baden until the outset of the first World War.\nQWere you an active officer during the first World War?\nANo. I Wasan officer in the reserve. In 1916 I was promoted but I had not the intention of becoming aprofessional army officer. In Summer 1919 I was released from the armed forces.\nQWere you a member of the Freicorps after the war?\nANo. I became a civilian and I became a business man.\nQWhat activities did you have then after that?\nAI held different positions as a commercial employee at Hamburg, Vienna and Neustadt in the Palatinate. In 1931, after I had remained in my last position for seven years, I was released from my position because the enterprise was liquidated and thereby I became unemployed.\nQI am now turning first to Count 3, meaning membership in a criminal organization. When and why did you join the SS?\nAIn 1933 I reported voluntarily for membership in the SS because I believed that the now regime was one which I should support and because I hoped that that would give me a better chance to get a now position and a newmeans of existence.\nQWere you also a member of the Nazi Party?\nAYes, but the membership had been suspended over since 1930 because, as a member of the Waffen SS, I was considered a soldier.\nQHow did you come to have a professional position in the SS?\nAIn 1934 I worked, because I had leisure enough, in an honorary capacity in the SS Agency and, after a certain period of time, I received a small feefor my work there and that's the way the whole matter developed.\nQWhat was your position within the General SS?\nAUntil 1935 I was an administrative leader, Verwaltungsfuehrer, and then I became staff leader in the SS Section 2 at Dresden. In 1936 I \n was transferred to Berlin to the SS Main Office and there I worked in the Central Chancery.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2071, "page_number": "2064", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QHow did it come about that you remained a professional official of the SS?\nAAs early as 1935 I had decided to resign from this position. However, I was unable to find another position; that is why I remained in that job.\nQWhat were your tasks in the Central Chancery of the SS Main Office?\nAI was an expert referent and chief of a department under the orders of the defendant Greifelt. From 1937 I was defendant Greifelt's successor.\nQIn November 1938 you resigned from that official position. Why?\nAAs early as the summer of that year I had expressed that I was not in agreement with the inner policy and the foreign policy of the government; to that it was added also that I had decided to have a church wedding and that I was not ready to renounce the church wedding. One day in October, 1933, I was reprimanded because of various remarks I made and I was released without notice.\nQThat was in October of what year, witness?\nA 1938.\nQDid you take a part in the excesses and a buses of the 9 November 1938?\nANo. At that time I was at home and I think I didn't even leave my house on that day.\nQDidn't you think, at that time, that you would continue your activities in the SS?\nANo. I had no intention of having any further official capacity nor even any further membership in the SS. I was looking for a civilian job and I found it; and on the first April, 1939, I was supposed to start \n in that job.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2072, "page_number": "2065", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QAnd why didn't you start on that job?\nAA report was given with regard to me, according to which I wasnot to be trusted from the political viewpoint.\nQHow did your later transfer to the SS Task Groups come about?\nAI don't even have a clear view of that myself. At the time I approached Dr. Hertel who was an acquaintance of mine, who chief of the Main Welfare and Supply Office, and I asked him to assist me in my efforts to start my job all the same, and he promised that he would make efforts, and a few days later he informed me that I was supposed to work in his office and that Himmler had ordered my transfer to the Waffen SS.\nQDid you go to the SS Task Group on your own free will?\nAI wasn't asked.\nQWhat were your tasks in the SS Main Welfare and Supply Office?\nAI was supposed to take a part in the supplies for those men who resigned from the Waffen SS after they had served their terms. However, first I had to find my way into that job, into that field of tasks.\nQThe Prosecution contends that the SS know the whole contents of your life; is that correct?\nAAs from 1938 they certainly did not know the whole contents of my life any more.\nQWhat brought you to the agency of Greifelt?\nAOne October day I was told that I had to report for work with the defendant Greifelt.\nQDid you report for that service voluntarily?\nANo. Before that I didn't even have any idea about it.\nQWhat task was entrusted to you by Greifelt?\nAGreifelt showed me the decree of 7 October 1939 concerning the task of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and he told me that I was to work and help him in that part of these tasks which he was to carry out.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2073, "page_number": "2066", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDid you deal with these tasks already before that?\nANo; and at the time I couldn't even see clearly what it meant.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2074, "page_number": "2067", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.What was your official SS rank at the time?\nA.At the time I was Obersturmbannfuehrer in the General SS and Sturmbannfuehrer in the Waffen SS.\nQ.Were you in military service, at least officially, during the whole war?\nA.Yes, I had only been detailed for an indefinite period.\nQ.I shall put a few short questions to you and by those questions I want to have the tasks and activities of the agencies described as far as your own part in them is concerned. What were the tasks of Greifelt's agency during that period?\nA.None of us had a clear picture about that at that time and probably Himmler himself had no clear cut idea yet of what the activities were to be. The first work I did mainly consisted of dealing with the many hundreds of persons, relatives of resettlers and partly resettlers themselves, to receive them and ask them what were their desires and as far as possible to help them in order to take part of the burdens off Greifelt's shoulders and off the shoulders of the few other collaborators of his.\nQ.At this first stage of Greifelt's agency were there already sub or main departments at that time?\nA.No, at that time there was only a department headed by Dr. Faehnrich which had already worked in the South Tyrol settlement and then a few weeks later the defendant MeyerHetling came with his planning tasks, also a financial department was added which was to take charge of the accounting and also a reparations department, the setting up of which had been ordered by Himmler and no clear idea prevailed as yet with regard to the tasks of that department.\nQ.What was the personnel strength of Greifelt's agency at that time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2075, "page_number": "2068", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.I would say 25 persons at the most.\nQ.What did you do yourself to fulfill your tasks?\nA.Well, first of all I had to set up a filing system and registration system and then we had to see how the tasks of the various departments developed in order to get an idea of the various departments developed in order to get an idea what tasks had to be dealt with at all.\nQ.Now, how long did that first stage last?\nA.Until about the summer of 1940.\nQ.For identification I am not putting to you document Creutz No. 1 and I ask you whether that is the organizational plan of 1940 which you yourself have drawing up and elaborated at the time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How did this first organizational plan divide the tasks?\nA.At the time there were four so-called main departments, the first was headed by Dr. Faendrich and dealt with all questions connected with the human being, that is, the personal of the resettler, Main Department 2, headed at the time by the defendant Meyer-Hetling and consisted of the central land office which had been put under the orders of Greifelt's agency in the summer of 1940 and also of the department planning which had been called into life by the defendant Meyer-Hetling. Apart from that there existed a Main Department 3 which had been set up in order to deal with all questions of professional economy, that is, the accommodation of the resettlers, and their placement in commerce, trade and industry, as far as they were independent entrepreneurs and last but not least Main Department 4 which dealt with the placing of the independent farmers.\nQ.Were the authorities and powers of the individual collaborators also defined at the time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2076, "page_number": "2069", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.Yes, that was at the same time when the organizational plan was set up.\nQ.What kind of powers were they?\nA.The Chief of the agency reserved the right of signing the important letters; for instance letters addressed to Himmler and other top level Reich Agencies while less important letters could be signed by the Main Department Chiefs themselves.\nQ.Was this power of attorney changed later on?\nA.No. In practice this arrangement proved applicable and it was retained later on too.\nQ.Did the tasks of the individual offices remain unchanged later on ever since 1940?\nA.No, they continually fluchuated to a more or less important extent until 1945. As the figure of the resettlers varied and as the war went on new fields of tasks were added to the old ones, while other fields of tasks were transferred to other agencies, or were deactivated because they were no longer acute and could no longer be dealt with. Therefore, if you take the broad outlines of the field of task of the agency altogether it was constantly subject to changes.\nQ.How did the designation Staff Main Office come about later on?\nA.That was done under the strength of an order issued by Himmler in 1941.\nQ.Was the organization of the Staff Main Office thereby finally settled?\nA.No, it was not settled in a final way. As I said before it was constantly subject to new developments and changes.\nQ.What is the meaning of resettlement staff AltreichOstmark, (Germany Proper and Austria)?\nA.This Staff was founded within the Main Department 1 as \n COURT I CASE VIII executive organ for carrying out the placing of resettlers in Germany proper in cases where the Staff Main Office and The Reich Commissar had no organization of their own yet at that time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2077, "page_number": "2070", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "In other words the resettlement staff Altreich-Ostmark at the beginning of its existence had the tasks of what you might call an Plenipotentiary for the whole of Germany proper; shortly afterwards Himmler however appointed the Higher SS and Police Leaders in Germany proper his representatives and thereby the tasks previously held by the Resettlement Staff Altreich-Ostmark were transferred to the Higher SS and Police Leaders on the spot.\nQ.What happened to this Resettlement Staff later on?\nA.The Resettlement Staff Altreich-Ostmark in 1942 became the later Office 2, Labor Committment, and all questions of labor committment of not independent labor amongst the resettlers were to be dealt with by this office.\nQ.What is the meaning of the designation of \"Menschenneinsatz,\" Placement of Resettlers which is used in connection with Main Department 1?\nA.Well, that term developed in the common language. The official designation of the office was to be Placement of people and Labor Committment. Unfortunately for reasons connected with the usage of the German language this designation developed into \"Menscheneinsatz,\"\nQ.How many Reich Commissioners for the Strengthening of Germany existed?\nA.Only one, Himmler, if you do not consider his deputy, for instance his representative in the Government General.\nQ.Does the designation Reich Commissioner have the same meaning as Main Staff Office?\nA.No, the designation Main Staff Office applies only to the agency in Berlin, on the Kurfuerstendamm.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2078, "page_number": "2071", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Did this distinction become apparent also toward the outside world?\nA.Yes, the Reich Commissar had a letter head, Reichfuehrer SS, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, while the Main Staff Office had its own letter head, Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, Main Staff Office.\nQ.Was the Main Staff Office an SS agency or a Reich agency?\nA.It was a Reich agency.\nQ.How was it composed as far as Staff and personnel were concerned?\nA.The personnel was selected as was possible during the war by newspaper advertisements, by applications to the Berlin Labor Exchange and mainly on the higher level of personal acquaintances and through personal relations.\nQ.How was the development of the figure of the Main Staff Office?\nA.At the beginning they had about 20 persons. In 1942, in the spring, when the maximum was reached, then Berlin alone had from eight to nine hundred employees and if you include the DUT which you cannot really completely include, and if you include also all the field agencies then you should say there were 10 to 12,000 employees in the Main Staff Office at that time, employees meant in the larger sense of the word.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2079, "page_number": "2072", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.If the Staff Office was a Reich agency why was the jurisdiction of the SS tribunals introduced in the Main Staff Office?\nA.That was done also on an order of Himmler and no opposition could be made to this order. The decision was brought to the knowledge of the employees at the time and in as far as they were not members of the SS every single one had to sign a declaration that he had been informed that he was subject to the jurisdiction of SS Tribunals and that he was in agreement with that.\nQ.When was that?\nA.About at the end of 1941.\nQ.Was special emphasis placed on the fact that the employee was amember of the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the introduction of jurisdiction of SS Tribunals, cause objections on the side of the employees who were not members of the SS.\nA.No, they all approved and gave their agreement. I have no knowledge of any single case where an employee resigned on account of that or refused to sing a statement.\nQ.Were you yourself an official of the Reich?\nA.No, after all I was a member of the Waffen SS and therefore I was a soldier.\nQ.What agency paid you your Army pay?\nA.I got my Army pay from the Paymaster's office of the Waffen SS. I was not paid by the Staff Main Office.\nQ.Why and by whom, witness, was the organizational plan of 1942 drawn up?\nA.I was the man who drew up the organizational plan in 1942 because the development of the tasks of the individual agencies seemed to necessitate a reorganization.\nQ.Who gave you the orders to draw up that plan?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2080, "page_number": "2073", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.I received that order from Greifelt.\nQ.Were the office groups introduced?\nA.Well, the plan had been that if the field of tasks developed further they should be proved in the form described in the plan. However, as at the same time in the summer 1942 the tasks of the Main Staff Office were on the decrease already, the office groups were not established eventually.\nQ.But why are the office groups contained in this organizational plan of 1942 Why did you put them in there?\nA.Because as I said the plan had been to apply the development on such a level.\nQ.Whet powers did you have as Chief of Amtsgruppe A?\nA.I had no special powers in that capacity.\nQ.Later on were the office groups dissolved again?\nA.I don't think so. It didn't seem necessary because they really had not been activated at all.\nQ.You have already described to the Tribunal your activity in the beginning. Did your activity remain the same all the time?\nA.In the broad outlines yes. I intervened where it deemed to be necessary in order to support the Chief of the office of the agency.\nQ.In how far were you Greifelt's representative?\nA.The very minute I joined the office Greifelt informed me that I was to deputize for him and in his absence I did that as well as I could. In his presence this task did not exist practically.\nQ.Did you in your capacity as deputy of the Chief of the agency have well defined tasks?\nA.No, no well defined tasks. I would receive the orders from one case to the other.\nQ.Did that change as the years went on?\nA.No.\nQ.And in the absence of the Chief of the agency, did you make \n decisions as his deputy?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2081, "page_number": "2074", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.I avoided that wherever I could unless there had been a clear previous decision made by Himmler or Greifelt.\nQ.Towards the outside world did you deputize for Greifelt, for instance during conferences or on duty trips?\nA.Yes, that would happen too, if I got an order to that effect.\nQ.Could you sign as Reich Commissioner, that is, on behalf of Himmler?\nA.No.\nQ.I am now submitting to you Document Book V-C; there in the index, if you will look at Exhibit 247, it is asserted that you acted in the capacity as Reich Commissioner. Is that correct?\nA.No, I couldn't even do that and I didn't do it either?\nQ.You were manager of the central office, weren't you?\nA.Yes, I was.\nQ.When was the central office formed?\nA.Also in summer 1942, when the new organizational plan was drawn up.\nQ.What was the purpose of founding the central office?\nA.The purpose was to bring all the main departments of the Main Staff Office, namely the statistical office legal department, register's office, that is all these departments which had been independent up to that point, together under one and only one organization. In other words the central office was not a homogenuous unit but only an internal organizational grouping of the other agencies.\nQ.Did the central office play a part to the outside world?\nA.Not as a central office but its individual main departments once in a while.\nQ.Did the central office in the same manner as the other offices give daily reports to the Chief of the agency?\nA.No, there again only the individual departments would send \n their reports,", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2082, "page_number": "2075", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Was it your task to see to it that important decrees were publicized in the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, until about 1941 then the task was transferred to the register's Office.\nQ.You, as Chief of the central office, did you issue independent orders to the Plenipotentiaries in the field agencies of the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you informed concerning the work of the other offices of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, that happened already as a result of my position and my activity.\nQ.Where did you get your knowledge from?\nA.From the various conferences which I attended.\nQ.As far as the offices 1 and 2 of the Office Group A were concerned, were you better informed there than in the case of the other offices?\nA.In general that was the same level of knowledge,\nQ.Before 1942 did you have any possibility of taking an inference over the word of the Main departments or of this office 12?\nA.No, not before 1942 because the then Chief Dr. Faehndrich was a man with whom I was not exactly on good terms with and we had no points of contact,\nQ.What other clue for that fact can you give us?\nA.Well, you can see that for instance from the collection of orders for the \"Meunrenceinsatz\", The committment of resettlers to which I received no information at all, I think that is a matter of secondary importance only.\nQ.I don't know whether the translation got that right. You said that in the committment of re settlers there is no order signed by you. Is that what you said?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2083, "page_number": "2076", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A. Yes.\nQ.And under whose orders was Office 2 before August 1942?\nA.Before August 1942 the Office 2 was subordinated to Resettlement Staff Altreich-Ostmark in Office 1 and only in August 1942 it was formed as Office 2.\nQ.And what were the tasks of Office 2 under Hintze?\nA.The tasks were the same as the Resettlement Staff Altreich-Ostmark had before that, namely to place the not independent labor amongst the resettlers and the procurement of housing facilities for these resettlers.\nQ.Did you, as Chief of Office Group A, you have an office to yourself?\nA.I had an office; that is an office room, but I couldn't tell you in what capacity I had that office room.\nQ.Did you as Chief of Office Group A, you receive mail or did you give signatures?\nA.Not in that capacity. I only signed or received mail as Greifelt's deputy.\nQ.Were the secret files under your orders?\nA.Yes, they were also part of the general filing system.\nQ.Is it correct that you ordered the secret files to be destroyed in 1935?\nA.Yes, in as far as that was possible that was done.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2084, "page_number": "2077", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Why did you do that?\nA.Because that is the regulation.\nQ.What regulation are you referring to now?\nA.That was the regulation that when the enemy approached, the secret files at least had to be destroyed.\nQ.Now, in a few brief words, let's deal with another field. Witness, in the course of the proceedings the so-called Monday conferences were repeatedly mentioned. What purpose did they serve?\nA.The purpose of general information to the chiefs of offices concerning the tasks of the Main Staff Office, in order to avoid overlapping of work.\nQ.Did you always attend those Monday conferences?\nA.Yes, almost every time.\nQ.Did you yourself hold such conferences -- Monday conferences?\nA.No, not I myself.\nQ.Were there other kinds of conferences of that nature, too?\nA.Yes, there were also conferences in all smaller circles, conferences which were called when the occasion arose, and then there were the regular reports of the individual offices to the chief of the Main Office.\nQ.Did you attend other conferences with other Reich agencies?\nA.No, only at very rare occasions. I think during the whole of the five years, I attended about ten to twelve such conferences and therefore I think I can remember every individual conference quite well.\nQ.Were those conferences dealing with questions of principle or basic questions?\nA.No, certainly not.\nQ.Did you have any powers concerning the funds at the \n COURT I CASE VIII disposal of the Reich Commissioner?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2085, "page_number": "2078", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Did you attend conferences with the Reich Minister of Finance concerning questions of the budget, etc.?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have conferences with Himmler?\nA.Well, you could hardly call that conferences. He once called me up over the telephone when Greifelt was away, and once or twice I also went to report to the field command agency, but there I exchanged only a few words with him. I did not really have a conference with him.\nQ.Did you often go on duty trips?\nA.No. In general that was rather rare.\nQ.Why didn't you?\nA.Because my field of task was mainly in Berlin.\nQ.Were you in Posen once?\nA.I think altogether I have gone two or three times to Posen.\nQ.What agency did you visit when you went there?\nA.The agency of our Plenipotentiary.\nQ.What did you negotiate down there?\nA.Oh, I don't remember.\nQ.Were you in Kattowice?\nA.I was twice in Kattowice.\nQ.Why?\nA.One for a funeral and the other time I can't recall; I am sorry.\nQ.Did you ever inspect camps of VOMI or other camps?\nA.No.\nQ.In other words, you had no direct contact with the resettlers themselves, had you?\nA.Yes, I had, but only on such occasions when they had some sort of a request and they came to Berlin to the Main \n COURT I CASE VIII Staff Office to approach me with it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2086, "page_number": "2079", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "That was particularly at the beginning of 1940 when everything was still unsettled and not quite clear to everybody. At some occasions on one day fifty or sixty persons would come to the Main Staff Office in Berlin and they would report their requests there.\nQ.But apparently you did not only have personal contacts with the resettlers but you saw also written requests dealing with those matters.\nA.Yes, during the first months we would have every day many hundreds of written applications of various natures.\nQ.Did you have close contact with the VOMI?\nA.The only thing I can recall are two or three conferences with the defendant Lorenz; and then a few times I had conferences with the defendant Brueckner over the telephone or somewhere.\nQ.What was your contact with the RuSHA?\nA.I think that I negotiated with the defendant Hofmann twice when he came to see Greifelt for some reason or another, but otherwise, I had no contacts.\nQ.Did you have a lot of contacts with the RSHA?\nA.There again I would say that altogether I had about three conferences.\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 710, in Document Book VIII, this exhibit contains a letter signed by you according to which the \"Lebensborn\" is designated as a Main Department of your agency. Does this formulation mean an organizational subordination of the Lebensborn to the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.But what caused you to word it that way?\nA.At the time I assumed that after Himmler had given powers to the Lebensborn in the question of racial German orphan children from the Warthegau that the Lebensborn \n COURT I CASE VIII would, get the commission to deal also with other cases of a similar nature; and as the Main Staff Office did not have an organization for the welfare and care for children, I assumed that the Lebensborn would have to take care of that task also in other cases.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2087, "page_number": "2080", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Do you recall any specific orders Himmler gave to Lebensborn according to which the Lebensborn was to have in his charge also the care of the children of Lower Styria and Upper Krain?\nA.No.\nQ.The position, the field of tasks and the activities of the plenipotentiaries, I think, was already elucidated sufficiently in the case in chief up to now. Therefore in this connection I have only two questions to you. Did you suggest to Himmler nominations and appointments of the plenipotentiaries.\nA.No, Himmler always did that on his own initiative, and very often we only heard weeks and months later about appointments of plenipotentiaries.\nQ.Did you personally negotiate with the plenipotentiaries?\nA.I recall two or three cases where I received orders to that effect.\nQ.The task of the EWZ and of the UWF. The resettlers central agency, I think, has also been clarified sufficiently in the case in chief of the defendant Greifelt; and, therefore, I will not ask any questions of you. Now, this brings me to the individual counts of the indictment; first, dealing with point 11, you are charged with having deported children. I am submitting to you Exhibit 405 in Document Book VIII-B. How did this matter come about?\nA.I don't know the history of the case. I only know that one day a letter was received from the Higher SS and Police Leader Posen, Koppe, and in this letter, sent to the \n COURT I CASE VIII Main Staff Office, he informed us that at the occasion of a visit in the Warthegau Himmler had issued directives to the effect that racial German orphans should be taken from the orphanages in the Posen area; they had already been selected by the independent Gau administration and placed into a separate children's home and from this children's home they had to be transferred to foster homes in German proper.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2088, "page_number": "2081", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Approximately at the same time a certain Dr. Bartels of the Independent Gau Administration of Posen came to see me who approached me in the same matter. He told us that the independent Gau administration had already collected I think, two or three hundred children in the children's home for that purpose.\nQ.Were these orders of Himmler's sent to the Main Staff Office direct?\nA.No. They were not sent to the Main Staff Office directly; the Main Staff Office was only informed of those orders by Koppe's inquiry.\nQ.What was then done about it?\nA.First of all we asked for information from Posen and for a report to here how far the matter had developed.\nQ.Now, how did the Main Staff Office get into contact with the Lebensborn?\nA.Later a decree was issued by Himmler to the effect that the Lebensborn should take care of the transfer of these German racial children from the orphanages in the Posen area into Germany proper, and that he considered that to be a task of his in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office have already contact with the Lebensborn before that?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2089, "page_number": "2082", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.I ask you to look at Exhibit 406, in the same Document Book, Volume VIII-B, There you write of racial examinations and selection of children. Why did you write about that?\nA.Well, in the case of orphans who were without parents and without families, this seemed to me the only possibility to establish that they were actually children of racial Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2090, "page_number": "2083", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.How did the decree 67-I, of 1 February 1942 come about?\nA.In the execution of Himmler's decree a conference took place in February 1942, at which the NSV, The Race and Settlement Main Office the Lebensborn, the independent Gau administration and the inspectorate of the home training, the institutional schools took part, which was to take over the care of the older children. These agencies attended the conference, and thus the procedure and the way and means to be used were established.\nQ.Did you yourself attend the meeting?\nA.No.\nQ.Have you any idea about what was discussed during this meeting, and, if so, how did you get your knowledge?\nA.Well, the wording of the decree 67-I was established and that can be seen from the documents, Exhibit 410.\nQ.Who drew up this decree 67-I?\nA.A certain Dr. Koldus, an employee of Office I.\nQ.Did you see the Decree 67-I before it was signed?\nA.I cannot recall that, but I think that I did see it before the signature.\nQ.Was that before August 1942, namely, before the new organizational plans came into force; or, was it after?\nA.It was before that.\nQ.When did you have to deal with that matter again?\nA.A short period after that when the defendant Viermetz came to see me in order to approach me for payment of subsistence funds for these children.\nQ.Did the defendant Sollmann approach you in the matter too; and, what did he discuss with you, if so?\nA.Yes, I shortly discussed the matter also with the defendant Sollmann. Sollmann told me mainly that certificates were necessary for these children and that in individual cases these certificates had to \n be issued by the Main Staff Office as an agency of the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2091, "page_number": "2084", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Commissioner. As we considered this procedure to be somewhat complicated, we came to an agreement to the effect that the Lebensborn themselves should issue the certificates on stationery which was handed to Sollmann, and in order to make the distinction clear they should have the additional letterhead Office 11 on the usual stationery of the Main Staff Office in order to identify them. In itself this procedure was not at all unusual. I remind you in this connection that in the matters of the delivery of luggage of the resettlers, certificates were used from the Reich railways, and that on this the German Transport GMBH also issued such certificates with the additional heading, Office for German Transport.\nQ.There must have been a mistake in the translation. The witness said the letter had the additional heading Office \"L\", and I think the translator said Office 11, eleven. In German 11 is similar to \"L\". Had the number of the children to be taken over by the Lebensborn been limited?\nA.At all times only two to three hundred children were referred to.\nQ.What happened to those children taken over by the inspectorate for institutional schools?\nA.They were brought up in the boarding schools, the institutional schools in the same manner as the other children there.\nQ.Were these institutional schools subordinated the the Main Staff Office?\nA.No, they were under the inspectorate for institutional schools, and these again were subordinated to the Minister of Education.\nQ.But why were these schools contained in the organizational chart 1942, of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Those are not the institutional schools. Those are Reich schools for resettlers which at the time had been set up for resettler's children and which only later, I think in the autumn of 1942, were handed over to the inspectorate for institutional schools.\nQ.Did you ever visit such a institutional school?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2092, "page_number": "2085", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Did you ever visit the children's home at Bruckau?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know Miss Hoepfner, the head of the children's home at Bruckau?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have other contacts with Dr. Bartels of the independent Gau administration?\nA.No, I only talked to him that one time for a short time.\nQ.Didn't you have any misgivings against the transfer of these Polish children into the Reich?\nA.No, I had no doubts whatsoever that in the orphanages in Posen also a certain number of racial German children had been placed and I considered it quite justified to bring these children back into the quieter conditions of Germany proper first of all.\nQ.To whom were the youth offices subordinated?\nA.They were subordinated to the independent Gau administration, that is to the Administration on the provincial level.\nQ.In Document Book VII a certain number of affidavits are contained of such persons as had their children taken away from them. Did you know that children were taken away from their parents?\nA.No, I only heard about that during this trial.\nQ.Did you yourself issue a directive according to which children who were with foster parents should be taken away from them?\nA.No.\nQ.Didn't the Main Staff Office receive a directive that Poles who resisted re-Germanization should have their children taken away from them?\nA.According to my knowledge the Main Staff Office never received such an order and never issued such an order either.\nQ.I am now submitting to you Exhibit 165, in Document Book IV-D.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2093, "page_number": "2086", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "There Himmler orders that children of several families should be taken away because the families resisted re-Germanization and were therefore committed into concentration camps. What do you know about that?\nA.I cannot remember having seen anything about it.\nQ.The female witnesses Milelajczyk and Antczak has told the Tribunal here that at Lodz they had been summoned to a children's home in the Petrikauerstrasse 113, and that there they were taken away from their parents. Now, in Petrikauerstrasse 113, was there a field office of the Main Staff Office at Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever visit that agency at the Petrikauerstrasse at Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office have any children's homes at all at Lodz?\nA.No, neither at Lodz nor anywhere else.\nQ.Do you know Dr. Gromann who worked as a physician at Lodz?\nA.No.\nQ.According to the testimony of various witnesses a certain number of children who had previously been in school at Achern were later transferred to Salsburg. What do you know about that?\nA.I don't know anything about it.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office cause that measure to be taken?\nA.Not according to my knowledge.\nQ.How long were the schools for racial Germans subordinated to the Main Staff Office?\nA.According to my recollection until the autumn of 1942.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office order the changing of children's names into German names?\nA.Inasfar as it was not provided for in the regulations, 67-1, the Main Staff Office did not order any such measures.\nQ.Did you deal with children from other areas than the incorporated \n eastern territories?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2094, "page_number": "2087", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.No.\nQ.What do you know about the Lidice children?\nA.Of these children I had no knowledge until now, i.e., this trial.\nQ.Did you know about the fate of the locality Lidice and its inhabitants?\nA.In 1943 according to my recollection I heard about the matter once at the radio.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office deal with children from Russia?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2095, "page_number": "2088", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQI am now submitting to you Exhibit 710, in Document Book 8-D. In this document you are referring to children of killed partisans of Lower Styria. How did this letter come about?\nAThe letter does not refer to partisans, but to criminals. This refers to a request by telephone by VOMI, and it was answered without my knowledge of the direct connections of the matter.\nQDid you or the Main Staff Office have to deal with children transports from Norway?\nANo.\nQWere children deported from France too?\nAI don't know that.\nQNow that brings me to point 12 of the Indictment, abortions in the case of female Eastern workers, did you order abortions to be carried out on female Eastern workers?\nANo.\nQDo you know who gave such orders?\nAAs I heard later on, this was done by the Reich Physician Leader, Dr. Conti, in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. It is true that he did not actually order these measures to b e taken, but he approved them.\nQWhen did you hear about that?\nAAccording to my recollection, I gathered that from a decree by the RSHA, and I would say that it was about in March 1944.\nQDid you have any part in the issuing of that decree?\nANo.\nQWhat about the carrying out of the decree?\nAI had no part in that either.\nQExhibit 793, which has been submitted in the Greifelt crossexamination by the Prosecution shows, however, that the question of abortions had been discussed with the Main Staff Office as early as the summer of 1942. Why was it discussed at that time?\nAThat was at the occasion of a discussion attended by Dr. \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2096, "page_number": "2089", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Stein, a representative of the Reich Health Leader, Dr. Conti. He reported that such measures were being discussed in the agency of the Reich Health Leader. At the time Greifelt took the view that it was not possible for the Main Staff Office to express a view in that matter because the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with it at all. After that conference, but merely on a personal basis, I spoke briefly with Dr. Stein, and I myself told him that I considered such a measure to be wrong.\nQIn the same exhibit, 793, a letter of the Main Staff Office, of January 1941, is referred to. However, it is not included in the exhibit. Do you know what that letter contains?\nANo, I don't remember that.\nQYou referred to the decrees of the RSHA of February 1944. Did the Main Staff Office have any part in the issuing of those decrees\nANo.\nQDid the Main Staff Office have any tasks within the framework of those decrees?\nANot according to my knowledge.\nQDid you get to know any individual cases where abortions were carried out?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nABecause the Main Staff Office was not concerned at all with the question of dealing with foreign workers, and especially not with the question of dealing with Eastern workers.\nQWho was competent, in general, in the question of dealing with the Eastern workers?\nAAccording to my knowledge, the RSHA was competent, first of all; and for the labor commitment, the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment and the German Labor Front.\nQIn Exhibit 475, in Document Book 9, as early as October 1942, Himmler writes about abortions, and a copy of that letter was \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2097, "page_number": "2090", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "also sent to the Main Staff Office. Did you have knowledge of that letter?\nANo.\nQTherefore, is it correct if I summarise that at no time were you yourself connected with the ordering or carrying out of abortions on Eastern female workers?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQUnder Point 13 of the Indictment you are held responsible for the deportation and taking away of babies from female workers. What do you know about that matter?\nAI have no knowledge of that matter at all.\nQWere the children of female Eastern workers to be brought into children's homes?\nAYes, as I can see now from the documents, a directive to that effect was issued.\nQAnd what agency established these children's homes?\nAAs I can see from the documents, the German Labor Front and the Reich Food Association.\nQWere the homes for foreign children not subordinated to the Main Staff Office?\nANo, they were not.\nQHow do you know?\nAWell, I would have known if they would have been subordinated to it.\nQWere you yourself in any way connected with the taking away of these babies and for their placement into children's homes?\nANo.\nQWhen did you hear about that matter for the first time?\nAOnly here, from the documents submitted by the Prosecution, have I seen for the first time that such occurrences took place at all.\nQIn Exhibit 497, in Document Book 10, Hilgenfeldt reports to Himmler about the bad conditions in the children's homes for the Eastern \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2098, "page_number": "2091", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Workers' children. Did you know that report?\nANo.\nQWho was Hilgenfeldt?\nAHe was the leader of the NSV, the National Socialist Welfare Organization.\nQDid you know him?\nANo.\nQUnder Point 14 of the Indictment you are charged with the punishment of alients who had sexual intercourse with German women. How far were you connected with the imposing of the death sentence or of other sentences on Eastern workers for sexual intercourse?\nAI myself was not connected with that matter at all.\nQBut didn't the Main Staff Office already from 1941 on, have knowledge of those questions?\nANo. I recall that a document existed to that effect, but it proves only that Dr. Faehdnrich was more or less informed about the matter. However, he did not discuss the matter with me, and he had no reason to discuss it with me either.\nQBut, all the same, didn't the Main Staff Office take part when work had to be found for such aliens who were eligible for reGermanization?\nAThat is correct, but the Main Staff Office was only informed of the fact that amongst the total figure there would be one more person eligible for re-Germanization, i.e. that one additional person would have to be taken care of, and in the case of ten thousand or more persons eligible for re-Germanization, that was an unimportant individual case.\nQI am now submitting to you Exhibit 528 of Document Book 11 of the Prosecution. Have you seen that document?\nAYes; according to my recollection I saw this document. That must have been about in March, 1944.\nQUnder Point 15 of the Indictment you are charged with impeding \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2099, "page_number": "2092", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "the procreation of foreign aliens. What do you have to say about that?\nAI had no connection with that matter at all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2100, "page_number": "2093", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. MERKEL:\nQWitness, before we interrupted this examination we stopped while dealing with Count 15 of the Indictment. The documentary material submitted by the Prosecution shows that several regulations were issued on that subject. For example, the marrying age for Poles was raised.\nDid you play any part in this?\nANo, I did not know these decrees.\nQAnd how was it with marriages between members of the various groups in the D.V.L.?\nAI cannot recall whether any regulations were in existence and if this was the case just what the regulations were.\nQDid the Main Staff Office have anything to do in the case of marriages between Czechs and Germans?\nANo.\nQI am now coming to the main point in the indictment; that is Article 16, the compulsory evacuation and resettlement of population groups. What do you know about the evacuation in the Eastern Incorporated Territories?\nAI know that such deportation drives were carried out.\nQWhen did these deportations begin, according to your knowledge?\nAAs far as I know, they began in December 1939; this was in October, November, and December, 1939, for the most part.\nQIs there any exact information to show just how many people were deported at that time?\nANo. AS far as I know, the R.S.H.A. had the figure--but only estimates.\nQWho ordered these deportations to be carried out?\nAAS far as I know, various local authorities: the Wehrmacht, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2101, "page_number": "2094", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "the Navy, the chiefs of the civil administration, and the Gauleiter.\nQWho carried out these measures?\nAThis probably varied in each individual case; I don't know.\nQThe witness Ehlich, who has been examined here, spoke about a conference in the office of Heydrich with regard to deportation, and you also attended this conference. What was the subject under discussion there?\nAAt that conference we discussed the fact, as far as I can recall, that Himmler had ordered further deportations to be carried out. The representatives of the Government General who participated in that conference said that it was impossible for them to accept any additional Poles and the question whether any further deportations were to be carried out remained open for the time being.\nQBut why were the deportations continued in spite of everything?\nAI don't know, I assume that Heydrich must have discussed the matter with Himmler, and Himmler must have issued further regulations.\nQHow many persons ware then deported, afterwards?\nAI don't know that either. Including the \"wildcat\" evacuations which ware carried out, the R.S.H.A. had issued the figure of 250,000. I don't know, however, to what period of time this figure applies and to what areas.\nQWhat do you know about the deportation procedure which was followed?\nAI don't know; I am not acquainted with it.\nQDid you yourself ever see such a deportation carried out?\nANo.\nQDid you ever order such a deportation drive to be carried out?\nACertainly not. After all, I maintained the point of view at the time -- and I still maintain it today -- that one cannot begin \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2102, "page_number": "2095", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "to establish peace by carrying out deportation drives.\nQIn the Government General, however, deportations were also carried out. For what purpose were they carried out?\nAThis was done for security reasons.\nQWho ordered these deportations to be carried out?\nAHimmler himself, without any doubt.\nQDo you know how many Poles ware deported?\nANo.\nQWhen did these deportations take place?\nAThis must have been in the summer of 1942.\nQWho carried them out?\nAGlobocnik, as SS and Police Leader, and probably police units ware used at the time.\nQDid the Main Staff Office play any part in these deportations?\nANo.\nQWere these deportations to serve the purpose of making room for the accommodation of resettlers?\nAI don't know what purpose was pursued by Himmler and Globocnik with these deportations. The Main Staff Office at the time did not think of the accommodation of resettlers. It only had the intention of utilizing the possibilities in the Government General for resettlers.\nQWhy were resettlers sent into the Government General after all?\nAFirst of all because Himmler had ordered this; and secondly, because it seemed batter for the resettlers to accommodate them first of all in the Government General rather than to keep them waiting for a long time in the camps.\nQDid these resettlers go into the Government General voluntarily?\nAYes; their representatives and spokesmen were asked before \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2103, "page_number": "2096", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "about this matter and they declared themselves wiling to go.\nQHow many resettlers were accommodated within the Government General?\nAAltogether, at the most, 7,000.\nQWere deportees from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg also to be brought into the Government General?\nAYes; I believe that Himmler discussed this matter with Globocnik on one occasion. However, Globocnik himself thought that this plan was not feasible so that we did not have to maintain any attitude on the matter.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2104, "page_number": "2097", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDo I understand you correctly? No resettlers were sent into the Government General?\nAOh, yes; resettlers were sent, but they did not come from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg.\nQYou yourself, however, signed directives according to which resettlers from Serbia and Bulgaria, and so on, were to be settled in the district of Lublin. How did this come about?\nAThese were not settlement orders because, after all, Himmler had issued the settlement orders previously. These were orders as they were issued in all cases so that the collaborators and other agencies, for example, the camp administrators of VOMI, the E.W.Z., and the different agencies with card index files, and other interested agencies would be informed of the fact that this group of resettlers would arrive in the Government General -- or, in this case, in the district of Lublin in the near future. Then the resettlers were sent out from the camps according to the existing possibilities.\nQWere these resettlers actually settled in Lublin?\nAFor the most part, yes. As far as I can recall, approximately 7,000 until the settlement at Lublin was discontinued, in the spring of 1943.\nQIn Exhibit 200, in Document Book V-A, the figure of approximately 50,000 resettlers is mentioned. You have just given us the figure of 7,000. These 50,000 resettlers were to be settled in Lublin. Can you explain the difference in those two figures?\nAOh, yes, I know....even 90,000 are mentioned there. These 90,000 resettlers were the people who were in all the camps of VOMI at that period of time in the fall of 1942, in Germany proper. We never oven thought of sending all these people to Lublin. It is a typical characteristic of Globocnik, and his way of working that in this report he speaks of resettlement of those people. He never could have settled these people in that locality.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2105, "page_number": "2098", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDid you yourself over go to Lublin?\nANo.\nQDo you know Globocnik?\nAI saw him on one occasion when he visited the Main Staff Office, and in particular the defendant Greifelt.\nQHow is it then that you are so little informed about these incidents in the Government General?\nABecause the measures in the Government General, which did not belong to the Reich, were not the task of the Main Staff Office, but Runnier had his representative in the Government General, Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, who received his instructions directly from Himmler, he disapproved of any close contact and negotiations with the Main Staff Office by pointing out that he was a representative of Himmler,\nQYou stated that Himmler went to Lublin frequently. How He you know that?\nAI heard that from different sides. I heard that in the year 1942 and early in 1943; Himmler had gone to Lublin at least once a month.\nQDid you know that before April or May, 1945?\nAYes.\nQDid you know that Globocnik had established concentration camps in Lublin?\nANo, I didn't know that. I only saw Globocnik on one occasion for, perhaps, thirty minutes.\nQI am now going to put to you Exhibit 37, in Document Book 2-B, a document 230, in Document Book 5-B; a document 253, in Document Book 5-C. These three letters are signed by you.\nWhy did you sign these letters?\nAThese are the orders which I have just referred to. I signed them because in this case I believe one or two days before we had received a very harsh letter from Himmler, He reproached the defendant \n Greifelt and the Main Staff Office severely for the fact that the settlement at Lublin was being sabotaged by the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2106, "page_number": "2099", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "There was nothing further to do than to furnish additional groups of resettlers.\nQWhat effect did your letters have, in practice?\nAFirst of all, they did not have any effect; the resettlers were assembled in the VOMI camps, I believe, in the area of Lodz, and here they waited to be called to Lublin.\nQBefore that time were resettlers prepared to be settled in Lublin?\nAYes; some of them had been prepared for resettlement before. This was done on the basis of instructions which we had received from Himmler. This was done on the account of a teletype which Himmler had sent to the Main Staff Office in Cracow.\nQHow do you know that Himmler was in Cracow at the time?\nAThat became evident from the teletype; that came from Cracow and it was signed by him. This also becomes evident from the documents themselves.\nQHere you authorized to sign orders for the Reich Commissar?\nANo; I deputized for the chief of the Main Staff Office when I signed those letters.\nQIn the documents of the Prosecution, \"villages of criminals\" are mentioned. What do you know about that?\nAThat term means no tiling to me. I never heard of it.\nQDid these resettlers agree to being settled in the Government General?\nAYes; we also asked the spokesmen of the resettlers group first.\nQI am now going to put to you Exhibit 659 and 660, from Document Book 5-G. The documents certain a request which you sent to Himmler that the Government General should be cleared for resettlement by Germans, \n Why did you make that request?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2107, "page_number": "2100", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AThis request was discussed on the occasion of a visit which Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger made to the defendant Greifelt. Dr. Stier and I also participated in the conference, and Krueger stated on the occasion that he would be able to place some resettlers in the Government General. He did not mention any figures, as far as I can recall. Since this seemed to be a possibility to at least got the resettlers out of the camps, even if it wason a temporary basis, and to place them in better living conditions there, until the final settlement could be carried out, this request was made by me, signed after the defendant Greifelt had to go on a trip himself, several hours after the discussion took place.\nQDid Himmler approve of this request?\nAAs far as I can recall, Himmler never decided on this request or answered it. Later, the direct orders were issued by Himmler in this direction, that resettlers were to be prepared for the trip into the Government General for resettlement there. Apparently, Krueger himself had initiated these orders.\nQAt the time did you negotiate with Krueger?\nAI was present.\nQIs that why you went to Cracow?\nANo; the conference took place in Berlin.\nQIn Lithuania were there any deportations carried out?\nAI can't tell you that exactly. If so, then only on a very small scale.\nQDo you know who carried out these deportations?\nANo.\nQIn the occupied Russian territories, were further settlement measures put into effect?\nAIn the vicinity of Shitomir, Ethnic Germans who had lived in this area individually were placed into villages as a group. This was \n also done upon the orders of Himmler, who had his headquarters at Shitomir at the time, and he wanted to have these Germans in the vicinity of his headquarters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2108, "page_number": "2101", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QWho ordered these measures to be carried out?\nAHimmler himself did.\nQTo what extent did the Main Staff Office participate in these measures?\nAThe Main Staff Office only had to furnish certain funds for this purpose, in so far as they were needed in the Reich for the purchases which the agency in the Reich had to made, as a result of salaries and current expenses. Actually, it did not have any influence.\nQDid you yourself go the Crimea and to Shitomir?\nANo.\nQHow many people were deported in these drives?\nANone, as far as I know; no people were deported.\nQWere resettlers also settled in the Crimea and at Shitomir?\nANo.\nQI now come to the deportation in Styria. HerrCreutz, what do you know about the deportations which were carried out in Styria?\nAI heard later on that immediately after the occupation of the Northern parts of Yugoslavia, a deportation drive was carried out there of all the Slovenes who had settled in that area after 1918, in those areas which were formerly part of Austria.\nQAnd who carried out this first deportation drive?\nAThe Inspector of the Security Police in that area. These deportees were sent to Yugoslavia and to Croatia, to the south.\nQTo what extent did the Main Staff Office and you yourself deal with this drive?\nAWe had nothing to do with it.\nQDo you know what brought about the second deportation drive?\nAYes, I know that the first notification of this deportation drive cane from the chief of the civil administration, Uebereiter, who \n who informed us of the fact that in a conference between Himmler and Hitler it had been agreed that this area was to be clared.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2109, "page_number": "2102", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Himmler himself then ordered him to carry out this drive. I don't know why he was ordered to carry out this task -- and not the R.S.H.A., as was customary.\nQAccording to the distribution of tasks, was the Main Staff Office competent to bring deportees into the Reich area?\nAI did not have the impression that the Main Staff Office was active in that field. As far as I know, this order was given personally to Hintze.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2110, "page_number": "2103", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Beyond that I wanted to Know whether it came at all within the field of work of the Main Staff Office.\nA.No; it was not a part of the field of work of the Main Staff Office because deportations in every case were the task of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office; and transfers from foreign countries into Germany proper were in general the task of VOMI.\nQ.When did Hintze receive the order from Himmler?\nA.I cannot give you the exact time.\nQ.Do you know how many Slovenes were resettled at the time?\nA.Approximately twenty to twenty-five thousand.\nQ.Just where were these people taken?\nA.They were placed in VOMI camps, in Germany proper; for the most part in the vicinity of Wuerttemberg.\nQ.What happened to these people there?\nA.They were given places to work and they went to work during the daytime.\nQ.Do you know anything about ill-treatment of these resettlers?\nA.I never heard anything about that.\nQ.Did this drive have anything to do with the subsequent drive against former members of partisans?\nA.No; that was something quite different. The drive against partisans, as also becomes evident from the documents, was ordered by Himmler in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, It was stirctly a police measure which has nothing to do with resettlement.\nQ.Did you know anything about this drive against the partisans?\nA.No; I cannot recall ever having heard anything about it.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office not have an agency at Marburg and didn't this agency have to report about that?\nA.The Main Staff Office did not have an agency at Marburg, but Gauleiter Uebereiter, as the representative, had this agency. This agency would only have had to report if the Main Staff Office had anything to do with this task.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2111, "page_number": "2104", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "with this task.\nQ.I am now coming back to the second drive once more. Do you know what happened to the property which was left behind by the deportees?\nA.Yes. The real estate property was administered by the DAG on a temporary basis.\nQ.Was the Main Staff Office included in dealing with these questions?\nA.It was connected directly, that is, as far as the DUT was responsible for the resettler, as long as he had not been resettled on a permanent basis -- they had to administer the property which had been left behind and to utilize this property. Consequently, also the property of these Slovenes was administered and, on that account, if possible, it was utilized.\nQ.Were the Slovene deportees later on placed on the same basis as the resettlers?\nA.That was intended already from the very beginning are approximately one year later this was officially recaptured by Himmler.\nQ.Were they also to receive an indemnification?\nA.Yes, They had been assured of that by Himmler unconditionally.\nQ.I am now going to talk about the deportations from Alsace and Lorraine. Do you know what happened there?\nA.I heard later on that in 1940, after the armistice with France, the chiefs of the civil administration wanted to keep people who had fled towards the West, to the Western parts of France, from returning to Alsace and Lorraine, and their property was administered by the chiefs of the civil administration through custodians for enemy property on behalf of the chiefs of the civil administration. This already happened as early as 1940. I only heard this much later, in 1942 or so.\nQ.What was done with the property of those persons who were not allowed to return or who had been deported?\nA. ASI have said before, a general custodian was appointed for the property of enemy aliens and tins was administered on behalf of the chiefs of the civil administration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "A. AS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2112, "page_number": "2105", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.Did the Main Staff Office play any part in the happenings?\nA.No, it did not play any part at all.\nQ.Did you have any knowledge of this?\nA.Yes, I heard about it later on, approximately in 1942. That is when the Main Staff Office and I had our first contact with the question of Alsace and Lorraine.\nQ.Did the main Staff Office have anything to do with these incident; in Alsace and Lorraine later on?\nA.Yes, When, in the year 1942, the chiefs of the civil administration in Alsace and in Lorraine were planning new and extensive deportations, the Main Staff Office also had to deal with this matter.\nQ.Why did it have to deal with these things?\nA.If these people were to be deported to the East into Germany proper, that is, not to France it had to see to it that these resettlers were accommodated. The Main Staff Office would have had to see to it that some place was found for these deportees.\nQ.Was the purpose of these deportations a Germanization measure?\nA.Just what purpose was pursued by the chiefs of the civil administration, I don't know. After all, only a very stupid person could think that Germanization could begin with a deportation, that is to say, that these people were first taken out of their previous homeland, that their apartments and houses and property was taken away from them, and then one couldn't really expect them to become good Germans.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office deal with any considerable deportations in that area?\nA.No. The Main Staff Office did not order these deportations because it dealt with Germanization measures. After all, these deportations would of necessity achieve the contrary result.\nQ.Did you personally know the chiefs of the civil administration in Alsace and Lorraine?\nA.No; I did not know any of them.\nQ.Did you, yourself, go to Alsace and Lorraine on one occasion?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2113, "page_number": "2106", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "A.I did not go to Lorraine, but I passed through Alsace for a few hours.\nQ.Do you know how many resettlers were concerned in these drives?\nA.Initially the figure of 100,000 was mentioned, people who had been deported. Later on, however, we were able to keep these figures lower, us far as I can recall, at the end from Alsace and Lorraine approximately 10,000 people were deported in this manner.\nQ.Were you present at the conference in August, 1942, which took place in the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know what measures ware taken in this field in Luxembourg?\nA.I only know that the deportations in Luxembourg were carried out on a very small scale. However, the Main Staff Office was not represented there at all.\nQ.What was done with the property which these deportees left behind?\nA.The property which these deportees had left behind was administers on their account and on their behalf by the German Trusteeship Agency, DUT, so that at least those property values would not get lost for these people.\nQ.Did this administration mean that these properties were seized?\nA.No; it had nothing to do with it, in my opinion.\nQ.Just why did the DUT take over these properties?\nA.As I have said before, they did this so that these property values would be maintained for the deportees and so that they would be utilized accordingly so that the funds derived from the sale of these properties could be furnished for the resettlers.\nQ.Were larger property values involved here?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Did the deportees receive any indemnification?\nA.They were to receive it. However, I don't think any of them received this indemnification up to 1945 because there was no settlement \n possibility for them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2114, "page_number": "2107", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "Q.In Exhibit 274 in Document Book V-F it has been stated that the deportees from Alsace and Lorraine were to be resettled in the Ukraine, Was this done? (Document handed to witness)\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the fact that people from Alsace and Lorraine were conscripted for military service?\nA.No.\nQ.What agencies dealt with these questions?\nA.Decrees of that sort could only be issued by the chiefs of the civil administration in their respective areas. They must have done this in agreement with the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2115, "page_number": "2108", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDid you have anything to do with the drafting of these decrees?\nANo.\nQJust how do you explain the fact to yourself that these people were conscripted for military service?\nAI heard that in the Armistice of 1940 France had ceded Alsace Lorraine to Germany in a secret amendement to a treaty. Whenever the war was over this was to be made known to the public. Whether this is correct, I don't know. I only heard that by way of a rumor. That is how I explained it to myself that measures had already been taken in Alsace Lorraine which in general would not otherwise be taken in an area under civil administration.\nQDo you know whether the incorporation of Alsace Lorraine had already been accomplished?\nAAs far as I know, it was not yet accomplished.\nQWere these deportees prohibited from returning to Alsace Lorraine?\nAYes.\nQWho gave this order?\nAThe chiefs of the civil administration ordered this, who assumed the authority to expell people from the areas under their control, and to refuse residence in these areas to certain persons.\nQCould this situation be remedied by giving instructions to the chiefs of the civil administration, especially since the chiefs of the civil administration were Plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar?\nANo, an attempt of this kind would have been doomed to failure.\nQWhy?\nABecause the chiefs of the civil administration based their authority on plenipotentiaries' powers which they had received from the Fuehrer, and no Reich agency could take any measure in these areas which the chiefs of the civil administration did not approve of. He alone decided; for example, about the enforcement of completely superfluous \n ordinance which were in effect in the Reich; and the chief of the civil administration would issue these regulations especially in his areas because they were not valid in these areas on the basis of any law.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2116, "page_number": "2109", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QI am now going to put to you Exhibits 279 up to 281, in Document Book V-D. Did the Main Staff Office, or, did you play any part in the deportation from France?\nAI personally had nothing to do with it, and I know nothing of the fact that the Main Staff Office collaborated.\nQWas there an agency in Paris of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar?\nAIn Paris there was a Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar, and he also had an agency there.\nQWas the DUT represented there?\nAYes, the DUT was represented there because Paris was considered to be located in a foreign country from the administrative point of view, and the DUT was to administer property left behind by the people who wanted to emigrate from France to Germany.\nQHow was it with the resettlement drive in Belgium; what do you know about that?\nAThe Main Staff Office had nothing to do with it as far as I know.\nQDo you know whether any deportation drives were carried out in Eupen and Malmedy?\nAI know nothing about it; I don't know of any resettlement drive in that area.\nQI am now coming to the question of re-Germanization. Just what brought about this drive?\nAI don't know what brought it about. I heard of it for the first time when Dr. Faehndrich, approximately in May of 1940, came back from a visit to Himmler and brought back with him an order about this from Himmler that the Main Staff Office should take care of persons who were suitable for re-Germanization who would come into Germany proper. What brought \n about these orders, and especially whether Faehndrich collaborated in drafting this order, I don't know.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2117, "page_number": "2110", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDid you play any part in bringing about this drive?\nANo.\nQWhen did you hear of it for the first time?\nAI heard about it for the first time when the decree had been issued by Himmler; I believe that was in May 1940.\nQDo you know who drafted this order?\nANo, I don't know that.\nQWhat was the purpose of this drive?\nAWithout any doubt Himmler had the intention to re-Germanize the people who for a century had been colonized. However, it was very difficult to do this in war time, and above all this could not be carried out within two or three years. After all one hundred years would have been needed for that purpose.\nQWhat was done about this matter?\nAThe selection of these people began who were suitable for reGermanization if it had not been done before.\nQDid you personally participate in this in any form?\nANo, I was not there; this matter was dealt with in Office 1. I had nothing to do with that office at that time.\nQWho selected the people who were to be re-Germanized?\nAThis was the task of the field office at Lodz, of RuSHA.\nQWhat part did the Main Staff Office play in the execution of this drive?\nAThe Main Staff Office was to take care of the people who had been selected by the field office of RuSHA in Germany proper and they had to find suitable possibilities of work for these people and accommodations for them.\nQHow were these people for re-Germanization sent from Lodz to the new residence?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2118, "page_number": "2111", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AAs far as I know the field office of RuSHA made the arrangements for the journey.\nQDid the Main Staff Office select the new localities where those people were to live?\nANo, the higher SS and police leaders were responsible for that. They were the Plenipotentiaries who had been assigned the special task of accommodating these people.\nQYou stated that the people for re-Germanization were given a place of work through the Main Staff Office.\nAThis was not the immediate task of the Main Staff Office. Actually this was the task of the competent employment agencies. These were subordinated to the Reich Ministry of Labor. However, here we did not only have to find a place of work for these people, after all work could be found for them very easily. It was much more difficult to furnish an apartment for them. Whenever there was an apartment available, it was very easy afterwards to find a place of work, and the employment office could not be charged with finding billets accommodations for these people. That is why the higher SS and police leaders had to be included in this matter, who in his part would utilize the collaboration of many different agencies in finding apartments. That was the difficult task. Whenever that task was solved, then it was very easy to find a place of work.\nQWere these people who were eligible for re-Germanization able to select their own place of work?\nAFor the most part a place of work for these people could only be found in connection with finding an apartment. For example, in rural properties accommodations could only be furnished agricultural workers whenever labor was furnished. Therefore, from the accommodations available in a rural area, it became evident that these people would have to work in this same property.\nQThese people were eligible for re-Germanization we re taken care of by the Main Staff Office in so far as the Main Staff Office was concerned with the procurement of accommodations. Beyond that, did the Main Staff Office take any further care of them?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2119, "page_number": "2112", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AIt was ascertained what these people needed for a good living; for example, accommodations, household goods, and kitchen furnishing, beds, and things of that sort. That was procured for them.\nQBy the Main Staff Office?\nAFirst of all the Higher SS and Police Leaders took care of it, and later on the Main Staff Office consolidated this entire matter in its department for the finding of accommodations. The furniture which had been procured originally for resettlers was also furnished to the people eligible for re-Germanization.\nQWere the people who were eligible for re-Germanization watched in any way?\nAYes, unfortunately by the chief of the Reich Security Main Office. This control did not help to make it easier for them to become re-Germanized.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2120, "page_number": "2113", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QDid you order these people to be watched?\nANo.\nQI am now going to put to you Exhibit 159 in Document Book 4-D. This is the so-called drive for obtaining domestics. Just what brought about this drive?\nAAs far as I can recall this also was one of Himmler's ideas. He believed that he would be able to thus fill the the shortape of domestics which existed in Germany at the time.\nQDid you see to it that this order was issued?\nANo.\nQDid you collaborate in this order?\nAI had nothing to do with the drafting of this order.\nQHow many Polish girls were sent into Germany to operate in this way?\nAThis, as far as I know altogether approximately 900 to 1,000\nQPlease take a look at Exhibit 161 and 162 in the same document book. These are reports which you sent to Himmler about this drive. Why did you send these reports to Himmler?\nAHimmler was very much interested in this entire question of re-Germanization and he wanted to know all the details about it. He wanted to receive a detailed report about every three months containing the exact figures and he would compare this report to the previous reports and figures which had been submitted and wanted to know what experiments had been made as to this matter. In this case I signed these reports.\nQDid some of these Polish girls commit suicide?\nANo, they did not commit suicide. As far as I can recall I know of two cases where these girls attempted suicide and the reports were submitted about them. At the time an investigation took place. I cannot recall the one case very clearly anymore but in the other case there was a love affair involved which had been the cause of the attempted suicide.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2121, "page_number": "2114", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "However, I couldn't see why such difficulties should be kept from Himmler.\nQAnd that is the reason why you mentioned these incidents in your reports?\nAYes.\nQBeyond that did you hear of any cases where people who were eligible for re-Germanization did opposed this re-Germanization?\nAYes. I can recall several cases which came to my knowledge.\nQWhat steps did you take then?\nAIt had been ordered that the people who were eligible for reGermanization would be subject to the same laws as are all the Germans and it had been ordered specifically that if these people opposed their re-Germanization they should not be punished for it, but that they should only be punished if they had violated German laws of a different nature.\nQYou stated that this had happened only in very few cases. Why couldn't you take any steps in a larger number of cases?\nAThe Main Staff Office could not realize any people from the reGermanization procedure.\nQWho would have been competent for that?\nAIn this case, as far as I know, the field of RuSHA should have released these people from the re-Germanization procedure.\nQWere people who were eligible for re-Germnaization punished?\nAYes, they were punished like all German Nationals if they had villated German criminal law.\nQWere corresponding directives issued by the Main Staff Office?\nAAs far as I know, yes. The expert compiled the orders on one or two occasions, and they were announced publicity.\nQDid you yourself impose punishment on these people who were eligible for re-Germanization who opposed the re-Germanization procedure?\nANo, as I stated before no punishment was imposed in such cases.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2122, "page_number": "2115", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "QI now have several questions with regard to the DVL, the German People's List. Did you have anything to do with the establishing of the DVL?\nANo. The German People's List, as far as I know, was established in the Whartegau under the initiative of Gauleiter Greiser.\nQWere you acquainted with the purpose of the DVL, the German People's List.\nAYes.\nQWhat was the purpose?\nAThe ethnic Germans were to be assertained among the people in the incorporated Eastern territories and were to be registered.\nQDid you attend any conference with regard to the German People's List which took place in the Reich Ministry of the Interior?\nANo, in no case whatsoever.\nQWere you a member of an assessor in the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQDid you attend a conference of the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQWhat do you know about the treatment accorded to groups 3 and 4 of the German People's List?\nAI know that the Reich Security Main Office was in charge of the treatment in regard to Group 4 on the German People's List. First of all VOMI was to take care of all people in Group 3 of the DVL but later on as far as I know the Main Office for Ethnic questions within the NSDAP took care of this group 3.\nQDid you yourself ever deal with these questions?\nAI had nothing to do with the treatment accorded to group 3 and 4.\nQI am going to put to you Exhibit 316, in Document 5-G. These are statistics of the Main Staff Office in the form of reports. Thus it shows among other things the figure about the people accepted in the DVL?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2123, "page_number": "2116", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AYes, the main Staff Office once asked for these figures in order to gain an insight into conditions.\nQJust where did these figures come from?\nAThese figures came from the central agencies of the German People's List which were maintained in departments of the office of the Reichstatthalter, the Reich Governor in the provinces.\nQIn Styria and Carinthia was there also a German People's List?\nANo, in Styria and Carinthia there were agencies which the Chiefs of the civil administration there had created. This was the Styrian Home League and in Carinthia it was the Carintian National League. These offices had the character of societies and they were organized along these lines, they were directed by the chiefs of the civil administration were directed by the chiefs of the civil administration themselves and the members in these two societies were recognized by those societies to be Germans. Consequently membership in the Styrian Home League and the Carinthia National League took the place of registration in the German People's List and therefore it was not necessary to introduce the DVL In that sense area, or to put it more concisely the chiefs of the civil administration did not consider the introduction in the DVL in these areas to be necessary.\nQWho established this Carinthian National League and Styrian Home Society?\nAGauleiter Ubereiter did this in Styria and the Gauleiter in Carinthia did that in Upper Krain.\nQAnd who was in charge of these two societies?\nAIn Styria it was directed by an SA Gruppenfuehrer by the name of Steigler or something like that. I didn't know him personally. I don't know at all who was in charge of the Carinthian National League.\nQDo you know when the DVL was introduced?\nAIn the Eastern Territories?\nQYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2124, "page_number": "2117", "date": "08 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-08", "text": "AIn spring of 1941.\nQAnd when the work of the DVL concluded on a outline?\nAApproximately toward the end of 1943.\nQWas the DVL dealt with by the legal department?\nAYes. However, these matters were dealt with by the central office in 1942 because the task was already completed on the whole.\nQWas the DVL also introduced in the Government General?\nAAs far as I know it was not.\nQWhat do you know about how it was handled in the Ukraine?\nAUp to this time it was not known to me that the DVL has ever been introduced in the Ukraine.\nQAnd accordingly you had nothing to do with the introduction there?\nANo.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 9 December, 1947 at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2125, "page_number": "2118", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sit ting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 9 December 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained if all defendants are present?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor all defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Dr. Merkel, found on our desk yesterday afternoon was an application for a witness Siegfried Gollich, made by you. The Prosecution has filed objections to this witness being subpoenad on the ground that he has already testified hat do you say about that?\nDr. MERKEL: Your Honor the matter has already been settled since. I have already heard the witness. My application had been made prior to that and as a precaution because when the witness turned up here he had not been made available to me. I have not the intention of calling him as a witness now Mr. President.\nTHE PRESIDENT:So you do not now insist on this application? Very well.\nDR. MERKEL:Not at all, not at all; the matter is entirely satisfactory and settled already.\nMay I go on with the examination of my client?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you, your Honor.\nRUDOLF CREUTZ -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (continued) BY DR. MERKEL:\nQ.Herr Creutz, first of all I would like to proceed to a \n rectification in your testimony of yesterday afternoon and this refers to a point of the indictment, No. 11.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "Q.", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2126, "page_number": "2119", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "If I understood you yesterday, when you talked of repatriation of the children from Warthegau that the Lebensborn had been commissioned to bring them back into Germany proper. A while ago you informed me that all the Lebensborn had to do was to provide foster parents for these children. Therefore, I would like to ask you that when you spoke of bringing these children back into Germany proper at the time the translation had \"the transportation\" of these children into Germany proper. Was that a lapse of language on your part?\nA.Yes, that is correct; the task of the Lebensborn was limited to the lodging and not to the transportation into the Altreich.\nQ.Only the lodging?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In other words you were speaking of lodging these children and not transporting them?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I am afraid I committed the same lapse when I spoke of deportation. There again it should have referred to only placing of children. Here is another translation fault that occurred yesterday. When you spoke of this meeting yesterday in 1941 when the discussion was made concerning the decree of February 1942, according to your testimony of yesterday, a representative of the Lebensborn has been said to be also present. Are you certain about that or is that just an assumption of yours?\nA.No, I already told you that I did not attend the meeting personally. Therefore, it can only be an assumption of mine.\nQ.And on what is that assumption based, witness?\nA.It is based on the documents of the Prosecution where such a meeting was referred to, but from the document itself becomes apparent that the representative of the Lebensborn did not attend the meeting.\nQ.Yesterday we stopped when we recessed at the procedure of \n of re-Germanization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2127, "page_number": "2120", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Now, in order to terminate this field I would like to ask you a few more questions. Who initiated and caused the re-Germanization measures in the Government General?\nA.I don't know that for certain but I assume it was the Governor General.\nQ.When was the Higher SS and Police Leader in Cracow appointed Plenipotentiary?\nA.On the 7th of May 1942 on the strength of a Hitler decree published in the Reich legal gazette.\nQ.Already before that period did the Main Staff Office initiate any measures in the field of re-Germanization in the Government-General?\nA.Neither before nor after did the Main Staff Office take any measures of that nature.\nQ.And how after May 1942 did the Main Staff Office actually proceed?\nA.The only thing the Main Staff Office did was to make the resettlers available whenever a corresponding order of Himmler's existed,\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 146 in Document Book 4-C. The re-Germanization measures mentioned in this document and which took place in January 1941 were actually carried into practice in the Government-General?\nA.I have no knowledge of that.\nQ. what do you know about the drafting of Danes and Flemish people, etc. for service in the armed service and the Waffen SS?\nA.I know that these tasks were dealt with by Obergruppenfuehrer Berger, Chief of the SS Main Office.\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 337. It is in Document Book 6-A. From that document book it becomes apparent that during the meeting dealing with those matter, a meeting held in the SS Main Office, the Main Staff Office was also represented by you in person. Now what did the Main Staff Office or you initiate thereupon in this matter?\nA.This meeting was not held in the SS operational main office \n but in the SS Main Office the Chief of which was SS Obergruppenfuehrer Berger whom I just mentioned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2128, "page_number": "2121", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "This meeting was called by Obergruppenfuehrer Berger and I went to attend in order to find out what questions and what matters were dealt with there as these tasks were in no manner connected with the work of the Main Staff Office. No measures were taken either as a consequence and I did not attend any further such meetings.\nQ.That brings me to the point of the indictment, No. 18, slave labor. Witness, what can you say about the charge made against you by the Prosecution according to which the Main Staff Office had caused the use of human beings for slave labor?\nA.I can say that the Main Staff Office took a part and saw to it that the resettlers would find places of work as appropriate for them as possible. But, I think that one cannot talk of slave labor here. The work of the resettlers was done under the same conditions as those of every other German.\nQ.Were those measures conditioned in a general way by the war?\nA.They were influenced by the war, insofar as no German during the war could leave his job voluntarily and on his own initiative or could change it. In every single instance every German would need the approval of the Labor Exchange and the same limitation applied to the resettlers.\nQ.Wasn't it possible to place resettlers and groups of persons who were in the camps in a kind of work which was more in line with their profession?\nA.Sure and that was aimed at in every single case, too, but it wasn't always possible because after all the resettlers could only accept such jobs as were within roach of the camp and there an assignment in their own profession was not always possible.\nQ.Such an assignment in line with the profession-did it take place in the case of the deportees from Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg?\nA.Yes, that was tried in the same manner as the others.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2129, "page_number": "2122", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.What agency was in charge for the attempt to provide a job for the deportees?\nA.To do that was also the task of Labor Exchange. As long as these people remained in camps, the camp management of VOMI was concerned, according to my knowledge the Higher SS and Police Leader was not called in at all.\nQ.Were the deportees treated as foreigners?\nA.No, they were treated like Germans.\nQ.Then why did the deportees have to remain in the camps?\nA.Because it wasn't possible to provide housing facilities and apartments for them in an adequate proportion.\nQ.A few questions concerning the \"A\" cases. Do you know how the \"A\" cases were treated?\nA.As long as the \"A\" cases were in the camps of VOMI they were treated in the same manner as the others but every possible channel and means were used to try and get them out of the camps as quickly as possible by providing them with appropriate housing facilities. However, as the war went on and more destruction was caused by air attacks these attempts became more difficult and more hopeless. The Labor committment of the foreign workers, that is of the Eastern workers, influenced, unfavorable, the efforts of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Would it happen that \"A\" cases wanted to got out of those camps?\nA.Sure, they would all have liked to get out of the camps because after all life in camp had only been intended as a temporary measure and certainly in spite of all efforts it was not an agreeable life for these people.\nQ.Was it prohibited for the \"A\" cases to leave the camps?\nA.In no way; every agency was glad and happy for every family able to leave those camps.\nQ.Well, you already stated that it was not intended to keep those \"A\" cases in the camp indefinitely?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2130, "page_number": "2123", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.Of course not.\nQ.What was the intended solution for that Question?\nA.A final and complete solution for that Question would only have been possible after the war had ended and after it became possible to proceed to new constructions and reconstructions on a large scale.\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 262 in Document Book Here it is mentioned that deportees from Luxembourg are being made available for work. What significance did this decree have, witness?\nA.This decree did not make available those deportees from Luxembourg for work. It made them available for the final lodging and housing in Germany proper, that is, on their request they could leave the camp at any time in a final way insofar as adequate housing facilities had been trade available for them.\nQ.In Exhibit 278 of the same document book it is mentioned amongst other things that deportees from Alsace-Lorraine were sent to the concentration camps if they refused to work. Did you take a part in the drawing up of that document?\nA.No.\nQ.Did complaints reach the Main Staff Office against a decision of the EWZ?\nA.Yes, at the beginning there were quite a number of complaints and that took place during the years 1941 until approximately 1942.\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 292 in Document Book 5-D. Why did the Main Staff Office oppose the making available of workers from the camps?\nA.This document involved the making available of labor for the war industry. If this labor really had been made available then those men would have been compelled to leave the camp in order to live at their first location proper and to be housed there provisionally while the final housing and lodging for the members of the family thereby would at least have been impeded considerably because the procurement \n of apartments was only possible in such cases where the family was together and the chief of the family, that is the man who provided the means of subsistence, was together with his family, but by the making available of such workers for the war industry, that would have been made at least very difficult.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2131, "page_number": "2124", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.You just referred to complaints which reached the Main Staff Office against a decision of the EWZ. What happened in these cases?\nA.The case \"A\" decision was checked and such checking was applied for with the EWZ.\nQ.And couldn't the Main Staff Office on its own initiative change these decisions?\nA.No, these were decisions of the EWZ and the Main Staff Office had to comply with them.\nQ.Did the EWZ make these decisions on their own initiative?\nA.No, according to my knowledge they made these decisions in line with directives received from Himmler.\nQ.And who decided on the classification into \"A\" and \"O\" categories in the EWZ?\nA.Whoever made this decision I couldn't tell you. However, a decisive part in the decision was played by various points of view, for example that of the police, of the health and medical aspects, racial aspects, and also ethnic viewpoints, For instance mixed marriages and so on and so forth.\nQ.I am now putting to you Exhibit 262 in Document Book 5-B. In this document you ordered that resettlers, whose classification had been changed from \"A\" into \"O\" would not be placed for the time being, why did you make that decision?\nA.That was unavoidable because on account of the dealing with individual cases and on account of the change of the committment decision and the resettlement of the others would have been impeded and was impeded considerably if these individual cases were being resettled first. Therefore, it could not be avoided that these individual families \n had to wait until the general phase of resettlement was concluded, namely, until these \"O\" cases already available for resettlement had been placed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2132, "page_number": "2125", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "These individual families could wait all the easier as they had already found working locations.\nQ.I am putting to you Exhibit 310 in Document Book 5-E. There you gave orders that the domestics who had been separated from the families, that they had worked for, should be deprived of their resettler identify cards, Why did you do that?\nA.These domestic workers who did not have the German nationality and who were not even racial Germans had been brought into the Reich on the strength of the resettlement treaty with Soviet Russia. If they separated from the families they worked for they themselves on their own initiative had relinouished the prerequisite on the strength of which they had been resettled. Therefore, there was no longer any reason at all to treat them as Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2133, "page_number": "2126", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.What did the Main Staff Office have to do with the labor commitment of Poles and Russians?\nA.The Main Staff Office did not have to deal with these matters at all. Perhaps you are referring to foreign workers there already.\nQ.Did you have knowledge that foreign workers were assigned for work in Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did what was the general attitude of the Main Staff Office to this question?\nA.The work of the Main Staff Office was considerably impeded by the commitment of these foreign workers for work in Germany. After all in practice this commitment of foreign labor in Germany strengthened foreign ethnic groups rather than German, and as long as the Main Staff Office still had to deal with the placing of resettlers who waited for their final resettlement in the camps, this commitment of foreign workers was a considerable impediment because the housing facilities and jobs became more and more scarce for the resettlers.\nQ.What top level Reich agency took care of the labor commitment for foreign workers?\nA.The Reich Ministry of Labor and the Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment.\nQ.Did you or the Staff Main Office have anything to do with the labor commitment of members of the DVL, the German People's List?\nA.No.\nQ.But were not members of the Groups III and IV of the DVL brought to Germany too?\nA.As far as I have heard now, only a few of them.\nQ.That brings me to Point 20 of the Indictment, Spoliation. What do you have to say to that count in general?\nA.What I have to say is that those measures that are termed by the Prosecution as being spoliation were all based upon directives of other agencies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2134, "page_number": "2127", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Did you at any time take an active part or did you enrich yourself by acquiring such merchandise or such goods?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have a part in the preparation of those decrees?\nA.No, that was not part of my field of tasks.\nQ.What do you know about the HTO, which is mentioned rather often in this connection?\nA.I know the tasks of the HTO, but I don't even know its manager, Dr. Winkler; and I cannot recall having made his acquaintance at any time. I don't know any of the HTO employees either.\nQ.During your activity in the Main Staff Office, did you have any dealings with the HTO.\nA.I believe that I had perhaps a few telephone calls, but otherwise I had no dealings with them.\nQ.Who was Galke?\nA.Galke was Himmler's representative in the HTO.\nQ.Did you sign directives for the execution of the so-called priority scale decree?\nA.I cannot recall that.\nQ.Did you draw up such a directive yourself or did you order that it be issued?\nA.That certainly does not apply.\nQ.What does this priority scale mean at all?\nA.The priority scale was an agreement with the HTO on the strength of which the HTO, if they were selling property or holdings were to apply a certain priority when they took the applicants for acquisition into consideration, and this priority scale was to be applied in accordance with directives issued previously.\nQ.Was this priority scale decree an order to proceed to the sale of these properties?\nA.No, it was quite independent of that question or of that order. It only directed the selection of the applicants for the acquisition. In other \n words, it regulated the choice amongst several applicants for acquisition of the same quality.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2135, "page_number": "2128", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Did the HTO have to comply with your directives?\nA.No. Whenever such a letter as testified here to by the witness Hofmann was signed by me, it could only imply the confirmation of an interpretation with regard to applying this priority scale decree signed by Winker and Greifelt.\nQ.To what extent was the Main Staff Office concerned with the seizure of agricultural property, agricultural real estate property?\nA.That was a very complicated procedure, and it was carried out on the strength of a many-fold group of directives, decrees and regulations,\nQ.Were you yourself informed Very well about this question?\nA.No, and even at this time I didn't try to learn all this.\nQ.Why weren't you informed completely about this question?\nA.Because this was not part of my field of tasks. I only had some information about it when such matters were discussed.\nQ.Were individual questions discussed with you?\nA.I cannot remember any individual instances.\nQ.Not even if the chief of the agency was absent?\nA.Not even then.\nQ.But didn't you gather quite some information from the statistics and reports of the central land office, because after all the office statistics were under your orders, were they not?\nA.Yes, of course I would receive that information; of course I knew the figures.\nQ.What do you know about the confiscations carried out by the Central Land Office?\nA.I don't know anything specific about that.\nQ.What consequences did the so-called blocking slips of the reparations department of the Main Staff Office have?\nA.Those were simply file notes, and they were to have the effect that if at any time a certain real estate property was to be disposed of, th \n file involved should be consulted and had to be consulted previously.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2136, "page_number": "2129", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.How many such blocking notes Were entered into the files?\nA.I would say two hundred to two hundred and fifty.\nQ.Did the entering of such blocking notes have the effect of any change of ownership with regard to the real estate property involved?\nA.No.\nQ.Were these blocking notes entered into the land registry?\nA.No.\nQ.In other words they were simply file notes entered in the files of the Main Staff Office.\nA.Yes, file notes.\nQ.Were the Polish owners of the real estate property evacuated on account of this blocking note?\nA.No, that was in no way connected.\nQ.Why was this drive carried out?\nA.Many Germans reported to the Main Staff Office; they stated that previously they had holdings in the incorporated eastern territories. Those properties in part had been in the ownership of their familes for decades. It was only natural that these people would express the desire to re-purchase and to reacquire the former holdings of their family; and, therefore, the Main Staff Office had the intention of taking these people into consideration wherever possible and if at any time the sale of the real estate property involved it was to be taken into consideration.\nQ.Until what period of time were those blocking notes entered?\nA.Until about the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943.\nQ.Why were later on no further blocking notices entered?\nA.Because this work was discontined and the whole matter was postponed until, after the war.\nQ.Were these blocking notes dealt with in the department for reparations?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2137, "page_number": "2130", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.From what moment on was this department reparations under your orders?\nA.As from 1942.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2138, "page_number": "2131", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.The blocking notices I just mentioned, were they in any way connected with the blocking decrees which were dealt with during the proceedings in connection with the deportation of Poles?\nA.No, the blocking decrees must have been something quite different.\nQ.Do you know what these blocking decrees meant?\nA.I don't know for certain.\nQ.Do you know by whom they were issued? Did the Main Staff Office have a part in it, or you yourself?\nA.No, they were issued by the RSHA.\nQ.You know that for certain?\nA.Well, I heard about it only at a later date. As far as I heard at a later date the blocking decrees involved that members of a certain professions, for instance physicians and people of that kind, were to be exempt from the deportations.\nQ.What do you know about the so-called exchange of war-damaged estates?\nA.I know that a suggestion was made by the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the effect that the indemnification for war-damaged buildings should be effected in the following way: This indemnification was the task of the Ministry of the Interior and the suggestion was that the reconstruction of one estate or the other could be avoided perhaps by idemnifying the owner of that estate by an exchange with an undamaged estate. This procedure on the suggestion of the Reich Ministry of the Interior was to be introduced and applied in the incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.Was this drive brought into practice also in Germany proper?\nA.No, in Germany proper it couldn't have been applied, and apart from that the application wasn't even taken into consideration because during that period there were no war-damaged estates in Germany proper yet.\nQ. who carried out this drive?\nA.It was to be carried out by the settlement companies of the \n Reich Food Ministry.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2139, "page_number": "2132", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.To what extent did the Main Staff Office participate in them?\nA.The Main Staff Office to my knowledge was to take a part in the carrying out of these measures.\nQ.How many such cases were actually carried into practice?\nA.None at all.\nQ.And what department in the Main Staff Office conducted the preliminary negotiations?\nA.Also the department for reparations.\nQ.Before or after 1942?\nA.I think before and after 1942.\nQ.What do you know of the spoliation of the art and cultural objects?\nA.I know the decree of Himmler's, according to which the Ahnenerbe Society was to deal with the registration of art and cultural objects.\nQ.Who commissioned it to do that?\nA.Himmler himself.\nQ.And who initiated the directives necessary for that task?\nA.According to my knowledge the RSHA.\nQ.Did you supervise or did you have any art in the carrying out of that commission?\nA.No, and according to my knowledge the Main Staff Office didn't have any part either.\nQ.What happened to the seized art objects?\nA.As far as I have heard, they were all collected in the museum in the town of Posen.\nQ.Did the Ahnenerbe Society have other tasks within the framework of the organization for Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What were their tasks?\nA.The Ahnenerbe Society had to take a part in the resettlemtn; well, if you may call it resettlement of the cultural objects. This involved \n only to a minor part objects properly speaking, that is art treasures brought along by the resettlers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2140, "page_number": "2133", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "By far to the major part it involved mets, songs and costumes, such values of the resettlers as were secured and safeguarded in their former residences by taking films and gramophone records of it.\nQ.Did you discuss those commissions with the Ahnenerbe Society?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you informed about this matter in some way?\nA.No, that was a matter purely and solely of the Ahnenerbe Society.\nQ.Do you know Professor Hanians who has been mentioned here in this connection once?\nA.No.\nQ.The Prosecution goes on to charge that furniture seized from Poles and Jews was used for the indemnification of resettlers; is that correct?\nA.I know that directly and indirectly the HTO bought furniture both from the resettlers and for the resettlers.\nQ.Did the resettlers have to receive furniture for such pieces of furniture as they left in their former residences?\nA.Only in as far as they needed them. The resettlers from the Baltic countries, for instance, had been able to take their furniture along. Those were immense quantities of luggage; according to my knowledge it involved something like 35 to 40 thousand big furniture cases taken along for purpose.\nQ.How do you know that?\nA.I know that from the statistics.\nQ.What do you know about later furniture procurement?\nA.I only know what was told to me at one occasion or another, or discussed in my presence.\nQ.Did you have a part in those matters?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know about the commission which has been mentioned here again and again, commissioned to the DAW at Dachau?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2141, "page_number": "2134", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I cannot recall having heard about it.\nQ.In what is called the Ghetto drive in this trial, furniture was. produced in the Lodz Ghetto. Do you know what furniture was involed there?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know who gave these orders for the manufacture of furniture; whether they were paid to the Ghetto?\nA.The orders were issued by the chief of our field office at Lodz. whether the furniture was for, I don't know, but I don't doubt it.\nQ.Did you cause these orders to be given or did you have any other part in the carrying out of this matter personally?\nA.No.\nQ.What do you know about the so-called Ghetto demolition drive?\nA.I cannot recall having heard about it.\nQ.Did you attend any conferences referring to that matter at any time?\nA.If it has been discussed during one of the so-called Monday conferences, then I ought to have been present, but I cannot recall it.\nQ.What do you know about the seizure of church property?\nA.I cannot tell you anything about it; I don't know anything there.\nQ.Do you know whether these matters were dealt with in the legal department?\nA.Such questions were usually dealt with in the legal department; however, then they were submitted directly in the sum of a report to the defendant Greifelt, and I didn't have to deal with it, and I didn't any detailed information either.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2142, "page_number": "2135", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Turning now to point 21 of the Indictment, here you are charged with persecution and extermination of Jews. Was the Main Staff Office connected with the persecution of Jews?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office collaborate with the RSHA in those questions?\nA.No.\nQ.What happened to the Jews living in the Incorporated Territories of the East?\nA.I cannot tell you that; I don't know. When I came to the Incorporated Territories of the East for the first time, there were already ghettos there, and the Jews lived in those ghettos.\nQ.Was the establishment of these ghettos in the Incorporated Territories of the East initiated by the Main Staff Office?\nA.No, certainly not.\nQ.Did you ever visit such a ghetto, or see one?\nA.Yes, I once passed such a ghetto.\nQ.Did you go into it?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have knowledge about the extermination of Jews in Auschwitz, and so on and so forth?\nA.No, I only heard about that after 1945.\nQ.Were you at any time at Auschwitz, or in any other extermination camp?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know about the existence and the tasks of the so-called Einsatzgruppen?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2143, "page_number": "2136", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.In Exhibit 568, which I am submitting to you now, in Document Book 13-B, mention is made of the fact that the Jewish holdings in the Government-General were seized for the benefit of the Main Staff Office. What do you know about that?\nA.The draft of this decree had to be submitted to Hitler, on his own orders. However, this does not involve a seizure of Jewish property for the benefit of the Main Staff Office, but it involves the feet that such property as had already been seized in the Government-General was to be placed at the disposal of the Reich Commissar and I think that this is something different than the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Were you ordered to deal with this matter?\nA.No, I cannot recall that.\nQ.Did you have knowledge of the so-called Reinhardt action?\nA.To I only heard about that after 1945.\nQ.In the same Document Book, you have Exhibit 578, dealing with that Reinhardt Action. That exhibit, according to its distribution list, was also sent to the Main Staff Office. Did you sue it at the time?\nA.I did not see it at the time, and, apart from that, one cannot see from this document what it involves.\nQ.Did you know that clothing we shipped to Zhitomir from Auschwitz on the strength of this Reinhardt Action?\nA.No, I didn't even know that. I have only heard about it now, during this trial.\nQ.That brings me to the conclusion of my examination, and I wish to ask you a few questions of a general nature.\nWhat were your relations with Himmler?\nA.I tried to avoid him whenever I could.\nQ.Why?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2144, "page_number": "2137", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I think that he did not place a very high value on me.\nQ.I believe you have already mentioned that Himmler was not in agreement with your church wedding, as a Catholic.\nA.Yes, he Certainly had a grudge against me from that time on.\nQ.Did you know of Himmler's speech at Posen?\nA.No, I did not.\nQ.In other words, you were not in Posen at that time?\nA.No, only the Gruppenfuehrers had been invited,\nQ.Did you hear any other speeches of Himmler's?\nA.I recall only that I heard a speech of Himmler's in 1937.\nQ.The speeches of Himmler during the war, submitted in the IMT and also in this trial, came to your knowledge, therefore, only after 1945?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The Prosecution asserts that all the measures involved in this trial here were carried out on the basis of a systematic program of planning. What do you have to say to that?\nA.In my view that is impossible, if only for the fact that there was no system in the measures.\nQ.How so?\nA.Most of these measures, or I should even say all of them, were carried out on the strength of orders of Himmler, or on the strength of the necessities which arose.\nQ.I am putting to you Exhibit 82, a memorandum of the Race Political Office, and it is in Document Book 3. Do you know this memorandum?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2145, "page_number": "2138", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I cannot recall having seen this memorandum at any time in the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Do you know Himmler's Minutes, in Exhibit 84, in the same document book?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were these ideas of Himmler's the basis for your work?\nA.No, that was impossible if only for the fact that these ideas of Himmler's dealt with Poles, in other words, with alien ethnic groups, and the Main Staff Office had to deal only with the German ethnic groups.\nQ.Exhibit 90, the General Plan East, is in the same document book. What do you know about that?\nA.As to the General Plan East, I only know that Professor Meyer-Hetling had a conference about that matter once in the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the General Plan East also deal with evacuations?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know the General Plan East of the RSHA, which has been mentioned here once?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know that such a plan existed?\nA.No.\nQ.Was a clear-cut plan the basis Of the measures which were taken by the Reich Commissar?\nA.No, certainly not. Either spontaneous directives were issued by Himmler, as I have already mentioned, or else the pouring-in of the resettlers created necessities, and therefore directives were issued.\nQ.I now turn to my two last questions. The Prosecution asserts that the measures as described by the Prosecution \n in this trial had the aim of securing the domination of Europe and Germany by the National Socialists.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2146, "page_number": "2139", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Is that correct?\nA.In hat is certainly not correct.\nQ.Can you give me a reason why it is incorrect?\nA.Because the assertion of the Prosecution in this connection is quite illogical. After all, it is clear that the Nazi domination of Germany and Europe could only have been secured if Germany had won the war. However, it is also clear that at least some of Himmler's measures -- which, according to the assertions of the Prosecution, are supposed to have been initiated and promoted by me -- were damaging to Germany's interests. For instance, through the deportations several thousand embittered enemies of Germany came into Germany; and through the evacuations, for example, the partisans and combattants of the Maquis got new re-enforcements. All these facts only increased the difficulties Germany had to face during the war. These measures prevented the very thing the Prosecution charges to be the aim.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you. Your Honor, this concludes my direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2147, "page_number": "2140", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness. BY DR. HAENSEL(Counsel for Greifelt):\nQWitness, you said in your examination that the organization plan of 1942 and of '40 had been worked out by you. Now, did the various office chiefs, the heads of the main departments, and the heads of departments, report to you, tell you what your work was, exactly? And did you take that over into your plan, or did you yourself formulate it on all points?\nANo; in this respect I did not formulate it. The spheres of work were laid down by the various Lain departments and office chiefs themselves, and were taken over into the plan.\nQI remind you of the survey of the office and the list of addresses which is contained in Book 2-A, as Exhibit 19. Did you or Greifelt cause this list to be made?\nAI had it made, and it is only a collection of addresses of the agencies with which the Main Staff Office had to correspond with in any way.\nQDid Greifelt, from 1942 onward, also personally manage the official German resettlement and immigration office in Bolzano?\nAYes, I think that at the end of 1942 or beginning of 1943 this regulation was made.\nQIn Bolzano was there only one staff leader at your disposal?\nAYes.\nQWas Greifelt forced to make many official trips?\nAYes.\nQWas he, as a result, absent for long periods, for instance in July and August, 1941, in Italy?\nAYes, I remember this trip to Rome in the summer of 1941.\nQIn 1943 was Greifelt away twice for several months at a time because of a grave heart disease and was he away for a cure or vacation, \n so that he had to stay away from his office?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2148, "page_number": "2141", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "ANo, I don't know that; as far as I know, at the end of 1942 Greifelt was in a sanatorium and at the beginning of 1943 he had a relapse. He was there once again, and after that had to go on sick leave. But it was not 1943, but, in part, in 1942.\nQBut several months along this time...?\nAYes, altogether it was a longish period.\nQWere you and Greifelt ever in Rome together?\nAYes.\nQDo you remember an investigation which Himmler suddenly ordered against Greifelt because of a denunciation, and that this resulted in Greifelt suddenly being recalled by Himmler?\nAGreifelt mentioned something of the kind.\nQAnd it turned out in favor of Greifelt--or don't you know?\nAI know neither the cause nor the result of the investigation.\nQIn 1941, on Himmler's orders, did you have a conversation at Naz with the Reichstatthalter Uebereiter?\nAYes, but you can't call it a conversation; Himmler commissioned me to go to see Gauleiter Uebereiter and gave me no further orders.\nQDid Uebereiter at the time tell you that Himmler, with regard to Lower Styria, had given him binding instructions and that he had reached agreements with Himmler?\nAUebereiter only told me that he had had long talks both with Himmler as well as with Hitler and that Himmler had appointed him his Plenipotentiary for the Strengthening of Germanism and that he would stand no interference from any Berlin authorities, nor from the Main Staff Office in his activity as Plenipotentiary.\nQAnd according to the subject of this conversation was the Deportation of the Slovenes also part of this activity?\nAYes, certainly.\nQDid Greifelt know at that time of this trip, or did he only hear \n of it afterwards?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2149, "page_number": "2142", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "AGreifelt was away at the time and I suppose that that is why I received instructions to go there.\nQAnd afterwards that was reported to him?\nAYes.\nQDid you establish that in the course of time there was a noticeable estrangement between Himmler and Greifelt?\nANo, I didn't notice it, but Greifelt told me something to this effect.\nQDo you remember when this was?\nAAbout 1943.\nQDid Greifelt go so far as to say that he would prefer to lay down his office but that this was impossible in wartime?\nAI don't remember that.\nQDid Greifelt criticize Himmler's measures at the time?\nAYes; occasionally.\nQDid you get along on friendly or comradely terms with Greifelt?\nAYes; from 1942-43 onwards.\nQDid you consider him to be e fanatical National-Socialist?\nANo.\nQWas he a follower or defendant of the ideology of Blood and Race?\nAThat is a very general question, but I can answer it in the negative.\nQDid Greifelt tell you or his other colleagues, at the Monday discussions for instance, that the common task was to care for the Germans who were brought in?\nAYes.\nQAnd did he not only say this, but actually see that it was done?\nAYes.\nQDid Greifelt ever ask you to take part in a discussion with the Undersecretary for Security Matters in the Government General, Krueger \n of the Government General and to Globocnik, in the autumn of 1942?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2150, "page_number": "2143", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "AYes; as far as I remember, I said that yesterday already.\nQDid Greifelt know about the agreement you had reached with the Lebensborn that the Lebensborn occasionally could use the letterhead of your office on its stationary?\nAThat was not quite the agreement, but Greifelt did not know about it, anyway.\nQIn your office, did the initiative lie with Himmler who gave exact instructions, or did you bring things to Himmler's notice, the Main Staff Office?\nAThat varied with the subject. Mainly the initiative came from Himmler.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2151, "page_number": "2144", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QWere there regular discussions between Lorenz and Greifelt?\nAAs far as I know, there were not. I only know of one or two, or perhaps threee meetings.\nQAnd between the RuSHA, and the Main Staff Office?\nAI only know of a few occasions.\nQDo you remember Himmler's memorandum about some ideas concerning the treatment of foreign nationals in the East. This is the exhibit 84 in Document Book 3? Greifelt brought this to your attention at Himmler's orders. What did Greifelt say about this?\nAHe said that these measures were not the task of the Main Staff Office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions. BY DR. GAWLIK (Counsel for defendant Schwarzenberger):\nQWitness, I am submitting to you your affidavit, Document NO-5718, Exhibit 32, in Document Book 2-B, page 61 of the German text, under Figure 4. Can you supplement your statement?\nAThis affidavit was submitted to me to sign and was already formulated in the summer of this year by the Prosecution. At the time I did not know the reason or the purpose why I should sign this affidavit.\nWhat kind of supplementation...?\nQAbout Schwarzenberger starting \"Naturally, as a matter of course ...\"\nAOh, I see. Well, of course I can't know what Schwarzenberger knows, and I can't judge how much he knows, espececially in matters relating to official agencies, about the functions of which I myself am not very accurately informed.\nQCan you maintain the statement you made there that Schwarzenberger worked with regard to the activities of the Main Staff Office and was entirely well informed?\nANo, I can't maintain that. BY DR. MUELLER ( Counsel for defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQWitness, was Myer-Hetling ever your deputy or that of the \n Chief of theMain Office Greifelt?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2152, "page_number": "2145", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "ANo, neither mine nor that of the chief of the Main Office.\nQWas Professor Meyer an indispensable factor in the work for the war tasks?\nANo, not for the war tasks; he was not indispenssable.\nQDid the other offices of the Main Staff Office receive instructions from Prof. Meyer or from the Planning Office?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether Prof. Meyer of the Palnning Office could issue instructions to other offices or agencies?\nAI don't know.\nQAt the monthlydiscussions do you remember of often having seen Prof Meyer?\nA.No, he was not there very often.\nQCan you tell me how long Prof. Meyer was in charge of the Central Land Office?\nAAs far as I remember, it was up to about the summer of 1941. Then it was again separated from the Main Department Planning and it became independent again, an independent main department or office in the Main Staff Office.\nQAt this time was Prof. Meyer ever head of this central land office, or was he ever in charge of it?\nANo.\nQThen the Central Land Office had its own chief?\nAYes, it had its own chief.\nQIn the affidavit of your which has already been mentioned, you said soemthing about the general plan East and said --I am submitting the document to you, on page 62 of the German--that a previous visit of this plan was the transfer of the population there to other districts. What do you base this statement on?\nAIn answer to the questions of the inte rogator who inte rogated \n me this summer that a plan of this kind was worked out by the defendant Meyer-Hetling at Himmler's instructions, and that about the nature of I had informed this plan through a lecture held by the defendant MeyerHetling.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2153, "page_number": "2146", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "In answer to the interrogator's question that if settlement was to take place anywhere deportation must have to take place too. I answered that this presumably must have a prerequisite but that I knew of no details about that. The formulation in this affidavit, as I said just now, is not my own but that of the Prosecution and was submitted to me ready-made.\nQSo this is an assumption on your part and not a conclusion from your knowledge of the document?\nAThat is just an assumption of mine, yes.\nQWhat does the initial C which appears often on these letters mean? Does that show that they originate from Office Group C?\nANo, the office groups in the Main Staff Office had no symbol.\nQThank you. BY DR. MUELLER (For the defendant Huebner):\nQWitness, how long have you known the defendant Huebner?\nAIt must be since 1941.\nQDo you know what office the defendant Huebner held?\nAHe was staff leader in the office of the Reichscommissioner in Posen.\nQWas Huebner ever chief of the so-called field office of the Staff Office in Posen?\nAIn Posen? No. That is something quite different. The field office of the Staff Office in Posen only consisted of three men, the head of whom was a mancalled Hebermann. It dealt only with paying compensation for damage to luggage of the resettlers. It was quite a small office and had no connection with the agency of the Plenipotentiary for Posen, but, as far as I know, Huebner was not the chief of the Office of the Plenipotentiary's Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2154, "page_number": "2147", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QAnd who was chief of the Plenipotentiary's Office?\nAThe Plenipotentiary himself.\nQAnd his deputy-manager?\nAThat was a Higher SS and Police leader.\nQDo you know who held this office from 1939 to 1943?\nAFrom 1939 on it was Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, but I can't remember exactly when he left, It might have been 1943.\nQCan you define the tasks of the Staff leader, that is, the office which the defendant Huebner held?\nANo, I don't know.\nQDo you know that the Main Department were competent for the actual work of the Plenipotentiary?\nAYes, I assume that since it was the same in the Main Staff Office.\nQDid the defendant Huebner ever correspond with you or negotiate with you when he visited Berlin?\nAWe did not correspond regularly. When he visited Berlin I think he came to see me two or three time slatogether in all those years.\nQDuring these discussions, was it mainly a matter of organizational and personnel matters?\nAYes, only of such matters...\nQOnly such matters?\nAYes.\nQNo further questions. BY DR. HESSE (For the defendant Lorenz):\nQWitness, in your direct examination, in connection with the temporary work of the deportees, you mentioned collaboration between VOMI and the labor offices. Could you please describe this collaboration in more detail?\nAI am not accurately informed about the technical end but it could have been that the VOMI camps reported the deportees to the Labor Offices and that the Labor Offices then directed the deporteees to corresponding \n places of work, since obtaining jobs was the work of the Labor Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2155, "page_number": "2148", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QIn your affidavit which has laready been mentioned, Exhibit 32 of the prosecution, you mentioned the cooperation between the Main Staff Office and the VOMI with reference to the settlement and compensation for property. Were both offices responsible for these tasks? What was the connection between VOMI and the settlement Office?\nABoth settlement and property compensation were not the job of the VOMI.\nQIn the same affidavit, on page 4, you say that Serbs and Frenchmen had been in VOMI camps.\nAI have already said that I did not formulate this affidavit myself.\nQWhat do you mean by \"Serbs\"?\nAI meant the Slovenes.\nQYugoslavs, in other words?\nAYes; Yugoslavs.\nQIn either case they have turned up as Yugoslavs and Slovenes? That is what you meant?\nAYes.\nQ.And the French?\nAAnd the French Alsacians and Croatians.\nQThank you very much.\nDR. HESSE:No further questions. BY DR. DOLTZER: (Counsel for defendant Brueckner):\nQWitness, do you know the defendant Brueckner?\nAYes.\nQHow many times during your work did you meet Brueckner at conferences and official discussions?\nAIn all the years 1939 to 1945, perhaps three times.\nQDo you happen to remember what these discussions were about, or the subject that was discussed at the conferences Brueckner attended?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q.", "DR. HESSE", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2156, "page_number": "2149", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QDid you know the sphere of tasks, the work and the position of Brueckner in VOMI in detail?\nANo, In my interrogation by the prosecution I pointed that out.\nQDid you know the business distribution plan of VOMI in which Office VI or the offices in general are described?\nANo.\nQIn your affidavit which has already been mentioned, and about which you say that you did not draft it yourself, you have given very detailed information about the position and activity of Brueckner. How do you know about this?\nAThese were all assumptions on my part.\nQSo you mean to tell us that you have no facts on which to base this information given in the affidavit?\nANo; I have none.\nDR. DOETZER: I have no further questions.\nDR. PRACHT: Pracht for the defendant Hildebrandt and at the same time for the defendants Hofmann and Schwalm. BY DR. PRACHT:\nQWitness, in direct examination you testified that a release from the re-Germanization proceedings had been carried out by the Field Office Lodz of the RSHA. In the document submitted by the Prosecution, however, it says that only the Main Staff Office could release anybody from it or approve releases from re-Germanization proceedings. May I refer to Document 5391, Exhibit 791, Page 1? (Document handed to witness.)\nAI didn't express myself very precisely. It had occurred to me already that in the release from the re-Germanization proceedings the Main Staff Office was responsible, but the agreement of the Field Office of the RuSHA was required. It is therefore comprehensible that after the Main Staff Office could not itself decide that to the full I expressed myself not very clearly.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2157, "page_number": "2150", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QWell, witness, in the document, as submitted to you, also in the oneNO-3271, Exhibit 142, Pages 43 and 44, it is mentioned that the field office was being informed. Do you mean in agreement with the field office?\nAI only know that in practice it was handled in such a way that the agreement had to be given.\nQThank you. In direct examination you further testified that the transportation of those eligible for re-Germanization into the Reich was also carried out by the field office Lodz of RuSHA. But the Prosecution documents show that the transportation of those eligible for reGermanization was carried out by the Lodz Labor Office and not by the field office. I refer to Document No-3271 once again. Page 37. That document says that the Reich Labor Administration was responsible for for the transports. Now, which is correct?\nAI can only say that the Main Staff Office was not responsible for the transport.\nQThank you. That is enough.\nAWho actually did that I don't know.\nQThank you. In Document Book VIII-B, Document 3074, Exhibit 406, on Page 10 there is a letter which you signed or initialled. In this letter, the 12 August 1941, you give the order to check to the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissioner who racially examined the 300 children in the Warthegau. (Document handed to witness). And you also tell the plenipotentiary if necessary to intervent. Do you remember whether you received a reply to this inquiry?\nAYou yourself say that it was an inquiry and not an order. I can't remember having got a reply to this inquiry.\nQAnd you didn't hear from any other source who actually racially examined these 300 children?\nANo, I don't know.\nDR. PRACHT: Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2158, "page_number": "2151", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "DR. MUELLER: Dr. Mueller for Huebner. I have one supplementary question. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, do you know whether the Lebensborn, when the children from the Polish orphanages were taken over, bot in touch with the office of the plenipotentiary in Posen in which the defendant Huebner worked?\nA.First of all, as far as I know, the head of the office, Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, was dealing with the matter. After regulation No. 167 was issued later on, that is, in the Spring of 1942, the defendant Viermetz and I agreed that in future, as a matter of simplification, she would talk to the Gau management directly without the intervention of the office and I think that at the latest from that date, if not before, the office of the plenipotentiary no longer -\nTHE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal feels called upon to say that while under the agreement with reference to time, we are disposed to allow defense counsel to consume the time very largely as they determine to be to the best interest of their client. However, we must have some orderly procedure and we cannot have counsel doing what has just been done. When he conducts his examination he is supposed to get through. While we permitted this we simply want to state it is not a precedent. Any further questions by the defense? Proceed with the cross examination by the Prosecution.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQMr. Creutz, what rank did you finally attain in the SS?\nAFinally I was Oberfuehrer of the Armed SS, the Waffen SS, and Brigadefuehrer of the General SS.\nQYour highest rank was that which is equivalent to a senior colonel in the American Army, I believe.\nAI don't know. I don't know the rank.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2159, "page_number": "2152", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QYou first joined the SS in 1933 and you remained in the SS until the end of the war except for a brief leave of absence in the winter of 1938-39. That is true, isn't it?\nAIn 1938 and 1939 I didn't have a short leave. In 1938 I was relieved of my office and sent home until further notice and I was convinced that I would be discharged at the very least.\nQBut you never were discharged and actually remained a member of the SS although you were on leave?\nANo; I was not discharged.\nQWere you married in the winter of 1938-39?\nAYes, in March, 1939.\nQAnd in April 1939 you went back to active duty?\nAYes.\nQSo in reality the only disagreement that you have ever had with the SS was on account of a personal matter, that you wanted to be married in a church and they didn't want you to be married in a church? That is true, isn't it?\nAYes. At the time I was convinced that, as happened in similar cases, I would be discharged from the SS. Why I wasn't, I don't know.\nQNow, you were called back to the SS and you received promotions to the extent that you held a high office at the time that the war was over, didn't you?\nAYes.\nQYour birthday is in April, isn't it?\nAYes.\nQDidn't Himmler send you a birthday present in 1943?\nAYes. I think he did, 1942 or '43. I received a porcelain figurine from him. It was very ugly.\nQWell, in your letter in which you thanked him you didn't mention that it was ugly, did you?\nANo. That is not usually done in letters of thanks.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2160, "page_number": "2153", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QAs a matter of fact, in your letter in which you thanked him you told him you appreciated it very much and you were going to try to show your appreciation by giving him all the work you could possibly give. Isn't that true?\nAYes; it is very possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2161, "page_number": "2154", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.So when you said that Himmler always had a grudge against you he didn't indicate it on this occasion of your birthday in 1943, in any event, did he?\nA.I know that Himmler himself did not choose the birthday present he sent over but that one of his secretaries did this and I also know that Himmler usually didn't look at letters of thanks he received.\nQ.In that event you would have been safe in saying what it looked like, wouldn't you, what you thought of it?\nA. (No response.)\nQ.Now, with reference to promotions, Himmler did control the promotions, didn't he, your promotions?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, was this office the Main Staff Office, concerned with military matters?\nA.No.\nQ.There was nothing of military importance in your files, was there?\nA.No; not as far as I know.\nQ.When did you burn those files or cause them to be burned? What date?\nA.During the last days of April, 1945.\nQ.About two weeks before the war was over?\nA.I don't know. At any rate the enemy, that is, the American troops, were about 40 or 50 kilometers away and when they arrived one could expect their arrival almost any day.\nQ.Well now, you have stated that your records had no military value to the Americans. Isn't it a fact that you burned those records as a good SS man following orders, as you said you were doing, because you didn't want the American Army to know what had been going on in the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2162, "page_number": "2155", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.What happened in the Main Staff Office was shown by the documents which were not burned and, as, far as I know, that was six or seven railway carloads which remained intact. The destruction of the secret documents was carried out on the basis of an obligation imposed on everybody handling secret documents which, as far as I know, everybody had to sign at the beginning of the war. As far as I know, the documents of the Main Staff Office are still in the hands of the American Occupation Troops and that is probably the source of the records on which these proceedings are based.\nQ.Well, those that were burned are not in the hands of the Americans are they?\nA.No.\nQ.Now, you stated that there were eight or ten thousand employees in 1942, These employees included settlement staffs, didn't they, in the field?\nA.I didn't quite get the question.\nQ.You had eight or ten thousand employees in 1942 and among these employees were the settlement staffs in the field. That is true, isn't it?\nA.The settlement staffs of the plenipotentiaries were included and the German Deutsche Umsiedlung, the Resettlement Trusteeship. They were included.\nQ.You had representatives in the field to take care of the resettlers as they entered these new settlement areas, did you not?\nA.The plenipotentiaries were did that.\nQ.The Main Staff Office saw that the resettlers were properly settled, did they not? That was their responsibility?\nA.Yes, Generally speaking that was the task of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.And they wanted these resettlers to be satisfied and happy and well-cared for, didn't they?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2163, "page_number": "2156", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I didn't understand the question. Could you repeat it?\nQ.Well, I will ask you this. When the resettlers went in to their new area to be resettled they took over the farm the land, the personal property, including the cows and the chickens and the geese and everything else, didn't they?\nA.They didn't do that.\nQ.And in order -\nA.They didn't take that, no.\nQ.Well, the people who had been deported didn't take their property with them, did they?\nA.No.\nQ.And in order to keep the farm running properly the people who were deported just before your resettlers came in, had to stay there and take care of this personal property and live stock until about an hour before the resettlers took over. That is true, isn't it?\nA.No. I don't think that was the case. I think, rather, that when the people were evacuated the resettlers came in order to look after it properly until a final ruling was made.\nQ.You are familiar with Document No-3996, which is a report dated 23 March, 1943, signed by you regarding the procedure of the re-Germanization of racially valuable persons. That document is in Document Book IV-C and you have seen a copy of that document, haven't you? (Document handed to witness.)\nCopies of that in German were delivered to you several weeks ago, were they not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I understood you to say that no compulsory measures, so far as you know, were used in the re-Germanization of these people. Is that true?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2164, "page_number": "2157", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I didn't say that. I said it was forbidden to punish people who resisted re-Germanization on that account, but if somebody fit for re-Germanization, for instance, stole a watch or infringed on other German regulations, of course he was punished in exactly the same way as the Germans.\nQ.Will you look at the last paragraph in Section 3 of that report and see whether or not that complies with what you have just stated?\nA.I can't find any sentence which contradicts that.\nQ.Do you see there where it says: \"It was also often neccessary to discipline some obstinate persons in the harshest manner and to keep them in line through the use of compulsory measures?\"\nA. where is that? I haven't seen it.\nQ.That is Section 3, the last paragraph.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You say that you have testified before that that was true?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Then you do admit that compulsion was used on these people?\nA.Yes, It says here: \"to keep them orderly through forcible measures if these people infringed any sort of German regulations.\" Of course they were punished in the same way as any other German.\nQ.It is your contention then that that is just in cases where they infringed upon some German law?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Or do you mean just some regulation that was set up by you with reference to re-Germanization?\nA.With reference to re-Germanization I didn't set up any regulations at all.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers as Exhibit for identification, Document No-3996, to be introduced on rebuttal as our Exhibit No. 804. BY MR. LAMB:", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2165, "page_number": "2158", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Now, with reference to the meeting with Heydrich at which you were present, you have seen the report of that meeting, have you not, the memorandum?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And that memornadum states that it was necessary to move thousands of Jews and Poles out in order to accommodate resettlers. That is true, isn't it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2166, "page_number": "2159", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "This document also was delivered to you some weeks ago, wasn't it?\nAYes.\nQThis is documentNO-5322. What explanation would you like to give concerning this document as to your knowledge that these people were moved out in order to make room for your resettlers?\nAI never denied that evacuations and deportations took place.\nQBut you denied it took place for the purpose of your resettlers, didn't you, or that you were interested in getting them out?\nAI am not aware of having denied that.\nQIn other words you admit then that you knew that people were being moved out of their homes in Poland, deported, in order to take care of the resettlers that your office was bringing in?\nAThe Main Staff Office didn't bring in any of these settlers. This was done by VOMI. VOMI didn't do it on its own initiative as far as I know but it was done on the Fuehrer's orders and at the time this discussion took place this evacuation was ordered in progress and practically carried out and the largest part of the resettlement had already taken place.\nQYou also know that the Jews were going into the Ghettos, you learned that at this meeting, didn't you?\nAThe discussion, as far as I know, as far as I remember, was at the end of January 1940, and if I remember rightly at the beginning of January 1940 I was at Posen for the first time in my life and as far as I remember I heard that at that time the Ghetto was only supposed to exist in Lodz and I myself was not in Lodz at the time but in Posen and I think that I was told that in Posen at the time.\nQThis document is correct, is it not, as to what went on at that meeting that you had when Heydrich was present?\nAAs far as I remember this discussion which after all was almost eight years ago, does not contradict the contents of this document.\nQThe Prosecution offers documentNO-5322for identification to be \n introduced as Exhibit No. 805.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2167, "page_number": "2160", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "We have no further questions, your Honor. BY DR. MERKEL:\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQI only have a very few questions your Honor. Herr Creutz I would like to come back quite briefly to the porcelain figurine. Were gifts of this kind something unusual? Was it a special favor of Himmler's or was it something else?\nANo, it was somewhat out of the way for me because I only got it on that one occasion. Apparently Himmler had forgotten to cross my name off the birthday list.\nQYou just mentioned a birthday list. If I understood you correctly it was the case with officials higher up to have a list of birthdays of the employees available and automatically a present or congratulations were sent to the employees.\nAI don't know the details of what happened in this case.\nQThe Prosecutor asked you once again about the burning of secret documents. Were the documents burned because they were secret documents or were they burned because they contained military matters.\nAThey were burned because they were secret documents.\nQAnd there was a general order to burn secret documents when the enemy approached?\nAYes.\nQOne further question, document 3966; in this document you mention in paragraph III, last section, that these people were to be orderly by the use of compulsory measures. What do you mean by this orderly in order?\nABy this order I mean adherence to German regulations and German laws.\nQThank you, your Honor, no further questions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQI must put one question in connection with the burned documents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2168, "page_number": "2161", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "May I ask you to let me have Exhibit 804 once again. You expressed the assumption that the document submitted by the Prosecution was a document originating from the documents which were not burned, Now, could you tell us, where, for instance, this document came from?\nAThis document undoubtedly came from the open files.\nQYes, but would you just look at the top? Perhaps you nay have doubts then,\nANo, I don't know.\nQI mean from which agency the came the stamp, you can see that from the stamp.\nAOh, from Himmler's files, personal staff.\nQSo will you tell us where the document came from?\nAFrom Himmler's files.\nQWas it in your files or in other files?\nAOther files.\nQIs it possible that a letter like this could have been among the documents which were burned, another copy, of course?\nANo, because this is not a secret letter.\nQIt says secret, doesn't it?\nAIt doesn't say secret. It doesn't say secret here.\nQOn the copy it says personal staff of the Fuehrer SS, Document Secret No. 304.\nAYes, from there. But in the Main Staff Office it did not have a secret number.\nQThere were a number of secret documents from Himmler's files. Could they have been among the burned documents?\nAI don't know; I don't know what was among them.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next, Dr. Merkel?\nDR. MERKEL:Your Honor, I have only one witness, Dr. Bethge. It would perhaps be better to examine him all in one go and start at half past one.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2169, "page_number": "2162", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Your cooperation has been so fine that we will grant that request and the Tribunal will now recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2170, "page_number": "2163", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Who will you call, Dr. Merkel?\nDR. MERKEL:Dr. Bethge, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness be sworn.\nWILLYBETHGE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows : BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God.\nA.I swear by God.\nQ.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nA.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ.That I will speak the pure truth.\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ.And will withhold and add nothing.\nA.And will withhold and add nothing. BY DR. MERKEL:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, please give the court your full name.\nA.Berthold Willy Bethge.\nQ.Witness, please allow an interval to lapse between my question and your answer so that the interpreters can follow. When and where were you born?\nA.On the 15th of March 1902, in Erdmannsdorf, Bahnhofstrasse.\nQ.Please describe briefly your career.\nA.I visited a secondary school and I studied economy and since 1927 I have worked in various labor offices. In 1939 I became a teacher at the Administrative School of the \n Reich Ministry of Labor.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. MERKEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "WILLY", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2171, "page_number": "2164", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "When the war broke out I went to the head office of Emigration and Resettlement. In Brandenburg I was transferred to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Since when were you working for the Reich Commissar?\nA.From the very beginning.\nQ.How and through whom did you get there?\nA.I was sent there as a result of a telephone conversation between the defendant Greifelt and the then Senior Government Councillor in the Labor Ministry, Dr. Timm.\nQ.Had you ever done anything voluntarily or worked voluntarily in the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.What rank did you have in the Main Staff Office?\nA.I didn't have any rank in the Main Staff Office.\nQ.What rank did you have otherwise?\nA.I was a Government Councillor in the Reich Labor Administration.\nQ.You were a civil servant?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.What kind of work did you handle in the Main Staff Office or in Greifelt's office from October 1939 to the end of the war?\nA.Labor assignment and the social work of the department connected with it.\nQ.Will you describe quite briefly what you mean by labor assignment?\nA.Quite generally speaking, labor assignment means changing jobs for dependent labor forces, finding them jobs.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2172, "page_number": "2165", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "In this specific case, in the case of the Reich Commissar it was mainly a question in addition of obtaining the necessary living quarters for families.\nQ.To whom were you responsible?\nA.In disciplinary respects I was under the Reich Minister of Labor, respectively the Provisional Labor Office in Brandenburg to which I had been allocated factually. In my work in the Main Staff Office I was first of all subordinated to Dr. Fehndrich and Greifelt.\nQ.What was the name of the main department of which Dr. Fehndrich was in charge at the time?\nA.Main Department 1.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Creutz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was Dr. Fehndrich subordinated to the defendant Greutz?\nA.In the beginning, certainly not.\nQ.Why not?\nA.Creutz at the time was not Greifelt's deputy.\nQ.Who, in this initial period, was the deputy of Greifelt:\nA.Dr. Fehndrich.\nQ.At what time was Creutz the deputy of Greifelt?\nA.That must have been about the time when Dr. Fehndrich left the Main Staff Office.\nQ.And when was that as far as you can remember?\nA.It must have been at the beginning of 1942 or thereabouts.\nQ.In what special case did Creutz deputize for the Office Chief?\nA.AS far as we were concerned he deputized when \n the Office Chief was away or when he was charged with a special assignment.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2173, "page_number": "2166", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Were you always a member of the Main Department 1?\nA.Later on I was transferred to the Settlement Staff of Germany proper and from there I was transferred to Office 2. The whole settlement staff at Schweikelberg, in Austria was incorporated into Office 2.\nQ.When was that approximately?\nA.Office 2, as far as I remember, was set up in 1942.\nQ.Could you tell us a little more precisely -Spring, Summer or Fall?\nA.I can't remember.\nQ.To whom was this Office 2 subordinated?\nA.In the same way as the settlement staff Germany proper-Austria; it was responsible to Hinze.\nQ.How long did he remain your immediate superior?\nA.Up to the time he left. It must have been about the end of 1943.\nQ.Was Hinze subordinated to the defendant Creutz?\nA.One can't say that exactly, at least not in my opinion. At any rate he attached importance to not appearing as Creutz's subordinate. Creutz was subordinated to him in fact.\nQ.What happened to Office 2 after that?\nA.After Hinze left I took over its management.\nQ.Was that at the time when the Main Staff Office or this Office 2 was transferred to Schweikelberg?\nA.Yes, about that time.\nQ.Who was your immediate superior from that time on?\nA.Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2174, "page_number": "2167", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.TO what extent was Creutz your superior in his capacity as Chief of Office Group A?\nA.During my work with the Main Staff Office I had practically nothing to do with the work of the office groups.\nQ.Did the establishment of the office groups therefore, bring about no change in the total organization of the Main Staff Office, in your opinion, as far as your knowledge goes?\nA.No, we had our discussions and so on directly with Greifelt as before.\nQ.I would like to ask you something about the Germanization procedure. You are familiar with these proceedings?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What caused this procedure?\nA.I heard of it through an order of Himmler which Dr. Fehndrich brought back from an official trip to Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2175, "page_number": "2168", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QDo you remember when that was?\nAUnless I am very much mistaken, it was in April or May, 1940.\nQDid this happen at the suggestion of the Main Staff Office? I am referring to the order which you \"brought back.\nANo, before we had never talked about anything like this.\nQDid Dr. Faehnrich's bringing hack of Himmler's order result in racial examinations?\nAAt least a number of persons had already been racially examined, and were brought to the Reich, to Berlin, I believe when Dr. Faehnrich returned from his visit to Himmler.\nQDo you know what caused Himmler to issue this order?\nANo.\nQWhose task was it to select the people who night be considered fit for this procedure?\nARuSHA had a field office in Lodz for this purpose.\nQDid the field office receive this assignment at the suggestion of the Main Staff Office?\nANo, certainly not.\nQDid the Main Staff Office or did Creutz have any influence on this selection?\nACertainly not on the selection in detail.\nQWhat was the job of the Main Staff Office in this scheme?\nAIt was responsible for the labor allocation and the social welfare of the people who were selected.\nQAnd what agencies did the Main Staff Office employ to carry out these tasks?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leaders, and this office again dealt with other agencies. Above all, the labor offices.\nQWas the task of the office of the Higher SS and Police Leader restructed to social welfare?\nAI didn't understand your question.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2176, "page_number": "2169", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QDid the Either SS end Police headers restrict themselves to the social welfare jobs? Or, did it also carry out other activities in this respect?\nAYes, they were also responsible for examining those selected for the re-Germanization with regard to their political views and from a police point of view.\nQDid the Main Staff Office issue instructions about this or was it another organization?\nAThe Main Staff Office certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with this. I assume that the instructions to this effect would have cone from the Reich Security Main Office or one of its offices.\nQDid the Main Staff Office initiate this supervision regarding welfare for the re-Germanization of people?\nANo, it couldn't.\nQWhy were the labor offices which also played a part in this not given permission to look after the re-Germanization in this way?\nAThat would have been far beyond the competence of the labor offices. For instance, they would not have seen to getting accommodations properly. Above all, however, the whole matter was to be handed over to an agency which did not have any authority with respect to other agencies end the general public because it was important that those eligible for re-Germanization should in every aspect of daily life be put on an equal footing with Reich Germans.\nQDo you know the order which was Issued by the Main Staff Office in the matter concerning those eligible for re-Germanization?\nAYes, I know them all, except for the order which I mentioned just now. Apart from the order which I mentioned just now, a number of other instructions were issued which concerned the whole carrying out of the procedure.\nQDid the defendant Creutz issue any instructions of this kind?\nAI don't Think so. At least no such instructions are due to his initiative.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2177, "page_number": "2170", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QDo you know whether those fit for re-Germanization departed voluntarily for this procedure?\nAHost of then who were involved in the re-Germanization procedure were people who had \"been evacuated mainly to the War the gnu, and who were selected in the collecting camps, and I believe racially examined and considered eligible for re-Germanization. One can't say that they departed on their own initiative, but at least they agreed to being taken into this re-Germanization procedure with very few exceptions, and most of these exceptions were allowed to stay out of it. Volunteers would turn up occasionally when people who had. submitted papers of origian were not recognized as racial Germans, but who wanted in this way somehow to get themselves recognized as Germans.\nQWitness, cad you hear of any cases where people fit for reGermanization who had already been assigned to work in Germany wanted to return to their country of origin?\nAYes, but relatively few.\nQWhat happened, in such cases?\nASuch applications were granted only very rarely,\nQCould the Main Staff Office on its own accord order that these people were exempted?\nAFormal orders for the exemption were issued by the Main Staff Office, but if the Main Staff Office wanted to take somebody out, this previously required an inquiry from the RuSHA field office in Lodz.\nQDo you know whether those fit for re-Germanization were ever sent to concentration camps for refusal to work?\nAIn principle, certainly not. I know of very few cases where this was done on the initiative of the local police office or Gestapo office; I don't know who it was.\nQ was in any way within the sphere of competence of the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2178, "page_number": "2171", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "ANo.\nQDid you hear of cases where the obtaining of accommodations of those fit for re-Germanization was very difficult?\nAYes, there were many difficulties.\nQWhat were they?\nAMainly concerning housing; also sometimes if the breadwinner of the family was not there or sick.\nQWhat happened then in the case of these families you have just mentioned?\nAIn the case of the family fit for re-Germanization on the regulati ons concerning public care applied in the same wry as for all Reich Germans. Higher SS and Police Leaders, then had to inform the responsible welfare offices of the welfare organizations or the agency whose job it was to see that these families could he supported in some way or another.\nQWere children without parents ever included in this procedure?\nACertainly not in the procedure that we ourselves dealt with.\nQWere you informed in detail shout what persons came to the Reich as fit for re-Germanization?\nAYes, from every family selected we received a list, a card index of information from the field office of the RUSHA field office in Lodz.\nQIn this trial the so-called cases of special treatment within the framework of the re-Germanization procedure have been repeatedly mentioned. What do you under staid by this?\nABy cases of special treatment we meant cases where aliens were to be punished for prohibited sexual intercourse with Germans.\nQWhat did the Main Staff Office have to do with this, especially the defendant Creutz?\nAIt had nothing to do with cases of special treatment as such, but cases were reported to us when such aliens as a result of racial examination were not punished but supposed to be recognized as fit for re-", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2179, "page_number": "2172", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Germanization. Then the Main Staff office, I think through the Higher SS and Police Leader, or through some other local competent source was told the name and had to see to it that the pe rson concerned was put to work again if possible in another district and included in the re-Germanization procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2180, "page_number": "2173", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Do you know who decided whether an alien was to be punished because of this forbidden sexual intercourse or whether he was to be given another job because had been recognized as fit for re-Germanization?\nA.I don't know who decided that.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office decide that?\nA.No, it was not the Main staff Office. The Main Staff Office only handled such cases when it we is firmly established that the person concerned was to be considered as fir for re-Germanization.\nQ.At this stage of the procedure the report reached the Main Staff Office with a request to see to further details?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And I think you have already said that these people were then to be treated as persons fit for re-Germanization.\nA.No exceptions were made as far as they were concerned in comparison with other people fit for re-Germanization.\nQ.Do you know how many people were concerned; how many cases were there?\nA.I can't remember exactly, but I don't think there were even as many as one hundred.\nQ.I am submitting to you Exhibit 521, in Document Book 11 of the Prosecution. Do you know this Document?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who signed it?\nA.I did.\nQ.What sort of an instance was this?\nA.It was an order from Himmler, or his personal staff \n or perhaps even some other agency; I don't remember.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2181, "page_number": "2174", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "The Main Staff Office now had the task of passing on this order to the higher police and SS leaders for their information.\nQ.This letter also mentions a special camp Hintzert; was this special camp an installation of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Certainly not.\nQ.Do you know to whom this camp was subordinated?\nA.I can only assume that it was subordinated to RuSHA.\nQ.Witness, I now come to the question of the treatment of Polish domestics in the re-Germanization procedure. Is it possible that such domestics were included in the reGermanization procedure?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I submit to you Exhibit 160, in Prosecution Document IV-D. Do you know this letter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who drafted it?\nA.This letter was drafted in my department.\nQ.Was this done at the orders of the defendant Creutz?\nA.No, certainly not.\nQ.How did this letter happen to come to you?\nA.Himmler had demanded again and again that the large number of domestics employed in German households in the Warthegau should be replaced by those who were racially unobjectionable.\nQ.Did Himmler particularly express the wish that the largest possible number of such girls be brought to the Reich?\nA.Yes. This was demanded by him again and again \n because the agency concerned which had to carry out the selection, the RuSHA field office, was not at all to be competent for the job.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2182, "page_number": "2175", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Had members of the personal staff of Himmler, already selected such domestics for themselves and their acquaintances before the Main Staff Office handled the matter at all?\nA.Yes, at the express desire of Himmler himself.\nQ.Why did the Main Staff Office have to yield in this matter concerning domestics?\nA.Because these domestics now had been brought into the re-Germanization procedure, and because the care for all those fit for re-Germanization was in the hands of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.What was the attitude of the defendant Creutz toward this problem?\nA.I remember very well that with regard to the problem of domestics in particular he maintained a very negative attitude.\nQ.Do you know that from personal conversations with the defendant Creutz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How were these domestics treated?\nA.They were treated exactly in the same way as all other persons fit for re-Germanization.\nQ.Dr. Bethge, I am submitting to you Prosecution Exhibit 804, which was submitted in the cross examination this morning by the Prosecution. Do you know this document?\nA.Yes.\nQ.To what extent were you connected with it?\nA.It was also drafted in my department, perhaps even by myself.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2183, "page_number": "2176", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.In paragraph III, last sub-section, there is mention of the fact that those fit for re-Germanization, if necessary were to be kept in order by suitable measures if required; something like that; I can't quote it literally. What did the expression ''kept in order\" mean?\nA.That they were to do their work properly, but also that otherwise they were to behave decently and properly; especially in the case of domestics the higher SS and police leaders attached great importance to this; maids who knocked around at night or maids whose lives were objectionable from a moral point of view were sometimes again to be excluded from the re-Germanization procedure or punished in some other way.\nQ.So it depended entirely on those fit for re-Germanization, and their behavior whether such measures had to be taken or not.\nA.Naturally.\nQ.Did these maids come from just one single country?\nA.Only a certain proportion of them; they were girls whom the labor office had already selected for work in the Reich proper, and who now on the basis of racial examinations were admitted to work in domestic positions. That is what mattered to Himmler because Himmler again and again started out from the view point that the girls working in households could not be subordinated to the normal regulations governing the employment of foreign labor because they were in such close contact with the German population, that is their employers and so on.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2184, "page_number": "2177", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.In Document Book 4-D, which you have before you, please look at Exhibit 161. That is a report by the defendant Creutz, where he mentions several attempted suicides among domestic servants. Why was this fact mentioned in a report of the defendant Creutz, which was sent to Himmler?\nA.Because every opportunity was to be taken to get Himmler off the idea that girls were to be included in the re-Germanization procedure alone, without any members of their families. Both RuSHA and the Main Staff Office had objected to this again and again. Among other things, this report served the purpose of drawing Himmler'S attention to the difficulties which arose. These girls, whose parents remained in the Warthegau or elsewhere got homesick or were dissatisfied, for some other reason, with having their families treated in a different way from themselves, and as a result there were continous difficulties, at any rate more than in the case of the other people fit for re-Germanization who had come with their whole families.\nQ.Did any suicides actually occur among these domestic servants?\nA.I certainly think that no suicides occurred. If any suicides had occurred at that time they most certainly would have come to Himmler's attention in that report.\nQ.Dr. Bethge, did it happen that people fit for re-Germanization, w* opposed their re-Germanization, had their children taken away from them?\nA.No, certainly not.\nQ.Did the separation of members of one family occur?\nA.Yes. You mean in the case of people who resisted their reGermanization?\nQ.Yes, such cases, of course.\nA.Yes, it would occur, because sometimes not the whole family objected. For instance, the parents or some of the children might have been excluded from re-Germanization, but, for example, a grown-up son or daughter might have remained at his or her place of work in the Reich.\nQ.Do you know any instructions dealing with such cases?\nA.That families were to be separated?\nQ.Yes", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2185, "page_number": "2178", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.Not that I know of.\nQ.Do you know of any cases in practice? Were there many cases or were there few?\nA.There were Very few cases.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz participate in the introduction of the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he suggest it?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he promote it in any way?\nA.Certainly not.\nQ.Do you know of any instructions issued by the defendant Creutz in connection with the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.It is possible that he got one document or another to sign, but instructions due to his own initiative certainly did not exist.\nQ.Do you remember that Himmler regularly had reports sent to him about the number of People fit for re-Germanization?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the document book before you in Document Book 4-D, would you look at Exhibit 161 again, and Exhibit 162, both signed by Creutz? Were these two documents of the kind you just mentioned, that is, reports to Himmler?\nA.I have only got 161 here.\nQ.No. 162 is there too.\nA.Would you please repeat your question once again?\nQ.Were these two documents, signed by the defendant Creutz, reports from the defendant Creutz to Himmler concerning the number of people fit for re-Germanization?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What effect did these reports have?\nA.None whatsoever.\nQ.Now, in Document Book 4-C, I submit to you Exhibit 142. Do you \n know this document?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2186, "page_number": "2179", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Was it the task of the rain St Office to control the behavior of foreign workers in the Reich?\nA.You mean the treatment of foreign workers?\nQ.Yes.\nA.No.\nQ.Whose task was it?\nA.By assignment, it was a matter for the General Plenipotentiary for Labor occasionally, and their treatment otherwise was a matter for the Reich Security Main Office and its agencies.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office have difficulties because of the employment of Eastern workers in the Reich?\nA.Yes, many.\nQ.And of what did these consist?\nA.The housing of the \"A\" cases was made more difficult and was interfered with by the Eastern workers' question.\nQ.Is it correct that many \"A\" cases remained in the VOICE camps?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were they supposed to stay there?\nA.No.\nQ.Then why were they not settled?\nA.Mainly because of accommodation difficulties.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office, and the defendant Creutz, initiate evacuations from Alsace, Lorraine, or Luxembourg, or encourage them?\nA.In my opinion, most certainly not.\nQ.Did the Main Staff Office assign departees from Alsace, Lorraine, and Luxembourg to work?\nA.Yes. After the deportation of these people, the Main Staff Office had the not very attractice task of seeing to it that these deportees were again given work and accommodations. That was difficult because, in the meantime, the housing situation had become worse and worse, and because \n it was impossible to offer most of thorn the kind of positions they had had in their countries of origin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2187, "page_number": "2180", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Could these deportees choose their own places of work freely?\nA.Yes, they could also look for work themselves.\nQ.The Prosecution maintains that these resettled people were brought into Germany for slave labor. Were they slave laborers?\nA.The deportees came under the same labor regulations and other laws as all Reich Germans, with the one exception, that a change in the place of work, other than was customary, had to be approved not only by the Labor Office, but also by the Higher Police and SS leader.\nQ.Were these deportees and resettled persons treated differently from Germans with respect to their work?\nA.I have already said that they were not.\nQ.What agencies drafted and issued the regulations concerning allocations of deportees and resettled persons?\nA.In the case of so-called temporary employment--that is, employment while they were in c amps--VOMI was responsible. Regulations for their so-called final employment--that is, taking them out of the camps, getting them their places of work, accommodations, and everything else connected with it--were issued by the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the defendant Creutz issue any such regulations?\nA.It as possible that occasionally he might have signed such regulations.\nQ.Do you know whether Creutz ever negotiated with the Reich Ministry of Labor?\nA.I don't know of any instances.\nQ.I now come to another subject, which is the deportation of the Slovenes. Do you know who carried out the deportation of the Slovenes in the so-called Save-Sottla area?\nA.That was a special task given to the then Brigade-fuehrer Hintze.\nQ.You say \"special task\". Was it therefore a special case, compared with other resettlement measures?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2188, "page_number": "2181", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.Yes. Hintze often received such special orders directly from the Reichsfuehrer, and this case was an exception in so far as deportations were involed which were carried out by the Main Staff Office and its agencies.\nQ.Was the Main Staff Office concerned in ordering these deportations?\nA.Do you mean the fact that this deportation took place at all?\nQ.Yes, whether the Main Staff Office took any part in ordering this deportation.\nA.I can't Say for certain. As far as I know, it was brought about as the result of a suggestion by the Chief of the Civil Administration of this area; I think it was Ueberreiter.\nQ.When was this scheme carried out?\nA.It must have been in the winter of 1941-1942. At any rate, it was in the winter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2189, "page_number": "2182", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQHow many Slovenes were deported at the time?\nAThirty to forty-thousand.\nQDo you know this figure for certain, or could it have been fewer?\nAI don't think it could have been fewer. At that time I often had reports in my hand which gave figures, and I remember that it was certainly more than thirty thousand.\nQFrom what time onwards, after that, did the Main Staff Office handle this affair?\nAAs in the case of all such measures, the Main Staff Office had the task of looking after the deportees who were in camps in the Reich, and of finding them new accommodations.\nQWas the defendant Creutz concerned in this scheme?\nACertainly not in the deportation.\nQWhy did the Main Staff Office cause these Slovenes to be taken out of the camps?\nAAs I said, that -was one of the tasks of the Main Staff Office, but as far as the final destiny of these deportees was concerned, nothing definite was ever known. At least, I myself was never properly informed as to what the idea actually was or what was intended. Therefore, we in the Main Staff Office strongly recommended that at least as many as possible should be taken out of the camps immediately and accommodated in the Reich and employed as workers. The essential point was that from the very beginning importance was attached to getting the whole family out in each case. That was by no means simple. As I said Just now, there was a big housing shortage during the war which made all this so much more difficult.\nQTo what extent did Creutz look after these deported Slovenes? Did he, in particular, recommend their being taken out of the camps?\nAYes, and I remember for certain that over and beyond that he tried to get permission for the return of at least some of these persons.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2190, "page_number": "2183", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQHow do you know that, Herr Bethge?\nAFrom personal conversations with Creutz.\nQWas full indemnification provided for these Slovenes or intended for them?\nAI don't know what generally happened in such cases. Those who ware taken out of the camps and employed in the Reich proper were supposed to get full indemnification. Unless I am very much mistaken, they were on an equal footing with the resettlers, that is, the racial Germans who returned to the Reich.\nQNow the last subject, Herr Bethge. Do you know anything about the transfer of children from Polish orphanages to the Reich?\nAYes.\nQAbout how many children were concerned?\nAI only know--or, I should correct myself, I heard of only one instance. There it was a question of about forty children from one orphanage in Posen, or near Posen, being taken out and distributed among German families as adopted children.\nQYou mentioned an orphanage in Posen. Was that a German or a Polish orphanage?\nAIt must have been a Polish orphanage.\nQWho handled this matter in the Main Staff Office?\nAA certain Dr. Kolditz.\nQTo what extant was the defendant Creutz concerned in this matter?\nAI can't say anything about that; I don't know.\nQDo you not know either whether the initiative came from the defendant Creutz?\nAI think that is out of the question.\nQWas it a question of only orphans or children of Polish parents who were still alive?\nAAs I said, I heard of this incident unofficially, and I also heard from Dr. Kolditz about these forty orphans. And from the fact \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2191, "page_number": "2184", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "that they ware in an orphanage, I think one may conclude that they were children whose parents were not alive.\nQJust a few concluding questions about the character of the defendant Creutz. What was his general attitude in the matter of re-Germanization? Obviously, you talked to him vary often about these things, and you must be able to judge his opinion.\nAI did not talk to him about it very often, but when we did talk about it ha was always very frank, and vary skeptical, and rather disliked the matter.\nQDid Creutz himself take the initiative in connection with any such measures?\nANo, for as long as I have known him, ha never took the initiative.\nQDid Creutz take a great interest in the factual work of Offices I and II?\nANo, not at all.\nQDid he only handle matters in rare cases, when his signature was required?\nAYes. I have already said that it was only in the absence of the Main Office Chief that he did any work in conjunction with us.\nQAnd it was only in such cases that he handled these various affairs, and did not of his own accord intervene in such matters?\nAIn principle, mose certainly not.\nQAs to this occasional dealing of the defendant Creutz with such matters, did that take place frequently?\nANo, because the Main Office Chief was usually present himself.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you. Your Honor, I have no further questions. BY DR. KLINNERT (Counsel for the defendant Schwarzenberger):\nQWitness, did Office V, directed by the defendant Schwarzenberger, have any influence on the measures of Office II, which arose out of the tasks of Office II?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. MERKEL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2192, "page_number": "2185", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Court No. I, Cass No. VIII.\nACertainly not.\nQWare measures of this kind dependent upon the approval of Office V?\nAI never heard of any case where we had to obtain the approval of Office V.\nQBefore such measures war a ordered by Office II, did any negotiations at all take place with Schwarzenberger and Office V?\nAI cannot remember anything of the kind.\nDR. KLINNERT:Thank you. No further questions. BY DR. DOETZER (Counsel for the defendant Brueckner):\nQDr. Bethge, please answer a few short questions.\nWhen did you first meet the defendant Brueckner?\nAI got to know him officially--it must have been about 1941 or 1942, I don't know exactly.\nQDid you have any common work at which you worked together regularly?\nANo, one cannot say that. On the contrary, they were quite rare occasions.\nQWere you in continuous correspondence with him?\nANo; we corresponded very rarely.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. KLINNERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2193, "page_number": "2186", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, the Prosecution accuses Brueckner of having participated in the deportation of foreign citizens, including those of non-German descent, for slave labor, or of having approved these measures. Do you know from your work whether Brueckner ever took part in any such measures?\nAIt was Brueckner's task, as far as I can speak about his task at all, with reference to racial Germans who came to Germany on the basis of contract, to bring thorn to Germany. I don't know what else VOMI had to do with that, but anyway neither VOMI nor the Reich Commissar had anything to do with foreign workers.\nQNow, Dr. Bethge, when you negotiated with VOMI on plans of labor allocation, with reference to these re-settled persons in VOMI camps, did you negotiate with Brueckner or with the camp management?\nAI had to negotiate with the camp management which was responsible for the labor allocation of the resettled persons.\nQWitness, do you remember that VOMI ever negotiated with the Main Staff Office about the employment of female interpreters?\nAYes.\nQDo you know what the work of these interpreters was to be?\nANo, I never quite knew what they ware supposed to do, but, at any rate, they were needed somehow in connection with our army.\nQWere these interpreters Russian-Germans? That is, racial Germans who knew Russian? Or were they aliens?\nANo as they were in VOMI camps, they must have have racial Germans. I know for certain that they were racial Germans.\nQWere they forced to carry out this interpreting work, or did these Russian racial Germans volunteer for the work?\nAThey ware most certainly not forced. They were offered the jobs and I think I remember that they were very eager to get them.\nQWare these Russian Germans on an equal footing with the Reich Germans in their work, or were they perhaps better off?\nAIn principle, they were on an equal footing, but one can \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2194, "page_number": "2187", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "certainly say that they war a batter off because they were always looked after and they were helped to settle down. Attempts ware made to make it easier for them to settle down and to make it possible for them to live in their new surroundings.\nQNow another subject: Did you aver negotiate with Brueckner or any other member of VOMI about the allocation of racial Germans in the Luftwaffe production industry, and did you know who it was who was supposed to be employed here?\nAThat must have been in 1943 or '44. Then the Air Ministry demanded from VOMI and from the Main Office Staff too that additional labor for the Fighter Construction Program or whatever it was, was to be furnished. At that time there were many ethnic Germans who had just come from Russia to the Reich as refugees. They had fled before the advancing Russian armies and all VOMI camps were overcrowded.\nBrueckner would confer with me and was somehow vary much interested in getting as many workers as possible available in order to get them out of over-crowded camps. And that is why we proceeded to lead them on to the Air Ministry under certain conditions.\nQDo you remember what the conditions were?\nAYes.\nQPlease name them.\nAEspecially that in general they were to be treated like Reich Germans, and then the condition was made that not only the workers concerned was to be accommodated but also his entire family.\nQDo you remember that a suggestion was made either by you or by Brueckner, that a special provision was to apply in the case of apprentices in order to put them in a more favorable position from the economic point of view.\nAIn this specific case I cannot remember, but I know that with regard to the so-called apprentice bonus there was always mention of people fit for re-Germanization because most of them had to be retrained. They got soma other training so they could get the full \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2195, "page_number": "2188", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "wages by piece work or other ways, and so to avoid putting them in a worse position in that accord, and to make it possible for them to feed their families. It was always agreed beforehand that the socalled apprentice bonus should be paid, I believe, by the Labor Office, or perhaps by the plant. I don't know exactly.\nQWas this scheme entirely successful, or could only 3,000 ethnic Germans be accommodated?\nANo, certainly not because accommodations were a great difficulty for the various tasks.\nQDid the ethnic Germans report for this work, or didn't they feel like it?\nAVery many of them reported for this work, but afterwards they complain ad that they had again been placed in huts or otherwise inferior accommodations with insufficient furniture. The Air Ministry had made very handsome offers, and afterwards the plants with now actually half these people, could not adhere to these conditions properly simply because they had no accommodations. And so nothing like the number that was supposed to have bean allocated could be accommodated.\nQDo you know whether you or Brueckner, when you found that the promises of the Air Ministry could not be kept in practice, introduced control measures?\nAControl measures had bean provided for in all such cases.\nQDo you remember how many Germans from Russia were allocated to the Luftwaffe production together with their families?\nANo, I don't know.\nQWitness, then you mentioned the employment of domestic servants, which concerned Alien domestic servants fit for re-Germanization, and which was inspired by Himmler. Did Brueckner have anything whatsoever to do with employment of these domestic servants?\nANo.\nQDo you remember that Brueckner or anybody else in the VOMI \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2196, "page_number": "2189", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "talked to you or any of your colleagues about the employment of German domestic servants from Russia?\nAI remember vaguely that, already in an earlier phase, also German girls from Russia were to be sent to Germany. That is that someone or other made a suggestion to this effect but I don't think that anything ever came of it because these Germans from Russia were not supposed to immigrate into the Reich. Later, of course, they came into Germany when the German troops retreated, but at the time the suggestion of bringing such girls was not carried out because Himmler did not want the people from these areas to be brought into Germany.\nQWitness, you have already briefly discussed the Slovene deportation and the questions concerned with this. Do you remember that on one occasion you wrote a letter to Brueckner about the Slovenes? Why did you turn to Brueckner, of all people?\nABecause I knew for certain that Brueckner was entirely of my opinion. We had previously discussed the matter and I think we had some sort of an oral agreement that we wanted to do something to make it possible for such Slovenes to return hom. At the time I was in Bavaria, and therefore had an opportunity to visit some of these camps with some of my colleagues, I had collected quite a number of cases which I wanted to bring to the attention of the competent authorities. I don't remember whether we submitted these reports to the Reich Security Main Office or the Chiefs of the Civil Administration in order to to make it possible for the families or individuals concerned to return to their country of origin.\nQBecause Brueckner wanted to get the Slovenes out of the camps and to return them home?\nAThat is what I understood-Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2197, "page_number": "2190", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the witness. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.Witness, did the wintess Brueckner suggest that that the Slovenes should be Germanized?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.What was Brueckner's attitude towards the re-Germanization or Germanization procedure?\nA. IKnow from discussions with Brueckner that he was sharply opposed to it.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you.\nDR. BEHLING:Dr. Behling for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, to what extent are you acquainted with the defendant Meyer?\nA.I saw him several times in the Main Staff Office. Otherwise I don't Know him.\nQ.Did his activity in the Main Staff Office have any effect on you?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you see him on the occasion of the so-called Monday conferences regularly?\nA.I, myself, only attended the Monday conferences from the year 1943 on. I must correct myself, here, from the year 1944 on. At that time I either did not see the defendant Meyer-Hetling at all or I may have seen him very rarely on some occasions.\nQ.Did you have any other officeial contact with him?\nA.No.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. PRACHT:Dr. Pracht for the defendant Hildebrandt, and also for the defendants Schwalm and Hofmann.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "A. I", "DR. DOETZER", "DR. BEHLING", "DR. PRACHT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2198, "page_number": "2191", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "BY DR. PRACHT:\nQ.Witness, on what was your assumption based which you voiced before that already before Himmler's decree 17-2, people who were eligible for re-Germanization were settled?\nA.It was based on information which I received from Dr. Fehndrich.\nQ.When lid this happen?\nA.As far as I am able to recall, this was in the Spring, I believe in Lay, of 1940.\nQ. what was the basis for your assumption that these first families were settled in the vicinity of Berlin?\nA.This came to my knowledge through official channels.\nQ.When did this happen, please?\nA.It must have been at the time when Fehndrich returned from Himmler with this order.\nQ.Witness, are you acquainted with the details of this order of Himmler?\nA.No. I have to correct myself here. I know of it in so far as Fehndrich did not bring back a written order but he made very detailed notes on the basis of a conference which he had with Himmler.\nQ.Can you perhaps recall that it was planned that the settlement areas were to be to the West of the Elbe River?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, you then went on to talk about the separation of families. Do you know that the field office at Lodz of RuSHA made great efforts in order to keep the families together before they were subjected to the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.Yes, that was frequently discussed orally and also in writing.\nQ.Dr. Bethge: According to your recollection, how high is the \n figure of the people who were eligible for re-Germanization who came from the East?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2199, "page_number": "2192", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Can you give me the total number?\nA.At the time I knew the exact figure. However, today, I cannot remember quite clearly, I believe that the figure was between 10,000 and 15,000.\nQ.Does this figure also include the old people and children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And according to your estimate how high was the number of people who could not be settled: old men, women and children. Give me the percentage.\nA.They must have amounted to more than 50 per cent. There were always entire families and frequently they had many children and if the children had grown up already the number of people who were capable of working was correspondingly higher. If the children were not grown up yet it could happen that perhaps among six persons in a family there was only one man, namely, the father, who was capable of working,\nQ.Thank you. That is sufficient. Witness, how is it that Fehndrich, as you mentioned before, had received an order from Himmler directly about the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.Gehndrich frequently Trent to see the Reichsfuehrer but it was not too often. In any case, it happened a few times and on such an occasion as I have stated before he returned with this order, Q, Thank you.\nAs far as you know, did Dr. Fehndrich occupy himself specifically with questions of re-Germanization?\nA.In connection with this discussion, yes.\nQ.In this connection do you know of Ms written work which he put down in his book, \"Der Menscheneinsatz\"?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can this publication be considered as being his private work?\nA.It cannot be considered as having purely a private character.\nQ.Thank you. That is sufficient for me. Now another question:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2200, "page_number": "2193", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Can the work whichwas given to the people who were eligible for re-Germanization be considered as constituting slave labor?\nA.In no way whatsoever.\nQ.And why not?\nA.These people were treated just like all other German workers and they only were subject to the limitation which was very generously applied, that in order to assume a new type of work they had to obtain the approval of a competent Higher SS and Police Leader,\nQ.Well, something like that also existed for German civilians where the labor office had to give its approval; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you.\nA.In the case of German nationals, whenever they wanted to start a now line of work, they had to obtain the approval from the employment office. In the case of people who were eligible for reGermanization, they also had to obtain the approval from the Higher SS and Police leader.\nQ.Thank you. Dr. Bethge, with whom did you work together in RuSHA?\nA.I know several names of experts. Here we had a certain man by the name of Klinger. Yes, I remember now -- and Harters. Then we also had something to do with the experts of the RuSHA Field Offices. This was Schwalm end later on I can recall the name of Dongus.\nQ.Witness, in connection with the names of Klinger and Harters, which you have mentioned before, I assume that they were members of the Office for Racial Matters in RuSHA, Is that correct?\nA.I am not acquainted with the organization of RuSHA.\nQ.And now I have one last question. After 1943 did you have any official contact with Schwalm?\nA.No.\nDR. PRACHT:Thank you. That is all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2201, "page_number": "2194", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. LAMB:\nQ.Dr. are you a member of the Nazi Party or were you a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you join?\nA.On the first of May, 1933.\nQ.What is your present occupation?\nA.After 1945 I worked in forestry and now I am the employee of a lumber firm.\nQ.What is your address?\nA.Eschweiler, No. 80 Kaiserstrasse,\nQ.Your principal and only position with the Main Staff Office was that of a labor allocator. You had charge of allocation of labor, did you not?\nA.Could you please repeat the question?\nQ.You were in charge of labor allocation at the Main Staff Office, weren't you?\nA.Yes,\nQ.You do not know how all of the other offices of the Main Staff Office operated, do you?\nA.I know it, but quite superficially.\nQ.Now, I believe you stated that the defendant Creutz did not become Greifelt's deputy until 1942. Is that what you stated?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2202, "page_number": "2195", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Now, the defendant Creutz, when he was on the stand yesterday, stated as follows: \"The very minute I joined his office Greifelt informed me that I was to deputize for him and in his absence I did that as well as I could.\" If he stated that yesterday then you are wrong in your statement that he was not his deputy until 1940, aren't you?\nA.I cannot recall the exact period of time. I do not want to make a definite statement on it. As far as I can recall, it must have been in 1942. I know for certain that as long as I was subordinated to Dr. Fehndrich the defendant Creutz had nothing to do with us.\nQ.Now, with reference to the Slovenes, these people were not ethnic Germans, were they?\nA.No.\nQ.They were not people of Nordic blood, were they?\nA.I cannot give you such a precise answer on that.\nQ.All right, Now, this man Hintze was employed in the Main Staff Office, was he not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And he was given the task of going down there and supervising this deportation of these forty-odd thousand Slovenes, was he not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And when he finished that job he was still employed by the Main Staff Office, wasn't he?\nA.I believe that I can recall that Hintze immediately after his activity there received another special assignment by Himmler. This assignment also was not within the scope of work of the Main Staff Office. Here he had to deal with the preparation of a troop training area near Berlin.\nQ.I am not interested in the area. I just want to know whether or not he ever worked for the Main Staff Office \n again after that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2203, "page_number": "2196", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.I cannot give you an exact answer to your question. However, I don't think so.\nQ.As a matter of fact, this job was given to the Main Staff Office by assigning Hintze to do the job. That is the truth, isn't it?\nA.What task are you referring to?\nQ.The deportation of the Slovenes.\nA.Hintze received his orders directly from Himmler to carry out this task.\nQ.Greifelt received his orders directly from Himmler to carry out his task too, didn't he?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, when you went to the VOMI camps and observed these Slovenes you stated that there had been much discussion about what to do with them. You stated that in the letter to Brueckner which you have just discussed. You remember that, don't you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And when you made these trips of inspection you were making them on behalf of the Main Staff Office, were you not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And your recommendations there were recommendations as an official of the Main Staff Office, were they not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And your recommendations were known in that letter to Brueckner whom you said had the same ideas about the proposition that you did, and they were also known -\nA.Will you repeat the question, please?\nQ.The ideas and suggestions which you expressed in that letter coincided with the ideas that Brueckner had on the subject. You stated that, didn't you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2204, "page_number": "2197", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.And did the defendant Creutz agree with your recommendations in that letter?\nA.Yes. I can recall having had a discussion with him on that subject in Schweikelberg.\nQ.Well, in that letter didn't you recommend that you thought it was a proper thing to do to take the children of these people who were not ethnic Germans and to Germanize them because they were young and could be easily molded, or words to that effect?\nA.I can recall that this phrase is contained in the letter.\nQ.You can or can't?\nA.Yes, I can.\nQ.And as to the other Slovenes you wanted to put them to work, didn't you?\nA.I wanted to bring them back to their country of origin as far as this was possible.\nQ.You also wanted to make them work, though, didn't you?\nA.I would like to say the following in this connection:\nQ.Well, don't make it too long, please.\nA.In principle we wanted to sent these Slovenes back to their country of origin as far as the chief of the Civil Administration, who after all had expelled them, was willing to accept them back in the country. If he did not approve of this then, in order to help these people, we wanted to get them out of the camps in some form or other. I made this suggestion with regard to the children in order to help them because I knew that, as a result of this formulation, we would be able to find the easiest way of getting these people out of the camps and to bring them into better living conditions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2205, "page_number": "2198", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Now, just one moire question. With reference to these Slovense and with reference to the other people, in your position there as the man in charge of the labor allocation, your work got progressively more important as the war went on, didn't it?\nA.I don't know just what you mean by that.\nQ.Well, you know that the German government needed more labor as the war went on, don't you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And that such a thing as total warfare finally came into being didn't it?\nA.Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Lamb, your time has expired.\nMR. LAMB:Could I ask just one more question?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I think if we have a rule we had better live up to it.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION\nDR. HAENSEL:Dr. Haensel for the defendant Greifelt. I have only two questions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.You talked about the special assignment which Hintze received with regard to the Slovenes. Did Hintze carry out this special assignment outside of the Main Staff Office in collaboration with the Security Police?\nA.Hintze, in order to carry out this task, had some police units subordinated to him. Whether this was the Security Police or regular uniformed police I don't know.\nQ.My question was aimed at finding out whether these units, which were used for this assignment, were outside of the competency of the Main Staff Office.\nA.No police units whatsoever were subordinated to the Main Staff Office. In any case, I know nothing about it.\nQ.Now another question, my last question: In the \n course of the cross examination you were asked whether you had been in charge of labor allocation in the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "DR. HAENSEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2206, "page_number": "2199", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Did this only apply to labor allocation for resettlers or also to some other form of labor allocation?\nA.From the Reich Labor Administration I had been sent to the Main Staff Office in order to insure the collaboration between the employment offices and the agencies which had to deal with resettlement questions. This was labor allocation for the resettlers, deportees, and of people who were eligible for re-Germanization. If questions of labor law or labor allocation questions arose, then of course I was also consulted or they would be submitted to me. However, at this time, I would like to state that it is monstrous to say that during the entire period of time the entire labor allocation system had been subordinated to me. Only after the departure of Hintze I occupied a somewhat more independent position.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A.", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2207, "page_number": "2200", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Dr. Merkel; Your Honor, since any further questioning of the witness would mean a repetition of what he has already stated I do not have any further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Thank you, sir. Let the witness retire from the stand. Anything further, Dr. Merkel?\nDR. MERKEL:Your Honor, I do not have any further witnesses but I now would like to offer done documents. Unfortunately, although I submitted these documents for translation throe weeks ago, the Translation Department has not been able to complete the translation of these documents so far because they are over-burdened with work. Therefore, I request permission that I may submit then later on. It will only take up very little time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. MERKEL:I have now completed my case for today.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next defendant.\nDR.KLENNERT (for the defendant Schwarzenberger): Your Honor I only wanted to make the brief request, that the defendant Schwarzenberger be excused from attending the session of this Tribunal tomorrow morning so that I will be able to prepare his defense and his examination with him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, the request is granted.\nDR.BEHLING (For the defendant Meyer-Hetling): Your Honor I request permission to begin my presentation of evidence on behalf of the defendant Meyer-Hetling. First of all, I would like to examine the defendant himself as a witness in his own behalf and then I would like to examine one or two additional witnesses. In connection with these examinations I would like to submit documents. However, I don't know whether I can do this Immediately following my examination witnesses because I also have difficulties with the Translation Department. In my examination I shall be as brief as possible so that afterwards I will be able to use up a little tine for the presentation of documents.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2208, "page_number": "2201", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE PRESIDENT: Let the defendant come to the stand.\nKONRAD MEYER-HETLING, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ. The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after no:\nI swear by God.\nA. I swear by God.\nQ. The Almighty and Omniscient.\nA. The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ. That I will speak the pure truth.\nA. That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ. And will withhold and add nothing.\nA. And will withhold and add nothing.\nQ. Proceed with the examination. BY DR. BEHLING:\n- DIRECT EXAMINATION Q. Witness, please give the Tribunal the place and date of your birth?\nA. I was born on the 15th of May, 1901 in Salzterhelten, in the District of Einboeck, Southern Hannover.\nQ. Your father's name is Meyer. It is very common in Germany. It was just as frequently used there as the name of Smith in the United States. Consequently it is mentioned rather frequently in the documents. In order to avoid any mistakes here, let us briefly discuss the documents which deal with a man by the name of Meyer, but which apparently do not stand in any connection with you. Please confirm to me that you are not identical with the man Meyer who is mentioned in DocumentNO 5033, Exhibit 237, in Document 580, page 5, and Document 709 PS, Exhibit 542, in Document Book XIII, who used to be the former Gauleiter and State Secretary.\nA.I am not identical with him.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2209, "page_number": "2202", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q.Do you have Anything to do with the man who is mentioned in Document NO 3025, Exhibit 555, in Document Book XIII-A and in Document No. 3026, Exhibit, 337, Document Book VI-A, as well as documentNO 3753, Exhibit 548, Document Book XIII-B. Do you have anything to do with this person Dr. Meyer, who is mentioned there?\nA. I am not identical with him either.\nQ. Are you identical with the man mentioned in Document 3643, Exhibit 546, in Document XIII-A. He is mentioned as Reichssippenleiter Dr. Meyer.\nA. No, I am not identical with him either.\nQ. Are you identical with the man Meyer mentioned in DocumentNO 5243, Exhibit 766, of the Dresdner Bank?\nA. No, I am not identical with him either.\nQ. Are you identical with the man Meyer who is mentioned in Document 3511, Exhibit 35, Document Book II-B, who is mentioned here as SS Fuehrer Karl Heinrich Meyer?\nA. No, I am not identical with that man either.\nQ. Then finally two other people by the name of Meyer are mentioned. One is SS Fuehrer Dr. Meyer of Dr. Reichert who has been mentioned here by Dr. Reichert, and in the affidavit of Ganzer he has also been mentioned Are you identical with this man?\nA. No.\nQ. Thank you. Will you please tell me very briefly your career and your life history until the end of your scientific studios.\nA. I came from an old German Peasant family in Southern Hannover. First of all I attended public school at my home town and then from 1911 to 1920 I attended High School of my provincial city Einboeck; then I passed my examination there and went into agriculture. From 1921 until 1925 I studied at Goettingen in the agricultural field. I studied botany and public science. In 1925 I passed my state examination and then became a doctor of philosophy. From 1925 on until 1926 I was an agricultural \n official at several estates in Silesia.", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2210, "page_number": "2203", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "After that, until 1927, I was a scientific assistant in the research economy of the University estates in the vicinity of Breslau. From 1927 until 1930, I was an assistant at the Agricultural Institute at Goettingen and included the Budget there. In 1930 I habilitated and was authorized to instruct on the subject of agriculture at the faculty of natural science at the University of Goettingen.\nQ. Since that time did you devots your tine to scientific teaching and in what form?\nA. From 1930 until 1934 I was a private lecturer at Goettingen. At the sane time I continued my studies in popular science and political science, Already in the year 1931, that is to say two years before the seizure of power by Hitler, I received my first call to an agricultural college in Czechoslovakia. However, I turned down this offer.\nQ.Why did you do that?\nA. Even if this offer meant a special honor for me, especially because I received it although I was very young, and because I had been given this offer from abroad, this still would have meant for me an interruption of a number of scientific research activities which had become dear to my heart and I felt myself to be very obligated towards this work.\nQ.Did your research activity as a young student of science only extent to German agriculture or did it also extend to the agriculture of other countries?\nA. It included the agricultural economic development of Europe and also that of other parts of the world. This also interested me to a considerable extent. Consequently on the basis of a research award which was given to me in 1930 by the Reich Minister of Education I went to Finland and there I studied the agricultural conditions in the Northern part of Europe. I also observed the attempts of the Scandinavian countries to cultivate Lapland.", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2211, "page_number": "2204", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q As a result of this work did you also meet scientists from other countries?\nA Yes, I worked primarily with Swedish and Finnish scientists.\nQ When were you appointed a regular professor at Berlin?\nA In the winter of 1934/ 1935 I went to Berlin and I had become a regular professor at Jena before.\nQTo what did your teaching activities at Berlin extend?\nA I was a professor at the agricultural university, and I was director of the institute for agricultural research.\nQ With these few questions I would now like to leave your personal life history, and I am now coming to the field which is the subject of this trial. What tasks did you have to take care of at Berlin?\nA Ever since the beginning of my scientific activity, there were two goals which I wanted to pursue during my life. First of all I wanted to carry on research with regard to the conditions in rural districts in order to maintain a healthy living level in the country in rural areas. That was one part which interested me. The second task which I set for myself was the development and the strengthening of the agricultural training system which had been neglected so far in old Germany, that is the agricultural education on a higher level which had been neglected so far in Germany.\nQ With that you mean agricultural higher education?\nA Yes, that is what I mean.\nQ In what direction were you active in regard to the development of the agricultural education?\nA The Minister of Education at the time gave me the order that I should organize the Reich working communities of agriculture, and to consolidate them like an academy; to consolidate the German agricultural science. This consolidation received the name of the Ferschungsdienst, Research Service.\nQ Was membership in this research service on a voluntary basis?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2212, "page_number": "2205", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "AYes, it was a vo luntary organization of scientists.\nQWhat were the results of your activity in the research service?\nAI wanted to see to it that the following fields were developed to a considerable extent: First of all a number of institutes were developed further on the basis of my suggestions. Then further development was to be carried out in most fields of German agricultural science. The work of the research service was mentioned in a number of German and also foreign newspapers. The result of our work was made available to an unlimited extent to the foreign countries and frequently it was quoted.\nQIn order to judge your activity it will also be of importance to consider your activities as director of agricultural science in the Reich Research Council. Can you explain to us what this research council stood for?\nAThe Reich Research Council was the consolidation of the entire German research which went beyond my actual sphere. It also included all the technical scientists, and in this phase also the collaboration was based upon voluntary participation.\nQWhat can you tell us about your own field of research?\nAIn spite of the organizational activities which we have just discussed, my scientific work was mostly devoted to my activity in the field of higher learning. I carried out my duties as a teacher at a higher school of leaming, and did this by reading to the students, by giving lectures and in taking care of my students. My special devotion was to carry out research with regard to social problems in rural districts; for example, questions of alleviating bad conditions in rural areas and in carrying out research with regard to the relations between the cities and the rural areas and between the agricultural markets and production. Further, I occupied myself with the problem of the large number of people leaving rural areas, and people who left agricultural work; and I also dealt with the most important principles of agricultural constitutions and conditions in Germany; but I was also interested in the remainder of the European, countries.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2213, "page_number": "2206", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QWitness, in the course of your professional activity did you also have further contacts with foreign countries and your colleagues abroad?\nAI was always very much devoted to taking care of my contacts abroad; with a number of important colleagues I was constantly exchanging opinions and I also saw to it that on the part of the research service funds were made available so that young students of science should be given the opportunity of traveling abroad; and furthermore, a number of invitations were sent out to young scientists who belonged to faculties abroad, and these people worked at German institutes on a temporary basis.\nQTherefore, it was a mutual collaboration?\nAYes.\nQWere your writings also circulated abroad?\nAWhether they were read in detail, of course, I don't know; however, these writings did go abroad and on some occasions they were even translated into other languages. I would also receive comments from people abroad who agreed with me.\nQDid you have any personal contact with your colleagues and friends abroad?\nAYes. People from Europe and other parts of the world would come to see me at my institute frequently, and later on they would also come to my house as guests.\nQDid you also reply to the visits paid to you by your colleagues abroad and go abroad yourself?\nAI have visited a large number of European countries, and even countries beyond Europe. Here I wanted to receive new thoughts and stimulation for the social problems in rural areas. This was also the center of my interest.\nQAnd where did you go in the course of your trips?\nAI visited all European countries with the exception of Greece, \n England and Portugal.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2214, "page_number": "2207", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "Q Did you also go to countries which were not located in Europe?\nA In connection with the international agricultural conference in 1938, I visited the United States and Canada. I took part in a conference dealing with scientific subjects with a large number of colleagues at the University of Ithaca, and I also gave a lecture on the occasion of the International Agricultural Congress at McDonald College in the vicinity of Montreal.\nQ At the International Agricultural Congress were you also used for a constant scientific collaboration?\nA Yes, at the international agricultural congress at Dresden I was placed in charge by the predominantly French and Swiss congress administration of a newly established section for agricultural science.\nQ Did your professional activity also find expression elsewhere in the public life of science?\nA In 1938-1939 I was chosen as a member of the Prussian Academy of Science; this is an academy now known as the German Academy of Science, and it has been recognized by the Allied occupation powers. Furthermore, I was also a member of the International League of Land Experts.\nQ Did you also deal with problems in eastern Europe?\nA With regard to the development of international agricultural problems, I was primarily interested in the agricultural revolution which had taken place in eastern Europe. This was an extraordinarily interesting field of research.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2215, "page_number": "2208", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QWhat do you mean by that?\nAFirst of all, the Soviet system of collective farms excluded the private ownership system completely, and it meant a complete change from private ownership conditions which existed previously. This actually meant a complete revolution. Furthermore, a number of interesting problems were connected with this, such as the so-called agricultural reforms of the Eastern border states, which included the Baltic countries, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the South Countries, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Roumania.\nQDid you also occupy yourself with Eastern German agricultural questions, that is to say, questions of Eastern Germany within the borders of 1918?\nAAs a result of the Peace Treaty of Versailles in 1918 or 1920, considerable agricultural areas of Germany had been separated from the Reich. This caused a complete reconversion of the agricultural organization in Germany. It did not only have its unfavorable effects in industrial and technical aspects, but also in the agricultural and social fields. That is how it can be explained that Eastern German agriculture fell more and more into debt and many people left agricultural work. As a result of this, we had so-called agricultural emergency areas, and these conditions made it necessary for extensive thought to be given to this situation, not only on the part of the government, but also on the part of the scientists.\nQIn concluding this subject, can you name a few publications for us which you wrote or which came from your institute, so that the Tribunal will get an idea of your scientific field of work?\nAOf course, I can only give you a few of my works here, and I will only name the most important ones. Altogether, there must be 70 or 80 publications.\nThe most important one is about agriculture in Finland. That was a compilation of the experiences which I had gathered earlier.\nThen, a book which appeared in the French language:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2216, "page_number": "2209", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "\"Problemes d' Economie et Problemes Sociales\". That concerned social and political problems in agriculture.\nThen, a wider examination of the situation with regard to communications and agriculture.\nThen, a long composition, which was also translated into English, about the social implications of economic progress.\nThen, one about the social constitution in Germany.\nThen, a longer work about agriculture development.\nThen, a book about the development and quality of German agriculture.\nAnd there were several small works. Some of them have even been submitted here as documents.\nThen, there were several lectures, and things of that sort.\nThere was another work which I wrote, about the influence of the Northern settlement, and also the economic and scientific development of a rural community.\nI believe these will be sufficient.\nQHow was it that you in particular had to deal with these questions?\nA Are you referring to questions of Eastern German agriculture?\nQYes.\nAFirst of all, I did this because the University of Berlin was the only school of higher learning for Central Eastern Germany which could deal with these problems at all. A number of the students originated in these areas; they came from the Brandenburg district at the time. Another reason why I turned to these questions was the direct contact which I had with these students.\nQDid you occupation bring you into contact with government agencies and agricultural companies?\nAEven before 1933, as a young scientist, I was consulted occasionally by the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture. I was also consulted by the Reich Agricultural Society, Later on I was brought into contact with the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and other agencies, as well as with professional organizations.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2217, "page_number": "2210", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "QAnd what realization did you gain as a result of your work?\nAI ascertained that the German peasants and people in the rural areas, as a result of the age of industry which had dawned and as a result of the world agricultural crisis after the first World War, were placed more and more in an emergency situation.\nQDid you yourself have any thoughts as to what could be done in order to alleviate this emergency situation?\nAYes. Naturally, I observed very closely the publications of an agricultural and political character at that time, and I examined the agricultural programs of the political parties.\nQAnd what conclusions did you draw?\nAThe agricultural programs of the political parties which formed the government prior to 1933 appeared to me to offer no chance of solving the agricultural problem, since they were either influenced by the ideologies of Marx and Lenin, or, because of their conservative attitude, they refused any progress. The world, however, had not stood still at the beginning of the 20th century, but it was confronted with new and extensive social problems, especially as a result of the ever increasing industrialization which could not solve these problems in that direction.\nQConcerning these conditions, what agricultural program under consideration at the time seemed to you to be the most promising?\nAFrom the agricultural point of view, and from the point of view of political science, I saw in National Socialism a further development of a number of valuable ideas which had arisen in the German past, which were connected with the progressive ideas of a new Socialism, Therefore, in the year 1932, I joined the Party.\nQDid you belong to any political party prior to that time?\nANo.\nQDid you over hold any office in the Party?\nANo.\nQDid you ever receive a distinction from the Party?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2218, "page_number": "2211", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "ANo, I did not receive any medals from the Party, nor did I ever place any emphasis on those things.\nQHow did you come to the SS?\nAThat was as a result of my contact with the peasant leaders and my appointment to the Reich Council of Peasants.\nQJust what sort of an organization was the Reich Council of Peasants?\nAThe Reich Council of Peasants was a consolidation of a number of leading personalities who wanted to devote their time to the development and solution of agricultural problems in practice and in theory.\nQWho was in charge of the Reich Council of Peasants?\nADarre.\nQWhat was Darre's relationship to Himmler at the time?\nABoth of them were friends, and both of them were certified agricultural experts, and as a result of this they agreed in their agricultural and political views?\nQAnd what was the effect of this on your personal career?\nAAt the time it was customary for men in public life to belong to one of the units whose members were uniforms, for example, the SA, the SS, the NSKK; and, for the most part, the peasant leaders at the time were members of the SS, or they were members of an SS formation, since they would receive a rank in the SS which was assimilated to their position in public life.\nQWho asked you to enter the SS?\nABy order of Darre, I was asked by a collaborator of Darre's to join the SS.\nQDid you have any misgivings about entering the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you perform any active service in the SS?\nAI did not pull any duty in the SS, and I was never called upon to carry out any tasks in the SS. I was an honorary officer in the SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2219, "page_number": "2212", "date": "09 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-09", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(At 1630 hours, 9 December 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 10 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2220, "page_number": "2213", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the Matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Murn berg, Germany, on 10 December 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nMr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court room with the exception of the defendant Schwarzenberge who has been excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nKONRAD MEYER-HETLING - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Professor, yesterday we left off by saying that you confirmed to me that you had been active in the SS. Did you have any activity in the SS in a propagandist way or in any other scientific way?\nA.No.\nQ.When you entered the SS, did you swear an oath of allegiance?\nA.No.\nQ.Did anything change in your position in the SS until you entered the army in 1944?\nA.No, it remained the same all during this time. I was never in the SS on a professional basis.\nQ.Is it true then if I say that the SS was not your calling or your profession.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2221, "page_number": "2214", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "A.Yes, that is correct. I was a high school teacher and a scientist, and that is what I considered the fulfillment of my life's work.\nQ.How did you have anything to do with the planning board?\nA.Because of my employment with and with my work with the social problems in the rural areas, and because of the desire to utilize the experiences that I had gained.\nQ.Did you have a predecessor who had the same sort of mind and ideas?\nA.I studied foreign literature and I found that especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries the same experience had been made, and that they had already developed a planned science which we had not yet developed in Germany. I remember a book by a certain McKensey which was called Planned Society, Yesterday. Today, Tomorrow, which was published in New York. I also remember a book by Evelyn and Lee Brooks entitled Planned Literature.\nQ.What were your practical conclusions that you drew?\nA.I took up connection with a number of colleagues in various fields of activity and in various universities. We formed a work conference which endeavored to promote the scientific experiences in all social factors of a certain field, and which tried to evaluate the development of the ideal over-all picture of a new order on a planned basis. It was a gathering of agricultural scientists, national economists, architects, traffic people, who understood practical life and who were not only oriented in a scientific way.\nQ.Did this work-conference work the same way as the one you mentioned in your Posen lecture, the Raumforschung?\nA.Yes, that is like the lecture which was submitted here as a document. It is called The Raumforschung, and I was its chief.\nQ.What was characteristic about the methods of work in which they did business, this work conference?\nA.The collaboration of various scientific methods was characteristic \n for it, all for the purpose of making their experiences available to the planning authorities.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2222, "page_number": "2215", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.You are speaking of planning authorities. Would you please tell us what you understand by it?\nTHE INTERPRETER:Counsel's microphone is not working.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have your switch on?\nDR. BEHLING:Yes, your Honor.\nQ.Professor, would you please explain to us briefly what planning authorities were competent for the evaluation of our case here.\nA.The superior planning authority in the Reich was the Reich agency for Raumforschung; it was founded in 1935 by a decree of the Reich government. It was the mission of this authority to plan things in a consolidated way, and in the new order of the German Reich in the Reich territories\nQ.Then it is correct that in this Reich agency for Raumordnung all technical planning of the Reich agencies was consolidated.\nA.Yes, that is correct. The Reichstelle acted so to speak as a mediator and as a so-called clearing post.\nQ.In the frame of my case and by presenting evidence I shall present to the High Tribunal, in my Document Book III-C, the competent regulations. Therefore, I am not now referring to the contents because the documents speak for themselves. I only ask you, Professor, to tell me according to what aspect the formation of this Reich agency was carried out?\nA.The Reich agency for Raumordnung had general experts in the Reichstatthalter's office who were also called Landesplaner, or provincial planners.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE INTERPRETER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2223, "page_number": "2216", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QHow did the planning agencies work?\nAIt was their task to draw up the Raumordnungsplan for their own territories. It was the schematic construction plan for the dream picture of a new order. In this schematic construction plan they had to incorporate the various individual planning drafts, city planning and agrarian planning, in the best possible manner. The Raumordnungsplan was sent to the various' authorities concerned and after their approval it was declared competent and binding. It was then spoken of as an established plan. It was then circulated to these various authorities and declared competent. That is what the technical terminology was.\nQI believe a translation mistake has occurred. The witness wanted to say that it was a scaled construction plan and the translation was a schematic construction plan. Witness, were there any planning authorities for the eastern areas?\nAYes, the territory for the Reichstelle for Raumordnung was extneded to the eastern incorporated eastern territories by a decree of the 11th April 1940. The Reichstatthalters of these new areas and the oberpresidents or senior presidents for upper Silesia had general experts for Raumordnung on their staffs, so-called Landesplaners or provincial planners.\nQDid this organization of the planning agencies belong to the competency of Himmler's jurisdiction?\nANo, the chief of Reichstelle for Raumordnung was Reich Minister Kerrl at the time.\nQ --the Reich conference for Raumordnung that you already mentioned, was a scientific institution for planning, but the Reich agencies for Raumordnung was an authority; is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQHow long were you in charge of the Reich conference for Raumordnung?\nAUntil the spring of 1939.\nQ what was the reason for your resignation?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2224, "page_number": "2217", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AI got into difficulties with the Reich Minister Kerrl, the chief of the Reichstelle for Raumordnung. The Reichstatthalters tried to get the Raumordnung work into their jurisdiction, and to determine the research program and to control it. In the interests of the liberty of research that I represented, I declined any authorative regulations and that caused my resignation out of protest.\nQDid you in any other instance get into difficulties when you represented the idea of free research?\nAHess, the deputy of Hitler at the time initiated a trial against me with Minister Rust in 1941 because in a lecture in the Prussian Academy of Science I had practically taken a stand against the methods and principles which were not in conformity with what I thought I had to represent. The trial took a long time, and was finally quashed when Hess left Germany.\nQSince we have learned your scientific activities, your university contacts, agrarian and rural planning activities, I shall leave this field and I shall ask you how the breaking out of the war effected you personally.\nAI reported for the army voluntarily, but I was not drafted since the Berlin University was maintaining its activities in its full scope, and, therefore, those people who held professor-ships were to be left home.\nQHow did you get into touch with the Reich Commissar?\nAIn November 1939 I was called to Himmler who asked me to see him, and brought with him a newly established Reich authority that he had initiated.\nQWhat did Himmler suggest to you?\nAI only had a short conversation with Himmler; he pointed out that with the incorporation of the eastern territories the older German provinces had much more come to be a part of Germany. Under the impression of the pact with Russia, he said that he expected a speedy \n conclusion of peace; he ordered the agency to carry out secondary planning after the war had finished.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2225, "page_number": "2218", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "In the Reich he considered it necessary already now to think about those expedient possibilities of settlement planning in the incorporated eastern territories, and at the same time to consider possible changes which might arise in the Reich proper.\nQWhat was your attitude to this task?\nAIt interested me scientifically very much since I saw a possibility in it for utilizing a number of experiences and to gather more for my scientific work, possibilities which otherwise I would not have had. On the other hand, however, I had certain misgivings to comply with this appointment, since I could not have gotten away from my scientific work; I didn't have enough time.\nQWhat conditions did you make, therefore, so that you had your own free time for your scientific work?\nAI explained to Himmler that I did not wish to be restricted in my free time for research, and in my liberty to carry out research the way I wanted it. One condition was that I should in the future carry out my university professorship; therefore, I requested that I be freed of all time and technical restrictions as are usually incorporated in authority, and to leave it up to me whom I wanted to choose for my associates. All this I made known as the conditions and in addition also that I wanted to get the permission of the Reich Minister of Education before I accepted it, to whom I was subordinated as a Reich official and as a university professor; I was subordinated to him in a disciplinary manner.\nQThen it is correct that you only took it upon yourself to do this work on an off-time basis?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2226, "page_number": "2219", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AMy activity with the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism was only on a part-time basis, and it remained so during the entire period.\nQWas your entry into the Reich Agency of the Commissioner something extraordinary at the time?\nAWhen the war began, a number of German professors,- as was customary in other countries too,--were called up for certain work of a public nature, for service in ministries and high Reich agencies. I know that economists worked in the Reich Ministry of Economics; lawyers who dealt with working problems worked in the Reich Ministry of Labor; international lawyers worked in the Foreign Office; nutritional scientists worked in the various departments of the Army Commissariats and other agencies, according to the needs that existed with the Reich authorities. I also want to mention the medical men who were called in to advise people on high staffs.\nQWhat was the personal legal position of such people?\nAThat was handled in various ways. In some cases they were drafted for work or for services, and in other cases they were appointments without any binding form, or they were honorary, part-time positions. At any rate, in all such cases the approval of the superior had to be obtained.\nQDid you ask for the approval of your superior Minister after Himmler had approached you?\nAKultusminister Rust, at the time, gave me his permission to take a part time position with the Reich Commissioner. First, however, he pointed out to me expressly at the time that in the newly formed agency of the Reich Commissioner there was a superior Reich authority with the character of a Ministry, and that it was not an SS agency. In the interests of science, and of promoting settlement and planning science, he recommended that I accept that appointment.\nQDid you receive any remuneration for your work with the Reich \n Commissioner?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2227, "page_number": "2220", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AI considered my work a fulfilment of a self-evident duty of honor during war-time , and therefore I rejected any remuneration.\nQWere you at least reimbursed for your traveling expenses while on official business?\nAIf it was directly for the Reich Commissioner, then I was; otherwise, I usually connected my trips with other official trips that I had to take in my capacity as the Chief of the Research Service, which occasionally brought me into the Eastern territories, especially when the Posen University was constructed, and I also went to Danzig to the Technical University there. These official trips were then paid for out of my travel budget of the Research Service.\nQThen it was only exceptionally that you had your travels paid for by the Reich Commissioner?\nAYes.\nQI can say, then, that you worked on an honorary and part-time basis, without any remuneration, during the entire time you were with the Reich Commissioner as far as your activity as a university professor was concerned and as far as your other obligations left you any time to do this work?\nAYes, that is right.\nQDidn't you have any misgivings in having your appointment made by Himmler, who was the superior chief of the SS?\nANo.\nQWhy didn't you join the Reich Commissioner's agency on a fulltime basis?\nAI had misgivings about doing that. Minister Rust, at the time, had previously wanted to appoint me as Ministerialrat in the Kultus Ministry. However, since I wanted to maintain my profession as a university professor, I turned Rust's offer down for reasons of principle. Besides that, I don't like official documents and files.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2228, "page_number": "2221", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QWhen did you commence your activity with the Reich Commissioner?\nAApproximately at the beginning of 1940. I don't remember the exact date.\nQWhat tasks did you have to solve individually?\nABy reason of Himmler's first regulation--the date of which regulation was fixed by Greifelt on the witness stand as the 17th of November--I was to receive the new section of the agency, the planning Department.\nQBefore you discuss these tasks individually and in detail, I should like to read and submit to you a document offered by the Prosecution,NO-3078, Exhibit 21, in Document Book 2, on page 5. Under No. 3 of this regulation it is stated that a department for planning should be created which might make suggestions and certain recommendations.\nThis formulation leads one to conclude a rather extensive field of activities. Please explain this document and state your point of view about it.\nAThis document originates from the early days of the existence of the Reich Commissariat when I myself was not yet a member of the agency. I did not participate in the formulation of this regulation.\nQWhen Himmler called you, did he tell you what your new tasks would be?\nAI was not told anything of the fact that, apart from my purely technical activity, I was to promote any other tasks of the Stabshauptamt by suggestions or recommendations. I was not told that when I was appointed, nor at any time later. I would not have undertaken any such measures, since that would have tremendously exceeded the scope that I had intended and, according to my concepts, it could not have been brought into accord with a part-time activity on my part.\nQWhen you assumed your activities, did Dr. Greifelt give you any particular mission in this general direction?\nAI made Greifelt's acquaintance in November 1939, when we discussed my field of activities. We agreed that I should only concern \n myself with planning work corresponding to my professional activities up to that period.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2229, "page_number": "2222", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "During those years Greifelt gave me liberty of movement, which was necessary to carry out my tasks at the university and in the Research Service.\nQThe concept of planning is very meaningful in its entire sense, as we can see from the Indictment. What definition do you understand by the word \"planning\"?\nAPlanning was considered by me as a specialized science, and it was carried out in that way. In its nature it corresponds to the Anglo Saxon concept of social planning, and it arises, in detail, from my career, which I have already described to you very concisely.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2230, "page_number": "2223", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Then your activity in the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with the central planning task, but was especially confined to the attainment of a dream picture in the future?\nA.That is correct.\nQ.In Document Book 2-B, on page 22, the Prosecution submitted document 3088, Exhibit 71, which I now put to you. That is the concept of settlement and construction planning. Please explain what you mean by that.\nA.The construction in the East was to be carried out under the motto of the strengthening of Germanism, or, as I would say, consolidation of German folkdom; the other translation may perhaps be misleading. This meant for me the dream of planning to strive for an organization of a people which was settled permanently in one spot. At the same time this also meant a firm rural foundation which had to be created, that is, a sound farming middle class of peasants, artisans, and employers.\nQ.As a result of this document, did you initiate any measures of the type with which you are charged in the Indictment?\nA.No, In the document submitted to me we are only concerned with a decision of delimitation between VOMI and the Main Staff Office, which did not cause any measures to be taken, and which meant nothing for me.\nQ.In your planning work did you also have any immediate tasks to solve of the Main Staff Office as problems arose from the housing of resettlers and their economic and social care?\nA.I had nothing to do with these tasks, nor with any urgent problems, which arose from the war, which had to be solved for the Main Staff Office. All problems arising in \n COURT I CASE VIII this connection, which were turned over to the Reich Commissioner, did not touch upon my field of work, since the aims of my work were different from those of the other departments and agencies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2231, "page_number": "2224", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Then the problems by-passed your field of activity in all those questions which had anything to do with deportation, resettlement and evacuation, without your Planning Department having anything to do with them?\nA.It can be seen from the file notes and dictation notes of a number of documents that these problems were not worked on by me nor any of my associates.\nQ.However, I wish to put to you documentNO-5298, Exhibit 669, in Document Book 5-G, on page 34. In this document you ask Brandt to return a draft to you regarding the housing of resettlers on the large estates in the East. This permits a conclusion that you had to do with actual questions arising day by day. What is your attitude in this connection?\nA.On the occasion of a visit in Posen, I was called in to a debate which dealt with the problem of communal housing in large estates. Without any particular detailed incident that I can remember at the moment, this subject was very interesting for me. By utilizing experiences concerning settlement in the foreign and domestic sphere, I set down my ideas about this. I tried to set down the development of communal housing, beginning with the family and building it up to the agrarian state. This memorandum was sent to Himmler.\nQ.It was a general interest that you had in this problem?\nA.Yes, It was a question which always played a contested part and had a frequently treated role in settlement \n COURT I CASE VIII literature.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2232, "page_number": "2225", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Were any steps taken as a result of your memorandum?\nA.It was a memorandum which remained in Himmler's office. As can be seen from the letter, I asked to have it sent back to me to complete the files of the Planning Office, where they had been lost in an air raid. This was in the summer of 1944. I heard no more, about this; nothing was done, and nothing could be done, because of the nature of this document.\nQ.How did your work in the Planning Office develop? I put to you the Distribution of Business for 1942, which the Prosecution submitted as Document 4060, Exhibit 18. According to that, the Planning Office was split up into various departments. How about that? Can you find it?\nA.Yes. The first and foremost task of any planning is to take inventory and check up on the area; that is, to collect all statistical and map material. This task was solved by the Department for Inventory and Area Research.\nQ.A second department was the Department for Economic Order. What was done in that department?\nA.That department dealt with the theoretical working out of a future sound economy in its social and educational aspects. The scope of this work was limited. In my lecture in Posen--which was submitted as a document--I laid out the boundaries of this scope especially in the latter part of this lecture.\nQ.What was your attitude on the question of Germanalien folkdom? You also had such a department in your Planning Office. What did that have to do with?\nA.That was not really a department, but a scientific group. I wanted to utilize the scientific experiences \n COURT I CASE VIII gained in foreign countries and countries outside of Europe, and I wished to use them to crystallize what I had already achieved.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2233, "page_number": "2226", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "There was no special expert appointed for this job. However, a few research measures had been taken, which I had assigned in each case. For example, I remember that since one of my pupils could speak Finnish, he studied the endeavors of Finnish social planning and settlement. Another student worked on the Spanish colonial system. Another worked on the subject of the old Austrian boundaries as they had existed in the 17th and 18th centuries for protection in the Turkish war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2234, "page_number": "2227", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid the alien folkdom play any part in the incorporated territories of the east in your consideration about the new endeavored population structure?\nAIn the course of my planning work, I started out with the idea that in the future peace years one had to arrive at a satisfactory solution in the living together of German and Polish folkdom. For this reason I believed that now as before a certain mixed population should stay in these areas.\nQCan this be recognized in any form from the documents submitted by the Prosecution here?\nAYes, the general plan explains and enlightens this idea. Here a balance of settlers is mentioned which should remain after the war was finished for 25 years, and from this we could draw the requirements of German people that we needed.\nQCan you explain that in detail?\nAFor this purpose, I refer to the document, General Regulation 13/2, regarding the city planning in the incorporated eastern territories-a document submitted by the Defense. The ultimate aim of the planning there is a density of population of 90 people per square kilometer. This meant that in an area of 90,000 square kilometers, there would be in that area a total population of about eight million people. As can be seen from the figures of the General Plan Ost, four million Germans been provided for in this eastern territory; that is to say, four million Germans and four million Poles or other foreign alien folkdom or indigenous personnel. The sum total is eight million. Such a ration of 50 per cent should reestablish approximately the relationship that existed in 1918. But of course in a gradual and organic development it extended over a period of 25 years after the end of the war.\nQThat was your idea of planning?\nAThat was the ultimate aim of our planning.\nQYou also had a department of area planning--Raum Planning. What tasks did you have there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2235, "page_number": "2228", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AIt was the preparation of sketches and drafts of areas for a certain field; for instance, for one districk, in such a plan, the individual experience worked out were consolidated. The technical planning also belongs in this department. There were the departments: village building, city building, and landscaping. Such a plan also contained the types of soil, the existing and to be developed routes of traffic, the spheres of influence of the larger and smaller localities, and also the designation of those areas which might still be further developed by agricultural means--by watering them or by proper drainage.\nQWas the sketch described by the witness Schaefer such a presentation?\nAYes. In the map room of my institution and also in my planning department there were several such sketches. They were also published in magazines. They are purely theoretical and on paper only.\nQWas this planning realized in any manner or means?\nANo.\nQThe witness von Back-Zelewski spoke of plans in his examination-plans that he had seen as a result of the Aktion in Saibusch. Were those things worked out by you or by your planning office?\nAI did not concern myself with such plannings in Upper Silesia. My work in the central office in Berlin was completely detached from any geographical location. In no case was there any detailed planning for a specific location.\nQI may remind you, however, that the witness Fiedler testified that the plans that you had drawn up were carried out in part nevertheless. What is your attitude to that?\nAThe witness Fiedler never worked in my planning office, and he cannot make any definite statements about it. He could not name any specific instances.\nQWhat was the practical result of your ideas?\nAThey were set down in general regulations and directives.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2236, "page_number": "2229", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QHow many such general regulations were issued and what did they extend to?\nAOne general regulation was issued for each rural construction, for city construction--that is city planning--and for landscaping.\nQWhat was the purpose of these general regulations?\nAThese general regulations were turned over to the Chief of the Reichstelle Raumordnung--the Landesplanners--as the general determination for Poles and as a recommendation for their work.\nQWhat was the tasks that these Landesplaners had to carry out?\nAAs I already said previously, they had to draw up a Raumordungs Plan for their own areas or territories.\nQDid these Landesplaners actually complete such plans?\nANo, they only made a few sketches--area sketches. There were no final settlements, but only rough drafts, as mentioned by me in my lecture in Posen. In no case were any such sketches declared binding and therefore no Raumordunungs Plan was ever made.\nQThen you were actually planning for other planners without any of the Reich authorities to whom you were subordinate arriving at any definite plan, is that correct?\nAYes, you could say that. My work and the experiences were made available to the Reichstelle for Raumordnung and I also therefore considered the possibility of turning the planning office into an independent and social planning and scientific institute, since such an institute did not exist as yet in Germany.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2237, "page_number": "2230", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, just before the recess you stressed the merely theoretical side of your planning as a scientific basis for the State Planning Agencies. Then I think it is correct that the general directives in agreement with the Reich Agency were issued together and were then sent to the Reich Agency.\nA.That is correct.\nQ.The witness Fiedler went on to testify that on the strength of the directives issued by you clearings and composition clearings were carried out. What are those composition clearings you were referring to?\nA.When we used that word Flurbereinigung we referred to doing away with the deficiency of the splitting up of an estate, the splitting up and the diminishing of the size of the estates as would happen in the case of the division of the estate as a result of heritage and, as is in contradiction with modern agricultural techniques. The question of the ethnic groups is of no importance in this connection.\nQ.Was the Flurbereinigung connected with resettlement of the ethnic groups and of the population?\nA.No. The property estate of every single group remained untouched. The only thing involved was an exchange of estate and real estate parts against each other with the purpose of assembling larger estates and thereby making possible a more rational exploitation of these rural estates. Such Flurbereinigungs, real estate compensations, if we might call them that, exist in all countries and they even exist in Germany today. They have no connection whatsoever with the resettlement of the population.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2238, "page_number": "2231", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Were such Flurbereinigungs, that is, such exchanges of land plots , carried out in the Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nA.Because of the clumsiness of the procedure the plans of rearrangement never succeeded, I have no knowledge of any particular instance where the settlement authorities of the Reichstatthalter actually carried cut any measures.\nQ.During the war was your activity in the Planning Office limited by directives of law?\nA.On the 13 of January , 1943, Hitler issued a general step decree on strength of which all peace plannings had to be put off , that is, such plannings as were intended only for peace time in their realization.\nQ.What was the result?\nA.All those of my collaborators who were fit for service in the armed forces were drafted or they were assigned in other positions where the jobs were important for the conduct of the war. I , myself, asked that I be released to the armed forces. However, that request was refused. Now I turned again to my original field of tasks in Germany proper and I mainly dealt with questions of rural economy and also with the questions of food economy which became more and more urgent.\nQ.I am now submitting to you document submitted by the Prosecution already and this isNO-3182, Exhibit 241. It is in Document Book V and it is on Page 9 of the German Book V-C. (Document handed to witness.) This refers to the file note of the conference with Greifelt. Will you please explain that?\nA.I , myself, did not participate in the conference. When I was appointed plenipotentiary for planning for the Reich Food Ministry with special attention given to the rural rearrangement in Germany proper, the reason was that even in the Reich Food Ministry my efforts in the field of planning science were known and recognized. The Ministry made \n it a point to use my work and to secure it even in a formal manner for Germany proper.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2239, "page_number": "2232", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "That is the explanation for this matter.\nQ.Therefore there is no practical significance to it?\nA.No.\nQ.Did this activity of yours influence the acts charged here in the indictment in any manner?\nA.No.\nQ.Were the agreements actually carried into practice at all?\nA.No. As already testified by the witness Gelling, my relations with Bake became worse and worsee. Bake at that time was in the Food Ministry and very soon they reached a point where no practical work could be done any more.\nQ.What was the strength of your staff of collaborators once the stop decree had been carried into practice?\nA.I should say that six to eight collaborators still remained as experts in my staff. I am not there, of course, the auxiliary workers, I cannot give you a detailed specification there.\nQ.Did the planning Office remain in Berlin together with you , when the Main Staff Office was transferred to Schweikelberg?\nA.It remained in Berlin.\nQ.Why did you remain in Berlin?\nA.Because I was bound to remain in Berlin because my main profession was at the Berlin University.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2240, "page_number": "2233", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Did your Planning Office any local construction?\nA.No, because we had no subordinate tasks and, therefore, we did have no subordinate organization on the local level, only at Posen. There in the Summer of 1941, on the special request of the land planner down there who wanted to have part of his burden taken away from him, a field agency of my planning office was created in the agency of the plenipotentiary.\nQ.Well, how strong was the staff of that agency?\nA.I would say two to three men. At least that is as far as the experts are concerned.\nQ.What tasks did you transfer to the field expert offices of Posen?\nA.This field agency was to be at the disposal of the settlement office and of the settlement companies as an advising organ in the sample plannings initiated by the settlement authorities; and where the general directives were to give favorable facts the field agency also took care of the special school at Posen for mud building, which was created down there on my initiative. This mud building school was to carry into practice the newest experience of cheap mud building and make it available to as largo a circle of architects as possible.\nQ.And was this field agency mainly of a scientific nature also?\nA.Yes. The director at the same time, in a sort of personal union, was manager of the settlement committee created in the framework of the University of Posen, settlement committee for the newly Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nQ.You mentioned that your plenipotentiary at Posen was to be an advisor for the settlement companies in the case of sample plannings. Now, were these sample plannings actually carried out?\nA.Not one single brick was laid for this purpose.\nQ.Could you issue directives directly from the planning office?\nA.The planning office was in no position to do so.\nQ.I am now putting to you DocumentNO-2555. This is Exhibit 34 \n and it is in Document Book 2-B, page 90 in the German.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2241, "page_number": "2234", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "There mention is made of the planning office in the settlement staff at Lodz. Was this settlement office under your authority?\nA.This department planning and filing, which has been mentioned here, was a planning agency of the settlement staff Lodz as can also be seen from the document. Its purpose was the registration of the resettlers and the channelling and distribution of the resettler groups. I have already mentioned that I was not called into these matters of resettler commitment. Only here from these documents have I learned about the existence of this planning department or planning expert agency. This planning agency was not under my orders, neither as far as the staff was concerned nor as far as the field of task was concerned and at no time did I issue any directives to this agency.\nQ.But the expression \"planning\" is used in quite a number of documents again and again in the most manifold and varied connections. Does it lead to the conclusion that you carried out this planning or that you were somehow connected with it?\nA.The concept of planning has many different meanings. As on the top level the Reich Ministries and the top level Reich authorities, so every single subordinate agency would indulge in planning; even every individual office would do so. But I was not connected with all these matters. I only dealt with such tasks as I have already outlined here.\nQ.My question now, witness is: Were you in any way connected with the plan of the first of August 1942, the channelling plan mentioned under III-5-C? For this purpose I again put to you the organizational plan. (Document handed to witness.)\nA.Here in Office 3 of the Main Staff Office, under Point 5, Professions there is an expert department for planning listed. I had no connection at any time with this expert department.\nQ.Now I am putting to you DocumentNO-3500, Exhibit 586, in Document Book 13-B on page 74. This is a letter dated 10 February, 1943, and it is \n addressed to Herr Sollmann by the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2242, "page_number": "2235", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "In this letter again a planning is referred to. Were you called in in any way into this matter or did you have an active part in it?\nA.No. The whole occurrence was unknown to me up to this date.\nQ.I am now putting to you, witness, two documents,NO-3981, which is Exhibit 36 in Document Book II-B on page 29 in the German, and I am also putting to you DocumentNO-3088, Exhibit 71 in the same Document Book, on page 22 of the German. This involves planning within the VOMI Agency. Are these plannings in any way connected with the planning office under your orders or with your field of task in general?\nA.No. I never had any connection whatsoever with this office.\nQ.Have you ever collaborated with any of the agencies mentioned here or did you ever exchange ideas with them?\nA.I didn't do that either. The people who worked thereI became acquainted with only during this trial. I didn't even know all the personnel within the main Staff Office.\nQ.You mean the gentlemen of the VOMI or the Lebensborn you made the acquaintance of only now?\nA.Yes, that is what I mean. I saw the names only now and I made their acquaintance, if I may say so, from the documents.\nQ.I am now turning to DocumentNO 2255, Exhibit 90 in Document Book III and it is on page 105 of the German. This is a correspondence containing and having as such a memorandum for the General Plan East. What is your stand on that matter? (Document handed to witness.)\nA.Himmler, in the Summer of 1941, approached me with a request for a few statistical pieces of information concerning the Incorporated Eastern Territories. I channelled this information to him and about five months later he summoned me to his offices for a report which I made on the 27 of January, 1942. On that occasion he gave me the order to clarify the legal, economic and political basis of a future eastern reconstruction and to check them. In this connection the Crimea and the Ingermannland were to be taken into consideration too.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2243, "page_number": "2236", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.That was the commission he gave you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was your attitude?\nA.Well, it was an order of Himmler's. It is true that from the very beginning I had no doubts whatsoever that it was a rather hypothetical affair, normally not connected with my office work in the planning office. Therefore, I considered this order as an order for a sort of scientific research and I passed the work on to my University Institute for Agricultural Affairs and Rural Policy. As can be seen also from the documents which have not been submitted completely. It is on page 106 of Volume III but the documents are not complete.\nQ.When was this scientific work concluded?\nA.By 29 May 1942 I used the official channels to forward this memorandum which had been drawn up in collaboration by quite a number of scientists and I sent it to Himmler. I stressed specifically that this involved only a problematical and political survey concerning the work and money to be afforded and claims against the future resettlement order and the future settlement law and legislation were taken into consideration and a clarification concerning the basic features of a new settlement law had to be brought about first.\nQ.You called that work General Plan East. Is that correct? What gave you an idea of such a designation?\nA.Himmler himself created that term.\nQ.How did the question and the expression of \"Marks and Points\" come about?\nA.Himmler had an idea of having a protection against the Asiatic Bolshevism and to create an Eastern frontier securing the system and for this purpose he coined these \n COURT I CASE VIII two phrases, \"Marks and Points\" without giving them a specific definition.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2244, "page_number": "2237", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "He ordered that this concept should be inserted into that plan in order to, at the same time, give an estimate as to the number of workers and men required. The whole matter was to be calculated over a space of time of 25 years after the war.\nQ.What result did you get?\nA.In my institute and also amongst the colleagues I had called in the work very quickly showed how tremendous the sums were that were to be spent. In spite of that I had the memorandum forwarded to Himmler in order to confront him clearly with the reality.\nQ.What was Himmler's reaction on that?\nA.On the 21st of June Himmler informed Greifelt by letter that the memorandum submitted to him was not in line with his ideas and desires on some very important points. He said that in a few features and points he had been completely misunderstood and he issued, in this letter, several directives, which he wanted to be taken into consideration.\nQ.Well, did you elaborate further on the problem in line with the desires expressed by Himmler?\nA.We did not actually draw up any further plans. Himmler's ideas as reflected in his last letter by his orders seemed to me a mere utopy. Therefore, I limited myself to sending him only and alone a list of basic figures and charts without giving any detailed consideration and answer to the problems raised by him in this letter.\nQ.What was Himmler's reaction to that?\nA.On the 12th of January 1943 he gave me an intermediary information by letter, and he announced that further tangible orders would be issued by him. However, no such \n COURT I CASE VIII tangible orders for planning were actually given.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2245, "page_number": "2238", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "In full agreement with Greifelt I treated the whole matter in a quite summary way. Nothing really came out of the letter and I never heard anything about it.\nQ.Were any of these directives carried into practice under the strength of this scientific work?\nA.No, it was impossible too, because it was specifically the kind of work which was to be carried into practice only after the end of the war, and could have been carried out only after the end of the war.\nQ.Did you at a later date deal with similar or the same problems?\nA.No, that was the only work. In the institute in regard to that question and in my planning department no developments of that kind were worked on.\nQ.I am now putting to you DocumentNO 2209and it is Exhibit 254, in Document Book 5-C, on page 45 of the German. This letter deals with questions pertaining to the Crimes. Do you know that case? Do you know the letter?\nA.This is a secret letter, a copy of which went to the Main Staff Office for information. I cannot recall the contents of this letter. I see here that a visit of Himmler together with Greifelt and the planning offices is mentioned as expected but I never went to the Crimea with Himmler.\nQ.Well, did you do any planning work for the Crimea?\nA.No, if planning was done on the Crimea then it was in no way connected with the fields of task of my agency and myself.\nQ.Please take the document you have there and look at page 48 in the German. There you will find Document NO 4009, Exhibit 255. This is a report dated 31 May 1944 at \n COURT I CASE VIII the Racial Channeling Office, Volksdeutsche Leitstelle, which apparently was called in to life after the German troops had evacuated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2246, "page_number": "2239", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Was this report forwarded to you and did you have any knowledge about it?\nA.This report also, which was drawn up in the summer of 1944 and sent to the Chief of RuSHA, by way of information, I cannot recall it either and I don't think that it was sent to the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Could this report give any results in practice at all?\nA.The report would have had a historical importance because as early as Autumn 1943 the Crimea was no longer in German hands.\nQ.Was the man who drew up the report under your orders or did he at any time receive directives from you?\nA.No, he was not under my orders and he never received any directives from me either, and now when I look through the documents I also see that he complained or that he at least hinted at it that he got very little backing from the central agencies in Berlin.\nQ.I am now putting to you a correspondence between Himmler and Frauenfeld. In this correspondence there are a few suggestions, to resettle at a later date the Southern Tyrolians in Crimes and to create a new home country there for the Palestinian Germans too. These documents again mention plannings and I am now referring to Document 2417 and its Exhibit 261; it is again in the Document Book 5-C which you have there in front of you and it is on page 38 of the German. Did you carry out any planning in this connection?\nA.No, I did not do any planning in this connection.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2247, "page_number": "2240", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.And now, I am putting to you the document from Document Book 5-A. It is Document 2703, and it is Exhibit 206 on page 63 of the German. This is a file note of 17 August 1942. It was not written by you. What is your attitude towards that file note?\nA.As the Partisan warfare became stronger and stronger in the East as the result of the war in the East which was intensified altogether, the number of bandit attacks mainly against the German settler villages which were spread out over large areas increased tremendously. Very heavy losses were sustained amongst the civilian population. Himmler tried to think out a way to amend this emergency. Therefore, he had the plan to settle the racial Germans more together in a more dense way and to concentrate the civilian population in a few areas and to thereby diminish the danger of attacks.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2248, "page_number": "2241", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QThose were Individual and old settler villages; I mean those were not now settlers; they had been in that space before?\nAYes, those were old settler villages from the period from the beginning of the 19th century and even partly from the 18th century which had been settled there by the Tzars, Catherina and Alexander later on.\nQWhat about the discussions connected with these fields of tasks?\nANo, and that can be seen from the document itself too, namely this document stresses that the concentration of settlements was the task of the German channeling office.\nQWe have already discussed Document 4909, Exhibit 255 in Document Book 5-C. There on page 82 in the German, a Professor Hogler and on page 88 in the German there is a Professor Rogler mentioned. It is most likely that that is a typing mistake. Hogler or Rogler is supposed to have been connected with planning work in the Crimea. Was this professor in any way connected with you or the planning office?\nANo, I don't know a Professor Hogler and I don't know a Professor Rogler either.\nQThen I am putting to you DocumentNO 2277. It is in Book 15 and it is on page 55 in the German. There, in a letter, is mentioned the evacuation of the Poles to Central Poland. Were you connected with that matter.\nANo, the letter does not originate with me or with any agency of the Main Staff Office. According to its contents it can only involve what the witness Ehlich of the Prosecution has already testified about, namely, that theplan was of the RSHA and I was in no way connected with that plan.\nQWas there, as far as the times were concerned, even the possibility of connection with your general Plan East?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2249, "page_number": "2242", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "ANo, because this document is dated 9 January 1940. Therefore, even if you take the timesonly it is absolutely not identical with my part of the planning. At that time I had only started my work.\nQThe Prosecution has then submitted DocumentNO 7477and Exhibit 219 in Document Book 5-A on page 12 of the German. This involves an order for the resettlement of Zamosz. From the document it becomes apparent that the whole planning was to be supervised by the Main Staff Office. Did you or your Planning Department have a part in that?\nAThis planning was never submitted to me and my planning department did not deal with that matter either.\nQDid you receive knowledge of any other plans concerning Zamosz?\nAMy field of tasks included the incorporated Eastern territories. However; here at Nurnburg I was informed that the Governor General Frank, already in Spring 1942, discussed settlement plans at Zamosz with Himmler as became apparent from a document of the IMT trial.\nQAt any rate at that time you didn't know anything about it and you were not called into the matter either?\nANo.\nQAnd you didn't cause any steps to be taken either?\nANo.\nQBut at Lublin there was a planning agency. Was that planning agency in any way connected with your field of activities?\nAThe Lublin planning of this was not under my competency and I am not informed either what kind of work was carried out there at all. From the documents now submitted here I have seen the distribution plan of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and the Government General, that is, the deputy and representative of Himmler, the Higher SS and Police Leader Krueger and there I have found out that an expert planning department staff by a secretary is listed there also.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2250, "page_number": "2243", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QI am now putting to you DocumentNO 22278, Exhibit 208; it is in Document Book 5-A on page 70 of the German. This is a file note of 20 April 1942. What do you have to say to it.\nAThis file note again is unknown to me. It is a note made by Himmler and this memorandum went to Greifelt by way of information. However, with the specific addition that it was only and alone for Greifelt's personal information and that those ideas were not to be used in discussions. I haven't seen the file note myself.\nQI am now putting to you DocumentNO 2585, Exhibit 89. That is in Volume 3, on page 97 of the German. In this document again a general plan is mentioned in connection with the meeting of the 4 February 1942. The questions discussed in this meeting were then connected with the general plan East elaborated in the institute for agricultural science.\nANo, because this meeting took place as early as February 1942, that is, a long time before that General Plan East which I have mentioned was ready. Besides that, as can be seen from the document itself, I did not attend the meeting. For the rest, the plan you, Dr. Bohling, have mentioned provided the maintainence of full sovereignity of the Baltic countries and that apparently was not provided for here in this document. Quite apparently this here involved the General Plan East of the RSHA. The existence and contents of that plan were not known to me until this time, are not even known to me today.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2251, "page_number": "2244", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQFinally in the same connection I am putting to you the DocumentNO-5033, Exhibit 237, in Document Book V-B, page 97 in the German.\nAThe very symbol Dr. Stier shows that it did not originate with me or my department. I don't know the document, and I was in no way connected with this resettlement in Lithuania.\nQIn order to simplify matters, can you tell us that basically speaking you were never concerned with documents which had the symbol D.S.T., Doctor Stier?\nAYes, I can say that.\nQNow, we have made the acquaintance of what were the activities of your planning department and your own activities inasfar as they were in the framework of your specific field of tasks. On page 32 of the minutes, the Prosecution charge that it was the aim of your planning activity to destroy the basis of life of ethnic groups, to dissolve political and social installations, and to exterminate members of foreign races. What is your position to that?\nAWith the strongest emphasis I have to reject this charge. The only purpose for my work was to use the experiences of social science and of sociology as they were the joint possessions of the sciences adopted by Germany and which I had the privilege to work on myself. The purpose was to employ and to apply this experience. My aim was not the extermination of human beings; on the contrary it was the creation of hygenic living conditions for the human beings. In this connection my aims and my efforts were not only intended for my German fatherland, but also to those areas with which my work was connected. Real science is altruistic and serves the purposes of the whole humanity.\nQHowever in this connection the Prosecution charges you with a certain number of individual acts. Therefore, it is my duty to touch upon these individual points of the indictment in a few brief words. Did you have a direct or an indirect part in the deportations, and kidnapping of children of alien races?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2252, "page_number": "2245", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo.\nQDid you promote such measures by your planning?\nANo.\nQDid you have knowledge of such matters?\nANo.\nQTurning to Point 12 of the Indictment. You are charged to have carried out or promoted abortions on female eastern workers. Did you have any active part in that or did you promote it by your planning?\nAI am not a medical man and I am not a quack either. I never had any part in it directly or indirectly.\nQDid you know about it?\nANo.\nQTurning now to Point 13 of the Indictment. The Prosecution charges you there to have taken away the children of female eastern workers for the purpose of extermination or re-Germanization. Did you have a part in that activity or by your planning?\nANo.\nQDid you know about measures of that nature?\nANo.\nQAccording to Point 14 of the Indictment, you are charged with special responsibility concerning the punishment of Poles, Czechoslovakians and other eastern nationals on account of sexual intercourse with German women. Did you participate in measures of this kind? Did you cause them to be taken, and did you know about it?\nANo.\nQIn the same way under Point 15 of the Indictment you are charged to have impeded propagation of aliens; did you participate in measures of that kind; did you cause them to be taken or did you know about it?\nANo.\nQDid you have a part in the compulsory evacuations or did you promote them by your planning?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2253, "page_number": "2246", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo, I did not take any part in them, and I did not promote them by my planning.\nQIn how far did you have an active or a planning part in the compulsory extermination of aliens?\nAI had nothing to do with it.\nQDid you know about it?\nAIt is true I knew about the Volkslisten system, DVL, and the broad outlines without having any direct connection with it, but at no time I knew that this system was based upon compulsion. As I saw this work it was simply an attempt to find out who in that muddle was a German and who wasn't.\nQWhat is your attitude to Point 18 of the Indictment? There special responsibility is charged in the deportation of foreigners for work in Germany, and participation in that deportation.\nAI was not concerned with these matters, and I didn't know more about that matter than any other German who saw foreign workers everywhere. I did not have the impression that these people were slave workers.\nQDid you take part in spoliation?\nANo.\nQDid you spoliate yourself?\nANo.\nQDid you ever personally enrich yourself?\nANo.\nQI am now turning to Point 21 of the Indictment. I am submitting to you DocumentNO-2610, Exhibit 539, in Document Book XIII-A, on page 1; it has been submitted by the Prosecution because in the summer of 1941 plans were drawn up dealing with the final solution of the Jewish question. Did you take any part in this planning?\nANo.\nQIn another document mention is made of a conference at the Grosse Wannsee, of 20 January, 1942. Did you participate in that con \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2254, "page_number": "2247", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "ference?\nANo.\nQWere you informed about the results of this conference or any conference of a similar nature?\nANo.\nQDid you participate otherwise in any manner in the deportation and evacuations, or even in the extermination of Jews as an executive organ or as a planner?\nANeither in the one nor in the other capacity.\nQThat brings me to the charges made against you in your capacity as chief of Office Group C. When did you start your work as chief of an office group?\nAOn the 1st of August, 1942.\nQWhat offices according to the distribution plan were part of Office Group C?\nAThe scope of Office C included the office planning, construction and the central land office.\nQWhat were your competencies as chief of Office Group C?\nAThe formation of office groups was ordered by Himmler for reasons unknown to me. The office groups themselves from the very beginning were not under exactly fortunate signs because neither the office chiefs themselves nor the chief of the Main Office considered that it was necessary to create these office groups. Therefore, after a few shy and timid attempts to activate this new formation of groups the whole matter just fell asleep after a very few weeks. Neither Creutz nor myself nor Greifelt had the ambition to carry out the distribution of tasks that were listed on paper, and I think Greifelt felt no urge either to change the course of affairs we were accustomed to. It has to be added that a short time after the first decrees of personnel took place, and the very fact that our task diminished did not justify the new formation of office groups.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 1330 hours, 10 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2255, "page_number": "2248", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 10 December 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nKONRAD MEYER-HETLING - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BEHLING: (Attorney for the defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Professor, we were last talking about the unjustifiable thoughts which were connected with your planning work, and we talked about your tasks as chief of the Amtsgruppe. Did you have any special plenipotentiary powers as Chief of the Amtsgruppe?\nA.No.\nQ.Was there any special appointment?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Amtsgruppe receive a new file sign?\nA.No, the Amtsgruppe had no file sign at all.\nQ.What did the file sign \"C\" mean which was variously found on documents?\nA.The file sign \"C\" points only to the origin of the legal department \"C\"; that it comes from legal department \"C\".\nQ.And was this legal department under your jurisdiction?\nA.No, it was not.\nQ.Then this file sign \"C\" has nothing to do with your activity?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the incoming mail and out-going mail go to you as Chief of the Amtsgruppe?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2256, "page_number": "2249", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "A.The mail was handled by the individual departments as it had been done before, and the Amtschiefs signed the mail themselves if it was not mail to be turned over to the Main Chief for his signature.\nQ.Was the mail turned over to you for information and counter-signature before the Main Chief received it?\nA.No, it went directly to the main chief.\nQ.Did the chiefs of the offices subordinate to you, report to you?\nA.There were no regular reports; during the first time when it was still tried to split up the Amts into groups, I was informed in a few instances if the Amtchiefs thought it necessary.\nQ.It is well known that all offices had so-called daily reports to render to the main chief, the chief of the main office. Was this obligation enforced for the offices under your jurisdiction?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did these daily reports go by way of your office to the chief of the main office; or, did they go directly from the offices without your knowledge?\nA.The latter is the case; I did not see the daily reports.\nQ.Then, the daily reports of the three offices did not come to you and were not consolidated to be turned over to the chief of the main office.\nA.That is right the way you stated it. I would not have been in any position to make any remarks about the daily reports since they did not come to me and since I did not know them.\nQ.As chief of the Amtsgruppe, did you make any \n daily reports to the chief of the main office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2257, "page_number": "2250", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "A.No, I did not.\nQ.Did the division in the Amtsgruppen take place in the summer of 1943 and was the seat of the office transferred to Schweikelberg?\nA.Since I remained in Berlin, I lost all contact with the office after its transfer to Schweikelberg.\nQ.What other offices belonged to Amtsgruppe \"C\" besides the planning office whose field of tasks you have already covered quite sufficiently.\nA.The office for buildings and the central land office.\nQ.Please describe to us very briefly the field of activity of those two offices?\nA.The office for buildings, which consisted of about three persons, had originated from the office for planning, \"Planungsamt\". On account of the scarcity of building material there was hardly anything to build, apart from occasional repair work of air-raid damages in the offices of the Main Staff Office; therefore, this office was of very little practical significance. It did not have to make any practical decisions either. The Central Land Office was a purely statistical office that worked very quietly, doing registration work. The legal problems were taken care of in Department \"C\", that is the Legal Department; technical decisions were made by Amt IV, agriculture. It was always a statistical source of information for my planning activities. Added to this it must be considered that both offices, the Central Land Office and the Buildings Office, were about twenty kilometers away from my office.\nQ.Was anything changed with the introduction of the \n plan for the distribution of work in 1940?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2258, "page_number": "2251", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "A.No, because things were always carried out with the signature of the various offices just as had been done previously.\nQ.Did the Amtschiefs represent the offices just as they had done before?\nA.Yes, the Amts were represented by their chiefs just as had been done before.\nQ.When the Central Land Office was turned over to you, did you know the methods of work and the tasks of the Central Land Office?\nA.Only because the office formerly belonged to the Main Department, Planning - and Land Office knew of this. Its later development was noticed by me only from the outside and only because some of it became significant for my work in the planning office. I always felt that the Central Land Office was only a registration office for real estate.\nQ.And that was how you evaluated the experiences of the land office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In your planning work?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When you took up closer relations with the Central Land Office temporarily, what was the impression gained by you about its field of activity?\nA.In the summer of 1940 the Central Land Office was subordinated to Greifelt's office and incorporated into his agency, because the chief, Freiherr von Holzschuher, had resigned. From the very beginning Mund had been intended as his successor, but Mund was eliminated because of stomach trouble, for the moment, Greifelt commissioned me to represent \n the business interests of this agency temporarily, planning and land office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2259, "page_number": "2252", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.Did this temporary consolidation of tasks mean anything practically?\nA.You cannot say that really, because it was from the very beginning in conformity with the idea that, as soon as Mund would be healthy again, the Central Land Office should become independent once more. Besides, Greifelt thought at the time that the process of incorporation of the Central Land Office which had been very independent up to that time, should be facilitated and speeded up.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2260, "page_number": "2253", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QHow long were you in that office?\nAIn 1941, it may have been in the summer -- it probably was in the summer -- Mund was able to perform his work once again and he took over the direction of the Central Land Office. This office was again separated from the Business Distribution of Planning at the same time. Furthermore, because Mund was a very conscientious person, while he was sick he always took an active interest in the work of the Central Land Office, and he appeared at the office now and again. While he was sick he even signed a few documents, some of which have been presented here, and he also made decisions that became necessary.\nQAfter the complete recuperation of Mund -- that is to say, from the summer of 1941 until the spring of 1945, did you ever again take up the direction of the Central Land Office?\nAUp to the time that the Amtsgroups were incorporated, that is, from the summer of 1941 on, until the 1st of August 1942, I had no official contacts at all with the Central Land Office. Through the reorganization that resulted from the new plan of business administration, from the 1st of August 1942 the Central Land Office was made subordinate to the so-called Amtsgroup C.\nQDid Mund remain in charge of the Central Land Office after that time?\nAYes, he remained in that position until 1943. He was then succeeded by Dr. Gebert, and finally Hiege took over the Central Land Office.\nQThis man's name was Hiege.\nDid you help with any regulations or any other legal stipulations concerning agrarian law?\nANo, I was never called upon in such matters, If the Main Staff Office was consulted at all, it was only done by the legal experts and lawyers there. Furthermore, the fundamental regulations were not issued by the Main Staff Office nor by Himmler, but by Goering as \n Plenipotentiary for the Four Year Plan.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2261, "page_number": "2254", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid you work anything out in connection with the drafting of internal directivesfor the confiscation of Polish property?\nANo; these questions were also exclusively treated by lawyers, according to general directives which Himmler had issued.\nQWhat tasks did the Central Land Office handle at the time when you directed it, that is to say, when it belonged to the Main Department of Planning and Land?\nAThe only activity was registration, until the end of 1941; 90 to 95 percent of the enterprises had been registered. The Central Land Office worked simultaneously on behalf of the Reich Statistical Office, and it had the closest contact with that Statistical Office after that time.\nQI now submit to you a document presented by the Prosecution, NO3078, Exhibit 21, in Document Book 2-B, on page 5, according to which document, the Central Land Office had to take care of the functions of the Reich Office for Land Procurement.Please explain your attitude in this connection.\nAAs already testified to by the witness Golling, in no single instance was any use made of this authorization. I cannot remember that anything was caused as a result of this, and especially so since the Prosecution was unable to present any documents about this.\nQDid you ever confiscate any land for purposes of resettlement? Did you ever seize or confiscate land?\nAThe question of land procurement for the task of the final settlement of resettlers was only to be taken care of after the war had ended. I know of no single instance in which land was confiscated for purposes of resettlement by the Central Land Office or by any of its subordinate agencies.\nQDid the Central Land Office deal with material agrarian law?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2262, "page_number": "2255", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "ASince the Central Land Office had no power of decision in relation to agrarian law, the legal questions did not come to its attention and were not part of its competence.\nQAs Chief of the Land Office, or later, as Amtsgroup Chief, did you have authority to issue directives concerning the property registered by the Central Land Office?\nAAs far as Himmler had not claimed or reserved this right for himself, this authority to issue directives was solely in the hands of the Agricultural Department.\nQWas the competent person in the Agricultural Department Dr. Hiege, the man who later took over the direction of the Central Land Office?\nAYes, that was Hiege.\nQWhat functions did the Central Land Office have to fulfill after the regulations about Polish property had been issued?\nAThose functions were only of a formal nature. First of all, we had to take over the property which had already been confiscated by the global confiscation order; we had to take it over from the various other agencies and register it uniformly. That was the socalled registration activity of the Central Land Office. But, more than that, the Central Land Office confirmed the sequestrations that had been made by a newly pronounced individual confiscation decree.\nQDid this process have any legal force?\nANo, it wasonly a declaratory act.\nQWhat rights were retained by the owners of this property that had been confiscated?\nAThe real estate, as such, had already been confiscated by the previously issued regulations of the Supreme Commander of the Army and the Chief of the Civil Administration, and it remained blocked by the regulation concerning Polish property. The owners had the right-", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2263, "page_number": "2256", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "as they had hadthe right before -- to decide about the moveable property, the enterprises, and the products, and they could dispose of these goods as they saw fit.\nQDid additional regulations come into effect as a result of the seizure activity of the Central Land Office?\nANo, they did not come into effect.\nQA further task of the Central Land Office was the organizational plan for the treatment of legal questions.\nI will repeat my question:\nA further task of the Central Land Office was laid down in the organizational plan for the treatment of legal problems which arose from changes in properties. How about that problem?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2264, "page_number": "2257", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AThe regulations concerning Polish property provided for the possibility of confiscation. According to the internal directives, however, Himmler had reserved that right for himself personally, as Reich Commissioner. The Central Land Office was only the executive organ and had only to take care of the registration and land title functions.\nQBefore the regulation concerning Polish property was issued, transfers of property had already taken place. I now submit to you documeatNO-3189, Exhibit 610, in Document Book 4-B, on page 1. Please explain your attitude about this question.\nAI do not know this document. I am not familiar with the process; I was never approached in this connection. This can be seen from the file note.\nQWhat is the file note there at the end?\nA \"PO/41A/11 March 1940/CR/KR.\"\nQDo you know of any arbitrary measures in this connection?\nAI learned that the Gauleiter of East Prussia, Koch, carried out a few irresponsible individual actions.\nQWhat did you do against that?\nAI went to Koch immediately, talked to him about it, energetically protested against it, and demanded the immediate surrender and release of the territory. When nothing happened as a result of my protest, I went to Koch a second time and filed a complaint with Himmler via Greifelt.\nQDid any other arbitrary measures occur, or were they suppressed?\nAThey were suppressed, and a few other previous actions were even revoked.\nQCan you tell me in what cases transfers of land titles were carried out by the Central Land Office?\nAFrom my own time I remember a few confiscations which were made only for strategic purposes, such as a place for bomb testing in Upper \n Silesia, a few airports and extensions of airports, extensions of Polish airports, and a few maneuver grounds.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2265, "page_number": "2258", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid this Central Land Office make any definite decisions in these instances?\nAThe Main Staff Office and the Central Land Office were not consulted in these cases at all when military objectives or necessities were concerned. The property was simply requested by the military authorities. If negotiations were necessary in individual cases, they were carried out by the Agricultural Office.\nQDoes this exhaust all the cases of confiscation?\nALand property was also confiscated for road construction, and here again, military necessities and those aspects alone were decisive. The confiscations, therefore, were not confined to Polish property alone, but also included German property, according to the individual situation. That is very clear because a road from a certain place, A, to another place, B, could not be constructed over Polish property alone but had to be adapted to the conditions of traffic as they prevailed. And then, of course, the racial backgrounds of the owners could not be taken into consideration.\nQThen, in the case of maneuver areas, and other cases that you mentioned, land property of racial Germans was also confiscated?\nAYes, I remember a few such cases.\nQCan you give us any figure about the extent of these confiscations?\nAThe confiscations -- and this is also in conformity with the documents presented by the Prosecution--amounted to 1 percent of those people who registered their land, and about 1.3 percent of the sequestered Polish territories.\nQIn documents, as well as in testimony of witnesses, land surrender for donations was mentioned. What can you tell us about that?\nAI only know of two cases, which took place at a time when the \n Central Land Office no longer belonged to the Main Office of Planning and Land.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2266, "page_number": "2259", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "This happened in the spring of 1944, as far as I can remember now, when the formation of Amtsgruppen had already lost its meaning because of the transfer to Schweikelberg. In one case it was to General Guderian; in the other case it was a donation to Police General Daluge. These donations were made upon the express order of Hitler. I learned about both cases subsequently, Q would it have been possible for you to intervene against these donations?\nANo. The Main Staff Office, and also Greifelt, tried it, but they could not do anything about it; it was impossible.\nQ what was your attitude in regard to these questions?\nAI was never in agreement with that and always decided against it. I always stated my point of view against that as long as I had anything to do with the Land Office. I always turned against any change in the situation of land property during the war. In the files of the Central Land Office there must be a number of remarks that I made, which were put down on paper, in which I turned down requests for the purchase of land during war time in a very sharp manner.\nQI should like to put to you DocumentNO-4677, Exhibit 215, in Document Book 5-A, on page 88, and DocumentNO-4699, Exhibit No. 58, in Document Book 2-C. I ask you to tell me, please, whether the activity of the Land Office had anything to do with resettlement.\nAThe first is a document, without any signature, directed to Regional Commissioner Gebeke in Schaulen, Lithuania. This is a labor commitment of resettlers for the district of Kowno. The incidents discussed in this document are completely outside of the field of competence of the Central Land Office, which had no business in Lithuania at all.\nThe second document is an affidavit of Hofmann, which states that those Poles whose estates had been confiscated, had been transported to Lodz by the central regency for settlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2267, "page_number": "2260", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "I do not know upon what knowledge Hofmann bases his statements. At any rate, the Central Land Office had nothing to do with events of resettlement at anytime. The registration and confiscation activities of the Land Office were completely independent things.\nQIn a number of documents incidents are mentioned which deal with confiscation and other regulations concerning rural properties, in areas outside of the so-called Incorporated Eastern Territories. I do not wish to put these documents to you singly, but, quite generally, I should like to hear your attitude in regard to the local conditions at the time and the local competence about these particular questions.", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2268, "page_number": "2261", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "A.The local competence of the land office was confined to the Incorporated Eastern Territories in regard to confiscation measures.\nNeither the Czech agrarian authority -- the land office in Prague -\nnor any other land offices came under the jurisdiction of the central land office.\nQ.In the statistical charts presented by the prosecution, the land offices Metz, Strassbourg and Marburg are mentioned.\nDid they come under the central land office's jurisdiction?\nA.No, they did not.\nQ.Did this central land office at least have the possibility to issue a factual directive to these land offices?\nA.No, they did not.\nQ.Did the competency of the land office extend to the Government General, the Soviet territories and Yugoslavia?\nA.There was no competency or authority for these areas.\nQ.Did you or the central land office ever issued directives to the DUT or the DAG?\nA.I did not have the authority to issue such directives.\nQ.Was the central land office competent for the registration and confiscation of ecclesiastical property?\nA.No, the work on such questions was not in the hands of my office staff.\nQ.Do you know the process and the incident that I am now putting to you which can be found in Document Book XIV-B, which deals with the convent Liebenthal?\nThese are DocumentsNO-1883, Exhibit 622; NO-1884, Exhibit 623; andNO-1886, Exhibit 624.\nThey are all in Document Book XIV-B on Page 43 and the following pages.\nDid you ever have anything to do with these incidents?\nA.No, I did not know these documents and I never had anything to do with these incidents.\nQ.I put to you from this same Document Book, DocumentsNO-1889, Exhibit 625, Page 55;NO-1890, Exhibit 626, Page 56; and NO-2663, Exhibit \n 627, Page 61.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2269, "page_number": "2262", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Do you know this particular incident?\nA.No, I do not know this incident. It took place in April 1944. These documents deal with correspondence between the chief of the legal department, Wirsich, and the field office of the plenipotentiary in Kattowitz.\nI do not know the incidents.\nQ.Did you or the central land office have anything to do with the confiscation without compensation of cemeteries.\nA.No. You spoke of the affidavit Kleindienst. I only saw that now from the documents.\nThe confiscation of cemeteries had nothing to do with me.\nIthad nothing to do with my office at any time.\nQ.Was there a competency of the central land office in the field of objects of cultural value?\nA.The central land office had nothing to do with this either.\nQ.What did you have to do with the building office?\nA.I stated previously already that the building office originated from a department that was made was made independent in 1942.\nQ.Who was the chief of the office for building?\nA.The chiefs changed repeatedly. I remember an architect, Karl;\nthen an architect, Noell; and later, Ibelieve, Grehl was its chief, but I don't know that for certain.\nThat was after I left.\nQ.Can you give us in a general outline the field activity of the building office?\nA.The office for building had to do with planning of construc tion and technical problems of construction.\nAmong the city architects, it recruited people for the planning of rural construction.\nCertain charts had to be drafted in accordance with the general considerations that were in conformity with the general directives which had been issued.\nAt a later time, the building office was called in also in order to repair the ever-increasing bomb damage in the office building of the main staff office and the office of the plenipotentiary, and thus it became more or less a construction office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2270, "page_number": "2263", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.I now put to you Document 2665, Exhibit 566, Document Book XIII-A, Page 100. It is the so-called ghetto action in Lodz. What is your attitude in this connection?\nA.I saw this document for the first time here in Nurnberg, and I never knew anything at all about this operation. I heard about this for the first time in the indictment.\nQ.Did you have a discussion in Posen and in Schweikelberg, and did you participate in these discussions?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever informed by Grehl or by any other persons about this operation?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know anything about Grehl's file note of the 15 of November 1944?\nA.No, I couldn't have been informed of this, and I couldn't have had any knowledge of this because at that time I was already in the army.\nQ.I now come to a few general questions. Was Himmler ever present in your planning office or central land office?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you belong to Himmler's staff?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you belong to the circle of persons to whom Himmler used to give speeches?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know Himmler's speeches, offered by the Prosecution, which he delivered in Posen, Schaffen and Metz?\nA.I learned of these speeches only now.\nQ.Did you ever attend any le cture of Himmler's of this nature?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2271, "page_number": "2264", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Q.From Document Book III, Page 62, I now put to you a number of documents, all concerning the same incident. These are Documents 1881, Exhibit 85;NO-2001, Exhibit 86; NO-3348, Exhibit 88; and NO-2585, Exhibit 89. It's a memorandum of Himmler's of the 28 of March 1944. What do you have to say in this regard?\nA.I learned of these developments only during this trial. I didn't know them before. I was never concerned with questions of foreign nationals as they are treated in this document.\nQ.Did you know the main offices of the SS and its organization at all in any detail?\nA.I knew of a few main offices, but generally speaking I was not informed about the organizational structure of the SS and the field of activity of the various main offices.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with RuSHA in your official capacity?\nA.As far as I know, I never entered their offices. I didn't even know where they were located and I had no official discussions with the RuSHA at any time.\nQ.Did you participate in the so-called \"Monday conferences\" regularly?\nA.I was absent frequently.\nQ.How did that come about?\nA.Since, when I was appointed to the main staff office, I made it an express condition not to be encumbered with the daily laborious work, I thus didn't have to come.\nQ.Did the Monday conferences, if you participated in them at all, give you a clear picture of the overall activity of the main staff office?\nA.No, they couldn't have done that since for the most part they were only discussions of a general nature which degenerated very frequently into meaningless conversations. It happened frequently that I left the discussions prematurely, since they did not interest me at all in most cases.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2272, "page_number": "2265", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid you participate in Monday conferences when the offices had to be transferred to Schweikelberg?\nAI cannot remember any incident in which I participated after this period.\nQI now come to the policy regarding personnel which you had in mind. Give me your idea about this.\nAWhen I was appointed I had also made the specific condition that I should be completely independent in the choice of my associates, and therefore I was able to dispose over any associates that I wanted to.\nQAnd what was the result of that?\nAFirst of all, my assistants in the institute worked in the planning office on an honorary part-time basis together with me. In the course of 1940, I had recruited certain people from the ranks of the province planners and architects for full-time associates of mine. Furthermore, from case to case I called in scientists and experts whom I know. I chose my associates only according to scientific aspects. One-half of them didn't even belong to the Party; some of them were even under political surveillance.\nQCan you give us a few names of associates that sought shelter with you for political reasons at the time?\nAI could mention Herrvon Mahuj, Schaureth, Christalla, and Dr. Krause.\nQThe witness Golling testified about blocking of property notations which had been registered for restitution action. Where were these blocking notations entered?\nAThey were entered with the office for restitution.\nQDid you ever get in charge of the restitution office as chief of amtsgruppen chief?\nANo.\nQWere these entries an internal incident of your administration?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2273, "page_number": "2266", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AYes, it was an internal matter of the office for restitution.\nQWere these blocking notations entered in the land register?\nANo.\nQDid the central land office get to know about them at all?\nAI know nothing about that.\nQAfter we have now learned your entire field of activity, I put to you my last document: the Posen lecture which we mentioned repeatedly in the course of our examination, DocumentNO-3348, Exhibit 88, Document Book III. Please explain this lecture.\nAThe cause for this lecture was the opening of an exhibition in Posen. Not only in the political sphere but quite generally, an overlapping of competencies of various authorities was felt and noticed. Therefore in this lecture I drafted the ideal picture of a future development and I warned against any specialization. In this lecture I pointed out that the execution ox my ideas was a matter for the post-war period, at a time when humanity once again had stripped off the distorted mask which the war had forced upon it and when it had returned to the ethical values that it had formerly known, and when the woods and. forests and fields make it incumbent upon humanity to preserve them.\nQThank you very much. I have no further questions. BY DR. KARL HAENSEL (for the defendant Greifelt):\nQI have only a few questions. Since what time do you know Greifelt?\nAI know him since November 1939.\nQWhen you received your planning mission and when you get together with Greifelt, did he exhibit any knowledge in this field to you?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2274, "page_number": "2267", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid you gain the impression that Greifelt, by way of Himmler, had already previously spoken about his intentions for planning and had been informed by Himmler about Himmler's intentions?\nANo, he was completely neutral to these tasks.\nQDid he show any interest in your work?\nAYes, he did.\nQIn what fields were his interests principally?\nAHis interests were in the economic field; then he also interested himself in questions of construction and administrative planning.\nQDid he show in that connection that he took an interest in any laws or regulations? Was that part of his aims?\nAYes, he was a very careful man who acted according to regulations and laws.\nQWhat do we call such people?\nAI might call them \"Bureaucrats.\"\nQDid Greifelt have any knowledge of agricultural matters?\nANo.\nQYou made his acquaintance from his office work. What were his essential principles?\nAIn his office work, I always had the impression that he wanted to have a very objective and smooth atmosphere in his immediate vicinity and in the main staff office.\nQDid he ever try to do any wrong?\nANo, he never did.\nQWhat was his attitude to racial problems?\nAVery skeptical and critical, and only if he had anything to do with them by regulation did he deal with them -- but only willingly.\nQDo you remember the incident when at one time you appeared with Greifelt in Himmler's headquarters at the end of December 1942? What was Greifelt's physical condition at the time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2275, "page_number": "2268", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "AI remember distinctly -- it was the last time that I saw Himmler, in December 1942, after a discussion that he had with Himmler in which I did not participate -- he was rather exhausted, and perhaps even sick, and after that discussion he asked the Reichsbuehrer to be excused prematurely in order to be able to go back to Berlin.\nQCan you tell me with any degree of certainty when that was?\nAOn the 30 or the 31 of December 1942.\nQThank you.\nAI know that because it's an unusual date.\nQYou say that you had in your office a few persons unacceptable for national socialist reasons. Did Greifelt know that and did he tolerate it?\nAYes, he knew it and he magnanimously tolerated it.\nQDo you know Greifelt's relationship with Himmler -- a few incidents perhaps?\nAI cannot really tell you that. I always felt that it was only an official relationship.\nQAt one time it was stated that in the main staff office you had given a lecture about the \"General Plan Ost\", is that correct?\nANo, these things were not treated in a lecture.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2276, "page_number": "2269", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nIt is possible that at one time in a Monday conference I talked about a few problems, for instance, the problem of the requirements of a new settlement law.\nQWas Greifelt Himmler's deputy as Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of Germanism?\nAI did not penetrate into the inner circles of the SS hierarchy, but I do believe that I can say with certainty that he and his position could not be considered as that of a deputy. I never thought of it that way and perhaps I could explain to you on this chart (indicating) that he was one-ninth of the Reichsfuehrer SS. There are nine -\nQNo, please try to translate the text. There are many other activities of Himmler that are not listed. They are not even drawn in here.\nAThen if there are more, his ratio should be divided by the number of circles that appear up there on the chart.\nQYou need a table of logarithms for this purpose. Did you have a good impression of Himmler's relationship to Greifelt?\nAI never found anything different.\nQOne last question. Did Greifelt ever discuss with you questions of treatment of foreign nationals?\nANever.\nDR. GAWLIK:Dr. Gawlik for Schwarzenberger. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWitness, were the Central Land Office and Amt V of the Main Office the same offices?\nANo; never.\nQDid the office directed by Schwarzenberger, No. V, have any influence in the measures and in the work which arose from the tasks of the Planning Office?\nANo; no insight either. Part of the work of the Planning Office was not at all financed by him but was carried as research work of the Reich Research Office and Service.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2277, "page_number": "2270", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDid the execution of these measures and work depend on the approval of Amt V?\nAI cannot remember of any casa when this was dependant on such approval.\nQBefore these works ware carried out were any negotiations carried on with Amt V?\nAI cannot remember a single case.\nQI put to you your affidavit. It isNO-7126, Exhibit 6, Document Book I, on Page 23. In this statement you mention the fact that Schwarzenberger was very well familiar with the tasks of the Main Staff Office. Can you maintain that statement or do you have any other indications that you want to mention? (Document handed to witness.)\nAThis statement is correct. Of course, I do admit that these are only such incidents that have anything to do with large expenditures when he was informed. Otherwise he was not informed; petty cash he was not informed about. He paid.\nDR. GAWLIK:I have no further questions.\nDR. MUELLER:Dr. Mueller for the defendant Herbert Huebner. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, since what time do you know the defendant Huebner?\nASince 1941.\nQCan you name the office in which Huebner worked in Posen?\nAHuebner was the chief of the Field Office of the Main Staff Office in Posen.\nQI didn't understand your answer.\nAYes, Huebner was with the office in Posen.\nQThe office of the plenipotentiary of the RKF?\nAYes.\nQIn Posen there was also a Field Office of the Main Staff Office, the so-called Field Agency. Did Huebner have anything to do with that office?\nANo. He was in the staff of the plenipotentiary for the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2278, "page_number": "2271", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Warthegau and that's where he was chief of staff.\nQDo you know who was the plenipotentiary for the Warthegau?\nAGreiser.\nQWho was his deputy?\nAKoppe, and then later -\nQThe Higher SS and Police Leader at the time; isn't that right?\nAYes, that is correct. I don't know the others.\nQWas Huebner, as the staff chief, representative and deputy of the chief himself?\nANo. There was only one deputy. There was never any deputy of the deputy.\nQCan you describe the field of activity of a staff chief such as Huebner?\nAI do know the tasks of a staff chief, generally speaking. He had to deal with the interior administration of the agency and of the resettlement and works staffs. That is always again interior administration.\nQIf I understand you correctly, the staff chief was not concerned with the technical tasks of the agency.\nANo, that is right. I had the impression that I always worked with the expert and never with the staff chief.\nQYou didn't discuss technical matters with Huebner?\nANo.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you very much. I have no further questions. May I ask the High Tribunal at this time that the defendant Huebner be excused from tomorrow's trial session so that he can prepare his defense?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The request is granted.\nDR. HESSE:Dr. Hesse for Werner Lorenz. BY DR. HESSE:\nQProfessor Meyer-Hetling, was there any connection between \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "DR. HESSE", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2279, "page_number": "2272", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the Planning Office that you ware in charge of?\nANo; never by me and I believe never by the Main Staff Office.\nQDid the VOMI ever transfer to you material for your planning work?\nANo; I knew nobody in VOMI, not even Brueckner and not Lorenz. I knew Lorenz in his capacity of the Interstate Association's president because he had the same interests as I had.\nQDid you have any insight into the tasks of those Interstate Associations?\nANo.\nQDid you know what groups of persons were in the camps of the Volksdeutsche Mittestelle?\nADo you mean what resettler groups?\nQYes.\nANo.\nDR. HESSE:I have no further questions.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for the defendant Hildebrandt. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, at what occasion did you make Hildebrandt's acquaintance?\nAI met him in the summer of 1940 when I had to go to Danzig and when I had a difference of opinion at the Technical Institute about university questions with Gauleiter Forster. Forster told me then, as a result, that he would arrest me on the spot unless I left his territory and the university immediately. I therefore went to Hildebrandt and took shelter with him. Hildebrandt telephoned Forster and explained to him unequivocally how improper his attitude had been Forster's attitude, - and then Forster asked me to speak to him on the telephone and excused himself, apologized to me. That was the incident when I met Hildebrandt.\nQWhat impression did you gain of Hildebrandt in subsequent \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "DR. HESSE", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2280, "page_number": "2273", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "contacts with him?\nAHis resolute action and his immediate intervention at the time impressed me greatly and I admired his clear and definite nature and esteemed him highly and that is also the reason why I always visited Hildebrandt when I got to Danzig and was invited in his house once or twice.\nQDid Hildebrandt belong to the typical SS officers who obeyed all orders without question that were given to them or was he characteristic of any peculiarities?\nAI did not have the impression that he was one of those SS leaders who unquestioningly obey without criticizing but, rather, that he belonged to that trend that, in an ever-increasing measure, rejected a number of phenomena of our political system at the time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will suspend.\nThe Tribunal wishes at this time to again call attention of counsel for both the defense and prosecution to the announcement that was made at the beginning of this trial, and that is that at a date to be announced there would be a deadline fixed in so far as the receiving of documents is concerned. That time is fast approaching. It seems that by now counsel for both sides should know the documents that they expect to use.\nIn the not too distant future the Tribunal will pass an order in which the translation department will be directed to receive no documents for translation in this case after a named date. That is the information that was contained in the announcement made by the Tribunal at the beginning of the trial. We reiterate the announcement at this time for the purpose of giving counsel an opportunity to immediately get all of their documents, both for the defense and prosecution, that they intend to use in this case into the hands of the translation department. If this warning is not heeded and documents have not been translated, they just won't get into evidence.\nThe Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2281, "page_number": "2274", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, in view of the direction of the Tribunal which was just issued, may I make the request to give the possibility to both counsel for the defense and for the Prosecution to have an off-the-record opportunity to discuss with the Tribunal what deadline will be considered for the presentation of these documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I can state to you now that the Tribunal has not reached any agreement about the date. I was simply giving this advance information so that all counsel could begin now to get their documents into the hands of the Translating Department. However, we will be glad to talk to any counsel at any time they desire. BY DR. FROESCHMANN: Very well, your Honor. Thank you. Then I will continue my examination.\nQWitness, did you discuss in the course of your acquaintanceship with Hildebrandt also political questions and what was Hildebrandt's attitude towards the political developments of that period?\nAI told you already that I had full confidence in Hildebrandt and I saw in him the perfect type of officer who always acted under principle that it is better to be somebody than to seem to be somebody. Therefore, I discussed quite openly with him political questions and we discussed the inner policy and the development of the foreign policy which seemed to lead to the doom of Germany and which the National Socialists and the strength of the stronger and stronger power positions they held which the Nazi Party had brought about; and, in that respect I found out that Hildebrandt was also a member of the right wing of the party, or if I should express it better, of the National Socialist movement, the same right wing which I considered myself always a member of, the right wing which rejected all dogmatic attitudes and which was only tending towards a spiritual renewal which was aiming at having a link with the best traditions of our German \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2282, "page_number": "2275", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "history. When, both of us, saw that Hitler was deviating from that original line and we both considered that treason, and millions who previously had given him their votes in full confidence in the National Socialist movement and it was the reason those millions voted for him and now when the war prevented everybody from objecting against the new course, these millions were forced to go on and do their duty in spite of everything in order to have the war done with first, and then to clear up matters later.\nQDid Hildebrandt give you information about the fact that for a long period he was in combat with a circle of men in public life of the SS and of the Armed Forces and that this circle of men was ready to prepare a substantial change in connection with the conditions of the Army and the German policy?\nAYes, I remember quite clearly that he gave me a certain number of names of persons with whom he was in constant contact and he also mentioned to me that the main point was to re-introduce the Fuehrer principle which Hitler had come into the custom of handling in a sovereign way but this leadership principle should again be based on the corrective possibilities of a larger representation of the people and he told me, also, that it was essential to remove Hitler from the damaging influence of men like Bormann and of a lackey nature like Keitel and Ribbentrop.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will be necessary to recess until we get this trouble with the sound system straightened out. We will recess subject to call.\n(A recess was taken.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2283, "page_number": "2276", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just as we get to going good, fine cooperation on the part of everybody, up blows the sound system. Unfortunately, we will have to adjourn until tomorrow morning at 9:30.\n(At 1600 hours, 10 December 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 11 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2284, "page_number": "2277", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America, against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 11 December 1947, 0930-1630, The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order.\nMr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Huebner, who has been excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nProceed with the examination of this witness.\nKONRAD MEYER-HETLING (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.Witness, I put a few questions to you yesterday concerning the attitude of Hildebrandt towards the inner policy and foreign policy, in spite of his capacity of Higher SS and Police Leader. I don't want to waste the precious time of this Tribunal by asking you detailed questions. Therefore, in conclusion, I shall ask you the following:\nIs it correct that your conversations with Hildebrandt showed, A, that Hildebrandt was deeply disappointed about the fact that, as the yours went on, Himmler had deceived the Higher SS and Police Leaders who were in his inner circle, concerning his real intentions?\nA.Y es.\nQ.B , that Himmler, according to Hildebrandt's conception, had committed treason, with regard to the tendencies he originally advocated, towards the persons near to him and near to the armed forces?\nA.Yes, you can put it that way.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2285, "page_number": "2278", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.That Himmler, in contradiction to these tendencies of Hildebrandt, had pursued a pure power policy, without the knowledge of the SS Leaders, instead of an ethnic policy on a sound basis?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And finally, that Hildebrandt, in accordance with his own statements, always frankly and freely advocated a spiritual renovation and change in the inner and foreign policy of the Reich; is that correct?\nA.That is what I had to gather from his remarks.\nQ.The last question: Did Hildebrandt ever tell you anything about the result of his efforts?\nA.In autumn of 1943 a conversation took place, during which violent words were used and he talked to me about that conversation.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Dr. Meyer, you stated that you and, so far as you knew, the defendant Hildebrandt, fell out with the policies that were being pursued by Hitler and the N azi Party. Now Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, was published before you joined the Party, wasn't it?\nA.Well, yes, I think so.\nQ.You are a man of intelligence, aren't you, Doctor? You have had wide experience in the field of learning.\nNow, about your membership in the SS, you voluntarily joined the SS, did you not?\nA.I was asked to join it.\nQ.I didn't ask you whether you were asked or not. You weren't forced to join it, were you?\nA.No.\nQ.Which means that you joined it voluntarily.\nA.Well, you can conceive it in that way if you want to.\nQThanks you. Now, you remained in the SS continually from the \n time you joined in 1933 until the end of the war, did you not?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2286, "page_number": "2279", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.I do not recall with certainty the date of my joining the SS, but I did remain in the SS until the end of the war.\nQ.Do you remember what your number was in the SS? Wasn't it about seventy, or below eight thousand?\nA.Yes, I think so.\nQ.Now, Dr. Meyer, with reference to your planning, Himmler called you in and told you that he wanted you to go with the Main Staff Office as a planning expert. That is true, isn't it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You know now that a lot of the work of the Main Staff Office was concerned with things of which you do not approve. That is true, isn't it?\nA.Only from the documents here submitted could I gather a general insight into the whole scope of the work.\nQ.And you were with the Lain Staff Office from 1939 until the fall of 1944, weren't you?\nA.Until I was drafted into the armed forces.\nQ.Now, yesterday when you were testifying you were asked about the witness Bach-Zelewski's testimony in connection with some planning in Upper Silesia, and when you were asked that question you answered by saying that you didn't concern yourself with plannings in Upper Silesia or any other place, that yours was the fountain-head to which people came to find out these things, that you work was not practical; that is, so far as being carried out, that you did not carry it out.\nNow, I want to hand you a document which shows that you were actually in Upper Silesia in connection with a settlement project, and I want you to tell the Court whether or not the Dr. Professor Meyer referred to in that document is you or not.\n(Document submitted to witness).", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2287, "page_number": "2280", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "11,December-M-IL-2-1-Daniels (Int. Treidell) This is a rather lengthy document.\nI have to study it a little bit, if you don't mind.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, they only question he asked you was whether the Dr. Meyer referred to in there is you or not. It seems like you could tell that without too much trouble.\nTHE WITNESS:This involves a letter to: \"The Reich Commissar, Main Staff Office, attention: Standartenfuehrer Hiege,\" and information is given in this document to the effect that I, together with the Obersturmbannfuehrer whose signature is missing -- was supposed to come to Upper Silesia at an early date in order to discuss planning questions down there. I cannot remember the letter itself. It does not show either, that it involves questions which exceeded my field of planning tasks. BY MR. LAMB:\nQDoctor -\nAYes.\nQOn redirect examination your counsel can bring out anything he wants to. I have only 30 minutes. I just asked you if you were the man referred to in that document. You will have an opportunity to explain it when your counsel takes over. Now, are you the Doctor Meyer referred to?\nMR. LAMB:The prosecution offers that document NO-5566, for identification as Exhibit No. 806.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't know whether it got into the record or not, but the answer did not come through. Did you say you were the Doctor Meyer referred to in that letter?\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, I am. BY MR. LAMB:\nQNow, Doctor, that is in connection with your \n planning work.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2288, "page_number": "2281", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Now, in your General Plan East, which is something a little different from your general planning in the Main Staff Office there, in pour plan on page 75 of Document Book 3 -- this is Document No.NO-2255, about which you testified at length yesterday -- you said that eight million people were needed to settle or to live on this ninety thousand square kilometers, and in your work here you say that these are the people that are going to be there, these are the ones who are going to live there: Germans from the Reich proper; resettlers from overseas; Germanic settlers from Europe; inhabitants of the Occupied Eastern Territories suitable for Germanization.\nNow, you are an expert in this business; didn't you know that there were some Jews who lived in that area and there were some Poles who lived in that area who were not suitable for Germanization?\nAI am afraid I haven't quite grasped the sense of your question yet.\nQWell, I won't ask it again because I think it was perfectly clear. Now, whether or not this General Plan East was carried out, the same result was to be obtained, was it not by getting rid of people who were not suitable for Germanization? Whether it was your plan or not, the general idea was carried out, was it not?\nAIn my direct examination I have already testified that the General Plan East was a draft of a study for the period from after the war until 25 years after the war. As to questions arising during the war, or questions arising possibly as problems at the end of the war, the plan does not explain any position.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2289, "page_number": "2282", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QWell you do know now, since you have been in this trial, that deportations took place in the area which was covered by your General Plan East. You know that, don't you, now?\nAYes.\nQWhen you joined the Main Staff Office you had a thorough understanding with Himmler that you were going to be able to employ, as your associates, whom you wished. That is true, isn't it?\nAIn my direct examination I have already testified that I had -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the counsel, on account of limitation of his time, is entitled to a direct answer to his question without going back over what you have already testified to. BY MR. LAMB:\nQJust answer me yes or no, please.\nAI had a free choice of my employees.\nQNow, did the defendant Greifelt understand that?\nAYes, he had something to say about whom I chose; but I don't quite see what you mean by that question. I had a free choice of my collaborators, and of course I reported to Herr Greifelt, my superior, as to whom I chose.\nQWell, Greifelt never interfered with anyone you chose, did he?\nANo.\nQWas Dr. Gebert one of the ones that you chose?\nAYes.\nQNow, did Greifelt know him very well?\nAHe made his acquaintance when Gebert was with me. I don't think he made his acquaintance before.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2290, "page_number": "2283", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QYou later put Gebert in as head of the Central Land Office, didn't you?\nAThat document proves that Gebert's appointment was carried out by the Chief of the Main Office, and not by me.\nQI didn't ash you that. You had the free choice of who you were going to select, and you selected Gebert to work in the Planning Department. Now later on, in addition to his work in the Planning Department, he took over the Central Land Office, which was under your office group, and you were responsible for that, weren't you?\nAYesterday I think I explained quite clearly that I was not connected any longer with the Central Land Office, because the office group was only a theoretical matter, on paper. However, I had no choice as to whom I could send into the Central Land Office.\nQI went to interrupt you and ask you to cooperate with me. If you don't, I am going to ask the Court for an extension of time. When I ask you a question I want you to answer it, and if you have any explanation your counsel can bring it out on redirect examination. I want to get the facts into this thing, and I am not trying to cut you off, but I want you to answer my questions, and if you have any explanations you can do it later.\nNow, with reference of the Central Land Office, in your testimony yesterday you stated that this land had all been seized before several times, and then, when this Central Land Office seized it, nothing new was added, no regulations were changed. Now those seizures were blanket seizures, weren't they, that had previously been made by the Supreme Commander of the Army and the Chief of the Civil Administration? They did not catalogue this property, did they? They didn't-", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2291, "page_number": "2284", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AI am sorry, that is not quite clear to me. What do you mean by registering the property or the area? That is not quite clear to me.\nQWell, you stated that the Central Land Office catalogued this property.\nAYes.\nQThat had never been done in any prior seizures, had it?\nAWell, it wasn't registered in the Real Estate Register, at least, it was only registered as a whole, on the strength of a decree.\nQThey were blanket registrations; it was a blanket seizure. Now, you have testified that the only thing you knew about the German People's List was the fact that they were trying to separate the Germans from the Poles. You knew nothing about 1, 2, 3, and 4, the classes or groups. Now I am going to hand you some documents, and I want you to tell this Tribunal if it wasn't the duty of the Central Land Office, in cataloguing this property, to show what property belonged to the ethnic Germans, what belonged to the Poles, and what belonged to the Jews, and I hand you documents 5541 and 5563. Doctor Meyer, let me ask you this. Just tell me this. That document 5541 is a letter to the Land Registration Office, isn't it?\n(Documents submitted to witness)", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2292, "page_number": "2285", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AIt's a letter to the land office.\nQYes, and who is it from?\nAThat cannot be seen from the document.\nQWell, what is the next document number,NO-5563?\nAIt's a letter or a file note which I signed.\nQThat's all I want to know. The Prosecution offers Document NO-5541 for identification to be introduced as Exhibit 807. The Prosecution offers DocumentNO-5563for identification to be introduced as Prosecution's Exhibit 808. I offer you another document here for inspection, DocumentNO-5543. I will ask you to state to the court just what that document is, please.\nAIt's a letter addressed to me.\nQThat is all I want to know.\nAThe return and signature are not legible.\nAAll right, you'll have an opportunity to explain it.\nQThe Prosecution offers DocumentNO-5543for identification, to be introduced as Exhibit No. 809. Doctor, you have DocumentNO-5631now. The Prosecution offers this document for identification as Prosecution's Exhibit 810 to be introduced as an exhibit later. Now, Doctor, you will have an opportunity to talk about those. Here's what I want to ask you now: you were chairman of the committee for settlements and you were appointed to that office by Himmler. Now you have never mentioned that much. What was that? Would you explain to me what it was?\nAChairman of a committee for resettlement, you say?\nQFor \"settlements\". Did you make a trip down to Kiev once in that connection?\nAWell, I was at Shitomir.\nQWell, what do you mean about Kiev?\nAI was in Kiev once in the research institute; but as far as a settlement committee or a settlement department was concerned, I don't \n think I ever was in Kiev.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2293, "page_number": "2286", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QWell, I hand you two documents here: DocumentsNO-5074and NO-768, and ask you whether or not you are the person therein described. There are two Meyers referred to there. I want to ask you if you are not one of them, and if you are, I want you to tell the Court about being chairman of that committee.\nAI think that can be easily explained -- but you spoke of a settlement committee; that is the translation I heard here in German -Siediungs. Committee -- and I never hoard about that.\nQWell, I ask you this, doctor, are you the Dr. Meyer that is mentioned in those two letters?\nAWell, I am very sorry but I have to read it because at the very beginning I see already a Gauleiter Meyer, and I never was a Gauleiter.\nQI said there were two Meyers mentioned there, and asked whether you were one them. Doctor, you will have an opportunity to explain all of that. The prosecution offers for identification DocumentNO-768to be introduced as Prosecution's Exhibit 811, and we offer DocumentNO-5074for identification to be introduced as Prosecution's Exhibit 812.\nDoctor, are you the man that is mentioned in those letters?\nAYes.\nQWe have no further questions.\nDR. BEHLING:I ask to be permitted to ask a few questions to this witness in redirect examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is rebuttal. Confine yourself to that.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQThe Prosecution just asked you whether you remained in the SS until the end of the war. I am asking you whether it is correct that once you had been drafted into the Armed Forces in autumn of 1944, you eventually served in the 344th infantry division?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2294, "page_number": "2287", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AYes, that was my unit.\nQWere you released as a lieutenant and not as a Sturmfuehrer?\nAI was released as a lieutenant of the reserve.\nQThe Prosecution put to you a document,NO-5563, and connected this document with the development described by the witness BachZelewski concerning the planning in 1939 in Upper Silesia. Will you please tell us what date this document bears?\nAI am sorry but I don't have it here right now.\nQI am sorry. I got mixed up there. It's the wrong document. I apologize. I am speaking of Exhibit 806.\nAThe date is 13 April 1944.\nQIn other words, it's not connected at all with the development described by the witness Bach-Zelewski of 1939?\nANo.\nQYou were questioned about the General Plan East. In order to refute the assertions of the Prosecution, will you please again come back to the question which I mentioned in direct examination -- but only in a few brief words, please, and clarify the fact that the questions of alien ethnics did not come into consideration in your planning at all.\nAThat is correct. They did not come into consideration in my planning.\nQIs it correct that you were looking for a synthesis between indigeneous population and the German racial body?\nAYes.\nQAnd that this synthesis was to be carried out only 25 years after the war?\nAI was convinced that once the war was over, a slow organic development would level cut the contradictions between Polish and German ethnic groups and that the gap could be filled to the effect of a reasonable solution and a reasonable living of the two ethnic groups, \n one next to the other.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2295, "page_number": "2288", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDocumentNO-5631, Exhibit 810 is dated the first of September 1943, and it's a letter written by the central land office from Schweikelberg. At that time, did you manage the affairs of the central land office?\nANo.\nQWas the central land office in any way under your supervision in any other matter during that period?\nANo.\nQI assume that the Prosecution when they referred to what they called the settlement committee in cross examination meant thereby the work you did in the Reich Food Ministry, is that correct?\nAYes, the general task resulted thereof. It was a coordination, or at least an attempt at coordination, of the planning between the Reich Food Ministry and the Main Staff Office including also the Ministry for the incorporated eastern territories.\nQWell, we have discussed that already in direct examination. We don't have to hear that now. I don't want to lose the Tribunal's time for that.\nAOh, yes, I see.\nQThe other documents submitted to you, and more particularly Documents Exhibit 809, 810 and 807, deal with incidents connected with the central land office which took place on 9 of July 1941 or 6 of August 1941 allegedly. During that period, were you provisionally in charge of the planning of the central land office?\nAMay I ask you for the exact dates?\nQThe 9 July or 6 of August 1941. Were you the acting manager of the central land office them?\nAWell, that was during a period of which I am not so entirely informed as to whether Mundt was already in charge again. I assume it though with certainty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2296, "page_number": "2289", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Lamb, you had about five minutes left. Do you want to ask any further questions?\nMR. LAMB:No, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is escused)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Who will you call next?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2297, "page_number": "2290", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "DR. BEHLING:Your Honor, at this time I would like to call the witness Dr. Meding.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR. BEHLING:At this point may I submit to the Tribunal the following: For my next witness, after the witness Meding, I am to call the female witness Passy. This witness has permanent residence in Berlin. At the proper time, I had informed the Secretary-General that it would need a certain amount of time to got this witness here. The SecretaryGeneral has taken great pains to get the witness here. But eventually I was informed that for unexplainable reasons, the witness encountered difficulties in obtaining her travel orders in Berlin. She was told that as she was a witness for the Defense it was not essential that she leave on the day she thought she should leave but she was told to delay her trip, and that is the reason why this witness arrived at Nurnberg at a later hour yesterday and I had no possibility to talk to her. Now if I would call this witness today, then it would be quite likely that I would use up the time of the Tribunal to a very large extent, and therefore I ask to be permitted to suggest that should it be in agreement with the Prosecution may I interrupt my case in chief today after I have dealt with this witness and cede my place to Dr. Gawlik asking him to proceed with the case for the time being. Schwarzenberger in order to enable me to talk with my witness and to call this witness after Dr. Gawlik is through with his case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What does the Prosecution say?\nMR. LAMB:We have no objection, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I see no reason why you should not do that.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you very much, your Honor. I think the witness has to be sworn in.\nERHARDMEDING, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "ERHARD", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2298, "page_number": "2291", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness, repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may be seated.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, will you please give the Tribunal your full name and your date of birth.\nAMy name is Erhard Meding, and I was born on the first of May 1909 at Dresden.\nQWhen did you join the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAAt the beginning of 1941 I joined the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. I was a member of the general interior administration and was detached to the Reich Commissar, Main Staff Office.\nQWhat do you mean by this \"detaching\" to the Reich Commissar?\nAFirst of all, this was to express that only provisional employment was expected; furthermore, I kept my job officially in the general interior administration; in other words, I was only loaned from one top level Reich agency to another one.\nQDid you have any other connections with the Main Staff Office? I mean of a scientific nature?\nAThrough technical publication on landscaping and legal matters concerning construction I became known to Professor Meyer-Hetling via the research service directed by Professor Meyer-Hetling, and he caused my detachment to the Planning Office.\nQIn other words you worked in the Planning Office?\nAYes.\nQWith what individual task were you concerned there?\nAThe first task I was given was to prepare directives of a \n specialized nature concerning questions of rural communal matters, concerning the establishment of rural administrative authorities and concerning the separation of fields of competency in the administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2299, "page_number": "2292", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "That was the scope of my work which was generally known as administrative planning.\nQDid you have anything to do with landscaping and care of landscapes?\nAYes, that was the reason for my detachment. I had to work in the field landscaping and care of landscapes, and later the administrative and country planning system was also added.\nQHow long did you work in the Planning Office?\nAUntil January 1944.\nQA while ago you said that you had been detached from one top level Reich Agency to another one. What makes you think that the Main Staff Office was a top level Reich authority?\nAI assumed that because the Main Staff Office received its funds from the Reich Minister of Finance, and also from the fact that the audit court of the German Reich checked the use of these funds; and I think I can remember that in some execution directive of the Reich Ministry of the Interior it was specifically designated as a top level Reich authority.\nQYou told us already that the research service and the planning office were lodged in the same building. Did you work in the research service too?\nAThe research service and the planning office were housed in the same building, and as most of the other collaborators of the planning office, I worked also for the research service; for instance, I gave expert opinions and I had to manage the work of the community for landscape biology within the research service. May I add that there was a very close contact altogether within the circle of collaborators of Professor Meyer-Hetling between the individual functions he held in the \n research service, as director of the institute for agricultural science in the Berlin University, and as Plenipotentiary for the Planning Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2300, "page_number": "2293", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2301, "page_number": "2294", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "The collaborators interchanged and would work in one function once and in another function the next time.\nQ.Well, that gives us in broad outlines already the positions which Professor Meyer held when you joined the office in 1941. May I ask you to explain also whether it is correct that at the beginning of the war the defendant MeyerHetling took over the management of the Planning Office as an honorary and part-time job?\nA.I knew that Professor Meyer-Hetling took over the function of manager of the Planning Office only as an honorary function.\nQ.Compared with the daily arising questions of the other departments of the Main Staff Office, were the questions of the Planning Office of secondary importance or how was the connection between these two?\nA.During the period while I worked in the Main Staff Office, as far as I can see, it had two tasks.\nQ.Witness, I only asked you -- excuse me for interrupting you -- I only asked you whether the tasks of the Planning Office, as compared with the tasks of the other six or how many departments, were of secondary importance or not.\nA.Well, they were on quite a different level. They were even of very secondary importance because they were not conditioned by the daily tasks of the other departments and offices.\nQ.Was the Planning Office an essential wheel in the motor of the Main Staff Office?\nA.I can't say that. The other offices of the Main Staff Office were engaged in the direction of the flood of the repatriated persons into their provisional homes and \n the dealing with the property questions and, therefore, they were interrelated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2302, "page_number": "2295", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "But, as the Planning Office had no part in the channelling of this flood of resettlers, it did not intervene and had no functions at all in this connection.\nIf you want to keep the example you gave me of the motor and the wheel, therefore, you can say that it was not an essential wheel in the motor but that it turned only around its own axis.\nQ.Well, what was the nature of the tasks of the Planning Office?\nA.The tasks of the Planning Office were of a theoretical and scientific nature and of a preparatory nature.\nQ.Were the tasks intended for peacetime and were the plans to be used after the war had ended or were they questions of actuality?\nA.As I said already, the tasks of the other offices dealt with actualities while the scientific preparation of planned landscaping, however, is a task which, in its very nature, can only be carried out in peacetime.\nQ.We have already heard that the Planning Office and the Main Staff Office were separated as far as the location of the offices were concerned. Now, did this separation from the Main staff Office not lead to difficulties in the factual collaboration with the leading offices of the Main Staff Office?\nA.There were no such difficulties for the very reason that, as I have already explained, the tasks of the Planning Office were not interrelated with the other offices and were not directly connected with them as far as the work was concerned.\nQ.Therefore, the designation Planning Office was \n a little bit out of place there, wasn't it, and according to what you described to us this designation of the office of the defendant was not quite in line with what actually existed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2303, "page_number": "2296", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Wasn't it rather a research office for agricultural planning tasks?\nA.As far as the facts are concerned, this designation certainly would have been more correct if you understand by Planning Office an agency which issues binding directives in any respect, for instance, if you would compare it with the Central Planning Board of the Speer Ministry or the Four Year Plan or other planning agencies in other countries.\nQ.But within the Main Staff Office was the Planning Office something like the general staff of an army, in other words, a central management office where all the threads came together?\nA.This comparison is wrong in every respect because the Planning Office had no authority whatsoever to issue directives and it wasn't even consulted for the measures taken by other offices because, after all, it only dealt with rural planning.\nQ.You said already that the Planning Office had no authority to issue directives to the other offices of the Main Staff Office, but did it have the authority to issue orders to other top level Reich authorities?\nA.It had no authority to issue directives to the other main offices under the Reich Commissar, for instance, VOMI; nor had it the right to issue directives to top level Reich authorities. These top level Reich authorities carried out their measures for the whole area on the strength of their own authority.\nQ.Yesterday we dealt with the complicated structure of the rural planning, especially the administrative \n difficulties arising between the Reich Agency for Space Planning on the one hand, and other agencies dealing with the planning and there we made the acquaintance of the rural planners too.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2304, "page_number": "2297", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Did the Planning Office have the right to issue orders to those regional agencies or not?\nA.The Planning Office had no right to issue any orders to the Regional Agencies and especially not to the rural planners. The rural planners were only and alone under the authority of their superior, namely, the Reich Agency for Space Planning.\nQ.But rural planners were also active in the Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nA.Even the rural planners in the Incorporated Eastern Territories were under the authority of the Reich Agency for Space Planning.\nQ.Therefore, Meyer and the Planning Office had no right to issue orders at all?\nA.No, they had no right to issue orders to the rural planners. May I point out, for instance, that in the official German Legal Collection and Commentary, the so-called Pfundtner-Neubert, you find under the key word \"Space Arrangement\" a detailed description of the administrative and judicial position of the rural planners even for the Incorporated Eastern Territories and for all such territories of the German Reich as are involved, and that neither the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism nor the Planning Office are mentioned by even one word.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2305, "page_number": "2298", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, before the recess we discussed the field of work of the planning office and I have the impression that especially with objectively thinking people this must have been an activity which was somewhat far removed from the realities of daily life. What actual work did you carry out in the planning office?\nAThe task of the planning office was of a scientific reasarch nature. It referred to the systematic development of the settlement areas within the scope of country planning. This is a field of work which is very complicated and difficult and involves detailed and precise preliminary work of a scientific nature. The planning office itself, in the course of its work, only carried out the first phases of this activity. First of all it began to compile directives. Plans to be carried out were not developed. One would perhaps say that for individual rural communities model plans were set up, also for landscapes, but they were only theoretical plans.\nQWas that the preparation for a scientific development of social and rural planning of the entire Reich? Was it an advance into new scientific fields?\nAOne can say so, because the directives were developed in such a way that fundamentally that could be applied to the entire area of the Reich with additions in the specific regions. The incorporated Eastern territories were in a certain way only the practical example. The plans were also set up in such a way that they constituted a general contribution to the scientific branch of rural planning and development, as well as to social planning, as it is called in Anglo-Saxon countries.\nQThen we can say that these attempts were something new for Germany but that for other countries, especially England and the United States, this kind of planning was quite well known at the time?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2306, "page_number": "2299", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AIn a scientific respect the task was also well known in Germany. However, up to that time no details had been worked out yet systematically. By way of comparison for example one can refer to the Tennessy control authority in the United States and in England we can refer to the field of work of the Minister of Town and Country Planning.\nQThen the planning office only had something in common with the Main Staff Office from the organizational point of view while actually, as far as its work was concerned, had nothing to do with it. Is that correct?\nAOne can say that the fact that the planning office was annexed to the Main Staff Office, was just an accident, and that it would have been quite as feasible if the task which had been taken over by Professor Meyer-Hetling had been carried out on the basis of the research service, or the Reich Agency for Space Allocation or the Reich Minister of the Interior.\nQDo you know that Professor Meyer-Hetling since 1942 seriously gave consideration to the plan that a statute should be drafted to the effect to separate the planning office from the Main Staff Office?\nADuring the time when I worked in the Planning Office, Professor Meyer-Hetling had recognized the fact that the two tasks, which I have differentiated already in the beginning, were not sufficiently connected with each other and therefore he always had the intention to consider how it would be possible to put the planning work on an independent scientific basis. He was thinking of the establishment of a Reich institute for Agricultural and Settlement Planning; he probably also drafted some plans about that. He didn't like the idea somehow that an administrative agency or a Government agency should have this office incorporated to it, because he was afraid that his independence as a scientist could be influenced by politics or some other consideration.\nQCondequently, the activity of the planning office was more or less a scientific supplementation of the functions of the Reich agency for space allocation or of other Reich agencies?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2307, "page_number": "2300", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AYes, that is true, and that was taken into account by having some collaboration take place with the Reich agency for space allocation as far as scientific matters ware concerned. After all the Reich agency for space allocation could utilize the results of work for the entire area of the Reich in the form of stimulations.\nQDoes this also explain the fact that in the year 1943 you took over the same department in the Reich Ministry of the Interior?\nAYes, the Reich Minister of the Interior at the time was also interested in formation about questions of agricultural planning and development for the entire Reich area. When in the Reich Ministry of the Interior in 1943 a department for administrative planning was established, I was put in charge of this department in order to utilize the experiences which we had gained in our field of work. Afterwards I further more was put in charge of the departments of care of countryside and protection of home country, in the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQWitness, before you were referring to the general lines of your work. Did you mean by that that they had been established for some agency or some authority?\nAThese directives were not binding as to administrative law. These were scientific principles and suggestions. They were recommendations in a certain way to those agencies which had to carry out tasks with regard to rural planning.\nQI now would like to ask you a few technical questions which result from the business distribution plan. On the 1st of August 1942, a business distribution plan was put into effect which the Prosecution has offered here a s an Exhibit 18, Document Book 2-A on page 38, document 4060. From this compilation, it could be assumed that the importance of the planning office was much greater than you have described it to us, I am now going to hand you this document and I ask you to comment on it, this business distribution plan of 1942. Did it ever have any importance?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2308, "page_number": "2301", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AThis business distribution plan, as far as the planning office is concerned, instituted only a general outline, and it was just a matter of putting it down on paper. At the time we wanted to give a systematic survey of the most important fields of work which were to be considered in social and rural planning. That is how the individual so-called departments were established. The subdivisions of the individual departments which have been mentioned in this plan in small letters cannot be understood to be departments or sub-departments but they are just terms on paper in order to show what a particular field of task comprised.\nQHow was the personal development of the planning office carried out in view of the departments which were provided in the business distribution plan?\nAEven during the year 1942 when the planning office was still fully staffed, in most departments except the Chief of the Department there would be one more specific export who could perform the work. Several department heads or referats carried out several functions simultaneously. Perhaps I could give you an example for that if you want mo to do so.\nQGo ahead.\nAThe department I, inventory and examination of space was the most strongly staffed. Here the scientific material was collected. It had one department head and two, or sometimes less, assistants, who had received some preliminary scientific training. Department 2, National Planning, did not have its own department head, and Dr. Gebert, who is mentioned here, was the permanent deputy of Professor Mayor, and when Dr. Gebert, in 1942 or 1943 left the planning office \n this position was not given to anybody else.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2309, "page_number": "2302", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Within the department National Planning for example, the fields of work mentioned under the small letters a to f and h were not taken care of by special experts. I, myself, had the function mentioned under the letter g, Law and Administrative Order. The department 3, Space Planning, was directed by Oberaurat Umlaut, the same man who furthermore was in charge of Department 5, Construction of Cities. In both departments there was one scientific expert each. On a temporary basis in Department 3, there were two experts and one of them was turned over to the Construction Office, Dr. Schach. Department 4, construction of villages had one department head and one scientific expert. Department 6, care of landscape and landscaping, was taken care of by me because the Special Commissioner for that task, Professor Wibking was not employed there but he was only a collaborator on an honorary basis.\nQI think that is sufficient. Then we have the impression as if this were a Potemkin village actually, considerung the structure. Is that correct?\nAUnder peace time conditions, yes.\nQDid the planning office have anything to do with questions of the resettlement of human beings or of the planning for that?\nAThe planning office had nothing to do with these questions and a clear difference was made between human beings and space. Space Planning questions were the task of the planning office. The control over the resettlers was the task of Office I.\nQWitness, I am now going to put to you two different documents. They are documentsNO 5074, Exhibit 812 and \n NO 786, Exhibit 811, which the Prosecution has shown to the defendant Meyer during the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2310, "page_number": "2303", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Please comment on these two documents.\nABoth these documents are unknown to me. However, perhaps I could make some comment on the subject itself. In line with the campaign in Russia it became evident that the German settlers in Russia, especially those in the Ukraine, who had lived there for a century or even longer, for the most part had been deported or their number had decreased considerably. Once these territories had come under the control of the German Armed Forces it was considered appropriate that these people should be assembled in order to protect them, especially against the effects of the partisan warfare. For this purpose we conceived the idea, and this idea did not originate in the planning office, of settling these people together in several villages. Since the administrative authority in those areas was the task of the Reich Minister of the occupied Eastern territories he was in charge of these matters. Himmler, however, had expressed the desire to be consulted in the execution of these tasks.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There seems to be more trouble with the sound system. We will have to recess until it is corrected. The court will recess subject to the call of the Electrician.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2311, "page_number": "2304", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proseec with the examination. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, since the cause for the interruption has been eliminated, please turn again to the two documents which I handed to you just before the interruption and comment on them.\nAI wanted to say the following on the subject: It was intended then as a result of this emergency situation that a collaboration should take place between the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories in the East, the Reich Food Minister who was also interested in the question, and, as a result of Himmler's desires, which I have already mentioned here, between Professor Meyer, who was also to be included. It was then intended to establish a settlement committee; however, before this could be done, Professor Meyer personally informed himself about the situation which prevailed in the Ukraine, and then actually a session took place. As far as I can recall it was the only one which took place, in which the Reich Minister for the Occupied Territories did not raise any objections to the intention of assembling these Germans into villages, especially after the possibilities of feeding these people had been secured by the Reich Food Minister. However, as far as the planning office was concerned, and also for Professor Meyer-Hetling personally, as far as I know, this terminated the matter, for Himmler conducted personally and exclusively the assembling of these people, since it was in the vicinity of his headquarters. Therefore, no Berlin agency had to collaborate. Furthermore, there is no need for me to say that the settlement in this area of the Ukraine did not come within the scope of our work.\nQTherefore, it was just an emergency situation which had to be dealt with.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2312, "page_number": "2305", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AYes, it was conditioned by the special situation which was caused by the partisan warfare.\nQAt this time I would like to announce a document to this Tribunal which I have in Document Book I of Meyer-Hetling, and which is Document 27. This is an extract from the Polish Emigrant Newspaper in London, which deals with the activity of the underground movement of Russians and Poles in these particular areas. I shall offer this document in the course of my presentation of documents. Who had to deal with tie execution of resettlement drives in the Main Staff Office?\nAOffice I had to deal with the matter which was in charge of supervising its execution.\nQDid the planning office have anything at all to do with the allocation of human beings?\nAI think I have already stated that this was not the case.\nQDidn't also the department for foreign folkdam have anything to do with that?\nAFirst of all I would like to state that there was no such thing as a department for alien folkdom. In discussing the business distribution plan I already stated that these were only phrases on paper in order to show the factual extent of the work of the departments. However, on that occasion when the business distribution plan was compiled, we also took into consideration the scientific material which was available to us, and since among it there were also a number of scientific works which dealt with ethnological and sociological questions of other European nations; the phrase foreign folkdom was also added. However, in practice it just remained an empty file; it was just a cover-word because we did not deal with this field of work factually.\nQIn the course of your work or later on did any instances become known to the planning office which had something to do with the kid \n napping of foreign children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2313, "page_number": "2306", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AThings of that sort did not come to the knowledge of the planning office.\nQDid you see any signs with regard to the abortions carried out on foreign workers?\nANo.\nQDid you hear anything about the taking away of infants from female eastern workers?\nANo.\nQDid the planning office deal with things of that sort?\nAThings of that sort were not handled by the planning deportment, nor was the planning office informed about things of that nature.\nQI am now going to put several points of the indictment together in order to simplify this examination. Did you hear anything about the punishment for sexual intercourse with Germans for Poles and other foreigners?\nANo.\nQDid you hear of any cases where the reproduction between foreign nationals and Germans was prevented?\nANo.\nQDid the planning office have anything to do with forced evacuations?\nAThings of that sort were not dealt with by the planning office.\nQDid it play any part in the forced Germanization of enemy nationals?\nANo, in no form whatsoever.\nQDid anything happen with regard to the kidnapping of foreigners for slave labor in Germany?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2314, "page_number": "2307", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDid the planning office have anything to do with spoliation of public or private property?\nAIt did not make any recommendations nor did it deal with matters, nor, did it receive any information about it.\nQDid the planning office deal with questions of deportations and evacuations or the extermination of Jews in any form?\nAThings of that sort were not dealt with by the planning department.\nQDid Professor Meyer comment on questions of that kind?\nAI know nothing about it.\nQWere you always informed about all the tasks of the planning office, and did you have the possibility of looking at the files?\nADuring the two years of my membership to the planning office, I participated in the regular conferences and I would also attend for the most part the special conferences. The matters which have been mentioned here were not discussed in the course of these conferences which dealt exclusively with rural planning. In my personal relationship with Professor Meyer, these subjects were not touched upon either. In 1943 when the planning office had to be reduced as a result of the decree concerning the discontinuance of planning I received the assignment to look after the administrative and technical tasks connected therewith. On that occasion I looked through all the files which were kept in the planning office, and at the time I didn't find any instance or any action taken with regard to these matters which have been mentioned here; there wasn't even anything of an informational character.\nQWitness, do you know anything about the question General Plan East?\nAYes, in the planning office files were kept with a term General Plan East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2315, "page_number": "2308", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QWas the General Plan East drafted in the planning office?\nAYes, the phrase was coined in the planning office by using the technical term \"General Plan\" ----\nQExcuse me, witness, I wanted to know -- you misunderstood me; I wanted to know whether the General Plan East originated in the planning office.\nAYes, it originated in the planning office.\nQAren't you making a mistake there?\nAThese files which I have just mentioned which showed the term General Plan East were kept in the planning office, but a General Plan East actually did not exist in the form of a plan.\nQVery well. Can you remember that at the University Institute for Agricultural Science and Policy a scientific work was developed under this term General Plan East?\nAYes, that was the plan which was submitted then.\nQYes, that is what I wanted to hear from you.\nABut excuse me, you asked me whether there was any file with the term General Plan East, and it actually existed, then the institute took care of handling this matter; this must have been approximately in the year 1942.\nQAnd what was the reason for that?\nAThe reason was the following: Professor Meyer had the intention of getting a general insight into the expenses and the requirements of material which were involved in agricultural planning and developments in the eastern incorporated territories; then, a report was made about that. In addition to this report, after Meyer's report additions were requested by Himmler concerning regional and other matters. This made it necessary to a greater degree than it had been the case before to carry out examinations with regard to agricultural science for the settlement structure, rural planning and things of that sort. And for that reason Professor Meyer decided to have this matter worked out with \n the institute for agricultural science by consulting his collaborators there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2316, "page_number": "2309", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "The work which was compiled later on was intentionally not compiled by the planning office but it was a work by the Institute for Agricultural Science, and it dealt with agricultural science. This must have been in 1942.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2317, "page_number": "2310", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDid this so-called General Plan East have the aim to destroy the living principles of national groups, to dissolve political and social institutions, and to extinguish the lives of members of foreign nations?\nAThese subjects were not dealt with in the General Plan East because its basic thought was the ideal development of those ares of the incorporated eastern territories to which it referred. Ethnological questions were not mentioned.\nQDid the planning office deal at all with these thoughts or did the Institute for Agricultural Science ever deal with these questions?\nANo.\nQFrom the ideas mentioned in the General Plan was anything put into practice?\nAIt was never executed and it was not possible to execute these ideas because no feasible plan existed. It was only a scientific opinion.\nQAs far as you can remember, how did Professor Meyer react towards Himmler's desires for a regional extension.\nAI can recall that Professor Meyer shook his head and was somewhat disgusted after he had reported to Himmler, and he expressed the fact that on the basis of the previous work; which showed already that the task of a systematic development, of the incorporated eastern territories from the economic point of view as well as from the constructive point of view would have needed the funds of the Reich for many years such extensions to other areas outside of the incorporated eastern territories would just be Utopian. Now, this further extension was to be planned in financial respects by careful consideration of the estimates, and by a careful estimation of the requirements and funds, and it was to be shown that if would not be possible because every person who read this report which was then compiled would realize that the whole plan was entirely impossible. Furthermore, as far as I can \n recall, the matter was further dealt with by Professor Meyer in a delaying manner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2318, "page_number": "2311", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QAnd was the whole matter then forgotten?\nAAs far as I know, yes, in the year 1942.\nQWere any of the plans, ideas, sketches and suggestions carried out in the form of scientific outlines in any other form in practice?\nAThe outlines made by the planning office were never put into effect, not a single plan for the development of a municipal village was put into effect in the incorporated eastern territories which could have been carried out on the basis of the potential planning. I mean put into effect in the legal administrative sense as to instructions for the execution of these plans and things of that sort. Furthermore, in the incorporated eastern territories not a single plan for the practical application in any district was put into force. The rural planners only made sketches about space arrangement. I can state positively that after the suggestions and recommendations which were worked out in the planning office, not a single estate nor any village was subjected to any change or was ever constructed.\nQThen, the planning office was only planning for the planners; is that correct?\nAIt was the task of the planning office to continue to develop the scientific tradition in the field of rural planning and social planning during wartime.\nQDid the planning office have any subordinated agencies in the individual districts or in the planning areas of the incorporated eastern territories?\nAThe planning office did not have any subordinated agencies, that is to say, agencies which would have been obligated to report to the planning office or agencies to whom it could have issued instructions. In the case of individual agencies of the representatives in the district \n of the incorporated eastern territories, for example, in Posen, there was a so-called planning department which informed itself about the practical development of agricultural and community planning which came under the competency of the government authorities, and if necessary informed these agencies on the suggestions which were contained in the directives of the planning office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2319, "page_number": "2312", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QHowever, now it becomes evident from documents which have been submitted that also at Lodz, Lublin and in the Crimea there were planning agencies. What were they; do you know them?\nANo, I don't know these planning agencies. Perhaps it may be, although I don't know what documents you are referring to, that the regional agencies on their own initiative found it necessary to keep a department for planning on their staff.\nQMay I put to you DocumentNO-2555, Exhibit 34, in Document Book II-B, on page 90 of the German text, where a planning agency in Lodz is mentioned. Can you tell us whether this planning agency was subordinated to the planning office or whether it worked together with it in some other manner?\nAI personally am not acquainted with the planning agency at Lodz; it certain was not subordinated to the planning office; I can gather from this document that it was a department of the settlement staff at Lodz, and I assume that in the case of this planning the distribution of the settlers who had been repatriated from the east was concerned and that some place of accommodation had to be found for them.\nQI am now going to put to you DocumentNO-4009, Exhibit 255, in Document Book V-C. Here on page 82 and on page 88 of the German text a Professor Hogler or Rogler has been mentioned, who apparently had to deal with planning in the Crimea. Do you know this professor; did you ever hear of him, and do you know his field of work?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2320, "page_number": "2313", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AI never heard of Professor Hogler or Rogler nor of his field of work.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2321, "page_number": "2314", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.In another document, document 2477, Exhibit 200-C, in Document Book V-A, on page 12 of the German text, which I am going to hand to you now, a total plan is mentioned which is alleged to have been examined by the Main Staff Office in connection with a settlement drive at Zamocz. Did the planning office have anything to do with this?\nA.This total plan did not come to my knowledge. Perhaps the Higher SS and Police Leader as the representative for the Government General and as plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar may have compiled on his own initiative, such a plan within his office.\nQ.However, there was also a planning agency at Lublin, and Lublin is also located within the Government General. Did this agency have anything to do with the Planning Office?\nA.The planning agency at Lublin had nothing to do with the Planning Office. However, I do know that such a planning agency did exist. It was subordinated to the SS and Police Leader at Lublin, Globocnik, and, as far as I can recall, it received its instructions from Himmler directly.\nQ.Was the work of the Planning Office maintained to its full extent during the entire time of the war?\nA.It was not maintained to its full extent, but in 1942, as a result of conscriptions into the armed forces, experts of the Planning Office were also drafted.\nQ.What were the effects of this Stop Decree?\nA.The so-called Stop Decree was only put into effect in 1943, as far as I can recall, and it ordered that post-war planning -- and, after all, that was the planning work of our office -- was to be discontinued. As a result of this Stop Decree, the majority of the department heads and experts were conscripted for military service. The further development of plans, principles and outlines would have been illegal, according to this decree, and therefore it did not take place anymore. We limited ourselves to compiling the results of the work which had been accomplished previously.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2322, "page_number": "2315", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.Did you remain in the Planning Office any longer?\nA.I remained in the Planning Office until January 1944, and then I received a different assignment.\nQ.Did the defendant Meyer draw any conclusions from this development?\nA.I can recall that after the first reduction in personnel in 1942, and in particular after the Stop Decree had been issued, Professor Meyer experessed the desire to be conscripted into the armed forces, since it was impossible for him to carry out any fruitful and necessary work.\nQ.I am now coming to the organization of the office groups. According to the Business Distribution Plan, Professor Meyer was not only the Office Chief of the Planning Office, but he was also in charge of Office Group C. Can you tell me something about the establishment of these office groups?\nQ.The reasons why these office groups were established as an organizational measure as well as its importance were not known to me then. I thought this was done for administrative technical reasons, in order to simplify work.\nQ.What were the effects of the introduction of the office groups upon the Planning Office and upon the general position of Professor Meyer?\nA.The introduction of the office groups did not have any practical effects upon the Planning Office. After all, Professor Meyer continued to be the Chief of the Planning Office on an honorary basis.\nQ.And what about his general position?\nA.As to his general position, there was no change at all, because the activities of the two other offices were not inter-related with the work which was done by the Planning Office.\nQ.Weren't the authorities of the new chiefs of the office groups put down in a new business regulation?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2323, "page_number": "2316", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.As far as I know, they were not.\nQ.Was a new business regulation established?\nA.I do not know of any new standard order of procedure.\nQ.Did the office chiefs of Office Group C, as before, have the right to report directly to the Chief of the Main Office personally, or did they have to report first to the Chief of the Office Group?\nA.Nothing was changed in the relationship between the office chiefs of the three offices and the Chief of the Main Office, as far as I know. Furthermore, as far as it was necessary, they had the right to report to the Chief of the Main Office directly.\nQ.Was any special office established, a special archive and special file marks, established for Office Group C?\nA.No administrative measures were taken for Office Group C. There were no special files, nor was there any special office, nor did they have their own business procedure.\nQ.However, in the documents, from time to time, we see documents which bear the file mark \"C\". Did this file mean that a matter had passed through Office Group C?\nA.I don't assume so. I am of the opinion that in all these cases these matters were submitted by the individual offices.\nQ.How was it with the incoming and outgoing mail system?\nA.The incoming and outgoing mail system went on as before, without any inclusion on the part of the office groups. Mail went directly to and from the respective offices in Office Group C.\nQ.What do you know about the Construction Office?\nA.I know very little about theConstruction Office. I had the impression that this was an institution which had to take care of construction work for the Main Staff Office for internal purposes, especially in connection with the damage, which was caused on several occasions by air attacks, to the office building of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the Construction Office have any connection with the \n Planning Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2324, "page_number": "2317", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.There was no factual contact between the Planning Office and the Construction Office; one could mention the fact that the collaborator of the Construction Office, Dr. Schach, had formerly worked in the Planning Office, and, in line with the reduction of personnel in the Planning Office, he had been turned over to the Construction Office.\nQ.But that had no factual importance, did it?\nA.There was no internal factual connection with this.\nQ.As Chief of the Office Group, did Professor Meyer have any influence on the activities of the Construction Office?\nA.I know nothing about that. I cannot even recall that the Chief of the Construction Office ever reported to Professor Meyer, especially since the office was later on transferred to Schweikelberg.\nQ.Was there any constant official contact between the Planning Office and the Central Land Office?\nA.Such factual permanent contact did not exist because, as far as the work of the Planning Office was concerned, it did not make any difference who was the owner or who had the title to the individual properties in the Incorporated Eastern Territories.\nQ.As far as the relatonship between t heCentral Land Office and the Planning Office were concerned, did they become any closer when Professor Meyer became Chief of the Office Group?\nA.Nothing changed in the relationship between the Central Land Office and the Planning Office.\nQ.Now a specific question. Can you recall that Professor Meyer was opposed to changes with regard to the ownership titles in the incorporated Eastern Territories?\nA.From the point of view of rural planning, any final change in the disposition of real estate ownership was undesirable. I can recall that in several cases Professor Meyer complained about arbitrary decrees \n which had been issued by the Reichsstatthalter or the senior presidents of the Incorporated Eastern Territories with regard to Polish real estate property.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2325, "page_number": "2318", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2326, "page_number": "2319", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 11 December 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR.BEHLING (Counsel for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nI still have questions for about five minutes, Your Honor, that is all.\nERHARD MEDING (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, the last topics which we discussed were the changes in the title of real estate in connection with the activities of the defendant Meyer-Hetling. Do you know of any specific instances of such transfers?\nA.I can remember one development in Southeast Prussia, where the Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter, Koch, had the intention of acquiring and of forming an estate in Krosna, and using Polish real estate property for that purpose. Professor Meyer-Hetling protested against that project. He went on the spot himself and made investigations, and he reported to Reichsfuehrer Himmler to that effect.\nQ.Well, did he simply report or did he complain?\nA.Well, he reported in a negative sense; he complained, if you want to put it that way. He objected to this project.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Meyer-Hetling gave his full time to the planning tasks and all matters connected with them?\nA.Professor Meyer-Hetling could only give part of his time to the tasks of the Planning Office. Above all, he was professor of the University of Berlin and Director of the Institute for Agricultural Research at the University. In that capacity he had to give his regular lectures, help students pass examinations, take part in meetings of the University Council, and so on and so forth, and he also had to take care of the administrative duties connected with those tasks. Apart from that, he was Chairman of the Research Service for Agricultural Affairs, and in \n that capacity he had to take care of current affairs, which took quite a bit of his time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2327, "page_number": "2320", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Only the remainder of his time was at his disposal to take care of the tasks of the Planning Office.\nQ.Could you tell us, in a few brief words, how Professor Meyer's day was divided up?\nA.As far as I can remember, you can consider that his day was split up as follows: During the morning hours, from about 9 o'clock to 1300, Professor Meyer-Hetling was regularly in the building of the Research Service. During that time it was always possible to talk to him concerning affairs of the Planning Office. His afternoons, generally speaking, were taken up with his activities in the Institute. In 1943 for a certain period of time, while I was his permanent deputy, he was very much taken up with literary work in the afternoons, and he decided that he should be disturbed only in exceptional cases. Of course, on one day or another the course of affairs and of business could change that division of the day.\nQ.Was it due to his strong professional overburdening that Professor Meyer-Hetling was to be exempted from all office tasks and allminor tasks in the Planning Office?\nA.As far as I know, Professor Meyer had made it a specific condition that he should have nothing to do with the current work of the management of the Planning Office, and he should be exempted from having to deal with that work by having a permanent deputy appointed. At the beginning that was Dr. Gebert, and later on, temporarily, myself.\nQ.Now I do not want to lose any time with having Professor Meyer characterized by you, but I only ask you to tell me this: As a subordinate of Professor Meyer, what was your personal impression of him?\nA.I especially remember -- and it struck me particularly at the time -- that as far as politics were concerned, Professor Meyer had no preconceived opinions, no prejudices, and no severe attitude. In his \n office, and particularly in the Research Service, a certain number of non-members of the Party were amongst his collaborators, and when Party organs expressed their political views, he repeatedly held his hand over these people and protected them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2328, "page_number": "2321", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.Do you remember a few names?\nA.Well, for instance, I remember Dr. Krause. As far as I remember, he went to America later on. Then there was Dr. Christalla, and I think you can count Dr. Morgen and Herr von Schauroth in that category also. None of them were members of the Party.\nQ.And this political tolerance was also known amongst the collaborators of the Planning office, was it not?\nA.Yes, he defended that attitude quite openly.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you, witness.\nNo further questions.\nDR.HAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Greifelt): I have only a very few questions, which I ask the Court to permit. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.How long have you known Greifelt , witness?\nA.I have known him since I joined the Main Staff Office in February 1941.\nQ.Did you make the acquaintance of Greifelt as the Chief of the Main Office, who directed his office and his agency strictly in compliance with the orders of the top level agencies?\nA.I cannot confirm that.\nQ.Was he a protagonist of the high-strung Nazi ideologies?\nA.No, one cannot say that. I did not find any political color in the leadership of the Main Office expressed by Herr Greifelt. It was a mere business-like administrative and economically correct management and carrying out of the commission which Greifelt had received.\nQ.Did that find its result also in his personnel policy; I mean, in his attitude towards his staff?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2329, "page_number": "2322", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.Well, that can be seen, I think, from the fact that no political pressure or political training ever took place within the office. The collaborators were apparently selected only in accordance with their professional qualifications.\nQ.Did he try to make the measures comply with the requirements of practical life, to bring thme into line with practical life?\nA.That was a special characteristic of his management, namely, specifically the practical requirements of the day, and the needs which would arise from the practical requirements of a situation were taken into consideration. Dogmatic views were never defended.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross-examination.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2330, "page_number": "2323", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Witness, I just have ten minutes in which to talk with you, and I know you are tired from talking so much, so if you will just answer my questions as nearly as you can with \"Yes\" or \"No\", after that ten minutes you can explain anything you want to explain.\nDid you know Dr. Meyer before you went to work at the Main Staff Office?\nA.I knew Professor Meyer before I joined the Main Staff Office,\nQ.Did you know the defendant Greifelt before you joined the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the defendant Greifelt present in the Planning Office on many occasions?\nA.No, very rarely only.\nQ.Were you employed by Dr. Meyer?\nA.I didn't quite get the meaning of that.\nQ.Dr. Meyer is the man who gave you your job there, isn't he?\nA.I was delegated to the Planning Office from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, but how the whole matter developed in detail I couldn't tell you I am afraid.\nQ.Did the defendant Greifelt have an opportunity to observe your work in the planning office?\nA.I hardly think that he had the possibility of supervising or checking my personal work.\nQ.Did he have the possibility of supervising or checking the per sonal work of the other members of the Planning Office?\nA.He did not use that opportunity. As far as I remember, at the most, he would intervene on account of certain construction details once in a while.\nQ.The defendant Meyer brought Dr. Gebert to the Planning Office as his deputy when he came there, did he not?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2331, "page_number": "2324", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.I don't know that because I wasn't in the Planning Office at that time, but I knew that Gebert was his deputy when I joined the Planning Office.\nQ.Now, you remember that when the work of the Planning Office slowed down by reason of the stop order, that Dr. Meyer had Dr. Gebert transferred to the Central Land Office, do you not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, witness, you spoke of his work at the university. If I told you that the records of the University of Berlin showed that during the period from 1939 to 1945 that Dr. Meyer usually lectured two hours a week and never more than four hours a week, would you say that that was incorrect?\nA.I cannot judge that because I do not have the register of lectures and I do not have any information concerning the lectures themselves in detail, because the lectures were not given in the Planning Office, you know.\nQ.But Dr. Meyer was in the Planning Office and you have testified that you knew how his time was divided. Now I ask you if that is an unreasonable estimate of the time that he spent in lecturing?\nA.Do you mean the estimate made by the University and stated as such? I couldn't judge that.\nQ.Now you know that Dr. Meyer took a good many trips, don't you, into the eastern territories and into other territories that had been occupied by Germany?\nA.I don't know anything about a trip in the occupied eastern territories except that one case I mentioned a while ago during my direct examination; otherwise, Professor Meyer-Hetling made individual trips once in a while into the incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.Well, that was the territory that had been occupied by Germany, wasn't it?\nA.The incorporated eastern territories were occupied by Germany \n during the Polish campaign, but to the larger part they were former German territories.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2332, "page_number": "2325", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.Do you know how many trips Dr. Meyer took into the incorporated eastern territories or any other territories that had been occupied by Germany during the war?\nA.I couldn't give you a figure. He wasn't on the road very frequently anyhow.\nQ.Do you know anything about the resettlement of people in these areas?\nA.From the period I worked in the Planning Office, I have no knowledge about resettlement in those areas except that Germans were repatriated and committed to those areas afterwards.\nQ.Now with reference to the work of Dr. Meyer, you spoke of him as having an honorary position. He gave orders to the people who worked in the Planning Department, didn't he?\nA.Professor Meyer only had an honorary position. He was Chief of the Planning Office and in that capacity he issued orders to the employees of the Planning Office.\nQ.And his orders were carried out, were they not?\nA.Well, yes, directives and orders he gave were carried out.\nQ.I have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, the Prosecutor just asked you whether the defendant Meyer-Hetling had brought Dr. Gebert into the Planning Office and had transferred him from the Planning Office to the Central Land Office. Now to refresh and to support your memory, I am putting to you Document 4128 in Document Book II-B, on Page 36. This document, Your Honors, has no exhibit number, and it shall be submitted by me at a later date. Witness will you please tell us who issued this directive concerning the transfer of Gebert and who signed it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2333, "page_number": "2326", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.The directive concerning the transfer of Dr. Gebert to the Central Land Office was drawn up by the Chief of the Main Staff Office in his absence. It was signed by Herr Creutz.\nQ.Could Meyer have transferred or carried it out at all?\nA.Only within the Planning Office.\nQ.You testified further that the defendant did not leave Berlin very often. Did I misunderstand you there or do you mean to imply by that that he hardly ever went on an official trip, or perhaps you don't quite known what you mean by \"frequently\" or something like that. It's always very hard to define a vague term like \"frequently\". It's very ambiguous.\nA.Professor Meyer did go on official trips. He also went on trips in his capacity as a scientist and he gave lectures, and for this reason he would be absent once in a while; but at the present date it's not possible for me to give any kind of figures or proportional figures concerning the time Professor Hetling spent in Berlin and the time he spent out of Berlin.\nQ.No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. (The witness was excused.) Do you have anything else other than the witness that you wanted to examine later?\nDR. BEHLING:Unfortunately not, Your Honor, because my document books are not ready either; they are still being translated. If the Tribunal permits, I shall now interrupt my case in chief, close it at the present stage for the time being, and I ask permission to resume the case in chief later, after the Schwarzenberger case has been terminated, or if the Tribunal so desires, I am also ready to resume it right away when the document books are here. My whole case in chief will need not longer than another 90 minutes inclusive of the documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Proceed with the next defendant.\nDR.GAWLIK: (for the defendant Schwarzenberger): I start my case in chief for Otto Schwarzenberger by the direct examination of the defendant \n Otto Schwarzenberger, as witness in his own case.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2334, "page_number": "2327", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "If the Tribunal permits, I shall now call the defendant Otto Schwarzenberger to the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the defendant come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2335, "page_number": "2328", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "OTTOSCHARZENBERGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWitness, will you please give the Tribunal your full name?\nAOtto Schwarzenberger.\nQWhen and where were you born?\nAI was born on the 22of January 1900 at Landau/Pfalz.\nQWhat was your education?\nAI went to grammar school for four years; for three years to high school at Landau/Pfalz; and then I went to the Bavarian Cadet Corps; and after the war, in 1920, I graduated from high school at the Wittelsbach High School at Munich.\nQDid you take part in the First World War?\nAAt the end of the First World War, I was a soldier.\nQWhat was your highest rank at that time?\nAI was a cadet.\nQWhat profession did you learn?\nAAfter I had graduated from high school and until October 1922 I was a bank apprentice.\nQOnce you had finished your apprenticeship, did you practice as a bank clerk?\nAAfter I had gone through my apprenticeship, I was at first, until the 31 of March 1923, a bank employee, and later until June 1924, \n I was a bank plenipotentiary and stock exchange representative.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "OTTO", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2336, "page_number": "2329", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QWhat activities did you exercise after you had finished that job?\nAAfter that job, I was in the Singer Sewing Machine A.G., in the central office at Munich.\nQFor how long did you stay in that job?\nAI worked in that firm for ten years.\nQWhat was your work in that Singer Sewing Machine A.G.?\nAAt the beginning, I was assistant manager and then manager of various branches, and during the last years, I was division director of the central agency at Munich.\nQWhen did you retire from your job at the Singer Sewing Machine, A.G.?\nAOn the 30 of April 1934.\nQWhat job did you take after that?\nAI worked in various SS agencies; at the beginning, I was in the Revision Auditing Department, and later on, I was administrative chief and chief of the treasury.\nQWhat were the reasons why you quit your job in the Singer Sewing Maching A.G. and you took up a job with the Agency of the SS?\nAIn the Singer Sewing Maching A.G. I did not retire for political reasons but only because an opening existed in theSS administration in my special department as auditor and treasury specialist, and the chances in that field were better there.\nQWere you a member of the SS at that time already?\nAYes.\nQWhat SS formation did you belong to?\nAI belonged to the SS Cavalry Sturm I at Munich.\nQWhen did you join the SS?\nAI joined the SS on the first of March 1934. That was the date when I was received in the SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2337, "page_number": "2330", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QWhen and by what wasyour activity with the SS agencies terminated?\nABecause I was drafted into the Armed Forces on the 27 of August 1939, I was an officer of the reserve.\nQFor how long were you a soldier?\nAFrom the 27 of August 1939 until the 15 of September 1940.\nQTo what formation did you belong during that period?\nAI wasin artillery regiment 212.\nQWas that a unit of the Waffen SS?\nANo, it was an artillery regiment of the army.\nQDuring that period, were you a member of the Allgemeine SS, the general SS?\nADuring my period of service with the Armed Forces, my membership in the general SS was temporarily suspended.\nQFor what reasons were you exempted from the armed service on the 15 of September 1940?\nAAn order of the division exempted me from military service and gave me the order to report to the office, Budget and Buildings, in Berlin, which had been my agency in peace time.\nQWere you exempted because of your knowledge and on your own request?\nANo.\nQWhat work did you do after that?\nAAfter that I was chief of the financial administration in the Main Staff Office of the RKVFD.\nQWhen did you start your work there?\nAI started at the beginning of October 1940.\nQDid you take these tasks voluntarily?\nANo, I was ordered to take that over on the strength of an official conscription.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2338, "page_number": "2331", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QDid you have the possibility to avoid this conscription or to object to it?\nANo.\nQWhat would have happened if you had not complied with that conscription?\nAI would have been brought before a tribunal and severely punished.\nQWhen you joined the Main Staff Office, how was your pay arranged?\nAAs all the employees of the Reich, I was paid in accordance with the Reich wage scale from the funds of the Reich Ministry.\nQ when you were drafted into the offices of the Reich Commissar, what information did you have at that point concerning the tasks and activities of that agency?\nAThe whole agency was completely unknown to me. Previously I had never heard at all of the government agency involved.\nQDid you at any time deal with race questions, with questions of ethnic groups or with resettlement questions?\nANo, neither previously nor subsequently.\nQYour membership in the SS, was it a primary requisite for your being drafter into the offices of the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQWhen did you become Chief of Office V?\nAWhen the Main Staff Office was reorganized in August 1942.\nQYour membership in the SS, wasit a primary requisite for your being appointed Chief of Office V?\nANo.\nQCan you give more detailed reasons for that?\nAThere were office chiefs who were appointed office chiefs in spite of the fact that they were not members of the SS; for instance, \n the Chief of Office Group III, Goetz; office chief, Hofmann, who was Goetz's successor in office III; both of them have been questioned here as witnesses; and apart from that, Hiege, the office chief; both Goetz and Hiege only received an honorary SS rank later on.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2339, "page_number": "2332", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QHow was the official contact of these office chiefs with you?\nAThese office chiefs were exactly on the same level with me. To a certain point I was even their subordinate, as far as the level was concerned, because they could issue directives for payments to be made through Office V; for instance, Office III could do so in the case of furniture procurement.\nQHow long were you director of the Office V?\nAUntil the 24 of April 1945.\nQWhat terminated your activity?\nAOn that day I was redrafted into the Armed Forces.\nQAnd what wasyour fate after the war was terminated?\nAOn the 2 of May 1945, I was captured by the Americans.\nQWere you released from your prisoner of war status?\nAI am still a prisoner of war. It's true that in October 1945 I was notified that I was no longer a prisoner of war but that from now on I was a civilian internee. However, now as before, I consider myself a prisoner of war because I have never been a freeman since.\nQI am now turning to another point, to the question of the general organization of Office V. What was the official designation of Office V?\nAFinancial Administration of the Main Staff Office.\nQWhat were the tasks and activities of Office V?\nATo accept payments, to make payments, and to book and enter into the books the payments made and received; furthermore, the pay was being dealt out by this office, the procurement for internal service necessities, the vehicle pool; and Office V apart from that was the preliminary checking agency of the Reich auditing court.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2340, "page_number": "2333", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QFrom whom did you receive the funds?\nAI received them from the Reich Minister of Finance via the Reich Main Treasury with the exception of the rather inferior amounts received on the land transfer account.\nQWell, we will turn to the land transfer account later in another connection. On the strength of which directive did you receive the money from the Reich Minister of Finance?\nAOn the strength of the law of 7 October 1939.\nQWho decided the amount to be transferred to Office 5?\nAThe Reich Minister of Finance on the strength of the budget project.\nQHow were the funds used by Office 5?\nAFirst of all, by covering the expenses of the Main Staff Office; second through the forwarding of money to Vomi and its pay offices; to the pay offices of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar; to the DUT; to the DAG; to the Reich Physician Chamber for questions of care for the resettlers; to the WEZ; to the UWZ, and to the Lebensborn.\nQDid you forgot one in that list?\nANo, I don't think so.\nQOn the strength of what legal prescriptions were the activities of Office 5 settled and regulated?\nAFirst of all, by the Reich Treasury decrees and the Reich Budget Regulations; also by the tariff regulations; the journey and the placement expenditure regulations and the Reich Tariff and Fee Regulations. My main task in this connection was the establishment of the pay for the employees of the Main Staff Office and of the field agencies in accordance with the regulations for pay and wages.\nQDoes that become apparent, namely, the application of the Reich Treasury Decree from a directive of the Main \n Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2341, "page_number": "2334", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AYes.\nQWhat decree do you refer to there?\nAFrom the employment plan contained in my affidavit No. 4714 in Document Book II-B on page 51.\nDR. GAWLIK:For the record this is Exhibit 31. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWhat is the Reich Treasury Decree?\nAThe Reich Treasury Decree is a Reich Law of the year 1927.\nQAnd what is the significance of the Reich Treasury Decree?\nAThe Reich Treasury Decree regulates the tasks and activities of all agencies of the Reich concerning the administration of funds.\nQAnd what is an agency of the Reich?\nAA government agency is an official agency of the Reich, the land, the communities or any other public body.\nQIs it known to you that the Reich Treasury Decree makes a distinction between various kinds of treasuries?\nAYes.\nQTo what group did the Treasury of Office 5 belong?\nAOffice 5 had an office treasury in the sense of the Reich Treasury Decree.\nQCould Office 5 decide independently concerning individual payments to be made?\nANo.\nQWhat preliminary requisites had to be complied with for every payment?\nAThere had to be a decree of the competent administrative agency which was to receive the payment or there had to be \n a law.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2342, "page_number": "2335", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QIsn't that regulated by law?\nAYes.\nQBy what law?\nAParagraph 37 of the Reich Treasury Decree.\nQWhat was the reason why th VOMI and the other agencies mentioned by you, and which were not part of the Main Staff Office, received their funds via the Office Treasury of the Office 5?\nAIt had been directed by law that the number of office treasuries in direct contact with the Reich Minister of Finance should be kept on as low a scale as possible. Therefore, not every independent agency had an office treasury. On the contrary, for quite a number of agencies one joint office treasury was established and all payments would go via this one treasury then. That applied to the Main Staff Office and to the other agencies receiving their funds from Office 5. Normally every single one of these agencies should have had an office treasury of its own.\nQCan you derive that justification from the Reich Treasury Decree?\nAYes.\nQFrom what article?\nAFrom article 5 of the Reich Treasury Decree. There it is stressed specifically that the treasury affairs of various administrative agencies should be concentrated in one office treasury in this particular case in a so-called unitarian treasury.\nQWas Office 5 such a unified treasury in the sense of this regulation?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2343, "page_number": "2336", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QWhy did the Reich Ministry of Finance choose the Treasury of the Main Staff Office as a unified treasury for all the agencies to which you made payments?\nAThe reasons were merely of treasury nature. It was not at all connected with anything like common tasks. As far as I know there were no common tasks between those agencies.\nQWho conducted the negotiations with the Reich Ministry of Finance concerning the granting and the amount of the funds which you were to channel to the agencies just mentioned?\nAThe agencies involved themselves conducted these negotiations.\nQDid you have a part in those negotiations?\nANo.\nQDid the Reich Ministry of Finance, before they granted, ask for your opinion?\nANo.\nQYou have stated that the unified treasury of Office 5 made payments only on written application of the administrative agency involved. In as far as there was no legal prescription, who issued the orders for the payments made by this Main Staff Office?\nAThe Reich Commissar himself, in other words, Himmler, the director of the Main Staff Office, various office chiefs in as far as they were in charge of tasks of the Main Staff Office.\nQWithout such a directive could you make payments to agencies of the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQOn the strength of such an order could you refuse the payment?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2344, "page_number": "2337", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QWere the individual orders for payment within the Main Staff Office dependent on your approval?\nANo. Basically speaking, they were not, only in the case of expenses for the inner service needs, procurement of inventory articles, and so on and so forth. There my approval was necessary. The extent of the payment had already been limited by the budget which had been approved.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2345, "page_number": "2338", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.I am now putting to you DocumentNO-4679, Exhibit 28. It is in Volume II-3 on Page 39 of the German Document Book and I call your attention to IV-B. (Document handed to witness.) Did this directive also apply while you were working in this Main Staff Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Well, can you give us some detailed reasons for that?\nA.A short period after I had assumed my duties in the Main Staff Office this directive was cancelled by a later directive, and the new directive had provided that in the cases of procurement of articles for the inner service needs of, at the beginning, not more than 500 and later, according to my recollection, of more than a thousand Marks, the approval of the Financial Administration had to be received first.\nQ.From the payment orders received by Office 5 did the purpose for which the funds were to be used become apparent?\nA.Only from the payment orders issued by the Main Staff Office itself while the payment orders for the other agencies did not show the purpos of use for the funds.\nQ.I am now putting to you DocumentNO-4060, Exhibit 18 in Volume II-A on Page 51 of the German, (Document handed to witness.) There you see that the first task for Office 5 is stated as being the management of all administrative agencies of the Main Staff Office. What were the administrative agencies of the Main Staff Office which are mentioned there?\nA.First of all, the administration proper of the Main Staff Office and the administration of the field agency in Lodz.\nQ.Of what did the management of these agencies consist?\nA.It consisted of the allotment of the monthly staff means and in the supervision of the funds, and the use to which they were put.\nQ.What are the service means you were referring to?\nA.The service means are those means necessary for the maintenance of an agency, such as wages, rent, procurement cost, procurement itself, and so on and so forth.\nQ.Of what did the activity of Office 5 consist concerning the \n supervision of the expenses?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2346, "page_number": "2339", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.We had to audit the treasuries.\nQ.Were the auditing reports submitted to you?\nA.No; only in as far as special deficiencies were noticed the auditing reports and eventually the receipts were submitted to me.\nQ.Which government agency was competent administratively to order the payments to be made to the agencies of the VOMI?\nA.The Main Administration of VOMI and the Gau Commitment Administr tions.\nQ.Was the payment order of the VOMI dependent on your approval?\nA.No.\nQ.Without such orders for payments could you have payments made to the VOMI?\nA.No.\nQ.If such payment order was given by the VOMI could you refuse to make the payment?\nA.No.\nQ.From the payment requests of the VOMI could you see the purpose for which the funds were to be used by VOMI?\nA.No. The requests were made in tot, that is, for the whole amount.\nQ.I again submit to you DocumentNO-4060, Exhibit 18, and there is another task of Office 5 stated, namely, the management of the Administrative Agencies of VOMI. Of what did that activity consist? (Document handed to witness.) It is on Page 31 in the German.\nA.This activity consisted of the monthly forwarding of the means for the service for every month and also in the supervision of the use to whic these funds were put; and, apart from that, global amounts for expenditure were forwarded to the VOMI.\nQ.Apart from that did you have an activity concerning the management of the administrative affairs of VOMI?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2347, "page_number": "2340", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Can you give us more detailed reasons for that?\nA.The management of the administration of VOMI was in the hands of Hagen, chief of the main administration of VOMI. In this field Hagen was quite independent. It is true that I had authority to issue administrativ directives but that happened very seldom and if I did, then these directives were always previously discussed with Hagen and established in writing.\nQ.Since when did you exercise that activity?\nA.According to my recollection, as from April, 1941 or it could also be September, 1941.\nQ.Who had ordered the payments and who had to request the payments to the agencies of the Plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar?\nA.The local administrations, regional administration with the Reichstatthalters, the senior presidents, the chiefs of the civil administration, the Higher SS and Police Leaders in Germany proper in as far as these people were plenipotentiaries of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Were those requests dependent on your approval?\nA.No.\nQ.Could you have payments made to these agencies without such a request?\nA.No.\nQ.If such a request was made to you by these agencies could you refuse to make those payments?\nA.No.\nQ.Could you see from these requests what was the purpose to which the funds were to be used?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not?\nA.The requests were made in the following manner: They said cash on hand on this and this date so and so much money, unpaid bills so and somuch, approximate requirements, so and so many, and these requests at that time, from the twentieth of every month until the twenty-fifth, had to \n be sent to our offices and then the payment of the required amounts was made.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2348, "page_number": "2341", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.I am again submitting to you Document 4060, Exhibit 18, and I am asking you what was your task as chief of the Agency of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar?\nA.Forwarding the monthly service needs for staff and for personnel and requirements and the supervision of the use to which the money was put.\nQ.Who ordered the payments to the DUG, DAG and the Reich Physicians Chamber for the questions of resettlement and who requested these funds?\nA.Each of these agencies requested the amounts they needed.\nQ.Did the DAG constantly receive the means for the operation from you?\nA.No.\nQ.What funds would the DAG receive from you?\nA.The DAG only received whatever estimation fees were due to them from us.\nQ.The payment of funds to these agencies you just mentioned, was it dependent on your approval?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2349, "page_number": "2342", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.Could an office file refuse such payments when such a request was received?\nA.No, the office files had to comply with the Reich Budget decree.\nQ.Could you see from the request to what purpose the money was to be used?\nA.In the case of the DUT and of the Reich Physicians' Chambers one could not say what purpose the money was to be put to because the amounts were requested in toto. In the case of the DAG, the use to which the money was put was known because those were the appraisal fees.\nQ.Do you know that in the organizational plan you are listed as financial plenipotentiary for these agencies?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever use this title in your activity for these agencies?\nA.No.\nQ.What financial powers did you have for these agencies?\nA.My only power was to forward and to request the funds for these agencies from the Reich Main Treasury.\nQ.Did you have any more extended financial powers for these agencies?\nA.No.\nQ.Did these three agencies settle accounts with Office 5?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Could you see from the accounts to what use the money had been put?\nA.In the case of the DUT and in the case of the DAG of course I could but in the case of the Reich Treasury Chamber my agency, according to my recollection, during the last two years, audited the accounts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2350, "page_number": "2343", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.Were the auditing reports submitted to you?\nA.No, only in as far as special exception was taken with the report. Special complaints were made and they were submitted to me and they were audited only with regard to Treasury matters.\nQ.What do you mean by Treasury matters?\nA.Well, only as far as expenditures were concerned, but the purpose of expenditures was not checked.\nQ.Did the Minister of Finance also transfer the funds for the EWZ and UWZ to Office 5?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who requested the funds for the UWZ and the EWZ?\nA.The UWZ and the EWZ themselves.\nQ.Was the payment of these funds subject to your approval?\nA.No.\nQ.When these funds were not requested could you have payments made to EWZ and UWZ?\nA.No.\nQ.Could you see from the request to what use the money was to be put?\nA.No. They were again requested in toto.\nQ.Were you informed about the tasks of the EWZ and the UWZ while you worked in Office 5?\nA.All I knew about them was that the resettlers had to check there in order to see whether they could receive German nationality and whether they were eligible for regermanization but I didn't know any details.\nQ.How did the accounting of these agencies concerning the use to which the funds were to be put, take place?\nA.The accounting, as far as they received funds from Office 5, was made in the form of a final budget report.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2351, "page_number": "2344", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "Q.From this report could you see to what use the money had been put?\nA.No.\nQ.Could you see to what use the money had been put from this final budget report?\nA.No, the EWZ and UWZ were under the direct authority of the RSHA and both agencies were ordered directly by the Reich Auditing Court.\nQ.Were you financial plenipotentiary for the EWZ and the UWZ?\nA.The only powers I had were to request the total amounts from the Reich Main Treasure and to draw these amounts from there but my powers did not go any further.\nQ.The Main administration of the VOMI, of the DUT, DAG, EWZ, UWZ: Were they checked by Office 5?\nA.They were all audited by the Reich Auditing Court.\nQ.Who exorcised the complete activity in Office 5?\nA.We had about 15 experts with auxiliary staffs.\nQ.To what did the figure of all the persons employed in Office 5 amount to?\nA.The staff of Office 5 in 1942 was about 60 or 70 persons. However, towards the end of the war it was reduced considerably.\nQ.Did your subordinates work in an independent manner?\nA.The experts in charge accounted independently on a very large scale.\nQ.Who supervised the activity of these experts in charge?\nA.The department chiefs.\nQ.How many department chiefs did you have in your office?\nA.About seven to ten.\nQ.Well, what was your activity in the Office 5?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2352, "page_number": "2345", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "A.I had to supervise the activity of the experts in charge and thus I had to support the department chiefs and their work.\nQ.Did you receive reports on every detail from your subordinates?\nA.No, considering the extent of the official work of Office 5, that was not possible at all.\nQ.Were all the accounts submitted to you -- the accounts of those agencies which received funds from Office Treasure 5?\nA.No, they were submitted to the Treasury or the official but I myself could not deal with the individual payments and accounts.\nQ.Did you over and beyond the activity you just described exercise an activity in the management tasks of the other offices?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you informed about the measures taken by the other offices of the Main Staff Office currently?\nA.No.\nQ.During your activity in Office 5 did you at any time receive knowledge about the directives which are contained in the book issued by the Main Staff Office assignment and committment of resettlers, \"Menscheneinsatz\"?\nA.I have read that book here in prison for the first time and there is not even one signature of mine unread and I have seen that my name is mentioned at no place.\nQ.That concludes the chapter organization and I now turn to the individual points of the indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2353, "page_number": "2346", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. GAWLIK: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwarzenberger)\nQI am now coming to the individual counts of the Indictment. Count 11; did the Main Staff Office have a task to take racially valuable children out of the occupied territories for the purpose of re-Germanization and to give them into special orphanages and to foster parents?\nANo.\nQDo you know anything about the Decree 67-I. This is Document NO-1615, Exhibit 407, in Document Book VIII-D, on page 17 of the German text.\nAI know of this decree today. I assume that during my activity in the Main Staff Office it must have passed through my hands. According to this decree the Finance Administration of the Main Staff Office was instructed to take care of the expenses arising out of bringing the children into homes and schools until such a time until a decree to the contrary was issued.\nQWhy were these expenses paid by Office V only until a decree stating the contrary was issued?\nAThis probably was done because the payments for these measures actually was not a part of the task of the Finance Administration of the Main Staff Office. The payments, first of all, were taken over by the Finance Administration until it had been ascertained who was competent for the payment of these measures.\nQWere the Home Schools an establishment of the Reich Commissar?\nANo.\nQWere the Home Schools an institution of some agency which was on the same level of the Main Staff Office or which was subordinated to it?\nANo.\nQWere the Home Schools an institution which was to serve the \n purpose of Germanizing ethnic German children?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2354, "page_number": "2347", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "ANo.\nQTo whom were the Home Schools subordinated?\nAThe Home Schools were subordinated to the Inspector of the Home Schools, who, as far as I know, was in turn subordinated to the Inspector of the Home Schools, who, as far as I know, was in turn subordinated to the Reich Minister of Education.\nQWhat was the purpose of the Home Schools?\nAThe Home Schools were a special type of school in the German educational system. In the Home Schools the children of German workers were placed; for example, if both parents were employed at some place or another; or, if the father was in the military service and the mother went out to work; and these people were unable to take the proper care of the children, then these children could be accommodated in these Home Schools.\nQWhat do you know about the origin of the children, which by means of the Reich Commissar were to be placed into Home Schools.\nAI could not have known more than was contained in the Decree 67-I. According to this ethnic German children without families were involved, who were to be taken away from any further Polish influences.\nQDuring your activity as head of the Finance Administration, did you ever see such orphan children who had been sent to the Home Schools by order of the Reich Commissar?\nANo.\nQWas the accommodation of these children in the Home Schools a part of the task of the Finance Administration?\nANo.\nQWhat office was competent for that?\nAOffice I.\nQWhat was the activity of the Finance Administration in the case of these measures?\nAIt only had to transfer funds to the Home Schools in order to \n take care of the expenses arising out of accommodations for the children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2355, "page_number": "2348", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDid you work on these transfers of funds?\nANo.\nQWho carried out the transfer of the funds?\nAThe expert Kohner who was competent for this matter.\nQCould Office V have prevented or refused to carry out the payments which Greifelt had ordered to be made?\nANo. That becomes evident from the Reich Budgetary Decree.\nQWhat payments were made for the German orphan children who were placed into these Home Schools?\nAFor these children the treasury of the Main Staff Office only took care of the costs arising out of the accommodations. These payments had been agreed on with the inspectorate of the Home Schools, and they amounted, as far as I can recall, per day, per person, to one mark and fifty pfennigs.\nQWhat do you mean by expenses for accommodations?\nAExpenses arising out of the necessary food and quarters.\nQDid the treasury of the Main Staff Office furnish funds to Lebensborn in order to procure clothing for these children?\nANo.\nQWas the Lebensborn one of the agencies which was subordinated to the Reich Commissar?\nANo.\nQTo whom was the Lebensborn Society subordinated?\nAThe Lebensborn Society was a registered society, and it was not a government agency; it was subordinated to Himmler directly.\nQDid the finance Administration of the Main Staff Office carry out any payments to Lebensborn?\nAYes.\nQWho had given the corresponding orders?\nAThe Reich Minister of Finance had issued these orders.\nQWhat do you know about the fact for what reason the Reich \n Minister of Finance issued an order to that effect?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2356, "page_number": "2349", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AI know this as a result of notifications of the Reich Minister of Finance, and also notifications from Sollmann who was in charge of the Lebensborn. The Reich Minister of Finance had given annual allowances to the Lebensborn. Since the Lebensborn did not have its own treasury, the Reich Minister of Finance, as far as I can recall, had ordered in the summer of 1942 that these payments for financial and technical reasons ware to be carried out by the office treasury which existed with the Main Staff Office.\nQDid you have any right to dispose of these funds?\nANo.\nQDid you have any right to make decisions as to the use to which these funds were to be put?\nANo.\nQOf what did the activities of Office V consist with regard to these payments?\nAOffice V would receive the payment from the Reich Minister of Finance, and it would pass on these funds to Lebensborn. In this case it had no right to carry out any auditing with regard to the use to which these funds were put.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2357, "page_number": "2350", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDid it become evident from the requests made by the Lebensborn for funds just how these funds were to be used?\nANo.\nQJust how did the requisitions for funds read?\nAThe requests for funds read approximately as follows: Please remit to me the amount of such and such figure from the Lebensborn account to that and that bank.\nQDid the requests for funds contain any further details?\nANo.\nQDid you hear the speech of Himmler at Bad Schachen on the 13th of October, 1943? This is Document 870, in Document Book VIII-A, on page 1 of the English document book.\nANo. I only heard of contents of that speech here.\nQI am now coming to Count 12 of the Indictment. Did Office V play any part in any measures which were taken in order to interrupt pregnancy of eastern female workers?\nANo.\nQWere any funds for such purposes issued by the office treasury of Office V?\nANo.\nQFor purposes of this kind were any payments made to the Reich Chamber of Physicians?\nAOnly for medical care; hospitals were established and dispensaries in the camps -\nQ(Interposing) Just a moment, witness. You didn't quite anyswer my question. I didn't ask you just for what these funds were spent, but I asked you were funds furnished for any measures which were taken in order to interrupt pregnancy in the case of female workers from the east; were any payments made to the Reich Chamber of Physicians for that purpose?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2358, "page_number": "2351", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "ANo.\nQFor what purposes did the Reich Chamber of Physicians receive funds from Office V?\nAIn order to give medical care to the resettlers. For that purpose hospitals were established and dispensaries established in the camps and rather extensive medical depots were set up.\nQDuring the time of your activity in the Main Staff Office, did you ever receive any knowledge of the fact that some agencies would carry out abortions on eastern female workers?\nANo.\nQDid you furnish funds to any agencies in the government general in order to try to influence legislation in the government general, to the effect that abortions which were carried out on Polish women should not be prosecuted by law any more?\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activities in Office V of the Main Staff Office did you over hear of the fact that measures of that kind were intended?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office V of the Main Staff Office did the local classification experts of RuSHA, amongst other things, give a racial examination to pregnant women from the east?\nANo.\nQThe agencies which carried out the racial examinations of the pregnant polish workers, were they paid by Office V?\nANo.\nQDid Office V make any payments to the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAYes, these payments were made to the field office at Lodz.\nQWitness, and how was it with the other agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2359, "page_number": "2352", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AThe Finance Administration made payments to the field office of RuSHA, which waslocated at Lodz.\nQFor what reasons were payments made to that agency?\nABecause this agency had to take care of the racial examinations of the resettlers and people who were eligible for re-Germanization.\nQWho carried out these examinations at Lodz?\nAThese examinations were carried out by a racial classification expert of RuSHA.\nQWho ordered payment to be paid to this agency?\nAThis directive had already been issued when I took over the office business of that office; I don't know who issued it. The funds for this purpose were approved by the Reich Minister of Finance. Who negotiated with the Reich Minister of Finance about this matter. I don't know.\nQHow were requests for payment made?\nAThe requests were made in total figures.\nQWere these racial classification experts at Lodz occupied with racial examinations of pregnant female eastern workers?\nAAs far as I know, they were not. The racial classification experts at the field office at Lodz only had to deal with racial examinations of resettlers and those people who were fit for re-Germanization.\nQDuring your activity with Office V, did it ever come to your knowledge that these racial classification experts had ever given a racial examination to pregnant eastern workers?\nANo.\nQI am now coming to Count 13 of the Indictment. Did Office V furnish funds in carrying out of any measures dealing with taking away of infants from female eastern workers to the NSV and the Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2360, "page_number": "2353", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "ANo.\nQDid Office V make any paymentsto the NSV or the Lebensborn or some other agency for this purpose?\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity in Office V did it ever come to your knowledge that the NSV or the Lebensborn had taken away infants from female eastern workers?\nANo.\nQDid Office V make any payments in order to take away infants from eastern female workers who were not eligible for re-Germanization?\nANo.\nQDid Office V ever make any payments in order to have such infants taken over to the special resettlement camps for the purpose of extermination?\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity as the head of the Finance Administration did it ever come to your knowledge whether any infants were taken away from any eastern workers?\nAI neverheard anything about all these things.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity as head of Office V, did it ever come to your knowledge that these infants were taken to a special assembly center for the purpose of extermination?\nANo.\nQDid Office V ever make any payments in order to have a racial examination given to the infants of eastern workers?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity as an office chief of Office V did it ever come to your knowledge that the infants of eastern workers were subjected to racial examinations?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2361, "page_number": "2354", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QDid the racial examiners at Lodz have the authority to give a racial examination to the infants of eastern workers?\nANot as far as I know.\nQI am now coming to Count 14 of the Indictment. Did the treasurer of Office V ever furnish any funds for the punishment of eastern workers or prisoners of war for having had sexual intercourse with Germans?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2362, "page_number": "2355", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_1_Daniels (Garand)\nQDid Office V make any payments to racial classification experts who had to deal with these cases?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office V, did it come to your knowledge that collaboration in the punishment of these persons was part of the tasks of the Main Staff Office, or another agency, which received its funds from the office treasury of Office V?\nANo.\nQDuring your activity as head of Office V, did it come to your knowledge that the funds which you furnished were used in order to punish prisoners of war or Eastern workers who had had sexual intercourse with Germans, and that they were to be subjected to Germanization by force?\nANo. During the entire time of my activity it never came to my knowledge that the funds which were paid by Office V to some agency were ever used for such measures.\nQI am now coming to point 15 of the Indictment. Did Office V ever furnish any funds to an agency which had the purpose of hampering marriages or reproduction of enemy nationals from the Eastern Territories?\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity in Office V, did it ever come to your knowledge that the Main Staff Office, or one of the other agencies to whom you furnished funds, played a part in the carrying out of such measures?\nANo.\nQI am now coming to point 16 of the Indictment. Did you ever furnish funds for the purpose of carrying out forced evacuations and resettlement of populations in territories which were occupied by Germany, and sending these people to the Government General?\nANo.\nQFrom the accounts which were rendered to Office V, were you able to see that one of the agencies which received funds from Office V had to carry out measures of that kind?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2363, "page_number": "2356", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_2_Daniels (Garand)\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity in Office V, did this office ever furnish funds to any agencies for the purpose of taking populations from the occupied territories and sending them to the Reich for the purpose of having them work there as slave laborers?\nANo.\nQDuring the entire time of your activity in Office V, did you ever receive knowledge of the fact that the funds which were furnished by Office V were to be used for such measures?\nANo.\nQI am now going to put to you DocumentNO-3688, Exhibit 313, which is in document book 5-E, on page 32 of the German text. There mention is made of the fact, in connection with resettlement in Lithuania, that so-called Reich guaranteed loans were to be used for the resettlement of these persons. Did Office V grant these loans?\nANo.\nQCan you tell us who granted these loans?\nAI assume that thiswas done by the DUT.\nQI am now coming to point 17 of the Indictment. Did Office V, in any way, play a part in the compilation of the DVL, the German People's List?\nANo.\nQDid Office V, in any way, play a part in the decision which was made with regard to the inclusion of persons in the DVL, the German People's List?\nANo.\nQTo what agencies which collaborated in the introduction of the DVL did Office V furnish funds?\nATo the senior presidents.\nQFor what purposes were funds furnished by Office V to the senior presidents?\nAThis was only for the tasks of the senior presidents as \n 11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_3_Daniels (Garand) representatives of the Reich Commissioner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2364, "page_number": "2357", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QDid the agencies of the senior presidents, which had to deal with the introduction of the DVL, receive any funds?\nANo.\nQWere funds furnished to any other agencies which were entrusted with the introduction of the German People's List by Office V?\nANo.\nQI am now going to put to you your affidavit -- in Document Book 2-B, on page 49 of the German text. This is Document No.NO-4713, Exhibit No. 30.\nWhat did you try to express in the statements you made under paragraph 10?\nAI only tried to say that the German People's List was dealt with by the senior presidents, and that the senior presidents received funds from me for that purpose. However, I did not try to say that the funds had to be used by the senior presidents on behalf of the DVL.\nQWas Office V represented in the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQWere you a member of the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQWere any funds furnished by Office V to the Supreme Court for Racial Classification?\nANo.\nQI am now coming to print 18 of the Indictment. Did Office V, in any way, play a part in the deportation of foreign nationals in order to have them work in Germany?\nANo.\nQDuring your activity in Office V of the Main Staff Office, did you know that the Main Staff Office had to deal with such tasks?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2365, "page_number": "2358", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_4_Daniels (Garnad)\nANo, that was not known to me.\nQDid Office V furnish funds to any agency for the execution of these measures?\nANo.\nQDid you give an order to the DAW for the manufacture of furniture?\nANo.\nQDid Office V issue such an order?\nANo.\nQWho issued this order?\nAThat was the furniture procurement agency in Office III.\nQDid you have any knowledge of the fact that this order had been placed?\nANo.\nQDuring your activity in Office V, did it come to your knowledge that concentration camp inmates were employed in the DAW?\nANo.\nQI am now coming to count 20 of the Indictment. When the seizure of public or private property was ordered in the occupied territories, did you play any part in that?\nANo.\nQDid you play any part in the seizure decree of public and private property in the Incorporated Eastern Territories or in other areas which, after the 1st of September, 1939, became part of the Reich?\nANoo I had nothing whatsoever to do with seizure measures.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2366, "page_number": "2359", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_1_Gaylord (Garand)\nQWitness, how was it with the carrying out of such seizures?\nAThe finance administration never carried out any seizures of any kind.\nQDid Office V make any payments for such measures?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office V, did ever come to your knowledge that the Polish Property Decree had been issued?\nANo.\nQDid you participate in the administration of seized property?\nANo\nQDid you order paymnts to be made to the account for the land which had been turned over?\nANo.\nQOn what orders were these payments to the account for land which had been turned in based?\nAThe payments were based on orders from Office IV, Agriculture and the Central Land Office.\nQWas the Office Treasury of Office V tied to the orders which had been issued by these offices?\nAYes.\nQOn what were these ties based?\nAThis was done by virtue of the Reich Treasury Decree.\nQCould you have prevented the acceptance of these payments?\nANo.\nQDid you have knowledge of the individual payments which were rendered?\nANo.\nQCan you give us the reasons why this was not the case?\nAThe land transfer account was dealt with by a special expert. As head of Office V, after all, it was not my task to examine the individual payments.\nQDid you have anything to do with the turning over of seized \n 11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_2_Gaylord (Garand) agricultural estates to resettlers so that they could administer them on a trusteeship basis?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2367, "page_number": "2360", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "ANo.\nQDid you in any way participate in the utilization of seized property on behalf of the resettlers?\nANo.\nQWere funds furnished by Office V for seizure measures of church property or cultural objects?\nANo.\nQDid Office V receive funds for that purpose?\nANo.\nQDid Office V play any part in the seizure of church property or cultural objects or any other objects?\nANo.\nQWas the circular decree of Himmler known to you during the time of your activity in Office V?\nANo.\nQDid the circular decree of Himmler of the 16 of December 1939 come to your knowledge, which had been issued to the police in the incorporated eastern territories as a result of which this decree the seizure of Polish cultural objects and archives were to be carried out on behalf of the Reich Commissar? This is in Document Book XIV B on Page 33, DocumentNO-4623, Exhibit 620. Was this decree known to you during the time of your activity in Office V?\nANo.\nQWitness, when did you receive knowledge of this decree for the first time?\nAI heard for the first time of this decree when it was offered in evidence. It came at a time when I was not even employed by the Main Staff Office. It has the date of 16 of December 1939.\nQWitness, please take another look at the decree and please take a look at paragraph Roman IV. Did Office V ever play a part in the \n 11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_3_Gaylord (Garand) seizure of Polish cultural objects and archives and things of that sort?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2368, "page_number": "2361", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "ANo, it had no possibility to do so.\nQDid Office V ever administer such objects?\nANo.\nQDid the office treasury of Office V during the time of your activity ever receive funds which originated from seizures which were carried out by virtue of the decree which we have just discussed?\nANo.\nQDid the office treasury of Office V ever render any payments for the execution of the seizures which are mentioned in this decree?\nANo. When I entered the office this drive must have been completed already for a long time.\nQIn Himmler's decree, which we have just discussed, it was ordered that the seized cultural objects were to be under the custodianship of the Ahnenerbe. Was the Ahnenerbe an Agency of the Reich Commissar?\nANo.\nQDid the office treasury of Office V make any payments to the Ahnenerbe Society for the objects mentioned in Document 4623 which had been seized?\nANo. This was not the case during my time of work there.\nQDid Office V in any way participate in securing cultural objects in the Getschee area?\nAYes.\nQIn 1941, did you send to the Ahnenerbe the amount of 25,000 Reichsmarks?\nAYes.\nQWho ordered this payment to be made?\nAHimmler had done this in his capacity as Reich Commissar.\nQWhat steps did you take as a result of Himmler's orders?\nAI only saw to it that Himmler's orders were carried out and that the 25,000 marks were paid to the German resettlement plenipotentiary at Lubljana. The Ahenerbe could then dispose of this amount with \n 11 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_4_Gaylord (Garand) the resettlement expert at Lubljana.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2369, "page_number": "2362", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QJust for what were these funds supposed to be used mainly?\nAThese funds were mainly to be used in order to be included to buy books for the church.\nQDid Office V ever distribute any objects which had been taken away from concentration camp inmates?\nANo.\nQIs it known to you whether the Main Staff Office over carried out such activity?\nANoo I don't know that.\nQDid Office V ever make any payments for the procurement of clothing which had been taken away from the Jews?\nANo.\nQDid the distribution of clothing to ethnic German resettlers, did you ever play any part in that, which had originally been taken away from concentration camp inmates?\nANo.\nQDid Office V ever carry out an activity in this field?\nANo.\nQDid Office V ever furnish any funds for the purchase of clothing of that sort?\nANo.\nQDid it over come to your knowledge that VOMI used funds furnished by Office V for this purpose?\nANo, that never came to my knowledge. Hagen talked to me about that on one occasion that he had received clothing of that kind; however, I do not know whether any payment for them was made.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2370, "page_number": "2363", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QIs it known to you, consequently, whether VOMI used funds which had been furnished by Office 5 for the purchase of such clothing?\nAI have just stated that if any payment took place -\nQWell, I asked you do you know it or do you not?\nANo, I don't.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office 5 did you hear anything about it?\nANo.\nQThat is the answer which I wanted to my question. I am now going to put to you, from Document 14-B on Page 69 of the German text, Exhibit 630. This is DocumentNO-4149. (Document handed to witness.) Was the auditing at Stockerau carried out by you?\nANo.\nQDid you sign the auditing report?\nANo.\nQWas the report submitted to you during the time of your activity in Office 5?\nANo.\nQDid you receive any knowledge of the contents of this report?\nANo.\nQCan you give us the reasons for that?\nAIf the report had been submitted to me, then my initials would have been placed on the report. However, that was not the case.\nQWas the auditing of the treasury a part of your tasks?\nANo.\nQWho had been ordered to carry out the treasury auditing work?\nAThe officials and employees of the auditing department.\nQHow many officials belonged to the auditing department?\nAOffice 5 had 15 to 20 auditing officials. However, the number decreased considerably towards the end of the war.\nQWere all auditing reports submitted to you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2371, "page_number": "2364", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "AOnly if they contained some irregularities.\nQDid the auditing also extend to the examination of the measures for which funds had been used?\nANo.\nQDid Office 5, during the time of your activity, ever administer Jewish property?\nANo.\nQDid the agencies of the representative of the Reich Commissar of a department which dealt with the administration of Jewish property?\nANo.\nQDid you ever or did the treasury of the representative of the Reich Commissar at Cracow?\nANo.\nQDid you ever establish a department for the administration of Jewish property? Did you ever audit such an agency in the office of the representative at Cracow?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office 5 did you have knowledge of the fact that the representative of the Reich Commissar at Cracow had established such an agency?\nANo. Such department could not have existed in the office of the representative of the Reich Commissar because that would have come to my knowledge.\nQWitness, what did you hear about this department during the time when you were with Office 5?\nASuch an office must have existed with the SS Economist at Cracow.\nQWas the treasury of Office 5 also the treasury which had to deal with the SS Economist at Cracow?\nANo. The SS Economist at Cracow was a completely different agency.\nQI am now going to put to you DocumentNO-5363, Exhibit 773. This is an affidavit by Ganzer. It refers to your visit at Cracow. (Document handed to witness.) Was the affiant of this affidavit, Ganzer, together \n with you at Cracow?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2372, "page_number": "2365", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "ANo. I have never taken a trip together with Ganzer.\nQWhat activity did Ganzer carry out in Office 5?\nAIn Office 5 Ganzer held a very subordinate position. He worked for various departments and above all in the department dealing with travel expenses and the office which charged fees.\nQDid you ever inform Ganzer that you had visited the department for the Administration of Jewish Property at the agency of the representative or the Reich Commissar at Cracow?\nAI certainly never told him anything of the sort because I just didn't do it.\nQWitness, could Ganzer have sufficient knowledge of the fact of what you did at Cracow?\nAHe was not present when I took the trip and consequently he cannot have any knowledge of what I did in the course of that journey.\nQWhat was the purpose of this trip to Cracow?\nAAt the time, together with Councillor Finsterer, I went to Cracow in order to classify the persons who were employed in the office of the Reich Commissar into the various ratings of the civil service decree in the Reich.\nQWhen you audited treasuries did you ever see any accounts which dealt with the administration of Jewish property?\nANo.\nQDid these treasuries dispose of the Jewish property which had been seized?\nANo.\nQDid you receive knowledge of that through any other way?\nANo.\nQDid Office 5 ever give the agreement for the establishment of concentration camps through the WVHA?\nANo. The Main Staff Office had nothing whatsoever to do with \n concentration camps.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2373, "page_number": "2366", "date": "11 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-11", "text": "QIn Office 5 were any special accounts established for the fund derived from these enterprises in the concentration camps?\nANo.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 12 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)\n- -", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2374, "page_number": "2367", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg Germany, on 12 December 1947, 0930 - 1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Viermetz, who is absent due to illness,\nTHE PRESIDNET:The record will so indicate.\nThe Tribunal desires to make a statement to clear up something that happened yesterday afternoon. When the hammering started, it caused the Court to have to suspend. When it had suspended, I said, \"Maybe he has sense enough to stop.\" I am afraid people reading the record who were not present in Court might think the reference was to the witness on the stand. The Tribunal does not want anyone to get that impression for the reason that the Tribunal has been impressed with the very clear and concise answers that this witness has given, so the statement did not refer to the witness on the stand but to the man using the hammer.\nThe Tribunal has been requested by the Prosecution in a written motion to clarify a ruling made December 4th. The motion is denied.\nProceed with the examination of this witness.\nOTTO SCHWARZENBERGER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQI am now coming to point 21 of the Indictment. Did Office V play any part in the deportation of Jews from the occupied and incorporated territories?\nANo", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE PRESIDNET", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2375, "page_number": "2368", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QDid Office V during the time of your activity in that office ever furnish funds for such measures to any agency?\nANo.\nQDid Office V remit any funds to the Ahnenerbe office?\nANo.\nQDuring the time of your activity in Office V, what did you know about the Ahnenerbe office?\nAI did not have any know ledge of the fact that such an office existed. Only now in the course of this trial it has come to my knowledge that there was alleged to have been an Ahnenerbe office with the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQWhat did you know about the measures which were taken within the scope of the so-called final solution of the Jewish question?\nAI had no knowledge of that.\nQDid Office V ever furnish funds for the carrying out of such measures?\nANo, Office V never furnished any funds for such purposes.\nQI am now going to put to you the DocumentNO-3182, Exhibit 241, which is contained in Document Book V-C, on Page 5.\n(Witness is offered Document Book)\nQDid Office V furnish any funds to the organization Schmelt, mentioned in this document,for wages?\nANo.\nQDid the organization Schmelt ever charge wages to the Office V?\nANo.\nQDo you know anything about the so-called ghetto action, of the Main Staff Office?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the so-called ghetto action of the Main Staff Office?\nAThe repair work of damaged furniture in the workshops of the ghetto Ledz was called the ghetto drive, carried out by the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2376, "page_number": "2369", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QDid you see to it that this furniture was remodeled and repaired?\nANo.\nQDid Office V order these repairs of furniture to be carried out?\nANo.\nQWhen was this ghetto drive carried out?\nAAs far as I can recall, it was carried out in 1940 or 1941.\nQ when did you hear for the first time of this so-called ghetto drive?\nAI only heard about it after the furniture had already been repaired and alter the field office of the Main Staff Office at Ledz had already sold this furniture to the resettlers.\nQI am now going to hand to you Exhibits 561, 563 and 564, contained in Document Book XIII-A, on pages 87, 91 and 95 of the German text. These are the documentsNO-3777, 3778, 3774, 3775, and 3776. What was the ghetto action mentioned in these letters?\nAThis again refers to the repair work on furniture which I have described before which was carried out in the work of the ghetto at Ledz. This measure had been ordered by the field office at Litzmannstadt without my cooperation and without my halving knowledge of this fact.\nQDid the so-called ghetto drive, which has been mentioned in there documents, have any connection with the deportation and extermination of Jews?\nANo, in no way whatsoever. The term \"ghetto drive\" was chosen for the reason only that the furniture was repaired in the workshops of the ghetto.\nQDid Office V ever furnish any funds for the demolision of parts of the Ledz ghetto?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether written agreement had been made between the \n Main Staff Office and Greiser with regard to the demolition of parts to the ghetto at Ledz?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2377, "page_number": "2370", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AI have never seen an agreement of that sort. After all, I should have gotten to know such an agreement.\nQWere you present at the discussions between Greifelt and Greiser which took place at Posen and in which the demolition o f parts was discussed?\nANo.\nQDid the Main Staff Office actually carry out the planned demolition of the parts of the ghetto of Ledz?\nAI know nothing about it.\nQI am now coming to my final questions, Were you conscripted for service with the Main Staff Office because formerly you had been a member of the SS?\nANo. Many people were conscripted for service with the Main Staff Office who had never been members of the SS. I was conscripted for service with the Main Staff Office because of my expert professional knowledge and the experience I had at the time.\nQAnd what expert knowledge on your part was decisive for that?\nAThese were my skills as a treasury expert.\nQDuring your membership in the Main Staff Office, did you serve actively with the SS?\nANo, during my activity in the Main Staff Office, I never served any time in the SS.\nQWhat was your last rank which you held in the Main Staff Office?\nAI was an SS Oberfuehrer.\nQAnd since when did you hold that rank?\nASince the 18 of June 1941.\nQDo you know for what reason this rank was given to you?\nAI was not given this rank by virtue of any political activity on my part or as a result of any activity in the So. I was only given this rank by virtue of my position which I held in the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2378, "page_number": "2371", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD_2_1_Gaylord (Garand)\nQDuring the time you were in the Main Staff Office, did it ever come to your knowledge that the SS was used in order to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity?\nANo.\nQDo you know the verdict of the IMT?\nAI know of it in part.\nQWhen did you hear for the first time of the war crimes and crimes against humanity with which the SS was charged in that trial?\nAI heard that during the time of my imprisonment.\nQThank you, Your Honors, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any question by counsel for the Defense? BY DR. HAENSEL: (For the defendant Greifelt):\nQI want to ask a question with regard to your affidavit, witness of the 30 of July 1945. It is contained in Document Book II_B on Page 47. It is your affidavit. It is Exhibit No. 30. In point one, you mention that furniture which had been repaired was sold to the city of Lodz, Don't we have to correct this statement of yours? Did the Main Staff Office deal with general sale of furniture?\nANo, the furniture was resold to the resettlers.\nQIt was not sold to the city of Lodz but it was sold to the resettlers?\nAYes, that was sold to the resettlers.\nQThat is a correction then.\nAThe administration of the ghetto was subordinated to the municipality of Lodz.\nQ.The witness Dr. Reichert has testified here that through an administrative leader Mayer, in the fall of 1944 clothing and underwear had been offered by the Government-General. Aid you ever furnish any funds for such a purpose? Do you know anything about this business transaction?\nANo, I know nothingabout it.\nQDid Greifelt occupy himself with the financial transactions of \n 12 Dec 1947_M_MSD_2_2Gaylord (Garand) your office?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2379, "page_number": "2372", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Did lie see to it that economy was applied to expenditures and that expenditures were only carried out within the scope of the existing provisions and regulations?\nAGreifelt was very much interested in the financial transactions of his Main Staff Office. One can actually say that he was very precise and correct in all these matters.\nQCan you recall that Greifelt in the case of Senior Governor Councillor Ludwig urged that a demand for recovery of damage should he placed on Ludwig? This was when he subsidized the procurement of furniture.\nAYes, I know the case of Ludwig and I also know that at the time Ludwig was requested for recovery of damage.\nQThank you, I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, you stated before that you did not furnish any funds for the demolition of the ghetto at Lodz.\nANo.\nQWould you have been bound to have knowledge of the fact if funds had been furnished for that purpose?\nAYes, of courses after all, some sort of written agreement would have had to be concluded.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If counsel will state his name and his client's name it will apear in therecord then as to who you appear for.\nDR.MUELLER; Very well, four Honor. Defense Counsel Mueller for the defendant Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. MUELLER:\nI only have one more question, Were the resettlements in the occupied Ukraine territory financed by the Main Staff Office or by you?\nAIn the Ukrain area? No, we never furnished any funds for such a purpose.\nQI have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2380, "page_number": "2373", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD2_3_Gaylord (Garand) BY DR. DOETZER (for the defendants Lorenz and Brueckner):\nQWitness, in the course of your direct examination By your defense counsel yesterday afternoon you made several statements about a discussion which you had with one Herr Hagen of VOMI, and which referred to clothing, I Believe that I did not understand you correctly. For this reason I would like to discuss this subject once more with you in detail. What did Hagen tell you at the time about this clothing and about the extent of the clothing? about the kind of the clothing and about the origin of the clothing?\nAHagen told me in thecourse of a conversation, as far as I can recall, in 1944, at Schweikelberg, that he had received five or six wagons of clothing from the WVHA which he had passed on the Bad Berka. The distribution of this clothing was causing great difficulties now because it was extremely difficult to transport anything by rail and -that--consequently, it was very difficult to turn over this clothing to the individual camps. Whether any payment was made for this clothing, I don't know.\nQWhen did you hear that this clothing was supposed to have been taken away from concentration camp inmates?\nAI heard that now from the documents in the course of this Trial.\nQAnd therefore it is a conclusion on your part which you have drawn now?\nAThat clothing of concentration camp inmates was involved, only becomes evident from the documents. I didn't know that before.\nQThank you, Witness, how often have you met the defendant Lorenz on official matters?\nAAs far as I can recall, during the entire time while Lorenz was in charge of VOMI, altogether two times.\nQHow often were you together with the defendant Brueckner?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2381, "page_number": "2374", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD_2_4_Gaylord (Garand)\nAI was together with the defendant Brueckner, as far as I can recall, on two occasions also.\nQCan you still recall what subject was discussed on the occasion of that meeting?\nAThe first time, as far as I can recall, in 1941, here we discussed the partial payment of the pocket money for the resettlers. The second discussion, which as far as I can recall took place in 1943 or 1944, dealt with the budgetary question of furnishing funds for the care of German ethnic matters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2382, "page_number": "2375", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QDid these discussions go on for a long time or were they very brief?\nABoth conferences were brief and these official matters only were discussed.\nQDid you talk to Brueckner about Brueckner's office activity in VOMI on that occasion?\nANo.\nQDid you have a precise insight into the activities of VOMI?\nANo.\nQBefore this trial did you know about the business distribution plan of VOMI and the activities of Brueckner which have been mentioned there?\nAI didn't know the business distribution plan of VOMI at all.\nQWitness, in your affidavit, which the Prosecution has introduced as Exhibit 30, you have alleged that Brueckner had been competent for the VOMI camps. Is this a conclusion on your part or do you know that from hearsay or how can I explain to myself that you made this statement if you confirmed to me before that you were unable to look into the activities of VOMI?\nAAs I have already stated, I did not have any insight into Brueckner's activity with the VOMI. as a result of our first meeting, when I met Brueckner in 1941 together with Altena, I was of the opinion that Brueckner had some connection with the VOMI CAMPS. However, now I have gathered from the documents that Brueckner actually had nothing to do with the VOMI Camps. As the person who was responsible for the VOMI camps, I only know of Altena by name.\nQIn your affidavit you further stated that VOMI had carried out resettlements from Italy, France and Luxembourg. From your activity in the Main Staff Office do you know what resettlement drives were carried out by VOMI or did you also base your statement there on hearsay?\nAThe statements in my affidavit were based on hearsay.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2383, "page_number": "2376", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QThank you, witness. That is quite sufficient for me. Then in your affidavit you went on to say that VOMI participated in the reGermanization and Germanization of Poles. What brought you to make that statement?\nAWhen I gave this affidavit I was of the opinion that VOMI had played a part in the re-Germanization of Poles. However, I did not have any detailed knowledge of all these happenings, I also expressed that repeatedly in the course of my pre-trial interrogations.\nQDid you have any basis for your opinion at the time that VOMI had participated in the Germanization or re-Germanization of Poles? Did you ever see a decree in which this was stated?\nANo.\nQThank you. In your affidavit you further stated that towards the middle of 1944 there were approximately one million resettlers in VOMI camps, and that among these people there were also Poles who were eligible for re-Germanization. Are these statements correct? Do you have any basis and facts for these statements or just how did you come to make statements of that sort?\nAAt the beginning of the trial I was not aware of the difference between resettlers, people who were eligible for re-Germanization, or eligible for Germanization. Consequently, I was unable to know just what categories of people had been accommodated in VOMI camps. The figure of one million I had heard at the time. It is possible that I am making a mistake here as far as the size of the figure is concerned.\nQFinally, I want to ask you one more question, witness. Could you please explain to me how it is that your statements today are in open contradiction to your affidavit?\nAI have already mentioned that the things which I stated in the affidavit come to my knowledge in many cases from hearsay. I, myself, do not know these incidents which I have mentioned there from my own knowledge because I was the head of the financial department and I never occupied myself with these questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2384, "page_number": "2377", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QDid you make a statement to that effect in the course of your interrogations?\nAIn the course of my interrogations I told both interrogators that in many cases I did not know these things and I requested them to interrogate me about my special field of work. In spite of this, however, questions of that sort were put to me.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you, witness. I have no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQWitness, I want to clear up your statement about your membership in the SS. You joined the SS in 1934, I believe. Now, you remained in the SS until you were drafted into the army in 1945, didn't you?\nANo. I remained in the SS until I was conscripted at the outbreak of the war on the 27 of August 1939. At that time I was conscripted into the army as an officer in the reserve. Then in the year 1945, on the 24th of April, I was again conscripted into the army and, as a First Lieutenant, I was assigned to the Divisional Staff of the Division von Hassenstein. In this capacity, on the second of May 1945, I was captured by the American Armed Forces.\nQAll right. That's enough. What was your number in the SS?\nA 156,808.\nQThat was the number that was given you in 1934?\nAYes.\nQNow, did you take an oath when you joined the SS?\nAI didn't understand your question.\nMR. LAMB:I didn't get his answer.\nTHE INTERPRETER:He doesn't understand the question. He wants to know whether he was sworn in. BY MR. LAMB:\nQWere you sworn into the SS? Did you take an oath of allegiance to \n the SS or whatever oath they give?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE INTERPRETER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2385, "page_number": "2378", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AYes.\nQNow, when you went into the Army in 1939 did you receive any kind of a discharge from the SS or did you submit a resignation?\nAWhenever a man was conscripted into the army his membership in the SS was automatically suspended, as well as his membership in the Party or any other organization of the NSDAP.\nQWell now, when you were discharged from the army in 1940 you again became a member of the SS, didn't you?\nAYes, I again became a member of the SS.\nQWell, did you take an oath in 1940?\nANo.\nQWell, what actually happened then is that while you were in the army you were on inactive status with the SS.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQIn other words, you were still in the SS. You were still a member but on inactive status?\nAWell, if a person, was conscripted into the army then one couldn't be in the SS any more.\nQWell, what was your number in the SS after you got out of the army in 1940?\nA 156,808.\nQThat is right, the same number. In other words, you just didn't attend meetings; that's the only difference. You just were in the army, you didn't attend meetings, you didn't have to pay dues while you were in the army and you were on an inactive status?\nAYes.\nQThat is right. Now, you stated that the reason you were made a senior colonel in the SS was not because of your political activity but because you were working for the Main Staff Office. That's true, isn't it?\nAThe Reichstuehrer gave to various members of the Main Staff Office, \n as a result of their position, an SS rank, and for that reason in June 1941 I was appointed a senior colonel.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2386, "page_number": "2379", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QIn other words, the Main Staff Office was an SS office, wasn't it?\nAThe Main Staff Office was a top level Reich Government Agency and it was not an SS organization. After all, in all of the ministries, for example, there were SS officers who also had been promoted to these ranks by the Reichsfuehrer SS. However, that did not make this ministry an SS agency.\nQNow, you had a staff of 60 working for you, I believe you said -60 or 70. You were responsible for the work of all the people in Office 5, weren't you?\nA after all, I could not he.ve been responsible for everything that 60 or 70 people did. But the 60 or 70 employees were experts and the experts were subordinated to the department heads and the department heads, together with me, supervised their activity.\nQI hand you DocumentNO-5047. Now, that is a document that was issued by you and signed by you, wasn't it?\nAThis was an internal order to the finance administration which I issued.\nQThat is right, and that shows that you ruled these 60 or 70 men with an iron hand, doesn't it, and that all correspondence had to be signed by you or by your deputy except very minor things?\nAI was the chief of these 60 or 70 employees. That is quite correct.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers DocumentNO-5047for identification to be introduced as Exhibit 813. BY MR. LAMB:\nQNow, I understood you to say that you knew nothing of what went on in Bohemia and Moravia in connection with the Polish and Jewish property there. I want to hand you DocumentNO-5401and ask you whether or not that document ever came to your attention.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2387, "page_number": "2380", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AThis is an order of Office 3 of the Furniture Procuring Agency which was drafted by Dr. Reichert and this decree was signed by me.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2388, "page_number": "2381", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "MR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers for identification DocumentNO-5401to be introduced as Exhibit 814. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Now I hand you DocumentNO-4683. That is also a document signed by you?\nA.This is a decree which, as I have stated already in my direct examination, was issued by VOMI where I had the right to give instructions. In my direct examination I have also stated that instructions of that sort were discussed with the chief of the administrative agency of VOMI in all detail beforehand. This directive was certified to be correct also by Hagen as the administrative chief of VOMI.\nQ.You will notice in Paragraph 1 there, the last sentence, it says that all SS offices should support DUT in its work.\nA.It states here: \"Therefore, it is the duty of all SS offices to support the DUT in its work.\"\nQ.Yes. Well, this was written on the stationery of the VOMI.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is VOMI an SS office?\nA.No.\nQ.Well, who were you referring to when you said all SS offices should cooperate? Were you referring to the Main Staff Office or to VOMI?\nA.(No response.)\nQ.Witness, you didn't answer that question but let's go on. I just have one more document I want to show you.\nA. (No response.)\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers DocumentNO-4683for identification to be introduced as Prosecution Exhibit815. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.I hand you one more document ,NO-5940, which is a memorandum of a meeting that you had in Posen. Now, if you will look there under \n the results of the conference, Paragraph A, I want you to look at that paragraph.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2389, "page_number": "2382", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Now, I understood you on your direct examination to say that you had nothing to do with these individual settlement staffs that were out in the field. I will ask you whether or not that indicates that you were wrong about that.\nA.I cannot get the idea at all of that document. The question is discussed here that Main Department 3 is to complete the work of turning over furniture to the resettlers until the end of December , 1942, as far as the accounting is concerned.\nQ.You did know about the settlement staffs then. I mean, this is a memorandum, isn't it, that was made of a meeting which you had in Posen?\nA.Yes, I know of the settlement staffs. The settlement staffs -\nQ.And you discussed those things at this meeting and you dealt with the furniture that was being handled by these settlement staffs?\nA.Yes.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers DocumentNO-5940for identification to be introduced as Prosecution Exhibit816in rebuttal. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Now, there is just one question that I asked you that you didn't answer and because I didn't have time I didn't wait; but I want to go back to that now. Can you tell me what offices you were referring to when you said that you wanted the SS offices to cooperate with DUT? I want you to answer that question for me.\nA.You chose your expression wrongly in this case; the expression was wrong. The agencies of VOMI were just as little SS agencies as the subordinate agencies of the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.I didn't use the expression. I took it from the Document. I just wanted you to tell me what offices. Now, is that your answer to that question.\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2390, "page_number": "2383", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "MR. LAMB:We have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2391, "page_number": "2384", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.I am now coming to the last document,NO 5940; do you still have that document before you?\nA.No.\nQ.Who concluded the sales with regard to furniture?\nA.The furniture was purchased by the Office of Defense Procurement Agency; the office of furniture procurement agency belonged to the Office of Economy. That was Office 3.\nQ.Do you know where the furniture came from?\nA.No, I did not know the names of the individual firms where the orders were placed.\nQ.Is it correct that the largest part of the furniture which was procured came from Jewish property or what do you have to say about that?\nA.I can only testify about what was done by the furniture procurement agency.\nQ.That was the purpose of my question.\nA.The furniture procurement agency handled the number of purchases for the various German firms and they had to have coupons for obtaining wood which was needed for these purchases. The furniture procurement agency did receive these ration cards from the Reich Minister for that purpose.\nQ.Was that part of your tasks?\nA.No, I never ordered any furniture.\nQ.To what extent were you occupied in this procurement of furniture?\nA.I was only included insofar as the bills would be checked in my office with regard to their correctness and I would give order for payment.\nQ.And the furniture , the payment of which you arranged for, was it furniture that had been owned by Jews?\nA.This furniture was new furniture which had been purchased by \n firms from the factory.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2392, "page_number": "2385", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.Then you were further asked whether you were responsible for your collaborators. In the criminal sense could you be held responsible for the activity of your collaborators?\nA.Of course I cannot take over the responsibility.\nQ.In the cross examination your membership in the SS was also discussed and your membership number. Do you know what membership number was given to a party member who had left the party and then re-entered after some time had elapsed?\nA.You would receive the same number.\nQ.What number?\nA.The number which he had held before.\nQ.Do you know whether from the fact that somebody received his own number again it becomes evident that he had been a member constantly without interruption?\nA.That does not become evident from that at all.\nQ.Furthermore the clothing matter was discussed with VOMI. Did Office V ever furnish funds for the clothing of VOMI?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Lamb, you have a few minutes left. Do you have any other questions?\nMR. LAMB:No, I have no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. GAWLIK:If the Tribunal please I shall now call the witness Franken.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nJOSEFFRANKEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "JOSEF", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2393, "page_number": "2386", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "I swear by God.\nA.I swear by God.\nQ.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nA.The Almighty and Omniscient.\nQ.That I will speak the pure truth.\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ.And will withhold and add nothing.\nA.And will withhold and add nothing.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your full name?\nA.Josef Franken.\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.I was born on the 3rd of January 1900 at Munchen-Gladbach on the Rhine.\nQ.What is your present profession?\nA.I am a Landesdirector of Schleswig-Holstein.\nQ.What profession did you carry out prior to 1945?\nA.I was a Budgetary expert in the Reich Ministry of Finance.\nQ.Since when did you carry out that activity?\nA.Since 1932.\nQ.What was your title?\nA.I was a Ministerial Councillor.\nQ.As the result of your activity did you have any contact with the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On what occasion did this happen?\nA.In the course of the negotiations regarding the budget we had to deal with the Main Staff Office.\nQ.What was involved in these negotiations?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2394, "page_number": "2387", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Funds had to be furnished for the carrying out of the tasks, of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On what legal basis were these funds furnished by the Reich Ministry of Finance to the Main Staff Office?\nA.Funds were furnished by virtue of a decree of Hitler of the 7th of October 1939.\nQ.To which department of the Main Staff Office were these payments made?\nA.Payments were made to Department V and its office treasure.\nQ.Could Office V independently dispose of the funds which had been furnished to it?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not?\nA.The Office V, as far as its disposition of funds were concerned, was tied to the decisions of the individual departments.\nQ.What regulations directed the activity of Department V?\nA.The regulations were based on the Reich Budgetary decree, the provisions of the Reich Economy, and the Reich Treasury decree.\nQ.Why did these regulations apply to the activity of Office V?\nA.These provisions were applicable because the Office V was a department of a Government Agency on a higher level, i.e., the agency of the Reich Commissioner.\nQ.What functions did Office V have according to the Treasury regulations?\nA.Office V had to prepare plans for the coming budget, and to administer the funds provided according to the budgetary and the treasury point of view.\nQ.What position did Schwarzenberger occupy in this office treasury?\nA.Schwarzenberger was the Chief of Department V of watch the office \n treasury was a part.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2395, "page_number": "2388", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2396, "page_number": "2389", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWitness, you said last that Schwarzenberger was chief of the department of which the defendant was a member. My next question is in this capacity could Schwarzenberger dispose independently of the funds?\nANo.\nQWhat regulations did the office treasury have to comply with when they paid or received funds?\nAThe office treasurer had to comply with the payment requests which it received from the different individual departments, expert departments, and for the rest it had to comply with the regulations issued by the Reich Treasury Decree.\nQIn what manner were the funds made available in the Reich Ministry of Finance?\nAThe Reich Ministry of Finance paid via the Reich Main Treasury to the office treasuries in the framework of the budget established.\nQDo you have to make a distinction between various intervals of time; one before Schwarzenberger took over the management and the other for the period during which Schwarzenberger was active in the management?\nAYes, the distinction has to be made. The funds were made available via the extraordinary budget in accordance with the regulations of the Reich Budget Decree. A sub-division into individual expert departments was not necessary there. A distinction was made only and alone between the expenditures for staff and the expenditures for operation, and the expenditures in general. Once Herr Schwarzenberger had taken over the management of the Department V, we of the Reich Ministry of Finance with his support and with Herr Greifelt's collaboration succeeded in having the principles of the ordinary budget applied. In general even for the extraordinary budget, In other words, we saw to it that the operation expenditure were split up into the individual fields of expenditure.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2397, "page_number": "2390", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QIn this budget had the expenditure been entered also which was to be made for VOMI, for the DUT, for the DAG, EWZ and UWZ, and the Reich Physicians Chamber for matters relating to the care for the resettlers?\nAYes, inasfar as means were placed at the disposal by the Reich Ministry of Finance for these agencies within the framework of the task of the Reich Commissioner.\nQWhy were these payments channeled via Office V?\nAThe office treasury of Office V was a unified treasury in the sense of paragraph 5 of the Reich Treasury Decree. All funds which were channeled within the framework of the task of the Reich Commissar to any of the agencies of the Reich were forwarded via this unified treasury in order to secure a treasury and budgetary control and also a unified rendering of accounts.\nQHow were these funds requested?\nAThe funds were requested by Herr Schwarzenberger from the individual agencies and he entered them in the budget project and submitted them to the Reich Ministry of Finance.\nQWho conducted the negotiations concerning the making available of these funds?\nANegotiations were conducted, apart from the VOMI, by the agencies Themselves.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have a part in these negotiations?\nANo.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have any influence concerning the amounts to be granted for these agencies.\nANo.\nQWhat did Schwarzenberger's activity consist of concerning these funds?\nAAfter the funds had been requested Schwarzenberger had only to direct the office treasury to pay out the funds.\nQWitness, perhaps you could give us a description of the whole \n developments, that is in how far Schwarzenberger had an activity at all in that connection; I mean from the moments the funds were requested onwards.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2398, "page_number": "2391", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AThe agencies first requested the funds from the office treasury, and on the request sheet they confirmed that this was in line with the facts. Then Schwarzenberger had to issue the directive as far as the treasury was concerned, and to issue directives that the treasury pay these amounts and he had to explain in this connection whether the request remained within the limits given by the budget. That was all the influence he had over the making available of the funds.\nQTherefore, do I understand you correctly, witness, because that is what I understood, the agencies made the requests to Schwarzenberger; Schwarzenberger entered the requests in the budget project; this budget project was passed on to the Reich Ministry of Finance; then, the agencies would conduct negotiations independently with the Reich Ministry of Finance. Once the Reich Ministry of Finance had confirmed this, the Reich Ministry of Finance would channel the funds to Schwarzenberger and he would pass them on. That was the activity of Schwarzenberger and nothing more?\nAYes.\nQWas it possible to recognize from the requests Schwarzenberger received the money was to be used?\nAOnly generally speaking according to the designation of the title in the budget.\nQFrom this title in the budget, could one see for what purpose the money was to be used in detail?\nANo.\nQMay be you could give an example to the Tribunal of such a title.\nQWell, let's take, for instance, the designation for the use of funds for the DUT. There it would say, for instance, funds for the DUT, compensation of property, for instance.\nQDo you know that Schwarzenberger had held the title of a financial \n plenipotentiary of those agencies?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2399, "page_number": "2392", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "ANo. I don't know either what significance that designation or title could have because according to my knowledge no such title even existed.\nQIn the manner you oust described did the payments also take place via which were made Office V to Lebensborn?\nAYes.\nQWho arranged for these payments?\nAAs far as I know, these payments were agreed upon directly with the Reich Ministry of Finance and the State Secretary Reinhardt personally.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have any part in these negotiations?\nAI consider that out of the question.\nQOf what did Schwarzenberger's activity in those payments exist?\nAOnly and alone in the transfer of those funds at the request of Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2400, "page_number": "2393", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Was it known in detail what these subventions were to be used for?\nA.No.\nQ.Can you comment on the question of whether the Main Staff Office and the VOMI were an SS agency or a top level Reich agency?\nA.The Main Staff Office was a top level Reich agency, and not an SS agency.\nQ.Well, can you give us some reasons for that, witness?\nA.That becomes apparent from the Decree of October, 1939 which I have already mentioned, and from the application of the decrees and regulations of the Reich which I have also already mentioned; decrees and regulations intended for the top level Reich agencies; Reich economic regulations, Reich budget decrees and Reich treasury decree.\nQ.Who would have placed the funds at their disposal if the Main Staff Office and VOMI had been SS agencies?\nA.In that case the Reich Treasurer Schwarz would have had to place the funds at their disposal, but in no case could they have been placed at their disposal by the Reich Ministry of Finance.\nQ.What can you say with regard to the influence Schwarzenberger had within the Main Staff Office?\nA.Herr Schwarzenberger did not have a decisive influence within the Main Staff Office; neither his direct field of tasks in Office V nor his personality could confer such an influence upon him. According to my knowledge he was in the Main only the recipient of orders.\nQ.During the negotiations with the Reich Ministry of Finance did Schwarzenberger act as an independent representative of the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2401, "page_number": "2394", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.Can you give more detailed reasons for that, witness?\nA.Herr Schwarzenberger was not exactly inclined to make independent decisions; he would always and at all occasions referred to the decisions of his superiors in his requests or he would reserve the right to get the approval or decision of his superior first before he decided anything.\nQ.What do you know with regard to the question of how Herr Schwarzenberger joined the Main Staff Office.\nA.Schwarzenberger told me that he had not come to the Main Staff Office on his own initiative; that he had been transferred from the armed forces to the Main Staff Office only and alone on the basis of his banking training and banking experience.\nQ.What do you know about Schwarzenberger's personality and attitude as an SS leader?\nA.As Schwarzenberger in my eyes seemed to be hardly a prototype of an SS officer, I asked him how it came about that he had joined that organization, and what was actually his attitude towards the SS. He explained to me that he did not want to have anything in common with the SS; for instance, that he was not prepared, not even under pressure, to give up his ties with the church.\nQ.What can you tell me about the question how Schwarzenberger stood with regard to such persons as were not National Socialists?\nA.I can only say that at all times Schwarzenberger gave me the impression of a man who was ready to help and who was generous and kind-hearted.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt)\nQ.Landesdirector, how did you make Herr Greifelt's \n acquaintance?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2402, "page_number": "2395", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.I made Herr Greifelt's acquaintance during the negotiations concerning questions pertaining to the budget of Main Staff Office.\nQ.Can you remember about when you made his acquaintance and how long ago? 1939 is the decree there, isn't it?\nA.Yes, yes. I would say towards the end of 1939 or the beginning of 1940.\nQ.According to your experience, is he a financial expert?\nA.No. I don't think that Herr Greifelt is anything like a financial expert.\nQ.Did he support you in your efforts to set up an orderly budgetary system for his agency?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever discuss politics with his?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he ever discuss racial, biological or idealogy matters with you?\nA.No.\nQ.During the negotiations concerning the budget, did he ever try to request funds to be used for political aims; or, did he only make such financial requests as were within his scope of tasks as a government agency.\nA.Herr Greifelt only requested funds and only discussed such requests which were in line and within the framework of his government agency.\nQ.During the use of the funds, did he comply with the laws, regulations and decrees?\nA.Inasfar as we could check it, and see it, he always complied with these regulations.\nQ.Do you recall perhaps that in November, 1944 Minister Schwerin Krosick informed you that Herr Greifelt had come \n to see him and that he was very satisfied with that visit?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2403, "page_number": "2396", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.I negotiated to bring about that visit, and it is correct that the Minister afterwards told me that he was very satisfied with the visit.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Witness, you had a pretty high position with the Third Reich.\nA.I was a financial expert in the Budget Department.\nQ.Will you repeat that?\nA.I was a financial expert in the Budget Department.\nQ.Now, I understood that if this had been an SS agency the funds would have come through the Reich Treasury; is that what you said? You made some distinction between the Finance Ministry and the Reich Treasury.\nA.Yes, yes, the Reich Treasury was the highest financial agency of the Nazi Party; while the Reich Ministry of Finance was the top level Reich agency of the government, and the Reich budget had nothing to do with the financing of Nazi Party agencies. The SS was a formation of the Party... and according to my knowledge they were financed via the Reich Treasury.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2404, "page_number": "2397", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD9_1_Daniels (Treidell)\nQWell, then, there is a distinction too between the Reich Treasurer and the Reich Main Treasury?\nAYes, the Reich Main Treasury had nothing to do with the payments made by the Reich Treasurer. The Reich Main Treasury was only and alone the central Reich payment agency for the funds of the Reich Ministry of finance.\nQNow, the defendant Schwarzenberger was an efficient finance man, wasn't he?\nASchwarzenberger was a financial expert of no great scope. He would not have been up to solving difficult financial operations or difficult financial tasks.\nQFor the position that he had, you had confidence in him, didn't you?\nAI had confidence in Herr Schwarzenberger within the framework -- I mean, I had financial confidence in him, within the scope of tasks which Herr Schwarzenberger took for himself. He limited himself, therefore, basically speaking, to merely financial and budgetary and treasury matters.\nQNow, he was a senior colonel in the SS. That is a pretty hight position, isn't it?\nAYes.\nQNow, with reference to the budgets that were got up by these different agencies and submitted, you stated that they were submitted through Schwarzenberger, did you not?\nAYes.\nQNow, so far as his help is concerned in getting up those budgets and in advising these different offices about what they would have to do to keep these things within the law, you have no knowledge of what he told them, do you?\nANo.\nQAnd when it came to auditing their books, his office audited the books of some of these offices, did it not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2405, "page_number": "2398", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AThe offices were not audited by Herr Schwarzenberger in general, but by the Reich Auditing Court of the German Reich. Schwarzenberger-\nQJust a second. I don't want to interrupt you, but he has testified here about this Auditing Court and about his auditing business, and he was liaison between some of the offices so far as auditing was concerned, and he has testified that there was some auditing was concerned, and he has testified that there was some auditing done by his office on some of these other offices, you see, some of these other accounts. How that is true, isn't it?\nAWell, as far as treasury matters were concerned, he had to audit, but as far as the whole accounting system was concerned, and the auditing concerning the funds made available by the Reich Ministry of finance, this auditing was carried out by the Reich Audit Court. In cases where the Reich Audit Court found deficiencies in the accounting, then Herr Schwarzenberger had to make an investigation.\nQNow, when you audit books or accounts you don't simply look at the bank balance and see whether there is money left there, do you? In other words, you go into the expenditures and see whether they were legally made, whether they were made for purposes allowed by the law, and so forth and so on. That is ture, isn't it?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQTherefore, if you are seeing whether or not an expenditure was legal, why you have got to see what the expenditure was made for, haven't you? Just answer me yes or no; you can explain that later, because I haven't but just a few minutes to question you.\nAYes.\nQI will ask you another question, and then I am through. The defendant Schwarzenberger has stated that he was Plenipotentiary in finance matters for certain organizations. Now, you would not say that he was telling something that was untrue, would you, if he said that?\nANo, I don't mean to say that, but I don't know what function that is.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2406, "page_number": "2399", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD_9_3_Daniels (Treidell)\nDR. GAWLIK:Your Honor, I ask that if statements of the defendant Schwarzenberger are put to the witness, they ought to be put to him in writing, that is, from the record. That is, it should be shown whether it is from an affidavit or whether he made that statement from the witness stand. At least the witness ought to be given the possibility of checking that, because otherwise he does not have to explain his position as to that statement.\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor, that was taken from an affidavit, and if the defense counsel wants to question this witness about it, I will show him the affidavit and he can ask him whatever Questions he wants to about it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the tribunal will check the record and determine for itself whether he has put the question based on what the witness testified. If not, it will not be considered. BY MR. LAMB:\nQSo you don't intend to positively say that the defendant Schwarzenberger was not a Plenipotentiary finance officer, do you?\nAWell, you see, I am very sorry, but I am not in a position to even say what the significance of this financial plenipotentiary was. We in the Reich Ministry of Finance didn't even know of a financial plenipotentiary, for that matter. It might have been a special invention of the Reich Commissar, but we had no knowledge of a financial plenipotentiary, Schwarzenberger. To us, Schwarzenberger was the Director of Department V and the expert for financial questions of the Reich Commissar. A financial plenipotentiary did not exist, and it does not exist in German law either. In these companies there were Aufsichtsrats and Vorstands, but no financial plenipotentiaries.\nQIn other words, Schwarzenberger may have been doing some things that you didn't know about. That is what you intend to say, isn't it?\nANo, that isnot what I mean to say. All I can state, and state again, is that this designation of financial plenipotentiary did not \n 12 Dec 1947 M_MSD_9_4_Daniels (Treidell) exist for the Reich Ministry of Finance in that connection.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2407, "page_number": "2400", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "MR. LAMB:We have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWitness, the question of accounting and auditing was touched upon in the cross-examination, Witness, will you please describe to the Tribunal to what extent Office V had to carry out the auditing, and what exceptions were made with the accounts referred to?\nAOffice T had to carry out the current control concerning the accounting and the budgetary and treasury dealings in relation to the payments to be made by the Reich Commissar. The over-all checking of the financial handling, of the use of the budgetary in compliance with the existing laws, by-laws, and budgetory regulations issued by the Reich Audit Court. These Reich Audit Court regulaion towards equal laws and the top level Reich Authorities have to comply with them. The Reich Audit Court? once it had carried out the overall checking, submitted a final report. Then Office T had the duty in cases where the Auditing Court had found fault with the accounting and had submitted complaints to investigate and clarify the matter and, if necessary, to ascertain the officials who were guilty of these deficiencies.\nThose are the main auditing tasks of such a financial agency of a top level Reich authorities.\nQWill you please descirbe to the Tribunal what the Reich Audit Court was?\nAThe Reich Audit Court was the top-level auditing agency for all expenditures and income of the Reich. It was also the checking agency with regard to compliance with the provisions for expenditures as laid down by law, as well as of budgetary matters, that is to see whether the most economic use had been made of the Reich funds.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2408, "page_number": "2401", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "12 Dec 1947_M_MSD_9_5_Daniels (Treidell)\nQTo which agency was the Reich Audit Court subordinated?\nAThe Reich Audit Court of the German Reich was directly under the Chief of State. It had been an independent agency before 1933.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2409, "page_number": "2402", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.The question was also put, in cross-examination, as to whether Schwarzenberger didn't have to see, from the checking, what individual tasks the funds had been used for by the agencies to which Schwarzenberger channeled the money. Can you supplement your answer?\nA.From the checking, Herr Schwarzenberger could see for what purposes, in general, the money was spent; but only in cases where complaints were raised and in cases where individual cross-checks were made, did Herr Schwarzenberger have to look at the documents which supported the individual expenditure.\nQ.Perhaps you could explain to the Tribunal by an example to what extent, in general, he could see that from the receipts and from the checking.\nA.The expenditure was listed in the books as money paid to some field agency in general, for instance, for medical care in some resettler camp. If this item was not found fault with, the matter was settled. However, if the item was found fault with, then the individual receipts had to be submitted, the bills, the doctor's fees, and so on and so forth. I don't believe that Herr Schwarzenberger himself, in his capacity as Chief of Department V, carried out these individual checkings at all. After all, he had his treasury employees and auditing employees for that function. I don't think Herr Schwarzenberger checked all these cases himself, because that is not the task of the chief of such a department.\nQ.Considering the volume of these documents, would Herr Schwarzenberger have been in a position to check everything in detail?\nA.That is quite out of the question.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Lamb, you have two or three minutes left. Is there anything you want to ask about on what was brought out on redirect?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2410, "page_number": "2403", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "RECROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.I just wanted to clarify one thing that you were talking about right there at the last.\nIt is true, isn't it, that in connection with some of these offices the funds of which went through Office V, the preliminary examinations of the books of these offices were made by Office V; in other words, the actual auditing of the books?\nA.In some cases, yes, they found fault with it, and the treasury books too.\nMR. LAMB:That is all I wanted to ask him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nWhom will you call next?\nDR. GAWLIK:If the Tribunal permits, I shall now call the witness Finsterer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRITZ FINSTERER:A witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Will you please state your full name to the Tribunal?\nA.My name is Fritz Finsterer.\nQ.Where and when were you born, witness?\nA.I was born on the 11th of July, 1896, at Bukenhof, \n near Erlangen.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "FRITZ FINSTERER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2411, "page_number": "2404", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.What is your present address?\nA.My present address is Auerbach, Oberpfalz, the Upper Palatinate, Bergstrasse 375.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.No, I was never a member of the SS.\nQ.Where did you work before 1945?\nA.Before 1945 I worked in the Office of the Reich Commissar, in the Main Staff Office. In 1941, in June, I was transferred from the Reich Ministry of Finance to the office of the Reich Commissar--not upon my own initiative, and without my knowledge.\nQ.Where did you work before that?\nA.Until 1941 I worked in the Government's Main Treasury at Ansbach as a senior tax inspector.\nQ.In what department did you work in the Main Staff Office?\nA.Only in the Finance Office, that is, Office V.\nQ.Do you know the defendant Schwarzenberger?\nA.Yes, I knew him in all official capacity. Before that, I never knew Schwarzenberger.\nQ.How long had you known him in his official capacity?\nA.Since July 1941.\nQ.What were your relations with Schwarzenberger since July 1941?\nA.He was my immediate superior; he was the Chief of Office V.\nQ.What was your field of tasks in Office V?\nA.I had to supervise the treasury.\nQ.What did your activities consist of?\nA.My activities in the treasury office and its field agencies consisted of making spot checks of the treasury checks without previous warning.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2412, "page_number": "2405", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.By whom was your field of tasks set down?\nA.The regulations of the Reich Treasury Decree established my field of tasks.\nQ.What was the proportion between the payments received and the payments made in the treasury office of Office V?\nA.Now I have to speak of the time from 1941 onward. I don't know how it was before. But from 1941 on, we had a clear income of about two to three million, and we paid about three hundred million out per year. Those are figures based only on an estimate; I mean, I cannot state that without the support of documents, but I think it will be about correct.\nQ.What were the tasks and activities of Office V?\nA.The activities of Office V consisted mainly of the work of the treasury office, but besides that we had the calculations, the scaling, the rating of employees, and so on and so forth, the calculation of travel expenses, of displacement expenses. Well, what else? I don't know; All the expenditures and income had been outlined very clearly in the so-called budget project, and that could not be exceeded.\nQ.What were Schwarzenberger's tasks and activities?\nA.Schwarzenberger had the whole management of Office V. He was the superior of all the personnel in that office.\nQ.In this connection, could Schwarzenberger deal with all the individual matters?\nA.He certainly could not deal with every individual matters. The whole field of tasks was too much. You must consider that this was an agency containing eight to nine subdepartments, I mean in the office, and we also had a large number of employees working there.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger have the management of all administrative agencies of the Main Staff Office?\nA.Well, he had the management in Office V. But in \n the field agencies there were, again, the so-called administrative leaders who had been appointed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2413, "page_number": "2406", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "These administrative leaders, again, had directives which they had to comply with in their activities. They could only make decisions on their own initiative within the framework of the budget or the chart of their organization, and they could only spend money within the regulations established.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2414, "page_number": "2407", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QWhat was Schwarzenberger's management in the administrative field agencies limited to?\nAWell, you might say that he had to carry out the supervision of those agencies.\nQWhat activities did Schwarzenberger supervise?\nAWell, he saw to it that the directives and regulations issued to the field agencies were complied with. Factually speaking, he couldn't do anything.\nQWhat field of activities was Schwarzenberger's work limited to?\nAWhat do you mean by \"field of activities?\" I can't understand what you mean by your question.\nQWell, field agencies had quite a scope of work, didn't they?\nAYes; of course, he couldn't supervise the whole scope of work; that is clear; because these agencies, as far as the geographical space was concerned, already were far apart from it, and he had only the possibility of paying a visit to one or the other once in a while. Besides that, he could only look at the accounts and could see there whether everything was carried out in compliance with the Reich Treasury Decree and the economic regulations.\nQTo what field of activities was Schwarzenberger limited to in the field agencies?\nAWell, again only as far as payment documents were concerned, the payments and the expenditure was his field of activity. I think that is about all--also transportation.\nQIn other words, it's correct if I state that his activity was limited to the same fields as Office V itself?\nAYes, certainly.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have any influence on the factual activities of the field agencies?\nANo, he didn't have that possibility.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2415, "page_number": "2408", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QWas Schwarzenberger in charge of the administrative agencies after VOMI?\nASchwarzenberger, I think, was supposed in theory to be in charge in the same manner as in the case of the Main Staff Office, but in practice, that mostly was not the cause, because VOMI--that is, the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle--had their own main office chief by the name of Hagen, and that man, concerning the financial procedure, would have received these orders directly from his immediate superior.\nQIn practise, did Schwarzenberger have an influence on the financial administration of VOMI?\nANo; in practice, no.\nQThat brings me back to Office V. Did Schwarzenberger have the possibility to make free decisions concerning the funds of the treasury?\nANo, all the funds at the beginning of an economic year had been split up on the strength of the so-called budget statement, and they had been granted on the strength of that project. This budget could not be exceeded as far as the economy and as far as the expenditure were concerned.\nQWhat primary requisites had to be complied with for individual payments by the treasury?\nAWell, first of all, an order for payment and a request for payment had to precede the payment; namely, the request had to be made by the office which had ordered the payment. I hope you understand me, counsel: a request for the funds--I should not say a request for funds-I'd rather say a request for payment.\nQCould Schwarzenberger reject a request for funds made by another office?\nAHe couldn't. If these requests had been provided for and granted by the budget project.\nQWho established the budget project?\nAThe budget project, before the beginning of the economic year, was established by the expert in charge, and that was Regierungsrat Fueske.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2416, "page_number": "2409", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QWho made the final decision with regard to the budget project?\nAWell, the Reich Finance Ministry made the decision, and after all, that was the agency to which the plan had to be submitted.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have a part in the planning on the directives issued by the other offices of the Main Staff Office?\nAI don't think so.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have a co-decision right in the developments of the other offices?\nAWell, do you mean as far as financial questions were concerned?\nQNo, as far as the field of tasks were concerned.\nAI don't think so either. After all, the regulations were such that a participation was unnecessary. How it was before 1941, I have to repeat that, counsel, I don't know.\nQWell, I am not speaking of before 1941; I am not interested at all in that. I am just interested in the time when you were at the Main Staff Office.\nAOh, thank you.\nQIn cases where another office wanted to carry some measures into practice which were connected with expenditures, was Schwarzenberger's previous approval necessary?\nANo, I have to stress again that if that was the case only-if the expenditure had already been in the budget project and had been granted--in that case Schwarzenberger's approval was not necessary; and I could hardly imagine that outside of the framework of this budget project payments were made at all.\nQDid you at any time have knowledge, during your activity in the Main Staff Office, of the fact that measures were taken outside of the budget project?\nAI can hardly think so. Of course, I couldn't see all the documents and vouchers, and especially the vouchers of the field agencies I couldn't see at all times; but I still think that it was impossible \n because the administrative leaders of the agencies had also their plans established already and it was directed to them what expenditures could be made.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2417, "page_number": "2410", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "It would be advisable and desirable if such a budget project could be submitted to me or if the defense counsel at least had one such plan at his disposal. I personally don't have any and from my own memory I can't give so much details. After all, such a plan contained 30 or more items and each item was again subdivided.\nQWell, witness, it's quite sufficient if we see that you at no time found out anything that was outside of the budget project.\nAWell, no, I personally could never find anything like that.\nQWas Schwarzenberger the financial plenipotentiary for DUT, DAG, Reich Physician Chamber, and questions of care for the resettlers, and for the EMZ and UWZ.\nAWhat do you mean by financial plenipotentiary? I don't even know that expression.\nQDuring your activity in the Main Staff Office, did you ever hear that Schwarzenberger had the title of financial plenipotentiary?\nANo, maybe that originates in the bank business or from commercial enterprises, but in a government agency that is certainly not a customary expression.\nQWhat was Schwarzenberger's activities concerning the DUT, the DAG, and the Reich Physician Chamber in questions of care for resettlers, and in the EWZ and the UWZ?\nAThese agencies received their funds and reinforcements of money or their requests, as in the case of the DUT, for payment for furniture procurement which was provided by Office III, and they made requests for these funds first.\nQFrom the request, could it be seen what use the money was to be put by these agencies?\nAWell, in the case of the EWZ and similar agencies, it would simply say: submission of funds or operation funds for the next month; and in the as far as I remember case of the DUT, I remember that it was very \n often termed as operation funds or also payment for furniture procured for resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2418, "page_number": "2411", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QFrom the accounting of the agencies which received money from Office V, could the use to which the money was put be seen?\nANot in the case of all agencies. The audit court had given orders that larger field administration should not join the vouchers for the payments made. The vouchers were to remain at the field office of these administrations and therefore the auditing court was in a position to check the matters down there directly when they made their final checking. For the rest, the vouchers were so numerous that they could hardly have been kept in the official offices of Office V. Besides that, the audit court may have been forced to take this measure because for reasons of lack of personnel the preliminary checking could not be carried out of Office V.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2419, "page_number": "2412", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 12 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nFRITZ FINSTERER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQBefore the recess we stopped in discussing the accounts which ware rendered. Did it become evident from the accounts which were rendered by the agencies which had received funds from Office V and just what use these funds war a put?\nAYou are referring to the field-officers of the administration?\nQAll the agencies which received funds from Office V.\nAThese field offices demanded funds by means of a printed form on which it was generally explained that this or that amount was used in order to cover running expenses and to be put into a treasury. However, no details became evident from these forms which were filled in. It was just a general description of the use to which these funds were to be put.\nQDid all agencies which received funds from Office V send in their accounts for auditing?\nANo, that was not the case. Before 1941 it was done; however, later on the auditing court of the German Reich audit did not let the bigger administrative agencies in the field submit bills any more for amounts which they had paid. Accordingly, it could not be seen just how the funds were used individually. The auditing court itself, after all, had to take care of the final auditing, that right was strictly reserved for the auditing court. In the Main Staff Office, we only saw part of the bills which were added to the account.\nQWhat became evident whenever the accounts were rendered?\nAIt became evident that the auditing could not be carried out in a complete manner any more.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2420, "page_number": "2413", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWhat could be seen from the final auditing reports?\nAIt could only be seen for the past month just how much the individual agency had spent on the individual item which was contained in the budget. Do you understand me?\nQYes. It is correct that from the final auditing reports you could only see the title of the budgetary plan and the amount of money which had been spent?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQIs it further correct that from the final auditing reports it could not be gathered just to what use the funds had been put?\nANo, it could not be seen.\nQDid Schwarzenberger audit these bills himself?\nANo, this work was much too extensive. After all, there were a large number of field offices and the proof of payments which had been made amounted to thousands with some field offices alone, we can say that it would be a round figure but it would not be very little. There must have been 30 to 40 thousand bills submitted every month and it was impossible for one man to audit them.\nQWho ordered this material in Office V?\nAIn Office V for this purpose we had established a preliminary auditing agency.\nQHow many persons were working in this preliminary auditing agency?\nABefore 1941, there must have been 25 to 30 people; and after 1941, this figure decreased from year to year. People were conscripted occasionally and finally at the end, in 1934 or 1944, there were perhaps 10, or in the end, 6 people left.\nQDid the preliminary auditing agency audit all material?\nAThe preliminary auditing agency examined all the expenditures of Office V. In this case, I am referring to the office treasurey. It would only audit the field offices whenever material was submitted for that, and since at the end, there was so little personnel left, this \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2421, "page_number": "2414", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "work could not be carried out any more completely. At the end, every month individual titles were taken out and they would be audited Precisely.\nQConsequently, was it possible for the members of Office V to have a precise knowledge as to the use to which all the individual funds were put?\nANo, they were not able to carry out a complete check.\nQDid the Lebensborn receive the funds which it needed to carry out its task from Office V?\nAAs far as I know, the Lebensborn was only a society and it only would receive subsidies.\nQDid the Lebensborn render its accounts as to the use to which it had put the funds?\nAI didn't sec that but if it was a society, then probably it was not the task of the Reich to check its accounts. My field of work did not deal with the Lebensborn. This was dealt with by a man by the name of Fischke. However, as I have stated before, the Lebensborn was only a society.\nAWas the treasury of the Lebensborn checked by the preliminary auditing agency of Office V?\nANot as far as I know.\nQDuring your activity in Office V, did you audit material of all kinds?\nAYes.\nQDid Office V ever furnish funds to any agencies for the purpose of interrupting the pregnancy of eastern female workers?\nANo, I never saw such material at all. If I had seen material of that kind I would recall it; it would have been something quite special, and I cannot imagine that this work would have come within this field of work of the Reich Commissar.\nQDid Office V ever furnish funds for the purpose of taking away the infants of female eastern workers?\nANo, that doesn't seem plausible to me either. I must state here \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2422, "page_number": "2415", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "that if I had seen these things -- and I don't think that payments of that sort were made, because it didn't, come within-our budgetary plan.\nQIn your auditing work, did you ever ascertain that such payments were made?\nANo.\nQWere funds furnished to any agencies for the purpose of having a racial examination given to the infants of eastern workers?\nAI didn't see that, and I don't think so.\nQDid Office V ever furnish funds for the purpose of punishing eastern workers or prisoners of war for having had sexual intercourse with Germans?\nANo. I never saw anything of that kind.\nQWere the racial classification experts who had to deal with the racial examinations regarding punishment for sexual intercourse, paid by Office V?\nANot as far as I know. Racial classification experts did not belong to the personnel of the Reich Commissar. They would have belonged to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQDid Office V ever furnish funds for the purpose of hampering marriages for the reproduction of nationals from the eastern territories?\nAI must answer that in the negative. I never heard anything of that kind.\nQWas Office V a participant in deporation of non-Germans for slave labor in Germany?\nAWell, that must have been a task of Sauckel--or whatever his name was.\nQJust how could the Reich Commissar have anything to do with that task?\nAWell, Mr. Counsel, I certainly didn't see anything like that either.\nQWho issued the order to the DAW for the procurement of furniture?\nAWhat is the DAW? What do you mean by DAW?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2423, "page_number": "2416", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQThe DAW is the German Equipment Works.\nAOh, the name is German Equipment Works. Well, furniture was procured there. The furniture procurement agency, Office III, must be responsible for that agency of the Reich Commissar.\nQHow was the payment of the furniture carried out through Office V?\nAIt was handled in the following manner: Office III would put a request for payment with the signature of the expert of the furniture procurement agency and the finance office. Then it would request the DUT to pay for this furniture.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2424, "page_number": "2417", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDuring your activity in Office 5 was it generally known that the DAW, the German Equipment Works, operated, a concentration camp?\nAI couldn't know that and I don't think that any of the others knew it. After all, I didn't even know what DAW stood for. The Furniture Procurement Agency gave orders to a large number of firms in Germany who manufactured furniture. Certainly it didn't become evident from the bills of the DAW that what you have just said ever was the case. Otherwise I could have just put it down on paper anyway.\nQWas the repairing of the furniture part of the field of tasks of Office 5?\nANo.\nQDid Office 5 ever furnish funds for the deportation of Jews from the occupied and Incorporated territories?\nACounsel, will you please repeat the question? I didn't hear you.\nQDid Office 5 ever furnish funds for the deportation of Jews from the Incorporated and occupied territories?\nAI don't think that that was the case either. I cannot imagine that this would have been a task of the Reich Commissar.\nQIn your auditing work did you ever ascertair from the material there that funds had been furnished for this purpose?\nANo.\nQWere any funds furnished for the carrying out of the Ghetto drive at Lodz, the demolition of the Ghetto at Lodz?\nANo, no, no. I never saw anything of that sort. If I had seen it I certainly would tell you now.\nQDid Schwarzenberger give orders with regard to the account for the turning in of land for the Land Transfer account?\nANo. In my opinion, as far as I know, the agricultural office and the land office were competent for that. I saw land transfers repeatedly and Koch had always ordered them and they ordered us to accept the funds.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2425, "page_number": "2418", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDid Office 5 in any way participate in giving seized agricultural estates to resettlers in order to have them administer these on a trusteeship basis?\nAI consider that to be out of the question.\nQDid Office 5 in any way participate in the utilization of this property for the benefit of resettlers?\nAOther agencies ordered this but I cannot name any of them. Perhaps it could be the Central Land Office or the Office of Agriculture, but certainly Office 5 had nothing to do with it. After all, it was not a specialized office for that purpose.\nQDid Office 5 play a part in the seizure of church property or any other cultural object?\nANo. I can also answer that in the negative.\nQDid you ascertain that the office treasury made any payments to the Ahnenerbe for the seizure of cultural objects?\nAThe Ahnenerbe Society, as far as I know, also received subsidies but certainly not for that purpose.\nQDid you ever ascertain anything of that sort in the material which you audited?\nANo. By subsidies I mean that they receive some payment and, of course, they don't check these funds with the office of the Reich Commissar, They couldn't do that.\nQDid Office 5 ever distribute any objects which had been taken away from concentration camp inmates?\nAOffice 5 had nothing to do with the distribution of such objects.\nQWere you together with Schwarzenberger at an agency as the representative of the Reich Commissar at Cracow?\nAYes.\nQWhen did this take place?\nAThat is a long time ago. It must have been early in '43. However, it may be somewhat later. In any case, it must have been \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2426, "page_number": "2419", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "during 1943. However, it could have been '42. I cannot tell you for Certain. I believe that I can give you the year '43.\nQWhat was the object of this journey?\nAIt was the object of this journey to visit the administrative office at Cracow and to audit it as far as its treasury, was concerned; and, secondly, to fix the ratings of the employees there and people to be newly employed.\nQIn the course of this journey did you also examine an administrative office for Jewish property?\nANo, we did not do that, After all, it was none of our business, actually. I know the following about this matter: Sturmbannfuehrer Meyer was an administrative officer of this Jewish property and as an administrative officer he worked at the Field Office of the Representative of the Reich Commissar at Cracow. His appointment must have taken place a short time before our visit there or while we were there.\nQI am now going to put to you the affidavit of Ganzer. It is DocumentNO-5663, Exhibit No. 773. (Document handed to witness.) Do you know Ganzer?\nAYes, I know him.\nQDid you discuss your activity at Cracow with Ganzer?\nANo. I never said anything about it. An auditing report was compiled about it and it is possible that he may have read the report. However, he only would have seen what I said before. He would see the auditing work if the treasury there and the rules which we applied to the ratings given to the employees at Cracow.\nQWas he together with you at Cracow?\nANo, I don't think so. There was another auditor with us by the name of Ott but he was already there when we came.\nQFrom the report could Ganzer say what you and Schwarzenberger had done at Cracow?\nAWell, he could figure out the travel expenses and he knew that we were carrying out auditing work in that area at the administrative \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2427, "page_number": "2420", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "office at Cracow.\nQWhat did you state with regard to the travel expenses for your journey?\nAI could write nothing else in there but that I carried out the treasury auditing at Cracow.\nQWhat did Schwarzenberger write there?\nAHa could only have written also what his task was, that with the administrative officer there -- well, as far as I can recall it read in payment questions, payment of employees.\nQWhat do you know about Schwarzenberger's political attitude?\nAThe political attitude of Schwarzenberger? Well, he certainly was not a fanatical National Socialist. On the occasion of my second, third or fourth meeting with him at his office he once stated, \"Well, you know, opinions held by these party big-shots like Lay or like Rosenberg cannot be shared by anybody.\"\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQWitness, you had a position under the defendant Schwarzenberger, didn't you?\nAYes.\nQAnd most of your knowledge is restricted to the things that you actually handled. That is true, isn't it?\nAYes, which I personally handled.\nQNow, Schwarzenberger was a very busy man, wasn't he?\nAYes. The field of work with regard to finance was very extensive.\nQI believe you said that your receipts in this office were two or three million Reichsmarks per month or per year.\nAAre you referring to the receipts?\nQYes.", "speakers": [ "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2428, "page_number": "2421", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo; the two or three millions I mentioned was the money which Arrived. However, the number of vouchers which arrived, arrived in the thousands every month.\nQBut you received much less money than you disbursed. In other words, I understood you to say that your receipts were two or three million and your disbursements about three hundred million.\nAYes, that is correct, annually.\nQNow, did you see the defendant Schwarzenberger very often? Did you confer with him often?\nAYes, in official matters, naturally, After all, he was in Charge.\nAAnd he kept up with what was going on generally around that office, didn't he?\nAYes, that is quite true. However, he was not able to look after everything personally.\nQYes, I understand.\nABecause the machine was very great.\nQYes, I understand that. But he did require all mail to come through his office for his signature or the signature of his deputy, did he not?\nAWell, as far as payments were concerned. That he couldn't look after because then he would have had to sign day and night.\nQBut he made a few exceptions for routine matters; but for everything of any importance the mail did go through his office, did it not?\nAWell, the correspondence would go through his office. However, when payments were concerned then he would use his deputy.\nQYes. Now, when these different organizations who received money through Office 5 wanted to fix a budget for their next financial year, they would confer with the defendant Schwarzenberger in order to be sure that they were within their legal rights in fixing up this budget, did they not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2429, "page_number": "2422", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI did not compile the budget. Senior Government Councillor Fischke would compile it. This budget was planned in such a way that the figures for the expenditures for the past year would be used as a basis more or less.\nQYes, I understand that, but like any government agency they had to follow certain rules and regulations and they had to justify their budget, did they not?\nAJustify it? Well, I stated once before that the Reich budget in the Reich Economic Regulations was completely contained. The items were contained therein and anything else would not have been in accordance with orders and, of course, this would have had terrible effects. I don't think that anything else accumulated than was provided for in the budget.\nQWell, what I am trying to say or trying to find out is these people, when preparing their budget, would discuss it with this man whom you just mentioned who was the budget officer or the man who advised people about fixing their budget and he was under Schwarzenberger, wasn't he?\nAWell, I did not work on the budget.\nQYes, I understand.\nABut I would have done it, yes, I would have done it. I would have talked to Schwarzenberger about it.\nQNow, you were talking about some receipts there. I will ask you about the furniture that was sold in connection with the Ghetto and about 90,000 Marks came into your office there for this Litzmannstadt furniture. You remember that, don't you?\nAI cannot recall the figure. The figure may be smaller. I cannot recall it for certain. However, I can recall in this matter that Dr. Reichert ascertained an amount here which this field office had maintained, without his knowledge, in its treasury. He then turned over this amount to the office treasury and it was something for the Reich. I think that was the situation. In this case Reichert would be \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2430, "page_number": "2423", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "able to give you all the details. After all, he was the man who salt with it.\nQNow, you spoke of buying some furniture. Did you notice that some of this furniture that was coming from these concentration camps was awfully cheap?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2431, "page_number": "2424", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.I only heard about that on one occasion and that is the first time that I heard of the DAW, the German Equipment Works. And I heard for the first time about this fin and I heard for the first time that this firm employed inmates. It was the very first time. However, otherwise they did not become evident from the bills which were submitted. You couldn't see what enterprise it was and what workers. We couldn't see whether these workers cane from the occupied territories or not. It was impossible,\nQ.You know about the concentration camp at Dachau, didn't you?\nA.Yes, Whenever you went by train somwhere you would hear somebody talk about it.\nQ.And you knew that this furniture that you were getting from concentration camps was much cheaper, didn't you, than other furniture?\nA (No response.)\nQ.How let me ask you another question if you can't answer that one right now. Amt 5, your Office 5, paid money to EWZ and UWZ, didn't it?\nAYes.\nQ.Now, you said that you didn't know anything about racial examiners. Didn't EWZ and UWZ have racial examiners?\nA.I never had anything to do with Rusha. Of course, it may be possible that on some occasion or other I had some contact with them. It is possible that one of those men knows me but I personally don't know any of them.\nQ.You would have noticed, wouldn't you, if this furniture had been half-priced? Wasn't there anything in the way it was handled there that you could tell you were getting your furniture for half of its ordinary price?\nA.You can hardly assume that if you see a bill for furniture that the table costs 20 harks or 30 Marks. After all, you don't see the quality of the goods.\nQ.Oh, I see, yes. That's all right. Well now, with reference to those trips that Schwarzenberger took, he took a good many trips, didn't he?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2432, "page_number": "2425", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Pardon?\nQ.Schwarzenberger took a good many trips into the field offices?\nA.It is too much to say that he took a lot of trips. I could imagine that annually he took four or five trips as long as I knew him.\nQ.Did you know whether he ever went to Cracow without you being With him?\nA.What was that, please?\nQ.Did he ever go to Cracow alone, that is, when you weren't there?\nA.As long as I was there he only went together with no. Afterwards he did not go to Cracow any more.\nQ.And he never went there unless you went with him?\nA.After the time when I was away with him he wasn't there any more and what happened before I don't know.\nMR. LAMB:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything on redirect?\nDR. GAWLIK:Only one question, your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Witness, when the treasury was discovered at Lodz, had the furniture been sold at that time?\nA.You must imagine this: If the man Reichert discovered that some sort of a treasury existed there, then he must have already audited this report of this treasury or he wouldn't have been able to take ever this account. Well, from that moment on the whole thing blew up.\nQ.And before that nothing about the matter was known to Office 5?\nA.Well, if he had known about it the matter would have been blown up before.\nDR. GAWLIK:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2433, "page_number": "2426", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Whom are you calling next?\nDR. GAWLIK:If the Tribunal please, I shall now call Martin Lenz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMARTINLENZ, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examinations.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Please tell the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Martin Lenz.\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.On the 31 of October, 1898 at Bayreuth.\nQ.What is your profession?\nA.I was a senior secretary in the Administration.\nQ.Where were you employed in 1945?\nA.In the Main Staff Office, the office of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Since when had you been employed there?\nA.Since the 15th of November, 1943.\nQ.Where were you employed previously?\nA.Before that I worked for the government in Central and Upper Franconia, in the Welfare Department.\nQ.Why did you change your occupation?\nA.Because I was incapable of serving in the field. On the 6th of November, 1943, I was deferred from military service and then I was assigned to the main Staff Office, the Office of the Reich Commissar for the duration of the war.\nQ.Where did you work in the Main Staff Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MARTIN", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2434, "page_number": "2427", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.In Office 5.\nQ.Who was your superior?\nA.My superior was Herr Schwarzenberger and Fintzler.\nQ.Did you know that department before?\nA.No.\nQ.What activity did you carry out in Office 5?\nA.After I entered this office I first of all looked for the first two weeks at the regulations of the Reich Treasury Decree and then for a short time I worked in the VOMI department; then in the auditing of the treasuries. So that in the month of July when the man who was in charge of the job was drafted I took over the auditing of the treasury.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2435, "page_number": "2428", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.What did you have to do as Director of the Treasury?\nA.As the man in charge of the Treasury I had to look after posting accounts in the banks and I had to deal with the cash book and to supervise the bookkeeping and the monthly accounting of the Main Treasury.\nQ.Did all demands for payment pass through your hands?\nA.Yes.\nQ.From what agency did these demands for payments arrive?\nA.Demands for payment first of all arrived from the Main Staff Office, from the VOMI agencies as representatives of the Reich Commissar and in part from the DUT.\nQ.From the demands for payments, if they did not come from the Main Staff Office, was it evident for what purposes these requested funds were to be used?\nA.Running expenses for that month was stated as the purpose for these funds.\nQ.In order to clarify this matter completely I would therefore ask you to state if these requests for payment are running expenses for that month?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is running expense stated there?\nA.No, it was just a form that was filled in and then the time limits were placed there on what date this money was to be transferred.\nQ.Did you also make payments to the EWZ and UWZ?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How were the demands for payment handled here?\nA.I can recall the transfer money amounting to altogether three million.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that the testimony is translated and when counsel has propounded a question you will pause until the question has been translated before you begin to answer.\nA.Yes, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2436, "page_number": "2429", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Please answer the question, witness.\nA.Will you please repeat the question.\nQ.How were requests for payments handled for the UWZ and FQZ?\nA.The RSHA used a special form when they requested funds.\nQ.What is the purpose of these funds mentioned there?\nA.No, only it was stated there that they were to take care of expenses.\nQ.During your activity as director of the Treasury did you ever make payments which were used for the kidnapping of foreign children?\nA.No.\nQ.Were any payments requested from your office for the purpose of carrying out abortions on female workers from the East?\nA.No, I never made any payments for that purpose.\nQ.Do you know whether the office treasure made payments for the taking away and accomodating of these Eastern female workers?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the offices really make any such payments?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Office Treasury carry out any payments in connection with the punishment of Eastern workers and prisoners of war for sexual intercourse with Germans?\nA.No.\nQ.Were any payments ever made for the purpose of preventing the reproduction of enemy Nationals?\nA.No, I never heard of that.\nQ.From the material which passed through your hands did it become evident that the Treasury was making payments for the forcible deportation of enemy Nationals?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Office Treasury ever make payments for putting into effect of the German People's List?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2437, "page_number": "2430", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.No, I don't know anything about it.\nQ.Did the Office Treasury ever make payments for the purpose of Germanizing non-Germans or bringing non-German nationals into Germany as slave labor?\nA.No, I know nothing about that.\nQ.Did you ever hear anything about it?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Office Treasury make payments for the persecution and extermination of Jews?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever in charge of the land transfer account in the Office Treasury?\nA.Yes, for a short time.\nQ.When were you in charge of that account?\nA.For a short time before I was appointed Chief of the Treasury.\nQ.What year was that?\nA.It was the year 1944. This lasted approximately six to eight weeks.\nQ.Wasthis account for payment which you accepted or for paying out money?\nA.Only one I was subject to.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think I will have to suggest to counsel and the witness that it is necessary to have a pause between questions and answers.\nDR. GAWLIK:Yes, your Honor.\nQ.Who issued orders for the paying of these amounts which were paid on this account?\nA.This material came from Office 4, Land Office.\nQ.Do you know what funds were paid on that account?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What sort of money was that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. GAWLIK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2438, "page_number": "2431", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.This money was derived from leases and rents.\nQ.Did it become evident from this material that Jews with property wereconcerned here?\nA.It was only stated very superficially. It was only stated that sand pits were leased here, gravel pits or rents for certain time limits. No further statements were made about it.\nQ.On whose behalf were these funds accepted?\nA.Well, they benefited the Reich.\nQ.As far as money was paid into this account were you issued instructions guiding this?\nA.Yes.\nQ.From what did this obligation arise?\nA.I didn't understand your question.\nQ.From what did this obligation on your part arise, that you had to adhere to the regulations to pay out these funds.\nA.I received orders from the Main Supervisor centers that all material had to be passed on to me and that it had to be returned in payment.\nQ.Were there legal representations for that?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where were they ?\nA.Reich Budgetary decree and Office Treasury.\nQ.Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination. BY MR. LAMB:\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, do you know what Lebensborn, VOMI, DUT, DAG, EWZ, UWZ, did with the money that they got?\nA.As far as I can recall the Lebensborn once received the amount of three million.\nQ.Wait just a minute now. I want you to answer my question as I \n ask them to you and try to be responsive, please.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2439, "page_number": "2432", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Will you repeat the question once more.\nQ.You remember those agencies just named to you, Do you know what they did with the money they received from Office 5?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.All right then, how do you know whether you paid out any money for abortions and racial examinations and the taking of children and resettlements and deportations, etc. if you don't know what the money went for?\nA.I cannot tell you just how these funds were used.\nQ.That's exactly what I wanted to find out. Now, at the beginning of each financial year, each one of these agencies would set up a budget and that would be presented through Schwarzenberger of Office 5 to the Financial Ministry, wouldn't it?\nA.I am not informed about that.\nQ.And you don't know about budgets, do you?\nA.I am acquainted with the budget.\nQ.You are acquainted with it? Well, wasn't a budget set up by each one of these offices and approved by the Finance Minister?\nA.I only know the budgetary plan of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.So you don't knew about the budgetary plan of these other offices, do you?\nA.I do not know them.\nQ.Well, you know this much , don't you, when a budget is set up, in that budget the expenditure of the funds is approved for the following year?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And then all that is necessary is to just draw the funds down as you need them. Of course you don't have to state then just exactly what the funds are going to be used for, that has already been done when you prepare your budget and when the budget is approved, isn't \n that true?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2440, "page_number": "2433", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.I only looked at the budget very briefly. It was at the end of the fiscal year 1944, when the fiscal year had already concluded. It was impossible for me to study the budgetary plan and I didn't occupy myself with it.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2441, "page_number": "2434", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QYou don't know anything about it then, do you?\nANo, I cannot give you any information about that,\nQAnd I believe you stated that you didn't know anything, about the workings or the work of these different organizations to which you paid money.\nAI only know something about my activity in Office 5.\nQAnd all you did in Office 5 was when you got a request from somebody to pay money; that they had already arranged to get?\nAI would have to look into our correspondence as to the payment of salaries, work with the banks and supervision of booking and my activity and monthly accounting with the Reich Main Treasury.\nQSchwarzenberger knew more about these other organizations than you did didn't he?\nAWell, I must assume that.\nQHe was in charge of Office 5 and all the correspondence had to go through him, didn't it?\nAI am quite certain of that as far as financial matters were Concerned.\nQDon't you know that Lebensborn andVOMI and all these other organizations came there, their representatives came there and discussed funds and finances and budgetary matters with Schwarzenberger and his collaborators?\nAI was never present when such discussions took place.\nMR. LAMB:We have no further discussions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any redirect?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQIn cross examination you stated, witness, that you did not know what the agencies did with the funds which they had received from Office 5. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhy couldn't you know that?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2442, "page_number": "2435", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "ABecause it did not become evident from the receipts which were received.\nQCould Schwarzenberger know just how these funds were used by individual agencies?\nAThat is possible.\nQDid Schwarzenberger have more material that you?\nAYes, Schwarzenberger must have been previously acquainted with all the happenings there.\nQIf an agency requested some funds it would make a demand for payment. Is that right?\nAYes.\nQYou further stated that the purpose for these funds could not be seen on the demand for payment?\nAIt could only be seen where it was stated running expenses for the month.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, you see those lights flash? That means pause.\nAYes. BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQWhat further materiel was received by Office 5 from the agencies for which use the funds had been put to?\nAIn a monthly accounting.\nQWhat was contained in the monthly accounting?\nAI didn't audit that.\nQDid you see the monthly accounting report?\nAI saw that during the first few weeks when I myself had to take care of the auditing. Here we had to audit the accounts of the Higher SS and Police Leader at Vienna.\nQWas the purpose of these funds set out in each report individually or only by item?\nAIt was briefly compiled by items.\nQIs it correct also that from the accounting system the item \n could be seen?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2443, "page_number": "2436", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "AI didn't understand your question.\nQAccordingly from the accounts which were rendered could the title be seen?\nAThere was a short statement under the title.\nQTherefore, from the accounting you couldn't see any more either?\nANo, no more became evident from the accounting.\nQTherefore, would Schwarzenberger know more then what was contained in the accounts that you rendered?\nAI must assume that.\nQWhy?\nAPerhaps from discussions which he had and after all I was not consulted when each discussion took place.\nQWitness, don't only tell us what you heard; we only want to know what you know of your own knowledge. We don't want any conclusions or assumptions. Did any other written material arrive from that Office 5 from any other agency outside of the accounts which you rendered?\nANo.\nQIs it consequently correct that the purpose to which these funds had been put could only become evident for the demands for payment and from the accounts whenever they were rendered?\nANo, no more became evident.\nQCould Schwarzenberger see any more?\nANo, Schwarzenberger could see no more.\nQThank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. GAWLIK:At present I do not want to call any additional witnesses. Three more witnesses, however, will be called: Ganzer, Hagen, and Andritzky. These witnesses have not arrived as yet in Nurnberg. The witness Andritzky lives in Berlin. She was requested a \n long time ago by the Office of the Secretary General.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. GAWLIK", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2444, "page_number": "2437", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "The witness Hagen is in a British camp and requested him three weeks ago and he has not appeared as yet, and from Ganzer, I received notification that he is on the way, on a trip and he cannot be reached. Therefore, I reserve the right that I can examine these witnesses whenever they arrive here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is a question we will have to pass upon when we get around to it.\nDR. GAWLIK:Please give consideration to the fact, your Honor, that it is not my fault; I can't do anything about it. I can't do any more than turn to the Office of the Secretary General and the Office of the Secretary General has had these witnesses requested. That is a more or less higher authority. The witness is in a British camp and it is not possible for me to go to a British camp and talk to the witness, so what can I do about it?\nTHE PRESIDENT:For the same reason the Secretary-General can't get him here. I don't know, It is an unfortunate thing that a lawyer runs into when he can't get his witnesses into court. However, we will see about that when we get around to it. Do you have anything else now?\nDR. GAWLIK:Well I want to say that in the course of this trial when these witnesses arrive I want the right reserved for me so that I can call them at that time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will rule on that later; it is not necessary to rule on that now.\nDR. GAWLIK:Then please I would like to submit my document books.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. GAWLIK:No, not now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Do you have anything else now?\nDR. GAWLIK:No, I have nothing else right now. For the time being I have concluded the presentation of my case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next defendant.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2445, "page_number": "2438", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "MR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, I don't see the attorney for Meyer-Hetling in the court room but he had one more witness that ha was going to put on today. The witness got here day before yesterday and if he is around I would like to get through with the defendant Meyer-Hetling now before we start into another defendant.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't see much we can do about that in the absence of counsel.\nMR. LAMB:I thought we might possibly call him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:However, it is almost recess time so during the recess period you can check up and see if you can get hold of him and we will recess until 3 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2446, "page_number": "2439", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.BEHLING: (Counsel for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) Your Honor, I ask permission to resume my case in chief for the defendant Meyer-Hetling.\nFirst of all I have to apologize, apologize again for this unfortunate interruption, but I was in another trial and I was really hooked in the interrogation of a witness there and couldn't interrupt there.\nNow, if the Courts sees no objection and if the Prosecution has no objection, I will call the witness Anna Margarethe Pasi.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nANNA MARGARETHEPASI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Witness, will you please give your full name to the Tribunal and tell the Tribunal when you were born.\nA.My name is Anna Margarethe Pasi, and I was born on the 27th of May, 1905, at Crefeld.\nQ.Witness, it would be most convenient if after every question and before every answer you would pause a short interval, otherwise the interpreters will get into trouble.\nA.Yes, I will.\nQ.You have been a secretary in the Research Council; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.During what period of time were you a secretary there?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "ANNA MARGARETHE", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2447, "page_number": "2440", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.During the first from the 1st August, 1938 until the 1st of July, 1940.\nQ.After that where did you work?\nA.On the 1st of July, 1940, I was hired as a secretary by Professor Meyer-Hetling at the Institute for Agricultural Science and Policy in the institute in Berlin; at the University in Berlin.\nQ.For how long did you work down there?\nA.I am still working in that institute today.\nQ.What kind of work did you have to take care of in the Research Council -- not so quick with the answer; don't forget the interval.\nA.In my activity in the Research Council at the university I had to take care of the clerical work.\nQ.I told you not to go so quickly.\nA.Particularly I had to work for an export in the department of agriculture and seeds.\nQ.At the time did you take care of work for Professor MeyerHetling already?\nA.Yes, I worked for Professor Meyer-Hetling if his personal secretary was absent.\nQ.When were you hired as Professor Meyer-Hetling's personal secretary?\nA.On the 1st of July, 1940, I became the personal secretary of Professor Meyer.\nQ.And what kind of work did you have to deal with then?\nA.I had to take care of all clerical work and writings which normally a secretary has to do. I had to handle the whole correspondence with his colleagues and other experts in his field of science; and with his co-workers, Dr. Raffer, I wrote his lectures for the university, and his publications which he dictated to me; I received visitors; I made his phone calls; one of my important tasks also was to keep his publications folder and newspaper folder going and keep it up to date.\nQ.What were the positions held by Professor Meyer in 1940?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2448, "page_number": "2441", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Professor Meyer-Hetling first of all was a professor at the University, and director of the institute for agricultural science and agricutural policy of the university. Apart from that he was chief of the industrial group for general biology and agricultural research in the Reich Research Council; and he wag also manager of the Main Department Planning and Soil in the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Well, what was the paramount activity of his?\nA.His main task was in his activities as professor at the university, and chief of the Institute for Agricultural Science and Policy.\nQ.In what way did that result as far as his time division was concerned.\nA.The main part of his time he spent on his work, he spent on the work in the university.\nQ.Can you possibly tell us in a few brief words how the usual work day of the defendant would proceed?\nA.It was the habit of Professor Meyer to arrive in the building of the research university at eight-thirty in the morning; then, I would submit to him the mail received for the research service or for the institute for agricultural science, and also mail for the planning office.\nQ.Did all the mail of the planning office go through your hands?\nA.No, Professor Meyer only received the mail addressed to him personally for the planning office. For the rest he received only such mail of the planning office as the experts thought fit to submit to him because it was important.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2449, "page_number": "2442", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QWhat about the mail of the Central Land Office?\nAIf I have to speak the truth, I never saw the mail of the Central Land Office at all.\nQWell, did Professor Meyer see it?\nANo; as far as I remember, he did not see it either.\nQWell, how would the defendant deal with the incoming mail?\nAMost of the time Professor Meyer would dictate the answering letters right away, after receipt of the mail.\nQWell, how did the forenoon go on?\nAWell, as the morning went on a few visitors would arrive in the afternoon, he would have a few talks to take care of with the experts of the Research Service, and a few phone calls to make. I think that just about took care of the morning.\nQDid experts from the Planning Office come there too?\nAYes, because the Planning Office was in the same building as the Research Service.\nQDidn't Professor Meyer have his own office in the Planning Office?\nANo; he took care of whatever he had to do with regard to the Planning Office in the office of the Research Service.\nQDid his activities for the Planning Office take more time?\nANo, they didn't take much time. I would say about half of the morning.\nQDo you recall that the Chief of the Main Staff Office had regular Monday conferences with the chiefs of the offices of the Main Staff Office?\nAYes.\nQDid Professor Meyer attend these meetings regularly?\nANo.\nQHow can you conclude that?\nAI have already said that the bulk of Professor Meyer's work was \n based on his work in the university.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2450, "page_number": "2443", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "He would very often often ask, in Herr Greifelt's office, whether his presence was required at all in the Monday conferences. If that was not the case, then he would commission Dr. Gebert or Dr. Meding to attend the conferences on his behalf or sometimes nobody at all. In those cases when Professor Meyer himself attended the conferences, he would usually be back after an hour, including the time spent on the way.\nQIn other words, he himself rather seldom took part in the conferences?\nAYes, I may well say that.\nQAnd if he sent someone else in his place, would he then always receive a written report from his representative?\nANo, I cannot remember any written report of that kind. It is possible that Dr. Gebert would talk the matter over with him, but I don't know about anything like a written report at all.\nQDid Gebert once say to you that he reported to Professor Meyer-Hetling concerning the results of the Monday Conferences, or that he talked them over with him?\nANo.\nQNow, what about the afternoon?\nADuring the afternoon, most of the time, Professor Meyer spent the hours in his institute for Agricultural Research, or he worked at home, where he had a very extensive, private, specialized library.\nQYou yourself were in the Institute in the afternoon?\nAYes.\nQWhat kind of work was carried out and had to be carried out in the Institute?\nADiploma examinations; Professor Meyer would write his expert opinion on Doctor's theses and on promotions examinations; he would work on his publications and lectures, and he rather hated to be disturbed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2451, "page_number": "2444", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QApart from the lectures, were there inspection trips to sample estates, or something of that kind, which such trips took up the time of the defendant to a very great extent?\nAYes, Dr. Meyer went on inspection trips rather often, with colleagues or students. I remember particularly that he went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, or to the sample estate at Schwerle, at Oderbruch, or to some other estates near Berlin.\nQNow what about during the war? Did this exact distribution of time undergo changes then?\nANo, Professor Meyer kept up his lectures during the war to the fullest extent, and when, in the autumn of 1944, he was drafted into the armed forces, he passed on the elaboration of his lectures to his chief assistants, who could then give the lecture on the strength of what Professor Meyer had drawn up previously.\nQYou have already stated that the most important correspondence of the Planning Office was channeled over your desk.\nAYes.\nQWell, can you tell us, then, whether this correspondence of the Planning Office contained letters dealing with alien ethnic questions?\nANo, I cannot recall that forced evacuations or questions of alien ethnics were discussed.\nQIn correspondence or rather literary work of the defendant, did you ever see anything that dealt with genocide?\nANo.\nQDo you know about the General Plan East?\nAYes; I typed it in the Institute of Professor Meyer, and it was drawn up there too.\nQTherefore, is it correct to say that this so-called General Plan East was not made in the Main Staff Office nor in the Research Service, but in the University Institute, is that right?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2452, "page_number": "2445", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QDoes that lead to the conclusion, concerning its contents-or, to put the question differently, were there any misgivings as to why this very agency had been commissioned to elaborate this plan?\nAWell, I can imagine the reason was because it was a scientific work.\nQCan you remember the contents of the plan in its broad outlines?\nAYes, I do remember that mention was made of rural planning, with very high expenditures for material, and there was also an estimate for the expense of a project, the creation of main villages and the way they ought to be built. However, this was quite a number of years back, and only that has clung to my memory.\nQDid this general plan have a realistic basis; particularly was it to be brought to realization immediately?\nANo, I think the intention was to realize it only after the war was over.\nQWould you be able to remember further details if the General Plan East was put to you?\nAWell, I couldn't tell you that before hand.\nQCan you give us an estimate concerning the approximate number of pages of that General Plan East which you typed at the time?\nAI would estimate that it contained anything between 30 and 40 pages, but I don't know exactly.\nQAt any rate it was more of a volume than 8 to 10 pages?\nAYes.\nQDid you have an insight into the personal circumstances of the defendant?\nAYes; I would go to Professor Meyer's private house.\nQDuring the whole period when you worked with Professor Meyer, could you find out anything which would lead to the conclusion that he used his position as university professor, or his office in the Main Staff Office, to entich himself personally?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2453, "page_number": "2446", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "ANo, Professor Meyer by no means used his positions to entich himself. His work in the Planning Office was only a part-time job and, at the same time, honorary, and he never received any compensation for it.\nQYou have already stated that Professor Meyer had only a parttime and honorary job in the Planning Office. What I understand by \"part-time job\" is that his main job was that of a professor.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow what about his honorary position? What do you mean by that?\nAWhen I speak of an honorary position, I mean that at no time did he receive any remuneration for it. As to his travel expenses, he mostly joined those trips with trips which he made for the Research Service, and he would settle his accounts with the Research Service and not with the Planning Office.\nQCan you tell us something concerning the political attitude of the defendant Meyer?\nA *rofessor Meyer was repeatedly summoned by the Party to take part in Party rallies. On those occasions he would say to me, \"Please find some excuse for me, because I don't have the time to go there.\" I cannot recall that Professor Meyer at any time took part in political meetings or had such political meetings held in his Institute or in the Research Service.\nQDo you recall that on one occasion Professor Meyer was summoned to the Kreisleiter?\nAI cannot remember that.\nQDo you remember the disputes he had with the Ortsgruppe at Dahlem?\nAYes. This Ortsgruppe demanded that Professot Meyer take part in the Party assemblies, but, as I have already stated, he always found an excuse not to go, or he had me find that excuse for him.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2454, "page_number": "2447", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.Were you a member of the Nazi Party yourself?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Professor Meyer at any time exert pressure against you to make you join the Party?\nA.No, at no time.\nQ.How were his relations with his co-workers, as far as politics were concerned?\nA.Professor Meyer had quite a number of co-workers who were neither members of the Nazi Party nor of any other formations of the Party. On the contrary, I think he was very well informed of the fact that some of them were anti-Nazis, and I also know that he protected these people on several occasions when difficulties arose for them.\nQ.Well, can you give us a few names?\nA.Yes, Herr von Machuj, Dr. Christaller, Dr. Krause.\nQ.Do you recall that Professor Meyer took a very decisive interest and tried to help persecuted persons even in cases where arrests had occurred, for instance, in the case of the wife of Professor Frank?\nA.Yes, I know that very well, because Professor Meyer saw to it that the wife of a colleague of his, who had been arrested for defeatist remarks, was released from prison. Apart from that, he got a colleague professor of his own out of a concentration camp.\nQ.Were there other instances when the defendant opposed abuses by Party personalities insofar as his position gave him the possibility of that at all?\nA.Yes. I know that Professor Meyer was very much unnerved about the fact that Gauleiter Koch tried to appropriate an estate for his own purposes. As far as I know, he had correspondence concerning that matter, and he even went to see Gauleiter Koch about it.\nQ.Did he lodge a complaint concerning Koch too?\nA.Well, you see, it is possible, but as far as the contents of such a complaint are concerned, I can't remember that.\nQ.In other words, you mean you don't remember the wording?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2455, "page_number": "2448", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Yes, yes, that is what I mean.\nQ.Can you confirm the fact that when the Main Staff Office was transferred to Schweikelberg, the Construction Office was transferred there too?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the Construction Office have any special significance within the scope of the tasks of Professor Meyer?\nA.I would not say a special significance, certainly not. I can remember that on one occasion one Herr Kahl, and on another occasion one Herr Noye, came to see Professor Meyer in this connection.\nQ.I see. You are still working in that agency, aren't you? I mean today, in the Research Service.\nA.No, no, not in the Research Service, only in the university.\nQ.Were you an employee of the university at that time?\nA.I became an employee of the university on the 1st of July 1940.\nQ.Can you recall that in the Spranger case the defendant tried to protect him in a very decisive manner at the time as far as university matters were concerned?\nA.Yes, I can recall that. Professor Meyer-Hetling was a member of the Prussian Academy of Science.\nQ.A while ago you mentioned a case, or various cases, where Professor Meyer had intervened in order to protect people who were persecuted by the Nazis. Did he intervene in every case where he heard about such things, or were these interventions only exceptions?\nA.No, Professor Meyer-Hetling intervened in every case when he heard about such things: for instance, if his colleagues had difficulties.\nQ.And it was quite immaterial whether they had been thrown into jail or into a concentration camp, or whether they were persecuted in any other manner?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2456, "page_number": "2449", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.Do you know that a half-Jewish domestic employee worked in the house of the defendant during all these years, or at least for many years?\nA.Yes.\nDR. BEHLING:No further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. LAMB:\nQ.Witness, you have stated that some of Dr. Meyer's associates were not Nazis. Dr. Meyer was a Nazi, wasn't he?\nA.Professor Meyer was a member of the Nazi Party.\nQ.Professor Meyer was a member of the SS, wasn't he?\nA.Yes.\nQ.From which concentration camp did he get a friend released?\nA.So far as I recall, that was somewhere near Halle.\nQ.Well, if he got a friend released from a concentration camp, he knew about concentration camps, didn't he, and he know that the concentration camps were operated by the SS?\nA.About that, Professor Meyer-\nDR. BEHLING:Your Honor, I object to this question, because here the witness is asked to tell us something about the inner thoughts of Professor Meyer-Hetling, and, unfortunately, that is quite impossible for her.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The objection would be very good, except that counsel for the defense opened the field by going into that very sort of testimony himself.\nGo ahead. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Will you answer that question please, witness?\nA.Well, may I ask that the question be repeated?\nQ.I said that if Dr. Meyer got a friend out of a concentration camp, it would be reasonable to think that he would know about concentration camps, and to know that they were operated by the SS. Isn't \n that true?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2457, "page_number": "2450", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.Well, I can't say that. Professor Meyer never discussed these matters with me. He never discussed concentration camps.\nQ.Just a moment ago you stated you knew that he had knowledge-I will change that. You stated that you knew that he took care of all of his friends who got in trouble. Now, if you don't know of his knowledge, he my have known of people that were in concentration camps and in other trouble and did nothing about it. That is a fact, isn't it? You don't know his inner thoughts?\nA.No. Professor Meyer knew that his colleague was in a concentration camp.\nQ.Just a minute, now, I am not asking you about that. I want you to answer my question; be responsive to what I ask. You cannot testify that the defendant Meyer helped everyone who was in trouble with the Nazis that he knew about, can you? Because you don't know the ones that he know about. You don't know his thoughts; you don't know what his knowledge was of people.\nA.No. The only thing I know-\nQ.Well, I will let you explain that on redirect; you will have an opportunity to explain that later. You just said \"no\".\nNow, you stated that no incoming mail concerning the Central Land Office came to your office. Now, did you write some letters for Dr. Meyer that he signed as head of the Central Land Office-\nA.Would you please repeat the beginning of that question?\nQ.You stated that no incoming mail concerning the Central Land Office came to your office. Now, did you write some letters, or any other instruments of writing, that were signed by Dr. Meyer, relative to the Central Land Office from the period 1940 to 1941?\nA.I cannot recall that.\nQ.Did you look at the university records before you came down here to see how many hours a week Dr. Meyer lectured at the university during the period from 1939 to 1945?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2458, "page_number": "2451", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.That can be seen from the register of the lectures.\nQ.I asked you if you looked at the register of the lectures before you came down here, to ascertain how much he lectured there.\nA.I have seen the lecture register, yes.\nQ.Well don't you know that usually, during this period, he lectured only two hours a week and never more than four hours a Week?\nA.Yes. Professor Meyer-\nQ.You can explain that later.\nNow, with reference to Dr. Gebert, he was Dr. Meyer's chief assistant, he was his trusted deputy, wasn't he?\nA.Dr. Gebert was Professor Meyer's representative in the office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2459, "page_number": "2452", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QAnd he was his personal deputy, wasn't he?\nAYes.\nQNow, do you know a man named Mund who used to work for the Central Land Office?\nAYes.\nQAnd Mund had to resign on account of his health, didn't he?\nAWell, yes, as far as I know, he was sick for a period of time.\nQAll right. Now, Gebert didn't have any dealings to amount to anything with the defendant Greifelt, who was head of the Main Staff Office, did he? He worked in the Planning Office which was some distance from the Main Staff Office.\nAYes.\nQAnd Mund had to resign on account of his health, didn't he?\nAWell, yes, as far as I know, he was sick for a period of time.\nQAll right. Now, Gebert didn't have any dealings to amount to anything with the defendant Greifelt, who was head of the Main Staff Office, did he? He worked in the Planning Office which was some distance from the Main Staff Office.\nAYes.\nQAnd Greifelt had no occasion to observe his work, did he?\nANo.\nQSo when Gebert was transferred to the Central Land Office it was because Dr. Meyer requested the Main Staff Office to transfer him there, isn't that the truth?\nAThat is not in the scope of my knowledge.\nQI have no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything on redirect?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING:\nQWitness, the Prosecution just asked you concerning the number of hours per week the defendant lectured in the university, and the Prosecution referred to the fact that the defendant only had two hours under \n practice in the university per week.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2460, "page_number": "2453", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "But is the scope of tasks of the defendant in the university limited to only these lectures, or didn't his main task concern another activity?\nANo, Professor Meyer, after he was through with his lectures, had consultation hours for the students--for these who were working on their doctor thesis--and I already stated that he went on trips with them; also, Professor Meyer was on the examination of the high school for agriculture at Zelle. Furthermore, Professor Meyer had discussions concerning the board of directors of the university.\nQCan you recall his activities in the institute too?\nAProfessor Meyer worked on scientific research in his institute. He had many doctor candidates in his institute as assistants.\nQDid these assistants help or did they create more work for him?\nABoth.\nQWe already discussed the knowledge the defendant had concerning happenings in concentration camps. Did I understand you correctly to say, and was it the intention of your statement to make it clear that in as far as the defendant heard about any arrest, he intervened with all his personality and power in order to be able to help, regardless of what agency had made the arrest?\nAYes.\nQDid the defendant ever make any remarks to you concerning the conditions in concentration camps? Did he know about these conditions?\nANo.\nQThank you. Was Dr. Gebert deputy of the defendant in the Planning Office?\nAYes.\nQDid Dr. Gebert represent the defendant in any other capacities?\nANot that I know of.\nQOh, you don't know it?\nANo, I don't know it.\nQThank you. No further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2461, "page_number": "2454", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness was excused.) Proceed for the next defendant.\nDR.DURCHHOLZ (for the defendant Herbert Huebner): I ask to be permitted to call the defendant Huebner to the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHERBERTHUEBNER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almight and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQWitness, will you please state your full name and your personal data to the Tribunal.\nAMy name is Herbert Huebner. I was born on the 7 of August 1902 at Bad Salzschlirch, District of Fulda. I am a married man and I have two children.\nQWould you please describe in a few words what family conditions you were educated in?\nAMy father is an independent merchant in Bad Salzschlirch. Until the beginning of the First World War, he had an independent grocery; later on, he sold it. From that moment on until today, he has a hotel for foreigners. My parents had no personal fortune and they don't have it now. My two brothers and sisters were educated at the same time as I was.\nQWhat schooling did you go through?\nAI went to the grammer school at Bad Salzschlirch for four years. After that, I went to the Latin School at Huehnfeld for five years. After that, I went to the Humanistic High School at Fulda, and I got my first undergraduate diploma from the high school", "speakers": [ "DR.", "HERBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2462, "page_number": "2455", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "QWhat about your professional career?\nAMy intention was to get into a practical profession. I wanted to become a bank business man. For this purpose, I joined the Bank for Commerce and Industry at Fulda as an apprentice. Until the end of 1921, I had my complete apprenticeship there as prescribed by law. After I had graduated from my apprenticeship, I had a very good offer as a bookkeeper in the Dresdner Bank at Heidelberg. There I remained for about a year. Again I had a better offer then, and thus in 1922 I came to the South German Discount Company at Mannheim as a correspondent. From there, I was transferred to Munich, then to the Bavarian Vereinsbank, and there I was an independent expert in a department. At the end of 1923, they had to release people for questions of economy because of the currency reform and the scarcity of money caused by it. It was felt generally in commerce and industry that the staff had to be released and discharged. Therefore I was one of these who was struck by the general wave of release. In the Munich enterprise of this bank alone, 1500 employees had to be fired.\nQNow, did you become unemployed then?\nAAs a result of the conditions I just described, it was almost without hope to get another job in the bank, at least for a very long period. Now, in order not to become unemployed--a status to which in an ever-increasing measure millions of Germans came--I went back to my parents and I worked in the business of my father. Apart from that, my father gave me the representation of a good firm which he had held for decades and which he still had at that date. I continued in that activity until 1927. Only then, I succeeded, through the temporary economic been in Germany, to get another job at Hamburg in a ship equipment enterprise, and I remained in that enterprise for two and one-half years. On the request of my father, however, in 1929 I had to return home in order to prepare myself for taking over his enterprise later. I gladly responded to that appeal in order to acquire the basis for my \n later independent profession there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2463, "page_number": "2456", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Apart from that, regularly I found occupation during the summer months as an accountant in the administration of the resort Bad Toelz.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2464, "page_number": "2457", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "During winter I resumed also my activities as a commercial representative.\nQ.And how did it come about that you dropped this activity again?\nA.In the meantime I had become a member of the Nazi Party and the SS. As a result of the events of 1933 I had the occasion and the opportunity to get a job in the administration of the SS which appealed to me very much. Decisive for that stop was that the activity in the administration of the SS was nearer to the profession I had learned as the activities I had exercised up to then. Also I saw quite a bit of future in it because a complete new structure in administrative organization was apparent there. Therefore, in 1933 I received an administrative activity in an SS unit in Merkels and Thuringia. My tasks there were inner administration and the care of the SS members lodged and housed there. When this SS unit was dissolved, however, my activity was terminated and that was about in October, 1934. Then I found a job with the Labor Office at Herzfeld in the department for labor location exchanges. In spite of the fact that normally I was quite satisfied with my activities in that job, the prospects for the future were very low.\nQ.But wouldn't you have had the possibility, on the strength of your membership in the Nazi Party and the SS before 1933, to get a better paid position now? After all, such Party members as you were preferred at that time.\nA.Oh, certainly, sure. At the time quite a number of such jobs were offered to me with a comparitively very good income, for instance, in the police administration or in other Party Agencies. However, I have not accepted any such job because I didn't want to be suspected of exploiting the political structure of that period.\nQ.Now, what happened after that?\nA.In March, 1935, I accepted a job as civilian employee in the 35th SS Standarte in Kassel. Apart from the dealing with personnel matters, I was in charge of labor allocation and job allocation for unemployed and dealing with general social and welfare affairs and measures. When, in dealing with general social and welfare affairs and measures. When, in 1936, my \n further payment by the SS was no longer possible because the job had ceased to exist on the table of organization, I had to look for another activity.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2465, "page_number": "2458", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "During that period there was considerable excessive labor offer as far as commercial and administrative employees were concerned. The Race and Settlement Main Office, the RuSHA, at the time was looking for capable co-workers for various fields of task. My special interest was bound by the settlement affairs which were at that time set up. On the recommendation of my then superior I was hired on a probationary job and I was ordered to go to the Race And Settlement Main Office in Berlin.\nQ.What was your job in the Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin?\nA.First of all, I went through various departments in order to get acquanited with matters there. However, very soon I found out that for the special tasks of that office I had no experience at all. More than that, I had to find out that such an activity was not quite in line with what I liked. I didn't expect to find that. I was interested to a much larger extent in the tasks of the Settlement Office with its many operational and now financial, technical problems. Therefore, I decided to turn my interests more to this special field. I was made acquanited with the important technical and practical questions of settlement. However, an independent activity I did not exercise because, after all, I was still a novice and worked only to get acquanited with matters.\nQ.As far as activity in the Race and Settlement Main Office, was membership in the SS or the Nazi Party decisive or was it even a primary requisite?\nA.No. At that time already there were a great number of civilian employees in the Race and Settlement Main Office and they belonged neither to the Nazi Party nor to the SS.\nQ.You said that you had an interest in settlement affairs. At the time was mention made already of intentions concerning resettlement actions planned for a later date, I mean outside of the Reich territory proper, as for instance, mention was made of the settlement in the east?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2466, "page_number": "2459", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.The tasks of the RuSHA covered only and alone the SS. In as far as settlement measures were carried out, these settlement measures would cover only the Reich territory and they were elaborated in full cooperation with the Reich Food Association, as far as farmer or peasant settlements were concerned; and incorporation with the Gau Lodging Offices in questions of settlements at the outskirts of towns. Any tendency or training with the intention of a later settlement outside of the Reich territory was never mentioned with one word or discussed even.\nQ.In 1936 you were then transferred to Stuttgard. How did that come about?\nA.At the time the director of the Race and Settlement Agency at Stuttgart, Henschel, had requested a co-worker who was to represent him during his absence in the armed forces as was intended.\nQ.When such a representative was to be appointed I was taken into consideration by the Race and Settlement Main Office. In spite of the misgivings I expressed, that I would not feel up to the mark in such an activity, I was told that after all I had sufficient time to work my way into those matters and thus I was simply transferred in May, 1936, to Stuttgart and ordered to go there.\nQ.Now, what were your activities in Stuttgart?\nA.What I had feared happened. The chief of the agency, Henschel, had expected that a trained co-worker would arrive, a co-worker whom he could immediately assign to the tasks involved. Now he was very infuriated about the fact that he couldn't assign me right away for the tasks he had intended forme, namely, as an expert for training and selection, because I neither had the necessary training as a speaker nor the necessary knowledge for selection tasks. For these reasons we constantly had considerable disputes between the two of us and, as these disputes went on, I requested the RuSHA in Berlin to be released. However, this was refused.\nQ.Now, how were you put to use?\nA.I received the commission to draw up an allocation plan for the farmer experts in the agencies of the General SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2467, "page_number": "2460", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.Well, what was the meaning of these farmer experts?\nA.The Orts District and Kreis-Peasant leaders were to be assigned for the units of the General SS in the capacity of advisors for agricultural affairs.\nQ.Now, didn't that activity also ask for special knowledge in that field?\nA.No, you could do that from your desk.\nQ.Did this agency receive any practical settlement tasks at all and, if so, when did it?\nA.It did, such settlement tasks were conferred upon the agency in 1937 or '38. In this connection it was a matter of taking part in four peasant settlement procedures in Silesia and one project in the then Ostmark near Vienna.\nQ.And in the framework of those projects you started to work?\nA.Yes. I received the commission in cooperation with the district or Regional Peasant Association of Wuerttemberg and Baden to select fit peasant sons as settlers and these settlers then were assigned in cooperation with the competent settlement companies in the new settlement areas.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2468, "page_number": "2461", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Q.In order to receive such a job as a new peasant was the membership in the SS a condition?\nA.It was quite impossible to recruit the required number of applicants for settlement from the ranks of the SS. For this very reason I have to answer this question in the negative and if I remember well the overwhelming majority of these settlers were not members of the SS.\nQ.Now in the meantime had your relations with your boss Henschel changed or improved?\nA.Yes, it had become acceptable I would say. Incidentally in 1938 he was transferred in RuSHA in Berlin and at that time during the same period I was appointed his successor as Race and Settlement Leader.\nQ.Now did this settlement activity go on?\nA.Yes, it was interrupted first because the war broke out. That was right in the middle of a more important project. But, apart from that a certain number of projects for settlement at the outskirts of towns were in full swing and the Race and Settlement agency had a part in them or had been called in. Above all this was the large project Zuffenhausen near Stuttgart.\nQ.Now, once you have been appointed Race and Settlement Leader I think you had training and race selection tasks in your field of competency but I think your knowledge about it was only that of a layman. How did you get through the tasks you were commissioned to take care of.\nA.In order to clarify that I would like to make the quite general statement concerning the tasks of the Race and Settlement Leader as they were conceived at that time, as already the official designation indicates \"SS Leader in the Race and Settlement\", his competency covered questions of race and questions of settlement. Those fields of tasks, however, dealt only and alone with the SS. For questions of racial selection he had a selection expert at his disposal. These selection experts, if I remember well, as from 1940 or 1941 were called racial selectors. This racial selection expert took care of racial selection and of selection in the general SS, Waffen SS, and the Police. In the field of settlement of were \n concentrated my own activities as RUS leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2469, "page_number": "2462", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "Mainly it consisted of collaboration in various settlement measures taken by the rural and regional peasant associations or by the settlement societies and especially in the sector of peasant settlement. But, also in town settlement the RUS leaders had his activities. Eventually the RUS leader had also to take care of the Inspectorate of the racial welfare and racial care establishments in SS locations. These institutions dealt with marriage affiars of the SS members. However, there he had no right to issue any decisions because these applications had to be decided by the Sippenamt or \"Family-Clan\" Office, in Berlin. And, now I would like to answer clearly the question you asked. At the time when I became race and settlement leader training tasks were no longer the scope of my work because the training office had already been set up in 1937 as an independent unit from the race and settlement main office and had been planed directly under the SS operational office under the SS main office. For the carrying out of racial selection a selection expert was at my disposal. Apart from that, however, I could largely base myself on expert opinions of special scientists in that field of the University of Hohenheim which was quite near and also on anthropolgists the nearby University of Tuebingen. Such experts were honorary co-workers of my staff and such co-workers were Professor Krafts, Garsten, Professor Roesch, Professor Vitszel, and Professor Gieseler.\nQ.Now did the outbreak of the war in 1939 bring about any changes in your activities?\nA.In August 1939 I received a so-called conscription order. In other words for the case of general conscription I was ordered to join the Waffen SS and in September I was called up to servo in the Waffen SS. As all my co-workers had volunteered for the Armed Forces the activity of the RuSHA was de-activated completely. I myself was transferred to the complementary office of the Waffen SS and found myself to be director of several selection boards of the Waffen SS in central, South and Southwest Germany.\nQ.Didn't you have to have any previous racial knowledge to \n exercise such an activity?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2470, "page_number": "2463", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A.The Chairman of such boards generally did not have to have any racial scientific basis or knowledge because after all special racial selectors and physicians were members of every board and they would examine the racial and health questions and decide on them. The Chief of such a board had mainly represent live social and personnel organizational tasks.\nQ.How long did you work in that capacity and in that manner?\nA.Until about the 10th or 12th of March 1930. Right in the middle of that activity I was ordered to Berlin by telephone. At the time I was just in Baden-Baden with the selection board and I was to report to the RuSHA to take over another task.\nQ.In other words you reported again to the RuSHA in Berlin?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what were you told then or what orders did you receive at that location?\nA.I cannot recall special directives or orders that I received at that time. There were several other people, we were told that we had been taken into consideration for a settlement commission and we had to report to the Leader of the SS Main Section at Posen and he was Gruppenfuehrer Koppe. No details of the commission were given to us at the time.\nQ.Now you went to Posen and reported there?\nA.Yes, then I went to Posen and I reported to the Chief of the SS Main Section Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe as I had been ordered to do. That must have been about the middle of March 1940.\nQ.Now up to that point did you know anything about the activity of the RKFDV at all?\nA.Such On activity was completely unknown to me up to that point.\nQ.Did you know what kind of an activity Koppe held in Posen within the framework of the work of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2471, "page_number": "2464", "date": "12 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-12", "text": "A .No, at that time I didn't. These developments came to my precise knowledge only at a much later date when I was working on the Gau level.\nQ.Now what official position and what rank did Koppe hold?\nA.Koppe was Leader of the General SS, Leader of the SS Main Section Warthe and apart from that he was the Higher SS and Police Leader down there. At the time his official rank was SS Gruppenfuehrer.\nTHE PRESENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 15 December 1947 at 0930 hours)", "speakers": [ "A .", "THE PRESENT", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2472, "page_number": "2465", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 15 December 1947, 6930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Viermetz, who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz; at the same time on behalf of my colleague Doetzer. Your Honor, with reference to the VOMI matter, the defense intends that the two defendants, Lorenz and Brueckner, will be examined immediately following each other as witnesses in the event that witnesses who are to testify about the VOMI matter be brought to the witness stand. For this reason I would like to ask that the defendants Lorenz and Brueckner, so that they can be prepared for this examination, be excused from this afternoon's session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The request is granted.\nThe Tribunal desires at this time to make this announcement and we would ask defense counsel who are present to please see to it that defense counsel who are not present have notice of this announcement. I presume that they will read it in the transcript but I would like to have them notified in addition.\nAfter a conference with the defense center and the \n COURT I CASE VIII translation department, it has been determined that the translation department will be ordered not to receive any documents for translation in this case after January 15th.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2473, "page_number": "2466", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "This means that all documents to be introduced in evidence, either by the Prosecution or defense, must be in the hands of the translation department on or before January 15th. They, of course, can be introduced in evidence after that date. A little later along, probably before the adjournment for the Christmas holidays, a deadline will be fixed after which written briefs and arguments will not be received by the translation department.\nThe only thing we would like to suggest at this time is that it is a mighty good time to be working on it.\nAs to the different groups of defendants, as their cases are finished, the Tribunal sees no reason why those briefs should not be immediately prepared and completed. All we want to say definitely now is that there will be very little time between the closing of the evidence and the hearing of the arguments. The Tribunal is now being required to use Saturdays and nights studying this record. The Christmas holidays will include about twelve days only two of which are really legal holidays. This time the Tribunal will very largely use in studying the record. We suggest the like procedure on the part of counsel for both Prosecution and Defense.\nProceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Dr. Froeschmann for Hildebrandt. Your Honor, of course I will tell my colleague, Dr. Haensel, immediately about the Court's decision since he is our spokesman, but I would like to ask the following question; which I need to clear things up.\nThe Court mentioned that the final pleas are to be \n COURT I CASE VIII prepared now.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2474, "page_number": "2467", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "May I ask in what form these final pleas are to be brought to the attention of the Court? Does the Tribunal wish that the final pleas are to be read in court or only that written pleas are to be submitted or would the Court wish to have both? I would like to know the Tribunal's wishes in this matter because the length of the final pleas depends on it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel did not evidently exactly understand the announcement of the Tribune. No announcement was made about any deadline as to final pleas, but you were simply advised that one would be named at a later date. The deadline mentioned this morning had reference only to documents. When the deadline with reference to final pleas is fixed your question will be then answered and you will be advised.\nDR. DURCHOLZ:Dr. Durchholz for the defendant Huebner. Your Honor, I would like to be permitted to continue the examination of the witness Huebner.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nHERBERT HUEBNER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Witness, last Friday we stopped when you were telling us when and why you went to Posen for the first time. I would like to take up the matter there. You said that in March, 1940, on behalf of RuSHA you were sent to Posen in order to take over a new settlement task there. We just got to the point where you had gone to Koppe, who was the leader of the SS Sector for the War the gau and Higher SS and Police Leaders in Posen. You said that up to that time you knew nothing of any activity of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Now, I \n COURT I CASE VIII continue with my questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. DURCHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2475, "page_number": "2468", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Did you already know Koppe?\nA.No. In connection with this question may I clear matters up a little? You said that I had been sent to Posen on behalf of RuSHa, but that is not absolutely correct. I was transferred from RuSHA to another office in Posen.\nQ.After you reached Posen did you still have ties and responsibilities for your RUS Office in Stuttgart?\nA.I had already stated that the RUS Office in Posen at the outbreak -- you mean in Stuttgart?\nQ.Yes, I mean in Stuttgart.\nA.I beg your pardon--had come to a standstill because all my colleagues had been drafted into the army. Because of the separation in space alone, I had no further influence at all in Stuttgart. My pay continued to come from the Stuttgart Office but it couldn't have been handled otherwise from the financial-technical point of view, because since I had been attached to a quite different office I was relieved of any further responsibility for the old tasks of the Stuttgart office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2476, "page_number": "2469", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd what happened in Posen?\nAThere were three of us who had to report there. When we went to the office we were first of all sent to Staff Leader Doerrel since Koppe himself was not there. That this was an office and the Staff Leader of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism I did not know at that time. First of all, personal matters were briefly settled and now a private orientation of matters in general took place because everything was completely new to us. Then we were introduced to the agricultural experts of the office and there we learned for the first time more details about our future tasks. Even then they were only outlined in general. We heard, for instance, that what mattered was that the resettlers already in VOMI camps from Wolhynia and Galicia should be settled in the various districts. For this purpose the Landraete had already set up special offices and in some districts small groups of students and farmers ware already doing the primary work.\nWhat mattered now was that this work was to be organized in a concentrated manner. Sufficient experts, especially farmers, would be made available. The farms in general were already staffed by German administrators or trustees and the evacuation of farms or plants was not our task. Further details we would learn from the settlement staff in Lodz where we would now have to report.\nQIn Posen did Koppe or anybody else give you any fundamental details about questions of Eastern settlement or about the treatment of Eastern peoples, in particular the Poles?\nANo, no such orientation or information was given to us by any office.\nQDid you receive orders or decrees or written instructions for your work?\nAThe decree of the Reich Government of the 7th of October, 1939, was submitted to us and discussed orally. This decree was to form the foundation for our work. This was the Fuehrer Decree for the Strengthening of Germanism, dated 7 October 1939, submitted by the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2477, "page_number": "2470", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Prosecution as Exhibit No. 20 in Document Book II-B. We were also shown a decree by the Plenipotentiary of the Four-Year-Plan signed by Goering, dated February, 1940. I can't remember the exact date. This was a decree in which the competence was laid down with reference to the seizure between the Main Trustee Office East and the RKFDV. Further decrees and orders were neither handed to us nor discussed. Here for the first time I have heard that this office and my work was part of the task of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, the job to which Himmler had been appointed.\nIt was only here that I have realized that we were not subordinate to Koppe in his capacity as leader of the SS Sector or as Higher SS and Police Leader, but as representative of this Reich Commissar, that is, Himmler, for the Warthegau.\nQDid you go to the Lodz Settlement Staff and, if you did, to whom did you report?\nAOne or two days later we went to the Settlement Staff in Lodz and reported to the head of the office.\nQWho was the head of this Lodz Settlement Office?\nAThat was the then SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Spahrmann.\nQWhat orders did he give you?\nASpahrmann had only arrived there a few days before us and said he couldn't give us any detailed factual instructions because he, himself, was unable to see what work had to be done. We then talked quite generally about factual matters, the sizes of farms, methods of farming and similar things.\nQWas that the end of your orientation?\nAYes, for the time being. We could not yet leave our districts because Koppe's visit had been announced for the next few days.\nQDid Koppe come?\nAYes. We were introduced to Koppe the next day.\nQAnd what orders did Koppe give?\nAKoppe gave quite a number of orders, all of which I can't \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2478, "page_number": "2471", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "remember now. On the other hand, I do remember some points in rather precise detail. He ordered that the Labor Staff Leaders should be delegated to the Landrat as leadership assistants and could be subordinated to the orders of the Landrat. He further regulated the allocation of labor to the labor staff. He also had an order about the size of the farms, which were to be allocated to the settlers. If I remember rightly, the average size was ten hectars. He also announced that the possible evacuation of Polish farms, if necessary, would be carried out by the police.\nQYou said just now that the heads of the labor staffs assisted the Landrate. Now, would you explain quite briefly what sort of an authority the Landrat is?\nAThe Landrat was the newest administrative office or administrative authority in the Reich Administration. The order from top to bottom was as follows: The Minister of the Interior; under him, the Reichstatthalter or Oberpresidenten; under them, the Regierungspresidenten; than the Lord Mayors in the larger cities; and the lowest office in the provincial district were the Landraete.\nQWas the office of the Landrat an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nANo.\nQThen how is it that the Labor Staff, as a part of the office of the RKFDV, was subordinated to the Landrat who was not a representative of the RKFDV?\nAThe Higher SS and Police Leader, Koppe, as the representative of the RKFDV, he had been entrusted with carrying out the tasks of the strengthening of Germanism, and he had commissioned the Landraete with carrying out the task of the strengthening of Germanism in the districts. For this purpose he subordinated the staffs of the leaders of the Labor Staff to assist them.\nQWhen was this?\nAThis decree is dated the 21st of February 1940. It can be \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2479, "page_number": "2472", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "considered as the binding decree of the Labor Staffs. This measure of Koppe's led to difficulties with a number of Landraete because these did not want to recognize the competency of the Higher SS and Police Leaders with regard to the Landraete. As a result, the Reichstatthalter was forced in March of the same year to issue the same order again in March and this time in his capacity as Reichstatthalter. As a result of this the competency difficulties were removed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2480, "page_number": "2473", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Only now, when studying the document, I have been able to see that the bringing of the tasks of the strengthening of Germanism into our sphere of work originated in a ministerial order. That is the decree of Reich Minister of the Interior Frick, Prosecution DocumentNO-2526, Exhibit 22, in Book 2-B.\nQDid you receive any definite instructions after all this had taken place?\nAKoppe explained the order issued by him, which I have just mentioned, and this was to be the basis of our work; it was to be sent to every labor staff leader. However, at the time the conversation turned on the size of the farms of ten hectares, which a number of the exports considered to be too small. There was a lengthy debate, which did not lead to any positive result. In answer to a question from one of the people present, as to whether the labor staff leaders had the right to issue orders to the police, Koppe said that the labor staff had nothing whatsoever to do with police jobs and that these were completely separato from settlement matters, that the Inspector of the Security Police and SD had set up a special office for these police matters.\nAfter this, Koppe distributed the various districts among the labor staff leaders, and ordered us to report to the competent Landrat immediately.\nQDid this take place?\nAYes; I went to the District of Leslau, as I had been ordered to do.\nQSo I suppose you went to the Landrat at Leslau. What did the Landrat say? Did he give you detailed instructions?\nAThe Landrat too had neither the experience nor any clear idea of the work to be done at the time. He told me that for the previous week or so a group of farmers and students had been working in the newly formed labor staff, and that I could collect my information there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2481, "page_number": "2474", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "He said he would like to be told of all measures of the labor staff, and he reserved the right to make all individual decisions. For the rest, he wished, from the very beginning of the work, that the District Peasant Leader and the District Agriculturalist should be consulted.\nQNow, in order to make things clear for the Tribunal, will you briefly describe the tasks and position of a District Peasant Leader?\nAThe District Peasant Leader was representative of the Reich Food Estate on the lower administrative level. The Reich Food Estate was a public body, and one can consider it a professional organization of farmers and peasants. It was coordinated with the Reich Ministry of Food.\nQYou also mentioned the District Agricultural Expert. Is that the same office?\nANo, the District Agricultural Expert represented a different agency. That was an office on a level with the Landrat of the frequently-mentioned German Farming Company, which later became the Ostland or Reichsland respectively. Ostland or Reichsland was also affiliated with the Reich Ministry of Food. The difference between two becomes clear immediately when I compare the work of the two agencies. The District Agricultural Expert was responsible for the administration of all Polish agricultural property; the District Peasant Leader, on the other hand, was responsible for all agricultural matters of the German ethnic German farmers.\nQWhere was the office of the Labor Staff?\nAI found a Labor Staff Office already set up in the building of the Landrat Office. The agricultural management was in the hands of Landwirtschaftsrat Masse, who, together with a number of trained agriculturists from the Reich, had been attached there from the Reich Food Office. In addition, there were a number of representatives of students from all faculties as auxiliary workers.\nQWhat does one understand, in general, by Labor Staff? What was its position?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2482, "page_number": "2475", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AThere was a labor Staff in every district of the Warthegau; there were 36 of them altogether. According to the decree of the Reich statthalter already mentioned, the practical execution of the settlement of the repatriated ethnic Germans from Wolhynia and Galacia had been put in the hands of the Landraete, and for this purpose the Landraete now had these labor staffs set up under them, for the management of which suitable SS leaders, agriculturalists, and other people were assigned.\nQAnd how much was a labor office organized?\nAThe organization was very simple. The Labor Staff consisted of two departments, a rural and a city department. As a rule, there were ten to twenty workers, a number which could be raised at will, if there was a special amount of work, by taking on auxiliary workers. There were also Poles among these.\nQHow, could you tell us something, briefly, about the work of the labor Staff?\nAThe Labor Staff had to see to it that the resettlers allocated to its district were accomodated wherever there was any possibility of doing so. In the agricultural sector, this took place in close collaboration with the Office of the Reich Food Estate, the settlement companies, and the Ostland. The accomodation of resettlers in trade and industry, and their housing, was carried out by the local office of the Main Trustee Office East. Here the Labor Staff had no influence whatsoever as to the selection or allocation of objects, it could only suggest suitable resettlers. The accomodation of the dependent workers was carried out by the Labor Offices, with the assistance of the Labor Staff. This assistance, however, consisted only in the Labor Staff taking the list of these resettlers, which they had, and reporting the names to the competent Labor Offices. The actual accomodation and suitable places of work were exclusively matters for the Labor Offices.\nQWhat documents did you have available for this purpose?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2483, "page_number": "2476", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AThere were no prerequisites given at all for our practical work. There were neither reliable nor any useable maps, nor any card index material. There were not even maps for the purpose of orientation.\nMay I remind you that in a large part of the Warthegau, and other Polish territory, there were no land registers at all. The country was covered by snow and ice. That was in March of 1940. Therefore, it was impossible to discover what the quality of the soil was. This forced interval was used to produce the maps we needed. First of all, we made maps just showing the roads, plans of villages, plans of communities, and of districts. As soon as the ice and snow had gone, the proper work of registering the farms was started. Every single farm was registered in every detail, on so-called farm maps. House by house, farm by farm, was registered, and literally every square yard of soil was gone over. Because of the many difficulties, this work took years. I even believe that it was never finished.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2484, "page_number": "2477", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q .At that time were the farms and shops mainly occupied by Poles?\nA.I cannot answer that question clearly as it stands. Apartments, shops and industrial enterprises in town and country had all been vacated by their Polish owners. On the morning of the first day of my presence in Leslau I saw a large-scale evacuation in the town itself. As far as I remember, that must have been on the 20th of March 1940. However, in the following weeks and months, in May and April, such evacuations took place in town and country on a large scale. These evacuations were in no way connected with any settlement measures whatsoever.\nQ.May I interrupt you for a moment? Who, or what office, carri out these evacuations which you mentioned just now?\nA.I did not notice that at the time, and my colleagues would no give me any details either. I only saw that these measures were taking place in the full light of day, and that the police were carrying them out. On the occasion of a discussion with the Landrat, I discovered that these evacuation being carried out by a field office of the UWZ. I also remember a discussion with Koppe, who had expressly pointed out that the police matters were in the hands of a specially set-up office with the SD Commissioner, and that this Resettlement Central Office carried out the evacuation.\nQ.Did you know about this UWZ office before?\nA.No, and I never had any direct contact with it later on, either. I did not even know where this office was.\nQ.Did the Labor Staff have the right to give orders to this field office of the UWZ?\nA.As I have already said, these evacuation measures were in no way connected with the tasks of the Labor Staff. The first settlement began in the Leslau District as late as June 1940, so I must answer the questi in the negative.\nQ.When I interrupted you just now, you said that the industrial enterprises, shops, and apartments in town and country had already been evacuated, for the most part. Now, what about the farms?", "speakers": [ "Q .", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2485, "page_number": "2478", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "A.As a result of the immediate effect of the Polish campaign, large parts of the population had already fled in 1939. Almost all the farms, and a large number of the large estates had been evacuated by their owners and abandoned; others had been cleared as a result of evacuation measu issued by all sorts of agencies and offices. Therefore, when their work started, the Labor Staffs found that the large estates had almost all been abandoned by their Polish owners. A large part of the mediumsized and smaller farms were mostly occupied.\nQ.As to the estates which you just mentioned, were they administered by the Labor Staffs?\nA.No, all Polish agricultural property was administered by the Ostland, which had district agricultural experts in every district.\nQ.Was this Ostland an agency of the RKFDV?\nA.No, it was an office of the Reich Food Ministry, and the District Agricultural Experts had been appointed as the general administrator of this entire Polish agricultural property. However, at that time, of cours I was not quite clear about all these competencies and only got to know about them in more detail through my later work.\nQ.As to the farms from which the Poles had been evacuated, did *---* stand there empty and untilled?\nA.Some were, some weren't. Immediately after the evacuation of the Polish farms, the Ostland either put in German administrators or trustee from amongst the ethnic Germans who were being brough in. However, it was different in the case of shops, of business, houses, and so on. Here, after the removal of the previous owners, these were closed at first, and I myself saw that they stood empty for weeks and even months until the district offices of the HTO, or other higher offices of the Main Trustee Office East, put in Germans or resettlers.\nQ.You axe not speaking of resettlers. Had resettlement already taken place in the Leslau District?\nA.No. I am still talking about the state of affairs as I found them when I arrived in March 1940. When I mentioned resettles, I mean the \n Baltic German resettlers quite specifically, who had already been in the so-called Incorporated Eastern Territories since the end of 1939.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2486, "page_number": "2479", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Who was responsible for the accomodation of these Baltic German resettlers?\nA.I know too little about that myself to be able to give you any useful or solid facts; I have had no official knowledge of them. At any rate, the labor and settlement staffs did not have this job.\nQ.To what extent had the work of registering the land progressed through your Labor Staff?\nA.As far as I remember, by the middle of May registration had taken place in two communities of the district altogether. That was the work of registering the farms. In the meantime, the settlement staff in Lodz had issued instructions that the plans of the farms which were made to sent in, community by community, to the Lodz settlement staff, and that took place. A few years later a commission came to the district of Leslau, consisting of the deputy head of the settlement staff and two representative of the German-Galician resettlers, who were known as locators. They examine conditions on the spot, they took samples of the soil, the inspected various farms, and they returned to Lodz with the total results of their inspection. From there it was announced that conditions in the district of Leslau would be particularly suitable for the settlement of some villagers from the distr of Lodz, in particular in view of the very good soil. The settlement staff informed me, in writing, that 1500 families from Wolhynia and Galicia were being sent to the district of Leslau to be accommodated, through the office of the RKFDV in Berlin, after the Landrat had given his approval.\nQ.What happened to the farm plans which you had handed in, as ordered?\nA.In the meantime, these plans and maps had been sent to the UWZ by the Lodz settlement staff. The UWZ examined them, to see which Poles were to be evacuated and which were not.\nQ.Did the Labor Staff have any influence on this examination by the UWZ?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2487, "page_number": "2480", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Did you know the principles according to which the UWZ inspected them?\nA.I tried to find out something about this because it interested me personally, but it was not possible to find out anything in detail. The office of the SD kept completely silent on this matter, and considered this task to be their own affair and nobody else's. The basic decree of the 7th of October 1939, however, showed me that this was a point of view of the Security Police.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2488, "page_number": "2481", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Who decided then whether a Pole was to be evacuated or not?\nA.The UWZ alone.\nQ.How do you know that?\nA.On the maps of the farms which the Labor Staff used in order to register land, there was a printed square inside this area; there was the reference for the SD to note; this square of the map then was filled out by the Labor Staff had to be left empty, and inside this square the UWZ now entered its decision with yes or no, with the initial or the signature of the expert concerned. Maps of this kind I myself saw by the hundreds. Those maps where the owner could not or would not be allowed to evacuate, those were returned to the Labor Staff via the Settlement Staff.\nQ.Say now a decision had been taken what farms could be evacuated. How did the procedure continue?\nA. In the Settlement Staff the data about the resettlers had in the meantime arrived, and these data gave detailed information about everything concerning the resettler. It gave details about his personal nature, his training or skill, status and so on.\nQ.And how did the settlement actually take place; how was it do\nA.The transportation division of the Lodz settlement office got in touch with the respective VOMI camps where the resettlers were temporari*---* housed, and reached agreement with the camp management on the date on which the group of resettlers could be transported to the district in question. This date was then announced to the Labor Staff. This mostly happened a few hours before the arrival of the resettlers, and resulted in a mass of work. The Labor Office was thereupon given the list of the resettlers to be resettled. The Labor Staff often had to work all night through in order to b* able to prepare the organization for taking in the resettlers. Cots and horses had to be made available from the Ostland estates in order to take t* resettlers to various villages.\nQ.When and for whom did the evacuation take place?\nA.It was carried out by the UWZ entirely in the opinion of the Labor Staff.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2489, "page_number": "2482", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Did the Labor Staff have any connection with the evacuation of Poles; did it have anything to do with them?\nA.The Labor Staff had nothing whatsoever to do with the poles; that is entirely a matter for the UWZ and in which the Labor Staff had no influence.\nQ.And what happened to the resettlers?\nA.The resettlers were for the time being housed and put to work on these farms.\nQ.When did the first settlement, as you described now, take place in the district of Leslau?\nA.In June, 1940.\nQ.Did many such settlements take place in the district of Leslau\nA.The settlements took place in varying degrees and intervals. If I remember rightly, up to the autumn of 1940 I myself saw perhaps only four or five such waves of settlers, since I already got a now job in July 1940.\nQ.You have just mentioned the autum of 1940. At that time was the settlement already completed?\nA.It was temporarily completed. Of course, there were no more farms suitable for settlement available.\nQ.What do you mean, fit for settlement?\nA.That is the technical term for a farm which could be claimed for settlement by resettlers. The reasons why a farm could not be used for settlement could be of many lands. Often farms were too small to provide an existence for the family; in many cases the soil was too poor to represe*---* a suitable exchange for the property the resettler had left behind. In gone the condition of these farms and in particular the condition of the building was so bad that without thorough repairs one could not expect anybody to live in huts of this kind. In addition the Ostland, which administered this Polish property, was very reluctant to hand over such farms for resettlement purposes because it needed them itself for its own administrative purposes. Furthermore on very many of these farms there were racial Germans who were \n indigenous to the place so that for the time being at any rate we could dispose of their farms; and there were more reasons of this kind.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2490, "page_number": "2483", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "At any rate in the autum of 1940 the reserve of these farms for settlement had been exhausted, and the greater number of fifteen hundred families imposed upon us was not reached in the Leslau district.\nQ.You said just now that for the time being you could not claim the farms occupied by Germans; what did you mean by that?\nA.Immediately after the Polish campaign quite a number of ethnic Germans living in the Gau, with or without the assistance of authorities and offices, had taken possession of Polish farms or had claimed them after removing the Polish occupants of the farms. Only as a result of lengthy investigation was it possible for the Labor Staff to establish that many such ethnic Germans were not the legal owners of these farms at all. Gradually and by degrees they were again removed by the Labor Staff and the farms were hand over to the settlers who had the right to them, often in the face of consider resistance from the local party offices.\nQ.You have given us a fairly detailed description of how settlemtook place. Was this settlement procedure exactly the same in the other districts?\nA.The procedure I have described was among the first of this kind it was, however, a preliminary attempt from which experience was to be gained Because of the diversity of the staffs and different problems confronted in various districts, it is possible that in some districts this procedure was no followed in exactly the same way. In other districts, perhaps, improvements were made. From later official knowledge, I know for certain that the crux *---* this settlement scheme and the competencies I have mentioned were, in princip*---* the same everywhere.\nQ.Well, the Prosecution in its opening statement, on page 78 of German text, mentions so-called resettlement and labor staffs. Were there agencies having that title at all?\nA.Resettlement staffs never existed in the Warthegau, at any rat*---* The word resettlement could not describe a definite single purpose of work, \n but was in general usage applied as a sort of general term.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2491, "page_number": "2484", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "This word resettlement included the evacuation from the resettler's old home, from the time when he left home up to and including his settlement in a now place in his new home. This total process was called resettlement. This term resettlement if it had been used would have caused continuous confusion with the sphere of work of VOMI, and for this reason alone there was no office ha* this name.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2492, "page_number": "2485", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQWitness, the Prosecution asserts that these agencies which by error have been designated as \"resettlement staffs,\" were appointed by the Reichstatthalters or by the Higher SS and Police Leaders, and received deportation orders from them. The Prosecution alleges furthermore that these agencies carried out these orders with special brutality. What can you tell the Tribunal about that assertion?\nAThis description and assertion is incorrect.\nQWhat can you oppose in the way of facts to this assertion--an assertion which you are directly connected to by the Prosecution?\nAI have already explained in great detail that the deportations were merely police measures which were not at all in the competency of the resettlement staffs. Keppe, the very man who as it was stated here was connected with these deportation orders, this very Keppe was the man who pointed out to us working staff people, during our first conferences, that the staff and the agencies of the working staffs had nothing to do whatsoever with such police actions. I never received such an order either.\nNow as far as the exceptional brutality is concerned with which these asserted deportation measures are supposed to have been carried out-and here in this assertion the Prosecution refers to DocumentNO-3011, Exhibit 216, in Volume V-A--well, my Answer here too is that I have never witnessed such deportations and brutalities, and I didn't even ever hear anything about them. That wasn't even possible, because apart from the fact that the incidents mentioned in the report took place only and alone in the Government-General and not in the Warthegau, during that period when the report was drawn up-that is on the 6 ox February 1940-there was not a single working staff in the whole Warthegau at all. As I have already mentioned, the working staffs were only set up on the 21 of February 1940. Over and beyond that, I, myself, came to the Warthegau \n only in March 1940.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2493, "page_number": "2486", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Therefore, I cannot see at all how I can be connected with incidents in an area where I wasn't at the time, at a period when I wasn't even in the East yet.\nQI will turn later back to the question of evacuations. Anyhow, as far as your present testimony is concerned, I understood it to the effect that your tasks were those of a working staff, and this task was to house the resettlers committed to the district involved without any influence on the deportations, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow, did this housing conclude the resettlement of the racial German resettlers?\nANo, not at all. The resettlement proper was still to come. First of all, the main emphasis was placed on an extensive care and welfare which covered all the resettlers committed to the area. The welfare was on a very large scale and made great demands on the power and the forces of the working staffs. Without any consideration to the fact that the very continuance of operation placed the resettlers before very great difficulties and made it necessary that they be constantly advised and supported, in these cases a direct financial aid was absolutely necessary. After all, furniture and household goods were not the only things that were missing; clothing and underwear were missing as well, and even the most urgent foodstuffs had to be procured by the labor staffs because the farms did not have anything left at all.\nQNow did the resettlers remain in the farms to which they had been committed to?\nAPart of them could remain on the farms they had received, but in quite a number of cases, that was not possible. Certain injustices and duresses were of course unavoidable in the framework of measures on such a large scale, and that is why very often a resettler was placed on a farm which was in no proportion or in a very unfavorable proportion as compared with his previous holdings; for instance, if the soil was very bad--much worse than the soil he had in his state before--such reasons were \n manifeld, and these reasons, of course, gave cause to justified claims and demands.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2494, "page_number": "2487", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "This was the main task of the working staff. In a very sympathetic and comprehensive manner, they were to indemnify these people and to compensate them for the deficiencies. Estates and farms had to be exchanged or resettlers had to be reassigned to other locations. These were measures involving the resettlers themselves.\nQNow, after these resettlers had been placed previsionally, the second task of the working staff was the care and welfare of the resettlers, wasn't it? Now, did that determine the activities of the labor staff?\nAThis care and welfare activity of the working staffs took long months of hard work. The resettlers, after all, had been compelled to leave almost all their holdings in the countries they had left and had come ever with very little personal belongings to Germany. On the other hand, they had legal claim to be indemnified for what they had left in the countries they came from. The farms placed at the disposal of the resettlers had been devastated in their substance considerably. It should not be forgotten that only a short period before, two armies at war had devastated these areas: first, the Polish army and then the German army. Every army requisitioned and carried out seizures, and they took whatever they needed in the way of horses, cattle, and other belongings of the resettlers. However, the working staffs in their intended work and in their capacity were not in a position to restore these devastated and spoliated farms in such a manner as would have been a compensation for the property claim of the resettler. The working staffs had only and alone the task to bring about provisional arrangements and to carry out first aid.\nQAnd who had to carry out the measures you just hinted at?\nAIn order to clarify that question, I have to go back a little bit. Concerning the power struggle in the resettlement sector, witnesses before me have already spoken in much detail. Therefore I can base myself in this respect on their testimony. But even on the lowest level \n of command in which I worked, the results of this struggle could be felt, although there, the gap could be bridged much easier by friendly collaboration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2495, "page_number": "2488", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "All the same, even in the district level, shortly after the resettlers had bean housed provisionally, the agencies of the Reich Food Ministry and the agency of the Reich Food Association claimed the privilege for themselves to deal with the resettlers further. In this claim, they based themselves on the decree of the Reich Government of the 7th of October, dealing with the reformation of the German farmers. That is Prosecution Exhibit No.21in Document Book II-B. But Himmler, himself, as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, in his decree 2-VI had decreed that the resettlement and the transfer of resettlers should be the task of these agencies.\nQYou have mentioned several times the resettlement companies. What establishments were they and under whose orders were they?\nAThe resettlement companies I have mentioned were agencies of the Reich Food Ministry and under its command. They had the task of economic care of all the re settlers assigned in the framework of the decree for the reformation of the German farmers. In the area of the Warthegau, three such companies existed. They were called \"Peasant Settlement Companies.\"\nQIn what manner were these Peasant Settlement Companies called into the development?\nAShortly after the resettlers had been housed provisionally by the working staff, the settlement company started its activity and they had their own agency in every district. They checked the economic conditions of the resettlers; in other words, they made investigations with regard to the question of whether the conditions of the new estate were somehow in line with the property claim transferred from the old country, in short, whether the resettler and the estate were fitted together. If they found that that was the case, then they concluded a so-called commitment contract with the resettler. And in this commitment contract, the number of hectars and the size and the condition of all the buildings and all the \n living and dead inventory had been listed completely in call details.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2496, "page_number": "2489", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "At the same time, call these complements and deductions were established for the inventory, and now the estate was officially handed over to the resettler. Only now by this written contract of commitment the resettlers was transferred from the status of provisional housing into a de facto settlement, and only on that point the settlement companies started their economic care for the resettlers.\nQBy this commitment contract you have just mentioned, did the resettler become owner of the enterprise.\nANo, he remained further a sub-trustee of the settlement company; in other words, an administrator of public economy.\nQDid the working staff have to take care of these resettlers further?\nANo, the further economic care was dealt with by the settlement companies only in sole competency and without collaboration of the labor staff.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2497, "page_number": "2490", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QDid this settlement company now take care of the economic advice and advice and consultations too?\nAThe care taken by the settlement companies was only financial. The professional advice was given by the district peasant association of the Reich Food Association, and for this purpose they had appointed several settlement aids in every district.\nQ can you explain to the Tribunal in one sentence what the significance and importance of the Reich Food Association was?\nAThe Reich Food Association was the professional organization of all the peasants in Germany as officially appointed.\nQConcerning the estates handed over to the resettlers, could the labor staff make transfers of resettlers?\nAWithout the approval of the settlement company or the Reich Food Association, that would have been impossible.\nQThen I can summarize: The Labor Staff took care of the provisional and first lodging and housing of the resettlers, while the settlement company of the Reich Food Ministry took charge of advising about the reformation of German peasantry. In this framework, they carried out the final settlement on the strength of a committment contract, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQNow would it happen too that resettlers did not conclude such a commitment upon contract?\nAYes, that would happen once in a while too. In such cases where the resettler was not satisfied with estate or in any case where he didn't want to take the estate for some reason or other, such resettlers would then remain under the care of the Ostland Company, and then they concluded an exploitation contract with the Ostland.\nQIn other words, if I understand you correctly, the resettlers provisionally lodged in the agricultural estate or committed there by contract were in any case trustees only but not owners. They were either \n trustees of the Ostland or the Peasant Settlement, Companies and both were assiciated with agencies of the Reich Food Ministry?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2498, "page_number": "2491", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AYes, that is correct.\nQNow, how many collaboraters did the working Staff include?\nAIn Leslau, the number of collaboratoers varied according to the tasks we had. There were betwenn 20, 30 and 40 persons.\nQHow many amongst your collaboraters were members of the SS?\nAAs far as I recall not one of then was a member of the SS except for my driver.\nQHow long were you in charge of the labor staff of Leslau?\nA as from the 20 of March 1940 until July.\nTHE INTERPRETER:Your Honor, will you please ask the witness to speak more clearly.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Will the witness please speak into the microphone. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQI repeat the last question. For how long were you in charge of the working staff at Leslau?\nAAs from about the 20 of March 1940 until July of the same year.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Marshal advised me that it will be necessary to recess until the sound system is repaired. We will recess until then.", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2499, "page_number": "2492", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The pile of junk that we are trying to operate with, dignified by the name sound system, has blown up. While the mechanic undertake what looks like to them an impossible task of fixing it, we will take a recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2500, "page_number": "2493", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION\n(The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 15 December 1947)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nHERBERT HUEBNER (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ (Counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQI am putting the last question once again, during which we were interrupted somewhat frequently this morning:\nWitness, how long were you head of the working staff in Leslau?\nAFrom about the 20th of March 1940, to about the middle of July of the same year. Then, by order of the Deputy Plenipotentiary, Koppe, I was appointed head of the working staff in Schroda.\nQWhat was your work in Schroda?\nAThe same work as in Leslau. The superior office was just no longer the settlement staff in Lodz, but the settlement staff in Posen.\nQWere you also dealing with resettlers from Wolhynia and Galicia there too?\nAExcept for a few Baltic German resettlers, there were no resettlers in this district at all. About 350 families from the German settlement district around Chelm and Lublin, were to be settled, and this district was to be prepared for them.\nQI suppose this took place in the same way as you described in the district of Leslau?\nAIn principle the technical procedure was the same, and so were the competencies. The essential difference, however, was that an exchange of the population was to take place.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2501, "page_number": "2494", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "In other words, the Germans exchanged their farms for those of the Poles. Therefore, we talked of an exchange settlement.\nQHow did you register the farms?\nAIn the some way as I described before. That is, the maps of the farms of each community were sent to the settlement staff in Posen, and, as far as I know, they passed them on to the UWZ.\nQDid the working staff have any influence on the selection of the Poles to be evacuated?\nANo. Here, too, this was exclusively within the competency of the UWZ.\nQAnd in what way were the farms distributed, both to the Germans to be exchanged and to the Poles?\nAI cannot say for certain through what office the allocation was carried out. At that time I had no clear view, over and beyond the district, into the way the work was done. At any rate, it was not the working staffs which did it.\nQWere the evacuated Poles later actually settled in the farms which the Germans had left?\nAWes, that is certain.\nQAnd how do you know that?\nAThat was confirmed by several resettlers, who sometimes came back to visit their old farms in the Government General in order to fetch something or other. The names of the resettlers Witt and Mund still remain in my memory. For the rest, the resettler Pfarrer Hardt also confirmed this.\nQWas this resettlement voluntary, or was it necessary to exercise any form of pressure?\nAThe resettlement was carried out by another office, that is, by VOMI, and so I had no insight into the events. The resettled clergyman Hardt, whom I mentioned just now, \n confirmed expressly that no sort of pressure was exerted and that every ethnic German could choose whether he decided to be resettled in Germany or not, and I have no reason to doubt his word.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2502, "page_number": "2495", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "DR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, to confirm these facts, I will submit in my document books some affidavits deposed by these persons.\nQNow, were the evacuating Poles allowed to take their moveable property with them?\nAYes, that was expressly ordered and announced at the time. I believe I remember that in the first exchange settlements this was carried out as ordered. Because of the danger of epidemics, the veterinary police later raised doubts. Then, as far as I know, it was agreed that in the cases of both the German and the Polish farms, the livestock would be left behind so that in both cases it would be possible to continue the normal work immediately. Only in very exceptional cases was permission granted to take a particularly valuable piece along. I remember one specific case where a German was permitted to take a favorite horse with him; everything else had to stay at the farm.\nQWere the ethnic German resettlers satisfied with the farms they were given?\nAOn the whole, they were. The only great difficulty, which could hardly be overcome, was that the Germans in the Government General had owned farms with very good black soil, and the Poles took these over. The ethnic Germans, conversely, in the Warthegau, very often had to put up with farms which only had very light soil, and for this reason alone very great difficulties arose because the people were not accustomed to this type of farming.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2503, "page_number": "2496", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QWas greater care not necessary just because of these varying conditions of the soil?\nAQuite apart from these difficulties, which necessiated an entirely different method of farming, every resettler needed intensive assistance. Not merely material care stood in the foreground. Certainly the need was great and the most necessary things were lacking everywhere. However, what was decisive was always human understanding and warmhearted care for the moral and psychological need of those uprooted people. I am not afraid to use that word. And to help them personally and individually was what I always regarded as my main task.\nQHow long did you work in this district?\nAAbout from the middle of duly 1940 to the middle of October of the same year. However, later on I again devoted my special care to this district.\nQHow many of your colleagues in this office were members of the SS?\nANone of them.\nQWhere did you go from Schroda?\nAAt Koppe's personal order I was sent to Professor Karstens, head of the settlement staff in Posen, to be his assistant.\nQCan you tell me what the reason was for that?\nAThe resettlers who were alloted to my district -the Schroda district -- for resettlement, all came from the best villages of the resettlement area. They were very demanding and were not easily satisfied. I had built up a welfare apparatus in my office, which worked very carefully; according to a welfare system which I had thought out, it systematically and very carefully benefited even the very last \n and least of the settlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2504, "page_number": "2497", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "On the occasion of an inspection Koppe got to know about this welfare system and he wanted all other working staffs to immediately carry out their care and welfare in exactly the same way. I was then entrusted with this special task.\nQSo it was a purely organizational task?\nAYes, but it was a matter of selecting and interesting the workers best suited in character for this type of work. That was the actual purpose of my task.\nQWere you working in the whole of the Warthegau on this task?\nANo, only in the twenty-two districts which belonged to the settlement staff at Posen.\nQAnd how long did you carry out this special task?\nAAbout to the middle of April 1941.\nQAnd what happened then?\nAThe head of the settlement staff at Posen, Professor Karstens, became Rector of the University, and I had to take over his work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2505, "page_number": "2498", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QWere there special reasons for this?\nAI don't think so because I was suggested as his successor and Koppe agreed.\nQTo whom was the Posen Settlement Staff responsible?\nAAs far as instructions were concerned to Koppe, as deputy commissioner of the RKFDV; personally and in matters of organization to the Staff Leader of the agency.\nQCan you cuite \"briefly describe the organization of the Settlement Staff?\nAIt's very simple; it had a staff department for the internal business, another department for agriculture, resettlers one department for Lodz settlers.\nQIn its organization, did it resemble the Lodz settlement staff? We have a Prosecution document here as an organization plan.\nAIt was much smaller and also much simpler in its organization than the Lodz Settlement Staff, but I can't give you detailed facts about this because I only managed the settlement staff office for six weeks.\nQWas the Settlement Staff an agency which could issue orders?\nANo.\nQCan you describe its tasks and powers quite briefly?\nAThe Settlement Staff was an agency where a number of working staffs ware included purely for organizational points of view. It had to see to it that the working staffs subordinated to it were managed and worked in a unified manner and in accordance with the published decrees, and that not very district went its own way; it received its instructions and orders from Koppe, and insofar as the settlement staff passed on orders, these were orders passed on in behalf of Koppe. One example makes that very clear. The settlement staff could order that on a certain date a certain number of resettlers were to be brought in and settled in a certain district; that was in their competency. It could not determine what resettlers were to be brought to which district.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2506, "page_number": "2499", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Decisions of this kind lay with the higher agency. This activity of the settlement staff cannot he compared with the work of the Prussian Settlement Commission because it later carried out actual settlement work. The Prussian Settlement Commission bought the land, parceled it out; built new farms; fetched the settlers from the Reich; and sold these newly built farms to the resettlers. Measured by this comprehensive activity, the Settlement Staff of 1940-1941 can in no way be given the importance of the Prussian Settlement Commission of 1918.\nQWhat agencies were there in Posen who handled settlement?\nAFor the best in the world, I can't remember all the agencies which directly or indirectly were concerned in resettlement measures. I have tried to make a list and in my affidavit I managed to bring the number up to nineteen, but I myself am convinced that there were quite a lot more.\nQDid the Settlement Staff have to deal with all these many agencies?\nAIts activities were in the main limited to the subordinated working staffs.\nQAnd what did the Settlement Staff in Posen do under your personal management?\nAI took over the Settlement Staff on about the 18th of April, 1941; already on the 6th of June of the same year I was given another task, so that I only was with the Settlement Staff for six weeks. In this time very little work was done. The settlement of the last group of Germans which had reached the Warthegau from the Chelm and Lublin areas had already been concluded in September, 1940. The main task of the Settlement Staff was to look after the new settlers, to remove the hardships and lacks that had arisen, and to correct mistakes in the number of individual incidents. The settlement of certain parts of Bessarabian groups had already been ordered by the Main Staff Office, but it had not yet reached the practical significance because there were no more farms which were fit for resettlement. For the rest evacuations were not possible after the 22nd March, 1943, and had been \n stopped, so there was no longer any necessity to fill such farms which had become empty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2507, "page_number": "2500", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "On the other hand, the transport of the resettlers from Germany Proper to the incorporated eastern territories had been interrupted and impossible at that time. The Bessarabian Germans at this time were in camps in Germany Proper. These were the reasons why during this time no settlement questions or measures of any size took place.\nQWas there no settlement at all at this time?\nAI can remember for certain that the Settlement Staff at this time dealt only with questions of accommodating a few individual families of the Bessarabian group. These families came, arrived singly, in single transports from Germany Proper.\nQHow many people did the settlement staff in Posen employ?\nAI would say about forty, about forty-five people.\nQAnd how many of your colleagues at that time were members of the SS?\nAPerhaps three; at the most four.\nQNow, the work you have described so far, including the staffs and the settlement staff, Posen, prompts me to ask you another Question. Luring your work on the Settlement Staff in Posen was any racial examination carried out?\nASince there was not the slightest reason for doing such a thing, I can answer that in the negative.\nQAs I remember, the Prosecution witness von dem Bach-Zelewski testified that on the settlement staffs there were such racial examiners or racial delegates working. What have you to say to that?\nABefore the resettler reached the settlement staff, or got into the hands of the settlement staff he had already had all prescribed examinations in the course of processing by the UXZ. The position of a racial examiner on the settlement staff therefore would have been quite useless. At any rate, as far as the Lodz Settlement Staff is concerned, the testimony of the witness Bach-Zelewski is not correct.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2508, "page_number": "2501", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QYou have already mentioned that on the 6th of June, 1941, you received another task; what was this?\nAThe staff leader of the office of the plenipotentiary for the RKFDV was to go to the front for a short time; Koppe sent for me and asked if apart from managing the Settlement Staff I could also deputize for staff leader Doering during the time of his army service. At the time I said that I couldn't just answer this question by yes or no because I would have to first know the extent and nature of the work. If agricultural, economic or specialist questions had to be decided, then I would have doubts, grave doubts about being able to take the work over.\nQWhat did Koppe tell you about this?\nAThen Koppe said that my doubts about the lack of specialized knowledge were unfounded. The main departments of the agencies were staffed with experts, and these worked independently and necessary decisions were taken by himself. What mattered to him was that a suitable successor should be found for Doering who had been a personnel authority. That was why he had thought of me because I had a very good insight into the work in general, and he thought this would be a great benefit for the whole office. When I again raised doubts, he interrupted me and said, Herbert, you are tired.\nQAnd then, when did you deputize and take over this job as Doering's deputy?\nAI think it was the 6th of June, 1941; it was certainly at the beginning of June, 1941.\nQNow, please give me the exact address of the office you now entered?\nAIt was the office of the plenipotentiary for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism in Posen, Kaiserring, 13.\nQHow big was this office?\nAThe area this office had to deal with was the whole of the Warthegau, that is the area which in 1919 belonged to the German Reich, \n province of Posen, and which was annexed by the Poles.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2509, "page_number": "2502", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QAnd who was the chief of this office?\nAIts chief was the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV in the Warthegau, and this was the Reich Lieutenant. For the whole of the time I was working there this was Greiser.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2510, "page_number": "2503", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QDo you know who appointed Greiser to this post?\nAI have already commented on this question in my affidavit of May 1947. It was the Main Staff Office which appointed him. Up to this time I had been of the opinion that such appointments were one of the duties of the Main Staff Office; that Himmler himself made such appointments is something I have only learned now from the submission of the corresponding documents.\nQWas this Reich Commissioner's tasks of the RKFDV the only job Greiser held?\nANo, he held quite a number of other offices too, only some of which I know. As Reich Lieutenant he was the highest authority on this level of general kind administration; he was Reich Defense Commissioner; he was Gauleiter in the NSDAP.\nQGreiser as plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, did ha appear in this capacity more than any other?\nAIn the person of the Reich Lieutenant all powers within the Gau were united apart from purely military power. This comprehensive power informations as plenipotentiary of the RKFDV formed only a comparatively small sector; in essence he made his decisions as Reich Lieutenant, or as Reich Defense Commissioner, or, as Gauleiter of the NSDAP.\nQAnd in what way did Greiser work at all for the RKFDV?\nAThe functions I have already mentioned in addition to which there were quite a number of other tasks formed the main sphere of work as Reich Lieutenant. As plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, his work was limited as far as I can judge, but as he himself could not in any case from the very nature of things manage the course of the business, he and a deputy in his capacity as RKFDV plenipotentiary.\nQWho was this deputy?\nAThe deputy to the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV was whoever happened to be the higher SS and police leader.\nQAnd who was this actually in Posen?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2511, "page_number": "2504", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AFrom 1939 to 1943 this was Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe; then, for a short time Obergruppenfuehrer Berkelmann; and from 1944 onwards, Obergruppenfuehrer Reinefahrt.\nQThese deputy plenipotentiaries, did they hold other offices as well?\nAYes, they were leaders of main sectors of the General SS, and in addition higher SS and police leaders.\nQDid the higher SS and police leader have the right to give orders to the police?\nAI have no detailed information about these purely police matters; however, I know that between Koppe and the C-in-C of the police there were considerable difficulties and differences of opinion on this question, and I know that a change in personnel was ordered.\nQDid the deputy plenipotentiaries do any work for the RKFDV?\nAYes, they were appointed solely to be the deputies, business managers, and the description business manager means that they helped in the daily business of the office. Naturally, it depended on the individual concerned; in particular, Koppe did not play an intensive part in this work, but the work of the RKFDV formed the main part of his work as a whole.\nQAnd what was the superior agency on the Reich level?\nAAt the top stood Himmler, for as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism; he had a central office in Berlin, which was later called the Main Staff Office.\nQSo, summing up this important point again, who was chief of the office of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV?\nAThere is no doubt about it at all; this could only be Greiser.\nQAnd what was Koppe's position?\nAHe was the deputy business manager of the Reich Lieutenant Greiser, in his capacity as Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, and, therefore, the direct superior agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2512, "page_number": "2505", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QAnd in this agency of which Koppe was chief, you worked as staff leader?\nAYes.\nQIn your indictment you are described as head of the field office of the Main Staff Office in Posen; is that correct?\nAThe field office of the Main Staff Office which was at the Helmholzstrasse 10 in Posen, was entirely independent. I was staff leader of the office of the settlement staff, and it had neither any organizational connection with it nor was it subordinated to it; it was directly subordinated to the Main Staff Office in Berlin. It was exactly the same as the field office of the Main Staff Office in Lodz.\nQCan you quite briefly tell us something about the organization and the building up of this agency as you found it at the time?\nAThe organization of the office of the RKFDV in Posen was in the main adjusted to the central office of the RKFDV in Berlin, that is the various departments corresponded to the main departments of offices of the central agency in Berlin. If I remember rightly, the department in Posen at the time or the main department dealt with the subjects of Munchen Einsatz commitment of people, economy, agriculture and financial administration. In addition there was also the land office which up to that time led an independent existence outside of the office.\nQSo that we have some idea about the size of the office, can you tell us how many employees it had?\nAWhen I started working there, the office of the plenipotentiary for the RKFDV in Posen employed about two hundred people; in addition, however, there were thirty-six working staffs, and two settlement staffs, which we had to look after. As far as personnel was concerned, altogether, I should estimate they had about eight hundred employees, so that in round figures, one thousand people belonged to the office of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, at that time.\nQWere the working and settlement staffs, only as far as labor was concerned, subordinated to the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2513, "page_number": "2506", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "AYes, that is right, insofar as Koppe had reserved the right that in the actual work he could give directives, and instructions to the working and settlement staffs; for the working out of instructions he did not make use of the main departments of the office. In order to make this possible, he had set up his own planning office. The manager of this was a certain Doctor Dohle-Zalek. this planning department worked under instructions of the working staff, according to Koppe's instructions.\nQAnd what factual work did the working staff have at the time?\nAThey carried out the settlement and was responsible for welfare of the various ethnic groups.\nQWhat sphere of work did the office of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV in Posen have?\nAAccommodating and looking after the large number of Baltic resettlers from Estonia and Latvia, and the office of the plenipotentiary carried out this welfare work in direct contact with the resettlers themselves, without consulting the work of the settlement staffs.\nQHow do you explain this difference in competency?\nAThis difference is explained by the fact that the arrangement of the resettlement and working staffs arose only out of the experience collected with the former settlement of Baltic Germans.\nQBut that was surely a double work?\nAThis condition was imposed in the district not only because of the organization but also because of the work. The settlement and working staffs refused to see to the welfare of the Baltic Germans, since this was solely the job of the Posen office, and they only looked after the ethnic groups which they had treated themselves. The Posen office on the other hand restricted itself exclusively to looking after the Baltic Germans, and referred applicants from other ethnic groups to the working and settlement staffs. That was the situation I found when I arrived at the office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2514, "page_number": "2507", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Did you interfere? Did you by any chance remove these deficiencies you saw?\nA.I had neither the authorization nor the orders to do this. I was only deputy of the staff leader and during his temporary absence I could not undertake any essential changes. The great influx of settlers, however, made the work of the office of the RKEDV very much heavier in every way. The great mass of resettlers at that time consisted of far more than 200 thousand people in the Warthegau. Koppe, himself, I suppose had recognized that certain changes in organization were necessary. After the center of gravity of the work had shifted from pure accommodations also to welfare and general care, he commissioned me, first of all, carefully to examine conditions and then make suggestions to him at a suitable moment for improving the organization.\nQ.Did the management of the settlement staff in Posen still lie in your hands?\nA.Yes, however, it was quite impossible for me, apart from the mass of work which my new job had with it, to care resopnsibily for the settlement staff in Posen. That is why I requested Koppe to relieve me of this task by appointing a successor, an agriculturist, Spranger. He afterwards did so.\nQ.Were the organizational changes made, and if so, when?\nA.The staff leader, Deering, had in the meantime returned from several months at the front. But he was appointed SS and Police Leader in Russian territory. That is why I was finally appointed staff leader. This gave me time and opportunity gradually to make the organizational changes in the sense of Koppe's orders.\nQ.Could you tell us now of the organization of the Office of the Plenipotentiary in Posen, what it looked like after the changes you had introduced?\nA.In reorganizing the office, after Koppe had approved the sug \n gestions, I adjusted the office even more than had formerly been the case to the model of the Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2515, "page_number": "2508", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "First, I took out the personnel advisors everywhere and put them into a department by themselves. In the same way, I began to form a central archieve, also with a general office. For other special departments were set up too which had to deal with the ordinary business and the administration; for instance, with, figures of motor vehicles. All these departments, the work of which had to serve all the main departments together, I concentrated on the staff department of which I was the head, and so the main departments were freed of all administrative tasks and became purely expert specialized departments. The office now had a staff department and six main departments for the actual work since the land registry was also incorporated in the organization now. While the staff department was managed by the staff leader, there was a responsible main department chief at the head of each main department. The following main departments now existed: the Main Department for commitment of People corresponding to the Office for Commitment of People in Berlin; the Main Department of Planning, corresponding to the planning Office in Berlin; the Main Department III for Economy, corresponding to the Office for Economy in Berlin; the Main Department IV, Agriculture, corresponding to the Office IV in the Main Staff Office; the Main Department V, Finance, and the Land Office, corresponding to the Central Land Office in Berlin.\nQ.Was this same arrangement introduced in the working and Settlement staffs too?\nA.We attempted it, and in some cases achieved it. Generally, however, it failed because of personnel difficulties, because of the shortage of skilled employees.\nQ.Was that the end of your organizational task?\nA.No, the greatest difficulty was to build in the settlement and working staffs into this clear organization and so have a clear order \n of senority.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2516, "page_number": "2509", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "In this work I found little understanding with Koppe. He wanted to keep the settlement and working staffs directly subordinate to him. A complete incorporation of the working staffs into the normal competency of the main departments only became possible in 1943 when Koppe left and the new chief Berkelmann approved it. The final task was the dissolution of the two settlement staffs: Posen and Lodz. The working staffs, which existed before, were now all entitled \"Commissioners of the RKFDV Settlement Staffs.\" That was the end of the organizational measures and changes.\nQ.So that exhausts the somewhat difficult organization questions. And now, let us turn briefly to the task of the main departments. Did they have the same tasks as the corresponding offices of the Main Staff Office in Berlin?\nA.In themselves they did, but on the gau level in which we are dealing here, there was a slightly different picture which I can only explain with reference to the various individual departments.\nQ.Well, what about Main Department I? What happened there?\nA.Main Department I, Commitment of People, had to deal with the people themselves and with all technical matters which cropped up before and after settlement; in particular, to put together the groups of settlers in detail in accordance with the general division made by the Main Staff Office. Then there was a regulation of transportation, baggage, examination of the right to be settled, and approval to settle in individual cases and issuing passes. A very important question was the accommodation of all dependent settlers with the help of the labor offices and other offices; in particular, the general care and welfare of the settlers; especially looking after the old and sick -- these who could no longer work; the regulation of pension affairs, bringing together of separated members of one family, clearing up legal questions; in addition, the clearing up of legal questions concerned with \n the property of members of Groups III and IV of the German People's List, in all cases where on the lowest administrative level among the Landraete, an agreement could not be reached.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2517, "page_number": "2510", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.And what about Main Department II, Planning?\nA.Main Department II, Planning, was set up in the second half of 1941. It is not identical with the Planning Office Koppe had, which I have already mentioned. That was managed by Dr. Dole Zalok, The Main Department for Planning of the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV dealt with planning and drafting of new possibilities of settlement, while the general settlement, repeatedly mentioned here, made use of the available space which could be settled and was therefore no real settlement but rather a question of just simply accommodation. Farms and villages were to be newly built. For this, the Main Department Planning, in close cooperation with the supreme settlement authority of the Reich Lieutenant did the necessary preliminary work. Because of the wartime shortage of building materials of all kinds and because of the shortage of trained personnel, the practical effect of these plans were limited strictly to only a few small experimental buildings and some transfer proceedings. Department IV-B of the Office of the Reich Lieutenant carried these out. In 1943, this planning, because of the total war measures, was dropped altogether. The few remaining employees or those who were available at all were used for other tasks of the office.\nQ.That brings us to Main Department III, Economy. How about that?\nA.Main Department III dealt with accomodating resettlers in trade and industry and with housing and also with those working in the catering trade. A number of other agencies were also concerned in this, of whom I would only like to mention the HTO, the DUT, the Trade Development Office, the Commerce Building-up Office, the Hotel \n and Restaurant Company, the Trade Promotion Office, and the Real Estate Company, and there were others too.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2518, "page_number": "2511", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "As the Main Department for Economy was housed outside the Main Office, I had no clear insight into its way of working, and as a result, I can't say much about cooperation and competency in detail. For the whole of this time, I, myself, was there perhaps only twice. The procurement of furniture, household equipment, clothing and all the requirements of the settlers also belonged to their work. These objects were supplied brand now from factories in Germany proper.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2519, "page_number": "2512", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Now, tell us briefly about Main Department IV, Agriculture.\nA.This Main Department dealt with accommodating resettlers in agriculture. Close cooperation developed with the working staffs -- with Main Department IV -- the work of which I just described. Main Department IV had the task of supervising the resettlers appointed as trustees in their planning. Until they had signed a contract with the Ostland -a contract of management -- it also had the task - as far as the approval of the RUFDV was necessary, to issue this through the head of Main Department IV. It was the same with the employment of the war wounded. There was a further and very difficult task. This was the regulation of the many pointless reshiftings and regroupings, which had been undertaken in connection with the Polish campaign, without the assistance of the offices of the RKFDV.\nQ.Can you briefly say what this was all about?\nA.In a few thousand cases, local ethnic Germans without the help of other offices had taken over abandoned Polish farms or even exchanged their own for bigger or better ones. These measures very soon led to legal and financial difficulties of management. On the basis of Order 9/IV of the Main Staff Office, all these illegal measures were cleared up and many of these adventurers had to return the property they had taken. This happened very often in the face of very strong difficulties made by local party and also by community offices.\nQ.Now we come briefly to Main Department V, Finance.\nA.The Main Department for Finance had to handle all financial matters; for instance, the administration of the budget, distribution of wages and salaries, the office treasury as such, transportation expenses, administration of its real estate, division of fees, accounting to the Reich auditing office, cantoons, obtaining of materials and vehicles.\nQ.Now, the last main department, VI, the Land Office. What about that?\nA.The Land Office was responsible for registering the whole \n of Polish agricultural property, to inventory it and to register it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2520, "page_number": "2513", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "It further had to obtain the plans for parceling out the land with a statement of the quality of the soil, as a basis for later compensation of property and for the compensation claims of the old Polish owners. The Land Office had also to clear up all legal questions connected with land and dealings with the courts arising out of it and with the senior finance presidents.\nQ.After this survey of the tasks of the various departments, I think that what follows will be more easily understood. In what way were orders issued? Did Himmler issue his instructions to the Plenipotentiary or to his deputy directly?\nA.Apart from the general orders of the RKFDV, which reached the Posen office through the Main Staff Office, I cannot remember having seen written instructions from Himmler to the Planipotentiary. To what extent Greiser, as SS Obergruppenfuehrer or as SS Reich Lieutenant, received instructions from Himmler, I don't know. The same applies to Koppe. I had no chance of receiving such a correspondence which was usually carried out personally and which sometimes even was highly confidential. I do, however, know that Himmler was in Posen quite often and it's probably that on these occasions he gave both Greiser and Koppe oral instructions.\nQ.In what way did the Main Staff Office issue instructions?\nA.Instructions came both from the Chief of the Main Staff Office, and in particular from the Chiefs of the various offices.\nQ.Could the Staff Main Office give instructions at all to Greiser or his deputy Koppe because they were only deputy commissioners?\nA.I can answer this question only out of our daily practice in work. In the mail which came in daily, there were not only very many specific instructions but also general instructions from the Main Staff Office. Since the entire mail was addressed to the Reich Lieutenant, Planipotentiary of the RKFDV in Posen, Greiser, Kaiserring 13, I never had the slightest doubt that such right to issue instructions existed and was exerted.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2521, "page_number": "2514", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.What about Greiser himself? Could he issue instructions?\nA.Undoubtedly, but since as a rule he intervened in the work of the office only for his deputy Koppo, I don't know the extent to which he did this, especially since Koppo was subordinate to Greiser in other ways too. As Higher SS and Police Leader, Koppo was subordinate to Greiser as Reich Defense Commissioner. I was only able to note that the relationship between Greiser and Koppo was close and friendly. Occasionally, it would happen that Greiser intervened directly in individual matters of the office.\nQ.And what about Koppo in this respect?\nA.Koppo, as deputy of Greiser, also had the right to issue instructions. He actually carried out the business management. He issued fundamental and general instructions insofar as they had not come from superior offices, but in many cases too, he intervened personally in many individual details. He generally gave his orders by telephone or passed them on in verbal discussions to the Main Department and their workers. To the Settlement and working Staffs, his instructions usually went in writing. Often in passing on orders to the above mentioned offices, he made use of me.\nQ.What was the position of the Main Offices?\nA.The Main Offices received instructions in all important questions from the offices just mentioned. For the rest, they were independent in their normal business.\nQ.So now we know the official channels from top to bottom. Now, how about from bottom to top?\nA.The working staffs reported to the settlement staffs but sometimes they reported to Koppo too. The settlement staffs usually reported to Koppo. Only when Koppo left we managed to get the reports of the settlement staffs Lodz and Posen to reach the office in the normal way with the mail.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2522, "page_number": "2515", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.And between the office in Posen and the Main Staff Office, how about that?\nA.The general correspondence and dealing with business matters passed directly from the main departments to the offices of the Main Staff Office. I, myself, as staff leader too, with the competency of my department corresponded directly with the Main Staff Office, in individual cases also on the basis of special orders from Koppe. In correspondence of a factual importance the main department head would submit the letter with his written comments to Koppe. The latter would then have the necessary letters worked out by his personal advisor and sign them himself. Documents asked for by the Reichstatthalter also went directly through Koppe or Binnefarth.\nQ.Did it also happen that the office would report directly to Himmler?\nA.I can't remember this ever taking place. If it happened at all it could only have happened through Koppe or Greiser.\nQ.In so far as there was any right to sign letters, how did this happen?\nA.I can recall an order from the Main Staff Office which was submitted to me when I became staff leader. This contained the instruction that all those authorized to sign, including the staff leader, had to sign \"by order of\".\nQ.And who regulated this matter of the authorization to sign? Was there any business rule?\nA.The authority to sign in the limited extent described just now had been issued to a very extensive degree, in addition to the main department heads, also to many experts. Who issued them in detail I don't know. I just found this state of affairs in existence. After I believed I had learned the principles according to which Koppe wanted his office to function I tried very hard to get proper business regulations laid down to regulate the normal business. I consulted a number of corporation lawyers and, after several attempts, submitted a \n draft to Koppe.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2523, "page_number": "2516", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Koppe agreed to put it into effect temporarily but only shortly afterwards recalled this permission with the reason that it needed changing in some points, but that never happened.\nSuch contradictory behavior lay in Koppe's character. He hated being tied down in his measures and that is why many things which needed clearing up were purposely left in abeyance so that when he wanted to be could change his mind if he thought it necessary because of a new point of view he might have acquired.\nQ.Did other discussions with representatives of the Main Staff Office also take place and if they did, to what extent?\nA.Yes, very frequently.\nQ.How often was the chief of the Main Staff Office at the office of the RKFDV in Posen?\nA.About, I think, twice in my time.\nQ.How often was the chief of the Main Staff Office in Posen to see Koppe or Greiser?\nA.I can't say because quite often I didn't hear about it. As time went on discussions frequently took place between him, Greiser and Koppe.\nQ.Did you take part in these discussions?\nA.Generally not. I was occasionally consulted at such discussions but usually I was only afterwards informed about the parts of the discussions which interested me.\nQ.How often did the various office chiefs of the Berlin Central Office and their experts come to Posen for discussions?\nA.Such visits happened all the time, Generally the discussions took place with the heads of the main departments or with Koppe. Even beyond that the chief of Office IV, Hiege, also regularly visited the Reichstattlalter for discussions; in addition, the Main Office of the Ostland and also the higher settlement authorities.\nQ.Did you, yourself, carry out factual negotiations with the representatives of the office of the Central Office of Berlin when they \n were in Posen?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2524, "page_number": "2517", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "A.The gentlemen of the Main Staff Office generally only paid a courtesy visit to me as staff leader. Sometimes they would also in outline tell me where they were in Posen, but the actual negotiations were carried out with the specialist departments. Only with Creutz and Schwarzenberger did I discuss sectional affairs, that is, personnel matters and pay. As far as I remember, it was once in the case of Creutz and at the most twice with Schwarzenberger.\nQ.How about the other way around? Did you or the Main Department chiefs often go to Berlin to the Main Staff Office?\nA.Between Berlin and Posen there was lively traffic and close contact. The main department chiefs and their experts often went to Berlin to the Main Staff Office to report or to obtain decisions or collect information. I, myself, in some cases went to the Main Staff Office in Berlin, and there I had to clear up important matters in my own sphere of work or I had to discuss them there after we talked to Koppe about them.\nQ.How about the mail distribution at your office?\nA.The mail reached the Central Post Office. There it was distributed, that is, Koppe received the mail intended for him and possibly for the Reichstatthalter. I got the personal letters addressed to myself in the mail from the staff department, while the remaining mail went directly to the main department. As the same document initials were used in the Main Staff Office, the distribution of mail caused no particular difficulties. The mail arriving for the Land Office generally said Land Office on it. There was an exception in the case of the Main Department for Economy, which was outside the building at Wilhelmsplatz 16 and had its own post office.\nQ.Now, after this survey please describe to us your own sphere of work.\nA.I was head of the Staff Department, as I have already described. It coordinated all the tasks which served the internal work \n of the office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2525, "page_number": "2518", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "So I had to create the necessary conditions and prerequisites for a regular course of business of the whole office. This included in detail personnel matters, smaller and bigger organizational measures and many other things too: office hours, visitors hours obtaining the necessary office rooms which were changed very often, the general house order, use of motor vehicles and establishment of furniture and materials required and all these matters not only for the Posen office but in the same way for the roughly forty settlement and working staffs.\nQ.In your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit No.33in Volume II-B, you talked once of the staff leader as head of the office. What did you mean by that?\nA.From the context it is clearly shown that here I wanted to refer to the organizational leadership of the office by the staff leader.\nQ.Did you also have to convince yourself that the offices subordinate to you actually adhered to their regulations?\nA.That was one of my duties. I had currently to check up on the working staffs within the framework of my own sphere and to report in detail to Koppe in writing.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2526, "page_number": "2519", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Witness, in what manner did you issue orders in your agency to have the general regulations compiled with?\nA.In general, I had my directives issued verbally through the expert department of the Staff Office. Partly I would regulate the official channels by so-called staff orders, and they would be drawn up in the agency.\nQ.A while ago you spoke of organizational measures on a larger scale. What were your tasks in that field?\nA.There my tasks were many fold. In the interest of a rational working procedure it was often necessary to split up fields of tasks or to concentrate individual expert departments, or even to dissolve whole departments. The same often occurred in the question of resettlement and work field There, for instance, I deactivated the Culture and Newspaper Department, the Repatriation Department East, and others. Ohter organizational tasks were those concerning the technical simplification of correspondence and the obtaining of as clear as possible a channel of command, as well as the creation of a welfare organization which worked perfectly well.\nQ.You mentioned the fact that you were Chief of Personnel of the agency. Now, in a few brief words, will you please state the main contents of this task?\nA.This task, which was to be taken care of by my Personnel Department--a department which was part of the Staff Department-- dealt with the hiring and releasing of employees, as well as of the ratings of the employees, of forty field agencies. Apart from that, it dealt with the social welfare of that circle of persons.\nQ.Did you have unlimited powers in this field?\nA.Not at all. The Main Staff Office had reserved itself the righ of hiring employees in accordance with rating groups 1 to 5 of the tariff scal for public servants. The hiring of employees of groups 6 to 10 of the same tariff scale was subject to the approval of the chief of the agency, in other \n words, Kroppe or Reinefahrt.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2527, "page_number": "2520", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "The same applied to the ratings, that is, for the reclassification from a lower rating to a higher one. Such raises in ratings had to be approved by the Chief of the Main Department of Finance too. Also, subventions from the social funds could not be granted on my own initiative; these, again, had to be approved by the Chief of the Main Department of Finance. However, in the field of transfers and detaching of employees within the agency, I had a comparatively free hand, as well as in the questions of working staffs and settlement staffs. However, even in those cases Koppe had reserved himself the right to commission working staff leaders or to transfer them, and such personnel orders were signed by him. The same applied to promotions and medals. Mainly, my task was to make suggestions and to submit them to Koppe, who decided them.\nQ.Did the agency have sufficient experts for the whole task?\nA.No, just the contrary, and that was the reason why our personnel policy was so extremely difficult. We were an agency which had been completel newly set up within a very short period of time, and therefore we could not base ourselves on the support of a staff of trained and reliable employees and officials, as would have been the case in the older government agencies or administrative agencies. Therefore, I had to constantly check everything; I had to eliminate incapable employees, and I had to attempt to get better employees, which became more difficult as the years went on.\nQ.But you needed really qualified employees for these expert departments, didn't you? How did you help yourself in that instance?\nA.For instance, it was impossible to get a specialized expert for the Main Department of Agriculture. I suggested to Koppe at the time that a lawyer be put in charge of this department, which was done. As the subject matter was extremely difficult, I saw only a guarantee for an orderly carrying out of the tasks if competent lawyers were appointed in all responsible posit that is, lawyers who had sufficient knowledge concerning the affairs, regulati and decrees of the whole subject. My first task and my first aim in my capaci as staff leader was to advocate this conception with Koppe and to got it approved.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2528, "page_number": "2521", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.Were you successful in that attempt?\nA.Yes. Upon my suggestion, the most important main departments were staffed with lawyers and jurists. Thus, the Chief of the Main Department I and his deputy were both lawyers; the Chief of the Land Office was a Government Counselor and jurist. Apart from that, quite a number of other jurists worked in the Land Office. Also, the Chief of the Main Department of Economy was a jurist, as well as the Chief of the Main Department of Agriculture. I myself had attached a jurist to my office as consultant in the Staff Department.\nQ.Now, did this matter of personnel cause considerable additional work for your agency?\nA.Certainly. The constant drafting into the armed forces and the work to get the standard of the employees raised in general always brought new burdens on the working capacity of the agency. Over and beyond that, I had to take into consideration the wishes of the Landraete in all these personnel measures.\nQ.Now, as to this personnel strength of the agency, which you mentioned at the beginning and which was generally at an average of one thousand persons, did it always remain on the same level?\nA.There were releases and rehirings, but they approximately balanced themselves until about towards the middle of 1942. Then, the settlement companies and the agencies of the Reich Food Association had been initialed into their work and had become accustomed to it, organizationally speaking, to the extent that the agencies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism could slowly but surely be diminished and have the main burdens taken away from them. At the beginning of 1943 considerable releases of personnel were brought about by the drastic personnel-saving measures of General von Unruh, which diminished the personnel strength of the agency to about 50 percent. The Black Sea Action temporarily brought about an increase in the personnel strength again, but it was followed by a gradual release. Towards the end of the activities of the agency, the personnel strength, inclusive of the staff of the field agencies, amounted to about 500 \n persons.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2529, "page_number": "2522", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.You stated that the social welfare of the employees of the agency was also a matter of personnel relations. What about that?\nA.Whatever could be accomplished was done for the employees of the agency in the social field. I personally took care of the welfare of every single one of my employees. I helped them in creating comfortable living conditions for themselves; I also tried to get them as high a rating as possible, always.\nQ.Did you have to take into consideration their Party and SS membership?\nA.There was not the slightest differentiation between Party or SS members, on the one hand, and other employees who were not members of any of these organizations, in my agency, as far as their treatment was concerned. I never took any notice of the fact whether a person was a member of the Party or the SS, or was not a member.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2530, "page_number": "2523", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QDid the agency in Posen have a Party tendency at all?\nAThere were attempts of that kind, yes. The Nazi Party, as well as the German Labor Front, especially, made these attempts. However, they were opposed at all times by my successful and powerful opposition.\nQWhy did you oppose these attempts?\nAThe agency of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar was the bottom-level agency of the Reich, and it was not an SS or Party agency. By far the majority of the employees of this agency were not members of the Nazi Party or of one of its formations. Considering this situation from my own personal attitude, I believed that it was absolutely improper to have any influence because of Party tendencies. For me, it was important to see to it that factual work was done and that working peace was not disturbed.\nQAt this occasion, didn't you have difficulties on the side of your immediate superiors?\nAI myself got along with the responsible Nazi Party agencies alone. While local SS agencies, at the beginning at least, tried to introduce active SS Service for the SS members within my agency, this attempt failed because the number of SS members in my agency was quite insignificant.\nQCan you tell me how many of the male members of the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV were members of the SS?\nAI estimate about 5 percent at the most.\nQWhat about the managing employees and the officials of the agency?\nAThere I can give you almost a certain answer. I would like to define and limit the concept of managing employees to the chiefs of the main departments, the chiefs of departments, and the chiefs of the working staff. Of the six chiefs of the main departments, two were members of the SS; of the twelve chiefs of departments, there were also two members of the SS; and of the chiefs of the thirty-six working \n staffs, fourteen were members of the General SS and the Waffen SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2531, "page_number": "2524", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "The large majority had no dealings at all with Party agencies. Of the fifty-four managing employees and officials of the agency, therefore, a total of eithteen were SS members.\nQIn the agencies of the RKFDV with which you had dealings, were there only Germans?\nANo. In the agency in Posen, as well as in the settlement and working staffs, there were a certain number of Poles.\nQIn what capacity did these Poles work?\nAThey worked as employees, as well as laborers. I remember a total figure of about 200 Polish workers.\nQWere they treated differently from the way Germans were treated?\nANot at all. There was no difference made in the agency between the treatment of German or Polish employees or laborers. I made it a special point to take care that no excesses took place on the side of the German employees, and no excesses did take place. That never happened in our agency.\nQDid the Poles also receive social welfare subventions?\nAYes.\nQCan you give us just a few brief examples for that?\nAI can remember with certainty a Polish employee named Mikowski, because I myself saw to it that he received such a subvention from the Social Front. There were quite a number of other such cases, but I can't remember the names.\nQNow, did these approximately 200 Poles always remain in the agencies of the RKFDV?\nAOn various occasions an attempt was made to remove all the Polish employees from the service of the RKFDV. I do know that Himmler did not wish Poles to be employed in his agencies, and an order for the release of these people originated with him, or at least the initiative was taken by Himmler. At the beginning I just delayed carrying out the order. Later I released a certain number of people.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2532, "page_number": "2525", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "but I left the large majority of the Poles in the agency. I reported to my superior agency, but this report was knowingly falsified and it camouflaged the real situation. In this way I could secure an existence for quite a number of Poles.\nQIn the long run, could you keep such a measure secret towards your superior agency?\nAIn the long run that was not possible.\nQWell, how did you help yourself there?\nALater the Reich Commissar again authorized the hiring of laborers, but not of employees. Then a silent regrouping of the Poles concerned took place as far as the ratings were concerned. In other words, the employees whom we had had up to that point were taken over into the agency as laborers. The differences of pay caused by that change were compensated for by the fact that the agencies of the RKFDV took it upon themselves to pay the 20 percent Pole tax themselves; in the other case, the Pole would have had to pay that himself.\nQAnd what about the food for these Polish employees?\nAThere was a possibility to assimilate Polish employees completely with the Germans, as far as food was concerned, in cases where they worked well. From the very beginning it was my aim to bring that about for all the Polish employees, and I succeeded, in general, in doing that.\nQHow was the discipline in the agency? Did you have to intervene often? If you had to do so, in what manner would you have intervened?\nAMy prime task for myself was to preserve the good reputation of the agency. Again and again I warned and trained people in order to prevent violations of the regulations. However, in such cases where warnings did not help, then the offender would not be protected by even a golden Party insignia nor by an SS uniform. On the contrary, I always expected an especially exemplary attitude from these employees of mine, and I demanded it too. Every attempt towards dishonesty, wherever it was seen, was prevented and the offender was punished.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2533, "page_number": "2526", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "QIn other words, that was your activity as chief of the Staff Department. Did you have any other tasks?\nASoon after I started my activity I succeeded in convincing Koppe that now was the proper moment to shift the main weight of the working staffs to Care and Welfare.\nQDid you receive a special commission in the framework of that care?\nAKoppe gave me the task of dealing with and reorganizing the whole activity of the resettlement and working staffs completely, in about the same manner as I had done before for the resettlement staff at Posen; and he gave me the order to check this welfare and care and make current reports to him about it. I had had considerable experience for this task from my previous work, and I was certainly fit for the task too.\nQWhat, in detail, did this care activity consist of?\nAIt covered the whole sphere of personal life of the resettler. There was no worry with which the resettler could not approach the agency of the RKFDV, regardless of whether it was an economic distress or a family matter, or whether it was merely a personal question. Whenever they were in need they would come to the agency which had the most competency, which was the working staffs.\nQCan you give us an example to demonstrate to what extent the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV assisted the resettlers financially?\nAToday I cannot even give you an approximate general survey concerning the financial aid afforded by the working staffs. I do have some approximate figures in my memory, however. For instance, for twelve million marks new furniture was shipped, which would correspond to about sixty thousand sleeping rooms. Apart from that, for about twenty million marks there were individual pieces of furniture; for nine million marks there were household goods, pots, and so on and so forth. Apart from that, three million wollen blankets were procured, three thousand sewing machines, and many other articles and items.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2534, "page_number": "2527", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nFurthermore, I remember that three thousand new houses ware procured, so-called Finn houses; they were procured at a price of seven thousand, five hundred marks per house, ready, which corresponded to a total expense of 23million marks; and all these expenses were only and alone for the area of the Warthegau, and they were afforded by the agencies of the RKFDV.\nQNow, in order to put into operation this care, was your personal intervention necessary?\nAAt the beginning yes; later when I carried out the new organizational measures and they had been established, then the normal care for the resettler was regulated so well that in general it went on without any difficulties, and I myself could limit myself to the supervision. However, the situation changed totally all of a sudden when the 300,000 German refugees from the Black Sea arrived. Up to that point all resettlement actions had been carried out in a certain quiet and order. However, when the Black Sea Germans arrived, they were escaping from Bolshevism, and the conditions in which they arrived in Germany was in line with that escape. Faced with such sudden mass needs, the agencies of the RKFDV could no longer take care of the matter alone, and it needed all my power of conviction and persuasion to bring into the field all the other agencies which could be taken into consideration at all, and to have them take an interest in this care, and to incite them to practical collaboration in that field.\nQWhat agencies and government agencies are involved here; I mean those which you approached to have them participate in the care for the refugees?\nAFirst of all those were the agencies of the Reich Food Association, of the District Peasant Association, of the Ostland Settlement Companies, of the top level settlement agency with its subordinated agencies; the NSV, the National Socialist Welfare Organization, and the various departments of the Reichstatthalter; these agencies had to do their share in the aid.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2535, "page_number": "2528", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDid you constantly deal with these individual questions of care?\nAI was forced to do so. By my many visits to the persons who were taken care of, I became acquainted with the resettlers and the resettlers would also come to my agency in Posen to approach me with their wishes and complaints. The number of visitors often was so strong that I would sit there the whole day and deal only with these questions, namely, to listen to justified and unjustified complaints.\nQIn your affidavit, witness, which was submitted by the Prosecution as an exhibit, you mentioned the dealing with and comments of several thousand resettler files. Are welfare measures concerned there, too?\nAAt the beginning the affairs of the resettlers were discussed in committee meetings of all agencies involved. This procedure had been introduced when I took over the charges and the tasks of the Staff Leader, and at the beginning I made no changes. After a few committees, however, I found out that my personal participation was insignificant in that matter because the responsible care was with the main department, and the final decision, anyhow, was taken in the responsible office of the Main Staff Office. The files submitted to the Main Staff Office had to be submitted to Koppe for signature, and later to Greiser himself. Therefore, I limited myself to checking the files before they were passed on with regard to their completeness and with regard to general questions of welfare.\nQThat brings me to the question of whether you had an influence on the work of the main departments; could you issue directives to these main departments?\nANo, that was not my task. It was different only insofar as questions of internal organization or of personnel matters were concerned. As obviously different results were reached in the different main departments, I think that I will have to deal with that question separately for every main department.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2536, "page_number": "2529", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWell, before you do that, let's deal with another question. Did you have sufficient experience and knowledge at all in order to be able to supervise and have an insight into the work in the various main departments and, if necessary, to intervene there?\nAThrough my activity in various agencies, I had of course acquired practical experience, as to how the resettlement measures were carried out. However, to me personally it was quite impossible even to deal and to be a master in only a part of the innumerable decrees, regulations and laws which had been issued during these years. The exact knowledge of these regulations and decrees, however, was one of the absolutely necessary prerequisites for an orderly carrying out of the factual work. That was the very reason why I urged the boss to see to it that legally trained employees should be appointed in all responsible posts and positions.\nQBut the chiefs of the main department, did they have sufficient experience?\nAUndoubtedly yes.\nQDid you have an influence over the work of the land office?\nANo, the director of the land office had its correspondence directly with the central land office; he signed in general his mail as chief of the land office. I recall that one day I pointed out to him that there was a regulation from the Main Staff Office according to which all those who had the right to sign should sign \"by order\"; whereupon he answered that the land office was a legally established concept, and that, therefore, in the factual correspondence this concept of a land office had to be stressed. In its factual work the land office was supervised only by the central land office.\nQI may here point out Prosecution Exhibit18, in Volume II-A, concerning the supervising of the field agencies of the land office by the central land office in Berlin.\nAOver and beyond that I had no sufficient previous knowledge and experience in that matter.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2537, "page_number": "2530", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQHow was the matter in this connection with the main department Economy?\nAI had no influence either on their field of work; I have already pointed out that the main department Economy was not in the same building, and for that very reason alone, a closer connection with them was impossible. However, here again I didn't have the sufficient expert experience.\nQYes, but you were a bank expert, professionally speaking; couldn't you have used your experience in that field?\nAThe responsible work in the main department Economy did not only require legal training, but also expert knowledge in the management of an enterprise, while the financial questions for which I had a certain training were immaterial for the work of this department, because the financial matters were taken care of only and alone by the DUT, and the DUT was not part of the Posen agency. The directives concerning the factual work of this department were taken care of by the corresponding office in Berlin, and as far as the Main department Economy at Posen took decisions on their own competency, the decisions were made by the chiefs of the Main Department. I refrained from intervening in that matter anyhow.\nQDid the same apply with regard to the Main Department Agriculture?\nAThere it was a mere expert board work; therefore, I can say that the same applied to there.\nQYou have mentioned that in your personnel measures and welfare measures you were bound in certain cases to have first the approval of the chief of the Main Department Finance; therefore, there were certain points of contact between you and the Main Department Finance. Did this contact cover merely the financial field of tasks?\nAThe chief of Main Department Finance carried out his financial work under the sole competency of his administrative superior on a central level, and only from there did he receive his directive. I did \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2538, "page_number": "2531", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "not intervene in that field of tasks at all, if only for the reason that long years of activity there had made me completely acquainted with the independent directives of the Finance Department.\nQHere again may I point out Prosecution Exhibit18, in Document Book II-A, concerning the supervision of the Financial Administration of the plenipotentiary by the chief of Office V. Now, what about the Main Department Planning?\nAThe Main Department Planning according to its personnel staff was by far the smallest. Its work covered more the scientific field and in the framework of an agency where practical work was paramount, this department only played a very secondary part. In general, I was informed concerning newly established or terminated work; however, I never intervened factually into the work of this main department. I couldn't even do so because I had no experience and no knowledge in this very untangible task.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2539, "page_number": "2532", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.- Did you perhaps issue factual directives to the Main Department I?\nA.- The field of task of the Main Department I was many-fold, while in all other main departments factual matters were mainly dealt with. In the case of the work of Main Department I, apart from a certain number of legal problems, the human being was the center of the whole work, and insofar as they were in direct connection with the human being, and dealt with care measures, I have dealt with the matter very much in detail; while for the many factual other tasks of the main departments, I took as little interest in them as in those of the other main departments.\nQ.- May I here refer to the testimony of the witness Dr. Stier who has already confirmed these statements. In other words apart from your sphere of work itself, you had no independent powers to issue directives. Now, did you have any other contact with the factual work of the agency?\nA.- Yes, first of all I occasionally tried to get information concerning the general condition of the employees because as chief of the personnel department, I had to have such a survey in order to be able to divide up the work allocation.\nQ.- And what other contact did you have with the factual work of the agency?\nA.- The chief of the agency occasionally called me in as a liaison officer between himself and the main departments.\nQ.- Well, can you explain that in a few brief words?\nA.- For Koppe, that is the boss, as deputy plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, it would have been very difficult to receive daily or almost daily reports of all the main departments, and apart from that, of quite a number of experts concerning the most important affairs. Therefore, Koppe commissioned me to have information given to me by the main department chief concerning all the questions which were to be decided by the boss. Then, I had to collect these questions and report them to Koppe altogether, and I had to inform the main department chiefs of his decision.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2540, "page_number": "2533", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.- Was this procedure always complied with, too?\nA.- No, the very fact that Koppe was so energetic and active a personality was the reason that in many cases and practically in the majority of cases he would get into direct contact with the main department chiefs. In practice, therefore, the situation was largely the following: The main department chiefs would go and see Koppe directly, would receive directives from him; in other cases I reported to Koppe in regard to the affairs of the main department, and I would receive his directives and would forward them to the responsible authorities.\nQ.- Now, as to the members of the agency to which you forwarded in any case. And apart from that it became apparent from the way in which I passed on the orders.\nQ.- Were there also conferences between the managers and employes of the agency?\nA.- Two kinds of conferences took place, so-called conferences of the main department chiefs and meetings of working staff leaders.\nQ.- Did those conferences take place regularly?\nA.- No, they were ordered from one case to another.\nQ.- What about the so-called working staff leader meetings? Who ordered these meetings to take place, and how did they carry on?\nA.- As I just said they were ordered by Koppe from one case to another, and they were called by him or once in a while by myself, by orders of Koppe. In order to prepare an agenda I got brief suggestions from the main department leaders concerning the questions they wanted to have discussed, and concerning the names of the experts, and when I had that information, I drew up the agenda to submit it to Koppe for approval, and then the agenda was passed on to the working staff leaders. In most cases the meeting was presided over by Koppe himself. While I was responsible for the technical development of the meeting, Koppe opened the meeting, and after that the individual experts of the main department chiefs would \n make their speeches; I myself would then speak about questions of general interest, of personnel or organizational matters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2541, "page_number": "2534", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Then Koppe made the closing speech.\nQ.- What was the aim of those main department conferences?\nA.- All the main department chief conferences also were called by the order of Koppe, and often he would participate in them himself. At that occasion Koppe expressed his directives and wishes concerning the general procedure of work; he would also discuss this or that basic question; I used that occasion in order to bring about a closer collaboration and better mutual understanding between the main department chiefs. Often two different departments were dealing with task very often over-lapping delay and wrong decisions were made. I tried to avoid that through these meetings, without interfering myself into the factual work discussed there on the agenda.\nQ.- In other words I can summarize your explanations in that one sentence: Influence on the factual work of the agency you had only inasfar as resettler welfare was concerned. However, you know now the documents submitted by the Prosecution which the staff leader of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, in Kattowice, Dr. Arlt had signed. This is Prosecution Exhibit 617, and it is Document No.NO-2695, in Document Book XIV-B. Now, how can you explain that contradiction in the activity?\nA.- The very fact that Dr. Arlt whom I did not know personally signed his letters \"by order\", proves that apart from his position as Staff Leader he must have had much more extensive powers of attorney than I had. Such differences in the competency were quite frequent in the procedure of the new Reich agencies.\nQ.- I am now putting to you Prosecution Exhibit34, and it is Document No.NO-2555, and it is Document Book II-B, on page 90 of the German, which is a chart of several agencies at Lodz which Koppe supervised in his capacity as deputy plehipotentiary of the RKFDV in Posen. Is this chart \n in line with the facts?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2542, "page_number": "2535", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "A.- No, not at all.\nQ.- Why and what is incorrect there?\nA.- Neither the VOMI nor the EWZ ever were in any manner subordinated to Koppe, or to the agency of the RKFDV, and the field agency of RuSHA also according to my knowledge at no time was under Koppe; it was always subordinated to RuS Main Office, the RuSHA in Berlin, and the UWZ in Lodz also was never in any way subordinated to the agency of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV as has been shown here on the chart. It is quite clearly subordinated to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, and the inspector of the Security Police and the SD was only a Security Police agency and had nothing to do with the agency of the RKFDV in factual ways nor in any other connection whatsoever.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2543, "page_number": "2536", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.- In the resettlement staff at Lodz, was there an expert department or an expert field for questions of evacuation?\nA.- As can be seen from the chart of the resettlement area Lodz, which is generally speaking correct, there was no connection.\nQ.- That term is of interest in our contemplation of your activity as Staff Leader in the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the RSFDV. But apart from that, you were RUS leader in Posen.When were you appointed to that position?\nA.- About the middle of 1942.\nQ.- Very often there turns up in the document the designation \"RUS leader with the Higher SS and Police Leader\", but also in the SS main sector. Now what was the name of this agency in reality?\nA.- In spite of the designation occurring in many documents, namely SS leader in the Race and Settlement affairs, this designation was not correct for the RUS leader in this form. The Planning Office of the RUS leader was with the SS Main Sector, and by this Planning Office, the RUS Leader was paid also. Officially, only the designation: \"The SS Leader in the Race and Settlement Affairs in the Main Sector\" would be the right one.\nQ.- Who commissioned you to take over the charge of an RUS leader?\nA.- The chief of the RuSHA.\nQ.- Were you the first RUS leader in Posen?\nA.- Before me, two other RUS leaders had already worked; therefore, I was the third one.\nQ.- From whom did you take over your office?\nA.- From my predecessor, Gloystain.\nQ.- And why did he resign from his post?\nA.- Because he had no time to deal with the work of the RUS leader. Gloystain had quite a number of tasks in quite a large circle. Apart from the administration of a larger agricultural enterprise, these works took \n his full time up and did not leave him much time for the RUS tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2544, "page_number": "2537", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Apart from that, he lived 200 kilometers away from Posen.\nQ.- Well, could he take care of these affairs at all?\nA.- He had an expert in the Posen agency who worked there for him.\nQ.- How many employees did the agency of the RUS leader in Posen have when you took over the agency in July 1942?\nA.- Only one man, the expert, Dr. Sieder, whom I have just mentioned.\nQ.- And in what area did you work now as RUS leader?\nA.- In the area of the Warthegau.\nQ.- As far as the geographic region was concerned, was this area in line with your activities as staff leader in the office of the RKFDV?\nA.- Yes, both areas were covering the district of the Warthegau.\nQ.- And what tasks did you have as RUS leader in Posen?\nA.- The main activity of the RUS agency in Posen consisted of investigations for the General SS, for the Waffen SS and for the police. Apart from that, there were a number of investigations concerning members of SS or dependents of SS members in order to prepare the application for engagement or marriage, and eventually certain preparatory tasks in the dealing with applications for resettlement of war injured persons of the Waffen SS.\nQ.- As RUS leader, did you have contact with the Lebensborn also?\nA.- No, it is possible that there were RUS Leaders who somehow were connected with the Lebensborn, but in any case, that did not apply to me.\nQ.- Now, coult the tasks which you just outlined be taken care of by your only employee, or did you take a part in them yourself?\nA.- When the volume of work was on the normal level he could take care of it very well, but when there was more work than usual the Main Office sent another selector previsionally. I, myself, however did not take part in that work for the very reason that I had no time for it. For \n the rest, the employees who had to deal with these tasks had long years of experience, and I could give them quite a bit of independence in that field.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2545, "page_number": "2538", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Therefore, in the whole field of tasks of the RUS Agency, Posen, I limited myself to the preparatory work on the applications for resettlement of the few released SS members. These applications for the factual dealings were then forwarded to the agency of the RKFDV.\nQ.- The number of your collaborators in the RUS Agency, Posen, did it always remain on the same low lever?\nA.- When there was a considerable drafting, then once in a while it would be increased to two or three, but when this wave had passed, then there was no work left and very often for months and months I had no expert at all in the RUS agency. Until the welfare detachment was formed -and I will deal with that later -- the number of my collaborators in the RUS office never exceeded two or three.\nQ.- Could the task which you outlined as the work of the RUS leader be summarized under a general term?\nA.- Yes, it could be designated and described as SS internal tasks.\nQ.- However, in the Warthegau, there were investigations also necessary in connection with other tasks. Who was competent for these matters?\nA.- Such a task was the investigation concerning the racial German resettlers. For this task, however, the RUS leader in Posen was not the competent person. It was decided, on the contrary, that before these resettlers were committed to the Warthegau, they were to be selected already by the EWZ, and during that screening, the racial examinations took place also. The RUS agency in Posen did not deal with those matters.\nQ.- Did the RUS agency at Posen make collaborators available for this work of the EWZ -- the Immigration Central Office -- which you just mentioned?\nA.- No.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2546, "page_number": "2539", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "Q.- Did the RUS leader have an influence over the classification of the resettlers in \"A\" and \"C\" cases, or could he change such decisions?\nA.- No, he had no dealings with this task at all.\nQ.- But in the Warthegau, there was a majority of Polish population. Didn't that result in a strong intervention of the RUS agency in Posen? I am here referring particularly to the re-Germanization procedure.\nA.- There again the RUS leader in Posen had no connection with the matter, for the very reason of having a small number of collaborators; that wouldn't have been technically possible for him.\nQ.- Did you ever hold the position of RUS leader in the UWZ?\nA.- No.\nQ.- In the Warthegau, were there other agencies of the RUS?\nA.- Yes. At Lodz, there was the field agency of the RuSHA.\nQ.- For how long did that exist?\nA.- According to my recollection, it had been set up in 1940.\nQ.- And what was the local sphere of activity of this field agency.\nA.- According to my opinion, it was responsible for the incorporated eastern territories; however, the exact regional limitations are not known to me.\nQ.- The local sphere of activity of the agency in Lodz, did it include the local sphere for which you were RUS leader?\nA.- Yes, the whole Warthegau.\nQ.- Was the field agency in Lodz also competent for the whole sphere of activity of other RUS leaders?\nA.- No. For Danzig, Western Prussia and for Upper Silesia They were partly responsible insofar as these gaus were incorporated eastern territories, but not when it was a matter of Germany proper.\nQ.- To whom was this field agency in Lodz subordinated?\nA.- To the RuSHA in Berlin directly. That became apparent already \n from the sphere of activity which exceeded that of a simple region or district.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2547, "page_number": "2540", "date": "15 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-15", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 16 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2548, "page_number": "2541", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 16 December 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Militar Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained if all defendants are present in court.\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors all the defendants are present in court room with the exception of the defendant Viermetz who is absent du to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nDR.DURCHHOLZ (Attorney for the defendant Huebner): May I ask to be permitted to continue with the examination of the defendant Huebner?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nHERBERT HUEBNER -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (CONTINUED) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Mr. Huebner, in your capacity were you SS Leader of the field agency at Lodz; were you subordinated to this agency?\nA.No.\nQ.What was the size of this field agency?\nA.I have no exact knowledge with regard to its size but as far as the personnel restrictions were concerned this was considerably larger than the agency of the RUSHA Leader in Posen.\nQ.Do you know what was the task of the field agency at Lodz?\nA.The main weight of its activities was in the carrying out of the tasks which were caused by the RUSHA Main Office by resettlement of the racial Germans. All these tasks exceeded the internal frame-work of mere \n SS work in this connection.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2549, "page_number": "2542", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "The carrying out of the re-Germanization task and procedure was the main feature of the work.\nQ.Do you know the activities of the field agency in detail and particularly the re-Germanization?\nA.I only know the broad outlines of the work of the field agency. I don't know sufficient expert information in this matter in order to give you details.\nQ.Did the agency of the RUS leader at Posen participate in the tasks of the field agency at Lodz?\nA.No, that does not come into consideration because we just helped each other mutually by placing at each other's disposal collaborators, vehicles, fuel, etc. but an influence taken by the RUS leader of Posen on the factual work did not take place.\nQ.Can you give us a fact concerning that matter?\nA.Such an influence taken by the RUS leader at Posen by the field leader at Lodz was not even desired. As an example I can give you the following: The dealing with the German-Polish mixed marriages again and again caused talks of a basic nature. These talks were not attended by the RUS leader in Posen and the result of such talk was not brought to his knowledge either. That was not considered necessary either because these questions dealing with the Warthegau were dealt with by the Lodz field agency. Therefore, the transmission of such conversation and documents results were made to the RUS leaders in the incorporated Eastern territories, that is true. Even in upper Silesia and Danzig, West Prussia because there local competency was not exactly in line with the competency of the field agency Lodz but for the Warthegau the field agency Lodz would receive those documents and not the RUS leader Posen.\nQ.I assume that you refer here to Prosecution Document, Exhibit 103 DocumentNO 4041in Document Book 4-A.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Can you give us another example?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2550, "page_number": "2543", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.The directives by the superior agency usually would go to the RUS leader or to the Chief of the field agency. That expressed clearly that where ever apart from the agency of the RUS leader there was a field agency too and that was only the case in the Warthegau. Factually the field agency was the agency that was being approved.\nQ.You just said that the Warthegau was the only agency where there were field agencies apart from the agencies of the RUS leader. Didn't that apply to Prague also?\nA.According to my knowledge the RUS leader at Prague was at the same time the Chief of the field agency of the RUSHA while in the Warthegau actually we had the only area where there was a RUS leader and a chief of the field agency of the RUSHA.\nQ.All right, let's turn back to the RUSHA at Posen now. Is it correct that you attended a meeting of the RUS leaders at Posen in 1944?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I am now putting to you a document. This is Prosecution Exhibit No. 45, DocumentNO 1402in Document Book 2-C on page 37 in the German. Did you make a conference concerning ethnic questions at this meeting?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know who made that conference concerning ethnic questions?\nA.Yes, I know. The conference was held by the Gauamtsleiter for ethnic questions. He was Government Counsellor Heppner of the Security Service.\nQ.Will you now please read through Section 2 of the document. In addition I will put to you Prosecution Exhibit651which is DocumentNO 4116and I am also submitting Prosecution Exhibit636which is DocumentNO 4121in Document Book 14-C on page 28 of the German. What do you have to say to that?\nA.From exact personal knowledge I do know that in agricultural enterprises of the Warthegau and this deals exclusively with these agricultural enterprises, only 20 or 30 war injured persons were assigned. Amongst these \n war injured persons there were a few SS members.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2551, "page_number": "2544", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "The settlement office of the RUSHA in this connection had no executive powers at all and it could only limit itself to the preparation of such applications, while the actual dealing with the applications and the decisions was made in every case by the agency of the RFFDV. Now, if this document mentions a main weight of the war injured persons as to resettlement and incorporated Eastern territories is concerned then that is not in line with the actual facts.\nQ.Now what about the professional industrial sector as mentioned under Section 3 of this document?\nA.Basically speaking it was the same as I described just now.\nAs far as the figures and proportions were concerned I can't give you any indication here because I didn't have a factual insight into the matter.\nQ.Now, did you participate in the inspection of the Lodz Ghetto at the occasion of that meeting?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not? After all that inspection was part of the agenda, wasn't it?\nA.After the inspection of the Ghetto a teacher's training establishment in the district of Leslau was to be instituted. This consisted exclusively of refugees who were Germans from the Black Sea; while the Ghetto was being inspected I went already to that institute in order to see to it that the last technical preparations for the visit were made.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2552, "page_number": "2545", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QYou have already mentioned the welfare detachment. What about that?\nATowards the middle of 1944 the tasks of the then welfare offices of the Waffen SS were decentralized and they were distributed to the individual Army districts. The welfare expert of the main sector was drawn in and together with the welfare detachment attached to the RUS leader was formed. Called in also were the care sections which up to that point had beenattached to the Standarte of the General SS. The field of activity of this welfare detachment covered only and alone the district and the circle of the SS. Thereby the main wieght of the activity of theRUS agency was shifted clearly towards care and welfare measures.\nQDid you keep this field of activity until the agency at Posen was dissolved?\nAYes.\nQAt a later date you were also in Salzburg. What were your activities down there?\nAIn March 1945 I was ordered to go to Salzburg as Chief of the Welfare Detachment as I just described. The activity altogether took about six weeks; then we had the capitulation.\nQI am now turning to the individual counts of the indictment as listed in the indictment. Under Count 11 of the indictment you are charged with participation in the planning and carrying out of the kidnapping of alien infants. In what non-German areas did you work during the war at all?\nAUntil 1940 I was in Germany proper. Except for the six weeks that I spent in Salzburg which I just mentioned I worked from 1940 until 1945 only and alone in the Warthegau. In otherswords in an area which basically was composed of the province of Posen which until 1919 had been a part of the German Reich. I was never working in any other area outside of Germany proper.\nQNow, particularly did you in the area of the Warthegau take part in such actions intended for the kidnapping of alien children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2553, "page_number": "2546", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "ANo.\nQI am now putting to you Prosecution Exhibit No.385from Document Book 8-A on page 56 of the German text. Was this document sent to you in your official capacity as RUS Leader?\nAThat is possible if one looks at the address. However, I had no connection with the re-Germanization of Alien children and in my official capacity I had nothing to do with that.\nQWhy not?\nAAs I have already explained the competency of the Lodz field agency was competent for the tasks involved. That can already be seen from the contents of the document itself.\nQI am now putting to you the affidavit of the co-defendant Hofmann. This is Prosecution Exhibit No.58in Document Book 2-C on page 92 of the German. According to the document Hofmann is of the opinion that you were competent. Is that correct?\nAAs I have already explained, that is not correct.\nQFurthermore the frame-work of your activity as Staff-Leader, the Prosecution charges your participation within the agency of the RKFDV in the organization of orphaned infants of Polish nationality. In this connection I am putting to you Prosecution Exhibit405from Document Book 8-B on page 3 of the German text. From your official capacity do you know this document?\nANo, the address shows already that it was not forwarded either to the agency in which I worked.\nQIn the same document book 8-B on page 9 of the German you will find the two Prosecution Exhibits 406 and 407. Do you know these documents from your official capacity?\nAI cannot recall that both documents were submitted to me while I was working in my official capacity.\nQTherefore, can you state specifically and with certainty that the agency of the RKFDV in Posen did not have to deal with this reGermanization?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2554, "page_number": "2547", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AIf it had to deal with this matter then it would still not have been my affair but it would have been the tasks of Main Department I. However, I would have had knowledge of that fact if a substantial part in this task had been taken by my agency and as I don't know anything about it I can say that the agency of the RKFDV certainly did not take a substantial part in these matters.\nQDo you know that according to the distribution of competency and according to decree 67-1, that is Prosecution Exhibit407, further re-Germanization procedures were carried out too?\nANo, I know that even less.\nQDo you haveknowledge at all of such drives of re-Germanization of children?\nADomgus, the Cgief of the Field agency Lodsz Main Office, RuSHA, paid me a private visit once at Posen. He asked me to give him a car to enable to drive to Puschkau to visit the orphanage there. From this one occurrence of this private conversation I knew that Domgus dealt with such matters. However, I don't know any details and above all I don't know what kind of children were involved there.\nQDid you visit this Children's Home at Puschkau at any time?\nAI visited neither the Children's Home Puschkau or any other children's home at any time.\nQDid you have anything to do in Posen with the Gau Administrator Dr. Barkels?\nANo, I didn't even make his acquaintance.\nQDid you have any dealings in the Warthegau with the independent Gau Administration or with the Youth offices?\nANo.\nQDid you have official contact in that matter perhaps with the field agency of Lodz?\nANo.\nQWere you in official contact with the Lebensborn in this connection?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2555, "page_number": "2548", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "ANo.\nQDo you who was the plenipotentiary of the Lebensborn and the Warthegau?\nANo, I don't know that and I cannot imagine what this plenipotentiary would be.\nQNow the co-defendant Sollmann asserts that such children without parents or attachments had only been committed by the field agencies of the RKFDV to the Lebensborn. That is contained in Prosecution Exhibit 76 in Document Book 2-C on page 156 of the German.\nAThat is as far as that is correct in regard to other field agencies of the RKFDV I don't know but as far as the agency of the plenipotentiary in Posen was concerned particularly during the time where I was Staff Leader there that does certainly not apply.\nQDid the RUS agency at Posen deal with Polish women who were expecting a child of a member of the German Armed forces and where the intention existed where both parents wanted or were to marry?\nAI don't know that from my own knowledge because I didn't have enough time to deal with all the details of the agency. However, I considered that it is possible that in such cases the agency did preparatory work as far as marriage licenses were concerned.\nQWas that what you might call a racial selection?\nAAccording to my view that selection could cover only a documentary examination of descent.\nQCould the RuSHA leader at Posen decide on such matters?\nANo.\nQWhat was the agency that took the decision?\nAI have no knowledge of that matter because I have never been familiar or I cannot remember about such practical instances.\nQThat brings me to point 12 of the indictment, that is, the question of the abortions. While you were working down there did you receive knowledge of the important decisions and decrees in this matter?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2556, "page_number": "2549", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AAt this point I can only repeat what I have already said in the pre-trial investigation. In spite of the fact that on various occasions I was threatened with being indicted for perjury I always said no.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2557, "page_number": "2550", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.- In how far were you threatened with being indicted with perjury? What do you mean by that?\nA.- I was told that there were documents from which it became clearly apparent that I had knowledge of these matters and I was told that if, within two minutes, I wouldn't answer that question with yes, then I would be arrested and indicted for perjury. Apart from that I was threatened with being handed over to the police.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. Who did that?\nTHE WITNESS:That was Dr. Schwenk.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.- What did you answer?\nA.- I answered that I didn't even have to wait the two minutes. I had no knowledge of it.\nQ.- When did that take place?\nA.- The first time on the ninth of May and I cannot remember when it was the second time; but that was a few days later.\nQ.- I am now submitting to you Prosecution Exhibit No.470; that is DocumentNO-3520in Document Book IX on Page 13 of the German. (Document handed to witness). In the Warthegau were there Eastern workers as referred to here in this document?\nA.- No. There were no Eastern workers in the Warthegau. There were only female Eastern workers in Germany proper. That was a well-known fact, apparently for the reason that in the territories with mixed population the alien part of the population was not to be strengthened.\nQ.- I am now referring to Prosecution Exhibit No.472, Document No. NO-1384 in the same document book IX, page 25 of the German text. Do you know whether interruptions of pregnancy were carried out on Polish women?\nA.- I never heard anything about it in the Warthegau and neither in my capacity as RUS leader nor in that of Staff Leader of the RKFDV did I \n have to deal with it.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2558, "page_number": "2551", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Even outside of my official duties I didn't hear about it. In connection with this decree only so-called \"P\" female Poles could be understood by the Poles because otherwise I should have become acquainted with the results and consequences of this decree.\nQ.- What are the so-called \"P\" female Poles?\nA.- \"P\" female Poles were Polish women who had been assigned as domestics or workers in Germany proper and, therefore, in order to distinguish them from the rest of the population they had to have a \"P\" insignia on their clothes.\nQ.- Now, from your expert knowledge of the competencies can you tell us whether the decree was distributed also to the representative or the RKFDV in the Warthegau?\nA.- Generally speaking, the decree want to the Higher SS and Police Leaders as plenipotentiaries of the RKFDV. But in the Warthegau it was not the higher SS and Police Leader but the Reichstatthalter who was the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV. He had to be listed especially when the distribution list of this decree was established, if this decree applied to the Warthegau also.\nQ.- That brings me to Count 13 of the Prosecution indictment. Were you or the agency of the RUS leader dealing with work having the aim of taking away infants of alien parents?\nA.- No.\nQ.- In your capacity as staff leader was the agency of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV dealing with those matters?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you have contact in this matter at any time with agencies of the National Socialist welfare organization?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you have knowledge of such matters?\nA.- I had as little knowledge of these matters as of the interruptions \n of pregnancies just mentioned.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2559, "page_number": "2552", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.- I am submitting to you now Prosecution Exhibit496which is DocumentNO-1383in Document Book X on page 8 of the German (Document handed to witness). Did you have knowledge of this document or its contents?\nA.- No, if only for the reason that quite apparently this refers to conditions in Germany proper. The decree was forwarded and distributed only to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. An RUS leader as representative of the Higher SS and Police leader in the capacity as representative of the RKFDV basically existed only in the areas of Germany proper and in the Ostmark. This fact shows clearly that the decree did not apply to the Warthegau because otherwise the Reichstatthalter, as plenipotentiary, would have had to received it.\nQ.- These decrees concerning the interruptions of pregnancy and the taking away of infants, therefore as you explained, applied only to the area of Germany proper. Now, during the period when these decrees applied, did you work at all in Germany proper?\nA.- No, because, as from 1940, I worked in the Warthegau without interruptions.\nQ.- That brings me to Point 15 of the Indictment. That is the preven tion of procreation of enemy aliens. Do you know the regulations according to which the marriage of Poles was increased?\nA.- I heard about it. However, the documents themselves I only saw when the Prosecution submitted their documents.\nQ.- Was your agency concerned with that matter?\nA.- As far as I can have an insight into the whole matter, those were decrees of the Reich Ministry of the Interior and for the carrying out of those decrees the agencies of the inner administration were the only agencies competent. Therefore, I answered the question in the negative.\nQ.- Was your agency connected in any way with the dealing of marriage \n applications between aliens?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2560, "page_number": "2553", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.- I know of no regulations according to which that would apply. I cannot remember a case either where practically my agency took steps in that matter.\nQ.- That brings me to Point 16 of the indictment dealing with the forced evacuation and resettlement of populations. Was the agency of which you were a member in any way connected with the bringing in of the resettlers?\nA.- No.\nQ.- In your previous statement concerning the activities as leader of the working staff, you explained that the evacuation of Poles was carried out only and alone by the UWZ or by the police and that the working and resettlement staffs had no influence in that matter. Is that correct?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Now, in your capacity as staff leader of the agency of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV did you have an influence on the evacuations?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Was your agency factually connected with those matters?\nA.- In the whole agency there was neither a department nor an expert department nor a field of tasks nor even one single co-worker dealing with such questions of evacuation, as little as that would apply to the working and resettlement staffs. Such evacuations certainly would have caused considerable expenditure but even in the budget of the agency no funds had been appropriated for such evacuations.\nQ.- Did you hear perhaps from Koppe or from Greiser and did they give you orders for the evacuation?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did Koppe or Greiser issue orders for evacuations to other agencies?\nA.- That I don't know because I didn't know very well the competency \n and the authority for orders of the chief of the security police and the SD to whom the evacuation was subordinated and I didn't know his channel of command to Koppe.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2561, "page_number": "2554", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.- Did you at any time negotiate with the inspector of the Security Police and the SD concerning evacuations?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did the agency of the plenipotentiary or you receive such orders from the Main Staff Office?\nA.- Orders for evacuation which were to be carried out by me or by the agencies certainly were not received by us. But whether the resettlement orders issued by Himmler contained hints to that effect, namely, that the evacuations were to be carried out by the chief of the Security Police and the SD, well, that I cannot remember.\nQ.- Did you have a liaison commander in your agency with the agencies dealing with the evacuations?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Why not?\nA.- The resettlement itself and the time of the resettlement in detail was settled on the level of the resettlement and working staffs. The Posen agency did not have to intervene in that matter. Therefore, there was no necessity for liaison with the UWZ, even less so in the case of the resettlement staffs. In this connection may I point out again that the resettlement and working staffs were directly subordinated to Koppe and to that it has to be added also that the resettlement mainly was already concluded and evacuations had been stopped when, in the middle of 1941, I was appointed staff leader in that agency.\nQ.- Now, who gave the order for the evacuation?\nA.- I can only repeat over and over again the same picture I described already once, namely, what became apparent when I assumed my functions. Almost all matters and most larger agricultural estates and the shops had \n been left by the Polish owners or had been evacuated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2562, "page_number": "2555", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Why, that is not known to me. The general order for such a measure had been issued long before because otherwise all these evacuations couldn't have taken place. Now, who on the top level of command issued that order, that I don't know from my own certain knowledge, For me and for all my collaborators, however, there was not the slightest shadow of a doubt that the agency responsible for this matter was the chief of the Security Police and the SD. The order for the individual evacuations was a matter for the UWZ to decide as I have already explained.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2563, "page_number": "2556", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QWas this competency always maintained on the same level?\nAThe agencies of the security police and the SD responsible for those matters saw to that already, that that remained their sole task. It is true that during conferences and in circular letters also, circular letters to the working staffs and the resettlement staffs, I pointed out this sole competency of the UWZ in those tasks.\nQWell, was there a reason for you to point out these matters?\nAOne day the UWZ rang me up and complained that in some district a local agency had ordered a local evacuation without approval and knowledge of the UWZ and they asked that such independent action should be prevented in the future. That was the direct cause for me to point out again that the UWZ was the sole agency competent for those matters. Maybe that occurred again when there were areas over-crowded.\nQWhat do you mean when you say areas were over-crowded?\nAAs from 1941 evacuations hadbeen prohibited and were no longer carried out. In lieu of those evacuations the Poles had to crowd together more. Most of the time they would remain on their own estates as laborers. They would divide a living room amongst themselves; either they would share a room, several of them, or they would go into secondary buildings and part of them were lodged with parents or relatives. That was because these people were crowded. However, they were not crowded in very large numbers because, during that period, resettlement was carried out only in very few individual cases.\nQWas that carried out by the resettlement staffs?\nANo. Also these matters were settled and prepared by the agencies of the UWZ which also gave the orders for them.\nQYou said prepared. Is that correct?\nAYes. These crowdings took place in all calm and quiet and it was well known that no Pole had to yield his place before the UWZ had found another shelter for him. Very often that took several days.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2564, "page_number": "2557", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QNow, will you please summarize your explanations concerning the evacuations in one single sentence.\nAI never dealt with evacuations. During my activity as staff leader evacuations were not carried out any longer by other agencies either, only crowdings on a smaller scale.\nQThat brings me to the so-called drive of the Black Sea Germans. What did this drive involve?\nAThe racial Germans living in the area of the Black Sea were escaping from the Russian Armies. Therefore, they were to be housed and placed in the Incorporated Eastern Territories and this settlement drive was generally known under the name of Drivefor the Germans of the Black Sea.\nQNow, this reception of the Black Sea Germans, wasit preceded by an agreement?\nAYes, There was an agreement between Greiser and the chief of the state.\nQHow many persons were involved in this drive?\nAFor the Warthegau alone it involved 300,000 persons.\nQDid these persons arrive in orderly transports?\nANo. They arrived in scattered transports during the day and the night completely dissolved and completely depressed in their souls because, after all, they were refugees.\nQNow, were these people resettled somewhere?\nANo, they were not resettled. They were only housed provisionally wherever there was a possibility for it.\nQAnd on the Gau level who in charge of this drive?\nAAs it was very urgent and important, this task was taken over by the Gauleiter himself.\nQAnd who carried out the housing and placing on the district level?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2565, "page_number": "2558", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AIn order to have these special measures carried out, the Gauleiter had appointed the Kreisleiters of the Nazi Party, Kreis District representatives for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQAccording to that two agencies worked on the district level with similar tasks, namely, the Landrat District Counsellor for the resettlers and the Kreisleiter for the refugees. Is that correct?\nAYes. In many cases, however, the district counsellor was at the same time Kreisleiter of the Nazi Party.\nQNow, in how far did the resettlement staffs intervene in that matter?\nAAs the staff had been constantly reduced these resettlement staffs were already so small and so weak in their personnel strength that for this reason they could not be entrusted with the carrying out of such an important task. However, the Kreisleiters had the possibility to make them help.\nQAnd in how far was the agency of the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV called into this matter?\nAGreiser, on account of the urgency of the drive, had seen it necessary to take charge of the action himself. But he took a much larger part in the carrying out of this drive than had been the case in the other resettlement actions. All important decisions, therefore, were drawn up in his own office. The activity of the Higher SS and Police Leader, as business representative of the agency of the Plenipotentiary, therefore, had been reduced and limited to participation in the details of the execution.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2566, "page_number": "2559", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.And how did the Gauleiter issue his directives within this drive?\nA.In general, he would issue his orders directly to the Kreisleiters, because of the urgency of the affair, through the so-called wireless. The so-called important directives were published through the same channels, when they were issued by the department of the Reichstatthalter, only in so far as they concerned the Black Sea action.\nQ.Did the resettlement staff also receive information of these orders?\nA.As the Kreisleiters alone had a line on this wireless connection, the resettlement staffs would very often receive only part of the directives, or would not receive them at all. However, in order to make certain that the resettlement staffs would get the information, the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV summarized these orders of the Gauleiter, and of the departments of his agency, and passed them on, in so-called executive regulations, to the district councillors, to the Kreisleiters, and to the settlement staffs.\nQ.These so-called executive regulations, which were passed on by the agency of the Plenipotentiary at Posen, were written elaborations of directives which had already been published via teletype, is that correct?\nA.Mainly, yes. All important decisions had already been passed on, by teletype machine, from the office of the Gauleiter. Individual minor directives of lesser importance, it is true, may have been issued by order of the Gauleiter also, but not via teletype in these cases.\nQ.And who signed these so-called executive regulations of the agency of the Plenipotentiary?\nA.So far as they were of basic importance, Greiser, or, in his absence, Reinfahrt, and he had given me powers to sign those circular letters myself in so far as they gave directives for care, or in so far as they contained directives issued previously by other agencies. In these cases, however, these circular letters were brought to Reinfahrt's \n attention before they were dispatched.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2567, "page_number": "2560", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.What factual tasks did the agency of the RKFDV have within this drive for the repatriation of the Black Sea Germans?\nA.As I have already mentioned, they collected all directives referring to the drive and passed them on in a summarized form, in writing. Their factual work was the checking of the housing for these resettlers, which was in line with the work they had done up to that point and the competency they had held.\nQ.And who carried out this housing?\nA.The Kreisleiters, as district representatives of the RKFDV.\nQ.And how were the housing facilities procured?\nA.By crowding together the indigenous population.\nQ.And who carried out that crowding together?\nA.The UWZ, with the help of the police, and I think in collaboration with the Kreisleiters, but I don't know that from my own knowledge.\nQ.And how was the living of these three hundred thousand people secured?\nA.First of all, they received subventions from the so-called Resettler's District Welfare Fund, and, as time went on, jobs were found for them.\nQ.Was that done by the labor exchanges?\nA.There was an order of Himmler's which specifically prohibited the labor exchanges from intervening in these matters when jobs were found for the refugees who were Germans from the Black Sea. Therefore, the work procurement in these cases was done by the Kreisleiters or their agencies.\nQ.Do you know what the reason was for prohibiting the labor exchanges from intervening?\nA.It came to my knowledge that Himmler was afraid that if the strict and dogmatic procurement measures of the labor exchanges were applied, these frightened and intimidated people would be further in \n timidated, and that was what he wanted to prevent.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2568, "page_number": "2561", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Was an attempt made to carry out the procurement of jobs for these people, in addition to the workers already existing?\nA.That is true. In many cases the situation was such that where only one person had worked on work locations up to that point, now two or even three had to share the work, and they had to share the pay too, of course.\nQ.But didn't that cause difficulties with the business managers and the employers?\nA.Not only that, but the whole arrangement of the work was shaky, and the peace of the work was considerably disturbed by this sudden pouring-in of three hundred thousand people. It also became apparent that one could not do without calling in the labor exchanges with their well-established system. Therefore, the Chief of the Gau Labor Exchange approached the Reichsstatthalter in order to obtain the intervention of the labor exchanges all the same.\nQ.But Himmler had prohibited labor exchanges from being called in, hadn't he?\nA.Yes, that is correct, but, urged by the labor commitment agencies, the Reichsstatthalter approached Himmler. After three or four months had passed, and after the Black Sea Germans had found their way into the new existence a little bit, Himmler did not oppose the calling in of the labor exchanges any more.\nQ.And how did the labor exchanges try to master those difficulties?\nA.Up to that point the basis of work had been to simply add the Black Sea Germans to the workers already existing and to thus bring them into the process of work. That had caused considerable difficulties. Therefore, the labor commitment agencies tried to now obtain further assignment of Black Sea Germans to jobs by ordering that Poles were to be removed from their previous work locations and brought to work locations situated outside the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2569, "page_number": "2562", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.And how were these individual instructions carried out?\nA.The Reichsstatthalter, Department of Labor, issued a directive which regulated the intervention of labor exchanges into the Black Sea action, and ordered the labor exchanges to take their part. It also decreed under which circumstances work locations had to be made free of the Poles who had worked there up to that point. This decree was forwarded to the Kreisleiters by wireless.\nQ.As to this decree which was forwarded by wireless, was it entered in one of the execution regulations you have already mentioned, these summarized regulations issued by the agency of the representative of the RKFDV?\nA.That also happened in this particular case, yes, as was customary in the case of all wireless directives concerning the Black Sea Germans. Apart from the fact that the contents of the directive of the Reichsstatthalter, Department of Labor, were reproduced, the directive of the Plenipotentiary of the RKFDV, in agreement with the labor exchanges, it is true, made a special addition in order to communicate to the resettlement staffs that the labor exchanges were now authorized to take their part in the work.\nQ.I am now putting to you Prosecution Exhibit199, which is documentNO-4632, in Volume 5-A, on page 3 of the German.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2570, "page_number": "2563", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of this witness. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQWitness, I put to you Prosecution Exhibit No.199, Document NO4632, in Document Book V-A, on page 3 of the German text. In this document, do you recognize the written draft of the decree of the Reichstatthalter of the Labor Department?\nAYes, I do.\nQWhat is the part whose contents correspond to the decree of the Reichstatthalter, Labor Department?\nAThat is the part under Roman I and the arabic letters 123.\nQUnder Roman II, in the inclusion of the labor allocation authorities, it probably refers to the inclusion of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQCan you tell us what the abbreviations GBA and RMF mean?\nAAre you referring to the lettersR andFM?\nQYes.\nAThat means Food and Agriculture.\nQWhat agency was that?\nAThe agency GBA meant Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation, and it was represented by Sauckel in Berlin. The second abbreviation, RFM, is Food and Agriculture; the title of that was Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture. He also was located at Berlin.\nQAs staff leader, could you make decisions about agreements which had been reached with the two before mentioned agencies? What I mean to say is, could you do that as Staff Leader of the Agency of the Representative of the Reich Commissar, for the Strengthenign of Germanism at Poznan?\nANo, in my capacity as Staff Leader, I was unable to do that already because of my field of work. However, the agency was unable to do that either, because it was not competent for the labor allocation of Poles.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2571, "page_number": "2564", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QCould the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism on its own initiative issue any directives about how Polish labor was to be selected for labor allocation in France or in Germany proper?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nAFirst of all, this did not come within its field of work; and secondly, because we were not even informed of these regulations.\nQWhat were the agencies in the Warthegau which were competent for that?\nAThat was the Reich Trustee for Labor Questions, and at the same time he was the Director of the Labor Section with the Reichsstatthalter Office, and also the Director of the Agricultural Section was also located in the Office of the Reichsstatthalter. He simultaneously was the Land Peasant Office. Only these two agencies would have been able to negotiate with the Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation and with the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture and to make agreements with them.\nQThese two above mentioned agencies, did they deal with the procurement of agricultural workers for Germany proper?\nANo other agency was competent for that.\nQWere you able to ascertain from the photostatic copy which has been presented by the Prosecution in this Court who at the agency in Poznan worked on the executive regulations?\nAYes, it was signed by Attorney Berns and by Attorney Schlingensieben.\nQAccordingly, in what department were the executive regulations worked out?\nAThey could only have been worked out in the legal department of which Herr Berns was in charge and where Herr Schlingensieben was an expert on legal questions. The decree, according to its contents, did not originate in that agency because then it would have been signed by some expert who was dealing with the special field. The legal department, \n on the other hand, did not carry out its work independently.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2572, "page_number": "2565", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "It only would work on the factual work of other agencies and would put them in a clear legal form.\nQWere measures being prepared which originated with the two above mentioned agencies which dealt with the accommodation of Polish families for labor allocation purposes, in France?\nAYes, that is quite correct. That becomes evident already from the contents of this document.\nQAt what time were such preparations made?\nAIn the second half of the month of May 1944.\nQWas the intended labor allocation of Polish workers in France actually put into effect?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nAAs a result of the invasion which took place on the 6 of June 1944, it remained completely infeasible.\nQDo you know that also from other facts?\nAI knew, myself, that no further deportations took place.\nQThe information contained under Roman I, the arabic letter 3 of the document, states that the lists of persons to be deported were to be sent to the UWZ. Was this actually already in order for a deportation measure to be carried out?\nANo, a special order would have had to be issued for that.\nQAnd why do you think so?\nAThe UWZ received its orders exclusively from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD as well as his subordinate agencies. It could also receive orders from the RSHA--the Reich Security Main Office.\nQCould the settlement staffs from the technical point of view have carried out the registration of persons who were to be deported?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nAThe settlement staffs at the time only had a staff of about five \n callaboraters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2573, "page_number": "2566", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "These people were not even sufficient in order to register the names of the German refugees who had come from the Black Sea area. For this purpose, we even had to borrow workers from the Labor Offices. Finally, these people did not have adequate knowledge and experience with regard to the population which had to be dealt with, nor did they have any subordinate agencies, as the Kreisleiter had at his disposal in his various districts; so it was impossible for us to make any careful selection. Finally, and I would like to emphasize this quite clearly once more, the agency of the Representative for Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism exclusively dealt with Germans and it did not have anything to do with aliens.\nQWho had to submit the lists which were mentioned under Roman I, Arabic 3?\nAWell, that would be submitted by the Labor Offices. After all, they had the task to procure labor. Perhaps in order to do this, they used the organization of the Kreisleiter or they may have used party agencies for that purpose. However, I don't know that from my own knowledge.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2574, "page_number": "2567", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.The document which is before you now, Exhibit 199, was this deportation order?\nA.No.\nQ.Why wasn't it?\nA.First of all, I did not have the authority to issue such an order; secondly, in this order, no deportation is ordered at all. It is only stated here that the lists are to be submitted to a certain agency. Thirdly, this order was not even passed on to the agency which would have been competent for the deportation drive. From the distribution, it becomes quite clear that this list was only distributed to the Landraete, the Kreisleiter and the settlement staffs. However, it was not passed on to the UWZ or any other agency of the security police. The UWZ wouldn't have taken any action whatsoever upon such an order.\nQ.Now in Document Book V-A, which is before you now, please take a look at Page 75 of the German. This is Exhibit 210, DocumentNO-3437. Did you have any knowledge of this correspondence?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you work out the draft for this letter?\nA.No.\nQ.Was this done by the competent main department?\nA.I don't know that. In general, the drafts for orders or for correspondence of the Reichsstatthalter would be worked out by his personal advisor.\nQ.Was the agency of the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism occupied with the separation of alien nationals and their deportation into Germany proper?\nA.No. Agencies of the Security Service, the SD, were competent for that.\nQ.In the Warthegau, were there so-called \"K\" cases?\nA.Yes, there were several thousand. A large number of them were settled.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2575, "page_number": "2568", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Did these cases, in accordance with Himmler's orders, not have to be sent to Germany proper?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct. However, in order to keep the family and family groups together, upon my initiative this order in many cases was not carried out. Many \"A\" cases were tolerated silently. The working staffs would simply fail to report the \"A\" cases which had come to their knowledge and which had not been settled.\nQ.Do you know whether upon Himmler's orders, which are mentioned in this exhibit, such deportations of \"A\" cases into Germany proper were actually darried out?\nA.I know nothing about that from my own knowledge; however, I consider it to be highly improbably according to the time when this is supposed to have taken place.\nQ.I will now come to the next point of the document. This is Point 17. It deals with the forcible Germanization of enemy aliens. Do you know anything about the DVL -- the German People's List?\nA.Yes, in its principle outlines; however, I don't know anything about the individual points in which it was executed.\nQ.Do you know in what area the DVL initiated?\nA.As far as I know, it was first introduced in the Warthogau.\nQ.Wasn't this done for a special reason? Wasn't that special reason for the facts that the DVL was first introduced in the Warthogau?\nA.Yes, I am quite certain of that.\nQ.What was the reason?\nA.First of all, no parts of the old territory of Germany proper belonged to the Warthogau. For the most part, the Warthogau consisted of areas which up to the year 1919 had belonged to the German Province of Poznan and which had belonged to the German Reich for more than 100 years. In this district, Wartheland, in contrast to the other territories in the east, for the most part there was no mixed population. But here, only Germans were living -- ethnic Germans -- or Poles. Both fractions of the population had the Polich nationality. For this reason, the separation \n between Germans and Poles was much easier to carry out than in any other areas.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2576, "page_number": "2569", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.In the Warthegau, was the separation between German and Polish national characteristics ever carried out -- the consequence of that?\nA.As far as I was able to observe this, nobody was included in the German People's List who was not able to prove his origin by document, so that he could show that he was of German descent. This was done in contrast to the way it was handled in other districts. The best example for the logical, thinking of the way which we followed was the comparison between the figures in the German People's List in the Wartheland and in the Gau Danzig West Prussia.\nQ.Can you give us the figures very briefly?\nA.The Warthegau with a total population of more than four million inhabitants had 467 thousand members of the DVL -- the German People's List. The District of Danzig West Prussia, on the other hand, with a much smaller population which amounted to 1.6 million, had 922 thousand people included in the DVL.\nQ.And probably Department III of the DVL played an important part in this?\nA.Yes, in the Warthegau, in this department, approximately 56, 000 people were included in that category. These were people who really were of German descent. In the district of Danzig, West Prissia, on the other hand, there were 720 thousand people included in that category.\nQ.I would like to refer in this connection to Prosecution Exhibit 119, in Document Book IV-B, on Page 11 of the German text, and this is DocumentNO-3992. Was the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar occupied with putting people into the various classifications of the DVL?\nA.It had nothing to do with it, as far as I know. It was the task of the agency of the interior administration.\nQ.Where was the central agency of the DVL at Poznan located?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2577, "page_number": "2570", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.It was in the Reichsstatthalter's office building at Felix Dahnplatz No. 17.\nQ.It was not in the building in which the office of the Representative of the Reich Commissar was located on Kaiserring No. 13?\nA.No.\nQ.Who represented the agencies of the DVL at the Central Agency, those agencies which were subordinated to Himmler?\nA.Exclusively, the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.Did you, yourself, take part in conferences of the German People's List?\nA.No.\nQ.In your affidavit, you have stated -- and this is Prosecution Exhibit No. 33, in Document Book II-B, on Page 73 of the German text, in DocumentNO-5049-- that experts of Main Department I occupied themselves with legal property title questions of members of the DVL. Can you give us any details about that?\nA.I can recall that representatives of Main Department I took part in revisional negotiaions at the Central Agency of the DVL.\nQ.And what was the purpose of this participation?\nA.They probably participated so that in the procedure of appeals they would be able to rescind seizures of property which had been carried out by other agencies. I do not have, however, any precise knowledge about the subject.\nQ.Did it come to your personal knowledge that forcible measures were carried out against persons who refused to have themselves entered in the DVL?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nQ.Do you know whether the agency of the race and settlement leader at Posen dealt with the tasks of the German People's List?\nA.The drive of the German People's List in the Warthegau already began in the year 1939 when in the middle of 1942 I took over the Race \n and Settlement Agency at Posen.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2578, "page_number": "2571", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "The German People's List had already been completed by that time for the most part. As long as I was a race and settlement leader, therefore, no considerable participation of the RUS agency at Posen could have taken place in the putting into effect of the DVL. However, I hardly think it was possible for the previous time because of the very small number of my collaborators.\nQ.In individual cases, was documentary evidence collected of members of the German People's List with regard to this origin? Was this collected by the agency of the Race and Settlement leader?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2579, "page_number": "2572", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AI think that this was possible in individual cases; this would have meant auxiliary work of the agencies of the interior administration.\nQI am now coming to the next point of the indictment, and this is Point 18; it deals with slave labor. The Prosecution has charged that you as the man in charge ofthe office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and as a race and settlement leader, you carried out the first registration by lists of many people who were candidates for re-Germanization. In the meantime, however, we have ascertained from your statements that you were not in charge of the office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, but that you were a staff leader of the agencies of the representative of the Reich Commissar. However, aside from this fact, did you personally hear of such measures of the agency or did you give the orders for such a registration to be carried out?\nANeither one of these two things is true.\nQAs Race and Settlement Leader did you carry out such measures for the re-Germanization of people or did you have these measures carried out?\nAI have already testified repeatedly that I did not examine any foreigner whatsoever for any purpose whatsoever. I never issued any such instructions to my collaborators.\nQWho was actually carrying out these re-Germanization procedures?\nAThe re-Germanization procedure fell under the sole competency of the office at Lodz of RuSHA, which had been especially established for that purpose.\nQWhere did you receive your precise knowledge?\nAI know about that from various decrees issued by the Main Office itself.\nQDo you know whether the re-Germanization procedure was carried out on a voluntary basis or whether a certain amount of force was exercised in this respect?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2580, "page_number": "2573", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AAs I have already stated before, I am not acquainted with the individual points in which this procedure was carried out. However, I heard repeatedly that the principle of voluntary membership was placed in the foreground.\nQDid it happen that in ignorance or incompetence that persons reported also to the agency of the race and settlement leader at Poznan who wanted to be included in the re-Germanization procedure?\nAYes, that happened.\nQWhat would be done in such cases?\nASince neither myself nor any of my collaborators had the right to make any decisions in these questions, such people were turned over to the RuSHA agency at Lodz.\nQAnd how were these people treated generally?\nAEvery visitor no matter whether he was German or Polish would be treated decently at my office. In this respect I was successful in maintaining my attitude; I also instructed my collaborators not to be smallhearted in such cases; I maintained their point of view in that respect, but a Pole whenever he entered a German agency could not be turned down in a very brisk manner; he was to be given humane help, and at least he should be given some advice if he looked for it.\nQCan you give me an example for that?\nAIn dozens of cases I myself issued certificates and I had certificates issued according to which Poles were able to make trips. The reason for this was given always as being the procurement of documents. I never examined the reasons actually, and I was actually not even entitled to issue such certificates; in spite of this I did it.\nQI now am coming back once more to the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. This agency according to the allegations of the Prosecution had named Polish girls to the \n RuSHA agency at Lodz, to the field office at Lodz, who would be eligible for re-Germanization as domestic workers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2581, "page_number": "2574", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "What happened in that case?\nAAs staff leader naturally I was not able to see, to look into the factual work which was done by the individual departments, since I was not responsible for it. However, I still considered it impossible because in some way or another I would have found out about it any way.\nQI am now going to put to you Prosecution DocumentNO-1402; this is Exhibit 45, in Document Book II-C, on page 37 of the German text.\nASo many reports were passed on to higher agencies which did not correspond to the facts, and I believe that this also applies in this particular case. In any case, I know nothing about any practical work done by the Posen agency in this connection.\nQI am now coming to the next point of the indictment. This is Point No. 20. It deals with the spoliation of public and private property. Was the so-called Polish property decree known to you?\nAYes, I knew it in general outlines; however, I am not a legal expert, and consequently I cannot make myself a clear picture about the details contained in that decree from the legal point of view. I considered it to be an executive regulation to the seizure of Polish property which had already taken place previously.\nQAt the time what did you know about the seizures which were carried out?\nAI knew that the entire Polish property by order of the Reich Government had been seized by the agencies who were competent for that. In the industrial sector this was the HTO, and in the agricultural sector this was the Ostland.\nQAnd how did you receive this knowledge?\nAAs staff leader of the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, I did not have any precise knowledge about that; however, from my activity as a labor staff leader in 1940, which \n I have discussed before, I know that all industrial businesses were solely utilized by the district trustee of the HTO; and from that I assumed that he had also carried out the individual seizures.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2582, "page_number": "2575", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QFrom your observations, what was done about the agricultural properties?\nAFrom this same activity which I carried out in 1940, that was during the first half of the year 1940, I can recall that in many agricultural enterprises, above all at the largest estates, billboards were put up which contained the information -- seized on behalf of the German Reich, by the Ostland, GMBH; the word seized later on was changed to the word \"administered\".\nQWhenever resettlers were appointed as trustees in industrial enterprises by the HTO, was the consent of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism required?\nANo,it was not necessary for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism to approve this matter. After all he wanted these resettlers to be placed in these enterprises.\nQHow was it in the case of purchasing contracts?\nAWho sold, whether the HTO or the DUT, I don't know; however, if in such cases the approval of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was necessary, then the man in charge of Main Department III would issue it independently; and he was not subordinated to me as far as his work was concerned. This happened if the approval of a higher agency was not required.\nQAnd in this respect how was it in the case of agricultural properties?\nASales of agricultural property to resettlers were not carried out as far as I Know in the Warthegau by the settlement companies who turned over by contract farms to resettlers, and in larger cases the Ostland would do it. In other cases the resettlers remained on these farms as trustees; however, in no case did they become the owners of the \n property.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2583, "page_number": "2576", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "If any approval of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was appropriate here or necessary, then it would be given by the Director of Main Department III; he was not subordinated to me either as far as his work was concerned.\nQAs staff leader did you sign such contracts which assigned resettlers to these farms?\nANo, that was not my task.\nQWere the titles of agricultural property turned over to persons other than resettlers?\nAI can only recall one individual case with certainty. Here a title to real estate was turned over to the general of the police Dalugue.\nQAnd when you took over, who was responsible for the transfer of title?\nAThe chief of the agency Reinefarth, by order of the superior agency.\nQDo you know of any additional cases?\nANot from my own knowledge.\nQDo you know in what manner and to what extent confiscations of Polish property took place in the Warthegau?\nAThat did not fall within my field of work, and consequently I cannot tell you any details about that.\nQWere such orders for seizure or confiscations publicly announced at the bulletin boards of the agency so that in this way you received knowledge of these measures?\nAI know for certain that such announcements were not made within the agency.\nQAnd why do you know that for certain?\nAI had issued an order to my staff according to which all posters at the bulletin board required my approval. The reason for this was because I didn't want to have posters of all kinds displayed \n on the bulletin boards and therefore to slight the appearance of the agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2584, "page_number": "2577", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Such an order for confiscation and for posting at the bulletin board, however, were not submitted to me. However, in spite of this they still would have come to my attention even if they had not been passed on to me before. After all, frequently and regularly I would make an inspection trip through the entire building, and I would take a look at the individual departments, and I would take a look at the offices so that I could personally convince myself that everything was going right. I did not see such posters at any office there on these occasions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2585, "page_number": "2578", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QDo you know any details about the work of the Land Office?\nAThe Land Office was always independent, and it had its correspondence in general directly with the Central Land Office. Consequently I am not acquainted precisely about the factual work of that office. It was only reported to me that in a district the work of the land office was carried out well, and in some other district it would not be carried out in a satisfactory manner. Whenever possible I tried to alleviate these conditions.\nQIn the Warthegau was there a prohibition for the purchasing of the property which had formerly been owned by Poles or Jews?\nASuch a prohibition did not only exist for members of the SS, but for all members of the agency. This prohibition was discussed very frequently and there were very heated discussions about it. People could not understand that they could not do something which every German could do, and that was a regular purchasing of such properties. They could not see just why members of the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism could not do that when everybody else could.\nQAnd what was the reason for this prohibition?\nAProbably some bad examples gave the immediate cause for this.\nThe actual reason was that it was not desired that the season would be used in order to purchase properties.\nQDid you see to it that this prohibition was complied with?\nAWell, I myself devoted very much time to doing just that, well, like anybody else, it also came within my sphere of competency as staff leader. However, beyond that also in all cases wherever I was able to see that somebody had illegally enriched himself, I would see to it that this person was reported to the police and that he was punished.\nQCan you give us an example for that?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2586, "page_number": "2579", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AAn agricultural collaborator in the agency who was working out in the field had quite illegally bought a Polish house; he had thrown the Pole out, and he himself took care of this small enterprise. I immediately saw to it that this man was arrested; his name was Hotho, and I did this even though he was a local group leader in the NSDAP. In another case the head of labor staff had taken movable furniture from uninhabited Polish houses into his custody so that he would be able to protect it from theft. Subsequently, however, he did not only use these objects from himself, but he had given away some of them to friends, and some of these objects he had sent to his own household in Germany proper. In this case I took immediate action and SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Linne, he was the man concerned, was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment.\nQDid such cases also occur outside the agency?\nAYes. The head of the Peasant Settlement Company; this was a party member by the name of Stuehner. Besides his activity he was also in charge or custody of two estates. He constantly embezzled money which was detrimental to the Reich. Without considering his post and his membership in the party, I saw to it and I contributed to it that he was arrested and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. However, especially typical was the case of the Baltic German resettler Baron von Camponhausen. He stated that he was a close relative of Goering, and he believed that in this way he would be able to gain all sorts of advantages for himself.\nHe even enjoyed the particular protection of the Kreisleitung in the district administration; and by making false statements to be put in charge of a large estate. On this occasion he would constantly remove carloads of valuable property, like horses, and furniture and china ware and things of that sort. Even the competent district attorney did not dare to do anything in this matter because the district administration did not want him to interfere.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2587, "page_number": "2580", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "However, in spite of this fact, and in spite of the repeated threats which I received from the district administration, I reported the matter and Baron von Campenhausen and his wife were later on punished.\nQThen you told me something about the Lilienthal affair. What happened there?\nAIn the case of Lilienthal, this was the district peasant leader, He was the close friend of the Kreisleiter in the NSDAP, whom I have just mentioned. After the completion of the campaign in Poland, he had taken four valuable horses which were worth sixty thousand marks; he had taken them away from a Polish estate, and put them on his own farm. In this case also the whole district spoke about the black market dealings in horses of the district peasant leader. However, nobody dared to report the matter. Without giving any consideration to his position, I interfered and I saw to it that Lilienthal was eventually punished.\nQWere yoy authorized to interfere in this matter?\nAI would point out such corruption wheever I took care of my tasks of accomodating resettlers. I considered it to be my duty to see to it that such parasites were punished, no matter whether I was competent in this matter or not.\nQDid you personnally enrich yourself through Polish or Jewish property?\nANo.\nQI am now going to put to you Prosecution Exhibit610, and this is Prosecution documentNO-3189, in Document Book XIV-B, on page 1 of the German text. Did you in any way participate in the transfer of title of the properties mentioned there to the district administration at Poznan?\nANo. At that time I was not even with the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2588, "page_number": "2581", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QDid you for welfare putposes ever receive objects from the race and settlement main office -- as they have been mentioned in Prosecution documents, in exhibit 628, and this is Prosecution Document NO-2752, and in Prosecution Exhibit629, this is DocumentNO-2754, in Document Book XIV-B, which is before you now, on page 65 and page 67 of the German text; and further in Document Book XIV-C, in Exhibit 653, DocumentNO-2558.\nANo, I know nothing about that.\nQWithin the welfare measures which you carried out, were any objects distributed which had been taken away from concentration camp inmates?\nAThe agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism would only distribute to resettlers objects which came directly from the factories, and which were brand new. No second-hand objects were distributed.\nThat is why I can answer the question in the negative.\nQWas it necessary to furnish goods and other utility goods which had belonged to Jews and which were given to the resettlers?\nAIt may have been necessary during thefirst period of time, especially when the Baltic Germans arrived in the winter of 1939 and 1940. It may have been necessary to give such second-hand goods to people who came from the cities because at that period of time no new household goods could be bought. However, I cannot give you any details about that. In any case as far as I was concerned, I was unable to observe anything of that sort. It may have happened on the other a hand, however, that resettlers bought furniture from the communal furniture procurement agencies or from the HTO.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2589, "page_number": "2582", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "However, this was done directly and without any participation by the Agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Later on when I was able to look into more matters as staff leader until the arrival of the refugees from the Black Sea area, the depots of the working staffs of furniture and household goods were well filled. They were so well stocked that besides the requirements for resettlers, we were also able to give a large number of furniture and household goods to people who had suffered bomb damage. Therefore, it was unnecessary for us to deal with old and broken down household goods.\nQI am now coming to count 21 of the Indictment. It deals with the persecution and the extermination of Jews. In the Warthegau did you have any contact at all with Jews?\nAIn the time when I started my work in the Warthegau there were no Jews left anymore in public life. Without exception they were already in ghettos, and, consequently, it was not possible for me to heave any contact with them.\nQAs Race and Settlement Leader at Poznan, did you deal with Jewish questions?\nANo.\nQNow the Prosecution charges you in particular with having ordered SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Hirschboeck to destroy the ghetto at Lodz. Did you know the ghetto at Lodz?\nAThat ghetto was located right in the center of the City of Lodz. Several main traffic roads led right through the ghetto, for example, the main roads which led to Poznan. Whenever I came to Lodz, just like everybody else who wanted to enter the city, I was forced to pass through the ghetto and, consequently, I was acquainted with it to that extent.\nQDid you yourself ever enter the ghetto proper?\nANo.\nQDid you have any idea, of the size of the ghetto?\nAAs it becomes evident from documents, the ghetto covered more than twenty kilometers in size, and it included an area of 7.5 square kilometers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2590, "page_number": "2583", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "DR. DURCHWOLZ:In this connection I would like to point out that Prosecution Exhibit562in Document Book 13-A on page 89 of the German text which contains DocumentNO-519, is only represented here in a very small section. In some other trial here in Nuernberg the entire document was submitted from which the exact size of the ghetto at Lodz became evident. Later on I shall include the entire document in my document books and shall offer it to the Tribunal.\nQBy way of an estimate can you tell us approximately how many houses were included in the ghetto?\nAThat is not very easy to do. It is only certain that there were several thousand houses.\nQI am now going to put to you Prosecution Exhibit No.566in Document Book 13-A on page 100 of the German text, and this is DocumentNO-2665according to which eighteen houses in the ghetto were demolished. Did you consider it to be something extraordinary when only a few houses were demolished, namely, these eighteen?\nANo.\nQWhat was the reason for this demolition being carried out?\nAThese were quite regular measures which were carried out for traffic reasons or for reasons of minicipal construction. For example, the Government President of Lodz in the year 1940 or 1941 had some houses broken down in order to make way for a road, and as a result several hundred houses were torn down which belonged to the sector of the ghetto.\nQNow let us come to the eighteen houses individually. When and through whom did you hear for the first time of this matter?\nAThis must have been in the Fall of 1944. However, I cannot recall the exact time. At the time the man who was in charge of the Main Economic Department, Dr. Lindner, who was charged with the procurement of household goods and furniture, called me up. He informed me that Hirschboeck, the head of the settlement staff at Lodz, on the occasion of the presence of Gauleiter Greiser at Lodz had had a discussion with him and had requested him to leave household goods to him from the ghetto which \n was being dissolved.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHWOLZ", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2591, "page_number": "2584", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "They were to be used for Germans from the Black Sea.\nQNow another question. Why did Dr. Lindner call you in particular?\nAI was very much worried about the impending winter, because more than 15,000 stoves were lacking for Germans from the Blank Sea area, and I was in charge of caring for them. On that occasion Dr. Lindner informed me that in the empty houses presumably there were many stoves which could still be used.\nQTherefore, he turned to you because you were in charge of taking care of the resettlers and refugees?\nAYes.\nQDid Dr. Lindner tell you on that occasion about any details?\nAAt the time he said that the Gauleiter wanted to receive a relatively high price for these objects. However, I cannot remember the exact sum which was demanded. I personally approved this measure, especially since the Staff Main Office would be unable to furnish any additional stoves in any other way.\nQWhat did you do then?\nAOn the occasion of my next report I talked about this to Reinefarth, who was the Deputy of the Representative for the Reich Commissar. He, however, was already acquainted with the matter. I asked him to occasionally negotiate about this again with Gauleiter Greiser.\nQWas this done?\nAI don't know that.\nQThe witness, Goetz, testified that in this matter a conference had taken place at Poznan in which Greiser, Greifelt and various Gau representatives and a representative of the Reich Commissar had participated. Did you represent the Representative of the Reich Commissar?\nANo.\nQWhat happened then?\nASometime later -- it may have been in early October, 1944 -- I \n went to Lodz together with Reinefarth in order to attend some sort of a meeting.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2592, "page_number": "2585", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Later on at the agency of the settlement staff at Lodz a discussion took place, and besides Reinefarth and myself Hirschboeck and Dr. Lindner also participated. Hirschboeck told us that the city administration had reserved a certain sector of the ghetto for the settlement staff so that some material there could be utilized for resettlers. The city, however, wanted to conclude negotiations because some of the people were interested in these objects.\nQAnd what did Reinefarth reply to that?\nAHe said that, first of all, he would have to discuss the matter with Greifelt or Greiser. Hirschboeck, however, urged that the objects should be placed aside and the stoves should be taken out. For the most part these were very big stoves and he wanted to have the work begun because otherwise he would not have these stoves available before the winter arrived, and all usuable material would be stolen.\nQDid Reinefarth made a decision there?\nAYes. Reinefarth agreed to this, and he agreed that the demolition could then be started immediately. The furniture and the material which was gained, however, was to be placed in storage in order to protect it from theft. A decree about these objects, however, probably was only issued after the purchasing contract had been concluded.\nQDid Reinefarth make any other decisions in this matter?\nAHe ordered that Hirschboeck was to deal with this matter in an independent office, and for this ourpose he relieved him of his previous tasks with the settlement staff. He further ordered that in factual respects this new agency was to be subordinated to Main Department III at Poznan, because the procurement of household goods and furniture fell under the competency of that department.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I would like to suggest you call a recess now because the answer to my next question will take up considerable time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:A Very good suggestion.\nThe Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2593, "page_number": "2586", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1303 hours.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I would like to ask the Tribunal to help me in the following matter: Up to this point it was permitted to the defense counsel to talk with the witnesses for the Prosecution if necessary in the presence of the Commissioner, either in the afternoon or in the evening, but for two days the Prosecution has refused defense counsel permission to see the witnesses in the evening at 6:00 P.M. and also Saturday morning. Now, we have to be present here during the proceedings as defense counsel and it is quite impossible for us to double our personality in order to be at the disposal of talking with the witnesses and with the Prosecution at the same time. Tomorrow the witness Dietz is being called and yesterday evening I had made an agreement with counsel for the Prosecution to see him but last night I was told that that was not admissible and that I had to see him during the day. Now, when this morning I requested that I get permission to see the witness Dietz this afternoon I was told that it would take 48 hours until I could see him and that means that defense can not prepare its case in the testimony of Dietz and therefore I ask the court to influence the Prosecution in order to get them to the point where they will permit us again to talk to these witnesses as before.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I ask you one question. Who said it would take 48 hours?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:The Prosecution, your Honor, and it is the task of the Prosecution to prepare and to see to it that the dead lines are complied with in regard to the witnesses to be called by the Prosecution.\nMR. LAMB:I don't know anything about this particular case but I will say this: We can take care of this right away, any time he wants to see the witness we can take care of it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will give you this direction about it in order that you may convey it to the prison. When you are ready to see the \n witness, if the Prosecution is not present, you will he permitted to see him in the absence of the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2594, "page_number": "2587", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "You may so advise the prison authorities.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you, your Honor.\nDR.SCHUBERT (Attorney for the defendant Lorenz): If your Honor please, I ask permission tomorrow before I call the defendant Lorenz to the stand to call a witness in the case of Lorenz and the witness involved is Professor Unruh whom the Tribunal has already granted. I had orginally called him for the end of this week but by mistake he has reached Nurnbergalready now and he is an old man of 65 years and a Professor at the Technical University at Karlsruhe. Therefore, I would like to call him so as to not detain him here in Nurnberg any longer than necessary.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your request is granted.\nThe Tribunal, in order to save the Marshal having to notify everybody concerned, will state that we have been advised by the electricians that the court room from which we were evicted day before yesterday will be ready tomorrow morning, so with all of our fingers crossed, we will start again in that court room in the morning.\nProceed with the examination of the witness.\nHERBERT HUEBNER -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (continued) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.This morning we interrupted the examination when you, witness, stated what happened at the occasion of the demolition of these 18 houses in the Ghetto of Lodz. Now, how did the matter proceed?\nA.Toward the end of 1944 I was summoned to the Main Staff Office to Schweikelberg, in a different matter. It must have been in November I think because I recall with certainty that there was ice and snow on the roads. With the Chief of Main Department 3, Dr. Lindner, and with the Chief of Main Department 1, Attorney Berns, I went to Schweikelberg to the \n Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2595, "page_number": "2588", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "We arrived on a Monday morning and we attended a conference which was one of the repeatedly mentioned Monday conferences of the Office Chiefs. Now, after the office chiefs had made their reports I repeated my request for urgent delivery of 15,000 stoves because I said that this was the most important thing needed for the Germans of the Black Sea and that brought the discussion to the Ghetto action. Greifelt reported he was an employee of the office for building. He reported on the result of the inspection he had made in Lodz in the meantime. Greifelt first rejected the suggestions and I can recall that he said that the sun demanded by Greiser was entirely out of the question. Then Lindner gave a long lecture and explained the viewpoint of his department. The culminating point of that lecture was that it would be better to use the objects which were lying around and to purchase them for the resettlers from the Ghetto in case the Main Staff could not supply the urgently needed stoves and other equipment as quickly as necessary.\nQ.And what decision was made then?\nA.Taking into consideration the fact that a shipment of new material could not Be made at least for the time being, Greifelt gave his basic agreement for the purpose of these objects from the Lodz Ghetto. He made the restriction, however, that the price had to be further discussed with Greiser.\nQ.The witness Hofmann has testified that you attended another meeting at Schweikelberg and he said that that was in the office room of Schwarzenberger. Is that correct?\nA.As long as the Posen field agency of the RKFDV existed I was in Schweikelberg only once. It is true at a later date when I was traveling to Salzburg I was there again. That was in March 1945. However, at that time the Posen agency no longer existed.\nQ.Well, how do you explain to yourself the testimony of the witness Hofmann that you attended another conference in the room of Schwarzenberger?\nA.After the Office Chiefs' conference which was mentioned before \n I discussed with Schwarzenberger in his room concerning personnel matters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2596, "page_number": "2589", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "The Personnel expert, Dr. Graf, was present. It is quite possible that as our conferences went on he again mentioned the Ghetto actions. Maybe because some Other expert was drawn in, but I don't know that with certainty.\nQ.Now the witness Berns testified that yet another meeting had taken place concerning the Ghetto action and he said it was true that you yourself didn't participate but that a representative of the Posen agency did attend. What about that?\nA.On the evening of the same day I went back to Posen together with Counsel Berns. The Chief of the Main Department Economy, Dr. Lindner, remained in Schweikelberg for another few days. It is likely that he attended another meeting in this matter because he was a responsible expert for those matters anyhow.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2597, "page_number": "2590", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.How was a final agreement made on the matter?\nA.After I got back I reported to Reinefarth concerning the result and he stated that he would discuss the price again with Greiser. The final agreement or sales contract in my view was not concluded because very soon after the Russian offensive started which as early as January 1945 occasioned the evacuation of the Lodz agency.\nQ.Now the objects which were already secured by Hirschboeck: Were they distributed to the refugees?\nA.I don't consider that possible because Reinefarth had specifically prohibited it.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit566, in Volume 13-A, on page 100 of the German is an exhibit which you know, and it starts withNO 2665. The witness there reproduces an alleged remark made by Hirschboeck according to which Hirschboeck had received that commission from you. What can you say to that?\nA.This remark of Hirschboeck's is inaccurate, if it was made at all. From the very fact that Reinefarth took part in the conference it is shown that he made that decision as the Chief of the agency.\nQ.Your Honor, this brings me to count 3 of the indictment, namely, membership in criminal organizations. Witness, before we talk of your membership in the SS itself I want to ask you a few questions. Were you a member of a national youth organization?\nA.Yes, in 1922 I was for a short time member of the young German Order.\nQ.Will you please tell us in a few words what this Young German Order was and what were its aims; why, specifically speaking, was it called Order?\nA.In this new association one wanted to find a link with the tradition of the old German Order or old Teutonic Order which asked for a chivalrous attitude and conception.\nQ.Did the Old German Order have the Teutonic Knights? Did this \n German Order have an anti-Semitic tendency?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2598, "page_number": "2591", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.The Young German Order had no National tendency and had no antiSemitic tendencies. It had no Aryan paragraph, that is, a paragraph excluding the Jews. It was not a primary requisite for the acceptance as a member that the person was a full Aryan.\nQ.How long were you a member of this Order?\nA.When in 1923 I moved from Mannheim to Munich I dissolved my contact with the Young German Order for personal reasons and I tried to get into Nationalistic circles in Munich.\nQ.As far as I know the SA existed already in that period. Is that correct? Did you join the SA in Munich for instance?\nA.No, I became a member of the Association Oberland because apart from the Nationalistic principles the SA also pursued aims of the Nazi Party political character and I didn't want to bind myself in this direction. On the other hand the Association Oberland which was mainly a Veterans association had no political aims, only Nationalistic and patriotic principles.\nQ.But there was also a Freicorps Oberland. Was that something different, a fighting Corps?\nA.Yes, that was something different. The association Oberland was not identical with the Political party association.\nThe Political party association was purely a military association of volunteers which took part in the border struggles at the occasion of the Plebiscite in Upper Silesia, at the time.\nQ.Was the Association Oberland of which you were a member in contact with the then rising National Socialist Party?\nA.The Association Oberland at the beginning was quite an independent association which had only the aim of gathering the patriotic youth together. There were no links between the individual members of the Oberland Association and the NSDAP. Apart from that there we re quite a number of Nationalistic associations. As a result of the misery in Germany which became greater and greater the leaders of the individual associations \n finally agreed and tried to get a unified collaboration in spite of the fact that they did not altogether agree with the Nazi Party and under the name of Patriotic Front they gathered all these associations.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2599, "page_number": "2592", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "This could not he noticed by the individual members but slowly and surely Adolf Hitler found his way into the ranks and leadership of these associations.\nQDuring that time did you have any further or closer contact with Hitler?\nAI got no closer contact with Hitler.\nQAs a member of the Oberland association did you take part in the November Putsch in 1923 at the so-called Hitler Putsch?\nAOn 8 November 1923 in the afternoon I was called to a roll call which had been summoned from my work in the Munich Bank. In the evening we were told that a National, government was being formed or had been formed in Bavaria under Hitler and Ludendorff. On account of future developments we were to wait for further orders. However, we remained completely inactive until in the afternoon of the same day, that is the 9th of November, when we were sent home. In the well known occurrences, for instance the March to the *eldherrnhalle, where blood was shed, I did not take part.\nQ.Because of that participation in the Hitler Putsch which you just described, were you made to account for that at the time?\nA.No, in this investigation against all the members of the Oberland Association it was shown that I was not an active participant in the sense of a revolt. Therefore, I was left completely alone in this matter.\nQ.Did that terminate your membership in the Oberland Association?\nA.Yes, because this association, as well as all other nationalistic associations, were immediately dissolved and prohibited.\nQ.Now, on account of this participation you just described in these occurrences, was the Blood Order of the NSDAP conferred upon you?\nA.Yes. If I remember well that was done at the end of 1933 without a special application being made for it.\nQ.The conferring of this Blood Order, did it have special services \n as a primary requisite?", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2600, "page_number": "2593", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.Originally this Blood Order was given only to the participants of the occurrences of the 8th and 9th of November 1923. Those participants who actually took an active part in these developments and particularly the participants of the march on the Feldherrnhalle. Later, however, the circle was considerably enlarged and it covered even such persons as hadn't been present in Munich at that time at all. Then membership in one of the alerted associations was sufficient and joining of the NSDAP before 31 December 1931.\nQ.Well, did you fulfill these conditions?\nA.No, neither did I take an active part on the 8th or 9th of November 1923, nor did I become a member of the Nazi Party before the deadline.\nQ.In spite of that you got the Blood Order?\nA.Yes, at the beginning I did, but after a short period when the Blood Orders were checked upon it was withdrawn from me again.\nQ.Who withdrew that blood order from you?\nA.I had to hand in the medal together with the document to the Supreme SA Command and that's what I did.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2601, "page_number": "2594", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.On the seniority list, however, you are still listed as the holding the \"Blood Order\". How do you explain that?\nA.Alter about a year the same agency sent back the \"Blook Order\" to me, the same agency that had withdrawn it from me with the demand to come to Munich and to report to the Supreme SA Leadership in order to justify that I was entitled legally to be bearer of this \"Order\".\nQ.Did you go there and justify it personally?\nA.No. In spite of the fact that in 1943 I was reminded that this matter still was to be settled.\nQ.In other words, you were not the legally-justified bearer of that medal, were you?\nA.That is correct.\nQ.Now after November, 1932, did you again indulge in any political activity?\nA.In the nine following years I didn't join a political party not did I join any nationalistic or patriotic association.\nQ.But later you became a member of the NSDAP, didn't you? When?\nA.On 1 February 1932 after I had already applied for membership in the Nazi Party in December, 1931.\nQ.Until you joined the NSKAP, what was your attitude toward this Nazi Party?\nA.At the beginning for a longer period my attitude towards the Party was waiting and rather reserved in spite of the fact that I was repeatedly approached with the rep*est to join the Party. However, on account of the misery in Germany because of the economic collapse in 1931 and 1932 of which I had personal experience, because at the time there were seven million enemployed in Germany and I was one of them, I came to the conviction that the only salvation from the threatening doom would be if all the classes of the population tinder the common password of intensified work could be brought on the same level. I was particularly attracted in this connection by the generous work procurement program and particularly the subvention for the medium and small \n professional enterprises because the economic needs and economic doom of just these smaller enterprises I had experienced in my father's house.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2602, "page_number": "2595", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Apart from the Nazi Party itself, did you join another National Socialist organization?\nA.In 1932 I became a member of the SS.\nQ.Did you volunteer for membership in this organization?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have any special reason to volunteer?\nA.When I joined the Nazi Party the Ortsgruppenleiter expressed the expectance that I like all younger and healthy men would join one of the so-called organizations of the Nazi Party, and as in my home town at that time there was no unit of the SA or of the motorized SA but only a unit of the SS, I joined that unit, but that was the only reason why I picked the SS of all things.\nQ.Were the aims and purposes of the SS known to you at that time?\nA.They were known to me in as far as they could be apparent from the by-laws which existed at that time. In these by-laws it was stated in quite a general way that the SS was to serve the protection of the Nazi Movement. This included generally protection of Party assemblies.\nQ.Were you assigned for active duty in that connection? I am referring particularly there to the battles in the assembly halls of that nature.\nA.The few Nazi Party rallies I attended were pursued in complete quiet and order and there were never any incidents there.\nQ.Did you, for instance, participate in the occurrences of 30 June 1934 which are known under the name of the so-called Roehm Putsch?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you receive knowledge of those occurrences?\nA.Not more than every average German would hear at that time officially through the channels of the newspapers and the wireless.\nQ.Did you in any manner participate in the happenings of 8 and 9 November 1938? Thereby I mean the terror action against the Jews, the \n so-called Jewish pogroms.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2603, "page_number": "2596", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.No. During that period I didn't live at my then residence, Stuttgart. I was on a leave trip with my wife. When I later on heard about these actions, I quite unambiguously expressed my rejection and my disapproval of such methods and actions because I considered these occurrences a senseless destruction of property of the German people.\nQ.But these occurrences were quite in line with the political trend of the Nazi Party, weren't they? And this political trend of the Nazi Party, was not it yours, too?\nA.I come from a commercial family, and in this very question I was brought up in altogether a liberal manner. My father travelled abroad quite a bit, and in our hotel there were many Jews who came. This liberal attitude I had I maintained after I joined the Party, and I never lost it.\nQ.Did you have contace tiwh Jews later on, too?\nA.Yes, The first time that happened in Mannheim when I held my position there. My boss at that time was a Jew, and he found fault with the insignia of the South German Order which I had. He made difficulties for me, and he made all my work disagreeable to me. I lost my joy in the work and I decided very unwillingly to leave this job which otherwise was a very soft one.\nQ.Now this personal incident, did it have any consequences with regard to your attitude toward the Jewish question?\nA.No. During the following year when I visited Heidelberg I made the acquaintance of a Jewish family, and a very harty and friendly contact resulted, and this hearty relationship still exists today between myself and the members of these families.\nQ.Didn't you work in other Jewish enterprises afterwards?\nA.Yes. In 1927 I found a job in a Jewish commercial enterprise and I remained in that job for two and a half years.\nQ.You said that your liberal attitude did not leave you while you were a member in the Nazi Party. Will you give us an example of that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2604, "page_number": "2597", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.Practically I was never directly approached by the Jewish question. As I worked in the following years in my profession or officially, I never came into any direct contact with the problem, but wherever my ways crossed those of Jews, I kept my liberal attitude and complied with it. Thus, in 1936 and 1937 I received in my apartment voluntarily the Diplom Ingenieur, Ivan Riesz, as a sub-tenant, in spite of the fact that I had previous knowledge that he was a Jew, but that didn't prevent me in any way from having very friendly neighborly relations with him.\nQ.I think you wanted to give us another example, didn't you?\nA.Yes. During the same years and the following years I called Dr. Haeuser from Stuttgart, because my children were very sick and he had been recommended to me by acquaintances. In spite of the fact that he was a Jew, I called him. Incidentally he drew my attention to that fact himself, but it didn't disturb me at all, and I went to consult him during the following period further for the very reason that I had confidence in this man.\nQ.Now were you a member of other NS organizations?\nA.In 1935 I became a member of the NSV, the Nationsl Socialist Welfare Fund. However, when I moved, I resigned in 1936. As a hunter I also was a member of the German Hunters' Association, but in the questionnaire of the American Military Government, this Hunters' Association is also listed as an SS organization, but I was no member of any other SS organization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2605, "page_number": "2598", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Was your wife a member of the Nazi Party or of a National Socialist organization?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever hold any office within the Party?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have any special activities within the Nazi Party or the SS?\nA.Neither in the SS nor in the Nazi Party was I an activist or an advocate of the Party policy. In my home town the number of members of the SS during that period was so small and so insignificant-- a total of 10 to 15 members-- that any regular SS service could not even be thought of. I recall also that only as late as 1933 did I receive an SS uniform. Until that period I could not even make an official appearance as an SS member for that very reason. I did not even report my transfer to the Ortsgruppe of Poznan of the NSDAP. During the whole of the five years I kept my registration in the NSDAP in Stuttgart, in spite of the fact that that was in violation of the regulations.\nQ.Now, after you joined the Nazi Party and after you became a member of the SS, did your general attitude change, and particularly your political attitude?\nA.Since I joined the Nazi Party nothing changed in my good relation with my acquaintances so far as they might be considered political enemies of the Nazi Party. My old friend-ships and acquanitances were maintained, an even still exist today.\nQ.But then, in spite of the fact that you opposed the Nazi tendencies, especially in relation to the Jewish question, why didn't you dissolve your links with the Nazi Party?\nA.Well, it wasn't as simple as that, you know, at that time. First I had to think of my family and of my children, because, doubtlessly, they would have been threatened if I had just broken off my relations with the Nazi Party. However, during that very period I had my official difficulties, which I have already testified to, which caused me to apply to my superior \n agency for a release from the SS service.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2606, "page_number": "2599", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Not only was this application rejected, but I was also threatened with the fact that should I repeat my application, I would be subject to disciplinary action, because I had used two different channels to submit my application.\nQ.Wasn't there any other way to resign from the SS, for example?\nA.Since, in the meantime, I had been taken over into an official job of the SS, only Himmler himself could have decided upon my release, and su approvals were only given in very rare cases.\nQ.Therefore you remained a member of the General SS?\nA.In August 1939 I received a conscription order for the Waffen SS, and in September I was drafted into that branch of the armed forces. I thereby became a member of the armed forces, and from that point on my further assignments were given to me as a soldier, without consulting me or without getting my prior approval.\nQ.Now, from the registrations and entries in your personnel file, it can be seen that the so-called honorary dagger was conferred upon you, and also the death head ring, in the SS. Were those distinctions or medals for special merit?\nA.Both distinctions were conferred upon me automatically. The honorary dagger was conferred after a certain rank had been reached. The death head ring was conferred after one had been a member of the SS for three years.\nQ.But you also received the war cross, first and second class, without daggers. Do you know the reason why you received that distinction?\nA.As the chief of the Personnel Department of the agencies of the RKFDV, I had submitted quite a number of such applications to Koppe to have the war cross, first or second class, conferred upon one or another of the employees, and I wrote the reasons for those applications myself. Therefore, I know that this distinction was generally conferred upon such employees as had served and had fulfilled their duties for two or three years in a manner satisfactory to their superiors. The war cross was a mere war distinction and it had nothing to do with membership in the SS or in the Nazi Party. These \n distinctions, on a much larger scale, were also conferred upon people who were not members of the SS or the Nazi Party.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2607, "page_number": "2600", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "In my personal case I do not know the reason why it was conferred upon me, but I am convinced that the reasons are the same as I have just stated.\nQ.But you had promotions within the SS, didn't you? Your last rank was Standartenfuehrer in the SS. What about that? Were these promotions spe* distinctions?\nA.To the same extent that every promotion of an official is a distinction. However, in the case of such persons who had official SS positions, the special circumstances had to be taken into consideration. In general, the superior agencies had the aim to confer upon most officials who held these positions, as soon as possible, the full use of the pay connected with these official positions, and that assimilation to the official rank was only possible through promotions.\nQ.Was it decisive in your promotions that, according to the lists, even if it was not justified, you were entered as a holder of the \"blood order\"?\nA.I don't think so. However, I do know that on one occasion or another, Hofmann, as Chief of the RuSHA, pointed that out when he suggested my promotion. That happened only because Hofmann, at that time, had no possibility of explaining his position as to my actual achievements in office because my activity was within the framework of the office of the RKFDV. That is, my activity was in an agency which was not subordinated to Hofmann, and in which he had no insight. I held no functions at that time as RuS leader.\nQ.I think we have to mention another official distinction, and that is the official insignia of the NSDAP. What about that?\nA.Well, this official distinction was also conferred upon the members after they had been in the NSDAF for ten years. It was conferred automatically. According to my recollection, I received the information fr* Stuttgart, in 1943, that this official distinction had been conferred upon However, it was not handed to me because I would have had to to to Stuttgart \n personally to fetch it, and I did not do that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2608, "page_number": "2601", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.That brings me to the last point of the direct examination. From 1939 to 1945 a certain number of crimes were committed, crimes which the SS is charged with. Did you participate in any of these crimes?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know about the activities of the so-called Einsatz Groups in the East, or about the large-scale Jewish exterminations?\nA.No; I only heard about that after 1945.\nQ.Did you know of the most important speeches of the highest commanders, for instance, the well-known Posen speech of Himmler's, or the memorandum of the Chief of the Racial Political Office, Dr. Gross?\nA.No.\nQ.What did you know, in general, about the persecution of Jews and political opponents?\nA.My knowledge did not exceed that of any German. I knew that there were a few concentration camps, but I never personally visited such a concentrationcamp, I never put my foot into one. I also knew that quite serious measures were being taken against the Jews, and I also saw the outsid of the ghetto. However, in this latter case I never saw SS members, only police, always. The part taken by the SS in crimes committed for racial, religious, or political reasons was unknown to me until 1945, and I considered these measures always as measures taken by the Gestapo only.\nQ.But as a staff leader, with the official rank of an SS Standartenfuehrer, didn't you have any knowledge, or didn't you have the possibility of obtaining knowledge, of such intentions or crimes; that is, knowledge which exceeded the general knowledge of the German people?\nA.Certainly not in my case, because from 1940 to 1945 I was a member of a top-level Reich Agency. In other words, I was not in an SS agency, and for that very reason I had no direct contact with the SS agencie Only such contact could have given me information about such crimes. Listen \n to foreign radio broadcasts was prohibited, with very severe punishment, and therefore I could not use those channels to get knowledge about these occurrences.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2609, "page_number": "2602", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "As far as political, SD, or Gestapo agencies were concerned, I neither private contacts nor official contacts with them, and therefore I could not have an insight into their activities either.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2610, "page_number": "2603", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQBut as an RuS leader, didn't you have a more profound insight into these occurrences?\nAI have described in great detail what my activity as RuS leader consisted of. There was no contact concerning the criminal acts here involved.\nQWell, with the general knowledge of the persecution of Jews and political enemies--did you just satisfy yourself with that knowledge, and did you just say, \"Well, that is the way it is\"?\nAI did not know the agencies responsible for these persecutions, and I had no contact with them either.\nQBut if, for instance, in your sphere of activity, you noticed an injustice which, however, could not be considered as a crime, how did you act then?\nAI always maintained my principle that in my sphere of work, and particularly with regard to aliens, injustices had to be prevented, and I did prevent them wherever I noticed any.\nQCan you give us brief examples of that?\nAFor instance, I obtained the release of a female employee, Frau Lammers, from Gestapo custody. She has been arrested by the Gestapo for undermining the morale of the German armed forces. By obtaining her release from the Gestapo I doubtlessly saver her life. I also made efforts to save a resettler who had been sentenced to death for black-marketing, for violation of a war economy regulation, and I obtained the commutation of the sentence. As far as a Latvian citizen was concerned, Frau Werner, I also obtained her release from Gestapo custody, and I saw to it that she could go on with her work.\nQBut how could you obtain all that? You said that you had no contact with the agencies which were responsible.\nAWell, I just went And saw whom I had to approach in such a case, and I again and again tried to have the matter investigated and checked in great detail by the agencies responsible, and I did not rest until I was successful.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2611, "page_number": "2604", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI did not approve of the so-called voluntary recruitment methods of the Waffen SS, and I did not support them. In my own agency, as well as in the case of the resettlers, I prevented this so-called voluntary recruitment, and I thereby caused myself considerable difficulties.\nQNow, to conclude this examination, will you give us a few examples to illustrate how you protected alien persons?\nAIn spite of repeated orders, I did not release my Polish employees. I also saw to it that the Poles were decently treated in my agency, and I even tried to help them outside of my agency, wherever it was necessary. I helped a Polish family by the name of Krolekiewicz, and I prevented their being completely plundered and spoliated by their sub-tenant. I also wish to remind you of the Hotho case, which I have already mentioned, where I protected that Polish family against an Ortsgruppenfuehrer and saw to it that they got their property back.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, that concludes my direct examination of the defendant.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by any of the defense?\nDR. VON DERTRENCK (Counsel for the defendant Ulrich Greifelt): I ask to be permitted to ask a few questions of the witness. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK:\nQAs an introduction, witness, I would like to refer to your affidavit of 29 May 1947. This is Document Book 2-B, Exhibit 33. In this affidavit you stated that the Main Staff Office had appointed the Reichsstatthalter in the Warthegau as its representative. Is that correct, or, now that you have read the documents, have you discovered that the situation was different?\nAAs I stated in my testimony yesterday, I think, I have to rectify that. From the documents submitted by the Prosecution, I have seen that these appointments were made by Himmler directly and not by the Main Staff Office. I rectified that on my own initiative yesterday.\nQThank you very much. Furthermore, you stated that the Reichsstatthalter, in his capacity as the representative of the Reich Commissar, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. VON DER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2612, "page_number": "2605", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "had appointed Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe as his deputy. Wasn't the situation rather, first of all, that Koppe was appointed representative and that only at a later date, in 1940, Reichsstatthalter Greiser was appointed the official representative by Himmler and that Koppe, at the same time, was appointed Greiser's deputy?\nAWell, that is along the same line as the first question, and it is to be answered in the affirmative in this context.\nQOn the strength of your activity in Posen, can you confirm the fact that the agency of the Plenipotentiary was a part of the agency of the Reichsstatthalter, and not a field agency of the Main Staff Office, as far as organization was concerned.\nAI believe that I have already spoken in very great detail concerning this matter, and I think there is no ambiguity about what I said. Therefore, I don't believe that I need to repeat myself.\nQThank, you very much. Did Greifelt or the Main Staff Office ever issue orders or directives to you concerning evacuations that had to take place?\nAI personally never received such orders, and as far as I know my agency did not receive any such orders either. To what extent general directives of Himmler contained hints of evacuation orders, I don't know.\nQDid the agency of the Plenipotentiary establish directives itself as to what the persons to be evacuated could take along as far as luggage and household goods were concerned?\nANo, that was not in its competency.\nQYes, that is just what I mean. Now, who would be the man to issue such directives?\nAThey could only have been issued by the Chief of the Security Service and the SD.\nQIn your affidavit you mentioned a report made by Greifelt, according to which a number, two hundred thirty-four and some odd thousand persons, had been evacuated. How is it you know this report?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2613, "page_number": "2606", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI saw that this report was made from a report of the Main Staff Office, but I know that these figures did not originate with the Main Staff Office itself, they were taken over from a report of the Security Service and the SD. To that extent I have to rectify the statement made in my affidavit.\nQTwo inaccuracies, or two typographical errors, are contained in the German text of this affidavit, concerning two figures. I want to ask you about those figures again, now. You pointed out that from the Eastern territories, in 1910--that is what it says in the German text, but I think you mean 1919--the Germans were expelled.\nAYes, that is what it is, 1919; that is right.\nQAs to the figure of the Germans who were expelled there, without indemnification, what should that figure be? Because one cannot sea here whether it is one thousand or whether it is one hundred thousand, you see. What should the figure be?\nAThat is very clear. The figure means over a million.\nQThank you very much. In your examination you spoke of an exploitation of the sugar factories. According to Greifelt's testimony, these enterprises were never really exploited; according to Greifelt, they remained in public hands as before. Can you give us a statement about that?\nAIf I spoke of exploitation of these enterprises, I do not want to have that understood as sale of these properties. All I knew was that some sort of a settlement had been made, concerning the sugar factories, between the Chief of Main Department III, via Koppe, and the Main Staff Office. However, the details of the results and consequences of these negotiations are not known to me. This settlement was what I wanted to express. I expressed myself very badly and I said exploitation, but at any rate I did not mean sale. I don't know anything about a sale.\nQThank you very much. Furthermore, in direct examination you termed the Main Staff Office as the Central Agency of the Reich Com \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2614, "page_number": "2607", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "missioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. Can you confirm that they were also tasks of the RKFDV, which were not at all in the competency of the Main Staff Office?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQI mean, I am referring now, of course, to the VOMI and the RuSHA and their tasks. I mean, that is wall known.\nAYes, and if I speak of a central level agency there, then I definitely mean as far as Greifelt's agency was concerned.\nQWhat was the impression you gained in your official capacity in Posen about the working procedure of the Main Staff Office? Did it aim strictly to comply with the legal regulations and directives of the superior agency?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWas the aim of this work, on as large a scale and as efficiently as possible, the care for the resettlers?\nAYes, and in this connection the Chief of the Main Staff Office, Greifelt, did whatever ha could to help the resettlers, and he did whatever was humanly possible for their social care.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2615, "page_number": "2608", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDid you meet Herr Greifelt whenever he was in Posen?\nAThe very few times he came to Posen I did meet him.\nQAccording to your knowledge, did Herr Greifelt make special personal claims and did he ever mix up personal matters with official affairs down there?\nAI could not judge that question because I don't know him sufficiently.\nQAnyhow you don't have any knowledge of these matters?\nANo, I don't have any knowledge about it for the one or two times I was down there.\nQThank you very much. No further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (For the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQWitness, I am submitting to you your affidavit Document 5049, Exhibit 34 and it's on Page 68 of the German. There you state that the agricultural holdings were transferred as a whole to the general administration of the Ostland. The competency to dispose of agricultural real estate was transferred to the Central Land Office of the RKFDV in Berlin. I am submitting you at the same time Document N-92, Exhibit 600 in Document Book XIV-A. This involves the internal directives concerning the Polish Property Decree. There under Paragraph 4, Section 5, line 6, it says: \"Contrary to that, the seizure does not confer right of disposal to the agency that carries out the seizure.\" Can you explain that in more detail?\nAAlready in my direct examination, I stated that I, myself, was not quite clear about the Polish Property Decree. The internal regulations here mentioned did not come to my knowledge officially. I only found out about them here when the documents were submitted.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal feels in fairness to the witness that counsel should be cautioned not to rehash with him what he has already covered in detail five or six times during the previous direct examination, and already one time in the course of your examination he has said, \"As I explained in detail..\" I just think it's fair to \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2616, "page_number": "2609", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "the witness for the attorneys not to require him to continue to go over the same thing.\nDR. MUELLER:If Your Honor please, this statement in the affidavit is in flagrant contradiction with all other statements made up to now, and therefore I wanted to have the matter clarified here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All the Tribunal said was to please don't go over what he has already been over. I think that is fair to him. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, on page 12 of your affidavit, you speak of special powers conferred upon the Central Land Office on the strength of legal regulations. Will you please tell the Tribunal what special powers were concerned there?\nAI knew that confiscations in general did not take place. On the other hand, I knew that in individual cases, in the specially important projects, such individual confiscations took place, and I was pointing out these special cases, and I wanted to have the special powers covering these special cases too; so when I spoke of special powers, I spoke of these powers dealing with individual instances.\nQThank you. That will do. Now you mentioned that the land offices had the right to hand over up to 25 acres of land. Will you tell us when that happened?\nAAccording to my recollection, that was in the summer of 1944.\nQThank you. Do you know why these powers were given to the Land Offices?\nANo.\nQAmongst the individual instances of land transfers, you speak also of the estate lessees. Can you explain that in more detail?\nAAccording to my recollection, these were few individual cases of estate lessees in Germany proper who had tried to get their own estate in the new eastern territories, because they had to surrender their estates in Germany proper for some reason or other. In this connection, I can recall a few Mecklenburg estate lessees. That was in the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2617, "page_number": "2610", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "summer of 1944.\nQThank you.\nAI knew about that because I found out about it when I was carrying out welfare measures. I found out that resettlers and refugees had to evacuate such estates.\nQDo you know why real estate property was transferred to these Governmental estate tenants at that time?\nAI have no knowledge about that.\nQIn your direct examination, you stated that the main department of your agency in Poznan had the same tasks as your agency in Berlin. Inasfar as there were deviations, you wanted to use the conversations with the individual main departments to explain your position with it. You stated that the Main Department II was not identical with the agency Planning of the SS, and Police Leader Koppe; thereupon, you stated the tasks of your Main Department II in your agency. Now, however, in your affidavit on Page 73, you made further statements concerning the field of tasks of this department, Planning. Therefore, I have to put the question to you: do the contents of your affidavit constitute a complement to the statements you made in direct examination, or were the statements in the direct examination complete and thereby a rectification of the statements you made previously in your affidavit?\nAAn official agency, Planning, did not exist in the Office of the SS and Police Leader. There was a Planning Department which was directed by Dr. Dollezalek, and this Dollezalek Planning Department was not identical with the Main Department Planning which was directed by Zoch. All these tasks connected with the commitment of resettlers and the resettlement proper were dealt with only and alone by the Planning Department of Dr. Dollezalek.\nQCan you confirm that the director of your main department, Planning, HerrZoch, was head of the settlement department for the newly acquired eastern territories at the university of Posen?\nAI cannot remember this committee with certainty--the name, at \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2618, "page_number": "2611", "date": "01 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-01", "text": "of establishment. He held these foundations outside of the agency of the RKFDV.\nQIn your affidavit, you also mention the participation of the Planning Department in the straightening out of the landscape. What was the competency there?\nAIn the superior settlement agency, in the Department IV-B of the Reichsstatthalter.\nQYou mentioned that few test constructions were made. Who made these constructions?\nAThe higher settlement agency, the Department IV-B of the Reichsstatthalter.\nQWas the land office in any way connected with the settlement drives?\nANo.\nQDo you know that between Professor Meyer and SS Standartenfuehrer Hiege, the Chief of the Office Agriculture, there were the strongest disputes and controversies?\nAYes, that was a fact well known in the Posen agency.\nQDid Professor Mayer ever issue any directives to you for settlement and commitment of resettlers?\nAI, myself? No, I never received them and I don't believe that other departments of the land office received such directives because that was the task of the department for resettlement commitment.\nQDid you receive any directives from Professor Mayer in connection with the housing of the Black Sea Germans who had escaped from their home towns?\nANo.\nQCan you confirm that Professor Meyer repeatedly came to Posen in connection with the construction and establishment of the Posen University and the establishment of the Research Institutes of that university?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2619, "page_number": "2612", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAYes, I can confirm that. Meyer-Hetling had also a nomination to the University of Posen, but later he did not accept that nomination.\nQIn the direct examination you spoke of the registration of farmers and you mentioned the registration of farms. Did you assume that activity as a field agency of the Central Land Office in Berlin?\nANo, as working staff. In this connection there never was any field agency of the land office.\nQWhen did you make the personal acquaintance of Professor Meyer?\nAAbout 1941.\nQIn connection with the ghetto demolition of Lodz, did you see Dr. Mayer in conferences?\nAI took part in two conferences connected with the ghetto drive; first at Lodz, and then at Schweikelbarg. During both conferences, Professor Mayer did not attend.\nQWas the name of Professor Meyer mentioned at all in this connection?\nAI didn't hear it.\nQIf Your Honor please, yesterday during the direct examination the expression \"Planstelle\" - Planning Agency -- was translated as Planning Office. The expression \"Planstelle\" should mean a job contained in the budget appropriations. I wanted to have that rectified. This expression refers to questions of organization and personnel. It's not connected with planning. It is in contradiction to our budgetary plan in the case of personnel staffing. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have your construction of it in the record.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is there anything else from the Defense?\nThe Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2620, "page_number": "2613", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to ask two questions on the behalf of the defendant Hildebrandt. My colleague, Dr. Froeschmann, is unable to attend this session right now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, do you know the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar at Danzig, West Prussia?\nA.Yes, I know a little about it.\nQ.Can you tell me whether this agency was organized exactly in the same way as the agency at Posen?\nA.On one occasion I paid a visit, a private visit to Danzig, and since I knew staff leader Henschel at the agency there I visited him. As far as I was able to get a look at the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar at Danzig on that occasion, the organization of that agency was the same in principle as the agency at Posen.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Who was Greiser; what position did he hold?\nA.I have already stated in detail before what position Greiser held at Poznan; he was Reichstatthalter and consequently he was the highest official on that level of the Reich Administration. He was a Reich Defense Commissar, and further more, he was a Gauleiter of the NSDAP; and he also held a number of other positions; and in this personnel union he was also the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Well, since he had these many other duties, he didn't \n COURT I CASE VIII give much attention to this office for the Reich Commissioner, Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, did he?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2621, "page_number": "2614", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.Not to the fullest extent. After all he held too many functions which prevented him from doing so.\nQ.Now, what was his office address in Posen?\nA.His address was Gauleiter and Reichstatthalter, Posen, German Castle.\nQ.Now, that is not the same building that you had your office in, is it?\nA.No.\nQ.Now, how about Koppe; where was-he was Greiser's assistant, wasn't he, or deputy?\nA.Koppe in his capacity as higher SS and Police leader was the representative of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism; in this capacity he represented, was the deputy of the Reichstatthalter in his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Now, he had a good many jobs in addition to this as deputy to the deputy of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, didn't he?\nA.No, Koppe was not the deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. He was the representative of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Yes, that is what I said.\nA.After all the Reich Commissar was Himmler himself.\nQ.Yes, you misunderstood me; that is the category I put him in, but now, he had a number of other things to attend to besides looking after business in connection with the strengthening of Germanism, didn't he?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2622, "page_number": "2615", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.And what was his office address in Posen?\nA.His office address was in his capacity as higher SS and police leader on the one hand and as leader of the SS sector Poznan, Fritz Reutherstrasse II-A.\nQ.Well, now, that is not the same building nor the same; nor is that building on the same street which the building that you were in is on, is it; was it?\nA.I have already described that in my previous statements that it was not located within the same building.\nQ.Did he have an office of any kind in that building where this Posen field office was located?\nA.No. The field office was located at No. 10 Henholzstrasse.\nQ.Well, now, I want to hand you a document. It is NO-3180. Now, what is that document that I have handed you there?\nA.This is a list of the members of the personnel, of the male personnel of the staff in the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in Poznan, of 1 October, 1944; and it does not bear any signature.\nQ.Do you know who prepared that? Was that prepared in your office?\nA.It is impossible for me to see that from the document; it may have been written any place.\nQ.Well, you have seen that document before, haven't you?\nA.It is quite impossible for me to recall whether I ever saw a list of personnel of which there were hundreds. After all, there is no letterhead on this document and nothing else from which it becomes evident just where this list was compiled.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2623, "page_number": "2616", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Well, who - that is the list of the male member of the office of deputy to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in Posen. Now, that has, oh about 190 or 200 names on it; approximately 200 names; now, whose name is first on the list?\nA.My name.\nQ.Your name leads the list. Now.\nA.Yes, my name is first.\nQ.Yes, and what two positions does this list give you.\nA.Under positions and remarks it states staff leader, and head of the agency.\nQ.Will you please state whether or not that is correct or incorrect?\nA.Since it has been put down under the heading of staff leader, it is quite correct.\nQ.Well, how about office chief; that is what we have arguing about here. It also says you are the office chief. That is what you testified to for about half of yesterday that you weren't the office head. Now, this says you are. I just ask you whether or not it's correct.\nA.I want to repeat once more that since this term stands under the heading of staff leader, it is correct; the staff leader was the head of the internal organization, and consequently he was the organizational head of the office is quite correct.\nQ.Well, is the term there where it says the office chief, is that; do you say that incorrectly describes you then?\nA.Whenever it comes under the staff leader it states quite clearly that he was in charge of the internal organization. After all, the chief would normally be the superior of all departments and he would not be contained \n COURT I CASE VIII in one individual department.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2624, "page_number": "2617", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Is anybody else in that list named as head of that office?\nA.He could not be named here because he was not in that agency. The chief of the office for his personnel advisor or his adjutant and his two or three collaborators were located at No. II-A Fritz Reutherstrasse in the office there, and that is why he is not listed here.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers Document No-3180 as Exhibit 318, to be submitted in evidence or rebuttal. Correction; that is Exhibit No. 817.\nQ.Now, I understand you to state on direct examination that you know nothing about any evacuations that took place after you were in Posen. Now, I hand you DocumentNO-3353; I beg your pardon. DocumentNO-5602and Document NO-5603, and ask you to examine those documents and see whether or not they would indicate that you did know about evacuations and deportations after you were in Posen.\nA.I did not quite understand your question; could you please repeat it?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2625, "page_number": "2618", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Those letters, one of which is signed by you, mention evacuation of Poles, does it not?\nA.Yes, and evacuation of a Pole by an ethnic German.\nQ.I understood you to say that there were no evacuations as long as you were there or after you had arrived in Posen.\nA.This was an evacuation which had nothing to do with the agency. After all, I am objecting here to the evaucation which was carried out by the ethnic German. I stated that within the scope of my agency no evacuations had been carried out during the time when I was staff leader, and that is quite correct.\nQ.So that you did -- you were aware of the fact that evacuations were being carried out at that time.\nA.I want to refer once more to the document. It states here explicitly that this was a wildcat deportation where somebody got pushed off his property. I made detailed statements about the fact that the Polish population moved together in certain places and this was not an evacuation, but this was just the fact that the Poles were pushed together, and here an ethnic German by the name of Bach, who had nothing to do with the agency, took this action on his own initiative. This is how it came to my knowledge and for that reason I wrote this letter so that such arbitrary actions could be avoided and prevented in the future. After all, the chief of the field office of the UWZ is also mentioned in this respect.\nQ.So you did know about these things then. Now,\nA.Please?\nQ.You say that -\nA.Well, after I signed this letter it certainly must have come to my knowledge.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution offers for identification Document NO-5602 as Exhibit 818 and DocumentNO-5603as Exhibit 819, to be introduced as Prosecution exhibits on rebuttal.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2626, "page_number": "2619", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Now, you stated that these Poles were all pushed together. In other words, you knew when you brought people into Germany that the Poles would have to be taken away from their property or evacuated from their property; and these Poles were all pushed together. Now, why didn't you send those Poles out to the Government General or some place; why did you keep them there?\nA.I stated in detail and explicitly that evacuations were not carried out any more since March, 1941; they were not possible any more, and I believe I stated just as much in detail under what circumstances and in what manner this crowding together of Poles took place, whether in the native population, not only in the native population, but also the German population had to be crowded together in order to make it possible to accommodate further additional resettlers.\nQ.Well, didn't you keep these Poles there for the purpose of using them for labor, not only in Germany proper where you wanted to take them back to Germany proper, but you used them for labor battalions there in Poland and the Warthegau.\nA.I have stated quite in detail and I do not think I can put it more precisely that the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism was not competent at all for labor allocation in Germany proper or anywhere else; it was just as little competent for labor allocation measures within the Warthegau. The agencies of the labor allocation authorities, the Reich Trustee of Labor, was solely competent for that, together with his subordinated agencies.\nQ.Now, you stated that you weren't employed or didn't work for an SS office. Wasn't RuSHA an SS office?\nA.Of course it was.\nQ.Well, you worked for RuSHA, didn't you?\nA.Yes, I stated that quite in detail.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2627, "page_number": "2620", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Well, I thought I understood you to say -\nA.I stated that quite in detail; I said that.\nQ.I understood you to say that when you were discussing your SS connections, that you were not employed by an SS office. I just wanted to bring that out clearly; so, you were working for an SS office in Posen, RuSHA.\nA.From 1940 until 1945 I was a member of a top level Reich Agency, and besides that in 1942 I took over the position of the race and settlement leader; I said that quite in detail and quite clearly.\nQ.Now, as a race and settlement leader you got distribution from the Main Office of RuSHA; you were on their Distribution List No. 3, and you received that distribution, did you not?\nA.Whether this was Distribution List No. 3 or No. 4, I don't know.\nQ.You did receive that distribution that is listed for you, Distribution List No. 3. If you will look on Distribution List No. 3 you will see that the Warthegau is listed there.\nA.Nothing is mentioned here about the Warthegau under No. 3. It only states there the higher SS and police leader and SS leader in the race and settlement service . Oh, I see here. All the main sectors are listed here; they were SS leaders in the race and resettlement services, amongst than is also the Warthegau.\nQ.So you did receive Distribution No. 3, from the Main Race and Settlement Office.\nA.According to the Distribution List 3, I can't tell whether I actually received all the distributions.\nQ.Well, you know that you did receive a good deal of stuff from the Main Race and Settlement Office, don't you? You received letters and orders and decrees and circulars and various things like that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2628, "page_number": "2621", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.I know that in part, however, I don't know precisely to what extent we received regulations, circulars and things like that. In this respect I also described in detail why this was the case, and why I could not have precise knowledge about the factual work which was done. Consequently, I don't know to what extent the RuSHA agency received these orders.\nMR. LAMB:Hand me that document please. Well, now, with reference to the first, the Prosecution now offers for identification DocumentNO-3353, to be identified Prosecution Exhibit820, to be introduced by the Prosecution on rebuttal.\nQ.Now, with reference to this ghetto where you have stated that some houses were demolished there; you stated that you passed that ghetto, passed through it a good many times and you saw it, and you know about it. Now, that ghetto was crowded, wasn't it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.It was over-crowded, wasn't it?\nA.I was unable to see that from the street. If I passed through the street with a car I couldn't overlook the territory which included twenty kilometers, which amounted to an area seven point five square kilometers. I can only see what happens to the left and to the ritht of the street.\nQ.Well, the part that you saw appeared to be over-crowded didn't it?\nA.Of course there was quite normal traffic, and what happened to the right or left of the street -\nQ.Well, there were a lot of houses there were demolished there; you know that?\nA.Not quite a number of them, but fourteen two-story houses and four one-story houses.\nQ.But in addition to the ones that you demolished, that you sere connected with, there were others that were demolished too, \n weren't there?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2629, "page_number": "2622", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.Well, first of all I didn't demolish any houses.\nQ.I know, but you were connected with the ones who did; you discussed that this morning that you were connected with it.\nA.I know about it; I know that they were demolished.\nQ.Well, what became of the Jews that were in there?\nA.The Jews weren't living there any more. The ghetto had already been cleared in the middle of 1944.\nQ.Well, now, where had those Jews been sent that were in the ghetto; you knew that they had been sent out, didn't you?\nA.Since they weren't there any more, they must have been taken away from there.\nQ.Didn't you know they had been sent to Treblinka for extermination?\nA.Just how I should have known of that, I don't know; I only knew they had been taken to another camp; I don't know where they were sent.\nQ.Well, I understand you to say in your direct examination with reference to that first organization that you joined the German Youth Movement. I forget just exactly how the term, the name of the organization, but it was the first one that you joined prior to the time you joined up with Hitler. I believe you said that it had no clause in it against the Jews; in other words, it wasn't exclusively for aryans; is that true?\nA.As far as I know, yes, because from this order of the Young Germans in 1923 or 1924 the German National Party was organized, whose leader was also the leader of the order of the Young German National Party was the democratic party, and it was based upon the Weimar Constitution.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2630, "page_number": "2623", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Why was it that this Jewishperson that you were working for mistreated you because you belonged to it?\nA.Well, that is what I couldn't understand. It was completely incomprehensible to me.\nQ.You knew Hitler personally, didn't you, about 1921, 1922? You met him?\nA.I stated explicitly that I did not have any close contact with Hitler. I didn't know him personally nor did I have any close contact with him.\nQ.Now, when you were called to the Munich Hall that night for that Putsch, what time did you first go there?\nA.I was not called to Munich because I was in Munich.\nQ.You said the organization was called together, the members of the organization were called together.\nA.I stated that in the afternoon I was called away from the bank where I was working in order to be present at a formation.\nQ.Well, that was on the 8th?\nA.Yes, that was on the 8th of November.\nQ.And then how long did you stay there?\nA.At the bank?\nQ.No, at the meeting when you were called to formation; the formation you were called to.\nA.I stated at that already before too. I stayed there until the afternoon of the following day.\nQ.In other words, you were there ready to join this revolution whenever they told you to and it looked like it wasn't coming on, so finally on the afternoon of the 9th, the next day, they dismissed you. Isn't that the truth? You were there ready and willing to joinit?\nA.We had received the order to stay there and to wait for further instructions and these orders did not arrive. We were waiting there in \n a beer hall.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2631, "page_number": "2624", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "We were drinking beer. It was the only occupation we had there. On the following day, in the afternoon, the order arrived that we should break up and go home. It was my whole active participation in this Ptusch. It is a fact which cannot be changed whatsoever.\nQ.Well, you knew whatthey called you there for, didn't you?\nA.I don't know the individual purpose. After all, we did not receive any orders and consequently we couldn't know just what the purpose of this formation was.\nMR. LAMB:I have no further questions, your Honor.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I would like to ask the witness a few brief questions which arose from the cross examination.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Witness, is it correct that the deputy representative, Koppe, regularly was described as the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes, and they were explicit orders from Himmler about that.\nQ.How did Koppe inform himself regularly of the business transactions and the work of the agency, that is to say, your agency at No. 13 Kaisserring at Poznan?\nA.As I have already stated before in detail, Koppe on one occasion regularly had the Main Department chiefs and the experts report to him and not a day passed when he called up at least ten or more times a day and beyond that I, in my capacity as staff leader, had to report to him constantly also.\nQ.Now, with regard to Exhibit 817, what did the term Office Chief mean, head of the agency, in that connection, in this document? (Document handed to witness.)\nA.This is a list of personnel and the term head of the agency has been placed under the term staff leader and therefore nothing else could be meant by that than that the head of the agency was in charge \n of the internal organization.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "DR. DURCHHOLZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2632, "page_number": "2625", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "I don't believe that the chief of the agency would subordinate himself to the department.\nQ.Now, please go through the list and take a look at it and see whether it is complete. For example, was Main Department 3 mentioned in this list?\nA.I am unable to find it. No, it is not contained in this list.\nQ.Can you give us reasons why this Main Department is not included here?\nA.Well, after all, it was accommodated outside of our office building, just like several departments of this agency. The agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar did not comprise one building but it included for or five buildings which sometimes were three or four kilometers away from the Kaiserring.\nMay I add something in this connection? I have just seen some other mistake with regard to the organization there. Here the agency Lehmbau has been mentioned, clay construction. It did not belong to the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar. It didn't belong to it any more at the time when this list was drafted on the 1 October 1944.\nQ.I am now coming to the two other exhibits which have been offered, Exhibit 819 and Exhibit 818. What was the task of the member of the labor staff whose name was Bach? Was that the transfer of free settlers and people who had suffered war damage?\nA.Please allow me one minute because I haven't even read the second document yet. From this I see -- and I was only able to look at it very superficially -- that this is the transfer of ethnic Germans who were located on farms which had suffered war damage, and the office of culture, that is, the higher settlement agency, carried out this drive and SS Obersturmfuehrer Hahn has been mentioned here several times, whom I know by name, and I know of him, that he was a member of the UWZ; and, as I can see now, the labor staff, Dietfurt, complains about this wild settlement of ethnic. Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2633, "page_number": "2626", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Now, please read Page 2 of the letter of the labor staff. Who carried out the evacuations?\nA.Well, a police battalion.\nQ.Was it Hahn?\nA.Yes. I just said that Obersturmfuehrer Hahn was a member of the UWZ and here you once again see the collaboration which existed between the UWZ and the police and the head of the labor staff complains about these measures. He complains about arbitrary measures.\nQ.And what was Bach's task in that respect?\nA.Bach was to clear up the matter as far as this was still possible and he was to see to it that Polish families who had been evacuated unjustly were brought back again.\nQ.And now I have another question. Are transfers evacuations in that sense?\nA.I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.It is mentioned here that \"Umsetzungen\" -- transfers -took place. Does this mean evacuations were carried out?\nA.Transfers have nothing whatsoever to do with evacuation measures.\nQ.And why did you pass on this letter from the labor staff to the chief of the Security Police?\nA.In order to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.\nQ.No I am coming to the last document which was put to you. Did the fact that an agency received a certain order by distribution plan, did this mean that the agency factually had to deal with the matter?Were there any orders which were only sent to an agency for information purposes?\nA.I received quite a number of such decrees and I have seen quite a number of them in the document books which have been submitted. There were decrees and orders which were only sent to our agency for our information.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2634, "page_number": "2627", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Can you give us an example, perhaps?\nA.At the moment, I cannot think of any examples. However, orders arrived about all possible things and fields of work, extracts from decrees and orders of other agencies which were also sent to the Race and Settlement leaders through the RUS channel because otherwise he wouldn't have received them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2635, "page_number": "2628", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QNow a final question. As a result of the documents which were put to you in cross-examination, and as a result of the questions which have been put to you in cross-examinations, did you contradict any statements you made in the direct examination? Do you want to correct them? Do you want to change them, or would you like to furnish additional information?\nANo.\nQThank you, witness.\nI have no further questions.\nDR.DURCHHOLZ (Counsel for defendant Ruebner): Your Honor, I would like to state at this time for all the facts which the witness has stated on the witness stand I shall offer proof by submitting my documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. (Witness excused).\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I should like to call my first female witness, and she is Luise Kuetenbrink.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nLUISEKUETENBRINK; a witness, came to the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION LUISE KUETENBRNK BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQWitness, please tell this Tribunal your personal data?\nAMy name is Luise Kuetenbrink. I was born on the 17th of March, 1915, at Recklinghausen. I am a resident of Recklinghausen, at number 73 \n Boerster Weg.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "LUISE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2636, "page_number": "2629", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QPlease describe briefly to the Tribunal your professional training?\nAI first attended public schools for four years; then, after that time, I matriculated, and then for three years I received commercial training. Afterwards, I occupied various positions in offices.\nQDuring the war, did you work in the agency of the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, at Poznan?\nAYes.\nQDuring what period of time?\nAFrom May 1941 until January 1945.\nQWhat field of work did you deal with at the agency?\nAI was Herr Huebner's secretary. In the year 1944 I was a collaborator in the Settlement Staff Alexandrowo. In July 1944 I returned to my old position.\nQYou went back to Herr Huebner at Poznan?\nAYes.\nQWho was the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Poznan?\nAThat was Reichsstatthalter Greiser.\nQAnd who was his permanent deputy?\nAThat was the Higher SS & Police Leader, whoever it happened to be. He was the deputy representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, also.\nQAnd who was the chief of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAThat was the Reichsstatthalter, in his capacity as the representative of the Reich Commissar. In everyday business, however, it was the deputy representative as the deputy who was in charge of the business management.\nQCan you tell us what persons occupied that office?\nAYes, until the year 1943 it was SS Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2637, "page_number": "2630", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "After that time, until the end of 1943, when he died, Obergruppenfuehrer Berkelmann. And from February 1944 on, it was SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinefarth.\nQWhen did Herr Huebner enter the agency of the Representative of the Reich Commissar?\nAThat was in June, 1941.\nQAnd what position did Herr Huebner occupy there?\nAFirst of all, he was the deputy of Oberfuehrer Doering, who had been called up for military service. When Oberfuehrer Doering, after he returned from military service, was permanently tranferred to another position, he became the staff leader of the agency.\nQAnd when was that?\nAThat must have been approximately the end of 1941.\nQWhat tasks did Herr Huebner have to take care of in his capacity as staff leader?\nAHe was responsible for the direction of all personnel and organizational matters within the agency. To this also belonged the establishment of the general prerequisites for all business which had to be taken care of in the agency.\nQDid this activity only refer to the agency at Poznan?\nANo, not only to the agency at Poznan, but, furthermore, also to the 37 or 40 settlement and labor offices.\nQYou described Herr Huebner as the head of the internal organization. Can you tell us something about the tasks which belonged to that position?\nABesides personnel questions, there were mainly organizational matters which had to be taken care of. The working hours had to be fixed; the visiting hours; disciplinary matters; and the assignment of motor vehicles; procurement of gasoline; registration; incoming and out-going mail, and all fields of work which concerned all main departments to an equal extent.\nQWere these tasks unified in one particular department?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2638, "page_number": "2631", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "AYes; in the department of which Herr Huebner was in charge.\nQWas Herr Huebner included in the factual work of the agency?\nANot as far as his own responsibility went. The chief of the agency, Herr Koppe, desired, however, that Herr Huebner should report to him the matters which happened in the main departments. Herr Koppe, as a result of this, wanted to make his own work easier and he did not want to negotiate with each chief of a main department individually.\nQAnd how did Herr Huebner carry out this task?\nAFrom the heads of the various main departments, Herr Huebner had submitted to him all questions which a chief of an agency had to decide upon. He then would collect them and write them to the attention of Herr Koppe, and then he would inform the heads of the main departments of Koppe's decision.\nQDid Herr Huebner have the right to issue instructions on his own initiative?\nANo; as far as the tasks of the various main departments were concerned, he did not have that right. He only would pass on Herr Koppe's orders to the individual heads of the main departments.\nQIf I understood you correctly, consequently Herr Huebner only gave his own instructions in his staff department?\nAYes, that is quite correct.\nQDid Herr Huebner submit all matters of the main department to the chief of the agency?\nANo, not all of them.\nQCan you tell me why he did not do that?\nAHerr Koppe was a very active man. Even if he desired in part that Herr Huebner should submit these matters to him, then still, in many other cases, he would address the heads of the main departments directly, and he would also approach the settlement staffs which were subordinated to the main department, directly. He also did this in many individual cases.\nQIn the cases when he made the report, did Herr Huebner also comment \n factually on these matters?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2639, "page_number": "2632", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "ANo.\nQWhy do you know that?\nABecause I always prepared his files whenever he went to report.\nQFrom your previous statements, it can therefore be deducted that the chief of the agency would give the factual orders?\nAYes.\nQAnd who would also issue factual instructions?\nAFundamental directives for work were issued by the main staff office. Factual instructions which concerned the individual main departments mostly came from the individual offices of the main staff office.\nQDid the main staff office always put down these orders in writing?\nANo; many oral discussions also took place.\nQAnd how were these carried out?\nAThe chief of the main staff office only visited the agency once or twice. However, the individual office chiefs in the main office staff would come to see the agency in Poznan frequently in order to have discussions there with the individual main department heads.\nQDid Herr Huebner participate in these discussions?\nANo; he was not present when these discussions took place. The visitors would just pay him a short courtesy visit, so to speak, just as you would pay a visit to your host, perhaps.\nQWas Herr Huebner informed of the results of the discussions?\nAYes, if this was necessary, so that he would get a general look into the subject of the discussions. However, he would not be informed of details.\nQNow, the experts of the agency at Poznan also went to Berlin in order to report there?\nAYes, this happened all the time, First of all, they went to Berlin and later on they went to Schweikelberg, when the main staff had been transferred there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2640, "page_number": "2633", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QDid Herr Huebner go to Berlin to visit the main staff office?\nAYes, this may have occurred, but at the most only four or five times.\nQDo you know what was the reason for these trips?\nAYes, perhaps he had received an invitation or perhaps he had to care for his own private matters in Berlin.\nQNow, can you tell us how the general correspondence was handled as far as it dealt with official matters?\nAThe correspondence between the main department and the experts in the corresponding offices in Berlin was handled directly.\nQAnd who signed this part of the correspondence?\nAThe head of the main department or his deputy.\nQAnd who signed incidents of a factual nature?\nAThe main department would comment on them and they were passed on to Herr Koppe. He then would work out this letter to his personal advisor, and then pass it on. He would pass especially important incidents to Greiser himself, who was the representative.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2641, "page_number": "2634", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.And was this channel always adhered to, without any exceptions?\nA.No, Herr Koppe authorized Herr Huebner in individual cases, in order to personally take care of matters and to assign them personally, and in order to relieve him of some of the burden of his work.\nQ.Was there also correspondence which Herr Huebner regularly signed independently, without any special individual authority, in that field?\nA.Naturally, in the field of work of the Staff Department Herr Huebner had the authority to sign, just as all heads of the Main Departments in their fields.\nQ.Can you tell us just how Herr Huebner signed?\nA.Herr Huebner always signed, \"By order of the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\" However, in the internal correspondence he would sign in his capacity as Staff Leader.\nQ.Therefore, from your testimony up to now, we can deduce that Herr Huebner was the organizational head of the agency, but he was not the chief. Can you give us some example or other, and explain it to us by means of such an example? May I remind you of the Languth case?\nA.There was a telephone conversation between Herr Huebner and Herr Koppe in this matter, and I heard part of it. Herr Huebner told me afterward what Herr Koppe had said in that connection. This was perhaps in the middle of 1942. Herr Huebner had a collaborator by the name of Dr. Languth, and he had given him a rather extensive furlough without Koppe's knowledge. Herr Koppe was extremely annoyed about this matter, and that is why he took him to account in that telephone conversation. He said: You are not the chief of the agency, but you are only the staff leader. I hope that it will only be necessary for me to clarify this once and for all.\"\nQ.Can you now tell us how the so-called invitation lists worked?\nA.In the office of Reichsstatthalter Greiser, so-called invitation lists were compiled.\nQ.What was the purpose of these invitation lists?\nA.These lists contained names and addresses of all those persons who were to be invited to representative ceremonies.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2642, "page_number": "2635", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Was Herr Huebner also listed?\nA.Yes, but only in the third category.\nQ.What categories were there?\nA.Well, Group 1 was comprised of the chiefs on the district level, the chiefs of the National Socialist organizations, and important economic leaders. Group 2 included the Gauamtsleiter, the department heads of the authorities, and the government presidents. Group No. 3 included the Kreisleiters and Landraete, and it included all those persons who occupied a somewhat representative position.\nQ.If Herr Huebner had been the chief of the agency, in what category would he have appeared?\nA.He would have been listed in the first, by all means, because the agency was on a district level 1.\nQ.And how do you know that Herr Huebner was actually listed under the third group?\nA.Because I myself once made an inquiry, when Herr Huebner did not receive an invitation for some sort of a ceremony.\nQ.Now something else. How was the incoming mail distributed within the agency?\nA.It was sent to the staff department, to the incoming mail section. There it was opened and it was marked for the individual main departments, and it would then be sent directly to the individual main departments.\nQ.And what incoming mail was turned over to Herr Huebner?\nA.The mail which was addressed to the staff section, as well as the letters which were addressed to him privately.\nQ.Can you say how the incoming mail was addressed which arrived from the superior agencies?\nA.To the Reichsstatthalter, Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Posen, 13 Kaiserring. The mail which arrived for the Land Office would have the additional line, \"Land Office\". For the Main Department of Economy, the mail which arrived would have the addition, \"Economy\", and this did not come into the agency of the representat \n of the Reich Commissar, because it was located elsewhere.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2643, "page_number": "2636", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Have you now described the entire field of work of Huebner, or did he have to take care of some other activities?\nA.Herr Huebner had received a special assignment from Herr Koppe, namely, the supervision of the care which was given to the resettlers.\nQ.Do you know the reason why this assignment was given to him?\nA.In his former field of work, Herr Huebner had organized such an excellent care for the resettlers that Herr Koppe charged him with the care of the resettlers in all districts and he wanted to have it organized in the same manner.\nQ.Do you know whether this work took up a lot of time?\nA.Yes, it took up very much time, especially because many visitors arrived at the agency as a result of this work.\nQ.What cuased that?\nA.In the course of time it became more and more known, especially amongst the resettlers, that Herr Huebner dealt with the care of resettlers and that he was ready to listen to their problems. Many resettlers, therefor would come and make their requests to him personally.\nQ.Did visitors also come to the agency about other matters?\nA.Yes, naturally. After all, he was the organizational head of the agency.\nQ.And what was Herr Huebner's task in that respect?\nA.Herr Huebner ascertained just what they wanted. Then he would turn the visitors over to the competent main department, and if no agreement was reached there, then Herr Huebner tried to act as an intermediary. If he did not have any success there either, then the matter was passed on to the chief of the agency, Koppe. Fundamentally, all complaints had to be passed on to Herr Koppe.\nQ.How is it that you are so precisely acquanited with all the deta about the visitors who came there?\nA.Because I had to keep books precisely about each visitor and the reason for his visit.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2644, "page_number": "2637", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "Q.Can you tell us how many visitors would arrive at the office during one day?\nA.Perhaps twenty or thirty.\nQ.You have also described Herr Huebner as being competent for disciplinary measures and punitive measures. Did Herr Huebner also carry out this task impartially at all times?\nA.Yes; he would use the necessary severity in individual cases.\nQ.Principally, what sort of cases were they which were so severely disciplined by Herr Huebner?\nA.Mainly embezzlement of Polish or Jewish property.\nQ.Did it have any influence on Huebner's execution if the culprit occupied a position in the Party or if he had a rank in the SS?\nA.No, I was never able to observe that. On the contrary, SS officers were always punished with particular severity.\nQ.Can you say whether Herr Hubner, as head of personnel questions, was always fair?\nA.Yes, he was always impartial and fair. On the other hand, he also looked after the social care and he did everything in his power.\nQ.Did you notice that Herr Huebner, within the agency, recruited and made propaganda for the Party?\nA.No, he did not do that. I can confirm that because I personally was not a member of the Party.\nQ.Can you tell us what the percentage of SS members was amongst the male members of the agency?\nA.I would say that they amounted to approximately 5 percent.\nQ.What was Herr Huebner's attitude towards the Polish members of the agency?\nA.He was able to alleviate their conditions, and he demanded the same attitude on the part of his other collaborators. I also know that he failed to observe the dismissal of Polish employees which had been ordered from Berlin.\nQ.Did you ever notice that Herr Huebner took over Polish or Jewish \n property?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2645, "page_number": "2638", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "A.No, he did not do that. His apartment consisted of furniture which he had had sent from Stuttgart.\nQ.Can you tell us briefly what Herr Huebner's attitude was when his agency was dissolved in the year 1945?\nA.He left all his personal belongings behind, without any exception. He only worried about the transporting away of all members of his agency.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal would like to make a supplementary statement with reference to the documents that are yet to be introduced in evidence. While we fixed a deadline of January 15, after which the Translation Department will receive no documents for translation from either the Prosecution or Defense, what we want to say now is, please don't wait until January 15. The documents that you have ready, please get them into the hands of the Translation Department, because otherwise you may run into a bottleneck. Under the repeated request made by the Tribunal, beginning as far back as the day of arraignment, we see no reason why all documents that are to be introduced in evidence should not now be ready for the Translation Department. If you do wait until the deadline of January 15 and your documents do not get translated in time to get into evidence before we conclude, they just will not get in evidence at all. So it is to your interest to get them into the hands of the Translation Department now.\nThe Defense Counsel who are present will please convey this message to those who are not.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning, downstairs.\n(At 1630 hours, 16 December 1947, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 17 December 1947)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2646, "page_number": "2639", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg.\nGermany, 17 December 1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are in the court room with the exception of the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination of this witness.\nLUISE KUETENBRINK - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Huebner) May it please the Tribunal, I would now like to continue my examination of this witness.\nQ.Yesterday afternoon you gave a description of the field of work of the defendant Huebner, and I now would like to ask you several questions with regard to the counts of the Indictment. Do you know of the happenings pertaining to the accommodation and allocation of labor of the so-called Germans from the Black Sea area?\nA.Yes, I know of them because at that time I was working with the settlement staff of the so-called central staff office.\nQ.Did the Black Sea Germans arrive in an orderly manner?\nA.No, one could not say that at all: under the pressure of the Russian advance it was a flight rather than a repatriation.\nQ.Was the accommodation of the Black Sea Germans by the agency especially difficult?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2647, "page_number": "2640", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Was it perhaps planned that these Germans from the Black Sea area were to be settled as it had been done previously in the case of resettlements?\nA.No, that was not planned; it was only planned to temporarily accommodate them and to give them temporarily, work.\nQ.And who was in charge of this entire drive?\nA.As matters had to be rushed, Gauleiter Greiser as the plenipotentiary of the agency for the strengthening of Germanism had reserved the right to take care of this work himself.\nQ.And did the defendant Huebner take also part in this drive?\nA.Yes, the defendant did much more in this case than he had done in the settlement action.\nQ.And what was the practical effect of this interference?\nA.All important decrees and directives originated in the office of the Gauleiter and were broadcasted by wire to the subordinated agencies.\nQ.And who were these subordinated agencies?\nA.They were the Kreisleiters?\nQ.And what caused him to do that?\nA.To take over the work by himself?\nQ.Yes, that is what I mean.\nA.Well, because the matter had to be settled very quickly.\nQ.And what about the labor and settlement staff?\nA.The labor and settlement staffs didn't have enough personnel any more and therefore they were unable to cope with the situation, with the work that was taken over.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that it is necessary when Counsel has finished a question to pause long enough for the question to be interpreted before giving the answer, and when you see those lights flash, that means to take it slow.\nA.Yes.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:I have tried to tell the witness this morning \n that she should talk somewhat more slowly.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DURCHHOLZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2648, "page_number": "2641", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Why did the labor staff have so little personnel staff at that time already?\nA.First of all, the main settlement drive had already been completed; and secondly, because Berlin always demanded that the personnel should be reduced.\nQ.Did the labor and settlement staffs also participate in this drive?\nA.Yes, the kreisleiters made use of the labor staffs, it was their actual task.\nQ.What was the task of the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in Posen in this entire action?\nA.The agency of the plenipotentiary of the Poznan agency would again compile all important decrees and directives after discussions with the Gauleiters, and these rewritten instructions were given to all participating agencies. After all, the instructions could not be passed on orally, as that was not a reliable method; The Kreisleiters only had the wire broadcast system. And otherwise there could easily have been mistakes.\nQ.Were any other authorities engaged in this drive?\nA.Yes, later on the labor offices also.\nQ.Why was this done only later on?\nA.I repeated already before that the repatriation of the Germans from the Black Sea area was not carried out in an orderly manner and the Reichsfuehrer SS did all that to avoid an over-exhaustion of the refugees, and had ordered that for the time being were not to be included in the working process, and he had prohibited the labor office from participating in this drive.\nQ.How were these Germans from the Black Sea areas to be placed in work?\nA.First of all the Germans from the Black Sea area received \n an allowance so that they could, live; later on the Kreisleiters slowly tried to get some work for these Germans from the Black Sea area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2649, "page_number": "2642", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Were they successful in doing so?\nA.Actually not because it was very difficult to find work for them.\nQ.Were there enough places of work for them?\nA.No. There were not sufficient places of work for them, and that is why the matter became so difficult. Germans from the Black Sea area had to divide up their work which usually had Been done By one individual person, and of course they also had to divide up the wages between them and that was not sufficient for either one of them.\nQ.Did this have any consequences?\nA.Yes, of course everybody knew that this couldn't go on and that something had to be done about it.\nQ.Did not jobs have to be found for these refugees?\nA.Yes, Gauleiter Greiser succeeded that this decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS was rescinded and that the labor office then was allowed to intervene in this procedure.\nQ.And did then some other agency also play a part in this?\nA.Yes, the Reichstatthalter, the labor department and the Reichstatthalter's office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2650, "page_number": "2643", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QAnd how did this agency try to master all the difficulties?\nAIt could not be done otherwise than by dismissing Poles from their work and to put in Germans from the Black Sea area into the positions.\nQWitness, do you know what was to be done with these Poles?\nAYes, these Poles were then to be deported, and they were given work outside of the Warthegau.\nQWere any final orders issued about that?\nAYes, as far as I know, these Poles were to be sent to southern France.\nQAnd in what way were these orders announced?\nAThey were announced just like all other orders, through wire broadcast.\nQWere these orders also received in writing?\nAYes, they were repeated in writing.\nQCan you tell me who issued these orders?\nAYes, this was an order which the Gauleiter issued with the other agency, the labor office in the office of the Reichstatthalter.\nQAnd were these orders collected some place?\nAYes, these orders were collected in the agency of the plenipotentiary and they were compiled there.\nQThey were distributed also?\nAYes.\nQI would like to put to you Prosecution Exhibit No.199, in Document Book V-A, on page 3 of the German text, it is DocumentNO-4632. Do you know this decree?\nAYes, this is the repeating in writing of this order which I have just mentioned.\nQOn page 1 of this document reference is made to an order of the Gauleiter and Reichstatthalter of 11th January 1944. Can you tell what a decree this was?\nAYes, this was the first basic decree of the Gauleiter aid Reichstatthalter in matters pertaining to the settlement of Germans from the \n Black Sea areas.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2651, "page_number": "2644", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QWas this decree signed by the defendant Huebner?\nAYes.\nQWhy did he sign it, this document?\nAI have just stated that in the office of the Gauleiter these decrees were compiled and Herr Huebner always had to do there for these conferences and then these instructions, after having been broadcasted by wire, the decrees were passed on in writing to all the agencies. This was done in the agency of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commisar, and that is why he has signed this document.\nQThe way this signature was handled, did that comply with the authority to sign that you have described to us yesterday?\nAYes, essentially I told you already yesterday that in the individual cases the chief of the agency had authorized Huebner to sign documents.\nQCan you tell us whether this entire decree that you have before you is an order of the labor office or to be more precise whether this is a decree from the Reichstatthalter, labor section of his office?\nAI would assume that in any case when I read paragraph 1; in the case of paragraph 2 it can also be possible that the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar may have collaborated in this matter.\nQYou told us before that the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar had collected the decrees and orders from other agencies. Do I understand from your answer before that it also had its own factual competence?\nAYes, naturally. After all we had to supervise the accommodation of these Germans from the Blank Sea area and we had also to take care of them otherwise. That is why I have reached the opinion that paragraph 2 was drafted in collaboration with the agency of the Reich Commissar.\nQNow, please take a look at paragraph Roman T/3 in this document. Here is a list mentioned which was to be passed on to the UWZ. Can you tell us which one of the agencies mentioned in this decree that to \n receive these instructions had to select the persons who were to be evacuated?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2652, "page_number": "2645", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AThese lists certainly must have been passed on to UWZ through the labor office because the labor office also had to select the work for these people.\nQCan you tell us just who passed on these lists?\nAIt is possible that the labor office used the office of the Kreisleiter or the office of the local party group leader, the Ortagruppenleiter.\nQThat is the party organizations?\nAYes.\nQAnd in compiling these lists were the settlement staffs included also in that work?\nANo.\nQCan you give us the reasons for that?\nAAfter all they were not competent for that. The selection of the places of work was not carried out by the working staff leader.\nQWere such places of work cleared of Poles in writing and were those Poles actually evacuated?\nAIn my agency, Alexandrowo, no evacuations at all were carried out any more. I assume that the same thing applied to all the other agencies.\nQCan you tell us why?\nAThis decree bears the date 17th May, and these Poles were to be sent to Southern France. However, already in June the invasion in Northern France took place, and already for that reason it was impossible to accommodate these Poles in France.\nQDid the agency of the representative Posen deal at all with the selection for the evacuations of Poles?\nANo, the agency of the plenipotentiary of the the Reich Commissar at Posen, had nothing to do with it. It only dealt with Germans.\nQDidn't Herr Huebner point out the facts to the settlement staffs subordinated to him?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2653, "page_number": "2646", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AYes, if he did that frequently, because in individual cases excesses would occur by the labor staff because they would interfere with evacuations, which they had no right to do; the UWZ had to deal with the matter and in such cases they always complained to our agencies about this, Herr Huebner would point out to the settlement and working staffs that the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar as a result had nothing to do with this matter.\nQI am now going to put to you two Prosecution documents; these are Prosecution Exhibits Nos. 818 and 819. They are DocumentsNO-5602andNO-5603. Please read the second paragraph of Exhibit 819, and then please tell me quite briefly what actual incidents gave cause for this letter. I assume you wrote this letter yourself as it seems to have your dictation mark.\nAYes, I wrote this letter myself. In this case there were ethnic Germans of the Gau district which until 1919 had been part of the German Reich. The Main Staff Office in this connection had issued a decree according to which the ethnic Germans who had inferior farms could exchange their farms with Poles who had better farms.\nQAnd who carried out this exchange of property?\nAThis exchange was carried out on the district level Only; this was handled between the cultural office. The district farmer's council and the Landrats office.\nQCan you tell me briefly how this procedure was handled at the district level?\nAThere was no certain procedure set up; that varied according to the district, and it was left to the judgment of the individual agencies.\nQCould this drive then not be taken care of by the competent agencies as you had described it in the case of evacuations?\nANo, this was not an evacuation measure, but it was only an exchange.\nQHad only the authorities on the district level participated in it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2654, "page_number": "2647", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AYes.\nQCould the next higher level, the Gau level, the Gau authorities or of the agency of the plenipotentiary be included in this matter?\nAYes, it could be included; if any complaints arose, or if inquiries had been made; however, actually not.\nQAccording to the documents which you have before you, what brought about the inclusion in the matters of the settlement staff, first of all, and then of the agency of the plenipotentiary?\nAThere had been a complaint of the UWZ no doubt.\nQNow, please take a look at Exhibit 818, paragraph 1, According to the memorandum related there, a member of the working staff had been assigned on a so-called pushing out measure. Can you tell us what this meant?\nAThis expression is false in my opinion. This was only the exchange of farms of Poles and ethnic Germans which I have just mentioned.\nQYou stated with regard to the evacuations that these evacuations had been the task of the UWZ. Now, please take a look at Exhibit 819, at paragraph 4. How is it possible that agreements could be reached between a police battalion and the working staff?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2655, "page_number": "2648", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AFrom the incident itself, it becomes quite clear that the police had not fulfilled its duty as it was supposed to have done, and that is why the working Staff probably included itself in the matter independently.\nQI am now coming to another question. In the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Posen, was there a Referat at all, a department, which was competent for evacuation questions?\nANo, such a department did not exist in the agency.\nQDid you frequently see the director of the UWZ, or one of his collaborators, at the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Posen, perhaps In the course of discussions, or things of that sort?\nANo, I cannot recall ever having seen him at the agency.\nQI am going to put to you now Prosecution Exhibit566, in Document Book 13-A. You will find it on page 100 of the German text, and it is Document No.NO-2655. This is a report of SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Kraehl, of the Main Staff Office, and it deals with the socalled ghetto drive. Do you know anything about the ghetto drive?\nAYes, I did hear something about it. I can recall especially that I wrote a file note for Herr Huebner in this matter, after he had returned to Lodz from an official journey.\nQCan you tell us something about the contents of this file note?\nAThis was a discussion between Gruppenfuehrer Reinefahrt Herr Huebner and Herr Hirschberg, and they discussed the demolition of part of the Lodz ghetto. The Main Staff Office wanted to purchase that section, and to turn over to the resettlers the things which colud be used.\nQCan you tell us what part of the ghetto was concerned here?\nANo, I am not able to tell you that. In any case, it was only a very small part.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2656, "page_number": "2649", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QCan you tell us why Reinefahrt was to give his approval in this matter?\nAThe Main Staff Office could not reach an agreement about the price which was demanded for this, and it did not wish to furnish the sum for that immediately because it was feared that in the meantime all the objects would be stolen. That is why Reinefahrt gave his approval that this section of the ghetto was to be demolished first.\nQYou stated that there was danger of these objects being stolen. Was the ghetto already empty at the time?\nAYes, naturally, it had already been evacuated before.\nQCan you tell us for what purpose this section was to be turned over to this agency?\nAThe objects which were of some use, such as furniture, household goods, and crockery, were to be distributed to the resettlers.\nQDo you know whether this purchasing contract was concluded?\nANo, it was not concluded.\nQWhy did Gruppenfuehrer Reinefahrt have to give his approval at the beginning of this demolition work?\nAI have already told you that, because they were afraid that these objects would, be stolen otherwise.\nQDo you know whether these objects from the evacuated were actually distributed to the resettlers?\nAI know for certain that this was not done. After all, they did not want to get ahead of the purchasing negotiations, and all these objects were placed in storage for the time being.\nQDid Herr Huebner actually play any part in this matter?\nAActually, he did not play any part in it. However, he was present when this conference at Lodz took place, and as far as I know he also, later on, attended a conference at Berlin about this matter, at the Main Staff Office.\nQWas Herr Huebner factually competent for this matter?\nANo, he was not. The procurement of these objects was the task \n of the Main Department Economy.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2657, "page_number": "2650", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QWas he competent with regard to the care which was given to the resettlers in that respect?\nAYes, there he was definitely competent.\nQAccording to this document which I have put to you, Obersturmfuehrer Kraehl contends that according to a notification from Hirschberg the latter had been charged with the carrying out of the demolition work by Huebner. Can you say something in that connection?\nAThat is not possible at all. That is contrary to the file note which I wrote at the time. And then, it was not possible either because Gruppenfuehrer Reinefahrt was present at the conference which took place at the time, and if approval was given, then it could only have been given by Reinefahrt.\nQI am now going to put another document to you, from Document Book 4-B. This is Prosecution Exhibit161. You will find it on page 16 of the German text, and it constitutes Prosecution DocumentNO-2267. This is a letter from the Main Staff Office; addressed to the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS, of 20 February 1942. Is the contention contained in this letter correct according to which the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the Warthegau had named Polish girls to the field office of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Lodz, who were to be sent into Germany proper as domestic workers for the purpose of re-Germanization?\nAThe agency of the plenipotentiary at Posen had nothing to do with this matter, and it is quite impossible that such girls were reported by the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar to the field office of RuSHA at Lodz. I am quite certain that Herr Huebner had nothing to do with the matter.\nQDo you personally know something about this matter?\nAI know that the field office of RuSHA at Lodz dealt with things \n of that kind.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2658, "page_number": "2651", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "However, I do not know anything further about it.\nQI am going to put another document to you. from Document Book 8-B, Prosecution Exhibit407. You will find it on page 12 of the German text, and it is DocumentNO-1615. Do you know something about the selection of children from Polish orphanages for purposes of reGermanization?\nANo, I know nothing about it. The agency of the plenipotentiary definitely had nothing to do with it.\nQDo you know whether Herr Huebner played any part in this matter?\nAI am quite certain that Herr Huebner had nothing to do with it.\nQI am now coming to something else. Do you know that Herr Huebner saw to it that the resettlers were exempted from military service?\nAYes, I know that. First of all, he did that in individual cases, and then he would contact the local army authorities, and he usually succeeded in having these resettlers exempted from military service. Then, in the course of discussions with the Gauleiter, he also succeeded in having a fundamental decree issued whereby, for a certain period of time, the resettlers were to be sltogether exempted from military service.\nQDo you know whether Herr Huebner, amongst the members of the agency or amongst the resettlers, favored their voluntarily reporting for service in the Waffen SS?\nANo, he did not do that. On the contrary, he was always opposed to any recruiting being carried out for the Waffen SS. This applied to his own personnel as well as to the resettlers.\nQDid he have difficulties as a result of this?\nAYes; as a result of this, the replacement authorities of the Waffen SS at Posen did not like him.\nQDo you know whether Herr Huebner did recruiting work for the Party amongst the resettlers?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2659, "page_number": "2652", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "ANo, he did not do that either. On the contrary, as regards the Gauleiter he succeeded in having a decree issued according to which all recruiting for the Party and its formations was prohibited amongst the resettlers. He wanted the resettlers to be left alone for the time being so that they could get accustomed to their new living conditions.\nQNow I have several very brief questions about the activity of Herr Huebner as a Race and Settlement leader. Do you know anything about this activity of Huebner's?\nAYes, I am acquainted with that also. I worked with Huebner on all things with which he dealt.\nQDid Herr Huebner become active in that field?\nANo, he was unable to do that. He was far too overburdened with work to be able to do that. On the other hand, he had collaborators who were much better acquainted with the work than he was, and he could absolutely rely upon all of them.\nQDo you know whether the tasks of re-Germanization also had to be handled by the RuS leader at Posen?\nANo, this was handled by the field office at Lodz.\nQAnd what were the tasks of the Race and Settlement leader?\nAThese were more internal SS matters, such as approval of marriages, examinations for replacements in the Waffen SS, and things of that sort.\nQDo you know whether Herr Huebner personally carried out racial examinations?\nANo, he did not.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2660, "page_number": "2653", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QDid Herr Huebner play any part in examinations connected with the interruption of pregnancies of Polish women?\nANo, he never played any part in such examinations.\nQDo you know whether Herr Huebner participated in the decisions with regard to approval of marriages of Alien nationals?\nANo, he had nothing to do with that.\nQWere part of the tasks of the RuS leader also welfare matters?\nAYes, that was part of his work. He had to look after the families of SS members who had died, and things of that sort.\nQAnd was Herr Huebner especially active in that field?\nAYes, he did quite a lot of work there. He was somewhat more interested in that because of his other welfare work, which he did for the resettlers.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I have a question now. The witness has made five sketches for me about the organization of the agencies with which we are concerned here. Unfortunately, as a result of technical difficulties, it has not been possible for me to and submit them to the Tribunal. I now request permission of the Tribunal to put these sketches to the witness so that she may comment upon them orally, very briefly. I shall then include the sketches in my document book and thus bring them to the knowledge of the Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may let the witness identify at this time.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Thank you, Your Honor. BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQI am now going to put to you a so-called organizational plan of the agencies of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strenthening of Germanism at Posen, which covers the time form approximately the middle of 1941 to the beginning of 1945. Will you please tell us quite briefly just what this plan represents?\nAThis sketch shows the Higher SS and Police Leader as the deputy plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, and, from 1944, Gruppenfuehrer Reinefahrt.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2661, "page_number": "2654", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Subordinated to him was the agency with the various departments with Staff Leader Huebner, and the interior administration.\nMain Department 1, allocation of resettlers, was in the charge of Attorney Berns. It dealt with all organizational questions, the placement of resettlers, the care of resettlers, and welfare questions of resettlers.\nMain Department II, the Land Office, had Dr. Dauge as its head, and it dealt with the tasks of the registration of the land and the clarification of real estate titles.\nMain Department III, Economy, was directed by Dr. Lindner, and its field of work was the placing of the resettlers in the industrial sector.\nMain Department IV, Agriculture, was directed by Dr. Eichinger, and its task was the placing of resettlers in the agricultural sector.\nMain Department V, the financial Administration, was directed by Mundt, and its task was the financial administration.\nMain Department VI, Planning, was directed by Koch, and it had the task of taking care of general planning tasks.\nQI am now going to put to you a second sketch-\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal suggests to counsel that apparently the witness is simply reading the sketch or plan in detail and in toto. I just want to say that I would probably be better for everybody concerned if she would simply identify the instrument as being correct, without reading all that it shows on its face, since it is to be in evidence. I think it would be better for everybody.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I had originally intended to have these sketches placed before this Tribunal and the witness then could have confirmed the correctness of these charts. However, since it was not possible for me to have these sketches mimoegraphed, I tried in this way to see to it that the contents of these sketches would be brought to the attention of the Tribunal without putting the sketches before the Tribunal. Since I will introduce these sketches later on, I request permission of this Tribunal to have the witness give an \n affidavit stating that these sketches are correct.", "speakers": [ "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2662, "page_number": "2655", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Inonly tried to avoid having to submit an affidavit by this witness later on, since this witness is being examined here today.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you will have the witness simply identify these sketches as being correct, then if you have an identical sketch produced it will be considered by the Tribunal without any further proof about it.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Thank you, Your Honor.\nThen, in order to simplify the procedure, I request that the witness identify the next three sketches and state that they are correct, and then I shall ask no further questions with regard to these plans.\n(Document submitted to witness) BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQAre these three sketches, which I handed you just now, correct?\nAYes, they are correct.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:I have no further questions in the direct examination of this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else by defense counsel?\n(No response)\nProceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQYesterday you testified about a telephone conversation in which Koppe said that Huebner was not the chief of the office. When did that telephone conversation occur?\nAAs far as I know, it must have happened towards the middle of 1942. However, I cannot give you the exact time anymore, because it happened such a long time ago.\nQWhere were you when the conversation occured?\nAI just happened to be in Herr Huebner's office.\nQWhere was Koppe?\nAKoppe must have been in his office.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2663, "page_number": "2656", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q Well, were you listening on the telephone?\nANo, I was not.\nQWell, how do you know? How can you tell the Tribunal what Koppe said when you didn't hear him say it, and you have just quoted verbatim what he said?\nAI hear what Herr Huebner said, and since, of course, I heard that there was a very heated dispute going on, I immediately talked about the matter with Herr Huebner afterwards, and he quoted Koppe's words to me literally, and that is why I can repeat them.\nQIn other words, all you know is what Huebner told you?\nAYes. However, Huebner was not interested, after all, in telling me anything different. After all, he had just received a reprimanded from Herr Koppe.\nQYou say the conversation was pretty heated?\nAYes.\nQDid Herr Huebner feel that he had been mistreated by Koppe?\nAI don't want to say that, that he was badly treated. It was a reprimanded for him. He had exceeded his authority, and he had done something on his own responsibility.\nQWell, he argued with Koppe about it; you say that the conversation was pretty heated. He must have thought that he was within his authority, didn't he?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever take any trips to Warsaw? Did you have occasion to go to Warsaw with Huebner on trips?\nANo, I did not go there.\nQDid you ever see the ghetto at Lodz?\nANo, I never saw it.\nQYou knew one was there though, didn't you?\nAYes, I knew that.\nQAnd you knew, when this demolition took place, that all the *---* Jews had gone, didn't you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2664, "page_number": "2657", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AYes, I was aware of that fact.\nQAnd you knew that before that time there were thousands of Jews in there, didn't you?\nAI did not know how many Jews were located in the ghetto. I know that it was very big, as far as space was concerned. I know nothing further about it. After all, we never had anything to do with these matters, and I never met any people who dealt with these things.\nTherefore, I cannot tell you anything whatsoever about it.\nQYou have discussed your conversations here with the defendant. Didn't you ever have any conversation or hear any conversation about what became of all these thousands of Jews and why this furniture, these stoves, and these houses that could be demolished were available? Nobody ever discussed that?\nANo, I never heard anything about it.\nQIn other words, there were thousands and thousands of Jews in this ghetto and all of a sudden they dissapeared and nobody ever discussed it, although you did have something to do with the demolition of those houses, or some of those houses?\nAOf course, that is quite correct. After all, we had nothing to do with it. Previous to that, we had had no knowledge of it whatsoever. We only had something to do with it and we only heard of it after the ghetto had been demolished and after we were to use the object there for our resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2665, "page_number": "2658", "date": "17 November 1947", "date_iso": "1947-11-17", "text": "QYou say \"we.\" Do you mean that Huebner had no knowledge of that ghetto before this time?\nAI am quite sure that he knew that there was a ghetto at Lodz. Even I know that for example.\nQI thought you said you didn't know anything about it.\nAI did know, of course, that there was a ghetto at Lodz.\nQNow you testified a few minutes ago with reference to this Document 819 and also with reference to Document 818--Exhibit 818 and 819. This is a letter from Diefurt--that is the place. It is dated, and is from one Sigel. Now Sigel was in charge of one of the working staffs for Huebner, wasn't he?\nAOh, you mean Sigel, yes.\nQNow he worked for Huebner, didn't he?\nAYes, he worked in a subordinate agency. He was with the settlement or working staff.\nQNow he used a man named Hahn down there to help with his settlement work and Hahn was an ethnic German.\nAYes, Hahn was an ethnic German.\nQNow this letter that is written to him from his representative in Diefurt says that he used Hahn to work with the police in carrying out deportations and the police didn't like the way Hahn did it because Hahn had given them a list of Poles to be deported without checking that list carefully. Now that was in that letter, wasn't it?\nAYes.\nQYes. And Huebner's assistant or representative at Diefurt said that he was going to get--I beg your pardon--on that, Bach was the ethnic German that had carried out these deportations.\nAYes.\nQAnd where I used the name \"Hahn,\" I intended to use the name \"Bach.\" But Huebner's representative there said that he was going to replace Bach with a man named Hahn. That is true, isn't it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2666, "page_number": "2659", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AWould you please permit me another look at the document?\n(Witness is offered the document.)\nQNow, would you please look at the last paragraph there and see if it isn't stated that in the future Hahn is going to cooperate with the police in these expulsions of Poles and that there is so much expulsion work to be done and that it's doubtful whether Hahn would be able to do it by himself. Now after you look at that, can you say that the defendant Huebner had nothing to do with the expulsion of Poles?\nAFirst of all, no deportation drive was concerned here. I have already mentioned that before. Nor did expulsions take place here. But this was just an exchange between the Poles and the ethnic Germans, and by that, conditions were to be provided for the ethnic Germans. The Poles had better farms and the Germans had inferior farms, and it is quite clear that the ethnic Germans complained about this situation, and that is why this fundamental decree had been issued. It was just an exchange between the Poles and the ethnic Germans. You cannot talk about any expulsions here. That was perhaps a clumsy expression which was used here.\nQI am not talking about expulsion measures. The letter is the thing that talks about expulsion methods.\nAYes. Naturally, the term was very clumsily chosen in this letter.\nQYes. And when you say that the ethnic Germans didn't have as good farms as the Poles had, well that meant that Mr. Huebner was going to take the good farms from the Poles and give them to the ethnic Germans then. If they were complaining about it, he wanted to satisfy these ethnic Germans, didn't he?\nAWell, this was not an order from Huebner which was to provide better conditions for the ethnic Germans. This was a general decree.\nQThat is right. In other words, he looked after the ethnic Germans and he didn't care what happened to the Poles. That is about the \n truth of the matter, isn't it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2667, "page_number": "2660", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AWell, that was our field of work. After all, we had nothing to do with the Poles.\nQWe have no further questions, your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQIn redirect examination I only want to ask the witness one question. What did Herr Huebner have to do with this exchange action?\nAActually he had nothing to do with it. This matter was only handled on the Kreis--the district level. This letter was only brought about because the UWZ had complained and this is why Huebner played a part in the matter.\nQWho was the plenipotentiary on the district level?\nAOf the agency of the plenipotentiary you mean? Well, that was the working staff.\nQI have no further questions in redirect.\nYour Honor, I would like to correct a small mistake and I would like to give a provisional exhibit number to these five sketches for purposes of identification.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Sketch 1 is the organizational plan of the agency of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Poznan from approximately the middle of May 1941 until early 1945. It will become Exhibit 1.\nThe next sketch deals with an organizational plan of the staff department of the plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Posen. It covers the period from the middle of 1941, from that time on, and it becomes Exhibit No. 2.\nThe next sketch is the organizational plan which was in effect until the end of 1943. This will become Exhibit No. 3.\nThe next sketch is an organizational plan effective from 1944 on, apart from the Black Sea action. This will become Exhibit No. 4.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2668, "page_number": "2661", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "My last sketch is the organizational plan which was in effect from 1944 on and it only applies to the drive with regard to the Germans in the Black Sea area. This will become Exhibit No. 5.\nI have no further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused.)\nThe Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2669, "page_number": "2662", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Whom do you call next?\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor. I ask that the witness Margareta Rahner be called for cross examination. We have her affidavit of 26 September 1947. This is Prosecution Exhibit772and it is Document NO5264\nTHE PRESIDENT:You are calling the witness for the purpose of cross examination who made an affidavit for the Prosecution, as I understand it?\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Yes, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You understand the rule. You are limited to the examination of the contents of that affidavit. Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Yes, your Honor, I quite understand that.\nMARGARETARAHNER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. DURCHHOLZ:\nQ.Will you please state your personal data to the Tribunal?\nA.My name is Margareta Rahner and I was born on the 25 of March, 1914 at Neubach, District of Neuhof. After eight years in a grammar school I had my apprenticeship in the Administration of a big estate and right afterwards I worked for a few years as secretary on an estate. Later on I was a typist in various enterprises for several years and in July, 1931, I came to the field agency of Poznan. There I worked as a typist in the Land Office and later on as a secretary to \n Herr Huebner.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MARGARETA", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2670, "page_number": "2663", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Now, in your affidavit of 26 September this year you have stated that Herr Huebner was the chief of the agency. Did you mean to imply by that that he was actually the head of the whole agency?\nA.No; I didn't want to make him appear as chief or head of the agency because Koppe was the head of the agency. The reason why I said he was the chief of the agency is that he conducted the inner administration of the agency.\nQ.Can you outline in a few brief words the field of task of Herr Huebner?\nA.Herr Huebner, first of all, was the staff chief and, as such, he was chief of the active inner administration. Apart from that he had to take care of the social welfare for the resettlers.\nQ.Can you tell us to what extent Herr Huebner issued directives?\nA.Herr Huebner issued independent directives only in his direct field of task as I have just outlined. For the rest he limited himself to pass on the directives and orders which he received from the Main Staff Office or from the Chief of the agency for that purpose.\nQ.In your affidavit you repeatedly mentioned that Herr Huebner issued directives to the main departments, for instance, to the Land Office. How do you want to have this statement understood?\nA.My meaning was that apart from his direct field of task, Herr Huebner, as I just said, only passed on the directives which he had received from the higher agencies.\nQ.Was it the same concerning the directives passed on to the settlement and working staffs?\nA.Yes. That was the same thing. There again Herr Huebner only passed on the directives and only and alone in his direct field of tasks he gave independent orders, but not beyond that.\nQ.In your affidavit you make a difference between directives issued by Huebner to the main department and other directives which \n were issued by the Main Staff Office of the Central Land Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2671, "page_number": "2664", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "What was this distinction actually?\nA.When I spoke of directives issued by Herr Huehner I meant such directives as were handed to him through the mail and were passed on by him accordingly. When I speak of direct orders of the Main Staff Office, I mean the orders which the Main Staff Office, for instance in the case of the Land Office, where that frequently occurred, handed directly to the Land Office and which came from the Central Land Office. In other words, they did not go via Herr Huebner.\nQ.Can you tell us in a few brief words how the correspondence was settled in the agencies, the distribution of mail?\nA.The agency had a special office for the reception and distribution of mail. There the mail received was split up and distributed to the individual main departments and among that mail particularly such letters as were addressed directly to certain main departments. Here Huebner received the mail for his direct field of task and he received apart from that such letters the knowledge of which was necessary for him in order to carry out this task and to have an approximate insight into the work carried out by the agency.\nQ.In your affidavit you went on to state that the directives issued by the Main Staff Office went first to Greiser, then to Koppe, then to Huebner and only then to the Main Department. Is that correct?\nA.In general the situation was that the mail would go directly to the agency and then was divided to the various offices through the means I just outlined. In exceptional cases, however, it happened that the mail went directly to Greiser and, as I have said in my affidavit, it went then on through the various channels until it reached the agency.\nQ.In your affidavit you spoke of Herr Huebner as your superior and as the superior of the Main Department. What do you mean by that?\nA.Herr Huebner, as staff leader, was chief for all personnel matters and as such he was my superior and the superior also of all \n employees of the main department.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2672, "page_number": "2665", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "I did not mean to say, however by that, that as far as the factual work was concerned, Herr Huebner was the superior of the Main Department.\nQ.In your affidavit you listed the various main departments. Now, is it correct that apart from that a staff department also existed?\nA.Yes. The staff department included all the tasks of inner administration and inner organization. For instance, personnel matters, reception and dispatching of mail, meter pool and so on and so forth. The staff department was headed by Herr Huebner.\nQ.Furthermore, you stated in your affidavit that the carrying out of seizures was a matter for the resettlement and working staffs. How did you mean that?\nA.I meant to imply by that that the working staff had to take care of the settlement of the resettlers on the former Polish estates but I have no knowledge concerning further connection of the working staff with the seizures.\nQ.Are you informed concerning Herr Huebner's tasks as Race and Settlement leader?\nA.No.\nQ.In your affidavit you further stated that as Race and Settlement leader Herr Huebner carried out racial selections of ethnic Germans. Can you explain that?\nA.No. I cannot give you any details with regard to that question. I do know that such selection and checking was carried out but I don't know whether by the RUS leader or whether it was done by the field agency Lodz or whether it was the EWZ or some other agency.\nQ.Do you know whether the field agency Lodz was subordinated directly to Herr Huebner or directly to the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, no further questions to this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DURCHHOLZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2673, "page_number": "2666", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "(Witness excused)\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Your Honor, I am urgently needed in another trial. My colleague will go on with the further examination of witnesses for me.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Whom will you call next?\nDR. MUELLER:Dr. Mueller for the defendant Huebner. Your Honor, I ask that the witness Krumey be called for cross examination concerning his affidavit for the prosecution, of 30 September 1947, Document No. NO-5364, Exhibit 714 in Document Book VIII-B.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2674, "page_number": "2667", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "HERMANN A.KRUMEY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your personal data to the Tribunal?\nA.My name is Hermann A. Krumey, born on the 18th of April, 1905.\nQ.Witness, do you know what office the deputy plenipotentiary of the RKFDV in Posen held apart from his activity?\nA.Yes. He was higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.From your agency could you make a distinction whether the Higher SS and Police Leader issued directives in this capacity to the UWZ or as deputy of the RKFDV?\nA.No, I couldn't make that distinction because I worked on the lower level of command.\nQ.Is it correct that the inspector of the Security Police and Director of the UWZ, Standartenfuehrer Herr Zoch, received his directive from the chief of the Security Police, that is, from the superior agency of the Security Police sector?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.How do you know the preparatory work for the evacuation?\nA.From the report of the field agency directives of the UWZ and not from my own knowledge.\nQ.Do you know whether the working staff issued directives for all the estates or whether they made a selection only?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Do you know where the UWZ channelled the task concerning the estates which were to be evacuated after they had been selected by the UWZ \n and checked?", "speakers": [ "HERMANN A.", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2675, "page_number": "2668", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.The task went to the local police agencies.\nQ.And this local police agency then carried out the evacuations?\nA.Yes; they carried out the evacuations.\nQ.Do you know who selected the evacuated Poles as to the question whether they could he assigned in Germany proper?\nA.The Labor exchanges.\nQ.Do you know what top level agency issued further directives in that matter?\nA.The Reich Labor Trustee?\nQ.In your affidavit you mentioned that there was an order for evacuation of the Warthegau and that that order was issued by the Gau representative of the RKFDV. What occurrence did you mean to mention in that connection?\nA.What I meant to say was that the lists of the racial Germans to be resettled were channelled by the Reich Commissar via the Main Staff Office and the plenipotentiary to the lower levels.\nQ.Do you know another connection between the plenipotentiary of the RKFDV and the resettlement or evacuation?\nA.No.\nQ.In your affidavit you stated that Huebner had handed on orders to make room for the resettlers. What did you mean by that?\nA.What I meant was the list of the resettlers of the racial Germans to be resettled.\nQ.In your affidavit under Section 5, in connection with your description of the evacuation, you further stated: \"Huebner had channelled lists to the resettlement staffs.\" What kind of lists did you have in mind there?\nA.If we did that then I meant the lists I just mentioned of the racial Germans who were to be resettled.\nQ.You mean the racial Germans who were to be resettled?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2676, "page_number": "2669", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Do you know whether Huebner personally handed on those lists?\nA.No.\nQ.You said that Herr Huebner was the chief of the agency of the plenipotentiary. What do you mean by that?\nA.What I meant to say by that was that Herr Huebner, as staff leader was also the organizational chief of the agency.\nQ.Do you know at all Huebner's activity in detail?\nA.No. I had no official contact with Huebner and I had not much private contact with him either and, therefore, I could not describe his activities in detail.\nQ.When did most of the evacuationsttake place?\nA.In 1940. Then the evacuation were stopped and later the evacuation actions were only on a small scale.\nQ.In your affidavit you further stated that the defendant Schwalm carried out a racial selection. Wasn't Schwalm the chief of two agencies, namely, i.e. of the field agency and of the RUS agency EWZ, and therefore did he personally had no time at all to carry out such a selection?\nA.Well, I didn't mean it that way either. Schwalm after Kienzl and before Domgiss was chief of the RUS field agency at Lodz. Apart from that Schwalm had been in Lodz only for a short period of time.\nQ.Did he take a considerable interest in the EWZ activities?\nA.During that period there were many racial Germans who were channelled by the EWZ and I think that there at the time Schwalm was the responsible man and during that period of activity there were also Domgus and Kienzl. I haven't personally seen that Schwalm carried out racial selections. That was done by some selection experts there.\nQ.Is it correct that during that time the stop decree for evacuations had already been issued and that therefore deportations hardly ever took place any more?\nA.Yes, that was before the Russian campaign.\nQ.Could you state the period again when Schwalm was at Lodz?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2677, "page_number": "2670", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Schwalm was there at the end of 1940 until the Autumn of 1941 or towards Autumn 1941.\nQ.Could you make an observation that the selected families were forced to submit to re-Germanization?\nA.No pressure was exerted.\nQ.Witness, is it correct that the Polish population, before they were deported, were racially examined by commissions of the RUS Main Office and that these commissions were assigned with the resettlement staffs or with the field agencies of the RUS? Is that correct?\nA.No. In my field of activity that was not correct.\nQ.If there were any racial selections at all, the so-called overall selection, where was it carried out?\nA.In all cases that was carried out only after the persons had been evacuated.\nQ.You mean in the collective camps?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were the racial selectors who carried out this overall selection members of the UWZ?\nA.No.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. That terminates my cross examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom do you call next?\nDR. ZAPF:Dr. Zapf for the defendant Hoffmann. Your Honor, I apologize. I only want to mention here that Krumey, who was just examined, is also a direct witness for the defendant Hofmann and I would have a few questions in direct examination on behalf of Hofmann.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You mean you had him subpoenaed as a witness for Hofmann?\nDR. ZAPF:Yes, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Bring the witness back.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2678, "page_number": "2671", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "BY DR. ZAPF:\nQ.Witness, in your affidavit which my predecessor has already mentioned you also stated that Domgus designated Czechoslovakian children as being fit for re-Germanization, those are children who had arrived in the camp of the UWZ in a transport. Before the arrival of these children did you already receive directives in that connection?\nA.No, I had no directives at all and I didn't know what was to happen with those children.\nQ.What did you do then?\nA.I complied with my orders and contacted the local authorities to ask them whether they had any knowledge about what was to happen to these children and thus it was that I knew that children were there. Domgus knew that children were there.\nQ.Could you establish during your contact with Domgus whether he had information or directives as to what should happen to these children?\nA.No, I was under the impression Domgus didn't know anything.\nQ.Did you receive an order by the RSHA according to which the children had to be handed over to the Gestapo according to lists?\nA.An order arrived via the Gestapo that the children had to be handed over.\nQ.Together with this order did you receive a directive also concerning a possible re-Germanization of these children?\nA.No.\nQ.That will do. In this connection did you receive an order by the RuSHA too?\nA.No.\nQ.A certain Josef Rembach made an affidavit for the Prosecution with the numberNO-5266, Exhibit 378 and it is in Document Book 7. I am handing it to you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Did I understand that you subpoenad this witness for cross examination with reference to an affidavit he made?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2679, "page_number": "2672", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "DR. ZAPF:Your Honor this affidavit was submitted by the Prosecution.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I didn't ask you that. I asked you if you subpoenad this witness for the purpose of cross examining him concerning an affidavit that he, the witness, made?\nDR. ZAPF:Your Honor I have subpoenad this witness for direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:And did not subpoena him for the purpose of cross examination?\nDR. ZAPF:No, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, Go ahead.\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor since this witness is in jail and since he has subpoenad him as a regular witness I think it would be better if he could bring him in when he puts on Hofmann's case. Then we could prepare for our cross examination. We haven't made any preparation to cross examine this witness with reference to Hofmann.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am rather inclined to think that is a better procedure.\nDR. ZAPF:I would submit, your Honor, that I would prefer that procedure very much. I made the application only because there was a sort of ruling of the court previously that a witness could be on the stand only once.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That would not apply where they are summons for cross examination concerning affidavits, so I will let you use him in your main case. Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. ZAPF:Thank you, your Honor.\nDR.MUELLER (for Herbert Huebner): Your Honor I ask that the witness Erich Spaarmann be called.\nERICHSPAARMANN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "DR.", "ERICH", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2680, "page_number": "2673", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.I swear by God.\nA.I swear by God.\nQ.The almighty and omniscient.\nA.The almighty and omniscient.\nQ.That I will speak the pure truth?\nA.That I will speak the pure truth.\nQ.And will withhold and add nothing.\nA.And will withhold and add nothing.\nQ.Proceed with the examination. BY DR. MUELLER:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQ.Witness, will you please state to the Tribunal your personal data.\nA.My name is Erich Spaarmann and I was born on the 19th of July 1907.\nQ.Witness, you will please describe your education and your schooling?\nA.I went to school and then worked as an apprentice; I participated in the movements of Socialist and Communist Youth. In 1926 I was in the NAP; NSDAP, in 1929 SS; in 1934 SS in an official capacity; in Stuttgart, Braunschweig and Berlin; in 1940 I was in Posen; at Lodz in 1942, front line assignment in the East in 1944 Berlin; in 1945 a prisoner of war of the Americans. Since 1946 in the Nurnberg Jail as a witness.\nQ.Witness, since when have you known the defendant Huebner?\nA.Since 1938.\nQ.During his activity in Posen have you been able to observe the defendant Huebner?\nA.Yes, we came to Posen at about the same time and for about two years we were in the same agency of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2681, "page_number": "2674", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Witness, you were told already to make an interval every time after the question has been terminated. If I understood you correctly you both worked in agencies for several years, agencies which belonged to the plenipotentiary of the RFKDV in Posen?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the defendant Huebner's activity in the agency as representative of the RFKDV at Posen?\nA.Huebner was the Staff Leader in that agency.\nQ.And when did Herr Huebner join that agency?\nA.About the middle of 1941.\nQ.Do you know the field of tasks of the Staff Leader?\nA.Yes, because I myself was a Staff Leader for several years in some kind of an agency.\nQ.Will you please describe in a few words the field of task of the Staff Leader?\nA.The Staff Leader is a sort of office manager. He has to take care of the affairs of the organization and the personnel in the office.\nQ.And in how far did the Staff Leader have to take a part in the sectional work of the agency?\nA.There he was only Liaison man of the chief to the individual department chiefs and the field agencies.\nQ.And in how far did the Staff Leader have independent powers to issue directives?\nA.He had only powers to issue directives in the fields I mentioned, organization and personal, but there again you cannot make any independent decision. He has to report the matter to his chief first and the chief makes the decision.\nQ.And who was the chief of the agency Herr Huebner participated in?\nA.That was, Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe. He, in his capacity as \n Higher SS and Police Leader, was at the same time deputy of the representative in Posen.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2682, "page_number": "2675", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Can you judge Koppe's personality?\nA.Yes, Koppe was a very active man and he had the ambition of doing himself whatever he could do.\nQ.And what were the consequences of that attitude of Koppe's on Herr Huebner's work?\nA.The consequence we had to feel, all of us, to the extent that Koppe never used the channels of command to the lower levels but approached the department chiefs or the field agencies directly most of the time and therefore the Staff Leader did not have any information concerning many things.\nQ.The activity of the Intermediary which you said before was part of the Staff Leader's task, therefore, was strongly limited by the personality of Koppe?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you believe Herr Huebner was informed or had the possibility even of getting informed of all the matters of the agency?\nA.No, I said already that was not possible in all that.\nQ.Do you know the organization and the activity of a working staff?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were the working staffs subordinated to the district councillor responsible for that area?\nA.Yes, there was a directive which said that the Working Staff Leaders were leadership aids of the district councillor.\nQ.In other words the district councillor had the right to supervise the working staffs?\nA.Yes, not only theoretically but also in practice because he was the man responsible in his area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2683, "page_number": "2676", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.As far as the factual work was concerned the working staffs worked within the field of tasks of the RFKDV but from whom could they receive directives in this connection?\nA.These directives came directly from the chief of the agency at Posen, that is Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe.\nQ.In the directives he issued did Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe use the services of his agency Kaiserring when he issued the directives to the working staffs?\nA.In rare cases he channeled most of the time the orders via the Settlement Staff and occasionally directly to the working staff.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the Tribunal would remind you that when a question has been propounded, it is necessary to pause a few seconds until the Translators have translated the question before giving your answer, and when you see these lights flashing that means wait a minute. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Can you state in a few brief words what such a working staff had to do?\nA.In his district the working staff had to register all agricultural enterprises in the so-called Estate List and apart from that he had to prepare the provisional housing of the resettlers.\nQ.You mentioned that the working staff had to make so-called Estate Lists. Did they establish these lists for every estate of the district regardless of whether they were in German or Polish hands.\nA.All estates were registered regardless of whether they were in German or Polish hands.\nQ.What was the reason for this very extensive registration of real estate property?\nA.In a large fraction of the Warthegau there were no \n COURT I CASE VIII land registers and therefore there were no data available.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2684, "page_number": "2677", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.And what happened to the Estate Lists when they were drawn up by the working staff?\nA.These filing cards were then forwarded to the Settlement Staff and this staff channels theta to the UWZ as were its orders.\nQ.And to whom was the UWZ subordinated?\nA.According to my knowledge they were subordinated to the Security Service and to the Security Police.\nQ.What was the task of the UWZ concerning these Estate files?\nA.The UWZ decided what estates were to be evacuated and which estates were not to be evacuated.\nQ.Did you have working and settlement staffs and did these staffs have an influence on the decision made by the UWZ?\nA.No, these agencies of the RFKDV had no influence over this decision.\nQ.In other words the agency of the Plenipotentiary in Posen had no influence either?\nA.No, that agency had no influence either.\nQ.Did the agencies of the RFKDV that you just mentioned know the principles according to which the UWZ would make a decision?\nA.They were not known to me and I don't believe either that the agencies of the Reich Commissar knew the details of the principles to which UWZ complied in this connection but I do suppose that those were security police principles.\nQ.And who would carry out the evacuation then?\nA.Police detachments.\nQ.And from whom did they receive the orders for the evacuation?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2685, "page_number": "2678", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.I suppose that the orders were given by the UWZ, certainly not by the agency of the Reich Commissar.\nQ.Were all evacuations from the beginning regulated and carried out in this manner?\nA.No.\nQ.What evacuations were carried out differently?\nA.When in Spring 1940 we started to place the resettlers, the larger part of the evacuations had already been carried out. As I was told at the time these had been carried out by agencies of the Armed Forces and of the Police.\nQ.Were there also Security Police reasons for these evacuations at that time and were these reasons decisive?\nA.I assume that.\nQ.Concerning the enterprises which were evacuated during these evacuations which you just described then there existed no estate registers at all, before the evacuations were carried out?\nA.No, because at that time the working Staffs and the Resettlement Staffs didn't even exist.\nQ.For which evacuations did the procedure apply which you mentioned at the beginning?\nA.For the rest of the estates which were still needed, insofar as they had not been occupied already by racial Germans but who had to leave the estates if they could not prove a legal claim.\nQ.During these latter evacuations was there a connection between the settlement staffs and the evacuations?\nA.No, perhaps in that connection that we were informed by VOMI once in a while that larger transports had again arrived. This we would report that to the UWZ in order to have them prepare themselves in time.\nQ.But did this information given to the UWZ, have a \n COURT I CASE VIII decisive influence on the question of what estates were to be evacuated?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2686, "page_number": "2679", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.No, that had no influence on that question.\nQ.I think that this decision was already made when the UWZ received the land registers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the course of your activity was it pointed out to you that the agencies of the RFKDV were not responsible and competent for evacuations?\nA.Yes, Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe already pointed that out to us when we were introduced into our work and his Staff Leader also pointed it out once in a while.\nQ.The Staff Leader you just mentioned was Herr Huebner, wasn't he?\nA.Yes.\nQ.This pointing out was, I think, within the line of Herr Huebner's field of organization, wasn't it?\nA.Yes, first that and this directive had already been issued by Koppe and it was Huebner's task as Staff Leader to see to it that the directive was being complied with and carried out.\nQ.When then did the working staffs start their activities within the resettlement?\nA.The resettlers were brought into the district capital from the VOMI camp and there they were taken over by the working staff for placing them in the area concerned.\nQ.And what happened then?\nA.The working staff then took over the provisional commitment to the estates and saw to it that household goods which did not exist would be placed at the disposal of the resettlers and handed to them.\nQ.In the distribution of these household goods did you \n COURT I CASE VIII find out that objects were issued which had been taken away from concentration camp inmates or from Poles or from Jews?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2687, "page_number": "2680", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.No, only new articles were distributed within the period when I worked there.\nQ.Was this provisional lodging which you refer to, already a final committment of the resettler to the estate?\nA.No, that was later on the work of the Peasant Settlement companies.\nQ.Did the resettlers become owners of the estates?\nA.Within the activity of the working staff they didn't.\nQ.Do you have any knowledge at all that they became owners of the estate later on or was this settlement provided for the period after the war.\nA.I have no information with regard to that question because during my period of work down there no resettler was committed there as owner but I did know that the final committment was to be made only after the war.\nQ.Up to now we spoke only of agricultural estates. The placing in such enterprises was that the main task of the working staffs?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what did the settlement staff and the working staffs have to do in the trade and industrial sector?\nA.In the trade and the industrial sector at hodz a so-called municipal committee was working.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2688, "page_number": "2681", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "This municipal commitment committee suggested town resettlers to the HTO. The HTO was the only agency which could dispose of the objects to be used for resettlement purposes.\nQ.You already spoke of Koppe's active nature. Now, it is said that the working staff used a certain term which explained that very clearly.\nA.Yes, I recall that very well. We called ourselves a transport agency, because that was practically all the right of disposal we had.\nQ.Do you know whether Herr Huebner was in any way connected with the kidnapping of Polish children, with interruptions of pregnancy carried out on female eastern workers, or on Polish workers, or with measures to impede the propagation of enemy aliens?\nA.No, he had no connection with that; that was not in his field of tasks.\nQ.Did you hear anything about the fact that in his capacity as RuS leader he had connections with those matters?\nA.There again I didn't hear anything about it. To my knowledge he was not yet RuS leader at that time.\nQ.Did the agency of the RKFDV have an influence on the selection of labor for Germany proper particularly?\nA.No, that was the affairs of the labor exchanges.\nQ.Was it prohibited to the employees of the agency to acquire Polish or Jewish property?\nA.Yes, that was strictly prohibited.\nQ.Was the compliance with this prohibition checked and supervised?\nA.Yes, it was very strictly supervised.\nQ.Did Herr Huebner as chief of the personnel department see to it that this regulation was complied with?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2689, "page_number": "2682", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.That was one of his tasks to see to it.\nQ.Is it correct that the resettlers were even exempted from military still when the reserves had come to the point already where the situation was critical?\nA.Yes, I recall that Huebner made great efforts with the Berlin agency to see to it that the resettlers were exempted from military service for at least one year.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by any member of the Defense?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Witness, I have only two questions. Can you confirm that the Lodz planning office was not a field agency of Professor Meyer's planning office in Berlin?\nA.Yes, I can confirm that.\nQ.In your capacity as chief of the Litzmannstadt agency did you have negotiations with Professor Meyer or were you in any way connected with him?\nA.No, I never negotiated with him nor had I any other dealings with him.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Schwalm?\nA.Yes, I know him, since 1932.\nQ.When and where did you meet him during the war?\nA.In 1941 I met him in Lodz, and in 1944 I met him in Berlin.\nQ.What was Schwalm's position at Lodz at that time?\nA.At Lodz Schwalm was the successor of Kienzl as director of the field agency of the RuS, and successor of \n Kaserer, as expert for RS questions in the EWZ, the emigrant central agency.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "DR. MERKEL", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2690, "page_number": "2683", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.What was his official rank at that time?\nA.He was Sturmbannfuehrer of the Waffen SS.\nQ.Did you have any insight into the activity of the field agency at Lodz?\nA.Yes, insofar as I visited him there at various occasions, and he would come to see me also and tell me about his work.\nQ.What was the impression you gained of the families selected for re-Germanization?\nA.I saw a few of them; they gave me a very good impression. If I am supposed to tell the truth, I must say that inasfar as I could see them, they looked more German than all the defendants here.\nQ.Did you notice that a pressure was exerted concerning these people, to submit to re-Germanization?\nA.No.\nQ.Or to resettlement somewhere else?\nA.No, I can tell you the following: I had the occasion of reading a few letters written by such people who had been sent to Germany proper, amongst those letters a family wrote from Munich, \"We like it here very much. At Munich nobody salutes with Heil Hitler; they all say \"Gruess Gott\", how do you do; and apart from that we can go to church here every day because there are churches here at every corner of the street.\"\nQ.Witness, at that time were these people quite openly told what measures were involved in this visit and in this application they made?\nA.Yes, because otherwise this drive wouldn't have been possible at all because it depended only and along on the \n good will of these people.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2691, "page_number": "2684", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Listen, how did these people react if the re-Germanization question was discussed with them?\nA.As these people had been very carefully selected, they gave the impression that they felt instinctively, that they had some links with the German group.\nQ.Now, were these families left together or were they separated by force?\nA.These families were very carefully brought together in order to avoid any kind of bad feeling. In many cases that went so far that even distant relatives were added. In other words, if there was an old grandfather who wouldn't separate himself from the families, then he was just taken along.\nQ.Therefore, did the children remain with the families or were they separated from them?\nA.Of course the children would remain with the families.\nQ.Do you know of any cases where children were selected in special drives for resettlement?\nA.No, in this connection certainly not. It was already stated that the family was to be assigned as a whole.\nQ.If I understand your testimony on direct examination, then the Lodz field agency was under the RSHA.\nA.You are speaking of the RSHA: that is certainly wrong.\nQ.Well, to whom was the field agency Lodz subordinated?\nA.Well, it was subordinated to RuSHA.\nQ.But wasn't it also under the Higher SS and police leader in Poznan?\nA.No, no main office was under the Higher SS and police leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2692, "page_number": "2685", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Did you at any time find out that the activity of the Lodz field agency served to bring slave labor into the Reich?\nA.No, after all that was not one of their tasks.\nQ.Can you explain that a little more in detail by giving us a few examples?\nA.That already results from what I said before. As the families were very large and as there were infants, children, old people and sick people among them to an extent that very often whole families had only one person fit for work. From that it results already clearly that this question of slave labor didn't come into consideration at all.\nQ.Do you have any knowledge of whether the defendant Schwalm was in any way connected with the DVL?\nA.He couldn't even have been connected with it because the DVL was an agency of its own, and according to my knowledge they had been attached to the government agencies there.\nQ.Do you know any further details concerning this agency?\nA.I don't know any further details because we had no further contact with that agency.\nQ.Perhaps do you know whether Schwalm had some sort of a connection with that agency?\nA.No, I don't think so, at any rate, I never heard anything about it or noticed anything about that.\nQ.Do you know when Schwalm left Lodz and what he did afterwards?\nA.I couldn't give you the exact date, but he was then again assigned to a front commitment, and he was in the hospital then for a long period of time.\nQ.At the beginning you said that you had met Schwalm \n also in Berlin during the war.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2693, "page_number": "2686", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Do you know what Schwalm did in Berlin or what he was there?\nA.Schwalm at that time was staff leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Did you have your agency at that time in the same building?\nA.Yes, during a short period, at least, until we were bombed out there.\nQ.Do you know whether Schwalm was the deputy of the chief of RuSHA?\nA.No, Schwalm was not the deputy. In the absence of the chief, that was specifically Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel, how much further do you have to travel with this witness?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I have another eight questions, but they are very short and probably the answers are also very short.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, make your questions very short. Witness, you make your answers very short. We will try to finish with him. BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Was Schwalm superior to any offices of RuSHA?\nA.No; no office of RuSHA was subordinated to Schwalm.\nQ.How do you know that?\nA.Because most of the offices were no longer in Berlin.\nQ.As far as his office rank was concerned, would it have been possible that these offices were subordinated to him?\nA.No, that neither because a few offices were staffed with Brigadefuehrers or Standartenfuehrers and he was only \n an Obersturmbannfuehrer.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2694, "page_number": "2687", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Well, what was subordinated to Schwalm in that case?\nA.I have already explained in great detail a while ago, what the staff leader had to do, personnel questions, organization and the main department outside of the offices.\nQ.Therefore, these explanations concerning the staff leader applied also to Schwalm.\nA.Yes, insofar as I can judge them.\nQ.Was Schalm connected with the organizational activity involved by the taking over of the main welfare office of the Waffen SS; was it connected to a great extent with it?\nA.Yes, he had quite a lot of work on account of that.\nQ.And now my last question, witness. Do you know whether as SS Standartenfuehrer Professor Dr. Schulz, chief of the race office had a special confidential retationship with Schwalm?\nA.No, that didn't occur because Schulz was a very active nature, and as a professor he felt very superior, and even the chief of the main office hardly dared to exert a great influence over Schulz because Schulz would say: \"I understand those things better because I am a professor.\"\nQ.Witness, I have one more question. Do you know whether between Schwalm and Schulz there was a special tension?\nA.I heard before about that too, because Schwalm knew quite a bit in that field too, and Schwalm was a man of practice and therefore very often he would explain his different views to the professor.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 17 December 1947)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2695, "page_number": "2688", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 17 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the -\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB: ERICH SPA*RMANN\nQ.Witness, you spoke of having read some letters from Poles who were Germanized and sent to Germany, to Munich. Now, at that time Hitler was running Germany, was he not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And in these letters it was stated that they were well please because they didn't have to say Heil Hitler.\nA.Just a moment; you are talking so loud that I can't hear the translation, I didn't understand the question. After all I don't have to listen to what you say but I have to listen to the interpreter.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, you answer his questions.\nA.Could you please repeat the question?\nQ.I said that in these letters which you read, these people whom, you said were so terribly anxious to get into Germany, the country that was run by Hitler, that they mentioned in their letters that they were pleased because they didn't have to say Heil Hitler but could say how do you do?\nA.Yes, that is What these people wrote. With that they were trying to express the fact that in Germany things weren't so bad as it had been\nQ.In other words, when they were sent down there they were told that is why they were extremely surprised that it wasn't the case everywhere in Bermany.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2696, "page_number": "2689", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Now, I want to ask you about the work you did; did you over work for Huebner?\nA.Huebner.\nQ.Yes, for Huebner.\nA.Why for Huebner? I worked for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism; Huebner worked for the agency too, with a staff; what should I have to do with Huebner?\nQ.You just answer my questions. Did you ever work under Huebner's supervision?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know of all of the work that Huebner did in connection with these settlements?\nA.Yes, I am acquanited with it.\nQ.Do you remember the instance when he had a man named Siegel who was under his supervision and who worked at Dietfurt?\nA.Dietfurt?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Dietfurt did not belong to the settlement staff at Lodz; that district belonged to the settlement staff at Poznan.\nQ.Well, will you tell me again whether or not you were in the same, under the same office that Huenber supervised. Now, he was at Poznan; did you work under him?\nA.Well, the over-all agency was that of the Reich Commissar. Huebner worked at the agency of Poznan while I worked at the agency at Lodz.\nQ.Well, waa the agency at Lodz under the supervision of Huebner?\nA.No.\nQ.Well then, you were not supervised by Huebner, were you?\nA.Well, here we would have to go through the entire organizational chart in order to answer this question correctly.\nQ.We won't have to go through the entire organizational chart. You can just tell me whether or not your office was supervised by Huebner.\nA.The chief of the over-all agency was Koppe, and Huebner was \n Koppe's assistant.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2697, "page_number": "2690", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Accordingly, Koppe was my chief; he occasionally used Huebner in order to inform me of his opinion. That, probably is the best way in which I can describe the situation.\nQ.If Huebner gave you an order, would you have taken it?\nA.Will you please repeat that?\nQ.If Huebner issued an order to you, as the deputy of Koppe, would you have taken that order and carried it out?\nA.It depends upon the order which he passed on.\nQ.Now, with reference to the work which you did settling these socalled ethnic Germans that came into Poland. You were mainly interested in seeing that these people were settled and were satisfied and received proper care and attention; that is true, isn't it?\nA.Yes, we have already discussed here that this was our activity.\nQ.Yes, but now these people came in hundreds of thousands, did they not?\nA.Well, I do not know the exact figure, but the figure of hundreds of thousands seems somewhat high to me.\nQ.And when they came there, in some instances it was rather disorderly, a rather disorderly manner in which they came, wasn't it?\nA.No, it was not badly organized at all.\nQ.Well, it has been testified here by some of the other witnesses, including Huebner, that in some instances when these Germans came in they were disorganized and the -\nA.Well, perhaps sometimes bigger transports arrived and then the camps were extremely full so that we tried to get them out of the camps again as quickly as possible.\nQ.And when you settled these people you in some instances had to turn over to them the livestock that was on the land and went with the houses which you gave them, didn't you?\nA.We didn't give them anything at all. I have already stated that this was only a temporary assignment through the working staff; consequently, we could not give them anything.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2698, "page_number": "2691", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.All right; you said you didn't give it to them. These people whether you gave it to them or whether somebody else gave it to them, they acquired the livestock and the chickens and the utensils and improvements, and everything else that was on these places, did they not?\nA.The resettlers? They didn't own them, but they used them.\nQ.That is all I wanted to know.\nA.They couldn't become owners of these things because it wasn't their property. Not title had been given to them.\nQ.They took possession of these properties then; that is true, isn't it?\nA.They used these objects, but these are two different things.\nQ.They took possession, that is what I asked you.\nA.No, it was clear to them that this was only a temporary arrangement for the time being; that the ownership would have to be clarified first.\nQ.Witness,\nA.Before final settlement could be made.\nQ.Witness, do you understand what I said: That these people took possession or that property. Now, you stated in effect that they did. Now, I want to know whether or not the resettlers took possession of that property.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2699, "page_number": "2692", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.No, they never owned these things as long as the working staff was active. As I stated, it was considered a temporary accommodation there, until the final ownership of the property had been clarified to the construction agencies and other authorities.\nQ.Well, apparently you are not going to answer that question. I will ask you something else.\nA.I understood your question quite well.\nQ.But you apparently, didn't answer it.\nWhen these people were moved out, deported, they left behind their property, and the resettlers had to move in within a few hours in order to care for the livestock and the chickens and the geese, and so forth and so on, didn't they?\nA.You said \"these people\", and those are the ones you referred to. After all, we had nothing to do with the others.\nQ.Well, you know you had something to do with the resettlers.\nA.Yes, I was concerned with resettlement.\nQ.And you wanted the resettlers to take possession of this property before something happened to it, didn't you?\nA.I have already told you several tidies what I wanted, the temporar housing of these resettlers.\nQ.Well, I want you to listen to my questions and answer them.\nA.I have the impression that I have answered it the way it was necessary and the way I have knowledge of these things from my work.\nMR. LAMB:Well, Your Honor, I don't know whether it is in the trouble with the translation, or what it is, but the witness is not responsive to my questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just answer his questions and don't comment about, it, that is not necessary. BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Now, when you moved these resettlers in on property and, as you have expressed it, when they took over this livestock which they were just go to use for a while, why somebody had to give that livestock up, didn't they?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2700, "page_number": "2693", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Quite Correct.\nQ.And these people who gave it up were Poles who were deported, weren't they?\nA.They were resettled. Well, the accommodation of the Poles amounted to many things.\nQ.Well, wait just a minute now. I will put it this way. These Poles were moved off of the land which the resettlers took. I don't care where they went, but they were moved off, weren't they?\nA.Yes, they were moved off.\nQ.And when these resettlers had to come in very quickly to take over the livestock, it was necessary for you to cooperate with the police in order to get these Poles off the land, was it not?\nA.The collaboration with the police was taken care of through the UWZ. The UWZ, two or three days ahead of time, would receive a notification that resettlements were to take place, and from there the police were also notified.\nQ.In other words, you told the UWZ that you had some resettlers coming in and you wanted some places cleared out so that you could put these resettlers in, and the UWZ had the police do that. That is true, isn't it?\nA.Well, this happened quite automatically. The resettlers had already arrived.\nQ.And you knew that that was how it was going to be handled, didn't you?\nA.Yes.\nMR. LAMB:We have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I allowed you to go over ten minutes. I just want to explain that that was done because the witness consumed that much time propounding questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION:\nBY DR.MUELLER (Counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Witness, I want to ask you a few questions in redirect examination you stated that you had worked under Huebner. By that did you mean that the \n defendant Huebner was in charge of organizational matters within the agency?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2701, "page_number": "2694", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Yes. The question was put to me in rather a strange form. after all, it is generally known that Koppe was the chief of the agency.\nQ.Thank you; that is sufficient.\nIs it correct that Huebner passed on Koppe's instructions to you, that he was the middleman in that, but that he was not Koppe's deputy?\nA.It is correct that Huebner passed on instructions from Koppe. After all, he could not be his deputy because of his rank.\nQ.If Huebner informed you of instructions, then it was clear to you that he had received those instructions from Koppe and was passing them or to you?\nA.Yes, that was quite clear to me.\nQ.In your cross-examination you testified that the resettlers were taken out of the camps and were temporarily housed by the working staff. Do you know something about the housing given to the Germans from the Black Sea area? Was that handled differently?\nA.I was not there when the matter came up pertaining to the German from the Black Sea area. However, I can recall that they arrived very quickl at the time, and some of them may only have stayed in the camp very briefly, or some of them may not have even touched the camp at all.\nQ.Is it correct that the contact between the working staffs and the settlement staffs and the UWZ -- if there was any contact at all--was limited to the fact that the individual local working staff or settlement sta on its own initiative, would inform the UWZ that larger transports of resettlers were being expected?\nA.They would usually receive this notification from Poznan, where that was known in advance.\nQ.Is it correct that the UWZ had decided in advance, by virtue of the card index file, just what farms were to be evacuated?\nA.Yes. That was handled quite independently by the UWZ.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I have only one question as a result of the cross \n examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2702, "page_number": "2695", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, you just mentioned the fact that when the evacuation was carried out, the UWZ would use police authorities. Were you referring to the security police units.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused) Who will you call next?\nDR. MUELLER:I would like to call the witness Franz Vietz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt): Your Honor, the witness Vietz has also been approved for me as a witness. Your Honor has stated this morning, in the case of Hofmann and Schwalm, that if a witness has been called by a defense counsel, he can be called again later by another defense counsel. I wanted to ask now whether the same thing applies in my case, in other words, whether I can examine the witness when my case comes up.\nMR. LAMB:May I say something, Your Honor? The reason this question came up: We just asked counsel whether or not he expected to question this witness a good deal. This witness has been called by the defendant Huebner-an d he is a witness who is also in jail here and is readily available -and I think that probably RuSHA will want to ask him a good many questions, that is, for the defendant Hofmann, and so forth. Since he is in jail, and t keep from confusing the issues, I think probably it would be more enlightenin to the Court if we could just get him back in here and let the RuSHA counsel question him when their case comes up.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Since this witness is readily available, we will make an exception in this case and allow you to use him in your main case, if you prefer to do so.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you, Your Honor.\nFRANZVIETZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "FRANZ", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2703, "page_number": "2696", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDERECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your personal data.\nA.My name is Franz Vietz. I was born on the 19th of February, 1908, at Eppsdorf, in the Province of Hannover.\nQ.Please describe your education very briefly.\nA.I attended public school in my home town for eight semesters. After I left school I went into the banking business, and then I went to sea for several years. Afterwards I again took up my old profession, which I had learned, and in 1935 I became a full-time SS officer.\nQ.Were you an SS officer in the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Yes. From 1939, until the spring of 1944, I was an officer in the Race and Settlement Service at Danzig, in the SS Sector Weichsel, which was part of the General SS. Before that time, since 1938, I held that positi with the SS Sector Rhine at Wiesbaden.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2704, "page_number": "2697", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Did you also have something to do with the field of work of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes. From the beginning of 1943 on, I was temperarily assigned to this sector in Danzig.\nQ.Therefore, you are acquainted with the field of work of a Race and Settlement Leader, as well as that of a Staff Leader with the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Since when have you known the defendant Huebner?\nA.I have known him since 1938.\nQ.Are you also acquainted with the agency at Poznan, where Herr Huebner used to work? Do you know that from your own experience?\nA.Yes. I visited Huebner on two or three occasions, and at this time I visited his agency, the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar at Poznan.\nQ.Is it correct that Reichsstatthalter Greiser was the representative in the Warthegau, and the Higher SS and Police Leader was his permanent deputy?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.And who was the chief of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.That was the Gauleiter and the Reichsstatthalter.\nQ.And who was the deputy chief of the agency?\nA.It was the Higher SS and Police Leader who was competent.\nQ.As deputy?\nA.Yes, as deputy.\nQ.Do you know the position of the defendant Huebner \n with the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2705, "page_number": "2698", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Huebner worked for the deputy representative of the Reich Commissar and he was the staff leader of that agency.\nQ.And what was his task?\nA.He had to take care of the internal administration, and he was competent for the internal organization, such as personnel matters, motor vehicle system, post office, and things of that sort.\nQ.Did he have to deal with any factual tasks of the agency in his capacity as staff leader?\nA.No, the factual work was carried out by the departments which had been established for that purpose.\nQ.Accordingly, did he have the right to issue instructions in the factual field?\nA.No, he did not have the authority to issue instructions in the field of work.\nQ.Who took care of the factual work of the agency?\nA.The main departments which had been established for the individual fields of work.\nQ.And where, in turn, did they receive their instructions?\nA.Fundamental instructions were issued by the Main Staff Office, and general instructions were also issued by the individual offices of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.In individual cases, did the chief of the agency, the representative or deputy representative of the Reich Commissar, also issue instructions?\nA.In individual cases, yes.\nQ.As far as the right to issue instructions was concerned, outside of the staff department, did the activity of the staff leader rely on the passing on of instructions \n from higher authorities?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2706, "page_number": "2699", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Yes, he had to distribute them to the individual departments.\nQ.How was the correspondence handled as far as the individual fields of work were concerned?\nA.The correspondence, in general was channeled between the individual departments and the competent offices of the Main Staff Office.\nQ.In Danzig-West Prussia, did you see anything of the evacuation of Poles?\nA.I myself had nothing to do with it, but I was able to get an insight into these things.\nQ.Were the evacuations in Danzig-West Prussia carried out in the same manner as those in the Warthegau?\nA.Yes; the orders and the competencies were the same.\nQ.Who ordered the first deportations to be carried out?\nA.The first deportations were ordered by the local authorities, for instance, the Offices of the Landraete, and also by agencies of the Wehrmacht.\nQ.Did the security police also carry out the evacuations for security reasons?\nA.Yes, they also did that in the first phase, but these evacuations were carried out separately.\nQ.Did the security police then establish a special agency for the carrying out of deportations?\nA.In the spring of 1940, an agency of the security police was established, the so-called Umwanderer Zentrale, the UWZ.\nQ.Was the UWZ, which you have just mentioned, charged with the entire competency for the execution of the evacuation \n drive?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2707, "page_number": "2700", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.Only the UWZ could order and carry out such deportations.\nQ.Were these deportations connected with the settlement of ethnic Germans?\nA.Not during the time which we have just discussed.\nQ.Is it correct that later on the time limits between the UWZ and the individual working staffs were restricted and that the working staffs would occasionally inform the UWZ whenever large transports of resettlers were being expected?\nA.Yes. Discussions took place between the individual working staffs and the agencies of the UWZ about the time limits.\nQ.However, this was only a notification of the time of the arrival of resettlers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And who had to make the decision here whether farms or other enterprises were to be evacuated?\nA.Just as in all other cases, this decision was solely made by the UWZ.\nQ.And when did the large-scale deportations take place?\nA.During the first month after the outbreak of the war.\nQ.Did settlements already take place at that time?\nA.No, they only began later on.\nQ.The large mass of deportations, therefore, took place without any connection with the working staffs, and without their knowledge?\nA.During the time which we have just now discussed, these working staffs did not even exist as yet.\nQ.If a man was deported now, who was later on accepted in Department I or II of the DVL, the German People's List, do \n you know, from your general knowledge of the state of affairs, what would have been done in such a case?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2708, "page_number": "2701", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.In this case the property would have been returned to him.\nQ.And if he was accepted in category III or IV of the German People's List?\nA.Then, first of all, he could dispose over the interest which came from his property and, upon request, he could also dispose of other things, so that he would have an opportunity to establish a now livelihood for himself.\nQ.How was the value of the property of the deportees ascertained?\nA.Before the properties were occupied, official tax experts would survey them and ascertain their value.\nQ.Did these taxations form the basis for the later indemnification of the previous Polish property owners?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know of a decree according to which eligible Polish women were to be sent into Germany proper as domestic workers?\nA.Yes, I heard about that.\nQ.Do you know who was to carry out the registration of these Polish women?\nA.They were to be registered by the field office of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Lodz.\nQ.Was this field office subordinated to the local resettlement leader?\nA.No, it was directly subordinated to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.I am now going to put to you Prosecution Document NO-2267, Exhibit 161, which is contained in Document Book 4-D. This is a letter from the Staff Main Office to the personnel \n staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2709, "page_number": "2702", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Do you know anything about the alleged activity of the representative, that women were to be named who could be sent into Germany proper as domestic workers? Did that come to your knowledge with regard to the Warthegau, or your district?\nA.No, I never heard anything about that with regard to the Warthegau.\nQ.Do you know at all that the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism played any part in the registration of Polish domestic workers?\nA.No.\nQ.You have already mentioned the field office of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Lodz. What was the field of work of that office?\nA.It was responsible for the field of tasks of the Racial Office within the Race and Settlement Main Office for the Eastern Districts.\nQ.And what were the tasks of the Race and Settlement leaders in the Eastern Districts?\nA.Internal tasks within the SS. In my position, since I was far removed from the Main Office, I had to take care of individual requests for the field office at Lodz.\nQ.Did the defendant Huebner also have to take care of such individual cases?\nA.No. The field office at Lodz was located within the same district where he was working.\nQ.Please name some of the internal SS matters which you have just now referred to.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2710, "page_number": "2703", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.The execution and supervision of recruiting for the Waffen SS and the General SS, consultation of SS members in their requests for marriage, and welfare measures for members of the SS.\nQ.I am now going to put to you Prosecution Document NO-3520, Exhibit 470; and further, Prosecution Document NO-1384, Exhibit 472. Both of them are located in Document Book No. IX.\n(Witness is offered the documents.)\nDo you know these orders according to their contents?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did these orders also apply in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.No.\nQ.How do you know that?\nA.They were only effective in the areas of the Reich and I know that because the Gau of Danzig, West Prussia, where I was working, included several districts which belonged to the area of Germany proper and originally had belonged to the province of East Prussia. Other parts of this Gau were incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.If I have understood you correctly, then the orders which I have put to you just now only applied to the area of Germany proper?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The decrees about the interruption of pregnancies consequently applied in only the districts you have mentioned to us which formerly had belonged to the province of East Prussia which was Germany proper?\nA.Yes, I know that from my activity as an SS leader in the Race and Settlement service; however, I never had to do with practical things even in these districts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2711, "page_number": "2704", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Did the Warthegau, the district, where the defendants Huebner was working, only consist of incorporated eastern territories or did it also consist of areas which belonged to Germany proper?\nA.Well, in contrast to Danzig, West Prussia, it only consisted of incorporated eastern territories.\nQ.Can you give us the reason why these orders were restricted to being effective in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.In these orders, female workers from the east are mentioned. In the incorporated eastern territories, there were no female workers from the east and we did not have Polish women there who had to wear the \"P\"-insignia.\nQ.The extension of the orders of interruption of pregnancy of Polish women only referred to the Polish women who had to wear the \"P\" insignia?\nA.Yes, that is what I know from my activity.\nQ.Do you know whether the Race and Settlement leader or the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism participated in measures which were to prevent the marriages and the reproduction of alien elements?\nA.In my field of work nothing of that sort came to my knowledge.\nQ.I am now going to put to you Prosecution Document NO-1402, Exhibit 45, which is contained in Document Book II-C. Did you participate in the meeting of Race and Settlement leaders which is mentioned in this document?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Please read Paragraph 1 of the document. Is it correct that the Race and Settlement leader, Herr Huebner, spoke about the ethnic questions on the occasion of that conference?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2712, "page_number": "2705", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.No, Herr Huebner only gave a short speech about the tasks of his agency. No ethnic questions were discussed in this connection.\nQ.Who spoke about the ethnic policies in that meeting?\nA.The special adviser of the Reichsstatthalter of Poznan with regard to ethnic questions.\nQ.Are the minutes correct?\nA.No, there are several mistakes contained in them.\nQ.Which ones are they?\nA.For example, it is mentioned here that the Race and Settlement leader of the sector Weichsel--that is, myself-spoke about ethnic questions. I didn't speak at all. Then the Higher SS and Police Leader, of course didn't speak either.\nQ.Thank you. Now please take a look at Paragraph 5 in that document. Did Herr Huebner take part in the inspection of the Ladz ghetto?\nA.No.\nQ.Why not?\nA.I, myself, already left with Huebner for another place very early in the morning on some special case.\nQ.Thank you. I have completed my direct examination.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, the witness Vietz has been approved for the defendant Hofmann as a witness. With the permission of the Tribunal, I shall call the witness Vietz again in my presentation of my case in chief of Hofmann. However, if it should be so desired, I could carry out my examination at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, since we have made one exception and held that he can be brought back as to one or the other defendants, I guess we will have to do the same thing in your case and let you present him in your main case. The \n COURT I CASE VIII only trouble is that I think we will wear this witness out by bringing him to and from court.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2713, "page_number": "2706", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "MR. LAMB:My idea, Your Honor, in suggesting this was simply that this witness could come back for the RuSHA one more time. Then all the RuSHA attorneys could examine him at that time. My idea was just to try to keep the Main Staff Office separated from RuSHA, and I think that is agreeable with them all right and his testimony would be more understandable to the Court and everybody else, I think.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Would you prefer to examine the witness at this time or when he is brought here in Hildebrandt's case?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to examine him later on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, The Tribunal will make this ruling about it: he will be brought back as a witness in Hildebrandt's case, as it is my understanding, and at that time we will get through with it.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQ.Mr. Vietz, now your office from 1939 until 1944 was in Danzig, wasn't it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you had the entire district of Danzig under your supervision?\nA.For my field of work, yes.\nQ.Yes. And the defendant Huebner had the same position in the Warthegau?\nA.Yes, the same position which I had for some time at Danzig, West Prussia, and as I have already testified, in 1943, in addition to my other work, I also had to deal with the tasks of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2714, "page_number": "2707", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Yes. Now, Danzig was a large district. Germany proper and these incorporated eastern territories were divided into 30 districts, weren't they?\nA.Yes, approximately 30.\nQ.And Danzig was one of those 30 districts and the Warthegau was another of those districts?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, you do not know of your own knowledge what went on in the Warthegau, do you?\nA.I do not know it from my own knowledge; however, I know that the orders which we have discussed just now were the same.\nQ.Yes. But whether or not the defendant Huebner did anything that is not included in his orders, you couldn't say, could you?\nA.No.\nQ.Now in your district in Danzig there were very few resettlers, weren't there?\nA.Yes, there were very few.\nQ.There were many more in the Warthegau than there were in Danzig. That is true, isn't it?\nA.Yes, there were more in the Warthegau than in Danzig, West Prussia.\nQ.Because almost everybody in Danzig, West Prussia was put on the DVL list, weren't they, and allowed to remain there?\nA.A large number of the people had been accepted in the German People's List; however, this took several years to do.\nQ.Yes, but those people were not moved out because you thought they would be good German citizens, isn't that true?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2715, "page_number": "2708", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "A.If they had been accepted in the DVL, they were fundamentally not moved out.\nQ.Do the reason you didn't have many resettlers was because there weren't many people whom you wanted to deport from Danzig?\nA.I can't give you the reason for that.\nQ.But would you say that the reason they had more in the Warthegau was because they had more people they wanted to get rid of? The reason they had more resettlers was because there were more people they wanted to get out of the Warthegau?\nA.The Warthegau, as far as the area is concerned, is bigger than Danzig, West Prussia. The area was much bigger in size.\nQ.How Huebner was the deputy of Koppe, wasn't he?\nA.One could not call him a deputy.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2716, "page_number": "2709", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QWell, I will ask you this: Did Huebner ever pass on any orders to you? You were in one district and he was in another district and you had similar positions so far as that was concerned, but in addition to that, Huebner was in the same city and the same office with Koppe. Now did you carry out orders that weregiven to you by Huebner?\nANo.\nQHuebner never gave you any orders?\nANo, he was unable to do that.\nQWell, if he had given you any orders, would have carried them out?\nAThis possibility could not arise because we were working in two completely different fields and in the Gau Danzig, West Prussia we had a completely different Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter and also a different Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQSo Huebner had no control over you at all for that reason because you had a different Higher SS and Police Leader?\nAYes, there was one in Danzig and therewas one in Poznan.\nQSo if Huebner gave orders to other offices in the Warthegau district, why he could have been acting as Deputy of Koppe? The reason you say he is not the deputy of Koppe and couldn't give you orders is because you had another Higher SS and Police Leader and another Governor, and so forth, in your district?\nAHe could not give me any orders and in his field, as far as the Warthegau was concerned, he could only pass on orders from the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQNow you don't know of your own knowledge, just what position he did occupy in the Warthegau, do you?\nAI have testified before that I visited him personally two or three times and on such occasions he told me many details about his work. Of course, I did not go to see him every day and I was not able to look after his work day by day.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2717, "page_number": "2710", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QWell, so from your work and from your experience in your field of work you can't say definitely whether Huebner was a deputy of Koppe or not, can you?\nAYes, I can. I can say that because the organization of the different agencies in the individual districts was the same.\nQWell, you don't know. I mean, you're going on how it was organized in your district. But you can't say that Huebner didn't give orders and that these orders were carried out, can you?\nAOn the fact of the basic regulations which had been issued by the Berlin agencies, Huebner in his position was not authorized to issue any factual instructions or orders. Whenever orders were issued through him he might have passed them on by order of the Higher SS and Police Leader or by order of the Reichsstatthalter.\nQIn his capacity as their deputy, he may have passed these on, I mean.\nANo, the Higher SS and Police Leader was the deputy of the Gauleiter Reichsstatthalter in that capacity.\nQI want to ask you one more question, escuse me. You don't know of your own knowledge that Huebner didn't give orders as a deputy, do you? You are just basing your judgment on what were the general rules?\nAI am supporting myself on the organizational instructions which are known to me and also I am basing myself on the discussions which I had with Huebner at the time.\nQBut you can't say that he did not give orders?\nAI didn't see these orders; therefore I cannot confirm it and I cannot make any claim of that sort.\nQThat is all I want to ask.\nRE-DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, I want to ask you several questions in my re-direct examination. You stated in the cross examination that the defendant \n Huebner had received the same instructions as you did.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2718, "page_number": "2711", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "If, therefore, Huebner adhered to the orders which he received then he must have acted exactly as you have described it in your direct examination.\nAYes, otherwise he would have violated the orders which he had been given.\nQDid you ever officially or privately gain knowledge of the fact that Herr Huebner had not adhered to the regulations which he had received from the Main Staff Office?\nAWe had also discussed that in our talks because very frequently we tried to circumvent orders which could not be put into practice very well and which seemed infeasible to us. We tried to fail to carry them out.\nQHowever, you just did that in practice a few times?\nAYes.\nQIs it impossible that the defendant Huebner, for example, carried out the examination of women for the interruption of pregnancy if no orders for that had been issued to him?\nAI consider that to be completely impossible because there was no reason for him to take that action an I couldn't explain to myself why he should want to carry out such examinations.\nQTherefore I can sum up your testimony to have been that also in the Warthegau, fundamentally orders from higher agencies were obeyed and that at least it was attempted to make them somewhat milder whenever that was possible?\nAYes. I would like to add something with regard to the second part of your question. I would like to say that such orders, which in practice seemed infeasible to us, were then delayed by occasional inquiries or discussions about them with the superior agencies at Berlin, or they would be put in a form which corresponded to the practical necessities.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2719, "page_number": "2712", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QNow another question: In Danzig, West Prussia, that you cannot now maintain the statements which you made in your direct examination?\nAI cannot give you any figures, but there must have been so many that it could be seen that the procedure must have been the same.\nQFrom your official work you must be acquainted with the organization and the right of instructions issued by the agencies which were interested in this.\nAFundamentally, parallels can be drawn between the organizations in the individual districts.\nQFurthermore, you are acquainted with the activity of the defendant Huebner from your own experience ?\nAYes, I have stated before. I know it through talks which I had with him and through conversations which I had with other comrades.\nQIf, therefore, Herr Huebner did not constantly oppose the organizational scheme, then his authority to issue instructions and his activity in factual work was exactly as you have described it in your direct examination?\nAYes.\nQDo you believe that a man like the Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe would have tolerated it if a staff leader constantly exceeded his field of authority?\nANo; on the contary, Koppe was generally known as being very interested in these questions and usually was very active. I am even convinced of the fact that Huebner in his task was very limited because Koppe had the reputation that he would also look into some minor and unimportant matters. In order to clarify the matter, this only refers to the activity of Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe as Reich Commissar.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2720, "page_number": "2713", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "(Witness is excused.)\nWho will you call next?\nDR. MUELLER:Your Honor, the witness Steinhaus, since his address has changed in the meantime, has not as yet arrived in Nurnberg. Please permit me to call him later on whenever he arrives in Nurnberg. For the time being, aside from the presentation of documents, I have now reached the end of the presentation of my case in chief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, with reference to the witness, I will simply state that the Tribunal will cross that bridge when it gets to it.\nProceed with the next defendant.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2721, "page_number": "2714", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:Dr. Schubert for the defendant Lorenz. May it please the Tribunal, I now would like to call the witness Professor von Unruh whom I have already announced yesterday afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR. SCHUBERT:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to point out, before the witness is heard here, that the witness is a Menonite. A Menonite, as is well know, will refuse to take an oath. Therefore, according to German Criminal Law and court procedure, it was provided that members of that religious sect would just give an assurance that they would tell the truth instead of taking an oath. Since this Tribunal is not obliged to observe formal rules, I request that this witness be given the opportunity to assure the Tribunal that he will tell the truth.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any objection on the part of the Prosecution to simply allow the witness to testify without administering any oath?\nMR. LAMB:We have no objection.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right.\nBENJAMINHEINRICH von UNRUH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nAVery well. My name is Benjamin Heinrich von Unruh.\nQWhen and where were you born?\nAI was born at Waldheim on the 4 of September, 1881, in the old calender and on the 17 of September on the new calender.\nQWitness, where is Waldheim located?\nAWaldheim is located in the Crimea and includes the Menonite Settlement of Molocnaja.\nQThat is in Russia?\nAIt is in the Ukraine.\nQHow long have you been in Russia?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "BENJAMIN", "Q", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2722, "page_number": "2715", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AI studied in Switzerland from 1900 to 1907 at the University of Basel and then I returned to my home town. Here I remained until 1920.\nQAnd where did you go from there?\nAI went to the United States by way of Germany. I went to the United States and Canada.\nQWhat did you do there, witness?\nATogether with several colleagues from my home community I received the task, first of all, to organize a Menonite fund for Russia and for members of our faith and, secondly, I was to look at the possibilities of emigration to Canada where already in the 1870's a large number of members of my faith had settled and I was to study these possibilities.\nQAs a result of your measures did emigrations on a larger scale take place from Russia to Canada?\nAYes. These emigrations began in the year 1923 and then they continued until 1932. We were able to bring 20,000 Menonites to Canada to join their relatives.\nQAnd since when were you a resident of Germany, witness?\nAI left the United States where I had gone in June of 1920 in October; and on the first of November I returned to the members of my faith in Holland. Here a fund was also being organized and I received the task to negotiate with the government of Lloyd George because of emigration to Canada. I did this and in 1923 the large scale emigration to Canada began.\nQWitness, I asked you since when you were in Germany?\nAOh, yes, that is right. I came to Germany in 1921 and I have stayed throughout this time in Karlsruhe.\nQAnd what did you do in Germany?\nAI was a member of the faculty at the Technical School of Higher Learning, I was an honorary member of the Board of Supervisors of the \n German Communities of Menonites and the League of the German Menonite Communities, and I had the particular task of caring for the refugees.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2723, "page_number": "2716", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QBy refugees you mean refugees from Russia?\nAYes, for the most part. They were refugees from Russia.\nQAnd you still have this task today?\nAYes, I still do that today.\nQWere you a member of the NSDAP or one of its formations?\nANo.\nQWitness, since you had to take care of Germans from Russia and refugees from Russia, did you have any contact there with VOMI?\nAYes. I came into contact with VOMI when the question arose of the living of an oath which was refused by the Menonites as a result of the words of Christ in his sermon on the Mount and that is how I came into contact with VOMI.\nQWith whom did you negotiate there?\nAI represented the League of German Mononite Communities. I negotiated with the head of VOMI. Werner Lorenz, and also with Herr Heinz Brueckner in VOMI, and also with the other officials who were subordinated to them.\nQWhat attitude did Herr Lorenz and Herr Brueckner maintain on the subject?\nThey were very cooperative. Herr Lorenz was very well acquainted with the Menonites from Danzig and he knew the attitude of our church and he respected our attitude and he premised us all possible support and Herr Brueckner did exactly the same things.\nQDid you also discuss with him religious matters pertaining to religious services in camps and to religious care which was to be given to the ethnic Germans in Russia?\nAYes, of course. I did not play any political part in this matter but I was only a representative of the church and I told them \n that we placed the greatest stress, just like our Baptist, Lutheran and Protestant brethern, that the religious life in the camps, the religious life in our homeland should be brought in order and these two men cooperated with us very well and in every respect they gave us all possible aid and also to the Baptists, the Lutherans and the Protestants in this matter.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2724, "page_number": "2717", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QDid they have to overcome the opposition of the Party in that respect?\nAYes. There was a group within the Party which did not take these things seriously and especially Herr Lorenz and Herr Brueckner intervened on our behalf to a very great extent. I would like to emphasize here that with Archbishop Innitzer in Vienna and with the Chief Rabbi in Vienna we discussed this matter on the occasion of my stay in Vienna and they, on their part, also put in a good word for the Menonites and others.\nQCan you tell us something breifly about Lorenz' personality?\nAHe always was extremely willing to cooperate and he told me occasionally \"If the church has any matters which another person in the Party does not understand, then you can always Come and see me. I shall do everything in my power on your behalf,\" and Herr Brueckner told me exactly the same thing.\nQDid you visit camps of the VOMI?\nAYes.\nQWhere ethnic Germans from Russia were accommodated?\nAYes. The \"Caritas\" of the Lutheran Church and the Menonites always cooperated very closely and they placed the greatest emphasis on the fact that religious life in the camps should remain untouched and here I had the opportunity in religious matters to getacquainted with the camps and I can say that our people were treated extremely well. Whenever any complaints arose and we, as representatives of the Church, had the right to bring up these complaints quite freely, \n I personally always did this in writing and these agencies always cooperate with us.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2725, "page_number": "2718", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "I must emphasize that because there my conscience dictates me to do so.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2726, "page_number": "2719", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.- Professor, a while ago you mentioned that the Vomi and its director, Lorenz, always followed up justified complaints. Now, towards you, did Herr Lorenz expressly request anything?\nA.- Herr Lorenz told me that whenever there were complaints, then we should approach him with that, we of the churches, and I did so and also my colleagues from the other churches, and the matters were always followed up. Lorenz at that time -- and I may say that here quite conscientiously -- again and again advocated and showed a perfect attitude towards us, and he and herr Brueckner, during those days when we had to fight and when we were afraid for our comrades of the same faith, he and Herr Brueckner were a real solace for us.\nQ.- Witness, that brings me to another point. Is it correct that the racial Germans in Russia based themselves in their claims on a right which had been granted to them long, long years before that in order to return home?\nA.- In the Czarist era there was the right of rapatriation at all times. That was the manifest issued by Catherine II and her successors, and this right had always been granted. In the Treaty of Brest-Litowsk, this point was stressed and emphasized again and therefore, we, the responsible representatives of the churches did not see any disloyalty towards our dearly loved country of choice in this flight towards Germany.\nPerhaps I may state, these people who had no political trend at all and who were very good colonizers were between two millstones, and we really saw no other way out than to let them evacuate the area in order to go away and to alleviate the tensions between Germany and Russia.\nQ.- These tensions you just described, were they the reason for the \n emigration which had started already as early as 1923?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2727, "page_number": "2720", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness that this testimony is being translated. It is therefore necessary when a question has been propounded, that the witness pause for a few seconds before answering and also that the witness talk rather slowly. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.- Do you still remember my question now?\nA.- Well, I would rather you put it again.\nQ.- Professor, you mentioned that the Germans in Russia were in a situation which you termed as being between two millstones. Was that already the reason for the tendency to emigrate which had started as early as 1923 as you described it?\nA.- I may point out that a strong emigration to Canada and to the United States had already started in 1870 or around that time, and after the first World War we all were under the impression that we had to go. However, after the revolution of Kerenski -- who was of a very fine nature -suggested to us that we should try it once again, and he asked us whether we were prepared to collaborate in the constituent assembly, and we answered that question gladly in the affirmative and with 98% of our voters participating, we took part in the elections to the constituent assembly, and we wanted to stay in Russia if only we were given the guarantee that we could go on with our work quietly. I myself was a candidate for the German Peasants in Tuaria for this constituent assembly, but later this assembly was dissolved.\nQ.- Witness, may I gather from your answer that the emigration trend which you described as having started in 1923, was based already on the fact that you thought that it would no longer be possible for the Germans to remain in Russia; is that correct?\nA.- The chairman of our Mennonite Agricultural Association -- incidentally he is a Canadian Citizen now and his name is Reverend E.D. Young -", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2728, "page_number": "2721", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "submitted a considerable petition to the Kharkoff Government and another one to the Moscow Government with the request to let us go. Therefore, this trend towards emigration of which I have spoken never was carried out behind the back of the Russian Government. We even received a large scale permission to emigrate and the 20,000 peasants who went to Canada went there with the permission of the Russian Government, and partly they went via Germany.\nQ.- Witness, please, could you kindly answer my questions in a little bit more precise way? Is it correct if I say that the trend towards emigration in 1943 and 1944, to which I intend to turn now, actually was only the final step and was only the end of a movement which had started considerably earlier?\nA.- Yes, I can conscientiously answer this question in the affirmative.\nQ.- Di the racial Germans who, in 1943 and 1944, came from Russia to Germany come as volunteers or were they forced to come?\nA.- All of them left Russia as volunteers on the strength of the occurrences I described.\nQ.- How do you know that, witness?\nA.- I know that because from the very beginning I discussed the matter with my whole church congregation, and I was very worried about these questions.\nQ.- Did you have reports on it later? Slowly, slowly.\nA.- Again and again we received reports on the situation. In order to stress one point, all priests, vicars and elders had been banished from the German settlements.\nQ.- Do you know, witness, that near to the German settlements there were also Swiss and Swedish settlements?\nA.- Yes, the Swiss on the peninsula of the Crimea had a settlement called Zuerichthal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2729, "page_number": "2722", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.- Good. All right, all right, that will do.\nA.- Yes, and the Swedes had also their villages in the area of our racial German and Dutch Low-German settlements.\nQ.- Did the Swiss and the Swedes come along when you emigrated?\nA.- They were repatriated to Sweden and to Switzerland.\nQ.- Why, witness, did these Germans from Russia come on a voluntary basis?\nA.- After the defeat at Stalingrad they could well imagine the fate that would await them, and it was not exactly a rose fate. They were afraid of the most severe disciplinary measures which had already struck their brothers.\nQ.- Witness, do you know the name, Hoffmeyer?\nA.- He was a deputy and a representative of the Vomi in Russia, I know, but I don't know in detail his powers. However, he arranged the matters for the repatriation there.\nQ.- What can you say about Hoffmeyer's work?\nA.- I saw him once and I asked him, as did other church functionaries, to straighten out the church affairs in Ukraine by all means, and he promised to do so with certainty. Insofar as we can see it from here he always made efforts to get these matters straightened out.\nQ.- In the exhibits of the prosecution 206 and 208, collective settlements in the Russian areas are mentioned. Can you tell us something about these collective settlements and why they became necessary?\nA.- Quite a number of men had been deported from individual settlements, almost all of them, and this concentration was to be carried out in order to create the beginning of an economic basis.\nQ.- But who had deported these people?\nA.- The State had deported them, the G.P.U.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2730, "page_number": "2723", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QIn a document of the prosecution, 207, it is mentioned that racial German children from Russia knew only very little German. Did the racial Germans in Russia in general speak German, all of them?\nAYes, the racial Germans in Russia, on account of the generosity of the governments, had very excellent schools and it is obvious that with the onset of anarchic conditions, especially in the Ukraine, the school life was impeded also, but in a general way they spoke excellent German. They spoke excellent German or in other cases, Swedish, or Switzer Dutch, or else as the Mennonites would do, the low German, the Plattdeutsch, German dialect.\nQWitness, in the prosecution document, exhibit 256, it is mentioned that racial Germans from the Caucasus in 1943 were transferred or were to be transferred in the area of Halbstadt. Do you know the settlement area of Halbstadt in the Ukraine?\nAYes, I myself was at Halbstadt for a longer period of time and I was teaching there.\nQIs Halbstadt an old German settlement area?\nASince 1804 and the Hortiza since 1789. These are the two large Mennonite settlements, the main settlements.\nQDo you know whether, before the collapse of the German front in Russia, there was no plan-of repatriating the racial Germans from Russia to Germany?\nAThey were supposed to stay there. The concentration which counsel has mentioned a while ago had mainly the purpose also that the scattered settlements were to be concentrated in large areas in order to prevent that again and again the Russian people would be made nervous.\nQWitness, in a few prosecution documents, it is \n mentioned that as long as the racial Germans in Russia were still down there in Russia, interpreters and domestic workers were recruited amongst them and sent to Germany.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2731, "page_number": "2724", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "From your own experience do you know that at that time there were many girls among the racial Germans who gladly and voluntarily wanted to get a job in Germany?\nAYes, I know that.\nQWitness, now after these racial Germans from Russia had come to Germany, were they made German nationals?\nAYes, all of them became German citizens.\nQAnd who gave them the citizenship?\nAE.W.Z. which had its seat at Lodz.\nQDid that raise the question of military service?\nAYes, the principle was as we were told in the churches, that when these people had received their German citizenship they would also be liable to military service.\nQWhat was Lorenz's attitude towards that question? Do you remember that?\nAAs far as I know the Vomi was in no way directly connected with that matter, but I talked with Herr Lorenz concerning that matter, in connection with the well known attitude taken by the Mennonites. The Mennonites enjoyed the privilege in Germany of being only medics in military service and Lorenz told me that everything possible would be done to try to extend this privilege to the Mennonites again and to be as generous as possible towards them.\nQWitness, do you recognize the two defendants, Lorenz and Brueckner in the courtroom?\nAYes, they are those gentlemen right over there. (Indicating)\nQNow, as at the beginning, you were not sworn in, \n tell me, is it the full truth that you have testified here?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2732, "page_number": "2725", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AYes, I can testify that I was speaking the truth, and I can use the words of Christ, which we Mennonites love so much, \"Let your speech be Yes, Yes, and No, No.\"\nDR. SCRUBERT:Thank you very much, witness, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by any other member of defense counsel?\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING (Counsel for Meyer-Hetling):\nQI have only one question, your Honor. Witness, you already mentioned the fact that Halbstadt was an old colonization area. Can you confirm that the concept of a colonization area is a very old, well known term for these settlement islands there and has nothing to do with resettlement as conceived in 1942 to 1944?\nAThe immigration of German peasants to Russia happened on the strength of an agreement with Catharine II and on a merely confessional basis. The Mennonites, and the Lutherans and the Catholics were settled in one village each or in one area each, if only in order to prevent making propaganda in the orthodox church or against it. Those were colonization areas or settlement areas which were very strictly outlined and limited.\nQIn other words, in the literature and also in the usual ways of life throughout all these years settlement areas were always referred to?\nAI myself am a research scientist for Mennonite questions, and I can testify to it that we never used other terms as those of large settlement areas, Hortiza, Molocnata, Krischi, Argenfeld, Planfeld, and so on and so forth.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCRUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2733, "page_number": "2726", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QDid you also speak of a settlement area Halbstadt?\nAThe settlement area Halbstadt included eventually about sixty villages concentrated in two districts, Halbstadt and planfeld, and they were never termed anything else but a concentrated area, completely closed area and were treated as such by the Russian government.\nDR. BEHLING:No further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQProfessor, there was one question that you answered and I wanted to be sure that I understood your statement correctly. Did you say that you got the Rabbi in Vienna to assist you with the Nazis in getting religious justice for the Mennonites, the Jewish Rabbi?\nAIn 1934 Archbishop Innitzer had invited me to a big welfare conference in his palace and there I had the possibility and even the joy of meeting these two people, the High Rabbi of Vienna, Chief Rabbi of Vienna, and to make his acquaintance and in all questions we had a complete understanding. I don't want to give you any further details of how we, the Mennonite Church, always collaborated in perfect harmony with all other churches and also with the Jewish church and we also had a perfect working together in welfare matters, not only a perfect, but really a complete collaboration.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2734, "page_number": "2727", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.- Professor, I don't want or care for you to give me any of the details that you don't want to give, but all I asked you was whether or not the Jewish Rabbi in Vienna helped the Mennonites with the Nazi Party.\nA.- At that time in Vienna we discussed the measures of welfare and of the aid as far as Russia was concerned, and there was a tendency to make a political question out of that work, and there I approached the chief Rabbi and I told him we Mennonites cannot take a part in making politics out of this welfare and he told me we couldn't turn that into politics either, and Archbishop Innitzer's and my suggestion at the time was to leave all politics aside and even as far as communits were concerned, and this suggestion was approved, and that was a help for us Mennonites.\nQ.- Professor, I will have to ask you not to make your answers quite so long, because I have a limited time in which to question you, and I would appreciate if you would make them as short as possible.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Were you in Russia between 1939 and 1945?\nA.- Since 1920 I have personally not been in Russia any longer.\nQ.- Well, if you haven't personally been in Russia, you are not in a position to say just what went on in Russia during this evacuation; in other words, of your own personal knowledge you did not observe any of this, did you?\nA.- I have to point out here that on the strength of our Mennonites, close church connections not only am I well acquainted, but I am perfectly informed concerning everything that had an interest for our people.\nQ.- Yes. Well, Professor, you are speaking mostly for the Mennonites, are you not, and you can't tell about the other Russians.\nA.- I know exactly what happened, especially with regard to the Lutheran Catholic and Protestant church of ours.\nQ.- Well, in that event you are probably familiar with the evacuation \n down in Smolensk; and I have a document here which is Exhibit No. 746, that has already been introduced in evidence, and I would like for you to look at it and see if that doesn't say that these evacuations or this re-Germanization was forced.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2735, "page_number": "2728", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "You can just read the first sentence there if you want to.\nA.- Shall I say something to that?\nQ.- That is a letter written by the defendant Brueckner to the Einsatzgruppen down there, and it states, doesn't it, that this is not a voluntary proposition, that it has been ordered.\nA.- For myself, I can only repeat the following conscientiously again, namely, that our main settlement which are involved and those are not only only the question of Mennonites, but Lutherans, and Catholics, that these matters, that these people had only one wish and one wish only, namely, to bet away as soon as possible from this hot soil because all the families and churches there were doomed and were perishing.\nQ.- Do you know what kind of an oath VOMI wanted these Mennonites to take? You said you first came in contact with VOMI because the Mennonites didn't want to take an oath. What was that oath?\nA.- The customary question oath. The Mennonites based upon the confession sermon asked that it was to be limited to an affidavit where they could answer yes or no. That right was granded in the sixteenth century by Wilhelm of Orange.\nQ.- I have to ask you again, Professor, to try to keep your answers as short as possible.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Speaking of the Jews, you know, don't you, that a great many Jews were exterminated by the Nazis?\nDR. SCHUBERT:Just a minute, witness. I object against this question Your Honor; it has no connection whatsoever with my direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, that is one of the things that has been inquired \n about in this case up to now.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2736, "page_number": "2729", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Go ahead.\nA.- Well, it is not quite clear to me what I am supposed to answer. Should I answer that question concerning the execution of the Jewish population?\nQ.- Just answer it yes or no.\nA.- Well, of course, I know that.\nQ.- That is sufficient.\nA.- I always protested against that energetically, against the persecutions.\nQ.- Now, one last question, Professor. Now, the only knowledge that you actually have of what went on in Russia is what you got through the church channels; that is true, isn't it?\nA.- I am sorry; I haven't quite got that, unfortunately.\nQ.- Well, you stated you were not in Russia when these evacuations were taking place, and that your information came through your church connections.\nA.- Yes, that is true.\nMR. LAMB:We have no further questions, Your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.- Witness, in the cross examination it was mentioned that an oath was demanded to be taken by the Mennonites and that this demand was pressed by the VOMI. Did the VOMI demand an oath to be taken by Mennonite refugees at any time?\nA.- At no time.\nQ.- In the question of the oath wasn't it rather that Mennonites were recruited for the compulsory labor service and were to take an oath there?\nA.- Yes, in all ministeries and agencies they had to take an oath, but -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the Attorney says he is satisfied without \n any further explanation.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2737, "page_number": "2730", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.- One last question, witness. Did the Mennonites, Catholic and Lutheran church of which you are informed cover a large proportion of the racial Germans in Russia?\nA.- I didn't understand your question, Counsel. I am sorry; will you repeat it please?\nQ.- I was asking you whether the Mennonites, Lutheran and Catholic communities included a very large number of the Germans in Russia.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- In other words, this wasn't simply some of the communities, A.- No, the Mennonites had a very great church organization and also the Catholic and Lutheran.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBERT:I am calling now, with the permission of the Court, the defendant Lorenz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The Witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nWERNERLORENZ, a witness, took the staned and testified under oath as follows.\nWERNER LORENZ DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz) Q.- Witness, in an affidavit you explained to the Prosecution the \n most important points of your curriculum in detail.", "speakers": [ "WERNER", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2738, "page_number": "2731", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "This document has been offered as Exhibit 9. Therefore, whatever is correct in that affidavit, I don't want to have to repeat or see repeated by you. The affidavit is submitted to you; you have it there. Now please only tell me do you have any supplements or is it incorrect in any way. Are there any additions to No. 1 of the affidavit?\nA.- Yes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2739, "page_number": "2732", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Go ahead, go ahead.\nA.Before I became a soldier in 1912, I was trained in agriculture in an estate in Wolkersdorf. Apart from that, I went for half a year to an agriculture machine factory and worked there.\nQ.Any additions to No. 2 of your affidavit? And there I ask you to state why in 1930 you became a member of the Nazi Party and of the SS.\nA.I joined the Nazi Party and the SS because I held the conviction that this Party offered the best solution for Germany and had the best intentions for Germany. From 1919 until 1934, I was a lessee of a state domain and I was owner of the sawing factory and of a mill, and of a psirit factory, and I lived in the Free State of Danzig. It is true that previously Danzig had been a part of the German Reich and was almost exclusively populated by racial Germans.\nQ.Go ahead, a little bit quicker.\nA.But officially at that time Danzig was not a part of the German Reich. Amongst all the Germans in the Danzig Free State -- and they constituted at least ninety-five per cent of the Danzig population -- the desire prevailed to be reattached to the German Reich as quickly as possible because they held the conviction that the small Free State of Danzig, in the long run, would not be able to exist between Poland and Germany and therefore I believed that the National Socialist Party certainly would make it their aim and would try to prevent the Polish influence in Danzig to become overwhelming or to prevent also that Poland would annex Danzig. This desire was expressed by many Poles and was advocated by the Polish newspapers and by Polish statomen. They expressed it quite openly. That is No. 2.\nNow, as far as the affidavit is concerned, I have the following to add furthermore and I have to rectify. It is not correct that I became a general of the Waffen SS at the same time as a general of the police. I did not hold these positions simultaneously. First I became for a certain period of time general of the police and then after that I became \n a general of the Waffen SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2740, "page_number": "2733", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Q.Do you have anything to add to the lint of your distinctions under No. 3 of the affidavit?\nA.NO.\nQ.Turning to No. 4. You described your SS career there. Any rectifications or additions?\nA.I have to remark there that until 1934, when I was Gruppenfuehrer and Leader of the SS Main Sector, Hamburg, I was only an honorary leader and as such I did not receive any pay. Only in Hamburg I was paid as an SS leader. In other words, there I became an active SS leader and I drew that pay until 1936. Then I retired from active SS service and was entrusted with other tasks, but not paid by the SS any longer. Of course I regained a member of the SS. I was an Obergruppenfuehrer, because I saw no reason to retire from the SS particularly as I always made the acquaintance only of clean and decent people in the SS. I will make a distinction or even a very considerable distinction in my relation to the General SS and to the Waffen SS and to Himmler. We all rejected Himmler because he deviated so far from our original plans that we all felt that we had been betrayed by him.\nQ.How about that quick career you had in the SS? How did that come about?\nA.Until 1933, I was not very quickly promoted. Then, after the access to power, quite a number of new members poured into the SS. A great number of higher leadership positions were newly created and it was a matter of course that the leaders the higher SS leaders, would be selected amongst those people who had already, for some period of time, been members of the SS and, apart from that, who had been former active officers and therefore presented the qualifications necessary for leadership. I myself never urged to be promoted.\nQ.What was your task, as a Gruppenfuehrer at Hamburg?\nA.I had to lead the SS, which was just a Party organization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2741, "page_number": "2734", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "QDid you have anything to do with police tasks?\nANo, not at all.\nQAt that time did you have anything to do with concentration camps in Hamburg?\nANo, never.\nQNow, let us turn to No. 5 of your affidavit. Do you have anything to add there?\nAWell, you see, oh, yes, I have. When, on the first of January 1937, I became Chief of the Vomi, I was subordinated to the so-called Deputy of the Fuehrer. His name was Hess. And later on I was directly under Hitler's orders, on the strength of a personnel order he had issued. Now, if my affidavit reads, \"My factual superior was the Chief of the Foreign Office, Joachim von Ribbentrop,\" then this wording -- which was suggested to me by the interrogator -- is not in line with the facts. At no time the Foreign Minister my superior. I could only undertake steps for the racial groups abroad in agreement with the Foreign Office. That was intended to prevent difficulties in the relations with foreign countries. Apart from that, I had orders to carry out measures for the benefit of racial Germans, also in agreement with the Foreign Office and with the foreign government involved. In other words, I was not entitled to work as a so-called \"Fifth Column is\", and I never did so, either. Also it was strictly prohibited that I should advocate Party propaganda, Nazi Party propaganda, abroad. Of course I strictly complied with that prohibition with that prohibition too and I passed it on to the racial groups too.\nQLet us pass to No. 6. There you mention that you were plenipotentiary chief of Ribbentrop's agency and, in connection with that, plenipotentiary of the representative for foreign questions of the Nazi Party in the staff of the Fuehrer's Deputy. Will you please explain that with a little mere precision?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2742, "page_number": "2735", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "AThat is wrongly explained in the affidavit. These are now two different positions, but one, and only one occupation.\nQWhat did you have to do in that capacity?\nAI had no authority concerning questions of foreign policy. The only powers I held were these of economic supervision of the agency.\nApart from that, I had to report to Ribbentrop, in his capacity of Chief of the Agency, and I had to deputize for him at official occasions of the Party or other kinds of official occasions. Therefore, these here are only representative functions.\nQAs from the tenth of January 1938, Himmler gave you authority to promote and to take disciplinary action as in the capacity of a chief of an SS Main Section. What is that?\nAThese powers were limited to my agency, VOMI, and to Ribbentrop's agency. I gad the right to make promotions from a SS private up to the rank of Oberscharfuchrer. That would correspond to the rank of a staff sergeant in the armed forces. Also, in disciplinary matters, I had the right to downgrade these people or to prohibit their wearing the uniform. Other disciplinary powers. I did not held.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2743, "page_number": "2736", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nIt's true that I very often decreed promotions, but never any punishment.\nQ.Last but not least, according to No. 6 of your affidavit, you were, as from July 1938, president of the association of the interstate units. What does that mean?\nA.At the time I was president of an organization which concentrated a certain number of associations for the care of the friendly and cultural relations between Germany and certain other countries: The German-English Society; the German-French Society; the German-Polish Society; and so on and so forth--almost all the European countries were represented. My functions were only of a representative nature, and I had to carry out foundations of main societies in Berlin and have subsidiary societies scattered all over the Reich.\nQ.Witness, in view of all these tasks and particularly in view of all these representatives functions, did you have a possibility to take a vital interest in your tasks in the VOMI?\nA.Only very little, and that is why Himmler, when I was appointed, had appointed a constant plenipotentiary deputy in the person of the Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Behrens, and he had appointed this man for me upon my own request. Behrens was a lawyer. He was a Senior Government Councillor and therefore was a well-trained administrative expert. Apart from that, he was an expert in ethnic question. Of all these matters, I, myself, didn't understand anything, and I was a layman there. Therefore, I accepted the position as Chief of the VOMI only under the condition that the expert work would be taken care of by Behrens. Matters of importance, it is true, I asked a report of, but whether Behrens reported to me on every matter, I couldn't tell you. Anyhow, he worked in a very independent manner and he had to do so because very \n often I was away for months.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2744, "page_number": "2737", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "During the whole period, when Behrens was my plenipotentiary deputy--that is until the end of 1945--the situation remained one same; particularly during the war, where out of 12 months of the year I was absent for about 7 months on duty trips, on the average, I had to be absent, that is to say, I had to make these duty trips, not only as chief of the VOMI but also as the president of the Interstate Societies, as I described them a while age, and also as Gau Hunting Representative for Hamburg. This position, which I had kept even after I resigned as SS leader in Hamburg and which I kept until 1945, required my presence in Hamburg very often.\nQ.Do you have any addition to make concerning 7 of the Affidavit?\nA.There it says that I had to carry out the deportation of racial Germans and had to see to it that they were transferred to collective camps for the purposes of reGermanization. This formulation is incorrect, and before I signed this affidavit I protested against that formulation; but the interrogator, Herbert Meyer, told me that that was the way it ought to be written and had to remain and that later on I could find exception with it and explain it, if I was asked about it. He told me that I could tell every time I was asked, that he was the man who told me to out it down this way.\nThis is not a deportation in the technical sense but a resettlement, and above all, this is not for the purpose of re-Germanization, because from the very beginning this was only a matter of Germans and Germans only.\nQ.Anything to add to No. 8?\nA.No, no additions.\nQ.What do you have to say to No. 9 of the affidavit?\nA.No. 9 mentions that as from July 1938 I was in \n practice the chief of the so-called VDA--the Association for the Germans abroad.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2745, "page_number": "2738", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "I have to rectify this to the effect that as from July 1938, the VOMI had to supervise this organization VDA. Until 1941 the VDA had a complete independent management. It was presided over by a president under whom the manager, Paul Minke, had to work. Only as from summer 1941 I became president of the VDA. I had all the powers in this connection and I delegated them to my personal deputy Behrens and he held these powers and acted. It is incorrect, however, that Minke only acted upon my orders. I only had the possibility to prohibit certain actions to him. But in practice, I never did. During the war, the VDA had hardly any significance at all and no activities either. The only thing they did was to have a certain welfare activity for the racial Germans in the Reich.\nUnder \"f\" of the same figure, the BDO--the Association of the Germans in the East--is mentioned. This association also in 1938 was subordinated to VOMI upon superior orders as far as the supervision was concerned. In my recollection, the BDO was dissolved in 1941. Hoffmeyer, who was the business manager of the BDO, was also an employee of the VOMI since the summer of 1939.\nUnder \"g\", it is mentioned that during the war I was President of the Foundation \"German Heritage Abroad.\" I had completely forgotten this fact because this organization was completely deactivated during the war and it had no significance whatsoever. My predecessor was the poet, Blunck. The tasks in that field were only in the merely cultural field and it was completely and automatically deactivated because of the war.\nQ.Is that all what you have to add or correct in the affidavit, Exhibit 9?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2746, "page_number": "2739", "date": "17 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-17", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Since you have finished with that subject, I believe we will recess, and the Court will take a recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 18 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2747, "page_number": "2740", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Official Transcript of the United Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 18 December 1947, 0930, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I, Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Viermetz, who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution wishes at this time to withdraw from evidence four affidavits introduced during the case in chief. These are the affidavits made by Karl Hellmuth, Document No.NO 4977, Exhibit No. 756; the affidavit by Fritz Volkenborn, Document No.NO 5113, Exhibit No. 758; the affidavit by Kurt Kleinschmidt, Document No.NO 5245, Exhibit No. 768; and the affidavit by Arnulf Panzer, Document NO.NO 5632, Exhibit No. 713.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The Tribunal understands that as to these four affidavits, the parties who made the affidavits have been subpoenaed for the purpose of cross examination. Since their affidavits have been withdrawn from evidence, it will not be necessary to produce the affiants for the purpose of cross examination. Proceed with the examination.\nWERMER LORENZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQHerr Lorenz, yesterday you testified about your affidavit, Exhibit 9. Now hos is it that at the beginning of 1945 you still obtained \n an assignment with the Armed Forces?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2748, "page_number": "2741", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AVOMI was supposed to be dissolved at the end of 1944, because these was no longer any real work for it. In about February, 1945, I took over an assignment as general with the police troops at Himmler's orders, with the task of safeguarding their rearward communications, collecting with the scattered troops and other matters with the Army group. I exercised this activity until shortly before the capitulation.\nQAt that time, you were an active general in the Waffen SS?\nAYes.\nQWere you this at the moment of capitulation too?\nAYes, at the moment of the capitulation, I was at the disposal of the chief of the SS personnel office of the Waffen SS, that is General of the Waffen SS von Herfft, H-e-r-f-f-t.\nQDid you become a P.W.?\nAYes, I was taken prisoner together with General von Herfft in Holstein.\nQWere you sent to a P.W. camp?\nAYes, after a few days we were sent to a British general's camp in England, first of all, in Windermere, which is on the Scotish border and later in Bridgerd, which is in Wales.\nQHow is it that you came from the British P.W. camp to Nurnberg?\nA ABritish colonel in a transit camp in London told me that I was requested for examination as a witness in Nurnberg. After this, I was supposed to return to the PW camp in England. The same happened to me a year earlier. In May or June of 1946, I was transferred to Oberursel for about two months. The British colonel there told me that I was only lent there, and from there I was supposed to return to the British PW camp, which actually happened.\nQWere you ever discharged from PW status in England?\nANo. In the prison here, in about April 1947, I was once called to the office and I had to make out a receipt for a sum of money in \n dollars in Reichsmarks.", "speakers": [ "A", "A A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2749, "page_number": "2742", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Later on, I learned from the newspaper that on this occasion I had been discharged from being a P.W., that is by the American authorities here. My attention was never drawn to this fact, nor did I ever agree to it. When I learned this from the newspaper, I immediately sent a written protest to Major Teich. Then I received a pencil note from Captain Binder that I had been discharged. I consider this procedure improper, and I still consider myself as being a British P.W.\nQWitness, as head of the VOMI from October 1939, you were a subordinate to Himmler as RKFDV. When did you first meet Himmler?\nAI have known Himmler since about 1930. At this time, at the instigation of the later Gauleiter Forster of Danzig, he several times came out to see me on my estate. He tried to persuade me to join the SS, because he had already intended me for the job of SS leader. After several attempts, he succeeded in persuading me.\nQWhy did you join the SS?\nAAt the time, I didn't know anything about the SS, because in the Free State of Danzig, there was only one SS leader and 20 SS men altogether. I asked him about the aims of the SS, I wanted him to explain to me what its tasks were. He told me several things. The main point which then persuaded me -- may I just outline these points quite briefly, several points altogether? The first point, was to find people who were especially efficient in their jobs; secondly, emphasis on a social attitude in every way of life; thirdly, a sound and unobjectionable family life; fourthly, creation of a living community of the people, fifthly, stress on the intellectual qualities in education and other matters; sixth, no ambition for rank and political power; seventh, refusal of political corruption. Himmler's task was to educate and lead young men in this sense, and thereupon I entered the SS.\nQWitness, it was Himmler who told you this?\nAYes, Himmler himself.\nQOn what terms were you with Himmler?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2750, "page_number": "2743", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AI didn't hear the question.\nQWhat was your relationship to Himmler?\nAFirst of all, I had only personal contacts with him. Later on, my relationship with him became a purely official one. It started about at the time when I became a full-time , paid SS leader in Hamburg. AS Himmler took and received more and more power and the SS got bigger and bigger, he abandoned the old SS principles more and more, about which he told me at this time. During the war, his true character became apparent. It turned out that Himmler was no soldiers. As a result, there were differences of opinion with myself, who was of a simple soldierly nature. I often completely failed to understand Himmler's fantastic ideas. I said time and again that I couldn't understand him. He got more and more separated from the SS leaders, and we old SS men and SS leaders felt badly let down by him.\nQWitness, the witness Wolff that is General Wolff, testified that during the war you often reported for service with the Army?\nAYes.\nQWhy?\nAYes, that is right. For the reasons I have just mentioned, at the beginning of the war in particular, I tried again and again to get out of Himmler's personal sphere of influence. I asked Field Marshal Milch, whom I know, to try and get me a job with the Luftwaffe because in the First World War, as a cavalry officer I had become a pilot, and I also asked General Wolff to try and get me into the Army. Both attempts were unsuccessful, because of Himmler's resistance. In addition, I was always trying to buy a farm once again so as to be able to follow my old beloved profession. Unfortunately, these attempts were also unsuccessful.\nQDid you have any differences of opinion with Himmler?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2751, "page_number": "2744", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A Yes, frequently. From the time on that I went to Hamburg, as I said at the time, it was 1944 - I beg your pardon, 1934. I went to the German Reich for the first time in 1934. I went to the German Reich for the first time as since the first war, I had been in Danzig. I arrived in Hamburg in the middle of the Roehm Putsch, and there two prominent Hamburg people, I think people from economic or industrial life, I only knew them superficially, were arrested and taken away by the Berlin Gestapo, and then prominent Hamburg people turned to Gauleiter Koch and myself. We went to try and find out what was happening to these people. We went to Berlin immediately and went to see Himmler and put the case to him, whereupon Himmler shouted at us, \"It is none of your business, you don't know anything about it.\" But we didn't give up, and denied the permissibility of the arrest of the people, and we said we would be guarantors for them. We were dismissed very abruptly, but the next day one of them returned, and a few days later, the other man returned too. Then the second clash with Himmler came at that time I was in charge of the North Hamburg Group. Himmler approached me with an order that I was to influence all the SS men in my charge, to try and get them to leave the church community. I objected most strongly to this request. Whereupon, Himmler said - or rather, I must correct myself. As I said to Himmler, \"before joining the SS the people weren't told anything about this. Now that they have joined the SS, you can't suddenly approach them with something they haven't heard of before. I won't do that. It is not my job\". Thereupon he didn't say anything more and I told my SS men what I have just told you. As far as I was concerned, every SS man could go to church or not, complete freedom of faith. Later on, I was told that this is one of the reasons why in 1936 I was relieved of my Hamburg command and had to leave the active SS. Heydrich who at this time was chief of the Reich Security Main Office, told me once that I was too contradictory to Himmler, and had too bourgeois an attitude for him. In my new position in VOMI, I was neither \n financially nor with regard to orders directly subordinated to Himmler at first.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2752, "page_number": "2745", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QHow did your relationship develop when you again became subordinated to Himmler in his capacity as RKFDV?\nAIt grew worse. I frequently told Himmler when I dispersed with him, and again and again asked him to relieve me of my post and to have me drafted for service with the forces. Himmler always refused. I had several disputes with him. I remember a case when I was with the German ethnic group in Rumania. Himmler intervened over my herd in order to permit the ethnic group to exercise certain national socialist party functions. This was strictly forbidden according to the Fuehrer's orders. I immediately got in touch with the German Minister, Freiherr von Killinger, and told him that I had immediately forbidden the leader of the ethnic group to comply with this order of Himmler. I asked the Minister to inform the Rumanian Government to this effect. I flew back to Berlin because my job down there was finished. I went straight to Himmler and told him that I had acted contrary to his orders. He was terribly excited and there was a fierce dispute. I said that I must report him to Hitler for having acted contrary to the orders I had received from Hitler so finally he gave in and -\nQSlowly. Could you repeat the last few sentences? You spoke too quickly, it couldn't be translated properly. From your discussion with Himmler onwards.\nAWhen I returned from Rumania, I immediately went to see Himmler and reported to him that I had had his Rumanian order withdrawn and that I told this both to the Rumanian government and the German minister. He was very indignant and reproached me severely. I told him that I would have to go to Hitler immediately to tell him about it. Thereupon, he gave way and put up with it, and we parted on not very good terms.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2753, "page_number": "2746", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Did you have any other disputes with him?\nA.Yes, the worst one was because I had my three children confirmed and because my two daughters were married in church. That was in 1941 and 1942 and led to the final breach with Himmler. In addition, I had learned that he had my personal and official telephone calls checked. A conversation in which I made deprecating remarks about him to the then Consul General Wilhelm Roller was also listened to and recorded. I also know that he always had my house and my visitors checked and watched.\nQ.Were you ever present at any speeches Himmler held?\nA.Yes, I was present at the Poznan speech. After this speech some other comrades and myself discussed it. We were firmly convinced that the mar -- that is, Himmler -- was slightly cracked and that it was quite impossible to carry out such insane ideas. In addition he did not read the speech but spoke ex tempore and I think, I remember that he spoke about distant aims which couldn't possibly be realized.\nQ.Did you tell your office about this speech?\nA.No, it was impossible to discuss this speech or to pass it on.\nQ.Did you hear speeches in Nek and Bad Schachan?\nA.No, I wasn't there.\nQ.Did Himmler call you in for any conferences or discussions in the intimate circle?\nA.No, never.\nQ.The Prosecution, in Exhibit 84, has submitted a memorandum of Himmler's about the treatment of aliens in the East. This memorandum was supposed to be passed on to all main office chiefs by the defendant Greifelt. Did you hear about this?\nA.I don't remember it. I don't believe I did either because my office had nothing whatsoever to do with aliens. In addition, I wasn't a main office chief at the time and could therefore not have received this order.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2754, "page_number": "2747", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Do you knew, Witness, whether you received a memorandum from the racial political office about the treatment of the population of the former Polish territories according to racial political points of view dated 25 November 1939, which was submitted as Prosecution Exhibit 82?\nA.Certainly not. Because on the distribution list VOMI isn't mentioned at all.\nQ.Did you see all the mail that reached VOMI?\nA.No. During the main working hourse, we had something like one hundred pounds weight of mail were distributed among the seven or eight Berlin offices. Of course I only saw the most essential parts of this mail and even that only with many interruptions because of my many trips.\nQ.You have already said VOMI was originally directly subordinate to Himmler. Did a change result because in 1939 the office of the RKFDV was set up?\nA.This did not result in any change. In Hitler's decree of 7 October 1939, III, Exhibit 20, it is definite that Himmler and the RKFDV had, could among other offices, make use of the VOMI, as a main office, subordinate to the Reich Commissioner. This resulted in a division. The parts of VOMI which had existed before the war remained independent. A part of VOMI, dealing with the settlement and the tasks which had to deal with new tasks which arose in 1939, that is Main Office 11, this belonged to the Reich Commissioner. I personally, and Behrens too, used the letterhead \"Head\" or \"Deputy head of VOMI,\" VOMI Main Office signed \"RKFDV, VOMI\". The other department only signed \"VOMI\",\nQ.You are speaking too quickly, Mr. Lorenz. You will have to repeat that about the letterhead.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Caution the witness to apeak rather slowly and directly into the microphone.\nQ.Please tell us again this business about the letterhead, and please allow an interval after the question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2755, "page_number": "2748", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.I personally and Behrens used the letterhead \"The head\" or \"deputy head of VOMI\", Main Office VOMI, signed \"the Reich Commissioner of the Strengthening of Germanism\", then underneath that VOMI. The other department only signed \"VOMI.\"\nQ.Was VOMI a main office of the SS?\nA.My answer shows that VOMI consisted of two parts. The question can therefore arise only for the so-called main office of VOMI. Under a main office of the SS, I understand an office of Himmler in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS. But the VOMI main office was not subordinate to Himmler in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS but as Reich Commissioner, and therefore VOMI was not an SS office but a Reich agency. This is also shown by the way the finances were regulated. The SS agencies received their money from the SS economic and administrative main office, the NVHA. VOMI, as a main office of the Reich Commissioner, for its funds through the official treasury of the Reich Ministry of Finance, or rather I ought to say the official treasury of the Reich Commissioner. In so far as VOMI was not a main office, it received its money from the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP. I still remember a significant example. In 1941, when the VOMI main office was set up, an overzealous employee in the supply department had letterheads printed, the Reichsfuehrer SS, SS Main Office, VOMI. At Himmler's orders, these letterheads had to be withdrawn, although some were already in use and were not allowed to be used any longer. So, Himmler himself did not regard VOMI as a main office of the SS.\nQ.Herr Lorenz, in VOMI you had a lot of dealings with so-called ethnic Germans. That do you mean by the term \"ethnic German\"?\nA.Ethnic German, according to the definition laid down by the Minister of the Interior, which was always used in the VOMI, were persons who considered themselves as being of German race and who, according to their descent, language, and so on belonged to the German people but did not possess German nationality. These ethnic Germans were generally recognized in Europe under international law as German minorities. Some \n of them had for centuries kept the German culture on their own initiative, without air support from outside, and their language too.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2756, "page_number": "2749", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "They had not become assimilated to the foreign nationality that surrounded them and by intermarriage had stayed German.\nQ.Did VOMI have any dealings with so-called ethnic Germans or minorities outside Europe? In particular, Germans who had emigrated to the United States.\nA.No, VOMI had nothing to do with that. As chief of the VOMI I was strictly forbidden to deal with Germans outside Europe.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit36, an organization plan of VOMI of 15 June 1944, under Office VI, an Oversead Department is mentioned. Did VOMI perhaps after all concern itself with Germans overseas?\nA.No. This section was only concerned with issuing ethnic German passes to overseas Germans who were in the Reich. It was further concerned with purely academic research work. The fact that no practical activity could be connected with it is already shown by the fact that during the war there was no possibility of contact with these countries.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2757, "page_number": "2750", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QHerr Lorenz, when did you first hear of the plan to resettle ethnic Germans abroad in Germany?\nAI never heard anything at all about a plan. It was never discussed. One day, surprisingly quickly, at the beginning of Oct. 1939, I was called to Hitler in the Reich Chancellery, and as head of VOMI, I was given orders to resettle the ethnic Germans in Latvia and Estonia in Germany as quickly as possible.\nQIn this discussion, did you get any definite instructions?\nANo, Hitler was in a great hurry. He called me up already the next day and asked me what I had done.\nQWhat had you done?\nAI had immediately got in touch with the Foreign Office and the Transport Ministry. The Foreign Office told me that they too had received orders from Hitler in this matter and been ordered to make treaties with these countries. The Transport Ministry and the Navy assured me that they would make about forty or forty-five ships available.\nQDid you have orders to contact Himmler?\nANo, because Himmler, whom I met for another reason that day, heard about this order of Hitler's from me. He was most surprised and told me immediately that this order not only exceeded my competency but especially my abilities and that he must discuss the whole matter with Hitler once again and would let me know, and so we parted.\nQWas Himmler at that time already appointed Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nANo, at that time he was not yet Reich Commissioner. I know that for certain because twenty-four hours after this conversation Himmler called me up at home late in the evening and told me that he had now been appointed Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism by Hitler and that I was now directly subordinate to him in the resettlement matter, but only in the resettlement matter and nothing \n else, that I would now receive my orders not from Hitler but from him.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2758, "page_number": "2751", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QDid Himmler give you any written orders?\nAHimmler only issued a decree dated 11 October 1939, Exhibit 290. This decree, however, was immediately superseded by the first basic decree of Himmler as Reich Commissioner, which has been submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 21. In this VOMI was entrusted with a definite task, that is the bringing in of ethnic Germans.\nQKerr Lorenz, at that time did it occur to you that in order to make room for the resettlers, Poles would have to be evacuated as stated in the Himmler decree of 11 October 1939? Did you ever think about that?\nAIt is possible that at the time I read the decree of 11 October, 1939, but I didn't attach any importance to it because shortly afterwards it was superseded by the decree I have already mentioned, that is Himmler's decree for the regulation of competency and put out of force.\nQWith reference to it, were any treaties completed about the resettlers from Latvia and Estonia?\nAYes, by the German Ministers in Riga and Revel, with the governments in question.\nQWhat was VOMI's task in the resettlement of the Estonians from Estonia and Latvia?\nAIt only had the task of registering the ethnic Germans.\nQHow did this happen?\nAThe ethnic Germans were publicly requested to report if they wanted to be resettled. They then had to make a statement about their intention of resettling in Germany.\nQWere you yourself in Estonia or Latvia in order to take matters over on the spot?\nAI was in Riga where Hofmeyer was working for VOMI. My colleague Kubetz was working in Revel. I convinced myself of the absolutely \n regular character of the measures taken.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2759, "page_number": "2752", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QDid you see to it that nobody was forced to be resettled?\nAYes. I expressly stressed, with reference to my colleagues, that the resettlement was a voluntary one. In the Baltic at the time there were a lot of people who were still vacillating. Large numbers of them, however, in the end decided to join the scheme.\nQDid VOMI have any dealings with the property compensation of resettlers?\nANo, as the matter was entirely vague and unsettled at the time, I always instructed my fellow workers to tell the ethnic Germans in reply to their very understandable questions that no assurance of any kind could be given.\nQIn this resettlement of Estonian and Latvian, did VOMI have any other tasks?\nANo. In the first resettlement from Estonia and Latvia VOMI had only to register the parts of the population concerned. On the other hand, it did not have to carry out the transport of resettlers or the camp accommodations of the settlers in Germany. The transport was carried out by the Foreign Office and the temporary housing of the settlers was carried out by the NS Welfare Association and later on by the Gauleiter concerned.\nQAbout when was the settlement from Estonia and Latvia concluded?\nAIn about November 1940.\nQWere all ethnic Germans from Estonia and Latvia resettled by that date?\nANo, about ten thousand ethnic Germans remained, in particular members of the higher income groups. Another proof of the fact that nobody was forced.\nQWhat further tasks did VOMI get after that?\nABy laying down a German-Russian boundary of interests after the conclusion of the Polish campaign, the necessity of reciprocal resettle \n ment of Germans and Russians from the spheres of interest had become necessary.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2760, "page_number": "2753", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Resettlement contracts were signed between Germany and the Soviet Union concerning the ethnic Germans in Wolhynia, Galicia, and the Narev area. In concluding these resettlement agreements, a delegate of VOMI was present. This was because VOMI was to carry out this registration and transport and had to have opportunity to provide an expert to handle the matter.\nQWhen was this resettlement carried out?\nAAt the request of the Russians, it was begun at the beginning of December 1939. It was concluded in the first days of March 1940. It made many hard demands on the resettlers on the one hand and on the resesettlement squads on the other hand because it had to be carried out during the severe eastern winter and because the number of resettlers, contrary to German expectations, turned out to be not sixty thousand but something like one hundred and thirty thousand people.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2761, "page_number": "2754", "date": "16 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-16", "text": "QDid the increase in the number of resettlers, contrary to the original expectations, occur because pressure was exerted on the resettlers?\nANo. The resettlement was entirely voluntary. Every resettler had to make a statement before a mixed Russian-German Commission. The Russian representative could object with respect to the German resettler.\nThe increase in numbers, contrary to the original expectations, was caused by the fact that the people did not want to remain under the Soviet regime.\nQHad the resettlement been prepared well in advance?\nANo. This resettlement was carried out immediately after the Baltic resettlement, quite suddenly. It caused us the greatest difficulties to prepare this resettlement in such a way that the resettlers would emerge sound and safe from the hardships of the winter and of the transport. I remember that there were only three dead as a result of this resettlement of about 130,000 people. The dead were old people. That is, they were normal deaths because of old age.\nQWere the tasks of VOMI different in this resettlement from what they were in the Baltic resettlement?\nAYes. VOMI also had to carry out the transport up to the Reich frontier. There the resettlers were received by the police, the NS welfare organization, the Red Cross and other organizations, and transported to the reception camps. These camps were also managed by VOMI.\nQWhat other resettlement on the basis of international treaties took place after this which were carried through in the same manner?\nAFirst of all, the resettlement from Bessarabia and North Buchenland on the basis of a treaty with the Soviet Union of Augumn 1940. Then there was the resettlement from Rumania, South Buchenland and Dobrudscha.At the same time, following it and later, there was subsequent resettlement from Rumania. On the basis of treaties with the \n Soviet Union between January and March, 1941, a subsequent resettlement from Latvia and Estonia took place, the resettlement of those people who, during the first resettlement, had remained behind, 10,000 of then.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2762, "page_number": "2755", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Further, from Lithuania no resettlement of ethnic Germans had yet taken place.\nQDuring the resettlements which were now mentioned, were the same principles of mountaineers adhered to?\nAYes, because these were firmly anchored in the international treaties mentioned.\nQIn the resettlement you mentioned now were you dealing with any question of property compensation?\nANo; I had no dealings with that.\nQWhat happened to the resettlers when they had been transported to Germany?\nAOn the basis of a decree from Himmler they were first taken to camps which were maintained by VOMI.\nQDid you, yourself, see to it that the accommodations of the resettlers in the camps was as it should be?\nAYes, of course, this was one of my main tasks. I travelled around a good deal and inspected the camps. I took a particular interest in the housing and food of the people. In addition, I talked to them myself in order to hear their wishes and possible complaints.\nQDid you hear complaints from resettlers?\nAYes, but the complaints mainly referred to matters where VOMI could not help them, the long tine which passed until they were settled. They complained particularly about having to sit around without having any work.\nQWhat did you do about this?\nAThese complaints from the resettlers, most of whom came from the professional classes, I passed on, and finally I managed to get Himmler to give orders that the resettlers could be temporarily employed/", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2763, "page_number": "2756", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Of course, they could give notice any day. Beyond this, the Reich Commissioner wasnot prepared to go because he wanted to be able to bring the resettlers to their new settlement area any tine and he did not want to be hampered in this through existing labor contracts.\nQIn what way did the resettlers get out of the camps again?\nAThe Immigration Central Office, which was subordinate to the Reich Main Security Office, registered the people and examined them in a certain way. When they received a returnees' pass the way to their resettlement was clean, They were then called away by the Main Staff Office. VOMI did not have the slightest thing to do with all these procedures.\nQDid VOMI have any connection with the racial examination of resettlers and other people in VOMI camps?\nANo. When such commissions went to VOMI camps they were commissions from other agencies. Because they acted on Himmler's instructions and VOMI was subordinate to the Reich Commissioner. I could not prevent examinations of this kind.\nQDid VOMI, in registering resettlers abroad, itself carry out racial or political examinations?\nANo. Everybody was resettled who fulfilled the conditions of the international treaty.\nQIn the IMT judgment a factual connection between VOMI and RuSHA is mentioned. Did any such factual connection exist?\nANo. VOMI had no connection with the factual work of RuSHA.\nQIn the Prosecution documents there is also some talk of a Bosnian resettlement. To what nation did Bosnia belong?\nABosnia is part of the independent state of Croatia, which was set up in 1941.\nQDid this Bosnian resettlement also take place on the basis of an international treaty?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2764, "page_number": "2757", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AYes. The treaty was signed between the German and Croat governments and also contained the principle of voluntary resettlement.\nQWere they ethnic Germans or aliens?\nAIt concerned the ethnic Germans.\nQWhy were these ethnic Germans resettled from Bosnia?\nAThe leader of the German ethnic group in Croatia had expressed the urgent desire to VOMI that the ethnic Germans be resettled from Bosnia into the German Reich because in the territory where these ethnic Germans lived partisan groups had formed who endangered the life and property of the ethnic Germans. Germans were being murdered and kidnapped every day. The safety of the Germanscould not be guaranteed by the troops and the police. The request of the ethnic Germans was passed on to Himmler by no, and Himmler ordered that VOMI should got in touch with the foreign office with reference to the conclusion of an international treaty with the Croat government. This international treaty, as I have already stated, was concluded.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2765, "page_number": "2758", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQHerr Lorenz, we were just talking about the resettlement in Bosnia. On the strength of Prosecution Exhibit248Himmler on the 22nd of January, 1943 commissioned you to contact the foreign office on account of a deportation of the Germans to Croatia. Does that involve the resettlement which you just mentioned or is something also involved ?\nAWell, at the time I sent to Himmler a report concerning the ethnic group in Croatia, the German ethnic group that is, and on this occasion I pointed out particularly the many-fold guerilla attacks against Germans in Croatia. In this report I most particularly stressed the losses incurred by the racial Germans in Croatia; this is Prosecution Exhibit 251.\nQAnd what happened on account of Himmler's commission of the 22nd January, 1943?\nAThe racial Germans were not deported from Croatia to Germany, but for reasons of their own security they were resettled in Croatia in an area which was not as much endangered; that was the Sirmia area. This was in line with the racial Germans own desires in the endangered areas which could no longer be defended against the partisans. During this resettlement the VOMI as an organization had no part. Only the German ethnic group in Croatia carried out the resettlement.\nQIn the Prosecution documents resettlement from Bulgaria is also mentioned.\nAIn this connection about two thousand racial Germans area involved. In 1941 and 1942 these racial Germans left Bulgaria on their own wishes and were resettled in Germany. An exchange of diplomatic notes preceded the resettlement, an exchange between the German and Bulgarian governments. In other words, both change of nationality and so on and so forth. Those people came on a voluntary basis and, they \n were treated in the same way as all the other resettlers.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2766, "page_number": "2759", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QIn Prosecution documents resettlers from Greece and from remanents of Serbia are also mentioned. What is involved here?\nAThose are actions in favor of racial Germans. Those racial Germans had been completely impoverished by the war. At least Himmler during an inspection trip had seen himself that there were a few hundred racial Germans in one village. As Himmler established that those people had hardly any means of subsistance at all down there, he gave order, and it was in line with their desire, that first of all they should receive food provisions and then they should be resettled. In the same manner the resettlement of about three thousand racial Germans from the remanents of Serbia was a drive of a social welfare nature. On account of the Yugoslav campaign, these people had lost their houses and shelters; they escaped to Belgrade and there they were in an absolutely impoverished condition. Both groups were placed into VOMI camps and there they got all the privileges to which a resettler was entitled. I stress that those people themselves had the desire to go to Germany.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit286a resettlement of anti-social elements is mentioned from Slovakia to Germany, What do you know about that?\nAThis action came to my knowledge only after it had been carried out. It was agreed upon between the German ethnic group in Slovakia. Here again racial Germans arethe only persons involved; and Himmler who according to my recollection on the occasion of a visit had been approached by the leaders of the ethnic group, Karmasin in this condition. As I heard later, the action was later carried out on the strength of an agreement between the Slovakian government and theGerman embassy. My deputy, Behrens, had sent an employee of the VOMI by the name of Lackmann at the time in order to settle the condition of the racial Germans in the southeast and he had sent him to Belgrade. Them Lackmann carried out \n this resettlement which involved only a very small number of persons.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2767, "page_number": "2760", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "According to my knowledge these racial Germans from Slovakia were brought into resettler camps, and from there they were later on resettled by charge of the Main Staff Office. They were treated as resettlers, with all the rights and privileges.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2768, "page_number": "2761", "date": "10 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-10", "text": "QTo what extent did the VOMI have contact with the resettlement of the ethnic Germans in Russia?\nAA distinction has to be made there between the racial Germans in the southern areas of the Soviet Union, and the smaller groups of racial Germans in central Russia and in the north. The main bulk of the racial Germans lived in the areas Transnistrien, Ukraine and South Russia. Those racial Germans were taken care of by SS Brigadefuehrer Hoffmayer and his so-called \"R\" Detachment.\nQWas Hoffmayer subordinated to the VOMI agency in Berlin and, therefore, to you?\nAHoffmayer since 1939 was chief of an office in the VOMI. He had first been active in the resettlement area Wolhynia, Galicia and Narev, Besarabia and so on and so forth. After the beginning of the Russian campaign the VOMI received the commission to register and to care for the racial Germans in Russia. This is Prosecution Exhibit442. When he received that commission I ordered Hoffmayer to carry out this decree. Together with a detachment on or about September, 1941, Hoffmayer first left for Shitomir. According to Himmler's decree, Hoffmayer and his detachment were subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader; this was the Higher SS and Police Leader on the spot during that period; during the main period of time it was Gruetzmann. Hoffmayer and his detachment, therefore, were in practice subordinated to other agencies than the VOMI in Berlin, and, therefore, they were no longer under my orders. Hoffmayer received his orders from the higher, or from the supreme SS and police leader. In the area of Transnistria, which was being administered by the Romanians, and where no German SS police leader was, Hoffmayer was subordinated to the Reich Commissar Himmler directly. This direct relation of command between Himmler and Hoffmayer became still more stringent as the years went on and until 1942 by the fact that Himmler established his field command post near Shitomir and, therefore, he was in constant personal contact with Hoffmayer. The VOMI \n had only to provide Hoffmayer with the replacements of personnel and material.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2769, "page_number": "2762", "date": "13 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-13", "text": "Therefore, of course there were certain points of contact; VOMI in Berlin also served as an information center. The fact that Hoffmayer and the \"R\" Detachment was an agency which was independent and quite separated from VOMI can be seen also from the fact that with the VOMI agency in Berlin there was a liaison officer with Hoffmayer in the person of SS Obersturmfuehrer Wolfrum, Dr. Wolfrum.\nQHow is it that in the distribution chart of the VOMI of the 15th June, 1944, Prosecution Exhibit36, Hoffmayer is listed as office chief of Office VII; and with the task of securing German ethnic groups in the newly acquired eastern territories?\nAActually Hoffmayer did not lose his position as chief of an office within the VOMI. He had only been detached and assigned to the Higher or Supreme SS and Police Leader in Russia. In Berlin he was being deputized for by Dr. Wolfrum. When this chart was established, of then 15th June, 1944 Hoffmayer's task in Russia had already been terminated for a long time because the areas where Hoffmayer had worked had been reoccupied by the Russians at that time already. Towards the middle of June, 1944, according to my knowledge, Hoffmayer on the strength of a special commission given to him by Himmler worked in Romania. There he was not subordinated to the VOMI.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit442, which was just mentioned, Himmler gives the order to carry out the task in Russia in close cooperation with the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the SD. Did you have anything to do with the so-called Einsatzkommands?\nANo. The Einsatz Kommandos of the SD which came into Russia at the time with the Armed Forces had found out that there were ethnic Germans in Russia, and they had taken over for the time being the protection of these ethnic Germans. This task then was to be settled in a final manner by Hoffmayer, and, therefore, he had to contact the Einsatzgruppen of the SD. Neither VOMI nor Hoffmayer, however, had any \n thing to do at all with the factual tasks of the SD Einsatz Kommandos.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2770, "page_number": "2763", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "In the subsequent period, the collaboration consisted of the use made of technical information and possibilities afforded by the EinsatzKommandO.\nQDid you at any time cause ethnic Germans from Russian areas to be transported to Germany by force?\nANo, at no time. I had no competencies down there.\nQHowever, the Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 256, and there they charge that the area of the northern Caucasus was to be evacuated by the ethnic Germans, and in the teletype mentioned there, you informed Himmler about that. What do you have to say to that?\nAInasfar as I can recall, the German front at that time began to shake as a result of Stalingrad; these ethnic Germans in the area of the northern Caucasus demanded that the German troops should take then along in their retreat. The VOMI was to place them in German camps. However, at the time no such camps were ready for the reception of huge bodies of people. As at the time Hoffmayer, who had no information, no contact with Himmler any more, approached VOMI in Berlin in order to prevent the VOMI camps in the Reich from being over-crowded, I suggested to Hoffmayer that the ethnic Germans from the Caucasus should be resettled in the German settlement area of Hallstadt in the Ukraine. In this case I was only the liaison office; according to my knowledge the actual placing of ethnic Germans in the Hallstadt area was not carried out because the front retreated extremely rapidly.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit688it is mentioned that until the 31st of December, 1942, 10,414 ethnic Germans had been resettled to Galicia. Can you tell us what areas these ethnic Germans came from?\nAAccording to my knowledge, these were ethnic Germans from the Caucasus area and from eastern Ukraine. These were the first people who started to escape when the Russian armies advanced.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2771, "page_number": "2764", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QThe Prosecution have submitted Document, Exhibit 476, and according to this document the ethnic Germans in the area of Central Russia were not resettled of their own free will. It is alleged there that if they didn't go along with the evacuation command their papers were withdrawn from them. What do you have to say to that?\nAAll racial Germans in Russia, as I want to say again in a definite manner, according to the information and to the personal experience I have, came to Germany on a voluntary basis. These Germans, before their area had been occupied by German troops, had to endure so much horrors under the Russian domination that they knew what would happen to them if the area waste be reoccupied by Russian troops. It is significant that when the German troops marched into racial German settlements, there were hardly any men. These men had all been deported before by the Russians. No pressure had to be exerted against these people, if one wanted to have them go along with the resettlement commands. The document here mentioned was not known to me and therefore I don't know either how it came about that such a document was drawn up at the time.\nQYour testimony concerning the voluntary action, does it refer also to the racial Germans in the entire area?\nAThe conditions were the same everywhere.\nQThe VOMI commands in Central Russia and in the Leningrad area, were they subordinated to you or to Hoffmeyer?\nAThese commands were not a part of the Hoffmeyer action, because Hoffmeyer, geographically speaking, was too distant from them. The detachments basically had to Work independently and only in very urgent cases they approached my deputy Behrens in Berlin. VOMI even had no direct influence and no direct powers to issue directives to the welfare organization for the ethnic Germans in Russia still had an interest in the matter insofar as they would have to care for the ethnic Germans if they were repatriated, and they had to receive them in their camps eventually. In so far as that, of course, the VOMI had to be informed \n concerning any measures to be taken which could lead to resettlement actions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2772, "page_number": "2765", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QIn Prosecution Exhibit744, you reported to Himmler on the 19 of December 1944 that from the Russian detachment of the VOMI, 307,096 racial Germans had been registered. How did this report come about?\nAHimmler had asked me about this matter; thereupon I got the figures from Hoffmeyer and I reported to Himmler about it.\nQThis brings us to another geographical area; namely, the Slovene action. How did it come about that the VOMI, which had to deal with racial matters, would receive Slovenes in their camps?\nAFirst of all, I would like to state once and for all that the VOMI had nothing to do -- not even the slightest shade of anything -with the deportation of the Slovenes. The Slovene action, according to my knowledge, was ordered by Himmler in 1941. At the time I had a very serious automobile accident in Serbia, and therefore I had been for nine weeks in the hospital with a very heavy concussion of the brain, and I had a fractured skull, and then for months and months I had to rest after that. In the meantime, my deputy, Behrens, had been forced against his will to receive the Slovenes in the VOMI camps. When I returned to Berlin, I was confronted with the fact, and I couldn't change it any more. It is true that I tried to see to it that the Slovenes were released from the VOMI camps by putting it to Himmler that our task was to care for ethnic Germans and not for alien races, and as the camps had too many Slovenes in them to a very large extent, they were filled with Slovenes. However, I could not obtain satisfaction from Himmler. Of course, then I could not throw these people who had been driven away from their homes out of our camps. On the contrary, I took care of them as well as I could.\nQDid you ever visit VOMI camps when there were Slovenes there?\nAI visited several Slovene camps. One case I can still remember in detail. The people had been housed in a decent way and I compared the \n menue with the rations provided for racial German resettlers, and I found that they were quite in line with each other.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2773, "page_number": "2766", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "During the visit, only about half of the personnel strength were in the camp. I stressed specifically that all the children were living there with their parents and the children were treated particularly well by specially trained female personnel. I was told that the others had gone to town and therefore so few of them were in the camp; in other words, they could go where they wanted, as all the resettlers could too, particularly they went to the movies in the town every afternoon. Once a camp chief reported to me that the Slovenes received furloughs and they returned regularly and punctually to the camp from these furloughs. For this furlough, they received free food and of course also free traveling.\nQIn a Prosecution document, one camp for the Slovenes is referred to as a restricted area. Isn't that in contradiction to the testimony you just made?\nAAccording to my knowledge, this camp restriction does not mean anything else but that no more resettlers should be sent to this camp. The Slovenes involved could not leave the camp yet to be finally resettled. That is all it means. Camp restriction ordered by the Main Staff Office, according to my knowledge was lifted after a short period only. The camp restriction did not refer to the personal freedom of these persons. The Slovenes, then as before, could leave the camp whenever they wanted to go to town.\nQDoes what you just said, refer also the camp restriction of Luxembourg people as mentioned in Prosecution Exhibit262. Is the camp restriction the same -- that for the Slovenes and for the Luxembourgians?\nAThat was the same.\nQWere you connected in any way with the so-called re-Germanization of the Slovenes?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2774, "page_number": "2767", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "ANo.\nQIn other words, if in Prosecution documents which have been brought to the knowledge of the VOMI the re-Germanization of Slovenes was referred to, then that doesn't mean that the VOMI was competent for that re-Germanization?\nANo.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit319, a letter of Himmler of 22-9-42 to the VOMI is reproduced where the escape of a Slovene from a camp has to be reported and the Slovene and all those who have supported him and his family were to be sent to a concentration camp, what do you know about that?\nAI do not recall that I over received such an order had been submitted to me then I would have initialed it with my \"L\". Whatever was submitted to me and of which I acknowledged reception, I initialed in this manned. As far as my recollection goes, I have no further memory of certain documents, and therefor I can only recognize such documents as having been brought to my knowledge as are initialed with my \"L\" which is quite a clear and clean \"L\" and can be seen from far away. This refers as well to the Himmler order you referred to as all the other documents submitted by the Prosecution. Never could a document have left my desk without having been initialed by me. My secretary save to that and my personal adjutant too.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2775, "page_number": "2768", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QDid it over become known to you that a Slovene was hanged in a camp or that the family of a Slovene was sent to a concentration camp from a camp?\nAI never heard anything about that.\nQDid you have also Slovene children in VOMI camps?\nAAt the occasion of a visit in a camp, I heard about that. At the time I gave special orders to see to it that those children were treated with all decency and care and should be fed and clothed well. I saw myself that nurses and baby sitters and trained female children nurses were in these camps.\nQDid you take any measures to see to it that the Slovenes were released from their camps?\nAYes, I repeatedly contacted the RSHA and Himmler personally in this matter and I tried to either get the Slovenes released back to their home country or into the definite new resettlement areas; however, again and again I got nothing but promises.\nQDid you have any right to issue directives to the Slovenes?\nANo, I had no right to issue directives to the Slovenes at all, They were subordinated to the RSHA.\nQNow in order to conclude those questions concerning the southeast, the Prosecution has submitted an Exhibit, 245, according to which at the beginning of 1945 you reported to Himmler concerning the socalled forced evacuation southeast, what is involved there?\nAIn detail, of course, I can no longer recall that teletype. However, I do recall that at the time, a report on the measure which had been carried out was sent to Himmler. Whether this final report which I remember is this teletype, I couldn't tell you. At the time, that is during the second half of 1944 and at the beginning of 1945, masses and masses of racial Germans, particularly from Hungary and other southern European countries, poured in together, chased by the advancing Russian armies, and together with the retreating German troops they \n streamed into Germany.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2776, "page_number": "2769", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "If I or we could be reproached in this matter with anything, namely that we didn't take care sufficiently in advance and saw to it that the racial Germans were being transported away, that is the only reproach that could be made us. Then these reproaches against us can be made only by the ethnic, groups themselves. I recall that at the time Hitler specifically prohibited repatriating the racial Germans from Batschka in accordance with their desires, because the Hungarian government was afraid that otherwise the whole Hungarian population would start to floe from this country. Out of this was made a reproach against me later; namely that the racial group from southern Hungary was repatriated much too late. I was charged with that by their racial groups themselves. Therefore these people very often were forced to join the escape movement and they had either to remain in Hungary because it was too late or else they had to leave at least a substantial part of their property down there. We did what we could after that and we tried to make it possible for those people to escape as they desired. If twice in the teletype the words \"forced evacuation\" were used, that can only mean an evacuation under the pressure and the expulsion of the advancing Russian armies. I never forced anybody and I cannot even imagine that one of my employees over forced anybody to leave his hone country. All these people came as volunteers and of course they would take along as much as possible of their personal property, particularly cattle, and the yield of their harvest of 1944. That is referred to also and reported in the teletype.\nQThe Prosecution charges you to have taken part in the measures against Luxembourgians, Alsacians and Lorraines. What do you know about that?\nAI only know about that something in broad outlines. I was informed about that by my deputy, Dr. Behrens. He worked on that matter in a factual manner. I recall that Behrens informed me that in the name of the VOMI his attitude was that no resettlement or deportation into \n Germany should be carried out from those areas.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2777, "page_number": "2770", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QDid you give your agreement to the establishment of an ethnic register in Luxembourg and Lorraine?\nAI gave my agreement because Behrens told me that this register would serve to delay the resettlement measures.\nQIn what were you connected with the resettlement of ethnic Germans from France?\nAThe registration of ethnic Germans there was carried out by the responsible military commanders. I know that at a later date, the VOMI had a representative in Paris and he was in charge of the care for the racial Germans in France.\nQDid you ever check that field agency in Paris?\nANo; once only for quite a different reason I travelled through Paris and at that occasion I went to see the people in the field agency, but on account of the very small scale and minor significance of this affair I did not make any inspection tour.\nQIn the documents of the Prosecution, repeatedly the plenipotentiary of the VOMI in Cracow referred to Dr. Weitgen. What was the position with regard to VOMI?\nAWeitgen was a member of the office of Hoffmeyer, Office 7 of the VOMI; however in the same way as Hoffmeyer he had a special position. He was subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader in Cracow, Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger. He received his directives from Krueger. The Governor General made it a decisive point to see to it that all the agencies in the Government-General were not dependant on agencies in the Reich. That was the reason why, asfar as the reception of orders was concerned, Weitgen was not subordinated to the VOMI in Berlin but to the Highest SS and Police Leader in Cracow. Politically speaking, he was subordinated directly to the Governor General Frank. For the same reasons asfor Hoffmeyer, of course, there was a certain contact between the VOMI and Berlin because Weitgen had come from the VOMI in Berlin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2778, "page_number": "2771", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Also there was a liaison between the VOMI in Berlin and Weitgen in the person of Obersturmfurhrer Dr. Welfrum. From the fact that a liaison officer had been appointed it can be seen clearly that Weitgen was independent as far as the relations with the VOMI were concerned.\nQDid the VOMI have camps in the Government-General; particularly do you know a camp Odwots?\nAAccording to my knowledge, there were no VOMI camps at all in the Government General. The name Odwots became known to me only during this trial. If, however, there had been a camp in the Government General with the designation \"Volksdeutsche Hittelstelle,\" then this must have been an establishment under theorders of Weitgen or Krueger, but certainly not to the VOMI, Berlin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2779, "page_number": "2772", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.- Did you have otherwise camps outside of what at that time was the official Reich territory?\nA.- Not according to my knowledge. For a certain period, a transit camp existed to receive the resettlers at Semlin, near Belgrad. Apart from that -- that I heard only now, -- there was a small refugee camp at St. German near Paris for the reception of racial German refugees.\nQ.- Do you know whether there was a VOMI camp in Wangenhaid, in Austria?\nA.- No, I don't know that.\nQ.- The Prosecution charges you that you have been connected with re-Germanization measures. Particularly, they refer to Himmler's decree, Exhibit 24, concerning competency and the regulations for competency agreed upon between you and Greifelt, Exhibit 71. What do you have to say to that?\nA.- The Himmler decree of 28/11/41, Exhibit 24, was issued without my having been asked previously concerning that matter before that. May I repeat my first sentence? Himmler's decree of 28/11/41, exhibit 24, was issued without my having been consulted previously. As the task of my agency included the care for the racial Germans, I always opposed to have anything be do with non-racial Germans in my official capacity. The competency and the regulation of the competency in the decree mentioned, never caused an activity or competency of the VOMI concerning those fit for re-Germanization, in practice, at least.\nQ.- In the definition of competency between you and Greifelt of 9 October 1942 -- 9 September 1942 -- it was established that the VOMI had to issue a directive concerning the assignment for work of persons eligible for re-Germanization, and had to take social care of persons eligible for re-Germanization. Was that carried out?\nA.- No, the labor commitment of those fit for re-Germanization was never prepared by the VOMI, and the welfare for those fit for re-Germanization \n was under the Nazi Party.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2780, "page_number": "2773", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Directives were never issued by the VOMI.\nQIn Exhibit 138, the Prosecution have reproduced a decree of Himmler concerning the re-Germanization of Polish citizens, according to which the higher SS and Police leader, in carrying out this task, had to draw in the VOMI and the district representative of the VOMI and the units under his commando. Do you know this decree?\nAI cannot recall it. I only know that the VOMI never had the task in the field of re-Germanization, and I also know that at no time we dealt with such measures. Apart from that, there was not even a gau representative of the VOMI.\nQAccording to Prosecution Exhibits 175 and 176, Himmler asked you on the 13th of August, 1944, to deal with the question of concentration camp inmates with German names from the East. What can you say about that?\nAIrmember that story, but nothing was over done in that matter. As you already mentioned, Himmler approached me with that matter in August 1944. At that time, however, the VOMI had immense tasks on account of the reception of the racial Germans who escaped from the East and the Southeast. Therefore, this matter was no longer carried out, as becomes apparent also from the second letter of December, 1944 quite clearly.\nQThe Prosecution have submitted several documents, Exhibits 177, 178, and 179, concerning the re-Germanization of prisoners of war. How were you connected with that?\nAIn as far as the prisoners of war were racial Germans, the VOMI always approached a responsible agency, that is, the OKW, and avocated that these persons be released from prisoner of war status. In the field of P.W.'s, the VOMI had not the slightest competency, and their interest in the prisoners of war was limited to racial Germans, such racial Germans who had been forced into military service in a foreign army.\nQIn Exhibit 179, a letter is submitted which you had signed and sent to Himmler, and which deals with the work of re-Germanization \n concerning North American P.W.'S. Will you please explain your position to that?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2781, "page_number": "2774", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AI can tell you the following with regard to that. That was the commission given to me by Himmler in January, 1943. Himmler had a great interest in the whole matter. We in the VOMI disliked this commission from the very beginning, and we dragged it along as we could. That also shows that the letter of January 1943 was answered only as late as February, 1944. The matter was dragged along because I knew the answered in advance. It would have gone on exactly like in the first World War. However, finally it could not be avoided to investigate and to interrogate a few American prisoners of war. I recall that one of my employees reported to me on this interrogation, and I even remember the words he used, namely, that the American P.M.'s who had been interrogated would not let themselves be influenced in any manner, and that they had stated that they were Americans, that they had no links with Germany at all, and America wasgoing to win the war, and we could be sure of that. Those were the words of my interrogator or interrogating expert who interrogated these American P.W.'s. Therefore, the whole matter which was only an attempt without results, was given up, as I had foreseen from the very beginning, but after all, you couldn't teach Himmler anything. I specifically stress that in my letter to Himmler which has been submitted by the Prosecution here, it is stated that the matter has not been carried into practice, and the Camp Coblenz has only been provided provisionally. Anyway, at no times were American P.W.'s transferred into a VOMI camp. I think that I recall that at a later date, I reported to Himmler that the whole matter did not give any results and was just dropped. I think the Prosecution should have that letter, too, but I haven't seen it here. I have seen only that one that the Prosecution has submitted.\nQDo you know whether the Camp Coblenz just mentioned in that letter waslater handed over to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2782, "page_number": "2775", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AI don't have any knowledge about that, and I don't think so, either, because no American prisoners of war were in Camp Coblenz. Whether the empty camp washanded over, that I couldn't tell you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2783, "page_number": "2776", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1335 hours, 18 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nWERNER LORENZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, durint the Greifelt cross-examination the Prosecution in Exhibit 790 charged VOMI with having assisted in the care of Rumanian resettlers who did not accept resettlement and were supposed to be sent to concentration camps. Do you know anything about that?\nA.I don't know anything about that. The resettlers were sent to concentration camps. It was not told to me nor did I ever issue any orders to this effect, because I did not send people into concentration camps. On the contrary, I myself got a large number of people out of concentration camps.\nQ.In this Himmler decree about competency, which has already been mentioned, Exhibit 24, with the re-Germanization, did you have any competency with regard to people in the incorporated eastern territories?\nA.No, VOMI never had anything to do with this. The decree was not carried out with regard to the ethnic Germans any more than it was with reference to the Germanization.\nQ.Witness, you said just now that the decree was not carried out with regard to the ethnic Germans?\nA.Oh, that was a mistake, I will correct myself. I meant the people list, of course. The competency decree was not carried out with reference to the people's list any more than with reference to re-Germanization.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2784, "page_number": "2777", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Very well. In Prosecution Exhibit110, there is a document signed by Streckenbach. It has been ordered by the Reichfuehrer SS that VOMI was to be a part of ________ incorporated Eastern territories for Germany proper who has been registered in people's list No. 4. Do you want to supplement this statement you made just now with reference to this?\nA.No, as far as I remember, information of this kind never reached VOMI, nor did VOMI with regard to these refugees and the German people's list have any competency, neither with reference to their assignment, nor with reference to looking after them later. These peoples were later looked after by the regular competent Police and SS Leaders. I don't think that members of Group 4 were transported away from the incorporated Eastern territories, though.\nQ.In the competency agreement with Greifelt, Exhibit 71, it says under Roman IV, Arabic 2, that VOMI was to take part in the supreme examination court of the people's list. Did they ever take part in any such court?\nA.This agreement, too , was not carried out in practice.\nQ.Do you know Himmler's order of 8 September, 1932, to Gauleiter Koch keeping the German people's list of the Ukraine, Exhibit 124?\nA.I don't remember the order. If it was sent to me for information, this only happened in order to inform me about a matter concerning ethnic Germans in Russia. The order was not given to me, either, but to Koch.\nQ.Do you know anything about the German people's list for northern France?\nA.No, I don't know anything about that. This matter was handled by Dr. Behrends. He didn't tell me anything about it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2785, "page_number": "2778", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.In this connection, the Prosecution has submitted a competency agreement dated August 1943 between Bohle, yourself and Himmler, Exhibits 135, 136 and 137, this competency agreement concerning the director of ethnic Germans in northern France. Do you remember this incident?\nA.Yes, I remember it. Ethnic German groups abroad were always looked after by VOMI. VOMI, of course, had lost contact at first with ethnic Germans in Northern France for the time being because of the war. The first care after the invasion was carried out by the Wehrmacht. Later, a small VOMI office was set up in Paris which I have already mentioned. Competency* between the head of the foreign organization of the NSDAP. Bohle, B-o-h-l-e, and VOMI, was divided in such a manner that Bohle wants to look after Reich Germans abroad, whereas VOMI was to look after the interests of the ethnic Germans as foreign nationals. In this, of course, the laws of foreign states and the organizations of ethnic Germans with reference to the foreign state had to be considered. Hitler had expressly ordered me to see to this. In Northern France, there was a small number of ethnic Germans who had been naturalized, but not by VOMI. Gauleiter Bohle, taking the very letter of the competency definition, took over the care of those people who had naturalized, who had become Reich Germans again, as this was only a very small group, a very small proportion of ethnic Germans of non-German nationality. I must repeat that -- those who were not yet German nationals, I suggested that in the field of the competency, a division should be made that only the welfare was to remain in the hands of VOMI, and Himmler agreed to that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2786, "page_number": "2779", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit161, the Reich Commissioner for Germanization held, among other things, reports about the re-Germanization of the deported lower Istrian border population. Are these the Slovenes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.They were to be especially examined in VOMI camps by a RuSHA commission. Do you know anything about that?\nA.No, I don't know anything about that. At any rate, VOMI had nothing to do with racial examinations.\nQ.The prosecution has submitted Exhibits 510 and 511, 291, and 295, in order to prove that VOMI dealt in slave labor. It was a case of female interpreters for the Luftwaffe industry, who came from Russia. Do you know anything about that?\nA.Yes, I remember that. Field Marshal Milch, who was the assistant of the Reich Air Ministry, called me up one day and asked for one thousand female interpreters who could speak Russian. He wanted them to interpret for the Russian workers in the Luftwaffe industry. I told Milch at that time that I could not guarantee him one thousand. We had to apply to Hoffmeyer and ask him to try to find suitable people. Of course nobody was to be forced. As the costs were well paid and as they not heavy workers rations, as the girls got new clothes and were well housed, a large number of girls reported. The member of one thousand was indeed not reached by a long way, which shows better than anything else that no pressure was applied.\nQ.Do you know a Himmler order, 8 July 1943, concerning the allocation of labor for coal-mining, Exhibit 512?\nA.I never issued any such order. The document itself shows chat this was purely within the competence of the plenipotentiary of the allocation of labor. VOMI had nothing to do with that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2787, "page_number": "2780", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Witness, you said just now that you hadn't given the order. Himmler gave the order; that is perfectly clear. But, did you see it?\nA.No. Of course I should have said \"seen.\" I never saw such an order.\nQ. \"hat do you know about the participation of VOMI in the assignment of female domestic labor from Russia, Prosecution Exhibits 683 and 684?\nA.I remember the incident. The Lord Mayor of Bremen suggested that ethnic German girls from the Ukraine should be employed in German households. That seemed a very sensible idea to me because on my inspection trips ethnic German women and mothers even before the war often asked me to let them or their daughters go to Germany to work and to learn to manage a household. Therefore, I supported the idea, but as far as I know, it never actually happened because in the meantime Himmler or Koch had ordered that Russian-Germans were not to be allowed to immigrate to Germany.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned the name \"Koch\" several times. Who was Koch?\nA.Koch was the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine.\nQ.He had no connection with VOMI?\nA.No, none whatsoever.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit299, a matter is dealt with according to which ten thousand girls from Russia were to be sent as apprentices to German farms. Do you know anything about that?\nA.It was a plan of the Eastern Ministry, which as far as I know was superseded by the flight of the Ethnic Germans. I am not aware that this plan was actually carried out.\nQ.As a further proof of slave labor, the Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 557, concerning Jewish people in Upper \n Silesia.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2788, "page_number": "2781", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Do you know anything about that?\nA.No, I don't know anything about that, but I can say one thing. If VOMI actually got these Jewish stable lads, I am sure it treated them well, and if these stable lads stayed with VOMI up to the time of collapse, then I maintain that they are still alive.\nQ.The Prosecution connects you with the conscription of foreign settlers into the Waffen SS. Please describe, first of all, how the resettlers were treated basically with reference to compulsory military service.\nA.Yes. These settlers, as a result of a nationalization act of the EWZ, became German nationals. As such they were liable to the German military law, German defense law, and therefore had to do compulsory military service in their suitable age groups. But I know that in the case of resettlers special rules were observed and that there were regulations according to which the drafting of resettlers was to be carried out with special good will. More details about this are shown by Prosecution Exhibit336.\nQ.According to the Prosecution's document, obviously such ethnic Germans were also drafted into the armed forces or the Waffen SS who were not resettlers but who lived abroad as foreign nationals in their ethnic groups. Did you or VOMI have anything to do with that and what was your altitude to the problem?\nA.I had no cause to draft ethnic Germans into the Waffen SS. That was a task of the supplementary office of the Waffen SS, the Berger office, the replacement office. VOMI for the following reasons took some interest in this matter. Once settlers are always on behalf of the VOMI took the standpoint that ethnic Germans abroad -- that is, those who are foreign nationals -- should not be drafted into the German Army against their will and that if there was a draft \n at all it could only be carried out on a legal basis.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2789, "page_number": "2782", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Such legal basis did not exist, in my opinion, in the case of foreign states unless the corresponding international treaty was signed. When they heard of \"call-ups\" among the various ethnic groups which had originally been carried out by the agencies of the Waffen SS without any such basis, I took an interest in these matters in order to see to it that the necessary legal basis was provided. Apart from that, as chief of VOMI, I was interested in seeing that the ethnic groups were not weakened too much by such drafting. In some ethnic groups there was a shortage of men and as a result I was trying to avoid too heavy drafting in the case of such groups.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit339, there is a mention of a verbal order from Himmler to you according to which the view of the ethnic group, that of Dr. Janko, was that there was no legal obligation for ethnic Germans to serve in the armed forces, that this opinion was unjust, untrue. Do you remember any order of this kind?\nA.I believe I remember that Himmler took the standpoint that the Waffen SS could even against the desires of the ethnic Germans concerned carry out drafting. I was against it and asked the main office of the SS court to comment -- that is the supreme law court for SS judicature. I hoped and assumed, on the basic of the information given by my own legal department, that these highest SS lawyers would approve my standpoint.\nQ.According to Prosecution Exhibit348, you suggested to the SS judge that the Reichsfuehrer SS that the question of military service of ethnic Germans should be legally settled in such a way that a legal basis should be given for military service in their case. What have you to say about this?\nA.That is exactly the incident that I described just \n now.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2790, "page_number": "2783", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "I suggested that legal clarification should take place, that is by the conclusion of international treaties if ethnic Germans were to be drafted to the Waffen SS. It corresponded to the desire of the vast majority of the ethnic Germans liable for military service to serve in the German Army and not in the Hungarian, Roumanian, Bulgarian, Slovakian or any other Army. These ethnic Germans who for centuries had kept their Germanism pure and undiluted through the centuries, took the Standpoint that if they had to perform military service at all, and that was the case under the laws of their native countries, they would rather serve as equals in the German Army and not as second-rank soldiers In a strange Army. But this had to be put on a sound legal footing, because cases had occurred where, for instance, when racial Germans had reported voluntarily to the Waffen SS and were then treated as deserters by the Roumanian court-martial. All these people caused me again and again to urge the conclusion of international agreements. As far as I know, this happened in all cases.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2791, "page_number": "2784", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.- As Exhibit 341, the Prosecution has submitted an unsigned information bulletin from the agency described in it as RLD, according to which VOMI had again and again stressed the consideration that the military service of ethnic Germans in Waffen SS would mean a still closer contact between the ethnic Germans and the German nation as a whole. What do you know about that?\nA.- I don't know any agency called RLD nor can I remember having seen this information bulletin. I freely admit that I was in favor of ethnic Germans volunteering for service with the German armed forces, but I never agreed to any illegal schemes. With reference to the legal basis, I always took the standpoint I described just now. Another reason for this was that the -- that, looking after the members of the family had to be looked after, a matter which was particularly close to the heart of VOMI since the dependents too were ethnic Germans and were not supposed to get into straits. This could only be regulated as a result of international agreement, since neither VOMI nor the Reich could dispose of corresponding amounts of foreign currency in order to be able to regulate such claims.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 349, obviously to prove that VOMI was also concerned with the drafting of Slovenes. In this letter, which was addressed to VOMI in Croatia, there is some talk of recruiting in Slovene camps.\nA.- As far as I know, Slovenes were never drafted into the Wehrmacht or had VOMI any connection with it. In the letter mentioned, the expression \"recruitment\" is not to be regarded as a military term but as a racial examination.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 354, about the drafting of ethnic Germans in Croatia. According to this, you and SS Gruppenfuehrer Berger were supposed to have concluded a so-called eight point agreement about the drafting of ethnic Germans. What have you to say about that?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2792, "page_number": "2785", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.- The ethnic group in Croatia reported to me that unregulated drafting was taking place by various agencies. Thereupon I got in touch with the foreign office and the ethnic group. And thereupon, in accordance with the wishes of the ethnic group I reached an agreement with the replacement office of the Waffen SS General Berger, according to which such unregulated drafting was not to take place. This agreement was discussed between the German Ministry in Zagreb and the Croat Go-vernment, I was told that further drafting had taken place which was contrary to this agreement. Thereupon I went to Croatia myself and talked to the Minister and to General Glaise Horstenau and the Croats and the irregularities were abolished.\nQ.- According to Prosecution Exhibit355, you are supposed to have been responsible for drafting of ethnic Germans in a camp near the airport near Semlin. Is that right?\nA.- I remember the following at the airfield of Semlin. There was a labor squad consisting of ethnic Germans. From this labor squad, the Waffen SS wanted to draft all men fit for service. The ethnic group objected on the basis of the agreement which had been made and in order to maintain the labor service. Since it was my task to look after the interests of the ethnic Germans, the two disputing parties -- that is, the ethnic group and the replacement office of the Waffen SS -- asked me to make a decision, The German Minister in Croatia also agreed to this. I inspected the labor service and thereupon decided that only the unmarried ethnic Germans were to be drafted, not the military men and not the fathers of families nor only sons. In this case too I did not exercise any competency with regard to the drafting. I intervened merely in the interests of the ethnic group.\nQ.- According to Prosecution Exhibit357, you were also asked your opinion on the drafting in Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, is that right?\nA.- It may be. Since it was a question of looking after the interests \n of the ethnic groups in Slovakia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2793, "page_number": "2786", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.- In Prosecution Exhibit358, a Himmler order to you and Berger had been submitted that three thousand young men in Transnistria were to be drafted and sent to the Ukraine to fill up a cavalry division. What was your connection with that?\nA.- I had nothing to do with it and in this matter too I didn't do anything. In the first place, VOMI, of which I was the head, could not carry out any drafting, and secondly Hoffmeyer was in charge. Hoffmeyer was looking after the interests of the ethnic Germans. I can't remember whether I received this letter and perhaps passed it on to Berger or Hoffmeyer. As far as I am informed, no drafting ever took place on the basis of this order.\nQ.- Prosecution Exhibit362. Here Behrends in a telegram talks about drafting of ethnic Germans in Northern France in the Waffen SS. Do you know anything about that?\nA.- I don't know this teletype nor did Behrends inform me of it. I don't know that ethnic Germans were drafted to the Waffen SS in northern France.\nQ.- In Prosecution Exhibit366, a certain Riemer, of VOMI, asked for the drafting of a certain Benedict in the Reich Commissariat for the Strengthening of Germanism into the Waffen SS. Do you know anything about that?\nA.- I am completely unacquainted with this incident. Neither Riemer nor I could draft anybody into the SS. Riemer was obviously only suggesting this in the letter.\nQ.- Herr Lorenz, I now come to the question of the foreign children. The Prosecution makes you responsible for the kidnapping of foreign children. Did VOMI have foreign children in its camps and if so how did it happen?\nA.- As far as I know, in VOMI camps there were only Slovenechildren \n and a limited number of German orphans from the Banat.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2794, "page_number": "2787", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "The Banat belonged to Roumania. With reference to taking the Slovens into VOMI camps, I have already made a statement. The conditions with regard to the children was the some as with regard to the Banat Slovenes. In spite of my repeated objections, they were sent to VOMI only by Himmler because there was no other means for accommodating for the time being except VOMI camps, The resettlement of German Slovenes from the Banat was decided upon by Himmler himself on a trip through Roumania. He had found that there were a number of German orphans there, who were living in very poor circumstances. A Roumanian had suggested to Himmler that these poor orphans should be transferred to better circumstances, better conditions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2795, "page_number": "2788", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Himmler had seized on this idea and first of all told VOMI to take these children in. The children were, with reference to the subsequent resettlement and with the agreement of the Rumanian agencies, taken away by VOMI.\nQ.- As Exhibit 300 the Prosecution has submitted directives of Himmler about carrying out the combat against partisans and other bands in Upper Silesia and it is dated 25 June 1942. Did you get to know this document at the time?\nA.- No. As this document was expressly described \"top secret\" and as VOMI is not mentioned in the distribution list, it was out of the question that VOMI or I should have heard of it at all.\nQ.- Exhibit 394 of the Prosecution shows that negotiations about the Slovene children took place in Klagenfurt between the police authorities there and the representative of your office by the name of Cyriak. Do you know anything about that?\nA.- No. The specific order by me was not given to Cyriak. It is spelled C-y-r-i-a-k. I am hearing this name for the first time now. He didn't have any orders from me and I would assume that he was a member of the Gau Assignment Squad of VOMI in Klagenfurt.\nQ.- Did you issue any special orders for the accommodation of the Sloven children?\nA.- When visiting a camp I discovered for the first time that Slovene children were present in VOMI camps. On this occasion I ordered that the children were to be treated particularly carefully and well. I discovered on this occasion that at this camp there was a number of nurses and children's nurses.\nQ.- Did you give any orders for the re-Germanization of such children?\nA.- Never. As in all other Slovene cases, VOMI had no competency with regard to the question what was to happen to the Slovenes and Slovene children brought into Germany proper.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2796, "page_number": "2789", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.- Did you carry out any negotiations with Lebensborn concerning the future of these children?\nA.- I, myself, did not. What local camp leaders did in this respect I don't know.\nQ.- Herr Lorenz, as Exhibit 442, the Himmler order has been submitted, addressed to you and Heydrich. This is an order of July, 1941, and has been submitted. In part you have already commented on it. In section 4 of this order the Higher SS and Police Leader in the sphere of Strengthening of Germanism is assigned with SS Standartenfuehrer Pflaum, who was to look after the children. Had VOMI any connection with this?\nA.- No. I don't know Standartenfuehrer Pflaum at all. He did not get in touch with me. Whether he might have got in touch with Hoffmeyer I don't know, but I never heard anything about it.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted Exhibits 447 and 448 in which Himmler gave an order for the collection of orphans in the Balkans. This order and an alteration of it was sent to SS Brigadefuehrer Behrend your deputy. What have you to say about that?\nA.- There are two letters here of the 20 May 1944. Behrends left VOMI in the early Autumn of 1943. He became Higher SS and Police Leader in Belgrade and no longer had any connection with the work of VOMI. The two exhibits, 447 and 448, are dated the 20 of May 1944. These were obviously not sent to Behrends in his capacity as my deputy but in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader in Belgrade. VOMI had nothing whatsoever to do with these letters.\nQ.- On Inspection of VOMI camps did you ever see Alsatian children, Prosecution Exhibit704?\nA.- No, I never saw Alsatian children in VOMI camps.\nQ.- Here is Prosecution Exhibit707, dated 10 February 1933, it is a file not from Klingsporn to Bruckner, on the Slovenes. Did you see this. It deals with expulsions from Oberkrain?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2797, "page_number": "2790", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.- I don't remember this nor can I imagine that such an internal file note would have been brought to my attention by my colleagues. I would like to state with reference to this that after my return from the camp where I had seen Slovene children without their parents I issued strict orders to try everything to re-unite the children with their mothers and families.\nQ.- According to Prosecution Exhibit712Himmler is supposed to have asked you repeatedly about the separation of ethnic endangered children from their parents in RuSHA. Do you know anything about that?\nA.- I don't know anything about that. If VOMI did anything at all in this connection, then it was only as an intermediary source since the other Germans were looked after by Hoffmeyer, which, as I stressed repeatedly, was independent of VOMI, since he only took orders from Himmler, the Higher SS and Police Leader Kirstmann.\nQ.- Prosecution Exhibit687mentions ethnic German orphan children in RuSHA who were supposed to be taken to Transnistria. Had VOMI any connection with that?\nA.- No. In this document Wolfrum is sent to Hoffmeyer in the East and is supposed to look after this affair. It was only to get documents and material to Hoffmeyer.\nQ.- Witness, the Prosecution charges you with robbery and spoliation in the Incorporated Eastern Territories. Did you ever see the so-called Polish Property Order of the 17 December 1940?\nA.- No. VOMI had nothing to do with that.\nQ.- Did you know of the seizure powers of the Main Staff Office and the Main Trustee Offices?\nA.- No; I did not know about that.\nQ.- Now is it that the circular decree of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism dated 16 December, 1939, Prosecution Exhibit 620, about the administration and the seizure of the polish proper \n ty was sent to VOMI?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2798, "page_number": "2791", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.- At the time the whole apparatus of organization of the Reich Commissioner had been in the process of being built up. Nobody knew any thing about competency. That is probably why this decree, which VOMI had not the slightest connection with whatsoever, was sent for information to VOMI and for information only.\nQ.- Did you, yourself, get to know this decree?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you think about it at all what the resettlers were to get as replacements for the property they had left behind whey they were settled in the Incorporated Eastern Territories?\nA.- Certainly I thought about it. From my work as farmer in the East, between 1919 and 1934, I knew that many Germans had been expropriated and that because of the Polish agrarian definition small settlements had been formed. These settlements could not provide a living and the settlers had, in many cases, simply abandoned the land. I knew that. I as sumed that these abandoned settlements could provide sufficient funds for a small number of the resettlers. I would like to repeat the last sentence. I assumed that from these abandoned settlements, in comparison to the population of the Incorporated Eastern Territories, a small number of resettlers could get sufficient land for their settlements. I c autiously qvoided interfering with the competency of other offices, especially the newly created offices were most anxious that no one should rob them of any of their competencies. As a result, I did not bother about things which did not concern VOMI and myself. I have already said once that with reference to the property question of resettlers I had given strict orders to my people not to make any promises because VOMI was never competent nor informed about the way in which the resettlers were to be compensated.\nQ.- Do you know the so-called Reinhard Scheme? This is a question about clothing from concentration camps.\nA.- No. I heard about it for the first time here in Nurnberg.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2799, "page_number": "2792", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.- Did you know that VOMI is supposed to have got clothing and linen from Auschwitz, Lublin and Herzogenbusch?\nA.- No. I know nothing about that nor was anything reported to me about it.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted the identical document, Exhibits 573 and 750. These contain a letter from Himmler to the head of the SS WVHA Oswald Pohl and to you, dated 14 of October, 1943 where quite a number of common utensils and objects of clothing were supposed to be distributed among ethnic German groups from the camp houses in Lublin and Auschwitz. Do you remember this letter?\nA.- No. I can't remember having seen the letter. There is very much evidence to show that this letter was not submitted to me for information because these were German ethnic groups in RuSHA and in the government general. With respect to the supreme police and SS Leader Fritschmann, as is clearly shown by the distribution list, such letters were regularly taken up when the mail was distributed in Berlin and passed directly to the competent authorities.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 629 according to which SS Obergruppenfuehrer Oswald Pohl, chief of WVHA, for Christmas 1943 was to put 1500 ladies' watches at the disposal of resettlers from the Ukraine.\nA.- I know nothing about that. Pohl never got in touch with me on the subject nor do I know that 1500 ladies' watches were given to ethnic Germans and resettlers.\nQ.- The Prosecution also charges you with stealing of church property Prosecution Exhibits 622 to 625. There is correspondence concerning the seizure of church property in Silesia, and reference to the housing of resettlers in 1940. Are you acquainted with this incident?\nA.- Neither my office nor I ever robbed churches or took part in such a thing. Only the following was reported to me about the affair: I had ordered that a friendly agreement should be reached with Kardinal Bertram.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2800, "page_number": "2793", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Later I was told that an agreement had been reached. I do not know that monasteries which became empty were kept from the churches by VOMI.\nWe often gave convents and monasteries back immediately which were empty before the lease was up.\nQ.- In Prosecution Exhibit there is mention of an authorization from Himmler to VOMI dated December 1939, about the execution of seizures for the purpose of accommodating resettlers. Do you know anything about that? It is a question of accommodation for the resettlers, Herr Lorenz.\nA.- I don't know anything about that either.\nQ.- How was responsible in your office for housing these resettlers and obtaining accommodations for them?\nA.- Accommodations and especially camps were in charge of my Department XI. But about seizures, yes, that was the matter for the department chief Altena. Altena reported to me regularly that he and the Reich Defense Commissioner, that is the authority is entitled to carry out seizures, were in touch and that he received accommodations allotted by them. Concerning any other way of obtaining accommodations, perhaps through VOMI direct, nothing was reported to me. A decree of the Reich Commissioner where VOMI is empowered to seize rooms itself for the resettlers, I don't remember. A legal basis for the seizure was offered only by the Reich confiscation laws.\nQ.- Now, a fundamental question. In the IMT judgment VOMI is charged with zealously carrying out Germanization plans in the occupied territories and with deporting Jews and other foreign nationals. What can you say about that?\nA.- The evidence in this case is surely sufficient to show the impossibility of maintaining this assertion. VOMI never Germanized nor deported. I remember one single case where VOMI brought two Jews from Lithuania, a woman and her daughter. This was at the urgent request of her relative, a colonel in the OKW. Through VOMI, in fact through the defendant \n Brueckner, it was made possible for them to go abroad, I believe, to Sweden.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2801, "page_number": "2794", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "This colonel came to see me repeatedly at that time in order to thank me for making it possible for his relatives to be rescued from the Soviet Union. Probably both of them are still grateful to me for this type of deportation.\nQ.- The IMT Judgment lays down certain kinds of crimes of the SS. What did you know about the persecution and extermination of the Jews?\nA.- I only heard rumors about the deportation of Jews to the East. I once asked Himmler about it and received the following answer: I was not to bother about things which were no business of mine. From the Poznan speech and the form in which Himmler gave it at the time, I could hear nothing about any extermination of Jews.\nQ.- What do you know about conditions in concentration camps?\nA.- About conditions in concentration camps I don't know anything at all. I never inspected the concentration camps. It is forbidden to visit concentration camps even for us.\nQ.- What do you know about the slave labor program?\nA.- I only know that foreign workers were employed in Germany but everyone knew that. I didn't know more about it than that.\nQ.- What did you know about the murder and ill-treatment of prisoners?\nA.- Nothing; never heard anything about it.\nQ.- Do you have any reason to suppose that you and VOMI took part in any program for the commission of illegal acts against foreign nationals or that you were to be included in any such plans?\nA.- No. My task was to look after people who had come from their old home to a new one.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2802, "page_number": "2795", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "I always tried to make the transition as easy as possible for them. I realized that they were in a not very easy situation. To help them in this situation I considered an important and grateful task. I can see no criminality in it. I had the same attitude too with reference to those people who had not come voluntarily to my camps, and who for that reason I did not want to take in; but who were forced on my be orders from above. I never assumed that my work and that of my office which was the least work on the major scale could be considered deportation for slave labor or forcible military service.\nDR. SCHUBERT:May it please the Tribunal, that is the end of my direct examination of the witness Lorenz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions by the Defense?\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. KARL HAENSEL: (Attorney for the defendant Greifelt)\nQ.I have two questions. Witness, without VOMI did you ever have any agreement with the Main Staff Office or with Greifelt according to which resettlers were to be brought into concentration camps insofar as they were guilty of any unwillingness?\nA.No, no such agreement ever existed between Greifelt and myself.\nQ.Did you or VOMI ever together with the Main Staff Office or with Greifelt ever take measures for the welfare for the s ettlement in the Schitomir district in the Ukraine; did you ever carry out such settlement measures there?\nA.No, never.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Witness, I am submitting to you Document 2703-B, Exhibit 206, in Document Book V-A. It is the frequently mentioned Fuehrer's Headquarters discussion in August, 1941. In this document, on page 64, there is mention of setting up ethnic German leadership offices and the staffs of the higher SS and police leaders. You are to undertake the resettlement \n in the Schitomir area or that by Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2803, "page_number": "2796", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Can you tell the Tribunal whether such leadership offices were ever set up?\nA.Yes, they were, but if I may correct something. It was not Fuehrer's Headquarters because the Fuehrer's Headquarters was where Hitler was, but it should be Field Headquarters, and that is where Himmler sat; that is the wrong expression there.\nQ.But the document is headed Fuehrer's Headquarters. Here it must be wrong too.\nA.Yes, the wrong term. The Fuehrer's Headquarters remained the quarters where Hitler himself lived, and at the time we were attached to Himmler, and that is always called Field Headquarters; it must be some type of title error.\nQ.Thank you. Were these ethnic German liaison offices given the same authority as VOMI?\nA.No, never.\nQ.Do you know that Himmler managed the settlement of the Schitomir area personally and that his field headquarters lay in the very center of this area?\nA.Yes, he already said that in his discussion at the field headquarters; he announced it himself.\nQ.Thank you. Do you know whether the Obersturmbannfuehrer Jungkuns mentioned in the document was the local responsible leader, became the responsible leader for the settlement area?\nA.Yes, I remember that he was.\nQ.To whom was Jungkuns subordinated?\nA.I don't know for certain, either directly to Himmler or to the highest SS and police leader Pruetzmann. At any rate, he was not subordinated to VOMI or to the Main Staff Office; I know that for certain.\nQ.Thank you. Between VOMI and the planning office, or MeyerHetling, were there any official connection between them?\nA.No; I never talked to Professor Meyer during the wholeof this period.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2804, "page_number": "2797", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Could Professor Meyer give instructions to VOMI?\nA.No, certainly not.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. PRACHT: (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt)\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hildebrant personally?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.How long have you known him about?\nA.I beg your pardon.\nQ.About how long have you known him fairly well?\nA.Oh, I have known him for a long time; I think since 1930.\nQ.Do you know that in October , 1939, Hildebrandt went to Danzig as leader of the new SS sector to be formed there?\nA.Yes, I remember that. He was in Wiesbaden and then quite suddenly he was taken away from there by Himmler and sent to Danzig, very much contrary to his expressed desire. I remember how Hildebrandt objected all the time and asked to be left in Wiesbaden.\nQ.Are you well acquainted with conditions in the Gau Danzig, West Prussia, from your own experiences?\nA.Yes, as I said, I was very much interested because I lived there for fifteen years; I knew them.\nQ.Did you ever hear of the West Prussia Home Guard?\nA.No, I never heard of that.\nQ.Are you informed about the competencies of the higher SS and police leaders of the Danzig, West Prussia, which Hildebrandt was?\nA.Not the old competencies.\nQ.Witness, can you tell me anything about the relationship between Hildebrandt and Himmler?\nA.Yes, for as long as I have known Hildebrandt, it was, I think, the worst possible relationship that I had ever seen between a subordinate and a superior. It was always very tense, and it started here in Nurnberg, \n and it lasted up to the collapse.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2805, "page_number": "2798", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Is it correct that this tense relationship was due to the fact that Hildebrandt was one of the older SS leaders who dared to criticize even Himmler himself without camouflage?\nA.Yes, always. I think he was one of these leaders who we considered faultless in the course of justice and who had perennial clashes with Himmler.\nQ.Now, can you tell me something about Hildebrandt's reputation in Danzig, West Prussia.\nA.He had a very good reputation, and that was shown by the fact that Gauleiter Forster who was in Danzig at the time was very unpopular among the population and a new Gauleiter was to be appointed for Danzig; and from my own friends and acquaintances from Danzig I was always getting letters asking me to intercede with Hitler to see to it that Hildebrandt became Gauleiter. He was known for his honest and straightforward conduct, and he was popular among the entire Danzig population; and I often saw the requests made by the population to Hitler asking that he should be Gauleiter.\nQ.Another question. I gather from your answer that the confidence in Hildebrandt was due to his manner in dealing with people and helping them.\nA.Yes, that is absolutely correct.\nQ.Does this readiness to help also extend to cases where Poles were mixed up in conflicts?\nA.Yes. I known one case in particular. It was a matter of a Pole, a Herr Julius von Temspki, -- T-e-m-p-s-k-i-; and I am not quite sure whether his name was Julius; he was always called Jul. I think his estate was called Sabbonc; he was a Pole and was not to keep his farm. His wife was a German, and he was always making efforts to stay on his estate. Some decree or another had been published; I didn't know what it was, but any way this Pole Tempski approached me. I got in touch \n with all the offices concerned and couldn't manage to do anything.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2806, "page_number": "2799", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Then I asked Hildebrandt to take on the matter; he did that very gladly and saw to it that this Herr Tempski got some assistance. However, he knew perfectly well that by this measure he would find himself at odds with Himmler.\nDR. PRACHT:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by Defense Counsel? The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken. )", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2807, "page_number": "2800", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.HEIM (Deputizing for Dr. Schwarz for the defendant Hofmann):\nYour Honor, after all, I still have a few questions and I ask that I be permitted on behalf of Dr. Schwarz to put two questions to this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right: two. BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, is it correct that during the years 1936 and 1937 you were the superior of the defendant Otto Hoffmann?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Can you tell us whether it is correct that the defendant Hofmann, in his official capacity at that time as leader of the SS sector XV, took special care of the education of the SS men and organized manifestations where the wives and family members of these SS men took part and thereby promoted family life of the SS members?\nA.Yes, I can confirm that. At the time, Hofmann showed a special interest and made great efforts and took great pains to take care of the SS families, and particularly of the wives, and saw to it that during specially organized evenings called by him these dependents gathered. Hofmann took a special interest in the family life of these SS men. That was part of our original program.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you testified on direct examination that your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit No.9, was incorrect on certain points. Weren't you allowed, witness, to make any changes which you wished?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2808, "page_number": "2801", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.Yes; I had not this possibility at the time. I pointed out to Mr. Meyer that the word \"re-Germanization\"-\nQ.Witness, please answer these questions briefly and to the point. If you think that your answer is \"No,\" just say \"No.\"\nA.I cannot answer all your questions simply with \"Yes\" or\"No.\"\nQ.Witness, you just said that you couldn't make the changes you wished, is that correct?\nA.At the time I couldn't make the change I wanted.\nQ.Witness, I am showing you here an earlier draft of your affidavit; the one in evidence was copied from this one with several changes made by you. Will you please look at this draft signed by you.\n(Witness is offered the document.)\nWitness, there are approximately 15 changes made in ink in this affidavit with the initial \"L\" standing besides these changes. Are these changes made in your handwriting and is that your initial?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct. I haven't found exception with that either.\nQ.Thank you, witness. In direct examination you stated that you were forbidden to put out Nazi propaganda abroad and that you had never acted as a fifth column, is that correct, witness?\nA.I am sorry, I am not quite clear as to what you ask me now. I have to think that over. Maybe you could put the question again because I have some difficulty in understanding.\nQ.Did you ever act as a fifth column, witness?\nA.No, never.\nQ.Witness, didn't VOMI prepare the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia for the outbreak of war with that country?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2809, "page_number": "2802", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.Prepared for what?\nQ.Witness, didn't VOMI offer to organize calls for help from the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia and make preparations for that?\n(no reply)\nWitness, I will repeat my last question. Didn't VOMI offer to organize calls for help to Germany from the ethnic Germans in Yugoslavia and make preparations to furnish a pretext for war with Yugoslavia?\nA.I have no knowledge of that.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at Document No. NO5615, a letter from SS Brigadefuehrer Berger.\nA.May I read that letter. Mr. Prosecutor?\nQ.Will you look at the last two paragraphs, witness.\nA.I am not through.\nQ.Witness, do you at the -\nA.I am not through. Will you let me read it? I am sorry, but I am not through reading it.\nQ.May it please the Tribunal, I should like to take this opportunity to offer this document for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.821.\nA.I had no knowledge of all these matters involved in this letter and described there. I saw the letter and I heard about the contents of this letter for the first time here today.\nQ.Behrends did not tell you at any time that he was reporting and that he was actively engaged in this?\nA.No, he never reported to me about it. At least I don't remember anything of that kind.\nQ.Thank you, witness. This morning you spoke in direct direct examination concerning the SD, Einsatzgruppen in Russia and claimed that VOMI had nothing to do with the \n COURT I CASE VIII task of the Einsatzgruppen, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2810, "page_number": "2803", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.Yes, that was correct.\nQ.You knew at the time, did you not, witness, that this task was the mass murder of Jews and others whom the SS considered undesirable, did you not?\nA.No, I didn't know that at all, and I was in Berlin and these Einsatzgruppen it is alleged--I didn't know that either--were to go with our advancing armed forces, but I had no knowledge whatsoever concerning the activities and the tasks of these Einsatzgruppen.\nQ.Witness, you stated on direct examination that VOMI had nothing to do with the labor allocation of the ethnic Germans within its camps, and with the labor allocation of those persons considered not suitable for Germanization, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2811, "page_number": "2804", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "AExcuseme, but I don't quite see what you mean. You're asking me two questions at the same time, Mr. Prosecutor. Will you please give me some explanations as to how you mean it. I mean you're speaking of labor allocation, as far as I understand you, of labor allocation of the ethnic Germans, and then again you refer to persons fit for re-Germanization. I don't understand you. That is not at all a clear picture. Those are two different things.\nQWitness, let's take up one thing at a time. With respect to the ethnic Germans in your camps -\nAYes, that is better. You want to know whether -\nQWitness, let me repeat my question. Did VOMI have anything to do with the labor allocation of the ethnic Germans within its camps?\nAYes, I have already explained that. Upon the request of the ethnic German population--must of them were agricultural population-I saw to it that there came into a daily voluntary labor assignment before they were resettled. I stress again that that was the express desire of these ethnic Germans who approached me in this matter, but they didn't have to work if they didn't want to, Apart from that , they received pocket money for their weekly needs. I mean, they didn't need to make the money--it wasn't for that -- but these people complained about this horrible boredom and the fact that they were unemployed and had nothing to do and they requested that we should do whatever we could to give them some kind of work, and that is what I did.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to the witness: this counsel is limited to time. Please answer his questions directly; then you will have a chance to explain it later if you desire to. But just simply answer his questions as shortly as you can.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, your Honor, I have understood. BY MR. SHELLER:\nQWill you please look at DocumentNO-5220, a letter from you to \n Schmauser, dated September 1944.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2812, "page_number": "2805", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "The Prosecution now offers it for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.822.\nAI have to read that once. I am sorry, Mr. Prosecutor, this first page is blurred. I can't read it. Don't you have, anything better? Couldn't I have a copy which I can read because I really can't decipher that. But if you tell me what's in it, I will believe you.\n( ANother copy is offered to the witness.)\nExcuse me, Mr. Prosecutor, here on the phtostat my name isn't even mentioned. I mean my name in handwriting isn't on it. It's only typewritten. Therefore I cannot recognize this letter at all as my own. I mean there has to be that name with the well-known \"L\" of mine. It only reads: \"Signed: Lorenz,\" and it's typewritten.\nQWitness, now that you have made your statement to the Court, will you please finish the letter. Will you please look at the first full paragraph on Page 2, witness. Have you read that paragraph witness?\nAYes, I have read it all right, but I amafraid that with those few minutes that you gave me I cannot explain my position, but I find exception with the photostat because it's not -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, witness. All he asked you was if you read it.\nTHE WITNESS:Well I have to have to read it. Now I didn't have enough time to read it because probably you will ask me a few questions about it. I cannot remember so quickly andI can't make a statement.\nTHE PRESIDENT:He asked you if I had read the first paragraph on Page 2, have you?\nTHE WITNESS:I haven't read the first one yet, but I have read the second one. BY MR. SHILLER:", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2813, "page_number": "2806", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QThe first full paragraph. The first paragraph that also begins on Page 2.\nAThat is a continuation, isn't it?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the first one that begins on Page 2.\nTHE WITNESS:I see. BY MR. SHELLER:\nQWitness, in this paragraph there is a statement to the effect that the repatriation office--Volkseutsche Mitteldeutsche --has the duties incident to temporary labor allocation. Do you agree with that statement, witness?\nAWell, if I understand it, counsel, correctly this time, then the question is dealing with a temporary daily labor assignment of the thnic Germans. That is all I can tell you. I mean, if you put me on the spot like that -- I am in no position to explain my attitude towards this letter otherwise.\nQWitness, do you mean that this temporary labor allocation meant an allocation from say to day; that is, each day a man went possibly to a different job?\nAWell, I don't knew that. I am not so Well informed concerning this labor assignment, but I had an opportunity to see that these people would get work. If I speak of short-term labor commitment, I mean that they could take that job, but they could step whenever they wanted. They didn't have to sign any long-term contracts. That is what I mean.\nQWitness, will you please look at the next paragraph--at the second sentence in the next paragraph, witness.\nADo you mean the third or the second?\nQI mean the second.\nAWell, the second sentence doesn't mean anything at all. Probably you mean the third sentence or the fourth.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2814, "page_number": "2807", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "QWell, in the translation, it begins: \"For example, you also overlooked the fact that the labor allocation of Slovenes not suitable for re-Germanization--\".\nAOh, I see what you mean now. Well, that is the third paragraph. In my copy, it's the third paragraph. You spoke of the second.\nQSorry, witness. Do you sac the sentence.\nAYes, sure, sure I see it quite well.\nQWitness, do you agree with the statement in this sentence that the \"labor allocation of Slovenes not suitable for re-Germanization and other similar groups is entirely your job.\"\nAWell, I haven't read it through quite yet, but just a minute I will be through in a minute.\nQRereaddit, witness.\nAI am through.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment, there is more trouble now with our ear phones.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2815, "page_number": "2808", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nQ.Can you answer my question, witness, or would you want me to repeat it?\nA.No, no, no, I can answer it. You don't have to repeat it now, but again you won't be satisfied with my answer in as far as I can answer this question, if you want me to put it that way. I come back to what I said before, but I will put it in a few brief words. The question involving this short-term assignment intended for the German resettlers was that this arrangement should be applied in the same way for the Slovenes and aliens, those aliens who were in my camps, and I said that of course these people should also be assigned for a short-term labor assignment. I said that and I have no misgivings whatsoever about it.\nQ.Witness, in this case of Slovenes and other such groups, the phrase \"labor allocation\" is used there, not \"temporary labor allocation\" as used earlier in the letter. Do you claim that this means the same thing?\nA.What do you mean by that?\nQ.Witness, you made a distinction between labor allocation and temporary labor allocation. Do you know what distinction you have made?\nA.Well, I must have made a mistake, a lapsus linguae there. I am always referring to labor assignment for inmates of my camp. I am always referring only to a temporary short-term labor allocation. For other kinds of labor allocation, I wasn't competent at all, and I couldn't issue any directives in that regard.\nQ.Thank you, witness. Witness, did you ever have a dispute with the defendant Greifelt as to the jurisdiction over ethnic Germans from VOMI camps who had been assigned to work in Luftwaffe armament camps?\nA.No, I never had such a dispute.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at Documents No.NO 5339, 5352 and 53 consisting of correspondence between you and Greifelt in January, 1944?\nMR. SHILLER:Prosecution now offers these documents for identification \n as Prosecution Exhibits 832, 834 and 835 . May it please the Tribunal, I realize that my thirty minutes are almost up.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2816, "page_number": "2809", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "I should like to ask for an additional five minutes or so, due to the interruptions I have suffered during the course of this examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I figure it is at least ten minutes for which you are not responsible.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, now that you have seen these documents, do you wish to change your testimony in any way?\nA.Well, you see, if I should give you an extended and clear answer, we can't even make it in those ten minutes the Tribunal granted, Mr. Prosecutor.\nQ.Very well, witness. I don't want an extended answer or a clear answer if it will take that long. We will just drop the subject.\nA.I would love to give you some information, if not a satisfactory answer, but I mean I don't remember these documents. They were not submitted to me and it is very hard for me to answer anything then.\nQ.I realize that you are in a difficult position, witness. If you can answer -\nA.I can't do it, I am sorry.\nQ.Very well. As I said before; we will pass on to the next subject.\nA.Yes, I am sorry, I would like to do it, but I can give you the information early tomorrow morning.\nQ.That is all right, witness. This morning, witness, you testified on direct examination concerning the employment of ethnic German girls from Russia asshousemaids in Germany. Will you please take a look at Document No.NO 5318, which is already Prosecution Exhibit No.684, in Document Book 5-G? This is a letter dated 30 January 1942 from Meiner to you concerning this subject. Will you please pay special attention to the third paragraph?\nA.Yes, certainly, 1, 2, 3.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2817, "page_number": "2810", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Have you read this, witness?\nA.Yes.\nQ.If you will look at Paragraph 3, witness, you will see that Himmler there requested you to get in touch with the defendant Greifelt and to see that a draft of the decree concerning this was submitted to him, that is, to Himmler. Now, my question is, in this case was it your duty or was it the defendant Greifelt's duty to prepare this decree for Himmler?\nA.Well, I can't give you any detailed information. I assume, however, that this document involved the domestic workers who had gone to Germany or wanted to go to Germany voluntarily. As far as I know. there were two or three -- well, I would spy \"maid drives.\"\nQ.Witness, if I may interrupt, my question is simply not as to whether this was voluntary or involuntary, but whose duty it was to prepare this decree, regardless of the subject matter.\nA.Oh, I see. Well, the only explanation I can find -- I want to make it as short as possible, but I have to explain it to you, --- is that the sector of the Ukraine ethnic Germans was not under my orders but under Himmler directly as Reich Commissar. It is possible that Himmler had decreed this maid action in his capacity as Reich Commissar and wanted to settle it via Greifelt. That is the only explanation for this convergent participation of Greifelt there.\nQ.Thank you, witness.\nA.Excuse me, I have something to add, because I had no orders over these ethnic German maids there.\nQ.Witness, you stated in direct examination that you and your follow SS men rejected Himmler because you felt that he had betrayed you and the high ideals of the SS, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Witness, when did this rejection take place and of what did it consist?\nA.Well, you see, it is hard to say. Actually, I mean as far as actual \n rejection is concerned, that wouldn't be the right expression.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2818, "page_number": "2811", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "In my interior, I took my distance from Himmler, and towards the outside, I only did it during the war, after I had made the acquaintance of his real nature. Before the war, he had hidden that real face of his very cleverly.\nQ.In other words, witness, you never actually did anything, in your own mind you rejected Himmler, is that it?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2819, "page_number": "2812", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Witness, you said on direct examination that after hearing the Posen speech by Himmler you considered him to be slightly cracked. That was the translation, \"slightly cracked.\"\nA.I didn't say \"slightly cracked.\" That wouldn't be -- I said he was a maniac that he was suffering from manias and from Utopian ideas. I didn't say he was nuts, but if you want me to use that word, I'd gladly do so.\nQ.This seems to be created by the language difficulty, Witness. What I want to find out is, did you say that you considered him a visionary in an insane manner, or merely a dreamy idealist? Impractical.\nA.No, you really can't say that he was a dreamer or an idealist. What he showed to be and what he told us in the Posen speech, that you can only term -- well, how should I say it? -- I would say that it was the outbreak of a completely crazy man and I think the expression \"nuts\" I would gladly use there.\nQ.Witness, you knew that when Himmler decided to do something action took place, did you not?\nA.Excuse me, my understanding of your question is that if Himmler ordered something it had to be carried out?\nQ.No, that is not correct, Witness. My question is -\nA.I am sorry, I have misunderstood then.\nQ.You didn't consider Himmler a dreamer. You knew he was a man of action, did you not?\nA.Yes, certainly, even a man of very dangerous action.\nQ.Did you ever do anything, Witness, as the result of your conception of Himmler as a dangerous man with dangerous plans which you knew would come into effect?\nA.Yes, I mean it really became apparent and was clear to all old SS leaders during the war and there he had us all in his grip. Before the war we could have gone away, but during the war it was quite out of the question and he knew that perfectly well. All of us felt what we might call in German, and what we said, that we were in an \n express train and couldn't get out of it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2820, "page_number": "2813", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Constantly he had the most incredible clashes with the old SS leaders because of his conception and the more the war became intensified the crazier he became.\nQ.Witness, you stayed in the SS until the end of the war and were paid by the general SS, is that correct?\nA.No, no, that is not quite correct. I was paid by the general SS from 1934 until 1936. From 1936, I retired from Himmler's close field of command and I mean I didn't get any more money either from him and I was financed in other manners. Then I had nothing to do with Himmler. That was good luck for me.\nQ.In 1944 and 1945, didn't you receive sums of money as your salary from the General SS?\nA.Yes, yes, 1944 and 1945 and 1946.\nQ.Perhaps we misunderstood each other again, Witness.\nA.Excuse me. That is only because of the earphones. The interpreters are not at fault, but it is my earphones. If you could speak German, it would be much better.\nQ.During the war, from 1939 to 1945, were you paid by the General SS?\nA.You mean 1939 to 1945?\nQ.Yes, witness.\nA.No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Shiller, one more question will put you about fifteen minutes over. One more question.\nMR. SHILLER:If Your Honors please, I have no further questions. I would merely like to submit one document to the witness on this point.\nQ. witness, will you please look at DocumentNO-2534. A and B, which I now offer together for identification as Prosecution Exhibit 826. You will look at part A, Witness, that is a letter to you dated December 1944 asking you whether you want to be continued to be paid by the General SS now, after your promotion to General in the Waffen SS and General of the Police.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2821, "page_number": "2814", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.No, just a minute. I have to read it. This letter must be completely misunderstood. I think it is a teletype and it is quite misunderstood there. That is not correct. I can prove that by my administrative leader, Lohn, who is here. There must he a mistake.\nQ.Witness, your counsel can then try to prove your statement. Will you please look at part B, Witness. That is a letter in January 1945 from the Chief of the SS Main Personnel Office stating that you will continue to receive your pay from the General SS.\nA.Well, I can inform you about that -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, Mr. Witness. He hasn't asked you any question about it yet. He has asked you to read it.\nTHE WITNESS:I am sorry. I apologize.\nQ.Is that letter also incorrect?\nA.Yes, completely incorrect.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute. It will probably he helpful to the Tribunal, when counsel examines witnesses about documents of this sort, to furnish the members of the Tribunal with copies hereof. That applies hereafter.\nDR. SCHUBERT:No translation came through.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We simply requested counsel for the prosecution to furnish us with copies of the documents that they were examining the witness about. That was all.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, the last document that was submitted to you, was an unsigned copy apparently, dated 2 January 1945 and addressed to you. Do you recall that at any time you received that letter? Do you have a recollection of that?\nA.Well, what are you referring to?\nQ.I am referring to the letter you just saw.\nA.Well, I saw two letters. This matter of pay, yes.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2822, "page_number": "2815", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Yes, the matter of pay.\nA.Well, that must have been a misconstruction, a misunderstanding.\nQ.I didn't ask you, Witness, whether it was a misunderstanding. I asked you whether you received those letters?\nA.No, I never received a letter like that. I don't recall that at least and I can hardly imagine that I received it.\nQ.At the time, Witness, you were transferred to the Waffen SS and became a General of the Waffen SS, is that correct?\nA.I did not go over to the Waffen SS, but I was appointed General of the Waffen SS. In other words, there were no changes in my functions, and I didn't -- well, how should I say it? -- I didn't receive any assignment with the troops. I went on as Obergruppenfuehrer and as far as the pay was concerned, I was paid as an Obergruppenfuehrer.\nQ.You had a function in the Army Group Weichsel, isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, well, with the armed forces, but not with the Waffen SS.\nQ.Oh, not with the Waffen SS?\nA.No, that was the armed forces.\nQ.But you were a General of the Waffen SS, weren't you?\nA.Yes, but the Army Group Weichsel was a part of the armed forces and not the Waffen SS.\nQ.Now, as an active General of the Waffen SS, didn't you receive pay for that?\nA.No, not a penny.\nQ.You still received your pay for your service from the VOMI?\nA.Yes, still the same wages from the Reich Treasurer of the Party and no change was made in my wages.\nQ.Witness, in your agency, who dealt with the labor commitment questions of the resettlers or the colonists? Can you tell me that?\nA.I couldn't tell you that. I don't know that. No, no, I don't know it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2823, "page_number": "2816", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.Did you ever take a great interest in that Question?\nA.No, at no time except perhaps that I had the possibility to assign temporarily the ethnic Germans for work.\nQ.Then you refer to the fact that Himmler had plans, and that he would carry out these plans, too. But, didn't Himmler have quite a lot of plans? Have all of them been carried out?\nA.What did you ask?\nQ.Well, I asked you whether Himmler didn't have quite a number of plans that were never carried out?\nA.Yes, most of the time he had plans that were not carried out because they were too crazy. Excuse the expression. Well, maybe I should put it they were too fantastic so that they couldn't have been carried out.\nDR. SCHUBERT:No further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBER:I ask the Tribunal's permission to call the witness Kuetzner now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBER", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2824, "page_number": "2817", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "GEORGKUESTER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. SCHUBERT:If your Honor please, this witness has made an affidavit for the benefit of the Prosecution. I am referring now to Exhibit 438 in Document Book VIII-C andI am going to ask the witness only about matters contained in the affidavit.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal?\nA.Kuester, Georg.\nQ.According to your affidavit you were administrative leader of the VOMI camp in Langezell.\nA.Yes.\nQ.What kind of a camp was that?\nA.That was a resettlement camp of the VOMI.\nQ.Was it a stone building?\nA. A.Yes, it was a castle which belonged to the Prince of Loenstein. It was a stone building.\nQ.Was the castle well repaired by the VOMI for the reception of the resettlers?\nA.The castle hadn't been lived in for ten years and it was restored completely. New central heating was installed and the plumbing was repaired and everything was completely renovated and quite a bit of expense was incurred in that connection.\nQ. was there a large park near the castle?\nA.A large park was part of the estate of the castle of \n Langenzell of 60 acres.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "GEORG", "DR. SCHUBERT", "A. A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2825, "page_number": "2818", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.What monthly rent did the VOMI pay for the castle?\nA.As far as I remember, 2000 Marks.\nQ.In your affidavit you speak of a fund collected for the 400 Rumanians and 25 Rumanian children.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were those racial Germans or ethnic Germans from Rumania?\nA.Yes, they were ethnic Germans from Rumania.\nQ.Where did these children come from?\nA.As I stated, the children came from an orphanage in Rumania. I think it was from Bucharest.\nQ.Did the children tell you that they had a good time in this orphanage?\nA.The children all complained about it and they were older children and they told us that money was still due to them from that orphanage. They told us -- well, I remember one case at least where the children said that the parents had emigrated to the United States and first they had been with the grandmother and the grandmother had died and then they had been brought to the orphanage. They were not exactly delighted with the conditions they had in the orphanage in the least\nQ.What did the adults say? Were these grown-up people satisfied with the conditions in Rumania from where they came or did they complain about it?\nA.At the time I had a female interpreter there. She was a Rumanian who had worked with the German firm previously, a Frau Studentski, the wife of an artist-painter and professor, and she told me that they had emigrated from Rumania because as Germans they couldn't stand it down there. They told me that at last they lived in a hotel where they were even molested.\nQ.Did any one of the grown-ups tell you that they were forced to go to Germany?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2826, "page_number": "2819", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.No.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution wishes to point out that the affidavit deals merely with children. There is no mention anywhere in it of adults.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, since the Tribunal does not have a copy of the affidavit before it, there is no way we can rule on it. I can only caution counsel to please not go into anything that is not included within the affidavit.\nDR. SCHUBERT:If your Honor please, the Prosecution there is mistaken. The affidavit mentions 400 Rumanians. That means groun-up people and 25 Rumanian children. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.When the children arrived there were they in a very good condition of health? were they well-fed?\nA.No, they were rather meager and feeble.\nQ.Was everything possible done for the children in the camp?\nA.Yes, it was.\nQ.Were they afterwards in a good condition?\nA.Yes. The children were especially well-cared for and we had two children's nurses there, whose only task it was to take care of the children. For instance, in the evening the children received milk, puddings, sugar, butter and they got their porridge and all of them gained weight.\nQ.Did the children receive school training?\nA.Yes. One of the nurses had been in a nursery and she had gotten a teacher from Rumania and the two together gave instruction to the children.\nQ.Could they go to church?\nA.Yes. Every Sunday most of them went out and went to Riesenbach to the church service.\nQ.Witness, in your affidavit here you talked of three children, but I will come back to that question afterwards. But concerning the \n rest of the Rumanian children the following arrangement was made:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2827, "page_number": "2820", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Part of them came to the Hermann Goering Works with the grown-up people in Linz. Is that right?\nA.Yes. Well, you see, the sentence is not quite in line with the truth and I told the interrogator at the time that that is not quite all right. The three I am referring to were no children. I mean, they were already grown-ups of an age which made them subject to military service. One of them had already been a sergeant in Rumania.\nQ.Just a minute; just a minute. I think you haven't understood me. Is it correct that part of the Rumanian children, together with the grownups, came to Linz to the Hermann Goering Works in Austria?\nA.Well, you see, I don't know where they went, whether they got to the Hermann Goering Works or not. I don't know that. The only thing I know from correspondence is that from the station at Linz the people were fetched with cars of the Hermann Goering Works.\nQ.Then there is a mention that part of the children came to the Waffen SS?\nA.That is an error of the typist and I found fault with it at the time and the interrogator told me, \"Oh, well, that is only a detail. Otherwise I would have to have it rewritten. It is not worth while to change it.\" No children went to the Waffen SS. Three brothers, and I remember their names - Wirth - were sent to the Waffen SS.\nQ.Go on, but go a little bit slower.\nA.Three brothers by the name of Wirth; the oldest brother had been a sergeant already in Rumania and they went to the Buchenwald Standarte of the Waffen SS. They were drafted into that unit. The parents, both of them, were in the camp and then assigned to work and had an apartment at Wangenthal near Langenzell.\nQ.Witness\nA.Yes?\nQ.The so-called children who were sent to the Waffen SS -- in other words, they were grown up?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2828, "page_number": "2821", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.Yes, they were grown up. That is a mix-up there.\nQ.Well, how did it occur that you signed these statements?\nA.I have a very weak heart. I am 71 and when this interrogator came I just had gone through a very difficult treatment with a heart drug and the interrogator found me in bed when he came and after that had taken more than two and a half, almost three hours, I just couldn't stnad it any longer. I was through. It is true that I reread the whole transcript but I couldn't really follow it and I told the interrogator at the time that I found exception with that sentence but in order to avoid having the whole thing rewritten, which would have taken a long time and to have them leave me alone, and as this interrogator told me it had no importance I just lot it go at that.\nQ.Witness, is it then incorrect too that, as you say in the affidavit, part of the children were assigned for work in the surrounding villages?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2829, "page_number": "2822", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.No, that is correct. The children had grown up in the meantime and they were fit for work, and they were almost eighteen, and they were assigned to work for Maur and Meckerscheim.\nQ.But I mean they had been more than eighteen.\nA.No, sixteen. Light work, I mean; for instance one remained at Maur and was treated like the baker's own child in a waffer bakery; and he stayed there until the collapse of Germany. The others, two or three, I don't know how many of them there were because I couldn't keep track of them once they were assigned for work, they remained until they were drafted into the armed forces. As far as the transport to Linz is concerned, I asked every single one of them personally whether they wanted to go to Linz or whether they wanted to stay; whoever wanted to stay was allowed to stay and the others were gathered in the camp and joined the transport.\nQ.Witness, then you said that one day a visitor of the medical staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS arrived.\nA.Yes. It was reported to me that one of the big wigs, one of the VIPs was on his way. I didn't know his rank or his title and when his car arrived, I must say that I was a little bit disappointed. I thought somebody really big came, and then some modest kind of a guy arrived there, and he was very nice and introduced himself as Dr. Ebner, and he said he was to give a medical examination to the children.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel, have you very much more for this witness? It is now time for adjournment.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Just a few more questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Make them very short, please. BY DR. SHUBERT:\nQ.How come, witness, that this remark of a man from the medical staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS was entered into your affidavit?\nA.Well, at the time I said staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS; I didn't say of the medical staff.\nQ.Well, who explained that to you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2830, "page_number": "2823", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "A.Well, only afterwards I heard that he was from the staff; it was told to me on one occasion or another, I don't know just when; I really didn't know who he was.\nQ.Did you observe Dr. Ebner when he looked at the children and gave them a medical examination?\nA.Oh yes, he was very nice with those children.\nQ.Were those all orphans?\nA.All of them, He stressed specifically that he had no interest in the others.\nQ.Were some of the children really feeble-minded?\nA.And how there was particularly one family, Kohn; there were four children; they were completely insane; and the others also, almost all of them, except the Reiner children, they were the intelligent people of them.\nQ.Do you know whether one of the children after the visit of Dr. Ebner was sterilized?\nA.No.\nQ.Would you have heard about it if it had been done?\nA.Oh yes, I would have heard about that.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 19 December 1947.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2831, "page_number": "2824", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 19 Dec.\n1947, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Military Tribunal I will come to order.\nDR. DOETZER :Dr. Doetz er for the defendant Brueckner. May it please the Tribunal, with the approval of the Tribunal I would like to call the defendant Brueckner to the witness stand.\nAfter that, my colleague, Dr. Schubert, will continue his case in chief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What is the reason for breaking away from one defendant to another?\nDR. DOETZER:Your Honor, a few days age my colleague, Dr. Schubert, asked permission to be able to call both VOMI defendants in succession because if we were to examine the VOMI witnesses in between , the Tribunal would first hear of Brueckner's activity out of the mouth of the witnesses and not out of the mouth of Brueckner himself.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Go ahead.\nHEINZBRUECKNER took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nBY DR. DOETZER:", "speakers": [ "DR. DOETZER ", "THE PRESIDENT", "HEINZ", "DR. DOETZER", "BY DR. DOETZER", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2832, "page_number": "2825", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Witness, give the Tribunal your name and the date of your birth.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a minute, counsel, before proceeding. I overlooked inquiring of the Marshal whether or not all defendants were present in court.\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honor, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.You can answer, witness.\nA.Heinz Brueckner, born on the 8 of March 1900 in Dresden.\nQ.Are you the same Heinz Brueckner who gave an affidavit to the Prosecution about his career?\nA.Yes.\nQ.With reference to this career which is Exhibit 10 in Prosecution Document Book I, I have a few questions. According to this you joined the NSDAP in 1934. B efore 1934 were you already in sympath with the Nazi movement?\nA.No, because in 1933, in my position with the labor office Loebau I was given notice for political reasons.\nQ.What were these political reasons?\nA.I was a member of the Central Association of Employees, a free trade union; member of the Defense Cartel of the General German Trade Union League; and in addition, I was chairman of the Advisory Council of the Loebau Labor Office. On the basis of the law for reorganization of professional civil servants I was given notice.\nQ.Do you remember the exact date when you were conscripted for emergency reasons?\nA.On the 9 of November, 1939.\nQ.What would have happened if you had not followed this emergency conscription?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2833, "page_number": "2826", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.The emergency conscription had a legal foundation. I could not refuse.\nQ.So you complied?\nA.Yes, like every other German.\nQ.When you were conscripted to the VOMI did you at the same time become a member of the General SS?\nA.No. In Autumn 1939 I was not yet a member of the SS.\nA.No. Like all other members of the resettlement squad of VOMI I was, at the suggestion of my superiors, by way of equalization of rank, drafted into the SS.\nQ.When was that?\nA.In the summer; I think in the middle of June, 1940.\nQ.What rank were you given?\nA.I immediately became an Untersturmfuehrer, which corresponded to the work I was doing.\nQ.How is it that you received this honorary rank in the SS?\nA.I was working with the resettlement squad as an auxiliary worker. This resettlement squad had the task of carrying out the resettlement from the Soviet Union. On the Soviet side it had been demanded that the members of thissquad should wear uniforms. The Soviet representatives were all officers. So it was a matter of course that the German representatives should also not be enlisted men. For this reason I received the lowest officer's rank, Untersturmfuehrer.\nQ.So you did not join the SS voluntarily as a simple SS member.\nA.No; I was never an SS candidate and never an SS man.\nQ.Did you give an SS oath?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever pay SS membership contributions?\nA.No, never.\nQ.Were you a member of an SS unit, for instance, an SS Sturm, SS Sturmbann, SS Standarte, SS Abschnitt, SS Oberabschnitt?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2834, "page_number": "2827", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.No, I never was.\nQ.Did you ever do service in the SS?\nA.No, neither in one of these units nor in an office of an SS agency nor was I ever on special SS assignment.\nQ.Was the pass which you received different from the passes which were given to the others and generally issued to members of the General SS?\nA.This pass had behind the memberhip number in brackets \"V\".\nQ.What did this letter \"V\" mean?\nA.Temporary.\nQ.But then you were repeatedly promoted as honorary leader of the SS and in the end you were a Sturmbannfuehrer.\nThat is theequiva lent of a major?\nA.These were not promotions but when my civilian work changed, then every time my official rank in the SS, as is the honorary rank, was assimilated to my civilian work.\nQ.Was it an exception or was that usual with all authorities?\nA.That was usual in the case of all officers.\nQ.Did you become a member of the Waffen SS voluntarily?\nA.No. As far as I know, it is only in 1941 that I was drafted into the Waffen SS as an SS private.\nIn 1943 I became Unterscharfuehrer.\nThat is an NCO rank, as was the case with all people who had been in the World War like myself.\nIn addition, again by way of assimilation to my official work, I received the rank of an expert leader in the Waffen SS.\nQ.Was this regulation onlycustomary in the Waffen SS or did it apply to the whole of the Wehrmacht?\nA.That was a ruling which applied to the whole of the Wehrmacht and had applied in the Wehrmacht even earlier than in the Waffen SS.\nIn the Wehrmacht, from the beginning of the war, there were the so-called \n special leaders and in 1941 this practice was also introduced into the Waffen SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2835, "page_number": "2828", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "At the beginning they were called special leaders, Sonderfuehrer, and a short time later expert leaders, Fachfuehrer.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2836, "page_number": "2829", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Why did you not become an export leader for the Waffen SS already in 1940 but an honorary leader in the General SS instead?\nA.Because, as I already said, in 1940 there were not yet any expert leaders in the Waffen SS. That is why we, at the suggestion of our superior became honorary leaders of the General SS.\nQ.If you had left VOMI would you have lost your SS rank?\nA.Surely.\nQ.Were you office chief in the SS?\nA.No, because to be an office chief of the SS you had to be appointed by the Reichsfuehrer SS, that is, Himmler. An office Chief in the SS I could not have become in view of my law rank and my very short membership in the SS. I was head of the office of the Reich Agency VOMI and I never work as an office chief of the SS, would have been entitled to do, the insignia of an office chief of the SS, that is, the broad silver stripe on the sleeve, nor did I ever have the flag of an office chief of the SS on my car. In my activity as head of an office VOMI I was continuing my long years of civil service work.\nQ.What was your work in VOMI?\nA.My work has to be divided into three phases. The first, from the day of my emergency conscription on the 9 of November, 1939, to about April or May 1941. During this time I was working in the resettlement squad. The second section, from about April-May 1941 to about the end of 1942. During this tine I was advisor and departmental chief under the deputy chief of VOMI Brigadefuehrer Behrens. During this time my sphere of work was not outlined definitely. The third phase, from about Autumn 1942 to the end of the war. During this time I was in charge of Office 6 of VOMI.\nQ.Was your work during the first period independent work?\nA.No, in no way. It was a very subordinate position I held. I had no responsibility of any kind. I was one of many. This is shown by my low rank as Untersturmfuehrer; that is, lieutenant.\nQ.What about the second period when you were advisor to Behrens?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2837, "page_number": "2830", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.During this time I had no right to make any decisions. Brigadefuehrer Behrens would assign various jobs to me and always give no definite instructions about how to carry them out. If any changes developed when these matters were being handled I always had to get a new decision from Dr. Behrens.\nQ.And what about the third period when you were chief of Office 6?\nA.This was brought about because VOMI at the time was being reorganized into 11 offices. I was given the direction of Office 6 and this gradually in the course of 1943 was established out of a number of already existing departments. On fundamental questions during this time I was bound to the decisions of my superiors. I then carried out these decisions.\nQ.Did you at any time have the right to sign for VOMI?\nA.In VOMI the right to sign was only held by the chief and his permanent and authorized deputy. There was a ruling that letters to superior offices or such of an equal level had to be signed by the head or his deputy while letters to inferior agencies could be signed by the experts, advisers or departmental chiefs.\nQ.Now I come to the first period of your work with VOMI. In what resettlements did you take part and what did you have to do in them?\nA.First of all, I took part in the resettlement of the ethnic Germans from Volhynia and Galicia. This was carried out on the basis of an international agreement of the 16 November 1939. In this resettlement I had especially to collect the property lists made out by the resettlers and to settle other auxiliary matters.\nQ.According to your observations were the resettlers forced to resettle?\nA.No. This resettlement was absolutely voluntary as was necessarily the result of the agreement. The resettlement was in addition be-lateral That is, resettlement took place both from Russian and from German territory\nQ.In what further resettlements did you take part?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2838, "page_number": "2831", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.In July and August, 1940, I was in Moscow, and I worked there as an assistant in the different negotiations with the Soviet Union.\nQ.In this case were the ethnic Germans forced to resettle or did they do it voluntarily?\nA.I myself did not take part in this resettlement of Bessarabia and North Buchenland. But I know this resettlement agreement and I know the negotiations with the soviet agencies and so I know that the voluntary character was absolutely a prerequisite of the resettlement.\nQ.What task did you have in resettling the ethnic Germans from Lithuania?\nA.From September to December 1940, I was again working in connection with the negotiations for an agreement with the Soviet Agencies in Kowno, Lithuania. This agreement was concluded on the 10 January 1941. Here too, it was a bilateral contract. From January to March 1941. I was then commissioned to carry out this resettlement.\nQ.Was this voluntary too?\nA.Yes, absolutely voluntary. The contract also showed that over and beyond voluntary reporting, the various resettlers were, one by one, released from their former nationality.\nQ.Did you have an opportunity or did your colleagues have an opportunity, to make propaganda in Lithuania for resettlement? Was the population stimulated, coached, in any way?\nA.In Lithuania I was with a detachment of VOMI amounting to easily 100 men. For every German member of the detachment there were at least 3 or 4 GPU people. It is fairly obvious that under these conditions in the soviet Union no propaganda could have been carried out or any pressure exerted in the Ethnic Germans in this country.\nQ.How many ethnic Germans were resettled?\nA.In the first place, we had expected 30 to 35,000 ethnic Germans but far more were resettled, a good 50,000.\nQ.Had this resettlement been planned well in advance or was VOMI faced with it quite suddenly?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2839, "page_number": "2832", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AThe order to VOMI came entirely spontaneously. Lithuania had been occupied by Soviet Troops in June, 1940. As a result the ethnic German wanted to resettle. At that time, that is about August, 1940, I was commissioned to prepare this resettlement. At that time there were no facts available to VOMI, about how many ethnic Germans there were in Lithuania and where in Lithuania they were. At that time I only found out from literature and inquiries with research centers what these figures were likely to be.\nQIn Lithuania did many people report to you who were not ethnic Germans?\nAYes, many did.\nQWere you able to resettle these non-Germans too?\nAIn a fairly large number of individual cases we were. I did this whenever it was definite that these people were facing extinction in the Soviet Union, and if I could find a way to carry through this resettlement. I remember that at the time I resettled Swiss, Swedes, Lithuanians, Russians and people of Jewish descent too. This meant a definite danger for me at that time. I remember one individual case very well. A Lithuanian Lt. Col. Sukuss came to me; he was being persecuted by the GPU; he asked me to resettle him. There was no way of doing this under contract. What I did was to drive him across the country in the luggage compartment of my official car; enroute my car was run into by a truck of the Red Army.\nQBut in spite of this accident, you escaped with your life?\nAYes, thanks to the presence of mind of my driver.\nQIn this resettlement were you led by racial, political and religious points of views? Or, were there anti-fascists among these persons?\nAPolitical, religious, racial and other considerations played no part whatsoever. All that mattered was to help the people and this was done without any differentiation. For instance, I remember a Swiss \n professor Ehret by name.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2840, "page_number": "2833", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "He was a well known opponent of National Socialist Germany. He told me that at the time; he even told me if you don't want to resettle me for this reason, then I can understand it. I told him your political attitude doesn't matter. I resettled him and he is now in Basel working as a professor. At the time I saw to it that he immediately got the exit permit to go to Switzerland.\nQDid you take part in any further resettlements?\nANo.\nQWitness, we now come to the second part of your activity, to your position under SS Brigadefuehrer Behrens. The Prosecution has submitted as Exhibit 269 a report about the Luxembourg resettlement. The Exhibit is in Volume V-F. I will give you the exhibit, and I ask you at that time, that is in the autumn of 1941, did you carry out or prepare any resettlements from Luxembourg?\nANo.\nQWhat was this instance?\nAGauleiter Simon, chief of the Civil Administration in Luxembourg wrote to Himmler that he wanted to evacuate Italians from Luxembourg. Himmler passed on this letter to VOMI. The matter was handled by the deputy head of VOMI, that is Brigadefuehrer Behrens. Behrens sent me to Luxembourg.\nQWhat instructions did you get?\nADr. Behrens instructed me to prevent this evacuation as far as possible; insofar as this was not possible, at least to delay it.\nQDid Brigadefuehrer Behrens give you this order in secret, or, did you receive it in the presence of other advisors?\nAThis happened at a meeting of advisors in which this question was discussed at considerable length. VOMI as was said at this discussion was against these resettlements because it could not see any necessity for them.\nQDid you make any memoradum or notes about this discussion at the time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2841, "page_number": "2834", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AYes, of course; it went into the files.\nQWas it in your files?\nAYes, it was in my files.\nQAt this discussion, this conference, did Behrens give you any instructions in what form the delay might possibly be carried out?\nAYes, the order was a very difficult one. I was just a little Obersturmfuehrer at the time and I was to try and get my own way in a matter which the Gauleiter and chief of the Civil Administration in Luxembourg, Simon, had already decided to carry out; the matter to which Hitler had agreed.\nQDid you tell all this to Behrens; did you tell him that in your position you couldn't assert your influence against these people; and, what did he say?\nAAt the time I first asked Dr. Behrens if he wouldn't go there himself, since for him with his high rank it would be much easier to assert himself; but then he ordered me to carry out the job and the reason he gave was that as the result of my long negotiations with the Soviet agencies, I was particularly experienced in the delays created by the Soviets in their negotiations.\nQAt this discussion with Behrens was there any discussion of making a ethnic card index?\nAYes, for the following reason. It was a question of finding possibilities how this resettlement could possibly be delayed. Behrens said at the time, just tell the Civil Administration that a clarification of the ethnic conditions in Luxembourg must first take place, and, if necessary, suggest that an ethnic card index be set up; and in this way delay the thing for the time being.\nQThe report of the 30th August, 1941, which you signed, is this the result of your own observations and investigations in Luxembourg or somebody else's?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2842, "page_number": "2835", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AI was only in Luxembourg for two days at that time, so I couldn't undertake any investigations of my own. This report contains the facts given me by the Civil Administration.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2843, "page_number": "2836", "date": "18 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-18", "text": "Q.The directives attached to the report, did you write those?\nA.These directives represented the opinion of the Civil Administration in these matters.\nQ.Why didn't you give your own opinions?\nA.Our opinion was one that we couldn't very well make public in this matter.\nQ.Why not?\nA.Because it was in contradiction to the measures taken by the very highest authorities.\nQ.What was the course of the discussions in Luxembourg with the gentlemen of the Civil Administration?\nA.First of all I negotiated with a Oberregierungerat Guenzel. I made good contact with him, and I told him of the doubts which VOMI had. Guenzel told me that a request to have the resettlement dropped altogether could not possibly succeed with Gauleiter Simon so I was limited in my negotiations to delaying tactics. In this discussion on the first day I told Guenzel a good many of our misgivings, and I was able to convince him that these planned resettlement measures were not right. In addition I established in these conversations that Simon over and beyond the evacuation of Italians reported to Himmler also wanted to evacuate further parts of the population. Guenzel was not in favor of this resettlement either, and I succeeded in persuading him that the best thing was the plan to delay the scheme. Guenzel and I then went to see the Regierungs President Siegmaier, whom I could also convince. In the directives which the chief of the Civil Administration had drafted in my-presence, at my instigation notes were included containing such a expression \"as soon the political and economic conditions permit this\" or; \"after the end of the war\", or \"when these contracts had finally been laid down.\"", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2844, "page_number": "2837", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII So in these negotiations I had succeeded in carrying out the delaying tactics as I had been instructed to do.\nQ.Did these directives have any practical results?\nA.Yes, of course this resettlement was never carried out.\nQ.After having negotiated in Luxembourg for two days, did VOMI assign you to Luxembourg to work?\nA.No, that was the end of my job there.\nQ.Who was the commissioner for VOMI in Luxembourg?\nA.Brigadefuehrer Behrens at the time appointed a certain Herr Posthaus as advisor for the agency of the office of chief of the Civil Administration, and at the same time as observer.\nQ.Was this Posthaus subordinated to you or Behrens?\nA.Directly to Behrens, because I was only a little Obersturmfuehrer.\nQ.The reports contained on pages 23 to 39 of Exhibit 269 about setting up an ethnic card index, were these written by you?\nA.No, of course by Posthaus.\nQ.Did you personally pass them on?\nA.Posthaus sent these reports to Behrens, and Behrens passed them on to Himmler.\nQ.Did you in the following time have any further dealings with resettlements in Luxembourg?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you there in any way concerned with the evacuation or deportations from Luxembourg which took place In the autum of 1942?\nA.No, I had nothing to do with that.\nQ.We know that these deportees were sent to VOMI camps; were these deportees in the VOMI camps looked after by you or what was the task of your Office VI?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2845, "page_number": "2838", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.No, this was the task for Office XI, Department Camp Management.\nQ.Did you know the letter contained on pages 40 to 44 of exhibit 269 by Gauleiter Simon concerning compulsory military service and deportation in Luxembourg?\nA.No, this is a secret letter which Simon sent to the high command of the Wehrmacht and which was written in 1943.\nQ.Now, we will abandon the Luxembourg question and pass on to Alsace. On the 7th of October, 1942, you took part in a discussion in the Main Staff Office. It is a discussion mentioned in Exhibit 275, document book VF about deportations from Alsace. Do you remember this discussion?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was it part of your work in VOMI at the time to handle these questions?\nA.No, I have already said that at the time I had no definite tasks in that field.\nQ.Why were you sent to this discussion?\nA.Brigadefuehrer Behrens commissioned me to go there.\nQ.What was the commission he gave you?\nA.From the very beginning he gave me definite instructions which entirely comformed to those I have just mentioned for Luxembourg.\nQ.What were these?\nA.To prevent or at least to delay.\nQ.As to this commission were any notes made in the minutes?\nA.Yes, of course, in all such cases.\nQ.Was this note among your files?\nA.It was put into my files.\nQ.Witness, please describe the situation at that time \n COURT I CASE VIII with reference to the measures by the Gauleiter in Alsace, quite briefly, please.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2846, "page_number": "2839", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.Gauleiter Wagner went to see Hitler together with Himmler. Hitler had authorized him to carry out deportations from Alsace. At this discussion the participants were really faced with the fact.\nQ.What did you do with regard to Behrens' instructions to prevent or at least delay these deportations?\nA.First of all I objected in very strong terms to these deportations generally, and said it must be prevented at all costs; that is was wrong. This view was hold by other members at the conference too, but I was told that it was hopeless from the very beginning to refuse to have any dealings with these measures as a whole. I then objected to single individual points of these measures, especially those which affected the greatest number of people; that was the intended deportation by Wagner of the population from the so-called Patois, and on the other hand the deportation of relatives of people who had allegedly refined to do military service, and in this discussion I succeeded, as the document itself shows, in having these two schemes which are numerically the most important, delayed to beyond the end of the war; and, an actual fact is that they were never carried out. I think that I achieved the most that could be achieved.\nQ.What did you manage to achieve with reference to deportations for those refusing to do military service?\nA.There, too, a complete refusal would not have met with the approval of the Gauleiter. That is why at my suggestion this question too was narrowed down. It was provided that first of all it should be investigated whether the dependents of these objectors to military service were \n COURT I CASE VIII in any way to responsible, and then in order to make the circle of people affected still smaller, it was provided that an investigation should again first be carried out to establish the amount of guilt.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2847, "page_number": "2840", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2848, "page_number": "2841", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- Witness, did your efforts have any success, or was the deportation carried out nevertheless?\nA.- I have already said the Patois population was not deported at all and the number of deportees -- that is dependents of objectors to military service -- was very low indeed. I never got to know the figure exactly since apart from this discussion I had nothing to do with the question. But I believe I remember that it was a few hundred.\nQ.- Who was to carry out these transports of deportees and who did carry them out?\nA.- The representative of the Reich Security Main Office who took part in this discussion demanded at the time that VOMI should carry out these transports. I refused absolutely and I was able to do so because in Himmler's order to Wagner this was not provided for at all.\nQ.- Witness, because of your attitude to these deportations in Alsace, did you have any difficulties in your professional position or not?\nA.- Yes, I did have considerable difficulties, especially in 1943 and 1944 when the RSHA repeatedly attacked me severely.\nQ.- Were these attacks made in writing?\nA.- I know of two attacks in written form.\nQ.- Did you see these yourself?\nA.- In one case I did; in the other I did not.\nQ.- Were your colleagues who had the same view also attacked?\nA.- One of my colleagues, Professor Schoeppke, was arrested one day by the Gestapo. Himmler ordered that he was to be taken to a concentration camp. Of course, I took his part immediately as it was a matter of course for me to do so, and after hours of negotiations with local Stapo iffices I managed to get him released after about a month.\nQ.- Did VOMI have to carry out these transports from Alsace or not?\nA.- No, it did not carry them out. They were carried out by the police.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2849, "page_number": "2842", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- Now we come to Lorraine. Were you concerned in the deportations from Lorraine?\nA.- No, I just heard of them accidently once.\nQ.- What did you do about it?\nA.- The matter was brought to my attention by a representative of the NS-Womens' League. Thereupon I consulted Professor Schoeppke, whom I just mentioned as having been persecuted, and commissioned him to go to Lorraine and collect evidence about Buerkel's deportation measures. Schoeppke did so and thereupon I wrote a very cutting report which the defendant Lorenz then passed on to Himmler. I further saw to it that from the intelligence service of the RSHA a similar report was sent to Himmler. Apart from that, I did not concern myself with questions of deportation from Alsace and Lorraine as far as I remember.\nQ.- This report you mentioned against resettlement, was that amongst your files?\nA.- Yes, of course.\nQ.- Now we pass on to the French resettlements. Did you carry out any deportations from France?\nA.- No.\nQ.- The Prosecution, however, in Document Book V-D has submitted Exhibits 279 to 285 which deal with deportations from France. What do you know about that?\nA.- These documents speak for themselves. Himmler had ordered that in France, deportations were to take place of the Alsacians and Lorrainians living there who were to be taken to their home country. Over and beyond that, the ethnic Germans, -- or as we said, the racial Germans -in France were also to be resettled.\nQ.- Do you know the reason for this order?\nA.- The Alsacians and Lorrainians were at the beginning of the war evacuated to the interior of France. They wanted to return home. The chiefs \n of the civil administration in Alsace and Lorraine objected to that, especially Buerkel in Lorraine.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2850, "page_number": "2843", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- Why did you get in touch with the Foreign Office in this matter at the time?\nA.- Behrens at the time commissioned me to get in touch with the Foreign Office and the reason was that he wanted to prevent the deportations of the ethnic Germans; that is, not the Alsacians and Lorrainians but the ethnic Germans.\nQ.- Did you negotiate with the Foreign Office?\nA.- He commissioned me to negotiate with the Foreign Office and to express VOMI's point of view there and to try and get the support of the Foreign Office to this same point of view. I did negotiate with a Legationsrat Reschel and succeeded in having the Foreign Minister calll Himmler personally.\nQ.- And what was the result? Did many resettlements take place?\nA.- The result was that no resettlement from France ever took place, at least not to any note worthy extent. In individual cases the wishes of the ethnic Germans were met. Some of them wanted to join relatives in Germany or some of them had no means of subsistance in France.\nQ.- Did the information to the Foreign Office and the discussion with legation councillor Reichel take, place with the approval of Himmler?\nA.- No; on the contrary, he was furious about it, and that is shown by the document too.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2851, "page_number": "2844", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "(The hearing reconvened at 1110 hours.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nHEINZ BRUECKNER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.- Witness, did you work at the VOMI agency in Paris?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Was this agency under you?\nA.- No. It was subordinated to Behrens directly. Later on, as far as I know, it was subordinated to Office II.\nQ.- Did you have knowledge of the fact whether this agency carried out a registration of ethnic Germans in France?\nA.- No. A registration had already taken place through the military commander in France.\nQ.- What was the task of this small VOMI agency in Paris?\nA.- It had to take care of the ethnic Germans who lived in France in cultural respects, social respects, and financial respects.\nQ.- You have already mentioned that upon their own request several ethnic German families were repatriated from France to Germany. Did you have anything to do with the repatriation of these people to Germany?\nA.- No. This was, of course, handled by the agency at Paris within its own field of competence.\nQ.- I am now coming to Exhibit 284 in Document Book V D. A discussion is mentioned here which took place on the 12th of March 1943. I now want to ask you, were you the chairman at this meeting?\nA.- No. Behrens was the chairman.\nQ.- Did you sign the letter of the 21st of March 1943 which describes the course of the discussion?\nA.- This letter contains a teletype from Behrens which I wrote to \n the information of the interested agency by order of Behrens.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2852, "page_number": "2845", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Of course, I did sign this letter.\nQ.- Was this teletype Exhibit 231 which has been presented here by the prosecution in Document Book IV B?\nA.- Yes. That is a teletype which I have just referred to.\nQ.- Witness, did you ever carry out any work in northern France?\nA.- No. I had only been ordered in 1942 by Behrens to negotiate with the German Embassy in Paris and with the field headquarters at Lille. The reason for this was that those agencies also were to voice their opinion to any potential resettlement.\nQ.- Were you given this task in writing?\nA.- Yes. There must be some file note in existence about that.\nQ.- Who took care of the ethnic Germans in northern France?\nA.- As far as I know, the field headquarters at Lille carried out that work -- correction -- the field headquarters at Douai. This was a Kriegsverwaltungsrat, an administrative officer in the army, Mueller.\nQ.- Do you know whether the VOMI carried out any resettlement drive in the area of Douai?\nA.- I never heard anything about it.\nQ.- Did the VOMI have anything to do with the regermanization procedure and the people's list in this area of Douai?\nA.- Certainly not. After all, that was not its task and its competence.\nQ.- Witness, I now would like to briefly discuss with you several documents, first of all, prosecution exhibits 698 and 699 in Document Book V G. This concerns the repatriation of Luxembourgians who resided in France. What do you know about that?\nA.- As far as I can recall a rather radical plan had been formulated by Gauleiter Simon for the execution of these resettlements. I can recall, for example, that Behrens at the time negotiated about this with other \n agencies that Behrens at the time negotiated about this with other agencies in particular with the organization for foreign countries of the NSDAP, which was competent for the Luxembourgians who lived in France.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2853, "page_number": "2846", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "These resettlements, as far as I know, were never carried out. That is what Posthaus told me on some occasion later.\nQ.- Posthaus was the advisor who had been attached by VOMI to Luxembourg at the time?\nA.- Yes. He had been sent there by Behrens.\nQ.- Witness, do you know Prosecution Exhibit700in Document Book V G?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What does it deal with?\nA.- It is a letter addressed to Brigadefuehrer Behrens which contains the names of people who were deported from Luxembourg.\nQ.- Do you know for what purpose Behrens received these lists?\nA.- No, I don't know that, nor did I know it at that time.\nQ.- What did you do upon receipt of these lists?\nA.- I did not take any action whatsoever. I just had it included in the files. That also becomes evident from the document itself.\nQ.- Prosecution Exhibit693in Document Book V G deals with the question of students at Strassbourg. Can you still recall this incident?\nA.- As far as I can recall, these students before the war had been taken to the interior of France and this was done by Franch authorities. The chief of the civil administration in Alsace refused to give these students permission to return to Strassbourg. VOMI at the time intervened on behalf of the students, that they should return so thaty they would be able to resume their studies at Strassbourg. This plan, however, failed because of the Gestapo. However , VOMI finally succeeded that at least a part of these students was allowed to return. This was done by way of the so-called repatriation plenipotentiaries who worked in the German Consulates.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2854, "page_number": "2847", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- In Prosecution Exhibit694, in Document Book V G, the question of deportations by Gauleiter Buerkel are mentioned. What do you know about that?\nA.- I have already mentioned before that already at a earlier period of time I had written a very sharply worded report about this deportation drive. At the time when I heard of new deportation plans, I immediately wrote to the Reich Security Main Office which was competent in this matter. It becomes evident from the letter that the VOMI was opposed to these deportation plans.\nQ.- Witness, do you still recall that in Prosecution Exhibit271, Document Book VF acircular is mentioned of a department of your Office VI, called Comradeship Work?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- What does this deal with?\nA.- This was the informational passing on of a decree of the General Plenipotentiary for Labor allocation in the question of deported Luxembourgers, Alsatians, and Lorrainians who wanted to go back to visit their families. The subordinate agencies had inquired whether any legal provisions existed on that subject. We then passed on these legal provisions to them. The Comradeship Work actually had nothing to do with working on that matter. It becomes evident from the document itself that the VOMI was not competent at all in this matter. As far as instructions were concerned, the General Plenipotentiary for labor allocation was competent; inasfar as the execution was concerned; this was done by the labor offices.\nQ.- Can you recall that in Prosecution Exhibit703, in Document Book VIII D, a reference is mentioned where the question of Alsatian children was discussed or was to be discussed?\nA.- I cannot recall this teletype, and I cannot recall either that such a conference took place.\nQ.- Witness, at the time, did you receive knowledge of Prosecution \n Exhibits 265 and 266 in Document Book V F ? It deals with Luxembourg deserters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2855, "page_number": "2848", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "You can answer this question with \"Yes\" or \"No\".\nA.- No. This was a top secret matter.\nQ.- In the organizational chart of the VOMI, Prosecution Exhibit36in Document Book II B, there is an Office VI mentioned of which you were in charge; and then it says \"special task for France and Belgium\". What does that mean?\nA.- Of course, Frehcnmen and Belgian citizens had nothing to do with this. However, ethnic Germans were also living in these areas, and they had different nationalities. Some of them were even stateless. For the care of these Germans, I, of course, had to take some action. It was my task, to help these Germans/. That is exactly what I did.\nQ.- We are now coming to the subject of the deportation of the Slovenes. Did you have any knowledge of this deportation drive of the Slovenes, or did you even play any part in it?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you or Office VI of VOMI, which was established in 1948, and of which you were in charge, have to look after the Slovenes who were placed in VOMI camps?\nA.- No. That was done by the camp administration.\nQ.- How is it then that in connection with the Slovenes who were in the VOMI camps, your name has been mentioned?\nA.- Several times Brigadefuehrer Behrens or his successor charged me with the task.\nQ.- Can you still recall why this happened?\nA.- If I recall correctly, the VOMI had heard subsequently by way of letters which it had received that relatives of these children were still alive. Behrens then ordered me to see to it that these children should be united again with their families.\nQ.- According to Prosecution Exhibit677in Document Book V G you \n participated in a conference in the main staff office during which these Slovenes were discussed, do you recall that?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2856, "page_number": "2849", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.- Yes. VOMI had already tried for some time to get the Slovenes released from the camps. This, however, failed because the Gestapo opposed this, which was competent for this group of persons.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2857, "page_number": "2850", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd were you satisfied with this discussion?\nANo. We succeeded that a part of those Slovenes could be released and above all it was agreed that as far as their indemnification of property was concerned, they were to be placed on an equal basis with the German settlers.\nQWitness, at the time did you have knowledge of Prosecution Exhibits 675 and 676 which are contained in Document Book V G?\nAYes. I received them for my information, however, they were worked on by the competent office XI which was the camp administration. That also becomes evident from the document itself. My Office VI had nothing to do with working on this matter, and my handwritten remark which says \"to be filed\", makes that evident.\nQWitness, can you still recall Prosecution Exhibit678in Document Book VG? It concerns the recruiting of Slovenes for the German police.\nAYes. I disapproved this plan at the time, as far as the Vomi was concerned. As far as I can recall at the time I stated that Vomi, because of fundamental considerations, refused to have nonGermans drafted into the German police.\nQAs far as you can recall, were these people accepted in the police?\nANo. The expert who worked on the matter within the replacement office at the time, Herr Brill, would be able to confirm that at any time.\nQCan you recall whether at the time in the discussions which you had with Brill you made any notes in the files?\nAYes. I always took notes.\nQProsecution Exhibits 679 and 680 in Document Book V G contain a correspondence between the main staff office and yourself. Please describe to us how it came about that the expert from the main staff office turned to you and not to the competent office of Vomi, namely, the camp administration which was Office XI?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2858, "page_number": "2851", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI had several discussions with the expert from the main staff office, Senior Oberregierungsrat Bethge. He knew that I wanted the Slovenes to return to their country of origin. That is how he happened to turn to me.\nQWas this repatriation carried out?\nAIn a larger number of individual cases, yes, fundamentally, however, it was not carried out because here we met the opposition of the Reich Security Main Office.\nQCan you still recall what suggestions you made in this letter? Did you only make a recommendation that the Slovenes were to be returned to their country of origin, or did you make any other suggestions?\nANo. I made several suggestions.\nQWhy did you do that?\nAI knew in advance that a fundamental demand that all Slovenes should return to their country of origin would be doomed to failure. For that reason, I made some other recommendations also, which in any case aimed at an improvement in the general situation as far as the Slovenes were concerned.\nQProsecution Exhibit707in Document Book VIII D contains a file note which the Department Camp Administration of VOMI had sent to you. Why were you informed in this manner about the question of the deportation of the Slovenes?\nAI have already stated before that the VOMI always intervened on behalf of the return of the Slovenes to their country of origin and their dismissal from the camps, but that I did this in particular was well-known in the Department Camp Administration. Furthermore, I also received instructions to that effect from my superiors. At the time a telephone call took place and the result was that I wanted to have precise information, and that is why I asked the department camp administration to give me an exact description of the conditions which were prevailing.\nQWhat you have just described to us, does that become evident \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2859, "page_number": "2852", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "from the document submitted here, or is it missing?\nAAs far as I can recall, there were more documents dealing with this matter.\nQWitness, Prosecution Exhibits 723 and 724 contain a correspondence in the same matter. Can you still recall the details of that?\nANo. I cannot recall the details of that matter any more. I only knew one thing. I knew that this reply was given on the basis of an information given by telephone which I had received from Office XI. After all, Office XI actually was competent in this matter. My office, or I myself only replied in this case because we did not want to delay the matter.\nQWhat attitude did you maintain in the question of the Slovene children?\nAI have already stated previously that I only heard at a very late time that the families of these children were still alive. I saw to it that these children were again united with their families. That was my fundamental attitude in this question. This also becomes evident from Prosecution Exhibit Number711quite clearly.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2860, "page_number": "2853", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Witness, according to Point 11 of the indictment you are charged with special responsibility and with participation in the crime of kidnapping foreign children. The Prosecution has offered the previously mentioned three documents in evidence. What can you say on the subject?\nA.I had nothing to do with measures dealing with the kidnapping of children nor was I responsible for these measures and I only received knowledge of these things much later. I heard of it a long time after these children had arrived in the VOMI camps. Once I knew of it I saw to it that these children were assisted as much as possible and especially that they should be reunited with their families.\nQ.I am now going to put to you, with regard to this point of the indictment, Prosecution Exhibits 437, 438, 439, and 440. These documents are contained in Document Book VIII-D. These documents deal with German orphans from the Banat. Did you participate in this measure or were you responsible for it or did you have knowledge of this measure?\nA.No, that was not the case.\nQ.According to the documents which we have here, Dr. Wolfrum carried out this work and, according to the business distribution plan of year 1944, he was your deputy. What can you say on that subject?\nA.This incident took place in the year 1941. At that time Dr. Wolfrum worked in the resettlement department of VOMI, which was located at Keithstr and I was a referent with Dr. Behrens. I want to make a correction. It was not Keithstrasse but was Karlsbad. And I worked for Dr. Behrens as a referent at the Keithstrasse. Wolfrum was not subordinated to me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2861, "page_number": "2854", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Witness, according to Point 12 of the indictment you are charged with special responsibility and with participation in the abortions carried out on Eastern women. Did you have anything to do with these measures?\nA.No; I had nothing to do with them.\nQ.Did you hear of these measures?\nA.No. The documents show that the VOMI did not receive knowledge of these things at all.\nQ.You are not charged with anything in Counts 13 and 14 of the indictment. According to Count 15 you are to be held responsible for and you are alleged to have participated in the crime of preventing the reproduction of enemy aliens. I now want to ask you, did you participate in measures of that kind or did you order measures of that kind to be carried out? Or did you favor them?\nA.No.\nQ.According to Exhibit 419 in Document Book VIII-B, you participated in a conference which took place in the Reich Ministry of Justice where the question of Polish children, who had been born out of wedlock, was discussed. Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the case of this file note was this the formal minutes of the Reich Ministry of Justice with regard to the meeting?\nA.No.\nQ.Who presided over the meeting?\nA.It was the ministerial director at the time, Altstoetter, from the Ministry of Justice.\nQ.Was this the same Altstoetter who was acquitted in Case III from crimes against humanity and Commission of War Crimes?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2862, "page_number": "2855", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Why did you participate in that conference?\nA.Between the Ministry of Justice and the agencies of the Reich Commissar there was no contact whatsoever. The competencies were not known there and the VOMI had been invited there by mistake.\nQ.Did you say something about that at the beginning of the conference? Did you announce that?\nA.At the time I stated immediately that the VOMI was not competent for this question.\nQ.During the discussion did you remain there?\nA.Yes. However, I don't know whether I stayed there for the entire time the discussion took place.\nQ.In the course of the discussion did Ministerial Director Altstoetter ask you what attitude with regard to ethnic reasons you maintained in the subject which was under discussion there?\nA.I told him that I disapproved of the entire matter.\nQ.Did only Altstoetter hear that or did all the participants in that discussion hear that?\nA.All the participants heard that. After all, I talk rather loudly at all times.\nQ.Therefore you want to claim that in the presence of all the participants in that conference you voiced yourself against this measure which was being discussed there?\nA.I do not only allege that. I know I did that. I am quite certain of it.\nQ.I am now coming to Point 16 of the indictment; Forcible evacuation and deportation of populations. I now want to ask you, did you have anything to do with the forcible evacuation of the enemy population in the occupied \n COURT I CASE VIII territories and was that deportation for the purpose of slave labor?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2863, "page_number": "2856", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.No. That was not my task nor was it the task of VOMI.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with deportations? Did you order deportations to be carried out? Did you carry them out or did you favor them?\nA.No. I have already stated that either by orders from my superiors or on my own initiative I opposed the execution of deportations and I saw to it that they were prevented whenever possible. I never initiated any deportations nor did I carry them out nor did I ever favor them. In those cases, when I had to give my official attitude on this question, I tried to prevent them in their entirety or in part.\nQ.Witness, you have already testified about your work with regard to the resettlement of ethnic Germans. The Prosecution charges you that these resettlements represented a systematic selection of foreigners for the purpose of their settlement in the occupied territories. What do you have to say in this connection?\nA.The resettlements in which I participated took place in line with state treaties. The orders which were given to VOMI were given spontaneously. They served the salvation of ethnic Germans and, at the same time, they aimed at the exclusion of differences between the populations in the territories concerned.\nQ.Can you give us an example of that?\nA.I can recall the resettlements which took place in Volhynia. At the time a commission of German peasants arrived from Volhynia. They came to see me and they made the following statement: \"Even if we have to crawl on our \n COURT I CASE VIII knees in order to get into Germany we will do so, but we want to get out of that place.\"", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2864, "page_number": "2857", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "That was the situation which prevailed.\nQ.Witness, did you have anything to do with settlement matters?\nA.No.\nQ.In all the resettlements in which you participated, was an examination carried out in the country of origin in religious, political and racial respects?\nA.No.\nQ.I am now coming to several documents which deal with these resettlement drives. In Prosecution Exhibit243in Document Book V-C a final report is contained about the resettlement in Bosnia. Did you compile this report?\nA.No. This report was compiled by the commissioner for this resettlement and this was Herr Lackmnnn, and VOMI just passed it on.\nQ.You, however, signed it?\nA.Yes, It was just a matter of passing on this report.\nQ.Did you play any part in this resettlement drive which was carried on in Bosnia?\nA.No. I only compiled the draft of an agreement for the foreign office as far as the technical part of the execution of the resettlement was concerned. In this case also it was specified in particular in the agreement that these people were to go on a voluntary basis.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2865, "page_number": "2858", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Do you still recall whether these people had to declare their willingness to leave before mixed commissions?\nA.In the case of all resettlements in other countries it was mandatory that these people state their willingness to resettle before mixed commissions and in this case the other state had the right to veto.\nQ.Whay did the veto right mean?\nA.It meant that if they vetoed the resettlement, then the resettlement could not take place.\nQ.Prosecution Exhibit244in Cocument Book V C contains a directive concerning the repatriation of Germans from the South-east. Was this repatriation the task of Office VI of which you were in charge?\nA.No.\nQ.What part did you play in this matter?\nA.The accommodation in Vomi-camps of approximately 300,000 refugees from the South-east was of course, impossible. For the most part they were given private quarters and emergency billets, which were not subordinated to Vomi. It was the task of Office VI, that is to say, my office, and of the \"Comradeship Work\" to give all possible aid to these ethnic Germans .\nQ.These ethnic Germans from the southeast, were they deported to Germany for the purpose of slave labor?\nA.They were Germans who fled before the advancing Red Army.\nQ.Were these refugees used as slave labor?\nA.No. This never happened. As far as labor law was concerned, they were placed on an equal basis with Germans from Germany proper. Host of them were not even given a place to work any more, because there was no place of work for them in the areas where they were given quarters. That is why this financial support is mentioned in this document. However, these ethnic Germans constantly stated that they wanted to work and that they did not want to receive any relief. As far as my office played any part in this matter, this was \n just a big social welfare task.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2866, "page_number": "2859", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "We gave more than the state could afford to give.\nQ.Witness, I am now coming to the documents which deal with the Germans from Russia. Were these questions dealt with in your office, that is to say, Office VI?\nA.No. Office VII was competent in this matter, this becomes evident already from the business distribution plan, Exhibit 36.\nQ.Did you carry out any work in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union?\nA.No. I never did that.\nQ.Did you take any official trips into these areas?\nA.No, not a signle one.\nQ.How is it that in a number of cases questions dealing with Germans from Russia were dealt with by you?\nA.The expert of Office VII, Dr. Wolfrum, sometimes would be absent from his office and in this case since he did not have a deputy, the correspondence in Office VII would be submitted to me for my signature. In several cases Dr. Behrens or his successor told me to deal with individual questions.\nQ.What does the term, \"Germans from Russia\" mean?\nA.From numerous reports, I am very well acquainted with the situation. Between the years 1918 and 1941 the German population in Russia as a result of measures baleen by the Soviets, had been reduced considerably. At the beginning of the Russo-German was in 1941 parts of the German minority in Russia were deported in their entirety. This happened to approximately 40,000 Germans of the Crimea and approximately 20,000 Germans of the Caucasus, who were sent to Siberia and to Korhan. The same thing happened to several hundred thousand Germans from the Volga region.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2867, "page_number": "2860", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Thank you, that is all. Did these Germans from Russia who were still living there when the German troops arrived, express the desire to be repatriated to Germany?\nA.Yes. They did this to a considerable extent, as I know from numerous reports.\nQ.Was it expressed in the reports why these Germans from Russia wanted to go to Germany?\nA.They wanted to leave the miserable economic conditions under which they had to live under the Soviets. Furthermore, they were afraid that some day the Bolchevist rulers would return. The young ones among them wanted to got acquainted with Germany.\nQ.At the time did you comply with the wishes for resettlement of these Germans in Russia?\nA.From several exceptions, they were not complied with.\nQ.Why not?\nA.In Germany there were no possibilities for accommodating them nor could we settle them there.\nQ.Witness, you stated, however, that in certain exceptional cases some people were resettled. Can you recall why this was done?\nA.Yes. These were the stray Germans who lived in central Russia and northern Russia. This was in the area of Minsk and Smolensk and in the area of Leningrad.\nQ.And why were these resettlements carried out?\nA.The area of Leningrad was a combat area. Furthermore, starvation was prefailing there. The area of Minsk and Smolensk was infested by partisans and in its eastern part it was also a combat area. These stray Germans who lived in that area were consequently in severe danger.\nQ.Were these resettlements forceable evacuations?\nA.I know from numerous reports which are also contained in \n my files that these stray Germans only had one wish and that was to be repatriated to Germany and to get out of the intolerable conditions which prevailed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2868, "page_number": "2861", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.In Prosecution Exhibit747, however, you mentioned explicitly that the resettlement from the area of Smolensk was to be carried out by order of Himmler and that it was not on a volumtary basis. What did you express in that opinion?\nA.In all the cases of resettlement of ethnic Germans from the Soviet Union there cannot be the least doubt also in this case that these resettlements were carried out upon the wish of the ethnic Germans. I have already stated previously that the area of S Smolensk was in part a combat zone. In the entire area of Minsk and Smolensk a detachment consisting of three men had been assigned by Behrens. This was an area amounting to about half the size of Germany. That is why numerous Wehrmacht agencies also looked after these ethnic Germans. These Wehrmacht agencies at the time wished to keep these ethnic Germans with them because they needed them as interpreters.\nQ.Now, what brought about this teletype?\nA.If the prosecution had submitted the entire correspondence in this matter, then I would be able to clarify this very easily because this incident would quite certainly show that the opposition to resettlement did not come from the ethnic Germans but was initiated by the agencies of the Wehrmacht. However, I knew that if the front line should be placed further back in case of a retreat, these Wehrmacht agencies would not see to it that the ethnic Germans could retreat along with them, but this would have meant that then these ethnic Germans would have fallen into Russian hands.\nQ.What steps did you take in this matter?\nA.At the time I submitted this question to Dr. Behrens.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2869, "page_number": "2862", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "He ordered that commando leader Dr. Wahlrabe be informed that Himmler had ordered this resettlement to be carried out and that for this reason it was not on a voluntary basis. The purpose of this was that with this teletype Sahlrabe was given the necessary support in his negotiations with the agencies of the Wehrmacht.\nQ.However, why was the ethnic German identification card to be taken away from the Germans who remained behind?\nA.Vomi did not want to take over the responsibility that ethnic Germans should remain in this area. Towards the agencies of the Wehrmacht, this was to be expressed quite clearly.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2870, "page_number": "2863", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "QAccording to your knowledge at the time no pressure was exerted on these Germans; is that correct?\nAYes, if the Prosecution alleges that this resettlement was carried out under pressure, then this is wrong. After all these are the same Germans from Russia for whom Mrs. Roosevelt, as a representative of the USA before the UN sometime ago requested that it should not be permitted that these German-Russians from the four zones of Germany should be deported to the Soviet Union. Of the Russia-Germans resettled or repatriated by VOMI; at least 200 thousand are living in the western zones of the occupation today. They read the proclamation of the Prosecution that they should report here as witnesses for this trial. Of these hundreds of thousands of Germans from Russia, not a single one has appeared here as a witness.\nQThank you, witness. These resettlement questions of Germans from Russia, did you initiate them; did you carry them out, or, did you participate in their execution?\nANo.\nQWho initiated them and who carried them out?\nAThey were initiated by Brigadefuehrer Behrens and they were carried out by two small detachments consisting of very few men which were subordinated directly to Brigadefuehrer Behrens. The detachments ere led by Dr. Wahlrabe and Herr Preusse.\nQIn this connection I want to briefly discuss with you several documents. They are Exhibits 257, 686, 742, 747, 740, 741, and 748. You know that these documents in part were signed by Dr. Behrens and in part by Dr. Wolfrum and in part by you. How can you explain that fact?\nAThese things were dealt with either by Dr. Behrens himself or in Office VII by Dr. Wolfrum. I have already stated previously that whenever Dr. Wolfrum was absent, and this happened in several instances, then this correspondence was submitted to me for my signature.\nQSeveral letters are addressed to agencies of the SD; for example, Prosecution Exhibit747in Document Book XV; it is addressed to \n Einsatzgruppe B on behalf of Wahlrabe.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2871, "page_number": "2864", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Did you or VOMI collaborate with the infamous Einsatzgruppen?\nANo. The SD agencies as far as I was concerned were nothing further than telegraph office which would pass on information; I never had anything to do with them.\nQDid the detachments of Wahlrabe and Preusse not have their own radio station?\nAI have already stated before that these detachments consisted of three or four men: naturally, they did not have their own radio station. They had to depend on the radio stations which were available and only the SD had stations of that sort; there were no others around.\nQAccording to Prosecution Exhibits 256, 258, and 260 in Document Book V-C, you also dealt with the question of Germans from the Caucasus; pleas comment on that.\nAAs it becomes evident already from the documents themselves, I did not deal with it in a responsible manner; I only passed on instructions.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit712, in Document Book VIII-D, the question of so-called ethnic German children in the Ukraine is mentioned. I will repeat my question once more. In Prosecution Exhibit712, in Document Book VIII-D, the question is dealt with in regard to children in the Ukraine whose ethnic security is concerned. Did you have anything to do in handling this question?\nANo, that was the task of Brigadefuehrer Hoffmayer, and of his office. I only passed on an information copy of this correspondence; factually I had nothing to do with it.\nQIn Prosecution Exhibit259, in Document Book V-C, the question of the settlement of Germans from Russia in the district of Hollerswerda is mentioned; was this settlement part of your tasks?\nANo.\nQWhy did you handle this correspondence?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2872, "page_number": "2865", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AIn the letter a certain man by the name of Gotzig is mentioned. He came from the district of Hollerserda; for that reason he had a personal interest in finding out just what settlements were to take place in his home area. That is why he requested information from us and the document constitutes our reply to his inquiry.\nQI am now coming to Exhibits 510, 291, 296, 292, 293, 294, 297, 683, 694 and 739. From these documents it becomes evident that Germans from Russia were employed as workers within Germany. Was this slave labor?\nANo, these people wanted to work. The Germans from Russia were willing to work, and it is well known throughout the world that they are particularly industrious. All ethnic Germans who were employed as workers within Germany proper were fundamentally treated in accordance with the same regulations and provisions which applied to workers from Germany itself. This applied with regard to their salary, their social welfare, and things of that sort. As far as personal matters were concerned, the Germans from Russia were treated with the same generosity as all other Germans from Germany proper. They were not restricted in their movements at all. It was in particular the task of Office VI to see to it and to supervise the execution of those provisions in practice.\nQWere these Germans from Russia evacuated by force for labor allocation or was any pressure exerted on them; for example. That they should enter the aircraft production plant as interpreters?\nAThey did this work on strictly a voluntary basis.\nQThank you, witness; that is sufficient. Then, additional Germans from Russia were placed at the disposal of the aircraft production industry. Were these people deported by force?\nANo, these were Germans from Russia who had already settled in Germany as refugees.\nQIn this case did they have to perform slave labor?\nAI have already stated they wanted to work; they were actually \n asking for work; they were working under the same conditions as all other Germans in Germany.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2873, "page_number": "2866", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "In this special case the VOMI requested that apprenticeship subventions be paid, that is the most important factor; and also, that members of the family should also be accommodated in apartments.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(The Tribunal recessed until 1330 hours, 19 Dec 47.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2874, "page_number": "2867", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 19 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nHEINZ BRUECKNER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner)\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution in cross examining the witness Lorenz submitted Exhibit 823 to 825. Does these documents deal with the Russian-Germans you mentioned just now?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How is it that you the head of office VI came to handle this matter which according to the business distribution plan was a matter for Offices VII and XI of VOMI.\nA.That is shown by Document 5352 quite clearly. Standartenfuehrer Ellermeier, that is my immediate superior, gave me direct orders together with Klingsporn's Office XI and Wolfrum's Office VII to bring about a clearing up of the matter. The result was to be sent in a drafted letter from Lorenz to Greifelt. The reason for Ellermeier's order was that Office VI, Sub-Department for Comradeship Work was to be entrusted with the special care of these Russian-German refugees, while Office VII had been responsible for the settlement which had taken place; Department XI, was responsible for labor assignment in conjunction with the labor offices.\nQ.Do you remember what gave rise to this correspondence between Lorenz and Greifelt?\nA.Yes, very well. The Russian-Germans were regugees who had come to Germany; the VOMI camps were over-crowded at the time; the Russian-Germans were anxious to work; they didn't want to sit around with their hands in their lap. VOMI felt particularly responsible for these Russian-Germans; it wanted after twenty years of horrible experiences in the Soviet Union \n to prevent them from being disappointed, in the case of such forcible uprooting.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2875, "page_number": "2868", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "That is why I demanded at the time that these Germans should be particularly well treated by the comrade-ship work. In the letter to Greifelt, Lorenz wanted to see that the competency for looking after these Russian-Germans should remain with VOMI, since according to his opinion, the higher SS and police leaders as delegates of the Reich Commissioner did not have the necessary welfare apparatus. Actually VOMI aid remain responsible for looking after them. That was the department for comradeship work which was a part of my office.\nQ.In the time which followed, were all the disappointments kept from the Russian-Germans you mentioned just now, or did some ethnic Germans complain about the accommodations and conditions of work.\nA.We received mainly letters of thanks, hundreds of which were in my files. In individual cases there were complaints, too.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted Exhibits 293 and Exhibit 294. Are these complaints of this kind?\nA.Yes, one of these complaints; this is a case where refugee Russian-Germans had been put to work in a plant which had been evacuated because of air raid damage. They were there with their families, and were dissatisfied with a number of things. When this letter of complaint arrived, although it was in the last year of the war, I had the following done: I had the complaint investigated by an official from my office, by a representative of the Reich Air Ministry, by a delegate from the VOMI office, the Gau Labor Allocation Office of VOMI, and by a local man. This four-man commission examined the complaint in detail and where necessary abolished deficiencies that existed.\nQ.Thank you very much. Other documents show that \n Russian-German girls came to Germany as domestic servants; do you know anything about that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2876, "page_number": "2869", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.Yes, there were only a comparatively few of them. They volunteered to go because they wanted to get to new Germany and because they wanted to get into decent households in order to earn something.\nQ.Did you carry out these labor allocation measures?\nA.No, the Reich Labor Administration was responsible for that, of course. If necessary, this was done in collaboration with the Main Staff Office and the social care was carried out by the comradeship division which saw to it that special circumstances of the Russian-Germans were taken into consideration.\nQ.I now come to Prosecution Exhibit745, in Volume XV, which deals with the so-called evacuation of the RussianGermans. Did you or your office carry out this evacuation?\nA.No.\nQ.How is it then that you signed this document?\nA.For Office VII.\nQ.What was the purpose of this letter to the Quartermaster General?\nA.The Russian-Germans at that time were fleeing before the Red Army. This flight threatened to cake an absolutely unregulated course because many agencies interfered, especially the Wehrmacht office. The purpose of this letter was to get the other agencies excluded so that a unified management should exist. This is shown by the documents in the files.\nQ.But only one document has been submitted.\nA.Yes.\nQ.I now pass on to Court 17 of the Indictment, forced Germanization of enemy aliens. Did you or your Office VI have any connection with the measures of the German People's List \n or the so-called re-Germanization procedure?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2877, "page_number": "2870", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Then how is it that in the business distribution plan of VOMI, Exhibit 36 off the Prosecution, under Office VI there is a note German People's List and Germanization Matters.\nA.The entire sphere of tasks of the German People's List did not fall within the competency of VOMI, as is shown by the many documents submitted; neither VOMI or Office VI had any connection with it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2878, "page_number": "2871", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Most of the orders did not even go to VOMI for information purposes. But if any letters did come for information, they were sent to me in Office VI. It did not mean that we did anything about it. In the matter of Germanization or re-Germanization, VOMI, and I think I, myself, in particular, were exceedingly disapproving in our attitude. All documents submitted in this connection whow that VOMI was not concerned either as far as instructions or participation was concerned.\nQ.But did VOMI not play a part in connection with the German People's List for Ukraine in reference to the so-called Schweden villages? Were Swedes not Germanized as a result of this?\nA.The expression \"Swedish villages\" is an old traditional description. In fact, the inhabitants of these villages in Russia had for a long time become completely absorbed by Germanism. Their language was German, so there can be no talk of Germanization at all.\nQ.Do you know whether the inhabitants of these so-called Swedish villages themselves were trying to get included in the Ukraine German People's List?\nA.I don't know because I had nothing to do with them. I only gave information, but that is a matter of course.\nQ.Prosecution Exhibit222in Document Book V-B consists of labor directives for protective work in Munich. Was the department for ethnic protection in VOMI under your command?\nA.No.\nQ.Who was the head?\nA.The head was a certain Herr Weber.\nQ.To whom was he subordinated?\nA.Directly to Brigadefuehrer Behrends.\nQ.In the case of this dthnic protective work, wasit a case of Germanization measures?\nA.No, the document itself expressly states: \"Not under our \n care come persons who are nations of a foreign country.\"", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2879, "page_number": "2872", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "That is quite clearly expressed.\nQ.The Prosecution Exhibit636, 663 and 664 contain parts of a correspondence concerning members of Parts III and IV of the German People's List in the Government General. Were you concerned with this incident in any way?\nA.No, the incident itself shows that it was passed to Dr. Wolfrum's Office VII. For the rest, it was just a matter of giving information.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit670and 671 in Book-V-E, there are parts of a correspondence between yourself and the immigration center --EWZ. This concerns a reference to a report from EWZ concerning the examination of the population of the German race in the Government General. Was this German racial scheme in the Government General your task?\nA.No.\nQ.What was the purpose of this correspondence?\nA.The report from the EWZ gave me an insight into these measures in the Government General. I considered them wrong. That is why I wanted to be accrately informed about them so that I might then possibly be able to protest against them.\nQ.Did you protest against them?\nA.Yes, in a report which I still remember very well addressed to the Cracow Office, which was in very severe terms. This letter was also in the documents, in which Document 670 and 671 are contained. Of course, it hasn't been submitted, and in spite of my request it has not been made accessible to me.\nQ.In prosecution Exhibit 681, in Book IV-D, it is a matter of the study of Czechs. Do you remember that? What did VOMI say about that?\nA.Nothing. This was a letter concerning an inquiry from \n Dr. Wolfrum for his personal information.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2880, "page_number": "2873", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Nothing was done. No instructions were given because the Reich Security Main Office was competent for these questions.\nQ.What have you to say about Prosecution Exhibit709in Book VIII-D? This is a discussion with a representative of the Cracow Supreme Court concerning trusteeship matters. What can you tell us about that?\nA.In the course of the flight of the German population from the Government General before the Red Army, German orphan children--that is not Polish children but German orphans--had come into the VOMI camps. The Supreme Judge, Renken,--or whatever his name was -told me that for the first time. As it was a camp matter, I called in a representative of Office 11, Camp Management. It was agreed that guardianship must be suspended while the children were in the camp. After leaving the camp, the responsible court was again to take over guardianship. That was the whole content of the discussion.\nQ.I now pass to Count 19 of the Indictment. According to that, you are charged with special responsibility or participation in the drafting of non-Germans into the Wehrmacht SS, Police and similar formations. Did you participate in measures of this kind or have them carried out?\nA.No.\nQ.In the Prosecution Exhibit347, Document Book VI-A, there is an instruction to the offices of the comradeship work, to Report to the Replacement Offices of the Waffen SS. What about this ?\nA.The document shows that it does not deal with non-Germans but with the ethnic Germans. These ethnic Germans, in so far as they were stateless, were liable to military service under German defense laws. Alternatively, they could, according to international agreement, go in the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS, in lieu of fleeing conscription oblibations of their native country.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2881, "page_number": "2874", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "ligations of their native country.\nQ.Were you legally compelled to give this information about the ethnic Germans?\nA.Yes, every authority was obliged to give this information of this kind.\nQ.I now pass on to Prosecution Exhibit345and 346 in Book A. German racials willing to work who are under the Fuehrer Decree of 1945 are to get German nationality. Can you tell us what this is about?\nA.Yes, When in 1941 the German troops occupied parts of Russia a large number of Russo Germans immediately put themselves at the disposal of the troops as interpreters or to fight against Bolshevism. These Russo-Germans, who were Soviet nationals, could only be employed as auxiliary Volunteers by the Wehrmacht on this account. But they urged that they should be allowed to become real German soldiers; especially their claims for their dependents had to be settled. For this reason, it was suggested at the time that they too should be treated under the Decree of the 19 of May 1943. In point of fact, this was never carried out since the war came to an end in the meantime.\nQ.According to Prosecution Exhibit277and 178 in Book IV-D, VOMI also dealt with questions concerning ethnic German PW's in PW camps in East Prussia. Did you ever handle this matter or hear of it?\nA.No, the correspondence shows that it was a personal and not an official inquiry from Dr. Wolfrum. Nothing was done as a result and Dr. Wolfrum expressly had the document filed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2882, "page_number": "2875", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- Now I come to the last subject, witness. Did you have the documents which you had in Office VI or earlier, destroyed?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Why did they remain?\nA.- I, myself, in April 1945 when I was supposed to evacuate my office from Templin to Bavaria, sent them to Bayreuth, Klostersgasse 5, for safekeeping. I gave the deputy manager of the Gau Labor Assignment in Bayreuth the assignment -- that was a Herr Braun -- of looking after these documents carefully. I ordered expressly that in case Bayreuth was occupied by foreign troops the documents were not to be destroyed under any circumstances.\nQ.- Why?\nA.- For two reasons: firstly, because I believed that these documents would be of great importance to the ethnic Germans. They contained all the addresses of ethnic Germans in the German Reich. They were urgently needed for information purposes; and partly also in order to join families who had become separated. And I gave the order also because I was of the opinion that there was nothing to be hidden in the work of my office or myself.\nQ.- About how many documents were there?\nA.- As far as I remember, at least 150 to 200 fat files; probably more.\nQ.- Have you any reason to suppose that the documents were passed on to the Americans?\nA.- I can assume that with absolute certainty that they fell into American hands because a large part of the documents submitted to me here have been taken from these very files. I know these files very well indeed.\nQ.- Thank you very much. May it please the Tribunal, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2883, "page_number": "2876", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.- I want to ask the witness one question to clarify something in my own mind. You testified this morning that during your connection with VOMI you did resettle a number of people who were not ethnic Germans and that in so doing you endangered yourself. Of what and of whom were you in danger?\nA.- If the Russian offices and the GPU had found this out, then I probably would not have returned to Germany alive.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions? BY DR. SCHUBERT (for the defendant Lorenz):\nQ.- Witness, in your work with VOMI you had at least an opportunity to see the way in which the defendant Lorenz worked. Can you tell me to what extent Lorenz was in a position to concern himself with the factual work of VOMI?\nA.- For two reasons he was only able to do this to a very small extent: in the first place, the defendant Lorenz was for more than half the year not in the office at all; secondly, according to his very nature and character, it was not like him to bother about details in any way whatsoever.\nQ.- You have said that for about half the year he was not in the office. Was this because in the interests of VOMI too he was very often away on trips?\nA.- Yes, especially because he had a particularly warm spot for the ethnic Germans because he was an-ethnic German himself.\nQ.- In what cases did you in your work turn to Lorenz?\nA.- That was very seldom because the actual expert or manager of the expert chief was Brigadefuehrer Behrends, who, himself, demanded that he be kept informed about all details. We consulted Lorenz only when he had to help us because of his official rank. So if we couldn't make any progress with our own plans, these were special measures of assistance and help for \n the ethnic Germans, and then because of his official rank and official grade we consulted him.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2884, "page_number": "2877", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.- Thank you, witness. I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQ.- Witness, in a teletype on the third of June -- and the year is not given in the document, but it must have been in 1943 -- just look through it.\n(Witness is offered the document.) This is document No. 5874, Exhibit 812. It announces that Professor Meyer was at Kiev. Did you fix that date with Professor Meyer?\nA.- No; as far as I remember, I was called up by the Main Staff Office at the time -- I don't know by whom -- and was asked to inform Kiev that Professor Meyer would arrive there on a definite date with a definite order. So it was purely a matter of passing on information about his arriving.\nQ.- And why was VOMI informed about this?\nA.- Probably because in the Main Staff Office they didn't know what the radio communication was.\nQ.- Did you know Professor Meyer personally?\nA.- No, I only met him after 1945. I think it was last year here in Nurnberg.\nQ.- You addressed your information to Oberfuehrer Hoffmeyer in Kiev at the time?\nA.- He was head of the ethnic German office with the Highest SS and Police Leader in Kiev.\nQ.- Was the ethnic German office a subordinate office of VOMI?\nA.- No, it was an agency of the Highest SS and Police Leader.\nQ.- But you addressed your teletype to Hoffmeyer with the address: VOMI, Kiev?\nA.- Yes. This address originated in 1941 when it was fixed as a code address for the teleprinters, and as you know such code names are never changed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2885, "page_number": "2878", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.What was the task of the ethnic German office?\nA.I can't tell you this from my official experience. I only remember that among other things, it was to carry out this settlement.\nA.I don't know for certain, but I think I did hear that.\nQ.And you don't know who was responsible for carrying them out?\nA.Well, now, I have read these documents, and I think as a member that even at that time I heard the name of Jungkuns, but I can't say that for certain.\nQ.And you don't know -- do you know to what extent Himmler was concerned in this matter?\nA.I never met him there, but as he himself was in Schitomir, it can be assumed that he did take a considerable interest in the matter.\nQ.In this teletype you mentioned the settlement area Halbstadt. Was this a new settlement area?\nA.The settlement area Halbstadt, as far as I know, from the written data, arose around the end of the 18th century and was founded by the German colonists. The \"settlement area Halbstadt\" is a generally know and used term in scientific, academic literature.\nQ.In your teletype you mentioned a settlement committee of the Reich Ministry East. Up to this date had you ever heard of any such committee?\nA.Neither before nor afterwards did I hear of it again.\nQ.Do you know whether the ethnic German office could receive instructions from Professor Meyer?\nA.It was subordinate to the Supreme SS and police leader, so I can't imagine that Professor Meyer could issue instructions to it.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2886, "page_number": "2879", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Did VOMI have any connection with the planning office or with Professor Meyer?\nA.Not that I know of. At any rate, I never did.\nQ.Did Professor Meyer have any connection with deportations from the West, for instance, Alsace or Lorraine or Luxembourg?\nA.I never heard of it.\nQ.In your direct examination you mentioned academic agencies where you inquired about the Lithuanian, was the office, Professor Meyer's planning office or any of the departments of the Berlin University?\nA.No, certainly not. I remember one place and that was the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nDR. MUELLER:I have no further questions.\nDR. PRACHT:Dr. Pracht for the defendants Hoffmann and Schwalm. BY DR. PRACHT:\nQ.Witness, I have here Affidavit No. 4725, Exhibit 46. In this you testify about racial examination and the part it plays in the EWZ judgment. I have one or two questions about that. Do you know from your own knowledge whether as a result of the work of marriage examiners EWZ resettlers were ever not naturalized?\nA.From my knowledge of affairs, I cannot imagine that this could have had any influence whatsoever upon naturalization both O and A cases were naturalized.\nQ.Another question, Witness, how is it that in your affidavit you chose a formulation according to which the expert opinion of the marriage examiner had a decisive influence about the group in which people were put?\nA.This affidavit of mine had been dicated the day before. The interrogator, Herr Schwank, asked me about this matter. I said at the time that I was not accurately informed.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2887, "page_number": "2880", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Mr. Schwank in this connection wanted to have the formulation that the expert opinion of the race examiner had a decisive influence. I refused to say that, and finally we agreed on the expression \"important\", but what I wanted to say was that the decision of the race examiner was one criterion of several. That is, accordingly, it was a relative influence. That is why I chose these words.\nDR. PRACHT:Thank you very much.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION\nMR. SHILLER:May it pleast the Tribunal, I must beg its indulgence because due to the speed we have not completed the translations of the documents which I wish to use in cross examination, but I will try to see to it that this is the last time that this happens. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you stated that you did not join the SS voluntarily, out that you joined at the request of your superior. If you had refused to join the SS, Witness, would you have been placed in a concentration camp?\nA.I didn't think -- I didn't have any such thoughts at the time. I didn't know the SS but I only knew the few members of the SS who were in VOMI. They were exceedingly decent people. There was no reason for me to refuse because as things were at the time it was a recognition of distinction for me.\nQ.Thank you, Witness. In connection with the resettlement of settlers in Wolhynia and Galicia, did you know on what lands and properties these people were being settled?\nA.At the time of the resettlement I did not know; much later I heard that they would be settled in the Warthegau.\nQ.Do you know, Witness, what happened to the people who had formerly lived in these lands and properties?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2888, "page_number": "2881", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.I can't remember ever having received an certain-definite information on this subject at the time.\nQ.Witness, you stated that these ethnic German resettlers had all volunteered. Do you know what happened to ethnic Germans who did not volunteer?\nA.But it just couldn't happen in the resettlement.\nQ.Well, what do you mean, \"it couldn't happen\", Witness, you mean everyone had to volunteer?\nA.If one has to report, then it is no longer voluntary. I will answer absolutely clearly what happened in the case of this resettlement in Wolhynia.\nQ.Now, Witness, I only want a short answer to this question, and I will repeat my question, did anyone refuse to volunteer -- any ethnic Germans refuse to volunteer for resettlement?\nA.In the Wolhynia-Galicia resettlement I never heard of any case and from my own experience I can't imagine that any such case could have arisen because apart from the Germans, many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians reported whom we had to turn down in accordance with the agreement.\nQ.Now, Witness, on direct examination you stated that when you conducted the resettlement from Lithuania that his resettlement was not based on religious, political, or racial grounds and that you had resettled Jews and anti-fascists. Did these people really want to go to Germany -- Jews and anti-fascists?\nA.I can only explain it with an example.\nQ.Witness, I don't have much time. If you can answer it and you know of cases where they did, please say so, and you don't have to give any long examples.\nA.The anti-fascists preferred to go to Germany to remaining in the Soviet Union.\nQ.Now, Witness, wasn't the resettlement of such \n people contrary to your orders?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2889, "page_number": "2882", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.Yes. That is why I said that I was endangered by the GPU. I took this responsibility on. It was a grave responsibility at the time.\nQ.Witness, you didn't get your orders from the GPU. I am asking you, wasn't this contrary to your orders from your superiors in VOMI?\nA.My superior in VOMI at that time was the defendant, Lorenz. He never gave me any orders not to help people who were in need. There was in existence a Himmler order that people of Jewish descent were not to be resettled. In five or six cases which I can list individually I ignored this order and saw to it that these people were able to leave Germany.. I can not prove that because at the time I could not know that I would be indicted on this count one day, otherwise, I would have written it down.\nQ.Well, Witness, did the defendant, Lorenz, ever have any knowledge that you were going contrary to the directive of Himmler in this case?\nA.Yes. I told the defendant, Lorenz that myself when in February 1941 he went to inspect the Lithuanian settlement and was in Kowno for that purpose.\nQ.Did the defendant, Lorenz approve of your actions in disregarding the order of Himmler, Witness?\nA.Yes. I know of cases, too, that the defendant, Lorenz, acted in exactly the same way as myself in similar cases.\nQ.Witness, you stated on direct examination that all the resettlers were always very glad to work. Did you have anything to do with their labor allocation?\nA.In my direct examination I talked about that at some length, if you want me to repeat them.\nQ.Well, Witness, all I want is an answer from you as \n to whether or not you had any responsibility in this connection.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2890, "page_number": "2883", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.When ethnic Germans came into the Reich, they had to be looked after by my office and so, of course, I took an interest in these matters. That was my duty.\nQ.Now, Witness, will you please look at Document No. 5550 which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit Number 872. This is a letter from you to brand in June 1944 concerning the allocation of resettled Luxembourgians to the iron industry. Were you just taking an interest in these resettlers, Witness?\nA.I must read the letter first.\nQ.Have you finished reading the letter, Witness?\nA.Not quite-- not quite. I can't at the moment remember the incident or its details, and there is a letter missing.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2891, "page_number": "2884", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "QVery well, witness, that is enough. If you can't remember we will go on to the next question. Witness, weren't you connected with the deportations from France? Didn't you have any responsibility in that connection?\nADeportations? I don't know anything about possible deportations from France.\nQWitness, didn't you know anything about the deportation of Ethnic Germans from Northern France and their allocation as labor, the men had to go to mines and the women to go to Germany?\nAI don't remember.\nQWill you please look at Document No.NO-5652which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.828? This is a letter from Lachmann whom you mentioned earlier to both you and Klingsborn concerning this subject.\nAI can't recall having received this letter nor did I initial it.\nQThat is all right, witness. We will not go on to the next point. You have often mentioned on direct examination that this whole process of Germanization and resettlement was completely voluntary on the part of the ethnic Germans. Did you ever hear of people refusing to register in DVL?\nANo, I can't Remember.\nQDid you ever hear what happened to people who refused to register in the DVL?\nAI can't remember having heard that.\nQWitness,will you please look at Document No.NO-5456which I nowoffer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.829? This is a letter from the Main Office for ethnic matters to you, witness, in August 1943, with a copy of a memo dated 9 July 1943 in which it states that 236 persons refusing to register in DVL were assigned to work with the organization Todt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2892, "page_number": "2885", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AThe letter at that time was sent to VOMI for information but there was no competence on our part. That is why I had it filed as you can see from the document.\nQYou do remember this now, witness, is that correct?\nANow I have the document before me and see my own initial, I now remember this matter.\nQThank you, witness. In connection with this question of exactly how voluntary was the labor done by the ethnic Germans from Russia, did you ever hear that the Reich Governors were slave trading with ethnic Germans from Russia?\nANo, I never heard of that, I never heard anything about slave trading in Germany.\nQWitness, did you ever object to the suggestion that these Germans from Russia should be returned to that country after the war?\nANo, I can't remember exactly. In all these cases of evacuation to Germany it was like this: It was not decided whether the people were to remain in Germany or whether they were to return to their old homes. It was a flight before the Red Army and in case of housing them in emergency quarters in Germany.\nQWotness, you have answered my question in the first few sentences. Please keep your answers as short as possible. Will you please look at Document No.NO-5328which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit 830. This is a letter from you to the defendant Lorenz, dated 18 March 1944 and containing a complaint by Buerger as to slave trading by Reich governors in connection with ethnic Germans. Do you remember this now, witness?\nAI have not yet had time to read the letter.\nQWell, please read it quickly, witness, just to see what the subject matter is about. You don't have to study it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2893, "page_number": "2886", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "ANow that I have read it through quickly I remember the letter. It says that at the time I objected to the expression used, namely, slave trading.\nQWitness, didn't Office 6 of VOMI cooperate closely with Lebensborn in connection with the care of children?\nAI cannot remember any close collaboration.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO-5343, which I now offer as Prosecution Exhibit No.831for identification. This is a letter from your Office 6 dated 5 May 1943, to the representative of the Reich Youth Leader assigned to the Staff Main Office, directing him to got in touch with the defendant Viermetz in connection with certain children in a VOMI camp.\nAThis letter is connected with a document which has already been submitted here about which I already commented in the direct examination. I don't know the letter.\nQWitness, on direct examination you stated that you had been invited to a conference on the prevention or hampering of reproduction of foreign nationals, but that this invitation had been issued to you by mistake. Did you ever have any other contact with the hampering of reproduction by propaganda, sterilization or other methods?\nAI can't remember.\nQWill you please look at Document No.NO-5311and NO-5312 which I offer respectively for identification as Prosecution Exhibits No. 832 and 833? Will you please look atNO-5311first? Witness, will you please look at the top of the first page?\nAYes.\nQDo you see there a handwritten notation: \"Z.d.A.\" --\"Zu den Akten\"?\nAYes.\nQDo you see that, witness?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2894, "page_number": "2887", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "QThat means for the files, does it not? Isn't that in your handwriting, witness?\nAYes, that is my handwriting and I wrote for the files on it. There is no other note on it because VOMI had no connection with these measures. It was a letter for information.\nQWitness, will you look at the next document,NO-5312now, Prosecution Exhibit833? This is a letter from the VDA to Office 6, your office on the same subject, is it not?\nAI am in no position to judge at the moment whether there is any connection between the two documents.\nQWitness, if you will just look atNO-5312then, will you please tell the Tribunal why your office should have gotten this letter?\nAYes. I initialed it myself.\nQYou mean the handwritten note at the top of the first page, witness? I am not sure if the translation has those handwritten notes. Would you please just read the few words at the top?\nAI personally wrote my full name on it, Professor Schoepke, for information and to be returned to myself, signed with my name in full.\nQAnd why did you get this letter, witness, just for information?\nAI don't know.\nQWitness -\nAThere is no indication on it that it was handled by any of us.\nQWitness, I think we can now go on to the next point. Are you sure that you never knew of the sterilization of children?\nAI cannot remember any incident of this kind.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO-5342, which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.834? Will you just glance over the first page and look especially at the second page of that photostat copy? There is just one short paragraph on the second page. Have you read that paragraph, witness?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2895, "page_number": "2888", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AWhat paragraph, please?\nQOn the second page of the photostat.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Excuse me. I would like to have time to read the letter also.\nMR. SHILLER:I am sorry, your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You are asking the witness questions before the members of the Tribunal can complete the reading. All right. BY MR. SHELLER:\nQWitness -\nAJust a moment. I haven't quite finished.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "MR. SHILLER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2896, "page_number": "2889", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Have you now finished, witness?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at the paragraph on the second page? When you say in that paragraph that the non-Aryan children involved may be transferred to Germany provided that they are sterilized, you knew at that time that children were being sterilized, did you not?\nA.In this paragraph I say that it is a matter entirely within the competence of the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.Yes; but, witness, didn't you know at the time you wrote that children were being sterilized, regardless of who was doing it? Didn't you know that, witness?\nA.This document clearly expresses my view at the tine. It is a matter for the Tribunal to examine wheat expression was chosen.\nQ.Very well, witness. On direct examination you stated that you never had anything to do with the SD-Einsatzgruppen except to use then as a telegraphic agency. Didn't you know that the infamous - as your counsel said -- that the infamous SD-Einsatzgruppen were murdering millions of civilians?\nA.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Witness, what did you think they were doing?\nA.Pardon?\nQ.What did you think they were doing or was it all just a complete mystery to you?\nA.I think the Tribunal is not interested in having me tell what I think -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't worry about the Tribunal. Just answer his question. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Would you please tell us, witness, if you knew at the time anything about the duties of the SD-Einsatzgruppen?\nA.I don't remember.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2897, "page_number": "2890", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Witness, with these Einsatzgruppen so active in Russia, in the East killing off millions of people, didn't VOMI take any steps to make sure that the Einsatzgruppen did not kill off any ethnic Germans as well?\nA.I don't know. I don't remember.\nQ.Witness, didn't you notify one Einsatzgrup that Wohlrabe was going to Smolensk with a VOMI detachment?\nA.Certainly. I already said that in the direct examination.\nQ.Witness, why did you notify the Einsatzgrup which was a mere telegraph agency, as far as you were concerned, of this fact?\nA.I have already said it was a small detachment consisting, as far as I remember, of three or four men. This detachment, of course, had to call on other agencies for assistance, for instance, fuel for their motor cars and so on, to get technical assistance.\nQ.Witness, one last question. Did Wohlrabe and the other VOMI members, calling on these Einsatzgruppen for aid and assistance, know what the Einsatzgruppen were doing?\nA.Well, I don't know. I don't know.\nMR. SHILLER:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2898, "page_number": "2891", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.Witness, in your cross examination you stated that you personally were responsible for the resettlement in Lithuania, also for humanitarian reasons you resettled persons of Jewish descent. Amongst these people of Jewish descent were also the Tillmann brothers.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you. You knew definitely that by doing so that you were violating an order of the Reichsfuehrer SS?\nA.Yes, I knew that.\nQ.In the course of the cross examination a Prosecution document was put to you; it wasNO-5142, Exhibit No. 30. Will you please look at it. Did you sign that document?\nA.Yes, it was initialled.\nQ.Can you recall on what instance this document was based?\nA.No.\nQ.Well, a letter to which your letter constitutes a reply, was that contained in your files?\nA.Yes, without any doubt all these letters were usually filed.\nQ.The treatment of the children of Jewish resettlers which is mentioned here, did this come within the competency of VOMI or the Staff Main Office, or some other agency?\nA.It fell within the competency of the Reich Security Main Office, provided that the Reich Security Main Office had knowledge of it. Of course, whenever there were cases of resettlement of persons of Jewish descent, which I carried out on my own initiative, my own responsibility, of persons from Lithuania, I would see to it that this was not reported to the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2899, "page_number": "2892", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.However, you cannot recall in any case what was contained in this letter from the Main Staff Office to which you replied?\nA.No, I can't recall its contents.\nQ.You cannot recall any more either whether the inquiry of the Main Staff Office was caused by an inquiry in turn from the Reich Security Main Office.\nA.I believe I can recall, but I cannot say that with certainty-\nQ.Thank you.\nA.That the Reich Security Main Office had already taken a different stand on the subject.\nQ.Could you on your own initiative, if you alone had knowledge of this matter, would you on your own initiative have reported to the Reich Security Main Office?\nA.I certainly wouldn't have dared to even write a letter about this.\nQ.I am now going to put to you DocumentNO-5343. Did you sign this document?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you. I am now going to put to you DocumentNO-5550; this is a letter to Brandt, about the utilization of deported Luxembourg workers. Is this letter signed at all?\nA.The letter does not bear any date; it is only stated here June, 1944, but the particular day of the month is left out. Under the file note it says Roman I. This file mark, however, was never used in my office.\nQ.Who should have signed it?\nA.It was preparation of a letter which the head of VOMI was to sign.\nQ.Did he do that?\nA.This letter is not signed.\nQ.Was this letter ever sent out?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2900, "page_number": "2893", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.This letter did not leave the office because there is no indication shown that it was sent out. It certainly was not drafted in my office, and it was some how passed on to my office and I just failed to pass it on.\nQ.I am now going to put to you DocumentNO-5456; did you deal with that matter?\nA.This is a letter from the Main Staff Office for ethnic questions, and it is addressed to VOMI and it was drawn to my attention.\nQ.And what steps did you take on that?\nA.I wanted Dr. Wolfrum to acknowledge this letter, and it was then to be filed; it wasn't handled in any further way, and no instructions on the subject were issued.\nQ.Can you still recall the connection in which you received this letter?\nA.No, it arrived at the central registration office on the 9th of August, and I must have received it then on the 10th or the 11th of August, and on the 11th of August it was of course then filed.\nQ.I am now going to put to you DocumentNO-5652; did you work on that teletype?\nA.There is no mark here to show that somebody worked on it. Whenever I worked on a matter I would always put some phrases down there; however, on this letter it only states ZDA, which means to the files. I am certain that my office didn't deal-with this letter.\nQ.Witness, I am now going to hand to you two documents, NO-5311 and 5312. Are these two documents signed?\nA.Neither one of then is signed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2901, "page_number": "2894", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Do you know the authors of these two documents?\nA.With regard to DocumentNO-5311, the author's name is not mentioned.\nQ.And on DocumentNO-5312?\nA.Here it is stated: Re: The Luxembourg Comradship Work, but it does not become evident from this document where it originated.\nQ.In the case of the two documents, are these only a part of the entire documents containing the comments, where the comments of the authors are lacking?\nA.Yes, I can assume that with certainty.\nQ.Who in your office would have been in a position to give his own comments on a matter like that?\nA.This must have been Professor Schoepke.\nQ.Is that the same Professor Schoepke who because of his hostile attitude towards all Germanization measures was to be sent to a concentration camp?\nA.Yes, that is the same man. Document 5311, as I just see, certainly originated with him because at the end it bears the title Wutenow; that was the residence of Professor Schoepke; it is located near Neuruppin. I put it in the files.\nQ.Was Schoepke an opponent of these measures which are mentioned here; or, did he recommend them?\nA.Schoepke was opposed to all Germanization measures in the most radical way.\nQ.Did you personally in your office take any steps on that matter?\nA.No, I just put on this particular document\"to the files.\"\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR.SCHUBER: (For the Defendant Lorenz) May it please the Tribunal, may I now continue with my presentation of evidence on behalf of the defendant Lorenz?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A.", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2902, "page_number": "2895", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let this witness retire from the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Who will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBERT:I would like to call the witness Limmer to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nALBERTLIMMER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:Hold up your right hand and repeat after me; I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nProceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT: (Attroney for the Defendant Lorenz) This witness gave an affidavit to the Prosecution, and this is Exhibit 395, in Document Book No. VIII-A. I shall cross examine him with regard to this affidavit.\nQ.Witness, please tell the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Albert Limmer.\nQ.Since when have you worked with VOMI?\nA.On the 15th of May, 1943 I began my work for VOMI.\nQ.And if I understood this correctly from your affidavit, then you were a camp leader and administrator in various caps within the Gau of Bayreuth.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In one of these camps you also had Yugoslav children.\nA.There were no Yugoslav children, but there were the children of Slovenes.\nQ.In any ease they were foreigners?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What language did those children speak?\nA.These children spoke their Slovene language.\nQ.Did the children also speak German?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "ALBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2903, "page_number": "2896", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "A.Yes, frequently they also spoke German.\nQ.Were those children prohibited from speaking their Slovene language?\nA.No, they were not forbidden to do that.\nQ.Witness, in your affidavit you have stated that from various persons you had heard first of all that the children had been brought to Germany by VOMI: and secondly, that it was the purpose of bringing the children into Germany in order to Germanize them. I now want to ask you first ofall, do you have a firm and precise knowledge for the fact that those children were brought into Germany by VOMI with force?\nA.No, I do not.\nQ.Did the VOMI carry out any Germanization measures with regard to these children?\nA.I don't know; I can't recall that.\nQ.Were these children well treated in the camps and were they given decent and good food?\nA.The children were given preferable treatment.\nQ.Witness, the affidavit, which you, have given here, did you yourself formulate it; or, was a written affidavit submitted to you for your signature?\nA.I did not formulate this affidavit, but it was submitted to me in a complete form for my signature.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, witness. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBERT:As my next witness I would now like to call Schafhauser.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nKARLSCHAFHAUSER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "KARL", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2904, "page_number": "2897", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n( The witness repeated the oath.) Proceed with the examination.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Your Honors, this witness also gave an affidavit to the Prosecution and I would like to cross examine him with regard to this affidavit. As a matter of fact, he gave the Prosecution two affidavits. They are Exhibits 444, in Document Book VIII-C, and Exhibit 703, in Document Book VIII-D. I shall first of all deal with Exhibit 444.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBER: ( Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz)\nQ.Witness, first of all mil you please give the Tribunal your full name?\nA.I beg your pardon?\nQ.Just tell the Tribunal your name.\nA.My name is Karl Schafhauser.\nQ.According to your affidavit, you were an adminisrator, and camp leader of VOMI; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You went on to say in your affidavit that these camps originally had been intended for resettlers and later on they were to be used for aliens who were eligible for re-Germanization. What category of resettlers did you have in your camps?\nA.We first had ethnic Germans from Bessarabia; then we received Yugoslave nationasl, and they were Slovenes; they consisted of families. After these families Slovene children arrived without any parents. After these children had been separated according to their age groups, I was taken out of the camp and I was given an administrative position.", "speakers": [ "BY THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2905, "page_number": "2898", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "Q.Witness, in your affidavit you have testified that there were people eligible for re-Germanization, and there were some Slovenes who were not eligible for re-Germanization.\nA.Yes, in my camp there were very many Slovenes who were eligible for re-Germanization.\nQ.Just who differentiated between these two groups, that is to say, who had to make the decision as to who was eligible for reGermanization or not?\nA.For this purpose an organization had been formed which went under the title of the EWZ. This agency had to fix these categories.\nQ.That was not done by the VOMI?\nA.No, it was not done by VOMI.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2906, "page_number": "2899", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_1_Gaylord (Garand)\nQYou talked about an order here which existed in your camp, that every Sunday morning sevices were to be held. If I understand you correctly, these were to be wordly services?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether this order was issued in Berlin or Bayreuth?\nAI cannot tell you that any more exactly today. In any case it was an official regualtion. If I could take a look at the original, I could tell you because these regulations varied.\nQIn your camp, was the sharp control exercised whether this order was carried out? Was it adhered to?\nANo, no control was ever imposed.\nQLater or was reference made again to this order?\nANo, not as far as I know.\nQIn any case you did not carry out this order?\nANo, I did not.\nQAnd nobody reprimanded you about that?\nANo, nobody did.\nQYou went on to say that the Reich Ministry of Propaganda furnished propaganda material for the Slovenes who were elibible for Germanization. Just what sort of propaganda material was that?\nAWell, this was actually intended to be a library because most of the Slovenes spoke German. However, they did not use the language very much. However, this was not only propaganda material as propaganda but this was also thought of as entertainment for the most part.\nQYou first stated that the Slovenes who were not eligible for Germanization were treated more severely. You have just stated that you, yourself, did not have any Germans who were not eligible for Germanization. I must correct myself here for for some time I was in a camp in Straubing and at Straubing there were camps of people who were eligible for Germanization and also those were not eligible for Germanization.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2907, "page_number": "2900", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_2_Gaylord (Garand) I also had access to the camps of people who were not to be Germanized and I could see how they were treated there also.\nQYou stated here that they were treated more severly in that the Slovenes who were not eligible for Germanization were not allowed to go in the cities around the camp. Was this order rescinded later on?\nAYes, it was rescinded later on.\nQWe are now coming to a decree pertaining to Slovenes who had escaped. Whenever they escaped from the camps, they were to be reported to the Gestapo, and also the members of the family were to be reported to the Gestapo, and you reported about that?\nAYes.\nQDid you receive such an order?\nANo, I did not receive such an order. At the time I was in charge of a children's camp and I believe that is the reason that I did not receive the order.\nQAnd where did you gain knowledge of this order?\nAMy comrades told me about that.\nQAnd you only know it from heresay?\nAYes, I only know about it from hearsay.\nQOn any occasion did you hear that such reports were actually submitted to the Gestapo?\nAI heard of it for the first time here in Nurnberg.\nQNot before?\nANo, not previously.\nQThen you also mentioned the fact that directly you had to pass on notifications to the Slovene children about the death of their parents or members of their families. You alleged that these notifications came from the concentration camps.\nAYes.\nQDid you receive these notifications from the VMOI?\nANo, they came directly from the concentration camps in their original form. The camp files of the concentration camp signed them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2908, "page_number": "2901", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_3_Gaylord (Garand)\nQDid you in your camps get along very well with the Slovenes?\nAYes, we got along extremely well with each other.\nQWere the families together in your camps?\nAYes, as I have already stated before in the initial time I had families, and later on the children arrived.\nQDid you have the impression that the Slovenes likes to stay in your camps?\nAYes.\nQI am now coming to the second affidavit. This is Exhibit 703. This afficavit deals with Yugoslav children. What language did these children speak?\nAAn the children, spoke German; however, when, they talked to each other they would talk in the Slovene language.\nQDid anybody stop them from, talking in that language?\nANo, nobody did.\nQYou stated that these children came from a VOMI camp in Upper Austria?\nAYes.\nQAre you sure that this camp was subordinated to VOMI?\nAYes, that is what the children told me. I only know what the children told me. I have to depend on what they told me in this respect.\nQDid the children tell you who separated them from their parents?\nAYes, they told me that also.\nQWhat did they say about that?\nAThey told me that after they had been arrested in Cilli and in Risa mainly, the grown-up people were separated from the children, and the ago of separation was 18 years -- whoever was below 18 years of age.\nQWitness, you didn't answer my question. I asked you: Who separated the children?\nAThat is what I was about to say. I just wanted to tell you what the children told me. Some children said the SS, and other said the Police was responsible. They were separated in these age groups--below 18 and \n 19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_4_Gaylord (Garand) above 18.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2909, "page_number": "2902", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Then there were placed in buses and were taken away to this camp in Upper Austria.\nQAnd who took these children to your camps?\nAA uniformed Yugoslav national brought these children to me. He wore a uniform which was similar to that which was worn in our SA.\nQTherefore they were not brought to your camps by an employee of VOMI?\nANo, unless the nurses who accompanied the children belonged to the VOMI; however, I don't know that.\nQHow were the children treated in the camps?\nAThe children were treated by us extremely well. They even would receive additional oranges and fruits which were very rarely seen.\nQDid the VOMI point out in particular that these children were to be given the best of care?\nAYes. At a meeting of camp leaders, which took place at Bamberg, a certain man by the name of Altena--and I don't know his rank and title--told us that we would have to give special good care to the children because other countries were looking at us--or they were looking at these children--and they did not want that we should cause any unpleasant attention. He placed the greatest stress on the fact that good treatment was to be given to these children.\nQIn your affidavit, you also speak about the changes of the names of children. Did the children get completely new names, or what happened?\nANo, the children did not get new names. I can give you an example: I can recall the name of Petric, which in the Slovenian language was written with an accent on the \"c\". This \"Petric\" in German was called \"Petritsch\". The names were changed according to the way it was spelled in German, but the original name remained.\nQTherefore only the spelling of the name was changed.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow you stated that this change of name had been carried out \n 19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_22_5_Gaylord (Garand) in an assembly camp of VOMI.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2910, "page_number": "2903", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Do you know for certain that this was a VOMI camp?\nAI don't know that for certain. It is possible that these names were immediately changed as long as these children were taken care of by the SS.\nQThen you state once more explicitly that the children were separated by force through VOMI from their parents; that by force, VOMI brought them to Germany for the purpose of Germanization. According to your previous statements, I cannot assume that you can maintain this statement?\nANo, I cannot maintain this statement, and I feel to the contrary; however, at the time I made this statement in this form because Mr. Meyer told me that this was a question of looking for these children. In order to facilitate this matter, I named VOMI to him, which then took care of the children, with the idea that that is where the search would have to start.\nQWitness, were you told that your affidavit would be used in a trial against the members and employees of VOMI?\nANo, I was unaware of that fact.\nQWas a completely formulated affidavit put before you for your signature?\nAAfter I had been interrogated, the affidavit was typed out and it was submitted to me. I read it over and I made several changes.\nQThank you, witness. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2911, "page_number": "2904", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_23_1_Gaylord (Garand) MSD BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWho turned these children over to you?\nAThose children were turned over to me by a Yugoslav national who wore a uniform.\nQHow were they transported to your place?\nAThey were taken to my camp first of all by railroad and then we had buses waiting for them at the railroad station, which took them to the camp.\nQWho did you communicate with before the children were delivered to you?\nAAt the meeting of camp leaders at Bamberg, I was told that I would have to accept Slovene children in my camp.\nQWhat do you mean by \"camp leaders?\"\nACamp leaders would be the persons who had to carry out the care for these children in a camp.\nQNow who told you that you would have to accept these children into your camp?\nAI was told that by Altena.\nQWho was he and what did he do?\nAI have already stated that I did not know his position and the rank of this man; in any case, he was a high official of VOMI.\nQYou say that some of these children told you that their fathers had been shot and their mothers sent to concentration camps. Did they tell you who did that?\nAYes. The children told me that the SS had done that. That is what some said. Others said that the police had separated them from their parents.\nQVery well. Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Who will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBERT:I will now call the witness Ellermeir.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2912, "page_number": "2905", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_2_Gaylord (Garand)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nWALTER HERMANNELLERMEIER, a witness, came to the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is Walter Hermann Ellermeier.\nQWhat do you do?\nAI am a business assitant, a commercial employee.\nQWere you a member of the NSDAP?\nAYes.\nQWere you also a member of the SS?\nAYes.\nQSince when?\nASince 1932 I have been a member of the SS.\nQWhere did you meet the defendant Lorenz?\nAIn 1935 I was sent to the SS main sector, Hamburg northwest, and there I became the adjutant of the then Gruppenfuehrer Lorenz.\nQWhen Lorenz then left Hamburg, did he take you along to the VOMI?\nAYes.\nQWhat task did you have to take care of at VOMI?\nAI remained adjutant of Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz.\nQWere you in charge of an office also?\nAYes, in 1932, several departments were consolidated into offices, and I was put in charge of Office I. Later on, in addition to that, I was \n 19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_3_Gaylord (Garand) put in charge of Office 11.", "speakers": [ "A", "WALTER HERMANN", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2913, "page_number": "2906", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Office 11 up to that time had been directly subordinated to Staff Leader Behrends, and then it was turned over to me.\nQWitness, I believe you made a mistake just now. You mentioned the year 1932.\nANo; I made a mistake, I meant 1943.\nQWhat position did Behrends occupy?\nABehrends was a staff leader and he was a personal deputy of the agency.\nQDid Lorenz have great confidence in Behrends?\nAYes, their relationship was very good.\nQWitness, who was the factual chief of VOMI? Was it Lorenz or Behrends?\nAThe chief of the agency was Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz.\nQWitness, you didn't answer my question. I asked you who was the actual factual head of the agency; that is to say, who was in charge of the factual work?\nAThe staff leader was in charge of the factual work and he had to be present all the time.\nQDo you know whether Behrends informed Lorenz of everything that happened?\nAHe constantly informed Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz; whether he was able to inform his of everything that happened, I don't know, but I don't think so.\nQWas Behrends very ambitious?\nABehrends was industrious and he was also ambitious.\nQDo you know whether Behrends also looked into things which actually had nothing to do with the work of VOMI?\nAI didn't quite understand your question.\nQCan you tell me that Behrends tried to exceed the field of work of VOMI beyond its actual tasks?\nANo that never came to my attention.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2914, "page_number": "2907", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_4_Gaylord (Garand)\nQWhen did Behrends leave VOMI?\nATowards the middle of 1943.\nQWitness, in the VOMI, was there a central mail handling agency!\nAYes.\nQDid all the mail arrive there?\nAYes, here the entire mail was received; however, the mail was sometimes channeled through the adjutant's office and sometimes through private channels.\nQFrom the central office then, was the mail selected for the individual experts?\nAYes.\nQSince Lorenz was absent very frequently, were letters which were addressed to him personally also passed on to the experts so that they could be worked on?\nAIf the mail was only addressed to Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz and if it could be seen that some field of work, was concerned then his expert would immediately receive it.\nQWith regard to the incoming mail, did you over receive a letter where it was announced to Lorenz that clothing was to be procured and delivered from Lublin and Auschwitz on behalf of the ethnic Germans?\nANo, I don't know anything about it.\nQDo you believe that this letter, if it had been submitted to Lorenz, would have had to pass through your hands previously?\nAYes, certainly.\nQDo you know anything about the fact that Lorenz had made an agreement with Pohl about the turning over 15,000 ladies wrist watches ?\nANo, I never heard anything about it.\nQSince you were the abjutant, wouldn't You have heard about these things if this had happened?\nAYes, I certainly would have heard about that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2915, "page_number": "2908", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_5_Gaylord (Garand)\nQWitness, please speak a little slower and pause between question and answer. Do you know the name Hoffmeyer?\nAYes.\nQWho was Hoffmeyer.\nAIn the year 1940, Hoffmeyer joined VOMI and then he took over the resettlement commandos and he carried out resettlement in the field.\nQIf I understood you correctly, this was the resettlement which was carried out on the basis of an agreement with Soviet Russia?\nAYes.\nQLater on did Hoffmeyer leave the VOMI?\nAHoffmeyer left VOMI towards the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1943.\nQAnd what was done then? To whom was he subordinated then?\nAHe was subordinated to the Supreme SS and Police Leader,and furthermore he was in charge of the ethnic German colony at Transnistria.\nQAnd you also had to look after ethnic Germans in the Ukraine?\nAYes.\nQIf I understood you correctly, Hoffmeyer, after he had begun his activity in Transnistira in Russia, was not subordinated to Lorenz any more?\nANo, in Transnistria he was subordinated to the Reichsfuehere.\nQDo you know that Slovenes were in VOMI camps?\nAYes, I know that.\nQDid VOMI like to accept these Slovenes?\nANo, VOMI did not like to accept dportees and Slovenes because we wanted to have only ethnic Germans.\nQWho gave the order that Slovenes were to be sent to VOMI camps?\nAI only heard of the fact that these Slovenes were put into the camps because in 1941 I was with a combat unit. I heard that we had to include them in these camps by order of Himmler.\nQDo you know whether VOMI didn't want to accept these Slovenes \n 19 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_6_Gaylord (Garand) and told Himmler so?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2916, "page_number": "2909", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AI was not there when the first Slovenes arrived. I only heard about the fact that they wanted to keep our resettlers in the camps.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2917, "page_number": "2910", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "QDid Behrends tell you about that later on?\nAYes. I discussed the matter with Behrends.\nQAnd for what reason were these Slovenes imposed on the VOMI although actually it had nothing to do in the actual field of work of VOMI?\nAAt the time we were the only organization which was able to give the necessary accommodations.\nQOn one occasion did you inspect the Slovenes together with Lorenz?\nAYes.\nQWhen and where was that?\nAThe first Slovene camp I saw approximately a short time before Christmas.\nQWas Lorenz present?\nAYes. Lorenz was present. I accompanied him.\nQDid you see anything particularly there -- did you reach any conclusions with regard to ill treatment given to the Slovenes?\nANo, to the contrary. We arrived there towards the evening in the camp near Templin and we were wondering whether the men were since they were not there. We were then told that the men were working in the woods and they had volunteered for this work and that they received regular wages which were given to German workers. The camp leader also pointed out to us that German--the camp leader pointed this out because German workers had complained that the Slovenes received the full wages and did not have to pay for any food which they received. That is why I recall the matter.\nQDo you know whether Lorenz saw to it that these Slovenes were decently treated?\nAIn the VOMI camps, no difference was made. Lorenz, or we saw to it that the people who were under our care were decently cared for.\nQDo you know that he did this especially with regard to the Slovene children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2918, "page_number": "2911", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AYes, I know that.\nQWith regard to the children, to whom did he give the special assignment?\nAHe discussed the matter with Behrends and I believe that he pointed out to Altena that this camp was to be checked constantly and that care was to be taken that only the best suited people would be chosen in order to care for these children.\nQYou stated before that later on you were also in charge of Office XI?\nAYes.\nQAnd this was the office which dealt with resettlement questions?\nAThe office was called resettlement. The main office consisted in the case which was given to those camps in the camp administration.\nQDo you know from Office XI whether among the large number of VOMI camps there were camps at St. Veit and Frohnleiten - this must be somewhere in southern Austria.\nAI can't recall ever having heard the names of these camps before.\nQDo you know whether VOMI and in particular Lorenz saw to it that the Slovene children who were in VOMI camps were to be united with their parents when this was possible?\nAYes. That is quite correct. After I took over Office XI I myself reminded Behrends constantly and Behrends told me that he was constantly trying to get these children out of the camps and to have them returned to their parents or to have them sent to relatives.\nQHerr Ellermeier, the prosecution document has been submitted here. It is Exhibit No. 674. This is a file note which was addressed to you and which was signed by Altena. In this file note Slovenes eligible for regermanization and Slovenes not eligible for regermanization were listed down, was there any difference in the treatment accorded to these different Slovenes in the VOMI camps.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2919, "page_number": "2912", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "AI am quite certain that no difference was made in the treatment of these people.\nQIn any case, you don't know that a different treatment was ordered?\nANo. It was not ordered in any case.\nQWho had to decide whether the Slovenes were eligible for regermanization or not -- was this VOMI agencies or not?\nAIt was impossible that this was the VOMI.\nQWell, who was it?\nAI don't know.\nQHow was it with the labor assignment of the Slovenes, Witness, how was the labor allocation handled of persons who were located in camps?\nAThe labor allocation after all was handled in the same way. Work was manditory in Germany, and the labor offices assigned work to these people.\nQIf I understood you correctly, then the labor offices saw to it that these persons were given some work?\nAYes.\nQIs it correct that the camp leaders had to report to the VOMI offices that a certain number of people were located in the camps?\nAI am not acquainted precisely with the technical procedure but I think so.\nQWitness, it has been mentioned here many times that so-called deportees from western Europe were placed in VOMI camps. Do you know what part the VOMI played in this problem of deportations of members of the western European countries?\nAI experienced that myself. I noticed that Stabsfuchrer Behrends at the time informed the Obergruppenfuehrer of the plan that it came to his knowledge and, that is was planned that these deportees were to be sent to VOMI camps. VOMI or VOMI or Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz at the time opposed these deportation plans and in any case they refused to accept \n these people in the camps, but later on this was still done and by order of Himmler Vomi, which had the necessary accommodations also had to accept these deportees.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2920, "page_number": "2913", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "QDo you know whether Lorenz voiced his misgivings on that subject and also told Himmler?\nAYes. I recall that he talked about that and he had some conversation or other with Himmler on the subject.\nQDo you know whether nationals from these western European countries who had been deported, that they were at so-called punitive camps for these people?\nAVomi did not have any punitive camps.\nQWere all the camps the same?\nAYes. All the camps were the same.\nQWitness, the prosecution has submitted a document this is Exhibit Number 691, this is a file note addressed to you about a conversation which took place in the main staff office and this discussion dealt with the deportation of Lorrainians, and Klingsporn was also present at this conversation. He was one of your collaborators, wasn't he?\nAYes, he was.\nQIn the case of such deported persons from Lorraine or other western countries, what part did the Vomi play in that -- did it have to occupy itself with the deportation itself?\nANo. It had actually nothing to do with the deportation and it probably only participated in the meeting because he wanted to know the size of the deportation drive, so he would have to know how many people were to be accepted in the camp.\nQCan you say positively what the Vomi had to do with the deportation to these European countries?\nAIt had nothing to do with the deportation. It only had to deal with the deportees in these camps.\nQDid it have to take care of the people in these camps?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2921, "page_number": "2914", "date": "19 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-19", "text": "ANo. It only had to take care of the people when they were transported from the Reich.\nQThey only had to deal with these people when they were transported from one camp to the other?\nAYes.\nQDo you know, Witness, in what manner the land was procured on which these camps were constructed?\nAYes. The Sturmbannfuehrer Altena had the task, first of all, to procure land in order to construct these camps. In practice, it was handled in the following manner. He would ask at the gauleiters and the senior presidents and then he would make a survey and make a report on the land which was available throughout the entire Reich, and then he requested that these areas would be left to us.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 22 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2922, "page_number": "2915", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 22 December 1947, 0930 1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I now would like to continue my examination of the witness Ellermeier, which was begun last Friday.\nELLERMEIER -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (continued) BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, you spoke somewhat quickly in Friday's session. Please be kind enough now and apeak somewhat more slowly, always making a short pause after my question.\nA.Very well.\nQ.I am now coming to the ethnic Germans in Russia and in southeastern Europe. Do you know, from your own experience, whether these ethnic Germans came to Germany voluntarily or were they forces to do so?\nA.These ethnic Germans came to Germany on a voluntary basis because they were retreating before the advancing Red Army.\nQ.Would it be better, more appropriate, to describe this movement as being a flight from the Russians?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2923, "page_number": "2916", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Yes that is quite correct. This flight depended on the advance of the Russians.\nQ.In southern Russia, a man by the name of Hoffmeier was working, do you know that?\nA.Yes.\nQ.If Germans came from the Hoffmeier area, what steps did the VOMI at Berlin have to take? That is to say, where would the activity of the VOMI at Berlin begin locally?\nA.Upon the time of the arrival and upon the accommodation of these people in camps.\nQ.Whatever had to be done right on that spot, that was done by Hoffmeier?\nA.In Russia? Yes.\nQ.Hoffmeier was not subordinate to the VOMI in Berlin, but another agency, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a document here, as exhibit 245. This is a telegram or teletype from Lorenz to Himmler which bears the date of the year 1945. This concerns the movement towards the rear of the Germans in the southeast. Here the word \"forcible\" evacuation is used. Do you know whether in the southeast perhaps in Hungary or Yugoslavia-according to your knowledge, any force was exerted upon the population there?\nA.No force was ever exerted. The situation was here that these people were fleeing before the Red Army and all we had to do was to control the course which was taken.\nQ.Do you know of any incident where during the course of the flight to Hungary two entire railroad trains were sent there in order to accommodate the fleeing people and that these trains returned empty?\nA.Yes, something like that happened occasionally.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2924, "page_number": "2917", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.In the teletype which I have just mentioned, it is also stated that a large number of movable goods were taken along in the course of this flight. Were these goods which the VOMI had requisitioned there or was this the personal property of the refugees?\nA.This was the utilization of empty space for the luggage of the resettlers and the property of the resettlers.\nQ.Perhaps you remember that this flight movement in past started a short time after the harvest of 1944?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.Did the farmers at the time as far as it was possible take along their harvest?\nA.I know that for certain. I know that they took grain along with them.\nQ.Witness, in the Prosecution's documents it is stated repeatedly that some resettlements, smaller ones, took place in Bulgaria, Greece, and the remainder in Serbia. Do you know what drives took place in this connection?\nA.Yes, these were very small resettlements of extremely small groups.\nQ.In the course of these resettlements was the social point of view more decisive than the ethnic point of view?\nA.Yes, that is correct. In general these were Germans who lived in very bad financial conditions abroad.\nQ.Did the VOMI ever have anything to do with regard to the financial legal rights of the resettlers in the indemnification of the property which the resettlers had left behind for another property in the vicinity where they were resettled?\nA.No, that was never our task.\nQ.Were there commissions sent to the resettlement areas in which the VOMI took part to a certain extent?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2925, "page_number": "2918", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII Do you know anything about the existence of such commissions which gave assurances to resettlers for indemnification of the property?\nA.No, I can't tell you anything about that.\nQ.Don't you recall that Lorenz stated explicitly before members of the VOMI that no promises were to be made to the resettlers in this respect?\nA.It was prohibited to our detachment to give any information because we were unable to have that much information.\nQ.Sometimes the resettlers sat around in the camps for a long time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that Lorenz contacted Himmler repeatedly in order to shorten the stay of these resettlers in the camp?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.Do you know whether the VOMI had anything to do with the Germanization of persons who were not ethnic Germans?\nA.No, that was not our task.\nQ.Did the VOMI have anything to do with the German People's List in the eastern territories?\nA.No, that was not our task either.\nQ.It becomes evident, from several Prosecution documents that the VOMI was interested in the military conscriptions of ethnic Germans, especially in southeastern Europe. Do you know or are you in a position to tell me in what matters, in these cases, VOMI was interested?\nA.Yes, Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz, in this respect, represented the interests of the ethnic groups with regard to looking after the economic matters for the conscripted \n COURT I CASE VIII population and they were interested to see whether the ethnic group in their respective area was able to get along without these people who had been conscripted.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2926, "page_number": "2919", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.That was the actual interest of VOMI?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2927, "page_number": "2920", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.And VOMI did not want that as many people as possible were to be conscripted in the Wehrmacht or the SS?\nA.No, they only looked after the interest of the ethnic people.\nQ.Do you know that Lorenz wanted to place this conscription on a legal basis by concluding state treaties with the countires to which this applied?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct. Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz also had discussions of that type with Obergruppenfuehrer Berger.\nQ.Do you know that an SS general, I believe by the name of Flops, had upon the instigation of Lorenz to discharge people from his division, Prinz Eugen, where they had been conscripted?\nA.Yes, that is correct. General Fleps released people from his division, on the instigation of Lorenz. This happened in a large number ok cases.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted two documents here as Exhibit No. 824. They deal with the question whether Lorenz had relations with the General SS, whether he was paid by them. Do you know anything about that?\nA.Yes, Lorenz received his salary from the Reich-Treasurer Schwarz.\nQ.That is to say from VOMI?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.And VOMI received the funds from the Reich Treasury?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Would you have found out about it if Lorenz had received any pay from the General SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.That would be passed on through VOMI?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2928, "page_number": "2921", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Witness, can you tell me something, since you were the adjutant of Lorenz and since you have known him for some time, about his character?\nA.Yes. Obergurppenfuehrer Lorenz, as a former officer, had a lot of understanding from his subordinates; he had a profound sense of justice; and he was very popular.\nQ.Did he look after the interests of his resettlers and the camp inmates?\nA.He looked after their interests at all times and he was very practical in his ways and he would go to the camps in order to get personally informed about the manner in which care was given to the resettlers.\nQ.And did he always protect and acknowledge the religious sentiments of the camp inmates?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct. In our camps there were weddings which took place and people were baptized right in the camps.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, didn't Behrens try to keep the defendant Lorenz informed of all important matters?\nA.It was not possible for Behrens to do that because Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz for the most part was absent on official trips.\nQ.Witness, I didn't ask you whether the defendant Lorenz was informed on every matter. I asked you did Behrens try to inform Lorenz of all important matters. If he was unable to do so in some instances, that is another question. Did Behrens try to keep Lorenz informed of all important matters?\nA.Yes, I believe that he did try.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2929, "page_number": "2922", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.After Behrens left VOMI, were you really second in command of VOMI or was someone else in that position?\nA.This position was never reoccupied.\nQ.In effect, Witness, who was second in command of VOMI after Behrens left?\nA.Well, according to the rank, it was I. However, as far as the work was concerned, every office chief would report personally to the Obergruppenfuehrer.\nQ.Witness, after Behrens left VOMI, did VOMI collapse or did, it keep on running smoothly?\nA.Only the most necessary and important work was handled.\nQ.Witness, my question is: After Behrens left VOMI, did VOMI collapse as an organization or did it continue to function without Behrens?\nA.Many tasks were discontinued and cut down.\nQ.Witness, please answer my question, \"Many tasks were discontinued,\" but did VOMI continue to function in the tasks which it continued to handle?\nA.After all, the only work which we had to do then was to look after the resettlers in the camps.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, what he asked you was if the work which you did do continued to function in the normal sort of way.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, it continued.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you, Witness.\nQ.Now, Witness, who paid Hoffmeier and the people under him?\nA.I don't know who paid them.\nQ.Do you know who paid Weitgen and the people under him?\nA.I can't tell you that either.\nW.Do you know who supplied Hoffmeier and Weitgen with replacements for personnel?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "W." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2930, "page_number": "2923", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Hoffmeier did not get any replacements any more at that time.\nQ.Witness, how much mail passed through your hands every day?\nA.Did you say \"mail\"?\nQ.Yes. Letters, correspondence.\nA.Perhaps thirty to fifty letters.\nQ.Witness, did you study all this mail or did you just sort it out and pass it on to the proper person?\nA.I would sort out the mail and I would pass it on.\nQ.You didn't study this very carefully them, Witness, any more than was necessary to see to whom it should go; is that correct?\nA.Whenever I determined the field of work which it concerned, then I would turn over the mail to the export who had to handle this work.\nQWitness, you stated on direct examination last Friday that the Slovenes in a VOMI camp got the same pay as German workers and in addition did not have to pay for their food. Do you mean that the Slovene workers were really treated better than the German workers?\nA.Yes, that is what was pointed out to us many times.\nQWitness, how many VOMI camps were there, in all?\nA.The number varied constantly.\nQ.Well, about what was the maximum, as far as you know, at any one time?\nA.The maximum number may have been eithteen hundred.\nQ.Do you remember the namesof all these camps, Witness?\nA.I know several names.\nQ.Witness, I asked you if you felt that you could remember the names of all of these camps.\nA.No.\nQ.Witness, you have just testified on direct examination that \n the defendant Lorenz was paid directly by the Reich Paymaster Schwarz.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2931, "page_number": "2924", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Didn't VOMI funds come through Schwarzenberger?\nA.The funds from Schwarzenberger were given to Strumbannfuehrer Hagen for the maintenance of the camps for resettlers.\nQ.Where did the funds come from to pay the personnel of VOMI?\nA.It came from the Reich Treasurer Schwarz and he paid me also.\nQ.Directly from him and not through Schwarzenburger, is that it witness?\nA.The channel did not go through Schwarzenburger, but these funds were submitted from the Reich Treasurer to our administration.\nQ.Witness, how do you know that the defendant Lorenz did not get paid from the General SS?\nA.Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz was not paid by the General SS,\nQ.Witness, my question was ; on what do you base your statement that he was not paid by the General SS?\nA.Because I know that the representative of the Reich Treasurey Damzow would personally bring the salary to the Obergruppenfuehrer.\nQ.Witness, can you state positively that the defendant Lorenz did not, in addition, get paid from the General SS?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2932, "page_number": "2925", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI can say that for certain because occasionally that would have been bound to come to my attention through his bank deposit slips.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWhen Behrens in the year 1943 left VOMI, was VOMI already established in routine channels at the time?\nAYes.\nQCan it be said that the machinery at the time could run by itself?\nAYes, that is quite correct. Many people were turned over to the Army, and personnel was reduced.\nQWitness, do you know whether Hoffmeier especially occasionally received replacements from the VOMI at Berlin?\nAOccasionally, we would furnish replacements for vehicles to Hoffmeier.\nQDo you see anything unusual in that?\nANo, the situation was that originally we had given Hoffmeier his vehicles, and these vehicles remained assigned to us, but we did not take them away from this. That is why we were interested in keeping the vehicles intact by furnishing spare parts and making repairs.\nQIf I understand you correctly, then you maintain that the VOMI at Berlin and Hoffmeier were two separate agencies?\nAYes.\nQAnd that Hoffmeier on his part, since he came from the VOMI, had a motor pool at his disposal which he had taken along with him, and this motor pool actually remained the property of VOMI, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQNow my last question, witness. I believe you have to clarify something here. As we have just seen, the VOMI would receive funds from two different agencies. Was this based on the difference between the so-called Main Office of VOMI and the VOMI organization which had already \n Court No. I, Case No, VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2933, "page_number": "2926", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "existed before the establishment of the Main Office?\nAYes, that is correct. The funds from the Reich Treasury were used for the personnel budget and for the ethnic groups and the funds from Schwarzenberger were used for the maintenance of the camps and for people who had been conscripted for emergency service.\nQTherefore I am correct in assuming that the funds which came from Schwarzenberger, that is the Reich Ministry of Finance, were used for purposes of the Main Office, VOMI, that is the government agency, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused).\nDR. SCHUBERT:I would like to call Herr Pieger.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nNIKOLAUSPIEGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is Nikolaus Pieger.\nQPlease tell us your profession.\nAI am a Catholic priest.\nQWhere do you work at present?\nAAt present, I am the municipal priest at St. Heinrich in Fuerth, and at the same time I am the director of the clerical relief \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "NIKOLAUS", "Q", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2934, "page_number": "2927", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "for the looking after of the Germans from the Black Sea area and the Germans from Russia.\nQDid you always work in Germany, witness?\nAUntil 1932 I worked in Germany.\nQWill you be kind enough to make a brief pause after my questions so that the interpreters would be able to keep up with us.\nFrom what time until when did you work abroad?\nAFrom the year 1932 on I was at Bucharest, and in the year 1941 towards the end of July I went to southern Russia as director of the Catholic Mission which was located at Odessa.\nQAnd how long did you remain there?\nAI remained at Odessa until the first of April 1944 until all the Germans had been evacuated and until the Russian advanced into Odessa.\nQAnd where did you go from there, witness?\nAWhen the Germans left Odessa and its vicinity, I went to Rumania, and in this way I accompanied my people. I went from camp to camp in order to hold religious services or I visited these people in the communities where they were located.\nQDuring the time of your stay abroad, did you work as a priest within the German ethnic groups?\nAYes, I had to do almost exclusively with German ethnic groups and then with the very few German nationals in Rumania and Russia.\nQAs a result of this, did you become acquainted with the problems of the ethnic Germans abroad?\nAI am well acquainted with the problems of the ethnic Germans.\nQCan you tell me something about the fact how these ethnic German groups in southern Europe and south eastern Europe got along with the people there and how this was brought about?\nAWhat we understand to be ethnic Germans today, are people who came into these areas after the Turks had been pushed out of the Danube area and the Crimea. They are people who used to live in the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2935, "page_number": "2928", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "countries of the former Austrian and Hungarian monarchy, they had been called there by the former emperors. Then there are people who lived in countries where rulers of German descent had called them; for example, Catharina had called them to Russia; Carol to Rumania, and Ferdinand had called them to Bulgaria. These ethnic Germans whom we found in the southern area, as I stated before, were called there for the most part in order to colonize in those areas. They had been given privileges and rights in writing for that purpose. Others only came individually or as hospitees. These individuals, for the most part, became lost among the foreign people, while those people who had come there as ethnic bodies and not individually had their own rights, maintained their ethnic characteristics up to date. In addition to this, we have to consider the fact that the church had a special interest in the fact that these people should maintain their ethnic characteristics because in the southeast and in the east the principle applied that whoever breaks faith with his people also breaks faith with his God. That is why we in the church tried especially to maintain these ethnic features; especially as regards the Germans in Russia, a bishopric, a special diocese, was established which was the only one outside the German borders. This was established through the foundation decree, the Providencia Ecclesiae Cura on the 3 of July 1848, and as a result of this, I believe that especially the Russo-German Catholics were able to particularly preserve the German characteristics there up to the last day. In the same way, the Mennonites and the Lutherans especially in Russia had their own religious organizations.\nThen I would like to point out something else. The only exception in the southeast is made by the Siebenbuerger Saxonians. They were not called there by rulers of German origin but they were called to these areas by foreign princes; they were called there by Andreas, the Second. They, however, through the Diploma Andreani in the year 1224 were given special rights and privileges which they were able to preserve until a short time ago--until the end of this war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2936, "page_number": "2929", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, can you tell us what the difference was between these ethnic groups, which you have just now mentioned as ethnic bodies in the east and southeast of Europe, and those Germans especially who emigrated overseas?\nAI have already hinted at that. The people who went overseas or who went to western European countries would go as individuals, and they did not go as a national group, and we generally called them hospitees. They did not have any special privileges; they did not have any special rights; and they could not insist on any legal privileges; and that is why it is that they were absorbed to another nationality. Furthermore, in the west and in the United States, these difficulties covered a western culture there, and therefore it was more easy to adapt themselves to these conditions.\nQDo you know, witness, that the ethnic Germans in Russia, for many decades had been given letters of privileges? They had the right to return to their homeland, which was Germany?\nAThe ethnic Germans in Russia had obtained this right by Catharina, the Second, in the year 1763, and this right was renewed by Alexander, the First, in the year 1801; then it was again renewed by Emperor Alexander, the Third, I believe in the year 1871, I believe. When in the year 1876, the so-called Russian laws were issued, then the Germans were confronted by the alternative of either they give up their privileges with regard to exemption from military service in Russia or they would have to return to Germany, or they have to emigrate to some other country.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2937, "page_number": "2930", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q. Witness, do you know that this so-called repatriation right existed until very recently; that it was recognized until then?\nA.This repatriation right was still recognized insofar as already in the year 1917 negotiations were carried out to the effect that the Germans in Russia, because their rights were not acknowledged there, should be taken out of Russia; especially General Hoffmeier, who at the time had a command in the East, looked after that to a considerable extent. Delegations of Germans from Russia in the name of the German Catholics were sent there by Archbishop Glaser, and they carried out negotiations in Berlin with the then supreme commanders last in order to take these people out of their endangered situation in Russia. Later also, this repatriation law in a part was being recognized in Soviet Russia. The Mennonites, as you know probably, when they could not get along with the Soviet Government, took their horses and carriages and went to Moscow and had a demonstration there, and then they received the permission to emigrate to the United States. When the second convoy, however, arrived in Moscow, they were sent to Siberia instead. From 1921 to 1927, a large number of ethnic Germans emigrated from Russia to America.\n(Proceedings interrupted because of failure of electrical system)\nTHE PRESIDENT:We might suggest to counsel that because a good deal of the testimony includes the date of the discovery of the electric light, that may have had something to do with the lights refusing to work. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, did the Soviet Union also recognize the ethnic Germans in Russia to be a special national body?\nA.Yes, because until the year 1939 the Germans in the Soviet Union in their close settlement areas were allowed to have their own \n schools; they used in their communities in many cases German as their official language.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2938, "page_number": "2931", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "In the year 1924, the autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Volga Germans was proclaimed, This shows that the Germans were still considered a special national group by the Soviets.\nQ.Between the ethnic Germans in the East and the southeast of Europe and their fellow nationals in Germany proper, were there always strong cultural ties?\nA.Yes, this becomes particulary evident from the fact that the ethnic German groups would send their young intellectuals to Germany for education, that from Germany they would import German teachers, and in many cases they would also import German priests. In this way, the Archbishop of Bucharest called me to Romania in order to look after the Germans in Romania. The same thing applies to Bishop Martin from Atamira, Bishop Rogv of Jashic, they would call priests in order to maintain the close ties of these Germans with their homeland and in order to give these Germans in foreign countries what was necessary for their religious care.\nQ.The care of these cultural ties, was this already maintained prior to the year 1933 through a large number of organizations and leagues and societies in Germany and abroad?\nA.Yes. in general this was done by the league for Germans abroad, the VDA, and then by the two big religious organizations; for the Protestants. This was the Gustav Adolf Society, for the Catholics, it sas the RNV, that is the Reich League for German Catholics abroad.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2939, "page_number": "2932", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No.VIII.\nQIf I understand you correctly, then fundamentally it was nothing new that these cultural ties were looked after between the German proper and the ethnic Germans abroad, and that in 1936 when the VOMI had been established for this purpose?\nAIt was something new so far as VOMI worked with other ways and means it would actually not have been a necessity as the actual work was done much better by the church organization there; VOMI than tried to absorb the other organizations.\nQWitness, where did you work when you came to Russia in 1941?\nAWhen in 1941 I went to Russia, and I started my work in the so-called area of Kutsch. Later on I worked on Beresan, and then in the area of Odessa. This area was called Transnistria. This was the area on the other side of the Dnjestr River. After four weeks ,within three or four hours, I don't know the exact time any more, but after a short time, I was expelled by the SD; then I returned to Bucharest, and the Ministry of Culture of Bucharest looked after me. Through the Catholic representative, Archbishop Casullo I received the special protection of the then leader of the State, Antonescu, and as a Catholic Priest under Rumanian protection I was able to work in the area of Transnistria, which was under the Rumanian administration.\nQDid you have an opportunity, Father Pieger, to observe the activity of the VOMI in Transnistria.\nAYes, the VOMI had, although the area was under Rumanian administration, taken over the administration of the German communities in that area. In this way we had to deal in all the communities with the representative of the VOMI.\nQWho was in charge of the VOMI in Transnistria and in southern Russia?\nAThe head of the VOMI in Transnistria, where I was working, was SS-Oberfuehrer Hoffmeier.\nQDid you have an opportunity to observe whether Hoffmeier worked there independently, or whether he had intensive contact with \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2940, "page_number": "2933", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "the VOMI Headquarters at Berlin?\nAWe were unable to look into the machinery of the German Government agencies. However, the representatives of the VOMI, or the representatives of the Hoffmeier detachment told us repeatedly and I quote: \"We are completely independent detachment and nobody can tell us anything.\" Hoffmeier frequently went on trips, and we were told that he had gone to the Fuehrer's Headquarters in order to get instructions there. VOMI at Berlin thus never was mentioned in this connection.\nQWere you able to ascertain whether Hoffmeier had anything to do with the so-called Einsatzgruppen of the SD?\nAIn this case also I can not give you any detailed information, but I can say that the SD frequently came into the area in which we worked, and, the story went around that the SD occasionally was giving assistance to the VOMI. I am not precisely informed about that, and I can not make such precise statements under oath, because we did not have any insight.\nQDo you know of what the aid consisted that the SD had given to the VOMI?\nAOne said that it was passing on information, and intelligence data, and if anything was needed, they would get it from the SD, as they were better equipped. However, I can not give you any details about that.\nQThe Prosecution in this trial has charged the two defendants, Lorenz and Brueckner with having forcibly evacuated the Germans in Russia to Germany. Did you have an opportunity to observe the resettlement procedure in Russia itself?\nAI was right in the middle of the resettlement procedure from the beginning to the end. If the VOMI is to be reproached with anything, then I as being acquainted with the conditions can only reproach them with one thing, and that is, that they carried out the resettlement too late. No force was exerted on our Germans in Russia, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2941, "page_number": "2934", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "because it was unnecessary after the hell through which these people had gone in Soviet Russia.\nQDid you yourself observe, witness, that the life and the liberty of Ethnic Germans, who were left behind after the retreat of the German troops, ware endangered?\nAOnly a very few people remained behind. I can recall, for instance, at Odessa that old sick women came to see me, and said, I quote: \"Father, we can not walk any more but I would like to give you my last confession. I am now concluding with my life.\" End of quotation. What happened actually, I don't know. However, one group of our Community Selz, on account of a failure of an SS-leader was too late to cross the bridge at Majak in time, approximately one-half of the people of the village remained behind, and other people of Selz who had managed to cross the bridge came to me full of horror and could not be quieted down for many weeks, because members of their family had fallen into the hands of the Soviets, and had been liquidated right on the spot. I didn't see this personally, but my people whom I knew personally told me it with tears in their eyes, and up to date they have not gotton over the blow which they were dealt by the death of their relatives. I would like to emphasize here that I received this information in part on the very same date, or in the following days, At the time they were located at Akerman, which was only a few kilometers away from Majak.\nQThe Prosecution further charges that the Germans in Russia were brought into Germany for slave labor. Do you know that amongst the Ethnic Germans in Russia there was a strong tendency to report voluntarily for work in Germany, for example, as servants or other positions?\nAWhen the Germans had suffered with defeat at Stalingrad, all of our people, at least ninety percent, at that time wanted to leave Russia, if the SS and the VOMI as they are called here would have allowed these people to leave, and, if the individual groups of people \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2942, "page_number": "2935", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "had the possibility to go or to travel as domestic workers, they were extremely glad to go. Even the families of my maids, came to Berlin at the time, considered themselves fortunate to have escaped themselves from Russia. I know nothing about any forcible deportations.\nQIs it perhaps known to you, witness, that German authorities in Russia turned down many Germans in Russia, when they reported voluntarily for work in Germany?\nAIt should have become evident quite clearly from my previous statement, that consideration was not given to all the people who wanted to go to Germany. At least in the area where I was working.\nQWitness, can you finally tell me what reputation Lorenz enjoyed in the East and the Southeast among the Ethnic Germans?\nAHerr Lorenz actually was not known to us in Russia. It was Hoffmeier who was there. I had contact for the first time with Lorenz after Hoffmeier was gone. I had contact with the men and I met Lorenz the first time on the occasion of the repatriation of our people who came from Dobrudza and Bessarabia in convoys to Bulgary, where they were taken across the Danube, and following that they came upon Rumanian soil. At that time Lorenz made a speech before our people, and the impression which he made on our people there, I heard him myself, was good.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, witness. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will be in recess for fifteen minutes.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(Recess)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2943, "page_number": "2936", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, Germany invaded Russia on the 21st of June, 1941, and you testified on direct examination that you went to Odessa late in July, 1941. You were fairly close behind the advancing German armies, were you not?\nAYes, that is correct. Already before Odessa fell, I was in Transnistria, first of all in the German communities evacuated by the Russians.\nQWitness, while you were in Odessa, you must have known of conditions prevailing in Odessa in connection with the people living as Ethnic Germans there as well as Russians and others; is that correct?\nAYes, I know those conditions on the whole.\nQWitness, on direct examination you mentioned the SD, and that the SD cooperated with VOMI. Did you mean the SD Einsatzgruppen, witness, which also followed the German armies fairly closely?\nAI met the SD when I was expelled. The extent to which the SD maintained contact with the other military organizations is not known to me and I was never interested in those facts.\nQWitness, after you arrived in Odessa, did you hear anything about the SD Einsatzgruppen?\nAOccasionally I heard of SD Einsatzgruppen, but I don't know any details. SD Einsatzgruppen was spoken of, but I do not know any details. We were fully occupied with building up our ecclesiastical life and its organization, and particularly with the ecclesiastical buildings which had all been desecrated. I, therefore, had no other interests beyond these.\nQWitness, did you ever hear what the SD Einsatzgruppen were doing in Russia?\nAI already stated before I took no further interest in these \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2944, "page_number": "2937", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "matters. Occasionally I heard about them, but I am making statements here under oath and consequently I am unable to make any statement not knowing any details.\nQWitness, I am not asking you for any details. Let me rephrase my question. Did you hear what the main task of the SD Einsatzgruppen was; did you hear that they were murdering millions of civilians in Russia?\nAI heard that, as you say, people were being murdered by the SD, but I don't know the extent to which this was done by the SD.\nQWitness, did you ever protest to any one about what you heard in connection with the SD?\nANot only once, but several times, from the pulpit I commented clearly and specifically on these problems, and did so in a manner that for that vary reason on various occasions I was warned by my own people, and my own people came to me after my preaching and said: Father, be careful; there is no sense in your saying things like this because they will take you away from us and we need you here for the reconstruction.\nQ witness, your flock was not engaged in the activities of the SD Einsatzgruppen. I don't think it did very much good to protest to them; did you ever protest to anyone else?\nAProtest to other agencies? I had no direct contact with any such agencies, but I discussed it with Romanian agencies, a deputy of the Romanian Governor, I can't recall the name for the moment. My own bishop negotiated with these people; I was at the head only in the beginning, later on there was a bishop and I was his deputy. My bishop protested to the proper agencies and one day we were visited by the Apostolic Nuntius from Bucharest, and he approached the Governor, on the occasion of a dinner where Hoffmeier was present, spoke publicly, and protested against what was going on, and he also stressed the significance and the general duties of the Decanate in this connection, and particularly to the Commandment according to which nobody has any \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2945, "page_number": "2938", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "right to take the life of others, and thus, I believe, we fulfilled our duties in this respect. I was the third person; the first was the Nuntius, the second the Bishop, and the third I.\nQWitness, you have testified that all these ethnic Germans, many of whom had been in Russia, or rather their families had been in Russia for hundreds of years, that all of these people wanted to leave Russia. Wasn't there a single ethnic German in your district who wanted to stay there?\nAI stated previously there were some old people who did remain, but apart from these, as far as healthy people are concerned, I don't know of any instances except one priest who also remained, but he was insane. He refused to go and so we left him there. Nobody forced him to go, the same as our own old people were not forced to go. I remember there were several other women married to Russians and bearing Russian names who remained, although they figures in the German People's List. Whoever wished to remain was permitted to remain.\nQWitness, on direct examination you made a statement in which you said the SS or, as you call it here, VOMI; witness, did you consider VOMI in your district to be acting as an SS agency?\nAThe connection between VOMI, SS and SD was never made clear to us, and, therefore, we did not endeavor to see clearly. We were glad we did not have anything to do with any of these agencies wearing black uniforms. We preferred to remain in contact with Wehrmacht officers; consequently, I don't know the associations nor the constructional organization of the associations -- not in detail at least.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2946, "page_number": "2939", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "QWitness, did the VOMI representatives in your district wear the black uniforms of the SS?\nASome of then did, but I really do not remember that as a fact right now, but in any case they wore black lapels when they did wear grey uniforms.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQOnly one more short question, witness. You have just said that whoever wished to remain was permitted to remain. Can you say what happened to those people who did remain?\nAWhat happened to the people who did remain is not known to me, but I can tell you what happened to the people who were resettled by VOMI; they came into the Warthegau, Thuringia and Saxony, and felt safe and secure there. Of all these people, approximately 90 per cent, that is 90 per cent of the people resettled by VOMI or the SS, 90 per cent of these people , when the Americans retired from this district, were handed over to the Russians by the Americans , not knowing the circumstances because they were of the opinion that these deported people would be given back their homes by the Russians. Now these people who again fell into Russian hands, these hundreds of thousands, none of these came back to their homes, not one of them; but all of them were deported into the wide plains of Russia. We have received information from the district of Archangelsk, from the district of Kasakstan and from the Ural, from the district of Taschkent, of Aserbeidschan, we have heard that all of these people today are nothing but slaves; their families have been torn apart; the men were not permitted to remain with their women, and a large percentage of these people has already died of starvation. Later on, if there is any interest, I am able to make available to the Tribunal documents which will furnish evidence and proof of my statement. Now, these \n people who fled on that occasion and who were resettled voluntarily, had reason, as is shown from actual circumstances, they had every reason in the world to leave Russia.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SHILLER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2947, "page_number": "2940", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "QOne last question, witness. Did the defendant Lorenz, who was better known with the ethnic Germans in the southeast, what about his connections in the East there?\nALorenz was better known to the ethnic Germans in the southeast, particularly to the Hungarian-Germans, and there they entertained a good opinion of Lorenz, and there on the whole he was considered a friend of the ethnic Germans.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, one or two questions; one or two questions to clear up my own mind. As I understand during the war years, 1939 to 1945, you had considerable contact with and worked with the ethnic Germans. What agency had charge of those ethnic Germans?\nAPardon me, I didn't understand your question. Do you mean what ecclesiastical agency?\nQNo. Did VOMI, did the agency VOMI have charge of the ethnic Germans with which you worked?\nAAs fan as the Reich is concerned, yes. We as an ecclesiastical agency, of course, did not act by orders of VOMI because as far as ideology is concerned, there is a world of difference between us.\nQBut you did work with ethnic Germans who were in charge of the VOMI as an agency?\nAIn certain respects we of course had to turn to VOMI, we had to take notice of the existence of VOMI, I must say; but as a church we received our orders only from the ecclesiastical agency and not from any Reich agency or ethnic German agencies.\nQThat was not my question. My question was did you as a \n representative of the church work with ethnic Germans who were in charge of VOMI?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2948, "page_number": "2941", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AAs a church we occasionally did have connection with these people in charge of VOMI because VOMI was the world by authority in the individual municipalities and communities, and in the same manner as the church today has to maintain contacts with any wordly agency, whether they liked to or not; the same applied there; they had to do it there, too.\nQDid you find in your activities that the people in charge of the agency VOMI were all ethnic Germans or did they have other people in their group?\nAThe people in charge of VOMI were also Reich Germans, not only ethnic Germans. For example, Hoffmayer, as far as I know, Was a Reich German -\nQI am not talking about the people who made up the offices of VOMI. Did they have anything to do with the care of people who were not ethnic Germans?\nAVOMI had to handle and deal with and take charge of the ethnic Germans.\nQThey had no duties with people who were not ethnic Germans?\nAAs far as I know , they did not.\nQWho did look after the people who were not ethnic Germans?\nAIn the area where I was active it was the Rumanian Administration, because the area of Transnistria, where I was, was subject to the Rumanian Administration. Only the German communities were excluded therefrom and these were subordinated to the charge of VOMI.\nQDuring the war years 1939 to 1945 what control, if any, did the party or the government exercise over the church?\nAThe control exercised by the party over the church is not known to me, and was of no interest to us as a, matter of fact, because we were completely independent and were covered, by the Rumanian Govern \n ment.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2949, "page_number": "2942", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "If we encountered any difficulties we took up contact with the Rumanian governor in Odessa. Unless it had to be done, we did not negotiate with VOMI direct on difficult problems.\nQAs a church man engaged in church work, during the period 1939 to 1945, what do you know, if anything, about the exercise, about the authority or control exercised by the party of the German government over church activities?\nAAs I said before, Your Honor, we were subordinated to the protectorate of the Rumanian Administration. We were not subordinated to the direct management of VOMI, and that was our strongest point, and we were glad that this was so, because the Rumanian government had religious tendencies.\nQAgain I ask you if you know to what extent the party or the government exercised control over the church during the years 1939 to 1945, within or without Germany.\nAI had been away from Germany since 1932 and, therefore, I am not well informed as to the control which was exercised within Germany itself. I do know that German agencies abroad did of course endeavor to subordinate the church too under their control and supervision, but we abroad of course enjoyed, quite a different condition, particularly in the southeast because we were always in contact with the regional Government, with the local administration which was of Christian tendencies and which in part favored our work, even more than at the time prior to National Socialism. They knew that the ethnic Germans in the country would be subject to favorable influence on the part of the church and would be led in a more suitable manner than a foreign agency located abroad, outside of the country.\nQI presume you were never a member of the Nazi Party.\nANo, Your Honor, THE PRESIDENT:\nI have no further questions.\nEXAMINATION \n BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2950, "page_number": "2943", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "QDo I understand that in the performance of your priestly duties you were stationed in Rumania?\nAPardon me, Your Honor, I didn't understand your question,\nQDo I understand that in the performance of your priestly duties you were stationed in Rumania?\nAFrom 1932 on up to the end of August, 1946, I was stationed in Rumania. When I worked in Russia. I also belonged to Rumania because that district was subject to the Rumanian administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2951, "page_number": "2944", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.And in the performance of your priestly duties, whether in Rumania or Russia, were you subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rumania?\nA.I was subordinate to my ecclesiastical superiors, and otherwise to the Cultured Ministry of Rumania. My mandate for Russia was issued by the Rumanian Minister of Culture.\nQ.You referred to being subject also to the Nuncio. Where was he stationed?\nA.The Apostolic Nuncio was in Bucharest (that is the capital of Rumania), and in that capacity he had certain orders also to take care of the area Transnistria, which was under the Rumanian administration. In that respect he was my superior there too.\nQ.In the performance of your duties or within your observation was there any interference on the pert of the Government in the administration of your duties?\nA.The Rumanian Government sponsored us in every possible respect and paid our priests too. I myself did not receive a salary. Our Protestand colleagues, however, were partially, as far as I know, paid by German agencies because the Protestant bishop in Rumania himself was a party member, and for that reason he maintained good contact with the party. We also received the offer once to have our priests paid by the German agency but I refused this offer in order to maintain freedom in my operations and performance of my duties.\nQ.Well, did the Germans, through any agency, interfere with the performance of your priestly duties, or to your knowledge with the duties of any other priest?\nA.Hoffmeier's detachment did endeavor to do so on various occasions via the Governor Alecsianu to restrict our activity. For example, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio he asked that I be expelled, expelled from Transnistria, and thereupon Alecsianu, the Rumanian Governor, said to the Nuncio, \"We will not expell Pieger, and we will not extradite him either.\" Then we were left in peace again.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2952, "page_number": "2945", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.You mentioned in your testimony earlier that you were expelled from Russia. What reasons, if any, were given for the expulsion?\nA.When I was expelled I asked for the reason. Thereupon--this was in the morning, approximately three-thirty or four o'clock--I was told by the SD man: This is an order from the OKW to the effect that no German civilian priest is permitted to enter the eastern territory with the exception of Bessarabia and the Finnish frontiers.\nPursuant to this order, he expelled me.\nQ.During the period of time when Lorenz was in charge of VOMI, so far as you know, was there any interference with your priestly duties of church administration by him or anyone acting under him?\nA.That Lorenz had been ordered to take charge of the Russian ethnic Germans became know to me only when I heard Lorenz speak in Kallavarth, in Rumania; prior to that the name of Lorenz had never been heard by us; only the detachment of Hoffmeier had been mentioned,\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand,\nDR. SCHUBERT:May I ask that the next witness be called, which is the witness Klingsporn?\nTHE PRESIDENT:What was the witness's name?\nDR. SCHUBERT:Klingsporn, Your Honor.\nHANSKLINGSPORN, a witness, came to the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God the Alright and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withheld and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath).\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION HANS KLINGSPORN BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, kindly let us know your full name?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HANS", "JUDGE", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2953, "page_number": "2946", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.My name is Hans Klingsporn.\nQ.Were you a member of the NSDAP?\nA.I was since 1937.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.Since 1944 I was Rangfuehrer of the General SS, and since 1941 a member of the Waffen SS.\nQ.When and in what capacity did you come to VOMI?\nA.In 1940 I was conscripted there and, first of all, I became Einsatzfuehrer of Upper Silesia.\nQ.And later on, were you sent to Berlin?\nA.On 25 January 1940 I was ordered to leave Upper Silesia and to go to Berlin.\nQ.Pardon no, I didn't get the date. What year did you say?\nA. 25 January, 1940.\nQ. 1940..yes. And in what office did you work there with VOMI?\nA.In what was later called Amt*ll, Main Department Camp Administration.\nQ.Who was in charge of this Office 11?\nA.Herr Ellemeier.\nQ.And what was the task, what was the field of duties of this office?\nA.To take care of the camp inmates while they resided in the camps.\nQ.How many maximum camps did VOMI maintain?\nA.Approximately 1,500.\nQ.And were these camps all located within the Reich area, or also outside of the Reich?\nA.The camps were located exclusively within the Reich area, with the exception of three camps; namely Camps Semlin, Barova and Galatz. These were transit camps for the purpose of carrying out the resettlement procedure. When the operation was concluded these camps were again turned ever to the Rumanian and Yugoslavian governments for purposes of their \n own.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2954, "page_number": "2947", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Do you know whether any VOMI camp was maintained in Obvodsk, in the Government General?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you yourself take over any resettlement transports in the camps?\nA.Yes, I did. Approximately 10 such transports, while I was active in Upper Silesia.\nQ.In what kind of transports did these resettlers arrive?\nA.They arrived either in express or \"slow\" trains, and those trains carried freight cars which carried their hand baggage.\nQ.What were the resettlers permitted to carry with them?\nA.They were permitted to carry with them whatever they needed for the journey and for their stay in camp. The bulk of their luggage arrived later on in convoys or in freight trains, or, when Bessarabia the Bukovina and Dobrudza were evacuated, it arrived via a steamer.\nQ.Let me re-state my question. What kind of camps were there? Were they barracks, huts, or were other facilities used for accommodating these resettlers?\nA.These camps were located in hotels, inns, schools, monastaries, empty factories, which were made available for housing people. We also had big camps with huts which were primarily constructed for that purpose.\nQ.Do you know how VOMI procured the equipment required for equipping these camps?\nA.Pursuant to the Reichleistungsgesetz-The Reich procurement law, this was done in lower levels by the Landraete; on central levels by the Oberpraesidenten.\nQ.Did you yourself participate in such conferences with Landraete or Oberpraesidenten in connection with procuring equipment?\nA.Yes; while I was working in Upper Silesia I negotiated with the Landraete Ratibor, of Teschen, of Oderberg and of Bielitz, and they \n assigned equipment to me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2955, "page_number": "2948", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "When I was working in Berlin I participated in conferences in the Reich Ministry of the Interior on the occasion of which several agencies requiring procurement, such as the Wehrmacht, Reich Railroad, the Party, children-to-the-country project, NSV, the Reich Traffic Association, registered their requirements for equipment.\nQWitness, you stated Before that accommodation was procured according to the Reich procurement law, equipment was requisitioned. The Prosecution has submitted Exhibit 623, according to which Himmler was to have issued an authority of 30 December 1939 in favor of VOMI for carrying our seizures. Do you know this authority and as far as you remember, was any use made of this authorization?\nA.When I came to Berlin my immediate superior Altena showed me an order of the Reichsfuehrer according to which VOMI was enabled to seize certain objects for their purposes if this should prove necessary. I don't know whether Altena made use of this in more than three cases. In concluding lease contracts and in asking to have certain objects put at his disposal he was always very generous.\nQ.Witness, you had to deal with camp administration. You surely are informed of details connected with camps?\nA.Yes, I am.\nQ.In what manner were these camps furnished and equipped?\nA.In the hotels the beds of course were available to us but in schools or partly in monastaries or castles, for example, such furniture and equipment was not available and had to be procured. Furthermore, palliarres, covers, kitchen equipment and furniture used for households in general, and later on wardrobes too, were procured for the camp inmates. But the deliveries, unfortunately, were not carried out to their final end due to the end of the war.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2956, "page_number": "2949", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.And what about the medical welfare in these camps?\nA.The medical care in these camps was subordinated to the Reich Medical Chamber, organizations abroad. There were doctors among the resettlers and camp inmates who were available for the purpose. In smaller camps where there were no doctors, medical care was taken over by the local physician or the official physician.\nQ.Were there special staffs made available in the large camps for medical welfare and for maternity wards?\nA.In every camp there was one room made available for patients. In larger camps several rooms were made available for the purpose, and in the barrack camps entire barracks were equipped for that purpose. In such large camps, as I said, physicians were available, trained nurses, kindergartens for children, infant nurses, and other staffs of the German Red Cross were made available. In some of the camps, due to the fact that the hospitals were overcrowded with Germans, we equipped auxiliary wards and hospitals in charge of the Reich Medical Chamber. They equipped them and we operated them.\nQ.Do you know anything of the mortality rate in these camps?\nA.The mortality rate was not above the Reich average with regard to adults. Pursuant to a report of Dr. Manicke of the Reich Medical Chamber I know that the mortality rate of infants amounted to one percent of the Reich average.\nQ.And what food rations did the resettlers receive?\nA.Up to the fall of 1942 the Resettlers received twenty percent higher rations than assigned to the Reich population itself. From the fall of 1942 onwards they received the normal ration as assigned to every Reich German.\nQ.Did resettlers who worked receive additional rations?\nA.Yes, they did, and they were made available to them exclusively.\nQ.And was care taken to see to it that the resettlers had cooking facilities in the camps?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2957, "page_number": "2950", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Yes, that was so in the larger camps. Stoves were erected. When this was not possible the camp stove was made available at certain hours to the resettlers and camp inmates exclusively.\nQ.And in preparing food, was any consideration made for the customs they were accustomed to?\nA.There may have been some difficulties at the start, but later on, when the desires of the resettlers became known, consideration was made for these national customs. In the kitchen there were women employed who were members of the resettlers' groups.\nQ.Was care taken to see to it that families were left together in accommodating them?\nA.Yes, of course that was the case.\nQ.What about the religion of the resettlers. Was consideration paid to that?\nA.Yes, there was.\nQ.Were the resettlers able to participate in religious services?\nA.Yes, of course.\nQ.Were the resettlers able to move freely in the camp and outside of the camp?\nA.Yes. The camps were not surrounded by barbed wire nor were they guarded. The resettlers were free to move around as though they lived in a hotel.\nQ.And were camp inmates used for work?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they themselves desire to work?\nA.The resettlers did desire to work, the largest part of them, because they were tired of the monotony of sitting around in camps, and they sought some occupation and contact with the Reich Germans.\nQ.Do you know that only gradually labor allocation of resettlers was permitted and that Himmler was anxious that resettlers participate in temporary labor allocation only so that, at any time, irres \n pective of any labor tasks they had, it was possible to assign them to resettlement tasks?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2958, "page_number": "2951", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.During their stay in VOMI camps, all labor allocation was temporary by nature so that, as you yourself stated, people were available in tine for resettlement purposes. Temporary labor allocation was on a voluntary basis. Whoever did not wish to work did not have to work. I do not recall that at any time the wish was expressed not to work.\nQ.Witness, what agencies were involved in labor allocation?\nA.This was done by the local labor offices.\nQ.And did the labor offices just receive a communication from their VOMI camp commandant as to how many resettlers happened to be in the camp?\nA.Usually the procedure was as follows. After the resettlers had arrived the respective deputy of the labor office appeared in their camp itself and discussed labor allocation with the people. On that occasion consideration was taken for the physical condition of the workers under all circumstances, and consideration was also taken for the vocational qualifications of the people concerned. The latter as well as could be done. Thus it happened that resettlers stayed away from their carp not only for days but for almost weeks, assigned to work outside the camp.\nQ.And did those resettlers who worked have to pay for their accommodation and their feeding in the camp:\nA.The working part of the camp inmates, as far as I know, had to pay 1 mark 30 per day. That was all.\nQ.And what did the resettlers receive who did not work?\nA.They received \"pocket money.\"\nQ.And how much did that amount to?\nA.I am not sure about that; it depended, on the number of persons in the family and of the number of children.\nQ.And what was done in the way of clothing for the resettlers?\nA.The resettlers first of all received clothing ration coupons.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2959, "page_number": "2952", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Such objects which could not be obtained on the basis of clothing cards were compensated for by special certificates which were issued. Apart from that, I also know that the NSV made collections of textiles, and from this collection garments were also issued, but this was by no means adequate. There were particular difficulties in the way of clothing for children. In several localities the women's organization endeavored to meet these requirements, but of course this was not sufficient, by any means.\nQ.And was anything done in the way of cultural inclinations and sport activities?\nA.Yes, there were theater groups, singing groups, and movies which came into the camp. Every camp had its own library. Beyond that there were sport equipment and sport facilities. Everything possible was done which would serve to facilitate the stay of the resettlers in the camp.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2960, "page_number": "2953", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Now, what was done by Vomi to supervise the camp staff?\nA.Besides the agency in Berlin and the camp--there was a gau agency which stood between Berlin and the original camp administration. The Gaueinsatzfuehrung had to supervise the camp management and had to assign them to their work. Beyond that im my agency in Berlin I was in charge of the camp inspectorate which consisted of five members of the staff, and pursuant to complains or claims raised it was their duty to intervene immediately and listen to the complaints of the resettlers and do their best to alleviate conditions.\nQ.Hans Klingsporn, were measures taken against such members of the camp staff who did not fulfill their duties?\nA.Yes. Action was taken against them--The camp leaders, camp fuehrer who utilized food destined for the camp inmates or who approached women in an indecent manner were hold responsible for their actions and were punished and very severely so. I remember several cases in which the camp fuehrer had to serve several years in prison for stealing one pound of butter.\nQ.Witness, you described a certain number of principles --pursuant to which these camps of the Vomi were administered --did these terms and conditions also apply to such persons who did not belong to the category of actual resettlers, for example, Slovenes, Luxembourgians, or Lorrainians?\nA.Those principles applied to all camp Inmates.\nQ.Witness, maybe one further fact could be clarified. In the course of the war labor conscription was introduced for everyone in the Reich, meaning work conscription, thereby the duty to work was also introduced, for example, for inmates, is that right?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2961, "page_number": "2954", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Yes, it is, but this did not apply to resettlers. No conscription to labor was permissible as long as the camp inmates were in the camps--were located in the camps. If in one or the other case work assignment were pronounced by the camp leader who was in camp, then this was only in favor and for the security of the resettler himself because his place of employment was already assured to him. He was sure that he would be discharged from the camp, and only one more problem had to be solved for him, namely, that his furniture and that his rooming equipment had not been altogether procured for him. Therefore, to help the resettler and to secure the place of work, this conscription was handed over to him while he was still in camp.\nQ.Did vomi have to arrange for measures to repatriate and reGermanize people?\nA.No.\nQ.The prosecution has introduced Exhibit 44, the draft of a service regulation for the so-called EWZ, imigration center, and in this service regulation, on page 16 collaboration with Vomi, is laid down as being of imperative necessity. Have you anything to say in amendment or in rectification of the answer you just made in this point?\nA.I don't remember such a document.\nQ.In any case, if I understood you correctly, Vomi did not carry out any tasks in the way of bestowing German citizenship?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Vomi have anything to do with racial examinations or did it undertake any preliminary work thereto?\nA.No.\nQ.The prosecution has introduced a document as Exhibit Number 53 which is a report of the SS Obersturmfuehrer Harder of RUSHa, according to which Vomi by carrying out racial \n COURT I CASE VIII examinations by RuSHA had to determine the racial grading of Slovenes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2962, "page_number": "2955", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Was that done?\nA.No. As far as I know, there was no ethnic group in Slovenia.\nQ.Do you know whether Vomi at first refused to accept Slovenes into Vomi camps?\nA.Yes. When it became acutely necessary to take over Slovenes in the camps, Dr. Behrens refused to accept these people because these were not ethnic Germans, and our camps were only destined to accommodate ethnic Germans.\nQ.And did this refusal have any success?\nA.There was no result. We had to take these people in.\nQ.Do you know where Lorenz was when Himmler's order came to take in these Slovene groups?\nA.As far as I remember, he must have been in Graz where he was recovering from an accident he sustained.\nQ.Was that an automobile accident?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether Vomi had any part in the evacuation of the Slovenes?\nA.No, I don't. No. It took no part.\nQ.Do you know whether in St. Veit and Fronleitern Vomi maintained camps for taking in Slovenes?\nA.I don't know these two names that you just mentioned. There were a thousand and five hundred camps and I just can't remember each individual name.\nQ.Where did Vomi take the evacuated Slovene groups into its camps?\nA.In the camps or at such railroad junctions in the respective allocation area from where the individual trains were conducted to such places where camps were maintained.\nQ.That was in the Reich?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2963, "page_number": "2956", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Witness, do you know of any order of Himmler issued to Vomi, according to which the escape of Slovenes from a camp was to be reported to the Gestapo and all men who knew of such an escape and had abetted it had to be hanged in the camp?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What details do you know in this respect?\nA.On the occasion of an official conference, Dr. Behrens showed me this order and he retained the order telling me that this order would not be issued because, and that is the way he spoke, these are Gestapo manners with which Vomi will have nothing in common. As far as I remember, on the occasion of one of his next visits to the Reichfuehrer he was going to comment on that order.\nQ.Therefore, you do know that the Vomi central office did not pass on this order?\nA.No, it did not.\nQ.The prosecution under Exhibit 319 has introduced a document according to which the Gau allocation agency in Bayreuth apparantly had such an order. Can you offer any explanation of this fact.\nA.Then this order must have been received from some other agency.\nQ.Are you sure that Vomi Berlin did not-pass on such an order?\nA.I am sure of that.\nQ.Witness, do you know of any case in which a Slovene escaped from a Vomi camp or his accomplices--that a Slovene or any accomplices of his had been hanged in camp. Did you know such an incident of escape?\nA.No, Nobody was hanged in a camp.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2964, "page_number": "2957", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 12 December 1947.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Dr. Durchholz for the defendant, Huebner. Your Honor, at this time I would like to voice a request. I request that the defendant, Huebner, be excused from attending tomorrow morning's session so that I will be able to prepare his document books which I intend to submit to the Tribunal in the near future.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your request is granted.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ :Thank you, Your Honor.\nHANS KLINGSPORN - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ.Witness, before the recess we discussed the Slovene order and you told me that you did not know of any case that a Slovene or anybody else had been hanged in a VOMI camp. Do you know of any case where the family and relatives of a Slovene were sent to a concentration camp?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know of any case where a Slovene escaped?\nA.The word \"escape\" is a poor choice. Our camps were quite open. The people could enter the camps and they could leave whenever they wanted to, so that the word \"escape\" is not quite appropriate here. After all, a person can only escape from an area which is surrounded and enclosed like an internment camp. It is true that people and especially Slovenes in very few cases left the camp and they failed to return.\nQ.Witness, I am now going to put to you Proseuction Document Exhibit 394. This is a letter from the higher SS and police leader, \n Alpenland, to the VOMI at Berlin of the 15th of September 1942.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DURCHHOLZ ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2965, "page_number": "2958", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Do you know this letter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this letter a man by the name of Zyriack is mentioned. He is mentioned by VOMI, in connection with Klagenfurt. Who was this man, Zyriack, was he a party member?\nA.Zyriack was an employee of the Einsatz leadership in Klagenfurt on the one hand, and on the other hand, he was a representative of Mayer-Keiwitsch.\nQ.Who was Meyer-Keiwitsch?\nA.Mayer-Keiwitsch worked for the Gau administration at Klagenfurt. What special tasks he had to take care of, I don't know.\nQ.Therefore, he occupied a duel position?\nA.Yes,\nQ.Do you know whether Zyrick acted upon orders from VOMI or independently in this matter?\nA.In this matter he could not have acted by orders of VOMI because the instructions and directives which Zyriack received, as far as VOMI was concerned, only dealt with the treatment and care of the camp inmates.\nQ.In this letter, Witness, Slovene children are mentioned. In this letter from this higher SS police leader a certain conference with VOMI is also mentioned. Did this conference which was supposed to have taken place at Wilnes ever carried out?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know that positively?\nA.Yes, After all, either Altena or I myself would have had to attend this conference. If neither Altena nor I went there, this conference can not have taken place.\nQ.What was done with these Slovene children in the VOMI camps?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2966, "page_number": "2959", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.They were treated just like the children of the resettlers. No difference was made with regard to their treatment in the camps since those children had been accommodated in a children's camp. Special care was taken so that the needs of these children would be met.\nQ.Did the VOMI carry out any Germanization measures on these children?\nA.No.\nQ.Were these children prohibited from speaking their mother language?\nA.No.\nQ.Were they taught in their mother language?\nA.They were taught by teachers of their own group and consequently they spoke thir mother language in school. However, it is true that as far as this was necessary, they also received lectures in the German language.\nQ.Did VOMI take any steps in order to find out the whereabouts of the families of these children in order to bring these children back to their families?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And in what way was this done?\nA.In the camps we made inquiries as to the childrens relatives. In the central card index file which was located in my agency we also looked for families and relatives of these children and we also advertised in our camp newspapers. In several cases our inquiries were successfully. I believe that I can recall that from the district of Beyreuth a transport of several children was sent to the Camp Rote-Klippe where they joined their relatives. This camp was located in the central committment area.\nQ. what was finally done with these children?\nA. what children are you referring to, those in the camps or those children who had joined their families?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2967, "page_number": "2960", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.I am referring to the children who remained in the camps.\nA.These children were to be placed at the disposal of the Lebensborn.\nQ.Was this done?\nA.No, only to a very small extent did the Lebensborn relieve us of some children.\nQ.Witness, you know that in the VOMI camps there were not only resettlers but also deportees. In what manner could these resettlers who were in VOMI camps represent their own interests?\nA.There was an order in effect stating that the people who were in the camps could elect a spokesman, a male spokesman and a female spokesman, in a democratic manner and the camp administration did not have any influence on this election of a spokesman. This was not only done with regard to the resettlers but this applied to all people who were in VOMI camps.\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution has alleged here that the incoming and outgoing mail for Luxemburgians was censored in one camp. Did the VOMI ever issue a general order to that effect, that the mail was to be censored?\nA.No.\nQ.What do you think of the possibility of such a mail censorship in the VOMI camps?\nA.A mail censorship would only have been illusional because, as I have stated before, the camps were open after all and the people could move about freely outside the camp and consequently they could have mailed their letters and other correspondence right in the outside, in the villages and towns, wherever they wanted to or they could use a cover address. Consequently, mail censorship would, have been completely illusional.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2968, "page_number": "2961", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Do you know, Witness, that on some occasion or other a Luxembourg citizen was sent to a concentration camp because he had circumvented this mail censorship order?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you believe that something of that sort would have been bound to come to your knowledge?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know anything about a restriction on receiving parcels which was imposed on the Luxembourgian deportees in the VOMI camps?\nA.In Silesia, we had some difficulties. The camp inmates received a large number of packages containing food. The recipients of those packages of course did not touch the food which had been prepared for them in the Kitchen. As a result of this, the kitchen and the administration were confronted by great difficulties. Then the Einsatzfuehrung in Lower Silesia, on its own initiative, issued a decree stating that the food from these packages was to be placed at the disposal of the entire camp and that it had to be turned in to the kitchen. The complaints of the deportees which reached my desk were investigated and these instructions from the Einsatzfuehrung in Lower Silesia were immediately rescinded. Consequently the parcels were handed over to the deportees without being opened.\nQ.From your answer, Witness, I deduce that complaints of Luxemburgians reached your desk immediately and directly, is that correct?\nA.Yes. Every person who was in the camp had the right to complain about the administration of the camp without adhering to the prescribed official channels. They could turn directly to the Einsatzfuehrung or they could turn directly to us at Berlin, which was done in many cases.\nQ.Did this decree of Gaueinsetzfuehrung in Lower \n Silesia, also refer to the camps at Kloster Neuberg and Boberstein?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2969, "page_number": "2962", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.I can't say that for certain. I assume so.\nQ.Did you ever inspect a camp which contained Luxemburgians?\nA.Yes, I visited the camp at Boberstein.\nQ.That observations did you make on that occasion?\nA.The camp was located in a large number of buildings and it was furnished in accordance with prevailing conditions and at the time I came there a large number of people had just arrived in a transport from another. In the camp itself there was a tailorshop of a private firm where the Luxemburgian women were working and they were just showing clothing which they had manufactured to a foreign purchaser.\nQ.On the occasion of your visit to Boberstein, did the Luxemburgians, the deportees, voice any serious complaints to you?\nA.I cannot recall that at all. I certainly would be able to remember it if that had been the case.\nQ.Witness, I am not going to hand you Prosecution Exhibit 707. This is a file note from you of the 10 February 1943. It deals with the treatment of deportees from Upper Camiola. Does this refer to the Slovenes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this file note it is mentioned that the deported Slovenes are to be given some work under guard where they were to work as a group. Was this order issued by VOMI?\nA.No. This order was issued by the special plenipotentiary for the deportees from Lower Styria. This was Herr Hinze.\nQ.Were the Slovenes given work on an individual basis?\nA.They were only placed in jobs on an individual \n basis and they were never sent to work as a group.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2970, "page_number": "2963", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.In the camps did the Race and Settlement Main Office carry out a racial selection and examination of the Slovenes?\nA.I cannot quite recall the matter. However, I believe that already previously an examination had taken place.\nQ.You told us before, Witness, that the VOMI had nothing to do with Germanization measures. Now, in the file note, what brings you to make the statement that \"people who are not eligible for Germanization -- how do you explain that these people who were not eligible for Germanization were sent into the camps?\nA.After all, we had almost all Slovenes in our camps. There were people who were eligible for Germanization and those who were not.\nQ.You therefore maintain your statement that the question of eligibility for Germanization was not the task of the VOMI?\nA.Yes, I maintain that.\nQ.In the file note you also mention the fact that the Slovenes who were not eligible for Germanization are to be subjected to another racial examination. For what reasons did you state that in the file note?\nA.I signed this file note, but I did not work it out myself. It was worked out by Herr See. I know that Herr Sec informed me of the for that in the Einsatzfuehrung different opinions are given and categories were developed there with regard to the eligibility of people to become Germanized in order to get these people out of our camps as quickly as possible; we did everything in order to bring about the release of these people for that reason.\nQ.I don't know whether I understood your answer correctly. Is it correct that this additional racial exami \n nation which you mention in the file note was carried out on the Slovenes who were not considered to be eligible for Germanization in order to try to get them into a better category and in order to get them out of the camps?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2971, "page_number": "2964", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Did I understand you correctly?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was this racial examination supposed to be carried out by VOMI?\nA.No.\nQ.In the file note, you also state, Witness, that the Slovenes who are not eligible for Germanization are to be placed at the disposal of the RSHA, the Reich Security Main Office. How do you explain that?\nA.How Herr See made this suggestion, I don't know. I don't know why he did that. However, nobody was placed at the disposal of the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.Witness, as Exhibit 691, the Prosecution has submitted a file note about a conference in the Main Staff Office which dealt with deportations in Lorraine. I am now going to hand you this file note and I ask you to comment on it. What did the VOMI have to do with the people from Lorraine?\nA.It only had to care for these people in the camps.\nQ.For what reason did you say, in this file note, something with regard to the settlement of people from Lorraine? Did the VOMI have to do anything with that?\nA.No, the settler of the Lorrainians was the task of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.\nQ.And why was this file note compiled?\nA.Because I had attended the conference and this was only done in order to inform my superior of what had been discussed at the conference. VOMI had to accept these people and that is why my superiors had to be informed of the matter.\nQ.Do you know, Witness, whether VOMI had a camp \n where American prisoners of war were located?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2972, "page_number": "2965", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.No, we didn't have a camp with prisoners of war.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2973, "page_number": "2966", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.I am now going to hand to you Prosecution Exhibit710. This is a letter from Creutz to the VOMI. Here a children's drive has been mentioned and it deals -- particularly with Slovene children. What can you tell us in that connection?\nA.The letter has been signed by Dr. Creutz, but it does not concern him. The letter was dictated by Dr. Kollwitz and it deals with a department of Herr Hinze for the deportations in Lower Styria and Upper Camiola. And it only stands in connection with the letter which you have submitted before.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, these children were finally accepted in VOMI camps?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Prosecution Exhibit507is a letter of the Higher SS police Leader in Upper Silesia and here it has been stated that VOMI was to establish five camps where anti-social or criminal elements were to be placed for forced labor. Do you know anything about that?\nA.The settlement in Upper Silesia came to a standstill because there was no space anymore where we could accept the anti-social Poles who were to be deported. The settlement staff therefore requested VOMI to place these anti-social Poles into VOMI camps. However, Dr. Behrens opposed this measure and refused to carry it out. Then between the Higher SS Police Leader and Dr. Behrens, an agreement was reached that VOMI was to clear camps and put them at the disposal of the Higher SS Police Leader and Dr. Behrens, an agreement was reached that VOMI was to clear camps and put that at the disposal of the Higher SS Police Leader. It was intended, however, thatthese camps should be prepared in order to accommodate anti-social Poles. Up to the time when the Poles arrived in these camps, the camp leader whom we had sent there was in the camp so that other agencies would not be able to touch these camps.\nQ.Do I understand you correctly that the VOMI did not have any anti-social or criminal Poles in its camps?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2974, "page_number": "2967", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.No, we never had.\nQ.Prosecution Exhibit790, is a letter from the Gauleiter of Upper Silesia to the defendant Greifelt. An agreement with the VOMI is mentioned here according to which people who have refused to be resettled are to be taken to a camp at Aztorn, Upper Silesia, and in part they are to be sent to a concentration camp and some of them are to be deported to Germany proper. Do you know anything about that?\nA.I knew that Dr. Arlt on one occasion visited our agency at Berlin and requested that VOMI should exert some pressure on the people who refused to settle and who wanted to return to Roumania. VOMI was to take some punitive action in those cases. However, we refused to do so because the people had behaved decently during their stay in the camps.\nQ.From Prosecution Exhibits 234 and 235 it becomes evident that resettlers from Lithuania who wanted to return to Lithuania had to fulfill certain formalities and that VOMI also carried out certain functions in this respect. Do you know anything about that?\nA.During the deportation drive in Lithuania, Lithuanians also came to Germany with the ethnic Germans. They were Lithuanians and not ethnic Germans and the representative of VOMI for the deportation drive in Lithuania had brought them over at his own risk in order to protect them from Bolshevism. After Lithuania had been cleared of Communists there people requested permission to return to Lithuania. We complied with their desires and we only had to pass on the decision to these people because after all they were still staying in our camps.\nQ.If I understood you correctly then, these people first of all, by way of resettlement , had expressed the wish to go to Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And now that Lithuania had been occupied by German troops they wanted to return there?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2975, "page_number": "2968", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Therefore, this is a certain contradiction to what you said before?\nA.Yes. The reasons which they stated for going to Germany were usually different from the reasons for which they actually came.\nQ.Witness, in your answer a while age you used the word \"deportation,\" twice in connection with Lithuania?\nA.I must correct myself there. I should say \"resettlement\" in this connection.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit236, a commission has been mentioned to which the Kreiseinsatzfuehrer of VOMI belonged, and that carried out a political examination of refugees from Estonia and Latvia. Do you know anything about that?\nA.The commissions were under the supervision of Herr Hinze. Resettlers from Latvia and Estonia also belonged to these commissions. They had to see to it that the people who had fled before the Russians and who had joined the subsequent resettlement in that way would not obtain the rights and privileges of resettlers. This group of persons is what we commonly know today as \"DP's\" .\nQ.And under whose jurisdiction was Hinze?\nA.I cannot say that with certainty. I don't know whether in that matter he was subordinated to the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Do you know anything about the resettlement of anti-social elements in Slovakia, which is dealt with in Prosecution Exhibit286?\nA.As a result of negotiations which took place between the German ethnic group in Slovakia and the Slovakian Government , anti-social people who belonged to the German minority group -- like habitual criminals, drunkards, prostitutes, and so on -- were resettled to Germany on a voluntary basis and they were given the rights and privileges of resettlers. In this connection the Slovakian Government also wanted to resettle Slovakian anti-social elements. However, we refused to do that.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, the Slovakian Government was \n interested in this question?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2976, "page_number": "2969", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.In Prosecution Exhibit366, a certain man by the name of Riemer, from the main office of VOMI, recommends the conscription of a man by the name of Benetzit who was only fifty percent German. Do you know anything about this incident?\nA.The name \"Riemer\" is not correct. The man's name is Richter. As a result of a decree from the OKW and an order issued by the Ministry for the East and directives issued by the Main Staff Office, such people could be conscripted for service in the Wehrmacht. The Reich Ministry of the Interior, in the year 1944, ordered that also stateless persons could be conscripted for military service.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, Witness. Your Honors, I have no further questions. BY DR. DOETZER (for the defendant Brueckner):\nQ.Witness, in the examination by my colleague Dr. Schubert, you just mentioned the fact that the commissioner for the resettlement in Lithuania also resettled some Lithuanians -- that is to say people who were not ethnic Germans, -- whose lives were endangered by Bolshevism; andyou said that he did that at his own risk. Who was the commissioner who did that?\nA.That was Brueckner.\nQ.Since when have you known Brueckner?\nA.I have known him since 1940 or 1941, during the resettlement drive in Lithuania. At that time we had discussions about the care to be given resettlers from Lithuania in our camps.\nQ.At the time, did Brueckner occupy an independent position within the VOMI?\nA.No, he was subordinated to Hoffmeier.\nQ.And to whom was Hoffmeier subordinated?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2977, "page_number": "2970", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Hoffmeier was subordinated to Behrens.\nQ.And to whom was Behrens subordinated, in turn?\nA.Behrens was subordinated to Lorenz.\nQ.What position did Brueckner occupy subsequently , that is to say after the resettlement drive from Lithuania had been completed?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2978, "page_number": "2971", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AIn 1941 and 1942, he was a collaborator of Dr. Behrens, and in 1943 he became head of Office VI.\nQWhen he was the collaborator of Behrens, was he one of many or was he the only collaborator of Behrens? Did he occupy an independent position in that respect?\nAHe was one of many and he did not occupy an independent position.\nQDid he have to comply with Behrens! orders?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether these orders went into all the details or whether these were just fundamental and general directives?\nAThey were general and fundamental directives.\nQWitness, was the defendant Brueckner the liaison man of VOMI to other agencies, especially to the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAWe didn't have any liaison man there at all.\nQAs head of Office VI, was Brueckner an office chief within the SS?\nANo. After all, we were not an SS Main Office.\nQHe was not an office chief in the SS?\nANo.\nQAs head of Office VI, could Brueckner have any influence on or the right to issue instructions to the VOMI camps?\nANo.\nQDid Brueckner have any insight into what happened in the VOMI camps?\nANo.\nQWas there any collaboration between Brueckner or his Office VI and Office XI; that is to say, the office of the VOMI which was in charge of the VOMI camps.\nAThere was no regular collaboration; occasionally, some collaborartion took place.\nQWhy do you assume that there was no regular collaboration?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2979, "page_number": "2972", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AThe fields of work were too far away from each other. We had to occupy ourselves with the resettlers in our camps while he had to deal with the ethnic Germans who were outside of the camps in the Reich.\nQDid Brueckner have anything to do with the labor allocation of resettlers or deportees who were in VOMI camps?\nANo.\nQDid Brueckner have anything to do with the deportees from Alsace Lorraine and Luxembourg who were in the camps?\nANo.\nQDid you ever see a directive of decree from Brueckner ordering how such deportees were to be treated in the camps?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether the defendant Brueckner recommended the deportation of the Alsacians, the Lorrainians, the Luxembourgians and the Slovenes - whether he carried then out or whether he played any part in that?\nANo, he did not.\nQHow do you know that he didn't play any part in that in any way?\nAThe Commissioner for the deportations from Upper Camiola and Lower Styria was Herr Hinze, and in the matter of the West he showed me a file note which indicated that this matter was handled by the chief of the civil administration. Consequently, Brueckner had nothing whatsoever to do with it.\nQ On one occasion did you discuss these deportations with Brueckner when their execution became known and what was Brueckner's attitude on the subject if he discussed the matter with you at all?\nAWe discussed the matter very frequently, either in the antechamber of his office or at his home, and he was opposed to these measures.\nQDo you know whether Brueckner as a result of his opposition to these measures had difficulties, especially through the Reich Security \n Main Office - the RSHA?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2980, "page_number": "2973", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AYes.\nQWhat do you know about that?\nAToward the end of 1943 or in the beginning of 1944, it was quite general knowledge within the office that Brueckner was considered to be politically unreliable and intolerable in his position which he occupied, as far as the Reich Security Main Office was concerned.\nQI am now coming to something else. Were the questions which referred to the deported Slovenes handled by Brueckner or your office?\nAThey were dealt with by Office XI.\nQDo you know whether Brueckner, however, in the end, in spite of everything, was included in the Slovene question, or whether he did this voluntarily, or whether he had to play this part by orders of other persons?\nAI understand your question to refer to the file note which I addressed to Brueckner. This was done by order of Behrens. Brueckner had to see to it that the preliminary work in this respect was done.\nQWhat was Brueckner to achieve with this matter and why did Behrens include him in this matter at all?\nAWhy Brueckner received this particular order can be explained by the fact that he was one of Behrens' collaborators. Why this task was given to him in particular can only be explained by the fact that this was done in order to get the Slovenes out of the camps as quickly as possible.\nQTherefore if I understand you correctly, through Brueckner, help was to be given to the Slovenes?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether the help which Brueckner was to give in this respect showed success?\nAYes. Subsequently, we received directives from the Main Staff \n Office that Slovenes were to be placed on an equal basis with the resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2981, "page_number": "2974", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Consequently, they received the same rights as the resettlers. They were released from the caps and a part of them even was able to return to the area from which they had been deported.\nQBesides this position in which he gave help to these people, did he have anything else to do with the measures in regard to the Slovenes who were in the camps?\nAWhat was to be done with the Slovenes in the camps was exclusively the task of Office XI.\nQWitness, are you acquainted with the resettlement drives southeast?\nAAre you referring to the people who were fleeing from the Bolshevists?\nQWas there any other resettlement in the southeast?\nAOutside of the Dobrutscha, Bukowina and Bessarabia, there was none.\nQHowever, the last ones which you mentioned were resettlements which were carried out by treaties?\nAYes.\nQIn your opinion, were the ethnic Germans from the southeast resettled by force or were they fleeing from Bolshevism?\nAThey were fleeing from Bolshevism. No force was exerted on these people at all.\nQDid Brueckner recommend or direct the organization which was used in order to repatriate these Germans from the southeast?\nANo.\nQWhat did Brueckner have to do in this entire matter pertaining to the Germans from the southeast?\nAThe ethnic Germans were to be accepted in our camps. The number of ethnic Germans who were fleeing was much higher than we were able to accommodate in our camps. Consequently, it became necessary that \n other agencies also looked after the accommodations for these ethnic Germans, and that is why Brueckner was included with the agencies of the comradeship work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2982, "page_number": "2975", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "I can remember quite dimly that he established some financial institution so that some financial support could be given to these refugees. Thanks to his initiative, the League for the Germans Abroad - the VDA - furnished household goods for these families and baby clothing. However, a short time later, many other people also joined this flight like the Rumanians and the Hungarians, who were strictly of Hungarian and Rumanian descent. The capacity of the camps had already been filled, and when people began to flee from Austria, other agencies had to help us and the whole matter was then handled by government agencies.\nQIf I understood you correctly, Brueckner therefore was in charge of a great big welfare action for the Germans from the southeast who fled from the Russians?\nAYes.\nQWitness, in the cross examination of the defendant Brueckner, the Prosecution had submitted a document,NO-5550. I am now going to hand you this document, and I ask you to take a look at it and comment on it.\n(Witness is offered the document)\nHave you finished reading this document?\nAYes.\nQPlease answer the following questions for me: Has the date on this letter been filled in or not?\nAIt has not.\nQIs this letter signed or is it not signed?\nANo, it is not.\nQDo you know to what matter this letter refers?\nAYes. Gauleiter Simon deported the group of persons mentioned in this letter and these people were sent into our camps, and as it becomes \n evident from the contents of this letter, they remained in the camps for a long time and they were temporarily assigned for work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2983, "page_number": "2976", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "It also becomes evident from this letter that they were placed for work in armament plants in the Sudetenland and in Silesia. Now, the Gauleiter wanted to have these people back and he wanted them to work in enterprises which were subsidiary firms in the districts of Altenkirchen and Neuried, on the right bank of the Rhine. The Higher SS and Police Leader and above all the armamanent industry through General Field Marshal Milch wanted to have these people kept in Silesia, and they did not want to bring these people to the right bank of the Rhine.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2984, "page_number": "2977", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "In order to help the Luxembourgians to whom this latter refers -in order to help those people to get back to their old homeland, or at least in the vicinity of their old home country -- the VOMI turned to the Main Staff Office with a request that Himmler should agree that these people should be sent to the right bank of the Rhino.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, the Luxembourgians were to be given a new place of work with subsidiary companies of purely Luxembourg-owned plants near Luxembourg?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, as far as you can recall, was only this one letter written in this matter which does not have any date or signature, or was there a lot of correspondence in that matter which was handled by VOMI?\nA.There was only the letter which has been referred to here which came from Gauleiter Simon.\nQ.Besides the letter which you have here which does not have a date and signature, there must also be a letter from Gauleiter Simon in existence?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you. Witness, I am now going to hand to you a document, a photostatic copy ofNO-5652, which the Prosecution also introduced in the course of Brueckner's cross examination. Please take a look at it.\n( Witness offered the document.)\nHave you finished reading the document, witness?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you receive this letter for your acknowledgement?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What does it pertain to?\nA.Ethnic Germans from France were to be resettled in Germany. and Altena was to prepare a camp for them. Later on, I heard that the \n EWZ in France had naturalized these people and screened them and that these people were sent into the Reich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2985, "page_number": "2978", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Of the entire group of persons one single person came into our camps. She was sent there because at Berlin where she had been sent from France she was unable to find any accommodations. That is why this woman came to see me personally, and I sent this woman to the camp which was nearest to Berlin, which was Rodensluch.\nQ.What did Brueckner have to do with these resettlement drives in France?\nA.I know nothing about it.\nQ.Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. ORTH (For the defendant Viermetz):\nQ.Witness, my colleague, Dr. Schubert, has shown you the letter from Obersturmbannfuehrer Obersteiner. This is Document NO3019. It deals with the transfer of children from Lower Styria and Upper Camiola to Germany proper. Do you recall the matter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you deal with this matter?\nA.My collaborator See worked on the matter independently.\nQ.Did you discuss this letter with your department head?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the course of your examination by my colleague Dr. Schubert, you have stated that the discussion which was suggested in this letter never took place, Do you know whether because of these children, another conference took place?\nA.A discussion took place at Berlin in the Main Office of the NSV.\nQ.Do you know whether the Lobensborn occupied itself with these children from the southeast at all?\nA.Well, first of all I know that through a letter from Obersteiner, and on the other hand, through the letter which was put \n to me before, which was signed by Dr. Creutz, and then it also becomes evident from orders which Hinze discussed with me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2986, "page_number": "2979", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Do you know what was done with these children subsequently?\nA.The children were placed in our camps and they were to be truned over to the Lebensborn.\nQ.Did the children from Upper Camiola arrive at the same time as the children from Lower Styria?\nA.No, there was an interval of several months. The children from Lower Styria had arrived previously.\nQ.When did the children arrive in the VOMI camps---the children who came from Upper Camiola?\nA.That must have been in the fall of 1942 -- it may have been in September or October.\nQ.Into what camps were the children from Upper Camiola placed?\nA.They were sent to the camps under the jurisdiction of the Einsatzfuehrung in southern Germany. I know that they were placed in the camps in the Gau of Bayreuth, in the Gau of Baden, and I believe that some of them were also placed near Munich.\nQ.Who assigned these children to VOMI camps?\nA.The Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.Were the members of the families of these children also in camps?\nA.We had families with the children and we also had children without family ties in our camps.\nQ.What children were considered to be without family ties?\nA.Children who had neither a father nor a mother, nor any other relatives; consequently, they did not have any family ties.\nQ.Were these children without family ties to be taken over by the Lebensborn?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2987, "page_number": "2980", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Because of these children without family ties, did any difficulties arise between the VOMI and the Lebensborn?\nA.We had a lot of correspondence and we wanted these children to be taken away from us, but we did not receive any satisfactory answers from the Lebensborn, so that it seemed to us as if the Lebensborn was not interested in these children.\nQ.And what were the results of this correspondence?\nA.In the course of this correspondence, our style naturally became more and more severe and aggressive. I had to tell my collaborator See to control himself in these letters, because a short time before I found out that Himmler had ordered some disciplinary action, because in some correspondence with some other agency I had used a very bad style. If it had not been for Herr Lorenz, I would have finally ended up in a concentration camp.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2988, "page_number": "2981", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court I Court VIII\nQDid the Lebensborn put up certain conditions for taking over of these children?\nAAs the result of the correspondence from discussions that took place in my agency, in which two ladies from the Lebensborn participated, at that time, it was mentioned that the Lebensborn could not find foster-parents for these children, and didn't have suitable accommodations, and above all the necessary material was lacking.\nQWhat material was lacking?\nAWell, there was no birth certificates, or death certificates of the parents, or marriage certificates of the parents, and the birth certificate of the children.\nQDid the Lebensborn demand this material?\nAYes.\nQDid the VOMI try to obtain this material?\nAYes. We engaged in a lot of correspondence with the chief of the Civil Administration at Felvis.\nQWere you successful in your attempts?\nAOnly in very limited individual cases.\nQDo you know anything about the fact that the Lebensborn finally took children without family ties from upper Carmiola to foster homes?\nAI can recall that approximately fifteen to twenty children were placed in foster homes by the Lebensborn. I know, however, that the NSV at Munich placed a much greater number of children in foster homes.\nQWhy didn't the Lebensborn place more children in these foster homes?\nAThey didn't want to do this because the material was lacking, and they didn't seem to be very interested in these children.\nQFor what reason do you conclude that the Lebensborn was not very interested in these children?\nAI can assume that from the discussion which I had with Frau Viermetz in Berlin.\nQWhat did Frau Viermetz tell you in the course of this discussion?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2989, "page_number": "2982", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court I Court VIII\nAShe told me that the material was lacking in the foster homes, and she further told me that the Lebensborn was not interested in children who had not been born in the homes of the Lebensborn. I told her that I myself was a member of the SS and a member of the Lebensborn and since I was married without any children I wanted to adopt a child myself. Frau Viermetz told me to address the NSV in this matter, and I could not understand that. When I made an inquiry about it, I was informed that the children who had been born in homes of the Lebensborn were to be turned over to their mothers, and they were not suitable for adoption purposes.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. KLINNERT:Dr. Klinnert for the defendant Schwarzenberger. BY DR. KLINNERT:\nQWitness, I only want to ask you two or three questions. Who in the VOMI carried out the administrative business for the Reich Commissar?\nAThat was done by Herr Hagen.\nQWhen this administrative business was taken care of did Schwarzenberger appear there in any way?\nAI only saw his name on some circulars.\nQDid you yourself see Schwarzenberger at the VOMI? If so, how many times did you see him altogether?\nAI never saw him.\nDR. KLINNERT:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, on direct examination you stanted that from 1942 on the resettlers in the VOMI camps got the same rations as the Germans. Was that true of the Slovenes, and other people forcibly evacuated who had been classified as not suitable for Germanization?\nAIn all the camps the same food and the same rations were issued.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. KLINNERT", "DR. ORTH", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2990, "page_number": "2983", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "QWitness, if you can answer the question by a yes or no, please do so. It takes much less time. Witness, did you ever ask these people whom I have just mentioned as being classified as not suitable for Germanization, did you ever ask them to volunteer for work?\nAThey were asked in the same way as all the others.\nQWitness, how were they asked to volunteer for work? Were they told to report, or were they asked if they wished to work?\nAI was not present when the Labor Offices tried to get workers. I only knew that this labor allocation was on a voluntary and temporary basis. I know that in the camps of Muenchberg, Sternberg and Templin, they were asked if they wanted to volunteer for work.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of anyone refusing to work?\nANo.\nQWitness, how did the VOMI maintain discipline in these camps of the people who were considered not suitable for Germanization?\nAThere was no reason for us to take any action against anybody.\nQYou had no sort of camp guards, or camp police of any kind?\nANo.\nQWitness, some of these people had been brought to these camps under guard had they not? They had been deported forcibly from their homes, isn't that correct?\nAThere are two answers contained in this question. I don't know which answer you want me to give you.\nQAnswer them one at a time, Witness?\nAMy I ask, the Prosecutor to ask me the questions in succession. The people were not forced to work.\nQWitness, I have passed that question quite awhile ago. Let me rephrase this now. These people, the people we are talking about who were Slovenes classified as not suitable for Germanization, you knew these people were deported by force, did you not?\nAI know that these people were deported by force.\nQWere they brought to this VOMI camp under guard, witness?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2991, "page_number": "2984", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AA police detachment took them to the camps.\nQAnd once they reached the camp they were free of all restraints and supervision, is that correct, witness? There was no police, no camp guards, nothing of that sort, is that correct?\nAI have already stated that our camps were quite open, and that no police were standing around the camps.\nQThank you, witness. You know of racial examinations conducted by the RuSHA examiners, did you not?\nAIn what respect?\nQWitness, didn't you talk about racial examinations conducted to see whether these people were suitable for Germanization or not? You mentioned that phrase in your file notes referred to during the direct examination. Do you know what I am talking about now, witness?\nAYes.\nQAnd these examinations were quite often conducted in the VOMI camps, were they not?\nAI don't know that racial examining experts carried out examinations in camps. I do know that already previously these examinations were carried out.\nQWitness, I would like you to take a look at your file note, which is Prosecutions Exhibit 707, in Document Book VIII-D, already shown to you by the defense counsel, and you will please read page 2 of this file note with special attention to your remarks concerning SS-Haupssturmfuehrer Riedel from the RuSHA. Witness, have you read the portion where you suggest more racial examinations?\nAAre you referring to the sentence, \"I consider it necessary, that these families who are not eligible for re-Germanization\" is that what you have referred to?\nQYes, and you say that they be rescreened?\nAYes.\nQWitness, where did you think that these racial examination and screening were going to take place?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2992, "page_number": "2985", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "AThis additional screening probably would have been bound to take place in our camps.\nQThank you, witness. VOMI was very interested in the program of Germanization, was it not?\nAI don't know. I don't know in what way?\nQWill you please take another look at your file memorandum, this time very near the end of the paragraph headed \"Proposal.\"?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe, Mr. Shiller, here is a good time for him to look at it while to recess. The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2993, "page_number": "2986", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have about two minutes, Mr. Shiller. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, have you read thoroughly this last paragraph in your file memorandum concerning the three hundred children which should be sent to special institutions because they were older than ten years and Lebensborn didn't want them or didn't take them for some reason. Have you read that?\nAYes.\nQYou see the third sentence in that paragraph, witness, in which you say that the educational measures should be directed in a lesser degree to achieve a high-grade of education but rather to establish an association with Germanism?\nAYes.\nQAren't you therein concerned with Germanization, witness?\nANo.\nQCould you explain that very briefly?\nAWe considered it more important to show the children how Germans lived rather than delivering great discourses on philosophy to them.\nQYou didn't consider that part of the process of Germanization then; is that correct?\nAThe non-Germanization program.\nQI am sorry; I didn't quite get the translation on that.\nAI did not designate it as a Germanization program and I didn't see it as such.\nQThank you. Witness, did Brueckner have anything to do with labor allocation of these ethnic Germans brought to Germany who were not in VOMI camps?\nAAs I said before, Brueckner had nothing to do with labor allocation.\nQWitness, as I understood on direct examination, you stated \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2994, "page_number": "2987", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "that the defendant Brueckner had nothing to do with labor allocation in VOMI camps; could you answer my question: Did he have anything to do with labor allocation of ethnic Germans who were not in the VOMI camps?\nANot to my knowledge.\nQWitness, did Brueckner ever lose his position with VOMI due to the RSHA considering him to be unbearable because he was so politically unreliable?\nAHe would have lose his position if the war had lasted longer.\nQWitness, my question was: Did he ever lose it?\nANo.\nMR. SHILIER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT: (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz)\nQWitness, do you have File Memorandum 707?\nAYes.\nQLook on page 6 of the file memorandum about which the Prosecution asked you just now. Do you find it?\nAYes.\nQThe place where the suggestion or recommendation is mentioned?\nAYes.\nQDo I understand it correctly to mean that that which is in the suggestion is a suggestion of yours or your specialists there con cerning a recommendation?\nAIt is merely a recommendation; therefore, a suggestion.\nQIn other words, it doesn't mean that this recommendation was put into effect.\nAThe recommendation was not carried out.\nDR. SCHUBERT:No further questions; thank you.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner)\nQWitness, who protected Brueckner against the attacks by the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILIER", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2995, "page_number": "2988", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Reich Security Main Office?\nAAs far as I know, Herr Behrens and Herr Lorenz.\nQDo you remember, witness, whether at the turn of 1944, 1945, because of the attitude of Lorenz and Brueckner, the Reich Security Main Office demanded the dissolution of VOMI?\nAI do know that there were efforts to dissolve the VOMI completely.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you; no further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, I understand you to state that on some occasions Slovenes would get into VOMI camps who were not eligible for Germanization, and that a further racial examination was conducted so that you could get them out of the VOMI camp. What did you do with them?\nAWe handed in lists of all people whom we knew were not eligible for Germanization, and these lists were forwarded to the competent offices.\nQWhat offices?\nAThe Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQThe Race and Settlement Main Office. How many people, approximately, would you have in these VOMI camps? -- on an average.\nAThere were approximately one million people who passed through the VOMI camps.\nQApproximately how many would you have in a camp at any one time?\nAAbout six hundred thousand.\nQI mean each individual camp; what would be the size of each camp -- approximately in number?\nAThe capacity of the camps differed; there were camps which could take fifty persons and some which could accommodate two thousand five hundred.\nQAnd did I understand you to say that you had no disciplinary \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DOETZER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2996, "page_number": "2989", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "problems or troubles in the camps?\nANow and then there were cases of resettlers violating camp regulations.\nQThat was done in those cases?\nAThe person concerned was punished with special labor inside the camp such as cleaning the yards, scrubbing and cleaning the latrines.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I should like to call the witness Hans Kubitz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHANS JOCHEMKUBITZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT: (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz)\nQWitness, tell the Tribunal your full name.\nAHans Jochem Kubitz.\nQDid you belong to the NSDAP?\nAYes, I joined the party in 1937.\nQWere you a member of the Wehrmacht?\nAYes, from 1940; 1943 I joined the Haltscha Division and later on joined the Wehrmacht again.\nQWere you an Army Officer?\nAYes, I was an officer.\nQWhat is your profession?\nAI am a lawyer.\nQWhen did you join VOMI?\nAI joined VOMI on 1st July, 1937.\nQWitness, you have heard witnesses give detailed opinions \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "HANS JOCHEM", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2997, "page_number": "2990", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "about German minorities abroad, and the relations to their German conationals. I should like to put a few questions to you. I don't want any detailed statements from you concerning this statement. Tell me, please, very briefly, what were the activities of groups in Germany concerning German minorities in Europe before the 1st World War?\nAThe German racial groups and though they did not have the means to pursue their responsibility to keep up their cultural heritage, and keep up relations with cultural and artistic institutions; church institutions in Austria and in the German Reich. There were connections among the Protestants, the Gustav Adolf Association, and the Catholics had connections with the Catholic Reichsbund for Germans abroad; in addition there were connections with the Volksbund and the Schulverein Bismarck and the Bund der Polen in Ausland.\nQIn other European countries which also had minorities abroad, were there corresponding associations?\nAThere were corresponding associations, namely, the Poles had two associations, one, I think, was an association which was similar to the Volksbund; I think the name was All Polnische, an association of Poles abroad. In addition there was the Polish Westmarken Association. The Czechs again had the Czech School Society. The task of the association of Poles abroad was similar to the Volksbund for Germans abroad. The Polish Westmarken Association above all concerned itself with Poles who lived west of the German-Polish border. The task of the Czech School Association was to care for the keeping up of Czech minority schools, chiefly in and around Vienna. In the period following the war, when foreigners came to Germany in larger numbers, there were, later on, other minorities, such as the Hungarian minorities, and the Croatian minorities which were less united, however, but did now and then get together into associations for which they received money from their home countries, such as Hungary, etc.\nQWitness, what was the purpose of VOMI to which you belonged from the very beginning; what was the purpose?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2998, "page_number": "2991", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAAfter the German racial groups were dependent upon means from the Reich, and also on the various institutions, which I believe I enumerated before, a lot of money was sent abroad which because of the currency control of Germany was not permissible any more. Not only private means but also public means were utilized, and in order to see just who was to receive the money and not to pay double money for one and the same purpose, a central office was to be created to regulate the appropriations of money, especially foreign currency. For this purpose the VOMI was created in 1936, within the scope of the Reich Education Ministry, under the leadership of the Ministerial Director Dr. von Kursell.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 2999, "page_number": "2992", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.The Reich Education Ministry might also be called the Ministry of Culture?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.When did Lorenz take over the leadership of VOMI?\nA.In January, 1937.\nQ.Was he subordinated to Himmler at that time?\nA.No, The task of VOMI was given to it by Hess, as Reich Minister, and Lorenz received his authority from Hess. Later on, in 1938 he was given his power by Hitler personally; thus, Lorenz was subordinated to Hess and later to Hitler, but never to Himmler.\nQ.When was he subordinated to Himmler?\nA.In the VOMI of the old time, as I just described it, Lorenz was never subordinated to Himmler. Lorenz was subordinated to Himmler only from the moment on when he was given the task besides the VOMI within the scope of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, to create a new office which was to be concerned with the resettlement which had nothing to do with the old tasks.\nQ.In this department which had to deal withresettlement, did this become the so-called Main Staff Office of the VOMI in 1941?\nA.The name of the office was Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, and only in the autumn of 1941 was it called Hauptamt-Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle,\nQ.The Main Office of the VIMI, was this part of the SS?\nA.This Main Office of the VOMI was not a main office of the SS, but it was a top government agency.\nQ.What makes you think so?\nA.To begin with, from the creation of the office itself, Himmler was given the order as a result of a decree by the Fuehrer and Reichs channcelor dated 7 October 1939 to carry out the resettlement. This order by virtue of the power of the Reich enabled people who wanted to return to their people to do so. This was not a task for the SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3000, "page_number": "2993", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.May I interrupt you, witness. Did you see any external marks which can show us why your opinion that the VOMI was not an SS organization is justified?\nA.Yes, the VOMI, for instance, did not have the SS seal, but the Reich Service Seal; in addition, the chief did not have the SS banner, but the Reich Service Standard Flag. We did not use the SS offices, in order to carry out our tasks. For instance, for the eastern allocation we did not use the Reich SS but the Reich Medical Chamber; the statistical tasks were not carried out by the statistical office of the Reichsfuehrer SS, but by the Statistical Reich Office; the publications were not published by the SS or the SS publishing houses, but the decrees of the Main Office of the VOMI were to be found in the yearly decrees and the gazette of the yearly decrees.\nQ.Were the employees of the VOMI active members of the General SS or the Waffen SS?\nA.There were some in the VOMI who had previously been members of the SS; for the rest, for the most part received SS ranks but to this they neither became members of the General SS nor active members of the Waffen SS.\nQ.Witness, in order to complete our questions of organization, is the name of Hoffmayer known to you?\nA.Yes, the name is known to me.\nQ.What was the position of Hoffmayer in Transnistria and southern Russia to the VOMI in Berlin?\nA.When Transnistria and southern Russia were occupied by the German or Romanian armies, Hoffmayer left the VOMI. Himmler personally ordered him to manage the Germanism in Transnistria. Concerning southern Russia, he was subordinated to the higher SS and police leader Gritzmann.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3001, "page_number": "2994", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Could the VOMI Berlin or Lorenz give you instructions which differed from the instructions which you received from the Higher SS and Police Leader Gritzmann or Himmler?\nA.Lorenz could not give instructions which deviated from the instructions given to him, nor could he give instructions which deviated from the scope set for him by Himmler because Hoffmayer was not subordinated to Lorenz, but his chief was Himmler, for Transnisteria, and Gritzmann for southern Russia.\nQ.Witness, in the judgment of the IMT it is mentioned that the VOMI, in the Sudetenland and Bohemia-Moravia, acted as a fifth column. Can you say something about that, briefly?\nA.I already testified for the commission of the IMT last year concerning this topic. I don't remember any payments to Henlein because at that time there were no funds accepted for the salaries of the police. In addition, Austria returned to the Reich only in 1938 and, as far as I remember or know, payments of cultural or for church purposes to the Sudetenland German party were mainly made by the Schulverein Suedmark, which was located in Vienna. Therefore, the earliest possible time at which the VOMI could have found out about payments to Henlein would have been March 1938. Last year I was given a Prosecution document that was a letter from the Foreign Office, a letter which went through the departments of all the offices of the Foreign Office. It was suggested by one department of the Foreign Office that bigger payments than had been made theretofore, to Henlein were to be made. This concerned an increase of the fund to 5,500 marks per month. These payments were to be increased because Henlein, through the order given to him by Lord Runciman, the English observer, needed greater expenditures because Lord Runciman requested Henlein to appear \n 22 Dec 47_A_BJ_22_2_Schwab_(Horn) before the English Government in order to talk with a representative.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3002, "page_number": "2995", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Because Henlein couldn't get the money himself, the Foreign Office wanted to help him. The end of the letter of the Foreign Office, in which the reasons which I just stated appear also, contained a hand-written notation: VOMI is to be informed of this.\nThe Prosecution claimed last year that this handwritten notation, proved that the VOMI had provided the funds. The presentation of the document and my statements, clarified the matter.\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution in this trial presented Exhibit 821. This shows that the VOMI in Yugoslavia--will you take a look at the letter, especially the third paragraph of the letter?\nA.I have never seen this letter until now. However, I can comment the following on it. The VOMI after the conclusion of the Three Power Treaty with Yugoslavia, happened to hear that there were pogroms in the settlement areas of racial Germans; German villages had been burned down; Germans had been murdered and carried away, and the Racial Germans had been called up to the Yugoslavian army. Their weapons had been taken away from them. For the large part, they were crowded together, and none knew what was to become of them. These reports were, after the German settlement had been put together in Rumania and Hungary, received by the VOMI. The VOMI itself, as was usual in those cases, when the VOMI was given some slight or injury, forwarded the matter to the Foreign Office; and, as usual, it requested the Foreign Office to intercede with the Yugoslav Government, if possible, about these difficulties. The Foreign Office, as I see from this letter, -- however, I can't understand how the then Brigade Fuehrer Breiger could have found out about \n that -- stated that it did not Want to do anything.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3003, "page_number": "2996", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "That the VOMI might have said then: If the material is needed it will be available -- I consider that quite selfevident. Besides, the Foreign Office had the material through this letter of ours. Therefore, it did not need to request any more. I can't say any more concerning this document.\nQ.Thank you. What was your special activity in the VOMI?\nA.To begin with, I was a lawyer for minority questions for the rights of the racial German groups in Europe.\nQ.Did this department belong to the original VOMI or to the Main Office VOMI?\nA.This was a department of the original VOMI.\nQ.Did you, within the scope of your activity, have anything to do with the matters of the military and the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS?\nA.It would be better if you said \"coordinated\", but with the Waffen-SS actions and such the VOMI had nothing to do. It was their way that I, as of the first operations, found out that the results of the draftings were detrimental to the racial German groups, and in order to avoid and prevent them I coordinated myself into these operations. I went to Lorenz concerning this matter, and Lorenz considered it right that our office concerned itself with these matters.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, you, on the order of Ohlendorf, coordinated your work with the work of the VOMI?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me whether any of the following activities were any concern of the VOMI or whether it had any word to say concerning it? Promotion recruiting?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3004, "page_number": "2997", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Q.Recruitment or conscription?\nA.No.\nQ.Recruitment of volunteers?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the VOMI ever receive any complaints by the racial German groups concerning the conscription of relatives of the racial minority?\nA.Yes; complaints were forwarded: to wit, there were complaints of two sorts. 1) The relation of care of the persons concerned, the regulation for the care of the families of the persons who had been conscripted. Payments were made to the relatives by the SS welfare and care organization according to the decrees which, to my knowledge, were issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, an agreement with the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht.\nThe difficulty lay in that the funds abroad had to consist of foreign currency and foreign currency was not made available by foreign countries to the extent required so that, to cite an example: A woman in Hungary might be entitled to receive 90 Reichsmark, but would receive actually only about 18 Reichsmark, that is, 19 Pengo. This regulation of the care of relatives led to some difficulties. And now this second difficulty which was responsible for the main troubles, and chat was the difficulties which our \"dear neighbors\" made for us. There were promotion associations which received concessions, and these concessions were under the names of the persons concerned. If t****man had been conscripted, some of his \"dear neighbors\" thought that they might enjoy the privileges of these concessions and tried hard to talk these women out of their property and money. These, of course, were matters which had to be clarified in agreement with the foreign governments concerned.\nQ.What was the principal attitude of Lorenz concerning \n the conscription of foreign citizens into the German WaffenSS?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3005, "page_number": "2998", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "A.Lorenz and the VOMI were of the opinion that the German racial groups in Europe, through their agricultural structure and their importance within the scope of agricultural, were so important that the male population would, in order to secure agriculture, have to stay there. For that reason, we opposed the conscription of any racial Germans.\nQ.Witness, I should like you to illuminate the legal aspect of the matter?\nA.The legal aspect was this. The racial Germans were foreign citizens. In order to utilize them for the German Wehrmacht, that is to say, to conscript them for the German Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, international agreements had to be concluded; and I know that Oberuppenfuehrer Lorenz definitely and strictly kept in mind that the international side of it in our relations with the racial groups be strictly observed at all times because otherwise we could not expect the foreign government to continue to consider their German citizens loyal to them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3006, "page_number": "2999", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "22 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_1_Schwab (Horn)\nQWith what states were such agreements made? Do you know any, by chance?\nAThese agreements were made with Hungary--several in fact--with Rumania, with Croatia, Slovakia, Denmark. I think those were all the states.\nQWhat was the fundamental principle of these agreements?\nAFundamentally, the principle was this: This person who voluntarily agreed to join the Waffen_SS or the person who recognized the racial German group and the German was registered in the national register nooks, was to be given an opportuntiy to serve in the Waffen_SS. In the course of the war, at the beginning of 1943, a regulation was mode to the effect that those persons who voluntarily recognized Germanism and were kept as Germans in the national registers did not have to serve in the foreign countries where they resided, but in the Wehrmacht. In other words, to cite an example, the person who recognized that he was, admitted that he was a racial German, if he were to be conscripted for the Hungarian army, say; he was not conscripted into the army but he joined the Waffen_SS. In Slovakia it was the same. It was even so that deserters were not arrested by the foreign police because of their desertion but for violation of conscription, which this man was bound to by the Hungarian or Slovakian national laws. I would like to emphasize it again. If either a person volunteered for the Waffen_SS or if he acknowledge himself to be a member of the racial German group-then not only did one enjoy the rights of a German, not we, but the German expected these persons to acknowledge also the duties arising from this. At any rate, the decision of the person concerned was completely voluntary. If he did not want to join the Waffen_SS, he need only not acknowledge his belonging to the racial German group.\nQWere these regulations made quite often in Hungary?\nAI remember exactly that more than fifty percent of racial Germans serving in Hungary refused to join the Waffen_SS, and consequently they were not acknowledged as racial Germans but as Hungarians, or Maygars.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3007, "page_number": "3000", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "22 Dec 1947_A_MSD_23_2_Schwab (Horn)\nQWitness, you said that the VOMI and Lorenz were of the opinion that an obligation to serve as racial Germans abroad--that is, as foreign citizens--did not only arise from the fact that this man was a racial German but as a result of international agreements. Did I understand you correctly?\nAYes.\nQI now show you Exhibit 330. This concerns an order of Himmler's to Lorenz. It gives the impression that Himmler was of another opinion, namely that all racial Germans were to be conscripted. What is your opinion?\nAThis impression is correct. My explanation is this. When, at the beginning of 1942, the first army division, Division Prinz Eugen, was set up to combat bomb attacks in their settlement in the Serbian Banat, General Phlaps was ordered by Himmler to have this division composed from volunteers of the Banat. The VOMI Fuehrer of this area was Dr. Yanko, who was known to me. Phlaps spoke to Yanko, and at first he stayed within the scope which I just described, namely, he only accepted volunteers. When these men did not prove to be enough, he used his office not only to conscript volunteers but all racial Germans in general, and not only from the Serbian Banat, namely, the German occupation area, but also from Rumania and Croatia. Volksgruppenfuehrer Yanko talked to him about that and told him that he couldn't do that, and Phalps answered: The Reichsfuehrer SS has ordered the conscription of all racial Germans.\nIn other words, he was authorized in conscript anyone, even if they did not volunteer.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3008, "page_number": "3001", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "This news was given by Yanko to VOMI. I received it to process and work on it. Simultaneously almost, the foreign office through its commissioner in Belgrade heard a similar matter and requested the VOMI for information as to whether that was correct and what the situation was and what was the attitude of the VOMI. At that time I made an appraisal of the situation which I sent to the foreign office and in this appraisal I quite clearly expressed the opinion that neither the Reichsfuehrer SS nor any other office of the German Reich was authorized to order conscription of a foreign citizen. I gave this appraisal to Lorenz who during his next visit of Himmler showed it to the latter. Himmler, I understood Lorenz to say, appreciated the international aspect of it and he reproached Fleps for his haste. Further, however, he said that he did not desire a contractual agreement for reasons of foreign policy. However, in spite of this, his opinion remained that all racial Germans had to participate in Germany's fight. Well, it could not be put into actual fights. May I complete the question? Shortly afterwards General Fleps visited me. He was probably very informed by Himmler about the matter and I visited Fleps once more and with Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz instructed Fleps to release the racial Germans which Fleps had gotten from Rumania and Croatia. In addition, 4,000 men who had not volunteered were also to be released from the army. Lorenz also fought to see that the 700 men who had come from Rumania were not punished there for desertion. Marshal Antonescu complied with his requests and nothing happened to the people.\nQWill you take a look at Exhibit 348 in Volume VI A? Do you find it? Just a minute. It is a letter of the SS judge Reichsfuehrer SS as of a later date, 19 February '45. It deals of a suffestion of Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz to clarify by law the conscription of Germans in the sense of the legal aspects of conscription. Did this concern the action which came about through your appraisal and through Lorenz' \n intercedence?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3009, "page_number": "3002", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Yes. It states here that by SS Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz, a suggestion was made to clarify the legal aspect of conscription. This was apparently the contractual regulation which at that time was suggested by me. The SS Judge Bender who wrote this letter apparently did not quite understand the material submitted.\nQThis is enought, witness, you needn't say any more. Do you have item VI B?\nAYes.\nQWould you look at Exhibit 354 on page 7? Did you find it?\nAYes.\nQIt is a notation of the Dienststelle Ribbentropp concerning the question of the conscription of racial Germans in Croatia. This notation speaks of an agreement between Lorenz and the SS Gruppenfuehrer Berger concerning the conscription of racial Germans. It also is called the point agreement. You know it very well, don't you, and what can you comment on this?\nAThe so-called \"Eight Point Agreement\" between Lorenz and Berger came about as a result of the difficulties which arose out of the recruitment of racial Germans in Croatia. In order to avoid such incidents in the future, it was to be agreed with Obergruppenfuehrer Berger as to the scope in which Volksgruppenfuehrer were to be authorized to participate in the planned operation. The draft of the eight-point agreement was made by myself personally.\nQDid this concern an agreement in the interest of the racial German group from the VOMI, so that the number of racial Germans would not be endangered through too many conscriptions?\nAPerhaps it would be suitable here to quote the eight points of the agreement as far as I remember them. All right, it was written down that this is merely an eight-point agreement within the scope of conscriptions which took place under the regulation of the inter \n national agreements.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3010, "page_number": "3003", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "Point 1, fixed that the VOMI was to be informed by Berger about planned operations before the foreign office and the racial Germans were to be informed. The VOMI was to give its appraisal of the planned operation.\nQYou need not go in so much detail. Just state the individual parts.\nAPoint 2 determined that the Volksgruppen leader was to be authorized to determine the area in which the operation was to be begun. In order to avoid hitting an area in which previous recruitment was going on, point 3 stated that information and other written matters were to be issued only by the racial group leadership in order that each racial German would be informed of everything and so that no questions would arise later on. Point 4, volunteers were to be recruited through the Volksgruppen leader so that only those were conscripted who were really Germans and who could be spared. Point 5 was for exemptions from the draft. There only the Volksgruppen leader was to be authorized to do that. Point 6, technical conscriptions to the reserve command. Point 7 was concerned with informing relatives in case of illness or death. The relatives were only to be informed in a decent manner by the leadership of the racial groups. Point 8 determined that the care of relatives of conscripted persons was to be carried out in agreement with the management of the racial groups. That is how much I remember of the agreement.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will suspend here. The Tribunal is of the opinion that it might be well to announce that if and when the VOMI defense should conclude tomorrow, the Tribunal will adjourn until after the holidays regardless of how early in the day it may be. Tomorrow morning at the morning recess the Tribunal would like to have a conference with a committee from defense counsel and also from the prosecution staff in our offices across the hall at the \n recess tomorrow morning.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3011, "page_number": "3004", "date": "22 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-22", "text": "The defense counsel who are present will please arrange for a committee to meet us at that time and the prosecution will have somebody to meet us at that time. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 23 December 1947, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3012, "page_number": "3005", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_1_Gaylord (Lund) Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 22 December 1947, 0930- 1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the Unied States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be in order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present with the exception of the defendant Huebner who is absent, excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the examination.\nHANS KUBITZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, yesterday you were explaining the so-called eight-point agreement between Lorenz and General Berger. You said that this was only a measure for the benefit of the ethnic group on the part of Lorenz. Please look at Volume VI_B, Exhibit 355, on Page 16 of the German. Have you fond it?\nAYes.\nQThis document is a letter from the Germanic liaison office to Under-Secretary Lutter, in the Foreign Office. Was this Germanic Liaison Office part of VOMI?\nANo, it wasn't. It was an office in the SS Main Office.\nQIn this letter, there is mention of the fact that Lorenz had expressed the wish that the man of a labor service near Belgrade, a place called Semlin, should be drafted, and that he had made the decision to have them drafted. Did Lorenz have any power with regard \n 23 Dec 1947_M_1_2_Gaylord (Lund) to the drafting of ethnic Germans to the Waffen SS?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3013, "page_number": "3006", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "ANo, he did not exercise any authority in this. I know of the matter from the correspondence which went on about it. In Croatia, the leader Pavelic had reached an agreement with us that all ethnic Germans with the exception of those who went into two other battalions--the railway security battalion and those who were used as interpreters for the German army--should be released for recruitment into the Waffen SS. Every ethnic German in Croatia could therefore join the Waffen SS. In the labor service mentioned here, it is a matter of recruiting by advertisments help for the rebuilding of the Semlin Airport in Croatia. When Lorenz quite accidentally visited the airfield Semlin on his visit to Croatia, the ethnic German members of the labor service approached him and asked if he could be allowed to join the Waffen SS. Lorenz was unusre and did not know whether he should agree or not and whether that could be approved, asked the ethnic German group leader Altgeier about it, who in turn said that not all of them could join. They were need. So Lorenz, because he didn't want to turn down anybody's requests, neither those of the labor service nor those of the replacement squad southeast, who were also present, said: O.K., one-third can join. Remarks of this kind by Lorenz were often dressed up as an order by the replacement command Southeast as they were very keen to get members for the Waffen SS. Perhaps, too, Lorenz was approached only because according to the eight-point agreement, the ethnic German leader was responsible for exemptions and he wanted to ethnic group leader. That is the way Altgeier told me the story. So I emphasize once again that Lorenz had no powers to draft anybody. It was not even a request. It was just the information that it was impossible to exempt all the people, so that he was only meeting the ethnic group and the ethnic group leader half-way, and didn't let all the people join who volunteered and whom the replacement squad wanted.\nQIf I understand you correctly, witness, the representation given by the SS Main Office in this letter is to the effect that \n C ourt I, Case VIII 23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_3_Gaylord (Lund) Lorenz expressed the wish that the men fit for the SS in the labor service should he drafted that means, obviously, all men; that this representation is incorrect and that the SS Main Office obviously colored it in the interests of the largest possible drafting, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3014, "page_number": "3007", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AYes, it is.\nQNow, please take Volume VI-A, Exhibit 341 on Page 31 of the German. This is an information bulletin. Among other things, it contains remarks about ethnic Germans in the Waffen SS. It is headed with the letters: RLD. I am handing you the photostat copy, too. Did VOMI issue this document?\nAI have no idea what RLD is. According to the look of the thing, it appears to be some sort of press service. It did not originate with VOMI. It could not have originated there because VOMI was not informed about the exact figures; for instance, of the ethnic group, Waffen SS, German Wehrmacht, combatant formations labor allocation in Reich German enterprises, and so on. The second article of this press service, \"The Development of Economic Life in the Government General,\" which according to the remarks in line 2 was given by a competent source, from this I deduce that the article, \"Ethnic Germans in the Waffen SS\" must be an original report of this press service. As far as the contents are concerned too, the report does not agree with the views of VOMI. I said yesterday that Lorenz objected to all forms of drafting. In this report it says something different. I don't know who wrote it; at any rate, it was not VOMI. In my long years of membership in VOMI, I never heard anything about RLD. I don't know what it is, and we would not have given any information to a completely unknown agency.\nQWitness, in order to conclude this subject, when you mention agreements with the various countries of the southeast about the drafting of ethnic Germans, in the setting up of such international agreements, was VOMI itself a partner in the negotiations or not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3015, "page_number": "3008", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_1_4_Gaylord (Lund)\nANo, only the foreign office negotiated in every instance.\nQWhen you mention draftings in the southeast here, did they concern only ethnic Germans or also foreign nationals who were also members of foreign race.\nAIt concerned only ethnic Germans, because VOMI dealt only with ethnic Germans.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3016, "page_number": "3009", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Q.But VOMI didn't arrange the drafting?\nA.That is correct. VOMI did not arrange the drafting. I only meant to say that the sphere of tasks of VOMI was strictly limited to the ethnic Germans. We had no dealings whatsoever with aliens.\nQ.Witness, if you look at Volume VI-A once again, Exhibit 337 consists of the minutes of a discussion in the SS Main Office, dated the 8 of October 1942. Brigardefuehrer Behrens was present. It mentions Germanic legions in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Flanders. Was VOMI in any way concerned with these Germanic legions?\nA.VOMI was concerned neither with legions nor with Germanic work as a whole. According to the list of those present, this meeting was a typical Berlin meeting where one would rather invite five agencies too many than one too few.\nQ.Thank you, witness. Now please take VI-B once again, Exhibit 362 on Page 74 of the German. Have you got it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.It is a teletype from Behrens to Himmler. It concerns ethnic Germans from nothern France. The teletype contains, among other things, the stricking remark: Assignment to the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS. Was VOMI concerned with the drafting of the ethnic Germans in northern France, or what is the reason of this remark?\nA.VOMI did not concern itself with thedrafting of ethnic Germans in northern France. This remark has the following origin. After the end of the First World War, a number of people emigrated from the area around Poznan to the Ruhr to work there, and then went on to France.\nQ.Witness, please don't give us the whole history, I only want to know how this remark arose.\nA.This remark is only a reproduction of a suggestion made by the Military C in C of Belgium, who wanted to make this suggestion of nationalizing these people tasteful to Himmler.\nQ.So if I understand you correctly, VOMI was neither concerned with the drafting of ethnic Germans in northern France nor did it have \n any competency for that?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3017, "page_number": "3010", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.That is right.\nQ.And do you know whether ethnic Germans in northern France were drafted at all?\nA.That I don't know.\nQ.Witness, yesterday you said that from 1943 onwards, you were a soldier and an officer in the Wehrmacht.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In 1944 or '45, when the German troops retreated, were you in Hungary?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you see any formations of the VOMI there?\nA.I met a few members of the VOMI who were assisting the fleeing population.\nQ.You mention the fleeing population. Was there any sort of compulsion on the population to retreat with the troops?\nA.I did not see any force employed; in fact, I was even surprised that the people were not encouraged to a greater extent to flee before the Russian troops.\nQ.Did you observe that the people took their property with them on their flight wherever possible, and the results of the harvest too?\nA.I saw that the people took as much as possible on their own vehicles as they possibly could carry: flour, that is food -- perhaps one cartful, and the rest was household goods.\nQ.Did the Hungarians themselves also evacuate their own countrymen?\nA.I saw that too.\nQ.One final question, witness. Yesterday we already discussed whether VOMI did any work abroad which could be regarded as so-called fifth column work. I don't know whether that came out quite clearly. I would only like to put a final question to you about it. Did VOMI \n or Lorenz, according to your knowledge, of affairs, take any measures with the ethnic German groups abroad which could be described as the work of a so-called Fifth Column?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3018, "page_number": "3011", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.The term \"Fifth Column\" is one I have only heard before as a propaganda slogan from foreign countries. We restricted ourselves entirely to advising the German ethnic groups on cultural and religious subjects, and assisting them, I know of nothing else.\nQ.Thank you, witness. I have no further questions. BY DR. DOETZER (for the defendant Brueckner):\nQ.Witness, do you know how the defendant Brueckner came to join VOMI?\nA.Herr Brueckner was conscripted to VOMI in 1939.\nQ.Is it correct that first of all, Brueckner was working in a subordinate position, and then he became adviser to Behrens in 1941. Around the turn of the years 1942 to 1943, he was entrusted with the management of Department VI.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Was the advisership to Behrens an independent position or was he bound to instructions?\nA.The position at Behrens was certainly not independent. He was bound by Behrens' instructions. Behrens prescribed the exact procedure.\nQ.Did Brueckner at the time have a strictly defined sphere of work with Behrens or did he get his tasks assigned case by case?\nA.At the time, Brueckner did not have any strictly defined sphere of tasks. He dealt with whatever jobs Behrens assigned to him case by case.\nQ.Witness, do you remember a discussion of advisers handling the matter of resettlement from Luxembourg?\nA.I didn't think it was a discussion of advisers. I just happened to be there when Behrens was talking to his advisors and I remember hearing something about resettlement in Luxembourg.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3019, "page_number": "3012", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Q.What was it about?\nA.Gauleiter Simon, Chief of the Civil administration in Luxembourg, had expressed the desire to resettle certain parts of the population.\nQ.What was Behrens' reaction?\nA.Behrens didn't like the idea. He was against it.\nQ.Did he commission Brueckner to negotiate to this effect with Gauleiter Simon?\nA.Yes. I remember that after a lengthy discussion about how the deportation could be prevented, he commissioned Brueckner to go to see the Gauleiter Simon, to talk him out of the plan, and if that didn't work to delay the affair as long as possible so that it should fizzle out.\nQ.Do you know the result of this discussion with Brueckner in Luxembourg?\nA.The result was that the planned deportation did not take place, and as far as I know, Brueckner suggested, at Behrens' instructions, to introduce an ethnic card index in order to delay the affair.\nQ.Do you know whether Brueckner was in any way concerned in starting this ethnic card index in Luxembourg?\nA.No, Brueckner didn't set up that card index.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3020, "page_number": "3013", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWho prepared the card index?\nAThe card index was prepared by the Simon people together with a referent who was from the office of Behrens'. His name was Posthaus.\nQWas Posthaus subordinate to the defendant Brueckner?\nANo, as I have already said Posthaus was a referent from Behren's office. He was subordinated to Behrens and not to Brueckner.\nQDid you ever find out that Gauleiter Simon had carried out deportations of people from Luxembourg?\nAYes, I have heard that Gauleiter Simon carried out deportations for security police reasons.\nQDid Herr Brueckner have anything to do with that?\nANo.\nQDo you remember whether there were discussions going on in VOMI in which deportations from Alsace and Lorraine were discussed?\nAYes.\nQWhat did Brueckner say about these deportations?\nAHe disliked the idea.\nQDo you remember, witness, whether there was ever a talk concerning deportations from France?\nAWhen I returned from the Army in 1941, I was told that Ethnic Germans, because the situation was favorable to them, had reported to the German military commander. The Military Commander did not know what to do with these people, and had the idea of re-settling those people. He suggested this plan to Himmler and Himmler ordered the VOMI with the carrying out of this plan. Behrens did not like this plan and ordered Brueckner to get in touch with the foreign office in order to get the help of this office in turning down this plan. In fact, with the help of the foreign office through discussion with Brueckner this plan was not carried out.\nQDo you know whether VOMI established an office in France?\nAI don't know whether VOMI established an office in France.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3021, "page_number": "3014", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI only heard once that an office should be established there. I believe it was the office of the Military Commander, to which later on some people of the VOMI were attached. I don't know the details.\nQThank you. Do you know about the activity of Brueckner as head of Office-VI?\nAI know Brueckner's activity as head of the advising Office for immigrants, and his work there was to look after the Ethnic Germans living in the Reich.\nQDo you know why was Brueckner given this task?\nAThis task was mainly concerned with welfare work and Brueckner seemed to be suitable for this task.\nDR. FOETZFR:Thank you very much, witness, I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MERKEL: (For the defendant Creutz.)\nQHerr Dr. Kubitz, do you know the defendant Creutz?\nAYes.\nQFrom what time on was Creutz the deputy of the defendant Greifelt as chief of the Main Staff Office?\nAI know Fehndrich as deputy for Greifelt. Later on I heard after Fehndrich had left that Creutz was supposed to be the deputy of Greifelt.\nQWhen did Fehndrich leave?\nAAs far as I remember in 1942.\nQDo you know any more details, Spring, Summer or Autumn, 1942?\nAI should say during the first half of 1942, but this date is indefinite, because I was not concerned with the Reichskommissariat.\nQHow do you know then that Fehndrich during the first half of 1942 was the deputy of Greifelt?\nAFehndrich was present at meetings of the Main Staff Office as deputy of Greifelt. He identified himself as such, and so did Greifelt. I should say that it was known in all Berlin offices that \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FOETZFR", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3022, "page_number": "3015", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Fehndrich acted as deputy for Greifelt.\nQIn your testimony you repeatedly mentioned Behrens. Do you know that especially Behrens negotiated with Fehndrich?\nAYes, I have often seen that Fehndrich came to Behrens, and on principle Behrens received only the staff leaders, or the chiefs themselves. He didn't concern himself with the referents.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, after Behrens left VOMI, did any one take his place in practice, if not in title as deputy of Lorenz?\nAI am sorry I can not give any information about this, because I left the office together with Behrens to join the army. afterwards I never had any more connection with VOMI.\nQIn other words, witness, you claim that you know nothing about VOMI after the middle of 1943, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWitness, do you know who paid the personnel under Hoffmeier in the East?\nAI can not say. I had nothing to do with these things. I would assume that it was paid by whatever office these people belonged to as war workers; but that is an assumption on my part, because I took no interest in that.\nQWitness, on direct examination you stated that you were never in the so-called Hauptamt VOMI, is that correct?\nAYes, that is right. I was a member of the old VOMI and not of the VOMI Main Office.\nQWitness, weren't you at one time the head of Office-IX?\nAI was not head of Office-IX, but in the spring of 1943 the reorganizing of VOMI was getting under way, and at the time I was to get the office for political leadership of the German Ethnics, which \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. MERKEL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3023, "page_number": "3016", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "later developed into Office-IX. This office consisted of myself and two other workers.\nQYou were in charge of this office at one time, is that correct?\nAWhen you say \"chief\", I don't know, but if that is the same thing as a departmental chief, yes.\nQI don't want to quibble about a title, witness. Were you actually in charge of this Office-IX?\nAYes.\nQWitness, how do you explain the fact that this Office-IX is included in the table of organization of the Hauptamt VOMI?\nAI don't know the organizational plan of VOMI Main Office, nor can I explain how that fits in there, because in my days there was a distinction between the old VOMI and the VOMI Main Office. There were two letter heads. The letterheads which I used, and which the other departmental chiefs of Old VOMI used, were always the letterhead of VOMI, whereas the resettlement people, that is, people of the actual Main Office always used the letterhead \"Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of German Volkdom, Main Office VOMI\". This letterhead I was not entitled to use.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of Ethnic Germans being forced into the German Armed Forces without benefit of a treaty?\nANo, I never heard of that. All the Ethnic Germans who were drafted into the Waffen-SS, of which I knew were on the basis of an agreement with the countries concerned, I would not call it drafted, but accepted by the Waffen-SS on the basis of their voluntary application.\nQWitness, you stated on direct examination that both you and Lorenz were anxious to have a law passed to make it legal to put these Ethnic Germans placed into the German Armed forces. What did you have in mind as being illegal?\nAWhat I had in mind as being illegal was to draft those \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3024, "page_number": "3017", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Ethnic Germans who outside of state treaties had volunteered for the Waffen-SS, and who might have been drafted without the knowledge of their own country. I mentioned an example of General Phleps yesterday, who in actual fact had done something not quite permissible under International law, and just because of this Lorenz had gone to see Himmler to prevent a similar occurrence in the future, and to set right the results of such actions, so that in actual fact the people who had been drafted in violation of International law were returned. We had in mind that if the Waffen-SS wanted Germans from any country where there were Ethnic Germans, then the replacement unit of the Waffen-SS was to get in touch with the foreign office so that the foreign office could negotiate with the foreign country. If the foreign country refused to conclude an agreement, then the men would not be drafted into the Waffen-SS. If the foreign country was prepared to forego its claim on the service of these men, and prepared to let them go into the Waffen-SS in Germany, then the men could join and then everything would be OK. This principle and the maintenance of International Agreements was what Lorenz and I had in mind at the time.\nQWitness, in this case you just mentioned of General Phleps of the Prinz Eugene Division, you did hear of Ethnic Germans being drafted without benefit of treaty, is that correct?\nAThey were not drafted. They had volunteered, and I didn't hear beforehand that they were to be drafted. I was faced with the fact and we were trying to annull this and to restore the principle of International Law.\nQWitness, I am afraid some of our difficulty may be due to the translation of the words \"drafting\" and \"volunteering\" being used a little bit loosely. Now in this case you said first they had volunteered and then that you had heard about the men being drafted. Now ware all these men in the Prinz Eugen Division, concerning which you were talking, were they drafted, or did they volunteer?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3025, "page_number": "3018", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI will make my statement absolutely clear. The men from abroad, Rumania and Croatia had volunteered.\nQPardon me, witness, I have asked a specific question. Please answer the question with respect to the men in the Prinz Eugen Division with General Phleps, the ones concerning whom you spoke before. It is not necessary to go into Rumania and other countries.\nAYes, that is what I am talking about. In the Prinz Eugen Division originally only men from the Serbian Banate were to be in included, volunteers, and in addition Phleps included men who had volunteered from Roumania and Croatia, and also conscripted men from the Serbian Banate, and when we heard that we saw to it that the International Law principle was restored, and Phleps had to discharge the non-volunteers from the Serbian Banate, 4000 men, and also had to discharge and send home those Ethnic Germans from Rumania and Croatia who had volunteered.\nQWitness, I still have not got a clear answer. Were any of these men drafted, or were they all volunteers?\nAThe larger part of the men of the Prinz Eugen Division volunteered, but some of them had not volunteered, and these Phleps had to give back, who had been drafted had to be sent back.\nQThank you, that is what I am trying to find out. Witness, why did Behrens ask Brueckner to negotiate with the foreign office?\nAHimmler didn't like it, if agencies subordinate to him refused to obey his orders, especially in cases of resettlemtn. So, we had rather got into the habit at VOMI of looking around for some other agency, mainly the foreign office, with which we could go hand in hand, and as Himmler had a certain respect for the foreign office, because he didn't want to get into trouble with Ribbentrop, they were usually successful in getting what we wanted.\nQPardon me, my question really is, why did Behrens pick Brueckner for this job?\nABrueckner seemed a suitable person because he was on his \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3026, "page_number": "3019", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "own accord and without instructions opposed to any of Himmler's resettlement spleens, and he was, therefore, in a good position to explain to the Foreign Office the objection of VOMI.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions. Your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, you ware asked about the connection of Office-IX to VOMI Main Office. An organizational plan has been submitted as Exhibit No. 36, this organizational plan is dated 15 June 1944. Were you still in the VOMI at the time?\nANo.\nQIn the organizational plan all the offices from one to eleven are included. Is it correct that in this organizational plan the old VOMI as well as the VOMI Main Office are put together in one plan?\nAYes.\nQOne final question, with reference to these draftings by General Phleps. Did VOMI leave anything in advance about this drafting, or during that time, hear anything about this drafting, or did VOMI in any way have any connection with the General Phlep's drafting?\nAVOMI had no concern with the drafting, and it was only when Ethnic group leader Janko advised VOMI that VOMI considered it her duty to restore conditions in keeping with International Law. If I may put it that way -- VOMI was only called in after the damage had been done. That is right.\nQThank you.\nEXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, on cross examination, if I understood you correctly, you said that Brueckner on his own accord was opposed to all deportations, and especially Himmler's resettlement spleen, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3027, "page_number": "3020", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAYes.\nQWere you the only person who knew that or was that generally known?\nAThat was generally known.\nQDid Brueckner have any disadvantages because of that, was he attacked, were reports written against him, or did the Reichs fuehrer-SS and the RSHA simply accept this state of affairs?\nABehrens had called me in one day and showed me a letter from the Reich Security Main Office in which the RSHA reported that Brueckner always showed a \"stubborn attitude\" towards resettlement and other wishes of Himmler. The letter said because of his attitude Brueckner was unsuitable. It also was added therein that he had lost his job once before on the basis of the civil servants law, and was hardly suitable to remain in the VOMI. So far as I am informed, however, Behrens had always shared Brueckner's view, and, therefore, didn't do anything or rather prevented the RSHA from doing anything.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will be excused.\n(Witness excused)\nDR. SCHUBERT:The next witness I'll call is Herr Konrad Radunski.\nTHE PRESIDENT:He can come to the stand.\nKONRADRADUNSKI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, you may raise your right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing. (The witness repeated the oath) Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, please give your full name?\nAKonrad Radunski.\nQWere you a member of the NSDAP?", "speakers": [ "Q", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "KONRAD", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3028, "page_number": "3021", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAYes, I was.\nQWere you also a member of the SS?\nAYes, I was.\nQWhat was your last rank in the SS?\nASS-Obersturmbannfuehrer.\nQWhen and how did you join the VOMI?\nAI was conscripted into the VOMI in September 1939.\nQWere you mainly concerned with the resettlement question?\nAYes. I was conscripted for resettlement purposes.\nQWitness, can you quite briefly indicate what resettlements took place on the basis of International Agreements?\nAFirst of all, it started with the resettlement of the Ethnic Germans from Volhynia, Galicia, and Narev area. Then the Ethnic Germans from Bessarabia, Northern Bukowina, and Southern Bukowina, the Dubrutscha, from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia were resettled. The first resettlement which preceded this resettlement was however the resettlement of Germans from Estonia and Latvia.\nQWitness, you have mentioned Estonia and Latvia twice, why?\nAYes, two resettlements were carried out. The first was the resettlement proper and the second was called subsequent resettlement. This latter took place in 1940/1.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3029, "page_number": "3022", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QThese are all resettlements on the \"basis of international agreements?\nAYes, these resettlements were only carried out on the basis of international agreements.\nQDo you know that there was an international agreement with Croatia concerning resettlement?\nAYes, on the \"basis of discussions an agreement was concluded with Croatia, but it was only an internal resettlement in Croatia.\nQWitness, quite briefly what tasks did VOMI have in these resettlements based upon international agreements?\nAVOMI compiled the lists of ethnic Germans by name and number and then carried out the transport of these resettlers. The resettlers were then received in VOMI camps and. kept there until they could be assigned to work, or if they were agricultural workers, until they were resettled some place.\nQWitness, were all these resettlements you have mentioned voluntary?\nAThey were only voluntary.\nQIn these resettlements, that is in the country of origin of the resettlers, was a racial examination, a racial selection made?\nANo, generally not. Only in the case of the second Baltic resettlement, where only especially endangered people were to be resettled, racial points of view were applied insofar as the Reichsfuehrer wished, that in general only completely politically reliable and racially unobjectionable people should be resettled.\nQWitness, if I understand you correctly, this selection which you mentioned was in no way connected with the so-called racial examination.\nANo, in no way. On the contrary, Jews and half-Jews or quarterJews were also resettled if they wanted to be resettled.\nQWas VOMI in any way concerned with the naturalization of these \n resettlers?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3030, "page_number": "3023", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "ANo, that was the task of the EWZ or of the Reich Minister of the Interior; these two institutions carried out the naturalizations.\nQWas it in my way concerned with the property compensation?\nAProperty compensation was handled by a company founded for this purpose; that was the German Resettlement Trustee Company, DUT for short.\nQSo your answer to my question would he \"no\"?\nANo. VOMI had no concern here.\nQNow, was it concerned with the settlement and the evacuations resulting from this resettlement of people?\nANo, in no way.\nQWitness, in the Prosecution documents there is frequent mention of a plenipotentiary of VOMI in the Government General, Dr. Weibken; where was this Government General?\nAThe Government General was that part of the former Polish State which was governed by Germany after the agreement with the Soviet Union.\nQI don't think that is quite right, witness, because the so-called incorporated eastern territories were also administered by Germany.\nAYes, the Wartheland and the areas belonging to Danzig and West Prussia and to East Prussia were not included in the Government General.\nQWitness, just tell us whereabout geographically the Government General was; what big towns were in it?\nAWarsaw, Lublin, Lwow, Drzemyszl, Radom.\nQYou forgot the capital.\nAWarsaw?\nQNo, Cracow.\nAYes, Cracow.\nQAnd was this Government General independent or was it part of the German Reich?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3031, "page_number": "3024", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "ANo, it was not part of the German Reich; it was under a Governor General.\nQTo whom was the plenipotentiary VOMI, Dr. Weibken, subordinated, in the Government General?\nAThe VOMI had detached Dr. Weibken to the higher SS and police leader in Cracow and he was subordinate to the higher SS and police leader in Cracow.\nQWas the plenipotentiary, therefore, out of reach of VOMI as far as all orders were concerned?\nAYes, for the period of his detachment.\nQCould Lorenz legally give him any instructions at all?\nANo, the night to give Weibken instructions was vested in the higher SS and police leader in Cracow.\nQWho was that?\nA SSObergruppenfuehrer Krueger.\nQSo, witness, if there were any institutions in the Government General which bore the name of VOMI, then, if I understand you lightly, these would have been institutions under Herr Weibken, who was subordinated to the higher SS and police leader Krueger.\nAYes, that is right.\nQVOMI itself in Berlin, therefore, I suppose, did not have any carps in the Government General.\nANo, VOMI in Berlin had no camps in the Government General.\nQThis position of Weibken's, which you just described, can one compare this position with that of Hoffmayer in southern Russia and Transnistria?\nAYes, insofar as southern Russia is concerned: Hoffmayer had also been attached to the higher SS and police leader in Russia and for this period of time was at his orders; at that time it was SS Obergruppenfuehrer Pritzmann. With reference to Transnistria, Hoffmayer had a more independent position; he was in the main subordinated \n to the Reichsfuehrer SS personally.", "speakers": [ "A", "A SS", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3032, "page_number": "3025", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QWitness, is it correct that in the spring of 1941 you were drafted into the Wehrmacht?\nAYes, in April 1941 I was drafted into the Waffen SS.\nQAt that time, shortly before being drafted, did you visit Behrens?\nAYes, I did.\nQWhom did you meet when you were sitting in Behrens's anti-chamber?\nAI met SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Humitsch of the RSHA.\nQDid you address Behrens and ask him what Humitsch wanted there?\nAYes. After Humitsch went away I asked Behrens what his visit meant and what Humitsch had wanted.\nQAnd what did Behrens tell you?\nABehrens told me that it was a matter of resettlement which Humitsch had suggested to him, an intended resettlement.\nQWho was to be affected by this resettlement?\nAI asked that too, and in particular I asked what on earth did RSHA have to do with resettlement. He answered that it was not a matter of resettlement in the usual sense, but it was an intended evacuation of saboteurs and political criminals from the district of Lower Styria and Upper Corinthia.\nQWere these the so-called Slovenes?\nAYes, they were Slovenes.\nQDid Behrens tell you anything to the effect that he had opposed the idea of taking these Slovenes into VOMI camps?\nAYes, when I said this is no business of ours, Behrens told me that he had tried to change the Reichsfuehrer SS' mind so that VOMI would not need to take these Slovenes into their camps, but the Reichsfuehrer SS had refused because at the moment there were no other accommodations available.\nQWhen you visited Behrens at that time, was Lorenz in Berlin?\nANo, I returned to Berlin at the end of March, and I asked Herr \n Lorenz for permission to go to the front.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3033, "page_number": "3026", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "That was the last official duty which Herr Lorenz undertook. Then at the beginning of April of that year he left for the southeast, and at the time Humitsch vitised Behrens in Berlin, Herr Lorenz had already left.\nQDo you know that Lorenzhad a serious motor accident on this trip?\nAYes, when I had been drafted, I got a letter from Behrens that our chief Herr Lorenz had had a serious motor accident in southern Europe.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes. May I call Counsel's attention to the fact that during this recess we would like to have a conference with the representative from the Defense and the Prosecution.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3034, "page_number": "3027", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "( The hearing reconvened at 1105 hours.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nPRESIDENT: Proceed with the examination.\nKONRAD RADUNSKI - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)\nBY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQ. Witness, we were talking about the Slovene affair. Did you find out what Lorenz' opinion was about this?\nA. Yes, I did. Later on Lorenz tried occasionally to in tercede with the Reichsfuehrer SS that the Slovenes were taken out of the camps of the VOMI but the Reichsfuehrer SS, pointing out that there were no other places for these people, delayed the deci sion again and again and handled this matter in a dictatory manner.\nQ. In this matter did the VOMI have anything to do with the deportation of the Slovenes?\nA. No, as I learned from Behrens later on, the deportation was carried out by the local security police and by the chief of the civil administration.\nQ.You said that Lorenz, when you were at Behrens' place was out of town?\nA. Yes.\nQ. Was Lorenz absent a lot from Berlin?\nA. Yes. Lorenz was travelling quite a lot.\nQ. Then if Lorenz wanted to find out about the matters of the VOMI, did he have to rely upon what Behrens reported to him?\nA. Yes. Behrens was the person who during the absence of Lorenz represented independently the office.\nThis even led to the fact that he had the title of deputy chief of the VOMI, that is, he gave himself the title.\nQ. Through these constant absences of Lorenz, did it happen that Lorenz was by no means informed throughly about all important \n matters by Behrens?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "BY DR. SCHUBERT", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3035, "page_number": "3028", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.No. It was up to Behrens to report to Lorenz what he, Behrens, considered important. I know of many incidents which were not told to Lorenz, in particular in connection with the cooperation of Behrens with the security service.\nQ.Do you know who paid Lorenz' salary?\nA.Lorenz' salary, as the salary of all other membersof the VOMI, was paid by the VOMI itself and the VOMI received its expenditures from the Reich Treasureer of the National Socialist Party.\nQ.Do you know whether Lorenz received another salary from the General SS after he became the chief of the VOMI?\nA.After becoming head of VOMI he only received salary from the VOMI.\nQ.Was the VOMI considered a main office of the SS?\nA.No. After Hess left Germany the Reichsfuehrer SS, in the fall of 41, was put in charge of the VOMI, and the VOMI itself was responsible for the sphere of activity which belonged to the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. It received certain rights that the VOMI was designated Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. The VOMI was never a main office of the SS because the employees of the VOMI neither received a salary from the SS nor did they have any official positions on the SS if they were members of the SS.\nQ.I want to ask you concerning two prosecution documents which concern themselves with the regermanization, Prosecution Exhibit 133 in Volume IV B: A report about the EWZ, about the registry of German racials in northern France. Did the VOMI have anything to do with the regermanization of these persons in northern France?\nA.No. The VOMI merely had the following to do with the ethnic Germans in northern France and Belgium, in that they were in charge of their cultural life. The VOMI had nothing to do with the germanization. This was a task of the EWZ.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3036, "page_number": "3029", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Q.Was this task of the VOMI, namely, to take care of the ethnic Germans -- did this task exist before the war?\nA.Yes, That was the actual task of the VOMI, to take care of ethnic Germans abroad.\nQ.In the Document 179, Volume IV D, there is talk of attempts of germanization of North American prisoners of war. Do you know anything about this?\nA.I do now that the Reichsfuehrer SS once issued an order to have American prisoners of war of German origin looked up in the camps and to submit questions to them concerning their connection with their German relatives and conditions in America particularly with regard to the opinion towards Germany and the propaganda which was conducted against Germany in the United States.\nQ.Did you know whether the Reichfuehrer SS intended to isolate these American P.W's?\nA.Yes, I heard about that the Reichsfuehrer SS intended to put these PW's into a separate camp in order to be able to talk with them more successfully.\nQ.Did this come about?\nA.No. The VOMI sent representatives to PW camps who talked with these PWs'. These representatives of the VOMI found out, however that the PW's, although they were conscious that they were of German origin, but felt themselves to be American in every way and on the whole wanted no part of Germany. That was one phase of it, and the other phase of it was that of international law. VOMI requested General Reinecke to find out whether such a separation of PW's was in accordance with international law. General Reinecke obtained an opinion from the Foreign Office, and the answer was in the negative. As a result of these two factors it was decided not to seperate the PW's. To the camps which had been provided for these PW's, no single American PW was ever brought.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3037, "page_number": "3030", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, Witness. No further questions.\nDR. DOETZER:Dr. Doetzer for the defendant, Brueckner. BY DR. DOETZER:\nQ.When did you become acquainted with the defendant Brueckner?\nA.I met Brueckner in 1939 -- in November '39.\nQ.Did Brueckner at that time belong to the General SS or the Waffen SS?\nA.No. Brueckner was conscripted for the resettlement command of the Vomi and belonged neither to the General SS nor the Waffen SS.\nQ.You were a personnel expert of the VOMI, were yyou not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell me how it came about that Brueckner around 1940 received an honorary rank in the SS?\nA.Well, Brueckner together with other members of the resettlement office, Wolhynia, Golicia, received an honorary rank of a leader as Untersturmfuehrer, Berlin, in 1940.\nQ.What is an Untersturmfuehrer?\nA.The Untersturmfuehrer corresponded to the rank of a lieutenant in the Wehrmacht.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHUBERT", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3038, "page_number": "3031", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Q.Why did these members of the resettlement office receive such honorary ranks?\nA.In the agreement with the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had insisted that members of the resettlement command appeared in uniform and performed their service in uniform. For this reason, members of the resettlement office who did not belong to the SS received honorary ranks of SS leaders.\nQ.Why did these members of the Vomi--why did they not receive \"expert\" ranks of the SS?\nA.There were no such ranks. These ranks were introduced in '41.\nQ.Did Brueckner receive such an expert rank when it was introduced?\nA.Yes. He received an expert rank, I believe it was something like Obersturmfuehrer of the Waffen SS.\nQ.Was Brueckner drafted to the Waffen SS or did he volunteer for it?\nA.Brueckner never volunteered. He was given the rank in the General SS as honorary leader within the scope of his tasks in the resettlement office and his conscription to the Waffen SS was a result of his membership in the resettlement office.\nQ.Was Brueckner promoted later on?\nA.Brueckner was not really promoted, but it was more a coordination of a rank. It corresponded to the rank in the police.\nQ.What rank did Brueckner hold before the collapse, that is, at the moment of the collapse?\nA.In the General SS he had the rank of a Sturmbannfuehrer, he had the rank of an Obersturmbannfuehrer of the Waffen SS and in addition he was Unterscharfuehrer of the Waffen SS.\nQ.Can you give us the corresponding ranks in the Whermacht?\nA.Yes. Sturmbannfuehrer corresponds to the rank of a major, Obersturmbannfuehrer corresponds to the rank of a lieutenant colonel, and Unterscharfuehrer is a non commissioned officer.\nQ.Would Brueckner have continued to hold these ranks if he had left \n the Vomi, that is from his civilian position?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3039, "page_number": "3032", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.No. The expert rank was connected solely with his service in the Vomi. In the document about the granting of ranks there is a consition which says \"for the duration of the service\", in this case, service with the Vomi. The service rank in the General SS was not permanent for Brueckner. Brueckner was a so-called V-leader, that is to say, he was kept in the seniority lists and other lists and there was a \"V\" behind his rank which means \"temporary\", that is, his permanent acceptance into the SS had not taken place.\nQ.Was that noticeable on the uniform which he were?\nA.Yes. All \"V# members of the SS on their lapels did not have a unit insignia or if they were fuehrers they did not have the corresponding lapels with the name of the unit or the main office on it.\nQ.Did Brueckner take the SS oath?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he have to pay membership dues as a temporary member?\nA.No, he did not.\nQ.Did Brueckner ever perform service in the SS? Or was he obliged to?\nA.No, no. All members of the Vomi which belonged to the SS temporarily did not have to perform any service in the SS at any time.\nQ.Did he attend SS leadership schools?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he take part in SS courses?\nA.No.\nQ.Did he receive SS training literature?\nA.Not personally, I am sure.\nQ.Witness, as an expert on personnel matters, can you tell me whethe and if so when Brueckner had an independent position in the Vomi?\nA.To begin with, Brueckner was a sort of an auxiliary worker for Hoffmeyer, in the resettlement office, later on he was one of the assittant \n experts of Behrens.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3040, "page_number": "3033", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "That was up to around the end of '42, the beginning of '43. It was only the beginning of '43 that Brueckner was put in charge of an office.\nQ.Can you say something concerning the fact that Brueckner and Behrens ever were allowed to work on matters independently or did they receive definite instructions?\nA.No. He could not work independently. Behrens never desired any of his co-workers to become too independent. Brueckner always received exact instructions as to how to behave in matters of his service.\nQ.Can you give me an example which expressly shows this?\nA.For instance, Brueckner was working on western problems and in this field Behrens reserved himself the right of sole competency and Brueckner had several orders for Northern France and Belgium for which he received exact instructions from Behrens.\nQ.Can you remember the Luxembourg order which he received?\nA.As far as I know, Brueckner was only once in Luxembourg where he had to inspect the index of ethnic Germans.\nQ.You don't remember that exactly, do you?\nA.Yes, I do know that.\nQ.The ethnic German index -- was that a task of the Vomi or who kept this index?\nA.The index of ethnic Germans was set up by the chief of the civilian administration and for this purpose the chief of the administration requested the Vomi to send an expert to Luxembourg. This expert, a Herr Posthaus, set up this index of ethnic Germans on the order of the chief of the civilian administration.\nQ.Would this expert be subordinated to Brueckner, or to whom was he subordinated in the Vomi?\nA.He was subordinated to Behrens alone because Behrens reserved himsel the right of sole competence in these matters.\nQ.Did Brueckner participate in the deportation of Luxembourgians?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3041, "page_number": "3034", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.No. The Vomi did not carry out the deportations any more than Brueckner had to do with it. No one else had anything to do with it from the Vomi.\nQ.Did Brueckner have anything to do at all with the deportations from Alsace, Lorraine, and France?\nA.No. It is the same as in Luxembourg. Brueckner again had nothing to do with it.\nQ.Witness, you said that Brueckner was in charge of Office VI. Do you know when that took place?\nA.The beginning of '43.\nQ.Can you tell me what were the tasks of this office?\nA.Yes. On the whole, the care of ethnic Germans in the Reich.\nQ.If I understood you right, you mean those were only ethnic Germans which were in the Reich?\nA.Yes. Those two points are correct. They were only ethnic Germans, and only ethnic Germans who were in the Reich area.\nQ.Did Brueckner have to take care of such ethnic Germans as were in camps in the Reich?\nA.No. The ethnic Germans in camps were cared for by Office XI, that is, resettlement. Brueckner in general had nothing to do with that.\nQ.What office of the Vomi was responsible for ethnic Germans in the so-called Eastern areas?\nA.It was Office VII, which was called safeguarding of Germanism in the Eastern territories.\nQ.The Prosecution introduced a number of documents which disclose or which are supposed to disclose that Brueckner had something to do with questions of ethnic Germans in Russia.\nA.Brueckner had nothing to do with it, however, on some occasions during official trips of Obersturmfuehrer Wolfrum who was the deputy of Hoffmeyer in Berlin, he represented him in this and during these representations ions he was in charge of these documents, that is, that he had to sign them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3042, "page_number": "3035", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QDoes that apply also for the Government General?\nAYes, It does.\nQWas Weibken, the VOMI deputy of whom mention was made today, subordinate to Brueckner?\nANo, Weibken was subordinate -\nQThank you, that is enough. Do you know what Brueckner's opinion was to the question of Germanization and re-Germanization?\nAYes.\nQWhat were his opinions?\nAI know personally that Brueckner rejected these attempts. On several occasions he did something on his own initiative and in an unmistakable manner he expressed his opinions, that he was completely opposed to them.\nQDid he have anything to do with these questions?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether Brueckner made membership be Germanism dependent on racial requirements?\nANo. Brueckner's opinion was that only a voluntary acknowledgement, a voluntary expression of opinion could qualify one to be a German. He also stressed mainly the fact that the person concerned had to make a voluntary recognition.\nQWhat was Brueckner's attitude in principle to the deportation of Alsacians, Luxembourgians, Slovenes and Lorrainians?\nAAs far as we discussed the matter, he always rejected these deportations.\nQWitness, was Brueckner's attitude in contradiction to the official attitude of Himmler?\nAYes, it was a very cross contradiction of Himmler's opinion. This difference of opinion led to Brueckner being warned by the Reich Security Main Office. The Reich Security Main Office, as far as I remember, informed the VOMI in 1944 that these opinions of Brueckner, \n which deviated from the opinions of the Reichsfuehrer SS, could not go on any longer and made his position untenable in the VOMI.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3043, "page_number": "3036", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QWhat happened? What did the VOMI do?\nAI remember that Brueckner on this account was given a serious reprimand and he was told that if he did not restrain his comments he would very probably be dismissed by the VOMI.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you. No further questions. BY DR. KLINNERT (For the defendant Schwarzenberger):\nQWitness, you were personnel expert of the VOMI?\nAYes.\nQAs a result of your work at the VOMI, do you know who had the administrative work of the Reich Commissioner?\nAYes, I know that very well.\nQWho was it?\nASturmbannfuehrer Hagen.\nQWas Schwarzenberger in appearance in any way in the administrative work of the VOMI?\nANo, It was this way: the Reichsfuehrer SS desired that the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism as well as the main office of the VOMI was only represented by one person each and that was the attitude of Schwarzenberger. However, he had hardly any influence in the administrative work of the VOMI. I do remember that once or twice only he appeared at the VOMI. Once or twice a year.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger have any influence on the material tasks of the VOMI?\nANo, in no way. He had some sort of service supervision.\nDR. KLINNERT:Thank you\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. DOETZER", "DR. KLINNERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3044, "page_number": "3037", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QWitness, you mentioned, on direct examination that Behrens never told the defendant Lorenz about his cooperation with the Security Police. Of what did that cooperation consist?\nA (None of this answer came over my earphones. Please fill in from sound track) The cooperation of Behrens with the Security Service consisted in Behrens informing the Security Service about all measures regarding ethnic questions ordered by the Foreign Office or the Reichfuehrer SS.\nQWitness, did the defendant Brueckner ever wear the SS uniform?\nAYes, Brueckner wore the SS uniform. That is to say, not always but when the service required it.\nQWitness, were you an ardent Nazi?\nAI, myself?\nQYes, Witness.\nAYes, I was a convinced National Socialist.\nQWitness, did you ever report people to the Gestapo for listening to foreign broadcasts?\nANo, never.\nQWitness, do you remember ever circulating a memorandum in Office VI to Brueckner and others holding office chiefs and division chiefs responsible for reporting to you people who listened to foreign broadcasts, so that you could inform the Gestapo?\nANo, I can't remember.\nQWitness, will you please look at DocumentNO-5060, which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.835? Is this signed by you, witness?\nAYes.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQIn the cross examination, you said you talked about the reports \n which Behrens gave to the SD.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3045, "page_number": "3038", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "If I understood you correctly, this was a personal contact of Behrens with the SD.\nA Yes, that is correct insofar as Behrens was in the SD for many years and even after he joined the VOMI he continued his official and personal relations with the SD.\nQHowever, these were not his official tasks in the VOMI?\nANo, these were not his official tasks in the VOMI.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you. No further questions. BY DR. DOETZER.\nQWitness, did you see the photostat of Document No-5060?\nAYes.\nQWhat is this concerned with?\nAThis deals with passing on an order which I received in my capacity as Security Officer of the VOMI.\nQAs a result of this order, were any co-workers reported to you by employees of VOMI which listened be foreign senders?\nAYes, some co-workers of the VOMI were reported to me.\nQDid you pass them on to the Gestapo?\nANo, never.\nDR. DOETZER:That is enough, thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom will you call next?\nDR. SCHUBERTI should like to call the witness Roedel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand,\nALBERTROEDEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath).\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examinati on.\nDR. SCHUBERT :This witness gave an affidavit for the Prosecution, which is Exhibit 705 in Volume VIII-D. I should like to talk to this witness about this affidavit.", "speakers": [ "Q", "ALBERT", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "DR. SCHUBERT " ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3046, "page_number": "3039", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_10_1_Fox (Horn) BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, you stated in your affidavit that you had to make a racial examination of Yugoslavs in a camp of the VOMI in St. Veit. Can you tell us with certainty that it was a VOMI camp?\nAI cannot say that with certainty. When I gave my affidavit. I assumed so. In my opinion, this could only have been a camp of either the VOMI or the BDS in Feldes.\nQCan you explain what the BDS means?\nABDS is the commander of the Security Police in Feldes.\nQDid you ever talk with the camp commander about VOMI?\nAYes. I talked about the VOMI. I can even remember that he compained bitterly to me about the fact that the VOMI did not want to provide billetting accommodations in time.\nQDo I understand you to refer to camp space for accommodating the Slovenes in the Reich?\nAYes, the Slovenes who were in the camps were to be taken to the Reich and to be accommodated in VOMI camps.\nQDoes this comment of the camp commander in St. Veit about his difficulties with the VOMI, not iindicate that St. Veit was not a VOMI camp?\nAYes, it might be assumed. Yes.\nQWitness, in your affidavit you stated that VOMI took Slovenes to Germany. Can you tell us exactly which office conducted those transports?\nANo, I can't tell you that. I merely can state that these transports which I observed went under plice supervision, were taken to the railroad station, and loaded there. As to who conducted these transports, I don't know. I never received any information about that.\nQHow does it happen, Witness, that in your affidavit, although you do not know it, you state that the VOMI was in charge of the camp in St. Veit and conducted the transports too?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3047, "page_number": "3040", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_10_2_Fox (Horn)\nADuring my interrogations, I was of the opinion that it was merely a matter of the RuSHA Main Office to which I belonged. Consequently all matters concerning other offices and VOMI gelongs to them, I did not consider them. For the rest, the formulation of the interrogation record was not phrased by me but by my interrogators. During the interrogation. I stated that some of these things were based on assumptions and that I wasn't quite sure of them, and I was told that I would be given an opportunity to make corrections or additions whenever I thought of them.\nQCan you also tell us, Witness, where St. Veit is?\nAAt that time? St. Viet is in the Lower Camiola, in that part of the Austrian Upperland which in 1920 was separated from Austria and in 1940 returned to Austria and to the German Reich.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you, Witness. No further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY THE COURT BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWhat was you position?\nAAt that time I was the Racial Examiner SS Fuehrer in the Race and Settlement Office in the Higher SS of the Police Fuehrer Alpenland and Salzburg.\nQHow much time did you spend in Yugoslavia?\nASince I was there on several occasions, I can't tell you exactly. I might say that altogether I was there about nine months to a year, but I can't tell you exactly.\nQHow many trips did you make to the Camp St. Veit?\nAWell, in this respect tooo I can't give you exact figures. However, I was there on several occasions and I should say about two to three times.\nQWho was in charge of that camp?\nAAn SS Unterfuehrer whose name I do not recall.\nQDo you remember the name of anybody who was connected with that camp?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHUBERT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3048, "page_number": "3041", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_10_3_Fox (Horn)\nAOf the people who were working in the camp itself, I know nothing.\nQYou mean to say that you made racial examinations of people located in camps and do not know to what agency the camp in which you made the racial examination was attached?\nANo, it was none of my business. I was informed to report to this collecting camp and to conduct the examinations.\nQWere you informed that it was a VOMI camp?\nANo.\nQWhat were you told that it was?\nAI was informed by the office of the BDS in Feldes and I was told the camp will send out transports and I was to go there and make my racial examinations.\nQYou say in your affidavit, \"It is however known to me that the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans, VOMI, in St. Veit, Yugoslavia, was guarded by a guard detail.\" Is that true?\nAWhenever I visited the camp, there was always a police guard at the entrance of the camp.\nQDid you ever make any racial examinations at any camps that you knew to be VOMI camps?\nAYes, I think later on I was sent for an examination of a camp of the VOMI in Saxony and in other parts of southern Germany and I know exactly that all these camps were VOMI camps.\nQWere they under guard?\nANo.\nQWho was in charge of the VOMI camps that you did make racial examinations in?\nAThe second that I mentioned? You mean the later examinations in the Reich itself, don't you?\nQI want to know who was in charge of any VOMI camp at which you made racial examinations, if you remember.\nAI don't know the names of any of the people concerned.\nQYou used the term, in your affidavit, \"Yugoslavian bandits.\"", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3049, "page_number": "3042", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_10_4_Fox (Horn) What do you mean by that?\nAThis is an expression which I was not used to and which I cannot define exactly.\nQWhat did you mean by it when you used it in this affidavit?\nAWell, it is hard to say because the people in these camps, in my beliefs, were not really bandits or very few of them were. The were not people who belonged to bands, but people who for reasons of security were taken from the areas of the Lower Ukraine and Camiola. That there were some members of Partisan bands is fairly obvious.\nQThe interrogator who interrogated you and prepared this affidavit was Mr. Herbert Meyer, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhen Mr. Meyer interrogated you and when the affidavit had been reduced to writing, did he or did he not furnish you with the affidavit as it had been reduced to writing before you signed it?\nAYes, I saw the first copy and I refused to sign it.\nQDid you go through the affidavit and make such changes as you desired to make before you did sign it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3050, "page_number": "3043", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "BY THE COURT:\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait just a moment, witness, until the whistle gets through. Now, what was your answer to that question?\nAIf I remember correctly you asked me whether I read through the affidavit before I signed it. Yes, I read it through.\nQDid you make any chages in the language used in the affidavit before you signed it?\nANo, I objected to one passage, and as far as I remember I did not correct anything but I simply refused to sign the first copy and, then I was given a second copy.\nQDid you raise any objection to the second copy?\nANo, I didn't. I merely said that I was not quite sure of every part of it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand, Who will you call next?\nDR.ALTSTAETTER, counsel for the defendant Veirmetz:\nThe witness Roedel in his affidavit.-\nTHE PRESIDENT:I have read the affidavit, and I think I know what you are talking about. Since your clinet was mentioned you want to examine the witness?\nDR. ALTSTAETTER:Yes\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think that it is proper. Let the witness come back; since your client was expressly mentioned, I will permit that.\n(Witness recalled to stand)\nCROSS EXAMINATION WITNESS ALBERT ROEDEL DR. ALTSTAETTER:\nQWitness, in your affidavit you also made some statements about Frau Viermetz. Can you tell me what persons and families were in the St. Veit camp?\nAThere were such persons in St. Veit who to my knowledge for security reasons had been taken from Lower Camiola into the Reich. There \n might be those families who were connected directly with the Partisan bands or who supported partisans, or were suspected of having supported partisans.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ALTSTAETTER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3051, "page_number": "3044", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "It is even possible that among them ther were a few persons who had requested to be removed from this territory, and assisted by partisans in order to avoid later difficulties.\nQAt that time then at St. Veit, when Frau Viermetz was there, did you know the so-called Bandit Decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS?\nAI would have to see this Decree first before I can say anything about it.\nQI will submit this Decree to you now. This was Exhibit 390.\nAI did not know this decree.\nQWitness, is it correct to say that this order was classified as top secret?\nAAs far as I remember, yes, therfore I could not possibly have known it.\nQHow can you possibly speak about matters of bandits or partisans who happened to be in St. Veit, if you do not and could not have known anything about partisans?\nAI did not have an actual, real knowledge. One didn't actually have to think of certain orders or decrees; any activity of any insurrection within the territories occupied by the German Army was considered a partisan or bandit activity.\nQYou did not know this decree?\nANo.\nQDid you talk with Frau Viermetz about partisans or partisan activities?\nAI don't think I ever used the expression, \"partisan\" in connection with the occasion of her visit. I hardly ever used the expression.\nQWere there supposed to be children in these camps, or in that camp?\nAYes, of course.\nQDo you know what nationality these children were?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3052, "page_number": "3045", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Dec 1947_M_MSD_11_3_Stewart (Horn)\nAIn my opinion, most of them certainly were German citizens, revokable German citizens.\nQWas Frau Viermetz told on the occasion of her visit that they were orphans?\nACertainly orphans must have been among them. I probably must have mentioned it.\nQDo you remember talking with Frau Viermetz about what was to happen to these children?\nAI was interested in these children because their billets and accommodations were very poor, and I was personally, greatly interested in getting Frau Viermetz interested in these children.\nQDid Frau Viermetz decide which children were to be taken to the Lebensborn?\nANo children were selected by Frau Viermetz.\nADid Frau Viermetz mention that the card index should select such children?\nANo. Frau Viermetz never saw the card index.\nQIn your opinion, what was your iipression of what the visit of Frau Viermetz meant?\nAAs I have already stated, I was greatly interested in the fate of the children. I assumed and my then superior, SS Sturmbannfuehrer Oberstiener also thought the same way as I did, and brought Frau Viermetz to the camp in order to get her interested in the fate of these children so that the sole operation was conducted more by Obersteiner and myself than by the Lebesnborn.\nQDid Obersteiner give you an order when Frau Viermetz entered the camp?\nAYes, when Obersteiner arrived, he introduced Frau Viermetz to me and he said\"I would like you to show all domiciles and all children to Frau Viermetz\", and I did that.\nQDid Frau Viermetz talk with the children?\nAAs far as I remember Frau Viermetz talked with a few of these \n small girls who were playing in the yard.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3053, "page_number": "3046", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QDid the children understand German?\nAWell, Rrau Viermetz did not talk Slovene, and most of the children were of school age, most of them talked German because their schools were conducted in German.\nQDid Frau Viermatz make any binding promises to me, and I know of no promises that she might have made to Obersteiner.\nQWere children from the camp later on transferred and transported to the Lebensborn?\nANot to my knowledge. The children went with other transports, and they ent to Germany proper.\nQIf I understand you correctly, you want to say, and mean to say that no children transports were made?\nAThere were never any children's transports from St. Veit during the time that I was there. The children were examined by me together with their families and alwasy remained with their families.\nTHE PRESIDENT:How long does counsel think it will take for him to finish with this witness? It is our lunchtime and unless you can finish rather shortly, we will adjourn.\nDR. ALSTAETTER:If Your Honor please, I should like to continue the examination after 1330 hours.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(COURT IN RECESS UNTIL 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "DR. ALSTAETTER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3054, "page_number": "3047", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1345 hours, 23 December 1947.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not know whether counsel was in the courtroom at the time the ruling was made with reference to cross examination of witnesses who had made affidavits. The ruling was that cross examination would be limited strictly the contents of the affidavit. Counsel will please comply with that rule.\nDR. ALTSTOETTER:I shall comply with that. May I continue the examination?\nALBERT ROEDEL - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. ALTSTOETTER:\nQ.Witness, you had been talking especially of children in camps with families. But at the time of Mrs. Viermetz's visit, there were also orphan children without families.\nA.Yes, certainly. A few children without relatives - there were always some of those.\nQNow, did Frau Viermetz not take a special interest in these orphans?\nA.As far as I know, she looked after them. But whether she...\nQ.Well, yes; thank you, that's enough. You said just now that you and your superior Obersteiner wanted Frau Viermetz to take a special interest in these orphans. Why was that so close to your heart?\nA.Because the children were very badly accommodated, and I personally am very fond of children. The idea was that they should be cared for as well as possible because we knew that they would be best of all cared for if some institution of the Lebensborn could take them over.\nQDid the Lebensborn or your superior agency or Frau Viermetz ever order you to examine children racially for the Lebensborn from among these orphans?\nA.No, I never had any orders to select children from Lebensborn;", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. ALTSTOETTER", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3055, "page_number": "3048", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "and as far as I know, at any rate, Obersteiner never told me that he had any orders of this kind.\nQ.And in other words you did not examine them at all and not even from racial viewpoints?\nA.No, I never selected children for any organization.\nQ.Do you know whether the Lebensborn received or took over children from the camp?\nA.No, I don't know. As long as I was there, children were never sent to the Lebensborn and all children in the camp were sent away with their families if there were transport groups to some camp in Germany proper.\nQ.Did Frau Viermetz on her visit have any lists of names of children or any other written document? Did she receive or take away any such document?\nA.No, Frau Viermetz did not get any documents at all--no lists, nothing whatsoever.\nQ.Later on, was any correspondence conducted about taking over children from the camps or any agreement reached?\nA.Certainly not with me. I never corresponded with the Lebensborn, either then or later.\nQ.Can one say that the visit of Frau Viermetz, according to your impression, was for the sake of obtaining information?\nA.My impression was that Frau Viermetz came only to inform herself at our suggestion--that is at Obersteiner's.\nQ.Did you know Frau Viermetz before this visit?\nA.No, I met Frau Viermetz for the first time in St. Veit.\nQ.Did you ever see Frau Viermetz again after that time?\nA.Shortly before the end of the war I saw Frau Viermetz once when she was passing through Wiesbaden.\nQ.Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3056, "page_number": "3049", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:May it please the Tribunal, I have no further witnesses now. There is another witness called Fabricius, who made an affidavit for the Prosecution and he couldn't be gotten here in time by the Defense Center. I have heard that he is supposed to arrive here on the fifth of January, and I ask you to give me an opportunity to examine this witness about his affidavit and cross examine him on the fifth of January.\nThere is another affiant, a witness by the name of Hagen, who is in a British camp. Up to now, it is not clear whether or when the witness will be at out disposal here. The sane applies to a witness Schnitzler, a witness of my own, approved by the Court, who is also in a British camp, and we don't know when or if he will be available. If these witnesses should still turn up, I ask you to give me an opportunity to hear them.\nThen I have two document books which are finished and which I could submit to the Tribunal now if the Tribunal so wishes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:With reference to your future witnesses, I don't know what the score will be about that. We must have some orderly procedure and proceed along with the case. If they do show up, all I can tell you is what I told the other counsel who have made the same request: we will cross that bridge when we get to it. How many documents do you have ready to introduce now?\nDR. SCHUBERT:May it please the Tribunal, there are two document books which contain perhaps 40 or 50 documents. I could submit them very quickly.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. SCHUBERT:In Document Book I, I offer Document No. 2 as Exhibit No. 1, affidavit Skowronski. Document 14, as Exhibit 2, affidavit Schulz. Document 19-\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I am not objecting to these documents. I should merely like now to make a general reservation for the Prosecution to have the right to call these affiants for cross examination at a later date. The Prosecution will not necessar \n ily call any witnesses:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3057, "page_number": "3050", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "it would merely like the right to have this right reserved for itself.\nTHEPRESIDENT: we will cross that bridge when we will get to it.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Document 19 I offer as Exhibit 3, affidavit Lobkewitz. Document 21 I offer as Exhibit No. 4, affidavit from Prinz zu SaynWittgenstein-Berleburg. Document No. 48 I offer as exhibit 5, affidavit by Nagel. Document 16 I offer as Exhibit 6, affidavit by Willikens. Document 3 I offer as Exhibit 7, affidavit by Rimann. I offer Document 5 as Exhibit 8, affidavit by Hagen. I offer Document 10 as Exhibit 9, affidavit by Lohl. Document 4 as Exhibit 10, affidavit by Hangel. I offer Document 15 as Exhibit 11, affidavit by Koehler. I offer Document 20 as Exhibit 12, affidavit by Panzer. I offer Document 8 as Exhibit 13, affidavit by Welkersterfer. I offer Document 18 as exhibit 14, affidavit by Heitz. I offer Document 17 as Exhibit 15, affidavit by Bergamnn.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3058, "page_number": "3051", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Document 6 as Exhibit 16, affidavit by Goetz.\nDocument 7 as Exhibit 17, affidavit by Lang.\nDocument 46, as Exhibit 18, affidavit by Lauer.\nDocument 1 as Exhibit 19, affidavit by Dankers.\nDocument 43 as Exhibit 20, affidavit by Javarowski.\nDocument 49 , as Exhibit 21, affidavit by Ost.\nDocument 39, as Exhibit 22, affidavit by Igert.\nDocument 38 as Exhibit 23, affidavit by Mueller.\nDocument 40 as Exhibit 24, affidavit by Milch.\nDocument 22, as Exhibit 24, affidavit by Kammerhofer.\nDocument 51, as Exhibit 26, affidavit by Ohlendorf.\nDocument 42, as Exhibit 27, affidavit by Buehler.\nDocument 9 as Exhibit 28, affidavit by Remmers.\nThose are the documents in Volume I. Now, I pass to Volume II and offer from it Document 11 as Exhibit 29 . Excerpts from the Hague Convention on Land Warfare.\nDocument 12, as Exhibit 30, excerpts from the Geneva Convention.\nDocument 13, as Exhibit 31, extracts from Manual for Courts-Martial, U.S. Army.\nDocument 47 as Exhibit 32 , Extracts from Survey on the development of the European Refugee Proglem from 1918 to 1947.\nDocument 35, as Exhibit 33, Extract from Commitment of Manpower, concerning definition and scope of the designation of re-settlers. Order of the RKFDV.\nDocument 27, as Exhibit 34, Extract from Commitment of Manpower, concerning competency in connection with the repatriation from Baltic Countries.\nDocument 29, as Exhibit 35, concerning competency in connection with the repatriation of Germans from Volhynia.\nDocument 36 as Exhibit 36, concerning competency in connection with repatriation of Germans from Volhynia, Galicia and the Narev District.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3059, "page_number": "3052", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Document 32 as Exhibit 37, concerning competency in connection with the repatriation of ethnic Germans from Bessarabia and North Bukovina, Document 28 as Exhibit 38, about the subsequent resettlement from Latvia and Estonia.\nDocument 24, as Exhibit 39, c oncering permission to resettlement of Baltics.\nDocument 34 as Exhibit 40, concerning competency in the repatriation of Germans from Lithuania.\nDocument 37 as Exhibit 41, concerning the resettlement agreement between Germany and Croatia.\nDocument 31 as Exhibit 42, concerning discharge of resettlers from camps.\nDocument 30 as Exhibit 43, concerning labor allocation of resettlers from Volhynia, Galicia and the Narec District.\nDocument 33, as Exhibit 44, concerning labor allocation of resettlers.\nDocument 50, as Exhibit 45, concerning Control Council Law No. 3.\nDocument 25, as Exhibit 46, concerning repatriation of Racial Germans from France.\nDocument 23, as Exhibit 47, concerning members of the ethnic German cultural Community of Northern France.\nDocument 41, as Exhibit 48, concerning ethnic Germans in POW camps.\nDocument 44, as Exhibit 49, concerning the surrendering of rooms to ethnic German resettlers, Document 45, as Exhibit 50, concerning accommodation ofethnic German resettlers from Bessarabia.\nDocument 26, as Exhibit 51, concerning the Main Office for Ethnological Protection in Villi.\nThat ends my submission of documents for today. I ask you to allow me to submit a supplementary volume of documents later.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3060, "page_number": "3053", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "DR.DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner) May it please the Tribunal, on behalf of the defendant Brueckner I would now loke to call the witness Reinhold Lorenz to the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal made an announcement on yesterday that if and when the VOMI Defense concluded today, we would adjourn regardless of the time of day. What is the character of this witness -- cross examination on an affidavit?\nDR. DOETZER:No, Your Honor, it is a free witness for the defen dant, called for the defendant Brueckner.\nHis examination will take about three-quarters of an hour, and then I have another witness for the defendant Brueckner and that examination will take fifteen minutes. These are free witnesses.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The only thing I want to caution you about is that you better make that time good, because we won't work too late today.\nDR. DOETZER:Very well, Your Honor.\nREINHOLDLORENZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination .\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner)\nQ.Witness, give the Tribunal your full name, place of birth and your present address.\nA.My name is Reinhold Lorenz; I was born on the 10th of December 1911, at Buetow, Pomerania; my present address is Neumuenster Holstein , Hallstaedterstrasse 46.\nQ.Were you a member of the Party or its affiliates?\nA.I have been a party member since 1930 and of the SA since, from 1930 up to June 1934.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "REINHOLD", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3061, "page_number": "3054", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Q.Why did you leave the SA?\nA.In the course of the Roehm Putsch I was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown out of the SA.\nQ.When did you join the SS?\nA.On the 16th April, 1943 because I was drafted into the Waffen SS; at that same time I obtained the rank of Untersturmfuehrer because of my position with VOMI.\nQ.So you were drafted into the Waffen SS, if I understand correctly.\nA.Yes, I was drafted.\nQ.And you were Untersturmfuehrer, technically leader in the Waffen SS.\nA.Yes,\nQ.Were you interned until the collapse?\nA.I was interned up to the 15th April, 1946, by the British.\nQ.What is your profession at the present time?\nA.At the moment I am a builder's laborer.\nQ.When did you join VOMI?\nA.I joined VOMI in February, 1942 because I was conscripted.\nQ.In what department were you employed?\nA.I was first of all employed in the department for the protection of racial work under Weber.\nQ.Under whom was Weber?\nA.Weber was subordinated to Behrens.\nQ.When did you become a colleague of the defendant Brueckner?\nA.I became a colleague of the defendant Brueckner around the turn of the year 1942 - 1943 in the reorganization of VOMI. I was assigned to Department VI, which Brueckner managed.\nQ.What did you handle in Office VI?\nA.In Office VI I was assigned to comradeship work and had to handle complaints from the ethnic Germans.\nQ.Why was the department in which you were working called \n comradeship work?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3062, "page_number": "3055", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "A.Herr Brueckner said that the term which the VDA, racial protection work, was ambiguous, and that we in Office VI were only concerned with welfare and care for ethnic Germans and had nothing to do with aliens.\nQ.How many complaints did your department get per month, approximately?\nA.At the beginning about three hundred; and later on they diminished slightly in number.\nQ.How many ethnic Germans were there in the Reich approximately at the time?\nA.At the beginning when I joined the office, Office VI, there were about five to seven hundred thousand, but those numbers increased later.\nQ.What did they complain about?\nA.Mainly the complaints were about wrong labor assignments, lack of accommodations, wrong treatment by agencies, or in the case of working, dissatisfaction with working conditions.\nQ.Were you and your colleagues there in order to remedy these complaints?\nA.Yes, I had five or six colleagues to help me.\nQ.What instructions did Brueckner give you for your work?\nA.The basic instructions for my work was formulated by Brueckner in the following way: The ethnic Germans in the Reich were theoretically and in practice to be absolutely on the same footing as the Reich Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3063, "page_number": "3056", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QDid you or did Brueckner direct the labor assignment of ethnic Germans in the Reich?\nANo, we were not competent for this. We only had to look after the ethnic Germans after they had been assigned to work.\nQHad these ethnic Germans whom you looked after in Officer VI, been deported to the Reich forcibly and allocated as slave laborers?\nANo, I know nothing about that nor did I get any complaints to this effect from ethnic Germans.\nQDid you also look after the Germans from Russia and the SouthEast who were fleeing from the Red Army?\nAYes, we even had a generous auxiliary scheme to help them.\nQHow often did Brueckner in your presence have meetings, morning discussions with all his colleagues in Office VI?\nAThere were two morning discussions a week, on Wednesday and Saturdays.\nQDid you regularly attend them?\nAYes.\nQAt these discussions were all labor tasks of Office VI discussed?\nAYes.\nQWhat directives did Brueckner give to his colleagues for their racial work?\nAHe told us again and again that the supreme principle of our racial work in Office VI must be love of our own race, respect for other races, refusal to take part in any Germanization or re-Germanization measures and all forcible measures because all compulsion and every pressure only resulted in counter-pressure. We were always supposed to be helpful to all those who came to us and help them as far as possible.\nQHow did Brueckner comment on the racial question?\nAOn the racial question Brueckner disliked the stress on the Nordic race. He said to look after one's heritage had nothing to do with racial questions. He told us to look after these people as a reality\nQAt the morning discussions did you ever hear anything about deportation?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3064, "page_number": "3057", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "AYes, Brueckner reported about deportations from, I think, Alsace, and condemned them, as his basic attitude was that all forcible measures were bad.\nQDid Brueckner have any difficulties on account of his attitude?\nAYes. For instance, I know that from the Reich Security Main Office he had been described as unsuitable in a letter.\nQDid you or Brueckner add to the deportation of Slovenes, Alsatians, Lorrainians, and Luxembourgians, did you order them or carry them out?\nANo.\nQWere deportees of this kind in VOMI camps?\nAI know that Office XI for camp workers was responsible for such people. That's all I know. Other agencies were competent.\nQDid Brueckner, for the resettlement, carry them out for every German in general?\nANo, I don't know anything of that.\nQDid Brueckner's Office VI have to look after people fit for reGermanization?\nANo, Brueckner, as I have said, was a severe opponent of reGermanization and was known to be that.\nQDo you remember any special instance where Brueckner's opposition of re-Germanization was expressed?\nAYes, I remember a report he made at a morning meeting about measures which Gauleiter Forster had carried out in his Gau and which he disapproved of very strongly.\nQDid you hold the same view in this question?\nAYes, and I remember a serious dispute on this point with one of Forster's experts when a complaint from Danzig was examined.\nQDid Brueckner at the morning discussions ever advocate the sterilization of resettlers of Jewish descent or did he even order it?\nANo. As far as I know there was an order from the Reichsfuehrer-SS \n that Jews were not allowed to be resettled and if this did happen it could only be done secretly.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3065, "page_number": "3058", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QDo you remember why Brueckner talked about this subject at the morning meetings?\nAHe was reporting about his Lithuanian resettlement where he had evacuated a number of Jews and aliens who had reported because they were in danger. Of course he had not reported these people to the RSHA as he feared forcible measures and because he disapproved of them. He disapproved of all forcible measures against the Jews too because he reported to me that he had repeatedly found race-conscious Jews who were very much aware of being Germans.\nQIn the case of Jews you mentioned, were they ethnic Germans living outside of Germany with the ethnic groups?\nAYes, that's what it was.\nQDid Brueckner at the morning discussion ever talk about measures of birth restrictions with Poles?\nAYes.\nQWhat did he say?\nAFrom his basic attitude and his experience of racial work he very strongly disapproved of such measures.\nQDid Office VI or Brueckner have anything to do at all with such matters that we have just been discussing?\nANo.\nQWhy did he discuss anything of the kind at the morning discussions in that case?\nAHe reported that a decree from other agencies on the subject had been issued which he wanted to bring to our attention as things which one must not do in practical racial work.\nQDid Office VI or Brueckner have any connection with the interruption of pregnancy?\nANo.\nQDid Office VI or Brueckner have any connection with taking away and sterilizing children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3066, "page_number": "3059", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "ANo.\nQWitness, I am now submitting to you the document submitted by the Prosecution in cross examination,NO-5312and 5311. Look at these documents please. Do you know these documents?\nADocumentNO-5312I know. I don't know the other document, that is, 5311.\nQDid you handle the ease mentioned in Document 5312?\nAYes, I did.\nQDid you pass Document 5312 on to Brueckner for his information?\nAI submitted it to him and told him that this was a work which concerned aliens.\nQHow do you know that exactly? Can you tell from the document?\nAYes, I know the document it was passed on to me by mail and I road it through and established right away that it was an affiar which was no concern of ours.\nQDid you make any note on this document?\nAYes, it is still at the top here, to the \"Obersturmbannfuehrer for his information\", and my signature.\nQDid you yourself then go to Brueckner with this document?\nAI then went to Brueckner with this document and then told him what it was about and that it was no affair of ours. Thereupon I remember perfectly that Brueckner said, \"This is no affair of ours. Inform the VDA that we have no connection with this and that if they have any part in it they are to stop it immediately.\" Further, I was supposed to show this to Professor Schoepke who was an open opponent of Germanization for his information. I then called up the Gau Association, business manager of VDA and had him come to Berlin for discussion and explained our point of view to him. Professor Schoepke also received this document from us. I also want to mention that this Gau Association leader was later on relieved of his duties.\nQDid you make any note about your measures?\nAYes, we always did that on such occasions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3067, "page_number": "3060", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QIs a note on this document or is it attached to this document?\nANo, there is nothing there.\nQDid Brueckner, as head of Office VI, order you to destroy documents on the collapse, or what did he do?\nANo, on the contrary all our documents, including the secret documents and whatever else we had, card indexes, etc., had to be carefully packed. Nothing was allowed to be destroyed.\nQDid you stick to this or did you destroy documents?\nANo, not a singal document, as far as I can tell, was destroyed.\nQWitness, did Brueckner confidentially tell his colleagues in the way you just described what his opinions were?\nANo, Brueckner in his views and opinions was very frank. Not only in our circles but in the presence of other people too, he talked about his opinions and made no attempt to hide them. I and others of his colleagues often advised Brueckner to be more discreet in the interest of his own safety, but he refused, so that we were often afraid that he might be attacked in some way.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you witness, I have no further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, did these ethnic Germans who had been brought to Germany, who came to you with their complaints, did these people get the full food ration cards?\nAYes, we saw to it when the decree of the Reich Food Ministry was issued that these ethnic Germans were to get exactly the same food ration cards as the Reich Germans.\nQWitness, was the freedom of movement of these people limited in any way?\nAAs ethnic Germans they could move just as freely as the other Reich Germans, if they were recognized to be ethnic Germans, of course.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. DOETZER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3068, "page_number": "3061", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "QWitness, did you ever hear of non-ethnic Germans being deported from occupied areas into VOMI camps?\nAI don't know that. I only know that deportees were in VOMI camps, but they were under Office XI and we had nothing to do with that.\nQWitness, did you hear that Slovenes had been deported into these VOMI camps?\nANo, as I said just now, I only know that some of these people were in VOMI camps but they were not within our competency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3069, "page_number": "3062", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document NumberNO-5177, an affidavit signed by you on 17 September 1947, which I now offer as prosecution exhibit number 836. Witness, did you sign this affidavit voluntarily without any compulsion or duress of any kind?\nAYes.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, did the prosecution call you and name you to the Court here?\nAThe prosecution called me here twice and I have been examined twice.\nQDid the prosecution then renounce you?\nAIn my last examination I was told that I could leave.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom will you call next?\nWILLIPURM, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me. I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold nothing and add nothing.\n(Witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, give the Court your name, date of birth and your present address.\nAMy name is Willi Purm. I was born on the 27th of April 1918 and I live in Esslingen/Neckar-Ruedern, Hinterer Holzweg 67.\nQWhat is your present profession?\nAI am sales and buying manager for a wood company in Duderstadt.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "WILLI", "DR. DOETZER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3070, "page_number": "3063", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWere you a member of the NSDAP or one of its affiliations?\nANo.\nQAre you a member of the society for the persecuted persons of the Nazi regime?\nAYes, I am recognized as a persecuted person?\nQHow long have you known the defendant Brueckner?\nASince spring of 1938.\nQWere you regularly in touch with him and did you exchange ideas with him?\nAYes, up to about 1943, and from then on it was interrupted.\nQDo you know that Brueckner has been a member of the NSDAP since 1934?\nAYes.\nQWhat was Brueckner's standpoint with regard to the racial question?\nAHe disapproved of the idea of assessing the value of human beings from the racial point of view. He was of the opinion that what mattered about a person was his faith and what he did for his people.\nQWhat was his attitude to the Nazi Jewish policy?\nAHe was always an opponent of the anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazis and that was true too when he was an honorary member of the SS. I often had to ask him to moderate his criticism and he always rejected my warnings because he said his criticism would have its effect one day.\nQDid you talk to Brueckner about ethnic questions?\nAYes.\nQWhat did he say in these talks?\nAHe always said that his supreme principle in ethnic matters was to support love of one's own people and respect for other nationalities. Every form of duress, every lack of voluntariness he opposed and he also thought that any form of force only must call up double the amount of pressure from the person concerned, and he referred to \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3071, "page_number": "3064", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "the attempts at polonization and chechization which only resulted in double opposition from the Germans concerned. He disapproved of every type of forcible Germanization.\nQDo you remember his attitude to the problem of the Slavs who had been inGermany for centuries now?\nAYes, I remember a conversation in which he disapproved of the Slovenes who by descent are Slavs. He disapproved that the German authorities treated them as Germans and were trying to Germanize them. although they were of Slav descent they were outwardly more Nordic in appearance than for instance the population of Leipzig.\nQDid he occasionally or frequently talk to you about the deportation of Slovenes, Luxembourgers, Alsatians or Lorrainians?\nAI remember one conversation in which he told me, in a very excited manner, about the deportation from Alsace and Lorraine and Luxembourg. He said it had been carried out by the RSHA and that he could never approve of such mistaken measures.\nQWitness, do you know whether he made the RSHA or the chief of the Civil Administration responsible for this deportation?\nAAs far as I remember it was the RSHA.\nQWitness, what was Brueckner's basic attitude to his fellow humans?\nABrueckner was always ready to help through and through. One of his main characteristics was an unconditional respect for his fellow humans, irrespective of their nationality, religion or political attitude.\nQCan you give any particularly striking examples of this?\nAYes, we happened to be talking once about the treatment of Jews in Germany, and he said at the time that the Jewish star represented a cultural disgrace and I remember too saying that I had heard a rumor in some conversation that one could be freed from wearing this star if one allowed oneself to be sterilized. He got very excited at that and described with the most stringent terms the im \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3072, "page_number": "3065", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "possibility of such an attitude.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you witness. I have no further questions.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. DOETZER:May it please the Tribunal, may I perhaps address one more question to the witness?\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, one more.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. DOETZER:\nQWitness, are you a Jew?\nAI am a Jew and the last surviving member of a family of seven who were gassed in a concentration camp, and I would not be here now if I were not convinced that Brueckner's humane attitude, which I tried out in years of acquaintance, if I were not convinced that he had kept this in exercising the functions of his office.\nDR. DOETZER:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness was excused.)\nDR. DOETZER:Your Honor, if my document book should already by available I would offer it to the Tribunal now. My document number 1 is an affidavit from Professor Karl Schoepke. I offer it as Brueckner exhibit number 1. My document number 2 is an affidavit by Paul Eilers. I offer it as Brueckner exhibit number 2. My document number 3, an affidavit by von Mahlsen-Ponickau, I offer as exhibit number 3. My document number 4, affidavit by Hans Preusse, I offer as Brueckner exhibit 4. My document number 5, affidavit by Dr. Herbert Wallrabe dated 12 November 1947, I offer as Brueckner exhibit number 5. My document number 6, affidavit by Dr. Wallrabe dated 13 November 1947, I offer as Brueckner exhibit number 6. The affidavit by schoolteacher Paul Godzik, of the 13th of November 1947, my document number 7, I offer as Brueckner exhibit 7.\nThe affidavit of the schoolteacher, Paul Godzik, my document \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3073, "page_number": "3066", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "number 8, I offer as Brueckner exhibit number 8, and the affidavit by schoolteacher Paul Godzik my document number 9, I offer as exhibit number 9. The affidavit of Professor Unruh, my document number 10, I offer as Brueckner exhibit number 10.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I believe that the affiant in document number 10, Unruh, has already been a witness for the defense in VOMI.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That has happened several times already.\nDR. DOETZER:My document number 11, affidavit by Robert Brill, I offer as exhibit number 11. My document number 12, affidavit by Josef Altstoetter, I offer as exhibit number 12. My document number 13, affidavit by Rudolf Proft, I offer as Brueckner exhibit number 13. That concludes my case in chief with the exception of a few affidavits which I have requested with reference to the documents which the prosecution submitted in Brueckner's cross examination. I hope that I will he able to submit these immediately after Christmas.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Since that concludes the VOMI defense, there will be nothing else to do today. The Tribunal, after the conference with the attorneys for both the defense and prosecution, at the recess period this morning, and again at the noon hour has reached the following conclusion.\nThe statements to be made by the defendants from the dock at the conclusion of the case will be limited to ten minutes to each defendant. The time allowed the Prosecution for its final argument or summing up will be one day, one trial day. The time allowed defense counsel for their final statements or final summing up will be three trial days, the Tribunal reserving the right to take a short recess between each argument.\nThe Tribunal will permit in addition to these oral arguments delivered in court, briefs to be filed both by the prosecution and the defense. These briefs will not be read in court but will be by the Tribunal ordered to become a part of the record in the case.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. DOETZER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3074, "page_number": "3067", "date": "23 December 1947", "date_iso": "1947-12-23", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nNow, this ruling or announcement of the Tribunal I hope that the defense counsel who are present will see is conveyed to each member of defense counsel. When we adjourn today there will be twelve days before the court convenes again, which I think is too long but I can't do anything about it. I see no reason, and the Tribunal sees no reason, why these concluding statements should not be prepared by counsel during that period of time. The prosecution has concluded its case in chief. Seven of the defendants have concluded and certainly the others know what their defense will be, so that we would strongly advise counsel to use this period of time preparing the final arguments, because when the case is over as to evidence we will move immediately to hearing those arguments and those who do not have them ready and translated will just not get to make an argument. So it behooves everybody to have these arguments ready and in the hands of the translation department immediately following the holiday period. The Tribunal will now recess until 9:30 a.m. Monday, January 5, 1948.\n(The hearing adjourned to Monday, January 5, 1948, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3075, "page_number": "3068", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 5 January, 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Tribunal I will come to order. Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Proceed with the next defendant.\nDR.SCHUBERT: (For the defendant Lorenz) May it please the Tribunal, when on the last day before Christmas and New Year's recess, I made the announcement that I did not have any more witnesses available at the time. I also announced to the Tribunal that perhaps I might ask permission to call some additional witnesses or other later on. I was referring to the witnesses who up to now for some technical reason or another were unable to appear in court. During the recess between Christmas and New Year's, the Prosecution's affidavit witness Fabricius has appeared here. I therefore ask your permission to examine this witness briefly with regard to his affidavit. The examination will in no manner take up more than ten minutes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. We have not really passed from this group of defendants; we will permit that.\nDR. SCHUBERT:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRIEDRICHFABRICIUS, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "DR.", "FRIEDRICH", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3076, "page_number": "3069", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT: (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz) May it please the Tribunal, I am referring to Prosecution Exhibit 757, which at the time was presented by the Prosecution on the last day of their presentation of evidence and it was submitted as a loose document.\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Friedrich Fabricius.\nQ.You can sit down, witness, in your affidavit you stated that you were a Volksgruppen-Fuehrer in Romania.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the appointment of the position Volksgruppen-Fuehrer already take place before 1933?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Therefore, it was not a National Socialist Institution?\nA.No.\nQ.You went on to say that in the year 1938 you went to Berlin, and that there the VOMI informed you of the fact that you were not allowed to return to Romania.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Was this order issued byVOMI?\nA.No.\nQ.Who ordered this?\nA.Reichsfuehrer Himmler ordered it.\nQ.You also stated, witness, that a part of the resettlers did not go voluntarily, but went under pressure. You yourself from 1938 on were no longer in, were you?", "speakers": [ "BY THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3077, "page_number": "3070", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Just what led you to state that some sort of pressure was exerted on the resettlers?\nA.I know that from hearsay from individual settlers.\nQ.Did you want to say that a direct pressure was exerted on the resettlers or merely that they were encouraged to that effect?\nA.No. I stated explicitly that there was some more pressure exercised on every person whenever he was to leave the soil on which he had worked and his forefathers had worked on for eight hundred years; I stated that explicitly.\nQ.You stated that ethnic Germans from Romania only followed the call into the Waffen SS under pressure only?\nA.With that I also referred to the pressure which was exercised on the ethnic Germans.\nQ.Do I understand you correctly if I assume that by the word \"pressure\" in your affidavit you referred to a moral pressure?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that between Romania and the German Reich a state treaty was concluded with regard to the conscription of Romania nationals?\nA.Yes, people who had been conscripted told me about that.\nQ.Do you know that amongst these people who were conscripted there was a large number of people who also had been naturalized ?\nA.Yes, I knew about that.\nQ.Do you also know that Lorenz always placed emphasis on the fact that the ethnic Germans abroad should not be forced into conscription or for resettling?\nA.Yes, that is what I was told.\nQ.What do you yourself think about Lorenz with whom you had frequent discussions?\nA.I know that in all respects he was always a very kind and generous man toward the ethnic Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3078, "page_number": "3071", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:Thank you; I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, before the defense of the defendant Hofmann starts, the Prosecution would like to withdraw two prosecution affidavits. These are Documents No.NO-2483-PS, an affidavit by Kurt Lindau, which is Exhibit No. 526, in Document Book No. XI; and Document No.NO-5223, an affidavit by Hans Willibald Zwirner, which is Exhibit No. 708, in Document Book VIII-D.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR.SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann) May it please the Tribunal, before calling the defendant Hofmann into the witness stand, I consider it appropriate to call two witnesses to the witness box previously. This will simply the entire procedure and the defendant Hofmann will not have to testify about matters which have already been dealt with by the two witnesses.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; whom will you call?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I now want to call the witness Tesseraux.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nERNSTTESSERAUX, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann)\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your full name and the place and date of birth.\nA.My name is Ernst Tesseraux; I was born on the 20th of September , 1900.\nQ.Before 1939 were you a member of the NSDAP?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "ERNST", "DR. SCHWARZ", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3079, "page_number": "3072", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Witness, please make a short pause between question and answer so that the interpreter will be able to translate my questions. Did you work in the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Yes, in the Settlement Office.\nQ.When did you join the Settlement Office of the SS?\nA.On the 15th June, 1939.\nQ.What position did you occupy in that agency?\nA.I started as an expert and then I became a referent and collaborator at the end; I was in charge of rural matters and farming matters.\nQ.When were you the deputy chief of the Settlement Office?\nA.I was the deputy chief on a temporary basis approximately from 1942 until 1944.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3080, "page_number": "3073", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QDid you have previous training in these matters?\nAYes, I did. I was a professional agricultural expert, and I myself for five years worked in Canada and for five years I was an expert with private settlement company.\nQCan you give us any figures about the personnel strength of the Settlement Office - the personnel strength in the year 1939.\nAAs far as I am able to recall, the approximate number of personnel in 1939 was fifteen officers, non-commissioned officers and other ranks.\nQDid this figure change in 1940?\nAYes. The figure then was reduced to ten officers, non-commissioned officers and other enlisted men. In 1942 this number was still further reduced to approximately six officers, non-commissioned officers and other enlisted men.\nQHow do you explain the fact that this figure was so much reduced?\nABecause the office did not have to deal with any task worth mentioning.\nQThe Prosecution has charged the defendant Hofmann with using the help of the Settlement Office in carrying out the seizures and confiscations in that way. Witness, please tell the Tribunal the purpose for the establishment of the Settlement Office?\nAAs far as I was able to recognize at the time, the Settlement Office was an internal office of the General SS, and later on it became part of the Waffen SS. It had the task of taking people who were willing to settle amongst the ranks of the SS, to register these people, and then as far as it was possible to give some training to these people and when the occasion arose to settle these people within the borders of the German Reich.\nQHow do you explain the fact that the Settlement Office was established - can you please give us the situation in Germany at the time?\nAIn Germany there was a general flight from the rural areas; people left these areas, and in order to stop this condition and above \n all in order to keep the young and healthy peasants from the cities, the Settlement Office, the Race and Settlement Main Office were trying to keep these people in the country as far as it was possible to do so or to bring them back to the country.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3081, "page_number": "3074", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QHowever, the Settlement Office was not included in the governmental tasks?\nANo. The Settlement Office did not carry out any government functions nor did it have any governmental authority; it was purely an internal office of the SS, just like other formations had their welfare offices.\nQIs it correct to say that it was to work as a welfare agency?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWhat was the activity of the Settlement Office prior to 1939? Did it take part in any settlement measures?\nAThe settlement office had participated in settlement measures which took place in Germany. The Settlement Office wanted to extend the very strict limitations enforced by the German Settlement Law, and it was trying to get better living conditions for resettlers. It was included in such a way that the men from the Settlement Office insofar as they were experts would negotiate with competent authorities, and the settlement companies would also collaborate with them in order to establish reasonable plans in order to obtain good buildings and to put it briefly, in order to find a basis for the life of the resettlers with an eye on the future.\nQDid this activity also extend beyond the beginning of the war?\nAYes, the Settlement Office first of all until approximately 1941 dealt with the task of completing these seven resettlement measures and to take care of the resettlers.\nQDid this complete the field of task of the Settlement Office?\nAYes, it did.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted a document here which refers to preparations which were made for the administration of agricultural \n enterprises in the occupied territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3082, "page_number": "3075", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "This makes us believe that the Settlement Office had already done a lot of preliminary work in that field?\nADuring my activity in the Settlement Office any organization of that kind or any other preparations for this purpose did not come to my knowledge.\nQI now am going to hand to you for identification this document. This is Exhibit 633, which is contained in Document Book XIV-C; it is a letter from Lorenz to Hildebrandt. Didn't you hear anything about it?\nANo, at the time when this correspondence took place, and this letter bears the date of 8 September 1939, at that time I was a collaborator in the Settlement Office which was the lowest position after a typist, so that letters of this kind did not come to my knowledge; I was unable to look at them.\nQEven if you yourself did not see this letter, can you say whether the contents of this letter mean anything to you; did you know of any preparations which were made?\nANo. I know nothing about preparations of that kind.\nQNow, I would like to hand you another document, solely for identification. This is Exhibit No. 83, in Document Book No. III. It is a letter from Himmler's office to Franke, with a memorandum of the Racial and Political Office which was passed on. Will you please take a look at the stamp which was used there. What initials can you identify in that respect?\nAThe stamp at the right hand corner is the one which was customarily used in the Race and Settlement Office. On the left, in the first square on the left-hand upper corner the post office passed on this letter to the Settlement Office. On the right-hand upper corner is the initial of Herr Franke. The mark on the left of that I assume is the initial of Herr von Gottberg.\nQWhat did Gottberg do at the time?\nAHerr von Gottberg at that time was the chief of the Settlement \n Office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3083, "page_number": "3076", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QOn this photostatic copy can you see any initials by the defendant Hofmann?\nANo.\nQJust what does his initials look like?\nAThis would be a long drawn \"H\".", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3084, "page_number": "3077", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.We are now coming to the inclusion of the Settlement Office in the tasks pertaining to the war. You told us that in the year 1941 the activities of the Settlement Office were actually terminated. Did Himmler give any new assignments to the Settlement Office at that time?\nA.Yes, he did. Approximately in 1941 - but I don't know whether it was at the beginning or at the end of the year - the Settlement Office, by way of the Race and Settlement main Office, was given an additional assignment in the form of a handwritten letter. This letter stated, first of all, that the Settlement Office was to carry out a precise observation of the seven settlement measures which had taken place within Germany in order to collect experiences and information. Secondly, a registration was to take place and a selection and training for agricultural work of members of the Waffen SS who had been rendered incapable of further military service as a result of injuries. For example, replacements of men on agricultural estates, administrators, workers, people to milk cows, and things of that sort. Thirdly, an activity beyond that was explicitly prohibited to the Settlement Office.\nQ.In spite of this, did the Settlement Office in the course of the war carry out an activity beyond that, in reality?\nA.No, it did not.\nQ.Through the Settlement Office, during the war, were any members of the Waffen SS actually settled?\nA.No.\nQ.Is it correct to say that the activity of the Settlement Office was just the finding of positions and jobs and the taking care of other people?\nA.Yes, that is correct. Actually, the Settlement Office would have been a special department within the main welfare office.\nQ.Just where were the people sent whenever jobs were found for them?\nA.The people were sent wherever they were needed. For example, they would be passed on to SS agencies which were authorized to have \n some sort of agricultural work carried out.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3085, "page_number": "3078", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "They were also turned over to district peasant cooperatives, and further to the estate administrators, and, in part, jobs were also found for them with the economic inspectorates and with the military administrators in the rear army areas. Furthermore, some jobs were found for them with the High SS and Police leaders and the SS economists.\nQ.Did the Settlement Office itself have any authority in the occupied territories?\nA.No.\nQ.Did it carry out any confiscations of real estate property?\nA.No.\nQ.On its own initiative did it administer these estates?\nA.No.\nQ.During the war, by way of the Settlement Office, were any settlements carried out outside of Germany proper?\nA.No.\nQ.Beyond the seven settlement measures within Germany, not one cent was used for settlement purposes?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you ever issue a memorandum pertaining to settlement procedures for the SS?\nA.No. I would like to make an additional statement now. A memorandum for settlement procedures was not issued. However, on one occasion the draft of some training literature which dealt with the entire training procedure of a young farmer and how he was developed into a settler - this draft was made on one occasion and this draft was submitted to Himmler and he disapproved it. Himmler stated that the matter should be brought up again for discussion after the war.\nQ.Therefore, your answer is still correct that no memorandum was issued?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The prosecution has now submitted a number of written state \n ments by Hofmann.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3086, "page_number": "3079", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "These statements are to lead us to the conclusion that Hofmann or the Settlement Office was responsible for the taking away of land in the East. In order to look at the matter more closely, expecially with regard to the somewhat confused conditions which prevailed in the Eastern territories, I ask you to comment on that question. First of all, did the finding of jobs for the SS members take place in the various areas?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what areas were concerned here?\nA.Well, here we dealt with the rear army area, the two Reich commissars for the districts of Ostland, the Baltic countries, and them Ukraine. Thirdly, the Government General, and fourthly, the incorporated territories and fifth, of course, the area of Germany proper.\nQ.To whom was the rear army area subordinated?\nA.Army? To the Military commander.\nQ.How were jobs found for members of the SS there?\nA.With the High SS and Police Leader in the rear army area, or in his staff, there was an SS leader who belonged to the Race and Settlement Service. The people with war injuries, who had a disability, were passed on to him and he, in turn, would turn them over to the people who had the jobs for them.\nQ.You mentioned people who had a war disability. Did the Settlement Office only deal With people with war disabilities?\nA.Yes, for the most part. A small percentage of people who were 4F and who were not fit for military service were given jobs in agriculture, partly because they were too old.\nQ.Did the defendant Hofmann have the authority to issue instructions toward the agricultural agencies within the rear army areas?\nA.No, he did not.\nQ.To whom were these agricultural departments subordinated?\nA.This varied in every respective area as far as the organization was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3087, "page_number": "3080", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "In the rear army area, it probably was subordinated to the Economic Inspectorate and to the military commander. In the two districts under the Commissioner in the East, the Office for Food and Agriculture, and I can't give you the exact title of that agency any more, but it was subordinated to the Reich Commissioners in the Government General. The real estate administration was subordinated to the Governor General. Within the area of Germany proper, of course, that is quite natural. I don't have to explain that.\nQ.Did the WVHA, the Economic and Main Administrative Office play any part in this and did it operate any enterprise in the East?\nA.The WVHA, the Economic and Main Administrative Office administered enterprises in these areas.\nQ.For these enterprises, did Hofmann have the authority to issue instructions?\nA.No, he did not.\nQ.Is it possible that Race and Settlement leaders were in charge of enterprises on their own initiative?\nA.No. After all, the RUS Leaders, the Race and Settlement leaders, with respect to the finding of jobs for agricultural workers who were sent there by the Settlement Office, after all, only represented distributing agency and in the respective areas they had to care for these people.\nQ.Is it correct that in any case he would not have any orders from the Settlement Office that he was to take over enterprises on his own initiative?\nA.Yes.\nQ.For what purposes were these enterprises administered at all where these people were working?\nA.That again varied in the respective areas. In the rear army areas and in the two areas which were administered by the Reich Commissars for the East, the collecting settlements had to be supervised because, in most cases, the administrators of these Kolchos.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3088, "page_number": "3081", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "collective farms, had left together with the Russians. As a result of this, the collective farms which were very extensive were absolutely incapable of being operated. The entire administration of those big agricultural enterprises was in the hands and in the power of a Russian administrator. The collective farms actually were always under supervision. The estates which belonged to the Russian state were administered. That is to say, not directly by the Settlement Office, but by the competent authorities. In the Government General, things were handled in a similar manner like in Western Europe. Here these enterprises which were owned by the state and other agricultural properties which did not have any administrators were administered by the real estate administration of a reliable Polish administrator or German administrator.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3089, "page_number": "3082", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWitness, I wanted to know, above all, for what purpose in the rear army areas these enterprises were administered?\nAIn the rear army are s the estates, first of all, were used in order to supply the troops and the field hospitals. They grew fresh vegetables and other agricultural products which were easily digestible.\nQWhat happened to these people after the jobs had been found for them? They remained on active status with the army?\nAYes, they remained on active status in all cases.\nQDid the so-called SS economists have anything to do with these matters?\nAI didn't quite understand your question.\nQDid the so-called SS economists have anything to do with the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nANo.\nQWhat position did he actually occupy?\nAThe SS economist was the representative of the WVHA, the Economic and Main Administration Office with the High SS and Police Leader.\nQDid you also send people to him?\nAYes.\nQOn whose accounts did the administration of the SS economists go?\nAAs far as I was able to find out, all enterprises which the SS economist or which the SS WVHA administered in the East went on the account of the agricultural authorities which were competent in each individual case.\nQIn the Last, were there any agricultural authorities and which ones were they?\nAI cannot answer this question precisely because I am not acquainted with the agricultural authorities within the governmental system.\nQI only wanted to know whether in the East there were any civil authorities at all which dealt with these agricultural questions?\nAAs far as I was able to observe that, some sort of agricultural authorities must have been used. Above all, in the Russian areas because there, after all, agriculture was operated by the state and after the \n German occupation the entire government control system had disappeared.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3090, "page_number": "3083", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Consequently, in my opinion, some sort of an agricultural agency had to begin its work there in order to keep the agricultural system there operating.\nQIn order to sum up the entire matter once more, I want to ask you, in the so-called Ostland, the Baltic countries, was there also such an agricultural administration?\nAIn the Baltic countries, as far as I know, the administration differed again.\nQI only wanted to know whether there was an administration?\nAYes, there were two administrations within the Baltic countries. There was a Latvian-Estonian and Lithuanian self-administration, and there was also a German administration.\nQHow many people did you actually send there and, first of all, how many did you send to the SS economists?\nAIn my estimation, altogether approximately 120 to 150 men were sent to the SS economists.\nQDid these people, as far as their personnal status was concerned, remain with the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAYes, as far as their military assignment was concerned, they were assigned to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQAnd how was their position signified with the SS economists?\nAThey were detached to the SS economists. They were subordinated to the SS economists in professional matters and also in disciplinary matters.\nQIn individual cases did you yourself know just why these people were requested?\nANo, I did not know that in individual cases. On the whole, however, we knew that these people were to carry out agricultural work.\nQHow was it in the area of the White-Ruthenia? Were things handled there in the same way as in the Baltic countries?\nANo, in White-Ruthenia conditions were similar to those in the Ukraine.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3091, "page_number": "3084", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWhat do you mean by that? Were you an SS economist?\nAI wanted to say that there was no independent administration in White-Ruthenia, but otherwise, conditions were the same. The SS economist there would be furnished the agricultural workers.\nQWho was the Race and Settlement leader in White-Ruthenia?\nAAs far as I can recall, first of all, Schill occupied that position and then he was succeeded by Bux.\nQI believe there was a mistake made in the translation. I only asked you, who was the Race and Settlement leader in the area of the Ukraine. I didn't ask you who occupied that position in White-Ruthenia.\nDid Schill lose his position as a result of the demand of defendant Hofmann?\nAYes.\nQAnd why was he relieved of his position?\nAIt had been discovered that Schill, in spite of his zealousness which he had displayed at the beginning, still he had committed various minor offenses and this made his dismissal necessary.\nQLater on, in discussing documents, we shall discuss Schill again in that connection.\nI am now coming to the Government General. Did the Race and Settlement Main Office administer any enterprises there or what administration did it carry out there?\nAThe Race and Settlement Main Office did not administer any enterprises anywhere. In the Government General, the administration was in the hands of the real estate administrators who worked with the Government General.\nQWho paid the people who had sustained injuries and disabilities in the war whom you had sent there?\nAThe veterans with disabilities generally would receive their military pay. That is to say, the pay corresponding to the rank which they held in the army, and in the Government General, the real estate administer their estates individually and independently. Employment contracts \n were concluded with the clause that the men would remain members of military units and that at any time they could break their contract.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3092, "page_number": "3085", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "In that case, their military pay would not be given to them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3093, "page_number": "3086", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWhy was a fundamental directive to the effect--I don't know whether it was in wrinting or whether in had been given orally--that during the war nobody--and this included people with severe disabiliries--could be dismissed or released from the Waffen SS.\nQI am now coming to the Incorporated Eastern Territories. Were there any procedures used in that area for the settlement of members of the SS?\nAI know that sevral experimental cases were under preparation. Approximately 20 to 25 people were involved in this case. This happened in the agricultural field as well as in the industrial field. However no settlement took place; it could not take place because the persons concerned did not meet the prerequisites for the so-called settlement certificate because they could not be released from military service.\nQIs it correct that fundamentally it was prohibited to settle members of the military service?\nAYes; as far as I know.\nQCould SS members be given deputy positions in individual cases?\nAI recall that sevral men with war disabilities were given these appointments.\nQAnd who paid them?\nAThis was done on the accounts of the custodian of the enterprise.\nQAnd this was not on the accounts of the Settlement Office?\nANo.\nQHow high was the number of people who were sent there, actually, during the entire war time and in all the territories?\nAThe maximum figure of people were given jobs by the Settlement Office in the agricultural field, as I can recall quite clearly, was 700. The figure varied considerably from time to time because these men were under constant medical care, and whenever they were again capable of performing military service at the front they were returned to their combat units.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3094, "page_number": "3087", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QCan you give me any information about the following question? Can you tell me whether the estates were privately owned or State owned. Were these people were sent?\nAAs far as I know , these states could only have been owned by the State or they could have been under State control because the RUS leader, after all, only had contact with these government agencies and he did not deal with any private owners.\nQI am now coming to the individual documents. I am now going to hand to you exhibit No. 639, in Document Book 14-C. This order from the Reichsfuehrer-SS regulates the assignment of members of the WaffenSS. (Hands document to witness.)\nFrom your knowledge of the conditions there, can you tell us what members of the Waffen SS this orders refers to?\nAThis decree only refers to members of the Waffen SS who could not be used for wartime service.\nQWhy was this decree necessary at all?\nAThis decree was necessary to clarify the competency. Various troop units, battalions and companies, and also various other SS agencies had included themselves among those finding jobs for people with warincurred disabilities. Therefore there was an extreme amount of confusion here, and in order to put a stop to these wild assignments and detachments and in order to have one single channel established for all these things, this decree was necessary.\nQIf you look at paragraph 4 of this order, there you will find something about advance training for members of the SS and Police by the Race & Settlement Office. How was this training carried out?\nAFor the most part, very young men were involved here. Within the scope of the advance training they were sent apprentices into some agricultural estate, or we found places for them in agricultural schools and agricultural schools of higher learning and other professional schools, the milking system, the dairy system, and other places,-", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3095, "page_number": "3088", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "that is what we meant here by advanced training.\nWe did not want to find simple jobs for them, but we wanted to take care also of their professional careers.\nQI am now coming to another document. The Prosecution have submitted a report here about a meeting of the Race & Settlement leaders of the 15 th of May, 1944. This is Exhibit No. 45, in Document Book 2-C.\nHere a training estate of the Race & Settlement Main Office was mentioned, which was located at Brudschew. Did you attend that meeting? (Document handed to witness). At the bottom of the first paragraph.\nAOh, yes; I participated in a part of this meeting.\nQDid this estate of Brudschew belong to the Race & Settlement Main Office?\nANo, it did not. Burdschew was an agricultural estate which was under the custodianship of the Reichsland Company.\nQWasn't it administered by a member of the Race & Settlement Main Office?\nANo. It so happened that the official who was working there within the scope of the General SS belonged to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQWas it already established as a training school, or was this only a suggestion which was made?\nAThe estate was not yet organized as a training school. The matter was planned bit it was not carried out any more.\nQWhat was shown on the estate of Brudschew on the occasion of that meeting?\nAI can put that in two different points. The enterprise, which was operated on an exemplary basis, was exhibited; and secondly in the form of a lecture the plan of how the young men with war-incurred disabilities should be given agricultural training there was developed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3096, "page_number": "3089", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination of the witness. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQIn addition to this document, Exhibit 45, I would like to ask you whether it is correct that the main activity of the settlement office was in the settlement of disabled veterans?\nANo. The settlement had nothing to do directly with the settlement, but only indirectly. That is to say, it was the task of the settlement office to register those who were willing to resettle, and to bring them to the competent agencies, than to help them in the preparation of their registry blanks, and later on when they were settled to take care of them, that is, directly with the settlement the settlement office had nothing to do.\nQNow let us come back to the training. The defendant Hofmann in a survey stated the tasks of his various offices. I'm referring to Exhibit 50 in Document Book 2-C. In this survey which dates 6 November 1941, he among other things said that for the training the eastern outposts of the settlement office were available. These \"eastern camps,\" are they a concept to you? Do you know anything about them?\nAYes.\nQWhat do you mean by these camps?\nAThe eastern camps were, in the first place, a central point within the area in which these with war incurred disabilities were busy in agriculture. A central point had to be created in order to give the men the necessary medical care, a certain agency where they could exchange their clothing, where they could get their PX rations, where they could be supplied with books, etc., and also an agency where they could go with their troubles of a personal or a business nature. From this the concept \"eastern camp\" started. In this connection it can be understood that if one thought about it that way, that in these eastern camps simultaneously the advance training of these \n young war disabled was carried on.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3097, "page_number": "3090", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "This was never carried out. This was only a project.\nQHow many eastern camps were there?\nAThere were three of them that were fully established, one in the Ukraine, the Kriwin, one in the Government General and one in the eastern territories, Katischi.\nQHow many people were there to take care of these camps?\nAErlenhog was the biggest of them all. It had twenty-five beds. In the Krevin there were fifteen beds, and in Katischi about fourteen beds.\nQThen they were not actually camps, but they were bases?\nAWell, base might be a better expression than camp.\nQI would now like to have you express an opinion on two documents which treat the settlement of members of the SS. It is in contradiction to your statement that the settlement office was not responsible for the actual settlement, How do you explain the order of Himmler of 4 March 1941, Exhibit 635, in Document Book 14-C? Please look at the document first and tell the Tribunal who the author of the document was? This is Exhibit 635.\nAThis letter was written by me. Up at the left there is my dictation mark.\nQIs the second document, that is Exhibit 636, a supplement or enclosure to your letter?\nAYes.\nQWhy was this order of Himmler necessary?\nAHere again are questions of competency necessitating this order. There were various other main offices which were in an ideological way responsible for these settlement affairs. Furthermore, after the Reichkomissar for the Germanization was appointed, an exact clarification and established of competencies was necessary.\nQWas this order not only an intermediate order?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3098, "page_number": "3091", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AAs far as I can remember, as it says at the beginning, there is an order from the year 1935. I don't know this order. That is, I can't quite remember it. This order said that the settlement office was competent for the registration of those who were willing to be settled, but now the Reichskomissar was appointed and there were varying opinions, especially: well, why does not the SS itself take care of these things? In order to clarify this question once and for all, this order was given as an intermediate stage from 1939, that is, until the final regulations of the Reichkommissar for the strenthening of Germanism concerning the settlement became necessary.\nQPlease describe shortly to the Tribunal what the competence of the various SS agencies was in this case. Which other agencies were responsible for settlement matters?\nAThe main office was extremely interested in these matters by saying that it was only a training matter. Furthermore, the economic and administrative main office was interested in these questions so that there were two important main offices which had an inner SS political about these things, and, furthermore, the Race Settlement Main Office was there which also represented various opinions of the SS with regard to the settlement question.\nQWere there also various military units of the Waffen-SS directly occupied with settlement questions?\nAI can't say anything definite about this, but only from hearsay, and I do not believe that this would be proper here.\nQWhat were the practical consequences of this order?\nAThe actual result was that now questions or other information which was requested was directed to the settlement office or the Race and Settlement Main Office. Now this whole complex of questions was centralized and there was created a central agency from which they were answered in anunified manner. Besides, in paragraph 2 of this order and it is provided that any implementation orders would later \n on be issued.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3099, "page_number": "3092", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QI should like to give you now a document which is signed by the defendant Hofmann. This is Exhibit 651 of Document Book 14-C. This is a letter of defendant Hofmann to the Chief of the Main Welfare and Security Office. Can you tell me who the author of this information was?\nAThis letter was drafted by the settlement office, that is, by me. It bears my indication mark.\nQImplementation orders for the general information of the Reichsfuehrer-SS about the privileged settlement of war disabled are mentioned here. Who was Hertel? Was he subordinate to Hofmann?\nAYes. After the Main Welfare Office came to the RUS Main Office, in my opinion Herr Hertel was subordinate to Herr Hofmann.\nQThis then is an internal letter within the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAYes.\nQNow for weeks I have tried to get hold of these implementation orders. I have not succeeded. I therefore would like to ask you, witness, whether on the basis of your official experience you know who was competent for the planning and carrying out of the settlements?\nAThe planning and the carrying out of this settlement in the incorporated territories was the responsibility as far as I know of the Reichskommissar for the strengthening of Germanism. The general regulations 14/4 and 15/3 show in a way the implementation orders which were mentioned in the previous document. As far as I remember, they show the exact course of the proceedings and the competencies about the registration and the carrying out of the settlement of these war disabled.\nQCould you read these implementation orders here in prison?\nANo, I haven't read them, but in the course of my first examination I saw them on the table of the men who examined me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3100, "page_number": "3093", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWill you please turn to page 2 of the document before you. There it says that the settlement office was competent in all questions of settlement and was the only agency who had the power to handle these things. Is this correct?\nAThis letter by Herr Hofmann to Herr Hertel is, as I said before, an inter-office memo. This paragraph concerning the fact that the settlement office in the Race and Settlement Office is competent and authorized to negotiate in all questions of the settlement of peasants and artisans refers exlcusively to the General-SS and to the WaffenSS. This means that the settlement office was the only representative of the interests of the General-SS and the Waffen-SS in connection with settlement towards the Reichskommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQIn the sphere of the Wehrmacht were there similar regulations?\nAYes. The general regulations 14/4 and 15/3 before their publication; that is, the implementation regulations were discussed with the competent gentlemen of the Wehrmacht before they were published. That was Oberst Bernhardt. As far as their wording is concerned, they agree exactly with the regulations of the SS. Only where the welfare-leader of the SS is mentioned the Wehrmacht welfare officer is mentioned.\nQAnd the settlement questions were the task of the Reichkommissar?\nAI never knew anything else in any case.\nQYou then maintain your statement that the settlement office of the SS was not competent for the actual settlement?\nAYes, indeed.\nQHow was the finding of jobs for the SS taken care of? How did that come about?\nADr. Schwarz, would you like to repeat your question.\nQI would like to ask how the finding of jobs for the members of the SS went along.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3101, "page_number": "3094", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AIn agricultural jobs or for resettlement?\nQIn the agricultural work.\nAThe battalions for recovering disabled soldiers who were called upon and were ordered to register farmers who had incurred disabilities to the Race and Settlement Main Office. Then the man were selected according to their previous training and thereupon their transfer to the Race and Settlement Main Office was asked for. From the Settlement office the man was then assigned by the Reichsfuehrer to the agricultural area which seemed to be proper in the light of his training and then the Reichsfuehrer allotted this man to the various people that would use him in accordance with his professional training.\nQIs it correct to say that the WVHA also wished to control the agricultural manpower who were given jobs through the settlement office?\nAYes, that is correct. The WVHA and within this office department W-5 held the opinion that all agricultural matters which occured within the SS were subordinated to this office in some way. The WVHA thought that there was only one economic office within the SS and that was itself. That is why in practice there were again and again tangents especially concerning the competency of these men. Here I have to mention that the men in agricultural areas were not only transferred to the WVHA but especially to the civilian employees who needed then. It was now the office W-5 which tried frequently to take ever all men, even those who were working under civilian offices. However, against this the settlement office, of course, objected very strongly, for the same conditions would have prevailed which were prevalent before these regulations concerning the central assignement and the central registration.\nQThe membership of these men with the settlement office was on a theoretical basis wasn't it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3102, "page_number": "3095", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AYes. That was simply on paper. As in the case of military units, that is very often the case.\nQThis solely consisted in care for personnel matters?\nAYes, and since that was a question of war disabled, this personnel care of course, was rather intensively taken care of.\nQIn a personal letter the defendant Hofmann said that the eastern territories belonged to the SS. I would like to give you this document. I'm referring to Exhibit 647, Document Book 14-C. This is a letter to the private Reader. Is it correct what Herr Hofmann says hare: That the eastern territories belonged to the SS?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3103, "page_number": "3096", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.No, this is not correct.\nQ.Was this the opinion of the Settlement Office?\nA.No, this is obviously a personal letter. The contents mean the following to me: Hofmann when he returned from a trip in the former war territories had a tremendous impression of the diligence and the desire towards reconstruction of his young SS men, for it was here a question mainly of territories which were devasted by the war and which were being reconstructed primitively for some economic use by these young men who were mostly or partly disabled. That Hofmann of course brought back a tremendous impression from such a trip and in his heart had the desire that this work should not be done in vain that could be understood.\nQ.That is enough. Can you tell me whether such opinions of Hofmann were taken by you to mean that he was officially interested in this?\nA.No, not officially, The working sphere of the Settlement Office was definitely defined. The documents submitted to me are evidence for this fact.\nQ.We have here now another letter of defendant Hofmann. This is a letter to a private Heinrich Thole. Who was this Thole?\nA.Thole was officially charged with the various tasks of the chief of the settlement office; he was exactly my direct superior.\nQ.At the beginning of this document you will find your own name. Hofmann is talking about a discussion with you at the Reich Food Ministry.\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the result of this meeting?\nA.I cannot answer this question like this in order to make it understandable. Mr. Hiege was not only chief of the settlement department within the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture, but he was also the chief of the Agriculture Department of the Reich \n Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism or its staff main office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3104, "page_number": "3097", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "I had visited Hiege at that time in order to discuss with him the implementation regulations 14/4 and 15/3 as a representative of the interests of the General SS and Wafen SS. For this reason I went to Herr Hiege into the Reigh Ministry for Food and Agriculture. He was partly in his office of the Reich Food Ministry and Agriculture and partly in his office at the Staff Main Office.\nQ.And did your meeting have any practical results?\nA.Yes, in respect to the fact that we could outline the interests of the war disabled and the various proceedings of the allocation etc. in connection with the settlement affairs, as it was our desire and that of the Wehrmacht.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned that the Settlement Office was only competent for getting jobs for those who wished to resettle. The name Settlement Office, however, leads to different conclusions. Can you say whether the name Settlement Office was in any way justified during the war?\nA.Well, yes and no. If you take the premise from the actual workings of that settlement office, then, of course the name is slightly baseless; however, if you take into consideration that not only the SA or the Wehrmacht, the Catholic Church or the Protestant Church, too had their various settlement offices with the very same tasks that we had to carry out, you can understand it.\nQ.You told us that Thole was the actual chief of the Settlement Office.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was this only theoretical or was he that in practice the chief?\nA.During my time he was only theoretically the head of the office, for I only spoke to Thole three or four times during my whole life, and he told me when he left, carry on -- like that. We never had anything more to do with Thole officially.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3105, "page_number": "3098", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.But we can see from this letter that he wanted to exercise some influence during the war years.\nA.Well, he may have done this through some exchange of opinions and that is what is probably concerned in this letter, perhaps toward Mr. Hofmann his superior officer, but the Settlement Office was in no way touched by this in its activities.\nQ.I would now like to show you another letter of Hofmann's to Captain Spengemann. This is Exhibit 646, Document Book XIV-C. This letter mentions \"our enterprises\". Hofmann means by that, obviously, enterprises of the Settlement Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Were there such enterprises?\nA.No, the concept of \"our own enterprises\" was created outside of the Settlement Office and outside RuSHA and that in order to define it exactly, I would like to say that this was to differentiate between enterprises which were administered by men who were put in there through the intermediaries of the Settlement Office, and those enterprises which were directly administered by the Civil Administration or other agencies. Thus the expression \"our own enterprises\" was created by laymen.\nQ.What was Hofmann -- an expert?\nA.No.\nQ.Was he an agricultural expert?\nA.No.\nQ.How was his attitude towards you in his office? Did he leave you any power of independent decision?\nA.He never gave me any sort of orders in my professional resort, and he left me to work independently.\nQ.How was the routine of the Settlement Office regulated?\nA.With agencies which were on the same level, I was able to negotiate directly and with agencies or persons which were superior, \n or on a superior level, I had to negotiate through the Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3106, "page_number": "3099", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Did the Settlement Office have disciplinary powers in connection with the men who were transferred to their agricultural enterprises?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the Settlement Office competent to give orders concerning the activities of these men?\nA.Except for quite general regulations of behavior, it had no power to do that.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a document to the Tribunal, a report about the area Central Russia; it is Exhibit 641, Document Book XIV-C. Who was the author of this report?\nA.I am the author of this report.\nQ.In this report you mention a certain Bux; who was this Bux?\nA.Bux, as long as there was the Central Russian territory was RS field leader in Central Russia. Later on he came as RuS field leader to the Ukraine.\nQ.Was this territory at that time rear army area?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Furthermore, you mention in this report a certain Vogel. Was he in any way connected with the Settlement Office, that is was he a member of the Settlement Office?\nA.No, Vogel was the chief of Office W-V, that is of the agriculture section in the WVHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3107, "page_number": "3100", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWas this office a very important one in the East?\nANo.\nQWhat were your contacts with Vogel?\nAVogel was instructed to requisition farmers and manpower from the Settlement Office and that is how I established contact with him. I already mentioned that Vogel tried more and more to get all the war disabled who were used in agriculture under his control.\nQOn page 2 of this document it says that arms are supposed be be furnished. Why was that necessary that they were supposed to be supplied with arms?\nAThe war disabled were sent from the Settlement Office without arms; there was unfortunately no other possibility,for at that time there was no possibility for the Race and Settlement Main Office to supply arms and equipment for these men. Later on it became clear that it was not feasible to send these young war disabled people without arms into these territories. There ware more and more cases in which the farms which ware lying far apart were attacked by striving enemy military units or by partisan forces, or sometimes by pure looters these young men were attacked and the farms looted. Therefore, there existed the danger that the young men themselves who had risked their lives already would lose their lives without being able to defend themselves.\nQFurthermore in this document you mentioned a certain Schmitz. Why was he removed from the agriculture work?\nASchmitz was the agricultural adviser of Bux. It became clear that Schmitz was not able to abstain from alcoholics and therefore was unbearable out there.\nQNow, we are turning to another document; the defendant Hofmann wrote a letter to a certain Luening. In this letter he mentions that he had a plan for the training of the settlers worked out. Is this the plan that you have already mentioned and which was not approved by Himmler?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3108, "page_number": "3101", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.Yes, as far as I believe, this is the very plan that was talked about.\nQ.Further more Hofmann talked about a circular letter about the eastern planning. Did you officially get such a circular letter?\nA.Yes, this circular letter,this phamphlet, one could get in every publishing office, for I remember correctly and definitely that this was an outline, a special publication about the planning of the settlement in incorporated territories. This was published in the periodical Das neue Bauerntum, The New Peasantry.\nQ.That is sufficient.\nA.In which the Reich Commissar, - that is the Main Office occasionally had articles written for publication.\nQ.It was, therefore, not a circular letter of Hofmann's or of the Settlement Office?\nA.No, it was not.\nQ.I would like to hand you another document, Exhibit 640, Document Volume XIV-C. This document mentions the SS horse farm Rassdoije and one could get the impression that this horse breeding institution belonged to the Settlement Office; is that correct?\nA.No. Rassdoije was a Russian horse breeding institution, owned by the state, which wasmade available to the SS Cavalry, that is to Fegelein. The administration of this horse breeding institute was the responsibility of Office V; this was the personal responsibility of Vogel of the WVHA.\nQ.Did you yourself write that report that is right in front of you?\nA.Yes, yes. I was on a trip with Mr. Vogel and in Rassdoije we stayed for the night. From there I sent this letter. We were stopped there for two days because of rain. I was enroute with Vogel in order to clarify the chain of command concerning the agriculture workers; that was the purpose of this journey.\nQ.The trouble that is mentioned there probably referred to this?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3109, "page_number": "3102", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.What then was the actual result of this discussion with Vogel?\nA.The result of this conference with Vogel was an agreement between the WVHA and the Race and Settlement Main Office concerning the various competencies. As far as I can remember, it was agreed that only those men were subordinated to Vogel, that is to the Office V, who were working in enterprises which were under the administration of the WVHA either on account of the civil administration or on their own account, but not these disabled who were directly transferred from the Settlement Office to the civil administration.\nQ.Did you not also agree upon a definite proportionate relationship that Vogel would get a part of them and the civil administration would get a part of the men?\nA.Yes, that is just what I was trying to explain. We established definite limits as to which men were subordinated to Vogel and which ones were not.\nQ.Can you give any figures?\nA.I already mentioned that the WVHA had about 120 to 150 war disabled from the Settlement Offices.\nQ.On page 2 of this letter you say that Schill and the agricultural experts who were subordinated to him were leading in this position?\nA.Yes, I mentioned already in a different connection that they were mostly young war disabled individuals, and actually in practice this matter was handled in such a way that about ten to fifteen younger farmers were sort of supervised by an older farmer. They thought it was very important -- and usually this matter went off all ritht -- that this older SS member had at the same time an important position within the agricultural administration, for it is well known that there was an extreme shortage of expert manpower in these areas.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3110, "page_number": "3103", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.I should like to show you now another document. This is Exhibit 409, Document Volume VI-C. This is a report about the work which was being accomplished by the Race and Settlement Field Leader Russia-South. In this report he says something about taking over goods of the agricultural industry. This document could give the impression that every Settlement Office of the SS had taken over farms for their own administration. Would you like to tell the Court first who is Untersturmfuehrer Behrend who is mentioned on page 2?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3111, "page_number": "3104", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.Behrend was one of the older farmers.\nQ.Well, who was this Behrend?\nA.Behrend was one of the older farmers who had under him about twenty younger farmers. I remember that at the same time he was a sort of district peasant leader for the administration. Therefore, the expression LA Fuehrer.\nQ.Was he ordered to that position?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who then took over these farms?\nA.From a technical point of view, they were taken over by the man who was actually managing it. That, of course, has nothing to do with the actual taking possession of this farm, but that farm was taken over from an economic point of view.\nQ.These members of the SS then were appointed to administer these farms?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And to whom were these famrs subordinate?\nA.To the various competent agricultural agencies or offices.\nQ.That is to say, the civilian administration?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On page 2 of this document you will see something mentioned about the creation of certain SS bases. What is meant by that?\nA.Well, for instance, the already mentioned Behrend was an SS base. That is, a central point from where he could control the men that were appointed to the administration of these farms. He had to take care of them. He had to have business discussions with them, and whenever there was any danger imminent or if agricultural regulations were issued, they had to be relayed. That is, of course, first they had to come to a central point in order to be distributed. This, I believe, is meant in this connection by a base. There these older farmers staved who, at the sane time, had to take care of the younger farmers, who were subordinated for them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3112, "page_number": "3105", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.The Settlement Office then had no actual possession in those points?\nA.No, this is purely an organizational manifestation which, in the vast territories and with the other conditions, seemed to be necessary.\nQ.Now, there is a further document which mentions SS and Police bases. This is a letter of Hofmann to Major Grosse-Leege, Exhibit 637, Document Book IV-C. I shall herewith show you that document. This GrossLeege to whom this letter is directed, did he have any official contacts with the Settlement Office?\nA.No, I don't know this man at all.\nQ.From your activity, do you know whether such SS and Police bases were established?\nA.No, but in explanation I would like to say the following. This letter is dated 1941. That is, at the beginning of the agricultural assignment of war disabled. I remember that from the SS and Police leaders in Lublin we got a requisition for six middleaged and efficient farmers who were to be put into agricultural enterprises which the SS and Police leaders, on occasion, would have liked to use as bases. I assume that Hofmann's lette means these bases that I have just explained.\nQ.This plan, of course, was not put into realization?\nA.As far as I can remember, no. The men were sent out. There were about six middleaged and experienced agricultural experts, but, as far as I can remember, the enterprises were never used by the Police.\nQ.Is it correct that the Race and Settlement Main Office in the Government General did not possess any police bases?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Now, in connection with these bases, I would like to show you an affidavit of a certain Skodnitzki. This can be found in Document Book VII, Exhibit 368. This is at the beginning. On page 2 of this affidavit Skodnitzki states that in an agricultural school Mokoschin, SS men establishe the SS base Deutschwehr. Did the Settlement Office of the SS have anything to do with this above-mentioned school or with this SS base?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3113, "page_number": "3106", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.No. The Settlement Office had nothing whatever to do with this base nor with the agricultural school.\nQ.On this page you can also see a couple of names. Reinecke, for instance, etc. Were they members of the Settlement Office?\nA.A certain Reinecke, I think I know. He was a member of the General SS and he, during the war, applied for agricultural employment. Then this Reinecke was transferred to the Land Office in the office of the Government General. What his duties were there I don't know.\nQ.In connection with your last statement, a file note of Hofmann's seems to contradict that. In this file note he says that Himmler had told him that he would establish a second agricultural office in the occupied territories. I am showing you Exhibit 644, Document Book XIV-C. This is a file note dated 25 September 1942. Will you please tell me what you think about it? Is this correct?\nA.I can remember this file note that Mr. Hofmann wrote. Herr Hofmann, as far as I can judge, has misjudged the activities of the Settlement Office and especially with regard to their official business. This, of course, is clearly shown by the fact that Himmler does not speak about the Land Office but of an agricultural office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3114, "page_number": "3107", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ (Defense Counsel for defendant Hofmann):\nQ.Witness, do you still have Document 7 before you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, didn't you make a mistake in the case of the affidavit of Skorsnizik? Here you testified something with regard to Reinecke. Did you refer to Reinecke or did you refer to a man by the name of Reinke?\nA.I must correct myself here. I was referring to Reinke. I don't know any one by the name of Reinecke.\nQ.Is the other name which has been mentioned known to you? That is, Dobler.\nA.No, I don't know it either.\nQ.The prosecution has charged the defendant Hofmann with having administered estates in the East of a size of more than 600,000 hectars. As evidence for this the prosecution has submitted a letter from Hofmann to Bergmann. This is Exhibit 649 in Document Book XIV-C. I now want to ask you whether the figure which has been given here is correct and how this figure has been reached?\nA.The figure of 600,000 hectars came about in the following manner. The Race and Settlement leaders had received instructions to give the size of the agricultural land which was being administered by disabled war veterans. The Race and Settlement leaders who, for the most part, were not professional agricultural experts then included all those areas in this figure which were also supervised by the heads of bases. For example, it was possible that one official in charge of a base had to supervise a total area of 20 to 25,000 hectars.\nQ.Therefore, he himself did not administer this area?\nA.No, he did not. I have already stated just now that the collective farms were supervised and the state owned farms were administered. Therefore, all those areas were included in this figure which \n were only supervised.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3115, "page_number": "3108", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.In this letter to Bergmann, Hofmann further stated that altogether 700 men were administering this area. How can that figure be understood?\nA.It mist be understood to mean that these 700 disabled war veterans in part were administering this total area of 600,000 hectars and in part they were just supervising it.\nQ.Was only one man individually responsible for one estate or was one estate supervised by several SS men?\nA.In most cases, two or three men were responsible for one estate. However, this did not exclude the possibility that they also administered the adjoining estates. This depended on the fact whether the adjoining estate or farm was in reliable hands.\nQ.Is this high figure of 600,000 hectars something unusual if one considers the conditions which prevailed in Russia?\nA.No, considering conditions which prevailed in Russia, the area of 600,000 hectars is not unusual in size.\nQ.In this letter it has further been stated that already 1,000 farm training centers had to be selected in the homeland. Do you know what is meant by that?\nA.Yes, this deals with estates located in Germany proper which in collaboration with the organization of the Reich Feed Ministry, were selected in order to have at one's disposal in case of demobilization, a number of apprentice positions and working places on these farms and estates for disabled war veterans and demobilized military personnel. This was therefore, only a precautionary measure.\nQ.Which did not become effective during the time of Hofmann?\nA.No, it did not. After all, in any case, it was only intended in case of a demobilization of the army.\nQ.Witness, you stated that the Settlement Office did not operate its own enterprises in Russia. I now would like to put to you a document from which something quite different could become evident.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3116, "page_number": "3109", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "This is Exhibit 652 in Document Book XIV-C. This document mentions enterprises in Central Russia which were owned by the Race and Settlement Office. I am going to hand to you this document and I ask you to comment on the individual points contained in this letter. This is a rendering of accounts with regard to various enterprises. It dates from January, 1945, that is after the time of Hofmann. However, I want to discuss the entire Rusha question here and I want to ask you what the property of RUSHA was individually and I am now going to hand this document to you. As a result of your official knowledge which you gained during your time of work there please comment upon this document. Please tell us whether the enterprises which have been listed on the first page actually belonged to RUSHA?\nA.No, they did not. I want to repeat once more that neither the Race and Settlement Main Office nor the Settlement Office owned one square yard of real estate. Here, in turn, the words \"RUSHA owned enterprises\" has been mentioned in order to stress what the enterprises which were not subordinate to the WVHA. In the group of enterprises in Central Russia, conditions were extremely difficult. From reports and also from oral discussions I know that in this area the Office of Food and Agriculture, or whatever the agency with the Area Commissar called itself, saw itself forced to again bring back into operation enterprises which were completely destroyed or completely burned out and devastated. It is possible that here the war veterans with disabilities who were assigned to these places maintained the point of view that the enterprises they had to develop out of nothing and which they brought back into operation again should somehow be made into their property.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3117, "page_number": "3110", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Did, for example, the agricultural training school Tschernikowitz which is mentioned on page 2--belong to the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.No; the Tschernikowitz agriculture training school was an agricultural enterprise in the eastern part of Czechoslovakia. The WVHA leased Tschernikowitz from the Land Office for Prague and had placed it at the disposal of the Settlement Office for agricultural training purposes of disabled war veterans.\nThe administrator of this enterprise could be furnished by the Settlement Office, but the appointment had to be confirmed by the WVHA, and he had to render his accounts to the WVHA.\nQ.Did this farm already exist at the time of Hoffmann?\nA.No; the matter was only brought about at the beginning of 1944.\nQ.I now come to the balance. For what reasons was this balance rendered?\nA.At the time the balance was made out I was with the troop unit. However, I assume that since this balance was made out in January it was to give a survey of the status of the Settlement Office for a report to the surperior, in this case to the chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.What were the conditions in the East at that time?\nA.As a result of the evacuation of the troops, which was carried out on a planless basis, it was very confused.\nQ.What did the farmers who had been assigned to the estate do, when they had to evacuate their farmsteads and retreat?\nA.In general, the order existed that whenever a retreat of the armies took place they were to bring German property back to Germany; and I know from reports that the matter was organized in such a way that individual areas would meet and make up one convoy. That was done in the case of orderly retreats. With the situation which prevailed in the East at the time, however, it happened rather frequently that smaller groups would have to evacuate their farmsteads on their own initiative and on their own responsibility.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3118, "page_number": "3111", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.This caused a certain amount of confused?\nA.Yes. In part they would sometimes come to the Settlement Office and they would ask us to take the inventory and the funds from then because they did not have any contact with their superior agencies. In this case that was with the WVHA or the agricultural authorities. Very frequently the man would have to report to the troops immediately so that nothing could be done but that the inventory, or whenever cash funds were concerned, it was to be taken over on a custodianship basis.\nQ.That is what explains this rendering of accounts?\nA.Yes......insofar as it does not refer to various accounts.\nQ.In this special accounts on page 4 Runow-Warzmin has been mentioned. What is to be understood by that?\nA.Gross Runow Warzmin is one of the seven settlement estates within Germany proper which had been mentioned repeatedly before.\nQ.Furthermore, in this balance settlers and new farmers are mentioned.\nA.This deals only with those farmers who were settled within the seven settlement drives which took place in Germany.\nQ.Under paragraph C, you will find habilities and accounts referring to new farmers.\nA.These are down-payments which the new farmers had to pay to the Settlement Office.\nQ.This refers only to Germany proper?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On page 5, you will find a list about the horses which were rented out by the Settlement Office. What sort of horses does this refer to? Did they belong to the Settlement Office?\nA.No, these are horses which were taken back from Russia. Farmers would bring horses hack in the convoys. These horses belonged to the Waffen SS, or they were horses bred by them or they would be German property, and the Settlement Office then took over the job of renting out these horses in a regular manner, until their owners could be found.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3119, "page_number": "3112", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.These horses therefore did not become the property of the Settlement Office?\nA.No.\nQ.Can you state, in summing up, that the Settlement Office, and consequently also the Race and Settlement Main Office, did not have any property or real estate: neither in the Incorporated Eastern Territories, nor in the Government General, nor in Russia, or in the Baltic countries?\nA.Yes, I can say that.\nQ.Can you further say whether the Race and Settlement Main Office administered any of these enterprises in the East on its own behalf?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you able to determine whether Hoffmann, by virtue of his position, gained any particular advantages from his position?\nA.No; to the contrary.\nDR.SCHWARZ (Counsel for defendant Hoffmann): May it please the Tribunal, I have now concluded my direct examination.\nDR.BEHLING (Counsel for defendant Meyer-Hetling): Your Honors, please permit me to ask only a very few brief questions of the witness. BY DR. BEHLING:\nQ.Witness, this morning you mentioned the general decrees 14/4 and 15/3. You stated that these were orders which dealt with the assignment and the planning of disabled war veterans in the incorporated Eastern Territories. Can you tell me with whom you negotiated about these orders in the office of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I dealt exclusively with Herr Hiege as a result of these orders.\nQ.What functions did Herr Hiege have to take care of?\nA.I can't tell you that exactly. However, I do know, and that is my opinion, that he was in charge of the agricultural office.\nQ.In the course of these negotiations, did Professor Meyer or the Planning Office ever put in an appearance?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know Herr Hiege well, from a personal point of view?\nA.No, I did not.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3120, "page_number": "3113", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Do you know and can you confirm to me that he was very selfconscious?\nA.Yes, I can confirm that.\nQ.You further mentioned in the course of your examination today a circular which was an excerpt, or a special edition referring to the planning and the settlement in the incorporated areas. Did you ever read this memorandum?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know who compiled this memorandum?\nA.I do not know the author of the memorandum any more. However, I have stated before that it was a special edition of an article \"Neues Bauerntum\" -- New Peasantry.\nQ.What did this edition deal with?\nA.As far as I can recall, it dealt with the planning of the future villages and districts, of rural communities, and the new agricultural development in the incorporated territories.\nQ.As far as you know, were the points of view projected in this edition realized in the course of the war?\nA.No, they were not. It would have been impossible to do so.\nQ.Therefore, is this only a piece of literature contaning a program, the execution of which was to be delayed until the end of the war?\nA.Yes, I always considered that to be a matter of course.\nDR. BEHLING:May it please the Tribunal, I have no further questions. BY DR. PRACHT (Counsel for defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.Witness, did the organization and the field of tasks of the Settlement Office change in any way after Hildebrandt had become the chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office . That is after Hoffmann had left, in the spring of 1943?\nA.As far as I know, nothing whatsoever changed.\nQ.Does your statement apply up to the time when the war was over?", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3121, "page_number": "3114", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.It refers to the time when I stayed in the Settlement Office. That was until the end of 1944. I can also state in addition that as far as the work of the Settlement Office in the year 1944 was concerned, it was very much into the background because every man who was somehow capable of performing military service was called to combat units.\nQ.Witness, do you know anything about an agreement which Hildebrandt, as chief of RUSHA, concluded with Pohl, as chief of the WVHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know when and where this agreement was concluded?\nA.I cannot remember the exact time. As far as I know, it was concluded at Cracow.\nQ.If I say it was in the second half of 1943 , can that be correct?\nA.Yes, that may be correct.\nQ.Can you tell me something, witness, about the purpose why this agreement was reached?\nA.Yes; I have already mentioned in some other connection that the WVHA, or Herr Vogel, was very much interested in the fact that those disabled war veterans who were working on his enterprises in disciplinary respects, and also with regard to their troop assignments and professionally, were to be completely assigned to him. That is the reason why this agreement was reached. We finally gave in to the constant pressure so that all disabled war veterans who, until the time when this agreement was reached had belonged to the Race and Settlement Main Office, so far as their military assignments were concerned, were now transferred to the WVHA.\nQ.Is it therefore correct if I ask you that the agreement only signified a clarification of personnel conditions? Is that correct?\nA.Yes, it is.\nQ.Did the agreement in any way have any influence on the ownership and property situation ?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3122, "page_number": "3115", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.No.\nDR. PRACHT:Thank you. I have no further questions .\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, at the begin ing of your direct examination this morning you gave some figures as to the strength--personnel strength-of the Settlement Office. The figures you gave - were those merely for the office in Berlin, the central office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, the RUS leaders on the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leaders -- did they get directives from the Settlement Office?\nA.No, they did not.\nQ.Witness, didn't these RUS leaders represent the Settlement Office in agricultural affairs?\nA.Yes, but until 1942 the Settlement Office did not have the authority to issue instructions to the Race and Settlement leaders. Only in the time of Herr Hildebrandt was the question clarified. It did not have any practical effects anymore because the tasks were lacking.\nQ.Witness, before 1943, who told these RUS leaders what to do in agricultural matters?\nA.I didn't hear the first part of your question.\nQ.Witness, you stated that after 1943 the Settlement Office could give directives to these RUS leaders. Before 1943,witness, how did these RUS leaders conform their acts to the policies of the Settlement Office?\nA.In most cases this was done in the form of personal discussion.\nQ.Between whom, witness?\nA.Between the representative of the settlement office who was \n competent for this question and the Race and Settlement leaders, or his expert for agricultural or settlement questions.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. PRACHT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3123, "page_number": "3116", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Witness, these RUS leaders were important in connection with agricultural matters within their area, were they not? They held important positions?\nA.No, they did not have to deal with any agricultural questions at all. They were only the distributing agency of the workers and the manpower which were placed at the disposal of agricultural. They were mostly disabled war invalids from the SS.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at Document No.NO-4105, which is Prosecution Exhibit No.640, in Book 14-C. I believe you have already seen this document, but will you please look at it again?\nThis is your report to the defendant Hoffmann dated 23 June 1942, witness, concerning your trip.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please look at paragraph 3 of this letter, or report, witness? Do you see where it mentions a man named Schill?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On direct examination, witness, you stated that this man Schill was the RUS leader for White Ruthenia, is that correct?\nA.No, Schill was the Race and Settlement leader for the Ukraine. For White Ruthenia, within the scope of the SS and Police leadership, Bux was competent, and Schill's successor in the Ukraine was Bux.\nQ.Witness, at the time of this report, where was Schill, the RUS leader?\nA.In the Ukraine.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at the next to the last sentence in paragraph 3: \"All agricultural matters go through his office\" -\"his\" referring to Schill.\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did you mean by \"all agricultural matters,\" witness?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3124, "page_number": "3117", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.With that I was trying to say that all agricultural questions and personal questions which concerned those enterprises which the WVHA claimed for itself -- that all these matters were to be handled by Schill, or by way of Schill. After all, in practice the situation out there was such that the agricultural authorities had a relatively small organization at their disposal and consequently the individual expert there had to deal with different fields of tasks, which actually should have been taken care of by three or four other people. Up to this period of time, the situation was such that Schill, toward the agricultural civil administration, was the sole representative of those men who had been sent to these areas by the Settlement Office. The dualism which would have arisen if Vogel and Schill had worked in the same field of tasks was to be avoided.\nQ.Witness, then Schill was an important man in this area for agricultural matters, was he not?\nA.No; Schill had nothing to do with agricultural questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3125, "page_number": "3118", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWell, witness, you just said here that all these agricultural matters went through Schill, did you not?\nAWell, I would like you to understand it in the following way. If, for example, the district farmer or the higher agricultural leader of the entire Ukraine had to issue a directive with regard to cultivation and the turning in of agricultural products, then for very simple and appropriate reasons he would use Herr Schill in order to distribute these directives to the men who were under his care. That would not make it necessary for Schill to become a farmer, nor did he have to have any special interest in agriculture.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like only to state here in connection with the cross examination that already in direct examination I clarified that a mistake had been made in the translation insofar as I had asked the witness whether Schill was competent for the Ukraine. This was translated with \"White Ruthania\".\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, was Schill, who has been mentioned here, dismissed later on?\nAYes.\nQBecause he had exceeded his authority?\nAI stated before that Schill had certain bad habits.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What he said was he got drunk.\nTHE WITNESS:In his case it was not so much the alcohol but he was just too ambitious. He had megalomania.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have completed my examination, Your Honor. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:As my next witness I want to call Hermann Grotz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3126, "page_number": "3119", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "HERMANNGROTZ, a witness, was examined and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, will you give the Tribunal your full name and the place and date of birth?\nAMy name is Hermann Grotz. I was born on 21 October 1897.\nQDid you work under the defendant Hofmann in his area as Higher SS and Police Leader at Stuttgart?\nAYes.\nQWhere did you work?\nAAt the beginning I worked in the welfare department and later on I worked in the so-called Department of the Reichkommissar.\nQWho were the representatives of the Reichkommissar for Strengthening of Germanism?\nAThe representative of the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in the area Southwest was Hofmann as far as Wuerttemberg was concerned, and for Baden and Alsace, the chief of the civil administration, the former Gauleiter Wagner.\nQWhat position did you occupy under the defendant Hofmann?\nAI was an expert for reGermanization questions for people who were eligible for reGermanization.\nQWitness, I would like to point out to you at this time that you should make a very brief pause between my question and your answer.\nAVery well.\nQTo whom was the representative of the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism subordinated?", "speakers": [ "HERMANN", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3127, "page_number": "3120", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "ATo the Reichkommissar Heinrich Himmler.\nQWhat were the tasks of the Higher-SS and Police Leader Southwest in his capacity as representative of the Reichkommissar?\nAI only know of one task which he had to deal with. That was the task of taking care of people who were eligible for reGermanization.\nQDid you yourself take care of these tasks?\nAYes.\nQHow was the business transacted in your agency?\nAThe incoming mail was handled by the staff leader who distributed it to the individual departments. I only received the mail which dealt with my particular field of work.\nQFrom whom did your department receive its specific orders?\nAThese orders came from the Main Staff Office.\nQHow many people were employed at your agency?\nATen persons at the most.\nQPlease remember this brief pause. Did you yourself transact business independently?\nAYes.\nQWith what agencies?\nAWith the labor offices, with the plant administration, with the families who were eligible for reGermanization themselves and with the other agencies which were needed to take care of the families and to find work for them.\nQAnd what correspondence did you have to submit? Which ones couldn't you handle independently?\nAI couldn't deal independently with such correspondence which was addressed to the Main Staff Office or to agencies on the same level. For example to other Higher-SS and Police Leaders and things of that sort.\nQAnd who signed these letters?\nAEither Hofmann or the staff leader.\nQIn the area Southwest were there also agencies of the VOMI?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3128, "page_number": "3121", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QWere these VOMI agencies subordinated to the defendant Hofmann in his capacity as Higher-SS and Police Leader?\nANo.\nQDid Hofmann issue instructions to these agencies or did your yourself do that?\nANo.\nQIn your area was the camp Schelklingen located?\nAYes.\nQTo whom was this camp subordinated?\nAThe camp was subordinated to the Higher-SS and Police Leader Southwest. It was a transit camp.\nQWhat do you mean by \"transit camp\"?\nAWith the words \"transit camp\" I want to say that the transports of persons who were eligible for reGermanization were assigned to this camp and from this camp they would be settled within Germany proper.\nQWho was in charge of the economic administration of this camp.\nAVOMI was in charge of the economic administration of this camp.\nQAnd to whom was the camp leader subordinated?\nAThe camp leader was subordinated to the Higher-SS and Police leader or to myself.\nQWhat was the name of this camp leader?\nAWe had several camp leaders in this camp. There was Wels, Wetzel, Gussmann and another Wels.\nQDidn't a certain man by the name of Wolf work there?\nANo, he worked in another camp.\nQJust what did the camp itself look like? Was it under guard?\nAThe camp was a former educational institution. It had many small halls and individual rooms. The people were housed there in rooms and in hallways with their families. The camp was not guarded.\nQWas this camp surrounded by barbed wire?\nANo.\nQDid the camp inmates have freedom of movement there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3129, "page_number": "3122", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AThe camp inmates could move about freely. However, they had to adhere to the existing camp regulations; that is to say, they would have to be there for the meals and in the evening.\nQI am now coming to the DVL, the German People's List. Do you know anything about the groups of the German People's List?\nAYes.\nQI now would like to hand to you a document which deals with the treatment of Group 4 of the German People's List, the DVL. This is Document 112, Exhibit 796. This document was presented individually by the Prosecution. Would you please take a look at this document and tell me whether you received an order to this effect with contents agreeing with the document before you?\nAAt my agency I never received any document in this form.\nQAre the contents of this document known to you?\nAI do know the contents through orders which I received from the Main Staff Office and where the treatment of the individual groups of the DVL, the German People's List, was mentioned.\nQIf you look at page 8 of this document, you will find that the camp Schelklingen has been mentioned there. Have you found the spot?\nAOn page 8? I can't find it on page 8.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Maybe if you go up there and point it out to him, he will find it more quickly.\nDR. SCHWARZ:It is of no importance where it is being mentioned. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQI just would like to ask you, were any members of category 4 of the German People's List sent to the camp at Schelklingen?\nANo.\nQIn the area of the Higher-SS and Police Leader Southwest were there any people at all of group 4 of the German People's List?\nANo.\nQWere any members of group 3 of the German People's List located there?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3130, "page_number": "3123", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AYes. I had three families and approximately five or six single individuals of this category 3.\nQHow were these people treated?\nAThey were treated like persons who were eligible for reGermanization.\nQDid you also have to deal with members of groups 1 and 2?\nANo.\nQWhat was the nationality of the persons belonging to Group 3?\nAThe members of group 3 of the German People's List had the German nationality which was revokable.\nQHas in your area the nationality been revoked in any special case?\nANo.\nQOr were these people given perhaps unlimited nationality?\nANot for this category of people.\nQI am now coming to the question of the Alsatians. Did Hofmann in his capacity as Higher-SS and Police Leader for the Southwest also have to deal with the Alsatians?\nAYes, he did.\nQWhat persons did he have to deal with in this respect? That is to say, how did these people get into his area?\nAThey were families whom Gauleiter Wagner had deported, and these people had been sent into our area at Wuerttemberg for settlement.\nQAt what time did this happen?\nAThe first transports probably arrived around the Winter of 1942.\nQWhat sort of work were these Alsatians given?\nAThe Alsatians actually were treated very decently and as far as it was possible they were given work according to their previous professions.\nQCan you give us a few examples for that?\nAYes, I can give you various examples. I am going to name to you now, for example, three physicians, the Alsatian physician, Dr. Adloff, who in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen opened a very large practice, and he even operated his own car which he had brought along from Alsace.\nQWas this done through the intervention of your agency?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3131, "page_number": "3124", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AYes. Also as my second example I want to name Dr. Flesch, who was settled in the area of Welzheim, and then I want to mention the eye specialist, Dr. Gottel as my third example, who took over a physician's practice at Goeppingen together with a five-room apartment. All three physicians continued their work until the end of the War.\nQWere the Alsatians allowed to have contact with their friends and members of their families?\nAYes, they were able to do that at all times and could write whenever they wanted to.\nQCould they freely meet their friends in Wuerttemberg?\nAYes, they were able to do that also.\nQJust remember the brief pause after my question.\nAI am sorry; I forgot that.\nQWere most of the Alsatians accommodated in this way?\nAYes.\nQBesides physicians were also other Alsatians placed in their respective professions? Can you give us a few other examples of that?\nAI would like to give you several examples here, for example, teachers and craftsmen. I can recall one particular teacher and his name was Zimmermann of Schelklingen. He was a former French reserve officer. Further I had a family from Muehlhausen, the man was a hotel keeper and I turned over to them a hotel, for their independent administration, and from 1943 until the end of the War he was in charge of that hotel.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I shall offer additional affidavits from these individual persons. I only wanted to have the individual names mentioned by the witness.\nQDid you also place people in the liberal arts and liberal professions?\nAYes. We had teachers there and artists who had been deported and who through conditions of the War they had been given some work. However, in all cases we would leave it up the Alsatians themselves to find a place of work which was suitable to themselves.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3132, "page_number": "3125", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QIn this respect can you recall the name, von Neh?\nA von Neh was the hotel owner at Schoerndorf whom I mentioned before.\nQWhat was done with the Alsatians who could not find a suitable place of work?\nAIf these people were capable of performing work, a place of work was found for them. People who were unable to work were left in the camp at Schelklingen by us for the time being. In the camp Schelklingen we also employed various families of Alsatians. Here I want to mention the Garnier family who operated the big garden plant in the camp at Schelklingen. Then I want to mention the family Hatte who were in charge of the furniture depot, and he was even authorized to draw checks from the bank, he was authorized to sign checks.\nQWere these people in the camp of Schelklingen forced to work?\nANo. These people were very well paid for their work just as all other German nationals.\nQWhere did these people work in the camp?\nAIn summertime, for example, these people could volunteer for work in agriculture. After all, there was a lot of agriculture around the camp, belonging to it.\nQWas this done on a voluntary basis?\nAYes, people could volunteer for that, and they did.\nQFrom your agency was any pressure exerted on these people to take up work?\nAWe did not exert any pressure on these people. Our agency would even reimburse these people for travels so that the families could find or inspect places of work and apartments.\nQWhat was the total number of Alsatians who came into your area?\nAI can recall the approximate figure of three thousand people.\nQAnd how many people could the camp Schelklingen accommodate?\nAThe camp Schelklingen whenever it was fully occupied offered enough space for three to four hundred people. However, I would like to emphasize \n that the camp Schelklingen was only a transit camp and it was never fully occupied.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3133, "page_number": "3126", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "People would constantly arrive or leave in this camp.\nQWas there a prohibition that Alsatians should be settled in the District of Baden?\nAYes.\nQIn spite of this existing prohibition did your agency house several persons in Baden?\nAOur agency placed approximately eight hundred to one thousand deportees in Baden.\nQWill you give us the reasons for that, just why this was done?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3134, "page_number": "3127", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AAs I have repeatedly stated we left it up to the Alsatians to get into contact with relatives or friends who lived in Baden or Wuerttemberg and to make inquiries there about accommodations. In this way we succeeded in finding a place for a large number of people.\nQCould all Alsatians live there a normal private life and work there?\nAAfter they were released from the camp they were just as free as any other German national.\nQDo you know that Alsatians were also sent to Breslau?\nAI only heard about it through Alsatians themselves that other Alsatians had been sent to Breslau.\nQThrough your agency were various Alsatian families brought back from Breslau?\nAI brought back approximately twenty Alsatian families from Breslau into the area of Wuerttemberg-Baden.\nQWere you allowed to do that directly?\nAI had to circumvent official channels.\nQCan you give us any examples for that?\nARelatives who were still living in Alsace and who had families in Breslau established contact with plant managers at Baden and asked them to establish contact with us in order to get their relatives back from Breslau. That is how I heard of the existence of a camp at Breslau and the treatment accorded to Alsatians at Breslau.\nQWhere were these people accommodated?\nAThese people were given work in plants because they were craftsmen for the most part any way; for example, I had an enterprise at Rastatt and it employed a total of eleven Alsatian families; amongst them there were eight who were brought back from Breslau. Other Alsatian families who had been at Breslau were settled in Schorndorf.\nQDid these Alsatians get any leave?\nAThey were fundamentally prohibited to get any leave.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3135, "page_number": "3128", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QIn spite of this, did you make it possible that these people were given leave?\nAIn special cases we would give up to eleven days leave, and then later when complaints had been raised by the District Administration in Baden, I issued a certificate to the families with which they could cross the border in order to go to Strassbourg, and then the agency of Henrich's would give them their leave.\nQWhat regulations applied with regard to military service of the Alsatians?\nAThe same military regulations applied for the deported Alsatians as applied in Alsace itself.\nQIs it correct that through the attitude of your agency Alsatians were kept from performing military service?\nAIn many cases I was able to defer conscription for military service, and in all cases I also kept them out of the Volkssturm and the labor service.\nQWhat reason did you have for doing that?\nAOur agency maintained the following point of view: After the families had been deported and after they were engaged in work in Germany proper, one could after all not take the man who was looking after the family away from them, and it was carried out by us in all cases. If you consider it necessary, I can give you individual names.\nQThat is not necessary. What was your attitude in practice now whenever an Alsatian came to your agency and showed an order that he was to be conscripted?\nAThe Alsatians would personally bring along their conscription order or they would submit them by mail and then I would contact the agency which was trying to conscript them. By describing the conditions, I asked them not to conscript these people, and my requests were always granted in all cases.\nQWhat was the state legal position or status of the Alsatians in your area?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3136, "page_number": "3129", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AThe Alsatians would arrive with a German identification card bearing the statement that they were Alsatians.\nQHow was the nationality which was revokable given to these people?\nALater on this was dealt with a Reich law, and the order was issued that the deported Alsatians be given the German nationality which was revokable. We dealt with this matter in the following way: Whenever the family had been released from the camp, and whenever they reached a permanent place of residence, the family was reported to the competent landrat, with the request that a revokable certificate of naturalization was to be given to the family, and it was to be passed on to our agency.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3137, "page_number": "3130", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ (Defense Counsel for defendant Hofmann):\nQ.Witness, we stopped with the distribution of certificates of naturalization to the Alsatians. At that time there were certainly cases in which Alsatians refused to accept these certificates. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, in certain cases that was the case.\nQ.What did you do in a case like this?\nA.Nothing.\nQ.Did these Alsatians get into trouble because of that?\nA.No, the families had no disavantages whatever through that.\nQ.The defendant Hofmann also did he know of this refusal of the Alsatians?\nA.He certainly knew about that through the incomming mail.\nQ.Is it correct that Hofmann agreed to the regulations that you issued?\nA.Yes, according to discussion.\nQ.Is it correct that Hofmann did not want to know anything about punishments and other retalitory measures?\nA.That is correct. Hofmann had a very humane attitude and I had the impression while I was on trips with him through the camps that he was like a father and that he really made himself available to the submitted questions and requests.\nQ.The prosecution now has submitted an order of the Main Staff Office of 3 October 1942, Exhibit 278 in Document Book V-F. This document concerns the treatment of the deported Alsatians. To bring this back into your memory I would like to show you this order. In paragraph 2 of this document you will find certain measures described which were to be taken \n COURT I CASE VIII by the High SS and Police Leader in order to supply these Alsatians with identification papers and to show them as Alsatians.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3138, "page_number": "3131", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.I can say with certainty that these measures were not carried out in our sphere of activity.\nQ.You can't remember any case?\nA.No, I cannot remember any case of that sort.\nQ.I would furthermore like to ask you with regard to various paragraphs whether these orders were carried out in the scope of Hofmann's activity? Will you please look at paragraph 6? According to this, Alsatians were to be subjected to a racial examination when they were to be used in the reincorporated eastern territories. Did this actually take place in your area?\nA.In the area Southwest this was not carried out. What we received in the camp Riedlingen in the way of Alsatians were designated for labor allocation and settlement in Wuerttemberg-Baden and were not designated for the East. This measure as such is not known to me at all.\nQ.With regard to the Alsatians who found themselves in your area - did Hofmann make any recommendations to the Main Staff Office concerning them in order to deport them to the East?\nA.I don't know anything about that.\nQ.In Paragraph 7 of an order provides that various groups of persons who would refuse to act according to the regulations, and especially refuse the acceptance of German naturalization, would have to be reported for commitment into concentration camps. Did such a report to the Gestapo ever take place in your area?\nA.No.\nQ.Furthermore, this document states that such Alsatians \n COURT I CASE VIII were to be deported to France who were of racially inferior stock.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3139, "page_number": "3132", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "For this purpose did a racial examination take place in your area?\nA.I do not remember that any sort of racial examination of Alsatians took place in our area. As I have already stated some time ago, all the Alsatians who were transferred into our area were designated for resettlement in Wuerttemberg and were therefore not subject to any change.\nQ.Then paragraph 8. According to that, Alsatians who were unable to be employed are to be treated according to special regulations by the VOMI or the Reich Security Main Office. In that connection did you get any regulations covering this point?\nA.I don't know anything about such regulations. In our area Alsatians who were not able to perform any work were accommodated in a special camp which was built up as a home for the aged.\nQ.What was the name of this camp?\nA.This camp was called the camp of the VOMI Riedlingen at the Danube.\nQ.To whom was this camp subordinated from an economical viewpoint?\nA.This camp was subordinated economically to the VOMI assignment agency Wuerttemberg, only the inmates of the camp were under the subordination of the High SS and Police Leader.\nQ.This Camp Riedlingen - can that be called a home for the aged?\nA.This Camp Riedlingen was built up as a home for the aged by our agency and was better equipped then the other camps of VOMI with more furniture, etc., and was only used as a home for the aged.\nQ.Did the defendant Hofmann visit this camp also?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3140, "page_number": "3133", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "A.I myself was there twice with Hofmann and I know that he visited there occasionally apart from these two occasions.\nQ.How did the Alsatians' attitude strike you with regard to him?\nA.The Alsatians were completely natural in their attitude. Hofmann listened to their desires and their requests and everyone, of course, had troubles and had something to submit and Hofmann also promised to various elderly women to try to be an intermediary for their return with Gauleiter Wagner.\nQ.How was the personal liberty of movement of those Alsatians who were housed in this Camp Riedlingen?\nA.The people were completely at liberty. Every day there was a medical visit by a physician into the comp and whoever was sick stayed longer. All the others took walks and, as far as they could, the people voluntarily performed work and found employment with the citizens of Riedlingen, as newspaper boys, etc. but no pressure with regard to work was exerted. The people simply had to keep the camps regulations and had to be back in the camp by ten o'clock at night.\nQ.Could they also receive visits from their relatives in Alsatia?\nA.I myself came to Riedlingen one day and I found at least twenty persons there who were from Alsace and who were visiting their relatives in the camp. No objections were made by us against these visits.\nQ.Could they also carry on correspondence with their relatives?\nA.Yes, at any time. That was completely up to them. They could write at any time they pleased.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3141, "page_number": "3134", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.What was the result of the intermediary offices of Hofmann to return deported Alsatians back to their homeland?\nA.As far as I can remember, he was successful in three cases to return elderly people, women, by way of negotiations with Gauleiter Wagner.\nQ.Were there also cases in which Alsatians could go daily to their homeland from one of their places of employment in Wuerttemberg-Baden?\nA.Yes, cases like this also happened. In this connection, I should like to mention the City Weil on the Rhine where about 100 Alsatians were settled by me who administered and visited their real estate and property on the other side of the Rhine every day from there. In confirmation of my statement I would like to mention the name of the family of Ernst Maisburger residing at.... I can't remember it for the moment.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3142, "page_number": "3135", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.How was it with the personal possessions of these Alsatians? What could they take along?\nA.Well, in general, they had a considerable amount of luggage, underwear, linen, clothing, etc.\nQ.I would like to show you a document of the prosecution. This is Exhibit 275 in Document Book V-F. Please turn to page 7. According to paragraph 5 of this document the personal possessions of the deported Alsatians were subject to the same provisions as that of the Group #4 of the Peoples List. The DVL. In your area was this handled in this way?\nTHE PRESIDENT:What is that document? When you say number so-and-so it doesn't mean anything. What is the document that the witness is referring to? What is the document, witness? BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Will you please read the heading of this document? Who issued this decree? Who is the author of this order?\nA.It seems to be here a question of a discussion, but in this version I don't know the document.\nQ.It is here a note concerning a conference dated 4 August 1942. In this conference directives for the treatment of deported Alsatians were discussed. In paragraph 5 of this document the treatment of the property of these deported Alsatians was discussed. According to this essentially the treatment of groups 4 of DVL was to applied. This is Exhibit 275. This is the well known document from the International Military Tribunal, 1470 PS. Witness, I would only like to ask you whether the property of Alsatians within your area was treated in the same way as that of group 4?\nA.The property of Alsatians was, according to my knowledge and experience, treated as follows. If a family was released from the camp and was resettled, then they could get the permission from us to transfer their movable property which \n COURT I CASE VIII was left in Alsace to their new place of residence.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3143, "page_number": "3136", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "I also know from the year 1943 or 1944, through the Chief of the Land Office, that the Alsatians were to receive for their property that was left behind,-that is real estate, etc. 100% compensation and the draft of the law had already been worked out at that time.\nQ.The Alsatians could then have their furniture and property sent after them?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, we are now turning to a different field. Did you have anything to do with the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In what capacity?\nA.I was the expert.\nQ.From whom did you get the regulations which were to be applied to this re-Germanization procedure?\nA.From the Main Staff Office in Berlin.\nQ.Is it correct that you also got instructions from the Reich Security Main Office directly? Did you also get direct directives from the Reich Security Main Office concerning the treatment of those eligible for re-Germanization?\nA.No, I did not get any direct directives.\nQ.Did you know whether in selecting those eligible for re-Germanization any pressure was being exerted?\nA.In practice I never heard about anyone using force. The competent directives and regulations always required volunteering for otherwise the purpose of re-Germanization would have had no sense.\nQ.What do you understand by the purpose of re-Germanization?\nA.One wanted to win over these people for Germany and, of course, one could not force them to become German.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3144, "page_number": "3137", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Who carried out the transports of those eligilbe for re-Germanized which you received?\nA.These transports were carried out by the labor office Lodz together with the labor office Stuttgart.\nQ.Can you tell me what period of time it was at which you started to deal with matters of re-Germanization?\nA.As far as I remember, the first transport arrived in November, 1940. It consisted of about 25 or 30 persons.\nQ.And where did they come from?\nA.From the field office of Lodz.\nQ.Could you establish at that time whether they were ethuic Poles or not?\nA.At that time I found out that they were Polish subjects who, however, came from the Posen area and spoke very good German.\nQ.What was the impression you got from these people? Did you get the impression that they were former Germans?\nA.Yes, I had that impression definitely.\nQ.How did these people behave towards you when they arrived?\nA.At first, they were quite reticent and shy, but when they saw afterwards that they were getting good accommodations and work and that they were being taken care of then, of course, they started being a bit more open.\nQ.Did they not also give you some evidence to the effect to prove that they were former Germans?\nA.Yes, in the case of the first transports there were many people who had immigrated to West Prussia between 1919 and 1921 and had taken over the property of Germans who had been dispossessed. These people had often German military passes and German medals.\nQ.Did you see them personally?\nA.Yes, I did.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3145, "page_number": "3138", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Q.Where now were these people quartered?\nA.These people came to the transit camp Schelklingen and from there they were transferred to their new residences.\nQ.Were they treated in the same manner as the Alsatians? I mean in the Camp Schelklingen?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were they employed in the professions that they formerly had?\nA.Yes, as far as possible, but in most cases they were people from the agricultural professions who again could be very gainfully employed in the agricultural area of Wuerttemberg in the agriculture profession.\nQ.Did you yourself exert any influence on the fact that these people would be employed in their professions or otherwise?\nA.Yes, I myself have at least inspected at least once every one of those places of work and had explained to me by the plant manager the quartering and salary conditions. I can, therefore, say with certainty that these people in many cases in relation to Reich Germans were accommodated and paid on exactly the same scale as Reich Germans. I must say that, of course, the same output of work was asked for as that of the Reich Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3146, "page_number": "3139", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "QThe Reich Germans had certain social privileges. Did those that were eligible for re-Germanized get the same privileges?\nAYes.\nQCan you name some?\nAYes. The eligible for re-Germanized had social security insurance; they were members of illness insurances, and they had all the very same privileges as any other Reich German.\nQWere they quartered in barracks or in apartments?\nAIn apartments. These people were accommodated in apartments.\nQDid those eligible for re-Germanization also get economic allowances beyond that? Relief?\nAYes, they were given an economic allowance to the extent of about 600 Reichsmark. This was granted at the beginning only to those families that came from agricultural professions, and later on also families from the artisan sector. It was a matter of course for us that we provided that sum, if possible, for every family.\nQDid they also get furniture?\nAYes, we had a large furniture depot in Schelklingen, and we allocated the necessary furniture to the families according to their members.\nQWas that new furniture or used furniture?\nAThis was only new furniture.\nQDid your agency also work together with the Party?\nAThe NSV was included in taking care of these families eligible for re-Germanization.\nQWere these families eligible for re-Germanization under political supervision?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3147, "page_number": "3140", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "ANo. Otherwise there was no sort of collaboration with the Party, and especially not for the purpose of political supervision. Later on, the Gau Office for Ethnic Questions was also included in this welfare work.\nQIn these cases, did it also occur that these people were not satisfied with their places of employment? What happened then?\nAWell, in special cases that happened. These matters were then of course examined. It very often happened that the manager was to blame for it, or the family. If it was the foreman or the manager who did not act according to regulations, then the family was removed to another place of work. If the complaints of the family against the manager were justified, then they were simply taken away.\nQDid these people eligible for re-Germanization, come to you personally, to the office?\nAYes, very often. They all know me personally.\nQAlso in these cases, did you use any pressure to make them do some other work?\nADo you mean pressure to take up employment? No; no direct pressure was used. It was of course seen to it that, if possib le, the fam ily would be at an early date be assigned to work, of course it was wartime and we needed the manpower.\nQDid the employers also complain in some cases?\nAYes, In some cases employers raised complaint because those eligible for re-Germanization had more privileges than the Reich German laborers.\nQNow during the war there were restrictions with regard to changing one's place of work -- for Reich Germans too, of course?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3148, "page_number": "3141", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "Did you then accept applications if persons eligible for re-Germanization wanted to change their place of work?\nAThose eligib le for re-Germanization were not subject to this prohibition concerning change of place of work. They were allowed to change their places of work provided in case our agreement had been given the conditions under which they worked were not agreeable.\nQFor those people, eligible for re-Germanization, was there the so-called emergency conscription, which applied to Reich Germans?\nAThe emergency conscription did not apply to those eligible for re-Germanization.\nQWere those eligible for re-Germanization under obligation to serve in the arm y?\nAYes, there was a basic order from the Main Staff Office in which it was provided that persons eligible for re-Germanization were not to be conscripted,for military service, even though they might volunteer.\nQWere there any regulations to whic h persons eligible for re-Germanization were hindered more in their movements than Reich Germans?\nANo, there were no such regulations. Those eligible for re-Germanization could move around just like a Reich German within the Reich proper. He only needed permission to travel into the eastern territories.\nQThen they could keep up contact with the eastern territories, their former places of residence?\nAYes; all those eligible for re-Germanization had considerable correspondence with the eastern territories.\nQWhat was the procedure with regard to application for leave?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3149, "page_number": "3142", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "AAs a matter of principle leave was granted after one year of actual labor allocation, or, also in case of happenings in the family, such as deaths, marriages, things like that.\nQDid these people return from their leave?\nAI have never known that anyone stayed away.\nQIs it correct that they also were able out of their wages to save money for their relatives in the east?\nAYes, that is correct. They were youths and also girls who lived very cheaply, and who were able to support their relatives in the eastern territories with this money that they earned here.\nQIs it correct that those eligib le for reGermanization reported voluntarily in the East -- that is, that they did not come via the field office in Lodz in order to come into the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader South West?\nAWell, I know from the office head Dongus that in Lodz repeatedly several families applied for labor to be sent into this area. They applied voluntarily.\nQDid they also come there?\nAYes, they came there.\nQWhat were the reasons for this volunteering for this work?\nAAs Dongus assured me, they knew that they could earn good money and that they were treated well in our area.\nQWere there also cases in which Poles and eastern workers voluntarily applied in your agency?\nAThese cases were quite frequent. We had days in which up to ten people came to my agency to apply for reGermanization. These people were registered and were \n reported to the field offices Lodz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3150, "page_number": "3143", "date": "05 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-05", "text": "It took generally quite a long time until the papers came and until the people were actually designated as eligible of re-Germanization.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until ninethirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned at 1600 hours until 0930 hours, 6 January, 1948.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3151, "page_number": "3144", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, at al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 6 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nHERMANN GROTZ, Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. SCHWARZ (Defense Counsel for the defendant Hofmann).\nQ.Witness, yesterday we stopped in discussing the question of the voluntary character of people who were eligible for reGermanization. I want to repeat briefly that you told us that you were able to ascertain that the people who were eligible for re-Germanization who came from Lodz, in your opinion, had come on a voluntary basis and that a part of them reported directly to your area because they had heard that they would be well-treated there and that they would be able to earn a good livelihood. We stopped in discussing the question that many Poles from Stuttgart had reported to you voluntarily who wanted to be included in the re-Germanization procedure. How did these poles get to Stuttgart?\nA.These Poles came to Stuttgart through the labor office and they were used there in a civilian capacity and they had to wear some distinctive mark. That is to say, they had to wear the Polish insignia which consisted of a \"P\" whenever they were in Germany.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3152, "page_number": "3145", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.And how were these Poles accommodated generally?\nA.In general, these Poles would he quartered in barracks which were located near the enterprises where they were employed.\nQ.Can you give us the total figure of people who reported to you?\nA.I believe that this figure was between 300 and 400. These people reported to me for re-Germanization.\nQ.What steps did you take upon that?\nA.We registered these people and a report was passed on to the field office at Lodz. From there the necessary papers were furnished and the person concerned was placed under our care. That is to say, he was taken out of his previous quarters. He could remove the P which he wore as a distinctive insignia and in all respects he was treated just like any other German.\nQ.Why did the names of these people have to be reported to Lodz?\nA.As far as I know, the field office at Lodz was competent for the re-Germanization procedure.\nQ.Did the field office at Lodz have to examine the families which lived at Lodz with regard to their eligibility for re-Germanization.\nA.I assume that the families of these people were examined.\nQ.Did cases ever come to your attention where Poles were declared as being eligible for re-Germanization who had become guilty of prohibited sexual intercourse with German women?\nA.I can recall three cases of that kind.\nQ.Who reported these cases to you?\nA.The Main Staff Office ordered me to deal with these cases.\nQ.And how were these Poles treated by you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3153, "page_number": "3146", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.We registered these Poles and we took them under our care and we treated them like all other people who were eligible for re-Germanization. After all, we had a special interest in helping these people. In one case, we gave financial support to the man and we gave him ration cards for clothing, etc.\nQ.Here Grotz, do you know whether the Race and Settlement Leaders with the Higher SS and Police Leaders directly took care of the racial examination of those people?\nA.I believe I can say that with certainty.\nQ.Witness, did you have anything to do with the approving of the requests for marriage of people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nA.I would like to refer in this connection once more to the three Poles who were dealt with especially in this case and I would like to state that two of these Poles married the two German girls who had become pregnant.\nQ.Therefore, you saw to it that their marriage requests were approved?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you tell us whether you ever disapproved requests for marriage?\nA.We never disapproved any request for marriage whenever the necessary prerequisites were, fulfilled.. Beyond that, we furthered marriages by issuing a certificate in which it was emphasized towards the registrar that these two people did not have to bring along all the necessary papers which were usually needed.\nQ.The Prosecution has further charged Hofmann with having participated in the Germanization of children. In this connection I am going to put to you three documents from Document Book IV-D. These are individual cases which occurred within your territory. You find a note there and these are Exhibits 186, 187, and 189.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3154, "page_number": "3147", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Do you have 186 before you?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3155, "page_number": "3148", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QDo you know these cards?\nAYes, I am well acquainted with them.\nQThese are index cards of people who were eligible for reGermanization, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQIf you will look more closely at Exhibit 186 can you ascertain just what person this document deals with? Does it deal with a child?\nAYes, it deals with a minor.\nQAnd when was the child born?\nA 1934. The child was eleven years old at the time.\nQThis document might give rise to the conclusion as if this child had come to you without its parents because the parents themselves have not been mentioned in the document?\nAI would like to reply to this question in detail. Whenever transports arrived of people who were eligible for re-Germanization who had been sent by the Field Office at Lodz, the papers of these people were sent along with them. The papers consisted of their passport and of the birth certificates of the individual families. For every member of the family - for father and mother and children - one card was made out and all these cards were kept together in one envelope. The family actually was put together as one group with these cards.\nQCouldn't a case have occurred where one individual card was sent to you?\nAThis card can only be a card which belongs to a family group. I don't know of any single case that the field office at Lodz sent minors or even children to us without their parents or their relatives.\nQYou therefore assume that these index cards which were together and where the other members of the family were also mentioned? BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWell then what went with these cards? If that's true, what went with the other cards?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3156, "page_number": "3149", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "AFor the other cards, the exact names of the other members of the family were mentioned.\nQWell, who's got those cards? What went with them?\nAThese cards were enclosed in the files.\nQIn the same file with this card that you are talking about there now?\nAI didn't quite understand your question. Would you please repeat it?\nQWere these cards that you talked about of the other members of the family in the same file as the card of the child your talking about?\nAYes.\nQDo you know anything about what went with the father, mother, other members of the family?\nAThe family were settled as a whole and in no case did it happen that we separated children from their families.\nQWhat went with this particular family is what I want to know? Do you know where this father and this mother were located?\nAUnfortunately, I cannot give you any details about that because I cannot recall this family at all.\nQAll right. Go ahead. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWas it part of your tasks to bring together the members of the families of people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nAThat was not actually my task. I did this rather upon the special request of people who were eligible for re-Germanization by taking members of the same families who were in other areas of the Reich and I would bring these people together with their families.\nQHowever, no small children were concerned here?\nAOnly individuals were concerned here. Persons who were capable of performing work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3157, "page_number": "3150", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QAccording to a Prosecution document, children are alleged to have been separated from their parents if their parents had some disadvantageous influence upon them and they were taken to German families forGermanization. This is DocumentR-112which we have discussed previously. It is Exhibit 796. It was presented individually by the Prosecution. Please take a look at III. I believe it is located on page 4.\nHave you found it?\nAYes.\nQDid any case of that sort occur within your territory?\nASuch a case never occurred in the territory under my jurisdiction.\nQI am now coming to something else. Did the Higher SS and Police Leader Soutwest - that is to say, the defendant Hofmann - in his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar, have anything to do with the administration of the property of people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nDid you have anything to do with the administration of the property of people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nANo.\nQNow, we have a decree here from the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanization. This is #28-III. It is contained in Document Book XIV-A and is Exhibit 596. I am going to hand you this document now in order to refresh your memory. You will find what I am referring to on page 46. According to this document, the Higher SS and Police Leaders were appointed as general referents for the strengthening of Germanization with their agencies. Was this decree put into effect in the area under your jurisdiction?\nAI don't know that Hofmann ever occupied such a position. However, it would have to be know to me, because I was an expert in \n this office, if this order had ever been carried out.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3158, "page_number": "3151", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QIn your area, did you also have female domestic workers who were eligible for Germanization?\nAYes.\nQWhat was decisive for the re-Germanization of these domestic workers? What regulations applied for them?\nAIn general, we would comply with the report from the Labor Office according to which the girls were to be used in households with many children.\nQDid your agency carry out a political examination of these households?\nANo.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted a document, Exhibit 157 in Document Book IV-D. This is a letter from the field office at Lodz. It is addressed to the head of the labor office. In this document, the following is stated under paragraph 2:\n\"The households into which these domestic workers are to be placed within Germany proper must be given a political screening by the competent SS and Police Leaders.\nDid your agency carry out a political examination of these households?\nAAs an SS agency we were not even able to give a political examination to these households. In this case it would have been the task of the Party. However, in general, we never did anything of that sort.\nQIn the area of the defendant Hofmann, did you over hear of any cases where female domestic workers committed suicide?\nANo.\nQWhat was the attitude of your agency when a femal domestic worker wanted to change her place of work?\nAI was of the fundamental opinion that if a girl worked decently and if she had worked in the household for a year and if then she expressed \n a desire to take up a profession, then I would approve this without any further questions being asked.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3159, "page_number": "3152", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "In this connection, I want to say that I would put domestic workers into stores as apprentice saleswomen and I would put them into offices, make them fashion designers and things of that sort.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3160, "page_number": "3153", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Were people also taken out of the Germanization procedure?\nA.Yes, this also happened to a small extent.\nQ.How many poeople who were eligible for reGermanization did you have altogether?\nA.I think that the total number of people that were eligible for reGermanization amounted to approximately 3,000.\nQ.And how many people were taken out of this process?\nA.I cannot give you an exact figure anymore but I know that the figure was extremely small and only individual persons nay have been concerned in that.\nQ.How were these people taken out of the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.These people were for the most part taken out of the re-Germanization procedure because of their anti-social attitude and the matter was reported to the *ain Staff Office with information about the behavior of the family and at the same time make a request that this family should be excluded from the re-Germanization procedure. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.What was eventually done with a family like that?\nA.I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.Well, you say when you found a family that was not fit for reGermanization that you resorted that to the Main Staff Office and the reasons. Now, what became of the family?\nA.The family remained in Germany. The family was turned over to a Labor Office end there it was treated in accordance with the regulations which applied to civilian Poles.\nQ.Well, what was done with them?\nA.Well the treatment was that which was accorded to Poles; previously the family was treated as a German family and afterwards it was treated as a foreign family.\nQ.Were they sent to a concentration camp?\nA.No.\nQ.What exactly was done with them is what I went to know?\nA.The family was afterwards taken out from under my care.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3161, "page_number": "3154", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "I was unable to see what happened to the family afterwards.\nQ.Who did you turn them over to?\nA.I would turn the family over to the competent Labor Office at the place of their residence.\nQ.Who was that in your territory?\nA.In my area, for example, it was the Labor Office at Stuttgart.\nQ.Who was in charge of the Labor Office in Stuttgart?\nA.I cannot give you the name anymore.\nQ.You don't remember anybody that was in charge of it at any time that you were there?\nA.I can't recall the name at the moment.\nQ.Go ahead. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Were security police measures requested by the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar? After all, there were certain regulations which applied in different cases. For this purpose I am going to hand to you Exhibit 791 in Document Book 15. Were such requests ever submitted?\nA.I know this document and I would like to state in this connection that the regulations which are contained in this document were disapproved by Gruppenfuehrer Haul who was the predecessor of Hofmann and later on under Hofmann it was also disapproved. Kaul disapproved the matter at the time because he stated that a collaboration with the police would hamper reGermanization.\nQ.In the entire area of the defendant Hofmann were persons sent to concentration camps because they refused to comply with measures ordered by the representatives of the Reich Commissar?\nA.I do not know of any case where a person was sent to a concentration camp because he violated the regulations of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Witness, I am now going to hand you a document which is a letter \n from the Reichfuehrer SS about the labor assignment of Poles eligible for re-Germanization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3162, "page_number": "3155", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "The letter is dated 3 July 1940. This is Exhibit 143 in Document Book 4-G. According to this letter a security police supervision is to be carried out over these people who were eligible for reGermanization. Thissupervision is to be carried out by the inspector of the Security Police. Was such a, security police supervision actually carried out?\nA.I have emphasized in my last answer that the predecessor of Hofmann, Gruppenfuehrer Kaul, considered the measure as not being appropriate that people who were eligible for re-Germanization should be supervised by the police. He maintained the point of view that these people should be free and that no obstructions should be placed in their way. Hofmann also maintained the same point of view.\nQ.After all, a similar supervision was to be carried out with regard to people contained in the German People's List. For this purpose I am going to hand you Exhibit No. 98 which is contained in Document Book 4-A. A political examination was to be given to persons, according to this document, by the Higher SS and Police Leader whenever the naturalization authorities would make an unfavorable decision. Did any such case occur in your area?\nA.We never had any cases of that sort in our area. Already for the reason that the naturalization authorities did not occupy themselves as yet with these people. After all, the time had not yet arrived when the nationality which had been bestowed on these people could be revoked and there was no reason for us to occupy ourselves with these matters.\nQ.I am now coming to something else. In the area of the Higher SS and Police Dealer Southwest, did you also have anything to do with the Slovenes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Where had these Slovenes come from?\nA.By order of the Main Staff Office we took these Slovenes out of \n VOMI camps of the Gaueinsatzfuehrung/Wuerttemberg-Baden.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3163, "page_number": "3156", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Did these Slovenes already have the German nationality?\nA.The Slovenes had obtained the German nationality which was revokable.\nQ.How were these Slovenes cared for and what work was given to them?\nA.The settlement and the labor allocation took place similarly to that which we had used for the Alsacians.\nQ.Did you have the impression that these people had been deported by force?\nA.I cannot make any statement about that with certainty.\nQ.Did you also have to deal with members of the intelligentsia?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you give us a few examples of that?\nA.There were approximately 60 persons which made up a small group of the intelligentsia. They consisted of lawyers, judges, teachers, bank officials, merchants, and so on.\nQ.And what work was given to these people?\nA.These people were used in their professions or in work which was similar to what they had done before.\nQ.Can you give us any examples for that?\nA.I can give you several examples. I want to mention to you Dr. Hans Winterhalder who formerly had been an attorney in Marburg on the Drau and I appointed him deputy Landrat in the district of Rottweil on the Neckar River and he lived at Goethestrasse 16. I further want to mention to you Flawda Fuchs who worked as a teacher in a girls school in Stuttgart. I also had a judge at Tuebingen who was engaged in this profession at the District Court there.\nQ.That is sufficient, witness.\nA.I can even give you some more if you want me to.\nQ.Can you make any statement as to what these people earned?\nA.These people were given the same salaries in these positions like all other German officials. They were given the same rating like all members of \n the Civil Service System.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3164, "page_number": "3157", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "After all they were fully treated as German Nationals.\nQ.Do you know of any case where poles who were eligible for reGermanization or Slovenes or Alsacians had to work as Slave Labor add were paid as slaves?\nA.I must answer this question emphatically in the negative.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3165, "page_number": "3158", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.In the area Southwest were there also camps for Baltic resettlers?\nA.I would like to correct this question and I would like to state that in the cases of these Baltic people they were Baltic German refugees.\nQ.Were they subordinated to you?\nA.These Baltic German refugees were located in two camps of the VOMI. One was at Neckarsulm and one was at Heilbronn. Those camps were not subordinated to us but the Main Staff Office turned over these people to us for labor allocation and for settlement.\nQ.To what professions did these people belong?\nA.All of them belonged to the intelligentsia.\nQ.How were these people used and how were they paid?\nA.They were placed in various professions.\nQ.Did you carry out an examination of these people? I only want to point out to you that the Prosecution has offered a document here where an examination has been mentioned. I would like to clear up a mistake here which has been made in the translation of Exhibit 287 in Document Book 5-D. When the Prosecution document were submitted the word \"examination\" was translated as \"racial examination\". That is why I want to ask you did a racial examination take place?\nA.I don't know of any racial examination that was given to these people. I do know that these people had revokable German nationality and for the most part whenever they left the camp they received unrestricted and unlimited German nationality.\nQ.In conclusion I now would like to ask you whether in the area of the defendant Hofmann there was a single case of slave labor.\nA.I do not know of any case of slave labor. All the people were given regular work and they were all treated just like National Germans and they were paid for their work just like all other Germans.\nQ.Thank you, witness; I have no further questions. BY DR. VON DER TRENCK (for the defendant Greifelt):\nQ.I would like to ask several questions of this witness.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3166, "page_number": "3159", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "May I ask you the following, witness. In your department did you have anything to do with the selection of the people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nAWe had nothing to do with that.\nQIn General how were the directives from the Main Staff Office handled which referred to the people for re-Germanization?\nAI can recall that we received most directives from Department 2 of the Main Staff Office only dealt with the care of these people and labor allocation.\nQYou mentioned three cases of people who were eligible for re-Germanization which had been excempted from special treatment. Were these people assigned to you by the Main Staff Office?\nAI don't think so. However, I received the order from the Main Staff Office to take these people under our care.\nQDid you receive any directives from the Main Staff Office with regard to the deported Alsatians, Luxembourgians, and Lorrainians?\nAYes.\nQAnd that probably referred to labor allocations just like all the other directives.\nAYes, approximately.\nQDid the Main Staff Office, in your opinion, have anything to do with the actual evacuation of these people or did the work of the Main Staff only commence subsequently?\nAAs far as I know the Main Staff Office had nothing to do with the deportation of this group of persons.\nQDid the naturalization of these people belong to the competency of the Main Staff Office or was it part of the competency of the agencies which were subordinated to the Reich Minister of the Interior?\nAWell, nationality could only be granted by the Reich Minister of the Interior and the laws governing that issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3167, "page_number": "3160", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QI would like to refer once more to Exhibit 205 in Document Book 5-F. This is a file note about the discussion that took place on 4 August 1942. Where did you first see this file note which was only used for the inter-office circulation. Did it only come to your attention now?\nAI don't quite know what you are referring to.\nQMay I hand this document to you once more. It was discussed yesterday.\nAI do not know this document.\nQYou don't know it. Don't you know either whether the regulations which were planned there ever were put into effect?\nAI am not informed about what happened in Alsace-Lorraine. I can't say anything about it.\nQMay I briefly clarify about the following: A while ago you spoke about persons who were taken out of the re-Germanization procedure and who were subordinated to the Labor Office. To whom were the Labor Offices subordinated? To what Administration did they belong?\nAThe Labor offices were subordinated to the Reich Minister of Labor or the Provincial Labor Offices.\nQTherefore, they were part of the State Labor system and were not part of the groups mentioned in the indictment?\nAYes.\nQThank you, I have no further questions. BY DR, MULLIER: (for defendant Huebner):\nQWitness, I only want to ask you one question. Can you confirm to me that the defendant Huebner during the time of your activity at Stuttgart, that is to say, since the year 1940, did not carry out an official work with the SS Sector of Stuttgart?\nAYes, I can confirm that.\nQThank you very much.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3168, "page_number": "3161", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "BY DR. HESSL (for the defendants Lorenz and Brueckner):\nQWitness, in the direct examination you made a statement about the deported Alsatians. Did VOMI have anything to do with that deportation?\nANo.\nQWhy were these Alsatians placed in VOMI camps?\nAI would like to refer once more to the questions of deportation in Alsace, as far as I know, were ordered by the Chief of the Civil Administration, Gauleiter and they were carried out by the security police. The transports were also carried out by the security police. Just why those people came to VOMI camps I don't know. I have stated in my previous testimony that the camps Schelklingen was only a transit camp which was only subordinated to VOMI in economic respects and which we used in order to find work for the people who were staying there.\nQYou made another statement about a camp which you equipped, with furniture before it was still a VOMI camp. This may lead to a wrong conclusion and apparently it was also misunderstood by the interpreter. What were you referring to?\nAIn this case this was the camp Riedlingen on the Danube. This camp was used partly as a home for the aged. On our own intiative we quipped this camp with better furniture and things of that sort and we divided up the space differently than it had been divided up before in order to give those old people as much privacy as possible and in order to make the stay for those old people in the camp as pleasant as possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3169, "page_number": "3162", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QWith that you were not trying to make a derogatory statement as far as the VOMI camps are concerned?\nAWith that I did not want to say anything derogatory about the VOMI camps.\nQYou then made an additional statement about the re-Germanization procedure which was applied to Poles. Did VOMI have anything to do with the re-Germanization of Poles?\nAI don't know whether VOMI plaued any part in the re-Germanization of Poles.\nDR. HESS:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION HERMANN GROTZ - Resumed BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, please keep your answers as brief as possible and, when you can, yes or no could be sufficient.\nAYes.\nQAt the beginning of your examination, witness, you mentioned s staff leader on the staff of the defendant Hoffmann. Was this an important position?\nAYes, the staff leader actually was the man who kept the agency in order; he saw to it that everything was operating smoothly.\nQCould you describe his duties very briefly, witness?\nAFor the most he had to see that the business at the agency was transacted smoothly, and he also had to distribute the mail, and he had to supervise the work which was done.\nQAnd je knew all the work that was being done, then, is that correct, as far as one man can?\nAI can't claim that. That escapes my knowledge.\nQWitness, were the camp leaders of all VOMI camps in the District Southwest subordinated to the Higher SS andPolice Leader in that area?", "speakers": [ "DR. HESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3170, "page_number": "3163", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "AAll camps in the District Southwest were subordinated to VOMI, with the exception of our transit camp Schelklingen. The camp leader there were subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader or myself.\nQWitness, was there a permanent camp in your area for persons eligible for Germanization?\nANo, I don't think so.\nQIn connection with the Alsatians, didn't you know that these people had not come from Alsace voluntarily but had been deported against their will?\nAOf course, I knew that. I talked to these people and I had contact with these people. I -\nQYou have answered the question. Thank you.\nAWill you please answered that question in your first sentence, witness. It is not necessary to explain at length.\nIn connection with the housemaids, that is, the eastern girls, did they all come to your area in Germany voluntarily?\nAI have to assume that. I think these people came to Germany on a voluntarily basis--just like all other people who were eligible for re-Germanization.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of any cases in your area where Poles or other eastern workers were put for having sexual intercourse with German women?\nAI did not hear anything of that sort officially, but I did hear it by way of conversations.\nQDo you know in these cases, witness, whether these individuals had been racially examined by the RUS leader in the area?\nAThese men were subjected to a racial examination.\nQAnd the results were submitted to the Higher SS and Police Leader, were they not?\nAI con(t know just how the exact procedure was carried out, and that is why I do not want to make any statements about it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3171, "page_number": "3164", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QWitness, you have stated that where sexual intercourse occured between a Pole or other eastern workers and a German woman, you always approved of themarriage, if all the prerequisites were present; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQAnd one of the prerequisites was that the man be considered eligible for Germanization, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever have any cases where the decision was that the man was not eligible for Germanization--that is, where one of the prerequisites was missing?\nAI had nothing to do with these matters and I can't make any statement about them.\nQWell, witness, these requests for marriage--did you handle them?\nANo.\nQDidn't you say that you had approved in at least two or three instances the marriages when all the prerequisites were present?\nAYes, whenever the man was involved in a re-Germanization procedure or whenever he was found to be fit for re-Germanization,then he was under my care.\nQAnd you never had a case where this one prerequisite was missing, that the man was not fit for Germanization?\nAI did not have any such case. Actually, I had nothing to do with these things. These people were only put under my care after they had been found fit for the re-Germanization procedure.\nQThank you, witness, have you ever heard of slave labor in Germany?\nAAs far as the meaning of the expression is concerned, the term slave labor never came to my knowledge?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3172, "page_number": "3165", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QSo you never heard of it during the war in Germany, is that correct?\nAWell, of course I knew that people were working in the enterprises, but I knew that they were paid regularly. I don't understand that to mean slave labor.\nQWitness, you mean that as long as a person gets paid something for his work you can't call it slave labor; is that correct?\nAWell, that is my personal opinion. As long as a man receives sufficient food and as long as he gets paid for his work, I don't consider him to be slave.\nQThank you, witness, that is quite clear.\nOn direct examination, witness, you testified that you had brought Alsatians back from Breslau where they had been sent; that you had kept other Alsatians out of the armed forces; and that in many ways you had violated the regulations.\nNow, weren't you going directly contrary to your orders when you did these kind deeds?\nAI acted contrary to the orders of Gauleiter Wagner.\nQWitness, did the defendant Hoffmann know that you were going contrary to these orders?\nAIn many cases, Hoffmann was informed of it. I frequently talked to Hoffmann about particularly outstanding cases where Gauleiter Wagner had expelled women from Alsace, and I gave him the papers so that the matter could be taken up with the Gauleiter. Hoffmann was to try-since these women were actually unfortunate enough already because they had lost their husbands--to obtain permission for these women to return to Alsace.\nQWitness, I am not speaking of cases where you or Hoffmann intervened with higher authorities or with Wagner, and tried to get them to change something. I am speaking of cases where you directly disobeyed your orders. In such cases, did you inform the defendant Hoffmann?\nAYes, I did.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3173, "page_number": "3166", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QDo you mean yo sit there, witness, and state that the defendant Hoffmann approved of your disobedience of orders?\nAThe defendant Hoffmann, in most cases, whenever the care of such a family was concerned, agreed with me. I can even give you the names of individual cases.\nQThat is enough, witness. Thank you very much.\nThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PR SILENT:The Tribunal will recess until eleven o'clock - ( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PR SILENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3174, "page_number": "3167", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, proceed.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann)\nQ.Herr Grotz, we spoke last of slave labor. During the war was there in Germany, a general compulsory labor service for all persons who lived in Germany?\nA.For all persons and especially for all Reich Germans there was a compulsory labor service as far as they were in age groups which were able to work. Beyond that there was a possibility that Reich Germans were being conscripted for emergency labor service for it. I myself was conscripted for my work as a police leader in the Southwest.\nQ.And for all these Reich Germans the labor offices were competent?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And for the Poles who came to Germany to work, the labor offices were competent too ?\nA.As far as I know, the labor offices were competent for labor allocation of these Polish civilian workers.\nQ.Now, if persons were taken out of the proceedings for reGermanization, did they thereby lose their privileges which they had obtained in this process?\nA.The Poles would of course lose their privileges that they had obtained by being treated us Reich Germans, and I would like to mention that they lost their clothing ration; their wages went according to a scale for foreign workers, that is much lower than before, and also their food rations also were slightly more limited. I don't know that exactly. Further more, there was a prerequisite that they were then quartered in general camps.\nQ.These few cases in which persons were taken out from the reGermanization proceedings, do you remember them; can you give us their names?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3175, "page_number": "3168", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.No, I cannot remember any names; Polish names as such are difficult to remember.\nQ.You only know that several such cases occurred.\nA.I can remember that in a very few cases, perhaps three or four, where a family, and I believe the remainder were just individual persons, who were transferred to the labor office of their residences, with the request that the labor offices treat those persons again as civilian workers and to put them to work again.\nQ.Did you know personally all the various labor offices with which you had contact?\nA.I had business with many labor offices, but I had no personal contact with the individual labor offices.\nQ.In general, which was the competent agency with which you collaborated?\nA.In general, the provincial labor office of Stuttgart was competent for our work.\nQ.And for those persons who were taken out from the re-Germanization procedure, which was the competent labor office for those?\nA.The labor office of their residence was competent for those persons.\nQ.That was probably outside of Stuttgart.\nA.Yes, in most cases that was outside of Stuttgart.\nQ.Witness, you were asked whether all Poles who carried on prohibited sexual intercourse with Germans were subject to racial examination; did you know that?\nA.I cannot answer that question because I had nothing to do with these matters.\nQ.When did you begin to have anything to do with these things?\nA.I only started dealing with those matters after these persons had already been included in the re-Germanization procedure, and were assigned to me as being suitable for re-Germanization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3176, "page_number": "3169", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.And how was it when you permitted marriages? Did you have to do with all permits for marriages in the areaof the higher SS and Police leader?\nA.I was competent only for those permissions for marriage which concerned with my own group, for that is, with those persons who were suitable for re-Germanization; otherwise , I had nothing to do with granting permits of marriage.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; I have finished my re-direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Who will you call next?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to put the defendant Hofmann into the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the defendant come to the stand.\nOTTOHOFMANN, a witness in his own behalf, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann.)\nQ.Herr Hofmann, will you please tell the Tribunal your full name?\nA.My name is Otto Hofmann.\nQ.Will you please, in short, give your curriculum vitae.\nA.I was born the 16th of March, 1896 in Innsbruck. I attended the elementary school in Munich and then high school, classical curriculum. In August 1914 I volunteered for the Bavarian army and took part in the battles of the west and eastern fronts. In 1917 I was shot down at the Romanian front by a Russian airplane and was taken prisoner by the Russians. After five weeks, during which I was very well treated in \n part, I was able to flee.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "OTTO", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3177, "page_number": "3170", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "In 1918 I married. I 1919 I was released from the army as an officer in the reserve.\nI started in my father-in-law's business in order to learn to be a merchant. In 1924 I was made a prokurist. In 1925 I divorced my first wife; and I started an independent business. On the 6th January, 1927 I re-married and I now have been married for twenty-one years.\nQ.Will you please describe to the Tribunal your activities in the NSDAP?\nA.In 1929 I became a member of the NSDAP; already in the year 1923 I had belonged to it for a few months. In 1929 the economic life was then already in a receding flow and in the political life there were signs of disturbances and unrest. I hoped that the NSDAP would bring a positive solution on a national basis in political life, and put the economic life on a social basis. The attempts of those parties, of the older parties , and those that were created subsequently to prevent the general decay were in vain.\nQ.Were you yourself active in the NSDAP in a political way?\nA.No.\nQ.Will you please describe your career in the SS?\nA.In April, 1931 I became a member of the SS. The political tensions at that time had further increased; more and more often there were clashes between the members of the rightist parties, that is the Steel-Helmet, the SA and the SS on the one hand, and the members of the leftist organizations; that is the Reichsbanner, the communist red front association , on the other hand. At that time I did not want to stand apart, and I did want to have others take the coals out of the fire for me, especially since in the growing communism I saw a deathly danger for Germany. These were the only reasons for my joining the SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3178, "page_number": "3171", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QHerr Hofmann, do you wish to say with that that in contrast to many other people who became members of the party and the SS for egotistical reasons, that you considered in the first place the need of your contry and the danger of communism?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWhat was your further career in the SS. Will you please describe in brief your various appointments.\nAYes, at first I worked on an hourly basis and in the years 1931 and 1932, I organized several motor units in the SS. In 1932 I got into trouble with Streicher. A disparaging remark that I made about him was reported to him; I had no contract with him at all; thereupon he had me watched and tried to hamper my career in the SS, furthermore in 1933 my livelihood was almost completely jeopardized. Therefore, beginning of 1933 I accepted an offer to become a full-time member in the SS, and I transferred my residence to Munich. At first I was active as a referent for a few months, and then as Stabsfuehrer of a main district in Braunschweig. In 1934 I wasleader of a Standarte, a regiment of SS, in Magdeburg and subsequently a Standarte in Hamburg; and from the middle of 1935 until 1936 I was leader of the district XV in Altona. During this time it was my special task to take care of the family life and vice activities of the members of the SS and organized family evenings and parties in which women and grown-up children of the SS men took part.\nQAnd what were your tasks afterwards?\nAIt is possible that on the basis of my activity that I have just described I was taken over into the Race and Settlement Main Office and that I was then appointed as SS leader for race and settlement questions in the main district West in Dusseldorf.\nQWhat were your tasks there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3179, "page_number": "3172", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "AEssentially, that is in general, I was the representative of the Race and Settlement Main Office in the district there. I had no special instructions. My personal relations to the leader of the main district was an essential point and also my own initiative. My special and routine duties were the supervision of the SS, applicants according to the regulations with regard to appearance which were valid for the SS, in collaboration with the physician who was in charge of medical matters. We had a close connection with the provincial and district peasant leaders and the agencies of the H.J., the Hitler Youth.\nQThese peasant leaders, what was the connection there?\nAThe close connection with the peasantry was striven for for the reason that the members of the SS were to be interested in the agricultural settlement; one was also to work against the getting away from the land.\nQWhat were your further duties?\nAThe RuS leader had to take care of the life within the framework of the Standarten, the regiments of the SS, and according to his qualifications and talents, he took an influence in the cultural happenings within the areas of main sub-district. The schooling activities itself had been taken away from the competency of the RuS leader in 1938 after the schooling and office had been taken out of the Race and Settlement Office and had been subordinated to the SS Main Office. A duty which also took on an ever increasing importance after 1937 was the care of widows and orphans, which was also under the competency of the RuS leader because of Himmler's order concerning the care of widows and orphans.\nQIn this connection, I am ........Hofmann Document No. 1 for identification, and I would like you to tell the Court whether the order which is mentioned on page 4 is the order that you have in mind.\nAYes, that is the basic law concerning the care of widows and orphans.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3180, "page_number": "3173", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QWhen did you become chief of the eugenic office in RuSHA?\nAAt the beginning of 1939 I was appointed with this task; I have found out here only because of Panke's request.\nQWhat were your duties there?\nAThe eugenic office was responsible for carrying out the fiancee and marriage order which Himmler had issued on 31 December 1931 to the SS.\nQWill you please look again at the document and see if you mean this order?\nAYes, it is on page 3, yes.\nQWill you then please continue with describing your duties?\nAAn SS man could only marry if he got a license and a permit from the Race and Settlement Main Office, that is from Himmler. The examination of his person and of his ancestors as well as that of the fiancee and her ancestors, according to eugenic and health and racial points of view, should, if possible, assist in guaranteeing happy marriages with healthy children; the order was supposed to have an educational basis.\nQIs it correct that Himmler was very interested in these applications for engagements and marriages?\nAHe wasnot only very interested, but he was extremely interested in it; he, for instance, made personal decisions in all marriage applications of leaders, of full-time members of SS, and in all cases of misgivings, he looked through those applications and compared especially the photographs with their personal description, and very often he would complain about even small disagreements. I can tell you from my own personal experience, Dr. Schwarz, that during a flight from Berlin to Lodz I observed how he was looking through the engagement and marriage applications and later on he said to me that this was almost a rest from his whole duties, this examination of the applications.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3181, "page_number": "3174", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QWe shall come back to this special point later on in the dealing with Point 14 of the Indictment. This work, did all that appeal to you personally?\nAI must say that during my entire life time I was able to find out for myself, that is in my first marriage, what disadvantages there are in a rushed and wrong choice of mates. I therefore made the duties of the Eugenic Office my own.\nQWhat influence did the beginning of the war have on your duties?\nAThe work of the eugenic office was based on a peaceful development; war meant disturbance, that is destruction of this work too, and even more so since every war results a certain counter selection of people.\nQWhat do I understand by counter selection of people?\nAThe best people of a nation volunteer in a war and risk more, and, therefore, the losses among this group are much higher.\nQHow did the work proceed in the eugenic office?\nAThe work of the eugenic office was at first nearly completely interrupted. Many of the collaborators were conscripted for military duty. I myself asked through Panke to be transferred to the front. However, Himmler rejected my request and gave as the reason for it that I had already gone through one war. After the quick carrying out of the Polish campaign, the work was soon taken up again and almost to the extent that it had had before.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3182, "page_number": "3175", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QWas the Race Office also subordinate to you?\nAYes. About the beginning of December, I was appointed the leader of this office. At that time, it consisted of a skeleton force of five or six persons, including the secretarial help. The then deputy office chief, Dr. Carl, had been killed in the war sometime before as a pilot.\nQYou mean that was in December, 1939?\nAYes, December, 1939.\nQDid you have special training for the Race Office?\nANo. That is to say, in 1937. Dr. Rechenbach gave me a short training course as racial examiner and, in the years 1937 and 1938, I conducted a series of examinations myself. I also tried to familiarize myself with the literature concerning this subject. I did not have a professional anthropological training. This appointment, of course, was also based more on reasons of official supervision as the then chief, Panke, also expressed when he was examined here. Purely expert questions that concerned the subject matter were handled by Hauptsturmfuehrer Klinger, up to then the collaborator of Dr. Carl.\nQWhat were the duties and tasks of the Race Office?\nAThe essential and practical duties of the Race Office consisted of the training of examiners. On account of constant new formulation of the Waffen SS units the replacement offices were constantly increased. Of course, for each replacement officethere had to be an examiner and we had to get examiners for all the other offices too and also later for the field office Lodz. The need for examiners could only be taken cane of by training younger forces for that job. These younger people were taken partly from the eugenic workers who were not eligible for front duty and partly we took over peasant referents and disabled members of the Waffen SS. In repeater courses the new examiners had to be trained in their profession with regard to a clear \n understanding and judgment, so as to enable them to judge the bodily characteristics of a man as they are described in the document, Exhibit 166.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3183, "page_number": "3176", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QHerr Hofmann, I have this exhibit before me. It is contained in Document Book IV-D on page 44 in the German version.\nAYes.\nQDoes this correspond approximately to the picture that an examiner had to gain?\nAYes. He had to be able to fill in all these characteristics that are described in these charts as far as they concerned the man to be examined.\nQThis examination not only concerned the fact whether the man had blue eyes or high cheek bones?\nANo.\nQAs the prosecution has mentioned?\nANo. There are about forty-two characteristics.\nQDid you, yourself, conduct these training courses for the examiners?\nANo. At first, that was Klinger's resort and then the later Chief of the Race Office, the anthropologist Professor B.K. Schulz.\nQWhat then was your own actual activity in the Race Office?\nAEssentially I had the disciplinary supervision. Then I signed, of course, letters that went to the higher agencies, or agencies on the same level.\nQWhen did you become Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAOn the 9th of July, 1940, with the proviso that it was for the duration of the war.\nQWhat were your activities there then?\nAI did not make any particular changes. I rather strove to get efficient men into the offices and especially I wished to have an expert at the head of the Race Office. For this I got the already mentioned Professor B.K. Schulz. As Chief of the Eugenic Office, I \n appointed Oberfuehrer Kaserer.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3184, "page_number": "3177", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Later on, this man was replaced by Oberfuehrer Heider. Heider himself had five children and had also all other personal qualities in order to be at the head of this office. He is now a Russian prisoner. The Settlement Office was put under the agricultural expert Thole who, however, was conscripted into the Waffen SS and he was replaced by his deputy Tesseraux. Beyond that the duties of the Race and Settlement Main Office can be seen from the report which I made on 6 November 1941.\nQI am now showing you Document Book II-C. Will you please turn to Exhibit 50? Will you please tell me whether this memorandum is yours? Is that correct?\nAYes. This is the report that I made.\nQIf you look more closely at this document you will see that those questions are not mentioned in this report - or, at least, have been touched upon only in the small remarks which form the subject of this charge.\nAI believe the reason for that is that the activity of the examiners which is mentioned by the Indictment had nothing in common with the actual tasks of the Race and Settlement Main Office. This activity had only come about after the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism had taken up his activities. The Race and Settlement Main Office had already existed since 1932. That is, already a long time before the Race and Settlement Office. It is also a characteristic that Himmler did not talk about this activity which was brought about by the war when I was ordered to appear before him some weeks later. At that tine he gave me directives for the reorganization of the eugenic office and for the inclusion of the welfare office of the Waffen SS into the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQIs this regulation contained in Exhibit 51, the next document in the document book that is before you?\nAYes. At that time I made a file memorandum about this conference \n and this is this Document 51.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3185, "page_number": "3178", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QThen the formulation of the witness Panke - is correct when he says that the examiners were lent to other offices? That is, they worked on orders of other agencies?\nAYes, essentially that's correct. The same is true also for members of the Waffen SS who had incurred war disabilities who were formerly in the agricultural profession and for whom jobs were secured in other agencies.\nQThe Race and Settlement Main Office - did it have power to issue instructions in the scope of the RKF?\nANo. Directives were given by the Reichsfuehrer SS - that is, by the Staff Main Office or the Reich Security Main Office. The agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office, if necessary, were consulted in an advisory capacity in the drafting of orders and decrees and were active also in the carrying out of these orders.\nQI am now showing you a document - that is Exhibit 24, in Document Book II-B: This is the decree dated 28 November 1941. Does this not contradict the statement that you have just made?\nAYes, this document mentions that the Race and Settlement Main office is an advisory office.\nQIt says that in actual words?\nAYes.\nQNow, this decree - did that mean that the Race and Settlement Office was taken over as an agency of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nANo. I always held the opinion that this decree mainly served for the purpose of legimitizing Hitler against the NSDAP. The Race and Settlement Main Office subsequently remained an agency of the SS. Even later on it did not have the title of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3186, "page_number": "3179", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QThe RuSHA then could not issue decrees or directives, which had any consequences as far as international law is concerned?\nANo.\nQDid you have a legal department or legal advisors who could possibly have been instrumental in this work and who could have pointed out to you whether or not the decrees of Himmler or the instructions of the Staff Main Office or of the Reich Security Main Office were legal or not?\nAWe had no sort of institution -----purpose in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQI shall later come back to individual questions.\nHow long were you Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAI was chief up to the 20th of April 1943.\nQWhat was the reason for your release from it?\nAHimmler, on 13 March 1943, told me, in his field command post, that he was not satisfied with the way that I handled that office. Especially, Himmler reprimanded me for not having succeeded in regimenting the training of the examiners. This reproach was justified up to a certain point because the activity of these examiners did not provide for carrying out the new tasks that Himmler wanted them to carry out. These tasks followed from his activities on the state sector.\nQAnd why was that not possible?\nQThese examiners would have had to be retrained again and again but they could not be recalled into training from the agencies in which they worked at the time.\nQI am now showing you a document, Hofmann #119, and I would like you to establish whether this excerpt from your personal file is correct or not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3187, "page_number": "3180", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "AYes, as far as I can see in a short time, this is perfectly correct.\nQThis outline gives the reasons for your resignation from the Race and Settlement Main Office. I should like to submit this document for identification purposes and would like to note this as my Exhibit 1. I shall later submit it finally when the translation will have been made.\nAccording to your opinion, were the other reasons justified too?\nADefinitely not. There were intrigues against me. Himmler's behavior towards me was never especially cordial. There was also no personal contact between us. From the middle of 1942, his behavior started to be rather offensive. He, for instance, made me wait for about eight days in his field command post until he finally invited me for a short talk. He wrote insulting letters to me for no reason at all. In my serious dispute with the Chief of the Main Welfare Office, Brigadefuehrer Dr. Hertel, who was subordinate to me, he, in no way, gave me any support. Hertel remained in office. I had to leave. I am mentioning for the completion of my statement that Hertel, about a year after that, was taken into court and was convicted because of black market activities and embezzelment.\nQWhat did Himmler say to you about the tasks of RuSHA during the war?\nASeveral times he made oral remarks and he also repeatedly or he wrote that the Race and Settlement Main Office had to remain in the background during the war. The actual work of this office was only to be accomplished after the war. He thought that this work could be compared with the growth of aplant which needs time to develop fully.\nQHow long were you actually working at RUSHA?\nAWell, in practice, until I was dismissed on the 30th of March 1943. Until my successor arrived -- Obergruppenfuehrer Hildenbrandt, \n that is, until the 20th of April 1943, in the essential matters Brigadefuehrer Heider deputized for me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3188, "page_number": "3181", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "In this time my task was of an orientation nature. I was attached to several main offices in Berlin. Among others, for about 14 days to the Main Office of the Regular Police for my new task as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQWhat were the special tasks that Himmler gave you for your new activity?\nAThe instructions were very brief. He told me that I should be careful to keep up good relations to the two Gauleiters -- Hurr in Wuerttemberg and Wagner in Baden Alsace -- but especially I was to take care of all questions of air raid precautions. He said among other things, verbatim: \"Take care of the people who have been buried in such a way as though your own family were under the rubble.\"\nQWhat were your actual activities there?\nAAfter a short time it wasmy impression that the individual subjects were taken care of in a proper manner -- the subjects that were under my jurisdiction. All the mere I could then take care of supervising the air raid precautions that had been provided for. That was necessary since, in the spring of 1943, the war by air took on very serious proportions. Beyond that the agencies that were subordinated to me -- the agencies of the various main offices -- got their instructions and orders, for the most part, directly. I should now especially like to mention the agencies of the SS Main Office, of the Reich Security Main Office, and of the Main Office of the Regular Police. The Chief of the Security Police had his official residence in Strassbourg. He visited me several times in Stuttgart or he visited me when I was in Strassbourg. The orders that were for him he got directly from the Reich Security Main Office and, in part, they were also given in an informative way to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. The Chief of the Security Police informed me, in the course of his visits, of his discretion and with the Gauleiters he was in direct contact.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3189, "page_number": "3182", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "I had more contact Regular with the Chief of the Police, I think, since it was he who had to take care of the carrying out of all air raid precautions. There I had a greater sphere of influence because of Himmler's direct order.\nQI am now sending over to you a document, Hofmann Document 120. This is a affidavit by Petersdorf. Who was Petersdorf?\nAThat was the Chief of the Regular Police in my area.\nQThis affidavit I would like to submit later on.\nUpon what official instructions did you act as Higher Police and SS Leader?\nAI myself was never shown official regulations. I was only the representative deputy of Himmler. I had to take care of good relations with the two Gauleiters, with the Wehrmacht and the various Party agencies. Whatever went beyond that was up to my own initiative and my own qualifications and, this was dependent upon the various characteristics of the various gauleiters and dependent upon special orders by Himmler. In my area it was my special task to take care of the various questions connected with air raid precautions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3190, "page_number": "3183", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.I have here an affidavit by Bernhard. This is document H ofmann 81. Who was Bernhard?\nA.Bernhard was Lieutenant General of the RegulaPolice and, as he writes here himself, he was until the end of 1942 Chief of the Command Office of the Main Office of the Regula-Police.\nQ.Could he give a description of the task of the H igher SS and of the Police leaders?\nA.Yes, I would say that he was the competent man to do that.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I am going to submit officially this document at a later time.\nQ.What were your other duties as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.I was leader of the main district of the General SS and besides that I was representative of the Reich Commissioners for the Strengthening of Germany, RKFDV, for Wuertemberg and deputy representative of the Reich Commissioner for Baden-Alsace.\nQ.What, now, is the activity of the Higher SS and Police Leader as representative for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germany -- was that more in the scope of the RuSHA or in that of the Staff Main Office, in its capacity as agency of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germany?\nA.Yes, you could say that the main part of the activities was in the scope of the Main Staff Office. That has been discussed in detailby the witness Crote today and yesterday. As far as the Reich Security Main Office is concerned, there were only several orders of decrees which were connected with points 12, 13, and 14 of the Indictment.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3191, "page_number": "3184", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Then, as deputy representative for Baden and Alsace, did you also carry out any activities there in practice?\nA.To this I would like to say that Wagner, the Gauleiter, whom I knew personally and who -- I believe was a very decent man, acted very independently. Besides, the actual activities in this area were either already finished when I became Higher SS and Police Leader or they were already in progress.\nQ.As Higher SS and Police Leader, did you have anything to do with PW matters?\nA.Yes, from September 1944 I was Higher Commander of the PW's in the Army District.V.\nQ.Among others, you have also been charged with crimes against prisoners of war, and that in connection with Point 14 of the Indictment. Did you know such a case among the PW's in your area?\nA.No, I can't remember such a case. According to the decrees and regulations it was up to the Higher Command of the Wehrmacht to release convicted prisoners from being a PW before they were transferred to the Liaison Office of the State Police or before permission was granted for instituting proceedings.\nQ.I am now putting through the -- this order of the RuSHA, Reich Security Office, concerning Polish prisoners of War. It is dated 12 February of 1942. It is contained in Document Book H ofmann IIIA. Is this the order that you were talking about?\nA.Yes, this is the order of the 12th February 1943.\nQ.I would like to submit this document as Exhibit 2. My Document B ook III-A has already been translated and must also be already in the hands of the Prosecution. You actually took care of PW affairs?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3192, "page_number": "3185", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Well, I believe that I can say that I was very concerned with the fate of the prisoners of war. I already said that I myself had been a prisoner of war and that I have been treated very well there. I went repeatedly to the various camps. I talked in the various camps to the various elected representatives of the prisoners of war; I shook his hand when I came and when I went. I had a camp with British officers in my area-- I invited Colonel Page and Captain Dale to eat with me.\nQ.Who was Colonel Page and Captain Dale?\nA.That was the British Senior of the camp and his adjutant. I have arranged an automobile trip to Rothenburg for other officers. American prisoners of war that came were transferred by me into a camp near Baden-Baden and I visited them there and there I sent one of the prisoners of war by the name of Stecher to his uncle. He remained there until the end of the war.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Mr. Hoffmann, I shall later submit affidavits concerning this point. And on this occasion I would like to correct a mistake in the translation that was just brought to me. In this document this was an order of the Reich Security Main Office and not of the RuSHA.\nQ.As Higher SS and Police Leader, did you ever have something to do with the care of foreign workers?\nA.No, that was the task of the German-Labor-Front. But at the end of the war I saw that it was necessary for me to join working with it. These foreign workers were supposed to be evacuated and were supposed to be deported to the East -- that is, to Bavaria in this case. And in this I saw a great danger. That is why in a conference with various leading industrialists I --- prevented this evacuation.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3193, "page_number": "3186", "date": "01 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-01", "text": "Q.I shall also submit affidavits to that point. get into the hands of the Allies?\nA.On the 7th of July 1945 I voluntarily gave myself up to the Military Government in Munich. That was at a time when the SS was charged on the radio and in the press with the most cruel crimes and was designated as a criminal organization. The British Field Marshall Montgomery at that time had stated that the SS would remain as prisoners of war for 20 years. At that time I laid down the reasons for having acted this way in a letter to General Eisenhower.\nQ.I am now giving you Hofmann's Document Number 128, which is contained in Document Volume V. And I would like you to say whether this is a correct excerpt from this letter that you were talking about?\nA.Yes.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to have this document noted as Exhibit Number 3, and I shall submit it when the translation has been done.\nI am now coming to a new point, and I would appreciate it if we would now have our recess.\nTHE PRESIDENT:A very good suggestion. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3194, "page_number": "3187", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nOTTOHOFMANN -- continued.\nDIRECTEXAMINATION resumed. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Herr Hofmann, is the description which the defendant Greifelt gave in the plan about the competency in the Main Office correct. Is it complete the way he gave it?\nA.No. Greifelt himself stated that he did not know any more about RuSHA than its existence.\nQ.Herr Hofmann, in order to simplify matters I am going to hand to you documents 1 to 6 which are contained in Document Book 1 and these documents contain information about the competency of the Race and Settlement Main Office. I only would like you to tell me whether the information contained in these documents as far as the activity and the work of the Race and Settlement Main Office is concerned corresponds to the fact and whether you wnat to make these documents you own testimony. Will you please tell the Tribunal what document 1 contains?\nA.First of all it contains an extract from the Pocket Year Book, \"Soldier's Friend\", - Der Soldatenfreund, - pocket edition, on page 20.\nQ.The comptencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office are discussed?\nA.Yes, it states exactly what the Race and Settlement Main Office does and what the work has to do with.\nQ.Then please go over to Document 2.\nA.This is an introduction from the book \"Neuadel von Blut und Boden.\"\nQ.Who wrote that?\nA.Darre, the Reich peasent Leader and the Reich Commissar for Food and Agriculture.\nQ.Then Document 3.\nA.That is an affidavit by Darre whom I have just mentioned about the history of the Race and Settlement Main Office and its staff and activities.\nQ.Then Document 4.", "speakers": [ "DIRECT", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "OTTO", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3195, "page_number": "3188", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Document 4 is an affidavit by Hermann Harn and from March 1935 until April 1937 he was Staff Leader of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.And the next document?\nA.The next document is an affidavit by Ehbrecht, who also was a staff leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office from April 1937 until July 1938.\nQ.And the next document, please.\nA.The next document is an affidavit by Dr. Caesar who was in charge of the training office.\nQ.I ask that the Exhibits 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, be reserved for these documents. I shall then finally offer them when my presentation of documents takes place.\nA.And 9 also.\nQ.And 9 also. - Herr Hofmann, the witness Panke has already testified here on the 29th of October 1947 about the competency of the Race and Settlement Main Office. In order to simplify matters, do you agree with the description he gave ?\nA.Yes, however I must make several additions to what he said, especially as far as the time is concerned after Panke left the office. In any case the important part is that the activity of the Race and Settlement Main Office was not that of a Government agency but it was that of an internal SS office.\nQ.Did the Race and Settlement Main Office participate in Government functions and how ?\nA.It did not carry out that work directly but individual agencies were used in order to carry out several Government functions because during the war there was a general lack of personnel, especially personnel which had received some previous professional training. The first inclusion took place in October 1939 at a time when I was still Chief of the Sippenamt (Eugenic Office). At that time upon the request of the Reich Security \n Main Office racial classification experts were turned over to the EWZ of the racial office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3196, "page_number": "3189", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "These racial examiners were organized as a group under a Race and Settlement leader of the EWZ.\nQ.We shall come back to the EWZ later on when we are discussing the individual counts of the indictment. In order to determine the responsibility for the activity of the field office of Lodz I ask you to describe to the Tribunal just what caused this field office to be established at all?\nA.It is now eight years ago that all these things happened. I must reconstruct them in part from my memory and in part from the documents which I have before me. Already in a discussion which took place under the Chairmanship of Heydrich on the 30th of January 1940 it was pointed out that a selection should take place amongst the Poles who were to be evacuated. Approximately 50 persons from all interested agencies participated in this meeting. However, the Race and Settlement Main Office was not represented.\nQ.I would like to show you the minutes of the conference contained in Document Book 5-G. It is document No. 5322. It is the first document in the document book. Do you know for certain that you did not participate in that conference?\nA.Yes, I know that for certain.\nQ.What steps were taken after this conference? What happened then as far as the field office at Lodz was concerned.\nA.It is quite possible that Himmler toward Panke and also toward me made several statements as they were finally put down by Fehndrich in his paper \"Der Menscheneinsatz\".\nQ.For this purpose I am going to hand to you Document 19 from my document book and a description and I want to ask you whether this is the description which was made out by Fehndrich to which you have just referred?\nA.Yes, it is the same statement.\nQ.This is an extract from the book Der Menscheneinsatz and I went to offer this document as my exhibit No. 10. What happened then?\nA.I recall that in the agency of Greifelt several discussions took place in March or April of 1940. I myself participated in two of these \n conferences together with Klinger who was a collaborator from the racial office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3197, "page_number": "3190", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Fehndrich himself presided over one of these discussions. I can recall this fact quite clearly because Fehndrich who at that time had the rank of Standartenfuehrer or perhaps he was only an Obersturmbannfuehrer presided over the conferences and he apologized to me about it because after all I was a Brigadefuehrer. Both discussions dealt with the re-Germanization procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3198, "page_number": "3191", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "However, there is no doubt that Himmler himself, who was the Chief of all these questions, gave orders which went into all the details. His interests in the reGermanization procedure were so great that on the occasion of a later inspection of the Field Office in Lodz he ordered just how the examination was to be carried out. For example, he personally ordered that the examinations should be carried out be people who were wearing white overcoats, and he also ordered that an exact scheme was to be worked out for the entire examination process; and this scheme was to be submitted to him for his approval.\nQ.Now, how was the Field Office at Lodz actually included?\nA.First of all, by virtue of all orders which Himmler has given orally and which then were contained in the decree 17-2, in writing. At the time Sturmbannfuehrer Kuenzel was ordered at the beginning of March to select the Poles who had been deported by the UWZ, the people who were eligible for re-Germanization. The practical work may have started in the beginning of April 1940, As a result of the factual instructions which Kuenzel received with directives signed by Panke.\nQ.Are you referring to Exhibit 141 in Document Book 4C? I am going to hand to you this document now. If you will look at the end of the document -\nA.I beg your pardon, I haven't found it yet.\nQ.You will find it on page 11, I believe.\nA.Oh yes, I have it.\nQ.Did you sign for the correctness of this document?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What does that mean?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3199, "page_number": "3192", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.This letter was addressed to the Chief of the Field Office and it was of some importance, and that is why I submitted it to Panke, the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, and as Chief of the Racial Office I initialed it.\nQ.Who drafted this document?\nA.Hauptsturmfuehrer Klinger worked it out. That becomes evident from the file note \"KL\".\nQ.This draft which you have before you -- did this become effective in all its points?\nA.No. It only became effective with regards to Group A. This Group A included all those Poles who had volunterred for the re-Germanization procedure. As far as Groups S and U were concerned, this plan did not become effective.\nQ.Can you explain the scheme which is mentioned here with regards to the racial evaluation?\nA.Dr. Rechenbach was a collaborator of Darre and at the time he had worked out a scheme which was used for people who were accepted in the SS. In connection with this scheme certain groups were established, as becomes evident from Fxhibit 141. In the case of resettlers, for example, all four groups were naturalized; however, the racial classification experts only would recommend those to be settled in the East who were in Group 1,2, or 3. In the re-Germanization procedure only Groups 1 and 2 were listed as being eligible for re-Germanization. This corresponded to approximately 3 to 5 percent of all deportees who had been registered.\nQ.In Exhibit 141 the word \"assimilation attempts\" has been mentioned. Didn't such a term contradict the entire idea of the re-Germanization procedure?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3200, "page_number": "3193", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.T he basic thought was that those people were to be brought back to Germanism who in the course of 600 years of history, with many changes, had lived in the country between Weichsel and the Warthe who had been Polonized under Polish rule. These basic thoughts at the time were not well understood by Panke and myself, so that without any doubt a perfectly wrong expression was used, and that is why we find the word \"assimilation\" here.\nQ.A more severe scale to be used is also mentioned here. What do you mean by that?\nA.This refers to the admission of a very limited group of people. We did not want to register as large a number as possible, but rather we wanted to have a guarantee that only those people of German blood were to be included in the entire procedure.\nQ.What effects did this have in practice?\nA.Amongst the volunteers only a very small part was admitted. The people who were not purely of German character were again dismissed. The further selection refers to the social adaptability and suitability of the families.\nQ.Who also collaborated in this selection?\nA.Amongst other agencies, the Minister of the Interior, in questions of naturalization.\nQ.When and how was the Field Office at Lodz finally established?\nA.Through the order of Himmler of the 9th of November 1940, according to which the Field Office at Lodz was to carry out the very careful screening in its own camps.\nQ.This is Exhibit 139.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In Document Book IV-C. If you will please take \n a look at this document, Herr Hofmann, you will find it on page 7. Please take a look at the letterhead, Have you found it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3201, "page_number": "3194", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.In the letterhead, why did Himmler call himself Reichs Fuehrer of the SS and Chief of the Reich Security Main Office?\nA.I myself could not give any orders to the other agencies which were affected by these orders. First of all, the agency of Greifelt was affected, and the Reich Security Main Office, the RSHA, with regard to the EWZ. As a result of this order, the racial classification experts who had now worked at Lodz for UWZ at that time, were, so to speak, taken out of the organization of the Reich Security Main Office, and they were organized into a Field Office and were incorporated into the organization under Himmler in his capacity as Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanization. After all, Himmler was in one person, SS Chief and also Reichs Commissioner for the Strengthing of Germanism.\nQ.Was the Field Officer at Lodz subordinated to the Race and Settlement Main Office in any way?\nA.Yes, it was, in factual respects and as far as personal was concerned.\nQ.Who do you mean by factual respects?\nA.The Racial Office would use the scientific and intellectual experiences and it would place them at the disposal of the racial classification experts so that they could give their opinions accordingly.\nQ.And how about personnel questions?\nA.The exchange, release of classification experts \n was also the task of the Racial Office, and consequently also that of the Race and Settlement Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3202, "page_number": "3195", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Who financed the activities of the Field Office at Lodz?\nA.The Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism financed it. The Field Office at Lodz included a special administrative leader who was subordinated to the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism and who was responsible to him for the administration of the funds.\nQ.Who financed the Race and Settlement Main Office and all its subordinate offices?\nA.First of all, the Reich-Treasurer of the NSDAP, with the Main Welfare Office of the Waffen SS, and sometimes the Race and Settlement Main Office would also receive Government funds.\nQ.Where was the activity of the Field Office at Lodz registered?\nA.As far as I know, statistics were kept in the Field Office itself and then also for the H igher SS and Police Leaders and finally in the Main Staff Office. I cannot recall any statistics in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Were people who were eligible for re-Germanization supposed to be accepted as members of the SS?\nA.No, the re-Germanization procedure had absolutely nothing to do with the SS. The people who were eligible for re-Germanization could not be conscripted in the Waffen SS, nor could they be conscripted into the Army. They would not have to perform military service.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3203, "page_number": "3196", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Did you, as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, also observe the practical activities of the field office at Lodz?\nA.That was unnecessary. After all, we had to receive clear instructions from the Reich Commissar, and they become evident from the book, \"Der Menscheneinsatz.\"\nQ.Did this activity of the field office at Lodz, which took place independently within the scope of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, also cause personnel difficulties and intolerable conditions?\nA.Yes, that is correct. The field office at Lodz in many cases had to collaborate with higher agencies, and it was located in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Warthe, and I had to counter several advances which were made by Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, who had the intention of having the field office subordinated to himself. I prevented that because I feared that under his subordination factual forms with regard to the selection would not be given a sufficient Koppe was well known for the fact that he wanted to show himself up through larger figures.\nQ.In Lodz there was also a Race and Settlement agency within the UWZ. Was this influence different?\nA.No; the RUS agency had become a part of the EWZ. Through the racial office, or personally, it could only be influenced by the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Did the RUS agency with the EWZ, or the field office at Lodz, have to carry out any task of the SS?\nA.No; the activities of these agencies actually only referred to government tasks.\nQ.What was the status of the field office Bohemia and Moravia?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3204, "page_number": "3197", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.The Race and Settlement Main Office did not have the desire to establish the field office Bohemia and Moravia. As far as the SS was concerned, its interests were completely represented by the SS-Fuehrer who was in the Race and Settlement service. However, later on, when the necessity arose, that it also had to play a part for the solving of naturalization questions, these questions were again within the field of work for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Then this field office was established in the course of the year 1941. It was an agency which had personnel similar to that of the field office at Lodz, but it was under the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. It received its immediate instructions from the Reich Protector or from the Higher SS and Police Leader as the representative for the Reich Commissar. This field office was also financed by funds from the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Please speak somewhat more into the microphone and somewhat slower.\nPlease describe briefly the position and tasks of the Race and Settlement leader in wartime.\nA.The Race and Settlement leaders during the war had the same tasks as they had in peacetime, which I have already described. To an increasing extent, however, they also had to take care of additional work as the war went on. This was done in the field of welfare and the care of members of the SS with disabilities and the families of SS men who died in battle. To these additional welfare tasks I gave a lot of my time since the beginning of the war. For the practical tasks in the field of racial classification, the Race and Settlement leader usually had one or two racial classification experts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3205, "page_number": "3198", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.I now come to the racial classification experts. How many racial classification experts were there, altogether?\nA.Altogether, there may have been approximately eighty racial classification experts who, at the same time, worked with the various agencies. They received their training through the racial office or at the field office at Lodz where they were assigned, on a temporary basis, as assistant classification experts. They did only practical work and they would have to put down on paper the racial characteristics of the people they examined. From these individual characteristics they would then give their opinions according to the scheme which had been worked out by Rechenbach. It was the main task of the racial classification experts to screen applicants for the General SS and for the Waffen SS. During the war, racial classification experts also became active within the scope of the task of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.We will discuss that later on. From whom did the racial classification experts receive their instructions?\nA.They received their factual instructions from the racial office which worked on the fundamental orders of Himmler. As an example I want to refer to Exhibit 227, in Document Book 5-B, where Himmler ordered that Group 3 of the resettlers was also to be admitted as \"0\" cases. I had this order of Himmler's of the 16th of January 1940. I only had to pass it on in my capacity at the time of being in charge of taking care of the business of the racial office. The racial classification experts received their official orders generally and also in individual cases from agencies through which they worked. That is to say, from the EWZ, or the Replacement Office, or the Higher SS and Police Leader, or his Race and Settlement leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3206, "page_number": "3199", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Well, this was a very complicated system of subordinating the racial classification experts. weren't there any difficulties with regard to the various competencies in this case, just as had been the case in the field office at Lodz?\nA.Yes, there were enough of them.\nQ.Of what kind were they?\nA.The agencies where the racial classification experts were employed wanted to incorporate them. For example, the SS Main Office, to which the replacement offices of the Waffen-SS was subordinated, succeeded in having the racial classification subordinated to itself completely. This could only be rescinded again after some time had passed.\nQ.Now another fundamental question. Were you, as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, tied to the opinions and instructions of the Racial Office?\nA.Are you referring to factual instructions?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you also have to comply with the opinions of the racial classification experts?\nA.Yes, in cases of doubt, the opinion of the superior Race and Settlement leader was decisive, or that of the head of the field office; but if beyond that there were any complaints then the chief of the Racial Office would make the final decision.\nQ.However, the Eugenics Office of the SS was also subordinated to you. Were physicians employed there?\nA.Yes; approximately four or seven specialists worked there. They would be biologists.\nQ.Could you change in any way the opinions of these physicians as far as hereditary matters were concerned?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3207, "page_number": "3200", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.No, I believe that the Reich physician would immediately have complained to Himmler about that.\nQ.I am now going to hand to you Hoffmann Document No. 13. This is an affidavit by Poppendick. Was Poppendick subordinated to you?\nA.Yes; Poppendick was the chief physician of the Race and Settlement Main Office and he was also in charge of the physicians in the Eugenics Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3208, "page_number": "3201", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "DR. SOHWARZ:This document will become Hofmann Exhibit No. 11. I shall introduce it finally later on.\nQ.As chief of the Race and Settlement Office, was your relationship with the physicians and the racial classification experts in factual respects that you treated them all alike?\nA.Yes, that is quite true.\nQ.Were the instructions to the classification experts passed on to you as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office or were they issued directly?\nA.In general they were issued directly by the racial office to the classification experts; however, it sometimes happened that Standartenfuehrer Schulz in some cases would submit these instructions to me because of reasons of authority.\nQ.Therefore, you did not see many of these instructions at all.\nA.No.\nQ.Did the racial office or the eugenic office, for example, have direct contact with other agencies outside of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Yes, that becomes evident from the general collaboration between the authorities and agencies of the party and the SS, especially, however, the agencies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, by virtue of the Decree of the 7th October, 1939, was entitled to utilize the agencies of other authorities like, for example, the health authorities.\nQ.These professional agencies like, for example the Racial Office, did they have the right to issue orders?\nA.No, in general they only had a question in the technical execution of the orders whenever they participated in anything.", "speakers": [ "DR. SOHWARZ", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3209, "page_number": "3202", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.That was the case mostly when the Prosecution has submitted the minutes of discussions?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you regularly informed in all these cases?\nA.That is very hard for me to say because the cases of which I was not informeddidn't come to my knowledge at the time. I am quite certain I was not informed regularly; It was up to the respective office chief whether he considered it important enough for me or whether he did not consider the matter important.\nQ.I now would like to point out a mistake in the translation. This was the translation with regard to Eignungspruefer's classification experts. Why weren't the classification experts called racial classification experts or racial examiners?\nA.In the Race and Settlement Main Office we had more and more a tendency to get away from the word \"race\". The fact on the one hand for that fundamentally was that the German people is very strongly mixed racially, so that if we continually emphasized the racial concept, as for example as was done by the racial-political office, part of the nation would become subject to an inferiority complex. On the other hand there was the danger that the German people as a result of the class struggle which had taken place before would now be steered into a racial struggle. That is why the original title racial examiners was changed into Race and Settlement Leader, racial examinations and classification experts, and the race and settlement leader was to be called a SS Pfleger.\nQ.Harders in the survey about the re-Germanization procedure has made notes for a lecture of SS Obersturmfuehrer Hintze; this speech was given at a meeting of the Race and \n COURT I CASE VIII Settlement Leaders; this is Exhibit 153, in Document Book IV-C. Who was this man Harders?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3210, "page_number": "3203", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Harders was an expert in the racial office; he was a very flexible man and he was ambitious up to a point, and who without any doubt repeatedly exceeded his authority.\nQ.I am now going to hand to you Document Book IV-C, the document can be found on page 91 of the German document book.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In general are the statements of Harders correct?\nA.Yes, that is quite true; generally they are quite correct. However, in part we must be very cautious in interpreting them because some of them represent pipe dreams of Harders which were never put into effect.\nQ.What was really done?\nA.I believe that I can discuss that later on when we come to the discussion of the individual points of the indictment.\nQ.Do you know whether this speech was ever given?\nA.I don't think so because Harders at the time when this speech was to be given had already been conscripted into the Waffen SS. I said Hintze, not Harders.\nQ.I am now coming to Point 11 of the Indictment. Here you are charged with special responsibility and participation in the kidnapping of foreign children. I am going to hand you Document Book VIII-A. In the first document in this document book, Exhibit 384, you will find the speech of Himmler which he gave at Bad Schachen on the 14th October, 1943. Did you read this speech or did you hear it?\nA.I did not hear this speech nor did I read anything about it.\nQ.I only want to point out that in this speech Himmler \n COURT I CASE VIII said, amongst other things, that children should be taken away from the Slavs.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3211, "page_number": "3204", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "I am now going to hand to you a document from Document IV-D. This is Exhibit 163, and this document is on page 22 of the German text. You passed on a statement of Himmler's to the racial office and this deals with the intended taking away of children as a result of the re-Germanization procedure. What do you have to say in this connection?\nA.My relationship to Himmler was not such that he would explain the plans to me. My visits at the time falls within the period when Himmler was about to prepare the decree 67-1 which has been presented here by the Prosecution. In this connection he may have made such a statement or a similar statement as I have mentioned in my file note. However, it is a fact that as far as I know, neither he himself nor any other agency by his orders issued such a decree. The only action which was taken in this matter at all was probably the Decree 67-1.\nQ.To what extent did agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office participate as far as you know in the Germanization of children without parents?\nA.As far as such a participation occurred at all, I only heard about it here when the Prosecution put these things to me. That is why in my affidavit, Exhibit No. 58, I stated that I could not recall any practical case. Upon the hypothetical question of the interrogator who would have been competent for the examination of children, I answered, and I quote: \"The Race and Settlement Leader or the Classification Expert if such a case should have appeared.\"\nQ.Was there any directive issued by you that it was the task of the respective Race and Settlement Leader in his territory to carry out such examinations?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3212, "page_number": "3205", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.No. The text of my affidavit was already formulated by the interrogator, and I did not consider it important at the time to change the text after I had already done this in approximately sixteen cases, which in these cases seemed much more important to me at the time.\nQ.Did the interrogator point out to you that this affidavit would be used against you yourself?\nA.No.\nQ.In Document Book VIII-A the Prosecution has offered two directives with regard to children who were eligible for re-Germanization. These are Exhibits 385 and 386. In the latter the chief of the racial office instructs the Race and Settlement Leaders to Germanize the names of these children. Please comment on this matter. I am going to hand to you now Document Book VIII-A. You will find these documents on pages 56 and 57 of the German text.\nA.Yes, I have just found these documents.\nQ.Please comment on them; was Harders authorized to do that?\nA.I cannot explain this in any other way than that this was an arbitrary act on the part of Harders because the Race and Settlement Leaders in the settlement service were not competent for these measures. I didn't reach any agreement with the Lebensborn or with the Main Staff Office as it has been stated here in this document, and after all I alone would have been competent to do so.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3213, "page_number": "3206", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.In the previous document, Exhibit 385, Harders instructs the race and settlement leaders in questions of orphans to establish contact with the Lebensborn because the Lebensborn would be solely responsible for that. Isn't that a certain contradiction?\nA.This directive was issued in a similar manner by Harders, as I have just described; this was done without my knowledge, and it becomes evident from the document that it was worked out on the same day as the previous document, and I have the impression here as if Harders with this decrees wanted to rescind the other order.\nQ.I am now coming to the drive with regard to partisan children in upper Krainola and Lower Styria. Did you participate in this in any way personally?\nA.No. I did not receive these orders from Himmler and the Race and Settlement Main Office has not been mentioned either in the distribution.\nQ.These are Exhibits 389 and 390, and they are directives by Himmler for the suppression of the partisans of the 25th June, 1942, and Exhibit 390, the order for the suppression of partisan activities which bears the date of the 25th June, 1942. Who appointed the classification expert Roedel in that area for this drive? Do you know anything about that?\nA.In any case he was not sent down there by the Race and Settlement Main Office and from the document we can find an explanation for that.\nQ.Will you please take a look at Exhibit 394; you will find this document on page 116 of the German text. Please take a look at the letterhead of this order, which contains the appointment of Roedel.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3214, "page_number": "3207", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.The letterhead reads the higher SS and Police Leader in the Army Corps Area 18, and the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Was Obersteiner at the same time a Race and Settlement Examiner?\nA.Yes, Obersteiner first of all was a Race and Settlement Leader and later on he probably became a Staff Leader for the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Stengthening of Germanism. He must have been appointed for that task by the higher SS and Police Leader there.\nQ.Was he still subordinated to you then for this activity?\nA.For this activity he was not subordinated to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Did he receive instructions from you or from the Racial Office for this drive?\nA.No. As far as I know, he could only have received these orders directly from Himmler or from the higher SS and Police Leader in his capacity as representative for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. In various affidavits of the Prosecution, for example, in the affidavit of Maria Heintz Weswede, Document 4822, and the affidavit of Ilse Viermetz, Document 4708, and the affidavit of Roedel, Document 5115, and Obersteiner has always been listed here as a Race and Settlement Leader. In this case which deals with the so-called partisan children this is quite wrong. Obersteiner in this case actually worked as a representative or he issued instruction in this capacity.\nQ.Are you referring to the affidavits which are contained in Document Book VIII-B and which were presented \n by the Prosecution?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3215, "page_number": "3208", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Did you hear subsequently of Roedel's activity in the course of this drive?\nA.I cannot recall the entire matter at all any more nor can I recall the details.\nQ.To what extent were you involved in the case of Lidice. You have Document Book VIII-A before you. Please take a look at Exhibits 397, 398 and 399. You will find them on page 124.\nA.Yes, I found them.\nQ.Are you acquainted with this correspondence?\nA.No, I have seen these documents here for the first time, and I cannot recall any other correcponsence about this matter. I certainly cannot recall that we were involved in any case.\nQ.Didn't you send a letter to the field office at Gladnau or to Dongus and didn't you order him to examine these Czech children?\nA.First of all, I am not acquainted with the field at Gladnau and I did not give any instructions to that agency nor did I give any to Dongus.\nQ.Can you recall that you heard something about the examination of these children?\nA.No.\nQ.I am now coming to the Polish orphans. In the Race and Settlement Main Office was there a card index file kept about the children of Germans and Poles -- as might be concluded from Exhibit 404? You will find this document in Document Book VIII-B, the first document page 1. What order is concerned here?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3216, "page_number": "3209", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.This is an order by Himmler and it is addressed to the chief of the Security Police; a copy of this letter was sent to the chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Panke. However, I know for certain that such a card index file was never established. I cannot imagine either that within the scope of this order of Himmler that the Race and Settlement Main Office took any action.\nQ.Did you participate in conferences which led to the Decree 67-1?\nA.No. However, from Exhibit 410 which is contained in Document Book VIII-B, I saw that the conference of the 12th December, 1941, Klinger from the Racial Office participated. I cannot say for certain whether this conference dealt with the Decree 67-1; however, it also becomes evident from this document that another conference took place also, after the 12th of December, 1941, in which the Race and Settlement Main Office was not represented.\nQ.Can you tell the Tribunal briefly just how this correspondence came about -- in Exhibit 410, on page 28 of the German text, in order to clarify your statements.\nA.It some how came to the attention of Reichsfuehrer Himmler that a representative of the Race and Settlement Main Office had made a statement to the effect that the institutions of the SS had not been able to carry out the finding of foster parents for children who were eligible for re-Germanization. Himmler's adjutant then sent an inquiry to me which was rather rude, and then in my reply of the 17th of April, 1942 I appeased him and quieted him down.\nQ.Please take a look at Exhibit 406 on page 9. Were \n the three hundred families which have been mentioned here examined by agencies of the Race and Settlement Main Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3217, "page_number": "3210", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.I don't think so because I certainly would have heard something about it.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3218, "page_number": "3211", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.Now, what was the participation of the field office at Lodz as a result of Decree 67/I? You will see something about that on the following document. You will find Decree 67/I there.\nA.From my own knowledge I can't tell you anything about that. I didn't hear about that even from reports. I can only imagine that the field office at Lodz, within the scope of the program of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism and as a result of Decree 67/I commenced its action.\nQ.Who was Dongus?\nA.Dongus was the head of the field office and he was the successor of Schwalm.\nQ.In Exhibit 408 he has been mentioned in the affidavit by the defendant Viermetz and he was described there as the head of the EWZ. Is that correct?\nA.That is a mistake but it was very easy at the time to make such mistakes. I believe the same mistake has been made in another affidavit by Saenger and a similar description was used there. I believe he stated that the Race and Settlement Main Office had a field office at Salzburg. That is quite incorrect.\nQ.This is Exhibit #429?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, please take a look at Exhibit 423 in Document Book VIII-B.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Here it has been stated that the Race and Settlement Leader South-East, by the name of Scholz, inspected children who were eligible for re-Germanization. Did you give him instructions to that effect or did he act upon general instructions by the Race and Settlement Main Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3219, "page_number": "3212", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.The letter bears the date of the 28th of April 1943. It comes from a time when I was not the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office any more. However, I cannot recall either that Scholz received any instructions from me in that connection. However, it is quite possible that this was an activity of Scholz which he carried out within the scope of Decree 67/I and which he carried out by orders of the representative for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism as it becomes evident from the document itself. This document has been signed by Dr. Arlt.\nQ.Now a Schimanska in an affidavit of the prosecution has stated that the Race and Settlement Main Office worked together with the health office at Lodz and had correspondence with them about these children. You will find that in Document Book VII, Exhibit 396. Do you know anything about this correspondence?\nA.No.\nQ.In the previously mentioned speech of the 6th of October 1942, Exhibit 153 in Document Book IV-C, Harders has stated that the Race and Settlement Main Office appointed an inspector in order to judge the character and in order to carry out a selection in the children's homes. Did the Race and Settlement Main Office ever appoint such an inspector?\nA.This was one of Harder's suggestions which arose out of his overall attitude in order to secure another position for the Race and Settlement Main Office and the Racial Office. However, such an inspector was actually never appointed.\nQ.Did you give instructions to Dongus at Lodz with regard to his work pertaining to Decree 67/I?\nA.I think that he must have received Decree 67/I himself.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3220, "page_number": "3213", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.But you did not issue any supplementary regulations with regard to this decree?\nA.No, I don't think so.\nQ.I am now coming to the Russian children. I am now going to hand to you Exhibit 441 in Document Book VIII-C. You will find the document on page 29. From this document it becomes evident that Himmler had two Russian boys of the ages of 9 and 16 brought to Berlin and he turned them over to the Race and Settlement Main Office. What do you know about this case?\nA.I can still recall this matter to some extent. I also mentioned that in the course of my examination because this case drew a lot of attention because I had been ordered to appear at the airfield for the reception of these boys. One of them was 11 and one of them was 16. An Obersturmfuehrer and an Oberfuehrer had been ordered to go to the airfield in order to receive these two boys and, of course, we also had file notes about this matter by the Fuehrer who was on Sunday duty. The two boys were accommodated in the Guesthaus of the office at Berlin-Grunewald, one of the most beautiful parts of Berlin and the best care was taken of them and I know that they immediately began to smoke cigarettes at the time which they made themselves from newspapers, and then I believe afterwards they were introduced to Hauptsturmfuehrer Schindelmaier and he had to take care of them further. Schindelmaier was in charge of the land service of the Hitler Youth. Therefore, everything possible was done for these two boys.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the Pflaum drive in Russia?\nA.No.\nQ.I want to refer Exhibit 445 to you. It is located in the same document book. You will find it there on page 39. This document deals with the survey about the decrees which \n were given with regard to the accommodations given to the children of Partisans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3221, "page_number": "3214", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.These decrees are agreements between the WVHA, the Economic and Administrative Main Office, and the Reich Security Main Office, the Higher SS and Police Leader for Central Russia and Himmler himself. The Race and Settlement Main Office did not participate in this affair at all.\nQ.If you will look a few pages ahead you will find Exhibit No. 443. This is a report from the Race and Settlement Leader for Central Russia.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Didn't you have any contact with this Race and Settlement Leader?\nA.Yes, I did have some contact. Otherwise Bux wouldn't have reported to me. In this connection, it deals with the selection of the children for the SS training school. He either acted according to the instructions of the Higher SS and Police leader von dem Bach-Zelewski or he acted according to the instructions of Pflaum who was located in that particular area. Pflaum, however, had received direct orders from Himmler and had nothing to do with the Race and Settlement Main Office. Bux also writes that it was intended that a selection of these children should take place. I believe approximately thirty children and twelve domestic workers were to be selected. I cannot say whether even one domestic worker or one child was ever actually selected.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:20.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3222, "page_number": "3215", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.I want to take the opportunity to correct an error in the translation that occurred this morning. It has been pointed out to me that when defendant Hofmann described how he became a member of the SS his full time position in the SS was translated as membership at the Staff Main Office. I would like to correct that. This was a question of his being a full time member of the SS. I am now turning to point 12 of the indictment Were you involved in issuing the decree concerning the pregnancy interruptions of Eastern workers. This decree is dated 6 June 1943 and is contained in Exhibit 470 which can be found in Document Volume No. 9.\nA.This has been issued by the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, Kaltenbrunner, Several months after I had left the Race and Settlement Main Office. It is possible that in the course of conferences at the Reich Security Main Office members of the Race office were included in these conferences. In order to regulate the actual employment of the classification experts in individual cases we found the Reich Health Leader had Conti give many instructions and besides the General Plenipotentiary for labor allocation as can be seen from the decree. The classification experts were only participating in trifles.\nQ.The Prosecution in its basic information leaflet has designated the Reich Health Leader as being part of the Race and Settlement Main Office. I am now talking about the copy of the chart in that connection. Is that correct?\nA.No, nor do I understand how a Reich agency, an assertion of the Reich physician, was subordinated or incorporated into the field of competency of an SS agency.\nQ.Who was the General Plenipotentiary for Labor Allocation?\nA.That was Sauckel, who, as far as I know, was competent for the allocation for foreign workers.\nQ.Now did you know of a letter to Himmler from Eichgruber dated \n 9 October 1942 concerning the pregnancy interruptions in the case of mothers of German descent who had gotten children by foreign workers.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3223, "page_number": "3216", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "I am now talking about Exhibit 475 contained in Document Book 9. This can be found on page 32.\nA.Yes, I have it. This matter was only sent to me for information purposes. At that tine I only took cognizance of it.\nQ.In your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader did you receive the above mentioned decree dated 9 June 1943?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You as Higher SS and Police Leader, what did you have to do in connection with its carrying out?\nA.I have never received personally a report on any of those cases. Besides here in Prison I have been able to ascertain on the basis of document I-8, Exhibit 471, that in the Baden-Alsace area in any case until the report dated 24 July 1944 apparently not one abortion had taken place.\nQ.What was the examining office which has been mentioned several times?\nA.This was an agency of the Chamber of Physicians that is, the Reich Health Leadership.\nQ.This agency, was it subordinate to you in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.No.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a letter of which you are the author of 24 March 1944. This is Exhibit 481. Is this directed to the Reich Governor of Wuerttemberg and Baden-Alsace. It deals, among other things, also with these abortions. Did you find this letter in the Document Volume?\nA.Yes, I found it. On the basis of various requests this has been put together by experts and this is a verbatim report from the corresponding orders of the Reich Security Main Office, that is, concerning the prohibition \n of sexual intercourse, the circulatory decree of 10 February 1944 as well as in connection with the abortions and concerning the quartering of the children that were born within the confines of the Reich by foreign workers; this would be the decree of 27 July 1943.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3224, "page_number": "3217", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.I am now showing you Document Hofmann No. 69 and I would like to ask you to tell me whether the decree of 10 February 1944 includes this?\nA.Yes, this is that decree from the general collection of decrees.\nQ.Who was the publisher of the general decree collection?\nA.The Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3225, "page_number": "3218", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.I would like to submit this document as Exhibit No. 15. It may be found in Hofmann Document Book 3-A. That letter then was no order issued by you?\nA.No, nor was I competent to issue orders which were changed, existing orders by the Reich Security Main Office, nor could I give instructions or orders to Gauleiters.\nQ.Then you only collected the existing instructions and orders?\nA.Yes.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted an affidavit by you. This is Exhibit 498 contained in Document Volume 10. In this affidavit you state that you knew nothing about the treatment of pregnant foreign workers and their children. I am now showing you this document. You will find that on page 51.\nA.This must be on page 20.\nQ.Yes, that is correct. Can you not tell me that the testimony that you gave there, you stated on the basis of your own knowledge about the carrying out of these decrees, or did you just ask in the letter that we discussed before, to just repeat the corresponding decrees.\nA.The Interrogator had my letter to the two Gauleiters before him and in order to clarify my statements I have repeated these decrees, that is, my letter, and he based his examination on this letter, that is, the interrogator based his interrogation on this letter.\nQ.The Prosecution in Exhibit 464 has submitted certain individual cases. Were you involved in any one of these cases?\nA.You mean Exhibit 484? No.\nQ.In Exhibit 498 there is mentioned a certain Schmauser. Did you have any contact with him?\nA.No, Schmauser, as far as I know, was Higher SS and Police Leader in Breslau.\nQ.The Prosecution in their opening statement mentioned that the Higher SS and Police Leader as Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissioner had to \n confirm an order for abortion.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3226, "page_number": "3219", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Was that the case in your particular instance?\nA.No, the general order was like that. The youth office had to find out who was the father but all those cases in which the father turned out to be an Eastern worker were not reported to the Plenipotentiary at all. There, according to the decree of the Reich Security Main Office, the agreement for abortion seemed to be definitely established in cases like that.\nQ.This general agreement had nothing to do with a personal agreement on your part?\nA.No.\nQ.This was a general regulation occurring in the Reich?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In connection with Point 13 of the indictment, do you still have Document Book 10 in front of you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Please turn to Exhibits 495 and 501. These are decrees issued by the Reich Security Main Office. Did you have anything to do with taking away of infants?\nA.They found this position for the Labor Allocation--The Reich Security Main Office, Office No. 4, and the Reich Health Leader. The classification experts in individual cases were employed by the competent authorities, that is, by the health office, etc. and only in those cases in which the father was a German or of like race, that is, perhaps in 10 to 15 per cent of all cases. The activity of the classification experts was purely a positive one, that is to say, after the suitability of the parents was established the children were brought into better foster homes, and the mothers were brought into German maternity homes.\nQ.The elemental decree of 27 July 1943 can be seen in Exhibit 696 in Document Volume 10, -- 498. This decree has been issued after your time as Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3227, "page_number": "3220", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Were you acting in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader and as Plenipotentiary representative of the Reich Security Main Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nA.In this case the order of the 27 July 1943 was directly issued to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. Usually they received these orders of the Reich Security Main Office only for their information since they had no executive powers. In this particular case I can only explain the fact that they were directly sent to us in such a way since the Higher SS and Police Leader should be acting as a Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.What then do your statements in your affidavit show concerning this point, Exhibit 498 contained in Document Book 10.\nA.They simply mean repitition of the corresponding decrees of the Reich Security Main Office. How far this order was carried out I am not able to state.\nQ.Now to point 14 of the indictment. In another affidavit, Exhibit 58, contained in Document Book 2-C, you also talked about the prohibition of secual intercourse with Germans. How should one understand that?\nA.In this affidavit I repeated the regulation that is conatined in my memory at the time because I thought that would clarify them. It was not pointed out to me that this affidavit would be used against me. I never actually saw whether or not a Pole was hanged because of violating this decree. As Higher SS and Police Leader I only got to know about imminent executions by a report of the Gestapo Main Office. This report I relayed verbatim to the Gauleiter. This matter was handled in this very same way in case of my predecessor and I myself left it at that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3228, "page_number": "3221", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.I would now like to show you three documents. They are documents Hoffmann No. 76, 78 and 79, contained in Document Book III-A. In No. 76 somebody called Mueller is mentioned. Who was this Mueller?\nA.Mueller was the staff leader of the sector Southwest.\nQ.Did he know about the statement that you have just made?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In Document 78 who was the person who made this affidavit?\nA.Fraeulein Roth was the secretary of Mueller, whom I have mentioned.\nQ.And Document 79?\nA.Fraeulein Pflueger was my own secretary.\nQ.I would like to submit these three documents as Exhibits and the affidavit of Mueller pertaining to the passing on of reports concerning the imminent execution of Poles to the Gauleiter. The same document can be found in No. 78, the affidavit of Fraeulein Roth; and Document No. 79, the affidavit of Fraeulein Pflueger, which I would like to submit as Exhibits 16, 17 and 18, respectively.\nWhy was it now that the Gauleiter had to be informed of this execution that was to take place?\nA.The Party was responsible for the education and indoctrination of the populace. In this connection they were probably informed about this. As far as I remember, my memory has been supported by Document 30 40-PS, USA No. 207, page 66. In my affidavit I stated that there were about 15 to 25 cases which I had to report to the Gauleiter. Actually, there were probably three to five cases only. In my interrogation I was charged with lying and perjury, and was \n indirectly threatened to be hanged, and somehow I took the figure rather too high than too low -", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3229, "page_number": "3222", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Who was the interrogator? Who was the interrogator that did that?\nA.Dr. Schwenk.\nQ.Schwenk?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know where he is now?\nA.No, I do not know that. I believe he is here in the Palace of Justice, but I do not know exactly.\nQ.Schwenk... All right. But what are his initials?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.When and where did he say that to you?\nA.He said that here at the interrogation room on the second floor of this building, in May of 1947.\nQ.Just what did he say -- his exact language?\nA.He was very excited, so that the other interrogator, Mr. Wolff, who was there, tried to quiet him down. He told me: You are the first high SS leader who lies. You have already committed perjury three times. And in further connection with the interrogation he told me that for the very same reason \"people had been hanged by me\".\nQ.Who heard that: They had been hanged by him?\nDid I understand you to say that he said that people had already been hanged by him?\nA.No, he did not say that. He only said: For the very same reason people had already been hanged by me --subordinates of mine.\nQ.Oh, by you. Who was present besides?\nA.The interrogator, Larry L. Wolff, was present, and also secretaries, and it is quite probable that this \n interrogation was also recorded through a microphone.", "speakers": [ "BY THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3230, "page_number": "3223", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:May I please correct something? Perhaps an error in translation has been made. May I ask the witness something?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Did the interrogator mean that those people had been hanged by you, yourself, or that SS people had been hanged?\nA.He threatened me by saying that because of the prohibited sexual intercourse people that were subordinated to me had been hanged.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.What was your attitude toward the prohibition, as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.The Race and Settlement Main Office had nothing to do with these foreign workers and Poles. They were under the competency of the Department for Foreign Workers in the Reich Security Main Office, Office IV. Therefore, this agency, as can be seen from the file mark -- S-IV D (Foreign Workers) -- is placed on these orders, and this is the file mark under which these orders were issued. This was a police prohibition, the purpose of which Greifelt has already discussed. From a speech by Himmler, about March 1940, which I have only read while here and which he held in front of Gauleiters, I saw that at that time such a prohibition was effective and that Poles, because of violations of the prohibition, should also have been hanged.\nQ.I am now showing you a document, and I should like you to establish whether this is a speech of Himmler's that you have just mentioned.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3231, "page_number": "3224", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Yes, that is the document. The corresponding remark may be found on page 45 in the original.\nQ.I would like to submit Document No. 49, in Document Book III-A. I would like to submit that as Exhibit No. 19.\nWas this prohibition also effective on the German participants of this crime? Were they also punished?\nA.The same prohibition, vice versa, was effective for all members of the SS. German women were also subject to the law, for the protection of the German fighting morale. Punishment of such Germans was always taking place. I also can remember that SS-men were executed for those reasons.\nQ.Did the eastern workers know that they were even possibly subject to the death penalty?\nA.The eastern workers, before they were employed, were instructed by a memorandum that this prohibition existed, and they had to confirm in writing that they received knowledge of this memorandum.\nQ.I shall now show you one memorandum. I would like you to say whether this memorandum had also been issued in Polish.\nA.Yes, this was issued in two languages.\nQ.I would like to submit this document No. 53, contained in my Document Book III-A, as Exhibit 20. This is an excerpt from the general decree collection, Part II.\nA.May I say something to that? I can remember that the local police was instructed to show the Poles this document, this memorandum, so that the Poles had to know that the most severe punishment, even death, was threatened in case of violation of this prohibition.\nQ.Who now executed these orders?\nA.Individual cases were dealt with by the Gestapo.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3232, "page_number": "3225", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "The classification experts were employed directly by the Gestapo in order to examine whether or not those people were suitable for re-Germanization; that is, within the framework of the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.What was the actual activity of these classification experts?\nA.First, they had to establish the outer physical characteristics of the people in question. By letter of 26 June 1942, the Racial Office then introduced forms in which the most suitable or unsuitable characteristics for Germanization were contained. In this column a short description of the total impressions of the person made had to be noted down. An expert opinion was given in these cases. These expert opinions, according to instructions, were to be sent to the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader, and were filed there. The final decision was then made by the Reichsfuehrer-SS on the recommendation of the Reich Security Main Office, and that is how it is described in this letter that I have just mentioned.\nQ.Which document are you talking about?\nA.Document 37/58. It might be possible that for some time the previous correspondence went by way of the Racial Office -- directly to the Reich Security Main Office. In any case, previous correspondence was treated in a very different manner, depending on the time and the locality. In this connection I would like to remind you of the testimony of the Prosecution witness Roedel, who at that time was one of the Higher SS and Police Leaders, and who stated that he had nothing to do with these cases, while his successor looked into all these cases individually.\nQ.Did you, yourself, get these things submitted to \n you when you were Higher SS and Police Leader?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3233, "page_number": "3226", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.No, I never got these things submitted to me, and, therefore, I never expressed an opinion on these matters. As far as I know, the various examinations and decisions had to be made very quickly since the protective custody could only be provided by the Gestapo for 21 days. The individual facts were to be established if possible by channels through the Reich Security Main Office, through Himmler, because, as I have already mentioned, Himmler made the final decision himself.\nQ.What were the elements of this previous correspondence that Himmler finally got to see?\nA.Individually, that was a photograph from three angles. The various records of the interrogations contained an opinion on his character and his working efficiency. Fourth, the actual facts of the situation; five, his nationality; six, a description of his outer physical characteristics; seven, the official instructions; eighth, a medical certificate.\nThis contradicts the testimony made by the Prosecution witness Bach-Zelewski. The Racial Office only had to establish these characteristics, but I already mentioned that according to paragraph 6, to assemble all the facts was the task of the Gestapo Central Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3234, "page_number": "3227", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QConsequently, not the complete previous facts had gone via the Racial Office, or all its elements, but only the opinion of the classification expert?\nAI really don't know how it was in the various individual cases. In any case, we had to consider these eight factors. The chief of the Gestapo Branch Office then made his report to the Reich Security Main Office. Himmler, himself, based his decision for the most part on the photograph.\nQHow did you know that?\nAI had this impression from my activity as chief of the Race & Settlement Main Office. I know that in case of complaints of expert opinions he always referred to the photographs. This morning I mentioned that, for instance, in the case of the applications for marriages, he looked at them very closely--and there too he referred always to the photographs when making decisions.\nQWhy are you so well-informed about these matters, since you testified this morning that these matters were not actually within the scope of the Race & Settlement Main Office?\nQI found out these things mainly in the prison, especially from the documents submitted by the Prosecution; and I have reconstructed this knowledge. I also know this from the general collection of decrees of the Reich Security Main Office, and from my memory.\nQWas the man who was subject to punishment already in a concentration camp?\nAYes; for the Reich Security Main Office--that is, the Gestapo Branch Office--had sent him there.\nQNow I am looking at a Prosecution document. This is Exhibit 522 contained in Document Book 11. Did the RUS leader go to those concentration camps?\nAYes, that may have been possible for a period of time in the individual cases. However, it was very difficult to get into a concentration camp--I hope you understand that correctly. And for this \n reason a regulation was made that the racial examinations were to be performed by the camp physicians.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3235, "page_number": "3228", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "QIn your affidavit, Exhibit 498, in Document Book 10, you have stated that the concentration camps had requested classification experts and that they had performed racial examinations there. Does that not contradict your statement?\nAWell, for a period of time that may have been possible.\nQBut you did not know anything exactly about this?\nAFrom the correspondence--that is, from Exhibit 522--I had to infer that obviously afterwards the camp physicians performed these examinations.\nQThat is, not the classification experts?\nANo. The camp physicians performed these examinations on the basis of the green examination forms which were issued by the Race & Settlement Office.\nQWhat do you know now about the incorporation of the classification experts in the whole procedure?\nAThis incorporation only took place much later. Originally, all Poles were punished when it was proven that they were guilty. This can be seen from press notices in which it was made public that Poles were hanged for those reasons.\nQAt that time you did not employ these classification experts?\nANo. This was only later on. Finally, these classification experts were employed so that a more lenient punishment was provided, or perhaps even an acquittal.\nQI would now like to establish that I could not find the original order of Himmler's. The general collection of decrees, which is in the library of this courthouse, of the Reich Security Main Office, makes available only the second part of this collection. Part 1 cannot be found anywhere.\nI would now like to ask you the following. You have said that the classification experts were employed only quite some time after this \n general decree had been issued.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3236, "page_number": "3229", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Was your opinion in this connection confirmed by the regulations in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia?\nAYes; in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia the classification experts were used later, as I can see here from Exhibit 518. Later, this, also happened within Germany proper.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3237, "page_number": "3230", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "Q.When were these classification experts employed in the Reich proper? I would like to show you two exhibits in this connection. They are Exhibits 520 -- will you identify the context, the reference of this document that I just showed you, that is the figure that is underneath the letterhead.\nA.The reference is made to the special treatment of the Polish and Czech civilian workers employed in the Reich, and it refers to the decree of the Reichsfuehrer --SS and chief of the German Police, dated 6th July, 1941. These two letters of the Racial Office were based upon this fundamental order of Himmler's which obviously can only deal with the employment of classification experts.\nQ.The witness Bach-Zelewski has testified that the opinion of the classification experts formed the basis for the death sentence or an acquittal.\nA.I must deny that the witness Bach-Zelewski has an exact knowledge about this question. B ach-Zelewski, according to his own statements was at the beginning of the Russian campaign appointed to his new task in the rear army area, Central Russia, that is about June 22, 1941. The actual employment of the classification experts as I mentioned just a minute ago probably took place several weeks later. Besides I would like to point out especially that capital punishment was threatened as a matter of principal for prohibited sexual intercourse. By the employment of the classification experts in many cases this punishment was prevented.\nQ.In Point 8 of the Indictment, it is stated that the Reich Security Main Office issued death sentences and concentration camp sentences for persons designated by the Race and Settlement Main Office after they had been examined.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3238, "page_number": "3231", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "How do you explain this statement?\nA.T his conclusion I must consider to be completely incorrect. I can only repeat that in many decrees of the Reich Security Main Office death sentences in all cases were called for in all cases of prohibited sexual intercourse, that is to say that it was the case before and after these classification experts were employed. By the employment of these classification experts the contrary was the result, the contrary of that which the Prosecution maintains was the actual result.\nQ.In Point 15 of the Indictment you are charged with special responsibility for the obstruction and prevention of marriages between foreign workers. Did you personally take any measures to hinder or prevent marriages or the reproduction of foreign workers?\nA.No, I cannot think of any cases of that nature.\nQ.Exhibit 420 of the Prosecution, in Document Book VIII-E deals with a conference in the Reich Ministry of J Justice on the 10th March, 1943, in which Koppe participated. Have you found the document?\nA.Yes, I have it.\nQ.Did Harders inform you of that?\nA.That was on the 10th of March, 1943. On the 15th of March I was ordered to see Himmler at his field command post. I cannot remember that Harders informed me about that.\nQ.Was the field command post in Berlin?\nA.No, it was in eastern Prussia.\nQ.Will you please tell us who was the presiding member of this conference? In the document Dr. Altstoetter, the defendant in Tribunal III, is mentioned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3239, "page_number": "3232", "date": "06 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-06", "text": "A.Yes, he himself told me and gave me a short information about this conference. He has been acquitted from the charge of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.\nQ.As Higher SS and Police Leader, were you involved in any of the cases that have been charged now by Prosecution?\nA.No, I don't think I know of any of the cases nor do I remember any of them.\nQ.Let me return to your activity in the Race and Settlement Main Office. On 7th April, 1942, in the party chancellery, there was a conference in which amongst others, Klinger took part. This conference dealt with the prohibition of mixed marriages between Poles and Germans who were registered in the German People's List. This is Exhibit 103, in Document Book IV-A. I would only like to ask you whether you in your capacity as chief of the Race and -Settlement Main Office did in general have anything to do with legislative matters?\nA.Fundamentally the Race and Settlement Maid Office had nothing to do with legislation. In this particular case there was a conference between experts in which the party wanted to gather information, that is the party chancellery, as the agency which was competent for legislative questions.\nQ.Well then, this was an exceptional case.\nA.Yes, one could certainly say that.\nQ.We are now coming to Point 16 of the Indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe that you are starting on a new subject. We will suspend here. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 7 January 1948 \n Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 7 January 1948, 0930, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3240, "page_number": "3233", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judge of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and the Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nOTTO HOFMANN - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the defendant Hofmann)\nQHerr Hofmann, we stopped yesterday at Point 16 of the Indictment. Could you as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, give instructions to the EWZ at Lodz?\nANo, because the EWZ was subordinated to the chief of the SD, and only he could give instructions or the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQIs it correct to say that classification experts were working for the EWZ?\nAYes.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted a document in which a classification expert by the name of Amberger made certain suggestions. This is Exhibit No. 217, contained in Document Book No. V-D. This will be found on page 11. Did you find the letter of Amberger?\nAAmberger's letter to Oberfuehrer Kaserer?\nQExhibit 217.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3241, "page_number": "3234", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AYes.\nQIn this exhibit this man Amberger made certain suggestions to the effect that a certain group of settlers was supposed to be sterilized. Who was this man Amberger?\nAAmberger was a classification expert and a member of the commission of the EWZ. In this matter Amberger exceeded his authority. He in a way infringed upon medical matters. In 1941 I ordered Amberger to resign from the SS just because of this incident. He left the SS, and his suggestions were in no way realized.\nQAmberger made a further suggestion; this is contained in Exhibit 311, Document Book V-E. I am now showing you this document. Amberger there made this suggestion to deport the resettlers from Bukowina. Did you find the document?\nAYes, I have found the document. At the end of the document there is the note, not sent, not expedited after an agreement with Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm. Just as I have explained before, no action was taken about this suggestion of Amberger's; the suggestion was rejected.\nQWill you please turn once again to Document Book V-B.\nAI have returned it.\nQIn Document Book V-B, in Exhibit 219, a certain Kaserer in the course of conference of the classification experts in Lodz also set down some basic principles. Were these in accordance with all the other matters, and to what extent did they not agree with this?\nAKaserer was one of the senior RuS leaders; he was an SSOberfuehrer, and because of that I had appointed him RuS leader with the EWZ. However, he did not possess the necessary expert knowledge. Shortly before this meeting I had had him replaced. He made these remarks on the occasion of his relinquishing his office, this field office to Schwalm. His statements also show that he -\nQWhat is correct in his statements?\nAIt was correct when he said that the opinion of the classification expert was an expert opinion, that is it was the opinion of an \n expert, in the same way as a physician, which was binding in this sense for the other agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3242, "page_number": "3235", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "It is not correct, however, that this opinion was the only decidingfactor for the future settlements. Besides the opinion of this classification expert, there were other opinions that were taken into consideration in the total evaluation of the case. Those were political opinions and opinions which evaluated his profession, the SD did not wish to be interfered with in their opinion on the man's political characteristics.\nQAmong other things Kaserer in these documents also made a suggestion toward sterilization. Did you find this passage?\nAYes.\nQWhat happened to that?\nAIn the first place I talked about that with Sturbannfuehrer Schwalm. All these cases were supposed to be re-examined, since I did not feel sure about the previous examination that had been carried out. In the second place, in this case, too, nothing happened; no action was taken. Besides this solution, the suggestions by Kaserer did not in any way appeal to me.\nQNow, let us turn to another point. Did you have anything to do with the operation of the ethnic Germans in the Government-General?\nAThe Race and Settlement Main Office had actually nothing to do with this operation. The operation was carried out by the local authorities in the Government-General, especially by the higher SS and police leader who was on duty there.\nQCould you issue instructions to this man?\n-A No, that was impossible.\nQIn this area wasn't there also a RuS leader?\nAYes, there was a RuS leader at the office of the higher SS and police leader in the Government-General. This man, however, had nothing at all to do with the operation concerning ethnic Germans, nor did he have anything to do with the EWZ. If at my time a racial examination in \n the Government-General took place at all, then these examinations were carried out within the framework of the EWZ.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3243, "page_number": "3236", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "It is possible that appropriate negotiations had been carried out by the field office in Lodz, and that this field office also had appointed racial classification experts for the EWZ.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3244, "page_number": "3237", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QBut you as chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office did not have any official influence on these classification experts, did you?\nAWell, yes, in a way because after all they had to be designated for their employment, that is in personnel matters; they were requested and I had to send them there.\nQWe have now before us a document of the Prosecution; this is a letter by you to the SS Central Office; this deals with the release of Dongus from military duty. You have made an application in this respect and you gave the reasons that Dongus had the duty of carrying out racial examinations in the Government-General. This is Exhibit 149, in Document Book IV-C. I am now handing this document to you and I would like you to make a statement.\nAWhat exhibit?\nQExhibit 149. This is on page 82 of the German version.\nAYes, I have got it. In this connection I said that Dongus was needed for this special duty in the Government-General; this was in a way a precaution and in order to have a stronger basis for making this application, for on the one hand, the Wehrmacht wanted to have every available man and on the other hand we ourselves needed the good people; one of course had to take the possibility into consideration that actually such racial examinations would have to be carried out in the Government-General.\nQDid you now issue any instructions or orders in the course of this operation?\nANo, I never had any active duties to take care of in this matter.\nQThe Prosecution now obviously in this connection has submitted a report of the Army High Command. This is Exhibit 260, in Document Book V-C. You will find this on page 105 of the German version. This report deals with atrocities during the Polish campaign. Did you ever read this report?\nAI am sorry, I cannot find the document. On page 105 there is a letter to Bauckmann.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3245, "page_number": "3238", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QYou have Volume V-C there, haven't you?\nAYes.\nQExhibit 260?\nANo, this is not the correct exhibit. Perhaps this is V-G.\nQThen will you please tell me from memory, yes or no?\nAWell, as far as I can remember, you were talking about a report from the beginning of 1940.\nQYes.\nAAbout that time a member of the Race and Settlement Main Office had in any case gone to Lodz on business, and as far as I can remember this report deals mainly with atrocities that were committed in the area of the Government-General which at that time was not under the competency of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQI have already shown you this report before; I only wanted to ask you whether you knew in any other way about these individual atrocities that were mentioned in this report.\nANo. I never heard anything like that.\nQNow, we shall turn to the operation with the ethnic Germans in northern France. To what extent did you have something to do with it? I will show you in this connection Document Book IV-D,so that your memory may be refreshed. This is Exhibit 132 which may be found on page 51.\nAYes, I have it. As can be seen from the note, this was a matter which concerned the EWZ. I never knew anything about additional details. Then, when this file note was written on 25th March, 1943, I was actually no longer active in the Race and Settlement Main Office, and I was then represented by Brigadefuehrer Heider. Therefore, I cannot say anything about the participation of the Race and Settlement Main Office in the conference of 12th March, 1943. After all on March, 13, 1943, I was in East Prussia, and on this day Himmler called on me to resign my office.\nQWill you please turn the page. This brings us to Exhibit 134. In this document Dongus refers to a request of the Race and Settlement Main Office concerning the directives for the treatment of Poles suitable for \n re-Germanization in northern France.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3246, "page_number": "3239", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Is this also a re-Germanization proceeding?\nAWell, that can be seen from the correspondence in the previous document, as in this case it was possible that the two fields of work overlapped, especially, the one which was actually reserved for the field office at Lodz, because a certain group of Poles emigrated from France, from the rural areas, who now designated themselves to be Germans, and in this case the field office at Lodz probably took up its activities directly within the sphere of work of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The field office had its own instructions concerning this matter, which followed from the actual practical duties of this field office and also from the instructions, as can be seen from the documents which have been mentioned. The field office at Lodz in this matter was in direct contact with the Staff Main Office and with the other agencies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQNow, let's turn to Alsace. To what extent were you responsible for the deportations from Alsace. In this connection I am showing you Exhibit 273, contained in Document Book V-F, so that you may refresh your recollection. It is a letter from the higher SS and police leader SouthWest to Greifelt. This letter deals with the deportation of Alsatians.\nAThis is a letter from my predecessor Kaul in Stuttgart which he wrote to Greifelt. I did not know anything about that letter; this is a rather interesting business insofar as we could establish that Kaul was very interested in these questions and it is interesting, especially for me, that he exceeded his authority toward the Race and Settlement Main Office and recommended the employment of these classification experts.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3247, "page_number": "3240", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QOn 7 August, 1932, a conference took place concerning these deportations. I am now talking about Exhibit 275, contained in the same document book. A representative from the Race & Settlement Main Office, Dr. Sieder took part in this conference. What instructions did you give him in this connection?\nAThis conference took place at the Staff Main Office, and was probably presided over by Dr. Sieder,who already has testified here in connection with this matter, and Sieder was sent there by the Racial Office. Before that Sieder had nothing to do with these matters, nor did he have any special instructions.\nQI now show you Document Hoffmann No. 45, and I would like you to identify this document. The Dr. Sieder that is mentioned in this document, who is the author of this affidavit-- is he the same Dr. Sieder who took part in this conference?\nAYes, this is the very same Sieder.\nQI would like to introduce this document as Exhibit No. 21. This is an affidavit by Dr. Sieder concerning his participation in this conference that we have just mentioned.\nThe Prosecution has submitted a further document, Exhibit 277, in the same document book. This is a file note by Harders, dated 28 September, 1942. This file note concerns the second deportation drive in Alsace. Do you have the document?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether or not the classification experts actually took up their duties, or whether there was only a rough selection by the Security Police? The last fact Kaul suggested in the above-mentioned Exhibit 273.\nAI cannot say that with certainty. It might be possible that this rough selection was the only one that was made because of all the emphasis in this deportation procedure that was placed on political matters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3248, "page_number": "3241", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QHarders uses an expression in his file memorandum, \"elimination by naturalization.\" What does this expression actually mean?\nAAs far as I think, that can only be explained in such a manner that he was talking about a non-acceptance of people according to instructions for Group One of the German People's List.\nQIn Paragraph 3 of this file note, Harders made suggestions concerning citizenship matters in Eupen-Malmedy. Do you know whether these suggestions were actually put into practice?\nAI really can't say. Usually a realization of such suggestions took an awfully long time, and if they had really been put into practice I certainly would not have been informed about them anymore.\nQWhat was your actual behavior with regard to these Alsatians who came into your area south-west where you had the position of Higher SS & Police Leader?\nAI believe Herr Grotz testified about that yesterday. I would only like to add that I already knew Alsace from the years 1915 and 1916, and that I was quite familiar with the problems of this border country. I would like to put it this way: I gave my sympathy to these men. I also received requests from various people, requests that were on the same line, more or less. I would like to mention Lord Mayor Stroehlin, of Stuttgart and Prof. Schmidthenner. These two men asked me to be an intermediary at Gauleiter Wagner's office. Gauleiter Wagner was, as I said yesterday, a rather independent man, and one had to be very careful not to change something that he had already put into effect. In this problem of the re-deportation of these Alsatians, I also had to be awfully careful. That is why the results were rather limited. However, decisive, I believe, was the whole tendency, the whole line of thought, on the basis of which the Alsatians were treated in my area; and I repeat, Herr Grotz mentioned this point yesterday.\nQI should like to show you two affidavits of these gentlemen: von Stroehlin and Schmidthenner. We shall now turn to the Slovene question.\nWho was fundamentally responsible in Upper Camiola and Lower Styria \n for the carrying out of the tasks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3249, "page_number": "3242", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AIn southern Camiola this was Obersturmbannfuehrer Volkenborn and in southern Styria it was Standartenfuehrer Lurker. Both men were members of the Reich Security Main Office.\nQIn a file note written on the 24th of May 1941, Exhibit 220, in Document Book 5-E, you mention an inspection tour to Camiola and Styria. Did you actually make this inspection tour? This file note can be found on page 146 in the German text.\nAYes, I undertook to make this tour, and there I visited the chief of the Racial Office, Professor B.K. Schultz, who had been there for some time. Schultz also was the man who made this classification according to these four groups to be evaluated. Schultz was probably in this area for a longer time because for him, a scientist, an anthropologist, this was quite significant. In the area of Zagreb there were already excavations made of prehistoric bones, and I believe the actual city is called Predmost.\nQAnd at this opportunity he also talked about the racial conglomeration of people in this area?\nAYes.\nQIn this file note there is especially further mention of a conference with Gauleiter Kutschera. Did this conference actually take place?\nAYes, I visited deputy Gauleiter Kutschera, and in the course of this conference we also talked about the deportation of Slovenes, and I took the opportunity to express my opinion to the effect that the various families should not be separated.\nQIn this document, however, your signature is not contained. Did you relay these suggestions in this connection to other agencies?\nAI really can't say that today. I can't remember whether these files were passed on. This document does not have any instructions to that effect; nor can I say what part of this file note had actually been put into practice.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3250, "page_number": "3243", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.However here we have orders issued by Himmler or by Greifelt, upon Himmler's orders concerning the deportation of these Slovenes. You will find this in Document Book 5-E.\nA.Yes, I have it.\nQ.Exhibit 333. Were you not the originator of these instructions? You will find that at page 167.\nA.Yes, I have this document. No, I was not the originator.\nQ.These instructions talk about a racial examination of the Slovene intelligentsia. Did you take any action in this respect?\nA.I believe that it can be seen clearly from this document that this is a question of one of Himmler's direct orders. This thing says: \"The Reichsfuehrer-SS has ordered..\"\nQ.We have here now a further document, a file note of Bethge, dated 3 July, 1941, which talks about the care of Slovenes suitable for Germanization. This is Exhibit 195, Document Book 4-D. In the German text it is on page 145. Do you have any knowledge about that? Were you informed about it?\nA.I cannot remember. I believe that this was one of the usual incidents. The competent agency of the Race & Settlement Main Office--and especially the Racial Office-collaborated directly with the agency in question of the Staff Main Office.\nQ.Here we have a teletype of the Main Staff Office. This teletype is directed personally to Harders, dated 12 January, 1943, Exhibit 677, in Document Book 8-G. It deals with the meeting of 9 January 1943, at the Main Staff Office; and it mentions that in the course of these processing commissions, no classification experts should \n COURT I CASE VIII be present, and that the classification experts should only work on the so-called third group, that is obviously Group III.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3251, "page_number": "3244", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Did you, yourself, receive this teletype?\nA.I don't remember that today. This seems to be the same case of a direct collaboration of various offices.\nQ.Then you don't know anything about this registration of Group III?\nA.I told you that I could not remember.\nQ.Now, were those Slovenes assigned to a definite area, that is, Wurttemberg and Baden when you were on duty there as Higher SS & Police Leader?\nA.Yes; Herr Grotz has testified about this, and he also mentioned that these Slovenes, as far as they came into contact with the Higher SS & Police Leader, were treated well.\nQ.In your capacity as chief of the Race & Settlement Main Office, were the VOMI camps subordinate to you?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the VOMI subordinated to you in any way at all?\nA.No. Why do you ask that question?\nQ.Well, in the judgment of the IMT, the VOMI is designated as a sub-agency of the Race & Settlement Main Office.\nA.This in no way corresponds to the facts.\nQ.We now come to the point of Upper Silesia. The Prosecution has submitted certain documents, according to which racial examinations were carried on in that area also. I am speaking about Exhibits 144, 145, and 151, contained in Volume 4-C. To what extent were you responsible for this operation? These documents you may find on pages 71, 75, and 86 of the German text. Will you please have a closer look at these documents before you say anything?\nA.Yes. Well, this only deals with measures which were \n COURT I CASE VIII taken by the head of the office of the Reich Commissor for the Strengthening of Germanism in Upper Silesia, Dr. Arlt.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3252, "page_number": "3245", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "These were probably local measures which, as I said before, did not originate in a central agency.\nQ.Did this Dr. Arlt belong to the Race & Settlement Main Office?\nA.No, he was not a member of the Race & Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Did you issue instructions to the RUS leader Scholz who was active in this district? This document here talks about directives concerning the racial examination.\nQ.Well, Scholz, in his capacity as Race and Settlement leader, was completely informed about the racial evaluation procedure in connection with re-Germanization. He did not get any special instructions concerning this memorandum. I did not issue them to him. I have just read this here, and in its text it reminds me of the statements which Dr. Fehndrich made in his book \"Der Menscheneinsatz.\"\nQ.We shall now turn to Luxembourg. To what extent were you responsible for the evacuations from there?\nA.I took no part in these measures. If racial examinations took place at all, this was done only a long time after these deportations. This must have taken place in the various camps, as the witness Kasel has already testified to here.\nQ.We shall now turn to the German People's List. Did you, as chief of the Race & Settlement Main Office, have anything to do with the creation of this list?\nA.No.\nQ.In the practical carrying out, there were classification experts employed weren't there?\nDid every subordinate agency of the German People's List use these classification experts?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3253, "page_number": "3246", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.No, that would have been impossible, for in the east there were only about twenty to thirty classification experts active; and, if I am not mistaken, in Group III of the German People's List, there were registered more than one and a half million people. A racial examination of all these people would have been impossible.\nQ.When did these classification experts take up their duties?\nA.I would like to say first that, in the course of my interrogation, I already said that the procedure, according to the German People's List, was not exactly known to me because it was handled in a different way in every Gau. That, too, has already been stated here. I can only repeat the fundamental regulation; and according to this it came within the Scope of Decree 50-1, Exhibit 102 that a racial examination of Group III was provided for. However, as I have already said, it was not possible to examine all cases. This is why the Decree 66-1 was issued, in February, 1942, and the examination within Group III was limited to those cases which had already made known their willingness to accept naturalization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3254, "page_number": "3247", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.In this connection I would like to show you another affidavit which describes the facts of the matter. Were the other agencies busy with these examinations?\nA.Yes, the Racial office carried out examinations of that sort at the so-called German People's List Ukraine, and the public health offices also did that and I would like especially to point to Dr. Grohmann in Lodz in the municipal health office who is also mentioned in various exhibits who is not in any way to be confused with another Dr. Grohmann who was working at the Racial office.\nQ.In this connection I shall also submit an affidavit of this Dr. Grohmann. Was the Race and Settlement Office busy in the Ukraine? This could be inferred from the correspondence of the Staff Main Office and Harders. In order to help your memory I am showing you Exhibit 125 in Document Book 4-D.\nA.As Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office I did not know anything about this correspondence. My office, after all, according to the decree of 7 October 1939 could use directly other experts from other agencies. The racial office was such a special agency. In the distribution list of the Staff Main Office there was mentioned in Exhibit 19 a collaborating agency just as the field office in Lodz and the other office of the SS. In the Ukraine no classification expert of the racial office became active within the framework of this project.\nQ.I have an affidavit before me by von Faust. This affidavit states that in Upper Silesia in all cases falling within the German People's List, that is to say in Groups 1, 2, 3 and 4, classification experts played a part in that.\nA.As far as I know this can only have been a local operation in Kattowitz. This could just have been an occasional examination ordered by Gauleiter Bracht. I think that has already been mentioned here by withesses.\nQ.That is sufficient. Did classification experts not have anything to do with the selection of Group 4 of the German People's List?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3255, "page_number": "3248", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.In this case this is a question doubtlessly of Germans who already, because of their political activities against their own people, were classified into Group 4, A racial examination as such then was not necessary in these cases.\nQ.Do you still have Document Book 4-B before you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you then please turn to the first Exhibit in this document book. This is Exhibit 114?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And will you please also look at the next exhibit, 115. In this exhibit Harders writes to the Race and Settlement leaders, that also in the case of Group 4 special treatment would have to take place. How do you explain this? This letter of Harders is dated 28 September 1944. Did you find the document?\nA.Yes, this exhibit 114 contains an order of the Reich Security Main Office. In passing on this document as is seen in Exhibit 115, this is a question of Harders exceeding his authority. I, myself, did not know anything about this fact. Besides the date of this letter of Harders is dated after I had already left the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3256, "page_number": "3249", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.We have talked about the racial selection of Category IV of the DVL. Now, we have a file note of yours concerning a report made to Himmler. That is Exhibit 163, in Document Book IV-D. In this file note you write that the members of Group IV, according to Himmler's directive, had to be selected and checked. I am submitting the photostatic copy to you. Can you explain that file note?\nA.Well, some sort of an error or lack of precision must have taken place there; that is, an error of mine. This has no connection with the next sentence in this letter concerning the re-Germanization procedure. After all, as I have already stated, Department IV did not have to be racially examined.\nQ.Now, in another document mention is made of the fact that Group IV was to be selected according to racial principles. That is Document 112-R, which was submitted by the Prosecution, in detached form, as Exhibit 796. This document contains a decree of the RSHA dated 1 July 1942, concerning the resettlement of members of Group IV, I now hand you the document. Was this racial selection ever carried out?\nA.Insofar as racial selection is mentioned in this decree, I think I may well say that it was never carried out. In this same decree mention is made of the fact that the evacuations of this group should be reduced to a minimum for reason of the war. You will find that on page 5, as I note here. Also, the witness Ehlich confirmed the fact that in practice such selection were never carried out.\nQ.Were you a member of the Supreme Selection Court of the DVL?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3257, "page_number": "3250", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.Yes, as Chief of the RuSHA, I was.\nQ.Did you attend meetings?\nA.No.\nQ.In point 18 of the Indictment you are charged with special responsibility for and participation in the re-Germanization procedure. As Chief of RuSHA, to what extent were you active in that field?\nA.In that respect, I have already testified sufficiently in so far as my own person is concerned and as far as competencies are involved.\nQ.You mean the responsibility for the activities of the field office at Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, as Higher SS and Police Leader, you were also concerned with re-Germanization?\nA.Yes. Grotz has given very detailed testimony here concerning that matter. To supplement that, the only thing I would like to add is the following: I do not think he explained this with sufficient clarity, namely, that every family had an advisor or a sponsor, and even every individual. These advisors went to see the families and listened to their wishes. Then, according to the experiences we had, these advisors did whatever they humanly could in order to have the wishes granted of these people who were eligible for re-Germanization. One can say that it was easier for persons eligible for re-Germanization to receive requisition slips for clothes, shoes, etc. It was easier for them than for the Germans because of the fact that these sponsors approached the competent authorities and interceded with them in that respect.\nQ.Now, in order to avoid a misunderstanding, was this sponsor perhaps charged with the political supervision, too?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3258, "page_number": "3251", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.No, he had nothing to do with that whatsoever. These sponsors were selected from the members of the General SS or from the regular police. Most of the time those were older persons who, for some reason or another, had not been drafted into the armed forces.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3259, "page_number": "3252", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.And when the persons eligible for re-Germanization were withdrawn from the procedure, were the sponsors withdrawn too?\nA.Yes. There was a considerable loss connected with the withdrawal from re-Germanization.\nQ.To summarize your answers up to this point concerning points 12, 13, 14 and 18 of the Indictment, I have two questions there:\nWere the activities of the RuSHA only directed towards positive work?\nA.Yes. That applies to the SS selection as well as to permits for marriage and care.\nQ.For the SS you mean?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Does that also apply to the tasks which the Race and Settlement Main Office or individual agencies of the RuSHA had in the sector of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Yes. Concerning point 12 of the Indictment, the activities of the racial selectors or of the Race and Settlement leaders caused a voto to be taken against about 50 percent of all cases, and the interruption which had been applied for was prevented.\nConcerning point 13, which is very closely connected with the preceding point, the activities of the racial selectors caused a certain number of mothers, with their children, to be given better lodgings than would have been the case in the normal course of affairs. Also, concerning selections in cases of illicit sexual intercourse, the intervention of the racial selector had only positive effects. In the same manner, the re-Germanization procedure brought only advantages to the families involved. On the other hand, the procedure prevented wrong Germanization from taking place. If there had not been a RuSHA or a racial selector, then all interruptions of pregnancies which were applied for would have been carried out, and all children born from female Eastern workers would have been brought to homes for foreign children. Then, all Eastern workers who incurred penalties on account \n of illicit sexual intercourse would have incurred the punishment provided for by Himmler or by the RSHA, and all Poles who had been evacuated would have been transferred to the Government-General or somewhere else.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3260, "page_number": "3253", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.Herr Hofmann, the interpreter asks that your sentences be a little more connected.\nDid you hear about the memorandum of the Racial Political Office? You will find that in Document Book III; it is Exhibit 82.\nA.This memorandum was drawn up at a time when nobody in RuSHA could have dealt with these problems. At any event, the agencies of RuSHA which I took over myself only dealt with those matters after they had actually been called into the situation. With the best of my will I cannot remember that I saw this memorandum at the time. From the reception mark of the RuSHA one can see that Pancke initialed the memorandum and that it was sent out to the Settlement office. The \"G\" on the reception stamp shows that Gochberg, who was the Chief of the Settlement Office, received the letter.\nNow, I have seen from the document that the procedure of the DVL is mentioned, in spite of the fact that it was only officially established as late as March 1941, besides the re-Germanization procedure, and in spite of the fact that it was only introduced with the decree 17-2. Also, I gather from the memorandum that selection of racially valuable children is mentioned there, in spite of the fact that the decree 60-71 was only issued in 1942. These procedures were completely new to me and therefore I consider it impossible, if only for that reason, that I saw the memorandum before.\nQ.Now, what about your relations with the Racial Political Office?\nA.Well, I myself had no connection with it at all. From the correspondence between Pancke and Gross I think one can see that in the beginning there were points of contact, on the strength of the fact that RuSHA was called in on state affairs. We ourselves were proud, at the \n time, that our racial selectors were called in for these tasks because, according to our conception, the generous and new solution of the ethnic questions in the East was to prepare special measures for future settlement in peace-time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3261, "page_number": "3254", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Partly, we also talked about the fact that through the resettlements specially capable and valuable human beings would be brought into these eastern spheres, thereby bringing about an infiltration of that type and preventing an infiltration into Europe of the Communists. The Racial Political Office was the only competent agency for questions of racial politics, propaganda, and publicity, and that was the agency that took the initiative.\nQ.And Gross was the Chief of that Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How often did you yourself meet him?\nA.I have never talked to him; I have seen him once.\nQ.Do you know who drew up the memorandum for Himmler concerning the treatment of aliens? This is Exhibit 84, and it is in Document Book IX. Do you know whether the Racial Political Office was the agency which drew up this memorandum?\nA.No, I don't believe so, in spite of the fact that it was probably the spiritual father of the document. I cannot remember today, however, whether I read this document at the time. I think Pancke received this memorandum; that is to be assumed. He was occasionally very negligent concerning information to be given to his office chiefs, and he only gave them the general idea of all the principles.\nQ.In this connection the Prosecution has submitted a file note concerning a conversation in the Ministry for the Eastern Occupied Territories dated 7 February 1942. That is Exhibit 89, in the same document book. This conference dealt with racials elections in the Baltic countries. Were you informed about that matter at all?\nA.I had not been invited to the conference, and I cannot recall but I don't think, after the conference, that I got any information concerning it. According to my knowledge, it brought no results at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3262, "page_number": "3255", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A racials election was not carried out in the Baltic countries, as far as I know.\nQ.Well, will you please look at the next exhibit? It is the General Plan East, which is Exhibit 90. Did you receive any knowledge of that plan?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3263, "page_number": "3256", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.I cannot recall this document.\nQ.Now look at Exhibit 92, the next document Book I. That is an excerpt of a speech of Himmler's, 1918-PS. It deals particularly with the activities of the Security Police. Did you know this speech?\nA.No, I had no knowledge of this speech. I tried to find out where and when it was made, but I was unable to.\nQ.That brings us to Point 20 of the Indictment. There you are charged with spoliation of private and public property. Since when was the settlement office of the SS subordinated to you?\nA.As from the 9 of July 1940.\nQ.In other words, when you became chief of the RuSHA, is that right?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did the settlement office of the SS have authority to seize private or public property?\nA.No.\nQ.Did they carry out seizures in spite of the fact that they had no authority to do so?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the settlement office have a legal department at all--a department which would have been in a position to take care of all the legal affairs connected with seizures and administration of property?\nA.Such an office did not exist in the Race and Settlement Main Office-\nQ.The Indictment mentioned that large quantities of private property were seized for the benefit and the use of the resettlers. In this connection, did you have anything to do with the resettlers at all?\nA.No, neither in my capacity as Chief of RuSHA nor in my capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.That brings me to various documents which have already been commented on by the witness Tesseraux. Therefore, I ask you to make only very short comments and only in as far as you have to supplement or to \n correct the position given by the witness.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3264, "page_number": "3257", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "The documents are all in Document Book XIV-C. The first document of the series is a private letter adressed to one certain Berkmann. It's Exhibit 647. It's on Page 49 of the German text.\nA.Excuse me. That is not addressed to Berkman; that is Raeder.\nQ.Yes, that is the letter I mean; the letter to Raeder. Now in this letter you mentioned that the East belonged to the SS.\nA.Well, I have to start here by saying that in my capacity as Chief of the RuSHA, I wrote a field agency letter. That is a little campaign bulletin which was sent to all those men who were in the front lines. This campaign bulletin was to maintain the connection between the RuSHA and the members of the RuSHA--these members who had been drafted to the front line. Quite a number of SS members now wrote to me. That is how a correspondence was created and that is how these letters here submitted by the Prosecution can be explained. Now these words \"the East belongs to the SS\" meant to imply at the time that should the East be colonized after the war then the SS members would be duly taken into consideration, and particularly those SS members, of course, who had helped to fight for that area. I ask it also to be taken into consideration that this remark was made in a private letter addressed to a man who was in the front line himself; a copy of the letter only went to the settlement office. The reason probably is that this man had been sent to the front line from the settlement office.\nQ.Will you please shortly comment on the next letter. That is Exhibit 643, addressed to Luening. In this letter you speak of the training courses for the settlement applicants. That is on Page 25 of the German.\nA.Well, I think Tesseraux has already commented upon that sufficiently; namely that the plan was never carried into practice and that the circular letter itself involved an excerpt from the special publication \"New Peasantry\" and the settlement office had nothing to do with planning itself.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3265, "page_number": "3258", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.Let's turn to Exhibit 367, a letter to Major Grosse Leege, and there among other things you speak of SS police garrisons.\nA.In the Government-General, there were enterprises which were to be established on an SS and Police basis or garrisons which were staffed with SS experts as planning leaders. Most of the time they were disabled war veterans and selected by the settlement office and conducted affairs there as planned leaders for the competent authorities; particularly for the administration of the property in the Government-General and also for the competent SS economist in the office of the Higher SS and Police Leader. This basis, according to my knowledge, was not used by the police. The administration itself was made on behalf and on account of the Office of Food and Agriculture of the Government-General, and in no way was connected with the race and settlement main office. In detail, that has already been explained by Tesseraux.\nQ.That brings us to a letter to the SS Grenadier Thole, Exhibit 343. It's on page 43 of the German.\nA.This is a letter to the real chief of the settlement office, Thole. Thole at the time had been drafted into the armed forces and he was afraid that Tesseraux, who was his deputy, did not conduct affairs in a proper way. The meaning of my letter was to sooth Thole's fears.\nQ.Is it correct then that Himmler had no information concerning the activities of the settlement office as you explain it in this letter?\nA.Well, for the least, the information he received was not correct, and concerning the tasks of the race and settlement main office during the war, he had not much of an opinion anyhow. Very often he expressed to me the poor opinion he had of the work of RuSHA.\nQ.That brings us to Exhibit 640 and 644. There the witness Tesseraux has already testified sufficiently. Do you have anything to supplement or to correct there?\nA.No.\nQ.Let's see Exhibit 645 then. That is a letter addressed to one Lieutenant Hohensee.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3266, "page_number": "3259", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.Hohensee also was a member of RuSHA. He was in the front line and at the time I wrote to him as one would write to a man who is in combst. As affairs went on and with the course the war took, it became a reality that my explanations and my writings of the time remained only a pious wish.\nQ. 648 is a letter you wrote to Lubkowitz. You spoke of what you called \"Our Plan\" and of SS farmers.\nA.Lubkowitz was a racial welfare man before who was a captain in combat. When I said \"Our Plan,\" I mean to imply such enterprises as were administered by SS members as compared with such enterprises as were not administered by SS members. That had nothing to do whatsoever with title or property. The same applies to my letter to Spengemann. That is Exhibit 646. All I wanted to express was that the work done by the SS men in the course of the reconstruction of the partly neglected and partly destroyed Russian Kolchozes, and so on and so forth, was the reason why I felt justified to speak of our own achievements. The resettlement mentioned in Exhibit 646, of course, would have taken place and would have been taken into consideration only if the war terminated at once. This is expressed in the bulletin \"Planning and Reconstruction in the East,\" which I have already mentioned. It involves this special publication in the newspaper \"New Peasantry,\" which I have mentioned several times already.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3267, "page_number": "3260", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.That brings us to the letter, Exhibit 649. There you speak of six hundred thousand acres to be administered by 700 people.\nA.Six hundred thousand acres, of course, sounds tremendous, but you could express it differently too. I would say it's about 75 square kilometers. Because of the large areas in Russia, that doesn't mean too much. In a book I have read here, in Australia, there are so-called \"Cookies\", and they are small farmers, and there they, themselves, administer already 10,000 acres. For Germany, of course, an area of 25 square miles is a very considerable area. The 700 people were divided among about 100 enterprises, and the 1,000 training farms were all in Germany proper and they had been selected in agreement with the Reich Food Association and were to be made ready for the reception of such SS men as were ready for resettlement after the war.\nQ.I think that the interpreter has translated 75 square kilometers by 25 square miles.\nTHE INTERPRETER:It's kilometers, but I have translated it 75 square kilometers by 25 square miles, which is the same.\nA.It's 45 square miles.\nTHE INTERPRETER:The witness says it's 45 square miles, but it's 25.\nQ.What did the settlement office of the SS really do in the East?\nA.Practically it was a labor exchange for specialized labor or for agriculture. This can be seen also from the file note of the 20 of March 1943, Exhibit 369. The various SS agencies had dealt with the matter to assign administrators and planned leaders in agricultural estates. That was already explained yesterday by Tesseraux. A certain order was to be \n established there for the purpose of securing a skilled administration.", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3268, "page_number": "3261", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.On the 3 of September 1935, Himmler issued a directive defining the task of the Settlement Office for the settlement of SS members. The same order was repeated, on the 4 of March 1941. It involves Exhibit 52 in Document Book II-C, 636-XIV-C. In another document it's also mentioned in a historic report by Taigwin. It's Exhibit 65, Document Book II-C. What did this task for resettlement involve?\nA.This involves peace tasks and the orders referred to settlement in Germany proper. In 1935, of course, probably the people who issued the orders didn't even think of war yet. The first task was to stop the considerable flight from the rural areas into the cities and to strengthen the peasantry. Again the SS was to be the pattern there and was to show the way, and there was a close connection between Himmler as Reich Food Minister -- or rather I should say Reich Peasant Leader. During the war, resettlement was not carried out. The only thing that might involve it was the priority scale decree. In this case the decision was made by the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Now on the 22 of February 1943 you sent a letter to Herbert, according to which the settlement office had decisive authority in all questions of peasant and professional resettlement.\nA.Those are by-laws to the Decree of the Main Staff Office. This is Exhibit 611. The war-disabled members of the Waffen SS should have the same rights as the members of the Army, of the Air Force, and of the Navy, in the case of resettlement in the incorporated eastern territories. Therefore the settlement office had decisive authority in the \n advising of registration, training and assignment of applicants.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3269, "page_number": "3262", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "The applicants from those persons who fulfilled the conditions were decided on by the Main Staff Office. Whether a resettlement actually took place, I don't know; if so, only in a few individual cases in the new Gaus of the Reich. I stress that the farmers made available by the settlement office working in the east had nothing to do with the settlement office. Concerning the accounting, the sale and purchase of merchandise, goods or furniture, or concerning the administration itself, they had nothing to do with the office. All these measures were carried out in connection with those agencies on account of which the enterprises were administered; in other words, with the SS economist or the Office for Food and Agriculture in the Government General or the Economic Inspectorates in the rear army areas.\nQ.Herr Hoffmann, were you a farmer before that, yourself, or did you have any connection with settlement affairs at all?\nA.No. Himmler thought that I was a farmer, and I think in 1941 he discovered that I wasn't. He was very disappointed about that.\nQ.Now within Point 20 of the Indictment, the Prosecution has submitted a document which is Exhibit 653. This involves a dispatching of 10,000 pairs of children's socks, and 2,000 pairs of gloves, which were placed at the disposal of the Higher SS and Police Leader in the central sector. Do you know what that involves?\nA.Yes, that was a shipment made on behalf of the Reichsfuehrer to the Welfare Department in the RuSHA, and which was to be employed for welfare and care funds. BachZelewski, that is this Higher SS and Police Leader, I think must have acquired these socks in a legal way.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3270, "page_number": "3263", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.Who was competent for the securing and registration for the seizure and confiscation of rural property?\nA.To my knowledge, on the strength of the decree 38 of the 12 of December 1940, that was the Central Land Office and the land offices, in as far as the new Gaus of the Reich were concerned.\nQ.As Higher SS and Police Leader, were you connected with that matter? For instance, with the Reinhardt Action? Exhibit 578 was submitted there.\nA.The concept \"Reinhardt Action\" was brought to my knowledge only here.\nQ.Now in a few brief words I would like to comment on your connection with the Lebensborn. Were you in the presiding board of the Lebensborn?\nA.I was a member of the presiding board in my capacity as Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.And did you work there?\nA.No, I didn't work there at all.\nQ.In the basic information drawn up by the Prosecution, the Lebensborn is mentioned as a part of the RuSHA, and the defendant Ebner is termed there as liaison officer of the Lebensborn West of RuSHA, is that correct?\nA.As from 1937, the Lebensborn was no longer a part of the RuSHA. I had no knowledge either that Dr. Ebner had any sort of a function of a high liaison officer.\nQ.Did you issue any directives concerning the activities of the Lebensborn or did you even advise them only?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you still have Document Book II-C there?\nA.Yes, I have.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3271, "page_number": "3264", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QThere you will find Exhibit 2 and ideological training is mentioned there. Did the Race end Settlement Main Office give ideological training to the Lebensborn during the period when you were active?\nAIn this connection there was no relationship at all.\nQWhy not? After all the Race and Settlement Main Office during a certain period was in charge of the ideological training of the SS, wasn't it?\nAWell, that must have been before 1937 if it was because as from 1937 the Lebensborn was no longer a part of the RuSHA or I should better say from 1938; then it was subordinated to the Main Office Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQAnd how long was the Race and Settlement Main Office in charge of the training?\nAThe Training Office was also disconnected from the RuSHA at the beginning of 1938, or about then.\nQWill you please look at the next exhibit there, that is, Exhibit 63. There a selection of mothers by the Race and Settlement Main Office is mentioned.\nAYes, I have the document here.\nQExhibit 63, do you have it?\nAYes, 63. That is also from 1936 when the Lebensborn was still a part of the RuSHA during the period when I was active such checking of selection did not take place.\nQAll right then, look at the next exhibit, that is, 68, 72, and 73. That is the correspondence which you had with the Lebensborn. Various SS leaders of the Lebensborn had been appointed specialized leaders in the Race and Settlement affairs and at the time they were listed as personnel of the staff of the Waffen SS in the Race and Settlement Main Office. Now these collaborators of the Lebensborn became leaders in the Race and Settlement thereby.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3272, "page_number": "3265", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "ANo, in no manner. That was only a budgetary distribution which Himmler had decreed on various occasions; also of members of the Lebensborn. That didn't mean even that he would inform the Main Office Chief who was competent for those affairs. Himmler would use for his own purposes free budgetary distribution from the T/O of the staff of the Waffen SS and of the RuSHA, probably because in his personal staff he didn't have enough jobs on the T/O.\nQAnd were these Lebensborn workers under your authority as long as they were listed in the staff company?\nANo.\nQThese so-called specialized leaders of the RuSHA, could they become active in that specialized field on their own initiative?\nANo, because that wasn't the kind of specialized leaders they were.\nQAnd could any collaborator of the Lebensborn become active as racial selector?\nANo, because he had to have a special pass for that.\nQRepeatedly, I think, it was mentioned that the defendant Ebner also carried out racial selections. Could he, without special training, take upon himself this function of a racial selector and become active in that?\nAIn the frame-work of the tasks of the RuSHA he could not become active as racial selector without special directives and without special participation in training courses. The Reichsfuehrer basically also had issued a prohibition for medical men to carry out racial selections.\nQAnd will you please look at the exhibits I have mentioned.\nAMay I ask you to repeat the numbers.\nQ 68, 72, and 73. This involves the representative of the RuSHA who at the same time was to become Plenipotentiary for the Lebensborn.\nA 68 can't be right.\nQWell, all right, let's take 72.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3273, "page_number": "3266", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AYes.\nQWell, was anything done about it.\nAAt the time I met Frau Viermetz at Strassburg. Just by accident I made her acquaintance. I never saw her before and never knew her before either and I, after that, only met her again here in the course of this trial. At the time we discussed the concept of a Plenipotentiary for the Lebensborn and I was of the opinion that his tasks perhaps could be joined to those of a RuS leader and as at the time we had a great shortage of specialized personnel and therefore I suggested to the Lebensborn that the RuS leader should be entrusted with that task. Then on the 22nd of September, 1942, I received an answer from the Lebensborn which was altogether in the negative and I must say that I was rather infuriated about it. Persons enumerated in this letter as Plenipotentiaries of the Lebensborn had no connection whatsoever with the RuSHA. Later, I think at the end of 1944, the RuS Fuehrer in the lower countries was to have been made available temporarily for the Lebensborn but I heard that only now.\nQDid you met Frau Viermetz only here?\nAIn November 1942 only.\nQWell, did you have any official conversations with her later than that?\nANo, I just told you that I hadn't met her later.\nQThe Prosecution has asserted in its Indictment that a particular close collaboration existed between the RuSHA and the Lebensborn because after No. 9 of the Indictment Race and Settlement leaders in some cases at the same time were representatives of the Lebensborn. Therefore, that is not correct?\nANo, that is not correct. I have to stress emphatically again that the Lebensborn and particularly my co-defendant Sollmann constantly showed a rejecting attitude toward the Race and Settlement \n Main Office, that he took the distances to a very large degree, and, how shall I say, perhaps from the consideration that he might be cashiered then - he became even impolite in these matters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3274, "page_number": "3267", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QThat brings me to the last count in the Indictment and I would like to treat that as a whole, Your Honor, and therefore may I suggest that we make our recess now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have a habit of making pod suggestions. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3275, "page_number": "3268", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 7 January 1948) OTTO HOFMANN -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Due to your relationship with the Lebensborn I would like to ask you a short question. I am talking about the decree of 27 July 1943, Exhibit 496. This is concerned with the children of female Eastern workers who were possibly given into homes for foreign children. In this decree the Lebensborn and NSV are mentioned. In your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader did you know anything about the fact that such transfers to the Lebensborn had taken place and whether there was a connection at all in this question between the classification expert, between you, as Higher SS and Police Leader and the Lebensborn?\nA.I believe I could say with certainty that in my sphere in which there was the Lebensborn Home Nordrach, such a transfer never happened, and also there was no such connection.\nQ.I am now turning to point 21 of the indictment. According to the indictment the RuSHA is charged with having extensively participated in the liquidation and persecution of Jews. Bach-Zelewski testified here that the registration of Jews took place on the basis of the card index file for persons of mixed Jewish blood. We have already heard testimony about this card index from Pancke, Schallermeier and Wolff. They testified to the contrary. Did you yourself know of the existence of the card index concerning Jewish ancestors of SS members of the Eugenics Office?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3276, "page_number": "3269", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.I knew there was such a card index file.\nQ.Can you tell me how, from your knowledge, Jews were registered?\nA.At that time I had nothing to do with that question but I deduced the following: Within the frame-work of the question concerning citizenship, identification papers were obtained through the Pass and Foreigners Police. For Jews a second copy had to be issued of these identification papers and it had to be sent to the district police of their place of birth. A second copy had to be sent to the People's Card Index Office and a third copy had to be sent to the Reich office for Eugenic Research.\nQ.I am now showing you a document and I would like to ask you to identify that. Is this the same decree as is expressed here in this document?\nA.Yes, that is the decree we are talking about.\nQ.Will you please describe it?\nA.This is the decree concerning the issuing of identification papers, a circular decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior dated 28 October 1942. It apparently refers to a decree that had been issued before because it says there that in the supplementary regulations the procedure that was valid up to now was not touched.\nQ.When did you learn about this?\nA.Only when I saw it here and when I was looking through these papers.\nQ.I shall submit this document at a later date together with my other document books. Did RuSHA have anything to do with the issuance of identification papers?\nA.No.\nQ.Was this People's Card Index Office, or the agency \n for Eugenic Research subordinate to RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3277, "page_number": "3270", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Who made the decisions in doubtful cases?\nA.The RuSHA agency for Eugenic Research was the competent authority and according to a decree of 25 June 1938.\nQ.Did you know this decree before?\nA.No, this was brought to my knowledge here.\nQ.I also shall submit this decree at a later date. Now tell me Herr Hofmann whether the Genealogical Office was busy only with the examination of SS members?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When was this office established?\nA.It was supposed to be established in the course of the year 1942. Ossiander was supposed to be the Chief of the office. However, he was conscripted into the Waffen SS and that office became therefore active actually only after the middle of 1943.\nQ.Was that the Genealogical Office?\nA.In this connection I would like to repeat that the personnel of the Genealogical Office was a very small one. As I have already said there were about five or six persons only.\nQ.Did you participate in the persecution of Jews on 9 November 1938?\nA.No, on that day I was in Munich and swore in the SS.\nQ.Did you read the periodical \"Der Stuermer\" regularly?\nA.I have seen this newspaper a few times about the year 1930 I would say, but it did not appeal to me at all, nor did I have any sympathy for Streicher himself.\nQ.Here we have a document that is a note concerning \n a meeting on the Wannsee on 20 January 1942 in which you participated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3278, "page_number": "3271", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.This is Exhibit 543, Document Volume 13-A. Before you came to that meeting what did you know about the solution of the Jewish question?\nA.I have never bothered very much about this question. It may be that I once heard about a generous solution in the sense of creating a reservation for them. It may also be that in this connection the name Madagascar was mentioned. In any case the things that I heard about this problem at that time were within the meaning of a solution as it has now turned up in the case of Palestine. There was never any solution of liquidating the Jews.\nQ.How was it then that Heydrich invited you to take part in this meeting?\nA.Why Heydrich extended this participation to the RuSHA has never been quite clear to me. The invitation was a complete surprise to me. How foreign the concept of final solution was to me may be seen from my reply. This is Exhibit 542 in which I did not speak of a final solution but of a solution of the Jewish question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3279, "page_number": "3272", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QCould you refuse to attend this meeting?\nAAt that time I certainly had no valid reason; and, besides, Heydrich was certainly the most powerful man, after Himmler, and I did not wish to make an enemy of him.\nQWhat impression did you get from Heydrich's lecture at the beginning of the meeting?\nAThe subject matter was entirely new to me and therefore I was quite surprised about it. The RuSHA was never a central office which dealt with matters of that sort currently and on a long-term basis, in the sense of propaganda, training, or legislation. The term \"central office,\" which obviously goes back to an order by Goering of January, 1941, given to Heydrich, could only mean legislative bodies, that is first of ministries.\nQI now hand you a document and I would like you to identify that document. Do you mean the order of Goering's which is contained therein? Is that the order that you just mentioned?\nAYes, that is this order.\nQI would like to submit this document from my Document Book VI. This is an excerpt of the complete file of Document No. 2586. The Prosecution has submitted only a part of it, and herewith I submit the completion of this document.\nNow, is this meeting which is described in this photostat before you described correctly? I mean Exhibit 543.\nAI read this note and I must say that it is an incorrect representation; especially Heydrich did not mention anything about the fact that Jews should experience a natural reduction in their number by slave labor, and that the remaining Jews were to be subjected to a corresponding treatment. The rest of the contents of this meeting is in contradiction to this. There they talk about old age ghettoes. However, it is possible that Heydrich mentioned that the Jews would no longer be able to reproduce if they would be separated according to sexes.\nQWas the subject of people of mixed Jewish blood mentioned and \n discussed at that meeting?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3280, "page_number": "3273", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AThis question, as far as I remember, was the main subject of this meeting. Heydrich mentioned the rather complicated facts which existed in abundance and stated at the same time his demands. He spoke about persons of mixed Jewish blood of first degree and, at the same time, about those of second degree, with and without exceptions; about people with mixed Jewish blood of the first degree and second degree, with and without children; about marriages between persons of Jewish descent and these of German blood; and about marriages between persons of mixed Jewish blood of the first degree and those of pure German blood. He spoke of marriages between persons of mixed Jewish blood of various degrees and the treatment of their children that came from those marriages; about persons of mixed Jewish blood of the second degree with very unfavorable appearance and so forth.\nI would like to point out in this connection that these differentiations that Heydrich alone made fill three pages of the document 2586, Exhibit 543. No member of the RuSHA had to establish these differentiations. In any case, I was not in favor of an evacuation of persons of mixed Jewish blood of the first degree, which Heydrich had ordered. In the discussion the question came up of whether it would be possible to reduce the number of 70,000 persons of mixed Jewish blood. first degree, and integrate them with the German population in the course of time. I am quite sure that it was also discussed, that with the deportation of persons of mixed Jewish blood of first degree fifty percent of German blood would be lost in every case. In this suggestion, persons of mixed Jewish blood of the first degree were to be integrated into the German people. That is why I agreed immediately to this suggestion. These questions are not mentioned in the document.\nQDid this meeting have any practical results?\nANo; no decisions were made. The discussion obviously was to serve the purpose of informing Heydrich about the opinions of those present. I believe that I can safely say that it was just through my suggestion and the \n debate created by this suggestion that the plans of Heydrich were not carried out concerning the deportation of persons of mixed Jewish blood of the first degree.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3281, "page_number": "3274", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "In any case, I know that during the war this group of persons were safe. I myself was not touched further on those questions.\nAs I heard only here, Hitler himself, in April or May 1942, ordered that no measures were to be undertaken against persons of mixed Jewish blood of the first degree during the war. I believe that Exhibit 543 is a rather one-sided note which originated in the Reich Security Main Office, nor can I remember that I ever received a copy of this note.\nQIn this discussion the fact was also mentioned that a representative of the RuSHA was to be sent to Hungary. Did that happen?\nANo, such an offer was made in a rush by me; however, this man was never sent. No member of the RuSHA was sent there.\nQThe suggestion concerning the sterilization--did that originate with you?\nANo, the sterilization problem had already come up in the course of the discussion before.\nQDid the RuSHA have anything to do With questions of sterilization at all officially?\nANo.\nQI now have before me document 1495. This is concerned with the case of Gaertner. I believe the document has not been submitted yet. However I would like to ask you a few questions about it.\nThis is the contents: The family Gaertner lived in Paris. Are you familiar with that case?\nAYes, I can remember it. I have seen it here.\nQNow, in a file note you made the statement that Himmler wanted to transfer the employees of all these enterprises from Paris into the eastern territories, and that was also to include those persons who were biologically and racially undesirable. That was supposed to be the case if they should voluntarily undergo sterilization.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3282, "page_number": "3275", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "What action did you take upon this desire of Himmler's?\nAAs far as I can remember, the intention of transferring the enterprise to the east originated with Gaertner himself, who was a German. Himmler told me about that and I made a file note about it, which I submitted to the chief of the Race Office, on the one hand in order to inform him about Himmler's intentions and on the other hand to have support for my memory and a basis for further discussions along that line. However, no action was taken in this matter, nor do I remember whether this enterprise was transferred at all. Here I can say that this is one of the cases in which Himmler frequently developed his thoughts and made suggestions, but where no action was taken.\nQDid you know that before this discussion Jews had been evacuated and deported to the east?\nAYes; Heydrich told us that in the course of the meeting. I only knew about the other things from hearsay.\nQDo you agree with the testimony that Bach-Zelewski gave to the effect that every SS leader must have heard about the liquidation of Jews in the east?\nAI believe that that is a too easy conclusion on the part of BachZelewski. I believe that that is rather an immorality to say that, for he charges hundred thousands of SS men with having known of these crimes without being able to prove it. Bach was first assigned to Upper Silesia, I believe and then to Russia. In his capacity as chief of the antiguerilla units, and he must have known a lot more about these things than the SS leaders who were active in the Reich proper, or those of lower rank.\nQDid not every SS leader know the Posen speech of Himmler's? This is Document 19-PS.\nANo, I, as Obergruppenfuehrer, was there. That was on the 4th of October, 1943. That is already after my time as chief of the RuSHA. In my capacity as Higher SS & Police Leader, I can say for the SS leaders that were subordinate to me and also for the SS men themselves-that I \n did not inform them of the contents of this speech, which, as you know, remained a secret.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3283, "page_number": "3276", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3284, "page_number": "3277", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.Did you hear that part of his speech in which he spoke about the liquidation of Jews?\nA.I must preface my further comments on that by saying that I did not pay a great deal of attention to this speech. About two weeks before that, Himmler wrote me a letter in which he charged me with grave disobedienc The reason was dragged in by the hair, more or less, it was quite unimportant and had occurred about half a year before. I wished to take the opportunity while in Posen to ask Himmler to justify his statements. I was successful in that on the fifth of October. I therefore had my thoughts not as much on the speech as I should have. I only know now that Himmler touched upon many problems and that he treated them somewhat in a Utopian manner. However, I know certainly that he did not read the speech but that he spoke freely and that he had only brief notes to base his speech upon.\nQ.Now, I have shown you the photostat at the time. It consisted of two parts: one part was type-written and then there were short notes appended to them. These notes, were they written in Himmler's own handwriting?\nA.Yes, these handwritten notes are identical with Himmler's handwritin That handwriting was quite characteristic. He did not write in Latin script--but in German script. His cue for the paragraph concerning the Jews, these notes, however, do not bear the quotation deportation of Jews,\" but \"evacuation of Jews\". I do not think it possible that he was talking about liquidation in such a very sharp terminology as it would have caused difficulties and tensions among the members of the meeting and would have given reason for debate later on. In the course of my being a prisoner I asked the participants of this meeting who, however, said for certain that Himmler did not talk about the liquidation of Jews.\nQ.Now, let us get back to this meeting of 20 January 1942. Did you hear anything before or after this meeting that Hitler or Himmler had given the order for the liquidation of Jews?\nA.No, I never heard anything about such an order.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3285, "page_number": "3278", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Q.After 20 January, 1942, did several other meetings take place which concerned the treatment of persons of Jewish-mixed blood? In connection with this I would like to show you Document Hoffmann Number 134-B. This again is part of the document concerning the meeting of January 10, 1942, w which has been submitted by the Prosecution.\nA.From the documents you have shown to me here I could see that there were two more meetings after that one.\nQ.In your capacity of representative of the RUSHA, had you not to take part in the meeting of 26 March, 1942?\nA.It was only the document that convinced me of that fact. I did not remember anything else. It was a meeting among referents which dealt with legislative measures.\nQ.Did you then not learn that Hitler, upon a personal report by Lammers, had postponed all those measures until the end of the war?\nA.No, I cannot remember that at that time I heard anything as Concretely as that on this decision. However, in some way I got to know that persons of mixed Jewish blood of first and second degrees were going to be safe, which was actually the case. From the further treatment of this question alone at that time we can see that the RuSHA had nothing to do with this in a technical way, for, after all, it did not participate in the legislation. It did not have the legal expert which would be necessary.\nA.Herewith I would like to submit this document as my next exhibit. This is, I believe, Exhibit 22. Then, when I submit my document books, I shall submit this document in a final, official manner. This is--I am sorry--Exhibit 23. The exhibit 22 which I did not mention expressly at the time was submitted before this one. We have here now further documents. A letter of the Reich Minister of Justice to the participants of the meeting of 20 January, 1942. Furthermore, there is a letter of the Reich Minister of the Interior, also addressed to the same participants. I should now like to show you these documents. These letters also deal with the so-called find solution of the Jewish question. In the distribution list you too are \n mentioned personally.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3286, "page_number": "3279", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Did you find that document?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you receive a copy of this letter?\nA.It is quite possible that I got it.\nQ.And what action did you take upon that?\nA.There was no action that I was to take, nor did I have any possibility to include myself in this legislation.\nQ.Would you please identify the date of these two letters?\nA.The first letter is dated 5 April 1942.\nQ.Is that the one from the Reich Ministry of Justice?\nA.Yes, And the letter from the Reich Ministry of the Interior is dated 16 March 1942.\nQ.Did these letters mention the liquidation of Jews?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3287, "page_number": "3280", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AWell, I would have to read them again in order to find out whether there was or not; I can't remember.\nQThat is sufficient; that can be seen from the documents themselves.\nAYes.\nQI would like to receive these two documents for identification: Document Hofmann 134-D, as Exhibit 24, and Document 134-E, as Exhibit 25. How could you take any action in connection with measures that Himmler ordered if you did not agree with them?\nAHimmler himself in his Posey speech said that he would remove from life all those who would not remain loyal or rather those who opposed him. The only thing that remained to be done or was possible was to weaken the orders that he gave in this execution to delay them, or to take a chance to not to carry them out at all. I also believe that in this case my function was so to speak to serve as a brake. just as I have done in many other cases.\nQI would like to show you another document. This is a note on a meeting of 27th October 1942. This meeting to k place in the Reich Security Main Office; among those present there were members of the RuSHA. Will you please comment briefly on these documents? Do you know whether this meeting had any practical results, or don't you know anything about it?\nAI cannot remember this meeting, and according to what I testified to before, this meeting probably did not have any results either.\nQThis seems to be also a meeting among experts, referents?\nAYes.\nQI would also like to have this document submitted for identification, and will ask to reserve No. 26 for this document. We now have before us several documents of the Prosecution concerning this socalled Jewish card index. I am giving you now Document Book XIII-A, and you will please turn to Exhibit 545.\nAYes, I have it.\nQThis is a note concerning the extracts from Jewish baptismal \n records from the Dutch church books.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3288, "page_number": "3281", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AThis is in no way connected with the persecution of the Jews. Theseare simply excerpts from the church books in which baptism of Jews have been registered hundreds of years back and besides, in this document it also says that these extracts would have to be returned during the war.\nQWhen you were chief of the RuSHA, there was a letter written by Ten Cate to Ossiander; this is Exhibit 546; that is the next document in this document book. There he mentions a card index of foreign and mixed blood. Did the RuSHA have anything to do with this card index?\nAThis was probably a purely internal matter of the SS which originated with the eugenics office; Ten Cate whom you mentioned found out that there were SS members who had Jewish relatives. Ten Cate then as general plenipotentiary for eugenic matters worked in the Netherlands on the state sector at the same time, insofar his duties were about the same as those of the eugenic office in Germany. All this correspondence, therefore, refers to Jewish archives, that is to say, not to files that were being used.\nQWe have here a further document, Exhibit 545; this is a teletype which was sent from Paris to Ossiander. It is dated 21 March, 1942.\nAWill you please give me the exhibit number again?\nQIt is 555. This concerns the transfer of a certain man Steudtner who was obviously a member of the RuSHA, to an agency of the Reich Security Main Office in Paris.\nAThis is a teletype which was immediately directed Ossiander. At the time I did not learn anything about the incident. Ossiander was department head in the eugenics office, and was scheduled to become the chief of the genological office. This man Steudtner mentioned in this document was employed in the establishment of an index card for Hugenotts, as well as in the Netherlands there was also in France many men who volunteered for service in the so-called Germanic Waffen SS. These SS members were examined just as the German SS members; they were \n examined just as the German SS members; they were examined from a genealogical and eugenic point of view.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3289, "page_number": "3282", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "That is why one made a photostat of this card index for the Hugenotts. This index was borrowed from Paris peice by piece and was brought back there. Therefore, it is also possible that Ossiander who was in charge of this examination approached the leader of the Reich eugenic office, Dr. Mayer, in order to get from him documents concerned with eugenic matters. On the basis of the decree issued by RsHA, that is $-143, and I believe it is Exhibit No. 620, this Reich Security Main Office had the authority to seize archives. This is the only explanation I have for the fact that Steudtner was supposed to get into contact with the agency of the Reich Security Main Office in Paris. Besides the seizure of these documents, certainly must have been carried out already be the Reich Security Main Office at the time, for in the teletype it expressly says that as a basis sixty thousand families must be taken which are known to be Jews, and lived in the occupied territories; besides, from the Document No. 2586, Exhibit 543, I could see -- that is on page 9 of this document that Heydrich on 20 January, 1942, that is already two months before this teletype was sent to the eugenics office, spoke of the fact that registration of Jews in occupied and unoccupied France could be carried out without any further disturbances.\nQSince you now are so gravely charged with participation in the persecution of Jews, I would like to ask you to show up how you yourself behaved toward Jews and persons of mixed Jewish blood.\nAI can mainly talk about the time of April, 1943, up to the capitulation, because when I lived in Stuttgart my neighbors were Jews, that is to say people who had Jewish relatives. This is a family by the name of Seeger; the father of Mrs. Seeger is the Jew Hertz, and there was also a family called Baumgaertner. My attitude and behavior toward the two families was correct. This Jew Hertz was to be transferred to the old age ghetto at Theresienstadt, and Frau Seeger interceded on his behalf with my wife and then at the office of the State Police to \n intercede on his behalf.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3290, "page_number": "3283", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "I myself did not know anything about that intention. Only my wife pointed it out to me. However, the chief of the State Police agency told me that in this case it was the question of a strict order by the Reich Security Main Office, and that nothing was to be done against it. In the meantime the father of this Frau Seeger has come back and he is healthy and feels well and is now living at home.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3291, "page_number": "3284", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QIt just strikes me that the witness Panckein an affidavit also testified something about Gypsies. I would, like to ask you just for the sake of completeness to state whether or not you had anything to do with the persecution of gypsies.\nANo, I cannot remember. In Berlin there was an institution that was called Institute for the Research of Gypsy Descent and it was headed by a certain Professor Ritter. I was there once, and I have been led through it and I believe Pancke has already said that there were a number of SS men who were of Gypsy descent.\nQI am now turning to Count III of the Indictment, Point No. 26 of the Indictment, membership in an organization that has been designated as criminal. The SS, according to the judgment of the IMT because of various activities of the agencies of the SS, has been convicted as criminal. I shall now show these various activities in order to bring them to your notice, and I would like to ask you whether and how far you participated in them. Did you in the Waffen SS perform military service?\nANo, I did volunteer for the Waffen SS, but Himmler did not grant it. As general of the Waffen SS, I was a member of the Waffen SS; however, I never performed any duties which could be termed as those of a troop leader.\nQBefore the war were you in Bohemia, Moravia, Austria or the Kernel Area with the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you supervise the Security police and the SD in your capacity as higher SS and police leader?\nANo, I had no authority to do that. The SD was not subordinated to me even in my capacity as supreme legal officer. The duty of the higher SS and police leader was of a purely representational nature. I have already testified about that and would like to bring to your \n attention once again in this connection the testimony of the witness Wolff and also the affidavit of Womhardt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3292, "page_number": "3285", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QIn your capacity as chief of the RuSHA or as higher SS and police leader, were you participating in the deportation of Jews and aliens?\nANo, we had no material allotted for that nor did we have any transport facilities.\nQDid you have anything to do with the Einsatzgruppen or did you have any knowledge of their activities?\nAOnly here in the course of this trial, that is in the course of of those Nurnberg trials, I heard about the Einsatzgruppen and their activities.\nQWere any concentration camps under your jurisdiction?\nANo, concentration camps were subordinated to the WVHA or to the Reich Security Main Office respectively. In my area when I was higher SS and police leader there was the concentration camp Natzweiler. I visited this camp twice, and I found out that the prisoners there were correctly treated and that they were well accommodated, I never had been able to see a trace of criminal activity. At that time I asked the chief of the Security Police whether the prisoners after having served their term in prison, would be released. He answered me that applications for the examination of the arrest were made regularly and that these prisoners were released in accordance with the findings of these examinations.\nQDid you also talk to the prisoners themselves?\nAYes, when I was there for the second time I had a conversation with one of the prisoners who told me that he was sentenced to a seven years' confinement in a penitentiary. At that time I had the impression that most of those prisoners were criminals.\nQDid you as far as you were able to help these prisoners also?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3293, "page_number": "3286", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AWell, I don't want to say that I aided these particular prisoners, but Sister Pia who was quite well known in Bavaria approached me, and paid me a visit in Berlin and asked me for financial help, for the support of families whose heads were inmates in concentration camps. This Sister Pia currently received financial aid from me which was especially designated for that purpose. I myself gave her these funds, and also my successor Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt.\nQDid you also render help in individual cases?\nAWherever I could I did that. Among others, Frau Winifried Wagner approached me; she wanted me to intercede on behalf of a friend of hers, and I immediately went into the matter more thoroughly and did whatever I could do. At that time this was a man called Traenkle, as far as I remember.\nQI shall later on submit affidavits concerning this point. Now, did you also use the guards in these concentration camps?\nANormally I could not have done that. However, I remember that in the middle of 1944 I received an order from Himmler; in accordance with this orderin case of any disturbances, parts of the guard units were supposed to be subordinated to the higher SS and police leader whose guards who were not absolutely necessary for the guarding these camps. However, in my area no disturbances arose, that is cases of internal disturbance and therefore it was not necessary to make use of these guard units in any way.\nQBut Herr Hofmann, in your capacity as chief of the RuSHA and as Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS you certainly must have known of criminal activities with which parts of the SS were charged.\nAI know very well that you have never quite believed me on that point, Dr. Schwarz; however, I must tell you that that was not the case. I only found out about certain crimes now; the reason for this may be that the organizations of the SS were employed in part outside of the \n area of the Reich proper, and in part the reason for that may be that after all these crimes were kept very secret.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3294, "page_number": "3287", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "The essential point, however, is that the sphere of activity of the RuSHA was on quite a different level. I would like to say on a level that was almost in contradiction to that one. We were especially in charge of carrying on our peace time tasks, and the social welfare work increased. That is the care for the war disabled and the widows and orphans. In my capacity as higher SS and police leader, I had to take care more and more of the welfare, but mainly these were matters concerning airprecaution which also was my main task during the two years when I was assigned to the southwest of the Reich.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have finished my direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3295, "page_number": "3288", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "DR. CARLHAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Ulrich Greifelt):\nI would like to ask a few questions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQWitness, in tour direct examination you said that it is possible that a few members of the SS were settled by virtue of the priority scale decree. I consciously emphasize this priority scale decree. And, at the same time, you then mentioned the Himmler's decree 14-4, as being the priority scale decree. I would like to ask you to clarify whether this juxtaposition of two quite different decree was not an error on your part. Do you know that by \"priority scale decree\" we mean a document here in this trial which was signed by Greifelt and Winkler and which has nothing to do with 14-4? Or didn't you know that?\nAWell, I believe that the assignment of those people was based on this priority scale decree, if it happened at all.\nQAnd 14-4?\nAI can't at the moment remember 14-4 could you show it to me?\nQI am sorry, I don't have the priority scale decree here, but I shall show that to you after the recess.\nIn your direct examination you made comments in connection with your affidavit, which was submitted as Exhibit 498. I would like to come back to that briefly. In paragraph 4 of your affidavit you stated that the Main Staff Office made its decisions according to the directives of the Reichsfuehrer SS and that the RuS leader examined those people who had incurred punishment for illicit sexual intercourse. And then you also referred to your own report, Exhibit 481, and this report bears your signature. This letter does not mention the Main Staff Office. Can you remember with certainty whether the Main Staff Office had anything to do with the proceedings concerning illicit sexual intercourse?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. CARL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3296, "page_number": "3289", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AAs far as I could see from these decrees, they were all issued by the Reich Main Office. The Main Staff Office only took part in these things at a time when a man suitable for Germanization was released from these proceedings and was included in the re-Germanization procedure.\nQI must then understand you to the effect that the Main Staff Office was included when the question of whether or not this illicit sexual intercourse was to be punished was already decided?\nAYes.\nQThank you, that is all on that.\nIn your direct examination you were shown Exhibit 163, Document Book IV-D, page 22 in the German version. You have that before you?\nAYes.\nQAs to that, you yourself said already that Himmler perhaps could have made a similar remark. However, as is mentioned there, that a corresponding order as is mentioned there, had ever been issued.\nAYes, that is what I said.\nQYes. Now in your direct examination you connected with this document the decree 67-1. Does that mean anything to you?\nAYes, it does.\nQDo you agree with me that decree 67-1 refers to children of German descent from the Warthegau?\nAYes, I agree with you.\nQNow, if you will please take a look at what is before you, does this document talk about children of female Eastern workers? Therefore, perhaps you might have to correct your memory to the effect whether 67-1 could be in connection with his desire of Himmler's mentioned in/to issue some decree, which probably was not issued?\nAIn this case, children of Poles suitable for Germanization are mentioned, and I can only say one thing, that in the field office of Lodz in no case were children separated from their parents because their parents made special difficulties, or that any order to that effect had been issued by Greifelt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3297, "page_number": "3290", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QThank you, that will be sufficient in connection with this point.\nI am now in the fortunate position to show you what we mean by \"priority scale decree\".\n(Document submitted to witness).\nYou will see the signature on the left-hand side. Is this decree identical with that which you understand by 14-4, this decree of Himmler's?\nAPerhaps I confused these two.\nQYes, these are obviously two quite different documents.\nIn your affidavit, Exhibit 58, which will be found in Document Book II-C, which I will show you in just a moment, you will find a statement which I shall refer to now. In your direct examination you said that you and your agency had nothing to do with seizure and requisitioning. Now, in this affidavit, on pages 92 and 93, we find the statement that those poles whose farms had been seized were brought to Lodz by the UWZ.\nDo you have that place?\nAYes, I have it.\nQI would now like to ask you this. As Chief of the RuSHA, did you have knowledge of the legislation concerning seizure, administration, and possible requisitioning of Polish and other alien property?\nAThese various differentiations and this terminology have only become known to me here.\nQIs the same also true concerning connections between the HTO the Ostland, and the Four Year Plan?\nAYes.\nQI have another question concerning the establish ment of the re-Germanization procedure. If I understood you correctly, you seem to maintain the opinion that Pancke received the first orders in this connection from Himmler.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3298, "page_number": "3291", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AYes, that is possible. After all, eight years have passed since then and it is not quite simple to reconstruct these things. However, I must refer to the documents that are here, the decrees and the various file notes, as well as to my memory. The witness Pancke has stated here that Fehndrich had been with Himmler several times during this period of time, and Fehndrich presided the meetings in this sense.\nI believe that all the statements that Fehndrich made in his book, \"Der Menscheneinsatz\", are extracts of all the ideas that he had absorbed in the conversations with Himmler.\nQOf course, there are lots of difficulties in connection with establishing the date of events long passed. But one must try to establish the facts. May I please remind you of the decree 17-2? Does that mean anything to you?\nAYes.\nQThat is contained in IV-C, page 3. You have it there?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:20.\n(A recess was taken).", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3299, "page_number": "3292", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQThe attempt or effort to have the origins of the DVD procedure clarified have not been terminated as yet, and I would like to continue, and terminate it now, if possible. I am submitting to you from Document Book IV-C, Document 106, Exhibit 140 and 138. Would you please tell me, witness, from what period these two documents originate? One of them is signed by you.\nAThat is Exhibit 140; yes, that is signed by me. That is dated 16 March 1940.\nQWhat about the other one? That refers to Decree 17-2.\nAYes, that is right, Decree 17-2. That is the 9 of May 1940.\nQWell, will you tell me whether this decree involves the first decree concerning the procedure itself or whether it represents labor assignment measures decreed on the strength of a regulation already existing.\nAVery often the situation is that decrees which were made verbally were only later put down in writing, and in the sentence, \"Therefore I have decreed..,\" Himmler in the Decree 17-2 confirmed these decrees which probably he had already issued verbally previously. It refers to the fact that according to the directives, he, Himmler, had issued, a selection had to be made. Later, the decree refers also to the lodging of the persons.\nQFor this, not the contents of the decree are interesting but also the fact as to whether this decree submitted to you followed a previous decree which had already been issued either verbally or in writing.\nAYes, there were already verbal directives issued by Himmler.\nQPreviously?\nAYes, previously.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3300, "page_number": "3293", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QVery well. Now, I mean, of course we can't expect you to know, but in order to complete the whole thing I ask you, do you know from what period on the introductory words of Dr. Fehndrich concerning the resettlers' assignment originated?\nAAccording to my opinion, they were in the early spring of 1940, or about that period.\nQI can't ask you to know this.\nAWell, perhaps before May, or something like that.\nQWell, what would you say if it wasn't that way but differently? I mean if they were issued in December 1940?\nAWhat time do you mean?\nQDecember '40.\nAWell, maybe they were printed at that time.\nQBut you don't know it?\nANo, I don't know it. I mean the ideas and the whole conception here were already executed before.\nQWitness, do you have II-A there?\nAYes, I have it.\nQYou have Exhibit 19 in Book II-A, and it was submitted to you in direct examination and you termed it as a business distribution plan of the Main Staff Office. Now I ask you to look at this Exhibit 19. Perhaps you would want the term slightly, according to the title to this document.\nAExhibit 19 is a survey of the agency and a list of addresses of the Main Staff Office, according to the situation of the first of April 1944; on page 72, it shows the Racial Office, the Settlement Office, the Field Agency Litzmannstadt(Lodz) as agencies of the Main agency.\nQBut the business distribution plan is a different exhibit, isn't it?\nAI would say that it's Exhibit 18.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3301, "page_number": "3294", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QThank you. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQWitness, I have only one question. Yesterday in direct examination you mentioned a conference in the Main Staff Office of 1940 where the question of re-Germanization procedure was basically discussed. Now you told us that the meeting was presided over by Dr. Fehndrich.\nAYes.\nQWell, did professor Meyer-Hetling attend that meeting?\nAI couldn't tell you whether he was there. I don't think he was because I think he had nothing to do with those questions. According to my recollection, I made Professor Meyer-Hetling's acquaintance at the time, he was only Meyer -- only in '41 or '42 I assume this Meyer is identical with Meyer-Hetling. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Herbert Huebner):\nQWitness, I am putting to you your affidavit, Prosecution DocumentNO-4699, Exhibit 58, from Document Book II-C. In that affidavit you state that it was in the Gau Posen the task of the defendant Huebner to make the racial examination of children who were to be sent to the Lebensborn. Do you want to maintain that statement or what do you mean by that?\nAWhat I meant to say by that was that it would have been the task of the local race and settlement leader -- in this particular case, the task of Huebner -- to carry out such selections. But in his area, there was the field agency of Lodz, and as I found out in the meantime, it was that field agency which had to take care of these tasks. At the time when I made the affidavit, I expressed quite clearly, I think, that I cannot recall any practical instances or cases.\nQThank you. Witness, in 1941 you suggested a promotion of the defendant Huebner, that he be promoted to Standartenfuehrer, and you pointed out the fact that he had the Blood Order of the Nazi Party.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3302, "page_number": "3295", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Did you want to point out special merits which he had within the Nazi Party, or what was the reason for that?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3303, "page_number": "3296", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AI didn't mean to point to special merits which Huebner had in the party. The Blood Order didn't depend on special merits either; it depended only on the participation in the march of the 9 of November 1923. At the time Huebner was detached to another agency. I wanted to see to it that he was promoted, and for that reason in order to motivate this promotion, I mentioned that he had the Blood Order of the Nazi party.\nQBut at the time, as he didn't work for the RUS Main Office, you couldn't explain your position as to his factual work?\nANo.\nQThank you. No further question. BY DR. PRACHT (for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQWitness, how long do you know the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAI know him since about 1933--about the middle of 1933.\nQIn what capacity did you make his acquaintance?\nAAt the time he was Chief of the main sector south at Munich.\nQDid you have often dealings with him and do you remember a special case where you had a contact with him personally?\nAAt the time I didn't have direct dealings with him yet, but the name Hildebrandt and the personality of Hildebrandt at the time was rather striking on account of the incident he had here in Nurnberg with Gauleiter Streicher. At the time Hildebrandt, on behalf of Himmler, had to negotiate with Streicher, and during these negotiations, very stringent disputes arose, and at that time Streicher became very insulting towards Hildebrandt. He always had a whip with him and he threatened Hildebrandt with that riding whip. Thereupon Hildebrandt drew his pitol--and I am convinced that he would have shot Streicher down if Streicher had advanced one more step towards him.\nQWitness, can you tell us what was the reason for this fanatic hatred between Streicher and Hildebrandt--the basic reason?\nAFirst of all, quite in general on account of the fact that Hildebrandt was a member of the SS. That was already sufficient with \n Streicher.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3304, "page_number": "3297", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "He didn't like them.\nQDidn't the fact that Hildebrandt was an opponent of antiSemitism in Streicher's sense play a part too?\nADoubtless, you could say that. I also know that Hildebrandt not only was no advocator of Streicher's ideas. but that he even opposed them and even opposed propaganda for the Stuermer. Of course Streicher had his ears everywhere and might have learned of that. and as Streicher had a very dominating nature and wanted to be the Lord everywhere, it was no wonder if he hated Hildebrandt.\nQOne last question. What was Himmler's attitude in this dispute?\nAAt the time already Himmler made it a great point to have as good relationship as possible with the Gauleiters. He thought it was the thing to do. and this attitude was the attitude of which Hildebrandt became the victim. At the time he made Hildebrandt resign and sent him to Silesia. and demoted him by one rating. Hildebrandt became only a leader of the sector and not of the main sector.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm):\nQWitness, when did the defendant Schwalm join the RuSHA as a Staff leader?\nAOn the first of March 1943.\nQWas Schwalm at any time your deputy as Chief of the RuSHA?\nAWell, there were only a few weeks, and I already said that Brigadefuehrer Heider was the one who deputized for me. Schwalm didn't deputize for me.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SEILLER:\nQWitness, during your direct examination, you didn't follow Himmler's example at Posen but instead you had been reading the answers \n to the questions, have you not?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3305, "page_number": "3298", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AI didn't understand.\nQWitness, I will repeat. During your direct examination, I said you did not follow the example set by Himmler at Posen of speaking extemporaneously but instead you have been reading your answers to these questions, isn't that correct?\nAHimmler made his speech on the strength of notes he had prepared.\nQWitness, have you been reading your answers to the questions put to you by your defense counsel?\nAI used this aid for my memory,\nQWitness, will you please answer me. You did read the answers as a whole, did you not?\nAMost of the time; not all--no, not all.\nQWitness, weren't these answers with all the details and many references to documents prepared by your counsel?\nANo, I couldn't say that; no, no.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I object against this line of questioning. It has no connection with the subject matter of the direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It is my view, and I think the view of the other members of the Tribunal, that it is a proper line of questioning. It is our idea that a witness can, if he desires, read his answers, but it might or might not go to the credibility of his testimony. On that theory, I think the line of questioning is proper. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, did the RUS leaders on the staffs of the Higher SS and Police Leaders take their orders from the RuSHA or from the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nAThe RUS leaders had to receive expert directives from the RuSHA while directives concerning special activities were issued by the Higher SS and Police Leaders. It might be possible, however, that in one case or the other, certain directives were also issued by the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3306, "page_number": "3299", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QWitness, these RUS leaders conducted racial examinations themselves and also through their staffs of examiners, did they not?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3307, "page_number": "3300", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "ASS leaders in race and settlement matters carried out racial selections. However they used also the racial examiners attached to them, and may I supplement in every Army District there was a supplementary agency to which a racial examiner also belonged and if necessary this racial examiner could be entrusted with such tasks.\nQThese RUS leaders and the examiners attached to them, when they coneucted these racial examinations, did so on the basis of the technical directives issued by the RuSHA, that is, the method and judgments and so on were according to directives of RUSHA. Isn't that correct?\nAYou mean, counsel, in the capacity of Higher SS and police Leader they did so?\nQNo, I am talking about the examinations conducted by the RUS leaders and examiners attached to them. Now these examinations, weren't they conducted according to the technical directives that you have mentioned as being issued by RUSHA.\nAAs far as expert directives were concerned, yes, which were issued by RuSHA.\nQAs Higher SS and Police Leader you represented the RKFDV in many activities, did you not?\nAI was representative in Wuerttemberg and deputy representative in Baden and Alsace.\nQWitness, my question was, as such representative you participated in many varied activities, did you not?\nAWell, you can't just term it that way, that there were many activities. It has already been described that a large part of this work was in the field of welfare for the persons eligible for re-Germanization, that is, of the poles eligible and the Slovenes eligible, and that also as \n representative of the Reich Commissar the Higher SS and police Leader worked in such cases as contained in counts 12, 13 and 14 of the indictment.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3308, "page_number": "3301", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "1 think that is about it.\nQWitness, in such natters you were the man in charge, were you not, for your area? That is, Grotz for instance was subordinate to you, was he not?\nAGrotz was the chief of an office within my main agency. He was under my orders and expert directives partly would also be issued directly from central agencies to him.\nQDidn't you supervise the activities of Grotz?\nAWell, Grotz described himself already that sometimes he would report to me and submit matters to me. His agency was at Hechingen, after the Stuttgart agency had been damaged by bombing in the Autumn of 1943. I couldn't tell you exactly, but sometime around that, Hechingen was about 35 or 40 miles to Stuttgart.\nQWitness, I am sure if you tried you could answer my questions a little more briefly. Please try to do so.\nAYes, I'll try.\nQOn direct examination today you commented on Document NO 2558, Prosecution Exhibit653, in Book 14-C. This is a letter to you dated 28 October 1942 concerning 10,000 pairs of children's stockings and 2,000 pairs of children's gloves being sent to you from Russia. Do you remember that document clearly?\nAYes.\nQPlease take another look at it.\nAYes.\nQWitness, didn't you know that these stockings and gloves had been taken away from Russian children at the beginning of this second war winter?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3309, "page_number": "3302", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "ANo, I didn't know that at all.\nQWitness, did you think that these items had been procured legitimately in Russia?\nAWell, that was what I had to assume.\nQWitness, why then was this letter stamped secret?\nAI couldn't tell you why. I thought it was superflous to send it as a secret letter.\nQThank you. Witness, you testified that as Higher SS and Police Leader you paid a great deal of attention to air raid precautions in your area. You knew, didn't you, that slave laborers in your area were allowed into air raid shelters only after every one else was taken care of and provided there was then any room left for them?\nAThose were original directives but later on they were rescinded and I myself made special efforts to see to it that in every plant new shelters were cons tructed where the whole staff could be placed. That was especially important if only for the reason that these Eastern workers, if they were left to themselves, and dispersed during an air raid attack might, under certain circumstances, not return to their work. Therefore, precautions had to be taken and these people enjoyed the same protection as the German population and that was what I advocated.\nQWitness, as Higher SS and Police Leader on at least one occasion you procured Jewish women as Slave labor for industry, did you not?\nAYou mean that affair in the Wuerttemberg Metal factory, don't you?\nQYes, witness.\nAI didn't procure those women.\nQWill you please look at DocumentNO 2412. This is \n as affidavit Signed by you on 30 November 1945 which I now *---* for Identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.837. will you please look at paragraph 6, or rather paragraph 7, of this affidavit.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3310, "page_number": "3303", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "I'm sorry, witness, paragraph 6 is correct.\nAYes, I see it. Do you want me to comment on that?\nQYes, witness, because it seems to contradict your testimony.\nANo, I don't see any contradiction, none at all. There is the following: This Dr. Bausbach either paid me a visit or called me over the telephone and he requested me to see to it that he should get laborers which he had already requested with the WVHA. He told me he was responsible for a very urgent production in his factory and asked me to intercede and to support his labor request in Berlin and I -\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor I object against this affidavit. It was not used in direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now the ruling about other documents was that they would be admissible if they contradicted the testimony of the witness and that is the contention of the Prosecution in this case, that it does contradict it. Over-ruled.\nDR. SCHWARZ:The only thing I ask to be permitted to do is to draw the Tribunal's attention to the fact that the question, put by the Prosecution on the basis of this affidavit is, whether the defendant had brought Jewish women to Wuerttemberg as slave labor; this question was never touched upon by me.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is not my recollection. Go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWill you please now answer the question, witness, \n I asked you, if you can explain the singular contradictory statement in your affidavit?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3311, "page_number": "3304", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AWell you see the request of the Wuerttemberg Metal Factory for labor had already been submitted to the WVHA. The affair was already in full swing and Bausbach said to himself that maybe I could help him to expedite matters, to see to it that he got the labor and no mention was made at all of Jewish women there. I, at the time, told Bausbach that I would send a teletype to Berlin in order to see to it that he would get the workers as quickly as possible. I did that and expressed it also during my first interrogation. that I did it because the Wuerttemberg Metal Factory was known for the fact that in every respect they had a perfect and exemplary conditions also in the social field.\nQWitness, of whether or not you thought these people would be well taken care of, you knew that the laborers procured through the WVHA were slave laborers, did you not?\nAWell, yesterday already it was expressed that you have to make certain reserves that you can't term it directly as slave labor because comparatively the workers were very well housed and I know for certain also, at least as far as the Wuerttemberg Metal Factory was concerned, they were well fed too.\nQWitness, if you feed someone and pay them something for their work regardless of the fact that you keep them under imprisonment and force them to work, that is not slave labor according to your ideas. Is that correct?\nAWell, I don't know why these people were prsioners, what they had done to be prisoners; that is not my knowledge. After all I had nothing to do with the RSHA and the WVHA and I emphasize that when Dr. Burkhardt came to see \n me, neither he nor myself knew that later 700 Jewish women were sent there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3312, "page_number": "3305", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "Nobody knew that.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3313, "page_number": "3306", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QYou found that out later, did you not, witness?\nAI found that out only later.\nQDid you attempt to do anything about it? Did you express any idea that this was wrong?\nAI couldn't do anything because these women were under the authority of the WVHA or of the RSHA. As I have already expressed here, I interceded to see to it that when the American troops approached, these women were to stay in the plant in order to be handed over to the Americans then. That was all I could do, after all.\nQWitness, in your affidavit it doesn't quite say that. In paragraph 6 it says that you disclaimed all responsibility for these women when the American troops were approaching.\nABut I told the interrogator, mind you, that the women were to stay in the factory. The factory director wanted to send the women away.\nQWitness -\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I ask the attorney two or three questions? As I read paragraph 6, where is there any reference to \"Jewish\" other than in the caption?\nMR. SHILLER:There is no reference to Jewish women, other than in the caption, Your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Then what warrants your question of why were Jewish women sent as slave laborers, if there is no word there that connects the word \"women\" with \"Jewish\"?\nMR. SHILLER:Well, your Honor, in the caption it says \"Jewish women used as slave laborers.\" That is the integral part of the affidavit.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You construe the caption as a part of the affidavit?", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "MR. SHILLER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3314, "page_number": "3307", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Well, I consider that the paragraph is labeled by the caption, Your Honor, and the witness has not denied that these were Jewish women from Hungary.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Is there anything in the affidavit in paragraph six that in any way identifies these women as Jewish?\nMR. SHILLER:No, there is nothing else there, Your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right. Do you understand the caption is in the original affidavit?\nMR. SHILLER:I believe it is, Your Honor. If we can take a look at the exhibit .... Yes, Your Honor, it is here in the original German of the exhibit.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you were chief of the RuSHA you knew of the racial examinations of Poles and others arrested for a sexual intercourse, and you knew what followed from the results of the racial examinations, did you not?\nAI think concerning that matter I have spoken already very extensively during my examination.\nQWitness, I am usually asking you questions about what you have already testified, so it should be no surprise to you if you have mentioned this subject before. Just answer my question.\nAAs chief of the RuSHA, I knew that racial examiners had been appointed for that purpose.\nQDid you know that after the racial examinations were made that these men were either declared suitable for Germanization or else put aside for special treatment? Didn't you know that as well, witness?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "Q", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3315, "page_number": "3308", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AIn some manner of course one would know that Himmler would make a decision to one or the other effect.\nQWitness, will you please take a look at Document No. NO-5724, which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No. 838? This is an order from Mueller of the RSHA, dated 10 March 1942, concerning exactly these cases and concerning the results after the racial examination had been made. A copy of this, according to the distribution list, was sent to the Main Race & Settlement Office-SS Berlin.\nAMay I first tell you that there has been a mistake in translation. It was referred to the RuSHA but the order was issued by the RSHA.\nQWitness, I said the order was issued by Mueller of the RSHA but, according to the distribution list, a copy was sent to the RUSHA.\nAThat is correct.\nQWitness, will you please look at paragraphs 3 and 4?\nAYes.\nQIsn't it quite clear from these paragraphs what happened after the racial examination, and that the racial examination is decisive?\nAWell, the racial selection was decisive as far as. the positive side was concerned. You can read in paragraph 4, if you look at it, that it says there: \"In negative cases, as usual, a suggestion for special treatment has been made.\" That is to say, as was customary otherwise.\nQVery well, witness. In fixing the suitability for Germanization of the families evacuated from Lower. Styria and Upper Carniola it was the RuSHA which had the final determination, was it not?\nAI couldn't tell you without any more detailed \n description because there were quite a few oases of deportation, as has already been mentioned here.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3316, "page_number": "3309", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QWell, you have testified on direct examination, witness, concerning evacuations from Lower Styria and Upper Carniola. Now, in determining the suitability for Germanization, was it not the RuSHA which made the final decision in those cases, on the basis of racial examination of course?\nAOn the strength of racial examinations but on the strength of general directives issued by Himmler.\nQYes, but, witness, can you now recall more or less what we are talking about?\nCan you now answer my question? Was it not the RuSHA which made the final decision?\nAWell, the whole matter is the following. In all cases the deportation had to be made formally, and only then, in most cases, a racial solution was made, as to whether the deportees were suitable or not for reGermanization. If it should be established on the strength of the expert opinion of the racial examiners that the deportees were suitable for re-Germanization, then the persons involved would enjoy the privileges connected with re-Germanization\nQWitness, after all this will you now answer my question briefly? was it not the RuSHA which had the final decision in these cases?\nAA final decision, after all, depended, as I have repeatedly stressed here already, on several factors. The political moment was also decisive.\nQThat is enough right now, witness. Will you please take a look at Document No. No-5565 which I now offer for \n identification as Prosecution Exhibit839? This is a letter from the Raoe Office of the RuSHA to the Gau Labor, Allocation Office, Main-Franken, dated 20 October, 1942, concerning the final determination of the suitability for Germanization of the people concerning whom we have been talking here.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3317, "page_number": "3310", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AFactual directives of the Racial Office were sent to the Gau Labor Allocation Office, Main-Franken, which had been issued in agreement with the RKF.\nQWitness, can you now tell the Tribunal whether or not the RUSHA had the final determination in those cases, as would seem to be stated in this letter?\nAThe only thing I see here is a mention of a checking by a representative of the RuSHA, but I don't see anything about a final decision here -- yes, final determination of the suitability for re-Germanization; but it says here \"For the purpose of a cross-checking.\" But I don't know this letter; it seems to me that this rather involves a checking of the lists and not of the persons.\nQWitness -\nAMay I supplement that these persons were already in the camps.\nQYes, witness -\nAAnd then through re-Germanization procedure it might have been possible for them to be released from the camps, perhaps.\nMR. SHELLER:May it please the Tribunal, I realize that I have taken approximately thirty minutes, but I have had a number of interruptions and I respectfully ask for approximately ten minutes longer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, you haven't had but twenty-two \n yet, so go ahead.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. SHELLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3318, "page_number": "3311", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "I will give you a little extra time.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3319, "page_number": "3312", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QWitness, on direct examination you stated that Order 67-1, that is the order concerning Germanization of Polish children, was sent out by Greifelt and the Main Staff Office, but was never sent out by the RuSHA; is that correct?\nAWell, this doesn't involve the re-Germanization of the Polish children but of ethnic German children, this Decree 67-1.\nQWell, let's not quibble now as to what we mean by this. You know the order in question 67-1? Is it correct that on your direct examination you stated this order had not been sent out to RuS leaders by the RuSHA?\nAI don't think that I have testified to that. It is possible that the racial office has sent a copy of the order to the RuS leaders.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO-3291?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Shiller, I was in error; you had had thirty-two minutes instead of twenty-two, so I will give you probably -- you probably have had five minutes interruption, and I will give you five more minutes.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you.\nAYes, that is a letter and it is addressed to the SS leader in the Race and Settlement matters, and in this letter the directive 67-1 is attached.\nMR. SHILLER:I respectfully submit this document for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.840.\nQWitness, on direct examination you testified as to how beautifully you treated the prisoners of war in the District South West. Do you remember that Russian women prisoners of war were screened and that those found politically unreliable were to be turned over to the Security Police, to SIPO; do you remember that, witness?\nAWomen?\nQYes, women.\nAWell, just now I couldn't tell you.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO-4636, which I offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit841. As you can see by the distribution list, copy was sent to the senior or higher SS and police \n leaders.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3320, "page_number": "3313", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "This is dated 11th April, 1944, and is an order from the chief of the Security Police and of the SD.\nAYes.\nQNow, do you see, witness, the excerpts given from a decree of the OKW concerning Soviet women prisoners of war?\nAYes.\nQDidn't you carry that out or see that it was carried out or know that it was carried out in your district?\nAI ask you to take into consideration firstly that I didn't know anything about having Russian female prisoners of war in my area at all; and secondly, the higher commander of the prisoners of war would have been the competent man, at least mainly for the security of the camps, but there I can't remember that such a practical case did occur at all in my area.\nQYes, you have answered the question. Do you remember in connection with prisoners of war getting and passing on the so-called flier order that the police were not to protect American fliers who were forced down, that is protect them from illtreatment or death at the hands of the German populace?\nAI remember the order.\nQDo you remember getting and passing on this order, witness?\nAI remember having received it.\nQDo you deny you followed out your orders to pass this order on to lower levels?\nAI don't remember having passed on this order.\nQWitness, when and why did you visit the concentration camp Natzweiler? Please answer very briefly.\nAI visited the concentration camp when I started work in my office about a month or two after I had started, and I visited it again about toward the middle of 1944.. Then the camp was to be evacuated, and the lodgings and housing facilities were to be made available for a military purpose, and the purpose of the visit was to establish and determine \n whether these housing facilities were suitable for the intended purpose.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3321, "page_number": "3314", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QWitness, did you ever hear while there of the medical experiments carried out on the prisoners, on certain of the prisoners?\nANo, never.\nQWritness, Amberger, who has testified, was a subordinate who exceeded his instructions and competency in talking about sterilization. Kaserer, you say, although on a higher level, also exceeded his competency in talking about sterilization. Yet, witness, you talked of sterilization at the meeting on the 20th January 1942 and continued to be kept informed of the discussions of sterilization after that meeting, did you not?\nAWell, in what connection; can't you specify that?\nQWitness, in connection with the sterilization of part Jews. After this meeting of 20 January, 1942, didn't you continue to be informed as to what discussions were going on concerning that proposition?\nAI had received two letters, yes.\nQDidn't you receive any other letters besides the ones mentioned and offered for identification by your Counsel?\nACounsel, I can hardly remember those two letters, and all the more the less can I remember the others.\nQWitness, will you take a look at DocumentNO-4055, which I now offer as Prosecution Exhibit842.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Shiller, your time is about up; I will give you time for one more question.\nMR. SHILLER:Well then, I should like to submit to the witness, Your Honor, a copy of the interrogation transcript on which he was questioned concerning the matters in the affidavit which he repudiated yesterday.\nQWitness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will permit you to ask him about those two documents that you have already given to him if you want to ask him about them.\nQWitness, on that last document, witness, No.NO-455, which is a letter from Schlegelberger to Lammers submitting another report on a final solution of the Jewish problem concerning sterilization of part Jews, \n aren't you listed at the end of the distribution list as one of the persons getting a copy?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3322, "page_number": "3315", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "AYes.\nQDo you remember getting that, witness?\nAToday I cannot recall any longer. In 1946 I read this letter again for the first time in a newspaper, but it is likely that I have received it; it is likely.\nQWitness, didn't all this talk about sterilization make any impression on you? Weren't you shocked by it?\nAI have already said this morning that I was of the opinion that nothing was really done in the matter, and in practice nothing was done.\nQVery well, witness, Let's turn to the transcript.\nMR. SHILLER:I offer that document as Prosecution Exhibit No.843, for identification at this time.\nQWitness, yesterday you made a very serious charge to the effect that during a certain interrogation you had been threatened with hanging for committing perjury, and that, therefore, you had given false figures as to the number of cases wherein you knew of people being hanged for committing sexual intercourse. Now, this is a copy of the transcript of the interrogation which I believe to be the one you have in mind. Will you please read from question 4 on page 1 through question 7 on page 2.\nAWhat page, please?\nQPage 1, beginning on page 1.\nAYes.\nQQuestion 4.\nMR. SHILLER:I am sorry, Your Honor, I have no other copies of this transcript.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: How are we to understand either the question or the answer?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honors, I am not going to question him in detail; I am merely giving him this transcript and a chance to refresh his recollection. I will then ask him if he wishes to withdraw his allegation. If \n he does not, I will at a later date submit a certified copy of the transcript of this interrogation in full.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "JUDGE", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3323, "page_number": "3316", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "If the witness doesn't identify this interrogation, I will submit certified copies of all interrogations in our possession of this witness.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: My judgment is that the present examination, if we haven't got the document in front of us\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, I am merely giving the witness a chance to withdraw his accusation. He acted in a very confused manner yesterday, if I may say so upon being questioned by the Tribunal in this connection.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right; go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, have you read from question 4 on page one through question 7 on page 2?\nAI have just glanced at it.\nQWill you also glance over the questions on page 6, from question No. 24 until question 60.\nAYes, please; go ahead.\nQWitness, is this the interrogation and are those the questions concerning which you made the charges in this Court yesterday?\nAI assume that that is a true copy and I have to admit that it is; I have to rely on that at least.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "MR. SHILLER", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3324, "page_number": "3317", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "QWitness, if you don't think so, please say so.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I ask, what are the charges that you refer to?\nMR. SHILLER:Well, yesterday, Your Honor, the witness claimed that Dr. Schwenk of the Prosecution had intimidated him during an interrogation by threatening to hang him for committing perjury and by stating that men had. been hanged for committing perjury.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I recall that testimony, but what do your questions now seek to establish, without presenting the Court with what the affidavit is or the interrogation is that you refer to?\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I don't at this moment have a certified copy of this interrogation. What I am trying to do is merely refresh the witness's recollection, and I will then ask. him whether it is refreshed, and, if it is, whether or not he wishes to withdraw his charges.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: But it seems to me that that is asking him to deny something on blanc. It isn't helpful to me, as a member of the Tribunal; I don't know how it is helpful to my colleagues. I would like to know what it is that he is alleged to have said on another occasion.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I ask whether the instrument that he has in his hand is a copy of something or the original of something?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, this is one of a number of copies of the transcript of the interrogation.\nTHE PRESIDENT:And it is not the original?\nMR. SHILLER:Well, it was made at the time. I would not call it the original as being the first copy.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, is the original in existence?\nMR. SHILLER:I will procure a certified copy, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think you had better do that. I agree with Judge O'Connell. I don't think it is quite fair to hand a man a copy of something. I think you ought to have the original here, under the circumstances.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to be allowed \n to present a certified copy of the transcript of the interrogation to the witness Hofmann at 9:30 tomorrow morning.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3325, "page_number": "3318", "date": "07 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-07", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You probably have 30 or 40 seconds in which to do that.\nMR. SHILLER:Otherwise, the Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(At 1635 hours, 7 January 1948, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 8 January 1948).", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3326, "page_number": "3319", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, de fendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 8 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nOTTO HOFFMANN, Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION - Continued\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I should like to make one slight correction in yesterday's record before proceeding. The Exhibit 843 should have been (Exhibit ) 842. BY DR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, I am now submitting to you a certified copy, certified by both men who interrogated you, of the interrogation of the 20 of May, 1947. Will you please look at questions 4 through 7? ... Please tell me when you have finished, witness.\nA.Yes, I have read it.\nQ.Will you please turn to page 6, witness, and look at questions 42 through 60?\nDR.SCHWARZ (Counsel for defendant Hoffmann): I object against the submission of this document, Your Honor. This is not a document, and you cannot make a certified copy of something like that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, he hasn't offered it yet. I don't know what he intends to do; however, you have consumed considerably more time than allotted to you for this witness. If you want to ask him whether \n this is correct or not, ask him, if he knows.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3327, "page_number": "3320", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "I can't extend your time to the extent of going into a detailed cross-examination of him about this incident.\nHR. SHILLER:I have only one or two questions, Your Honor. BY HR. SHILLER:\nQ.Have you finished looking over these questions, witness?\nA.Your Honor, I have looked at these questions. These minutes were not known to me up to now. I see them for the first time today, and I really don't know what intention counsel has with these papers.\nQ.Witness, I will ask you a couple of questions; if you will just answer them. These portions that you have read dealt with the matters you discussed during your direct examination, that is, with the charge made during the interrogation that you had committed perjury, and also with the questions concerning the number of men killed because of having sexual intercourse. Isn't that correct?\nA.No, that is wrong. I said that Dr. Schwenk, who interrogated me, told me that on the 19th of May, 1947, in connection with the questionsof eastern workers, \"On account of this several of your people have been hanged already.\" That is what I said.\nQ. witness, -\nA.And in that I saw an indirect threat, and in this connection I must say here I am not the only man to whom that happened. It happened to defendant Huebner; he has already testified to the same effect.\nQ.Will you please answer my question. That is enough. Will you please answer my question?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, he has answered it by saying that it is not correct.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you, your Honor. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.You have denied that this is a correct transcript. Is that what you mean, witness?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3328, "page_number": "3321", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.The minutes were never submitted to me. I see them for the first time. I have not certified it, and I cannot recognize it as a fact because there were cases also where some testimony was left out. For instance, you have the witness Brueckner who can testify to that. And as to the threats and the pressure the witnesses Greifelt and Lorenz can confirm this. They were threatened in a similar manner.\nQ.Witness, do you deny that this is a correct transcript? That is all I an asking you. Please answer yes or no.\nA.I deny that that is a correct transcript. If these threats are not contained in the minutes, then the minutes are not correct.\nMR. SHILLER:No further questions, your Honor...\nMay I at this time, your Honor, offer this document for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.843?\nTHE PRESIDENT:I understand you are offering it now for identification ?\nMR. SHILLER:For identification only.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well..... Proceed.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to suggest to the Prosecution, your Honor, to submit the film track or to have it played, which certainly exists, concerning this interrogation. There must have been a sound track there. In the case of a transcript of an interrogation, there are always deficiencies. And it can now be a verbatim.....\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, may I suggest to counsel that nothing has been offered yet, except as a matter of identification. Your remarks will be in order when he attempts to introduce it in evidence, but so far he has not.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I wish to direct a question to the witness. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQ.The copy of interrogation which has been handed the Court refers to an interrogation on May 20th. You previously testified that \n this threat was made on May 19th.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3329, "page_number": "3322", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.On the 19th of May.\nQ.Yes. In this interrogation before me, dated May 20th, it says, second questioned numbered \"5\" -- \"You made three perjuries yesterday. I shall prove it to you today.\"\nDo you say that the threats were made on the day preceding the 20th or on the day of this interrogation?\nA.These threats were made on the 19th of May.\nQ.So that this copy would not disclose what was said on the 19th?\nA.No, it can't contain it, your Honor.\nQ.All right. Thank you.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3330, "page_number": "3323", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nOTTO HOFMANN, Resumed REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ (Counsel for defendant Hoftmann):\nQ.Mr. Hoftmann, in cross-examination you were asked whether your written notes were drawn up by me, the notes from which, partly, you read your answers in direct examination. Did I draw them up?\nA.No; I have to supplement that by saying that I myself worked my way through all the documents, even through those which only had a faint connection with me, and that I made a written comment on every document, and that a series of documents came to my knowledge only here, that I tried to answer them in great detail, and that therefore I needed an aid for my memory. That is why I prepared my answers very carefully. It is obvious, counsel, that you helped me in that respect, but when I drew up these answers I was always conscious of the importance of the oath and of the fact that I am under oath here, and that I have to testify to the best of my knowledge and belief.\nQ.Is it correct that thereby you wanted to halp speed up the trial?\nA.The case-in-chief has been limited, and in this limited period of time I bad to carry out my defense as well as possible, and I wanted to help speed up this trial.\nQ.Coming now to the individual questions raised in the crossexamination, is it correct that in direct examination you stated that in your capacity of Higher SS & Police Leader you did not have the task of caring for foreign workers?\nA.That is correct.\nQ.Did I ask you on direct examination whether you were concerned with the procurement of foreign laborers?\nA.I think you did.\nQ.You mean procurement?\nA.Yes, I declared that I had nothing to do with foreign workers, \n that only at the end of the war was I called in inasfar as the evacuation did not take place.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3331, "page_number": "3324", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "I had nothing to do with the procurement of the laborers, these foreign laborers,\nQ.On this examination an affidavit of yours was submitted to you, dated November, 1945. Under No. 6 of that affidavit mention was made of the procurement of 700 Jewish women. Do you still have that affidavit there?\nA.Yes. I have it.\nQ.Now, this No. 6 is termed in such a way that it would seem as if you yourself had procured 700 Jewish female workers for a Wuerttemberg factory. Will you please clarify that matter?\nA.At the time I was at Oberursel, and I was in solitary confinement for four and a half months, and after about three months I was brought to the iinterrogation. I myself described this affair to the interrogator. In other words, it was not put to me by the interrogator on the strength of some kind of a document; and in the chronological order the case was the following.\nThe Wuerttemberg metal factory was supposed to produce spare parts for the automatic carbine, 44. That was to be speeded up. And for that the factory needed additional labor. That might be the reason why they had contacted the labor exchange. Anyhow, they seemed to have received instructions to contact the WVHA, and the Wuerttemberg metal factory had already contacted the WVHA. at the time Dr. Bausbach came to see me. He described the whole affair to me, and only asked me, in the interests of the urgency for production, to serve as intermediary and to see to it that the laborers he had already requested would be forwarded to him as quickly as possible. And that is what I did. I requested that the laborers demanded by the Wuerttemberg factory be dispatched in some way that is to grant the labor requests. And I also added the remark that this factory was an enterprise which was managed in an exemplary manner and that this request could only be recommended. Only later did I hear that this factory had \n received 700 Hungarian female Jews.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3332, "page_number": "3325", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "My intervention was only of a secondary nature, not of a primary nature.\nQ.In other words, you did not know at that time that Jewish laborers were to be procured?\nA.No.\nQ.But, as Higher SS & Police Leader, were you competent at all for this kind of labor procurement?\nA.No; Dr. Bausbach thought that he could find support in me.\nQ.Is it correct that you, as Higher SS & Police Leader, were only concerned with the care of people suitable for re-Germanization?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.How many persons suitable for re-Germanization were in your area about how many?\nA.I think Grotz has already testified concerning that question; and I think that an over-all figure of about 3,000, including children, would be correct.\nQ.Now, let us come to the second part of this question. What were the directives in case that the Allied troops would advance, in 1945?\nA.The intention at the time of the Gauleiter of Wuerttemberg was to evacuate these laborers in the direction of Bavaria. Bavaria itself opposed the reception of these people, also because that might have endangered the food situation there, because everything was contracted more and more toward the south of the Reich. And that is how a source of danger originated. I saw that, and I understood that immediately, and therefore, against the orders of the Reichsstatthalter, who was at the same time Reich Defense Commissioner, I took up contact with leading Wuerttemberg industrialists and passed an agreement with them to the effect that these foreign laborers would not be evacuated, that they would be kept in the plants and housed and fed there.\nQ.But that was only a general measure; that did not concern these Jewish women, did it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3333, "page_number": "3326", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.Well, that would apply also in that case.\nQ.In other words, for all the plants at Stuttgart?\nA.Wuerttemberg, in as far as they could be touched at the time?\nQ.How were you concerned again with the question of the 700 Jewish women then?\nA.I recall that Dr. Burkardt called me up and requested me to see to it that these women would he evacuated because he was afraid that if the American troops advanced, these owmen would indulge in excesses. I told him, \"Treat these women decently further on. See to it that they had the housing facilities and their food, and then I think that nothing will happen.\"\nI think that Burkhardt rang me up again afterwards, and he urged the matter again to the same effect. And it is quite possible that then I said that it could be his responsibility, if, in spite of my orders, he could send these women away.\nQ.In other words, you maintain your testimony?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I now put to you Document 5565, which was put to you yesterday in cross-examination. Please look at that document again. Yesterday we were rather in a hurry, so now take your time and look at it.\nWho drew it up?\nA.I recall that last night, when I saw the photostat, I gathered that it was signed by fuehrer Harders, and I think that was the signature. Here, in this reproduction, it says \"Signature illegible.\"\nQ.And to whom is it addressed?\nA.It is addressed to the Gau Commitment Leadership, Main Franconia.\nQ.Did you have knowledge of that letter before you saw it here?\nA.No.\nQ.Are the contents of the document in contradiction with your testimony, according to which the classification experts did not have to decide concerning the deportation?\nA.No, the racial selectors did not have to decide on the deportation.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3334, "page_number": "3327", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.I am submitting to you also Document 3291, which also was submitted to you in cross examination yesterday. Who drew up that document?\nA.This document has been drawn up by one Hauptsturmfuehrer Pichler as can be seen from the dictation sysbol. Pichler was an employee of the Racial Office and it was also signed by him.\nQ.To whom was it addressed?\nA.It is addressed to the SS leader in the Race and Settlement Affairs at Danzig.\nQ.In other words it was not channeled through your agency in your capacity as chief of RuSHA?\nA.No, as can be seen from the whole document, it went directly from the racial office to the SS leader for Race and Settlement Affairs.\nQ.In this connection will you please clarify the question whether and how during your period of office chief of RuSHA the correspondence and the responsibility of the individual offices of the Race and Settlement Office was regulated?\nA.The offices had a large scale independence in factual fields and also certain powers derived from the experiences; they had the powers to have direct correspondence.\nQ.Witness, I am now showing you in this connection Exhibit 55, in Document Book II-C, and I ask you to determine whether this provisional rule of office is in line with the regulations you just mentioned.\nA.This is the provisional service regulations of 19 April 1903. I have signed it one day before I resigned from the RuSHA.\nQ.And was that applied in practice during your whole period of office?\nA.It says here,\"requests of expert nature have to be discussed directly in the offices subordinated to the RuSHA\"; this order was derived from the practical experience.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3335, "page_number": "3328", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Did you yourself carry out racial selections on persons suitable for re-Germanization in Lodz?\nA.No, I myself never carried out such selections.\nQ.Furthermore, you were confronted with exhibit No. 653, in Document Book IV-C, this affair of children's socks and gloves. Did you know whether these things had been taken away from Polish or Russian children?\nA.No, but after the fact, I mean here in Nurnberg, I found out that this affair involved socks which had been produced in the factory in the occupied Russian areas, a factory working for the armed forces, and in this factory all the looms, and also the looms producing small sizes, that is sizes for which the armed forces had no need or use, were working, and from this kind of material these ten thousand pairs of children's socks and two thousand pairs of children's gloves originated.\nDR. SCHWARZ:For identification I submit to you Document Hofmann 148.\nQ.Will you please say who made this affidavit?\nA.The affiant is the then Higher SS and Police Leader Cen tral Russia, Obergruppenfuehrer Erich von demBach-Zelewski.\nQ.And he is the man who sent these socks; is that right?\nA.Yes, the socks came from him.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I am offering this document for identification as Exhibit Hofmann No. 27.\nQ.You were asked also whether you had passed on the so-called flier order; who was Petersdorf?\nA.Major General Petersdorf was the commander of the regular police in the Army District V, that is in my area.\nQ.Was he under your orders?\nA.Well, he was in this already well-known subordination relationship; he was my chief of the regular police.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3336, "page_number": "3329", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.You don't mean he was your direct subordinate?\nA.No, he was an agency that worked with me.\nQ.Was he brought before an American Tribunal because he passed on the flier order?\nA.It came to my knowledge here that in connection with the flier order Petersdorf had been indicted before an American Tribunal.\nQ.Do you know what Tribunal?\nA.At Dachau.\nQ.Do you know whether he was acquitted?\nA.Yes, Petersdorf was acquitted. I have gathered that from the newspaper we receive here.\nQ.When?\nA.About in November of 1947.\nQ.In the concentration camp of Natzweiler did you see installations for the use of medical experiments or which could have been used for the extermination of human beings?\nA.I did not see the faintest shade of a hint of such an installation. During these two visits not the slightest hint of this connection was made to me.\nQ.I want to come back to this point we touched before. Were you questioned here in the affair of Petersdorf?\nA.Yes, an interrogator from Dachau was here who interrogated me twice, always during the few hours I had for my preparation of my defense normally.\nQ.What did that involve?\nA.Basically the question whether I passed the flier order on to Petersdorf, and I stated that I hadn't given General Petersdorf the flier order to read and that I didn't discuss its contents with him.\nQ.Concerning this final solution of the Jewish question you were asked whether, apart from the two letters which I already sub \n mitted to you ill direct examination, you received other letters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3337, "page_number": "3330", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "I am submitting to you again Prosecution Document which was designated as Exhibit 843 this morning that is Document 4055-PS. Will you please identify the number of the document again?\nA.There are two figures here.\nQ.What is theNO number?\nA.That is 4055.\nQ.PS?\nA. 4055-PS; it is a letter dated 8 April 1942, sent by the Reich Minister of Justice.\nQ.Didn't you make a mistake there? Perhaps that is a little blurred. Isn't it the 5th of April?\nA.Well, I said 5th of April.\nQ.And who were the recipients of the letter?\nA.There are seven of them listed here, and under 7, the RuSHA, attention of Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann.\nQ.Now, I am submitting to you my Exhibit 24, Document Hofmann 134-D, which I showed you for identification already in direct examination. Will you please identify from what document number of the Prosecution this document was taken?\nA.It says here Document No. 2586, NO-NG.\nQ.What about the addressee and the sender?\nA.It is the same letter, as I see, of 5 April, 1942, sent by the Reich Minister of Justice and the recipients are the same -seven, and under seven you also find the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3338, "page_number": "3331", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.In other words, it is the same document.\nA.Yes.\nQ.If you glance over it, are the contents identical too?\nA.The same thing.\nQ.That brings me to the testimony concerning the day you were threatened. According to the assertions of the Prosecution there seems to be some lack of clarity still concerning your testimony two days ago. It is possible that the interpreters are at fault. Far be it from me to make a charg against the interpreters, but because the translation would have been possible as well in one sense as in the other according to the wording you used, witness. I would like to rectify that. Is it correct that you stated that the interrogator threatened you indirectly with hanging?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Is it correct that the interrogator, Dr. Schwenk, in connection with Point of the Indictment 14 shouted at you: For that reason several of your people have already been hanged?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.You have already stated that that happened on the 19th of May, 1947.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is it correct that the same interrogator charged you the next day with knowingly committing perjury?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Did you object to that?\nA.I first protested orally against it, and then on the 23rd of May I made a written protest.\nQ.What happened on your written protest?\nA.Further interrogations were only carried out by the interrogator Mr. Wolf, and went on in an absolutely correct way.\nQ.Were you indicted already at that time?\nA.No, I was told even that my wife could be without worries.\nQ.Now, on the cross examination of the Prosecution, can you \n maintain completely the contents of your testimony in direct examination?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3339, "page_number": "3332", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.Yes.\nDR. SCHWARZ:That finishes my re-direct examination, Your Honor, EXAMINATION BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQ.Mr. Witness, you referred to being in solitary confinement at the time of this examination, and I observed in this document the stenographic report of what took place on May 20th. In question 7, part of the question, are you at present in solitary confinement, and you answered yes. How long had you been in solitary confinement?\nA.With a short interruption of about two weeks, I was in solitary confinement for about four and a half months, from the 7th of August, 1945 until about the 18th of December, 1945.\nQ.Well now, for what period immediately prior to this interrogation were you in solitary confinement?\nA.That was after about three months.\nQ.Well, why were you in solitary confinement?\nA.I couldn't tell you, Your Honor. I think that it was a measure taken by the interrogating authorities.\nQ.Were you given any reason for being in solitary confinement?\nA.No, no reason.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: That is all. I should like to ask the Prosecutor one question. May I have the attention of the Prosecuting Attorney. Will the Court be furnished with a transcript of what took place on May 19th?\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Also, this witness referred to there being some form of sound device that took down all that transpired. Was there such a duplication of reporting what took place, a stenographic report and also something in sound?\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Is it available if the Tribunal needs it?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "JUDGE", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3340, "page_number": "3333", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Your Honor everything that is in the hands of the Prosecution, transcripts, sounds -- everything is at the disposal of the Tribunal and can be heard or seen by them at any time they so wish. I will make the arrangements if the Tribunal so wishes.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Well, this stenographic report, which has been submitted for identification only, simply recites what took place in part on May 20th. What the witness pointed out to in his accusation of statements made by Attorney Schwenk took place on May 19th.\nMR. SHILLER:Well, Your Honor, it seemed to me that the witness had joined the statements as being charged with perjury and the threats of hanging together and the charge of perjury can be seen is contained in the interrogatio of May 20th. However, I have the interrogation of May 19th and will, as soon as I have it certified, etc., will submit it to the Tribunal.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Very well; that is all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, the Defense Counsel of the complex RuSHA have made an agreement to the effect that the defendant Schwalm will now be called to the witness stand. My further witnesses will be called after that, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, you will remember, so far as you are concerned under the agreement made, that you only have two or three hours more. Of course you can use that time when they have finished.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I think that there must be a mistake, for the RuSHA a total of 12 1/2 days was given, and it was left to the Defense Counsel to divide up this period as they wanted. That ms handled that wayalso in the case of VOMI, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal was very much of the opinion that that was the way it should be handled, but Counsel will remember that Counsel for Hildebrandt insisted that he have 5 1/2 days, and the other two counsel, including yourself, agreed to concede a half a day each from your time in order for him to have 5 1/2 days. That was necessary in order to get him to agree to what the rest of you wanted to do. Is that the way you understood \n it?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3341, "page_number": "3334", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I am very sorry to have to say that that is not the way I thought it. I think the other Defense Counsel were also of the opinion that it would be handled in the my I just described as in the other cases.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I would like to hear from the Counsel for Hildebrandt on that question because I remember very distinctly that happened.\nDR.FROESCHMANN: (For the Defendant Hildebrandt) Your Honor, I do recall something, namely, that the RuSHA had altogether 12 1/2 trial days after I applied for 15 days for the RuSHA at the time originally. If I remember well, at the time the Tribunal wanted to give us only 10, 11, or 12 days; eventually we reached an agreement on 12 1/2 days. I was of the opinion that within the Defense of RuSHA it would be left to the individual Defense Counsel to fix the number of days among themselves.\nTHE PRESIDENT:And you did not at that time insist that you have 5 1/2 days for your client?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:That might be possible that I said something of that kind, Your Honor, I can't deny it, but I just can't recall it now. If Your Honor says it was that my, then it must have been that way.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What do you say about it now? I recall it very well.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, for reasons of loyalty to my colleagues, I would not like to deny the possibility to my colleague Dr. Schwarz to bring his witnesses. I shall reduce my case in chief in such a manner that perhaps my colleague Dr. Schwarz will have just a little more than 2 or 3 hours.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. You are willing then for the other two Counsel to go ahead, and you will have what time is left.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. The Tribunal will be in recess for a few minutes to determine this question.\n(The Tribunal recessed until 1100)", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3342, "page_number": "3335", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:In order to clear up a statement made by the Tribunal just before the recess, I want to state first that this limitation of time came as a result of a written application on behalf of all counsel for the defendants. Ten days was given to the Main Staff Office Group; six to the VOMI Group; twelve and one-half to the RUSHA group: end nine to the Lebensborn, It was difinitely understood that as to the Main Staff Group, as to the VOMI Group, and as to the Lebensborn Group, counsel would devide the time amongst themselves as they saw fit. In so far as the RuSHA group was concerned, at the time the discussion was had orally, counsel for Hildebrandt definitely insisted on five and one-half days for his client, and in order for him to have that time. counsel for Schwalm and Hofmann both agreed that they would surrender one-half day of their time to counsel for Hildebrandt, which would leave seven days for the defendants Hofmann and Schwalm and those counsel can divide that seven days as they see fit. Now if they go over That seven, we want it distinctly understood in the record that all time that is consumed over and above these seven days will come off that five and one-half days that was allotted to counsel for Hildebrandt.\nThat is what the Tribunal wanted to make clear, and the statement that the Tribunal made just before the recess would not have been necessary except for this insistence at the time on a division for each defendant in the RuSHA group. There is no such insistence as to any of the other groups, so I presume we understand each other now. Go ahead.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt): Your Honor, I figured out that the twelve and one-half days which the Tribunal has placed at the disposal of RuSHA will be over on the Wednesday of next week at noon. I only have the request that the time which was used up for a VOMI witness -- and this must have been half an hour -- should, if possible, be made available to the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3343, "page_number": "3336", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Each group will be allotted that time that was agreed upon. Go ahead.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you, Your Honor.\nDR.HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, before beginning my presentation of evidence on behalf of the defendant Schwalm I would like to say something for Dr. Schmidt, who is the defense counsel for the defendant Tesch. I request that the defendant Tesch be excused from this afternoon session and have tomorrow's session so that the defendant Tesch, together with his defense counsel, will be able to prepare his defense.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That request is granted,\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, Your Honor. I now shall begin the presentation of my case in chief for the defendant Schwalm by calling the defendant Schwalm to the witness stand as a witness in his own behalf.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRITZSCHWAIM, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows :\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your full name as well as the place of your birth and your date of birth,\nA.MY name is Fritz Schwalm. I was born on the 11 of Lay 1910 at Marburg on the Lahn.\nQ.Please describe your professional career.\nA.I received a normal education. I attended public school \n For four years.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "FRITZ", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3344, "page_number": "3337", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Then I attended a higher school of learning for nine years. I finally matriculated. Then I attended the Universities at Marburg, Tuebingen, and Munich, and I studied anthropology, German and geography. I received a position as an assistant, but I was not listed in the budget in the year 1931 at Munich, so that I can say that from that time on I was independent. My father died in 1929 and my mother died in 1934. In the year 1935, I married, and my family resides at Arolsen near Kassel. I have four children in the ages ranging from 12 Years to 4 years\nQ.Please describe to the Tribunal your political career.\nA.In the year 1929 I joined the SA and consequently I also joined the NSDAP. This was the time which has been described here quite frequently. It was a time of economic collapse and there was an increase in the political tension which prevailed in Germany. we young Germans at the time had to make a choice; either we had to join, the national movement, and that was decisively National Socialism at the time, or e could join the other revolutionist movement, and that was Communism. However, I did not like that ideology at all.\nIn the year 1932 I transferred from the SA to the SS, and during the first year in the SS I remained a member of the General SS just like all other members. Only in the year 1934, when the Race and Settlement Main Office was established, I complied with an order to begin full-time duty in that Main Office. I did this and consequently I became an SS leader in Race and Settlement affairs. That was the title which I had at the time. Later on, this was abbreviated and was called RUS leader. I was in the newly established SS sector Rhein -- the name of the upper sector there was Rhein -- and I was stationed at Koblenz. In the year 1935, this sector was transferred to Arolsen near Kassel, and it received the name Fulda-Werra. I remained with this SS sector until the year 1939, and at that time I was conscripted for military service.\nAs far as the budget was concerned, I remained in this position \n of an SS leader in the Race and Settlement service in the sector of Fulda-Werra until the time of the surrender.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3345, "page_number": "3338", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "In the year 1934, I was promoted to SS Sturmfuehrer, and in 1935 I was appointed Obersturmfuehrer and Hauptsturmfuehrer, and in the fall of 1936, I was promoted to SS Sturmbahnfuehrer. I held this rank for a very long period of time, until the year 1943.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3346, "page_number": "3339", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QBefore 1939, did you ever work in the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAI did not work at the Race and Settlement Main Office at Berlin, but the only agency where I worked was the one agency which first of all was located at Koblenz and later on at Arolsen.\nQWhat did you do when the war broke out?\nAWhen the war broke out I was conscripted for military service and I was assigned to the infantry. Since the first of December 1938, I had been a lieutenant in the army reserve, because from 1935 until 1938, since I had been born in 1910, I had served previously in the army.\nQWhat did you do in the army and where were you stationed?\nAI was conscripted into the 95th infantry division. This 95th infantry division was established at Kammelburg, and I was assigned to the third battalion of that division -- that was in the infantry regiment 280. At first, I was a company commander, and then later on I became the battalion adjutant.\nQHowlong did you remain there altogether?\nAI remained with this unit until the middle of September 1940.\nQWhere was your division stationed?\nAUntil the beginning of November 1939, the division was located at the training center Hammelburg. Then it was assigned to the 7th army, which at that time was stationed at the Upper Rhine, In January or February of 1940, we were attached to the first army, which was located in the Saar area. From the middle of February 1940 on until the end of the war, this division was stationed in the west of France.\nQWhat happened to you in the fall of 1940?\nAIn the fall of 1940, after the division had been returned to the area of the Reich, in the vicinity of Aschaffenburg, since the entire division had been sent on leave, the army replacement depot No. 5 \n at Muenster transferred me to the SS for duty with the Race and Settlement Main Office with the SS, and the Race and Settlement Office had requested me through the Reich leadership of the SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3347, "page_number": "3340", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QTo what activity were you assigned by the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAFirst of all, I saw the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Berlin -- at the time, Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann. Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann at the tine told me something about the now tasks of the Race and Settlement Main Office, and he told me in particular about those tasks which were in connection with the establishment of the area of the Reich Commissar.\nQOn that occasion, were any directives, decrees, or other orders shown to you?\nAThe only decree which was put to me, and which I can still positively remember today, was the fundamental decree of the 7 or the 8 of October 1939 about the establishment of the Office of the Reich Commissar and his tasks. However, this was only an oral orientation.\nQI am now going to hand to you from Book III of the Prosecution, the DocumentNO-3732, Exhibit 823 and Document NO-8080, Exhibit No. 84. The first document is a memorandum from the racial-political office, and the second document is the memorandum of the Reich fuehrer SS, Himmler, with the heading, \"Thoughts About the Treatment of Aliens in the East,\" Were these two documents shown to you at the time?\nAI do have those two documents before me at this time. Neither at that time, in September 1940, nor at a later date until June or July or August of this year, did I ever see these documents. Only when the Prosecution showed us those documents, I saw these two documents for the first time.\nQDid you know the report from the Commander in Chief East from the fall of 1940?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3348, "page_number": "3341", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "AJust where should I have gained knowledge of that report? As a member of the Wehrmacht, I belonged to the army in the west, and when I then was assigned to the SS and I became a member of the Race and Settlement Main Office, I did not get to see this report either.\nQAt the time when you reported at Berlin, what were you told about the tasks which you were to carry out at Lodz?\nAI received instructions which were kept along general lines. The main contents of these instructions were that I was to go to Lodz and was to take a look at the tasks there right on the spot.\nQWere you informed in particular just why these tasks had been assigned to you?\nAThis question was discussed, and I was told that either Hitler or Himmler -- I cannot say any more today who it was -- in cognizance of the fact that in the course of the last 1550 years several hundred thousand Germans had settled in the area of the former Polish state and had became Polonized there --that through the cognizance of this fact, the attempt was to be made that these Germans who had been Polonized should be returned to Germanism.\nQAt the, tine did you have any misgivings with regard to the legal aspects?\nANo, I did not have any at all. The area where I was sent had became a part of the German Reich through a Reich law. I thought that I was to take care of German interests there and to determine the nationality of the population there.\nQBy virtue of your academic training, did you know something about the history of these areas?\nAThe history of the German areas in the east was known to me. As a patriotic German, it was also known to me that when the Polish state was established in 1919 a large area was given to the state which for many years had belonged to Germany. When we examined the matter \n truthfully, then vie were not of the opinion that the cities like Posen and Gnesen were Polish cities,", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3349, "page_number": "3342", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QDuring your studies, did you also deal with legal questions or only with historic questions?\nAI have already mentioned the subjects which I studied before. I did not occupy myself with questions of law.\nQIn what capacity were sent to Lodz?\nAI was sent to Lodz as a collaborator and as an assistant of the head of the agency at that tine, a certain SS Sturmbannfuehrer Kuenzel.\nQWhen did you cone to Lodz?\nAActually early in October 1940.\nQPlease describe to us now how the agency transacted its business which later on received the title of the Field Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAThe agency which later on was called the Field Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office employed a certain number of specification experts. These specification experts had to carry out the selection of the crop. They had to carry out a rough selection amongst the resettlers who had been accommodated in collection camps of the UWZ. Already in this case, attention was paid to the fact that the families would be kept together.\nQWitness, please talk into the microphone. What was your activity in this work?\nAMy activities must be separated according to certain aspects. First of all, I worked with Kuenzel in directing the agency. This activity at the time was not very important because technical and organizational and accommodational new establishments took place. Secondly, I had the task, like Kuenzel, to examine whether the classification experts had given a factual fair opinion. Finally, I saw to it, together with Kuenzel, that the final opinion was given.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3350, "page_number": "3343", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.Witness, up until now you used several expressions which I would like you to explain. What do you mean by a rough selection?\nA.By a rough selection, I mean a first selection which takes place on a large scale, when a certain number of persons are separated and taken out of the group.\nQ.What do you mean by a very careful selection?\nA.A fine screening, or a very detailed screening, and in that respect one can say that there is an anthropological examination of the characteristics of the individual.\nQ.And finally, what do you mean by the final opinion?\nA.The final opinion is the summing up of all the characteristics which were discovered in the examination. This was not a summing up of all the individual characteristics and their separation, either by the number of characteristics or by the number of people who were examined. In this final opinion we had to carry out our work with tact, by using the possible variations within the family as a basis, and we had to carry out the classification of an entire family group. When this was prepared, a certain decision had to be made in this connection with regard to the labor assignment which was to be given to these people.\nQ.In the end, just what was decisive?\nA.The over-all impression which the entire family made was decisive.\nQ.Were other aspects also considered, besides the biological aspects?\nA.Yes, quite. We also paid attention to the social achievements of the family, as we called it at the time, and we placed considerable stress on that. That is to say, we paid attention to the fact whether these persons in question, up until that time, had shown themselves to be efficient in their professions, whether these people were clean, whether \n these people seemed to be wide awake, or whether they were indifferent to everything that happened.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3351, "page_number": "3344", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Can we now talk about a scheme or a scale which was used at the time?\nA.It is very difficult to apply the same scale to all people. After all, what was decisive for us was whether the average character picture of the German people would be changed by taking in a number of foreign Germans into the German population. If, from that, one wants to deduce the scale, then one can say that the average German population was used as scale.\nQ.In this case did you use the concept of \"supermen\" or \"super race\"?\nA.No, we did not use that at all, as little as we used it in the selection of the SS. After all, no certain group was supposed to be selected which was to rule others, but we wanted to have a healthy efficient middle class, to whose characteristics would not belong more privileges but a greater willingness to fulfill their duties and becomeing more proficient.\nQ.In carrying out these tasks, die you have the impression that something special was involved in using racial scales?\nA.No. The political and social anthropology, which had been part of my education, had known the principles of such a selection, and these principles have been known for a long time. Of course, one must differentiate between certain laws of natural selection and those which have been discovered by man. For example, we have laws of selection in the so-called selection of professions. For example, the people who work in the Reich railways, who go along with the train, have a different profession than the personnel of commercial plants which sell merchandise. Or, in \n order to give you a different example, the men on the ships of the merchant marine and the navy are in all nations a selected group, according to quite particular characteristics which are required in this particular profession.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3352, "page_number": "3345", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Beyond that, However, I also know of state measures in order to improve the selection, and I know them. I can think of the change in land reforms with the immigration laws for the USA in the year 1921 and 1924.\nQ.The witness Bach-Zelewski, who has appeared here, has testified, and I quote, that \"all those persons were evacuated who either claimed that they were Poles or who, by virtue of the racial selection, had been found to be racially inferior.\" Witness, what can you tell us with regard to the testimony of Bach-Zelewski?\nA.This description by the witness Bach-Zelewski is not correct. In the examination at the time, immediately after he made this statement, he contradicted himself by referring to the rough selection which was alleged to have taken place after the deportation. Aside from the fact that Bach-Zelewski admits himself that there was one training session, as he called it, at Saibusch, which he claimed to have attended. I can state the following here. At no time were classification experts employed with the UWZ, that is to say, with the agency which prepared the deportations and which carried them out.\nQ.I am now going to hand you the documentNO-1682, Exhibit 139, from Document Book IV of the Prosecution. Did this order of Himmler's have any decisive importance?\nA.The defendant Hofmann, in his direct examination, spoke about this order of Himmler's. One can say that this is a certificate which founded the RuSHA field office at Lodz, and one can say that up to that time -- and I know this, for the most part, from reports of comrades who had worked at \n Lodz before me, and who owrked there together with me -- the other work Just consisted of attempts and experiments.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3353, "page_number": "3346", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "From that time on, however, one can speak of regular and orderly work.\nQ.How was this activity actually carried out?\nA.I have already described the first selection of families from UWZ camps, and I have already spoken about the very careful screening which was carried out in the agency, and the evaluation of the families. Two things were quite openly discussed with these people. First of all, the fact was discussed that the important basis for the development and carrying out of the intended measure was the personal agreement and assent of these people; and secondly, we told them quite openly that the measure itself had the subject of re-Germanization. That is to say, for various reasons we were of the opinion that these people whom we had selected as former Germans would, in German surroundings, after some time, become completely Germanized again.\nQ.What was the attitude of these people toward that?\nA.Most people, above all, those who actually went to Germany, accepted these measures and this discussion in a positive sense. I do not want to state that there was no opportunism involved as far as these people were concerned, because an indemnification of property was planned. However, the advantages which they received in pay and in treatment had such a strong effect on these people that most of them did not raise any objection to the intended measures.\nQ.When did the examinations of the deported persons first take place?\nA.The examination always took place only after the deportation had already been carried out. The deportation drive had already been completed, because in some cases these people had been in the assembly camps of the UWZ for days \n or weeks.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3354, "page_number": "3347", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.I am now going to hand you, from Document Book VII of the Prosecution, DocumentNO-5266, Exhibit 378. Herr Schwalm, in this document is the statement correct which was made by Dr. Rembatsch that no force was exerted in the reGermanization?\nA.These statements are contained on pages 2-A and 3 of the German text, and this statement by Dr. Rembatsch is correct. These statements are particularly valuable because Dr. Rembatsch furnished this affidavit to the Prosecution, and apparently he gave it to the Prosecution at Lodz on the 25th of April 1946. That is to say, this was done at a time when the Polish State was again in existence.\nQ.What do you know about the accommodation of persons with the State Police, or the taking of persons to the Government General, which has been mentioned by Dr. Rembatsch in this affidavit?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3355, "page_number": "3348", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.This is a statement which Dr. Rembatsch has made on page 4 of the German text. In this connection I can only say that Dr. Rembatsch apparently did not differentiate sharply enough between two things. He did not differentiate sufficiently between UWZ camps and the RuSHA agency. The man Fischl, who has been mentioned in this connection, was not a member of RuSHA,\nQ.I am now going to hand to you DocumentNO-4823, Exhibit 493, in Document Book 9 of the Prosecution. This is your affidavit of the 25th of June, 1947; in paragraph 5 of this affidavit statements are made about the re-Germanization procedure. Are these statements correct in this form?\nA.According to the sense of the matter, these statements are correct. I assume that my interrogation in German first of all was translated into English and then it was re-translated into German, because there is a sentence here which does not make any sense, and consequently I couldn't have said it. However, in the end it is not of decisive importance. And furthermore In the last line, on page 2, in the description of the passports, after the. nationality \"Unclarified,\" the word \"German\" and the question mark is missing. I believe we shall discuss thim matter later on, and we can clarify it at that time.\nQ.I am now going to hand to you, from Document Book 4-B of the Prosecution, Exhibit No. 183 to 191. These are index cards of people who were eligible for re-Germanization which have been submitted here by the Prosecution. Areyou acquainted with these index cards?\nA.I would like to answer this question In a very precise manner. I am well acquainted with these index cards as forms. From my activity I also have to know the \n COURT I CASE VIII index cards which come within the period of time between October 1940 and October 1941.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3356, "page_number": "3349", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "These index cards, for example, Exhibit 183, which comes from the year 1944, only came to my knowledge here in Nurnberg, but the form, the scheme, and the fact and purpose of these index cards were quite well known to me.\nQ.What index cards are these?\nA.These are index cards which were used for every case when a person who was eligible for re-Germanization was included in the files of the field office at Lodz. It also becomes evident from the various cards quite clearly what these cards actually deal with. For example, in Exhibit 183 it is stated above \"Volunteer, wants to go to see sister.\" In this case this was Bonifazia Seviliski, who was born on the 24th of January, 1926. It is quite certain that the child at the time of the registration, in March 1944, was ten years old and two months. However, the apparent purpose, to use this index card in support of Count 11 of the Indictment, cannot be realized in this case. It is on line 5 approximately that the other members of the family are also listed, to which this child was going to pay a visit. The next exhibit, Exhibit 184, also has the note \"Volunteer.\" It also comes from March, 1944. I can not say anything about it individually than what becomes evident when I study the card. If, however, here a father who is 56 years old, with two children 17 and 18 years old, are registered in that card. Then probably those persons were also included in the re-Germanization procedure. Things were just handled easily by just taking one card here out of the index and submitting them here individually. I believe I can shorten the trial by saying that this applies to all those cases which are mentioned up to Exhibit 191.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3357, "page_number": "3350", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII index cards which come within the period of time.\nQ.Witness, have I understood you correctly, that within this index card the names and the cards of all members of the family would be kept together?\nA.Not only that but the cards were arranged in quite a certain order. For all cards there was a certain envelope, and in this envelope would be contained exactly the same information as the cards, and in this envelope all cards belonging to all the members of the family would be kept. These card index were kept, first of all, in the field office at Lodz. A copy of these index cards went to the agencies which exercized the care. These were the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or the deputy representatives of the Reich Commissar--just how it was ordered.\nQ.Mr. President, I have tried to obtain the missing index cards of the remaining members of the families through official channels. Unfortunately, all my intents have failed up to now.\nWitness, what was the number of persons which were registered by the field office at Lodz, as people who were eligible for re-Germanization and who were brought into Germany proper?\nA.When I left the agency in October, 1941, the number of people who had been included in that category amounted to from 6,000 to 8,000. In this connection I must say that this figure also included the number of children and the members of the families which belonged to one family. If I can recall a figure which was in effect until 1944, or for the year 1945, then I can recall the figure of approximately 20,000 persons. However, I cannot say that for certain. I do not have any documents which lead to conclude the exact figure. It does not become evident from the documents which have been \n COURT I CASE VIII submitted so far.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3358, "page_number": "3351", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "However, I would like to point out once more that we can assume that the average family had four children, and that the agency tried to bring together the members of the families which had been dispersed. They would try to send them to the family which was already settled in Germany. It did not matter in this case whether these people were capable of work or whether these people could not perform any work.\nUp to now I did not understand as yet that the re-Germanization procedure which has been discussed all the time was brought under the point of the indictment, Slave Labor. After all, as I have just stated, only a very small number of people were involved, and after all, 8,000 to 10,000 people who were capable of work can be estimated to have come from this entire drive. However, we must know that 98 percent of these people worked in agriculture and 2 percent worked in households. However, I can also recall that in the trial of Military Tribunal 1, against Field Marshal Milch, one judge ascertained that before the middle of 1943 one cannot speak about a Slave Labor Program at all because every foreign worker who had the possibility and opportunity of entering the German Reich area certainly would have welcomed the opportunity. He would have been very glad to go in order, in this way, to obtain a better livelihood, better living conditions, and more pay than would have been the case in his country of origin. I can further remember the sentence of a military tribunal at Augsberg where an American judge by the name of Matthews stated, in the summer of 1947, in sentencing a displaced person, that not everybody could support himself on the fact that he had come to Germany as slave labor. This group of people certainly had utilized the time prior to 1945 for their advantage and the time after 1945 even better, without a doubt.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3359, "page_number": "3352", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QWitness, were the settlement staffs, were they also RuSHA commissioned as the Prosecution witness Bach-Zelewski has testified here?\nADr. Heim, I am afraid you will have to quote from the Prosecution witness Bach-Zelewski quite frequently here because his testimony to use one single banal German expression, actually abounds in statements which were not correct. For me that is not surprising at all because since the 6th of January, 1946. I have the impression of Herr Bach-Zelewski as if he was a so-called professional witness. This statement by BachZelewski also is not correct. In the case of the commissions with the settlement staff, there were no commissions which had been sent there by RuSHA.\nQWhat was done once it had been determined that the people were eligible for re-Germanization?\nAThere was a special department which was called professional allocation.\nQWitness, please describe to the Tribunal what was done once it had been determined that a certain person was eligible for re-Germanization?\nARuSHA had a department which was called the Berufseinsatz, professional allocation and vocational advice. This department was directed by a member of the labor office. This member of the labor office was fortunate enough to be a member of the SS at the same tine. The questionnaires from the enterprises would come to him which in part came from the higher SS and police leaders in Germany proper directly, and sometimes they could come through the Main Staff Office, and all these questionnaires would be sent to this man. However, only a part of the higher SS and police leaders within Germany proper were involved here, and there were only the higher SS and police leaders from the west of the Elbe River. Then, an exception was made with regard to Berlin, Brandenburg and also the western part of the former SS sector Baltic which included Pomorania and Mecklenburg. Mecklenburg was included in the area to which people who were eligible for re-Germanization could be sent. It was now the task of this official from the labor office to make appropriate suggestions to me \n about the size of the enterprises, about the labor allocation which was desired, and on the other hand, this recommendation was to give consideration to the wishes of the families which were to be resettled; and, of course, they had to correspond to the size of the family because the size of the family was to a large extent dependent upon the accommodations that were turned over to the family.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3360, "page_number": "3353", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QDid the field office of RuSHA have to do anything subsequently with the families?\nAThe activities of the field office was finished when they had decided on the eligibility of these people to become re-Germanized. In order to put it more precisely, from the moment on when the transport left the railroad station at Lodz for its destination, the competency of the field office was terminated in accordance with orders. I would like to say something here with regard to the transports. Since 1945 by transports one always thinks of an extremely large number of people who are moved. The transports consisting of people who were eligible for re-Germanization included eight or forty-five to fifty persons. No special train was ever requested, and for the most part enough people would be put into one transport so that one special car could be attached to the train which went on schedule. All the other matters, the accommodations in Germany proper, for example, the transfer from one place of work to another and whatever may have been done with these people in the course of time was the task of the Main Staff Office, and the Main Staff Office wouldn't do that either, but the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism took care of all this work.\nQDid RuSHA have any influence on the re-Germanization of people after they had been placed within Germany proper?\nAAfter all we could not have any influence any more on the reGermanization of these people.\nQHow did you hear something about the fate of the people who were eligible for re-Germanization?\nADuring the first time, that is to say during the entire time when \n I was head of the field office at Lodz, and I assume also in the time until the beginning of 1942, every family was given one or two envelopes and some stationery to take along.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3361, "page_number": "3354", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "These envelopes bore stamps and they bore our address. These people were requested to write to us whenever something happened to them that they did not like. These are the letters which have already been mentioned here by the witness Spaarmann. In the course of the year 1941, if I recall correctly, that the Main Office complained about this direct manner of reporting, and that this was quite in order because there must be a clear separation of competency. After all, we could not interfere in matters which had something to do with tasks which were not handled by us any more. Later on we were told, and this was actually the case, that the activity of the field office of RuSHA at Lodz had to limit itself to the selection of people who were eligible for re-Germanization.\nQDid you receive any such letters?\nAI received quite a few of these letters, and because I am a stamp collector I have regretted later that I did not receive any more letters, and today I regret it for reasons that I do not have any letters in my possession any more as a matter of evidence. However, these letters were the property of the agency and they were filed and kept.\nQWitness,\nAI am also very sorry that the Prosecution hasn't submitted any of these letters because for all of us, because of the human tone in which they were kept, they would have been more interesting than long directives which are being submitted here in official German.\nQWitness, what were the contents of these letters?\nAThese people wrote just what they felt like writing. Whoever knows the east knows that quite a flowery language is being used in that area. It was also very interesting to observe just how these people were trying to write accurate German. Some of them were able to do that very well, above all those who had come from the former Province of Poznan. They complained for the most part about the fact that members of their \n families were still missing and I must say here that we made considerable efforts to search out the members of these families in the smallest villages and to send these people to the families.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3362, "page_number": "3355", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QOn this occasion I would like to correct a mistake in the translation. At the beginning of the examination the word philological was translated as meaning philatelistic. These letters were to be kept for philological reasons. Philology is somewhat different from stamp collecting.\nWitness, with regard to the legal position of the people who were eligible for re-Germanization, can you say anything about that?\nAThis legal position was that the people who were eligible for re-Germanization would receive the Nansen passports, the Nansen passport which was used for foreigners. In order to issue these passports, a special official of the police president of Lodz worked in the field office. These passports were also signed by the official at the police headquarters who was competent for that. Where nationality was mentioned in the passport, an entry would be made: Nationality Status, unclarified: German with a question mark behind it. The final naturalization was intended in the course of tie next five or ten years unless these people who were eligible for re-Germanization married a German national, and in this way they would be naturalized at an earlier period of time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30. (A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 8 January 1948.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3363, "page_number": "3356", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 8 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nFRITZ SCHWALM - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION(Continued) BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQWitness, before the noon recess we stopped at the state legal position of persons suitable for re-Germanization. These persons, were they liable for military service?\nAPersons suitable for re-Germanization were not liable for military nor to labor service.\nQWitness, I am handing you a document from the Document Book IV-D, Document of the ProsecutionNO-3938, Exhibit 159. Do you know anything about the so-called maid action with which this document deals?\nAThis document is dated 1st October, 1941. That is the exact time when I had handed the field agency in Lodz to my successor Dongus. As far as domestic famale workers and particularly special orders in this matter are concerned, I do not recall the affair. It is true that I have a recollection of the fact that even before that date in my view the labor exchanges in the Warthegau had instructions to see to it that when domestic workers were assigned for Germany proper, these domestic workers were previously screened. I don't think that I am very mistaken if I assume that this screening which had been very liberal up to that point was now after the decree of the 1st October, 1941, brought into line with the decree.\nQDuring your period of office, that is from October 1940 until September, 1941, did the Litzmanstadt field agency deal with re-Germanization of German orphans?\nAFrom the period of my activity I have no recollection of any single instance where the field agency took care of the secreening of an \n orphan, as far as the Decree 67-1 is concerned, DocumentNO-1615, Exhibit 407, from Document Book VIII-B that was just handed to me.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3364, "page_number": "3357", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "This decree I made the acquaintance of only here. The decree is dated 19 February 1942, and during that period I had no activity in that field of tasks.\nQIn this connection, witness, I would like to ask you did you know Himmler's speech at Bad Schachen, the speech which has been submitted by the Prosecution as DocumentL-70, Exhibit 384, from Document Book VIII-A.\nAYou speak of that speech of the Reichsfuehrer at Bad Schachen, don't you? That was during the meeting of the commanders of the armed forces on the date of 14th October, 1943. I only saw that document here when the Prosecution submitted it.\nQWitness, I am further handing you DocumentsNO-4173, Exhibit 397,. andNO-4147, Exhibit 398, and also NO-435, Exhibit 399. These documents which deal with the children from Lidice. Are they known to you from before?\nAI have already the last document 399; where are the others? Oh, I see. Well, these two documents now submitted to me, I don't know them from the period before 1945 and I only know them as documents of the Prosecution here.\nQWitness, during what period were you chief of the field agency in Lodz?\nASturmbannfuehrer Kuenzel who up to that time had been chief of the field agency at Lodz fell ill in January, 1941, and that date, January, 1941, was the time when I took over the management of the agency on the orders of the chief of the RuSHA, Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann. I remained in that position until the end of September, 1941.\nQDid the activities of the field agency Lodz or your personal activity cover also the Government General? In this connection I am putting to you a document from Document Book IV-C of the Prosecution, DocumentNO-4650, Exhibit 146. This document seems to hint to that fact.\nQThe document is a letter of the chief of the RuSHA from 21 January, 1941; it deals with racial screening of Poles evacuated into the Government \n General.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3365, "page_number": "3358", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Furthermore, it mentions that I should discuss matters with SS Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, and should remain in constant contact with him. The whole letter apparently is an answer of Hofmann to the RKFDV. I received a copy, a carbon copy. I can say the following concerning this matter. At the time it involved the creation of three large training grounds for the army, the air force and the Waffen SS in this so-called Weichsel-Sand-Triangle. In this matter I was also at Cracow once, and I discussed affairs with the department labor commitment of the Government General, We discussed a possibility of having my office called into the matter.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3366, "page_number": "3359", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "When we received full information on the matter at all, the matter had already developed to such a point that at that time an intervention of my office--that is, of the offices of the RuSHA--was no longer possible. Therefore, if I should summarize my answer to your question, during my period of activity at Lodz we had no activities in the Government General.\nQIn the documents in Document Book VII of the Prosecution, a certain Dr. Grohman of Litzmannstadt, Petrikauerstrasse No. 113, is very often mentioned. Now, was this Dr. Grohman a member of the RuSHA, or of the Lodz field agency?\nANo, Dr. Grohman was a medical counsellor, a senior physician, and as such he was Director of the Municipal health Institute at Lodz. He had no connection with the field agency of the RuSHA, and the field agency of the RuSHA had nothing to do with him.\nQHow come you were used for service in the EWZ?\nAIn January 1941, when Kuenzel fell ill, SS Oberfuehrer Kaserer who at that time, was in charge of managing the RuSHA agency in the EWZ at Lodz, was transferred to Berlin. At the time there was already a considerable shortage of personnel, and therefore I had to take over this agency in addition to my other duties. I remember that that must have been towards the 15th of January 1941. Therefore I might say that from that moment onward --- it practically coincided with the taking over of the field agency ---- I had two agencies to direct, the field agency of the RuSHA and the RuS agency in the EWZ at Lodz.\nQWhat were your functions in the EWZ?\nAMy functions in the EWZ were twin functions. One was a factual function, which gave me the privilege and the duty of checking the opinions of the examiners, thereby eliminating wrong decisions, and correcting than wherever necessary. Besides that, I had a technical and organizational task, which was to see to it that the commissions of the EWZ, acting in the whole area of Germany proper, were staffed with examiners.\nQWhat was the personnel strength of these commissions?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3367, "page_number": "3360", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "AThat would vary from one case to the other. Most of the commissions had one examiner, and only the strong commissions, which had two physicians, at the same time, since they had two physicians, had, correspondingly, two examiners.\nQWhat was the number of all the examiners who worked at the same time?\nAWell, I can only give you a figure which I deduce from the information I have. However, I think I can gather it with a certain certitude. There were about 25 examiners with the EWZ; 5 to 7 with the RuSHA field agency; 18 to 20 with the complementary agencies of the Waffen SS; 3 to 5 in the racial office; and 18 with the RuS leaders of the SS main sections; an over-all figure-I mean, this is a maximum now-of 75 examiners working at the same time.\nQOut of this figure, weren't there a certain number of people who were only auxiliary examiners.\nAYes, there were a great number of auxiliary examiners, and the fact that auxiliary examiners had to be appointed was the reason why factual supervision was necessary. This assignment of auxiliary personnel was a measure caused by the war. We had to make use of either such persons who were no longer eligible for military service, or such persons who were warinjured; and in many cases we had to release the best people for military duty in combat. In this connection I recall to you the exhibit which Herr Hofmann mentioned yesterday, that is, commitment of Sturmbannfuehrer Dongus for combat duty.\nQWhere did the commissions of the EWZ work?\nAThe commissions of the EWZ worked in the whole area of the Reich, wherever resettlement camps of the VOMI existed, because in these resettlement camps the screening--to use the technical expression--by the EWZ took place. These camps were in Silesia, Saxonia and Thuringia, Wuerttemberg and Bavaria, and Ostmark. At least, I know the camps were concentrated in these Gaus.\nQThe witness Bach-Zelewski made the following statement here, which \n you will find on page 389 of the German transcript, and I quote:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3368, "page_number": "3361", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "\"Yes, this organization was such that every RuS leader with the main sector-in other words, the Higher SS and Police Leader in each area-- organized and carried out the racial resettlement measures in accordance with the directives issued by the RuSHA.\"\nWitness, in this form, is that testimony correct?\nAIn this form it is not correct. First of all, it is wrong to speak of racial resettlements. These were quite normal resettlement actions, as have already been described in the course of these proceedings as the resettlements which were carried out by the VOMI. Secondly, it is also wrong to say that the local RuS leader had to deal with the naturalization of the resettlers. In reality, the local RuS leader had nothing whatsoever to do with the activities of the EWZ. If the local RuS leader had such a task, then my activity at Lodz would have been completely superfluous.\nQWitness, did you have an influence on the fundamental activities of the EWZ?\nAAn influence on the fundamental activities of the EWZ? I would rather specify that. I had no approval to give on the question of what task the EWZ wanted to attack. I do not recall one single instance where we even had a discussion about new tasks. Within the EWZ, the activity of the examiners was quite clearly defined and quite clearly ordered.\nQNow, didn't the RuSHA have a decisive influence over the EWZ, or was the work done independently?\nAI have to answer this question in the negative for the period I am familiar with, that is, the period from October 1940 until the end of September 1941. There is another period of time with which I am familiar and that is the period from the 1st of March 1943 until the 1st of March 1945, when I was staff leader of the RuSHA. During these two periods of time the RuSHA had no decisive influence over the EWZ. For the other periods I can only draw a conclusion. Nothing came to my knowledge to the effect that in the intermediary period, in 1932, there existed or there \n was created an influence of the RuSHA over the EWZ.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3369, "page_number": "3362", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QFundamentally, how did it come about that racial evaluation was brought into the picture?\nAThis was caused by the unclear ethnic conditions of the areas of residence of these resettlers.\nQWas a racial consideration sufficient for the clarification of ethnic conditions and ethnic questions?\nABasically speaking, this whole question did not have to be raised in cases where clearly defined and clearly limited ethnic groups were concerned. In these cases the allegiance and the admission of the human being himself was the only decisive factor. Therefore, the investigation and determination by the RuSHA and its examiners were secondary matters in all those cases where the ethnic conditions were clear and the admission and statements of the individual were clear and well defined. In this connection it is immaterial whether those were resettlers or members of the DVL, because origin and admission of German descent were clear and unambiguous.\nQWhat groups, then, were covered by the racial examination and where did this examination have a special interest?\nASpecial interest only existed for such groups where there was no clear admission of German descent and where it was not possible to determine that because a mixture had taken place with one or the other ethnic group during the last decades or the last century. Not only a certain number of Germans had been Polanized, but a large number of them had been Russianized, and another part had been partially absorbed by the ethnic group where they lived. Now, those people poured back under the protection of the German Reich for one reason only, fear of Bolshevism.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3370, "page_number": "3363", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.With what can you compare the bringing in of the racial selectors?\nA.The best comparison would be with a screening to prevent elements, for political or factual reasons, from changing their nationality out of opportunism.\nQ.Witness, if I understood you correctly, the screening did not promote Germanizing, but, on the contrary, it prevented Germanizing of such parts of the population who were not really of German descent.\nA.Yes, you may well put it that way.\nQ.Couldn't you give us a precise example for that?\nA.Yes, T can, and particularly because the Prosecution has submitted the documents for that example. With the resettlement of the populations of North Bukovina and of Tschernowitz, a large group of Roumanians poured back into the German Reich. As Was determined when they were checked within the Reich for their ethnic background, these people had no links with Germany, especially, they would not prove their links with Germany. They had come to Germany because they were afraid of Bolshevism and they had joined the resettlement action thus escaping, you might call it, to Germany. At the time, when I heard about the existence of that group, I went to see the Director of the EWZ, and I advocated that this group, which eventually amounted to six thousand, be brought back to its country of origin.\nQ.Now, technically speaking, how were these people brought back to their countries, or how was that possible under international law?\nA.Again, an additional Treaty had to be made with Roumania, practically, in order to provide for the fact that Roumania would take these people back. If I remember well, the defendant Greifelt has already testified in this connection that he had to go to Bucharest to arrange for the \n repatriation of this group, as far as interstate law was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3371, "page_number": "3364", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "At any rate, it has to be stated that these people were brought back to Roumania and suffered no financial or other damage at all. The tendency of these people to go back to Roumania existed very strongly after summer of 1941, expecially when their home country was freed from Bolshevism, or ceased to be imperiled by Bolshevism.\nQ.Witness, a while ago I had a certain number of documents handed to you from Document Book V-B of the Prosecution:NO-1405, Exhibit 217; NO-5602, Exhibit 218; and, from Document Book V-E of the Prosecution,NO-1397, Exhibit 311. Now, are these documents connected with the affair you just discussed?\nA.Yes, those are the documents I just referred to in my answer. Those are suggestions made by one Dr. Amberger, who worked with Commission VII of the EWZ; another suggestion, made by one Herr Mueller who worked with Commission V; and then, again, another letter from the Amberger I just mentioned.\nQ.Taking Exhibit 218, did you take any measures to the effect of what was suggested there?\nA.I had no reason to do anything, because the whole question with which I was approached here proved to be nonsensical when it was checked closer.\nQ.Will you please look at DocumentNO-1397, Exhibit 311, and also look at the note at the end of the document? Why did you prevent the mailing of this document at the time?\nA.I remember that matter quite well, The letter was drawn up on the 21st of December, 1940, and it was submitted to me by Herr Kaserer when he handed the agency over to me. Kaserer told me to submit it to the Reichsfuehrer SS. The document contains the note, \"Not dispatched, after conversation with SS Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm.\" The reason \n why I had this document kept back and not dispatched was because I had had a discussion with one of my employees, Dr. Ruebel, and we wanted to check the whole matter personally first.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3372, "page_number": "3365", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "I checked the matter and I came to quite a different conclusion.\nQ.Now, what was the result you found?\nA.The result was that in spite of the fact that resettlement was all right as far as the letter of the laws was concerned -- that is, the persons making application for resettlement -- in spite of that, repatriation of these persons could be considered the thing to do. This fact -- which I can prove, on the strength of documents of the Prosecution, as having actually happened in 1941 -- is certainly a better proof than anything else, of 1945, for the fact that neither I as an individual, nor in my capacity as chief of the agency, intended Germanization.\nQ.Did the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism have the intention of Germanizing Poland?\nA.He had that intention as little as I had myself. The task was to get Polanized Germans back to Germanism. If the Reich Commissar had considered this firm-stamp only as an enticement, then, there would have been many simpler ways to get labor, because then a notice could have been posted in the whole Warthegau that under such and such conditions people could go to Germany proper for work. I think, in that case, in May of 1945 we would not have had twenty thousand, but certainly a much larger number in Germany, without all the pains the field agency of RuSHA at Lodz took.\nQ.Now, as to these activities previously described by you, were they altogether in the scope of work of the EWZ?\nA.All the activities I have discussed up until now, with the exception of the activities of the field agency of the RuSHA, were within the scope of the work of the EWZ; and \n it was immaterial where the EWZ would work, automatically a selector of the RuSHA would join them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3373, "page_number": "3366", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.The Prosecution have submitted a certain number of documents about an action concerning ethnic Germans in the Government General, and also particularly in Northern France, what do you know from your own knowledge concerning that matter?\nA.From my own knowledge I don't know any more about it than can be. seen from the documents. My activities with the EWZ were terminated at the Same time as with the field agency, that is, at the end of September 1941. During my period of activity with the EWZ, resettlers received German nationality after they had been repatriated to Germany on the strength of a state agreement. From my own knowledge I can add nothing to all these matters. It only seems important to me to again stress the fact that a selector worked with the EWZ commission and that wherever the EWZ started work, this selector had to come along. The EWZ had no instructions to inform the RuSHA of any task that was planned, or even to ask the RuSHA whether they should start carrying out that task. The EWZ was under the Chief of the Security Police, and the Chief of the Security Police was the man who issued the directives to the EWZ. He, again, had no instructions and did not ask the RuSHA whether that agency approved or disapproved of any kind of task or wanted it started. First of all, basically, I can confirm that for the period after the 1st of March 1943, because during that period, when I was staff leader of the RuSHA, I do not remember one single case where the EWZ, at any time, would approach the RuSHA before they started a new task and ask them whether they should start or not.\nDR. HEIM:It has just been pointed out to me that the work \"Eignungspruefer\" has been translated as \"selector\".", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3374, "page_number": "3367", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "In spite of the fact that my knowledge of English is very poor, I think that I am not mistaken in saying that this translation does not altogether Justice to the German word. Therefore, I ask whether the interpreter might not possibly find another word.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Why don't you suggest the word?\nDR. HEIM:I have alread said that my knowledge of English is very poor.\nINTERPRETER:Would the Court ask counsel whether the word \"examiner\" would meet the approval of counsel?\nMR. SHILLER:May I say that if the word \"examiner\" would be acceptable to the Defense, it would be acceptable to the Prosecution.\nDR. HEIM:Yes, I agree with the word \"examiner.\" BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, I would like to submit document 3508, Exhibit 132, in Document Book IV-B of the Prosecution. This is a file note concerning registration and naturalization of ethnic Germany of Northern France. Witness, had you known this document before this trial?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "INTERPRETER", "JUDGE", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3375, "page_number": "3368", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.This document is a copy of a letter of the chief of the EWZ, dated 25 March 1941. It was not known to me and I don't remember either that I have seen excerpts of it.\nQ.Were you in any way connected with the screening or checking of the Slovenes?\nA.No, at no time.\nQ.Weren't you connected either with the checking of the Slovenes in the camps of the VOMI?\nA.No, not either.\nQ.Did you know anything about the screening of the so-called Slovene deportees and bandits and their children?\nA.No, I didn't hear anything about it either.\nQ.Did. you have anything to do with the post-deportation checking of the deported Luxembourg people in the VOMI camps?\nA.No, I heard about this post-deportation checking here also.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the deportation of populations from Alsace end Lorraine?\nA.No, my activity did not cover that field.\nQ.Did you attend the conference concerning that drive?\nA.I never attended a conference dealing with this AlsaceLorraine drive.\nQ.Were you connected with the field agency Bohemia and Moravia?\nA.I had no connection with the field agency Bohemia and Moravia.\nQ.Do you know from before the trial the document which was submitted by the Prosecution concerning the activities of the field agency Bohemia and Moravia, which is contained in Document Book IV-D of the Prosecution, under No.NO-4122, Exhibit 173. I am handing this document to you.\n(Witness is offered the document.)\nA.The document is headed: Chief of the RuSHA SS, and it's dated the 25 of January 1944. Unfortunately, it's not signed. This document deals with the activity of the RuSHA in the field of naturalizations \n in Bohemia and Moravia, and I don't know the document.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3376, "page_number": "3369", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "I have attempted, when I went over this document, to get the ten or twelve decrees of the Reich Protector here now in order to see on what foundations this document is based and what it refers to in the last analysis, because it refers to decrees by the Reich Protector. Unfortunately, these collections of decrees could not be made available here. If I should summarize, I can say that in spite of the fact that it would seem rather likely that I should know a letter with such a heading, I actually don't know it. It is very unfortunate that the letter is not signed, but I presume that it was not drawn up in the Race and Settlement Main Office proper, but in the last analysis it was drawn up in the racial office of the RuSHA.\nQ.Now repeatedly we have discussed the field agency Bohemia and Moravia. What was this agency?\nA.The RuSHA in this connection had very clearly established terms. Any agency which was called \"Field Agency,\" by this very term shows that they have to cover a well-defined field; namely, the field of questions in the state sector; in other words, field agency RuSHA at Lodz: RKFDV; field agency Bohemia and Moravia, in the last analysis also RKFDV -- in the field that is via the representative of the Reich Commissar at Prague, as the Main Office of the SS had its RUS leader at Prague. That was the agency which I had to deal with. On the other hand, the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia, as representative of the RKFDV -- I presume in 1941 or '42.-- created for himself the field agency Bohemia and Moravia in order to have the possibility of dealing with questions of nationality in Bohemia and Moravia. This field agency Bohemia and Moravia was not financed either from the RuSHA in Berlin.\nQ.I am now handing you Document Boom IV-C of the Prosecution, the documentNO-1600, Exhibit 153. (Document is offered the witness.) It's Harder's Memorandum. The Chief of the Racial Office writes there concerning this speech. Did you know that memorandum?\nA.This memorandum was unknown to me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3377, "page_number": "3370", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Well, What is the reason, witness, why all these developments of 1942 and spring of 1943 are unknown to you?\nA.The reason is very simple. As from April 1942, I was in the hospital as the result of an injury, and I resumed my activities only on the first of March 1943.\nQ.That brings me to Point 17 of the Indictment where the DVL is dealt with. From your period of activity in Lodz -- that is from October 1940 to September 1941 -- what do you know about the DVL?\nA.I know that is March 1941 the fundamental decree concerning the DVL was issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior -- the decree which has been submitted as DocumentNO-4152, Exhibit 94. It was submitted in Document Book IV-A.\nQ.According to your knowledge, was the DVL procedure carried out as it had been outlined in the decree?\nA.I don't know any other manner in which the DVL procedure was carried out, and that was also what I said during my interrogation in May 1947.\nQ.On What was your testimony based at the time?\nA.The basis for my testimony was the knowledge which I still had from the period of activity in Lodz. From that period, I knew that the DVL procedure was an administrative procedure, as we would cell it in German; in other words, the procedure through the channels of internal administration. From below to the top, it would go via the district councillors, the government-president, the senior governmentpresident, and down it would go through the same channels. In the towns that were not part of a district, the district councillor was replaced by the Lord Mayor. All these agencies dealing with the DVL were agencies of the internal administration.\nQ.Witness, I am now handing to you a document from Document Book IV-A of the Prosecution: DocumentNO-4025, which is Exhibit 102, and also DocumentNO-4739, which is Exhibit 99. These are the decrees 50-1 and the General Decree 12-C. Did these documents come to your \n knowledge at any time at Lodz?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3378, "page_number": "3371", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.No, from my period in Lodz, these documents are unknown to me. You can deduce that from the date alone.NO-4025, that is Exhibit 102, I mean is issued by the Reich Commissar on the 30 of September 1940. According to my experience, it would have taken a certain period of time until the decree was distributed. The second general decree, XII-C, which is Document 4739 and Exhibit 99 was issued on the 9 of February 1942. I didn't know that one either.\nQ.Now you, yourself, did you have any connection with the DVL procedure?\nA.As I have already stated before, no, I hadn't.\nQ.After these documents were brought to your knowledge here in Nurnberg, did the questions of your interrogation of that period suddenly become clear to you?\nA.After the documents by the Prosecution had been submitted, and amongst others these two documents, and when I read them, then the line of questioning during my interrogation of May 1947 became clear to me. If the interrogators at the time had shown to me one of the decrees or both of them, then I could have made at that time already the statements which I make now. I have already said a while ago that both documents date of after my period of activity in Litzmanstadt. The actual issuance of the decrees was not known to me and not familiar to me. Also, the General Decree XII-C, which was issued in February 1942, partly rescinded the decree 50-1 which covered a somewhat larger scope, because of the very sense of the Decree XII-C. You can practically summarize it in just one sentence: As far as the activity of the RuSHA is concerned, the sense of this Decree XII-C is that in the department III where the naturalization questions were settled in a way that revokable naturalization was abolished, and in this department, according to the decree, a racial screening of the members of the DVL should take place. Apart from this question of revokable citizenship, the decree XII-C did not limit the independent activity of the DVL by the internal \n administration.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3379, "page_number": "3372", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Witness, a while ago you said that at the beginning of October 1941 you were drafted into the armed forces. You were wounded. And in the spring of 1943, you vie re still in the hospital. When were you put into an office again and where?\nA.I was released from the hospital with the mention that I was fit for work in the home country. The personnel office of the Waffen SS, under the authority of which I was, sent me to the RuSHA where an increasing need for specialized employees existed on account of the drafting of people into the armed forces.\nQ.Did you work already with the RuSHA before that?\nA.I had never worked before that in the specific main office in Berlin. I had been a HUS leader as from April 1934 until August 1939, As I have already stated this morning. I was Chief of the Field Agency Lodz, of the RuSHA during the period which I have already mentioned very often. In the Berlin agency, I had never worked until I took up my office on the first of March 1943.\nQ.Now was this activity of your connected in any way with your former activities?\nA.No, after the first of March 1943 I received quite a new task.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3380, "page_number": "3373", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QOf what did this task consist?\nAAs early as the end of 1942, the then chief of the RuSHA, Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann had entrusted a war-injured SS leader, who was active in the RuSHA temporarily, with the task to build up a staff leadership within the framework of RuSHA. because at the time Himmler had issued the order to have such expert departments or offices as worked in expert fields and did not have to be in Berlin decentralized and shifted away from Berlin.\nQNow of what did your activity in RuSH A consist?\nAThis war injured SS leader, whom I have just mentioned Hauptsturmfuehrer von Rautenfeld - at the time was re-transfered to his combat unit, and I succeeded him and started building up what later on was considered the staff leadership in the RuSHA.\nQThis staff leadership, was it anything new for the RuSHA?\nAIn the way it was built up now, yes, it was. It is true that during the period when Darre was chief of the RuSHA there was a staff leader, and most of the time that was a senior SS leader, either an Oberfuehrer or a Brigadefuehrer -- Brigadier General -- because this staff leader was the deputy of the chief of the RuSHA, that is Darre's deputy. Because aside from his duties in the RuSHA, or, even better in his main capacity, Darre was Reich Peasant Leader and Reich Food Minister. Apart from that, this staff leader until 1937 -- maybe the change was even later, possibly 1938, but I don't know that exactly -had the offices and the office chiefs under his authority. And this arrangement had completely vanished now, and therefore the building up of the staff leadership beginning with Rautenfeld in 1942 and then continued by me on the first of March 1943, was something new.\nQThe office of the staff leader within the RuSHA, did it exist also after the period when Darre was Chief of the RuSHA?\nANo, when Pancke was appointed Main Office Chief, the staff leader became superfluous, and the T.O position of this staff leader was even cancelled.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3381, "page_number": "3374", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QBetween your activity and the activity of the staff leader before 1939, was there any parallel?\nAThere was the name, but apart from that, there was no parallel.\nQWere you at any period deputy of the RuSHA?\nANo, neither under Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann at that time nor under Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, who succeeded him.\nQWho was the RuSHA deputy chief while you were staff leader in the RuSHA?\nAA period of deputizing became necessary right away when Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann, on the 13th of March 1943, was practically relieved. At that time, Brigadefuehrer Heider, who was the senior office chief and major general of the police, was Hofmann's deputy. Later in December 1943 when Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, as Higher SS and Police Leader, was transferred to the army group A and remained in this position until the first of September 1944, then a special deputy was appointed. That was SS Gruppenfuehrer State Councillor Turner. This appointment of a deputy to the chief of the RuSHA was done on the express order of the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nQWhy was this nomination of a special deputy necessary?\nAI think that there were two reasons: first of all, during the period when this deputy became necessary, the offices were already decentralized and out of Berlin. Therefore, it was no longer possible to have the senior office chief at the same time entrusted with the management of his office and with deputizing for the chief of the RuSHA. Secondly, there was an internal reason too. During that period, there was the final transfer of the previously independent main welfare office of the Waffen SS to the RuSHA. The appointed and nominated deputy of Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, State Councillor Dr. Turner, was a definite expert in the field of welfare, and this task of welfare, which was our main worry at that time, was just a task where Turner could render the most valuable services.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3382, "page_number": "3375", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "QWere the office chiefs and the offices subordinated to you as Staff Leader in the RuSHA.?\nANo, at no time.\nQWhy not?\nAFirst of all, for reasons of organization the office staffs and the RUS leaders were under the Main Office Chiefs. This system of subordination, which was originating in the time of Pancke, did not undergo any changes at all during Hildebrandt's or Hofmann's period of activity. For the rest, the offices always had kept a large-scale independence within the RuSHA because those were not technical or organizational or administrative offices. They were specialized offices managed by definite experts. The independence which the offices had and had to have was even increased when those offices were decentralized and removed from Berlin. This decentralization even stressed the independence that already existed.\nQWere there personal reasons of yours why the offices and the office chiefs were not under your orders?\nAWell, yes, in the last analysis, When I entered the RuSHA I Was only a Sturmbannfuehrer, and in Spril 1943 I was promoted to be an Obersturmbannfuehrer. There were office chiefs who were Brigadefuehrers and major generals of the police or major generals of the Waffen SS and there were senior Standartenfuehrers as office chiefs; in other words, this would have created a certain amount of tension if I had been able to order these office chiefs around.\nQWill you please explain to the Tribunal now your activities as Staff Leader in the RuSHA; in other words, your activities during the period from the first of March 1943 until March 1945.\nAQuite a bit of talk has been heard already concerning the staff leaders. Therefore I don't have to go into that matter again to any great length. There is only one point I think has special importance. There were staff leaders who were at the same time deputies \n of the Main Office Chief; for instance, in the course of these proceedings I found out that in the VOMI, for instance, the staff leader was deputy of the Main Office Chief.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3383, "page_number": "3376", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "The same in the RuSHA. prevailed until 1937 or 1938. But on the other hand, there were staff leaders also who were not the deputies of the bosses, and that was the situation in my case. Therefore, I am also referring to the testimony of my co-defendant, my comrade Huebner, who from the organizational viewipoint was in the same position as I was.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3384, "page_number": "3377", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Now I am submitting three organizational charts which you designed. I am submitting them to you for identification. One is entitled \"Chart and distribution of tasks of the Staff Leadership after the 1st of March, 1943,\" and I ask that the Tribunal accept it for identification as Schwalm Document No. 1, Exhibit No. 1. I am further handing to you an organizational chart headed \"Organizational Chart of the RuSHA, istuation as of the 1st of March 1943,\" and I ask that the Tribunal permit me to reserve Exhibit No. 2 for this document. And the third and last document I am handing to the witness is a plan headed \"Organizational Plan of the RuSHA, situation as of the 1st of August, 1944,\" and I ask that the Tribunal reserve Exhibit No. 3 for this document for the defendant Schwalm.\nWitness, these organizational charts, are they exactly as you designed them and are they correct as such?\nA.I designed them here. I designed them before the documents were submitted by the Prosecution, at least according to my recollection. After the documents had been submitted by the Prosecution, I didn't have to make any changes. We have here Document 1, Exhibit 1. The next organizational chart of the first of March 1943, to which we haven't given an exhibit number yet, and the other one of the first of August 1944, to which we also have not given an exhibit number.\nThey are all correct as I designed them and they give a clear picture of the form of the RuSHA during that period.\nThere is one thing I want to stress concerning the organizational chart of the first of August, 1944. For reasons of simplicity, the staff leaderships, that is the department to the right on the plan, was brought on the same level as the offices. In reality the staff leadership did \n COURT I CASE VIII not even have the weight of an office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3385, "page_number": "3378", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "In other words, I did not have the authority of an office chief in the RuSHA. I was not as high as an office chief. That is just to clarify matters for the guidance of the Tribunal. But I don't think it has any relevancy.\nQ.Witness, more specifically, what was your actual influence taken over the one office pointed out in the documents again and again, that is, the Racial Office?\nA.My possibilities and the actual influence I took over the Race Office was not large but was exactly the same as in the case of any other office. In other words, I had to deal with questions of housing, replaceing of personnel, and as all the important things were rationed more and more I had to deal with the procurement of paper, or gasoline. All these technical, organizational or personnel questions, these which had to be settled from a central office, were settled by me. As far as the actual tasks and the carryingout of these tasks the Racial Office was concerned with, I had no influence. I did not take any influence. I did not have the possibility to do so, and I did not want to do so.\nQ.That you didn't have the possibility to do so is quite clear to me on the strength of your position as staff leader, but why do you stress that you did not even want to take an influence?\nA.There is a personal reason for that. The chief of the Racial Office was SS Standartenfuehrer Prof. Dr. Schulz. When I was a University assistant at Munich, in an extradudgetary job he had been my chief in the Anthropological Institute. This Prof. Schulz, whose subordinate I had been and to whom I had to thank for scientific and human suggestions, I did not want to tutor now by some sort of an official subordination, or to give him orders, or something like that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3386, "page_number": "3379", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII I did not have the personal qualifications to act like that. But there was another reason too. Heaven knows I had enough work, and I did not have to look around for some other tasks which were outside of my field.\nQ.Where had the Racial Office been placed?\nA.The Racial Office was outside of the main building at Hedemannstrasse 24, as long as it was in Berlin. It was in the suburb, Berlin Lichterfelde. When it was bombed there, damaged, and preferred to move, it moved to Prague. If even before that, by the difference of location, the personal contact was looser than the contact with offices in the main building itself, then now, when the office moved to Prague, the contacts and the possibilities of contact were even diminished.\nQ.What special activity did you deal with, mainly?\nA.I already outlined the general tasks. You might add to these general tasks, on account of the necessity caused by the war, that in instances of Allied bombing of Berlin, the air raid might add the responsibility of placing the other offices at some location outside of Berlin. Over and beyond that, there was another task with which I was very much taken up, and which of course took up the main office chief's or his deputy's time to a large extent. That was the transfer, first of all, of the main welfare office and procurement office of the Waffen-SS, into the RuSHA, and at the same time also a change in the field of tasks, namely the surrender of supplies for the reserves of the Waffen SS, a task which was not to handled by the procurment office of the Reich. This transfer was finished at the same time as the general reorganization.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until threefifteen.\n(A recess was taken).", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3387, "page_number": "3380", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HEIM:(Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQWitness before the recess you spoke about your activity in Berlin as staff leader in RuSHA. You also gave the circumstances which limited your activity there. Can you give us some additional circumstances which restricted your activity?\nAWell, there was not as much a limitation of my activity but there was some influence exerted on me. As for the situation which existed in all agencies, General von Unruh was given a certain assignment in 1943. This General von Unruh had an assignment and that was the first effect it had, it was the first effect that was brought by our defeat at Stalingrad; he was to take out of the offices all men who were capable of performing military service and beyond that he had the authority to limit the tasks which were to be carried out. With these commissions of General Unruh we had constant difficulties. During the first period of time, above all the activity of Unruh was carried out on a large scale and it limited us in all possible ways.\nQWitness, at that time wasn't a request made that the Race and Settlement Office should be dissolved?\nAYes, above all after SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt had come to Berlin, I also know that beyond the suggestion which we put to Unruh, Hildebrandt approached the Reichfuehrer SS and asked him to dissolve the Race and Settlement Main Office, or at least to dissolve it in part. After all the situation was that the tasks which were vital to the war effort and which we were mostly interested in were welfare tasks. This meant state welfare for the members of the police and the Waffen SS, as well as the welfare which was more of a charitable character, for the members and the families of men who died serving in the general SS. At the time we considered that these tasks could \n have been transferred to the operational min office for example; the other task which was in the state sector and which for the most part had been brought to us by the Reich Commissar, and which was concentrated in the Racial Office, could have been carried out by the Racial Office alone, as it later on was actually done in practice, and if it had been necessary, these experts could have been turned over and transferred to another min office or to another agency of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3388, "page_number": "3381", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "We dealt with marriage approvals, but we did not consider then important any more after the year 1943. However, I must tell the Tribunal that it was a wrong opinion at the time, because the Reichfuehrer was so very much interested in these matters, and I know that up to the spring of 1945 he personally concerned himself with the approval or disapproval of requests for marriage. We didn't understand why this was done, but perhaps it can be explained by the testimony which the witness Hofmann made here yesterday.\nQWere these considerations to make a request for the dissolving of RuSHA not put in a very hypothetical manner?\nAIf you look at the success, yes. However, I would like to say that we were optimistic and we thought that such a request would be successful. If we had known that other requests which were in the same level and which dealt With a stronger consolidation of all the tasks of the Reich Administration of the SS, which were disapproved by the Reichsfuehrer because he wanted to avoid as much as possible that any power should be concentrated in somebody else's hand, then, of course, we would not have made this request at all. However, we only realized these things later on and I must say we were horrified when they became clear to us a long time after May of 1945. At the time we thought that the tasks which the facial Office was carrying out within the field of work of the Reich Commissar could very well be carried out without RuSHA, and we had found a way of expressing that. We used to the tasks of the Reich Commissar without RuSHA could easily be carried out.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3389, "page_number": "3382", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "However, assignment with these tasks in the Race and Settlement Main Office could not be carried out without the assistance of the Reich Commissar.\nQWitness, I am now going to hand to you four documents from Document Book VI of the Pohl Case IV, which has been tried here before an American Military Tribunal in Nurnberg. These are DocumentsNO-1760, 1761, 1762, and 1763. These four documents at the time in the Pohl case had the Exhibit Numbers 170, 171, 172, and 173. Witness, I now ask you to look especially at DocumentNO-1763; this is the file note from the Racial Office of August, 1943, and the headline, and I quote: \"File Note about the discussions which took place on the 18th August, 1943 between representatives of the Reich Security Main Office and the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS; subject: The Selection of individual persons and families which are related to the German Race and eligible to re-Germanization.\"\nWitness, in accordance with these documents, didn't you attend a conference which dealt with factual questions, as you are listed in this document as one of the participants.\nAI have seen this document once before, and I remember this document quite well. Actually it has something to do with the restrictive regulations. I want to remind you here of the decrees which were issued by the Main Staff Office and VOMI in 1941 and 1942; here we were dealing with a very old dispute which already had been underway in 1940 and 1941 when I was still in Lodz. I want to testify now that I participated in this conference just as I have been listed here, and actually this was in contrast to the agency and office which I held. However, there were two reasons why I participated. The first reason was that this dispute finally was to be settled once and for all, and I went there by the express orders of my chief Obergruppenfuehrer Hildenbrandt because Hildenbrandt was interested that \n the whole matter should be clarified as quickly as possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3390, "page_number": "3383", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "The other documents also show this and they areNO-1761, Exhibit 171, that the file note was made out by the chief of the Reich Security Main Office and by the chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office; the file note itself, and this is Document 1763, Exhibit 173 was written down by SS Standartenfuehrer Professor Dr. Schulz, and this was his task as chief of the Racial Office. This document does not specify just what was said by each individual participant at the conference; it may be that that is not even interesting, but it is expressed here that in the re-Germanization procedure a final clarification was to be reached. Just what RuSHA had to do in this case and what was the task of the Reich Security Main Office, and not least the considerations nay have played a part in my attending this conference that I myself had to be well acquainted with all these questions as a result of my former activity at Lodz.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3391, "page_number": "3384", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "DR. HEIM:Your Honor, I shall enclose these four documents in may document book and I request that I can submit these documents as Exhibit No. 4 in my document book.\nQ.I am now coming to Point No. 12 of the Indictment. In the time between the fall of 1940 and the fall of 1941 did you have anything to do with the racial examinations in line with interruptions of pregnancy or illicit sexual intercourse?\nA.During the time of my stay at Lodz I had nothing whatsoever to do with these things. I had nothing to do with these things because all the decrees from the Reich Security Main Office which were issued for these matters only applied to the territory of Germany proper. Lodz, however, was part of the then so-called newly regained eastern territories. Therefore, the decrees did not have any effect in these areas. However, there is also another reason and that is that the decrees from the Reich Security Main Office which above all referred to Point 12 of the Indictment, the abortions on eastern workers had not even been issued yet at the time when I was at Lodz. The decrees about illicit sexual intercourse of eastern workers, Poles, Czechs, with German women, were already issued throughout the year 1940. However, even when the first decree, which brought the examiners into connection with this matter, was only issued in July of 1941. Up to July, 1941, the execution of the decree with regard to illicit sexual intercourse, and these things are dealt with in Point 14 of the Indictment, were only a matter which was dealt with by the Gestapo,\nQ.The witness Bach-Zelewski has stated here in connection with Point 12 and 13 of the Indictment that already in the summer of 1941, and this is alleged at a time when he was still a higher SS and Police Leader in Silesia, that is before July, 1941, that he had already received such an opinion by the Race and Settlement Leader, Isn't there a certain contradiction between your testimony and the \n testimony of Bach-Zelewski?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3392, "page_number": "3385", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.The contradiction is caused by the fact that the witness Bach-Zelewski has stated that he still worked on these things when he was at Breslau. I considered it almost impossible that after July, 1941, he should have had two or three cases which he alleges that he worked on; that he should have had these cases over at Mogilev in Russia. I consider it just as impossible that other regulations were in effect at Silesia than for the other areas of the Reich. The inclusion of the examiners into the procedure of the illicit sexual intercourse with German women and girls by eastern workersonly was issued in July, 1941, and that is a period of time when Bach-Zelewski did not occupy his position any more at Breslau.\nQ.After the 1st of March, 1943, what did you have to do with questions with regard to Counts 12,13 and 14 of the Indictment?\nA.I personally as a result of my assignment and my position had nothing to do with these things any more. If any conferences took place at all, then they took place without me. I do not know either that the chief of RuSHA in this field had developed a large amount of activities. After all it becomes clear from the documents that the racial office and in the racial office the employee Harders worked primarily on that matter. Just how they did their work individually was not told to me by Harders nor did the chief of the racial office tell me anything about it. with regard to Point 12 of the indictment, abortions on eastern workers, I only heard from the documents submitted here that Conti instigated the entire matter. On the 4th of March, 1943, Conti issued an order to that effect, and Conti was the highest health official of the Reich within the Security Ministry of Health. Further more I have discovered here from the documents that only in July the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and this time by the way of the Reich Security \n Main Office, issued corresponding instructions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3393, "page_number": "3386", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "At the time I only had that knowledge of these instructions which I could gain whenever these instructions were also distributed to RuSHA. However, this only applies to very few instances. It does not apply to decrees and documents which have been presented here by the Prosecution such as Document No-3089, Exhibit 468, in Document Book IX, Document No-3757, Exhibit 473, also in Document Book IX, Document No-1384, Exhibit 472, also in Document Book IX, and Document No-3520 Exhibit 470, also in Document Book IX.\nQ.Did the Administration of the Security Police have any part in these questions?\nA.No. On the contrary, already the first decree of Himmler as the Reich Commissar on the 17th October, 1939 stated quite clearly that the Reich Security Main Office is competent for all policies toward aliens and in these questions it bears the responsibility and was competent as far as the work was concerned. In all cases of Points 12, 13 and 14 of the Indictment, however, quite clearly alien nationals are involved, that is to say, questions are concerned which arose from the labor allocations of foreign nationals; that is why the responsible leadership and administration of all these questions was carried out in the Reich Security Main Office, and that is why we were not surprised about it,\nQ.At the time did you have any misgivings about the inclusion of the examiners?\nA.Naturally, the inclusion of the examiners had been ordered and it had been ordered by the Reichsfuehrer who was the highest authority. Of course we also had discussions about the inclusion of the examiners; however, according to the situation prevailing we considered this procedure as being correct and as being relatively reasonable. After all, there were a large number of reasons for that and not least was the political reason.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3394, "page_number": "3387", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.You just spoke about political reasons. that political reasons were decisive for that?\nA.After all, it was a reason which had a certain history and which had quite a decisive character. The fight of the NSDAP was characterized by its constant attitude which combatted Bolshevism. According to the opinion which I had atthe time, and which I still hold today, there were three possibilities for expansion of Bolshevism. First of all, there was the possibility of utilizing propaganda by word, in literature, and by films. Secondly, the political way of armed conflict, and we were situated in this armed conflict. Thirdly, for me, as an anthropologist and a biologist, there was a third possibility, and that was the possibility of biological infiltration. I myself considered this possibility to be the most dangerous one. By considering the fact that we, at the time, had to break the power of Bolshevism, the inclusion of RuSHA by the examiners seemed to be quite a logical measure to me at the time and it seemed to be quite correct.\nQ.In line with the inclusion of the examiners in the procedure concerning the interruption of pregnancies, did you yourself take any action in that?\nA.I personally did not take any action in these matters. In September 1941, when I was still in charge of the field office at Lodz, I myself appeared for the last time as an examiner. I have already stated that my task, after the 1st of March 1943, was quite different, and consequently I did not have the possibility to do any further work as an examiner. I was not confronted with the question at the time; it has only been here in Nurnberg that I saw all the decrees for the first time. And I must say that if the Racial Office issued any decrees at all in fulfillment of its task, in accordance with point 12 of the Indictment, then, for the most part, these are extracts of decrees which had previously been issued by the Reich Security Main Office. From the documents which have been submitted here, any initiative of the Racial Office cannot be proven, nor, beyond that, can any initiative be construed \n by the chief of RuSHA nor myself in this matter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3395, "page_number": "3388", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Witness, I am now going to hand you several plans which can be used for the information of the Tribunal with regard to the individual points of the Indictment. It has the heading: \"Chronological Information Survey with regard to the individual points of the Indictment.\" Unfortunately, this information is still being translated, so that I cannot submit the English text to the Tribunal.\nWitness, is this chronological and systematic survey correct which you have before you?\nA.As far as I am able to see it a first glance, yes. However, just as is done in connection with time tables one should put above it, \"without guarantee\", because, in most instances, the man in charge of a railroad station will say that he will not pay any expenses arising out of printing errors.\nI would like to tell this Tribunal why I made this survey. As I have just stated, for the most part these documents were new to me. I looked through them here, and I must say that in the first weeks after the documents were distributed, there was quite a bit of time before they were submitted here. The number of documents which referred to one individual point actually amazed me. I believe I can speak in the name of all other defendants as well; we would like to express our thanks to the Prosecution for having distributed the documents so early because, in this way, we could utilize our time before the opening of the trial in order to do this work and make surveys, and things of that sort.\nI have made a survey of the most important points from the basic documents. I admit that this is my own work, and therefore it is not objective. However, I want to point out that it is in perfect agreement with the documents which have been submitted here. I consider this time table, if I may give it that name, to be quite legible and quite favorable if one considers that many documents exist about these points and that there is the dis-advantage that t hey are written in official German, which is very complicated, they cannot always be clearly understood right \n away.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3396, "page_number": "3389", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Witness, you stated before that you did not have any activity of your own in the interruption of pregnancies. Will you please explain this answer to us in somewhat more detail?\nA.The whole activity with regard to the interruption of pregnancies of Eastern Workers was carried out on the level of the District Health Authorities or the subordinate agencies of the Reich Chamber for the Interruption of Pregnancies. On this level, in the most important cases, the Race and Settlement Leader would be working, or one of his examiners, RuSHA did not receive anydetailed reports about these activities, nor did it receive any special reports about them. It is quite possible that the Racial Office received reports in that connection. However, the Racial Office was located at Prague, and the Chief of the Racial Office did not submit any reports to me. Beyond that, we must also consider that the activity of the examiners was limited to those cases where the female Eastern workers had made a request that the pregnancies should be interrupted. Furthermore, it is important to consider that the examination by the Race and Settlement Leader was only intended for those cases where the father of the child was a German or a Dane, Swede, Norwegian, Flame, Dutchman or Wallonese. In any case, he had to be a Northwestern European. All other cases were not to be reported at all to the Race and Settlement Leader, but the Reich Health Office was to decide about these cases alone and independently.\nThe situation was such that only a fraction of all cases which occurred were turned over to the Race and Settlement Leader, and of this fraction he would release one part, that is to say, when the request of the woman in question was approved that the pregnancy could be interrupted; and in another part, that is, whenever he believe that as a result of the physical characteristics of the man and the woman he was able to say that the child would represent the average population, then he would put a veto on the request for interruption of pregnancy, and in these cases the child was born. That was especially true during the entire treatment \n of a case with regard to Eastern workers, or, if a woman did not want to go on with this request, then no action at all was taken and the child was brought into the world,", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3397, "page_number": "3390", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.I am now coming to point 13 of the Indictment, the taking away of infants from female workers from the East. In this connection, did you develop any activity of your own?\nA.No, I had nothing to do with that matter. I cannot say any more with regard to this point than has become evident from the documents, and it becomes evident from the documents that the initiative came from the Reich Security Main Office, that the Youth Office was included in this, and that the Youth Office finally, in those cases where the father was a German or a Northwestern European, would request the assistance of an examiner. The Prosecution has put these things to us, and there is nothing I can say about them.\nQ.Did RuSHA establish children's homes or orphanages, or maintain them?\nA.RuSHA never established any children's homes or orphanages or any places where foreign children could be kept; it did not have any under its administration, nor did it have any influence upon them.\nQ.The Prosecution has alleged that all cases of pregnancies, in the case of Eastern workers, had to be reported to the RuSHA. Is that correct?\nA.No, that does not apply to the entire figure, nor does it apply to the number of people where the examiner finally put his veto. RuSHA did not receive any reports; RuSHA did not have any lists or index cards about this matter.\nQ.I am now coming to point 14 of this Indictment, Punishment for Illicit Sexual Intercourse of Germans. What did you understand in this connection by the term \"special treatment\"?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3398, "page_number": "3391", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.The terms \"Special treatment\" meant the fact that in the case of an Eastern worker, a Pole, or in case of a Czech, who became liable for punishment because they had violated the prohibition of sexual intercourse with a German woman, and that racial examination had to be carried out in these cases.\nQ.Did you Know that in the terminology of the State Police the words \"Special treatment\" had a certain meaning, and also a different meaning?\nA.No. I don't know other than from the documents put to us; that I can only say up to May of this year I certainly didn't know of it.\nQ.Witness, I am now going to hand you Document Book No. II, the Prosecution's DocumentNO-2864, Exhibit No. 524. It is a letter established in connection with a point in the Indictment which was then discussed?\nA.Yes, slightly. This is a request for free tickets on the German Reich Railway, which was issued on the annual basis for the year of 1944. It was a request from SS-Oberfuehrer Kranefuss, a member of the personnel staff. At the time I discussed the matter previously with Kranefuss by telephone, and I wish to say he had disapproved my first request, and this first request gave the reason that certain tasks were to be carried out. Kranefuss told me that for this reason I would not get a single free railway ticket, that the free railway tickets would be issued for the Reich Defense, or for the Internal Security. He told me that I had to find another reason, which would refer to one of these two phases. There was nothing more closely connected with those reasons than the fact of putting down this examination in connection with the special treatment. That I said about the special treatment before is shown as of December 7, 1943, when I wrote : \"These cases of special treatment are racial examinations of Alien workers requested by the State Police \n of people who have had illicit sexual intercourse with Germans.\"", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3399, "page_number": "3392", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Then there comes another sentence about the particular agency in this examination. That is what is meant by special treatment at the time, and that sofar as I am concerned is what I always understood regarding the statement. That \"Special Treatment\" was a special phase which was used in the terminology of the State Police, I only heard here in Nurnberg, when I saw the general collection of documents of the Reich Security Main Office, where detailed information was given on the subject.\nQ.Sid you yourself carry out such racial examinations as are mentioned in Point 14 of the Indictment?\nA.I already refuted it before, and I want to refute it once again, I didn't carry out any examination in these cases. Before 1 October 1941, I didn't have any reason, and opportunity to do it, and from 1 March, 1943, I carried out another function.\nQ.Did you hear anything about these examinations?\nA.I heard so little about them that in my interrogation I could only make superfluous statements. I heard that illicit sexual intercourse was prohibited with German women, I heard that Eastern workers inspite of this had sexual intercourse, and this was proven at the time. That then the State Police would issue measures against them, and, I further heard that the State Police added as quickly as possible a regulation for racial examination of the men. Now, I finally saw the decree of the State Police, and this decree bore the date of July 1941, and, with regard to this fundamental decree of June 1941 of course, other decrees were issued, and all the decrees were issued by the Reich Security Main Office, until finally the last decree arrived, and this was the decree of 27 November 1944, which rescinded racial examinations in the case of Special treatment, and, of course, only the same agency could rescind a decree \n which had been issued the first fundamental decree, and that was always the Reich Security Main Office,", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3400, "page_number": "3393", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.These decrees which you have just mentioned you didn't know of as yet, at the time?\nA.No, I didn't know them.\nQ.Sofar as you know what were the treatments decrees as to the racial examination given to the Eastern workers by the examiners?\nA.Sofar as I know they could only have a possible effect, in that the Eastern workers had been warned previously, after which he had signed a declaration which was given to him in two languages to the effect. I assume from the testimony of the defendant Hoffmann, which was given yesterday, that the enclosure of this warning which had been signed by the man in question was kept in the filesof the State Police in case the man violated this regulation. I myself never had seen a complete file on the subject, because the racial examination would be given by the examiner or a competent Gestapo Agency, and a Gestapo Office would compile the file, and the Gestapo also used its own channel through the Reich Security Main Office, and that probably a decree which I had seen here, I myself assume that even the Reich Security Main Office was not on a sufficient high level in order to decide that, but that Himmler had all these things submitted to him for his decision, and he himself would make his own decision then. Whenever the files were returned, I never saw them either. However, I know from the measures which were taken, that the person about whom it was said, that this man represented the average population, and that he could be considered eligible for Germanization, and that this man would receive a mild punishment, that is to say, lie was punished for instance, by having to marry the girl. Sometimes, in some cases, that may have been a punishment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Do you think that was special treatment?\nBY DR. HEIM:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "BY DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3401, "page_number": "3394", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "Q.Witness, did you know of a Special Camp Hintzert, which had been mentioned in this connection?\nA.I didn't know of Special Camp Hintzert,\nQ.Did you hear anything about any special treatments by the Gestapo and the Reichfuehrer-SS?\nA.I have just said before that I didn't.\nQ.Did you from some official knowledge which you have received hear anything about the public punishment of such Eastern workers by the police?\nA.Outside of my field of work I never heard anything about these things, and I personally never visited Berlin, and I can say I lived a very retired life, because my wife and my family lived in Arolsen near Kassel, and Arolsen was a small town of about two thousand inhabitants whore nothing could be found out.\nQ.Now witness, I am going to hand you a document which is Prosecution's DocumentNO-1416, Exhibit No. 166. Does this document have any connection with Count 14 of the Indictment?\nA.Yes, from the letterhead it becomes quite evident that members of the family of the Polo Johannas Netcza who was there under special treatment were involved. It is expressed by the chief of Racial Settlement Office, in the Racial and Settlement Main Office, which post was addressed to Prague, which was provided by the chief of this Racial Office, Himmler, and the Racial leader Zwickler, which we have discussed previously on many occasions, that sofar as I can see from this letter, Johannas Netcza was born on 26 April 1916; it shows where he had committed criminal offenses, and it shows now that members of the family of Netcza who were located in the area of Douen in northern France were not visited in order to look at them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3402, "page_number": "3395", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "It was ascertained here, and I quotes: \"That as far as the character and attitude of these people were concerned, both father and daughter made a good impression. The son, Romin, however, through the examination showed himself to have an obstructive spirit and was disobedient.\"\nQ.Did these archives of which we have a copy in this document contain any other physicial characteristics, other than anthropological ones?\nA.No, this archive only describes the characteristics which can reasonably be discovered in the course of an anthropological opinion. This can be discovered very easily. All these characteristics which do not have to be measured on a scale, but they can be described. The anthropologist certain would not do this without driving the width and length of the face in order to ascertain the well-known characteristics. And certainly he also would describe exactly the width of the face and height of the face in order to give it an exact index.\nSince we did not have any specially trained anthropologists, we, from the very beginning, did not indulge in taking any measurements on a scale but we only ascertained the things which became evident when one looked closely at the person concerned. These cards would be used for any other scientific information. Above all, these cards did not contain any references to police, state police, or criminal police aspects.\nQ.I now come to Point 20 in the indictment, to Spoliation. In this point you are also charged with special responsibility for crimes of spoliation and participation therein. Through any manipulation or acts which could be interpreted as construing looting, did you enrich yourself during the war?\nA.No, I did that at no time.\nQ.Did you purchase any property which had passed through your jurisdiction as a result of forceful measures against Jews or foreigners?\nA.No, neither before 1939 or afterwards.\nQ.Did you officially have anything to do with the issuing of any decrees or the execution of such decrees which could be interpreted as construing spoliation in the sense of the indictment?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3403, "page_number": "3396", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "A.No, I never had anything to do with these things.\nQ.In particular, did you have anything to do with the Polish Property Decree of the 17th of September, 1940? The Prosecution has submitted this document in Document Book 14-A, under the Exhibit No. 589.\nA.No, I don't have to look at the document because I never had anything to do with these things. I had no official or personal contact with them.\nQ.Did you have any contact with the ATO and DAG?\nA.No--never.\nQ.Especially, did you have anything to do with the distribution of clothing or any valuables which came from concentration camps?\nA.No, neither personally nor in my position as Race and Settlement Leader. RuSHA never dealt with any clothing or valuables or any other objects which had come from concentration camps or which could have come from concentration camps.\nQ.I come now to Point 21 of the indictment. In this point of the indictment you are charged, RuSHA is charged, in particular with having made a part in the preparation of index cards within Germany proper and in countries of German occupation, and that was done in collaboration with the Reich Security Main Office. As far as you know, did the Geneologic Chart Office have anything at all to do with these things?\nA.No, the Geneologic Chart Office did not occupy itself with that activity, neither in the Reich nor outside of the Reich.\nQ.If the Geneologic Chart Office did occupy itself with that activity, would you have heard a bout it?\nA.Yes, I certainly would have heard about it, even if I would have heard about it in general outlines. However, I did not hear about it. And that is the reason why I answered the previous question in the negative.\nQ.What did the Geneologic Chart Office deal with?\nA.The Geneologic Chart Office had a certain history. This Office was the maindepartment SIP-1, meaning Sippen Family Office, Main \n Department 1; and the abbreviation which was used was SIP-1.Yesterday Herr Hoffmann testified that the Reichsfuehrer, in the year 1942, wanted the Eugenics Office to be split up.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3404, "page_number": "3397", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "At that time three offices ware to be established: The Marriage Office, the Geneological Office, and the Heraldic Office--referring to coats of arms. A fourth office was also to be established, This was an office to compile statistics about the population. Then, actually, for the Eugenics Office them Marriage Office was established, and the Geneological Chart Office. Then Geneological Chart Office began its activity as late as the and of 1942, but this went on only for a very short period of time because the intended head of that office, Sturmbannfuehrer Ossiander, was conscripted for military service, and only after he had bean wounded, approximately in August, 1943, was ha able to return to that position. In the meantime, that is from the moment on when I commenced my duties on the first of March, 1943, the Geneological Chart Office was not an independent office but it worked as a detachment of the Marriage Office. The main d epartment SIP-1 dealt with the collection, registration, and handling of the geneological cards of SS members. In this activity of SIP-1 there remained the same activity as was carried out later on by the independent Geneological Chart Office. The results of the geneological charts were put on index cards. This work was put on index cards in order to make it easier to work on them, and that is why a card index file was established in the Geneological Chart Office.\nThe card index file was a practical means of assistance, a bove all whenever it was put in alphabetical order so that answers could be found immediately. However, now, in the compilation of the geneological charts, it became evident that a part of the SS members did not have ancestors who were of pure German blood. If he had ancestors who sooner or later became Christians, after having been heathens, these cards were placed in a special file. When these cards had accumulated as a result of this work, there was established an index file with regard to half-Jews and people with partly Jewish Blood. This card index file of people who had mixed \n Jewish blood was later oncalled the Jewish Card Index File.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3405, "page_number": "3398", "date": "08 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-08", "text": "It is quite clear that the SS demanded its members to be of pure German blood, of German descent, and there were a very few SS members whose descent was not quite clear. Beyond that, I want to give an estimate here. Up to the fall of 1939, there were 250,000 SS members, approximately. From these 250,000 SS members, 100,000 had submitted their geneological charts. Than this was a figure of which nobody could say that it was small. Into this figure we can also include geneological charts which had to be submitted inrequests for marriage, so that the entire card index file which the geneological office of the SS possessed must have been based, on the maximum, on 100,000 geneological charts. And that is a relatively small percentage of a nation of 6l millions. I believe that if the geneological charts had been complete, it would not have been possible to make any deductions which extended to the entire nation.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow mroning.\n(The Tribunal was in recess until 0930 hours, 9 January, 1948).", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3406, "page_number": "3399", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 9 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom with the exception of the defendant Tesch who has been excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nFRITZ SCHWALM - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQ.Witness, yesterday before the recess we were last talking about the genealogical office. Why was it important to find out the ancestry of members of the SS?\nA.In the regulations for accepting new members, the SS required the applicant to be of purely German descent. For all SS men it was mandatory to find out their ancestry back to the year 1800, and for all SS officers proof had to be found back until the year 1750; and whenever possible the ancestry was to be determined even beyond that.\nQ.Were similar attempts already made prior to the year 1933?\nA.Yes, quite. The question of genealogy research is not a political nor a party question; for example, since 1790 there existed the so-called Gotha Hofkalender which in Germany was commonly known as the Gotha, This Gotha was a manual concerning the genealogy of all aristocratic families, \n COURT I CASE VIII and only of those families who had purely German blood.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3407, "page_number": "3400", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "After the year 1904 the Semi same Gotha had been established; this also was a case of literature of a genealogical nature, and also limited to the aristocracy only. It included all those families who sooner or later had become of mixed blood.\nQ.From Document Book IV-D of the Prosecution I am going to hand you DocumentNO-1669, Exhibit 165. Please take a look at the second document on page 3 of this document book. In this connection I want to ask you the following: Did the genalogical office of RuSHA make this decision?\nA.This concerned a person by the name of Brunhilde Muschinski and a Ingeborg Avenarius; these two women were sisters, and both of them before being married had the family name of von Bachmann. It was established that these people were not of purely German blood, but that did not have to be discovered by the generalogical office. In the same Semi Gotha which I have just referred to, you find on page 421, the entry concerning the family von Bachmann. According to this the former police president of Vienna, Freiherr von Bachmann had married a woman by the name of von Brunicka, and this woman was not of German blood. Therefore, in this Semi Gotha one only had to look at this particular page 421 in order to reach this decision. This reference book, of course, and I assume that, just like the Gotha, must have existed within the genealogical office because this was a standard book which is contained in every genealogical library.\nQ.Can you tell us any additional reference books on the subject?\nA.I have stated once before that the genealogical research was done independently, from party and political aspects. In part, it was just a hobby, and beyond that people had been \n COURT I CASE VIII interested in these questions for many centuries.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3408, "page_number": "3401", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "The genealogical registers, for example, are not only contained in the Old Testament but also in the New Testament; and it is quite easily explainable and natural that a person may be proud of his ancestry provided that he can ascertain this ancestry. In this way in a decentralized manner genealogical societies had been established in Germany; several of them were very well known; a very well known one was the Eagle Society, which existed in Vienna. Another society was the Deutsche Ahnengemeinchaft, the German Genealogical Society, in Dredsen. These societies were established on a local basis and in the course of years had published considerable literature. Beyond that, big collection works had been published as, for example, the book and the ancestry charts of famous Germans. These ancestry charts of famous Germans contained the ancestry of well known scientists or great poets, like Goethe, or the old circle of the Swabian Poet families, as they are called in Germany, from which it becomes evident that Schiller, Morike, Holderlin, Schwab and Houf and all of them were related to some extent. The situation was such that this question had already been brought up a long time before the appearance of National Socialism and before the seizure of power.\nQ.Just what was the size of the genealogical office?\nA.The genealogical office as far as the personnel strength was concerned was kept within a very modest framework. One expert was employed there, he was Dr. Grotefent. This Dr. Grotefent had geneological training, that is, he was a professional genealogist. The number of employees in that office after August 1943 may have been between five and seven male auxiliary workers and perhaps three to five female employees. However, these employees were not trained on a \n COURT I CASE VIII professional basis.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3409, "page_number": "3402", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Q.When did the genealogical office resume its activity?\nA.Approximately in August, 1943. Ossiander at that time returned from the comradeship assignment in Russia; he had been wounded and he had lost one eye from a bullet. Consequently, he could no longer be given a front assignment and he could again be employed in his old assignment.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3410, "page_number": "3403", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.What was Ossiander particularly interested in?\nA.Ossiander was interested in particular with the building up of a library dealing with coat of arms questions. Beyond that he also wanted to develop the genealogical library. I can state here that the genealogical office in RuSHA until the year 1945 represented the largest and most valuable genealogical library. Above all, the then chief of RuSHA Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt not only financed this library but he was also very much personally interested in the matter. I assume that this library must have fallen into the hands of the American troops undamaged, and I hope that this library has remained intact in its contents. This is especially important since the University Library of Munich and especially the genealogical library of that university has been destroyed, and since Leipzig has also been destroyed for the most part, it is actually the only library which has remained of that nature. Beyond that, this library contained a unique collection, a collection of all documents pertaining to the Hugenotts which had been traced. These documents of the Hugenotts had been turned over from the University Library at Leyden in Holland and from the National Library in Paris, they had been borrowed from there as a result of the contract; photostatic copies were made of these documents and these documents were again collected and returned to the two places of their origin, Paris and Leyden. This collection of documents pertaining to Hugenotts was something completely new as far as Germany was concerned, and we also were interested in reproducing this collection because the influx of the Hugenotts at the time had taken place not only into the United States but also into Germany.\nQ.Witness, you have already talked about the personnel which worked in the genealogical records office. How many experts were employed there?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3411, "page_number": "3404", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "A.I have already stated before that besides Ossiander, Dr. Grotefent was the only really qualified expert. None of the others claimed to be recognized as professionals.\nQ.According to your knowledge did a certain collaboration take place between the genealogical office and the Reich Security Main Office?\nA.I was never able to ascertain any collaboration between the Reich Security Main Office and the genealogical office. This applies to the time when the genealogical office was still at Berlin. When the genealogical office was transferred from Berlin to the Castle Rothenburg at the Kyffhaeuser Mountain, in Saxony, the genealogical office was not easily accessible from Berlin any more; it actually could only be reached by marching over foot routes for approximately eight kilometers, and I believe that this transfer certainly did further the collaboration which has been alleged here. I do not know anything about any collaboration between the genealogical office and the Reich Security Main Office or any of its departments before its transfer from Berlin nor anything about such collaboration after it was transferred from Berlin.\nQ.Was this card index file concerning the ancestry of SS members suitable at all to be used for preparations for the persecution of Jews?\nA.No, it was not suitable for that purpose.\nQ.Why not?\nA.This card index file practically only contained the names of people who were one-eighth, or one-sixteenth, or one-quarter or one-half Jewish at the most, that is to say, the ancestors who had been purely of Jewish blood had lived in a period of time, I would say after 1750, sometimes perhaps even as late as 1850 or later. It cannot be said in general when these people left the Mosaic faith; however, \n one can say and I stated yesterday already that perhaps at the most we only had collected one hundred thousand charts there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3412, "page_number": "3405", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Naturally the percentage of the appearing of Jewish ancestors was less large as far as the SS members were concerned than it was in general because whoever knew that he was not strictly of German blood of course would not report for membership in the SS. Furthermore a measure which extended to the entire Reich territory and which later on was also extended, as the Prosecution alleges to the occupied territories which were under German rule during the war, cannot of course be deduced from the ancestors of one hundred thousand members of the SS.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether this card index file has remained intact?\nA.I must assume so. There was a special order that this card index file was not to be destroyed. Just as there was an order which applied to data and documents of the marital office of RuSHA. quite evident in the meantime that all the marriage papers are located in the Document Center at Berlin, because the information from there and which concern the internees sometimes is of an unpleasant character. For there we were not allowed to destroy these papers because, and we understood this reason, these frequently were the only genealogical documents of these families, and there was no reason for us to destroy them. After all we handled this matter factually correct and this work was dictated by German interests.\nDR.HEIM; May it please the Tribunal, I have tried intensively to obtain fractions of this card index file which dealt with people of mixed German and Jewish blood because I am of the opinion that this will shorten this trial to a considerable extent if this card index file could be introduced here, because then the Tribunal by means of \n the card index file could ascertain whether this card index file was suitable in any way in order to be used for the persecution of the Jews.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3413, "page_number": "3406", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Unfortunately all my attempts in that direction have been unsuccessful.\nQ.Witness were there any other agencies in Germany which dealt with these questions which you have just discussed?\nA.Yes, above all there was a government agency which had the government assignment to deal with that question, and this government agency was the Reich Agency for Eugenics; this Reich Agency for Eugenics which was commonly known also as the Reich Genealogical Office comprised the state assignment and as well as that of the party.\nQ.In Berlin-Dahlem was there an agency of RuSHA or of the RuSHA Eugenics Office of the SS?\nA.In Berlin-Dahlem neither RuSHA nor any other departments had an agency, and the term eugenics office was after 1942 not only used in the terminology of RuSHA.\nQ.In Berlin Unter Den Linden opposite the Hotel Bristol was there an agency of RuSHA or was the eugenics office of the SS located there?\nA.No, RuSHA did not have an agency at Unter Den Linden either. RuSHA had its main office at Berlin Hedemannstrasse No. 23 and No. 24. It had one agency, this was the racial office, at Berlin Lichterfelde. Then there were several offices of RuSHA which, however, did not belong to the actual organization of the main office but which already employed race and settlement leaders of the main sector, or the welfare detachment of the main sector, because Berlin at the same time was the official residence and headquarters of the SS main sector; however, these agencies had their special designations; they were called welfare officer of the Waffen SS Spree, for example, or \"SS Fuehrer in the Race and Settlement Service of the SS, Main Sector spree,\" and so on.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3414, "page_number": "3407", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "The Main Office itself only had the agencies which I have just mentioned, at Hedemannstrasse and at Lichterfeld-West.\nQ.Witness, where was the eugenics office of RuSHA located?\nA.If any agency is mentioned as the eugenics office, after 1942, then it must be assumed that this is the wrong designation for the Reich Eugenic Office, and this Reich Eugenics Office, If I can recall correctly, was located at Schiffbauerdamm. I believe that I have seen this from a document which I took out of the Reich Ministerial Gazette for the Interior Administration. Further more, we had nothing to do with that agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3415, "page_number": "3408", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QWitness, from Document Book 13-A of the Prosecution, I am now going to hand you documentNO-4032, which is Exhibit 552. This is a letter from the Geneological Records Office to a certain Sturmbannfuehrer Aust, of 21 September 1944. Is it correct that you issued the order at the tine that the colonial card index file was to be secured?\nAWithout any doubt, if I issued such an order I would have exceeded my authority. Osiander, who writes this letter to Aust, refers to a telephone conversation which he alleges to have had with me. I assume that the facts which he mentions here is correct generally. He writes here literally, and I quote, \"Schwalm, however, has also told me that he will today send on a letter to you, through our comrade Paul, in which he will request you to do everything possible in order to get out and secure the colonial card index file.\"\nOsiander tried to get gasoline from me for this purpose, and I believe that he also asked me to give him a truck. He had to furnish some reasons for that. He sent one Obersturmfuehrer Neumann-Reppert to the Netherlands at the time, and that was at the time when the invasion armies had already penetrated into the Netherlands, because this letter dates back to September 1944. I assume that the following took place:\nOsiander had received basic instructions, and he also wanted to find and secure these documents. He then had to give some reasons so that he would receive the necessary technical support from me in this case.\nQWas this matter actually part of your assignment in your capacity as staff leader?\nACertainly, it was not my task to issue orders to the Geneological Records Office, However, it was my task to provide the technical equipment -- that is to say, in this case the assignment and allotment of a truck and gasoline to as to make this possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3416, "page_number": "3409", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QI shall now refer once more to the judgment of the IMT which the Prosecution haspresented here in the form of an extract. It is stated in this extract from the judgment of the IMT, with regard to the SS. that the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS, in collaboration with VOMI, carried out Germanization plans. What did you have to do with VOMI?\nAI had nothing whatsoever to do with VOMI. I only met the defendants Lorenzand Brueckner here in Nurnberg for the first tine, or, to put it more clearly, Lorenzonly met me here. I. as an SS Sturmbannfuehrer or Obersturmbannfuehrer, of course, had occasionally seen Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz previously on some occasions, however, I certainly did not mean anything to him.\nQWitness, please take a look at the chart which is on the wall behind you, and describe to us whether, in its present form, the chart is correct as far as you know.\nAIn its present form the plan is corrects It becomes evident from this chart that the VOMI and the Race and Settlement Main Office were two completely separate offices, or, in order to use the exact terminology here, they were two separate main offices. One of then, the VOMI, belonged to the state sector of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, while the RuSHA, the other office, belonged to the sector of the SS Main Offices.\nThis chart was to give the Tribunal an idea as to how difficult it was to understand the ramifications and competencies which existed before 1945. In this connection I can well say that none of us were able to understand this entanglement. We only knew with whom we had something to do and we knew with whom we had nothing to do and during my entire activity I had nothing to do with VOMI.\nQI an now going to hand you the basic information sheet which has been submitted by the Prosecution, and I ask you to look at the chart which is contained therein. Is this chart correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3417, "page_number": "3410", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "AI would like to restrict my testimony to the fourth main department from the left, and that is the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS. The chart according to the heading, only applies to the years 1943 to 1945. For that period of time, the charts which I offered as documents yesterday with regard to the RuSHA are correct. Above all, on this chart, the following is wrong:\nThere is an organization and administrative office listed in the first box in the left-hand corner under the Race and Settlement Main Office. If I recall correctly, an office of that sort existed once between the years 1935 and 1937. The same thing applies to the Training Office. The Training Office was taken out of our agency, the RuSHA, in 1937, and was transferredto the SS Main Office.\nThe Marital Office, which is listed here, is correct.\nThe Office for Archives and Press Services existed at one time from 1935 to 1937. Below it, the Office for Public Health is listed, with the addition, \"Conti\". Conti is supposed to be the medical counsellor -- never was a part of RuSHA, It was an office of the Party, and as such it would be a matter pertaining to the Reich Leadership of the NSDAP. Conti, however, was State Secretary for the Health Service in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the RuSHA.\nThen, below that, the Lebensborn has been listed. Herr Hofmann stated here alrea dy yesterday, or the day before, that the Lebensborn left RuSHA in the year 1937.\nThen, on the top level, comes the Racial Office, and under the Racial Office we have the name of Turner. SS Gruppenfuehrer Turner was never chief of the Racial Office. As I stated yesterday, for a certain period of time he was the Deputy of Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3418, "page_number": "3411", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Below that we have the Eugenics Office. After all, the Eugenics Office was changed to the Marital Office in the year 1942. Consequently, after 1942, it did not exist any more.\nThen comes the Settlement Office, and this statement is correct.\nThen comes an office for policy with regard to populations. This office never existed as far as RuSHA was concerned. When the Eugenics Office was split up, in the year 1942, into the Marital Office, the Geneological Records Office, an office for population statistics was planned to be established later on. However, as a result of the war, this office was not established. Consequently, it only existed as far as the plan of the Reichsfuehrer was concerned, which dated back to the year 1942.\nThen comes the Main Welfare Office, Tills is listed correctly here, but only as far as the year 1943 is concerned, because in the year 1944 this office was dissolved as a closed organization.\nThen, as the last offices. in the lower right-hand corner, there cones the Resettlement Office, which has been listed here as \"Population Transfers\". The name of Lorenz has been mentioned here, and the name Hoffmeyer, and above that the title \"includes Resettlement Commission,\" which probably refers to VOMI, and VOMI was a main office on the government sector of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nThis chart then, for the most part, as regards the term \"Race and Settlement Main Office\", it is quite correct only in two cases, only two offices listed there which are listed correctly; all the others contain mistakes.\nQWitness, as a result of our discussion on organizational questions, we have moved away from point 21 of the Indictment, I want to ask you several questions about that. As far as you know, who dealt with the registration of the living population?\nAIn Germany, that was the permanent task of the police, and this task always remained in the hands of the police.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3419, "page_number": "3412", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Q.Witness, from Document Book II-C of the Prosecution, I am now going to hand you documentNO-4102, Exhibit 45. Please comment on paragraphs 5 and 11 of that document.\nA.This document was discussed for the first time by my colleague Huebner. This is a report which was made out by Dreyer, and Dreyer was a Race and Settlement Leader at Munich. He talks here about a meeting of the Race and Settlement Leaders which lasted from the 5th to the 10th of May 1944. This report is a subjective report of Dreyer's, and it represents his personal opinion; it was not submitted to me prior to 1945. He made this report to his Higher SS and Police Leader and to the Leader of the SS Main Sector South, which was Obergruppenfuehrer Freiherr von Eberstein.\nParagraph 5 of this report contains the grand phrase, \"Solution of the Jewish question in the Warthegau by inspecting the ghetto at Lodz.\" I do not think this phrase makes any sense, because you cannot solve the Jewish question just by inspecting a ghetto. I assume that Dreyer was crying to say something quite different. He wanted to state how the Jewish question was solved in the Warthegau at that time, that is to say, what the Warthegau in particular did in that respect, and then he discusses the matter in somewhat more detail by stating that the members who attended the meeting had the opportunity to not only look at the organization of the ghetto and its war effort in connection with industries, but they were also able to make studies with regard to the racial differences, and things of that sort. I did not quote that literally, and I left out the unimportant words.\nAt the end of this report Dreyer mentions the fact that the Deputy of RuSHA, Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner, as well as I myself, made statements about the position of the Race and Settlement Leader according to the wish of Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, who was the chief of the agency. He says we stated that the Race and Settlement Leader should have less contact with the main office in Berlin, but that he should support the local agency of the leader of the main sector and the agency \n of the Higher SS and Police Leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3420, "page_number": "3413", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "What Kerr Hofmann has testified to before is again expressed in this case. RuSHA was a professional office and it issued factual instructions. On what occasion these factual instructions were to be applied was for the decision of the local authorities in each individual case. In regard to the local action which was taken, in contrast to other main offices RuSHA did not want to exert any influence on its local Race and Settlement Leaders.\nQ.I am now going to hand you DocumentNO-4044, Exhibit 554, from Document Book 13-A of the Prosecution, What film was concerned in this case?\nA.This is a letter from Brigadefuehrer Heider to me, and it is a private letter. He states that he has just found the film about the Jews which I had requested. He says, literally: \"The Jew film which you have requested has now again put in an appearance. It was located in the film library of the Training Office\", which had the task of making copies of that film.\nWith regard to this document, which was submitted to me in the course of my interrogation, I testified to the same effect as I am going to do now. In the case of this so-called Jew-film this was a film which I had seen in the year 1938. The film had the title, \"Yiddle with the Fiddle\". This film had originated in Poland at the time, and its subject was how a Jewish boy grows up in a Polish ghetto and how he finally winds up as a great violinist. This film was very interesting to us, for several reasons, Without any doubt, it was a phenomenon of the Jewish people, and it was very interesting for an anthropologist to watch this phenomenon. This film was understandable to us because the text was in Yiddish, and Jewish dialect, after all, can be understood quite easily by a German. I knew that this film had to be kept somewhere in the Training Office and, since it was interesting to us, I wanted to have copies made of that particular film\nQ.Witness, it did not become quite clear to us as to when this \n film originated.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3421, "page_number": "3414", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "A.I cannot give you the exact year, but I can only say that I had seen it in 1938.\nQ.Thank you, that is sufficient for me.\nA.It was shown to us.\nQ.In Point 23 of the Indictment, and in Article II, it is especially emphasized that the acts contained in the Indictment had also been directed against prisoners of war. What do you have to say in that connection?\nA.For the most part, this point of the Indictment can only refer to those cases where men had committed criminal offenses. I believe, for the most part, that is included in Point 14 of the Indictment, I stated yesterday that, with regard to Point 14 of the Indictment, I did not develop any activity on my own initiative. Consequently, I could not know whether the people who were subjected to special treatment were civilians or prisoners of war. However, I have discovered a document here -- and this is Document 3040-PS, USA Exhibit 207. Without any doubt, this document must have originated in the trial before the IMT. This document states that people who had committed criminal offenses, in so far as they were prisoners of war, were, first of all, by way of a request by the Gestapo, to be transferred from their status as prisoners of war into a civilian employee relationship, that is, they were to have the status of civilians. Therefore, aside from my personal participation or non-participation, the situation must have been that from that moment when the examiner appeared, a prisoner of war, if he still had that status, as a result of an order by the OKW and upon the recommendation of the Gestapo, may have been given the status of a civilian employee.\nQ.I am now going to hand you documentNO-1624, Exhibit 558, from Document Book 13-A of the Prosecution. Did you have anything to do with the labor allocation of Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3422, "page_number": "3415", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "A.Neither RuSHA nor I had anything to do particularly with this question. This is a copy, and at the head of that document it states explicitly that it is a copy of a decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS and the Chief of the German Police in the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Then come the file notes, \"S-3\", \"A-5\", and so on. From this it becomes evident that this decree must have originated with the Reich Security Main Office. This decree was classified as \"secret\", and that was done for the reason that we probably received it in that classification as being secret, because one of the first lessons which people learned who dealt with secret matters was that when something was addressed to them from a higher agency as being secret, then they could not rescind the secret character of that particular document. This must be a stall order or the Reich Security Main Office. On the 20th of August, 1943, this decree was passed on via copies. In several sentences the information is contained that the agencies in the Occupied Eastern Territories are prohibited from keeping Jewish employees in offices where they can look into the correspondence. It states that \"Jews are only to be used for labor allocation where they cannot get any look at the documents and correspondence.\"", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3423, "page_number": "3416", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "At the tine I was gullible enough to pass on this decree from August of 1943.\nQI an now coning to Count III of the Indictment which deals with membership in criminal organization. Were you a member of the SS?\nAYes, I have already stated that yesterday. In theyear 1932. I left the SA and I was transferred to the SS.\nQWhat reasons compelled you to leave the SA. and to join the SS?\nAUP to that period of time, I had studied, and at the tine I was an assistant at the Anthropological Institute of Munich, in a position not listed on the budget. I was interested in the SS as a German elite organization because anthropological questions and biological questions interested me very much and they had also revived my interest in the selection of human beings. such a special elite organization and such a special selection of people was what the SS was trying to be.\nQIn the judgement of the IMT, an elite race has been mentioned. In another connection, the words \"Master Race\" have also been used here. Does the term faster Race\" mean anything to you?\nAIf you ask me whether I know it I can only say \"yes\" and \"no\".\nQPlease explain that.\nAFrom my work end my membership in the SS and with my work in the selection of the SS, I, of course, do not know this term. We did not want to create a master race or domineering race and we did not want to establish the superman, because a man who deals with biological questions knows quite well that this cannot be done. We wanted to establish a healthy average which was capable of achieving results. However, I know the tern \"Master Race\" from another connection, and as far as I could ascertain so far, this is the first time that the word appeared. I know it from the book by Madison Grant, \"The Passing of the Great Race\", which appeared for the first time in the United States of America in 1916, and there it was issued in several editions. Its fourth edition was \n translated into German.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3424, "page_number": "3417", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "This German edition appeared in 1925. I read this book, I believe, between the years 1928 and 1930, and this book made a very big impression on me.\nQDo you know any other works of Madison Grant?\nAI know the other work of Grant, which has also been translated into German. It bears the American title \"The Conquest of a Continent\", and it was translated into German in the year 1937 or 1938. I also read this book in the German text.\nQDid you know anything about the attitude and ideas of Madison Grant?\nAYes, I assumed from these books that Grant was the President of the Immigration Restriction League for 20 years. I believe that in that capacity, and that can be taken from the books, he played a considerable part in the change of quota, legislation or in the issuing of the quote limitations as far as immigration was concerned into the United States in 1921, in 1924 and finally the final legislation which was issued in 1925.\nQHow was it generally with regard to the anthoropological literature?\nAI must say in this connection that the first books and the leading books which deal with anthropological questions mostly originated abroad. The first fundamental work about the human races in Europe was written bh one Deniker. This man Deniker was a born Russian who resided in France. Deniker for the first time subdivided the European races into the well-known four or five races. Another one was Lapouge, who was also French; Galton in England; Davenport, Ripley, Huxley; and also Boas in the United States. I also know Halfdan Bryn from Sweden. From Germany, I can mention the names Martin, the former director of the Anthropological Institute of the University of Munich, who above all had a great influence on practical anthropology through his handbook an anthropology; Schemann, Weismann, \n Woltmann, Lenz, and Fischer can also be mentioned in that respect.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3425, "page_number": "3418", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QWitness, did you hold any office within the Party?\nANo, I never held any office in the Party.\nQWhat did you do in the SS?\nAI had the official position of an SS Fuehrer in the Race and Settlement Service since 1934. I had this position aside from my rank until the outbreak of the war. For the position which was provided for in the budget, I was paid until the time of the Capitulation. Therefore I never changed my status. I was promoted in the year 1936 to Sturmbannfuehrer, and in the year 1943 I was appointed Obersturmbannfuehrer, as I have already testified. At the beginning of the war in 1939 - and I have already mentioned that at the beginning of my examination - I was conscripted into the army.\nQDid your conscription into the army mean that you left the SS?\nANo, that didn't mean that at all. However, it meant that my membership in the SS was suspended and also my membership in the Party.\nQDid the suspension of membership in the SS experience any change during the war?\nANo, the Wehrmacht turned me over to the Waffen SS because since I had been born in 1910 I had to remain in the military service, and aside from my assignment which I received later on in the SS I was paid in my budget position as a race and settlement leader, as it was done during my time in the Wehrmacht.\nQAre you acquainted with Himmler's speech at Poznan of October 1943?\nANo, I do not know anything about this speech.\nQDid you hear any speeches by Himmler at all?\nAYes, I did hear a speech by Himmler. This was a speech which Himmler made at the Reichsmeeting of peasants at Goslar in 1937. This speech had the title \"The SS as an anti-Bolshevist combat organization\", and aside from the fact that I heard it personally, \n in a subsequent time this speech was promulgated to a considerable extent throughout the SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3426, "page_number": "3419", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "This is the only speech of Himmler's which I ever heard, and this was throughout the period of time when I was a member of the SS.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I would like to say something just for one moment. I request the permission of the Tribunal that immediately after the recess I can call a witness for cross examination. The witness has great difficulties and he has to leave for Hamburg at two o'clock this afternoon. The whole cross examination would only take up ten minutes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any objections on your part?\nDR. HEIM:No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3427, "page_number": "3420", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. SCHWARZ:If the Tribunal please, I would like to cross examine the witness Kuno von Schlippenbach.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nKUNNO VONSCHLIPPENBACH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann)\nQWe are talking about Prosecution Exhibit774which has been submitted subsequently. Will you please tell the Tribunal your full name?\nAMy name is Kunno von Schlippenbach.\nQWere you a member of the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you ever apply for membership in the SS?\nANo.\nQAre you married to a Czech woman?\nAYes.\nQWhen did you marry that girl?\nAIn the year 1942.\nQWhere did you marry?\nAIn Berlin.\nQIs it correct that an agency in Berlin requested you to submit a racial opinion on your wife so that this marriage could be permitted? Did you have such a racial examination made?\nAYes.\nQAnd which agency was that?\nAThat was an agency which was called approximately office for \n eugenic research or Reich Eugenic Office, Reich Office for Eugenic Research.", "speakers": [ "KUNNO VON", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3428, "page_number": "3421", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "I do not remember that exactly.\nQWere you at that agency in person?\nAYes.\nQWere you able to ascertain whether this was an agency of the RuSHA?\nANo, I was not able to ascertain that, but I assume that it was so for the Ministry of the Interior first sent me to the RuSHA, to an agency which was located in Berlin-Dahlem, and this agency told me that I was not in the right place there; that I would have to go to the office for eugenic research which was located in the Unter Den Linden. This agency was located in Unter Den Linden, opposite the Hotel Bristol. This agency then, was the correct place for me to go and the things happened that I described in my interrogation, in my examination.\nQThen you don't know for sure whether this was the eugenics office of the SS.\nANo, I don't know that; I do not assume that it was this office since I had nothing to do with the SS.\nQIn your affidavit you testified that the RuSHA ordered you to supply four photos of your financee, taken when naked, so that a racial examination could be made.\nAAs far as I can remember my testimony and my affidavit, I called this office, the eugenics research office within the RuSHA because I at that time assumed and I thought so, and still think so today, that this office of the eugenic research was a sub-agency of the Race acid Settlement Office, the RuSHA; whether it was that way exactly, I don't know.\nQWitness, I am now confronting you with the fact that racial opinions for non-SS members, the competent authority were other offices, and for instance, that would have been the Reich Eugenics Office or the Reich Office for Eugenic Research. In the second place, I am telling you that this morning a witness testified that the Eugenics Office of the SS did not have their office located in Unter Den Linden but in the Hedemannstrasse at Berlin. Do you admit that you could have made an error if you said that \n the Eugenic Research Office was an office of the RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3429, "page_number": "3422", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "AI could course have been mistaken for I was in no position to know the position and the subordination in these offices, and I do not know to whom the Eugenics Research Office, where I have been was subordinated.\nQFurthermore, in your affidavit you mentioned a certain Schwarz. Of what agency was that man a member?\nAHerr Schwarz was in Prague; the office was called the Plenipotentiary for the Strengthening of Germanism Abroad, with the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia.\nQDo you know whether that man was a member of the RuSHA?\nANo, I don't know that.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; I have finished my cross examination.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQDo you remember the names of any other people you talked to?\nANo, I don't remember.\nQHow many different people did you consult about this matter?\nAIn this matter of photographs, I talked with two people; in the matter of the taking away of my children, I only consulted with Mr. Schwarz in Prague, who also wrote me the letter which I submitted to this Tribunal.\nQWell now, who were the two people that you talked to about the photographs?\nAI cannot remember the names of these people; they were both present at this agency which I talked about a minute ago.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HEIM:With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to continue with the direct examination of the defendant Schwalm.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nFRITZ SCHWALM - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION ( Continued) \n BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3430, "page_number": "3423", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QWitness, before the recess you said that you had heard this speech of Himmler's in Goslar. Did you ever personally report to Himmler at his headquarters or at Himmler's office of the Reichleadership of the SS?\nANo, I was never at the headquarters of the Reichsfuehrer, nor did I report there, nor was I for a similar purpose at the Reichleadership of the SS.\nQDid you ever visit a concentration camp?\nANot before 1945.\nQDid you ever visit a prisoner of war camp for any reason before May, 1945?\nANo.\nQDid you know the fundamental Order No. I by Hitler?\nAThis basic order called the Leader Order No. 1 was well-known for it was published in all agencies.\nQWitness, what happened to you after the capitulation?\nAAfter the capitulation, on 1st June, 1945, I submitted voluntarily to the British occupation power. I had two reasons for doing that. I had the opinion and I was convinced that I had nothing to hide, and in the second place, I had not been made a prisoner, and I now wished to come home just as soon as possible. At that time I was in Schleswig-Holstein.\nQHow long were you a prisoner of war?\nAOn the 21st of June, 1945 I was transferred to the former concentration camp Neuengamme near Hamburg. This camp was according to orders on the 5th and 6th of March, that is for me, in the time of 1946, transferred from a prisoner of war status into the civilian prison status; nothing was changed in our status, in our condition.\nQHow did you get into the hands of the Americans?\nAAt the end of November, 1945 already when the first newspapers, which were far and between, printed news concerning the beginning of the big Nurnberg trial before the IMT, I reported as a witness voluntarily, \n At this time we were completely isolated from the world outside us; no correspondence with our relatives was possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3431, "page_number": "3424", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "The news that we got by way of newspapers were few and far between, but the camp administration distributed the newspapers that had the note in it that witnesses were required for the IMT, and that we could volunteer for that.\nQDid you then come to Nurnberg?\nAI had to fill out a questionnaire; then in the course of the month of April, 1946, I received a visit of a defense counsel from the IMT who visited all the witnesses that had made themselves available in this camp Neuengamme, and discussed with them evidence material. In June, 1946, I was transferred to Nurnberg. The motive for our volunteering for this -- and there were about five SS members who were interned in this camp, of whom two or three came here -- were that we knew that the organization of the SS was indicted and because we did not know what happened to our superiors until that time, we took the responsibility of volunteering on our own initiative to testify on behalf of the members of the SS, about one hundred, thousand of them, who were still interned, the members of the Waffen SS and the general SS. These men mostly belonged to the lower ranks, or at the most Unterfuehrer ranks, or even lower fuehrers. At that time I felt responsible for these people even then, and that was the most important motive for me to make myself available to the trials here at Nurnberg.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3432, "page_number": "3425", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QFrom Nuernberg were you transferred back into a British camp?\nAHere in Nuernberg, I testified before the Commission of the IMT; that was on 1st July, 1946, and after this interrogation I came back to Neuengamme.\nQHow did you come to Nuernberg now?\nAIn April of the year 1947 was needed as witness for the SS Obergruppenfuehrer Poppendick who was indicated before the medical trial. Poppendick until August, 1944 was the leading physician of the RuSHA. I myself made myself available to him as a witness, and I also gave an affidavit for Poppendick's case.\nQWhat further happened to you?\nAAs a surprise to me, after I had made this affidavit I was transferred from the witness wing to the criminal wing.\nQWere you interrogated then?\nAYes, a day later I had my first interrogation.\nQIn the course of this interrogation were you told that your statements could possibly be used against you in case you were indicted or should be used against you?\nANo, I was not told anything of that sort. The only thing, the first prevention measures was the one that I was put under oath.\nQWere you told that according to th e existing rules you could use counsel?\nANo, I did not know that nor was it pointed out to me.\nQWere you told that concerning your statements which could be incriminating to you that you could refuse to testify?\nANo, on the contrary during my first interorgation I was insulted. That of course is no wonder if one knows the condition in which we were called for interrogations. Usually, because we did not shaved we were unshaven and we had clothes that were not necessarily very representative. AS we are dressed here before the Court, this is only for the time of the trial.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3433, "page_number": "3426", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "In the course of the first interrogation I was told that I was guilty of perjury constantly, and on May 27th I was released on rather bad terms, and in the course of my second interrogation on 28th May, three gentlemen interrogated me. The interrogations started from the fact that the interrogator, Mr. Wolf, first ennumerated three to five perjuries that I had committed, then the interrogation was continued by Dr. Schwenk. Dr. Schwenk told me at the beginning of the interrogation verbatim: \"If you will be hung, then you will remember that, I hope.\" Present at this interrogation there was a third gentleman and that was the Prosecution attorney Mr. Schiller, who is in the courtroom right now. Besides, there was also a secretary who was recording the proceedings.\nQWhat action did you take?\nAI told the interrogators that I could not testify to more than I knew.\nQWhat further happened to you?\nAI was first put into solitary confinement, but this state changed pretty soon, After about four weeks I suddenly was called again and the transcript was submitted to me for certification.\nQWas the transcript formulated in your own words?\nANo, the transcript was an excerpt of the interrogations that had taken place. I already said concerning the paragraph of the transcript that the warding is not especially fortunate.\nQWere you now told that this document would be used against you?\nANo, I was not told it even then. At that time, that was about eight days before the indictment was submitted, I had signed this transcript, and on the whole I have nothing to comment upon in this transcript. The transcript is probably corresponds in the essential points with my actual interrelation.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3434, "page_number": "3427", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "QThis transcript, do you mean by that that affidavit of 25th June, 1947 that the Prosecution has submitted as DocumentNO-4823, Exhibit No. 493? I am now handing it to you.\nAYes, that is a typewritten transcript of the document.\nDR. HEIM:If it please the Tribunal, I have finished the direct examination of the defendant Schwalm in his own case.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, if you had been told that this statement made -if you had been told that the statements made by you could be used in evidence against you, would it have made any difference in what you said?\nAAt that time I would have put in the positive statements that I talked about with my interrogator. I discussed with the interrogator Mr. Wolf in a very charming manner about the various questions that were contained in the transcript. In this connection Mr. Wolf said if we would not assume what you have just told me, that was the question about the voluntariness of the people suitable for re-Germnaization, then we would have put that in.\nQWell, you are doing a lot of talking, but I asked you one simple question: If you had been told that the statement could be used against you in court, would it have made any difference in what you said -- in substabce.\nAYes.\nQIt would.\nABut -\nQAll right, that is all I wanted to know. As an intelligent man, didn't you know that it could be used against you in court?\nAI could not assume that at that time.\nQYou didn't know that?\nANo, I didn't knew that.\nQThe statement before you, is that true?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3435, "page_number": "3428", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "A.The statement as far as the subject matter is concerned, it is correct.\nQ.In substance, is that statement correct?\nA.Yes, in substance it is correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQ.Mr. Witness, I have a few questions to ask.\nYou have just made a statement that certain threats were made, and you quoted a statement made by attorney Schwenk. What was the date of that conversation?\nA.The date of this interrogation--that was my second interrogation, and I was only interrogated twice altogether -- was 28 May 1947.\nQ.You then said that subsequently you were put in solitary; is that correct?\nA.Yes, I have to assume that, because after that he asked me whether I was in solitary confinement or whether I was sharing a cell with somebody else. At that time I told him that I was in together with Mr. Bobrik of the Foreign Office, and he said \"very well\".\nQ.Well, when you were placed in what you term \"solitary\", was the treatment accorded you any different from what it was when you were in a cell with another person?\nA.No, the general treatment was exactly the same; that was not changed.\nQ.And when did that solitary status -- if I may use that term -end? In other words, how long were you in solitary?\nA.I cannot state that exactly. During the course of the next week there was a big to-do and a big transfer, and in the course of this transfer of all prisoners of the criminal wing, I too was transferred.\nQ.Upon the date when you say these threats were made, did the secretary take down in shorthand what was being said?\nA.I really did not pay any attention to that especially. The secretary, however, was told beforehand at that time that she did not \n have to make a stenographic record of everything that went on.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3436, "page_number": "3429", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Q.Was there any mechanical device, referred to as a sound system or dictagraph, that recorded what was being said?\nA.I really don't know, I could not establish that.\nJUDGEO' CONNELL: That is all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Are there any further questions for this defendant?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (Counsel for the defendant Ebner): May it please the Tribunal, I would like to put a few questions to this witness. BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQ.Witness, in your affidavit, Exhibit 493, in connection with the racial examination of children by Dongus, you stated, verbatim: \"I assumed that he worked together with the Lebensborn in this respect.\" What would your statement be new concerning that assumption?\nA.I am now saying the same thing that I thought when I signed the affidavit on the 25 July 1947. I assumed that -- and I was only in a position to assume that -- because the prosecution, that is, the interrogator at that time, told me that this assumption was logical. If I had known or did not know at that time, I would have clarified the matter. I could only assume that, and that is why I insisted that the verb-assume\" be used in the transcript.\nQ.You remember the document, Exhibit 439? That is a report on an examination of Dr. Ebner, which he made, during his visit in Angenzell, report concerning Roumanian children. In your expert opinion, was that a racial examination at that time as it was carried out by the racial classification experts? That is, this examination?\nA.No, this was not a question of a racial examination. Dr. Ebner uses the expression racial selection twice in this connection, but, after all, this concept was not a monoply of the RuSHA. Besides, in this connection Dr. Ebner talked about three evaluation groups, which he used as directives. If he had been a classification expert, or if he had known the usual racial system of classification, then he certainly \n would have used the usual evaluation, this classification into four groups.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3437, "page_number": "3430", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Q.In your opinion, and to your knowledge, was Dr. Ebner a classification expert at all?\nA.I really don't know that for certain. I know that until October 1941, at least, he was not a classification expert, nor did I ever gain knowledge of any circumstance that would lead me to assume that he had been made a classification expert afterwards.\nQ.Were physicians in the SS classification experts at all, and were they on duty as such?\nA.Only in very infrequent cases. That was an old bone of contention between the physicians and the classifidation experts. The physician, according to his medical training, saw the pathological differentiations in human beings, while the classification expert was to give an opinion or the outward characteristics of the man.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERDORF: Thank you; no further questions. BY DR. FROESCHMANN Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.Witness. do you remember when the defendant Hildebrandt was appointed as Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.If I remember correctly, Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt appeared on the 20th of April, 1943, in order to officially take over his duties. However, it probably lasted until the middle of May 1943, when he finally took over his duties.\nQ.How long did you then collaborate with Hildebrandt?\nA.I worked together with Hildebrandt until the end of February 1945. At that time the RuSHA offices in Hedemannstrasse had interrupted their activities because of bomb damages. Hildebrandt became Higher SS and Police Leader at the Army Group Center, and I myself was employed through the personnel office in the Waffen SS, in the staff of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Steiner.\nQ.Is it correct that at the end of December, 1943, Hildebrandt was ordered to South Russian, as a Higher SS and Police leader?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3438, "page_number": "3431", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "A.Yes, that is correct. Hildebrandt left for South Russia at the time before Christmas of 1943, and he remained there, at Army Group A, as Higher SS and Police Leader, until the end of August 1944.\nQ.Witness, did you gain any knowledge of the manner in which Hildebrandt administered that office in his capacity as Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.Yes. After all, I was his closest collaborator. The tendency which was prevalent in RuSHA, which I have already mentioned, of bringing no influence to bear on the independent decisions made by its special offices, remained in force. This tendency was increased by the fact that the offices had to be transferred outside of Berlin. Because of that fact their independence was increased, if that was possible.\nQ.What was your impression of Hildebrandt's attitude concerning the Party and the SS during his activities as Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.Since I knew Hildebrandt since 1934, I knew his critical attitude concerning these agencies, and that attitude had even been increased. Hildebrandt severely criticized the domineering position of Bormann, for instance, who was in the immediate surroundings of Hitler, and he just as severely criticized Himmler's attitude, who was more and more removed from the other SS leaders, which was also clearly shown from the various personnel matters.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt try to change the course of government which, according to your explanation, he thought was wrong?\nA.He made attempts within the framework of his sphere of possibility, and the possible sphere, of course, was the discussion of these various questions with people who were of his opinion.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3439, "page_number": "3432", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "Q.Do you know anything about the fundamental ideas that Hildebrandt pursued in the course of these decussions?\nA.Hildebrandt, after all, was convinced, that it was necessary to institute a new order in Europe. As things stood in a political and military way until the end of 1942, it was certainly to be assumed that Germany would become the dominating power in Europe. Hildebrandt thought that the reasons for the political and military defeat were based on the fact that this course of good collaboration had been left aside.\nQ.What was Hildebrandt's attitude towards the SS?\nA.I had the impression that Hildebrandt in the SS saw a counter balance against the undesirable developments of the Party.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt, in his capacity as SS leader, enjoy an especially good reputation insofar that he wanted to keep up the old ideals of the SS?\nA.Yes, that is absolutely correct.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No further questions. BY DR. MUELLER (Counsel for the defendant Meyer-Hetling):\nQ.I would like to establish only one fact, witness. Are you identical with the co-publisher of the reference book on Germanism and Germanism abroad, who is also called Schwalm?\nA.No, I am not that man.\nDR. MUELLER:No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense?\n(No response)\nFor reasons beyond the control of the Court, it will be necessary to adjourn at 12 o'clock for the day. If we start with the cross-examination now, you would have a few minutes of it today and a few minutes Monday. For that reason, the \n COURT I CASE VIII Tribunal will now recess until 9:30 Monday moraine.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3440, "page_number": "3433", "date": "09 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-09", "text": "(At 1150 hours, 9 January 1948, a recess was talc en until 0930 hours, Monday, 12 January 1948.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3441, "page_number": "3434", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, or.\n12 January 1948, 0930-1630, The Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in court with the exception of the Defendant Viermetz, who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the evidence.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, the witness Franz Vietz, who has already testified for the Defense, is scheduled, according to an agreement reached in court, to be called again to testify for the RusHA defense. Also, one Fritz Bartels has been celled as a witness for the Defendant Hofmann, the Defendant Sollmann, and the Defendant Tesch.\nBoth of these, been, who are now in the Nurnberg jail, have long since been approved for extradition to Poland to be put on trial in that country. They have been kept in Nurnberg until now, at the request of the Defense. However, the Polish Government is now very anxious to have these two men, and I therefore ask that the Defense put these two men on the stand this afternoon, if possible, so that they may be sent on their way tomorrow.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Defense Counsel will arrange to use these witnesses immediately after the noon recess.\nMR. SCHILLER:During the course of the direct examination of the Defendant Schwalm-\nTHE PRESIDENT:Excuse me-- just a moment.\nDR.ORTH (Counsel for the defendant Viermetz): The preparation of the testimony which Dr. Bartels is supposed to give has not been concluded, \n COURT I CASE VIII and therefore it will be impossible to have the man testify here today.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. SCHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3442, "page_number": "3435", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Nor do I see any conclusive reason for having this man delievered to the Polish authorities immediately; I see no reason for not postponing this delivery to the Polish authorities until the testimony has been given. Since this witness has now been kept in prison for two years, these three weeks certainly should not make much difference.\nMR. SHILLER:May I explain to the Tribunal that the Polish Government is now reaching the end of its program and has set a date within the next few weeks in which all its extradition program has to be concluded? And that is the reason why we have just been informed of their haste. However, if I may suggest that if the witness Vietz could be called this afternoon and the witness Bartels tomorrow morning, we could still probably finish Bartels some time tomorrow.\nDR.HEIM (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm): High Tribunal, deputizing for counsel Dr. Froeschmann, I would like to state the following. In the course of the interrogate. on of the witness Vietz, we find that the case is the same as in the case of the witness Bartels. As far as I know, Dr. Froeschmann has not concluded the preparation concerning the witness Vietz, so that it will probably not be possible to have the witness Vietz here this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I inquire of counsel for the Prosecution how soon, or how much time we have during which we can dispose of these witnesses and get them, to the polish authorities within the time that will meet their requirements?\nMR. SHILLER:Well, Your Honor, the Polish Delegation, or rather, Major Acht, of the Polish Delegation here in Nurnberg, has said that he is very anxious to get them and, if at all possible, he wished to have them shipped to Dachau some time tomorrow so that they could be sent with a group from Dachau. However, during the recess this morning, I will speak to him again and see if it is possible to have the Poles wait any longer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I ask the Defense Counsel when, according to your plan, do you intend to call these witnesses?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3443, "page_number": "3436", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "DR. ORTH:High Tribunal, we could examine the witness Bartels during the next week; the preparation will be concluded by that tine. Besides, I know that the Dachau processing will take such a long time that certainly the witness Bartels could remain here until these things are prepared,\nDR. HEIM:High Tribunal, the examination of the witness Vietz would probably also be possible at the beginning of next week.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel for the Prosecution that you confer with the Polish authorities, at your convenience during the day, and ascertain just how much time they could permit us to keep these witnesses and comply with their requirements? I will state to counsel for Defense that in my view the Tribunal should, if possible, cooperate with the Polish authorities in their request so that these witnesses can be used both here and there. Give us that report as soon as you can.\nMR. SHELLER:I shall do so.\nMay it please the Tribunal, during the Defense Counsel, Dr. Helm, has stated that he has tried, through official channels and through the Prosecution, to got certain RuSHA cards on adults and also the RuSHA file on Jews, but that he had not received them. The impression which might be gained was that the Prosecution had refused to give or even show these cards and this file to him. It so happens that the Prosecution has a large file of RuSHA cards from Lodz for children and young people, but none for adults. We have checked the cards in our possession, but we just do not have any of these cards for adults. And as for the file on Jews, we have been at least as anxious as the Defense to find this, but have had no more success.\nINTERPRETER:Please repeat.\nMR. SHILLER:From what art, please?\nINTERPRETER:Your last sentence,\nMR. SHILLER:We have checked what we have, but we just do not have any of these cards for adults, and as for the file on Jews, we have been at least as anxious as the Defense to find that file, but have had no more success.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. SHELLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ORTH", "INTERPRETER", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3444, "page_number": "3437", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead with the examination.\nFRITZ SCHWALM - Resumed CROSS EXAMINATION B Y MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, in direct examination you stated that Exhibits 183 and 184, Documents No.NO-4193and No. 4194, in Book IV-D, showed that those cases were voluntary because the word \"voluntary\" was at the top of the page. Will you please take a look at these exhibits?\n(Documents submitted to witness)\nExhibits 183 and 184, witness.\nAThese are the documents 4193 and 4194. In the document 4193 in the column \"Head of the Family\", \"voluntary\", it states \"goes with sister\". In document 4194, in the column \"Head of Family\", it states, in parentheses, \"voluntary\".\nQWitness, does that mean that in these cases the shipment of these people was voluntary? Is that correct? That is the re-Germanization procedure?\nAYes. I just wanted to say that as the deportation, that is probably a wrong expression. If the usual customs as they were practiced in my time were adhered to, in the years 1942 and 1943, from which process these files we re taken, then that would mean that these persons in quostion here, without any cause and upon their own initiative, was registered and sent to Germany.\nQWitness, will you now please look at Prosecution Exhibits 186 and 187, which are documents numberedNO-4192and 4196, also in Book IV-D?\nAYes, I have just found the two documents.\nQAt the top of these two exhibits, witness, does the note say \"evacuated\" instead of \"voluntary\"?\nAYes, that is quite true. In these two documents, under Head of Family\", it says \"evacuated\".", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3445, "page_number": "3438", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWill you please explain the difference between \"voluntary\" and \"evacuated\", witness?\nADuring the case in chief there has not been any doubt that a large part of those who were selected as suitable for re-Germanization were taken out from a circle of persons who were evacuated by the UWZ. In these oases the complete file, which included one family, then had the note \"evacuated\", if the head of the family had been evacuated.\nQWitness, then \"evacuated? here means involuntary, does it not?\nANo, it does not mean that. That means \"involuntary\" -- well, I would like to say that we have to differentiate between two phases here. As to the persons who have the note \"voluntary\" beside their names, those persons volunteered to go away from their Polish residences and volunteered to go to Germany, The persons who have the note \"evacuated\", obviously did not leave their residences voluntarily, but they went to Germany on their own initiative when they had the choice in the rough selection at the camp of the UWZ.\nQWitness, you have just said \"when they had a choice\". Since they had been evacuated from their homes and were now in the camp, what was their choice? Between going to Germany? Or what choice did they have on the other side?\nAIt is well known that the other people were evacuated to the Government General, at least the first time, and after the evacuation there was a stop in about March of 1941, if I remember correctly; those people were no longer deported into the Government General, but they were displaced within the Warthegau. That is to say, they remained within the Warthegau, but they had to be collected in camps. As to this manner of common habitation, my co-defendant Huebner has testified at length concorning this point.\nQWitness, please try to make your answers a little shorter.\nIn connection with the WED procedure, witness, didn't you know what happened to people who refused to be re-Germanized?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3446, "page_number": "3439", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Court I Case VIII\nAWe had nothing to do with this group of persons, either before or afterwards.\nQWitness, didn't you over hoar of a case where people were examined, found suitable for Germanization, but then refused to be re-Germanized?\nAI cannot remember a concrete case at the moment, that is a name. However, I absolutely admit the possibility of that fact, the possibility that a family or a man may have refused to be re-Germanized. That possibility is definitely there.\nQWhat would have happened to such a person, witness, or such a family?\nAMr. Prosecutor, not only what would have happened to him, but what did happen to him, was this. They were returned to the agencies from which they came, that is to say, in most cases, the UWZ. If such a family had volunteered and had perhaps been sent back because of health reasons, because of TB or something like that, then they would have been returned to their old residence as a free family.\nQWitness, you stated, on your direct examination, that people found suitable for Germanization were not subject to military service or labor service. Weren't these people sent to Germany for labor allocation?\nAThere must be an error in concept, counsel. A man who was subject to military duty had to be subject to labor duty at first. In the organization of the RAD, this Reich Labor Service, a man found suitable for Germanization did not have to take part in that, nor in the military service. Therefore, there are two different concepts. There was certainly a duty to do labor on the part of all Germans before 1915, under the than existing Control Council Law No. 3. That is, labor duty, the duty to do work. However, under the Arbeitsdienstpflicht, the Emergency Conscription, it meant that, half a year before, somebody had to do military duty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3447, "page_number": "3440", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWitness, I think you made yourself quite clear in about half the time you used just then. Please try to make your answers a little shorter.\nAWell, counsel, if there are errors in concept, I certainly have to explain them.\nQI appreciate that, witness.\nWitness, you stated, on direct examination, that you had approved of the abortion program for political reasons. Did you also approve of the extermination of the Jews for such political reasons?\nAI had nothing to do with the elimination of the Jaws or with approving that procedure.\nQWitness, I didn't mean that you had approved it in the sense of ordering it or letting it go through. What I meant is, did you approve of it in the sense that you felt it was justified or correct to do that?\nAI did not believe that it was justified, nor do I now believe that it is justified.\nQWitness, in discussing document No,NO-2861, which is Exhibit 524 in Book 11, you said that you did not know at the time what special treatment meant. This is your letter, witness, of 3 December 1943, concerning three passes on the railroad for RuSHA, so that the RuSHA examiners could investigate special treatment cases.\nAYes.\nQWitness, will you please look at the last sentence of this letter?\nAYes.\nQDoesn't this sentence say that the RSHA could roach a decision without the opinion of RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3448, "page_number": "3441", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.Yes, it says that in the letter.\nQ.Witness, when you wrote that, didn't you know that when the result of the racial examination was negative that this decision was: Hanging?\nA.In this case, counsel, I believe it is a matter of clarifying the concept of this. In my direct examination, I stated in detail, and I said that the special concept of special treatment from the state police was at that time and a long time after that not known to me. For myself, the concept of \"special treatment\" in cases as it is mentioned here meant a racial examination of alien labor that had illicit sexual intercourse with Germane. That is whet I understood when special treatment was mentioned, and that was familiar to me.\nQ.Witness, did you know at the time that where a negative decision was reached by the racial examiner that the decision would likely be: Hanging?\nA.No, I did not know that.\nQ.Well, witness, on direct examination you stated that the Poles were told that they were to be hanged if they had sexual intercourse with German women, isn't that correct?\nA.No, I said that the Poles were uniformed that Sexual intercourse was prohibited and that they were threatened with capital punishment. However, I believe that it was impossible that every Pole eastern worker who had sexual intercourse with a German worker was actually hung.\nQ.Witness, that is not the question. What I am asking you in, in a great number of cases many of these Poles and eastern workers were freely told that capital punishment might be imposed upon them if they were caught after they had sexual intercourse with German women, is that correct?\nA.I can only tell you that which I saw from the document that came to my eyes here. I, myself have never issued a warning to one of the eastern workers, whether it was before 1945 or in 1947. I \n never saw such a form in which these warnings were issued to eastern workers of Poles.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3449, "page_number": "3442", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Witness, from the documents, it's obvious that there was no attempt at secrecy in this connection. Now what did you mean by the word \"decision\" in this last sentence of your letter, when you say that, \"A decision of the RSHA cannot be reached without the opinion of RuSHA.\"?\nA.As I can have a survey of the matter now, this certainly has been a fundamental error. This contains the error that it was not the Reich Security Main Office which made the decision but it was the Reichsfuehrer SS that made it.\nQ.Witness, I am sorry, please proceed.\nA.I knew that the Reichsfuehrer SS used all possible documents in order to reach his decision; among others, also this opinion of the racial examiner. How he made this decision was in many cases, dependant I would like to say, on the criminal point of view of the matter. Whether or not there was an assault and soon, if dependent more on these facts than on the opinion of the RuSHA.\nQ.Witness, we are going off the track again. Please try to answer my question this time. Regardless of whether you feel that the letter is correct in stating that the decision was made by the RSHA or by Himmler, you knew that a decision was going to be made and that this racial examination was, to say the least, important in that connection, did you not?\nA.The racial examination was, as I referred from the testimony of Hofmann, based on six or seven documents which had to be sent in in this connection: That is to say, it was part of those six documents and it was a sixth part of the whole opinion that had to be given.\nQ.Witness, you knew a decision was going to be reached, did you not?\nA.That a decision had to be made, yes, that I knew.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3450, "page_number": "3443", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.But you didn't have any idea what the decision was going to be; in other words, you didn't know that hanging was a possibility?\nA.As to how the decision was going to fall out, no, I did not know.\nQ.Now witness, my question is that you knew that hanging was a possible decision, did you not?\nA.Just as the possibility of marrying.\nQ.So that in these cases of sexual intercourse which you say you called \"special treatment\", you knew that a possible decision was Hanging? Is that correct?\nA.Yes, it was a possibility.\nQ.Thank you, witness. As staff leader of RuSHA, did you examine all the mail that came into that office or which left that office?\nA.Nor did I see any mail that came in; nor did I see all the mail that went out.\nQ.Did you see the important mail, witness? Did you see documents stamped. \"Secret\"?\nA.The secret documents I probably saw for the most part in so far as they were directed to the RuSHA. and not to one of the agencies.\nQ.Witness, as staff leader of RuSHA, weren't you active in the drafting of directives and decrees by that agency?\nA.Directives and decrees of theMain Office had usually contents which were concerned with current and personnel matters. That is why the Main Office -- the RuSHA -- did only at regular intervals issue a so-called staff order, because it was my duty to edit this staff order. I would probably have signed it frequently because in the draft it was signed by the Chief. Decrees that were concerned with special and subjective matters of these agencies were a matter of these agencies to take care of just as they had their own payroll and just asthey received that mail directly which was not marked: Secret. And that, of \n course, is obvious if an office is in Prague, or in Thuringia, or in Bamberg, or somewhere else, then the mail cannot go via Berlin first.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3451, "page_number": "3444", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Witness, as staff leader of RuSHA, didn't you keep in close contact with the activities of the Race Office of RuSHA?\nA.In my direct examination, I have already testified to the effect as to how my relationship to the Race Office actually was. I had no closer contact with the Race Office than army other office. On the contrary, since you just asked me now I can say that the only personal tensions I had with my collaborators were to these members of the Race Office.\nQ.Well, witness, you have testified that you have studied anthropology and that for quite a period of time you worked in Lodz and thereby gained a good deal of practical knowledge in connection with racial examinations. Now do you mean that once you became staff leader you were no longer interested in that side of the activities of RuSHA?\nA.Mr. Prosecutor, 1 have already repeated that in detail, and I would like to repeat that once more. My practical working experience I did not gain as much in the SS, but I was practically active as anthropologist even before 1933. Then after I was transferred from the Wehrmacht to the RuSHA, I was transferred to Litzmannstadt to work there practically. This actual task differentiated me from these academic people who only had their knowledge from books and not from actual practice, and unfortunately such a man was one of my collaborators in the office, who has been mentioned here and whose effectiveness can be seen in most of the documents. In the course of my practical training as anthropologist at the University of Munich, my superior, who was my professor at that time, was Professor Dr. Bruno -hurt Schulz. Also in connection with his methods, I had certain objections. I rejected it for humane reasons -- for reasons of tact and decency. I did not mention those to him because from my former time of working together with Schulz, I did not wish to disturb our relations nor did I \n have any time to occupy myself any further with the matters of the Race Office, because after all, during my administrative work this decree was published in 1942 and that was the year when I was no longer in the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3452, "page_number": "3445", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Witness, I think I got your answer, but let me ask you a question again, and see if we can't have a shorter answer.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have two minutes,\nMR. SHILLER:Very well, your Honor. BY MR, SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, let's take up a different topic. During your direct examination you described the Genealogical Records Office -its innocuous functions and attitude. Didn't this office send out plundering expeditions for books, records, and practically whole libraries?\nA.Yes, I said that this agency was very small. I hardly believe that this agency could send out a commission because it only had two experts; one of them was Osiander, who had to take care of the administrative side of this business, and the other expert was Krodeschenk.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at Document No.NO-4853, Exhibit 654 in Book XIV-C.\n(Book is offered to the witness)\nThis is a letter from Aust to Osiander on 25 September 1944. Will you please read the first sentence.\nA.May I makea suggestion. As far as I know, Aust, himself, will be in the witness stand. I believe he can testify much better in connection with this document than I could.\nQ.That may be very well.\nA.But I'd like to do that. This personal letter from Aust to Osiander -\nQ.Witness, let me ask you a question, first. Have you read the first sentence which mentions the plundering expeditions of \n the Genealogical Records Office?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3453, "page_number": "3446", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.No, Mr. Prosecutor, nobody speaks about a plundering commission of the Genealogical Records Office. This first sentence contains what is called a sort of jest in German -- a joke. You make fun of a person by sort of increasing his importance or decreasing it. If Mr. Aust here writes that the plundering expeditions of the Genealogical Records Office of the sixth year of the war to the Netherlands will be part of history as those of Ludwig to thePfalz, then it is a satirical statement which cannot be taken seriously.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3454, "page_number": "3447", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "MR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I just have two questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Make the questions short, and the witness will answer the questions briefly. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ witness. you cannot deny that you now know of the many crimes committed by the SS and the agencies of the SS. Are you now proud or ashamed of having been a member of the SS?\nAI do not have to be ashamed of having been a member of the SS.\nQWitness. do you still approve of your former leader Himmler?\nAMr. Prosecutor, on the first of July 194-6 in my first testimony before the IMT, I stated that this Himmler for us -- and that we found out too late -- had two faces. Unfortunately he understood it too well to show us that face with which alone he could ask for loyalty from us his employees. And if we have broken down, it was our conception of loyalty that caused this breakdown.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your time has expired,\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR, HEIM:\n(for Schwalm)\nQI would like to refer to Exhibit 183 and 184. In connection with this, I only have one question to put to you, The field office Lodz, did this have anything to do with the evacuation of those people?\nAThe field office at Lodz had nothing to do with the evacuation nor with the deportation of these people in the Government General, nor with the displacement within the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3455, "page_number": "3448", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QI am now referring again toNO-2861, Exhibit 542. In this connection, I only have one question, at the time, was it generally known that female eastern workers were subject to an appropriate punishment if they had illicit sexual intercourse with German men?\nAThat was generally known.\nQAnd now a last question. Until the time of the surrender, did you hear of any sort of crimes of the SS, as the Prosecutor had just designated them?\nAI believe that the answer in this can already be found in my having answered the last two questions of the Prosecutor. I have been brought up to respect loyalty and honesty, and if I and all my comrades had found out about those things before, we certainly would not have followed this man Himmler.\nQThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused)\nDR.ZAPF (for the defendant Hofmann): Mr. President, I would like to now call the witness Georg Albert Roedel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGEORG ALBERTROEDEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand an repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I inquire of counsel if this witness hasn't been on the stand at one time previously?\nDR. ZAPF:Yes, this witness has already been \n testifying in cross examination.", "speakers": [ "GEORG ALBERT", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPF", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3456, "page_number": "3449", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "However, he has been approved as a direct witness for the defendant Hofmann.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will have to have some sort of procedure about getting through with those witnesses some time. You can't continue to bring them to the stand. Now I will lot you go ahead with this witness at this time but do not cover any territory that has already been covered by the witness while he is on the stand. I want to caution counsel now for both the Defense and the Prosecution that hereafter when a witness is on the stand we must got through with him by everybody that expects to use him. There is no reason to keep having the witness go to and from the stand.\nDR. ZAPF:May I say, Mr. President, that in the course of the examination of another witness here called Grumey, this case has already come up and at that time the High Tribunal decided that the witness Grumey, just as others, would be allowed to be called as a direct witness for the defendant Hofmann. That is why I adhered to the rule.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That was a case in which we made an exception, just as I am doing now; but what I am saying now is that we cannot continue to do that. Go ahead.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ZAPF:\nQWitness, did you once participate in the examination of the DVL?\nANo, not in the classification of the DVL.\nQDid you in this connection take part in a racial examination?\nAYes.\nQIn this racial examination, what groups were concerned?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. ZAPF", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3457, "page_number": "3450", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AAs far as I know, they were members of Group III.\nQWitness, will you please make a small pause until the interpreter has translated your answer. In the course of your activity, did you also have anything to do with Group IV?\nAYou mean the Group IV of the German People's List?\nQYes, Group IV.\nANo, 1 had nothing to do with it.\nQAt that time, did you know the purpose of the racial examination of those people that were scheduled to be in Group III?\nAAs far as I know, it was here a question of weeding out unsuitable applicants. That is a precautionary measure\nQDid you understand by the concept \"unsuitable\" that that meant people of non-German blood?\nAYes.\nQWell, now, those cards that you filled out, where were they sent?\nAAs far as I can remember, I passed them on to my direct superior.\nQ who was that at the time?\nAI believe that was SS Standartenfuehrer Scholz.\nQDid you now make a copy of such a file card and send it to the Reich Security Main Office -\nANo.\nQ --in the course of your racial examination with Group III?\nANo, those file cards - that is, all the work that I did, was given to the Standartenfuehrer Scholz.\nQ the document that has been submitted, a certain Obersteiner was repeatedly mentioned also in your affidavit \n in 5115, Exhibit 705 where you speak about this man.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3458, "page_number": "3451", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "you know that this roan mentioned by you -- Obersteiner -- was also Deputy of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAA deputy representative of the Commissioner? Well, as far as I know, he was not that because this office was held by the Higher police and SS Leader; however, he was, as far as I know, the head of the agency of the Reich Commissioner.\nQIn Salzburg:\nAYes, in Salsburg.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3459, "page_number": "3452", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QThe camp in St. Veit, did you reporting this camp to the RuSHA.\nATo who?\nQTo the RuSHA.\nANo, I was directly subordinate to this RUS Fuehrer Obersteiner, Salzburg, and I had no opportunity to make reports to the RuSHA but all the reports I made of course went to my direct superior and this was Obersteincr.\nQA selection of families for the purpose of reGermanization was made. Did any such examination and selection take place in St. Veit through you?\nANo, T have never made such a selection. I have never been asked about one or if one took place.\nQDoes the same answer apply also to the children that were housed there?\nAYes.\nQThe people that were housed in St. Veit, were they of German nationality? did they have German nationality already before Germanization.\nAAs far as 1 know, yes they did. For Germanization a provisional German nationality which could be revoked was according to decree to those people living in these various areas.\nQYou have made an affidavit to the Prosecution, NO 5110, in Book 9, in which you stated that if the Reich had any interest in the children of alien workers no abortion took place but that the children were given in custody to the German people. Should that mean that these children were forcibly taken away from their mothers?\nANo, in no case did I wish to state that because if I remember correctly even the directives concerning this \n point stated explicitly that these children were not to be separated from their mothers against their will.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3460, "page_number": "3453", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QFurthermore you mentioned that Kaserer was the Chief of the field office in Lodz. Is that correct?\nAI really don't quite remember. don't remember what the exact rank of the Oberfuehrer Kaserer was at that time. At any rate I had to report to him.\nQThe co-defendant Viermetz made an affidavit, Exhibit 391, Book 8-A, page 105, paragraph 1, which I am now showing to you, in which the defendant has stated that the Camp Feldes was subordinate to you and that you had children in this camp. Is that correct?\nANo, it is not correct that I was the leader of the camp. I had nothing to do with the administration nor with the actual managing of the camp. I was only racial examiner and it was my duty to make racial examinations of the inmates of this camp.\nQHerr Roedel, did you ever select children from the orphanage in Zilly?\nAIt is not known to me at all that there was an orphanage in Zilly.\nQAt that time in the area of Zilly were you the only racial examiner there?\nAAs long as I was a member of the agency of the SS of the RUS affairs of the Higher SS and Police Leader Alpenland I was a deputy for him and therefore, as far as 1 know, was the only examiner in this area.\nQIs it correct that you would have been competent for such a task?\nAAs far as I know, yes.\nQDid you over manage one of those camps?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3461, "page_number": "3454", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "ANo I never managed one of those camps.\nQI would now like to show you Exhibit 707, No. 5201, contained in Document Book 8-D. YOU will find that on page 18. at says there in this document that in the course of the deputation in Upper Camiola the entire group of persons was examined in the racial and health point of view by SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Roedel. Did you find that place?\nAYes, have found it.\nQDid your duty as examiner also include health examinations?\nANo, never; after all I am not a physician.\nQIn Lower Styria did you select people from the point of view of whether or not they were racially eligible to be re-Germanized or what was the purpose of your task down there?\nAIn Lower Styria?\nQYes.\nAI only had to carry out racial examinations on those people. Never, at least as long as I was there, was there an application submitted to me for re-Germanization. My activities in Lower Styria in my opinion were carried on only to find a racial survey of these people who were then living in a border country.\nQCan you now make any statements about the racial conglomeration of those people in Lower Styria and Upper Camiola?\nAThe impressions that I had in the various races of the people of this area as compared with those of the rest of the Reich were good to very good and corresponded with most of the areas in the Reich proper.\nQWere those people at that time of real alien blood?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3462, "page_number": "3455", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "ANo, the population on the whole was about the same racial mixture as the rest of the German people.\nQDid the people there show any animosity toward you?\nAWhen 1 first started my work: in Lower Styria, on the contrary, these people welcomed me with a great deal of friendliness.\nQIs it not correct, witness, if I say that in the course of these commissions in the Yugoslavia border area there was also a folkdom expert from the population that lived there?\nAYes, that is correct. Every commission had a folkdom expert.\nQWhat other commissions are concerned in this case?\nAI do not quite understand this question, Will you please clarify that a bit more.\nQIn the Yugoslavia border country the commissions were at that time active for a purpose which corresponded approximately to the procedure of the DVL in the fast. Is that correct?\nAThese border commissions could not be compared with that.\nQHowever, there were commissions there?\nAYes, there were commissions there which were supposed to examine the population of these areas.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11:00 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3463, "page_number": "3456", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. ZAPF: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann)\nQ.Witness, we stopped with the activities of the Steyrischer Heimatbund. Was there a grouping into the four groups of the DVL too?\nA.Not as far as I know.\nQ.Concerning the racial examination of the Slovenia Intelligentia, did anything come to your knowledge in this respect?\nA.No; at least not that I could remember.\nQ.Did you have a discussion once with the defendant Hofmann on the occasion of an inspection of Lower Styria?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did Hofmann do in that connection?\nA.Well, you see as far as I recall, he discussed the activities of the commission I was presiding over at the time, and he said in general he was satisfied with its work. He didn't make any specific remarks or discuss anything specific -- at least as far as I remember.\nQ.At that occasion did he issue directives to you?\nA.No, no, I just told you he didn't.\nQ.I am now handing to you DocumentNO-1319, Exhibit 394. Please look at page 2 of that document. Is it correct that, as could be gathered from the information on page 2, you handed the transport lists of children to the defendant Viermetz?\nA.No. At no time did I have any connection with transport lists. I never made up any transport lists of any kind.\nQ.Were you in any manner participating in the separation of children from their parents?\nA.No, my work covered just the contrary; the whole family, and in all case. the whole families. and all its members we re examined and evaluated.\nQ.Did transports also leave St. Veit without your having examined \n them?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3464, "page_number": "3457", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.As far as I know, yes. In various cases people were channeled from St. Veit without my having examined them.\nQ.As an examiner were you at any time connected with the selection of the population to be evacuated?\nA.No; well, I mean I have to express that differently. In this case where the aim, that is, the evacuation was known to me and where there was an examination, but at no other times.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with the family care?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did you have to do there?\nA.As an expert in the welfare department, I had to look at the geneological reports which were submitted ad to check them, and particularly I had to check the marriage applications of SS members to see whether they were complete, and then the main work was to see to it that whenever difficulties arose the applicant should be helped to get the necessary documents, which were still missing.\nQ.In the geneological department were only such documents kept as concerned SS members?\nA.Yes, ad police members; SS and police inasfar as they were connected with the SS.\nQ.Was a special report made which established that among the genealogical reports you worked on, I mean the reports on SS members. there was a file on Jewish ancestors?\nA.No, no special report was ever made because the situation anyhow was that all genealogical reports with the documents had to be submitted to RuSHA.\nQ.Did you report on the Jews who had nothing to do with SS men?\nA.No, that was no business of mine at all.\nQ.Did you receive directives in this connection?\nA.No, this was merely as matter for an SS agency.\nQ.Now, can you state to the Tribunal that the file index ware \n Jewish ancestors were noted was used for the persecution of Jews?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3465, "page_number": "3458", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.According to my opinion that would have been quite impossible because in this connection those Jews who were found in the genealogical lists of SS applicants had been dead for about one hundred years.\nQ.From whom did you generally receive your directives in your capacity as examiner?\nA.As examiner I was a member of the racial office and as such I received my directives from the racial office; that was obvious.\nQ.And to whom were you subordinated in your capacity as an examiner?\nA.Well, as far as disciplinary matters were concerned, I was of course always subordinated to the agency to which I was attached. For instance, when I was working for the EWZ I was subordinated to the chief of the commission as far as disciplinary matters were concerned.\nQ.Did your activity as examiner consist of noting exterior signs of racial characteristics am to divide people up into the various groups?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you work in Lorraine also?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who was your chief there?\nA.Professor Dr. B. K. Schulz.\nQ.What was your activity down there?\nA.The checking and examining ofalien laborers in Lorraine.\nQ.Now, let's turn to another matter, the interruption of pregnancy inasfar as examiners were connected with them. Were these interruptions of pregnancy on female eastern workers carried out on a voluntary basis or was coercion exercised?\nA.Only on a voluntary basis because the applications were made by the female eastern workers themselves.\nQ.Did you experience that eastern female workers urged, on their own initiative, that the examiner give his approval for the \n interruption of pegnancy?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3466, "page_number": "3459", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.Yes, it happened often that these women stressed that they wanted to have their pregnancy interrupted.\nQ.Did you work with the EWZ in Paris once, too?\nA.Yes.\nQ. is it correct that all the persons who reported there did so on a voluntary basis?\nA.Yes, only on a voluntary basis.\nQ.I am now handing you as a last document the DocumentNO-3020Exhibit 389. Those are directives for the carrying out of the antipartisan and anti-bandit action in Upper Camiola and Lower Styria. In the course of your work as an active examiner, did it come to your knowledge that on the strength of that order children were dragged away from their home countries?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3467, "page_number": "3460", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QAs the examine r in charge, would you have heard about that?\nAYes, according to my opinion as long as I was down there I would have heard about it, but whether I would have received the order directly I couldn't tell you, but I would have been informed or touched by it.\nDR. ZAPF:Thank you. Your Honor, that concludes my direct examination of the witness Roedel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you made these racial examinations of people in lower Styria and Upper Corinthia, didn't you know for what purpose you were doing this?\nAIn the individual cases I would know, but in general, I hardly think so because the reason was very rarely brought to my knowledge.\nQWitness, it seemed to me that on direct examination you stated that you did not at any time examine people racially to determine their suitability for deportation from that area; is that correct?\nARacial examinations for the prupose of deportation, as far as I know, never took place.\nQWell, witness, if you made most of your examinations without knowing for what purpose, how do you know that you didn't make examinations for this purpose?\nAI don't see what you mean by that.\nQWell, let me clarify it, witness. You have said that generally you did not know what was to be done after you had made your examination; isn't that correct?\nAOfficially I didn't know, that is no official information was sent to me in most of the cases for what purpose the examination took place.\nQWell then, let's find out did you know unofficially in most instances, witness, what was to be done after you made your racial examination with the result of the examination?\nAIn most cases, no, because that was none of my business; those were \n official orders and I didn't have to care what they were for.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. ZAPF", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3468, "page_number": "3461", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWell then, I will ask my question again, witness: If you didn't know officially or unofficially what was the prupose of the examination, how can you say that the purpose was never to determine whether or not these people should be deported?\nAI am speaking for myself. What the purpose was, I mean the official purpose, that I could never know exactly because no official information was sent to me, but my own conception I could have had.\nQVery well, witness. Witness, you stated that most of the people or in fact all the people whom you examined were very friendly toward you; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDid you ever examine the families and children of partisans in Lower Styria and Upper Camiola?\nAPartisans?\nQSometimes they were called bandits by the Germans, witness.\nAWell, I said already before that that was very rare that on some previous occasion that real bandits, that is members of the gang came down there. This referred only to one field of work, namely, dependents of such people partly who were charged with collaborating with the bandits, or the partisans.\nQVery well, witness. Did you ever examine these dependents of people charged with collaboration?\nAWell, in some cases at St. Veit it was a matter of people who for some reasons of police security had been or were to be deported from Camiola. Therefore, it is probable or according to my knowledge even certain that some such people were amongst those examined.\nQWere all of these also very friendly to you, witness?\nAWell, if not very friendly, then at least they were not hostile. You can't ask these people to come and kiss me on the cheek and then like the Germans around there.\nQWitness, you mentioned on direct examination that you received your \n technical directives and matters of that nature from the racial office; you meant the racial office of the RuSHA, did you not?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3469, "page_number": "3462", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AThe racial office is a part of the RuSHA; that is right.\nQWitness, in connection with abortions, you stated that all the cases of which you knew were voluntary; that is, the women applied themselves. Now, do you base this statement upon the fact you know they were all voluntary or upon the fact that in each case you had an application by the woman?\nAI never saw an application signed by the woman; all I had was the information that the woman had made an application and that I had to check that.\nQSomeone else told you that the woman had made an application; is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWitness, you stated -\nAThey didn't tell me to check these applications; they told me to examine the woman; mind you, I didn't have to check the applications.\nQWitness, you stated that sometimes you could see or were informed by the woman herself that she was anxious to have the abortion performed. Now, in the cases where that is not correct, do you have any knowledge by which you base your statement that those cases were voluntary other than the statement made to you that these people had applied -- these women?\nAThese women were examined by me. Now, according to my opinion every woman had the possibility to complain to me and to protest against the application which had been made for her; protest against the abortion, because I assume that any person who has something done to them against their will would use every possibility to object to it and to make a protest, but I do not even know of one single instance where such a woman had protested to me against the abortion. Do you understand?\nQYes, You had nothing to do with the application and nothing to do with the carrying out of the abortion; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3470, "page_number": "3463", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AYes, that is correct.\nQYou just examined these women?\nAYes.\nQWitness, did you have a directive telling you that abortions were to be approved even though the woman was in the sixth month of her pregnancy?\nAWell, that was none of my business; I am not a doctor; that was only a matter of the medical examination, and the medical expert opinion.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions?\nDR. ZAPF:No, Your Honor.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, is it correct to say that your title was racial examiner of the Main Race and Settlement Office?\nAI was an examiner in the RuSHA, and at the same time I was SS leader in the Race and Settlement affairs, attached to the higher SS and police leaders. Those were my official titles.\nQThen, it is not correct to say that you were racial examiner of the Main Race and Settlement Office.\nAWell, of course as an examiner I was a member of the staff of the RuSHA.\nQMr. Witness, is it correct to say that you were racial examiner of the Main Race and Settlement Office; is that correct or not?\nARacial examiner of the RuSHA, you mean. Well, I was a member of the RuSHA; that is right. I was an integral part of the RuSHA if you put it that way.\nQWhen did you become racial examiner?\nAIn the year -- I think it was 1941.\nQWhat was your occupation prior to that time?\nABefore that I was a member of the SS in my official capacity in the marital office, in the family office; in the eugenics office I was \n expert of the welfare department of an SS Standarte.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ZAPF", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3471, "page_number": "3464", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QHow long did you hold that position?\nAFrom about 1937 until 1940, I think, but I wasn't always an expert in that department. Only in 1938 was I appointed expert in that department.\nQWhat was your occupation before 1937?\nABefore 1937 I was a commercial employee.\nQWhat were your duties?\nAWell, I had to take care of the commercial correspondence with the foreign firms which were the clients of my employer.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3472, "page_number": "3465", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QHow long did you engage in that work?\nAAbout two years, Your Honor.\nQWhat was your occupation prior to that?\nABefore that I was unemployed, and I tried to partly work in publicity, to have an independent sphere of work in that field.\nQ what was the purpose of the racial examinations you made?\nAWell, I would ask, now, whether Your Honor means that as a general question, or whether you mean the examination for certain purposes?\nQWell, what was the purpose of the racial examination that you made?\nAYes, I see. The purpose was to determine to what race the person being checked belonged, that is, what general characteristics were shown by the racial appurtenances of this human being.\nQWhat did you do in order to ascertain that fact?\nAThe person to be examined was looked at with regard to his racial characteristics.\nQThat is all that you did?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nDR. SCHWARZ:I ask that the witness Wilhelm Radusch be called.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRIEDRICH WILHELMRADUSCH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION \n BY DR. SCHWARZ:", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "FRIEDRICH WILHELM", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3473, "page_number": "3466", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWitness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal?\nAFriedrich Wilhelm Radusch.\nQDo you know the defendant Hofmann?\nAYes.\nQWhen did you make his acquaintance?\nAI have known him since 1938.\nAWhere did you work during the war?\nQFirst I was in the armed forces, and then, in 1940, I was transferred to the Waffen-SS.\nQWitness, I ask you to speak into the microphone; that will make things easier.\nQWitness, during your activity as liaison leader of the RuSHA with the SS Main Office, what were your tasks?\nAI had to see to it that the volunteers who reported directly to the SS Main Office were selected, and I had to regulate the assignment of the examiners with the various complementary offices.\nQWere these racial examiners, therefore, active in complementary offices?\nAYes.\nQAnd these complementary offices were under whose authority?\nAThey were under the SS Main Office.\nQIn other words, the activities of the racial examiners, as far as disciplinary measures were concerned, were with complementary offices?\nAYes.\nQDid you also work in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest?\nAYes.\nQIn what capacity?\nAAs Race and Settlement Leader.\nQWhat did your task as RuS leader consist of down there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3474, "page_number": "3467", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AMainly, I had to take care of the welfare and procurement office.\nQDid you also have to take care of racial examinations?\nANo, down there I did not carry out any racial examinations.\nQWere you also Race and Settlement Leader at Hamburg?\nAYes.\nQDid you h ave to check cases down there too, where, according to the statement of the Prosecution, pregnant female Eastern workers were forced to submit to abortions?\nAI worked on one case, and in that case the female Eastern worker, however, was not compelled to submit to an abortion.\nQDid you yourself experience cases down there?\nAWell, as I said, only one case, which I just mentioned.\nQAnd did the female Eastern worker involved come in on a voluntary basis?\nAYes.\nQWas it possible to have the pregnancy interrupted?\nANo, the pregnancy was too far advanced and the physician refused to proceed with the abortion.\nQTherefore, it was the task of the physician to decide that matter?\nAYes.\nQIn the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest - that is, in the area of the defendant Hofmann - did you have to check a case of that nature?\nANo.\nQDuring your activity as RuS Leader, or as racial examiner, did you ever have to check any case on account of illicit sexual intercourse?\nANo.\nQTherefore, not in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest either?\nNo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3475, "page_number": "3468", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QN*---* what was the general, practical settlement in that matter if a racial examination was demanded? Did the authorities then approach the racial examiners directly, or did they fight approach the RuSHA?\nANo, these agencies approached the racial examiner directly. The procedure was mainly the following:\nThe recruitment agencies had deadlines, and they had them posted in the newspapers, as well as in public posters. Therefore, in every instance, in a village or town, it was known when a drafting was to take place. Therefore, the agency involved, which then needed a racial examiner, approached a drafting commission or the racial examiner directly - that is, the racial examiner attached to that commission.\nQNow, the defendant Hofmann was Higher SS and Police Leader. Did he receive information concerning such a request?\nANo, he could not have received such information. I mean, he didn't know when the commissions was on its way.\nQOh, I see. Now, before that, the defendant Hofmann had been Chief of the RuSHA. What kind of relationships existed between the racial examiners and the RuSHA?\nAFactually, the racial examiners were under the RuSHA, and those racial examiners I was connected with were under the recruitment offices to which they were attached.\nQWell, we just had a witness here who testified about the same subject matter. How were these racial examiners subordinated as far as personnel matters were concerned?\nAThe direct superior of the racial examiner was the RuS Leader.\nQAnd to whom was the RuS Leader subordinated?\nAHe was subordinated to the RuSHA.\nQDirectly, or was there another intermediary agency?\nANo, directly.\nQThat is, as far as personnel matters were concerned, the RuS \n Leader was directly under RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3476, "page_number": "3469", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AYes.\nQNow, from whom did the racial examiner or the RuS leader receive his factual directives?\nAFrom RuSHA, and, in larger part, I think, from the racial office.\nQDid you receive many such factual directives?\nAI only became an RuS Leader in 1943, and I can't tell you what happened up to that date as far as orders or directives are concerned; I cannot testify with regard to that.\nQWell, all I wanted to know was what you received.\nAWell, I received very few orders.\nQNow, how did you take care of your correspondence with the Racial Office or with RuSHA?\nAWhatever was part of the Racial Office went directly to the Racial Office, and what was intended for the RuSHA went to RuSHA.\nQIn other words, the mail to the Racial Office would not be channeled via RuSHA?\nANo, not the mail I dispatched.\nQWas the mail dispatched via the Higher SS and Police Leader, or did you take care of your own mail directly?\nAThe mail dispatched was not sent via the Higher SS and Police Leader, but the mail received went through the channels of the latter.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3477, "page_number": "3470", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QNow, the Prosecution, have made the charge that children of aliens were subjected to racial examinations, and that according to the result of the examination these children were either subjected to re-Germanization or sent to extermination camps. As a racial examiner, or in your capacity as RuS Leader, did you ever carry out such an examination?\nANo, at no time.\nQWell, did you have knowledge of such orders?\nANo.\nQOr did you hear about such an extermination camp?\nANo.\nQDid you have means to determine otherwise, and to see how children of foreign workers were treated?\nAI visited a children's home in a factory camp near Hamburg, where German children were lodged together with the children of eastern female workers, and all I can say is that I was delighted about this lodging, and I gained the best possible impression. The children were cared for in the same way by red cross nurses, and the mothers, the eastern workers, always had the opportunity, even during their working hours, to come and see their children and say hello to them.\nQHad these children been brought into this home on the strength of a racial examination? Could you determine that?\nANo, but I don't think that was the reason.\nQIn the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest, do you have knowledge of any case where, in the case of a racially desirable child, a mother had been forced to separate herself from her child?\nANo.\nQNow, the Prosecution have submitted a fundamental decree dated 27 July 1943. That is Exhibit 496, in Document Book X. In this order mention is made of the fact that mothers of racially desirable children, in case they wanted to return home with their \n children, should be conscripted for work in the Reich and should thus be kept in the Reich territory.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3478, "page_number": "3471", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Now my question is whether this was carried out in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader at Stuttgart?\nAWell, I don't even know that order.\nQI only wanted to know whether such a case was carried out in practice.\nANo, that is unknown to me.\nMR. SHILLER:May I submit to the Tribunal that counsel for the defense is wandering at times, rather far afield from the affidavit, Exhibit No. 763, by the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, this is cross-examination with reference -\nDR. SCHWARZ:No, your Honor, this is my direct witness. I have called the witness Radusch as my direct witness, as well as for cross-examination. I had already applied for him as a witness at a previous date, that is, before he made his affidavit. Therefore, my examination is not limited to cross-examination on the affidavit, your Honor.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, it is hard for me at the moment, I cannot check my records here, but I think it would help if, from now on, in the morning, we are told whether each witness is being called as a direct witness or as a witness to be cross-examined on his affidavit. I could then check my files and see whether or not we agree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think that is a good suggestion, that hereafter when counsel calls a witness, he advise the Court whether he is called as a witness in chief or whether he is called for the purpose of crossexamination. I, of course, can't remember for what purpose the witnesses are all approved. Of course, I accept your statement. Go ahead, BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQNow, how about your activity as Race and Settlement Leader in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader? Where was the main point of your work?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3479, "page_number": "3472", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "ADown there I was commander of the welfare and procurement command, and as such I had to fill all the working hours at my disposal.\nQWhat about this work? I mean, of what did it consist?\nAI had to take care of welfare matters, of procurement, visits to the hospitals, housing of refugees from war-damaged areas, care for sick people and sick dependents of SS men, and so on and so forth.\nQDid the defendant Hofmann take a great interest in these activities?\nAMy agency was about 30 kilometers from Stuttgart, and once in a while he would come to see us in order to find out how the welfare matters were re working, because he took a great interest in welfare matters.\nQDid you at any time get used watches or fountain pens for welfare measures?\nANo, at no time.\nQWell, the reason I ask you that is because the Prosecution have submitted a document according to which, in general, it is mentioned that used fountain pens or watches were brought dorm there in one case.\nWitness, with regard to the personality of the defendant Hofmann, can you say how he acted?\nAI can only say good things about Herr Hofmann. He was a very correct superior, and, apart from that, he was a very good comrade towards us.\nQWhat about his family life?\nARepeatedly, I had the opportunity to accept his invitations, and I found out that his family life was very happy and very close,\nQWell, that leaves me but a few questions pertaining to the Lebensborn, Were you ever connected with the Lebensborn?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3480, "page_number": "3473", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWell, that brings me to your affidavit, and I would like to now cross-examine you with regard to your affidavit.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQIn your affidavit you stated that it was also your task to select foreigners for the Waffen SS. You spoke of foreigners there. What did you mean by that?\nAWell, when I speak of foreigners, or when we spoke of foreigners at that time, in the recruiting we meant ethnic Germans, that is, Germans living abroad.\nQDid you state that when you were interrogated?\nAAs far as I remember, I did.\nQNow, did these ethnic Germans receive the German nationality prior to that recruitment?\nAWell, we were in no position to check that. That was settled after they were drafted, and it was checked at the location of the recruitment office. We were in no position to find out what the situation was.\nQAfter all, that wasn't your task either, was it?\nANo, that was not my task.\nQFurthermore, you stated that 20 Poles were brought to Graudenz and that these Poles were to be compelled to join the General SS. Is that correct?\nAThese approximately 20 Poles were brought to me and to the physicians by a Rottenfuehrer of the General SS. They were brought to the drafting room. I asked these people whether they had volunteered for service with the SS, and I ascertained the fact that these people did not know German. I used an interpreter, and these people stated that they were Poles. Now, whether or not they really were Poles, of course, we could not find out. Then, since the order was that only volunteers should be accepted in the SS, I examined these people, but I declared them \n them all unfit for service in the SS, and I sent them home again.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3481, "page_number": "3474", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QIn other words, they were not accepted in the SS?\nANo.\nQUnder whose orders did you work as a racial examiner at that time?\nAOn behalf of the recruiting office at Goten*afen, Gydinia, which was under the SS Main Office.\nQ.This office was under the SS Main Office?\nAYes.\nDR. SCHWARZ:That concludes my cross-examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead. Proceed with t he crossexamination of the witness.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you were in the SS District Southwest, were you the only racial examiner who could carry out racial examinations on men who had been accused of having had illicit sexual intercourse for that area, that is?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3482, "page_number": "3475", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.No, I wasn't the only racial examiner in this connection. There were quite a number of other racial examiners.\nQ.Witness, in connection with such cases, did you know what \"special treatment\" meant?\nA.I ask that you reformulate that question.\nQ.Witness, in connection with cases of men accused of having had illicit sexual intercourse with German women, did you know what the term \"special treatment\" meant?.\nA.Well, if I have understood you correctly, then whet you ask me is to explain to you what the word \"special treatment\" means.\nQ.No, witness, my question is in connection with these cases of men accused of sexual intercourse, did you in that case know what special treatment meant, and if so explain it.\nA.No, I didn't know it,\nQ.Witness, have you ever heard of the term \"special treatment?\"\nA.Yes, we heard that term.\nQ.Do you know what the term \"special treatment\" meant in general? Did it have any meaning to you?\nA.Not for me, no, but I assume that special treatment referred to cases which had to be treated specially. That is the only explanation I can find for it.\nA.Well, I didn't carry out these examinations, but 1 heard that such examinations were carried out.\nQ.But you had no idea what the results in such cases were? Is that what you mean, witness? You have no idea why these racial examinations were carried out in such cases?\nA.Well, the result of those cases was forwarded directly to the Racial Office, after all; therefore, only in very few cases could I know what the result would be.\nQ.Witness, to come to the point, did you ever hear of Poles being hanged for having sexual intercourse with German women?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3483, "page_number": "3476", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.No, never.\nQ.Did you know that they could be hanged for that?\nA.No, I didn't know that either.\nQ.Witness, did you know that racial examinations were conducted in cases of Poles or other eastern workers accused of having had sexual inter course under Kaul, the predecessor of Hofmann, as Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest?\nA.No, no.\nQ.Witness, turning to the subject of abortions. In this case, where you examined this woman to see whether or not an abortion could be recommended by you, did you ask her whether she was willing to have the abortion?\nA.I asked the woman whether she came to me as a volunteer or under coercion -- I mean, whether she came to the Health Office voluntarily or under coercion. I asked her that specifically, and the woman answered that she came as a volunteer. Then I asked her whether she wanted to have her pregnancy interrupted and she answered, \"Yes.\" Thereupon, the physician interfered and he said, \"Impossible, the pregnancy is too far advanced.\" That was the whole matter.\nQ.Well, witness, we have previously had another witness who testified that in examining woman to see whether or not an abortion should be recommended, some of them showed that they had come voluntarily, but that he couldn't state that in all cases. Now, were you required to ask whether or not she came voluntarily?\nA.No, I did that on my own initiative.\nQ.Thank you, witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, were the racial examiners under your orders in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest?\nA.Yes", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3484, "page_number": "3477", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Witness, during what period did you work in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest?\nA.From the first of December 1944 until -- well, until the end of April 1945; that is, until the surrender.\nQ.Did you work there under Kaul, Hofmann's predecessor?\nA.No.\nQ.I mean during the war.\nA.No, no, not during the war.\nQ.In other words, you couldn't be connected with cases of special treatment carried out under Kaul?\nA.No.\nQ.But were you connected in any way with the RSHA?\nA.No.\nQ.Now \"special treatment\" is a special term of the RSHA. AS RUS leader, you were not connected with that, were you?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you. That concludes my examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, now I have a witness here to whom I wish to put only four or five questions. May I call him before we go into recess?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Will you get through with him in five minutes?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Yes, I can, Your Honor. I ask then to be permitted to call the witness Krumey.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Let him coma to the stand. What is the purpose of calling him? Is it for cross examination on an affidavit?\nDR. SCHWARZ:The witness has been granted to me for cross examination as well as for direct examination. He was already here as a witness, once, and for direct examination I have only a few questions. That could be settled in five minutes.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3485, "page_number": "3478", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Well, the Tribunal announced this morning that we were going to have to get through with witnesses on the stand. We can't keep bringing witnesses back here. You should have finished with him when' he was here. Now I am going to give you five minutes in this case, and then after this, we are not going to do it any more.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I would have asked these questions already at the previous occasion when the witness was here in the witnessstand; unfortunately I was not permitted to do so.\nHERMANNKRUMEY, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, will you please state to the Tribunal your full name.\nA.Hermann Krumey.\nQ.Did you have a part in the registration of the Jews in Hungary by the office Eichman?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the minutes of the so-called Wannsee conference, amongst other things a remark of the defendant Hofmann is mentioned, according to which a representative of the RuSHA should be sent to Hungary as adviser or observer. Was such a representative of the RuSHA actually called into this matter and sent to Hungary?\nA.I saw nobody.\nQ.Do you know Wyslyceny?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "HERMANN", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3486, "page_number": "3479", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Was he an adviser to the Hungarian government, on Jewish affairs?\nA.He was in the Eichmann office.\nQ.In other words, he was not a member of the RuSHA?\nA.No, he was a member of the RSHA.\nQ.Thank you. That terminates my questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witnessretire from the stand. The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3487, "page_number": "3480", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 12 January 1948.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHEPRESIDENT: who will you call as your next witness?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, I wish to call three or four witnesses. They are only witnesses who will be examined in cross examination and will only require a very short period of time. These witnesses have not arrived here as yet, although I made my application on time. I would like to put the witnesses on the stand as soon as they are here and will keep within the time that I was allotted by the High Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR.HEIM (for the defendant Schwalm): With the permission of your Honor, I would like to continue my case in chief for the defendant Schwalm by calling the witness Aust to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHERBERTAUST, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT :Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, please tell the Tribunal your full name as well as your date of birth and your place of birth.\nAI am called Herbert Aust. I was born on the 14 of May 1913.\nQWhere were you born?\nAIn Berlin.\nQWill you please give me in brief your life?\nAWhen I was 16, I graduated from high school. Then for three years and worked as an apprentice in a drug store, then became an assistant there...", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE", "HERBERT", "THE PRESIDENT ", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3488, "page_number": "3481", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWill you please talk more slowly so that the translator can go on.\nAMay I please start again? Then I was for one year studying at Vogelsang. Then I was a racial examiner for one year, before the war. In the summer of 1939, I was conscripted into military service. In 1940, I was transferred to the Waffen SS, and from 1940 to 1945 I was assigned to the Dutch area. - I experienced the surrender with the troops in the Protectorate. I was married when I was 20 years old. I have five children that live in the eastern territories in bad conditions. That will be all.\nQWill you please speak a bit more slowly. Were you a member of the Party?\nAYes, since I was 18.\nQWere you a member of the SS?\nAYes, also since I was 18 years old.\nQWhat was your last rank in the SS?\nAI became a prisoner of war as an Untersturmfuehrer of the Waffen SS; as a member of the General SS, I was Sturmbannfuehrer. That is, I had been promoted to Sturmbannfuehrer during the war without having served as such.\nQAs you have just said, from 1940 to 1945, you were assigned in the Netherlands?\nAYes, on the first of July 1940 to the 30 July 1942 I was assigned as racial examiner in the replacement command of the SS.\nQAnd where were you from '42 to '42?\nAOn the first of July 1942, as SS leader in the Race and Settlement Affairs, I got the assignment as such, and on the first of July 1944, in addition to that, I was assigned the task of heading the welfare command in the Netherlands. In this position, I remained until the 15 of February 1945 and resigned then from this position and came back to the troops.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3489, "page_number": "3482", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWhat were your activities in your capacity as racial examiner?\nAAs examiner, I worked on the selection of volunteers for the Waffen SS and also for the General SS and also for the Germanic SS, that is the General SS in the Netherlands.\nQWill you please speak a bit more slowly and make a pause between questions and answers. In your capacity as AUS leader of your agency, did they register the Jewish population in the Netherlands?\nANo.\nQCan you tell me which agency carried out this activity?\nAI cannot say that; I don't know.\nQCan you tell us what was the so-called index of persons of mixed Jewish blood?\nAThis file index, as it existed in the RuSHA was called by me and others also the Jewish file index. It was a card index of the vaults of ancestry, and genealogical examinations of SS members. That is, in examining the descendants of foreign stock in which it was actually proved that there was foreign stock, they were registered in this so-called mixed blood register.\nQDid you ever see such a file index?\nAIt must have been about 1938, '39, or '40 on the occasion of a visit in the RuSHA in the Hedemannstrasse, I saw such an index. This was the so-called Mischlings index -- that is, persons racially of mixed blood. From this index at that time, I took out a few cards at random and I convinced myself that these index cards concerned mostly persons that were deceased, and they were either baptized or were married to a non-Jewish partner or Jewish partner.\nQDo you still remember the dates of birth that you saw on this index?\nAI only know that there were dates which ranged in the period of time from 1800 to about 1880.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3490, "page_number": "3483", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Do you know whether this index was complete, that is to say, whether it registered every one of the so-called mischlings?\nA.No, I don't believe that, for the card index consisted of the documents which were submitted by SS members in the course of their genealogical examination.\nQ.Did you know at the time the purpose of this card index?\nA.This card index was a reference library, more or less, for examinations to be conducted at a later date for the members of the SS.\nQ.Did the genealogical records office try to complete this card index?\nA.Yes, that was currently the case.\nQ.How did you find out about these things?\nA.The chief of the genealogical records office, Oseander himself told me about that.\nQ.Witness, I am now showing you the following documents. They are all contained in the Document Book 13A of the prosecution. Their numbers are NO. 2591, Exhibit 545; furthermore, NO. 3643, Exhibit 546; and finally Document NO.-3025, Exhibit 555. Did you see these documents before?\nA.No.\nQ.In these documents that I have just shown to you, mention is made partly of Jewish registers, of Jewish card indexes. In accord with your statements up to now, Jews were not of interest for the genealogical records office. Will you please comment on that?\nA.I can only say in connection with that, that Oseander, who made current efforts to complete his records in this case, certainly took this way in order to find cues where he could find the completion to his records, for naturally these documents from the genealogical examinations of the SS are too few, and are not sufficient to form a reference book of any extent.\nQ.Did you find out whether Oseander was also interested in documents that concerned Jews that were alive at that time?\nA.No, I don't know anything about that.\nQ.Do you know whether the genealogical records office was.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3491, "page_number": "3484", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "interested in Jews, that is, persons of mixed blood, too, belonging to the genealogical line of SS members?\nA.Persons of Jewish mixed blood that we were concerned with in this card index were only a part of the work, for instance, in my sphere of work in the Netherlands we were interested to know whether the SS men were, for instance of Malay descent originating from their colonies. Also the genealogical records office was interested, in the course of the construction of new office, in getting all possible documents that would put them in a position to support the SS men in obtaining information in family matters and other matters, for instance, I am thinking of immigrations from other countries, as for instance, Hugenotts and refugees.\nQ.Witness, for these purposes did you give any reference?\nA.When I began my work as SS fuehrer for race and settlement affairs, Oseander had already established contact with the director of the so-called central institute for hereditary affairs which was a public institution in Holland, the later representative of the genealogical records office. There weren't very many who came to the Netherlands. They had instructions from me to report there and did so.\nQ.You just mentioned an institute, what sort of an institute was that?\nA.I already said that this was an institution under public law, that is, it was subordinate to the Netherlands Ministry of the Interior, and was an actual genealogical institute, which was in a position to give information whenever so desired insofar as the records were present there. Whether this was a question of ancestry heredity, or some other family question, this applies to all cases.\nQ.Do you know whether this institute was in contact with genealogical associations?\nA.This institute was also in contact with a very well-known society and that was the Nederlandsdie Verbund for Ahnenforschung, that is, the Netherlands Association for Genealogy, that already was in existence before the German occupation.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3492, "page_number": "3485", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.On the strength of your activity in the Netherlands, can you tell the Tribunal whether the records that were present in this just-mentioned institute were sufficient for measures against the Jewish population?\nA.I made a visit to this institute in order to have the director show me these card indexes. At that time I did not look at these card indexes from the point of view whether or not forcible measures against Jews could be carried out on the strength of these card indexes because I never thought of that. However, I know that these genealogical card indexes contained names and first names, as well as dates concerning the births, marriages, and so forth. However, it never came to my attention that any addresses were there which also would have been quite without any point at the time because those persons, that is, in this case also, were mostly deceased.\nQ.Can you tell us the reasons why these records were not suitable for an operation against the Jews?\nA.Well, I already told you that there were no addresses contained in these card indexes, and that, of course, a genealogical card index usually consisted of persons already dead, and for this reason, of course, would be quite unsuitable for those purposes.\nQ.Did the genealogical records office after the already-mentioned visits of these representatives, did they undertake any steps for getting records concerning ancestry?\nA.Yes. I can remember the visit of an Obersturmfuehrer Neumann Ruppert in September 1944, who was sent to us from the genealogical records office and showed us a written order to the effect that he had to take over the safeguarding measures for securing these card indexes in the office. He was accompanied by the director of this institute,\nQ.Was this safeguarding as much as seizure?\nA.No. There was no question of that because the director himself was there on whose initiative this operation took place and also the German and Netherlands authorities who were competent in this matter had agreed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3493, "page_number": "3486", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.I am showing you from Document 13-A of the prosecution the Document NO.-4033, Exhibit 551. Does this report of Neumann-Reppert refer to the just-mentioned visit to the Netherlands?\nA.Yes. This is the report which Neumann-Reppert apparently submitted to the genealogical records office. I am just noting that also the so-called card indexes of Jews and persons of mixed Jewish blood are mentioned there and it is not only called a Jewish index.\nQ.Did you then safeguard these card indexes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you see the material in detail?\nA.No, not in detail, for in the first place, I had no time for doing that, and there would have been no sense to sift through material like that only within a few minutes, for that would require not only hours, but days.\nQ.Can you tell us whether the safeguarding of the other types of genealogical records took place because the allies came nearer and nearer?\nA.No. These card indexes was valuable scientific material which was of interest to almost anyone, that is, to the Dutch people as well as in general for the Germans. This material would certainly have been treated very carefully by the allied troops and would have been preserved for science. However, we expected combat, and enemy action, which seemed to make the safeguarding of the material advisable.\nQ.Did you have permission of the owner for the safeguarding of this material?\nA.Yes, I already told you so.\nQ.Did you have any difficulties in this matter?\nA.No.\nQ.From the answer which you gave to one of my questions I infer that you thought that other things were more important than the safeguarding of genealogical records?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Did you also express this opinion towards the chief of the genealogical records office in any form at any time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3494, "page_number": "3487", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.After this project was concluded I wrote a rather jocular, yes, I would say, a rather ironical letter to him.\nQ.Witness, I am showing you Document No. 4853, which is Exhibit No. 654, contained in Document Book XIV C of the prosecution. That is, XI C of the prosecution. This document, is this the letter that you just mentioned, the letter written to Oseander?\nA.Yes, that is the letter.\nQ.As my next document, I am giving you Document Book XIII A of the prosecution, Document No. 4038, Exhibit 547. Please look over the document. Are you acquainted with the author of this document, a certain Dr. Isbert?\nA.Yes. I know Dr. Isbert. Dr. Isbert was an employee of the Reich Commissioner for the occupied Netherlands and in his capacity as such he was the chief of the research agency for folkdom and space. He was an expert on conditions in the Netherlands, had lived there for years before that, and he belonged to the small circle of friends with whom I got together once in a while.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3495, "page_number": "3488", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWitness, did you get a copy of this letter at the time?\nAYes, I can well remember that.\nQCan you remember to whom the original letter was directed?\nAWell, it can be seen from the document that it was directed to the Higher SS and Police Leader and that copies were sent to Oselander as well as to me.\nQDid you have anything to do with the matters that are mentioned in this document since you got a copy of this letter,\nANo, I had nothing to do with them. However, this report mentions matters which are of interest, of course, and I not only mean paragraph 1 which concerns research on criminals, but all matters in the sphere of heretitary research and they were of interest to us because, of course, this was a young science and the results, of course, had to be taught the racial examiners concerning the ancestory, as was usual with the Netherlands Police at the Hague did not amount to much because they were not complete enough and we could not compare the work of the genealogical records office with this particular agency. I don't know whether there are other points mentioned in there. Of course this document also contains matters which were of no interest to us.\nQWitness, from Document Book 13-A of the Prosecution I am now showing you DocumentNO-4032, Exhibit 552. Did you ever receive this letter?\nAYes, this letter confirms the incident which just a minute ago was the subject matter of our conversation.\nQIn one sentence, can you tell us what sort of colonial index file is meant by that?\nAThat is an analagous index file of persons of Malayan mixed blood in contrast to that of persons of Jewish mixed blood. This card index has never been shown to me and I can't remember whether this card index was also safeguarded or not. From this letter can be seen that the attempt was to be made, that is to say, the various \n authorities should be contacted once more; it must he assumed that this thing also would have gone just as smoothly as in the case of the other card index since it was the same thing.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3496, "page_number": "3489", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QI once again would like to refer to the document but one which has been shown you with the numberNO-4853. This is your letter to Oseandes. This document already was the subject matter of the examination this monring. Could you, from a purely exterior point of view, justify the decision that the genealogical records office made plundering expeditions in the Netherlands. Will you please tell the Tribunal what at the time you meant with this expression that you used towards Oseander.\nAThe material was rather extensive. I remember there was one vehicle completely loaded with this material which was parked before the door of our agency. This material caused me, in the sixth year of the war, as is also stated in this letter, to joke with Comrade Oseander. At the time I was leader of the Welfare Command. I had to take care of 25,000 dependents of men at the front and at that time I believed, and still believe, that life and the care for people is more important than a piece of paper even though it has great scientific values. Papers and records in times of peace could probably be reconstructed; however, a family that has once gotten into a needy position may because of that fact have the man at the front hold us responsible for having neglected them and this I wanted to express to Oseander in this way because I was very well acquainted with him. That can also be seen that this is a rather joking matter; it can be seen from the second sentence of this document, where I mentioned a travel order which was left in my possession by my comrade Numann Reppert and with which he traveled to the Netherlands and which I sent along with this letter. In the parenthesis this is even more clearly expressed.\nQWitness, if I have understood you correctly you used this word \"plunder expedition\" only in a jocular way and you did not wish \n to say by using this expression that the genealogical office in the Netherlands actually carried out actual plundering and looting expedions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3497, "page_number": "3490", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "ANo, you can see that from the fact that I have put these words \"plundering expedition\" in quotes. From a purely legal point of view we cannot talk about plundering expedition. This can be seen from the fact of the volentary agreement of the rightful owner which was in existence at the time.\nQThank you, that is enough in connection with that document. I am now coming back to your activity as leader of the Welfare Command in the Netherlands. In what did you activities there consist?\nAMy activities as Chief of the Welfare Command, which had nine sub-divisions of the various provinces in the country, were mainly concerned with taking care of relief payments for all volunteers of all parts of the Wehrmacht, Navy, Air arms and so forth, and in this connection to take care of them in such a way as is the case in every civilized country.\nQHow many of your collaborators were at the end of 1944 occupied with other tasks than that of welfare?\nABesides welfare tasks I also occasionally assigned another member of my office to the selection for volunteers in the SS. This man was a racial examiner who otherwise though had duties of a purely welfare nature.\nQWho gave you your orders, that is, your official directives?\nAThe official orders concerning my work I received from the various offices of the RuSHA. These orders were partly issued and signed by theChief of the RuSHA, sometimes only by various experts, as in the case of the race office.\nQThese directives, were they also signed by the Staff leader of the RuSHA?\nAThese fundamental orders and directives concerning my work were never signed by the Staff Leader of the RuSHA.\nQTo whom were you subordinate in your area?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3498, "page_number": "3491", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AI was subordinate to the Higher SS and Police Leader as the representative of the Reichfuehrer SS in my area.\nQWhat actual results did this subordination relationship have?\nAIn actual practice the effect of this subordination relationship was that I could receive order from the Chief of the RuSHA as well as the Higher SS and Police Leader, but never from the staff leader. The higher SS and Police Leader could only order me to do such tasks within his sphere of authority which were within my sphere of activities. which is to s y in connection with which there were fundamental orders from the main office. On the other hand, the Chief of the RuSHA or one of the section heads could not issue any orders to me which were in contrast to the measures conditioned by the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3499, "page_number": "3492", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QCould you, for instance, be issued orders by the higher SS and police leader concerning the registration of the Jewish population?\nANo, he could not do that; he did not have the prerequisites for that sort of order, that is competency, and also the possibility to carry out such an extensive work with the means that had been put at my disposal.\nQDid you ever get an order concerning this registration of the Jewish population to Netherlands be it either from the chief of the RuSHA or from some other office of his?\nANo, such an order was never received by me.\nQDid you over give official help in connection with a Jewish matter?\nAYes.\nQWill you please describe this case here in brief?\nAFor some time from 1943 to 1944, I worked in close contact with the leadership of the official business of the RuS leader in Brussels. One day the RFK sent a lady to me who carried a letter of introduction. In this letter I was asked to help this lady in the procurement of genealogical records. The genealogical records of a Frau Suedor had to be established who was married to a Jew, who, I believe it was about the spring of the year 1939, had emigrated to Belgium with the permission of the Reich Government. According to existing laws, the question now came up whether he would have to wear a David Star or not. If this woman could prove that she herself was not of Jewish ancestry, this man would not have to wear this Jewish Star. I acceeded to this request which originated in the application of this Frau Suedor, and I wrote to the genealogical records office in order to clarify of what ancestry Frau Suedor was.\nQWitness, was this within your sphere of activity?\nANo, this was not within my sphere of activity.\nQWhy, then did you take any action in this matter?\nAI saw no reason in my attitude toward the Jewish problem not \n to help this woman who was in a sort of an emergency, and I was pleased to be able to do so.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3500, "page_number": "3493", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QCould the man or the woman have any sort of disadvantage through that?\nANo, they would not be put at any disadvantage through that.\nQFrom Document Book XIII-A of the Prosecution, I am handing you DocumentNO-1494, Exhibit 556. Thecontent of this document, is that identical with the case that you have just mentioned?\nAYes, from thisletter you can also see by the fact of the various ribbons that this man earned during the war, that this letter had sort of a friendly tendency.\nQWhy did you contact the genealogical records office in this question if it was true that this office had only rather limited material and was only competent for the SS?\nAHe himself had contacted the genealogical records office, and the office had much more experience in the procurement of these records and besides, the genealogical records office was free to inquire at various other offices - I am now thinking of the registry agencies - while I myself could not very well pass over the heads of superior agencies to get this information.\nQDid not the genealogical records office also have the possibility to contact the Reich Eugenics Office?\nACertainly. The genealogical records office had that possibility, and the Reich Eugnics Office, as far as I know, has frequently been consulted by SS members in case of an ancestry examination. However, it was not up to me to contact this agency directly.\nQNow, was the genealogical records office actually competent in this matter?\nASince it was really a purely civilian matter, the genealogical file with the title \"naturalization examination\", in order to prevent it from being sent back by one of Oseandi's assistants with a note; \"cannot be taken care of here.\"", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3501, "page_number": "3494", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QDid you have the agreement of the chief of the RuSHA at the time, that is of Hildebrandt, for taking this course of action?\nAI could never have contacted the chief of the RuSHA with such a non-business matter, even though I know that I exceeded my competency with this; I know that it was done for a good purpose, and I am quite sure that I would have had the support and the agreement of Obergruppenfuehrer Hildenbrandt if I had had trouble with any agency that might by coincidence, have gotten hold of this letter and might have reprimanded or even punished me.\nQDo you know what happened to the file Suedor?\nAWhen I became chief of the Welfare command on 1st July, 1944, I also started taking over my office in Brussels already at the begiining of September Brussels was occupied by allied troops. and I cannot say what happened to it. I myself had the impression that the ORK wished to delay this whole procedure, and of course it was weeks hence until finally the answer to this letter came in. Frau Suedor herself visited me once more and that must have been shortly before my transfer, and I don't know whether this letter had already been received at that time, and what was contained in it; whether I myself relayed this letter to the OFK or whether it was one of my collaborators who had remained in Brussels, that I don't know at this time.\nQWin you please talk more slowly. I only have a few more questions concerning the person and the activities of the defendant Schwalm. Since when and from where do you know Schwalm?\nAI met Herr Schwalm already before the war. I cannot tell the exact date, or where it was; however, it must have been at some sort of a meeting. I only got acquainted with him more closely in 1943 when he began his activities as staff leader in the RuSHA.\nQWhen did Schwalm begin his activity as staff leader in RuSHA?\nAI just said in the spring of 1943.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3502, "page_number": "3495", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QDo you know the exact title that Schwalm had from this time forward?\nASchwalm signed his letters as staff leader in the RuSHA. that is to say, the emphasis on \"in the\" and not \"of the\" RuSHA, which was usually the case.\nQWas Schwalm, in his capacity as staff leader, at any time, on principle deputy of the chief of the RuSHA or any other office head?\nASchwalm as staff leader was neither as a matter of principle, nor temporarily, a deputy for the chief of the RuSHA or for any other agency head. If you so desire, I can name the deputies of the representative at this time.\nQWitness, that will not be necessary. However, who in general was the deputy of the chief?\nAUsually it was the senior agency chief; that was in this case Brigadefuehrer Heider, chief of the marriage office?\nQDo you know who under Hildebrandt as chief of the RuSHA was deputy for the chief?\nAI believe that was Gruppenfurher Dr. Thurner for the time when Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrant was eliminated, so to speak, by the Reichsfuehre SS and was transferred to an army group, I believe that was Army Group Kleist in the East.\nQCan you tell me what the duties of Schwalm were in his capacity as staff leader?\nAHerr Schwalm in his capacity as staff leader in the RuSHA had to supervise the interior business, that is he had to take care that there was order and a smooth working of technical matters within the office. Especially he was authorized to appoint the employees that were below the level of agency head, that is the RuS leaders, the experts, assistants and civilian employes. Besides, he signed the so-called Order of the Day which in my agency was \n also called family news because we liked to read it because we found out there where our various comrades had been transferred to.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3503, "page_number": "3496", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3504, "page_number": "3497", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QIn what spirit did your collaboration with Schwalm take place?\nAI actually only consulted Mr. Schwalm in personnel matter for in all other things, that is fuel procurement, the higher SS and police leader in the occupied territories was competent for me. I reported to him with my desires and hopes and wishes, and I made the agreement concerning these various wishes with him, which then, though, still required the permission of the various department heads, as it was the case in the racial examination procedure.\nQWitness, before that you were talking about the Order Leaflet, that is the Order of the Day of RuSHA. Besides personnel changes, and internal organizational orders, did this leaflet contain something else?\nAThis leaflet or order of the day had copies of other orders which were relayed to the various offices also in different channels; whether this now was a warning to take care of clothing and uniform clothing of the military personnel, or whether these were directives directed to a superior office, that the Hitler greeeting would have to be used more, all these things appeared in that.\nQWitness, if I have understood you correctly, you meant that this order leaflet mentioned only personnel and organizational interior matters.\nAYes, that is correct. Official information usually did not come via this leaflet, they came from the Race Office which currently issued the directives in question to the agencies.\nQBut it did not come via this order of the day -- this leaflet?\nANo.\nQI still have two more questions, witness. What were your personal relations to Schwalm?\nAHerr Schwalm was and remained a good comrade for me. Yes, I would almost like to say good friend. This dates from the time when I started to know him better, outisde of our official business, and I found him an \n man who was not only humorous and tolerant, but who was always ready to help, we also had the same opinions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3505, "page_number": "3498", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "DR. HEIM:Thank you: I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz)\nQWitness, do you know the defendant Viermetz?\nAYes, I know Frauz Viermetz.\nQWhere douyou know her from?\nAFrau Viermetz came to see me, it must have been in the summer of 1943, in the Netherlands in order to bring me the greetings and also a request from Standartenfuehrer Sollmann.\nQWhat was the request?\nAKerr Sollmann asked me to take over the activities of a representative of the Lebensborn on a short notice, and I did not mind doing it since it was a welfare matter that was concerned here, and since on principle was ready to do this because it saved Mr. Sollmann the erective of another office.\nQ what sort of a welfare activity was it?\nA it was the construction of a maternity home which was planned already for sometime; a maternity home in which the young mothers and the wives of SS men could be cared for.\nQWhat was the manner in which you were supposed to take care of this?\nAUntil a leader for this planned home was to be appointed, and until he was ready to take over the duties and the various business of the Lebensborn, I was to be a representative of the Lebensborn until that time; that is, mainly, I was to inform the NSV of the fact that by order of the Reichsfuehrer such a home was to be constructed. I was told to inform the NSV of that. This was a matter of cooperation and of tact, since the NSV already had a whole series of very well equipped maternity and children's homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3506, "page_number": "3499", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QDid you contact the NSV?\nAI contacted the chief of the NSV, Herr Walter Mueller, that is to say I paid him a visit and informed him of this matter.\nQDid Herr Mueller at that time already know about this plan of the SS to contruct a maternity home?\nAYes, when I paid him that visit I found out to my surprise that Frau Viermetz had already been to see Herr Mueller, and had informed him of the construction of this maternity home. I thought that was superfluous because after all it was my business to do that.\nQHow did Herr Mueller express about Frau Viermetz' visit?\nAHerr Mueller was not exactly flattered, for he gave me to understand that I should, if I saw Mr. Sollmann, give him the message that he Herr Mueller, also would send his secretary to him if he had something important to tell him. I could not agree withthis opinion for, after all it is nothing extraordinary that in social welfare activities a woman would be used, it's not even unusual in Germany.\nQHow long were you representative of the Lebensborn?\nASince this activity was not important for me, I can't really remember how many months it lasted; however, it must have been about half a year, or, perhaps eight or nine months.\nQWas your activity rather extensive?\nAEssentially, from persons wished to put mothers into these maternity homes, I had many requests, and demands for information when this maternity home would be finally finished. This home was never finished. In two cases, if I remember right, I distributed applications for admittance to this home, once to a German woman and once to the wife of a Dutchman, who served with the Waffen SS, and I had instructed them to fill out these application forms and send them directly to the Lebensborn in Munich, because it was this office only that could grant or reject these applications. Once I had a personal conversation with Herr Sollmann and I also conducted general correcpondence with him at times, which, however, was not more than a few short letters.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3507, "page_number": "3500", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QDid I understand you correctly to say that this maternity home never was opened up?\nAYes, that is correct; it was never opened, that is to say, actually, I believe it was used for something different; I can't say that exactly of course; it was a combat zone and there was fighting in the area.\nQIn Holland you were active in welfare. In the course of your activities did you ever observe anything or did you learn anything about the fact that Dutch children or other aliens were taken over by the Lebensborn or were put into custody in the Reich?\nANo, I never heard anything about that, nor did I think that possible since in the Netherlands there were perfectly sufficient welfare institutions.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you. I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. ORTH", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3508, "page_number": "3501", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "BY DR. PRACHT (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQ.Witness, since when have you known Hildebrandt closely?\nA.I have known Hildebrandt's name and his person for a long time. However, I only met him personally when, succeeding Obergruppenfuehrer Hofmann, he came to take over the activities of the RUSHA.\nQ.And when was that, Witness?\nA.That must have been in March 1943.\nQ.How closely were you able to observe the activities of Hildebrandt and the manner in which he carried on these activities in his capacity as Chief of the RuSHA?\nAI know that Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt left -\nQI beg your pardon, but I just want to clarify this. I just wanted to ask this. To what extent could you see how Hildebrandt carried on his activities -- that is, from your point of view, from your official position -and what did you do to get a closer look at those activities?\nAWell, I believe I was on the best way of describing all this.\nAs to the activities of Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt in his capacity as chief, which were re interrupted twice by command of the Reichsfuehrer SS, he once came to my agency in the course of an inspection tour, and I myself had to report to him in Berlin about every two or three months. I must say that the general political and personal matters, especially of the country and people of the Netherlands, were more interesting to Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt than the technical work, which remained the same in the course of our activities. I learned to respect him because he let us work extensively, without giving us detailed directions.\nQWitness, can you tell the Court whether there was an essential change in the activities of the office when Hildebrandt took over the RuSHA, in contrast to the time before?\nAThis change took place in such a way that when the air attacks on Berlin were increased, and because of important orders, a decentralization of the agencies followed. With that, the various agencies were transferred to various places of residence. The tasks of these various agencies were \n then carried out in a responsible manner by the chiefs, because, after all, it was impossible to report in detail on all the activities.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3509, "page_number": "3502", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Besides, I would like to state that it was not easy for a man, even though he was above average intelligence to gain an insight with the activities of the RuSHA in a very short period of time, for which the experts and assistants had years at their disposal.\nQYou were talking about the decentralization. According to your opinion, did you have the impression that Hildebrandt tried to take unto himself all the decisions and all the important activities, or, to the contrary, did he rather try to train his people to become more independent?\nAObergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt held the opinion, just as I did that, at least for the duration of the war, the tasks of the RuSHA which were issued to it by the Reichsfuehrer SS were quite Unimportant, and that the essential part of these activities had to be seen in those spheres which, in some way, lay within the framework of individual welfare or family welfare, whether these welfare agencies were concerned with giving legal information, which dependents needed in some sort of emergencies, or whether it was the payment of relief, was unimportant. I know that, as to the activities of the various agencies, he had nothing very flattering to say about these activities. For instance, he designated the Geneological Records Office as an institution which was not essential in war time and according to which, of course, Oseander did not get any more personnel.\nQWitness, you were talking about the increasing emphasis in your work on the welfare activities. Can you tell us, in brief, how, in your sphere of activity, this work looked? Can you tell us which group of persons were included in that and how this work actually went ahead?\nAI would like to describe to you, in brief, the actual activities and through that you will see that that will only underscore my statements up to now. That is, the emphasis in my work was on the welfare activity, because it took such a long time. The various welfare agencies in the Netherlands - I am thinking now of the welfare office of the Waffen SS, \n the welfare officers of the Wehrmacht, the Germanic leadership office, the recruiting office, and the SS Fuehrer in Race and Settlement Affairs -well, all these welfare matters were centralized in one command, that is, in the welfare command.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3510, "page_number": "3503", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "At that time there were about 25,000 families to be taken care of through this agency. These families received relief payments of 1.2 million Gilders per month, that is to say, 1.6 million Reichsmarks.\nThe invasion of the allied troups caused the Netherlands railroad employees, and partly also the mail system employees, to strike. That meant a complete interruption of transportation and also of the mail system, with the exception of small mail communication lines from the provincial towns to the villages. Furthermore, many families of volunteers from the various areas had gone to the East and the North of the country and could not be found for some time because the newspapers and the radio were not successful in searching out the families. Therefore, I had to use all the agencies at my disposal, be it the agencies of the Reich Commissioner or those of the Wehrmacht, in order to find these families and then to pay them the relief that they needed for making their living. So it was that I constructed nine sub-offices in the various provinces. I had to go and visit these sub-offices once or twice a week, and I had to bring them funds. You can imagine, then, that I had no time for scientific work, nor did I have any great desire to do that sort of thing.\nQI have another question in this connection. You spoke of the decreasing importance of the tasks. Do you know that, when Hildebrandt took over the office in Berlin, he made an application to have this main office dissolved?\nAYes, I know that. Unfortunately, that did not take place.\nQOn the strength of your experience, can you tell me whether the transfer of Hildebrandt to become a Higher SS and Police Leader in Western Prussia and his appointment as Chief of the RuSHA meant an advancement in his position?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3511, "page_number": "3504", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AIt may be assumed that a senior SS leader, one of the Higher SS and Police Leaders, after being transferred from Danzig, would have \"been given a position which had carried greater influence. The RuSHA belonged to those offices which were, as far as their personnel and also their significance was concerned, much inferior to other offices. If this was to be an advancement for Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, then personally - and this was also mentioned before -- it would have been correct to give him the SS Central Office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3512, "page_number": "3505", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "MR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, during the recess I have asked those of the defense counsel who are interested in the Witnesses Vietz and Bartels to meet with me at four-thirty, and if we can come to some sort of arrangement as to how soon these witnesses shall be called I shall inform this Tribunal tomorrow morning.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I appreciate that very much. Proceed with the examination. BY DR. PRACET:\nQWitness, I have only a fewmore questions to you concerning Hildebrandt. Can you tell me in a few words what was Hildebrandt's reputation?\nAObergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt enjoyed, particularly among his own SS men, a very good reputation, and quite in general he had the reputation of being a sympathetic and open-minded superior who would take an interest in the personal needs and affairs of his subordinates and officers as men.\nQWitness, can you tell me what Hildebrandt's attitude was toward the politics of the Nazi Party and the State?\nADuring conversations I had with Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, already after a few moments, probably because he had full confidence in me, I found out that no only was he worried but he even criticized many of the measures taken by the Nazi Party and by the State.\nQDo you know whether Hildebrandt attempted to correct and to change this tendency which he had considered wrong?\nAAs far as foreign policy is concerned, I know about one incident which occurred in 1944. That must have been in the late summer or even Autumn of 1944, because at that moment I had to send or to forward a letter to a Baron von Obdenott to the effect of taking up contact over the head of other persons including the Reichsfuehrer SS - taking up contact with the enemy foreign countries -- more precisely with England.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3513, "page_number": "3506", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Baroh Obdenott, whose sister was a close acquaintance of ours, was not anti-German, but he was definitely an enemy of the German policy, and he had good connections in England. With the help of that acquaintance of ours, Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt wanted to take up a contact which in the last analysis was to be the preliminary contact to see in how far there were possibilities to come to an agreement with the British.\nQ what was the result of that attempt?\nA that attempt was stopped after the letter was transmitted. That is all that came out of it, because on account of the war events, Baron Obdenott could not be traced by me for a further meeting, and we had no other channels in that connection.\nQOne concluding question. Did you over receive orders from Hildebrandt or from his agencies which would have been suitable to interfere in the political conditions of the country whore you had your service?\nANo, I have never received such orders.\nQDid you ever receive directives according to which you were to prepare measures which were in contradiction with the international law or the Hague Convention or the Geneva Convention or the general principles of humanity?\nANo, I never received such directions.\nQThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3514, "page_number": "3507", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, will you please turn to Document No,NO-1494, Exhibit 556 in Book XIII-A, That is the second marker in the book you have in your hand. This is the letter from you concerning which you have previously testified in connection with the woman and her husband, named Suedor. Do you have that letter in front of you now, witness?\nA.Just a minute. I am just trying to locate it. Yes, I have got it now.\nQ.Witness, did this woman come to you voluntarily or did she come by order of another agency?\nA.No, this woman Suedor had come to see the Oberfeld-Kommandantura, and as this agency had no office which could have helped the woman, Frau Suedor was sent to see me.\nQ.Witness, when you made this request to the genealogical records office, did you consider it a request which you were fulfilling of the woman herself or of this other agency, the administrative area headquarters?\nA.The Oberfeld-Kommandantura supported the woman's desire along with a covering letter. I mean it was Frau Suedor's request that was supported by the covering letter because Frau Suedor had an interest in it herself,\nQ.What I am trying to make clear is whether you consider this an official request to you of another agency or whether you were merely trying to help some woman who came to you unofficially?\nA.First of all, I considered it a request made by the OberfeldKommandantura, but without that, even if she had come without a covering letter I would have granted that desire of Frau Suedor's also, because it was easy to grant it, and on account of her attitude I didn't have any misgivings to grant that desire.\nQ.Witness, you have testified on direct examination that your only question for the Genealogical Records Office was to see if they could trace the genealogy of the two people involved, is that correct?\nA.Not of both persons involved; only the descent of Frau Suedor \n was involved, and thereby, of course, the descent of the child, which was the product of this marriage.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3515, "page_number": "3508", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Yes, witness. Will you look at your letter once more, please, Will you look at the next to the last sentence in that letter. Why do you there say, \"S\" -- I assume meaning Suedor--\" is not opposed to the idea of submitting to voluntary sterilization.\"\nA.Yes, I found that spot. It's the last but one sentence. I can comment upon that in the following way: I saw Herr Suedor, who had come with his wife-- and first he waited outside--and I asked his wife to have him come also to my office. Frau Suedor was very much surprised and she was even please about it, and thus her husband was introduced to me. Before I gave further attention to the matter, I talked with Herr Suedor and Herr Suedor expressed that some of the measures taken by us--by the Germans--he was quite sympathetic with, and understood them quite well. He also told me that he was a soldier. We discussed those things. In this connection, he mentioned also this sentence I have quoted here in its effect, and which I have written down in this letter. If I have entered the sentence in the letter, the this is not important for it has no importance whatsoever concerning the treatment of the affairs by the descent, and as to the Genealogical Registration Office, it is not concerned with it. If Herr Suedor has made this remark without any coercion and if I have put it down here, then the reason is only that it was my custom to forward such occurrences in the original to such agencies as have initiated them; in other words, as the Oberfeld-Kommandantura had requested me for support I had to report further to the Oberfeld-Kommandantura, if the only rea on had been courtesy.\nQ.Witness -\nA.May I finish that?\nQ.Please make it short, witness,\nA.Yes, I will, I believe that if I added this remark made by Herr Suedor, then the whole affair of the family of the wife and the husband Suedor would finally be considered a little bit more favorably bu such agencies as have to decide on the wearing of the Jewish star, because in this \n sentence used by Herr Suedor, there is expressed a certain readiness.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3516, "page_number": "3509", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.Witness, I have only a few more questions, Pleass try to make the answers short. Did you ask Mr. Suedor whether he would consent to sterilization or did he, of his own volition, just say to you, \"I would like to be sterilized or will consent to be sterilized.\"?\nA.No, I didn't suggest that to him, and I didn't even ask any leading questions in that connection. I could admit that because I wanted to help the man. I don't know how the conversation turned to that point. The only thing is that the wife declared that for her child, it wasn't exactly nice, and after all, they were old people already and they didn't have the intention of having other children because for these children it would be very difficult to got on their way under such circumstances.\nQ.Witness, what was the choice that Mr. Suedor had to make? What was he faced with if he did not agree to be sterilized?\nA.Well, whether there was a choice for him at all and what he could expect-well, that I couldn't tell you. That wasn't the point of our conversation. It was only the question as to whether he, as other people, had to wear the Jewish star or not, and that depended on the checking of the descent of Frau Suedor.\nQ.Witness, did you over get an answer to this letter?\nA.On this letter-and I have already stated that in direct examination--I received no answer, or at least I didn't see any answer from the Genealogical Registration Office, but I know that an answer must have been received later on when I left. I cannot recall having seen it and I cannot recall the wording of any answer or whether one of my collaborators had worked that out independently without consulting me.\nQ.Witness, did you know that an arrest order was later put out for Mr. Suedor?\nA.No, I had no knowledge of that, and I don't think that it is possible at all, because after all, several weeks after the application the letters between the application and that letter I wrote, I wrote it on the 27th May--and I don't think that an answer from the Genealogical Registration \n Office could have been received before July.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3517, "page_number": "3510", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "I know on the other hand that Frau Suedor received a permit of residence for Belgium. After all, she was still a German, and that residence permit was dated the 31 of October 1933, and already is early as September, Allied troops had entered Brussels. Therefore, according to my opinion, no further steps could have been taken in that matter. I than not even the Oborfeld-Kommandantura had been able to conclude the whole affair by giving information to the woman concerning her residence, permit, and so on and so forth.\nQ.The Prosecution has no further question.\nDR. HEIM:I have no further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Mr. Witness, did I understand you to say that when writing this letter that you knew that whether or not this party was willing to submit to sterilization would have no influence on the decision made? Is that correct\nA.May I ask that the question be repeated again?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3518, "page_number": "3511", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.All right. As I understand your testimony, you say that when writing this letter you knew that sterilization, that is, whether this party would agree to sterilization or not, would have no influence on the decision made?\nA.For me, the only point was to check the descent of the person; on the other hand, what measures or agreements or voluntary necessities were necessary in order to obtain a treatment which was contrary to the laws, that I didn't know.\nQ.You didn't answer my question. My question was whether or not I correctly understood you in your testimony to say that when you put this sentence in your letter about sterilization, you knew at the time that the subject of sterilization would have no influence on the decision made in the case. Did you say that or not?\nA.I didn't know that. I mentioned it only because I took into consideration that this remark made by the man might possibly lead to a favorable treatment--benevolent treatment of his affair by the higher institutions.\nQ.Why did you think that it might do that?\nA.Because I was under the impression that the man promised himself some better treatment on account of that. I added that more in his interest because he wanted to make that statement, otherwise, he wouldn't have told me about that. That is why I brought that into that letter.\nQ.Do you know any cases where sterilization had played any part in whether he was seized?\nA.No. That is the only case, the only case which was known to me at all in this form. And I think it is the only letter which I have exchanged with the Genealogical Registration Office in this matter.\nQ.And up to that time you never heard anything about the subject of sterilization in cases of this sort?\nA.No. I only knew and I had seen that Jews had been marked with the Jewish Star and could be seen as such in Gelgium.\nQ.But you had not seen anything about sterilization up to the time \n you wrote this letter?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3519, "page_number": "3512", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.No. Mr. President.\nPRESIDENT:Let the witness go down.\nDR. HEIM:In connection with the questions put by the president, I would have one more question.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, until the surrender, did you ever know or read any decree or order according to which Jews had to submit to sterilization?\nA.No. I had no knowledge of that.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Just a minute. How about since the surrender, have you known or heard anything about it since the surrender?\nA.No, not even that.\nQ.You haven't heard anything about it even until today?\nA.No.\n(The witness was excused.)\nPRESIDENT:Now you may call your next witness.\nDR. HEIM:With the permission of the court, I would like to call my second witness, Heinrich Kaul.\nPRESIDENT:Let the witness go on the stand.\nHEINRICHKAUL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nPRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nPRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal and your birthplace and year of birth?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "PRESIDENT", "HEINRICH", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3520, "page_number": "3513", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "A.My name is Heinrich Kaul. I was born on the 18th of March 1905 in Westersbach in Hessen.\nQ.What is your present address?\nA.My present address is Bayrisch Eisenstein, Bavaria.\nQ.Were you a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.Yes. I was a member of the Nazi Party since 1937.\nQ.Witness, after my question, will you please made a short interval to give the interpreters a chance to follow. Were you a member of the SS?\nA.Yes, as from March 1943 I was a member of the General SS.\nQ.What was your last official rank in the SS?\nA.My official rank was that of an oberscharfuehrer, honorary rank, as an expert in the department.\nQ.Were you depazified?\nA.Yes. I was denazified by the spruchkammer of the Internment Camp Regensburg in a legally valid manner, and I was entered in the category III, of minor offenders.\nQ.For how long did you work in the Genealogical Registration Office of the RuSHA?\nA.I worked in that department from March 1943 until August 1943, and then again from January 1944 until the surrender. At the time, that is, in September 1943, I had a disease of the intestines and was operated, and for a long time I was between life and death.\nQ.On the strength of what measure were you transferred to the Genealogical Registration Office at the time?\nA.I was a member of the Reichs Food Association, and in that association I was a lecturer during the war, and before the war as a hobby, I had written a longer publication concerning the family of Kaul, that is my name, and because of that I was transferred to the Genealogical Registration Office, where I was only an honorary assistant and as it is probably known, I worked at the same time as lecturer of the Reichs Food Association.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3521, "page_number": "3514", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Q.What do you know concerning the activity of the Genealogical Registration, concerning the Hugenots?\nA.Well, these Hugenot documents, after the French campaign, as is known to me, were removed from the state archives by bundles and brought to Germany, and on the initiative of the genealogical research office, they were photostated and then they were sent back to France. I still remember quite well that at the time it struck me that these thick volumes had been treated with quite a bit of care in our offices.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, therefore, these Hugenot documents were sent over to Germany on a proper lease treaty?\nA.Yes. It seems that way. I can't confirm it because I didn't have an insight on those matters, but I think I may go that far with certainty, that is, these matters were handled in a very correct and careful manner and on the strength of various signs, I assumed that such treaties of lease existed--must have existed because otherwise the photostating of these documents would have been without point, and I also know that in these steel safes only the films were kept and the books which had been construed from the films, while later on I didn't see any originals any more.\nQ.What do you know concerning the activities of the Genealogical Registration Office, concerning the building up of a technical genealogical library?\nA.Well, this technical library, you see at the end of March 1943, I joined the office and I know that at the time such a library did not exist yet. Now in the course of the summer, the first steps were taken, even while the agency was still in Berlin, to bring together a collection of genealogical treatises which after the agency had been shifted to the Rothenburg in Thuringia, was then intensified according to the funds which were then at the disposal of the agency. By and By I think there is no doubt that this purely genealogical expert library became one of the largest in the Reich because as the air raids against the Reich were intensified, more and more such libraries existing in private genealogical \n societies were destroyed and I may well state to this Tribunal that this purely genealogical technical library had no connection whatsoever with the SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3522, "page_number": "3515", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "At the time the tendency prevailed to concentrate in one safe place, first of all, all existing treatises of that nature, in order to preserve them from being destroyed on account of the war, but an exploitation of that library up to that point was not made, only the registration of the volumes collected.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3523, "page_number": "3516", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QDo you know whether in that technical library the Gothaer Hofkalendar and the Semi-Gothaer existed?\nAWell, I couldn't tell you that today, but I assume that such standard treatises existed in the library at the time--it must have existed.\nQWhat do you know concerning the activities of the Genealogical Registration Office concerning the construction of a reference library on heraldry?\nAWell, in the framework of a genealogical technical library, of course, where were also treatises concerning heraldry and over and beyond that, Ossiander who at the time was the director of that office, had a strong personal hobby in that connection.\nQWhat do you know concerning the genealogical card indexes in that genealogical registration office?\nAI know only one genealogical file index in the office, and that is the file index which I saw later on when the boxes were sent to Rothenburg. I saw only a box that was opened, that is, the file index which had been created before the war on the initiative of Ossiander and gathered from a Part of the file index existing in the marriage office of the Race and Settlement main office. These genealogical records were put into file cards and this file index at the time was dispatched to the Rothenburg and I think that it was preserved then.\nQWere other documents prepared for this file index, others than the genealogical registrations of the SS members?\nANo.\nQOf how many SS members would you say that genealogical charts existed?\nAIt is impossible for me to give you that figure, but I think that I remember with some certainty that not all SS members had deposited genealogical charts with the agency.\nQThese genealogical charts, were they mostly created before 1939?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3524, "page_number": "3517", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "QWhy was it impossible during the war to continue the genealogical research?\nAThe church registers and the other archive documents during the war were more and more destroyed or put in safe places, places to preserve them from the bombing, A large part to Ehrenbreitstein near Coblenz, and they were not at the disposal for genealogical research, inasfar as there were no duplications, therefore, a large fraction of the genealogical research could not be continued during the war at all.\nQWhat was the personnel strength of the Genealogical Registration Office?\nAWell, I don't think that at any time it exceeded 6 or 7 persons, and most of them were war injured persons, well, female personnel, too.\nQWhere was the location of this office?\nAWell, until '43, August or September or October '43 it was in Berlin, and from that moment on on the Rothenburg.\nQWas the Genealogical Office the same agency as the Reich Eugenics Office?\nANo. Those were two different offices. The genealogical registration office, on the one hand, and the Reich Eugenics Office. on the other.\nQUnder whom was the Reich Eugenics Office?\nAI can tell you that it was, on the one hand, under the Reich Minister of the Interior, and on the other, under the Nazi Party.\nQDo you know what the personnel strength of the Reich Eugenics Office was?\nAYes. I can give you only an approximate figure, only I know that the Reichs Eugenics Office was only a voluminous office, sometimes 60 to 70, mostly female employees.\nQDidn't the Reich Eugenics Office have gau and district offices in the gaus?\nAYes, but only in very few gaus.\nQDid the genealogical office have an interest in half-Jewish \n file indexes, and such file indexes?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3525, "page_number": "3518", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AWell, until 1944, I didn't know anything about that in any country and as from '44 the only thing I heard about it, that is, in the lower countries, there was such a file index of half-Jews or such an interest, at least.\nQWhy specifically in Holland?\nAWell, as far as the work itself is concerned, I can't give you any information there, but I think that I can remember to have heard that in Holland, so-called undesirable elements in previous years had been deported to the colonies and that files existed with regard to those undesirable elements and these files,--I don't know to what extent, were brought to the Rothenburg in 1944.\nQWasn't there an internal interest of the SS which was decisive, too?\nAWell, I would assume so, but I can't say that with certainty.\nQDid you at any time hear of a collaboration between the genealogical registration office and the certain departments of the RSHA, that is, the Gestapo?\nANo, at no times.\nQDid the Genealogical Registration Office have a Jewish file index from where centrally all Jews living in Germany could be seen? Did it contain their exact addresses of that period?\nASuch a file index according to my knowledge did not exist in the Genealogical Registration Office.\nQDid you at any time get any information concerning the fact that the Genealogical Registration Office had taken a decisive part in France at the building up of such a file index?\nANo, certainly not.\nQAccording to your knowledge, with the establishment of these file indexes of the ancestors of the SS members inasfar as they were Jewish or half-Jewish, could that have been used for state police measures?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3526, "page_number": "3519", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "ANo. That wasn't the reason.\nQThis use which I have just described in my previous question, or this misuse inasfar as genealogical sense is concerned, did that ever happen in practice?\nANo, I have no knowledge of that.\nQWith the small personnel strength you have just described and in view of the many difficulties of the particular institute, could the registration office do such work at all, even if it had such a file index?\nANo. They didn't have the necessary experts for that, and generally speaking, the Genealogical Registration Office didn't have the possibilities for that at all.\nQWell, what did the office deal with then?\nAWell, the agency of the ATA at the time inasfar as I can tell you about it, first of all, dealt with the building UP of these libraries, the genealogical and the heraldic library; and secondly, with the building up of a file index concerning all the families and tribes existing in Germany; and thirdly, as I have already, described, the photostating of the Huguenot documents from France. And now, a very strange thing, it also made charts of the families and tribes listed in the Hugenot documents. With this drawing up of charts on the average three employees of the ATA filled their time, such persons who had knowledge of the French language, and that was the central and the bulk of the work of the ATA during the period when I was active in it.\nQWhat was the personnel strength of the ATA when it was still in Berlin?\nAThe personnel strength of the ATA was comparatively stable as far as number was concerned, even if the personnel was constantly replaced and changed by drafting into the armed forces or other special circumstances. This constant change made it impossible to have a consistent line of work, but I would say in Berlin, as I have said, 6 to 7 employees would work, and 2 of them were female workers.\nQHow long was the agency deactivated altogether?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3527, "page_number": "3520", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "AWhen I joined the agency at the time--well, it is hard for me to say now, but I think a month or two after I arrived, when I arrived back from the front line, I had been there for a year, and a year and a half Ossiander was severely injured and during that period there was a certain resistance put up, and he came back and the agency was now being kept for Ossiander and, therefore, during that period they worked only on the Huguenot documents.\nQWhen did the ATA move to the Rothenburg?\nAI think I told you already that was either in September or October 1943 within the framework of the decentralization due to the intensified air raids against Berlin.\nQWho was Herr Steudtner?\nAWell, Herr Steudtner--I personally had very often great sympathy with Herr Steudtner. He led a very modest and miserable existence. I couldn't tell you how he ever came into that office, but before that he had been an employee in the land peasantry Saxony-Anhalt and as I myself was in the Reich Food Association, I talked to him very often. He was completely deaf. He didn't hear a word, and I think he was not in a position at all to do any productive work. His background was too inferior. The only thing I know is that he mainly dealt with the putting into charts of the Huguenot documents, rather they made him work on that, and then in 1944--in other words, when we were quite near collapse already, he wrote a history of the Sale District.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3528, "page_number": "3521", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQCould you consider Steudtner fully capable of working?\nANo, on no means.\nQNow, only two more questions. Do you know whether Steudtner was in Paris?\nAYes, he was certainly in Paris once at least; I don't know whether he was there twice, but certainly once. He was strong and tall, certainly he was nothing but a mail boy -- somebody who could drag the files around; that was the reason. I couldn't see any other reasons to send him to Paris.\nQIn other words, if I understand you correctly, the only purpose, namely, the dragging of files around in Paris was the only reason why they took him to Paris.\nAYes, I think that is the only reason; I can't imagine anything else.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you were with the genealogical records office, what were your duties?\nAWell, I myself, as I told already, worked on my own hobby. In 1937 when I started a society of the Kaul family, I worked on that in the ATA to a very strong extent inasfar as I had time left over from my lectures in the Reich Food Association. In other words, I worked on drawing up a file index of the family tribes still existing in Germany.\nQWitness, is this what you did in 1943 and 1944 when you were with the genealogical records office, you worked on drawing up charts of different tribes and families in Germany?\nAI apologize; I don't know whether I understand you correctly. You mean an index of the families and tribes existing in Germany at that time still. A chart, a file index didn't exist; the tribes existed.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3529, "page_number": "3522", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nWe triad, I mean that was more a work of a private nature; we tried to take quite a number of family tribes and take up contact with them. I did that already before, and that gave me the idea as time went on to take quite a number of family tribes, to join them together in what I might call a union, and the idea that I got as time went on, I put into writing into a publication, and at the time I handed this publication to my boss Ossiander, this report.\nQWitness, did you do this at the order of Ossiander or were you conducting private research merely using the facilities of the genealogical records office?\nAThis work was not done on the strength of existing documents of the ATA and other documents of the ATA properly speaking. All I can say is that ever since I was a member of the ATA there was a very friendly and comradeship relationship between myself and Ossiander, and it had nothing to do with the difference in rank between the two of us, and as it is only too obvious in such a castle away from every vestige of civilization, we would talk in the evening with Dr. Grobtefendt and with Ossiander, and we exchanged ideas, and I developed my general line of thought in this way, and then Herr Ossiander -- well, how should I say it -- gave me the permission to use my time up there to deal with that plan, and first of all do this mechanical work of building up a file index of such family tribes.\nQWitness, if a request came in to check the genealogy of a member of the SS, did you have anything to do with that?\nAI am sorry. You mean descent?\nQI mean the descent of the member of the SS.\nAI see, descent. No, I had nothing to do with that, and that has no connection either with this file index of the family tribes. Here we had merely mechanical work to do, and as far as the war permitted, we carried out that work. First of all, it was to collect the documents; I mean in spite of the fact that this was done within the framework of an SS agency, it had no connection whatsoever with SS work.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3530, "page_number": "3523", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI can say that quite frankly.\nQWitness, I have just one more question. Please try to be brief in your answer. Did you ever hear of any requests coming into the genealogical records office to check the genealogy or the descent of any one at all; members of the SS, Jew, Aryan -- anyone at all?\nATo the ATA?\nQYes, witness.\nAYes, doubtlessly. Well, I mean I haven't seen any myself, but from the conversations we had, I may well declare here in this connection that certain inquiries were made to the ATA or to the marriage office and from the marriage office perhaps forwarded to the ATA; I think I may say that without having seen such applications, but I think that I may say it from the conversations we had, because after all we were living there all of us in one big room -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, that is not necessary to tell us how you were living. He just wanted to know that. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, you, yourself, had nothing to do with these requests, is that correct? You merely heard about them in general conversations.\nAWith some regrets I had nothing to do with them. At least as far as my work was concerned.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQWitness, do you know whether the ATA under Ossiander, from the file index existing, was always in a position to answer all the requests made to it in this connection?\nAI don't understand what you mean by in this connection.\nQWell, I mean the requests the Prosecutor has just referred to, that is to say requests concerning the descent of an SS member or of a Jew or any other person.\nAOh, I think that I understand you now. Well then, I may say \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3531, "page_number": "3524", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "that in quite a number of cases I know and I remember that such requests could not be answered and ware passed on to the Reich Eugenics Office because the ATA didn't have the facilities or the documents to answer them.\nQWitness, ware requests made only concerning the descent of SS members or were there also demands concerning the descent of other persons -- or of Jaws.\nAWell, we were only an internal agency of the SS, and our only task was to clear up ambiguous cases within the ranks of the SS, There were other agencies outside of the SS which had to deal with similar tasks for their people.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I should like to direct a question to the Attorney for the Prosecution. Would you please tell me which Count of the Indictment applies to this evidence relative to taking possession of genealogical records or the work done through the genealogical department?\nMR. SHILLER:If it please the Tribunal, I don't have the numbers of the Paragraphs in mind, but in the paragraph of the Indictment charging spoliation I believe that the question of whether or not the agencies here in court were involved in seizing unlawfully documents and other objects of value, for instance, libraries, or it might be art objects of occupied countries, is certainly relevant.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Would that be Count 20 which reads the plunder of public and private property?\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor. Also in connection with the use of such cards or genealogical records in the Count charging persecution of Jews, I believe it would be relevant if the file cards are shown to have been used to persecute Jews, why then it would be quite material.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Does the Prosecution contend that the maintenance of genealogical records in itself is criminal?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q", "JUDGE", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3532, "page_number": "3525", "date": "12 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-12", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nMR. SHILLER:No, Your Honor, we do not, of course, contend that the maintenance of genealogical records per se is criminal.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right; thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I have another witness, but on account of the fact that vie have only three minutes left, may I perhaps postpone it until tomorrow morning. At the same time I would like to make the request that these three minutes be registered to our credit account.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, since the clock jumped while you were talking, that won't be necessary.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 13 January 1948.)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3533, "page_number": "3526", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter' of the United States of America against' Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENTSMr. Marshal, have you ascertained if all the defendants are present in the court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to all counsel that the traffic lights are not working this morning so that if you will caution the witness in the beginning and may counsel also be cautious. Whom do you call next?\nDR.HEIM (For the defendant Schwalm): With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to call now the witness Lambert von Malsen.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the sand, LAMBERT von MALSEN-PONICKAU, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I willspeak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.) THE PRESIDENT: Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, will you please talk slowly. Will you please state to the Tribunal your full name and your date and place of birth.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENTS", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3534, "page_number": "3527", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "ALambert von Malsen-Ponickau, born on the 26 of May 1904 at munich.\nQWill you please in a few words, give your curriculum data.\nAI have graduated from a humanistic high school. Then I had an agricultural training and went to an agricultural school for study. From 1924 until 1928, I was in Switzerland at various times because I was severely ill and I was also in Italy and Dalmatia. From 1926 to 1929, I studied architecture. From 1929 until October 1939, I was a free-lance architect. In 1929 I got married and I have four children In 1931, I joined the Nazi Party and at the same time the General SS. From 1934 until 1939, I was an honorary member of the Security Service-the SD -- in the capacity of Chief of a Field Agency in Ulm on the Danube. In October 1939, I was drafted into the EWZ. From the middle of February 1945 until the middle of April of the same year. I had been transferred to Office VI of the RSHA, Group France, in order to train myself in that field of work. As from about the 24 of April 1945 until the surrender, I was on the staff of the Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, General of t he Waffen SS, Karl Wolff. As from the second of May 1945, I have been a prisoner of war or an internee respectively.\nQWill you please state the exact date when you were transferred to the EWZ.\nAOn the 27 of October 1939 I joined the EWZ.\nQFor how long did you stay with that organization?\nAUntil the end of the war.\nQWhat wasyour official rank at that time, that is when you joined the EWZ?\nAAt the time I was a Sturmbannfuehrer.\nQWhat wasthe task you were entrusted with when you joined the EWZ?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3535, "page_number": "3528", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AI was entrusted with the managing of Screening commissions and branch agencies of the EWZ as well as with the inspection of the registration work.\nQThese tasks you just outlined, did you maintain then or were you transferred within the EWZ to anothe field of task?\nAIn June 1941 I became chief of the EWZ and I kept that position until the end of the war.\nQSince you joined the EWZ as early as 1939 and as you had been the chief of that organization since 1941, could you tell me when and by whom the EWZ was founded?\nAThe EWZ was established in the middle of October 1939. Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, delegated the power for the naturalization of ethnic German resettlers to the Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, Heydrich, personally. Heydrich subsequently ordered that the EWZ be established, and all the ministries participating in the naturalization by law and in a general way as well as all the Reich Offices, were to participate in the founding of the EWZ.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3536, "page_number": "3529", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Do you know the reasons for the founding of the EWZ too?\nA.In October 1939, the first German resettlers arrived from Estonia and Latvia. Those were to be naturalized in the quickest way without any possible friction. The reason was that on one hand the local authorities should be discharged from additional burdens, and on the other hand, the pre-requisites for the synchronization of the resettlers into normal German life should be created.\nQ.Now, what were the tasks of the EWZ?\nA.The EWZ, as a naturalization authority, had joined representatives of the Reich Ministries and Reich Agencies, just mentioned, in its body. According to the internal division valid for the last years of existence of that body, the departments I and II of the EWZ dealt with personnel questions and administration as well as with reporting and statistics. Department II to V covered those spheres of the agencies working in expert fields, I will enumerate these expert departments one after the other. The Reporting and Pass agency directed by officials of the General Police Administration, which according to the generally valid procedure registered the personal data of the resettlers in an index; at the same time, issued the official resettlers pass and produced the photographs necessary for this identity card. The Professional Investigation Department was directed by officials of the Reich Labor Ministry, and this department registered the professional background and theprofessions exercised up to that point; and the wishes of the resettler for the exercise of a future profession. Then there was a Health Department too directed by officials and physicians of the Health Department of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. This department carried out a medical examination of the resettlers. In cases of severe illness, they would inform the competent health agency, and ask them to give the necessary medical care, and they also had to give a general medical report on the resettler. There was furthermore an agency of the RUSHA, which made investigations as to racial characteristics. Then there was a \n Department for Questions of Nationality, directed by Officials of the Ministry of the Interior.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3537, "page_number": "3530", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "They took care of checking the naturalizations. I should rather say, the pre-requisites for naturalizations. This department, on the strength of the results of investigations made by the other departments and also on the strength of its own investigations, carried out the naturalization. Until the spring of 1940, apart from that, officials of the Reich ministry of Finance registered the property left behind and taken along by the resettlers.\nQ.Now, did the tasks of the EWZ always remain the same or did they undergo changes as time went on?\nA.With the exception of certain additions, the tasks of the EWZ remained the same during the whole of its activities.\nQ.Under the authority of which agency was the EWZ?\nA.AS far as personnel and administrative matters were concerned, the EWZ was under the responsible agencies of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD. All expert departments were only bound by the directives of their responsible ministries or government agencies.\nQ.Will you please look at the chart behind you on the wall and will you explain to the Tribunal whether this chart is correct as far as the subordination of the EWZ is concerned.\nA.On the chart, the EWZ is listed as directly subordinate to the RSHA. I have to comment upon that. The EWZ was not subordinated directly to that main office, but on the strength of the delegation of powers to Heydrich, which I have just mentioned, it wasunder the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, personally. Now this Chief of the Security Police Police and SD would use his offices I and II of the RSHA. These two offices had the duty to exercise the checking and investigation as far as personnel and administration were concerned.\nQ.A while ago you explained what the task of the EWZ was, namely, to naturalize the resettlers. Now in a few brief words, -- we don't want any details there -- can you explain to the Tribunal how this task \n namely of naturalizing the resettlers, covered the various years.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3538, "page_number": "3531", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.The naturalization activities of the EWZ in this field covered the following German resettler groups: In 1939 we had the resettlers from Estonia and Latvia. In 1940, the resettlers from Rumania, Galicia, an and the so-called Narev region, on the strength of a government agreement with Soviet Russia. May I add that the resettlement action of Estonia and Latvia had been carried out also on the strength of a state agreement with those countries. Furthermore, in 1940 also, there was a resettlement action from the eastern part of what was known as the GovernmentGeneral. The primary requisite, I think, of this resettlement was a chain exchange between Soviet Russia, the area of the GovernmentGeneral , and the Reich. In 1940 to 1940, resettlers would come from Bukowina, Besserabia and Dodrudscha. Also on the strength of State Agreement with Soviet Russia. In 1941, resettlers from Lithuania on the strength again of a State agreement with the Soviet Russia. Also in 1941, resettlers from the so-called Gottschee and from the city of Lubljana, on the strength of a treaty with the then occupying power, Italy. Furthermore, smaller groups of resettlers from Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. In 1941 to 1944, there was a registration of resettlers and resettlement on a limited scale from France \n 1943 until 1944 resettlement from the area of the Black Sea and from Transnistria, that is, the a rea north of Odessa, on the strength of the fact that there was a movement of escape on account of the German retreat.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3539, "page_number": "3532", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Apart from those resettlement actions, in the so-called Government General the group of persons reporting there who claimed that they h ad German descent, were screened, that is, they were registered by the EWZ. And part of them was considered for later naturalization. This activity took place between 1943 and autumn 1944. In northern France in the area around Douai, there was furthermore a group consisting mainly of miners who after the first world war had immigrated into France from Upper Silesia and Westphalia, a group which now aimed at naturalization as Germans again. About 5,000 persons of this group were registered by the EWZ in 1943 and considered for later naturalization. However, the naturalization was not actually carried out. In both cases, that is, in the Government General, as well as in northern France, no resettlement was carried out.\nQWitness, if I understand your testimony up to this point correctly, the EWZ until October 1941 had dealt only with such resettlers as had been repatriated or brought to Germany for naturalization on the strength of state agreements, is this assumption correct?\nAWell, may I ask you until what period you mean?\nQWell, until October 1941.\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow, the naturalizations which were actually carried out, were they made on the strength of voluntary application, or do you know of any cases where some kind of coercion was applied?\nAFundamentally speaking, a naturalization was carried out only in cases of voluntary application. I have no knowledge of any single instance where any kind of coercion or compulsion was exerted to receive those applications.\nQDoes that apply also to the so-called German refugees from Russia after the years 1941 to 1943?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3540, "page_number": "3533", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AYes, absolutely. In the case of those resettlers, too, the primary prerequisite was that they had made a voluntary application for naturalization.\nQWell, do you have any knowledge of any group where the naturalization was not provided for on the strength of voluntary application?\nANo, because in every case that would have been absolutely in contradiction with the unambiguous legal prescriptions in that connection, that is, for naturalization.\nQWill you please give us a short description concerning the activity of your leadership staff and of the various commissions of registration?\nAThe leadership staff of the EWZ was located at Posen, at Berlin, and as from the beginning of 1941 at Lodz. It included all the agencies I have mentioned before. The operational management, with regard to personnel and administration, was its task, as well as the reporting and the statistical registration. I should rather say the statistical management. The expert departments received the registration material of the commissions. They had to list it in the file indexes and in the files, to check it, and if necessary, to correct it. Apart from that, they had to deal with applications and complaints made by the resettlers inasfar as such came in. The individual commissions of the EWZ which had a personnel strength of 40 to 70 employees had the same expert departments themselves which were always under the direction of an official or of an export employee specially trained for that purpose, and which had to take care of the so-called screening in view of naturalization. Partly, they would work in the resettlers camps. Partly, they would work in centrally situated localities, and there they would have temporarily a permanent office location.\nQWitness, from Document Book II C of the prosecution, I hand you Document No. 3495, Exhibit 44. Do you know that document from before this trial here?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3541, "page_number": "3534", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AWell, the exact form I did not remember, but here in Nurnberg it was brought to my knowledge.\nQDid this draft of a service regulation for the EWZ actually become a service regulation for the EWZ?\nAWith regard to the technique of work, the draft was to the effect of a service regulation for the EWZ.\nQWell, was this service regulation adheredd to already before that in effect?\nAYes.\nQDid I understand you correctly before that you said that in the case of each commission there was a racial examiner of the RuSHA present ?\nAYes.\nQDid the RuSHA have anything else to do with the EWZ?\nANo.\nQDid the EWZ receive any directives from the RuSHA?\nAThe directives issued by the RuSHA covered only and alone the agencies of the Race and Settlement affairs. These directives were sent directly to the agencies of the Race and Settlement Affairs. They were not channeled through the management of the EWZ.\nQFrom Document Book V B of the prosecution, I am handing you Document No. 4640, Exhibit 235. It is a letter from the main staff office to the EWZ concerning return to Lithuania and revocation of resettlers' rights of 23 September 1942. Do you know that document from before the trial?\nAYes, I can recall that document.\nQCan you remember, whether for the execution of these measures the RUSHA had been provided to participate?\nANot according to my knowledge.\nQNow, when did the RuSHA for the first time dispatch racial examiners to the EWZ?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3542, "page_number": "3535", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AAccording to my knowledge, at the beginning of 1940.\nQDo you know on whose orders that was done?\nAAs far as I can remember, that was caused by direct order of Himmler's.\nQWere the resettlers split up in well-defined groups?\nAYes. There was a separation into the groups, \"O\", \"A\", and part of the time also into a group \"S\".\nQWhat did this distinction in \"O\", \"A\", and \"S\" mean?\nAThese separations and these categories which were called the commitment decision, \"Ansatz-Entscheid\", meant in the case of \"O\", fit for resettlement in the East, in the case of \"A\", fit for resettlement in Germany proper, \"S\" would single out such cases where for the time being the primary requisites for naturalizations were not given, and where, therefore, the applications had to be submitted to a further examination or also such cases where the resettler did not apply for naturalization and made it a point to be repatriated to his home country.\nQDid any cases come to your knowledge where persons who had received the commitment decision \"S\" were committed to a concentration camp?\nANo, in no way.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3543, "page_number": "3536", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.How did the \"A\"; \"O\", or \"S\" decision come about?\nA.According to my knowledge, Himmler personally at the beginning of 1940, I think it was as early as January of that year, decided that the resettlers should be split up in various groups.\nQ.Do you know the reason why Himmler ordered that they should be split up in those groups?\nA.According to my knowledge, the fact that beginning with the resettlement from Wolhynia and Galicia, such a large flood of resettlers poured into the Reich that their resettlement in one only area as was at the disposal in the east, as far as housing and as far as jobs were concerned, was not possible, was the reason why these resettlers should be split up into groups. That is why such resettlers as were either not physically suitable to be resettled in the east or needed special medical care were to be assigned for work in the Reich proper, and also such resettlers as on the strength of the racial and eugenic checking did not seem fit to be resettled in the midst of alien racial groups, or such persons who as far as work was concerned were of no use in the east or who on the strength of their mixed descent, as far as ethnic questions were concerned, could not be naturalized right away.\nQ.Therefore, can you say that the expert opinion of the racial examiner was not the only thing decisive for the commitment?\nA.Yes, you can say that.\nQ.Well, can you demonstrate that a little bit clearer?\nA.As I have already mentioned, apart from the expert opinion of the racial examiner, the expert opinion of the physician, the position taken by the labor exchanges and also the judgement of the agency dealing with naturalization were also decisive.\nQ.I am handing to you from Document Book V B of the prosecution, the document No. 3602, Exhibit 218. Do you know that document from before the trial?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3544, "page_number": "3537", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.No, I don't know that.\nQ.In your capacity as chief of the EQZ, did it come to your knowledge that the population of Tschernowitz was to be screened according to other view points as the other resettlers?\nA.Before that, may I supplement that I have made the acquaintance of this document here in jail, and that I haven't known it up to that point. Now, concerning your question, whether the Tschernowitz population was screened according to other view points or not, I can answer that I had no Knowledge at any time about that matter.\nQ.I amhanding to you a further document from V E of the Prosecution, that is, Document No. 1397, Exhibit 306. Do you know that document from before the trial?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you remember Amberger's activity, I mean the man mentioned in that document?\nA.I recall Amberger's activities. I also recall that his expert opinion in racial questions amongst the colleagues as well as amongst the EWZ agencies gave cause to considerable criticism. I personally considered Amberger a man who was s ightly over-exalted, with an exaggerated self-assertion, who tried to give his results of investigation an importance which was not really in the nature of the investigation. He would lose all measure in his expert opinions and on the other hand, he constantly attempted to confer to his theoretical activity a practical and decisive inference on the important decisions of the EWZ. Once these activities of his became known, Herr. Amberger resigned. The results of his investigations were checked very carefully, and the outcome was that most of it was changed; according to my recollection, Herr Schwalm had a decisive part in this rechecking of Amberger's investigation results.\nQ.As a further document, I am handing you from Document Book V B \n of the prosecution, Document No. 1406, Exhibit 219.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3545, "page_number": "3538", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Do you recall the activity of Kaserer?\nA.In advance, I would like to tell you that I don't know the document from before the trial, however, here in the Nurnberg jail I have made its acquaintance. I do recall Kaserer's activities.\nQ.The opinion of Kaserer rendered in this document concerning racial examination -- was it in line with the opinion of the agencies of the EWZ?\nA.The opinion rendered in the document was in line with the whole personality of Kaserer. Kaserer showed a very violent urge for activity, and therefore, he also tried to go beyond his rather theoretical field of activity and to take an influence on the management and on the decisions taken in the EWZ. This trend was only based en personal characteristics of Kaserer. It was not at all in line with the position of the RUS agencies within the EWZ as they had been agreed upon. Particularly in this connection, one has to note Kaserer's remark according to which the racial examination was decisive, and one has to consider It as an aim he was tending towards, but as far as the facts are concerned, it must be termed incorrect. After a comparatively short period of activities, at the end of 1940, Kaserer resigned from the EWZ.\nQ.Was the commitment decision a disadvantage for the resettlers?\nA.The resettlers with the commitment decisions \"A\" were on the same level with the resettlers with the commitment decision \"O\", as far as the privileges of resettlers were concerned. And I would like to add that as far as their claims were concerned, claims for resettlement and property compensation, they were absolutely on the same level as the \"O\" resettlers.\nQ.Were there cases where resettlers disagreed with the commitment decision taken?\nA.Yes. Those cases existed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3546, "page_number": "3539", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Well, what happened in those cases?\nA.In those cases the applications or complaints made by the resettlers were carefully investigated. For that purpose, and for a longer period, there was a special investigation section for those cases.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3547, "page_number": "3540", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "During the last years the applications were dealt with by a special expert employee.\nDuring those investigations the agencies participating in the original decision of commitment were again called in and had to take a part in the new decision. In as far as the applications for a modification were justified, they were granted. In as far a racial examination was the decisive basis for the decision, I had the additional possibility during the last few years to discuss the modification with the chief of the Race and Settlement Agencies, and to come to a joint decision concerning this change, and in every justified case the change was made. In special cases where the requests for change of the commitment decision were contradicted by unambiguous and bindings legal 'prescriptions, but where, however, the refection of the application would have been a hardship for the person involved, I made my decision on my own responsibility in favor of the applicant.\nDR. HEIM:If the Tribunal please, as the Prosecution has specifically stressed that resettlement carried out on the strength of state agreements are not the subject of the Indictment, I ask the Tribunal whether the matter naturalization connected with those resettlement actions may also be considered as not being covered by the Indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will determine the application and the weight of your evidence when it goes to write its judgment You will have to determine for yourself. BY DR. HEIM:\nI shall continue with the examination of the witness concerning the questions of naturalization not connected with such resettlements as were based upon state agreements.\nQ.Witness, what about your activity in the Government General\nA.Apart from the naturalizations we have already mentioned, naturalizations of purely German persons during the first years of the war, there was as from the end of 1942 or the beginning of \n 1943 a certain number of persons were screened who were partly of German descent, and who aimed at being received within the German people again.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3548, "page_number": "3541", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Those were the so-called Germans by descent. This registration was aiming at establishing whether these persons seemed suitable for later naturalization. For the beginning its only practical success was to have special welfare for the applicants.\nQ.Witness, from the Document Book IV B of the Prosecution, I offer you DocumentNO-3994, Exhibit 122. Did you know the document from before the trial or did you get knowledge of it only here in jail?\nA.I have only quite general knowledge of this document, but here in jail I got more specific knowledge about it.\nQ.Within the scope of work of the Plenipotentiary for the Strengthening of Germanism, did the EWZ become active there?\nA.In the question of the so-called Germans by descent, yes.\nQ.Was the figure of the four commissions mentioned in this document, always maintained?\nA.Yes, in general, though a great change took place.\nQ.How long did this registration drive take in the Government General?\nA.Until autumn 1944.\nQ.On the strength of your activity as chief of the EWZ, do you think it is possible that a figure exceeding one hundred thousand was covered by this registration at all?\nA.I would say that the figure covered eighty to ninety thousand, and a maximum of forty-five percent of those persons could be recognized as being of German descent.\nQ.In the course of this so-called registration drive in the Government General, was there a pressure exerted against these people?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3549, "page_number": "3542", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.In no way.\nQ.In this connection the Prosecution in Document Book IV-D have submitted DocumentNO-1669, Exhibit 165. I am handing you this document. Did you know it from before the trial and do you remember it?\nA.I don't know the document from before the trial, but I have made its acquaintance here in jail\nQ.Will you please explain your position to the consequences explained in this document?\nA.The report made by the chief of this Commission XV has passed over the head of my agency, and went directly to the SS and police leader at Lublin; apparently my agency was not informed about that matter. Apart from that, this affair happened while I was sick for six months, and during that period I did not receive any information about official matters. The chief of the commission suggests that the persons listed there be removed to Germany proper. Later on Himmler ordered certain measures and the chief of the commission could have no influence on these matters because once these people had been screened, he had no further connection with the persons registered or with the fate of these persons.\nQ.From Document Book IV-D of the Prosecution, I am now handing to you DocumentNO-2763, Exhibit 171. Please explain your position to this document too.\nA.This document came to my knowledge here. In a general way I can say the following: The lists of the persons to be screened by the commissions on account of the reports and on account of their applications, were forwarded to the commissions by the local authorities, and these agencies in general had to be informed also on the result of the screening. Whether and in how far these local authorities took steps against persons who did not turn up in spite \n of the fact that they had reported could not come to the knowledge of the commissions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3550, "page_number": "3543", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "I only recall that according to the working reports towards the end of the registration action, on account of the negative development of the war and on account of the fact that in eastern Poland conditions became more and more insecure, a considerable number of persons did not turn up for registration although they had originally reported for it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock, ( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3551, "page_number": "3544", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.I am now coming to the registrations in France and Northern France.\nWitness, please give us a short description of what, in your opinion, brought about this registration drive in France and Northern France.\nA.First of all, the two registration measures in France and Northern Francs must be separated according to their meaning.\nIn France, a number of persons had reported to the Military Government for naturalization. The Military Government requested the assistance of the EWZ for the examination of these applications. According to the informations obtained by the EWZ, approximately 20,000 applications were involved. The EWZ then carried out a screening of this group of persons. Most of these persons actually appeared for the screening. During the registration time, Which lasted until June 1944, an additional number of applicants also reported.\nIn Northern France, part of the people who had emigrated to that area after the first world War had organized into a German cultural society, and they requested naturalization. That was the reason why a screening had to be carried out in that area also.\nQ.Did any practical measures result from the registration drive of the EWZ in Paris, as well as from the registration drive at Donai in France?\nA.In France, naturalization and resettlement was carried out with only a very small number of applicants. In the course of the drive in Northern France, no identification papers could be issued any longer, as a result of the advance of the Western Powers, No resettlement was planned in any case for these areas.\nQ.I am now going to hand you, from Document Book V-E, Document \n NO-3568, Exhibit 316.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3552, "page_number": "3545", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "This document bears the title of \"Brief SS Resettlement Information\". The figures which are contained in this document seem to contradict your previous testimony. Can you explain this apparent contradiction to us?\nA.I want to refer to page 3 of this document, which contains statistics about the number of persons registered in France. The contradiction seems to lie in the fact that the Alsatians, Lorraini*---*s and Luxembourgians, who have been mentioned here, were not listed by me. In this connection I can say that this was a portion of those persons who, firs reported to the Military Government and who, later on, reported to the EWZ for naturalization. From the lower section of these statistics it becomes quite evident that a part of these persons who had been screened returned to their country of origin. In the case of the persons who are listed here as Luxembourgians, the members of the Luxembourg Society in Paris were involved. All three groups, the Alsatians, the Lorraini*---*s, and the Luxembourgians, had lived in France only since the end of the first World war, and they requested naturalization and repatriation to the Reich or to their place of origin.\nQ.If I have understood you correctly, then the EWZ had nothing at all to do with the deportations from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg?\nA.No, it had nothing whatsoever to do with that.\nQ.I now want to ask you a very few questions with regard to the registration which took place in Northern France. In this connection I am going to hand you, from Document Book IV-B, document No.NO-3508, Exhibit 132, which was submitted by the Prosecution. Is this report known to you?\nA.The report originated with my deputy during the time of my illness, which I have referred to previously. I know this report.\nQ.Does this report state the situation as it actually existed?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this connection, what did the EWZ have to do with the German People's List?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3553, "page_number": "3546", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.The EWZ had to use the directives of the German People's List as a basis for its naturalization procedure, because here a group of persons was concerned which originally, prior to the first World War, had come from the Province of Posnan and from Upper Silesia.\nQ.I am going to hand you document No-4006, from Document Book V-B of the Prosecution, which is Exhibit 225. This deals with the drive which was carried out in Northern France, and it is an extract from the EWZ Decree No. 212. In the curse of the incidents which brought about this drive in Northern France, did the Race and Settlement Main Office play any part?\nA.The Race and Settlement Main Office did not participate in that, nor did any other office belonging to that agency.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3554, "page_number": "3547", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.I am now going to hand you, from Document Book IV-B of the Prosecution, DocumentNO-1393, which is Exhibit 115. Herr Himmler ordered the commitment of people of German descent into a concentration camp, who had not requested listing in the German People's List. Did you have knowledge of that decree?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know of any cases where such effects where produced on people whom you had screened previously?\nA.No, in no way at all. The decree did not refer to the group of persons which had to be screened by the EWZ.\nQ.I am now going to hand you DocumentNO-3738, Exhibit 221, from Document Book V-B of the Prosecution. Was this Executive Decree of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, of 23 May 1944, ever carried out in practice?\nA.The execution of this decree was under preparation. However, as a result of the developments of the war, it was not carried cut.\nQ.Was the collaboration of a racial examiner planned at all for the execution of this decree?\nA.No.\nQ.I now want to ask you several questions which refer to the personality and character of the defendant Schwalm. Since when have you known the defendant Schwalm?\nA.Since January 1941.\nQ.What activity did Schwalm carry cut at the time?\nA.He was in charge of the RuS agencies in the operational staff of the EWZ, and in that capacity he was the successor of Kaserer.\nQ.How long did you have official contact with Schwalm?\nA.Until the end of September 1941.\nQ.What influence did Schwalm have?\nA.His influence extended solely to the RuS agencies within the EWZ.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3555, "page_number": "3548", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Later on, when Schwalm was a staff leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office, did he have anything further to do with the EWZ.\nA.No.\nDr. HEIM: Thank you, I have no further questions.\nDR.HAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Greifelt): I would like to ask the witness several questions. BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Herr von Malsen, during your direct examination you stated that certain authorities had to play a part in the course of the naturalization, in a legal manner. You did not specify these authorities and government offices. Was the Main Staff Office one of these agencies?\nA.No. According to law, the Main Staff Office did not have to participate in the naturalization procedure.\nQ.Exhibit 235 was handed to you, which is on page 91 of Document Book V-B. Do you still have it in front of you now?\nA.No.\n(Document submitted to witness)\nQ.This document is signed by the Chief of the Main Staff Office. Do you consider this document to be an official instruction for your office?\nA.I do not consider this document to be an official directive to the EWZ. In my opinion, the EWZ was only listed here as a participating office in this matter.\nQ.As far as the official terminology is concerned, would the term \"official notification\" or \"information\" be correct in this sense for such a document?\nA.Yes, that is how I would describe it.\nQ.Do the contents of this document refer to one of the customary resettlements which you have described in your testimony, that is to say, to the repatriation of ethnic Germans who had lived abroad up to that time? Or was this another matter?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3556, "page_number": "3549", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.No, I cannot describe this as being a resettlement drive. As has been stated here, I would consider this as being a repatriation to the homeland.\nQ.Therefore, it was a matter which did not fall within the usual framework of resettlement?\nA.Yes, quite.\nQ.When you gave us some information about the classification into \"A\" cases and \"O\" cases, you stated that the \"A\" description had been given in cases where the applicants were not suitable for settlement within alien national groups. Until 1944, according to your knowledge, did all settlements take place within alien national groups or within established areas which were made into purely German areas?\nA.All settlements outside of Germany proper took place within alien national groups. In these areas outside of Germany proper, no purely German areas were established until the end of the war.\nQ.In your direct examination you spoke of complaints which had been made against the decisions concerning settlements, and in this connection you testified that you had a special examining agency in the EWZ for these complaints. Was the Main Staff Office perhaps the agency which had to deal with these complaints?\nA.No, one cannot consider it to have been such an agency. If, through any resettler, the Main Staff Office directly received a complaint, then it would pass that complaint on to the EWZ.\nQ.And the final decision was made by whom?\nA.The final decision was made by the EWZ.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you; I have no further questions. By DR. MUELLER ( Counsel for the defendant Huebner):\nQ.Herr von Malsen, I only want to ask you one question. In your capacity as head of the EWZ, did you ever negotiate officially with the defendant Huebner in his capacity as Staff Leader of the Plenipotentiary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or, as Race and Settlement Leader in Posnan?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3557, "page_number": "3550", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.I had nothing officially to do with Heubner in these capacities.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY DR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, please try to answer my questions as briefly as possible.\nA.Yes.\nQ.I should like, first, to take up the question of the relationship of the EWZ to its superior agencies. You testified, on direct examination, that the EWZ was subordinate, so far as personnel and disciplinary measures were concerned, to the Chief of the Security Police and SD personally. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.Now, in connection with the duties of the EWZ -- that is, not the internal organization, but the duties of the EWZ -- to whom was the EWZ subordinate?\nA.The EWZ was separated according to its factual fields of work, and for these fields it was subordinate to the competent Reich Ministries and Government agencies.\nQ.Was the EWZ subordinate, in any way, to the Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.Only to the Reich Commissar personally, and that was Himmler.\nQ.Did the EWZ get all its directives from Himmler personally, or did it receive its directives from the Main Staff Office, acting as Himmler's agency, for the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nA.It may have happened that orders from Himmler were passed on to the EWZ by his Main Staff Office.\nQ.Witness, aside from \"it may have happened\", didn't the EWZ get resettlement directives from the Main Staff Office?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3558, "page_number": "3551", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Don't you remember ever getting directives signed by Greifelt or Creutz, witness?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3559, "page_number": "3552", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAI know quite well that I received letters from the Main Staff Office with Greifelt's signature. These letters referred to informations which for the most part included three fields of work. The Main Staff Office would inform the EWZ of the group of persons which had to be screened: the Main Staff Office would inform the EWZ about the time of arrival of a group of resettlers, and the Main Staff Office informed the EWZ about the planned settlement, and this was done so that the EWZ would pass on its registration material to the competent agency.\nQWitness, did you ever have to obey any orders or directives from the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQWitness, you spoke in your direct examination of a resettlement in Gottschee, in Yugoslavia. Was there any agreement with any Yugoslav Government involved?\nANot as far as I know. The area from which the resettlement took place at the time was subordinated to the occupying power which was Italy.\nQWitness, you also spoke in direct examination of a certain resettlement from France. At the time that took place, do you know whether or not there was any agreement with any French government?\nAAn agreement with the French Government was under preparation. This agreement was supposed to be reached with the Vichy Government. In my opinion, this agreement probably was not concluded because of the time factor.\nQWitness, was any one ever forced to register with the EWZ?\nANo, in no way whatsoever.\nQIn connection with the racial examination made by the RuSHA personnel, witness, wasn't that important in determining the final classification of the people examined?\nAWell, as I have stated before, the opinion of these racial examiners was a part of the reasons which finally culminated in the decision which was made.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3560, "page_number": "3553", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, please try to answer my question. I realize there ware many factors involved and my question was, was this factor an important one--the racial examination? Was this an important factor?\nAYes, according to Himmler's clear instructions, it was.\nQWitness, if according to the racial examination the person examined was of foreign nationality, of foreign blood, and had no possible connection with German blood, was that person thereby prohibited from being at all classified as favorable for Germanization?\nAFirst of all, I must say that such people hardly would come to the EWZ because a prerequisite for nationalization was that the people were completely or for a large part of German block, and in cases where such a resettler came, already for reasons of ethnic descent, his request for naturalization had to be disapproved.\nQWitness, my question is if the racial examination was negative and the examiner said, \"This person is not fit for Germanization according to my examination,\" was there any possibility that that person could be declared fit for Germanization by the EWZ?\nAYes, within the scope of the examination to which I have referred previously.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of any one being forced to register in the DVL?\nAIn general, I cannot testify about the German People's List because I only had to work and use it as a basis for the procedure of people of German stock. As far as this was the case, in not one single case was any coercion used.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO-5218, Exhibit 670 in Document Book V-G. (Witness is offered Document Book). This is an excerpt from a report dated 9 August 1944 complaining about forced Germanization methods used by VOMI.\nAOf course, I cannot judge what was done in each individual case whenever such people were registered.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, the attorney has not asked you a question.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3561, "page_number": "3554", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nHe simply asked you to look at the document. Wait until he asks you the question.\nTHE WITNESS:I beg your pardon, Your Honor. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWere you the Chief of the EWZ at the time you made the report of which that is an excerpt, witness?\nAI cannot see any date on this letter, but if I understood you correctly, this report dates from the year 1944.\nQYes, witness, as you can see by the end, there is a cover letter by the defendant Brueckner with a date on it.\nAYes, at that time I was the head of the EWZ.\nQDo you now remember that report, witness, of which this is an excerpt?\nAYes, I can recall it now.\nQWitness, mil you next look at the next document in Book V-G, DocumentNO-5219, Exhibit 671. This is a letter dated 14 September 1944 to the defendant Brueckner concerning the matters in the previous report. Did you send this letter, witness?\nAYes, I sent off this letter.\nQWell, don't you talk at considerable length about forced registration--people being forced to register? In what were they forced to register, witness?\nAThe persons were registered by agencies of VOMI in the Government-General.\nQWitness, my question was in what were these people forced to register, in the DVL, in the EWZ?\nANo, they had to register with these agencies of VOMI.\nQWitness, one last question. On direct examination, you said that the orders from RuSHA to its agency with the EWZ went directly to said agency without going through the leadership of the EWZ. Now how can you say that Schwalm, as staff leader of RuSHA, never dealt with the RuSHA agency, with the EWZ?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3562, "page_number": "3555", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAAs far as I can recall, I answered that after his activity as head of the RUS agency within the EWZ I had nothing further to do with Schwalm.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, the Prosecution in the cross examination spoke about a resettlement in France. Was this a resettlement or was this only a registration?\nAIn France, it was a partial resettlement; that is to say, a very small number of the persons who had been registered asked for resettlement and were actually resettled.\nQWitness, as a result of your activity, do you know for certain that Schwalm had no longer anything to do with the EWZ when he became a staff leader with RuSHA?\nAYes, he had no official contact with me any more.\nQNow my last question. Did the activity of the racial examiners in the EWZ ever prevent the naturalization of resettlers?\nAI cannot recall that because I have already stated that if such extreme cases occurred, then in every case we would succeed as a result of mutual discussions that an agreement could be reached in favor of the resettlers.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.HESSE (For the defendant Lorenz): Your Honor, I would like to ask two questions of the witness. In the cross examination, the Prosecution has mentioned VOMI, and that is why as the defense counsel of the defendant Lorenz I would like to ask the witness two questions with regard to VOMI.\nTHE PRESIDENT:These examinations have to be ended sometime, and when you have an opportunity to cross examine the witness you should bring out what you expect to bring out. I will allow you to ask two \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3563, "page_number": "3556", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "questions. BY DR. HESSE:\nQWitness, you mentioned the registration of people of German stock in the Government General. Did the registration of people of German stock in the Government-General not take place within the agencies of the internal administration? Didn't the VOMI only have to see to the welfare of these people of German stock?\nAI must admit that this is quite possible and that I am not quite informed about this any more as a result of the long time which has passed, and I officially had nothing to do with it anyway. Since, however, you are referring to the matter, I can recall now that actually these lists were passed on to my commissions by offices of the internal administration.\nQNow my second questions, was the representative of VOMI in the Government-General, Dr. Weipgen, subordinate to Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger?\nAYes, as far as I know.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3564, "page_number": "3557", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "DR. HEIM:If the Tribunal please, I would like to call as my next witness, Behrens Gotz von Rautenfeld.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand. I think it would be well that the suggestion that was made yesterday morning that counsel announce when he calls a witness whether he is calling him for his case in chief or for the purpose of cross examination with reference to an affidavit.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, Your Honor. I want to call this witness for direct examination.\nBEHRENS von RAUTENFELD, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothings, (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Gotz von Rautenfeld. I was born on the 16 of April 1913 at Katharinenberg in Latvia.\nQ.Were you a Party member?\nA.I want to describe my curriculum vitae very briefly. After I escaped from Russia in 1918, I attended the school at Berlin and later on the commercial school until the year 1932. After that time, I was a commercial employee in various positions until 1943 with several interruptions. In the fall of 1933, I entered the General SS. In the fall of 1934, I entered the SS Special Duties Squad, the SS-Verfuegungstruppe in order to do military service. I was made an officer candidate. In 1935, I was sent to the war academy of the Waffen SS and consequently I became \n an active officer of the special duties squad.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3565, "page_number": "3558", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "In the years 1936 to 1939 in accordance with a training decree for active officers, I was assigned to various positions in the SS. At the outbreak of the war, I was a platoon leader and afterwards I became a company commander. I was assigned to various troop units of the Waffen SS and I participated in the campaigns in the east and in the west. I was wounded several times and my last rank was a Sturmbannfuehrer in the Waffen SS.\nQ.Before the war were you a member of RuSHA?\nA.Yes, I was assigned to it, but no transfer took place.\nMR SHILLER:May I object to the Tribunal to the practice of the witness reading his answers. It's been allowed in connection with the defendants but it certainly is not the best recollection of the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal rules as it did before: that if a witness sees fit to testify in that manner, he has the right to do so Whether or not it will detract from the weight of his testimony will be a question that addresses itself to the sound discretion of the court, BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, during that period of time and where were you assigned to RuSHA?\nA.In 1936, I was at Berlin and in the summer months I was assigned to work with the race and settlement leader at Arolsen. In the year 1938 and 1939, I was with the race and settlement leader at Arolsen.\nQ.What activity did you carry out during this period of time?\nA.I only had a purely informational activity in the offices of Berlin and later on in the entire area of the race and settlement leader at Arolsen.\nQ.During the war, were you again active in RuSHA?\nA.Yes, I had been assigned to it from the SS hospital at Berlin; I was there for subsequent treatment.\nQ.From when until when?\nA.It was in the summer of 1942 until approximately February of 1943.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3566, "page_number": "3559", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.What rank did you hold at the time?\nA.I was a Hauptsturmfuehrer in the Waffen SS.\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I caution the witness and the attorney that we have no lights to flash this morning to slow you down, but it is necessary that both the witness and counsel speak slowly, and that there be a pause at the end of each sentence and a pause after the questions is propounded before it is answered, and that both parties speak directly into the microphone. BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, what rank did you hold at the time when you came back to RuSHA during the war?\nA.I was a Hauptsturmfuehrer in the Waffen SS.\nQ.To which office, were you assigned with in RuSHA during the war?\nA.At that time I was not assigned to any office but I worked on the staff of Obergruppenfuehrer Hofmann in organizational questions.\nQ.Since your first activity in RuSH A, had any considerable change taken place in the field of work?\nA.I had the impression as if the Race and Settlement Main Office above all with regard to personnel had been considerably reduced. Furthermore, the training office had been taken out of the main office and there was no staff leader any more.\nQ.Had the field of work of that agency been extended and to what extent?\nA.At that time, the taking over of the Welfare and Possessions Main Office was about to take place and with that, the main weight in the work of the Race and Settlement Main Office was in the field of welfare.\nQ.What task did you personally have to take care of?\nA.In accordance with a Himmler order it was planned that the office, just like all other main offices of the SS, was to be evacuated from Berlin as a result of the air attacks. Only operational staffs \n were to remain in Berlin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3567, "page_number": "3560", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "It was my task to take care of the organizational preparations with regard to this evacuation.\nQ.Did you observe any overlapping in the field of work of the various agencies?\nA.I had the impression as if this had not been the case in factual respects. However, this condition existed in questions of personnel and in the administration.\nQ.You stated that already prior to the war you had worked in RuSHA. At that time already, did the position of the staff leader exist?\nA.Yes, we did have a staff leader.\nQ.What were the tasks of the staff leader at the time?\nA.The staff leader was the deputy of the Chief of the lain Office, Darre.\nQ.At the time before the war, what made this position of the staff leader necessary?\nA.As a result of his activity as Reich Peasant Leader, Darre had to devote all his time to that work.\nQ.You stated that in 1942 you were again attached to RuSHA. At that time also, was there a staff leader in RuSHA?\nA.No.\nQ.When was the position of a staff leader in RuSHA reestablished?\nA.The position of a staff leader was established after I had left in the spring of 1943.\nQ.Do you know who at the time was appointed staff leader in RuSHA?\nA.Yes, that was Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm.\nQ.Since you already worked in RuSHA in the summer of 1942, you certainly can tell us the reasons which again led to the establishment of the position of a staff leader in RuSHA?\nA.I want to repeat once more what I have already testified to before, and that is that the reason for this was in order to establish \n an operational staff in Berlin because it was planned to evacuate the Race and Settlement Main Office from Berlin into the country.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3568, "page_number": "3561", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Do you know of any other reasons beyond that which were responsible for the establishment of the position of a staff leader in RuSH A?\nA.As an additional reason, I can say that from the administrative technical point of view and from the personnel point of view, it had proved itself to be necessary to organize the staff in a very strict manner.\nQ.Do you know the exact period of time when Schwalm was appointed staff leader in RuSHA?\nA.It must have been in March of 1943.\nQ.Do you know what authorities Schwalm had in his capacity as Staff Leader?\nA.It was the task of the Staff Leader to handle personnel questions, economic questions, and organizational questions and consumate these in his own hands.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3569, "page_number": "3562", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQCould Schwalm issue instructions or orders of a factual nature\nAIt was not intended that the staff leader should issue factual orders or instructions to the various offices.\nQAs far as you know, was Schwalm at any period of time the deputy of the chief of RuSHA?\nANot as far as I know. I can recall that in the absence of the chief of the main office, Hofmann, the senior office chief would deputize for him and that in the absence of Gruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt, he would be deputized by Gruppenfuehrer Thurner.\nQWhat position did the racial office occupy within RuSHA?\nAI had the impression that the racial office was a very independent agency under the head of Professor Schultz. It is significant that when its transfer became necessary for reasons of office space, the racial office was separated from the other office in Berlin, and that was already in 1942.\nQAre you acquainted with the tasks of the racial office?\nAYes, however, I only have a very superficial knowledge of it.\nQWhat do you know about it?\nAI only know that the racial office had the task to train the racial examiners, to screen them, and to assign them.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nPRESIDENT:Do you have any cross examination?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, you have testified on direct examination that when you rejoined RuSHA in 1942 you found that its tasks and personnel had been curtailed, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWitness, do you know the sphere of activities of the racial examiners in 1942 and thereafter when you returned to RuSHA?\nAI cannot testify positively on that subject because especially during wartime I did not occupy myself with that subject.", "speakers": [ "PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3570, "page_number": "3563", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, do you have any idea as to whether the sphere of activities of the racial examiners had increased when you returned in 1942?\nAYes. I did have the impression, all the more because I know that the racial examiners in peace time only had the task to screen and to examine volunteers for the Waffen SS or applicants for the police.\nQBut you found that very much changed in 1942, didn't you, Witness?\nAAre you referring to the office as such?\nQNo. I am referring to the activities of the racial examiners.\nAI cannot concretely answer this question because, as I have already emphasized, I am not acquainted with the activities of the racial examiners in wartime individually.\nQWitness, you testified that you had some acquaintance with the activities of the race office, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWere the activities of the race office in 1942 and thereafter changed from what they had been before the war?\nAFor example, I know the term \"Field Office Lodz\". However, I don't know what activity they carried out individually and I know that within the field office of Lodz, racial examiners were used. This was an activity which was not carried out in peacetime by the race office.\nQWas this the only change in the activity of the race office which you knew, Witness?\nAFor the most part, Yes.\nQWitness, what were your duties on the staff of the defendant Hofmann and later on the staff of the defendant Hildebrandt?\nAI would like to state at the beginning that I was not on the staff of Hildebrandt any more; on the staff of Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann I dealt with organizational questions of the staff. In case the race \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3571, "page_number": "3564", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "and settlement office should be evacuated from Berlin, I wanted to organize a staff which would be able, from Berlin in spite of the separations and locations, to maintain contact with the offices which were outside of Berlin.\nQWitness, did you ever have anything to do with matters of policy, with directives and orders to other parts of RuSHA, with directives to racial examiners, and so on?\nANo, I didn't have anything to do with that.\nQWitness, you have testified that the defendant Schwalm was primarily active on the organizational side of RuSHA when he was staff leader. Now, the defendant Hofmann was not an expert in racial matters, was he?\nANot if one considers the question seriously; he did not have any scientific training for that as far as I know.\nQThe defendant Schwalm was an expert in such matters, was he not?\nAYes, on the strength of his anthropological training and knowledge, he did fulfill certain prerequisites for the task.\nQWitness, can you state whether or not the defendant Schwalm assisted the defendant Hofmann in the preparation of directives and orders so far as the technical side was concerned?\nAI cannot answer this question with \"Yes\" or \"No\". I cannot do it because I was not there anymore when Schwalm was taking over the work in Obergruppenfuehrer Hofmann's office when Hildebrandt took over Hofmann's work as main office chief.\nQWitness, then so far as you, know, the defendant Schwalm was concerned with organizational matters because you yourself worked on organizational matters. That is how you know that, isn't it?\nAMay I formulate my reply in the following manner: When Schwalm came to Berlin he was intended to be staff leader. I have previously described the position of a staff leader and the position of a staff leader was only to be a personnel and organizational position which would centrally direct the tasks. In no case was he to have the task \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3572, "page_number": "3565", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "to be the financial advisor of the chief of the main office, nor was he to issue any factual instructions to the main office.\nQWitness, my question is not what you think was to be Schwalm's duties as staff leader, but do you know yourself whether or not he performed any duties such as assisting the chief of RuSHA in technical matters or deputizing for him and so forth. Do you know that--do you know whether or not he did such things?\nAI know nothing about it.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, do you know how long the defendant Schwalm continued to be staff leader when the defendant Hofmann became chief of RuSHA?\nAI cannot tell you precisely, as far as I know, the period between the time when Hofmann turned over his office to Hildebrandt was only very brief. As far as I know, perhaps only several weeks may have been involved.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, what did you do when you worked with RuSHA?\nAFrom the hospital I was attached to the staff and I worked on organizational questions.\nQWell, what did you do--what were your duties? You say you worked on organizational matters--what work did you do--actually perform?\nAAmong other things, I occupied myself with the question as to what agencies within RuSHA were necessary to establish a staff which would be able to direct the main office from Berlin, in case the offices should be evacuated from Berlin.\nQYou mean to say that it was your duty to establish the agencies within RuSHA?\nAYour Honor, may I say the following in this connection: This staff did not consist of offices, but of departments; for example, there \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3573, "page_number": "3566", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "was the personnel department, the administration, the department \"organization\" which at that time did not exist, but which was yet to be established; there was the legal department. These departments were to be coordinated with each other or we had to choose what departments were necessary and had to remain in Berlin. That was my task.\nQYou mean you selected the personnel for these departments is that what you mean?\nALet us take the organizational department, for example. This didn't exist yet, and in this case I had to select the personnel also.\nQDid you select the personnel of any other department within RuSHA?\nANo, I did not. That was not necessary because these departments already existed fundamentally.\nQThen when you had selected the personnel for this one department, then what were your duties?\nAMy task only refers to this field, and I would like you to consider in this respect that I did not only have to work in the race and settlement main office, but I also was a member of the SS hospital in Berlin and Hohenlychen. Among other things, I had to stay at Hohenlychen some time and on this occasion I also met Schwalm, who was there when he was injured.\nQWell, what did you do when you were there is what I am trying to find out?\nAAre you referring to the hospital now?\nQI am referring--yes, hospital.\nAI was injured because I had been wounded when in the east, and I received subsequent treatment in Berlin and then at Hohenlychen.\nQI am not talking about while you were a patient in the hospital, I am trying to find out what work you did ether than to select the members of one agency within RuSHA.\nABesides this activity, as I have stated before, I also took \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3574, "page_number": "3567", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "care of organizational matters.\nQWait a minute. What did you do while you were taking core of organizational matters? What were you doing--what duties did you actually perform?\nAFor example, I had to see to it that the personnel department which only was used to handle members of the General SS now was converted so that it also could deal with members of the Waffen SS, and that a staff company was established which had not existed previously because the race and settlement main office after all was not a military organization. These are the tasks which I had to handle, among other things, in the framework of organization.\nQHow long were you connected with RuSHA in this capacity that you are describing?\nAFrom the summer of 1942 until February of 1943.\nQAnd you have detailed your whole duties during that time?\nAYes.\nQWho was your immediate superior at the time you were performing these tasks'?\nAMy immediate superior was Gruppenfuehrer Hofmann.\nPRESIDENT:Very well. Let the witness retire from the stand. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "PRESIDENT", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3575, "page_number": "3568", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1340 hours, 13 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nPRESIDENT:Whom will you call next?\nDR. ORTH:Dr. Orth for the defendant, Viermetz, I ask that the defendant, Viermetz, be excused tomorrow in order to give her the chance to prepare her defense.\nPRESIDENT:The request is granted.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Dr. Schmidt for the defendant, Tesch. Your Honor, I ask permission for tomorrow afternoon when my colleague, Dr. Heim, has completed his case in chief to cell two witnesses whom the Tribunal has already granted to me. Those witnesses come from out of town, and for reasons of their families, they have not the possibilities to stay in Nuernberg for a long period of time. I have already notified the prosecution about the two witnesses, and my colleague, Dr. Heim and Dr. Froeschmann, who is the next in line, have given their approval that I call these witnesses between the two of them.\nPRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. HEIM:Dr. Heim for Schwalm. If the Tribunal permits, I am going to call now as my next direct witness, Frau Elli Wolfgramm.\nPRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nThe witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omnicient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nFRAU ELLIWOLFGRAMM, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:", "speakers": [ "FRAU ELLI", "DR. SCHMIDT", "DR. ORTH", "PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3576, "page_number": "3569", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal and also state your date and piece of birth?\nA.My name is Frau Elli Wolfgramm. nee Miss Lolan, on the 8th of October 1918 at Dortmund.\nQ.What is your present address?\nA.Wetterburgerstrasse 15, Arolsen.\nQ.Where is your place of birth?\nA.Germany.\nQ.For how long have your parents lived there, and how did your parents come to Germany?\nA.When my mother was a student she came to Germany with my grandmother, and went to Dortmund, and she married there before the first World War. My father was about 16 when he came to Germany.\nQ.Where did your parents live before that?\nA.Before that, my parents lived in Poland.\nQ.Do your parents have German nationality?\nA.Probably until 1919 my parents had German nationality because the birthplace of my parents at that time belonged to Germany.\nQ.And what is the present nationality, that is, what was the nationality of your parents after 1919?\nA.The Polish nationality.\nQ.Was your father a German soldier?\nA.Yes, during the first World War.\nQ.How and when did your parents get back to Poland?\nA.In 1919 my parents returned to Grotoschin in Poland and from there they went to Graetz.\nQ.This place, Grotoschin, had it been returned to Poland on the strength of the Versailles Treaty?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3577, "page_number": "3570", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.This place Craetz, where your parents moved after that, was it also in the territory formerly German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What happened to you after 1939?\nA.Well, first of all nothing changed.\nQ.I mean your residence Craetz, did it become a part of the German Reich after 1939?\nA.Yes, the Warthegau.\nQ.Did you move then into the area of the so-called Altreich, that is of Germany proper?\nA.Yes, in 1939 I went to Leipzig, that is Germany proper,\nQ.Witness, you have to make an interval between my question and your answer, and you have to speak into the microphone. Why did you go to Leipzig in 1939?\nA.The Labor Exchange in Craetz gave me a labor conscription, and then I went to Leipzig.\nQ.Do you know that other people from your village too were conscripted for work in Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.For how long was that labor conscription?\nA.For one year.\nQ.How and when did you return to Craetz?\nA. 1940, I returned to Craetz. This labor conscription was terminated and then I could make up my own mind whether I wanted to stay or leave. If I wanted to leave I could return to Poland, and I did return to Craetz.\nQ.What did you do then?\nA.Again I was summoned by the labor exchange. They gave me some work with some ethnic Germans there, in a restaurant, as a buffet waitress.\nQ.Now, Frau Wolfgramm, how come that you went to Germany for the second time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3578, "page_number": "3571", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.With the ethnic, Germans where I worked, I very often talked to Germans. I myself expressed the wish to return to Germany proper. After that the police came to see me and told me I should got ready and that I was just about to go to Germany. However, first of all I had to go to Lodz.\nQ.Oh, you haven't finished, have you?\nA.Well, so I went to Lodz.\nQ.Did you like to go back to Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Why did you want to go back to Germany?\nA.I worked with ethnic Germans and I found out that in Germany I was treated much better than by the ethnic Germans in Poland where I had worked up to that point.\nQ.You said that you went to Lodz.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, what happened to you down in Lodz?\nA.There I reported to the RuSHA, and then I was submitted to an examinations.\nQ.Do you know when that happened?\nA.Yes, that was in September 1941.\nQ.Were you also in the camp down there in Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, how was the camp down there?\nA.The camp was nice and clean.\nQ.Frau Wolfgamm, now if you compare this camp at Lodz with the witness building here in Nurnberg, would you say it is the same as far as quality in concerned?\nA.I have to say that the camp at Lodz was even better than the witness building here in Nurnberg.\nQ.Was the camp surrounded by a barbed wire?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3579, "page_number": "3572", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q. Could you move around freely in the camp, that is, could you leave the camp at any time you rented?\nA. Yes, we could, except that we had to get a pass; I don't know how to express it, but a pass was necessary, and once we had that pass we could go to town and shop, but we got that pass without any difficulty; but we had to pass through the sentry line and we had to show that pass.\nQ. Were there also persons in the camp who lived at Lodz normally? And, could these persons stay the whole day at their own homes?\nA.Yes, there were people who lived at Lodz and in those cases these people just stayed at home its whole day.\nA.Now, what about the treatment in the camp?\nA.Oh, the treatment was excellent.\nQ.Well, how about the food?\nA.Also excellent.\nQ.How, were you told at Lodz what were the plans concerning you?\nA.Yes, Herr Schwalm told me personally, that is he asked me first of all whether I like to go to Germany, and I said yes.\nQ.Well, more particularly, were you told that it was a procedure of re-Germanization?\nA.Yes, Her Schwalm told me that I was becoming German.\nQ.In this connection was any threat expressed against you?\nA.No, no.\nQ.How was the treatment there in the field agency of the RuSHA itself?\nA.Well, really I think they were very decent and nice -nice.\nQ.Could you remember perhaps the port of the examination -which was called final examination?\nA.Yes, yes, of course I can remember that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3580, "page_number": "3573", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Well, what was talked about at that occasion?\nA.Well, you see we spoke about my work in Germany; about my profession in general.\nQ.Were suggestions made to you at that occasion where you were given a choice or were you assigned to a well-defined job at a certain place?\nA.Herr Schwalm asked me whether I had parents or acquaintances in Berlin; he told me that I was supposed to go to Berlin. I told Herr Schwalm I have no relatives in Berlin, and thereupon herr Schwalm told me that he had a good job for me, and that he knew the people personally, and I was supposed to go there as a maid with Erbprinz Waldeck.\nQ.Did you agree with that suggestion of Herr Schwalm's?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you go to that job now?\nA.Yes, I went to Arolsen and to the Waldeck's.\nQ.Was that a good job down there?\nA.Yes, a very good job.\nQ.Now, your position in Arolsen, was it better than that at Leipzig?\nA.Yes, I was much better off with the Waldeck's and I was treated as a German proper, and we received clothing cards, and food just exactly like the Germans were at Arolsen-Waldeck.\nQ.Now, Frau Wolfgamm, did you become a German -- when?\nA.In 1943 I married a German and then I received German nationality.\nQ.Frau Wolfgamm, if you had a free choice would you go back to Poland now.\nA.No.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3581, "page_number": "3574", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, you stated during your direct examination that you were willing to go to Germany because you received better treatment in Germany than in the area where you were, that is the Warthegau; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Better treatment by whom, witness, better treatment by the Germans in Germany than by the German Administration in the Warthegau: is that what you mean?\nA.I must say where I worked with those ethnic Germans there, I had no free time for myself, and well, I had to work as you have to work in a restaurant, as long as the guests are there, from the very early morning until the early morning next day, and while in Germany that wasn't the same thing. We had so many hours of work and then you had your free time to yourself, and the treatment was better; you were treated as a human being.\nQ.Witness, in what other respects weren't you quite so well treated in the Warthegau. You said the treatment was better aside from the working hours. What did you mean by that? Did you get better rations in Germany than you got in the Warthegau or what exactly did you mean?\nA.Yes, yes, I got better food in Germany too; that is true, better food than in Warthegau.\nQ.Were your wages better in Germany, witness?\nA.Yes, that was better.\nQ.Witness, did you ever hear of anyone in the Warthegau, any of your neighbors, or anyone whom you met in Lodz when you were there, who didn't want to be re-Germanized?\nA.Well, during that period that is in 1939. when I went to Leipzig, but then I didn't hear anything about re-Germanization at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3582, "page_number": "3575", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Well, how about later on, witness, say around the time when you were being re-Germanized, that is going through the EWZ and so on.\nA.Only in Lodz did I hear that re-Germanization was to be carried out, but before that, I didn't know anything about it; I didn't hear anything about it either.\nQ.Witness, when did you hear about it, and, after you knew about it, did you ever hear of anyone who refused to be re-Geimanized?\nA.I only remember one case in Litzmanstadt; it was a young woman or a young lady, she was at Lodz too, and she told that commission that she would rather stay in Poland because she had an old Mother and a child, and the went back home; I know that positively.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you, witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. HEIM:No further questions, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3583, "page_number": "3576", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "DR. HEIM:My next direct witness, with the permission of the Court, is Janina Adamczik.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Lot the witness come to the stand.\nJANINAADAMCZIK: a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal and your date and place of birth.\nA.My name is Janina Adamczik, and I was born on the 24th June, 1924, at Mailotzka, District of Kuttno.\nQ.What is your present address?\nA.Arolsen, Helenenstrasse 5.\nQ.Where is your place of birth?\nA.Place of birth is as I said in Poland.\nQ.Was this area part of Germany or of Russia before 1917?\nA.As far as I know, it belonged to Russia.\nQ.How did you come into contact with the field agency of Lodz of the RuSHA?\nA.When in 1942 I read the German newspapers, I gathered that one could volunteer to the German People's List, and that one could acquire German nationality.\nQ.Now, did you report to the district councellor's office for the DVL?\nA.Yes, I reported there in February, 1942; there I reported for the DVL.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "JANINA", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3584, "page_number": "3577", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Was it your aim to acquire German nationality?\nA.Yes, I wanted to become a German.\nQ.Wow, were you received in the DVL, in that list, in the district counsellor's office?\nA.No, I was not received.\nQ.Why weren't you received?\nA.Because I couldn't prove my German ancestry.\nQ.What was the notification you received from the district counsellor's office?\nA.I received a slip with an address of a commission from Lodz, but operating in Kitno, and I could report there.\nQ.What was written on that slip?\nA.Well, on the top of the slip it was noted that I should bring along my relatives or their pictures.\nQ.Did the examination take place at Kuttno?\nA.Yes, at Kuttno, in the elementary school I was received by a commission from Lodz.\nQ.When you said you were received, Miss Adamczik, was that a reception in the DVL?\nA.No, there was no People's List there.\nQ.Well, what happened to you at Kuttno then?\nA.At Kuttno I was only registered, and then I was told that I would be notified from Lodz.\nQ.And those photographs of your relatives, were they accepted there?\nA.Yes, they kept then all; they were put into an envelope, my address and the address of the Lodz agency was put on the envelope and that was all.\nQ.Later you came to Lodz, didn't you?\nA.Yes, on the 12th April, 1943, I had to go to Lodz to report there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3585, "page_number": "3578", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Well, were you fetched there by a policeman or could you go by your own means?\nA.Yes, I went there all alone: I was quite at liberty to do so: I wanted to go.\nQ.What happened to you at Lodz?\nA.At Lodz I had to report to the field agency. There I was examined.\nQ.Can you tell us where the field agency was at Lodz?\nA.You mean the field agency at Lodz. Well, the German name of the street was Landskmechstrasse 72.\nQ.But that wasn't in the Petrikauerstrasse.\nA.No, I have no knowledge about that.\nQ.Miss Adamczik, were you also in that camp down there at Lodz?\nA.Yes, I was lodged there.\nQ.You stayed at the camp.\nA.Yes, as long as I stayed at Lodz.\nA.And for how long were you in that camp?\nA.I remained there for six weeks.\nQ.In other words you were in that camp for six weeks. Did you like it there?\nA.Yes, I liked it very much.\nQ.Could you move around freely down there: I mean, could you leave the camp and go to town whenever you wanted or did you have to remain within the camp all the time?\nA.We could leave the camp any time we wanted, if we got a pass first. We could even stay out all day if we wanted to.\nQ.How about the food in the camp?\nA.Oh, the food was very good indeed; we couldn't even eat everything we got.\nQ.What about the treatment in the camp?\nA.The treatment was also excellent.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3586, "page_number": "3579", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Now, did the Lodz field agency assign a particular job to you?\nA.No, Herr Dongus told me I could go and look at a job.\nQ.Who was this man Dongus?\nA.Dongus was the chief of the agency at Lodz.\nQ.Now, tell me how eventually one dry you really got a job.\nA.When I had been there already for six weeks, Herr Dongus asked me whether I wanted to go to a family With many children, at Arolsen, and as I liked children very much, I accepted the job and on the 9th of June, 1943, I went to Arolsen and to Herr Schwalm.\nQ.How long did you stay in that family?\nA.I remained here until the 1st of July, 1946\nQ.Well, how did you are there during these throe years from 1943 to 1946?\nA.Oh, I fared very well down there, too.\nQ.Before 1945 did you nave advantages from the fact that you had gone to Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.After May, 1945, after the war, that is, did you have special disadvantages from the fact that you were in Germany proper?\nA.No, in no way.\nQ.Miss Adamczik, did you have German nationality?\nA.Well, my identification card lists German as nationality.\nQ.If you had free choice, would you go back to Poland now?\nA.No.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. No further questions. THE PRESIDENT: Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in 1942, were you living with your parents?\nA.No.\nQ.How old were you at that time, witness?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3587, "page_number": "3580", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.At that time I was about to be eighteen.\nQ.Were your parents then alive, witness?\nA.Yes; they are still alive today.\nQ.Did they at that time approve of your actions?\nA.I don't know what you mean by that.\nQ.Witness, you said that in 1942 you applied to be registered in the German People's List. Did your parents consent to this?\nA.It is true that my parents didn't approve of this, but as I saw that I could gain advantages by that, and as I lided to do it, well, I did it.\nQ.Witness, did your parents ever apply for membership in the German People's List?\nA.No, my parents didn't do that.\nQ.Where are your parents today, witness?\nA.My parents are now in Poland.\nQ.Witness, you stated that you were very well treated in Lodz, and got very good food to eat. Did you really mean to say that you got so much food that you couldn't eat it all?\nA.Well, that is the only way I can express it; that is the way it was: I couldn't finish what we got.\nQ.Witness, you mentioned that on your identification card it says: German; is that an identity card issued after the war or before the war -- I mean during the war.\nA.My identity card was issued in 1946, in October, 1946.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3588, "page_number": "3581", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Witness, did you have an identification card issued by the German Government during the war?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did it say on that card as to your nationality, witness, as to your citizenship?\nA. \"Unclarified.\"\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. HEIM:I have a few more questions connected with the crossexamination of the Prosecution, Your Honor, please.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Fraulein Adamczik, you said that you also had an identification card before May 1945. What was listed there as \"nationality\"?\nA.No nationality. I mean, there was no direct mention of nationality, no.\nQ.But on this identification card didn't it say: \"Nationality unclarified\", and, in parentheses, \"German\", with a question mark?\nA.That may well be, but I can't remember it for certain.\nQ.Yes. You said your parents did not apply to be received in the DVL?\nA.No, they didn't.\nQ.And because they didn't make the application, they were not received. Is that correct?\nA.Please? What did you mean by that?\nQ.Well, were your parents received in the People's List?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you have any correspondence with your parents?\nA.Yes.\nQ.According to the letters you receive from your parents, do you think that they are doing better in Poland than you are doing here?\nA.Well, I don't know what kind of life my parents have there now, \n but, according to their letter, they don't have the same life I have.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3589, "page_number": "3582", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "DR. HEIM:Thank you. No further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.How old are you now, witness?\nA.This year, in June, I will be 2*, Your Honor.\nQ.Where do you live now?\nA.At Arolsen.\nQ.Whom do you live with?\nA.I am a domestic worker with a lone gentleman there.\nQ.Where did you live, in what country did you live, in 1942, before you came to Germany?\nA.In Poland, Your Honor.\nQ.Do you know who was in charge of the government in 1942 in the territory in which you lived?\nA.Government?\nQ.Yes.\nA.The German Government in our territory at that time, Your Honor.\nQ.And you, at that time, were not living with your parents?\nA.No, Your Honor.\nQ.Why were you not living with your parents at that time?\nA.My parents did not remain where they used to be, and I had been conscripted for work.\nQ.Were you in the same town with your parents?\nA.No, that was not a town, that was only a village, and my parents had gone elsewhere too.\nQ.Did you voluntarily leave your parents, or were you separated on account of the different work that you were assigned to at the time?\nA.My parents had already moved before I moved.\nQ.With whom did you live after your parents moved?\nA.I had a job; I was a maid with ethnic Germans from Wolhynia.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3590, "page_number": "3583", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Is that what you were doing in 1942, when you first applied to the DVL?\nA.No, I lived and worked out in the country, in agriculture, and I had gathered from the newspapers that you could do that, so I sent to Kuttno, and it was about eight miles to go to Kuttno.\nQ.When was it that you were working there as a domestic servant in a racial German home?\nA.When? That was from autumn 1940, until I went to Germany.\nQ.Well, from 1942, when you applied for the DVL, until April 1943, when you went to camp, what did you do?\nA.Then I was with these people where I had been before; I worked with them until the last day, until I went to Lodz.\nQ.While you were in camp, what did you do?\nA.Well, I did some odd jobs there, cleaning, and that is about all, perhaps two hours a day.\nQ.Have you visited your parents in Poland at any time since you have been in Germany?\nA.Yes, in 1941, for Christman, I went to sea my parents.\nQ.You have not been to see them since 1941?\nA.No, but until 1943 my mother came to visit me again and again, very often.\nQ.Do you have any brothers and sisters?\nA.Yes, I have one sister and one brother.\nQ.Where are they?\nA.My sister is in Lodz, and my brother is also in Lodz, because he goes to school there.\nQ.Do you ever see or visit them?\nA.No, I can't, it is impossible for me now. I can't cross the border, Your Honor. That is in Poland.\nQ.And they can't come to see you?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3591, "page_number": "3584", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Do you have any desire to see your mother and father, brother and sister?\nA.Well, I would like to, but I don't dare go there.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness step down.\n(Witness excused)\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, my next direct witness, with the permission of the Court, will be the witness Otto Fersch.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I ask a recess of five minutes to fetch the witness. You see, he is a free witness, and I have asked him to wait until 2:30. I an very much surprised that he is not here, but it is not my fault, Your Honor. Perhaps I might suggest that we have a very brief recess now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Do you have another witness?\nDR. HEIM:No, Your honor, I don't have a witness who is just outside the door. You see, he is not ready now, I would have to do down to my room and fetch the witness.\nYour Honor, I would be quite ready to have this loss of five minutes booked on my debit account.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I think we will probably have to penalize you and dock you for ten minutes, instead of five.\nThe Tribunal will recess for five minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3592, "page_number": "3585", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session,\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, first of all, I would like to thank the Tribunal for having had this recess and giving me the chance to fetch the witness.\nNow, with the permission of the Court, I will call my direct witness, Otto Fersch.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nOTTOFERSCH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:Two witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that 1 will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full name to the Tribunal, and your date and place of birth?\nA.Otto Fersch, born on the 26th of March, 1908, at Wuerzburg.\nQ.What is your present address?\nA.Mulching on the Inn, Hauptstrasse 2.\nQ.Were you a member of the Nazi Party/\nA.Yes.\nQ.Since when, please?\nA.Since 1929.\nQ.Were you a member of the SS?\nA.Yes, since 1930.\nQ.Witness, you must allow for an interval between question and answer.\nWhat was your last official rank in the SS?\nA.Obersturmbannfuehrer of the General SS.\nQ.In a few key words will you please describe your curriculum \n vitae?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "OTTO", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3593, "page_number": "3586", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.I went to school in 1942, commercial training, apprenticeship, then various jobs as commercial employee. Until 1933 I was unemployed. In 1933 I had one job in Berlin, and in 1934 I became a professional man.\nQ.When did you first make the acquaintance of the defendant Schwalm?\nA.I made Schwalm's acquaintance in Koblenz in 1934.\nQ.Were you then a member of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.No.\nQ.When did you join the RuSHA?\nA.I joined the RuSHA on the 1st of august, 1935.\nQ.In what towns did you work for the RuSHA?\nA.At Stuttgart, Berlin, and Vienna.\nQ.What was your official rank, and what was your position in the SS, in Berlin?\nA.In Berlin I was Main Department Chief in the Eugenics Office.\nQ.Therefore, do you know the organization and the activities in the Eugenics Office?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What main department of the Eugenics Office took care of the geneological records of the SS members?\nA.That was the Main Department SIP-1.\nQ.Can you also tell us in what manner they dealt with these records?\nA.Yes. The geneological records were compared with the documents submitted and they were partly listed on file index cards.\nQ.Now, did this Main Department SIP-1 also take an interest in the ancestry of non-members of the SS?\nA.No, it could not do that because it had over and enough work with the documents concerning the descent of the SS members.\nQ.Where were you at the beginning of the war?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3594, "page_number": "3587", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.In Vienna.\nQ.Did you then temporarily resign from your activities with the RuSHA?\nA.Yes, from 1940 until 1944 I had resigned.\nQ.What was your official position in Vienna?\nA.I had various official positions in Vienna. From 1938 to 1939 I was an expert employee with the then RuS leader. From 1939 to 1940 I was an RuS leader myself. From 1940 until the end of the war I was staff leader of the representative or deputy representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. From the spring of 1944 I was, at the same time, RuS Leader and Chief of the Welfare Detachment.\nQ.Now, how did your commission come about?\nA.My predecessor received another job, and I was appointed his successor.\nQ.At that time, who was the Chief of the RuSHA?\nA.During my period of activity there, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt was Chief of the RuSHA, and his deputy was SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner.\nQ.According to your testimony up to this point therefore, until the spring of 1944 you were RuS leader, and certainly, from that period of your activities, you had an insight into the tasks of an RuS leader. Compared with your activity before the war, what struck you most?\nA.The field of tasks had changed in a striking way. The main weight now was with welfare and care, and these measures covered charitable welfare as well, for the SS hospitals for the injured SS men, and for the dependents of these SS and police members. It also covered legal service and supplies for members of the Waffen SS and of the police,\nQ.Witness, were there other fields of tasks which had been added?\nA.Yes, quite a few. The Race and Settlement Main Office was called upon for expert opinions in various government tasks.\nQ.Who had caused the RuSHA to be called into those matters?\nA.Basically, the Main Staff Office, but also other government \n agencies, for example, the RSHA, the Reichstatthalter, and the health authorities.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3595, "page_number": "3588", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.What tasks were those?\nA.You can group them in three large fields: First, collaboration in welfare for Poles suitable for re-Germanization; second, examination and checking in cases of applications for interruption of pregnancies; and third, checking in cares of illicit sexual intercourse.\nQ.Now, concerning welfare for people suitable for re-Germanization, will you give us some further comments?\nA.Welfare for these people started when they arrived from Lodz. That included procurement of suitable jobs and housing facilities, supply and procurement of the necessities of daily life such as furniture, household goods, clothing, and laundry. The responsible plant leader was in charge of that first of all, and then labor exchanges were called upon as well as municipalities, communities, district counsellors, and the agencies of charitable institutions. The persons suitable for re-Germanization, it is true, in every respect, had the same privileges as Germans, but they did not have the same duties. For instance, they were exempted from labor service and from military service. Apart from that, they could not be conscripted for labor or for emergency labor without any special provisions, while those very conscriptions were the ones which were carried out with regard to the rest of the German population quite ruthlessly, without consideration. Also, the children of the persons suitable for re-Germanization were not obliged to join the Hitler Youth.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3596, "page_number": "3589", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Witness, you just spoke about labor conscription. I think yesterday we had an issue here: is labor conscription the same as job conscription?\nA.Labor conscription is service in the state organization -Reich Labor Service. It's a labor service conscription; while the conscription for work or job conscription, according to my views, s is a compulsion--a duty to perform work based on state regulations.\nQ.In your area, were there releases from the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.Yes, either women suitable for re-Germanization married German citizens and then they received automatically German nationality, or they were expelled from re-Germanization procedure because of an asocial attitude.\nQ.Now what happened to those women who had been released from re-Germanization because of what you called an asocial attitude?\nA.All that happened to them was that they were released from my welfare.\nQ.Such persons or families, were they handed over to the Gestapo?\nA.No, the labor exchange only was then the solo agency concerned with the further labor commitment of those people.\nQ.These families or single individuals, did you have to commit them to a concentration camp, for instance?\nA.No, and that was also out of the question for the very simple reason that my agency had no authority to commit anybody to a concentration camp. Apart from that, in this connection, I never had any contact, neither with the Gestapo nor with any other concentration camp.\nQ.That brings me to the second field of tasks you referred to, namely the application of female eastern workers for interrup \n tion of their pregnancy.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3597, "page_number": "3590", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Could you give us some further comment as to how those applications were handled?\nA.Yes. The female eastern worker involved made an application to have her pregnancy interrupted. She stated her place of residence, as well as the competent district physician, and if the pregnancy was already advanced to a point that birth was to be expected within a short period of time or if the child had already been born, then the whole matter was simply dropped and was passed on to the state youth office for further care. However, if the interruption application was dealt with, then aninvestigation was made with regard to the mother, and as far as possible also with regard to the father, and an expert opinion was given. A protest against interruption of pregnancy was made by the racial examiner in such cases where the child to be expected was considered a desirable increase of population. In the opposite case, the affair would pursue its course, that is, the application would be dealt with according to medical viewpoints, and from there on I had no further knowledge as to what happened.\nQ.How these reports, were they passed on to you?\nA.I would only receive such reports where the father involved was a member of a Germanic people: in other words, a Dutchman or a member of one of the Scandinavian nations.\nQ.Did you forward those reports to Berlin?\nA.No, the checking was made by a racial examiner and this expert opinion settled the matter as far as the RuSHA was concerned.\nQ.Now, did you have a more detailed insight into that matter?\nA.Only on account of the so-called \"R\" cards. I, personally, did not proceed to any checking. Fundamentally speaking, it has to be said that the whole matter was based on voluntary action by the applicant.\nQ.For the handling of cases of illicit sexual intercourse, was the expression \"special treatment\" used?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3598, "page_number": "3591", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.What did you mean by \"special treatment?\"\nA.The term Sonderbehandlung -- special treatment -- meant for me the checking and examination of foreigners who had violated police or state police regulations. On my account, that was a merely expert checking.\nQ.What do you mean by \"expert checking?\" Do you mean racial examination?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was it known to you, witness, that the term \"special treatment\" had for the state police the meaning of a well-defined procedure?\nA.No.\nQ.How how was the procedure in these cases where you were called in?\nA.The agencies of the Gestapo requested a racial examiner from my agency. He proceeded to do the racial examination on the spot. Host of the time that was in jail.\nQ.Did you make reports to the RuSHA concerning these matters or to the racial office?\nA.I reported on the matters, as far as the figures were concerned, in my monthly reports to the racial office, yes.\nQ.Did the racial examiners have special directives for those cases?\nA.In cases of doubt, they had to submit their expert opinion to the racial office together with photographs of the person examined.\nQ.For the rest, where was the matter handled?\nA.It was handled in the agency of the Gestapo.\nQ.Witness, that brings me to a few more questions. Did you notice anything about a special activity of the ATA? Particularly, \n did you over have to send documents to the ATA concerning Jews or half-Jews?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3599, "page_number": "3592", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.Both questions I have to answer in the negative.\nQ.Did you receive directives from the Main Office Chief from the offices of the RuSHA in factual matters?\nA.No, only from the office chiefs.\nQ.If I understand you correctly, therefore, these factual directives came directly from the office chiefs and from the offices?\nA.You can put it that way; that is correct.\nQ.Did you ever receive expert directions from Schwalm concerning the carrying out of racial examinations or concerning the welfare of persons suitable for re-Germanization or for any of your other fields of task?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you know Schwalm's official position as staff leader of the RuSHA?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Could it be compared with the position of the staff leader in RuSHA before 1939?\nA.No, the staff leaders I knew before 1939 were Brigadier General Heim and the then Oberfuehrer Ehbrecht. They were direct deputies of the Main Office Chief in all factual and personnel and organizational affairs. On the other hand, Schwalm had his position very much curtailed. He issued directives only concerning personnel, technical and organizational matters. Expert directives would come from the officers and Schwalm was not connected with those directives.\nQ.Your Honor, thank you very much. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until three-fifteen.\n( A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3600, "page_number": "3593", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "(The hearing reconvened at 1515 hours) THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session. DR. MUELLER: Dr. Mueller for the defendant, Huebner.\nOTTO FERSCH - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. MUELLER:\nQWitness, I would like to ask you several questions. When did you meet the defendant, Huebner for the first time?\nAOn the first of August 1935 I was transferred from the Race and Settlement main office to the Race and Settlement leader at Stuttgart. In May of 1936 Herr Huebner arrived there, who had been assigned to the same agency as I by RuSHA.\nQWhat did Herr Huebner do in Stuttgart?\nAHerr Huebner was to be an expert far training and conscription.\nQDid Herr Huebner also carry out that activity?\nAAfter a short time of his work there, Herr Henschel, the racial referrent, declared Herr Huebner to be unsuitable for that work with the reason that he had not received sufficient preliminary training in order to carry out that work.\nQAt that time did Herr Huebner have the idea that Herr Henschel wanted to leave the full-time employment of the SS?\nAYes, Herr Huebner had several disputes with Herr Henschel and this is why he requested to be released from full-time service in the SS.\nQWhat happened to this request?\nAThe request was disapproved and Huebner was threatened with disciplinary action.\nQThat field of task was Huebner given now?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3601, "page_number": "3594", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AHerr Henschel entrusted Herr Huebner with the task of taking out among the peasant leaders suitable people who would be experts on rural questions for the SS sectors.\nQWas any special knowledge necessary for that task?\nANo. This was a strictly administrative duty.\nQHerr Fersch, I am now going to put to you prosecution Document No. 1402, Exhibit 45, which is located in Document Book II C. This is a report about the meeting of the SS leaders in the Race and Settlement Service which took place in May 1944. On page 1, paragraph 1, if you will take a look at it, it has been alleged that the Race and Settlement leader \"Warthe\", that was Herr Huebner, had had discussed all phases of the ethnic questions in his district. Did you attend this meeting, and is the alleged statement correct?\nACould I please take a brief look at the document first?\nQI don't know whether you have the right document?\nAOh, Yes, I do have the right one. The document is correct as far as it describes the course which the meeting took.\nQAnd did you participate in that meeting?\nAYes, I did. Point 1 which you have mentioned has been reproduced incorrectly, only the Gauamtsleiter spoke on the subject, who was in charge of the ethnic questions in the Warthegau. He at the same time was the chief of the SD sector at Poznan. This was a man whose name was Hoeppner. Herr Huebner only gave a general speech about the tasks of his agencies or the RUS leaders and the representatives of the Reich commissars; about his activity as a Race and Settlement leader. Huebner stated that he only had to deal with the internal tasks of the SS. Of course, all this \n happened three years ago, so that I cannot recall any details any more about this mooting.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3602, "page_number": "3595", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "However, I can recall quite clearly that it was not Huebner, but the Gauamtsleiter who spoke about the subject.\nQThank you, that is quite sufficient. Now, please take a look at page 2 of this document in paragraph 5, an inspection of the Lodz Ghetto has been mentioned there. Bid Herr Huebner participate on this inspection tour?\nAWhen craft shops were shown in the ghetto Herr Huebner was not present in the course of this very short inspection tour. I can recall that Huebner had gone ahead to the place of Lubrandau, and there a teacher's training institute for resettlers was located, and Herr Huebner was preparing our arrival which was scheduled for the evenings\nQNow, I have another question. Do you know Dr. Sider, who for some time was the collaborator or the Race and Settlement leader at Poznan?\nAYes, I know Dr. Sider in my activity as a staff leader of a deputy representative at Vienna. Dr. Sider, when I met him, was a collaborator of the field office at Lodz, at RuSHA and later on he was simultaneously a collaborator of the Race and Settlement leader, Wartheland at Poznan,\nQ.Did Dr. Sider toward you make any remarks about his activity with the Race and Settlement leader at Warthe, and what did he say?\nAHe stated, I believe, it was in 1942, that Huebner was hardly active in the Race and Settlement work because he did not have any time and interest for that. He stated that the main work in that field was done by him, Dr. Sider.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nPRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3603, "page_number": "3596", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you were RUS leader during the war, were your activities confined to the area of Vienna in that district -- what area exactly did you work in?\nAAt the time I worked in the district ov Vienna, lower Austria, and Upper Austria.\nQWere there any resettlements carried out in that area, Witness?\nANo.\nQWitness, you mentioned on direct examination that certain people were released from the regermanization procedure because of their a-social attitude. What did you mean by \"a-social\", Witness?\nABy a-social attitude, I mean those crimes and offenses which occur in normal social life and are punished accordingly.\nQDid you by \"a-social\", Witness, mean any antagonism towards regermanization -- did you also mean that?\nANo. I did not mean that at all, because the entire regermanization program in any case was carried out on a voluntary basis and I also know that a large number of requests for admission to the regermanization procedure were disapproved by the competent authorities. As far as I can still recall, today, in my field of work, no case occurred where a person refused to become regermanized.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of anyone trying to resign or otherwise get out of the regermanization procedure after they were already included?\nAIn my previous answer I have already said that I cannot recall any case in my area.\nQDid you ever hear of such a case in another area, \n Witness?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3604, "page_number": "3597", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AI cannot answer this question because I do not have any material available to me any more about that and no case of that kind came to my attention.\nQWitness, please try to make your answers a little shorter; if you can't remember any such case, it is sufficient just to say so. Witness, how did you find out that some people had an anti-social or asocial attitude and had committed crimes?\nAThat came to my knowledge in line with the police announcement.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3605, "page_number": "3598", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "QWas that the secret state police or the regular police, or what sort of police was that, Witness?\nAThat was the regular and the field police.\nQWell, Witness, what did these police officials do whenever they caught someone who was in the regermanization procedure, did they report them to you, is that what you mean?\nAOn the part of the Eigher SS police leader, a directive was issued that in case of criminal offenses committed by persons who were eligible for regermanization, aside from normal police investigation, a report was to be submitted to the representative of the Reich Commissar.\nQWitness, did you yourself ever conduct any racial examinations?\nANot since 1944.\nQDid you ever conduct any racial examinations from 1939 to 1944?\nAYes, from 1935 until 1940.\nQWitness, from 1939 on, you mean from 1939 to 1940 -- did you conduct racial examinations in that period?\nAYes.\nQAnd did you ever conduct any examinations from 1940 until 1944?\nAFrom 1940 to 1944 I had left the Race and Settlement main office and consequently I did not have the authority to carry out any examinations.\nQWitness, on direct examination you spoke of racial examinations in connection with applications for abortions. Now do you mean by that that you have knowledge of such applications from any other period?\nAAre you referring to abortions just now?\nQYes.\nAThe term that was used in general correspondence in our case was interruption of pregnancy.\nQUsing that term, Witness, what period of time was covered by applications for interruption of pregnancy?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3606, "page_number": "3599", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AFrom the time on when I again became Race and Settlement leader, that was from the spring of 1944 on.\nQWitness, you stated on direct examination that the eastern female workers had made application for the interruption of pregnancy. Did you ever see these applications. Witness?\nANo.\nQWitness, how do you know that these applications were made voluntarily?\nAI know that from the regulations which came to my attention in the course of my official activity.\nQDid you ever hear, Witness, of any pressure being put upon these eastern women by some other agency, such as the Gestapo?\nANo.\nQIn connection with these applications and these cases of interruptions of pregnancy, Witness, where did the technical directives come from?\nAThe technical directives came from the health authorities, that is to say, from the Reich Leader of Physicians down to the last official doctor.\nQWitness, in this connection didn't you ever get any directives from the Race and Settlement Office?\nAOnly in connection with the expert supervision. No special instructions in the last scale were needed because this was only a matter of racial examination.\nQWitness, in order to clarify this, did you get instructions as to the methods and the aims of the racial examination, that is, how it was to be carried out, and what sort of classifications were to be given?\nANo.\nQWell, Witness, on what basis did you carry out these examinations, and what sort of classifications did you give, or did the racial \n examiners under you give?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3607, "page_number": "3600", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AI myself did not carry out any examinations at all because my other work took up too much of my time. Whenever a racial examination was called for, then the health authorities would inform me that on that and that day, at that and that place, an examination was necessary. Then I or my deputy in my capacity as a Race and Settlement leader would furnish and examiner for that purpose. This examiner would mark down the racial characteristics of the person which was examined on a card and with that the expert opinion was given.\nQWitness, on direct examination you testified as to what the term \"special treatment\" meant to you. As I recall, you said it meant examining cases where the men involved had violated some police regulation. Did you have in mind any police regulation other than the regulation against having sexual intercourse with German women?\nANo. I was only thinking of illicit sexual intercourse.\nQWitness, in such cases did you know that where the decision was made that the man was not of racial value that the man might be hanged?\nANo.\nQDid you know what could happen to these men, Witness, did you know that they would either be hanged or else regermanized?\nANo. When the opinion was given, the activity of the Race and Settlement Office was completed as far as special treatment was concerned.\nQWitness, you spoke of certain factual directives which came directly from office chiefs, did you mean office chiefs of RUSHA?\nAYes.\nQOne other question. Witness, you said that Schwalm in his capacity as staff leader issued directives in connection with personnel technical matters and organizational matters. What did you mean by \"technical matters\"?\nABy \"technical matters\", I meant the assignment of motor vehicles, gasoline, tires, paper, telephones, and similar administrative facilities.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3608, "page_number": "3601", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "MR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. HEIM:I have no further questions either, Your Honor. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, one thing I, in my own mind, am not quite clear about and that is whether or not you ever yourself had at any period of time conducted personally any racial examination?\nAYes, I did.\nQWhat period of time was it?\nAFrom 1935 until 1940.\nQDid you conduct any racial examinations after the beginning of the war personally?\nAYes.\nQJust what was done when you made one of those racial examinations?\nAWhen I carried out racial examinations, I only examined applicants for the General SS and the Waffen SS. The applicants in question had to undress completely for the examination. The examination had the purpose to see to it that the SS got a general picture. With that we wanted to avoid, for example, misshaped people or people who did not fit within the framework of the SS from their external appearance should not come into the organization.\nQDo I understand that you made no racial examinations except applicants for the SS?\nAYes, and police.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3609, "page_number": "3602", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "QDid you ever have any connection with the racial examination of these eastern women workers?\nAI don't know at all that racial examinations of eastern female workers were made.\nQIn cases of application for interruption of pregnancy, was a racial examination given on eastern female workers?\nAYes.\nQNow what was sought to be determined by that examination?\nAIn the direct examination I have stated that if possible the father of the child which was to be born also was examined; through the racial examination it was to be ascertained whether the child would mean a desirable increase in the population. If that was not the case, then the voluntary requests of the eastern female worker was approved and the matter would take its medical course.\nQIf I understand you correctly, if as a result of this racial examination it was determined that the child would most likely make a good racial German, that the interruption would not be permitted.\nAYes.\nQIf on the contrary, it appeared that the child would most likely not make a good racial German, the interruption of pregnancy would be permitted.\nAMay I clarify another point before I answer to that? In our examinations we only spoke about the fact of desirable increases in the population. Therefore, we did not speak about a racial increase for the German people. If the child which was expected represented a desirable new element for the population, then the interruption of pregnancy was not approved. The examiner, therefore, only had a right to veto the voluntary request of the eastern female worker. These requests were submitted to the health authorities to a rather great extent.\nQWhat facts were taken into consideration in determining whether or not it was likely that the child would make a good addition to the \n citizenship?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3610, "page_number": "3603", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "AThe appearance and racial characteristics of both parents and the health opinion and the hereditary opinion which was submitted by a physician.\nQWas it your understanding that this was a legal procedure in Germany at that time?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness retire.\nDR. HEIM:In order to explain the system of procedure in the racial examinations to the Tribunal, I shall now call the witness Dr. Ruebel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHEINRICHRUEBEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right and and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nADr. Heinrich Ruebel; I was born on the 17th of June, 1910, at Villingen, Danube River.\nQPlease describe briefly to the Tribunal your scientific education.\nAIn 1929 until 1933 I studied at the University of Munich. I studied German language and literature, History, Geography, and Anthropology. In 1933 I passed the state examination for teaching in secondary schools in Bavaria. This was the so-called referendar examination; and in 1934 I passed the second port of the state examination, the so-called assessor examination, and in 1936 in Cologne, I became a doctor of \n philosophy, in the special field anthropology, history and the science of languages.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "HEINRICH", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3611, "page_number": "3604", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "QWere you a member of the NSDAP?\nAYes, I joined the NSDAP in 1933.\nQWere you a member of the SS?\nAYes, I joined the General SS in 1933.\nQWhat rank did you hold in the SS?\nAMy last rank was that of Hauptsturmfuehrer.\nQSince when were you in the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nAI was in the Race and Settlement Main Office on two occasions; first, I joined it toward the end of 1934; and I stayed there until the end of 1935. And then in 1940 until 1943 I came from the Waffen SS to the Race and Settlement Main Office. I was attached there, and later, on I was completely assigned and transferred there.\nQIn what office of RuSHA did you work?\nAIn 1935 I worked in the training office, and in 1940 to 1943 I worked in the racial office.\nQOf what particular department were you a member?\nAI did not belong to any special department at all, but I belonged to the racial office in general.\nQWhat was your field of work?\nAI was used for special assignments within the scope of the work of the racial office.\nQDid you also have something to do with the subsequent examination of examiners and with their opinions?\nAYes, that was one of my special assignments. My main activity was to carry out subsequent examinations on the opinions of the examiners, and the investigation of cases of hardship and the training of examiners.\nQYou just talked about examiners and cases of hardship. Will you please tell us something more in detail about these two points? In the course of the trial racial opinions have been mentioned repeatedly. Is racial examination the same thing as an examination?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3612, "page_number": "3605", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "ANo, a racial examination only is a part of the field within the entire examination. The examination itself included the racial opinion. the judgment of the character of the person, the judgment of the person according to his intelligence, achievements, and his living standard, etc., so that as I have already stated before the racial opinion was only a part of the entire opinion.\nQWhat brought about the necessity for racial examinations or an examination altogether?\nAThis necessity be came acute for the first time with the establishment of the Race and Settlement Main Office, through Reichfuehrer Heinrich Himmler. At the time he issued the order in the Race and Settlement Main Office that in equests for engagement and marriages of SS members, we were to work on these things, and that we had to carry out our work whenever a person applied for membership in the SS. Only later on after the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism had been established, the field of work of the Race and Settlement Main Office, as far as the examinations were concerned, was extended.\nQWhat office dealt with the policy toward alien nations?\nAThis was not dealt with in RuSHA, but in the Reich Security Main Office.\nQWhy weren't physicians used for these examinations, who after all had the professional ability to do that?\nAIt was the original tendency within RuSHA to use physicians for this work; however, very soon it became evident that the physicians as a result of their professional training very easily tended to over-emphasize sicknesses of these people and therefore their judgments were much too drastic. In order to prevent this, we considered it more appropriate to use laymen for this work who had not received any previous medical training.\nQCan one carry out the judgment and evaluation of a human being on a professional basis?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3613, "page_number": "3606", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "ANo, one cannot learn that as a trade at all. In the beginning we tried to do it in this way; at the beginning the examiners who were laymen, as I have just said, were schooled in a craftsmanship manner. However, we received pretty bad results in this respect. This only changed and improved somewhat later on.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3614, "page_number": "3607", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Do you know whether there were anthropologists who in the same manner carried out their work and in exactly the same way as the examiners?\nA.Yes, we do have scientific anthropologists of world-wide reputation who worked according to the same system which was used by the examiners in the racial office.\nQ.Could you perhaps tell us the none of such an anthropologist?\nA.Professor Egon Freiherr von Eichstaett, from Breslau is probably the best known who until 1945 was a Professor at Breslau and now is a professor at Mainz.\nQ.Do you know the system of Professor Eichstaett, and can you describe it to us here very briefly?\nA.Yes, Professor Eichstaett established a point system. To every applicant he gave ton points, and distributed these points to the individual racial characteristics of that person.\nQ.According to your previous testimony, and according to your own knowledge, wasn't the whole examination the expression of an anthropological idea?\nA.It is very difficult for me to answer this question. Cer tainly this close relationship of conception in the racial problem as it was originally handled by RuSHA brought about this danger.\nHowever, later on we took energetic and successful steps to avoid this danger.\nQ.You spoke about before and later. Were things handled differently afterwards?\nA.Yes, things were handled quite differently later on, especially after the outbreak of the war, and especially with the activity of Schwalm.\nQ.And to what extent were things changed?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3615, "page_number": "3608", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.When Schwalm took over the field office at Lodz of RuSHA, his most important activity was to screen the corps of examiners which existed and to develop their training, and above all, to establish new general racial examiners who had received the proper training, so that the mistakes which I have mentioned before could not occur any more.\nQ.Witness, is there any scientific anthropology at all, that is to say a science, which deals with human beings, races and their varieties, as for as characteristics are concerned, and their physical characteristics, their tendencies and their achievements?\nA.There is a science of anthropology. This science began with Charles Darwin and his theory of evolutions and selection. The Americans took over and developed it and from America then at the beginning of this century, it came to Germany as a science, where the findings of the Americans were evaluated to fit European and German conditions.\nQ.You stated before that later on, after the outbreak of the war, a change took place in the training of the examiners.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You further stated that this was in part brought about by Schwalm, Can you give us some details about that very briefly?\nA.Well, I didn't quite understand your question. You wanted to know something about the new system which Schwalm introduced, or, do you want to know something in general; I didn't quite understand your question.\nQ.I would like to know if the manner in which the training of the examiners was improved.\nA.Originally the examiners of the RuSHA exclusively dealt with physical characteristics, that is to say, the appearance of the applicants. When Schwalm took over the field office at Lodz, and with that also the training of the examining system, he placed \n the main stress on the fact that in the training besides the external characteristics of a human being, the character, his intelligence, his status, his social achievements, and whatever other facts should also be included in the evaluation of that human being.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3616, "page_number": "3609", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "In this way the new examiners were trained.\nQ.For example, with any well-known personalities and scientists employed in order to train these examiners?\nA.Yes, at the training courses of the examiners the teachers were exclusively persons who in their specialties had a very good reputation. If I can give you several names, for biology and hereditary science, for example we had Dr. Fleischhacker; for anthropology and ethnic questions was I; for anthropology and eugenics, we had Dr. Gromann, for general biology we had Dr. Oehmermann; for anthropology and hygiene we had Professor Hesch.\nQ.Witness, I now have a question which was brought about by the cross examination this morning. Later on was Schwalm able to maintain his influence towards the racial office as staff leader in the internal questions of the racial office?\nA.After he took over the position of staff leader, Schwalm of course did not have any influence any more on the internal things which happened in the racial office. He could only have some distant effect by the fact that the examiners which had been trained by him continued their work and they continued their work in his line -- in conformity with his ideas.\nQ.What persons were trained as examiners ?\nA.Originally above all members of the RuSHA were used for that purpose, who had a liking and a talent for that activity. Later on after the requirements and the prerequisites for the activity of racial examiners became greater, that is after the outbreak of the war, above all wounded SS men and SS officers were used who as a result of the wounds which they had incurred could not again be \n given a combat assignment in the near future.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3617, "page_number": "3610", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.How did RuSHA make contact with those men?\nA.Whenever the office was in particular need of racial examiners I would go to convalescent units of the SS and amongst the people who had volunteered for the examine job, I would select the best ones amongst them.\nQ.You said the best ones; what do you mean by that?\nA.I wanted to select the best elements among the volunteers whom we had at our disposal. That is to say, they had to be men with more than average intelligence, with a knowledge of human beings with life experience, with a healthy judgment, with a good character, and with an earnest conception of life, because, after all the examiners had a lot of responsibility and not everybody could be used for that work.\nQ.According to your testimony, high standards had to be met\nA.Yes, according to the activities which the examiners carried out, the responsibility was very great, because he had to deal with the ethnic German families from abroad who were transferred and settled in the Reich, and his judgment was included in the entire opinion which was given as decisive for the settlement of a family, so that therefore he played a very important part in the fate of these families.\nQ.Witness, how was the training of these examiners carried out?\nA.The applicants for the examiners job first received training courses for examiners which lasted several weeks, and in the course of these training courses, they received theoretical and practical instructions for their future activity.\nQ.Let's go into this theoretical aspect. What was taught in these training courses for examiners?\nA.The most important and fundamental subject in these training \n courses was general anthropology, and on that basis, the hereditary sciences, evolution, history of human beings, eugenics and racial hygiene, Then a further fundamental subject an actual anthropology, including anatomy by an anthropologist; here I mean the science of races, of the European nations, in the area adjoining Europe.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3618, "page_number": "3611", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Further in these theoretical subjects we had history of the European minorities and those European nations who were living in areas of mixed population.\nQ.How were the examiners otherwise prepared for their later activity?\nA.Only after a thorough technical training which they received, the examiner became acquainted with the actual examination, or the racial opinion of a human beings. The esaminers themselves represented different types of people, and now they were used as an example to the training courses. On these living human beings the examiners were then shown the anthropological characteristics; they were discussed, and later on the examiner also during the training course was trained in recognizing himself these characteristics and write them down, putting down into an opinion which first of all was only based upon the external appearances.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3619, "page_number": "3612", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Witness, up until now you have told us about the training which the examiners received. Now please tell us how an actual examination took place in practice.\nA.The examiner met together with the candidate, and for the most part the family was with then. First of all, the examiner tried to get all the psychological motives out of these people by way of discussions, by questions about the family, profession, special interests and hobbies, about politics, and so on. Once he had gained a certain impression of the character of the person concerned, he began the actual registration of characteristics, which consisted of the fact that he would look at the anthropological characteristics, the shape of the head, the expression of the fact, color of the eyes, color of the hair, form of the hair, the relationship of the length of the body to the joints, size of the body, other measurements, and things of that sort. Then, on the basis of the psychological impression and racial opinion, as well as what the examiner knew from material about the efficiency of the person concerned, his industriousness in his profession, and so on, he would give an expert opinion.\nQ.How many examiners were there simultaneously?\nA.On the whole, there were several hundred examiners, but I don't believe that any more than 75 or 80 examiners worked simultaneously because some of them were always being sent on combat duty.\nQ.Can you tell us how the examiners were broken up as far as their assignments were concerned?\nA.Yes. Approximately 20 to 25 examiners worked with the EWZ commissions; approximately 5 to 8 worked with the field office at Lodz; approximately 5 worked at the field office at Prague; 4 or 5 of them worked in the Racial Office itself. And then there would be one examiner each for almost every Race and Settlement Leader. Therefore, there would be 15 or 20 of them altogether in these jobs. One examiner would work with each replacement office of the Waffen SS. As I say, altogether, there would be about 15 or 20 of them.\nQ.Then, at any one time, approximately 75 people would be working in these jobs?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3620, "page_number": "3613", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Besides the six agencies which you have just mentioned, were there any other agencies or organizations which employed examiners?\nA.As long as I worked in the Racial Office, until the spring of 1943, no other agencies employed examiners.\nQ.As far as you know, were examiners also used in order to work on the German People's List procedure?\nA.As long as I worked in the Racial Office--that is, until the end of 1943--no examiners were used for the DVL procedure was a governmental matter which the Landraete, the Government Presidents and the Lord Mayors of the cities, carried out on their own responsibility. Whether that changed later on escapes my knowledge.\nQ.Witness, let us now discuss the activity of the examiners in the six agencies which you have mentioned. Can you say what tasks the examiners had to carry out in these EWZ agencies which you have mentioned?\nA.For the most part, the examiners in the EWZ were sent out and assigned to roving commissions. These roving commissions had to screen the ethnic German resettlers, and the examiner of the Racial Office was included in this entire screening procedure in order to give his racial opinion about the resettlers.\nIn the case of the field office at Lodz, the examiners exclusively had to deal with the re-Germanization procedure.\nI don't have any exact information about the field office at Prague. However, the examiner there most likely dealt with naturalization questions The examiners in the Racial Office dealt with individual cases and, above all, in cases where complaints were made, or in cases of doubt, they would examine opinions which had already been given.\nThey were also used for other brief assignments.\nAs to the activities of the examiners of the Race and Settlement Leaders in the SS Main Sectors, I cannot give you any information.\nAs to the examiners for the Replacement Office of the SS, I can say that they fed internal SS tasks, such as giving examinations to applicants for the SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3621, "page_number": "3614", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "Q.Witness, let us go into more detail with regard to the activities of the examiners with the EWZ. Was the opinion of the examiner with an EWZ commission the only opinion which was given about the resettler in question, or was it an opinion which was given to you in addition to other opinions?\nA.Quite a number of agencies played a part in the screening of cases of the EWZ. Each one of these agencies, in its own competence, would give an opinion about the candidate. The examiner would give his opinion in his own competency, that is to say, his racial opinion of the candidate. Therefore, his opinion was only one opinion amongst several and it would be used, together with all other opinions, in the final opinion by the head of the commission.\nQ.Do you know whether the participation of RuSHA in EWZ matters was based on the initiative of the RuSHA?\nA.No, the Race and Settlement Main Office did not take any steps on its own initiative in order to play a part in the resettlement action. The participation of RuSHA was brought about by express order of Himmler, as far as I know, in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Do you know when and why the field office of RuSHA at Lodz was established?\nA.I cannot answer this question concisely. I do not know when the field office was established; neither do I know why it was established.\nI only know that the establishment of the field office was carried out upon Himmler's order, and that this order was quite inconvenient to RuSHA for the time being. However, from the assignment which was given to the field office at Lodz later on, I can conclude that the reason for this Himmler order was that an agency was to be established which would take prevention measures concerning the coming in to Germany of Polish or other foreign blood from the East.\nQ.If RuSHA or the Racial Office did not initiate these measures, why did they become so important?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3622, "page_number": "3615", "date": "13 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-13", "text": "A.These examinations were certainly not carried out upon the initiative of RuSHA. I do not know the precise reasons for it, but in any case the situation was such that as time went on, more and more tasks came within the competency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and all agencies which dealt with ethnic questions practically demanded an examiner. I don't know just how the negotiations were carried out about that.\nQ.At the beginning of your examination you used the phrase \"cases of hardship.\"\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did you mean by that?\nA.As a case of Hardship, for example, we meant such a case where ethnic German resettlers, as a result of a number of unfortunate circumstances, or as a result of wrong decisions by examiners, were either received at a wrong place of settlement, or had been separated from their families and taken away from their relatives.\nQ.Were there many cases of hardship of that kind?\nA.In the beginning, yes. That was caused by the fact that, in the beginning, the old corps of examiners was still used in screening these people, and they still closely adhered to the directives which had been issued by Himmler, and adjudged only according to the external characteristics. This form of screening, of course, inevitably led to wrong opinions. Later on, the number of wrong decisions decreased, and it became smaller and smaller as the examiners who had been trained by Schwalm in the new system took over the work.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(At 1630 hours, 13 January 1948, a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 14 January 1948.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3623, "page_number": "3616", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 14 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present save the defendant Viermetz who is absent and excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nHEINRICH RUEBEL _ Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HEIM: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQ.Dr. Ruebel, yesterday before the recess we stated that in the course of the resettlement of Germans from the Bukowina there were relatively many cases of hardship. Can you tell us what caused these cases of hardship?\nAWell, the resettlement of Germans from the Bukowina took place as early as 1940, and then, for the most part, it was completed in the winter of 1940 to 1941, that is to say, it took place at a time when Schwalm was not yet in charge of the field office at Lodz.; and at that time no examiners which had been trained by Schwalm and myself had yet been assigned. Furthermore, especially in the course of this particular resettlement drive of the Germans from Bukowina, an examiner carried out his work who did not meet any of the prerequisites for this activity.\nQWho was this examiner?\nAThat was Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Amberger.\nQWhat were the effects of his activity with regard to the Germans \n from the Bukowina?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3624, "page_number": "3617", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AHauptsturmfuehrer Amberger lived under a psychosis; he had some completely confused ideas which consisted of the fact that everywhere he flawed alien blood. The practical effect of this activity was such that approximately fifty per cent of all reset tiers from the Bukowina were disqualified by him and he gave them BuS 4-F classification. Beyond that, he was so ruthless and inconsiderate in his measures that families were torn apart or they were sent to different camps.\nQWhat were the effects of his activity, of this psychosis on the part of Amberger and how did this activity become apparent?\nAI have just described briefly what its effects were. This failure became quite apparent by the fact that many letters of complaint reached the EXZ at Lodz, with the request that the procedure should be halted, or, the request that they should receive a different classification, or, that the family should be kept together as a unit.\nQFrom Document Book V_B of the Prosecution I am going to hand to you the Document NO_405, Exhibit 217, Document NO_3062, Exhibit 218; and from Document Book V*E I am going to hand to you Document NO_ 1397, Exhibit 311. Are these the reports which you have just referred to?\nAI have not yet mentioned the reports as yet, but I am acquainted with them. I know that they were submitted by Amberger and another officer by the name of Mueller, I believe.\nQFrom your activity at the camp, can you still recall what action was taken upon these requests which I have just handed to you?\nAYes. Schwalm took an official trip into the camps of the Germans from the Bukowina, which for the most part were situated in Upper and Lower Silesia. Right on the spot he examined all the cases of complaint which had come to our attention. He took me along on this trip in order to show me just how this field of work was handled.\nQCan this examination by Schwalm be considered as being an examination of cases of hardship?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3625, "page_number": "3618", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AYes, that is the work which we call the examination of cases of hardship.\nQWhat were the results of the examination of these cases of hardship in the cases of Germans from the Bukowina?\nAAfter a very careful examination of all cases of complaint which had come to our attention, Schwalm and I heard approximately nineteen per cent of all cases which Amberger had classified as 4-F, and we had to change these opinions and classifications. With that the EWZ had the possibility to change the classification as far as it had been caused by the opinion of the examiner. Furthermore, in all cases which we checked, the families which had been separated were again brought together.\nQThe drive which you have just mentioned, was this a unique action which only occurred once, or, was this work continued?\nAThis work was continued. After all, in the course of this trip Schwalm and I besides the complaints of which we had knowledge, also checked another number of opinions on Germans from the Bukowina and in this respect we also saw a considerable number of cases where wrong decisions had been made, and where undue hardships had been imposed... That is why Schwalm ordered me to visit all the camps in which Germans from the Bukowina. That is what I did.\nQIn the document which I have just handed to you, Amberger suggests a sterilization. Was this suggestion ever given any serious consideration?\nANo. This matter was not discussed, nor was the execution of such a measure even considered at any time, because Amberger personally had some hereditary background which was not favorable and that is why he was interested in these measures; that is why later on he had to leave the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQYou just mentioned that fact that Amberger had to leave later on. Did he remain after that as an examiner anywhere?\nANo, first of all upon a complaint of Schwalm he was relieved of \n position as examiner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3626, "page_number": "3619", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Then in the line of the investigation which was started, we found out that for personal reasons he was quite unsuitable not only as an examiner but also as an SS officer on the whole. That is why it was suggested to him that he should leave the SS. He left and he became the assistant of Professor Lehmann at the University of Heidelberg; whether he still holds that position today, I don't know,\nQAmberger left.\nAYes.\nQLater on after Amberger's time were such hardships, wrong decisions still made.\nAYes. The possibility to reach a wrong decision, a wrong conclusion and the imposition of undue hardships always existed. However, as time went on, more and more examiners who had been trained by the system of Schwalm came for assignment, and, consequently, as time went on the number of the potential wrong decisions and those that actually happened became less and less.\nQIn your opinion what was the effect of Schwalm's activity as head of the field office at Lodz?\nAFrom his activity the most remarkable one was the fundamental improvement in the entire system of the examiners, and with that the greater probability that a fair opinion would be given of the ethnic German resettlers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3627, "page_number": "3620", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QIn the course of your examinations it has been repeatedly mentioned that the examiners had to carry out their work according to certain lines; within the racial office who was responsible for the manner in which the examiners carried out their work?\nANobody was responsible within the racial office because all regulations about SS recruiting and about examinations in general, that is to say the procedure which was applied, were specified and ordered personally by Himmler; and a strict execution was made an absolute orde as far as the racial office was concerned.\nQIn the case of these orders and instructions by Himmler, were also such orders amongst them which in practice could not be executed?\nAYes, that happened repeatedly. The Reichsfuehrer would issue orders and instructions in the field of examinations which either from the point of view of science were not feasible or in practice could not be executed.\nQDid the method which was worked out by Schwalm agree with that of the racial office?\nAIf you want to look at it in a general way, one can say that it did because Schwalm used the same forms, the same race and settlement card, and the same methods; he used the same political method; however, the manner of execution was different, and that was the decisive point.\nQOf what did the difference consist in the execution, in finding the opinion, between the racial office and that of Schwalm?\nAThe racial office adhered closely to the executive regulations which had been issued by Himmler; that is to say, it carried out the examinations exactly according to purely external racial characteristics. Schwalm on the other hand, as I believe I stated yesterday, also considered another number of factors in order to reach his opinion, that is to say, his impression of the character, intelligence, achievements, living status, and the influences and surroundings of the candidate, so that the anthropological and general \n personal motives would be as string in his opinion as the actual racial examination.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3628, "page_number": "3621", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QDidn't Schwalm in this way contradict the instructions of the Reichsfuehrer and the racial office?\nAIn practice, yes. Of course there were very few people who had such a anthropological knowledge in order to observe and ascertain this contradiction between Schwalm's opinion and work and that of the work which had been ordered by the Reichsfuehrer. This was only possible for a specialist anthropologist.\nQAs far as you know, did anybody ever point out to Schwalm the fact that he contradicted the opinions of the racial office?\nAWhether anybody approached him with that personally, I don't know. However, I do know that his method of carrying out examinations was disapproved by the racial office. During several training courses for examiners, which I carried out, and where the chief of the racial office would be present for days at a time, it happened that the chief of the racial office in the presence of all participants in the training course would make the derogatory remark about the way in which I carried out the work and he would say: Well, that is how in Schwalm's school. And with that he showed quite openly his disapproval of the method which had been introduced by Schwalm.\nQWhen Schwalm became race and settlement leader in the Race and Settlement Main Office, did he still have any influence on the racial office in this sense?\nASchwalm did not have any direct influence any more on the racial office because the racial office was extremely independent, and the chief of the racial office did not allow Schwalm to interfere in any way or to have any influence in any way, on the other hand, Schwalm had some influence indirectly on the racial office. This was caused by the fact that with the approval of the chief of the Main Office he succeeded in having me placed in charge of training the new examiners. With that he had the guarantee that the new examiners \n would be trained according to his ideas and that they would work according to his ideas.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3629, "page_number": "3622", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QCan I understand your statements to mean that Schwalm in his capacity as staff leader, did not have any authority any more in the racial office?\nANo; the staff leader could not issue orders to the racial office, nor could he force the racial office to carry out his orders. He could only pass on orders from the chief of the Main Office.\nQDoes this mean that after the appointment of Schwalm as staff leader, or after he was transferred from Lodz, the racial office only worked in their own line?\nAI can only answer this question that up until the spring of 1943, up to that time, almost exclusively examiners were working who had been trained by him or by me. Their influence and their activity of course had further effects; whether any of these examiners and how many were later on transferred to the front, or whether other examiners took their place who had not come from our school, and whether they had had any stronger influence, I don't know.\nQSince you have just been discussing the racial office, I want to ask you: do you know from your time of activity in the racial office the name of Hauptsturmfuehrer Harders?\nAYes.\nQWhat functions did Harders have?\nAHarders was in succession a referent, a department head and finally the chief of the Main Department. His field of work was re-Germanization.\nQBy virtue of his position, could Harders have a lot of influence on the activities of the racial office?\nANo, that was completely out of the question, especially since Harders was amongst the people who were working outside in practical work and were not taken seriously by them.\nQWhy didn't these people take him seriously?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3630, "page_number": "3623", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AHarders was, what in English is usually called a \"busy-body.\" He was a man who gave to everybody his unrequested and unsolicited opinions. He would give advice in everything when he wasn't even consulted; he tried to interfere in everything, and he would sound out the examiners about important work that they were doing, and then he would utilize the material and information which he had gained in the form of file notes and he would compile reports and things of that sort which were none of his business. Whenever the opportune time came he would take out these notes in order to make completely infeasible and nonsensical suggestions. Above all, it was very obstructing on his part that he tried to include himself in all conferences.\nQAs far as you know, was a suggestion made by Harders ever adopted?\nAThat was never the case as far as examinations were concerned. Whether any organizational suggestions by Harders of a technical nature were ever carried out, I don't know.\nQWas Harders as head of the Main Department in the racial office concerned in the training of examiners?\nANo, he did not have any influence in that in any way. On various occasions Harders offered himself as a teacher for examiners, but first of all Schwalm and then the chief of the racial office, upon my recommendations, disapproved these offers of Harders in each case, so that he never played any part in that.\nQIn the case of the training courses for examiners, was the Jewish question also discussed?\nAYes, naturally.\nQIn what sense; can you tell me that?\nAWe treated the Jewish people just like all other minorities, or like all other people who were living separately in the eastern and southern areas.\nQIn this respect, did you place any special emphasis on the treatment of the Jewish Race?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3631, "page_number": "3624", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "ANo, we couldn't do that because in our opinion there was no such thing as a Jewish race. As I have stated before, the Jews were considered by us to be a people, just like all people, with their own history, with their own culture, even if they did not have their own state. Therefore, there is no such thing as a Jewish Race, just as little as there is a German, English or Russian race. We dealt with Jewry as a people; we dealt with its history; we dealt with its culture, and its achievements in the European area with regard to the fate of Germany.\nQWas a sub-division of the Jewish people also taught?\nAYes. The only sub-division of the Jews, which was taught was that we divided them into eastern Jews, askansi, or western Jews, Sephadan; but, of course no practical conclusions were drawn from that. This was just a sub-division as far as the Jews were concerned,\nQAt the time what did one understand by partly of Jewish blood, or mixed blood?\nAThe expression party of Jewish blood did not come from anthropology, nor did it belong to the terminology of the examiners. This expression was only known to me from the propaganda from the RacePolitical propaganda of the party. We only would speak of alien blood; by alien blood we meant a mixed blood of a anthropological nature of all those races which did not originate in Indo Germanic areas, but they entered and invaded Europe from other countries and continents. Therefore, we dealt with oriental and negro races in this respect.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3632, "page_number": "3625", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.I believe in discussing Germans from the Bukowina you spoke about the classification RUS 4-F. Did this classification RUS 4-F disqualify people from being naturalized?\nA.No, every resettler, no matter what his classification was, was naturalized.\nQ.Were resettlers who had the classification of RUS 4-F ever placed in a concentration camp?\nA.No, under no circumstances; after all the opinion of the leader did not have any influence on measures taken by the State.\nQ.Were only Germans concerned by the resettlement drives?\nA.The resettlement drives took place as a result of State treaties between Germany on the one hand and the States where other German minorities lived on the other. Fundamentally only Germans could join the resettlement movement. Of course occasionally it happened that non-Germans also would be included in these trials.\nQ.Can you give us an example for that when non-Germans joined the resettlement movement?\nA.Above all in the resettlement from Roumania. Here a large number of Roumanians and Ukrainians of Roumanian nationality had come along.\nQ.What was this caused by?\nA.This resettlement took place in the provinces of Bessarabia and Bukowina. These provinces had been Roumania originally and I believe in 1940 these provinces had to be ceded to Russia. These people were so afraid of Bolshevism that they tried in some way or other by way of resettlement to come to Germany.\nQ.Did these Roumanians and Ukrainians you mentioned come to Germany legally?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3633, "page_number": "3626", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.They must have come to Germany legally because only people who had the resettlement identity cards could be resettled. The resettlers pass was only given to those people who had declared themselves to be German.\nQ.Were these resettlers of foreign nationality treated in exactly the same way as German resettlers?\nA.First of all yes, they were first sent to resettlement camps like all others and then screened by the EWZ.\nQ.Did these foreign resettlers also receive an opinion and examination?\nA.No, if in the course of the screening it was found out that they were not Germans but Roumanians or Ukrainians then a corresponding remark would be made in their papers.\nQ.What was the result of this note that was made on the papers?\nA.First of all it did not have any effect but later on when Bessarabia and Bukowina were recaptured by the German Troops these people were sent back to their old country of origin.\nQ.Did these people go back voluntarily or was some coercion exerted upon them in some way?\nA.No coercion was used. After all these people wanted to go back after the reason for the departure had been removed; that reason was Bolshevism.\nQ.Do you know the time of repatriation of these people?\nA.Yes, I believe this began towards the end of 1941.\nQ.Do you know how many persons were involved in this case?\nA.There must have been four to six thousand persons repatriated in this case.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3634, "page_number": "3627", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Dr. Ruebel, did you also work at the field office at Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you work there?\nA.I was at the field office at Lodz twice. The first time in 1940 where I stayed several weeks in order to get used to the work and for my personal information about the work of the field office. Then I was there for the second time for several months in 1942 when I continued to give advanced training in short training courses to the examiners.\nQ.On the occasion of your stay at the field office at Lodz did you have the opportunity to take a close look at the work of the field office at Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Are you especially acquainted with the re-Germanization procedure?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In the case of the re-Germanization procedure was any coercion used?\nA.No, in no case whatsoever.\nQ.Did the people who were intended to be re-Germanized know what was going to be done?\nA.Yes, after the arrival of the people who were eligible for re-Germanization at the field office at Lodz in each case they were told just what was to happen.\nQ.Witness, I believe you must make a short pause between my question and your answer. As far as you know did it happen that the persons objected to re-Germanization?\nA.Yes, this happened occasionally also.\nQ.What was done to these people?\nA.They would be sent back to the UWZ camp from where they had come to the field office at Lodz.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3635, "page_number": "3628", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Very well, these people now were sent back to the UWZ camp. Do you knew what happened to those people there?\nA.I don't know that. However, I assume that they were treated exactly like the remaining deportees.\nQ.As far as you know were individual children also included in this procedure?\nA.As long as I worked in the racial office at no time did individual children come into the re-Germanization procedure. Children would only come together with their families.\nQ.Was there a drive for orphans in which the field office played a part in bringing these children to Germany for re-Germanization?\nA.Yes, such a drive did take place I believe in 1943; on up to that time however the field office did not play any part in this drive. As far as I know this drive was initiated by the health office.\nQ.Dr. Ruebel did you know the head of the health office at Lodz?\nA.Yes, I knew him by name; he was Dr. Grohmann.\nQ.From Document Book 8-3 of the Prosecution I am going to hand youNO-1615, Exhibit 407. This is a decree 67-1 which has been repeatedly mentioned in the course of this trial. Will you please comment on this document?\nA.No, I cannot say anything about it. Two or four days ago I saw this document for the first time in the jail here. According to its contents it has also beenunknown to me up to now.\nQ.We were just discussing this drive with orphans and in this connection I want to ask you two factual questions. Can one give a racial opinion on children, that is to say, was there such an opinion in practice on children \n carried out?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3636, "page_number": "3629", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.Children can be subjected to an anthropological examination if one is specifically an anthropologist. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult and that is why I told all training courses of examiners that the examinations of individual children should under no circumstances be carried out.\nQ.In the racial office, as long as you were there, were examinations carried out at any time on children?\nA.No, not in my time.\nQ.Can one judge or ascertain children to be of a certain nationality and race according to the external characteristics?\nA.From the anthropological point of view children as I have just stated are very difficult to judge because the most important anthropological characteristics are still in constant development in the child and they are subject to constant changes so that a man who does not have the precise knowledge of this development and is acquainted with these changes can never give an accurate judgment on a child. On the other hand it is also very difficult in the case of children to judge them by their type and to conclude their appartenance to a certain race. This is only possible when members of races are concerned who are completely different, whose characteristics are completely outstanding, that is to say, pronounced Slavic characteristics or German or Roman characteristics. However, as I have said before, this only applies in those cases where these characteristics are very pronounced and this only applies to various small fractions.\nQ.Are there other means which can be used in order to ascertain these things?\nA.Yes, one can judge a larger percentage of the children somewhat more accurately if one has the phychological \n training in order to use that for their judgment.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3637, "page_number": "3630", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Witness, I have several general questions to ask you now. Was the race policy of the NSDAP and of the State and Third Reich in line with scientific anthropology?\nA.I can only answer this question in the affirmative with some restrictions, however. Anthropology itself does not belong to one of the political sciences. Of course the science of anthropology and the conclusions which you draw from it formerly and later on were always immediately exploited by political parties and ideologies for their own purposes. In Germany the whole race political propaganda was based on some conclusions of anthropology but this propaganda unfortunately was not based on the science of anthropology.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3638, "page_number": "3631", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.You have just referred to propaganda. Who in the Third Reich was in charge of the race political propaganda?\nA.Race political propaganda was exclusively carried out by the race political office of the NSDAP in a manner which the SS never recognized. Furthermore, on a much lower level and figuring on the cheapest instinct of the mass by the Stuermer which we refuted to the utmost.\nQ.However in SS circles one would frequently speak about the difference in appearance and value of the races. Weren't there any political and idealogical conclusions drawn from that?\nA.It was our opinion that the difference in the races according to physical and mental characteristics brought a different value along for a different area of the world. The political conclusion for the SS was that the examination should be carried out. The idealogical effects were within the Party race political propaganda.\nQ.Did the point of view of the difference between the races not lead to the concept of a master race?\nA.No; this expression master race was never used in the SS nor did it originate there nor was it used by the SS in any way. I only know this expression from the official race propaganda and racial teachings of the Party and from a number of books and articles which were written by people who perhaps tried to prove that they were National Socialists by doing so. As far as we were concerned we not only disapproved of the expression but we also disapproved of the learning of the concept of the master race because in our opinion there was no absolute superiority or inferiority of races. The difference in the value of the races in our opinion only refers to the area in which a race lives, that is to say; for example, in Europe the white races are the most suitable for \n living there and working there rather than non-European races and consequently they have the right to govern Europe.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3639, "page_number": "3632", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "For example, in tropical areas the darker races are more suitable for living there and they can do the most work there and, therefore, in those areas they have the right of leadership towards the white races.\nQ.Herr Ruebel, if I, as a layman, understood you correctly, then in your opinion there are certain race ethics?\nA.Yes, these race ethics are based on the following fundamental points. Like the rest of nature the human being has been made by God and he has been made in order to carry out a certain task. In the course of the historical developments humanity has come analagous to the surroundings, by hereditary traits, by selection and extermination, and by natural selection, and consequently in certain areas certain nations and certain races have settled. Each one of these races and each one of these nations consequently was wanted by God and like everything else in nature it was given the task by God to look after the preservation and reproduction of its kind. From that we drew the conclusion that it was our task by respecting all other nations to preserve the German people as they had been by God in the center of Europe into use of our strength and our knowledge and ability in the service of preserving and maintaining our nation. That was our racial and ethical idea.\nDR. HEIM:If the Tribunal pleases that concludes the examination of the witness. However, for my colleague, Dr. Froeschmann I want to ask three questions on behalf of the defendant Hildebrandt.\nQ.Witness, do you know the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, I know him. I saw him several times prior to 1943 and I heard much about him and he himself probably did not know me. In 1943 I met him personally when he took \n over the race and settlement main office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3640, "page_number": "3633", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Whenever I returned on leave from the front I would visit him in Berlin repeatedly.\nQ.What do you know about the behavior of the defendant Hildebrandt towards his subordinates?\nA.In the general SS where he was an officer before as also in the race and settlement main office Hildebrandt had a very good reputation. He was highly esteemed because of his impartiality and comradeship and his absolute qualities as an officer. He had the fullest confidence of everybody concerned.\nQ.Witness, were you able to make these observations also later on?\nA.Yes, one of the reasons why at the front I would visit Hildebrandt repeatedly was that in him we would always find a listener to our problems and we could speak to him quite often about the bad conditions in politics, in the State, and in the SS which we observed in the course of time and which of course oppressed us personally to a considerable extent, it was very difficult outside the public or with a troop unit to discuss this. After all we risked our neck in doing so and consequently I was glad to go see a man of higher rank and to tell him about my worries, my fears and the mental pressure on us.\nQ.Thank you.\nDR. HEIM:Now may it please this Tribunal on this occasion I have one request. On the part of German and American agencies the witness has incurred certain disadvantages because he appeared in Nurnberg as a witness described in a certain way as a war criminal because he has offered himself as a witness. I request the Tribunal to give this witness their protection in this respect which is due him.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3641, "page_number": "3634", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:As far as I am personally concerned I do not have the slightest idea what you are talking about.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, please let me ask a few questions of the witness in order to clarify the matter.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you know the fact; if you have any request to make of the court you can state your facts and make your request. I don't see any use to produce evidence on it.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, in the internment camp, Augsburg-Goeggingen where he was before he was called as a witness for the defense he was first placed in solitary confinement for a few weeks and then he was sent to the internment camp at Langwasser and then he was sent to Nurnberg accompanied there by an American agent and it was stated that Ruebel was to be subjected to special supervision after he had placed himself at the disposal of the war criminal as a defense witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think this Tribunal will have its hands rather full trying and deciding this case without undertaking to supervise and run the prison authorities.\nDR. HEIM:I have no further questions.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in your direct examination the questions were quite clear and your answers, although clear, were rather lengthy. Will you please try to make your answers as brief as possible at this time and if you can possibily answer yes or no to any question, that is a complete answer and you don't have to go any further. Witness, didn't the race office of RuSHA exchange views and cooperate with the racial political office of the Party?\nA.For my activity I do not know of any collaboration with the racial political office. Whether this happened \n otherwise I don't know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3642, "page_number": "3635", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "However, I assume that discussions took place.\nQ.Witness, yesterday you spoke of having tried to use doctors as racial examiners at first but that this proved impractical when the doctors stressed sickness too much when they were examining for RuSHA. Do you mean that these doctors failed to agree completely with the emphasis placed by RuSHA on race?\nA.The race and settlement main office did not place any stress on the finding of diseases in racial opinions because diseases, if they were not of herediary nature, do not have any influence on the racial opinion. The physicians on the other hand, when they ever found diseases present or hereditary diseases, they gave an opinion with racial notes so that the opinion for the exact date became more severe when examined by regular examiners.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3643, "page_number": "3636", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Yesterday, witness, you mentioned anthropologists who used the RuSHA racial system, and you spoke of anthropology as a science concerning races of human beings. Do you mean to include the racial theories of RuSHA and the racial examinations conducted by the layman racial examiners as part of the science of anthropology?\nA.The examination by the examiner, of course, was not a science in the strict sense of the word. However, the examiners had been trained according to scientific methods and they knew the application of these scientific methods.\nQ.Witness you know, do you not, that the racial theories of RuSHA are not, and have never been, generally accepted by anthropologists except in Nazi Germany?\nA.Yes, I've known that since 1945. We couldn't know what the anthropologists abroad thought or what they said aid wrote between 1939 and 1945. After all, we could not get any material from abroad, even if it was only scientific material.\nQ.Witness, you answered the question, don't you think? Do you have to go any further?\nA.I don't understand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think he has answered it. Go ahead. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in selecting men to become examiners you were careful to pick good Nazis who believed in the principles of Nazism, weren't you?\nA.I am sorry -- excuse me, but I had my earphones off and it is very difficult for me to understand.\nQ.I will repeat my last question, witness. In selecting the men to become racial examiners, you tried very hard to pick good Nazis, didn't you?\nA.The examiners were selected from amongst the members of the SS, as I said before. One always assumed of an SS man, of course, that \n he was a good National Socialist.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3644, "page_number": "3637", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "However, no special examination was given to these potential examiners on that subjects\nQ.And they were all SS men is that correct, witness?\nA.Originally, yes. However, in 1942, or at the beginning of 1943, officers of the Wehrmacht and Wehrmacht psychologists were also assigned as examiners, and they were attached to the SS for that purpose. I cannot say anything more about their activity now because I was no longer with the office at that time.\nQ.Witness, do you know if there were many of these who were not SS men?\nA.We may have had 12 or 15 of these Wehrmacht officers. I don't know of any other people who were not members of the SS.\nQ.Witness, was any scientific training a prerequisite for you to select a man as a racial examiner?\nA.It was not a basic prerequisite, but we preferred people who had received the appropriate education, people who had made studies, above all, in biology and anthropology aid the natural sciences. After all, as a result of their education, we could assign them more expeditiously.\nQ.Witness, can you please tell us, very briefly, exactly how long a period of time the training course of the racial examiners took, and what subjects they studied, and for how long, each subject?\nA.The actual training course for examiners lasted for approximately four weeks. However, after the training course the person would be a candidate for examiner for six months, and he would assist an examiner in his work. He was kept there until such time as he had a certain degree of independence and certainty in his work. I have already discussed the training subjects yesterday. However, I can repeat them if you want me to.\nQ.That is not necessary, witness.\nWitness, didn't some racial examiners make from 60 to 80 \n examinations in one day?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3645, "page_number": "3638", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.I am unable to judge that. This may have happened at the very beginning, and perhaps that was one of the bad conditions which led to wrong opinions in the case of Germans from Bukowina. However, in practice such a number of examinations was not carried out, it was impossible.\nQ.Witness, approximately how many examinations would you say should be carried out under ideal conditions in one day?\nA.That depends upon the group of persons involved which has to be judged. The larger the families are which are concerned, the less time the examiner will use in order to reach his opinion for the individual member of the family. In one day one can judge up to 20 families. If there are five or six children in each family, then, of course, you will get a larger figure at the end of the day. However, it takes just as much time to examine 20 or 25 individuals, and that is a very small number.\nQ. witness, you spoke of the examinations of people from Fukowina. During your direct examination you said that you and the defendant Schwalm had examined many of these people who had been rejected by Amberger. Exactly when was this -- I mean, in time?\nA.This examination drive?\nQ.The examinations made by you and Schwalm. About when was this?\nA.That was in 1941, as far as I know, it was in the winter and spring, until the early summer.\nQ.Witness, did you and Schwalm overrule every decision made by Amberger?\nA.Not every decision. Of course, Amberger sometimes also made correct decisions.\nQ.Well, many of this families which were broken up by Amberger remained broken up after you and Schwalm had made your decisions, isn't \n that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3646, "page_number": "3639", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.No. In all cases where we heard that families had been separated, we would see to it that they were brought together again. We ourselves could not actually do it because we did not play any part in this matter, we could only make a recommendation to that effect.\nQ.Witness, I just have a few more questions. Please try to make the answers as brief as possible.\nWhat did you mean when you said previously that in the training of examiners you dealt with the history of the Jewish people in connection with the fate of Germany? I think that is what you said.\nA.Yes, we dealt with the history of the Jews from that time on when the Jewish nation was established in the Arabic area, their migration and settlement in Palestine, and their distribution from Palestine after the destruction of Jerusalem. Then we were told of the manner in which the Jews came to Spain, secondly, the manner in which they came to Italy, or, thirdly, the manner in which they came to Eastern Europe and passed on to Central Europe.\nQ.Witness, what I mean is, what did you mean when you said you dealt with this in connection with the fate of Germany?\nA.Well, we also looked at the history of the German people. Here it was said, for example, that in the Middle Ages there were Ghettos for Jews, that the Jews were persecuted, that deportations, of Jews took place, and things of that sort.\nQ.If you don't want to answer the question, please say so. What did you mean when you said \"in connection with the fate of Germany\"? Not with the history of Germany.\nA.Then I probably used the wrong expression.\nQ.That is enough.\nDo you personally, witness, consider Jews to be as good as Germans?\nA.Just as good? I don't understand the meaning of the question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3647, "page_number": "3640", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Well, witness -\nA.You can't use the expression that they were good or not good. There was no such thing; I have stated that before.\nQ.Let me explain, witness. You stated that you did not personally believe in the theory of the Master Race.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, you consider Jews to be as intelligent, shall we say, or as morally or as racially valuable to the world as Germans?\nA.I consider the Jews to be at least as intelligent as the Germans, and I believe that perhaps this belief in the SS led to the fact that they took up the position against Jews because, perhaps, as competitors, they were superior to the Germans in many reports.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, during your direct examination it seemed to me that you said you didn't know anything about interruptions of pregnances and the examinations conducted by examiners with the RuS leaders in the SS districts. Now, didn't you have to know, in order to train the examiners?\nA.I did not say that in my direct examination. I do know the procedure itself, and we told the examiners that under certain circumstances they might get into a position where they would have to examine such women.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3648, "page_number": "3641", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court I Court VIII\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, Proceed.\nDR. HEIM:Mr. President, I still have a few questions in view of the cross examination by the Prosecution.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY-DR. HEIM:\nQDr. Ruebel, the examination performed by the examiner, was that coupled with that of the physician and was the number of possible examinations limited by that?\nAYes; in connection with the EWZ commission there was a physician who examined every one of the resettlers; that is, he gave them a medical examination.\nQIn the German language, is the concept of \"fate\" and \"history\" the same in the transcendent sense?\nAYes, there are many books that have that title and concern fate and history at the same time.\nQYou must please pause between question and answer. In the cross examination by the Prosecution, you spoke of the possibility of meeting with the Race Political Office of the NSDAP. Do you know with certainty whether or not such meetings had taken place?\nANo, I don't know of any such meeting, but I assume that it was possible. This is my personal opinion.\nQYou, yourself, then did not conduct any such meetings?\nANo, I never did.\nQYou mentioned that there was a possibility of a competition with Judaism because they had the same personal qualification as the Germans. In your opinion, this competition, did that finally lead to the incidents that have come up now during the course of the trial; that is, did these qualifications lead to the final solution of Jews in the Third Reich?\nAI do not believe that the persecution of the Jews, as it has \n become known now, is based on this attitude, for we members of the Race and Settlement Main Office, and all other SS agencies that I know had nothing to do with the Jewish problems as such.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3649, "page_number": "3642", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "As far as I know, from newspapers after 1945, this so-called final solution has been carried out on the order of state agencies. I believe it was the Gestapo that carried out these solutions to its end.\nQDid the RuSHA have anything to do with the practical carrying out of the policy towards the Jews in the time from 1939 to 1943? That is, during the time about which you can testify from your own knowledge.\nAAt my time, the RuSHA and also the Race Office of the RuSHA had nothing to do with the Jewish question. However, I must make the one reservation that of course Jews were not made members of the SS.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQMr. Witness, I have a few questions I should like to have you answer. You stated yesterday that the science of anthropology had its start here in Europe; then it was taken up in America; then Europe took the American view. Is that correct what you said yesterday?\nAYes.\nQIn what part of Europe did it have its origin?\nAThe first studies of anthropology were made by Charles Darwin, an Englishman. It was in his theory of evolution.\nQI am sorry but this translation is not coming through clearly to me. Will you raise your voice a little louder so that I can understand it, and just repeat the last answer.\nTHE INTERPRETER:The witness just said that the beginning of the science of anthropology go back to Charles Darwin, an Englishman, who in his theories of evolution and descent and the natural selection of mates, created the basis for modern biology and modern anthropology.\nTHE WITNESS:Modern anthropology as a science was formulated for the first time in America and was worked out as a scientific system.", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "THE WITNESS", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3650, "page_number": "3643", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "There were people like Grandt, Stoddard, Huxley, Hublix Carr, Heyden, Bradley -- and at the moment I can't remember any others. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQIn the study as you have outlined it in determining these racial characteristics of different peoples within German, did it not have its origin right here in Germany?\nAYes.\nQNow what universities in America do you say have adopted such a theory?\nAThe University of Yale.\nQAre you familiar with the studies and writings of Professor Ernest Hooton, head of the Department of Anthropology of Harvard University? H-O-O-T-O-N?\nANo, I am not.\nQHave you read Professor Hooton's writings?\nANo, I don't even know the name.\nQWould you want this Tribunal to believe that American anthropologists adopt the views that you have expressed?\nANo, I did not really say that.\nQIn your studies here in Europe, at least you have taken into consideration this Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. How is it that you are not familiar with the writings of one who had been the head of that department for 15 years?\nAAt the moment, of course, I cannot recall all the names and all the treatises that I read on the subject. If you can give me the titles of these treatises, perhaps it might be possible that I may remember them. I should like to add at this point that in 1944 I received a head injury and since then my memory has been failing occasionally.\nQThis writer is a student of anthropology represented in a great American University as head of that department for a great many years. Do I understand from what you testified both yesterday and today that from a study of the characteristics of the human being by your or by some \n other person rendering a judgment, that you can determine the racial origin of that particular person?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3651, "page_number": "3644", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AYes, that is correct--no, not of the race origin of this person but the conglomeration of all the races that make up that person.\nQFrom my own judgment and it may be helpful to the other members of the Tribunal if I put this question to you: if you will assume that in my home town of Boston, no less than 30 races are represented by the people who reside there, do you contend that you could pick out a group of eight or ten and within 24 hours determine the racial origin of each of the persons?\nAI would like to emphasize once again that it was not a question of determining the racial origin but rather the racial conglomeration of these people. I probably could do that in Boston as well, although that is just because conditions are easier there than in Germany.\nQOf course you have read obviously that America is the melting pot of all the races. Do you mean to say that you could pick out the racial strain of each individual as you studied them?\nANo, that certainly one cannot do in every individual case. However, there are men who have such a complicated conglomeration of external characteristics so that one cannot even give a probable exact characteristics of the racial components of that man.\nQIsn't anthropology a modern science, practically an outgrowth of the studies that only have been brought into consideration with the last 50 years?\nANo, I think that the scientific basis of anthropology as a science and especially the establishment of which characteristics are the important ones to characterize a racial strain is probably about 50 or 60 years, old.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3652, "page_number": "3645", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.It really doesn't go back to Darwinism, does it?\nA.No, not this matter, of course; nor did I say that Darwin was the creator of anthropology, but I think he was a precusor-a forefather who led us towards anthropology through his science, and especially in the course of theories of the selections of mates.\nQ.Then I assume from what you have said throughout your testimony and from what you have said to me that it requires a rather scientific study by those who have devoted their lives to the study of it.\nA.I didn't understand.\nQ.May I state it again? Does it not require an exhaustive study on the part of men like yourself to determine these factors?\nA.Yes, that is correct. The examination of a man to determine his racial strains, to be carried out exactly one must be an expert anthropologist.\nQ.If that is so, then why is it that you undertook to say that a group of men could be trained by you within a few hours or a few days to make this study and to render decisions on whether a person was a German or an ethnic German or the origin of his race?\nA.These racial examiners, of course, did not have an expert opinion concerning all the racial strains of the man to be examined, but their duty was only to determine whether the man involved, according to his whole external characteristics, would fall into one of the four wellknown evaluation groups. Would he find difficulties in the course of this, then he would leave the decision open on this case, and the case then was submitted to the anthropological expert for a final judgment.\nQ.Do you think you could train me in a matter of a week to discover all these characteristics?\nA.The more intelligent a man is the more difficult it would be to lead him with questions to the things that are psychologically to be found out; therefore, one needs more time if the man is more intelligent. However, in the case of our resettlers, they were mostly primitive men in every respect.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3653, "page_number": "3646", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Did this have its real active origin through RuSHA, or had it been done prior to RuSHA taking it up?\nA.The racial examinations, Your Honor, is that correct?\nQ.Yes. Had that been done prior to, as you say, the racial examiners doing it? Had that been done in Germany prior to that time?\nA.Yes, of course. Such examinations were carried out by scientists for their own private scientific purposes again and again.\nQ.But you say for their own private knowledge.\nA.Officially, such things were carried out for the first time, as far as I know, in Germany by the Race and Settlement Main Office; that is to say, in determining whether or not a man was eligible for membership into the SS.\nQ.Now turning to another subject. The defense counsel examining you called attention to the fact that subsequent to your being announced as a witness for the Defense, that you were moved from one place to another and then to some other place, and then at one point put in solitary confinement. Do you contend that you were in any way ill-treated?\nA.Bodily mistreatment did not take place; however, I was told on the 15 of October, when I did not know yet that I was expected here, that I would be hanged.\nQ.Who told you that?\nA.The MIT officer of the camp Augsburg-Goeggingen, Mr. Strauss.\nQ.Thank you. The man who said that was Mr. Strauss?\nA.Yes, Mr. Strauss.\nQ.And the date you gave was what?\nA.The 15 of October 1947.\nQ.Was that before you were placed in solitary confinement?\nA.No, that was subsequent to this investigation, I was put in prison for seven weeks.\nQ.Were you imprisoned prior to that investigation?\nA.Yes, before that I was interned, and before that, I was a Russian \n prisoner of war.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3654, "page_number": "3647", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.When you were placed in solitary confinement, were you subjected to any ill-treatment or insufficient food?\nA.No.\nQ.What did the solitary confinement consist of other than being obliged to sleep alone?\nA.Well, I would like to correct that. It was not a real solitary confinement. There were two cellar rooms. They were moist and dirty. For the most time, there were also other prisoners there by reason of criminal activity.\nQ.What quarters were furnished you before being placed in solitary confinement?\nA.Before that, I was interned in the internment camp AugsburgGoeggingen.\nQ.Did you report to anyone this threat which you say was made that you would be hanged?\nA.No, I did not. An official report? No.\nQ.Why didn't you call it to the attention of someone in authority to see whether that man had any right to make such a statement to you?\nA.As long as I was in prison, there was no possibility for me to do that, for we were not allowed to read or to write, nor was I allowed to have in my possession any paper or writing material. After that in the camp while I was there for a few days I was forbidden to leave that camp. Besides, Mr. Strauss was feared, and one was afraid to make such reports at the time.\nQ.Just repeat that last sentence: Mr. Strauss was feared....\nA.People were afraid of Mr. Strauss in the camp. He was a feared man, and therefore they did not make any reports.\nQ.Did your treatment become better or worse, or did it continue the same after the date of this alleged threat?\nA.After this threat, of course I was put into prison only then.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3655, "page_number": "3648", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Before that, I was an ordinary civilian internee. I performed heavy manual labor as all the other prisoners.\nQ.You say all this took place after you had been announced as a defense witness?\nA.No, I did not know anything about that at the time. Only on 6 of January 1948 of this year, on the day when I was transferred to the jail here, I found out that I was to be a witness in the Nurnberg trial. That I found out on the 6 of January in the morning, and at the time I was in the camp Langwasser.\nQ.Have you been indicted on any charge whatsoever?\nA.No.\nQ.Have you been subjected to any form of military trial?\nA.No, I was only subject to automatic arrest.\nQ.That is all. Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness is excused.) Who will you call next?\nDR. HEIM:With the permission of the Tribunal I would like to call Heinrich Bauer, as my sixth direct witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHEINRICHBAUER, a witness, came to the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HEINRICH", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3656, "page_number": "3649", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM;\nQ. Witness, will you please make a pause between my question and your answer so that the interpreters have a chance to catch up. Will you please tell the Tribunal your full personal data.\nA. My name is Heinrich Bauer. I was born on 22 July 1907 in Hoenningen.\nQ. Where were you born?\nA. In Hoenningen on the Ahr.\nQ. Were you a member of the Party?\nA. Yes, since the year 1932.\nQ. Were you also a member of the SS?\nA. Yes, since 1932; my last rank was an SS Untersturmfuehrer in the Waffen-SS.\nQ. Witness, you will please have to talk a bit more slowly so that the interpretor has a chance to catch up with you. What was your rank in the Waffen SS?\nA. Untersturmfuehrer.\nQ. When did you come first into contact with RuSHA?\nA. That was in the year 1934.\nQ. What was your capacity?\nA. I was an expert in the personnel department.\nQ. How long were you attached to the RuSHA?\nA. Until my conscription into military service on 10 August 1939.\nQ. What was your last position before the war?\nA. I was Referent at the welfare office, 35th SS Standart in Kassel.\nQ. When the war began when did you first come into contact with RuSHA?\nA. That was at the beginning of 1941.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3657, "page_number": "3650", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q. What were your special duties there?\nA. I was an expert in the Eugenics office.\nQ. What were your special duties connected with that office?\nA. I worked on SS membership applications, on applications for fiancees and marriages, the re-examination of genealogical records, and various welfare matters.\nQ. Were there many genealogical records submitted after the war had begun?\nA. No, that was impossible because the procurement of documents at the time was very difficult.\nQ. Was that the main sub-division of the Eugenics office SIP-I?\nA. Yes, that was the main sub-division SIP-I.\nQ. You said that you had something to do with the reexamination of genealogical records. Just what work was done on these genealogical records?\nA. These records were compared to the documents that were submitted at the same time and then they were put on to index cards.\nQ. This sub-division I, besides having that one index file, did that also have another one, especially an index file in which were contained all Jews living in Germany?\nA. No, there was only one card index file which originated from this putting on file cards of the genealogical records of the SS.\nQ. For how long were you occupied with this work?\nA. Until November 1941.\nQ. Were you then transferred to the Ukraine?\nA. Yes, I was there since August 1942.\nQ. What was your capacity?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3658, "page_number": "3651", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A. I was staff leader of the SS Fuehrer in race and settlement affairs.\nQ. Did all RUS leaders have a staff leader attached?\nA. No, only that one.\nQ. And why just this one?\nA. Because the further activity was very large by reason of the agricultural workers in that area.\nQ. How long were you in this office?\nA. Until April 1944, the retreat of the Russians, and then by the disolution of this agency my activities there came to an end.\nQ. And what did you do then?\nA. I was transferred to the SS leader in race and settlement affairs and I there had the same capacity with part of the personnel at the Higher SS and Police leader East.\nQ. Who was the head of this agency?\nA. That was SS Standartenfuehrer Henschel.\nQ. Were your activities there different from what you performed in Kiev?\nA. No, I had the same duties; it was just that we were in contact with different agencies.\nQ. What were these offices in the Government General?\nA. That was for one the SS economists and the Department Food and Agriculture of the Government General.\nQ. Could you establish whether or not a proportional transfer of the duties of the various agencies took place or not?\nA. Yes, the full activity had been extended and expecially concerning welfare and general care. That followed in the first place by reason of the large numbers of ethnic Germans in the Government General and in the second place because the front line were near and more and more field hospitals were created and then also the uniformed regular police which was a purely Polish troop unit was cared \n for by us according to the provisions in the law and we also performed welfare tasks in connection with them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3659, "page_number": "3652", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q. Did you have anything to do with the care of ethnic Germans in the work of the Government General?\nA. No, I did not.\nQ. Did you have anything to do with the so-called operation for persons of German stock in the Government General?\nA. No.\nQ. How long actually was your activity there?\nA. At the end of September 1944 I was transferred to a mobile troop unit of the SS office of the Sturmbannfuehrer.\nQ. Thank you, no further questions. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ. In connection with some of the answers the witness gave I would like to profound the following questions. Witness, you were on duty in Southern Russia?\nA. Yes.\nQ. Are you the author of the document I am just handing you now, which is a week report of the RUS leader South Russia. At the end of the document you will see please that this report is signed Bauer; that is with the name you bear.\nA. Yes, I am the author of this report.\nQ. This is Exhibit 509, Document No. 3224. This report mentions estates near Kursk which at the time were administered by economic experts and which would be very suitable for your agency. These enterprises, were they taken over by your agency?\nA. These enterprises were no t taken over by our agency. At the time the SS economist of RuSHA called up the agency.\nQ. Thank you witness; that is sufficient for me if you say this taking over did not take place.\nA. No, it did not take place but the front was very near at the time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3660, "page_number": "3653", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q. Did the settlement office take over enterprises into their own account at all in Russia?\nA. No, the settlement office did not take over any property and make it their own. These were only enterprises which were given from the economic experts of the Food and Agriculture to administration to the RUS leaders.\nQ. That is to say that there was only a connection in personal matters between the RuSHA, resettlement office, and you, these SS members which were appointed to administer these enterprises?\nA. Yes, there was only a connection as far as personnel was concerned.\nQ. To whom were these people subordinate and responsible as far as their work was concerned?\nA. In technical matters they were subordinate to the Food and Agriculture or the SS economists.\nQ. Will you please clarify what you mean by the Department Food and Agriculture?\nA. The Department Food and Agriculture was the civilian institution of the Reich Commissioner which was responsible and competent for agricultural matters.\nQ. What were the duties of this Department Food and Agriculture in general?\nA. They were responsible for the supplies of the combat troops with agricultural products, fresh vegetables and so on.\nQ. Were these enterprises State owned enterprises?\nA. Yes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3661, "page_number": "3654", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.In this working report, furthermore, you mention the expression SS Base. What did that mean?\nA.The expression SS Base meant merely a differentiation between this and the civilian agricultural settlement.\nQ.Furthermore, this report mentions a meeting which you, together with Schill, had at the house of Dr. Sommerkamp; in the course of this meeting you talked about the erection of new SS bases. What was the function of this Dr. Sommerkamp?\nA.Dr. Sommerkamp was the leader of the main division Food and Agriculture in the office of the Reich Commissar and had the superior supervision about the enterprises that we administered.\nQ.And what was the result of this meeting?\nA.The result of this meeting was that Dr. Sommerkamp wanted to appoint us as administrator for further enterprises because we had done such good work. Then we also talked about the enterprises that were planned to be turned over to us and where they were located.\nQ.We shall now turn to a different matter in this report. You were talking about children without parents, orphans, This was a meeting between Weiner and the BDS in the period of time from the 12th to 15th of October 1942, I would Like to clarify an expression of the witness. The witness has used the expression Reich Commissar. That, however, is not identical with the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism. This was only a civilian agency, that is, he is the Reich Commissioner for the Ukraine. Witness, I now want to ask you whether the examination of orphans that is mentioned in this report actually took place?\nA.No, this examination did not take place.\nQ.But this report reads that the orphans were to be collected in camps by the SD and your agency was to be informed of that. Did that not take place?\nA.No, we were never informed.\nQ.How was the procedure of collaboration of the RUS leader in the examination of house servants in your area of the Ukraine?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3662, "page_number": "3655", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.We were consulted in about two or three cases. This work of the racial examiner was done according to the directives that were valid for this type of work.\nQ.Could you examine people all through the Ukraine in this respect?\nA.No, the area was too extensive for that. We only had one examiner and temporarily another one so then it would have been impossible at all to carry out this work.\nQ.Did you have any special directions from the RuSHA for these cases?\nA.No.\nQ.In these two or three cases which you have just mentioned, what were the results of the examination?\nA.There were girls selected that were to be put in household positions.\nQ.And what further on happened to them?\nA.These servants were brought to Germany.\nQ.And who was the competent authority for that?\nA.The agency was called Recruitment Agency for Travelers to Germany from Kiev.\nQ.Was that an agency of the RuSHA?\nA.No, as far as I know this was an agency of Sauckel\nQ.These selective servants, were they happy about it?\nA.They were obviously pleased that they were to be put in household positions.\nQ.Had these girls been recruited before; they had been examined.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You yourself, that is your agency, did you have any influence on the course of this recruiting?\nA.No, they had been recruited before.\nQ.Did you know whether these girls had volunteered for work in Germany?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3663, "page_number": "3656", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.I could not know that for I had nothing to do with the recruiting itself. In personal conversation with some of the girls, however, I found out that they were very pleased to learn to know Germany.\nQ.You then had the impression that they were volunteers?\nA.Yes, I certainly had that impression.\nQ.In this report before you, you have also made an application for more racial examiners. Did you get more racial examiners for the purpose of making these examinations on household employees?\nA.No, although I had applied for these people at the RuSHA no more racial examiners were sent to me.\nQ.Did RuSHA possess real estate in the Ukraine?\nA.No.\nQ.The SS men for whom you found jobs, did they have the free right of disposal over the products of these enterprises?\nA.No, that could only take place with the permission of the area Commissioner, that is to say the SS Economist of that area. It is not even possible that the men could simply take out butter for their own use.\nQ.Your superior there was Schill. Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.We now have a document that talks about the great importance of Schill for the agriculture in that area. Was the whole agricultural administration in this area subordinate to Schill?\nA.No.\nQ.What were his duties there?\nA.Schill's duties were to place the SS men that were assigned to him from the RuSHA according to food and agriculture and previous training into various enterprises. With the agriculture itself he had nothing to do for, for these matters the competent authority was the Department Food and Agriculture of the civilian institution.\nQ.What previous training had these SS men?\nA.They were mostly sons of farmers or men who had been employed before in agriculture.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3664, "page_number": "3657", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.Did they have a certain re-training in the course of being in contact with your agency?\nA.Yes, they were trained and re-trained. For instance a former man who had milked cows and who had lost an arm in the war was not able to perform his duties in that profession and therefore would have to be retrained, Therefore, for instance he would be assigned to an expert for tree growing and was re-trained.\nQ.And what was the activity of these men after they had been assigned?\nA.The duties of these people when they were assigned was to carry out the agricultural plan which was scheduled by the Department of Food and Agriculture and to examine it, to take care of cultivating the ground, and to advise the enterprises with regard to dead and living live stock.\nQ.Witness, in a document mention is made of horses that were said to be property of the RuSHA. This is a balance sheet of the year 1945, that is, from the time of the retreat. You told me that you were present when the German military forces retreated from Russia. Could you perhaps explain this expression RUS owned horses.\nA.This expression is very familiar to me in contrast. It wishes to differentiate between those horses and the horses that were civilian owned and horses that the Russians had left behind and for contrast this expression of RUS owned horses was created but it never meant to say that they were horses that belonged to the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3665, "page_number": "3658", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWell, of course that happened in the confusion of the retreat.\nAYes, of course in course of such a retreat everything was confused, so that we had to clarify certain things when these various troop trains got together again.\nQAnd the horses and this other property did not become real property of the RuSHA did they?\nANo.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, when you were in the eugenics office, that is up until November, 1941, did you at any time see any files on Jews or half-Jews?\nTHE PRESIDENT:When the whistle blew, I think the witness used the best judgment of anybody in the court house.\nQWitness, let me repeat my question. As I recall your direct examination, you stated that when you were in the eugenics office, which is up until November 1941, you never saw any index on Jews in Germany. Now, my question is, witness, did you at any time see any files or file cards on Jews or mixed Jews?\nANo, I did not.\nQWitness, I should like to refer again to this report made by you from the Ukraine, which is Document No.NO-3224, Prosecution Exhibit 509, in Document Book VI-C. You still have the copy before you, witness?\nAYes, I still have it with me.\nQWill you please look at page 4?\nAYes, I have it before me.\nQDo you see there, witness, mention of induction classifications of men for the police forces?\nA.Yes, I see that.", "speakers": [ "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3666, "page_number": "3659", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWitness, did all these men, and your report state that they were mainly Ukrainian with a few Poles and a few ethnic Germans, that all these men volunteered for the police forces.\nAThese people had already been recruited, that is they were already in uniform and served with the higher SS and police leader South Russia this was a subsequent examination.\nQWitness, my question was: Do you know whether or not these men had volunteered for the police forces or had been drafted against their will?\nAI really cannot answer that question.\nQWitness, on direct examination you stated with regard to the orphan children or rather the proposition of the collection of orphan children by the security service and later information to be given to you, that so far as you knew you had never received such information; is that correct?\nANo, we never talked about that again, and we never received a report of the chief of the SD.\nQWitness, do you know whether or not any such report was received in the office of the RuS leader for the Ukraine after you had left that office?\nAAfter I left that office?\nQYes, witness.\nAI really don't know anything about that.\nQWitness, you were the one who conducted the discussions in connection with the proposal to collect the orphan children, were you not?\nAThat was a preliminary negotiation in which this matter was only discussed very much in brief; it was said in the course of this meeting that there was a plan to collect these orphans through the chief of the SD; it was a very brief discussion, however, and we were supposed to hear more about that and get directions in details after the chief of the security police had collected some of these orphans in one camp.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3667, "page_number": "3660", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWitness, may I ask a question. What was the purpose of the collection of these orphans?\nAI never knew anything about the actual purpose of this. Actually it was only a very short discussion and the only thing that came out of it was that we perhaps might be consulted for an examination of these children. At the time nothing was said about what sort of examination was to be carried out.\nQWitness, the orphans concerned were any orphans in the area; is that correct? Ukrainian, Polish orphans or German orphans, in any area under your control.\nAI can't even say that, for I don't even know that children were concerned; they only said orphans in the course of the discussion.\nQWitness, as staff leader attached to the staff of the Rus leader, you saw the orders which came in; did you not?\nAYes, I saw the orders that we received.\nQWitness, were any of these orders signed by the defendant Schwalm?\nANo order were signed by the defendant Schwalm.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, you have answered that question; let me ask you one more question. From what offices of RuSHA did you get orders and with what did they deal? Please answer it briefly - such as you got orders in connection with racial examinations from a certain office, and so on.\nAAll racial matters were given to us by the Race Office and otherwise they were mostly directives concerning personnel which either came from the personnel department or from the Settlement Office, and dealt with the quartering and housing of SS members.\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I only have one question -- with the permission of the Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3668, "page_number": "3661", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ: (Attorney for defendant Hofmann)\nQWitness, you were asked whether after you had left that office whether it might have been possible that there had been more reports on this collection of orphans. Is it correct that you were active with the agency Ukraine-South until the last minute, that is until this office was dissolved?\nAMy orders were to dissolve this office. However, it never came to my knowledge that there were any more concerning these orphans, nor did I read anything in the files about it.\nDR. SCHWARZ:It has been pointed out to me that Security Police was translated SD or the other way around. However, it was only the SD.\nThank you, I have no further questions.\nDR. HEIM:I have no further question, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HEIM:As my last witness, with the permission of the Court, I should like to call Dr. Hertha Suadicani as a direct witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am rather inclined to think that probably the hand of the clock would jump before you could get her into the stand, so the Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours, 14 January 1948.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3669, "page_number": "3662", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 14 January 1948) THE MARSHAL:\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal at this time desires to call the attention of all Counsel to the announcement made sometime before the holidays, to the effect that no documents would be received by the translation department for the purpose of being translated as evidence in this case after January 15th - - that is, tomorrow; so that after 4:30 tomorrow afternoon the Translation Department will receive no further documents for the purpose of translation to be used as evidence in this case.\nNow, the Translation Department has just submitted to the Tribunal a book of which Dr. Haensel is the author, expressing his views about Control Council Law 10, so I am advised. This is a rather heavy document to be translated, and the Translation Department in view of the fact that it might not have any evidentiary value, and in view of the fact that the Translation Department is now facing the biggest back-log since the Tribunal started, therefore, they have the requested instructions from the Court as to whether this instrument should be translated as evidence. The Tribunal has discussed the matter and is of the opinion that this document has no place in the evidence. We will be very gald to have Dr. Haensel's views expressed in his brief, but we do not think this document would have any probative value as evidence. So, this document will not be translated as evidence.\nDR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt) I thank the Tribunal for the kind attention which they have paid to my request.\nI did not intend that the book should be translated in its entirety, but I thought that several extracts from it should be translated which I have clearly marked down in my accompanying letter. However, I can add these extracts to my brief if I want to, but here we have the advantage that if we take the small extracts which \n have been noted here, and which have some probative value -- they have been noted in this letter -- then, I could immediately use them if they were translated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3670, "page_number": "3663", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "That is the only consideration on which I based the request; I don't want the whole book translated.\nTHE PRESIDENT: We prefer to have the evidence in one place and the arguments in another.\nNow, I desire to call Counsel's attention again to the fact that since RuSHA. started their evidence, with the exception of probably about one hour, which was lost through no fault of Counsel, seven days expired today at noon. So, that, with the exception of this one hour, the additional time hereafter used by the RuSHA defendnts who are now presenting evidence will be charged up to and deducted from the five and one-half hours originally allotted to the defendant Hildebrandt.\nIf there is any objections to that, let's have it now or forever hereafter hold your peace.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3671, "page_number": "3664", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "DR.HEIM (Counsel for the defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, I would like to take it upon myself to state that on Friday the Court recessed at 1145 hours in the morning, so that, as a result of that, half a day and half an hour were lost.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You consumed four and a half days last week, two and a half this week, which adds up to seven.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I believe that, in the meantime, a witness appeared here on the witness stand on behalf of VOMI.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I said I was giving you credit for an hour for that.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I personally did not need longer than the three and a half days which had been granted to me originally.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I was simply making this announcement so that there would be no misunderstanding hereafter about it.\nWhom will you call next?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, as my next direct witness, and as my last witness, I wish to call Dr. Hertha Suadicani.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nDR. HERTHASUADICANI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath).\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQPlease give the Tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is Hertha Suadicani. I was born on the 22nd of June, 1915, at Berlin. I now live at Stoers in Luedteburg, at Holstein.\nQWhat did you study and when did you complete your studies?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. HERTHA", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3672, "page_number": "3665", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AI studied philology at Berlin, and I completed my studies in the year 1939 - in December of that year - when I passed my Doctor's examination.\nQDid you work for the settlement staff at Lodz?\nAYes.\nQWhen was that?\nAI came to Poznan with a group of students in February of 1940, and a month later I was transferred to Lodz, where I had to take case of the work of the settlement staff.\nQDid you come to that agency by virtue of your training, or by virtue of your former activity?\nASince December I had participated in the work of a student group in the VDA at Berlin. That was the preliminary work, of a scientific nature, for the resettlement and settlement programs.\nQIn this student group, at the time, was there any contact with the SS?\nANo, there was no contact at all. Until the time when I entered the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar in the Warthegau, I did not have any contact with SS agencies or the SS leadership.\nQYou stated before that you worked with the settlement staff at Lodz as a scientific collaborator. What tasks did you have to take care of for the settlement staff?\nAThere, above all, I had to collect scientific data, statistics, and things of that sort, which related to the racial groups in their country of origin and their lives in the settlement areas. Then, I also dealt with organizational questions, especially with the develop ment and establishment of a card index file of the settlers.\nQDo you know the defendant Schwalm?\nAYes.\nQWhen and where did you meet him for the first time?\nAI met Herr Schwalm for the first time in the year 1940 - it must \n have been at the end of 1940 - at Lodz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3673, "page_number": "3666", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Then again, later on, in the year 1944, I met him at Berlin.\nQCan you tell us what position Schwalm occupied at Lodz?\nASchwalm was the head of the Field Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Lodz.\nQDo you know whether Herr Schwalm had anything to do with the EWZ?\nAI cannot recall that.\nQWhat rank did Schwalm have at the time?\nAHe was a Sturmbannfuehrer in the Waffen-SS.\nQWitness, were you able to observe the work of the Field Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office at Lodz?\nASeveral times, whenever lectures were given to the race and settlement leaders at the field office there, I would be present. As a result of this, I gained an idea of the work which was done there.\nQWhat impression did you gain of the families who were selected for re-Germanization?\nAThese families made an excellent impression on mo. After all, they had been given a preliminary examination previously.\nQCould you perhaps give us a comparison between the families who were eligible for re-Germanization and the resettlers.\nAOn the average, they were on a higher level - that is to say, the average of the families who were eligible for re-Germanization.\nQDid you ever notice that any coercion was used on the people who wanted to join the re-Germanization procedure?\nANo, no coercion was used at all, because, after all, these people were supposed to feel like Germans later on, and they could only do that on the basis of volunteering, in the opinion of the men who worked in the field office.\nQDo you know whether these people were informed quite openly at the field office as to just what measures were concerned in this \n procedure?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3674, "page_number": "3667", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AYes, they were told that, if they wished, they could go to Germany and could obtain German nationality there.\nQWere these people also asked whether they were willing and ready to obtain German nationality?\nAYes, that was told to them several times and, especially, this was done a short time before they began their trip to Germany.\nQHow did these people react if one talked with them about their re-Germanization?\nATheir reaction varied. Some of them stated at the very beginning that they wanted to remain Polish and that they wanted to continue their residences in the Government General; some of them declared themselves ready and even expressed the desire to go to Germany.\nQTherefore, we have two groups here. If people stated that they did not wish to become Germanized, what happened to them?\nAThey could either return to their hometown or home village, or they were sent back to the camp from which they had come.\nQAs to the other group, which you have just referred to, which declared themselves willing to become re-Germanized, were the families kept together, or were the families separated by force?\nANo, the families were kept together as a unit. Also, in those cases where individual members of a family were not present, these members of the family could be called upon to join the family, and then the family would be sent to Germany together, with the exception, of course, of those adult children who had already been independent and who wanted to remain so, that is to say, who wanted to stay away from their families.\nQWhat was the situation with regard to children who were not grown up and who were not as yet independent?\nAThose children remained with their families.\nQWitness, do you know whether children were registered as individual persons in official drives, and selected? In this case I refer in \n particular to the time from September 1940 until September 1941.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3675, "page_number": "3668", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "That is the time when Schwalm was in charge of the field office at Lodz.\nAI know nothing whatsoever about that. It is only possible that children from orphanages, who did not have any parents, were sent to foster homes in Germany. However, I cannot give you any precise information about that, because I know nothing about it myself.\nQDo you know to whom the field office of RuSHA at Lodz was subordinated?\nAIt was directly subordinated to RuSHA.\nQDo you know who was in charge of that agency?\nAThe chief was the then Obergruppenfuehrer Hildebrandt. He succeeded Hofmann.\nQDr. Suadicani, you haven't quite correctly understood my question. Who was in charge of the field office of RuSHA at Lodz?\nAThat was Schwalm.\nQAnd do you know the time during which he occupied that position?\nAFrom the end of 1940 until the end of 1941. I cannot recall the exact month.\nQWas the field office of RuSHA at Lodz not always subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader at Poznan, whose name was Koppe?\nANo.\nQI am now going to hand you Document No.NO-2555, Exhibit 34, from Document Book II-B of the Prosecution. This is the organizational chart which you have compiled and which you submitted together with an affidavit.\nAYes, but I made a mistake there. In this case I must correct two things. First of all, the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS was subordinated to the Reichsfuehrer SS, but of course not to the Reichsfuehrer in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQYes. Do you know in what capacity RuSHA was subordinated to \n Himmler?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3676, "page_number": "3669", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AWill you repeat that please?\nQDo you know in what capacity Himmler was in charge of RuSHA?\nAIt was one of his main offices.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, Himmler was in charge of it in his capacity as Reichsfuehrer SS?\nAYes.\nQSecondly, I made another mistake on this chart. In this sketch I did not subordinate the field office at Lodz directly to RuSHA at Berlin, but first to SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Wilhelm Koppe as the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQI believe you have made a mistake here. Please take a look at your sketch. What was Koppe's position?\nAKoppe was the Higher SS and Police Leader at Poznan.\nQTherefore he was not the representative of the Reich Commissar?\nAHe was the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3677, "page_number": "3670", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QIn his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nAYes.\nQWitness, were you familiar with Koppe's attitude?\nAYes.\nQWith Koppe's attitude, would he have permitted the designation \"Field Office of RuSHA at Lodz\" if that agency had been subordinated to him--that is to say, Koppe?\nAWhen I consider the matter carefully once more, I would say no.\nQCouldn't you take it, from the designation \"Field Office of RuSHA at Lodz\", that this agency was not subordinated to Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe?\nAYes, of course; I should have given consideration to that fact.\nQHow much personal knowledge do you have of organizational questions?\nAI can only give you precise information about the field of work of the settlement staff at Lodz.\nQDid you ever ascertain the fact that the work of the field office at Lodz was only a camouflage measure in order to obtain slave labor for Germany and to send those people into the Reich?\nAThe expression \"slave labor\" was not known to us at all at the time. I only know that the field office at Lodz dealt with those Polish families who were eligible for re-Germanization and who were then sent into the Reich. It also trained Race and Settlement Leaders for the examination of resettlers, and it also furnished these examiners.\nQWere old people brought into the Reich, together with the children?\nAThat also happened, if these old people belonged to the families.\nQWere these old people and these children found suitable in order to be used as slave laborers?\nANo.\nQDid Schwalm have anything to do with the DVL procedure?\nAI know nothing about that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3678, "page_number": "3671", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QDid anything in particular come to your attention on that subject?\nANo. I would assume that he had nothing to do with it because this was a completely independent agency, which was quite independent of the other agencies and which had its own administrative machinery.\nQYou said it had a different administrative machine. What administrative apparatus were you referring to?\nAI was referring to that of the Reichstatthalter.\nQAnd to whom was this administrative machinery subordinated on the highest level?\nAIn the Gau it was subordinated to the Reichstatthalter.\nQAnd with regard to the Reich Ministries?\nATo the Ministry of the Interior.\nQDo you know whether Schwalm had any factual connections with these agencies which were working on the DVL?\nAI don't think so.\nQDo you know when Schwalm left the agency at Lodz, and do you know what he did afterwards?\nAAs far as I can recall, he left the agency towards the end of 1941, and then he was transferred to the Waffen_SS.\nQAs you stated at the beginning of your examination, you saw Schwalm for the second time in 1944 at Berlin. Can you give us the approximate time when this occurred?\nAIt was in the summer; it must have been in the months of May or June, 1944.\nQDo you know what position Schwalm occupied in Berlin at the time?\nASchwalm, at the time, was the staff leader, of RuSHA.\nQOn what occasion did you establish contact with Schwalm at Berlin for the second time?\nAThe agency of the SS Main Office, to which I had been transferred, was located in the same building as RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3679, "page_number": "3672", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QAs far as you know, can you tell us whether Schwalm, as a Staff Leader, was the Deputy of the Chief of RuSHA?\nANo, he was not, The Deupty of the Chief was Staatsrat Dr. Turner.\nQDo you know whether the offices of RuSHA were subordinated to Schwalm?\nANo. Most offices, at the time, were no longer located in Berlin.\nQSince you were in the same building, do you know just what was subordinated to Schwalm?\nAHe probably only had to deal with the technical questions of the Main Office.\nQDo you know whether Schwalm had a lot to do with organizational matters, that is to say, the organizational work which was involved in the taking over of the Main Welfare Office of the Waffen_SS?\nAYes. This was a matter in which Schwalm took a lot of interest.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. SCHWARZ (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann):\nQI would like to ask one question.\nWitness, you spoke about the re-Germanization procedure, and you stated that this re-Germanization procedure was not applied in order to gain slave labor for Germany. I would now like to clarify one fundamental point. I have a document before me here which represents the first directives for the work of the field office at Lodz. This is Exhibit 141, in Document Book IV.D. Now, these people who were to be re-Germanized were divided up into three groups, Group A, S, and U. Will you please take a look at the document? I now want to ask you the following: To what extent was the re-Germanization procedure actually carried out? Were Groups S and U also selected?\nAWhenever I took a part in examining Polish families and Polish individuals, such a division into groups never came to my attention. At \n that time we only dealt with those people who were eligible for reGermanization, and I don't think that any other groups were selected in that respect.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3680, "page_number": "3673", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QIf you take a look at the document, you will find that the people who were undesirable for re-Germanization have been listed under Group S. These people were to be sent into Germany as seasonal workers for labor allocation. However, they were to keep their permanent residences in the Government-General.\nAAs far as I know, this drive was carried out only by the labor offices and not through this agency. I cannot testify as to anything about it.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. HAENSEL (Counsel for the defendant Greifelt):\nQI have two subjects, witness, upon which I would like to ask you some questions. One subject deals with mathematics and trigonometry and the other one is historical and philological, and sine it is more difficult. I would like to begin with it right away.\nYou have already testified about the chart which you were asked about by my esteemed and learned colleague Heim. This is the enclosure to Exhibit 34, and it is documentNO-2555. You began this chart with the Reichsfuehrer-SS as the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Before you answer my question as to whether this designation is correct, I would like to ask you to take a look at the chart which is behind you. Don't look so much at the top one, where Himmler has eight heads, that is too much, but take a look at the chart which is underneath that one. I would like to ask you this: Was Himmler the representative of Hitler as Reich Commissar? Is that designation correct?\nAHe was the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQHowever, we also have a representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nAHowever, we also have a representative of the Reich Commissar for \n the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3681, "page_number": "3674", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AThat was on the Gau level, and that was the Gauleiter and Reichstatthalter.\nQDo you know that there was also an agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar?\nAYes.\nQUnder that title?\nAYes.\nQNow, in your chart there is listed an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nAWell, I used the wrong designation here.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3682, "page_number": "3675", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QThen there is another agency listed on your chart-the Agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Obergruppenfuehrer Greifelt. Do you know the designation: \"Main Staff Office?\"\nAYes, that will be appropriate here.\nQThat is what you were referring to?\nAYes, I was referring to the Main Staff Office, to the Agency of Obergruppenfuehrer Greifelt.\nQDo you know that the representative of the Reich Commissar was directly subordinated to the Reich Commissar and that the Reich Commissar could issue direct instructions to him?\nAYes.\nQAnd what was the position of the Main Staff Office in that respect?\nAThe Main Staff Office could be included but it did not have to he included at all times. Himmler quite frequently would issue instructions directly to the representatives of the Reich Commissar.\nQTherefore in your chart, one would have to speak about the Reichsfuehrer and then one would have to draw a little arched line to the third box that is the representative of the Reich Commissar.\nAYes.\nQOn the lowest level you have just stated that RuSHA had a field office at Lodz and it was of subordinated to what you call the services of the Reich Commissar.\nAAt the time I thought that Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, as the highest SS leader in the Gau, was in charge of all SS agencies in that Gau-- at least with regard to personnel questions -- and that is what I was trying to reproduce here.\nQWell, that has been clarified in the meantime: what about the UWZ at Lodz, the second box.\nAAll the agencies which I have listed here therefore were not subordinated to the Higher SS and Police Leader and certainly not this agency of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3683, "page_number": "3676", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QVery well. My esteemed, colleague Heim has discussed several questions with you previously in which he used the rather vague words \"at the time.\" Let us try to clarify the term \"at the Time\" a little bit. Can you recall that in October 1939 Himmler made a very wellknown speech?\nAHimmler?\nQI made a mistake; Hitler, I mean.\nAYes, on the 6th of October Hitler held a speech in the Reichstag which referred to resettlement and settlement.\nQWhen this speech was given, what position did you occupy at the time?\nAAt the time I was still studying and it was a short time before I took my examination.\nQWhat recollection do you have as far as your life subsequently was brought into connection with that speech?\nASeveral friends of mine worked since the end of October in the VDA within the scope of the scientific work of this students' group, to which I have referred before, and which I entered in December.\nQIf I understood you correctly, all this must have happened after the sixth of October 1939.\nAYes, in this speech Hitler pointed out that the German minority groups in the east of Europe always had been and still were the cause of friction between the nations, and that in order to establish a clear separation of the minorities he now was negotiating with the Soviet Union in order to carry out resettlements. Those were the approximate contents of this speech.\nQDo you believe that there might be a human being who does not know what VDA stands for?\nAI don't think so.\nQWould you please explain to us what it means.\nAIt is a League for Germans abroad.\nQDid this agency exist already long before October 1939?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3684, "page_number": "3677", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AThe VDA was already in existence before 1939.\nQWhat problems did it deal with before October 1939?\nAThe VDA had to carry out welfare work and it had to deal with the problems of all the German minority groups abroad.\nQHow were these Germans called who lived as a group abroad amongst other nations?\nAThey were called \"The German minorities.\"\nQDo you know anything about a protection for minorities?\nAYes, this was specified in the Versailles Treaty.\nQAnd were these plans for a clear separation of minority groups actually worked on by your students' group after 6 October 1939? Was it the same thing as a protection for minorities or was it something else?\nAThe work in which I participated was only to bring the resettlement into new forms in order to solve all the problems in the East.\nQCan you still recall just what sciences were used in the work which you carried out?\nAWe dealt with literature about the minority groups. We collected this literature and we also collected the statistics whenever they were available to us.\nQWhen you completed this work, what did you do with the material which you had collected?\nAThe material was used as a basis for discussions with the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler.\nQOn this occasion, did you make the acquaintance of the defendant Greifelt?\nANo, I didn't even know that name at the time.\nQIn the course of this work, did it come to your knowledge that negotiations took place in Moscow about these resettlements?\nAYes, in connection with the negotiations which were carried out with regard to the resettlement of the Baltic Germans towards the end of October until early November, negotiations were carried out in \n Moscow, which culminated on the third of November in a treaty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3685, "page_number": "3678", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "In this agreement, it was decided that the Germans in the Soviet sphere of interest should he resettled to the German sphere of interests; and on the other hand, the Russian minority groups, which were living in the German sphere of interest, were to be resettled to the Soviet Union. All these resettlements were to be carried out on a voluntary basis.\nQYou were told that state agreements had been concluded on that subject?\nAYes.\nQDid you hear anything about the term \"triangular exchange\" in this connection?\nAAt the time this was done under the condition that the Russian minority groups would resettle to Soviet Russia and cnsequently there would be space enough for Poles which were to be evacuated from the German sphere of interest in the Government - General, and then in the other areas Ge mans were to be resettled so that this resettlement would be more or less a triangular exchange--it was not to be just a deporation of the Poles which had any connection with the destruction of the Polish national culture. That was not intended at the time. With the agreement which must be contained in your files, this must also be contained, and it should become quite evident.\nQThis actually was a triangle more or less, wasn't it? At three places an exchange was to take place.\nAYes, the Russians were to be sent to the Soviet area: the Germans were to be sent to the Warthegau; and the Poles from the Warthegua were to be transferred to the Government-General, from where the Russians had left.\nQDid this exchange mean that the Germans in this case would be given preferable treatment?\nANo, that can't be said at all because the Polish estates were not kept as well as the estates which the Germans left behind in the area of the present Soviet Union. This has been proved by pictures and \n documents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3686, "page_number": "3679", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QBefore October 1939, did you hear anything about such an exchange?\nANo, all this happened quite suddenly with the outbreak of the war. As to Hitler's speech, I knew nothing about it previously.\nQWas everything handled according to plan just as it had been intended at the time?\nANo, the work of the German agencies was crossed up because the White Russians, Ukranians, Ruthenians and others refused for the most part to become resettled to the Soviet Union. Only a very small number of these people, a few thousand -- I can't give you the exact figure -- crossed the border. Most of them remained on their estates. As a result of this, we had the difficulty that now we had to find a place in order to accommodate the Poles. Since, however, it had been stated in the treaty that those people had to volunteer for resettlement, we, of course, could not force the Russians to resettle.\nQTherefore, in the end all the settlers wanted to get out of the Soviet Union, and that is why you had some confusion there?\nAYes, the only settlement drive where an exchange could be started by the Germans was the drive at Cholm and Lublin. Here the Poles as well as the Germans were in the German sphere of interest, so that the group at Cholm and Lublin which lived in the GovernmentGeneral could be transferred to the Warthegau, and the Polos which were deported from there could he sent to the Government General on German estates.\nQTowards the end of the war, did you also see how these people streamed in from the east when they were escaping?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3687, "page_number": "3680", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "ANo.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. HESSE (for the defendant Lorenz):\nQWitness, your sketch has been shown to you on several occasions, and I have to do the same thing to you also. I am referring to the sketch with regard to Prosecution Exhibit No.34. You have already stated that the line leading from VOMI to the Agency of the Reich Commissar is not correct. To whom was VOMI subordinated at Lodz?\nAAs far as I know, it was directly subordinated to VOMI at Berlin.\nQAnd here you give the name of Tschearschky. I want to spell it: T-S-C-H-E-A-R-S-C-H-K-Y. With that, are you trying to say that Tschearschky was in charge of VOMI at Lodz?\nAYes, but I put a question mark behind it.\nQDo you know what position Tschearschky occupied in reality?\nANo.\nQIf I put to you that he worked for the EWZ at Lodz, can you confirm that?\nAYes.\nQCan you still recall the name of the man who was in charge of the VOMI at Lodz?\nANo, if I knew it then I would have listed it here.\nQCan you recall the name of Hangel?\nANo.\nQPartens?\nANo.\nQI have no further questions, your Honor. BY DR. MUELLER (for the defendant Huebner):\nQWitness, let us remain with the sketch for a moment which you have before you. This is Prosecution DocumentNO-2555, Exhibit No. 34. If I understood you correctly, then on the Gau level, that is to say, at the place where you mentioned SS Obergrupenfuehrer Koppe, \n there is a mistake here because you did not differentiate between the two positions held by Koppe.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3688, "page_number": "3681", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "First of all, he was the Higher SS and Police Leader and secondly he was the Representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nAYes, I should have put these two positions next to each other and not together.\nQAnd this explains the mistake that you further made where you confused the field office at Lodz, the UWZ, and so on.\nAYes, I stated before that I made the same mistake there.\nQTherefore you did not try to express that the field office at Lodz--\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that he talk a little closer to microphone. BY DR. MUELLER:\nQYou did not want to express that the field office at Lodz, the UWZ, VOMI, and the EWZ were subordinated to the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nANo, certainly not.\nQNow I want to a sk you something with regard to the subordination of the agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. This agency of the representat ive of the Reich Commissar probably received its instructions in its daily work from the Main Staff Office at Berlin, is that correct?\nANo, it received its instructions from Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe.\nQAnd Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe probably received his instructions from the Main Staff Office, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQI am now going to hand to you Prosecution Document,NO-4632, Exhibit 199, from Document Book V-A. It deals with the drive for the accommodation of Germans from the Black Sea Area. Please take a look at paragraph 1 of that document. This is a so-called evacuation of Poles. Can you tell us what brought about this decree?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3689, "page_number": "3682", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AIn this drive, one cannot speak about an evacuation anymore in the previous sense. This drive in the Black Sea area was more or less change in labor assignment for refugees from the Black Sea area.\nQAnd who ordered this change in working assignment?\nAThat was the task of labor offices.\nQFrom whom did the labor offices receive their instructions?\nAFrom the superior agency. That was the Gau Labor Office.\nQIn the decree before you, why were these rules about the change in labor assignment of Poles listed there?\nAI think that this was done in order to inform all the agencies who participated in this drive. This was not actually the passing on of an order.\nQThe orders in paragraph 1, as far as they refer to the transfer of Poles to France, are not any orders from the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nANo.\nQBut they are a reproduction of orders given by the labor allocation authorities?\nASuch a decree of a transfer of Poles to another district or, in this case, a transfer of Poles to France could not have been issued by the Agency of the Reich Commissar because that was not its task. As far as I know, these Poles were not sent to France anyway.\nQCan you tell us why they were not sent there?\nAThat resulted from the progress of the war.\nQWere the places of work changed at all outside of the district or outside of the Warthegau, as far as the drive with regard to the Germans from the Black Sea area was concerned?\nANot as far as I know. I can even recall that in the GovernmentGeneral, which had taken care of the excess Polish labor before, refused to accept further any Polish families because they were overcrowded. Consequently, work had to be found for them within the Gau or within the district.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3690, "page_number": "3683", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QAnd who carried out this limited exchange of labor assignments?\nAThis was done by the labor offices.\nQThe decree before you, if you look at the last page, is signed by the defendant Huebner, Can you give us an explanation as to why this was done?\nAYes, actually this entire drive was only the task of the Gauleiters since it was not a normal settlement any more in the whole sense. Since, however, the Gauleiter apparently did not have the necessary personnel in order to carry out this work, he approached Herr Huebner directly at the time and ordered him to assist in advice and in deeds so that Herr Huebner should be considered to be a liaison man of all the Gau agencies which collaborated in this instance.\nQWhen this happened, you were not at Lodz anymore but you worked at the agency in Poznan, is that correct?\nAIn the spring of 1943 I was transferred from Lodz to Poznan and I remained there until 1944 before I went to Berlin.\nQThank you. And now one more question with regard to another document. This is Prosecution DocumentNO-2267, Exhibit 161. It is contained in Document Book IV-D. On the first page, on the bottom, the fact has been mentioned that the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism is alleged to have named Polish women who were to be sent to Germany proper for Germanization. Did anything of that nature ever come to your knowledge?\nAThis is the first tine that I hear that these agencies had anything to do with these matters. I assume that since this letter comes from the Main Staff Office at Berlin that they there were not quite informed what agency had to take care of what particular task.\nQThank you. I have no further questions. BY DR. MUELLER: (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQWitness, you previously spoke about the planning and the work of the student's group of the VDA -- the Society for Germans abroad. In this connection, I want to ask you: In this connection did you make the acquaintance of Professor Meyer?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3691, "page_number": "3684", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "ANo.\nQDo you know whether he collaborated in this work?\nAHe did not work with us because then I would have been bound to make his acquaintance.\nQIn your affidavit, you speak about the Planning Department with the Settlement Staff at Lodz. Was this Planning Department in any connection with the Main Department Planning and Land of Professor Meyer at Berlin?\nANo.\nQDid this planning section with the Settlement Staff at Lodz receive any instructions from Professor Meyer's department?\nANo, not as far as I know.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3692, "page_number": "3685", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQFrom whom did it receive its instructions?\nAIt received its instructions from the head of the settlement staff or perhaps from Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe when ever he was present at Lodz and whenever he issued directives.\nQThank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any cross examination?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQYou stated on direct examination that you knew about the activities of the branch office at Lodz from having heard certain speeches by the RUS leaders at meetings. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWitness, about how many meetings did you attend of that nature?\nAI cannot give you any figure any more; that there must have been about 10 or 15.\nQAnd about how many days would you estimate one meeting would consume, witness?\nAYou mean the examination of the families Who were to be Germanized, how long this took?\nQI mean how long did these meetings which you attended take?\nAI stated previously that I was present when the final examinations took place and when pictures were given, and these would last for one or several hours.\nQYou mean the speeches, witness, is that correct?\nAYes, whenever the speeches or lectures were given on the subject.\nQOn direct examination, witness, you stated that those Poles who did not wish to be re-Germanized were sent back to their homes or to the camp from which they came. What camps did you mean?\nACamps for Poles had been established and some of them were also located at Lodz.\nQHow did the Poles get into these camps, witness?\nAAs far as I was able to see they were sent in busses to the camps.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3693, "page_number": "3686", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWitness, I don't mean the physical transportation. How did these Poles happen to be in these camps? Were they evacuated Poles?\nAYes.\nQIn other words these were Poles that had been taken over and their land. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQTaken over their lands by the settlement staffs, witness?\nANo, that was the task of the SD, the Security Service.\nQIn connection with the settlement staffs, witness?\nANo, these agencies were quite separate and had nothing whatsoever to do with each other.\nQWitness, didn't the settlement staffs use these lands to resettle Germans, the same lands?\nAYes, the estates which had become vacated by evacuations ware now turned over to the German resettlers.\nQWitness, what happened to these Poles after they went back to these camps? Were they then shipped from these camps to the Government General or were they kept in these camps?\nANo, these camps were only transient camps. I can't give you the exact percentage but a large part or most of them went to the Government-General and a smaller part was sent to Germany proper.\nQWitness, did the Government-General have a good name among the Poles in these camps as being a nice place to go to?\nAI never discussed the subject with any Poles but it was intended that the Government-General was to become the homeland of the Poles, so probably they must have considered it to be their homeland.\nQWitness, didn't you ever hear that the Poles considered the Government-General to be in a terrible condition and were very afraid to go there?\nAI never saw that they were afraid to go there.\nQWitness, you testified that the branch office at Litzmannstadt and that the examinations conducted there were never in connection with \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3694, "page_number": "3687", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "slave labor. Did you ever hear of the term slave labor during the war, witness?\nANo.\nQWitness, wasn't this re-Germanization program and these racial examinations carried out in part to procure labor for Germany?\nANo.\nQWitness, you spoke of the defendant Schwalm's duties as Staff Leader in Berlin. Did you have a good deal of official contact with him in that capacity or was your statement based on the fact that you were in the same building in Berlin?\nAOfficially I had relatively little to do with Herr Schwalm or the race and settlement main office. Only in welfare matters I had to turn to Herr Schwalm in several instances. Here the care for the Germanic volunteers was involved.\nQWitness, in these cases where you turned to Schwalm, was it a matter of organization, or was it some important matter dealing with the people involved?\nAIn these cases I requested Herr Schwalm's help in establishing contact with the competent main departments in RuSHA and then I would discuss the details with them.\nQWitness, the chart or outline which you have discussed a number of times already today, was that made by you voluntarily and of your own free will?\nAYes.\nQWitness, during direct examination you discussed a letter or an order signed by the defendant Huebner. This is DocumentNO 4632, Exhibit 199, in Book 5-A, dealing with the evacuation of Poles. Do you have that in front of you now, witness.\nAYes.\nQWell, on direct examination, witness, you stated that this must have been sent out merely as a matter of information. You see on the first page in the first written full paragraph above the head, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3695, "page_number": "3688", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "\"evacuation of Poles\", you see that one sentence there witness?\nAYes, it begins, \"those Poles who are affected by the impending measures,\" is that what you mean?\nQNo, the paragraph above that, beginning with, \"in addition to the 11th.\"\nAOh, yes, \"in addition to the 11th.\"\nQDoesn't that sentence conclude that the following is ordered in agreement with the Gau Labor Office?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Time for one more question.\nQWitness, do you still insist that this was sent out not as an order but merely for information?\nAYes.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:\nQI only have one single question, your Honor. At the time at Berlin did you turn to Schwalm as a staff leader because you considered him to be competent for these questions or because you knew Schwalm from the time when both of you were at Lodz?\nANo, Schwalm was a staff leader and I turned to him with the question as to just where I should direct my inquiries.\nQThank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I have now concluded the presentation of my case-in-chief on behalf of the defendant Schwalm with the exception of the presentation of documents and I request that I may submit my documents as soon as their translation has been completed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you, your Honor.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3696, "page_number": "3689", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(a recess was taken).", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3697, "page_number": "3690", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch) Mr. President, I would like to refer to the fact that I was given permission by the Tribunal to examine two defense witnesses for the defendant Tesch, now before my colleague Dr. Froeschmann begins with his case in chief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:ALL right, who will you call?\nDR. SCHMIDT:I would be very grateful to the Tribunal if I would be permitted to get a third witness and examine her, who comes from Austria, and I would ask that she be examined as soon as possible. I have already given notice to the Prosecution that I would want to examine this witness, and I believe the Prosecution agrees to it.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, the Prosecution received notice of this third witness at 5:30 yesterday afternoon, but we are not inclined to stick on our technical rights. We agree.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right; who will you call now?\nDR. SCHMIDT:Then, with the permission of the Court, I would like to call as my first witness, the witness Katharina Rink.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nKATHARINARINK, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch)\nQWitness, will you please give your personal data to the Tribunal?\nAMy name is Katharina Rink; I was born on 1st July, 1891, in Lichtenberg; I am married.\nQWhere do you live now?\nAI now live in Pullei on the Mosel River.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "KATHARINA", "DR. SCHMIDT", "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3698, "page_number": "3691", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQIs that in the French zone of occupation?\nAYes, this is in the French zone of occupation.\nQWhat is your husband's profession?\nAMy husband is an official of the Savings Bank in the Ruhr.\nQDo you yourself have a profession?\nAYes, I was a teacher.\nQWere you pensioned?\nAYes.\nQDid you or your husband ever belong to the Party or to the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you or your husband have any connection to the SS?\nANo.\nQDo you own real estate?\nAYes, we own a house with a big garden; we have a vineyard and other landed property, but they have been leased to someone.\nQThen your economic conditions are in order.\nAYes, they are in order. My husband at present is still working in the Savings Bank.\nQDo you have children?\nANo.\nQThe Lebensborn gave you custody over a child called Johanna Kuntze; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhat were your reasons for taking over the custody of a child?\nAWe have no children, but we like children, and since we wanted to have a child, we adopted a child.\nQWhen you wanted to take one of these children into your custody, how come you contacted the organization Lebensborn?\nAI went to about ninety youth offices and I got an answer from some of them; the children were assigned to me that we did not like. We were Protestant and we wished to have a child that was also Protestant; we were always offered Catholic or older children, and we wanted a smaller \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3699, "page_number": "3692", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "child. Some of the youth offices brought to our attention the institution of the Lebensborn, and then I wrote to them.\nQWitness, may I please ask you to nitice that you should speak more slowly because of the interpreters, and also will you please make a little longer pause so that in the meantime my question can be completely translated.\nAYes, I will think of that.\nQWhen and how did you take up contact with the Lebensborn?\nAAbout in 1943 I wrote to the Lebensborn and they offered me several children; they did not appeal to us; they were boys, and we at that time wanted to have a smaller girl. Then, they 'wrote to us? they also offered us a smaller girl, and then I traveled to Oberweiss in order to take a look at the child.\nQWhen was that?\nAThat was at the beginning of June, 1944.\nQWhat sort of children were shown to you at that time?\nATwo girls were shown to me, an older one and a younger one. The younger girl was called Johanna Kuntze.\nQThen, that was the girl that you later on took into custody?\nAYes.\nQAt that time you were in the Camp Oberweiss.\nAYes.\nQWhat sort of impression did you have of the quartering and the treatment of the children in this home? Will you please describe that to the Court?\nAYes, the children lived there as though they were in paradise; it was lovely for the children there; they had complete freedom; they could move around freely; they could run out of this home and play, and our little girl, for instance, had a little friend in the village, who also gave her a present when she left. The children were really very well housed; they had excellent food, and I myself tasted it; I was there for two days, and we were always together with the children, because I \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3700, "page_number": "3693", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "wanted to know exactly the environment of my little adopted child and I observed things very exactly.\nQDid you also meet Herrn Heintze?\nAYes.\nQHow was his relationship to the children?\nAYes. The children loved Herrn Heintze especially. He could never go outside or show himself without immediately three or four hanging about his hands or his coat. He was charming with the children, and understood children very well.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3701, "page_number": "3694", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQYou talked to the children, as you said, didn't you? Did these children speak German or did they speak Polish?\nAWith me and as long as I was there, the children were speaking German. Among each other, as I could see, they spoke Polish.\nQHow many children did you find in this home at Oberweiss?\nAThere were about 15 girls and about that many boys.\nQDid one of these children express to you the desire to get back to his own homeland?\nANo.\nQDid one of these children tell you that he had been forcibly separated from his parents?\nANo.\nQYou were with these children for quite some time?\nAYes, I always went for walks with the children; I was there for two days. For instance, it struck me that this little Johanna Kuntze did not want to go away from this home at all. She was crying and she did not want to come along. That I liked in the child, for I thought this child has strength of character; she wanted to stay there where she is well treated, and I liked this especially well in this child.\nQWhat were you told in this home about the origin of this little Johanna Kuntze?\nAHerrn Heintze and also other people in the home told me that the father of this little Johanna was a railway employee and shortly before the war had been transferred to the border to Poland or to eastern Prussia, I think, and then he was apparently murdered there.\nQWhere was the father supposed to have come from?\nAThis father was supposed to have been from the Rhine area. The mother also was a German and was from Westphalia. When the father died, the child was given to a foster home by his mother, to a friend of her mother's.\nQWhere?\nAThis mother lived in one of the smaller environments of Posen;", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3702, "page_number": "3695", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nthe mother visited the child every evening, and then she disappeared. She never appeared again and was never found again. In the course of the war, it happened that persecutions by the Poles were carried out; children with many others were taken out during night time by the German military, and were put into a cloister in which German nuns were, and from there she came to the orphanage in Kalisch.\nQDid you believe all these stories?\nAYes, for many friends of ours have experienced the same things. They had to leave during the night, hurriedly and had to flee before the Poles.\nQDid you talk with your friends about this?\nAYes, For instance, I talked with the teacher in Pullei about the case of our little girl; he came from Posen and his wife from near Posen, and they said it was a typical case the whole way in which this flight of little Johanna went about, and also the disappearance of this mother was quite typical. The mother would never appear again, and I am certain they were sure that she was murdered for they themselves had had experiences in things like that before.\nQYou said then that the child finally came to the orphanage Kalisch.\nAYes.\nQDid you hear anything about this at Kalisch?\nAYes, there many children were taken out by their parents or by their foster parents and among other things there was also a child which before that had lived in the same street as little Johanna. This child was taken out of this orphanage by her parents, and these parents sent a message with greetings from somebody she called aunt, to this little Johanna, and with the message that this aunt would come during the next week and would also take the child out of this orphanage. However, she never appeared, and it certainly must be assumed that she was a victim of a new persecution wave.\nQThese stories, you got them from Herrn Heintze?\nANo, the children told me exactly the same thing. Herrn Heintze \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3703, "page_number": "3696", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "also told me about this.\nQDid one now search out where this child's mother could have been, or where this foster parent, this aunt of the child could have been?\nAYes.\nQDo you know anything about that?\nAYes. When I took over the child I was told about it immediately that this case was a very strange one; I would have to be prepared that the child might be taken away from me again for if this aunt would be found again, or the mother, for they were still looking and searching for them, a search was going on for these two women. That was also the reason why Johanna was kept in the home for such a long time because hope was still kept up in the home that one of the two women would either be found or would report there. Then, we would have to be prepared to give back the child to the mother or the aunt, this foster aunt.\nQYou then got a notification from Kerr Heintze.\nAYes.\nQIn spite of that, did you take the child into your custody even though you had to be prepared for the possibility of returning the child?\nAYes.\nQAccording to the impression that you have of this little Johanna, is this a German child?\nAI never doubted that she was of German origin; this can be shown in her whole bearing and attitude. I also showed the child and introduced the child to some very well known physicians and they also confirmed it and in Oberweiss I was assured that this child originated from German parents. I emphasize this especially.\nQAnd you still have the child with you?\nAYes.\nQDo you have the intention of adopting this child sometime later on?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3704, "page_number": "3697", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd how did you treat the child?\nAJust as though it were my own.\nQDid the child ever express the desire either towards you or towards your husband to go back to Posen or to the area there?\nANo, never. Just sometime ago, in the last year, before a custody judge, she herself, on her own initiative, because I wasn't there, stated energetically that she would run away from any place else and that she would find her way back to us.\nQDid the French occupation authorities or another allied authority examine this case?\nAYes, one of the officials according to what was told me was completely convinced that the child was of German origin and told us that without any further formalities we could keep the child.\nQHow was the child called in Oberweiss?\nAJohanna Kuntze.\nQDid you also get a record from the police when you took the child away from Oberweiss?\nAOn the top of this police report there was also a Polish name, but this Polish name was not at all familiar to the child.\nQWell, how do you explain this Polish name?\nAWell, that is very easily explained, for all our friends told us and especially this teacher from Pullei, that the Poles used to change the names already after three or four days so that they could not at all find out their family and their friends. Many acquaintances of ours have told us the same thing.\nQWe are now turning to another question. Did you bring up the child religiously?\nAYes, Protestant.\nQThen at the time when you were in Oberweiss, did you tell Mr. Hintze you intended to educate this child in the Protestant faith; what did he say?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3705, "page_number": "3698", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AYes, I always very energetically asked for a Protestant child, even in the course of my correspondence, and Herr Heintze had not objections at all.\nQDo you know whether the children received religious instructions in the course of their stay in the home at Oberweiss?\nAYes, there was a Fraulein Plate, who was the home leader, who was very much beloved by the children. She gave them religious instructions. Also, Santa Claus came there in person -- that is to say, of course, in costume.\nQThen little Johanna told you only good things about her stay at Oberweiss?\nAYes, She loves it even now, and she especially likes to speak about Herr Heintze, Fraulein Plate, and her assistant Gertrude. When I told her that I would perhaps meet these people here -- well, of course, I didn't know -- she asked me to remember her to them and to invite them to our house. She wants to sec them again.\nQDid Johanna ever tell you that she was beaten at Oberweiss?\nANo, she was never beaten there.\nQDid Johanna ever tell you that other children were beaten there?\nAWell, she told me that as long as she was there -that must have been one and a half years -- that happened only once. One of the bigger boys was punished with a beating cane because he conducted himself in a rude manner towards the other children. The children themselves thought that this punishment was a very just one, and children have a very fine sense of justice.\nQWere you told at the time, in Oberweiss, that you \n should bring up this child in accordance with National Socialist doctrines?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3706, "page_number": "3699", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "ANo.\nQAt the time when you were in Oberweiss, were you able to find out whether or not these children were trained in National Socialist doctrines?\nANo. I was there for two days.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, you stated that there were about 80 children at the home at Oberweiss. Weren't some of these children there too young to talk?\nAI beg your pardon. I said 15 girls and 15 boys, that would make 30.\nQAnd of these 30, were there some-\nAPlease?\nQOf these 30 children, were there some who were too young to talk?\nAThe children had so much confidence in us, and they came near us, why should they talk? What should they have said?\nQI am not speaking, witness -\nAPlease?\nQWill you answer my questions? I am speaking of the age of the child.\nAPlease.\nQWhat were the ages of the children? What was the youngest?\nAYes. Johanna was about the youngest. At that time \n she was about eight and a half years.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3707, "page_number": "3700", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWere there any younger than Johanna?\nAI didn't see any. After all, I always asked for the very youngest children, because I wanted to have a child that was even younger than that.\nQAnd you were informed at this time that Johanna was an exceptional case, that -\nAPlease? I don't understand.\nQ -- that she had a foster aunt?\nAPlease?\nQWould you inform the witness to please wait until I finish my question?\nAPlease?\nTHE PRESIDENTThe witness will please wait until counsel has finished his question before she begins to answer. BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, when did you appear at Oberweiss?\nAAbout the beginning of June, 1943.\nQAnd you were informed at this time that Johanna had a foster aunt who probably, if she turned up, would call for this child, and that you would have to give her up; is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWell why was it, then, at this time, that you chose Johanna? Wouldn't it appear that you would rather have a child whom you would not have to return some day, a child whom you would be able to call your own?\nQThen I would have gotten another child. But of course at that time, when I heard that the mother had disappeared, I knew, from my friends, just what the conditions were there, and I did not at all count on the fact that she would come \n back.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3708, "page_number": "3701", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QYou spoke of wonderful conditions at the home, everything being so lovely, Herr Heintze the wonderful guardian. Did you have any ill feelings about taking this child?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will please wait until counsel has finished his question.\nQ (Continuing) Were you hesitant in any way of taking this child away from such wonderful surroundings?\nAI beg your pardon. My husband and I desired to have a child, and as I told you before -- and I believe you understood me correctly -- those conditions were lovely for the children. We could only have been glad that we got children who were well trained, who were in good physical condition. Why should we want to have bad children?\nQI think that answers my question, witness. Did you receive any allowances from the Government for the care of this child?\nANo, I did not.\nQDid you receive any special privileges in the way of, say, tax reductions, and so forth, for this child?\nANo. We took this child for many idealistic reasons. All our relatives have real estate; we ourselves were alone. Why shouldn't get such a poor child also get something from our wealth?\nQWhere is this child today?\nAWith us.\nQWhom did you leave it with when you came to Nuernberg?\nAWith my husband, and with people that live in the house. There is an old grandmother there, and a young woman. with her child.\nQDid you say that you reported this child to the French \n occupation authorities?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3709, "page_number": "3702", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Do you recall any name of any French officer whom you reported to?\nANo, I cannot. Well, he is still there.\nQDid you ever hear of the International Refugee Office, the Child Tracing Branch of that organization?\nAYes, we were there, but they were represented by this Frenchman.\nQI just have one more question, witness.\nAPlease?\nQHow did you and your husband fare under the Nazi regime?\nAWe had, in part, very strong objections to Nazism.\nQAnd were these objections voiced in any way?\nAOh yes.\nQIn which way?\nAWell, that is rather a boring affair. I complained about the district commissioner at the time, the Landrat. This gentleman seemed to have gotten disciplinary punishment, because the conditions were changed all of a sudden, and this Landrat was certainly mad at me, as well as at my husband.\nQI think that is sufficient, witness.\nDid you ever correspond with Lebensborn?\nAPlease?\nQDid you ever correspond with Lebensborn concerning this child?\nAYes. May I say something else to the first question?\nQNo, I think you have answered your question. That would be sufficient.\nNow, concerning this correspondence, do you still have that correspondence at your home?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3710, "page_number": "3703", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AWell, that disappeared when the occupation troops were quartered in our house.\nQDo you mean the occupation forces took these papers from you?\nAIt was such a mess. There were Negroes with us. It was terrible.\nQAnd do you have any correspondence in your possession at all?\nAYes, I found one, and that was submitted at the Custody Court at Zell.\nQThen that has been turned over to the custodian officials, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQThere has been no correspondence at all requested from the counsel who just interrogated you, is that correct?\nACorrespondence? I don't understand.\nQI mean, has -\nAI don't understand. The counsel?\nQYes.\nAHe invited me to come here. That is, he subpoenaed me, but I do not know why.\nQAnd the child -\nAI thought it was a matter that concerned this Sister Gertrude that I mentioned before.\nMR. NEELY:There are no further questions, witness.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQI only have one question to put to you, witness. I believe, in direct examination, you said that you were in Oberweiss in June 1944, and in the cross-examination of the Prosecution, however, you said in June 1943.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3711, "page_number": "3704", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AI beg your pardon. That must be an error on my part. About in 1943 I wrote my first letter to Lebensborn.\nQTherefore you only went to Oberweiss in June of 1944?\nAYes.\nDR. SCHMIDT:No further questions. Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3712, "page_number": "3705", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "DR. SCHMIDT:With the permission of the Court, I would now like to call a second withess, the withess Elfriede Simanowski.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nELFRIEDESIMANOWSKI, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Before the President administers the oath, may I point out to you, Mr. President, that this witness belongs to Jehovah's Witnesses and that, according to her faith, she is not permitted to swear? Instead of taking the oath, this withess will attest that, before God and men, she will speak the pure truth.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any objection on the part of Prosecution to waiving the oath?\nMR. SHILLER:The Prosecution has no objection, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, proceed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.May I then ask you, witness, to please state that, before God and men, you will speak the pure truth?\nA.Before God and men. I am speaking the pure truth.\nQ.Will you please give your personal data to the Court?\nA.My name isFrau Elfriede Simanowski. My maiden name was Bagedonad. I was born on the 5th of August, 1900, in Bromberg, in the Province of Poznan. My residence is now in Oberweiss, 72, which is near Gemunden, Upper Austria, Salzkammergut.\nQ.Are you a Reich German?\nA.Yes, I am a Reich German. The Polish name, \"Simanowski\", is the name of my husband. My maiden name, \"Bagedonad, comes from Lithuania, for the ancestors of my father were Lithuanians.\nQ.Now, are you only a Reich German according to nationality, or do you feel as though you are a German?\nA.No, I am a Reich German only according to nationality.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "ELFRIEDE", "DR. SCHMIDT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3713, "page_number": "3706", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "I am not a patriotic German, because I belong to Jehovah's Witnesses. I do not recognize any difference in nations or in races; I love all men who are decent and honest.\nQ.How long were you in Koenigsberg?\nA.I was born in Bromberg. After the first World War my father was transferred to Eastern Prussia, and my last residence in East Prussia was in Koenigsberg.\nQ.How long did you stay there?\nA.Until my arrest on the 11th of October, 1936.\nQ.Who arrested you at that time?\nA.The Gestapo arrested me for being a member of the International Association of Jehovah's Witnesses.\nQ.Then what happened to you?\nA.I was then in custody, pending trial, for two years. Then, under the law issued by the Reich President for the protection of people and state, I was sentenced to the maximum penalty of five years in prison.\nQ.After you had served the sentence, what happened?\nA.After that I was again transferred to the Gestapo in Koenigsberg.\nQ.And then were you released?\nA.Since I did not want to sign a brief for Adolf Hitler, I remained in custody further, and on the 11th of May, 1943, I was transferred to the concentration camp Ravensbrueck-Mecklenburg.\nQ.How long did you remain in this concentration camp?\nA.From the 11th of March, 1943, until the 1st of June 1944.\nQ.And where were you sent after that?\nA.I was then assigned to the children's home at Oberweiss.\nQ.For what reason?\nA.Once before I was supposed to have been transferred from the Koenigsberg camp and assigned to Wiesbaden. However, I did not \n like the idea, I did not want to do that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3714, "page_number": "3707", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Therefore, I went to the camp leader of the concentration camp and asked him why I had to be transferred to Weisbaden, and just to Weisbaden. I told him that I wanted to stay in the concentration camp, because I had a rather good position camp. That is why I asked myself, \"Well, who knows whether my position will be as good in the place where I may be transferred?\" The camp leader said to me, \"Simanowski, I will let you stay here for one-half year more, but then I will have to transfer you because Himmler has decreed that all Germans capable of work and all Germans who are of the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses, have to leave the camp in order to get rested in outside service, since they have been undernourished by reason of their long detention.\"\nQ.How many of those Jehovah's Witnesses were there in Ravensbrueck?\nA.Well, I really can't give you exact figures. When I was transferred there, I think there were 700, but there were transports currently going out of the camp.\nQ.When did you come to Oberweiss?\nA.That was on the 3rd of June, 1944; that is when I came to Oberweiss.\nQ.And how did you stay there?\nA.Until the 5th of May 1945, when American troops occupied it.\nQ.And were there other Jehovah's Witnesses in Oberweiss besides you?\nA.Yes, there were two such Jehovah's Witnesses; Frau Keppe arrived there seven weeks before I came there, and Frau Kuhn arrived about two or three weeks before the final dissolution of the home.\nQ.Did you do any work in Oberweiss? And what was that work?\nA.First, for about four weeks, I was in the mailing department.\nQ.And then?\nA.Then, because I did such good work, I got a position as \n chief of the sewing department.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3715, "page_number": "3708", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "Q.How were you treated in Oberweiss?\nA.The concentration camp at. Ravensbrueck equipped me with a very good wardrobe, they gave me shoes and other things, in addition to my own clothes which were kept for me during my stay in the concentration camp. I could move around freely in the castle at Oberweiss; I could leave the home if I pleased, and I could travel on trains.\nQ.Did you have supervision in your work?\nA.No, I had no supervision in either Oberweiss or in the concentration camp.\nQ.How was the food in Oberweiss?\nA.The food in Oberweiss was excellent, I got the same food as the other employees and the children.\nQ.For what purpose was this home in Oberweiss erected?\nA.The children of ethnic Germans were accommodated in this home at Oberweiss.\nQ.How many children were there when you were at Oberweiss?\nA.In my time there were, on the average, about 50 children in Oberweiss. Sometimes there were Less, and sometimes there were more.\nQ.How many employees, did this home have?\nA.Oh, about 25 persons.\nQ.Were there also members of the SS?\nA.No. At that time Herr Waffenberger was the only SS member. Later on, for some weeks, Mr. Heintze was there, and then again we were alone for months. At the last there was a gardener there who was called Funk.\nQ.Who was leader of this home?\nA.When I was there Frau Ritter was leader of the home, and there was another leader, Frau Maria Merkel.\nQ.What was your impression of the children at the time? Did \n you have the impression that the children had been brought to Oberweiss forcibly?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3716, "page_number": "3709", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "A.No, The children were joyous and pleasant. They played roughly, just as children will. I did not have the impression that they had been brought there forcibly.\nQ.You talked to those children, didn't you? Did any of the children ever tell you that they still had parents that were alive, from whom they had been forcibly separated?\nA.No; I don't know. I can only remember one couple who often came to me and talked to me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3717, "page_number": "3710", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWho were those people?\nAThose were the brothers Museahl.\nQThese brothers Museahl, did they tell you that they had been separated by force from their parents?\nANo, the brothers Museahl had a mother. They frequently showed me her letters. This mother visited those children when they were in Oberweiss. She was there on one occasion for four days.\nQWith what name were these children called in the home?\nAWith their Christian names.\nQDid these children have German names in the homes?\nA yes, the children had German names.\nQ in what language did these children talk?\nAIf the children had been punished -\nQNot the punishmentm but the language of the children.\nAThe language was German and Polish.\nQWas this up to the children? Could they choose which language they talked?\nAYes, the children could speak just as they choose, however, they were well educated enough to speak Polish with us who did not know that language but they spoke German to us.\nQAccording to your observation, how were they treated?\nAThese children were treated very well indeed.\nQDid any of the children complain to you about mistreatment?\nANo, that never happened.\nQWhat happened when one of the children misbehaved?\nAWhen a child did something it should not have done, he would not get dessert at lunch. If it had been a more important misdemeanor, then he would not get one meal a day. And if these children were really guilty of severe misdemeanors, then they had to sit quietly for several hours of a day-two to four hours.\nQDid it now happen that children by way of punishment were locked into moist cellar rooms of this house?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3718, "page_number": "3711", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AThe castle Oberweiss did not even have a cellar. We only had, on the right of the house going to the main entrance, we had a sort of supply room at the right side. This supply room was used for storing potatoes and apples, jams, and other food items.\nQDid these children have school instruction?\nAYes, they had school instruction. They were taught mathematics, writing, science, drawing.\nQDid the children also have outside activities, such as various sports?\nAYes, they had morning training: they had football, etc.\nQAnd what did the children do in their leisure time?\nAIn their leisure time they were permitted to do whatever they pleased. Some of the children fished; they went swimming; they climbed on trees.\nQWell, could the children get out of this home?\nAYes, they could go out and leave the home at any time of day or night.\nQWell, was there no sort of fence around the house? Was it guarded?\nANo, the home had three big entrances which were open day and night. Besides that, the fences were so low, about that high (indicating) that they could jump over them any time they pleased.\nQIn what sort of houses were these children housed and how?\nAThey had three big dormitories for sleeping, with floors which were inlaid on the one hand, and on the other hand linoleum. They had beautiful beds with matrasses, with white bed linen. They had feather beds and feather cushions and long white nightgowns.\nQWell, how was the wardrobe of those children?\nAThe children had sufficient clothes and clothes which were very good. The materials were extremely good. When anything was missing in the same department, as for instance stockings, that something was \n taken away; also shirts that were sort of thin, Herr Waffenberger immediately replaced the items.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3719, "page_number": "3712", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QHerr Waffenberger was probably the administrator of this home?\nAYes, he was the manager and it was up to him to see that these children were well clothed.\nQAnd how was the food as the children were concerned?\nAThe food was exactly the same as that of the employees. It was sufficient and very good.\nQDid you have the same food as the children?\nAYes, we all had the same food.\nQIncluding the employees?\nAYes, including the employees.\nQHow was the health of the children cared for?\nAThere was a children's nurse, and in more serious cases the official physician from Lakirchen was consulted.\nQDid the children remain there personally or were they put into foster homes?\nAMany of the children were put into forster homes.\nQCan you tell me to what sort of foster homes those children came?\nAWell, I don't of course know everything but in one case I know that a small boy, aged 6, came to the house of a Kur-Director in Bad Gastein, a spa.\nQCan you remember the children Wenzel Hans and Wenzel Celenka?\nAYes, I can well remember then.\nQDid you know that these boys were from Czechoslovakia?\nAYes, I knew that about Hanf because he, himself, told me, about it. But I did not know that about the little Wenzel.\nQYou mean the little Wenzel Celenka?\nAYes, that is the one I mean. No, I don't know about the small boy.\nQI would now like to refer to the Prosecution Affidavit of Wenzel Hanf, DocumentNO-5463, Exhibit 729, and in connection with that, I would \n like to ask the witness the following question:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3720, "page_number": "3713", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "are the statements contained therein made by Wenzel Hanf that he was locked for one week once as punishment into a dark unheated room because he had broken a night lamp, is that a correct statement?\nAWell, we had no cellar room in which somebody could be located in; besides, in the dormitories of the children, there were no night table lamps. All the dormitories had a huge chandelier in the miffle. You would have to climb up there.\nQAnd how do you comment upon his further statement to the effect that he was frequently beaten with a stick in his face?\nABeating children was forbidden and it never happened; for I myself was busy in the sewing room and had to undress the children once a week to the skin and redress them again. I certainly would have seen the scars of beatings.\nQOn the strength of your observation there, can you make a statement about the character of this Wenzel Hanf?\nAWenzel Hanf was a big liar. He often caused mischievous incidents.\nQNow a last question when I contacted you by letter, you answered me with a letter in which it says at the end, and I quote, \"I wanted to at some tine become once more a prisoner at the Castle of Oberweiss.\" Did you mean that ironically or was that your real, honest, personal opinion?\nAWell, no, I meant that quite honestly because it was really very lovely at Oberweiss. It is a small piece of Paradise, and I was treated in a very just manner.\nQI have no further questions. Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Since it's only two minutes until adjourment, the Prosecution will conduct the cross examination tomorrow morning.\nMR. NEELY:I only have one question.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3721, "page_number": "3714", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QWitness, would you tell us which is nicer, Oberweiss or the concentration camp Ravensbrueck?\nAWell, the concentration camp Ravensbrueck was not very nice. All together, I was really glad that I got out of there. Oberweiss, however, was lovely, was wonderful.\nQThank you. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQHow many years, do I understand you served in prison?\nAFrom the 11 October 1936 I was in the continuous imprisonment until the 5 of May 1945.\nQHow long were you in the concentration camp?\nAFrom the 11 of March 1943 until the 1 of June 1944.\nQHad you committed any offense other than your membership in the faith of Jehova's Witnesses?\nANo, 1 did not.\nQDid you have any sort of trial before you were sent to prison?\nAYes, I did have a trial. It was very long too. The trial lasted from 9 o'clock in the morning until 4:45 in the afternoon continuously, and besides I had nine interrogations, all of which lasted about four to five hours.\nQWhere did I understand you to say that the concentration camp in which you were kept was located?\nAThe concentration camp was called Ravensbrueck in the province of Mecklenburg.\nQYou say that conditions were good and treatment was good in the concentration camp?\nAYes, I was treated quite well because I was Jehova's witness and because as a prisoner I had a position of confidence outside of the camp.\nThat was the case with many of Jehova's witnesses that were there, for the Nazis knew that we, because of our strong faith, were honest and responsible people. For instance, I had the position as a house \n manager outside of the camp.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3722, "page_number": "3715", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "I had to take care of the nurse and the senior nurse of the concentration camp of Ravensbruck as well as the guards. I had to heat the house. I had to make the beds for them and had to fetch their food from the communal kitchen.\nQAbout how many people all together were in that concentration camp?\nAWhen I was there, there were about 11,000 persons. That was on the 11 of March 1943.\nQDo you know of any cases in which inmates of the concentration camp were mistreated?\nAYes. I, myself, saw two cases of that sort.\nQWhat did you see?\nAThere were two women who had escaped from the camp. They were fetched back. They were captured and were sort of exhibited in the camp. Their clothes were completely burn off. They were torn by dogs obviously, and as a deterrent, they aid to stand there in the camp so that the other prisoners would not any longer want to escape.\nI saw one man once, when I fetched the food for my house from the kitchen, who had a red triangle on his arm. Me had stolen three kilograms of bacon from the meat supply room. The prisoner was immediately taken away and was put into the bunker-into solitary confinement.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 15 January, 1948, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3723, "page_number": "3716", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United states of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 15 January 1946, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court room.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate. Who will you call next?\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch.)\nIf it may please the Tribunal, my next witness will be Karl Kaestle.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nKARLKAESTLE, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nproceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch)\nQ.Witness, will you please tell the Tribunal your full name, your place and date of birth.\nA.My name is Karl Kaestle; I was born on the 5th July, 1903, in Lauf Buehl.\nQ.What is your profession, Herr Kaestle?\nA.I am a farmer.\nQ.And where do you live?\nA.In baschka.\nQ.Where is that located?\nA.In Kreis Buehl.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "KARL", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3724, "page_number": "3717", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.In what zone of occupation is that?\nA.In the French zone of occupation.\nQ.Do you have children?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.That are the ages of the children you have?\nA.One is 19 and one is eight years of age.\nQ.Were you ever a member of the party?\nA.No.\nQ.Or were you a member of the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.Or were you a member of any other National Socialist organizations?\nA.Yes, I was in the DAV, the German Workers' Front.\nQ.Did you take a child into custody?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When was that?\nA.At Pentecost, in 1943.\nQ.What was the name of the child?\nA.Hanni Duden.\nQ.How old was the girl then?\nA.Between thirteen and fourteen years old.\nQ.And through what agency did you get that child?\nA.A friend of mine.\nQ.And this friend of yours, who was he?\nA.I got the child through Herr Steidel.\nQ.And what did Herr Steidel do; where did he work?\nA.He was in office, an official at Volksdeutsche School at Achern.\nQ.You probably live near Achem?\nA.Yes, five or six kilometers away from there.\nQ.Did you ever tell this man that you wanted to take a child into custody?\nA.No, I didn't.\nQ.Then how come that he offered you a child to take into custody?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3725, "page_number": "3718", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.He also has one, and he once came to me and asked me if I wanted one too, and I said yes.\nQ.Did he show you that child or did he bring it to you?\nA.Yes, later on he came and showed us the child.\nQ.Did you like the child?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And why did you decide altogether to take such a girl into custody?\nA.I have a child that was four years old, and I needed somebody to supervise it.\nQ.Did you then yourself go to that school for ethnic Germans in Achern and get the child yourself or how was that done?\nA.Well, the teacher brought her to us.\nQ.That was the teacher from the school in Achern who brought that child to you.\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.At the time when this child was given to you from the school in Achern, were you asked in any way what your political opinion was at the time?\nA.No.\nQ.Did your fried Steidel know that you were not a member of the NSDAP or the SS?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the child like the idea of coming to you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you at the time ask the child how she was treated in the school at Achern?\nA.Yes, I asked her.\nQ.And how the conditions in that school were? That did the child tell you about that?\nA.She was treated very well, she told me, but she liked it much better with me.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3726, "page_number": "3719", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Did you also ask the child about her origin, and especially about her parents?\nA.Yes, I asked the child that, whether she still had parents, and she told me no, that her mother had died very early and later then she was transferred to an orphanage at Litzmanstadt, at Lodz.\nQ.How did you bring that child up?\nA.I brought her up just as though she were my own, just like my own child.\nQ.Was the child instructed to go to church?\nA.Yes, she went to church every Sunday; she was Catholic.\nQ.Was the child a member of the BDM?\nA.No.\nQ.At the time when you got this child in your custody, was any agreement made with you for how long you could keep that child?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you have the intention of adopting this child?\nA.No.\nQ.What was this girl called when she came under your guardianship?\nA.Hanni Duden.\nQ.Did she contineu to be called that name while she was with you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have this girl registered by the police under this name in your district?\nA.Yes, I did.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3727, "page_number": "3720", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.While the little girl was with you, did she go to school?\nA.No.\nQ.And why not?\nA.She was between thirteen and fourteen years, and I was told that she did not have to go to school any more. In the course of the negotiations for getting this child, did you have anything to do with the association Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you at sometime later have anything to do with this association Lebensborn?\nA.About a year later the Lebensborn told me that the child would receive sick insurance, health insurance.\nQ.Witness, you said that the Lebensborn wrote to you one year later.\nA.Yes, the Lebensborn wrote to us about a year later that the child Hanni Duden had been registered in a sick insurance fund.\nQ.Did you get any subsidies from the Lebensborn in connection with this guardianship?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How much per month?\nA.Thirty marks.\nQ.And then what did you do with this money?\nA.I got this put into a savings account in the name of Hanni Duden.\nQ.This girl does not live with you any more, does she?\nA.No.\nQ.When did she leave you?\nA.In 1945, in September.\nQ.And how come she left?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3728, "page_number": "3721", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.There was a Polish camp leader who came with a Frenchman, and the girl was transferred into the camp Sellbach near Lahr.\nQ.Did then at that time this camp leader express to you any approval or disapproval concerning the treatment of the child?\nA.Yes, he told me that the children all had good, foster homes.\nQ. did you at the time when the child was transferred to this camp, did you dispose of this savings account of the child's?\nA.I gave the savings account, the registry book to the camp leader for the child.\nQ.And how much was there in this account?\nA.There was more than four hundred marks.\nQ.Did the child, pay you a visit later on when she was living in the camp?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And later on did she exchange letters with you?\nA.Yes, she wrote to us from Poland about five times.\nQ.Did she also express gratefulness towards you?\nA.Yes, she did.\nQ.And when the child was transferred to this camp, did she like to leave you or would she preferred to have stayed?\nA.Well, the camp leader got her and she went along with him.\nQ.Did you meet any one member of the association Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.Well, if I understood you correctly, the only contact you had with Lebensborn was that one letter with the information that the child had been registered in sick \n insurance.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3729, "page_number": "3722", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.And then you got a monthly subsidy from the Lebensborn?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You had no other contact with the Lebensborn.\nA.No.\nQ.One more question. You told me that this child was in the school for ethnic Germans.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have the impression that the girl was of German origin?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How did you arrive at that conclusion? what do you mean?\nA.She had dark hair and light eyes.\nQ.And what did the child say about its parents, about the origin of her parents?\nA.They were supposed to have been German.\nQ.And what language did the child take when she came to you?\nA.Well, she sort of made a lot of mistakes at first in German, but later on she would speak German very well.\nQ.You obviously thought the child was of German origin.\nA.Yes.\nQ.And the child herself, did she think she was of German origin?\nA.Yes, she did.\nDR. SCHMIDT:No further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, concerning the child's opinion of \n whether she was German or not, and of your own opinion that you thought she was an ethnic German, I would like to know now what nationality did you think the child was?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. SCHMIDT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3730, "page_number": "3723", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.I thought the child was German.\nQ.And you thought that she was German when she spoke German very brokenly, but spoke Polish at the time; is that correct?\nA.Yes, after a few months she spoke German very well.\nQ.But when you received her she spoke Polish, isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, well, not directly Polish, but it was sort of a broken German.\nQ.And when you received the child, witness, what papers of identification did you receive from this agency where you received the child?\nA.Well, Hanni Duden.\nQ.Well, didn't it say where the child's parents were or what had happened to the child's parents; where the child was born? Do you mean to tell me you took a child with nothing but the child's name?\nA.Well, no, I don't know.\nQ.Well, what was on this certificate when you took the child? Please inform the Court as to what information was on this certificate?\nA.Herr Steidtel finished all these matters for me.\nQ.Then you took care of Steidtel's word for this; is that correct? Then you took Steidtel's word for this; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Don't you think this is a serious thing taking a child into your home without any proper identification papers, nothing but the word of a friend of yours?\nA.Yes, of course I think so.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3731, "page_number": "3724", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.And yet you made no further investigations as to who the parents of this child were, or where it came from?\nA.No, I didn't know. Well, she only told us that her parents were of German origin; that they had died and later on she had been transferred to an orphanage.\nQ.Then could the reason be that you took this child; you said you didn't want to adopt the child; but that you had a child, of your own; was the purpose of taking the child that you needed it very badly to take care of your own child?\nA.Yes, that was the reason.\nQ.Did you pay anything to this young child; did you add anything to the bank accound for the supervision of your child?\nA.Well, I put the money into the savings account.\nQ.And you put this aside just for the services which she rendered to your own child; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Could you tell me the name of the bank in which this money was deposited?\nA.Yes, I can tell you.\nQ.Will you please state that, please?\nA.Vorschuss-Verein, Zarapach, near Achern.\nQ.And it was deposited in the name of the child?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.And when was this money deposited -- during what time?\nA.Well, I don't know exactly any more; well, I went to deposit that money maybe every two months or sometimes three months.\nQ.And the man Steidtel, who you took this child from, was he a member of the Nazi Party?\nA.I really don't know that.\nQ.You have stated you are not a member of -- never \n been a member of the party, but the only organization to which you belonged was the German Workers' Front.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3732, "page_number": "3725", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.But would you say that you were a good German?\nA.Oh yes, I would say that.\nQ.Thank you. Do you know the Polish name of the child; the Polish name of the child which you took into your home?\nA.Well, it was Hanni Duden.\nQ.That is the only name when you had seen of this child?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Now, Lebensborn wrote you one letter.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know who wrote this letter; who signed this letter?\nA.No, I can't say that.\nQ.Do you know where this letter is today?\nA.No.\nQ.Now, when you took this child from Steidtel, what agency gave you the papers concerning this child?\nA.A teacher brought this child to us.\nQ.Do you know whose name Lebensborn mentioned on this?\nA.No, I don't know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3733, "page_number": "3726", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQ.And now the letter which the child wrote to you -do you have that letter today?\nA.Counsel has these letters.\nQ.And the child -- what age was the child when she came to your home?\nA.She was between 13 and 14 years old.\nQ.And you say that she never attended school while she was in your home? Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Is that the age that the majority of children in Germany finish their education, their elementary education? Is it compulsory that children attend school beyond the age of 13?\nA.Oh yes, with us in Germany.\nQ.But why didn't this child? Didn't you make any attempts to see that she got some more schooling?\nA.No.\nQ.Simply because she was to supervise your child, is that correct?\nA.Yes, the teacher that brought her to us told us that she didn't have to go to school any more.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, we have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\nDR. SCHMIDT:No questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Mr. Witness, one or two questions, in order to clear my own mind.\nA.Yes.\nQ.How long did this child remain in your home?\nA.From May 1943 until September of 1945.\nQ.What became of the child when it left your house?\nA.A polish camp leader got her, and a Frenchman, and she was transferred to Camp Selbach, near Lahr.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "DR. SCHMIDT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3734, "page_number": "3727", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.How many children of your own did you have?\nA.I have two.\nQ.What were the ages of your two children at the time you got this girl?\nA.The little one was four years old, and the other one was 15 years old.\nQ.Is your wife living?\nA.Yes, she is alive.\nQ.Was she living at home with you at that time?\nA.Yes, she was there.\nQ.Now, from whom did you say you obtained custody of this child?\nA.A teacher from this school for ethnic Germans in Achern.\nQ.Well, was the child in that school at the time?\nA.Yes, in Achern.\nQ.You made some reference to somebody named Steidtel. What did he have to do with it?\nA.Well, he was an official there.\nQ.An official in this school, you mean?\nA.Yes. You mean there in the school? Yes.\nQ.Did you get any sort of certificate of any kind with the child when it was delivered to you?\nA.No, nothing at all.\nQ.Was this a public school, or what kind of school was it?\nA.It was a school for ethnic Germans in Achern.\nQ.You say the child told you that she was of German origin, is that correct?\nA.Yes, she told me that her parents were German.\nQ.Both her father and mother?\nA.Yes. The mother died very early, and the father later on, and then she came to an orphanage.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3735, "page_number": "3728", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.How old was she when her father died?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Did she remember her father and her mother?\nA.Yes, she could remember her father.\nQ.Where was she born?\nA.I don't know that either.\nQ. she didn't tell you whether she was born in Germany or Poland or France, or where?\nA.No, she did not.\nQ.You made no effort to find out?\nA.No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.) Do you have anything else?\nDR. SCHMIDT:If it please the Tribunal, I have no further witnesses at this moment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Proceed for the defendant Hildebrandt.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt): Mr. President, if it please the Tribunal, I would like to call the witness Betty Homuth to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I am not at this moment objecting to this witness, although we did not have 24 hours' notice, but I would like to point out that whereas the Prosecution was glad to cooperate with Dr. Schmidt because he had these witnesses coming here out of turn and unexpectedly, the defense counsel for Hildebrandt has been sitting here patiently waiting for his turn to come, and I feel that when defense counsel are in that position, it is no more than fair that we do get our prescribed 24-hour notice.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "DR. SCHMIDT", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3736, "page_number": "3729", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Yes, that is the rule of the Tribunal; that will have to be complied with hereafter.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Mr. President, on Monday morning I informed the Secretary General that I would call witnesses, and I stated in what sequence I would call them.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, the only thing the Tribunal will announce is that the rule is explicit and easily understood, and will be enforced.\nBETTYHOMUTH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, please tell the Tribunal, your name, your place of birth, and the profession of your husband.\nA.My name is Betty Homuth, my maiden name was Krueger. I was born on the 7th of March, 1920, in DanzigLangfuhr. My husband is an architect and registered engineer.\nQ.And where are you living now?\nA.At this time I am living in Hamburg.\nQ.How were you made a member of Hildebrandt's agency in Danzig?\nA.As I have already stated, I was born in Danzig. I lived in Danzig at the time, and in the spring of 1940 I was conscripted into the labor service by the police in Danzig. At first I worked for a captain of the Security Police, Captain Sigmund, who at that time had been appointed \n adjutant to the Higher SS and Police Leader, and on the 1st of December, 1940, I was made secretary to Herr Hildebrandt.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BETTY", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3737, "page_number": "3730", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.How long did you remain in office there?\nA.Until the summer of 1944.\nQ.Will you please tell the Tribunal, in brief, what your duties were in that office?\nA.I sat in the anteroom of this adjutant. I had to receive visitors, and, as secretary to Mr. Hildebrandt, I was in charge of all personal and official correspondence. I met many interesting and well known persons and high SS leaders in the anteroom of this office as his secretary.\nQ.At the time that you got there, was Hildebrandt's agency still building up, more or less?\nA.Yes. At that time the agency of the Higher SS and Police leader was still in the process of construction, more or less. At first it only consisted of Herr Hildebrandt, the adjutant, and a secretarial employee. Furthermore, in the same building was also contained the office of SS Oberabschnitt Weichsel. I mention that just to complete the picture.\nQ.On the strength of your position there, you had the opportunity to gain an insight into the official business of the Higher SS and Police Leader; is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Did you also happen to gain an insight into the question of whether Hildebrandt was in charge of the General Police and the Security Police?\nA.The General Police and the Security Police were not subordinated to Hildebrandt. These two agencies received their orders from their superior main offices in Berlin, and they worked entirely independently. We -- that is, the Higher SS and Police Leader -- vaw these instructions only by way of information.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3738, "page_number": "3731", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Here these agencies located in the same building as your office was?\nA.No, these agencies were about half an hour away from us.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3739, "page_number": "3732", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Was Hildebrandt in charge of police and SS units in any sort of matters?\nA.Yes, but only in cases where precautionary measures had to be taken in the course of state visits, that is, visits of important people, or in the event of air raids.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt have any other activities connected with police matters?\nA.In a way, Hildebrandt was actually only a sort of picturesque representative of the Reichsfuehrer there, that is to say, a man who had a very high-sounding name, but who had no acutal power of command.\nQ.Well now, if the Security Police or General Police wanted to clarify any sort of question that had a fundamental importance, did they ask Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, they contacted Hildebrandt to find out about questions like that so that he could contact the intermediary.\nQ.Witness, do you know whether the Chief of the General Police and the Inspector of the Security Police reported directly to the Reich Governor?\nA.Yes, these two gentlemen reported directly to the Reich Governor. I gathered that from conversations that were conducted in that anteroom.\nQ.Do you remember whether Hildebrandt was invited to meetings with the Chief of the General Police or the Security Police?\nA.No.\nQ.Was the Gestapo subordinated to Hildebrandt?\nA.No. The Police received their orders directly from the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.Was Hildebrandt in charge of any concentration camps, especially the labor camp at Stutthof?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3740, "page_number": "3733", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.No, The civilian prisoners' camp, and later the concentration camp, at Stutthof, was subordinated to the Administrative and Economic Office of the SS, Pohl.\nQ.Now Hildebrandt, of course, visited this camp at Stutthof several times. Did you know anything about that?\nA.Yes, once and again Hildebrandt visited this camp at Stutthof. If any sort of well known persons asked him about visiting this camp, then I had to inform the Commandateur at Stutthof that this visit would take place, and then Mr. Hildebrandt went to Stutthof with these gentlemen.\nQ.What was Hildebrandt's attitude concerning the inmates of this camp Stutthof?\nA.After such inspection tours or visits, I heard from the people that accompanied Herr Hildebrandt -- in this case the adjutant-- that Herr Hildebrandt talked to the prisoners themselves and asked them various questions about their conditions. Herr Hildebrandt also brought back his own written notes, on the strength of which we would have to inform ourselves about the prisoner involved; we would have to find out from the Gestapo the reasons for his being confined there, as well as information concerning a reexamination of the claim of the case, possible release, and a report of that.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt work prisoners on his real estate?\nA.Yes. We had land, which also had a garden attached, and we had Polish prisoners as employees there.\nQ.Did you notice anything at the time concerning Hildebrandt's relationship with these prisoners?\nA.I myself noticed that Herr Hildebrandt talked with these prisoners about how they were, and so forth. He also took notes, on the strength of which we had to proceed in the same manner as I have just described. Furthermore, I know that Herr Hildebrandt \n granted, leaves extending for several days to these prisoners, so that they might visit their relatives, and they were also permitted to receive visitors while they were with us, and they also got leave to go to town.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3741, "page_number": "3734", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "The prisoners liked being with us. I know of two prisoners who, after they had been released, remained at work with this agency until the end of the war. They more or less liked to work with us very much because we seemed to have a reputation that that was the beginning of the release.\nQ.What nationality were these prisoners?\nA.They were Poles.\nQ.From your actual duties there, do you know a relative of former SS Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach-Zelewski, whom Hildebrandt is alleged to have caused to be confined in a concentration camp? Do you know anything about that incident?\nA.Yes, I know of a Polish Pastor of that name who made an application to the Higher SS and Police leader so that he might be put into another group of the German People's List. In the course of this procedure he gave the name of his cousin, SS Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach.\nQ.When did all this happen?\nA.Well that was not at the time when Hildebrandt was on duty in Danzig, I know, but it was at the time of his successor, SS Gruppenfuehrer Katzmann. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible that Hildebrandt should have caused this Polish Pastor to be sent into a concentration camp. I must say I was extremely angry about the fact that Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach voiced this suspicion.\nQ.And why did you think that was a horrible thing to do?\nA.I still remember correctly that when we asked SS Obergruppenfuehrer von dem Bach about this matter, he very obviously stood apart from those relatives of his, they were not at all close relations, and he said that he hardly knew this man. That was quite \n an extraordinary occurrence, and that is why I can still remember it so clearly.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3742, "page_number": "3735", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.How, witness, you just told us that the confinement of a person to a concentration camp would not have been within Hildebrandt's province at all You were able to observe Hildebrandt during a long time, and therefore you probably would have been in a position to sort of form a judgment concerning his personality. Will you please comment on that, in brief?\nA.The close daily contacts that I had with Hildebrandt makes it possible for me, I believe, to judge Hildebrandt better than many other people. To us Hildebrandt was the most ideal, the most honest, and the most intelligent superior. He was loyal; ho was always ready to help, and all his collaborators loved him very much; we would have gone through flames for him. I cannot imagine that Hildebrandt could have done anything criminal, anything that was not within his official duty, or anything dishonest or inhumane. Hildebrandt tolerated only an attitude that was clean and decent, and he himself led a faultless and model life, so far as his private life as well as his official business were concerned.\nQ.Witness, I can understand why you would be deeply touched by the human aspects of this whole matter. However, I would like to ask you a rather technical question. What was Hildebrandt's reputation with the other employees on the strength of his attitude to the Poles?\nA.Through his energetic and just intervention on behalf of the Polish prisoners, the Polish segment of the population had great confidence in him. He showed tactful sympathy at all times and had a respectful attitude towards different philosophies from his own, and also towards the church. He never attempted to put National Socialist ideas before other people, nor did he try to do \n that so far as his personal opinion was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3743, "page_number": "3736", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Is it correct to say that Hildebrandt had a Pole in his agency who belonged to the Westmark Association?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.What was this Westmark Association?\nA.That was the most active, anti-German association of Poles.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3744, "page_number": "3737", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Did Hildebrandt know that the Pole belonged to this association?\nA.Yes, he did know it. The Police told him that, and they wanted to take him away. Hildebrandt, however, protected this man and kept him in his employ, and then he also caused his preferential release. As in general, Hildebrandt's attitude in this respect was the following: if I want something new and something good, it is impossible that I repeat the old things over and over again.\nQ.Witness, up to now we were talking about the personality of Hildebrandt in his position as Higher SS and Police Leader. I would now like to ask you concerning his position as representative of the Reich Commissioner, How was the agency of Hildebrandt as a representative of the Reich Commissioner -- how was it organized and where was it located?\nA.Because of difficulties of procuring space, it was not possible to have this agency located in the same building which housed the SS-subdivision Weichsel and the offices of the Higher SS, and Police Leader. Hildebrandt had to have the offices of the Agency of the Reich Commissioner in Gutenhafen, and that was 25 kilometers away from Danzig. In Danzig proper, only the closer collaborators remained. By reason of this difference in space between the two offices, of course they had to perform independent work. So it also happened that these experts received their instructions directly from the Main Staff Office. As such, however, it was not within Hildebrandt's preference to limit the freedom of movement of his collaborators.\nQ.Which agencies then were located in Gotenhafen -- rather which special fields had their offices in Gotenhafen?\nA.Well there was the Personnel Office, the Rehibilitation Department; there was Culture and Press, and some others.\nQ.Yes. Was the Land Office there too?\nA.Yes, the Land Office was there too and the Settlement Staff.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3745, "page_number": "3738", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.In the case of this Office of the Representative of the Reich Commissioner, was this a state agency or was this an agency of the SS?\nA.This was a state agency.\nQHow do you know that?\nA. fell, as an example, I would like to state that we received our salary not from Munich as all the members of the Party, but we got our salary directly from the Main Staff Office in Berlin.\nQ.Were the employees of this agency all members of the SS?\nA.No, only a very small part of them; on the contrary, we even had Poles and resettlers working there.\nQ.Witness, I would now like to talk about the policy of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism that has become known to you, You, as you stated before, had been living in Danzig.\nA.Yes.\nQ.That is to say, also in 1933?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How were the political conditions in the Free city of Danzig at the beginning of the war, before the war, and after the war progressing?\nA.Danzig, of course, was a so-called Free State, However by more chicanery on the part of the poles it became more and more dependent on Poland, especially in an economic respect, Poland did not adhere to the treaty that it had signed to the effect that it would use Danzig as a commercial port; but rather before the fishing village of Gdingia it constructed an artificial port going into the sea. This was a competition port of Danzig, and more and more reduced the economic life in Danzig, and the port itself became more and more quiet. We had a lot of unemployed in Danzig; there were, furthermore, no German railroads but only Polich railroads. The railroad employees who had formerly been German were forced to learn to speak Polish. They were \n also forced to send their children to Polish schools and to hang out the Polish flag on the national holidays that were purely Polish; otherwise, the employees had to be afraid of getting fired.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3746, "page_number": "3739", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "If they did not live up to one of these requirements, they became unemployed at the next opportunity and professional Poles took their place. Furthermore, the Poles, on the small peninsula of Westernplatte -- that was just in front of the Danzig port -- had created armaments in such a way that they were the masters of Danzig.\nQ.And how were the economic conditions in short?\nA.Since 1932 economic controls were carried out by the Poles which extended to the whole of the industry.\nQ.Could German businesses in Danzig still buy their merchandise in Germany proper, or did they have to suport themselves from somewhere else?\nA.Well, they had to, as a matter of sheer force or reason, take them from Poland for the Reich German goods had a tariff on them and terefore, of course, they became much more expensive. Of course we were not able to buy them and were therefore forced to buy the cheaper merchandise, which was of a much inferior quality.\nQ.Witness, was there increasing tension because of these conditions then?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And did these tensions lead to various incidents?\nA.Yes, the incidents became more and more frequent.\nQ.What now was the policy of the Representative of the Reich Commissioner after the incorporation of Danzig into West Prussia and the German Reich?\nA.The Representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strongthening of Germanism desired once and for all to differentiate clearly between those two peoples, so that once and for all these tensions that would appear again and again through the years would be fundamentally \n dissolved.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3747, "page_number": "3740", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "For this purpose, the national patriotic Poles, who did not immigrate on their own initiative or flee were deported into the Government-General, and only people of German blood who were of polish nationality remained in the Gau and were registered in the German People's List. If they were not politically very reliable, they came into the German People's List, Group III, that is to say, their German nationality was revocable, and only after they had proved their value to Germany, did they receive the German nationality in a final manner.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3748, "page_number": "3741", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, during your last testimony didn't you make a mistake. You talked about the fact that the policy of the representative of the Reich Commissar had been established by this representative. Is that correct or did you have a slip of your tongue there?\nAOf course I was referring to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism because only on his directive the representative could act, that is on the order of the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQWitness, in what way did Hildebrandt work in carrying out this policy?\nAAs the measures went on Herr Hildebrandt had to carry out the resettlement of the Germans from Bessarabia and Russia. As the measures were carried out Hildebrandt had to take care of the resettlement of the Germans from Bessarabia and Russia and Balticum. They were housed in estates which were unoccupied or had become unoccupied and they were further taken care of in social and cultural ways.\nQDid the defendant Hildebrandt have anything to do with the deportation of Poles?\nANo, he had nothing to do with deportation of Poles.\nQWhat was Hildebrandt's attitude towards this task?\nAEspecially the fate of these human beings without homes and without means of subsistence was a special worry of Herr Hildebrandt. First of all in the publication he requested them to approach him in all their worries personally. In the transcient camps and later on on the estates he would come personally and ask how they were doing.\nQDid such resettlers actually come to you and approach Hildebrandt with their worries and concerns?\nAYes, they came to our agency.\nQThis attitude of Hildebrandt, in other words his activity in the welfare field, was it anchored in his general character and nature?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3749, "page_number": "3742", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "AYes, this welfare concern was typical of Herr Hildebrandt. Not only did he show greatest readiness to help the resettlers but he was the same towards all his SS men, the families of them, and everybody enjoyed his care. For instance in the case of the families of SS men who had fallen on the front he would give them a sponsor each and this sponsor had to report to Hildebrandt. Even after he had left Danzig Herr Hildebrandt took an interest in the fate and well being of the SS families he knew. For instance in 1945, February, when our very life was threatened at Danzig Herr Hildebrandt, from his agency in Berlin, saw to it that particularly the wives and mothers of many children and also myself, in spite of that fact that I didn't work any longer for the SS or the police, were evacuated from Danzig and housed in the Reich. We, Danzig people., therefore, thank Herr Hildebrandt for our lives.\nQIs your hasband with you?\nANo, my husband is in Russian custody since 1945.\nQWitness, did you know SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heissmeyer?\nAI saw him once and I know that he was Chief of a main office in Berlin. I Know documents he signed.\nQYour Honor, I have a document here. It is in my document book and is Document 89 but I am not yet in a position to submit it to the Tribunal because it has not been translated yet. It is an original document, your Honor. However, I would like to use the document to have the signature identified by the witness and I ask that the Tribunal permit me to put the document to the witness, Document 89, just for the purpose of having the signature identified witness, will you look at the document and tell us whether that is the signature of SS Lieutenant-General Heissmeyer and whether it is an original document, the document which had been received by your agency?\nAFrom other letters I know the signature of SS Lieutenant-General Heissmeyer and the stamp of reception is the stamp of our agency it is true and the symbols are the same; in other words the dates of reception are those of Herr Hildebrandt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3750, "page_number": "3743", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QWitness, that leaves me only two final questions. During your activity in the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader or of the representative of the Reich Commissar, did it come to your knowledge that there were cases where the kidnapping of children was involved?\nANo.\nQCases of taking babies away from their mothers?\nANo.\nQCases of intervention by the Higher SS and Police Leader in cases of abortions, initiated or carried out allegedly by the Government?\nANo.\nQOf cases where persons were punished on account of illicit sexual intercourse between Polish and Russian nationals?\nANo.\nQNow, my last question: During your association with Hildebrandt did anything like that take place with reference to Jews?\nANo.\nQYour Honor, I have no further questions of this witness at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, on direct examination you testified that in the office of the representative of the RKFDV there were also employed people who were not SS members, that some of them were Poles, Now, witness, were there Poles and non-SS members supervising SS members or were the SS members in the position of authority and supervising the non-SS members?\nAWell, that wasn't a military organization. Therefore, it was rather working on the same level with the different experts.\nQOn the whole, witness, were the people in the position of authority the SS members rather than having it the other way around?\nAThe staff leader was an SS leader.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3751, "page_number": "3744", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QWitness, in your direct examination you stated that you could not conceive of the defendant Hildebrandt ever doing anything inhumane. If the defendant Hildebrandt in his official business had to do something which might be considered cruel, such as deporting Poles, but which he thought was for the good of Germany, wouldn't he have done it?\nANo.\nQWitness, did you ever hear of the Wachsturmbann Eimann?\nAOfficially I haven't because what I heard of those who served in that sturmbann it was built up in 1939. It was a sort of auxilliary police unit.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3752, "page_number": "3745", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QWitness, in the course of your duties when you were secretary to the defendant Hildebrandt, didn't you ever officially hear of the Wachsturmbann Eimann?\nANo.\nQWill you please look at DocumentNO 2275. Prosecution Exhibit 753 in Book 15. Do you have the first page of that, witness, where the marker is in the book?\nAYes.\nQThat is a letter of 10 January 1941 from someone in connection with Heissmeyer to Himmler enclosing a report and a letter from the defendant Hildebrandt. Can you, by looking at the top of the letter and the marks there tell whether or not you had anything to do with typing this letter.\nANo, that letter is dated 9 January 1940. However, I worked in this agency only as from the 1st of April 1940. Therefore, I can't have written that letter as I wasn't even in the agency then.\nQWitness, do you have any knowledge then as to whether or not the defendant Hildebrandt had any connection with the Wachsturmbann Eimann before you entered his employ in December 1940?\nANo.\nQThank you, witness, The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No questions your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDr. FROESCHMANN: Your Honor my next witness, with the permission of the court, is the witness Vietz.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRANZVIETZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure \n truth and will withheld and add nothing.", "speakers": [ "FRANZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3753, "page_number": "3746", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQMay I start, your Honor. Witness, will you please state your personal data?\nAMy name is Franz Vietz and I was born on February 19, 1908 at Eppsdorf, Province of Hannover. In my home town ---\nQWell, we don't need that, witness, thank you. For how long and in what capacity was Hildebrandt your superior?\nAIn 1938 I was introduced to Herr Hildebrandt at Wiesbaden and attached to him in his capacity as Chief of the SS Main Sector Thine. After he was transferred in October 1939, transferred from Wiesbaden to Danzig, I was also transferred to his agency in Danzig.\nQIn what capacity did you work during that period?\nAI was with him as an SS leader in the Race and. Settlement area and later additionally and only as a temporary measure I was drawn in also for tasks in his field of tasks as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQWhen Hildebrandt transferred to Danzig did he find there already an existing agency as Higher SS and Police Leader or as representative of the Reich Commissar?\nANo, neither one nor the other agency existed when he came. He had to build them up from scratch because he didn't find anything, not even an office or personnel, and therefore it took him months of hard work to build up the organization of these agencies first.\nQNow what about the organization of the agency as far as space was concerned in organization and personnel?\nAIn his capacity as Leader of the SS Main Sector Weichsel of the Allegemeine SS which had to be built up now, he had this office at Danzig. After he received the commission of representative of the \n Reich Commissar-that happened at the end of 1939 but the agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3754, "page_number": "3747", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "actually was starting operation only in February 1940. After he was commissioned the so-called official seat of this agency remained at Danzig while the other parts were lodged at Gdingia. The individual parts of this agency were organized like the organization of the main staff office in Berlin. The most important departments were the Department for Agriculture, for Economy, for the assignment of resettlers, and leadership of resettlers, restitution, one department for cultural affairs, financial administration of the agency and one personnel department.\nQWell what personnel? Was the agency an SS agency?\nANo, this agency of the representative of the RKFDV was a Reich agency which in his personnel composition had only a small fraction of SS members.\nQNow what about the channels of command for the representative?\nAThe orders forwarded to the representative would come from the main staff office and not from Himmler directly. Other agencies active in the field of the RKFDV as the EWZ and UWZ remained organizations of the RSHA and therefore was subordinated also to the responsible departments of RSHA and the same applied for the Gau agency of the VOMI.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3755, "page_number": "3748", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Witness, a while ago you told us that you came to Danzig in October, 1939 together with Hildebrandt. Now, what were the conditions Hildebrandt found in the Free City of Dnazig when he arrived there?\nA.When he took over office, from various areas of the then Reichgau Dnazig-Western Prussia was built up. This Gau area was composed of the Free State of Danzig, about five country districts, which up to that point had been a part of Eastern Prussia, and the remaining part of the area, which had belonged to Poland, from either 1919 or 1920 until 1939. Thw whole area covered what used to be the old Prussian province of Western Prussia, an area which until 1918 had been German for about 140 years without interruption.\nIn this old border area, from old times on, on account of the intermingling of various groups of population, minority problems had arisen, minority problems had arisen, minority problems which had existed as well under German domination as afterwards, between 1918 and 1939. After, in 1920, the area had returned to the Polish Republic the Polish authorities started strong Polanizing measures and it was attempted especially in the western parts of this country that is, those near to the German Reich border, to chase the Germans out of these areas.\nFrom all the important books, as well the German as the foreign literature, which I sutdied at that time in great detail, full agreement was existing about a figure of about six hundred thousand Germans expelled from the area I just referred to. Until the September days of 1939 all inhabitants of that country, even the Germans, were Polish nationals. Among these Polish nationals were also the racial Germans who had remained there and who in part openly, during all the twenties, had proven their allegiance to Germany and had, in their unions, always maintained hope that one \n day they would be reunited again with their Germany.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3756, "page_number": "3749", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "And other parts of these racial German populations were apparently Polish nationals while in their interior and cultural respects as well as in other respects, they remained faithful to Germany, while a third group which was not very strong, had politically an allegiance to Poland, a group which in general language would be considered traitors, renegades.\nThese various groups had lived together and constantly there were excesses on both sides, and therefore also clashed and very great conflicts arose out of those clashes very often. As the war broke out, during the first days, very strong persecutions against the Germans started and for our area they reached their culminating point in what was known as the 3rd of September, the Bromberg Bloody Sunday. During this occasion, in that town alone and in the surroundings, the Germans had very great losses. As a reaction thereupon the government agencies of the armed forces and of the state which existed at that time, carried out deportations and evacuations which were then carried on for reasons of security by the Security Police. Therefore, the situation we found was that when Hildebrandt could take on office in the country quite a number of estates and professional enterprises were unoccupied and out of operation, a situation which was still stressed by large parts of the population having fled towards the East when the German armed forces advanced.\nThat was the general picture we found when we arrived at Danzig.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, in this connection I would like to submit a document which was already submitted by me and which was translated, namely, document book 2 which contains documents 5 to 78 and I would like to submit them as evidence now. I would like to offer them all together as exhibit 1. The prosecution has had that document for weeks.\nMR. SHILLER:The prosecution has these documents and in the \n translated form, but these are documents described by the defense counsel as documents concerning events leading up to the war printed in the State Printing Works in Berlin in 1939.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3757, "page_number": "3750", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "The prosecution is willing to admit that under the terms of the agreement the defense counsel has very wide latitude with respect to the evidence they can submit. However, we feel that this does not mean that this Tribunal should be used as a sounding board for Nazi propaganda. These documents are clearly irrelevant to the matters contained in the indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, this Tribunal will not be interested in anybody's propaganda, but since the documents have already been translated, the Tribunal will permit them to be submitted and if they are without probative value, why, of course the Court will not consider them.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:In that case may I offer this document book to the Secretary General? It will be exhibit 1 and it contains documents 5 to 78, and with the permission of the Court I will now go on.\nQ. (By Dr. Froeschmann) Witness, what problems arose from the conditions you just described for Danzig and Western Prussia?\nA.The most urgent problem seemed to be the solution of the ethnic questions and there were various possibilities taken into consideration. One possibility would have been to assimilate, to adapt all human beings in that area, or else to determine once and for all in how far these people could either conditionally or unconditionally be considered Germans, or in how far that question was to be answered in the negative at all.\nQ.What solution, or should I rather say what problem, no, rather, what solution wasthe one Himmler decided?\nA.His decision was to make a clean separation between the various ethnic groups.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3758, "page_number": "3751", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.And what was to be the solution?\nA.Well, there were a few preliminary attempts first, and then they introduced the DVL and with the help of this German People's list the problem was defined, its solution.\nQ.Now, what was the nature of the DVL procedure?\nA.Well, the nature of the DVL procedure, it was a typical government agency procedure. The main agency to take care of this procedure was the lowest level administrative agency, that is, the District Councillor, in other words, the administrative boss of a district. The next higher level provided was the superior of the District Councillor, that is, the Government President. And then still higher the third level, on the Gau level, was the highest administrative authority of the Gau, and that was the Reichstatthalter, and the two latter agencies had the right to decide on appeals and on complaints. In the framework of this DVL the inhabitants of the country were quizzed with regard to their political attitude and put into groups. The prerequisite was that these people either had German descent at all or that at least they could prove that they were of partly German descent.\nThen differences were made in the treatment of the cases: Those who were of pure German descent and who received German nationality upon reception in the DVL without restriction, and then the other groups where the descent questions were not as clarified, a conditional naturalization, that is, with possibility of revocation by the state, was given.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3759, "page_number": "3752", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court, 1, Case 8\nQ.Now, what were the tasks of the representative of the Reich Commissar?\nA.May I state first of all that the representative of the RKFDV had no part in the decisions taken by the DVL, and he was not even represented by delegates of his agency. Only on the central level with the Reichstatthalter he had been provided for to have a part in the procedures instituted for complaints or for appeals. For the rest the main tasks resulted from the fact that in compliance with the state agreements passed by the German Reich with Estonia, Latvia and Soviet Russia, larger German eithnic groups were repatriated to Germany, and then partly were taken into consideration for resettlements in the newly acquired eastern Gaus, and the lodging and housing of these racial German resettlers and the permanent care and welfare for them was the main task of the representative for the Gau.\nQ.Witness, in this connection I would like to ask you a question. Do you know the name of a Catholic priest von dem BachZelewski, in one way or the other during your activities?\nA.I have heard about a family Zelewski under the successor of Herr Hildebrandt. It was said that those were dependents of the then Lt. General von dem Bach-Zelewski.\nQ.Do you know anything about the fact that the defendant Hildebrandt had sent the dependents of this SS Lt. General von dem Bach-Zelewski into a concentration camp?\nA.No, if that had happened the matter would have been discussed certainly in our agency. For the rest I cannot even imagine that because it would be that Herr Hildebrandt had taken action against his then comrades, that is, against dependents of his then comrade, and for the rest it would have been quite contrary to his whole attitude and conception of life as he showed it towards all other human beings. In all circles where Herr Hildebrandt was \n known he had the reputation of being a fanatic of justice and certainly in the position von dem Bach held at that time, and with his relationship to Hildebrandt at that time it would have been very easy for the Lt. General to make an intervention there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3760, "page_number": "3753", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "I just said that later, at the occasion of a furlough when I was already a soldier and when I reported to Hildebrandt's successor as was my duty, this successor of Herr Hildebrandt showed me a letter which he just had on his desk. Herr Hildebrandt's successor, the then SS Major General Katzmann, on account of constant requests by Zelewski's family who lived in Eastern Prussia and whose wish it was to get a better classification in the DVL, which was not possible in line with the regulations existing at that time -- well, this Katzmann then one day passed on the whole matter to Herr von dem Bach with the request to make a personal intervention to Himmler and see to it that the final decision was made in the matter. And Katzmann showed me in the letter I just mentioned the attitude taken by Herr von dem Bach in this connection where he stated that in this matter he didn't want to be bothered. For the period when Herr Hildebrandt was at Danzig I never heard anything about that family.\nQ.Now, in general, what was Hildebrandt's attitude towards the Poles?\nA.I just said that we considered Hildebrandt a fanatic of justice. That's what he was known as. All people who faced him found that he always made efforts end succeeded too, to understand and to take into consideration the features of human life. Through his activities as intermediary he advocated and attempted to carry through a plan, according to which also the Polish population of the Reichgau Danzig-Western Prussia should not be forced to wear a special insignia, and the reason he gave for his arguments against this marking of the population was that he wanted to prevent that a \n part of the Gau population be discriminated against as was to be feared and that he wanted to prevent it from the very beginning.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3761, "page_number": "3754", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "As to his attitude in this connection I may add that in his agency also Polish employees and workers were employed who were not treated any different from the remaining personnel, that is, the Germans. Furthermore, I know that Herr Hildebrandt, at no time, rejected people who had come to appeal to him personally and that many also went to him with the request for personal help, for instance, in the case of dependents of persons in police custody and in all those cases he intervened as well with the local Gau agencies as with his superiors in the Berlin agencies, and I know that on the strength of his intermediary activities a certain number of releases from custody were carried out.\nI personally, who was in the Gau very often on duty trips, was very often approached by many people, even by people who had no connection whatsoever with the SS, and they came from the Polish population, and from these many conversations I could gather again and again that on the whole Herr Hildebrandt had a very good reputation.\nQ.Witness, what started the activities of the representative of the RKFDV with regard to the resettlement?\nA.The resettlement in itself started after the deportation had been carried out from the area. Already during the first weeks after the outbreak of the war these deportations had already been carried out to a large extent as I have described before. The first resettlers to be placed were only sent to the representative with the beginning of the year, 1941 and onwards. The Baltic Germans who who had been in the Gau up to that date had been channeled there through the existing agencies in the capacity of trustee and they had been hired. Before the racial German resettlers, who had been sent to the Gau, arrived the resettlement staffs, called into life for that purpose, set up a so-called estate file index. This os \n tate file index had to be placed at the disposal of the UWZ and this UWZ had to decide whether the estate should be made available for resettlement or not.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3762, "page_number": "3755", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "The selection within the framework of that estate file index was done with cooperation of the local agencies, for instance, the District Councillor's office, and most particularly of the District Peasant Association, that is, the organs of the Reich Food Ministry, After the resettlers had been placed they still remained trustees; in other words, the enterprise was not transferred as yet to them as property.\nQ.In this procedure did other agencies or persons have a part too?\nA.To a very large extent other organizations and agencies took a part. That refers to the existing professional organizations and trade agencies and more particularly the state resettlement companies as also the company for administration of rural property. Apart from that, the DUT had a part to play in order to clarify the title questions and the property questions of the resettler as he had left his fortune in his country of residence. As far as professional care was concerned in the rural sector, which was the larger part for the resettlers, the agencies of the Reich Food Associations were called in, through the intermediary of so-called settlement aids placed at their disposal by the Kreis Peasant Associations.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3763, "page_number": "3756", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QNow, in your agencies were you in any way connected with seizure of agricultural subjects, with procurement of furniture, or with the administration of rual estates?\nAThe agency had nothing to do with the administration of rural estates. There the Reich Company for rural administration was called in. As far as procurement of furniture was concerned for the resettlers, this was done through the following channels. The needs were reported to the Main Staff Office and on the initiative of that Berlin agency the necessary furniture was procured from the furniture factories in Germany and channeled to the distribution centers.\nQNow, I would like to put to you a few documents referring to Hildebrandt, or possibly referring to Hildebrant's activities. I ask you to glance through these documents and to tell me in every case whether and how far the documents have a practical value as far as your agency is concerned. I am now putting to you Exhibit 102, which is from Document Book IV-A and it isNO-4025. My question is, were such examinations carried out in Danzig?\nAFor the members or for the reception in Group III of the DVL, no racial examinations were carried out in the District Danzig, Western Prussia, for the reception into Group III of the DVL. That is, I know figures of about seven hundred thousand members of Department III of the DVL who, all of them, had been entered without intervention of RuSHA or of the representative of the RKFDV and had received their classification without their participation. The racial examinations in compliance with that regulation were only carried out in those few cases, where the possibility of revoking nationality by the state was to be waived and where the first cases had to be sent to Berlin for a decision there. Only there racial examinations were carried out. According to my recollection, that covered about fifty persons. After these first Berlin decisions, these positions too were delegated to the Reich Gaus and there again we were not called in any more. In other words, as the decrees provided here it was not carried out in Danzig, Western Prussia.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3764, "page_number": "3757", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court I Case VIII\nQNow, I am putting to you another document. It is Exhibit 99, from Document Book IV-A again, and it isNO-4739, and it is the General Decree 12-c. Probably you know it. It refers to persons entered into the DVL and the limitation of racial examination to comparatively few cases. What can you say about that?\nAThe limitations here provided had already been carried into practice in our agencies before the decree was issued, because, as I have just stated the racial examinations covered only the few cases where a premature waiving of the possibility of revocation was taken into consideration.\nQWill you give the document back to me, please. I am furthermore submitting to you Exhibits 108 and 109. They are out of the same document book, IV-A, and deal with the treatment of Group IV of the DVL. How was the situation there in Western Prussia?\nAThe part IV in the same way as the other groups, were classified by the District Councillors Offices. Now, if it provides here that for members of Group IV -- and I know that our Gau had eighteen hundred to two thousand of them -- special measures were to be taken into consideration, then I can see here these measures are resettlement in the area of Germany proper. Then again I know that these measures were not carried out in the area of Danzig, Western Prussia. They kept their freedom of movement and I didn't hear about any special restrictions to which they were submitted.\nQWell, if such measures had been taken into consideration and carried out in Danzig, who would have been competent in that case?\nAIf such measures had been carried out, then only the Gestapo could have been competent for these measures.\nQWell, finally, I am submitting Exhibit 103 from Document Book IV-A. This is a file note concerning mixed marriages and at the end it says: \"Carbon copy to SS Sturmbannfuehrer Vietz, RuS Leader Weichsel.\" I shall ask you to explain your position to this document.\nAThe measures taken into consideration, as can be seen from this file note in connection with the existing mixed marriages, in other words \n between Germans and Poles as we would consider, were not carried into practice.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3765, "page_number": "3758", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Mention is made here of having the corresponding decrees issued at a later date, and I never saw these decrees. In other words, I have to assume that a law draft was never brought out. I also know that these questions, because in Danzig, - Western Prussia the DVL was handled in a very generous and liberal manner and as therefore the alien part of the mixed marriage was also received in the DVL, the solution of these individual cases was automatic.\nQOne last question concerning DVL procedure. Did the representative have any part in any measures directed against such persons as refused to make an application for reception into DVL?\nAA participation in such measures did not come to my knowledge and I have no knowledge either of such cases where the applications had been rejected. On the contrary, it was common knowledge that the authroities would at times not be in a position at all to work on all the applications that poured in. In other words, this question never became a question of the day for us.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, that would bring me to the question of re-Germanization. It will take us quite a period of time. Now maybe this would be a convenient time to take our recess.\nTHE PRESIDENT:An excellent suggestion. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30) (A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3766, "page_number": "3759", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 15 January, 1948.)\nFRANZ VIETZ - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, that brings me to the re-Germanization procedure. What was the purpose of that procedure?\nAWithin the framework of the DVL's work and the various fields, the decrees issued in this connection were complied with very strictly That means, as I have explained before, the applicants had to prove their German ancestry or at least their partly German ancestry by means of documents. That very often was not possible. The case then was that in many instances people remained outside of the DVL, although according to their whole appearance, their way of life, their attitude and so on and so forth, they were to be considered belonging to the German race.\nFor this group the so-called Germanization procedure was applied and in the framework of this procedure the people who had declared themselves ready to be covered by this procedure were sent to Germany proper and were sent to jobs which had been especially selected for these people. Mostly these jobs were agricultural. The employers had to prove that there was sifficient guarantee to give the resettler sufficient housing facilities and general facilities. For the rest the families enjoyed the same treatment as any other Germans living in the country. The only restriction was that for the time being the German nationality was not yet given to them. According to my knowledge, the total of persons covered by this procedure was comparatively very small. The question of labor commitment had only a secondary part to play in so far as the people had to have an opportunity to make their living and to build up an existence.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3767, "page_number": "3760", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Coercion was not exercised in this connection. As I have already stressed, they had to volunteer and in this connection the agency of the representative in Danzig did not become active because only such cases in very small numbers concerning the area Danzig, West Preussen, were handled, where very close relatives had already been brought into the procedure from other areas and the purpose then was only to get whole families together again.\nQWitness, in this connection, the Prosecution have charged that this work for which the persons to be re-Germanized were sent to Germany was slave labor. In other words, work which either was done for nothing or was paid for at inadequate rates, under coercion. What about that charge?\nAThat is quite wrong. I have already stated a while ago that the conditions under which they worked were not at all different from those of any other German agricultural worker. Apart from the normal wages, they got pay in kind, allotment of housing facilities. Apart from that, they would get assistance financial aid for the establishment of a new household, and the German Reich had a Fund for newly established agricultural workers workers and they received these six hundred marks which were fixed for newly established rural workers. Apart from that, the people were told to complain to the RuSHA, which was in charge of the registration, if the promises given to them should not be kept by local agencies. Occasionally a certain number of letters were shown to me which didn't contain complaints at all. On the contrary, they were letters of thanks and those families were thanking the RuSHA for having given them the possibility to use this now and healthy and clean basis to build up their new existence.\nQWitness, what was Hildebrandt's attitude concerning this problem? Did he oppose compulsory re-Germanization of any kind or did he pursue any policy is another direction?\nA his policy was to reject any compulsory re-Germanization from the very beginning.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3768, "page_number": "3761", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QDid such re-Germanization tendencies exist in the Gau Danzig, Western Prussia?\nAOn the basis of statements of the Gauleiter of Danzig, who had declared in public that within ten years he wanted to have the Gau completely German by the means of this ethnic policy, one might speak of a Germanization policy in that sense.\nQDo you know that on account of that statement of Forster's Hildebrandt got into a controversy with him?\nAYes, I know. I know the reasons were these opposed conceptions and therefore very strong discrepancies existed between these two gentlemen.\nQWitness, in this connection, I am submitting to you Exhibit 148, in Document Book IV-C. It is No.NO-3095and it deals with special treatment of Polish civilian workers within the Reich in so far as persons suitable for Germanization are concerned. What do you have to say to that? Did such cases come to your knowledge in Western Prussia?\nANo, those can only be the commitment agencies in Germany proper where these people suitable for commitment were sent and the part of the Gau Danzig, Western Prussia was not included there. Here also a few areas of Higher SS and Police Leaders are mentioned. They were central, west, and southern Germany. If it is the case at all, the only dependents of such people who lived in Danzig, West Prussia could have been registered.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3769, "page_number": "3762", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QWitness, apart from that, did Hildebrandt participate in any way in the clarification of ethnic questions? And I am thinking particularly of the racial examiners.\nAYou mean concerning the activities of the racial examiners?\nQYes.\nANo, the racial examiners -- particularly in cases of deportations--were not called in at all. The only think I know is that in each individual instance, the central agency of the UWZ in the gau involved requested racial examiners once the person had been deported.\nQWitness, that brings me to the general charge made by the Prosecution concerning the weakening of foreign folkdom by participation in measures consisting of violations against life and the prevention of reproduction of aliens. What do you have to say to the charge that such general tendencies existed too in Danzig-Western Prussia, that is, the weakening of the Polish race by participation in the procedures against illicit sexual intercourse?\nAThe decrees issued in this connection did not apply to the Incorporated Eastern Territories, therefore, they could only apply to those areas of Western Prussia that had been part of Germany proper.\nIn this connection, we personally had very few Poles brought to us for examination as time went on. I think there was only a total of 5 or 6. That reminds me of one particular case where I had been requested to examine three young Poles who had violated the existing regulations. I determined that they were youngsters of 17 or 18 years, and it was possible for me to sec the women involved. There I determined that if one spoke of responsibility or guilt, then the guilt certainly was on the side of the three women, and I expressed that opinion in my report on the matter. Later on I heard that the procedure had been quashed in that particular case.\nFor the rest, according to my knowledge, neither in his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar, nor as Higher SS and Police Leader, did Hildebrandt have such matters submitted to him.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3770, "page_number": "3763", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QWhat about the interruption of pregnancies?\nAJust as I said before in relation to the other question, the application did not apply to the Incorporated Eastern Territories, and in this connection I have no personal knowledge of even one single case.\nQIn the area of Danzig-Western Prussia, did any cases come to your knowledge which had the aim of impeding the procreation of aliens?\nAI heard about the fact that for the competent administrative agencies a law had been issued, or was to be issued, according to which the age for eligibility for marriage was to be raised, but I cannot tell you to what extent such a regulation was applied because, as to our agency, I could never establish any participation in such measures.\nQDid cases come to your knowledge where children were taken away from their mothers, or where orphans were concerned, whose names were supposed to be Germanized or were Germanized?\nANo. In the whole Reich Gau of Danzig-Western Prussia I never had any knowledge of that by way of orders given either to me or to other agencies. This agency did not deal with orphans, nor did it deal with other children without parents.\nQParticularly in those cases, did Hildebrandt have a special attitude?\nAIn this connection, there was once an inquiry from Himmler. This inquiry was to the effect that Himmler had been approached with the suggestion that children of Polish mothers and German fathers should be taken away from their mothers. He asked Hildebrandt to state his position as to that siggestion. Hildebrandt replied to that suggestion in writing in my presence, wihtout any further discussions. In his answer he rejected that idea for humanitarian, as well as for political reasons. I never heard about the matter again.\nQDo you know about measures referring to seizure or expropriation of private or church property?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3771, "page_number": "3764", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "AThe representative of the RKFDV would not even have had the power for such measures. In such cases in which for special interests, a seizure was to be carried out, this had in every single instance to be ordered by the Central Land Office in Berlin, And if I remember correctly, at least for a certain period, Himmler had reserved the right for himself to make those decisions. As far as certain enterprises managed by concentration camps were concerned, Hildebrandt had no connection with those matters and therefore, even there, such a thing could not have happened. The Land Office in the Gau, which was a subordinate agency of the Central Land Office in Berlin, mainly dealt with clarifying the rather confused title or property conditions, because in innumerable cases, the land registers had bot been rectified forten or even twenty years. This clarification of titles was necessary in order to have the necessary preliminary work done for possible indemnification or for changes in title, if that should occur later on. I know that the Land Office in our district had to devote all its time to these matters, for years.\nQWitness, that brings me to the last chapter, I mean, the last chapter of the special counts of the Indictment. This concerns the charge that Hildebrandt had taken part in measures directed against the Jewish population of Danzig-Western Prussia. What were the circumstances in that matter?\nAI never heard about a problem in the Gau of Danzig in connection with the Jewish population. I heard that the Jews who had been living at Danzig had left in 1938, before the war, that they had left the area because the then government of the Danzig Free State had promoted their emigration. Therefore, they were not there any longer, and there was no reason to speak of any Jeiwsh problem. Neither in my official capacity nor outside of my official capacity did I ever hear about my agency having anything to do with these questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3772, "page_number": "3765", "date": "14 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-14", "text": "QBut by that you don't mean to say that there weren't any Jews left in Danzig - Western Prussia?\nAYes, of course, but very few. It was said that there were a few hundred in Danzig, and in general they were old people who were in an old age asylum. As to who was competent and responsible for those matters, I couldn't tell you that.\nQDid you know Hildebrandt's attitude towards the Jews?\nAWell, we talked about it, and from these talks it became quite apparent. That Herr Hildebrandt was very strongly opposed to antiSemitism of the type practiced by Streicher. I know that even in 1932 Hildebrandt was strongly opposed to Streicher, and, as the years went on, his superiors were worried about that.\nQWitness, in March or April of 1943, Hildebrandt became chief of the RuSHA. Did you still have an opportunity to observe Hildebrandt's activities in RuSHA from your stance?\nAFor a short period, yes. The directives and orders discussed here had already been issued, perhaps with the exception of the decree concerning the interruption of pregnancies. But then Herr Hildebrandt, very shortly after his appintment, was detached to an army group by order of Himmler. However, I know that he made application to Himmler to have the RuSHA dissolved. I personally connect the rejection of this application with his being transferred to the front lines. Afterwards, I myself was at the front in combat until the end of the war, and I had no further insight into the matter.\nQCould you still form a judgment concerning the importance of RuSHA during the term of office Hildebrandt?\nAThe importance of that main office before, and also after Hildebrandt took over, was on the decline. The activity was shifted more and more into the field of welfare and procurement for the dependents of the SS men who had been killed in action or who had been injured during the war.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3773, "page_number": "3766", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "The RUSHA had to see to it that the regulations for welfare and procurement were carried through to success for these people. For the rest, even prior to that time the activity of RuSHA was by no means a decisi ve one; it was wither of an advisory nature; or they had to submit expert opinions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3774, "page_number": "3767", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Witness, there is just one more charge against Hildebrandt, and perhaps you are in a position to inform us about it. In this charge Hildebrandt, is connected with the so-called euthanasia program of the Reich. I think you probably know that on the 1st of September, 1939, Hitler issued a decree to the then Reichsleiter Bouhler and Professor Brandt to the effect that these two persons were empowered to enlarge the field of functions of certain physicians, and it provided that incurably insane people could be submitted to the so-called euthanasia program. The Prosecution have submitted documents from which it becomes apparent that in Western Prussia -- and I think in Pommerania too -- during the months of October and November, 1939, insane people were killed in lunatic asylums by a certain Sturmbann Eyemann, called Sturmbann E.\nI would like to ask you this: Did you at any time hear about this drive by Sturmbann E of killing insane people? Did you hear about that during your activities?\nA.In December 1939, about two or three weeks before Christmas, on the occasion of a report to Hildebrandt concerning other matters, I heard about this matter in the following manner: Hildebrandt was very much excited, and therefore I noticed that something special had occurred. He described to me that with the participation of part of the special Sturmbann E, insane people had been done away with. On that occasion I heard that he had the intention of either dissolving this special Sturmbann or creating clear-cut conditions concerning the channel of command. This unit was not under Hildebrandt's command; it was formed in Danzig, before the outbreak of the war, as an auxiliary police force. Therefore, I must conclude that it was subordinated to the organs of the police and thereby, in the last analysis, to the Reichsstatthalter, as far as I could \n have an insight into the matter at that time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3775, "page_number": "3768", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Various agencies sent orders to the Sturmbann or to parts of it, but I do not know who initiated these orders.\nHildebrandt's aim was to dissolve this unit, or else to create clear channels of command was proved by the fact that he was counceled with these actions in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader. A layman, who did not know the details of these conditions, had to assume that such a unit was subordinated in some manner, at least, to the Higher SS and Police Leader. In order to prevent the creation of that impression, Hildebrandt tried to clear up matters by approaching Himmler directly, and he asked that the matter be remedied.\nQ.Witness, from your very interesting account, I assume that, according to your investigations at the time, the Sturmbann unit was not subordinated to Hildebrandt and that Hildebrandt was extremely excited, apparently, when he heard about this killing of insane people by members of the Sturmbann.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, my only question is this: This date you mentioned a while ago, that is, three or four days before Christmas, is that certain, or could it have been a matter of a few weeks, more or less?\nA.I said two or three weeks before Christmas.\nQ.I misunderstood you, I'm sorry.\nNow, witness, there is another thing I wish to put to you. The Prosecution have introduced a document in their document books, which, it is true, they have not admitted to the Court. This is documentNO-5126, and it concerns an affidavit given by you on the 18th of September, 1947. I will quote the following six lines from this affidavit:\n\"I am informed that the atrocities, which I must \n term a crime, committed by the Wachsturmbann Eyemann, were committed at a time when this Sturmbann was subordinated to Hildebrandt in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3776, "page_number": "3769", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "I know the document No.NO-2275, and from the document it becomes clearly apparent that Hildebrandt could issue direct orders to this unit during the period mentioned above.\"\nI am showing you this document for identification. How can you reconcile this affidavit with what you have just said here?\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I ask, to which part of the affidavit do you direct attention?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I am referring to the end of the affidavit, the last six lines.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Thank you.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No.NO-5126, No. 6.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Would you just pause long enough for me to locate it?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Those are the last sentences in the last paragraph but one, Your Honor, and not the last one.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I have it now. All right, proceed. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Well, will you answer my question, witness?\nA.At the time when I was interrogated I made my statements almost in the same manner as I just made them here. In the course of the interrogations concerning this matter, I was confronted at that time with the document here mentioned, and I had an opportunity to read it. Up to that point, this letter had been completely unknown to me. Since, according to my own knowledge, I could with good conscience defend my own viewpoint, I was now baffled by the contradiction in this document. Therefore, I consider this statement here in the affidavit as a conclusion which I drew \n from the submission of the document mentioned.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3777, "page_number": "3770", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.If I understand you correctly, witness, you mean to say that the documentNO-2275was submitted to you during the interrogation?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.You read it?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.And then, on the strength of having read it, you came to the conclusion that it could be seen from the document that the unit was directly subordinated to Hildebrandt?\nA.That was my impression just after I had read the document, because of the wording of the document.\nQ.Can you remember whether, at the time, the question was put to you to about the following effect:\n\"Doesn't it become quite clearly apparent, from this document, that the unit was subordinated to Hildebrandt?\"\nA.Yes, something along that line. If I remember correctly, the question was something like this, whether, on being confronted with the document, I didn't have to admit that Sturmbann E was subordinated to Hildebrandt,\nQ.Therefore, your statement in the affidavit was a conclusion and not a statement from your definite knowledge?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Witness, do you still remember that this document NO-2275 also had a letter attached to it which Hildebrandt had written to Himmler, and wherein he apparently defended himself against harsh complaints which Himmler had made against him? Was such a document submitted to you at the time?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3778, "page_number": "3771", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.I couldn't say that with certainty today whether it was submitted to me at the time.\nQ.Did Hildebrandt report to you concerning the fact that he was severely reproached by Himmler on account of this Sturmbann \"E\"?\nA.Yes, he was charged with having had the plan to form there more or less a private unit for his own main sector. Himmler on the strength of some reports or denunciations must have had a completely wrong picture of these conditions, and on the strength of this wrong information he charged Hildebrandt with maintaining a sort of a private battalion, a thing which Himmler didn't want and for which he wanted to make Hildebrandt render an account.\nQ.From your descriptions, therefore, it becomes apparent that there must have been personal disputes at that time already between Himmler and Hildebrandt. Do you know anything about that?\nA.I know something about that already from the period before the war; these disputes were mainly during the period when Himmler became chief of the German police, that is, in 1936, if I am not mistaken, at that time Himmler started to amalgamate the individual groups of the police, at least exteriorily, with the SS. Hildebrandt was one of the senior, older SS leaders and he saw a certain danger in that for the reputation of the SS. Though in reality a complete amalgamation between the police and SS did come about, for the large public it became apparent all the same because of the same uniforms and on account of the striking personal union held by Himmler as chief of the SS and of the German police. Hildebrandt belonged to that circle of higher SS leaders who opposed that development; in the interests of the many SS men who had joined the SS for idealistic reasons only. We knew that it was demanded of us that in all our actions, in private life, in the family life, in the profession, whereever lifewould bring us, we sacrifice our personal comfort; and Hildebrandt in large circles of the SS was considered an exponent of that direction and that attitude. I personally very often \n experienced that comrades from other agencies envied me for serving just in the agency of Herr Hildebrandt.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3779, "page_number": "3772", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Witness, that leaves me a question in which I have a personal interest.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Before you go on to that, may I ask has this Document 2275 been introduced as an exhibit; and, if so, what is the number?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, it is Exhibit 753, in Document Book XV, German Document book, page 39. It was submitted by the Prosecution.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Thank you. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, in the course of the last weeks, in the presence of a representative of the Prosecution, we have repeatedly discussed the conditions existing in Poland in September 1939, and in the area of DanzigWestern Prussia. You have given us a very clear description, but one has to consider that I had to come to the impression or conclusion as if you were rather reserved in your statements today as soon as we started to speak about Polish conditions. Do you feel restrained somehow by some special condition or do you feel restricted in your statement?\nA.Yes, I feel especially demoralized because two days ago it came to my knowledge that I will be handed over to the Poles for some trial, by the Polish authorities. I myself cannot imagine in what connection I would be indicted, but in this interrogation, I had certain misgivings because now I am living under the impression that statements I make here in order to clarify ambiguous questions could incriminate me before other agencies.\nQ.Was it brought to your knowledge in any way whether you will be extradited or whether you will be called as a witness?\nA.It said as a witness. I personally can only assume that perhaps I am supposed to be heard in a trial against former Gauleiter Forster, who according to newspaper reports is to go on trial one of these days.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3780, "page_number": "3773", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.And on account of this necessity to hear you in this trial against Forster, are you supposed to be extradited to Poland?\nA.Well, that is what is talked about. I have heard that I am to be placed at the disposal of the Polish authorities.\nQ. and that is what restrained you today.\nA.Yes.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I have put this question at the end of my examination because I was under the impression during the interrogation that the witness feels some how restrained, and I think that I may formulate a request here on behalf of the whole German Defense Corps that German men and women who try to speak the whole truth and nothing but the truth in this trial, should not have difficulties created for them because they were testifying here concerning Poland, and that should not be extradited to Poland with uncertain fate. The German Defense Corps has taken great pains to get their witnesses here at all. I have made a personal effort to get four witnesses here from Poland, important as they would have been for Hildebrandt, but this motion was rejected, and I was notified that the witness would be at the disposal of me only after their trial was over in Poland. I think what is good for one part of the trial should be good for the other part too, and I ask that the Tribunal support me in order to find some ways and means to see to it that witnesses like the witness heard today should not be brought under such moral restraint, and should not be extradited afterwards to Poland because they made true statements before this Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, Counsel can be assured that this Tribunal is interested in nothing except the discovery of the truth insofar as these charges are concerned, but Counsel must know that this Tribunal cannot control the Polish authorities.\nAny further questions?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I have ended my direct examination of the witness Vietz.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3781, "page_number": "3774", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ZAPF: (Attorney for the Defendant Hofmann) Your Honor, I ask to be permitted to ask a few questions of the witness.\nQ.Witness, is it correct that the factual inquiries by the RuS leader were settled directly with the individual offices?\nA.Yes, thatis correct. The answers to questions in this connection were generally made by the individual expert departments.\nQ.The Prosecution has submitted a document, Exhibit 385, Document Book VIII-A. According to this document the RuS leaders are alleged to be responsible for the giving of new names in the case of re-Germanization of alien orphans, I have got a photostat copy of that document, and I am having it handed to your. I ask you to tell us whether you can identify the signature.\nA.I know that signature; it's Harders' signature.\nQ.This decree, was it carried into practice? Before you answer this question, I would like to ask you whether at the time you had received the document.\nA.Yes, I received that. I recall that right after that another decree was issued according to which the competency as established here was changed. In practice, for my field, I have not experienced any single instance.\nQ.On the strength of your meetings with Dongus, were you in a position to find out whether Dongus had a commission from the RuSHA at all to deal with the Puschkau children's home?\nA.I had only private conversations about that matter on the occasion of official meetings. Dongus was a teacher by profession, and during conversations he told me that in this Puschkau Children's Home, there were children whose education was endangered for whom he had an interest for pathological reasons alone at the same time he was either expert employee or even director of the RuS field agency at Lodz, and now he could combine these matters with his other activities without having \n a special commission for that; whether and in how far it was at Puschkau or elsewhere what I heard from Dongus at the time, I couldn't observe after that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3782, "page_number": "3775", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "I myself don't know Puschkau from my own experiences.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3783, "page_number": "3776", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Now, I would like to ask you a few questions concerning your affidavit,NO-5126, and in order to refresh your memory, I will name that document to you. Under No. 1, what do you mean by RuSHA?\nA.According to the statement I have just made concerning the details, of instruction the commissions came from the racial office in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.Is it correct that the defendant Hofmann himself did not point out any Poles for racial examinations?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.Now, I am quoting the last sentence of No. 1 of your affidavit. There you state, and I quote: \"The decision by the racial examiner, that is the classification, must have been decisive in all cases where no criminal violations were concerned. In other words, if in such a case the racial examiner classified a Pole with a '4', according to the regulations then Himmler could sentence him to death thereupon.\" End of quotation.\nA.But -\nQ.Just a minute. Now, this statement is that an assumption on your part or is it the expression of a positive knowledge of yours of the facts which you yourself have experienced.\nA.From my own knowledge I could only say that the decision in every single instance rested with Himmler personally; whether and in how far the individual points of the general report which was to be submitted to Himmler carried weight for Himmler's decision, I don't know, because I never saw such a report.\nConcerning this matter, a long conversation was held in my interrogations and with this statement I admit that the opinion of the interrogator is possible insofar as I can neither refute nor confirm it.\nQ.Concerning No. 2 of your affidavit. Can you confirm to me with regard to the ordering of interruptions of pregnance that the date of 1941 is a typing error there?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3784, "page_number": "3777", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.Yes, if that figure wasn't simply wrongly copied into the copy here, then I made a mistake there. Of course, it should be 1943.\nQ.Now, concerning No. 5 of your affidavit. On what do you base your statement that the children which originated from sexual intercourse between Germans and aliens should be taken away from its mother?\nA.That belongs in the same connection as I have mentioned before, concerning Himmler's question concerning this whole complex. I have to admit that in this affidavit I was ambiguous in my statements, but I would like to point out that I said which were publicized by the RuSHA in Berlin: I didn't say edited and I didn't say issued. I said publicized.\nQ.In your capacity as RuS leader did such a suggestion or plea of the defendant Hofmann come to your knowledge at all.\nA.No, according to the description I have just mentioned before, that is between Hofmann and Himmler, I never heard anything about it afterwards.\nQ.Then, I would like to ask you too whether you yourself have knowledge of illegitimate marriages between Germans and Poles, which were reported to you for the purpose of examination of the Polish pact?\nA.No, no agency over reported a case to me.\nQ.Is it then correct that the regulations concerning illicit sexual intercourse did not apply to cases of illegitimate marriages?\nA.No, they could not be carried into practice because the measures provided at least Hofmann as chief of the RuSHA dealt mainly with pensions and welfare matters?\nA.Yes, I know that from official conversations with him, and I have already said that the main work of the RuSHA shifted more and more to that sector. DR. ZAPF: Your Honor, that concludes the direct examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION \n BY DR, MUELLER:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3785, "page_number": "3778", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "(Attorney for the defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQ.Witness, I have only one question. In direct examination you described the organization of the Danzig agency. In your agency was there a planning department?\nA.No, that didn't exist at any time.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proseed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you stated that you couldn't imagine the defendant Hildebrandt ever being instrumental in the commission of a cousin of Bach-Zelewski to a concentration camp. Witness, do you know whether or not the defendant Hildebrandt ever did that?\nA.I have made the statement concerning that a while ago, and I said that in one hand it would certainly not have remained a secret in the agency if a dependent or a member of the family of the higher SS and police leader whose name was common knowledge had been struck by such measures. Further more, I cannot imagine either -\nTHEPRESIDENT: (Interposing) Mr. Witness, all he asked you was whether or not you knew as a matter of fact that Hildebrandt had done that. Just answer that question.\nA.I didn't know that he did. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in my examination I will frequently discuss matters which you have already covered in direct examination. Please try to answer my questions and not to repeat exactly what you said in direct examination, but try to answer the questions. Witness, on direct examination you stated that there were Polish workers in the offices controlled by the defendant Hildebrandt; isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3786, "page_number": "3779", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Witness, weren't there also Polish workers in almost all of the SS or governmental agencies operating in Danzig?\nA.In many agencies, very many agencies, there were also Polish workers; that is right.\nQ.Witness, did you ever hear of furniture for resettlers being procured from ghettos?\nA.No.\nQ.Witness, in direct examination you stated that many orders were received which dealt with the DVL, Groups III and IV; for instance, you mentioned one order in connection with racial examinations. However, you stated that except for a few cases of racial examinations, most of those orders were not carried out in Danzig, West Prussia; isn't that what you said? I mean is that correct -- is my statement of what you said correct?\nA.Excuse me. There was only one fundamental order concerning the matter and it is correct that in view of the large bulk of these people it was not applied.\nQ.Witness, do you know if that order was carried out lsewhare -in areas other than Danzig-West Prussia?\nA.I don't know that.\nQ.Witness, in direct examination you stated that there were only a few hundred Jews loft in Danzig-West Prussia, when you were there, and that these had been gathered for the most part, as you recalled, in old age homes of some sort. Witness, do you know what happened to these few hundred Jews?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3787, "page_number": "3780", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.No, I didn't see them myself.\nQ.Well, my question was, witness, do you have any idea what finally happened to these Jews?\nA.No.\nQ.Weren't there any half-Jews in this area, witness?\nA.Oh, yes, I think there must have been half-Jews but I didn't make their acquaintance.\nQ.Witness -\nA.Excuse me, I haven't finished. I want to add that there was one exception, namely, my former secretary in 1941 became engaged to a half-Jew, to whom she is married today. The fact that her then fiance was a half-Jew was known to me already at that time.\nQ.Witness, didn't you register the half-Jews in your area sometime during the year 1942?\nA, No, I had no orders for that.\nQ.My question was, witness, not whether you had orders but did you at any time in 1942 register the half-Jews in your area?\nA.No, at no time did I register half-Jews.\nQ.Witness, in connection with Poles and eastern workers accused of having sexual intercourse with German women, did you know what \"special treatment\" meant in that connection?\nA.First of all the term \"special treatment\" was not clear to me at all. The only idea I could get of it was that they meant special cases which were to be registered. Amongst others also such cases where the existing regulation had been violated.\nQ.Witness, didn't you know that in casesof the type we are discussing that the Poles involved would either be re-Germanized or else sent to a concentration camp or killed?\nA.I did know that either they could be punished the way you just mentioned, and that if they were accepted in the re-Germanization procedure they would not be hit by those punishments.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3788, "page_number": "3781", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Witness, you have testified that there were no such cases except for three individuals whom you mentioned in your area. Did you ever hear of such cases in other areas in Germany?\nA.No, and I didn't work in other areas either.\nQ.Witness, will you please look at your affidavit, Document No. No-3242. If the Tribunal please, I just had that brought down. I do not have a translation of this available at this moment.\n(Witness is offered the document.) Will you please look at Paragraph 5 of your affidavit, witness. Do you see that, witness, the paragraph numbered 5?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you see the last sentence, \"I have read the instructions of the Main Race and Settlement Office pertaining to this\" -- referring to the special treatment cases earlier mentioned in that paragraph.\nA.Yes, this refers to the regulations issued by the RuSHA in as far as they concerned our activity in this connection. The fact that special treatment in practice meant execution or concentration camp was not contained in this practical regulation of the RuSHA -- what I mean is a regulation covering our activities in this connection.\nQ.Witness, you state in the previous sentence to this -\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Excuse me. Your Honor, may I point out that the document just referred to, DocumentNO-3246, was not made available to the Defense.\nMR. SHILLER:I am sorry, Your Honor, I am not offering this document in evidence. I may offer it for identification. I believe this is not unusual in any way.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I would simply state that he is doing just what you did a few minutes ago -- simply preventing the witness to identify it. He hasn't offered it yet.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3789, "page_number": "3782", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "JUDGEO'CLONNELL: May I ask what does this document purport to be?\nMR. SHILLER:This is an affidavit by the witness now on the stand.\nJUDGEO(CONNELL: How is the Tribunal to understand the worth or the value of an answer without knowing the contents?\nMR. SHILLER:I am sorry, Your Honor, I did not expect the witness to contradict directly this affidavit which I have not heretofore considered important.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: That seems to be one of the exigencies of trial work, The Court should know what the substance of the document is when there is an examination upon it.\nMr. Shiller: I have one copy of the translation, Your Honor, which I am now submitting to you. I am referring to Paragraph 5 on the bottom of page 1. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, in the paragraph you state that you knew that special treatment in practice meant hanging or death. How did you know that if it never mentioned it in the instructions and if you never heard of any cases outside of your area and never had any cases resulting in death in your area?\nA.As time went on I gathered that from conversations on the occasion of meetings with other comrades of mine.\nQ.Witness will you please look at Document No.NO-5126.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question.\nMR. SHILLER:May I beg the indulgence of the Court for approximately two or three questions concerning this affidavit which has been in considerable discussion between defense counsel and the witness. This is Document No.NO-5126which I now offer for identification and which I now offer in evidence as Prosecution \n Exhibit No. 844, This document has heretofore been distributed in Document Book No. IX, although it was not offered during the case in chief.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3790, "page_number": "3783", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:That's the trouble; it should have been That's the trouble you have now. If it had been offered in the case in chief as it should have been, then you wouldn't have had to go in to it now. So I will just let you introduce it, but your time is up. BY DR. SHILLER:\nQ.Did you sign this affidavit voluntarily without duress?\nA.Pressure was not assorted against me, but I have to add that many statements result from documents submitted to me during the interrogations end in many cases I didn't have a clear recollection of the conditions and connections when I was suddenly interrogated there.\nQ.Thank you, witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, may I ask that the redirect should be considered after the recess because I would like to have a look at this new document that was just introduced and that is how I can decide whether I need a redirect or not.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Witness, just in order that we may have the whole thing clearly in our minds at one time: this documentNO-2275, referred to in your affidavit, what is the nature of that document?\nA.That is a report made by Hildebrandt to Himmler.\nQ.It's an instrument signed by Hildebrandt himself, is that correct?\nA.It bears his signature, Your Honor.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3791, "page_number": "3784", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Coirt 1, Case 8\nQ.Very well THE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess until three-fifteen. (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3792, "page_number": "3785", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may proceed. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, in re-direct examination I only have a few questions to put to you. You stated before that Poles were employed in various agencies in the Danzig area. Do you know that the Reich Security Main Office had ordered the dismissal of Poles from the agency of Hildebrandt?\nAYes, that was a general regulation which applied to the SS agencies to the effect that Poles employed by the SS agencies were to be dismissed.\nQMy second question: The Prosecution pointed out to you that you had said that in Danzig and West Prussia there had been a few hundred Jews. If I understood you correctly in the course of direct examination then you spoke about these 200 Jews only with reference to Danzig proper?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQAnd now I am coming to your affidavit submitted by the Prosecution dated 8 May 1947 and in paragraph 5 which was shown to you by the Prosecution. I am now asking you how were these sentences written in which you declared that you know that in the case of negative results a so-called special treatment was exercised and that you know that this special treatment in practice meant execution or concen tration camp, I saw the corresponding regulations issued by the RuSHA.\nAThe regulations issued by the RuSHA refer to these cases inso far as we were participating in this procedure at all. My statement originated from the fact that after months of solitary confinement we were confronted with a series of documents about which I had to answer questions. I did not always find the exact content for my answers and that is probably why I expressed myself so ambiguously in this affidavit.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3793, "page_number": "3786", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Besides this is an account of only part of our activities and I would like to maintain this statement namely that I myself in Danzig-West Prussia only exercised my activities to the very small extent that I have already described.\nQThen your statement in paragraph 5 refers to the knowledge of incidents in other areas but that of Danzig-West Prussia only on the basis of regulations that came to your knowledge issued by the RuSHA?\nAWell that could not be inferred from the regulations of the RuSHA for in this prohibition it was a question of a police regulation for which the RuSHA never had any competency.\nQWas this wording as it is set down in paragraph 5, formulated by you?\nAI did not dictate the affidavit in this version.\nQThe regulations that you have just mentioned, were those regulations which were given to the RuSHA for information by the Reich Security Main Office?\nAYes.\nQAnd now a concluding question. In paragraph 8 you make mention of the fact that in the most cases of racial examinations of Poles, racial examiners carried out this examinations and that you did not know the total number but you continue that you are convinced that it was certainly a question of thousands of people. This assumption of thousands of people, does that refer to the examinations or to a special treatment?\nAThat refers only to the examinations.\nQThank you no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Mr. President, I would like to call a third witness, the witness Haessler to the stand with your permission.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nRUDOLFHAESSLER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "RUDOLF", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3794, "page_number": "3787", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me.\nI swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withheld and add nothing.\nA (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQWitness, please tell the Tribunal your name and your personal data?\nAMy name is Rudolf Haessler, born 22 February 1912 in Offenbach, on the Main.\nQWere you a member of the SS?\nAI was a member of the SS by reason of my rank in the Secret State Police.\nQWill you please speak more slowly and make pause between questions and answers so the interpreter will have an opportunity to follow. Where were your duties located?\nAFrom the year 1940 the end of the war I was employed in the Reich Security Main Office and specially in the Office 4.\nQWhat were your official duties and capacities?\nAI was a criminal inspector and in the last period I belonged to Department 4-D, that is foreign owrkers.\nQI believe that we have now for the first time a witness in front of us who is a representative of the Reich Security Main Office. Which matters were also in your authority except for the matters which you have just mentioned within 4-D?\nADid you say in Department 4-D\nQYes.\nAIn this department I had to treat all fundamental questions of internal German labor allocations of foreign workers.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3795, "page_number": "3788", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "QDid the Department 4-D have competency over the questions about abortions performed on female Eastern workers and Polish women and the treatment of Pregnant foreign workers and the children born in the Reich of foreign workers?\nAYes, insofar as the competency of the Security Police was touched upon bye that.\nQDid you have any official business concerning these questions?\nAYes.\nQYou can therefore report on those matters and testify on these matters from your own knowledge?\nAYes.\nQThen I would like to turn to the chapter of abortions. Are you familiar with the fundamental order concerning abortions?\nAYes.\nQDo you know how this order is headed and who issued it?\nA -It is called a working directive which was issued upon the order of the Reich Health Leader. I believe it is called 4-43. The Reich Health Leader at the time was Dr. Conti as the central agency of the Reich.\nQI am now showing you a copy of this order 4-43 which was not been submitted by the Prosecution. I am only submitting this to you to aid your memory and I would please ask you to read this through again.\nAYes, this is the identical order.\nQOn what level of subordination was the Reich Health Leader? Was this a Reich authority or an agency of the Party?\nAAs far as I know this decree was issued by the Reich Health Leader in his capacity as member of the Reich Government.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3796, "page_number": "3789", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.I am now showing you Exhibits 470 and 472, Both are contained in Document Book 9 of the Prosecution, They are documents No. 110-3520 and 1384. Will you please have a look at those documents?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Are you familiar with these two decrees?\nA.Yes, I am.\nQ.What was the agency that drafted these decrees?\nA.I believe that they were issued by the Reich Security Main Office which can be seen from the file note marked and this came from the sphere of work of the Department 4 for foreign workers.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I would like to make the suggestion to inform the witness, that he, in answering some question could perhaps be subject to a criminal charge and for this reason I believe that he is justified in refusing to answer questions. I would like to make this explanation in reference to the statements that I wish the witness to make.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will be advised that under no circumstances will he be required to answer any question that would incriminate him. Is that the instruction that you desired, Mr. Counsel?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Yes, thank you, Mr. President. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Why was the Reich Security Main Office entrusted with this matter of abortions?\nA. according to the existing regulations at the time it is well know that abortions were subject to punishment under the law.\nQ.Was this also the reason why these decrees were addressed to the criminal police?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q.", "A.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3797, "page_number": "3790", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Do you know the previous history of the decrees with which we are concerned here?\nA.Yes, as far as I could see that from official correspondence.\nQ.Do you remember how these alien female workers commented on the question of abortions?\nA.Well, the behavior of the alien female workers and the desires from the persons involved of course were taken into consideration.\nQ.Yes, and will you please continue?\nA.It is not a question of compulsory measures for these female workers by the Reich authorities or any other authority but it was fundamentally the fulfillment of the desires that they would express.\nQ.Did the female alien workers find that the results of their illegitimate sexual intercourse would bother them?\nA.Yes, and that is why they wished to be freed from these results of their illegal sexual intercourse by means of abortion.\nQ.If now a female Eastern worker wished to have an abortion performed, in my opinion it was not yet cause enough that the Reich Security Main Office or other agencies would accede to this desire. What then caused the competent authorities to issue decrees of that nature?\nA.I would like to give several reasons for this. In the first place as I have already mentioned, abortion was punishable according to German law and in the second place if abortions were permitted a regulation had to take place so that quacks, that is to say non-medical persons, could not have the possibility to be included in this procedure, since proceedings of that sort may be a great danger for the pregnant woman as such. In the third place it was to be avoided in any case that the impression would be \n created in the circles of German women and girls as though now the the official attitude of the authorities towards the problem of abortions had changed.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3798, "page_number": "3791", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "For these reasons now the above mentioned decrees sort of directed proceedings.\nQ.According to your account then the whole matter was to be clarified.\nA.Yes.\nQ.You have already a few minutes ago touched upon one of the questions that I wanted to ask you and I would like you to make special mention of this question. Do you know whether the decrees involved were issued so that one could force the pregnant Eastern female workers or persuade them to submit to abortion?\nA.No, that was not the intention. I would like to point out that in both decrees that I have just been handed now, special emphasis is placed upon the fact that this operation is performed upon the desire or the application of the pregnant woman.\nQ.In this case it is of course only where alien women are concerned?\nA.Yes, they were either female Eastern workers or Polish women.\nQ.You just emphasized the principle of volunteering and of a voluntary application. Do you know whether any proceedings contrary to this principle have ever been carried out?\nA.This principle has never been broken.\nQ.I would now like to show you Exhibit 470 which I have already handed to you a few minutes ago and I would like to ask you could the special expert department of the Reich Health authorities, on their own initiative issue such abortions? One could infer this fact from the wording of Exhibit 470?\nA.No, this authority did not have the competency to issue orders in that respect. I have already stated that, as a matter \n of principle, there has to be on application on the part of these Eastern workers.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3799, "page_number": "3792", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "If, in this decree mention is made of regulations and directives then that would mean in this connection that the application was sustained.\nQ.Witness, however, it reads there the competent authority may, on their own initiative, order an abortion to take place. That of course could mean that this agency could order the abortion without the agreement of the pregnant woman. How do you explain this very expression, \"on their own initiative.\"\nA.That will mean that if the expert department sustained an application, that is to say, in very definite cases, in which they were not dependent on the agreement of another agency, then it would always mean that this application was sustained.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3800, "page_number": "3793", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.Do you mean to say by this that this agency did not have to ask another agency for their agreement or disagreement?. Will you please answer by question?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that the Race and Settlement Main Office was also involved in these proceedings in certain cases?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.What sort of cases were those in question here?\nA.They were cases in which racially valuable progency was supposed to be kept; that is to say, in cases in which the father, definitely or probably belonged to the some blood as the Germans or to like blood.\nQ.Well, did the RuSHA have any sort of interest to be involved or to be included in any of these proceedings?\nA.Yes, as far as I was informed the RuSHA had the task of securing and maintaining racially valuable progeny.\nQ.What was the manner in which the RuSHA carried out these activities?\nA.The RuSHA acted mainly through its racial examiners, who were attached to the various higher SS and police leader offices.\nQ.Did the becoming active of these classification experts only make possible the performance of this abortion?\nA.No, as a matter of principle the abortion was already permitted.\nQ.Between this activity of the classification expert and the abortion itself there was then no immediate connection; is that correct?\nA.No, there was none.\nQ.What was the effect of this inclusion of the racial examiner?\nA.I would like to say in a positive effect.\nQ.How do you mean by positive?\nA.The activity of the classification expert could only lead \n to the result that the application for abortion would be rejected.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3801, "page_number": "3794", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.And what would be the reasons for that?\nA.Well, in his opinion it would then be racially valuable progeny.\nQ.Witness, in this connection I would like to ask you, in your capacity as representative of the Reich Security Main Office, to inform me what was meant actually by the expression \"special treatment and what outsiders could have imagined was meant by this expression?\nA.The exact term, \"special treatment\" was in my opinion only known to people who were actually involved with these matters. An outsider could not have a clear picture of the actual significance of this term. From my own experience I can tell you that even functionaries of the Gestapo who in their official capacity did not have anything to do with this department, in many cases were not clear, themselves in their own minds about this expression. Summarizing, I would like to say that an outsider could not have known the real significance of this expression.\nQ.Did you yourself know the real significance of this term, \"special treatment\"?\nA.In the course of my activities the significance of this term has become clear to me.\nQ.And what, according to the knowledge that you have gained in the course of your activities, does this word \"special treatment\" mean?\nA. \"Special treatment\" means the killing of a human being on the basis of police orders without due process of the law. That means without an inclusion of the judiciary administration in this procedure.\nQ.I do not want to know any names, but you can perhaps tell me an agency, the agency which was the father of this monstrous word?\nA.I cannot give you any aut hentic information on this.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3802, "page_number": "3795", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "However, I would assume that this was probably a creation of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, that is, the Reichsfuehrer personally.\nQ.A second question which also fits right in with these other questions; were the activities of the so-called Jewish special departments in the Reich Security Main Office, known outside of the special resort?\nA.No. In explanation I would like to say that I myself, as a member of Office IV did not know either the tasks or the special activities which were in charge of this very special department, and I would also like to say that the special department for Jews in Berlin was completely separate from all other departments and was even located in a building all to themselves.\nQ.Apparently that seems to have been a top secret matter?\nA.Yes.\nQ.I am now coming back to the subject matter, and I would like to talk to you about matters concerning the children born to alien female workers in the Reich proper. Which was the basis upon which the solution of this problem was carried out?\nA.If I regard this question as an account of our own official business, then the basis for these measures must have been the correspondence between Himmler and Eigruber.\nQ.Witness, I would like to show you exhibit 475, document book 9, numberNO-5007. Will you please have a look at this document? Will you tell me whether the file material represents the correspondence that you have just now mentioned between Himmler and Eigruber?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What were the immediate effects of this correspondence?\nA.This correspondence caused that meetings were held between the various Reich agencies.\nQ.And what WEB the results of these discussions end meetings?\nA.Well, they did not lead to a decree, but as far as I know, \n the immediate result was a new reporting to the Reichsfuehrer-SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3803, "page_number": "3796", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.I am showing you exhibit 495 from document book 10, number NO-2447. and will you please look at these documents in detail. You may take your time. After all, we have time.\nA.Yes, this is the correspondence of the Reich Security Main Office.\nQ.How did the definite settlement come about concerning the treatment to be given to the children that were born of foreign workers in the Reich proper?\nA.The approval of the Reichsfuehrer in connection -with this teletype was the cause for new meetings and discussions which finally led to the decree by the Reich Security Main Office which was dated July 1943.\nQ.I here have a document now, exhibit 496, from document took 10, numberNO-1383, and I would like to show it to you. Please read it through, and will you please tell me then whether this is the decree you just mentioned?\nA.Yes, I am quite familiar with this decree.\nQ.On thebasis of the file sign that the document boars, can you tell me who issued this decree?\nA.I believe that it was the Department IV-D for foreign workers of the Reich Security Main Office which issued that decree.\nQ.In this decree a series of agencies are mentioned which were involved in this procedure. In this connection I am only interested in the RuSHA, In how far was the RuSHA involved in the preparatory works for this proceedings?\nA.The RuSHA. was called in for racial examination that was required in order to claify the question whether or not racially valuable progeny was concerned.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3804, "page_number": "3797", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.- I do not believe that you have quite understood my question. I only asked you in how far the RuSHA was involved in the preparatory measures? Of course, there must have been meetings and conferences to which the RuSHA or a representative of the RuSHA were called. How did that come about?\nA.- Well, the RuSHA was only called in insofar as questions concerning racial examination had to be clarified.\nQ.- In these conferences?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And who called in these meetings?\nA.- As far as I can remember, the Reich Security Main Office, on the basis of this decree by the Reichsfuehrer-SS.\nQ.- Now, the prosecution charges that children were kidnapped from these alien workers; is that correct?\nA.- No, there can be no question of taking these children away from their mothers; that is to say, the children were treated the way they were treated exclusively upon the approval of the mother.\nQ.- Do you know anything about the creation of homes for alien children?\nA.- Yes, I myself have visited once such a home for alien children.\nQ.- What was the purpose of these homes?\nA.- The purpose was to house there the children of alien female workers who were not racially desirable; that is to say, who did not come under the care of the NSV. This should make possible that the mother would always be able to be together with her children after working hours.\nQ.- You now just mentioned that such a home was visited by you yourself. Where was that?\nA.- This was in the course of my visiting a Berlin industrial firm.\nQ.- what conditions did you find there?\nA.- I was able to determine that the equipment of this home was ab \n solutely in accordance with requirements.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3805, "page_number": "3798", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "There was nursing personnel; there were beds for the children; the required linen; there were bathrooms and all other equipment which is required for the care of infants.\nQ.- Was the sanitary equipment without fault also?\nA.- Yes, everything was especially clean.\nQ.- What sort of children were housed in these homes?\nA.- Those were the children of mothers who were working in this industrial firm.\nQ.- Now, the prosecution maintains the children were transferred to collection points and were liquidated there in case they were not found to be racially valuable. Just what do you know about that?\nA.- No, such measures were never carried out. In my opinion the institution of these various children's homes as such already is in contradiction to this very assumption.\nQ.- From the decree that I have handed to you a few minutes ago can be seen that in special cases children could be also given over to the NSV. What do you mean by NSV, Nazi Welfare Organization?\nA.- Well, these are the various institutions of the Nazi Socialist Welfare Association.\nQ.- Was that an association or society, an agency, or an authority? What was it? Or was it an organization of the Party or what?\nA.- About the relationship under public law of this NSV I really don't know anything.\nQ.- Did the NSV include only a rather small area or was it disseminated throughout the Reich?\nA.- I would like to ask you to reformulate that question.\nQ.- What do these three letters stand for, NSV? From the big dictionary of abbreviations current in the National Socialist State are you perhaps familiar with this abbreviation? It's called Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt, National Socialist Welfare Organization, NSV. Do you \n know anything about the purposes, the aims of this NSV?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3806, "page_number": "3799", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "A.- Well, the NSV was in charge of taking care of needy people and the carrying out of welfare tasks.\nQ.- Yes, quite right. Let us now return to my question one. These children who were given over to the NSV, was this identical with a taking away of children or was it also in these cases required to have the approval of the mothers?\nA.- The transfer into the care of the NSV only took place if the mother had expressed her approval.\nQ.- Will you please look at paragraph 6 of the decree 27 July 1943. Here the principle which you have just mentioned as typical is emphasized especially. Immediately following this, however, the decree mentioned reads: \"It is taken into consideration that in cases of Eastern workers in certain cases the requirement of the mothers approval may be waived.\" Just what happened to this consideration?\nA.- This thought has not been further developed in the future; that is to say, this particular provision remained just on paper.\nQ.- Witness, if mothers would return to their native country would the children then be kept in the Reich?\nA.- Well, if the mother expressed the desire to take along her child when she returned, she would certainly return to her native country with the child.\nQ.- Then, no sort of compulsion was exercised to have the children stay in the Reich?\nA.- There was no case of compulsion.\nQ.- Was this regulation applicable also in the case of Eastern female workers and Polish women?\nA.- Yes, of course.\nQ.- Was this principle ever changed?\nA.- No, it was never changed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3807, "page_number": "3800", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Q.- I have now treated the two subject matters I wanted to ask you about. In conclusion I would like to ask you the following: Was the RuSHA only included in cases of pregnant Eastern female workers who expected a child fathered by a German or by someone of similar racial strain, and second in the case of children of Eastern female workers whose a father was a. German of a person of similar racial strain? Did you understand my question?\nA.- Yes, I did. Well, I can only answer that with yes.\nQ.- Was that the majority, the clear majority of cases, or was that only a small percentage of cases in which RuSHA was involved?\nA.- I would like to say that it was the smaller percentage of the cases.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No further questions, Mr. President. Thank you.\nDR.THIELE*FREDERSDORF (Deputizing for Dr. Ratz for the defendant Sollmann): I ask for permission of the Tribunal to direct some questions to the witness.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION -----------------BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:Q.- Witness, in the decree dated 27 July 1943 which has already been mentioned by you, exhibit 496, which you probably still have before you, concerning the treatment of children of alien female workers, the Lebensborn is also mentioned.\nCan you please tell me why this Lebensborn was mentioned at all in this decree?\nA.- As far as I know it was mentioned here only because this was an institution in which the Reichsfuehrer-SS had a special interest. Yes, I believe that that's the reason.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3808, "page_number": "3801", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "15 Jan 1948_A_MSD_24_1_Fox (Reischer)\nQThat means, then, that it was not mentioned because they thought than any practical effects would be forthcoming from it but more or less for rhetorical reasons?\nAWell, in my opinion I believe you have to compare the branching the offices of the NSV and the institutions of the Lebensborn which were not present in all locations. I believe that this was more or less a gesture of courtesy to the Lebensborn.\nQWhen you had anything to do with thecarrying out of this decree. did you ever find out whether or not the Lebensborn actually was active in this way mentioned in this decree?\nANo. In the course of time I had to take care of inquiries of the agencies involved in thismatter concerning doubtful matters and further directives concerning the carrying out of this decree. As far as I can remember now, such an inquiry concerning the Lebensborn has never been received by me.\nQDo you perhaps still remember whether the Lebensborn at any time and in connection with the children of alien workers had rejected to have anything to do with them?\nAI vaguely remember that once the Legensborn has made such an objection.\nDR.THIELE_FRENDERSDORF: Thank you, no further questions. With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like -- deputizing for Dr. Schmidt -- to ask the High Tribunal to excuse the defendant Tesch from tomorrow's session so that he may have an opportunity to prepare for his defense, with his counsel.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The request is granted.\nDR.THIELE_FREDERSDORF: Thank you very much.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, who was your chief in your department in IV_D of the Reich Main Security Office?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3809, "page_number": "3802", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "15 Jan 1948_A_24_2_Fox (Reischer)\nAThe leader of the Department IV_D -- on, there were several persons in the course of time.\nQDuring the period from 1939 until 1945, Witness, were you in this office all during that period?\nANo, I only was assigned there in the summer of 1942.\nQAnd how long were you there, Witness?\nAUntil the end of the war.\nQWho were the chiefs -- chief or chiefs -- during this period of time, Witness?\nAMay I ask you whether you mean the head of the group or the Department IV_D for foreign workers?\nQWitness, who was the head of the Department IV_D for foreign workers?\nAThat was the technical term Bearbeitungsgebiet \"Sphere of Work\" and not \"Department\". At the time of my assignment there, it was Regierungsrat Baatz, whose activities I took over in the late summer of 1943. I would like to emphasize here that directives and regulations and so forth in this field came exclusively from Gruppenfuehrer Mueller.\nQWitness who was Gruppenfuehrer Mueller? Was he your superior when you became head of IV_D, foreign workers? Was he the head of IV_D in general?\nANo. IV_D, foreign workers, was incorporated into Group IV_D in organizational matters. Gruppenfuehrer Mueller was the head of Office IV.\nQWitness, who was the head of IV_D altogether?\nAI already told you that the persons changed of course frequently.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, what he wants to know is, what their names were during the period of time that you were there.\nAWhen I took over my assignment, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Weinmann. Subsequently, SS Standartenfuehrer Dr. Rank, in an informatory capacity. And later Sturmbannfuehrer Lischke. And lastly Oberfuehrer Dr. Pifrather.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3810, "page_number": "3803", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "15 Jan 1948_A_MSD_24_3_Fox (Reischer)\nQWitness, did you ever hear of the name Eichmann in connection with IV_D?\nAIn connection with IV_D, the name Eichmann is not known to me because in my opinion he was not a member of this particular sector\nQWitness, is this man Mueller whom you have mentioned as being the overall chief of Group IV of the RSHA the same Mueller who was instrumental in the extermination of six million Jews?\nAAbout the liquidation of six million Jews, I only found out after the surrender and how far Mueller was involved in this matter I of course cannot say.\nQWitness, during your direct examination you stated that outsiders couldn't know what the term \"special treatment\" meant. Do you consider the RUS leaders and examiners who dealt with the cases of special treatment to be outsiders in your opinion?\nAI was speaking of persons outside of the office and by that I meant the circle of persons who did not belong to the Gestapo.\nQSo, Witness, you mean that people outside of the Gestapo could not know what special treatment meant, even though they dealt with cases of special treatment and did the examinations; is that what you mean?\nAI believe that this question can only be answered in a subjective manner. In how far an outsider could gain knowledge, I believe depends on the individual case.\nQWitness, my questions are in my mind clear enough so that you can answer them. My question was not, could anyone else gain knowledge. My question was, did you think the people outside of the Gestapo could not gain knowledge.\nAYou can of course gain knowledge of ce tain measures, but I believe that expression \"special treatment\" was not immediately recognizable as an eulogism for hanging and executions.\nQWitness, in connection with the subject of abortions, you stated \n 15 Jan 1948_A_24_4_Fox (Reischer) that there was no intention to force the Eastern workers to have such abortions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3811, "page_number": "3804", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Witness, didn't all cases of pregnancy among Eastern workers have to be reported to the Gestapo, regardless of whether or not the woman was interested in having an abortion?\nANo, as far as I remember, the reports of these pregnancies were made to the labor office, or to the special office at the physicians chamber.\nQWill you please look at DocumentNO-4140, Exhibit 477, in Document Book IX. This is an order from the Gestapo Regional Head quarters in Frankfurt on the Main, dated 17 January 1944, in connection with the interruptions of pregnancy of Eastern workers. You see this document, Witness? Do you have the correct document before you?\nAYes, I have the document before me. This is a purely local directive of the police in Frankfurt on the Main which, therefore was not issued by the Reich Security Main Office.\nQThis was done entirely on the initiative of this local office. Is that what you mean, Witness?\nAWell, I would not say that just like that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question.\nQI believe you could explain your answer and I could then ask you one more question, Witness. You can give an answer to this question.\nAI don't know of a directive of the Reich Security Main Office to make such demands.\nQWitness, in direct examination you stated that you had visited children of Eastern workers at their accommodations at a factory in Berlin, Who asked the mothers for their consent to take over the care of the children, Witness? Wasn't it the Gestapo?\nANo, this was a home for foreign children into which the children were transferred -without the approval of any sort of agencies beforehand. In this connection, I said that in this case those were children of mothers who were working in this factory. In this connection, it was not necessary to get the approval of any sort of agency, perhaps the Gestapo or something like that.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3812, "page_number": "3805", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "15 Jan 1948_A_MSD_24_5_Fox (Reischer)\nMR. SHILLER:I don't believe the witness has quite answered my question, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I think he has.\nMR. SHILLER:Very well. Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENTAny further questions by the defense?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3813, "page_number": "3806", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQOnly a few short questions, Witness, concerning the special treatment. In the Reich Security Main Office the concept of \"special treatment\" was probably quite familiar, wasn't it?\nAWill you please repeat your question?\nQWas the term \"special treatment\", within the Reich Security Main Office well known in various departments or various groups; isn't that so?\nAYes.\nQThis term \"special treatment\", did that go to the outer world in many cases?\nAAs far as I remember, no.\nQWas it possible for an outsider to be familiar with this expression if he had good connections to some talkative functionary of the Reich Security Main Office?\nAYes, there is a possibility.\nQCould somebody who read decrees or heard of decrees of such a nature or who had contact with this expression, \"special treatment\", otherwise, could he immediately say that must mean death or elimination?\nANo.\nQThe representatives of the RuSHA who are now here sitting in the dock, the defendants Hofmann, Hildebrandt, and Schwalm, did they in your opinion belong to those persons whom you would designate as outsiders in the sense in which you used this term in your direct examination who could not have had knowledge of this particular term?\nAYes.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:No further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY THE COURT\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness may answer a few questions about which my mind is not quite clear.\nQSuppose the prospective father and mother were both ethnic Germans.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3814, "page_number": "3807", "date": "15 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-15", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nWould an abortion be permissible under those circumstances?\nQThe problem of ethnic Germans was never worked on in connection with the allocation of alien labor. I therefore am not informed. However I would assume that these applications would have been rejected.\nQSuppose the prospective mother and father were both native Germans. Would an abortion have been permissible?\nAI would like to explain that with the following statements: The conception \"Eastern workers and Poles\" was very clearly stated, That is, the regulations of these decrees concerning abortions were applicable only to those persons -- that is, the mothers who had the characteristic \"East\" or \"P\" on their sleeves.\nQWell, that is the very thing I am trying to determine, Whether or not an abortion was limited to cases in which either the father or mother was alien or a foreign worker.\nAYes, the mothers had to be Eastern female alien workers\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 16 January 1948, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3815, "page_number": "3808", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal.I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 16 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present save the defendants Tesch, absent-excus ed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What witness will you call next?\nDR.FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt): If Your Honor please, with the permission of the Court, at this stage I ask to be permitted to call the witness George Ehbrecht.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGEORGEEHBRECHT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, before I proceed with the examination of the witness I would like to inform the Tribunal that the witness is suffering from a very severe heart disease, and therefore he is sometimes impeded a little bit in hiscapacity to testify. I hope that he will not have a cardiac attack here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION \n BY DR. FROESCHMANN:", "speakers": [ "DR.", "GEORGE", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3816, "page_number": "3809", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Witness, will you please give your full personal data to the Tribunal?\nA.My name is George Ehbrecht. I was born at Hamburg on the 24th of July 1895.\nQ.Witness, in a few brief words, will you please give your curriculum vitae to the Tribunal?\nA.From the second year of my life, I was brought up at Breman. I went to high school and then I went to an art school in order to become an artist. I then went to the art academies at Dresden and Berlin, whereupon I became a personal pupil of Professor Modersohn at Bad Schwede and Fischerhutte. I then participated in the first World War as a volunteer, and I later became an officer in a shock division in the West.\nAfter the war I continued my training and education in the field of art and, apart from that, I studied agriculture.\nFrom 1923 until 1925 I went on a studying trip to Eastern Asia, India, China, Japan, the Philippine Islands, and the South Seas. I painted quite a bit there, and I sent pictures home for expositions.\nFrom 1925 until 1931 I was in what used to be German Eastern Africa, and what isnow known as Tanganika. There I painted, and, apart from that, I was also a farmer on a plantation.\nIn the summer of 1931 I returned to Germany. Again, I was a painter, near Bremen, and I Worked in the Nazi Party in an honorary capacity. I had joined the Party upon my return from Africa, that is, on the 1st of August 1931. First of all, I was a political leader, a Kreisleiter, at Hamburg-Harburg. At first that was an honorary position, and then, from 1934, it was a professional one. There I brought to life, particularly, a new settlement at the outskirts of the town, where I dealt with questions such as the establishment of a eugenics office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3817, "page_number": "3810", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "That is how Darre came to notice me, and at his request, and with the approval of Himmler, I was received in the SS as a Sturmbannfuehrer in June of 1935.\nFrom 1937 until the middle of 1938, I worked in the Race and Settlement Office as a staff leader. In 1938, about towards August, I was transferred from that office and I held various positions as leader of an SS sector, at the request of Himmler, in spite of the fact that, fundamentally speaking, I had joined the SS only for the affairs, of the Race and Settlement Office.\nAfter the Polish campaign, about at the beginning of November 1939, I became SS sector leader of the General SS at Danzig, and I remained in that position until December of 1941, when I was transferred into the staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader at Koenigsberg. There I had to replace the Higher SS and Police Leader, who was absent most of the time, and I deputized for him in his Eastern Prussian sphere of activities.\nIn August of 1944 I had apoplexy, and I resigned from my office. I was then transferred into the Leadership Reserve of the SS Main Personnel Office in Berlin. I no longer worked, then, until I was captured on the 2nd of May, 1945.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3818, "page_number": "3811", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Have you been in American custody since that time?\nA.I am sorry, counsel, I cannot understand you.\nQ.Were you in American custody since that time, that is, from the 2nd of May 1945 onwards?\nA.Yes.\nQ.During the last weeks have you been notified in any way that you were going to be extradited to Poland?\nA.I was not notified of that. The Polish liaison officer at Danzig, however, questioned me briefly concerning my person, but he did not tell me what his purpose was.\nQ.Witness, you are a man who has travelled extensively, and you returned to Germany from abroad in 1931. Now, what I am interested in is solely your activity as Abschnittfuehrer of the SS sector in Danzig, and I ask you, in that capacity, were you subordinated to the defendant Hildebrandt?\nA.Yes, I worked under the orders of the defendant Hildebrandt.\nQ.For how long were you subordinated to Hildebrandt.\nA.First of all, in 1937 -- about from January 1937 until April -- I was Standartenfuehrer, Senior Colonel, of the 33rd Standarte at Mainz, which was a part of the main sector at Wiesbaden, where Herr Hildebrandt was in charge. There we became closely acquainted and at that time I learned to esteem and honor Herr Hildebrandt to an extraordinary degree.\nI was again subordinated to Herr Hildebrandt when I was on active service in Denzig-Tschopport. I think that was from November 1939 until December 1941. During that period I was subordinated to my comrade Hildebrandt.\nQ.During that period, did you have the opportunity to know Hildebrandt's personality and to know about his political attitude?\nA.Yes, I had that opportunity. Over and beyond our official contact, a friendly relationship very soon developed between us. I \n made the acquaintance of my conrade Hildebrandt, and I found that he was one of the most decent, the most honest, and the most esteemed personalities.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3819, "page_number": "3812", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "I have met very many people in my life, and he was really one of those I noticed most. He is a man of personal noblesse to the highest degree, and he has my fullest confidence. In his personal mode of life, Hildebrandt was an example for others, and in his official bearing he was superior, quiet, and moderate. Toward his subordinates, he was always open minded, and he was a helpful superior who made himself well liked in all of the leadership corps of the SS, where he enjoyed the highest esteem. I think, in general, that all those who knew him loved and esteemed him.\nWhen I was detached to Koenigsberg and officially separated from Hildebrandt, I had a very great disappointment, once, concerning Himmler. Therefore, I went to my friend Hildebrandt to exchange ideas about the matter. We had a very impressive and long conversation and I gathered, from what I heard, that even as early as 1943 and 1944 Hildebrandt had known that Hitler's policy was wrong and that Hitler's way of leading the war was completely wrong. Also, he saw through Himmler's game more completely than any man, who recognized the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of this strange personality and didn't know what his game was.\nFrom my conversation with Mr. Hildebrandt I knew that he had made up his mind to bring about a turn, as far as politics were concerned. He didn't want a revolt or a Putsch of the SS, but he did want to know what men he could count on. I am proud that at that time he drew me into the circle of those in whom he confided. Hildebrandt, in a conversation with Himmler, wanted to make it clear to him that he, Himmler had lost the confidence of his SS Leader Corps, and by that he wanted him to either take a very radical turn in his policy, or else to resign.\nThe aims which Hildebrandt pursued were, in broad outlines, \n about as follows:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3820, "page_number": "3813", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "With a limitation in the powers of the Fuehrer, the immediate introduction of a legislative body on the basis, for example, of the professions; the recall of those men from Hitler's surroundings who had been recognized as being harmful for the interests of Germany, men like Bormann, Ribbentrop, and others, and particularly the doing away of the Party hierarchy; the abolition of the system which was always increasing in power, the system of the Gauleiters and of the Party dignitaries, which dominated the country in accordance with the principle \"The Party governs the State\"; the purging from the State of all those officials who had joined the official corps only on the strength of their membership in the Nazi Party and without any professional qualifications.\nIn the field of foreign policy, Hildebrandt aimed at the renunciation of the German claim of world domination and the giving up of any claim of domination beyond natural ethnic borders of Germany. His aim was the creation of a Unit ed States of Europe on the basis of equal rights for all countries belonging to that conception of Europe, and the subordination of national viewpoints, even the German national viewpoint, to that aim.\nIn the field of internal politics, Hildebrandt particularly wanted to bring about the fact that the Jewish question would be solved only after the war, and for that period the Jews in Germany should be placed under the same privileges as foreigners.\nHimmler, with whom Richard Hildebrandt then spoke -- and that must have been a very violent discussion -- apparently showed himself receptive to these ideas. Hildebrandt did not make a secret of his opinion that, unless a turn was taken in a reasonable way, Himmler would have to count on arevolution from above in the SS. However, Himmler was smart enough to deceive us again, even, perhaps, Hildebrandt. He dragged matters along, and, as quickly as he could, he dispatched him to the Crimea and to the Balkans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3821, "page_number": "3814", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "We lost contact with each other, then, and, as I have already told you, I fell severely ill. I only saw Hildebrandt once more, at the end, when the 20th of July incident destroyed all our plans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3822, "page_number": "3815", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "I think that, if Hildebrandt had been successful, today quite a number of things would be different.\nQ.- Witness, have you been able to gain an insight also in the field of tasks of the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.- Yes. It's true that I, myself, was never a Higher SS and Police Leader, but as I told you already, as from January 1942 until 1944, I had been transferred to the Staff of the Higher SS and Police Leader northeast at Koenigsberg, and there I had to deputize for this Higher SS and Police Leader in many fields. That is how I gained also an insight in the activities of the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.- Witness, a certain number of witnesses have already testified here and they have given us a certain number of details concerning the tasks of the Higher SS and Police Leader, but in your words I would like to have a short summarizing description concerning the general field of tasks of the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nA.- Well, according to my opinion, the Higher SS and Police Leader mainly worked in his army district or gau as the representative deputy of the Reichsfuehrer. His very position was not clarified. That has to be stressed again and again. It is true that his activity was to balance the connections between the various agencies; between the State, the Armed Froces, the Nazi Party, etc. But it's true also that he had no authority to issue orders. Whatever the police did went under the poster Higher SS and Police Leader. In his army district, there was an inspector or commander of the Security Police and of the Regular Police, and of various other SS and police organs, but their orders, their tasks were given to these organs by the main offices in Berlin. The Higher SS and Police Leader, therefore, did not have an authority to issue orders. He could point out deficiencies, could make suggestions in order to do away with those deficiencies, but he couldn't issue orders. It is completely erroneous to believe that the Higher SS and Police Leader could, for instance, have \n executions darried out.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3823, "page_number": "3816", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "He didn't even have the possibility to hand a man over or to punish a man of the police on his own initiative. In every respect, his position was extremely difficult, and the only thing where the Higher SS and Police Leader had an authority to issue orders was in cases where the Fuehrer made a visit or where Higher officials of the State would make a visit, and then the units of the SS and Police were called in for an order service. Then he could take over the leadership. But according to my knowledge, that was the only situation where the Higher SS and Police Leader was made responsible in the last analysis for many things he couldn't do away with because he couldn't issue orders, and this was the unfortunate position -- you must call it that -- of that government agency. It was even made more difficult by the fact that the main offices in Berlin and that also the Reichsfuehrer himself did not always agree with each other as it would happen, and the man who always got it in the neck was the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nDo you want any other explanations?\nQ.- No, witness, that will do. Do you know that Hildebrandt's agency as Higher SS and Police Leader was also joined to the agency; that is, with his activities as Representative of the RKFDV?\nA.- Yes, I know that. They were joined in as far as in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader he was subordinated to the Reichstatthalter -- or rather, attached to his service. There you have again such an unclear term: he was attached to him. Was he subordinated to him or not? You don't know. But at the same time, the decree which I remember in this connection says that he was a representative of the Reich Commissar for the Stregthening of Germanism, and in this capacity he was under the authority of the Main Staff Office. Now if you want to express it that way, he had to serve two masters.\nQ.- When you assumed office, was there already an agency in Dantzig of the Higher SS and Police Leader?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3824, "page_number": "3817", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "A.- An agency? No, no, that didn't exist here; on the contrary, there was nothing at all. Everything had to be created from scratch. I was strongly under the impression that Hildebrandt, as -well as myself at the time, were considered in Danzig circles as people one didn't like to see exactly. I, for instance, got my sector taken away from myself right away. I had to go elsewhere and Hildebrandt was living in the hotel. There was quite a disorder down there and it took a very long time until things were organized to a very limited degree at all. As I said, Hildebrandt lived at the hotel. He was travelling around quite a bit. The first thing he did was to try and take up contact with the individual agencies of the State, of the Nazi Party, of the Armed Forces, etc. And only slowly, under the influence of his superior personality, these people would break the ice and thus we could, about towards 1940, start to build up our agencies. As far as I know, the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader at Danzig was taken up in March, and one could say that from that moment onward complete service of the Higher SS and Police Leader was possible.\nHildebrandt made a great effort to break this glass wall between us, and you have to know that Danzig at the time was a secluded island where, of course, the organs, the human geings serving the Party and the State were all close together and where it was very difficult for us newcomers to establish ourselves and to find out ways into society. The final result, fundamentally speaking, was that Hildebrandt did not have a very good relationship with Himmler or Forster, but that he eventually was not covered by either of them. That is the situation as I found it in November 1939.\nQ.- Witness, during this trial, mention has been made repeatedly of a camp Stutthof. Did you know that camp?\nA.- Yes, I know it.\nQ.- Did Hildebrandt in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader have any authority to issue orders to Stutthof?\nA.- No, he had no authority in this connection. That was this funny \n situation, you know, that the Higher SS and Police Leader, who was the representative of the Reichsfuehrer, didn't even have the light to go and visit a concentration camp if the Commander of the concentration camp didn't want to let him in or if he hadn't special powers for that from Himmler.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3825, "page_number": "3818", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "The Stutthof Camp at the time existed. I assume that for the first time it was only a reception camp, and only later -- I don't know when -- was it transformed into a concentration camp. I would say that about in 1940 or 1941, this transformation took place. I don't know that any more. I had no contacts there, you see.\nQ.- Now, to whom was this Stutthof camp subordinated?\nA.- Well, for the commitment and treatment of the inmates, Stutthof was under the Security Police. The Security Police had to make the decisions. But I also know that as far as administration was concerned -- I mean of procurement of materials, etc. -- it was also under the General Police and the Regular Police. Later, as I know, it was eventually administered by the WVHA.\nQ.- Witness, during this trial there was a certain witness called Von dem Bach-Zelewski who testified here that Hildebrandt had committed a relative of his, a Catholic priest of his own name, into a concentration camp. Nov, you have worked personally with Hildebrandt for two years and did you notice anything or hear anything of such an incident during that period? Did you know the name of Bach-Zelewski, and what else do you know about it?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3826, "page_number": "3819", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "A.- Well, that is quite new to me what you tell me there. I did know Herr von dem Bach. At the time he didn't use the name Zelewski. I think that he remembered that Polish name only afterwards -- I mean now. As to a parent of his, that is a Bach-Zelewski, was supposed to have been committed to a concentration camp -- that is what you're telling me? Dr. Froeschmann, at the time -- very often it was daily, mostly it was several times a week -- I met Hildebrandt, such an incident would certainly have come to my knowledge at the time. That is quite out of the question, first of all, it's out of the question because of Hildebrandt's internal attitude. I don't think that at any time he ever sent anybody into a concentration camp a relative of a comrade of his. That is quite impossible. I don't know whether Hildebrandt liked Herr von dem Bach exactly, but what I do know is that his relations with von dem Bach were on a comradely basis and correct, and I think that it's quite impossible that without previous contact with Herr von dem Bach he would send a relative of that man to prison. No, that is impossible.\nQ.- Witness, in Danzig, West Prussia, you were together with Hildebrandt and therefore you had further opportunity to know Hildebrandt's attitude toward the Poles. Now may I ask you to comment on that question?\nA.- Counsel, whether the people were Poles or Germans, Hildebrandt always saw the human being first, and therefore he would have a decent and human attitude towards the Poles and would be ready to help them as was in line with the sole decent and noble personality. Towards me, for instance, Hildebrandt very often complained that he had no authority to issue orders to the Stutthof comp; that he couldn't help more down there -- more than he actually did already -- because I know that he advocated strongly that the Examination of the cases in this camp should be speeded up and clarified as quickly as possible, and that above all on his suggestion a large scale action for the release of inmates down there was carried out I know that very often Hildebrandt was exasperated about his lack of ca \n pacity to do more and he expressed himself towards me once that he was ready to give up everything and to resign.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3827, "page_number": "3820", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "We asked him that, for Heaven's sake, he should't do that. Furthermore, in order to demonstrate his attitude towards the Poles, at the beginning of our period of activity in Danzig, the Poles had to wear insignia with the letter \"P\". That eventually was abolished. Complaints arrived if somebody didn't have that letter on him, and Hildebrandt always simply ignored these complaints and he sort of acted over the heads of the security Police and sabotaged these \"P\" for poles as an indignity, and he saw to it that after a very short period it was abolished. At least, according to my recollection, as from the srping or summer of 1940, I didn't see anyone in Danzig, west Prussia., running around with a \"P\". I know, furthermore, that in his government agencies, Hildebrandt employed quite a number of Poles because his attitude was that these two peoples; the Germans and the Poles, had to be reconciled. And I know that particularly the agency of the Representative of the RKFDV -- an agency which was strongly connected with Polish affairs -- also employed Poles in high positions quite frequently. One day the RSHA heard about it and demanded the immediate dismissal of these Poles from the agency, and Hildebrandt told me, \"I don't even consider doing that.\" And he succeeded also in having them stay there.\nI also know that he had in his garden a Polish gardener, and he employed Poles there whom he had commandered to a large extent, from the Stutthof concentration camp, and they were treated in a very nice and friendly and decent manner. He wrote for them very good certificates afterwards and thereby succeeded in having them released from the concen tration camp. In this manner, Hildebrandt did whatever he could for the Poles.\nQ.- Witness, now how was Hildebrandt's attitude towards Forster?\nA.- The attitude was not exactly friendly; it was cool and correct on one hand; because Forster wasn't exactly a master as far as tact was \n concerned -- he was not very well brought up and didn't even take into consideration that his comrade was an older man -- a consideration which was considered normal in all the circles of the SS Anyhow, Hildebrandt succeeded in having a relation with even that man to such an extent that he avoided clashed But factually speaking there were great differences between Forster and Hildebrandt, and as time went on, these disputes and controversies became stronger and stronger.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3828, "page_number": "3821", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Forster was a man who attempted to Germanize his gau as quickly as possible and then to go to Hitler and report to him, \"My\" Gau is German.\" He took the measures which are well-known and which probably will be discussed. Hildebrandt rejected this way of conducting a racial policy, and his viewpoint was that everything had to go on an absolutely voluntary basis, as far as the choice of nationality and allegiance was concerned.\nQ.- Now that has brought you already to the topic which we wanted to start now, and I ask you to comment upon that what was Hildebrandt's attitude towards the question of the DVL in Western Prussia?\nA.- The DVL was Forster's measure and Hildebrandt rejected it in a decisive manner. But fundamentally speaking, he had no contacts with that enterprise, and therefore he had no possibility to intervene either.\nQ.- Do you know, witness, that Hildebrandt opposed any compulsory Germanization?\nA.- Yes, I said that already. I said that Hildebrandt advocated absolute voluntary action in this very field. The situation was -- I mean if we wanted to discuss the DVL, there were three categories as far as I know. The small political leaders in the country would sort of receive an allotment by force that they had to recruit so and so many Germans from the Poles.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3829, "page_number": "3822", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAnd, sometimes you had the rather undignified picture that these small fry in their lack of experience would actually request the poles that they should become Germans. Now against these unfortunate proceedings Hildebrandt was in very strong opposition. He would say, \"what is the use for us if we want to create a clean and orderly state here; then these people will find their ways to ask already on their own initiative.\" That was his attitude.\nQ.Therefore, on account of this difference of policy between Hildebrandt and Forster was his position difficult?\nA.I haven't understood this; there is so much noise around here.\nQ.I repeat the question was Hildebrandt's position very difficult on account of all these controversies in Danzig?\nA.Well, you can imagine that it was difficult and particularly on account of the twin subordination that he had to serve on one side the Reichstatthalter as Higher SS and Police Leader, and then his office in his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germany. These dual functions could not always be separated and there were difficulties and discrepancies originating with the higher authorities out carried out eventually between Forster and Hildebrandt and I must say I have often admired Hildebrandt's superior personality; Hildebrandt, who always succeeded in avoiding clashes.\nQ.Witness, now the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader, all of the representatives of the RKFDV, did that at any time have any connection with Jews?\nA.No. in Danzig, Western Prussia during my period of activity as from November 1939, there was no Jewish problem. I never heard anything about Jews down there and I don't even know whether there were Jews in Danzig, Western \n Prussia.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3830, "page_number": "3823", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Therefore, you don't know anything either about any measures taken by Hildebrandt against Jews?\nA.No, he never was connected with any measures against Jews.\nQ.Witness, do you know anything about the so-called Self Protection Guard, Danzig, Western Prussia?\nA.Well, it was known to me; the Home Guard was an association of all Germans capable of bearing arms. They believed that during the outbreak or shortly before the outbreak of the Polish War that such a Home Guard was justified and its purpose was to see to it that in the case of a catastrophe or in the case of a revolt or in the case of a Polish resistance movement becoming active because such a movement existed, that the armed forces of the Police should be increased in strength. This Danzig, West Prussia Home Guard, however, was never called up and never came into action. It existed only theoretically. Therefore, I don't know either under whose orders it was. I assume it was under the orders of the Reichstatthalter but as I said it was without significance and only theoretical.\nQ.Witness, that leaves me two more questions to put to you. At the end of November or the beginning of December 1939 in your capacity as Chief of the SS Sector 26 you made an application to the defendant Hildebrandt in his capacity as Chief of the Main Sector, an application concerning a certain Sturmbann Eimann, called Sturmbann E, an application with the request to forward it to the SS Main Office. What about that application?\nA.This application has very infamous preliminaries. When Hildebrandt soon afterwards and I myself were transferred to Danzig and there we found disorder down there, I met Hildebrandt one day and he was extremely excited and \n indignant and he told me that on accound of some indiscretion he had heard that a detachment of the Sturmbann Eimann was occupied with the killing of insane people.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3831, "page_number": "3824", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "He was just as indignant as I was and he told me that it was a scandal to use old SS guards for that or to do that at all. He told me that that had to-be prevented immediately. He told me that I was to try to influence Eimann and to see to it that that was abolished on the spot?, while he would try to see which agency was really responsible for that order and he would also try to see to it that these higher agencies would immediately discontinue this action which he deemed incredible. Then I talked with Eimann. Eimann previously had been one of the SS colonels at Danzig. I hardly knew him and I was under the impression that this man who fundamentally was a decent and brave and straightforward soldier was somehow restrained towards me and Hildebrandt. In other words that he was under very strong influence and later on I could explain myself why he was under the influence of the fact that the order for the assignment of this detachment had gone to him from Himmler directly. Perhaps it was disagreeable to him too that Hildebrandt heard about the matter at all. On the other hand it is true, I have to say that Eimann also in his interior opposed such a measure very strongly and that I think he was even grateful that somebody came along and was ready to take away this burden from him. But, on the spot nothing could be done to make him take an immediate step against the order which had reached him from Himmler directly and I made an agreement with him that he was to try whenever he could to drag matters along and to create difficulties in the execution of the matter and so on and so forth and in the meantime Hildebrandt, I said, would certainly see to it that in Berlin the matter was dealt with and abolished as quickly as possible. I know \n also that a very short period afterwards, perhaps a day or two later, Hildebrandt told me, \"I have heard that Himmler is in Berlin.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3832, "page_number": "3825", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "I am going to see him right away.\" He then went to Berlin. I had some work in Berlin too so we took two cars and went down there and either on this trip to Berlin or on the trip back, because at the time Hildebrandt went to Wiesbaden too, he had apparently a very disagreeable talk with Himmler. When after about six to eight days he came back this action had really been stopped and now a reorganization of the Sturmbann was to be carried, out.\nQ.May I interrupt you for a minute, witness, I am coming to the counts now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3833, "page_number": "3826", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, we stopped in discussing the moment when you said that somebody submitted a report to you. Will you please answer this question now?\nAA request was made., Counsel, please give consideration to the fact that in the course of the years innumerable requests were made. Of this matter which did not play an important part for me at all, I can only recall that this request had the purpose that a clear separation of competencies was to be established and a clear subordination for Sturmbann E. Why this request was channeled through me and through my agency I don't know. I myself cannot recall the contents of this request anymore either. The application itself was formulated by Eimann and the matter was drafted by him and probably I signed it. Whether the purpose of the matter was to transfer the Sturmbann into the Waffen SS or whether it was to be dissolved or transferred into the General SS, that might be possible, because I again wanted to reestablish the General SS in Danzig, through the volunteer formations of the home guard at Danzig and so on. However, that had become completely Impossible by this time and therefore that may have been the reason.\nIn any case, although I would like to, I cannot recall any more at all the details of this application. We must further give consideration to the fact that if already a rather complicated channel was used for this application, it depended on the way in which it was done just how something was submitted to Himmler in order for him to appreciate it. Fundamentally he wouldn't do what was requested, but he would do exactly the contrary and it is quite possible that also in this application some trick was used in any case in order to regulate the subordination of Sturmbann E, and the Reichstatthalter and the Security Police and other agencies were to be taken out of this confusion.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, in order to explain something to the \n Tribunal may I make the following statement here.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3834, "page_number": "3827", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "The prosecution, in document book 15 under documentNO-2275has submitted the letter of Hildebrandt together with the report, and this already was a subject of the examination of the witness Homuth yesterday. From this document NO-2275 I assumed that there must have been some other preliminary correspondence, and among other things, there must be a letter from the end of November 1939 and the application which the witness has just referred to of the 8th of December, 1939, Several weeks ago I requested the prosecution to furnish these two documents to me. I am of the opinion that if the prosecution has offered one document out of this entire correspondence here, then they must also be in the possession of the other documents. The prosecution has informed me that it is possible that these documents are located at Berlin. Consequently I am not able to clarify this matter as it now would be necessary in the interests of my case. However, I did find one document and I found it in the documentary material which the prosecution has submitted here in the so-called Pohl case. This document I now have submitted here and included it in my document book and in appendix 1 to document book 4 which, however, I cannot submit at this time because its translation has not as yet been completed, however, in any case in order to refresh the memory of the witness Ebrecht, with the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to show this document to him for identification because I shall offer it anyway later on.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nMR. SHILLER:I should merely like to state to the Tribunal that the prosecution has endeavored at all times to give to the defense whatever documentary material they have asked for that we have had in our possession. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQI now want to ask you, witness, do you know this document which has the numberNO-019and is this a letter from the Reichsfuehrer-SS of December 1939 -- the exact date is missing -- and do you know this \n document?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3835, "page_number": "3828", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "ANo, counsel, this document after all was not addressed to me, but it went to the main sector Weichsel. I only know that through the main sector and through my comrade Hildebrandt I received the expression of the highest disapproval of Himmler.\nQWitness, you now passed on this application of Eimann to Hildebrandt with a request that it should be submitted to Himmler?\nAYes, that probably was the case, yes.\nQHowever, you can't recall its contents any more?\nANo.\nQDo you know what steps were taken upon that?\nAYes, after that Himmler expressed his severe disapproval toward me. Just why he did that I don't know either. I can only recall that we shook our heads about the whole matter and that we laughed about it to some extent.\nQWitness, do you know that a detailed activities report of what the organization had to do, an assignment of Sturmbann E, was enclosed with a letter which Hildebrandt on the 9th of January, 1940 addressed to the Reichsfuehrer of the SS -- the document is documentNO-2275which I am going to had to you now for your information.\nAYes, this matter came to my knowledge here.\nQDid you see it in November, 1939 or in January, 1940?\nAWhether I knew it at the time, I don't think so. I consider that to be quite impossible. After all, this matter did not pass through my agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3836, "page_number": "3829", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Witness, I shall now leave this subject. I am going to put to you my last question. You participated at the meeting which Himmler called at Poznan and on the occasion of which he made a speech which has been submitted here as document 1919-PS, is that correct? Is it correct that you participated in that meeting?\nA.You must be referring to the meeting of the SS-Gruppenfuehrer and Oberfuehrer at Poznan in October 1943, I believe. Are you referring to that?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Yes, that must have been it, and I was there.\nQ.I would like to ask you the following question now on that subject. A document has been submitted here and it is rather extensive in volume and it also contains a paragraph about the policy which Himmler carried out towards the Jews. Can you recall the meeting at all?\nA.Yes, yes, I can recall it.\nQ.Who was present at the time?\nA.A large number of the Gruppenfuehrer and Obergruppenfuehrer of the SS were present, let us say in my estimation approximately half because the others were engaged in combat operations.\nQ. witness, I now would like to hand this document to you. This is exhibit 544 and it is contained in document book 13-A, and it is numbered 1919-PS. Will you please take a look at the paragraph about the policy which was to be carried out towards the Jews?\nA.Am I to read over the entire document?\nQ.No, I am not going to make you read all these statements which were made by Himmler. I shall restrict myself to one brief question; namely, can you recall whether Himmler at the time spoke freely and openly or whether he read his speech from a piece of paper?\nA.Immediately at the beginning of the meeting some disturbance took place as a result of the fact that we could hear the kitchen personnel of the hotel talk and through an opening in the heating system rattle dishes and things of that sort.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3837, "page_number": "3830", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Himmler became very angry about that and he threw his files around and they fell down on the floor, and then we finally stopped the noise outside and Himmler began to speak freely without reading from a prepared speech as far as I can recall. This matter, counsel, has been discussed once before and already at the time before the camp commander at Zuffenhausen I made a statement to the effect that what Himmler said, is alleged to have said about the persecution of the Jews was not actually said. In this I agree with several of my comrades who also listened to the speech.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I have no further questions at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, during your direct examination you have had plenty of time and some of your answers have been rather long. Since my time is more limited will you please try to make your answers as brief as possible. In discussing the attitude of the defendant Hildebrandt towards Himmler and Hitler and the carrying on of the war, witness, you stated that Hildebrandt did not want any revolt -\nA.I beg your pardon, I can't understand you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe if you would speak not quite so loud.\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you stated that Hildebrandt did not want any revolt by the SS or any sort of putsch or coup d'etat. Isn't that correct?\nA.No, I placed special stress on the fact that Hildebrandt did not want any putsch or revolts but he wanted to convince Himmler that he did not possess the confidence of his SS leaders any more, and he either wanted him to radically change his policy and the policy of the Fuehrer, that he wanted to force him to resign.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the counsel when he propounds a question simply wants an answer to the question which you have already done. It won't be necessary to go over your testimony again. Just simply answer \n his questions.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3838, "page_number": "3831", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q. (By Mr. Shiller) Witness, did the defendant Hildebrandt ever take any action against Himmler, I mean did he do anything to sabotage Himmler or to try to get him out of office?\nA.In discussions he tried to influence him.\nQ.Yes, but witness, did he ever actually do anything against Himmler? That's the question.\nA.You mean by forceful means?\nQ.Witness\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you, witness. On direct examination, witness, you stated that the defendant Hildebrandt wished to curtail the power of the Nazi Party which was always growing in Germany. Now, isn't it true that the power of the SS was always growing and that the two had come to a position where they were in a struggle for power?\nA.Well, what do you w nt me to answer ?\nQ.Witness, were the SS, which had now become a large, pratically independent organization, and the Nazi Party in 1943 and 1944 at all engaged in a struggle for power?\nA.A struggle for power between Party and SS\nQ.Yes, Witness.\nA.This struggle did not take place as a struggle for power.\nQ.How do you think it took place, witness? Was there any struggle between the SS and the Party?\nA.As a result of the fact that above all high SS leaders refused, against the appearances of corruption and against the excesses of leading personalities, for example, Gauleiters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3839, "page_number": "3832", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Witness, you admit then that there was considerable conflict between the SS and the Party.\nA.At several places such a situation might have existed. However, in this connection I must say that this was not directed against National Socialism but only against several corrupt individuals.\nQ.Thank you, witness. Witness, who was the highest official in the area Danzig, West Prussia, I mean by that who was the highest ranking official.\nA.Without any doubt that was the Reichstatthalter.\nQ.He was in charge of the civil administration, was he not?\nA.Yes, the Reichstatthalter was in charge of the civil administration.\nQ.Who was in charge of the administration of the party in that area, witness?\nA.The Gauleiter.\nQ.Witness, in the hierarchy of officials in Danzig, West Prussia, where did the higher SS and police leader stand?\nA.Do you want me to make a comparison there just in what order of rank the higher SS and police leader will be located?\nQ.That is right, witness.\nA.That is very difficult for me to say. We did not have an order of rank there at all. Everybody in his particular field was competent, and had authority there.\nQ.Witness, in the sphere of the SS and police in Danzig, west Prussia, was there any official who ranked higher than the higher SS and police leader?\nA.As far as the SS and police were concerned, whether there was an official who occupied a higher position, that was the Gauleiter; that was the Gauleiter and the Reichstatthalter.\nQ.Aside from the Gauleiter ant Reichstatthalter, was there anyone, witness, who occupied a higher position than the higher SS and police leader?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3840, "page_number": "3833", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "A.Well, Himmler and Hitler were above that.\nQ.Thank you witness. Now, if the higher SS and police leader was the third highest official in the area Danzig, West Prussia, in connection with the SS and police, and was responsible for the activities of the SS and police, do you insist, witness, that he could not give any orders in that connection?\nA.You are making a mistake here. The higher SS and police leader was not responsible for the assignment and use of the SS and the police.\nQ.Witness, wasn't the higher SS and police leader responsible for the coordination of the activities of the SS and police in his district?\nA.He was not responsible for that either; however, he had to aim at doing this work.\nQ.Witness, what was he responsible for?\nA.One cannot say responsible in this case at all. He had to see to it that a collaboration took place which was as smooth and efficient as possible.\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you mentioned that certain concentration camp inmates worked in the vegetable garden of the defendant Hildebrandt.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether the defendant Hildebrandt ever paid these workers anything?\nA.I don't know whether he paid them, but he gave them figts. I know that on hilidays he would give them certain gifts. Just who took care of paying these people I don't know.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, who was Eimann subordinated to during the period of November to December, 1939; and, did your trip to Berlin with Hildebrandt take place during that period -- or exactly when.\nA.I don't understand.\nQ.Witness, who was Eimann's direct superior during October, \n November - well, you arrived in November -- during November and December 1939; and, you mentioned a trip to Berlin.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3841, "page_number": "3834", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Exactly when did that take place?\nA.These are two questions which I have to answer: Who was the superior of Eimann and when did the trip take place. Did I understand you correctly?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is what he said: that is what he said.\nA.This superior of Eimann was in my opinion the Reichstatthalter, and under him the inspector of the Security Police; and, now to answer the second question. The trip to Berlin took place a short time after my arrival, and, therefore, it must have been between the beginning and the middle of November.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you, witness.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN: (Attorney for the Hildebrandt)\nQ.First of all, I would like to deal with what happened in the vegetable garden which has been discussed here. Was the vegetable garden a part of the official building or was it a part of the private quarters.\nA.The vegetable garden was a part of the office building.\nQ.Thank you. Now, my second question. Did Himmler seriously consider the struggle against the party hierarchy?\nA.I don't think so, Counsel.\nQ.That is sufficient; thank you. Now, my third question. Is it correct that the SS wanted to limit itself to its old task and that Himmler wanted to develop an unsound complex of power, and for this purpose I ask you to look around and take a look at the chart on the wall behind you. This chart contains quite a number of offices and agencies which were subordinated to Himmler. Now, my question was the establishment of all possible industrial enterprises and things of that sort, the original task of the SS, as the old SS leaders looked at it.\nA.No, a thousand times no; that is all I can say.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3842, "page_number": "3835", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Mr. Witness, this disagreement that you have described and testified about as between Hildebrandt and Himmler; when did that happen?\nA.In my estimation I believe that it took place towards the end of 1942 -- in my estimation.\nQ.Well, you, as I understood, said that on occasion Hildebrandt stated to Himmler that he had lost the confidence of the SS men; is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.When was that?\nA.This happened in the discussion which Hildebrandt had after my discussion with -- I am just trying to remember, to reconstruct the time now. This must have happened towards the end of 1943.\nQ.Was that statement true: Had Himmler at that time lost the confidence of the SS men?\nA.That is quite correct.\nQ.You said at the same time and in the same conversation, as I understood, that Hildebrandt told Himmler that he should resign; is that true?\nA.That Hildebrandt told Himmler that he should resign?\nQ.That is what I understood you to say.\nA.Yes, that is perfectly correct. That is what Hildebrandt was trying to achieve.\nQ.And that was at the same time as the other conversation?\nA.Toward the end of 1943.\nQ.Could Himmler have resigned in 1943?\nA.That escapes my knowledge; I cannot give any judgment about that. After all, I am too little of a politician in order to judge that.\nQ.Could Hildebrandt have resigned in 1943?\nA.He could not have done that either.\nQ.Well, I understood you to say in your direct testimony that he threatened to resign, and that you and others persuaded him not to;", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3843, "page_number": "3836", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "is that correct?\nA.That is quite correct. May I explain something in this connection?\nQ.All right, go ahead.\nA.I myself toward the end of December, 1943, after these incidents, I requested to be relieved of my position; however, Himmler refused to accept that request.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3844, "page_number": "3837", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Well, what I want to clear up in my mind, if I can, is this question: If Hildebrandt could not resign in 43, why the necessity of you and others prevailing on him not to resign?\nA.I believe we don't understand each other here. You wanted to know whether Hildebrandt could have resigned in 1943.\nQ.Yes.\nA.According to my experiences that was completely out of the question.\nQ.Did you know that in 1943?\nA.Whether I knew that? Yes, certainly.\nQ.Were you present at these conversations that you described in which Hildebrandt told Himmler he had lost the respect of -\nA.No.\nQ.Well, how do you know it happened?\nA.Hildebrandt told me about these things.\nQ.Is that the source and the solo source of your information on this subject -- what Hildebrandt told you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You have testified about party matters and state matters. Was a higher SS and police leader, was that position a party position or a state position?\nA.The higher SS and police leader was a position of the state.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Let the witness retire.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, as my next witness, aside from Hildebrandt himself, I would like to call the witness Gottlob Berger.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGOTTLOBBERGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows.\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "GOTTLOB", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3845, "page_number": "3838", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN: (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt)\nQ.General Berger, please give your personal data to the Tribunal.\nA.I was born on the 16th of July, 1896, at Gerstetten, in Wuerttemberg.\nQ.What is your first name?\nA.My name is Gottlob Berger.\nQ.What was your last rank and position in the SS?\nA.From the 1st of January, 1940, until the end of the war I was a chief of the SS Main Office; I was SS Obergruppenfuehrer and a Lieutenant General in the Waffen SS.\nQ.At the beginning of September, 1939, were you ordered to attend an important official conference in the Fuehrer's Headquarters?\nA.Yes. Between the 8th and the 10th of September, 1939, together with the then chief of the SS Main Office, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heissmeyer, and the chief of the Main Office of the regular police, General Daluege; and the chief of the personnel office, Gruppenfuehrer Schmidt, I was called to the headquarters which at the time was located at the German-Polish borders, approximately 150 kilometers to the southeast of Breslau.\nQ.What were you told in the course of this conference?\nA.First of all individual conferences took place between Himmler, Heissmeyer and Schmidt. Then a final conference took place and I also attended this final conference. In the course of this final conference Himmler stated that Adolf Hitler as a result of the reports from the Wehrmacht according to which more than twelve thousand Germans had been killed or deported, had ordered the immediate establishment of a Home Guard. This Home Guard was to be handled in such a manner that the German families who were living alone, as far as they had not yet been killed or deported, were to be settled in one area until the entire country would be pacified.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3846, "page_number": "3839", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.In what area was this Home Guard to be established?\nA.Three areas for that purpose were established. An area to the south, and ahead of the SS main sector at Breslau, with the SS Obergruppenfuehrer Katzmann; an area in the center, with its seat at Poznan, and SS Oberfuehrer Kilz was to be the Home Guard leader; an area to the north, with the seat at Danzig, or Jest Prussia, under SS Oberfuehrer von Alvensleben.\nQ.I would like to point out to you that only the Home Guard we are interested in is the Home Guard of Danzig, West Prussia. Please refer to the other home guards in your testimony only whenever it cannot be avoided. How was the Home Guard to be equipped and organized?\nA.The Home Guard was to be equipped with captured weapons and arms; the organization was to be established in such a manner that for every district we would have two officers who had served in the first World War, who would collect the ethnic Germans, and in agreement with the military police, they would organize and furnish the necessary protection.\nQ.What task did you have in this respect?\nA.I had to carry out the organizational preparations. I had to furnish the necessary officers in collaboration with the chiefs of the personnel office, and to send these officers into these areas.\nQ.To whom were these Home Guard units subordinated?\nA.The units in the south and the units in the center were subordinated to the SS Main Officers, Obergruppenfuehrer Heissmeyer. The second sector, north, which is located in the Danzig, West Prussia area, was to be subordinated to the Reich Security Main Office, SS Obergruppenfuehrer Heydrich.\nQ.Why was the Home Guard in Danzig, West Prussia, subordinated to the Reich Security Main Office and to Heydrich?\nA.Already before the war, terrible atrocities took place in Danzig, West Prussia.\nQ.Who carried out these atrocities?\nA.The Poles did.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3847, "page_number": "3840", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Q.Did you in your capacity as the man in charge of the organization receive direct reports from the Home Guard units at Danzig?\nA.I did not receive any direct reports; for this reason I did not even receive reports about the strength of the units. That is why Obergruppen Fuehrer Heissmeyer gave me the order that first of all I was to establish contact with the chief of the army group, Generaloberst von Blaskowitz; and then subsequently I was to go to Bromberg where Obergruppen von Alvensleben had set up his headquarters, and then I was to return to Berlin.\nQ.Did Himmler personally attend the meeting which you have just mentioned at the beginning of your examination?\nA.Yes, he presided over the conference personally.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3848, "page_number": "3841", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "16 Jan 1948_M_MSD_11_1_Daniels (Garand)\nQIn this discussion, did Himmler also speak about the impending appointments of Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nAYes, the appointment of Higher SS and Police Leaders was also discussed. With detailedreasons, Heissmeyer suggested, for Poznan. Obergurppenfuehrer Hildebrandt. Himmler immediately disapproved of this recommendation and he stated that he had already selected Koppe from Dresden for that position. Furthermore, he stated that Hildebrandt was not even in a position to carry out tasks of a state police nature. He stated that he would probably send him to Danzig, but the authority for the entire area would remain in the hands of the Reich Security Main Office, and the leadership of the Home Guard would be carried out under Oberfuehrer Colonel von Alvensleben.\nQGeneral, in connection with the order which was given to you, did you then personally go into these specific territories in order to inform yourself about the position of the Home Guard?\nAYes.\nQWhat impression did you gain there?\nAApproximately between the 12th and the 14th, I went to Lodz in order to talk to General Colonel yon Blaskowitz. This was during the last phases of the battle for Kuttno, when I reported to him. I went through Warthebrueggen and then to Hohensalza, in the direction of Bromberg. For approximately 50 kilometers I went along the road which, later on, was known as the Death Road to Lowicz. On this road -that is to say, in the ditches alongside the road -- I could still see the corpses of at least 400 German men and women who had been shot. Primarily they were older persons. We counted more than 300, and then I was unable to go on counting these corpses. The corpses had been lying in these ditches for approximately six days. I myself was shot at by civilians before Hohensalza. I received a shot through my hand, and my driver was shot through the head, whereupon he died immediately.\nI stayed in Bromberg itself over night, with the military police, \n 16 Jan 1948_M_MSD_11_2_Daniels (Garand) because I was unable to find the place I was headed for, I couldn't find Eisleben.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3849, "page_number": "3842", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "On the following day the constabulary showed me a schoolhouse where Polish men and women were kept who had been accused of murdering Germans. I can still remember a boy who was 14 years old who admitted that, with the aid of an old coat, he had looked up Germans who had gone into hiding, had found them, and had shot them at close range. However, as far as I know, detailed reports about these things, together with the verdicts rendered by court martials, were submitted to the International Red Cross.\nQDid the places to which you have just referred belong to the area of Danzig-West Prussia?\nABromberg certainly did.\nQThis is solely what I am interested in, because, in those days, Hildebrandt came to West Prussia. You spoke, before, about the Death Road of Lowicz.\nAYes.\nQWhy was that name given to that road?\nAProminent ethnic Germans from East Prussia had to go towards the East in two great marching columns, one with approximately 5,000 people, and the other with 3,500 people. It is known that all those who could not march were shot, and they were left lying in the road.\nQWho shot them?\nAThe Poles.\nQDid I understand you correctly, that they were ethnic Germans?\nAThey were civilians.\nQWhen was that?\nAThat was immediately at the outbreak of the war.\nQAccording to the impression which you gained, was the tension and excitement very great amongst the population and the civil authorities in those days, because of the atrocities of the Poles?\nAIn Bromberg I gained the impression that the local commander and the constabulary remained very quiet with regard to everything \n that had occurred there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3850, "page_number": "3843", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "They remained completely calm and, above all, the regular procedures were carried out according to the existing regulations.\nQWitness, you didn't understand me correctly. What I mean is, was the excitement amongst the population at Bromberg and vicinity very great as a result of these atrocities?\nAYes, that is only natural. After all, it can still be ascertained today that there were no German communities where several estates had not been burned down, where cattle had not been shot down in the meadows, and where individual people, men, women, and children, had not been killed or shot. The unrest was terrific; the people were extremely nervous.\nQAnd only the authorities had calmed down because, in the meantime, they had received sovereignty?\nAAll this was an operational area, and the constabulary and the local commander were extremely calm.\nQAt that time did you talk to the ethnic Germans from Western Prussia?\nANo.\nQDid you receive reports about that?\nAYes, I received reports. The constabulary told me about these things.\nQConsequently, in your opinion, in those days were the conditions in Western Prussia -- that is to say, at the end of September and early October -- very unstable, was there a lot of tension, and was the situation difficult?\nAYes, certainly.\nQAs far as you know, did the Home Guard in Danzig-West Prussia put in an appearance in those days in any way?\nAI can't tell you anything about that.\nQYou mentioned the fact, before, that it was subordinated to Herr von Alvensleben.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3851, "page_number": "3844", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "AYes, and von Alvensleben was subordinated to the Reich Security Main Office.\nQAccording to you experience, was the Home Guard ever subordinated to the defendant Hildebrandt?\nANo. It was especially empasized that Hildebrandt was not to be in charge of this Home Guard, but that von Alvensleben was to be in charge of the Home Guard, and that von Alvensleben would be subordinated to Heydrich.\nQDid you ever hear anything of a Sturmbann Eimann?\nAYes, I did hear something about that. I can still recall that name in some connection.\nQLater on, in your official capacity as Chief of the Replacement Office, did you ever hear of any correspondence which Heissmeyer had with the defendant Hildebrandt about Sturmbann E?\nANo.\nQI now want to deal with another subject.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt was a Higher SS and Police Leader.\nAYes.\nQWe have already completely clarified all the questions about the position of Higher SS and Police Leader, and I only want to ask you something else. What was the situation concerning the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leaders? Were they divided up according to provinces or Gaus or similar areas of the German Reich, or was there some other method used?\nAThe division of jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leaders was exactly like that of the Army Corps Areas.\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal what an Army Corps Area was?\nABy Army Corps Area we understood the area under a commanding general. Thiswas an institution for peacetime, and this included the area of two or three infantry divisions. Altogether we had 17 general commands, for example-\nQThat is not necessary.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3852, "page_number": "3845", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "How many sectors and main sectors did you have in the SS?\nAWe had just as many main sectors as we had Army Corps Areas.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3853, "page_number": "3846", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 16 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nGOTTLOB BERGER (Resumed) BY DR. FROESCHMANN (Counsel for the defendant Hildebrandt):\nQWitness, this morning you concluded your statements with a description of the area of command of the SS and Police Leader. That brings me to the third point of my examination. Were you a participant in the conference at Poznan where Himmler made the speech, here submitted by the Prosecution, to which I have already referred this morning in a different connection? I am submitting to you, here, Exhibit 544, the number of which is 1919-PS.\nAYes.\nQYou attended that conference?\nAYes.\nQOf what circles of personalities were the attendants of this conference composed?\nAThere were about 300 to 350 participants at the conference. There were a few commanders of corps and of divisions of the Waffen SS, in so far as they could leave the front lines; the Higher SS and Police Leaders attended, the Chiefs of the Main Offices, and all Generals of the Police. Apart from that, there were the so-called honorary leaders, in large majority, and ranks upwards from SS Brigadier Generals, Ministerial Directors, State Secretaries, and Gauleiters. Ethnically speaking, there were Germans, Norwegians, Danes, Dutchmen, Flames, Walloons, and Frenchmen.\nQWere you all personally summoned to this conference?\nAYes, we were ordered to attend the conference.\nQWhat was the occasion for the calling of the meeting?\nAUnder no circumstances had the situation in the SS been as it \n was represented during these last years; there were considerable tensions within the SS.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3854, "page_number": "3847", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QSlowly, please.\nAThese tensions could hardly be felt or noticed by an outsider. Before 1939 tensions existed between the three parts of the SS, that is, General SS, SS Special Task Units, and Death Head Units. The Police-at any rate, before 1939 -- was never considered a part of the SS.\nQWitness, I ask that you speak slower.\nAWhen the war broke out -\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Pardon me, but the interpreter says it is much more difficult when he speaks too slowly. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQGeneral Berger, just speak the way you want to speak.\nADuring the first year of the war the General SS ceased to exsit. It was called into the armed forces, and there went into combat. The disputes thereupon were settled, for the General SS, the Special Task Units, the Death Head Units, were incorporated into only one body into the Waffen SS. However, all the stronger became the controversies between the SS and the Police. The Waffen SS, which had distinguished itself by its achievement and by its collossal readiness, especially in the East, and which felt that it was the strong arm the German people, rejected the abuses and interventions by the Police in the East. There was a particularly strong dispute about and great opposition to the Chief of the anti-partisan units, Bach-Zelewski. He was sometimes called Zelewski, and at that time he was called von dem Bach. The reason was that in this area in the center of Russia, in the winter of 1941-1942, there were 12,000 people who had been murdered ruthlessly on the orders of this Herr Bach or Herr Zelewski, whatever you wish to call him. This rumor got around in the armed forces, and the young officers, as well as the senior officers of the Waffen SS, approached Himmler both in writing and verbally. When they did not get any hearing there, they approached me.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3855, "page_number": "3848", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "These controversies flared up again and again to a considerable extent, until, in this very sector in the center of Russia, something special occurred. It wasn't that the relations between the SS and the Police were ideal in the other sectors, but the center of Russia sector was a red cloth for the Waffen SS. Conditions were not improved when Himmler bestowed upon Bach-Zelewski the Knight's Cross, or whatever was connected with that -- it doesn't matter.\nAt any rate, when the younger leaders were called to headquarters to receive distinctions, they did not hide their feelings. They spoke to Himmler clearly and faced him with the decision that he either had to decide that he was a man of the Police and against the Waffen SS, or he had to hand over everything. Himmler, under all circumstances wanted to create a state protection corps for the German people out of the Police and the Waffen SS. These controversies were extremely disagreeable to him, all the more so since they concerned individual commanders of Army Corps and of Divisions, and I point out Herr Sepp Dietrich, I point out General Steiner of the Germanic Armored Corps, Herr Diehler of the Third SS Corps. Then, amongst the regiment commanders, I cant point out the so-called \"Quick Mayer\", a very famous armored Corps Leader, and Peiper. All these were people who had crosses with oak leaves, and so on. They had been wounded seven or eight times. They even submitted their ideas to Adolf Hitler directly.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3856, "page_number": "3849", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Essentially speaking, there was just a small incident--a wrong report, in the case of the partisan enterprise Cottbus. In the early summer of 1943, there was a flaring up of very strong controversies, and the rumors of that controversy went up to Adolf Hitler, So this Posen conference was for the least approved by Hitler, if not even ordered. On that matter, I couldn't get any exact information. Therefore, Himmler was on the defensive, and it is only from this defensive position of his that you can understand his speech. He wanted to inform his Higher SS and Police Leaders who were absolutely on the side of the Waffen SS, and also the many members of the Waffen SS clearly of the fact that the police are a necessary evil and we need them urgently.\nQGeneral, may I ask you another question in the meantime. Have you any knowledge of the fact why Himmler, as the then chief of the SS, had taken over the authority of the police forcibly?\nAWell, that hadn't been provided for originally. The plan had been that the SA was to take over the police tasks at a later date. But my impression is that when the tasks were distributed and when the offices and all that was distributed, that Heinrich Himmler had come a little bit late. The Heavens were already distributed, so he only got the police, and he tried to get something out of it at least. This is only my personal and private opinion because during these years until 1936 I wasn't even a member of the SS.\nQWell, you can go on with the description of that Posen speech.\nASo, these many party dignitaries and persons came to Posen, and I was very much surprised to sec that in the very midst of the war almost all the state secretaries and ministerial directors, the Higher Police and SS leaders -- that is the whole leadership--were concentrated into only one town. It is also the consideration that in those days, it must have been ordered, at least by Adolf Hitler--or I would say, approved by Adolf Hitler.\nQJust a moment. Now, how did the meeting go on? That is the first thing.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3857, "page_number": "3850", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "AWe had been ordered to the hotel Ostland, and I think that was the billets, and if I am not much mistaken, in a large room of this hotel Ostland the meeting took place.\nQWasn't there a small incident at the very beginning?\nAI can't remember what you mean, Doctor.\nQWell, wasn't the security of the circle of the participants disturbed by the fact that the personnel of the hotel had also the possibility of listening?\nAYes, that is correct. It was alleged that I was disturbing the security in the beginning by the fact that I had brought along a little too many of my many Germanics.\nQWhat do you mean by those Germanics?\nAI mean Frenchmen and Danes and Norwegians, and so on.\nQYou mean Frenchmen too?\nAWell, those were the people of the French list issued by the French people themselves, and it will be a great pleasure to me to talk about that in my trial. Now, this room hadn't been tightened completely if I may call it that way. Well, once in a while somebody from the kitchen would stick his head in, and so on, and Heinrich Himmler was very much disturbed about it.\nQAnd what was the result of this disturbance?\nAWell, I don't know What result you mean.\nQI mean what was the impression you had?\nAThe Reichsfuehrer was extremely nervous anyhow during those days, but I think that was on account of a very difficult conference he had had with Steiner and Sepp Dietrich a few days before in which they had words with each other.\nQNow about the meeting itself.\nAThe Reichsfuehrer spoke without notes. He had in front of him about 10 or 15 slips of paper, and on these he had written the key words in large letters on every slip, perhaps 8 to 10. The speech had \n had no and, as it were.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3858, "page_number": "3851", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "It was horrible. He wouldn't stop. He just wouldn't stop. He spoke over three hours, and I think he had only a twenty minute recess.\nQHow did you know that he had only 10 to 15 slips of paper and he had key words there?\nAI was in the third row and I saw it myself. I saw even the little notes he had. For the rest, there is a new witness for that too. The meeting was opened by Colonel von Hirsch, who was the senior officer, and if I am not very much mistaken, he was in the first row and he must have seen it too.\nQIn other words, you say Himmler spoke without a script?\nAYes.\nQNow I ask you to look at this document here, the document which I have shown to you during the last few days, and to check it again. This document is of great interest for us because allegedly it contains the wording of the speech which Himmler held at that time, and I would love to know from an ear witness whether in how far the wording of this document is in agreement with what Himmler actually said at that time -- I mean, in a general way.\nAAs I have said already, this speech was endless, and for a normal human being it's quite out of the question that he can say, \"This and that and that and that was what Heinrich Himmler said, and that he did not say.\" That is impossible, in as far as it doesn't refer to his own sphere of activity. And for me, there were only two matters that were of special importance. First of all, Himmler, during this speech -- and that is not contained in this document -- expressed in a very concise manner the idea of the Germanic volunteer, of the European confederation of states. He pointed out that the state treaty created by me for Estonia and Latvia would be exemplary in order to create the basis for another treaty of peace to be concluded with Norway. These matters were of greatest importance for me because I would have liked to got a written confirmation by the Reichsfuehrer for my own purposes in order to enable me not only to show them at every opportunity but also to publicize them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3859, "page_number": "3852", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QWitness, if I may interrupt you -\nAYes, do.\nQYou just said that you had prepared state treaties with Estonia and Latvia.\nAYes, I said that.\nQAnd that they had certain purpose. Now in what capacity did you prepare them, and was it possible for you to prepare these state treaties between Germany and the states you just mentioned?\nAThat was the period where I was also in the East Ministry on accoun of these matters, and during the period where I expected to become state secretary in the ministry for the eastern occupied territories -- the summer of 1943 to the autumn of 1943.\nQWhat was the purpose of those state agreements?\nAIt was the purpose to render Estonia and Latvia again completely independent on the strength of the specially brave attitude of the Latvian and Estonian soldiers in the fight against Russia.\nQAnd you wanted to wait for this point dealing with this matter and which was to be discussed by Himmler?\nAYes, of course. And when I saw this document here for the first time--the complete document--there I thought, \"Here I am going to have the best defense for myself.\" And I read it through and was very anxious but I found not a single word was mentioned in the whole matter. It was just hinted there. Furthermore, I don't find either the explanations which Himmler gave concerning the political education. And there is one matter probably which you aim at and on which it is pointed out again and again in this speech, and that is on page 65 of the original, \"Evacuation of Jews.\" May I read this sentence to you? \"I am now referring to the Jews to be evacuated for the extermination of the Jewish people.\" Just on account of these matters of extermination, on account of the extermination of 10,000 of innocent people, there were these differences between the police and the Waffen SS. The Reichsfuehrer, after all, was not such idiot, that after the difficulties he had already on account of \n that he would go and say such a sentence and smash everything to pieces again.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3860, "page_number": "3853", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "In spite of the fact that as this speech went on he referred to this matter with special interest and with special hints and said, \"Whoever doesn't obey will be exterminated,\" and he speaks of allegiance and faithfulness to the very end. And he gives a direct threat, \"If you don't do what I say, then I will kill you.\"\nFor the rest I Would like to say one thing of this speech. Now I can remember that there is one thing he pointed out, particularly in very clear and very long sentences. He explained, \"The Jew is the exponent of the Bolshevist legions.\" It was not very clear and not very true what he siad there, but he pointed out too the struggle and the fight in the ghetto of Warsaw, and he proved that there the Jews had succeeded. He gave figures of their having thousands of guns and automatic weapons of various types and calibers and immense amounts of explosives, and said they made up various blocks of buildings and houses in an excellent manner for defense. I didn't find these explanations concerning Warsaw either in this document 1919. He mentioned the leader of the enterprises, the then SS and Police Leader Strauch at that time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3861, "page_number": "3854", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QWell, witness, if I understood you correctly, then you meant to say the following: Himmler in his speech said a lot of things which you don't find now in this document?\nAYes, that is right.\nQAnd vice versa: there are things in this document which Himmler certainly hasn't said in his speech?\nAYes.\nQAnd which he even cannot have said because he, himself, would have imperiled, if not jeopardized. The purpose of the meeting from the very beginning. And there is one thing that I want to point out on page 65 of the original here, as far as the appearance is concerned. Himmler was one of those speakers who at some time after 1933 had a rhetorical training and thereby had learned how to speak to the people, and he would never have spoken such a sentence, because after all he went to high school.\" I mean here, the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people.\" That is quite impossible.\nQWhy?\nABecause it doesn't make sense; because the Reichsfuehrer always finished his sentences. He liked to finish a sentence and didn't put one idea right next to the other without any connection. If you look at Himmler's speech at Bad Schachen to the Commanders of the Army Districts, and if you compare it with this wording ofPS-1919then the difference becomes most striking.\nQBut how can you explain then this document? I mean its very existence?\nAI can't tell you. Usually it was customary that Himmler, whenever he made such a long speech as that at Bad Schachen, or when he made a speech to the officers of the Leibstandarte and of the Second Corps shortly before, that is 1943 in the early summer in the Shitomir Region, after the speech would give me a copy of the speech to have it kept in archives. I didn't get a copy of this speech here and I requested such a copy several times because the speech was particularly important for me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3862, "page_number": "3855", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QWas there a stenographer who took the speech down or was it recorded by some other technical means?\nAI didn't see one there. He spoke into a microphone. There was a microphone, I am sure. But whether they had a dictaphone attached to that microphone, that I couldn't tell you. I didn't see any stenographers anyhow.\nQGeneral, I brought this whole matter up here today because the SS Lieutenant General von dem Bach-Zelewski, whom you have mentioned already here several times, was here as a witness on the same chair you are sitting in now, and he said that the intentions of extermination against the Jews which Himmler had were known to all Generals of SS, whether they were of the General SS or of the Weffen SS, at least since 1943. Now my question to you is, did you know Bach-Zelewski very well?\nAThe first time I saw Bach-Zelewski was at the Reichparteitag in 1938, and the second time I saw him was when he was already Chief of the anti-partisan units and in the direct surroundings of Himmler. I mean, Himmler placed at his disposal even his own quarters, and there he had his headquarters. Before that, I didn't know Bach-Zelewski.\nQA while ago you spoke of the extermination of 12,000 people.\nAYes, I did.\nQIn Central Russia? Wasn't it central Russia?\nAYes, it was the army group center.\nQBut you didn't establish any relation yet between this extermination and Bach-Zelewski? First of all, is there a relation?\nAYes, there is. I hope that I can bring the witness for my trial-the witness who experienced that matter.\nQAnd you know that personally too? Do you know anything personally about that?\nATwo German police battalions received the order to execute 12,000 members--inmates of a concentration camp. Officers and men refused to carry out the order which was issued by Bach-Zelewski. Thereupon, he \n called the officers and threatened them and pointed out to them the most severe consequences under court martial, and then the matter was carried out with the help of indigenous auxiliary battalions but under the supervision of the German regular police.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3863, "page_number": "3856", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "The army group center heard about it. They did not complain to Bach, but they made the greatest complaints and reproaches to Himmler and they complained to Adolf Hitler. An investigation was made, and now the marvellous matter of the whole affair comes up. Herr Zelewski now called the same police officers whom he had threatened with the most severe punishment before and told them that they had misunderstood his orders and that at no time had he given such orders. I want to get that witness. He is still alive. There is still one of them--an officer.\nQNow for what reason were these poor 12,000 to be shot?\nAI couldn't tell you. Perhaps Bach-Zelewski wanted to get a good reputation like in the \"Cottbus\" enterprise.\nQWhat about that \"Cottbus\" enterprise?\nAIn the early summer of 1943--I could give you quite a number of things from my repertoire--I have saved up a few for my trial too-- there in the eastern ministry came a direct report on account of some technical deficiency where Bach-Zelewski reported to the Reichsfuehrer, \"Enterprise Cottbus terminated.\" And what I am telling you now I couldn't state under oath because I am not so sure about any figures, but I think that 4,000 enemy killed were involved and 397 captured guns, a few machine guns, a few machine guns, a few mortars and some other weapons. Rosenberg got the report and said, \"I smell a rat there. There is something fishy because if there is 4,000 enemy killed and you have only 400 guns there must be some hitch somewhere or else the anti-partisan units just ravaged there without any sense.\" When I came to the eastern ministry at 11 o'clock, I had to report to him right away and I advised him to approach Adolf Hitler directly and I told him that 12 hours later I would take his teletype to Adolf Hitler and I would send it to the Reichsfuehrer through the official channels. That was what was done, and Adolf Hitler at that time \n ordered an investigation through the armed forces.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3864, "page_number": "3857", "date": "01 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-01", "text": "I forgot something a while ago when I gave the figures of our own 27 losses, 300 or 400 guns captured and 4 to 5 thousand enemy killed. Fantastic! The investigation was made, and the following was found out: First of all, our own casualties were more than 70 killed and about 100 severely injured. All that was in Combat in White Ruthenia, in the woods, and in those cases you have either severely injured or killed people. Something else doesn't exist. It's a man to man fight. Then there were not 4 to 5 thousand enemy killed but only 400. As Bach-Zelewski was called to account he claimed that the additional zero was only a typing error in the teletype. However, the purpose was to get as high a figure as possible for the higher agencies. That created considerable difficulties between the other Higher SS and Police Leader Fritzmann and Jaeger, and very heated debates concerning these lying reports. That is what I mean by this incredibility.\nQYes. And what about the general knowledge of the SS Generals concerning Himmler's intention to exterminate the Jews as claimed by BachZelewski? I mean you, in your capacity as SS Lieutenant-General, did you know anything about this intention of Himmler's to exterminate the Jews?\nAWhat I am telling you now won't be believed, but that is not important. But there will be a period in history when proof will be brought. I didn't know anything about the extermination of the Jews and innumerable other Higher SS leaders and the Waffen SS didn't know anything about the extermination and the program of extermination of the Jews.\nQAnd at any rate, in his Poznan speech, Himmler didn't speak about the extermination of the Jews?\nANo, he wasn't as stupid as that, because otherwise there would have been a tremendous clash right away.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3865, "page_number": "3858", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "DR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, that doesn't leave me any questions to put to this witness at this point. BY DR. H*SSE (for the defendant Lorenz):\nQWitness, I have only a very few questions to put to you. You have already stated that you chief of the SS Main Office.\nAYes.\nQWere racial Germans enrolled in German Military Units, particularly in the Waffen SS?\nAAbout 300,000.\nQWhat agencies were responsible for the following measures:\nRecruitment Propaganda?\nAMy Main Office.\nQPhysical Examination?\nAMy main Office.\nQRecruitment?\nARecruitment is the wrong expression, but my Main Office was in charge, together with the replacement inspectorate Southeast in agreement with the appropriate agencies.\nQDrafting, hiring, I use these various expressions because they are connected with the military recruitment measures and they were translated in the various languages and can be misunderstood.\nAHiring is wrong, but drafting is right. Responsible were the authorities of the countries concerned.\nQWhat about the welfare for the dependents for the people drafted?\nAThat was my business. In agreement with VOMI and with the district agencies.\nQWas the VOMI in any way responsible or did it have any functions in these measures of recruitment of selecting and of hiring?\nANo, as far as it was not connected with my agency it was done by the ethnic groups and not by the VOMI.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3866, "page_number": "3859", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QIs it correct that the Vomi interfered in the drafting measures only in such cases where the interests of the ethnic groups had to be repreesented?\nACertainly; I remember two such cases. It involved the very savage and unorganized calling up of the Division Prinz Eugen in the Serbian Sector and the intended building up of the Second Cavalry Division in the Hungarian Banat.\nQWho ordered these measures?\nAHimmler directly.\nQWhat was Lorenz' position in regard to that matter?\nALorenz opposed this very strongly; in the matter of the Hungarian Cavalry Division he was unsuccessful while in the matter of the Prinz Eugen Division he was only partly sucessful.\nQDo you know what position Lorenz took with regard to the Military Service for Racial Germans, I mean fundamentally speaking is it correct that Lorenz held the tendency that the racial Germans should be made liable to military service only on the basis of International Law?\nADoubtlessly.\nQDo you know about the controversy between Lorenz and Himmler in this connection?\nAYes, particularly in these two cases I just mentioned.\nQWas the Vomi connected at all with the Germanic formations?\nANo.\nQBecause it wasn't a matter of racial Germans, is that the reason?\nAI have no knowledge of racial germans in Germanic countries\nQWell, that is what I mean that is the reason VOMI didn't have anything to do with it because these formations were not German but Germanic formations?\nAYes, those are two entirely different conceptions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3867, "page_number": "3860", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QThank you, I have no further questions. BY DR. RATZ (for the defendant Sollmann):\nQWitness, you had the opportunity in your position to gather experience concerning the following question: How did the SS Fuehrer have to behave who had the right to report directly to Himmler, if he received orders from Himmler, the carrying out of which was considered impossible futile or damaging by them. Will you please explain your position on that question and will you also explain whether you personally came into situation where you were faced with illogical orders of Himmler and what was your own position taken in those cases?\nAHimmler was one of those people who to a very great extent depend on their moods. If he had one of his bad days and you would go to trapport to him then it was quite out of the question to discuss an order given by him or a decree issued or even to answer a suggestion in the negative. In that case, if one rejected the susgestion, he would just have given the order and if one wouldn't have carried it out then he would have commissioned somebody else to carry out the order he had given, even if the other person didn't have anything to do with it normally. Therefore, after a few bad experiences one would adopt the following procedure: one became very formal and would say, \"yes, my Reichsfuehrer,\" and then he would know there was something fishy and then it was just dragged along until better days came or one would do something without telling him and one would force the person to execute it and to keep silent. That was the only way to help one's self.\nQWitness, you said, therefore, that it was necessary to make believe that one carried out Himmler's order and one was in agreement.\nACertainly, that was what one had to do.\nQAnd you said if somebody had rejected the order then the consequence would have only been that somebody else would have been commissioned to carry it out and that the other one probably would have done something.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3868, "page_number": "3861", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "AOh, certainly, only for the very reason that he didn't have an insight in the matter and he wouldn't know perhaps what an incredible stupidity he might commit in carrying out the order.\nQTherefore, according to your opinion, it was the right procedure to just direct the carrying out of an order by making believe that one agreed with Himmler's order and then sort of using your own judgment in the carrying out?\nAYes, that's right.\nQWas this policy generally adopted by the SS leaders who had the direct right to report to Himmler?\nAWell, Doctor there you are asking a little too much. After all everybody would keep these secrets; these \"secrets of production,\" to themselves; it wasn't just a matter one would publicize to a large public. Apart from the fact that perhaps somebody might have told about it and then Heinrich Himmler would have been mad. One just tried to swindle one's way through here and there and after all if one found him in one of his good days then one could say \"you see, Reichsfuehrer, you had given this or that order and if I had carried it out things would have gone wrong, and therefore I didn't do it,\" and in that case he would just asknowledge the fact.\nQThank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Procedd with the cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHIL*ER:\nQWitness, will you please try to answer my questions as briefly as possible.\nAYes, I will\nQWitness, you were quite a prominent man in the SS, were you not?\nAI have to laugh there you know. Prominent! In 1939---I apologize to the Tribunal for my laughter, but it was just a little bit too much.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3869, "page_number": "3862", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "In 1939 I was one out of 17 office chiefs in the SS Main Office. I was quite a new comer, even in the general SS; I had no personal str strings to pull and no personal, friendly connections in there, but it is true that at the and of the war I held quite a position which I had created for myself.\nQWitness, taking the peiod of the summer and end of 1943, had you already advanced a little in your career in the SS?\nAYes, I had in the SS.\nQWhere tould you say you stood at that time in relation to Himmler, say fifth or fiftieth; could you give us some approximation?\nACounsel, that you can't say with regard to the SS. That is impossible.\nQThank you, witness. You stated on direct examination that in Posen in 1943 Himmler did not speak about the extermination of the Jews. However, you mentioned something about the Warsaw Ghetto. Did he speak at that time about the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in April and May of 1943?\nAI have knowledge that he talked about the battle in that Ghetto and that he said how incredibly difficult it had been to break down this revolt; that heavy infantry had not been sifficient even to crush the revolt.\nQWitness, was this destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto at that time a matter of common knowledge among SS men gathered at Posen?\nATowards that period it was known that a severe battle had raged for this Warsaw Ghetto. Of the complete destruction I don't know whther it took place at all. I had no knowledge of it but it was known that quite a bit of things would be smashed up when there was such a house-to-house fighting. That was obvious.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3870, "page_number": "3863", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QDidn't you know at the time of the speech in 1943 that the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto was part of the program of the extermination of the Jews?\nANo.\nQWitness, on direct examination you spoke about an atrocity committed in Russia in which 12,000 people were shot at the orders of Bach-Zelewski.\nAYes.\nQDo you mean to say that this atrocity, this crime, is the only one of which you have heard as being committed by the SS?\nAYes.\nQWitness, when Bach-Zelewski as you say, gave this order that tnese men be shot by the Police Battalion, in what capacity did he give this order?\nAAt the time he must have been only Higher SS and Police Leader in central Russia.\nQAs Higher SS and Police Leader when he ordered these police battalions to shoot 12,000 people they did so. Is that correct? They may have struggled but they did so. Is that correct? They may have struggled but they did so.\nAAs far as I know, yes.\nQWitness, you have stated that you didn't know of the extermination of the Jews?\nAYes, I said so.\nQDidn't the SS Main Office at the time when you were heas of that office published anti-Jewish propaganda?\nAWe have only issued one propaganda bulletin in the SS Main Office and this only booklet which was issued with personal collaboration of Himmler's, this only booklet was called \"The Sub-Human,\" \"Der Untermensch\". It was not meant for the front line. I want to stress that, not for the fighting troop.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3871, "page_number": "3864", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "It was meant to strengthen the public opinion on the home front against Communism but as I noticed that this booklet was misused as bad excuse that PWs with whom I didn't have any connection with yet at that time were mistreated in view of that booklet, I had all copies cllected and destroyed, whatsoever I could get back. Mr. Prosecutor, there are witnesses to prove that.\nQWitness, as I understand it you are the same Gottlob Berger who is now on trial here in Nuernberg in Case No. XI. Isn't that correct?\nAYes.\nQHave you spoken absolutely freely in your direct examination and in this cress examination, witness, or have you been careful not to say anything which might be held to be incriminating, that is, which might he held to be incriminating, that is, which might incriminate you?\nAI am not one of those whom one would call cautious, and the questions that were put time here I have answered honestly and without dissemination, under oath, as is normal and is fitting for a General of the Waffen SS, regardless of the consequences that might arise for me out of that.\nQThank you, the Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further for the defense. BY DR. FROESCHMANN: -REDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQWitness, from the cross examination by the Prosecution I would like to pick out three points. Do you know the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader to the extent of knowing whether under normal circumstances the Security Police are subordinated to him as far as the assignment is concerned?\nAThat I can tell you with great certainly. There are difficulties there, if I might express it that way, or misunderstandings at least, and they are caused by the fact that there were two kinds of higher SS and Police Leaders. First of all there were such SS and \n Police Leaders in the area of the German Reich proper and Higher SS and Police Leaders in the occupied areas, in other words:", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3872, "page_number": "3865", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "\"in the Netherlands --, later on, the agency in Denmark, also developed into that type--in Norway, Serbia, and France. The Higher SS and Police Leaders in these areas were such Higher SS and Police Leaders as Heinrich Himmler wanted to have them in future. In other words these Higher SS and Police Leaders had quite clearly become Commanders of the Security Police and of the Security Police and of the regular Police under their orders. A channel of command apart from or I would say around the Higher SS and Police Leader was possible only in the rarest cases, while in the home area it was customary that the Higher SS and Police Leader was left out in the channel of command. The reason was that in the home area the means of information from the Chief of the Security Police went directly to the RuSHA be cause in peace time, that is after 1933, there had been established in that manner, and because in war times it was not possible to create a special information service for the Higher SS and Police Leader. The best way to express it would be to say that it was entirely in the hands of the Commander of the Security Police, whether about an order or a measure which he had received he wanted to inform the Higher SS and Police Leader or not.\nQI assume from what you said, witness, that in Germany proper, in contradiction with this condition in the occupied areas, the Commander of the Security Police and of the regular Police were not under the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nAWell, I would say they were under his orders but only nominally, the chief of the Security Police and of the regular Police, would play the subordinate man and would make his report when the Higher SS and Police Leader demanded information. Certainly he informed him about matters where it could not be avoided but of the real Gestapo matters he would certainly not give information to the Higher SS and Police \n Leader and I want to give you an example.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3873, "page_number": "3866", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "As they say in Swabia, you you should always be ready to back up a lie. In the complex of the 20th of July a certain number of men from Wuerttemberg were involved whom I knew very well. They were arrested and they were now about to be hanged by the neck. So I approached the Higher SS and Police Leader Hofmann.\nQYou mean the defendant Hofmann?\nAYes, the man sitting over there; our Hofmann, and to my greatest surprise I had to find out that the Higher SS and Police Leader had no idea who has arrested in his area in Wuerttemberg; he was in Stutgart; he had no idea who was arrested. At the time I told him probably they do not trust you and you hare one of the suspects yourself. This is only an example\nQNow, I am interested in the following in order to come to the point. Various witnesses have told us here already that Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader in the incorporated territory of Danzig, West Prussia, did not have the security and regular police SS under his order.\nAYes, that's right.\nQNow how is it possible that Bach-Zeleski in Central Russia had the police battalions at his orders in such a manner that he could issue the order to them to kill 12,000 people. I mean is there a difference?\nAYes, of course there is a difference. If you take the trouble, that is my stupidity and I apologize, - I should have mentioned the Higher SS and Police Leader Ostland in central Russia and the Supreme SS and Police Leader in Russian C, as well as the Supreme Police Russia South leader, because in that area there were two or three other SS and Police leaders. Those were so-called mobile commanders and under their orders there was as well the Commander of the Security Police as that of the commander of the regular police and thereby quite \n clearly also the Police battalions, and all the units assigned for antiPartisan activities but this went to the point that even units of the armed forces if they had been temporarily committed for anti-partisan activity were also under the orders of the higher SS and Police Leaders, but the situation was also that the Higher SS and Police leaders in those areas, for instance he had to take care of the securing of the railway line from Minsk to, let's say the German border.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3874, "page_number": "3867", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Now territorial battalions were placed at his disposal for that. Now, the Higher SS and Police Leader was rendered specifially responsible for this railway line when the territorial battalions were also placed at his disposal and they were in every way clearly under his orders and not to the Commander of the rear.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3875, "page_number": "3868", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QWell, I make it a point to have that clarified and therefore I ask you, can therefore the official position of the higher SS and police leader in central Russia or of the supreme SS and police leader in the south in his channels of command be compared with the position of the higher SS and police leader Danzig-Western Prussia as an incorporated area?\nANo, no, that was general knowledge.\nQThank you, that will do. You don't have to go on. Now, second question. The destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, was it a matter for the police or for the military?\nAAs far as I know, I mean I wasn't there myself, police units, parts of the Army, parts of the units of the Waffen-SS, and if I am not quite mistaken, even reserves of the Marines had been joined here under the unified orders of Schrotter? Later on, during the second great revold of Bor-Komorowski, also every unit that happened to be in the area was committed to the battle and they were to surround and finally crush the revolt.\nQIn this connection, witness, you generally spoke always of Jews. Now, what kind of Jews were in the Warsaw Ghetto? Do you understand my question?\nAOh no, I don't.\nQWell, the question is wasn't there a considerable difference between Eastern and Western Jews and wasn't, in general I mean, can't you say that in general, among the Jews you just referred to there were Western and Eastern Jews or only Eastern Jews? That means Jews who had come from the East, emigrated from the East, or who had remained in the East.\nACounsel, I am very sorry. I can't answer that question. I don't know my way through all these things. I don't know who was there.\nQWell now, my third question. A while ago you spoke about that one booklet you issued.\nAYes, the Subhuman, the Untermensch.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3876, "page_number": "3869", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QAnd you also said that the copies you could get from this booklet you had destroyed afterwards?\nAThat's right.\nQWas this booklet issued within the Germanic directive agency, the GL?\nANo, the origin of that booklet was a little bit funny. Adolf Hitler had propaganda booklets from Russia, from England, from America submitted to him, and he was deeply impressed by the simplicity and stringent and strong propaganda issued by the Russians and he was rather annoyed about the propaganda of England and America and he gave orders to Goebbels that he should issue a booklet once which would strengthen and even innoculate the German people against Bolshevism, with many pictures and little texts. Goebbels started that work. He submitted it three or four times, but Hitler wasn't pleased with it, and thereupon -- a thing Which is quite typical for Himmler -- Himmler would jump to the scene and say, \"My Fuehrer, I am going to do that.\" So one day we got the order and we got five hundred photographs which were handed to his Haupsturmfuehrer, to his Captain Koenig who was not very happy about it and this copy had to be submitted seven or eight times and at the end Himmler called Captain Koenig for two weeks to him in his headquarters and then the booklet was drawn up. There are sufficient witnesses to prove that that's the way it was originated.\nQWhat did the pictures show?\nAWell, on one side you will see the Bolshevik and on the other side the German, the Dutchman, the Norwegian and they are just confronted that way.\nQAnd that was not in line with your intentions either?\nAWell, there was especially one page I didn't like and I think it is particularly ugly too. That's the page where the chiefs of the states appear. I mean, even if you are benevolent or malevolent, if you have a tendency towards the West, then after all, you can't bundle Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill under the same heading. They are not exactly \n ugly, these pictures, but they are not nice.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3877, "page_number": "3870", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "They are things you can't do, you see, and I think it would have been better if they hadn't put that page in but it was put in on the order and there was nothing I could do about it,\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nEXAMINATIONS BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, one or two questions to get my own mind clear. You referred, this morning, I believe, in your testimony, to an incident where you say several hundred dead bodies, Germans along the highway who had been dead about six days?\nAYes, your Honor.\nQAnd in the same connection you said something about a death road. Now, was that two instances or was it one?\nAThat was on the same day, your Honor,\nQSame day. Exactly where was that? I didn't get that clear.\nAWell, if I had a map of Poland I could give you details about it but -\nQWell, it was in Poland?\nAIt was well inside of what they call Poland today, yes, but it was in the area which until 1919 had belonged to Germany.\nQI understand, Now, when was that?\nAWhen I saw these dead people that was about, on or about the 12th to the 14th of September 1939.\nQWas that occupied territory at that time?\nAYes, your Honor, the troops had already been about 150 miles east of that area.\nQSo that at the time you saw these dead bodies and at the time you referred to, the instance as being death road, you are talking about a time and a place when the territory was occupied by the German authorities\nAYes, certainly, your Honor.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3878, "page_number": "3871", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "QDo you know anything about, along in the year 1943, when it was generally true among the SS men that Himmler had lost their respect completely?\nAYour Honor, if I understand your question correctly, you are referring to 1943 and to the question that Heinrich Himmler currently, from one month to the other, continued to lose the respect of the men of the Waffen-SS.\nQNo, that's not what I asked you. My question is whether or not it is true during the year 1943 that the SS men generally speaking, had lost their respect for Himmler?\nAYour Honor, I am not quite clear about the question. Will you repeat it once again please?\nQAll right. Is it true or not true that during the year 1943 the SS men generally lost their respect for Himmler?\nACertainly.\nQWas that respect over restored?\nANo, your Honor, On the contrary at the end of the war Himmler in execution of an order issued by Adolf Hitler took the armlet away from his division.\nQWell, that's all I wanted to know.\nAThe swastika -- armlet.\nQAll I wanted to know was whether he was ever restored to the respect of the SS. Now I understand you say he was not?\nANo, your Honor.\nQAll right. This speech, that purported copy of this speech of Himmler's that you had before you during your testimony, I understood you to testify you knew that that speech was delivered extemporaneously and was not read?\nAYour Honor, I can assure you with the greatest certainty that Himmler made this speech without a script, that is, he had only key words or notes which he had arranged on slips of paper.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3879, "page_number": "3872", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "Court I Court VIII\nQI understood you to testify further that that speech was not reported. There was no stenographer there to make a copy of it?\nAYour Honor, I have not seen any stenographer, at any rate, none of the official stenographers who would usually take down such speeches were present.\nQThen I understood you later along in your testimony to say that on two or three occasions you asked Himmler for a copy of his speech and did not get it; is that true?\nAYes, your Honor, and I haven't received any.\nQNow, you testified that some SS officer ordered 12,000 people killed?\nAYes, your Honor.\nQWhat was the name of that officer?\nABach-Zelewski.\nQWho were those people?\nAWell, the whole matter, I didn't experience myself and I have to base myself on what these police officers told me, and what these officers of the Waffen SS also told me. 12,000 human beings were involved. Part of them were Jews but also other people, men and unfortunately also women.\nQThey were civilian people as I understand?\nAYes, your Honor civilians.\nQAnd were not killed in battle or as a result of a battle?\nANo, your Honor, not at all. They had already been in custody before that.\nQYou further testified that in your opinion that this officer ordered these people killed in order to establish for himself a good name, a good name with whom?\nAWith Himmler, your Honor, and as I had to find out later on, only an experience which unfortunately I had to make later, apparently also with Adolf Hitler. Apparently Adolf Hitler too was enjoying such reports.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3880, "page_number": "3873", "date": "16 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-16", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:I regret the necessity of announcing but it is necessary to announce that it becomes necessary for the Tribunal at this time to adjourn for the day so that the Tribunal will adjourn until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(The hearing adjourned to 19 January 1948 at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3881, "page_number": "3874", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg.\nGermany, on 19 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the evidence on behalf of Hildebrandt.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, with the permission of the Tribunal, I now first of all would like to introduce several documents which are contained in Document Books I and III, and which the defendant Hildebrandt will refer to in the course of his examination as a witness. I now offer Document 1, from Hildebrandt Document Book I, which will become Exhibit 2; Document 2a, as Exhibit 3; Document 2b, as Exhibit 4; Document 3a, as Exhibit 5; Document 3b as Exhibit 6. From Document Book III, I want to offer Document 79 as Exhibit No. 7; Document 80 as Exhibit 8; Document 81 as Exhibit 9; Document 82 as Exhibit 10; Document 83 as Exhibit 11; Document 84 as Exhibit 12; Document 85 as Exhibit 13; Document 86 as Exhibit 14; and Document 87 as Exhibit 15.\nWith the permission of the Tribunal, I now request to call the defendant Hildebrandt to the witness stand in order to testify on his own behalf.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nRICHARDHILDEBRANDT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the \n pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.", "speakers": [ "RICHARD", "THE MARSHAL", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3882, "page_number": "3875", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name and the place and date of your birth.\nAMy name is Richard Hildebrandt. I was born on the 13 of March 1897 at Worms on the Rhine.\nQPlease describe briefly your youth and your education until you entered the public service.\nAFirst of all, I attended the Humanist Gymnasium at Worms on the Rhine and at Frankfurt on the Main, and at Trosten in Westphalia. Then I finally matriculated. In the soring of 1914, I volunteered for service with the Armed Forces and I entered the German Army. I finally participated in the campaign in Russia, later on in France, until the time of the collapse in 1918, and at that time I was an officer in the field artillery. In November 1918, I was discharged from the army. Before the war, I actually intended to study social sciencies; however this plan was prevented by the fact that as a result of Germany's losing big territories by signing the Versailles Treaty, a large number of officials in the forestry service in these territories had to be given jobs in the remainder of Germany, and that is why the prospects of this profession were actually very dim. That is also why in 1919 I worked as a business man in the business enterprise of my father in the Rhineland. After that, after I had completed my apprenticeship, I attended the Universities at Cologne and Munich. I studied economics, history, and history of art. My profession placed me in contact with social questions and with workers. That is why I had a strong tendency for the study of economics. I gained valuable experiences about social and labor questions, especially in the time of my youth, and also through the contact which I had with my father. The study itself I can still \n recall because at that time I was still able to listen to the teachers of national science, Schmoller, Wiese and Schmallenbach; also the history by Eckert and von Wenthof, who is also very famous.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3883, "page_number": "3876", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "After I completed my studies, I worked in various positions in commerce and in industry; above all, in the manufacture of ceramics in Germany. I usually took care of the correspondence in these enterprises. The political situation in Germany, especially after the inflation, became extremely difficult and complicated. The economic situation also deteriorated. I had very close relatives in the United States of America. There was a brother of my mother's, who was a farmer in Ohio; besides that, my fiancee at the time was visiting her aunt in New York, who was a native American. Under these circumstances I decided in 1928 to emigrate to the United States of America.\nI lived over there for two or three years on what I was able to earn through manual labor and later also by being professionally active. I married my fiancee in New York City, and as a result of my marriage I now have three children, and my family today is living in Bavaria. I also would like to mention that in New York I later on worked in an export firm for books, and here again I took care of the foreign correspondence. In New York, I also joined the local group of the NSDAP which existed there at the time. This was a registered society. Every meeting and all the work we did was done under both flags, the German flag and the flag of the United States. As a result of the very hard struggle for livlihood there and as a result of the speed in that country, to which I was not used to at the time, I did not have any time in order to take any special interest in the activities of that group, because I, myself, for the most time was outside of New York, in Connecticut, in Pennsylvania, in New Jersey, and so on; for the most part I would be staying on farms. In the year 1930 I returned to Germany, and in 1931 I joined the SS. I remained in the ranks of the SS until the end of the war in 1945.\nQWitness, from October 1939 until March 1943, you were the Higher \n SS and Police Leader as well as the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanizm at Danzig, West Prussia, is that correct?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3884, "page_number": "3877", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "AYes.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3885, "page_number": "3878", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.On the first of April 1943, you became Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Yes, that is correct also.\nQ.At the end of December 1943, were you detached to southern Russia, as Higher SS and Police Leader, to Army Group \"A\"?\nA.Yes.\nQ.In September 1944, did you return to your old position as Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office?\nA.Yes, all that is correct.\nQ.And did you remain in Berlin from then until April 1945?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.By means of the documents which I have before me, witness, I shall first of all examine you with regard to your activities in Danzig West Prussia. You are charged at that time with Counts 11 to 18 of the Indictment and 20 to 22, and then I shall name the other activities which you carried out at the time. In the first part of the examination, please refer only to your work in Danzig, West Prussia, Witness, the first fundamental charge which has been raised against you here is your collaboration in the ethnic policy of the German Reich. In order to make this examination as brief as possible, I am now going to hand to you the documents which will be referred to in the course of this examination.\n(Witness is offered documents.)\nAnd now I am going to begin my questions. According to Paragraph 16 of the Indictment, you are brought into connection with Paragraph 10, that is \"Special Treatment\" for the crime of forcible evacuation and resettlement of parts of the population and in participation therein. I am now going to ask you, during the time from 1939 until 1945, did you come into contact with the resettlement of parts of the population in an official capacity or in any capa \n city or in any capacity whatsoever?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3886, "page_number": "3879", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.From the course of this trial and the presentation of evidence, it is known that in October 1939 I was appointed Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig, West Prussua. In this capacity and in this function, I was ordered to carry out the settlement of people from Bessarabia and the Baltic Germans from Danzig, West Prussia.\nQ.Before your arrival in Danzig, had evacuations been carried out in Danzig, West Prussia?\nA.Yes, on a large scale. When I arrived at Danzig, West Prussia, the evacuation of Totenhafen was in progress. Further evacuations were carried out in order to clear an area and in order to establish a troop training center in the area of Neustadt and Karthaus, and in this connection the entire population of these areas were evacuated without consideration of the fact whether they were Germans, Poles, or any other mixed population. This applied to many Poles who were termed to have a favorable attitude towards the Germans. The evacuation itself, carried out upon a military order, was completely outside of my competency. I was not consulted before. That is why many people were also evacuated at the time, as I heard later on, who actually had a moral and factual claim to remain in Danzig, West Prussia. I shall refer to this later on.\nIt was my first task as a representative of the Reich Commissar to have these people come back to Danzig, West Prussia who had been unjustly sent to the Government General. At the time I did this in agreement with the Main Staff Office which completely agreed with me. Several officials of my agency were sent to the Government General in order to get all these people and families back to Danzig, West Prussia. Here I employed them in vacant positions which existed, and they also received full com \n pensation and indemnification for any losses they had sustained.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3887, "page_number": "3880", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "At the time when I came to Danzig, also a great deal of uncontrolled and wild resettlement took place by the Landrat, by the Lord Mayor, and this was always done without consulting a representative of the Reich Commissar. They did that on their own initiative. Individual evacuations also took place and this was probably carried out by the Security Police. I, personally, had nothing to do with all these meausres, neither in my capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader nor as a representative of the Reich Commissar. Aside from that, as the war went on, and in connection with the consequences of that, people came into the Government General where they apparently had relatives and friends -- and of course I am now referring to the Polish component of the population-or some were sent to Germany proper in order to find work there. This was a development which actually was not good as far as the Gau of Danzig, West Prussia was concerned.\nAt that time there was a severe labor shortage in the district, aside from the fact that the loss of people could not be accounted for in any other way either. At that time I contacted Gauleiter Forster immediately and I notified him to the effect that any wild deportation drive or any loss of the population should be avoided at all costs, already for reasons of labor allocation, which I have stated before, Danzig, West Prussia is a primarily agricultural district, and it is decisive whether it has enough workers in order to get out the products from the soil which can normally be produced.\nQ.Witness, will you please take a look at Exhibit 290 to which I have already referred. Does this document refer to the incident to which you have referred?\nA.Yes, this is a document from the Reichsfuehrer personally in his capacity as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3888, "page_number": "3881", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "It dates from the 11 of October 1939 and that is at the time when I was not as yet in Danzig. This document shows that in that time the evacuation of Gotenhafen was already under way, or it was already half-finished. It further shows that I, in my capacity as Representative of the Reich Commissar, did not have anything to do with it in any way, nor did I have anything to do with it as Higher SS and Police Leader. It becomes evident from the distribution on this document that I am not even mentioned there, although Gotenhafen was quite an important city in the Reich District of Danzig, West Prussia. However, this is typical for the manner in which Himmler carried out his work.\nQ.Witness, can you recall that I asked the witness Ebrecht about the report which was made in connection with Sturmbann Eimann? In this report, the evacuation of a troop training center is also mentioned. Does this refer to a troop training center to which you have just referred?\nA.Yes, this was a troop training center near Mariensee, West Prussia.\nQ.And now another question with regard to your statement according to which a large number of people voluntarily left the province of Danzig, West Prussia. Was this a flight from the soil?\nA.Yes, that is what it was.\nQ.Were there many people amongst them?\nA.There were many Poles who between 1918 and 1939, primarily for reasons of political security, had been settled in Danzig, West Prussia. These people apparently didn't feel very secure any more and they left voluntarily.\nQ.I now want to ask you something else in this connection. You mentioned the Kaschuben, and in the course of the examination you also refer to the Masuren. Will you please describe in very few words what this stands for?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3889, "page_number": "3882", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.The Kaschuben and the Masuren actually are two Slav components of the population which are related to each other. The Masuren live in East Prussia and the Kaschuben live in West Prussia. They have two similar languages. They were quite loyal citizens already in the time prior to 1918, and I personally also made the best of experiences with them. They certainly were not good intensive farmers, but according to their nature, they were goodnatured. They were decent and they did not have any hatreds, and that is why I did everything in order to avoid hurting their culture in any way.\nQ.Witness, at the beginning of your examination, it was mentioned that you were connected, in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, with the repatriation of Baltic Germans. Who usually was in charge of the settlement of the German ethnic groups from Estonia and Latvia--the so-called Baltic countries-- and Bessarabia? Did this fall under the competency of the Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.No, not at all. This was a matter which was handled entirely by VOMI.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3890, "page_number": "3883", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.You have already spoken several times about the position of the Higher SS and Police Leaders. We heard something about that from April on. Therefore, I shall only ask you whether you consider that testimony to be correct. Do you want to add anything to the statements made by the witnesses here or do you want to make any corrections in their testimony?\nA.The statements of the two witnesses, Ehlich, Wolf, and probably Ebrecht are fundamentally correct. That is why I do not want to burden the Tribunal by repeating it because I think that too much has been said already about it. I only want to say the following which will characterize my position and my action as Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig, West Prussia. In 1931 I joined the SS. At the time I was Adjutant and Chief of the Staff o of the SS in Munich. I was Adjutant to Dietrich, General of the Waffen SS. My task was to develop the general SS and to bring it up to the aims and ideals of which we were thinking at the time. In 1933 I became the leader of a sector at Breslau and I was transferree to Boerlitz. In 1935 I took over another sector at Wiesbaden. In 1937 I took over the leadership of the main sector Rhine which had been established there in the meantime. Then I was promoted SS Gruppenfuehrer. I occupied this position until 1939 and at that time I was staying in Wiesbaden. During this entire period of time I dealt exclusively with matters pertaining to the General SS whose development and care and the education of which was especially close to me since I was an old soldier. Out of my attitude I also disapproved of the collaboration of the SS with the police matters and police tasks. As for example it took place under Himmler, Soldiering and police activities are two fundamentally different things which in my opinion do not agree with each other. That is why to me and the entire corps of SS leaders ----", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3891, "page_number": "3884", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Witness, suspend just a minute, as there is an adjustment to make to the sound system. Proceed now.\nA. ---I shall repeat my last sentence. To the entire corps of all SS leaders it never became comprehensible and it never came to the approval that the regular character of this generals SS and later on that of the Waffen SS should be emalgamated with p police tasks and this was a task which actually was out of its line. In the year 1931 I did not join the SS in order to become an officer in the police because I could have saved myself a detour then over the SS and I could have joined the police directly. However, I didn't have the slightest tendency to do that. To the contrary, that is why for us old SS leaders when the concept of the Higher SS and Police Leader was established it was not pleasant for us, especially since together with the appointment no clear jurisdiction and competencies were established. As has already been shown by the first presentation of evidence and as will be shown by the first presentation of evidence and as will be shown fr further later on. As far as my capacity as a soldier permitted to do so I told this to Himmler repeatedly and this always found the support of the older SS leaders. For example, that of the co-defendant Lorenz, in order to mention just one of them. Then in October 1939 as I have already mentioned, I was transferred to Danzig and for the time being since war had broken out already it w was my duty to serve where ever fate sent me. Personal feelings for the time being had to be excluded. At the time I reported to Himmler before I left for Danzig and he told me approximately the following: \"You are my representative deputy as far as the Party, Wehrmacht, and the State are concerned. You do not have any executive authority nor have any of the Higher SS and Police leaders have this authority. However, it will be your task to maintain your point of view towards Forster, who is very hard to \n get along with and to have good relations with him and I believe you are the man to do that.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3892, "page_number": "3885", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Furthermore, it will be your task to develop your agency slowly, of which up to now nothing exists.\" Above all, he told me, that I should help with all my power in the resettlement of the Baltics. In Bromberg, West Prussia, he told me that over the entire province in connection with the excesses of the Poles against Germans at the beginning of the war a Home Guard had been established under the leadership of Oberfuehrer von Haldersleben. This strictly security police establishment was working together closely with the Gestapo and it was subordinated to him personally, or Heydrich. Himmler prohibited quite cla clearly my slightest interference with the Home Guard or any organization of the security police altogether, He also told me at the time and I can recall his exact words that as a result of my character I furthermore was not suited for activities of that sort because I was a fanatic as far as justice was concerned. He told me that people of that sort usually were not successful in political life because they were too fair with their actions. Later on, I was to develop a general SS from National Germans although he believed that the majority of these men would become soldiers anyhow so consequently would not remain at home. The Inspector of the regular police who worked in the Gau, Danzig, West Prussia, as far as the organization was concerned, was incorporated into the Higher Administrative agencies. The Inspector of the Security Police was fully independent and was subordinated to Berlin directly. Since there was a large number of these agencies and offices who carried on their work in the Gau, regular police and security police, and all Party agencies and all Government agencies, and in addition to that the agencies of the Wehrmacht which at the time of my arrival at that stage \n still had executive authority in that district until the end of October, it was quite probably that in the interpretation and execution of the various tasks there would be a big dispute and these disputes actually arose later on.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3893, "page_number": "3886", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "That is why we constantly had to maintain close contact between all the leading Government, Wehrmacht and Party agencies.\nAs far as the SS and Police were concerned in this connection the Higher SS and Police Leaders had the one particular and main task that all disputes which might arise were to be dealt with and matters were to be clarified. In official functions the Higher SS and Police Leader consolidated all these forces of the police and the SS only when official occasions warranted. That was the demonstrations in the area of the Gau, State visits, and visits by foreign dignitaries, so-called visits of the Fuehrer, and all of them were cases where both the SS and Police had to be used together. Himmler always wanted to have his own direct representative in every Army Corps Area, who in case of an emergency would act as his representative in order to remove all the difficulties which might arise in any form. However, not in the least in this respect, he also gave consideration to the fact that he wanted to have a counter balance toward the Military commanders in the Army corps areas. This was done in numerous cases, from the experiences which had been gained in 1918, that the failure and collapse of the agencies who were in the interior area of the Reich should look after peace and order. However, this never actually occurred.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3894, "page_number": "3887", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "With this Higher SS and Police Leader the activity of the Fuehrer of the SS was finally connected and this was the main sector. However, both agencies continued in their functions. A filed of task which really would completely occupy the Higher SS and Police Leader, however, could not be given to the Higher SS and Police Leader any more with the exception of the functions which I have already mentioned because the task and the competencies of the police at the time when this Gau agency was established, had already been distributed without any exception.\nI want to say this in conclusion: the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader was actually without any importance the more so because he did not even have any influence on the person nel policies.\nFrom my position in Danzig, West Prussia, it also became difficult from the decree of the 2nd of November 1939 in which the direct subordination was affected under the Reichsstatthalter, who in war time had been appointed also as Reich Defense Commissar, and he received his orders directly from Hitler or from the Reich Chancellery, which on its part was in dispute with Himmler and it was a very severe dispute. As a result of the transfer of authority of the Reich Commissar practically all agencies of the Party and the State were subordinated to the Reichsstatthalter.\nWith all that the objections were finally removed, especially in Danzig, West Prussia where Forsten acted quite independently.\nQWitness, what made your position in Danzig, West Prussia even more difficult?\nAThrough my appointment as representative of the Reich Commissar which I have already mentioned; my position in Danzig, West Prussia, from the very beginning carried a severe mortage because of the fact that the relationship between Himmler and Forster was very bad. They had some sort of respect towards each other but their characteristics were so distant from each other that it was impossible for these two people to work together.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3895, "page_number": "3888", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "In fundamental questions, opinions prevailed which were too different, One reason may be that the Party as such saw a sort of competitor in the SS. This was not justified. \"However, this opinion was main tained and it extended to the top authorities of the Reich, and it had very disastrous effects.\nTherefore, my situation was difficult from the very beginning and I had to be extremely reserved so that I was not constantly like a ball that was tossed around constantly. On the one hand I, as Higher SS end Police Leader, had to carry out Forster's instructions. On the other hand as the representative of the Reich Commissar I received my instructions from the main staff office of Berlin. These orders usually were not approved by Forster who, as the local commander, believed that he had to carry on his own policy, and in this respect no one could influence him.\nIn order to be fair, however, I have to say here, that Forster personally was quite a clean and decent official and he would not tolerate corruption in the slighest form.\nPersonally nothing can be changed against him.\nThe difficulties probably arose because he did not have the necessary prerequisits in order to fill a position of that sort. Above all he lacked sufficient experience. From the humane point of view I had quite a good relationship with Forster and when I talked with him privately I could get along with him. However, there are many people whom one can work together with privately very well and from the moment when other people are present one cannot talk to him at all.\nActually, the position of the representatives should have been held Gauleiter Forster, especially since he was a very old office in the SS. For example, he had been a member of the SS longer than Reiensfuehrer Himmler. I, therefore, already requested him in 1939, maybe you should offer this position to Gauleiter Forster because he, anyhow, had all the authority in this district. Himmler, however, refused to comply with my request because he knew that Forster would not subordinate himself to him in his capacity as Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3896, "page_number": "3889", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "I frequently discussed the matter with Forster also in order to move him to accept the position of the representative of the Reich Commissar. However, Forster refused to do so quite clearly by saying \"whatever happens in the district I will do on my onw initiave anyhow because I am the Gauleiter and you as Higher SS and Police Leader are subordinated to me, and what Forster said was correct. After all the official seal ran as follows: \"The Higher SS and Police Leader with the Reichsstatthalter, Danzig, West Prussia.\" From this it became evident that I, in my capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, was assigned to work with Gaulei ter Forster as Reichsstatthalter, and was subordinated to him.\nQHow, did your position develop subsequently?\nAOur relationship did not improve and could not improve under these prerequisites. In the same way my situation became more and more unpleasant and unbearable because as I have already emphasized, I could not deny Forster his humane qualities and I recognized them quite clearly. However, our official disputes were to severe and this could not be kept secret for a long time. My occasional requests to Forster later on that he should accept the position of the Reich Commissar for the cause, because I personally was not ambitious at all in these matte s, was disapproved by Forster.\nAgainst the wish of the main staff office he also was able to succeed in maintaining his point of view in that respect because he had direct and constant access to Hitler. In practice he was able to counter ever order by the main staff office and to sabotage it or to carry it cut in a half hearted manner or not at all, whenever he wanted to do so. I personally was in a very embarrassing situation, that on the one hand as I was told constantly, I was to maintain good relations with Forster under all circumstances. For these reasons since nobody appreciated my position I became more and more reserved and I did whatever I felt I had to do in a responsible matter. I did not do any more nor did I \n do any loss.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3897, "page_number": "3890", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Although I did not like this point of view at all, especially moreover if I had to maneuver around constantly between Berlin and Danzig and chen one day the moment arrives where one doesn't feel like doing anything any more because one thinks that things will have to be clarified then in some other way. After all my personal opinion and that I would like to emphasize here, in many cases, was neither the opinion of Berlin; neither was it the opinion of Forster. It was as it true for amny other cases, in the middle between both.\nQWitness, now what brought about these so-called resettlements to whixh you have referred to already previously.\nAThe Nationalist Socialist Party program demanded the bringing together of all Germans by virtue of their right of self-determination of relations into a greater Germany. This demand was realized by Hitler with regard to the thnic Germans were left in countries which were in the neighborhood of Germany and he carried on that task until 1935. He did this step by step until the revision was carried cut of the dictates of St. Germain and Versailles and concerning the Soar territory. He did that by bringing the Saar territory back to Germany, through the annexation of Austria, through the annexation of the Sudetenland, through getting back the Memel area, as well as by the liberation of Danzig, and the German Eastern provinces, Posen West Prussian and Upper Silesia.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3898, "page_number": "3891", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "However, in spite of this only part, a very small part of the ethnic German problem, had been solved. The German people were composed of 65,00,000 people who lived within Germany proper, but of additional millions of Germans who lived outside of the frontiers of the Reich, and these ethnic groups who were sometimes very far away from their motherland did not only have a fertilizing effect on foreign nations as far as their culture was concerned, because they profited by the achievements, the economic and cultural achievements of these ethnic Germans, but in many places, these ethnic groups were severely endangered as far as their position was concerned.\nThese thnic groups lived throughout the East and the Southeast of Europe and in a certain way they were just very small groups. The wish to assemble all these small groups in the Reich could easily be understood.\nQIn the conditions which you have referred to just now were they in some connection with foreign political questions?\nAYes, that is quite correct. Especially this was a reason and a cause why disturbances and disputes took place between the nations at all times when the principle of nationalities was brought about. It was a Utopia to believe that themembers of a nation of high standing could be assimilated very easily. There is only one country in this world which can assimilate people in the best sense of the word and that is the United States, which has become the melting pot of all nations. There there is enough space and other possibilities in order to do that. However, that is decreasing extent as yime goes on, and perhaps this can only be done under the following reprequisites. The melting pot of the Unites States can only use desirable elements who can be assimilated and who want to become assimilated without incurring any damage so that the living standards and the level of the American people does not become reduced, and a civilization of that kind is not possible in Europe because it is overcrowded and overpopu lated and because these nations for many centuries have lived in a \n complete national separation and they have complete national sovereignty and they live like that next to each other.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3899, "page_number": "3892", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "The emigrant who goes to the United States -- I know that from my own experience-will have to become completely separated from the Old Country; that is to say, he has no further connections with the ethnic group to which he belonged previously. He is thousands of miles away from his home and he has to lock after himself completely, and that is why he has to adapt himself to the American style and rythm of life unless he wants to be destroyed. As an individual he has no other choice, and I experienced that personally from the years 1928 to 1930. Therefore, in view of the conditions which prevailed in Europe and which were different from these in the United States and in order to clarify European life, we had to carry out resttlements here because an assimilation unfortunately was not possible, so that in this way at least a part of European conflicts were to be removed.\nQHitler must have had similar considerations and what realizations did he reach in the end?\nAThe eastern provinces which had been taken away from Germany after 1918, and that is to say West Prussia in which we are interested in this connection, after the incorporation into the Reich, offered the possibility to collect and assemble the ethnic German groups who lived outside of Germany, get them back into the Reich in order to settle them there as groups. In his Reichstag speech of the 6th of October, 1937, which I as a deputy to the Reichstag, heard personally, Hitler at the time, for the first time in public established this plan and one of the tasks which arose was the collapse of the Polish State and among those as the most important he mentioned, and I quote him literally, \"to establish a new order of the ethnographical conditions;\" that is to say, to carry out a resettlement of nationalities, and in this way the German groups in the Eastern territories were to be strenthened, that is, they were to become consolidated.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3900, "page_number": "3893", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QWitness, in the trials which have taken place so far before the IMT, and in this trial also, the attempts to gain Lebensraum, new living space has been mentioned as one of the purposes of the war and this is to be the expression of an ideological thought.\nAThis word of living space unfortunately became the phrase of an arbitrary and dangerous propaganda. The problem of living space first of all was nothing else than the struggle of a nation for the most simple rights to live. This has always been the case in history and from this fact probably the majority of all the wars resulted. In the history of Greece and Rome, beginning with the big movements of populations and big migrations and all the armed conflicts which have affected countries in Europe for may centuries, you have the same situation today. The biological increase in the nations of Europe in the 19th century also put into the position that it became necessary that as a result of the lack living space, it had to intensify its exports in order to give sufficient food and other articles which were required by its population of 60,000,000. The competition which resulted from that, above all with the English and British trade, at the time, was one of the most important reasons which very capable and sometimes less capable statesmen ised in order to bring about a war in 1914.\nQWere these areas especially important which had been taken away from Germany in 1918 in the East?\nAYes, they were especially important because they represented the grain chambers of Germany and they were originally German territory. The peace treaty of Versailles which took away from us these territories amde it extremely difficult for Germany to obtain proper food, and of course, that's how the demand for the returning of these territories arose. After the end of the campaign in Poland the necessity arose that finally clear conditions were to be established in the Last where for more than a century there had been an \n extreme amount of tension between the Polish and the German population.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3901, "page_number": "3894", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "The Eastern borders of Germany today have taken away further provinces from Germany which had been German for thousands of years, and that is why Germany cannot feed herself from all resources today, and that is why the Eastern provinces are of such vital importance for Germany.\nQWas there any other reason why these provinces were so extremely important?\nAMay I also add something to what I said before? Today, at the time when Europe can only feed herself by American allowances, it is also extremely important that to the East of this Oder/Neisse border, 35 people live on a square kilometer while in Germany towards the west of this border, 200 to 220 or 240 people live on one square, kilometer.\nI don't think that Europe and the United States of America can afford a situation of that kind for the future for which the American taxpayer has to pay at the time being.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11:00 o'clock.\n(Recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3902, "page_number": "3895", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR, FROESCHMANN: (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt) Q.- Witness, I asked you before whether the ethnographic conditions did not also have a political danger.\nYou did not answer this question as yet.\nA.- Yes, they did have a danger. This is a very important factor. So to speak it is conditioned by the geo-political conditions of Germany. Besides the South, Germany does not have any natural broders. Eastern and Western Prussia are completely free against the agressions from the people in the East. This is true in the military way as well in an ideological way. Without these provinces, Germany is completely open to any aggression of her eastern neighbors who could go into the middle of Germany as we have already seen. The border in the east, no matter where it is drawn, is always extremely extensive. Now, Hitler wanted to establish in the re-incorporated territories of the East the Germanism by resettlement of German people. The territories which were devastated in part economically, or not exploited completely, he wanted to make them again into blooming provinces of the Reich. This was probably one of the main purposes why he created the position of Reich Commissar, and also a series of other authorities.\nQ.- And now, you were the representative of the Reich Commissar.\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And on the strength of which decree, please.\nA.- I was appointed representative by the decree of the Reichsfuehrer of the 2nd November, 1939, which he issued in his capacity as Reich Commissar. At the same time I was higher SS and Police Leader. Through this fact these two activities were consolidated in one person, so that everything that happened in Danzig, West Prussia, and which I performed, in my capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar, influenced at the \n same time my activities as higher SS and Police Leader, as this has already been described by various witnesses.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3903, "page_number": "3896", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Beyond that, further decrees which touched upon the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader, they were valid only for the Reich proper, and, not for West Prussia; and, therefore, for me they had no validity.\nQ.- Witness, in our document book, Exhibit 6, I have included this decree mentioned by you, dated 2 November, 1939, and submitted to the Tribunal. I would like to show you this document, and would only like to have you confirm that this is the decree that you were just talking about.\nA.- Yes, it is correct; that is the decree I just mentioned.\nQ.- Witness, the Prosecution in the session of 24 November 1947, German transcript 1358, has made the statement that it did not wish to charge any of the defendants because of the evacuation of ethnic Germans as far as such an evacuation was performed on the strength of an international valid agreement. At the time did you know of any such treaties?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Is it correct that the German-Russian friendship treaty of 28 September 1939 was the originating point of all these?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- Which was the idea upon which that treaty was based?\nA.- These treaties were based on the political knowledge which was gained on the strength of experiences through the years, that by the resettlement of nationalities better separation borders could be found than had existed up to that time, This German-Russian border and friendship treaty of September, 1939, on the 15th of October 1939 was succeeded by the German-Estonian agreement, and on the 30th October, 1939, it was followed by the German-Latvian resettlement treaty.\nQ.- Witness, in this connection I would like to show you again our document book and I would like to ask you to say whether Exhibits 4, 7 and 8 contain the three treaties about which you have just spoken.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3904, "page_number": "3897", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.- Yes, that is correct.\nQ.- Were there now any political results from these treaties which made necessary the conclusion of other treaties with the Soviet Union?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- And what were these?\nA.- In order to supplement this statement, these national treaties with Estonia and Latvia were necessary because the Soviet Union in June 1940 made an ultimatum to Romania concerning the giving over of the Old Austrian territory of North Bukovina, and because the Soviet Union in August, 1940 annexed the Baltic Countries and a territory belonging to the Lithuanina country in which Germany was also interested.\nQ.- And what was the result of this?\nA.- The result obviously was a strain on German-Russian relations, and the 130 thousand people in the Bukowina and about 19 thousand in the Baltic Countries and Lithuania, all of whom were ethnic Germans were in danger of being liquidated. Therefore, in January, 1941, two further treaties between Germany and the Soviet Union were concluded which were concerned with the resettlement of Germans still living in these territories.\nQ.- Witness, so that the Tribunal may see the situation completely clearly, I would like to show you again Document Book III, and I would like to ask you whether our Exhibits 10 to 15, inclusive, are the treaties and agreements about which you have just spoken.\nA.- Yes, that is correct.\nQ.- Thank you. Now, what was significant in the course of these resettlements?\nA.- The decisive fact in those resettlement treaties as well as in all other subsequent resettlement treaties was that the return of the ethnic Germans was performed on a completely voluntary basis.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3905, "page_number": "3898", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.And how actually did that take place?\nA.The resettlement of Baltic Germans which I myself experienced was carried out in a technical way with the aid of fortyeigh German steamers by way of the German ports Gdynia and Stettin. The return of about thirteen thousand Germans from Estonia started on the 18th October and was concluded by the middle of November. The first transport which included about fity thousand resettlers from Latvia arrived in Gdynia on about the 15th October, and it lasted about two months later. The resettlement of the ethnic Germans living in Bessarabia and those living in the Bukowina was concluded on the 15th of November, 1940.\nQ.And how are special conditions now in Poland?\nA.On the 1st September, of 1939, Danzig became part of the German Reich. The regulations of questions and problems concerning the corridor took place after the end of the Polish campaign on the strength of a Hitler decree concerning the separation and administration of the eastern territories, dated 8th October, 1939. After the capitualtion of the Polish national government, the Soviet Government on the 17th September, 1939, had their troops march into the territories which were mainly inhabited by Poles and White Russians in order to protect the life and property of the people living there. The agreement with Germany in this connection was expressed in a common German-Russian declaration, dated 18th September, 1939. According to the official publications, the significance and the meaning of this declaration was to provide for the people living in these territories a peaceful existence which was in accord with their folkish ways, as well as the creation of a Reich border which was in accord with the wthographic and historical conditions of these people.\nQ.I would now like to submit to you Exhibit 3 from my document book, and would like you to identify whether this is the \n declaration that you have just spoken about.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3906, "page_number": "3899", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Which territories were included in this agreement?\nA.The final solution of the Polish problem, as far as territory was concerned, took place by a border-friendship treaty. By these agreements, the territory of the former Polish State, was divided into a German-Russian sphere of influence, the borders of which were the Tissia, the Narew, Ostraolenka, the Bock River to the Antricipahl and the Sani. The limitation of these two spheres of influence was expressly designated as final, and it was emphasized that it took place without the intermediation by any other third power.\nQ.And what was the significance of this policy of resettlement; who was meant by the third party?\nA.With this third party.-I would like to supplement my statement- they probably meant Britain. This policy of resettlement had taken place for the first time in the history of the world, for the Government of the Reich at the time said that it was ready by means of treaties to take in more than one-half million of Germans whose properties remained in their original countries and to have them returned to the Reich. This was probably one of the most significant contributions to peace that have ever been made. I know - and I have studied a lot about history, - of no other example for this sort of thing, and especially that a Reich would incorporate within its borders isles of ethnic groups that were existent in the Baltics, with a culture existing for seven hundred years. They did this only in order to reduce the friction between themselves and foreign powers.\nQ.Did not this incident have a precedent in the treaty of 1921 or was there a difference?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3907, "page_number": "3900", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.Well, this may have been a precedent to this instance, but only externally, for the resettlement at the time did not take place on a voluntary basis, in contrast to the resettlement of the Baltic Germans and those Germans living in Bessarabia, etc.\nQ.Were you yourself convinced of the validity of these treaties?\nA.Yes, absolutely. I could not doubt the validity of these treaties, which were published in the Reich Law Gazette, Germany Estonia, Latvia, and the Soviet Union were sovereign states. They could regulate their national relations; also, with respect to the various ethnic groups living within their borders, inasfar as these were German, Estonian, Lithuanian or Russian origin. There is not international treaty in existence which had at anytime prohibited such treaties.\nQ.In how far were you in your capacity as higher SS and police leader touched by this resettlement of ethnic Germans from the Baltics and Bersarabia?\nA.When I took over my office, I received the clear directive on the part of Himmler to take care of the housing and the general care of the Baltic Germans. For this reason with the approval of Reichstatthalter Forster I came into close contact very soon with these Baltic Germans. I put all the men that were available at the disposal of the SS. I tried to take care of a cooperation without tension with all our police offices in order to safegurard these resettlers and their transport into the various camps; and other things, such as their housing in camps was among the tasks of the VOMI, which received their directives from Berlin directly.\nQ.Weren't there various disagreements with Forster in this connection?\nA.Yes, I can remember an incident inthis connection which was typical. Forster reprimanded the Gau representative of the VOMI in \n the Gau Danzig West Prussia because Forster did not recognize that VOMI had any kind of competency with regard to the Gau.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3908, "page_number": "3901", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "He strongly disliked all Berlin agencies as a matter of principle, and sometimes he was quite justified. At that time he demanded the complete stopage of this man's activity. He even asked that this man be arrested because he had countermanded his orders. This man, that is to say his agency rather, then got in touch with me in order to solve this particular disagreement. I had a conference with Forster which was held in quite clear terms, and then after about a week, the man could follow his activities in a free and unhindered manner.\nQ.Did not Forster make trouble concerning the racial conglomeration of the Baltic people?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3909, "page_number": "3902", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.Yes. The Baltic population, as are all ethnic groups which are separated for a long time, was in extreme inactivity as far as its culture was concerned. This population did not consist mostly of peasants-and it was just peasants that we would have needed a great deal in West Prussia -- but 70 to 80 percent of the population were artisans. The sociological division of the Baltic Germans did not give me a great deal of exhiliration.\nWe thought that the ethnic groups of the Baltics should have been looked at, in the first place, from the point of view of labor allocation, and I mean labor allocation not in the narrow sense but, as far as their placement was concerned, altogether. However, since the Balts were mostly over-age, they brought a large number of very old people of both sexes, relatively few children, and very few young men in the so-called good age. That was the reason why, at that time, Forster succeeded in having various ships from the Baltics, with the ethnic Germans, sent not to Danzig and Gdynia, but to Stettin. That would then mean that they came into another Gau. In this connection Forster stated that he could not populate his Gau with old men and old women, even though the Gau of Danzig-West Prussia was designated from Berlin for the resettlement of these Baltic Germans.\nHowever, I must say, and recognize, that without the support of Forster the return of the Baltic Germans would not have been possible at all, for Forster, as the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter, disposed of the complete Party and State apparatus, in contrast to myself, who was, at that time, busy in reconstructing an agency for myself.\nQ.Did the allocation and placement of Baltic Germans make any trouble at first?\nA.No, not at first. As I have already emphasized, and as many witnesses have already described, many enterprises had been left by these Germans voluntarily, agricultural enterprises as well as trade businesses were at our disposal, as well as all the domains of the State. Then, many of the very small and smallest Polish enterprises were available, which \n were designated by us at the time as \"Poniatowskis\". The name \"Poniatowski\" goes back to a Polish Minister of Agriculture by that name, who, in the time from 1918 to 1938, employed many Poles from the territory of the Polish Reich proper; he brought them into West Prussia to a very small enterprises in order to resettle them there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3910, "page_number": "3903", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "He did that, from a political point of view, in order to create a border of ethnic Poles, especially on the western border of West Prussia, against Germany.\nThe various disposals of German property which were necessary for this purpose had been carried out very extensively, and with the violation of all the rights of minorities which had been solemnly agreed upon.\nAs I have already said, or as I wished to say, before the German Army marched in, these Poniatows had been partly left by their former owners; that is, on a voluntary basis.\nQ.Witness, I have already shown you the document. Will you now please look at Exhibit 236? This shows the classification of refugees from Estonia and Latvia, in four categories. Besides, there was also the possibility for members of Group III -- that is, the Latvians, Estonians, and other aliens -- to have exceptions made for them and not to have them deported to Latvia and Estonia, namely if these people wished to remain in the Reich proper and there were no reservations as far as their race was concerned, for that purpose, in cases of doubt, these persons were to be submitted to a racial examiner of the competent SS and Police Leader.\nI would now like to ask you this: Did the racial examiners who were subordinated to you carry out activities in this respect?\nA.No. No racial examiners were supplied for this particular task because the resettlers that I have mentioned here had already returned to their home countries after these territories had been reconquered in 1941.\nQ.In this same document, mention is made of Group IV, which had been transferred to the Chief of the Security Police and put in their \n care.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3911, "page_number": "3904", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Did you have anything to do with that?\nA.No, I had nothing to do with it, and the Chief of the Security Police had nothing to do with it, for, as I have already stated, these people returned to their old countries.\nQ.Will you please look at Exhibit 238? This is the letter of thanks that you received from Himmler on 17 July 1942, in connection with the resettlement operation of the Germans living in Bessarabia. Did you gain any special merit for this particular operation?\nA.Well, if you look at work that you do anyway in the course of your life as a special assignment, then yes.\nQ.But this letter of thanks does not necessarily commend you for bravery, or anything like that?\nA.No. Personally, I am of the opinion that formal work which every man has to perform is no particular reason for a commendation of this sort. Besides, I myself have never put any special importance on recommendations and commendations of that sort.\nQ.Did you receive a letter of thanks like that frequently?\nA.No, I cannot remember.\nQ.I would like to ask you the following in connection with this document: Who evacuated these alien peasants formerly in possession of the farms?\nA.As to the peasants who were the owners of the farms later on occupied by the resettlers, that was the task of the Security Police, that is, the UWZ, which has already been described by innumerable witnesses here.\nQ.You were given the assignment to resettle 25 peasant families adn 40 non-peasant families as soon as possible. Did that take place?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please look at Exhibit 312? This is a note on a lecture by the defendant Greifelt, reported to the Reichsfuehrer SS on the 12th of May 1943. In paragraphs 24 and 25 mention is made of matters concerning the Reich Gau of Danzig-West Prussia. Were you in any way \n involved in these incidents in an official capacity?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3912, "page_number": "3905", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.No. At that time I was not even in Danzig-West Prussia any longer.\nQ.Will you now please look at Exhibits 313 and 314? They contain further material about the settlement and resettlement in October 1941 and July 1942. I would like to ask you the following: Could you say that the Reich Gau of Danzig-West Prussia only participated in a small way in these measures, in comparison with all the other Gaus involved?\nA.Yes, one could certainly say that, for Danzig-West Prussia, as such, did not have very valuable territory from a purely agricultural point of view. Especially, it was a Gau which, as far as its area was concerned, was very small. Besides, I know definitely that, as long as I was in West Prussia, 44,000 resettlers altogether, including women and children, had been resettled there. That was a relatively small number, which would correspond to the area of the Gau.\nQ.Will you please look at pages 80 and 81 of this document? Can it be inferred from that who actually seized and registered enterprises in the Eastern Territories?\nA.Well, it can be seen from this document that the Central Land Office was competent for these matters.\nQ.Witness, I have now concluded the various questions concerning your activities in resettlement affairs. I would now like to turn to the activities which you are alleged to have performed concerning the forced evacuations and forced settlements of various parts of the population.\nIn the period from 1939 to 1945, in your official capacity, were you in contact at any time with these two incidents? If the answer is \"Yes\", then in what capacity?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3913, "page_number": "3906", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.As I have already mentioned, a short time after my appointment as Higher SS and Police Leader, I was appointed Representative of the Reich Commissioner at the same time. In this two-fold function, of course, I came into contact, and remained in close contact, with the resettlement and housing of Germans from the Baltics and Germans from Bessarabia. The deportation, as I stated before, was within the competency of the Security Police.\nQ.Please look at the document which is Exhibit 82. Did you know about this document at the time? What is the content of the document?\nA.This document originated in the Racial Political Office of the Party and not the Race Office of the Race and Settlement Main Office. This Racial Political Office did not have any relations or contacts with the Race Office of RuSHA. I only learned about this document here in Nurnberg. Besides, the author of this document, Dr. Gross, could never have put down that nonsense if he had been in these territories even only once, with his eyes open. I mentioned sometime ago that the Kaschubians, for instance, which are also mentioned in this memorandum, were altogether very decent and extremely orderly and had a basic attitude of real loyalty.\nThis document cannot be taken seriously by anyone who really knows conditions there. The effects on Danzig-West Prussia were very few, as far as these excessive demands are concerned which he mentions in this memorandum. After all, such an elaboration can only be compared with similar elaborations which have come out from the German people during the last war. In this connection I can remember that in 1941 I heard of a socalled Kaufmann plan. This plan has been submitted as a document by my comrade Hofmann. This American Kaufmann, in this brochure, propagated the sterilization of the entire German population, men and women. I don't believe that any American--and I know the Americans to some extent -- could have taken such an elaboration seriously at any time. In Germany, in 1941, this was the subject of extensive propaganda in order to show the German people what would be in store for them if they should lose the war. However, just as little as an American who has any sense would take that \n Kaufmann brochure seriously--which was full of hatred and stupidity--so a German would not have taken this elaboration seriously either, that we are talking about now.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3914, "page_number": "3907", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "As I said before, this sort of machination only became known to me here in Nurnberg.\nQ.This elaboration--to use your expression--in no way corresponded to your personal opinion?\nA.No, quite to the contrary. I myself am against all opinions that have been stated in this document, for reasons of my education, for reasons of tact, and for reasons of intelligence. The policy concerning the population in the reconquered Eastern Territories was not a question of treating the population according to racial points of view, but, for me, it was only a question of strengthening Germanism on a broad, political basis, and it was a question of safeguarding the final German border, which I at that time assumed to be final.\nQ.Witness, you are speaking about a final German border. Did you not, at the time, think about the fact that the measures of evacuation and resettlement took place at a time when there was not yet a peace treaty in existence between Germany and Poland?\nA.By the campaign, which was 18 days long, Poland was completely conquered and occupied. The Polish troops, for the most part, were in Germany as prisoners of war, and a government which had power to act was no longer in existence. Ridz Smygli, who was the Marshal at that time, had become a refugee, and you may still remember how little joy England saw at that time in his presence on British soil.\nQ.Did Ridz Smygli not make a special statement at that time?\nA.Yes, he did. Ridz Smygli made a statement, when he left Polish territory, to the effect that Poland could probably not return before 150 years had passed. According to national laws and international laws, I myself, as all Germans at the time, thought that it was nonsense to say that the Polish State was still in existence.\nLet us assume, hypothetically, that Goebbels or Goering would have found it possible, in April 1945, to flee into a neutral country and set \n up a government there, a so-called government in exile.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3915, "page_number": "3908", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "In that case probably not one member of this government could have been recognized as a representative of the government of the German people. This is clear to everyone who sees things in their real connection. For instance, the Spanish Government in exile, which is now in Southern France, does not change in the least the actual situation, that Franco is the Chief of State of Spain and will probably remain such. To this must be added that the Soviet Union, on the strength of the German-Russian declaration of September 1939, also declared that the Polish State and the Polish Government had actually ceased to exist. The Soviet Union, therefore, annulled, logically, all treaties between herself and Poland, and at the same time, had her troops march into the Polish territory of the Ukraine and White Russia. At that time no one could assume that the Soviet Union, at that time a neutral power, would annex territories of the Polish Republic and incorporate them as parts of her state, if the Soviet Union had not also been convinced of the justice of her action. Britain, of course, protested but the consequences which arose from the treaty of aid between Poland and Britain -- that is, the treaty of April 1939-- did not come about. That is, the consequences did not take place and they did not declare war on Russia.\nBesides, as far as West Prussia and as far as the Warthegau were concerned, these were Gau territories and provinces incorporated into the German Reich, That is, that was former German territory which had belonged to Prussia since the year 1793--or, that is, since the Congress of Vienna in 1815-- and had therewith belonged to Germany since 1817.\nFor all these reasons I viewed the actual situation in the same way as the Hague Land Warfare Convention provides for the actual surrender of the enemy. I was absolutely convinced that the measures taken by the German Reich Government in the re-incorporated territories were justified even before an official peace treaty was concluded and where an effect and an actual result of sovereignty and were therefore not illicit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3916, "page_number": "3909", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "I would like in this connection to point out two parallel cases of the most recent history; that is, the reincorporation of Alsace-Lorraine into France, and the Sudetenland into Czechoslovakia.\nQPlease continue.\nATherefore, I could only view as justified these measures taken then, and I had no reason to contradict or countermand such measures. In practice, of course, that would have been high treason against the German people. Beyond that, I understood completely the measures which were caused by these treaties. History has never objected to conquests of such a sort, and especially not in cases when it was a matter of restitution, as it was here. In this connection, I would bring up and mention a few historical things about the problem of West Prussia for the clarification of the Court. The American President, Wilson, in January 1918, publicized a program concerning Poland. He demanded that Poland become an independent Polish state which would include all territories whose inhabitants were unboubtedly of Polish origin. Unfortunately, this proclamation had not become the basis for the peace treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, Chruchill as well as Lloyd George objected with all their strength to the fact that old German provinces were to be given to Poland, and pointed out very seriously that taking away Danzig West Prussia and Poznan sooner or later would lead to a new war. This then actually happened.\nAt that time subsequently, but unfortunately too late, President Wilson said the following, \"The only true interest that France had in Poland was in weakening Germany so that Poland would get territories to which it had no right at all.\" President Wilson concluded his proclamation with the following rather resigned statement, \"The French and the Poles have confused me completely.\" Even Pilsudski, who was the head of the State of Poland, was without doubt the most far-sighted Polish statesman that Poland ever possessed--and besides, I, myself, am of the opinion that if Pilsudski had lived ten more years we would not have had a war with Poland for we would have come to some sort of an agreement, as was \n necessary and as it is necessary today, in spite of all the events after 1945.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3917, "page_number": "3910", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Pilsudski in 1921 said the following, \"It is probably right in general that the more power, the more territory one has. However, Poland has much too many foreign ethnic groups and it would be better to waive the rights to certain territories in order to strengthen the national unity.\"\nPoland, therefore-- in order to conclude -- on the basis of the Versailles Treaty, which did not bring peace to the world as it was supposed to, was not a national state but a state composed of nationalities, for 35 per cent of the Polish population belonged to ethnic groups which were not Polish; for those were Germans, Jews, Russians, Ukranians and White Ruthenians.\nGreat Britain and France and the United States of America did, during the past centuries, have the possibility at the same time when Europe and especially Germany combatted with each other, of consolidating themselves to two national states and had thereby exploited this impulse for the exploitation of their living space. This, seen from a general point of view, is valid for the expansion of the white man into the whole world, and especially also of the Anglo-Saxen, the French, and before that, the Spanish and the Portugese nations. This is also true especially for the occupation and the penetration of the American continent by the pioneers and the colonizers from the European States, and especially from northern and north-western Europe. Also the huge empire of the Soviet Union, whose small eastern part is actually nationally Russian--that is greater Russia--is composed of peoples of the most varied races. However, Germany --my fatherland--was because of the egoistic tendencies of its inhabitants, divided up into hundreds of duke-doms, small states, and other sort of lilliputian states. Only in the year 1871 had it become a unified national state; that is to say, at the time when the world had already been divided up in its essentials. That probably constitutes the real reason for all the problems that up until today have remained unsolved.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3918, "page_number": "3911", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "To come back to West Prussia, a few weeks after the conclusion of the Polish campaign, I came to Danzig. My first impressions of West Prussia were rather bitter ones. Party right there I myself experienced the huge excesses which at that time had been performed by the Poles on the Germans, especially in Bromberg and near Bromberg. At that time I saw burnt out villages and farms in which the family had been eliminated completely including their children. I talked to many people who had experienced that in part and who were alive because they had hidden but who were more or less eye-witnesses. I do not wish to mention any details in these things, but in any case this is certain: even neutral countries which were there at that time -- and even people from the American press were there, who at that time could have an insight into these incidents in detail without hinderance and without having any influence exercised upon them--these neutral countries at that time agreed that these incidents in any case were unique. Furthermore, they agreed that the relations between Germans and Poles at that time would be strained extremely.\nTo this must be added that the attitude of Poland concerning the minorities of 1918 was that Poland did not respect these treaties. More and more until 1939 Poland had become inimical. It can be explained that the German Government at that time thought about the problem of what has to be done in order to prevent similar things.\nQWitness, I believe the Court would like to make a suggestion.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0130 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3919, "page_number": "3912", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 19 January 1948.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued RICHART HILDEBRANDT - Resumed BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, you just spoke about the direct impressions which you gained at Danzig, West Prussia. Are you of the opinion that the hostile attitude of the Poles, which you have described to us, caused the Government of the German Reich to change its policy in the East?\nAYes, I believe so. I am especially of this opinion because I know that in 1934 Hitler negotiated with Pilsudski as he wanted to have a policy of appeasement and understanding and he took up this aim very seriously. However, unfortunately after Pilsudski left his position, this policy was not followed any more and this did harm to both nations. The German-Polish relationship unfortunately--and I emphasize this repeatedly-through these incidents, had become extremely poisoned, and it is more difficult to decontaminate the nations than to contaminate them, and we can see that very easily today. In any case, at that time the Reich Government made the decision that they did not want to have these two ethnic groups mixed up with each other and they wanted to separate them. We wanted to avoid that such excesses should occur then. After all, a government has a responsibility to God and the world to look and care for the lives of their nations or their ethnic groups. For this reason, it seemed appropriate to the Reich Government to introduce a new policy for the East. It is correct that Germany at the time concluded a treaty with the Soviet Union. To what extent already at that time on both sides mental reservations were made with regard to this agreement, I can't decide. However, I believe that such reservations existed. I believe, above all, that Hitler already at that time was convinced of it. He knew that for the duration, the dynamics of the Slav nations, and in particular the Soviet Union, would not adhere to the borders which it was entitled to by nature and on which \n it had a claim.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3920, "page_number": "3913", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "We rather feared that in the Soviet Union the ideology of Pan-Slavism would take effect in the sense introduced by Peter the Great, and that this would be assimilated to the Bolshevist ideology of striving for world mastery, and this would be consolidated into a big potential force.\nThis is exactly what has happened. The world in part has only realized today with horror just what power and what dynamic strength had been awakened in that part of the world. For centuries Germany has been the wall of Europe which has tried to stop the dynamics of these nations and much blood and misery have been caused by that. This wall in the east, which was not only in the German interests but above all in the interests of the rest of Europe, today has been destroyed and it has been passed through. The results of that are what we see today. We have the complete destruction of Germany and the slow contamination of Europe. The line, Stettin-Trieste, proves what is really going on. The tasks which Germany has carried out now for centuries, Austria also, sooner or later must be taken over by all the powers which have remained alive in Europe. I don't believe that the world can do without Germany in that respect.\nQAnd what was the new eastern policy?\nAHimmler made a proclamation in an introduction of a book, and he maintained the point of view that the German eastern territories which had been regained should in no case be Germanized in the sense of the policy the Emperor had once carried out. The mistakes of all kinds which had been made there opposed any Germanization there. Himmler quite correctly maintained the opinion that the two ethnic groups -- in this case, the German and the Polish ethnic groups--first of all should be separated and no ethnic group should lose any rights with regard to the right of self-determination, as far, of course, as this could be done at all in war time. After all, we must not forget that from 1939 on, we were engaged in a war and this was a war for life or death. And from 1939 on, everything had to be done in order to bring this war to a successful conclusion. Therefore we had a national emergency, so to speak, and I believe \n that in such cases in world history the same thing was always applied, that the national rights--I do not want to say broke international law-but it had priority over it; or in order to put it quite simply, every person is nearer to his shirt than to his jacket.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3921, "page_number": "3914", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Therefore it was the will of Himmler to separate the ethnic groups in the east. The Reich Government maintained the actually logical point of view that the separation of the ethnic groups should be the state border and has to become that way. Furthermore, it is a right of every nation, which has never been disputed, to regulate ethnic groups within its borders in a way which is in the interests of the preservation of that particular nation and also in the interests of all nations which happen to live within that territory. Finally, once again we wanted to have peace and security in that area.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3922, "page_number": "3915", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII I want to sum up this matter once more. I considered this separation at the time to be beneficial to Germany and for the rest of Europe, for all the reasons which I have just mentioned to you. I also considered them to be necessary for the benefit of Poland. If the Reich Government subsequently, with these hundreds of thousands of resettlers in the territory of the Reich, introduced measures and the deportation of Poles who after 1918 had gone to Danzig, then from the point of view of Germany, they were just making good an unfairness which had been done to them. This was an injustice which from 1918 to 1921, had taken place before the eyes of the League of Nations and the world public. Just how little these policies of the League of Nations amounted to can be proven by the fact that the spiritual creator of this League of Nations, Wilson afterwards refused to enter the League of Nations, because he did not recognize the moral of the League of Nations. The League of Nations, after all, had become a powerful political instrument of the victorious powers. Of course one could draw a parallel to the present time. It was quite clear that at the time the Government of the German Reich was giving more consideration to the resettlers and the ethnic Germans than they gave to the Poles who, after 1918, had settled there for political reasons. However, one can say, and this has also been proven today, that the policy of resettlement as of interest here, that is, Eastern Prussia, was done in accordance with a program and of course done gradually, and it was not done by compulsion and it was not done arbitrarily, as for example, it was done from 1945 on in the same territories. Until November of 1940, for example, and this becomes evident from one of the documents here, 31,000 Poles officially were sent to the Government General and were deported there by the Reich Security Main Office but in my time never became any higher, but already, in March 1931, as I have described before there was a complete stop in resettlements and deportations which took place. Furthermore, the deportations drive was not the task of the Higher SS and Police Leader or representative of the Reich Commissar or the main staff office. We \n COURT I CASE VIII did not want to use the methods which had been applied by Poland in the years between 1918 and 1939 because alone in the territory of Dansig West Prussia, 600,000 German people were expelled from that area.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3923, "page_number": "3916", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "As I have mentioned before, until 1940, only 30,000 had been deported; by my agencies altogether 44,000, women and children included were settled there as long as I was in Prussia. From 1945 on 13 million Germans were deported and expelled from these provinces and from southeastern Europe. That is probably the largest mass expulsion and the most brutal one that has ever happened in world history. This formulation does not come from me, but it comes from an American Committee against mass expulsion. This committee has its seat in New York, and it is composed of fairly highly esteemed men with a lot of influence and representatives of the Christian Churches, and I believe some representatives of the Jewish community were also represented there. This committee issued a book which is quite well known in the United States and which came to my attention here and in detail it gives the tragic facts to the world public and the book is called, \"Land of the Dead.\" The book will be introduced for the attention of the Tribunal as a document. This bland extermination of the German people to the East of the Neisse and in the Sudeten area can quite justly only be described as arbitrary genocide. Dr. Kepkin, who discovered and who invented the term \"genocide\", cannot possibly have overlooked this drive under which the entire Europe has to suffer. In any case he could gain valuable studies for his own benefit if he wanted to take the trouble to study genocide also as far as Germans are concerned also. In this connection it is not without interest to ascertain that these borders along the Neisse of which are not only Europe but the entire world has to suffer today were suggested by Churchill in 1944. It was recommended by him to the entire world in a speech which Churchill made before the House of Commons. Churchill stated the following at the time in regard to the problem in the East: \"The resettlement of several millions of people from the East to the West, to the North, must be carried out just like the expulsion of the Germans, and that is exactly what I would like to \n COURT I CASE VIII recommend.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3924, "page_number": "3917", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "That is to say, the total expulsion of Germans from the areas which are to be ceded to Poland in the East and in the North because the expulsion is the method which, as far as we were able to ascertain, is the most satisfactory and which is the most permanent. A good cleaning out process will take place, and the movements of the population under modern conditions are much easier carried out than before. I do not see either why for the Germans from Eastern Prussian and the other territories which have been mentioned should not find a place in Germany. After all in this war, already 6 or 7 million Germans have been killed and besides that it can be expected that an additional numbers of Germans will lose their lives in the battles in the Spring time and in the Summer.\" These are Mr. Churchill's words. This doesn't sound very humane today and it is certainly in the sharpest opposition to the Atlantic Charter. In any case, however, this is the mental origin of today's situation in Europe. However, as a matter of justice, I must say the following: The Poles themselves were in an emergency situation since 4 million Poles from the Eastern provinces of Poland as the result of the pressure of the Russians had been expelled. In Poland, of course, they tried to get as much area as had been allotted to the Russians in the East. Of course one error occurs in this calculation and that is, in the place of these 4 million Poles, for whom a place had to be found, 12 million Germans were expelled and of course this is 3 times the number.\nQ.Witness, in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, do you have the possibility to prevent or to obstruct the deportations?\nA.I have said this at least a hundred times that in the deportations I could do nothing at all. Deportations were carried out by the Security Police. Furthermore, the Higher SS and Police Leader did not have the power of command in a military sense like a commander for example. The military commander for example has all the competencies and authority in his own hands, that is to say, he has the real power of command. As an old soldier in the World War and in this war also this was quite clear to me. In a military formation it is impossible to go over the head of \n COURT I CASE VIII the chief or the commander or to by-pass channels by going over the heads of subordinates.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3925, "page_number": "3918", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "In the SS and in the Police unfortunately this became a principle, a principle which caused the most disastrous results. A big part of this trial has to deal with all of this confusion in some form in spite of the transcript and the records. The principle that one can only take the responsibility if one is informed about everything, that then one is glad to take a responsibility, that is the principle which we violated absolutely to the severe damage of our cause. The Higher SS and Police Leader in order to say it once more from another point of view was only included if and when already the machinery of the police which had been established without him and before him did not function any more in some form or other. Only then the Higher SS and Police Leader was consulted and then for the most time he had to carry out the very ungrateful task of clarifying things which under normal conditions would have been clear from the very beginning or he would have to obtain Himmler's decision at Berlin.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3926, "page_number": "3919", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "The title, \"Higher SS and Police Leader,\" tells every normal thinking person that all the power and SS and Police would have to be concentrated in this position. However, I hope I have explained by now that this was not the case and that is the lack of responsibility on the part of Himmler in establishing an agency with a big title which had nothing behind it. I can only call this attitude of Himmler's as a lack of sense for responsibility because we can see its results here today, especially here. In practice it happened quite frequently that all possible people who had some sort of contact with the police in a positive or negative way would turn to the Higher SS and Police Leader, that is myself, in the quite justified belief that I was the top level of the police and had the right to make decisions. It took up a lot of my time to tell all these people and to have it explained to them that they had gone to the wrong place in addressing me and in that way I had to turn away a large number of people although I would have liked very much to have helped them. However, in spite of this I tried to help these people in some other form by way of some other contacts which I had. This was necessary in order to tell you what I had to say on deportations.\nQ.- Is it correct, witness, that in all questions of foreign nations, the Reich Security Main Office was competent?\nA.- Yes, quite. In all questions of foreign nations, the Reich Security Main Office was competent. It was according to the decree of the Fuehrer on the 30th of October 1939 and I quote, literally, now: \"The exclusion of the influence of such alien proponents of the population which construe a danger for the Reich and the German national community.\"\nQ.- How were the deportations carried out, according to what point of view. Do you know that?\nA.- I am not informed about the secret background of the Security Police, although I was a very old member of the SS. I don't even know what was considered in this case at all. I only know the Security Police \n carried out these deportations and I must also assume that generally these measures were instigated by the Police.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3927, "page_number": "3920", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "However, I can also state that with the establishment of a main staff office, that is to say with the establishment of the representative of the Reich Commissar, all the wild cat deportations drives were stopped because we decidely opposed them and had to oppose them. The results of these deportations and resetllements after all we had to suffer from. As it has been mentioned before many times, the UWZ made the direct decisions for these deportations. We had to include ourselves in order to avoid wild cat deportations because every political incitement of the population in war time was a stupidity and it meant a danger. After all if you carry out deportations I must have a family to take over an estate, because already from the point of view of the operation of these estates, the cattle could not go without being fed. The UWZ, therefore, collaborated closely in all these things with the sector of the Security Police and these two agencies solely were responsible and they decided who was to be deported; against such a regular deportation which furthermore was not a wild cat deportation as was done after 1945 I could not do anything against it for legal reasons nor for any other considerations of another kind.\nQ.- Witness, in this trial we have already discussed the working staffs in detail and I would like for you to keep yourself very briefly to that subject. I want to ask you what did the labor staffs do in Danzig, West Prussia?\nA.- The list of estates which had been vacated as the result of the deportations, were turned over to the labor staffs. They saw to it that the new managers of the estate, that is to say, the resettlers which were appointed as custodians, were ready to occupy the estate whenever these estates were vacated. The labor staffs were subordinated to a district, several other agencies, and they in turn to settlement staffs, and the settlement staff was subordinated to me. The labor staff \n in part, worked as representative of the Landrat.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3928, "page_number": "3921", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "However, in West Prussia these were individual provinces. In any case in these labor staffs all the representatives of the Party, the State, the local peasant leaders, the Landrat, the NSV Leage, the women's societies, and so on, were represented. What was said here with regard to the agricultural sector applied in the same way for the industrial sector. That is to say the assignment into the industrial professions.\nQ.- What happened to the Poles with the UWZ who were put into socalled UWZ camps?\nA.- The Poles who had been deported by the UWZ were placed into socalled UWZ camps. These camps were subordinated to the Security Police and a rough selection took place there which my colleague Schwalm has already discussed here. As a result of this rough selection some people were selected and these people were turned over to the field office of RuSHA at Lodz, and thereby families came completely under the responsibility of the field office. Later on, after the decision of the Chief of that agency, through the main staff office, or the Higher SS and Police Leader in Germany proper; they were sent to Germany proper for the personal care with the aim of a final re-Germanization. In the entire re-Germanization procedure according to our estimates, approximately 20,000 people, or people who were eligible for re-Germanization were included. The Prosecution has charged that millions of people had been deported by force in connection with slave labor. However, not a word of this is true because these people decided to go there voluntarily, and of course we refused to make any propaganda for any sort of this deportation. However our course was to speak for itself and the course was at all times the best propaganda in my opinion.\nQ.- Witness, please take a look at Exhibit 198. It refers to the plans that were executed with reference to the deportation of Jews. Do you know anything about that, witness?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3929, "page_number": "3922", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.- Do, I have this document before me?\nQ.- Yes, I gave it to you.\nA.- Well, I know anyhow what is in it. What document were you referring to?\nQ.- Exhibit 198.\nA.- Yes, this document does not have a letter head, does not have a date, and apparently it comes from the very beginning of the establishment of the main staff office. The expulsion of Jews and leading Poles who were hostile to Germany is mentioned here. At the time when I arrived at Danzig it became evident as reported here that the Jews had already been transported for immigration to Vienna and therefore only a very small number of old Jews may have been involved here and remained in Danzig and the treatment of Jewish questions was the task of the Security Police and for that reason I had nothing to do with it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3930, "page_number": "3923", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.- What were your tasks as representative of the Reich Commissar?\nA.- My task as representative for the Reich Commissar consisted in the finding of accommodations and giving care to the resettlers.\nQ.- In document book 5-B, the prosecution has dealt with the EZZ which has been discussed often in the course of this trial, and in this connection they have pointed out that these racial examinations were carried out in this connection. Witness, do you want to add anything or do you want to clarify something in this connection, or the statements which have been made so far by the defense?\nA.- I only want to say something fundamentally on that question. The history of the nations proves beyond any doubt that they only lost their culture whenever they changed their external appearance. The National Socialism called this usually as race. In this connection I only want to recall the history of the old nations. Whoever comes to Greece today will not claim that the Greeks of today are the direct descendents of the Greeks in the old times, because then the Greeks looked different. This becomes apparent to us from the statues, pictures and other things which have remained preserved until today.\nEvery nation, therefore, naturally wants to preserve its appearance, its type, so to speak, and its character. The preservation of the type, however, means the same thing as the preservation of the race and its achievements. If the nation changes its achievements then, of course, it is not able anymore to outlive severe storms or attacks and then it loses slowly its appearance, and finally loses its culture and its civilization.\nThe concept of keeping away undesired blood as it has been stated in this document does not preach any hatred for another race. On the contrary, it recognizes all ethnic groups, but it is clover enough to see that nations have different tenets and inclinations without one having to give a judgment as to their value in this respect.\nHowever, it is a well established fact that the value of a human being \n in my opinion is not in any way improved by the fact that he belonged to one race or another, least of all, if he adheres to the internal laws of the natural sovereign right which providence has already decided.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3931, "page_number": "3924", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "The immigration legislation in the United States, which is the most interesting example for me in this case, for this reason and not by accident, prefers the North Europeans and the Northwestern Europeans, and this is done only because these nations, England, Holland, Germany and so on, are the most and best suited for the North American continent because they live under the same climatic conditions over here. I want to say that they originated under the same conditions and they have to live under them. The Immigration legislation of the United States, as I know personally, also makes a difference between North Italians and Southern Italians. The Northern Italians have a higher immigration quota than the Southern Italians and without any doubt it is the natural right, sovereign right of a nation to take defensive measures against the change in the appearance of the population because with this, automatically its achievements will deteriorate. I therefore consider it to be quite justified that a country and a nation which wants to preserve its character and its appearance will not only look at prospective immigrants from the political and economic points of view, but also with regard to their appearance in order to keep undesirable elements away.\nI myself can recall quite clearly that when I came to the Consulate General in Stuttgart in 1928, that at the time I was introduced, so to speak, to an EWZ commission. I was examined with regard to my appearance. I know the forms which had to be printed in that respect. I studied them now, and for example, important in that respect are the color of the eyes, the color of the hair, in this case I want to state personally that I am not of purely Nordic descent, although I was chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, and in this respect the shape of the skull was determined, the form of the face, and all these are characteristics which \n in the end can come under the concept of race, race as it is specified in the immigration regulations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3932, "page_number": "3925", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "I was, of course, immediately accepted, and at that time I went outside and in the anteroom I saw people sitting around with worried countenances. When I asked them what they were worried about they told me, \"Well, we have been turned down.\" I asked them why, and one of them told me, \"Well, my teeth are hot quite in order.\" And the doctor had told him, \"You can come but get your teeth in order first. It is better that you do it in Europe before coming over.\" Or, for example, people were turned down in stating they had to have some operation done by a German doctor and they could come back the following year, or someone else told me, \"I don't know why I was turned down.\" We considered for a long time what could be wrong with them, and I didn't draw any final conclusion then, but I know today why. Somehow he was not what the American immigration authorities wanted to have. Oh, of course, there may have been political reasons or something else. I have already mentioned that this method of making examinations, which I consider to be justified and to which I subjected myself, that this sort of examination was nothing else than was done by the EWZ commissions. Only one difference was made here, that in this case we had a commission in the EWZ which dealt with special agencies, but the final results were the same. It was just a case of screening out people. It was screening work which was to prevent that the appearance of the American population should change in any way.\nThe United States, in contrast to Germany, were much better able to absorb a lot of undesirable elements because, of course, such elements could be lost much more easily in such a big space, and they would not have any final effect upon the appearance of the population, while in Germany a change in the substance of the population in this respect could not be afforded any more. Of course, the German nation for centuries has been subjected to a large number of shocks in Central Europe, and as a \n result of this, in part, it had lost some of its best blood, not least the best blood had gone to North America.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3933, "page_number": "3926", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Then we must consider another factor in this connection. The United States of America is separated from Europe and Asia by thousands of kilometers and in this way they were in a certain way protected by a controlled immigration. Germany, however, had open borders, over which all possible elements could go. This was a so-called green border, and therefore, Germany was entitled to prevent any further changes in the typical German appearance of the population. In spite of these natural borders, that is, one ocean to the West and an ocean in the East, the United States, in spite of all this, still had to issue immigration laws and of course, Germany was much more obligated, even had the duty to prevent that the appearance of the German people should change to any considerable extent.\nQ.- Did you have anything to do with the EWZ?\nA.- No, I had nothing to do with the EWZ.\nQ.- Please take a look at exhibit 239. In this document it is stated that the German Government subsequently removed laws of the Polish authorities. Did you participate in these measures in any way?\nA.- No, the document shows that in this question Forster had direct contact with the Main Staff Office. I personally was not included at all. This time it also proves the very strange channels which were used for that.\nQ.- Please take a look now at exhibit 653. This is a decree from the Main Staff Office about the deportation of ethnic Germans from Lithuania. Did you participate in the division and allocation of resettlers by quotas?\nA.- The document bears a date of 1940, and of course, Forster must have worked out these things in full agreement with Berlin. I was not consulted in this question.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3934, "page_number": "3927", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.- Doesn't it become evident from the document that Forster negotiated directly with the Main Staff Office and that the corresponding instructions were issued?\nA.- Well, that is clear, that becomes quite evident from the document. I just remembered something. As I have said before these Germans in Lithuania were not settled in Danzig-West Prussia, but after these areas were recaptured they were repatriated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3935, "page_number": "3928", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QWitness, the prosecution further has charged you with the fact that these people had been sent to Germany as slave labor. I now ask you, did you participate in any drive which has been listed here in Article 16 or 18?\nAThis probably refers to the field office at Lodz which took the deported families away if they were eligible for re-Germanization. The re-Germanization itself was, as has been stated frequently, only carried on on a voluntary basis. Of the people, who were settled in Germany proper, better care was taken of them in Germany proper than anywhere else. For example, these people were not sent to Germany proper until an apartment had been found for them. At the time, with the increasing air attacks this became very difficult. These people enjoyed all the social institutions of the State and the Party, and reports had to be submitted about them, about their physical condition, whether they were feeling good, what wishes and requests they had and things of that sort. I believe in this respect more was done than normally would have been possible to do.\nQWitness, in this connection I would like to ask you what you have to say with regard to the testimony given here by Bach-Zelewsky insofar as he claimed that you took one of his counsins and put him in a concentration camp?\nASeveral witnesses have already testified about the testimony of Bach-Zelewsky. In this connection I only want to say the following. I do not know any member of the clan of Herr Zelewsky. I have never seen any files about it. It was not my duty to take anybody into a concentration camp or to make a corresponding request. This was the task solely of the Gestapo. I never made any recommendations to that effect. Until the end of the war I had comradely relations with BachZelewsky. We wrote to each other, and there was no tension or lack of understanding between us. Sometimes we would even see each other. Bach-Zelewsky never told me anything about his so-called relative. Himmler also never told me anything about the matter. All these things \n are completely incredible and I can't understand them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3936, "page_number": "3929", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "If Bach-Zelewsky claims that I had exterminated his clan, of whom I have never heard, then this is just a case of perjury. This subject is disgusting to me. As a German I am ashamed that something of this sort can happen.\nQWitness, with that I have now covered point 16 of the indictment, and I have dealt with all the questions which seem necessary to me. I am now coming to point 17 of the indictment which charges you with the participation in compulsory Germanization of enemy aliens and with special responsibility therein. This matter has already been discussed in detail by witnesses and defendants alike. I want to avoid repeating things repeatedly here.\nAI would be very grateful to you for that.\nQI don't want to repeat anything that has been discussed here before, and I only want to ask you several questions as far as they apply to you yourself. Please take a look at exhibit number 93. I shall now hand to you a number of documents which refer to point 17 of the indictment so that we will be able to conclude this examination as quickly as possible. This is exhibit number 93, the composition and the components of the population in Danzig-West Prussia and it deals also with the DVL, German People's List.\nADr. Froeschmann, may I point out to you that you are not being understood very well. Could you perhaps speak somewhat more articulately and somewhat more loudly? I want to say that in the name of the court reporters here.\nQIn order to repeat it, this is exhibit number 93, and it deals with the composition at that time and in future of the population in Danzig-West Prussia and it orders the introduction of the DVL, the German People's List. I now want to ask you did this decree originate as a result of your initiative, or did you participate in the bringing about of this decree?\nANo, I didn't play any part in that. That is the strange part about it, that the experts -- and after all we happened to be the experts \n in these things -- were not consulted at all before this DVL, the German People's List was introduced.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3937, "page_number": "3930", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "However, that was a rule.\nQIn this decree differences are made between Germans, people of German descent, end valuable alien populations, all of whom had the German nationality, and, of course, members of alien nations who did not have the German nationality. What circumstances caused these differences to be established?\nAAs I have stated before, Danzig-West Prussia had been German for 150 years, and as a matter of fact it had been influenced by German culture since the 13th century by the German order. The assimilation policy of Germany under the Emperor, if it can be called that, by the request of all the inhabitants of that country without regard to their Polish or German origin, gave all these people German nationality, that is to say, they became Germans. The Polanization policy of Poland after 1918, first of all, caused the expulsion of six hundred thousand Germans from Western Prussia alone and this was done without consideration to the nationality, with regard to the origin, and the people th t remained became Polish nationals. That included all Germans too without consideration being given to their origin. In this way the people who had become Polish nationals also had to serve in the Polish Armed Forces. They were not asked whether they wanted to serve or not. Therefore, this also applied to Poles, Jews, Slovenians, Russians and Ukrainians. A part of these Germans who had become Polonized liked to accept Polish nationality because they gained personal advantages as a result of it, and they apparently worked for the benefit of Poland. Some of them, however, remained faithful to Germany. These Germans who were formally Polish nationals, after Poland was occupied by Germany, were considered to belong to the German ethnic group, if they had remained faithful to Germany. The other part of the Germans who had gone over to the Poles, while Poland had been in charge of that area, of whom, however, it could be assumed that under German occupation they would again return to Germany, were considered as being people of \n German descent.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3938, "page_number": "3931", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Therefore, they could be considered as being included in the DVL procedure. Then, of course, we can also consider those Polish nationals who, according to their origin, Kashubian, for example, were quite a desirable influx to the German population. That is what we meant by so-called valuable aliens. From this concept valuable aliens, however, it also becomes evidence that the term \"valuable\" was not limited alone to Germans but that the term \"valuable\" applied also to alien nations. The prosecution has charged quite frequently that only the Germans considered themselves as being valuable and they did not consider the others valuable. However, this concept is quite wrong. The German People's List, therefore, wanted to separate the ethnic groups as had been ordered by Hitler or the Reich Ministry of the Interior and they wanted to carry out the re-Germanization or the giving of German nationality to people who had been born as Germans.\nQWho had to carry out the DVL procedure?\nAThe DVL was strictly a Government procedure. It was in the hands of the Ministry of the Interior, that is to say, the internal administration.\nQAnd in Danzig-West Prussia?\nAThere it was handled by the Reichsstatthalter.\nQWere you, as Higher SS and Police Leader, or as representative of the Reich Commissar, concerned in any way in the introduction of the DVL?\nANo, in no way whatsoever.\nQWere you a member of the Supreme Court for racial classification or did you have anything to do with its activities?\nANo, as the Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig-West Prussia, I had nothing to do with it.\nQDid you have anything to do with the giving of naturalization?\nANo, I had nothing to do with naturalization questions. The Landrat was competent for that, the Government President, the Reichsstatthalter. That was the socalled internal administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3939, "page_number": "3932", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Q.However, now I would like to have you take a look at Exhibit 96 submitted by the Prosecution. According to t is document the naturalization procedure in cases of doubt has to be submitted to the higher SS and police leader for his comment. Will you confirm who was confronted in cases of that kind?\nA.The higher SS and police leader actually was intended to be the highest level for appeals within the Gau, and he was to play a part in this. I did attend two or three sessions. It is known that in questions of ethnic policy my opinion differed from that of Forster. Actually, I had to be represented there; in order to avoid increasing the tension there, I sent my staff leader there, for the staff leader in this decree, Exhibit 96, has been mentioned as the person who deputized in that particular session for the higher SS and police leader. This was at the session in the central instance of the Reichstatthalter. I could not look after the execution of the procedure because after all it was handled only on the lower levels in the offices of the Landrat and the Lord Mayor.\nQ.With that do you refute all participation in these procedures?\nA.No.\nQ.To what extent did you participate in them?\nA.As higher SS and police leader and as leader of the Main Sector insofar as the RuS leader who was assigned to me, and that was the witness Vietz, who appeared here, in special cases, that is to say, only when people refused or complained about this would be included for examination of the applicants, that is to say when the people concerned finally were to be given German nationality without any restrictions whatsoever, thenthis race and settlement leader was included. He then would give his opinion and as far as he was concerned, the case was finally finished.\nQ.Now, please take a look at Exhibit No. 99; Prosecution Exhibit 99 contains the general decree about the treatment of the persons who were \n listed in the German' People's List.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3940, "page_number": "3933", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Did you have anything to do with the bringing about of this order?\nA.No. This is a decree by the Reichsfurhrer SS, and the Reichsfuehrer signed this order in person, and, as it becomes evident from the text, I was not included directly as higher SS and police leader -with the exception of the cases I mentioned just now where people did not want to repudiate their nationality.\nQ.The other restrictions, you had nothing to do with that are listed in this document, with regard to the choice of profession, marriages and things of that sort.\nA.No.\nQ.Now, please take a look at Exhibit 192. In this affidavit the racial selection of people included in Category III has been called for, and this was to be done by racial examiners. Did you have anything to do with the bringing about of this order?\nA.No. I had nothing to do with it. This also is a decree which was issued by Himmler personally. I have already stated that all fundamental instructions came mostly from Himmler in person, and these decrees were brought about without any advice by the representative of the Reich Commissar. I cannot recall one single decree in which Himmler would have asked the representative what he thought about a particular case. This order was never executed because it was not feasible. This shows once again just what theoretical thoughts Himmler had in this case and just how limited these decrees could actually be carried out in practice. It is suggested here that the entire group III was to be examined. Of course, this is complete nonsense because I myself in my area had only one racial classification expert and this examiner was assigned to the Race and Settlement Leader. In cases of emergency the Race and Settlement Leader could also carry out racial examinations because he was trained in that. However, the population in Danzig-West Prussia amounted to seven to eight hundred thousand \n people, and it is easily imaginable that a carrying out of this from a technical point of view was impossible; and, therefore, in practice, this decree was not carried out:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3941, "page_number": "3934", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "it was rescinded.\nQ.With Exhibit 104 the Prosecution claims that the giving of naturalization only had the purpose of gaining additional men for the Wehrmacht. Did the document come to your knowledge and did you hear anything about such aims as are contained in this Exhibit 104?\nA.Yes. I do not know the document. The document pertains to matters that were addressed to the central agency of the DVL and this was Gauleiter Forster. I personally was opposed, in my opinions in ethnic questions, above all, because I knew that the people who had become re-Germanized some day would have to serve in the military forces. As an old soldier it was quite clear to me that an army cannot be interested in having men in its rank who were of wavering political thoughts; because of advantages which they received now, perhaps they had accepted the German nationality; however, in case this nationality should prove to be a burden, which war actually represented, because here we do not have a pleasant situation, but a person's life is concerned they would not stand the test. Every troop commander knows that unreliable elements of people are people of whom one cannot easily demand to withstand heavy burdens or severe dangers, and they seriously impede the fighting morale of their units. Already for this reason I had to be opposed to it that people should be put in uniform who in part did not know what they were fighting for. This is no reproach to these people, as such, but it is a fact. Finally I can only fight for something that I know and that I love. Only then I can risk my life and then I will be willing to risk it. In another case I don't know what I am risking my life for and then I wouldn't do it.\nQ.Did you hear of any aims that the in roduction of the DVL were serving the purpose to gain additional men?\nA.No, the in roduction of the DVL was brought about by other reasons and these were ethnic and political reasons. I have made several \n statements about that, and it is wrong to claim that the replacing of personnel in the army and the fact that additional soldiers were to be furnished to the army by that measure was a decisive factor in bringing about the introduction of the DVL, this is wrong.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3942, "page_number": "3935", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "It is not correct. Of course people who requested on a voluntary basis to become Germans, were subject to later on to military service in their capacity as German citizens, and they of course realized before that they were subject to that and they did fully realize it.\nQ. witness, please take a look at Exhibits 108, 109 and 110. In these exhibits the special treatment is mentioned to be given people in Category IV of the DVL. As far as these people were concerned, were they people who were of German or Polish origin?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That question includes three documents. I believe we had better recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3943, "page_number": "3936", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, we stopped with Exhibits 108, 109 and 110, contained in Document Book IV-A, in which is discussed the special treatment of persons of Group IV of the German People's List. I asked you, at the time, whether the persons involved were poeple who were of German or of Polish origin.\nA.Members of Group IV were all of purely German origin.\nQ.In Exhibit 108, which I have just mentioned, the Higher SS and Police Leader is directed to further re-Germanization with all means at his disposal, and to examine the results of the German People's List. This point was already testified to by the witness Vietz. Do you agree with his testimony?\nA.Yes, absolutely.\nQ.Please look at Exhibit 313, from Document Book IV-A. Do you know the procedure for treatment of Polish Priests who were members of Group IV?\nA.No, that is completely unknown to me.\nQ.Please look further at Exhibit 114, contained in Document Book IV-B. Did you know this decree?\nA.No, I can't remember this decree. That seems to be quite natural, in view of the many decrees that were issued. However, the treatment of this whole matter did not fall within my competency; that was purely a Gestapo matter.\nQ.I now come to Exhibit 119, contained in Document Book IV-B. In this Exhibit, the Gauleiter of the Warthegau criticizes the policy of re-Germanization in Danzig-West Prussia. This document mentions a Germanization policy. Will you please comment on that?\nA.Well, I donot know this document, as such. At that time I was already in Berlin; that was shortly before my appointments Chief of \n the RuSHA.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3944, "page_number": "3937", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "This proves that which has been testified to concerning theethnic policy in Danzig-West Prussia. However, in explanation of the tone in which this document is set, there were very strong personal disagreements between Greiser and Forster, and part of these personal disagreements could probably be the cause for this letter. In any case, a forced re-Germanization cannot be mentioned in this connection.\nQ.Therewith, I have concluded Point 17 of the Indictment, and I am now turning to Point 18 of the Indictment. Will you please look at Exhibit 138, from Document Book IV-C? Did you ever know this decree 17-2 mentioned therein, and was this decree also valid for Danzig-West Prussia?\nA.Well, yes, I know this directive, because it was a general directive which, according to the general distribution list, went to very many agencies, especially to such agencies which were not necessarily directly involved. However, this corresponded with the custom and was done merely for reasons of information. This decree had no practical significance for the Gau in Danzig-West Prussia, in which I found myself at the time, and therefore it was of no interest to me.\nQ.Please look at Exhibits 139 and 141 contained, gain, in Document Book IV-C. These documents deal with the planned selection of people found suitable for Germanization. Were you involved in this rpocedure in any way, and did you gain knowledge of this decree?\nA.No, I do not know this decree. However, as I have already stated, this matter deals with the EWZ or the preselection for reGermanization end the procedure that goes with it, which was carried on in the field office at Lodz. As such, this procedure is well known, and has been discussed quite frequently.\nQ.Will you please, then, look at Exhibit 142, contained in Document Book IV-C? This is some extra work of an RuS Fuehrer of the Higher SS and Police Leader in East Prussia. This dates from May 1944 and considers the re-Germanization procedure. Do you know anything about this report?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3945, "page_number": "3938", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "A.No. At that time I was in Southern Russia withthe Army Group of Field Marshal von Kleist. The document is a collection of all decrees and regulations that were issued concerning this sphere. As such, it does not contain anything new, and therefore I should not like to discuss the details of this document because they are well known. I had nothing to do with the allocation and supervision, that is to say, with the care of people to be re-Germanized within the Reich proper. as is known, people suitable for Germanization were assigned to the area to the West of the Elbe River, and Danzig-West Prussia is on the Weichsel River, and very far in the east.\nAltogether, this whole letter is a draft. Obviously, at the time, this man wanted to prove that he had a right to exist for he did not bring up anything new.\nQ.Now, will you please look at Exhibit 153, also in Document Book IV-C? In this document, on page 10, technical assignments are transferred to the Higher SS and Police Leader within the framework of the treatment of members of Group III of the German People's List. Was this decree valid for Danzig-West Prussia.\nA.No; this decree also was valid only for the Reich proper. Besides, homes for children were never created in West Prussia.\nQ.Please look, now, at Exhibit 804, also contained in Document Book IV-C. There, mention is made of transit camps for families suitable for re-Germanization, which were located in Danzig-West Prussia. Were there such camps in West Prussia?\nA.No, there were none, for we had no reason to erect them, nor was there any necessity for them. This can also be clearly seen from this very decree.\nQ.What about those mentioned in Exhibit 155, also in Document Book IV-C, and 156, in Document Book IV-D? Did you have anything to do with these measures?\nA.No, this is the very same theme. This is concerned with families to be Germanized, which were assigned to the Reich proper and were cared for there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3946, "page_number": "3939", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QIs your answer also valid for Exhibit 158, in Document Book IV-D, and 161, in the same document book, concerning the assignment of girls suitable for re-Germanization as household servants?\nAThe Gau of Danzig-West Prussia had nothing to do with the allocation of these gilrs suitable for re-Germanization. The Gau of Danzig-Prussia had no need for such girls.\nQI am now turning to Point 22 of the Indictment, your alleged participation and collaboration in the so-called euthanasia program. I would now like- to hand you the documents involved all together and I would like to ask you, in connection with that, whether the charge made by the Prosecution-the charge of your participation in this euthanasia program-is justified. This is concerned with the elimination of insane people in West Prussia.\nAThe charge of participation in this so-called euthanasia program is entirely unjustified. At the time when I am alleged to have participated in this program, I did not know anything about any such euthanasia program of the Third Reich. As I heard later, Hitler had authorized Reichsleiter Bouhler, as well as Professor Dr. Karl Brandt, on the 1st of September 1939, by virtue of a decree, with the condition of extending the functions of physicians named in this decree, to the effect that after conscientious examination and with incurable diseases were to be subjected to so-called mercy killings, that is, euthanasia.\nThis decree caused an operation, about which I did not know anything at the time. Bouhler was the one who directed this, with the help of various other organizations. I was in no way involved in all these matters.\nQWitness, the Prosecution, obviously, bases this charge on a report which had been the subject of discussion several times. This is Exhibit 753, in Document Book XV. On page 7 of this document \n mention is made, under paragraphs 4 and 5, of the so-called Sturmbann Eimann.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3947, "page_number": "3940", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "This was supposed to have been used, in October and November 1939, for the elimination of such incurable insane people. These people were located in West Prussian insane asylums. Well, what about this report?\nAIn July 1939, the Senat of the City of Danzig--at that time still a free city--or some other agency, I can't exactly say which one, in agreement with the subdistrict northeast, Koenigsberg, created this Sturmbann E, to be used as auxiliary troops for the police force.\nThis writ was paid by the Reichsstatthalter in his capacity as Gauleiter. The Reichsstatthalter, in the course of time, paid out one million Reichsmarks for this purpose, and because of that he was interested in keeping this Sturmbann E, subsequently within his Gau area, at his disposal. It could never be established with certainty as to who actually was the chief of this Sturmbann, whether it was subordianted personally to the Reichsstatthalter or, through the Reichsstatthalter, to the Wehrmacht, since after all, it was assigned to military duty, or whether it was subordinated to the General Police or the Security Police.\nThis is a typical example of the confusion of the channels of command find the reason for the very serious consequences which developed from this situation. The superior agency was probably the State Police Administration in Danzig, that is to say, the Reichsstatthalter, as Chief of the Executive Power of the State. I would infer that from the fact that a certain Dr. Treeger, who was the closest collaborator of the Reichsstatthalter in the field of the political sector, had a strong influence upon this Sturmbann.\nQWho was this Troeger?\nADr. Troeger was the inspector of the Security Police. The Security Police, again, was directly subordianted to Berlin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3948, "page_number": "3941", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Sturmbann E, in any case, was not subordinated to me, at any time. I would like to clarify this matter with all the energy that I can muster.\nSometime after my appointment there and after my active duty had begun, Himmler visited my sub-command. On this occasion I also reported to, him about Sturmbann Land its activities. This, after all, was the task of the Higher SS and Police Leader, to report to the Reichsfuehrer SS if he should come into the area of the Higher SS and police Leader, it was his duty to report to him concerning all fundamental organizational matters in the Gau as far as they touched upon SS and Police matters. This function was contained in the expression, \"Representative Deputy of the Reichsfuehrer\". Therefore, when the Reichsfuehrer was in the Gau, he then, of course, contacted the member agencies and subordinate agencies of the SS, but he, of course, turned more to the man who had the highest rank in the area, who was, after all, assigned by him for this purpose.\nIf, then, the Reichsfuehrer came into my area, it was always my duty to gather all the information I could about all the members of the SS divisions, which was necessary, since these various divisions were not subordinated to me as far as their technical matters were concerned. I had to gather the information, because Himmler had the habit of asking about everything, even the smallest, most minor matters; he would be very indignant, and rather poisonous, if he did not receive sifficient information.\nThat meant that I had to prepare myself, more or less, for every visit that Himmler made us, because the various official fields of the SS and Police were not necessarily familiar to me, as such and of course I had to know about them when the Reichsfuehrer paid me a visit.\nThat was the position, more and more paradoxical, of the Higher SS and Police Leader.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3949, "page_number": "3942", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QWhen the Reichsfuehrer SS visited you, did you then give him a detailed report about what we have just discussed?\nAYes, as I have just stated, I had to be prepared to report to Himmler about everything that had been going on in the Gau on the Police and SS sector, and what existed there.\nAt that time I reported to him concerning the fact that Sturmbann It was at my disposal, under the direction of Berlin-or rather, that the agencies which were subordinated to the Reichsstatthalter were at my disposal for the tasks of keeping order when the Baltic Germans would arrive, measures for separation, and, in any case, various tasks Which had been delegated to me by Himmler in the interests of the Reich, because the activity of the representative certainly included the interests of the Reich. The quartering and placement of the Baltic Germans was really a state matter.\nTherefore the agency of the representative, correspondingly, was also an authority of the Reich. I further reported to him that this Sturmbann had formerly participated in evacuations in Adlersherst and Gdynia, which, after all, was based on a Fuehrer decree. Gdynia was declared a German war port, and for that reason additional forces had to be allocated there. All these things happened before my time. However, I had to report to him about them. Furthermore, I reported to him that this Sturmbann, which was also called Guard. Sturmbann, (Wachsturmbann) had to guard a transit camp for unreliable Poles who, later on, were sent to Central Poland, whom it was planned to evacuate to Central Poland; and this Sturmbann had to take care of the transport of these people as well as the evacuation of a troop training center, which I have already mentioned.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3950, "page_number": "3943", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAt that time, Himmler took cognizance of my report and he stated that he approved the further keeping of this Sturmbann, especially because of the fact that at that time I had heard that Berlin had planned to resettle a great many Poles from the Gau West Prussia Danzig. At that time I pointed out to him that the Gau had no sort of labor forces to carry out such tasks, The evacuation itself was actually in the competency of the Security Police as can be clearly seen from the decrees and orders. But I, as the highest ranking representative, after all, had to report to him on these things also.\nThis big evacuation of Poles which was planned at that time, since it is also mentioned in this Eymann Document, I must say was never carried out, for Forster, as well as I myself, believed that evacuations of that sort should not be carried out for political reasons as well as for reasons concerning the labor allocations, and we could not be responsible for them any longer.\nQYou were speaking of cordoning measures. Apparently it has not been so, What do you understand by cordoning measures?\nAAfter the surrender of Poland, Hitler was in Danzig. There was a joyous meeting at which Hitler made a speech, At that time he made the well-known peace offer to Britain, which unfortunately, was rejected by Britain. In the course of his speech, police units were assigned for the security and the cordoning. At that time I was not in Danzig but I was in Wiesbaden where I had to pay several visits to say good-bye. However, at that time-that was told to me later on, however, in spite of my not being there or just because I was not there, for I had to report to Himmler, for in these things he was very petty.\nQWitness, excuse me, but the word \"cordoning measures\" has not been translated correctly again. Was this at that time a keeping away of the public from the street?\nAYes, of course, I can talk about that for ten more minutes if that is interesting, but I don't believe it is. In order to say that \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3951, "page_number": "3944", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "in a rather normal way and so that it can be understood, cordons were made by the police so that the life of the head of the state would be safe.\nQWill you please continue now? What now was the suggestion that a certain authority in Danzig made to you at the time?\nASometime after this visit of Himmler's in Danzig, a certain Professor Dr. Grossmann, who was Chief of the Highest health authority in Danzig, made the suggestion to me, in agreement with the Reichsstatthalter, to evacuate various institutions in Pomerania and West Prussia so that these Baltic resettlers could be housed there and to transfer the inmates of these institutions in the Government-General. At that time I told Grossmann, who came to pay me a personal visit in my offices, that he was not in the right place as far as that went, by coming to me, for he also had the erroneous belief that the Higher SS and Police Leader had authority over anything at all. I told him that I was completely without competency in this matter, which was exclusively up to the Ministry of the Interior or the Health Ministry. These institutions were subordinate to the Reich Minister, the State Secretary, Dr. Conti. At that time I suggested to Dr. Grossmann to contact a superior agency, that is to say, Dr. Conti, who was a close friend of his as to whether or not and how this transfer of asylum inmates into the Government-General could be made possible. At that time I also promised him that I would, without any further obligation, contact the Reichsfuehrer in order to ask him the same thing, since evacuations from one Gau into another, that is to say into the Government-General, could be carried out only with the approval and agreement of the Reichsfuehrer or the Governor-General, Dr. Frank. That is to say, I told him that I had no competency whatever in that matter; in the first place, because this sector was not in my area of command at all; in the second place, because these problems could only be solved by Berlin and decisions could be made only there. I also at that time-that is, of course, I am reconstructing from my best memory for it's \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3952, "page_number": "3945", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "almost ten years ago and several things happened in the meantimecalled on the phone the offices of the Reichsfuehrer SS and asked him about that matter. At that time I was told that I was supposed to make further decisions; that is to say, that this matter was a matter which was under the competency of the Reich Security Main Office, but I would have to get there the approval of the Reich Health authorities and also the Governor-General, Dr. Frank. Later on then I went to Wiesbaden in order to effect the transfer and moving of my family. On my return to Berlin, I interrupted this journey and reported to Himmler. Himmler, in the presence of Heydrich, stated that the matter concerning these institutions was concluded and it was none of my business any more. This treatment obviously was rejected by the Governor-General, and the Reich Security Main Office was competent for this because they had taken care of this matter with the approval of Dr. Conti.At that time I asked for a more detailed explanation. Himmler, in a very jumpy way, answered me very coldly that this matter was taken care of. I knew Himmler too long not to know that at this very moment nothing further could be done with him.\nWhen I returned to Danzig, I tried to find out--it may have been at the beginning or the middle of November 1939-all about this matter. I found out then what obviously had bean made public in the meantime: that the asylum inmates had been liquidated by the activities of Sturmbann E and had been subjected to this Euthanasia program. I thought that this procedure and these facts connected with that matter were so impossible and so horrible, the more so since men of the General SS, who besides being members of the SS had some sort of peaceful occupation, were involved in these things, and would take serious psychological damage by carrying out such orders. I then contacted the Reich Security Main Office in order to stop this operation. I contacted Inspector Dr. Troeger--that was the competent chief of the Security Police in Danzig West Prussia-and I told him that I had no desire whatever in such a very serious situation to appear in the eyes \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3953, "page_number": "3946", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "of the population as the man responsible for such things. I told him that I was not responsible and did not feel that I was responsible for this Sturmbann E as the general public might perhaps think.\nForster, with whom I then talked about these matters--I don't know whether I did that personally or via the Adjutant--agreed with me. I also contacted Ehbrecht at the time and Ehbrecht testified according to this, as far as he could remember. All this I tried to do with the purpose of stopping this operation and also to let those people know that I believed that it was complete insanity to carry on this way. Then, because of these various interventions in which other people also participated, it finally was ceased. It was repugnant for me to deal with these matters altogether, but my official position as Higher SS and Police Leader forced me to do so. Ehbrecht has already testified to the effect that because of a conference he had with Eymann he was made a suggestion by Eymann, the contents of which he did not remember-", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3954, "page_number": "3947", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "I can't remember the contents either but I would like to assume that the previous correspondence exists in the hands of the Prosecution. The attempts of my defense counsel to get hold of these documents were unsuccessful as is often the case when material to be relased is concerned.\nTherefore, I am in no position today, after all these years, to give the exact information about this order or suggestion of the Sturmbann E. However, it was important to me, it had to be important to me, to clarify once and for all the channels of command for the Sturmbann and to get the Sturmbann subodinate t me either apart of the General SS or Waffen SS, be that as it may. The exterior form was not important at all and may aim was to get the men out of such a horrible situation and to prevent such things from happening ever again. My corresponding position, however, on the 29 November 1939 was rejected by the Main Staff Office. Probably the reason for rejection was that even at that time many difficulties or disagreements existed between Himmler and Forster. According to Forster's desire this Sturmbann should obviously remain within his subordination for he created the Sturmbann and paid it, and besides that there were no police forces at all in Danzig of any strength. Himmler, however, believed that such matters were not really matters of the Gau but rather a Reich matter. Therefore, he worked against this obvious attempt to keep this Sturmbahn within the Gau. Since the decision of the Main Office was not entirely clear as can be seen, the final decision of 8 December was finally rendered. This can be seen. from Document 019, which is Hildebrandt's Document 89-A. That is December 1939 which refers to my letter.\nQWitness, one moment. want to hand you for identification the letter which I will submit in my document book in the original and you will please tell whether this is the letter that you have just mentioned?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3955, "page_number": "3948", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "AYes, that is the letter. In this letter which I have just mentioned, the dissolution of Sturmbann E and its subordination under the inspector General, of the Death Head Units, was proclaimed. From the content of this letter I would like to point out especially the statement concerning the former channels of command, that is to say, these channels of command concerning the local agencies, especially the Reichsstatthalter. It can further be seen as was the Chief of the Main Office concerned, he himself was not clear about the channel of command. A subordination relationship under my order is not mentioned in this letter, They simply ask me to take care that the transfer of Sturmbann E was carried out and to make certain that it would be carried out by a certain point of time. In this letter Himmler sent to me concerning Sturmbann E he also referred to my motion which had very good reasons; Himmler reprimanded me very seriously for having used the Sturmbann E exclusively for my purpose and wanting to keep them that way and later as he expressed himself, to create a military regime in my sub-division.\nHimmler, as usual, did not have the com plate picture before him.\notherwise he would not have written such complete nonsense, for he had completely forgotten that I had explained to him before, I had reported to him in detail about the Sturmbann, on the occasion of his visit in Danzig, West Prussia. Therefore, In my letter of 9 January 1940 which is in my hand, I commented upon these reproaches and corrected them, as far as I found it necessary. In this report Himmler asks for documents concerning the activities of Sturmbann A, so so in order to make further decisions on the basis of these documents. Since, I, myself, from my own knowledge and experience, could not give him these documents; since the Sturmbann E after all was not subordinate to me, and the order of Himmler requisitioned these documents, I received this report about the end of 1939 and this was a report concerning the activities of the Sturmbann from July \n 1939 until the, end of the year.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3956, "page_number": "3949", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "This account contained all operation that the Sturmbann had carried out, and among them also the euthanasia program already mentioned. I have not the least reason fortaking out these two points from the report for would I have been justified in doing that, On the contrary, I found it extremely important that Himmler once more and for all would find out about the activities of this very Sturmbann for which Heydrich had the sole responsibility, and even just for that reason I had no reason for coming back to these two matters in any way. The subject matter as such was not very agreeable to me and the subject had already been discussed sifficiently in my confenrences with Himmler and my various reports to him. I commended the Sturmbann E just as I had already done that on the occasion of his visit. I commended them insofar as the reports concerned the tasks which were delegated to no by him in the interests of the Reich; so only in such a way was I able to gain distance from the rest of the activities of this Sturmbann.\nIn any case I would like to ascertain with all the clarity that is at my disposal that I have nothing to do and had nothing to do with this so-called euthanasia prgram, as little as with the Sturmbann E itself. My name is mentioned in this connection only because I objected to this procedure and because I wanted to prevent by reason of my position a continuation of these things under any circumstances. The complete matter only goes to show how irresponsible and superficial the angency of the Higher SS and Police Leader was organized through the fact that this high sounding name was used as a shield for things which were not there at all.\nSo, in speaking from a legal point of view, this was a showing up of false facts; one could write volumes about this things, about the disagreements, the misunderstandings, and the various bad positions and the personally and humanly impossible situation into which we wrre pushed, we the Higher SS and Police Leaders, \n because the Reichsfuehrer SS did not understand and did not wish to understand how the agencies were entitled to certain powers because of their high soundings names, correspondingly", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3958, "page_number": "3951", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QWitness, therewith you have also answered conclusively point 22 of the indictment. I would now like to turn to the points of the indictment which could he designated as the charge of weakening of alien people, which are points 11 to 15 of the indictment. I think we can get through that pretty Quickly.\nIn point 11 of the indictment, you are charged with participation in a plan for the kidnapping of racially valuable alien children. I am now handing you all the documents that are important for you in connection with point 11 of the indictment. In your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, what do you know about this conspiracy?\nAI know nothing about such a plan or conspiracy. However, from speeches that I heard or from other publications I could never see any such aims. Also, the kidnapping of these children as reprisal measures or deterrents in Czechoslovakia or in Poland or the Eastern countries, I never knew anything about that. Nor did I have any contacts with the Ministry for the occupied Eastern territories.\nQPlease look at exhibits 385 and 386 contained in document book 8-A. This deals with the re-Germanizations of alien orphans and especially the Germanization of their names. Did you know anything about that decree?.\nAThis decree, exhibit 385, is not known to me. I have read it here for the. first time, nor do I remember it, just as I have said just a few minutes ago. Also, witness Vietz testified to this point extensively.\nQThen this Question does not become timely in Danzig-West Prussia?\nANo.\nQWas the same also true concerning the so-called bandit children, and I am now referring to exhibit 445 in document book 8-C?\nAYes, the expression \"bandit children\" is completely now to me. I heard it here for the first time. I knew, of course, a chief of the anti-guerilla forces, but I never knew about bandit children.\nQWere there guerilla activities at all in Danzig-West Prussia?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3959, "page_number": "3952", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "QWill you please look at exhibit 405 from document book 8-B. According to this document Himmler wrote to the Gauleiter of the Warthegau and you received a copy of this letter for your information which concerns the re-Germanization of racially valuable children of Polish families. Did you do anything connected with this matter?\nANo, this letter refers expressly to Gauleiter Greiser as can be seen from the subsequent correspondence. West Prussia was never active in this matter nor was it asked for its opinion and was not interested at all in these problems. We have never taken any action concerning this matter.\nQPlease look at exhibit 407, also in document book 8-B. This deals with the registration of such children who had been in Polish orphanages and who now were Quartered with Polish foster parents. The racial examination of these children was ordered. On the strength of this letter did you take any action in the Danzig-West Prussia area?\nANo. I had known about this order. It had been sent to me in order to inform me of the procedure. In the Gau Danzig-West Prussia nothing and never has anything been done in this connection.\nQDid you participate in any of the various operations which were carried out under the name \"Winterzauber, that is, winter magic, or wood action, or which were concerned with illegitimate children or with the falsification of birth certificates?\nANo, never, and in no way at all.\nQWell, we have now concluded point 11 of the indictment and now we are coming to point 12. Point 12 of the indictment concerns your participation in the abortion of female Eastern workers who were brought into Germany proper as slave labor. Will you please look at exhibit 475. This is a letter from Himmler to Eigruber of 1942 contained in document book 9. Did you ever learn anything about this letter?\nANo, I cannot remember this letter. However, the distribution list appended to this letter shows that a copy was received by all Higher Police and SS leaders. Therefore, it is entirely possible that \n I have received that letter.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3960, "page_number": "3953", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "However, this letter could not be of any interest to me for it deals with the local situation of the Gau Upper Danube as can be seen from this letter. It has no fundamental significance for me in Danzig-West Prussia.\nQWere female Eastern workers from the Eastern territories, that is the Government General, or the Russian territories, brought to DanzigWest Prussia?\nANo, this was not necessary, and besides the labor from the Eastern territories was transferred as a matter of principle into Germany proper and not into the reincorporated Eastern territories, that is, not into Danzig-West Prussia. Now, Danzig-West Prussia had no demand for labor of that sort.\nQExhibit 470 which will also be added to these document books, which is dated 9 July 1943 and was distributed then to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. At that time you were no longer leader in DanzigWest Prussia. Did you happen to see this instruction in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader?.\nANo, I could not possibly have received this letter for it is dated June, 1943, and in April, 1943 I had taken over the RuSHA in Berlin.\nQWhen you were active as Higher SS and Police Leader did you hear about any tendencies to interrupt pregnancies, to suggest to the women involved that they have such an abortion performed, or even to force them to it? Did you hear anything about that?\nANo. In West Prussia nothing happened in this connection, nor was I in West Prussia at that time actually.\nQConcerning point 13 of the indictment, on this point you are charged with the kidnapping of infants from female Eastern workers while you were active in Danzig-West Prussia. This concerns exhibit 495, document book 10 of the prosecution. This is a letter of Himmler of the 31st of December, 1942 with a copy of a teletype from the Reich Security Main Office of 23 December, 1942. Did you learn to know this \n document?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3961, "page_number": "3954", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "AI believe I never knew about these documents.\nQI will be finished very soon with this point. I only have two more questions.\nAI don't remember that. As I said, I probably could not have gotten them at all. I would like to point out that these two letters of Himmler were directed to the Reich Security Main Office and this was an inter-office information between those two agencies which apparently came to the SS Main Staff Office only for information. The letter of the Reich Security Main Office contains only suggestions which were approved by Himmler. However, a regulation or a decree which would have been issued after these suggestions is not known to me, nor could the prosecution produce such a document up to now. Therefore it probably has not been issued at all.\nQDid you receive any reports about this?\nAThe fact that the Reich Security Main Office, that is Mueller himself who was chief of the Gestapo, it shows where the primary interest and the initiative in the procedure was placed. Reports concerning the pregnancies of female Eastern workers or about the birth of a child as was provided in this very suggestion of the Reich Security Main Office were never made to me. I Would probably also have rejected receiving them without having gotten special instructions concerning this matter. Besides, I can state here with the greatest certainty. that in Danzig West Prussia such cases did not happen., such cases as I mentioned under point 13 of the indictment by the prosecution, and especially the kidnapping of infants shortly after birth which apparently is supposed to have happened. First of all, there were no Eastern female workers in Danzig. The decree is dated July, 1943 and witnesses have already testified extensively to this point.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Mr. President, with this I have concluded poing 13 and I am now coming to a new point. It might be suggested perhaps to let the recess take place now.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3962, "page_number": "3955", "date": "19 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:A very good suggestion. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The hearing adjourned to 20 January 1948, at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3963, "page_number": "3956", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany on 20 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lea Wyatt presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I, Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court room save the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT -- Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQI would like to remind you first that you are still under oath. We stopped with point 14 of the Indictment. This point concerns the participation in measures concerning illicit sexual intercourse between Germans and persons of alien bloods. I am handing you now a document covering point 14 of the Indictment. Will you please look at Exhibit 515 in Document Book 11, which is a decree of the Reichfuehrer-SS of 20 February 1942. It is a general prohibition. Did you know at the time of this decree?\nAVery probably. This decree I probably read because it has fundamental significance. However, I was only interested in a peripheral way because this was a decree that purely. dealt with police matters which were limited to the security police. In the first place; in the second place this decree was not valid for the incorporated Eastera territories, that is, Danzig, West Prussia.\nQDid this decree provide for special treatment in cases of violation \n of its previsenseor commitments.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3964, "page_number": "3957", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "to a concentration camp? Is it correct that this decree was corrected in the course of time and if so in which way was it corrected?\nAYes, this is correct. Upon the order of the Reichfuehrer-SS and examination of both persons involved was carried out by the RUS leaders or the racial examiners and their opinion then constituted a component part of the decision that was to be made by Himmler. The opinion itself was valued by Himmler in a completely free way for his decision which he always made personally. The examination itself was concerned with the external characteristics of the persons and was supposed to determine whether or not their racial characteristics made a good impression. If the opinion was positive, this would be the cause for Himmler in many cases to reject a motion for special treatment or commitment to a concentration camp. Special treatment was a summary concept of the State Police about which one of the witnesses Haessler, spoke in an expert way. This concept was only known in detail to the so-called special workers of the State Police.\nQWill you now please look at Exhibit 517 contained in Document Book 11. This is a letter from the Reich Security Main Office of 20 May 1942 according to which the special treatment just mentioned by you was to be the punishment in all cases of violation of this prohibition?\nAYes.\nQWas this letter of any significance to you?\nANo, it had no practical significance for me because it did not contain any instructions or orders for me since the Reich Security Main Office had no executive power as far as my office was concerned. The carrying out of the measures that are provided in this letter was entirely up to the Reich Security Main Office. The witness Haessler has already commented in detail upon this document. The witness Viet also testified that there were, I believe, three cases that had any connection with this letter, in the small circle in which this decree was valid. These three \n cases had no further consequences for the people involved.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3965, "page_number": "3958", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QYou are in agreement with the testimony given by the witnesses Vietz and Haessler.\nAYes, absolutely. Vietz was actually on the provincial level the competent man who had to make his decisions in these cases. Besides, I also agree with this because since this Criminal Inspector Haessler was a typical example of a Gestapo man, of course he was very familiar with all these problems. As for as the inclusion of the RUS leader into this procedure is called for in this letter, his activity, of course, depended upon a suggestion or instruction given by his agency. Whether in case of such a motion the RUS leader gained knowledge of the detailed situation at all and especially of the purpose of this examination and the effects this examination would have, whether he found all that out from the Reich Security Main Office, is not known to me. The witness Vietz emphatically answered that in the negative. Vietz, as well as Haessler, confirmed that it was always a matter entirely within the jurisdiction of the Gestapo and the whole thing, of course, is based upon the decree for the police and not upon a decree issued by RuSHA. Besides, these cases, as has already been mentioned quite frequently, did not take place in Danzig, West Prussia. I personally never knew about any such cases. Also a later decree of the Reichfuehrer of 15 February 1944, Exhibit 528, in Document Book 11, excludes the application of this very decree in the incorporated Eastern territories. This can be found on page 3 of this decree. From this it can be inferred, in a very logical way, that the decree was not valid in the incorporated Eastern territories and even the decree before that was not valid in the incorporated Eastern territories,\nQWitness, the Prosecution further charges you with participation in the punishment of illicit sexual intercourse between Czechs, other foreign workers, prisoners of war, and Germans, Did you in your Gau, have anything to do with such cases, either directly or indirectly?\nANo, there were no Czechs in my area and the decree altogether as I have stated before had no special significance for me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3966, "page_number": "3959", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QIn Document Book 11 there are further decree which, although they date from a later time when you were in West Prussia, I would like to ask you about in this connection. Why was a copy of the decree of the Reich Commissar dated 20 February 1942, Exhibit 521, concerning the allocation of labor and concerning marriages, addressed to you in Danzig, West Prussia? Did you know about this decree?\nANo, I don't know this decree. I can prove that from 15 February 1943 on, I was on a vacation for health reasons and from then on I was not officially active anymore in my agency in West Prussia but after that I took over the leadership of the RuSHA. But, even if I had received this decree, it would not have had any significance for me. I am convinced, and I know from experience that the Higher SS and Police Leaders in general were included in the distribution list according to the Scheme F. They will appear in all those documents in which the copies of the documents were submitted to the Higher SS and Police Leader for his information.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3967, "page_number": "3960", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The distributing agency in Berlin, i.e. the Main Staff Office had no particular reason, to make an exception with any of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in the distribution list if this distribution list was directed in general to all of them. Besides, all prohibition decrees were issued by the Reich Commissar, that is to say, the Reich Security Main Office.\nQI an now turning to point 15 of the Indictment Point 15 deals with the collaboration in measures which would prevent the procreation of enemy aliens. Of course this expression is a rather vague one. One could prevent the procreation of enemy aliens in many ways; also for instance, by keeping back prisoners of war. I want to ask you whether at this time, did you find out about any measure or were you involved in any measure Which would be to the point here. The documents themselves which are handed to you are all dated 1944.\nANo, I don't know these documents but to this problem, the prevention of procreation, I would like to state a few fundamental truths. The fact, that since the beginning of the war, that is, from 1939 until 1948, millions of German prisoners of war are kept in custody, or even for the most part as slave labor, in all Europe, is probably not only a preventative measure against procreation, but in the final analysis a liquidation, physically as well as psychologically, I would like to emphasize that this statement does not apply to the United States of America because they released all their prisoners of war. With this fact, the United States of America have remained loyal to their best traditions in the sense of their great Presidents, Washington and Lincoln.\nQI would now like to turn to point 20, spoliation. Witness, I am handing you the documents that pertain to this point and should like to ask you to comment upon them briefly.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3968, "page_number": "3961", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "AThe decree against the Poles dated 17 September 1940 was known to me as a matter of course. From the provisions contained in this decree and from the provisions of other decrees, I know that the property of members of the former Polish State could be and was confiscated under the provisions contained in this decree and following decrees. I, myself, did not in any way collaborate in these measures. The tasks that were delegated to me within the scope of this decree in my capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar which pertained to this very point were carried cut by my exports and the various departments that were subordinated to then. I am not saying this in order to shift my responsibility on to somebody else; far be it from me to do that, but I would like to state as a matter of fact that since these are special fields which were not entirely familiar to me and since I had more important matters to deal with -- I believe that they were more important within the framework of the whole problem -- I did not have any time to deal with those other details.\nQWitness, the two witnesses Homuth and Ebrecht have already testified to be effect that your agency in Danzig was not able to perform any work before April 1940. Do you agree with this testimony. Is it correct?\nAYes, that is correct, and in this connection I would like to supplement that statement by saying that also the agency of the Main Staff Office in Berlin was not really in operation before the beginning of 1940. Of course, I would like to say at the same time that it was operational later on, because far be it from me to minimize anybody; I would take that to be an insult.\nQWitness, was this decree against the Poles directed against persons who were supposed to be of an alien nationality? To what extent were you entitled to collaborate in such measures?\nAWithout doubt it can be clearly seen from the name of this decree that it applied to Poles. I would like to remind the court of the \n fact of how I tried to explain yesterday the legal situavion concerning the incorporation of Danzig, West-Prussia after the conclusion of the Polish campaign, and all the legal consequences that followed with regard to the relationship of the Reich to the members of the Polish State who at that time lived in the reconquered territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3969, "page_number": "3962", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "As far as these people belonged to the German race, they were, according to the decree of the Fuehrer of 8 October 1939, given the German nationality, After that I could have no doubts of any sort that the German Reich was justified and entitled to confiscate the property of such persons within the territory of the State who were Nationals of enemy nations, and in this case were Polish, or to confiscate the property of such persons who had had an inimical attitude against the German state or the German people. Such a seizure of property was carried out by the nations opposed to us in the First World War and I believe also in the Second World Year very soon after the beginning of the two wars. Also, Central Council Law No. 10 provides for the confiscation of the property of millions of Germans and lies thereby recognized the legality of measures of that sort. In order to prevent excesses this Polish property decree of September 1940 provided for the carrying out and the taking of measures only then when the clarification of nationality on the basis of the German People's List had finally been carrying out. This can be found in Exhibit 600 on page 3. The seizure furthermore included only real estate and left free movables as well as commercial property, The procedure itself was regulated in a valid law and there were possibilities of appeal in a complete legal apparatus. It is further actually only a seizure which could be carried out first by the Central Land Office. This can be seen from Exhibit 601, for in order to institute a legal administration of this property by a trustee, the sale of property needs to have the express permission of the competent authorities which were instituted on the grounds of the document which can be seen in Exhibit 592, This is the \n HTO, the main trustee agency East and this was the agency which seized the land in this Gau and this agency was not permitted to seize land in the Gau unless Himmler himself permitted expressly this seizure through the Central Land Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3970, "page_number": "3963", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3971, "page_number": "3964", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "This can be found on page 7 of this 1 st document. The seizure and confiscation of the property belonging to the former Polish State was provided in a decree. This decree was issued by the Minis terial Council for the Defense of the Reich.\nYou can see that in Exhibit 592. The BUT was influenced by this decree only as far as subordination was concerned, and in motions and offers by competitive agencies.\nI would like to refer to Exhibit 599. The property of farms and also of real estate in cities which was allocated to the resettlers as I have already mentioned on several occasions, had become free because of the flight of the owners from the soil. Besides, before that they had been legally seized by the HTO. I do not know anything about the distribution of the property of the former owners to resettlers. In view of all measures and the legal decrees which had been prepared in a perfectly conscientious manner, I, as representative of the Main Staff Office, as can be seen in exhibit 596, had no doubt to follow those decrees and measures and acted inaccord with them since every refusal would have been an insubordination against the laws of the German Reich, especially in wartime. Besides, the liaison officer to the HTO existed at the time and I would like to refer to Exhibit 596 again. The personality of this liaison officer guaranteed the correct and legal carrying out of these measures, I would like to point out again in conclusion that there is probably no functionary of any other state who would have acted differently in the same case and who would in any case have considered this spoliation.\nThe charge of spoliation that was made against me is unjustified. I understand something else by the word \"spoliation\" This concept is Very well known to me because, after all, I am an old soldier. In 1946 I was extradited to Poland quite unexpectedly in spite of the fact that the American camp leader from Zuffenhausen had told me before that an extradition was not possible.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3972, "page_number": "3965", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I would only like to mention that in connection with this concept of spoliation, plundering.\nThe transport which was carried out in a cattle car went through Czechoslovakia. In Cxechoslovakia the entire car-- there may have been about 35 Germans, officers, peasants, functionairies, there was also a General with us -- at pistol point, that is to say, with machine guns, were forced three or four times to give up their valuables and insofar as they did not do this voluntarily they were helped along by mistreatment in a physical way. The same thing happened to me. I lost everything at that time, the last things that I had been able to save from the jump-off. My wedding ring and small ring that had belonged to my mother, which were very important to me, not only because they were made out of gold, I was only able to save through the fact that I put these two rings into my mouth and that I did before every looting which was always announced to us bu vivid shouting. That is what I understand by looting and spoliation.\nQWitness, aid you and your agency have anything to do with the seizure of works of art, archives and other sorts of enemy property? I would like to show you exhibit 620 from document book 14-C. Please look at it.\nAYes, this document was sent to me for information purposes as can be seeb from the distribution list. I had actually nothing to do with this subject matter. The carrying out of the whole procedure was up to the Reich Security Main Office.\nQIn concluding this whole group of questions, I would like to show you some documents for identification purposes and I would like to ask you to do it as briefly as possible so that we can finish with your examination today. In Exhibit 633 in document book 14-C, the Prosecution has submitted a letter which you wrote on 6 September 1939 to the then Chief of the Main Office, It is, of course, clear that you are the author of this, but I would like to ask you now \n what was the significance of this letter or what happened with it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3973, "page_number": "3966", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "ANo, I don't really knew what can be proved with this letter, at any rate, or what is supposed to be proved. with this letter. A letter that is enclosed with this very letter of the Reich Food Estate of 29 August 1939 shows that they were looking for administrators for farm enterprises. I believed at that time that Pancke, as chief of the Settlement Office within the Race and Settlement Main Office, could appoint such managers or administrators. As an outsider I did not know the actual significance and the size of this agency, the Settlement Office, but merely for reasons of loyalty and comradeship, just in order to facilitate this ring of problems, I pointed out to him that I could probably help him in this connection, and that is why I wrote the letter to Pancke.\nQAnother point, witness. The witness Tesseraux has already testified about the so-called enterprises owned by the RuS. Do you agree with his testimony?\nAYes, I absolutely agree with the statements that the witness made. Tesseraux testified in detail and very correctly from his own experience as chief of this office, and his testimony has been confirmed by a further witness, Bauer.\nQIn conclusion I would like to refer to Exhibit 628 in document book 14-C. This documents deals with the request to the ReichsfuehrerSS to give you that is, you and your agency, watches and fountain pens for Christmas. Will you please comment on this document?\nAYes. When I wrote this letter, on the 18th of August 1943, I certainly did not know that I would be charged with anything because of this particular letter. At that time it was a question of bringing joy to wounded men. The head of the Department Welfare in my Main Office, Standartenfuehrer Kalkofen, in accordance with my instructions put forth great effort to help in a financial way in every way that was possible to him, the wounded and dependents of the \n Waffen-SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3974, "page_number": "3967", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "For this reason he showed me a letter, that is this veryExhibit 628, and he asked the Reichsfuehrer, who was the only man competent for this very matter for permission to use part of the stock of the WVHA which was in the camp Oranienburg, that is, of course, for repairs, There were big factories that could repair various things and also Army supply factories of every sort, and it was here a question of fountain pens and watches, so he asled me, with this letter, to give permission to distribute these things.\nHe showed me and submitted this letter to me for the reason that it went to the Reichsfuehrer-SS personally, and because he had to assume and he could, of course, assume that my signature would carry more weight. from this letter it cannot be inferred that those things originated in a concentration camp for it simply means that they had been put there to be repaired. I, of course, had to assume and also did assume that these things probably originated from some sort of property of enemy aliens that had been seized by the State.\nThere was no reason for me to search out the actual origin of these things. The word that was used there, Sonderaktion, special operations, does not mean anything for me, in view of the fact that every operation which had not been ordered in a general way for the whole Reich was called a special operation. This concept, special operation, has become a common word played and played over again like a cheap recording. Every man and every functionary of the Party who wanted to show off or, that is, who could prove that he could show off, for instance, would collect gloves or sweaters or lingerie or some otherthings for welfare. All this, of course, was a special operation and, was called just that, and that is exactly what this German word stands for. It is simply's special action, a special operation, and of course, if two people do the same thing, as theproverb, it never is the same thing, Very many of these so-called special operations went along currently with the winter relief action \n and there were so many collections that one could not stand it anymore.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3975, "page_number": "3968", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The permission for the distribution of such things was also mentioned in this letter, was given by the Reichsfuehrer-SS in person, and that is why I signed this letter, Besides, this was just request, Whether or not Himmler would give the permission I didn't know and I don't know now. I personally heard no-thing further about this matter. Of course, before Christmas, I was transferred and detached to Southern Russia and during the Christmas holidays I was snowed in on a Russian airfield.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3976, "page_number": "3969", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QWitness, before, coming to the next group of questions I would like to refer to three exhibits, 84,85 and 86, found in document book 3. These three documents still pertain to this whole complex of the treatment of aliens. Will you please comment upon these three documents?\nAExhibit 84, for instance, deals with several edicts concerning the treatment of aliens in the East. This is a more or less a crime xommitted by Reichsfuehrer Himmler himself, and so that there is no misunderstanding, I mean the author is Reichsfuehrer Himmler himself. On page 2 of this document it can be seen that this survey was sent to all heads of the main offices and also to all the Higher SS and Police that is, it was only for information but not to be published. As far as I know, this did not happen as far as I am concerned. I would have no particular reason not to admit the fact if that hid happened for Himmler passed on a lot of Utopian elaborations in words as well as in writing, and it was nothing now to me.\nAlso, this document certainly could not have moved me in any sort of way. The context is extravagant and Himmler himself probably thought that this document was very, very important. If I had read it at the time I certainly would have disagreed with him.\nExhibit 85, proves beyond any doubt the following fact: According to the thought that Himmler had at the time all aliens were supposed to be recognized and good relations were to be maintained with them, that is, besides Poles and Jews, also the Ukrainians and White Russians. The Jews were supposed to be brought towards emigration as can be road there. That is, of course, he is talking in no way of a liquidation or extermination as was later on carried out by this very same man, and that in the year of 1940, was the opinion that Himmler held at the time. This was the point of view of the SS and of every intelligent German, and I would say that that was the case until 1945.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3977, "page_number": "3970", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Perhaps it should be mentioned in this connection that Forster received this survey in Danzig, this Exhibit 85. On the other hand I did not receive it in spite of the fact that I was the representative of the Reich Commissar. That, of course, is the way things work in practice.\nQWitness, you were just touching upon the very thing that will form the subject matter of our next point which contains the charge that you have participated and collaborated in the elimination and liquidation of the Jews. I am handing you the documents that pertain to these points and I would like to ask you, in contrast to my usual practice, to testify in connection with this point, not only in connection with your activities in Danzig-West Prussia but also in your capacity as chief of RuSHA and later on in Southern Russia, and first I would like to ask you, do you know Exhibit 540 in document book 13-A and did you know it at the time?\nANo, the distribution list shows clearly that Heydrich sent this very decisive letter only to a very limited circle of persons, that is to say, the chiefs and heads of the Einsatzgruppen, of the Security Police and the Security Service, the SD. At that time I had not yet taken up my activities in Danzig-West Prussia. However, even if I had been in Danzig-West Prussia I would not have received this letter. There was, of course, no reason for my receiving this letter. There were no Einsatzgruppen in Danzig-West Prussia. The Einsatzgruppen were, as is now known, units that were assigned to the area behind the front lines. The document is completely unknown to me.\nQWitness, did you ever have anything to do with the seizure confiscation or trustee administration of Jewish property?\nANo, I had nothing to do with that.\nQDid you ever hear anything about the Action Reinhardt?\nANo, I heard this name here for the very first time in connection with the Security Police.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3978, "page_number": "3971", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QWitness, furthermore, in the course of this trial already several defendants and several witnesses have discussed the fact that in the Netherlands there have been card indexes of Jewish persons and that these card indexes were brought in some sort of connection or contact with the RuSHA.\nP*---*ease turn your attention to document 550 contained in document book 13-A. This document refers to these card indexes. Did you, in an official capacity or privately, have anything to do with any such procedure?\nANo, I had nothing to do with the procedure as mentioned in this letter. I don't even know this, letter. Besides at the time I was still on duty on the Balkan front.\nQHowever, this letter says that you had a great interest in this business?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3979, "page_number": "3972", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.Well, yes. Ossiander the chief of the genealogical records office was empowered by me insofar as I authorized him to do everything in order to complete the genealogical technical library. For this reason he received funds currently, and of course these funds were at his complete free disposal if they were not very high sums. Ossiander was a very eager person, and with these instructions on my part he went around and looked for everything that had anything to do with genealogy at all. One could compare that to a bloodhound who had smelled the scent of a partridge. He was very eager; I might even say too eager, because he knew justifiably that I was extremely interested in these matters. I had the ambition to develop a genealogical technical library which could be called complete, and I think I was successful. The library that fell into the hands of the occupation troops was absolutely unique. It was, of course, quite natural that Ossiander believed that he could do everything he did as the chief of the genealogical records office, that he would do that with my authorization since of course he had these instructions from me, but of course he was not authorized to do that; and he certainly in this matter exceeded his competency and he certainly exceeded his competency by mentioning my name. However, he did not have sufficient tact for differentiating between things of that sort, and of course tact is one of the things that one cannot learn.\nQ.Does the some thing apply to Exhibit 553, from Document Book XIII-A, concerning the Norwegian operation of card indexes?\nA.Of the card indexes for the Norwegians I only heard right now. Ossiander at that time reported to me personally. He informed me of the fact that a certain Ministerial Councillor Kuhnhaeuser from the Ministry of Culture, and besides without official instructions, had examined all the Norwegian church registers from the view point of whether or not they were German emigrants or not. The genealogical records office was not at all interested in this whole problem, and in this matter no further action was taken.\nQ.When you were chief of RuSHA, did you have any sort of insight into the work of the genealogical records office?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3980, "page_number": "3973", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.In general I would say that I did.\nQ.Did you supervise this work and did people report to you in connection with it?\nA.On the occasion of my official visits to Kyffaseuser, I looked at the genealogical records office and I had those people give me reports. The work of this office of course is well known. The genealogical records office was officially concerned end collaborated officially in the first place with the marital office whose head was Brigadefuehrer Heider. The genealogical records office received their orders end instructions from this man Heider. Brigadefuehrer Heider was the senior officer, the senior SS leader of RuSHA, and, as such, he had, when I was absent, the functions of my deputy as long as I was head of RuSHA in Berlin, and as far as possible he functioned as such because afterwards this office was transferred to Kyffuaeuser.\nQ.And do you know, witness, that the genealogical records office was formed with the purpose of liquidating the Jews? The defendant Schwalm, if I am not mistaken, already testified when he was in the witness stand on this subject, and now I would like to have you comment in connection with this point here before the Court. Were those card indexes of the genealogical records office used for the purpose that was alleged by the Prosecution, that is to say, the liquidation of the Jews?\nA.No, in no way at all. The defendant Schwalm and Kaul commented upon that in detail. The genealogical records office was used for internal SS matters and the concept daring the war had to include voluntary Germanics, that is to say the European SS. Also in this connection research was made since these SS men had to submit their various documents which were required in connection with their applications. In connection with the Jewish problem, as such, I would like to state a few fundamentals. I did not become a member of the National Socialist ideology because I had some sort of race hatred or any sort of sentiment; that would be entirely opposed to my nature. I became a National \n COURT I CASE VIII Socialist for political reasons and especially for sociological reasons.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3981, "page_number": "3974", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "It was clear to no even at that time that reaction and aggression was not a good basis for politics, for reaction always causes new-reactions. Of course then ultimately all forces will be used up in a negative way. As a front line soldier, having served in the First World War, I brought home the experience that the German completely without party allegiance and in great loyalty and comradeship is able to do his hard duty until the end of the war in spite of the fact that this German people was divided into very many parties. The soldier of the First World War fought for his fatherland quite apart from the fact whether he was a Social Democrat or a bourgeois or simply a member of a purely social party without any sort of restrictions. This, therefore, in practice proves that in times of need and danger all differences between the parties had vanished. It was, therefore, quite obvious to us, this new knowledge which I myself gained as a young officer after the end of the war, and to make it a basis of a new political order. There were no particularly forcible reasons to separate any longer these two concepts, national and social, and not to make a synthesis of them. These two concepts fought to the blood in Germany before that time. This fact, this new knowledge, I would say, this new experience and the incomparably cruel and humiliating Treaty of Versailles, those two were the basis and the prerequisites for the National Socialist movement. In 1923 I read in Munich, where I was studying at the time, for the first time the first so-called anti-Semetic book; this was the well-known book by Henry Ford, \"The International Jew\". This book seemed to prove to me that similar problems were not only taking place in Germany, even though they took place in other countries in a different form and under different conditions. Throughout the whole world, the Americans in spite of the optimistic idealism are considered to be realistic and rather sober. Therefore, the book could not fail to have a great influence on its German readers.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe, Mr. Witness, we will suspend here until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3982, "page_number": "3975", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.- Witness, you stopped at the discussion of Henry Ford's book, \"International Jewry\". Will you please continue?\nA.- I never overestimated this book, but, after all, it did raise certain problems and those problems, somehow, must have existed. Concerning the problem involved, the situation in Germany was especially complicated by the fact that, during the first World War, hundreds of thousands of so-called Eastern Jews had flooded into Germany. The social and cultural level of these people was inferior, and the resistance in Germany against the reception of these people was very strong. That was not only true amongst the ranks of Germans, as I know from my own personal experience, but also, and much more so, amongst those Jews who had been in Germany for centuries. I know, with great certainty, that that was true of Western Germany, where I was brought up, and where, in part, Jews had been living for centuries.\nFor example, Worms on the Rhine, which is my native town, has, I think one of the oldest of Europe's synagogues. This building in very interesting from an architectural, as well as from a cultural and historical view point, and, incidentally, this synagogue has not been destroyed.\nI do know that those Jews felt absolutely German and that, in general they were also considered German. Of course, there would be clashes everywhere, and probably, I think, there would be clashes amongst the Jews once in a while too.\nAs I have already said, at that time many voices were raised and last, but not least, there were the voices of the Jews, who vented their increasing worry about the over-increasing anti-Semitism, and who tried to find out the real reasons for that fact. They seriously engaged without prejudice, in ascertaining the reasons for this increase in anti-Semitism. In this connection, it is not an accident that, after the first \n World War, Dr. Rathenau, a German of Jewish descent and an exceptionally clever man, who later was Foreign Minister of Germany, wrote on this subject in his very intelligent publications, which became known to me at the time and which I read with great pleasure.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3983, "page_number": "3976", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Rathenau pointed out this danger with great precision, but, unfortunately, this very Dr. Rathenau was murdered in the course of a plot, which was as stupid as it was without point, and probably not so very little connected with this anti-Semitism which he understood so clearly and the dangers of which he estimated with so great a certainty.\nAfter the first World War, the situation, in Germany could only be mastered by European men of the top level, and Dr. Rathenau was one of those men. I recall, during the last years, that I read various publications by a British editor, whose name was Victor Golenz, who is also of Jewish descent. I found that this man struck me and brought to my mind very vividly the spiritual ideas of Rathenau. Golenz too is a great European who has a deep insight into the future, and his publications can only be approved by every reasonable and far-sighted man, regardless of what nationality he may be. Golenz is not only a great European, as it seems to me, but also a great human, and I think there you have the key to the whole question.\nFrom my own home I had an absolutely tolerant and democratic education, in the good sense of the word. Fundamentally speaking, that was nothing exceptional in Western Germany. I can remember very well that the best friend of my father was an orthodox Jew named Harburger, who was the owner of an art and antique shop at Bayreuth, which was my father's home town. These two men were joined by a very hearty and close friendship until their deaths. I still have the picture of this friendship, from the days of my youth, vividly in my memory even today. Within me I never doubted, not for a minute, that this man Harburger felt only German. Not only did he feel as a German, but I also know from my own \n personal experience that this man condemned his own comrades of his faith to the extent that they did not recognize the vital interests of Germany and the cultural level of Germany.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3984, "page_number": "3977", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "This is only one example, which I could enlarge upon with many other names from the towns of Worms and Frankfurt on the Main where, as it is well know, many jews lived.\nOn the other hand, the fact was that, particularly after the first World War, the Jews in Germany had gained a very great influence over public life and public opinion, an influence which was not at all in proportion with the percentage of jews in the German population. Without being particularly a prophet, one could quite foresee that this disproportion, sooner or later, would bring about an important tension, as it actually occurred.\nIn this connection it is worthwhile mentioning that in the Nazi Party program -- I mean, the first one published -- Jews were not referred to as one general category, but Eastern Jews were the only category referred to. In this connection it was demanded that these Eastern Jews be deported back to the East and repatriated, because they caused too much unrest among the German people. For the rest, politically speaking, one could observe that the Communists and most radical labor movements were very strongly under Jewish leadership, and this fact also created considerable reaction of a doubtful, nature amongst the German people. On the other hand the fact was that in other countries of Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe, so-called numerous clauses had already been introduced in decrees limiting the number of Jews active in this or that profession, by which the predominant position of Jewry, particularly in the liberal professions such as professors of universities, and so on, was to be prevented.\nThis situation existed before 1933; all these problems doubtlessly existed even if they never were decisive for me personally, as I have already told you. However, these problems now obstructed our way, to the \n extent in which they impeded us considerably in our political aims.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3985, "page_number": "3978", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "That could be felt particularly strongly in the press. This development is to be considerably regrettable in the light of persons as human beings. I have regretted it, but by regretting it you don't do away with it.\nPerhaps that was the tragic error of jewry, that they did not advocate and sponsor, at that time, the justified interest of the German people and did not understand them at the time. That was at a period when the German people suffered so much from the Versailles Treaty.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3986, "page_number": "3979", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "However, here again I would not want to generalize, because generalizations always distort one's judgment. You cannot fit all human beings into one pattern, and that can be applied to the smallest family; somewhere, somehow, every human being is a special personality and is different, and that also applies even to the Jews, they are also very much different.\nDuring the whole period when I was a. National Socialist and a member of the General SS, from 1931 on, I was never personally approached with any Jewish problem; I didn't even have contact with any Jewish problems. For the very reason of my personal conception of that question, I had a very severe clash with the famous Streicher, which has already been mentioned here, and which, therefore, I don't want to mention again. The reason for this clash was our complete difference of opinion concerning the political and humane problem. I refuted in the strangest manner the well known excesses of November 1938 against the Jews, and I can, prove that. From the viewpoint of the national economy, these excesses were very stupid, and they could not be defended from the humane and political point of view. To speak quite openly, they were an outrage. When that happened, on the 10th of November, I went back to, Wiesbaden -- I had been in Munich before that--and, quite clearly I took all SS men to task who had been involed in these excesses against the orders given, and I punished them severely, because this involved a matter or principle. I shall also submit an affidavit on this question.\nAlso, in later years, after 1938, I could never suppose that the intention was to solve the Jewish problem by force. All official proclamations--and also these which I heard about accidentally stated only that German and Jewish ethnic groups should be clearly separated, to the effect of the Nurnberg Laws, that is, and with the tendency to advocate and promote, as far as possible, the emigration of Jews without economically damaging these groups, in so far as the other countries were ready to receive the immigrants. That was because the will of a Jewish family to emigrate was not sufficient. After all, there had to be a \n country to receive them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3987, "page_number": "3980", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "AS to these problems, after all, we have been able to read of them in the newspapers during these' last years on various occasions. Accidently, the Prosecution has made it possible for me to again see an order from 1943, which was submitted in the documents concerning the treatment of Jews in the Eastern Territories, - and I am not referring to the Incorporated Eastern Territories, but to those territories east of the Government-General. In this order fraternization is partiuclarly warned against, that is, fraternization between Germans; I mean, the occupation forces, on the one hand, and Jews on the other.\nEssentially speaking, as a soldier I have quite an understanding for the necessity of such orders. I know that in 1944, when the invasion spread over Europe, General Eisenhower issued a very severe order to prevent fraternization in German areas, as a soldier, I cannot critize that in any manner, and in this particular case I cannot critize it as a human being either. From the viewpoint of a soldier, an officer is responsible for the defensive and fighting morale of his troops, and he has to do everything in his power to maintain that morale as long as the troops need it.\nThat order of 1943, which I mentioned a while ago, therefore, only proves that nobody was even thinking of a forcible solution of that problem, and one cannot gain a different impression, because otherwise nobody would have had to issue those orders.\nAlso, as the Chief of RuSHA, I never heard anything about a planned extermination of the Jews, for example, like these bestialities at Auschwitz; I never heard that they had occurred. The Posen speech, according to my certain recollection, did not contain those hints. This has already been stated by General Berger in his testimony, and perhaps that has clarified the matter to the effect that I myself did not know that Himmler was speaking particularly and expressly of the operations in Warsaw, at the time, in connection with a certain Schroth.\nAt that time these matters went on officially through the press, \n and even through the world newspapers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3988, "page_number": "3981", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Also, it was known that there was a revolt, which seemed dangerous because it was in the rear of the German front, and that this revolt had been crushed with all the means at the disposal of the Germans. Now, I don't know what the method of crushing this revolt was, in particular, because I don't know of the whole matter from my own experience. However, I can imagine that the fighting was very bloody, as street fights are the bloodiest you can imagine. If Himmler, at the time, in his Posen speech, made the hint contained in the Prosecution document, then doubtlessly this would have caused a very strong and violent reaction. I don't think that Himmler, at that time, was still in a position to afford that, because that was a period when he had many enemies who were quite critical of him and who rejected his theories, enemies within the highest SS leadership circles, and I was one of them, too.\nFor the rest, the circle of participants of that speech was not limited to major generals and lieutenant generals of the SS, but was much larger. It went into the field grade leadership, as has been already testified to by General Berger. Therefore, it was quite unlikely that Himmler would have touched upon such a delicate and deadly-serious problem before such a large circle, where quite clear orders had been given to him, most probably, not to speak about these matters at all.\nThe fact of the liquidations at Auschwitz--as I can and will provecame to my knowledge only in April of 1945, by the Judge I was faced with at the time, that is, Dr. Morgan. It came to my knowledge quite by accident during a conversation concerning this problem. I do not have to stress the fact that I was most deeply moved and indignant because of these facts, and that, furthermore, I thought I saw an immense danger in that for the reputation of the SS in general, that is, the General So and the Waffen-SS, which units were not in the slighest connected with these matters and never took any part in them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3989, "page_number": "3982", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "On account of this fact which did not leave me my peace any more, I contacted Himmler at the end of April. I went there by a plane which General Schoerner had placed at my disposal. At that time, Himmler was already in his evacuation quarters of the so-called Reich Government at Flensburg. I took him to task personally on account of these matters. There are witnesses for that Then Himmler, first of all, tried to evade the question and then had to admit that this information, given to me by Dr. Morgan was correct: that it was on account of a so-called Fuehrer Order which he was no longer in a position to change. He stressed at the time that the Hungarian Jews had been treated by him very decently, and that he had tried secretly to weaken the measures. At the time he still considered himself a person fit to negotiate with the Allies, which was a sign of the complete mental disorder in the brain of this man. At the time I was very violently indignant and I separated myself from Himmler in a completely unsoldierly manner, after a very violent clash. I did so knowingly. At the time Himmler refused to issue statements via the radio and the newspapers-in fact, statements which he could have made at the time still and where he could have proclaimed who had the binding responsibility for these crimes at Auschwitz. I urgently, and almost on my knees, asked him to make these statements because I was aware of the consequences. But Himmler was too much of a coward and too much devoid of all sense of responsibility to do this last duty he had towards all the men of the General SS and the Waffen SS. He told me it was too late. I told him that for such a statement it could never be too late: \"That is your moral duty, if you even have the slightest shade of a semblance of the situation at all.\" But he didn't do so, and his end was as miserable as his actions were.\nTo come back to the Poznan speech, if at the time this fact about the extermination had become known, then Himmler could not have counted on the obedience and the allegiance of the SS any longer, and that was the reason why knowingly and in a very refined and clever system only \n about 100 people were aware of this extermination question.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3990, "page_number": "3983", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "That can be testified to and confirmed also by Dr. Morgan, who in 1944 in his official capacity investigated this matter. You have there the almost paradoxial and nonsensical fact that this Dr. Morgan, on behalf of the Reichfuehrer, had to investigate matters which were issued by the express orders of the Reichsfuehrer himself, only in order to create outwardly the semblance that these matters were not in line with the general orders which was a sign for the inner corrupt attitude of this man Himmler. I consider that Himmler's attitude and also Hitler's attitude--and I have to make this statement which is not very easy for me--in this question was particularly horrifying, because they distorted the pure, immaculate code of arms of the SS, at least in the eyes of the world which cannot be informed about the real situation--they soiled this code of arms in a manner which can only be considered to be the highest lack of morality and lack of sense of responsibility; also, the fact that misusing the oath of allegiance and the wrongly conceived sense of loyalty to use SS members to such tasks and to be able to use them at all is destroying and crushing for the judgment which I have today, now that I know these matters with regard to this man Himmler.\nQDoes that conclude your statement concerning your attitude toward Jewry?\nAYes.\nQWell then, I think this is the time now to elucidate further your attitude towards the Nazi Party and towards National Socialism, because this attitude of yours is also important for your personality. May I ask you to comment upon that question in a few brief words?\nAThe policy of old standing, that is the Party policy which in itself was already superseded by the last World War, because an old spirit cannot be fitted into new forms and into new patterns without being spoiled--well, this policy was unknown to me, as a soldier and as a human being ; on the other hand, the discrepency between the words and promises of the then statesmen of our opponents and of the Treaty of \n Versailles was too great and too large for a mail who had been a participant in that World War--a World War for which two million German people had died in good faith--for a man to be indifferent to the misery and to the bad situation in which his people were.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3991, "page_number": "3984", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "If only as a human being, I felt the responsibility to help in some manner by finding new ways and new methods, because apparently up to then the methods used had not brought any results.\nAt the time--and it was very bitter to have to understand that-it had become clear to me that having confidence in the words of the opponent in itself is not enough as a basis for the existence of a people. If at that time, after 1918, there was one and one only chance to build up a really democratic Europe, and if that chance was spoiled against the will of the United States, then that was on account of the pig-headedness of Clemenceau in France, who was a typical old party fanatic. New orders cannot be established with such people. As brave and as successful the German might have thought himself on the battle-front, so hopeless was the situation at that time in the political field, and it was the duty of every decent German who even loved his country, that when the situation was not too good he had to help to meet the questions raised by the Treaty of Versailles in one way or the other.\nIn this way, I, myself, also practically forcibly came into contact with politics in 1921 when I was a student in Munich, In 1922 or 1923it must have been towards the new year--I first became a member of the NSDAP, but at the time I was not active in the movement because I had no time for it then. However, at the same time I joined the so-called Oberland Association. Its aims, essentially speaking, were nearer to my own as the aims and the methods of the Nazi Party. The Oberland Association, which has been mentioned in this trial already once, was a union of men under the leadership of one Dr. Friedrich Weber, a man who was exemplary in every respect. The members of this association. were young people without regard to their profession and class, but they all had the one and only aim to create a new German community capable of existence, and to build \n it up from the bottom and quite systematically.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3992, "page_number": "3985", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I would like to mention that this Oberland Association is not identical with the Oberland-Freicorps. This Freicorps Oberland was a military organization of upperSilesian fighters who were active after the first World War. The method of work in this Oberland Association was quite different from that of the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party tried to conquer the bread messes by political propaganda, while the activity of the Oberland Association was more oriented towards educational work aimed at the individual. Even in later years, I always considered that the decisive factor of political education-- and I am still of that opinion today--that after the collapse in 1923, this Oberland Association was also prohibited, and later it was admitted again as a registered society and I joined it also. My activities in this association was very limited because at the time already I was working in the ceramic industry as a correspondent.\nFrom 1920 to 1930 I was in the United States, as I have already mentioned. In 1930 I returned, on account of a strong economic depression which prevailed at the time in the whole of the United States. The foreigners at the time were the first ones to be fired, and after all I was a foreigner. My nationalization had not been carried out yet because I hadn't been there for five years, and therefore I returned to Germany at the time together with my wife, convinced--and I had gained that conviction in the United States, and I am very glad for the period that I spent there--that the German in Europe could only fulfill his mission if at least those areas of which he had been deprived in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles would be given back to him. Therefore, in the same year that I returned, I joined the Nazi Party and placed myself at their disposal, because I was, and still am of the opinion that Germany has the same rights in this world as every other nation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3993, "page_number": "3986", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "With the fullest conviction and the best of faith, I approved Hitler's policy in its broad outlines, until 1939 and 1940. On the strength of such information and knowledge which I gained in my position. Even the well against Poland could not change my confidence that Germany was fighting on the side of the right. Therefore I promoted this movement with all my force, because all other parties could not be considered at all as the exponents of a political will. Basically speaking, the Nazi movement was pursuing healthy and sound aims at the time. Even under the democratic rules of the games, they could quite legally obtain votes of the majority of the German people and thus seize power legally in 1933. The most severe opponent which the Party had ideologically from the long struggle from 1921 to 1933 and which the Party had to do away with, was Bolshevism and its dangerous international ideology. Even today I consider that the spiritual side of this Bolshevism is at least as dangerous or even more dangerous than the armored cars backing up this idea. For us Germans particularly, Bolshevism was especially dangerous, on the one hand, for geographical reasons, but also because the German has a tendence toward hyper-objectivity in -acknowledging his own situation, and that attitude can easily be transformed into a cosmo-political way of thinking. I was not a national socialist in the Chauvinistic sense. I refused to be. Essentially speaking, this way of national socialism is not in line with German thinking, and it's not a descent either that you have to use a French word to point out this attitude, because this characteristic in the German nature does not exist inasfar as the German nature is really German.\nIn 1931 I made Hitler's acquaintance for the first time. This was the first and only meeting I had with him personally, and where I talked to him personally and alone. The conversation took a few minutes only and covered matters of very little consequence. I even know with certainty that we talked about art questions: pictures, and the value of pictures. In spite of the fact that I met Hitler later on various occasions, I never had the possibility of discussing with him serious questions and having a \n personal contact with him except perhaps for the military reports which every soldier had to make to his supreme chief, but that you cannot term as conversation anyhow.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3994, "page_number": "3987", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I mention this fact because it is characteristic and shows Himmler's policy--Himmler, who jealously saw to it that all SS leaders under his command were prevented from having personal contact with Hitler. He succeeded in realizing this policy in a very consequential manner. Thereby he curtailed Hitler through the channels of the Higher SS leaders. That referred also to other high leaders of all other sectors, that through these channels in the various gaus and army districts--these channels which had important information at their disposal all the time would take up contact with Hitler. That would really have been most necessary because that was the only way for Hitler to get a really true picture of the situation and of the conditions and thus gain the information he needed.\nThat is not the last fact why Germany has lost this war. This is particularly amazing for a man like Hitler, who had risen on account and with the German people--a man who had come from modest beginnings. It's proof of the fact how dangerous the state machinery and the idolatry of the state idea can act on the conditions and on the relationship with the people. After all, the state ought to serve the people and not the people the state.\nThe so-called revolution of January 1933 may well be considered the least bloody revolution of world history. It did in no way bring me into conflicts with my conscience. At the time I was convinced that at all times Hitler would prefer evolution to revolution. The seizure of power of 1933, for instance, in this respect was strongly opposed to the French revolution of 1739--a revolution which was very bloody and led to a herrifying civil war, exterminated the most valuable French blood until the moment when Napoleon came and stopped this constant hari-kari. In this connection, it might be worth mentioning that all the ideas of this French revolution, in as far as they represented great new spiritual ideas, that is to say, the theory of human rights did not grow on French soil but on \n British and American soil, because all the so-called achievements of this French revolution were basically already contained in the statement in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3995, "page_number": "3988", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "There was only one difference: that this cleared the road in the United States for human rights and for freedom and for the development of freedom, while in Paris, these concepts were proclaimed and the result was only bloodshed and a civil war, which was quite damaging in every respect.\nOn the 30 of June 1934, the so-called Roehm Putsch was the first event which shook in some manner my faith in the leadership--but it only shook it. These men who had been influential and well-esteemed were eliminated at that moment. However, my misgivings were later on discarded again on account of the general statement made by the Reich Government, and to which I listened myself as a representative in the Reichstag, A state of emergency was declared because they could prove that the Putsch men, like Roehm and others, really had intended to overthrow the state, According to my opinion, however, this state emergency should never have arisen at all, for as the Nazi Party further developed, it showed that the tendency of mass development brought about its doom. It was in contradiction with all the experiences of history and with all the essential and original ideas and ideals of national socialism to let the Party swell without limit. This prevented the aim in which all the older members hoped, namely to create a new political type of man for it could not be achieved. It was the tendency and the aim of every state leadership to develop a type of man capable of following a consistent line and of bringing a consistent line into the policy of that state without wavering-and therefore you speak of a type of man produced, for instance, by British diplomacy and by the Catholic church.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3996, "page_number": "3989", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Above all the development of such an attack needs time and National Socialism always committed the basic error to speed up things too much. Therefore, there were many things grown in the hothouse as put in c ontradiction with those plants and trees that grew in nature. If you want to achieve something good then you have to use the necessary time. In misdevelopment as I considered it, that is, this constant swelling without limit of the Party created in Germany and transformed Germany into sort of a collective structure and this development, to a certain point, had to be accepted in view of higher state-political considerations. At the time it was clear to me that the victory which Hitler had won within the Reich with his movement, would one day have to be represented also in the field of foreign policy because the world, in 1933, had only partly approved the victory of National Socialism in Germany. At the time we were threatened in the East with the sphinx of Bolshevism and this danger was spread out more and more by the propaganda, of National Socialism. In order to counter the danger of this Bolshevism one day, and in order to be able to do so, the State leadership, at least had to provide our people with some means of defense, capable of facing this collective system of the Soviet Union which was on a level as never before existed in world history. During these last weeks I read that even the United States of America has introduced general conscription. I consider that a way of defense and necessary, in spite of the immense distances and in spite of natural geographical borders, but what in 1930 could still be considered a natural border cannot be so considered in modern times with modern weapons and long range bombers. There cannot be any doubt that Hitler forsaw this coming clash with Bolsehvism and recognized it clearly with all its consequences and that, therefore, he sponsored the mass development in German, up to a certain point, and considered it necessary. Even if I personally disapproved of this development in Germany, if I take my own individual viewpoint and regretted it, I had to recognize all the same that it was no longer up to the individual German to find for himself the State \n form suitable to his personal liking but that as from 1933 the development of the German people had somehow to be forced into a pattern in accordance with the law that the pattern is always forced upon you by your opponent.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3997, "page_number": "3990", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "If this opponent develops collective force which can be a threat to your very existence, then you have to consider what forms you have to develop yourself to counteract that danger. Therefore, these were forcible developments and many developments can arrive in the world without being voluntary in the beginning but their forcible reactions or preventative measures are forms of defense. At the time we were faced with the very sober question of whether this scattered Europe could be united spiritually in the last hour and fitted for the common aim and organized as one unit economically speaking, or not. This was the vital question with which the German people were faced and over and beyond that it was the vital question for the whole of Europe, that is for the socalled occudent. The hope that after the seizure of power in 1933 the world would show an understanding for the misery and for the vital interests of Germany unfortunately didn't come true. In innumerable appeals, statements, and speeches, Hitler promoted this claim of Germany and at the same time he stressed quite seriously and repeatedly his will to collaborate and to live in peace with Europe, if, these European countries were ready to make reparations for the injustice of the Versailles treaty. From this world-political situation the repeated and quite serious attempts Hitler made until 1939 have to be understood, attempts mainly to come to an agreement with Britain. I myself felt in my capacity as deputy in every speech of Hitler the unequivocable will to come to a friendly and peaceful agreement with the neighboring and surrounding countries if these countries would only recognize our natural rights, a claim which, even to the smallest State like Holland and Belgium for instance, in view of their colonial empires, was recognized. All attempts of that nature and even the Olympiade in Berlin was one of those attempts that failed. Every German at that time, not because he was a National Socialist, but because he was a German, had to have the feeling in himself strengthened that the \n world simply wouldn't permit us to have all the Germans which were dragged away from their native country by Versailles, united again.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3998, "page_number": "3991", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I personally witnessed many conversations which Hitler had with third persons until 1939 and even afterwards, conversations that were quite clearly and passionately full of profound seriousness; Hitler aimed at this link with Britain, I was convinced, almost without conditions, and he aimed at this strengthening. In this connection there is a forerunner in history because Bismarck who was clever and great and a far-seeing man did not succeed in creating this link between the two countries to the disadvantage of those two countries as can be seen today more and more clearly. These facts and these consideration's at the time caused me in spite of many personal things I disapproved of to adhere to Hitler's political ideas and to be loyal to them. It is an error to believe that at the time even one German would have dared or could have dared to do anything against Hitler's opinion in those matters.\nQ.Witness, may I interrupt you. I think this is about time to recess, if I may be permitted to make the suggestion.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I thoroughly agree with you.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 3999, "page_number": "3992", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 20 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Will you please make your concluding comment on the chapter that we have discussed this morning concerning your attitude towards National Socialism.\nA.I said, in conclusion this morning, that I personally was opposed to every sort of dictatorship or any sort of limitation of individual freedom, but, in spite of that personal opinion, at that time I had to keep quiet, Only by a most severe concentration to reach one aim did a solution seem to be possible, the more so since it was clear to me and to all other persons who had an insight into the matter that the task of Germany was really a task of Europe. My attitude towards this point is the same that I still hold today -- although Germany does not possess sovereignty it the moment -- namely that Germany has to strengthen the defenses of central and Southern Europe against aggression. After all, the history of Europe during the last 2,000 years can be characterized by saying it was an eternal fight against becoming an appendage of Asia at the Oder Neisse line and with the surrender of Germany and of Austria, 2,000 years of Europe's right of self-determination have come to naught, in spite of the fact that the method of leading Germany by means of Asiatic collective measures was wrong. Unfortunately leadership in this consideration has over or under estimated the character of the German people. In any case wrongly estimated it, and in that way fostered hypocrits on the one side and opposition on the other. This wrong development inside of Germany existed in addition to \n the necessary military setbacks that occurred in the first year of the war.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4000, "page_number": "3993", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Responsible men in leading positions in Part and State attempted, therefore, to influence Hitler more and more precisely. They had the aim in doing this of bringing the war to a supportable end by negotiations. I myself belonged to this faction. At that time it was not really an opposition group or a resistance group although this is rather fashionable now and many people claimed to have belonged to such a group, who at the time stood attention all day long and went to bed with their steel helmets on. we wanted to influence Hitler an decisive way and we wanted to do that in an entirely legal manner with completely fair and serious methods as they corresponded to our tradition and our educational training but we wanted to be completely open with him. These efforts and the efforts of my colleborators failed, and the only reason for this failure Was that Hitler himself, being surrounded by not very valuable and intelligent men, was completely separated from us. He was not informed about the true situation of Germany and especially not about the situation at the various fronts. This tragic development was increased by the unhappy struggle for power of the various-groups in Hitler's close environment; on the one hand the power superiority complex, of Himmler end on the other hand the power complex of Martin Bormann. Even though the circle that I have mentioned before and to whom I belonged wished to bring about change of course in German politics and thereby also in the conduct of the war by all means, I refused to conduct a Putsch as the one of 20 July 1948 in my capacity as a soldier and as a human being. This Putsch was pure dilettantism; the most impossible people took part in it and especially it had no sort of resonance at the front lines. At that time I myself stood in the front lines in Roumania, that is, in the Carpathian Mountains, and I experienced myself what a shock this Putsch was to the complete combat troops and how bad for morale it was and they all spontaneously rejected the idea. Unfortunately, good men, \n and especially men in good faith, were members of this operation and ended in part ingloriously.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4001, "page_number": "3994", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I criticized and condemned this Putsch also for just that reason, because if one actually risks to do a thing and actually carries it cut then one has to have the courage to own up to it and fight it cut, that is the decisive moment.\nQ.Witness, in 1943 you were appointed Chief of the RuSHA. Defendant Hofmann, as witness in his own case, has already discussed this whole complex question in detail. Therefore, I do not need to discuss with you the general points that would be of interest for the RUSHA but I would like to limit myself to the period of time in which you were the Chief of the RuSHA, It may perhaps be of some significance if you would make some detailed comments about the significance and position of the RuSHA during your time and in how for the prosecution is correct in designating the RUSHA as a typical manifestation of SS powers and as an SS main office; was for as you remember, how did you become Chief of the RuSHA?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4002, "page_number": "3995", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.I would like to state first that, of course, the RuSHA was an SS agency. In March, 1943, I found out that I was scheduled to be the chief of the RuSHA without any preliminary conferences, completely out of the air. This Main Office at that time had been under the command of Obergruppenfuehrer Berger, and I then took over my office in this Main Office in about eight days or two weeks. All of a sudden I was told that the order was rescinded, and Berger had to take over this office again, for in the meantime my comrade Hofmann had lost Himmler's confidence and therefore a successor had to be appointed. For this reason Himmler had the ingenious idea of scheduling me for this very post.\nQ.Did you refuse to take over this post or were you delighted with the idea of being appointed as such?\nA.Well, it is saying too much if I would admit that I liked to take over this situation. After all, I was quite well informed abort the significance and the octant of this Main Office, well enough anyhow in order to know that in 1943, that is, after Stalingrad, the majority of these agencies were no longer of essential significance for the conducting of the war, and as a matter of principle I opposed all those things which would hinder us in conducting a total war.\nThe individual offices were not known in detail to me and especially not the special offices, and after all the RuSHA is actually a technical office, It is therefore not a Main Office in the organizational meaning of the word. The word was, extremely specialized, especially in the marriage office and the race office, did not as such appeal to me. I also pointed this- out to Himmler and I tried to convince him of the fact that I would probably be more useful at some other post. I would have preferred an assignment at the front lines directly, for there again I would have preferred, an assignment at the front lines directly, for there again I(would have found clear situations and clear channels of command. It takes a lot of nervous energy if you never know, during the course of your life, for what you are responsible and for what you ore not responsible \n any longer, inasmuch as one takes one's profession rather seriously, and I always attempted to do just that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4003, "page_number": "3996", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "At that time Himmler absolutely wanted to appoint me as the successor, First of all my relationships in DanzigWest Prussia weren't the best ones, and in the second place he explained the reasons to me about as follows:\n\"I know that you, with respect to this Main Office, are not exactly an expert, nor do you really know anything about the welfare and pensions offices, but the heads of the departments which will be subordinate to you are senior officials, They know their work very well, and you really don't have to supervise them very much. Besides, it will be very easy for you to train yourself in the workings of this office I also realize\", Himmler sais \"that the significance of this Main Office is a rather inferior one but, besides that, I know that the we If are office increases in significance continuously and that is just why I appointed you as chief of this Main Office. I know that you have a special talent for social welfare activities just as for all the other matters in which human beings arc involved. The Main Office increases in significance as far as these matters are concerned and, the fact that these two offices, that is, the two welfare offices, shall be headed by a man with a heart and not only by a bureaucrat, - that is the decisive factor for me.\"\nQ.Did you then take over this office?\nA.Yes, on the 20th of April, 1943. I really made an effort to work myself into these two offices and especially into those two social welfare offices which really appealed to me because there was a lot of good that could be done in these fields. The additional welfare and pensions offices were not the only thing. There was also the State care of the Waffen-SS and police, as well as welfare and social security which was provided for by law, that is, it was the complete welfare apparatus for the Waffen-SS and the Police, and this apparatus was extremely extensive. It had very good effects. The effects were so good that sometimes the Wehrmach complained that the SS took too good care of their people, that they \n bothered with their people too much, and therein, taken with a grain of salt, there was a bit of truth.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4004, "page_number": "3997", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The entire independence of that office which already ousted under the term of office of my comrade, Hofmann, the independence especially of the marriage office, the race office, was not hindered by me. Of course, there was no special reason for doing that. I gave them complete freedom of decision, especially with regard to their own work and to that of the various superior Reich agencies.\nThis was perhaps also necessary because in the course of the summer of 1943, on the strength of my order, because of danger from air attacks, all these offices from Berlin were transferred into the outlying districts, and then, of course, they had to be in a position of being able to work independently. This dispersal within the Reich and beyond the Reich proper required long journeys and I remember quite distinctly that I needed several months to accommodate all these offices in a precursory way.\nAt that time Germany already had an extreme shortage of buildings and furniture such as I needed for equipping these offices. There were, of course, very often just emergency solutions insofar as the offices as fir as communication was concerned were located in very difficult areas. Because of this very last fact also, the necessity for working independently was increased even more. Personal inspection tours were very difficult in view of the increasing air attacks during the year 1943 and in 1944, especially in Central and South Germany, they were absolutely impossible, The majority of main communication lines and especially the autobahn, and I saw that with my own eyes, were already during those two years under the continuous threat of being strafed by enemy airplanes.\nQ.Now, from these facts did you gain a knowledge in regard to the significance of keeping up these subordinate offices?\nA.Yes. As I already mentioned, the independence of these offices had to be made more and mere extensive so that the whole business would function. After I had informed these offices individually, and I inspected, the personnel of these offices, I recognized that these offices were in no way essential to the war any longer. Therefore, in the summer \n of 1943 I made the very justified suggestion to have these various offices dissolved and the offices Were the race office, the settlement office, the genealogical records office, and the marriage office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4005, "page_number": "3998", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "In this dissolution of the offices my purpose was to make these men and women be released from these offices available for the Wehrmacht.\nThis motion for dissolution of the offices was something entirely now, especially since I thereby curtailed my sphere of influence and my sphere of power in favor of a purpose which seemed essential to me. However, for me the decisive factor was the knowledge that the most important thing now was to end this war with all means at our disposal. I did not think it a decisive factor whether or not marriage applications were taken care of, whether any sort of examinations by marriage examiners were made, whether or not genealogical research and examinations concerning descent were made, and so forth and so on, All these functions I believed were completely superseded and obsolete, aid I did not believe to be able to defend my position in not pointing cut this fact.\nQ.And that was the result of your motion?\nA.In spite of the fact that every man in Germany at that time spoke about the necessity of total war, this motion, which was in logical connection with this very thought, was rejected and very severely rejected. That was typical of the actual practice. Everyone vented total warfare but only as far as the other one was concerned. Therefore, I saw myself forced to continue working as I had done before, even though I had lost my enthusiasm for this work.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4006, "page_number": "3999", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QDo you agree with the statements of defendants Hofmann and Schwalm which they made as witnesses in their own case concerning the organization, the tasks of the RuSHA, and do you have anything to add to this testimony?\nAYes, I not only agree to the general part of these statements, but even in the specialized parts for my comrades were much better informed about the specialized work than I was. Therefore, I agree with them completely.\nQWould you like to make any sort of fundamental, statements concerning these questions?\nAYes, The RuSHA, as is charged in the indictment, is so heavily charged because the prosecution wishes to read into a he words \"race and settlement main office\" very important conclusions and over estimates the real significance of this Main Office. However, this would not be correct.\nI would like to describe in brief the two concepts, race and settlement. Race, in the sense of political propaganda, had nothing to do with the race and settlement office. This was entirely up to the race political office of the Party and as is well known the Party, of course, was competent in all things that had to do with the indoctrination and education of human beings. In the course of this trial I believe it has been proven conclusively that the race office, that is to say, especially the classification experts and also the marriage office, and the genealogical records office, were for the main part concerned only with purely internal SS matters and continued to be concerned with those things mainly even until the end of the war, with the creation of the agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, the race and settlement office by way of the racial examiners was delegated various national tasks, via this agency of the Reich Commissar. This activity has been described in points 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 and 18 of the indictment.\nThe settlement office, which could made the impression as though my Main Office at that time settled, at that time had, of course, only the duty to take members of the Waffen-SS and other members of organizations \n who were willing to resettle and had to place them end train them for their future profession in enterprises and farms.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4007, "page_number": "4000", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "It had, therefore, the more profound significance to recruit men for settlement as such, that is, for the idea and the ideals of peasantry. In 1943, therefore, I suggested to the Reich Fuehrer to change the name of the RuSHA since this title of the office in no way corresponded any longer to the actual function of the office, and, of course, Himmler could not deny the truth of my reasoning. He decided that after the war the RuSHA would be redesignated SS Eugenics Main Office.\nI think there is still an extensive correspondence concerning this point, SS Eugenics Main Office, because in this expression the concepts of family, tribe and welfare are consolidated. I would like to say some fundamental things about the concept of racial hygiene in this connection.\nThe purpose of racial hygiene is the creation of a harmonic human being, the balanced human being. In this connection it is not only the outward characteristics that are decisive, but the balanced cooperation of all his characteristics and talents. There are, of course, profound connecting links between outside and inside harmony. Harmony in this very sense is probably only contained in a pure race or in an ethnic group which is consolidated within itself. A fruitful increase can only be caused by races that are akin to this race as most European nations are, or in other words, a country, a culture, and a spiritual culture can only be maintained by the same race and the same type of race which has created this very country and its culture. This is a very old historical experience gathered through the years. The neglect of this knowledge gained from experience caused the collapse of all the cultures of antiquity, and there cannot be any doubt that a great number of white nations are threatened by this very same process now.\nIn 1928, in America, I had the opportunity of visiting the academy at West Point with my wife. The officer on duty there was very kind and let me come in. On the training ground there I saw young officer candidates who were training with the troops there. I was amazed about the \n wonderful physical human specimens and especially about the fact that the outward picture of these officer candidates corresponded exactly to the picture of the Elite Guard of Northern Germany or of Britain.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4008, "page_number": "4001", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The faces looked as though they were all related to each other. At that time I had a detailed conversation with this officer on duty, and since the man had been a soldier in the first World War, we understood each other very soon.\nI can't understand how one can even suspect that I would be proud of my race or I would hate other races on the grounds of the circumstances that I have just tried to describe. One can only have respect for this concept of race if one knows that this is the result of a development that lasted for thousands of years. No European and no white man hates the Chinese, for instance, although obviously they are not white. The Chinese people themselves designate themselves as the Sons of the Sun, and they believe that they are very superior to the white men. For instance, there are also nations who have superiority complexes and it seems quite obvious that they are not conditioned by the color of one's skin, Even the British have superiority complexes, even the Americans in part, also the Jews. The Jews call themselves the \"chosen people\", and in having a sound self-respect I cannot see anything bad. Nobody would refuse to this people the right to estimate themselves as high as they believe they should. Of course, there have been in existence for thousands of years laws for the protection of the race and the ethnic groups. The Old Testiment, for instance, contains a whole series of such laws and a whole series of regulations concerning this very point and of course these are the Books of Moses. That was 1500 years before the birth of Christ, that is, about three to four thousand years ago.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4009, "page_number": "4002", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII As far as these regulations of a purpose of keeping pure the Jewish people, nothing could be said against these regulations and no intelligent person could possibly find anything wrong in them. Every people lies the right to go to heaven just the way it chooses. On the contrary that is absolutely correct, for the Jewish people would have perished a long time ago by persecution from various sources if it had not lived in accordance to these very laws. The books of Moses, I probably can assume to be known around here, and the translation into English is not necessary at this points. It can be seen then that all peoples of the World have developed a similar regulation without being reproached for having a superiority complex as far as their race is concerned.\nQ.Witness, have you now finished your statement concerning race, as such?\nA.Yes, I think I have finished.\nQ.Then I would like to ask you the question now: Do you have anything to add in connection with the welfare activities?\nQ.I would like to make some statement concerning the racial examiners. As was emphasized frequently, the race office was extremly independent for reasons of necessity. The fuctions of the race office were limited to the fact of making outside characteristics a basis for an expert opinion. The activity of this man, the racial examiner, was a very specialised and technical duty, and no one was allowed to perform this duty who had not been trained for this very job. The \"R Karte\" was a creation of Prof. Dr. Schulz, who was the chief of the race office, The majority of SS leaders of the RuSHA were not empowered to perform this completely technical activity on their own initiative since they had no corresponding training, and that also applied to myself, the more so since I personally had no sort of ambitions in this field. For instance, these racial examiners were participating in the following things, and that already has been discussed here: A. All recruitment and selection for the Waffen SS, as far as was necessary to form an expert opinion on the racial strains of the men; and B, the participation in activities of \n COURT I CASE VIII the EWZ, which was of course subordinated to the Reich Security Main Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4010, "page_number": "4003", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "C, they worked for the UWZ which also was subordinated to the RSHA; and furthermore, they participated in connection with the orders of the Reich security Main Office in cases of abortions and in eases of unlawful sexual intercourse. Therefore, the race office worked, in this independence necessitated by emergencies, with the various main office directly; they had an advisory capacity concerning the technical employment of this racial examiner, There are orders, as can be seen from the charge leveled against us, which the chief of the RUSHA only signed by facsimile while the representative of the race office signed to certify the signature because he himself had drafted tills order, that is to say he himself had relayed an order of the Reich Security Main Office or perhaps of another main office. In 95 per cent of all copies and excerpts, as also can be seen from the documents themselves, these were orders and decrees which had already been issued by the Reich Commissar in the Reich Security Main Office; most of then were already in effect. The independence of the race office besides, of course, included conferences with other main offices; for instance, with the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism; the main office for the consummation of German folkdom, the Ministry of the Interior, the Minister of Justice. In order to explain what I have just said far instance, the Main staff Office lists a collaborating agencies, the race office, the settlement office, the various field offices, but not the race and settlement Main Office in Berlin, although other main offices are mentioned. The race office continued to direct the field office of the RuSHa in Lodz, and also the field office Bohemia and Moravia in Prague as far as necessary at that time. The field office Bohemia and Moravia in Prague constituted an office completely subordinated to the state or the Reich Governor of the Protectorate; the field office of the RuSHA in Lodz was created in connection with the re-Germanization of former Germans who were of German race within the re-incorporated eastern territories. It took up its activity within the framework of duties delegated by the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4011, "page_number": "4004", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII As far as can be ascertained today, there were about twenty thousand people who were re-Germanized on a voluntary basis, which is a relatively small number if one is aware of the fact that hundreds of thousands of former Germans were Polanized sometime ago. Concerning the marriage office, as a matter of principal, concerning its independence the same is true as for the race office. As is well known, every member of the SS and police had to make an application for a marriage permit before he could be married. These applications were worked through in this marriage office, and as far as they were members of the SS, also were completely taken care of by way of this marriage office, that is to say, the permissions were granted through it. However, the marriage office was not authorized to grant or reject permissions for the following cases: First, SS leaders. Second: A full-time SS members. Third, all SS members who were not of German nationality, volunteers for the Waffen SS and their female partners. Four: All rejections Concerning rejections, for instance, the Reich Fuehrer reserved his own personal decision in every individual case. The same is true for all those cases that I have just mentioned, just for a further clarification. Until the end of 1945, the Reichfuehrer himself worked on all these documents in these various cases up to the most minute detail. I myself received two hundred to three hundred applications a month in this way, and I examined them and forwarded them to a superior office. The genealogical records office was established as far as I know only in the course of the War. In 1943, in the summer, it was re-established when Sturmbannfuehrer Ossiander, its head at the time, came back from active duty in the Wehrmacht. The genealogical records office had the duty to examine genealogical papers for SS applications, and to procure them or to help in the procurement of such papers. It consisted of about six or seven employees; they were mostly war disabled and half of them were women.\nQ.Witness, this morning you already talked about the library that you established. Do you have anything to add to the statements you made then?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4012, "page_number": "4005", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.Well no, not in essentials. I said all I wanted to say.\nQ.Do you have anything supplementary to say about the statements that were made here by various witnesses concerning the Reich Eugenics Office?\nA.The Eugenics Office must not be confused with the above mentioned genealogical records office; it is an agency of the Reich Ministry of the Interior with duties that were completely of a interstate nature; whether or not this Reich Eugenics Office possessed card index files of all the Jews living in Germany, I can't tell you, It was in any case the duty of this office, on the orders of the state and the party, to procure, safeguard, and use ell genealogical records that they could lay their hands one In the indictment this Reich Eugenics Office is being confused with the genealogical records office of the RuSHA in order to prove in this way that the genealogical records office had procured the card index files for the later deportation of Jews into the east. This charge does not contain one true word. The genealogical records office was only concerned with the procurement of genealogical records of applications for the SS members.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4013, "page_number": "4006", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QDo you have anything to say in supplementing the various testimony concerning card index files?\nANo, I can't say anything new regarding this point. I can only confirm all that which has been said concerning it.\nQIs it correct that the genealogical records office during the war was transferred to another locality, to Kyffhaeuser ?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQI would only like to ask you do you have anything to say in supplementing your statements concerning welfare activities of the SS Welfare Office?\nAYes, I would like to talk about the settlement office....\nQOh, I shall talk about that later.\nAThe office, welfare and pensions, I caused the reorganization of these two offices very soon, that is, there were actually three offices. That was the welfare office, the pension office, and the office welfare abroad. Very soon, in order to simplify and decentralize matters, I made it possible that the four welfare offices which had existed up to that time in Berlin, Poznan, Duesseldorf and Munich, were dissolved, in order to establish in the sub-districts, that is with each sub-district within an army area, to establish a welfare command under the responsible leadership of the RuS leader. I believed that this decentralization was necessary and I had personal and technical reasons for doing that, At that time the pensioning and welfare of reserve officers was delegated to a Reich pensions office. In this connection I would like to mention that since the time I took over this office, that is from May, 1943, until the end of the war, there were 1200 able bodied men that I released \n from the RuSHA for military duty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4014, "page_number": "4007", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "These men were replaced by war disabled veterans or women, or by 4 F's. All the men I released were former members of the main welfare and pensioning office; the welfare itself I tried to separate from its bureaucratic and heavy thoughts up to then, and I tried to shape it with a well understood social spirit. In this connection I employed more and more members of the General SS, as far as they were available and existing at that time. This resulted in a condition that extensive care and welfare into the smallest villages and into every field hospital and to every family that needed it took place, and it was just the welfare and special services in field hospitals that formed the most intensive part of our activities.\nQNow, besides this welfare office, was there another office concerned with the welfare of colunteers in the Waffen SS and especially those abroad?\nAYes, Besides this welfare office there was a special office established for the welfare of all volunteers in the Waffen SS who were not of German nationality. The question of procuring foreign exchange for these various members of the voluntary units was extremely difficult. This problem could only be solved in every case individually, and in agreement with the governments of the various countries concerned. I remember in this connection my negotiations with the Romanian, Hungarian, the Yugoslav, the Italian, the Danish, Norwegian, and even the Croatian governments, in the course of which Obergruppenfuehrer Berger himself supported me since he had, because of the Germanic Leadership Office, certain connections to these various governments. Therefore, we had to collaborate in this respect.\nQIn order to conclude this chapter, did you also keep \n up your personal contacts with the members of the SS subordinated to you during this time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4015, "page_number": "4008", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "AYes, all the time, but just in connection with this chapter of members of the SS abroad, I would like to say something that might be worth while. All members of the Waffen SS, no matter of what ethnic groups they were, received the same care for themselves and their families in the currency of the country in which they served. My personal contacts with SS men and often Waffen SS people at the front line, I tried to emphasize and it was always very strong. I ordered these visits expressly in Berlin. In this way I wanted to establish a current picture which was in a form of a mosaic, a picture about the actual situation. Besides, I wanted to tell the men and the officers all those things that I felt they needed to know, and that especially in view of the political situation. Beyond that, I also wanted to help them and their families. It must not be overlooked that these men in part had been in combat since September, 1939.\nQDid you also issue the so-called \"letters to the front\"?\nAYes, this \"letter to the front\" which you just mentioned, was already in existence when I took over the Main Office, and it was just this brochure that I believed had great importance. This was put out in the form of a leaflet, and was especially suitable for keeping up connections with the men at the front. That is why I thought it was important and valuable and I even thought it was essential to publish this brochure, I edited this letter occasionally myself, so that it might be published in such a way as I thought was correct for the front line soldier.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4016, "page_number": "4009", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QWitness, will you please now tell me what you have to say in connection with the settlement office?\nAThe settlement office, as I already mentioned before was almost exclusively concerned with the propagation of the idea of settlement on the land. They placed young and mostly war disabled SS men for training on farms in the estern territories; there they graduated more or less in a training course of agriculture.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4017, "page_number": "4010", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "This activity can be clearly seen from a limitation decree which I concluded in 1943, together with Obergruppenfuhrer Pohl, in order to solve the various disagreements which had originated before my time. In this decree it was clearly stated that the administration that is to say, the economic interests of these interprises in the Eastern Territories-- was entirely up to the WVHA, and that the appointment of these young farmers and agricultural experts was entirely a matter to be decided upon by the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nAs I have already stated, the Settlement Office did not carry its name justifiadly any longer, for it neither settled nor owned real estate. With the establishment of the agency of the Reich Commissar in October, 1939, the settlement, as such, was finally delegated to this agency of the Reich Commissar. Of course, they did not settle the territories in any sort of conclusive manner, but these resettlers were only put there in trusteeship positions. An actual registration in the land registers never took place.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Mr. President, I would now like to come to another point, and perhaps this might be a suitable time, Your Honor, to take the recess at this point.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It is 15 minutes until the regular time for recess, and it works out better if we have it on time.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Very well, Your Honor, thank you. I beg your pardon, I overlooked the time. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQWitness, I would like to ask you this. During the time that you were Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, was your activity also interrupted by your being needed in ether places?\nAYes, it was very often, in my capacity as representative of the Reichsfuehrer and as Chief of the Main Office, I had to attend \n various meetings, and so forth.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4018, "page_number": "4011", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "This representative duty was sometimes up to the chief of one main office, and sometimes it was up to the chief of another main office. It was unfortunate that these various representative duties and meetings consumed a great amount of time, which could have been used for much better things.\nQDid you conduct any meetings of department heads?\nANo. As a matter of principle, I conducted conferences only when it was absolutely essential for technical reasons. However, I did not preside over or call any conferences, which became more or less the fashion, I tried to avoid everything which could possibly burden my collaborators with long journeys and expenditures which could possibly be avoided and which were not important at all, as such For that reason, I did not call any sort of general meetings of leaders. During the war they were not suitable any longer. However, in view of the various reorganizations in these welfare offices, I ordered my then deputy, Dr. Turner, to a meeting. This could not be avoided, because of official reasons, that took place in the summer of 1944, at the same time when I was detached to Army Group A. That too, I believe, is contained in more or less correct report which was written by an RuS leader, Dreier, of Munich.\nQI now show you Exhibit 45, from Document Book II-C,NO-1402. Will you please identify this document? Is this the document that you were just talking about?\nAYes, that is the document I just mentioned.\nQWitness, did you conduct personal negotiations with other main offices, and what were the reasons for your doing that?\nAI conducted negotiations with this heads of the main offices, of course, as far as possible, and especially when matters of vital importance were concerned. In that respect, it was important to me to settle matter without long correspondence, and especially these matters which could be cleared up much sooner in a personal conversation.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4019, "page_number": "4012", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "according to long years of experience. In this connection, I had contacts with the Personnel Main Office, and in the course of these conferences I settled all matters of personnel that would currently come up, without long and superfluous correspondence. These conferences were necessary, of course, because we had continuous mannpower losses because of reorganization, because of the various restrictions, because of men being called into the armed services, and so forth. Furthermore, I had contacts and various conferences with the Chief of the SS Main Office, General forger, from the Welfare Department, as I have already mentioned before. General Berger aided me in this connection, especially in all matters which were concerned with \n the procurement of equipment necessary in welfare activities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4020, "page_number": "4013", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I could then give these things to the families and dependents of SS members who had been killed in action.\nFurthermore, I had personal connections with the head of the personal staff: of the Reich Fuehrer SS. However, these contacts were very few, and they were mostly also concerned with welfare questions, and sometimes with questions of marriage Applications, and so forth.\nFurthermore, I was in personal contact with the Reich Security Main Office, especially in 1943, because of a limitation decree, which was based on my own personal initiative. This decree tried to establish once more, perfectly clearly, that the Race and Settlement Main Office was to be concerned with all positive questions of re-Germanization, while the Reich Security Main Office had to deal with the defense against all dangerous, damaging influences of alien races.\nQ.Witness, I would like to now show you a document which will be presented by defendant Hofmann and which has already been submitted for identification. This is the decree No. 1760-63. Will you please tell me whether this decree 760-63 corresponds to the decree that you were just talking about?\nA.Yes, that is the decree. The basic provisions of this decree were already in practice before 1943, and this can be proven by many other documents. However, in my time, for some reason that I no longer remember, it was necessary to clarify once more the various spheres of competency. I found this extremely important.\nQ.My last question in this connection: Were there any personal contacts between the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and the RUSHA?\nWitness, did you understand my question?\nA.Will you please state it once again?\nQ.I wanted to ask whether the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and the RUSHA had any connections with each other, or whether they had any contacts.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4021, "page_number": "4014", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.Yes; yes, of course they had contacts Pad connections. However, I must say that they were of a very superficial nature and, as far as my official business was concerned, I can't really remember any sort of contact from my own experience, nor do I believe that I myself visited the Main Staff Office at any time, or possibly met my comrade Greifelt at some of the meetings. As I have already stated, I know that the Race Office dealt directly, in part, with the representatives of the Main Staff Office, and I also know that for RUSHA.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4022, "page_number": "4015", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution have charged that you had close connections with the VOMI and the Lebensborn. What is true of these asertions? Whet was your relationship with VOMI?\nA.After I had been assigned a representative of the Reich Commissar in the Gau Danzig, Jest Prussia, in November 1939, I had conversations with the representatives of the VOMI and General Lorenz, Chief of the VOMI. Those were official talks of a various nature. This involved collaboration with regard to the housing of the resettled Baltic Germans. Later on, the VOMI appointed a Gau representative for their affairs in Danzig, West Prussia. I have already referred to this representative yesterday in connection with a clash I had with Forster.\nQ.And what about after you took over the RuSHA?\nA.After I had taken over the Race and Settlement Main Office, I had no mere official. contact with the VOMI. There was no reason for me to have contact with them.\nQ. ASHigher SS and Police Leader of the Army Group \"A\" did you have contact with the VOMI?\nA.No direct contact. In my capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader in the Army Group \"A\" from December 1943 until August 1944, I appointed Brigadier General Hoffmeyer during the winter months of January until March 1944 when he had very difficult tasks. That is, I placed only at his disposal the regular police detachment he asked for in order to enable him to repatriate the Germans from Transnystria and from the Black Sea area. Hoffmeyer's connection with VOMI or with General Lorenz, in as far as I had an insight in the matter, was not very close; on the contrary, Brigadier General Hoffmeyer at that time stated at various times to me that his boss was Reichsfuehrer Himmler and that he had no more official contact with the VOMI because he said \n he could get his decisions verbally and directly from the Reichsfuehrer for on account of the planned repatriation of the Germans from Transnystria he was involved in constant diplomatic negotiations with the Rumanian Government at Bucharest.", "speakers": [ "Q. AS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4023, "page_number": "4016", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "That was also true. Hoffmeyer was constantly at Bucharest for that reason and because these negotiations were rather difficult in part.\nQ.What about your relations with the Lebensborn?\nA.I never had any official contact with the Lebensborn at all. In my capacity as Chief of the RuSHA, I was nominally in the presidium of this \"e.V,\" but any advisory capacity of mine did not exist because I was only a nominal member of the presidium. There ware no meetings of the presidium either which I would have attended. Apart from that, I refrained from any interference in the business conduct and management, in the procedure and the activities of this \"e.V.\"\nQ.What about your relationship to the Main Staff Office?\nA.Well, I would like to add a few personal words concerning the Lebensborn matter. The SS leaders, all of them, had to pay compulsory contributions to that association, I think as from 1936, 1937, or sometime around that time -- I don't know exactly. That was an order by the Reichsfuehrer. The contributions had been classed in various categories according to the number of children the SS leader had. If he had so many children he would pay little; if he had few or no children, he would pay quite a let. In cur eyes -- that is the eyes of the General SS, with which I am fully acquainted -- the task of this Lebensborn was of a social nature. Apparently, as far as we could have an insight into it, the task of the Lebensbern was to be to improve the fate of the ummaried mother or illegitimate child in a tactful manner and to protect that from the society ban. Doubtlessly, a woman who out of a healthy motherly instinct wants to bear her child is more valuable than the woman who wants to prevent that. The raising of children, of course, is always connected with a lot of trouble and the problem of the illegitimate child will, hardly as such, ever be extirpated. But I think \n it was correct to try here once to do away with prejudice and to approach the problem directly.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4024, "page_number": "4017", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Only in this way you could find ways and means and methods to bring these questions to a fair and noble solution.\nThe assertions made today against the Lebensborn in the newspapers by lay man are wrong. I have read part of them here. In part, they are even of such a nature that you could speak of an unhealthy imagination, particularly in as far as immoral aims or purposes are asserted to have been these of this independent institution. There is not a true word in these assertions according to my experience. I know that very high and even top-level SS leaders would send their women to the homes of the Lebensborn for child birth. These were major generals and lieutenant generals of the SS. I, myself, know the home at Steinhoering. I saw it once and the impression I had was in every respect excellent. After all, all of us paid compulsory contributions to this \"e.V.\" and of course we had an interest to see what this association was and what it did. In no way, however, -- at least, that was my conception, that is true -- an attack against matrimony on principle had been intended by the creation of this Lebensborn. It's absurd to assume such a thing. Matrimony is and remains the foundation of every people and of every state. This very consideration and this very concept was strongly advocated and promoted in cur ranks. It was an important part of the ideals which were these of the SS, because we do know that from matrimony only can originate these things that render a people in the last analysis valuable and noble. Decisive for the nature and for the ways of life of every human being is the home, no matter how much I value schooling and literature and education. But the so-called good up-bringing can only be gained at home, and in this respect, I think all of us until cur death remain the betters, of our parents. The only thing I mean to imply by that is that new as before matrimony remained and even became more and mere the foundation of the life of every SS man, but there were problems outside of matrimony too, and probably it was mere honest and even mere chivalrous to approach this problem of unmarried mothers at all; because, after all, the protection \n of the unmarried mother is also a problem of personal decency and became so.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4025, "page_number": "4018", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The moral burden which such a woman has to carry, after all, is quite something too. Therefore, on the whole, my conception is the following: the Lebensborn made an attempt, -- and certainly succeeded in this endeavor -- to approach this problem, courageously and tactfully, and in this respect I am personally fully in favor of what the Lebensborn stood for and attempted.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4026, "page_number": "4019", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QNow what about your personal relationship to the Main Staff Office?\nAAs representative of the Reich Commissar at Danzig, I was officially under the authority of directives issued by the Main Staff Office as the agency of the Reich Commissar. It is not correct that the relationshiand that the channels of command of the representative went direct and only to the Reichsfuehrer. This is an error which can be corrected very easily when one locks at the documents. For the rest, all the office chiefs and department chiefs of this Main Staff Of ice testified to the some effect. But I want to stress that the initiative concerning the basic decisions and orders doubtlessly did not rest in the Main Staff Office. The Reichsfuehrer So, on the contrary, with great precision and great certainty dealt specifically with the resettlement and all questions concerned with it. I can judge that question because after all I have known the Reichsfuehrer SS for a long time and I know the manner in which he worked.\nMy connection as Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office and the Main Staff Office were the following: First of all, my agency especially, the racial office and the field agency Lodz on the strength of the decisions of the Reich Commissar were called in from one case to another. Mostly that was in the capacity of the racial examiners, in the case of some examinations ordered by the RSHA, in other words, on the strength of police decrees. The field agency Lodz was financed by the Main Staff Office. I am not trying to shift any of the responsibility of the matrimonial examiner to the Main Staff Office; on the contrary, for I would like to state that the RuSHA, on the strength of orders which in the last analysis originated with Himmler, became active in the state sector by way of these racial examiners.\nQWitness, the Prosecution have charged that the RUSHA and the RSHA closely collaborated and a while ago I already submitted to you the two Hoffman documents:NO-1761and NO-1763.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4027, "page_number": "4020", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "There is only one point I wouldlike to discuss with you in further detail--one point contained in these two decrees, and termed with a certain code name, namely \"Ausmerze\" --screening. What do you consider as \"Ausmerze\"--screening?\nAThis expression in German leaves a certain degree of liberty in its explanation. I can extirpate errors from a transcript: then it means just doing away with the errors. I can extirpate also unreliable officials cut of a government agency: then it means the removal of these officials from their official capacity, as for instance, in the denazification laws. Put nobody would assert that that would mean bodily extermination of the person involved, and nobody would assert that it would be moral or professional extermination.\nQDuring your office term, were decisions or decrees issued by higher agencies?\nAThe fundamental decrees had been issued before my office term, but I think complementary decrees were issued.\nQWasn't there one decree which was an exception? I mean the one concerning the interruption of pregnancy?\nAThe decrees concerning interruption of pregnancy, if I remember correctly, date from July, 1943.\nQDid you have the opportunity to familiarize yourself in detail with the decrees which had been issued before your term of office, or was that simply left to practical cases, or wasn't it possible because the offices had been transferred as you have described already?\nAWell, in as far as I was personally affected by the decrees for some decision or other, I would familiarize myself with the decree. I would hear about it. But particularly in these police decrees, this did not become necessary and never happened all these decrees were either on the gau level or on an even lower level, and became active only on these lower levels.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4028, "page_number": "4021", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "when I came to the RuSHA, of course, I didn't lock through the last four or five years of decrees. I had no inclination nor time for that. All the new decrees and laws of a complementary nature, as far as they involved my own field of activity, of course I read.\nThe carrying into practice in every individual case, of course, rested with the lowest agencies. This refers also to the correspondence concerning the General Plan East of 1942. This correspondence was completely unknown to me\nQNow I am handing you the document which concern your term of office, and I will held myself to the individual points of the Indictment. I am handing them to you in a file--and I ask you to take whatever documents I am referring to in your hands--I am now first referring to Count 11. I ask you, did you as Chief of the RuSHA participate in plans or measures aiming at the abduction alien children?\nANo, I neither heard about the alleged abduction of such children us an intimidation or reteliation measure, nor did I hear about racial classification which I consider quite impossible in cases of children.\nQWill you now look at Exhibit 384. That is Himmler's speech at Schachen on the 14 of March 1943. He speaks there about a kidnapping of alien childre. Did you attend this speech or did you hear about it?\nAI don't know this speech. I see it here for the first time.\nQWell, will you then take Exhibit 399 in Document Book VIII-A. According to this document, children of Czechoslovakian executed persons should be examined as to whether they suitable for re-Germanization by the field agency Bohemia and Moravia. Did this decree come to your attention?\nANo, this decree did not come to my attention because at that time I was attached to the Army Group South Russia. For the rest, the Race and Settlement Main Office was not informed about these matters, \n That can to seen dearly from the correspondence.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4029, "page_number": "4022", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "QWhat do you have to say to Exhibit 460 from Document Book VIII-C, referring to illegitime children of members of the German occupation forces or the channel Islands? It's dated the 24 May 1944.\nAAt that time also I was with Army group \"A\" in southern Russia. I don't know the letter and only later I heard from Dr. Schoerner, and that the planned trip of the Race and Settlement leader to the Channel islands had been prevented by the invasion which had taken place in the meantime.\nQNow, let's turn to Count 12. That is interruption of pregnancy We already touched upon this problem slightly when we talked of your activities as higher SS and Police Leader in Western Prussia. The Prosecution charges that all cases of pregnancies were reported to the RuSHA, and that the deported female eastern workers were forced to submit this abortion if the examination of the RuS leader, ascertained that the expected child would not be of any racial value. I am stressing from this document particularly chat it is alleged that this was done in order to keep those mothers for work and in order to reduce the population of the eastern people. Will you please look at the following documents from Document Book IX: 470,475,480,483 and 484.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4030, "page_number": "4023", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "What do you have to say to these assertions and charges contained in the documents?\nA.Basically speaking I have to say that it is not correct that all cases of interruption of pregnancy had to be reported to the RuSHA. That is not true. Concerning the question of the abortions themselves, one night have a different opinion but during the last period of time now this was expressed also by the various publications in the newspapers and there was a considerable debate in favor or against this question that the various persons had a different opinion, concerning article 218; some of then had rescinded it and others just postponed it and other countries have not rescinded it at all. Insofar as the interruption of pregnancy being liable to punishment; it is or was never considered as murder, but it was considered a special violation against life. Generally this incurs considerably milder punishment than if it were murder, Up to now nobody had the idea to see in this interruption of pregnancy a crime against humanity. From Exhibit 470 it becomes apparent that the first fundamental decree, 443, of 11 March 1943, was issued by Reich Health Leader Conti. My defense counsel, Dr. Froeschmann, has submitted this decree in another document which he submits and which has the number 112. Interruption of pregnancy presupposes a voluntary application made be the pregnant Eastern worker. This application was decided by the responsible medical chamber. The interruption of pregnancy, therefore, expressly rested on a voluntary application of the mother involved, and Criminal Commissioner Kessler has confirmed that in great detail. The lace and Settlement Main Office here again as in most of the cases submitted by the Prosecution was informed only after the fact, without having been previously consulted or having participated in it and it was also only called in for the purpose of giving an expert opinion. The calling in of the RUSHA, as in case 14, unlawful sexual intercourse, was based on the consideration that there was a certain interest on the part of the Germans, namely, in cases when the father was a German or Northwest European. Repeatedly and in D justified way, \n it can be stated that the activity of the Racial Examiner in most cases was favorable because in the case of the interruption of pregnancy this interruption was possible anyway on a voluntary basis without the intervention of the racial examiner in the case 14, unlawful sexual intercourse, the offense committed by the man involved had already been, incurring the most severe punishments on the order of the Reich Security Main Office, without participation of our office.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4031, "page_number": "4024", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "It is furthermore important to mention that the Race and Settlement Main Office received this order only for its field of activity and in order to pass it on in July 1943. I had no misgivings and I had also no right to refuse to pass this decree on because this decree had already been passed on by the Gestapo without my intervention, The order provided for the decisive intervention by the highest health agency of the Reich. This Reich Health agency was to take care of the technical part of the matter and that was also upon the initiative of this agency, She interruption of pregnancy itself, however, in most of the cases, this carried out without the intervention of the RuSHA because the execution of the order and the whole complex of the question rested with the lower level administrative agencies and the level of the district councillor in the district of the health office. The Race and Settlement Main Office never heard about those cases, was never informed about them. Fundamentally speaking, it didn't have to be called in either because the orders were unambiguous, The Prosecution has submitted a document which is No. 3454, Exhibit 384, and this document leads to very interesting conclusions which I am going to mention here. My staff leader, as was proper, drew up this chart, and the facts at the basis of it are the following: In Upper Franconia, within one year and nine months, 637 applications of that nature were received by the responsible authority, that is the health agency. Of these 637 applications, 443 were dealt with only and alone by the health office which approved them and carried them out, where the fathers were Eastern workers. The Race and Settlement Main Office after all was only called in if the father was a German or a man of kindred race. Of these \n 637 applications, 103 were withdrawn, that is, no interruption of pregnancy was carried out and nobody was forced to it either.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4032, "page_number": "4025", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Forwarded to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism were 91 cases where the fathers were Germans or of kindred race. Approved by the representative of the Reich Commissar were 57 applications; out of the 91 cases 34 were rejected. In ether words in these cases the children were born on the strength of the intervention of the racial examiner. In other words, out of this figure of 637 applications covering 21 months only 57 approved applications remained. That is how it was in practice and therefore the document of the Prosecution is very useful in order to clarify the situation. The Race and Settlement Main Office, in order to conclude that matter, was more or less only a forwarding agency which was informed about the existence and about the effectiveness of the order \"but no more and no less. That concluded the affiars as far as RuSHA was concerned, fundamentally speaking. A personal subjective attitude towards the matter was unnecessary all the more so as it came to our knowledge that in these cases the women had applied for the interruption of pregnancy and wanted it and that these abortions could only be carried out on a voluntary basis.\nQ.Witness, will you please look particularly at Exhibit 473, and there you see the possibility of interruptions of pregnancies covering also Polish women and where there is an order to the effect that also in such cases where interruption of pregnancy became known, a report should be made, in view of an examination for entering in the re-Germanization procedure Did you sign this decree?\nA.Yes, this decree was signed by me. It was signed with my stamp. I have already explained this stamp signing a while ago. This man Harders who is already known from the racial office, has signed for correctness.\nQ.In other words Herders signed this document with your name and passed it on without getting your prior approval?\nA.Yes, and he passed it on and it was simply the passing on of a police decree and not of a decree of the Pace and Settlement Main Office or the racial office.\nQ.Does the same refer to Exhibit 474?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4033, "page_number": "4026", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Q. Did Harders have the authority to issue, on his own initiative; such decrees?\nA. Before passing on these two decrees and particularly exhibit 474, of course, Harders would have had to get my approval and show me the draft of his letter, and as he explains his own views at the end, he wouldn't have had the right to put my name under it. It would have been different if he had only passed on an existing order, by the RSHA, but not in this case where he expresses his own views at the end of the letter. The final sentence of this letter is quite nonsensical and not at all in line with my own views insofar as the sentence refers to a separation of our own ethnic group from everything that is racially inferior. That attitude and these views are absolutely in contradiction to my general views which I have already explained, and according to which, in such cases, as also in the case 14, in the case of unlawful sexual intercourse, the activity of the examiner should be limited to the purpose which Harders quite rightly stresses. That is to keep all blood which was racially valuable, in accordance with the police decree of the RSHA.\nThe sentence of separation is complete nonsense; for the interruption of pregnancy or for illicit sexual intercourse it could not be applied at all. It is without any point, what he says there. However, it was in line with the personality of this man who felt very important. In 1944 when I returned from Southern Russia I immediately took steps to see to it that Harders was sent to the front line, was somehow sent into combat.\nQ. Witness, referrring now to exhibit 480, I don't think that we have to say anything more because it dates 19 December 1944 the views explained in that document are again in contradiction with the approval of you which should have been received first. Does that refer also to exhibit 483? I am referring to 480 and to 483, witness.\nA. I am sorry, I can't find the document. Oh, I see, 480, yes. I have it now, yes 480 and 483, yes. About 483 I have to stress that that at a period when I was with the Army group. I don't know the letter. Taking now 484 -", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4034, "page_number": "4027", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Q. Well, we have already mentioned that.\nA. Then on statistics. We didn't receive any statistics. Such statistics were kept with the health authorities and would not be shown to us. The race and settlement main office didn't have any file index like that and the racial office didn't have any either. Only by accident we saw here the document submitted by the prosecution, that is, the statistics from the district of Upper Franconia. Normally we would never have gotten such statistics.\nDR. FROESCHMANN: Your Honor, in this connection I am going to submit three documents and the numbers are Hildebrandt 112, 113 and 114, which show exactly the whole procedure, particularly the voluntary application for interruption of pregnancy, the expert opinion by the doctor after examination, and also the result of rejection of the interruption of pregnancy applied for, but I am not yet in a position to submit these documents as exhibits because they haven't been translated yet.\nQ. (By Dr. Froeschmann) Concerning this, I have two final questions to you, witness. Did you or any responsible experts in your office ever hold the view that the interruption of pregnancy should serve the purpose of keeping women for labor commitment and of reducing the number of population of the Eastern peoples?\nA. No, in no way.\nQ. The second question. Did you or your office ever intervene into Polish jurisdiction in order to guarantee that interruption of pregnancy be exempt from punishment?\nA. No, I had no possibilities nor inclination in this connection, Q. Well, that brings me to point 13.\nDuring your term of office as chief of the RuSHA, we have the letter of the Reichsfuehrer-SS dated 27 September 1943, exhibit 496, from document book 10. Did that letter come to your knowledge? 496?\nA. It is possible that I got this letter for information because my office is mentioned on the distribution list.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4035, "page_number": "4028", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "A.What is particularly interesting, looking at that document?\nA.When I look at this document I can see with great detail the chronological activity of the whole procedure split up into ten agencies involved directly in this affair. First of all, Reichsfuehrer SS, Chief of the German Police; 2, RSHA; 3, General Plenipotentiary for Labor Commitment, Sauckel; 4, Health Leader Dr. Conti; 5, the Labor Exchange; 6, the Youth Office; 7, the Higher SS and Police Leader as Representative of the Reich Commissar; 8, the Racial Examiner of the RuS leader attached to the Higher SS and Police Leader; 9, the National Socialist Welfare, in other words, the Nazi Party in the case of a positive judgment; and 10, the Foreign Children Welfare Home of the DAF or Reichs Food Association.\nQ.Ill you please look at page 7 of this document, witness? Were you connected with the separation of infants from their mothers?\nA.No, but here again I want to point out that according to this document here the possible and temporary separation from the mother was possible only with the approval of the mother. For the rest I was not connected with the whole matter.\nQ.Did you ever hear about the fact that such infants were brought to special collective centers for extermination as charged by the prosecution?\nA.No, never. That would have been complete nonsense too, and it would have been in contradiction with the basic idea of keeping valuable blood by the racial examinations. If this valuable blood had been destroyed after birth, that is completely absurd.\nQ.The document says \"blood not wanted.\" That brings me to point 14. Are you informed by whom and on whose orders and for what reason, the initiative was taken with regard to the prohibition of sexual intercourse.\nA.I have no knowledge of the preliminary history of this police decree. I didn't have the slightest contact either with all these matters, but today I assume with certainty that the initiative was taken by the racial political office of the Nazi Party because Pancke, and I am \n referring to exhibit 513, mentioned a correspondence he had with this agency and because the racial political office had a very strong interest in those questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4036, "page_number": "4029", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "The later interest taken by the RuSHA in this matter could be explained by the consideration that sexual intercourse was very often used by enemy agents as a means to obtain information of a confidential nature and of great importance, and that apparently in the case of the female Eastern workers, the passing on of such information to enemy countries was feared. With the racial legislation itself this decree is in no way connected. The race and settlement main office also fundamentally speaking, had no interest in the issuance of such a decree. Against the orders of the Gestapo concerning illicit sexual intercourse misgivings must have arisen in Himmler's mind very soon because these partly very severe punishments had to appear completely impossible to any reasonable human being, particularly if one took into consideration the fact that by these means much valuable blood was lost.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4037, "page_number": "4030", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "I can well imagine, but I am not certain about it, that this view point motivated Himmler to call the racial examiners into the matter in order to save whatever valuable blood he judged would be useful for Germany from these severe punishments.\nQ. Witness, would you look at Exhibits 522, 523 and 527, from Document Book XI. According to these documents inmates of concentration camps were to be examined in individual cases as to their racial characteristics. What do you know about that?\nA. I can no longer recall that matter. The documents partly are from periods when I was not responsible for those matters. However, in all these documents it is always a question of making it possible that eastern workers who were unpunished for illicit intercourse be examined, but these foreign workers had been in custody already for more than twenty-one days and, therefore, they had already been transferred to the concentration camp by the Gestapo. For this merely technical reason, the racial examiner forcibly came into contact with the concentration camp, a concept with which normally he was not connected at all.\nQ. In these documents we find the expression \"special treatment\", and the witness Hessler has already given a comment on that term also. Now, I would like to hear you tell us whether you knew the expression \"special treatment\" with the meaning of execution; or, if you didn't.\nA. I think this morning I already testified to this point. At the time the general concept of this term, special treatment, was security police and security measures of a varied nature; for instance, preventive custody of longer or shorter periods in a police prison; or commitment into a concentration camp for certain terms and so on and so on. The Race and Settlement Main Office, however, made the decisive point and that can be seen also from one letter which has been submitted; that I did it at the time that is that I made it a point of importance that the Race and Settlement Main Office \n be informed in those matters and we had to make it a point to remain in the picture because we had recognized quite clearly that this was the only way how we could withdraw quite a number of cases from the competency of the Gestapo.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4038, "page_number": "4031", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "That applied in all cases where according to our opinion the persons were suitable for re-Germanization. Our RuS leaders for this very serious reason were instructed to intervene in those cases as far as humanly possible and to give a positive report on the suitability for re-Germanization in all those cases as far as possible because the final result seemed to be the most important thing to us, and,therefore, I had strongly rejected temporary measures, because after all very severe punishments were involved here. I rejected the temporary decisions in order to prevent that negative judgments should be given without due consideration; negative opinions which later on might have unfavorable results for the person involved. That was the real reason why in a letter which has been made available for me here I insisted very strongly that the racial examiner should be called in to the matter for this very positive reason, which seemed important and more than that.\nQ. Are you referring to Exhibit 525?\nA. Yes, 525. The assumption that the examination by the racial examiner would have been prior to the decree by the RSHA is incorrect. The expert opinion given by the racial examiner took place only later and as mentioned already, repeatedly, could only influence Himmler in a positive way.\nQ. Concluding the statements concerning the examination and its procedure, do you have any additional statements to make?\nA. The examination by the racial examiner took place by ascertaining the racial characteristics, using a so-called \"R\" chart, which was adjoined to the files; and these files were submitted to the Reichsfuehrer SS for his decision. It is possible that some racial examiners, as they were used to it in their other examinations for the Waffen SS, had used a formula to express \n characteristics which was only meant for the internal use of the racial examiner and the racial offce, and was only understandable to them, but not comprehensible to Himmler.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4039, "page_number": "4032", "date": "20 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-20", "text": "Himmler found exception to that procedure, as I know, and thereupon a new \"R\" chart was established with almost all the anthropological characteristics that existed. This chart was drawn up by the racial office. Then Himmler made his decision on the strength of all documents submitted to him, and on his own free will and the decis ion was not brought to the attention of the Race and Settlement Main Office. Therefore, the official channels went through the RSHA. As far as penal legislation was concerned, criminal law, or security police measures in this matter, they remained unknown to the racial examiner as well as to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ. Turning now to Point 15 -\nTHE PRESIDENT: I believe, if you are about to take up a new subject, that it would be a good time for the recess.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hour, 21 January 1948)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4040, "page_number": "4033", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al.\ndefendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 31 January 1948, 0930-1630 the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court save the defendant Viermetz who is absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. FROESCHMANN: (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt)\nQWitness, we stopped at Point 14 and we had finished with that. Concerning Point 15, we had two documents of the Prosecution for the period when you were chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, but you were in south Russia at the time. I therefore don't have to deal with these two documents. Point 16 -- there are various documents during your term of office dealing with resettlement of persons in Luxembourg, northern France, etc. I am there pointing to exhibits 270, 276, and 277, from Document Book V_F. These twoo the first documents 270 and 276 are signed with your name. What about these reports; what can you say about them?\nAThese are two reports from the racial office. In the same manner as I have described already, they were drawn up in the racial office in a responsible way and my signature has been stamped under it and the racial office has signed for the correctness of the \n signature and forwarded the orders.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4041, "page_number": "4034", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "From the letterhead that appears quite clearly; those are always the same file symbols of the racial office. All letterheads say specifically racial office. For the rest, the whole matter is completely unknown to me. Only here during this trial I gained the first knowledge knowingly about these matters. The decrees contained and referred to in these letters, that is those of the Main Staff Office are missing and therefore I can't make any comments on them. The only thing I know now from the decrees that is after the fact, that the action itself had been in full swing already since 1942, and that it involved a matter pertaining solely to the EWZ.\nQWhy a purely EWZ matter?\nAIt was an EWZ matter and nothing else, and particularly pertaining be France and northern France. When I say that it was solely a matter of EWZ, I mean that the chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office, as already stressed at various occasions, had nothing to do with this EWZ. Any evacuations, in order to stress that point again, were not in the competency of the Race and Settlement Main Office. Turning now to Exhibit 277, there again I had no knowledge of it up to now, it originated from a period when I was not in the office.\nQWhat about Exhibit 284, from Document Book V_D. It deals with the resettlement action in northern France and was signed by a certain Schultz; I think that is the name: I am not sure.\nAYes. There again you have a letter issued directly by the racial office; it is signed by the chief of the racial office. The letterhead also says \"The chief of the racial office in the RuSHA.\" On the 20th of April, 1943 I started my work as chief of the RuSHA. This letter according to the date was sent out three days after I assumed office. I don't know the connections and the whole matter, and I couldn't even know it at that time. For the rest it deals with the same coupler which I have already mentioned with a few words.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4042, "page_number": "4035", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "21 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_3_Sampson (Treidell)\nQWill you pease look at Exhibit 255, from Document Book V_C, and I am asking you now was the SS command connected with the race and settlement main office?\nANeither in official or factual matters. This is a more instance of ourside contact, inasfar as I myself, as is well known in my capacity as higher SS and Police leader, was assigned in Southern Russia. This man who drew up this document, Heintze, was a personal acquaintance of mine, and quite correctly he assumed that I would have an interest in this report because from the view point of settlement, of ethnic policy and historically speaking, it isa very interesting report. Here again I have read it with great delight for that reason. It is true that at that time I was with the army group, and therefore factually I was not touched by the report at all, and it is said on the top of the report that it was sent to me only by way of information, and for the rest the report is as interesting as it is positive.\nQThat brings me to Point 17. The defendants Hofmann and Schwalm have already testified in great detail concerning this point, and also the defendants of VOMI. Therefore, I ask you to limit yourself only to the most necessary words. I am pointing to Exhibit 115 of Document Book IV_B, of 28, 1944, which deals with the treatment of people of German stock who have not applied for listing in the German People's List, and who, therefore, should be reprimanded. What do you have to say to that?\nAHere again it deals with the passing on of a decree issued by the Reich Commissar, RSHA, via this racial office, a verbatim forwarding of this police decree, signed: Chief of the Racial Office, Klinnert.\nQTherefore, the letter remained unknown to you?\nAYes, the letter is completely unknown to me.\nQWell, then, I have to point to Exhibit 128, from Document Book IV_C, with which I have dealt already in brief in the matters of the \n 21 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_4_Sampson (Treidell) higher SS and police leader, Danzig West Prussia.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4043, "page_number": "4036", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Now, in your activity as chief of the Race and Settlement Office did you become acquainted with these directives issuedby Himmler or was the whole matter already concluded?\nAFrom this letter I cannot sec when it was dispatched: it doesn't have a letterhead. I only see that it deals with re-Germanization of lost German blood, in other words, of the WED procedure already very often referred to here. This refers as is well known, to the higher SS and police leaders west of the Elbe in Germany proper. It didn't refer to my field of activities in my capacity as higher SS and police leader in Danzig, West Prussia, and it had no practicial importance for me either in my capacity as chief of the RuSHA.\nQDid the correspondence from Exhibit 165, Document Book IV_D come to your knowledge?\nAYes, I see. No, I don't know that correspondence at all. I made its acquaintance only here during the trial. At the time when it took place, I was in southern Russia. It deals with decrees of the RSHA.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4044, "page_number": "4037", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.Now, let's turn to Exhibit 171, also of Document Book IV-D. It can be seen from that document that you were requested by Himmler to find for the two sisters family an SS household with many children where they could work. Why did Himmler approach the Race and Settlement Main Office for this?\nA.The very comprehensible reason for this was that the Race and Settlement Main Office was in charge of welfare, and in this welfare office it dealt with all social questions and was also competent and felt competent for these matters. It was more a personal request by Himmler, and the way in which the letter written proves also that he wanted to get these two women placed in some German family, and I think that that was done too. I don't know what happened afterwards, and really I had other work than to deal with the housing and lodging of domestic workers, but certainly I gave orders that something was to be done.\nQ.Concerning Exhibit 173, from Document Book IV-B. Do you confirm the detailed testimony of Schwalm?\nA.Yes, completely.\nQ.In your activity as chief of the RuSHA, did you ever pursue the aim of using your ethnic policy to make your human beings available as material for the armed forces in Danzig-West Prussia?\nA.No, I have already talked about that yesterday. At the time, as soldier as well as a human being, I considered that wrong, at least in its final effects and still today I am of the same opinion. My policy was oriented in accordance with that principle and I have already talked about it at length here.\nQ.Were you in any way connected in your capacity as chief with the limiting of economic and civic rights of the persons belonging to Groups III and IV of the DVL?\nA.No.\nQ.That brings me to Point 18 then. During your term of office, two \n important documents were sent to the RuSHA, that is Documents 511 and 512, from Document Book VI-C. What statement can you make with regard to those two documents; that is concerning slave labor?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4045, "page_number": "4038", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.With this so-called slave labor, I had no connection whatsoever. The decree you first mentioned, went to RuSHA , but RuSHA was not competent in any way. Apparently this is a matter for the RKFDV; the whole complex of affairs was completely unknown to us.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, in this connection I have got a document from my own document book, that is from Document Book I, and I want to submit it. It is Document No. 4; it is a copy from the Reader's Digest, and it contains a summary based upon the book written by David Bogolevsky, and which is to be published by the Yale University Press with supplementary documents. The defendant here in the deck has been charged that he and the other co-defendants have deported eastern workers and female workers for the purpose of slave labor in Germany. I think that it is relevant that the Tribunal from an American treatise gets information concerning the question of what another power thinks of the term slave labor, that is a power which has signed the Control Council Law; and that is the Soviet Union. The document is extremely interesting, and according to the name of the authors it is authentical.\nI offer the Document No. 4 as Exhibit -- just a minute -- as Exhibit No. 60.\nMR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal please, the Prosecution wishes to object to the introduction of this document into evidence. In the first place it is a copy of a magazine article which purports to be a condensation of a forthcoming book, and in no way official.\nIn the second place this deals with people, and a country which are not the subject of the indictment, and in no way relevant or material to this case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will follow the policy that has been followed up to now. The document will be allowed to be submitted and when the Tribunal comes to writing its judgment, if it has no probative value, \n it will be placed aside together with a great deal of evidence that has already been introduced by both the Prosecution and the Defense that has no probative value.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4046, "page_number": "4039", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Go ahead.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:I am then handing the document to the Secretary General as Exhibit 60.\nQ.That brings me to the last point, Point 20 of the Indictment. There again you have made very extensive statements already and in this connection my question only is the following: It pertains to Exhibit 650, from Document Book XIV-C. I am asking you were war injured SS men resettled during your term of office on former polish estates?\nA.No. War injured SS members were retrained because they wanted to be farmers after the war, but the resettlement was only a project which was never carried out.\nQ.Now, my last question but one. In Exhibits 654 and 655, from Document Book XIV-C, the securing of family documents and other eugenic publications is dealt with. Did you have an interest in such documents, and if so, with what intentions?\nA.Yes, I had an in crest for this kind of documents. I told you yesterday already that I had a great interest and my specific instructions to Ossiander were to do whatever he could to complete the genealogical library. If one has an interest in family research and if one knows the importance it can have, then it is easy to understand that you can never have sufficient documents in those matters. The conclusions one eventually can draw from family history are extremely valuable, and they don't have only a literary academic importance, but a very practical importance too. Of course the intention was not at all to deprive anybody of something or to do injustice to somebody; it never happened either, but certain documents were secured during these years, from 1942 to 1943; it was the duty to secure and to safeguard valuable cultural possessions.\nThey had to be protected against air raids and it \n was very difficult to protect them because we had no localities for it.", "speakers": [ "DR. FROESCHMANN", "A.", "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4047, "page_number": "4040", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Space in Germany became smaller and smaller and, therefore, they were shifted around constantly. In other words, this pertains to very serious and very correct matters.\nQ.Now, the last question: in this matter were there any connections between the Race and Settlement Main Office and the WVHA, pertaining to the special accounts or the so-called SS industries?\nA.Such connections as you just mentioned did not exist.\nQ.Witness, I am now passing then to the one but last field of the indictment; that is your activity as higher SS and police leader in southern Russia. I must say that the Prosecution have only made very vague charges which are intended to incriminate you; but you certainly recall that there was a witness here by the name of Gerbel, who brought at first a few points which apparently might incriminate you, but he had to rectify his statements afterwards, in cross-examination. I ask you to give us a few words on your activities in southern Russia. How did it come about; what did you do there, and particularly did you depart any slave alborers to Germany? But, first of all , another question. When were you appointed General of the Waffen SS?\nA.I think in the spring 1944. I was automatically appointed General of the Waffen SS; in my capacity as chief of the RuSHA , particularly in the capacity of chief of the office welfare and decisions of the Waffen SS. These offices were exactly in line with the decisions offices of the armed forces because the Waffen SS was a unit of the armed forces. For that reason my appointment or promotion, if you want to call it that, was necesary already for apparent reasons and also for factual reasons.\nQ.Well, now, what about your dispatch to southern Russia as higher SS and police leader.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4048, "page_number": "4041", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "AIn December 1943, after severe clashes with Himmler, Himmler suddenly decided - and I was in complete agreement - to dispatch me to the Army Group South. Field Marshal von Kleist was the chief down there; there had been a change of personnel. Therefore, I retired from personal leadership of the RuSHA. My deputy was Staatsrat Dr. Turner, who was particularly a specialist in welfare and pensions, and therefore he was particularly fit to take over this main office. As has already been mentioned, the other offices, very often, did not need his leadership.\nI left Berlin towards the end of December 1943. I had a short holiday with my family in Danzig, after which I went to Eastern Prussia; I had to report to Himmler there. After that I took a plane and, without interruptions, I flew on to Southern Russia, and arrived at my station at Nikolajew at the end of 1943.\nAt that time, the main task of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Southern Russia basically consisted of the following: Reorgnization and new organization of the completely confused units of the regular police, which had been partly mixed up because of the retreat from the Crimea and from the Southern Russian front, and because of other retreats. This regular police had to be assigned for the repatriation of racial Germans who were pouring back to Germany, and in the channeling of all trafic. At that time Field Marshal von Kleist gave me the very personal and difficult assignment of preventing, at any cost, the reads being crammed with civilian population, particularly such roads as were decisive for the maintenance of the rear communications. That was a task which was not easy, because there were tremendous snow falls at the time, which paralyzed traffic completely within a short time, and it is well known that at that time everybody poured into the few roads which were open to traffic. Furthermore, I had to prepare rear evacuation quarters and headquarters for a possible further retreat.\nA little later I received an assignment which was important, accord \n ing to my viewpoint.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4049, "page_number": "4042", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "I had to see to it that the petrol area in Ploesti, Rumania, was defended by the assignment and appointment of all available police forces, and to keep order in the area by seeing to it that, after every air raid, the clearing-away or the rubble should be started as quickly as possible, in order to prevent a further decrease in production. This was an assignment of the High Command, that is, an assignment by Hitler, because it was decisive for the whole war. The attacks by enemy aircraft from Greece at the time were carried out almost daily, and one could say that they were regulated on the minute. The German defense forces were sparse, while the enemy bomber sqadrons were very heavily armed, and also projected by very strong fighter units.\nI visited the Crimea Peninsula twice, which was part of the operational area of this Army Group of Field Marshal von Kleist, This was only possible by plane, because the peninsula itself had already been cut off, and the Russian fighters protected the areas which had been cut off by the Russians. I had to report there with the Chief of the 17th Army, General Colonel Jaenicke; we had to discuss the whole situation to the extent that it pertained to the regular police, and we had to make preparations for possible further retreats. At that time the retreats on the whole of the Southern Front were caused mainly by the Russians, day and night, pouring in tremendous masses of soldiers against us. The German front was too sparsely manned, there were only strongholds, and the Russian Infantry would pour their infantry-men in right and left of these strongholds , and very soon these strongholds would be imperiled and in danger of being cut off from the rear.\nOne can say that with this system of infiltration the whole Eastern Front, at that time, was slowly but surely smashed up. Even with the greatest bravery, with which the German soldier had always distinguished himself up to that point, it was impossible to fight these masses which poured in everywhere. As early as February, \n a strong attack by the Russians was to be expected from the North and from the East, from Kertsch, and every effort was made to prevent that attack.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4050, "page_number": "4043", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "We knew that if the Russians succeeded in breaking through at Kertsch, the Crimea Peninsula would be rapidly lost, and with the Crimea, the whole army. Therefore, everything was done to strengthen the fortresses and the strongholds, even the rear strongholds, as much as possible. In this connection, the police and volunteer units of the Tartars were used to a large extent. The Tartars - twelve to thirteen thousand of them - had joined the German police and armed forces units voluntarily, and to their honor I wish to say that they were excellent and brave soldiers; they never disappointed us. Over and beyond that, they were also likeable as human beings.\nMy relations with Field Marshal von Kleist were good, and the general relatio ns between the armed forces and the police were good too.\nIn spite of all efforts to stabilize the front - that is, the Southern Front in the area of this Army Group - further Russian advances in the direction of Nikolajev and Odessa could not be stopped, and the police, as well as all rear units, had their hands full in turning back to rear positions. The important thing, and the difficult thing here, was the taking along of the very strong ethnic German groups, the so-called Black Sea Germans, who have been mentioned here on several occasions, who were later in the area of the Warthegau and who were housed there. That was an activity with which we had to deal day and night, because this literally involved the saving of human lives, particularly of women and children. In this connection, all parts of the populations of the Ukrainians who poured back were taken along in the most loyal way. The only condition made to them was that they h ad to evacuate the area through the roads we prescrib ed to them, in order to prevent their impeding the fighting troops in their efforts.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4051, "page_number": "4044", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "The large-scale attack of the Russians against Kertsch on the Crimea Peninsula actually occurred, and it occurred at the same spot where we expected them to attack, because it was very favorable for an attack, particularly for armored cars. Just because of this very important point, which was the most difficult to hold on the whole Crimean Front, I was personally at Headquarters, and I told Keitel and Jodl about the matter ; I reported to them on behalf of Field Marshal von Kleist. I put it to them that it was necessary to correct the defenses on that point because it was a platform for a very dangerous attack. I said we needed a few regiments for that, and with these regiments we could normally guarantee to hold the Crimea Peninsula. They refused to give us those regiments. They would have been there normally, but it was believed that they were more necessary in other spots. The result was that they lost the Crimea Peninsula, they lost the whole 17th Army, and heavy material, and there were very severe losses during the fights of Sevastopol, the fortress of which we destroyed eventually, and where I had to assign my whole police in the front line in combat. I would like to mention here that the police proved to be excellent soldiers during this fight, and, in most cases, they were soldiers from the first World War.\nQWitness, I would like to interrupt you there. You will remember that the witness Gerbel especially criticized the assignment of these police units at the time.\nAYes, he criticized them.\nQWhat do you have to say to that? Perhaps you could say a few words concerning the personality of Gerbel too, just a few remarks.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4052, "page_number": "4045", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "AWell, I wanted to do that anyhow.\nThe witness Gerbel was a police major; he performed his duties in a perfectly decent way and, accordingly, had a good reputation. From his viewpoint of course, because he was on a comparatively low level in his assignment, he could not have an insight into what viewpoints I held and had to hold in order to synchronize the interests of the armed forces and police with Field Marshal von Kleist. It was quite clear to me that if we lost the Crimea Peninsula the retreat had to be automatically from Sevastopol, and that fortress had to be held long enough for the 17th Army to be transported away via the Black Sea. In other words, the fight at Sevastopol, was a fight for saving the whole of the 17th Army. It was obvious to me that every soldier, regardless of whether he wore a police uniform or a uniform of the armed forces, had to be assigned at that moment and had to perform his duty at the spot where military necessity called. Military reasons were the primary and decisive reasons. This was an operational area, and the armed forces required that every man be assigned. It was obvious that I could not shirk from such a clear military order, and I did not wish to shirk my duty either, because, after all, it is the duty, or, if you want to put it this way, the fate of a soldier to fight.\nQNow, what about the evacuation of the civilian population?\nAAs I said, the civilian population could go back with us if they wanted to. We informed them that we would supply them with the necessary food, and so on, in so far as it was possible for us to do so, and that was done.\nI know that I personally had many talks in this connection with administrative agencies of the armed forces which, in part, had considerable food stocks in the rear. Now these very good officials, who, for the rest, were perhaps a little bit too bureaucratic, in some cases were still sitting on their stocks, even at such moments, and they clung to their so-called regulations, dated from 1870 or some such date. The only matter involved here was that the depots would fall into the \n hands of the Russians a few days later, which meant a strengthening of the enemy army.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4053, "page_number": "4046", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "For that reason, this had to be prevented, and therefore my plea was to have the stocks desired and placed at the disposal of the civilian population, who should receive whatever they could carry. That is what the civilian population did, and that was the best solution for both parties.\nQWitness, did you then return to Odessa?\nAWell, yes. The 17th Army, with the heavy losses it had incurred, as I have described, came to Roumania, and I personally, later, had my official seat at Odessa. Odessa was under Roumanian sovereignty at the time, and under the Roumanian administration, and we were so-called guests in that country. At that time I had about ten thousand of those Tartars, who were saved, shipped over to Roumania. Now, my task was to find new housing and new duties for these men. At that time I was approached by the Luftwaffe, or by the OKW, with the suggestion to defend the very severly imperiled petrol area of Ploesti with these forces.\nQJust a minute, please.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, the witness Gerbel, just mentioned by the witness Hildebrandt, gave me an affidavit after his testimony here in Court, and I would like to submit this affidavit, in my Document Book Vi, as an Exhibit. That is, I have already submitted it as document 122, but it is not yet translated and I cannot submit it as yet as an exhibit. The witness Hildebrandt knows the affidavit, and I would merely like to put the question to him as to whether he can confirm the testimony in this affidavit by Gerbel.\nQTherefore, I am putting this document to you, witness, for the purpose of identification, and I ask you whether you can confirm what is stated in there.\nAYes, I have read the document, and it is in line with the facts; I can countersign it entirely. In some points Gerbel corrected his statements. Perhaps has a better recollection of these matters \n now than at the time when he testified.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4054, "page_number": "4047", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QWitness, I want to ask you another question. It has come to my knowledge, by an affidavit of the witness Bieger, who was also called as a witness here, that at that time, in Odessa, French nuns were saved from a very difficult situation by the Army Group you have mentioned. I know that you are a very modest person and that you don't like to put your own deeds in the clear light, but I would like to ask you this. Did this saving of the French nuns have any connection with one of your activities in Odessa?\nAYes-\nQI don't mean Odessa, I mean Galatz. That was a slip of the tongue, I am sorry; it is Galatz, and not Odessa.\nAYes. Well, this was a little token of friendship which I showed to the French Catholic nuns of Notre Dame. I am not mentioning this on account of my person, but I just mention it in order to demonstrate, with this example, the conditions of that time.\nIn the summer of 1943, the Roumanian town of Galatz was in considerable danger of being overrun by Russian troops. The German and Roumanian divisions which fought together at that tine retreated towards the West.\nQWitness, I must interrupt you. You said the summer of 1943. That should be the summer of 1944, should it not?\nAYes, of course, the summer of 1944, yes.\nNow, these divisions retreated towards the west, and the military situation of Galatz was very dangerous; there was the very well known conditions amongst the civilian population, as could be observed again and again. My command detachment was at Galatz, at the seat of the Army Group, which had already retreated at the time. In the midst of this movement of retreat I suddenly received a very urgent and excited visit of the French Consul General at Galatz. He asked me to, in some manner, help him save the French nuns of Notre Dame, who were there in a nunnery in Galatz. He said that they were in the greatest danger and \n if nothing was done immediately, then he had to expect the worst.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4055, "page_number": "4048", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "They were very old ladies, and they could no longer be transported on the road because everything was crammed and no vehicles were at their disposal. He said that I was his only hope, in spite of the fact that I hadn't even known him before; somehow, he must have heard about me. Unfortunately, he said, the armed forces were in no position to do anything, and so on and so forth.\nI must admit that I was rather surprised by this request at the time because I certainly had other worries. The situation was serious and I had grave responsibilities. I had two airplanes at my personal disposal at the time. One of them was a very good Heinkel, which had been used as a bomber as well as for special assignments. It was clear to me that I could only use this plane in this case if I acted against clear military orders, because during a war, and particularly in such a situation, it is impossible to use a military bomber for the repatriation of civilians, especially when the plane is urgently needed at the same time for other purposes. In spite of that fact, I made a sudden decision at the time, because I couldn't turn this consul down. I sent for my Captain Oppermann, and I said to him, \"You have no responsibility for this flight. I know that you are acting against your clear military orders, but I am covering you up one hundred percent.\" Captain Oppermann saluted and said, \"That is sufficient for me.\"\nThen we took these very old and very nice ladies of Notre Dame over to the airplane and loaded them into the plane. They had brought along a very great number of old boxes, which they considered very vital.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4056, "page_number": "4049", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "They all had to get into the plane and the plane was vary heavy and got to Bucharest eventually, and I think I had two other such flights made and I think the majority of these nuns were evacuated that way. I know that part of these nuns, because my adjutant went along, eventually went back to France immediately, particularly the Sister Superior and the very old ladies. Part of them remained in Bucharest or around Bucharest in spite of our admonishments -- or somewhere in the Rumanian Banat. These, a few months later, were surprised by the advancing Russian armies, attacked by them, robbed by them, and raped without exception. This could be confirmed by some accident -- and the accident is quite peculiar here as seen by Praelat Bieger, the secret envoy of the Pope who was at Rumania at the time and knew the conditions and heard about the matter, which was not only causing quite a stir in Catholic circles but all around, because it didn't seem normal that in such a difficult military condition -- a military plane could have been placed at the disposal of those nuns for such purposes.\nQWitness, I think that might conclude your activities in southern Russia also. In August 1944, you were recalled then because the Reichsfuehrer SS demanded that you take over the leadership of the RuSHA again, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQDo you have anything to add to that matter? I don't think you have do you?\nAWell, I could only talk about the petrol area of Ploesti. I don't think it's very important. At the time we found that the output had been reduced to 20 per cent and I succeeded in getting it back to 70 or 80 per cent again. Unfortunately, a large part of these police units got later into Russian prisoner of war camps because we were betrayed by the Rumanians.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4057, "page_number": "4050", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QThat brings me to the last point of the Indictment. That is the membership of the defendant in the SS, an organization declared criminal by the BIT. Before I start discussing that matter, I would like to submit a certain number of affidavits from my Document Book IV -affidavits which the defendant Hildebrandt will refer to in his testimony later on. I think that the book has been submitted to the Prosecution and also to the Tribunal. First of all, I am submitting Book VIII: Document 90 asExhibit 17; 92 as Exibit 18; 93 as Exhibit 19; 94 as Exhibit 20; 95 as Exhibit 21; 96 asEx ibit 22; 97 as Exhibit 23; 98 as Exhibit 24; 99 as Exhibit 25. All these are in Document Book No. VIII.\nWitness, you are charged by the Prosecution with having been an old SS leader and having known the conditions of the SS and having in spite of that remained in the SS after the first of September 1939 -- in spite of the fact that you knew the criminal purposes of the SS, You are charged also with having participated in such crimes yourself. In this whole field, your relationship with Himmler plays an important part. I know that from our talks, and you already mentioned Himmler's personality at various occasions here. The whole connection cannot be understood and not be seen in the right light if you don't consider Himmler's personality also, and therefore I ask you, at the end of your testimony, to describe in detail your relations to the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler and their development in connection with the charges I have just outlined to you.\nAIn the summer of 1931, I made Himmler's acquaintance at Munich. At the time he impressed me as being an over-zealous official who tried to hide his lack of security behind an artificial military attitude. As already mentioned, I was then Chief of the Staff with Sepp Dietrich, General of the Waffen SS, commanding at that time the SS main sector at Munich. Himmler apparently was satisfied with my work and very soon I got into the real circle of the SS -- all the more as we were all joined together by a very nice comradeship because nobody at that time wanted to gain personal advantages. Everybody only tried to do something for the \n cause.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4058, "page_number": "4051", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Later, I got into very strong opposition to Streicher, which is well-known and which I don't want to refer to again now. As this dispute went on, which brought me also to severe conflicts with Himmler, it became clear to me at the time that Himmler was not as loyal as I wanted to have him -- I mean in the sense of loyalty as I understood it. At the time it became also clear to me that Himmler was not courageous in defending some personality if this person was in conflict with important persons above his level. Then I wanted to resign from the SS because I was demoralized on account of this occurrence. My withdrawal was not approved, and for the rest, I felt quite well in the comradeship of the SS. As early as that, I did not remain in theSS on account of but in spite of Himmler. As a disciplinary measure, I was transferred to Silesia, to Breslau, and later to Goerlitz.\nThe unhealthy ambition of Himmler developed more and more. Himmler thought he must have a power position at all costs -- a power position within the state. That was his aim, and he worked at that fanatically, and with great will, and nothing could prevent him from going forward toward this goal he had set for himself. After the seizure of power, he really became Chief of the German Police later. With this appointment, the whole of his effort was shifted to state tasks and that for the first time created what we call today the \"Power-Complex Himmler\"; that is, it created a basis for it. From this period originates the estrangement between Himmler and the General SS, and relations became more and more strained; that is the estrangement between this state Himmler -- this hunger of Himmler for power on the one hand, and the ideals of the General SS on the other. Only on account of these ideals, I joined the SS, and only on account of these ideals I remained faithful to the SS. In as far as these ideals were and are reflected in this SS, I have remained faithful to it, even today in my inner self; because I don't consider it criminal if a human being trios to be faithful, loyal, dutiful, and chivalrous, and does his duty in all other matters.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4059, "page_number": "4052", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, please continue.\nA.I could quite understand that it became unpleasant to Himmler in some form because I pointed out to him that he was committing severe mistakes and of course I did this in the way which I had been taught as a soldier. However, he did not tolerate any criticism and of course for the duration that is a bad mistake. For this reason, it was not an accident that Himmler more and more surrounded himself with men, and that even before 1939, who one can not actually describe as being the old leaders of the SS. However, he knew of these people, that they would pay blind obedience to him, and above all he did not have to fear that they would express their own opinions toward him. In 1938 at the Reich Party Rally at Nurnberg, I again had a very severe dispute with him and Adjutant Wolf told me at the time: \"I consider it better if you leave now for good. Do something one way or the other but this situation cannot be tolerated any longer.\" I tried to get out and this was disapproved and all of a sudden he became the most friendly man toward me in the world. He always became extremely friendly whenever he saw some danger for himself. Here in this case he saw the danger that if I left then this would hurt his reputation with the Fuehrer because my person was also known to the Fuehrer as many other old members of the Party. And now I would like to say something about the correspondence. This correspondence would contain many expressions of loyalty which in many cases did not hold true. And everybody had the feeling in this case that all of this could not be taken seriously anymore. However, Himmler did not want to break towards the outside and he always hesitated in making a final decision of some sort. In any case he always wanted to leave a back door open just in case. He called himself \"foxy\" in one case in my presence. This word, from the psychological point of view, describes quite cleanly the situation that then prevailed. In Posen, for example, in the case of the speech which has been mentioned here \n repeatedly; he threatened with the most severe words quite unmistakably, \"Whoever leaves the SS I shall destroy; I shall never tolerate that; I consider that to be disertion.\"", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4060, "page_number": "4053", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Therefore, one cannot leave an order; that is what he considered the SS to be, because a person has to adhere to the ideology and idealism of this order until his death and that was his opinion. In this connection he only forgot that he himself had become unloyal to these ideas to an ever increasing extent. The threats which he expressed with regard to some people's desire to leave the SS were serious. We have examples of that in the SS higher leadership. One subject about which I had the most severe differences with Himmler was the so-called policy which was applied in the East during the war. I know Russia already from the first world war and my recollection of the Russian people of that time are very positive. I like to think of the people which at that time were true, faithful and simple in the best sense of the word. I can also recall quite clearly the high morality of the Russian women. I also experienced that again in the Ukraine during the past war and also in the Crimea. I consider the position of the woman in this respect to be more decisive for the value of a nation than the position of the man. We all had the opinion that after the first defeat of Russia in 1941, the liberated nations, the Ukrainians, White Ruthenians, and Balts, and so on, would receive an autonomy, and this problem had been discussed previously. It was well known that the population of those states had strong tendencies toward that. Every reasonable German who thought as an European had the greatest understanding for that. He von considered that the necessary prerequisite for new Europe that is this new line, to grant these nations autonomy. After 1941 this self rule was not introduced in these states. It was introduced to a certain extent on the lowest administrative level. Later on as an experiment, however very late in the war, it was introduced in part in the Baltic countries and in part also in White Russia. However, this was only a half-hearted measure; the matter was never made completely clear. That is what confused every German who thought reasonably or every \n soldier who thought about politics and nobody was able to understand that.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4061, "page_number": "4054", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "After all we felt that these people were ready to work with us to a very strong extent. Perhaps the security police considerations were too strongly emphasized in these matters. It was always said, \"Yes, we will do that, but after the war. After all we don't know what these people are actually thinking. Behind the front lines we cannot develop a new front of people when we cannot trust and whose feelings we don't know.\" That point of view, of course, was correct because every front must be fortified and secure its real lines. However, that was wrong at the time because those people were honestly willing to be our allies and they would have worked together with us still more if they had been granted self-rule. This Eastern policy in the last instance was the cause why we lost the war. That is my certain and definite opinion on that subject, considering all the factors which may be of importance in this respect. In this respect I, myself, constantly discussed the matter with very influential people who knew Russia and the Russian people in order to be constantly informed about the fact as to whether my opinion was correct.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4062, "page_number": "4055", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "In this connection I can recall quite definitely the Chief of the General Staff of Field Marshal Mannerheim of the first world war this was General von Waal, when I know quite well personally. He had been born in a Baltic country. This man was well acquainted with Russian conditions, knew then extremely well and was well acquainted with the psychology of the Russian people. He talked with me and he was extremely worried and told me that terrible mistakes were being made and he asked me why our leadership didn't sec these mistakes. He asked me, \"Why do you always think the worst of people\" You can be suspicious, naturally; you have to be suspicious to a certain extent; however, these people actually have thehonest wish to work together with you.\" Especially at this point I had very fundamental discussions with Himmler and he, in private, was quite convinced of the fact that our Eastern policy was wrong. However, he did not have the strength of character and the courage, above all, to submit all these matters quite clearly to Hitler and to ask the question: \"either this policy is going to be changed now or I shall resign\". He was too ambitious to do that. He stuck to his position and if one wants to get somewhere one will not of course do something which jeopardizes one's position. I spoke of the group of men who shared my opinion and who did everything in order to change in the policy to that effect. These were not the so-called little people but they were people with the most influence, and most of them were State secretaries of all the Ministries. They were high leaders of all formations of the State Party and some of them were leaders in the free economy. They were leaders from cultural life: they came from all professions in public life. Every one of them said the same thing; everyone of them wanted to have a change. In spite of that no change was effected, because Hitler was isolated and since in this connection he must have been suspicious or he must have held his own opinion, I can't explain it otherwise. Frequently we were told that of course these countries would eventually have their own government. However, the people didn't know that the self-rule was a decisive prerequisite for a successful conclusion of this war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4063, "page_number": "4056", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.Did your opinion with regard to internal politics also differ from that of Himmler and Hitler?\nA.Yes, with regard to the internal policy I was also of the opinion that the point of view of the security police and the point of view of the police altogether was given far too much emphasis, an emphasis which was not even necessary. And certain political reactions were just caused by that in particular by exaggerating the standpoint of the security police. I quite frequently told Himmler very clearly: \"It is not necessary that you take away the work from the regular courts by using the State Police. The Executive branch cannot take over the task of the courts, that is not its task. They don't have the necessary prerequisites in order to do that work.\" As I have already stated before this morning. not the least on account of these reasons, because Himmler privately saw that my opinions were correct in part but did not have the courage to take the necessary step and submit these matters to Hitler, in December 1943 I was removed from his direct influence and I was transferred to Southern Russia as is known. But, then, after the collapse of the Balkan Front I again took over the Race and Settlement Main Office and immediately I requested an urgent discussion with him. Himmler knew exactly what I was going to tell him because now in Southern Russia I had gained new experiences of all kinds which confirmed to me that my previous opinion had been correct. Until December 1944 Himmler did not receive me but then he finally did have to receive me. At the tine we had the discussion which lasted for three or four hours. Once more I requested him almost on my knee I would like to say, to finally do what the German people and not the least the SS expected him to do. At the tine Himmler,-and that was significant for his suspicious rewards body - only at the end of the conference quite suddenly told me, \"Hildebrandt, I am now going to tell you something which is not known to anybody. Without the knowledge of the Fuehrer I have established contact with England. At the tine this was a very pleasant surprise for me. I \n told him and I asked him just what he thought he was going to do in this matter.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4064, "page_number": "4057", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "He told me at the tine, and I quote, \"Just keep your nerves steady,\" -- by the way I did have excellent nerves, but it is a matter of fact that people with bad nerves tell other people not to be nervous -\"at the latest in three or four weeks I shall act. I cannot tell you anything further in this matter but keep faith in me and tell this to all your comrades.\" Some of the defendants here, Lorenz, Schwalm, Hofmann, and Meyer-Hetling, were my comrades. At the time I was very much excited because I knew that something would happen sooner or later. And I also told Himmler the following on the occasion- and Himmler was surprised at the time in the way in which I talked to him. I quote, \"I know your personal, unconditional loyalty to Hitler. However, an unusual historic moment has arrived now and an extraordinary moment requires extraordinary decisions. It is not a question of removing some person or another or to hold terrible speeches crying for blood, but here at the last minute we have to bring this war to a conclusion, a war which has not served any purpose, not only for us but also for our enemy. You must not hesitate from doing all those things without Hitler and if it has to be even against Hitler.\" I can still recall Himmler's face at the time about this impossible statement which I had made, or as he believed, it was, and it was an impossible statement if I considered that at that time Hitler was the head of the state, and Himmler the man who was in charge of the internal security of the Reich. Himmler at that time allowed me to say those things to isolate the Fuehrer from his surroundings, and then finally to put him before a fait accompli. This operation does not have to cause any bloodshed at all and of course these operations are always the best.\" I left in December 1944 and waited, and all of my comrades were also waiting. The three weeks passed and nothing happened and I was unable to establish.contact with him until the time of the surrender. Then I didn't have the possibility any more of approaching Himmler. Only a short time before the surrender, as I have already mentioned yesterday, and only as the result of the fact that I could go by airplane. And \n only afterwards did I hear through Dr. Best, the representative of the German Reich in Denmark, at Copenhagen, during the past war, that everything that Himmler had told me was correct, in the following way; The Chairman of the foreign political committee of the Swedish Reichstag, Fogt, was requested in London by Ministers Eden and Atlee, to establish a contact with Himmler in December 1944.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4065, "page_number": "4058", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4066, "page_number": "4059", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "However, without the consultation of Hitler; that was the prerequisite, the words used at the time by Fogt were as follows: That it was the opinion of the British Government that Himmler was not as bad as his reputation, so that probably one could got to speaking terms with him. Himmler should immediately, without delay, send a representative in order to initiate discussions at Stockholm; and in reality then the following happened In this very last and unique moment when he had the opportunity to end the war, Himmler was a complete failure. he was not capable of making decisions on his own intiative and he went to see Hitler and Hitler attacked him to the utmost and he approximately just threw him out. With that, the last escape which offered itself to us at the time had gone. Himmler then telegraphed back: No nothing at this time. And this was typical for Himmler. From Hitler he had been prohibited quite sharply from taking a part in any conferences or discussions; he then telegraphed back accordingly, but of course he kept his back door open at the time, and that in his opinion was a foxy move.\nActually the man failed because he deceived himself constantly.\nQWitness, did you also discuss those things with the persons whom you have just mentioned, which the witness has described here as the reorganizational aims in virtual and foreign policy? You don't have to repeat it, but you can just confirm that to me.\nAYes. What Ebricht has testified to here about our aims was discussed at least a thousand times between us. What he has testified to here is correct, and I confirm it to the fullest extent.\nQTherefore, did Himmler prefer at the time of the surrenderer to leave the political stage by committing suicide without utilizing the opportunity which had offered itself to him before, and with that did he in your opinion betray the faith towards his SS?\nAYes, that is how we felt and that is how we had to feel. I would like to say several words here with regard to the personal character of Himmler which perhaps may interest the Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4067, "page_number": "4060", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Himmler die not have any sense of humor, and he had not artistic feeling and both of these things are mistaken wich cannot be repaired and of course they have a strong connection with each ether. As far as his character is concerned he was not harmonical; and these people usually have an inferiority complex, and they react to this complex by exaggerating all sorts of things.\nHe was very ambitious; he did not tend toward any sort of corruption; in this respect he was quite immaculate. He used to like statistics very much, and he used to go into all possible details. There was hardly a sphere of life which he did not want to have some influence in, and that is to say he wanted to supervise it and control it. I believe that if it had been possible then, he would have liked to supervise and control thunder and lightning by police regulations, and certainly he would have decided when lightening could occur and when the thunder could follow, because after all one cal always consider thunder to be an element of public unrest if one looks at things as Himmler did.\nThis man obeyed Hitler blindly, and he demanded the same blind subordination to his own person; however, in that he made a big mistake because a blind subordination can never exist for a thinking person: the cause is always decisive not the person. If the cause is badly represented by the person, then the person has lost the right to be followed.\nHimmler understood it quite skillfully and with great industriousness to adopt the ideas of other men and to utilize them. His method of meeting people was unique.\nHe had people by the maxim: dividi et impera. Further more Himmler was never loyal in the good sense of the word, but he was only subordinate. He had his negative tendencies successfully until the time of the surrender, and for this reason quite logically he was much higher esteemed than he ever deserved. In April, 1945, Hitler excluded from the Party and the SS. His infamous end isquite well known and thus ended the man of a unit on whose beltbuckle was inscribed: SS man, your honor is loyalty.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4068, "page_number": "4061", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QWitness, will you now say something with regard to your personal attitude towards the SS? First a preliminary question. How can you explain in the light of the character of Himmler the many activities which are represented on the chart here?\nAWell, this chart shows us quite quickly and quite well why so many problems existed for us, and why today there is such a large amount of confusion. On this chart Himmler, from an organizational point of view, is a monster with many heads, and in order to master such an apparatus one needs a great amount of courage, will, and power. Himmler, however, as far as his will was concerned, was a weakling, and from the discrepancy between these two facts, namely on the one hand this giant organization, and on the other hand the fact that he was a weakling from those two things the entire situation resulted. All this confusion, all this muddle, and all the unclarity which still exists, and it is so extremely difficult to remove this unclarity today.\nIn this complex of power here, Himmler was only known as Reichsfuehrer SS in all cases. And only for this reason the power complex of Himmler could arise optically speaking and in the opinion of the outsider, because Himmler would sign every letter and every decree which was issued in one of these many agencies, always in the someway, and briefly with the title Reichsfuehrer SS. Now, you have, however, the Ministry of the Interior, which was not an agency of the SS, because we had a Ministry of the Interior as long as we had a German or a Prussian Government, and to day we again have Ministries of interiors in the individual countries but we do not have any SS any more.\nThe same thing applies to the police, and also in these cases he would always sign as Reichsfuehrer SS.\nThe some thing applies to the majority of all the functions which he occupied according to this chart, with the exception of the purely SS officcies which he held, and there were very few of them, and the Main Office which I had, was one of these SS specialized offices.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4069, "page_number": "4062", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Therefore, this whole organization was not coordinated and it was a contraction which only carried the name of Himmler and his designation Reichsfuehrer SS, and that is the reason for this confusion.\nQNow, we are coming to the last part of the examination, and that is your attitude toward the SS. Will you please say something about that? When did you join the SS?\nAIn the summer of 1931 I joined the General SS. The SS at the time was a relatively young unit within the party. It had the task of protecting the important persons in the party and the struggle up to 1933, which was undecided up to that time, made this necessary. In the year 1933, with the entire seizure of power, those original tasks in part had become superfluous insofar as this protection now mainly and additionally could be carried out by the police units which had already existed previously.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4070, "page_number": "4063", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A (Cont'd) The SS, for the most part, had the following tasks and aims, that is to say, the general SS. They wanted to educate people to give their best in their respective professions. They wanted to educate people in the thought of the national community, and they wanted to orient public life accordingly. They wanted to train people along the basic fundamentals of the military service, that is, chivalry, obedience, loyalty. They wanted to propagate the idea of the value of the peasant, also in the history of nations. We were of the opinion, and we still are of the opinion today, that in every sound person there is something of a gardener, of a peasant or perhaps of a hunter. In this last point, it is true, I am speaking pro domo. Above all, the propagation of the idea or the historic experiences which have been gained, that up to now, the majority of all nations had persisted because everybody moved into the cities, and that is why we wanted to combat all appearances of degeneration especially in the big cities. Then we wanted to carry out education in sports, and perhaps the most important and decisive factor in the SS, we wanted to further the families with all means at our disposal on the basis of nation and state. From the political point of view, the SS was brought up at a very early time to the idea of European solidarity, and for this reason, it was opposed to war quite emphatically. The majority of the laders of the party had lived through World War I. They know that war in any case is an evil, and that it always hurts the best people, that therefore it will tend to lower the cultural level, and that means the cultural level of all nations, and this is the most terrible danger which threatens all nations. furthermore, we had big peace time aims before us which I have just described, and in \n order to fulfill big peace tasks, one needs time and one needs peace.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4071, "page_number": "4064", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "None of us visualized war, and none of us, as far as we could think, wanted war.\nThe verdict of the IMT has mentioned a uniform SS, with the exception of the so-called Reiter SS, which was not considered to be criminal. I don't know for what reasons, and it probably is not the subject of discussion here anyway. The Waffen-SS -- and this may be interesting -- until the end of the war had six or seven hundred thousand men and of them, more than 50 per cent were not German nationals. This is a proof of the fact that this component of the Wehrmacht included all members of European nations, and is also proof of what I have stated before with regard to the education of the General SS to a European solidarity. The reputation which Himmler enjoyed in the Waffen SS, was normal at the beginning and later on it deteriorated, and from 1943 on, his reputation was not good at all any more with the Waffen SS, and this not at least for the reason because Himmler himself had never been a combat soldier, and that is why his views were not token seriously. A soldier will only have himself led by somebody who has faced the enemy at some time or other. The so-called uniformity of the SS is purely fictitious. This fiction arose because all the agencies which came under the power of Himmler, as I have stated before, with the title of Reichsfuehrer SS. That in this respect the false impression was able to arise at all must be admitted because an outsider could not gain any inside into all those matters.\nQWas there any internal connection between the General SS and the Waffen SS?\nAThere was an internal connection between the General \n SS and the Waffen SS.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4072, "page_number": "4065", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "The organizational connection was very small, if there was any at all. The many formations of the SS do not only become evident through the many tasks of Himmler, but also as a result of the trials which have been held in Nuernberg. For example, the doctors case, the case against the WHA, the case against the so-called Einsatzgruppen, and now this trial here, Case 8, etc. It was a very disastrous mistake on the part of Himmler, which I would like to mention briefly, that he used the Security Police of the State and that he put it in the same uniform as the Waffen SS or the General SS. In reality, those two formations had nothing to do with each other, according to the origin, because the Security Police was a Government agency and it still is today, although we don't have an SS any more. The fact was exactly as absurd as if I would put the British Secret Service in the uniform of the British Guards, with which, from the factual point of view, it has nothing whatsoever to do. The great problems which arose from that have become apparent today before everybody's eyes. To consider the Waffen SS and the General SS as criminal, I as the result of my experiences since 1931, view as a big injustice. Neither in their aims nor in their activities were they criminal. It is impossible, that one could use idealistic people in order to commit crimes of that kind, without losing these people again at the same moment. I myself, in the case of the Waffen SS, which fought heroically, I lost many hundreds of men whom I knew personally, and who today are buried all over Europe. It is known that the losses in the Waffen SS were extremely high, and according to their percentage, much higher than those of all the other branches of the Wehrmacht. I know \n that these men were not only brave but they were good.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4073, "page_number": "4066", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "I know that in my own family, two sons of my brother, as young volunteers joined the Waffen SS and at the ages of 18 and 19 years respectively, they died in France and Russia in good faith of their cause. I had known these two boys actually from the time they were born, and in my mind there is no power in the world which can ever take away the honor of these two young boys. I consider it to be completely out of the question that an American mother would permit that her son was called a criminal, and least of all, if this son had given his life for his nation and his country, that is to say, the United States. I believe that to the German women and the German mothers we must show the same feeling and the same respect. Up to date, there was always an unwritten law amongst civilized nations that the sacrifice which was brought in good faith should be acknowledged in a chivalrous and honest manner by everybody, also by the former enemy. In conclusion, I would like to confirm to the fullest extent that I adhere to the ideals of the former General SS, that is to say, with regard to their loyalty and heroism and their decency, and I also want to acknowledge the blood sacrifices which the divisions of the Waffen SS made in the good faith for a new order in Europe until the bitter end.\nQGeneral, do you want to make any other statement?\nANo.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I do not have any further questions.\nDR. HEIM:Dr. Heim for the defendant Schwalm. BY DR. HEIM:\nQGeneral, I am now going to hand to you from document \n book 2-C of the Prosecution document No 4716, Exhibit No. 59.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4074, "page_number": "4067", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "This is your affidavit of 27 June 1947 which you gave to the Prosecution. I ask you to look at the first page, at Paragraph 3 of this affidavit. Was Schwalm ever your deputy as chief of RuSHA?\nANo, he never occupied that position. This was never done and could not have happened. The deputy would be the senior SS leader, and at this time this was Brigadefuehrer Heider, and later on, after I had left, Staatsrat Dr. Turner. If this has been stated here at any place, and I don't know where it is, I can't find it here on page 1 ----\nQGeneral, please take a look at Paragraph 3 of your affidavit, on the first page, at the bottom.\nA oh, yes, I sec it.\nQGeneral, what do you mean by the sentence in your affidavit, that Schwalm as a staff leader would draw up and check all decrees and regulations?\nAYes, that is what I was going to discuss just now. I spoke here about the decrees of the departments which were subordinated to him in his capacity as staff leader. This does not concern the offices, and that becomes quite clear from the text in this affidavit. No misunderstanding can arise from the statement. In practice, there was no correspondence of that sort which did not go through the hands of Schwalm, and that is why he was put in that position. He carried out his activity and he carried it out well. He was precisely informed about everything that happened, and he had to be informed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4075, "page_number": "4068", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QGeneral, if I have understood you correctly, then these departments which you have referred to in this affidavit are not identical with the offices in RuSHA?\nANo, they have nothing whatsoever to do with them. The office is a very big agency, and the department is on a lower level than the office. Every office has various departments, main departments, departments, subdepartments, etc. These are the departments of the staff, the personnel office, the legal office, etc.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I am deputized for my colleague Dr. Hatz, and I want to ask one question for the defendant Sollmann.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted a so-called basic information to the Tribunal and a basic statement, together with a sketch, in which the Lebensborn is described as an office in RuSHA for the time from 1943 until 1945. I believe that you can recall this basic information and basic statement. Can you tell me whether this sketch corresponds to the facts?\nANo, this sketch is incorrect. A big mistake contained therein. As far as I can recall, in 1937 the Lebensborn had left, and at this time which this sketch applies to, the Race Settlement Main Office had nothing whatsoever to do with the Lebensborn.\nDR. HEIM:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nDR. SCHWARZ:DR. Schwarz, for the defendant Hofmann. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQHerr Hildebrandt, the defendant Hofmann has testified on the witness stand on the occasion when he discussed the Posen speech, that Himmler in December 1943, approximately, had sent him a letter. In this letter, Himmler charged Hofmann with disobedience. Is it correct that you yourself received a copy of that letter?\nAYes, I believe I can recall the matter.\nQCan you still recall the approximate contents of this letter?\nAI believe this was a letter which was sent by field post.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "DR. HEIM", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4076, "page_number": "4069", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QDo you know why Himmler reproached Hofmann?\nACould you perhaps give me a hint what you refer to, because Himmler would raise frequent complaints.\nQI am referring to the so-called Army post letter.\nAYes, I mentioned that.\nQTo what extent was this a disobedience on the part of the defendant Hofmann?\nAThis wasn't a case of disobedience at all. The field post letter was a very clever and useful institution on the part of my colleague Hofmann, and I personally after I took over the Main Office, used to like to use this channel, because it was a big help to me. Certain persons must have exerted some influence here and they put Himmler in the belief that with this field post letter, we wanted to establish a competition with some other agencies and offices.\nQNow, I want to ask you something else. Do you consider it possible that somebody was carrying on some intrigues against the defendant Hofmann?\nAYes, I do not only consider this possible, but I can say that I know it for certain.\nQCan you give us some details about the matter?\nAYes, that was the then head of the Welfare and Pension Office, a certain Brigadefuehrer Dr. Hertl, whose offices were incorporated by order into RuSHA for the reasons which I have mentioned previously. This Dr. Hertl, refused to comply with this measure, and he made great difficulties to my colleague Hofmann because he wanted to retain his independence, and that is why he carried on intrigues against Hofmann, and probably Hofmann's departure from Berlin was in the least caused by this fact because Hertl had a great amount of influence on Himmler. Himmler considered him to be an indispensable expert. Of course, he certainly wasn't indispensable; after all, he was sent away later on and the offices continued their work at least as good as before, I even believe they functioned much better.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4077, "page_number": "4070", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nDR. HAENSEL:Dr. Haensel, for the defendant Greifelt. BY DR, HAENSEL:\nQI would only like to clear up several misunderstandings, so that in the case of this complicated organizational machine, we will not lose the knowledge which we have developed so slowly and with great difficulties. I am now going to hand to you document book 9, and I am going to ask you to look at the two spots where I put markers. This is Exhibit 470, this is on page 13, and then I would like you to look at Exhibit 479, page 47 of the German text.\nAYes, I have found it.\nQAnd now my questions with regard to points 12, abortions, and 13, the kidnapping of infants. In your examination by my highly esteemed colleague Froeschmann, it was mentioned that these decrees had been issued by the Main Staff Office. Will you be kind enough to take a look at the letterhead and signature on this document, and will you answer my question whether these decrees had been issued by the Main Staff Office or whether these decrees had been issued by some other agency, and will you please name that agency to us?\nAYes, this was a lapsus linguae of my attorney. These two documents quite clearly were issued by the Reich Security Main Office, and not by the Main Staff Office. In both cases, these documents were signed by the chief of the Reich Security Main Office, and this was Dr. Kaltenbrunner quite clearly.\nQDo you know from your experience whether the chief of the RSHA, at that time Kaltenbrunner, as a successor of Heydrich was also active for Himmler in this capacity as commissar for the strengthening of Germanism?\nAYes, that becomes evident from this letterhead, also.\nQDo you know from your work whether the Main Staff Office could issue instructions at all with regard to the carrying out of abortions or the taking away of infants? Do you know any such instructions?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4078, "page_number": "4071", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "AAll the fundamental decrees were issued by the Police.\nQI am now coming to something else. You stated that towards the end of 1939, it was already known that larger deportations were intended, which then, however, were not actually carried out. In the report which you passed on to Himmler, such a plan with the close and the distant aims has also been mentioned. Can you tell us what agency drafted this plan?\nAYes, this plan originated with the Reich Security Main Office. It is described as the General Flan East, and as such under that designation it came to my knowledge here.\nQYou also spoke about the agency Greifelt. Do you know whether the agency of Greifelt with regard to this General Plan East could issue any instructions?\nANo, that is completely impossible. As a representative of the Reich Commissar in Danzig - West Prussia, I was able to observe these things quite closely, because I was concerned with them personally. All instructions of this kind came exclusively from the Reich Security Main Office. The Main Staff Office had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The Reich Security Main Office would not have allowed a restriction of its competence and jurisdiction in these cases at all. The Reich Security Main Office was highly sensitive in such cases, and that was already in the very character of Heydrich, who tried to maintain his competence and jurisdiction and defended it against any interference.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4079, "page_number": "4072", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 21 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQ.Witness, we were talking about Greifelt's agency and we had arrived at 1939. Now, I recall that in October 1939, the resettlers came from the Baltics to Danzig. My question, now, is the following: At that time, in October 1939, did you hear anything about an activity of Greifelt's agency?\nA.No, in no way.\nQ.When did you come into contact with Greifelt for the first time, or when, for the first time, did you hear anything about Greifelt's agency as such?\nA.I had the first official notice about the establishment of the agency when I myself was appointed representative and, if I am not very much mistaken, that must have been towards the middle or the end of October 1939.\nQ.And when did the agency assume activities?\nA.Well, you cannot talk about real activities before what I remember as February or March of 1940, because , up to that point, I myself was not in a position either to assume serious activities. I have already testified that I had no staff, and that is why there wasn't really any possibility to carry on any two-way correspondence. Of course, whatever orders were issued were carried out to the extent that one could improvise, and that first period was quite a period of improvization altogether. Improvizing was the only thing we could do, if we wanted to approach theproblems at all.\nQ.Now, during these first stages of October, November and December \n 1939, according to your knowledge, did Greifelt have a part in that improvisation?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4080, "page_number": "4073", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.Well, you see, I don't know what he did in Berlin; I have no knowledge of that. At least, I didn't notice anything in Danzig that he took part in it.\nQ.When you started to notice Greifelt's work, could you find out whether his work covered foreign ethnic groups or not?\nA.No, because this very activity of Greifelt's was, very clearly and unambiguously, bound up to the fundamental order issued by the Fuehrer. All the subsequent decrees resulted from this first fundamental decree, and this fundamental decree defined the competency quite clearly and unambiguously.\nQ.And that was not overthrown either by the practice?\nA.No, no, in no way.\nQ.You have described your factual disputes with Forster. Now, what was Forster's position concerning this contradiction with him?\nA.On the main things, Greifelt held the same opinion as I did, and he couldn't have had another opinion because that was the only possible and acceptable opinion, and that was the opinion he had to represent as chief of the Main Staff Office. Therefore, he did not have and he did not seek an especially close contact with Forster; he would not have gotten it if he had looked for it, because Forster would not have been particularly keen on a close contact with Greifelt. Forster had a very strong aversion against Berlin, and against all agencies in Berlin, because he did not wish to be dragged out of what I might call this autonomous life in this small free state of Danzig.\nQ.Witness, if you will permit an interruption, will you please comment on this from Greifelt's viewpoint, and not from Forster's viewpointpoint? I mean, what was the effect of Forster's attitude upon Greifelt? And perhaps you could give us some details as to how Greifelt was treated by Forster, and so on and so forth, something along those lines.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4081, "page_number": "4074", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.I have already said that, in general, the Berlin agencies were not treated too well by Forster, and that applied to Greifelt as well, all and perhaps even more so, because, after/in many cases he came on the orders of the Reichsfuehrer.\nForster always expressed his surprise that somebody came from Berlin, and he would say, \"Well, what do you want here? You are from Berlin; what do you want to do here in my sphere of sovereignty?\" He meant to imply, almost, that somebody who came from Berlin would need a visa to go to Danzig, as if he were going into a foreign country.\nQ.In direct examination you testified with regard to the seizure of Polish property and to the Polish property decree of 17 September 1940, and you quoted that decree. Now, do you remember anything before the Polish property decree? I mean, perhaps even before you were assigned at Danzig, do you remember that the Polish property in toto was seized at that time?\nA.Yes, I have a very strong recollection of that; I know that the whole Polish property, in toto, had been seized before that.\nQ.According to your recollection, did Greifelt's agency have anything to do with those seizures?\nA.No, not at all.\nQ.Do you remember Dr. Winkler, of the HTO?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know whether Dr. Winkler had good official relations with Forster and whether he saw him often?\nA.Yes, he had quite good official relations with him, and quite good personal relations too. After, Winkler himself originated from Western Poland, from Graudenz, and Winkler afforded means for cultural aims to Gauleiter Forster, as he had the right to do. I think I can recall that he afforded quite a bit of money from a theater from some funds he had at his disposal.\nQ.And what were the funds Winkler and the HTo had at their disposal, amongst others? I mean, was he connected with the seized Polish \n property?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4082, "page_number": "4075", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.Yes, quite. He was closely connected with that. After all, he was the Chief of the HTO and this HTO was the trustee for the whole seized property.\nQ.From your extensive knowledge of Himmler and Greifelt -- I mean, you had friendly relations with Greifelt afterwards -- from this knowledge can you say something concerning the mutual relations between Himmler and Greifelt, and what Himmler's attitude was towards Greifelt and vice versa?\nA.Well, for Himmler, Greifelt doubtlessly was the prototype of a very reliable, exact, and punctual official. Doubtlessly, it is also correct that Greifelt showed a certain interest in economic questions, he had certain primary requisites, and he also had the proper background for organizational questions as a whole. One would say that Greifelt was not a man who had a tendency towards the extraordinary. He was a calm, quiet man, who aimed at having a clean agency in every respect. I think that once in a while he was not what you would call a very agreeable superior, because he was very bureaucratic, punctual, and exact, but doubtlessly Himmler saw in Greifelt a man whom he could entrust with the leadership of the organization and of the agency, whom he thought suitable for that position.\nAs to Greifelt's attitude towards Himmler personally, I would like to put it as follows:", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4083, "page_number": "4076", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "That Greifelt certainly was always on a correct standing with Himmler, quite as was in line with his nature, but I would personally doubt that their relations were heaty, because Greifelt had not been so long in the SS, first of all; and secondly, as it was quite impossible to come into a hearty relationship with Himmler so soon, because with Himmler one always had the impression that he did not open his heart to any one, that he made mental reservations. Himmler never gave whole-heartedly - he always maintained certain reserves, and since he never gave all his heart, he could not expect to get one hundred per cent the heats of his subordinates, and that was the same in the case of Greifelt. Greifelt had enough sense to feel that.\nQNo further questions.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER:\nQDr. Mueller for the defendant Huebner. I have a few questions. In your affidavit -- I am referring now to Prosecution Exhibit59in Document Book 2_C -- you testified that the RUS leader in the Warthegau was the representative of the RUS Main Office, RUSHA. However, apart from that the field agency Lodz of the RUSHA existed in the Warthegau. In view of that situation how can one understand your testimony concerning the representation by the RUS Leader?\nAYes, well, you see there must be a misunderstanding here. Wherever a main sector had only one RUS leader, this RUS leader was automatically the representative of the RUSHA in all fields of task. In the Warthegau there was an exceptional position in so far as apart from this RUS leader there was the well known field agency of RUSHA at Lodz, and in this particular case of Warthegua the RUS at Poznan was the representative of the RUSHA insofar as he represented the internal tasks of the SS, of the RUSHA.\nQThe remaining fields of tasks, therefore, were the tasks of their field agency?\nAYes, the tasks of the field agency Lodz. The tasks were governmental within the scope of the work of the main staff office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4084, "page_number": "4077", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "21 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_2_Bratzel (Treidell)\nQIn the same affidavit you go on to state that the defendant Huebner, apart from the tasks of the RUS leader, had also the leadership of the field agency Poznan of the RKFDV. Is that completely correct?\nAWell, the sense is slightly distorted by an error -- by a misunderstanding originating in the fact that I had no knowledge of the existence of the field agency of the RUSHA, the main staff office in Poznan. I automatically assumed that that was the agency of the representative in which Herr Huebner was staff leader. In the Gau DanzigWestern Prussia no such field agency existed and, therefore, I did not assume it existed in the Warthegua. Huebner was the staff leader of the representative and that is what I wanted to express. For the rest, I would like to add a few words concerning this affidavit. At the time I just came back from Poland and I was in a very desolate condition and my memory and my health situation was not so good that I could make any exact and extensive statements.\nQThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, aside from everything else, I consider you an intelligent man and you have sat through a number of cross examinations here, so you understand, do you not. that your answers to my questions should be as brief as possible without any philosophy or legal arguments.\nADoubtlessly, Mr. Prosecutor.\nQWitness, when did you first join the Nazi Party?\nAI stated already that it was in the 1922 or 1923, around the New Year. It was a nominal membership only. I had no activity at the time. because I was at that time also a member of the Oberland association which took up all my time.\nQWitness, -\nAI am -\nQI am sorry, did you complete your answer, Witness? Or do you \n 21 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_3_Bratzel (Treidell) wish to say something else?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4085, "page_number": "4078", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AI wanted to add that in New York -- I wanted to add that after that, in 1928, I was in New York City, and I joined there a local group of the Nazi Party which was a legally registered assosiation then.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, Mr. Witness, you have covered that very thoroughly already and there is no use to go over it again.\nQWitness, on direct examination, in connection with the phrase \"special treatment\", you stated that the meaning of this phrase was known in detail only to the members of the state police. Wasn't this term \"special treatment\" used as a matter of course in the agencies of RUSHA and among the field examiners -- field leaders of RUSHA and the racial examiners of RUSHA.\nANo, the expression was known, but there were no precise conception ions of what the expression signified. It was a collective term and only the Gestapo know in detail what the consequences of the expression \"special treatment\" were, and the consequences differed quite a bit. The judgments differed considerably and, therefore, it was impossible to describe the whole consequences in one word. This word was only a collective term which afterwards was split up into various consequences which in final effect remained unknown to the RUS leaders, because he only had to give his expert opinion.\nQWitness, will you please look at Documents No.NO 5836and NO 5837, which I am offering for identifcation as Prosecution Exhibits 845 and 846. These are two reports, Witness, by racial examiner named Ratzeberg, in connection with two trips he made in August and in October, 1944.\nAMay I ask you what document you ore referring to, Mr. Prosecutor?\nQWitness, if you will look at the first documentNO 5836, will you please look at Paragraph No. 3, headed \"Secret State Police\", with the sub-heading \"(1) Special Treatment\"?\nAYes, I see what you mean.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4086, "page_number": "4079", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "21 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_4_Bratzel (Treidell)\nQYou see a number of cases listed under that, Witness? Names and numbers meaning something in connection with the racial judgment? If you will look at the other document, Witness, NO. 5837, Paragraph II, Gestapo Branch Office-Mainz, with the sub-heading \"(1) Special treatment\", there are some more cases given?\nAYes, I see that.\nQNo, witness, are there any cases that could be listed under such a heading except cases involving Poles or Eastern workers who were accused of having had forbidden sexual intercourse with German women?\nAThe term \"special treatment\" apparently refers to that case, yes.\nQWitness, didn't you know that one of the possible decisions in these cases was the death penalty, if the man was decided not to be racially valuable?\nAI told you already that the racial judgment was not the only component in that decision. Various other witnesses, and also myself, testified to that, that the Reich Fuehrer quite personally reserved his own judgment, and that it doesn't occur at all that the judgment given by the racial examiner was decisive, because I can very well imagine that - just with this very delicate conception of this illicit sexual intercourse - the way the matter occurred was much more decisive than whether the man had a nose of four or five centimeters long; whether it was rape, or whether there was violence, or whether it was -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness. Mr. Witness, the question he asked you was whether or not you knew that one of the possible punishments was death. Not how the judgment was made up, but whether or not that was a possible punishment. That is the only question.\nAYes.\nQWitness -\nA (Interrupting) It was one of the possibilities, as I heard, not officially but through other channels, that there were even posters pasted up concerning this. Officially I was in no way connected with the final decision.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4087, "page_number": "4080", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "21 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_5_Bratzel (Treidell)\nQWitness, if the man involved in these cases --.\nAYes?\nQ -- was not killed, or put in a concentration camp, he was reGermanized, was he not?\nAThat I do not know. There were various categories.\nQWitness, did you ever hoar of any other alternative besides re-Germanization or concentration camp or hanging?\nAHe was punished. I mean there was also imprisonment. I don't mean imprisonment in concentration camps, I mean imprisonment in a prison.\nQThank you, witness. During exactly what period of time was the man Thurner your deputy for RUSHA?\nAThurner ?\nQYes.\nAThurner was my deputy as from on or about the 10th of December, 1943. That was the period when via Eastern Prussia and the headquarters, I proceeded to Southern Russia. Until the beginning of 1944, the beginning of September, 1944, I mean. I couldn't give you the exact date.\nQWitness, didn't Thurner keep you informed of all important matters which occurred during your absence, so that you could decide them yourself? In other words, didn't you keep your finger on the situation in RUSHA even though you were in Russia?\nAYes. This morning I tried to explain to you what was the situation in Russia. Of course, I was kept informed, or he would keep me informed concerning all the substantial RUS matters, but nothing new occurred during my term in Russia. There is only one matter that occurred which he put down here in the documents. That is the meeting of the RUS leaders. The meeting which was submitted also by the prosecutor as a document. This meeting was called by me. I gave the orders and it was called in compliance with that order. I asked \n 21 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_6_Bratzel (Treidell) for that because it was very important.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4088, "page_number": "4081", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "For the rest, of course, I had correspondence with Turner. Turner would write to me. He was quite a good acquaintance of mine.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4089, "page_number": "4082", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QWitness, did Thurner have the same powers with respect to making decisions in your absence curing the whole period of your absence?\nAThurner made all the decisions that had to be made, that became necessary because of the situation, because of the geographical distance between us was so immense.\nQWitness, will you please look at document No. 4866, which I mew offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit847. This is an order signed by you, witness, dated 31 March, 1944, and setting forth the powers and responsibility of Thurner.\nAYes, I know this order.\nQIn the beginning, Witness, do you see where it says, \"I order the following, thus partially suspending numbers 3,4, and 5 of my order of 16 December 1943\"?\nAYes, in this Thurner gets all the powers of attorney by me expressly, which enable him to make all the necessary decisions, and that is exactly what I just told you.\nQWitness, up until this time, that is 31 March 1944, for the first three months in 1944, and whatever few days in December, did Thurner have this right under the orders which you say you are partially suspending?\nAEssentially speaking, Thurner did not need any power of attorney. The whole machinery of the Reich Resettlement Main Office continued to go on as before, but at that time I gave him that power of attorney specifically because the first order, which is not submitted here, did not contain these powers expressly, and apparently it was necessary to give this order separately, because I myself couldn't count on a long period in Southern Russia. At the beginning it was stated only that I was there provisionally, for a short time, as a deputy, until a new Higher SS and Police Leader would be appointed, but no new Higher SS Leader was appointed, and I remained until \n September, 1944, and, therefore, when later on I saw that I was to stay down in Southern Russia, it became necessary to give the power to Thurner and also because Field Marshal von Kleist made it a great point that I remained, and, therefore, in March I issued this complementary and clarifying decree, or had it issued, because it was only signed with my stamp.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4090, "page_number": "4083", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "That was the only thing that was possible. I was not on the spot. And thereby Thurner was enabled to act as Chief of the RuSHA.\nQWitness, you will see Paragraph No. 2 of this order. You still reserved the right to make long-range decisions, as well as decisions of a fundamental nature. Didn't you make any decisions of that nature you were in Russia?\nAI can not recall any such special cases, but I do knew that the Reichsfuehrer SS asked me for this specific passage, because State Councillor Thurner normally had never worked before in the Reich Resettlement Main Office, and he was only the expert for the offices of Pensions and Welfare. Therefore, as a precaution the Reichsfuehrer ordered at that time that basic questions were at least to be brought to my attention, in order to prevent the occurrence of errors.\nQWitness, on direct examination you have stated that this man Thurner was a specialist in welfare matters, and therefore specially suitable to take charge of RuSHA while you were absent. Isn't that correct?\nANot to take over the office. The Office was taken over by Dr. Hertel, but to see to it that the reorganization in the offices was made in the way that I had ordered it, and to the letter in the way I had ordered it.\nThat is what he was the expert for.\nQWitness, did you ever hear that this man Thurner, aside from being an expert in welfare or organizational matters was an expert in killing Jews and other civilians?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4091, "page_number": "4084", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "AI am not of the opinion that he was an expert in that field, too.\nQWitness, will you please look at Document No.NO 5810, which I new offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.848. This is a letter from Thurner to you, dated 17 October 1941, In the second paragraph of which he describes his responsibility for the executions of thousands of people in what, no doubt, he calls reprisal measures.\nHave you ever seen this letter before, Witness?\nAI know this letter, yes, because the Prosecution has already put it to me.\nQFitness, this man Thurner here says that he is mere ruthless than the soldiers of the German Army; that they can't even kill all these people without being squeamish ; that os a very rough paragraph phrase, witness. Is this the sort of man you considered to be an expert of welfare and organizational matter?\nAI believe that State Councillor Thurner's activities at Belgrad is not at all connected with this case here.\nQWitness, you have been described by your counsel, and have described yourself here, as being a kindly seeker after justice. Didn't you over have to act in a cruel and harsh manner? Didn't you ever have to nave people shot?\nAI can't recall any such instance, but may I add a few words concerning this Thurner document here?\nQPlease try to keep it brief, witness, but go ahead.\nAYes. As far as I can see from the document, when I have to glance over it hurriedly, this involves partisans and other matters of that kind in the Balkans. Shooting of partisans. The Balkans always had their own laws and I am not in a position to judge what the military authorities had ordered at that time, and what was right and what was wrong. That is what is involved here.\nQVery well, witness. Now let's return to your case. Weren't you \n yourself known to be a harsh and brutal man, at least to Himmler?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4092, "page_number": "4085", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Didn't Himmler consider you a really hard man?\nAI don't know. I don't know how Himmler should have been able the man to qualify me as such. Himmler of all people.\nQWitness, will you please lock at Document No.NO 1180, which I new offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.849. This is a letter dated 25 August 1944, Witness, from Himmler to the Higher SS and Police Leader in Hungary, Winkelmann. He here tried to get Winkelmann to send you to Romania - Siebenbuergen to take charge of that area. Did you ever go to that area, witness?\nAWell, concerning this document I have to give you a short commentary.\nQWell, Witness, first let me try to get a few questions in and a few answers, and then you will have a chance to make a short commentary. Did you ever go to this territory as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nANo.\nQWitness, will you please look at paragraph No. 7 of this letter?\nAYes, I will.\nQHimmler here says \"In case Hildebrandt is not there, please send most brutal commandant available to that region\".\nAYes, that proves that I was not the most brutal commandant. That is a very logical conclusion to draw from that passage.\nQWitness, were you available to go to that region at that time? If you didnot go, why didn't you go?\nABecause I didn't feel like the brutal commandant which Himmler apparently thought I was, at least, not in the sense stated there. That is why I wasn't assigned in the Banat-Siebenbuergen, because I refused to go that job. I know that matter quite well, and I could give you quite detailed explanation, and for the rest, this letter was \n complete insanity, because at that time Siebenbuergen was already threatened by the Russian spearheads.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4093, "page_number": "4086", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "It is a typical Himmler order.\nIt was just a typical order of this utopical fool in which he tried to get his malice rut of his system. I myself, succeeded with a lot of difficulty to get out of Siebenbuergen before the Russian Panzers arrived, a few hours before and when I travelled in the direction of Banat from Siebenbuergen, there was a police officer on the read and he handed me that order to go to Siebenbuergen and I told him, \"Don't you know that Siebenbuergen is almost surrounded by the Russians?\nWhat do you think this whole nonsense would mean?\" And what was the only contact I had with that insanity, and I rejected most emphatically that this expression \"brutal commander\" is applied to me, of all people.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4094, "page_number": "4087", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.- Witness, at one stage you said that you rejected this position because you were not such a brutal command. At another stage in your answer you said you refused to go back because the Russians had practical control of that area. Now what did you really mean to say, witness? Which answer is correct?\nA.- I don't understand what you mean, Mr. Prosecutor.\nQ.- Well, witness, from your answer, if I am not completely confused, I gathered that you gave two reasons why you did not return to Siebenbuergen: one, that you were not such a brutal command that Hitler desired, and therefore refused what you knew would be a blood job; and too, that when you saw this letter you told the police officer that Rumanian Siebenbuergen was almost entirely in the hands of the Russians, and therefore, it was ridiculous for you to try to go back. Now which answer do you wish to confirm, witness?\nA.- Well, I can give you the following answer: whoever knows me knows that the word \"brutal commandant\" applied to me is nonsense. Whoever knows the situation of that period knows also that a front line which was streaming back was to be kept on the spot. In his expressions, Himmler always used pleonasms, and in this letter he expressly mentions that the most brutal commandant was not me and that another man was to be sent down there. Therefore I don't see the logic in your explanations.\nQ.- Very well. On direct examination, witness, you stated that not more than 100 men in the SS knew about the extermination of the Jews, and that you did not know about it until it was too late. Witness, how did you arrive at this figure of 100 men, approximately 100?\nA.- I have already explained that: I learned about it through SS Judge Morgan worked with me for a certain period, and the Tribunal knows that, and it has been testified to already before the IMT.\nQ.- Witness, in your direct examination you have tried to show that you were against Himmler and that you really wanted to end the war -- at \n least in December of 1944.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4095, "page_number": "4088", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Isn't true, witness, that instead of being interested in resistance movements against Himmler and peace movements to end the war that you were really interested in starting and fomenting an underground resistance movement against the Allies in those sections of Germany which were being invaded?\nA.- An underground movement against the Allies, you mean?\nQ.- Yes, witness.\nA.- I can't make any statement with regard to that question.\nQ.- Witness, will you please look at Document No.NO-5714which I now offer for identification as Prosecution Exhibit No.850. This is a letter dated 19 September 1944 from you to Himmler.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, I have written that letter. This letter is based on all the military experience I have gained in the East and all through my time as a soldier. It is the result of those experiences, and this letter is in no way connected with my will to bring about a change in the political and military aims of Germany. For just in such important events my capacity to negotiate is the most important point. If I am struck to the ground, I am no longer a partner in the negotiation; therefore as long as I have intentions to negotiate, I must still be on my fact. If I am on the ground already, I am no longer a partner in the negotiations.\nQ.- Witness, this is my last question. During your direct examination, you have quite clearly repudiated your former leader Himmler. I should like to ask you now, do you as well repudiate the former leader Adolf Hitler?\nA.- I have made many statements with regard to that question. That is a question where I could give you a lecture of several hours. I can answer it like that on the spote cumulatively. I can only say I reject Adolf Hitler in as far as he betrayed the ideals which we rallied to and in as far as he left these ideals. I reject him absolutely in as far as that goes.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4096, "page_number": "4089", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.- The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything further by the Defense?\nMR. FROESCHMAN:No questions in redirect, your Honor. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQ.- Witness, I am somewhat confused in relation to your military titles. If I understand correctly, you testified that you are Obergruppenfuehrer, which is equivalent to our American status of Lieutenant General. Then you made reference to being General of the Police. Is that a different office?\nA.- Yes, your Honor.\nQ.- Would you be good enough to explain the distinction so that I may understand them?\nA.- With pleasure, Your Honor. An Obergruppenfuehrer is in the rank of a General -- that is, a Lieutenant General in the American Army, Originally, I was an Obergruppenfuehrer, Lieutenant General of the SS, and then I was first a General of the Police and then a General of the Armed SS -- of the Waffen SS -- that is, as from Spring of 1944.\nQ.- Would they represent two entirely distinct commissions?\nA.- Yes, Your Honor. As far as the period is concerned, those are different commissions.\nQ.- That is what confuses me. Why did you need two commissions, and if you held two commissions what is the distinguishing line between them?\nA.- Originally there are three different commissions, Your Honor. First of all, Lieutenant General of the SS -- that is the General SS ; General of the Police, referring to my functions of Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig - Western Prussia as well as in Southern Rumania. Then you have the office rank of General of the Waffen SS, which refers to my capacity as Chief of the RuSHA - as Chief of the Offices of Pensions and Welfare, for the Waffen SS again was a part of the Armed Forces.\nQ.- Now you used the general phrase \"General.\" In each instance did you hold the grade of the Obergruppenfuehrer or was it a different grade \n in general rank?", "speakers": [ "MR. FROESCHMAN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4097, "page_number": "4090", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.- Your Honor, that was a General's rank, and Obergruppenfuehrer was the title I held until the General rank was introduced. But it was customary amongst the members of the SS that you were referred to as Obergruppenfuehrer and not as Lieutenant General in most cases. If I was in the Armed Forces or in public life, then I was addressed as General. But those are only small differences which could only become clear to the expert.\nQ.- In each of these distinctions as General, were you subject to Himmler?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- In respect to all three?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- One other tiling confuses me somewhat, and I am quite sure you can understand it coming from a land which is not so familiar with your procedure here. Under which branch did the Gestapo operate?\nA.- The Gestapo worked in the RsHA in Berlin, Your Honor -- Office IV of the RsHA. The RsHA was an official Reich agency.\nQ.- Well, was the Gestapo part of the police as distinguished from the Armed Forces?\nA.- The Gestapo was a part of the Security Police. Substantially speaking, it was not connected with the Armed Forces.\nQ.- Who headed the Gestapo in final directing authority?\nA.- Chief of the Gestapo in direct instance was a certain Lieutenant General Mueller; while the Supreme Chief was the Chief of the Security Police -- at that time Lieutenant General Heydrich, and later SS Lieutenant General Kaltenbrunner. But the highest Supreme Chief was the Reichsfuehrer SS, Himmler.\nQ.- Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4098, "page_number": "4091", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "DR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, as the last of my witnesses, I ask permission to call the witness von Eberstein granted already by the Tribunal, and I want to ask him a few questions only.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nKARL FRIEDRICHFREIHERR von EBERSTEIN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, will you please state your full personal data to the Tribunal.\nA.My name is Friedrich Karl Freiherr von Eberstein. I was born on the 14 of January 1895 at Halle on the Saale.\nQ.Witness, will you please give the Tribunal in a few brief words the official position you held from the first of August of 1914.\nA.In August 1914, I was a war volunteer and I joined the Armed Forces, and in 1915 I became Lieutenant in the Reserve. I was, during the whole war, in the front line as a front officer, and after the war I wanted to continue my studies which I had started from 12 to 14, but I couldn't go on with it because of the changed economic conditions. I made my apprenticeship in a bank, and after I had graduated as apprentice, I worked my way up to bank director in a big banking house. From 1921--that was the year when I finished my apprenticeship--until 1931 I worked as a banker In 1931, on account of the fact that I joined the Nazi Party already before I was transferred and I was taken over in the Nazi Party as a professional superior SA leader in the Supreme SA leadership in Munich.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "KARL FRIEDRICH", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4099, "page_number": "4092", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "There I worked in the organizational department I and had a decisive part in the drawing up of the SA by-laws. I remained a professional SA man until the national socialist seizure of power in Germany, and after this seizure of power in the beginning of March 1933 I was sent to Thuringia. In the meantime, I had been transferred from the SA to the SS, and in 1933 until 1934 I worked at Weimar as Chief of an SS main sector with the office rank of an SS Major General. In 1934 I went to Dresden and there I was taken over in the State Office as a Government President of Dresden Bauteen. In this office, I remained until the 31 of March 1936, and on the first of April 1936 I was given the Office of the President of the Munich Police. In Dresden as well as in Munich, apart from my Government office, I commanded the SS Main Sector in that area.\nQ.Just a minute, witness. Can't you talk into the microphone?\nA.Yes. On the 30 of January 1936, I was appointed SS Lieutenant General, and in my State Office in 1937 I got the additional commission of taking care of the official business of the Director of the Police Department in the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. When the war broke out in September 1939, I became higher SS and Police Leader with the Bavarian State Minister of the Interior. The Bavarian State Minister of the Interior was at the same time Defense Commissioner for the Army District XIII. With this official capacity, until the 20 April 1945, I joined also the Office of the Police Department of the Bavarian State Ministry of the Interior. I may point out that the first position of the Higher SS and Police Leader was an Office of the German Reich, while the Office of the Chief of the Police Department in the Bavarian Ministry of the State of the Interior was a land office, and I was also appointed ministerial Director in this office. In 1942 I handed over the Office of the Police President. That wan taken over by another official then. Then I was only Higher SS and Police Leader in the State Department of the Interior. In the autumn of 1944, not only I but also to the other Higher SS Police Leaders of the Reich, were also put in charge of the official business of a Higher Commander of the prisoner of war affairs in the army district for \n which they were responsible.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4100, "page_number": "4093", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "These official tasks are also kept until the 20 of April 1945. On this day, Himmler removed me from office as a disciplinary measure and I was without portfolio until the arrival of the American troops in the beginning of May 1945.\nQ.Witness, you were Higher SS and Police Leader in Munich, weren't you for six years, is that right?\nA.Yes.\nQ.A certain number of witnesses here have produced quite a bit of material to clarify the concept of Higher SS and Police Leader: a simple collaborator of Hildebrandt, and an employee of Hildebrandt, and a subordinate of his, and now you as Higher SS and Police Leader yourself are here. I would like to have a few explanations on matters pertaining to this trial and being of importance here. First of all, do you know what circumstances caused the appointment of a Higher SS and Police Leader at all?\nA.The reasons for the Reich Leadership to take this measure were unknown to me. Apparently, Himmler, who was in a constant conflict with the acting Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr. Frick, aimed at having the executive powers in his hands also on the regional level in the army districts, and at that time he had already been appointed Chief of the whole German Police within the Reich Ministry of the Interior. But it seemed to me that he made it a point to get his finger in the pie also on the regional level and to have a man in his confidence in every region. As I said, that was the moment where the German Police became stronger end stronger. I want to explain this passage: that is, the individual police forces of the individual Leader were transferred to the Reich; therefore they became a Reich Police. It's a striking fact to state that once this institution had been created and Himmler himself became Reich Minister of the Interior, he showed no interest at all to give this agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader the necessary legal powers. After the Reich Minister of the Interior in 1937 or 1938 had introduced this institution of the Higher SS and Police Leader, the powers didn't \n exist yet.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4101, "page_number": "4094", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "This establishing decree was published in the Reich legal Gazette as far as I know, or in the Reich Ministerial Bulletin. I cannot know which one it was; I couldn't testify on it under oath. This decree was very poor, if I may say so. It was only one typewritten sheet and the contents were something like the following: The Higher SS and Police Leaders are the representatives of the Reichfuehrer SS in their army districts. But already in the second sentence of the decree it was established that the SS leaders involved, substantially speaking, had no powers at all, because it went on to say in the decree that the factual superiors of the police are and remain the chiefs of the main offices: regular police and security police.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4102, "page_number": "4095", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "These two main office chiefs used their own channels of command. The Higher SS and Police Leader was on the same level but aside from those channels of command, the orders were issued by the police. That is very significant, it was important for us and it created an extremely difficult situation for us.\nQ.Witness, in other words the situation was that the Higher SS and Police Leader had no powers to issue orders to the regular police or to the security police?\nA.Yes, the only powers he had in accordance with the decree from the Reich Minister of Interior, Dr. Frick, was to make inspection tours and as the result of chose inspection tours he could make such recommendations as he wanted to and he could make suggestions as to how they should be done; at any rate he had no right to issue orders and he couldn't issue orders to the Waffen SS either; in spite of what one might assume from the title Higher SS and Police Leader, not against the Waffen SS or Police.\nQ.Now of the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader, was it particularly difficult on account of the fact that it depended on other agencies and on what agencies did it depend?\nA.Yes, the Higher SS and Police Leader were an agency for the case of mobilization. At the same time, in December 1939 a decree was issued by the Reich according to which the Gauleiters were appointed Reich Commissars in their districts and they knew of police tasks, and the situation be came even More difficult at the moment when Borman, the Reichleiter and the Chief of the Party Chancery, and at the same time Reich Minister without portfolio; that is a member of the Reich Ministry; then this man issued a new decree, at least he inspired the decree which came into the Reich Legal Gazette on 7 November 1942 through a decree by the Reich Defense Commission who had the decision in all matters of defense. He was then the Reich Defense Minister and whoever knew the conditions of Germany during that period knows that \n there was no institution in public life who had not some connection with the Reich defense.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4103, "page_number": "4096", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Now, as a matter of fact there was a tendency and I was the only one of my comrades of the Higher SS and Police Leader who had experienced that already before the war since I had been already a high police administrative official in peace time, while the other gentleman; with the exception of Dr. Martin at Nurnberg, were not. It could be noticed that the party and the Gauleiters as its exponents had a very strong interest in getting the executive powers into their hands. The Party had no confidence in the Police; this dated already from the period before 1933 and therefore there was constant friction between the Higher powers and the police leadership agencies. During my painful nine year long experience in Munich and Dresden I had to find out the hard way. The Gauleiters at that time were my superiors and for nine years I was constantly maligned and had constantly suffered from that until 20th of September when they almost throw me out only because I tried to create a state where the laws of the Reich were respected.\nQ.Witness, can you tell me in how far the Reich agencies took it upon themselves to interfere with the activities of the Higher SS and Police Leaders?\nA.Yes, there is one case which I still remember, a short time before the war broke out. I cannot remember the month very well, doubtlessly it was in the winter of 1939 or 1940. I was called by the then Chief of the Fuehrer's Chancery in Berlin. He called me over the telephone and I asked him if I should bring any documents and he told me that that wasn't necessary. Then when I came down there Reichleiter Bouhler at the time told me in my area of command there was an insane asylum which I knew about. I said, \"well, I know that it exists.\" Thereupon, he told me of a decree of Hitler's according to which all the incurably insane should be transferred to an asylum near Linz in Austria, and there they would be as he called it, \"put to sleep\" and he gave me the commission to issue an order to the director of the \n insane asylum and to go see him and tell him that those incurably insane persons should be prepared for this asylum in Austria.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4104, "page_number": "4097", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "I was very much surprised over this commission for it was in no way in connection with my tasks and I told him that I didn't feel competent for those matters and that probably this doctor, or director, wouldn't accept any orders from me. The Reichleiter then urged me again and told me that he had selected me and that I was the man who should take care of it. I thereupon asked him why he did not avail himself of the competent state agencies since there was a special medical department in the ministry in which I worked to which the State asylums were subordinated. He tried to persuade me once more but I again refused and went away. It can be noted that under pressure of the high office this man held -- he was an important person who had his office in the Reich Chancery -- wanted to misuse me now for such a matter which had nothing to do with my affairs. Another case, during my last period, was when Reich Defense Commissar and Gauleiter Paul Giesser in which on 20 July 1944 notified me that I was to arrest an officer on the general staff from the staff of the Army district Commander at Munich. When he told me so I asked him what this officer was to be charged with; I said that I had to know what it was all about if I arrested him and he answered me that the man was an enemy of the Nazi Party. when I told him that that in itself was not a reason for arrest then he attacked me very strongly and I was critized accordingly in view of my political reliability and was told that they mistrusted me. In March 1945 the same Gauleiter called me in my official capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader and asked me, \"now what about this concentration camp in Dachau.\" the concentration camp Dachau was in my area. He asked me what should happen to these concentration camp inmates when the American troops arrived and I told him thereupon I wouldn't know because the concentration camp was not under my jurisdiction, whereupon, he told me that these prisoners had to be evacuated and I said, \"where to?\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4105, "page_number": "4098", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "and he said, \"they Hill be shot, all of them.\" I was to issue the order to the camp commander, the order for the execution of these inmates. It was a matter of 25,000 inmates at that time. I refused to do that and on the contrary I even succeeded in obtaining a decree from Himmler according to which the camp as a whole was to be turned over to the enemy. I had a considerable clash about that with Gieser. The next thing waswhen American troops approached; it was a completely hopeless affair as the Army District Commander did not plan the defense of Munich, and as they didn't have any troops they couldn't have defended it anyhow, but it would only have caused considerable danger for the population so I refused to defend Munich with this little police force that I still had add then Gauleiter Geiser rung up Bormann and told me before the telephone call already that I didn't have the competence any longer and that he had applied for my immediate release with the Fuehrer Headquarters and within 48 hours I was fired without any hearing by the Party Chancery and without any chance to justify my actions. It is significant to state that I had been a member of the Nazi Party for 23 years, since 1922, and I served the cause for 23 years without reprimand, that I had the rank of a General in the Waffen SS of the police and that it was even impossible for me to say one word for my justification and within 48 hours I was fired and the Gauleiter had somebody also appointed in my position. That was only to demonstrate how powerful they were. Today matters are very often considered differently but that is the real conditions were in the Reich.\nQ.In other words you were lucky not to be shot?\nA.Well, if the war had gone on for another two weeks they probably would have hanged me.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess now for 15 minutes. (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4106, "page_number": "4099", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, I would like to clarify something which perhaps could have been misinterpreted before. You spoke about the fact previously that you were ordered to arrest somebody. In your capacity as higher SS and police leader were you at all competent to issue such a warrant of arrest, or was this the case in some other function of yours; or, did the man concerned only show his ignorance about the position of the higher SS and police leader.\nA.I believe you are referring to the order for arrest of the General Staff Officer on the 20th of July. I would like to point out that the Reich Defense Commissar in question for sometime was in charge of the Bavarian State Ministry of Interior, and I was his immediate subordinate also in the field of provincial administration in my capacity as Ministerial Director and as head of the police department there.\nQ.In your capacity as General of the Police, was the security Police subordinated to you?\nA.No.\nQ.Before the Tribunal raised the question just how the three functions of Obergruppenfuehrer in the SS, General of the Police and General of the Waffen SS could be coordinated with each other and how could they be differentiated. Can you describe that to us on the basis of your personal experiences?\nA.Very well. The rank of a Obergruppenfuehrer in the General SS was held by the higher SS and police leaders in their capacity as leaders of the Main Sectors of the General SS. In that capacity as higher SS and police leaders, that is to say, as a representative of the state, they received there the rank of the General in the police. With that, however, they did not have the power of command over the police. This matter is very difficult to explain, and even the people in Germany don't know that, as strange as this may seem. I always maintained the point of \n view that the whole institution of the agencies and positions of the higher SS and police Leader was an experiment on the part of Himmler to finally organize his state security corps which he was thinking about.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4107, "page_number": "4100", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "This was a plan that out of the SS, which was a party organization, and of the police which was a government organization, a coordinated corps, a so-called State Security Corps, was to be established. This plan, however, was never actually realized. There is a book which is called the German Police, \"Die Deutsche Polizei\", which was written by Dr. Best, an official of the Reich Security Main Office. In this book Dr. Best described how this state corps was to be organized later on. I would like to point out that this was only a pipe dream, so to speak, on the part of Dr. Best because he, as far as I know, during the big Nurnberg Trial in 1946 clarified this matter in an affidavit. The higher SS and police leaders did not have the power of command; that was already specified in the Reich Ministerial Decree which called for the establishment of these positions, and to which I have referred at the beginning of my examination.\nQ.And how was it with the General of the Waffen SS?\nA.The rank of a General in the Waffen SS was given to the higher So and police leaders only as late as the year 1944, and this was done at the time when Himmler was commander-in-chief of the reserve army and when Himmler also was in charge of the PW service.\nQ.Thank you; that is sufficient; that is quite sufficient. Now, I would like ask you something else. Was there any difference with regard to the position of the higher SS and police leader in Germany proper and his position in the occupied territories?\nA.Yes. With regard to the official tasks of the higher SS and police leaders in the occupied territories, however, I cannot give you any information from my own experiences because throughout that time I was only higher SS and police leader in units or areas of Germany proper. However, I do know that, for example, the higher SS and police leaders in the Government General and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia \n had been appointed as state secretaries for the security service of the state, that is to say.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4108, "page_number": "4101", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "they were included in the state administration of these territories which were under the jurisdiction of Germany at the time, and, consequently, they were the direct superiors of the police in those areas, and they had the power of command.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4109, "page_number": "4102", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.- However, this only applied to Bohemia and Moravia.\nA.- Yes, I know of these two examples. I know that in those areas the higher SS and police leaders had the title of state secretaries.\nQ.- Now, I want to turn to another subject which I want to discuss with you. The Prosecution has repeatedly charged that the higher SS leaders for a long time had known the intention of the Reich Government with regard to persecution of the Jews and extermination of the Jews, and in this connection it has also been brought forth that the SS, as an organization, had quite generally participated in these measures. What can you tell us about this subject? Did the higher SS leaders, in your opinion, have knowledge of these plans on the part of the Reich Government and, if so, since when?\nA.- From my own experiences, personal experiences, I can only state the following: You spoke about the persecution of Jews in general. Did you refer, for example, in this case to deportation of Jews?\nQ.- I am thinking first of all of the 9th and 10th November, 1938.\nA.- The occurrences on the 9th and 10th of November, 1938, probably began in Munich, and, therefore, I can give you some quite precise details about the matter.\nQ.- Will you please do so?\nA.- According to my official duties, at an official occasion in Munich I always had to accompany Hitler, that is to say, I had to go ahead and \"pilot\" him as it is called with my car, and on the 9th of November, 1938, I attended the dinner with Hitler which was held annually in the old city hall of Munich for the veterans in the party who had participated in the Putsch in 1933. When Hitler entered the city hall, Dr. Goebbels reported to him that the Legation Counselor von Rath in Paris had died of the wounds sustained as a result of an assassination which was attempted. Hitler became extremely excited about this report.\nQ.- One question. Was the assassin a member of the Jewish race?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4110, "page_number": "4103", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.- Yes. At least that is what was stated in the official report about the matter. In the course of this dinner it was customary that Hitler give a speech. This had made such an impression on him that he did not consider himself capable of holding this speech, and this was rather important because normally he did not tend to be nervous. I was sitting right across from him at the dinner and he refused to make a speech to the people at the dinner table, but he called Dr. Goebbels over to him; then the latter spoke extremely intensively towards Hitler. Unfortunately, I was seated too far away and I could not understand what was going on because there was a lot of noise in the dining room since food was being served there and the room was crowded. However, Hitler left extremely early and I had to take him back to his apartment. In the night from the 9th to 10th November -- I must add here that Hitler left the dining room approximately at nine o'clock in the evening, as far as I can recall, in other words he left extremely early -- And this night, at midnight traditionally in the night of 9th to 10th of November every year the new recruits of the Waffen SS were sworn in, and there were about five or six thousand men in the year 1938. In my capacity as police president I was responsible for all the security measures and the closing of streets and so on. Approximately half an hour before the beginning of the ceremony, I received the report that the synagogue in Munich was on fire. At that time there was only one single synagogue in Munich. I immediately inquired whether anybody was doing anything about the fire and it was confirmed to me that the fire brigade was being obstructed in their activity. I immediately sent an energetic police officer down there with the orders to see to it that the fire was extinguished as quickly as possible. Approximately ten minutes later I received an additional report that unknown perpetrators had set afire to the Castle of the Jewish Baron von Huelsch in Munich, and that these people had penetrated into the castle. The police force there which consisted of three men was unable to master the situation. I imme \n diately sent a riot squad with one officer and twenty-three policemen with carbines and ammunition down there and it was reported to me then that the perpetrators had escaped, and probably then the fire was extinguished and peace was established later on.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4111, "page_number": "4104", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "From these two brief reports which I received, I gained the first information that some sort of a drive against the Jewish residents was under way. It was not possible for me to leave the place because a short time before midnight we closed off the streets and this was a precautionary measure, and I had to be within the restricted area, and had to see to it that the recruits stood their formation. Before that we had notified commanders of the regular police so that they could look after matters. After the ceremony was over, I went to the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten whore I had to report to Hitler. I would like to emphasize in that connection that all Higher SS and police leaders in that night after the ceremony would be the guests of Himmler in his hotel, and such an invitation only occurred once a year. All of them at this time were in Munich. I myself in the hotel received the report that looting was going on in the city. I then did not participate in the ceremony at all, but I Immediately went through the town in a car. Here I was able to determine that fires were raging in various spots and that in numerous spots I could also wee smashed windows and material from the show windows which had been thrown into the street. I then immediately ordered a general alarm within the city limits, and I sent all policemen into the streets with the orders that they were to immediately arrest people who were guilty of looting and further more, I contacted the city administration and I ordered them to prevent thefts and things of that sort. Then in connection with the trip around the city, which took approximately forty-five minutes to one hour, I returned to the hotel and reported about the matter to Himmler, and I received the strange reply from him: Leave me alone; I am on leave now. And I think it is important for me to state that here. After all, he was our highest \n superior and he was the responsible leader of the entire German police.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4112, "page_number": "4105", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "The story now went around that this was a program on the part of the SS which had been previously prepared. However, I can state that the person which talked to me in the hotel and pointed out to me the things which had gone on in the city was the deputy Gauleiter of Munich, Bavaria, and this man told me immediately after Hitler had left the room that Dr. Goebbels had given a fierce speech against the Jews and he assumed that this drive resulted from this speech; and therefore, it did not originate with the command agencies of the SS, but as it was also discussed in the IMT at Nurnberg, it resulted from the speeches of Goebbels by way of the propaganda office in Munich, to all the other propaganda offices throughout the Reich. On this occasion I would also like to point out that an affidavit which an SS man by the name Stangelmaier gave is included in the file which was submitted to the IMT in the year 1946. In this affidavit it is stated quite clearly that Himmler had given the order that the SS was not to take any part in this drive. I personally cannot say anything about this matter because I was out in the streets all night long. When I came back to the hotel, and this may have been at three o'clock in the morning, by that time the riot had been completed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4113, "page_number": "4106", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.- That is sufficient for me, witness. However, from your examination we can state that neither the Higher SS Leaders who were in Munich at that time nor the SS men in Munich took part in any way in this drive?\nA.- The SS in Munich and all the Higher SS Leaders were in the hotel. The General SS under my command was standing in formation from nine o'clock in the evening in order to close off this area where the recruits were to be sworn in. The members of the Waffen-SS were standing within this restricted area, which was closed off, in parade formation; therefore, it is quite impossible that even a single SS man could have participated in this drive.\nQ.- And now my second point, in what way did you hear about the deportation of the Jews?\nA.- I heard from the first time of the deportation of Jews through the following circumstances. As Police President every day the reports from the administrative police and the regular police were placed on my desk, and here in the indident reports from the criminal police I found the statement one day that approximately six or eight suicides had occurred in one single night. From the names it became evident that these people were jewish residents, or rather according to the forenames which they had to adopt as the result of some law. I then made a telephone call to the head of the criminal police and asked him what had brought about the suicides in such large numbers. Then he referred me to the Gestapo, I then called up the head of the Gestapo and asked him to report something to me about the matter. The official then came to see me and reported to me that on the following day a transport of Jewish residents of Munich was to leave for the East. I asked the official what would happen to these people; just how this thing was handled and why this was being done. Thereupon he told me these people will be resettled to the Eastern territory. He also told me that additional cars had been added to the train with all sorts of equipment which would be used for a settlement. That was the first indication \n that I received, as the police president of Munich.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4114, "page_number": "4107", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "I did not receive any orders for the preparation of these measures at no time whatsoever, because the Gestapo, which was not subordinated to me, acted in this matter in their own competence, and worked together in this case with the Jewish Community, and that is how they prepared and carried out those transports. I am today still of the same conviction that if I myself had not started an investigation I would never have heard anything at all about this matter. what additional things I heard then were through leaflets dropped by the British Air Force, which were dropped in large numbers and copies of which were passed on to my agency, because I had the duty to inform the Reich Defense Commissars in each case, just like all other Higher SS and Police Leaders, about incidents of that sort. Furthermore seized foreign newspapers also would be received by my office. I must say in this connection that as a result of the fact that in these newspapers and leaflets a large number of reports were contained on incidents which I myself, of my own knowledge, could see were not correct, so it was quite logical that these other things which were not reported on by our own government or Ministry of Propaganda would be considered always as propaganda of the enemy and that we did not believe them. I myself admit that I never listened in to foreign broadcasts, but upon other grounds. My wife, for example, repeatedly turned on the radio, and I prohibited her from doing so, because this was a very dangerous matter because every maid or servant was likely to bring us into jail by submitting a report about that, and it should be known that under the National-Socialist government these things were very severely punished. Furthermore, the mental strain which was caused by the war and by my duties which I had to perform day and night, took up such a lot of time that I did not want to burden myself any more by looking at these reports. For this reason I never listened in to foreign radio stations. I don't know where else I could have gained any knowledge about these matters. It probably is \n easily understood that I, as a Higher SS and Police Leader would not be informed by any one about anything, because people were afraid to talk to me about these matters; therefore, it was quite impossible that I could hear anything about these things.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4115, "page_number": "4108", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "Q.- Are you now referring to these deportation drives on Jews?\nA.- I am referring to the deportation of Jews and the mass exterminations which were said to take place in Auschwitz or Maidanek- anyway, it is a Polish name, I don't know exactly. Now it is generally known that these concentration camps and extermination camps were operated with a degree of secrecy in which a person who did not directly work in this matter and had nothing directly to do with it, could not possibly find out anything about it.\nQ.- In your opinion is it correct or incorrect that the members of the SS did not have knowledge of these criminal acts within these extermination camps?\nA.- Only those people, members of the SS, could have known about it who belonged directly to the detachments who worked immediately in these extermination camps; and they in turn were ordered to keep the strictest secrecy. I also know of officials in the Gestapo that in official conferences they were told officially that if they in any way, talked to unauthorized persons about their official tasks, they would be punished most severely.\nQ.- Now, my last question: From whom did the examiners receive their instructions with regard to their work?\nA.- The racial leader with the individual agencies. In what respect do you mean? There were various tasks.\nQ.- Just a minute, let me put it more precisely: Did racial resettlement leaders and the examiners only take up their work upon the special recommendation of some agency, and if so what agency? Can you answer that question?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4116, "page_number": "4109", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.- Yes. First of all their activity consisted of the fact that they had to deal with all the marital questions within the SS as a result of the training which they had received. This was an activity which they carried out quite automatically within the scope of the position which they held. that is to say, they had to give advice and they had to deal with requests for marriages submitted by members of the SS in the area of the main sector where they had been assigned. Furthermore, they also had to take care of the assignments which they received from the government agencies.\nQ.- Witness, I refer above all to the illicit sexual intercourse?\nA.- Yes, in this case these examiners would give official assistance; that is to say, they would comply with the request of the Gestapo to examine this or that person with regard to their suitability for re-germanization as it was called at the time.\nQ.- Your Honor, I have no further questions. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.- Dr. Schmidt for the defendant Tesch. Witness, I only want to ask you one single question. In your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader in Munich, did you have anything to do with the Lebensborn Society?\nA.- Yes, I bad to pay a lot of contributions to that office; otherwise I had nothing to do with it.\nQ.- I have no further questions; thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4117, "page_number": "4110", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, during direct examination you have been able to answer questions fully and give as complete an answer as you wished. But during my cross examination I only have a limited time and will you please try to make your answers as brief as possible. Witness, during the six years in which you were a Higher SS and Police Leader, approximately how many officials were there in the area of Munich, Upper Bavaria, who held a rank or office superior to yours?\nA.Nobody.\nQ.Was the Gauleiter in a position to give you orders, witness?\nA.Yes. I believe I misunderstood you. In the SS and the Police, there was no higher superior to me, but the gauleiter was my superior.\nQ.Witness, you have stated on direct examination that you could not give orders to any one, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You couldn't give any orders to the commander of the Security Police, for instance?\nA.No.\nQ.How about the RUS leader in that area, witness? Couldn't you give him any orders whatsoever?\nA.I could give the Race and Settlement Leader in my area orders within the scope of the General SS for instance, and I could tell him, \"You have to prepare the marital papers for a member of the General SS because this is urgent,\" for example. However , with regard to tasks, I could not give him any orders.\nQ.Thank you, witness. During your direct examination you mentioned that you had refused to issued an order whereby certain insane people would be transferred to a place in Linz where they were to be put to death. Witness, do youknow whether or not any other Higher SS and Police Leader ever received such a request or ever had anything to do with Euthanasia?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4118, "page_number": "4111", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.No, I don't know that.\nQ.Witness, you Mentioned an incident in connection with the requested arrest of a general staff officer. Did that involve you in your capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader in any way, or was it in some other capacity?\nA.Yes, this was not my capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader. But as I have mentioned before, the Gauleiter at the same time was the Minister of the Interior, and as a result of the dual position which I held I was also an official in his ministry.\nQ.Witness, what I mean is: when you were requested to issue a warrant for this officers arrest, how would you have signed it? Would you have signed it as a member of the Ministry of the Interior or as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.In no way would I have signed it. After all, that would have been quite illegal. The man hadn't done anything.\nQ.Yes, witness, but what I am anxious to find out is did you ever issue warrants for arrest for any one?\nA.No.\nQ.Not even in your capacity -\nA.Perhaps I could have passed on the opinion of the Minister to a police agency, but I, myself, was not authorized to issue a warrant for arrest. Perhaps I could have done so in my capacity as the Judge Advocate of the SS and Police Court in disciplinary matters pertaining to our own men. Against members of the SS and Police, I could have done that. That was the only possibility where the Higher SS and Police Leader were at the same time the Judge advocate and could sign the arrest warrants. However, he never could do that with regard to other persons. This corresponded to courts martial in the army.\nQ.Witness, on direct examination you spoke of an incident in which you refused to issue an order for the shooting of approximately 25,000 people in concentration camps. Witness, when you were requested to issue \n this order, in what capacity were you requested?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4119, "page_number": "4112", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "In other words, were you asked as Higher SS and Police Leader to issue this order?\nA.I can't say that. The Reich Defense Commissar called me and he told me about this matter, and the conversation which I described before took place, and then he demanded of me that I should see to it that upon the arrival of the American troops the concentration camp commander of Dachau would have these people shot. But my capacity here is very hard to separate because I held three positions at the same time.\nQ.Witness, you have also mentioned a refusal by you to issue an order that Munich should be defended to the end when the American troops were approaching. Were you requested to issue this order as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.That is the same case again. He expected of me -- I am now referring to the Reich Defense Commissar -- that even the old police officials were to fight to the very end in accordance with the phrases which were thrown in by Berlin, and that these people were to fight armored cars and tanks with their little pistols. Of course, I refused to carry out this matter. I could have done this perhaps if I had talked to the Commander of the regular police -- that is to say, the uniform police -and a Government Director and SS Oberfuehrer for the Security Police -and perhaps I could have called these men and told them that I have received the order of the Reich Defense Commissar that, \"You have to fight, and I am informing you now of that, and now you will have to start fighting. That is all.\" However, I refused to do so because I considered this to be an insane measure.\nQ.Witness, you stated that you were removed from your post within 48 hours after you had refused this. Well, that was from your post as Higher SS and Police Leader, was it not? You were removed by Himmler?\nA.Yes, I lost all my positions.\nQ.But, witness, did you get an order from everyone concerned? Did you get a separate order from Himmler in his capacity as Reich Fuehrer;", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4120, "page_number": "4113", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "a separate order from Himmler, in his capacity as Reich Minister of the Interior; and a separate order from all the other agencies whom you represented; or did you get one order from Himmler?\nA.I received an order by teletype from the field headquarters of the Reichfuehrer SS, and this order is now in the hands of the American authorities at Munich. In this order it was stated that I was relieved of all my positions and that a General of the Waffen SS, Winkelmann, would take my place one day later on, the 21 of April 1945, and that he would take care of all the positions which I held previously. This man showed up the following day. But these instructions originated with Himmler. However, it was caused by a telephone call between Reich Defense Commisser Giesser and Bormann, and Bormann exerted pressure on Himmler, and that is why Himmler issued this order.\nQ.Witness, wasn't the fundamental office from which you were removed that of the Higher SS and Police Leader, so that when you lost that office you lost all your other offices?\nA.No, that wouldn't have been necessary. That would have been quite unnecessary. After all, I stated alreadyat the beginning of my examination that the Highest SS and Police Leaders were an institution of the Reich. Furthermore, I was a Bavarian Provincial Affairs Leader and Ministerial Director. I could have remained in that position. However, I was relieved of all my positions because this had been recommended by the Reich Defense Commissar.\nQ.Witness, in connection with the anti-Jewish excesses in Germany in November 1938, you stated first that when you approached Himmler as soon as you heard of the trouble in Munich, he said the the did not want to be disturbed. You also stated that Himmler issued an order that the SS was not to participate in such excesses. How long a period intervened between the order and between his telling you he did not want to be disturbed in connection with that?\nA.This difference should amount to approximately two or three hours.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4121, "page_number": "4114", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, why was it necessary to issue, as you claim, a special order that the men of the SS should not participate in the riots and excesses?\nA.I assume that Himmler, of course, had received knowledge of this order of Goebbels which had gone to all propaganda offices in the Reich; that now he wanted to prevent that the SS should take part in the unrest which had been caused by Goebbels orders. After all, all the Higher leaders were assembled in the hotel in Munich.\nQ.The Prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. FROESCHMANN:\nQ.Witness, as a result of the cross examination, I only want to ask you now a very few questions. Counsel for the Prosecution drew in connection with your statement that you had refused to carry out the order of Bouhler concerning Euthanasia of the insane people, a conclusion in respect to another matter in eastern Prussia in which Hildebrandt was concerned, and he also mentioned the name of Hildebrandt. Do you consider it possible from your personal knowledge with regard to the person of Hildebrandt that Hildebrandt ever issued an order for the shooting or for the removal of insane persons?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4122, "page_number": "4115", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.I have known Herr Hildebrandt since 1931 in a reliable manner. I know him to be a man who was more interested in spiritual matters and it seems quite incredible to me that he should take a part in such a matter. Furthermore, at a very early time he was opposed to these radical anti-semitic forces within the Party as I know personally from a dispute which he had here in Nurnberg as early as 1931 with Julius Streicher. His entire manner did not turn in any way towards excesses or any other forcible means.\nQ.Can you give us a short description of the character of Hildebrandt quite briefly?\nA.Although I was not a member of the SS at the time when I met Hildebrandt--he was in the SS and I was in the SA--we came closer to each other because we had the same ideas. As old officers in the Kaiser's Army we had come from the World War and as a result of the experiences which we had gained in this war we had gone into the new tide of National socialism. All the phrases which were put into the foreground by Himmler and others later on actually were of no concern to us, what moved us, was the heavy strain on the economic field in Germany which occurred, after 1918, and these were the most important factors.\nQ.What I would like to know, witness, is whether you know anything about the character of Hildebrandt, and whether you can give a judgment on it in your summing up.\nA.I only know him to be a quiet and very considerate man who had a very good family life end who in every respect pursued the ethical aims of the party movement rather than the ephemaric aims.\nQ.Were you able to determine any brutal characteristics in Hildebrandt?\nA.No, not as long as I have known him.\nQ.Now, the second question which has arisen as the result of the cross-examination. Is it correct that apparently among outsiders there was a lot of uncertainty about the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4123, "page_number": "4116", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.Yes, certainly.\nQ.This would go so far that the Reich Defense Commissar and Gauleiter even wanted to give orders to Higher SS and police Leaders?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, my third question. The Prosecutor last of all spoke about your dismissal from your various functions and he mentioned the name of Himmler in that connection who must have played a part in it also. I want to ask you as far as you know the personality of Himmler, is it possible that Himmler dropped old SS leaders whenever he did not like their actions?\nA.Yes, certainly. The same picture occurred again and again. When we, in our activity, in the areas to which we had been assigned, tried--and this was part of the task of the Higher SS and Police Leader --to establish good relationships with the government authorities and the Reichfuehrer SS and if we were not successful in this then Himmler would never back us up at all, while the Gauleiter and the Reich Defense Commissar would receive all sorts of protection from Reichleiter Bormann.\nQ.Now, my final question. In conclusion, can you give us your opinion of Himmler?\nA.For a long time Himmler was given to us by the Party that is by Hitler as a leader of the SS and he did not impress the majority of the old SS leaders to the extent which would have been necessary. He was not a soldier and his whole character was fantastic. His speeches were strictly utopian so that in the course of the years especially the older leaders, slowly withdrew from him.\nQ.In your opinion was Himmler loyal to his SS men?\nA.His end showed the contrary.\nQ.Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nMR. SHILLER:May, it please the Tribunal, the defense counsel has on re-direct examination brought up a number of matters which were not covered on direct or cross.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't think so.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4124, "page_number": "4117", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "DR. SHILLER:Particularly the character of the defendant Hildebrandt. I should like to ask one short question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I have been hearing all about this all this week and most of last so I don't think that is a new question.\nMR. SHILLER:Thank you. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Witness, in order to clear up my own mind I would like to ask you one or, two questions. This meeting tint you testified about at Munich, this dinner meeting at which Himmler attended. What did you say the date of that meeting was?\nA. 9 November 1938.\nQ.As I understand it, that was an annual affair; you had that sort of meeting every year?\nA.Yes, it would take place every year.\nQ.And you would swear in new members in the SS?\nA.Yes, they were not sworn in at the time in the hall but several hours later.\nQ.What happened about them at the hall?\nA.These people were members of the armed SS units; they were members of the Waffen SS who were sworn in there and they would return to the garrisons afterwards.\nQ.What happened at that meeting; you said something happened about the new SS men on that night. What was it? I didn't quite understand that.\nA.Well, they were sworn in for their service in the SS.\nQ.How many men did I understand you to say were there that night to be sworn in approximately?\nA.Approximately from 5,000 to 6,000 men were standing in formation.\nQ.Do I understand that there were 5,000 to 6,000 men that were to be sworn it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now I understood you, I believe, to say that the leaders of the Waffen SS were there in some capacity?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4125, "page_number": "4118", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "A.Yes, they first attended the ceremony and after the ceremony the leaders returned to the hotel where Himmler was while the soldiers returned to the barracks in closed formation.\nQ.How many of these Waffen SS leaders would you say were there that night?\nA.I cannot give you the exact figure.\nQ.I mean approximately; I don't mean the exact figure.\nA.When the dinner took place at Himmler's, or are you referring to the dinner or the ceremony?\nQ.I am referring to how many were there that night at any time?\nA.At the parade formation there were approximately 6,000 men and approximately 100 higher officers and later on there were about 50 or 60 who stayed in the hotel with Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4126, "page_number": "4119", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QYou said that there were some organization or group whose duty it was to rope off the streets in the vicinity of where the exercise was held. What organization was that?\nAThe streets were roped off by the General SS, that is to say, the SS which was not carrying arms.\nQHow many participated in that approximately, if you know?\nAApproximately 1,500 to 1,700.\nQI understood you to say that these men were sworn in when the exercise was held at midnight, 12 o'clock.\nAYes.\nQWas that exercise held that night; were these men sworn in at 12 o'clock that night?\nAYes.\nQHow many SS men would you say, altogether, were in Munich that night?\nABetween 7,000 to 8,000 men were standing in this entire area.\nQWhat time of night approximately, did the fires start raging and the looting began?\nAApproximately at 10 o'clock in the evening, between 9 and 10 o'clock in the evening. This square had to be roped off and this area had to be all ready at 9o'clock. At that time the area was already roped off and the Waffen SS came to this area from the outside.\nQWas the Gestapo represented there that night in any way?\nAThe Gestapo officials certainly must have been outside of this area which was roped off amongst the public because this was a regulation at all official ceremonies which Hitler attended.\nQDid the Gestapo participate in this exercise or were they represented in the exercise there that night?\nAI have already stated that I know that on all occasions ceremonies which Hitler attended approximately a certain number of Gestapo and criminal officials were outside of the uniformed formations amongst the public, amongst the spectators and that also must have happened that night.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4127, "page_number": "4120", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "QBut they did not participate in the meeting itself?\nANo, they were on security duty.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.HESSE (for the defendant Lorenz): May it please the Tribunal I request permission to clarify a mistake which has been made here in the presentation of our documents on 23 December. By mistake we did not use Exhibit No. 36. In the English transcript on page 3,051, how ever, this exhibit number was utilized in contrast to the German transcript. As a result of this all our exhibit numbers which are higher than 35 are different in the English and German texts. I would request the Tribunal to rectify this matter in some way. If I could find out them exhibit numbers the Tribunal has noted down, whether according to German or English texts. I would know what to do because we have to call these things in our final pleas.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will not be disturbed very much about the numbers on any of them. What is in them is what we will be interested in.\nDR. HESSE:Quite correct, your Honor. However, I don't know just what exhibit numbers I should give them in my final plea, whether I should quote the exhibit numbers according to the English or German text. After all there is a difference here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:If you expect the members of this Tribunal to understand what you are talking about, I should think you had better talk in English. Otherwise we don't understand it.\nDR. HESSE:Perhaps I could take up the matter with the SecretaryGeneral. Thank you, your Honor,\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, I would now like to conclude my presentation of my case in chief on behalf of the defendant Hildebrandt. I do not want to call the witness Morgan whom I requested. I would only like to offer throe more documents as exhibits. They are contained in documents book 4 and this is Document No. 88 which will be come Exhibit No. 26; Document 89 which will become Exhibit 27; and Document 91 which \n will become Exhibit No. 28.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. HESSE", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. FROESCHMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4128, "page_number": "4121", "date": "21 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-21", "text": "With that I have concluded the presentation of the case in chief on behalf of the defendant Hildebrandt with the exception of these document books which are still being translated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Congratulations. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(A recess was taken until 22 Jan. 1948 at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4129, "page_number": "4122", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Official transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 22 January 1948, 0930, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the taking of testimony.\nDR. SCHWARZ:At this time, I request permission to call the witness Willy Paulus.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nWILLYPAULUS, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann):\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your full name, and the place and date of your birth.\nAMy name is Willy Paulus. I was born on the 4th of December, 1909.\nQWitness, do you know the defendant Hofmann?\nAI met the defendant Hofmann when he was Higher SS and Police Leader at Stuttgart.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "WILLY", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4130, "page_number": "4123", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QWitness, please make a brief pause after my question. In what capacity did you work for him?\nAI was sent to his agency, from the Wuerttemberg Ministry of the Interior, as an official of the Wuerttemberg internal administration.\nQWhat education have you received?\nAAfter I matriculated, I studied law; I took the two state examinations, and then I entered the internal administration.\nQWere you a member of the SS?\nANo.\nQWhat tasks did you have to deal with in the agency of the defendant Hofmann?\nAMy tasks consisted of working on decrees which had been issued by the Reich authorities, which dealt with legal questions arising from the welfare activities of the Higher SS and Police Leader in his capacity as leader of the SS main sector.\nI also had to take care of tasks which had to be handled in connection with his duties as the disciplinary superior.\nQHow did you work on the decrees of the Reich authorities?\nACopies of these decrees were sent regularly for information, and they were addressed to the Higher SS and Police Leader. Consequently, no special care had to be devoted to them.\nQDid the Higher SS and Police Leader have executive authority?\nANo, the Higher SS and Police Leader was only a representative institution.\nQAnd for this reason he did not have to work on the decrees, is that correct?\nAThe fact that the decrees were only sent to the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader for information depended on that particular fact.\nQIn his capacity as a supreme judicial authority, could the Higher SS and Police Leader pronounce judgments himself?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4131, "page_number": "4124", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "ANo. As supreme judicial authority he could only confirm the sentences which had been passed by SS courts.\nQAnd to what did these cases refer? What sort of cases were they? That is to say , for what people were these SS and Police Courts competent?\nAThe jurisdiction of the SS and Police Courts was limited to members of the SS, the police, and the civilian personnel working for these organizations.\nQDid these SS and Police Courts also deal with cases of foreign workers?\nANo.\nQ who was competent for those cases?\nAThe Gestapo was competent in those cases.\nQWas the Gestapo subordinated to the defendant Hofmann?\nANo.\nQThe defendant Hofmann, after all, was a General in the police; wasn't the Gestapo also subordinated to the defendant Hofmann in this respect?\nANo. The official title of Higher SS and Police Leader as a General of the police probably served the purpose of emphasizing his representative position.\nFurthermore, so far as I know, the members of the Gestapo did not have the rank of police officers, at least not on the intermediate level.\nQSince you were the competent expert, did you gain any knowledge in the office of the Higher SS and Police Leader, of any decisions of the Gestapo or of the Reich Security Main Office?\nAMay I supplement the question? I assume you asked me about decisions with regard to foreign workers?\nQYes, with regard to foreign workers.\nAThe Higher SS and Police Leader was informed of decisions with regard to foreign workers, that is to say, in the form of letters from \n the Gestapo at Stuttgart, and perhaps also from Karlsruhe.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4132, "page_number": "4125", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "For example, he would be informed about a foreign worker--and in this case these people were as a rule members of the eastern nations. This letter would state that such and such a foreign worker was to be executed at a certain time, and at a certain place. Then, in this letter, a brief description of the case would follow, and, in conclusion, the same phrase would be regularly used, \"This is for information.\" These letters were always sent, in the form of a copy, to the competent Gauleiter or Reichsstatthalter.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4133, "page_number": "4126", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Do you know why the Gestapo did not address these communications directly to the Reichsstatthalter?\nA.This is also without doubt connected with the representative position of the Higher SS and Police Leader, who, in his person, represented externally the police and its branch agencies.\nQ.Consequently, we can say that he represented an institution which was established between the individual Reich authorities?\nA.Yes, we can describe it in that way.\nQ.Consequently, the Gestapo could not have direct contact with the Reichsstatthalter?\nA.Yes. The agency which was on the same level as the Reichsstatthalter was that of the Higher SS and Police Leader.\nQ.In the case of these communications, did it ever occur that you mad entries after these executions had already taken place?\nA.The notifications which we received from the Gestapo were regularly sent out within such short time limits approximately, so that the date of a letter from the Gestapo would only be a very few days, perhaps two or three days, previous to the execution date which would be mentioned in the letter. As a result of this, all these letters were sent out under the classification \"urgent\". Nevertheless, of course, it could also happen that such a letter would come into the hands of the Higher SS and Police Leader, and especially in the hands of the Reichsstatthalter, at a later period of time.\nQ.When you received these notifications, were they already effective?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Just what sort of cases were concerned here?\nA.As far as I can remember, these were cases of looting after air raids, mutiny, severe assaults, and similar offenses.\nQ.As far as you can recall, during the years of your activity, how many notifications did you receive of these cases from the Gestapo?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4134, "page_number": "4127", "date": "08 April 1947", "date_iso": "1947-04-08", "text": "A.I worked in the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader from and I want to be very cautious and take the highest figure--there were, at the most, between 15 and 20 such cases.\nQ.Amongst these cases, were there also cases pertaining to illicit sexual intercourse between Germans and citizens of the eastern nations?\nA.I cannot recall any such case. I would even like to claim that such a case did not occur, because, since it would have been outstanding, I certainly would be able to remember it at this time. Of course, in spite of this, I cannot quite exclude the possibility that one or two cases of that kind may have occurred. However, with regard to my rather certain recollection, I believe I can state that this probability is only very small.\nQ.Did you yourself know that this form of sexual intercourse was prohibited?\nA.Yes. As far as I know, in the fall of 1939, the prohibition of sexual intercourse between Poles and Germans was put into effect, and it was also publicized.\nQ.You stated before that the notification from the Gestapo of the legal decision was sent to the Higher SS and Police Leader. Was the Higher SS and Police Leader not previously concerned in the execution of this entire procedure in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest?\nA.No. In the letters to which I have previously referred, this was the first time that the Higher SS and Police Leader was concerned with this whole matter. Consequently, with these letters he received his first knowledge of the case in question.\nQ.Could he exert any influence on the case?\nA.No, he was not competent to do so.\nQ.Therefore, he never passed literally on the decision of the \n Gestapo or of the Reich Security Main Office, to the Reichsstatthalter?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4135, "page_number": "4128", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.Yes. He was, so to speak, the mail carrier between the Gestapo and the Reichsstatthalter.\nQ.The date of the execution was mentioned in these letters. Did you yourself witness such an execution at any time?\nA.No. And as far as I know, no member of the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader over attended such an execution.\nQ.Can you tell us what Hoffman's main work was in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.The defendant came to Stuttgart in the spring of 1943. That was at a time when the increasing aerial war made air-raid precautions urgently necessary. Therefore, it is obvious that he devoted most of his time to this work; that is to say, he was especially interested in these air raid precautions. I know that he and his adjutant--who, at the same time, was the expert on air-raid precautions--developed a great deal of initiative and activity in this field.\nI also know that whenever air-raids occurred, the defendant would regularly visit the places which had been hit, and there he would make recommendations for measures which could be taken. He also wanted to be informed constantly about the progress of the aerial war and about damage which had occurred, as well as about precautionary measures which had been taken.\nQ.What was his relationship to the Commander of the Regular Police and the Commander of the Security Police? Were these men subordinated to him?\nA.These authorities were not subordinated to him. The Commander of the Security Police represented an institution of the Reich Security Main Office; the Commander of the Regular Police was a representative of the Main Office of the Regular Police, and he was subordinated to that agency.\nQ.What was the relationship between Hofmann and these two commanders?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4136, "page_number": "4129", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.From the very character ofthe tasks which the defendant Hofmann carried out as a result of aerial warfare, it is obvious that his contacts were more restricted to the Commander of the Regular Police, while his contacts with the Commander of the Security Police were much more loose.\nQ.Therefore, Hofmann could not give them any orders?\nA.No, he could only ask for information and he could made recommendations, but he could not issue any instructions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4137, "page_number": "4130", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQWere you, yourself, competent for working on the matters which concerned the commander of the Security Police?\nAYes.\nQWhere was the agency of the commander of the Security Police located?\nAThis agency was located at Strassbourg. Just how close the relationship was between me on the one hand as an expert and the commander of the Security Police can be demonstrated by the fact that I never personally met the commander of the Security Police, Dr. Fischer, nor his successor Dr. Isenhorst.\nQThen Hofmann later on became a higher commander in the prisoner of war service. Just what was his relationship with the prisoners of war? What do you know about the matter?\nAI was not directly concerned with these things. However, I was able to ascertain that the defendant devoted much of his time to the prisoners of war and to the tasks which he had to deal with in taking over this position. This task was very close to his heart. He looked after the personal fate of the prisoners of war. He provided certain advantages and benefits for them. He looked after them and visited them, and he also made it possible for them to gain a certain insight into the conditions which prevailed in Germany.\nQWas the concentration camp at Natzweiler subordinated to the defendant Hofmann?\nANo concentration camp whatsoever was subordinated to the Higher SS and Police leader. The concentration camps were subordinated to the SS WVHA, as far as I can recall, or they were subordinated to the Gestapo.\nQDid the defendant Hofmann have anything to do officially with the procurement of foreign labor?\nANo, that was outside of his jurisdiction.\nQWhat was the personal attitude of the defendant Hofmann towards others?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4138, "page_number": "4131", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAHis attitude was chivalrous. He was always ready to give help; in particular, to those people who had been conscripted for military service and to their dependents. I believe that he also had a certain sense of tolerance.\nQWitness, is it correct that you, yourself, did not have a particularly good relationship towards Hofmann?\nAYes, that is quite correct. That is explained by the fact that, as I have stated before, I was not a member of the SS and during my activity in the vicinity of the defendant--which lasted for two years--I never joined the SS.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, I have only a few questions. Will you please try to make your answers as brief as possible. Were you ever a member of the Nazi Party?\nAYes.\nQWhen did you join the Party?\nAI joined the Party in 1930.\nQWitness, you have just testified on direct examination that the cause of the poor relationship between yourself and the defendant Hofmann was that you did not join the SS. Why didn't you join the SS, witness? Was there any reason for you not to join the SS?\nAAs far as I was concerned, there was the reason that I did not approve of the particular line which was followed by the SS at the time.\nQWitness, is it correct then that even though you worked for the Higher SS and Police Leader, and even though a bad relationship existed because you were not a member of the SS, you were in no way forced to join the SS? Is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4139, "page_number": "4132", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo pronounced pressure was exerted on me. No coercion was used.\nQThat is enough, witness. Witness, you have stated briefly the relationship of the Higher SS and Police Leader to the Commander of the Security Police and the Commander of the Regular Police in his area. Witness, was the position of the RUS leader in that area in any way different, so far as the Higher SS and Police Leader was concerned, from the position of these two commanders?\nAThe position of the Race and Settlement leader was different in so far as he, as far as I know, was a member of the actual agency as such.\nQCould the Higher SS and Police Leader, witness, give orders to the RUS leader?\nAI don't think that he could give them factual orders -- I am only giving you my opinion now -- because factually the Race and Settlement leader was probably subordinated to the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQWitness, could you explain very briefly what you mean by \"factual orders\"?\nAWell, I mean now according to what directives the RUS leader, the expert has to work; along what lines; and according to what provisions he has to make his decisions. That is what I mean by factual orders.\nQWitness, a previous witness in this courtroom has testified that there was a distinction between the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader in Germany proper and the position of the Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied territories. Do you know anything about any such distinction?\nAThat such a difference in the positions existed was known to me; however, I did not know just to what extent and in what way the positions differed. I was unable to ascertain that at the time.\nQThank you, witness. The Prosecution has no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4140, "page_number": "4133", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have no further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, I understood you to say that you did not become a member of the SS for the reason that you did not approve of the activities of the SS. What was it that you did not approve of?\nAAs I have stated before, it was the particular ideological line pursued by the SS.\nQWhat do you mean by \"particular line?\"\nAThe SS, so to speak, was the advance guard of the National Socialist ideology, and it represented it with especial determination. As a result of my education and my views, I did not want to follow an ideology without compromise, such as was followed by the SS.\nQDo I understand you to say that you would not join the SS for the reason that you did not believe in National Socialism or the National Socialist Party?\nAI believe I didn't quite understand your question.\nQDo I understand you to say that your reason for not becoming an SS man was the fact that you did not believe in National Socialism or the National Socialist Party?\nAWell, this interpretation which you have of my statement is close to reality. I had reservations towards the National Socialist ideology.\nQDid you belong to that Party?\nAYes, I was a Party member.\nQAnd you would not become an SS member because of its connection with the Party?\nANo, I did not want to join it because, as I have stated before, the SS did not make any compromises whatsoever towards other ideologies, and that is the way it represented National Socialist ideology?\nQDid the National Socialist Party make any compromise towards \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4141, "page_number": "4134", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "any ideology?\nAThe Party as such was not a selection of uncompromising people as was the SS.\nQLet the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nDR. SCHWARZ:Now I would like to call the witness Rudolf Soechtig to the stand.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4142, "page_number": "4135", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nRUDOLFSOECHTIG, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQ.Witness, please make a short pause at all times after my questions. witness, please give the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Rudolf Soechtig.\nQ.What is your profession?\nA.I was a farmer.\nQ.There did you work until 1942?\nA.I was an independent farmer and I was a peasant leader in the District of Lower Saxony.\nQ.Were you then transferred to the Settlement Office of the SS?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What work did you carry out at that agency?\nA.From the 2 of November 1942 until the 4 of December 1942, I worked in the Settlement Office in order to get used to the work I was to carry out in the Baltic countries.\nQ.And where were you sent afterwards?\nA.Then I became the representative of RuSH A for the labor allocation of war invalids and SS men who were unfit for military service in order to use them in the agricultural field in the Baltic countries.\nQ.Witness, from various Prosecution documents, it seems to become evident that the Settlement Office of the SS operated its own enterprises in the east. Is this actually true with regard to your area?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "RUDOLF" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4143, "page_number": "4136", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.No. The Race and Settlement Main Office or the Settlement Office did not own any soil or property, nor did they own any buildings or any living or dead inventory.\nQ.In your area, that is to say in the Baltic countries, who turned over these agricultural enterprises to other people where these war invalids of the SS were to be used?\nA.The agricultural society in the Baltic countries took care of these workers, and they had very few farmers at their disposal, and they were very grateful to receive our SS men as workers.\nQ.Was this an SS society?\nA.No, it was a civil society.\nQ.Did this agricultural society come under the term of real estate and did it deal with those questions?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What other reasons played a part in the fact that these real estate properties gave employment to SS men?\nA.In this case, our men worked very cheaply for the settlement society in the Baltic countries, and the agricultural society in the Baltic countries worked with great losses, and as a result of the work which our men did they saved salaries which they would have had to pay to civilian workers.\nQ.Can you give us some more details about that?\nA.The farmstead in the Baltic countries for a very large part had been destroyed and a lot of repairs had to be done on these properties and a lot of cattle and tools had to be brought in from the Reich.\nQ.And ware these SS men also employed there because they could not be released from the Waffen SS?\nA.Yes, fundamentally neither invalids nor people who were not suited for military service were released from the Waffen SS.\nQ.And how were these SS men paid afterwards? Were they paid by the Waffen SS?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4144, "page_number": "4137", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.Yes, they continued to receive their pay from the Waffen SS.\nQ.What do you mean by \"pay?\"\nA.They received their military pay according to the rank they had and they also received special functions for subsistance becuase they were not fed by their unit.\nQ.And did they receive any of the real estate?\nA.They did not receive any real estate whatsoever, as far as cash was concerned, but from their subsistance reimbursement they had to pay daily approximately one mark twenty to a mark fifty to the treasurer of each particular estate of the agricultural enterprise where they were employed.\nQ.To whom did those enterprises turn over their products?\nA.The farms would turn over their products according to the German marketing regulations.\nQ.Can you destribe that to us?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What do you mean by \"marketing regulations?\"\nA.In this case the word \"marketing regulations means that the products of each enterprise were to be turned over altogether, that is to say, 100 per cent of all the products there. Only the feed and the grain could be kept back which had to be used in order to feed the cattle on that particular enterprise and which was necessary for the current year.\nQ.Was the accounting on these estates done on account of these SS men who were employed there, orwas it done on account of the settlement office?\nA.Neither one or the other is correct. The accounting took place in approved rents to the agricultural society in the Baltic countries.\nQ.Were these estates private property?\nA.No, these estayes had been owned by the state or they were \n farms which during the time when the Russians occupied the country had become the property of the state.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4145, "page_number": "4138", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Could you give some details about this to the Tribunal. At what time were these made property of the state?\nA.In the year 1939 to 1940.\nQ.This was at the time when Russia occupied these territories?\nA.Yes.\nQ.These Baltic countries?\nA.Yes. I also would like to point out that the enterprises had deteriorated to a considerable extent.\nQ.To whom did these enterprises belong previously?\nA.In part they belonged to former Baltic Germans and in part they were the property of the Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian administration.\nQ.And these people fled for the most part?\nA.Yes, that is quite correct.\nQ.In what manner was the contact now established between the settlement office and the SS men who were assigned to the east?\nA.As the representative, I was responsible for the men; and first of all, I would make inspection trips in order to look after the care which was given to these men. I constantly was away on these inspection trips, and furthermore -\nQ.Were these inspection trips necessary?\nA.That is just what I was about to say. Furthermore, from time to time those men were put into some small camps consisting of approximately 15 beds. The inspection trips made in order to look after their welfare were quite necessary because the men were left to themselves as soldiers in these vast areas, and especially since these men were war invalids they could not be used for any military assignments and one had to look after them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4146, "page_number": "4139", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "At the same time in the course of these trips we tried through the superior agency, that is to say the agricultural leaders, or the District League of Peasants, to alleviate any bad conditions that existed. In the camp the men could change the clothing and they could purchase PI goods; they could receive their pay there, and furthermore they could catch up with the immunization charts and then medical care was given to them and at the same time they were examined with regard to their physical suitability for military service.\nQHow many camps did you have altogether?\nAI had three camps.\nQWould the designation, \"Eatern camps\" becorrect; in this case? Can one call these places \"camps\" actually?\nAWell, the word \"camp\" actually includes more than 15 beds. These ordinarily would be in a house which was destroyed partly and which we had furnished ourselves.\nQAnd how many men could this house hold?\nAAs already stated before there would be 15 beds there and a small room where clothing was stored; there would be a room where thePS rationswere stored and things of that sort.\nQFrom what time on were you in charge of the business transactions of the settlement office?\nAAfter the evacuation in the east, that is to say, from December 1944.\nQWitness, I am now going to hand you a document which was drafted during the time when you worked in the settlement office. This is Exhibit 652, in Document Book 14-C. It contains an accounting report of January 1945. In this report enterprises owned by the race and settlement office and enterprises which are not owned by the race and settlement office are mentioned. Can you comment on this report?\nAYes, I even believe that during the time of my work there I actually saw this report. Enterprises of the race and settlement office \n in the sense that they were the property of that agency did not exist.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4147, "page_number": "4140", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "But, those enterprises worked independently without the inclusion of the District Peasant Leader, were administered independently and the accounting was carried but directly.\nQWith whom?\nAWith the field office of the General Commissar in which area these districts were located.\nQTherefore, this was not an SS agency.\nANo.\nQAnd now under paragraph 2, so-called enterprises not owned by the race and settlement office have been mentioned.\nAWell, these were the enterprises which were under the District Peasant Leader. That is to say they were directly subordinated to the civil authorities or the real estate authorities.\nQHowever SS men of the Settlement Office were also employed there?\nAYes. After all that is what this document refers to.\nQAnd how did these amounts which are mentioned here come about?\nAWhen the Front retreated in the east the enterprises were also evacuated, and they started a convoy from the east towards the west. They were able to render their accounts, but they were unable to render their accounts to the agencies to which they were supposed to render them, and then they came to the settlement office and they would put these sums which have been mentioned here in deposit there.\nQIs it correct that in these convoys also other people came along, civilians or agricultural leaders of these civilian authorities?\nAI can't say that because during my time of activity there the caravans had already left for the most part, but I believe that civilians came along in these convoys voluntarily.\nQAnd these civilians also took along equipment and cattle from the property, did they not?\nAWell, I can't comment on that at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4148, "page_number": "4141", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QThat is sufficient; thank you. Were these funds passed on by the settlement office to the competent agencies?\nAI know that we of the settlement office tried to contact the agencies of the real estate properties to whom these accounts were to be rendered. In this we succeeded in one or two cases and then we were able to turn over these sums to these competent authorities. I know exactly that an accounting agency of a real estate property was located at Brandenburg and that a larger sum was turned ever to that agency.\nQIs it correct that it was very difficult to locate these agencies because in all the confusion caused by the retreat these agencies in many cases had dissolved or had been captured by the Russians?\nAA part of these agencies may have been captured by the Russians but the largest part of the agencies as a result of the attacks which occurred at the time from the east and from the west, constantly changed the locations of the stations.\nQWas this accounting report which you have before you a unique affair which only happened once or were such reports submitted regularly?\nANo, this report is the only accounting report which ever occured and it was only brought about by the fact that the men who were in convoys, took back the convoys, were unable to turn over their funds to the competent authorities.\nQIn conclusion I would like to ask you, the expression \"owned by the race and settlement office\" -- does not mean that these enterprises had had their title transferred to the race and settlement office. Is that correct?\nANo, as I have already stated previously, no type of real estate had been transferred to the race and settlement office. Their titles were never transferred.\nQAnd now one more question. At your time of work how many employees did the race and settlement office have in Berlin?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4149, "page_number": "4142", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AI can't say that because the settlement office was evacuated later on and it was located in Czechoslovakia.\nQHow many employees did you have there?\nAWe employed seven, or at the most ten men there.\nQThank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4150, "page_number": "4143", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQ.Witness, please try to make your answers as brief as possible.\nI should like first to discuss with you this accounting report concerning which you testified on direct examination. That is Document No. 4098, Exhibit 652, in Book XIV C. Do you have this document before you now, witness?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On direct examination, witness, you testified that these enterprises, farms etc., had not had their title changed; that is, the title was not made over to the Race and Settlement Office. How do you know this, witness?\nA.I know that from my own experience.\nQ.Witness, outside of the fact, as you say, that the title was not changed, did not the Settlement Office of RuSHA consider these enterprises as RuSHA enterprises?\nA.RuSHA never considered these enterprises as their property for they did not belong to the RuSHA but were enterprises belonging to others which were then subordinated to this agricultural enterprise Eastland or the Government General.\nQ.Witness, then why does this report call them RuSHA enterprises?\nA.I said already before that these enterprises were directly and independently administered by farmers who were members of the SS. while the other enterprises which here, in this document, are not called RuSHA enterprises were subordinated to the individual agricultural leaders or other farm officials.\nQ.Witness, do you mean to say that these enterprises were called RuSHA enterprises simply because they were administered by SS men?\nA.Because the SS administered them without intervention of the agricultural leaders - that is, the Landfuehrer - or the district offices, \n as I said before, and because they rendered their accounts to themselves and their superior offices independently.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4151, "page_number": "4144", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Witness, on direct examination you stated that the Settlement Office of RuSHA had never had any inventory of property in the East. Will you please look at the end of this accounting report, witness, the very last part. Do you see a listing, witness, headed \"List of the horses loaned by the Settlement Office in the Main Race and Settlement Office, SS.\"?\nA.Yes. These were horses brought back in a convoy from the East which were lent out by the Settlement Office because their owners - that is to say, the various individual real estate properties - could not be ascertained at the time.\nQ.Witness, did not the Settlement Office consider itself to be the owner of these horses regardless of how they had procured them or where?\nA.No, the Settlement Office never considered itself as the owner of those horses.\nQ.Witness, at the bottom of this listing in this account, under the word \"Total\", does it not say \"Horses belonging to RuSHA - 725\"?\nA.I can only repeat that these horses did not belong to the RuSHA but these horses were owned by the various real estate properties.\nQ.And you can't explain why the document says: \"Horses belonging to RuS.\" Is that correct?\nA.I can only explain that, in so far as the expert who was handling these matters at the time and who drew up this document, states on page 1 of the original concerning the enterprises owned by the RuSHA, that he had taken these enterprises over.\nQ.I don't quite understand your answer. What do you mean \"had taken these enterprises over\"?\nA.No. On page 4 of the original the expression \"Horses owned by the RuSHA\"- was called to my attention. The expert who, at the time, drew up this document did, in my opinion, take this expression \"Owned by the RuSHA\" from paragraph 1 of page 1 of the original and transferred it to page", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4152, "page_number": "4145", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Witness, that is your guess or assumption, is that what you mean?\nA.No, I do not guess at that. It's not an assumption, because I know that the RuSHA, the Settlement Office, did not own any horses at all.\nQ.Witness, one last question: On direct examination you stated the number of employees of the Settlement Office, when that office was in Prague, to be approximately seven or eight. How many employees did the Settlement Office have altogether? That is, not only in its office in Prague, but also in the field, in the East?\nA.In the East? Employees? If I may ask you again, do you mean employees?\nQ.Yes, witness, I mean employees.\nA.Well, employees....I can't give the figure since a large part of these employees had been conscripted into the armed forces.\nQ.Witness, can you give us any approximate figure?\nA.That is really impossible for me because, after all, I was assigned to this office only in December and I only started working on the official business of the Settlement Office at that time and was only informed about the approximate number of the SS men assigned to agriculture.\nQ.Well, you weren't the only employee in the East, is that correct? There were others besides you?\nA.I am afraid I don't quite understand your question.\nQ.Witness, you have stated that you can give no figure, not even an approximate figure, of the employees of the Settlement Office in the East. I'm only asking you....\nA.Oh, in the East. In my agency. In my agency, there were four and sometimes five assistants.\nQ.Who worked with you, is that correct, witness?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4153, "page_number": "4146", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "MR. SHILLER:The prosecution has no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nI would like to start with the redirect examination, Your Honor.\nQ.Witness, were there employees of the Settlement Office at all in the East? I mean employees.\nA.No, there were no employees.\nQ.After all, these were members of the Waffen-SS.\nA.Yes, members of the Waffen-SS.\nQ.You mentioned that you were assigned to the Settlement Office only in December.\nA.Yes. In December, 1944.\nQ.Yes, I wanted to add the year.\nIn December 1944 were there any sort of enterprises, still existing in the East, that were administered by SS men?\nA.No, they were released from their posts.\nQ.Witness, do you know which agencies were statistically registered as far as their personnel staff was concerned, with the RuSHA?\nA.May I please hear that question again?\nQ.Witness, which was the agency that registered the SS men, from a personnel point of view, within the RuSHA?\nA.That was the Settlement Office.\nQ.Well, which was the actual office there? Was there a personnel office?\nA.Yes, it was a personnel expert.\nQ.Let us now turn to this accounting report. Do you know whether this document has been drawn up by a legal expert?\nA.No, that was not a legal expert. As far as I remember, that was an Unterscharfuehrer who, at the time, drew up this report.\nQ.Witness, I had a very good reason not to ask you about these horses that were designated as belonging to the RuSHA. Were these horses, in your time, delivered to the Settlement Office?", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4154, "page_number": "4147", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.No, they had already been there when I came there.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness left the stand.)\nDR. SCHWARZ:Mr. President, may I please now start with the submission of my documents. Already, in the course of the examination of the defendant Hofmann I have submitted several documents. I left out, at the time, three exhibit numbers and they are the numbers 12 to 14, inclusive, which I would now like to submit to the Court. As Exhibit 12, contained in Document Book III-D, Document Hofmann #81. This is an affidavit of Bohnhardt concerning the establishment of the offices of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.\nAs Exhibit #13, I would like to submit an affidavit by Gerhard Mueller concerning the competency of the Higher SS and Police Leader South-West. This document bears the number Hofmann #82.\nMy Exhibit 14, contained in Document Book Hofmann #5, I would like to submit Hofmann Document #120. This also is an affidavit made by Ebersdorf concerning the activity of Hofmann in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nAnd I would now like to turn to Document Book 1 of the defendant Hofmann. I have already submitted, for identification, as my Exhibit #4, Document Hofmann #1, an excerpt from the Soldier's Friend, 1942, concerning the main leaders of the SS and their activities and duties, the fiance and marriage order, the fundamental law concerning the care of widows and orphans, the way to the Waffen-SS, and the activities of the Security Police and the SD. This is to become Exhibit #4.\nMy Exhibit #5 will be Document Hofmann #2. This is an excerpt from the book by Walter Darre, \"Neuadel aus Blut and Boden\".\nAs my Exhibit 6, this will be Hofmann Document #3, an affidavit by Darre concerning the development, the tasks and the final aims of RuSHA.\nMy Exhibit 7 will be Document Hofmann #4, an affidavit by Hermann \n Harm concerning the activities of the RuSHA under Darre.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4155, "page_number": "4148", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Exhibit #8, which is Document Hofmann #5, is an affidavit by Ebrecht concerning the activities of RuSHA under Darre.\nMy Exhibit 9, Document Hofmann #6, is an affidavit by Dr. Joachim Caesar concerning the training of the SS.\nI would like to submit the following new exhibits.\nDocument Hofmann #7, an excerpt from the Bulletin of the Ministry of the Interior dated 1939 concerning examinations made, from a racial, biological viewpoint, within the SS by the Race Office and this is to become Exhibit #28.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4156, "page_number": "4149", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "As Exhibit 29 I offer Hofmann Document No. 8. This is an excerpt plus a photostatic copy from the book Race, Law and People, Rasse, Recht u. Volk, by Ruettger. It concerns the competency of the various public health authorities in racial matters.\nAs Exhibit 30 I offer Hofmann Document No. 9. This is an excerpt from the book, The Righteousness of the Race, Das Recht der Rasse, by Dr, Deiss. This excerpt concerns the competency of the Reich agency for Eugenic Research; it also concerns the opinions about Ary*n descent.\nAs Exhibit 31 I offer Hofmann Document No. 10, an excerpt from the Information Service at the Race-Political Office of the NSDAP, concerning the proof of Aryan descent As Exhibit 32 I offer Hofmann Document No. 11, another excerpt from the Information Service of the Race-Political Office of the NSDAP concerning the building up of this office and their sphere of activity.\nMy Exhibit 33, which is Hofmann Document No. 12 is also an excerpt from the Information Service of the Race-Political Office of the NSDAP, concerning the competencies of the Reich agency for Eugenic Research.\nMy next document, Document Hofmann No. 13 I already submitted for identification as my Exhibit No. 11. This is an affidavit by Helmut Poppendick concerning the activities of the physicians attached to the Eugenics Office in the RuSHA.\nDocument Hofmann No. 14 I would like to submit as Exhibit No. 34. This is an excerpt from the bulletin of the office for interior administration, dated 1941, concerning the privileges of the Eugenics Office of the SS.\nHofmann Document No. 15, which will become Exhibit 35, is on excerpt from the book Der Menscheneinsatz, the human labor allocation, concerning the competency of the various Reich agencies in the field of registration of cul tural assets, archives, genealogical collections and church registers.\nI would like to leave out Hofmann Document No. 16.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4157, "page_number": "4150", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "I would now like to come to Hofmann Document No. 17 which I am submitting as Exhibit No. 36. This is an affidavit by Hans Johann Brocksch concerning the duties and activities of the classification experts.\nHofmann Document No. 18 will become Exhibit No. 37, and is an excerpt from a speech that Himmler made, 1918-PS, concerning the tasks of Himmler as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and the carrying out of those tasks.\nDocument Hofmann No. 19 I already offered for identification as Exhibit No. 10. This is an excerpt from the book Der Menscheneinsatz concerning fundamental problems of re-Germanization procedure.\nNow, I would like to turn to Hofmann Document No. 21 which I would like to submit as Exhibit No. 38. It is an affidavit of Oswald Pohl concerning the Supervisory Council of the Lebensborn; and, this concludes documents from Document Book I, and I am now turning to Document Book II.\nHofmann Document No. 22, I would like to submit, as Exhibit No. 39, an *xcerpt from the book: Private Interests in the peace treaty; French rules on nationality in Alsace-Lorraine, by Dr. Isay.\nI offer as Exhibit No. 40 Hofmann Document No. 23 which is also an excerpt from the book private rights and interests in the peace treaty, by Dr. Isay This excerpt concerns nationality in Alsace-Lorraine, handling of property and minority rights in the ceded territories.\nHofmann Document No. 24 I offer as Exhibit 41. This is an excerpt. from the Sueddeutsche Menatschefte, 24th Year, and concerns relations of Germans and Poles in Austria, status of the German minorities, status of racial Germans in Carinthia and Yugoslavia frontier districts.\nAs Exhibit 42 I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 25, an excerpt from the Manual of International Law, by Dr. Stier-Somle.\nAs Exhibit 43 I am submitting Hofmann Document No. 26, an excerpt from the Die Neue Zeitung, dated July 28, 1947, concerning the treatment of Czech nationals who married German nationals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4158, "page_number": "4151", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Hofmann Document No. 27 I offer as Exhibit 44, which is also an excerpt from the Die Neue Zeitung; this excerpt is dated 27 October 1947, and concerns expulsion of German residents in Holland.\nHofmann Document No. 28 offered as Exhibit 45 and is an excerpt from the book Hamburger Schriften, Hamburg essays, concerning the entire study of penal law; criminal law, constitutional law and international by Arthur Egner.\nHofmann Document No. 29 will become Exhibit No. 46, an excerpt from the book Our Claim to Alsace-Lorraine ,by Dr. Karl Strupp.\nAs Exhibit 47 I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 30, an excerpt from the book, Germans and Poles Throughout History, by Mansfeld Lambert.\nAs Exhibit 48 I offer Document Hofmann No. 31, an excerpt from the brochure German Labor, Deutsche Arbeit. This is Issue 5 of May 1944, concerning the trek home of the Swiss in Russia.\nAs Exhibit 49 I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 33. This is an excerpt from the gazette of the Ministry of the Interior, dated 1943, and it concerns the German People's List.\nHofmann Document No. 34 will become Exhibit 50. It is an excerpt from the gazette of the Ministry of Interior of 1942 and concerns the obtaining the German citizenship.\nAs Exhibit No. 51 I offer Hofmann Document No. 36; it is an excerpt from a French book; Pour La Liberte' des Peuples Opprimes per la Pologne, for the liberty of peoples oppressed by Poland, concerning the treatment of minorities by Poland.\nAs Exhibit 52 I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 38. This is an excerpt from a Political Science Quarterly of March, 1947.\nAs Exhibit No. 53 I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 39, an excerpt from the publication Foreign Affairs, dated January 1947.\nHofmann Document No. 40 will become Exhibit No. 54, which is an excerpt from the book, The Problem of territorial conflicts, by Dr. Flaes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4159, "page_number": "4152", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "As Exhibit 55, I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 46, an excerpt from the book, Private rights and interests in the peace treaty of Versailles, by Dr. Isay, concerning regulations regarding nationality; and I will leave out the subsequent documents.\nI would like to mention that Hofmann Document No. 45 was already submitted by me for identification with the Exhibit No. 21; and, I would now like to submit this officially. This is an affidavit by Dr. Erich Sieder concerning the participation of the RuSHa in the conference concerning the treatment of the people of Alsace, on 4 August 1942.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4160, "page_number": "4153", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "As Exhibit 56, I offer Hofmann Document No. 47. This is an excerpt from the official gazette and journal of the Reich and Prussian Ministry of the Interior of the year 1939, No. 48, which concerns the obtaining of German citizenship in the incorporated Eastern territories.\nI would like to offer as Exhibit 57 Hofmann document No. 48. This is an excerpt from the book \"The Catholic World,\" of June 1947.\nI am now turning again to Document Book III-A, having concluded documents contained in Document Book II. Document Book III-A deals especially with Case XIV, that is unlawful sexual intercourse. I have already submitted -\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Has Book III-A been previously introduced or submitted to us?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Yes, I believe the Secretary General must have it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, go ahead.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I already offered as my first document Hofmann Document No. 49, as Exhibit No. 19. This is an excerpt from the Document 1918-PS, which is Himmler's speech concerning the treatment of Poles guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with Germans. This speech was made before April 1940.\nMy next document to be submitted will be Hofmann Document No. 50, which will become Exhibit 58. It is a copy from the general collection of decrees and contains an order of the RSH A, dated 30th March 1943, concerning the treatment of Russian prisoners of war.\nAs Exhibit No. 59 I offer Hofmann Document No. 51, a copy, from the general collection of decrees, of an order of the Reich Security Main Office of the 20th February 1942.\nAs Exhibit 60, I would like to offer Hofmann Document No. 52, also a copy from this general collection of decrees, but in this case it is an order of the Reich Security Main Office, dated 11th May 1943, dealing with problems related to foreigners.\nThe next document, Document No. 53, I have already submitted as \n Exhibit 20.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4161, "page_number": "4154", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "This is the photostatic copy of a memorandum directed to Eastern workers, an excerpt from the general collection of decrees.\nHofmann Document No. 54 I submit as Exhibit 61, an excerpt from the Information Service of the Racial-Political Office of the NSDAP, concerning the legislation for the protection of the race in other countries.\nAs Exhibit No. 62 I offer Hofmann Document No. 55; this is an excerpt from the book, Blood and Race in Legislation, by Johann v Leers.\nHofmann Document No. 56, which will become Exhibit 63, is an excerpt from the book The Black Migration, by Manfred Sell.\nHofmann Document No. 57 will become Exhibit 64; it is an excerpt from the Commonweal, from the issue of September 1947, referring to racial segregation laws.\nMy next exhibit will be Hofmann Document No. 59 and is to become Exhibit 65; this is an affidavit by Herbert Kaehne, concerning the activities of the field office in Lodz. It also concerns the punishment of SS men for violation of the order concerning unlawful sexual intercourse with Polish women.\nHofmann Document No. 60 is supposed to become Exhibit 66. This is an excerpt also from this general collection of decrees and is dated 20th February 1942. It concerns the competency in special treatment cases.\nHofmann Document No. 62 is to become Exhibit No. 68; it is an order of the Reich Security Main Office, dated 27th May 1942.\nHofmann Document No. 63 is to become Hofmann Exhibit No. 69. This is an excerpt from the general collection of decrees, and it is a decree of the Reich Security Main Office dated 18th July 1942.\nHofmann Document No. 64 will become Exhibit 70; it is an order by the Reich Security Main Office, dated 7th December, 1942; it is also an excerpt originating from the general collection of decrees.\nHofmann Document No. 65 will become Exhibit 71; it is an excerpt \n from the general collection of decrees, dated 12th February 1943.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4162, "page_number": "4155", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Hofmann Document No. 66 is to become Exhibit 72, and it is a letter of the Ministry of Justice concerning treatment of prisoners of war.\nHofmann Document No. 67 is to become Exhibit No. 73; this is an excerpt from the general collection of decrees, dated 4th May 1943.\nHofmann Document No. 68 will become Exhibit 74; it is an excerpt from the general collection of decrees dated 10th September 1943.\nThe next document I already offered as Exhibit 15; it bears the Document No. 69.\nThe next document, No. 70, is to become Exhibit 75. This is a photostatic copy from the newspaper Schwaebische Illustrierto.\nThe next document, Hofmann Document No. 71, is to become Exhibit 76. It is a copy from the book, the German Police, and it concerns the competency of the Gestapo.\nHofmann Document No. 72 will become Exhibit 77. This is an excerpt from Document 1063-PS. It contains some information issued by the Reich Security Main Office.\nHofmann Document No. 73 will become Exhibit 78. It contains an official order for the Security Police.\nDocument Hofmann No. 74 will become Exhibit 79. It is an excerpt from the book, German Administrative Law, by Dr. Hans Frank. It concerns the activities of the political police, and also concerns the problem of racial treatment.\nHofmann Document No. 75 will become Exhibit 80, and it is a copy of the decree for the protection of matrimonial life, the family and motherhood.\nMy next document, Hofmann Document No. 76, I already submitted as Exhibit 16. It is an affidavit by Erhard Mueller, dated 13 December 1947.\nMy next document, Hofmann Document No. 77, is to become Exhibit 81.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4163, "page_number": "4156", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "This is an excerpt from the order prohibiting fraternization, issued by the allied Expeditionary Force, and dated 12th September 1944.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4164, "page_number": "4157", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nThe next two documents--Nos. 78 and 79--were already submitted by me as Exhibits 17 and 18, respectively. These are the affidavits by Margarete Roth and Irene Pflueger.\nDocument Hofmann No. 80 I would like to submit as Exhibit 82. It is an excerpt from the newspaper \"Neue Tag\" (New Day), dated 12 July 1947.\nI have now finished with Document Book III-A, and I would now like to turn to Document Book III-B. This document book is especially concerned with regermanization. Already at the beginning of my presentation, I submitted Hofmann Document 81 as Exhibit 12. This is an affidavit by Adolf von Bomhard. Document No. 82, an affidavit by Erhard Mueller, will become Exhibit 13. I have already submitted that.\nThe following document numbers now will correspond to the exhibit numbers. They are: No. 83, an excerpt from the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz\" (Allocation of Manpower), a letter of Greifelt, directed to the Higher SS and Police Leader, of 31 July 1940, concerning the treatment of persons suitable for regermanization.\nExhibit 84 will be an excerpt from the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz\", Pages 58 and 59.\nExhibit 85 is an excerpt from the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz\", which is a letter from Greifelt to the Reich Minister of Economics, of 2 October 1940, concerning the care of people included in the regermanization procedure.\nExhibit 86 will become an excerpt from the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz,\" which is a letter to the Reich Minister of Labor, dated 5 November 1940.\nExhibit 87 is an excerpt from the book \"Der Menscheneinsatz,\" which contains the memorandum for plant managers, concerning the employment and use of people suitable for regermanization.\nMy exhibit 88 will become an affidavit by Henrich Wolff, concerning the establishment of the Riedlingen camp.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4165, "page_number": "4158", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAs Exhibit 89 I am submitting an affidavit by Hanna Schwegler, concerning the economic administration within the framework of the regermanization procedure.\nExhibit 90 will be an affidavit by Heinrich Blanc, concerning the treatment of people judged suitable for regermanization.\nExhibit 91 will be an affidavit by Rosa Hummel, also concerning the treatment of people judged suitable for regermanization.\nExhibit 92 is an affidavit by Berta Kussmaul, also concerning the treatment of people suitable for regermanization.\nExhibit 93 is an affidavit by Stanislawa Eisele, nee Kosstur, concerning the treatment of people suitable for regermanization.\nExhibit 94 is an affidavit by Hans Mueller, concerning the treatment of Alsatians within the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest.\nExhibit 95 is an excerpt from \"The Commonweal\", Issue No. 25 of the year 1947.\nExhibit 96 is an affidavit by Anni Linde, concerning abortions.\nExhibit 97 is an excerpt from the newspaper \"Die Badischen Neuesten Nachrichten,\" of 9 December 1947.\nAs Exhibit 98 I am submitting a Prosecution document. It is DocumentNO-3996, which, as far as I know, was not submitted by the Prosecution. This is a report concerning the regermanization procedure, and, among other areas, it is also concerned with the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Southwest.\nMy Exhibit 99 will become an affidavit by Georg Albrecht, concerning the volunteers for regermanization.\nI am now turning to Document Book IV, and I should like to continue with Document Hofmann No. 100, which will become Exhibit 100. This is an excerpt from the \"Gazette of the Chief of Security Police and Security Service.\" In connection with this document I would like to state that this whole document book is supposed to be concerned altogether with plundering and spoliation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4166, "page_number": "4159", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAs my Exhibit 101 I would like to submit an excerpt from Document No.EC-410, concerning the powers of confiscation by way of the Main Trustee Office East.\nMy Exhibit 102 will become an excerpt from the book \"Outlines of Private and Public Law, as well as of International Economics\" (Grundriss des privaten and oeffentlichen Rechts, sowie der Voelkerwirtschaftslehre), by Schaeffer and Dr. Brode.\nExhibit 103 will be an excerpt from \"Die Neue Zeitung,\" of 25 July 1947.\nAs Exhibit 104 I am also submitting an excerpt from \"Die Neue Zeitung,\" dated 11 August 1947.\nExhibit 105 will become an excerpt from the book \"Das Recht der Landkriegfuehrung\" (The Law of Land Warfare), by Dr. Alfons Waltzog.\nMy Exhibit 106 will become an excerpt from the newspaper \"Voelkischer Beobachter,\" dated 28 February 1942 and also 1 March 1942. This concerns the agrarian order for the occupied Eastern territories.\nMy Exhibit 107 will become an excerpt from the book, \"Private Rights and Interests in the Peace Treaty\" (Die privaten Rechte und Interessen im Friedensvertrag), by Dr. Hermann Isay.\nI would like to leave out Document Hofmann No. 108, and would like to submit Document Hofmann No. 109 as Exhibit 108. This is an affidavit by Oswald Pohl, concerning redistribution of farmlands in the occupied Eastern territories, the relationship between the Main Economic and Administrative Office and the RuSHA Settlement Office.\nHofmann Document No. 110 will become Exhibit 109. It is an affidavit by Dr. Leo Reichert.\nExhibit 110 will become Hofmann Document No. 111, an excerpt from the official gazette of the Waffen SS, of 15 December 1940, concerning the settlement of members of the Waffen SS in the new Reich \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4167, "page_number": "4160", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "territories.\nExhibit 111 will become Hofmann Document No. 112, an excerpt from the official gazette of the Waffen SS, dated 1 June 1943, concerning the interpretation of the directives of the Army High Command, concerning registration, selection, and direction of settlers for the Waffen SS.\nAs Exhibit 112 I am submitting Hofmann Document No. 113. I would not like to submit this document; it has already been submitted; therefore, I would now like to turn to Document Book V.\nTHE PRESIDENT:A little later. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(The Tribunal recessed at 1215 to resume at 0130.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4168, "page_number": "4161", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION.\n(The tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 22 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nDR.SCHWARZ(Counsel for the defendant Hofmann): Your Honor, I would like to make a correction here, and I have been informed of this matter by the Prosecution.\nThis morning I stated, in the case of Exhibit No. 98, in Document No. 3998 was not submitted as an Exhibit. I have now ascertained that it was submitted later on, during cross-examination, as Exhibit 804. At the time when I compiled my document, however, it had not as yet been offered.\nThen, I have another correction to make. This concerns Hofmann Exhibit No. 71, in Document Book III-A, and this is Document No. 65. I had already offered that as Exhibit No. 2 during the examination of the Defendant Hofmann, and therefore the Exhibit No. 71 will be withdrawn.\nI shall now continue with Document Book V.\nMy next Exhibit will be 112. This is Hofmann Document No. 114, and it is an affidavit of Henning von Nordeck, concerning Hofmann's persecution by Streicher.\nMy next Exhibit will be 113. This is Hofmann Document No. 115 which is an affidavit of Anni Schneider concerning Hofmann.\nMy next affidavit will be 114, which is Hofmann Document No. 116. This is an affidavit by Professor Dr. Fritz Lenz,concerning Hofmann's attitude to the racial question.\nMy next Exhibit will be Exhibit 115, which is Hofmann Document No. 117. This is an affidavit by Sister Pia, concerning Hofmann's support of relatives of concentration camp inmates.\nMy next exhibit will be 116, concerning correspondence, and this applies to Hofmann Nos 118-a,b, and c and d.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4169, "page_number": "4162", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Document No. 118-a is an affidavit of Winnifried Wagner about the help which was given to a concentration camp inmate by Hofmann. Document 118-b is an affidavit concerning the same incident, by the concentration camp inmate George Traenkle. Document 118-c is Hofmann's letter of 27 December 1944 to Winnifried Wagner. Document 118-d is Hofmann's letter of 7 January 1945 addressed to Winnifried Wagner.\nThe next document is Document No, 119, and this has already been offered as Exhibit 1. This is an excerpt from Hofmann's SS personnel file of 13 March 1943, concerning his removal from office as Chief of RuSHA.\nThe next document 120 has already been offered as Exhibit 14, and this is an affidavit of Kurt Petersdorf concerning Hofmann's activity as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nThe next document, Hoffmann, Document 121, will become Exhibit 117, and this is anaffidavit of Dr. Karl Stroelin concerning Hofmann's intervention in the Alsatian question.\nThe next Exhibit No. 118, will apply to Hofmann Document No. 122. This is an affidavit of Professor Dr. Paul Schmitthenner concerning Hofmann's intervention in the Alsatian question.\nHofmann Document 123 will become Exhibit 119. This is an affidavit of Alfried Arnold concerning the treatment of prisoners of war by Hofmann.\nHofmann Document 124 will become Exhibit 120. This is an affidavit of Anny Haindl concerning the treatment of prisoners of war.\nHofmann Document No. 125 will become Exhibit 121. This is an affidavit of Wilhelm Stecher concerning treatment of prisoners of war.\nHofmann Document No. 126 will become Exhibit 122. This is an affidavit of an American prisoner of war by the name of Wilhelm Gottlieb Stecher, which deals with the treatment accorded him by Hofmann.\nAll the following documents, Hofmann Documents Nos. 127-a, b, c, and d, will be compiled together and they will become, Exhibit 123.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4170, "page_number": "4163", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "These documents deal with the treatment of foreign workers by Hofmann. davit of Hans Huschke; 127-c is an affidavit of Dr. Eng. Wilhelm Haspel; and 127-d is an affidavit of Dr. Otto Fahr.\nThen the next Document, Hofmann No. 128, has already been offered for identification as Exhibit No. 3. This is an excerpt from Hofmann's letter to General Eisenhower of 7 July 1945.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4171, "page_number": "4164", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI am now coming to Document Book VI. This Document Book deals especially with the question of the persecution of Jews. My first document will be Document 129. It will become Exhibit 124. These are excerpts from the Order Gazette of the Waffen SS: (a) of the 15th of May 1940 about marriage approvals for members of the Waffen SS; (b) of the first of July 1941 concerning the competence of the RuSHA in regard to engagement and marriage approvals; and (c) of the first of February 1944 concerning marriage regulations of the SS during wartime.\nI offer as Exhibit 125, Hoffmann Document 130 (a) and 130 (b). The Document 130 (a) is an excerpt from the Reich Law Gazette of 1941, Part I. It is a decree of the Fuehrer of the 29 of May 1941 concerning the position of the Chief of the Party Chancellery. Document 130 (b) is an excerpt from the Reich Law Gazette of 1942, Part I, Decree of the Fuehrer of 12 December 1942 concerning the legal status of the NSDAP.\nExhibit 126 will be Document 131 (a) and (b). Document 131 (a) is an excerpt from a Prosecution Document,NG-293in Case III. It deals with the task of the racial and political office of the NSDAP. 131 (b) is an excerpt from Prosecution DocumentNG-410which was submitted in Case III. It deals with the tasks and the work of the Office for Racial Policy.\nDocument 132 will become Exhibit No. 127. This is an excerpt from Prosecution Document No-1760 and 1761 which so far has not as yet been offered as far as I know. It deals with a conference between Kaltenbrunner and Hildebrandt of the 19th of August 1943 concerning the negative activity of the Reich Security Main Office and the positive work which was done by RuSHA.\nDocument No. 133 will become Exhibit No. 128. This is an excerpt from Himmler's speech which was Prosecution Document 1918-PS on the solution of the Jewish question through emigration.\nOf the following documents, I have already offered for \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4172, "page_number": "4165", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "identification as Exhibit No. 22, Hofmann Document No. 134 (a), and like the following document it is an excerpt from the Prosecution DocumentNG-2586. As far as I know, the Prosecution has not as yet offered this document. The same thing applies to Hofmann Document No. 134 (b). It deals with a conference of the 6th of March 1942 in the Reich Security Main Office concerning the final solution of the Jewish question. I have already offered this document as Exhibit 23 for identification.\nThe next document, Document No. 134 (c) will become Exhibit No. 129. These are notes by Rademacher of the 7th of March 1942 concerning the sterilization of 70,000 persons of mixed blood.\nDocument 134 (d) I have already offered for identification as Exhibit No. 24. This is a letter of the Reich Minister of Justice of the 5th of April 1942 concerning sterilization. I have also already offered for identification the next document 134 (e) as Exhibit 25. This is a letter from the Reich Minister of the Interior of 16 March 1942 concerning the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 134 (f) will become Exhibit No. 130. These are notes by Luther of 21 August 1942 concerning the legislative measures of the Foreign Office of the 16th of September 1942 in regard to the German policy towards the Jews.\nThe next document 134 (g) I have already offered for identification as Exhibit No. 26. This is a conference of the 27th of October 1943 concerning the final solution of the Jewish question.\nWe will use Exhibit No. 131 for Document 135 (a). This is an excerpt from the transcript of Case III about the examination of Dr. Lammers concerning the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 135 (b) will become Exhibit No. 132. This is an excerpt from the transcript of Case I, the examination of Victor Brack in regard to the sterilization proposal.\nDocument 135 (c) will become Exhibit No. 133. This is an affidavit by Dr. Hans Ficker on Hitler's Stop Decree.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4173, "page_number": "4166", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nDocument 136 (a) will become Exhibit No. 134. This is an affidavit by Dr. Gerhard Klopper concerning the conference of the 20th of January 1942 on the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 136 (b) will become Exhibit No. 135. This is an affidavit by Georg Leibrandt concerning the conference of the 20th of January 1942 on the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 136 (c) will become Exhibit No. 136. This is an affidavit by Erich Neumann concerning the conference of the 20th of January 1942 on the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 136 (d) will become Exhibit No. 137. This is an affidavit by Georg Rademacher concerning the conference of the 20th of January 1942 on the final solution of the Jewish question.\nDocument 137 will become Exhibit No. 138. This is an affidavit by Dr. Grohmann concerning the activities of the Racial Office of the SS.\nDocument 138 will become Exhibit No. 139. This is an excerpt from the affidavit by Dr. Rezzo Kastner concerning Wiscliceny as adviser of the Hungarian authorities in questions concering the Jewish problems and the secrecy of the extermination of the Jews.\nDocument 139 will become Exhibit No. 140. This is an affidavit by Eberhard von Thadden concerning the concealment of the extermination of the Jews from the Foreign Ministry and the non-participation of RuSHA.\nDocument 140 will become Exhibit No. 141. This is an excerpt from the Bulletin on SS and Police Jurisdiction, No. 5 of 1941 concerning secrecy.\nDocument 141 will become Exhibit No. 142. This is an affidavit by Werner Grothmann concerning the exact separation of duties within Himmler's staff.\nDocument 142 will become Exhibit No. 143. This is an affidavit by Richard Schulze concerning the knowledge of the extermination of Jews within the circles closest to Hitler.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4174, "page_number": "4167", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nDocument 143 will become Exhibit 144. This is an affidavit by Hermann Theilen concerning the card file on persons with mixtures of Jewish blood at the RuSHA.\nDocument 144 will become Exhibit 145. This is an affidavit by Hildegard Hechenleitner confirming Ossiander's and Steudtner's activities.\nDocument 145 will become Exhibit 146. This is an affidavit by Marianna Seeger concerning the attitude of Hofmann towards Jews.\nExhibit 147 will be Hofmann Document No. 146. This is an affidavit by Oswald Pohl concerning the Action Reinhardt.\nDocument 147 (a) and (b) will become Exhibit 148. Document 147 (a) is an excerpt from the Reich Ministerial Gazette for Internal Administration of 1941, No. 33 concerning the competence of the Reich Criminal Police Bureau in questions pertaining to gypsies. Document 147 (b) is an excerpt from the Order Gazette of the Security Police and SD, No. 26/42, concerning the racial expert's opinion from the Reich Central Office for the combatting of the gypsy nuisance.\nI have now concluded my presentation of documents in submitting all those documents which have so far been translated. Now I will have to submit several documents subsequently. I have actually reached the end of calling witnesses and I want only to call three more for the purpose of cross examination: one of them by the name of Rembatsch could not be located, so that it is impossible to call him here for cross examination; the next witness is a man by the name of Brosch who at present is imprisoned in Vienna. The Russian authorities have refused to turn him over to us. The last witness will be a man by the name of Spoehrin who can be reached very easily because he is located in the internment camp at Darmstadt. However, up to now he has not been brought here. I request permission to call this witness upon his arrival here in Nuernberg.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4175, "page_number": "4168", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Why is he not here now?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I already called him before Christmas and everything was done by the Defense Center in order to get him here. Assurances were given to me time and again that he would arrive here any day. However, up to now he has not arrived yet.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't know whether he will get here or not. There is only one trouble about this case: it's jumbled enough already without adding any more confusion by jumping from one group of defendants to the other. We'd like he keep it as orderly as we can.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Very well, Your Honor. I have done everything in order to get things done on time, but probably I shall withdraw my request for calling this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Do you have anything else now?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I have reached the end of my presentation of evidence for the time being.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Proceed with the next defendant.\nDR.SCHMIDT (For the Defendant Tesch). The defense counsel for all of the defendants of the group Lebensborn have agreed contrary to the way in which it was originally planned not to put the examination of the defendants at the presentation of their case in chief, but first of all to call a number of foster-children and fosterparents here as witnesses. The witnesses have come from outside of Nurnberg and for personal reasons and because the witness builging is overcrowded they cannot stay very long in Nuernberg. The examination of the first two witnesses will be carried out by my colleague Dr. Thiele-Fredersdorf.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. I am glad that you reminded me of the condition of the witness house. I was about to forget to announce what has already been announced several times that when a witness is placed on the stand everybody will be expected to get through with that witness while on the stand. They will not be \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4176, "page_number": "4169", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "brought back again. On account of the crowded condition at the witness house, the Tribunal has advised the authorities there that as soon as a witness has been used in this case he or she may be immediately released.\nAll right. Whom will you call?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: May it please the Tribunal, I now would like to call the witness Waldemar Luser.\nWALDEMARLUSER, a witness, book the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQWitness, please give the Tribunal your name, your age, your place of residence and your profession.\nAMy name is Waldemar Luser. I was born on the 25th of December 1900 at Salzburg, No. 1 Fuerstenallee. I am a department head in the District Labor Office at Salzburg.\nQOf what department in the Labor Office are you in charge?\nAThe Youth Department of the entire land is subordinated to me.\nQMay I point out to the Tribunal that the witness Waldemar Luser of No. 1 Fuerstenallee is the same man that has been mentioned in DocumentNO-2790which was Exhibit 435.\nWitness, when did the Youth Office at Salzburg approach you with the question whether you wanted to take a foster-child which came from an ethnic German background?\nAThe Youth Office in Salzburg approached me in August 1943 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "WALDEMAR", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4177, "page_number": "4170", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "with this question because the authorities there knew that I as well as my wife wanted to adopt a child or wanted a foster child.\nQAt the time in the vicinity of Salzburg, had any ethnic German children arrived there?\nAAt the time a transport of approximately 50 to 80 children arrived there consisting of various age groups. They came from Achern and Baden to Salzburg.\nQDo you know why the children from Achern were taken to the mountainous area of Salzburg?\nAThe land youth office at Salzburg with which I had the closest contact in official matters reported to me by telephone that these children had been sent to this area for security reasons and they were to be placed with private families as far as this was possible.\nQYou stated \"for security reasons\". From what danger were these children to be protected as far as you know?\nAIt was well-known that the district of Salzburg at that time was not as much in danger of air attacks and bombings as the western areas of the German Reich.\nQWhere were these children accommodated first of all in the vicinity of Salzburg?\nAFirst of all they were put into a camp within the city limits of Salzburg.\nQWhat was the camp's name?\nAThe camp was generally known as the ethnic German camp in Balch.\nQSubsequently, did you, yourself, inspect the camp in order to take a look at the children and in order to select one child?\nAThis opportunity presented itself to me because as a result of my official activities, I was included in all matters pertaining to the care of young people as long as they had reached \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4178, "page_number": "4171", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "the ages of 14.\nQOn such occasions, were you able to talk to the children in the camp?\nAAfter I had already fundamentally decided to adopt an ethnic German child, I also entered the camp itself several times in order to ascertain whether such a child which was to the liking of both my wife and myself could be found.\nQThen, you had several discussions with the children in the camp. What did you find out about the origin of these children from these discussions?\nAI was in this camp four or five times in order to carry out step by step a closer selection of such a child, and for the most part I took into consideration the origin of these children, their families, and also the intelligence of these children concerned. I had to convince myself whether these children had parents or legally appointed guardians -\nQJust a moment, please. Will you please repeat the last sentence once more.\nAI wanted to find out whether the children actually did or did not have any parents or a guardian. May I continue?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4179, "page_number": "4172", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI knew that children could only be adopted if their parents were not alive anymore or if the consent of the parents could be obtained.\nQWhat impression did you gain from your discussion with the children?\nAThe smallest circle of these children in which my wife and I were interested consisted of 5 or 6 girls and I asked these girls in detail whether their parents or any other members of their family were still alive.\nQWhat did the children tell you?\nAAs far as I can still recall today most of these four or six girls stated that they were full orphans and in two cases I can recall that one girl told me that her mother was still alive but didn't take care of her, and in the case of another girl I can remember that she thought that her father was still alive, but she didn't know where he could be found or whether he was still alive at all.\nQYou spoke about a very small circle of children where you made very detailed inquiries. In the discussion with the other children did you hear about anything which could lead you to conclude that these children had been taken away from their parents or members of their family?\nAIt was clear to me by observing these children and through the ability of the children to move around freely that it could hardly be possible that they had been stolen or kidnapped from their families because the children who had been taken there were of various ages and certainly they would have expressed it if they had been hurt to some extent.\nQBut nothing of that sort happened?\nANo, to the contrary. All of them were very merry and in a good mood.\nQAnd then you adopted a foster-child from among these children. What child was it?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4180, "page_number": "4173", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAThis was Gisela Brandt.\nQOn this occasion may I point out that in another Prosecution DocumentNO-4603which is Exhibit 465, the child Gisela Brandt has also been mentioned. What were you told with regard to the origin of this foster-child?\nAIn principle I didn't pay too much attention to the information of the local agency there but for the most part I inquired about this matter with the girl herself.\nQMay I ask you first of all to tell us what the agencies told you officially?\nAThe land youth office told me that these children did not have any parents or that perhaps one of the parents was still alive.\nQWhat about Gisela Brandt?\nAI was told that according to official information both parents of Gisela Brandt were dead.\nQWhat did you hear about the nationality of her parents?\nAThey were ethnic Germans.\nQDid the child herself confirm these statements?\nAThe child did not know her parents and therefore she could not confirm the matter to me.\nQHowever, according to the information which you received from the child, could you rely on the credibility of the statements which had been made to you by the agencies?\nAYes, I could. After all the descriptions which the child gave, never led me to doubt that she was of ethnic German origin.\nQWell, when the child was accepted in your family, did the Lebensbor play any part in this or at that time was the Lebensborn ever mentioned?\nAI didn't know that the child had been included in the Lebensborn nor did I know at the time when I accepted the child that the Lebensborn had anything to do with her.\nQWhen did you have your first contact with the Lebensborn \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4181, "page_number": "4174", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Society?\nAThis happened as a result of a letter which I received in the fall of 1944.\nQOn what occasion did you refer to the Lebensborn?\nAAt the time I needed a ration card for the child in order to buy her a winter overcoat; on that occasion I heard through the Higher Police Leader that this matter, if I wanted to adopt the child, would have to be reported to the Lebensborn Society.\nQDid you than contact the Lebensborn Society because you wanted to adopt the foster-child?\nANo. I, myself, did not have any contact with the Lebensborn but in November 1944 I received a letter asking me whether I was willing to adopt this child.\nQLater on did you also receive a notification with regard to the question of the aoption?\nAI did not receive it from the Lebensborn Society but I received it from the Higher SS and Police Leader Alpenland who pointed out to me that I should send back all these forms to him and that my intention to adopt the child I could realize later on. I agreed to that.\nQWere you told that it was too early to adopt the child?\nAI was told that by the Police Leader at Salzburg and I myself saw what was coming and therefore I did not press for an adoption of this child.\nQWhen you accepted the foster-child were you told that you were to give this child any political indoctrination?\nAIn no way whatsoever did anyone tell me that because I had the impression that the Police Leader Alpenland was not interested in the education of these children at all.\nQWho took an interest in the education of the children?\nAOnly for the most part the Land Youth Office in the form of a controlled supervision with regard to school attendance.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4182, "page_number": "4175", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd this agency didn't issue any regulations to you either about any political indoctrination?\nANo, nobody did.\nQWas your foster child a member of the BDM, the League of German Girls?\nANo, she did not have to join it.\nQOn this occasion, may I ask you, if you yourself were a member of the NSDAP or a member of the SA or SS or any other organization of the Party?\nAI did not belong to any formation of the Party.\nQDid you have any difficulties with the Gestapo or the Party because of your political attitude?\nAThe Gestapo arrested me on two occasions and until the end of the war I was spied on by the Gestapo and the NSDAP.\nQDid you receive any allowances for your foster-child?\nAI believe for one year or one year and a half and then I decided not to accept any more.\nQWhy didn't you want to receive any more?\nABecause I knew that my wife and I seriously intended to adopt the child.\nQLater on, did you adopt your foster child?\nAWith the approval of the American Military Government at Salzburg and with the agreement of the Polish authorities as the result of a correspondence between the district court at Salzburg and this Polish agency I finally adopted the child.\nQDid the child as the result of the adoption finally obtain the Austrian nationality?\nAAfter the adoption had been carried out in November 1946 and after it had been recognized as being legal at the time I took steps in order to obtain the Austrian nationality for the child and in July 1947 she was naturalized with the agreement of the Austrian Minister of the Interior.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4183, "page_number": "4176", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAfter the war when this became possible again did you make any inquiries with regard to the deceased parents of the child?\nAThat was only natural and in particular I wanted to ascertain whether this girl after all had been born at Lodz and at the same time whether her two sisters whom she had mentioned had been listed in the Registrar's Books at Lodz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4184, "page_number": "4177", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.What was the result of the inquiries you made?\nA.I asked two different persons who had nothing to do with each other. One of them was living at Lodz. The second person lived in Vienna and had contacts in Poland. I requested these people to make inquiries with the authorities in Lodz and also in the church registration books, if they were still available, in order to ascertain whether this girl had actually been born at Lodz. I received an answer from the person who had contacts in Lodz and I was told that Gisela Brandt and all her sisters at Lodz could not be found anywhere in the register there. The second reply I have not received yet but I must assume that this inquiry will also be negative since I have not received any reply up to date.\nQ.What happened to the other ethnic German orphans at Salzburg after the war who were given to the foster homes with other families?\nA.First of all I heard through the Land Youth Office that immediately after the occupation of the district of Salzburg by American troops a Polish delegation had arrived in order to look for all these children in order to take those children away without giving any consideration whatsoever to the circumstances and to take them back to Poland.\nQ.You stated that they did not make any close examination of the case. Didn't they examine whether those children were of German origin?\nA.No, they didn't make any examination to that effect at all.\nQ.Did these children leave voluntarily?\nA.No, I don't know that. To the contrary, I heard from the Youth Department of the Land office that this repatriation was carried out without any consultation of the authorities or without asking the foster parents. These children were simply taken away and they came into the Polish delegation camp at the Heilbrunn-Kaserne at Salzburg and from there they were repatriated to Poland.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4185, "page_number": "4178", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Did these children like to leave their foster parents?\nA.No, that is not the case, because not very far away from where I am living one day a foster-mother appeared and she told me that the orphan whom she had given a home had suddenly been taken away by a Polish soldier in the presence of a lady who also spoke Polish without the agreement of the foster mother. He just simply took her away. In the same way this Polish delegation also wanted to take away my fosterdaughter who, however, did not tolerate this way of doing things and she refused to go with then and she was threatened that the tine would come when somebody would come after her and get her. Later on I heard of three cases from the Land Youth office where this Polish delegation had taken children from the ages of 2 1/2 years upward until the age of 8 or 10 years, in part, in the vicinity of Salzburg; they actually had kidnapped these children from their foster homes. At the time neither the youth office nor the foster parents could give any help in that respect because at the time one had little confidence in the Austrian authorities.\nQ.Did you make any personal experiences which led you to doubt that these children were not of German origin?\nA.Could you repeat the question once more please?\nQ.Did you personally doubt that all those children were of ethnic German origin?\nA.I never doubted that for a moment because after all I was used to the problems of ethnic Germans. I knew from my official work just how these people happened to come into the interior of the Reich.\nQ.You are an expert in youth questions. Recently a witness from the vicinity here was unable to give us clear information about the age of the children in Germany, when it was mandatory for them to attend school. Can you tell us what the law is in Germany, how long a child must attend school in Germany, up to what year?\nA.A child must attend school until it has completed its fourteenth \n year of life and unless this child, - and I am not speaking of ethnic German children now, - cones from rural areas and is needed in order to help work on the farm, only in such cases were exceptions made, so that a child did not have to attend school anymore before completing its fourteenth year of life.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4186, "page_number": "4179", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "However, this was never done when the child was not yet thirteen. However this does not apply to ethnic Germans.\nQ.Thank you. Now, one more question to you as an expert in youth questions. Were these ethnic German children given to fosterparents so that they would provide a cheap source of labor?\nA.This did not apply to the district of Salzburg in any case because the welfare agencies for youth questions had to see to it very strictly whether German or ethnic German children perhaps were being exploited at any place. If this was ascertained, no matter what the origin of the children was, then all agencies collaborated and they would inform each other about any such observations and such a child was immediately taken away from such foster-parents.\nQ.Thank you, witness. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Witness, you stated a moment age that this child was an ethnic German child. How my question to you is not of what extraction was this child, but ow what nationality was this child?\nA.The nationality of the child was not clarified in any way at the time. In Austria this child was considered to be Stateless. This is a definition which is also used by the American military Government.\nQ.But you were sure that this child was an ethnic German, you stated. Now I would like for you to tell me how you were positive that this child was an ethnic German child?\nA.We knew from our official work that ethnic Germans could enter the interior of the Reich and also Austria when it had been proven \n that they were ethnic Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4187, "page_number": "4180", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Whenever any doubts existed with regard to these people they would be settled at the borders of the former Reich.\nQ.I am not talking about how they came in or how it was possible, but you said you made observations which lead you to believe or to be positive that this child was ethnic German. I am talking from your own observations of this child.\nA.My discussions with all these children and especially with the full orphan whom I adopted later on led me to draw the conclusion that they were of German nationality or that they had to be ethnic Germans because the descriptions which she gave to me, as far as he could still remember these things, did not awaken any doubt within me.\nQ.Nowyou said that you were convinced,- I am a little confused by your testimony. You said you were convinced that the child was ethnic German and yet when you adopted the child you consulted the Polish authorities. Will you please tell me why the Polish authorities had to agree to your adoption?\nA.I had to do this because I couldn t know whether this child had the Polish nationality at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4188, "page_number": "4181", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QJust one moment. You couldn't tell whether it was Polish or not, but why didn't you contact the Czechs? Isn't it possible that you should have consulted the Czechs, too?\nANo. After all, we knew that these ethnic German children came from Poland. We knew that. There was no reason for me to turn to the Czechs.\nQAnd you did know that it came from Poland?\nAYes, I heard that.\nQNow, I want' to help you here. You said that you have madeyou have done this investigation on your own in Litzmannstadt to find out whether this child's parents are living or whether it came from a foster-home or from an orphanage. Now, I want to know, under what name have you been trying to locate this child's parents?\nAI did not try .......\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: May I interrupt you for a moment? The Prosecutor has probably misunderstood the witness. I would like to clear up this misunderstanding, also in his interest.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. You can't clear up things for the witness. Lot him clear them up.\nTHE WITNESS:First of all, I stated that I did not look for the parents, but I wanted to ascertain whether this child has been born at Lodz. That is what I wanted to find out first of all. BY MR. NELLY:\nQYes, witness, I realize that. Now, my question to you is, under what name, what name have you used in regard to this child in trying to find its parents? What name are you using?\nAI gave her former name, Gisela Brandt.\nQDid you ever use the name of Gisela Brandt Wieslawa, W I E S LA W A?\nAYes, I also listed this name as a precaution. Also the names of her sisters and I gave their Polish name.\nQAnd you have used this name in writing to Lodz?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4189, "page_number": "4182", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes.\nQI have in my hand, witness, that if you will write to Litzmannstadt, to the city officials in Litzmannstadt, they can give you that information. There has been a request sent out, through the International Refugee Organization, the Child Tracing Branch. Have you Contacted that outfit at any time?\nATo the International .... I did not turn to the International Refugee Organization. It was not known to me.\nQYou have never reported this child to the IRO or, its predecessor, the UNRRA?\nAI did not report this case to UNRRA because, at that time, I had not only started the adoption proceedings, but finally I had already received the signed agreement of the Polish authorities who, at the time, made an inquiry to the Austrian Court about my person and about the state of affairs, and the Court replied to this inquiry and the Polish authorities did not engage in any further correspondence.\nQWell, the Polish authorities, if you will write, I am sure can help you. In their files this child is listed as missing, from the report which I am going to hand to you right now.\nYour Honor, I do not intend to offer this into evidence or to have it identified at this time. This is something which came to us a very short time ago - last night to be specific, on this child and it is from the International Refugee Organization.\nTHE WITNESS:I must say quite honestly that I didn't quite correctly understand the prosecutor, and since I cannot read Polish, I don't quite clearly see what this document means. BY MR, NELLY:\nQThis is a request upon the child Gisela Brandt, a request for her return to Poland by the Litzmannstadt city officials as being taken from the orphanage of Litzmannstadt and brought into Germany, and her disappearance or her whereabouts being unknown at this time.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4190, "page_number": "4183", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "This is a request that the IRO search their files. Now you say that you searched in Litzmannstadt. What made you believe that this child was born in Litzmannstadt?\nAI don't know at all whether she was born there. I don't think so, in any case, because her name was not registered in the church there.\nQBut why did you pick out Litzmannstadt? What made you pick out Litzmannstadt? Why didn't you pick out some other place in Poland? After all, children are born all over Poland, aren't they?\nAAt the time, it was stated that this cethnic child had come from Litzmannstadt. Therefore, it was my next conclusion, above all, to contact the community of Litzmannstadt or to inquire of the authorities there.\nQWell, at the same time, after searching in Litzmannstadt and then in having adopted .the child, you consulted Polish officials, but there is no record ever given you to make you believe that this was a Polish child from Litzmannstadt?\nAI'm sorry. I didn't quite understand your question.\nQI say, isn't it quite coincidental that when you went to adopt the child, you get the agreement of the Polish officials and then, to search for the child, you search in Litzmannstadt. Both of your guesses have been correct. How were you informed? Weren't you informed as to this child? These wild guesses being accurate is what amazes me and, I'm sure, the Tribunal.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: You canot speak for the Tribunal. BY MR. NEELY:\nI beg your pardon, Your Honor.\nAI become a little confused right now because,actually, I cannot quite understand your speech as the result of the sound system.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. NEELY:\nYes.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4191, "page_number": "4184", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QI would like to say this, to ask you one question and that is, did any one at any time show you any records whereby you could ascer tain that this child had been born in Litzmannstadt?\nANo.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you. I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQI only have a very few questions, witnes.\nThe result of your correspondence with the authorities of Lodz. Was this correspondence submitted to the Court and the Austrian authorities because of the adoption?\nAWell, the correspondence only took place between the Austrian court and the municipal authorities of Lodz, and since the matter had been approved by the court, it did not have to be submitted any more to the Ministry of Interior.\nQTherefore, the competent court had knowledge of this correspondence?\nAYes, they still have it in their files.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Thank you. I have no further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, I think we're all confused. Where did you get this child in the first place? Who turned it over to you?\nAYour Honor, I took it from the camp Barch near Aalzburg and this was handled by the Land Youth Office.\nQWho was in charge of this camp where you got the child?\nAWho was my superior?\nQI want to know.....\nAThe camp leader was the Higher SS and Police Leader Alpenland.\nQAll right. Now, did you talk to him about this child?\nAI only had one discussion with him when I made a request to accept an ethnic German child.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "MR. NEELY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4192, "page_number": "4185", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QDid you ask him anything about where the child came from?\nAWe were told that these ethnic German children from Poland, but the term Lodz was not used, and these children had come from Achern or Baden and had been brought from there to Salzburg.\nQNow, who told you that?\nAThe Higher SS and Police Leader told me that and, later on, I was also told that by the Land Youth Office.\nQThis Higher SS and Police Leader, who was in charge of the camp where you obtained the child, told you that it was an ethnic German child from Poland?\nAYes, from Poland.\nQDid he tell you anything about the father and mother of the child? Who they were? Where they lived? When they died? Anything about it?\nAYour honor, I have already described at the beginning of my examination that, especially with regard to members of the family or the parents of the child, I asked a small circle of girls about that; whether their parents were still alive.\nQWait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm not asking you about that. I want to know if you asked this SS and Police Leader, who was in charge of that camp, anything about who the father and mother were where they lived, when they died?\nAThis question did not have to be discussed anymore in detail so much with this SS Leader because the girls themselves had told me, after I asked them first, and I only talked to the SS and Police Leader later on, that they were orphans without parents and the Higher SS and Police Leader later also confirmed that to me in the case of Gisela Brandt.\nQWell then, you did ask?\nAThe SS and Police Leader?\nQYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4193, "page_number": "4186", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes, I asked him on one occasion later on. BY JUDGE )'CONNELL:\nQHow old was the child that you adopted?\nAThe age?\nQYes.\nAAt the tine she was twelve years old.\nQWas she able to speak for herself in respects to tell you where she came from?\nAYes, of course, she could.\nQWho her parents had been?\nAShe told me that had already died when she was an infant. After all, she was in a Polish foster-home.\nQDid she say how old she was when she left Poland?\nAYes, certainly. After all, she could speak German and she herself had been in a German school already. She was able to give me that answer herself.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: That's all.\nTHE PRESIDENT:How long as she been in Germany when you got her?\nTHE WITNESS:I believe since 1940 or 1941.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness left the stand.)\nThe Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken until 1515 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4194, "page_number": "4187", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: (attorney for the defendant Ebner) As my next witness I would like to call the witness Gisela Luser.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGISELALUSER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF (Attorney for the defendant Ebner):\nQPlease tell the Tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is Gisela Luser.\nQAre you the adopted daughter of Herr Luser who was just in the witness stand?\nAYes.\nQWhat was your name before you were adopted?\nAGisela Brandt.\nQWhen were you born?\nAOn the 4th of April, 1932.\nQAnd where were you born?\nAI don't know, but I was brought up in Lodz.\nQYour father said in the witness stand that you were adopted only after the war, is that correct?\nAYes,\nQYour real parents are dead?\nAYes.\nQHow old were you about when your parents died?\nAI think I must have been about two or three years old.\nQMay I ask you, witness, to make a small pause after my questions so that the interpreters will have a chance to catch up.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "BY THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL", "GISELA" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4195, "page_number": "4188", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes, I will do that.\nQCan you remember your dead parents?\nANo, I can't.\nQBut, when you were a child, did you hear whether your parents were Germans or Polish?\nAYes, I did; they were German.\nQWho told you that?\nAMy foster-parents told me, but I don't really know because either a servant or a sister of mine told me that my parents were German.\nQWhen you were a small child, and when you were in Lodz, did you speak German with your sisters?\nAYes, I talked German once in a while.\nQAnd then where did you learn to speak Polish?\nAI was in a Polish nunnery.\nQDid you speak Polish before you went to such a cloister-school?\nAYes, I spoke Polish a little bit.\nQAnd where did you learn that?\nAI learned that with my Polish foster-parents.\nQDid your Polish foster-parents also speak German to you once in a while?\nAYes, once in a while.\nQAnd where did you go after you left your foster parents?\nAInto a Polish convent.\nQHow old were you about at that time?\nAI may have been about six, years.\nQDid you go to school then?\nAWhen I was ten, I went to a Polish school.\nQIn this Polish convent, did you have to speak Polish or could you also speak German?\nANo, I had to speak Polish.\nQDid all the children there have to speak Polish?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4196, "page_number": "4189", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes.\nQCould you move about freely in this Polish convent?\nANo, we went for walks in rows with one of the sisters.\nQWere there also other children with you?\nAYes.\nQUntil what age?\nAOh, about until fourteen or sixteen years.\nQAnd they couldn't move about freely?\nANo.\nQAnd when the children went to school, did they go by themselves?\nAWell, we went with one of the sisters.\nQIn this Polish convent, were the children there punished by beatings?\nAYes.\nQAnd why - for instance?\nAWell, perhaps, for instance, something had happened in school or that we perhaps didn't have our homework done; then, all of us were beaten.\nQWere small children also beaten? Children who did not go to school yet?\nAYes.\nQAnd why were they beaten?\nAWell, because they couldn't pray.\nQWhat other punishments were usual in this convent when the children didn't behave as they should?\nAWell, they were just beaten.\nQAnd where were you brought from this Polish convent when the Germans had marched into Poland?\nAWell, I was brought to Lodz.\nQAnd then?\nATo Bruckau.\nQWas there a children's home there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4197, "page_number": "4190", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes.\nQAnd where did you go from Bruckau?\nATo Achern.\nQAnd from Achern?\nATo Salzburg.\nQYou were together there with many other children who also came from Lodz or Poland?\nAYes.\nQDid you once hear from another child that it had been separated from his parents or his relatives?\nANo.\nQIn these homes were you forced to speak German or were you also allowed to speak Polish?\nAIn Lodz we could also speak Polish, and also in Bruckau; and in Achern then the Germans told us that we were supposed to speak German.\nQWere you beaten when you talked Polish?\nANo.\nQWere you locked into these homes or could you move about freely?\nAWe could move about freely.\nQIn all of these homes?\nAYes.\nQAnd you could go wherever you wanted to?\nAYes, in Bruckau and in Achern.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERDORF: Thank you. I have no further questions at this time; thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4198, "page_number": "4191", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "CROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, Mrs. Luser, the foster mother with whom you are living today, is she Polish?\nAShe was born in Bromstadt, actually in Bromstadt, but at the last minute she was a Polish national.\nQDo you ever speak Polish with her today?\nANo; I don't speak Polish any more.\nQYou remember no Polish; is that correct?\nAThat is right; I can't speak Polish any more.\nQNow, when you were in Litzmannstadt, do you ever recall having an examination performed upon you; looked at by any men in uniforms in any way, or doctors?\nAIn Lodz we were photographed once, and also we were examined.\nQAnd when they took pictures of you, witness, didn't they take side pictures of your -- your facial -- your nose, etc., your profile?\nAYes, also from the side; from the profile.\nQDo you recall a man by the name of Dr. Grohmann?\nANo, I don't remember.\nQAt any time you said -- just one moment. Now, when you were in Achern, they told you you were not supposed to speak German. Did they also tell you that you were to dislike the Poles?\nAHow do you mean that?\nQDid they tell you that you should be proud to be a German and to become a German girl?\nANo.\nQNow, I have just one more question, witness. You spoke of the ill-treatment which you received in the Polish institution, the Polish school Did you at any time over receive any mistreatment?\nAYes.\nQWould you please tell us what this was about?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4199, "page_number": "4192", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AIf something happened in school that wasn't right, we all were beaten together; and I, too, was beaten then.\nQWell now, don't you think that when you misbehave that sometimes you are a little deserving of a little spanking?\nAWell, if it had been like that, then certainly only that one girls or that girl who didn't have her homework should be punished , but not -- it shouldn't be like that, that all the children should be beaten and all sorts of things and didn't get any meals. That certainly wasn't just.\nQNow, when did they start calling you Gisela. At one time weren't you called Wieslawa?\nAWell, I don't quite remember that, but I think that an Bruckau or in Achern I was called Wieslawa.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you, witness. I have no further questions, your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF (Attorney for the defendant Ebner):\nI have only a few questions in redirect, your Honor.\nQThe representative of the Prosecution has touched upon the question of your mother's nationality. Your mother is now an Austrian national; isn't that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhy was she for a certain time a Polish national?\nAYou mean how long she was a polish national?\nQNo. Why altogether?\nAWell, because she had married a Pole.\nQIn the first marriage?\nAYes, in her first marriage.\nQThen you said in cross examination that the children in the Polish convent had been punished with various sorts of punishment.\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4200, "page_number": "4193", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QYou told us that they were beaten; that they didn't get anything to eat, and so forth. Was there another punishment too?\nAYes; sometimes we were woken up during the night time and we had to go into the chapel and pray.\nQYou said that the children were also beaten because they did not pray enough.\nAYes, because they couldn't talk yet, they were beaten so that they really could speak after that.\nQSpeak Polish?\nAYes, Polish.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: No further questions; thank you.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, how old are you now?\nAIn April, I shall be sixteen.\nQWhen did you come to Germany?\nAI really don't know exactly right now, but I think it was in 1940 or 1941.\nQYou say you don't remember your father and mother?\nANo, I don't remember my real parents.\nQWhere were you living when you can first remember?\nAYou mean when my parents were already dead?\nQYes -- when you can first remember where you were living.\nAIn Lodz.\nQWho were you living with when you can first remember?\nAI was with my Polish foster parents and my brothers and sisters.\nQHow long did you live with them -- with your foster parents?\nAI think about a year; I don't quite remember.\nQThen when you left there, where did you go?\nAI came into a Polish convent, in or near Litzmannstadt, outside of Lodz.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4201, "page_number": "4194", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QHow long did you live in this Polish convent?\nAI stayed there until the Germans marched in.\nQIn this foster home when you lived with your foster parents in Poland, did they speak Polish?\nAYes, they spoke Polish.\nQIn the convent in which you lived, did they speak Polish?\nAIn the Polish convent?\nQYes.\nAYes, they also spoke Polish there.\nQWhen and where did you learn to speak German?\nAWhen I came to my Polish foster parents' home I still spoke German.\nQBut you spoke Polish and they spoke Polish during the time you lived with them.\nAYes.\nQHow old were you when you went to live with them?\nAThat was when my real parents died, and then I came to my foster parents.\nQSo when you can first remember, you were living in a home where Polish was spoken.\nAYes, they also spoke German though.\nQAnd you lived there in that home and in the convent where Polish was also spoken until you came to Germany.\nAYes.\nQHow did you come to Germany?\nAFrom Lodz we girls, I don't know how many there were; there was also a Polish sister who came along with us to Bruckau.\nQ who told you that you would have to come to Germany?\nANobody told me.\nQYou mean they just brought you to Germany without telling you Where you were going?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4202, "page_number": "4195", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "ANo, nobody told me, but later on the German Fraeuleins told me that we were now in Germany, in Bruckau.\nQ so when you left, you did not know where you were going.\nANo, I didn't.\nQWere you brought by train or automobile, or, how did you get here?\nAWe came to Germany in a train.\nQWere any Germany officers or German people in charge of you when you came to Germany?\nANo; there was only this Polish sister with us.\nEXAMINATION BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQYoung lady, you spoke of brothers and sisters; how many brothers and sisters did you have?\nAI have one brother and one sister,\nQAre they older or younger than you?\nAThey are older.\nQWhat are their ages in respect to your own; how much older than you?\nAMy brother is about one year older than I am; and my sister is two or three years older than I am.\nQDid they go to the same convent that you went to?\nAYes, I was in this Polish convent with my brother and sister.\nQFrom your oldest sister, were you able to learn anything about your parents -- that is your own parents?\nANo.\nQWhen you spoke about what happened at the convent you used the word \"beaten\". The lawyers have used the word \"beaten\"; that may mean many things. What was the character of the punishment that you received, which you described as beatings?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4203, "page_number": "4196", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AWe were told that we could choose whether we wanted to be beaten with a stick on our hands, or whether we should get beaten with a stick on our behinds.\nQWhen you were beaten with a stick on your hand, how many slaps would you get?\nAWell, that depended; it depended upon what the punishment was for.\nQWell, on an average, how many would you get?\nAWe were beaten once or twice over the hand.\nQDid it make you cry?\nAI am sorry, I didn't understand your question.\nQDid it make you cry?\nAWell, yes, of course; it was a matter of course that we cried.\nQThat wasn't a very hard slap, was it?\nAYes.\nQThat is what you call beating?\nAAnd we were also beaten on our behinds with a leather strap.\nQThe boys also had their hands slapped once in a while?\nAYou mean the boys?\nQWere there any boys at the school?\nAWell, of course, we were separated. We girls were with the girls, and the boys with the boys, and I didn't know what happened with the boys.\nQYou didn't like to get up during the night to go to pray? Did you understand the question?\nANot correctly.\n(The question was repeated by the interpreter).\nA (Continuing) No, certainly not.\nQWasn't it one of the customs of the convent that, at certain hours , the pupils would be called to prayer?\nAYes, of course, every day, in the morning and in the evening. Besides that, if something happened that was not quite right, they also woke us up at night and we had to go to the chapel to pray.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4204, "page_number": "4197", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q How long did they keep you praying?\nAI really don't know; I didn't have a watch at that time.\nQDid they make you say many prayers?\nAYes, of course.\nQDid you consider that pretty hard punishment?\nAYes, of course. During the night, when all the others could sleep and we had to get up to go and pray, of course, that was a hard punishment.\nQThat was a punishment for having done something which the nuns considered a violation of the rules?\nDid you understand the question?\nAI am just thinking. This also happened. When something happened in school that wasn't right, then the teachers told that to the sisters; they told them that we didn't pay attention, or that we didn't have our homework, and then, of course, we were all beaten.\nQYou keep referring to beating; by that you mean using a stick on your hands. In America we call that a rattan. What kind of a stick did they use on you - your hand?\nAWell, that was a very strong stick, and it was thick and round, and it really hurt us.\nQThen I take it you did not like to be disciplined, did you?\nAWell, of course, we were punished too.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: All right, that is all. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQDo you know anything about your brother and sister now?\nANo, nothing.\nQ when did you last hear anything about them?\nAThe last time was in Lodz.\nQThey did not come to Germany when you did?\nANo, no, because they were older than I was.\nQAnd you do not know where they did go, or when?\nQNo, I do not know that.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4205, "page_number": "4198", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nDR.RENTSCH (Deputizing for Dr. Schmidt, counsel for the defendant Tesch): Mr. President and High Tribunal, I would like to call the witness Lotte Suchert to the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nLOTTESUCHERT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath).\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENTSCH:\nQWitness, please tell the Court your name.\nAMy name is Lotte Suchert.\nQPlease spell your last name.\nAS-U-C-H-E-R-T, Suchert.\nQWhen were you born?\nAOn the 22nd of June, 1932.\nQAnd where were you born?\nAWarsaw.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Please have the witness repeat her name again, it doesn't seem to be on the list. BY DR. RENTSCH:\nQWill you please repeat your name? It is not on the list here.\nALotte Suchert.\nQWhere are you living now, Miss Suchert?\nAIn Wiesloch.\nQAnd where is that?\nAIt is near Heidelberg.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "LOTTE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4206, "page_number": "4199", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QAnd with whom do you live there?\nAWith the family Vogt.\nQWho are these people? who are the members of this family? Who are those people - this family Vogt?\nAThey are my foster parents - my foster mother.\nQFoster mother? You don't have a foster father?\nANo, he was killed in action during the war.\nQYou told us that your name was Lotte Suchert.\nAYes.\nQAs far as you remember, did you always have that name?\nANo, I did not.\nQWhy, What was your name before that?\nAMy name was Miroslawa.\nQThat was your first name?\nAYes.\nQAnd your last name?\nASuchert.\nQThat was the same all the time, wasn't it?\nAYes, it was.\nQAnd now you are called Lotte?\nAYes.\nQWho gave you that first name, Lotte?\nAI myself was allowed to choose that name , in Achern.\nQIn Achern? Where is that?\nAThat is in Baden.\nQAnd where were you there in Achern?\nAI was there in a school for ethnic Germans.\nQCan you still remember your mother?\nAYes, I can.\nQIs your mother still alive?\nANo, she is not.\nQWhen did your mother die?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4207, "page_number": "4200", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AShe died when I was 3.\nQDo you still remember your father?\nAYes, I do.\nQDo you hold him in good remembrance?\nAYes.\nQWhat was his name? That is, what was your father's last name?\nAWell, his first name was Boleslav.\nQWas that his first name or his last name?\nAThat was his first name.\nQAnd what was his last name?\nASuchert.\nQSuchert?\nAYes, Suchert.\nQDo you know anything about your grandparents?\nAYes.\nQPertaining to which one of your parents do you know anything about your grandparents?\nAI know something about a grandfather; he was a German.\nQYou don't know anything about a grandmother?\nANo.\nQWas this grandfather the father of your father, or the father of your mother? Do you still remember that?\nAOh, I don't know that exactly.\nQYou don't know that exactly? You said your grandfather had been a German?\nAYes.\nQHow come you know that?\nAWell, my father told me.\nQYou were born in Warsaw?\nAYes.\nQAnd your mother died when you were about three years old?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4208, "page_number": "4201", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QWhere were you living at the time before your mother died? Did you live in Warsaw?\nANo, we were in the country.\nQOh, in the country. With whom?\nAWe were with my grandmother.\nQOh, you do know something about a grandmother, don't you?\nCan you describe that in detail, where that was in the country?\nANo.\nQWhen your mother died, was your father then with you in the country before your mother died?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4209, "page_number": "4202", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QAfter you mother had died, did he remain with you there?\nANo.\nQWell, where did he go?\nAHe went to Warsaw.\nQDid he remain, and what for? For what reason? What was he doing there?\nAHe worked there as a carpenter.\nQDid he take you along?\nANo, he didn't.\nQBut later on you went to Warsaw?\nAYes.\nQAnd then you were again together with your father?\nAYes.\nQAnd with whom did you live at that time?\nAWe lived with an uncle of ours.\nQDo you know anything more in detail about that uncle of yours? What was his name?\nANO.\nQWhether he was the brother of your father or of your mother? You don't know that?\nANo.\nQThank you. Did you now stay in Warsaw from then on or did you go somewhere else later on?\nAI went to Lodz.\nQAnd your father went along?\nAYes.\nQDid he take you along?\nAYes, he did.\nQAnd what was your father doing in Lodz?\nAHe worked there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4210, "page_number": "4203", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QWell, how did it go on from then? Where die you live in Lodz?\nAWell, we rented a room.\nQThat is to stay, you lived with strange people?\nAYes, with strangers.\nQAnd did you remain there all the time?\nANo.\nQAnd where did you go from there?\nAI come into a home in Lodz?\nQDid you not stay in this home all the time?\nANo.\nQWhere did you go from there?\nAWell, I came to foster-parents.\nQCan you still remember the name of those foster-parents?\nAYes, it was Wiokowski.\nQWiakowski. How long did you stay with these fosterparents -- approximately?\nAOh, a few years.\nQHow were you treated by these foster-parents?\nAI didn't like it at all.\nQWhy.\nAOh, they beat me.\nQAnd why? Don't you remember? (no response) I guess not. Do you still remember anything about the reason why you were transferred to this foster home?\nANo.\nQWell, you just got there, didn't you?\nAYes.\nQAnd before that you were in a children's home, weren't you?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4211, "page_number": "4204", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QThe people who took care of this home, did they still get in touch with you when you came to that family Wiakowski?\nAYes, they did.\nQAnd in what way?\nAThe woman who was in charge of that home came and visited me.\nQWell, and with whom did the woman talk?\nAWith my foster-mother.\nQDo you still know in what language she talked with your foster-mother?\nAWell, sometimes in German and sometimes in Polish.\nQNow, did you stay a long time or always with these foster-parents Wiakowski?\nANo.\nQAnd where did you go from there?\nAI came back into the children's home.\nQOh, well, you came back there. Well, did you remain in that home?\nANo.\nQWhere did they put you?\nAI came to another foster-home.\nQBut not the same foster home Wiakowski? They were other people?\nAYes, they were.\nQDo you still remember their names?\nANo, I don't.\nQBut you will have some sort of memory of those foster parents. Don't you remember anything of your foster father?\nAHe was Polish.\nQDid he speak Polish?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4212, "page_number": "4205", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes, he did.\nQAnd what do you know about your foster mother? Did she also speak Polish?\nANo, she spoke German.\nQWhat else do you remember of your fester parents from the mother?\nAShe was in the NSV.\nQWell, how did you gain that knowledge?\nABecause sometimes we received gifts from the NSV.\nQWell, how long did you stay with those foster parents?\nAOh, about a year.\nQAt that time when you stayed with those foster parents, did you know how to speak German?\nAYes, a little bit.\nQA little bit. But you also spoke polish, didn't you?\nAYes, I did.\nQYou told us a short time ago that your father had gone to Lodz in order to seek work there.\nAYes.\nQNOW your mother had died a long time ago. Did your father remain a widower? Did he remain alone?\nANo, he didn't.\nQDid he marry again?\nAYes, he did.\nQDo you know anything about your second mother?\nAYes, she died on the same day.\nQHow do you know on the some day?\nAShe died on the day of her wedding.\nQWell, how did that happen?\nAIt was ptomaine poisoning.\nQAnd did other people also get sick and die?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4213, "page_number": "4206", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AYes, all the people that partook of the walling meal.\nQAll the people that partook of the wedding meal?\nAYes.\nQAnd who were those people?\nAMy relatives.\nQDid your father also die or did he at least get ill?\nAYes.\nQWhat do you mean \"yes?\" He was sick?\nAYes, he was sick.\nQBut he didn't die from that, did he?\nAYes, he did.\nQWell, do you remember, did he die right away? Do you still remember this sickness of your father's?\nAYes, he went into a hospital even.\nQOh, he did. Did you visit him there?\nAYes, I did.\nQAnd he did not become healthy again from that? He did not recover?\nANo, he didn't.\nQWell, how did it happen then? Did you remain with these foster parents that you jus t talked about?\nANo.\nQWhy not? Where did you go from there?\nAI came into a German home in Lodz.\nQIn a home in Lodz. Did you remain in this home?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nABecause that was a home for boys and I came into a home for girls.\nQDid you now remain in this home for girls?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4214, "page_number": "4207", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QWhere did you go from there?\nATo Bruckau.\nQWhere is Bruckau? Is that near there,-- near Lodz I mean? Is that near there? (no response) In Poland? (no response) This little village Bruckau, was that in Germany perhaps? (no response) You don't know. But you know that it was Bruckau, don't you?\nAYes, I do.\nQAnd how long did you stay there? About how long did you stay there?\nAAbout half a year.\nQDid they treat you well in Bruckau? What was that in Bruckau? Was that a home also?\nAYes, it was.\nQHow did they treat you there?\nAOh, they treated me fine, there.\nQDid you new remain in this home in Bruckau or did you come to another home?\nAI came into a summer home.\nQWere all the girls transferred there or only a part of them? Did all the girls that were in this home in Bruckau come to this resort camp or only a part of them?\nAOh, I don't know any more.\nQBut beside yourself there were other girls who came to this resort camp?\nAYes.\nQAnd how did they treat you there?\nAOh, we liked it very much.\nQAnd where did you go from this resort camp?\nAI came to Achern.\nQYou tell us already that this Achern was where?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4215, "page_number": "4208", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AIn Baden.\nQAnd what was there in Achern? What was that? Was it a home? What was it?\nAThat was a school for ethnic Germans.\nQWere there other children already there when you came there?\nAYes, there were Tirolians there.\nQWhat do you mean \"Tirolians?\" Children? Girls? Were they only girls or boys too?\nAOnly girls.\nQAnd what sort of girls were these Tirolians? Why were they called Tirolians?\nABecause they came from Tirol.\nQDid you know whether they had parents or not?\nAYes, they did have parents.\nQYes, they had parents then, didn't they?\nAYes.\nQAnd besides those children from the Tirol, there were also other people -- other girls who came with you?\nAYes.\nQHow did one call these other children?\nAEastern children.\nQIn the beginning, you told us that you are now living with Frau Vogt in Wiesloch near Heidelberg. How did you get to this Frau Vogt from Heidelberg? Will you tell me that?\nAWell, there was a woman in Achern who took me along to Wiesloch.\nQTo pay a visit?\nAYes.\nQDid there you met Frau Vogt?\nAYes, there I met Frau Vogt.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4216, "page_number": "4209", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QAnd what did Frau Vogt say to you?\nAOh, she asked me if I wanted to stay.\nQWith her?\nAYes.\nQAnd what did you answer to that?\nAI said \"Yes\".\nQYou wanted to stay with her? Well, didn't you like it there in the school at Achern?\nAOh, yes, I liked it very much.\nQWell then, why?\nABecause I needed foster parents?\nQThat is why you wanted to go to Frau Vogt when she -\nTHE PRESIDENT:May I remind counsel that he should wait after he has asked a question until it has been answered before asking another. Give the interpreter time to translate.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4217, "page_number": "4210", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "BY DR. RENSCH:\nQI shall try my host, your Honor. How long did you visit Frau Vogt then? How long did you stay there, this visit in Wiesloch that you made there?\nAJust a few days.\nQAnd where did you go from there?\nAI went back to Achern.\nQWell, what happened then?\nAThen Frau Vogt came and got me.\nQIn Achern?\nAYes.\nQDo you know when that was?\nAYes, in June 1942.\nQIn June or July 1942?\nAJuly.\nQAnd since that time you have stayed in Wiesloch?\nAYes.\nQDid Frau Vogt have any other children?\nAYes, she had a daughter.\nQWhat is the name of that daughter?\nAHer name is Anita.\nQHow old is she now?\nAShe is about 17.\nQAnd then when you started staying with Frau Vogt, up to this visit, did you like it there or did you prefer to go back to Achern?\nANo, I liked it very much there?\nQDid you like to go to school in Wiesloch?\nAYes.\nQDid you also receive religious instruction there?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4218, "page_number": "4211", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QOf what faith are you?\nAI am Protestant.\nQHave you also been confirmed?\nAYes.\nQAnd when was that?\nAThat was Easter 1947.\nQAt that time after you came to stay with Frau Vogt did you become a member of the BDM or the League of German Girls of the Hitler Youth?\nANo.\nQWhere were you housed; whore did you sleep when you stayed with Frau Vogt?\nAI had a room.\nQWere you alone or were you with somebody else?\nANo, I was alone.\nQDid you like your foster-mother?\nAYes, I like her very much.\nQWould you like to stay with her forever or would you like to leave her?\nANo, I want to stay with her always.\nQThank you very much; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, you say you were born in 1932. Is that correct\nAYes.\nQNow, when were you in the institution; when were you last in the institution in Litzmannstadt before coming to Bruckau?\nAI don't know; I don't remember.\nQYou don't remember the year that you were in Litzmann \n stadt before going to Bruckau?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4219, "page_number": "4212", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "You don't remember when you left Litzmannstadt for Bruckau?\nANo.\nQNow when was the first time that yea started speaking German?\nAWith my foster-parents. She was a member of the NSV.\nQThat is your foster parents in Germany, is that correct?\nAIn Lodz.\nQBut, with your parents before that you had spoken Polish all the time, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDo you know when you left Bruckau for Achern-Baden?\nAYes.\nQWhen was that?\nA (no answer).\nQDo you remember Miss Kaith in Achern-Baden?\nAYes.\nQNow, when were you in Achern-Baden, do you remember the year?\nA 1941.\nQAnd how long did you stay in Achern-Baden?\nAOne year.\nQAnd when you were at Achern-Baden you had to speak German all the time, isn't that correct?\nANo, that is not right.\nQWere there other Polish girls besides you at AchernBaden?\nAYes.\nQDid they speak Polish with you?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4220, "page_number": "4213", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q were you allowed to speak Polish, say in your class rooms, or was that all done in German?\nAWe spoke Polish too.\nQAll the girls there belonged to BDM did they not at Achern-Baden?\nDR. RENSCH:Your Honor, I would like to object. This is a leading question, \"did all the girls belong to the BDM?\"\nTHE PRESIDENT:First time I knew there was any objection to leading questions in this trial. I haven't heard anything else. Go ahead.\nAYes, the Tyrolean girls and some of them in our group too were members.\nQWhere you a memb er of the BDM in Achern-Baden?\nANo, I was not.\nQNow, your geography: You said the children there were ethnic Germans and you refer to them as Tyroleans as you said. Where is the Tyrol. Do you know where the Tyrolean mountains are?\nANo.\nQDo you remember your geography, did you ever see the Tyrolean mountains on the map of Italy?\nAYes.\nQNow, I just have one more question. Let's go back to Litzmannstadt. Do you ever remember any pictures having been taken of you, or your profile, the side of your face?\nAYes, I remember that.\nQWere the men that examined you, did they wear white coats? Just how were they dressed? Were they in uniform?\nAI don't remember that exactly.\nQDid they ask you about your mother, whether she was Polish, about your father?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. RENSCH", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4221, "page_number": "4214", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AI didn't quite understand what you mean.\nQMaybe you can answer this. Do you remember the name Dr. Grohmann in Litzmannstadt?\nANo.\nQWhile you were at Achern-Baden did you ever see a woman by the name of Viermetz?\nAI don't know that woman either.\nQYou never heard of that name, of Viermetz, in Achern-Baden?\nA (no answer).\nQThank you, young lady. Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(A recess was taken until 23 January 1948 at 0930 hours)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4222, "page_number": "4215", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Official transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, e t al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 23 January 1948, 0930, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is how in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed.\nDR.RENSCH (for the the defendant Sollmann): Your Honor, as my next witness I would like to call the witness Suse Vogt.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the Witness come to the stand.\nSUSEVOGT, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENSCH:\nQWitness, will you please give the Tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is Suse Vogt.\nQWill you please spell your last name?\nA V-O-G-T.\nQWhen were you born?\nAOn the 8 of January 1904?\nQAnd where were you born?\nAIn St. Paulsen.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "SUSE", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4223, "page_number": "4216", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QAre you the foster mother of the witness Lotte Suchert, who was examined here yesterday?\nAYes, I am.\nQWhat relatives do you have?\nAI am the widow of Adam Vogt, who was killed in action during the war.\nQWhat was your husband by profession?\nAHe was a book binder.\nQAre you keeping his business?\nAYes, I am.\nQWill you please describe in brief your economic conditions right now.\nAAt the moment, I own a one-family house and several pieces of real estate; also this book binding store with a stationary store attached.\nQYour husband who was killed in action, was he a member of the NSDAP?\nANo.\nQDid the Denazification Law apply to you, yourself.\nANo.\nQDid you have any contacts with the SS?\nANo.\nQWhat faith are you?\nAI am Protestant.\nQDo you have any children?\nAI have one real daughter and one foster daughter.\nQAnd this foster daughter is this girl Lotte Suchert?\nAYes, she is.\nQAnd how old is your real daughter?\nAShe is 17.\nQWill you please tell the Court how you met your little foster daughter Lotte Suchert?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4224, "page_number": "4217", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AQuite by coincidence I found out that in Achern -\nQWhen did you find that out?\nAOh, about July 1943. In achern, in the school for ethnic Germans, there were children who were supposed to be given into foster homes. Already a long time ago I was looking for a comrade for my only daughter and therefore I contacted this school, and they pointed out to me a girl that they thought was suitable for me, and that was little Lotte Suchert. I invited her to visit me once and after that I contacted the school again, and the school then assigned this girl to my home in 1943.\nQThank you. That is sufficient. You conducted negotiations then with the leadership of this home and the school for ethnic Germans in Achern?\nAYes.\nQIn the course of these conferences with the leadership, did the question whether or not the child was to be brought up in the Nazi ideology -- was that important?\nANo.\nQDid they talk about the fact at all that the child was to be brought up in the National Socialist indoctrination?\nANo, never.\nQBut, of course, in some way they must have found things important as far as education was concerned?\nAWell, yes, mainly the important point there was that the child was given into good hands -- that is, to a good family.\nQDo you still know exactly when Lotte Suchert came to you?\nAYes, I think it was -- well, I don't know exactly, but I believe it was the 14 July -- but it could also have been at the end of July 1943.\nQDid you get any state subsides for this child?\nAWell, yes, but only for ten months I got 30 marks per month.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4225, "page_number": "4218", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Court I Case VIII\nQAnd who paid this to you?\nAWell, the Lebensborn paid that out to me.\nQAnd what did you do with the subsidy?\nAWell, I saved it. I put it into a savings account and put it into the bank.\nQFrom the fact that you had a foster child, didn't you have any sort of advantages in economic or other work?\nANo.\nQI have here a letter of the Finance Office, Heidelberg, dated 2 March 1944. I would like to show it to you and will you please look at it and identify it, and since it's very short will you please read the first three sentences. Then will you please tell me whether you have gotten this letter or not.\n(letter is offered the witness.)\nA \"I cannot grant you any subsidies for your foster child, Lotte Suchert, since the district counsel for the district Heidelberg has objected against the granting of subsidies for foster children in this particular case, because the parents of this child could not be ascertained. This case is probably concerned with an orphan of German descent, but it is not a child that was born in one of the homes of the Lebensborn nor did the Lebensborn take over the guardianship of this child.\"\nQThank you. Will you please return that to me. Your Honor, the letter that we have just read from the Finance Office, Heidelberg, dated 2 of March 1944, will in the course of the submission of the documents in the defense for Sollmann submitted officially.\nFrau Vogt, from this letter we just found out that you were not granted any further subsidies for this child. Since you are in business, did you have any exemptions from taxes or something like that?\nANo, none at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4226, "page_number": "4219", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QThus as far as tax is concerned, she was not considered to be your own child?\nANo.\nQYou talked about the Lebensborn a few minutes ago. Did the Lebensborn give you directives in any way about the ideological indoctrination of the child?\nANo.\nQDid the Lebensborn send you any sort of documents and application forms to fill out?\nAYes, the forms came once, but I believe it was a genealogical record. It was a health certificate. But I only sent in the curriculum vitae with a photograph.\nQYou sent in the curriculum vitae and a photograph?\nAYes, I did.\nQDid you have to give them reports on her school work or something like that?\nANo.\nQDid any members of the Lebensborn visit you in order to supervise the child's education at the place itself?\nANo, never.\nQDid you have visitors from other Party agencies in order to look at this foster child?\nANo.\nQDid anyone at all of the SS bother with this child or look around at your place?\nANo.\nQLater on, who was it that inspected the child?\nAFrom time to time there was a national social worker who came and inspected Lotte's condition.\nQFrom what agency did she come?\nAWell, I imagine that that was from the national welfare association.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4227, "page_number": "4220", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QDid you register Lotte Suchert in Wieslocj with the police?\nAYes.\nQI would like to supplement here, and I would like to ask you, where do you live now?\nAYou mean the street?\nQNo, the village. Did you say that before?\nANo, I live in Wiesloch near Heidelberg.\nQWhat was the name under which you registered your foster child?\nAUnder the name Lotte Suchert.\nQWhat do you know about the child's past?\nAI know only what she told me herself.\nQPlease give a short summary of what Lotte Suchert told you in the course of time.\nAShe told me that she was born in Warsaw, but that she lived in the country there. She knows from her father that her grandfather was a German. From this residence in the country, after her mother died they moved to Warsaw to live with relatives, and apparently the father got a job in Lodz. Then they moved from Warsaw to Lodz, and there she was in various children's homes also with other foster parents. She was not treated very well she told me. Then she came into a German children's home.\nQThank you. What place does Lotte Suchert have in your family?\nAWell, she was kept as though she were my second daughter.\nQDid you also bring up the child with religious instructions?\nAYes.\nQDid the child ever belong to a National Socialist organization?\nANo.\nQAnd how in general is your relationship with the child?\nAJust like a mother to her child.\nQWould you like to separate yourself from that child?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4228, "page_number": "4221", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, would you please state when was the first time that you had any contact negotiations with the Heimschule in Achern-Baden.\nAThat was at the beginning of July 1943.\nQAnd what was the first time that you visited the Heimschule in Achern?\nAThat was at the beginning of July 1943 at that same time.\nQThen you had never written to the school before that time? Your first contact was your actual visit to the Heimschule in July?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow, when you visited the Heimschule, you referred to \"they\" as pointing out the child to you. Would you please explain what you mean by \"they.\" Could you give the name of the person or persons?\nAWell, that was a governess--a fraulein--who was in charge of that group. I don't remember the name of that lady.\nQDoes the name Klara Keith recall anything to you?\nAYes, I think once I also talked to Frau Keith.\nQI believe that she was the head of the Heimschul at that time, was she not?\nAYes, that is right.\nQAnd what did you discuss with Miss Keith concerning this child?\nAWell, I talked to Miss Keith about the fact that I was interested in having a child, and then the other girl that was in charge of this group of children then pointed out the child to me.\nQWell, weren't you inquisitive enough to ask where this child came from or who its parents were, or just its background?\nAYes, of course, of course. And I was told at that time that it was an ethnic German child from Poland and that she had no more parents at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4229, "page_number": "4222", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QBut it was stated that this child had been brought in from Poland?\nAYes.\nQNow, witness, your first contact was in the beginning of July 1943. Now when did you receive this child? When did you take the child into your own home from Achern-Baden?\nAThat was at the end of July 1943.\nQDid you in the meantime have any contact with the Heimschule at Achern-Baden?\nANo, I did not. I was only there once. Then the child was visiting me.\nQThen the officials brought this child to your home, or did you go back to the Heimschule and take the child yourself at the end of July?\nANo, another child who was also in Wiesloch brought her along.\nQAnother child brought her? Is that correct, a child brought her to you?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow how old was this child -- this child who brought your child to you?\nAOh, about 15.\nQAnd she was the only person with this child when they came to your home?\nAYes.\nQDid she have any records in her possession -- the person accompanying your child?\nANo.\nQWere you told that you were going to receive this child before she was bought to you by this youngster?\nAYes, an agreement was made about that.\nQThis agreement had been made at the time you first visited the home? Did they state that you would receive the child at the end of July is that correct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4230, "page_number": "4223", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "ANo, it was not agreed upon that she would stay with me, but we a greed upon the fact that she would come and pay me a visit.\nQNow, you were presented with a letter which said that Lebensborn did not have the guardianship of the child which was taken into your home. Do you know why Lebensborn paid these allowances to you, which you mentioned a moment ago, when they had nothing to do with the guardianship of this child?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4231, "page_number": "4224", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.I did not quite understand the last part of the question. I don't know what you want to say with all that.\nQ.What did you think that Lebensborn had to do in connection with this child. You said that you received allowances from Lebensborn?\nA.When I had taken over the child into my family I did not know anything of the Lebensborn.\nQ.The only contact then you had was receiving those allowances from Lebensborn, is that correct?\nA.Yes, that's right.\nQ.And the welfare workers who visited your house, can you state specifically what office these workers belonged to, the people that visited you and checked on your chief. Would you give us the name of that organization, please.\nA.That was the welfare office in Heidelberg. I knew this lady through the fact that she visited me so often that I felt as if I knew her personally a However, I don't know her name.\nQ.Now, witness you said that as far as the child's background, all that you know other than what was told to you at the Heimschulen that the child was from Poland, all that you know other than that, you know from the child's testimony or her story to you as to where she came from, etc. Is that correct?\nA.Yes, that is correct.\nQ.And what age was this child when it was taken into your home?\nA.The child was 11 years old.\nQ.And yet with this sparse information you took this child into your home with her being delivered to you by another child only 15 years of age. Is that correct?\nA.Well, that was only for the visit. Later on when she actually came to stay with me I came to get her myself.\nQ.Oh, well now, let's get this straight then. She was brought to you just more or less as a test by this first child, by the first child when Lotte came to you the first time; How long did she stay with you then?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4232, "page_number": "4225", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Three days.\nQ.Then did you return her to the home?\nA.Yes, they were friends of mine who also were visiting me at the time and they took her along.\nQ.Then you went back. How much later was this when you went back and took Lotte again from the Heimschule?\nA.That was the end of July. It may have been about 10 or 12 days later.\nQ.Thank you, your Honor, we have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENSCH:\nQ.May I put a question to the witness in redirect examination, your Honor. You are talking about the welfare worker who inspected your family and the child from time to time. Do you know whether this welfare worker was sent by the youth office?\nA.Yes, I believe by the youth office.\nQ.Thank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. RENSCH:I would now like to call LUCIE BERGNER.\nLUCIEBERGNER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nA. (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENSCH:\nQ.Witness, will you please give the Tribunal your full name?\nA.My name is Lucie Bergner.\nQ.Please spell your last name, if you please.\nA. B-E-R-G-N-E-R.\nQ.Bergner?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. RENSCH", "LUCIE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4233, "page_number": "4226", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Yes, that is correct; my name is Bergner.\nQ.Will you please tell me when you were born?\nA.I was born on 12 February 1931.\nQ.Do you know where you were born?\nA.No.\nQ.Where do you live now?\nA.In Blannstadt near Heidelberg.\nQ.And with whom do you live there?\nA.I am living with August Treiber.\nQ.Who is that, what profession does he follow?\nA.He is a farmers\nQ.A farmer?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Does he have a wife?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What is the wife's name?\nA.Her name is Maria Treiber.\nQ.They are your foster parents?\nA.Yes, they are my foster parents?\nQ.I would now like to know whether you can remember your real parents?\nA.No, I cannot remember my real parents.\nQ.Whom can you remember then?\nA.I can only remember my grandmother.\nQ.Were you ever living with that grandmother?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you still remember where?\nA.That was in Poland, near Posen.\nQ.What sort of a memory do you carry with you of your grandmother?\nA.I remember that my grandmother told me that my parents had died and she always wanted that I be transferred to foster parents.\nQ.And otherwise you don't know anything about your grandmother?\nA.Well, my grandmother told me that my father married once again.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4234, "page_number": "4227", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.I mean do you know anything about your grandmother herself?\nA.Yes, my grandmother was 81 years old.\nQ.Was she healthy?\nA.No, she was old and had always been sick.\nQ.Was she able to take care of you?\nA.No she was not.\nQ.And what was the result of that. Did you grandmother want to see that you could get into some sort of a home that you could be taken care of better?\nA.Yes, that is what she wanted.\nQ.What language did you talk with your grandmother?\nA.She talked Polish, but she also knew how to speak German.\nQ.Do you still remember that quite clearly?\nA.Yes, I do.\nQ.And did you yourself speak Polish too?\nA.Yes, I did.\nQ.Even then did you speak German at that time also or did you learn German later?\nA.Yes, I knew German at that time but not very much.\nQ.At the time when you were there with your grandmother?\nA.Oh yes.\nQ.How long did you stay with your grandmother, that is to say, when did that stay end?\nA.I was with my grandmother until I was taken away to a children's home.\nQ.And in what children's home?\nA.In Kalisch.\nQ.Did your grandmother approve this fact that you were transferred there?\nA.Oh yes, my grandmother liked that very much.\nQ.Did your grandmother talk to you about what would later happen to you or something like that, if she would die one day?\nA.Yes, she said that she always wanted that I should come into a foster home.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4235, "page_number": "4228", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Were you then put with someone in Kalisch or did your grandmother still bother with you at all?\nA.No, she didn't.\nQ.Did you see her once more?\nA.No.\nQ.How did they treat you in this children's home in Kalisch?\nA.I liked it; they treated me very well. They treated me better there than my grandmother did.\nQ.What sort of people were there in this home, were they women or men?\nA.They were women.\nQ.Were they Governesses?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What language did those people talk?\nA.They spoke German.\nQ.And the children among themselves, what language did they talk?\nA.They spoke polish.\nQ.Did the Governesses like that or didn't they?\nA.Oh yes, they liked it.\nQ.Did they object to that, or prohibit it?\nA.No, they didn't.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4236, "page_number": "4229", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QWere you punished when you spoke Polish among yourselves?\nAOh no, never.\nQRemember, that very clearly, or rather try to remember as clearly as you can whether there has ever been a case in which punishment was administered for that reason?\nANo, I can't remember any.\nQHow long did you stay in this children's home in Kalisch?\nAWell, it was about until Spring,\nQWhat year?\nA 1944.\nQAnd where did you go from there?\nAI went to Oberweiss.\nQDid other children go along there too?\nAYes, about 15 or 20.\nQWho brought you to Oberweiss?\nAOh that was a woman who brought us there.\nQWhere was she from?\nAShe was one of the Governesses at the children's home in Kalish.\nQIn oberweiss was there also a home?\nAYes, there was a home too.\nQAnd how did they treat you in this home in Oberweiss?\nAOh, I liked it; they treated me very well.\nQTell me, why you liked it so much; you seem to remember that very fondly.\nAWe got everything and we could do what we pleased. We got good food.\nQDo you remember some of the people that were in charge of that group at that time?\nAFrau Merkner and Frau Rieger.\nQHow did those women treat you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4237, "page_number": "4230", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AThey were very kind to me.\nQAnd whom did you like best of all?\nAI must mention Mrs. Merkner.\nQWill you please be careful and try to speak as clearly as you can. You speak a Swabian dialect and that makes it a little more difficult. I would now like to ask you, can you remember that you were punished in any way there at this home in Oberweiss?\nANo, there were no punishments at all in Oberweiss. They didn't punish us at all.\nQDo you know anything about the fact that children were supposed to have been locked into a cellar underneath the earth which was dark?\nAOh now, there wasn't even a cellar in Oberweiss.\nQYou mean there was a house without a cellar?\nANo, there was no cellar in Oberweiss.\nQWell, if there was an air raid where did you go then?\nAWell in Oberweiss we had to stay among the trees then.\nQIn Oberweiss were there SS members who took care of the education of the children?\nANo, they came into this home occasionally.\nQHow many were there around?\nAOh about two.\nQWere you a member of the BDM when you were at Oberweiss?\nANo, I wasn't.\nQDid you hoar any lectures concerning National Socialism or about the Fuehrer in Oberweiss?\nANo.\nQHow long did you stay altogether in Oberweiss?\nAUntil October 1944.\nQAnd where did you go then?\nAI went to Blannstadt to my foster parents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4238, "page_number": "4231", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QTo the home of the Traitors?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWere you sent there, or forced to go there?\nANo, I wasn't.\nQDid you go voluntarily?\nAYes, I did.\nQWell, how did all that happen. Will you tell me about that please?\nAMy foster parents came to Oberweiss and they told me they wanted a childand she looked at me and said, \"this girl I want to have,\" so I went for walks with her and then I went along with them.\nQAnd that was Frau Treiber?\nAYes, that's right.\nQShe went for walks with you?\nAYes.\nQAnd you had conversations with her?\nAYes.\nQWhat did she talk to you about?\nAWell, she told me that she had had two sons and that both of them were killed in action during the war.\nQAnd why did she talk to you about that?\nAShe told me that she was so alone and that also she had a farm and that it was difficult for her to be alone that way.\nQDid you also like Mrs, Treiber?\nAYes, I did.\nQAnd you then a greed to the suggestion that she made to you?\nAYes.\nQYou said a few minutes ago that you liked it so much in this home in Oberweiss. Did you like to leave there?\nANo, I didn't like to leave there at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4239, "page_number": "4232", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QNow were you forced to go with your foster mother?\nANo.\nQThen why did you go with her?\nABecause I wanted to have a foster mother.\nQThen what was your experience when you came to the Treibers, how did they treat you?\nAOh it was wonderful in the country.\nQWhat was your position within the family then?\nAWell, it was a farm.\nQWere there other children too beside you?\nANo, only myself.\nQWere you considered as the daugther of the house?\nAYes, I was kept as if I were their own daughter.\nQHow were you quartered in this farm housr; where did you sleep?\nAMy room is in the second floor and I have two beds and two chests and it is a complete room.\nQIt is a well equipped room?\nAYes, it is.\nQAnd you are still sleeping in this room?\nAYes, I am.\nQDid you go to an agricultural school?\nAI went to grammar school and I am still going to the secondary or vocational school.\nQNow when you stayed with your foster parents the Treibers, were you a member of the BDM, the association of German girls?\nANo.\nQWere you or weren't you? I didn't understand. Were you a member of the BDM?\nANo.\nQWill you please speak more clearly. Do you know whether your foster parents Treiber were members of the NSDAP?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4240, "page_number": "4233", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "ANo, I know that for sure.\nQHow do you know that for sure?\nABecause we got a letter from the deNazification court and I had that in my hands and I read it.\nQThat did the letter say?\nAThat they are not included within the application of the law.\nQIn Blannstadt did you have religious instructions too?\nAYes.\nQWhat is your religion?\nAProtestant.\nQAre your foster parents Protestant?\nAYes.\nQWhen rare you confirmed?\nAIn 1945, 1st of March.\nQWill you please tell me now quite frankly how do you like staying with your foster parents Treiber?\nAI like it there very much; I like it with my foster parents.\nQWould you ever like to leave again?\nANo, I would not.\nQNo further questions, thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, you remember your grandmother very well, don't you?\nAYes, I do.\nQAnd I guess from what you have told us that financially she had a pretty hard time didn't she, taking care of you?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4241, "page_number": "4234", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A. (No answer)\nQ.Witness, did you understand my question?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Your grandmother was, shall we say, a little poor, wasn't she; was she not?\nA.Yes, she was.\nQ.But she was very good to you, wasn't she; she looked after you as though you were her own child?\nA.Yes, she did.\nQ.And you would say she did everything to make things as comfortable for you as she possibly could.\nA.Yes, but she couldn't take care of me very much.\nQ.That is right; your grandfather was dead; isn't that correct?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Now, do you know when you first entered the school at Kalisch; could you give me the date?\nA.No; I can't say that for sure; I don't remember quite.\nQ.B ut you were living with your grandmother when you went into Kalisch; is that right?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Did they come to your grandmother's home, and then some very nice people did escort you to the home in Kalisch?\nA.Yes, there was one woman.\nQ.Do you remember, I mean, I guess you hated to leave your grandmother at that time, didn't you?\nA.No, not at all; but after all I wanted to have foster parents.\nQ.But at the same time you must have loved your grandmother and hated to leave her at that time, didn't you?\nA.Oh, that wasn't so bad.\nQ.What you liked best, you liked to have good food and good care, didn't you? That is what you liked better than your grandmother, isn't it?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4242, "page_number": "4235", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Well, yes of course.\nQ.Sure. And you wanted to be like the other kids and have nice clothes and a nice home, and play with the other kids; that is what you wanted , isn't it?\nA.Yes, yes, that is just what I wanted.\nQ.Do you remember what age you were when you went to Kalisch?\nA.I was thirteen.\nQ.You were thirteen; and you were born in 1931; is that right?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Do you remember any of the names of any of the people who took care of you in Kalisch?\nA.No, I don't.\nQ.Now, at Oberweiss, you went to Oberweiss after leaving Kalisch. Besides Mrs. Merkl, who took very good care of you there; could you remember Dr. Tesch?\nA. (No answer)\nQ.Witness, would you answer my question? You remember Dr. Tesch up there with Mrs. Merkl, don't you?\nA.No.\nQ.Would you please stand up and look over among these people who are sitting over here; do you recognize any of these people as ever being at Oberweiss? Any of these people sitting over here (indicating)?\nA. (No answer)\nQ.Do you recognize any of them, witness?\nA. (No answer)\nQ.I guess evidently you do not. Will you sit down, please. How about Mrs. Viermetz; did you ever hear them talking with Mrs. Merkl or Mrs. Viermetz?\nA.No, I didn't know her at all..\nQ.Now, see if you can't remember when you went to Kalisch again;", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4243, "page_number": "4236", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "just the date. See if you can just recall what year that was that you went to Kalisch.\nA.No, I am sorry; I can't remember that; I don't know that anymore.\nQ.All you know is you think you were about thirteen.\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.And before you went to Oberweiss, didn't a lot of these people take pictures of you; they took a lot of pictures, did they?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was her answer \"yes\"? I didn't get the translation.\nA.Yes, that is what I said.\nQ.But going back to your grandmother once again -\nA.No.\nQ.Your grandmother, is she living today; do you know?\nA.Well, I rather think not.\nQ.You have never heard anything from your grandmother since you left to go to school in Kalisch; is that correct?\nA.No.\nQ.When did you hear from your grandmother after leaving here in Poland?\nA.When I was there for the last time.\nQ.And when was that?\nA.I don't know whether that was 1943 or 1944; I can't say that any more.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you. Your Honor, we have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENTSCH: (Attorney for the Defendant Sollmann) I only have one more question to put to the witness, Your Honor.\nQ.Fraulein Bergner, can you still remember what religion your mother had?\nA.No.\nQ.You do not remember whether she was a Catholic?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4244, "page_number": "4237", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.No, I don't.\nDR. RENTSCH:No further questions; thank you.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQ.Witness, when you left your grandmother's and went to the home to live, had the German Army at that time occupied Poland?\nA.Yes, that is right; there were German soldiers there.\nQ.When did you first find out that you were going to that home?\nA.Oh, I knew that already before.\nQ.Well, who first said anything to you about it?\nA.The Polish people; the Poles; then the Germans weren't in Poland at all yet.\nQ.The Germans were in Poland when you went to the home, I understood you to say.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did they carry you to the home?\nA.Yes, the Germans did.\nQ.How long did you stay in that home?\nA.I can't say that exactly; when I left Poland, I was in Kalisch until the spring.\nQ.Do you know about how many months you stayed at the home in Poland?\nA.No.\nQ.Is the home that you stayed in in Poland operated by Germans?\nA.Yes.\nQ.When did you first know that you were coming to Germany?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who first said anything to you about coming to Germany?\nA.Well, a woman came and told me about it.\nQ.Told you that you were coming to Germany?\nA.Yes, she did.", "speakers": [ "DR. RENTSCH", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4245, "page_number": "4238", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Did she say where you were coming to in Germany?\nA.No, no, she didn't tell us that.\nQ.How did you come to Germany?\nA.By train.\nQ.Who came with you?\nA.There was a woman.\nQ.Where did she go?\nA.She brought me to Oberweiss.\nQ.After you left your grandmother?\nA.Well, I went to Kalisch and from Kalisch I went to Oberweiss.\nQ.Have you seen your grandmother since you left her home?\nA.No.\nQ.Have you heard from her?\nA.No, I didn't hear from her either.\nQ.Have you written to her?\nA.No.\nQ.Has anybody who has had you incustody since that time made any effort to get in touch with your grandmother?\nA.No.\nQ.Did your father have any brothers?\nA.No.\nQ.Did your mother have any sisters or brothers?\nA.Yes, my mother had a brother and he went to America; I don't know where he is now.\nQ.Did you have any brothers and sisters?\nA.No, I was alone.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. The Tribunal will recess until eleven o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4246, "page_number": "4239", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. RENTSCH:I ask to be permitted, to call Hilde Mayer-Redel to the stand, as my next witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nHILDEMAYER: a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will Withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENTSCH:\nQWitness, you may take the earphones off while you are speaking with me.\nWill you please state your full name for the benefit of the Tribunal\nA.My name is Hilde Mayer.\nQ.When were you born?\nA.I was born on the 9th of January 1930, at Warsaw.\nQ.Where are you living now?\nA.At Sandhausen, near Heidelberg.\nQ.With whom do you live there?\nA.I live with the family of senior teacher Mayer.\nQ.I ask you to wait a little while after I have put my question, before you start your answer. Please wait long enough to have my question completely translated.\nNow, as to this teacher Mayer and his wife, are they your foster parents?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Is he still a teacher at this time?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was your name always Mayer?", "speakers": [ "DR. RENTSCH", "Q.", "HILDE", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4247, "page_number": "4240", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.No.\nQ.What was your name before?\nA.Mira Betelska.\nQ.Was that the name of your father?\nA.I think so.\nQ.Well, do you perhaps know your father's first name?\nA.No.\nQ.And your mother's first name?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was your mother's first name?\nA.Lena.\nQ.And your name is Hilde, isn't it?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How did you got that first name, Hilde?\nA.In the school for racial Germans we had the right to choose our own names.\nQ.There was this school?\nA.In Achern, near Baden.\nQ.At Baden?\nA.Yes.\nQ.As to your last name, Betelska, did you still have that at Achern?\nA.Yes.\nQ.How long did you keep that name?\nA.Until I was fetched by my foster parents.\nQ.Is Mayer the official name that you now have?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, I think perhaps you don't understand my question. I want to know whether that is your legal name. You have a Kennkarte, have you not?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Well, what name is listed on that Kennkarte?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4248, "page_number": "4241", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A. \"Mayer\" is now listed on that identify cord.\nQ.Isn't it \"Mayer-Redel\", or something like that? Do you remember?\nA.Redel-Mayer.\nQ.Is it in your daily life? How was it at Sandhausen? Were you called \"Mayer\", or \"Redel\", or what name was given you, in school I mean? Or was it only \"Mayer\"?\nA.In public life my name is \"Mayer\", like that of my foster parents.\nQ.Miss Mayer, will you bring the microphone, or bring yourself, into such a position that you can speak into the microphone and not aside from the microphone? And please try to be as distinct as possible.\nWe still haven't clarified the question of your name. In school and among your friends, how are you called?\nA.In school and with friends they know me as \"Mayer\".\nQ.Only as Mayer?\nA.Yes, only as Mayer.\nQ.They never call you \"Redel\", or something like that?\nA.No; only as far as police notifications went, I was listed as \"Redel\".\nQ.And therefore I assume that this double name, \"Mayer-Redel\", appears on your Konnkarte?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Thank you.\nDo you have any brothers or sisters?\nA.Yes, I have one sister.\nQ.What is her name?\nA.Her name was Berbel.\nQ.You said her name was Berbel? Is that still her name?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was her first name different before?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4249, "page_number": "4242", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.In other words, she didn't change her name like you did?\nA.No, she kept it.\nQ.And where is that sister of yours?\nA.She lives together with me, with my foster parents.\nQ.Now, I would like to know what you know about your own parents.\nA.I can remember my parents quite well, but I remember my mother better than my father, because my father was absent very often.\nQ.Where did you live with your parents?\nA.At Lodz.\nQ.Whom did you live with?\nA.We lived in a rented apartment.\nQ.Do you know what your father did?\nA.He sold newspapers.\nQ.During that period did you parents always live together?\nA.Yes, but one day my father had to leave.\nQ.Where did he have to go?\nA.I don't know.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4250, "page_number": "4243", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QAnd he didn't live with your mother any longer?\nANo.\nQBut that was during the period before the Germans arrived, was it not?\nAYes.\nQAnd after your father had left, what lid your mother do?\nAMy mother went to work with a family.\nQWhere?\nAAt Lodz.\nQDid you always remain with your mother?\nANo; when my mother went to work, we went into a children's home.\nQDo you know when that was, during what year?\nAThat may have been in 1937 or 1938.\nQYou said that you have a sister. What happened to your sister at that time?\nAShe came into the children's home together with me.\nQThe same children's home?\nANo, my sister is two years younger than I am, and therefore she was sent to another home.\nQDuring your stay in that home, did you receive visits from your mother?\nAYes.\nQOften?\nAYes, every Sunday.\nQAnd for how long?\nAWell, until my mother fell ill.\nQWhat do you know about your mother's illness?\nAThe Mother Superior of the home told me that my mother was sick, and she told me that my mother suffered from \n typhus, that is, typhoid fever.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4251, "page_number": "4244", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QDid you visit your mother in the hospital?\nANot during her illness, no.\nQNo, you didn't.\nDid your mother die then?\nAYes; after a short period of illness, she died.\nQWell, can you remember whether that was before the war?\nAYes, that was before the war.\nQDid you never hear anything about your mother after that, at no time?\nAWhen she was sick? No.\nQAnd later? Did anybody tell you anything about your mother later?\nANo.\nQDo you remember whether anybody ever, during all those years, until now, told you anything about your mother?\nAYes.\nQYes?\nAYes.\nQWho told you?\nALate in 1947, two men from the IRO, the International Refugee Organization, came and asked me about my parents. I told them that my mother had died, and this Polish man told me to think it over, whether my mother hadn't been killed by the Germans. I said \"no\". Then he asked me how I could be sure about it, and I answered, \"Well, I saw my mother myself.\" This polish man told me that she might have been killed by an injection, and I said no, because I saw my mother on her death bed.\nQWhere?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4252, "page_number": "4245", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AAt Lodz.\nQI mean where in Lodz? Where was she?\nAIn the hospital.\nQWell, what else did this man from the IRO Commission tell you?\nAHe told me I was to return to Poland, because I was born there, and I said I did not want to go back to Poland. He asked my why, and I said, \"Well, I have my foster parents here, and I have my profession.\"\nQNow, when this gentleman had this discussion with you, were your fester parents present?\nANo, my sister and I were alone with them.\nQThat brings me back to your stay in that home at Lodz, Until the death of your father you were a half orphan, and then you were an orphan.\nAYes.\nQWere there other orphans in that home?\nAYes, there were many children there.\nQNo, I am asking you whether there were other orphans, other children who had no parents?\nAThere were eleven children who still had both parents.\nQIn other words, there were children who had their parents, and there were children who didn't have their parents and who, perhaps, had no father or no mother, or who had neither parent?\nAYes, there were all kinds of children.\nQNow, how long did you stay in that home?\nAUntil the occupation by the Germans.\nQWell, do you know the street in Lodz where this home was?\nAKopernika Street.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4253, "page_number": "4246", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QWere you always in that home on Kopernika Street?\nANo.\nQWhy not?\nAWell, because -\nQYou don't understand my question. I want to know whether this home always remained on Kopernika Street. I mean this home. Was it always on Kopernika Street. Did it always remain there on the same spot, or were the children who were lodged in the home sent to another home, or what?\nAWell, that was what I was just trying to say. Afterwards, the Germans evacuated the home.\nQWell, that is what you mean. You mean the home was transferred by the Germans from Kopernika Street to some other place. Is that what you mean to say?\nAYes. We were transferred with the nuns, all the children and the nurses and everybody.\nQWell, what kind of nurses were they?\nACatholic nuns.\nQAnd when this transfer took place the nuns came along, or what?\nAYes.\nQWell, how did matters proceed after that?\nAThe sisters were relieved by German nurses.\nQAnd what happened to your younger sister Berbel?\nAWhen the home was taken over by the Germans, my sister came to join me.\nQIn the same home?\nAIn the same home, yes.\nQNow, when the Catholic nuns were still in the home, what language was spoken there?\nAPolish, but there were two girls there who spoke German.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4254, "page_number": "4247", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QDid they speak German amongst themselves?\nAYes; they talked Polish with us.\nQDo you know whether these girls said anything about themselves, for instance, that they were of German descent?\nAYes, they had German parents.\nQNow, were these two girls sisters?\nAYes.\nQWere they separated or secluded from the others in some way or other?\nANo, not by the Germans and not by the nuns.\nQWere they treated differently in any way?\nANo.\nQThere was no distinction in the treatment at all, was there, between the period when only the Catholic nuns were there and the period when the German nurses took over the home?\nANo.\nQNow, what happened to you in this home?\nAOh, we lived very well there.\nQDid you always stay in that home, or were you sent somewhere else -- I mean, after the Germans had taken over the home?\nANo, we were sent to another home.\nQDid your sister go along?\nAMy sister came along.\nQDid other girls go along too?\nAYes, about 20 of them .\nQWhere were you sent then?\nAWe were sent to another home, also on Kopernika Street.\nQAgain, therefore, on Kopernika Street?\nAYes, but it was another children's home again.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4255, "page_number": "4248", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QOh, I see. Now, what happened to you in this home?\nAWe fared very well there.\nQCan you remember whether you passed a medical examination in that home?\nAYes, we passed medical examinations.\nQNow, how did that come about?\nAWell, there were gentlemen and some nurses.\nQAnd how was the medical examination carried out, in what way?\nAThey looked at us, and they made a few remarks.\nQAnd what did they talk about?\nAThe nurses were asked how we acted in the home, and then they said that the girls who were of German descent could go to Germany.\nQAnd the others?\nAThe others had to remain there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4256, "page_number": "4249", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Now how long did you stay in that home?\nA.Nine months to twelve months.\nQ.And then where did you go?\nA.I went to Brokau near Poznan.\nQ.How many girls went along?\nA.Thirty.\nQ.Could you tell me, perhaps, how this Brokau is written in Polish, about how?\nA.Broczow, B-r-o-c-z-o-w.\nQ.Now, how did you fare at Brokau?\nA.In Brokau we fared well.\nQ.How long did you stay there?\nA.Until July - from Easter to July.\nQ.What year?\nA. 1942.\nQ.Where were you sent then?\nQ.To Achern in Baden.\nQ.And where at Achern?\nA.Again into a home.\nQ.Bid this home have a special name which you can remember?\nA.Reichs School for Racial Germans.\nQ.Now, in this home how were matters with you?\nA.We lived very well. That was the nicest home I was over in. I liked it best. We had freedom of movement there.\nQ.Did you have to go to school there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Regularly?\nA.Yes, we went to school regularly.\nQ.Who were your teachers in this home? Were they men, women, or girls?\nA.Women.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4257, "page_number": "4250", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Q.Could you give me names amongst those teachers you dealt with mainly?\nA.From von Ackerman, Fraeulein Hildebrandt, Frau Tatz, and the directress Miss Keith.\nQ.Have you any knowledge that these women had beaten these girls?\nA.No, I don't know anything about that.\nQ.Do you know the name Aline Antczak?\nA.Yes, very well. We were friends?\nQ.How did you come to be friends?\nA.We had been friends already at Lodz.\nQ.Were you already at Lodz together in the home with this Antczak?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You said very well. Were you together with her a lot?\nA.Yes, we were friends.\nQ.Do you remember that this Aline Antczak when you were still at Lodz in the home ever was visited by her mother and her father?\nA.No.\nQ.You know that she had parents?\nA.Yes, that I knew.\nQ.Did she go to visit her parents on Sunday?\nA.No, at Lodz we couldn't leave the home without anybody to accompany us.\nQ.Afterwards were you still together with Aline Antczak?\nA.Yes until I came to my foster parents.\nQ.At any rate, at Achern you were still together with Aline Antczak?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now, I have to tell you the following: Fraeulein Antczak has made a statement here before this Tribunal. She was a witness here on \n 6 November 1947.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4258, "page_number": "4251", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Now I am going to tell you a little bit about her testimony in chronological order of her statements here before this Tribunal. She told us that in Achern in school it was prohibited for the children to speak Polish. She said that also the girls who transgressed this prohibition were beaten in the face.\nA.That didn't exist. We always spoke Polish together.\nQ.Well, during the leasons did you also speak Polish?\nA.Not during the lessons, Of course, not.\nQ.When did you speak Police together?\nA.When amongst ourselves.\nQ.What do you mean among yourselves?\nA.When we didn't have lessons or were on the street.\nQ.Secretly?\nA.No, even with the teachers. We spoke Polish with Miss Ackerman because she wanted to learn Polish.\nQ.You don't know anything about the prohibition to speak Polish?\nA.No.\nQ.Have you any knowledge of beatings because children spoke Polish among themselves?\nA.No. We were allowed to speak Polish.\nQ.I am asking if you have any knowledge of punishment, beating the face, etc?\nA.No, not either.\nQ.Fraeulein Antczak furthermore testified as follows: She said that it was prohibited for the girls to write letters. What do you know about that?\nA.We could write letters but we didn't know the addresses of our relatives. Two girls, however, who knew the addresses of their relatives had, one of them at least, letters sent to them.\nQ.From where?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4259, "page_number": "4252", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.From Konstanz where her mother was.\nQ.That was also a girl from Poland?\nA.Yes, and the other girl received parcels.\nQ.Letters also?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know that anything was done against that?\nA.No.\nQ.But this Fraeulein Antczak was a witness here. She said that she herself wrote and that for that reason she was beaten in the face by Frau Tatz. Do you know anything about that?\nA.No, I know nothing about that.\nQ.Did Antczak tell you about that?\nA.No she didn't tell me anything about that. I haven't seen it happen either. We were always together.\nQ.What do you say concerning the assertion that Frau Tatz had beaten her?\nA.That is quite impossible.\nQ.Why?\nA.Because Frau Tatz was in charge of another group of girls. Fraeulein Antczak was together with Frau Tatz only for a short period of time.\nQ.Do you know anything at all concerning secret correspondence by the girls?\nA.No I don't know anything about that either.\nQ.Were there difficulties a t all for such correspondence?\nA.No. We could move around freely and besides that mail boxes were attached outside.\nQ.Therefore, it was not a piece of art to send letters, not a miracle to achieve that?\nA.No. We even mailed letters of the teachers.\nQ.You said that you were quite a bit together with Fraeulein Antczak?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4260, "page_number": "4253", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "A.Yes, quite a bit.\nQ.What was the reason? I mean, what joined you?\nA.Well, we were always together and we were of the same age. Aline was born on 5 January 1930 and I was born on 9 January 1930.\nQ.In other words your birthdays were very close together?\nA.Yes, we celebrated always together.\nQ.Therefore you know quite well then Fraeulein Aline Antczak was born?\nA.Yes.\nQ.On 5 January 1930? Because Fraeulein Antczak has stated here to this Tribunal and also in an affidavit which she had made before that her date of birth was 1 January 1931. Can you explain that contradiction?\nA.No.\nQ.Now as you were so long together and so much together with this friend of yours, Aline Antczak, then I may assume that Fraeulein Antczak did express herself quite freely and quite often towards you?\nA.Yes, we talked together and expressed ourselves quite freely.\nQ.You mean both of you?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did Fraeulein Antczak at any time tell you anything about her knowing where her parents or relatives lived?\nA.No she didn't know where they were.\nQ.Did she ever tell you that she was writing to her parents?\nA.No, she didn't know the addresses of her parents.\nQ.Or that she had received mail from her parents?\nA.No.\nQ.She didn't tell you that?\nA.No.\nQ.Fraeulein Antczak has stated before this Tribunal that a girl who had to clean up the office of the home director had told her that \n letters were torn up and burned in the office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4261, "page_number": "4254", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "Did Fraeulein Antczak tell you anything about that?\nA.That's quite impossible.\nQ.Well answer my question. Did she tell you anything about it?\nA.No.\nQ.What do you mean when you say that is quite impossible?\nA.Nobody could go into the room of the director. None of our girls went there at all to clean up. We were not in charge of cleaning up these rooms.\nQ.But who did clean them up?\nA.They had maids for that work.\nQ.Furthermore Fraeulein Antczak stated here that you had to sing German national hymns and German national songs. Will you please express your opinion on that statement?\nA.Were were not compelled to. It was voluntary. We would also sing folk songs and play songs.\nQ.What were the more important? You sang national songs, didn't you?\nA.Yes, we sang them too.\nQ.Well, what did you sing most?\nA.Well, most folk songs.\nQ.Do you recall that anybody ever refused to join in the singing of national songs?\nA.No.\nQ.What else did you sing?\nA.We were allowed also to sing Polish song.\nQ.And what else?\nA.We also danced folk dances and put on Polish stage plays.\nQ.Did you do that secretly, I mean singing, dancing and playing?\nA.No. The German nurses attended. We invited them.\nQ.Therefore, one cannot say that it was prohibited?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4262, "page_number": "4255", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QFraeulein Antczak has stated also that all girls had to join the Youth B.D.M. or the B.d.M. Is that correct?\nANo, that was voluntary.\nQWell did all of them join voluntarily or only part of them?\nANo, only a smal fraction of the girls joined - those girls who had their lessons with the Tirol teachers.\nQYou are speaking about Tirol girls. Then will you tell us something about them, who were they?\nAThose were girls from Tirol.\nQWhat else do you know about them? Don't you know any details.\nAThey were girls who went to school there.\nQBut how did they come to Achern from Tirol?\nAWell I couldn't tell you.\nQWere they Ethnic German girls?\nAI think so - all of them spoke German.\nQDo you know whether these girls had parents?\nAYes, they have even gone home during the holidays?\nQNow they were already there when you came to Achern?\nAYes, they were already at Achern.\nQWere those many girls?\nAYes, quite a number of them.\nQIf I have understood you correctly the girls who came from the east were split up in the homes. Part of them were together with the so-called Tirol girls and were instructed some place.\nAYes, those who knew German well and were better in their lessons would come with the Tirol girls.\nQAnd these Tirol girls were members of the German B.d.M., the German Femal Youth organization?\nAYes.\nQAnd the other girls from the east who were with the Tirol girls they also went along with the B.d.M, if you should express it that way?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4263, "page_number": "4256", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AYes they went also but voluntarily. They were not sworn in either.\nQWere you also with the Tirol girls?\nAYes, I was one of those too.\nQWhat do you mean - they went along? I mean where did they go and when?\nAWhen we had our B.d.M. evenings or our sport session of when we went to the movies together.\nQThen you went along?\nAYes.\nQWere you in uniform, too, or folk dresses?\nAYes, we were in uniform.\nQAll of you?\nAOnly those who were members of the B.d.M.\nQWas that the majority or the minority?\nAVery much a minority.\nQAnd the others didn't have folk dress of the B.d.M. either?\nANo, they didn't receive any.\nQDo you know whether Fraeulein Antczak also came along to these B.d.M. evenings?\nAYes she came along, too.\nQNow how long did you remain together with Fraeulein Antczak at Achern?\nAUntil I was taken away by my foster parents.\nQAnd when did that happen?\nA 15 July 1943.\nQAnd what about Fraeulein Antczak - she remained there?\nAYes, she remained in the home.\nQDid you see Fraeulein Antczak again later on?\nAYes, she came to visit me.\nQWhen?\nAOnce in the summer and once in the later autumn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4264, "page_number": "4257", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QWhat year?\nA 1944 or 1945. I think rather it was 1945.\nQWell it is important for me to get the exact date if possible when the visit took place. Was it in 1945 or 1944?\nAI would say in 1945 after Germany was occupied.\nQWere you visited once or several times?\nATwice.\nQAnd when? I mean at what intervals - during what periods?\nAOnce in the summer and then once later.\nQAnd you met again then. After a long separation?\nAYes.\nQHow did your friend Antczak then tell you how she fared in the meantime.\nAYes she told me.\nQWell, what did she tell you?\nAWell, I asked her how matters were in the home. She told me quite well and then she told me that she had come to foster parents, too.\nQWhere?\nAAt Ossbachheim.\nQDid she tell you the name of her foster parents, too?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the name of those foster parents?\nAMehnert.\nQMehnert, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQNow did your friend Antczak tell you anything about these foster parents? Did she complain about them to you?\nAWell substantially speaking she didn't.\nQBut?\nAHer sister had been left with another family.\nQIn the same village?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4265, "page_number": "4258", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AYes, in the same village. And she told me that her sister was placed in a better place.\nQThat is all she told you about it?\nANo, nothing else.\nQDid she tell you about being beaten?\nANo.\nQDid she tell you that either of her foster parents Mehnert she had been called a Polish pig once?\nANo, I have no knowledge of that.\nQWell, I ask you whether she told you about it?\nANo.\nQDid Fraeulein Antczak tell you anything about her foster parents having prohibited that she go to the Catholic church?\nANo.\nQNow I am asking you did you know a girl by the name of Kreceke from Poznan?\nAI know her.\nQI am sorry I can't pronounce the name correctly. Will you please spell it.\nAK-r-e-c-e-k-e.\nQHow come that you can spell this name or where do you know the girl from?\nAFrom Achern.\nQHas she also a girl from the East?\nAYes.\nQWhere did she come from? Do you know the details about that?\nAWell, I don't know exactly.\nQDuring these new meetings at Sandhausen in 1944 did you discuss this girl Kreceke with Fraeulein Antczak?\nAYes.\nQWhat did you talk about?\nAShe told me that Kreceke was with foster parents in Kirchheim.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4266, "page_number": "4259", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QWhere is that?\nANear Heidelberg, about 4 miles from Sandhausen.\nQWell, what else did she tell you?\nAShe told me that after a short illness this girl Irene had died.\nQDid she tell you anything about Irene having been mistreated?\nANo, she told me that she had been lodged with a nice family.\nQNow this girls Antczak told another girl something about this Irene Kreceke and this other girl again came here as a witness and told us about that. They told that this girl Kreceke had once eater fodder which she was supposed to give to the dogs because she was so hungry.\nANo, Antczak didn't tell me about that.\nQShe didn't tell you? Did she ever tell you anything about the fact that this girl Kreceke fell ill and died because she had to work so much and go so little food?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4267, "page_number": "4260", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QNow, the last question concerning this matter, you were together with Frauelein Antczak for a lone time. How long was the whole period during which you were together with Frauelein Antczak?\nAMore than two years.\nQCan you tell me on the strength of your own observation whether your friend Antczak was always very truthful?\nAWith me she was always truthful, but she would lie also.\nQWell, can you give us some details there?\nAWell, with girls where she could get something, she would flatter them, and then the other girl would have confidence in her, and so on andso forth.\nQDo you know the German expression to swindle a little bit, to \"flunkern\"?\nANo, I don't know that expression.\nQWe came to speak about Frauelein Antczak when I asked you about your stay in Achern. Will you please tell me how you left this home to go to your foster parents, Mayer, will you please tell me that?\nAThe administration asked me once whether I wanted to live with foster parents. However, they told me that I had to go alone.\nQWhat do you mean \"alone\"?\nAWell, that the family wanted only one girl, and I said, no, I didn't want to go; I only go if my sister goes along. Then I had to wait until the administration had talked with the family Mayer and then Frau Mayer came to Achern and she visited us and after four weeks we were allowed to go, and my sister came along too.\nQBut who took you along there in Achern?\nAFrau Mayer.\nQAnd since then you lived with the Mayers?\nAYes.\nQNow, how did you live in there?\nAI am very well with them. I lived very well, and I am treated as if I was their own child.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4268, "page_number": "4261", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QNow this family Mayer, do they have other children?\nAThey had one son but he died in the war.\nQCan you imagine why these Mayers have taken you as their foster child?\nAThey didn't want to be alone because they had no close relatives, and they wanted to adopt us then in order to enable us to take over the heritage, to inherit afterwards.\nQAnd because they had lost their only son, is that it?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the religion in which you were brought up with the Mayers?\nAProtestant religion.\nQWhen were you confirmed?\nAIn Easter 1945.\nQBefore that were you a member of the B.d.M. at Sandhausen?\nANo.\nQDid you go to school there?\nAYes, I went to grammar school.\nQDid you receive professional training?\nAYes.\nQFor what profession?\nAAs a tailor.\nQFor how long, when did you start getting this training?\nAAs from the 1st of May, 1946.\nQWell, together with your sister would you want to leave your foster parents?\nANo, never.\nDR. RENTSCH:Thank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross -examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nWitness, in discussing your sister Barbara, she is the only family member which you have discussed. Don't you remember your two brothers?", "speakers": [ "DR. RENTSCH", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4269, "page_number": "4262", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AYes.\nQI believe one's name was Jeszyk, J-e-s-z-y-k, and the other was Zdzsislaw, Z-d-z-s-i-s-l-a-w.\nAYes,\nQThose are the names of your two brothers, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhen is the last time that you have heard from your two brothers?\nAWhen my mother died, at the deathbed of my mother.\nQWere they in the institution, the children's home, with you in Litzmannstadt?\nANo, they were in a different home.\nQH ave you since been informed, since the occupation, the present occupation, that your brother Jeszyk is in Poland and has requested you back, that he wants to have you back with him?\nANo, I never heard about that.\nQDid you know that he was working on a farm in Germany since 1940 until he was repatriated back to Poland?\nANo, I only knew that he was in Germany.\nQAnd your brother Jeszyk is approximately twenty-one or twentytwo years old today, isn't that correct?\nAThat could be. I don't know for certain though.\nQAnd your other brother, you have heard nothing from him since your mother died in Litzmannstadt, is that correct?\nANo, nothing at all.\nQNow you said you did not remember your father's name. I would like to give you this name and see if it recalls anything, the name of Franziszek as a first name,F-r-a-n-z-i-s-z-e-k.\nAI can't remember.\nQYou say your father was a newspaper agent in Litzmannstadt, was he?\nAYes.\nQWell, there was a Franziszek Rotoski, a newspaper agent in Litz \n mannstadt, who disappeared in 1938.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4270, "page_number": "4263", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "You are sure that you can't recall your father's first name?\nANo, I don't know for certain.\nQNow, you were living with your mother up until about 1937, were you not?\nAYes.\nQYour brothers and your sister were living there with them too, weren't they?\nAYes.\nQYour mother became ill in 1937 and died in the hospital in Litzmannstadt, didn't she?\nAI thought it was '38 rather.\nQAnd when your mother died you were taken to a children's home in Litzmannstadt, were you not?\nAI had been brought into the children's home already before the death of my mother.\nQBut that was - Was your mother sick at that time?\nAI couldn't tell you.\nQNow, you stayed in Litzmannstadt until when? When were you taken to Brokau?\nA 1942.\nQIn 1942? Are you sure that it was 1942 instead of 1940?\nANo, I rather think 1942.\nQAnd with you in the children's home in Litzmannstadt during your transfer from Kopernika Strasse over to the other home, there were other Polish children with you, were there not?\nAYes.\nQAnd Antczak was with you there, Aline Antczak, and another child by the name of Anzinger, isn't that correct?\nAI don't know an Anzinger.\nQBut all of you children spoke Polish; you spoke Polish at home with your parents, didn't you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4271, "page_number": "4264", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AYes, I would assume so.\nQAnd after you left Brokau you were taken by German officials with about thirty other children, you said, and there were boys as well as girls with you at this time, isn't that correct?\nAYes.\nQBut now from B rokau you were taken to Achern, Baden, but the boys, were they taken to Achern-Baden too?\nANo, they were not taken to Achern.\nQDo you know where they were taken?\nANo, I don't know that.\nQDid you ever hear that they were in Nieder Austria?\nANo.\nQWhile you were in Achern-Baden, do you remember Miss Klara Keith?\nAYes.\nQAnd how long did you stay in Achern-Baden?\nAUntil the 15th of July 1943.\nQWas that June or July?\nAJuly.\nQNow, you said while you were in Achern-Baden that you remember some of the kids could write to their parents and you gave one example of a child writing to her parents in Konstanz. Do you know where Konstanz is, could Konstanz be in Germany?\nAYes.\nQThen besides you Polish children in Achern-Baden there were some German children too as well, weren't there?\nAYes.\nQNow, while you were in Achern-Baden do you remember a child by the name ofL-a-n-i-e-c-k-a, do you recall that name?\nANo.\nTHE INTERPRETER:Will you please repeat the name, Mr. Prosecutor?\nMR. NEELY:The name is Laniecka,L-a-n-i-e-c-k-a.\nTHE WITNESS:No, I don't remember the name.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "MR. NEELY", "THE INTERPRETER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4272, "page_number": "4265", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "BY MR. NEELY:\nQI have only one more question, Witness. Do you have any witnesses, any relatives, any relatives in Poland today that you know of other than your brothers?\nANo.\nQDo you remember an uncle who worked in the post office in Litzmannstadt?\nAYes, that is the godfather of my sister.\nMR. NEELY:All right, Your Honor. We have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:15.\n(A recess was taken until 1315 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4273, "page_number": "4266", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 23 January 1948.)\nDR.SCHMIDT (for the defendant Guenther Tesch): Your Honor, as my next witness I would like to call the witness Julie Semter.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nJULIESEMTER, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQ.Witness, please tell the Tribunal your full name.\nA.My name is Julie Semter.\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.I was born in Poznan.\nQ.And when?\nA.On the 15 of December 1931.\nQ.What was the name of your parents?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Can you remember your parents at all?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you once in a foster home?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And where was that?\nA.That was in Lodz. (Litzmannstadt)\nQ.Was that a Polish or a German family?\nA.That was a Polish family.\nQ.And how long did you stay with this family?\nA.About two to seven years. From when I was two years until-\nQ.Did you say from the second until the tenth year of your life or to the seventh?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "JULIE", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4274, "page_number": "4267", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.From the second until I was ten years old.\nQ.Is it correct if I say that you wanted to be adopted by your Polish foster parents?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Did this adoption finally take place?\nA.No.\nQ.And why not?\nA.Because I was of German origin.\nQ.Who told you that at the time?\nA.My foster parents told me.\nQ.Did your foster parents at that time go to Polish authorities because of the adoption papers?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And these agencies then apparently did not permit you to be adopted because you were of German extraction, is that right?\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Did you also go to school when you were at Lodz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Was that a Polish or a German school?\nA.That was a Polish school.\nQ.For how long did you go to school?\nA.I went to school for two years.\nQ.Did you speak German or polish in the family of your foster parents and in school?\nA.I spoke Polish.\nQ.You said that you stayed with your foster parents until you were ten years old?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And where did you go from there?\nA.I came to a children's home in Lodz.\nQ.And who was in charge of this home?\nA.Nuns.\nQ.What sort of nuns were they?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4275, "page_number": "4268", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Oh, they were not nuns at all. They were German Red Cross sisters.\nQ.And who brought you into this home?\nA. AGerman sister of the Red Cross.\nQ.How long did you stay in this home?\nA.Oh, about a year.\nQ.Were there also other children in this home?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know how many there were?\nA.About 20 to 30 girls and boys.\nQ.Did the children speak German or Polish?\nA.Oh, they spoke Polish.\nQ.And how was the treatment in this home?\nA.It was good.\nQ.Then you were allowed to speak Polish there.\nA.Yes, we were allowed to speak Polish there.\nQ.When you were in this home, did you receive visits from your former foster mother?\nA.Yes, she came once a week.\nQ.And from this home in Lodz, where did you go?\nA.I went to Kalisch.\nQ.And when was that?\nA.That was about in the year 1943.\nQ.Were there already children in Kalisch when you got there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.About how many?\nA.About 20 to 25.\nQ.How were you treated in this home in Kalisch?\nA.Oh, it was good.\nQ.Were the children also allowed to speak Polish in this home in Kalisch?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you receive instructions in German in Kalisch?", "speakers": [ "A. A", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4276, "page_number": "4269", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.No.\nQ.And for how long did you stay there?\nA.Until the autumn of 1943.\nQ.And where did you go from there?\nA.I went to Oberweiss.\nQ.With other children together?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And who brought you there?\nA. ARed Cross sister from Kalisch.\nQ.And how was it in Oberweiss? Did you have good conditions there? Were you treated well?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have good food?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And what sort of rooms did you have there?\nA.We had fresh laundry every Saturday.\nQ.I mean how had they treated you there--with reference to your quarters--that is, did you have your own bed?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now when you were in this home in Oberweiss, were you forced to speak German, or were you also allowed to speak Polish?\nA.We were allowed to speak Polish also.", "speakers": [ "A. A", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4277, "page_number": "4270", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_1_Gaylord (Reischer)\nQIn Oberweiss, did another child ever tell you that it was taken away from its parents or relatives by force?\nANo.\nQDid you meet Kerr Heinke in Oberweiss?\nAYes.\nQHow did Heinke behave with the children?\nAOh, he behaved very well.\nQDid you receive instructions in Oberweiss?\nAYes.\nQWhat sort of instructions did you receive?\nAHeading, writing, and arithmetic.\nQWere you indoctrinated in the national socialist ideology?\nANo.\nQWere you able to perform sports?\nAYes.\nQWere you able to move freely about the home and the garden?\nAYes.\nQAnd when did you leave this home?\nAI left it in May 1944.\nQAnd who took you away from this home?\nAMy foster father.\nQThat is also the foster father that you are living with now?\nAYes.\nQWhat is his profession?\nAHe is an innkeeper.\nQAnd where does he live?\nAIn Steeden: S_T_E_E_D_E_N.\nQDo you like it with your foster parents?\nAYes.\nQAre there any other children in that family?\nANo.\nQThat is to say, you are the only child there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4278, "page_number": "4271", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_2_Gaylord (Reischer)\nAYes.\nQDid you, before the end of the war, meet any Polish workers in the of your father?\nAYes, but I didn't talk to them.\nQDid your foster father prohibit you from speaking with those Polish workers.\nANo.\nQAnd did you still go to school in Steeden?\nAYes, for two years.\nQDid you also receive religious instruction there?\nAYes.\nQWere you confirmed?\nAYes.\nQAnd when was that?\nA 1946.\nQWere you a member of the B.d.M.?\nANo.\nQWas your foster father a member of the SS?\nANo.\nQDo you want to stay with your foster parents?\nAYes.\nQYou don't want to go back to Poznan?\nANo, I want to remain in Germany.\nQYou say you want to stay in Germany? Do you think that you are a German?\nAYes.\nQAnd why?\nABecause my mother was German.\nQThank you. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4279, "page_number": "4272", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_3_Gaylord (Reischer )\nQWitness, when did you receive the name of Semter? S-E-M-T-E-R. Julie Semter?\nAWhen I came to Oberweiss.\nQAnd until that time you went by the name of Sepniarska, S-E-P-N-IA-R-S-K-A? Would you give us the name which your originally went by?\nAJulie.\nQWhat was your Polish name?\nAStemperka, S-T-E-M-P-E-R-K-A.\nQAnd the woman whom you lived with in Poland was Josefa Rosenberg, is that correct?\nAYes, that is right.\nQNow, do you remember your own mother and father at all? Do you have any recollection of them?\nANo.\nQAnd how do you know that your mother was German and you are ethnic German?\nABecause my foster mother told me about that.\nQThat is the only place that you have been told that, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQHow you were living with your Polish foster mother until 1942, were you not?\nAYes.\nQAnd then some German concern came and got you from your Polish mother, isn't that true?\nAYes, that is right.\nQAnd this person then took you to a Polish institution in the same town, isn't that right?\nAYes, that is right.\nQAnd while you were with your Polish fester mother, you spoke Polish with her, did you not?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4280, "page_number": "4273", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_4_Gaylord (Reischer)\nQAnd then you said you spoke Polish at the other institutions including Kalisch and Oberweiss, didn't you?\nAYes.\nQAnd where did you learn German?\nAI only learned German correctly here in Germany.\nQBut where did you first --? You said a minute ago they didn't keep you from speaking Polish. Then if you didn't speak, how otherwise could you talk?\nAI learned German.\nQAnd you learned German in Oberweiss, didn't you?\nAYes.\nQNow, would you pease explain to us just what the home Oberweiss looked like? How many people worked there and how many children were there while you were there?\nAI don't know how many people there were. There were about 30 girls and boys.\nQDid children come and go at all different times? Did transports of children come in and then children leave at different times?\nAYes.\nQAnd what were the ages of these children?\nA oh, they were all sorts of ages.\nQWhat was the youngest child and what was the oldest, would you say, that was there?\nAThey were from about 6 to 18 years of age.\nQNow since the present occupation, have you been interrogated or asked any questions by any Polish authorities?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether your former Polish foster mother is living today?\nAI don't know. I have not taken up any contact with her yet.\nQWhen was the last time you heard from your Polish foster mother?\nAWhen I was in Lodz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4281, "page_number": "4274", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_5_Gaylord (Reischer)\nQAnd didn't your Polish foster mother - are you aware that she tried to get you away from Kalisch at one time?\nAI don't know that.\nQAnd no one up to the present time has told you that your Polish foster mother wants you back in Poland today?\nANo, nobody told me.\nQYour Honor, the Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Has the defense any other questions.\nDR. SCHMIDT:No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nDR. SCHMIDT:Your Honor, may I please now call the witness Therese Michael.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nTHERESEMICHAEL, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withheld and add nothing.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWill you please tell the Tribunal your full name?\nAMy name is Therese Weinbrenner.\nQAnd when were you born?\nAOn the 29 of November 1930.\nQWhere were you born?\nAIn Poznan.\nQDid you always have the name Weinbrenner?\nANo.\nQWhat was your former name?\nAMy name formerly was Therese Michalak.\nQAnd for how long were you called that?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHMIDT", "THE PRESIDENT", "THERESE", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4282, "page_number": "4275", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_6_Gaylord (Reischer)\nAUntil I came to Kalisch, and after that I was called Therese Michael.\nQAnd since when are you called Therese Weinbrenner?\nASince I was confirmed I was called Therese Weinbrenner.\nQAnd who gave you that name Weinbrenner.\nQAnd who gave you that name Weinbrenner?\nAThe Pastor gave me that name.\nQThe Pastor -- you mean on the occasion of your confirmation?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4283, "page_number": "4276", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_1_Love, (Reischer)\nQWere you once in an orphange in Posen?\nAYes.\nQCan you remember for how long you stayed in this orphanage in Posen.\nAFrom when I was a very little girl until I was 12 years old I was in this orphanage in Posen.\nQWas that a Polish orphanage?\nAYes.\nQCan you still remember your real parents?\nANo.\nQDid they treat you well in this Polish orphanage?\nANo, they did not.\nQWhy not.\nAWe had to work an awful lot and we didn't get good food.\nQDid you at that time go to school already?\nANo.\nQBut you were there until you were 12 years old in this Polish orphanage, weren't you?\nAYes.\nQAnd in spite of that you did not receive any education?\nANo, we only had religious instruction.\nQThen when were you taken away from this Polish orphanage?\nAWhen I was 12 years old.\nQThen where did you go?\nAI came to Kalisch.\nQWere you brought away from this orphanage by somebody and by whom?\nAWell, I was brought to Kalisch.\nQBy the sisters?\nAYes, we were brought by the Sisters in Kalisch.\nQDid you like to go along or did they have to force you?\nANo, they didn't force me; I went voluntarily.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4284, "page_number": "4277", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_2_Love (Reischer)\nQWere other children in Kalisch when you got there?\nANo, we were the first chidlren.\nQFor how long did you stay in Kalisch?\nAFor one year.\nQAnd how did they treat you in Kalisch?\nAThey treated me well.\nQDid you have any education there?\nANo.\nQDid you have instruction in German?\nAYes, at first we spoke Polish and then we spoke German.\nQThen you were allowed to speak Polish?\nAYes, we were allowed to speak Polish.\nQDid you not got punsihed when you spoke Polish?\nANo, we did not get punished.\nQYou have already said that until the time when you came to Kalisch you were called Michalak and then Michael.\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether the name of your pagents was Michael or Michalak?\nAI don't know that.\nQAnd from Kalisch where did you go?\nAI came to Oberweiss.\nQWhen was that?\nA 1943.\nQAnd how were you treated in this home in Oberweiss?\nAIt was very nice.\nQDid you go to school there?\nAYes, we went to school.\nQWhat, did you learn there?\nAReading and writing.\nQWere you a member of the BDM?\nANo.\nQWere you allowed to speak Polish there too in Oberweiss?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4285, "page_number": "4278", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_3_Love (Reischer)\nAYes.\nQWere you punished because you spoke Polish?\nANo.\nQYou, yourself, were you ever beaten in Oberweiss?\nANo.\nQDid you ever see any other of the other children beaten?\nANo.\nQWhat sort of punishment was administered in Oberweiss when one of the children didn't behave well?\nAWell, they got a piece of dry bread and were put in the corner.\nQDid you ever hear that a child complained to you that he didn't got enough to eat?\nANo.\nQWas the food sufficient; did you get enough to eat?\nAYes.\nQDid you also have a big orchard near the home?\nAYes.\nQWere you allowed to take fruits for yourself from this orchard and eat them?\nAYes.\nQDid you also have clean linen and clean clothes?\nAYes.\nQFor how long did you stay in Oberweiss?\nAI was there for one year.\nQWhere did you go from there?\nAThen I came to Kubach near Mainburg.\nQThat is to say to your present foster parents?\nAYes.\nQDo you like it there?\nAYes.\nQWhat is the profession of your foster father?\nAHe is a farmer.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4286, "page_number": "4279", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_4_Love (Reischer)\nQAre there other children in the family?\nANo.\nQWere you over a member of the BDM?\nANo.\nQDid you go on to school while you were in Kubach?\nAYes for one more year.\nQWere you ever under National Socialistic influence on the part of your foster parents?\nANo.\nQA member of the SS?\nANo, not that either.\nQDo you want to go back to Posen?\nANo.\nQNo further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, I want to hand you a picture and I want to see if you can tell me where this picture was taken and if it is a picture of you?\nANo.\nQYou would say that is not a picture of you?\nAYes, I saw that picture one before in the home in Posen.\nQDo you remember anyone in Poland by the name of Duzinski?\nANo, I don't know.\nQDid you ever live with any Polish foster parents in Posen?\nANo; I mean I was in homes from when I was a very little girl.\nQBut you say this is a picture of you; is that correct?\nAYes, that is a photograph of myself.\nQWell, these people in Posen, Duzinski, they claim this picture was taken of you and you lived with them at one time. You don't recall that?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4287, "page_number": "4280", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_5_Love (Reischer)\nAI wouldn't know. I saw this picture once in the home.\nQBut the only thing that you can remember in Posen is that you lived in the Catholic Convent. Is that the first place which you can remember?\nAYes.\nQAnd you have no idea of where you lived before that time, no one ever told you?\nANo.\nQThen you must think that these people are mistaken, Duzinski, you couldn't possibly have lived with them. Is that correct?\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I suggest that you develop at what age she lived with that family.\nMR. NEELY:Yes, I was just getting to that.\nAI really don't know; I don't remember; I was always in homes in Posen. BY MR. NEELY:\nQYou were living, in this home in Posen in 1942?\nAYes, and then I was brought to Kalisch.\nQAnd when were you in Kalisch?\nAThat was 1942.\nQHow long did you remain in Kalisch?\nAOne year.\nQAnd did you speak any German before going to Kalisch?\nANo, I spoke Polish then.\nQAnd your true mother, you do not remember her name?\nANo, I can't remember.\nQDid you ever hear of a person by the name of Proxida Michalak?\nAYes, in Posen my name was Michalak.\nQDid you ever hear of a person Michalak, whose first name was Proxida, and will the interpreter please spell it.\nANo, no.\nQThank you, your Honor, we have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "A", "MR. NEELY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4288, "page_number": "4281", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_6_Love (Reischer) BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, the picture that was presented to you a moment ago, do you remember when that was made and where?\nANo, I can't remember that any more.\nQHow old are you now?\nAIn November I became 17.\nQAnd you say that you have no recollection of when or where this photograph was made?\nANo.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire.\nDR. SCHMIDT:With your permission I would like to call the witness ANNA MICHEL.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nANNAMICHEL, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQThe witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nA (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, will you please tell your full name to the court.\nAMy name is Anna Michel.\nQWhen and where were you born?\nAI was born in Alexandrova on 26 September 1930.\nQWhere is Alexandrova?\nAIt is near Thurn on the Vistula.\nQDo you know anything about your parents?\nAYes, but I only know that my mother was a German.\nQIs your mother still alive?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHMIDT", "THE PRESIDENT", "ANNA", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4289, "page_number": "4282", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "23 Jan 1948_A_MSD_15_7_Love (Reischer)\nANo, she is dead.\nQHow old were you when your mother died?\nAI was about two years old.\nQDid you know your father?\nANo.\nQWhere were you when you were very young as far as you can remember back?\nAI lived with ethnic German foster parents.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4290, "page_number": "4283", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Where was that?\nA.In Alexandrovo.\nQ.And from this foster hone where did you go?\nA.I came into an orphanage in Alexandrovo.\nQ.How old were you when you came into the orphanage?\nA.I was about two years old.\nQ.And how long did you remain in this orphanage?\nA.I remained there from the time I was two until I was 12 years old.\nQ.You said now that you know that your mother was a German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.From where did you gain that knowledge?\nA.Because I had seen the birth certificate of my mother.\nQ.Then and where? Did you see it yourself?\nA.Yes, I saw the birth certificate.\nQ.Then was that, on what occasion?\nA.I may have been about 8 or 9 years old when I saw that.\nQ.And at that time you were still in this Polish orphanage?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you have the opportunity to look at the birth certificate of your mother?\nA.Yes.\nQ.That did you find in this birth certificate?\nA.It said there that my mother was a German and that she was born in Dresden.\nQ.And how many children about were there in the orphanage in Alexandrovo?\nA.There were more than 100.\nQ.And who was in charge of this orphanage?\nA.Polish sisters.\nQ.Did they treat you well there?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4291, "page_number": "4284", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.No, badly.\nQ.In what way?\nA.Because I was a German in a Polish orphanage.\nQ.Was it known to the Polish Sisters that you were German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And the other children in this orphanage, were they all Polish children or were there some German orphans there?\nA.Yes, beside myself there were three more German children.\nQ.And how were these other German children treated?\nA.They were also treated badly.\nQ.Were you allowed to speak German?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you punished when you spoke German?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What sort of punishments were administered?\nA.We were beaten.\nQ.You now call yourself Michel?\nA.Yes.\nQ.At what time was your name also Michel at the tine when you were in this Polish orphanage?\nA.No, they wanted to change my name.\nQ.In what way?\nA.They wanted to call me Michalak.\nQ.Did you agree to that?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you refuse to have that done?\nA.Yes, I always used by my German name.\nQ.Now when the Germans occupied the Polish territory did you at that time also make yourself known to the Germans, that you were German?\nA.Yes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4292, "page_number": "4285", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.What happened then?\nA.We had to leave the big building and we received the small buildings to live in.\nQ.Were you taken out of this polish orphanage?\nA.Well, not just then but later on.\nQ.You were still allowed to stay there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Were you examined as far as your German origins were concerned?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you describe how this was done?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Will you please do so.\nA.No were ordered into an official building with the whole orphanage and there we were examined because those men also thought that there were more German children in this orphanage, but since there were none only we four were taken away, and then one more girl was taken away too with us.\nQ.And the Polish children, were they brought back into the orphanage?\nA.Yes.\nQ.You say that you were brought away with several other German children?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And where were you brought?\nA.We were brought to Kalisch.\nQ.When was that?\nA.In 1943.\nQ.For how long did you stay in Kalisch?\nA.From 1943 in September until February 1944.\nQ.If I understand you correctly then from September 1943 until February 1944?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4293, "page_number": "4286", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.How were you treated in Kalisch?\nA.They treated me very well.\nQ.Here there other German children in Kalisch besides yourself?\nA.Yes, there were Germans and ethnic German children.\nQ.At the beginning, were there also Polish children?\nA.I don't know that; when I got there there were only German and ethnic German children.\nQ.How many children were there altogether, if you can remember, in Kalisch?\nA.There were about 17 girls and about 28 boys.\nQ.Did you over hear that anyone in Kalisch, that is any of the children who were in Kalisch, wanted to go back home? Did you hear anything about that, or that the children told you that any of them had been forcibly separated from parents?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you receive instructions in Kalisch?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What sort of instructions?\nA.We learned writing, reading and arithmetic and singing.\nQ.Who was in charge?\nA.That was a Frau Zander.\nQ.Zander was the name?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you remember any other people from Kalisch?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who, for instance?\nA.Fraulein Eisler, Fraulein Lorenzen, Fraulein Buergner, Fraulein Ludwig.\nQ.Were the children in Kalisch allowed to speak Polish with each other?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4294, "page_number": "4287", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.A short time ago you said that four other children from Alexandrovo came to Kalisch, besides yourself.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now these other four children, did they remain together with you in Kalisch all the time?\nA.No, one of them Came back to Poland.\nQ.Where?\nA.To Poland, to Alexandrovo.\nQ.To Alexandrovo?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And why did this one child go back to Alexandrovo?\nA.There was a commission that came to Kalisch and they examined us in reading, writing and arithmetic and because the child was not very good in these subjects and she was a Polish child she was brought back into the orphanage.\nQ.So, if I understand you correctly, this child was sent back because it was not, as you and the other three girls, it was not a German child. Is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And how old was the child at the time?\nA.The child was three years younger than I was.\nQ.Can you still remember the locks of this child?\nA.Yes, she had fair blond hair and blue eyes. I don't remember anything further.\nQ.You, yourself then, remained in Kalisch, that is as you already said, until February 1944.\nA.Yes.\nQ.And then where did you go?\nA.I went to Oberweiss.\nQ.Together with the other children?\nA.No, there were only two others that came along with me, one of \n the other girls went directly from Kalisch into a foster home.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4295, "page_number": "4288", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.You are now speaking about the three children from Alexandrovo if I understand you correctly?\nA.Yes.\nQ.And you said that one of those three children did not go along with you to Oberweiss?\nA.From Kalisch she immediately and directly went to a foster home.\nQ.And the two other children?\nA.They went to Oberweiss together with me.\nQ.They went together with you to Oberweiss, is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Who accompanied you and the other children when you went to Oberweiss at that time?\nA.The girls were brought to Oberweiss two days later, and there was Fraulein Lorenzen and Fraulein Eisler, and a Red Cross Sister took the boys along.\nQ.How long did you remain in Oberweiss?\nA.From February 1944 until May 1944.\nQ.When you at that time care to Oberweiss, were there already other children there?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Can you remember about how many?\nA.There were about four girls and about 15 boys.\nQ.Did they treat you well in Oberweiss?\nA.Yes, very well.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4296, "page_number": "4289", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "*3 Jan.-A-MW-17-1-Sampson (Int.Reischer)\nQ.Were the children in Oberweiss allowed to speak Polish?\nA.We had no interest in doing that.\nQ.Then you didn't speak Polish.\nA.No.\nQ.Did you once abserve that a child was beaten?\nA.No.\nQ.Or that a child, as punishment, was locked into the cellar of the home?\nA.No, there was no cellar in Oberweiss.\nQ.Did you also get religious instructions while you were there?\nA.Yes, from time to time.\nQ.Were you indoctrinated in the National Socialist Ideology?\nA.No.\nQ.And from Oberweiss you went to your present foster parents; is that correct?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you like to leave Oberweiss to go to the foster home?\nA.Well, it was difficult for me to separate myself from the other children, but I was very glad that I would have parents.\nQ.What is the came of you foster mother and where does she live?\nA.Her name is Lina Gerhard, and she is living in Westerwald.\nQ.Do they treat you well there?\nA.They treat me as though I were their own daughter.\nQ.Did you go to school?\nA.Yes, for one more year.\nQ.Were you a member of the BDM?\nA.No, I was only in their youth association of the younger girls.\nQ.Did your mother like it that way or was it on your own initiative?\nA.No, my foster mother did not want that; I did that on my own initiative.\nQ.If I understood you correctly, you said that you yourself considered yourself to be German.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4297, "page_number": "4290", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Do you wish to stay in Germany or do you want to go to Posen or Alexandrowo, Poland?\nA.No, never.\nDR. SCHMIDT:No. further questions. Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MISS JOHNSON:\nQ.What is your age now, please?\nA.I am seventeen.\nQ.Do you remember when Germany occupied Poland?\nA. 1939.\nQ.Was that in the fall of 1939; do you remember?\nA.I can't remember when that was.\nQ.At that time where were you; were you in the orphanage?\nA.I was in Alexandrowo.\nQ.Alexandrowo is in Poland; is that right?\nA.Yes, it is near Thorn.\nQ.Thorn? I did not get that.\nA.Yes, it is in Poland, near Thorn, T-h-o-r-n; on the Vistula.\nQIs that any place near Lublin or Krackau or Warsaw?\nA.The next bigger town near which it is is Thorn.\nQ.And is Thorn near Lublin?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.You don't know. Are you familiar with the expression Government General; that is a German expression.\nA.No.\nQ.You don't know that expression. The orphanage in which you were residing, what religious instructions did you receive at that orphanage?\nA.How do you mean; what sort of instruction?\nQ.Well, I had in mind whether it was Protestant religious teaching \n or Catholic religious teaching.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. SCHMIDT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4298, "page_number": "4291", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.Catholic.\nQ.And when you came into the foster - the German foster family here in Germany, after you had been at Overweiss, what religious teaching did you receive?\nA.Protestant.\nQ.That was Protestant. Who was your nearest relative? Do you have brothers and sisters?\nA.No.\nQ.And your mother is dead.\nA.Yes, that is right.\nQ.Your father?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Your mother's relatives--did she have any brothers and sisters that you know of; did you see anything on that certificate you were speaking of?\nA.No.\nQ.You have never had any contact with any of your natural relatives at all, at any time?\nA.No.\nQ.Was there--are you familiar with any regulations after you came into Germany which prohibited you from contacting any one whom you cared to contact in Poland?\nA.No, no; after all, I had no relatives.\nQ.Did you ever write any letters to anybody in Poland, to any of the friends you had in the Polish orphanage that didn't come from Poland with you?\nA.No.\nQ.In the home at Oberweiss you heard German spoken, and at times you heard Polish spoken, I imagine.\nA.Yes -- no, not in Oberweiss.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4299, "page_number": "4292", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Did you hear anything other than German spoken at Oberweiss?\nA.No.\nQ.What age children were at Oberweiss, the four girls and fifteen boys: What ages were they?\nA.I can't remember that.\nQ.How old were you at that time?\nA.Fourteen years; I just turned fourteen.\nQ.Were they about your age or did they seem younger to you or did they seem old?\nA.There were three more girls and they were about my age.\nQ.About your age; what about the boys' age?\nA.I don't know.\nQ.Were they children; were they babies; were they under five years old?\nA.No; there were no infants there.\nQ.Were they young enough that the older girls had to take care of them?\nA.No.\nMISS JOHNSON:I don't have any more questions, Your Honor.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch) Your Honor, I have only one more question.\nQ.Witness, you perhaps know from geography that Thorn, which is near Alexandrowo, was in the former German Province of West Prussia; do you know that this territory only became Polish through the Versailles Treaty; do you remember that from your geography lessons?\nA.Yes. Thorn on the Vistu was German before, but when I left, it was Polish.\nDR. SCHMIDT:No further questions; thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Your Honor, in the name of my colleague Dr. Ratz, I \n would like to have permission for him to put his defendant Sollmann into the witness stand at this time.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR. SCHMIDT", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MISS JOHNSON" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4300, "page_number": "4293", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nMAXSOLIMANN, a witness in his own behalf, took the stand and testified as follows:\nBY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RATZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Sollmann)\nQ.Witness, will you please give your full name, your age and your career and your political life in brief to the Tribunal?\nA.My name is Max Sollmann; I was born on 6th June, 1904; I had the intention of studying economics and modern languages, modern philogy. I graduated from the technical high school with the diploma because I wanted to earn the money for this trip myself. After I got into business I was not able any more to study at the University. I had various jobs as foreign correspondent, as cashier, a manager of various corporations and as presiding member of a stock company. At the beginning of 1929 I went to Colombia, in South America, and I worked there for about five years with the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, that is to say with one of her subsidiaries, the Tropical Oil Company. I was a commercial employee on the oil field of this company. At the beginning of 1934 I came back to Germany and became a member of a economic examination corporation as lecturer. Besides this job that I had, for about two years I studied on my own; I was especially interested in questions of balance sheets and financial matters, and auditing. At the end of 1935 I took over the job as the only member of the presidium of a real estate corporation in Berlin. In 1937 the chief of the personnel staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS, General Wolf, \n had me appointed to a full-time position in the commercial and economic fields in the personnel staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MAX", "BY THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4301, "page_number": "4294", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "At that time I had not met Himmler yet.\nOn 20th December, 1922 I became for the first time a member of the NSDAP. I remained a member until it was prohibited in November 1923. I became a member of the party again in November, 1926, and I stayed in it as a member until 6th April, 1929. And I became a member for the third time in January, 1937, and remained a member until the surrender. In March, 1920, at the time when I was still going to school, I volunteered for the armed forces. I became a member of the Free Corps EPP and Oberland. I took part in the so-called Hitler Putsch in 1923 as a member of the association Oberland.\nOn the 19th August, 1938, I received the Golden Party Badge of the NSDAP. In March, 1939, I received the Blood Order.\nI became a member of the SS in the summer of 1937, retroactive to 30th January, 1937. My last rank was SS Standartenfuehrer in the General SS and in the Waffen SS. In the Waffen SS -- correction: I became a member -- I was conscripted, drafted for the Waffen SS on 17th August, 1942. In the spring of 1942 I received the title of an office chief in the personnel staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS.\nMy decision, dating from 1937 to take over full employment in the personnel staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS and becoming a member of the SS, was voluntary. I thought that it was an honor to have received such an offer of becoming a member without having made application for it. The first job that I had was the deputy head for the department Economic Aid, in the personnel staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS. At the end of 1938 I asked to be allowed to resign from active duty. General Wolf, who at that time was my superior, rejected my resignation, and until my appointment in the presidium of the Lebensborn, he gave me various special jobs to do. During this time I had been transferred from formerlytemporarily to the SSadministrative office, and inthe course of the subordination of the \n Department Economic Aid to the SS Administrative Office, but during all this time of my formal membership in the SS Administrative, I did not receive one single order from this office themselves.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4302, "page_number": "4295", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "I was planned to become head of the department, Finance and Economics in the agency of Greifelt. At that time a suggestion came from the President of the German Reichsbank, who asked Himmler to agree to my appointment as chief of the personnel of the German Reichsbank. Himmler however, at the end of February, 1940 appointed me the chief of the Lebensborn. In March, 1940, I was registered in the association, in the judicial court register, in the judicial register of the association. The official business of this registered society, altruistic society, which had its headquarters in Munich, I took over on 15th May, 1940.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4303, "page_number": "4296", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Witness, who was your predecessor in this post?\nA.My predecessor was Guntram Pflaum. He resigned because of discussions and disagreements from the Lebensborn and also because he had disagreements with me. Since then, I had nothing to do with him, neither in an official capacity or privately.\nQ.What sort of conditions did you find when you took over the leadership of the Lebensborn?\nA.The Lebensborn was near bankruptcy when I took over. From an organizational view point it needed a lot of improvement.\nQ.Well, what did you start with in the first place?\nA.My first activity consisted of reformulating the constitution, the statutes, since Himmler had dissolved the presidium that existed up to that time and had appointed the members of this presidium to a new presidium which was formed at my suggestion. This was merely a matter of courtesy, just as the latter appointment of Pflaum did not happen upon my initiative to become a. member of this presidium. Himmler was a presiding officer. The new presidium of the Lebensborn received its technical instructions from him. The presidium from then on only consisted of one person; as far as my SS activities were concerned, I remained subordinated to the chief of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS, General Wolf.\nQ.What were the functions of this presidium?\nA.The presidium did not meet for once even; neither did they have conferences nor did they exchange letters of telephone calls. The functions, the nominal functions of the members of the presidium to act as advisors in various special fields never took place. It was only the curator of health questions who actually performed these advisory tasks, in connection with the health authorities of the Lebensborn for which the presiding officer was not responsible.\nDR. RATZ:Your Honor, the new constitution of the Lebensborn, of 11th April, 1944, which Mr. Sollmann wrote up himself, I would like to submit that as an exhibit, since the Prosecution up to now only submitted the \n former, the old constitution as an exhibit, which had been superceded by the appointment of Sollmann as presiding officer of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. RATZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4304, "page_number": "4297", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.Witness, the Prosecution has written a brochure called basis information, and has brought it to the official notice of the Tribunal. In this brochure it says that the Lebensborn had been subordinated to the RuSHA in the years 1943 to 1945; is that correct?\nA.No, this is not correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4305, "page_number": "4298", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. RATZ:Your Honor, in order to rectivy a possible error of translation, I would like to make the following statement. The reformulated by-laws of the Lebensborn, which will be submitted, are of the11th of April, 1940. I merely wished to state that in order to avoid all possible error. BY DR. RATZ:\nQ.- Witness, just a few minutes ago I asked you whether the so-called basic information submitted by the Prosecution is correct. That is, basic information according to which the Lebensborn, even as late as 1943-1945, was incorporated to the Race and Settlement Main Office of the SS. You told me that it was not correct.\nA.- No.\nQ.- Now, in your answer, will you please continue and give us the details?\nA.- Well, as I said, that is not correct. The Lebensborn, as far as the SS was concerned, was an office in the Main Office Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS. It had been separated from the Race and Settlement Main Office as early as 1937.\nI wish to add something in connection with this basic information. It contains descriptions concerning the Lebensborn which, it is true, are in part very clever constructions but which, in spite of that, are in open contradiction with the truth. This basic information which was handed over by the Prosecution was not submitted as a document, and therefore I do not think that I need to go into detail as far as the contradictions with the truth are concerned.\nQ.- Witness, what did you mean \"almost bakruptcy\" in this connection? You were speaking of the fact that when you took over the direction of the Lebensborn it was in a state of bankruptcy.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4306, "page_number": "4299", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.- At that time, for instance, the Association did not know how it was going to pay the wages of its employees.\nQ.- What was the reason for that?\nA.- The membership fees were not sufficient, if one compared them with the enlarged field of tasks of the Lebensborn.\nQ.- You are speaking of an enlarged field of tasks?\nA.- Yes. Originally the Lebensborn limited itself to the admission of future mothers, if the father of the child to come was a member of the SS, regardless of whether the parents of the expected child were married or not. Part of the fields of tasks of Lebensborn, later on, were all cases where expectant mothers had to fear that they would suffer the social ostracism to which unmarried mothers are still exposed in Germany even today. Therefore, these women, or most of them, were in danger of being tempted to have an abortion carried out.\nA short time after Himmler had become Chief of the German Police, the field of tasks of the Lebensborn was concentrated, slowly but surely, more and more, on the then so-called positive fight against abortions. That meant that the so-called selection directives for the Lebensborn were no longer decisive.\nQ.- Now, in what way did you create a solid foundation, financially speaking?\nA.- I procured the necessary additional funds, which Could not afforded by the SS alone, and which could not be claimed from them, either.\nQ.- What financial resources did you create for the Lebensborn?\nA.- In accordance with the enlarged field of tasks, I approached the National Socialist Welfare Organization, as well as the Reich Ministry of Finance. The NSV, the National Socialist Welfare Organization, had general orders from Hitler to take care of mothers and children; and there was therefore in the National Socialist Welfare Organization, the NSV, a special branch organization called \"The Relief Fund for Mother and Child.\" The \n Reich Ministry of Finance was the competent authority to procure, via the police funds of the Reich, the necessary means for the prevention of abortions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4307, "page_number": "4300", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.- Well, did that create a solid basis?\nA.- Not yet, no, because, fundamentally speaking, those two agencies were only ready to support us with one single payment, they were not ready to approve constant subventions. In that ease the NSV would have insisted that the Lebensborn either be subordinated to or incorporated into its own organization, or else that the Lebensborn be dissolved. The Reich Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, pointed out to me that permanent payments could not be made directly, via the main Reich Treasury, to a private association, but that they could only go through the official treasury of a top level Reich agency, for instance, the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQ.- Witness, from Document 2883, Prosecution Exhibit69, in Document Book II-C, it becomes apparent that an agreement had actually been reached according to which the necessary permanent subventions would be paid via the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Was it done in that way?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Why not?\nA.- The Reich Ministry of Finance, with which this suggestion originated, suggested that I should use another top level Reich authority as payment agency because, according to the government experience of the gentleman involved in the Reich Ministry of Finance, the independence of a private association such as Lebensborn would have been threatened if the Reich Ministry of the Interior had been called in as payment agency.\nQ.- Now, what other top level Reich authorities could have been taken into consideration for those payments?\nA.- At that time, only the RKFDV, because at the time Himmler was not yet chief of other top level Reich authorities, if one excepts the \n police.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4308, "page_number": "4301", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "However, as far as its budget was concerned, the police was a part of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Therefore, the Reich Ministry of Finance advised me to see to it that the RKFDV approved the use of its office treasury of the Main Staff Office for these purposes, namely, to forward the subventions granted by the Reich Ministry of Finance to the Lebensborn.\nQ.- The office treasury of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, in other words, was only the payment agency for these subventions, is that correct?\nA.- Yes, the office treasury of the Main Staff Office thereby had the same functions, as far as the Reich Finance Ministry was concerned, as the Reich Main Treasury. In other words, this was an institution like the Reich Bank, and the office treasury of the Main Staff Office, concerning these subventions by the Reich Ministry of Finance, had the same functions for the Lebensborn as any other private bank.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4309, "page_number": "4302", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Q.- Now, in this manner was the Lebensborn financed by the Main Treasury of the Main Staff Office of the RKDV?\nA.- No. You can't express it that way. If I open an account with some bank I can't say that this bank is financing me.\nQ.- Did the Main Staff Office have influence on the subventions at all or on the amounts which the Lebensborn would withdraw in one instance or another and on the use to which it was put by the Lebensborn?\nA.- No, in no manner. That was only the subject of personal information which I gave to the defendant Schwarzenberger as well as to the defendant Greifelt and this was my decisive condition under which I had the Staff Treasury of the Main Staff Office called in only. The Reich Ministry of Finance had made conditions also for the granting of permanent subventions and had reserved the right to have Lebensborn checked by the supreme audit court of the German Reich and I sent immediately a letter to this supreme Reich audit court which I signed and in which declared myself ready to submit to any checking by the highest state checking and auditing authorities.\nQ.- In what relation were the subventions of the Reich Ministry of Finance, in other words, the money paid by the German Reich for the prevention of abortions to the State resources and other revenues of the Lebensborn?\nA.- The proportion, if you take the average for 1940 and 1945 was about 1/3 up to 2/3, as conditions were in those fears.\nQ.- Now for the granting of these subventions by the Reich Ministry of Finance did the Ethnic German children play an important part - these children which were taken care of by Lebensborn?\nA.- By no means did they play a decisive part if they were mentioned at all; according to my recollection they were not mentioned at all. But as far as I remember the widows of the war dead and orphans caused by the war played an important part and were also taken care of by the Lebensborn, \n apart from the main purpose which was the fight against abortions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4310, "page_number": "4303", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "During my first negotiations with the Reich Ministry of Finance the unique drive for Ethnic German children had not started yet according to my recollection. Expenses for these children were not very considerable as compared to the total, expenses during the same period incurred by Lebensborn. It amounted to about 1 1/2% only and apart from that no Government Agency and no private enterprise or political organization would spend millions for 250 children because 250 children were the whole figure involved as the years went on.\nQ.- The expenses incurred for these children in the whole of the self administration of the Gau Poznan or in all of the sections of the Reich Ministry were not covered by Lebensborn, in other words?\nA.- No.\nQ.- what was the proportion of this unique drive for the children of the Warthegau compared to all other activities of the Lebensborn?\nA.- As far as figures go the proportion must be as follows: About 250 children as compared to ten thousands of German otherwise taken care of by the Lebensborn. For instance within the framework of the Lebensborn, 12000 children were born. We took care of financial support or guardianship for about 17,000 war orphans, which means half orphans and full orphans, and we supported about 8,000 dependants of war dead. We supported them by advice and by action. As far as the percentage goes you cannot give exact figures. You mil not even find that it is 1%, even less than that. Other possibilities of comparison could be found if you take the total figure of all employees who were professionally employed by Lebensborn and take, on the other hand, the total figure of those employees of Lebensborn who took care of Ethnic German Children. Here again you come to about 1%.\nQ.- Witness, were you an export in the work of the Lebensborn?\nA.- The work of the Lebensborn in itself originally was strange to me. Therefore, when I attempted to re-organize the offices I could use only \n my common sense.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4311, "page_number": "4304", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "In the difficult field of work of the Lebensborn I attacked first of all such problems which arose from one occasion or another for solution. I remember, for instance, that the quota of infant mortality in the Lebensborn exposed myself to criticism by Himmler during the first months of my activity. The preliminary requisites for a successful fight against the infant mortality are of a mainly economic nature. The Reich average of infant mortality during the whole period until 1945 came up to about 8%. Within the Lebensborn this rate in 1940 was around 6%. According to scientific statistics there is a so-called inexorable quota of about 4%. In 1942 we had succeeded to lower the rate of infant mortality within the Lebensborn to 3.96%. This rate was never reached again. However, it was still reduced as the years went on and during the one year we succeeded in lowering it to 2.86%.\nQ.- No how was the registered society Lebensborn connected with the SS?\nA.- My position as chief of the Lebensborn was identical with the position of chief of OfficeL inthe personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS, In other words, the registered society Lebensborn was connected with the SS because the chairman of the Curatorium of the Lebensborn by the name of Himmler was amongst other things the Reiehsfuehrer-SS.\nQ.- What was the result of that as far as personnel and organization went?\nA.- The male employees of the Lebensborn as far as they were members of the SS from an organizational and disciplinary view point were members of the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, even if individual SS-leaders during the war were in a formal way listed with other staff companies of the Staff Main Office, for instance, with the Staff Company of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nQ.- If, for instance, an employee of the Lebensborn was appointed expert Reader in the Race and Settlement affairs would he then become \n a so-called racial examiner of RuSHA or a RUS leader?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4312, "page_number": "4305", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "A.- In no way. Such an appointment could only have significance within the Waffen-SS as far as the budget went. These employees had no part in activities of RuSHA, as little as other employees of Lebensborn would work in the field of pressant war economy though in the Waffen-SS they had been listed as expert leaders as far as the TO went.\nQ.- Did that apply to you personally?\nA.- Temporarily, yes. Himmler at certain times was under the impression that in the Staff Department of the Waffen-SS with the personal staff he had a shortage in TO positions and, therefore, most of the time without the knowledge of the competent Main Office Chief he disposed of vacant TO positions of some Main Office. In my case this however was changed again after a short intermediary period. Already my first service book had been issued by the Staff Department of the Waffen SS with the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer-SS and not by RuSHA. The change in other cases were carried out gradually.\nQ.- Did the Lebensborn have powers to issue orders to other main offices or other offices or wat it subordinate to other offices?\nA.- No. It is true that I have experienced quite a number of attempts and defended myself against these attempts which originated from other main offices and other organizations to get the Lebensborn under orders of these organizations or offices or even from outside personalities of higher or highest ranks within the SS or to influence the leadership of the Lebensborn, to act on behalf of the Lebenshorn or to appear as sort of a tutor for the Lebensborn. I have been able to safeguard the independence of Lebensborn at all times. However there was one thing I failed to see, that was the necessity to do away with the generosity which I have to realize today was our doom, generosity in the terminology within and around the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4313, "page_number": "4306", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QWhat do you mean to say by that?\nAAmongst other documents the Prosecution have submitted, for instance, Exhibit 402 which might lead to the conclusion that factual concepts as we also used them at the time are unshakable foundations of certain parts of the Indictment. For instance, we were unsuspecting enough to use expressions like \"Germanization\" and \"re-Germanization\" which we had taken over from other organizations and which meant WED procedure and the DVL, but neither myself or my colleagues before the start of this trial even knew about these procedures. At no time did Lebensborn report children for the DVL or place at the disposal of the Higher SS and Police Leader competent for WED procedure. The same applies also to expressions, like for instance, \"Lebensborn as Reich Commissar sponsors these ethnic German children\" because from an organizational point of view we had no links with the RKFDV. We did not receive any directives from the Main Staff Office. We would talk of alien orphans when we were referring to ethnic German children without family links who had lived in the world of foreign ethnic groups.\nQIn other words you used these terms where they shouldn't have been applied and you did so in a rather careless manner.\nAYes. All of us in Lebensborn were laymen in the field of ethnic work.\nQBut in the field of real work of Lebensborn you succeeded to avoid such errors of concepts?\nAYes, in these fields we were experts.\nQNow about the real work of the Lebensborn. Did it really correspond to the by-laws of Lebensborn?\nAYes, completely. All other descriptions which are in contradiction with that statement are wrong, even if they are widespread. Curiosity and malice always smelled a rat in our attempts to preserve by all means the secret of motherhood.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4314, "page_number": "4307", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "QIf I understood you correctly, witness, you mean to imply that the ostracism against unmarried mothers which is widespread in Germany and other countries, was even transferred to Lebensborn?\nAYes. Referring to official American information even today it is asserted that the Lebensborn was a breeding institution,that,it had brothels and so on and so forth.\nQYou are referring to American official information?\nAYes, the chief editor of a Munich newspaper referred to official American information from Nurnberg when he was brought to trial on charges of libel contained in an article of 20 October 1947. He gave the names of the persons who had given him the information - three of the gentlemen mentioned are members of the Prosecution in this trial.\nQAnd what is the truth about Lebensborn?\nAThe truth is only what I have stated here.\nQIn the charitable activities of the Lebensborn, did you come into conflict with the natural principles of morality and reasonable ethics?\nAOur care for the unborn and the born child and for the expecting mother and the mother who had already given birth to the child is neither immoral nor sinful, be it that the parents of the child are married or not, be it that it refers to orphans whose origin is known or unknown.\nQThe women and children whom the Lebensborn helped came without the initiative of the Lebensborn?\nAYes. They needed help and they received help in the Lebensborn, or through the channels of the Lebensborn. That was the only contents of our work in the Lebensborn. There were some basic principles we adhered to very strictly. First, that mother and child are one unity. If the primary requisites of this entity did not exist from the beginning, then Lebensborn did whatever possible humanely to create these primary requisites.\nQIn what manner did you carry out this work?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4315, "page_number": "4308", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "AApart from the creation of peaceful possibilities of birth the Lebensborn considered its main task to see to it that when unmarried mothers left the home they would be in a position to take their child along or at least to get it as soon as possible and keep the child with themselves and bring it up themselves. Therefore, Lebensborn got them jobs where it was possible for the mothers to keep the child and to devote attention to the child, that is, to live with the child. The child was supported by the father and the Lebensborn saw to it that the fathers paid the alimony as punctual as possible. Thereby the Lebensborn took away financial burdens from the mothers and made it easier financially for the mothers to live together with their children.\nQHow was the situation with ethnic German orphans which were taken case of by the Lebensborn?\nAIn the case of orphans we didn't have the same problem. Apart from that the Lebensborn had always been assured that these orphans had no family links whatsoever. In other words, they had no other relatives who could or would have taken care of them. Especially with regard to these children who were not born within Lebensborn but who for one reason or another came into contact with Lebensborn I expressly ordered from the very beginning to see to it that all efforts were being made in order to get proof of their origin and to clarify their descent. And, actually Lebensborn succeeded in achieving what could be achieved. In such cases where lack of official papers started to be a disadvantage for the children, in order to create final conditions we would have to be satisfied with whatever information we had by the responsible Reich authorities. However, there were certain disadvantages for the children connected with that, because if the official papers lacked they would have difficulties, for instance, in obtaining to clothing and ration coupons. For in this connection everybody, who could not prove his German nationality by official papers was actually lost. But even in such cases we did not content ourselves \n to use these data as a basis for the creation of final conditions.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4316, "page_number": "4309", "date": "22 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-22", "text": "On the contrary we decided in those cases to exert the official pressure in order to establish the personal data only in a provisional manner as afforded by paragraphs 25, 26, 27 of the Law concerning the personal status. This very form was in line with the requirements because it afforded the possibility to make later changes, supplements and rectifications. However, if Lebensborn had aimed to camouflage the descent of these children, in other words, if we had intended to do something which was unlawful or inhuman, then what we really did would have to be considered as nonsensical and stupid.\nQWere there cases where relatives of these children later on reported to you?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4317, "page_number": "4310", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "AIn fact, in some cases I received information that relatives of children h ad turned up suddenly as we made efforts to clarify the descent of these children and on account of the clearing of the way which I had ordered to get the children in clear conditions after the homes in the Warthegau were dissolved. In those cases, I ordered the immediate return of the children to their relatives. For the rest, I permitted that the children correspond with their former neighbors and surroundings. It is true that I didn't even consider the possibility in this connection that the parents of some children would turn up, because at all times we had been assured again and again that these children had no parents. I certainly would have agreed, and I did agree, if these were even distant relatives who reported. As an additional example, I want to mention a case which I consider as unique where a girl of about 12 years expressed the desire to return to the Warthegau. This wish was granted right away on my orders.\nQHow did it come about at all that the Lebensborn would take over the case of those children coming from the Warthegau?\nAI don't remember the original details with great certainty, as far as they were known to me at all. I know that at some period or other - probably at the beginning of 1941 - a representative of the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV was at Munich and he referred to an order given by Himmler, according to which the inspectorate of the home schools - that is an agency of the Reich Ministry of Culture and the Lebensborn had to take over the care of about 300 German orphans without family links and should channel them into the fo sterships of German families. These children, according to his information, had already been registered by the Reich authorities in the Warthegau.\nQWas it not the Decree 67-1 of the Main Staff Office which was the basis for the housing and lodging of these children?\nANo, according to my opinion, it was a technical executive decree \n to a fundamental decree of Himmler.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4318, "page_number": "4311", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Himmler, in his capacity as RKFDV Leader, considered himself competent in this matter and as Chairman of the Praesidium of the Lebensborn he had issued orders to the Lebensborn to find places for these children. In the Decree 67-1 only the activities of the individual agencies are limited.\nQDid you take a part in the drawing up of the Decree 67-1?\nANo, according to my recollection, I gained personal knowledge of this decree only here in Nurnberg. However, I don't exclude the possibility that at the time when I was with the Lebensborn it was perhaps submitted to me, because here in Nurnberg I found out that this decree existed in the Lebensborn.\nQDid one of you collaborators participate in the drawing up of this Decree 67-1?\nANot according to my knowledge because in this respect I made considerable research and I tried to find out whatever I could find out.\nQDid the Lebensborn comply with the decree?\nAIn as far as the decree outlined the competencies, I would say yes, nowever, not in the basic points. According to my recollection, certain reports were made concerning these children, but they didn't go to the Main Staff Office as outlined in this decree, but to the Chairman of the Praesidium of the Lebensborn, and for the selection of the foster parents the question of whether the foster parents were members of the SS or the Nazi Party did not play any role at all in practice. We also accepted forster parents who had been social democrats or who had strong ties to the church.\nQWere you connected in any way with the measures taken in the Warthegau?\nANo, only here in Nurnberg I heard the details of how the organizational measures had been carried out in the Warthegau.\nQDid you ever examine children in the Warthegau or select them at any other places, or did you have them selected there?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4319, "page_number": "4312", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "ANo, I never issued any orders to ascertain where children were, as formulated in an affidavit submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 39.\nQBut after all, together with Dr. Tesch, you were at Poznan in the summer of 1943, weren't you?\nAYes. This trip, however, was in no way connected with the selection of children. Upon the repeated invitation of the Gauhauptmann, that is, in other words, of the Chief of the Reich Agency which in the Werthegau was called Gauselbstverwaltung - autonomous administration - I went to visit him in the summer of 1943. The reason was not the unique drive for the lodging of ethnic German orphans without family ties; the reason was quite different. The Gauhauptmann of the Warthegau, who had already some relations with the Lebensborn before I had come to be Chief of this organization, had shown himself ready during all the year when he had contact with the Lebensborn to find jobs for unmarried Lebensborn mothers - jobs where these mothers had the possibility of taking personal care for their children. He had made such excellent experience with these Lebensborn mothers that he wanted to build up quite a system of procurement of jobs for mothers of the Lebensborn. That was the actual reason for my trip to Poznan. I was to got a general impression of the extent and the activities of his agency, and above all, I was to use the opportunity to become personally acquainted with him. At the time the impression I gained was so excellent, particularly the impression I had with the Gau administration director, Dr. Bartels that during all these years, up to my first interrogation in Nurnberg, that is the 10th of Marcy 1947 - I never had even the shade of an idea that the care for the tieless orphans could ever have been conceived and described in the manner done by the Prosecution.\nQDid you know at all how the selection of the children in the Warthegau was carried out?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4320, "page_number": "4313", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "ANo, I don't know that.\nQWhen did you gain knowledge of the letter which the defendant Creutz wrote in August 1941 - and I am referring now to Prosecution Exhibit 406.\nAI gained this knowledge here in Nurnberg - that is, a few months ago.\nQWhen did you gain knowledge of the letters which Himmler wrote on the 14 and 18 of June 1941 to Greiser, Koppe, etc., and which were submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 405?\nAAgain here in Nurnberg - in other words, a few months ago.\nQDid you have other possibilities of gaining knowledge of the contents of these letters before the collapse of Germany; that is, from the alleged occurrences which according to the defendant Creutz are the basis of these letters from Himmler?\nANo.\nQDid you ever discuss these ethnic German children with Himmler?\nANo.\nQHow often did you talk with Himmler at all since you had become Chief of the Lebensborn?\nAEvery year about once or twice.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted a certain number of documents; for instance, Prosecution Exhibit421and 422, from which it becomes apparent that Himmler seems to have issued orders that for educational reasons children should be taken away from their parents. Did you know of these documents?\nANo.\nQThe drive of the Warthegau children, according to your experience, was it connected with such orders or expressions of opinion of Himmler?\nANo.\nQWitness, did you know Himmler's Poznan speech? I am referring now to Prosecution Exhibit504.\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4321, "page_number": "4314", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QDid you know Himmler's Schachen speech? I am referring to Prosecution Exhibit384.\nANo.\nQDid you know Himmler's Metz speech?\nANo.\nQDid you ever hear a speech of Himmler yourself?\nAYes. At the end of 1939 I heard a speech by Himmler which he held in Berlin to SS leaders and where he expressed himself on the uqestion of suicides, and pronounced the consequences as far as the SS was concerned: consequences which would be incurred by the suicide of an SS member. I was impressed by the fact that until the collapse Himmler considered and pronounced suicide as an act which was dishonorable and which would be punished beyond death by the Honor Court of the SS. If a man like Himmler commits suicide after all that, then I cannot forgot that and forgive it. I term that as a cowardly escape from responsibility. The courage to take over one's own responsibility I consider the basis of all human virtue. Therefore I have not the slightest inclination to defend Himmler and to stand up for Himmler. However, for five years I had the honor of being the Chief of the Lebensborn. During those five years, I had the responsibility for the Lebensborn and I stood up for it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4322, "page_number": "4315", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "Since he is dead now I am the sole person responsible for this foundation of Himmler's. This suddenly seems to have turned into a hardly acceptable and bearable burden. However, not even once did I play with the idea to try and unload that burden from my shoulders. I know, and with me there are many others, who know that in the Lebensborn no crimes were committed, that no laws and no justice and no unwritten laws of morale and humanity were violated. Himmler had furnished the Lebensborn of its start with a sentence which almost sounded like a religious dogma. This sentence was, \"everymother of good blood is to be sacred for us.\" This sentence was the code of arms of the Lebensborn. For this high Tribunal I state that every mother of good blood was actually sacred for us and thereby according to my opinion I give the most complete testimony which refutes the charges made by the Prosecution, according to which the Lebensborn was guilty of the capital crime of kidnapping of infants or had taken part in it. The Prosecution had to see and should have seen that their assertions are based only on arbitrary constructions and wrong conclusions. In reality every mother of good blood, as I said before, was sacred for us and whatever the Prosecution gives as the motive for the asserted kidnapping of infants is just the good blood of the allegedly kidnapped infants. Therefore, the mother of these children must have been of good blood too, and these mothers were also sacred to Himmler's Lebensborn. All the so-called Lebensborn mothers have felt that on their own body and I, as the last chief of the Lebensborn can testify that too.\nQHave you heard or read speeches of Himmler apart from the one you were referring to now?\nAApart from two speeches which Himmler held at the occasion of the creation of some sport insignia or at the occasion of a reception of SS candidates, I only know his speech to the employees of the justice administration of the Greater German Reich, a speech which he made in 1944 or 1943 at Kochem on the Mosel. I read this speech. This, according to my knowledge, was the only speech where Himmler, amongst \n others, referred to and described the activities of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4323, "page_number": "4316", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "The speech contained a description of the basic idea and of the work of the Lebensborn, and was exhaustive in spite of its short formulation. I did not succeed in procuring this speech now but this speech would have made it possible, by one blow, to prove that in his speeches in Posen and Bad Schachen Himmler certainly couldn't have thought of the Lebensborn. For the rest from the Prosecution documents, it can be seen that as far as the ideas expressed in the Posen and Schachen speeches of Himmler are concerned that in no single instance the Lebensborn was mentioned, neither in the contents nor in the distribution list. On this occasion I have to state that Himmler had issued directives to the Lebensborn to influence every expectant mother in a final way when this mother had the idea of giving her child away for adoption, to influence the mother to the effect that under all circumstances she should keep her child. This directive by Himmler contained also the obligation for the Lebensborn to warn all mothers by writing in the most intensive way that they should not give away their child in case they informed the Lebensborn of their intentions and to try to convince them to give up the idea of adoption. In many cases the Lebensborn was successful in this field, successful in its tendency to influence unmarried mothers and to convince them that they should not have their child adopted by strange people, and that is how out of the illegitimate children born in the Lebensborn, only 2 per cent were adopted by strangers. The history of this Himmler Order is the following: He was acquainted with a family who had an adopted son and when this young man was 16, the foster parents and the mother of this boy had requested Himmler to tell him who were his real parents. The reason for this was the normal desire of the real mother to show herself to her son as his mother. In his attempt to bring the son together with the real mother Himmler met such an icy and iron rejection on the part of this young man when he tried to comply with the wish of the mother and the \n foster parents that as he said he was really deeply moved and overwhelmed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4324, "page_number": "4317", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "To a circle of employees of the Lebensborn Himmler described this occurrence and told them that this young man had stated that with the woman who had really found right to keep away from her own child for 16 years he wanted to have nothing to do and this incident as Himmler said brought him to the decision to warn mothers and to prevent within the Lebensborn as far as possible such tragic developments between mother and child.\nQWitness, in the course of this trial details have been brought up referring to Himmler's relation with the leadership corps of the SS and particularly to the so-called old SS officers. You were an office chief in the personal staff of Himmler. Are you also in a position to comment on the attempt and tendencies to make Himmler resign because and after he had lost the respect of the SS men?\nAI never heard about Himmler having lost the respect of the SS men. It is true that I was an office chief in the personal staff of Himmler but I was not in the focus of the political events and therefore I never made the acquaintance of these undercurrents. Such focus may be considered the political and military leadership center in Berlin or in the field command. My position in the personal staff of Himmler was characterized by my activities as chief of the Lebensborn. Himmler had an interest in the problem of illegitimate motherhood together with the prevention of abortions. That changed, however, and I thought it was on account of his lack of time. In my personal conversations with Himmler only topics concerning the Lebensborn were touched upon, never political or military topics; also all other SS leaders saw in me only and alone the chief of a welfare establishment whom one would remember in cases where help was needed. I had no political or social relationship with anybody. I didn't even attend the manifestations of the SS Main Sector Munich, or of the units of the Waffen SS who were stationed in Munich. This seclusion referred to the whole of the Lebensborn which also in \n normal times already was almost an island within Munich as far as the SS went.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4325, "page_number": "4318", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "This isolation became even stronger when the Lebensborn left Munich and moved into a small peasant village 25 miles East of Munich when by an airraid attack the whole offices of Lebensborn in Munich had become unusable.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 Monday morning.\n(A recess was taken until Monday, 26 January 1948, at 0930 hours)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4326, "page_number": "4319", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_1_ Love (Garand) Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 26 January 1948, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you asce tained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors all defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nDR.MUELLER (for the defendant Meyer_Hetling): May it please the Tribunal, before we begin this morning's session I request that the defendant Meyer_Hetling be excused from this afternoon's session. Important questions have arisen in the meantime and I would like to discuss these questions with him immediately.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Your request is granted.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you, your Honor.\nDR.RATZ (for the defendant Max Sollmann): Your Honor, at this time I would like to continue my examination of the defendant Sollmann.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead.\nMAX SOLLMANN--Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, we have now come to the care which was given to ethnic German orphans in the Lebersborn. With regard to the children in the Warthegau the actual conditions which prevailed have so far been clarified. Will you now please tell the Tribunal in what way and at what time the Lebensborn had additional contact with other children, who had not been born in the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4327, "page_number": "4320", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_2_Love (Garand)\nAThis was done in consideration of the conditions which had been caused by the war.\nQWhat do you mean by that.\nAFor example, one day the Higher SS and Police Leader at Salzburg called me by telephone and he asked me to care for some children who were located in a camp in Carniola and no good care was being taken of them there and they were unable to remain in that camp.\nQApparently these are the children which the Prosecution has described as being Yugoslav children?\nAYes, Yugoslav children; however, the term Yugoslav children was not mentioned at the time but we we e told that these children were ethnic German orphans without any family ties.\nQHow many children was the Lebensborn to take care of?\nAHe certain figure was mentioned either. I was only requested as an emergency to furnish aid from the Lebensborn as far as possible. The emergency situation in which these children found themselves was described to me in a very impressive manner and throughout the years there was no doubt as far as I was concerned that the verbal statements of the Higher SS and Police leader were true, especially in view of the fact that these children were actually ethnic German orphans without any family ties. Of course on this occasion I did not make any inquiries, in what function the Higher SS and Police Leader had called me. I don't know whether he did this in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader, that is to say as a Government official, or as an SS officer or as a police officer, or as the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. After all it didn't make any difference anyway.\nQYou talked about the aid which the Lebensborn furnished as far as was possible. What did you mean by that?\nAThe Lebensborn could fundamentally only take care of those children who were to be passed on to adoption homes and to foster homes because in order to care for other children, for example for a longer \n 26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_3_Love (Garand) period of time in homes or the permanent care of sick children, we did not have the possibility of doing that in Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4328, "page_number": "4321", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Also the couples who had reported to the Lebensborn without the initiative of the Lebensborn and who had reported as foster parents in general only wanted children if they had a chance of adopting them later on. The formalities which were connected with the adoptions we placed completely in the background during the war and postponed them according to the information which I received; all these ethnich German children whom we took care of during the war, only two adoptions were carried out, limited to children of so-called good race and the prerequisites for the adoption not only had been examinaed by us but they had also been examined by the competent court without whom no adoption measure could become legal.\nQTherefore, you want to say that the Lebensborn in the case of children who required aid could only furnish that aid to a very limited extent if these children did not suffer any hereditary diseases and if the prerequisites for later adoption were given?\nAYes, and that is how it can be understood that according to the terminology which was used at the time in Lebensborn limited its care to children who were of good stock and needed aid.\nQWas this limited help also applied to the Eastern children whom you have just mentioned?\nAAs far as I know, yes, and it also becomes evident from the documents. It becomes evidence in particular from the fact that it only came to my knowledge now, that at the time it is alleged that 600 children were mentioned. However, the Lebensborn only accepted approximately 20 of these children and as far as I was able to ascertain here in Nurnberg of these quite a number were returned.\nQYou stated that in the ease of these children you have given assurance that these children were of ethnic German origin and that their parents were not alive any more.\nAYes, repeatedly and extensively we were told that by various \n 26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_4_Love (Garand) agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4329, "page_number": "4322", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "As far as I can recall several cases later on the members of the families of these children reported but they were never the parents of these children. As a result several cases later on the members of the families of these children reported but they were never the parents of these children. As a result of my fundamental directives in these cases it was only natural that these children were immediately returned to the relatives.\nQWitness, before you go further, can you state of all the Lebensborn dealt with, these children from the East for the first time, after they had been taken over by other agencies for the past approximately 20 children for the Lebensborn - this was done with the assurances that those children did not have any family ties and were of ethnic German stock. Is that correct?\nAYes.\nQWhen were these children from Carniola taken over?\nAThe Lebensborn took them over in the second half of the year 1942.\nQDid you know Brigadefuehrer Hintze from the Main Staff Office who carried out the deportation of the Slovenes?\nANo, I have heard this name here in Nurnberg for the first time in the course of this trial.\nQWitness, the Lebensborn also took care of several children who previously had been located in the children's home in Puschkau, in the district of Posen and who had originally come from the Protectorate. What do you know about that case?\nAToward the end of August 1942 the Lebensborn received a teletyped enquiry from Prague, whether they could take over 200 ethnic German orphans in this home. I disapproved this request through my collaborator Ueberschar because the Lebensborn couldn't accomodate these children. In the summer of 1943, one year later, I received a written order from Himmler and this is Prosecution Exhibit No.397, that I was to contact the German Reich Ministers for Bohemia and Theraisa, SS Obergruppenfuehrer \n 26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_1_5_Love (Garand) Frank, on the question of the care, education and accomodation of Czech children whose parents had been executed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4330, "page_number": "4323", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "At the time I went to see Frank and I convinced him in the course of a brief discussion that the Lebensborn did not want to include themselves in this matter and it could not do that.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4331, "page_number": "4324", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_2_1_Love (Garand)\nQAnd how did you convince him finally?\nABy telling him that I was only concerning myself with ethnic German orphans who did not have any families, that is to say, orphans without relatives. On this occasion I found out that there were only two orphans altogether who perhaps would he of interest for the Lebensborn. Frank regretted at the time that I had been ordered to come to Prague for nothings. As a matter of fact in the course of my work such eases occurred repeatedly. Some agency or other would turn to Himmler with a critical enquiry and then I would receive an order that we would have to discuss this matter, then I would go to that agency and everything was just plain air, just a big snow job. I can recall that on one occasion I was ordered to go to Paris, in order to care for 50,000 children and not even five children actually existed. As a matter of fact I didn't regret that I had to go to Paris.\nQWitness, according to the letter, Prosecution Exhibit398, which you wrote to Himmler, is the result of your journey to Prague, one could conclude that you stated that you were ready to accept these children and that perhaps you took over a number of these children into theLebensborn later on. What can you say in that connection?\nAI took the trip in the summer of 1943. As the result of this trip not a single child came to the Lebensborn. My reply to Himmler, in substance, corresponded to the order of Himmler. This was appropriate and it was even necessary if I wanted to safeguard the agreement which I had reached with Frank according to which the Lebensborn, in spite of the order Himmler had given, would not be included in this entire affair.\nQAccordingly did you give a false description to Himmler?\nANo, it was not false at all. I only failed to report to Himmler and I had agreed with Frank that the Lebensborn should be excluded.\nQIt is decisive whether or not as the result of this trip the Lebensborn took over any Czech children?\nANo, as a result of my trip no Czech children were taken over.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4332, "page_number": "4325", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_2_2_Love (Garand)\nQBefore that or later on did you go to Prague again?\nANo, I have only been to Prague once in my life and that was in the summer of 1943.\nQWitness, Prosecution Exhibit399, a letter was submitted which shows that Medical Councilor Dr. Piess sent this to Dr. Brandt on Himmler's staff in the summer of 1944. Can this letter be described as being a reproduction of your conversation with Frank in the agreement you reached?\nAWhat Dr. Piess wrote down as a plan and a partly executed measure in 1944 was neither mentioned by Frank nor by Piess in the course of our discussion in 1943.\nQIn your affidavit, Exhibit 13, you stated that in your discussion the fact had been mentioned that children who were older than 16 years were to be sent into labor camps. What sort of camps did you visualize when you said that? Was there something unusual about that?\nAIn this connection I must say that I did not mention labor camps at all but the expression was used in the course of the discussion. I didn't think anything about it at the time. Not only within Greater Germany, but also in other European countries, and countries beyond Europe, there were and still are labor camps, or labor service camps for young people above the age of 16.\nQWitness, therefore, I understood you correctly then that from your discussion in Prague in the year 1943 and also from the trip which one of your collaborators of Berlin Ueberschar took in 1942 to Prague in order to disapprove the request of a Prague agency to accept 200 ethnic German orphans in the Lebensborn and as a result of which not a single child was sent to Germany proper, much loss into Lebensborn?\nAYes, that is correct, not a single child came to us as the result of this trip. Not only no Czech children but no children at all.\nQHow did the Lebensborn establish contact at all with the 12 or 13 children which were the subject of this trial under the term, \"the children but no children at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4333, "page_number": "4326", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_2_3_Love(Garand)\nQHow did the Lebensborn establish contact at all with the 12 or 13 children which were the subject of this trial under the term, \"the children from Lidice.\"\nAIn August 1942 the Lebensborn received a request from the children's home at Puschkau which belonged to the District Self Administration in Posen and which was operated by it and this has been exhibited as Prosecution Exhibit715. The Lebensborn requested in a letter to care for several children in the Protectorate who were mentioned by name, that is to say, they were to furnish clothing for these children and we complied with this request. From Proescution 719 it becomes evident that the Lebensborn must have been requested a second time to furnish clothing for an additional 7 children from the Protectorate. We also complied with that request. As becomes evident from a Prosecution document whose number I don't know at the moment, these children had come from Lodz and they were sent to the District Children's Home at Puschkau and the Lebensborn had not been informed of the fact that these children were sent there and of course Lebensborn had nothing to do with it. The District Self Administration of Posen already at that time considered the Lebensborn to be an exemplary institution in the field of care and assistance for children. The men in the District Self Administration office in Salzberg conferred with the Lebensborn instead of working with the NSV. That is why in the care to be given to these children from the Protectorate the advice of the Lebensborn was used as being only natural. We consulted the District Self Administration in Posen in the course of examination of the prerequisite with reference of placing these children in foster homes in cases where the District Self Administration had selected homes for these children. In the examination of the prerequisites by the Lebensborn in this respect was limited to formal questions but in any case for the competent agencies of the District Self Administration in Posen, it was a good feeling at least to know that the foster homes which they had selected had been examined from the viewpoint of the Lebensborn. The examination, therefore, was applied to couples who had \n 26 Jan 1948_M_MSD_2_4_Love (Garand) volunteered to take a foster child at the District Self Administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4334, "page_number": "4327", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "The examination consisted of the fact whether or not this couple could take care of a child. Then they had to submit their geneological chart in accordance with usage in the German Reich of National-Socialist doctrine. 1,000 prercauisites had to be fulfilled in order to show that these people were worthy of having the honor of looking after the foster child and that is why the Lebensborn had its own machinery to do this and with their experience that was routine work for them. After the children had been put into foster homes the Lebensborn tried with more or loss success to establish or maintain contact with the foster parents. In one individual case, already in June 1942, the Lebensborn had been requested by the District Self Administration to take care of children from Prague and not from Lidice. There were two children and for these two children the Lebensborn on the 27 July 1942 had suggested foster homes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4335, "page_number": "4328", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "The children actually arrived on the 29th December, 1942. The span of time of perhaps half a year which passed between these two dates was filled in by the following: The first information which the Lebensborn received about these two children, and which the Lebensborn passed on to the couple, to the foster parents, stated that these two children did not have any families. Two weeks later the Lebensborn received the information that it was probable, or that the possibility existed, that in this case the mother of the children was still alive, and that she was in a concentration camp. The Lebensborn immediately reported this information to the prospective foster parents. Furthermore, at the same time, the Lebensborn requested the decision of Himmler of what was to be done in this case. The experts already had so motherly reactions in this case, and they even expected that an immediate inquiry to Himmler would bring about the release of this mother from the concentration camp. Himmler decided that after two years these two children were to be returned to their mother, that is to say at least at the end of the war; that is to say as soon as their mother would be released from confinement, and Dr. Weiss, who was to give a foster home to the child was informed of that fact, and Frau Weiss declared herself willing to accept the hildren under these circumstances, and she promised to look after the child to the best of her ability, as if she were her own child, and she kept her promise. At the beginning of 1944, the Lebensborn in this case again took steps, and this can be proven in order to clarify this affiar with the intention of locating the mother of these children, and that was not a simple thing to do, and some extensive correspondence resulted with agencies of the state and the SS, in the Reich and within the Protectorate. However, there were so many contradictions as a result of this correspondence with regard to the question whether the mother was still alive, and if she was alive where she could be found, that it was not possible to clarify this matter until the end of the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4336, "page_number": "4329", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWitness, did you personally participate in this extensive correspondence?\nAI can recall that one of my collaborators reported to me that in the course of the inquiries on two or three occasions he made inquiries to the concentration camp at Ravensbrueck, and he told me that he had not received any replies from his inquiries . In order to give more emphasis to such an inquiry, I personally used an official letter which was at my disposal, and this was not the letterhead which was used in this trial, the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, but it was a letterhead which stated the Reichsfuehrer SS, Personal Staff, Office II, Munich 2, HerzogMaxstrasse, 327. On this letterhead I myself wrote to the headquarters of the concentration camp Ravensbrueck, and I also wrote to Himmler. In both cases I did not have any success whatsoever. As a result of this, I would put this whole correspondence into a file which I kept whenever I reported to the Reichsfuehrer, and I would use it on that occasion, and I wanted to discuss the whole matter with Himmler in person; however, this discussion never took place.\nQIn conclusion and in any case you can state that the foster parents of these children had been informed about the conditions which actually prevailed, as far as this information had become available to the Lebensborn; that the foster parents knew their obligation in this matter that the children would be returned to their mother as soon as a possibility had been established for doing so.\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether at the end of the war these children were returned?\nAYes. On the 5th of July, 1945, they were taken away by an uncle of these children, and I myself have seen the photostatic copy of a letter of the family which contains a lot of recognition and which the uncle of these children turned over to the foster parents for their own use.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4337, "page_number": "4330", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWith regard to these 12 or 13 children, did you hear of any other cases where the mother of the child was in punitive confinement or in protective custody?\nANo, I did not hear of any other case of that sort.\nQWitness, can you state that the Lebensborn pursued all cases energetically where the information had become available, even if it was uncertain, that there was a possibility that members of the family of these children were still alive; and, that the Lebensborn had the intention to return these children to their families?\nAYes, I have already mentioned that we adhered to one basic principle in the Lebensborn with regard to this; that was the principle that mother and child are one single unit. Of course this did not only apply to the children who had been born in the Lebensborn, but it applied to every child that had any contact whatsoever in the Lebensborn.\nQIn mentioning the activities of the Lebensborn, with regard to the children who had been born out of wedlock and their mothers, you spoke about the deformation and, legality, and you described just how much the Lebensborn tried to remove the results of this deformation. I now want to ask you, with regard to the welfare of the Lebensborn, as far as these children were concerned who had not been born in the Lebensborn, did you apply a similar point of view to these cases?\nAYes. As strange as it may sound, the ethnic Germans who had come into Germany proper from the incorporated territories of the East and the South East, always had to count on the danger that they would be considered as inferior in the Reich. During the war these attempts of considering these people inferior had strengthened, and they were even expressed in various decrees in such a way that these people were put on a lower level even as far as food was concerned if they could not prove they had become citizens of the Reich.\nQDid the children also have to suffer as a result of that?\nAYes. In this trial the Prosecution has given proof of that, \n although I did not know the incidents up to that time.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4338, "page_number": "4331", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "However, we had fears in that direction and we constantly had them come to our attention and I refer to an affidavit of the child Emilie Frey; this is Document 5467, Prosecution Exhibit733, and I want to refer to the following sentence which has been given in this affidavit and I quote: \"I went to the German public school, and there the children would swear at me, especially at the beginning, and they called me a Czech swine and a Czech where and things of that sort; they would beat me up and I had to defend myself.\"\nQDid you do anything in order to prevent such inhuman things from occurring?\nAYes, naturally. The entire activity of the Lebensborn on the formal legal field, as far as these children were concerned who had not been born in the Lebensborn, had the only aim to establish conditions on the outside where the children in their new surroundings would be considered valuable and that they would be placed on an equal basis with others - in every respect, that is to say physically and psychologically.\nQWitness, the Prosecution has charged under Point 11, amongst other things, responsibility for the fact that you carried out a systematic plan of kidnapping children and that numerous birth certificates had been falsified for that purpose, and that German names were given to children who had been selected for re-Germanization. What can you say in that connection?\nAIn this connection I want to state the following: First of all, neither I nor upon my orders any of my collaborators ever participated in this alleged program of kidnapping. We did not have any reason to assume that such plan actually existed, as the Prosecution has alleged. Secondly, neither I, nor by my orders, any of my collaborators, ever selected any children. Thirdly, neither I, nor did any of my collaborators upon my orders ever falsify a document. Fourthly, the charge that we had given German names to children who had been selected for \n re-Germanization, as far as the Lebensborn is concerned, refers to fifteen or twenty cases, and not to six thousand, where I, according to paragraphs 25 and 26 of the German Law Code, I acted as a result of plenipotentiary powers given to me by the Reich Ministry of the Interior in order to comply with the provisions set forth in this law.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4339, "page_number": "4332", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWhat fifteen or twenty cases are you referring to just now?\nAAmongst the ethnic Germansorphans without families, there were also children whose own names we could not find out any more; that is why we turned to the Reich Ministry of the Interior, which was a competent agency, and we received permission for the execution of the formalities that we could use the Registration Office of the Lebensborn at Munich, which, however, had been established for a completely different purpose; this was just a provisional agency which had been established as a result of the war. The utilization of the Registration Office for these ethnic German children was a function which had been caused by the war, and war carried out in line with the general simplification procedures for the entire Reich, and also the measures according to Paragraphs 25, 26 and 27 of the Law Code, which explicitly stated that it was a provisional measure within the scope of the law.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4340, "page_number": "4333", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.I must assume that the Prosecution has concluded that falsification of records was carried out \"because the Registrar's Office of the Lebensborn in these fifteen or twenty cases issued birth certificates. In those cases were any birth certificates presented which could have been falsified?\nA.No. It was just because such certificates were lacking which caused us to make some temporary replacement, for them as soon as this proved to be necessary.\nQ.Therefore, you only instructed the Registrar's OfficeL toissue birth certificates only on those occasions when the origin of the child had not been clarified up to that time, as to the name and the personal data.\nA.Yes. It also becomes evident from Prosecution Exhibit393and other Prosecution Exhibits where a matter was concerned in ascertaining the ages of these children; the ascertaining of age of these children would have been unnecessary if we had had any certificates about these children, especially birth certificates.\nQ.In these cases you did not know the place of birth nor did you know the date of birth of the child; and, what about the name of the child?\nA.Well, we did not have any documents either with regard to the children's names, and the information which we could gain at that time was not only unreliable and it did not only contain contradictions, but it had led us to the conclusion that these aims from the objective sense were wrong under which the children had been brought into the Lebensborn. For example, the authorities in the Warthegau informed us that no official term was available at all about these children; or, that the children in the orphanages, or in the foster homes had been given Polinized German names; or Polish names, which they had been given privately in the foster homes and in the orphanages because their correct names were not known.\nQ.With this state of affairs, you could have issued many more birth certificates in accordance with Paragraph 25, 26, 27. Was this done?\nA.No, it was not done, As far as I can recall clearly we only had fifteen to twenty cases where this was necessary, and necessary in the \n interests of the children.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4341, "page_number": "4334", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.Why wasn't this also done in other cases?\nA.First of all, the children were not enough interested in the matter yet, that is to say, the children had not yet received any disadvantages from it. Secondly, the inquiries continued as for as possible during the hardships in the course of the war. The Lebensborn only wanted to make up for the lacking of necessary material in documents and they did not want the children being put at or to incur any disadvantages from that. Whether such fears actually existed only became evident after the child had been brough into a foster home, and only when the foster parents told us that without a birth certificate or some official notification they could not get along any longer. Then the case would be handled by my legal experts or the Registrar's Office \"L\" of the Lebensborn, and then according to the individual case something would be done about the matter, one way or the other, that is to say either a birth certificate was issued, or if existing difficulties could already be removed, with some other certificate, then, for example, we would give a foster parent a certificate on the letterhead of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism; or, we just issued some certificate with the letterhead children from Lebensborn so that authorities were satisfied with that also.\nQ.Therefore, you did not follow any certain procedure for that, and, as becomes evident from Prosecution Exhibit388, you only issued as a result of this authorization from the Reich Ministry of Interior only a very few, ten per cent of all cases, that is to say whenever urgent necessity required you to do so.\nA.Yes.\nQ.In this connection did you forget all about the old name of the children who had been taken in by the Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4342, "page_number": "4335", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "ANo, in the instructions, which I have signed, there are approximately fifteen or twenty of then and in the Registar's Office these names also with bureaucratic care were clearly written down. The Prosecution witness Dr. Schulz, who was competent for this matter, and who was the only man who dealt with these things in the Lebensborn, and who had extensive knowledge in this field, and who can rightly be called an expert, this Prosecution witness, Dr. Schulz, on the 5th of November, 1947 testified about this matter before the Tribunal.\nI want to use this opportunity in order to correct a mistake which has been made in both the English and German texts of the transcript of the 5th November, 1947, and which changes the actual testimony given by the witness Schulz and actually gives it a contrary meaning. He spoke of the Roeten, that is to say to underline something in rod of the former names; and in the German transcript, on page 1044 it has been said in the red lines were erased; the names had been erased. The word \"erased\" was ised instead of underlined in red; and the English transcript, on page 1088, also used the term \"erased\" instead of \"underlined in red.\"\nQWhat names did these children receive after that?\nAThese fifteen or twenty children would receive appropriately the names of their foster parents. After all, this corresponded to the best interests of the child and the foster parents had requested us to do that, and after the prerequisites of paragraphs 25 and 26 of the Personal Law had been complied with, and in this law, for this case, the selection and choice of the name is quite free. As a matter of fact, it is still being done at all times, even after the collapse of the Third Reich. We shall bring proof to that effect to the Tribunal.\nQAnd was now a final condition established which could not be changed any more?\nANo. According to the Personal Law, according to Paragraph 25 and 26, only a temporary condition is established, which, according to \n Paragraph 27 can be changed at any time, that is to say, can be changed again and corrected.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4343, "page_number": "4336", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QDid you have the intention of hiding the origin of the children?\nAI want to repeat once more, I did not try to do that. The foster parents were informed about the origin of these children as far as the Lebensborn had the necessary information. This was done in contrast to those cases where children were given into adoption homes who had been born out of wedlock and kept in the Lebensborn. we carefully and reliably looked after the children who had not been born in the Lebensborn, and saw to it that every possibility remained open for correct ions which had to be carried out if we were to be successful in our attempts in ascertaining the origin of these children.\nQ.Up to now we only talked about fifteen or twenty cases, where birth certificates of these children had to be issued without any information about these children being available.\nHow was it done in the other cases, that is to say in the majority of cases?\nA.I want to repeat that the interest and the welfare of the child was a decisive factor. That is why we supported the attempts of the foster parents to protect the child from curiosity of its now surroundings. This curiosity, as far as we know, always led to deformations and ridicule. In other cases,that is to say not in the fifteen or twenty cases. we would issue certificates to the foster parents which they could submit to the local authorities of the government, community and the party. However, we did not follow any certain procedure; we just dealt with the individual case. For example, if the state agencies which issued ration cards at Bayreuth would be satisfied with the certificate from the Lebensborn Society, then, as the Prosecution witness Uebe has testified, we would use the letterhead of the Lebensborn. For example, if financial office would refuse to grant a reduction on the taxes because of a child which legally was available to every German who had provided a foster home for a child, as it happened in the case Heidelberg, and this is a document which will be submitted as No. 9 in my document book under the Document No. SO-89.", "speakers": [ "A", "A.", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4344, "page_number": "4337", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "then in that case we would use a letterhead of a government agency, in order to satisfy the officials in the Finance Office who were competent for that, and who adhered closely to the legal provisions. Thus we enabled them to comply with their regulations and also to give to the child what the German Reich legally wanted to grant to the child.\nWe used the letterhead of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in cases where the foster parents placed any emphasis on obtaining the tax reduction or subsistence from the State for the accepting of foster children. Quite a number of foster parents didn't even want that, as the witness Vogt testified here several days age.\nThat the origin of the children was not hidden has been testified to by the Prosecution witness Uebe before this Tribunal. Furthermore, that becomes evident by the presentation of the original of the type of certificate which was issued to the foster parents, as we would issue them, for example, on the letterhead of the Main Staff Office. This is a document which will be submitted on my behalf as SO No. 84.\nSince I am speaking of tax reductions and government subsistence for children, I must mention something else, which was recently mentioned in the cross-examination of a witness, and that was the subsistence allowance for a child. This was customary especially in Bavaria and Austria -- that is to say, in the Southern German countries--and it is still customary today. that is, that in those cases where parents had to turn the children over to foster parents, a certain subsistence allowance was paid. This subsistence allowance actually had nothing to do with the children themselves, but it was only for the foster parents, as an allowance for the material expenses which they incurred as a result of the child. I ascertained with great satisfaction that the so-called subsistence allowances which the Lebensborn paid were placed in saving accounts under the names of the children. That was testified to on the 15th of January by the witness Kaestle, and it was testified to on the 23rd of January by the witness Vogt. This is exemplary for me.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4345, "page_number": "4338", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "On this occasion I want to say that I instructed my defense counsel to bring forth all the evidence available for the defense of Lebensborn in the way in which it was offered, that is to Say, we wished to avoid any pretext of only submitting evidence which was favorable to us and hiding or leaving out entirely the evidence which was apparently less favorable. We have only one intent, which is this: We wish to clarify all things that have not been clarified yet. That is our only aim. We do not only want to bring forth one side of the matter, or to censor it in any way, or to fake it. This refers especially to the foster parents and foster children whom we have called to the witness stand, and it refers especially to my document books Nos. 9 and 10, which are just to give an average, so to speak.\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution has made statements with regard to certificates of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism concerning changes in names.\nA.That is quite wrong . From the original certificate, which we are able to submit, it becomes quite clearlyevident that no change of name of any kind was concerned here. These were just certificates which were issued to the foster parents certifying that they had the child in their care; that is to say, this was a certificate from an official agency which was intended for small agencies, as, for example, a finance office. We wanted to appease them in the event of a fear that this child was not German, perhaps, for an official may have considered this child inferior in any case, because it had come from the East. That was the situation which existed in Germany proper.\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution assumes that the utilization of the letterheads from the Main Staff Office was a clear proof of the fact that the Registration OfficeL ofLebensborn was identical with Lebensborn, actually.\nA.I believe this question has not been correctly translated. Will you repeat it, please?\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution assumes that the utilization of the letterheads of the Main Staff Office of the Lebensborn was clear proof of the \n fact of the existence of a so-called OfficeL inthe Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and that had been identical with Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4346, "page_number": "4339", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "A.This assumption is not at all correct. There was no OfficeL ofthe Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. From the original certificate which we shall submit -- that is a document which will be offered on my behalf, Document 80, No. 84 -- it becomes quite clearly evident that the addition of \"Office L\" is not a supplementation of the letterhead, but it is just a sort of file note. The addition \"Office L\" was added by typewriter, in the spot which was intended for the file note, and which was clearly marked in that sense by a special mark. Of course, it was an unfortunate choice for that matter at that particular point on the letterhead, and sometimes, in the case of outside agencies who did not know about the matter, the impression might have been created that this was a supplementation on the letterhead and that Lebensborn, consequently, was identical with this fictional OfficeL ofthe Main Staff Office.\nFurthermore, on one occasion I actually did try to turn over to the Main Staff Office this entire field of the care for ethnic German children without families. In the conversation which I tried to start on this point I felt that my colleague Creutz did not approve of this plan. Therefore, I decided that if I wanted to do anything about the matter, I would have to discuss it with Himmler myself. Idid not want to talk to Himmler about these things, and I never did. However, it was clear to me that if I went to Himmler with any suggestion, then I could not say to him, \"Reichsfuehrer, I would like to turn several children over to the Main Staff Office.\" He would never have understood that at All. However, I could have said to him, \"Reichsfuehrer, I have a department here which is actually outside of the scope of the Lebensborn, and I would like to turn it over to the Main Staff Office anyway, because it belongs there.\" Then he would have seen my point and he would have complied with my request. Therefore, it wasn't too bad at all that all these matters were handled through the Lebensborn in one unit, with the aim of turning them over to some other agency some \n day.", "speakers": [ "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4347, "page_number": "4340", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Whether this was Office L, or whether it was Main Department L, or some other name, or whether, in some discussions, they were given different names, didn't make any different anyhow. As I have already stated, in regard to the terminology of Lebensborn, I never placed any great emphasis on the terms used at that time.\nQ.Witness, in some other connection you spoke about clearing the path over which these ethnic German orphans went. What was done by Lebensborn in this respect?\nA.Everything was done which was appropriate and necessary in order to be able to discover, concerning the children, whether any of the members of their families appeared, whether they were looking for the children. I have already spoken about the permission with regard to the correspondence which I issued, and I have also spoken about our attempts with regard to the procurement of documents from the Warthegau. In those cases where the children were living under false names, where, according to the German Personal Law. they had received the names of their foster parents, and also in those cases at Lodz where the Polanized names of the children had been re-Germanized, both names of every child would accompany the child right into his foster home. Furthermore, we saw to it that the name of the foster parents--if it had been transferred to the child--would be reported to the police agency at Kalisch, and I would contact the registrars and experts of the Lebensborn and send them to Kalisch twice with the order to make certain that my recommendation had been complied with, according to which Kalisch had to report the names of the fester parents, if they had been transferred to the child, to the police agencies at the places of origin of the children.\nI believe that on this occasion I can point out that in the years 1919 to 1939 the Warthegau was not a part of the German Reich. In 1939 it was again combined with the German Reich, just as the former German province of West Prussia, which, in 1919, were also lost to the German Reich. At that time no German considered these areas to be Polish territory, whenever the Warthegau or West Prussia were mentioned. Poland as a State--and this \n was also the case after 1939--existed as a State, and this was the so-called Government General.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4348, "page_number": "4341", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "The children from the Warthegau, however, did not come from Poland, and they did not come from the Government General. They did not cone to Germany from Poland, but they came from the territory which, at that time, according to our national opinion, was the liberated Warthegau, according to the laws which were prevalent at the time. They were sent to families in Germany proper. Before that they had been in children's hones, because the welfare possibilities in the Warthegau were smaller than those which existed in Germany proper.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4349, "page_number": "4342", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Court is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nMAX SOLLMANN - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Cont'd) BY DR. RATS:\nQWitness, therefore did I understand you correctly that as far as you were in a position to do so you took care to see to it that every child entrusted to Lebensborn to be placed in a foster home could be determined from the point of origin irrespective of whether it still took a Polish sounding name or its name had been Germanized, namely a temporary German name which had been Polonized temporarily, or whether it carried the name of its foster parents due to the legal provision of the former Polish state?\nAYes, to the extent that Lebensborn was able to do so, pursuant to my own personal instructions, it took care to see to it that every child could he determined by its origin, as a matter of fact we saw that this procedure functioned in accordance with the personal statute law.\nQFrom what you told us up to now we can gather that the administration in Poznan as far as these ethnic german children are concerned did not act as representative or by order of the Lebensborn. Is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct. The Gauself administration acted neither by order nor in representation of the Lebensborn.\nQNow the Gauself administration director, Dr. Bartels at one time was a representative of Lebensborn?\nAYes, that is also correct. He as far as I recall became representative of Lebensborn at the end of 1943 or perhaps 1944, but for a different reason altogether. He was made representative and this had nothing to do whatever with the drive for placing ethnic German orphans in German homes. Dr. Bartels became a Lebensborn representative because Gaubouptmann Schulz that is his superior in the course of time \n entrusted to him the placing of Lebensborn mothers in jobs in the Wartegau in which these mothers were able to take care of their own children and apart from that because he had taken over the problem of placing Lebensborn children endangered by air raids in evacuation camps in the Wartegau where such children could live without danger.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4350, "page_number": "4343", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q and these evacuation camps, were they Lebensborn homes?\nANo they were not Lebensborn homes. I designated them permanent kindergartens with accomodations for sleeping overnight. The Gauself administration Poznan in some of their homes created accommodations for children born into the Lebensborn; the Lebensborn had to pay a boarding rate of 30 marks per month for these children which it actually paid.\nQDid Lebensborn maintain no homes at all in the Wartegau?\nANo, at no time did the Lebensborn maintain homes in the East beyond the Reich frontier of 1st September 1939.\nQNow, what about the prosecution's statement made by the witness Bach-Zelewski and confirmed by him apparently and also testified to by Exhibit 708 by the prosecution according to which it has been proved that Lebensborn had a children's home in Bobruisk?\nAI heard about this children's home in Bobruisk for the first time here in Nurnberg and I must say the Lebensborn homes were not so numerous that I wouldn't have known them all myself. For instance we had 8 maternity homes and three children's homes. And then there were the two homes in Belguim and France. All that apart from the Norwegian Lebensborn to which I shall refer in due course. In the affidavit of Zwiruer which has been withdrawn, Prosecution Exhibit708, former SSStandartenfuehrer Pflaum is mentioned as head of this home; this proves that the Lebensborn had nothing to do with the home. I can say definitely that Lebensborn did not take over one single child in its care which had ever stayed in Bobruisk. The witnesses fell into the error of assuming that Lebensborn had something to do with this, because this obviously excellently equipped home corresponded to the general idea one had about Lebensborn homes. Pflaum was my predecessor in Lebensborn \n and the witness apparently was still attached to Lebensborn even in Russian Lebensborn homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4351, "page_number": "4344", "date": "25 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-25", "text": "QWitness, the concept and position of a so-called Lebensborn representative has been commented upon on various occasions in this trial. I have already mentioned one specific case and you commented on that, that as Dr. Bartels. If there was mention made otherwise of Lebensborn involved other fields of work. Will you give description of these other fields to this tribunal.\nAThe other so-called Lebensborn representatives different from the position of Dr. Bartels who had the title of Lebensborn representative, This term of Lebensborn representative came into usage in the following manner. Sometime after I had taken over the position of Lebensborn chief, some higher SS and Police Leaders from the occupied territories approached me and asked me to establish Lebensborn homes in their areas. I did not comply with this request because I had sufficient space in the Reich German Lebensborn homes. In some cases the Higher SS and Police Leaders had turned to Himmler and Himmler instructed me to establish Lebensborn homes for example in Holland, Belgium, France, Denmark, and in the government general, and once he even spoke of Latvia. I was always convinced that these requests to establish Lebensborn homes in the occupation area by the Higher SS and Police Leaders was not based on real need. In the course of time I made up my mind that the establishment of homes was to be prevented or at least delayed, in establishment, as I was successful in doing with the exception of Belgium and France, in individual cases I looked for aid with the higher SS and police leaders who received inquiries from pregnant mothers through the mails -- to be forwarded to the central mail office of Lebensborn in Munich. These persons were also to be in a position to advise these mothers or give them advice or help. In all the cases mentioned by me I found some men to take over this insignificant field of work and of course it was done on an honorary basis and for this they received the title Lebensborn Representative.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4352, "page_number": "4345", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QAnd were these gentlemen subordinated or were they committed to you to receive your instructions?\nANo, they were not subordinated to me nor were they committed to my instructions, with one exception, however. This was Denmark. In December 1944 I instructed one of my aids, a so-called Lebensborn representative, to go to the Higher SS and Police Leader in Denmark after Himmler in 1941 or 1942 had instructed me to establish Lebensborn homes there also. This man however received precise instructions from me that the establishment of homes in Denmark be delayed as long as possible, and as a matter of fact no homes of Lebensborn were established in Denmark. The witness Pancke on October 22, 1947 testified to that before this Tribunal.\nQThen these Lebensborn Gau self-administrations as far as they were appointed in the persons of Higher SS and Police Leaders, worked against Lebensborn homes in the occupied areas?\nAYes, that is just what I had in mind, to work against the establishment of homes.\nQWitness, you spoke that in Belgium and France you had not been successful in preventing the establishment of Lebensborn homes. Now the homes that were created were they subordinated to you as chi ef of the Lebensborn?\nAThe actual situation was as follows: I had to say they were not subordinated to me but rather to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. The Lebensborn gave them technical advice and assistance, that is to say I made the personnel available to them and took care to see that these homes were maintained at the standard of Reich German homes. These two homes in Belgium and France were subordinated to the Higher SS and Police leaders.\nQThe Lebensborn representative at the Higher SS and Police Leader France is mentioned in documents 459, 460 and 461 of the prosecution referring to the Channel Islands - and these expectant mothers or children of these areas were they taken care of by you or transferred by you to Germany?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4353, "page_number": "4346", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "ANo, Lebensborn never transferred anybody to Germany irrespective of whether it was an expectant mother or a mother who had given birth to a child, with or without the child, or individual child. Those beings who were taken up by Lebensborn, that is taken into the care of Lebensborn, as I said before, came of their own initiative or they had been sent to Lebensborn because they were in need.\nThe documents referring to the Channel Islands, Exhibits 459, '60 and '61. I can state from my own memory that the so-called Lebensborn representative in Paris, early in '44 told me he had the intention to visit the Channel Islands and for that purpose, as far as his chief was concerned, he needed a reason, actual reasons to explain his visit. He asked me whether he was permitted to say that he was traveling on Lebensborn affairs. I said that he was free to do so, but he never undertook this trip. He himself obviously had misgivings to undertake it and to use these reasons as far as his chief was concerned.\nQSo you had nothing to do with the incident which these mentioned prosecution exhibits comment on?\nANo .\nQWitness, in Norway there existed a number of so-called Lebensborn homes. Were these homes subordinate to you?\nANo, the so-called Norwegian Lebensborn was not subordinated to me. It was subordinate to the Reichskommissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories.\nQWere you ever in Norway?\nAYes, once in February, 1941, I went to Oslo pursuant to an instruction of Himmler who in my presence talked to the Reichskommissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories, and discussed the establishment of mother and children homes with him. Already at that time at my initiative it was determined that the Lebensborn should have nothing to do with the establishment and operation of these homes. Himmler, at the desire of the Reichskommissar for the Occupied Norwegian Area, decided \n at that time that the Lebensborn, as he stated himself, would only make available a firm name, and apart from that would make the personnel available until a new special department was created at the office of the Reichskommissar which would be able to take over the organization and operational functions involved.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4354, "page_number": "4347", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QIf you sent personnel there did you make use of Lebensborn aides and assistants?\nAYes. These aides, however, resigned from Lebensborn, and they became employees of the Reichskommissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories. In two or three instances, it may have been four, I gave permission that at the personal request of the respective persons, the formal relationship of employment to the Lebensborn would continue to remain. In that case the salary, which w as paid by Lebensborn, was compensated to the Norwegian Lebensborn by the Reichskommissar for the Norwegian Occupied Areas.\nQThe prosecution states that Norwegian children had been kidnapped by you. What do you have to say to that?\nAI can only say in answer to that, we did not kidnap any children, whether Norwegian children or ethnic German children or Polish children or Czech children or Yugoslav children or Rumanian children. In the case of Norway, already during my interrogations and preliminary investigations I stated clearly and beyond any doubt that those children from Norway who had been sent to Lebensborn had been sent at the request of their mothers and with the approval of the Norwegian agencies to Germany. In all cases the children concerned were illegitimate children whose mothers were Norwegian nationals and whose fathers had been German soldiers. Although the children, according to Norwegian and German law, were definitely released for the purpose of adoption, according to my knowledge not one adoption was actually carried out. I remember, on the other hand, that in several cases these children were legitimized pursuant to applications made by father and mother.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4355, "page_number": "4348", "date": "23 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-23", "text": "QHow many children were born in Norwegian homes?\nAI have quite a reliable figure as far as that is concerned. There were 6,000 children.\nQAnd how many Norwegian children were sent to Germany?\nAAs far as I know approximately 180 to 200 children were sent to Germany from Norway, that is into Lebensborn. The number of those cases in which Norwegian mothers and their children went to Germany, either to marry the father of the child, or if,the father had died, in order to live with the German grandparents of the child, of for some other reasons, that figure I don't know.\nQWere there also cases in which Norwegian women gave birth to children in Reich Lebensborn homes?\nAYes, I remember approximately four to five cases.\nQIn these cases did Lebensborn take the children away from their mothers?\nANo, for these cases too the same experience applies which Lebensborn had with almost all Lebensborn mothers. The mothers were so enthusiastic over Lebensborn that they were willing to leave their children in Lebensborn for a longer period of time if that had been possible and approved. However, it was not approved, and in these cases the Norwegian mothers, of course, returned to Norway with their children, as far as they did not marry the father of their child.\nQWitness, in the Prosecution's Exhibit 496, the prosecution has presented a decree of the Reich Main Security Office of 27 July 1943 in which Lebensborn is named as one of those agencies which were authorized under certain conditions to accommodate foreign female workers and their children. Did you know that decree?\nAYes, I did.\nQHow was it that the Lebensborn cooperation was prescribed in this decree under certain conditions?\nAOne day the Reich Security Main Office requested the Lebensborn, with reference to a decree of Himmler, that foreign female workers and \n their children be taken in and that they take over the guardianship of such children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4356, "page_number": "4349", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I was able to make Lebensborn participation, which allegedly was due to Himmler, to find a formulation pursuant to which it became possible to exclude Lebensborn from the entire matter.\nQDo you want to say by this that Lebensborn as a matter of fact neither took women and children nor intervened in their behalf nor accommodated them according to the regulations contained in this decree?\nAYes, that is just what I want to say. Not in one single case was Lebensborn involved which perhaps was due and pursuant to that decree.\nQAnd why did you exclude Lebensborn from this matter?\nABecause the intentions proposed by this decree were entirely incomprehensible to me and because they were in contradiction to the direction of the entire task of Lebensborn activities, unless the unity of mother and child could be brought about and maintained.\nQYou mention that the Reich Security Main Office referred to an alleged decree of Himmler which provided that Lebensborn was to participate in the working of this procedure.\nAYes. A short time thereafter I had Occasion to consult Himmler personally on this subject. I called the discrepancy to his attention which existed between the work of Lebensborn and the tendency of this decree and which was incomprehensible to mo. Himmler obviously did not yet know the formulation and drafting of this decree. He criticized severely the overzealousness of several gentlemen of the Reich Security Main Office, and he was annoyed that the Reich Security Main Office had given rise to the impression that he, Himmler, approved of the tendency of that decree. In my presence he gave instructions that the Reich Main Security Office be caused to withdraw this decree or to amend it accordingly. He also approved right on the spot that I address a protest letter to the Reich Security Main Office. In my letter of protest I specifically referred to my oral discussion with Himmler, which discussion with Himmler was attended by the president \n of the Reich Culture Chamber , SS Gruppenfuehrer Vost.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4357, "page_number": "4350", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Contrary to expectations we had the good fortune to hear as witness an official of the Reich Security Main Office here and to ask him on the subject of this protest of the Lebensborn. This is the witness Haessler who on 5 January 1948 testified before this Tribunal that he could remember this protest letter of mine. Apart from that he referred to the fundamentally changed tendencies as shown by Prosecution's Exhibits 499 and 933, as compared to Prosecution Exhibit496. This fundamentally changed trend is due, I think, to my intervention with Himmler and to my protest to the Reich Security Main Office.\nQWere the children's homes in Helmstadt and Benke which were subject of the case in chief on 5 November, 1947, homes of Lebensborn?\nANo, at no time did they have any contact with Lebensborn. I did not know of the existence of these homes until I heard of them during this trial.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4358, "page_number": "4351", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QConcluding Count 11 of the prosecution, I ask you, did you ever in your life kodnap children or did you ever give instructions to have children kidnapped?\nANo. If I had been interested in kidnapping children, then I personally would have taken quite a different course and would have had to take a different course. Primarily in that case my chief surgeon and my chief legal advisor would have been sent out by me on a trip, and not my aide and assistant, Frau Viermetz. I transferred such trips to Frau Viermetz, because a woman was best suited to evaluate what needy children need and in what manner they can be furnished assistance and relief, and she only had to deal with needy children, and we helped them if we were asked to do so.\nQAnother question referring to this same problem. The prosecution speaks of foreign children who allegedly were kidnapped. In Germany everything was regulated under curtain procedures of jurisdiction. Did Lebensborn have jurisdiction for foreign children?\nANo. No, the NSV had jurisdiction, the Nationalsizialistische Volkwohlfahrt, Prosecution's Exhibit 476, Document No. 5007, Document Book IX of the Prosecution.\nQWitness, the prosecution charges you under Count 20 to have participated in spoliation of public and private property both in Germany as well as in the occupied areas, and this had comprised a great part of your function. Lebensborn had spoliated Jewish and Polish hospitals as well as Jewish apartments and had taken over Jewish merchandise. What do you have to say to that?\nADuring all my life I never spoliated, I never stole, I never robbed, nor did I by any means acquire the possession, the illegal possession of other persons property. This applies both to me personally as well as to members of my family and to the companies and organizations of which I was in charge up to now. Lebensborn did acquire some real estate from Jewish property for its purposes and of the donations \n which were made in general to Lebensborn as a public charitable institution there also were certain items of property originally belonging to Jews.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4359, "page_number": "4352", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Lebensborn itself did not have any possibility upon its own initiative to acquire these items of property either by seizure or by some other arbitrary action. To give orders to this effect was not in my power and not in one instance did I attempt to give any such orders. To the extent that Lebensborn acquired Jewish real estate, the conveyance, the legal conveyance was done under all prescriptions and rules of law, that is to say in absolute concurrence with those physical persons or juristic entities who had legal title, as, for example, the German Reich or in other cases the Reich Association of Jews in Germany, E.V.\nQWitness, in one of your affidavits you made a listing of property which is under discussion here. Will you please tell us whether this list is complete or whether beyond that there was further property which should be included?\nAYes, that is the affidavit introduced under two prosecution exhibits, the numbers 74 and 588. I assume that the No. 74 is the right one. The listing of this affidavit is exhaustive as far as I can recall. However, under some points of this affidavit, since giving that affidavit, I have been able to verify that the data I gave at that time were too generous.\nQWhat do you mean by that?\nAFor example, under Item 2 (c) of that affidavit I spoke of an apartment house in Vienna which property actually belonged to Lebensborn to 2/3's of it, 2/3's of its value. Apart from that, under 2(d) of this affidavit I spoke of titles of Lebensborn in some stocks of a corporation in Prague. In the meantime I have been able to ascertain that I had received wrong information on these two points. All this concerned two claims under litigation, namely claims against a corporation in Prague which could never be realized or materialised.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4360, "page_number": "4353", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWith the exception of Points 4 and 5 your affidavit involved only property located in Germany, that is to say in that area which on 1 September '39 belonged to the German Reich, is that correct?\nAYes, it is. As far as Point 5 is concerned, I have to add that this so-called Bromberger Camp had been taken over under a trustee by my predecessor, Standartenfuehrer Pflaum. The clean and absolute handling of this trusteeship was carried on with great energy at my time. This order had been given in December or November, 1939, that is before my time, because of the need of the thnic German widows and orphans in the Bromberger area.\nAt that time Himmler ordered Pflaum, to assist and help these widows and orphans. Help, of course, did not only consist in giving these poor people consolation merely, but they needed also material help. For that reason Pflaum at that time turned to the Main Trustee of Office Ost and requesting them to send textiles, garments stockings, etc.\nThe Main trustee Office Ost did so, and in doing so utilized the depots, which, pursuant to a general instruction of Goering, had been seized. Already in October, I think it was October, 1939, the firms form whom these depots had beenseized, were not caused to surrender their depots without receiving any compensation.\nI know from personal information given me by the Deputy Chief of the Main Trustee Office East, this was a Regierungsrat, Dr. Kramer-Moellenberg, that all these firms were supposed to be reimbursed in proper order, and I assumed that this had been done. At that time a way was found that at first these firms were given an assignment issued by the German Reich, that is a document and security, but which they could utilize positively in their balance sheets. The firms were permitted to show regular shop prices in their bills, and, as I know from individual descriptions given to me, they were rather satisfied to have transacted good business. I myself have no knowledge of my own, as far as this is concerned. All I am saying is from hearsay. The camp itself was never transferred into Lebensborn ownership but was maintained on a piece of property in Bromberg which belonged to the Main Trustee Office East.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4361, "page_number": "4354", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Assistance which was given by that camp to the ethnic German widows and orphans was carried out in proper order, and individual confirmations were issued and three or four signatures were ellected. It was very direct, the manner in which this was handled, and at my time, that is at the time, when the need had been mitigated, care was taken that this trusteeship order was liquidated. That is, I myself took care to see to it.\nI also gave orders to settle the order with the Main Trustee Office East. I clearly remember, which is an unusual procedure on the part of the agencies, that recommendation was issued by Dr. Kramer-Moellenberg. I also know that the Supreme Accounting Society of the German Reich as the supreme aditing office of the German Reich, audited this matter and was surprised at the care and bureaucratic procedure which had been observed by Lebensborn in this matter.\nLebensborn itself also had expenditures in connection with this order. As far as I remember that exceeded hundreds of thousands of Reichsmarks. When the trustee order was liquidated, a small remainder of stock was still available, and this remnant of stock as a matter of course was made available by me to the Main Trustee Office East. The Main Trustee office Last was afraid that Lebensborn one day might come along and perhaps would claim from then or from some other Reich agency the reinbursement for the financial expenditure incurred by Lebensborn, and in order to settle, in order to avoid the possibility of such claims being raised, the Main Trustee Office Ost suggested that Lebensborn should be satisfied with the remnant stocks, which doubtlessly could be utilized by it and should waive its further rights to further financial claims, and that was done.\nThe remnant stocks which were then transferred to Munich, were, as a matter of fact, shipped, as I now heard from a reliable source, from the man who himself shipped them, in four or five big furniture trucks, which were placed on railraod cars.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4362, "page_number": "4355", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "In addition to this, in liquidating the Bromberg-Lebensborn agency, the equipment such as office furniture, and so on, and also the private furniture of the Lebensborn employees who had been reassigned to Munich--by these means as a matter of fact approximately five to six railroad cars were sent at that time from Bromberg to Munich. But these were not textile goods--these five to six railroad cars.\nReferring to Point VI of this Affidavit, I consider it necessary by way of supplement to say that what is stated under (a), (b), (c), and (d) and the objects listed there--that is, all objects listed there--already in 1938 were turned over to the ownership of Lebensborn.\nReferring to Point VII of this Affidavit, I have to make reference to the fact in this connection that this involved a plan of Himmler which did not materialize. Changes in legal titles were not carried out. This affidavit discloses that this concerns a so-called settlement under the name of the Lebensborn Settlement--Heimstaetten. Himmler had the idea, already prior to my time, that Lebensborn mothers and their children be settled somewhere at some place where they could care for bee hives, go into agricultural work, garden work, the flower business, hand weaving--all of these were occupations typical of women's work. The women were to be trained for this type of work and these professions were to be carried out in the settlement so that by these means they would be able and capable to act as their own chiefs of household.\nHe pursued this idea with absolute obstinancy. I, myself, expressed my misgivings to him, but he told me to keep away by stating that he understood this better than I. The SS Gruppenfuehrer Ebrecht, who was called into the witness stand here, endeavored once to deter him from his idea, but with no success. I pointed out to him the unprofitable character of such an idea, and I gathered expert commercial and medical opinions, but he told me that as far as expert Opinions go, he isn't interested in them as they only say, what one wants to hear. However, he failed at one point in carrying out this idea. He had designated a location where no Lebensborn mother was willing to go. This happened to be in the administrative \n area of Zichenau, which was an area so lonely and so remote that no person could be expected to live there.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4363, "page_number": "4356", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Thus it came about that at one time there were two or three mothers there, and of the originally planned 500 wooden houses which were supposed to be put there, only approximately two dozen were actually put up. Then the Luftwaffe came and confiscated these, which was the best solution to be found, and happened to be the end of this dream too.\nQ.Witness, the Prosecution has introduced two documents: Exhibit 631 and 586, referring to exchange of correspondence between the women's clinic and Ottwock, and which mentions objects in the Government-General which were not mentioned in your own affidavit. Were these objects acquired by Lebensborn or did Lebensborn claim them by any manner, or in the Government-General did Lebensborn operate homes there?\nA.No, in the Government-General Lebensborn did not operate any homes. Lebensborn did not operate any homes whatsoever outside the frontier in the east on 1 September 1939. I wish to say on this matter of women's climinics--Frauenklinik--that in connection with the same matter, as far as this Ottwocks is concerned, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Government General also belonged to those gentlemen who would have liked to establish a Lebensborn home in their area. As already stated by me, I was of the opinion that there was no such requirement there as long as I had enough room available in Reich German homes, and it was primarily ethnic German women who were to find accommodations in these homes proposed to be maintained in the Government-General. I incurred the disfavor of the otherwise very friendly Higher SS and Police Leader of the Government-General due to the fact that I didn't pay any attention to his desires. Consequently, he approached Himmler, and Himmler sent me a teletype communication that I was to expedite the establishment of the operation of a Lebensborn Hime in the Government-General. This Higher SS and Police Leader moreover happened to be a personal friend of Himmler. Therefore I considered it necessary to send one of my aids into the surrounding area of the Higher SS and Police Leader, so that he could prevent there \n that pursuant to individual cases further claims be addressed to Himmler.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4364, "page_number": "4357", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "This was Frau Klipp-Merten.\nI, myself, went to the Government-General too--at the end of 1942 probably--and this is shown by the documents introduced. I was able to ascertain that the Higher SS and Police Leader had no clear conception what a Lebensborn home meant, He was most unsatisfied with the conditions of health as they prevailed in the Government-General. I ascertained, and I was shocked to find out, that the infant mortality of the Government General amounted to 50 per cent. In my examination on Friday afternoon I already stated that the Reich average in 1940 to 1945 amounted to 8 per cent. The Lebensborn average prior to my time or at the time when I took over my appointment, amounted to 6 per cent, and in 1942, already approximately we had reached the state that we could show an average of 3.96 per cent, a year which was never exceeded thereafter. In one year even this was even lowered to 2.86 per cent.\nFrom all these I gathered various impressions, and this was even reinforced by the fact that the Higher SS and Police Leader described facts to me where German doctors and administrative experts in the Government-General had failed in the field of public health. Now all these impressions which dismayed me, caused me to declare myself willing to place myself at the disposal. The women's clinic in Cracaw was excellent and marvelously maintained--I would almost say an elegant institution. The German chief of this women's clinic incurred the disfavor and criticism of the Higher SS and police Leader because he was the person responsible for the unfortunate conditions in the Government-General in the field of public health.\nWhen I declared myself willing to negotiate there with the Reich Health Leader and my willingness, under existing circumstances to take over the Lebensborn command of this women's clinic, was certainly genuine. This I testified to. The letter introduced under Prosecution Exhibit 631, and I remember this to be the case, very clearly discloses the annoyance which I had at that time. However, when later it was revealed \n that thy Higher SS and Police Leader had had another conception of a Lebensborn home than what a Lebensborn home actually was, and I have been successful to bring it about--that the Reich Health Leader personally went to Cracow in order to gain his own impressions of these confused conditions existing there.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4365, "page_number": "4358", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Then suddenly nobody spoke about the women's clinic becoming a Lebensborn home and this as a matter of fact was not intended in the true sense of the word at all. But the Higher SS and Police Leader at that occasion spontaneously offered that he would see to it that Lebensborn would be able to establish a beautiful home in the GovernmentGeneral. He offered five or six pieces of real estate to me in succession, which with one exception were all unsuitable. The only exception referred to a newly erected structure which had been built for the purpose of accommodating an SS hospital and which had been promised to me as a Lebensborn home. But when it was completed, of course Lebensborn didn't get it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal, will recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4366, "page_number": "4359", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 26 January 1948)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nMAX SOLLMANN - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - Continued BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, do you want to say anything now with regard to the question which you began discussing before the noon recess with regard to the women's clinic?\nAYes, I want to say something with regard to the women's clinic at Cracow. It was pointed out to me that a misunderstanding could arise with regard to the mortality rate of infants which I have mentioned, as that which we ascertained as prevailing in the Government General at the time. I believe I can recall that from the Prosecution Exhibit 631, it became evident that this was the mortality rate amongst the infants of the ethnic Germans. If that should not be explicit in the document, I want to state now that this referred only to the mortality rate amongst the ethnic Germans in the Government General. That amounted to 50 per cent at that time. In line with the negotiations with regard to this question of the home of the Lebensborn in the Government General, the Higher SS and Police Leader decided to offer several properties which according to his opinion would have been suitable for the establishment of Lebensborn homos. In the meantime, I had resolved finally not to establish any Lebensborn homes in the Government General, after I had watched the development which the women's clinic took, and under all circumstances I decided to prevent the establishment of a Lebensborn home and I succeeded in doing so. Finally, Krueger would offer one object one day and another one the next day,and Krueger was the Higher SS and Police Leader. I used delaying tactics in postponing the matter.\nThe term \"Ottwocks\" also comes under the same subject. On this site which actually would have been suitable, we did not establish any home \n there.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4367, "page_number": "4360", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I have nothing further to say on that question.\nQWitness, outside of the affidavit of the Prosecution which you have mentioned, you also deposed six affidavits. Would you want to correct something in connection with these affidavits?\nAYes. Under point 1 of my affidavit which the Prosecution has offered as Exhibit No. 76, I mentioned SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Donguss, and I described him as the head of the EWZ at Lodz. In this connection, I must say that I have only talked to Donguss once in my life for about two minutes and I was not informed as to his official position. Only after the indictment was submitted here was I able to inform myself that he was not the head of the EWZ at Lodz. Furthermore, in this affidavit I mentioned the fact that the negotiations in the matter of the ethnic German orphans from Upper Krain - that these had been directed by Frau Inge Viermetz with SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Obersteiner from Salzburg and originally without my knowledge. That is, what was stated in the affidavit. In the meantime, I have been able to refresh my recollection, and I want to correct this statement now. This refers to my previous statement, that is to say, Frau Viermetz, of course, took this trip on my orders.\nIn point 2 of this affidavit, I mentioned the fact that the Lebensborn had engaged in constant correspondence with Greifelt's agency. I must supplement at this time that this so-called constant and current correspondence, as far as I can recall, only dealt with the allowances which we received from the Reich Ministry of Finance, about which I have testified in detail, except occasional letters of congratulations and things of that sort.\nQTherefore you did have correspondence with the Main Staff Office about orphans without any family ties?\nANot as far as I can recall. I know definitely that we did not carry out the reports which were requested and set forth in the decree 67-1.\nQIn this affidavit, do you want to make any further corrections?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4368, "page_number": "4361", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AYes, I want to have one additional correction made. In paragraph 2 of this affidavit, I mentioned the fact that the Lebensborn in my opinion only received orphans from the field offices of the Reich Commissar, and that orphans without family ties had been selected and assigned to us by the deputies of the field offices. The term \"field offices\" used in ignorance of the actual facts which prevailed, and I used it wrongly. I had already pointed out to the interrogator previously that I was not precisely informed about all these incidents, and furthermore it has only come to my knowledge now that in the Warthegau there actually was a field office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, which, however, had nothing to do with all these happenings. I only heard in the course of my interrogation, that not the representatives of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism selected these children in the Warthegau and turned them over to us, but that the Government and the District and Provincial Youth Offices would take care of that work. They would ascertain the location of these children and they turned them over to the homes of the GSV. The GSV would then turn them over to the home schools of the Reich Ministry of Education respectively the Lebensborn.\nQDo you want to make any corrections in your affidavit which is Prosecution Exhibit403?\nAI want to point out a mistake which was made in this affidavit which I considered to be a typographical error for a long period of time. Only later on I realized that this mistake was a maneuver of deceit which was used. In my affidavit under paragraph 1 the following is stated: \"The order of Himmler that I immediately establish personal contact with Frank had been received from me approximately at the middle of 1942.\" During my interrogation I did not speak about 1942 but I mentioned the year 1943. It also becomes evident from the Prosecution documents which deal with this matter, Exhibit 397, 398 and 399, that this took place only in the \n middle of 1943.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4369, "page_number": "4362", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QDo you want to correct your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit No.42?\nAYes, there is one point I want to correct. Under paragraph 1 of this affidavit, I mentioned the fact that approximately at the beginning of 1940, that is to say, as far as I can recall - perhaps even before my time - the order had already existed that the so-called orphans without family ties from the Warthegau should be placed with the Lebensborn. As far as my recollection was concerned, I couldn't differentiate here that the ethnic German mothers and children from Bromberg which, at the end of 1939, had been accommodated with the Lebensborn for a vacation, had nothing to do with the actions which were carried out in the Warthegau. These mothers with their children, after the vacation which was given to them, were returned to their place of origin. However, all this happened before I entered the Lebensborn.\nIn the same paragraph of this affidavit, I later on speak again of the EWZ at Lodz which had been subordinated to Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Donguss. Here I want to refer once more to the statement which I have just made a while ago. In paragraph 2 of this affidavit, expressions are used , as for example: \"Children from Poland who only spoke Polish and who were unable to master the German language.\" At that time I replied to a question that I heard that amongst the ethnic German children there were also children who spoke Polish. There was no reason for me to assume that these were actually Polish children. When I was \"abroad\", I saw a large number of small children who spoke the foreign language better than their native language. I have also met North American children who sometimes would be better acquainted with the Spanish language than with English.\nIn the same paragraph, the title of a Decree 67-1 is wrongly quoted. In the same paragraph 2 of this affidavit, I also overlooked the words \"they were taken in\" and this should be replaced by the words \"they were accommodated.\" This I have corrected in all the other formulations which were used by the interrogator. Only in this one case \n I overlooked the matter and I failed to correct it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4370, "page_number": "4363", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "In another case, and this is Exhibit No. 76, paragraph 4, it is stated: \"In my estimation of the children who were brought into Germany, 150 to 200 were taken over by the Lebensborn.\" Also this formulation did not come from me and I failed to correct the word \"taken in\" here and change it to \"accommodated.\" I repeatedly pointed out to the interrogator that the Lebensborn did not bring a single child into Germany; it did not take them in there.\nIn paragraph 2 of the affidavit, Exhibit 424, I also speak about the fact that the names of the orphans without family ties from the Warthegau in part had been changed by the Lebensborn with the intention to make it easier for the children in every way to get used to the new surroundings. The expression \"partially changed\" is to be understood to mean the same thing that I have already explained before.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4371, "page_number": "4364", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "We did not want to change the names of these children but we wanted to fix names for them on the basis of the Personal Law, after we had received the official information that the true names of the children could not be located and ascertained. With that simultaneously I also went to correct formulation in paragraph 2 of my affidavit which I gave about the position of Dr. Tesch. I assume that this is Prosecution Exhibit 588. However, this may also be Prosecution Exhibit 74 because I think these two numbers were mixed up, as far as I could find out.\nQWitness, in order to clarify a mistake I want to come back once more to my previous question. You stated there that the children had been selected by the Provincial or Municipal youth office and had been sent to the homes of the GSV league. The translator seemed to have understood NSV.\nANo, this was the GSV league, the District of Self administration office.\nQWitness, do you want to correct anything in regard to your affidavit Exhibit 75.\nAIn paragraph 4 of this affidavit I mentioned the fact that the Lebensborn had established a large number of children's homes in the area of Posen in order to accomodate children that had been born in these homes. These accomodation possibilities were turned over to the District Self Administration at Posen and as far as I know the Lebensborn had furnished furniture and other facilities for these homes, and if I recall correctly, the Lebensborn had also paid for the reconstruction and repair work done on these billets. At that time already I told the interrogator that I didn't know this for certain. In the meantime I have been informed that the Lebensborn did not pay for the repair work \n which was done in these homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4372, "page_number": "4365", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWitness, does this cover all the points which you want to correct in your affidavit?\nAAs far as individual points are concerned, yes. However, besides that, the affidavits which I gave to the Prosecution also contained a number of statements which can be interpreted in two ways. However, only in those formulations which did not originate with me. I was unable to avoid using those formulations, and the two ways can be interpreted differently, although I told the interrogator repeatedly that in my interrogation I made statements which were quite clear and to the point. I told the interrogator in this connection that if necessary I would refer to my protests and then I would have him called as a witness.\nQHow did these dual meanings arise?\nAThe dual meanings arose by the fact that the interrogator would take individual phrases out of the context of my testimony for the affidavits he was preparing. He would just do that arbitrarily and he would put them together after he had torn them out of the original context and he would use expressions which I would never use. For example I can recall one case, where I spoke about the Standard Oil of New Jersey or about its subsidiary, the Tropical Oil Company, and I told him that I carried on a commercial activity in the commissary of this company. Then, in the report of the interrogator suddenly the expression appeared \"grocery store of a private firm.\" I told him that the Standard Oil was hardly a private firm and that in the commissaries they had not only groceries. However, he proved to me with convincing logic, that if there were several grocery sales there, it was a grocery that sold different goods, mixed stock. I \n did not see any sense in correcting this and I failed to struggle over this point.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4373, "page_number": "4366", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "In another case, for example, I overlooked that fundamentally the expression \"Volksdeutsch\", \"ethnic German\" is missing when I spoke about children without any family ties, that is to say, I only referred to ethnic German children and only several days ago I read over once more my affidavits and to my utmost regret I had to see that the expression \"ethnic German\" was missing everywhere. For example, I always ob jected that where the word \"Warthegau\" was mentioned the word \"Poland\" would be added in parenthesis, and I could not deny the reasoning of the interrogator, that as far as Poland was concerned I couldn't say anything against it because as far as we were concerned, at that time, this was part of Germany. I can still recall another case, upon the question of whether I had received any orders from Greifelt, I answered no, never. Then the hypothetical question was propounded, \"would you have carried out any orders if you had received them from Greifelt.\" Then I answered, \"yes, if he had given me any orders in his capacity as a Government agency on the top lvel, then, as a citizen of the German Reich I would have had to ob ey his orders.\" However, this hypothetical term which is used, in German, \"haetten\", if you had, appears in the affidavit in the official form in the document books with the word \"haetten\", \"when you did.\"\nQWitness, you stated that it was impossible for you to avoid the phrases which had a dual meaning. Does that mean that you didn't struggle against incorrect formulations?\nAYes, this is true. I was under an unusual mental tension in these months, and I was under pressure of threats of a special nature.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4374, "page_number": "4367", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QYou spoke about threats.\nAYes, Already on 10 March 1947, in the course of my first interrogation, immediately at the beginning, it was pointed out to me that I would be extradited to the Russians and Poles and Czechs and that I would hang. Twice I was accused of committing perjury, and on 8 April 1947, after I had been put into solitary confinement in the meantime, where I spent about 100 days, on 8 April 1947, I was told that the previous interrogations which were carried out in my case, did not provide sufficient material, and what the Lebensborn had done, was quite in order, As a matter of fact it could be said that the activities of the Lebensborn had been useful. I was told that they had convinced themselves of the fact that I did not have any human lives on my conscience like, for example, a man like Kaltenbrunner. Nevertheless, however, it was expected that I would make a confession and they would give me two weeks time in order to do that. If I did not make a confession, then the circle of people who were under arrest because of me, would become larger and larger and that finally all members of my family would also be arrested. I considered that to be possible, especially since in those days one of the interrogators visited my wife in her apartment. It was also strange that in that time for two months at a stretch I didn't receive a single letter with one single exception and that was the letter in which my wife wrote telling me that she had been visited by an interrogator. The time, which I then spent in solitary confinement, made such an impression on me that it somehow could be seen externally, and only from this can I conclude that one day two American officers came into my cell with on interpretor, Minister (retired) Dr. Paul Schmidt, \n who, at the time, however, left immediately, and one of these men told me that he was the Prison Psychiatrist and he asked me if I knew what this meant.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4375, "page_number": "4368", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I told him I did, but I told him I was not yet insane. This conversation was very amusing for the 15 minutes it lasted; it was charming. About eight days later the Prison officer dame to see me about 10 o'clock in the evening. He greeted me just like you would greet an old friend and said, \"hello Max\", and he asked me if I had any complaints, if I was given enough to eat, if I had enough to smoke, if perhaps I wanted to have a table and chair in my cell.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4376, "page_number": "4369", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I thanked him and I refused. He asked me if I didn't want to have anybody else in my cell. I asked him whether he was competent for such decision and order, and he told me that actually I could now receive a cell mate if I wanted to because those guys from over there were finished now. The same expression, \"those guys from over there\" was already used by a friendly American guard who on 13 March 1947 took me from my cell where I was together with somebody else into a solitary cell in accordance with orders which he had received. This transfer took place on 13 March 1947. On 12 March 1947 I was visited by Dr. Schwenk in my cell. On this occasion he ascertained that my cell mate was a German lawyer and in that time I was really afraid; I was not afraid for myself, but afraid for my wife because I had gotten the impression that now the same game would start as was carried on in 1945, with the claim of the socalled mistreatment of prisoners which I allegedly had ordered in 1945 and an investigation was carried on for three months, I think, which apparently was to play a part also in the course of this trial. This investigation in 1945 lead to the result that I did not participate in this matter. Although in those 3 months, for 63 days and for 64 nights I was kept in a solitary cell which I only left on two occasions, one time in order to be taken into an interrogation, and another time when I had to go to see the doctor because I had an abscess in my ear. The methods which were used in the course of the interrogation in 1945, did not have the desired effect, although at the time I was threatened that if I wouldn't give the desired confession that I would be beaten in the presence of my wife until my wife would have an early birth, earlier than scheduled, because after we had been married for 61/2 years, and four operations, my wife was expecting our first and only child; actually in the year 1945 two Americans came to see my wife in order to arrest her. However, they did not do so after they had convinced themselves that my wife at the time was in her eighth month of pregnancy. However, all this excitement had the result that my wife gave birth to the child earlier than was scheduled, and the child died after 50 minutes, and my wife \n was prepared for the last sacrament.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4377, "page_number": "4370", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "As the result of this--I want to repeat--I was in a terrible excitement and I was terribly worried about my wife because I did not know her living conditions at the time from my own experience. I only knew it from her descriptions and I know under what primitive conditions she was living at the time, since we were completely looted out and wife doesn't even have her own bed any more for two and a half years. All this method I can only consider to be a system with which confusion or a policy of confusion was to be carried on and this policy was also successful to the extent, that, since documents have been submitted, which consist of affidavits which I can only consider to be utter nonsense. I do not want to comment on these affidavits individually. I only want to state that they contain false statements. In this respect I want to refer expressly to the affidavit which has not as yet been submitted by the Prosecution, by my former adjutant Ueberschar and I also want to refer to the affidavit of Frau Viermetz who will herself testify as to these affidavits. However, it was also a part of this policy of confusing matters in the case of the head of the children's home in Puschkau. This was Fraulein Meta Hoepfner in Leipzig in order to take her to account for making statements like that and in order to inform her that she would have to appear here for cross examination. Fraulein Hoepfner stated towards this member of our defense that in no way had she intended to infer such things or to testify to anything at all. The interrogator who had come to see her from Nurnberg had told her, however, that if she did not testify, then in one hour he would return to her with a Russian officer; then she became so scared that she signed whatever the interrogator put before her. Now, we have tried to get her here for cross examination. However, the letter came back as undelivered, and to give you another example from a. number of many examples: My Chief secretary who had worked with me for five years, could have clarified and testified to a lot of things on the subject. Many things she could have stated, \"no, that is not true at all.\" In her examination the interrogator told her, \n \"if you cannot remember more clearly, you will be arrested,\" and I have an affidavit about that which Dr. Ebner will submit in his document book.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4378, "page_number": "4371", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.Witness, the Prosecution has submitted three affidavits, and these are Prosecution Exhibits 764, 779 and 760 and from these affidavits it would be assumed that for disciplinary reasons or in order to increase the working output, the free workers or prisoners who worked for the Lebensborn, should, be illtreated. Will you please make a statement on these affidavits.\nA.If these three affidavits for the most part are not based on assumptions and conclusions which are wrong too, they refer to two cases which came to my knowledge after they had happened. In one case one of my collaborators had to dispute with a free worker of the Dutch nationality. At the time I made an immediate investigation of this case. I did this personally. I did not have this done by the personnel chief. Immediately after it had come to my knowledge, that is to say, I listened to both parties. Since the description of the incident, as given by the collaborator, who had been accused, agreed completely with the description which had been given to me by the Dutchman, who allegedly had been maltreated, and since consequently it was ascertained that no maltreatment had occurred I was confronted by the necessity to terminate the investigation without any results. That is my own recollection of the case. Beyond that and to that effect I have given an affidavit.\nQ.In the second case.\nA.The second case dealt with a German prisoner who was a habitual criminal, and he had repeatedly been the cause of complaints, and the prisoners of the Lebensborn Prisoners Detachment did not like to have him work with them and this was told to me repeatedly by the other prisoners. The prisoners had an esprit de corps, and at that time they wanted to really get rid of that man. Towards the end of 1944, this man had stolen nails and glass, and these stolen goods, which were in short supplies, he had used for bribes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4379, "page_number": "4372", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "At that time I decided to demand the exchange of this prisoner. The prisoner didn't want to leave the Lebensborn, and he asked the man in charge of the detachment to punish him in the scope of the disciplinary powers, which the detachment leader had. I heard about all this later. The detachment leader punished him by beating him with a stick. When I took him to task for his actions, he told me that he was entitled to impose and execute such punishment by his superior; he was expressly authorized to do so by his superior, and this was the camp commander at Dachau. I then had a telephone conversation with the camp commander and I demanded the immediate dismissal of this detachment leader, and I was assured that he would be transferred immediately. Since, however, no replacement could be found for this detachment leader, the entire detachment was to be withdrawn. Of course, the prisoners didn't like that idea either. In order to prevent this I agreed to the transfer of the detachment leader and I agreed to wait until a replacement for him could be found. Then things began to happen very quickly, and of course no reassignment or transfer was possible any more later on. I know that all prisoners of that detachment were precisely informed of this entire matter and that in particular I know that the inmate who allegedly was maltreated knew quite clearly that I had nothing whatsoever to do with this alleged maltreatment; that I had not ordered it and it did not meet with my approval; but that I took the camp leader to task for it, and that probably becomes quite clear from the fact that especially this allegedly maltreated inmate sent me a very valuable little wooden box for a Christmas present, and this was made out of seven different pieces of very valuable wood. However, on some pretext or another I sent it back to him; I didn't want to keep it. The tendency of the three affidavits, aside from their formulations - after all this is a formulation of the interrogator - which I know quite definitely, the tendency of these three affidavits is completely contrary to the truth, subjectively and, of \n course, as well as objectively.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4380, "page_number": "4373", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QWitness, do you want to say anything else with regard to the other contents of these three affidavits?\nAMy attitude was clearly positive with regard to this prisoner's detachment. At no time did I order or tolerate any inhuman acts. I did everything in order to establish bearable living conditions for these inmates in every respect. I myself, even after 1945, never made any propaganda of my humanitarian ideas. However, I am able to submit a number of statements and I shall offer these affidavits which have been offered to me by people who want to voice their disgust in this way about the manner in which the truth is to be twisted in this case.\nQWitness, in this case the so-called maltreatment of inmates was already the subject of investigation by the official American authorities, was it not?\nAYes. After three months this investigation, however, was discontinued.\nQNow, I want to ask you something else in this connection. Is Numberger known to you who gave the affidavit 779 to the Prosecution? Do you know him personally?\nAYes, I can recall him very well. Furthermore, he replied to our request that he should appear here for cross examination by saying he was sick; he telegraphed that. Furthermore, he is the only person in the entire inmates' detachment of 27 men who participated in the looting which was carried on in my private property.\nQAnd now I want to ask you one final question on that subject. Do you know Brandmeyer, who gave the affidavit which was offered by the Prosecution, 760.\nAYes, I can recall him quite well also. I wanted to have him released from the service of Lebensborn because he was not honest, and because we could prove that he had committed a theft. Furthermore, the defense of Mrs. Viermetz has tried to get a rejection of the \n affidavit which Brandmeyer gave, insofar as Mrs.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4381, "page_number": "4374", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Viermetz was to be incriminated by it also. From this affidavit which Brandmeyer gave to the defense of Viermetz, I would like to quote the following sentence, and I quote: \"In the previous affidavit I have further stated that I assume that the fur coat which Frau Viermetz owned, originated in the stocks of the Lebensborn; however, I have no reason to believe it actually; I have no proof of that. In the course of my interrogation I also told the interrogator Meyer that I did not know in any way whether this fur coat h ad come from Lebensborn. Meyer stated at that time that I could assume that after all, and that I could voice my assumption to that effect. In this way this assumption of mine was included in the record of the interrogation.\" Brandmeyer also stated that the fur coat of my wife came from the camp of Bromberg; of course, there were no fur coats at all in this depot, but I didn't want to refute his affidavit in particular which he gave to the Prosecution.\nQWitness, I am now coming to my last question. Under Point III, of the Indictment, the Prosecution has charged you that after the 1st of September, 1939, you were a member of the SS and of the NSDAP, which have been defined and declared to be criminal by the IMT under 1-B of Control Council Law No. 10.\nAI want to repeat, I have been a member of the SS since 1907, until the time of the surrender, and I entered the SS voluntarily. At no time did I think that my private life would become subject of investigations, and my political ideas and my professional activities as well as my attitude and behavior in service and in my private life, that they would ever become the subject of court proceedings upon the charge that I was a criminal. I didn't know the incidents and I didn't suspect them, as they were the basis for the verdict of the IMT with regard to the SS. During the entire time of my membership in the SS I considered it to be an elite organization, and I dud my best in order to safeguard its reputation as an elite organization.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4382, "page_number": "4375", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Furthermore, my activities in the Lebensborn only dealt with welfare measures for people who needed aid, and it did not provide any point of contact whatsoever with the incidents which were the basis for the verdict of the IMT.\nDR. RATZ:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQHerr Sollmann, from what you have been saying here for about a day and a half now, I gather from all this testimony that what you would have this Tribunal believe, is that the organization Lebensborn was strictly a charitable organization.\nAYes, exactly.\nQThen, I would like to refer to the statement of Himmler which you referred to with reverence and awe, and which was the coat of arms of Lebensborn. This statement is: Holy shall be to us every mother of good blood. Now, I would like to know what you mean by good blood.\nAGood blood is the collection for us in the Lebensborn of mental factors, morally, and psychologically and physically; that was my opinion of this concept, and my opinion there prevailed in the Lebensborn.\nQThen, would you say that it was in accordance with the genealogical and racial standards of the SS? Did you get my question?\nAHave you finished your question?\nQYes. I say it was in accordance then with the, was compitable with the standards of the SS in regard to genealogical and racial matters.\nAI mentioned the fact in my examination that frequently I had to defend the independence of the Lebensborn; the attacks on the independence of the Lebensborn were not only caused by ambitious characters, but -", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4383, "page_number": "4376", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QMay I interrupt; my time is limited; my time is limited. Now, I would like to give you this question again. I am sure you are not answering the question.\nAYou don't have to ask me the question once more. I can answer no to it.\nQThen, do you recall the statutes, as explained in Exhibit 62, that is the Lebensborn statutes, where it is said that the prerequisites for the care of the mother is dependent upon both racial and genealogical respects, all the conditions which are generally valid in the SS. Do you recall that?\nAI can remember that, but I can also remember that I testified in my examination at the time when the field of tasks of the Lebensborn became more and more concentrated in the acts against abortions, we did not place too much emphasis on the terms of racial selection and so on.\nQAnd do you also recall this. If necessary, I shall present the document book to you, but I feel sure that you remember the statutes of the Lebensborn. Do you remember that it is also stated that Lebensborn has as its task focused on population policy, and that Lebensborn has to further a high birth rate in the SS?\nAIt is possible that this assumption is based upon a translation of Viermetz' interrogation which is not correct. When I look at the formulations, and I don't have then before me at the moment, then I do not find a single sentence which tells that the Lebensborn by carrying out a population policy was, for example, to encourage the bringing into the world of illegitimate children.\nQThen, as we have seen here, would you not say, it was charitable as to an elite group, as to an elite group as you have stated the SS was an elite itself?\nAAlso in elite organizations we have orthodox directions and tolerant directions; I was a typical representative of tolerance.\nQBut in the prevention, for the discouragement of abortions, \n what did you do to prevent abortions on eastern women?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4384, "page_number": "4377", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AOn eastern women?\nQYes.\nAOf abortions on eastern workers, I personally did not have any more information than any ordinary German citizen who had to rely on his information from the newspapers. If any inhuman injustice is concerned, whether this concerned eastern workers or Germans, then I believe I have proof from my descriptions of the conversations which I had with the Reich Security Main Office and Himmler, and I had success in that.\nQNow, would you say that a Jewish mother could be a recipient of your organization's welfare?\nAAs unbelieveable as it may sound, I said as unbelieveable as it may sound, from the technical point of view that would have been quite possible.\nQThen you would consider under this that the word good blood also included not only German blood but Jewish blood as well.\nAYes, Jewish blood as well as Japanese or Chinese blood. I can recall one case where one Japanese woman reported because she wanted to bring a child into the world and she was accepted. After all, we did not engage in any propaganda among the Jews, so that of course no Jewish woman came to us.\nQThen, by this definition of good blood, you mean that from a medical standpoint, you are speaking of good blood, is that correct?\nANo.\nQI think we have covered that sufficiently. I would like to go on now to some of the things which you are charged with in this indictment. Now, you said that children were taken, ethnic German children into Lebensborn, is that correct?\nAI wouldn't say they were taken, but they were accepted.\nQAccepted; and when you had these children in your home, what steps did you take, or which did you order personally, to find out the \n Personal data upon these children, about the family; what steps did you direct?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4385, "page_number": "4378", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AAs chief of the Lebensborn, I first of all issued the fundamental directive orally and in writing that all steps were to be taken which would show the origin of these children, if their status was unclarified. Actually that should be sufficient if I mention that we in the Lebensborn, for example, I believe nine or ten or at times we had twelve lawyers, who were precisely informed about such a chief order means, and they knew individually just what steps they had to take. However, beyond that\nQBut now when you saw that these children did not have all the data which should have been there, didn't you feel that something was wrong?\nAIn the sense in which you used the term wrong, I cannot agree with you. I did not assume that.\nQI am referring to the time when Dr. Schulz talked to you and expressed misgivings to you; do you recall that testimony?\nAI can recall the examination of Dr. Schulz quite clearly. I can recall his discussion quite clearly.\nQDo you recall; do you remember that in a discussion with you, as he stated on the stand, that he said that he had misgivings and expressed these misgivings to you that the necessary data for these children was not present?\nAI can recall his additional statement that an academic discussion had taken place between Dr. Schulz and Dr. Tesch.\nQAnd you said that you did not take children, but that you received children.\nQYes.\nQNow, who brought these children to you?\nAChildren nurses from the district self-administration, from the district self-administration in Poland.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4386, "page_number": "4379", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QCertainly none of these fellows had anything to do with it, did they?\nAI don't know that. I did not know any of these co-defendants.\nQYou did not know Herr Greifelt?\nAYes, I did know Greifelt.\nQAnd now, with regards to 67-1, you said that you did not comply with the order as stated in reference to sending reports to Herr Greifelt; how did you avoid this?\nAI personally could avoid that quite easily because I personally did not know 67-1 until I came here. An order in the sense of a given order is not represented by Decree 67-1; as far as the Lebensborn is concerned, Decree 67-1 states in agreement with the Lebensborn registered society, EV; that means that an inquiry was sent to us before this decree had been issued and the inquiry was limited to the question whether they would accept and accommodate children, and I would like to make an addition now: If any collaborator of the Lebensborn had participated in the drafting of this Decree 67-1, then the formulation would not have been included only SS families.\nQJust one moment, Herr Sollmann. Let's stick a little closer to the questions I ask you. Now, the purpose of sending these reports to Greifelt was a concern of Himmler, was it not?\nAI don't know just how Greifelt came to make request reports; I don't know. Himmler personally was interested in these children.\nQAnd how did Himmler receive this information from you?\nAWe directly reported to Himmler. I can recall, for example, two or three such reports, but I don't know what is exactly contained in them, but I know that they were brought to Himmler.\nQAnd you don't know how these children were selected which were sent to you; do you?\nANo. With regard to the selection, here in Nurnberg I received my first lessons about that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4387, "page_number": "4380", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QBut did you think that these were children who had been selected some way; or, did you think that you were getting all orphans?\nANo, only in part. We could not accept all the orphans.\nQBut you never directed any correspondence to the Race and Settlement Office at any time concerning these children?\nAWith regard to these children, no. As far as I know, I did not,\nQAnd you received no information from the Pace and Settlement Office?\nAI don't know that.\nQYou never saw any directives stating that the Race and Settlement Office was screening these children?\nAI have seen the documents here in Nurnberg; I did not know them, however, as far as the Prosecution submitted them.\nQAnd you had no knowledge whatsoever or had any references or any means of reading about a Germanization program being conducted? Just the word \"Germanization \", had you ever seen that applied in any circulars or any decrees?\nAI did not see any such decrees; I did not; they came to my know ledge, if they were mentioned, in the newspapers.\nQWell, in your direct examination you said that the - as well as I remember, your correct words were: The doom of Lebensborn is that we adopted a vocabulary of other organizations. But you, yourself never were so fallacious, were you?\nAOh, yes, I included myself in that. I always identified myself with the Lebensborn.\nQAnd where did you see this word which you wrongly grasped and applied?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4388, "page_number": "4381", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "A.If documents come to my knowledge here where, for example, Lebensborn is brought into connection with expressions like \"alien children\", or where it is said that Lebensborn is an office of the Reich Commissar, and things of that sort--you know what I am referring to--then of course I will state that I represent Lebensborn. I am identifying myself with Lebensborn because I was its chief.\nQ.Suppose we move on to more specific groups. Now I am referring to the Yugoslav children, and we won't quibble with the names of what you called them. However, this morning you testified about contacting the Higher SS and Police Leader in Salzburg, and he told you to take care of some children. Now, could you give us the name of that Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.Yes, his name was Roesener.\nQ.And he assured you that they were children with no family ties?\nA.Yes, yes.\nQ.Now, what other means did you use in trying to find out if this were true, other than taking the word of a Higher SS and Police Leader?\nA.In the Third Reich, the word of an SS leader was what in normal life is the word of a gentlemen. However, beyond that, I did make a test of the example there, especially with regard to these twenty children.\nQ.My time is short, Herr Sollmann. And if the SS and Police Leader said that these were children without family ties, they were children without family ties?\nA.First of all, we didn't doubt that, until the contrary had been proven, but we saw to it that the contrary could or had to be proven.\nQ.Aren't you convinced that some of these children who have appeared here are children with family ties whom you have given the term \"children without family ties\" to--some of these children who have appeared right on that same stand?\nA.In the witness stand, you mean?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4389, "page_number": "4382", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.Yes.\nA.I regret that I cannot formulate a personal opinion on this point. I was only surprised about one thing. If the Prosecution was convinced of the fact that the mother was still living, for example, why wasn't she brought here and not the aunt?\nQ.I expect that I need not go into that, but that was one of the Czech witnesses; her mother is dying of tuberculosis----but this is getting into the field of argumentation--the mother of the girl whose aunt appeared here. As to the Czech women, or the Czech children, you may be reasoning something like this. You take the oath of Lebesnborn: \"Holy shall be to us every mother of good blood.\"\nA.That is not an oath, that is just a motto.\nQ.Motto, then you say the children, or the mothers of these children whom you took, must have been of good blood.\nA.Yes.\nQ.And therefore they are sacred, \"These mothers were sacred to our organization\", to you.\nA.Yes, to us.\nQ.Did you know that some of these sacred mothers had been in concentration camps? I am referring to the Czech children.\nA.I received knowledge of the fact that one of these mothers was still alive, it was presumed that she was in a concentration camp, and I personally participated in the search for this mother. However, I am fortunate in that I can prove that I participated in the search since 1942 and 1943.\nQ.That was Professor Samal's child?\nA.Professor Samal, yes.\nQ.The one who was murdered in Berlin by the secret police?\nA.I still don't know that today.\nQ.Now I am getting to the birth certificates. You say that only about 15 or 20 children had birth certificates made out for them. Do you \n claim that all the other children had birth certificates?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4390, "page_number": "4383", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "A.No, to the contrary, also the others did not have any either.\nQ.Wall, how did you get these others the necessary rations, and so forth, which you said it was issued for?\nA.For example, the certificate was on the letterhead of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or the certificate was on the letterhead of the private society of Lebensborn. This depended upon how the small official with the government--the agency which issued ration cards, or the finance office--could be appeased. That was the idea of the whole thing.\nQ.And all during your testimony you kept talking about a drive for children, a drive. Do you recall that?\nA.Oh, a drive? Yes, doubtlessly. This expression is necessary in the German language in order to describe a unique matter. The word \"drive\" in the English language is not what the German word \"aktion\" stands for, which is what I referred to in this respect.\nA.And also, in this connection, you spoke of these children as this group of ethnic children that you tried to give to the RFKDV.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now why did you pick out the RKFDV as saying that is the organization which these children should go to?\nA.The expression \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\" has constantly been misinterpreted in English in this trial. It should not be \"Strengthening of Germanism\", but it must be \"Consolidation of German Felkdom.\"\nDoes that answer your question?\nQ.Are you really believe that that is the difference?\nA.What was that?\nQ.And you really believe that that is the real meaning and that we have misinterpreted the RKFDV?\nA.Absolutely; it has been wrongly translated.\nQ.No program of strengthening Germanism ever existed in your mind?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4391, "page_number": "4384", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "A.In the sense of a swallowing up? Never.\nQ.But building it up, yes?\nA.To consolidate it.\nQ.Oh; we won't quibble any further.\nHow many employees did you have in Lebensborn?\nA.At a time?\nQ.Altogether. What -\nA.At one time?\nQ.Yes, at the height of the program.\nA.Eight hundred.\nQ.And you said that you had deputies, Lebensborn had deputies, but they didn't take orders from you, they worked against you?\nA.Oh no, that is quite wrong, you misunderstood me. First of all, I didn't say \"deputies\", but I said \"representatives\". Secondly, they didn't work against me, but they worked with me, against the intentions of the Higher SS and Police Leader to establish Lebensborn homes in the occupied territories.\nQ.But you still called them Lebensborn representatives and, we should have added, against Lebensborn?\nA.No, they didn't work against Lebensborn, but they worked in accordance with my ideas.\nQ.Well, this morning you said that they were against establishing homes.\nA.I was against the establishment of homes.\nQ.Well, just what were the duties of your so-called representatives?\nA.They had to work on inquiries of expectant mothers, and they had to distribute forms upon which the technical operations of the work were described, for example, the filling in of forms such as whether they had to bring along laundry or not, when they should come, what about the affidavit that the mother had to depose, and, furthermore, they had to help the mothers whenever they needed help. With that I wanted to see to \n it--and I did see to it--that no mother would drew any unfavorable attention at any time or at any place, and that no Higher SS and Police Leader could inform Himmler that Sollmann does not take care of these conditions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4392, "page_number": "4385", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "That is what I tried to do.\nQ.But while you were Chief of Lebensborn you did have in your care children from Czechoslovakia, Czech children?\nA.The District Self Administration at Poznan took these children under its care. The District Self Administration at Poznan looked after the technical details with regard to the examination of the foster homes, and that was the purpose for which it used the machinery of the Lebensborn.\nQ.And Bartels was a representative of yours, as you stated this morning?\nA.Only from the end of 1943 on, and at the beginning of 1944, and not in connection with these children, but in connection with the national German mothers in the Lebensborn who had obtained positions in the Warthegau so that they could keep their children with them.\nQ.Did you have in your care children from Yugoslavia?\nA.The children who are today described as being Yugoslav children, at that time, from the point of view of state law, were not Yugoslav children; to us they were ethnic Germans, they were orphans without families.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You have time for one more question. BY MR. NEELY:\nQ.Have you ever had any misgivings for the taking of children?\nA.With regard to the developments which I have seen in this trial and its preparation, no, I have not, so help me God.\nMR. NEELY:Thank you, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4393, "page_number": "4386", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any final questions by the defense?\nMAX SOLLMANN- Resumed QUESTIONS BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, you testified that during an interrogation prior to making some affidavit that you were threatened by the interrogator. Who was that interrogator?\nAThat was interrogator Dr. Schwenk.\nQWhere did that occur?\nAThat happened here in this building. I believe the room was 167.\nQWhen?\nAOn the 10th of March 1947 and on the 8th of April 1947 in another room on the same floor and right now I don't know the number for certain, I believe it was either 183 or perhaps 184 but I don't remember the number exactly.\nQWho was present on March 10th?\nAOn the 10th of March there were six or eight persons present among them also a representative either of Czechoslavakia or Poland. That was a gentlemen who on Friday evening, that is all during Friday was sitting here at the table of the prosecution and on Thursday he was in the visitors' gallery.\nQYou don't know his name?\nANoo I am afraid I don't know his name, besides there was present interrogator Meyer the representative of the prosecution Mr. Neely, that was on the 10th of March and besides a lady who had been sitting regularly at the prosecution table during this trial, besides an American lady which I never saw after that and besides also an American in uniform who had glasses and who spoke German quite well, however he was certainly an American whose native tongue was English and and also a secretary.\nQWho was present on April 8th?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4394, "page_number": "4387", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AThe interrogator Mr. Meyer and his secretary.\nQYou testified with reference to some three or four affidavits about the treatment - rather mistreatment of prisoners from the concentration camp. One of them I believe you referred to as being from Holland -- Dutch and you as I remember said that what the man in charge reported to you nad what the prisoner himself said coincided and for that reason you pursued the investigation no further.\nAMr. President in this case this is not a prisoner but this was a workman who was in freedom who on his own initiative worked in Germany and was a free employee.\nQWhat did you say about your investigation of that incident? Is that the incident where you said that both parties involved gave you the same report?\nAYes, your Honor.\nQAs I remember practically all if not all those affidavits on that subject say that after this incident this particular employee was turned over to the Gestapo. What do you say to that?\nAYour Honor, so these affidavits say. I don't know the case from my own experience, I only know it from the descriptions of the other men whom I wanted to hold responsible for the thing at the time and who gave me witnesses who were to confirm the correctness of his account. According to this account the case was as follows: The Dutchman had no accommodations, no quarters this particular evening and the parties that were in disagreement had already made up. The man who allegedly had mistreated the other man invited him to give him a lift in his automobile and had procured a quartering for him this night and this probably gave the impression this man had been turned over to the Gestapo. By coincidence, however, this man besides this very incident had been once in jail for a week for vagrancy, however after this week he came bade to us. He had his usual friendly smile on his face which did not make it possible for me as his superior to hold him responsible for anything; he was a very nice and friendly man who drank quite a lot and could stand quite \n a bit of liquor and who besides made escapades when he could get away with it, but nobody could dislike him for that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4395, "page_number": "4388", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QYou did interview him after this incident?\nAYes, your Honor.\nQWhat was his physical condition; what did you find?\nANothing at all, nothing was wrong with him.\nQYou saw no evidence of mistreatment?\nANo, I did not; he himself also told me he was not being mistreated and he was indignant about the fact one wanted to make a case out of this incident which made it necessary for me to include my office in the proceedings. He himself wanted to have this treated as just a bagatelle.\nQHow did it come you did make an investigation out of it?\nAThe information system in the Lebensborn functioned very well, all the more so since the majority of our employees were women who immediately reported everything that was new. By way of one of my secretaries, I don't know which one it was I was informed there had been a row and then I had the man who supposedly mistreated him report to me.\nQDid you get a report to the effect that this man had been mistreated?\nANo, I did not your Honor. At first this was a quarrel with words only and this man who was alleged to have mistreated the other man wanted to beat him in the face, however he did not succeed in this since the other man in defense put up his arm and this way his own face was pushed against his nose and he had nose bleeding.\nQDid you see this man any more after you concluded your investigation?\nAThis man until the 20th of April 1945 was together with the other Dutch workers who moved to Steinhoehring with us from Muncih when the Lebensborn was moved out of Munich.\nQWas that after this incident?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4396, "page_number": "4389", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AYes, your Honor it was.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSCORF (for the defendant Ebner): I would like to ask the permission of the court to put the defendant Dr. Ebner on the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGREGOREBNER, a defendant, called as a witness in his own behalf took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT: The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me.\nI swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION QUESTIONS BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQYou have given an affidavit which has been submitted by the prosecution as Exhibit 15. Will you please go back to this affidavit as far as your personal data is concerned.", "speakers": [ "GREGOR", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4397, "page_number": "4390", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AYes.\nQIn supplementation to your affidavit I would like to clarify the question were you active politically after you entered the Party?\nAI was a provincial physician since the year 1923 in the village Kirchsee in Upper Bavaria. That is to say I was always living in country areas and was completely filled up with my profession, therefore I had no time or inclination to return to politics.\nQThen why did you become a member of the NSDAP in 1930?\nAAt that time I saw the increasing radicalism of the German mobs and also in the country we had no doubt that sooner or later a decision would have to take place, in other words only one of these radical parties would be able to assume power: the National Socialists or the Communists.\nQBut as a member of the bourgeois middle classes did you not have to be at a distance from both of these radical parties, that is, dislike them equally?\nAYes, that certainly would have been necessary but I was convinced that if in a state the existence of this very state is at issue every patriotic German had the duty to become a member of one party. The famous legislator Solon said the words I can remember from my university days: \"If there is a civil war, after the victory of one party one should not punish the members of the party over which one has been victorious but those people who were on neither side and that applied to me.\nQThen why did you decide to become a member of the NSDAP and not the Communist Party?\nAFor me the fact was decisive that after a victory of the Communists certainly Communism would have flooded not only Germany but Europe and we would have created a platform for the spreading of Soviet ideology. As far as the second reason is concerned the Party members of bourgeois origin - and I was one of them - again and again voiced the opinion that after the revolutionary movement had settled somehow normalization cer \n tainly would have come about and that it would gradually become bourgeois and in this respect I have found a lot of things that appealed to me in the program of National Socialism.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4398, "page_number": "4391", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I am especially thinking of the program of social work for I myself was working in a village inhabited by peasant workers and every day I was shown the effects of unemployment.\nQAnd what do you have to say now that the incidents are passed, about the motives you had and which were decisive for becoming a member of the Party?\nATo what extent the actual practice of the National Socialist leadership was different from the ideals it propagated. I really found out only after the capitulation. As every decent German, I had been deceived and disappointed by the men in whom I believed until the last moment and it is only a very small consolation for me to know today that if Communism had been victorious at that time the world and Germany could not have been spared the unhappiness that has come into the world today.\nQWere you politically active when you were a member in the Party?\nANo, I was not politically active for I never was and am not now what is called a politician but within the frame work of Party meetings I gave lectures from time to time concerning various phases of my professional life. The policies concerning population, the fight against venereal disease, public health were the most important topics.\nQNow, how did you become a member of the SS?\nAIn 1931 the SS got into contact with me in order to appoint me as district physician for the formations that were quartered in my district.\nQDid you thereby also become a member of the SS?\nAYes, as a matter of course I became a member of the SS and was immediately appointed to the rank of medical Untersturmfuehrer.\nQCan you please describe briefly the functions of a district physician of the General SS?\nAThe position and activity of such a district physician were similar \n to those of a military physician and I myself was in medical service for four years during the first World War and had sufficient experience for this job.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4399, "page_number": "4392", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QNow how did you come into contact with the Lebensborn?\nAIn 1936 the Lebensborn established its first Mothers' home in Steinhoehring, that is a village about fifteen kilometers away from my home village. At that time I was very well known in this district as a gynecologist. As a matter of course I was called in for maternity cases and various illnesses of this type at the home.\nQAnd how did this relationship change into that of a fulltime physician for the Lebensborn?\nAWith the growth of this maternity home my work end responsibility also increased and since I could not serve two masters,I had to decide very soon whether I would give up my practice or my work in the Lebensborn home. At that time I decided to give up my practice.\nQFor whet reason did you decide to go on with your work in the Lebensborn?\nAI had always had the desire to work full time as a gynecologist. As a student I was not able to realize this desire of mine since my parents lost their money during the inflation and I was then forced to establish a medical practice in order to help my parents and also my own family. This Lebensborn appointment afforded an opportunity for me, although it was quite late in my career to fulfill this desire to be active in this special field I liked very much.\nQDid you at that time gain financially through this?\nANo, on the contrary the satisfaction of working in this special field cost my family a thousand marks a month for in my medical practice I made that much more than I actually got in salary in my full time position in the Lebensborn.\nQDid you ever repeat at having made this decision of becoming a fulltime physician in the Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4400, "page_number": "4393", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AApart from the consideration that this very activity in the Lebensborn has become the subject of my being tried as a criminal here, I must say I was never sorry because the actual conditions for work in the Lebensborn were ideal. The medical equipment was extremely up to date and always remained so. Nobody ever interfered with my medical duties. I was completely independent in my work but what was more important, every day I saw how much I could help so many needy women and children. They deserved my help and that was my happiness.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4401, "page_number": "4394", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I also have to state here that nobody asked me to do anything which was against medical ethics, against my conscience as a physician.\nQDid you not have any sort of moral reservations as a bourgeois with regard to the avowed claim of the Lebensborn to take up the case of unmarried mothers?\nANot as physician. I had the opportunity more than once to experience and see with my own eyes what a horrible unhappiness can be brought to many people by too narrow bourgeois opinions. I was at the sick bed and at the deathbed of many young woman who because of unlawful abortion had risked their life and their health.\nI can especially remember one case which later on also played a decisive part in my final decision.\nOne day a young girl, the daughter of a decent bourgeois family in this village in which I worked, came to see me, and I had to confirm that she was pregnant. She asked me almost on her knees to make an abortion.\nHowever, at that time I refused to do that and tried to console her. I thought that I could prepare her psychologically for her future task as a mother.\nHowever, she ran away from my consultation room in despair, and after half an hour pieces of flesh and bones and bits of cloth and clothing were brought before me in a cardboard box, and I was told that just a minute ago a young girl had jumped in front of the express train that was just coming into the station.\nLater on when I saw these unmarried mothers in the Lebensborn I had to think again and again of this poor girl.\nQWhat was your position in the Lebensborn?\nAFrom 1936 until 1945, that is to say for nine years, I was chief of staff of the maternity home in Steinhoehren. From 1938 until 1940 I had the title of administrative head of the Lebensborn.\nFrom that time on until the end of the war I was in charge of health affairs in the Lebensborn, and from then on, that is from May 1942, until the beginning of 1943, I was in addition head of the Main Department A.\nQIn order to preclude a misunderstanding, will you tell us again \n what sort of position you had in the home at Steinhoehren?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4402, "page_number": "4395", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AI was the chief physician.\nQWhat were your duties as physician in chief of Steinhoehren?\nAAs chief physician in Steinhoehren I had to supervise the various births in the home.\nI had to carry out the necessary operations. I had to make medical inspection more than once a day on the medical stations, on the infants' departments, and I also kept regular visiting hours for patients.\nQWill you please explain to us what you mean by visiting hours?\nAIn these visiting hours mothers of the home would call, as well as employees, inhabitants of the village and also the prisoners, which were discussed here by Herr Sollmann,\nQDid you ever operate on one of the prisoners in the maternity home?\nAYes. I would like to say though that I never got to see any of the prisoners because of the effects of mistreatment.\nIt would have been obvious that if someone had been mistreated that he would have immediately gone to a physician.\nQDid prisoners call frequently?\nAThe prisoners came to me almost daily, and once such a prisoner fell ill with appendicitis. On the very same evening I operated on him in this maternity home, although it was unlawful to operate on outsiders in a maternity home.\nThat was a special prohibition by Himmler, but in order to have the possibility of helping this man I talked to the chief, Herr Sollmann, who, in his generous manner, gave me the permission to do so without any further ado, thus as I had expected it.\nThus I was able to perform this operation on the very same evening.\nHe, thereby, on his own initiative, countermanded a special prohibition by the Reichsfuehrer-SS.\nQHow many births took place under your personal control and supervision?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4403, "page_number": "4396", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "AIn the time that I have already mentioned I helped give birth to eleven to twelve hundred women.\nQHow many births took place in the Lebensborn home which was under your medical supervision?\nADuring the nine years about twelve thousand. Half of those women were married and the other half were unmarried.\nQWhat was your position and what was your competency while you were so-called administrative head from '38 to '40?\nAHere I would like to refer to the testimony of witnesses and especially of witness General Wolff.\nHowever, I would like to add to those statements that I, as physician, did not particularly like this special field of work, and I was glad when I had to relinquish this post, even though it was only a nominal post.\nEven though I only had the nominal duties as administrative head I did not like to have to work with things that I knew nothing about.\nQWhat were your functions as head of the public health affairs of the Lebensborn?\nAAs head of the health department it was my duty to supervise the medical and nurse personnel in all the homes of the Reich.\nI had to supervise the health of the mothers and children. I also had to inspect the homes and visit them.\nI had to take care of various work that came in concerning public health, and I also had to keep up contact with the consulting physicians.\nQAll your work then was very definitely of a medical nature.\nDoes this also apply for the period of time while you had the leadership of Main Department A?\nANo, that is not true. Main Department A was, of course, an administrative department.\nQThen why were you, since you were a physician, appointed this post?\nAIn May '42 this post was vacant and somebody had to be appointed \n to take it up.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4404, "page_number": "4397", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Since, because of war conditions it was difficult to find a suitable person, Herr Sollmann asked me to take over this position until the time that he would find a suitable replacement, and this is just what I did.\nQWill you please explain a bit more in detail why it was difficult to find a man during the war?\nAWell, most of the male assistants were conscripted into the armed forces, and we only had female workers available at the time, but as I said, just this very position was to be filled by a man.\nQNow, were you able to take over this work besides the work that you were already performing at the time?\nAWell, that was not so difficult especially in view of the fact that the assistants were extremely independent in their work, and on the other hand, I had to check on the prerequisites for a mother's being accepted in one of the homes of the Lebensborn, and these prerequisites consisted of health and geneological health of the women, and the examination of these factors had already been my task when I was head of the public health affairs.\nQYou were talking about the prerequisites for mothers to be taken into the Lebensborn. Were many mothers rejected when they wanted to come into the Lebensborn after they had made application for it?\nAYes, Unfortunately we could not take in all applicants. The Lebensborn had only eight maternity homes throughout the Reich, and everyone of those homes had only about forty to fifty beds for mothers and seventy to one hundred beds for their children. Therefore the possibilities of taking in people were extremely restricted.\nFrom the fact that the Lebensborn had eight hundred employees, as it was stated a short time ago, it could be inferred wrongly that the Lebensborn had been a huge organization.\nBut one must take into consideration the fact that for nursing of those mothers and especially for nursing the children there were, of course, midwives, sisters, and employees also, \n so that the number of employees in one of the homes alone would be fifty to seventy.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4405, "page_number": "4398", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QNow, did the Lebensborn put in any effort to help those mothers that could not be accommodated in its homes?\nAWell, we did not have any mothers lying around on the street. We did not leave them on the street. We helped them all. If we were unable to take them in to other maternity homes with which we had established contact we transferred them to other charitable organizations.\nQIn the by-laws of Lebensborn mention is made of the condition of racial suitability of mothers to be taken into the homes.\nWhat about this racial suitability?\nAThe idea of creating the Lebensborn was initiated by Himmler.\nAs is known Himmler also had a so-called racial spleen. That is to say, he was an adulator of the Nordic race, for which, in the beginning, he wanted of course to have special privileges in the Lebensborn. However, already after a few months we were successful in convincing him that an organization whose main purpose was to fight against abortion should not be mixed up with racial ideas of any sort.\nQWell, according to what point of view then were mothers selected to be taken into the Lebensborn?\nAA woman that made application for being taken into the Lebensborn had to prove that she was healthy, that her hereditary health was good and that she had a good reputation.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4406, "page_number": "4399", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.Why did you not wish to take the sick women into the Lebensborn?\nA.Well, the Lebensborn was thought of being established for healthy progeny and, therefore, we had no facilities for taking in sick women.\nQ.In what way now was the examination of the conditions you referred to performed?\nA.The applicant received a questionnaire with which she went to any German physician who then performed the medical examination, and then she had to return the questionnaire filled in to the Lebensborn. This is how we conducted our examination to establish whether the woman herself was healthy, and whether her heriditary health was good, and I myself have examined some of these questionnaires.\nQ.Also in the documents concerning the Lebensborn we often find the expression \"racially valuable\". Just what did this expression mean to you?\nA.By \"racially valuable\" we did not understand membership in a special race which was perhaps especially valuable, but we knew that \"racial valuable\" meant health, efficiency, and good descent. As contrary to \"racially valuable\" one could call degenerated, decadent, perhaps even moronic. That is we designate the word \"racially valuable\" to mean a human being who was completely healthy in mind and body from the point of view of his descent and his attitude and you could expect to have progeny of the same sort. If we now take this sort of vague word \"racially valuable\" into our linguistic usage, we did that simply because it was fashionable at the time. This sort of node of pseaking was first created by the National Socialist movement and then by Himmler.\nQ.When you were temporarily head of Main Department A, were you also busy in the course of your work with finding foster homes for the ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau?\nA.No, as far as organization went the special department of the Main Department A subordinated under Main Department A, but in practice at that time a policy had already come about which later on led the creation of Main Department Law, that the technical advisor, if she was in doubt, did not \n contact me who was the physician, but went to the various expert lawyers who were busy there.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4407, "page_number": "4400", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "I myself do not remember any case in which I was consulted even once in this matter of finding homes for those children.\nQ.What did you know altogether about the admission and care for children who were not born in the Lebensborn?\nA.I had learned by hearsay that there were state agencies in the Warthegau who had found ethnic German orphans in Polish orphanages who were later on to be transferred to the Lebensborn for care, that is to say for finding foster homes for them.\nQ.Did you know the corresponding decree of the Main Staff Office of the RKFVD, No, 67-1, Prosecution DocumentNO-1615, Exhibit 407; did you know this document at the time or later on before you came to Nurnberg?\nA.No, I never saw this decree.\nQ.Did you know anything at all of the Main Staff Office for the Reichkommissar for the Consolidation of German Folkdom?\nA.At that time I did not know any more than any other reader of German newspapers. I can still remember when this Main Staff Office, or that is the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism was created, and that this had a great deal of publicity in the newspapers. I can still remember the slogan that at that time was created which said:\n\"Return Home into the Reich\". And then I also remember certain newsreels and then finally the moving picture, \"Die Grosse Heimkehr,\" the great return home. That was about all I knew about his work, that is the work of the Reichkommissar for the strengthening. Furthermore, with the exception of Hildebrad and Hofmann and my collaborators in the Lebensborn I did not know any of the defendants, my comrades until that time, and introduced myself to them when we were served the indictment.\nQ.Did you know Hildebrand and Hofmann in an official capacity, that is within the framework of your activities in the Lebensborn?\nA.No, no, I met Herr Hildebrand in 1932 on a party and Kerr Hofmann brought his daughter to Steinhoehren in order to train her there as a nurse.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4408, "page_number": "4401", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Q.Did you ever learn that any other children besides those from the Polish Warthegau, that is children that were born in the Yugoslav border countries, and also in the protectorate, Bohemia-Moravia, had been transferred into the care of the Lebensborn?\nA.I have tried to examine my memory very thoroughly with respect to this point. However, I cannot find any clue about the fact that Yugoslav or Czech children should have been transferred into the Lebensborn.\nQ.In other words, about this complex question you can't say anything?\nA.No, I cannot testify anything about this question.\nQ.You told us that you did not have anything to do with administrative measures concerning the ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau. However, you probably had something to do with these children in your capacity as head of the public health department, that is to say in your capacity as a physician.\nA.Yes, I had various contacts with them.\nQ.Well you please tell us definitely if you, as is assumed by the prosecution, were immediately active in caring for these children when they came right into the Lebensborn --?\nA.No.\nQ.Just a second. I mean whether you already had anything to do with the decision of whether or not these children were to be taken in, perhaps by giving medical opinions on their health or some such thing?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4409, "page_number": "4402", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "ANo, I had nothing to do with that at all. I now learned from various documents that quite different offices had to do with these things with which neither I, myself, nor the Lebensborn had any sort of contact. We didn't even know them.\nQAt that time, of course you didn't know these various stations, did you, through which the children had to pass before they finally were turned into the Lebensborn?\nAWell, I told you already that I didn't know the Decree 67-1 and therefore I didn't know in what way these children finally came to us, and of course in my capacity as physician I was not particularly interested in it.\nQDid you ever visit the homes Kalisch and Puschkau or one of those home schools, Achern perhaps or Niederaliteich?\nANo, I was never in Puschkau or Kalisch, nor was I ever in any of the so-called children's homes which were in the Warthegau but which did not belong to the Lebensborn. Achern and Niederalteich I do not even know by name. I want to take this occasion to say that I, for instance, did not know anything about the existence of a field office in Lodz or I did not know anything about the existence of the physician there on duty, Dr. Grohmann.\nQOn what occasion were you now consulted as physician with regard to those ethnic children?\nAFirst, of course, only at the point when the children fell ill. But I would like to emphasize that I was only consulted about those children who were in the Lebensborn homes. As for Puschkau, Kalisch and the home schools, we had nothing to do at all with these various schools, and I was not responsible for these other homes. Of course, only the more serious cases of illness were reported to me, and it is a matter of course that I didnnot try to find out in every case of illness reported whether this child was a Lebensborn child -- that is, born in the Lebensborn -- or whether it was an ethnic German orphan; for me, as a physician, that was entirely unimportant.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4410, "page_number": "4403", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QDid you ever examine one of those ethnic German children during one of the inspections that you carried out of the homes that were subordinated to you?\nANo, I had no particular reason for doing that, for every home had its own physician, and when I inspected these homes, then of course I looked at every child. I looked at the weight chart -- the so-called medical history -- and thereby I got a complete survey; besides, the physician that was in charge would inform me.\nQHow often did you yourself see any of these German orphans?\nAWith conscientious examination of my memory, I can say there were two cases: once in the home of Bad Pozin--I think it was in 1942 when among 100 children of the Lebensborn I was shown five or six children who were said to be ethnic German orphans. I can remember this visit especially well because at that time the physician introduced these children to me and pointed out to me that these children from the Warthegau were physically and psychologically very much inferior to the Lebensborn children of their own ages. At that time, that fact was very apparent and we studied this fact, and we also found the reasons which were responsible for that. I saw these children a second time in February of 1945 in the home of Oberweiss. It is quite possible that I saw such children in another home -- for instance, in the home Kalisch that is a children's home of the Lebensborn -- without my knowing that they were such ethnic German orphans. As I already said, I looked at the children only from a medical point of view and was not interested to find out where this child came from if this had not been pointed out to me especially.\nQDid ever a child complain to you on these occasions that it had been separated forcibly by relatives or even from his mother?\nAIn Pozin, the children were too small to voice such complaints. In Oberweiss, I talked to all of the chilren there, but not one of them told me anything of that sort. The children were so merry and so openhearted that I could not have gotten the impression that they were \n burdened with a heavy sorrow.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4411, "page_number": "4404", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "Besides, I have to repeat what I just said that we in the Lebensborn were always of the opinion that mother and child belonged together and that they were a biological entity, and if I or one of my collaborators had heard of such a case in which a child had been forcibly separated from her mother, then we -- and I swear by God -- would have done everything to return this child to its mother.\nQNow let's turn to Exhibit 433 of the Prosecution. That is the DocumentNO-2870contained in Volume VIII-B. What happened in the case that is mentioned in this document--the case Klasinska? Did the child mentioned there not have a mother living at the time?\nAYes, the case was as follows: the child was already taken up by the Lebensborn which had made research as to whether perhaps one part of the parents might be alive, and then it was found out that there was still a mother living but this mother was in an insane asylum, was insane and was near death. The witness Heinz Wieswede has testified that this mother had died a short time after that. From a legal point of view, I don't know how this case is to be judged, but from a practical point of view such a child is almost like an orphan and we had the duty to take care of such children.\nQDid you gain knowledge of any other cases in which one part of the parents still was alive of a child, for instance, that the Lebensborn had taken into its care?\nANo, I don't remember any such case.\nQIf in your capacity as physician you had in any way to do with the legal question concerning these ethnic German children, did you ever look at the files of these children or did you have to look at them?\nAAs such, I never looked at the files, but if such a case for any sort of medical reason was brought to my knowledge the case worker put down the excerpts from the files which might be of interest to me and consolidated them into a letter and the file itself remained with the agency.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4412, "page_number": "4405", "date": "26 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-26", "text": "QAnd the file itself remained with the agency?\nAYes, the file itself remained at the agency.\nQIn all cases in which ethnic German orphans were brought into foster homes, were you consulted to give a medical opinion on all these children?\nAI believe that the case Klasinska was the only one; however, it is possible that there had been several more which I can at the moment not remember.\nQWhy then did the Lebensborn not want to take in sick children?\nAWell, there were two reasons for that; in the first place, the Lebensborn had no equipment and no facilities for caring for chronically ill children, and these children might have constituted a danger to healthy children, that is because of infection, for instance; and in the second place, the children were with us only temporarily. The ethnic German children were with us until they came into foster homes, and the children of the Lebensborn until the point when their mothers would get them from us or when they could come into foster homes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 27 January 1948, 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4413, "page_number": "4406", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 27 January 1948, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants arc present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: (Attorney for the Defendant Ebner) May it please the Tribunal, before resuming the examination of the defendant Dr. Ebner, upon the request of my colleague, Dr. Ratz, I would like to make a correction in the transcript, because the written corrections take up such a long time, and perhaps in this way it may be well for me to suggest this short correction.\nThe defendant Sollmann stated yesterday in the course of his cross examination, upon the question of the Prosecutor whether he knew the other defendants: I know very few of them. Through a misunderstanding in the translation it was stated: I don't know anybody.\nMay I now continue with the examination of the defendant Dr. Ebner.\nGREGOR EBNER - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF: (Attorney for the Defendant Ebner)\nQ.At the end of yesterday's session you told us why the Lebensborn didn't want to accept any sick children in its homes. Why didn't the Lebensborn like the idea of giving foster homes and providing foster homes to sick children?\nA.The Lebensborn looked after it, or saw to it carefully, that the parents or couples who wanted to have a foster child or who wanted to \n COURT I CASE VIII adopt a child were given all possible guarantees that they received a physically and psychologically healthy child, because the reputation of the Lebensborn was based upon that factor in particular that it was able to furnish a home to so many children who needed aid.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4414, "page_number": "4407", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.Whenever children had come from the Lebensborn into foster homes, did they still have anything to do with you at that tine in your capacity as a physician, or otherwise?\nA.No, Actually I had nothing to do with them any more, because I was only responsible for those children who were in homes of the Lebensborn. If the foster parents had any worries or difficulties with the children in physical respects, then they would not turn to me as a physician but of course they would turn to the physician whom they usually consulted. Other inquiries would be sent to the agency in the Lebensborn which was currently working on this particular case, and this was the main legal department from August of 1943 on.\nQ.You already stated yesterday something about this, and will you please explain it more fully what brought about the establishment of the legal department?\nA.The reason for the establishment of the main legal department was of course not the ethnic German children, but in legal questions, the experts of all departments would turn to the legal experts, and these legal experts in August of 1943 were consolidated in the main legal department.\nQ.You stated in your affidavit about your career, which has been offered by the Prosecution as Exhibit 15, that you had the right to decide about the ability of the child and the suitability of the child for adoption. According to what you said previously you only made a statement about the physical condition of these children. However, you did not decide all the legal questions and all the prerequisites.\nA.Naturally not.\nQ.In what other cases did you have to deal with ethnic German orphans?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4415, "page_number": "4408", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "A.As it becomes evident from the documents, I was also approached when so-called definitions and the fixing of the age of children was concerned, that is to say, when the age of the child had not been clarified for some reason or another.\nQ.How many cases of that sort can you remember?\nA.Of the seven eases which I have found here in the files of the Prosecution, not all seven were actually dealt with; there certainly could not have been more.\nQ.However, why did you write to Professor Becker in Marburg that once again you had to submit such a ease to him? Why did you do that if altogether there were only seven cases?\nA.Because within the time of five weeks, I had to submit three such cases to Professor Becker, and with the small number of all the cases involved this was quite a number actually within this short time limit.\nQ.You stated that this happened within five weeks; does that become evident from the Prosecution documents?\nA.That becomes quite clear from the Prosecution documents.\nQ.Can you recall the file note which is contained in Document NO-1403, Exhibit 388, in Document Book VIII-A, about the authority of the Ministry of the Interior given to the Lebensborn, that they could estimate the age of children in expert opinions and they could ascertain in such cases where the necessary material was lacking, the age of the children; did you know the file note at that time?\nA.Yes, the file note was submitted to me because Professor Becker and I were mentioned by name in this file note. After all, we had been authorized to carry out the definitions of the age of these children in a scientific manner.\nQ.At that time, didn't you wonder why children were to be turned over to the Lebensborn whose ages were unknown or where the necessary documents were lacking?\nA.No, after all, the children came from the Warthegau and war operations had been carried out there sometime previously in that area.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4416, "page_number": "4409", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII It didn't surprise me if there were orphans in that area of whom neither the date of birth nor the place of birth was known.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4417, "page_number": "4410", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.Later on were these definitions of age which you carried out, were they actually all of such a kind that you did not have any material available to you about the actual age of these children?\nA.No, we never had such a case, but in all cases a private notification about the date of birth of the child was present; however, we did not have any official documents to that effect. Furthermore, it came to my attention that all these children, or a large part of these children, who had come from these Polish orphanages, physically as well as psychologically, when compared to Lebensborn children of the same age, were far behind.\nQ.How did you define the ages of these children; by what method?\nA.We would take an X-ray of the hand, of the bone of the hand root. It is possible when you count the cores of the bone which are in existence there, to determine the age of the child precisely up to half a year.\nQ.What were the results of the information which you gained there?\nA.In all cases, the age which had been confirmed to us privately could-be confirmed to us again as a result of our examinations. Only in one case it was originally doubtful whether the child had been born on the 21st of April, 1941 or on the 21st of April, 1942, and here our scientific examination proved quite clearly that the year 1941 was the correct year when the child was born.\nQ.On whose suggestions were these definitions of the age of the children carried out?\nA.The foster parents would usuallysuggest that this be done, and they would like to have some information and confirmation about the age of the child which received privately, and the appearance of thechild. The witness Lotte Suchert, who was questioned here several days ago, who is sixteen years of age, in my opinion proves, what I have just said just how far these children had remained behind.\nQ.I am now coming to the Roumanian orphans at Langenzell, those Germans who had come from the Roumanian Banat into Germany. The Prosecution in DocumentNO-1387, Exhibit 439, deals with these children.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4418, "page_number": "4411", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Because of these Roumanian-German orphans, the Prosecution has not raised any specific charges; however, it will conclude from these documents that you traveled around generally in order to give racial examinations to foreign children, and in order to take these children into the Lebensborn. From this point of view, will you please comment upon this question?\nA.As it becomes quite clear from the documents, the case was unique; it was anindividual case. The directors of the Lebensborn didn't send me to Langenzell, but I was sent there by the Personal staff of Himmler with the order to look after these children, andto take a look at them. Why the personal staff gave me that order, I don't know. I looked at the children and I made a report about that. I did not only turn over this report to the personal staff, but I also turned it over to the board of directors of the Lebensborn, with the intention that the Lebensborn should furnish clothing and shoes to these children because they were urgently in need of these articles.\nQ.At that time when you made that visit at Langenzell, did you know for certain that these Roumanian-Germans had come to Germany upon their own request?\nA.Yes, not only the children told me that but also the many adults who had arrived there with the same transport to Langenzell.\nQ.At that time did you know that between Roumania and Germany a resettlement treaty had been concluded?\nA.Yes. On that occasion this agreement was mentioned, and I had the impression that all these people had not only come to Germany voluntarily, but that they really welcomed the opportunity to go to Germany.\nQ.However, in this case apparently you carriedout a racial examination.\nA.I did not carry out an examination in this particular sense of the word at all, neither a medical nor a racial examination. I looked at the individual children and I gained the over-all impression, and in my report I also mentioned several racial characteristics, and I put that \n down on paper.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4419, "page_number": "4412", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "For example, the color ofthe eyes or of their hair, in order to show to the reader of this report and to give him a picture aboutthis particular child; in order to make it easier and more comprehensible inthe report, I put down my results in notes, which I took on the spot, and I would have notes 1, 2 and 3, which I defined myself and from which I selected myself.\nQ.Was this a system similar to that which was used by RuSHA; or, was it something else?\nA.At that time I had no knowledge whatsoever of the system used by RuSHA, but these notes were my own invention.\nQ.And according to your knowledge today?\nA.Only now in the course of this trial I have heard of the socalled system of taking notes, which, as I can recall, was used in the classification of these orphans; however, here the notes have meant something quite different than they did in my report.\nQ.Did you ever take a training course where you received some racial training or something like that. Did you ever do that?\nA.I never attended such a training curriculum for any such training to that effect. It has quite clearly been mentioned that the physicians were not suitable as examiners or as racial examiners.\nQ.The Prosecution has alleged that you had suggested that sterilzation be carried out on some of these Roumanian-German children, in one case because you suspected the child had tuberculosis and in another case because the child's ears were standing out, and the shoulders were stooped, sagging; is that correct?\nA.Of course that is all wrong. I suggested sterilization in the case of three children because these children were mentally feeble since birth, and if, in this connection, I mention the degenerative physical characteristics in these cases, and I only did that because they are the proof of the mental feebleness of the children since birth, and that they had been born in that condition, and that this was not a mental deficiency which they had gained later on through the result of their birth or by \n accident or by some sort of disease which might have caused that.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4420, "page_number": "4413", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.How was it in the case of the child whom you suspected of having tuberculosis?\nA.This boy also was easily recognizable as being mentally deficient. About the imbecile attitude and behavior of this poor boy, human being, several stories were going around. I heard one of these stories later on. The boy had a beautiful room and he had a very nice bed, and in spite of that, the camp administration found out one day that he liked to stay in a pig sty all day long; he would usually lie next to the pig on the straw, and on one occasion he fell asleep and the pig ate up the seat of his pants, including his bank account. I only want to mention this case in order to prove that for diagnosis of imbecility, there was no physician actually needed in order to do that.\nQ.Why did you suggest sterilization in the case of Agnes Janner?\nA.This girl had also been born in an imbecile condition. It is well known that young imbecile girls already in very early years tend to become pregnant because they lack certain moral factors. This girl without family ties was sixteen years of age; she did not have any parents any more, and she was just running around the camp all day long, and in that I saw a considerable danger, and I was afraid that the suffering of this poor girl could be doubled because one day she would also give birth to an imbecile child, and especially in this case I saw a particular danger. That is why I considered it to be especially urgent.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4421, "page_number": "4414", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QWhy did you comment on the question of sterilization at all in your report?\nAThat was my duty as a physician. According to the Hereditary Health Law, whenever, any physician obtained knowledge of a person with a hereditary disease, he had to report such a case immediately.\nQAs to the opinion which you expressed in your report about sterilization of the person concerned, was your opinion decisive, even though it was only very superficial?\nAOf course not. I always wrote, in my opinion, and it was only natural, that before this operation was carried out, a very detailed medical diagnosis would have to be obtained.\nQThat is provided for by law?\nAYes, that is according to the provisions of the law.\nQIn several places in your report you state that in your opinion such and such persons should become naturalized. Did you have to decide about naturalization measures?\nAIron the file note it becomes quite clear that this was only an assumption which I expressed; this was an assumption of the camp administration which I expressed in this report. In this case I always wrote, \"In my opinion, this is the case.\"\nOf course, I could not decide who was to become naturalized or not.\nQYou had nothing to do with it anyway, did you?\nANo, I had nothing to do with it.\nQWhen you inspected these Roumanian German children at Langenzell, was this the only case where you looked at or examined children--that is, children who were under the care of Lebensborn?\nAYes, that was the only case, with the exception, naturally, of those children whom I examined in my private medical practice.\nQHowever, these were only Reich German children?\nAThey were all Reich German children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4422, "page_number": "4415", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QWas this also the only case where you ever had to recommend that sterilization be carried out?\nAYes, that was the only case of its kind. However, I must also state here that in my private practice I had to report four cases to the official Physician of that sort, when the Hereditary Law was issied. As to those cases, I do not know whether they were sterilized or not.\nQNow, let's go back to the Roumanian German children at Langenzell, whose sterilization you suggested to consider. Were they actually sterilized later on?\nAI know nothing about it. A witness testified on that subject here.\nQDid you yourself ever carry out a sterilization operation?\nANo, I have never carried out a sterilization.\nQNot as a physician in Lebensborn, nor as a private physician?\nANeither as a physician in Lebensborn, nor as a private physician.\nQAt this point I would like to ask you whether a female worker from the East, or any other foreign female worker, was ever accepted by the Lebensborn in order to give birth to a child.\nANo; I would have been bound to hear about it, because I had to medically examine every case where a mother was accepted in the Lebensborn.\nQAt the time you came to Nuernberg, did you have any knowledge atall of the facts concerning the decree from the Reich Security Main Office, where mention is made that foreign demale workers who are racially especially valuable should give birth to their children in the Lebensborn? That was Exhibit 496, Prosecution DocumentNO-1383, in Document Book X.\nANo, I only saw that decree for the first time here in Nuernberg.\nQAnd you hoard nothing about it before?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4423, "page_number": "4416", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QI now come to the point of the Indictment which deals with spoliation. First of all, I ask you to look at the period of time when you were the so-called business manager in the Board of Directors.\nThat is the time from the outbreak of the war until the spring of 1940. As the so-called business manager in the Board of Directors, at that time, did you have anything to do with the purchasing, payment, and administration of real estate or mobile furniture?\nANo, I had nothing whatsoever to do with that. However, at one time I did interfere in a case of that sort.\nThe case was as follows:\nThe business manager at the time, Pflaum, went to Bromberg in order to establish an agency there for care to be given to dependents of thnic Germans. This was done upon the orders of Himmler. Pflaum did this without my knowledge, and I was somewhat angry. I myself then went to Bromberg, and I took him to account for his action.\nThen the two of us had a severe dispute, which resulted in the fact -\nQYou don't need to describe that to us any further. The witness General Wolfe has already described the further course that things took. However, please tell me now why you were offended by Pflaum's measures. What did you have against them?\nAI did not like Pflaum's taking over a field of work which had nothing to do with the clearly established aims of Lebensborn, and that is why I disapproved of his actions.\nQThe witness General Wolfe had told us here that you succeeded Pflaum left and Sollmann became the director of the Lebensborn. After that time, did you over have anything to do with the purchase, administration, and ownership of real estate property or other objects?\nAI had nothing to do with it directly. However, indirectly, to the extent that if the Lebensborn bought a building or other objects -\nQWill you please repeat the sentence? Will you use very short phrases, please? Please move a little closer to the microphone.\nAI was included -", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4424, "page_number": "4417", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QMay I repeat my question, please?\nAfter Herr Sollmann had become the director of the Lebensborn, did you have anything further to do with the purchase of real estate property or any other objects on behalf of the Lebensborn?\nAI had nothing to do with that directly, but I was included indirectly wherever the Lebensborn received a building or medical installations or facilities which had to be examined as to whether they would be suitable for purposes of the Lebensborn from a medical point of view.\nQWas this also the case with regard to the home Nordach, in the Black Forest?\nAYes, I was sent to Nordach in order to take a look at the building and to see whether it would become a good maternity home.\nQAnd what functions did you have to take care of, with regard to this building, after you had ascertained that?\nAThen I had to divide up the space within the building, and I had to allocate rooms for certain purposes. That was my main task.\nQWhy did the Higher SS and Police Leader send you this letter at the time, as mentioned in Prosecution Document 32-1, Exhibit 581, in Document Book 13-B? Why did he send it just to you?\nABecause he knew me personally, as a result of my visit to Nordach. He did not know Herr Sollmann, and he did not know the competent person in the Lebensborn. He wrote to me so that I would pass this matter on into competent hands, and that is exactly what I did.\nQAnd what can you say concerning the real estate properties in Ottwock, which were intended for the establishment of a Lebensborn home?\nAHere also I was to examine whether these building sites would be suitable for the establishment of a mternity home.\nQIn your report about this matter--and this is Prosecution Document NO 3590, Exhibit 586, in Document Book 13-b -- you mention the fact that \n the medical instruments needed at that home could be obtained in the ghetto.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4425, "page_number": "4418", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "What instruments were you referring to that were available in the ghetto?\nAI don't know that.\nQWhat did you think of? Where did you think that these instruments came from?\nAI thought these instruments had been produced and manufactured in one of the factories which were operating in the ghetto.\nThe Higher SS and Police Leader who showed me around this home told me that the instruments for this home would not have to be brought there, because these intruments were available in the ghetto and he would see to it.\nQThe Prosecution has emphasized the fact that exactly six days after your visit, the ghetto was evacuated and destroyed. Did you know at the time about a plan that the ghetto was to be evacuated and that it was to be destroyed?\nAI didn't even have the slightest idea of that. After all, I have never seen a ghetto, and I cannot imagine what one locks like.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4426, "page_number": "4419", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.Did you actually obtain and receive those instruments from the ghetto? In Prosecution DocumentNO-3499, Exhibit 587, Document Book 13-B, you requested lists, where you wrote down all the instruments you needed. Did you compile these lists?\nA.We did not obtain these instruments, and I can recall for certain that I did not compile such a list.\nQ.Why didn't you?\nA.After all, the plan to establish a Lebensborn home did not materialize, and it was dropped already at that time.\nQ.Did you have anything to do with textiles which came from Jewish stocks, of which Frau Merkel wrote to you in a letter, which is mentioned in Prosecution DocumentNO-2913, Exhibit 585, in Document Book 13-B?\nA.No, I had nothing to do with this matter either. It becomes quite clear, from this brief letter, that this was a personal notification which I received from Frau Merkel, wherein she told me something privately about her work.\nQ.Then, the procurement of instruments from Jewish hands is mentioned once more in a Prosecution Document. This is Prosecution DocumentNO-3753, Exhibit 584, in document Book 13-B. Here someone suggests to the Chief of the Lebensborn that the instruments be \"organized\" in that way for the establishment of a home in Holland. Did you have anything to do with this matter at the time?\nA.No, I had no connection whatsoever with this matter. However, I know that this suggestion was not accepted by the Chief of the Lebensborn and its Board of Directors. After all, we supplied this home with instruments which we had had left over in the home at Wiesbaden. There we had two installations for an operating room, but we only used one because we actually only established one operating room. At that tine I personally went to Wiesbaden in order to wrap up the remaining instruments and send then to Holland. However, this home in Holland was never in operation either.\nQ.I am now coming to the count of the Indictment which deals with \n membership in the SS as a criminal organization.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4427, "page_number": "4420", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "You have already told us how you came to join the SS. From medical Untersturmfuehrer you were promoted to Oberfuehrer. Was Oberfuehrer also a medical rank?\nA.Yes. The physicians in the SS did not have their own ranks. However, physicians could be recognized by a special aesculape rod insignia which they were on their epaulets or on their left upper arm.\nQ.What sort of an insignia was it that the SS physicians were?\nA.That was the Aesculape rod. That is the same suake insignia which is used by the medical Cores in the United States Army. That is a rod, with a snake coiled around it.\nQ.And you also were that insignia?\nA.Yes, I also were that insignia.\nQ.Did you carry on any activity in the SS outside of your medical work?\nA.No.\nQ.Were you ever in charge of any formation in the SS, or did you have the authority to command? Did you march around? Did you take part in meetings?\nA.No.\nQ.You knew Himmler personally and, according to what the witness General Wolfe stated here, Himmler had a lot of confidence in you as a physician. How did you come to meet Himmler?\nA.I met Himmler on the occasion of a Christmas celebration in 1930. That was the Student League Apollo of which I had been a member as a student; Himmler and his father had also been members, and had been active there.\nQ.Was this a political organization of any sort or just an ordinary organization?\nA.No, this student group existed since the year 1870.\nQ.Why did your acquaintance with Himmler last, which you made on that occasion?\nA.During my first conversation with Himmler it became evident that he \n lived in Trudering, which was in the neighborhood where I was living.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4428, "page_number": "4421", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "From that time on, whenever he or members of his family became ill, he would consult no as his house physician.\nQ.In this way you became the physician of Himmler's family?\nA.Yes, and I remained that for several years.\nQ.Was Himmler already one of the prominent people at that time?\nA.No. At that time Himmler was still a relatively small man, and, actually, he lived pretty much in misery. He sometimes told me about his financial difficulties, and that is why I did not send him any bills for my professional work, as was my custom in the case of all people who could not financially afford to pay a physician.\nQ.Did you have any friendship with Himmler?\nA.It is too much to say that we were friends, because I did not have such personal contact with him. However, since we lived so close to each other, our wives and children met, and his only daughter was the same age as my twin daughters. In this way it happened that the families would meet once in a while, as is customary in the country. Altogether, that may have been the case on four or five occasions.\nQ.And how long did you have this kind of contact with Himmler's family?\nA.As long as I was his house physician, that is to say, as long as he lived in my neighborhood. That was until the year 1933. I treated him for tonsillitis at one time, that was in 1935, and that was the last time I treated him.\nQ.And what was your relationship with Himmler later on?\nA.Several years later, in 1936, Himmler had to fly to Rome. However, he had caught a severe case of influenza several days before, and he asked me to come along with him because he was afraid that he might suffer a relapse. However, it was not necessary for me to treat him. Then, until the outbreak of the war, I saw him perhaps three times.\nQ.On what occasions did you see him these three times?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4429, "page_number": "4422", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "A.On those occasions he visited the homes of the Lebensborn, and I introduced the mothers and the children to him.\nQ.Did you also see Himmler during the war?\nA.Yes, I believe I saw him four tines during the war.\nHowever, I would only see him on official matters.\nQ.Hatters pertaining to the Lebensborn?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Did you ever carry on a political discussion with Himmler?\nA.During the early part of our acquaintance I was interested in finding out something about politics from Himmler. However, at the time, I regretted that he always avoided political discussions. Later on he became a big shot, with whom I could not have any personal relationship any longer, and our discussions only related to official matters pertaining to the Lebensborn. However, as his former physician, he would always talk to me about his physical condition.\nQ.Were you ever present when Himmler made a speech? Were you present when he gave them, especially those speeches which have been mentioned here in the Prosecution documents?\nA.No, I did not hear any of these mentioned speeches. I only heard him speak on one occasion, and that was in 1931, when he talked at Wasserburg on the Inn. That was part of an election campaign.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4430, "page_number": "4423", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQDid you ever read speeches of the sort which have been submitted in the prosecution documents?\nANo.\nQBefore you came to Nurnberg?\nANo, I never had the opportunity to read speeches of that sort.\nQDid you have a lot of social contacts especially with the higher officers of the Party, State, Wehrmacht or SS?\nAI am not very socially inclined, and during the few leisure hours at my disposal, I preferred to remain with my family, with my wife and children. My profession actually keeps me busy all the time, anyhow, at all times of the day and night I had to be ready to go on a call because that is the fate of the rural practioner, especially the practioner who helps at births. He always has to be there. He never knows when a mother will give birth to a child, however we do know it mostly takes place at night. When I was still younger, on Sunday evenings, I would like to sit down at a certain table in the bar of my village, but since there were no nights where I did not have to go on a call, I also had to drop this very harmless habit. I may, therefore, say, I never had any social contacts at all and certainly I did not have any social contacts with the prominent people since they did not come to our village.\nQIn the year 1938, did you have any knowledge of programs against the Jews which the Party carried out in Germany in November which constituted the first crime of the Party? Can you say that this caused a lot of discussions, excitement in a lot of circles? May I repeat my question. The programs against the Jews in November 1938 were the first crimes which caused disgust and excitement in the world. Did you hear at the time of these crimes?\nAOn the evening in question I was at my home. On the following morning my patients told me of the incidents that had occurred in Munich. I was shocked and disgusted about the fact that such incidents could occur in a civilized state, and with the feeling of this shame I made a telephone call to the SS agency in Munich to inquire whether our SS man had \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4431, "page_number": "4424", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "also participated in this outrage, and I heard at this time from a competent SS leader that I needn't worry about the matter because the SS had not played any part in this affair.\nQDid you hear later on that the SS has also partly participated in this matter and the IMT had pronounced this to be a fact?\nAI am not acquainted with the verdict nor its details. I did not hear that the SS had participated.\nQDid you in any way obtain knowledge of any other crimes in which the SS had played a part for the commission of which the SS was used, especially those crimes, on account of which the IMT has declared the general SS to be a criminal organization -- I want to name especially maltreatments and murders which occurred in concentration camps, the murder of thousands of Jews by the SD Einsatzkommandos, I want to mention the inhumane medical experiments on concentration camp inmates, did you ever obtain knowledge of these crimes?\nANo, until the end of the war I did not hear about this, even by way of rumors. My only source of information were the daily newspapers and the radio broadcasts. I would have considered the listening to foreign stations to be unpatriotic, and it is still difficult for me to believe today that an organization which once pursued the most ideal aims, which wanted to bring up its members in the virtues of honesty, decency and chivalry and honor, and that as I have often convinced myself which stated that its members should adhere to these virtues, that this organization or part of that organization should be used to carry on such crimes, as I have said before, it is still hard for me to believe that today. I still cannot understand it today.\nDR.THIELE-FREIDERSDORF: May it please the Tribunal I have no further questions in my direct examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11:00 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4432, "page_number": "4425", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I,Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nDR. HESSE:Hesse for the defendant Lorenz.\nMay I just please ask the witness one question.\nEXAMINATION BY DR. HESSE:\nQWitness, prosecution submitted an affidavit by a certain Reinhold Grabow. This is prosecution's Exhibit 411. In this affidavit mention is made of a children's home of the Vomi in Ottwock. As I can see from Prosecution's Exhibit 486 contained in Volume XIII-B, you yourself were in Ottwock near Warsaw once for inspection purposes. Did you see there a children's home of the Vomi?\nANo, I haven't seen such a home there.\nDR. HESSE:Thank you, no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQDr. Ebner, I believe you have stated that you were the physician of Himmler in 1932 and '33, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQYou were a member of the SS since 1931, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQAnd Himmler has been chief, or was chief of the SS from 1929, isn't that correct?\nAYes, that is correct also.\nQThen your nonsubmission of a bill to Himmler at this time, was it, we will say, party loyalty or the affiliation in the SS which made you -\nTHE INTERPRETER:Repeat please, will you?\nQThen your nonsubmission of a bill at this time, which you said you did not give to Himmler, could it have been because he was your chief of the SS?", "speakers": [ "THE INTERPRETER", "A", "DR. HESSE", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4433, "page_number": "4426", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nANo, that has nothing to do with that.\nQThus we cannot say that Himmler was a small man at this time then, can we?\nAThe SS at that time was not independent, but it was subordinated to Roehm. When Himmler called himself Reichsfuehrer-SS this was an entirely different matter at that time than later when he was independent from Roehm. At that time he still received a small salary from the Party. He had a small house to himself and he sort of lived in rather modest circumstances, and I could see that with my own eyes.\nQBut during this time of your friendship with Himmler he was the Chief of the SS, was he not?\nAI never said anything about friendship. I was not friendly with Himmler.\nQDidn't you state that at one time you had been very friendly? I believe you were a fraternity brother of Himmler's at one time, were you not?\nAI said that I was first his personal physician, and that I had brotherly relationships with him in the way that the relationship was in a student's fraternity. That is the relationship I had to him and the relationship to his children.\nQAnd when did this friendship cease?\nAI have to correct you again. I was not friendly with him. I had relations with him, and these relations endured until approximately the year 1934. At that time he moved to Berlin, and I lost contact with him.\nQNow I would like to get to your activities in connection with the Lebensborn. You have been with Lebensborn or were with Lebensborn from its inception until the present occupation, were you not?\nAI was not in any way in contact with the Lebensborn in its inception. However, up to the establishment of the home at Steinhoering I was attached to the Lebensborn as a physician. That was about half a year after the inception of the association itself.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4434, "page_number": "4427", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQAnd would you say that with regard to your first appointment by Himmler, that your former friendship had nothing to do with that?\nAI don't understand what you mean. With what is it supposed to have something to do?\nQYour first appointment with Lebensborn, would you say that this appointment that was given to you by Himmler, would you say that your former friendship had anything to do with that appointment?\nANo, for I was living near this home.\nQNow when exactly were you the business manager of Lebensborn? Could you give the months and years?\nAI am afraid I don't remember that exactly.\nQCould you give approximately the time in which you served as business manager?\nAI presume that it was about the end of '37 or the beginning of '38, but I cannot remember exactly.\nQAnd you served in this capacity until how long?\nAI served in this capacity until Herr Sollmann came. That was in May, 1940.\nQAnd during this time in which you were employed in Main Department A, could you give the exact time you were in charge of Main Department A?\nAI was chief of Main Department A from the 1st of May, 1942, until the spring of 1943, but I don't know the exact date.\nQAnd who was your predecessor as head of Main Department A?\nAMy predecessor was the head of the Lebensborn, Herr Sollmann, who was deputized for by Frau Viermetz at that time.\nQAnd what offices did Main Department A consist of, such as reception into homes, etc.?\nAMain Department A consisted of the reception department for the mothers in the Lebensborn homes, it dealt with guardianship matters, of children born in Lebensborn homes, then it looked for the various foster homes and adoption homes for the children, and it also had the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4435, "page_number": "4428", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "department for statistics.\nQAnd did you perform duties as head of the Main Department A, or did Viermetz continue to be consulted with that deportment while you were there?\nAI have already stated that it was entirely up to me, the field of reception of mothers. Frau Viermetz did not collaborate with me in this field and was not active.\nQNow I would like to hand you Document Book VIII-C, the pages marked, and I have marked them with numbers which I will refer to because of the shortage of time. This is Prosecution's Exhibit 439, DocumentNO-1387. It is your report to Sollmann. Now, you have stated here that your duties consisted of a medical nature and that your work did not consist of making racial examinations, isn't that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow, I would like for you to turn to Page No. 1, and you see the underline which I have inserted there, No. 1. Can you find that No. 1 besides that underline?\nAYes, I found that.\nQNow, would you read what is underlined in that connection? Would you read aloud to the Tribunal, please?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4436, "page_number": "4429", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nA \"As far as the racial viewpoint is concerned, only few children may be considered to be of value for our folkdom. One part of these children will probably become Germans. However, this does not correspond to a racial selection. A further part will have to be rejected.\"\nQWould you say that the correct translation is that it is not a racially select group instead of \"This is not a racial examination\"?\nAI did not understand that question, I am sorry.\nQWell, let's go on to No. 2. See if this is correct, No. 2.\nAYes.\nQ \"I am enclosing a survey of the individual children whom I have judged according to their racial looks, racial appearance, looks and their posture.\"\nAAnd their attitude.\nQYes. Now medically speaking what does this racial appearance mean? I mean, you didn't do anything with racial classification but yet that appears here. Now, could you explain that?\nAI have already said that I obtained a general impression of the children in such a way that I already described their outer characteristics. Of course, I couldn't put a photograph with the file, therefore, I had to describe the child as I said, and to this, of course, belonged the color of eyes, of hair, the shape of the skull, and the height of the child, everything that can be observed, but I don't believe that that constitutes a racial examination.\nQBut you think that this information is necessary in making a pathological report or a medical - shall we say a medical report? Do you think that this color of the eyes is necessary and conclusive?\nAThe report went to the personal staff of Himmler, and I knew exactly what was important to Himmler in the course of such descriptions, and, of course, I acted accordingly.\nQThe racial characteristics were important to Himmler, is that what you mean?\nANo, no, I don't want to say that, but I wanted to state that \n Court No, I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4437, "page_number": "4430", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Himmler found important the outer characteristics of these children.\nQThen I would like for you to turn over to another page. Would you turn over to, it is Page 4 in my book, but it is marked No, 4, underlined there.\nAYes.\nQNow pathologically I would like to know what the name has to do with the child. Here it says that, \"I can assure you that this name Aron has nothing to do with the Jewish race. That is a very common surname in Rumania,\" Now, pathologically, would you explain this to the Tribunal?\nAIt says here not, \"I can assure you,\" but it says here that a secretary was present in the camp, who assured me that the family name Aron is a very common name in Rumania. Now, of course, the surname Aron is known to be a Jewish name, and it certainly would have caused an inquiry on Himmler's part, whether perhaps this child was not of Jewish descent, and there immediately I had myself assured that this name is not considered to be a Jewish name in Rumania, and that it is used also by people who were not of Jewish descent.\nQThen you would say that in making a medical examination it is necessary to give the origin of the name, is that correct?\nANo.\nQBut Himmler was interested in such matters, you knew that, didn't you?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Your Honor, I would like to clarify a misunderstanding. The Prosecutor bases his questions on the fact that the witness is supposed to have said that he had performed a medical examination on these children. However, as far as I remember he did not say that.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will remember what has been said. It will not be necessary for you to take up the time to do that. Go ahead.\nQ (By Mr. Neely) Now, turn the Page again marked in my book \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4438, "page_number": "4431", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Page 5, and you will see an underline in your book with a 5 beside it, where you mention Alpine cranial formation. Again, pathologically speaking, I would like to know what Alpine cranial formation means.\nAI speak here of eastern cranial formation, and by that I understand the small and founded skull. I believe one differentiates between a long skull, short skull and round skull, and in this case the round formation of the skull was especially to be noted.\nQAnd then would you turn again to the section marked No. 6, and I believe there it says in describing this child, you give the color of his eyes and his hair, and then you say, \"His racial characteristics are similar to those of his brother, Nordic with dinaric features.\" Now would you explain again pathologically what that means, \"Nordic with dinaric features\"?\nAThis boy as I can see here had green eyes, dark blond soft hair, and his brother, I designated him to be of Nordic characteristics with dinaric trends. That immediately gives the picture to the reader of how this boy looked.\nQThat gives a pathological or medical picture, that concerns the sate of health of the child, is that correct?\nANo, that has nothing to do with pathology, of course, but that was supposed to describe the outward characteristics of the boy. May I add something?\nQI think we get a very good picture of the boy now. Now we will turn a little further on to No. 8. It is the last page, and here you recommend that this child be sterilized, and you give as a reason, one of the reasons in describing him, he has a degenerate formation of the skull, sticking-out ears and drooping shoulders, and before you answer that, I imagine I had better straighten up. Now, would you tell us what drooping shoulders have to do pathologically with sterilization?\nAMr. Prosecutor, I think you overlook the first word in this report. I said there that the boy was a moron. I described in detail \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4439, "page_number": "4432", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "that these bodily characteristics of degeneration are to prove that idiocy was not incurred afterwards but that it was inherited. That is to say, for instance, drooping shoulders as can be frequently found in the case of morons and idiots, the ears that are standing away from the head, are the characteristics of psychological degeneration, that is idiocy.\nQDid you ever hear of mothers taping their children's ears back so they would not stick out when they were young, or is that an oldfashioned remedy?\nAYes, yes, I have heard this. Even in the Lebensborn I saw young mothers very often who were not quite happy about the fact that thair children had ears that stuck away from their head, and then they taped them back overnight. I always told them that whatever is there by birth could not be changed by taping them back, and then, of course, they remained with the ears sticking out.\nQI think now we have finished with that document, but you stated in your affidavit that you were a speaker at the NSDAP Office for Racial Policy. Now, could you tell me, very shortly explain what you spoke there to this racial group?\nAWell, I said that already yesterday I gave lectures concerning the policy of population, about the questions of inheritance, about the fight with venereal diseases, and about public health. These were the topics that I lectured on.\nQBut nothing concerning Nordic-dinaric tendencies, drooping shoulders or degenerate skulls?\nAMr. Prosecutor, I was living in the country and my peasants were not at all interested in the racial classification of human beings. We were interested in quite different questions, for instance, questions of heredity, with which, for instance, the peasant is familiar with his livestock. Of course, this is not a National Socialist topic, but it is a very old scientific legacy and originated with Gregor Mendel.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4440, "page_number": "4433", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_1_Gaylord (Reischer)\nQNow getting back to the sterilization which you have spoken of this morning, this law applied to German nationals, did it not?\nAI can't say that positively for I don't remember the law clearly.\nQThis was a German law, was it not?\nAYes, it was a German law.\nQNow, I would like to ask you one thing concerning property. Did you over make any attempts or did you ever direct anyone or try to persuade anyone to turn over Jewish property to the Lebensborn or to friends of yours?\nAYou put this question in such a general way that I can't very well say \"yes\" or \"no.\"\nQI will make it very simple. Did you ever try to obtain Jewish property for the Lebensborn or for friends of yours?\nAI remember that once I wrote to the mayor of my home town in order to procure an apratment for a mother who wanted to start a household with her children; but to this I must add that I come from a village which had 3,000 inhabitants, among which were 500 Jews, and at that time many Jewish apartments in this home village were vacant; so I wrote to the mayor of this village and asked him whether he could not lease such a vacant apartment to this woman.\nQDo you know why these apartments were vacant?\nAAt that time I heard that part of these Jews had emigrated and another part simply left -- disappeared -- that is to say, they were transferred to a city in the east, and many of those Jews wrote that they were treated very well. I asked about those people because there were some friends of my youth among them whose fate I was very much interested in.\nQ.Do you know anything about the furniture which was left behind?\nANo, I don't know anything about that.\nQYour Honor, I have no further questions of this defendant.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4441, "page_number": "4434", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_2_Gaylord (Reischer) The only thing I would like to do at this time is to introduce into evidence a letter which the defendant Ebner has just been making reference to. This is found in Document Book XIII-B, and has been listed in all of the document books which have been presented, but it was omitted at the time of the submission of this document book. I would like at this time to enter it into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit No. 851. This is documentNO-2260. It's a letter from Ebner to the Mayer of Echenhausen asking for an apartment from which Jews have been evacuated. I have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQI would like to put a few questions to the witness in redirect examination. The Prosecution asked you concerning your relationship to Himmler and called it a \"friendly relationship.\" It is difficult to say whether such a relationship is a friendly relationship or an official relationship; therefore in order to characterize it more clearly I would ask you to say once again how often you saw Himmler from 1931 to 1933 -- that is to say, whether you had any sort of familiar relations with Himmler at all. Did you and your family meet Himmler and his family?\nAWell, I said that may have been about four or five times.\nQDuring those three years?\nAWell, certainly when one lives in the country together, one sees each other once in a while.\nQWhen you received the appointment from the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer to inspect Rumanian-German children in Langenzell, were you supposed to perform a medical examination on these children, or what was your duty?\nAI was not supposed to perform a medical examination nor a racial examination, but I was simply ordered to look at these children and to report on them. It is a matter of course that when I look at these children I will look at them through the eyes of a physician and \n 27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_3_Gaylord (Reischer) my report will of course be formulated in such a way that the characteristics are emphasized that will be noted by me as a physician; otherwise one need not have sent me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4442, "page_number": "4435", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QWere you ordered also to perform a racial examination there?\nAI don't know anything about an order to that effect.\nQHow long did you stay there and how long did you observe these children?\nAThe examination of all these 25 children lasted about one hour. The children passed me in review. I talked to them, and I believe in the case of the boys I asked them to bare their chests in order to give myself a complete picture.\nQNow let us talk about the cars sticking away from the head. Is that always a sign of moronism?\nANo, certainly not because then most people would have to be idiots.\nQBut in the case of a moron, if he has ears sticking away from his head, is that among other things a characteristic of idiocy?\nAYes, I said that already very clearly. Ears sticking away from the head, drooping shoulders, slouching gait, and things like that -- these are the characteristics of hereditary idiocy in contrast to acquired idiocy.\nQIf you keep on taping the ears sticking away from the head during the night, would that have any effect upon hereditary idiocy?\nANo, certainly not.\nQYou said before that you had heard that in your home village of Echenhausen, the Jewish population was moved. evacuated, or resettled into another town.\nAYes.\nQAt the time what did you know about the evacuation of Jews, from their home residences other places? Was there a law in existence about that?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4443, "page_number": "4436", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_4_Gaylord (Reischer)\nAI don't know that. In my home area in upper Bavaria we had no Jews, from their home residences to other places? Was there a law in existence about that?\nAI don't know that. In my home area in upper Bavaria, we had no Jews; therefore this question was of no interest to me. When one day I visited my sister in Echenhausen I found out what I have described before, namely that so many apartments were vacant then. A short time after that, a mother of the Lebensborn came to me and asked me whether I couldn't help her. She was with her own child and she wanted to take tow or three more children into her home as a foster home and wanted to establish her own household. It was, of course, a matter of course that I contacted the mayor, whom I know, and that I wrote him a letter to ask whether such an apartment was vacant or not.\nQThank you. No further questions. BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, just one question that I want to be absolutely clear about: I understood you to say that the fact that a man's ears stick away from his head does not necessarily mean that he is crazy?\nANo, Your Honor. Ears sticking away from his head does not necessarily mean that he is crazy\nANo, Your Honor. Ears sticking away from one's head are very far from idiocy.\nQVery well. Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nDR.SCHMIDT (For the defendant Tesch): Your Honor, I would like to call the defendant Tesch into the witness stand at this time,\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nGUENTHERTESCH, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "GUENTHER", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4444, "page_number": "4437", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_5_Gaylord (Reischer) (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, will you please tell the Tribunal your full name, your date of birth, and your place of birth.\nAMy name is Guenther Tesch. I was born on the 21st of October 1907 in Cologne.\nQWill you please describe briefly your professional carrer.\nAMy professional career is already described in my affidavit. It is the normal career of a lawyer in Germany. I attended public school; then went to a technical high school; and subsequently I studied law at various universities. Subsequent to that, I was Referendar at the beginning of 1933 and at that time belonged to the Upper District Court of Hamm and was there with the courts as lawyer in various other jobs, and finished there my practical training for law. In 1937 I took my last big state board examination and with that I was graduated as a lawyer or subsequently as a judge. The only special fact which should be noted perhaps in this career would have been that shortly before this last second state board examination a law was issued according to which the free choice of the place where one could establish one's law practice was restricted, and besides that, after this last state board examination that I took, once again four year's time for waiting was provided by that, during which time the assessor, which is the name of the graduate after this examination would have to go to the place where he was sent by the Ministry of Justice.\nQAnd where were you sent by the Ministry of Justice at that time?\nAI had a choice between Kiel and Munich, and at that time I decided to go to Munich, when I had the choice between those two places.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4445, "page_number": "4438", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_9_6_Gaylord (Reischer)\nQWas it not also a special fact in your career that in July of 1933 you became a member of the SA, and in May 1937 you became a member of the Party?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4446, "page_number": "4439", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_10_1_Gaylord (Reischer)\nANo, that was not really unusual because at that time it was a matter of course in Germany, and after all I had become Referendar. It was more or less mandatory for me.\nQDid you now take up official duties within the Party, or what was your rank? Altogether, what was your position with the SA?\nAI was a nominal member of the Party from May 1937 on. I was with the SA since July 1933, and until the beginning of the war I was promoted from a private into SA to a NCO's ranking. I did not perform any sort of special activities.\nQYou said that you were transferred to Munich by the Ministry of Justice. When was that and what were your duties then in Munich?\nAI was transferred to Munich at the end of 1938. I had no contacts there at all, and I cam for a training period to a lawyer, Boettcher, in Munich. At that time I made greet efforts to specialize my work for taxation law, and subsequently I studied with Professor Boettcher, who was an expert in taxation law.\nQThe period of time mentioned in the Indictment starts with September 1939. Where were you at this time?\nAIn September 1939 I was with the Wehrmacht. I was conscripted into a troop unti of the army at the beginning of the war.\nQAnd for how long did you perform military duty and how were you transferred to the SS?\nAI was with the armed forces until January 1941. After the end of the French campaign, I tried several times to be transferred from line duty with my unit to a legal department, since this waiting time that I was talking about before was not finished for me and I had to make great efforts to finish my studies -- that is to say, to effect my admission to the bar. Finally, the personal staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS requisitioned my services and in this way I came in contact with the Lebensborn since they needed lawyers there.\nQWere you immediately transferred to the Waffen-SS at that time?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4447, "page_number": "4440", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_10_2_Gaylord (Reischer)\nAI was supposed to have been taken into the Waffen-SS as an expert, but at that time that office was not established at the Lebensborn and therefore I was transferred first into the General-SS as Untersturmfuehrer.\nQAnd when were you finally transferred to the Waffen-SS?\nAWell, that was the date of 13 January 1941 that I referred to before, and my actual transfer to the Waffen-SS took place in the fall of 1942.\nQAnd what was your official rank in this transfer?\nAMy rank was Hauptsturmfuehrer -- that is, on expert rating.\nQWere you also transferred as a technical expert and what was the significance of this fact?\nAI was taken over as technician in race and settlement affairs. This had no particular significance, especially not in connection with classification experts, and so forth. That probably has been proven. I would only like to comment briefly to the effect that my employment was only in the capacity of a lawyer that I had no training in these particular matters that is to say, I was sitting at the very same desk at that time.\nQWhen you were then appointed technician in the race and settlement affairs, this was probably only an administrative job and one that was carried on the T.O. that way?\nAYes, that has been described here several times.\nQDid anything change in this classification of yours until the end of the war?\nAYes. At about the middle of 1944, I was transferred to the Main Office SS-Courts.\nQAnd what was the reason for this transfer to the Main Office SS-Courts?\nAThe reason for that was my legal work at the Lebensborn, and especially the fact that during the war many fathers of illegitimate children, after they had been drafted for service into the front \n 27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_10_3_Gaylord (Reischer) lines, wanted to finish up with the formalities in connection with their illegitimate children, and for this reason these visited the Lebensborn and wanted to notarize their affidavits.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4448, "page_number": "4441", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "It must be said, of course, that the Lebensborn had a registrar's office and that this registrar's office could not in any way deal with matters of support, but they could only effect the recognition of fatherhood as such.\nQThe Lebensborn at that time had its main offices in Steinhoering. Could not these obligations for support have been simply notarized by a notary public?\nASteinhoering is a small village in which there was no notary public, and in the nearest district town in which there was a notary pulbic the situation prevailed that this notary public at that time had to do the work of several notary publics in several district cities; that is to say, he was only at very special hours in his office.\nQNow since the IMT has declared the SS a criminal organization, I would like to ask whether in January 1941, when you were transferred to the Lebensborn and the SS, whether you had only misgivings about this fact?\nANo, I had no misgivings whatever. The SS at that time was part of the Wehrmacht with which I served at that time and enjoyed the best reputation there. Since I was with the Lebensborn, many comrades of mine from my army time came to me and thought that I could help them also in their becoming members of the SS.\nQAnd later on did you have any sort of misgivings perhaps?\nAMy work at the Lebensborn did not give me any reasons for having misgivings.\nQBefore January 1941, did you have anything to do with the SS?\nANo.\nQDo you know anything about the crimes that were the subject of the IMT trial and which led to the conviction of the SS as having \n 27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_10_4_Gaylord (Reischer) been a criminal organization?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4449, "page_number": "4442", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Did you know anything about these crimes before the surrender?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4450, "page_number": "4443", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "ANo, not even by hearsay did I hear anything about them. Of course there were a lot of rumors during the war which in a way one let pass by during the years more or less and it was just my activity in the Lebensborn which made me more or less immune against rumors making the rounds about the Lebensborn. I want to add that while I was at the Lebensborn I compiled a so-called rumor file in which I collected all the rumors, of course only with regard to rumors concerning the Lebensborn. I believe it might be better if I don't mention everything that was in there.\nQYou said a short time ago that your legal training had not been concluded when you became a member of the Lebensborn. Now, did you at that time, in spite of your transfer to the SS, conclude your legal training in addition to your work at the lebensborn?\nAYes, I did. At first I was simultaneously studying with a lawyer in Munich and continued my training there. In July 1941 I came to the Reich School for Finance matters in Berlin in order to take a course there and in July or August 1941 I was admitted as a lawyer in the courts of Munich and at the same time as consultant in taxation matters to the Upper District Court in Munich.\nQDid you ever give up your right to be at the bar, and were you a full-time member of the SS?\nANo, I always remained a lawyer. At the end of 1943 I was offered a chance to be transferred as a full-time member into the SS but at that time I refused to do so. This was not a very easy decision for me to make for several times I applied to be sent to the front lines and my family, if I should have become a full-time SS member, would have been cared for while this was not the case in my profession as a lawyer.\nQDid you have the intention after the end of the war to be active as a lawyer only?\nAYes, I already said that I had formed a partnership with the lawyer Dr. Prechtl and that I had already concluded a contract with this man.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4451, "page_number": "4444", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_11_2_Love (Reischer)\nQDid you receive a salary in the Lebensborn according to a classification of employees or according to rules for salaries laid down for the SS.\nANo, I was paid job by job as the months went on.\nQThe Prosecution in Exhibit No. 16 has submitted an affidavit by you. In this affidavit you describe your position in the Lebensborn. Can you now please describe in brief just whay your activities as legal expert were at the Lebensborn?\nAThis was a very varying activity for a lawyer because welfare lawyers came into contact with all phases of life. At first I started with the work on the side of taxation matters and I treated the sales tax of the association as such, the real estate tax, and finally taxation matters concerned with illegitimate children and unmarried mothers and subsidies for children, etc.\nQFrom a legal point of view what were the essentials of the activities of the Lebensborn?\nAFrom a legal point of view the aim of the Lebensborn was the creation of equal rights for illegitimate children and they also tried to prevent the defamation of such women who did not deserve to be put onto the same level as prostitutes and loose women. One believed that one could differentiate in such a way in the Lebensborn as has already been clarified in this court room. The women that came to the Lebensborn were required to give affidavits that they had had intercourse only with one man; that they had to prove their good reputation, and also to prove their personal health and their hereditary health.\nQDefamation of unmarried women: Was that not abolished in the Third Reich to a large extent?\nAHere one has to differentiate between propaganda and actual practice. Actually, from a legal point of view, the status of the civil law court of 1896 prevailed, and there was also the youth welfare law of 1922. However they did not change anything in the \n 27 Jan 1948_M_MSD_11_3_Love (Reischer) actual situation which was to the effect that all women who had illegitimate children were put on the same level and now they were in a position to educate their children and bring them up themselves.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4452, "page_number": "4445", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "To this must be added that in the course of the Third Reich the difficulties with which unmarried mothers had to contend were increased through the fact that on every occasion they had to submit genealogical records for their children from the mother's side and from the father's side and so the most intimate matters they would want to keep to themselves they had to lay bare before the authorities. This necessity of the genalogical chart was already handled in such a way by the authorities that women were forced, and were punished in mentioning whether they were married or single, if they did not state that with clarity to the authorities. In my document book I submitted a document concerning this fact and from which can be seen that a decree or an order by the Ministry of the Interior was necessary in order to prevent these horrible abuses. In reality such a decree, of course, cannot be effective in every case if the general trend is in a different direction.\nQAnd what did the Lebensborn do in order to aid these unwed mothers?\nAThat would lead us too far afield if I would give details of this activity but in summarizing I would like to say that their Lebensborn took these mothers, as we say under its wing; that is it tried to unburden their hearts and take away from them the financial and psychological worries. The Lebensborn took it upon itself to contact the authorities and it tried to sec to it that these mothers were not molested in any way.\nQDid the mandatory secrets which was observed in the Lebonsborn also fall into this field of welfare measures?\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribuanl will recess until 1:30 (A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4453, "page_number": "4446", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 27 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nGUENTHER TESCH -- Resumed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, before the recess we spoke about the measures which were taken by the Lebensborn for the protection of illegitimate mothers and in connection with this we were speaking about the so-called secrecy obligation. What do you mean by the term secrecy in this connection?\nAThe term secrecy was used within the Lebensborn. If it is applied generally we may misunderstand it here and therefore it would be better to say that this was the guarantee for a certain amount of discretion and perhaps the better term would be \"camouflaging.\"\nQOf what did this \"camouflaging\" or secrecy consist with regard to the registration of the child, once it had been born?\nAWill you please repeat the question?\nQI will repeat it once more. I asked you of what did the secrecy consist in regard to the work of the registration office?\nAWe did not want the woman who had given birth to an illegitimate child to incur any disadvantages in public life and we assured her that the birth of the child would not be reported to the local registration office of the locality where the mother came from until the mother was again living under normal conditions, that is to say, until she had again made peace with her parents or unless she had married the father of her child.\nQAt the beginning of your examination you stated that first of all you dealt with legal taxation questions, first of all in the Lebensborn. Did you also have to deal with the problems which you have just described?\nAYes, slowly and very gradually I was included in all these things, \n in the taking care of individual cases as well as dealing with general cases.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4454, "page_number": "4447", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "That is to say, we made our attempts in the direction of getting new laws passed with regard to illegitimate children. This was done before the First World War and after the First World War, in 1930, and again in 1937, approximately, and constantly drafts were submitted for new laws. However, not a single law was ever passed. In general we tried to establish a legal condition, as for example, it exists in Denmark and in Norway. That is to say, the illegitimate mother would have an independent legal status in regard to the education which her child would later on receive and the children, with regard to their father, also had a legal status which was not recognized in Germany in the way that they could adopt the name of their father and consideration was also given to them in regard to inheritance matters.\nQOf course I do not intend to ask you to discuss all the legal problems which confronted the Lebensborn. Perhaps, however, you can tell us something very briefly about the legal and fundamental line which was followed by the Lebensborn in the care of war orphans.\nAIn the field of war orphans we had firm regulations which were adhered to very closly by the Lebensborn. Beyond that, however, the Lebensborn did not only work with regard to the welfare claims of the relatives of the family of the deceased but it would also look after the living accomodations of the families of the deceased. It would settle all legal matters whenever the Lebensborn's advice was asked, mainly with regard to inheritance matters, and it did what no welfare institution had done before: the Lebensborn also cared for the illegitimate children whose fathers had died in the war.\nQDid the Lebensborn also work on the compensation claims to the welfare offices for war widows?\nAYes, The Lebensborn was also included in that matter.\nQNow on that subject I want to ask you a final question with regard to adoptions. From what points of view with regard to adoptions was this procedure handled by the Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4455, "page_number": "4448", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AI believe Dr. Ebner and Herr Sollmann have also testified several times about that. The fundamental line to be followed was that as far as possible we wanted to keep the illegitimate mothers from giving the children away for adoptions and all the finding of jobs for these women by the Lebensborn had the purpose of keeping mother and child together so that the mother would bring up her own child. The Lebensborn did not want to carry on a recruitment for these illegitimate children but first of all we wanted to have them brought up by their own mothers. This resulted in the fact that of approximately 5,000 births in the Lebensborn throughout the total time not more than 100 children of that number were actually adopted. These were cases where it had become evident from the position of the mother that she would never be able to take proper care of her own child.\nQIn the case of these adoptions did the secrecy or this camouflaging play any part?\nAIn the case of adoptions in general the point of view of secrecy is generally important and of course the Lebensborn is no exception. After all, at least the civil law in Germany prescribes that the children that are to be adopted are to accept the names of their adoptive parents so that up to a certain age these adoptive parents could keep the children in the belief that they were their real children. In the Third Reich this task became more difficult because the adoption agreements took up a very long time because every person concerned had to submit a chart of his ancestry dating back to a certain year and for this intermediate time there was a special decree that the children could already receive the name of their adoptive parents earlier.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4456, "page_number": "4449", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QAnd who issued this decree and when did it become effective; can you tell us something about that?\nAAs far as I knew, this decree was issued before the war, and it probably was issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior.\nQFrom the 1st of August, 1943 on, you were the head of the Main Legal Department. About the duties and organization of this Main Legal Department you have already told us in your affidavit, which the Prosecution has offered as Exhibit No. 16, I would like to ask you now, were these fields of work of the Main Legal Department ever handled by one or several persons and what professional training did your collaborators have?\nAI don't know whether I mentioned all the fields of work in my affidavit. Here we had seven different departments, and one collaborator would be in charge of each of them, and all of them had received legal training. Besides me, we had a female lawyer and a male lawyer, two assistants and one expert, and one taxation inspector.\nQGo ahead, please.\nAEach one of these persons had been registered in the society register as a representative of the board of directors.\nQOne of the fields of work of the Main Legal Department was the Registrar's Office, which was located in the central office of the Lebensborn. A Registrar's Office is a government agency isn't it? To whom was the Registrar's Office subordinated in the Lebensborn?\nAThe Registrar's Office of the Lebensborn with regard to the subordination did not form any exception from all the other Registrar's offices in Germany. This Registrar's Office at Munich, for example, was subordinated to the Lord Mayor of Munich.\nQTherefore, one cannot say that the Registrar's Office was subordina to you?\nANo; neither before or after the establishment of the Main Legal Department.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4457, "page_number": "4450", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QAnd why was the Registrar's Office in spite of this incorporated into the Main Legal Department?\nABecause all the fields of work which in any way were connected with legal affairs were to be consolidated into one main department.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, this incorporation of the Registrar's Office into the Main Legal Department was only a formal incorporation.\nAYes. Dr. Schulz, who was in charge of the Registrar's Office, has himself described that here.\nQAnd now how was it with the police reporting agencies?\nAThe situation was the same again; this was also a government agency.\nQI am now coming to the children who had not been born in Lebensborn homes, but who came from the incorporated territories during the war, and I want to ask you in this connection whether these children were selected by the Lebensborn or did the Lebensborn have any influence on the fact just how many and what children were taken under its care?\nAAs far as I know, no collaborator of the Lebensborn ever selected any children at any place whatsoever; for example, in the occupied territories; and on the part of the Lebensborn, with regard to the number and the type of children, there was no influence exerted whatsoever.\nQFrom a discussion which the witness Dr. Schulz had with you about these children, the Prosecution has concluded that you had had some influence on the fact whether children come to the lebensborn or not. Is this assumption correct?\nADr. Schulz had the habit of reporting very frequently and he would consider all the possibilities which were connected with some case or another, and this was the case also in this affair which he has described here. Furthermore, at the time this discussion could not have taken place, that is to say at the end of 1942 and early 1943, because I was not his superior at the time and the decision whether the children were to come to the Lebensborn was not up to him nor up to me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4458, "page_number": "4451", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QDid the Lebensborn try to obtain these children?\nAOne can say that the Lebensborn tried, but it did not try to obtain them, but once the children had been put under the care of the Lebensborn, then it tried to look after them.\nQ what you mean to say is that the Lebensborn was looking after their welfare.\nAYes.\nQDid you participate in any agreement which led to the taking over of such children by the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQAt what time did you have your first contact with these matters?\nAAs is customary, one always uses a lawyer when something seems to get very difficult. That was the case also here. Only after the children had already been turned over to foster homes it was found out just how different these cases of children were in contrast to those who had been born in the Lebensborn. While we were informed about everybody who had been born in the Lebensborn, this did not apply to these children.\nQIn the case of the children who came from the Warthegau, the Decree of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and the Main Staff Office, 67-I, of the 29th of February, 1942, seems to play a fundamental part; it is of the 19th of February; I must correct myself here. Since you were an expert in the legal department of the Lebensborn, one could assume that you had something to do with the drafting of this Decree was this the case?\nANo, it was not.\nQDid you attent any preliminary discussions which culminated in the Decree 67-I; or, did you know of any preliminary measures; or, did you know anything about the conditions which prevailed in the Warthegau at that time?\nAAt that time I had nothing whatsoever to do with these things as yet. I didn't know what brought about these matters, and what brought \n about the decision to take these children out of the Warthegau, and to bring them into Germany proper; and, of course, I didn't know anything about the conditions in the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4459, "page_number": "4452", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QDid you know this decree at all?\nAI have already stated that at that time when it was issued I had nothing as yet to do with these things, and it is possible that I saw this decree later on when it was worked on in the Main Legal Department; however, I would like to point out that in spite of the regulations which are contained in the decree, the lebensborn did not work on it, though. For example, no report was submitted to the Main Staff Office, and as is stated in the decree, the children were not to be turned over to families of the SS officers either.\nQIn this respect, after February, 1942, that is to say after the decree was issued, did you negotiate in any way with the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQThe Prosecution has submitted as Exhibit No. 69 a file note of Herr Sollmann, in which financial questions for the Lebensborn are discussed and where also your name has been mentioned. In connection with the testi mony of the defendant Sollmann on the witness stand, one could assume that you negotiated with the Main Staff Office about the farther financing of these cases; is that correct?\nAFirst of all, as far as I know, these were not negotiations but we only agreed that the treasury of the Main Staff Office would be used to accept payments from the Reich Treasury, and furthermore, I did not reach any agreements with anybody.\nQDid you know Dr. Kolditz of the Main Staff Office?\nANo.\nQWhat did you know about the origin of the children?\nAAs I have stated before, this difficulty with regard to the knowledge which we had about these children who were not born in the Lebensborn was that we had to depend upon third parties for information;", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4460, "page_number": "4453", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "generally speaking, the children allegedly were to be ethnic German orphans without any families.\nQWhat did you know about the languages which these children spoke and about their names?\nAOf course we had misgivings about the fact that some of these children spoke Polish, and we were told in that connection that because of the lack of German schools in the Warthegau they had to attend Polish schools or they had to attend other Polish institutions, and then with regard to their names, we were told that if they were not German names, that they had been purely German names which had become Polonized, and sometimes that these children had adopted the names of their foster parents and if they changed their foster home, they would receive another name. However, in most cases until the time of the surrender, we did not have any material about than, and if in some cases we succeeded, in other cases that was completely impossible.\nQWho carried out the measures in the Warthegau? Did the Lebensborn have anything to do with these measures or with their execution?\nAThe Lebensborn had nothing to do with it. We obtained all our knowledge from the district self-administration which took these children into the Lebensborn homes.\nQHave you ever been at Lodz; or,did you see Sturmbannfuehrer Dongus there or, at some other place, who worked for the field office of RuSHA at Lodz?\nAI have never been at Lodz, and I only know Dongus by name,\nQWho Germanized the names of these children; and how was this done?\nAThere was no official procedure for that; from the situation arising out of the lack of material and documents, it becomes evident that we did not have any official material at our disposal and, therefore, no official procedure could be carried out. Whenever the Lebensborn received the children, and if the children had Polish names, then at the same time the German form of the name was also given.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4461, "page_number": "4454", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.Under what names were these children registered in the Lebensborn when they did not have German names, and under what names were they turned over to their foster parents?\nA.The children kept the names which they had at that time when they were turned over to the Lebensborn, and we did not make any secret in front of their foster parents; and, toward the outside, of course, the Germanized names were used in the interest of the children.\nQ.Was there a reason for hiding their former Polish name toward the outside?\nA.Yes, especially during war time. The feeling of the Germans toward the Poles ran pretty high, and even in the case of authorities, the children had to count on incurring disadvantages if they were considered as being ethnic Polish children, and this possibility always existed because the children could not prove their ancestry. Therefore, if a child came with a Polish name, then an official would only assume, naturally, that this is a Polish child, and in war time this was a child which would come under the protective regulations; and, therefore, it would incur disadvantages.\nQ.I have just been told that the expression \"person under protection\" had not been very well translated.\nA.Shall I explain what this term means?\nQ.Yes, please do.\nA.In the Warthegau or in the incorporated eastern territories, there were people who had the German nationality and the so-called people who had the protective status.\nQ.Now, certificates were also issued by the Lebensborn on the letterhead of the Main staff Office. What was the purpose of these certificates, and why were they necessary?\nA.Those certificates were issued for the purpose of preventing these children from incurring the disadvantages which I have just mentioned, that is to say, we did not want them to be treated as inferiors with regard to food ration cards and clothing ration cards and things of that sort. They were also issued for the purpose of \n COURT I CASE VIII showing the parents that the children did not have any relatives who could care for them, so that the parents were then able to show that they were their foster children.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4462, "page_number": "4455", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Q.Can you give us some concrete examples about that?\nA.For the necessity of using this certificate?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Actually we in the Lebensborn could issue certificates for those children only who had been born in the Lebensborn; for example, we could issue certificates with regards to the children's allowances, for the women, and we could consider this to be the proof of ancestry of these children and of course this certificate was the prerequisite for any claim for children's allowances. Since in the case of the children from the Warthegau, we did not have any ancestry charts, we could not issue these certificates which could only be issued under these prerequisites; and, therefore, in this ease we had to request the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism to issue certificates stating that this child was ethnic German or German.\nQ.Can one say that these certificates had anything to do with any changes in names?\nA.I hope I have explained sufficiently that this was not the case, but the purpose was quite different as I have already explained.\nQ.In your affidavit with regard to these certificates, you have stated that in these certificates these children had been described as being eligible for re-Germanization. Through these certificates were these children declared to be suitable for re-Germanization?\nA.First of all, I must state in advance that the term eligible for re-Germanization may perhaps have been used on one occasion; however, it was not included systematically in these certificates. It probably was used when this was to the advantage of the child; for example, if it was stated in some regulation that the child in question could claim this or that if it received a certificate as to its eligibility for re-Germanization, and then probably we did that, because we thought that this \n COURT I CASE VIII was appropriate.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4463, "page_number": "4456", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "With regard to the question whether in this way the child was declared to be eligible for re-Germanization, I must say that this was not the case because these prerequisities were not examined by the Lebensborn, and the question of to what group the ethnic child belonged had already been examined a long time before these children came to the Lebensborn.\nQ.It is therefore correct to say that the Lebensborn used the letterhead of the Main Staff Office only in this scope and for the sole purpose in order to facilitate the accommodations for these children.\nA.Yes. In the Lebensborn it was a principle that we did not want to send the persons whom the Lebensborn were interested in from one agency to another, and that is why the Lebensborn received authorization from the agencies which were concerned; the Lebensborn had authorizations from the Reich Ministry of Labor with regard to finding jobs, from the Ministry of the Interior with regard to the activities of the Youth Office, and similar authorizations which enabled the Lebensborn to take care of matters in a certain field of work which had been granted to it by the competent authorities in order to simplify the procedure, and, as I have stated before, so that these people would not be chased around from one agency to the other.\nQ.Through such authorizations from other authorities, was the Lebensborn incorporated into these other organizations from the organizational point of view, or, did this mean that the Lebensborn had to comply with the regulations, the directives from other agencies?\nA.No. Because then it would have belonged to ten different organizations -- to the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Finance, and so on.\nQ.And how was it in this connection with the Main Staff Office?\nA.The same thing of course applied to the Main Staff Office.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn otherwise act according to certain directives or instructions from the Main Staff Office? I am thinking here, for example, of the re-Germanization procedure; similar regulations which \n COURT I CASE VIII applied to those agencies which had to deal with ethnic questions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4464, "page_number": "4457", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "A.No. In the field of work of the Lebensborn, this was done by the Lebensborn in its own judgment, and its measures were only guided by consideration as to the appropriateness of these measures. The re-Germanization procedure or the DVL procedure was not only unknown to me, but also to the collaborators in the Lebensborn, and no child was ever included in the DVL nor the re-Germanization procedure as I have stated here, nor was any child over subordinated for supervision to the higher SS and police leader.\nQ.I would like to ask you a general question. At that time didn't you have any misgivings about the state legal status of these children?\nA.Yes. We did have misgivings about it, but until the end we did not reach any results because the children had been recognized by the German authorities as having a protective status. On the other hand, they did not have the German nationality, and nothing had been done in that direction, and at that time there was no such thing as a Polish nationality any more.\nQ.And whenever this question arose in the Lebensborn, what procedure was followed?\nA.Actually this question could only arise in connection with the reporting of these children to the police whenever they registered there. According to the statements of Dr. Schulz, who dealt with these matters, he had notified competent police registration agencies to the effect that these children were to be considered as being stateless because they had an unclarified status; whether this actually was done, I can't say; however, I consider it to be possible. I consider it possible that somebody who was in charge of such a police registration agency certainly would have complied with the request of the foster parents to register these children as being of German nationality if that would help the foster parents. Furthermore, the decision whether the child was a German national did not play any part and was not important in this ease.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4465, "page_number": "4458", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I,Case No.VIII.\nQNow, in the case of persons who were eligible for re-Germanization, the situation was that they received identity cards and they were listed in the police registration list under \"Nationality Unclarified\", and then, in parentheses, \"German\", and then a question mark. Was this also the case with the children whom the Lebensborn was taking care of?\nANo, that was not the case with them. This procedure was unknown to the Lebensborn, so nobody would have thought of it.\nQAs DocumentNO-1403, Exhibit 388, the Prosecution has submitted a file note which you have compiled, and its heading, amongst other things, speaks about the changes in Christian names and family names. Will you please tell us what this was all about?\nASeveral cases occurred where the authorities were not satisfied with the certificates, which I have just described, and they wanted to see a birth certificate. Whenever such cases were reported to us by the foster parents, then we had to do something with regard to the personal status of the person concerned. This meant that, in the end, we had to refer to Paragraph 26 if we did not have any official documents because, for a registrar, a private notification or report to the foster parents did not serve as the basis for the issuance of a birth certificate. That is why the necessary information had to be obtained in some other way.\nQWhat names did these children receive?\nAIf it was appropriate we would give them the names of their foster parents, if the foster parents had the desire to keep these children permanently.\nQDidn't the desire of the foster parents also play a part in this if they wanted to adopt the children?\nAYes, that also played an important part. Of course, we considered the fact that conditions would become clarified some day and that one day we would receive all the necessary certificates. And, of course, we assumed that these statements of the agencies from whom \n Court No. I, Case No.VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4466, "page_number": "4459", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "the Lebensborn had received the children would prove to be correct, especially with regard to the fact that their parents had died. Then, if an adoption proceeding could have been carried out, the children would have received the names of their foster parents anyhow. And, of course, the fact as to whether the parents wanted to adopt the child did play a part whenever the name was given.\nQCan one say now that the temporary fixing of the personal status of the person was actually a change in name?\nANo, it was only a temporary measure, but for a change of name you must have a name which can be changed, if you want to adhere strictly to the regulations.\nQCouldn't these certificates be located in the Warthegau? Why did Registrar's OfficeL ofLebensborn have to deal in particular with these things?\nAInquiries to the Registrar's Office in the Warthegau resulted in replies which contained contradictions and, in the end, the Registrar's Office there stated that the clerical registration books in the Warthegau would have to be consulted before they could give any vital information. This took up an extremely long period of time. In the meantime, however, some solution had to be found and a temporary solution was the only one which was possible here.\nQAs to what you just said about the Registrar's Office in the Warthegau, was this based on information which you received from the District Self Administration, or did the Lebensborn take any additional steps in this direction?\nAAs I have already stated, we made written inquiries. Furthermore, I can recall that Dr. Stadtheim, a collaborator of mine, went to one or two of these registrar's offices himself, and there he had the conditions described to him as I have just now described them to you.\nQIn the heading of your file note, it is stated, \"Orphans of Aliens.\" How can this be explained in connection with the fact that \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4467, "page_number": "4460", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "you were of the opinion, as you stated before, that these were ethnic German orphans?\nAI don't know how this expression came about, which perhaps was only an abbreviation. However, I would like to point out that it is only mentioned one time in the heading and that from the contents, the quotation of Paragraph 41 of the Personal Status Law, it becomes evident that it was assumed, as a temporary measure, that these people had the German nationality, and, of course, the fact that they were ethnic Germans was a prerequisite for that. Furthermore, Herr Sollmann stated yesterday just what the terminology was for ethnic questions, and that it was misused in a certain way in Lebensborn because of ignorance of the terms which were technically correct. Then, in this connection, I would also like to say that terms have also been used in the heading like the subsequent recordings of births, which are contrary to the contents. Also, it is stated in the heading, \"Change of Christian and Family Name\", but from the contents it becomes evident that this was not a change, but just a temporary definition.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, then the situation was that with the assistance of Registrar's Office L, only cases were handled where, for the moment, you were confronted with the necessity to obtain some sort of a certificate as a result of requests by foster parents, in the interests of the child. It was not done automatically, in each case, after a child had been given to foster parents, that a birth certificate was offered to these foster parents. Is that correct?\nAYes. There was no certain procedure which was followed by the Lebensborn as to just how these cases were to be handled. However, according to each individual case and what necessity existed at the time, we tried to solve the case and we would do whatever was necessary to do so. The highest principle in these things was the welfare of the child, and the requirements of the child became evident from \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4468, "page_number": "4461", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "the desires of the foster parents.\nQAnd, in practice, how was such a case handled by the Lebensborn?\nAThe expert would have the desires of the foster parents submitted to him; they would write to him, or they came to the agency themselves. Then, on his own initiative, he would try to do whatever he could. For these cases with regard to the birth certificates, which we have just discussed, he would go to the registration official, if there was nothing else he could do, and he would try to have some steps taken with his assistance.\nQWhat was then the task of the registration official?\nAThe registrar had to examine the individual merits of each case, and he would make the necessary preparations as far as the work of his registrar's office was concerned. Then he would use a preparatory order, which he used for that, and he would submit that to Herr Sollmann for his signature.\nQAs far as you can recall, in how many cases was this done altogether?\nAI must rely here upon the statements of Dr. Schulz, who, when we met on one occasion in an internment camp, gave me the figure of twenty as the maximum.\nQAnd this figure of twenty-\nAThat refers to the entire period of time, that is to say, two years.\nQIn the inclusion of this Registrar's Office L, did you intend to hide the personal status of the child in any way?\nAI believe that I have explained that we pursued a completely different purpose. We cannot speak about any camouflaging of a personal status, because then we could have applied a different method in order to do that. From the file note it becomes quite clear that an emergency situation had arisen as a result of the lack of documents, and, furthermore, it becomes evident from that that we did not arbitrarily put down any place as the place of birth, but we would put down \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4469, "page_number": "4462", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "the place which we assumed was the place of birth, not in Germany proper, but in the occupied or incorporated territory from which the child had come. For example, in the Warthegau, if we did not have any certain locality there, then, as also becomes evident from the file note, Poznan would be listed as the place of birth because, in such cases, it is customary to take the next biggest city there. I believe it is stated in the regulations that the district or provincial capital must be used.\nQThe Prosecution has stated that birth certificates were falsified in numerous cases. What can you say with regard to this accusation?\nAWe cannot speak of any falsification because there was nothing that we could have falsified, at least not in those cases where such certificates had been issued.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4470, "page_number": "4463", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No.VIII.\nQCould it become evident from a birth certificate that a child was a foundling from the Warthegau?\nAYes. I believe I stated before that in each case the place of birth which we assumed was listed in the Warthegau. Furthermore, the designations \"mother\" and \"father\" were crossed out. I can still recall the forms which were used. Therefore, everybody could see where the child came from and that its parents were unknown or that they were dead.\nQWere there also cases where birth certificates were issued for children who came from Norway?\nAThis was not necessary for these children because they had the necessary documents. Therefore, we never issued any birth certificates in those cases.\nQHowever, as a result of the Germanization of the names of these children, as well as because of the issuing of the birth certificates in these 20 cases which you have mentioned, it is probably very difficult for the authorities who claim these children and who are looking for them today. Do you have an explanation for that?\nAYes. The explanation, first of all, lies in the surrender and the conditions which existed at the time. However, it can further be found in the fact that no collaborators of the Lebensborn were permitted to continue the work of the Lebensborn in any way. I was interned after the surrender. However, I reported immediately and I made a written request, wherein I pointed out that in the interest of the many mothers, widows, and orphans whom the Lebensborn had taken care of, we should be permitted to complete the work of the Lebensborn in order to turn it over to other hands. However, I did not receive any reply to my request. Later on, two Czech men interrogated me, at one time, and I immediately told them where they could locate the documents of the Lebensborn. I gave them the names of the experts; I told them that these people were precisely informed as to where each individual child was located, and I especially gave them \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4471, "page_number": "4464", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "the name of Herr Heinze, who had precise information about all these matters, and I gave them his address. All of us were kept in custody for three years, and we were not even asked where these children were located. We would have immediately given exhaustive information, even if we could not have found our own documents any more, which were allegedly thrown into a river by mistake, by some American unit.\nQWas the search for these children also, perhaps, rendered more difficult by the fact that, after the surrender, some foster parents adopted these foster children?\nAYes. The agencies which became competent later on were not as cautious and bureaucratic as we were; they did not have any misgivings about carrying out the adoptions of these children.\nQWith regard to the children of the Warthegau, before the surrender, weren't any adoption proceedings concluded by the Lebensborn?\nANo, no adoption proceedings were concluded. It was pointed out to the foster parents that their requests in this direction could not be fulfilled for the duration of the war. We told them about all the circumstances from which this became evident quite logically.\nQThe Prosecution witness, Wilhelm Schneider, however, in his affidavit, which the Prosecution submitted as Exhibit 729, mentions two cases where ethnic German children were adopted through the intervention of Lebensborn. To what children do these two cases refer?\nAThese children were not from the Warthegau in any case. I myself am precisely informed about one of these cases, and, as far as I can recall, we dealt here with a child whom we used to describe as a so-called Southeastern child. It was a small child, and we had no information about it whatsoever. That is what Herr Schneider has stated here. Herr Schneider submitted the case to me, and the situation was as follows:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4472, "page_number": "4465", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nThe foster parents of this child, who lived in Hamburg, had received a notification from the Lebensborn that the assurances which had been given to them at the home that they would soon be able to adopt the child could probably not be adhered to, in any case, they decided it could not be fulfilled during the war. Then the foster parents themselves came to Munich, and they stayed there for several days. They told us they wanted to give the child back to the home if they could not adopt it. They urgently requested us to let them adopt the child because the foster father was extremely hard of hearing and he was afraid that in the course of one of the many air attacks on Hamburg this would have very serious consequences, because he was so hard of hearing, and he feared he would lose his life. However, before that occurred he wanted to adopt the child by all means so that the child could inherit his enterprise.\nUnder all these circumstances, the urgent request of the parents, and after we had considered the possibilities on both sides, we finally came to the conclusion that it would probably be best for a child whose parents were unknown, to have these favorable chances for the fugure. This led to the decision that here, by way of an exception, we would conclude an adoption agreement.\nQIn this adoption case which you have just described to us, was this the child of von Heinecke?\nAI could not recall the name before, but I can now recall it.\nQCan you say something about the other adoption case which the witness Schneider mentioned here? Can you tell us something about that from your own knowledge?\nANo, I am not informed about that.\nQAccording to your file note in Exhibit 388, Herr Sollmann was authorized to issue the instructions which were necessary for the issuance of a birth certificate. The Prosecution witness Dr. Schulz has stated that you were not authorized to issue such orders. However, he stated that you did this when you deputized for Herr \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4473, "page_number": "4466", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Sollmann in one or two cases. What do you have to say in this connection?\nAI must rely upon the fact that what Dr. Schulz has said is true. However, I cannot recall such a case.\nQCan you please give us the figures which you still remember with regard to the children from the Warthegau?\nAIn my affidavit I mention the number of 100, and I believe that this number is probably correct. That is to say, approximately 100 children came directly to the Lebensborn homes and they were given into foster homes by the Lebensborn. Approximately 30 or 40 additional children, at the time of the surrender, were still located in the homes of the Lebensborn. The total number of children who came from the Warthegau during the entire war amounted to approximately 250 to 300 altogether.\nQHow can you explain the balance of the figure concerning these children?\nAThe balance of the figure, of the children who did not come directly to the Lebensborn, represents children who were sent to the home schools. After the children had attended the schools for years and had to be finally taken somewhere, these home schools turned to the Lebensborn and they requested the Lebensborn to assist them in accommodating these children in foster homes. In part, these children were turned over to foster parents through the Youth Offices, and in part this was done by the home schools themselves, and in part foster homes were discovered by the Lebensborn. I believe early in 1944, whenever this was necessary, most children were included in a collective sickness insurance which the Lebensborn had worked out with another institution.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4474, "page_number": "4467", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nQThe Prosecution has called several children here as witnesses. They are Alina Antczak, Barbara Mikolajczyk and Slavomir GrodomskiPaczesny and they testified about their fate. Can you comment on their testimony, please?\nAAs far as I can recall two children were here who never had any contact whatsoever with the Lebensborn, that is to say, from the Warthegau they were sent to home schools as they described and then they came under the care of the youth office. They were the two children you mentioned first. The third child, Slavomir GrodomskiPaczesny from the home school was sent to a foster home and this foster home home probably was selected by the Lebensborn or later on it was examined for its suitability. We wanted to see whether the parents were physically healthy and whether they could take care of the child financially.\nQYou stated in the course of your direct examination that the children did not have any families which means they were not only orphans but they did not have any family whatsoever. However, in the case of Alina Antczak her mother must have been still alive. How can you explain that fact?\nAI probably stated that according to the information we received these children did not have any family left. However, whether they were actually full orphans in each individual case only became evident whenever such a case was investigated and when it was examined by the Lebensborn and if the examination led to any results to the contrary in regard to the case you just mentioned there was only a very loose contact as far as the Lebensborn was concerned with this child so it cannot be assumed that the Lebensborn knew in this case that this child still had her parents in the Warthegau. Furthermore, the inquiries which the defense made in this case led to the result that at the time the foster parents themselves or a friend of the foster parents went into the Warthegau and visited this mother of Alina Antczak and ascertained on that occasion this \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4475, "page_number": "4468", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "mother did not even express the slightest desire to have the child return to her or to find out even just how the child was getting along; furthermore, this would have been a case which, if it had come to the knowledge of the Lebensborn would have had the result, that it would have been reported to the district self administration of the Lebensborn, that the terms \"ethnic German\" and \"without family\" seemed to be wrong and we would have requested the district self administration to take the child under its care.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Your Honor, the inquiries to which the witness has just referred were made by Frau Elise Berlinghof and the defendant Sollmann will submit an affidavit by this woman as Sollmann Document Number 99 to the Tribunal.\nQIn what way did Herr Sollmann make fundamental decisions when it became evident that in any case it was discovered the family of the child was still alive?\nAThis decision was made as I have just stated, the conditions were that the child was ethnic German and did not have any of its family left. After all, in regard to the ethnic Germanism of the child we did not make inquiries if we believed that the child itself did not consider itself to be ethnic German and stated that its parents or grandparents or other members of the family had not been German at all, then the Lebensborn drew the conclusion that the child did not belong to the Lebensborn but to the district self administration, and then the necessary steps were taken. The same thing applied with regard to the fact that the child had to be without any family.\nQCan you recall any individual cases of that sort?\nAYes, unfortunately I cannot recall the particular names but I do know several cases of which however not a single case occurred where a mother or a father or a close relative, grandfather or grandmother had reported in these cases. Distant relatives reported who had not shown any interest previously and suddenly expressed the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4476, "page_number": "4469", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "desire to look after the child. This loose contact with the children within the Lebensborn had the result also that these children were to be returned to their relatives because we had the possibility to do so.\nQCan you tell us something about the children which the Prosecution has described as Yugoslav children?\nAYes, I believe Herr Sollmann has already explained yesterday that twenty such children came to the Lebensborn as early as 1942 and I can recall that some of these children were returned to the VOMI which had turned these children over originally to the Lebensborn.\nQThe Prosecution has offered a document, Exhibit 392 document book 8A and this is a letter which you have signed of the Lebensborn and it is addressed to the personal staff of the 19th of July 1943 in which you talk about the transfer of children from Lower Styria and Upper Corinthia and where you request an order from Himmler. I now want to ask you did you issue this order to which you have referred in this letter and which the Prosecution has offered as Exhibit 390? Did you receive that order?\nANo, it cannot be assumed either that the Lebensborn received this order for the following reasons: First of all this was not an order from the personal staff. I have now seen this order and I ascertained from it that it just could not contain a reply for the question that was given because Lebensborn was not even mentioned there and at the time when I wrote this letter it was already a year old.\nQHowever, in your inquiry to the personal staff you quoted the order itself with its dates and diary number. Can you explain that to us?\nAThe situation probably was that the agency which caused the Lebensborn to deal with these children in its application to the Lebensborn referred to this order by giving all these details like \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4477, "page_number": "4470", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "the dates and diary number and than I repeated these details in order to find this order in the personal staff.\nQWere these children from Upper Corinthia or Lower Styria for which the Lebensborn cared at that time when you wrote this letter, that is to say on the 19th of July 1943, were they already under the care of the Lebensborn then or did the Lebensborn take over such children later on?\nAAs far as I know these children had been under the care of the Lebensborn since 1942 and after this time no more children were taken over.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4478, "page_number": "4471", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued.)\nBY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, do you still remember anything about Czech children?\nAI know that the Lebensborn in the cases of some children which were in the children's home of the Gau Self Administration, and who originated from the Protectorate, aided these children with regard to clothing and with regard to finding foster homes for them.\nQIn this connection can you still remember a special case?\nAYes, in one case it was found out that the mother was not an ethnic German, and that she was in protective custody. That was the case which Herr Sollmann described yesterday. I also know that inquiries were made, but I do not remember when I gained knowledge of this case.\nQIn connection with this did you hear the name of Lidice at that time, or did you know from some other sources that these children were left over from the operation after the murder of Heydrich?\nANo, I did not both. I think the reason for that was that I was informed at the time of the trip that Herr Sollmann took to Prague, and that Herr Sollmann at the time in Prague refused to take over children of such kind, to which the children probably belonged. Besides in the case of these children, as well as in the case of children from Upper Krainia, I am not exactly informed since I do not know the events which led up to the Lebensborn giving aid to these children.\nQIn the case of all these children that we have mentioned just now, did you find out about any individual case in which a mother was an inmate of a concentration camp.\nANo.\nQWith the exception probably of the case that you have already mentioned?\nAYes, that case.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4479, "page_number": "4472", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QDid you ever find out about a case in which a child was taken away from its near relatives against their will?\nANo, I never found out about such a case.\nQDid you ever knew about a case in which relatives of children reported, and in which the Lebensborn refused to return these children?\nANo, it was a matter of course that children in such cases were immediately returned.\nQIn which way did you yourself take part in the matters of ethnic German orphans?\nAAs I said before, the working up of these matters which, want along inside of the Lebensborn, with regard to these children, was transferred in August 1943 to the legal department, but already before I was consulted several times in these matters, and in this main department, legal matters, I myself did not take part in finding homes for these children, but in the case of difficulties I was consulted by the expert.\nQWhy was it that finding accomodations for these children not born in the Lebensborn, why was this transferred to the Main Department Law?\nAThis was a question not relating to the Lebensborn. To this already belonged the matters of the Main Department War Orphans and other things. Herr Sollmann in 1943 made more precise the trend to eliminate all the things from the Lebensborn which did not belong to the Lebensborn itself, so that they could better fulfil their current obligation, and that is why the Main Department of War Orphans was dissolved, and their work was taken up by the Main Department Law in the same way as was intended in this particular case. In both cases the working up of thse matters was already in progress and was interrupted in the middle of 1944 by that fact that Lebensborn was bombed out in Munich, and their Munich offices were moved out to Steinhoering at this time.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4480, "page_number": "4473", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "This field of work concerned with ethnic German orphans was transferred to the home in Oberweiss.\nQAfter taking up the matters of the German ethnic orphans in the Main Department Law, were there any new obligations of the Lebensborn for the taking over of such children?\nANo, only the obligations that were already in existence, were currently worked up.\nQWitness, do you have the so-called Poznan speech of Himmler, Prosecution Exhibit544?\nANo, I did not know that.\nQDid you know Himmler's speech in Bad Schachen, Prosecution's Exhibit 384?\nANo, I did not know that either.\nQDid the Lebensborn have any homes in the occupied territories of the East or the Southeast?\nANo.\nQDid you ever hear the name BobruisK?\nANo.\nQDid you know the former administration of the Lebensborn, Herr Pflaum?\nANo.\nQDid the Lebensborn have anything to do with the children's home Funotle, which was mentioned in the course of this trial?\nANo.\nQWere the home schools, were they subordinated to the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQAnd the homes, Puschkau, Kalisch and Bruckau, were they subordinated to the Lebensborn?\nANo, all these were homes of the Gau Self Administration.\nQAccording to the assertions of the prosecution, you have participated in a program which had the aim of abducting children, by \n and in collaboration with your co-defendants.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4481, "page_number": "4474", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Did you ever collaborate on such a program?\nAI have stated already that the Lebensborn was concerned only with the housing of children which were not born into the Lebensborn, Apart from that, the gentlemen with which I am now indicted, with the exception of my collaboration in the Lebensborn, were completely unknown to me. I perhaps would like to say in detail that I may have known the name of Herr Greifelt, but I never let him personally; that I was one introduced to Herr Creutz, but besides the usual introduction words, I did not speak with him any further.\nI did not know defendants Meyer Hetling, Herr Schwarzenberger, Herr Huebner, Herr Lorenz and Herr Brueckner.\nI once saw Herr Hofmann when I visited him together with Herr Sollmann, but in that case questions were discussed, which were in no way connected to the things which form the subject matter here. I did not know Herr Hildebrandt, and once I heard about Herr Schwalm, that he has been in the office of the Lebensborn in Munich. I believe that none of the gentlemen outside of the collaborators in the Lebensborn, ever were in the office of the Lebensborn in Munich.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4482, "page_number": "4475", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QIn Point 13 of the indictment you are charging with having participated in the kidnapping of children of female eastern workers. In this connection prosecution have submitted the documentNO-1383as Exhibit 496. This is a decree of the Reich Security Main Office, dated 27 July 1943, in which under Paragraph 5b Lebensborn is mentioned as an agency which was to take over the children of alien female workers in the cases of which the abortion applied for had not been carried out because of the fact that the child was racially valuable.\nWill you please comment on that?\nAThis also has been described in detail by Herr Sollmann yesterday. I can remember that in connection with this decree I talked with Herr Sollmann about that once. At that time he told me that whoever was taken into the Lebensborn and how the people that are in the Lebensborn are treated, that is up to me entirely. That is clearly expressed in this paragraph concerned with the Lebensborn in this decree. Besides, the Lebensborn was not called upon in case upon the strength of this decree.\nQThe defendants Bollmann and Ebner testified on the witness stand about the fundamental trends of the Lebensborn to the effect that mother and child were an entity and that everything was done to preserve this unity, besides merely outwardly, and that Himmler always emphasized this trend when talking about the Lebensborn. Can you give an example of this particular attitude?\nAWell, I could give a lot of examples to exemplify this trend. I only want to point out one of them though. A so-called Lebensborn mother, who was very young, had decided to give the child to the father's family for care, and she already had the necessary declaration to legitime the child in the form which was required. After three years had passed, the mother of this Lebensborn mother, that is to say the grandmother of the child, all of a sudden wanted to have the child in her care, and both women turned to the Lebensborn in order to cause the \n child to be taken away from the father.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4483, "page_number": "4476", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "The father as such was entitled to refuse to do that, since the formalities had been concluded in an orderly manner. However, in spite of this, this case was reported to Himmler, and Himmler decided that the Lebensborn had to make every effort to fulfil the wish of the mother and the child. Then in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, we took the necessary steps, and the child was returned into the care of the mother.\nQWitness, I am now handling you a document,NO-2462, Exhibit 446. This is a letter in which a request is made to the OKW to include the Lebensborn into the distribution list of OKW in matters concerned with children of members of the German armed forces in the occupied territory.\nWill you please comment on that?\nAThe Lebensborn had in the course of the establishment of a home in Belgium given technical support. This home was simultaneously erected through the support of the Germanic Head Office. Before women of the Germanic SS could be taken into this home, a few of these women had come to Germany and were later returned with their children into the territory from which they came. In the course of their stay in the homes of the Lebensborn, these women, of course, wnet to the central office with their sorrows and troubles, and we had to be informed about the fact which regulations were applied in these particular cases, that is, what sort claims the mothers and the children were entitled to for the occupied territories.\nThere was a Reich law issued for the occupied territories providing that the care of such women had to be carried out of the women applied for it. In connection with this law the commanders in the various districts had to issue their own implementation orders, and in order to familiarize oneself with these imple mentation orders, we asked that the Lebensborn be included into the distribution list of the OKW.\nQCan you still remember in what connection, in what context Herr Berger, who probably at that time was the chief of the SS Main Office, \n what connection he had with these matters, since he is mentioned in this above letter?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4484, "page_number": "4477", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AThe same reason applies, is decisive in this case, which finally led to the fact of my being present at a meeting of the SS Main Office about which there is also a document in existence.\nQDo you mean the minutes submitted by the prosecution as Prosecution's Exhibit 337?\nAYes, that is what I mean. At that time I made inquiries at the SS Main Office, whether I could get their regulations from them, and there I was told that they were issued, that they had to be requested via the personal staff at the OKW.\nQProsecution has submitted documents, DocumentNO-2916, Exhibit 452. This is a letter you wrote to the Hauptsturmfuehrer Meiner, attached to the personal staff. It contains a draft of a declaration of approval by Himmler which he gave to Dr. Lammers concerning the decree about the care of children of Germans in the occupied Norwegian territories. Will you please comment on that now?\nAThis draft of a declaration of approval was a favor which I did for Herr Kietgen, who was the head of this office in Norway, and who was in Munich at the time by coincidence. I, of course, myself could not have said anything in connection with an approval for Norway for I did not know the conditions there. Normally the request of the personal staff, should have been directed to the office in Norway and should have been answered by them. I believe it can be seen from the occupying letter that the situation was such as I have now described.\nQCan you still remember what you meant by the passage in your letters which reads, \"As far as the contents go, the draft of this decree is written with an eye toward the Lebensborn\"?\nAYes, those were the interests of the Norway agency, for only the conditions in Norway could be decisive for this approval towards the decree.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4485, "page_number": "4478", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QThis draft that you send at the time to Hauptsturmfuehrer Meine, was that written in the version, as can be seen on Page 2 of Document 2016, that is to say, was the distribution list contained in this document already mentioned by you?\nANo, I did not mention that distribution list, for after all that was a matter up to the personal staff to decide who was to get a copy of this letter. I myself drafted the various passages and one sentence in the text itself. It can be seen from this document itself that I did not even write the title.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Your Honors, the Reich law to which the witness has just referred, will be submitted by me as a document on behalf of the defendant.\nQ (By Dr. Schmidt) Now, witness, from the homes that the Reichkommissar had established during the war in Norway for women who bore children fathered by German soldiers, various of these children were brought to Germany. Do you know whether the motherssof these children themselves expressed their desire that their children be transfrred to Germany, and were the necessary formalities concluded?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4486, "page_number": "4479", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AYes, the mothers themselves wanted those children to be transferred to Germany. In most cases, they were to be taken care of in the family of their fathers, and the formalities were concluded in every respect; that is to say, the mothers had made a declaration of approval in the form which was required in Norway, and the competent Norwegian authority also approved the individual case.\nQI would now like to ask you a few questions concerning the point of the Indictment headed \"Spoliation.\" Did you, witness, take part in the taking possession of movables or immovables in the occupied territories?\nANo, when I came to the Lebensborn in 1941, I was an expert on real estate matters, and from my work I found out that several purchases had taken place and they were more or less in the form of donations that are usually made for a charitable organization.\nQWitness, I am handing you Exhibit 582 of the Prosecution contained in Document Book XIII-B. According to this document, because of the transfer of property of the piece of real estate in Nordrach, you directed a teletype to the Reich Security Main Office. Was this a real estate property which was located within the Reich proper?\nAYes, this was a piece of real estate located in the Reich proper.\nQWhat was the purpose of this teletype?\nAThe piece of real estate belonged to the Reich Association of Jews or the Association of Rothschild Hospital in Nordrach, Baden. The decree about the disposal of property of this organization was up to the Reich Security Main Office. I found out about that by the teletype that Herr Kaul directed to Dr. Ebner. In order to effect the transfer \n of property which was intended, it was necessary to get the approval of the Reich Security Main Office in the form of a directive to the Jewish Cultural Society, and in this teletype I asked that this directive be issued.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4487, "page_number": "4480", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QThen this purchase contract, was that concluded -that is, in connection with this piece of real estate Nordrach?\nAYes, it was concluded with the Jewish Community Association.\nQReferring to the affidavit that has already been mentioned several times today, submitted by the Prosecution as Exhibit 16, and which you gave on the 13 of June 1947, I would like to ask you in conclusion whether you have to make any corrections with regard to this affidavit?\nAI do not have the affidavit at hand. On one place there -- and I believe this is referring to the time when Herr Heinze was an expert -- I believe that the affidavit says November 1942. I believe it must be November 1943; otherwise I have no corrections to make.\nQThen I have no further questions, Your Honor. Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQHerr Tesch, I would like to ask you concerning the affidavit which you have given: would you say that this affidavit was prepared by yourself in your own handwriting?\nAIn part.\nQEverything in it was formulated by you in your own words?\nAYes, I said partly.\nQYou were given every opportunity to make any changes \n that you desired to make in this affidavit, were you not?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4488, "page_number": "4481", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AYes.\nQAnd would you please inform the Tribunal how many times you did change your affidavit?\nAI believe twice; that is to say, I changed it to supplement it.\nQBut in no way were you tried to be enticed or forced into signing anything which you did not desire to sign, is that correct?\nANo.\nQNow, your position in Lebensborn was the legal authority, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQAnd as the legal authority, you were head of the Main Legal Department?\nAFrom the first of august 1943.\nQAnd at that time there was a reorganization which came about in the formation of the main legal department, is that correct?\nANo, it was created; it was conceived at that time.\nQI think there mus t have been a misinterpretation. with the creation of the Main Legal Department, then there was a reorganization within Lebensborn?\nAThe legal experts which up to that time had been active individually and for themselves and had been supervised immediately by Herr Sollmann, these legal experts were consolidated under the Main Department IV, and then the work of the Main Department IV was with orphans and also the work of finding foster homes for ethnic German children.\nQAnd under the Main legal Department, what other offices were under your jurisdiction?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4489, "page_number": "4482", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AUnder the organizational setup other than the offices which you have just mentioned there was the Main Legal department IV which was divided into seven different departments. Do you want me to name those again?\nQRather than naming them all, I will ask you specificly then: the Department R-IV was subordinated to the Main Legal Department?\nAYes.\nQAnd Dr. Schulz as registrar then was subordinated to you?\nANo, I already explained that.\nQThen to whom was Dr. Schulz subordinated?\nADr. Schulz was head of the registrar's office -that is, the state registrars office -- which had the same competencies and subordination conditions as other registrar offices. He had been appointed in Munich by the Mayor -- that is the same competent official -- and had been sworn in as such.\nQBut in regard to Schulz's work in which he acted in Lebensborn, to whom was it necessary that he report of the activities in respect to Lebensborn?\nADr. Schulz, besides being the head of this registrar's office, which of course did not take up much of his time, was also a consultant for all the registrar offices in all the homes; and besides that, he was in charge of several legal matters at the same time. As all legal experts, he worked independently as such. I did not emphasize that in any way, but when a lawyer is employed, then of course he is independent as such and he does not work upon somebody's orders, and that was the case here too.\nQBut if Dr. Schulz came across any complicated \n problems which he told here on the stand, to whom did he consult in Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4490, "page_number": "4483", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AHe was probably the one man who was more competent in matters concerned with registrar offices than any other man; therefore he did not have to ask anyone.\nQWere you kept informed as to the scopes of his activities?\nAYes, I know the extent of his activities and I think Dr. Schulz already said that.\nQAnd you were informed of these activities by Dr. Schulz himself?\nAYes.\nQNow a moment ago, you spoke about the Czech authorities consulting you in regard to some documents, and you in turn gave these Czech officials the names of persons to contact. Now Herr Sollmann has stated that details as to the Czech children could be given by you. Could you state any details concerning these Czech children other than what you have just stated here?\nAI testified to all that I know about it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4491, "page_number": "4484", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QDid you over visit the home Puschkau?\nAI think that it might have been possible that in the course of an inspection tour which I made with Herr Sollmann through the Warthegau, which was a trip that was taken on the invitation of the Gau Hauptmann for the inspection of the equipment in the Warthegau, it is entirely possible that I did see such a home; for instance, we looked at various institutions. I remember a porcelain factory and other institutes like technical training schools and all sorts of things that had been erected under the now administration.\nQAnd while you were at the home Puschkau, did the head of his home, Meta Hoepfner, ever introduce you to any children which she referred to as Czech?\nAI cannot remember a woman called Meta Hoepfner.\nQWell, at the home Puschkau then, were you introduced to any children or shown any children and told that these were Czech children?\nANo.\nQNow you have stated too that you had very little correspondence with the RGFDV. At any time did you ever send Dr. Staudte to negotiate in any way with the RGFDV?\nAI am sorry, I did not understand the question quite correctly.\nQDo you remember ever sending Dr. Staudte, who I believe was one of your assistants, to the Main Staff Office for any reason at all in connection with your work in Lebensborn?\nANo, I don't remember that I sent him there, but I remember that he was once in the Main Staff Office and that he made inquiries about some matter-- which, however, that was the inquiry which he made to the Main Staff Office and \n which had no further results, nor do I quite clearly remember what sort of question he referred to at that time.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4492, "page_number": "4485", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "I only know that he was there once; while I myself, was never in the Main Staff Office.\nQDo you ever remember seeing the decree 67-1? That is, before the present time in Nuernberg?\nANo, I can't remember having read this decree. I already said that according to the distribution lists, it certainly must have been received at the Lebensborn, but at the time when the decree was issued -- that is to say, on the 19 February 1942 -- I was not concerned with questions of that nature, and I really don't know whether or not I read up on this decree, if it was present at the Lebensborn or later on.\nQNow, defendant Viermetz has stated that after the Main Legal Department was established, that the matter of foreign children came under the jurisdiction of the Main Legal Department. Have you any comment on that? Would you say that that is true that the Main Legal Department then concerned itself with all foreign children?\nAI am sorry. I didn't quite understand that.\nQThe defendant Viermetz has stated in her affidavit that after the Main Legal Department, of which you were the head, was established, then this matter of foreign children which Lebensborn concerned itself with, came under your jurisdiction, is that correct?\nAFinding foster homes or homes for these ethnic German orphans was later on subordinate to DepartmentR-4within the Main Department Law. That is correct.\nQAnd concerning the letter which you directed to Rudolf Brandt. What was the purpose of your writing for the Himmler \n Decree which you mention by name and number, this act which concerned partisan children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4493, "page_number": "4486", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "AThis is a question concerning children that we usually call southeastern children, which already since 1942 were in the Lebensborn. I think they were about 20 children, if I remember correctly, and from this letter itself it becomes evident that I wanted to establish whether the Lebensborn had any further obligation towards taking over any more of such children and whether such an obligation could have been evident from an order of Himmler.\nQDo you remember from whom these children were taken or received? What agency had them before Lebensborn?\nAI believe that I already said, that as far as I remember these children were taken over from a VOMI home and were transferred to a home of the Lebensborn.\nQDid you at any time, while you worked with Lebensborn, see any correspondence saying that the race and settlement office would screen the children before being taken by Lebensborn?\nAI really don't know.\nAThen how would you say that these children were selected?\nAI don't know which children actually came to the Lebensborn and according to what principles they were selected, I only know that the Lebensborn itself had as its prerequisites the fact that they were to take in only ethnic German children and children without any family ties, because they had no facilities to take care of any other children.\nQHave you, yourself, ever used the word \"Germanization\" or seen it in any documents in regard to your work in Lebensborn?\nQNo, my work was not concerned by it nor did it have \n anything to do with any of the legal handling of a case that was up to me -- it had nothing to do with tha t. The expression itself was in frequent use at the time by people who knew how to use it and by such people who did not quite know what the significance of this word was.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4494, "page_number": "4487", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "If, for instance, the Lebensborn had used such an expression -- what certainly must have happened at some time or other -- in regard to the Germanization of children then one understood by that nothing but the fact tha t those children were cared for in Germany.\nQNow you said this morning that you can remember of only two adoptions which were concluded in regard to the children under the care of Lebensborn. Do you recall of what nationality these children were?\nAAccording to the state structure at that time, and according to the state legal provisions at that time, I believe they were children of German nationals.\nQYou never heard that in connection with these two cases that they were Yugoslav children from Cilli: C-I-L-L-I?\nAIt is possible that I heard that one of these children was from Cilli, but I never heard that it was a Yugoslav child.\nQHow many registration certificates would you say were made out while you were in Lebensborn?\nAYou mean the birth certificates that I talked about? According to the information that I got from Dr. Schulz -well, there were about 20 such registrations, I believe.\nQAnd among the children which were under the care of Lebensborn, were you aware that there were some children who had been brought in from Czechoslovakia?\nAI said already that as far as I remember, Lebensborn \n aided the gau self-administration with respect to clothing the children from the protectorate and with regard to placing such children into foster homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4495, "page_number": "4488", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QDo you know whether any birth certificates were made out concerning these children?\nANo, I don't know.\nQAt any time during the absence of Sollmann, did you act as his deputy?\nAIt depends on what you call \"deputy\". I never made decisions in his stead, but when he was absent I would go to him to have him make the decision.\nQBut in his absence, did you ever write letters and take care of urgent matters?\nAYes, that is quite possible.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4496, "page_number": "4489", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "QLetters which normally would have been the business of the Chief of Lebensborn?\nAI believe you are referring to a letter which has been submitted as a document. I believe it is directed to Herr Hofmann. This letter mentioned something about the Lebensborn representatives. I wrote this letter simply because Herr Sollmann wanted to avoid a conflict between himself and Herr Hofmann because in the letter itself there was contained a very severe rejection of the desired collaboration between the race and settlement main office and the Lebensborn.\nQNow one more question in regard to the children, registrations, and adoptions. You have stated that you informed these people that these children could not be adopted at this time. Would you explain why you meant that adoption was possible but could not take place at this time?\nABecause the documents concerning the children were not complete and because after the end of the war one had to clarify completely the whole situation. All the steps taken in the meantime were the necessary steps that had to be done so that the children would have no disadvantages from this lack of documents.\nQBut after the end of the war then everything could be clarified much easier. Is that correct?\nAAfter conditions became normal, one could have taken up more intensively the examination of church registers and one could have made deeper enquiries about all matters concerning the children.\nQNow, Herr Tesch, what year did you join the SS?\nA 1941.\nQDid you know that concentration camps were administered by the SS?\nAThe SS is of course a rather extensive concept. As far as I knew, such matters concerning the police were also administered by the police-\nQWill you excuse me for interrupting, but my question is:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4497, "page_number": "4490", "date": "27 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-27", "text": "Did you know that the concentration camps were administered by the SS?\nAI believe I just answered that question.\nQAnd was it yes or no?\nAIf I may differentiate between the concept of police and SS, I would say no. But, if I am not permitted to differentiate between these two concepts, I would say yes.\nQYour Honor, we have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions?\nI believe it is so near the adjourning time that it would hardly be worthwhile to start on another witness or defendant this afternoon, and that is due to the fact that both the defendants and counsel have moved along wonderfully well today.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30 o'clock tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 28 January 1948 at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4498, "page_number": "4491", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 28 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honor, all defendants are present in court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Whom will you call next?\nDr. SCHMIDT (Counsel for the defendant Tesch): Your Honor, I would like to make a short explanation in connection with the examination of my defendant. At the conclusion of the session yesterday, two errors in translation were pointed out to me, which distorted the meaning of the wording that my defendant used.\nIn the course of my examination I asked my defendant whether he did not think about the legal status of the children in the Warthegau, that is to say, whether he did not think about this matter in an inquiring way. The translation was supposed to have been whether he had no misgivings about it, that is to say, as far as I know, this means \"fears\". That would give my question an entirely different meaning, which was not intended by me.\nThen, there is another error which is supposed to have occurred. The defendant stated, in connection with his co-defendant Schwalm, that this man was once supposed to have been at the office of the Lebensborn in Munich. As that time the translator said that he was \"active\", that is to say, he was active, or he was acting there. He did not mean that.\nThat is all. Thank you.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4499, "page_number": "4492", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR.ORTH (Counsel for the defendant Viermetz): With the permission of the Tribunal, I would like to call the defendant Viermetz to the witness stand on behalf of her own case.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nINGEVIERMETZ, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH:\nQWitness, will you please tell the Tribunal your full name, your date of birth, and your place of birth?\nAMy name is Inge Viermetz, and I was born at Aschaffenburg on the 4th of March, 1908.\nQIn an affidavit dated the 15th of May, 1947, which was submitted as Prosecution Exhibit No.17, you made several statements about your educational training, your professional career before you came to the Lebensborn, your personal data, and data concerning your activities at the Lebensborn. Those statements are contained in paragraphs 1 to 8 of this affidavit. Are these statements correct?\nAYes, in general.\nQI would like to pose some questions to you in this connection.\nWere you a member of the NSDAP?\nANo.\nQAs to the Department of Job Finding for Lebensborn Mothers, which was reorganized by you shortly after the beginning of the war, did that take up your full time?", "speakers": [ "INGE", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4500, "page_number": "4493", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo.\nQBesides these activities, were you active in other special fields?\nAYes.\nQCan one speak of an independent department altogether, under these circumstances?\nANo.\nQThen, actually, what was this department of job finding?\nAThis was a department which was in the Placement Department.\nQIn connection with your activity in the field of job placement for Lebensborn mothers, the Prosecution has stated that you were the head of the Labor Office. Can you say that this statement is actually correct?\nAThis statement is completely wrong. Lebensborn never had a Labor Office, because the Labor Offices were state institutions in Germany.\nQIn order to clarify this matter for the Court, can you please tell us what was the actual work that was done within this Department of Placement, and what was the extent of this work?\nAMainly, we had the problem of aiding mothers in finding their way back into their various professions after they had borne their children. In this endeavor, it was the aim of the Lebensborn to place mothers in such jobs where they would hace the possibility of keeping their children with them and of educating their children themselves, or at least of keeping the children close to them so that they could take care of them. In this special field it was necessary to correspond with the competent labor office, and it was also my task to make trips to see these various homos of the Labensborn from time to time in order to talk with these mothers and discuss their plans for the future.\nThe extent of this of this special field of work can be explained best by saying that four or five letters would be received by us per \n day, upon which action had to be taken.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4501, "page_number": "4494", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QIn your activity as an independent Referent, as you call yourself in your affidavits were you entitled to make independent decisions?\nANo.\nQAt that time, independently, could you report to your chief or have conferences with him -- that is, the Chief of Lebensborn?\nANo. My only superior, of course, was the head of my departments, and he was the one that I had to report to.\nQIs it correct that, at the beginning of 1940, besides this placement task for Lebensborn mothers, you were in charge of the Departments of Foster Homes and Adoptions? Is that correct?\nAYes, because the placing of a child into one of the foster homes always depended upon the fact as to whether the mother was working, and that is why these two fields of work really belonged together.\nQWhat was your work in these two departments, Foster Homes and Adoptions?\nAWell, the names really speak for themselves. These two departments had to take care of the children and find foster homes for them, and also, in some cases, place them for adoption. That was always the ease when mothers were not able to take theri children with them immediately, or in those few cases when it became evident that those mothers would never be in a position to bring up their children themselves. In thos cases, adoptions were also found for them. In this connection I had to correspond with the prospective foster parents. I would have to examine the personal conditions of the foster parents. Then, when the children were fianlly placed in those foster homes,.an education report was requested from time to time so that the Lebensborn would know how the children were getting along in thos foster homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4502, "page_number": "4495", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWhat sort of children were placed by you in foster homes or for adoption?\nAWhen I was working in this department, only children that were actually born within the Lebensborn.\nQAnd how many children were these, approximately?\nADuring all this time, that is, during the period of time while I was working in this department, there were about 25 to 30 cases of adoption which I had to handle. These were all cases which had occurred since the inception of Lebensborn, that is to say, about from 1936 to 1940. In general, the percentage of children which were given up by their mothers for adoption was exceedingly small, for the main task of the Lebensborn was seen to be to give those mothers the possibility of living together with their children and bringing them up themselves. With the finding of foster homes, this was a temporary accommodation for these children, and this work was a bit more extensive. However, I cannot give any exact figures.\nQWhat were your tasks, principally, from the beginning of April until July, when you were in charge of reorganizing the Department of War Orphans?\nAThis Department had been newly established within the Lebensborn in about 1940. It was our task to help, with the advice and deeds, the widows of the SS men killed action, and their orphans. These women would turn to us when they had any sort of difficulties, for instance, with regard to bringing up of their children, or concerning the professional training of their children. In the beginning, at the time when I was still working in this department, this department performed almost exclusively an advisory capacity. The correspondence that would come in and that I had to handle in connection with this work was not extremely difficult because, after all, these were questions that could come up in any sort of normal household, and special technical decisions did not have to be made in this particular connection.\nWhen I took over the department, it was rather in a mess and \n there was a lot of backlog correspondence.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4503, "page_number": "4496", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Therefore, my department head told me to devise a system of managing this office so that such difficulties would be prevented in the future and so that the women would really have the feeling that they were being cared for sympathetically.\nQ.What were your principal tasks from June until August 1941, when you were in charge of reorganizing the Department of Foster Homes?\nAIn this Department of Foster Homes. the applications were handled which were made out by these women to be admitted into one of those Lebensborn homes. Here also it was a question of finding and devising a system so that the mail received would be handled quickly and correctly, for sometimes these women would turn to the Lebensborn only very shortly before the time of their confinement. And, after all, before they were taken into the homes, all the formalities were supposed to have been concluded.\nQWell then, how was it that you were put in charge of these tasks?\nAAt that time, many of the old assistants of the Lebensborn were conscripted into military service, and there were then surprising gaps in the personnel which had to be replaced by other people. That was probably the chief reason for the fact that difficulties in the office management itself also occurred in the various departments.\nQWhen you were charged with those tasks, were you told that this work was only supposed to be on a temporary basis?\nANo, not at the beginning, and it was only told to me in the case of Main Department A. In this case it was probably already established that I could not take over the job of head of such a big department permanently, because I did not have the personal and technical requirements for this job.\nQIs it correct that Main Department A was formed in September 1941?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4504, "page_number": "4497", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWhat was the reason, and for what purpose was this Main Department created?\nAWell, it was really a matter of simplification of routine work and of saving personnel.\nQWhat was the significance of the technical departments and the effect of their consolidation in Main Department A for the work of the Lebensborn?\nAMain Department A, which means \"Arbeit\", \"Labor\", really included all the actual work of the Lebensborn. In this department were handled applications for commitment to homes, the preliminaries for guardianships, the procurement of legalizations for illegitimate children, and the further care of mother and child.\nQIs it correct that you were put in charge of heading this Main Department at this time together with Herr Ragalla?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQHow did you handle this co-heading of the Main Department?\nAWell, a collaboration in the heading of this department never really took place, for Herr Ragalla refused to work with me. The reason for this refusal may be seen in the fact that he did not approve of the consolidation of the Departments of Guardianships and Allocations into Homes. Therefore, at first we took up a division of fields of work. Herr Ragalla was in charge of the outside service. that is to say, in connection with the homes of the Lebensborn and with the maternity homes, and I myself was put in charge of the office management.\nQAnd then were you appointed the sole head of this Main Department?\nANo. Besides his duties as head of the Lebensborn. Herr Sollmann also took charge of this department, and he transferred to me the practical handling of business, as long as it remained within a framework which corresponded to the usual manner in which the Lebensborn handled its business.\nQAnd what was your official title?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4505, "page_number": "4498", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AI was Deputy Head of Main Department A.\nQReferring to the table of organization in Prosecution Exhibit No. 60, is it correct when Herr Sollmann says that he only had nominal charge of the department?\nANo, I can't say it that way.\nQWell, how was it in actuality?\nAHerr Sollmann was in charge of the department. I was forced to bind myslef by his decisions in every case. However, in normal cases, I could make my own decisions without consulting Herr Sollmann.\nQHow did you have to handle those matters that would go beyond the framework as we have just discussed it?\nAThese matters had to be reported to the Chief for his decision, and they were signed by him.\nQThen what were your tasks when Herr Sollmann made the decision?\nAI had to carry out the dicisions that my chief made, or I had to supervise their being carried out.\nQIs it correct that your main task remained the execution of the reorganization?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQAs far as this matter was concerned, were you able to act independently?\nANo.\nQWhat was the procedure?\nAI made suggestions to the Chief, and reported on technical details. He would make his decisions, and then the suggestions were either carried out or not carried out.\nQAs Deputy Head of this Main Department, did you have the authority to deputize for him on technical matters?\nANo, neither towards the Lebensborn itself nor towards outside agencies.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4506, "page_number": "4499", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QAnd how was the business of signing letters regulated as far as matters were concerned that would go beyond the usual framework?\nAWell, such matters were fundamentally, basically signed by the chief himself. The drafts of letters were made by no after having had conference with the chief. I would submit them to him once more for eventual corrections and in many cases they were signed by him. In individual cases, in which I myself had signed such letters, the chief would put his initials on them before I put my signature to them.\nQDid Herr Sollmann also ask you to sign letters or reports to superior offices?\nAYes.\nQAnd what was the reason for that?\nAWell, they were mostly matters in which Herr Sollmann did not went to commit himself and wanted to reserve his own decision for later on.\nQIn the indictment, it is asserted that Main Department \"A\" included a whole number of offices. Is this assumption of the prosecution correct?\nANo, this description I believe probably is based on errors of translation because Lebensborn in itself was only an office itself and could therefore only consist of main departments.\nQAnd then how was the department divided?\nAIn various special departments, as I have already described.\nQFor how long were you active in the Main Department \"A\"?\nAFrom September 1941 until the first of May, 1942.\nQAnd who then took charge of this same department?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4507, "page_number": "4500", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AThat was Herr Doctor Ebner.\nQDid you then completely resign from your activities of the Main Department \"A\"?\nAYes.\nQWhy did you leave this main department?\nAPermanently, the burden of his work was too great for Herr Sollmann -- that is to say, to take care of his current work and also to handle the work of the Main Department \"A\". The actual and informal leadership of the Main Department of the Lebensborn of course would have to be taken over sooner or later by a man.\nQAfter you left the Main Department \"A\", did you still have any sort of influence upon the leadership of this department or its official business?\nANo.\nQHas this been ordered expressly?\nAYes.\nQAfter you left the Main Department, did you handle either officially or unofficially any matters that you would fall into the sphere of the competency of this Main Department?\nANo, not officially. However, it would happen occasionally that my former assistants from Main Department \"A\" would come to me every once and again in order to ask my advice. I would happen that foster parents whom I had personally met through my activities in Main Department \"A\" would turn to me again or also it might be the case that the same was true of Lebensborn mothers that I had taken care of, and that they would come to me as they had before with their wishes and desires.\nQIn your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit No.17, in \n paragraph 10, you stated that from the middle of 1942 until the middle of 1943, you carried out special orders for the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4508, "page_number": "4501", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Then you mean to say that you did not have a special field of work during this time?\nANo, I did not have a special department, but the word \"special jobs\" would really have to be substituted by the word \"individual jobs, single jobs.\" It was at this time a question of the fact that the chief would order me to carry out individual jobs with which usually official trips were connected and that in these cases, there were cases of such nature that he could not take care of himself, however, that did not seem important enough to him to charge one of his more important collaborators with the carrying out of this task; and in most of these cases it was a question of matters where a woman was more competent.\nQNow what was the practical result of this situation?\nAAt that time I asked my chief to let me resign completely from the service in the Lebensborn for I wanted to take care of my husband's business who already since the beginning of the war was in combat. Herr Sollmann thought, however, that he could not dispense with my experience with the Lebensborn work because he only had very little trained personnel in the Lebensborn. He therefore did not agree to sign my resignation papers. However, he permitted me to do my work in such a way that I would not have to be present at the office permanently but that he would call on me from time to time whenever there was a special job for me to be done.\nQAs prosecution describes it, your trips were mostly abroad or they led you into territories which had been just incorporated into the German Reich. Is it possible to infer \n From that that you field of tasks in the Lebensborn was the making of trips abroad and the care of alien children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4509, "page_number": "4502", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.No, there were no such field of work at the Lebensborn at all. In the course of my interrogations, I have stated that I had been in the occupied territories several times. However, the main part of my journeys led me into the Lebensborn homes established within the Reich proper and led me to the mothers of which I had to take care in individual cases even later on. However, the interrogator was not interested in these trips and they are therefore not included in this affidavit.\nQ.I have to confront you with the fact that the former secretary of Herr Sollman, Else Mayer, in Prosecution Exhibit79, stated that during your period of service at the Lebensborn you were in charge of handling all matters concerning alien children and therefore also the handling of the correspondence in connection with these matters. Will you please comment on that?\nA.The statement that Frau Mayer made are not correct if they are formulated this way. My official journeys were only concerned with ethnic German orphans and not with alien children, foreign children. That is to say, of course, they were also concerned with other matters. Far be it from me to say that they were only concerned with these children.\nQ.Do you say that you got these orders to make a journey in individual cases? How do you explain that in connection with that you also had to handle the correspondence?\nA.When I reported to Herr Sollmann about the result of my official trip, then he also put me in charge of handling the correspondence that would be in connection with this particular case and to inform the various agencies of the \n decision that he made, or else he would tell me to make inquiries in one case or another, which seemed important o to him.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4510, "page_number": "4503", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "However, in this case, it was only correspondence which was connected with my various official duty trips.\nQDid you ever receive any special powers on behalf of the Lebensborn in connection with these trips?\nAI never could deputize or represent the Lebensborn with the authority to make decisions. I could only make reports to my chief and could wait for his decision.\nQUntil the end of the Lebensborn, did you work independently with all the matters concerned in your official duty trips and especially I am thinking about this matter of the Warthegau?\nANo, in the handling of this matter, the competent department was always included so, for instance, the departmen Foster Homes and Adoptions and the Department Administration, depending on what sort of questions were to be handled in detail; besides that the Lebensborn in these matters only took action if some cause was provided from outside. So, for instance, if the Gau-Self Administration would write to the Lebensborn that the children needed clothing or that several children would have to be taken into a Lebensborn home, etc.\nQWhen was the first time that you were put in charge of handling matters concerning children which were not born within the Lebensborn?\nAThat was in the spring of 1942.\nQDid you ever have a special training in the field of racial policies or racial characteristics or did you have any experience in this field?\nANo, I never had anything to do with matters of that \n sort.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4511, "page_number": "4504", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWere you ever especially interested in the so-called folkdom work, work with the ethnic Germans?\nANo, I believe that at the Lebensborn there was no one who knew anything about matters of that sort.\nQWell, how did you first take up contact with the Lebensborn?\nAWell, it was purely a matter of coincidence. I was looking for a job and the labor office gave me the address of the Lebensborn. When I asked for the type of institution that the Lebensborn was, there was a woman who said to me that I would probably like to work in this particular institution.\nQYou stated that you finished your work there about the middle of 1943. Were you during your period of work constantly handling matters concerning children that were not born in the Lebensborn?\nAOrders that were connected with such children I did not get since 1943. These matters from that date were handled in a special department and the various official trips then were made by the assistants in this department.\nQDid you perform any further duties for the Lebensborn and what sort of orders did you have to carry out after that?\nAI made several official trips into the occupied Western territories but then in May or June, 1943, I was head of the maternity home which had just been completed near Luettich and after I had finished my work in Belgium in July or the beginning of August, 1943, I received another order to aid the Gau-Self Administration in the Warthegau in the establishment of children's homes and confinement homes, the Lebensborn should also get various places for children coming from air raid areas.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4512, "page_number": "4505", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QAnd then how long did you carry out these activities?\nAI finished my work with the Lebensborn at the beginning of August, 1943.\nQBut as can be seen from your report on a journey, which is dated 14 September and which is Exhibit 432, you must have been active for the Lebensborn later on too?\nAWell, this journey took place at the end of July or the beginning of August, but from Poznan I went directly to Vienna as my husband was wounded near Vienna and was there in field hospital and I stayed there for a few weeks. After I returned to Munich I finally wrote the report of this journey.\nQSo that you want to say that your activities with the Lebensborn stopped at the beginning of August 1943? And that only as a supplement you made this last report on your journey, is that correct?\nAYes.\nQDid you put in for your resignation?\nAYes.\nQWas this resignation accepted and as of what date?\nAYes, my resignation in connection with my wounded husband was accepted and as of 13 September 1943.\nQWeren't you then supposed to continue your work until the 30th of September?\nAWell, yes, as such; but that was not possible for me because I wanted to go back to my husband and besides I still had some leave coming which I used up at this opportunity.\nQIn your affidavit, Exhibit No. 17, you stated that your formal resignation became active on the 21st of December, 1943. How did this come about.\nAOn the occasion of a trip which the chief took to Belgium, the Higher SS Leader there complained about me to Herr Sollmann. With this gentleman I had a rather severe dispute because his behavior in \n various matters did not seem very correct to me.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4513, "page_number": "4506", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "He, of course, did not take this quarrel as the immediate cause of his complaint but he libeled me and Herr Sollmann thought now that he would have to fulfill this wish of the Higher SS and Police Leader; but at that time the chief could not tell me about it since I was not in Munich and so it was only on the 21st of December that Herr Sollmann informed me about this complaint and on this occasion he took back the accepted resignation and changed that into my being fired.\nQThe prosecution charges you with the fact that the care that the children received in the Lebensborn was a sector of a huge plan. Do you know anything about such a plan?\nANo\nQDid you ever think that there might have been a plan for the abduction of children?\nANo.\nQDid you know about the fundamental decrees and regulation on the part of Himmler, Hitler or through the various Reich agencies and other authorities which the prosecution has submitted here to base his charge upon? Did you ever receive knowledge of these documents?\nANo, I never knew anything about such decrees while I was active for the Lebensborn. I don't even know whether the head of the Lebensborn and the advisory board of the Lebensborn had any sort of knowledge of these decrees. In looking through all these documents here I found out that they were in no way connected with the Lebensborn.\nQDid you hear anything about the decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS dated 28 November 1941 which was submitted as Exhibit 24? Did you gain knowledge of this decree?\nANo, nor does this decree actually apply to the Lebensborn.\nQDid you know about the field of tasks, the creation and the activities of the other main offices to which your co-defendants here belonged?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4514, "page_number": "4507", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo.\nQBut you certainly had some official business with the various agencies of these offices and how did you find out who were the competent officials for that particular work?\nAI would go to the head of the agency that was competent. I would go to the functionary that was named to me by Herr Sollmann, and was then moved through the competent expert or the head of the department that had competency in this matter.\nQDid the Lebensborn receive any T/O's or administration plans of these offices and did you receive them?\nAWhether the Lebensborn received such T/O's I really don't know but I myself never saw them in any case.\nQWere you subordinate to the RKFDV, the RuSHA, or the Vomi in any way?\nANo.\nQDoes that also apply concerning the Reich Security Main Office?\nAI never had anything to do with the Reich Security Main Office nor did I ever have any correspondence with them and it is entirely unknown to me that we, the Lebensborn, was supposed to have anything to do with the Reich Security Main Office and especially with regard to the matters concerning children.\nQWas Lebensborn, as such, subordinated to these above-named agencies in any way?\nANo.\nQDo you know anything about the fact that the Lebensborn transferred any sort of children to the Reich Security Main Office for elimination or for confinement in concentration camps?\nANo, that is absolutely impossible that anything like that could have happened at the Lebensborn.\nQDid you know anything about a collaboration of the Lebensborn \n with the RKFDV with the Vomi or the RuSHA in connection with the replacement of these children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4515, "page_number": "4508", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AIn individual cases, I know of a collaboration between the Reich Commissar for the strengthening of Germanism and Vomi; whether the Lebensborn and the RuSHA collaborated in this matter of the children, I really don't know any more.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4516, "page_number": "4509", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QLet us now turn to the question of collaboration with RuSHA of the Lebensborn. Did you ever have any negotiations with the RuSHA yourself--preliminary negotiations or conferences?\nANo.\nQWere you ever present at the Office of the RuSHA in Berlin either for the purpose of meetings or for other purposes?\nANo.\nQDid you ever visit the field office of Lodz of the RuSHA?\nANo.\nQIn your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit720, it is stated that at the end of November 1942 you had had some negotiations with the then head of the RuSHA, Hofmann--you had negotiations with him in Strassbourg. What about that?\nAThis version is not my own. In the course of the interrogations when I was asked whether I knew Herr Hofmann, I said that I met Herr Hofmann by coincidence in a hotel in Strassbourg. At that time we had lunch together. We talked. In this connection, of course, we also talked about the Lebensborn representative. I had no official orders at that time. But from this conference stemmed later on a correspondence between Herr Hofmann and Herr Sollmann.\nQWell, how come that you can say that you had negotiations with him, especially since this situation was also confirmed by Herr Hofmann in the witness stand?\nAI said already that this formulation was not my own. I described it in the course of my interrogation just exactly as I described it here, and apparently the interrogator formulated it in the way that is to be seen in the interrogation. At that time, of course, I didn't know what to do because in the course of these interrogations everybody turned every word in my mouth, and there was absolutely no possibility of correcting this and to defend myself against that.\nQConcerning the matter of ethnic German orphans in the Warthegau, \n did you not have any negotiations with Herr Dongus--the then head of the field office of Lodz?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4517, "page_number": "4510", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "I would like to remind you of your affidavit, Prosecution Exhibit408, and also the affidavit of Clara Keith, Exhibit 416, that is also known to you.\nAI did not have any negotiations with Herr Dongus. On the occasion of a visit in Poznan, I met Herr Dongus in the office of the gau self-administration. In the course of this meeting, I found out that he was collaborating in some way in the gau district and the gau selfadministration in connection with this matter of the Warthegau children. I only met Herr Dongus there once or twice, but I knew of Herr Dongus so well because he spoke in such a sympathetic and cordial way of these ethnic German children and was interested again and again in their further well-being. That was probably the reason that Herr Scharnweber invited him to come along to a visit of the school in Achern because he, as a former teacher, had a purely pedigogical interest in the further development of these children.\nQAccording to your affidavit, Exhibit 319, in connection with the matter of the children from Upper Carniola, you also had negotiations with two other leaders in the race and settlement affairs--that is to say, with Herr Obersteiner in Salzburg and with Herr Roeder in St. Veit. Will you please comment on that?\nAWell, I did not have any negotiations with these gentlemen. They only requested me to see that the Lebensborn would care for a few children that were in a transient camp and would accommodate them in one of the Lebensborn homes. In what capacity Herr Obersteine, who besides being RUS leader at the office of the Higher Police and SS leader also had to take care of other official business of the agency-- was active in just this very matter, that I don't know at all.\nQUnder these circumstances, did you not have to assume that the Lebensborn after all closely collaborated with the RuSHA.\nANo; from the fact that I twice or three times talked to several \n leaders of the Race and Settlement Main Office I could not assume that.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4518, "page_number": "4511", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "In any case, Lebensborn never took over any children from RuSHA, and as far as I know, Lebensborn never had any correspondence with RuSHA about these children. In how far the racial classification experts had anything to do with all these things, that I only found out during my stay here.\nQIn what cases did the Lebensborn, as far as you know, work together with the VOMI?\nAAs far as I know, only in this case concerning the children from Upper Carniola.\nQIn your affidavit you further stated that in the matters which concerned alien children, Lebensborn would use stationary of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism with an additional capital \"L\" in the letterhead. What was the connection?\nAI certainly never spoke about alien children in the course of my interrogations. Such stationery was used only if any sort of confirmation of there being foster parents had to be made out for the parents.\nQIn your affidavit, Exhibit 414, you stated that you had negotiated with the Chief of the VOMI, the defendant Lorenz, for the procurement of funds for the establishment of confinement homes in Rumania, is that correct?\nAYes, I once went to Rumania in 1942 to the women of the ethnic German group. When I came to Rumania, I was told that I was not supposed to have taken this trip without the approval of Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz, and so in order to avoid having any troubles about it I should procure this approval and permission subsequently. On this occasion, the women of the ethnic German group asked me to tell Mr. Lorenz about their request that he would make available to them funds for the erection of a maternity home. When I came back to Munich, Herr Sollmann permitted me to have a conference with Herr Lorenz on this matter.\nQThat is to say, you took care of this financial matter only on \n the side more or less?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4519, "page_number": "4512", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AYes.\nQWere you that well-known at the agency of the VOMI that you could have a conference with their main chief without any trouble?\nANo, I was not at all known at this agency, but when I, as a woman, would come to someone with a special request then it certainly never happened to me that I was not admitted, and this was just the way that Herr Lorenz received me at that time.\nQThese maternity homes that were to be erected with the ethnic German group in Roumania, did they have anything to do with the Lebensborn?\nANo, these were homes belonging to the German ethnic group in Rumania. The erection and the operation was to take place only according to the standard of the German homes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4520, "page_number": "4513", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR. MUELLER:I ask that the defendant Huebner be excused for this afternoon and tomorrow in order to be able to discuss with him certain questions of my final plea.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your request is granted. Proceed with the examination. BY DR. ORTH:\nQ.Witness, in an affidavit of Anita Riegler which is Exhibit 761, it is asserted that you as Chief of the Main Department A were in charge of correspondence with the RuSHA and also of the correspondence with the VOMI. Are these assertions correct?\nA.First of all I was not director of the Main Department A and during my activities in that main department I certainly had nothing to do with correspondence with the VOMI because at that time we didn't have a connection with the VOMI but I do recall that the Department for Eugenic Proof, in Main Deportment A, had correspondence with RuSHA and made inquiries there about the eugenic investigation for alleged illegitimate purposes. But, I personally did not have this correspondence with RuSHA.\nQ.According to your position and on the strength of your activities in the Lebensborn were you even able to have on insight into the extent and the aims of a possible collaboration between the Lebensborn and the Main offices?\nA.No, I couldn't have that insight. If such a collaboration could be mentioned at all, then according to my knowledge this collaboration certainly by far was not as extensive asit was with other State agencies, as for instance with the youth offices, or the guardianship Tribunals and so on and so forth. After all I couldn't even have the idea that there was some special link, for instance, concerning the core for Children, and that this collaboration as charged by the Prosecution was aimed at special goals.\nQ.Until the beginning of this trial did you ever hear about the procedure of the DVL and the re-Germanization of people?", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4521, "page_number": "4514", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Until the beginning of this trial did you ever hear about reGermanization procedure according to which persons of foreign alien groups were to be incorporated into the German etnic community.\nA.No.\nQ.But occasionally during your work when the expression, \"fit for Germanization\", and \"suitable for re-Germanization,\" was mentioned to you, didn't that point to such procedures?\nA.It is correct that these concepts turned up during my work, but only in connection with the racial German orphans and there I was assured again and again that these were children of German descent; concerning the terms, \"fit for Germanization,\" or, \"suitable for re-Germanization,\" or \"of German stock,\" I could only understand that in the following way: Namely, that it involved Germans. For the rest nobody ever explained to me the significance of these terms or gave me a lecture on the subject and if, in connection with other children, these terms turned up later there again I could only assume that these children were German.\nQ.But didn't this terminology show you that the intention could exist when these children were sent to German families to strengthen Germanism?\nA.I would even get that idea. During my term of office we had perhaps the care of 25 to 30 of such children and I couldn't see how there was an intention thereby to strengthen Germanism. I mean that couldn't even be referred to; that is ridiculous.\nQ.During your activities, did the Lebensborn ever receive children from the Government General for re-Germanization or served as an intermediary or did you ever take any part in such procedures?\nA.No, we never had anything to do with children from the GovernmentGeneral.\nQ.In the Lebensborn did you ever deal with legal questions of any kind?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4522, "page_number": "4515", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.Could you rely on it, that legal questions which might turn up in connection with the taking over of ethnic German children, would be checked correctly in the Lebensborn?\nA.Of course, after all we had 7 or 8 Jurists and that was a matter of course that these questions would be checked.\nQ.Were you ever a member of the Vorstand of the Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.During your activity in the Lebensborn did you ever receive a general power of attorney to deputize for the chief of the Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.During that period did you ever receive general powers enabling you to make a factual decision in the taking over of children for the care of the Lebensborn and gave you the responsibility for such measures?\nA.No.\nQ.But as can be seen from Exhibit 718 and Exhibit 720 on letter heads and on letters you signed with the letter heads of Lebensborn Vorstand. Why did you use these letter heads?\nA.This stationery was used by all the experts in the staff of the chief.\nQ.Did you ever have powers to organize the Lebensborn which enabled you to decide on the setting up of agencies of the Lebensborn inside and outside of Germany?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn set up homes in occupied territories?\nA.The Lebensborn itself didn't set up these homes and as far as I know about the matter that was done only within the framework of the field of tasks of the Higher SS and Police Leaders in charge. At any rate I was always sent there on the request of some higher SS and police leader.\nQ.Why was the Lebensborn called in at all in the occupied territories when such maternity homes were set up?\nA.The Lebensborn had year long experience in the setting up and the direction of such confinement homes and it was a matter of course that \n those agencies wanted to use the experience gained by the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4523, "page_number": "4516", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.What do you know about Herr Sollmann's attitude concerning the setting up of such homes in the occupied territories?\nA.His position in this question was very difficult. Basically speaking he was against the setting up of confinement homes in the occupied homes in the occupied territories, in the East as well as in the West. However, he could not always shirk the desires of these gentlemen, particularly as these people always approached him through Himmler and in that way these suggestions when they came to him were practically orders. However, in practice he always delayed the work in such a manner that during my period of activity, for instance, only one confinement home was set up outside of Germany apart from such confinement homes with which we had no connection at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4524, "page_number": "4517", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.Did you ever receive the order by Herr Sollmann to procure buildings in the occupied territories for the Lebensborn in order to see to it that Lebensborn homes would be set up there?\nA.No, I told you already the Lebensborn itself never set up any homes in the occupied area.\nQ.Were you ever concerned with financial matters in the Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.In the affidavit which already has been mentioned, Exhibit 78, which is an affidavit you gave, you have talked of financial affairs and financial negotiations. Were those the financial negotiations which you were referring to?\nA.No, what I meant there was the short conversation with Herr Creutz where we only referred to the amount of welfare funds for the children of the Warthegau.\nQ.When was the order for the Lebensborn to take over racial German orphans from the Warthegau first made known to you?\nA.About March or April 1942.\nQ.What was told to you at that time concerning these Warthegau children and the assignment of the Lebensborn?\nA.I was told that in various Polish orphanages intended to be dissolved at that time in the Warthegau, there were ethnic German children the existence of whom had been ascertained. These children were to be sent to families for care and Himmler bad ordered, I was told, that the Lebensborn was to take over the welfare and care of these children as far as they were below the age of six.\nQ.At the time or at any time until the beginning of this trial, did you hear about the order Himmler gave to Greifelt on 18 June 1941 and I an referring to Exhibit 405.\nA.No.\nQ.At that time or at any time until the beginning of the trial was the directive by the Main Staff Office of 12 March 1941 which is Exhibit 406 \n known to you?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4525, "page_number": "4518", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.No.\nQ.Did you then know and receive the decree 67-1, Exhibit 407?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know anything concerning the question of whether the Lebensborn was drawn in and called into the preliminary negotiations concerning this decree?\nA.No.\nQ.What were you told and what order were you given concerning these Warthegau children?\nA.The only assignment that I had in this connection was to contact the responsible officials of the Autonomous Administration of the Gau in order to ascertain how many children were involved, how many boys or girls, what the age was, what kind of clothes they needed for the journey, and then I had to report to the chief about the result of my enquiry.\nQ.Why were you entrusted, you of all people, with this assignment?\nA.On account of my activity in all the Lebensborn homes which were known to me. Therefore, I was most fitted to make the necessary preparations in those homes for the reception of the children involved.\nQ.Whom did you go to see in Posen?\nA.Dr. Bartels.\nQ.What was Dr Bartels' position there?\nA.He was director of the Autonomous Gau Administration.\nQ.At that time did Dr. Bartels have any connection with the Lebensborn?\nA.No.\nQ.Later on did he enter a personal or official contact with the Lebensborn?\nA.Later he was supposed to become Lebensborn representative but I have to add that that was not connected with these ethnic German orphans.\nIt was connected with the general field of work with the Lebensborn; whether he actually became representative of the Lebensborn I couldn't \n tell you.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4526, "page_number": "4519", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "At any rate I don't think he was officially appointed during my period of activities there.\nQ.Do you have any knowledge concerning the question of whether and what kind of relations existed between Dr. Bartels and the RKFDV?\nA.No, I have no knowledge about that question. In my affidavits I have signed that he was representative of the Reich Commissar; at the time I was asked what I thought and what orders and in what capacity Dr. Bartels did this work and then just came to an assumption for which I had no documents. At any rate as far as I have been able to ascertain here Dr. Bartels was never representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nQ.Who was Dr. Bartels' superior?\nA.Gau Hauptmann Schulz.\nQ.At the time did you discuss the children with Gauhauptmann Schulz?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What did Herr Schulz tell you?\nA.He told me the same hing which was told to me already before, namely, that those were racial German children without family ties and that the Lebensborn was supposed to take care of these children.\nQ.Was that the same thing Dr. Bartels told you?\nA.Yes, Dr. Bartels told me the same thing.\nQ.During this trip did you reach any agreements with Dr. Bartels?\nA.No, that wasn't necessary either.\nQ.As a result of this trip was a special section for these children set up within the Lebensborn?\nA.At the beginning that wasn't necessary at all because there there were some very few children involved. What ever work was caused on account of these children could be dealt with also by the department for welfare places and so on and so forth because there were only five to six children at the most who came to the Lebensborn homes.\nQ.As time went on did you continue to go to Posen; did you go there \n often?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4527, "page_number": "4520", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.Yes, about three or four times.\nQ.Did you make these trips on your own initiative or did you always get a special assignment by your boss in every instance?\nA.Yes, I got a special assignment by the boss every time.\nQ.Do you know what were the reasons in general for these assignments?\nA.Yes, Gauhauptman Schulz had a great interest in the work of the Lebensborn and above all he saw to it that Lebensborn mathers worked with the children, got jobs where they could bring up their children themselves and in connection with that question there were again problems to be discussed and as I had done work in this field before I was charged with the official trips. Then the question arose of setting up infant homes within the Gau Autonomous Administration and it was a matter of course that as I was present in Posen I would take care of those matters at the same time, or matters which had arisen in connection with the ethnic German orphans in the meantime.\nQ.Do you know that the Warthegau children above six years of age were to be taken over by the home schools?\nA.Yes.\nQ.Do you know who ordered the inspectorate of the German home schools to take over these children above six years of age?\nA.No, I don't know that for certain but I assume it was the same agency that gave us the order to take over the children below the age of six, that is Himmler.\nQ.Were the home schools under the orders of the Lebensborn with regard to these children for instance?\nA.No.\nQ.Do you know whether and when a so-called racial examination of the children was carried out?\nA.I don't know that for certain but I do know for certain that as long as these children were with the Lebensborn they were not submitted to any \n racial examination.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4528, "page_number": "4521", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.Where were the children when they were taken over by the Lebensborn?\nA.They were in the homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration then.\nQ.Did you personally visit such homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What was the reason for those visits?\nA.On the request of Dr. Bartels I was to contact the home director herself and to discuss with her what clothes had to be procured for the children. For instance that was the reason for my visiting Balsen, in September 1942; to Kalish and Puschkau I went only during my last duty trip to the Warthegau. I spent the night at Kalish. I had no official business there either and at Puschkau I saw the home director whom I knew as a Lebensborn mother and I said good-by to her because at that time it was already certain that I would resign from my work in the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4529, "page_number": "4522", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWere these homes in the Warthegau?\nAYes.\nQWas the Warthegau then a part of the German Reich?\nAYes.\nQAt that time did you have any doubts with regard to the addition of the Warthegau to the German Reich in any way?\nANo.\nQOr did any others in the Lebensborn have doubts concerning this partition of the Warthegau to the German Reich?\nANo.\nQIs it correct that the autonomous gau administration was a state agency?\nAYes.\nQDid you or according to your knowledge from some other employees of the Lebensborn have the idea that the actions of the German authorities might be illegal?\nANo.\nQDid you have to deal with checking up on such questions at all? I mean was it part of your task?\nANo. I mean those are legal questions and I had no right of decision on that.\nQWitness, in your affidavit you repeatedly referred to transports from abroad to Germany, and with reference to the Polish children, you stated that these transports were carried out by Dr. Bartels. Now, this statement according to which the Warthegau belonged to Poland, did that refer to the period when you made your affidavit or did it refer to the period when the transports were carried out; and, did you mean to infer that at that time you considered the Warthegau a part of Poland?\nADuring my interrogations I never spoke of transports from abroad of foreign or Polish children. I only referred to ethnic German children, and the transport of such children from the homes of the autonomous \n Gau Administration into the homes of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4530, "page_number": "4523", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "For instance, I didn't mean to say either that Dr. Bartels dealt with all these matters personally and took the initiative for them personally; for instance, the transport of the children from the children's homes of the autonous Gau Administration into the homes of the Lebensborn, because according to my opinion there was somebody else who was responsible for those matters within the Gau Autonomous Administration, and all these wordings in my affidavits are not my own words; according to my conception at that time I was in Germany proper when I was in Germany proper when I was at the Warthegau at that time, and I went to see a German Reich agency. I had never anything to do with Poland or a Polish agency. According to my feeling, these wordings are not quite correct and I pointed that out to the interrogator.\nQWell, why did you sign the affidavit then if you didn't agree with the wording?\nAWhen I made objections, I was told again and again that Poznan is now part of Poland, and that the children before that, that is before 1939, had probably had Polish nationality. I had no possibility to stress my objections to such a point that they were taken into consideration; and apart from that, I was told again and again during my interrogations that this was not the point; that the point was only now to find out where these children were and that I should dig out all my assumptions and my memories and tell the interrogator about them because this way the inquiries for the fate of these children could be carried out. I didn't even have a shade of an idea for what purpose these affidavits would be used in the last analysis.\nQDuring your visits in the homes, did you have the opportunity to see the children themselves and to speak to them?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the impression you gained?\nAMy impression was that these were German children and that before they had come to the Autonomous Gau Administration nobody had taken a \n strong interest in these children, because they were in a very neglected condition of health; they looked dirty and had nothing to put on, and at least they didn't give the impression of children which had been well taken care of.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4531, "page_number": "4524", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "On the contrary, they were what we are in the habit of calling typical orphans, typical orphanage children.\nQDid you alone or together with somebody else, particularly with Herr Dongus of the field agency of the RuSHA at Lodz, select the children for the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQDid you ever attend so-called final or reception negotiations?\nANo.\nQIs it correct that the Lebensborn took care of the clothing of the children while they were still in the children's homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration?\nAYes.\nQWhat was the reason for that?\nAI told you already that these children had practically nothing to put on when they came to the homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration; the procurement of necessary ration cards took up part of my time, and the Autonomous Gau Administration had no facilities at all to procure textiles, and, therefore, the Gauhauptmann Schulz at that time requested the Lebensborn to give him assistance, and this help was granted.\nQHow were these children called in the daily correspondence in the Lebensborn?\nAThey were called East children; that is why they had that designation with an \"O\", standing for the German OST, East.\nQWere they ever called Polish children?\nAI personally never used this expression of Polish, Kinder, but it is quite possible that somebody who was not involved with the factual dealings with these children would for reasons of simplicity say Poland kinder once in a while, Polish children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4532, "page_number": "4525", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWho took care of the finding of foster parents for these children?\nAThe responsible department for the Foster Places and Foster Parents and Adoption.\nQIs it correct if I say that as far as the distribution of management was concerned, these children were dealt with by the Lebensborn in the same manner as children born within the homes of the Lebensborn?\nAAs long as I had to deal with that, yes, at the beginning, that is.\nQFor how long did you have to deal with these children?\nAUntil about May, 1943.\nQDo you know under what names these ethnic German orphans were listed within the Lebensborn?\nAThe names they had been listed as in the Gau Autonomous Administration.\nQDuring your period of activity, did the Lebensborn try to get documents and papers for these children inasfar as they didn't have any?\nAYes. We attempted again and again to approach the Autonomous Gau Administration for certain documents for these children, and I do know that after my period of activity Dr. Staudte even approached certain Youth Offices and Gaurdianship Tribunals in order to seardh for the files of these children.\nQWhy did the Lebensborn have to deal with such documents?\nAWell, we were told again and again that these were ethnic German orphans, but now if these orphans were to be given to foster parents or even with the aim of a future adoption, then you have to have proof and actual documents for the fact that they are ethnic German orphans. These were the regulations in Germany for permanent foster parents and for adoption. Therefore, you have to be able to prove with certainty that the parents were dead; you have to get a mortality document, and you need also the birth certificate of the children. In some cases \n it wasn't even certain where the children were born.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4533, "page_number": "4526", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QDid you look at the documents concerning these children yourself?\nAYes, inasfar as they existed, I saw them myself.\nQDuring your period of activity in the Lebensborn, could you see from these documents that there was a clue as to the Polish descent of these children?\nANo.\nQDuring your period of activity with the Lebensborn, did you hear about the Lebensborn having changed the names of the children?\nANo.\nQIf such, cases of names had become necessary, what agency of the Lebensborn would have been responsible for them?\nAThe Marriage Registration Office \"L\".\nQDid you ever work in that office\"L\"?\nANo.\nQDid you hear anything daring your period of activity in the Lebensborn that the birth certificates of the children were changed?\nANo.\nQWere you connected with the establishment of the Police Registration Office at Kalisch?\nANo.\nQDo you know when this registration Office was set up?\nANo. That must have been after my period of activity.\nQDo you know when the first ethnic German orphans arrived in the Lebensborn homes from the homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration.\nAAbout in July or August, 1942.\nQCan you state, approximately, how many such children arrived at the Lebensborn homes as long as you were dealing with the work for these children?\nAA out twenty-five to thirty.\nQCan you give us a statement with regard to the question of how \n many such children the Lebensborn has taken over altogether?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4534, "page_number": "4527", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo, not from my own knowledge.\nQWitness, you have testified that the children who were under the obligation to go to school were taken over by the inspectorate for German Home Schools. Do you know to what Home Schools they were sent?\nAMainly to Achern and to Niederaltaich.\nQFurther more, you stated that these Home Schools were subordinated to the inspectorate for German Home Schools and not to the Lebensborn. According to this statement did the Lebensborn have a right to issue directives to the Home Schools with regard to those children?\nANo.\nQWhy did the Lebensborn have to deal with these children in spite of that?\nAOn the request of the inspectorate for German Home Schools, because those children could only remain in the Home Schools until they had gone through their school age. Therefore, it had been taken into consideration that at a certain time the Lebensborn should take over the guardianship for these children, and that for the rest the Lebensborn should help to get them places and should place them in apprenticeships.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4535, "page_number": "4528", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWhy was the Lebensborn to take over the guardianship for these children?\nABecause the Lebensborn was in Germany the only institution which could take over general guardianship because the inspectorate for Home Schools had no right to do so.\nQDid the guardianship of the Lebensborn in taking over these children have any practical value?\nAWhether guardianship was actually taken over, I couldn't say. At any rate, the Lebensborn partly dealt with these children as far as welfare was concerned.\nQWhat did this welfare consist of.\nAInasfar as it was necessary, we provided clothes and laundry for these children, and our department for welfare and foster homes in some cases saw to it that these children would get foster homes.\nQWhat about your visit in Achern in November, 1942; how did that come about?\nAThe Home Schools, as I have testified already, had requested the support of the Lebensborn with regard to the clothing for the children. Now, I was to contact the director of that school in order to ascertain what in detail was needed most urgently. Apart from that I was to ascertain how many children were in Achern who could be taken into consideration for the procurement of a foster home.\nQDid you ever influence the question of whether the children were allowed to have correspondence with their foster parents and acquaintances?\nANo.\nQDid other persons issue you orders concerning that question in your presence?\nAI never heard about that.\nQDo you know anything about the question of whether the Lebensborn issued directives to the foster parents of such children according to which such correspondence would not be admitted or allowed?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4536, "page_number": "4529", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo.\nQDo you know anything about the question of whether eastern children who had come to foster homes from Home Schools had the access of the church prohibited by the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQWitness, did you ever have misgivings about the question of whether the taking over of the care of such children by the Lebensborn from the Home School was not legal?\nANo.\nQWhat were the motives for your activities in this field?\nAOnly the worrying about these children who had no help. The Lebensborn couldn't leave these children without its help.\nQHow would you have acted if somebody had told you that these were Polish children and that the bringing of such children under German education could be attacked from the view point of the Polish state?\nAIf I was told that those were children who needed help, then I would have helped these first of all in every case regardless of whether they were Polish or Japanese, or heaven knows what kind of children, because if a child needs something then first of all I have to see to it that it gets decent cars, and decent housing. I cannot make considerable inquiries first to see to it whether this is really a German child.\nQWitness,did you have anything to do with the bringing of any children from the protectorate into Germany?\nANo.\nQWhat do you know about this evacuation of Czechoslovakian children to Germany?\nAConcerning the evacuation, as such, I only know that at Puschkau there were a few children from the Bohemia-Moravia protectorate. I only know one single case amongst those children in detail. There it was a question of brother and sister from Prague.\nQIn what manner was the Lebensborn concerned with these children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4537, "page_number": "4530", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AHerr Sollmann about in the second half of August, 1942, rang me up and told me that an inquiry by some agency had arrived from Prague whether the Lebensborn could receive about 180 to 200 children in its homes. Because my husband was home from the front on furlough at that time and because during this furlough I had made a short official trip, I didn't want to go away during my husband's furlough, and I suggested that he should charge somebody else with that matter. Now, Herr Sollmann summoned me to the agency and when I waited in the anteroom, I talked with the adjutant, Herr Ueberschar, and told him that somebody had to go to Prague, and asked him whether he wasn't ready to take care of that matter himself, because Herr Ueberschar had told me that he wanted to visit a comrade from his regiment who was in Prague, and, therefore, he requested me to suggest to the boss that he should be the man to go to Prague. And, during the conversation with Herr Sollmann, which took place a little later, he eventually assigned Herr Ueberschar to the duty trip to Prague.\nQDo you know what was the assignment of Herr Ueberschar?\nAHerr Ueberschar had the assignment to make it clear to the inquiring agency that the Lebensborn for merely technical reasons was not in a position at all to receive such a number of children in its homes.\nQHow do you know that that was the assignment of Herr Ueberschar?\nAI was to be the person to go to Prague first of all, and the assignment for me was the same.\nQDo you know what agency Herr Ueberschar went to contact in Prague?\nANo, I couldn't tell you.\nQWere you there when Ueberschar returned?\nANo. I had been away from the agency for a few weeks on duty trips and on furlough.\nQWhen you came back to the agency, did you discuss the Prague trip personally with Ueberschar?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4538, "page_number": "4531", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AOnly in few words en passant. I asked Herr Ueberschar what he had taken care of at Prague with regard to these children, and he told me that there were seven to nine children which the Lebensborn was to take care of, and put a file note corresponding to that on my desk.\nQAs you say, this file note was supposed to refer to seven to nine children. Now, where were these children?\nAThese children were already in Germany, in the Gau Children's Home Puschkau; that must have been mentioned in the note also.\nQIn your affidavits it is said that this did not refer to ethnic German children and not to children without family links, but that it involved Czech children who were the survivors of a state action and that the mothers of the children were in the concentration camp of Ravensbrueck. What can you say about that?\nAI have a few words to say about that. My whole statements in this matter are based only and alone on the knowledge of this only case with which I was personally concerned, and I think that for this case, what I have said in my affidavit, is correct, but only here I have learned that the mother was in a concentration camp of Ravensbrueck. I don't think that that was contained in Herr Ueberschar file note. I didn't even have knowledge that there was such a thing as a concentration camp of Ravensbrueck, and according to my recollection, there was nothing contained in the file note either with regard to the state action. I think that it is a suggestion of the interrogator.\nQCan you tell us whether you could see from the file note that other mothers were also in concentration camps?\nANo, I couldn't tell you that because when I signed the affidavit I remembered that quite clearly and after a little hemming and hawing I put in a special sentence in my affidavit after discussions with the interrogator, and this sentence says: That I don't know whether this applies to all cases or something like that. When I described this whole matter, I was too far under the impression of this one case with which I was connected, and that was generalized too much when I took up this affidavit.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4539, "page_number": "4532", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWill you please describe this one case you knew, in a few brief words.\nADuring a trip to Roznan, in July, 1942, the expert in charge for Youth Affairs was an Autonomous Gau Administration official, Herr Senze, and he told me that in the Gau Autonomous Administration there were two children from Prague, a brother and sister, who were to be brought into foster homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4540, "page_number": "4533", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "The autonomous Gau administration requested that the Lebensborn should find foster parents for them, and that we should find foster parents who were ready to take both children, in order to see to it that brother and sister did not have to be separated. At that time I remembered a foster mother who had come to see me personally several times, and when I got back to Munich I wrote to this woman concerning these two children. I informed her of what Herr Sense had told me, that is, that these were orphans who were not claimed by anyone. However, a short period afterwards, when I received this note from Herr Ueberschar, I saw the names of these two children on the note, and under the names it had been noted that the father was dead and the mother was in a concentration camp. Then I contacted the expert in the Department for Foster Homes and Adoptions. She received this matter from me and,was to deal with it further. I had a consultation with her to see how we could get the information to the foster mother in the quickest way, that the information given to her by my letter had undergone a slight change. Fraulein Edelmann then called up this lady and told her that the children were not orphans but that there was a mother, and that the foster mother was to make up her mind as to whether she was ready to take these children temporarily, because doubtlessly the mother would one day come back and claim the children.\nApart from that, I advised the expert that she should inform the Personal Staff in Berlin of this matter, and obtain a decision from Himmler as to whether such children could be sent to foster parents at all.\nQIn your affidavit you speak further concerning this conversation with Fraulein Edelmann, and you tell us that you did not arrive at a decision as to what was to happen if the mother came back. Wasn't it a matter of course as to what was to be done if the mother reported?\nAOf course it was a matter of course; she would get her child back, that is obvious. What I discussed with Fraulein Edelmann was solely the question of what would happen with the children in the meantime.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4541, "page_number": "4534", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "until the mother came back, I mean, and whether the foster mother, who had intended to take the children, would still take the children in spite of the information that they were not orphans.\nQYou say that you advised the expert to submit the case to Himmler. What was the reason for that, and what did Himmler decide in that matter?\nASo far as I know, Himmler's decision was that the children could he lodged with the foster mother for the time being, but that once the mother was released from the camp, or if she had already been released, the children should be turned back to the mother.\nQHow come that in Section 3 of your affidavit, No. 5, you say that there was never any mention of mothers getting their children back if they should turn up again?\nADuring my interrogation I spoke about Himmler's decision in the same manner as I have here, and the same applies to the information given as to the mother, and so on and so forth. Thereupon the interrogator asked me whether I personally was the person who had obtained this decision from Himmler, whether I wrote the letter to Himmler, and whether I personally had informed the foster mother. I thereupon told him that that was not within my field of activity, but that was to be taken care of by the competent department. I said, however, that I had advised the expert to do that. However, the interrogator did not permit me to enter that into the affidavit, in spite of the fact that I pointed out to him that the omission of this important phase would distort the picture completely.\nQUnder No. 3 of your affidavit you say that you had discussed the matter with Dr. Tesch, that it is true, in the last sentence but one, that Dr. Tesch did not venture an opinion with regard to that question. Now, there is a certain contradiction. Can you explain that?\nADuring my interrogation I only said that I had had a brief discussion with Dr. Tesch about the forwarding of this note to the competent department. That was then worded in that way by the interrogator, and that is how the contradiction comes about.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4542, "page_number": "4535", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QAfter all, it states in your affidavit that the male officials of the Lebensborn would not discuss such matters with the female personnel, what do you have to say to that?\nADuring my interrogation I was asked once--not in connection with this matter--whether all matters in the Lebensborn were discussed with me. Thereupon I stated that of course, in view of my position, that was not the case. And, well, the interrogator just had the fancy to out the sentence in like that.\nQDo you know what happened concerning the other Czechoslovakian children in Puschkau?\nANo, I don't know that in detail.\nQDid the Lebensborn take over the guardianship of those children?\nANo.\nQDo you have any knowledge about the fact that the parents, or one of the parents, of these children were still alive?\nANo, I have no detailed knowledge about that.\nQDid the knowledge arise in the Lebensborn at any tine that these children cane from the State's action at Lidice, and that their parents had been killed?\nANo, I don't know that. I couldn't even assume that, because the children I had to deal with cane from Prague, and certainly had nothing to do with Lidice.\nQYou said that the Lebensborn did not have the guardianship over these children. How do you explain, then, that you were asked to send in an educational report?\nAAccording to my opinion, the Lebensborn had also taken over the welfare of those children because they were in a home of the autonomous administration, and, for all the children who were under the care of the Lebensborn, automatically, at certain intervals, these educational reports were required.\nQThe letter in which the educational report was requested has been submitted here, and it is signed by you. Can one infer from that \n that you were currently concerned with dealing with the affairs of the Czechoslovakian children?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4543, "page_number": "4536", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo; these affairs were dealt with by the Department for Foster Homes and Adoptions, and later by this new expert department.\nQIn October 1942, however, on the request of the Gau Children's Home in Puschkau, you granted clothing for the other Czechoslovakian children to be brought there, as can he seen from Exhibit 720. What can you say about that?\nAThe directors of the children's home of the autonomous administration knew that the Lebensborn would deal with the clothing for German children, and therefore they again approached me in order to see to it that these welfare measures were taken. I was always currently concerned with these measures, regardless of whether those were German children or T children, or children from the Upper Ukraine.\nQDuring your activity in the Lebensborn, did you hear about the fact that in June, 1943, Sollmann went to Prague to take over Czechoslovakian children?\nANo, I never heard about that. This trio did not come to my knowledge in the Lebensborn at all.\nQDo you know whether, after this trip by Herr Sollmann, the children were taken over by the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nDR. ORTH:Your Honor, that brings me to the case of the children from the Upper Ukraine, and I think perhaps it would he best if I start that this afternoon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "A", "DR. ORTH", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4544, "page_number": "4537", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 28 January 1948)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nINGE VIERMETZ (Resumed) DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued) BY DR. ORTH:\nQ.Witness, I should now like to turn to a different sphere of the charges, and this is the charge against you concerning the abduction of children, that is to say, the so-called children from Upper Carniola. Will you please describe to the Tribunal what your connection was with these children?\nA.In about August of 1942, my boss sent me to Salzburg, at the desire of the Higher SS and Police Leader of Alpenland. It was my assignment to find out whether it would be possible for the Lebensborn to grant the desire of the Hither SS and Police Leader concerning the taking of infants and smaller children into a home of the Lebensborn.\nQ.Herr Sollmann did not give you any further details, did he?\nA.No, I believe he didn't know any more about it himself.\nQ.Did Herr Sollman tell you anything, especially that these were children of partisans, or so-called \"bandit children\"?\nA.No.\nQ.Did you then make this trip to Salzburg, according to orders, and to whom did you report?\nA.I visited the adjutant of the Higher SS and Police Leader, and this adjutant then told me to go and see Herr Obersteiner.\nQ.What were you told there in connection with the children?\nA.Herr Obersteiner told me that there were several infants and small children in atransient camp in St. Veit, near Feldes, who were accommodated there primitively, and who were supposed to be moved away from there as soon as possible.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A.", "Q.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4545, "page_number": "4538", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.Who was this Herr Obersteiner?\nA.No was a member of the agency of the Higher SS and Police Leader of Alpenland.\nQ.But in your affidavit, Exhibit 391, you state that you had negotiated with the RuSHA in Salzburg. Is that statement correct?\nA.No, I couldn't possibly have negotiated with the RuSHA in Salzburg, At that time, it is true, I found out in Salzburg that Herr Obersteiner was the RuS leader at the office of the Higher SS and Police Leader of Alpenland, but that he also had other functions in connection with this office. As I said once before, I don't know in what capacity he was active concerning this matter of the children from Upper Carniola. I don't know any exact details about the various competencies of those gentlemen, nor did I discuss these matters with them in detail in the course of my journeys.\nQ.What other things did Obersteiner tell you concerning these children?\nA.No told me that the Lebensborn was supposed to take care of the orphans that were amongst these children, and that they were supposed to be accommodated as soon as possible. He also told me that there was supposed to be a conference in Feldes for the purpose of discussing all these matters.\nQ.Were you present at this conference in Feldes?\nA.Yes.\nQ.At that time was Feldes within the area of the German Reich?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What matters were touched upon at this conference in Feldes?\nA.Welfare measures for those children, and also welfare measures to be applied to the adults that were in this camp in St. Veit.\nQ.In the course of this conference, did you gain knowledge of the order of the Reichsfuehrer SS of 25 June 1942, concerning the treatment of those \"bandit children\" in Upper Styria, and also concerning \n the execution of this order?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4546, "page_number": "4539", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Did you gain knowledge of that in the course of this discussion?\nA.No.\nQ.As to this order itself, the competence of this order, and the directives, were they the subject matter of this conference at all?\nA.No.\nQ.In the course of this discussion, was mention made of the fact that non who had participated in partisan actions were supposed to be executed, and that women were supposed to be committed to concentration camps and their children were supposed to be moved away from their homeland?\nA.As long as I was present at this conference, no word about that was mentioned at all.\nQ.What was said in this connection about the origin of these children?\nA.In the course of this conference no details were mentioned bout these children, but then it was only a question of moving out all the inmates of this transient camp in St. Viet as soon as possible and bringing them into better surroundings; that is to say, all inmates, and not only the children.\nQ.Do you remember whether the expression \"bandit children\" was used in the course of this conference?\nA.No, no, I can't remember that.\nQ.How did you stand on the question with regard to the fact that the Lebensborn should take over children from Upper Carniola and move them out as soon as possible?\nA.I myself was not able to make any decision for the Lebensborn. I was only in a position to take cognizance of the facts of the case and to report them to my boss. That rapid aid was necessary, of course had become clear to me after a description of the circumstances.\nQ.Then why did you go to St. Veit with Obersteiner?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4547, "page_number": "4540", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.As I said before, in the course of the conference in Feldes, no details were to be gotten concerning the number of infants and smaller children. Therefore, Obersteiner suggested that I should go and get the information at the place itself, because only when 1 had this information could my boss make a decision as to whether or not we were in a position to take these children into the Lebensborn homes.\nQ.Was St. Veit then still in the area of the German Reich?\nA.Yes.\nQ.What sort of a camp wasthat in St. Veit.\nA.Well, it was a so-called transit camp.\nQ.In your affidavit you state that this was a VOMI camp. Is that correct?\nA.In the course of my interrogation I said it was possible that it nay have been a VOMI camp, but in the course of this trial here it became clear that this wasnot a VOMI camp. In any case, I did not say that with certainty in my interrogation.\nQ.With whom did you negotiate in the camp on behalf of those children?\nA.I spoke with Mr. Roedl.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4548, "page_number": "4541", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWas that the same Roedl who was testifying here in the court sometime ago?\nAYes.\nQIn your affidavit, Exhibit 391 you stated that Roedl was a director of the camp, is that a correct statement?\nANo, it isn't. I would have to add to this that in the course of such visits I really did not try to inform myself in detail about the official positions of the various people I talked to. I did not think it was so important. Roedl was the only man with whom I talked in this camp and therefore I came to the assumption that he was the director of the camp.\nQWhat did Herr Rodel tell you about these children?\nAHerr Roedl showed me the very primitive conditions in which the children lived and complained about the fact that he had a lot of trouble to take care of these children as was required, for instance he could not get milk for the infants, he did not have any bakeries and there were only straw sacks to sleep on, and for this reason something would have to be done and the children would have to be moved and accommodated in orderly surroundings and he thought the best way would be to take them into a home of the Lebensborn.\nQDid Herr Roedl ever mention the expression \"bandit children\"?\nANo.\nQWell, what did Herr Roedl call these children?\nAWell, I can't remember a certain designation, I don't think he used one. He spoke of resettlers, etc. I did not make a note of all these expressions.\nQDid Herr Roedl tell you those children were German nationals?\nA that is possible but I can't remember that I asked him about that in any special way. I assumed that was a matter of course if I was called in to deal with such a matter.\nQDid you look at the children yourself?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4549, "page_number": "4542", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QAnd what was the impression you gained?\nAI even had conversation with some of the children, some of the larger children and I also looked at some of the smaller children, and I found out that a few infants and smaller children were in the camp that were designated to me as being orphans, but the most children had neighbors, had been taken over by neighbors of their parents or by not very close relatives so that the question of transporting these children in a special transport right away was not acute any more, but they could stay in the care of these people in the camp until a complete moving out was accomplished.\nQIn the course of your visits to St. Veit did you select any of the children in any form?\nANo.\nQDid you on this occasion make any agreements with Herr Roedl or Obersteiner, did you make any negotiations with them concerning these children and the Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQWhat did you report to Herr Sollmann about the result of your official duty trip?\nAI reported to him about what I saw and heard, and I pointed out to the boss that it may be necessary that the Lebensborn would grant assistance to these children perhaps by temporary taking them into a Lebensborn home and also by finding foster homes for them.\nQWhat was the decision made by Herr Sollmann subsequently?\nAI was supposed to let the matter rest until I would get further information from another agency what the Lebensborn could do for these children.\nQDid the Lebensborn take any action on its awn initiative on this matter?\nANo.\nQWhat did you hear later on about this matter of the children?\nALate on there was correspondence with the Vomi in Berlin which \n 28 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_3_Cohen (Reischer) turned to the Lebensborn on the initiative of the higher SS and police leader Alpenland, concerning the taking in of the infants and small children into a home of the Lebensborn and perhaps finding foster homes for these children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4550, "page_number": "4543", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "QAs far as you know did you in the Lebensborn receive any sort of documents concerning the children to be taken over by the Lebensborn?\nAI really don't know, that exactly.\nQDid you then gain knowledge of the letter of the higher SS and police leader Salzburg Vomi of 14 September 1942, Exhibit 394?\nAI can't remember this letter.\nQDid you take part in this second conference in Feldes which was mentioned in this letter?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether the second conference took place at all?\nANo.\nQDo you know whether the correspondence just mentioned was initiated by the Lebensborn or whether it was the Vomi that started again with this matter?\nAI don't know that for certain, but I believe that the Vomi inquired from the Lebensborn about the taking over of these children into Lebensborn homes.\nQDo you know who carried out these transports of these children from Upper Carniola from St. Veith into the Lebensborn homes?\nANo, I don't.\nQIn your affidavit Number No. 4703 you stated with certainty these transports were carried out by the Vomi. How did you come to make this statement?\nAIn the conference at Feldes, a certain Herr Cyriak of the Vomi was present, and that is why I assumed the Vomi carried out these transports, but in the course of my interrogations I am sure, I did not say that with certainty. I was never present at such a transport and I can therefore never make any definite statement about it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4551, "page_number": "4544", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "28 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_4_Cohen (Reischer)\nQAs far as your knowledge reached, did the Lebensborn have anything to do with these transports?\nANo, it certainly had nothing to do with it.\nQWhat else did the Lebensborn do in this matter of the children?\nAAt the end of 1942, the expert female worker of the department foster homos and adoptions visited a Vomi lager near Regensburg in which the people of St. Veith, had been transferred in the meantime. This visit was made because of correspondence with the Vomi. This expert was supposed to inform herself at the spot which children were now to be transferred to foster homes and whether there was still a number of very small children which were supposed to be taken into a home of the Lebensborn on a temporary basis. Later on there was also a conference with the NSV in Berlin which also had something to do with the care of these children. At this conference also two gentlemen of the Vomi participated and on the strength of this correspondence we talked also about these children. I pointed out to those gentlemen once again, the Lebensborn could only take action if it would have the necessary documents for the finding of foster homes for these children. The gentlemen assured me at the time that they would take care of the procurement of these documents.\nQWhat sort of documents did you ask for from the Vomi?\nAWell, the birth certificates of the children, the death certificates of their parents, that is to say all these papers from which it could be shown whether or not these children were orphans.\nQWhy did the Lebensborn not take over these children in it home simply upon the request of the Vomi?\nAWe had absolutely on possibility of doing that, for there were only a very few places in the Lebensborn homes for children, and we really had no facilities for taking in children.\nQThen what sort of agreement did the Lebensborn roach with the Vomi?\nAAS far as I can remember, the children were to remain in the \n camps of the Vomi, until the Lebensborn would he able to make available some foster homes and a few children, which was assured to the gentlemen of the Vomi, were supposed to be taken into a Lebensborn homes because of better living conditions there.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4552, "page_number": "4545", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QDid you at that time ask Herr See also for documents concerning the children?\nAYes.\nQDid Herr See call these children \"children without home ties\" in the course of this conversation?\nAYes, at least those children that were supposed to be transferred into the care of the Lebensborn.\nQDid anyone tell you at that time that Lebensborn was also supposed to take care of children from Lower Styria?\nANo.\nQHow many of these children were in the care of the Lebensborn?\nAI can't give any exact figures about that because I did not handle the details of these matters because at that time I was -my main activities were restricted to Belgium.\nQDo you know what happened to those children that were not in the care of the Lebensborn?\nAYes, the expert of the department foster homes told me that on occasion of a journey into this Vomi camp near Regensburg she had found out that most of these children had been placed in foster homes through the NSV.\nQDo you know that Lebensborn cared for these families - for the children without family ties from Upper Carniola in the camps of the Vomi by sending them clothing?\nANo, I really can't remember because I didn't have any dealings with the matter.\nQDo you remember that the Reich Youth Leader once asked the Lebensborn to be included in the care of youth, that is children from Upper Carniola and Styria?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4553, "page_number": "4546", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "28 Jan 1948_A_MSD_14_6_Cohen (Reischer)\nAThat can he possible because I believe in the course of the conference at Berlin with the NSV somebody must have been there from the Reich leadership.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4554, "page_number": "4547", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QHow do you explain that the Vomi asked the Reich Youth Leadership to contact the Lebensborn and not only that but to contact you personally, how do you explain that fact?\nAWell, probably because I was in Berlin concerning this matter at the Vomi offices and also with the NSV.\nQCan you still remember what sort of position the Lebensborn had with regard to the Reich Youth Leadership?\nANo, I don't know.\nQThe prosecution has submitted a few documents which are referring to Romanian children or which are supposed to refer to Romanian children. In order to clarify the matter of your participation in this matter I would like to ask you the following: As a functionary of Lebensborn did you have any contact with the transportation of children from Romania to Germany?\nANo.\nQWhen did you find out about the fact that in 1941 children from the Banat were to be moved into a Vomi camp near Heidelberg?\nAI found that out from an excerpt of a report by Dr Ebner about his journey there.\nQWas it an excerpt from the report of Dr Ebner submitted here as Prosecution Exhibit439?\nAYes.\nQDo you know whether these children were transferred to Germany on the strength of a free agreement or the strength of an international treaty between Germany and Romania?\nAI have no idea about that.\nQAccording to your personal knowledge did Lebensborn take any action in the placing of these children?\nAAs far as I know, three of these children were placed in foster homes.\nQThen this whole matter is concerned only with three cases?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4555, "page_number": "4548", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Court I, Case 8(Int.Reischer)\nQWhen was that?\nAAt the beginning of 1942.\nQAnd in what manner did you learn of the placement of these children?\nAWell, I saw the files.\nQIs it correct that one of these children, Camillo Bohler still had parents?\nAYes.\nQThen how can you justify the fact this child was placed in a foster home?\nAThe parents of this boy with whom I talked myself and whom I visited in the foster home, wanted their child to be brought up in Germany since another son of theirs already lived in Germany.\nQIn your affidavit Exhibit 414 you stated that in 1942 you made a trip to Romania on the orders of Herr Sollmann. What led up to this trip?\nAIn the Spring of 1942 the district womens leader of Romania Dr Lydia Mueller visited the Lebensborn. I received the assignment to show to Doctor Mueller and several ladies who came with her the Lebensborn home in Steinhoering. We then stayed in Steinhoering a whole day, and the ladies were very enthusiastic about this home. When we returned to Munich, Dr. Mueller asked the boss whether he would not permit me to visit the women of the ethnic German group in Romania because these women wanted to have assistance in erecting one of those Lebensborn maternity homes there. The boss agreed to this, and a few weeks later I received an official invitation to go with Frauelein Meier, the secretary of the Chief, and I went to Romania.\nQDid this journey have any connection with erecting maternity homes of the Lebensborn in Romania?\nANo.\nQWas it perhaps the intention that ethnic German children in Romania or German children who were to be born in these maternity homes \n were supposed to be moved to Germany?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4556, "page_number": "4549", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo.\nQDid you ever have any contact with German or Norwegian agencies -did you ever have conferences concerning the transfer of Norwegian children to Germany or did you ever participate in such conferences?\nANo.\nQDid you yourself ever make a trip to Norway?\nANo.\nQDid you ever have anything to do in any other form with the transfer of Norwegian children to Germany?\nANo.\nQDid you ever gain any knowledge about the fact that Norwegian children were transferred to Lebensborn homes in Germany?\nANo.\nQDid you have anything to do with the placement of such children in foster homes, or regarding their adoption?\nANo.\nQDid you have any correspondence ever with the so-called \"Norwegian Lebensborn\"?\nANo.\nQIn Exhibit 17 you stated that you repeatedly made official trips into the occupied territories. Did these official trips have anything to do with the re-Germanization of children of non-German mothers whose fathers were members of the German military forces in the occupied territories and as asserted by the Prosecution.\nANo.\nQWere these official duty trips in connection with the re-Germanization of any ethnic groups other than German ethnic groups?\nANo.\nQDid you ever have negotiations with any agencies within or without the Reich because of re-Germanization of alien children?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4557, "page_number": "4550", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QDid you ever gain knowledge of correspondence on this subject?\nANo.\nQDid you make an effort or did you get orders to make an effort to the effect that the Lebensborn be included in the distribution list of the agency from the OKW which was competent for such matters?\nANo, I don't know anything about such incidents.\nQDo you know, upon whose initiative the letter of the Reich Fuehrer SS personal staff of 17 October 1942, Exhibit 446 was written? In this letter a request is made for inclusion into the distribution list and it is directed to the Reich Fuehrer SS personal staff office\"L\", to the attention of Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr Tesch?\nANo.\nQDo you still remember how often you received an assignment for official duty trips to the Gouvernement General.\nAYes, perhaps three or 4 times.\nQDid those official trips have anything to do with the transfer of children from the Gouvernement General, either ethnic Germans or Polish children?\nANo. In the course of these official duty trips it was always a matter of erecting or establishing a maternity home.\nQWhen did you undertake the first of these official trips? Do you still remember?\nAThat must have been about the middle of 1942.\nQAnd what was the immediate cause for these trips?\nAThe higher SS and police leader in Krakow wanted to establish a maternity home for ethnic German women. He therefore asked for the advice of the Lebensborn.\nQIn your advisory capacity -- was it ever mentioned that children fathered by members of the German Wehrmacht in the Gouvernement General, that these children were to be re-Germanized and moved to Germany?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4558, "page_number": "4551", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo.\nQDid you give a special report to Herr Sollmann about the result of this trip?\nAYes, that was the usual procedure. We always did that.\nQAnd what did Herr Sollmann say about that and what action did he take?\nANothing at first, and later on by request of Herr Krueger, Frau Merkel was assigned to go to Krakow in order to aid with the establishment of that maternity home.\nQWho was Herr Krueger?\nAHe was the higher SS and police leader for the Gouvernement General in Krakow.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4559, "page_number": "4552", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWhat was your assignment in connection with the appointment of Frau Merkl?\nAI was supposed to accompany Frau Merkl to Krakau and I was supposed to introduce her to the agency there.\nQHow long did you stay in Krakau at that time?\nAIn the course of all these official trips I was in Krakau only one or two days each time.\nQYou were in the Government-General a third time and how did that happen?\nAThe Hitler SS and Police Leader Krueger had complained again and again that Herr Sollmann did not bother to see any person about the establishment of this maternity home in the Gouvernement General and had already complained to Himmler personally about that. Herr Sollmann, after several invitations, decided to go to Krakau himself. I was sent there one day before, in order to establish the time of the various conferences and in order to get him a place to stay.\nQDid you take part in the conference Herr Sollmann had with Herr Krueger?\nAYes, I was there and Frau Merkl was there too.\nQDid you also have an active part in this conference?\nANo, the conference was only conducted between those two gentlemen.\nQIn the course of this conference, was the question of re-Germanization of children of the kind already mentioned or their transfer to Germany or their transfer into special children's homes--was that mentioned?\nANo, the whole conference was simply about the establishment of one of the maternity homes.\nQWitness, you at that time also made official trips to Holland, France, and Belgium. Can you please tell the Tribunal, when did you undertake the first of these official trips?\nAIn about September or October 1942, I went for the first time into \n the occupied western territories.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4560, "page_number": "4553", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWas that your first official duty trip--that is, was it the first official trip that was undertaken into the western occupied territories by a representative of the Lebensborn?\nANo, in Holland as well as in Belgium a member of the office had been already present in an advisory capacity for the establishment of a maternity home. The gentleman on duty in Belgium was called into the Armed Forces, and that is how it happened that I had to make trips there more frequently.\nQ when did you make your last official trip into the occupied western territories?\nAThat must have been about July 1943. I can't remember the exact date.\nQThen why were you no longer assigned later on to such official duty trips?\nABecause I resigned from my duties at the Lebensborn.\nQWhat was the purpose of your individual trips into the occupied Western territories?\nAI was supposed to act as adviser in the establishment of maternity homes.\nQIn the whole course of your activities in the Lebensborn, as far as you know, was there ever a maternity home finally established in Holland?\nANo.\nQWas the Lebensborn supposed to establish these homes on its own account in these occupied western territories?\nANo.\nQBut in your affidavit, Exhibit 17, you were speaking about Lebensborn homes. Will you please comment on this statement?\nAThese were not homes that belonged to the Lebensborn proper, but they were maternity homes which were to be established after the model \n of the German Lebensborn maternity homes.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4561, "page_number": "4554", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QWhat were your assignments in the official duty trips you took to Belgium?\nAThere too I acted as adviser in the establishment of a maternity home, and there too I inspected the applications of women for being received into such a home.\nQWho established this home in Belgium?\nAThe higher SS and Police Leader.\nQDo you know upon whose expense this home in Belgium was established?\nAAs far as I know, the Germanic regional office.\nQIs this fact connected with a certain purpose which was aimed at the establishment of this home in Belgium?\nAYes, this home in Belgium was designated especially for taking in the wives of Flemish SS men.\nQDo you know where the Germanic district office had its headquarters and what its tasks were?\nAThe Germanic District Office was in Berlin. I don't know the assignments in detail.\nQDid you ever take part on behalf of the Lebensborn in conferences with this Germanic District Office concerning the establishment of homes or any other matters?\nANo.\nQDo you know anything about the fact whether other members of the Lebensborn had taken part in such conferences with the Germanic District Office?\nANo.\nQAs far as you know, how many maternity homes were established in the occupied western territories during your period of office?\nAIn my time, the only home that was finished was the one near Luettich.\nQDid you, yourself, make any arrangements on behalf of the Lebens \n born with the higher SS and Police Leaders in the occupied territories or with any other agencies?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4562, "page_number": "4555", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "ANo, that wasn't necessary at all.\nQIn the course of your official duty trips in the occupied territories or in your other activities at the Lebensborn, did you ever know about any cases in which racially valuable children that were suitable for re-Germanization were separated from their parents?\nANo.\nQDid you gain knowledge in the course of your official trips or in your activities with the Lebensborn of cases in which mothers and children, if the father was a member of the German Wehrmacht, were brought into the Reich?\nAYes, I know of two cases in which the mothers and their children came from Belgium into Germany in order to marry the father of their children.\nQHow much time was taken up by your official duty trips in the occupied territories?\nAOh, about one week to ten days in each case.\nQDid you not in one case stay in Belgium for several weeks? Why did you extend that stay?\nABy a change of personnel which I could not foresee, the home near Luettich, which had just been finished, was without supervision. Since a similar replacement could not be found so quickly, Herr Sollmann permitted me to remain there as director in this interim period.\nQHow long were you director of this home?\nAAbout four to six weeks.\nQDuring this period of time, were there any children brought to Germany from this home?\nAThe first children that were born there were only 8 to 14 days old and could not possibly be brought to Germany.\nQWitness, in the course of your activities with the Lebensborn, \n did you ever gain knowledge of the decree of the Reichsfuehrer SS, dated 27 July 1943, concerning the treatment of pregnant female foreign workers and concerning the treatment of foreign female workers and their children bore in the Reich?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4563, "page_number": "4556", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Did you ever find out about this decree?\nANo.\nQWhen did your duties with the Lebensborn stop?\nAFrom the beginning of August 1943, I was no longer active.\nQThat is to say, merely taking the time into consideration, you could not possibly have known this decree, isn't that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQTherefore you also did not know of the decree of the Reich Minister of the Interior, dated 5 June 1944, which is Prosecution Exhibit499?\nANo, because since the 21 of December 1943, I had no contact whatsoever with the Lebensborn any longer.\nQIn the course of your activities at the Lebensborn, did you ever find out about the fact that alien eastern female workers had to give up their children forcibly, as far as they were racially valuable, and that the Lebensborn was supposed to take them over for re-Germanization purposes?\nANo.\nQDid you ever find out in the course of your activities that the Lebensborn either took over these children for education in home schools or acted as intermediary in placing them in foster homes or for adoption or had taken care of them in any other way--these children of female eastern workers?\nANo.\nQThat is to say that you never had anything to do with things of that sort, isn't that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQFinally, the Lebensborn is charged with spoliation of alien property and especially of Jewish property, and the Prosecution charges you personally with participating in that. Let us first touch some general \n questions in connection with this problem.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4564, "page_number": "4557", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "During your activities with the Lebensborn, did you ever have anything to do with the procurement or readying of buildings for establishing homes, or did you have anything to do with the procurement of furniture for Lebensborn homes in the Reich proper?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4565, "page_number": "4558", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.- No.\nQ.- Was such an activity ever part of your official duties?\nA.- Procurement of objects or things? No.\nQ.- In the course of your activities in the Lebensborn, did you ever receive an order by Herr Sollmann to procure buildings for the Lebensborn in the occupied territories so that a home could be established there?\nA.- No, for Lebensborn did not establish its own in these territories.\nQ.- In your affidavit, Exhibit 17, you stated that together with Frau Klipp-Merkl you had inspected various buildings in Warsaw and the eastern environment of Warsaw for the purpose of establishing Lebensborn homes. Who gave you the order to do that?\nA.- Following the conference between Herr Sollmann and Herr Krueger, Herr Krueger gave him a list which contained several buildings which would perhaps be suitable for the establishment of a maternity hospital. The boss at that time gave us the order that we should inspect these buildings from that point of view, but I would like to add to that again that by Lebensborn homes I understood the maternity homes that were not owned by the Lebensborn in these territories but that were established there after the model of the German Lebensborn homes.\nQ.- Do you know who owned the buildings that you inspected?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Were these buildings when you saw them -- were people living in them or were they used in some way?\nA.- No, they were completely vacant.\nQ.- As far as you know, who could dispose of these buildings?\nA.- I don't know.\nQ.- Were these buildings ever used for the establishment of maternity homes, from your own knowledge, either while you were with the Lebensborn or afterwards?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4566, "page_number": "4559", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.- No.\nQ.- And on the 14 of September 1943 you reported to Dr. Ebner about the accommodation of children in the Warthegau. This report was submitted as Exhibit 632. What was your assignment concerning the placement of these children?\nA.- At that time it was not yet a question about the placement of the children but it was at first a question of establishing smaller children's homes by the gau self-administration. I, as a. woman, was supposed to act in an advisory capacity and was supposed to advise them as to how this could be done faster and most efficiently. Lebensborn was supposed to get some beds in these homes for children from areas in which air raids were taking place.\nQ.- Was this a question of placing Reich German children?\nA.- Yes.\nQ.- To whom aid these homes or these buildings belong? About which you reported?\nA.- As far as I know, they belonged to the gau self-administration.\nQ.- Were these homes or buildings used for the purposes described later on?\nA.- No, I don't know, because that did not take place during my term of office.\nQ.- In your affidavit, Exhibit 77, you stated that in 1942 a whole carload of textiles was consolidated from seized Polish goods which was then sent to Dr. Bartels for the clothing and care of Polish children in the children's home of the gau self-administration. Did you have anything to do with the seizure of these goods?\nA.- No, here again I have to say that in the course of my interrogation I certainly did not talk about the equipment of Polish children, for after all the gau self-administration did not have any Polish children in their homes. If I say that this carload was sent to Dr. Bartels, I \n must mention that as far as the Lebensborn could see, the gau self-administration and Dr. Bartels were more or less identical.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4567, "page_number": "4560", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Of course, I did not mean by that that we sent that to Dr. Bartels personally, but I meant that it was the competent department within the gau self-administration and the children's homes of the gau self-administration which received these goods.\nQ.- Well, did you have anything to do with the seizure of these goods?\nA.- No, I don't even know for sure whether they were seized. I rather think that they were put at the disposal of the Lebensborn from some sort of source.\nQ.- Who, according to your knowledge, owned these goods when they were put together for sending them to the Warthegau?\nA.- The Lebensborn.\nQ.- According to your knowledge then, did any one at the Lebensborn have any doubts about the fact that the Lebensborn had a right of disposal over these goods?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you, yourself, have any sort of doubt in the lawfulness of the property of the Lebensborn?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Who gave the order that those goods were to be put together to be sent to the Warthegau?\nA.- The boss did that on the request of the gau self-administration.\nQ.- Witness, did you got anything from any part of these goods that were stocked in Bromberg, for your personal use; that is, any sort of textiles: linens, beds, curtains, carpets, and even textile material for the making of clothes? Did you over buy any of that or receive that for your disposal?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Witness, you have a fur coat?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4568, "page_number": "4561", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.- Yes, two.\nQ.- Do these fur coats or does one of those fur coats that you possess come from the Polish stock of goods?\nA.- No.\nQ.- Did you ever buy anything or got anything from furniture stocks which the Lebensborn received from Holland and which were stocked up in Munich at the Hermann Schmidtstrasse? Did you ever get any furnishings for rooms of any sort or any single pieces?\nA.- No, I had a completely furnished apartment before I came to the Lebensborn.\nQ.- The Prosecution has submitted an affidavit Brandmaier wherein Brandmaier states that he has brought into your apartment furniture from the Lebensborn. Will you please comment on that.\nA.- After I was arrested by the Prosecution in my apartment in Isabellastrasse 13 in Munich, they would have had to ascertain that Herr Brandmaier brought these things into my apartment at Kurfuerstenplatz 1 in which I was no longer living since 17 February 1942.\nQ.- Witness, in the course of your examination today, you stated repeatedly that you were not in a position, when you made your affidavit, to make objections to the version of your words which the interrogator put down. Will you please tell us in what sort of a condition you were at the time and why you couldn't object?\nA.- Because of a rather serious illness, which befell me about June 1947, I was sent to the hospital. On the 30 of June I was called out of the municipal hospital in Nurnberg and was called for an interrogation in the afternoon. My state of health was so bad that I was not in a position to hold the pen in order to sign those affidavits. I also pointed this out to the interrogator and he gave me a block in a very kindly manner so that I could try out whether I could really write my name, because I was in such a weakened state from this stay in the hospital since one had more or less dragged me from my bed right back into prison.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4569, "page_number": "4562", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Because of this fact I was not in a position at all to correct all these details in such a manner as would have been necessary in order to prevent misunderstandings, and after that I asked that I be given a copy of this affidavit so that I could comment on it in some way, but unfortunately this request was not granted. Only in a few cases in which the misinterpretation jumped at me when I read it through, only in those few cases, did I have the opportunity of making corrections. However, since I really would have had to change the whole formulation of this affidavit, I gave up making any further objections. I did not know the purpose for which these affidavits would be used later on and therefore I am very unhappy about the fact that I did not have any more energy at my disposal for objecting against it because today these affidavits are used, to extradite people that I have mentioned in these affidavits to Poland. For instance there is Dr. Ducker. In the affidavit, in which I mentioned him, I did not add that these ethnic German women and children were for recreational purposes in his home from 1939 until 1942, although I emphasized that. I think in the course of my interrogation I was not asked this or interrogated about it any more, whether or not the formulation in these affidavits were all correct, but one simply informed Dr. Dueker of the fact on the strength of the Viermetz affidavit he was to be extradited to Poland. The man has four children and what it must mean to be extradited to Poland today certainly everybody knows and the same is true in the affidavits in which I talk about Dr. Bartels as representative of them Reich Commissar. In my interrogations I said again and again that I certainly did not have any interest to find them out in detail but at the time, because of my state of health, it was not possible for mean to go through with my objections, and two days later I was served my indictment and certainly it was utterly impossible to undertake anything in this matter in the first week and especially since I saw copies of this affidavit only for the first time again, when they were submitted here by the prosecution.\nQ.Were you told, witness, for what purpose these affidavits were \n COURT I CASE VIII to be given?", "speakers": [ "Q." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4570, "page_number": "4563", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.In my first interrogation, that was March 1947, one made an appeal to my human feelings and asked me if I would make clear all my assumptions and my faults about this matter and tell it to the gentlemen so they could find the children. At that time obviously one knew exactly, that I would never keep quiet about any facts that could be of importance in the finding of these children, and that is why I stated a lot of assumptions and why I pointed out a lot of ways in which these children could be found. Afterwards, of course, I knew that one was not at all interested in finding the truth, but that one wanted to confuse everything because of these assumptions that I voiced.\nQ.No further questions, thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions on the part of the defense counsel? Since those cross examinations are limited to thirty minutes we will not break into the recess but will recess now until 3:15.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4571, "page_number": "4564", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nINGE VIERMETZ CROSS EXAMINATION BY MISS JOHNSON:\nQFrau Viermetz, when were you first employed at Lebensborn?\nAIn September, well, I should say in August rather, 1938.\nQSeptember?\nAIn September, but I would rather say in August, 1938; I couldn't tell you the exact month, I am afraid.\nQAnd from and after the 1st of September, 1939, did you always use the name Viermetz as an employee of Lebensborn?\nANo.\nQFrom and after the 1st of September, 1939?\nAAs from the 1st of September, 1939; yes; yes, that is right.\nQDid the department for foster homes handle all children who were in the custody of Lebensborn and who were placed with German foster families; is that the one and only department which handled placement?\nAAs long as I was employed with the Lebensborn, well, no, I can't say that either. I would say until May, 1943 that was the only department, and then a new department was created for these ethnic German children and for the lodging of these children afterwards, but in August, 1943, it was incorporated into the legal department.\nQAnd who was in charge of it from May, 1943 until August, 1943?\nAWell, I am very sorry, but I can't tell you. I couldn't tell you; I wasn't there; I was hardly ever in the agency and I don't know how the competencies were just.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We had one counsel who was so short he could \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4572, "page_number": "4565", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "hardly reach the microphone, and I believe you over-reach it a little, Miss Johnson; get a little closer to it.\nMISS JOHNSON:Do you want it louder? Can you hear me? BY MISS JOHNSON:\nQYou have stated that in May, 1942 your duties with Main Department \"A\" ceased.\nAYes.\nQAfter that time what duties did you exercise concerning placement of any kind of child?\nAWhat kind of children do you mean?\nQWell, I mean children born in Lebensborn homes, children not born in Lebensborn homes, ethnic German children.\nAI went on several duty trips related with these children.\nQWhat children?\nAWith these children who had not been born within the facilities of the Lebensborn.\nQAfter May, 1942, that is?\nAYes.\nQWhen did Lebensborn first receive children not born in Lebensborn homes?\nAIf I accept the children which came to the Lebensborn from the Bromberg region in 1940 for recreational purposes, then as far as I am informed, the Lebensborn for the first time in June, July and August 1942 received such children.\nQIn June or July, 1942, that would be the ethnic German children from the Warthegau; is that whom they were?\nAYes.\nQAnd in 1940, who were they?\nAThose were the children from the Bromberg region, that is from the Gau Danzig, West Prussia.\nQAnd Roumanian children, what about them?\nAThey were not received by the Lebensborn; these three \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "MISS JOHNSON", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4573, "page_number": "4566", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "children were only processed through the foster home services and sent to foster parents.\nQWhat time was that?\nAThat may have been at the end of 1941 or at the beginning of 1942. At any rate it was still during the period when I worked in the Main Department \"A\".\nQWhen you were in Department \"A\"?\nAYes.\nQNow, coming to a new subject. When did you first make a trip outside of the old Reich for the purpose of inspecting children and negotiating concerning children?\nAYou mean outside of Germany proper?\nQYes.\nAWell, to the Warthegau I went for the first time perhaps at Easter time in 1942.\nQFor what purpose?\nAI was to go to the Autonomous Gau Administration in order to find out how many children were to be in this first group which was to be taken over by the Lebensborn, which had been up to that point in the homes of the Autonomous Gau Administration, that is, to ascertain how many children were under six years of ago, how many boys and how many girls, and in what kind of homes they could best be lodged.\nQWho asked you to take that trip to the Warthegau?\nAWell, I am not so very sure any more who requested the Lebensborn to make this trip, but at any rate I got the assignment from the chief of the Lebensborn, but I do recall in this connection that a few weeks previously, that is two or three weeks before, Dr. Kollnitz of the Main Staff Office in Berlin came to talk to Herr Sollmann, and after that he came to talk to me too, and I think the duty trip must have been caused somehow by this visit.\nQAnd you understood at that time that you were to handle only ethnic Germans; is that right?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4574, "page_number": "4567", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No, VIII.\nAWell, at all times that was the way it was described to me.\nQWhat information did Lebensborn have on hand to establish the fact that these children were ethnic Germans?\nAWell, first of all only the information which the Autonomous Gau Administration would afford us.\nQWhat would that be?\nAWell, just the information that these were ethnic German children who had been brought up in Polish orphanages until that time.\nQSome sort of genealogical record would be presented to you?\nANo, that is just the point. We didn't have; that; that was the difficulty in this whole job, you see. We didn't have those papers, the papers which we normally use for a care of a child under the care of Lebensborn; we didn't have them for these children, and my duty trips were again and again connected with just that question and with the problem of procuring these papers.\nQWell, how did Lebensborn know which children were ethnic Germans?\nAWell, all the children handed over to us were reported to us as being ethnic Germans; all of them.\nQDoes that mean that when you went to a place like the Puschkau home and you saw children there, that all of them were supposed to be ethnic Germans in that home?\nAWell, I have to comment on that. I was only once in Puschkau, you see, and Puschkau after all was not one of the homes from which the Lebensborn would receive children; only the home at Borken at the beginning and later Kalisch. Puschkau was a home under the supervision of the Autonomous Gau Administration for ethnic German children whose education was threatened and who came from the Poznan Gau, who had be in lodged in that home because their parents couldn't take care of them. Those were not children who were sent together to Lebensborn any how.\nQBut you did receive children from there, didn't you?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4575, "page_number": "4568", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAWell, I don't know. At least, well, I would say as far as I remember, during my period of activity, we didn't receive any children from Puschkau, only from Borken and Kalisch.\nQKalisch, when you visited that home, were all the children in the home subject to the jurisdiction of Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4576, "page_number": "4569", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AWell, under the jurisdiction; as long as they were in Kalisch, they were of course under the Autonomous Gau Administration and not Lebensborn.\nQIt is true, is it not, that you furnished some of the children who lived there financially and also with clothing.\nAWell, how these matters and these things we placed at the disposal of the Autonomous Gau Administration, how they were used in detail, whether they were used for individual children, or for all, that I couldn't tell you.\nQDoes that mean your supplies were available for every child in Kalisch; that all the children in Kalisch were supported by Lebensborn?\nAWell, I told you already I don't know how they were distributed in detail, how they were used. I mean I never received the list or an account; I never saw anything like that kind about it.\nQWell, Why did Kalisch report that certain children had arrived that were subject to Lebensborn jurisdiction? Why didn't they report every child that they had, Lebensborn child.\nAWhen a child arrived; what do you mean report from Kalisch? I don't understand what you mean.\nQThe documents show that heads of certain Warthegau homes made reports to the Lebensborn to the effect that certain children had come into their custody at the Warthegau home, and this fact was reported to Lebensborn for the purpose of Lebensborn taking steps necessary to place the child and to finance the child.\nAI cannot recall that I personally received such reports, but it is quite possible, quite possible, that Kalisch would once in a while report to the Lebensborn if it was a question of an ethnic German child.\nQWould you take merely Kalisch's word for the fact that they had an ethnic German child?\nAI am sorry, I didn't understand your question.\nQWould you take Kalisch's word?\nAOf course. I mean there was no reason for me to doubt the \n report which we received from Kalisch.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4577, "page_number": "4570", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QComing to the subject of the children from Upper Carniola. On your trip when you saw the camp St. Veit, how many children did you see there?\nAWell, unfortunately I can't really tell you any details about how many children there were. There was a group of children playing in the yard, and I talked with them and I saw a few infants too, but I am very sorry, I really can't give you any figures.\nQI was under the impression that your sole purpose for taking that trip was to determine how many children there were.\nAWell, how manyinfants, that is true; but then, I didn't deal in any detail with that matter because it was already established that these children alone would not be sent away from the camp, but that they would be sent only with the adults; and, therefore, it was no longer important for me to ascertain how many children were there, you see.\nQWell, then, why did Sollmann conclude that there were too many children to be accommodated by Lebensborn and that they would have to stay in the VOMI camps?\nAWell, Sollmann didn't decide that, but.....\nQWhoever made the decision concluded that there were too many children at St. Veit to be received into the Lebensborn homes, and that they would have to stay in some sort of a camp. How do you know if you didn't know how many people there were there?\nAWell, that is not the same thing. You see here it involved the fact that in the meantime these children had already been evacuated into a VOMI camp in Germany proper, and there the number of the children was inquired into and there we ascertained that it was impossible for the Lebensborn to take all of them because there were a few hundred of them who in the meantime had gathered in individual camps of the VOMI, but they were not only the kind I saw in the Upper Carniola; there must have been other children too.\nQYou had no idea how many you saw at St. Veit?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4578, "page_number": "4571", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AWell, I can't tell you how many of these children were alone and how many belonged to their parents; there were quite a number of them who were there together with their parents, that's why I can't tell you.\nQJust what was your purpose in going to St. Veit again?\nAI wanted to know whether it was really necessary to take Part of these children who were quite alone and to take them away and right away into Lebensborn homes, but I did ascertain that it was not necessary because somebody already was in charge of care of these children in the camp and somebody had already assumed this responsibility. And, therefore, they could be shipped together with the general transport to a camp of the VOMI, and from there only the Lebensborn should determine how many children in detail would be under the care of the Lebensborn.\nQIn your affidavit, Exhibit 391, you state that you reported after making this trip that all of these children had some relatives still living; is that right?\nANo, that is not correct. What I did ascertain was that they were under the care of some distant relatives or acquaintances or neighbors of their deceased parents when the parents were not there themselves, and, therefore, it was not necessary that Lebensborn should assume the responsibility of caring for these children.\nQAnd if they had relatives still living, that wouldn't have made any difference, would it?\nAI don't understand your question.\nQAssuming that the children had relatives living, this should be a determining factor upon a visit to St. Veit, that would not have altered the fact that Lebensborn would accept the children?\nAWell, if the relatives were there, then of course the Lebensborn didn't have to care for those children.\nQWere you ever the chief of a Lebensborn home?\nAOf a Lebensborn home, no. I have already stated, however, I had quite temporarily the supervision of the just-completed confinement \n home near Luettich.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4579, "page_number": "4572", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "There were only a very few women at the time and it was not very difficult to supervise that home because it was just only starting its activities.\nQWhat country was that?\nAIn Belgium.\nQWhat home?\nAHome Ardennen.\nQAt that time were you the chief of the Main Department of Lebensborn?\nAWell, that must have been in May or June, 1943.\nQAnd you were the Main Department chief at that time?\nANo, no; I was in 1942 not chief, but only deputy chief of the Main Department, and this Belgium story was in 1943, a year later.\nQAt which time you were not a chief in the Main Department of any kind?\nANo, no.\nQYou stated that someone in Belgium had made a false report on your activities to Sollman. What was the name of that person?\nAJungklaus.\nQAnd who was he?\nAHe was higher SS and police leader in Belgium.\nQWas he also a Lebensborn representative there?\nANo. The Lebensborn representative with the higher SS and police leader in Brussels, that is to say, at Herr Jungklaus' office, was May.\nQWas who?\nAMay, M-a-y.\nQWill you kindly state the date When you were dismissed finally by the defendant Sollmann?\nAOn the 21st of December, 1943.\nQAnd not before that time?\nANo.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4580, "page_number": "4573", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "MISS JOHNSON:I have no further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the Defense?\nDR. ORTH:No, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Whom will you call next?\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Dr. Tesch) Your Honor, I would now like to call the witness Ingrid Saenger.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. ORTH", "DR.", "MISS JOHNSON" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4581, "page_number": "4574", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "INGRIDSAENGER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise her right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Your Honor, the witness is to be examined by me as a cross-examination witness, concerning the affidavit she has deposed for the benefit of the Prosecution. I am referring here to affidavit, DocumentNO-5228, Exhibit 429, and this document is in Document Book 8-B.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, will you please state your full personal data for the Tribunal?\nAMy name is -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Just a moment, please. I don't see that all that is necessary on cross-examination with reference to an affidavit.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Quite, your Honor. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQIs it correct, witness, that on the 12th of August, 1947, you deposed the affidavit I have just referred to, for the benefit of the Prosecution?\nAYes, that is correct?\nQWill you please allow for a short interval after every question I put to you? Otherwise, the interpreter might run into difficulties?\nIs it correct, witness, that from the 1st of September, 1942, \n you were first employed with the Marriage Registrar of Lebensborn Dr. Schultz, as secretary and as Deputy Registrar, and that since August 1944, you were the secretary of Dr. Tesch?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHMIDT", "THE PRESIDENT", "INGRID", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4582, "page_number": "4575", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AFirst of all, in September of 1942 I came to Dr. Schulz as secretary. At that time Dr. Schulz was not yet Marriage Registrar. However, from August of 1944 I became secretary to Dr. Tesch.\nQUnder No. 2 of your affidavit you state that Dr. Tesch was the deputy of the Chariman of Lebensborn in internal office matters. What did you mean to imply by that?\nAIn internal Lebensborn affairs, Dr. Tesch was the deputy; that is to say, experts in charge would approach him in questions of doubt, and then he would see to it that Herr Sollmann made the decisions.\nQDid Herr Sollmann have a deputy towards the outside world?\nANo, towards the outside world, there was no deputy for Herr Sollmann. However, solely in legal matters Herr Sollmann could be deputized for by two persons, but in every single instance both of them had to act simultaneously.\nQApart from that, did Dr. Tesch also make his own decisions?\nANo, independent decisions were not made by Dr. Tesch neither in the presence nor in the absence of Sollmann.\nQAnd what about letters which Dr. Tesch signed as deputy?\nAThese letters had either been previously discussed with Herr Sollmann, or else they had to be approved by Herr Sollmann before they were mailed.\nQNow, as to the observations which you have made just now, do they refer only to the period during which you were Dr. Tesch's secretary, or do these observations also cover the period before you were Dr. Tesch's secretary, that is, the period before August 1944?\nAMy observations cover the entire period that I worked with the Lebensborn, because I was constantly together with Frau Kratsch, \n Dr. Tesch's former secretary; we had the same office.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4583, "page_number": "4576", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Occasionally Dr. Tesch would already dictate letters to me particularly in cases when his own secretary that is, Frau Kratsch -- was on vacation.\nQWitness, I am now handing you Document Book II-C, which contains Exhibit 73, DocumentNO-3268. This is a letter signed by Dr. Tesch, and it is dated 22 September 1942 . From the document submitted to you, can you see whether or not you wrote this letter?\nAOf course I wrote this letter. That can be seen from the dictation symbol.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, I believe the purpose of calling this witness to the stand was for cross-examination as to an affidavit given to the prosecution, and in regard to documentNO-5228, and nowhere is there any reference to the letter which was just submitted.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The copy that has been submitted to the Tribunal is so blurred that I can't tell what is in it.\nI simply caution counsel not to get outside the terms of the affidavit. BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, in your affidavit you mention Dr. Tesch as Chief of the Main Department for Legal Affairs. Can you define the field of tasks of Dr. Tesch in a general way, or is your knowledge about Dr. Tesch's activity limited to this fact, namely, that he was Chief of that Main Department for Legal Affairs?\nABefore the Legal Department was founded, Dr. Tesch dealt with tax and real estate matters, as well as with questions of extra-marital law, and with the welfare for dependents of soldiers killed in action. About one or two months before the Legal Department was founded, the expert for the affairs of ethnic German orphans was dismissed and Dr. Tesch also became active in that field.\nQNow, under No. 3 of your affidavit you state that Marriage Registration Office L, the director of which was Dr. Schulz, was \n subordinated to the Main Department for Legal Affairs.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4584, "page_number": "4577", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Now,as to this statement of yours in your affidavit, is that to be understood to the effect that Dr. Tesch could issue factual directives to this Marriage Registrar, Dr. Schulz?\nANo, in no way; you can't understand it in that way at all. This Marriage Registrar, Dr. Schulz, and I myself as his deputy, were directly subordinated to the Mayor,as the lower level of administration, and to the Reich Ministry of the Interior as the higher level. Dr. Tesch had no authority at all to issue directives to us.\nQHow did it come about that Marriage Registration Office L was eventually incorporated into the Main Department for Legal Affairs?\nAWe protested against this incorporation, that is, Dr. Schulz, first of all, expressed misgivings. However, Dr. Tesch stated that this was only an organizational measure of a formal character, and thereupon Dr. Schulz agreed to this incorporation.\nQDid Dr. Tesch interfere at all in marraige registration affairs?\nANo, Dr. Tesch never interfered in those matters.\nQBut, at the same time,Dr. Schulz was chief of Police Registration Office 2, was he not, and you were also his deputy in that capacity, is that correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQNow, what were the conditions concerning subordination in this connection?\nAThose were the same as in the case of the Marriage Registration Office; we were completely independent.\nQWell,in other words, the incorporation of the Police Registration Office into the Main Department for Legal Affairs was also only a measure of a formal nature?\nAYes, that again was only a formal measure.\nQOn whose orders was the foundation of Marriage Registration OfficeL carriedout at all?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4585, "page_number": "4578", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AThe foundation of Registration OfficeL wascaused by a decree issued by the Reich Minister of the Interior.\nQWhen was that?\nAThat was at the beginning of April,1943, and we were sworn in on the 6th of April 1943.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4586, "page_number": "4579", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.Now in your affidavit you stated that the marriage registration office \"L\" had to certify names, recognition of the fathers, and also for the withdrawal from the church. Did later on this registration office \"L\" receive further authority?\nA.Later the marriage registration office \"L\" received the same authority as those of the marriage registration office I in Berlin, to certify German births abroad. In other words that occurred in such cases in which temporary secrecy was necessary in the interest of the parties involved.\nQ.In your affidavit you went on to state that the ethnic Germans from the Wartegau were treated as foundlings in the clauses of the marriage registration office. what do you mean to say by that?\nA.The expression \"foundling\" is according to the personal status law not quite correct because foundlings are treated according to article 25 of that law, while the ethnic German orphans, insofar as birth certificates had to be issued to them, were treated in accordance with article 26, that is as persons whose personal status could not be ascertained.\nQ.But were there no documents for these children, documents from which the personal status could be ascertained?\nA.No, for these children there were no official documents available at all; that could be seen already when on glanced through the files.\nQ.In all cases where ethnic German children were involved were such documents issued or was there only a certain number of cases where that was done?\nA.That was only in a minute fraction of cases as I already stated in my affidavit, that is fifteen to twenty cases where birth certificates were issued.\nQ.Can you remember a case where the existence of a Polish document was sufficient to ascertain the personal status and that therefore a new birth certificate under article 26 was not necessary?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4587, "page_number": "4580", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.Yes, I can remember one single case. At the time I found a Polish document which proved to be an excerpt from a Polish church register. After I had had it checked by Dr. Schulz, this document was recognized as a birth certificate; it was therefore unnecessary in that case to issue a new birth certificate.\nQ.Did you or Dr. Schulz make investigations concerning the personal status of the children at all in order to prevent that double birth certificates were issued?\nA.Of course we did that. It was our duty, after all.\nQ.Were you informed that at one time in autumn 1944 several files of the Youth Agencies at Lodz and Poznan were sent to Oberweiss and were these files also used for the purposes of the registration offices?\nA.Yes, these files were checked by Dr. Schulz to see whether there were some clues for the personal status of those children who had been already registered and had already received a birth certificate by the marriage registration office \"L\". The result, however was quite negative.\nQ.Therefore there was no reason to make a rectification in accordance with article 27 of the personal status law?\nA.No. A rectification was not necessary as provided by article 27 of the personal status law.\nQ.The documents for these ethnic German children under article 26;was it in any way connected with camouglagint their descent, keeping it secret?\nA.No, a camouflaging or secrecy in that connection did not exist and it was not intended at all. Precautions were taken to see to it that there was no publicity about the names and this was done in thefollowing manner. The new names established by the marriage registration office \"L\" were reported to the police registration offices at Oberweiss and Kalisch in order to have them added to the old original names, and that was done in the following manner. The old original names were underlined in and the new names were written over them. It was stressed specifically by Dr. \n Schulz that the original names should not be crossed out or rendered illegible.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4588, "page_number": "4581", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "Q.In your affidavit you go on to mention that the children in the birth registers were listed as stateless. What was the reason for that?\nA.I have to rectify that. In the birth register no nationality was listed. That was not provided by law and we didn't do it either, only in the police registration offices as far as the ethnic German orphans were listed there they were listed as stateless.\nQ.Did Dr. Schulz give orders that that was to be done in this way?\nA.Yes, this procedure was ordered by Dr. Schulz in this way, because he was of the opinion that the question of nationality of the ethnic German orphans could hardly be clarified during the war and would remain unclarified.\nQ.But in your affidavit you say also that the children had received the name of the foster parents. Was that done in all cases where ethnic German children were given to foster parents?\nA.No, that was done only in the cases which I have already mentioned, that is in the fifteen or twenty cases where children received a birth certificate by marriage office \"L\".\nQ.And was it done in all these cases or only in part of these cases where certificates had been issued?\nA.Even for those new cases as far as I can recall there were some amongst them where the children did not receive the names of their foster parents.\nQ.And why did the children receive the names of the foster parents in some cases?\nA.This was done for reasons of utility under request of the foster parent -- for instance when later on adoption of the children was provided for or intended because by the adoption the child would have received the name of its foster parent anyhow.\nQ.Does that involve changes of the names of the children as could be assumed from the wording of your affidavit normally?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4589, "page_number": "4582", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "A.No, a marriage registrar cannot change a name. This involves establishment of the name on the order of the higher level of authority.\nQ.Well, were there names in these cases that could have been changed? Did thenames exist already?\nA.No, there were no official names in existence and therefore one cannot speak of a change because there was nothing that could have been changed.\nQ.Now, to turn back to the birth certificates. Could one see from these birth certificates that children were involved where the parents could not be ascertained?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4590, "page_number": "4583", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AFrom every birth certificate it could be seen quite clearly that it involved children without parents because the form provided for: father and mother, and these two words had been crossed out.\nQWhat was the place of birth stated in these birth certificate, a place in Germany proper or the assumed of birth in the occupied territory?\nAIt was the assumed place of birth in the occupied territory. Once the files were looked through, one chose the place which, as far as the time was concerned, was first connected with the child. When there were no clues at all for the place of birth, then the location of Poznan was indicated.\nQYou mean Poznan with regard to the children from the Warthegau?\nAYes.\nQIn your affidavit, in connection with the procedure according to article 26 of the personal status law, you refer to the directives issued for the certification of personal status which were signed by the chairman of the Lebensborn. In these decrees issued by Herr Sollmann, were these names which originally had been termed \"non-official\" by you retained somehow?\nAYes, these original designations of names were automatically contained in these registration decrees.\nQIn these decrees where these original names of the children were contained, were they also taken into the files of the marriage registration office?\nAOf course, because these were the documents for the registration of birth.\nQIn other words, was the identity of the children at any moment possible to be ascertained?\nAIn this manner, it was always possible to ascertain the identity of the children without any difficulty.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4591, "page_number": "4584", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "QNow under 7 of your affidavit, you say that these decrees for the certification of personal status, as far as the office channels were concerned, went via Dr. Tesch. Now my question is: did Dr. Tesch have any factual connection with these directives?\nADr. Tesch, factually speaking, had nothing to do with these decrees at all. These decrees, together with the rest of the correspondence for the Main Department of Legal Affairs, went via the office of Dr. Tesch, that is true; but he did not look at every single document and he certainly didn't check every document. As long as I was Dr. Tesch's secretary, he never checked the incoming mail at all and never got it into his hands. I initialed it myself and I would send it and distribute it to the individual departments. Only such letters which contained important information I handed directly to Dr. Tesch, but the mail for the marriage registration office and for the police registration office was not part of the important mail, because these two agencies were working quite independently.\nQDid in one or two cases Dr. Tesch issue and sign such directives for certification of personal status as a deputy of Sollmann?\nAI cannot recall that.\nQWhose responsibility was the checking of whether the preliminary requisites for the directives of article 26 of this person status law were given at all?\nAThis checking was the responsibility of Dr. Schulz and myself.\nQThe procedure of ascertaining the personal status which you have described, was it also applied to children from Norway?\nANo, because in the case of these children the personal status had already been ascertained.\nQIn your affidavit it says furthermore that the mere routine matters were handled by Dr. Tesch independently. Witness, don't you know that the individual legal experts in the main department for legal affairs dealt with the affairs of their owb fields independently?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4592, "page_number": "4585", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AYes, I do know that. This expression \"routine matters\", is not my own expression. That was invented by the interrogator, and it's an expression which I am not in the habit to use and an expression in which was not customary with the Lebensborn at all. At all times the situation was that the individual affairs were dealt with by the experts directly only in cases where there were doubts these experts would go to Dr. Tesch and ask him for his advice.\nQNow this practice you have just described, did it also refer to the affairs of the ethnic German children?\nAYes, it referred also to the affairs of the ethnic German children.\nQAnd how were matters handled within the legal department when fundamental new questions would appear? Who would made the decision then?\nADr. Tesch would submit these few affairs to Sollmann, and he saw to it that Herr Sollmann made the decision.\nQDoes that apply also to the department for ethnic German children?\nAThat applies to verything.\nQIn your affidavit your furthermore stated that the ethnic German children were given to German foster parents with the idea of having then later adopted by these foster parents. What do you know about the handling of these adoptions within the Lebensborn and with regard to the ethnic German children?\nAAdoptions of ethnic German orphans, fundamentally speaking, were delayed because the opinion prevailed that conditions were not sifficiently clarified during the war.\nQOne last question. Now how can you explain witness, that your affidavit, as we have seen today, in your examination here, needed in certain points restification or clarification?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4593, "page_number": "4586", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "AAt the time I gave only brief answer to the questions put to me by the interrogator. For the rest, these 1st months I used in order to refresh my memory, and today I am in a position to answer all questions put to me in greater detail and with greater precision than I could do at the time. And for the rest, the questions during my interrogation of that time, were by far not as exhautive as the questions you put to me today. They were repetitions in a very striking manner.\nQNo further questions, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness os excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until none-thirty tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjounred until 0930 hours, 29 January, 1948.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4594, "page_number": "4587", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 29 January 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all defendants are present in court save defendant Huebner absent, excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal at this time desires to make an announcement, and I would suggest that counsel get your pencils and papers ready. The speeches or final arguments of the prosecution must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, February 11. The speeches or final arguments of the defense must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. Thursday, February 12. The speeches or final arguments for the prosecution will be delivered Friday, February 13. The speeches or final arguments of the defense will be delivered Monday, February 16, Tuesday, February 17, and Wednesday, February 18. The final statements delivered by the defendants from the dock must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. Monday, February 16, and will be delivered immediately following the conclusion of the final arguments. Written briefs to be filed with the Tribunal and not read in court must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. February 23. There will be no reply briefs. That concludes the announcement. I simply want to impress on counsel the fact that the translation department will be instructed not to receive for translation any of these instruments just referred to after the dates that have just been announced. So unless they are in the hands of the translation department by that time they just will not get into the case.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4595, "page_number": "4588", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Is counsel for Huebner in the courtroom? Will some of the defense counsel please convey the message to him that the Tribunal would like to see him some time during the day? Whom will you call next?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (For Dr. Ebner): Your Honor, as the next witness, I would like to call Herr Kurt Graebe. I would like to say first that this witness, on the 2d of December, 1947, already appeared on the witness stand here but only as witness for the defendant Greifelt. I would like to ask him a few questions concerning the Lebensborn today.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. I would like to caution counsel please do not go over territory with this witness about which he has already testified. This witness appeared on the stand before the Tribunal ruled that they must get through with the witness while he was on the stand, so we will permit you to recall him, but please do not go over anything that he has already testified to.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Yes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Call the witness to the stand.\nKURTGRAEBE, a witness, having been previously duly sworn, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:This witness has already been sworn. Witness, you have already been sworn so it will not be necessary to administer the oath.\nTHE WITNESS:No.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, the Tribunal asks this cooperation from you. You have already appeared on the stand one time in this case so if you should be asked a question concerning matters about which you have already testified, please just say so instead of answering the question. Proceed.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQ.Witness, since you have already testified here on the 2d of December, 1947, before this Tribunal concerning your data, you can refer to your statement at the time. I would only like to ask now in addition, do you know any of the defendants here or did you have any dealings with \n COURT I CASE VIII any of them?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "DR.", "KURT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4596, "page_number": "4589", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "A.No, I don't know any of them.\nQ.What position did you have during the time from 1922 until 1936?\nA.I was representative in the Polish Sejm and representative of the German minority in the League of Nations.\nQ.You said you were representative in the Polish Sejm territory?\nA.Sejm means parliament, yes, that means the Polish Parliament. Sejm is the Polish word the same as the parliament within Germany, the Reichstag.\nQ.In this capacity of yours, did you know anything about the constant defense fight of the minorities in Poland and of their existence?\nA.Yes, that was my main task which I had to carry out.\nQ.Your main task. Would you describe that in more detail please?\nA.To stand up for the German minority in parliament and to see that the agreement concerning the protection of minorities be kept to.\nQ.Were the children also concerned in this?\nA.The children were one of the main tasks in this fight. All that mattered was that these children were brought up as Germans.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4597, "page_number": "4590", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QWas this German upbringing endangered?\nAYes, it was endangered because the Polish Government disapproved of it because they did not want to keen to the agreement for the protection of minorities and made great difficulties for us.\nQWhat aims did the Polish authorities and private circles have concerning these children?\nAThe Polish Government and also the Polish associations did everything -\nQWould you please give the name of the association?\nAIt was called Westmark Association. Everything was done in order to naturalize as many German children as possible. Of course, we objected to this, to Polonizing these children, to making them Polish.\nQIn what manner did the Poles try to make these children Polish subjects?\nAThese efforts to make these children Polish were mainly conducted in this manner that they made it difficult for us to let these children attend German schools so that many children who lived in the diaspora, that is, the districts where there were more Poles than Germans, they had no possibility of attending a German school, and the children were forced to attend Polish schools.\nQOn the other hand, is it right that the minority rights granted the German children the right for German upbringing and German schools?\nAYes, the right of the minorities gave us this right to have our own schools. This was a kind of cultural,autonomy although this actual word, \"cultural autonomy\" was not actually used, but we had the right that our children should be able to attend German schools.\nQOn this occasion may I ask who guaranteed the minority rights and on what was it based?\nAThe minority rights were based on the peace treaty of Versailles and the agreement for the protection of minorities which the Allied Powers made with Poland, and it was also based on the supervision by the League of Nations who had made it their charge to carry this out \n and to look after it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4598, "page_number": "4591", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Therefore, I was entitled to have the protection of the League of Nations concerning these children.\nQPlease tell us why the Germans wanted to insist on it, that their children went to German schools and not to Polish ones?\nAWe attached value to it, of course, that our children were brought up in a German way, that they learned the German language and the German language was not taught in the Polish schools, and at one time was even prohibited.\nApart from that they were brought up to hate everything that was German. They had to learn songs like \"Poland isn't lost yet,\" and \"The German has to hang with his feet up.\" Those slogans which they wanted to teach our children, and similar slogans and ideas.\nQThe League of Nations, which was the authority to realize the rights of the minorities, could it actually guarantee that the minority rights ware adhered to?\nAI made complaints to them repeatedly, the last time in 1944. I made complaints to the League of Nations. This concerned questions of schooling, the treatment of the children was one of the most important points. I talked about that.\nQThe League of Nations could immediately improve conditions then?\nANo, unfortunately they could not do this. Long negotiations had to take place so that any question which I brought up there took ages before it was decided upon, and this did not mean yet that it was carried out finally by the Polish Government.\nQWhat kind of part did the orphans play, who are of particular interest here, in this ethnic battle?.\nAThe orphans also played an important part here. While the parents lived they had the possibility of looking after these children, but after the parents had died, we assumed responsibility for them.\nQMay I interrupt you? You said \"we\" -- do you mean -\nAI mean the German minority, and I counted myself one of them, because I, in particular, was the one who represented the entire German \n minority to the outer world.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4599, "page_number": "4592", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "We were denied these rights although, on the basis of the agreement for the rights of the minorities, we had a right to look after these children. In many cases I was not even informed when these children had become orphans. In the large territory I only gained knowledge of part of the cases, so that it can have occurred that children simply disappeared and were out into Polish orphanages without my knowing anything about it.\nQIf you aid hear something, what happened then?\nAIf I did hear something, of course, I stood up for their rights or I asked people to look after these children in order to put them into German families if possible, but in most cases, or at least in very many cases, we did not succeed because, the local Polish authorities wanted to look after these children instead, and these children were brought into Polish orphanages or into Polish families so that we could no longer influence them.\nQBecause of such violations of the rights of the minorities of the German orphan children, did you undertake any stems officially?\nAI visited the Minister of the Interior, the Prime Minister --\nQFor the sake of clarity would you tell us please which Minister of the Interior?\nAWittkowski.\nQI mean which nation?\nAThe Polish Minister of the Interior, Wittkowski. When the Prime Minister, together with my colleague I visited the Catholic canon.\nQWould you please repeat that last sentence?\nATogether with my Catholic colleague, who was also representative, I visited Wittkowski as well as the Prime Minister, in order to discuss these questions.\nQAnd this colleague, would you please repeat, what was his name?\nAHis name was Klinke.\nQCould you tell us how great the number of German orphans was who were kept in Polish orphanages because the representative of the \n minorities knew nothing about them or could not intervene on their behalf?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4600, "page_number": "4593", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AIt is very difficult to say this. I really cannot say this now any more how many children were concerned at the time.\nQWas there a definition laid down by International Law of the expression \"nationality\"?\nANo, that did not exist.\nQThat definition of this idea did the minorities themselves have?\nAFor the minorities who, in the congress of all nationalities, where all minorities of the European peoples were represented, first of all it was important what they wanted to be.\nQIf the statement who they wanted to belong to was not considered, what then? With small children, for example, who could not yet state what they wanted, what directions did you follow then concerning nationality? Could one judge by the language then?\nANo, one could not judge according to language because if children went to Polish schools or even were living in Polish institutions, they did not learn German at all. They only learned Polish. The question of language, therefore, was of no importance. A great number of inhabitants in the province of Posen and East Prussia who at home spoke a kind of bad Polish and only spoke broken German and yet said that they wanted to belong to the German minority, that did exist.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4601, "page_number": "4594", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "29 Jan 1948_M_MSD_3_1_Gaylord (Juelich)\nQBut in the Polish orphanages, for example, the children could not learn German?\nANo, they were not allowed to speak German there ever; they had to speak Polish. They were punished if they spoke German.\nQCould one not draw conclusions according to the names of the children?\nANo, one could not do that either. In Poland, for example, we had many gentlemen in important positions who had German names. The name of the Prime Minister was Bortels? the state secretary for Postal Matters was Kuehn; the Minister of the Interior was called Vick. All those are German names.\nQAnd yet -\nAAnd yet there were Poles. On the other hand, I knew quite a number of Germans who have Polish names. I know Poladewski, Gregodewski, Radowski -- well known personalities, at least for me, who were definite Germans. There were also people who had two names: Hutten - Sczatski, who played an important part, and there are two large hooks about them in German.\nQI think, witness, that that gives us sufficient information. Concerning the question of names there is another point which I wish to raise. Do you know whether the German names were entered always in the Polish registers exactly as they were in the German original?\nANo, they were not. We had to struggle very hard in order to achieve this, and we did not always manage it. The Polish registration offices, in particular in the District of Posen and Poplavelienev tried by all means to polonize the names. I can give particular examples for this for it was tried with Christian first names: Hans was changed to Jan; and the name Albert was changed to Woitscha. They also tried to change the second names -- the family names -- so sometimes one could not even recognize them. For example, the word \"Schneider.\" which is written in German S_C_H_N_E_I_D_E_R was changed and became \"szanjger\"; or \"Seydlitz\" written S_E_Y_D_L_I_T_Z was changed to \"Sajdlec.\"", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4602, "page_number": "4595", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "29 Jan 1948_M_MSD_3_2_Gaylord (Juelich) No one could recognize the name Sydlitz there.\nThe word \"Michel\" as a family name, I happen to know was entered as \"Michalek.\" No one recognized that this meant Michel. That was a complete alternation of the names.\nQDid you personally object officially against this charging of names?\nAIn this case I objected to the Polish Parliament and asked them to stop this in the name of the German minorities.\nQWere the people concerned in case their names were entered incorrectly; always able to defend themselves successfully against this changing of names?\nAIn many cases the people concerned only noticed it when they had come home and read the note--the sheet of papers which they had received for registering the child. In many cases they did not have the courage to do it because of the terror existing; they did not dare to do it. In particular if they lived in the diaspora, they did not dare to do anything about it. And if the parents were dead, there was nobody else who could do this.\nQWhat possibility was there then to establish the German nationality of German orphans who were brought into Polish orphanages if the documents give no information about this? If the names did not help, we cannot draw conclusions according to names; if we cannot clarify it according to the language, and if no other certificates testified about this, then what possibility was there?\nAThat was very difficult, of course, to find out. Concerning adult ----\nQMay I ask first, if in your experience you complained about some children because they had been brought to Polish orphanages; did you also complain about such cases where one had no definite proof, and did you tell the Polish authorities about it?\nAWe did try but mostly unsuccessfully almost always unsuccessfully. I was already glad if in cases which were quite obvious I could achieve \n 29 Jan 1948_M_MSD_3_3_Gaylord (Juelich) it that the name was charged.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4603, "page_number": "4596", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "In such difficult cases, it was very hard for me because I could not offer any proof; and it was of no use.\nQA few final questions now. Do you know anything about racial research?\nANo, I never dealt with it.\nQDo you have any idea about the national socialist racial theories?\nANo, I have not.\nQThen I may consider you as a completely unbiased person concerning this field. Can you say as such a person whether merely on the basis of common sense it was possible to decide in these territories where the population was mixed, whether a person belonged to that ethnic group or another -- whether it was a Ukrainian or a Pole or a German, for example?\nAIt was very difficult to decide which was a Pole and which was a Ukrainian it was almost impossible. But in my opinion, in general it was quite possible to say who was a German and who was a Pole, But it was difficult in the case of children from mixed marriages or if in the past some Slavic blood had been mixed with German blood.\nQYou mean then apart from children from mixed marriages, merely by looking at a person one could select the Germans?\nAYes, in general one could.\nQDoes this apply to children as well, in your opinion?\nANot to infants of course -- but if they were half grown children, yes doubtless. I often saw children play and could tell you without any trouble those were German children and those were Polish children--even if they spoke the same language.\nQThank you. I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, in discussing the Polonization program you spoke of \n 29 Jan 1948_M_MSD_3_4_Gaylord (Juelich) the Polish authorities.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4604, "page_number": "4597", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Did you mean to imply that the church authorities in Poland took part in this program?\nAYes, in a certain sense they did.\nQIn what certain sense?\nAIn as far as they were Catholic children.\nQAnd just what did they do, these church officials?\nAI am not a Catholic and had no means to find out in detail just what they did, but I do know about it from the German clergymen who belonged to the German minority at the time.\nQAnd were these friends of yours? Were they of the same faith and working in the same place where this so-called Polonization was being carried on?\nAThey were canons from Posen from Gnesen and clergymen from Bromberg. Those were my sources.\nQBut you, yourself, did not witness any of this or have, we will say, first-hand information from the officials in those orphanages or convents themselves, did you?\nAI did not speak of convents at all. I did not know these officials because I am a Protestant.\nQNow you have been discussing names back and forth. Do you remember a Polish official by the name of Beck, B_E_C_K? Or have you heard of Minister Beck?\nAThat was the foreign Minister of Poland, Beck. I knew him from Parliament.\nQAnd would you say the name of Beck was German or Polish?\nAIt sounds German.\nQBut, of course, he was a Polish citizen, was he not?\nANot only was he a Polish citizen, he was a Pole.\nQThen I can say that the matter of names is not a very good way to determine nationality, is it, in all cases?\nAThat is what I said.\nQNow as to racial examinations, do you think that is a good \n 29 Jan 1948_M_MSD_3_5_Gaylord (Juelich) way to determine nationality?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4605, "page_number": "4598", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "AI said that I have no experience concerning racial theories and research and therefore cannot give a judgment.\nQDid you ever hear of any program which the Germans -- the Nazi Regime -- carried out where nationality was to be determined by racial examinations or appearances?\nAI heard about that here in Nurnberg.\nQDid you at any time have knowledge of it other than the time here in Nurnberg of the programs carried out by the SS?\nANo.\nQDid you have access to know from first hand whether the Race and Settlement Office. the Main Staff Office, the VOMI, or Lebensborn carried out any program in regards to children?\nANo.\nQYour Honor, we have no further questions.\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE FREDERSDORF:\nQ one question in redirect examination. witness, I believe you misunderstood the first question by the Prosecutor. If I understood the Prosecutor correctly, he wanted to ask you whether in the entire ethnic struggle in Poland and the struggles of the minorities among each other, whether the churches also participated in this. Will you please tell us whether the church participated in the struggle?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4606, "page_number": "4599", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AI don't quite understand the question.\nQDid the churches also play a part -- the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church?\nAYes, of course. We had our own church. We Protestants, for example, and the German Catholics, who had had their own churches during the German time, had lost their own churches. They had been taken from them.\nQDid the ethnic German church also stand up for the German minorities? Were there like interests?\nAI represented the interests of the ethnic German Church in Parliament.\nQAnd did the ethnic German church look after the interests of the Germans?\nAYes, of course.\nQAnd did the Polish Catholic Church also look after Polish interests?\nAYes.\nQAnd how?\nAOnly the Polish interests and they did not look after the German Catholics.\nQWas there a severe discrepancy between the Polish catholic churches and the German churches as well?\nAIt is difficult to say that.\nQThank you. That is all. No further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(The witness is excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Who will you call next?\nDR.SCHMIDT (for the defendant Tesch): Your Honor, I would like to call the next witness who is Dr. Hans-Hilmar Staudte.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4607, "page_number": "4600", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "HANS-HILMAR STAUDTE, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, please tell the Tribunal your personal data.\nADr. Hans-Hilmar Staudte is my name. I was born on 18 January 1911 in Kaltenkirchen. My profession is lawyer.\nQHow long ago and in what capacity were you with the association Lebensborn?\nAFrom 1943 until 1945 I was a legal expert with the Lebensborn.\nQWho was your superior and what was his position?\nAI was one of the collaborators of Herr Dr. Tesch. Dr. Tesch was the deputy of the office Chief in the Lebensborn. In practice he was the closest adviser of the Vorstand, Herr Sollmann, and in each case Herr Sollmann commissioned him to work on special cases. The correspondence which resulted from this was signed by Dr. Tesch, as deputy.\nQNow, witness, what was your sphere of work?\nAI was also assigned to certain spheres of work and I had to deal with subsequent marriages of women who had born children in Lebensborn homes with their fiances who had died in battle. These applications were prepared by the Lebensborn and the Reich Ministry of the Interior decided upon them. I also had to deal with the changing of names according to German Reich Law. At the request of mothers or fathers who \n had children out of wedlock, and whose children had been born in Lebensborn homes, these children were given the name of the father.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4608, "page_number": "4601", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "The applications were made by the Lebensborn as the tutor of the child born in one of its homes. The Reich Ministry of the Interior was competent to do this and to deal with this later on.\nAnother sphere of work was to give children who had been born of unmarried parents in the Lebensborn the status of being born by married parents. Dr. Tesch commissioned me also with special jobs concerning family Law. Finally I dealt with extensive special guardianship which required legal knowledge.\nQWhen the Main Legal Department was founded, did anything change in your sphere of work?\nAThroughout my time of work in the Lebensborn I always worked on the same subjects; I only turned over to somebody else the work concerning the legalizing of marriages.\nQWitness, can you please tell us why the Main Legal Department was founded?\nAWhen I joined the Lebensborn, I was surprised that no legal department existed there. Various spheres of work which required legal knowledge were handled by various experts in various departments. Sometimes legal matters were even handled by people who were not lawyers. This was a state, of course, which could not be continued, and that is why all legal matters were handed over to Dr. Tesch, as Chief of a Legal Department to be established.\nQWhy were the affairs of the ethnic German children dealt with by this Main Department Law?\nAMatters concerning ethnic German children, according to the opinion of the board of directors of the Lebensborn \n were matters which had no connection with the general work and nature of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4609, "page_number": "4602", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Dr. Tesch, about the middle of 1943, was asked to look through these matters and to put them in order and that is why these matters were handed over to Dr. Tesch to be dealt with.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4610, "page_number": "4603", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QThe work concerning matters of ethnic German children, did this constitute a large part of the work of the Main Legal department?\nAFrom a personnel point of view these matters constituted oneseventh of the work in the Main Department Law because this Main Department consisted of 7 branches. In my opinion these matters meant even less because of their meaning.\nQWitness, what did you know about those children who were not born in the Lebensborn and whose affairs were handled by the Department R-4 of the Main Legal Department?\nAThese children, whose affairs were handled by the Department R-4 were considered ethnic German orphans without family ties by the Lebensborn.\nQWere these cases of ethnic German children dealt with secretly or publicly in the Lebensborn?\nADo you mean to say whether the DepartmentR-4was a secret department ?\nQYes, that is what I mean.\nAThe DepartmentR-4was a sphere of work within the Lebensborn like any other sphere of work; the handling of these matters was done inside the Lebensborn like any other work; anyone could look into it within the Lebensborn. The files were open for anyone to look into like any other Lebensborn files.\nQWhen placing the ethnic German children, did the Lebensborn have to adhere to instructions by the Staff Main Office or could the Lebensborn act independently in this?\nAThe Lebensborn looked after the affairs of the ethnic German children quite independently. They did not have to follow anybody's instructions and as far as I know nobody gave them any instructions. They merely had to report to the personal staff.\nQDid the Lebensborn collaborate with the RuSHA or the field office of the RuSHA at Lodz?\nAAs far as I know the Lebensborn collaborated with the RuSHA \n or the field office of the RuSHA in Lodz on no occasion.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4611, "page_number": "4604", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QHow were the affairs of the ethnic German orphans handled generally by the Lebensborn? Can you make statements from your own knowledge concerning this?\nAAfter Dr. Tesch had been but in charge of these matters he appointed me as his expert and he discussed with me not only my work but he also discussed all the matters with me and asked me for my opinion concerning them. During these conferences Dr. Tesch always thought that because of the insufficient documents concerning these children in the Lebensborn, the Lebensborn had to limit itself to temporary measures. The children had been given to the Lebensborn as being without family ties. Since no documents existed about this Dr. Tesch thought that he had to be cautious also in all his measures. He believed that the possibility should be taken into consideration that sometime or other some relatives, parents or any other relatives of a child might appear one day and in view of that possibility Dr. Tesch held the opinion and this opinion was a matter of course for me that in such a case the child concerned, in case relatives should appear, this child would have to be given back to them, or would have to be given to the Autonomous Gau Administration where it belonged. In view of this possibility, which was only theoretical for us, all measures concerning the children ware taken from that point of view.\nQDo you know whether Dr. Tesch informed Heinkel who worked on affairs of the ethnic German children, about these considerations of his and whether he gave him instructions accordingly?\nADr. Tesch informed Herr Heintze vary well about his sphere of work and detailed instructions were given to him as to how he should handle these cases in practice.\nQIn the Lebensborn how did they handle the Question of adoption of these ethnic German children?\nAThe Lebensborn held the opinion that an adoption could not be considered before the origin and the conditions concerning the \n children and the personal status had been clarified.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4612, "page_number": "4605", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QTherefore, principally no adoptions were carried out concerning these children?\nANo.\nQBut two adoption agreements were made concerning ethnic German children. What kind of cases were these?\nAI heard about these cases on some occasion. These were two cases from Upper Carniola.\nQDo you know how the question of nationality of these ethnic German children was handled in the Lebensborn?\nAHow the authorities chose the children in the Warthegau and how they treated the Question of nationality and what part that point of view plays, the Lebensborn could neither pass judgment on this nor did they have any right to do so. All the Lebensborn was concerned with was that the children who were in the Reich proper and for whom the Lebensborn had find foster homes were handled concerning all questions, that is, also concerning their nationality, and that their cases were clarified if possible.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4613, "page_number": "4606", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt) May it please the Tribunal, I have a request to make at this time, I request permission for Greifelt to be absent from this Tribunal's session tomorrow afternoon because I would like to talk to him personally with regard to the preparation of my final plea.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your request is granted.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch)\nQWitness, before the recess we stopped in discussing the question how the nationality of the ethnic German children was dealt with by the Lebensborn. I believe you didn't quite complete your answer. Will you please continue at this time?\nAI stated that the status of the children was considered by the Lebensborn and examined by it in all directions, that is to say also with regard to their nationality. With regard to the citizenship status of the children, the Lebensborn did not consider a final clarification appropriate either. As far as the Lebensborn was concerned, these children had been members of the German minority in Poland, and according to German law, as a result of the agreements which had been reached with the Soviet Union, Poland was not in existence any more. Consequently, the children could not have any Polish citizenship any more according to the German law. It would have been easy now to take the children which the Lebensborn considered as belonging to the German ethnic group and to naturalize them in Germany, that is to say to give them the German citizenship. The Lebensborn, however, did not take that step, but it left pending the status of these children also with regard to their citizenship and that deliberately. Because of this question the Lebensborn also made inquiries to the top level Reich authority which was competent for these matters, and that was the Reich Ministry of the Interior. The Reich Minister \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4614, "page_number": "4607", "date": "28 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-28", "text": "of the Interior shared the point of view of the Lebensborn in this question. Consequently the situation was that the Lebensborn considered these children to be stateless persons, and as far as it was necessary, it would designate these children to be stateless.\nQWitness, do you know whether the Lebensborn directed any inquiries about the origin of these children?\nAYes.\nQDid you yourself participate in such measures in any way?\nAI myself could not participate in them.\nQPlease describe briefly to the Tribunal what brought you into contact with these inquiries.\nAAs I have stated before already, the Lebensborn in this matter was in the difficult position that it had to get along without any documents. When the children were turned over to foster parents and to foster homes, great technical difficulties resulted. Although the Lebensborn actually was not authorized to carry on its own investigations, the Lebensborn tried on its own initiative to eliminate or at least alleviate these technical difficulties in any case, to improve the situation by trying itself to find the documents in the Warthegau. Approximately in August, 1943, I went to Poznan and there I talked with Dr. Bartels. On this occasion when I had a telephone conversation with Dr. Tesch, I received the instructions that I should go to Lodz and I should try with the Youth Office there to obtain some material of an official nature. I complied with this order and I took the trip and spent approximately one day at Lodz. I found several files in the Youth Office which dealt with children who were under the care of the Lebensborn within Germany proper. These files, however, did not contain any official documents like birth certificates and things of that sort. I then paid a visit to the Registrar's Office at Lodz, and I inquired whether it would be possible as a result of the data contained in the files to carry on any investigations. The head registrar at Lodz told me the following: Several months ago the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4615, "page_number": "4608", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "church registers in this territory had been incorporated into the German Registrar's Office at Lodz, no registrar's office had existed there before, and the following state of affairs had been discovered at the time. He told me that in a large number of cases it had become evident that one and the same child had been registered under different names and under different dates of birth, with various church offices. The fact had caused the Registrar's Office at Lodz to refuse to issue any certificates on the basis of any official Polish files or documents. He stated there had been a lot of children there who had gone from one foster home into another foster home, and in each case, in each respective foster home they had either adopted the name of the foster parents or some other name; and they also received different dates of birth which were different from the original date of birth. He said that this was quite customary in that area. Apparently the impression was to be given that the child in each respective foster home was the legitimate child of the foster parents, and furthermore, it had become evident that the church registrar offices in general were willing for certain compensations in money to issue such certificates. The interested parties, in this case the foster parents, had tried to get the certificates from that church office which would charge the lowest fees.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4616, "page_number": "4609", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Court No. I, Case No.VIII.\nQIf I have understood you correctly, the information which you received from the registrar's office at Lodz was that these Polish files were no proof for the actual status of the children.\nAYes. The registrar told me that a Polish certificate would not give any guarantee to the effect that this was the true name of the child and that the child had been born on the day which was listed on the document.\nQI am now coming to something else. Do you know for what purpose certificates were issued to foster parents in various cases on the letterhead of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, Main Staff Office?\nAI have just stated that the Lebensborn in the course of this inquiry suffered a complete failure, and, therefore, it was forced to turn these children over to foster parents without any official documents. Now, we had to see to it that we could enable the foster parents to keep the children with them in such a way that whenever they had contact with the authorities they would have some sort of identification for these children. These certificates which you, Counselor, have just mentioned, after very detailed and precise considerations, which were made by Dr. Tesch, represented the minimum of what the foster parents needed in order to get the food ration cards and clothing ration cards for the children at all. When these certificates were issued, it was necessary to consider what these foster parents actually needed for these children whom they were taking care of.\nQCan we say that these certificates which you have just mentioned had anything to do with the hiding of the origin of these children or with any changes in names?\nANo. The contrary is true. The foster parents were acquainted with the origin of these children, and they were acquainted with the fact that we did not have any documents about these children, and they knew quite well that the personal status of the children had not as yet \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4617, "page_number": "4610", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "been clarified, and that this status could not be clarified during the war.\nQIt is known to us that in some cases, upon the request of the foster parents, these birth certificates were issued for some of these children. Do you know why this was done?\nAThe issuance of these birth certificates, and, as far as I know, this was only a very small number of cases, was carried out whenever the foster parents could make it credible to Lebensborn that without a birth certificate they could not look after the children in the proper way. These birth certificates were issued on the basis of Paragraph 26 of the German Personal Status Law. These documents did not contain any final definitions, as I have just stated before, but they were only a temporary measure in order to over-bridge a span of time which would pass by before a final clarification of the status of the child could be expected. If such a clarification of the personal status took place, then the birth certificate, according to the German legal provisions, which originated in the 19th century, would lose its effect, and the birth certificate had to be withdrawn, and then automatically the name which was the real name of the child would take the place of the name which was mentioned on that certificate, that is the name of the child which it received on its birth. Therefore, with regard to these birth certificates, this was only a temporary measure, as was the case in all the other measures which were taken by the Lebensborn with regard to these children.\nQTherefore, with regard to these birth certificates, one can't say either that they served the purpose of hiding the origin and the changing of names of the children?\nAAs far as the work of the Lebensborn in this field is concerned, we cannot speak about the hiding of any facts at all. There wasn't the slightest reason or motive for us to do so.\nQI now would like to put to you a Prosecution document; this is Prosecution Exhibit433, DocumentNO-2870, and it is contained in \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4618, "page_number": "4611", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Document Book VIII-B. It is a letter which you addressed to the defendant Ebner on the 5th of November, 1943, and it pertains to the child Rosalia Glasczinska. In this connection I would like to ask you what brought you to write this letter?\nAIn this case Rosalia Glasczinska, we are concerned with the only case which came to my knowledge during my time of work in the Lebensborn, where after the child had been turned over to a foster home, unexpectedly the mother of that child appeared. I was brought into contact with this case because Dr. Tesch at that time was on leave, and Herr Heintze discussed the matter with me. Herr Heintze had agreed on the fact from the very beginning that this child, in view of the appearance of her mother, should immediately be returned to the district self-administration in the Warthegau. In order to make it possible to report in detail about this matter to Dr. Tesch whenever he returned from his leave, in order to enable Dr. Tesch to report to Herr Sollmann, and in order to clarify all the peculiarities of this case, I used the files which the district self-administration had sent to us about the mother and I turned them over to Dr. Ebner for his comment. I can't say what the outcome of this case was later on; however, I do know that the Lebensborn took immediate measures for the return of this child to the district self-administration in the Warthegau. Unless I am mistaken, the child also had a sister who still stayed in a home, and as far as I know, this child was returned. As it becomes evident from this letter, the foster father of the other child at first refused to give the child up.\nQThank you. At this time I would like to hand another document to you, which is contained in the same document book, Document Book VIII-B. This is Exhibit 419, DocumentNO-1126. This document is a file note about a discussion which took place in the Ministry of Justice on the 10th of March, 1943. At this conference, the Lebensborn was not represented; however, a representative of the RuSHA attended, and he made the suggestion that the Lebensborn should take over the \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4619, "page_number": "4612", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "guardianship over illegitimate children of Polish descent, and the Reich Ministry of the Interior in order to clarify this question then should establish contact with the Lebensborn. I now want to ask you, witness, did the Lebensborn ever accept such guardianship or did it ever deal with such matters?\nAThe Lebensborn had never anything to do with such things.\nQAnd now I am coming to my last question. Did the Lebensborn ever have anything to do with the case of pregnant foreign workers or with the children of such women?\nAThe Lebensborn had nothing to do with the children of female foreign workers, or illegitimate or un-wed mothers of this sort; it never had anything whatsoever to do with them.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Thank you; I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. SCHMIDT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4620, "page_number": "4613", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, during the time that you worked in Lebensborn, did you refer to the children--the foreign children--as ethnic German children?\nADid we speak separately about ethnic German children and foreign children, if I have understood you correctly?\nQYes. Say the children from the Warthegau. Were you under the impression that these children were so-called ethnic German children?\nAI myself never saw the children, except quite superficially, on one occasion, at Kalisch. All children with whom the Lebensborn had anything to do in this field of work were ethnic German children, so far as I was concerned.\nQAnd these children, when they were turned over to the parents, were represented as ethnic German children to the foster parents, is that correct?\nAI am not informed about that, because I had nothing to do with the placing of these children in foster homes Herr Heintze would be able to give you some information about that.\nQBut you have stated here this morning that when children were turned over to foster parents, that they were told that these were different cases, that the origin of these children, in some cases, were not known.\nAYes, that corresponded to what Dr. Tesch said at that time with regard to the treatment which was to be accorded to such cases with regard to the foster parents. At the time the foster parents were to be told that the children had been turned over to the Lebensborn as ethnic German children; however, with regard to their origin, that the Lebensborn did not have any documents to that effect. That was done, so far as I am concerned.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4621, "page_number": "4614", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QThen you had no documents, in some cases, as to the origin of the children, yet you were assured that they were ethnic German children. Now, will you explain this dilemma to me?\nAThe Lebensborn received these children from the autonomous district administration of the Warthegau as ethnic German children. With regard to the origin of these children, the Lebensborn had to rely upon the official assurances and declarations of the autonomous district administration in this case.\nQIn this connection, do you remember if, in the case of any Higher SS and Police Leader, his word was taken that these children were ethnic German children? His word alone?\nAI didn't quite understand your question.\nQDo you remember-\nADid you ask me whether a Higher SS and Police Leader stated that these children were German?\nQYes.\nAAnd whether the Lebensborn had been content with that statement?\nQYes.\nAI know of no statement of a Higher SS and Police Leader about these children. I never heard that a Higher SS and Police Leader made any statement about these children.\nQThank you.\nNow, concerning the document which was handed to you a moment ago about the child Rosalia Glasczinska, do you remember if, in this correspondence, you ever saw the word \"Germanization\" used in reference to this child?\nAI cannot say that.\nQNow, wasn't it the purpose of this correspondence to see whether this child could remain with its foster parents?\nAI don't know what correspondence was involved there.\nQI am speaking of the document which was handed to you in regard to \n your letter to Dr. Ebner.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4622, "page_number": "4615", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AOh, I see.\nQNow, wasn't the question there solely as to the child's hereditary background, as to whether it could stay with these foster parents?\nAAs I have just stated, this state of affairs was such that, as a result of the fact that the child had a Polish mother, it had to be returned to the Warthegau.\nQAnd do you know that Ebner, in his correspondence--do you remember this letter?--that Ebner stated that this child could not remain there, that this child could not be Germanized, because of this hereditary background of its mother?\nADr. Ebner would only comment on the medical aspects of a case, and that becomes quite evident from my inquiry, which only caused him to give a medical diagnosis in this case. Dr. Ebner had nothing to do with the other measures; he only expressed his point of view on the case history from a medical viewpoint.\nQAnd this correspondence only concerned the medical side of it, it was not in regard to whether the true parent was living or requested the child back, is that correct?\nAThe correspondence with Dr. Ebner--that is to say, my letter to him and his reply--only dealt, of course, with the medical side of the case, which was just a part which contributed to the other characteristics.\nQNow, have you ever-- I want to hand you a document, and I want to see if You recognize this document.\n(Document submitted to witness)\nIs that an affidavit which you have given to the Prosecution?\nAYes, indeed.\nQAnd that bears your signature, is that correct?\nAYes, this is a photostatic copy of an affidavit which I gave to the \n Prosecution on the 30th of July, 1947.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4623, "page_number": "4616", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QAnd would you say that you gave this affidavit under no threat of duress or promise of reward?\nAI did not receive any assurances as to compensation of any sort, and I was not coerced or threatened.\nQWere you given any-\nAMay I continue?\nQYes.\nAIn spite of this, I must state that there are some very bad mistakes in this affidavit, as far as the formulation is concerned, which would tend to lead to wrong conclusions.\nQAt the time at which you gave this affidavit, were you given the opportunity to make any changes which you thought necessary at the time?\nAAs to the affidavit which I signed at the time, I read it over first and then made a large number of corrections in the first formulation of this affidavit. I believe there were between thirty and fifty.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Time for one more question.\nMR. NEELY:I have no further questions.\nAt this time, Your honor, I would like to present this document for identification as Prosecution Exhibit852. It is DocumentNO-5260, and it is an affidavit by the affiant Hilmar Staudte; it is in Document Book 9-A and has been presented.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will admit this affidavit, and this rule will apply to all other affidavits or documents offered by the Prosecution at this time or at any other time, since the conclusion of the case in chief. They will be admitted only in so far as they are in rebuttal to something that has been produced before the Tribunal.\nMR. NEELY:Yes, sir; yes, Your Honor.\nDR. SCHMIDT:I have no further questions to the witness.\nI can take it for granted that this affidavit was not admitted in evidence by the Tribunal, if I have correctly understood the Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "DR. SCHMIDT", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4624, "page_number": "4617", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:It was simply offered for the purpose of identification; but the Tribunal was putting counsel on notice now that, so far as the Prosecution is concerned, no affidavits, documents, or evidence of any character offered after the conclusion of the case in chief by the Prosecution would be admitted except that it is strictly in rebuttal of something offered by the defense during the course of the presentation of evidence by the defense.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4625, "page_number": "4618", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "DR. SCMIDT:Your Honor, since the witness has stated that there were factual mistakes in this affidavit, may I examine the witness in redirect examination with regard to the mistakes contained in this affidavit?\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHMIDT:\nQWitness, do you still have this document before you now?\nANo.\nQI then shall hand you a copy now, in the document book. I am now going to examine you with regard to the individual points in your affidavit, since you have stated that it is not correct in all its points. In paragraph 4, you speak negotiations with Dr. Bartels about the bringing in of children from the Warthegau to Germany. I now want to ask you, did your negotiations at the time with Dr. Bartels deal with this subject?\nAAt the time I received the order that on my return from East Prussia where I had some official work to take care of I was to stop for a sort time at Poznan and I was to pacify Dr. Bartels. Dr. Bartels had shown himself to be annoyed towards the Lebensborn about the fact that the Lebensborn had not taken over the children in time, which the Lebensborn was to receive from the children's home at Kalisch. At the time I told Dr. Bartels he should be a little more patient because the Lebensborn did not have adequate accomodations for these children.\nQAt the time did you also make that statement to the interrogator?\nAWhat I have just stated is exactly the some thing I told the interrogator orally in the course of my examination.\nQIn paragraph 5 of this affidavit, you go on to speak of nego tiations with Dr. Bartels and this was in the year 1944. It is stated in your affidavit that these negotiations dealt with the support of children's homes at Bluetenau and Fielene by the Lebensborn. What did you concern yourself with in this case?", "speakers": [ "DR. SCMIDT", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4626, "page_number": "4619", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AThe district self administration in the Warthegau had turned the children's homes Bluetenau and Fielene over to the Lenebsorn in order to accomodate mother and children who came from Lebensborn homes located in war-damaged areas at the time there was some lack of clarity about the fact how the expenses -- were to be divided between the district self-administration and the Lebensborn. That is what I discussed with Dr. Bartels.\nQThese homes were not transferred to the Lebensborn as its property if I understood you correctly?\nANo, the title was not transferred to the Lebensborn. They were only placed at the disposal of the Lebensborn for a certain period of time.\nQIn paragraph 6 of your affidavit you stated that Dr. Bartels as a representative of the Lebensborn, was subordinated to the Board of Directors of the Lebensborn. Is that formulation correct?\nANo, it is not correct in this form. A Lebensborn representative was a person who had declared himself willing in his field of work to look after the interests of the Lebensborn. Of course this was only done on a voluntary basis. This meant, as far as the Warthegau was concerned, that Dr. Bartels tried, in the scope of the possibilities which he had as a result of his official duties, to accomodate mothers who had given birth to children in homes of the Lebensborn in the Warthegau in such a way and to find a position for them so that they would be able to keep their children them even though they were engaged in carrying out a profession. This corresponded to the basic principle of the Lebensborn, that unwed mothers and their children were to be kept together under all circumstances.\nQAnd the activities of Dr. Bartels in his capacity as representative of the Lebensborn only extended to that work?\nAThe situation was that Dr. Bartels tried to do that, but Herr Sollmann of course could not give him orders of any sort, and with this activity of Dr. Bartels his field of work as representative of the \n Lebensborn was exhausted.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4627, "page_number": "4620", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QIf I understand you correctly, the activity of Dr. Bartles, in his capacity as a representative of the Lebensborn, did not extend to the matter pertaining to the ethnic German children.\nANo, he had nothing to do with the ethnic German children.\nQI am now coming to paragraph 7 of your affidavit. Here you mentioned a racial examination of the children in the Warthegau. Do you knew, witness, that the children in the Warthegau had already been selected by German authorities of the Warthegau previously with regard to the fact whether they belonged to the German ethnic Group?\nAYes, paragraph 7 might convey the idea as if only a racial examination of these children had been carried out. In reality, after the German authorities had selected the children, such an examination also took place.\nQIn paragraph 8 of your affidavit, you stated that the names of the children from the Warthegau for the most part were changed to the names of their foster parents. To what period of time of your activity in the Lebensborn did this observation on your part extend?\nAActually this was not any of my own observations at all. The situation was that during the time when Frau von Benson worked on the mother of the ethnic German children it had come to my knowledge and I assume that she must have told that to me, that in accordance with the provisions which were applied in the general cases of the Lebensborn the ethnic German children would for the most part adept the names of the fester parents. After Heintze took over these matters, I think in the fall of 1943? I lost contact with the entire question.\nQIn your affidavit, in this connection you also mention the fact that approximately fifty to sixty Polish names of the children had been changed by Frau von Benson. Can you still maintain that statement?\nAIn this connection I must say that in this case I gave an objectively incorrect statement to the prosecution at the time, although it was \n correct from my personal point of view.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4628, "page_number": "4621", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "During my first interrogation I was asked very frequently, whether within the Lebensborn Polish names had been changed into German names.\nI always answered this question in the negative because I didn't knew anything about it. Then after the interrogation had been completed and I was in my cell I thought over all these things again and I came to the conclusion that if the prosecution asked me so many times about this matter then perhaps there was something going on to that effect -- perhaps there was something to it.\nThen I thought of one case in which, quite accidentally, I remembered a name. That was the name of Kascha. On some occasion or other, Frau von Benson had mentioned this name to no and this was included in a list, in which as far as I can recall fifty or sixty names of children were registered who had come to Lebensborn. On this list there were Polish names and names which had a German character. Now this one name, \"Kaschna\" about which Frau von Benson stated had been Germanized from \"Kaschna\" to \"Kaschner\" in a very informulate manner and as far as I can recall Frau von Benson submitted this case to Dr. Tesch and in the place of the incorrectly chosen name -", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4629, "page_number": "4622", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:May I suggest to counsel that the purpose of this examination was to discover what it states in the affidavit and that this examination sounds very much like a plain direct examination to me. I think you will have to be specific in your questions about what it states in the affidavit and let him explain that only. I would call counsel's attention to the fact further that this witness is a lawyer and you and I both being lawyers know that a lawyer never knows when to quit talking, unless you are very specific in your questions.\nQ (By Dr. Hans-Hilmar Staudte) If I understood you correctly, Witness, then you probably counciled this list with fifty or sixty German and Polish names with the change of names which you thought Frau von Benson had carried out.\nAYes, this was a fault of my recollection, which I have to correct. I can only positive remember this one particular case; by the way this list must have come from Warthegau.\nQNow, you went on to say in your affidavit that Dr. Tesch in practice was the sole representative of the Board of Directors of the Lebensborn. Do you want to make a statement in that connection, or would it be sufficient if you refer to what you have already stated in your direct examination?\nAI believe I can refer to that, and I only want to state at this time that Dr. Tesch was not formally appointed the deputy of Herr Sollmann.\nQI am now coming to Paragraph 9 of this affidavit. It is stated there in connection with the so-called southeastern children that these children had been described by Vomi as so-called bandit children, is that correct?\nAI believe in 1944 the Lebensborn received several inquiries about children from Vomi, children who were unknown to the Lebensborn.\nIn the subject of the letter it was state, \"Subject: Relatives of bandits who have been about in Styria.\"", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4630, "page_number": "4623", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QNow, in the same paragraph it is stated that as far as you could recall three children were concerned in this case who had been taken over by the Lebensborn iron the Vomi and who turned over to German foster parents. Were these three children from Upper Carmiola or from Lower Styria?\nAI only knew that the Lebensborn had received children from Upper Carmiola. I didn't know anything at all about Lower Styria.\nQIn Paragraph 11 of your affidavit, in connection with the returning of children for social reasons, as you described it, you spoke about a case which can still recall. What case were you referring to? You did not mention any name in your affidavit on this matter.\nAThis was the case Glasczinska on which I have just commented briefly. I couldn't give the name at the time because in my interrogation the letter which I sent to Dr. Ebner was not submitted to me.\nQIn the same paragraph you also mentioned the fact that children who did not assimilate themselves socially were to be returned again by the Lebensborn. Do you know of any case at all where an ethnic German child was returned to the district self-administration at Poznan for this reason?\nAI cannot recall any case of that kind.\nQI am now coming to Paragraph 12 of your affidavit. Here you mentioned the fact that part of the children, because of lack of space and accommodations, wastemporarily sent to the home schools of Achern and Niederaltaich by the Lebensborn, is that correct?\nAYes, when I came to the Lebensborn a number of children were located at Achern and Niederaltaich. The Decree 67-1 which mentions the fact that part of the children was to be taken care of by the home schools was not known to me at the time and it was not even known to me at the time when I gave this affidavit. That is why I assumed that these children had been brought into these home schools by the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4631, "page_number": "4624", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QTherefore I can assume from your reply that this statement in your affidavit is not correct?\nAAccording to the Decree 67-1 it is not correct. It contradicts this decree quite clearly. However, I assumed that, and in several cases I have given statements to the prosecution which were only based on assumptions on my part because I considered it to be my duty to tell them everything that had come to my knowledge. In this way I wanted to contribute to final clarification of these matters.\nQI am now coming to Paragraph 13 of your affidavit. In this point you refer to the relationship between the Lebensborn and the Main Staff Office, and your statements there might lead to the conclusion as if in your opinion the Lebensborn was incorporated into the Main Staff Office as office L. Was that the case?\nAIn turning over children to foster parents, that is in the practical execution of its measures, as far as I know during the entire time of my activity there the Lebensborn had no contact whatsoever with the Main Staff Office. The Lebensborn only issued the certificates, which you have mentioned before, and that was its entire task, and that was done on the letterhead of the Reichkommissar.\nQIn this connection you mention in your affidavit a decree which was issued to the Lebensborn without giving any designation to it. What sort of a decree was that?\nAOn some occasion or other I saw at the Lebensborn a decree from the Main Staff Office. What sort of a decree this was I don't know. I don't know either whether this was perhaps the Decree 67-1. As far as I can recall this decree only had some connection with the Lebensborn since the Lebensborn was listed in the distribution, and the formulation in this affidavit is somewhat unfortunate.\nQIn the same paragraph of your affidavit you mention a discussion which you had with Creutz who was the Deputy Chief of the Main Staff Office, and which allegedly referred to the children from the \n Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4632, "page_number": "4625", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "What was the reason and the subject of this discussion?\nAI once went to see HerrKreutz, and here we are concerned with a case which I cannot recall any more at this time, and I believe that this was a case from the Warthegau. Just to what this case referred I don't know any more, but I only remember, that the Main Staff Office was requested to give us assistance on some occasion. Herr Creutz, however, was unable to assist us.\nQAnd now my final question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Your final answer.\nQ (By Dr. Hans-Hilmer Staudte) In Paragraph 13 of your affidavit you further state that the Lebensborn received compensation in part or full compensation from the Reichkommissar. Was this an assumption on your part or did you have any precise knowledge of that?\nAIn financial matters I did not have any knowledge at all, and on one occasion only I heard, and I believe that it was in some hallway in the agency, that between Herr Schwarzenberger a dispute had arisen with regard to financial matters.\nDR.HANS-HILMER STAUDTE: Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR. HAENSEL:May it please the Tribunal, I would like to ask the witness a question about this affidavit after the recess with regard to the Main Staff Office. I just don't know how the Main Staff Office is mentioned here now.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can't play ball with this witness all day long. The witness was examined. I asked if anyone wanted to ask any more questions, and he was turned over to the prosecution for cross-examination. If we just play backwards and forwards that way we never will get through with it.\nDR. HAENSEL:After all I am only doing this because the prosecution introduced this affidavit in the course of their cross-examination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, ask him that.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4633, "page_number": "4626", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL:\nQIn Paragraph 6 you described Bartels as the representative of the Main Staff Office in certain matters. Do you know that the representative of the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism at Poznan was not Herr Bartels but somebody quite different?\nANo, whether Herr Bartels was the representative or not I don't know at all, and I don't know who else was the representative in Poznan.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, you have answered the question. You have answered the question fully. Go ahead.\nQ (By Dr. Haensel) Do you know that the Main Staff Office dealt with foreign children, Yugolsav, Norwegian children or other children which you have mentioned in paragraph 132?\nAI didn't quite understand your question.\nQDo you know whether the Main Staff Office had anything to do with foreign children, Norwegian children and other children? You stated: \"All the matters concerning children from the Warthegau and other former foreign territories were designated by the Lebensborn at my time always as being a matter of the Main Staff Office.\"\nANo, with that I refer to those children who were under the care of Lebensborn.\nQAnd did the Main Staff Office have anything to do with it?\nAThat is what I assumed at the time.\nQAnd on what was your opinion based?\nAI have already stated in the affidavit, and that is quite correct, that Herr Sollmann and HerrTesch frequently stated that this task was not a task of Lebensborn and that the Main Staff Office had only used the Lebensborn for the practical execution of this measure.\nQDo you know from what funds payments were made to the Lebensborn which allegedly came from the Main Staff Office, as far as the budget is concerned?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4634, "page_number": "4627", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AAs I have stated before I know nothing about financial affairs. Consequently I cannot reply to your question.\nDR. HAENSEL:Thank you I have no further questions.\nTHE RESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE RESIDENT", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4635, "page_number": "4628", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 29 January 1948).\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.RATZ (for the defendant Sollmann): Your Honor, I would like to ask that the witness Bartels be called to the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nFRITZBARTELS, a witness took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God the Almighty and Omniscient that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION QUESTIONS BY DR. RATZ:\nQTell the tribunal your full name.\nAMy name is FritzBartels.\nQWhen were you born?\nAI was born on the 29th of April 1903.\nQWitness, please tell us briefly about your former position in the Warthegau.\nAAfter I had been an attorney in the year 1939 the Wehrmacht drafted me into the Warthegau -- I was drafted to the provincial administration in Rosnan and there I was put in charge of Department III of the provincial administration, that was the department for public welfare, the youth welfare and also I was put in charge of department IV that was the department for culture.\nQIn your official capacity did you hea of decree 67/1 of the Main Staff Office of February 1943?\nAI heard about this when I was put again in charge of Department III after an interruption, as a sideline again, a part time job.\nQWhen did you get knowledge about this?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "FRITZ", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4636, "page_number": "4629", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AI went to my chief that was the gauhauptmann, the chief of the gau self-administration and he discussed a decree with me which he had received at that time. This decree concerned matters which were also contained in the decree 67/1, however, as far as I recollect this decree had not been issued by the commissar for the strengthening of Germandom but the minister of the interior in other words by our Superior Administrative authority, and for that purpose the gauhauptmann discussed with me the purpose of this decree to the effect that it was a matter of bringing back to German tradition such ethnic German orphans and foster children who had been polonized before 1938.\nQWhat did you do after that?\nAI handed all the documents the gauhauptmann gave me to the chief of the gau youth office in my department for further action. Already at some time previously the administration must have heard about this because in the decree it was mentioned that a childrens' home at Brukau was to take over those tasks but that happened before my time. I would like to add that in April 1940 until the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942 I was not with the gau self administration but with the country insurance agencies.\nQThe district administration is only one of the various authorities concerned with carrying out 67/1. Could you describe briefly the relations between the district self-administration with other agencies and altogether the organizations so that your own authority becomes obvious or your subordination concerning the other offices?\nAWell, it was like this. The district self-administration is a so-called communal organization, for Germany something similar to the provincial administration in the Prussian provinces. It has to deal with all those tasks which according to their extent or importance, also in respect to financial matters could not be achieved by the county or town or authorities. The chief of this administration is the gauhauptmann, then the next one is the reichstatthalter, and also the state authorities \n of the reichstatthalter are competent, the next higher level being the department for local administration of the ministry of the interior.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4637, "page_number": "4630", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "In our relations with the city and country administration we were never entitled to give instructions nor to supervise because this is up to the state authorities, those are the government presidents and state authorities of the reichstatthalter.\nQWhat was the scope of your authority when you gave instructions?\nAThe authority to give instructions was such that within the gau Self administration my superior was the gauhauptmann who concerning all important decisions had to be consulted and to decide himself. In the constant administration the competent man, would handle these matters, in department III it wasme and concerning smaller tasks, routine administration matters it was a matter for the office chiefs down to the consultants. Concerning other administrative relations one has to make a difference between the self-administration and the administration of tasks and specialized tasks. The gau self administration has to deal with various tasks within the different spheres, being responsible for expert matters, that is they have the expert knowledge, the money, the buildings, equipment, personal supplies, the budget and all they need for their task. The specialized tasks are up to the appropriate agencies.......\nDR. RATZ:Please, witness talk slowly and only continue with the sentence when the translation has come through.\nWITNESS:FRITZ BARTELS: May I continue?\nDR. RATZ:Yes.\nA (cont'g) May I give an example of the difference between the administration jobs and these expert tasks which existed in my department. There were for example the deaf and dumb teaching institute under my department. We were in charge of the administration and the special tasks were handled by the expert agency. Now, if a child who was dumb and deaf had to be released from schooling because its training had been \n achieved and somebody complained about this we were not allowed to decide upon this but the competent expert authority with the government agency, and beyond that the appropriate department in the ministry.", "speakers": [ "A", "WITNESS", "DR. RATZ", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4638, "page_number": "4631", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "when a country councillor sent a child who had been sent there mistakenly because the child was not deaf and dumb then the decision to take this child out of the institute again would have been up to me.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4639, "page_number": "4632", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QAnd what was the authority for the gau children's home Kalisch?\nAThe competency was as follows: The gau children's home Kalisch first of all was under the supervision of the gau youth office. The gau youth office again was under the supervision of my department III and department III again was under the orders of the gauhauptmann - in his capacity as chief of my administrational department.\nQDid the gau self administration -- did it constitute a part of the administration of the Party, the NSDAP?\nANo,one can only assume this because we were also called \"gau\" self administration but this is only owing to the fact that for our administration the sc-called Sudeten \"gau\" law was competent and there the administration was called gau self administration \"autonomous gau administration.\"\nQWill you please repeat that sentence. The translation may not have come through as it should.\nAI said the assumption that the gau self administration may have had something to do with the Nazi Party came about owing to the fact that communal administration of the Reichgaus, gau districts were also called \"gau self administration\" and not provincial administrations.\nQWhat kind of organizational or other relations did the gau self administration have with the Reich Commissar or the Rusha?\nAWe had no organizational relations whatever with the Rusha because this was not an authority of the government administration. We had no organizational relations with the Reich commissar either but if it says in a law that the gau self administration will cooperate with the Rusha then of course we had to collaborate with them.\nQIn the years we are concerned with here was there also a Polish aministration in the Warthegau?\nANo.\nQThen the entire public welfare was in the hands of Germany?\nAYes, that is correct but in the German welfare authorities a \n number of Polish people were employed.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4640, "page_number": "4633", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QI again come to the regulation 67/1. Did the Lebensborn also work together with the Rusha field office in Lodz?\nAI know nothing about any such collaboration between the Lebensborn and the Rusha field office in Lodz.\nQHow was the work carried out according to this regulation 67/1 in the Warthegau?\nAApart from the very first time it was not as complicated as laid down in 67/1. The very first time I cannot judge because at the time I had only just come back to that department. I would like to add the following here. In my opinion, 67/1 is a procedural regulation which was made after the actual order which we had received earlier from the ministry of the interior. Concerning the question itself, it was like this: with the district and city offices there existed exact knowledge of local conditions concerning the orphans and foster children who were in foster families and homes. These district and city youth offices then established the facts concerning those children of whom those agencies assumed that they were of ethnic German origin, that is this was done on the occasion when the Polish orphan agencies were discontinued. The children whose origin had thus been established were then reported by the city or district youth office to the field office of the Rusha in Lodz. Their names were contained in a list. This field office then sent an examiner to the district concerned, to the youth office there who examined the case from the racial point of view.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4641, "page_number": "4634", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "The findings of both, the Youth Office and the Examiner - resulted in a list which was then sent to the Gau Youth Office. The Gau Youth Office arranged it then that the children named in the lastmentioned list were called to Kalisch as soon as the home had vacancies for them. In order to explain this, may I say that very soon afterwards the children's home Kalisch replaced the children's homo in Bruckau. There in Kalisch the children were examined from a pedagogic point of view, from a teaching point of view, their knowledge and education - that is, everything was determined that was necessary in order to form an opinion on a child so that one could send it to foster parents and assume responsibility for doing so. Apart from that, in Kalisch the children were examined psychologically. This examination was not carried out by us but it was carried out by Frau Professor Hetzer. Frau Professor Hetzer was a member of the NSV (National Socialist Welfare Organization). This examination in Kalisch lasted about two to three months on the whole. Sometimes it lasted even longer, if the character of the children required such a long time of observation. From Kalisch the children were sent to the Lebensborn to the inspectorate of the home schools.\nQWho b rought the chil dren to the Lebensborn or the home schools from Kalisch?\nAThe children were brought from Kalisch to the Lebensborn or the home schools by children's nurses of the home in Kalisch.\nQWere all your employees of the Gau self-administration informed in detail as to the circumstances under which the children were taken out of the orphanages and foster homes?\nANo, we did not know in detail about this.\nQWitness, the introduction to the Regulation 67/1 mentions that during the Polish time a great number of ethnic German orphans and a great number of children had been polonized and were sent into Polish orphanages and to Polish foster parents. Is that correct? What can you say about that?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4642, "page_number": "4635", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "AI can say the following here. More than two million Germans were living in these districts, in the Warthegau in particular, after 1919 - that is, after the Treaty of Versailles, ethnic Germans were living there. The majority of them remained there. Only those who volunteered to go to Germany had to leave. Those who remained became Polish nationals. If one adds the part of Poland to the Warthegau which was assigned to Poland after the conquest then this figure of two million is rather higher because in Lodz alone there were several hundred thousand Germans living. These Germans came under the agreement for the protection of minorities, made in 1919. This agreement was made between the allies and associated main powers and Poland in favor of the minorities. In this agreement, the German minority had been assured of the right expressly that they should be allowed to use the German language whenever they wanted. They had been given the right to maintain German schools and German educational institutions, German welfare organizations, German religious institutions, or better church institutions, as well as the right to set up their own cultural life. They had also been assured, or guaranteed, that not only would they be allowed to establish all this, but that they could maintain and supervise all this themselves. Concerning the ethnic Germans in the former province of Poznan, that is the larger part of the Warthegau, special assurance had been given. This assurance was to the effect that the Polish authorities and the district administrations were to support these institutions of the German minority and supply them with money as well, in the state and community budgets. These regulations, however, were not adhered to. In the year 1932 - if I may just mention this particular year - the number of German schools in this district had become smaller, had been reduced from more than two thousand in 1919 to loss than half of that figure. The majority of the trained German teachers had emigrated, or had been sent out. The figures I just mentioned originate ex \n clusively from documents from non-German offices or agencies.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4643, "page_number": "4636", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "They are contained in the minutes of sessions of the English Parliament in which the question of minorities were discussed and they are contained in the minutes of meetings by the League of Nations council on discussions concerning complaints of minorities. I am not mistaken about these figures. During these almost seven months while I have been in captivity here I have had the opportunity to reread these minutes and I even copied the most important parts of them. The actual figures were much more outstanding because when complaints were sent to the commissions of the League of Nations they were out of date already.\nIn the year 1933, in Poznan and Pommorelia - that is more than half of the Warthegau - and important parts of Danzig and Western Prussia, only a little more than five hundred German schools still existed, for example. This figure was reduced to such an extent in the following years that shortly before the outbreak of the war less than one hundred and fifty German schools existed in those areas. I recall one particular figure. It originates from the report of the meeting of the Protestant Inner Mission Administrative Board of Poland in the year 1936 or 1937. In the District of Poznan - that is one part of the Warthegau - more than fifteen thousand German chil dren only attended Polish schools. It can be seen from this report of the German Lutheran Mission that these figures are incomplete and this is explained by the fact that a great number of the ethnic Germans were not able to provide the material for these statistics because, being active in public life, they would not have dared to do so - to supply such material.\nThe same development occurred in the welfare organization and the church organization. In the year 1939, in December, I came to Poznan. At that time, of German welfare organizations only the German Protestant Diaconys Institution in Poznan still existed and the Jostrecker \n Institution in Pleschen.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4644, "page_number": "4637", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "I can say this for certain because I myself was a member of the committee of these two organizations. In the country and in the small towns there were hardly any institutions of German welfare such as orphanages.\nQWitness, during those years, where were the ethnic German homeless children housed, where were they brought to if they had no relatives any more who could take care of them?\nAIn Polish orphanages and in Polish foster homes.\nQCould not one have given them to the still existing German families to take care of them?\nAThose children were under the guardianship or the protection of the official authorities, the same as it is in Germany. They were under the Polish authorities and they were under these welfare organizations which we call youth welfare offices in Germany. And these authorities looked after these children and sent them to Polish homes since there were hardly any German orphanages left.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4645, "page_number": "4638", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QHow do you know all this?\nAI just said that the legal conditions can be seen from documents of international law which I knew and which I have read. I know the actual conditions because I used to live for more than six years in the province of Poznan and in Poznan itself I talked to many ethnic Germans who during the Polish time were also respected and honorable men; Dr. Komert, for example, Studienrat Lattermann. General Superintendant Blau, who was one of the best-known personalities there; the lawyer Dzegorschowsky and his sister, who particularly experienced all these things because they were partly of Polish origin and could look at all these problems from all angles because the sister war married in Switzerland and could look at those things from a broader point of view.\nQThus the majority of the ethnic German children who no longer had any relatives to take care of them had to be brought up by Poles with Polish Influence of language, culture and education?\nAThere is no doubt about that.\nQIn your estimation, how high was the percentage of homeless orphas and foster children without family ties?\nAMay I say first that it is bettor to speak of parts of a thousand and not of percent or else you will get fractions of one per cent. Concerning the actual question, in the Warthegau one could count about three per thousand. I cannot prove this figure from any statistics from the Warthegau itself because if those statistics existed they were destroyed by the Polish authorities or at least we did not find them. But I can say that in the German eastern provinces which are immediately on the Polish border* one cay say that there were three or four per thousand. This estimation varies a little according to social conditions in such a province. The official conditions in the German eastern provinces were no worse but rather better than in the area close to it, to which I am referring. In the Warthegau, about five million people were living during the years which interest you and which you are asking \n about.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4646, "page_number": "4639", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "About one million of those were German and about four million were Poles. If you base it on the rate of three per thousand for the entire population, this is something like fifteen thousand; and if you use the ration of the German minority, it is something like three thousand.\nQThree thousand ethnic German orphans and foster children -\nAYes, such foster children -- pardon me, for interrupting you here -- who had no close relatives who wanted to look after them and were not housed by them but were taken care of by orphanages and footer homes -- What one generally calls the children under the care of welfare organizations.\nQAnd where these throe thousand orphan children?\nAThey were in the Warthegau.\nQI mean in Polish orphanages?\nAAt least the majority of them were in Polish orphanages and polish foster homes.\nQWitness, in order to avoid a misunderstanding, I have to refer to a previous statement by you. I would like to ask you again: in the country and in small towns, were there institutions set up by the ethnic German minority?\nAI already said that in the years prior to 1939 or 1938 those institutions more or less had disappeared altogether, I mean those which existed after 1919 in that area -- this can be seen from my reply. They disappeared as the years went on.\nQSo there were no institutions of that sort in the country then?\nAMay I say here, so that you don't misunderstand me, the people in charge of those institutions in this area were almost exclusively the church communities, and in that part of the Warthegau which belonged to the province of Poznan -- that is the former Prussian province of Poznan -- it was a little better all along than in the part around Lodz which was assigned to Poland. This is connected with the fact that in the \n former province of Poznan, the church was better organized than in other parts, where the reduction took place even faster.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4647, "page_number": "4640", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "But in the years before 1939 they became so small that they could hardly be noticed.\nQWitness, how many children were there in all who were registered under the Decree 67-1?\nAIn all, there were about 250 who were sent to Kalisch and there were no others.\nQAs far as you know, how many did the Lebensborn get?\nAAbout 120 or 130.\nQWhat about the rest?\nAThey were sent to the home school inspectorate -- that is to Achern and Niederalteich.\nQWould you repeat the name please?\nAAchern, A-C-H-E-R-N, and Niederalteich.\nQYou said that the district type of administration was not informed about circumstances in detail under which the youth offices selected the children to be sent to Kalisch. Did you hear of any cases where in your opinion the youth offices did not work according to regulations?\nAI remember only very few cases where in my opinion the youth offices did not act according to regulations.\nQCould you name those cases, please?\nAYes. There was one case in the district youth office in Obornik. Obornik is a country town near Poznan. This youth office sent a group of children to Kalisch; among them were several girls who were comparatively old -- that is they were almost 14 years of age. After some period of time when the children had been in Kalisch, the women in charge of the home, a Miss Zander, told me that she had heard from conversations with the girls that these girls either still had living Polish relatives or at least they had some Polish relatives. I cannot recall details. In any case, it was obvious that the girls had the opinion that they were of \n Polish origin.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4648, "page_number": "4641", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "She reported to me and the report was made in writing that the girls actually desired, as they said, to go to the Reich proper. That is what they wanted. I told here to inform the girls as follows: Their request could not be granted as soon as time of observation in Kalisch was over, the children's nurse would take them back to their relatives if they wanted to take them or else the youth office would take care of them and sent them to Polish foster houses. Shortly afterwards, the matron contacted me again. She said that she had told the girls about this and that the girls were very unhappy about it, and they again asked that they be allowed to go to the Reich proper. I had the girls instructed through the matron then that in my opinion there was only one way out as to how their wish could be fulfilled.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4649, "page_number": "4642", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "They could only come into the Reich as Polish workers. In such case they would be used as children's nurses and would be sent to German families. If they wanted this first of all they had to return to Obornik. The children's nurse would take them back there. There they would have to go to their relatives and if their relatives agreed they could return to Kalisch and in that case I would try to get them jobs. The majority of the girls then returned to Kalisch with the required consent and since I did not want them to go to the labor office I wrote to a number of families whom I knew personally in the Reich proper and of whom I know that according to the regulations existing they were entitled to a children's nurse. These people picked them up in Kalisch themselves. The girls who had Polish names went to these positions as Polish subjects. According to the regulations they had Polish identification and Polish ration cards and then in the year 1945 they were returned to Obornik. When I returned home in 1945, I met two of these girls in Hildesheim. One of them was Mia and she was in the house of a wholesale coal dealer in Hildesheim and the name of the other one was Irene and she was with a high-school teacher, a friend of mine, in Goslar.\nQThis was the one case where in your opinion the youth office did not act according to regulations. Did you tell this youth office in Obornik that you didn't think they acted according to regulations?\nAI wrote to the youth office in Obornik that they had acted incorrectly.\nQPlease describe the second case briefly as well.\nAWell, there are really two cases. However, they are almost the same although they occurred at different times. One youth office in the District of Hohensalza, and another youth office in the District of Posen, according to my recollection, wrote to the district offices that they did not have sufficient ethnic children for a group in Kalisch. They asked whether they could send such children along who were of Polish origin; that if we examined them we could see they \n had a good racial basis.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4650, "page_number": "4643", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "I wrote to both youth offices that this could not be considered b ut if they still sent the children along we would send them back immediately by return trip and the regulation 67/1 did not concern such cases.\nQCan you tell us who wrote this in your office and who handled this?\nAI can say that this could only have been written by one of my secretaries. One was called Frau Nietschmann and the other was called Brussow.\nQWitness, you were saying that the district youth offices and the City Youth Offices sent along the files and documents concerning the children with the children. What did those files contain, identification and certificates?\nAThat would differ. Some children still had Polish papers, and it is these Polish papers of which I would like to talk first. For reasons I do not know, they were in such a state that reliable conclusions could not be drawn from them. These papers h ad hardly made mention of the origin of the child, I would like to say, even the birth certificates were missing.\nQWill you say that again, please.\nAI said these papers very often left out statements about the locality, the place of origin of the children. They hardly ever contained birth certificates. Sometimes they contained reports about the upbringing and sometimes they did not. In most of all cases one could hardly ever see from these papers whether such a child had been in various foster homes. And then there was the German part of the papers which naturally was brief. It contained the statements by the youth office about the orphanage or foster home from which the child came. Sometimes there was mentioned a part of the upbringing if the child had been in some foster home again and also, as well as I can recollect, a personal opinion was sent separately by the branch office of RuSHa in Lodz.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4651, "page_number": "4644", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QIs this statement of yours concerning the files based on your personal knowledge of such files?\nAIn part. I saw some of these papers myself but I also had this knowledge from what the department chief of the youth office told me who was a man named Administrative Councillor Jaencke and also what the experts and matrons said in Kalisch. Apart from that I had a discussion in detail with the city youth office in Posen when the Lebensborn requested such papers from us with the children. I talked there to the woman in charge of the welfare for families. Her name was Maria Molsen, who took care of welfare cases in Polish and in German families. In brief she gave me the same impression that I have just given here. Apart from that - I can say for certain it happened in two cases, but it may have been on one more occasion - during some other official trips, within the Warthegau, I visited two youth offices and I personally took an interest in clearing up matters concerning these papers. One was the youth office in Wielun-Welungem and the second one was the youth office in Gostynin-Waldrode. The Germans called it Waldrode. These two youth offices had made attempts, probably owing to our previous enquiries, to complete these personal papers and the exports competent there told me about the results of those attempts. The result was on the whole very discouraging. What transpired was that re-examinations concerning the name of the children showed in almost any case that the names were not correct. The names which were in the files, in the Polish files in the youth office, contained the names of the Polish foster parents. Thus, if the child had been in various foster homes in the same files sometimes one sheet after the other gave all the names for the child which the foster parents had had in all the places where the child had been \n This went so far that in those files several dates of birth were mentioned for the same child.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4652, "page_number": "4645", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "This concerns the parts given to Poland after the Vienna Congress. Various dates of birth of the same child were given which were taken out of church registrar offices, and the Christian names, the first names, varied so that during the discussion we gained the impression that the child was given a new first name in each foster home, whichever the foster parents happened to like for the child. Perhaps the first name of a child who had died was used when they wanted to give this child the same name as their own.\nQDid such files exist for all children apart from the papers which were sent along with each child who was sent to a children's home?\nAThere were a great number of cases where we had no papers at all.\nQWhen trying to get such papers and documents and in order to complete these papers, did you undertake anything in that respect?\nAI just said I mostly talked to the matron in Posen. Apart from that I sent my department chief, Sense, to the major Youth Offices -not all of them but a least the important ones -- and experts of the Gau Youth Office went to all the smaller offices as well, that is, not all of them but at least part of the smaller ones. Apart from that we assisted the Lebensborn. I think it was Dr. Staudte at the Lebensborn who sent such files to the Local Youth office in Lodz. It is possible that this happened also in Posen, I don't know for certain.\nQDid you make such investigations because you suspected that the work of the district and city Youth offices might perhaps not be carried out in the proper manner; the children might perhaps not be without family ties or that they might have Polish relatives?\nANo, I cannot answer that question like that. I had no suspicion of this kind at that time, nor have I now -- but it is like this: that we were not used to work with such papers and that apart from that in each affair where the Lebensborn was concerned you heard of the same difficulties that they had if there some parents who wanted to adopt or foster \n a child and there were no papers which gave detailed information about it and they could not say:", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4653, "page_number": "4646", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "\"This child is the one I am going to give into your care\".\nQWhen as a result of your attempt such papers could be obtained, what did you do with those papers then?\nAI took those papers and sent them up to the children. In those cases we sent the papers along to Oberweiss after the children, because in those cases the children were already in Oberweiss so that they would have the papers there together with the papers we had given along with the children, and they could work on them there.\nQOwing to documents were children segregated already in Kalisch as well because they were not of Ethnic German origin?\nAI understood. Yes, that happened, too, even if not in very many cases.\nQI said in Kalisch, were these cases in which the children had been sent back from the Gau Children's Home in Kalisch?\nAI said that this was the case too, on the basis of such files which appeared in time when the children were still in Kalisch.\nQCan you say how high the percentage was of those children sent back?\nAOn the whole 10 to 20% of the children were sent back from Kalisch to the Youth Offices on such occasions.\nQ witness, would it not have been possible to make these investigations for the documents with the various offices in the city and district authorities while the children were still in Kalisch?\nAWell, in order to reply to this question, one would have to know the conditions and I don't think I know them just as they were. If here in the West, -- at least in peacetime, -- one wants to make such investigations, then such inquiries only take a few days, but under conditions there it would probably have taken weeks. We had very little rail connections, very few telephone connections, and the administration soon had \n very few cars and little gas.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4654, "page_number": "4647", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "One simply cannot compare it. The children were in Kalisch only for a few months, and in my opinion nothing could happen because if the papers were found and proved that the child was of Polish origin, then those children were brought back immediately from the Reich proper and even from the foster homes.\nQDid you hear of any complaints and did people report who were the parents of such children and claim their children back?\nANobody came to me personally about this, but I do know from reports of a matron, Fraeulein Zander, that in some cases people approached her. Almost without exception but they were registered as former foster parents. I personally recall only one case which was different and about which Miss Zander also reported. This concerned a child, one of whose parents was Ethnic German, and the other parent was Polish. The one parent was dead and other one had not bothered about the child for years and because of that, the child had been sent to a Polish orphanage. Then the surviving parent reported to Kalisch and took the child back from Kalisch because Fraeulein Zander had the impression that in the future he would look after the child.\nQIf such children had parents or relatives who wanted to take care of them, were they able to turn to the Gau Service Administration, or could they turn to Kalisch, or was the place where the children lived not known to the parents? Did they have no means of finding out where they were?\nAOf course, they could turn to them, but actually they did not turn to the Main Administration Office but rather they turned to the home in Kalisch -- may I proceed? -- I just said they did not turn to the Main administration Office in Posen, but mostly they turned to their home in Kalisch, and they could only have heard about this home in Kalisch from the Youth offices or from the police registrar where the children had been reported leaving for Kalisch.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for a quarter of an hour.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4655, "page_number": "4648", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY DR. RATZ: (Attorney for the Defendant Sollmann)\nQWitness, did the actual parents of the children ever report?\nAI believe I already stated that generally all the people who reported were only the foster parents in reality. I believe I also described an exceptionalcase where one real parent had reported; that was the case where one parent was German and one parent was polish.\nQCan you tall us something about who carried out the re-Germanization of names?\nAThat was done by the examiners of the field office when they carried out their examinations in the urban and rural areas.\nQWas this Germanized name of the child kept in the files?\nAYes. The German and the Polish version of the name were listed in the files. It was also contained in the reporting sheet for the police agencies in both versions; and it was contained in both German and Polish in the list which was compiled for the group which had to go to Oberweiss.\nQDid you know anything about the police registration agency at Kalisch?\nAIn this connection I can only say the following: The order for the establishment of such a registration agency was given to us by the Government President at Lodz, and in any case that would have been the agency which had to issue this order according to the regulations. Then this registration agency was established in the home at Kalisch, and since we had personnel there who did not have any precise knowledge of how to go about these things, we were assisted by a Dr. Schulz from the Lebensborn on an occasion with the presence at Kalisch. Dr. Schulz was an expert in registration matters, that is to say, he specialized in that field, and he also brought about the collaboration of these registration offices with the food and the economic agencies, and in the latter \n we were especially interested in at that time, because we had great difficulties in order to obtain the necessary clothing for the children, and at that time we had to obtain the clothing from the general stocks because the Lebensborn could not clothe the children any more from its own stocks as it had been done before.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4656, "page_number": "4649", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "I can still remember that Dr. Schulz on the occasion of his presence at Kalishc, after dinner, told us about these things because practically we did not know anything at all about these matters. I can recall that Dr. Schulz showed us on that occasion just how the two names should be included in the registration list. One of the two names, I cannot say whether this was the German version or the Polish version, was underlined in red.\nQAnd now I am coming to something else, witness. Can you tell us something with regard to the language that these children spoke? For somebody who isn't well acquainted with the conditions there, the language may be considered to be an important factor for the nationality of the person.\nAThat varied. We had groups of children of whom almost all spoke German, and there were other groups of children where this varied; and there were also groups of children who spoke German only very badly. However, I would like to say one thing in this connection. An ethnic German child which for many years had lived in a Polish family or in a Polish orphanage naturally would speak fundamentally Polish and not German; and that child will only speak German because like all other children who lived in an area where two languages are spoken, it can also master the second language pretty well.\nQIn this trial it has been mentioned that Polish parents had seen fit as a result of unfavorable economic conditions to give away their children, and that German authorities exploited the situation.\nAI want to say that this may have happened in exceptional cases; this can always happen. I believe that I can judge this because from 1940 until the end I was an official in the insurance department which \n paid insurance to invalids, and that is why I could see quite clearly just how the contributions were brought in there in this insurance, and who paid his premiums.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4657, "page_number": "4650", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "These premiums which were paid increased from year to year, not only in the total sum, but also in the individual wage groups. And I would like to add to my statement by saying that the mass of workers and the mass of wage earners who paid premiums to the invalids and sickness insurance were Polish people and these premiums are regulated in a percentage according to the wage which they received.\nQ witness, when and how did you come into contact with the Lebensborn for the first time?\nAI heard of the Lebensborn for the first time toward the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942. In this matter I would like to say that I was not a member of the SS nor did I have any other possibility of obtaining that knowledge in any other way. At the time, on a part-time basis, I was head of this Department III of the District Self-Administration. My chief, Gauhauptmann, in his administration employed a number of so-called Lebensborn mothers and he furthermore tried to get professional training for these mothers in the administrative training centers; for example, in the women's clinic and the mid-wives training center, and he wanted that somebody should look after these women and their children because some of the fathers of these children had died during the war. That is why he requested me as the welfare expert to look after these women and their children; that is what I did, and I liked to do this, and I never became an employee of the Lebensborn and I never received any salary from the Lebensborn, and I did not receive any allowances whatsoever from the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4658, "page_number": "4651", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Q.When did you have your first personal contact with the Lebensborn?\nA.I had my first personal contact with the Lebensborn on the occasion of the measures which are connected with so-called Decree 67-1.\nQ.What were the tasks of Lebensborn with regard to the children who were affected by this Decree?\nA.The Lebensborn had to find foster homes for these children.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn have anything to do with the selection of these children?\nA.No.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn determine what children were to be sent to the home at Kalisch or the home at Bruckau?\nA.No.\nQ.Who carried out the selection of who was to go where?\nA.I believe I have already stated that the local and Municipal Youth Offices, in collaboration with the examiner from the field office of RuSHA at Lodz, carried out this selection.\nQ.At what period of time did the Lebensborn begin its operations?\nA.From the moment when the children arrived at Oberweiss or Pokzin.\nQ.Witness, I want to ask you one more question in order to clarify a point. A child testified here, who stated that she had been sent to an orphanage at Alexandrowo. The Prosecution assumed that Alexandrowo was a village near Lublin. Can you explain that to us?\nA.There are innumerable villages by the name of Alexandrowo in former Tsarist Russia. This Alexandrowo is located in the Warthegau, in the Government District of Hohensalza, between Leslau and Thurn. Thurn, however, is part of Danzig-West Prussia.\nQ.A home at Lodz, on Kopernikus Street, has been mentioned here. Was this a home of the District Self Administration?\nA.The District Self Administration never operated a home in Lodz. As far as I know, the home on Kopernikus Street was a home of the Municipal Youth Office.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4659, "page_number": "4652", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Q.Now I want to go back to the activities of the Lebensborn. Were the children fetched in Bruckau or Kalisch? Or, how did they get to Oberweiss and Polczin?\nA.As I believe I have already stated, the children would be fetched from Kalisch by nurses from the home at Kalisch, and they would then be brought to Polczin or Oberweiss.\nQ.However, collaborators of the Lebensborn would visit the homes of the District Self Administration several times?\nA.That is quite correct. Male or female collaborators of the Lebensborn went to the Warthegau several times. In some cases they went there because of the children who were effected by Decree 67-1, and in some eases they were there for other reasons, for example, because of the Lebensborn mothers who were employed by us. Frau Viermetz also came to see us in these matters, but Frau Viermetz came for another reason since she had nothing to do with Decree 67-1, nor with Lebensborn mothers. Frau Viermetz just came to us with a request--and this must have been towards the end of 1943--that for the duration of the war we should accept children who were located in homes which were under danger of air attacks.\nQ.You stated that the conditions were not known to you and your collaborators under which the children came from the orphanages and foster homes. Did the Lebensborn--that is to say, its collaborators-have any direct connection with these incidents?\nA.No.\nQ.Can one say that the District self Administration was the only source from which the collaborators of the Lebensborn received their knowledge about the children?\nA.Yes, one can say that. The only source of information which they may have had was the papers and files that came along with the children.\nQ.You were a so-called representative of the Lebensborn. Will you explain to us briefly what this designation stood for, and when \n COURT I CASE VIII you became the representative for Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4660, "page_number": "4653", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "A.I stated just now what tasks I received from the Gau authorities with regard to Lebensborn mothers. In the course of the years from 1942 until 1945, we employed a large number of Lebensborn mothers. We also found jobs for them with other agencies, with agencies outside of our own administration, and we also found independent positions for them. These mothers of the children of whom we took care. I became the representative of the Lebensborn in this capacity, that is to say: I received this title, towards the end of 1943 or the beginning of 1944, when I received a letter from Herr Sollmann which appointed me the representative of Lebensborn for the Warthegau. This letter was to serve as my authorization for agencies which were outside of our administration. After all, I had to show some sort of identification whenever I intervened on behalf of these mothers and their children.\nQ.Were you the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Warthegau in any respect, for example, for Decree 67-1?\nA.I never held that position.\nQ.You spoke about a total figure of 250 children in the Warthegau who came under the scope of Decree 67-1. To what period of time does this figure refer?\nA.It refers to the time of the beginning of the measures, in 1942, until the end of the German administration in the Warthegau, and, as far as the home at Kalisch was concerned, that was the 19th of January, 1945.\nQ.Was this an unrestricted measure, which went on continuously, and which was only stopped by the approaching Russian armies and the evacuation which took place at the time; or was this a limited action, which was only carried on as one drive?\nA.This was a measure which was restricted as to its scope and the time. It was caused by the closing down of the Polish orphanages and the examination of the Polish foster homes. As a result of the information which we received from the government agencies and the Reichsstatthalter, we expected, from the very beginning, that the number would not exceed 300. This measure was almost concluded at the time when the evacuation \n COURT I CASE VIII of the Warthegau took place.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4661, "page_number": "4654", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Actually, it would have been completed by 1944 if the Lebensborn had been able to find foster homes more quickly for the children which it received, so that we could have turned the children over to their foster parents more quickly. Throughout the year 1944, the intention was that the home at Kalisch, with its matron and its personnel, would become a nursing school for children, and it was listed as such, since 1944, in the budget of the District Self Administration.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4662, "page_number": "4655", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Q.At this time I would like to put a document to you. This is DocumentNO-3074, Exhib it 406, and this is contained in Document Book VIII-B. This is a letter from the Main Staff Office of the Reich Commissar, dated the 12th of August, 1941, and it is addressed to the Reichsstatthalter and the Representative of the Reich Commissar at Poznan, and it is signed by SS Standartenfuehrer Creutz.\nA.May I read the document first, before I answer?\n(The witness examined the document)\nI can say the following.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, may I suggest that no question has been propounded to you yet? BY DR. RATZ:\nQ.Witness, what do you wish to say with regard to this document?\nA.Well, I am going to say what I just wanted to say with regard to this document. As to the document itself, I do not know it at all, and it was not addressed to my administration. As to its contents, I can state the following.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. witness, we can read the contents; it won't be necessary to tell us about it. BY DR. RATZ:\nQ.Witness, don't tell us anything about the contents of this document, but I ask you to comment on this document anyway.\nA.The document contains a measure of which I know nothing. I would like to say that such a measure as is described there was never introduced in the Warthegau, and that I can only explain this document with reference to its author. According to the dictation symbol, this was Dr. Kolditz, who, in all the discussions which I had with him, did not distinguish himself by having any knowledge whatsoever about these specialized matters.\nQ.Did what was mentioned in this document ever occur?\nA.No, this was never carried out, but only that measure was introduced which is always discussed here under the designation \"67-1\". The District Self Administration did not have a single home in its administra \n tion which could have accommodated 300 children, not even half of them.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4663, "page_number": "4656", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Q.When Decree 67-1 became effective at first, had the Polish orphan ages already been closed down?\nA.As far as I can recall, the situation was that the majority of the children from the Polish orphanages had already been turned over to Polish foster homes. Of the many thousands to which this applied, a considerable number still remained. As to the remainder, the District Youth Offices assumed that the remaining children were of ethnic German origin, and these children were then examined by the Field Office at Lodz, through the examiners there, I know this for certain as to the city of Poznan.\nQ.Witness, was the re-Germanization procedure ever brought into connection with Decree 67-1 by the District Self Administration?\nA.No. To the contrary, in the year 1942, or early in 1943, through the Higher SS and Police Leader in Poznan, a number of experts of the civil authorities were ordered to attend a lecture where somebody from RuSHA gave the general outlines of the re-Germanization procedure. In this connection he stated that he considered this necessary because the civil authorities did not have sufficient information about that, and they were not sufficiently interested in the matter. On the occasion of this lecture, during which the German People's List and the re-Germanization procedure were discussed in general outlines, Decree 67-1 was not discussed, although it had already been issued a year ago.\nQ.Were the provisions of the German People's List applied to these children?\nA.That was hardly possible, in my opinion, and it was not done, because in the decree for the introduction of the German People's List, it is stated that children under the age of 18, without any families, were judged independently. However, this could not be done with ethnic German children without families who had been Polanized.\nQ.How can this be understood?\nA.Hay I give you an example for that? In Category I of the German People's List, there were people who had worked actively for the German \n ethnic group during the time of the Polish Government.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4664, "page_number": "4657", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Now, if you take a child who is six years old, who grew up in a Polish orphanage and who received a Polish education, you will get the answer there.\nAs my second example I would like to say that people belonged in Category III of the German People's List who, in the course of time, had obligations and ties with the Polish ethnic group but of whom it could be assumed that they would again become good components of the German ethnic group. Of course, the same thing applies to the Polonized child again. How can it do that if it feels itself to be Polish?\nQ.Now, the expression \"eligible for re-Germanization\", or \"eligible for Germanization\" is used repeatedly in the written documents with regard to children who fell under Decree 67-1. What was meant by that term in the District Self Administration?\nA.In this connection I can only say that with me, and in the District Self Administration, it did not make any difference at all. We understood it to mean, as it must be understood in the terminology, that Polanized German children--and that is what we were concerned with--could again be regained for the German ethnic group. That was contained in the letter which I mentioned earlier today, about the discussion of Gauhauptma and that, in my opinion, is repeated once more here in 67-1, which was submitted to me during my interrogation.\nQ.Can you tell us something about the attitude of the Lebensborn on this question?\nA.I can only say that in the course of discussions which we had with collaborators from Lebensborn, whenever they came to the Warthegau, when we would also discuss the children who had been sent to Oberweiss, nothing ever became evident which would have led me to think that they ha understood anything else under that term than we did.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4665, "page_number": "4658", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QDid you have anything to do with the other agencies which participated in the execution of Decree 67-1; did you have any disputes with them?\nAThat occured in several instances. On one occasion we even had a dispute with the Lebensborn which I think I have described already in some other connection. This dispute consisted of the fact that the Lebensborn didn't accept our children as quickly as we would have wanted them to in order to carry out this measure in the home at Kalisch as quickly as possible. In this way the children remained for weeks and for months at Kalisch longer than was necessary to test their mental ability. Then I can also recall a difference which I had with Dr. Kolditz, whom I have mentioned in some other connection, and Dr. Kolditz came to see me at Poznan, or on the occasion of some other things which he had to take care of there, and he reproached me in a certain way that we were taking up too much time for the pedalogical examination at Kalisch, that this lasted months or that this could be handled more quickly, and in his opinion the entire matter was delayed as a result of this and we did not show sufficient success in our work. Sometime later when I worked for the Provincial Insurance Company at Berlin I looked in on Dr. Kolditz. I went to see him and I asked him whether he had become pacified again in the meantime, and one can only understand the words that I used towards Kolditz if one knows him, and then he told me the same thing that he told me at Poznan, and then I told him that he understood still less of the pediological judgment than I did as a legal expert and that I could not interfere in the business of the matron of the home who was an expert in that field. I told him that we would have to know how long we needed in order to give a correct judgment on the individual child. I also told him that we couldn't accommodate more ethnic German children than we had received from the youth offices for this examination. There were more, and somebody who wasn't acquainted with the conditions there couldn't judge about these things anyway. I don't like to say that, but I \n considered Kolditz even less competent and efficient in the course of this conversation than I had ever done before.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4666, "page_number": "4659", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QDid you also discuss this matter with any other interested agencies?\nAI discussed the matter with Herr Dongus. It may be well known that Herr Dongus was the head of the Race and Settlement Office at Lodz. We came to talk about this point because I told him that a short time previously, on the occasion when I took leave, I had talked at home with Professor Jungmichel from the University of Breslau, and I had told him that *--* in the Warthegau, in the examination of these children as to what ethnic group they belonged to, I had also included a diagnosis and opinion from the Race and Settlement Office. He told me then that this was really nothing new, that he had done this in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut also as long as he was a student, and then I told him what Kolditz had reproached me with, and he agreed with me on my judgment. And with regard to the statement that we didn't achieve sufficient results, he told me the following: In judging children, in the racial judgment one would have to be more cautions than with adults because it was much more difficult to say that this is a Polish child, and that is a German child than it was in the judgment of adults. The reason for this was that with a child everything was still in the process of development, and that is why the percentage of those children with whom he or his people could ascertain with reliability that it was either a German child or a Polish child was small, and he believed that among the children who had to be examined by these people there would be far more who were actually of German descent but that they were unable to ascertain that for certain, and he also told me that in a question of this kind he certainly would not allow Dr. Kolditz to interfere.\nQThe children which the Lebensborn received, therefore, in your opinion were Polonized ethnic German orphans without any family ties?\nAIs that the end of your question? Yes, I believe I am still as convinced of that today as I was then.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4667, "page_number": "4660", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QSeveral cases have been presented to the Tribunal here according to which one has to conclude that children who did not come into the Lebensborn but were sent to the home schools still had relatives in the Warthegau. Is it possible that this was not known at the time, perhaps because nobody was looking after these children at the time, or were the children taken away although it was known that they still had relatives, or perhaps although the children objected to this?\nAI believe that I have stated once before today that I am not informed about the details in which these measures were carried out with the local and municipal youth offices. I am not informed how this affected the children. However, I can emphasize once more that in those cases where people went to Kalisch they were without any exception not the actual relatives or blood relatives but only former fester parents. Furthermore, the home at kalisch was located in the center of the city on the main road and that certainly was not a secret. The entire staff which was employed in this home, outside of the teachers and the matron and children's nurses, only consisted of Poles, and whenever I went to Kalisch or whenever my expert went to Kalisch then my old Polish driver, Kaljenka, would drive me down there, and I did not see how we could have made a secret of it.\nQAnd if it became evident that a child was not an ethnic German child who had already been sent to the Lebensborn at Oberweiss or which had already been turned over to foster parents, what would have been done in that case?\nAThen we would inform the Lebensborn of that or sometimes the natron would do it directly, and the child was then returned by the Lebensborn, or it would take up a certain time if the child was already with foster parents because it had to be taken away from the foster parents first.\nQIn these cases would the Lebensborn hesitate and raise any objections?\nANo, I have already stated once it had been ascertained we soon \n afterwards received these children back.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4668, "page_number": "4661", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QAs far as you know, in how many cases were children returned from the Lebensborn in that way?\nAI cannot give you any exact figure, but it may have been about six cases.\nQAs far as you know were the collaborators of the Lebensborn acquainted with the local conditions in the Warthegau?\nANo, one cannot say that is my opinion. After all they only came to the Warthegau very rarely, and whenever they were there they would only stay there for a few days. For example, the defendant Ebner has never been in the Warthegau, and Sollmann and Tesch were only there on one occasion.\nQDid you know a collaborator in the Lebensborn who was an expert in ethnic questions?\nACertainly not.\nQOr did you know anybody who had anything to do with the Germanization procedure on the German peoples' list?\nANo. I would like to say that if we would touch upon these questions in the course of a discussion, which was customary in the Warthegau, then I could only ascertain that the women who were there besides Tesch, they wouldn't have any knowledge of that whatsoever.\nQAs far as you know did the Lebensborn operate any homes or other institutions where so-called Germanization of the children was carried out?\nAI beg your pardon?\nQWhere the so-called Germanization of the children was carried out?\nANo, I never heard anything to that effect.\nQWhat homes of the Lebensborn do you know where the children were accepted on the basis of the Decree 67-1?\nAI only know of the homes at Oberweiss and Polczin. These are the only homes to which the personnel of the home in Kalisch took the children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4669, "page_number": "4662", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "QWhat was the purpose of the home at Oberweiss?\nAIt was established to accept these children until a foster home could be found for them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4670, "page_number": "4663", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "Q.Were the homes at Burckau and Kalisch subordinated to the Lebensborn?\nA.No, after all they were homes of the administration.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn operate a home at Filene or Bluetenau in the Warthegau a maternity or children's home?\nA.No, not the one or the other.\nQ.How was it with the home at Filene and Bluetenau and Tonis?\nA.All three homes were homes of the district self administration, and they belonged to the administration to the district youth office and they were taken care of by their personnel.\nQ.Were Lebensborn children ever accommodated there?\nA.Yes, several children from the Lebensborn were accommodated in these three homes and I have stated that for a few minutes in 1943, I don't know the exact date any more, Frau Viermetz came to see us and asked our gauhauptmann that in these homes we should have accommodations at the disposal for the Lebensborn so that children of the Lebensborn could be sent there and these children could be protected against the ever increasing warfare raging in Germany. The gauhauptmann agreed to that and individual children were sent there and of course the Lebensborn had to pay for expenses of these children and subsistence, furthermore, there were children in this home which were not the responsibility of the district youth office and which children had been sent by other agencies. These were homes of so-called voluntary welfare and educational institutions.\nQ.Who furnished the personnel and to whom were the administrations subordinated?\nA.I believe I just answered that.\nQ.I refer once more to the children who fell under decree 67/1. Can onespeak about the fact that the Lebensborn was especially interested in obtaining children from Kalisch?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4671, "page_number": "4664", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "A.I don't think I can say that. I have already stated we had difficulties in disposing of the children in time.\nQ.Do you know whether Lebensborn on its own initiative made inquiries in order to find out something in order to clarify the children's status and origin?\nA.Dr. Staudte came to see us and he went to Lodz and there he tried to obtain material and files for the youth offices and other agencies and toward the end of 1944 as a result of this he sent more than forty files to the Lebensborn of children whose origin had been ascertained at Lodz.\nQ.Were the children selected primarily according to their racial heritage or according to their ethnic German origin?\nA.I can only repeat that in a selection of the children by the local and municipal youth administration and examiners of the RUS we had nothing to do with it. For us the only decisive factor was the fact they were of ethnic German origin since most of the files and documents were lacking in regard to these children, the result of the examinations of the RuSHa field office at Lodz Certainly were of importance and perhaps in one case or another they were of utmost importance but fundamentally only to a limited extent.\nQ.As far as you know did the Lebensborn receive children from other agencies in the Warthegau -- can you tell us something about the fact that Lebensborn received children from Danzig, West Prussia, Upper Silesia or the government general or Russia?\nA.I can answer that with a negative with certainty as far as the Warthegau is concerned because after all I would have knowledge about that; for the other areas you mentioned I can only say I never heard anything to that effect but I believe the collaborators of the Lebensborn who came to see me or went to see my collaborators probably would have told me about it if that would have been the case.\nQ.With regard to the children who came from kalisch or Bruckau, \n were there different classifications, did you have ethnic German orphans, orphans eligible for Germanization, children of soldiers, did you have such groups?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4672, "page_number": "4665", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "A.No, we did not differentiate there. That was up to the district self administration and this becomes quite clear if we give consideration to the fact that the district self administration only dealt with the German population, according to regulations of Danzig, West Prussia, and Upper Silesia, that is to say we were not competent at all for the Polish components of the population.\nQ.Did you hear Himmler's speech at Poznan in 1943?\nA.No.\nQ.According to decree 67/1 the Lebensborn was only to receive children ranging in age between one and six years, however later on the Lebensborn also received cider children.\nQ.Why?\nA.Right from the beginning the home schools could not accept all the children and then the Lebensborn was requested and declared itself willing to accept children who were older than six years. These children were sent to Oberweiss.\nQ.Witness, you have testified several times with regard to 67/1. I would like to ask you didn't you have any misgivings about the fact that children were taken away here from their foster parents even if they were not their real parents, a part from the children located in the orhpanages?\nA.I hope you understand me correctly if I say the following on that subject. The foster children just like the children of the orphanages were so-called children under public welfare. These were children who did not have any relatives any more for whom it would have been mandatory to look after these children or remote relatives, would have done this voluntarily. Therefore it was mandatory that the youth office look after all these children not only while the Germans were in charge after 1939 were the conditions such but according to the laws which existed in \n Poland, also at the time the Polish administration was in effect.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4673, "page_number": "4666", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "There is no difference whether this was former Prussian territory or ether territory and for these children under public welfare the guardian or youth office would be obligated to look after the welfare of the child, therefore at any time the child can be taken away from a foster home and put back into an orphanage or they can take it cut of an orphanage or put it into another foster home. Such a procedure of youth offices to take Polandized German children and put them back into their proper surroundings I did not think objectionable until this was made an accusation here in Nurnberg for the first time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I do not believe sufficient time is left for a lawyer witness to answer one more question. The Tribunal would like to supplement the announcement made this morning which has already been given to Dr. Haensel as the spokesman for the defense counsel about getting the message over to the other attorneys. The dates named this morning are the last dates that the written final please can be filed with the translation department but that does not mean you should wait until that date to file them. It would be very helpful if counsel for the defense and counsel for the prosecution will turn those instruments over to the translation department just as soon as they are completed without waiting for the final date. You might also bear in mind that the sooner the briefs are translated and in the hands of the members of the tribunal the longer time there will be for the contents of the briefs to soak into cur heads.\nNow, with reference to the arguments - final arguments on part of the defense counsel we presume that you will be able to agree among yourselves about the division of the three days' time that has been allotted to you unless we hear to the contrary we will presume you have reached an agreement. Let me emphasize again -- please get these briefs and final pleas in the hands of the translators just as early as possible. That is peculiarly so at this time for the reason that more courts are operating \n than ever have operated and the translation department has the biggest load of work they ever had, I ask the cooperation of both counsel for the prosecution and defense.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4674, "page_number": "4667", "date": "29 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-29", "text": "The Tribunal will adjourn until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 30 January 1948 at 0930 hours.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4675, "page_number": "4668", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nuernberg, Germany, on 30 January 1948, 0930 1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt; Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all defendants are present except defendant Viermetz, absent due to illness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal, in making the announcement yesterday morning, made a mistake in one of the dates which we desire now to correct. The announcement was made to the effect that written briefs to be filed with the tribunal and not read in court must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. February 21. That should have been not later than 9:00 a.m. February 13, so that the written briefs to be filed with the court but not read in court, must be in the hands of the translation department not later than 9:00 a.m. February 13. The other dates announced yesterday morning are correct. Defense counsel who are present will please call attention to counsel who are not present to this change in date.\nProceed with the examination.\nDR.RATZ (For Sollmann): At this time I shall continue my examination of the witness.\nFRITZ BARTELS - Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION - continued BY DR. RATZ:\nQWitness, yesterday you only discussed briefly your \n own person and your functions which you carried out in the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4676, "page_number": "4669", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "You have not said anything about your position in the NSDAP either. Will you please do so now very briefly?\nAI stated that on the 19th of December, 1939, I was conscripted to the provincial administration at Poznan. I was ordered there first of all to take charge of Department III. That was the department which has been mentioned here before for public welfare, youth welfare, and youth care. Furthermore, I received the assignment to organize Department IV and that was the department for cultural care.\nOn the 1st of April, 1940, I turned over Department III to somebody else and in the fall of 1940 I turned over Department IV to somebody else also. In the fall of 1940 I was transferred to the social insurance company. This was the provincial insurance institution and here I remained as an expert for invalid insurance and for agricultural accident insurance. Furthermore, I took care of legal matters there. In the course of the year 1941, I became the managing head of the agricultural professional association and the local accident insurance company. These were the accident insurances, which, according to German law, had been listed separately from the provincial accident insurance institution.\nAround the turn of the year, 1941 and 1942, I again became the head of Department III on a part-time basis. However, I remained the legal expert of the provincial insurance company but somebody else took over the charge of the department for accident insurance. On the 1st of April 1943, I came to the Gau self administration on a full time basis, and furthermore, I remained head of department III,in the year 1943 I again became the part-time head of the \n accident insurance because its head had died in the meantime.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4677, "page_number": "4670", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Apart from that I said that I was the chairman of the committee of the Protestant diaconiss welfare association.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I believe that there was one sentence in the question propounded to the witness that you must have failed to hear. He said very briefly please. As a lawyer, I am sure that you must understand that in all of your answers you are going very much more into detail than will be helpful to the Tribunal. Please state the facts concisely and not in such painful detail.\nTHE WITNESS:Very well.\nA (Cont'd) On the 1st of May, 1933, I joined the NSDAP and I was an Obmann of the lawyers' league in Geiswald, and I was a private in the SA, and since the 28th of August 1939, the day when I was conscripted into the Wehrmacht, I did not carry out any functions any more, not in the Warthegau either.\nQ (By Dr. Ratz:) Witness, now with regard to the decree 67-1, why were the children taken at all into Germany proper?\nAThe decree 67-1 prescribed that.\nQDo you know the reasons which were decisive for the issuance of this decree 67-1?\nAI do not know the reasons which played a part in the compilation of that decree. I did not play any part in it and in my opinion this decree was quite appropriate, and we complied with it not only because it was an order but because we considered it to be correct.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4678, "page_number": "4671", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Will you please tell us why, in your opinion, this decree was appropriate?\nA.The children with whom we were concerned, without any exception, came from conditions where nobody was taking good care of them. They were ill fed, frequently they had a lot of lice, and they ware in a condition which made it necessary for somebody to care for them. In our opinion, factually correct and appropriate accommodations for these children and giving then a regular and orderly education was only possible in Germany Proper.\nIn the Warthegau the possibilities were lacking in order to carry out a measure of that sort. The conditions there were not very stable and we were still engaged in a war. In our opinion the most important factor was that in the Warthegau the very conditions existed which led to the fact that in the past years the children intentionally or unintentionally had become Polonized. In this connection I can only say that we only looked at this matter from the point of view of welfare and that no other aspects were decisive for me since I was only interested in the welfare. We did not proceed on this principle strictly, but for example, we would take a child to Kalisch, would give it to Kalisch, because in this case in my opinion all prerequisites were given which could serve the welfare of the child. The child came into a good house, to a man who had met the child in a home and between this child and the foster parents already in the home such a good relationship had started that we could not do anything better than to give it into that foster home. I still have a picture of this child and in my opinion it shows better than I can say just how much we looked after these children. I have brought this picture along here and if you want me to, I can show it to the Tribunal.\nDR. RATZ:Your Honor, I ask the permission of the Tribunal that the witness may turn over this photograph to which he has just referred to the Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4679, "page_number": "4672", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "(Photo handed to Tribunal)\nQ. (By Dr. Ratz) Witness, as a result of the fact that you out these children with families in Germany proper instead of the Warthegau, didn't this cut off their contact with their relatives?\nA.After all, in almost all cases, these children didn't have any more relatives and if this was really the case, then they were very remote relatives who for years had not looked after these children. Especially for this reason the children had been put into foster hones and into orphanages.\nQ.Do you want to say by that that all the ties with their relatives, remote relatives, had already been cut off a long time ago as a result of the fact that these children had been put previously into orphanages and into foster homes at the time of the Polish administration?\nA.That is exactly what I wanted to say. Such ties were not cut off by us, but they had already been cut at that period of time when these children were placed into the homes of strangers and that was not at our time but that was in the previous years under the Polish administration.\nQ.Did you also have children at Kalisch of whom the relatives and especially the whereabouts of their parents were known?\nA.We did have a few cases of that sort.\nQ.What sort of cases were they?\nA.As far as I can recall, I have already discussed one case here yesterday. That was the case where one parent who was still alive -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Don't discuss one that you have already discussed. Don't go over, telling us again one that you have already told us about.\nA. (Cont'd) The other cases dealt with families of resettlers who were still in the camps and who had come from the part of Poland which had been ceded to Soviet Russia and were to come into Germany proper. The children completely degenerated during their long stay in the camps. They did not have any proper care and their parents requested us, by way of the youth offices, that the children should be placed in the meantime into foster homes in Germany proper until they themselves were again living under orderly conditions.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4680, "page_number": "4673", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Did these children have any contact with their relatives?\nA.Yes, they had contact with their relatives and they also were visited by then.\nQ.How I want to ask you a few questions about the legality of the measures about which I have already in part asked you yesterday. One night perhaps doubt whether the German authorities here did not exceed their authority which they did not have according to the Hague Convention, when they gave those children to German foster parents, and later on had then brought to another area of the Reich which existed at the time. Didn't any such misgivings arise within you?\nA.No, I did not have any misgivings of that kind. What we did we considered to be a rectification of the conditions which had been done against the law about the protection of the German minorities. In our opinion the Polish youth offices should have given these children to German foster homes and to German orphanages.\nQ.If one overlooks the fact that the right and the authority to do that became evident from German laws, and therefore the authorities did that, in your opinion what right did the authorities have to carry out these measures?\nA.In my opinion they had the right that according to the laws about the minorities and the youth welfare legislation, these children could be turned over to German families, and as far as the youth welfare legislation is concerned, the same regulations factually also applied at the time of the Polish administration; that is to say, in one part of the Warthegau the civil law code and in another part, the civil law code of 1835.\nQ.Did these children belong to the German minority group?\nA.We did not have any doubt of that, but for the reasons which I have already stated the German minority group could not look after them.\nQ.Consequently, the children belonged to the same group of persons who, according to the agreement of Potsdam of 1945, had to \n leave Poland?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4681, "page_number": "4674", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.Yes, if you ask for my opinion.\nQ.How my last question, witness, with regard to this subject. At that time when the Warthegau became part of Company was the decision understandable and reasonable that the children should not only be taken into German homes, but that they were also brought into the area of Germany proper: that is to say, was this done for the welfare of the children or was this done for the purpose of weakening the Polish ethic group and in order to take these children for away so that they could not be located any more?\nA.I believe I don't have to state again that whatever was done was done for the well-being of the children. That the children could be traced I have also said, as far as I can recall, because inquiries were made and children were returned, and as far as your last part of the question is concerned, I never even had the thought that this measure was carried out in order to weaken the Polish ethnic group. I gave you the figured yesterday, the 250 children, if I made a correct estimate at the time, were not even the twenty thousandth fraction of the entire population of the Warthegau.\nQ.Witness,before I go over to another subject. I would like to add, in order to supplement your testimony yesterday, and in this connection I want to ask you two questions. Up to now you spoke about ethnic German children without families. I am now going to hand a document to you about the police registration agency at Kalisch. This is documentNO-2793, exhibit 414. It is contained on page 47 of the German text of document Book 8-B. Here Polish and formerly Polish orphans have been mentioned, and also their families. Doesn't this contradict your previous testimony?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4682, "page_number": "4675", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AWith regard to this document, I can only say that I saw it for the first time when the defense submitted to me in the document book in the presence of the Commissioner from the Prosecution. None of us helped in the formulation, and I consider the formulation, since they used the word \"Polish\" to be just as wrong as in the other passages where this expression is wrongly applied. This expression is used as in a number of documents which were handed to me at the time and in my opinion it originated from the Decree 67-1, and that is also contradicted here.\nQDo you know the reason for this establishment of Police Registration Office at Kalisch?\nAI can not give you any information about that from my own knowledge, because we didn't make any request or recommendation to that effect. I can only say what we bought about that.\nQWhat did you think about this measure?\nAAs far as I have not testified about that before --\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, he already testified he knew nothing about the establishment of this home, and as to his opinion we would like to object.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Yes, the Tribunal has laid down a very broad rule as to allowing all the lattitude you want, but to require the Tribunal to continue here to listen to testimony of what people think, you know we will not consider that.(Interruption) I say, the Tribunal has laid down a very broad rule as to lattitude, since the agreement as to time has been reached, but to require the Tribural to sit here and listen to what people think is a waste of time, and we will not be governed by what anybody thinks.\nDR RATZ:Witness, I am now coming to the second chapter. The Czech children. When did you first obtain knowledge about the Czech children?\nAIn the year of 1942, a short time after I began on a parttime basis to take over the direction of Department III.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR RATZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4683, "page_number": "4676", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QWho told you about it?\nAI heard about it from my chief of Gauhauptmann, and somebody had made a request to him that he should accept a small number of those children, and to accommodate them in one of his homes.\nQWhat information did you get in the course of your discussion with the Gauhauptmann?\nAThe Gauhauptmann told me that as a result of punitive measures in the Heydrich affair in the Protectorate, a number of children had been ascertained who alledgedly were of German origin, whose parents had also lost their lives in the course of these punitive measures, and we would have to accept them for the time being.\nQOn that occasion was the fact discussed just what agency had addressed this request to the District Self Administration, or did you see a letter to that effect?\nANo, I don't want to completely exclude the possibility that the Gauhauptmann mentioned the agency. However, it was so small that I don't recall it.\nQWas it the Lebensborn?\nAIt certainly was not the Lebensborn, because I would have recalled that, as the result of the decree 67-1 we had contact with them.\nQWhat was your attitude with regard to that statement made by the Gauhauptmann?\nAI only raised objection on an administrative grounds. This consisted of the fact that according to my official opinion children who were from distant districts should not be brought up by the funds of our budget.\nQWhat was the opinion of Gauhauptmann in that connection?\nAHe admitted to me that my opinion was correct, naturally, but he stated that for the time being we would have to take care of the children, and the financial question would be settled later on.\nQAnd what happened then?", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4684, "page_number": "4677", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AThat was also correct, then I suggested putting these children into the childrens home in Puschkau in the district of Poznan.\nQ who brought these children into your district children's home at Puschkau?\nAI don't know.\nQWasn't this remarkable in itself, actually, so that this actually should have remained in your memory?\nAIn my Department III were more than twenty of such homes and institutions, but the fact that we accepted thirteen children, that happened actually every day, it was just an every day measure. This was completely handled by the Home Matron who were exports, and handled by the expert worker in that case.\nQFrom where were the children brought?\nAI can not tell you that for a certainty, but in my opinion they came from Lodz.\nQWhat other children were located in the home at Puschkau?\nAOnly German children. We didn't have any home at all for Polish children, and Puschkau was a home of the voluntary educational assistant group for German children.\nQSeveral Czech children have stated that there were also Polish children together with them in Puschkau, who, amongst each other, also spoke Polish. What can you say about that?\nAIt is impossible that Polish children were at Poschkau. That some of the children at Puschkau spoke Polish is not surprising at all, because most of the children who were there were Ethnic German children, and also came from the re-settler families from the Eastern part of Poland, who outside of their home had only spoken Polish at all times.\nQAccording to the claim of the Prosecution, some mothers of these children were still alive, and were under protective custody?\nAWe didn't hear anything about that, but the children always told us that on this occasion they had lost their parents, or had become \n separated from them.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4685, "page_number": "4678", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "I know this because the children would discuss this matter with the home matron.\nQIn what way were the children brought up in the home?\nAThey were brought up like all the other children in the home.\nQDid they speak Czech to the children, or German with these children?\nAWe were using German in talking to the children, because after all this was a German childrens home where German was spoken, just as probably in a Czech home Czech would be spoken: After all, the entire personnel only spoke German.\nQDid these children attend the school at Puschkau?\nAIf they were of school age, they attended the school there. They attended the school at Unterberg, because Puschkau didn't have its own school.\nQThen from the home at Puschkau some of these children were already turned over to the Fosterparents, is that correct?\nASome of them came to families from Puschkau.\nQDid the Lebensborn play any part in finding Foster-homes for them?\nA-- I think that was not yet the case at that phase. In my opinion this only happened later on in the case of two children who were turned over to Foster-parents in Germany proper a professor's family, or something like that and, two other children who came to Oberweiss, However, I don't know if any foster-homes were found for those children.\nCan you still give us the names of some of these foster-homes?\nAYou are referring to foster-homes in the Wartegau where the children were sent. From my memory I can still recall the following foster-homes: The Schillers in Poznan, a family Eichelmann from the administration, a Frau Strauss from Unterberg, who was employed in a house at Puschkau, and the Agricultural Councillor Petal's home at Unterberg.\nQCan you tell us something about the level of those foster-homes, their value.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4686, "page_number": "4679", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AThese foster-homes which I have just mentioned I know of personally. They were families which were in a very favorable financial position, and a pretty much above the average of an usual foster-home. However, above all, they really liked these children, therefore, that was the most important factor.\nQThe child who came from the Schiller family has testified before this Tribunal that it had been treated very badly there. While there it had become subject to an operation, for which there was no actual reasons, according to testimony of this child. Can you tell us something about that matter, especially, did you hear anything about the fact on one occasion or the other that the Lebensborn had ordered something of this kind to be carried out?\nAI know nothing bout it, and I never heard anything to that effect.\nQFurthermore, the child stated that in the Schiller family it had received the name of Schiller. Do you know anything about that?\nAIn this connection I can only say that in foster-homes, it was not unusual that children adopted the name of their foster-parents; That probably was also the case here, and the Youth Welfare Authorities always welcomed this, because this meant that the relationship between foster-children and foster-parents were improved, and it became a close relationship as in a real family; as a result of this no changes were carried out in the official documents.\nQWere these children adopted by the foster-parents? As in this case which you mentioned, or any other cases?\nAThis was not done. Several of these foster-parents came to see me, for example, Alscher, who had expressed a desire to adopt. However, it was then disapproved, because the conditions were unclarified, and during wartime no adoptions could be carried out at all.\nQWere foster-parents informed of the fact where the children came from? That is to say, that they were children from the Protectorate, and did they know the name of these children?\nAWe informed the foster-parents about everything that we knew about \n these children, and each one of these foster-parents who were located near Poznan came to see me, or my Referent and they would discuss these things also with the Home Administration.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4687, "page_number": "4680", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QFrom the Prosecution's DocumentNO-2428, Exhibit No. 727, which is contained in Document 8-E, it becomes evident that Frau Petel visited you once, that she declared herself willing to give her name to a child in order to avoid difficulties. Can you tell us what difficulties were involved here?", "speakers": [ "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4688, "page_number": "4681", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AThe following matter was concerned in the case of Frau Petd and her child. The Food Office and Economic Office made difficulties for her, because she received German food ration cards because she had her German allowances from the Economic Office. The reasons for these difficulties were that the child had a name that didn't sound German. At the time I told her that she should give the name of Petel to the child simply because all these difficulties would be alleviated. However, no official change in name was carried out. That does not play any part at all in this matter, because the name was not changed officially anyhow.\nQHow did you just happen to contact the Lebensborn with regard to these children?\nAThe home at Puschkau or the District Youth Office used the experience of the Lebensborn in order to find foster-homes. In order to understand that, one must realize that the finding of foster-homes occurs very rarely through a District Youth Office, it is usually handled by other agency. The Lebensborn however, disposed of its experience, and, the second reason is the following: We tried to get these children but we didn't have anything at all in that field. For this purpose we submitted total lists of these children to the Lebensborn.\nQFor sometime did some of these children also stay at the childrens home at Bluetenau?\nASeveral of these children came to Bluetenau, that was the home I referred to yesterday. However, I don't know exactly at what time they were sent to that home, and how many children were sent there.\nQWhat sort of home was Bluetenau, and to whom did it belong?\nAIt belonged to us and was staffed by our personnel.\nQ witness, you stated at the beginning that the Gaupautmann had mentioned the fact that these children were allegedly of German descent. Didn't you have any doubt later about this opinion?\nAI can answer that in the negative. At the time I didn't have these doubts. I still don't have any doubts with regard to the \n majority of these children.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4689, "page_number": "4682", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "The majority of the names of those children were German, and two which I have just read in the document, Hamm and Spott, and similar names, are certainly of German origin, and, one mother is called Barbora Frey and the ending Ova, was nothing but Czech ending to the name by using a few additional letters.\nQLater on did you have to deal with these children again?\nAThat was considerable time later. This was in the middle of December 1945. At the time, in my Hildesheim Apartment, the colonel from the Czech Secret Police, Anatol Pelikan, came to see me, and he was companied by another man whose name,I don't know, who, however, sofar as I recall I saw again later in the course of interrogation here in Nurnberg. Furthermore, a lady was present who was presented to me as a mother of the child from Lidice by Colonel Pelikan. At the time I heard from the mouth of Colonel Pelikan the word \"Lidice\" and the closer details connected with this name for the first time. Colonel Pelikan requested me to assist him in finding the thirteen children who had been at Puschkau, and I promised him all my assistance. In the courts of approximately two weeks I located the names of the fosterparents, and their location, after the evacuation, and so now that they stayed in Germany proper. I informed him of all these details, and of course, I was helped by the memory of the personnel which had worked at Puschkau. In accordance with instructions through Captain Sicher, this liaison officer in Brunswig, I informed him of these things. Colonel Pelikan told me at the time, that all these questions to me didn't have the purpose, as he expressed himself, of preparing some sort of revenge, but he told me he had been at Puschkau, and that he had carried in other investigations, and, he also showed me pictures from Puschkau, and he assured me that he knew that the children had been well treated at Puschkau, and that he only was requesting my aid and assistance. He said, literally, that Puschkau was a light ray in the dark picture of Lidice, and a similar sentence was later on quoted in the press.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4690, "page_number": "4683", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QWas one of the children who had been at Puschkau, did it belong to the mother you talked to, and who was looking for her child?\nANo, sofar as I can recall we were unable to ascertain that.\nQDid you hear anything of the fact whether the thirteen children in whose search you participated actually returned home?\nAI can only say about that, that I read about it in the papers.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4691, "page_number": "4684", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QTwo of the children from Lidice who were at Puschkau have testified at this Tribunal that they had been beaten and that they had gone without their regular meals if they spoke Czech in the home. Can you tell us something in that connection?\nAI personally don't know anything about it. However, according to the regulations which were issued for the treatment of the children in our homes, and according to the personnel who were working there, I consider that to be out of the question.\nQWhat staff did you have there at Puschkau?\nAWe had a matron Frau Raeffner there for the home, the head; then, we had children's nurses and from our own school, and I myself selected this staff amongst the hundreds of people who had been trained in these schools.\nQAnd now my final question, witness. At that time would you have had the possibility to refuse to accept these children and to refuse to turn them over to foster homes?\nAI personally certainly could not have done so because I had to adhere to the orders which my chief issued. However, at that time I considered the fact that it was a humanitarian measure to accept those children, and here and after I was interrogated by Colonel Pelikan I always asked myself whether I made a mistake there, but I still don't knew that today. If the children had not been accepted by us, then probably we would have been reproached about that fact.\nDR. RATZ:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. HAENSEL: (Attorney for the defendant Greifelt )\nQI only have one single question. Herr Dr. Bartels, you spoke about the fact that the Polish orphanages in the Warthegau were closed down. Who saw to it that this was done; what agency was responsible for it, and for what reasons was it done?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. RATZ", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4692, "page_number": "4685", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AThese orphanages were dissolved by the government agency of the Reichsstatthalterl this was done by Department II, the department for the welfare and health system. Whether this was done upon the instructions of the State Ministry, I don't know.\nQWell, this would probably have been, could only have been the Ministry of the Interior, couldn't it?\nAYes.\nQAnd do you still know when the decrees about the dissolving of these orphanages were issued -- approximately?\nAI cannot give you the precise date because it was already carried out, or carried out for the most part when I returned to the district self-administration, and from the month of my activity when I worked only for the social insurance, I can't give you any information about that.\nQTherefore, you can say before what period of time it must have benn.\nAIn any case it must have been the turn of the year 1941 to 1942.\nDR. HANISEL:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. MUELLER: (Attorney for the defendant Huebner.)\nQHerr Dr, Dartels, if I understood you correctly you were in charge of Department III of the District Self- Administration which dealt with matters pertaining to the Decree 67-1 as far as any collaboration of the District Self-Administration was necessary; is that correct?\nAYes, that is quite correct.\nQFrom your knowledge of the state of affairs, can you testify about what agency of the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism participated in this matter?", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HANISEL", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4693, "page_number": "4686", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AThe Reichsstatthalter certainly was the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism; his permanent deputy was Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, and he had his personal expert who dealt with these things, in any case during the initial stage.\nQCan you recall the name of his personal referent, expert\nANo, I cannot recall any more today; and, I was unable to find him again in spite of all my attempts; however, the man is more than two meters tall and, therefore, he could be located very easily. He was an SS Sturnbannfuehrer for an SS Hauptsturmfuehrer.\nQTherefore, you can testify with certainty that this was not SS Standartenfuehrer Huebner who now site in the dock.\nAIt was certainly not him.\nQAnd how long did this expert deal with the matters pertaining to the Decree 67-1? You have already hinted that this was done only for a limited period of time.\nAOf course, I cannot give you any set date any mere about that today, since a let of time had passed in the meantime. This may have been for about a year, and after that he didn't put in an appearance any more. After those matters were discussed later on with Dongus who took his place.\nQAnd Dongus was the head of the field office of the RuSHA at Lodz?\nAAnd that is exactly the same man I talked about yesterday, describing the discussion I had with him concerning Kolditz.\nQDid Dongus take care of the interests of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and did this activity of his also extend to determining the nationality of each child; or, did he only protect the general interests of the Reich Commissar in handling this affair?\nAI believe that the latter is correct, because the other decision in practice had already been previously reached when the children were \n selected by the district youth offices.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4694, "page_number": "4687", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QAnd how a final question. Do you know the defendant Huebner from the time when he went to Poznan?\nAI have seen Huebner for the first time here in Nuernberg, in jail, because at the beginning he was located in thesame wing of the prison as I was. I never met him as Poznan.\nQDid you have anything to do with regard to Decree 67-1; did you negotiate with anybody who told you that he was acting upon the orders of Huebner?\nAThat was not the case.\nDR. MUELLER:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz)\nQWitness, you have stated that the defendant Viermetz had come to see you at your office repeatedly. Was it already determined at that time when Frau Viermetz paid her visits that the Lebensborn was to take over the children from the Warthegau, or, were the children taken over by Frau Viermotz as a result of thediscussions that you had with her.\nAAs far as I know, the following was the case. The original contact with Frau Viermetz did not deal with the children at all, but it dealt with the mothers from Lebensborn whom I gave described in some other connection, whose children were under her care.\nQWhat measures did these discussions with Frau Viermetz concern then?\nA first of all, the field of work just described from the initial phases; later on we repeatedly discussed the fact how jobs could be found for these mothers and what qualifications they had for these jobs what suitability they had, whether we were able to find apartments for them under these conditions, were they could keep the children with them, whether for example, we could find a domestic for the household because the mother was to work outside of the houses, or, in short, these \n were just welfare questions.", "speakers": [ "DR. MUELLER", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4695, "page_number": "4688", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QIn the discussions which Frau Vierletz had with you because of the Warthegau children, did you just discuss welfare measures?\nAIn my opinion yes, and exclusively, because she didn't know anything about any other questions.\nQYou have stated that before the children were taken over by the Lebensborn or the inspectorate of the home schools, final conferences took place. Did Frau Viermetz participate in such a final conference?\nAI am almost certain, that she did not, only perhaps in the very early days, whether this was on the particular day when the children had completed the time they had spent under observation, I can't say today any more under oath.\nQBut as a result of your discussions with Frau Viermetz, did you have the impressions that she occupied an independent position with the Lebensborn?\nAI would like to formulate it again in the same way I have done already in the course of my interrogations.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Please don't do that; please don't relate it again as you have already stated it. That is not necessary.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you, I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "DR. ORTH", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4696, "page_number": "4689", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nDR.SCHWARZ (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann): With the permission of the Court, I would like to put a few questions to the witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed. BY DR. SCHWARZ:\nQWitness, you have just stated that the Reichsstatthalter of the Warthegau, in his capacity as representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, permitted Dongus to represent him in his field of tasks. Prior to that he had a personal Referent, Kobisch, active in this field. Now, when did you meet Dongus?\nAI met Dongus shortly after the issuance of Decree 67-1, and because of it.\nQDid Dongus state to you that, on the strength of this Decree, he had to carry out the examination of German orphans?\nANo, I can't remember that Dongus mentioned that especially. Actually, however, on the strength of this Decree, he took up his activities and, in the course of these activities, we met.\nQAs far as you know, did Dongus have a great interest in these partial duties of his, and why was he interested in them?\nADongus was certainly very much interested in these particular matters, and he also expended a great deal of effort in this activity. In the course of our conferences at Kalisch, or on other occasions, he was especially interested in questions of education. The reason for that was that Dongus originally came from this very profession, and he frequently discussed matters of that sort with us. I believe he published several books on that subject, at least he talked about it a great deal. That is, not about these very children, but I mean about questions of education.\nQWas he a gradeschool teacher?\nAYes, he was a gradeschool teacher, and he was also the director of one of those grade schools.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4697, "page_number": "4690", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QNow, in connection with this activity of Dongus', did you ever hear mentioned the names of the defendants Hofmann, Hildebrandt, or Schwalm?\nAI never knew these three names at all before these names became the subject matter of interrogations and the trials themselves.\nQThen you don't know to what extent these men could have become active on the strength of your regulations?\nASince these names were of no importance to me, we never talked about any sort of regulations either.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead with the cross-examination.\nCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, in connection with Decree 67-1, which you have been discussing here, did you at any time make a visit to the Berlin Office of the Main Staff Office and discuss this decree with the defendant Creutz?\nAI was once in Berlin, and I took the opportunity then to briefly visit the defendant Creutz. That was a visit which one could probably best term a courtesy visit.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, he did not ask you the history of your trip to Berlin, he simply asked you if you went there and discussed this decree with the defendant Creutz. Answer the question.\nTHE WITNESS:I can't remember that we discussed any details concerning 67-1 in the course of this visit, but it is correct that 67-1 caused me to make this visit to Creutz. Therefore, for this reason-BY MR. NEELY:\nQI think that answers my question, witness.\nNow, in regard to 67-1, you have stated that a Dr. Kolditz came and visited you and complained that the children were not coming in fast enough. Do you know who Dr. Kolditz worked for at that time?", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4698, "page_number": "4691", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AYou mean who was his superior, or who was his department head?\nQIn what department did he work? In what office? Was it with the Main Staff Office?\nADr. Kolditz was active in the Main Staff Office at that time. I don't know in which sub-department.\nQI think that answers my question.\nNow, you say that you later visited Berlin and you were again confronted with the reprimands of Dr. Kolditz because children still were not coming in fast enough. Now, can you tell me the date at which time you made this trip to Berlin?\nAI cannot give the exact date of this trip, but, as far as I remember, it must have been during the time in which I was also working for the district insurance company as legal expert because the actual purpose of my trip at that time was to make a visit to the Reich Insurance Office, and I visited Dr. Kolditz on this occasion. I have already given the dates of my activities.\nQNow, you were talking in regards to the background of 67-1, that is, how it came about, and you explained that formerly the Polish people had taken German children and Polanized them. Now I would like to ask you this: After 67-1, did you, or are you aware that the original names were given back to the children?\nAAs far as we personally were concerned, that is, my own administration, we did not give them back any names, but the examiner of the field office of the R.O.S, did that work. As far as I know about it, an attempt was made to re-Germanize the names, and if that was not possible then another German name was chosen. However, that is something which I only know by hearsay.\nQNow, I think in your testimony that you have given here you stated that 67-1 explains roughly what happened to children and the processes of the children coming from the Warthegau. Now, in that decree it states that Lebensborn will get children of a certain age, and that the Heimschulen will receive children of a different age.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4699, "page_number": "4692", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Now, at any time was this changed so that the Lebenshorn took children of all ages?\nAYes, and I have already stated that. After the first transport that was received by the home schools, the home schools had no further accommodations for them, and from that time on the Lebensborn took over all children.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4700, "page_number": "4693", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Now, getting to the Czech children, these children who were in Puschkau, who paid for the upkeep of these children, the clothing, and so forth, when they were in the home Puschkau?\nA.I am afraid I can't say that with certainty, but I think we did that. I made an objection to my Gauhauptmann that, after all, we had no funds appropriated for children from other regions but he placated me.\nQ.And in reference to the placement of these Czech children from the home Puschkau, under whose jurisdiction did this come? Was it Lebensborn?\nA.Do I understand you correctly that you are thinking of placement in foster homes?\nQ.In foster homes, that is correct.\nA.I can only repeat that we ourselves placed these children, in part, in foster homes, and the rest were placed by the Lebensborn. However, in placing these children, we used the experience and the advice of Lebensborn, because we had already established contact with Lebensborn on the ground of 67-1.\nQ.Now, as to the selection of these thirteen children who came into the home Puschkau, was this done by the Race and Settlement Office?\nA.I really don't know about that myself.\nQ.Did you at any time ever sign a decree turning over approximately 180 Czech children to the Gestapo?\nA.No.\nQ.That you know nothing about?\nA.I know nothing about that.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, we have no further questions. BY JUDGE O'CONNELL:\nQ.Mr. Witness, I have a few questions which I wish to ask in order that I might understand more thoroughly some of your testimony and the testimoney of other witnesses.\nPrior to the beginning of the war in any of its phases, what institu \n tions were there in Germany for taking care of orphans without homes or anyone to look after them, and also children illegitimately born?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "MR. NEELY" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4701, "page_number": "4694", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.You mean in Germany proper?\nQ.Yes.\nA.Such children were either brought into orphanages or into foster homes. In the case of illegitimate children, the care was up to the Youth Offices of the various districts as official guardians.\nQ.Who maintained the orphanages?\nA.That was different, that depended. Part of these orphanages were under the administration of the municipal or rural community, and another part of the orphanages were administered, in the years just prior to the war, by the NSV, the National Socialist Welfare Agency.\nQ.Here these orphanages or other institutions sufficient in resources to take care of all who should be admitted and cared for?\nA.I don't know anything to the contrary. I don't know of any case where an orphan could not be cared for, for the reason that there were no accommodations for it . This only became a major problem at the end of the war, when-\nQ.I am concerned more with before the war.\nA.I beg your pardon. Before the war, just as I said, there were accommodations there for all.\nQ.Are you familiar with Nurnberg?\nA.You mean the community of Nurnberg? No. I had only been in Nurnberg once before.\nQ.Here you familiar with Munich?\nA.The conditions in detail as to the accommodations for orphans? No. I was mostly in Northern and Eastern Germany.\nQ.So far as you know, just what institutions were there in Nurnberg to take care of orphan children, or children illegitimately born?\nA.I really cannot answer that question, because I have no information about that.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: That is all.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4702, "page_number": "4695", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nWhom will you call next?\nDR.RENTSCH (Counsel for the defendant Dr. Sollmann): Your Honor, I would now like to call the witness Ernst Ragaller to the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nERNSTRAGALLER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n( The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENTSCH:\nQ.Witness, will you please give your personal data to the Court?\nA.My name is Ernst Ragaller. I was born on the 10th of June, 1895, in Munich.\nQ.That are you by profession?\nA.Before I became a member of the Lebensborn Office, I was an office manager in various law office.\nQ.Did you have a rank in the SS?\nA.I was expert leader (Fachfuehrer), and I had the rank of Strumbannfuehrer.\nQ.What do you mean by \"Fachfuehrer\", \"expert\"?\nA.When I come to the Lebesnborn I was not yet a member of the SS, I had an ordinary employment contract there. Later on, because of a reorganization of the payroll, I was put on the payroll of the State Treasury, and in this way I was transferred into the General SS.\nCorresponding with my position there, I received the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer, that is to say, that was a sort of assimilated rank.\nQ.Thank you.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "ERNST" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4703, "page_number": "4696", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.Well, I would like to add that when I was taken into the Waffen SS, at the end of 1943 or at the beginning of 1944, I was given the rank of SS Sturmmann, but because of the fact that I remained at the Lebensborn in my position there, I was designated Expert Leader, with the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer, within the ranks of the Waffen SS.\nQ.You mentioned the Lebensborn. Will you please tell the Court how you first came to contact the Lebensborn and its Main Offices in Munich?\nA.On the 15th of November, 1939, the Labor Office in Munich introduced me into the Lebensborn as an expert for the handling of guardianship matters and legitimizations. Temporarily, at the beginning of my service there, I was active in the Department for Guardianships, and, later on, in the Department of Welfare for Widows and Orphans. Then, according to Article 30, I was active as deputy of one of the presidium members, and I was registered in the payroll as such. However, I cannot remember at the moment exactly when this was.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4704, "page_number": "4697", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.For how long were you working with the Lebensborn in Munich?\nA.In 1943 and 1944 the Reich Commissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories requested the Lebensborn to appoint a replacement for Obersturmbannfuehrer Thietgen who was active there and who was also head of the Department for Mothers' Aid.\nThen in June 1944 I was nominated and was appointed to this post. That is to say with this appointment - that is the actual appointment was only the 6th of June 1944 - I resigned from the Lebensborn and was then active with the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories.\nQ.Thank you. May I please ask you to make your sentences as short as possible. What were the duties of the Department for Mothers' Aid of the Reich Commissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories?\nA.This department is the Reich Commissar had the duty of aiding all Norwegian women who had children fathered by German military personnel and to take care of them. On application these women were sent into a maternity home, and the children, if their mothers took care of them themselves, were paid monthly subsidies for their care. Apart from that the children received clothing and equipment and a perambulator, and as far as the actual equipment was not really there, they received the funds that were necessary to procure this equipment for the care of the children.\nQ .Thank you very much. What about homes, if you want to talk about that now.\nA.We had three children's homes and six maternity homes, and that is to say the children's homes were in Gothob, in Starnhem and in Moldegam near Bergen. The maternity homes were located in Hural in Letschen; in Trondheim, at Bergen itself, and Gailo, in Hopsber near Hara, and also in Oslo.\nQ.Were children also placed in Norwegian children's homes?\nA.Yes, also in Norwegian children's homes. As far as we did not have sufficient accommodations for them these children were also placed there, and especially such children that had already stayed for more than six months in the Department for Mothers' Aid.", "speakers": [ "Q .", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4705, "page_number": "4698", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Now, how did it come about that the Department for Mothers' Aid in the Office of the Reich Commissar for Norwegian Occupied Territories, the name of Lebensborn was used to designate this department?\nA. At the time when I took over this office I also asked my predecessor the same question. His answer was brief, in Norway, besides t* Department for Mothers' Aid in the Office of die Reich Commissar there were two more institutions that had the same name or at least a similar name, and one was attached to the NSDAP, that is to say, the German party end the other was the Sammling which was the Norwegian national party, and that led to disagreeable confusion. This confusion one intended to prevent and, therefore, one looked for another name. Since names of that sort, that in brief would stand for the extent of the activities and the program of these institutions were not to be found, one thought of using the name Lebensborn. The Reich Commissar turned to the Reichsfuehrer-SS and requested from him the permission to use this name, Lebensborn, for his department, Mothers' Aid. This permission was granted.\nQ.Now to whom was this organization, department Mothers' Aid subordinate?\nA.This department, Mothers' Aid, and perhaps I shall call it during the whole proceedings Mothers' Aid in order to prevent confusion, was subordinate to the Reich Commissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories.\nQ.Will you explain only in brief the activities of this department?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, remember that the question included the phrase \"in brief\".\nA.The Reich Commissar was the highest German Reich authority for the civil administration of the Norwegian Occupied Territory.\nQ. (By Dr. Rentsch) Thank you. In what relationship was the Department Mothers' Aid of the Office of the Reich Commissar, Norway, to the Lebensborn in Munich?\nA.This organization had nothing to do with the Lebensborn in Munich, neither financially nor from an organizational point of view nor fro \n the point of view of actual work done.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4706, "page_number": "4699", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Mothers' Aid, Norway, asked the Lobensborn for aid only in such cases when Norwegian mothers wanted to bring their children into Germany.\nQ.Thank you. In this connection did there exist or was there included a Norwegian national agency?\nA.In every transport of children going to Germany, and in the case of every application that a Norwegian mother made for the occasion of bringing her child into Germany, the permission of the Norwegian Department of Justice was applied for.\nQ.And that was the Norwegian authority?\nA.Yes, that was the Norwegian authority which corresponds about to the Ministry of Justice in Bavaria.\nQ.Mr. Witness, did it occur that a Norwegian mother would waive her rights to the child in favor of the father and that the child in such case was brought to Germany on the request of the father?\nA.Y es, cases of that sort happened, but they were quite rare.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the attorney is trying his best to stop you from giving so many details. Simply answer his question.\nTHE WITNESS:Yes, such cases occured but only very few, and in every case the approval of the mother and of the Ministry of Justice would have to be attached to the file.\nQ . (By Dr. Rentsch) Can you please give me the total number of such cases, that is of the Norwegian children who by the aid of the Department Mothers' Aid were brought into Germany?\nA.There must have been about two hundred of them. These were cases of children who had already been for a long time in the homes of Mothers' Aid.\nQ.And besides that did it also occur in some cases that the mother herself went into Germany with the child and remained there?\nA.Yes, there were also cases of that sort. However, in the figure of two hundred that I just gave those cases are not included because they did not ask for aid from the Lebensborn in Munich.", "speakers": [ "THE WITNESS", "Q.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4707, "page_number": "4700", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.I would like to make a request, Witness. When I ask my questions, will you please make a short pause? How was the procedure of car for the children in this Department of Mothers' Aid, that is apart from what you have already stated on that point?\nA.The mothers, when they were placed in one of the homes, it was pointed out to them that they could leave their child in the home until it was six months old. After this date, however, they were to take care of the child themselves or were to find other places of accommodation for them. If they actually did that they received subsidies for the child, in the first years 30 kroners per month. They received the equipment that the child needed and the already mentioned perambulator. The subsidy was increased from the year 1944 on to 50 kroners a month.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4708, "page_number": "4701", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Did mothers usually take their children with them after the six months had passed?\nA.Yes, for the most part.\nQ.And in the cases in which they did not do that?\nA.In that case it was like this, the children either were placed in a Norwegian institution or the mother herself usually had already made an application to have the child brought to Germany, either because she herself wanted to go to Germany in order to marry the father of her child or because she simply wanted to work there.\nQ.How many children altogether were registered from your department?\nA.More than six thousand.\nQ.And from these children, this number of over six thousand, only a small fraction of about two hundred children was placed into Germany?\nA.Yes. The number of marriages between German soldiers and Norwegian girls, however, was a much higher one. It was at least ten times as high.\nQ.Mr. Witness, were the mothers of these children subject to any sort of pressure?\nA.The initiative to the effect of bringing her child into Germany was always on the part of the mother of that child. This mother, if she expressed the desire to that effect, was cautioned expressly about the fact of what consequences this would have for herself and for the child. This declaration of approval was signed only after the mother had been cautioned about all the facts and was always given on a voluntary basis. I never knew and found out about any case in which the mother of such a child was forced to give such a declaration of intention and approval. During my tenure of office I can say with certainty that this never happened. However, for the term of office of my predecessor I also can confirm that since I had looked at all the files existing in that office I never could ascertain a case in which any sort of pressure had been applied.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4709, "page_number": "4702", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.When this declaration of approval was signed by the mother, did that go according to a special scheme?\nA.Yes, it was a printed form which the mother of that child was presented with. It only contained that she agrees, in accordance with her application, to having her child sent to Germany either-\nQ.Thank you, that is enough.\nA.Either for placement or for being placed in a foster home.\nQ.Was the Norwegian Ministry of Justice informed about this declaration of approval?\nA.No case ever was carried out in which the Ministry of Justice was not informed and which it did not approve.\nQAccording to what directives did you act in this care activity?\nA.According to the orders of the Reich Commissar of the Occupied Norweigman Territories.\nQ.Did the Lebensborn in Munich have anything to do with these directives?\nA.The Lebensborn in Munich had nothing to do with these directives.\nQ.I would like to caution you once again to remember that you have to make a pause between my question and your answer. Now, what happened after the surrender concerning the Department Mothers' Aid in the Office of the Reich Commissar, Norway?\nA.All activities of the Department Mothers' Aid in Norway was examined after the surrender by the' Norwegian Department for Social Work. I myself was a presiding officer at all the negotiations concerning the dissolving of this office. I turned over all the files in existence and various other documents to the Norwegian Department of Social I Well are according to the orders of the Allied Control Council. The final negotiations of this turning over of the files was confirmed in a letter by the Norwegian Social Department of Welfare with the added note that there were no objections, that the proceedings were performed in an orderly manner, and that no objection was raised against my being returned to Germany. Then I myself inquired at the Allied High Command, and also I inquired from \n the expert of the C.I.C. at the Fortress Ackerhof, and there too it was confirmed to me that the dissolving proceedings and the whole activities of the Department Mothers' Aid had been highly satisfactory.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4710, "page_number": "4703", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "It was then decreed that I was not to be interned in the SS camp as all the other SS members, but that I was placed in a camp of the free reservation. Only in the course of my transfer from there in December 1946, I was temporarily in this SS camp. That is to say a few days before the transport left, I was transferred to this camp.\nQ.Mr. Witness, I am now turning to a document of the prosecution which you will find in Document Book VIII-C, and there it is number, NO4973. This is Exhibit 458. May I please hand this to you now? This is an affidavit deposed by a certain Adolf Foehl on the 3rd of September, 1947.\nA.I believe that you mentioned this already. Yes, I know it.\nQ.Herr Foehl stated in this affidavit that in the period from July 1942 until the surrender he was active as a clerical worker in the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Occupied Norwegian Territories, that is, he was employed in the department for internal administration. Do you know this man?\nA.From June 1944 until May 1945 I was the head of the agency, Mother's Aid, In this, my capacity, I also visited the agency of the Reich Commissar in Trondheim. I cannot remember that Herr Foehl was introduced to me, and I don't believe that I know him.\nQ.Herr Foehl further states: \"From June 1942 until March 1943 I was employed in Oslo. My field of work there was the opening and distributing of incoming mail. From March 1943 until the surrender I was stationed in Trondheim. My work there consisted of taking care of the personnel matters of the agency in Trondheim. That is the agency of the Reich Commissar, Norway.\" Do you know anything about this work of Herr Foehl?\nA.What Herr Foehl's official duties were I really don't know, but certainly they could not have been of any sort of special importance.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4711, "page_number": "4704", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Especially I am sure that they were in no connection with the general work of the Department Mothers' Aid, and therefore probably I did not know the name of this witness.\nQ.Herr Foehl further states that besides opening and distributing the mail which was received by his agency in Oslo that from this work he gained knowledge about the activities of the Lebensborn, Norway. Will you please comment on that?\nA.The mail department of the Reich Commissar was only authorized to open such mail and where the address did not show clearly whether they were directed to the Agency. Since the Department of Mothers' Aid actuallly had the name Lebensborn, it only happened in a very few cases that mail had to be opened by the mail clerk. In the course of my transfer negotiations, that is with my predecessor, he informed me at the time that I would have to be careful because the mail distribution department sometimes exceeded their field of work. That is to say at that time already this regulation was in force. I really can't imagine how it was that Herr Foehl on the strength of his work as a mail clerk could have gained any knowledge about things that were the concern of the Mothers' Aid.\nQ.Now, Herr Foehl mentions a very special case, and that is he talks about his tenure of office in Trondheim where, of course, he was busy with personnel matters. This case was supposed to have been as follows: A Norwegian woman who was the mother of an illegitimate child of a German soldier was supposed to have been told by the head of the agency of the Lebensborn in Trondheim that is by the SS-Hauptscharfuehrer Walter Koch, who is supposed to have told her to separate herself from her child, and some pressure was supposed to have been applied. Do you know anything about this case that has become known through the affidavit of Herr Foehl? Did you know about this case at the time of its happening, and will you please give me as detailed comments upon that as you can?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4712, "page_number": "4705", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.The Trondheim case which you have just described, I can only say something about that if you can give me the name of the mother of this child and the date at which this is supposed to have been happening.\nQ.Well, I am afraid I can't give you these exact clues since they are not contained in the affidavit of Herr Foehl. We will therefore have to be satisfied with the slightly vague statement that Herr Foehl makes. First I would like to ask you the following. Did you know Hauptseharfuehrer Koch and what do you know about him.\nA.Hauptscharfuehrer Koch was head of the field office of the department of mothers' aid in Trondheim and, before my own appointment he was appointed into this office by my predecessor. He certainly would have to be informed about everything that was going on.\nQ.Herr Foehl says the following when he described this case: \"After all and finally the head of the agency of the Reich commissar in Trondheim, a certain Regierungs Director Voelkel had interceded and against the opinion of Hauptscharfuehrer Koch finally made a decision to the effect that the mother could keep her child.\" How was it possible that the agency of the Reich commissar in Trondheim could intercede?\nA.Mothers' Aid had field offices dispersed over the whole of Norway. They were located in Bergen, Stavanger, Christianson, Trondheim, Tromoe, Narvik and Kirkenes. These field offices were many hundreds and sometimes thousands kilometers away from the central office in Oslo, and they therefore were not always in a position to ask for a decision of the central agency in Oslo in important cases. In various cases, various urgent cases therefore, the head of the agency mothers' aid had authorized the head of the field offices of the Reich commissariat to check the field offices, to supervise them and if necessary, to make quick decisions in urgent matters from the place where the decision was necessary, the field office of the Reich Commissar and to be informed of all happenings, that is had to inform the central office in Oslo of all such cases, and in cases they made a decision they would have to ask for the approval of the central office, because since through that balance of power measure it was \n possible that Herr Foehl said that the head of the office of mothers' aid in Trondheim who had been rectified by the head of the Reich office in Trondheim, in no way proves conclusively that Koch really had this erroneous opinion.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4713, "page_number": "4706", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.In this case that Herr Foehl describes according to his own statement it actually did not happen at ell that mother and child were separated; the above mentioned Hauptscharfuehrer Koch had only attempted to separate them on the alleged reference to certain directions according to which it was legal to force an involuntary separation against the will of the mother. Now I ask you, were there such regulations in existence?\nA.The head of the office Reich Commissar in Trondheim knew such regulations were not in existence, and he knew it when he made his decisions. He made the correct decision, and therefore it was also approved by the central office in Oslo, for if it had not been approved, the mother of this child probably would not have been able to keep her child, that is to say that there was in existence at that time the express order to the effect, that no mother must be forced at any time to sign a declaration of approval for being separated from her child before she had been cautioned expressly and before she signed that declaration on a voluntary basis, that is to say she was never forced to sign it.\nQ.Your statements are interesting, but I am afraid they do not constitute an answer to my question. Do you know whether or not there were regulations that children were forced to be taken away from their mothers?\nA.No, such regulations were not in force.\nQ.Do you Know any cases at all that are similar to this case described by Herr Foehl?\nA.No, I never heard of such cases.\nQ.From before your tenure of office, that is under your predecessor you do not know of such cases either?\nA.No.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4714, "page_number": "4707", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.In the affidavit of Herr Foehl, there is mention made of talking of other people. What do you say about that?\nA.Well, rumors are always around and such rumors were current. They certainly were based on some sort of reason, and the cause of such rumors was easily ascertained. The Norwegian offices for welfare used in social and youth work took great care of their Norwegian women, and those mothers who were more or less loose women, were refused aid for their children and sometimes this child was even taken away from the mother, but the Norwegian welfare office was not always in a. position to accommodate these children in their own homes, that is, these children were taken away by themselves from their mothers, and therefore once and again they wrote to Mothers' Aid and requested our agency to take in this child on a temporary basis in one of the homes of Mothers' Aid, but such a child was never brought for instance to Germany, was never brought away at all, only such children were brought to Germany when the mother was released voluntarily, but in addition to that the mother had to still have the mothers' rights and welfare and that of course was the fact that was examined by the National Norwegian Welfare Agency.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness did you say you were a lawyer or trained in a lawyer's office?\nWITNESS ERNST RAGALLER:Well, yes, I was office manager of a law office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Worse than being a lawyer. Tribunal will adjourn until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A.", "WITNESS ERNST RAGALLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4715, "page_number": "4708", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours, 30 January 1948.)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDR. RENTSCH:I would like to proceed with questioning the witness.\nERNST RAGALLIER _Resumed DIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. RENTSCH:\nQFoehl at the end of his affidavit maintained that according to what he established, the Norwegian Lebensborn was similar to the German Lebensborn, E.V., the central office of which was in Munich, and it was just a branch of that particular Lebensborn, is that correct?\nAThe German Lebensborn had nothing to do with the Norwegian Lebensborn, that is the Mothers' Aid. At the beginning of my statement I already said the Mothers' Aid Lebensborn, Norway was only subordinate to the Reich commissariat in Norway. The Lebensborn in Germany could not pass any directives to the Mothers' Aid in Norway.\nQWitness, in that case, the other case mentioned by Herr Foehl. cannot be in any way correct that the Lebensborn was an SS organization?\nAThe department Lebensborn in Norway, Mothers' Aid, was, as I emphasi_ed repeatedly only, subordinated only to the Reichs commissariat. The SS could not pass any directives to the Mothers' Aid. There were only fifteen or sixteen members of the SS, who worked for the Mothers' Aid institutions, as far as disciplining and office routine were concerned. They were subordinated only to the Higher SS and Police Leader, but if there was any offense in their jobs, then of course they came under the Reich commissariat or the men detailed for that work.\nQThe last statement made by Herr Foehl was to the effect that German personnel of Lebensborn homes were also put at the disposal of the German Lebensborn in Munich. Is that correct?\nAThis statement is erroneous in its contention, because the Mothers' Aid institution in Norway was only given the department of the \n chief who as soon as he entered the service in Norway left the service of the Lebensborn in Munich, then a number of office workers, it might have been 15 or 16 were transferred to the Reich commissariat in Norway, by the leader of the staff.", "speakers": [ "DR. RENTSCH", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "THE MARSHAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4716, "page_number": "4709", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "There must have been about 125 men and women who were sent by the Reich Medical Organization, the German Nurses' organization and the German Midwives' Organization. The German agencies in Berlin were put at the disposal of the Norwegian office by the Berlin Labor Exchange, and the German women put at its disposal the teachers; therefore it is not possible to say the Lebensborn in Munich with the exception of a few people, four or five were transferred, that is left the Lebensborn in Munich and were employed by the Reich commissariat in Norway.\nQBut in addition to the German personnel, you had other people did you not?\nAWe had approximately three hundred men and women. There were Norwegians.\nDR. RENTZ:Your Honor, I have no further questions.\nDR. ORTH:For the defendant Viermetz. BY DR. ORTH:\nQWitness, you were in Munich in 1941 with the Lebersborn and you were chief there of the department Vormundschaft. Is that correct?\nANo, December 1941.\nQIs it correct that in September 1941 this department was to be connected with the departments \"Vermundschaft\" \"Heimaufnahme\" and \"Kriegerwaisen\" and made a main department \"A\"?\nAIn September 1941 this department as far as organization went was connected with the department reception into homes and orphans. This is Department \"A\".\nQWho organized this transfer or this inclusion?\nAIn charge of the organization was Mr. Viermetz.\nQWere you not appointed to the leadership of of Main Department \"A\" together with Mr. Viermetz?", "speakers": [ "DR. ORTH", "A", "DR. RENTZ", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4717, "page_number": "4710", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AYes, at the same time she was appointed, I was appointed.\nQWere you actually active in this capacity?\nANo, I never actually worked in this department for the reason that the organization chart kept up by Mrs. Viermetz was not in agreement with my own and I did not deem it right, to collaborate with somebody who was of an entirely different opinion from my own.\nQDid Sollmann at that time ask you to take over the leadership concerning the fact that Mr. Viermetz could only act part time at the main department \"A\"?\nAI was told that, and in spite of this I refused.\nQIs it true that in September 1941, Sollmann took over officially the leadership of this Main Department \"A\"?\nASollmann stated to me that he would take over the responsibility of the Main department \"A\"?\nQCould you tell me what matters Mrs. Veirmetz dealt with as deputy leader. What activities, independently?\nAIndependently she could deal with matters which were normal office procedure. That does not mean independent matters.\nQAnd what did she do in other cases?\nAIn other cases the decision had to be taken from Herr Sollmann.\nQWho took over the main Department in Spring 1942?\nAYou mean from January or Spring?\nQI mean from Spring or at least how long did Mrs. Veirmetz have the leadership of Main Department \"A\"?\nAAs far as I remember from the first of January she was in charge of it as a deputy leader and Sollmann was the chief of the department.\nQAnd by whom was she released?\nAShe was released by Oberfuehrer Dr. Ebner.\nQAnd when was that?\nAI don't know the exact period of time, but I think it must have been the first half of the year.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4718, "page_number": "4711", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QDo you know anything about the fact that threr were regulations to the effect that Mrs. Viermetz could not deal with matters of Main Department \"A\" ?\nAI mainly heard that Dr. Ebner refused to accept instructions from Mrs. Viermetz.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you, I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. ORTH", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4719, "page_number": "4712", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "MR. NEELY:Mr. Neely for the prosecution.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, before starting my examination, I request your sincere cooperation in trying to answer yes or no only to my questions wherever possible. Witness, do you recall Dr. Ebner's having visited the Lebensborn homes in Norway while you were there?\nACould the question be repeated, please? I did not understand the name of the home in question.\nQDid Dr. Ebner ever visit the Norwegian Lebensborn while you were there?\nADuring my presence in Norway, Dr. Ebner did not visit any homes.\nQDo you know whether or not Ebner ever make any visits to the Lebensborn in Norway?\nAI think so.\nQAnd what was the purpose of this trip?\nAThe purpose of this journey could only have been. a consultation of the Reich Commissriat concerning the institution of mothers aid institutions.\nQWas the Lebensborn in Germany ever consulted by the Norwegian Lebensborn as to the policies to be applied in caring for the Norwegian mothers and children?\nANo, these directives were only given by the Reich Commissariat.\nQNow, most of these Norwegian mothers who were in the homes, they Were in the majority from rural areas of Norway, were they not?\nANo, there were two third rural and the others were from urban areas.\nQDid you over hear of a plan or receive any correspondence that these Norwegian mothers should be induced to come into Germany to be placed in Bavaria?\nANo. On the contrary, they were always advised not to go to Germany during my time.", "speakers": [ "A", "MR. NEELY", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4720, "page_number": "4713", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QAnd when children from Norway were brought into Germany proper. who transported them? Under whose jurisdiction was the transportation of these children?\nAThe transportation of these children was arranged or carried out by a nurse or a doctor who would go all the way with them. They also were employees of the ReichCommissariat.\nQAnd was the Lebensborn in Germany notified in advance of their arrival in Germany?\nAYes, that had to be so, because billets and housing had to be found.\nQYou know of no case, from what I understand in your testimony of any child's being brought into Germany without its mother's consent?\nAI have previously mentioned that I know of no such case.\nQI have here a paper, which is a Berlin newspaper. dated 16 January and I would like to present it to you. It concerns a Norwegian mother looking for a child. I just want to ask if you recall that name or if you could say for certain whether that child was ever in one of your homes.\nAThe name Hansen occurred very often -- hundreds of times in fact. I can't see from this single document, and as I have no card index any more as they are in the Norwegian Social Department, at the moment I cannot find out whether this particular child was transported through us or by us from Norway to Germany but it would be comparatively easy to find out from the Norway Social Department, to establish where this child is because there they would find the particulars of this child.\nQFrom any order which you gave or any undertaking which the Norway Lebensborn had then, this child could not possibly have been brought into Germany as stated here, that you know about; is that correct?\nAIn this announcement, or newspaper ad, there is no word mentioned to the effect that the child was taken to Germany without the approval of its mother. At that time the mother might have approved easily and today regrets it.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4721, "page_number": "4714", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "MR. NEELY:Your Honor, we have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further questions by the defense? Let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (for Dr. Ebner): Your Honor, I would like to he permitted to call as my next witness Dr. Robert Dueker.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nROBERTDUEKER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows:\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:You may be seated.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-PRESIDENT:\nQWitness, will you please state your name, your profession, and your age?\nAMy name is Robert Duecker; I am a physician by profession; and I am forty-one years old.\nQWitness, is it correct that you were a medical officer in a Lebensborn institution and that for a certain time you were in charge of the Lebensborn home in Polzin asa medical officer?\nAYes.\nQMay I now show you a document submitted by the prosecution? It is Exhibit No. 467. It is Document No-1370, in Document Book IX. Apparently here a report is reproduced which you sent to the Chief of the Health Service in the Lebensborn, Dr. Ebner. Perhaps you will remember this report; otherwise, I would ask you to look at it again. Cout you tell us, Witness, whether you are the originator of this report?\nAYes.\nQIn this report you say that in the Gynecological Institute in Polzin three German ethnic women who were pregnant, had their pregnancies interrupted. Now, why in these three cases, were the \n pregnancies interrupted artificially?", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "ROBERT", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4722, "page_number": "4715", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "AOn the occasion of the Bromberg Sunday Massacre, these women were made pregnant by Polish soldiers, They were seduced, and made pregnant by Polish soldiers. They had expressed the wish that their pregnancies Should be interrupted because they could not bear having a child under the conditions. I remember in particular the wife of a Polish dentist from Bromberg, who stated that she could not go on living if she really had to have this child and she expressly asked that she should have an abortion,\nQYou said these women had been the victims of a forced seduction?\nAYes, that is what I said. On the occasion of the Sunday Bromberg Massacre. These women had suffered very heavily. They had for the greatest part been seduced by Polish soldiers. I remember in particular the wife of a farmer, who in the presence of her husband, who had been bound, was raped by a number of Polish soldiers. They had also lost their farms which were bombed, They had also lost members Of' their family, who had been shot.\nQHad these women also lost their apartments and their houses ?\nAYes, these were the women who had been living in the neighborhood in the vicinity, on farms which had been burned.\nQAnd why had they been taken to the home in Pollzin?\nAThe Lebensborn had taken care of these women\nQWould you please speak a little louder ?\nAThe Lebensborn had taken care of these women because these women could not help themselves.\nQTherefore, in the case of these women, they were ethnic Germans, were they not?\nAYes, ethnic Germans.\nQWould you also state in what vicinity, in what neighborhood Bromberg is, and where these women in particular came from?\nAThe nearest vicinity of Bromberg.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4723, "page_number": "4716", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QIn what Province is Bromberg?\nABromberg is in the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4724, "page_number": "4717", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Did you then carry out the abortions, upon the wish of the women, immediately or did you -\nA.I operated on these women by special request of the Lebensborn. A memoraudum was made out to the main agency in Berlin. I don't remember the name of this particular office.\nQ.Not to the Lebensborn Central Office in Munich?\nA.Of course that was reported to that office too. Yes.\nQ.Then you also made the report to that agency?\nA.Yes, I reported to that agency as well.\nQ.Did you discuss the matter with Dr. Ebner before or did you correspond with him about it or did he only find out through your report?\nA.No, he gave me the order to do it, to take care of these women. I only took these women to this home by special request of the Lebensborn and therefore these women were sent to me.\nQ.Did you know at the time that in cases of rape, according to Polish law, abortion is permitted anyway?\nA.No, I did not know that.\nQ.Did you ever hear before or later on, that apart from these three cases, abortions were actually carried out in the Lebensborn?\nA.No. Pollzin was the only home where such women were taken on. Otherwise there were no abortions carried out by the Lebensborn.\nQ.The prosecution has the view, and they contend that this case of these three women, who were the victims of rape and who had abortions carried out on them, that from this a systematic abortional procedure system had come into existence on the basisof which, later on, pregnant eastern workers had abortions carried cut on them regularly. Can you tell us something about that? Whether this was the beginning of a systematic abortional procedure system?\nA.I could not imagine this to be so, because this was a singular case, of women actually being taken on in such a home of the Lebensborn. These were women who had actually been raped and the pregnancies were interrupted on the express wish of these women.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4725, "page_number": "4718", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.You said the reason for the abortion was the fact that they had been raped. Was any racial question involved in this or did it play any part in this decision?\nA.No, in this case only the aid that had to be given to these women was the important factor.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Your Honor, may I now, for practical reasons, deputizing for my colleague, Dr. Orth, put a few questions to the witness concerning the affidavit which he made out, in cross-examination?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQ.Witness, you made cut an affidavit to the prosecution. It is Exhibit No. 706, No. 5180. It is in Volume VIII-D. I would like to put a few questions to you in order to clarify a few points. In this affidavit, you mention, and I quote, \"children from Poland\". That is the end of my quotation. Could you tell us in more detail what kind of children they were, and where they came from?\nA.Theywere children from the Warthegau, ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau.\nQ.Why, then, did you say that they were children from Poland? were you not then of the opinion that the Warthegau was German?\nA.Yes, I was. In my interrogation I had spoken about ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau. In the affidavit which I was then shown by the interrogator, these children were called \"Polish children\". I drew the attention of the interrogator to this fact, to the fact that this was not correct, but that here children were concerned who came from the Warthegau. Thereupon the interrogator told me to strike out the word \"Polish\" and I should say \"children from Poland,\" as the Warthegau until 1939 -- that is, the beginning of the war -- had been Polish and therefore this would be correct. I told him -\nQ.I think that will suffice, witness. In the home of the Lebensborn, in your opinion, therefore, there were only ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau; is that correct?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4726, "page_number": "4719", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.Yes, ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau who had duly been allocated to us by the Central Office of the Lebensborn with a note that they were orphans who had no family and who would degenerate, because nobody would take care of these children. The Lebensborn for this reason had taken care of these children and it was my special task, and only my task was it, to take medical care of these children. This fact that these purely humane activities should make me a war criminal and necessitate my being turned over to Poland has shaken me very much.\nQ.May I ask you then, how many children were there concerned?\nA.At the most, there must have been twelve.\nQ.You never had anything to do with any other children, other than these twelve, and only as a medical officer?\nA.Yes, only as a medical officer.\nQ.Then you go on to talk, in your affidavit, of three more children, who were French. What did you know about these children?\nA.That was in the end of 1944 when we were moving backwards in front of the invasion army and when nurses and children were transported from a Lebensborn home near Paris to Wiesbaden. Among these children there were three children with French first names. The surnames of these children I do not remember. I knew that in this home in the vicinity of Paris, apart from ethnic German women, there were also wives of French SS soldiers and also not-married I Frenchwomen who had been made pregnant by French SS soldiers or by German soldiers. And these three children, in my opinion, were children of such women.\nQ.You spoke about French SS men. Did you mean such Frenchmen who voluntarily served in the SS?\nA.Yes\nQ.In your affidavit, you say that relatives of these three children who came, did not know anything about relatives of those three children who came from Paris. Did you mean by that, that these children had no relatives?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4727, "page_number": "4720", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.No, I merely meant that personally I was not aware of any relatives of these children. Also in this case it was only a matter of my taking medical care of these children and I had no access, I never looked at their personal files. There was no doubt for me that these children had arrived in this Lebensborn home with the agreement of their mothers, or parents.\nQ.Thank you. My attention is being drawn to the fact, Your Honor, that there must have been misunderstanding in the translation. May I ask the witness to answer one question again? Concerning the children which were taken care of by the Lebensborn, were they illegitimate children, by German soldiers?\nA.In these Lebensborn homes in the vicinity of Paris, apart from Reich German citizens, German national women, the wives of French SS men were also taken on, and also --\nQ.I think that clarifies that point. Thank you.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Your Honors, I have no further questions. DR. MUELLER (for Huebner):\nQ.Witness, I want you to clarify one little inaccuracy. You say, Bromberg is in the Warthegau. Is it not a fact that it was part of Prussia. I mean Bromberg?\nA.Bromberg is in Warthegau.\nQ.I think that is geographically incorrect.\nA.Well, we regarded it as Warthegau.\nQ.I think you are mistaken, but anyway it doesn't matter.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross examination.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, we have no questions to ask for this witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand, any other witness?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Your Honor, we have no further witnesses. A number of witnesses who should have been taken here for cross examination as affiants, Blumberger and Hoepner did not comply so that we have now herewith finished our evidence.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "MR. NEELY", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4728, "page_number": "4721", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:You have documents ready to be presented?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Your Honor, as far as I am enlightened by me colleagues, not all documents have been received from the Translation Department, only part. I do not know in detail who of my colleagues have their documents ready and who have only received translations of part of the documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, do you have any more documents?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: I have just one small volume of 5 documents ready.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Are you ready to present it?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: It is not here, but I can have it brought here.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will get through with everything else. The courthouse is the place for evidence. I would suggest that all counsel who have documents at them and let's get them in.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4729, "page_number": "4722", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "DR.ORTH for the defendant Viermetz: Your Honor, I have one document book for the defendant Viermitz. I would like to submit this document book which included affidavits 1 to 27 - I would like to submit in consecutive form as document #l.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Congratulations on your manner of introducing these.\nDR.GAWLIK for the defendant Schwarzenberger; Your Honor, I had three witnesses which were approved as part of my evidence but the third is actually present and it would be possible, if the Tribunal agrees, to call this one witness now. It is the witness Hans Hagen.\nTIE PRESIDENT:Your client is in the first of second group that we got through with?\nDR. GAWLIK:The first group, Your Honor.\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor, as I recall at the time we finished with the defendant Schwarzenberger it was agreed in court that he would be allowed to put these witnesses on at a later date.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There was no such agreement as that. He said something about other witnesses and the Tribunal advised him we would cross that bridge when we got to it. I remember very well. How long do you expect to take with this witness?\nDR. GAWLIK:At the most, Your Honor, twenty minutes to onehalf hour.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well, the only trouble about it is we are trying to try this case as orderly as possible. We have enough complications without deliberately adding confusion and jumping from one group back to another group and then back to another group. Hakes the record pretty hard to handle. I think I will confer with my associates before I rule on it. Well, I think in view of your statement that you will not take over 30 minutes that we will permit you to use this witness but we are not establishing a precedent and do not forget \n the 30 Minutes.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "TIE PRESIDENT", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4730, "page_number": "4723", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "DR.SCHUBERT for the defendant Lorenz: Your Honor, the witness Hagen has given an affidavit which concerns the Vomi and my client Lorenz. It is 580 in Volume 13-B. The Tribunal approved at the time of my taking affidavit to cross examine the witness concerning the affidavit. I would like to take over the cross examination after my colleague Gawlik is finished with the witness and I shall be very brief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will please remember the statement \"very brief.\" Let the witness come to the stand.\nHANSHAGEN, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me:\nI swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination.\nDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. GAWLIK:\nQ.Give the Tribunal your first and sur-name?\nA.Hans Hagen.\nQ.When and where were you born?\nA.On 21 August 1900. In Lustenau, Vorarlberg, Austria.\nQ.What did you do daring the war?\nA.At the outbreak of the War, I was chief of the Advisory Office for Immigration. Owing to the Fuehrer decree of Octoner 1938 in the Ethnic German Office, the resettlement office was formed. In this department resettlement I took over the administration side.\nQ.What was the mission of this official resettlement?\nA.The department had the mission to, on account of the international agreement with the Soviet Union, resettle Ethnic Germans \n in Wolynion and other Russian territory.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "DR.", "A.", "THE PRESIDENT", "HANS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4731, "page_number": "4724", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.How long were you in charge of the administrational part of this department?\nA.Until the capitulation,\nQ.What was your field of activities and you activity mainly in this office?\nA.My sphere of activities was to reorganize the administrational side of this agency and then to form the individual offices in the administration offices and in the camps, to supply the necessary material in the Finance Ministry, to pass on the order to the administrative chief or, asit were, orders,\nQ.In what way were the monies received and supplied in the Reich Finance Ministry?\nA.They were received in a lump sum via the staff office. It was only the task of the staff office to pass on these amounts to the Finance Ministry, without comment.\nQ.Had the Main Staff Office any power of decision in this matter?\nA.No. Whether the Main Staff Office gave any comment I do not know, nor remember, but the power of the decision was only up to the Finance Ministry.\nQ.Was this directive and regulation maintained at all times during your activity in this office resettlement?\nA.No, in 1941 in the Main Staff Office an official registry or cash office was established competent for the Ethnic German Office. From this date on the official cash office was in the Reich Main Staff Office.\nQ.In what way was the cash office informed about the amounts going in the supplies to the cash office?\nA.The registry had to be reported by the 22nd of the month for the last month. The registration was carried out only for a lump sum \n without giving reason or purpose of the amount in question.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4732, "page_number": "4725", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.Did the administration of the Vomi or the Gau Einstazadministrations have to account for the amounts of the Main administration?\nA.No. Main administration or district administration offices did not have to account for the amounts but only submitted the balance sheets which were put into order according to the titlesof the budget plan.\nQ.Who did the auditing in the department resettlement of Vomi?\nA.At the beginning there were no auditings. The first time these auditings took place, was in 1921 through the main Office of the Reich Auditing Court. The administrations were, of course, audited by the Reich Auditing Court as a rule, but smaller auditings were carried out by the Main Staff Office. This office audited only as far as balances were concerned while the auditing carried out by the Reich Auditing Court was also carried out in factual and supply matters.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4733, "page_number": "4726", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.What do you mean, only cash amounts?\nA.These amounts - by that I mean that only actual money was audited and was compared with the balance sheets. That means the cash on hand was compared with the balance sheet.\nQ.Could the state of affairs be seen from that amounts were actually used there?\nA.No, balance sheets were broken down into sections and items according to the Reich Economic plan but in details it could not actually be seen what the monies were spent for.\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger have anything to do with factual matters dealt with by Vomi or the district office?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you. Were the actual tasks dealt with by Vomi,dependent upon the decision of Schwarzenberger?\nA.No. An approval of Schwarzenberger concerning actual expenses of Vomi was not necessary.\nQ.Was Schwarzenberger informed about the task on hand before they were carried out?\nA.No, that would not have been possible practically because even I was put in front of the fact when it actually had been done.\nQ.Was Schwarzenberger also made administrative chief for Vomi in April 1941?\nA.Yes, based on a directive order which had come through became administrative chief of Vomi, but this regulation was only on paper. Practically this never actually came into effect.\nQ.Was your independence curtailed by the appointment of Schwarzenberger?\nA.No, I still worked independently. In fact, in individual cases in which the main agency of the Main Staff Office, as as the Ethnic German Office Vomi, were concerned, directives were given by Schwarzenberger for the Main Staff office as well as by myself and the Main Staff Office and were signed by us and certified.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4734, "page_number": "4727", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.I am showing you now document No. 4638, exhibit 58. Is this such a directive as you talked about?\nA.Yes, that is the directive and is signed by Schwarzenberger and myself. As becomes evident by the file note, it was made out by myself.\nQ.Are you the originator of this directive?\nA.Yes, that becomes evident as I have already mentioned, from the file note.\nQ.Please look at page 2 of the document where it says - \"It is the duty of all SS agencies to support the DUT in their work.\" Now what are these SS agencies mentioned here?\nA.They are evidently the administration offices in the Ethnic German office. The term SS agency is not correct and I do not know today how at this time it ever occurred to me. I assume that the issuance of this directive was based on correspondence of the DUT in which this agency asked for a directive to this effect and in this I took ever this term from this draft, or shall we say, this correspondence.\nQ.That was meant by that?\nA.What was actually meant; was the administrative agency of the Volksdeutsche Hittelstelle ?\nQ.Did Schwarzenberger since April 1941 have any influence on the administrative office of Vomi?\nA.No.\nQ.Were the office of Vomi department, resettlement, geographically different from the Main Staff Office?\nA.Yes, the offices of the Main Staff office and of Vomi were in different parts of the town of Berlin. As from 1943 the Main Staff Office was in Schweikelberg/lower Bavaria, while Vomi administration office was in Uckermark, Templin.\nQ.How often did Schwarzenberger visit the office of Vomi?\nA.As far as I know, at the most once or twice and that was until 1943. After the offices were so far from each otter, he did not visit it at all.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4735, "page_number": "4728", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Q.On what occasions were these once or twice?\nA.At least there were one years intervals between these two visits.\nQ.Did the Vomi make any payments from these funds they had received from the Main Office , for abducting children?\nA.No.\nQ.To take away children for punitive measures for forbidden sexual intercourse?\nA.No.\nQ.For lessening or prevention of reproduction?\nA.No.\nQ.For forced evacuation?\nA.No.\nQ.For forced Germanization?\nA.No.\nQ.For persecution and elimination of Jews?\nA.No. I know for certain that such payments were never made by Vomi. Vomi had no such task to deal with.\nQ.Did the Vomi send foreign citizens for forced labor to Germany?\nA.No.\nQ.Did Vomi make any payment for supplies of clothing taken away from concentration camp inmates -- those were taken from Jewish inmates or other inmates of a concentration camp?\nA.No, for such matters no payments were made.\nQ.Were payments asked for for such purposes?\nA.No.\nQ.Thank you, your Honor, I have no further questions. EXAMINATION BY DR. SCHUBERT, for the defendant Lorenz:\nQ.The witness has made out an affidavit for the Prosecution, which is Exhibit 580, volume 13-B.\nwitness , in your affidavit you mention a factory in Pavianice. Is it possibly in the neighborhood of Lodz?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4736, "page_number": "4729", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.Yes.\nQ.Resettlers had been settled. According to your affidavit this plant has been a spinning workshop of Polish or Jewish property -\nA.Yes.\nQ.Just a moment, I haven't finished - and it had been seized. Is that correct and did Vomi actually seize this plant?\nA.I think, it becomes evidence from affidavit that this seizure was carried out by the Senior President and not by Vomi. Also I would like to correct concerning the passage \"Polish or Jewish property\" of this factory here, that part. After I made out this affidavit I found out, and I can remember now perfectly well that it was German property which was concerned here. It is the Kindler plant in Pavianice.\nQ.Therefore, the contention that it had been the spinning workshop of Polish or Jewish property, you would not like to maintain.\nA.No, I may say in addition, when I made out the affidavit I have already mentioned that I was not quite clear about this fact, whether Polish or Jewish property, whereupon the interrogating officer told me it was of no importance and I could leave it like that. I had my doubts at the time and especially interested myself and now I know without a doubt that it is the Kindler plant in Pavianice and is German property.\nQ.Under paragraph 4 of your affidavit you speak about the socalled Reinhardt operation. what was that?\nA.I think the operation Reinhardt was, -- I cannot say myself. I got a telephone call from the Main Staff Office on one occasion that I would be accompanied on this operation.\nQ.May I interrupt you -- you say in your affidavit that the WVH A rang you up. I am sorry, I would like to correct that -- is it the WVHA?\nA.What I mean is WVHA.\nQ.Had you ordered this call? Had you actually applied for clothing from such operation Reinhardt?", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4737, "page_number": "4730", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "A.The telephone call had not been ordered by me, and also I certainly had not attempted to get clothes from a certain operation. I tried from all kinds of agencies to be supplied with clothing because it was urgently needed, but I never applied for it from one special operation.\nQ.And the tern operation Reinhardt was not know to you at this time?\nA.Completely unknown.\nQ.You have commented upon this now and we know it from your affidavit that clothing were concerned which cane from concentration camps.\nA.Yes.\nQ.Now what did these clothing look like which actually arrived?\nA.They were partly new pieces of clothing or partly worn. They were put into bunches and even the pieces of clothing which had been worn were clean and in clean condition.\nQ.Now could it have been recognized from these pieces of clothing when they arrived that they originated from concentration camps?\nA.No, that was impossible. On this occasion I would like to point out, that from the same operation Reinhardt I received two car loads full of feathers, bed feathers. Now, I could not believe that such feathers could originate from such an operation.\nQ.How many car loads full did you receive from this so-called operation Reinhardt for Vomi?\nA.Altogether, as I have stated in my affidavit, there must have been 10 to 12 car loads full.\nQ.Witness, are you quite certain - couldn't there have been more?\nA.No, it is quite possible only 10, perhaps 14. I can't say for certain - not under any circumstances were there more than 10 to 12.", "speakers": [ "Q.", "A." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4738, "page_number": "4731", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "QI shall now show you, witness, Exhibit 574, a report by Pohl which is about textile material received from Jewish resettlers according to which the VOMI had received 211 car loads full. Would you take a look at this? Was it the same shipment or was it another one?\nMR. LAMB:Your Honor, this particular counsel here is examining this witness on an affidavit and as I understand it he can just go into what the affidavit says. Now, here he has taken up another document and going into it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel will confine himself to the contents of the affidavit and I must observe that there must be some correction at this point to make in the translation. I understood the word\"briefly\" as it is in our language and as it came through a few minutes ago.\nDR. SCHUBERT:I will so conclude my examination, your Honor. BY DR. SCHUBERT:\nQWitness, you, therefore, still maintain there were 10 to 12 car loads and not 211?\nANo.\nQAll right, did you report about this shipment which you received, to your chief, Lorenz?\nANo.\nQNow, if the VOMI had obtained further car loads full of material, would you have found out about that as Administrative Chief?\nAYes, in any case I would have found out about it because I was the competent man.\nQWitness, in your affidavit you stated, and this is my last question, that you had been Administrative Chief in VOMI. Did you also make payments to Lorenz, as salary, I mean.\nANo, the salary to Lorenz was not paid by my agency, but the Administrative office who received the monies from the Reich Treasury. The VOMI, therefore, had another mediating office who received their money from the Treasury and they paid these amounts.\nQDo you know whether Lorenz received any money from the SS?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A", "DR. SCHUBERT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4739, "page_number": "4732", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "ANo.\nQYour Honor, I have concluded herewith.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the cross-examination.\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. LAMB:\nQAre you familiar with all of the activities of the defendant Schwarzenberger as Chief of the Finance Administration of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism?\nAI did not quite understand this question. May I have it repeated.\nQAre you familiar with all of the duties of the defendant Schwarzenberger while he was Chief of Finance Administration in the office of the Reich Commissar?\nAThe question, as far as I understand it, is whether I was acquainted with the task that Schwarzenberg had to deal with. I am not clear about it, whether I am well acquainted with the tasks which Schwarzenberg or had to deal with in the Main Staff office. That is the way I understood the question.\nQWell, answer it; that is what it was.\nANo, the task of Schwarzenberger in the Reich Main Staff Office I don't know.\nQThe only tiling you know anything about, is his connection with VOMI. That's true, isn't it?\nAYes.\nQYou do know that he had a large staff working for him about 60 or 70 experts, don't you?\nAYes, the figure 60 or 70 I couldn't certify, but I know there were considerable number of people that worked for him but I think perhaps there were a few less than that.\nQSo you didn't know that he dealt with the financial matters for RuSHA, did you?\nANo.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for Lebensborn?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4740, "page_number": "4733", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "ANo.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for DUT?\nAYes, in these matters I only knew that the same cash registry was competent for the same matters, but I was not aware of the fact that Schwarzenberger dealt with these matters.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for DAG?\nANo.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for EWZ?\nANo.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for UWZ?\nANo.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for the Higher SS and Police Leaders and the Gauleiters and Governors of Provinces as they were representatives of the RFKDV?\nANo, I was not aware of that.\nQDid you know that he handled financial matters for Ahnenerbe?\nANo.\nQWhile you were connected with VOMI did you know of its criminal activities?\nANo.\nQI'll ask you this. It was testified here yesterday that the defendant Schwarzenberger had a dispute with the defendant Sollmann over Lebensborn funds. Did you know anything about that dispute?\nANo, I did not know anything about it.\nQSo you are not prepared to testify here today to what extent Schwarzenberger participated in how these funds were to be obtained for these different agencies and how they were going to be spent?\nANo, I could not state any of this.\nQWe have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand. Since it gets down to documents and documents only, I think we will recess. I would \n suggest that during the recess that counsel get together all the documents they have ready, both Prosecution and Defense.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4741, "page_number": "4734", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Now, I understood that probably some of the documents had not been translated. Is that what I understand is true?\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF(Attorney for Dr. Ebner): That is correct, your Honor. Although the documents were submitted to the Translation Department in time, they have not been translated in full yet.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I don't understand that because the dead line was fixed for delivering documents from the Translation Department with today as the closing day in view, as far as they were concerned. I will ask Mr. Lamb to check during the recess with the Translation Department and see what the Status is and while you are talking to them you might tell them if they are not ready today, we must have them Monday morning.\nMR. LAMB:Yes, your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will recess for 15 minutes.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4742, "page_number": "4735", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defense counsel will proceed with the introduction of documents and the Tribunal desires to commend very highly the manner in which the documents were introduced this afternoon.\nDR.SCHUBERT (for the defendant Lorenz): Your Honors , I still have left two document volumes, volumes 3 and 4. I have submitted my first document books in such a manner that I gave every document an exhibit number and I would therefore request the permission of the court to continue in this manner. But , in any case it will only take a very short time.\nIn Document Volume 3, my document No. 59, the affidavit Hoven, I would like to submit as Exhibit 53.\nDocument 53, affidavit by Hensel will become Exhibit 54.\nDocument 58, affidavit by Altene will become Exhibit 55.\nDocument 69, affidavit Schnitzler will become Exhibit 56.\nDocument 72, affidavit Wurdel will become Exhibit 57.\nDocument 62, affidavit Hubloher will become Exhibit 58.\nDocument 60, affidavit Kausch will become Exhibit 59.\nDocument 54, affidavit Dietrich will become Exhibit 60.\nDocument 57, affidavit Sintenis will become Exhibit 61.\nDocument 69, affidavit von Eitmin-Rodse icz will become Exhibit 62.\nDocument 67, affidavit winter will become Exhibit 63.\nDocument 71, affidavit Kalmbach will become Exhibit 64.\nDocument 55, affidavit Guendisch will become Exhibit 65.\nDocument 56, affidavit Haendiger will become Exhibit 67.\nDocument 61, affidavit Hoffmann will become Exhibit 68.\nDocument 64, affidavit Gassenfeit will become Exhibit 69.\nDocument 56, affidavit Riesen will become Exhibit 70.\nDocument 66, affidavit Fabritius will become Exhibit 71.\nDocument 70, excerpt from a book by Professor Nawiasky will become Document 72.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4743, "page_number": "4736", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Document 52, an excerpt from the legal collection of PfundtherHeubert, will become Exhibit 73.\nAnd with that I have concluded Document Book 3. In Document Book 4, with the permission of the court, I would like to submit:\nDocument 77, affidavit von Fragstein will become Exhibit 74.\nDocument 78, affidavit Meyer will become Exhibit 75.\nDocument 76, affidavit Stein will become Exhibit 76.\nDocument 75, affidavit Bachmaiyer will become Exhibit 77.\nDocument 74, affidavit Klante will become Exhibit 78.\nDocument 73, affidavit Schreiner will become Exhibit 79. and with that I have concluded my presentation of documents.\nDR.DOETZER: (for the defendant Brueckner): I have here Document Book No. 2 for the defendant Brueckner. It contains one document , my document No, 40, an affidavit by Professor Schoepke which I would like to present as Exhibit 14; and with that I have concluded my presentation of documents.\nDR.SCHWARZ (for the defendant Hoffmann): Your Honor, I would like to submit two supplementary documents: An appendix to my document book 3-B. This is a supplement consisting of five affidavits concerning the re-Germanization procedure and a letter of Landrat Bieberach, Document Haffmann, 157, which will become Exhibit 149.\nAn affidavit by Auguste von Neh, Hoffmann Document No, 158 will become Exhibit 150.\nHoffmann Document 159, an affidavit by Dr. Gossel will become Exhibit 151.\nDocument Hoffmann No, 160, an affidavit by Heinrich Steingass will become Exhibit 152.\nHoffmann Document No, 161, an affidavit by Lieselotte Scheidhaver will become Exhibit 153.\nThen, I would like to submit a supplementary document collection \n for my Document Volume No. 5. This is only one document.", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4744, "page_number": "4737", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "It is Hoffmann Document 167, a receipt confirmation of Hans Holz which will become Exhibit 154.\nUnfortunately the rest of my documents have not been translated as yet. I could only submit them for identification if the court so desires.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, if you want to submit them for identification then allyou would have to do would be to present the whole volume as I understand it.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Dr. President, I am sorry, that is not possible in the whole content of my presentation of documents. I should prefer to submit them at the time when I shall have the translation if that is all right.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4745, "page_number": "4738", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "DRFROESCHMANN: (Attorney for the Defendant Hildebrandt) Mr, President, I would like to submit from Supplementary Document Book IV, Document 89-A as Exhibit 29, and the documents contained in Document Volume V with Numbers 100 to 114 will be Exhibits 40 to 44.\nDocuments 115 to 126 will become Exhibits 45 to 56, and are contained in Document Volume VI. And Document 127 contained in Document Volume II will become Exhibit 57. With that I have concluded my presentation of documents.\nDR.HAENSEL: (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt) Your Honors, until now I was unable to submit Document Books I and II, and now I should like to submit my Document Book III which has been translated into English already, and I should like to start with the first document of this volume, which is Document No. 2. I would like to correct that, for Document No. 2 has already been identified and submitted.\nI would like to change its number to Document No. 2_A.\nI would now like to submit the documents contained in this volume in the numberical order of these documents, and I would like to suggest that the exhibit numbers be the same numbers as that of the documents. I believe that this would facilitate the survey. Then, Document No, 2 in Document Volume III, therefore, will become Document 2_A, and will also become my Exhibit 2_A. Document 3, Exhibit 3; Document 4, Exhibit 4, and so forth, until the last document of the volume, Document No. 24, which then accordingly becomes Exhibit No. 24.\nWith that I have concluded the presentation of documents contained in Document Book III. Thank you.\nI hope that the contents of these document volumes will please the Court as much as my presentation. I would now like to turn to Document Book II beginning with Document No. 25, and concluding with Document No. 38. I would like to proceed in the same manner and I would like to submit these documents as exhibits with the same number that they have as documents. The first document of this volume, No. 25, accordingly becomes Exhibit 25 and so on until the concluding document which is Document 52, and which, therefore, becomes Exhibit No. 52 -- I \n beg your pardon, it is Document 57, which concludes the volume, and which then receives the Exhibit No. 57.", "speakers": [ "DR", "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4746, "page_number": "4739", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "With that I have presented all the documents contained in this volume.\nUnfortunately two of my document volumes have not been translated yet, and, therefore, I would like to ask permission of the Court to be permitted to give the exhibit numbers whenever the translations arrive.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR.BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) Your Honor, my documents I should like to submit in the manner in which they have been submitted in the Document Book I, II, III and IV, that is in which they are contained in these document books.\nTherefore, I also would like to offer them in their numberical order so that also in my case document numbers will correspond to the exhibit numbers. Document Volume No. I contains Documents 1 to 37. I should like to be permitted to submit these documents as Exhibits 1 to 37. Document Volume II contains Documents 38 to 91; these documents again I should like to submit as Exhibits 38 through 91. Document Volume III contains Documents 92 through 124, and again I should like to submit these documents as Exhibits 92 through 124. My Document Volume IV contains Documents 125 through 161. I ask the Court's permission to submit these documents as Exhibits 125 through 161.\nI would like to say the following concerning my Document Book I. Essentially it contains documents that will facilitate an appreciation of the defendant's personality. Document Volume II then mainly concerns questions of the Central Land Office. My Document Volume III concerns mostly planning. Then, Document Volume IV contains supplements and appendixes, and the documents contained in this volume concern all the contents of Document Volumes I, II and III. With that I have concluded my presentation of documents.\nDR.GAWLIK: (Attorney for the Defendant Schwarzenberger) Your Honor, I am presenting Document Volume I for Schwarzenberger which contains Documents Nos.\n1 to 6, which will also bear the Exhibit Nos.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4747, "page_number": "4740", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "1 to 6; the exhibit numbers correspond to the numbers of the documents.\nI further have Document Volume II which, however, has not been translated as yet, and I would like to reserve the right, if the Court permits, to present this document book later.\nDR.MUELLER: (Attorney for the Defendant Huebner) Your Honor, in connection with my presentation of the case-in-chief, I have submitted my Document No. 29 as Exhibits 1 to 5. I am now submitting this complete document with the further sketch and giving it Nos.\n1 to 6. Subsequently I would like to submit Document Volume I which contains a series of documents that comment upon the personality of the defendant; these are Exhibit Nos. 7 to 26. Document Volume II, which follows now, contains until the Exhibit No. 31, also contains comments upon the personality of the defendant Huebner. The rest of the document book consists of affidavits concerning the position of the defendant Huebener as staff leader. There Exhibits 27 through 47 in Document Volume II. Document Volume III contains the series of affidavits which, concern the activities of the agency of the representative of the RDFDV, and the subordinate offices in Poznan. These are Exhibits 48 through 67; and further more, there also is an excerpt from the bulletin of the chief of the Security Police which concerns the competency in evacuation matters, which is Exhibitt No. 68.\nDocument Volume III then contains altogether Exhibit Nos. 38 to 69.\nAs exhibits in Document Volume IV I am submitting a series of affidavits which concern the activities of the defendant Huebner in his capacity as RuS leader, and also concern special subjects touched upon in the course of this trial. These are Exhibits 69 through 87.\nMy Document Volume V contains a series of excerpts from official decrees and from various essays.\nI am not submitting Huebener Document No. 83 contained in this volume, since this document has been submitted by the Prosecution in the course of this trial; I believe it was in the course of the cross examination \n of one of the witnesses.", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4748, "page_number": "4741", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "This document volume contains my Exhibits 88 through 100.\nTherewith I have concluded my presentation of documents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4749, "page_number": "4742", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "DR.BRENNER: (Counsel for the defendant Creutz) With the permission of the Court, I am submitting document volume Creutz I, containing documents Nos. 1 through 21, and with the permission of the Court, I would ask that these documents be given the Exhibit Nos. 1 through 21, corresponding to the documents themselves.\nI would like to point out that there is an error in translation in Document 9, Exhibit 9. In the translation the signature of \"Greifelt\" has been used instead of \"Greiser\". The correct signature should read \"Greiser.\"\nDocument volume Creutz II, unfortunately, has not yet been completely translated and I would ask the Court's permission to reserve the right of presenting it when it is ready.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that all the documents the defense have ready?\nDR.SCHMIDT (Counsel for the defendant Tesch): Your Honor, I would like to submit Document Volume I for the defendant Tesch. This volume contains documents Nos. 1 through 29. I would like to exclude, from this submission of documents, document No. 13, an affidavit of the witness.Dr. Staude, because this witness was examined here on the witness stand. I am submitting this whole document book as Exhibit No. 1 for the defendant Tesch.\nFurthermore, I now submit Document volume II for Tesch, which contains documents Nos. 30 and 31. I am submitting this document volume as Tesch Exhibit No. 2.\nThank you: I have finished.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF (Counsel for the defendant Ebner): Way it please the Court, I have here two document volu,es, the first of which has already been translated. It contains Ebner documents 1 to 10. The only document that I do not wish to submit at this tine is document No. 5. I do not wish to submit it at this time. The entire Document Book I will become Exhibit No. 1.\nThe second volume, which has not wet beer translated, I would like to \n submit for identification.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4750, "page_number": "4743", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "It contains Ebner documents 11 to 19. I do not wish to submit document No. 17, which is an affidavit of the witness Ducker, since this man was examined on the witness stand this morning. I am submitting document volume II as Ebner Exhibit No. 3 for identification.\nTherewith I have concluded my presentation of documents at this time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that all for the defense?\n(No response)\nDoes the Prosecution have any documents which are ready to present?\nMR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, the documents that we identified during the course of the defense's case have all been translated, as have all the documents that we expect to introduce in rebuttal, but these documents have not been assembled yet, and they will be ready Monday morning we feel sure.\nHow, with reference to the witnesses which we expect to introduce in rebuttal, there are only three witnesses. And this occurred to me--I wanted to submit it to the Tribunal. These witnesses are expected here on Monday afternoon, and we, of course, would try to get them here sooner, but it is very doubtful whether we will be able to do so or not, because they live some distance from here; and if we could agree that we would not introduce any evidence by these witnesses which would give the defense the right of a surrebuttal, and if we could agree that we could, put their testimony in within a certain number of hours during the day, whether or not the Court would allow us to recess until Tuesday morning, and then we could put our documents and our witnesses on in a very short time.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I would make this suggestion to you. Personally, I do not see how there could be any chance for surrebuttal, for the reason that the Tribunal will not permit the Prosecution to use any evidence except that which is strictly in rebuttal. You have aday, one day, in which to offer your rebuttal testimony. It occurs to me that we night comply with your request if you would agree to get your rebuttal evidence in in one-half day, so that there would be a half day left in \n case there should be any surrebuttal.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4751, "page_number": "4744", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "MR. LAMB:Well, your Honor, what I had in mind was this: I think we can control the situation with reference to surrebuttal if we don't offer any testimony which they would he entitled to a surrebuttal on. A half day is pretty short; if we could use, say, three-quarters of a day, and give the defense a quarter for their cross-examination, and so forth.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I am inclined to agree with you myself, that I cannot see how there can be any possibility of surrebuttal. I never board of it before, but they night think so. Now, so far as the documents are concerned, there is no excuse for then not being ready to be introduced now, just like the defense have just finished introducing theirs,,except that somebody just hasn't looked after the job. Now, you are not only prolonging this trial, but there is another court with the judges and the personnel all here ready to go, waiting for this courtroom. So whether we know it or not now, when we got our income tax returns we will find out it costs something to operate these courts.\nThe Tribunal will do this about it. We will give you until Monday at noon in which to get your documents and your witnesses, and we will start Monday afternoon and hear whatever rebuttal you have; and whatever you expect to use, you had better try to get it here at that time.\nSo you have nothing to offer now, as I understand it?\nMR. LAMB:No, sir; no.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30 Monday.\nOh, just a moment, please.\nDR.RATZ (Counsel for the defendant Sollmann): Your Honor, with the. permission of the Court, I would like to submit, in brief, my document volumes.\nI am submitting document volume No. I for Max Sollmann, containing documents Sollmann 1 through 9, as Exhibit Sollmann 1.\nI am further submitting document volume II, on behalf of the defendant \n Sollmann, consisting of documents Sollmann Nos.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4752, "page_number": "4745", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "10 through 25. Document No. 10 will not be submitted by me. This volume will become Exhibit No. 2.\nDocument volume III for Max Sollmann, containing documents Sollmann Nos, 26 through 36, I shall submit, with the exception of document Sollmann 26, as my Exhibit Sollmann No. 3.\nDocument volume IV on behalf of the defendant Sollmann contains documents Sollmann Nos. 37 through 44, and will become my Exhibit Sollmann No. 4.\nDocument volume V on behalf of the defendant Sollmann contains the documents Sollmann Nos 45 through 50, and will be submitted by me as my Exhibit Sollmann No. 5.\nDocument volume VI on behalf of Max Sollmann contains documents Sollmann 51 through 62, and will become Exhibit 6, with the exception of document Sollmann 56.\nDocument volume VII, on behalf of the defendant Sollmann, contains documents Sollmann 63 through 68, and will become Sollmann Exhibit No. 7.\nDocument volume VIII, on behalf of the defendant Max Sollmann, contains documents Sollmann 69 through documents Sollmann 80-A. This will become my Exhibit No. 8, with the execution of Sollmann document No. 74, which I will not submit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4753, "page_number": "4746", "date": "30 January 1947", "date_iso": "1947-01-30", "text": "Document Volume 9 on behalf of Max Sollmann contains Documents 81A through 99. With the exceptions of Documents Sollmann 82, 85 and 88, this document volume will become Sollmann Exhibit No. 9.\nDocument Volume 10 on behalf of defendant Max Sollmann contains the documents 100 through 121. With the exception of Sollmann 103 through 105 this document volume will be submitted by me -- I beg your pardon 103 and 105, not through 105. I shall submit this document volume as Sollmann Exhibit No. 10.\nThese are my ten exhibit numbers. I would like to ask the permission of the court to submit an individual document later on. This is an amended certificate for Sollmann which does not need to be translated, and therefore was not submitted by me for translation. At the moment I do not have this document at hand, and with the permission of the court I would like to submit that on Monday.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We will hear from you about that Monday afternoon. Has anybody else come in with documents?\n(No response.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty Monday morning. Of course you will notice I said nine-thirty. I meant onethirty Monday afternoon.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 2 February 1948, at 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4754, "page_number": "4747", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of American against Greifelt et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 2 February 1948, 1330-1630, Justice Lee Wyatt Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in court.\nDR.RATZ (for defendant Sollmann): May it please the Tribunal, at this time I would like to offer my last document which I was unable to submit last Friday. This is Sollmann Document No. 122 which I would like to offer as Sollman Exhibit No. 11. This is an American certificate on behalf of Sollmann.\nDR.HAENSEL(for defendant Greifelt): May I now conclude my presentation of documents at this time? Now Document Book I has been translated. From Document Book I the following documents have not as yet been offered; Greifelt Document No. 58 to 82 which I now offer as Exhibits with the same numbers, 58 to 82. From Document Book 4 which now also has been translated I now want to offer the Greifelt documents 83 to 97 which are contained in it and these documents will receive the same Exhibit numbers, 83 to 97. A supplementary document book 5 contains three documents and I now want to offer them. These are Greifelt Documents No. 98 to 100 which I shell offer with the same exhibit numbers, 98 to 100, so we have achieved the round figure of 100.\nDR.MERKEL(for defendant Creutz): Your Honor at this time I would like to offer the documents in my second document book which has been translated by now. These are documents 22 to 49 and including 49 and they will also receive the current exhibit numbers 22 to 49. I have now concluded my presentation of the documents.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4755, "page_number": "4748", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DR.HEIM (for defendant Schwalm): If the Tribunal please I now would like to present my documents for the defendant Schwalm. I now offer Schwalm documents 1 to 30 as Exhibit numbers 1 to 30. They are contained in Document Book I on behalf of the defendant Schwalm. These documents contain charts and they also represent affidavits with regard to the personality of the defendant Schwalm and this document book further contains fundamental documents with regard to all the counts contained in the indictment. I further want to offer Schwalm Document No. 31 to and including 77 as exhibits with the same numbers. These documents deal with the activities of RuSHA, above all with regard to the counts 20 and 21 of the indictment. I further want to offer Schwalm Documents No. 78 to and including 115 and they will receive the same exhibit numbers. These documents are contained in Document Book 3. These documents deal exclusively with the subject regarding count 16 of the indictment; with regard to the same count of the indictment, 16, Schwalm Document No. 116- to 125 will also be offered. They will become exhibits 116 to 125. These documents are contained in Document Book 3-A for the defendant Schwalm. Document Book 4 contains Schwalm documents 126 to and including 164. These documents will be given the same exhibit numbers. All these documents deal with count 18 of the indictment. I further want to offer Schwalm documents No. 165 to and including 176 and these documents will receive the exhibit numbers of 165 to 176. These documents are contained in Document Book 5. These documents deal with the question of the observation and the compliance with racial principles in regard to the control of ethnic problems. The last document book for the defendant Schwalm that is Document Book 5-A, contains documents 177 to and including document 200, and I offer these documents with the same exhibit numbers of 177 to 200. The documents deal with the same subject as those which are contained in Document Book 5. With that I have concluded my presentation of documents on behalf of the defendant Schwalm.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any further documents to be offered by the defense?", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4756, "page_number": "4749", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DR.SCHWARZ (for the defendant Hofmann): I still have several documents which are still being translated at this time. I hope that these documents will be completely translated by tomorrow and if the Tribunal please I shall submit them tomorrow.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I don't understand that. I had an absolute assurance from the Translation Department that all documents would be translated by this morning. Have you checked?\nDR. SCHWARZ:I want to enquire during the recess, your Honor. Up to now I have not been notified as yet that the documents have been translated. After the recess I shall inform the Tribunal the result of my enquiries.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I wish you would make enquiry at recess because I was assured that they would all be ready this morning.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Very well your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the rebuttal on the part of the Prosecution.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF(for the defendant Ebner): Your Honor, in the Last session I only offered my second document book for identification because at that time its translation bad not yet been completed. Now that all of my document books have been translated may I offer it finally at this time?\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. Go ahead with the rebuttal for the Prosecution.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the Prosecution at this time would like to make a statement with respect to the defendant Hildebrandt. We wish to have it clearly set forth in the record that for the period from 1 September 1939 until April 1943, at which time the defendant Hildebrandt became chief of RuSHA, the only charge against the defendant Kildebrandt is the Euthanasia charge contained in paragraph No. 22 of the Indictment. We make no other charges against him for that period when he was Higher SS and Police Leader and representative of the RKFDV in Danzig - West Prussia. I should now like to take the documents which \n have been offered for identification during the cross examinations and offer these documents finally in evidence.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. SCHWARZ", "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4757, "page_number": "4750", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "The simplest way to do this is simply to state that the Prosecution Exhibit785to Prosecution Exhibit 853 inclusive are new offered in evidence with one exception: Prosecution Exhibits 787 and 788 are the two volumes of the Menscheneinsatz which have been discussed at length in this court room. However, it has proved impractical to have ever 500 pages of those two volumes translated at this time. Therefore, certain excerpts are now being offered instead of the full volumes. Thus, instead of the full volume, part 2, which is Prosecution Exhibit787I now offer the excerpts labeledNO 3531(f), the excerpt NO 3531(ff), and excerpt NO 3531(ee); and instead ofNO 3531, part 1, which was Prosecution Exhibit788I offer excerptsNO 531(v), the excerpt NO 3531(cc), the excerpt 3531(aa), 3531(dd), 3531(bb).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4758, "page_number": "4751", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "The Prosecution has certain rebuttal documents which we wish to offer. There has been a slight mechanical delay in the exhibits which should be here in five or ten minutes and at that time I will offer these documents. However, now we would like to call the rebuttal witness Lavitan.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness come to the stand and while he is coming I want to caution counsel that this is strictly rebuttal. Do not go into anything that is not strictly in rebuttal to something that has been brought out in the course of the evidence on behalf of the defense.\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, your Honor.\nDR.FROESCHMANN (for the defendant Hildebrandt): Your Honor, the Prosecution has just made the statement that it would charge the defendant Hildebrant only for his activities in Danzig-West Prussia, as far as his participation in the euthanasia program is concerned. They want to keep him responsible for the participation in the euthanasia. I am extremely surprised about the fact that the Prosecution at this time limits the charge to a single incident after the defense has taken the trouble to refute all the activities of the defendant Hildebrant in DanzigWest Prussia as contained in the counts of the indictment. Against a number of defendants the charge has been raised here that through their collaboration they have participated in the extermination program concerning the nations in the occupied territories by furnishing race and settlement examiners and of having participated in some other way. We went into all these details in our presentation of the evidence. I can only only explain the fact in such a way that the Prosecution is playing a game here which cannot be called quite above-board. The defendant Hildebrandt did what other men in other situations also did and if he is being exempted from his activities in Western Prussia then this is only done because in this way he can be extradited to Poland. I protest against the fact that now after the presentation of the case in chief has been completed now suddenly jurisdiction is to be taken away from the Tribunal and jurisdiction about his activities to be transferred to some other court. That is what I would \n have included in the record at this time.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4759, "page_number": "4752", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the rebuttal testimony.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal I should like to call a different rebuttal witness instead of the witness Lavitan who is not here. I should like to call the rebuttal witness Wilhelm Sydower.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness come to the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, this witness is being called strictly to rebut the testimony of the defense witness Herbert Aust who testified before this Tribunal on 12 January 1948.\nWILHELMSYDOWER, a witness, took the stand and testified as follows: BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQThe witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\nA (The witness repeated the oath.)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the examination. BY MR. SHILLER:\nDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQWitness, what is your full name?\nAMy name is Willy Sydower.\nQWhen and where were you born?\nAI was born on 24 July 1894 at Roseck in the District of Deutsch-Krone.\nQAre you of the Jewish faith?\nAYes.\nQIs your wife Jewish, witness?\nANo, she is not; she is of mixed blood. Her grandfather was Jewish.\nQWitness, did you leave Germany in 1939?\nAYes.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "WILHELM", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4760, "page_number": "4753", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Any dispute about that? On this personal history I don't know that there is any rebuttal about that. Let's get down to the facts. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQVery well your Honor. Witness, where were you in the Spring of 1944?\nAAt Brussels, in Belgium.\nQDid you have to wear the Star of David?\nAI didn't wear it.\nQOn what basis did you get an exception to the rule that Jews that badge?\nAAt the time the decree had been issued that if a partner in the marriage was of Christian faith, that is of Aryan descent as it was called at the time, then the other partner did not have to wear the Star and I said that this was the case with me although that was not correct.\nQIn a very few words what did it mean to have to wear the Star of David at that time?\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is not in rebuttal of any testimony that I know of that has been delivered in this case, the question of who had to wear it and why. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQVery well, your Honor. Witness will you please tall the Tribunal the story of your effort to avoid wearing the Star of David in the Spring of 1944?\nJUDGE O:CONNELL: Would you be good enough to point out for my guidance what part of the testimony of Aust you seek to rebus?\nMR. SHILLER:On the 12 January 1948 the defense witness Aust testified that he had seen a Mrs. Sydower and a Mr. Sydower because Mr. Sydower was making efforts to avoid wearing the badge of David; he testified further about the question of sterilization in connection with Mr. Sydower, the witness here present.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "JUDGE O", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4761, "page_number": "4754", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "JUDGE O:CONNELL: Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:What do you seek to disprove that he testified about?\nMR. SHILLER:Your Honor, the witness Aust on that date testified that Mr. Sydower, of his own volition, brought up the question of sterilization and stated that he was willing to be sterilized in order to remain married to his wife and without having to wear the Star of David.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let's get right down to that question without circling all over Europe. That is the only question before the Tribunal then.\nBY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, did you and your wife go to see a Mr. Aust in Brussels?\nAYes, that was in the year 1944.\nQWitness, will you please tell the Tribunal the conversation which Mr. Aust had with you in connection specifically with the point of sterilization?\nAI had been exempted by the Army Headquarters as the result of the statement that my wife was of purely Aryan descent. This exemption was prolonged from case to case, sometimes for a week and sometimes for a few months. But, now I was to submit complete proof that my wife was of purely Aryan descent. I was unable to submit this proof and I did not want to do so because after all her grandfather had been a full Jew, The Field Headquarters, however, did not want to grant me the exemption any more if I did not submit this proof. In order to achieve that the Field Headquarters referred us to the Race office or whatever the name of the agency was, My wife did all this and met Mr. Aust there. She submitted her case and told him that we were unable to furnish the complete proof that was required. I do not knew the exact conversation that took place because I wasn't there. I never visited these offices. I was waiting for her outside at the time. Then suddenly my wife came out and she told me that Herr \n Aust there with whom she had talked had put before her the question of whether or not I was willing to have myself sterilized and I myself had had to answer this questions and for this reason I would have he appear there personally.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE O" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4762, "page_number": "4755", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "My wife said that nothing else could be done; that I would have to enter the office, which I then actually did. On that occasion I also talked to Herr Aust and in the course of our discussion Herr Aust put this question before me. However, my wife had already prepared me for what was coming and I told them that this question was somewhat of a surprise to me and so sudden I couldn't comment or it for the moment. In any case all I wanted to do was to gain time. I didn't say that then, I say it now.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4763, "page_number": "4756", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "Then Herr Aust told me whether in principle I refused go comply with this measure or something to that affect; thenI told him I do not refuse to comply with it, but first I have to consider the matter. I can't decide right away. The purpose why I said that was because I wanted the inquiries to go on pending, and so that the matter would be delayed, and I succeeded in doing so. However, the racial office must of here discovered that my previous statements were not correct because toward the end of August, 1944 I received a letter from the CFK that I had to come there, together with my exemption certificate. On one Monday my wife went there - -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, wait a minute, witness. What is the name of the witness that testified?\nMR. SHILLER:Aust. A-u-s-t.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, don't tell anything that happened out of the presence of the witness Aust; just simply tell what transpired between you-\nAWell, -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, wait a minute.\nAYes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Letters you received from other sources and conversations you had with other people are not admissible here now. All that you can tell is what transpired between you and Aust.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal. I believe the witness has now covered that point adequately and the Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any cross examination of this witness?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. HEIM:(Attorney for the Defendant Schwalm)\nQWitness, was any immediate pressure exerted on you in order to visit that agency at Brussels?\nAYes. Otherwise my exemption wouldn't be extended any more. I had to go there so that the racial office would be able to furnish the proof \n for me, and they were to make additional inquiries about that because I was unable to furnish the certificate about my wife's grandfather and I didn't want to do so either.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4764, "page_number": "4757", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QDid the OFK tell you that the agency of Herr Aust was competent for this matter?\nAYes, they told me that he was competent.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I will have to remind this Counsel just what I told Counsel for the Prosecution. The only subject of this inquiry is the conversations he had with the witness Aust -- nobody else. BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, from Document Book XIII-A of the Prosecution, I am now going to hand you the DocumentNO-1494, Exhibit 556.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Is that a conversation with Aust? Does that refer to a conversation with the witness Aust?\nDR. HEIM:This letter was dictated by Herr Aust in the presence of the witness, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well. BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, was this letter which you have before you now as a document dictated by Herr Aust in your presence?\nAI don't know that; I know nothing about it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any other questions? BY DR. HEIM:\nQWitness, can you still remember the day when you had this discussion?\nAIt was in 1944, but I can't recall the exact date any more; it may have been in April or May.\nQIs that date correct?\nAI don't know that exactly.\nQDoes this date agree with the date on the document?\nAYes. It is stated 27th May, but I can't say that precisely; I cannot tell you that at all.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. HEIM", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4765, "page_number": "4758", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QDid Aust state toward you that he was acting upon his own decision in order to help you?\nAAfter all, I went there myself; why should Aust have a free decision to help. I had been sent there by the field headquarters.\nQIn the course of the discussions did Aust tell you that he was competent for this matter?\nAI don't know that, but I assume he was competent. After all the agency wasn't very big there.\nQDidn't you on your own initiative make the suggestion that perhaps you would be willing voluntarily to subject yourself to sterilization?\nAThat would be the same thing for me as if I volunteered for the gas chamber; that is all I can answer you; how could I make such a suggestion?\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, I consider it important and appropriate in order to shorten the trial if I would be given the opportunity to recall the witness Aust, who is located in the prison here, and to confront this witness with him.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We can't go on here always with one man saying yes I did, and the other man saying no, I didn't.\nDR. HEIM:Your Honor, then I request permission that in the rebuttal of the Defense I can recall the witness Aust in the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You can do anything but get a denial of what he said which is already done. Any other questions for this witness?\nDR. HEIM:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nEXAMINATION BY THE PRESIDENT:\nQMr. Witness, were you, as a matter of fact, ever sterilized?\nANo, I was not.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I would like to ask Counsel what is the number of that document you referred to.\nDR. HEIM:This was DocumentNO-1494, Exhibit 556. It is contained \n in Document Book XIII-A of the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "A", "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4766, "page_number": "4759", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "JUDGEO'CONNELL: Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, I would like one short question.\nREDIRECT EXAMINTION BY MR. SHILLER:\nQWitness.\nAYes.\nQHow did you escape sterilization? By going underground, or, what, witness?\nANo. Toward the end of August I was told by the OFK that I should turn in my exemption certificate. Thereupon I hid immediately.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute. You are just going into the very things I said you couldn't. Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. NEELY:May it please Your Honor, before calling this witness, I would like to state the purpose of calling the next witness in rebuttal. Repeatedly the Defense has been, and particularly the testimony of the defense witness Bartels, has been that the child action, the Germanization of children, was of a very limited scope, of approximately 200, of approximately 200 to 300 children involved in this scope. At this time I would like to call the witness Loues Lavitan, specialist in the field of child search as to the number of children who had been brought into the American zone of Germany.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, I caution you, as I did the other Counsel, this is rebuttal testimony and must be restricted to a denial of something specifically testified to by some witness for the Defense. We cannot open up the general field.\nMR. NEELY:Yes, Your Honor.\nLOUESLAVITAN, a witness for the Prosecution, took the stand and testified as follows:", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "MR. NEELY", "LOUES", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4767, "page_number": "4760", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "BY THE PRESIDENT:The witness will raise his right hand and repeat after me: I swear by God, the Almighty and Omniscient, that I will speak the pure truth and will withhold and add nothing.\n(The witness repeated the oath.)\nProceed with the examination.\nDR.SCHMIDT: (Attorney for the Defendant Tesch) Your Honor, I would like to object to the subject on which the witness is to be interrogated.\nThe witness Bartels only commented upon the number of children who in line with Decree 67-1 were sent into homes of the district self-administration Poznan. However, he did not specify or speak of any total number of children who were to become Germanized, and especially not with regard to other areas and territories. The Prosecution has stated that with this witness it will repudiate the statements of Bartels, and he is to testify about the total number of children who were to become Germanized. I cannot see just how this witness can testify in rebuttal.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, in this connection the Decree 67-1 states no number. The purpose of this is to rebut the limited number of children which did come in under 67-1.\nTHEPRESIDENT: 67-1 recites no number. I don't see how any number could be in rebuttal to it.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, that is just the purpose. May be I have been misunderstood, but I would like to repeat the reason of calling this witness again. As we have said, 67-1 was to bring children under the Germanization program. The witness Bartels stated that this number which fell under 67-1 was very limited, as to approximately 280 children.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, I can't remember all the testimony that has been delivered in this case by a lot. I don't remember exactly what he said, and I do not have it before me, so I don't know new to rule upon it unless I know what the testimony is. I should have been prepared. I will limit you to what he knows what came into Lebensborn.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "THE", "BY THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4768, "page_number": "4761", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, would you please state your name and your profession?\nALoues Lavitan; my profession is public welfare administration.\nQAnd what is your present position today?\nAI am at present director for the U.S. Zone of the IRO Tracing Children Search Division.", "speakers": [ "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4769, "page_number": "4762", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QAnd in your work, in connection with child search, what offices, what German agencies hasit come to your attention that was involved with the taking of these children; and will you please state where this information came from?\nAIn the course of the past year and a half the tracing child search division has discovered certain documents and has heard statements by little children, by certain German foster parents, and by neighbors of such foster parents, which have disclosed to us about seven German organizations which in one way or another have been connected with the selection, the training, the institutionalization -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Witness, the only thing that the Tribunal is interested in now is what you know about the number of children that came in through Lebensborn; that is all.\nMR. NEELY:Your Honor, ---\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: I have been refreshing my mind by looking at such notes as I have made, and my recollection and the notes that I have before me is that it has been testified that 167 children were brought into Lebensborn. Isn't the issue in rebuttal whether that is correct or whether there was more or loss? BY MR. NEELY:\nQWitness, I only have one question to you. How many children of foreign nationality have been located by your department and of this number, how many were children who were under the custody at a former time of Lebensborn?\nAA few less than ten thousand children have been located by us, and have either been repatriated or in stages of repatriation. Of these we have complete evidence on exactly 340 as having been in the hands of the Lebensborn at one time or another.\nQNow, I would like to ask you in this connection: You are speaking only of the American Zone of Germany; is that correct?\nAI am speaking only of the U. S. Zone of Germany.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "JUDGE", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4770, "page_number": "4763", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "MR. NEELY:Your Honor, we have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any cross examination for this witness?\nCROSS EXAMINATION BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF: (Attorney for the Defendant Ebner)\nQWitness, can you tell us something about the various nationality of children to whom you have just referred who were under the care of the Lebensborn according to your testimony?\nAThe largest percentage of these children, I think about 210 are of Polish nationality. The rest include Yugoslav, Czech and I believe French.\nQAccording to the experiences which you have had, the testimony of a witness who stated that the number of children who came under the care of the Lebensborn from the Warthegau, at the most 80, then is correct?\nAI am sorry -- I didn't understand your question.\nQI will repeat my question.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Counsel, we will have four days for arguments; let's wait until we get around to that for argument. BY DR. THIELE-FREDERSDORF:\nQWare you also able to find children of Norwegian nationality?\nAYes.\nQAnd then these children are included in your number which you mentioned to us?\nAI think the exact number is eighteen.\nDR.THIELE-FREDERSDORF: Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let the witness retire from the stand.\nMR. SHELLER:If the Tribunal please, I should like at this time to offer the Prosecution Rebuttal documents. In Prosecution Document Book, Rebuttal A, we should like to offer the documents as follows: In the order in which they come in the books.", "speakers": [ "MR. NEELY", "DR.", "MR. SHELLER", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4771, "page_number": "4764", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "Document No.NO-5640is now offered as Prosecution Exhibit No. 854.\nDocument No.NO-4817as Prosecution Exhibit855.\nDocument No.NO-5544as Prosecution Exhibit856.\nDocument No.NO-5381as Prosecution Exhibit857.\nDocument No.NO-5535as Prosecution Exhibit No.858.\nDocument No.NO-5554as Prosecution Exhibit859.\nDocument No. D-955 as Prosecution 860.\nDocument No. NO_2566 as Exhibit No. 861.\nDocument No.NO-5589as Exhibit No. 862.\nDocument No.NO-5564as Exhibit No. 863.\nDocument NoNO-5720as Exhibit No. 864.\nDocument No.NO-5721as Exhibit 865.\nDocument No.NO-5711as Exhibit No. 866.\nDocument No.NO-5547as Exhibit No. 867.\nDocument No.NO-5548as Exhibit No. 868.\nDocument No.NO-5546as Exhibit No. 869.\nDocument No.NO-5601as Exhibit 870.\nDocument No.NO-5559as Exhibit No. 871.\nDocument No.NO-5839as Exhibit No. 872.\nDocument No.NO-2862as Exhibit No. 873.\nDocument No.NO-5630as Exhibit No. 874.\nDocument No. 2640-PS as Exhibit No. 875.\nDR.SCHUBERT: (Attorney for the Defendant Lorenz) May it please the Tribunal I want to object to three documents which have just been offered as exhibits, Exhibits 873, 874 and 875 because they do not constitute rebuttal.\nIn the first document -\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, Mr. Counsel, you needn't worry about that; just wait until he gets through. Wait until he gets through with all the documents and let the Court rule; I think we will save a little time.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4772, "page_number": "4765", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "MR. SHILLER:Document No.NO-5719as Prosecution Exhibit876.\nNO-5853as Prosecution Exhibit877.\nNO-5852as Exhibit 878.\nNO-5390as Exhibit 879.\nNO-5875as Exhibit 880.\nNO-1495as Exhibit 881.\nNO-4743as Exhibit 882.\nNO-5809as Exhibit 883.\nNO-5872as Exhibit 884.\nNO-4318as Exhibit 885.\nNO-4320as Exhibit 886.\nNO-511as Exhibit 887.\nNO-5832as Exhibit 888.\nNO-5829as Exhibit 889.\nNO-5822as Exhibit 890.\nNO-5823as Exhibit 891.\nNO-4981as Exhibit 892.\nNO-5817as Exhibit 893.\nNO-5309as Exhibit 894.\nNO-4641as Exhibit 895.\nNO-5818as Exhibit 896.\nNO-5819as Exhibit 897.\nNO-5813as Exhibit 898.\nNO-5734as Exhibit 899.\nNO-5739as Exhibit 900.\nNO-5737as Exhibit 901.\nAnd then in Document Rebuttal, B, DocumentPS-1061a Prosecution Exhibit -- I am sorry, Your Honor, I have two more documents in this document book.\nNO-5738as Exhibit 902.\nNO-5731as Exhibit 903.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4773, "page_number": "4766", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "And then in Document Book Rebuttal B, 1061-PS as Exhibit 904.\nThat concludes the rebuttal documents.\nTHE PRESIDENT:That is all of the documentsthat you have to offer in rebuttal as I understand?\nMR SHILLER:That is correct.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal makes this ruling about those documents, that is all the documents offered by the Prosecution in rebuttal, that is since the conclusion of the case in chief will be allowed filed, but will be considered by the Tribunal only insofar as they are strictly in rebuttal to some testimony offered by the Defense, Any matters contained in any of these documents that are not strictly in rebuttal to the to the Defense testimony will not be considered by the Tribunal at all.\nThat meets your objection there, Mr. Counsel", "speakers": [ "MR SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4774, "page_number": "4767", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DR. SCHUBERT:Yes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Anything else for the Prosecution?\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, we have presented all our rebuttal documents and two of our three rebuttal witnesses. We have one more rebuttal witness who is scheduled to arrive this afternoon on the Orient Express. I don't know whether he has come or not. If the Tribunal will grant us an adjournment until tomorrow morning, we could put him on the stand at that time\nTHE PRESIDENT:I am very sorry. The Defense, in a number of instances, have had to forego their witnesses because they were not here. Now, if the Prosecution's witness is not here, the Tribunal will not recess in order to get him here. It did not do that for the Defense, and we will not do it for the Prosecution.\nMR. SHILLER:May I point out to the Tribunal -- I don't wish to argue the point, I would merely like to explain that thus witness is arriving from France, that arrangements have been made some time in the past, which could not be altered as late as last Friday afternoon, that the witness, if here, could be taken care of in a very short time tomorrow morning.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I remember very well that Defense counsel, several of them, ran into the same trouble; so did I when I was practicing law. I didn't get my witnesses there in time sometimes, and I just didn't get to use them.\nLR. SHILLER:If it please the Tribunal, may I request an adjournment until after the afternoon recess, so that I may find out if the witness is here, and, if it is at all possible, put him on, and we could then put him on at that time. It would be a pity to have the man come from France and, for lack of half an hour, not be able to put him on the witness stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The pity is that he wasn't here on time.\nMR. SHILLER:All I am asking for now, Your Honor, is one \n half hour.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "LR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHUBERT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4775, "page_number": "4768", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:I heard what you asked for.\nWell, it is the view of the Tribunal that the witness should have been here. He is not here.\nAnything else?\nDR SHILLER:The Prosecution has no further evidence in rebuttal, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, there was one counsel for the Defense who did not have his documents. Have you found out-about your documents?\nDR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, up until now I have not had the opportunity to inquire. I wanted to use the recess in order to make my inquiries.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well, since everybody wants a little recess, I reckon we will have to have it. We will recess and, incidentally, you can see if you can fish your witness out of France during this time.\nWe will recess until 3:15 (A recess was taken).", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "DR SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4776, "page_number": "4769", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal is again in session. Has the prosecution anything else to offer?\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the prosecution has no further rebuttal evidence.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Very well.\nDR. SCHWARZ:May I please continue with my presentation of documents, Your Honor? I am now coming to my Document Book VIII and I begin with my second document, No. 149. I am submitting the numbers in their numerical order. This means my document No. 149 as Exhibit 155, Document 150 as Exhibit 156, Document 151 as Exhibit 157, Document 152 as Exhibit 158, Document 173 as Exhibit 159, my Document No. 184 as Exhibit 160, Document 153 as Exhibit 161, Document 154 as Exhibit 162, Document 155 as Exhibit 163, Document 150 as Exhibit 164, Document 172 as Exhibit 165, Document 173 as Exhibit 166, Document 185 as Exhibit 167, Document 186 as Exhibit 168, Document No. 168 as Exhibit 169, Document 180 as Exhibit 170, Document No. 183 as Exhibit No. 171, Document No. 169 as Exhibit 172, Document No. 170-A and -B I submit as Exhibit 173, Document No. 171 will become Exhibit 174, Document No. 174 will become Exhibit 175, Document No. 175 will become Exhibit 176, Document No. 176 will become Exhibit 177, Document 177 will become Exhibit 178, Document No. 178 then will become Exhibit 179, Document No. 179 will become Exhibit 180, Document No. 181 will become Exhibit 181,Document No. 182 will become Exhibit 182, and Document No. 184 will become Exhibit 183 and therewith I have concluded my Document Book VIII.\nI am now turning to an appendix to my Document Book IV. I would like to correct myself before. In the case of the last document, this is Document 184-A which will become Exhibit 183. Document No. 184-A.\nAnd now I should like to turn to the supplementary Document Book IV, of which No. 148 has been submitted for identification as Exhibit 27. And herewith I should like to submit this in a final amnner. The next docu ment, No. 162, will be submitted by me as Exhibit 184. Furthermore, Document 163 I shall submit as Exhibit 185, Document 164 will become Exhibit \n 186, Document No. 165 will become 187, and Document No. 166 will become 188.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "DR. SCHWARZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4777, "page_number": "4770", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "There another supplement. That is Document 187 which will be Exhibit 189. In this connection I should like to make the following comment: the translation of this document has not been concluded, although this document was submitted for translation at the beginning of January. But I believe that this translation will be concluded as soon as possible. This is the Decree 66-1.\nIn conclusion to my presentation of documents, I would like to withdraw two exhibits. They are Exhibit 17, an affidavit, by Roth, and my Exhibit 18, also an affidavit, given by Pflueger. In the course of our case in chief, it became evident that these affidavits needed to be supplemented. These supplements I have been able to procure in the meantime. I would like to ask the Court's permission to submit this supplement evidence at this moment. It is an affidavit deposed by Fraulein Pflueger. It bears Document No. 188 and will become Exhibit 190. The affidavit by Fraulein Roth, Document No. 189, will become Exhibit 191. And therewith I have concluded my presentation of documents.\nDR. GAWLICK:Dr. Gawlick for the defendant Schwarzenberger. Your Honor, I would like to submit documents from Document Book Schwarzenberger II. These are Documents Schwarzenberger 7 through Schwarzenberger 20 which will got the Exhibit Nos. 7 through 20. The exhibit numbers correspond to the numbers of the documents. And therewith I have concluded my presentation of documents. Thank you.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLICK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4778, "page_number": "4771", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DR.REHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling): I would like to object against the submission of Document No.NO 5711, Exhibit 866 presented by the Prosecution in rebuttal, I do not believe that this document is authentic. This document is neither signed nor was it certified. The file sign part of this document is not correct. The origin of this document which is designated as a copy could not be ascertained in the department for documents, I do not believe that this is a document to be offered in rebuttal since it contains irrelevant matter. I would like to ask the court to make the Prosecution submit the original of this document so that I can check it. As long as the original is not in my hands I will have to object.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will note your objection and when we come to write the judgment if we agree with you about it it will get no consideration.\nIs there anything else by the defendants?\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Your Honor, in Document Book which the Prosecution has submitted this afternoon in connection with Hildebrandt there is contained Exhibit 888 and Exhibit 892. One document bears as signature the name Hildebrandt. The other document is not signed. I believe that I shall have to prove that Hildebrandt did not sign either the one or the other and did not even have knowledge of these documents. And I should like to ask the permission of the court to put the defendant Hildebrandt into the stand as sur-rebuttal witness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will be permitted to put him on the stand for that purpose, and that purpose only.\nDR. FROESCHMANN:Thank you. Then with the permission of the court I would like to put defendant Hildebrandt on the stand.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let him come to the stand.\nRICHARDHILDEBRANDT, having previously been sworn, testified as follows: BY DR. FROESCHMANN:", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. FROESCHMANN", "RICHARD", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4779, "page_number": "4772", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QMr. Witness, I am remainding you that you are under oath. Will you please look at this document book that was handed to you and submitted by the Prosecution and to look at page 291 and 296. Both documents, I would like to ask you, were they signed by you or did you have knowledge of these two documents?\nABefore me, I have document 5832. This has been signed by fuesimile. It was drafted in the Race and Settlement Office and this entire procedure. I have already described and I do not know this document. The contents are quite beside the point, in my opinion.\nQAnd the second document, what about that?\nAThe second document - 4981. This is unsigned. I do not know it. I believe that this is concerned with the decree of the Reich Peasant Leader who wanted that certain experts in the agricultural field, that is to say, experts like milkers and such people, would have to be subjected to a special examination and they would be subject to this examination by racial classification experts in the Race and Settlement Main Office. The Reich Peasant Leader obviously seemed to believe that that was necessary. This led to a correspondence and this letter expressly rejects this request by the Reich Peasant Leader for technical reasons and also for reasons of a different nature, and especially because in the opinion of the Race and Settlement Main Office it was not sufficient to see the man himself individually but because at that time one had the belief that one had to look at the whole kin and eugenic relationship of that man; however, the kin could not be seen since this man was an Eastern worker.\nQWitness, I would like to ask you to simply say whether you know this document or whether you signed it.\nAThis is obvious since you put me into the witness stand for that reason, but I do not know the document.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions?", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4780, "page_number": "4773", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "BY MR. SHILLER:\n- RECROSS EXAMINATION\nQWitness, will you please look at the photostat of Document No.NO 5832.\nAI don't know what page this is one. Yes, I have the document before me now.\nQWitness, this document bears your name, not handwritten, but printed or stamped, nut it also bears a certification by someone . Do you recognize the certification?\nAI recognize my facsimile signature. I have already described this procedure in various points here. The contents show that the man was responsible who signed for the correctness of it.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Witness, the only thing that is under investigation now is your signature and the contents in it you needn't mind about now. I might say the same to counsel. BY DR. SHILLER:\nQWitness, my only question is: is this document not certified by Harders as being correct?\nAYes, that is correct.\nQWitness, will you please look at the photostat of document NO 4981.\nAYes.\nQHere again, witness, the photostat does not have your signature in written form. However, will you please look at the heading on page 1. Does that not say Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The instrument itself shows that. The witness don't have to tell whatever does show. BY MR. SHILLER:\nQDo you deny that this document came from your office?\nAYes, it says here Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office. However, there is no date on this.", "speakers": [ "A", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4781, "page_number": "4774", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "I can't imagine, of course, that the date has been dropped under the table, Somewhere there must be a date; besides, the signature has been typed, usually a signature is given by hand and not by typewriter. I don't understand this document. It is disfigured.\nQThe Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right, let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.SCHWARZ: ( for the defendant Hofmann): Your Honor, I would like to ask you for permission to put the defendant Hofmann on the witness stand in order to ask him concerning two rebuttal documents submitted by Prosecution. I would like to ask whether or not he was involved in these things in any way. First of all, with the Court's permission, I would like to ask him concerning the transcript of his interrogation of 19 May 1947, and I would like to ask him if the contents of this transcript correspond to the actual interrogation.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You will be permitted to put him on the stand strictly for rebuttal, whatever that shows.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you.\nOTTOHOFMANN, having been previously sworn, testified as follows:\nBY DR. SCHWARZ:\n- REDIRECT EXAMINATION\nQHerr Hofmann, will you please look at the transcript of the interrogation which was made from your interrogation on 19 May 1947. Is this interrogation transcript complete and does it reproduce said in your interrogation?\nAI want to state that this document is not complete and does not reproduce everything. I wish to state that Dr. Schwenk, the interrogator, several times turned to the secretary ...\nTHE PRESIDENT:Wait a minute, Mr. Witness, as I understand this witness has already testified what he contends occured at that interrogation. It won't be necessary to go over that again. That is already in the record.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "OTTO", "Q", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4782, "page_number": "4775", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "DR. SCHWARZ:Your Honor, in the record is contained only the interrogation of 20 May, and this interrogation is 19 May.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The witness testified what occured if I remember what he contends occured on both of these dates. That's in the record already. If you want to ask him if this is wrong and that is not correct you are permitted to do that but don't go over the testimony that is already in the record. BY DR. SCHWARZ: Yes sir, then I should like to turn to the next document. This is a latter by Vietz to the Chief of the Race and Settlement Main Office. This is document No.NO 5872. This si a report by Vietz concerning the ascertainment of Jewish Mischlings. Did you cause this letter to be written?\nANo, I did not cause this letter to be written.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ", "A", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4783, "page_number": "4776", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QDo you know any more in detail about this process?\nANo. I know nothing about this procedure. It says here that Mischlings were registered by an SS Untersturmfuehrer von Wilkens who is also unknown to me, and I don't know why he contacted Vietz.\nDR. SCHWARZ:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Any questions?\nDR.BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling) Your Honor, I find it necessary at this point to call the defendant Meyer-Hetling into the witness stand once again.\nOh, I beg your pardon, I thought that the witness was already excused.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Let, the witness retire from the stand. I caution Counsel this is strictly rebuttal to rebuttal.\nDR. BEHLING:Yes.\nTHE PRESIDENT:You already had an opportunity to rebut the main case; this is rebuttal to rebuttal, which is brand new to me.\nDR. BEHLING:Yes, Your Honor. I shall do what I can. I would now like to call the defendant as a witness in his own case.\nKONRADMEYER-HETLING, a defendant and witness in his own behalf, having been sworn previously, testified further as follows:\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. BEHLING: (Attorney for the Defendant Meyer-Hetling)\nQWitness, did you ever report to Himmler concerning the question of settlement in the Government General, Alsace Lorraine, and the settlement of Germans from Dobrudja and Groedenthal, that is supposed to have taken place on the 26th of January, 1942?\nANo.\nQWitness, did you ever report to Himmler about the placement of Slovenes in families with many children?\nANo.\nQWitness, you know the DocumentNO-5711, Exhibit 866; were you ever in contact with things that are mentioned in this very document?", "speakers": [ "KONRAD", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "DR. BEHLING", "DR. SCHWARZ", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4784, "page_number": "4777", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "AWell, I am afraid I don't quite know the document you are referring to at the moment.\nQThis is a Prosecution decument submitted by the Prosecution.\nAYou mean 5711? (Handed to him)\nQYes.\nANo, I don't know this document.\nQWitness, was there ever an employee in your agency who had the dictation sign Dr. F.R.?\nANo, I don't knew anyone whose name would have begun with F.R. and was a doctor; never.\nQDid you or your agency ever pay to the SS Main Office, VOMI, a fund which was designated by this very name?\nANo, never.\nDR. BEHLING:Thank you; I have no further questions.\nACould I say in addition the side notation, written in longhand on the margin of this letter, is not in my handwriting; this is a handwriting that is not known to me.\nRECROSS EXAMINATION BY MR LAMB:\nQProfessor Meyer, do you deny that you made a verbal report to Himmler on the 26th of January, 1942?\nAOn the 27th of January, 1942 I reported to Himmler about the general directives for municipal building plans; these directives have been submitted as documentary evidence by my Defense Counsel. No further facts were mentioned in this report on the 27th of January.\nQI ask you whether or not you made a report, a verbal report to Himmler on the 26th of January; just answer that question yes or no. Do you deny you made a verbal report to him on the 26th of January, 1942?\nANo, not on the 26th; only on the 27th; not on the 26th. Besides, that can be seen from other documents concerning the report on General Plan East and I also referred there to a report I made on the 27th.", "speakers": [ "DR. BEHLING", "A", "Q" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4785, "page_number": "4778", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "QNow, you stated that this report did not come from your office, this memorandum, this document. You can't say that this memorandum did not come from Himmler's files and was his memorandum of the meeting, can you?\nANo, I can't say that, but in any case it doesn't come from me and I don't know it.\nMR. LAMB:The Prosecution has no further questions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Go ahead; let the witness retire from the stand.\nDR.ORTH: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz) Mr. President, I would like to call the defendant Viermetz into the stand, and I only have two questions for rebuttal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Now, I am going to permit it, but this is the most remarkable procedure; this is the most remarkable procedure that I have ever been engaged in my life. There can't be any sort of evidence permissible now except in rebuttal to the rebuttal, and the Tribunal has ruled out of evidence every syllable that is not in rebuttal; so that all of the evidence in rebuttal that has been admitted by the Court has already been denied, and all you can do now is just deny it again.\nI will see what you have in mind.\nINGEVIERMETZ, a defendant and witness in her own behalf, having been recalled as a witness testified further as follows:\nREDIRECT EXAMINATION BY DR. ORTH: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz)\nQFrau Viermetz, the document of the Prosecution which it has submitted in rebuttal concerns the attacks of the Gruppenfuehrer Jungklaus against you. In the examination of the complaints made by Jungklaus against you, were the complaints found to be entirely without foundation?\nAYes, that can be seen from the documents themselves.\nQJungklaus in his letter of 1st December, 1943 mentions that you were director of the Lebensborn home and that you were a director of a main department at the Lebensborn. Did Jungklaus know very much about \n your position there?", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "INGE", "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT", "Q", "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4786, "page_number": "4779", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "AJungklaus, in the same way as in his complaints against me, committed an error.\nDR. ORTH:Thank you; I have no further questions.", "speakers": [ "A", "DR. ORTH" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4787, "page_number": "4780", "date": "02 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-02", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Anything else by the Defense?\n(No response)\nAll right, let the witness retire from the stand.\n(Witness excused)\nNow, the next procedure will be the final arguments, which will be at 9:30, February 13.\nNow, during the course of this trial, several, I think three witnesses, Sollman, Huebner, and I believe another witness, whose name I I do not recall but the record will disclose, testified that certain affidavits were obtained as a result of threats or duress, practiced by Mr. Schwenk, who seems to have appeared in the case both as investigator and attorney. So far as the verbal testimony is concerned, that testimony stands undenied. I do not know what is in the written rebuttal testimony that is offered.\nThe Tribunal makes this ruling about those affidavits: The affidavits that were obtained as shown by the record on account of threats made by Mr. Schwenk, unless there is some evidence in the written record to the contrary, are excluded from evidence and will not be considered by the Tribunal. Of course, if there is anything in the written testimony that is filed in rebuttal about the matter,then the Tribunal will decide for itself whether they are entitled to any consideration or not.\nThe Tribunal will recess until 9:30, Friday, February 13.\n(At 1600 hours, 2 February 1948. a recess was taken until 0930 hours, 13 February 1948) \n COURT NO.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4788, "page_number": "4781", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "I, CASE NO. VIII.\nOfficial Transcript of American Military Tribunal I in the Matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et at, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 13 February 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument for the Prosecution.\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal:\nToday we approach the end of this proceeding which began on 20 October 1947. Fifty-seven trial days have been comsumed, nine hundred and four exhibits have been introduced by the Prosecution and over one thousand by the Defense. Thirty-two witnesses have been heard for the Prosecution and eighty-four for the defendants and the record comprises 4,780 pages.\nThis Tribunal was established for the particular purpose of hearing and deciding this one case. It was constituted pursuant to international agreement and the crimes with which these defendants are charged are crimes under international law. The result of this trial is the concern of all the people of the world and the judgment in this case will become a part of the body of international law and will be a precedent for the guidance of all the civilized nations of the world for years to come.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4789, "page_number": "4782", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The crimes with which the defendants are charged include murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, deportations, enslavement, plunder of property, persecutions and other inhumane acts.\nBut the importance of the issues to be settled here cannot be measured in terms of trial days, exhibits and witnesses, nor does the more listing of the crimes, grave and shocking though they are, properly indicate the seriousness of the task which Your Honors have here undertaken, or tell why it was considered proper to bring these charges before a specially established Tribunal having the jurisdiction and dignity of an international court. The thing that makes this case so important and justifies its being brought before this international court is the motive which prompted the commission of these criminal acts and the fact that the concerted effort with which they were carried out threatened, and very nearly accomplished, the destruction of entire nations.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I presume that there is copies that are being distributed to the defense counsel.\nMR. SHILLER:Yes, Your Honor.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Suppose you just wait a minute until they all get their copies.\nAll right, proceed.\nMR. SHILLER:The motive in this case was what the Nazis termed the strengthening of Germanism, which was their way of describing a program that has generally been known as \"genocide\".\nThese defendants are not charged with the generic crime of genocide as such, but are specifically charged with many criminal acts which had a clear genocidal purpose - that of strengthening Germany through the \n destruction of her neighbors.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4790, "page_number": "4783", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "To judge these defendants this motive must be considered, as Military Tribunal III in Case No. 3, the Justice Case, said:\n\"We think that a tribunal charged with the duty of enforcing these rules will do well to consider, in determining the degree of punishment imposed, the moral principles which underlie the exercise of power.\"\nGenocide, as practiced by the Nazis, was a twoedged sword, both aspects of which were equally criminal. The positive side, according to the German concept, was the Germanization program by which they sought to strongthen themselves by adding to their population large groups of peoples selected from among the populations of the conquered territories and by forcing the German language, culture, citizenship and ideals upon those so selected. The negative side of this program, through which the socalled positive side was in equal measure accomplished, was the deliberate extermination and enslavement of the remaining population of these conquered territories. Thus, Germany would be strengthened by adding to its population, and its neighbors would be weakened by subtracting from their population and the strength of Germany would thereby be proportionately increased.\nIt is the first time in history that such elaborate plans were laid and such appalling crimes committed in an effort to carry out a program of genocide. Only by learning the truth about this criminal plan, by making a permanent record of what is learned and by punishing the perpetrators of these enormous crimes can it be hoped to forestall the development of similar schemes in the future.\nThere have been trials by other military \n tribunals1 here at Nurnberg in which defendants were charged with participation in certain phases of this genocidal program.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4791, "page_number": "4784", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "But in those cases it was primarily the negative side of the program, that is, the actual extermination of populations, that was involved. The case at bar is the first where the entire program of Germanization and genocide with all its ramifications has been completely brought to light. The Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, with which all the defendants in this case were directly or indirectly connected, was created for the particular purpose of planning and executing this program and it is this office and its satelites with which the evidence in this case is primarily concerned. No where else can the world gain so complete a picture of the extremes to which the Nazis went in their attempts to carry out this program as in the record of this proceeding.\nThe crimes charged here were not committed in a heat of passion brought on by over-zealous wartime partiotism. These were premeditated acts. They had long been contemplated and their seeds are to be found in the avowed aims of the Nazi Party itself. On 5 January 1919, not two months after the conclusion of the armistice which ended the first World War, the Nazi Party had its beginning and adopted a platform. This program which remained unaltered until the Party dissolved in 1945 consisted of twenty-five points. The first four points contain the Nazi doctrines of Lebensraum and the inferiority oz other - - - - - - - - - - - 1. U.S. vs Hermann Goering, et al (IMT) U.S. vs Oswald Pohl, et al (Pohl Case) U.S. vs Otto Ohlendorf, et al (Einsatzgruppen Case) U.S. vs Josef Alstoetter, et al (Justice Case) U.S. vs Karl Brandt, et al (Medical Case) \n races which were the immoral bases for the detailed program launched during the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4792, "page_number": "4785", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"Point 1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany, on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.\n\"Point 2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations;abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain.\n\"Point 3. We demand land and territory for the sustenance of our people, and the colonization of our surplus population.\n\"point 4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen.\nA member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed.\nConsequently no Jew can be a member of the race.\n..\"1 Throughout the years chat followed the first pronouncement, the members of the Nazi Party and the world in general were constantly reminded of the objectives of the Nazis.\nHitler's \"Mein Kampf\", the Nazi biole, continued to preach the same doctrine. This book was published About 1925 and, as the International Military Tribunal judgment expressed it \"...was no mere private diary in which the secret thoughts of Hitler were set down.\nIts contents were rather proclaimed from the housetops.\nIt was used in the schools and Universities... By the year 1945 over 61/2 million copies had been cir culated.\nThe general contents are well known...\"2 - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, P. 174. 2. Ibid, p. 187.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4793, "page_number": "4786", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"The second chapter of Book One of 'Mein Kampf' is dedicated to what may be called the 'Master Race' theory, the doctrine of Aryan superiority over all other races, and the right of Germans in virtue of this superiority to dom inate and use other peoples for their own ends.\n..\n\"The greatest emphasis was laid on the su preme mission of the German People to lead and dominate by virtue of their Nordic blood and racial purity; and the ground was thus being prepared for the acceptance of the idea of German world supremacy.\n..\"1 With the launching of the wars of aggression by the Third Reich, it became possible to cut these noxious principles into practice.\nBy the middle of 1940, a very definite plan was being effectuated. This is shown by the top secret document which Himmler wrote, entitled \"Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East\". This treatise by Himmler was given to Hitler and was approved by him. On 28 May 1940, in a memorandum attached to this highly secret document, Himmler stated that he had shown it to Hitler a few days before and that:\n\"The Fuehrer read the six pages and considered them very good and correct.\nHe directed, however, that only very few copies should be issued; that there should be no large edition, and that the re port is to be treated with utmost secrecy.\"\n(Pros.\nExh. 85,NO-1881, Doc. Bk. III, p. 45) Hitler agreed that the report would be considered - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol.\n1, p. 180.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4794, "page_number": "4787", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "as a directive; that one copy could be given to Lammers, who in turn was authorized to divulge its contents to four or five of the highest ranking Reich Ministers and Gauleiters; that another copy might be given to Bormann, who was Hitler's right hand man; another to the defendant Greifelt; and still another to the Chief of the Main Race and Settlement Office, who at that time was the defendant Hofmann.\nHere is what Himmler had to say with reference to the copy given to Greifelt;\n\"One copy was given to the chief of my office SS-Brigadefuehrer Greifelt in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nI shall give him the order to inform in turn all chiefs of the Main Offices as well as first the five con cerned Higher SS and Police Leaders East, North East, Vistula, Warthe and South East and to have a report made on this subject in the same manner.\nThe noti fication to the chiefs of the Main Offices shall be effected by an SS-leader who will have to wait until the concerned chief of the Main Office has read the report and has acknowledged it by his signature.\nAt the same time everyone has to confirm that he has been informed of the fact that this is to be con sidered as a directive, but that it shall never be laid down in an order of one of the Main Offices;neither in form of a mere excerpt nor from memory.\n\"Moreover SS-Brigadefuehrer Greifelt is author ized to bring the contents of the report to the attention of the Town Mayor Winckler and his own collarorators; the latter he shall suggest to me.\"\n(Pros. Ex. 85,NO-1881, Doc. Bk. III, pp. 45-46) \n Greifelt, pursuant to this, acknowledged receipt of the document and asked permission, which was granted, to inform the defendant Creutz and the defendant Meyer-Hetling of the contents of the document.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4795, "page_number": "4788", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4796, "page_number": "4789", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "This document was considered so secret that Himmler ordered that no part of it should ever be written down in an order by anyone else, either by copying it or by writing any of it from memory. It was not feared that by divulging its contents that the objectives sought to be gained might be lost. This was not a plan under which the prospective victim had to be taken by surprise in order to insure its success. This was not the reason for all the secrecy. The people who were the victims of its provisions had already been completely subdued by the military forces of the Third Reich and could do nothing to change their dire fate. Himmler and Hitler wanted to keep this document secret because they realized how inhumane and revolting to a normal person such a criminal program would be. When a plan was so criminal that Himmler and Hitler were ashamed of it it must have indeed been horrible.\nAn examination of these \"Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East\", of which the defendants Greifelt, Greutz, Meyer Hetling and Hofmann had first-hand knowledge, will explain why even these evil men were ashamed of it. The treatise starts off by naming various ethnic groups that make up the population of the so-called Government General of Poland and observes that these people must not be allowed to unite. It provides that:\n\"There must be no centralization towards the top, because only by dissolving this whole conglomeration of peoples of the General Government amounting to fifteen millions and of the eight millions of the Eastern provinces, will it be possible for us to carry out the racial sifting which must be the ba sis for our considerations:\nnamely selecting out of this con glomeration the racially valuable and bringing them to Germany and assimilating them there.\"\n(Pros. Ex. 84,NO-1860, Doc.\nBk. III, p. 41). Himmler's plans with reference to the Jews and Poles were different. The \n directive goes on to say:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4797, "page_number": "4790", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"I hope that the concept of Jews will be completely ex tinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony.\nWithin a somewhat longer period, it should also be possible to make the ethnic concepts of Ukraininas Gorals and Lemken disappear in our area.\nWhat has been said for these gragments of peoples is also meant on a correspondingly larger scale for the Poles.\"\n(Pros. Exh. 84,NO-1880, Doc.\nBk III, p. 42). Himmler then orders that some of the children are to be kidnapped and others are to be brought up in ignorance and slavery:\n\"A basic issue in the solution of all these problems is the question of schooling and thus the question of sifting and selecting tie young.\nFor the non-German population of the East there must be no higher school than the four-grade elementary school.\nThe sole goal of this school is to be:\n\"Simple arithmetic up to 500 at the most; writing of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious and good.\nI don't think that read ing should be required.\n\"Apart from this school there are to be no schools at all in the East.\nParents, who from the beginning want to give their children better schooling in the elementary school, as well as later on in a higher school, must take an application to the Higher SS and the Police leaders.\nThe first consideration is dealing with this application will be whether the child is ra cially perfect and conforming to our conditions.\nIf we acknow ledge such a child to be as of our blood, the parents will be notified that the child will be sent to a school in Germany and that it will permanently remain in Germany.\"\n(Pros. Ex. 84,NO-1880, Doc.\nBk. III, p. 42).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4798, "page_number": "4791", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Himmler then showed that he was conscious of his guilt and made excuses for his actions by saying that it was better to make slaves of these people than to exterminate them. The directive goes on to say:\n\"Cruel and tragic as every individual case may be, this method is still the mildest and best one, if, out of inner con viction, one rejects as un-German and impossible the bolshevist method of physical extermination of a people.\n\"The parents of such children of good blood will be given the choice to either give away their child; they will then pro bably produce no more children so that the danger of this sub human people of the East obtaining a class of leaders which, since it would be equal to us, would also be dangerous for us, will disappear - or else the parents pledge themselves to go to Germany and to become loyal citizens there.\nThe love towards their child, whose future and education depends on the loyalty of the parents will be a strong weapon in dealing with them.\"\n(Pros. Ex. 84,NO-1880, Doc. Bk. III, p. 42-43).\nThis manly repugnance to extermination was very short lived, to say the least of it, as our proof has shown. After describing how the kidnapped children are to be treated this directive concludes:\n\"The population of the General Government during the next ten years, by necessity and after a consistent carrying out of these measures, will be composed of the remaining inferior po pulation supplemented by the population of the Eastern provinces deported there, and of all those parts of the German Reich which have the same racial and human qualities(for instance, parts of the Serbs and Wends.)\n\"This population will, as a people of laborers without leaders, be at our disposal and will furnish Germany annually with migrant workers and with workers for special tasks (roads, quarries, build ings): they themselves will have more to eat and more to live on \n than under the Polish regime, and, though they have no culture of their own, they will, under the strict, consistent and just leadership of the German people, be called upon th help work of its everlasting cultural tasks and its building and perhaps as far as the amount of heavy work is concerned, will be the ones who make the realization of these tasks possible.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4799, "page_number": "4792", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "(Pros.\nEx. 84,NO-1880, Doc. Bk. III, p. 44).\nThis was how the plan looked in the early part of 1940. The Office of the Reich Commissar had been established several months before and it had a department for planning, propositions and suggestions. We don't know whether the defendants who were Himmler's advisers at the Main Staff Office suggested this plan or not, but we do know that the documents which we have introduced showing deportation, evacuations, forced Germanization and kidnappings are ample proof that the defendants in this case did every thing in their power to carry out this criminal directive and had it not been for the defeat of the German armies the entire plan would have been carried through to Himmler's complete satisfaction and twenty-three million people would have been dissolved.\" As it was, the Polish nation was very nearly destroyed by this diabolical scheme.\nThe defendants may contend that this was Himmler's plan and they had nothing to do with the preparation of it. Our only answer to this is that whether they had anything to do with the preparation of the plan or not, the things which they actually did followed the directive to the letter. The things which Himmler here \"prophesied\" came to pass and it was through the activities of these defendants and their collaborators in the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RuSHA and Lebensborn, that they did come to pass.\nThese defendants and the four organizations which they ran, the Main Staff Office, VOMI, RuSHA and Lebensborn, were the leaders in both the planning and the execution of this criminal common design.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4800, "page_number": "4793", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Poland was invaded on 1 September 1939 and all organized resistance was broken within a few weeks. Now was the time for Hitler to implement the criminal program. He wasted no time. On 7 October 1939, approximately five weeks after he had started his invasion on Poland, he issued the decree on which the common plan for the Strengthening of Germanism was based. The decree appointed the notorious Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, as the executioner of the programm. Inasmuch as this decree forms the basis for all the crimes which were committed, we take the liberty of quoting a part of it so that the Tribunal may get its full import. The document not only speaks for itself but it tells the whole story.\n\"The consequences which Versailles had on Europe have been removed.\nAs a result, the Greater German Reich is able to accept and settle within its space German people, who up to the present had to live in foreign lands, and to arrange the settlement of national groups within its spheres of interest in such a way that better dividing lines between them are attained.\nI commission the Reich Fuehrer SS with the execution of this task in accordance with the following instructions:\n\"Pursuant to my directions the Reich Fuehrer SS is called upon:\n1. To bring back those German citizens and racial Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return to the Reich.\n2. To eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community.\n3. To create new German colonies by resettlement, and especially by the resettlement of German citizens and racial Germans coming back from abroad.\"\n(Pros. Ex. 20,NO-3075, Doc. Bk.\nII-B, p. 1).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4801, "page_number": "4794", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The three things which Himmler was called upon to do under this decree covered a multitude of sins. Those sixty-four words set the stage for what proved to be one of the most revolting tragedies over perpetrated on a large group of peoples. This was the cue that set off a series of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity such as the world had never known. One little phrase \"eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population\" meant death and destruction for millions; \"create new German colonies by resettlement\" meant deportation and enslavement and eventual death for further millions.\nHitler, Himmler and the Nazis had been waiting for their opportunity for a long time and just as Hitler lost no time in issuing this decree, Himmler lost no tine in launching his program pursuant thereto. Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS, and under the above decree, as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, established the Office of the Reich Commissar and began the selection of his staff. He appointed Greifelt as Chief, Greutz as deputy chief, and Mayer-Hetling as head of the Planning Office.\nHimmler fully realized the enormity of the task which confronted the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Millions of people had to be evacuated; millions had to be deported; and other millions had to be exterminated. Whole nations had to be destroyed; entire countries had to be converted into a part of the German Reich. The first Order issued by Himmler shows that he realized all this and he realized, too, that it would be necessary to utilize the resources of existing SS and governmental agencies in order to successfully complete the task; for, in this order he called upon all the department of the German Govenrment and asked for their cooperation and help. He specifically mentioned VOMI, RuSHA, the Gestapo, the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture, the Reich Labor Ministry and two German Labor Front as agencies which were to be used. So, not only was he to use the many other organizations directly \n under him as Reich Leader of the SS, but it would be necessary to use other agencies as well.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4802, "page_number": "4795", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Of course he used his concentration camps. We used the Einsatzgruppen as the firing squads in the extermination of millions of civilians: Jews, Poles and Russians. He used VOMI, RuSHA, Lebensborn, Ahnenerbe and others of his offices. But, it was the Main Staff Office that was to be the directing head of the entire program. The Main Staff Office was to coordinate all activities. It was the center around which all those other offices revolved. Himmler makes this quite clear in his First Order, and we quote:\n\"For the direction and promulgation of general orders and directives and for the execution of \n certain tasks which can only be dealt with centrally, I established the Office of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4803, "page_number": "4796", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "I have placed SS-Oberfuchrer Greifelt in charge **** \"To carry out these tasks I ask all high offices of Party and State for their cooperation and strongest assistance.\n.. I shall... for the execution of my duties make use of the existing offices of the Reich, Laender and towns as well as of the other public organizations.\n\"I wish to mention particularly same of these tasks as well as the institutions and agencies which are charged with the solution end execution of these tasks: a) VOMI and Foreign Organization (Auslands organisation) bring in the Germans and ethnic Germans.\nb) Reich Health Leader and RuSHA examine all Germans from the Reich and abroad in the new areas in town and country.\nc) The Security Police in cooperation with the Chief of the Civil Administration establishes and takes care of foreign elements dangerous to the German Folkdom.\nd) The settlement of farmers will be carried out by the Reich Minister of Food and agriculture.\ne) Municipal building of apartment houses and suburban settlements will be handled by the Reich Labor Minister and the German Labor Front.\n(Pros. Ex. 21,NO-3078, Doc. Bk. II-B, p. 4) (Underscoring ours) The decree is entirely clear and admits of no argument; the Main Staff Office was created to deal \"centrally\" with all the many phases of the program for the Strengthening of Germanism and all these agencies were to be coordinated and directed by the Main Staff Office.\nA good example of the fact that the Main Staff Office was the directing head is shown by the manner \n in which the entire program was financed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4804, "page_number": "4797", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The Finance Administration of the Main Staff Office, under defendant Schwarzenberger, handled finances for VOMI, RuSHA, Lebensborn, DUT, DAG, EWZ, UWZ, Higher SS and Police Leaders and Gauleiters and Governors of Provinces, as representatives of the RKFDV, the Reich Medical Chamber, Ahnenerbe and others.\nThere has been much discussion during this trial to the effect that this was a very complicated case and the defendants have certainly tried to make it appear so, but to our minds the set-up of these organizations and their inter-relation were as simple as could possibly be found in any governmental undertaking of such vast proportions. Naturally, there was some overlapping of \"competencies,\" but Hitler's original decree and the decree of Himmler, which soon followed, to our minds make perfectly-clear the objectives which were sought and the means by which these objectives were to be gained.\nGenerally speaking, VOMI was to deal in deportations, forced evacuations, kidnapping and slave labor; RuSHA was to conduct racial examinations, decide who went to concentration camps, who were to be sterilized, on whom abortions were to be performed, which children were to be kidnapped and which were to be exterminated; the Security Police and SD, including the Higher SS and Police headers, were to \"take cars\" of foreign elements dangerous to the German Folkdom, or, in plainer language, to exterminate the Jews and undesirable Poles and Russians; Lebensborn was to handle the abduction of children and their Germanization; and over all of these, and other agencies, was the Main Staff Office -- the office that planned, directed and coordinated the whole gigantic effort.\nProof of the fact that the Office of the Reich Commissioner (later the Main Staff Office) was aware of its power, and used \n it, may be found in a speech delivered by the defendant MayerHetling at Posen on 23 October 1941, when he said:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4805, "page_number": "4798", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"...Since the fuehrer assigned the task of strengthening of Germanism, and with it the related development of new settlement areas, to the Reichsfuehrer-SS as Reichskom missar for the strengthening of Germanism, a guarantee is given that planning and development of the total East German area will be attained with the necessary political penetrating force and a united will.\nPursuant to the Fuehrer decree of 7 October 1939 all supreme Reich authorities are subject to instructions by the Reich kommissar.\n************ \"The Reichsfuehrer-SS as Reichskommissar, by virtue of the Fuehrer's decree, is responsible for the planning for the new settlement area.\nOn the express wish of the Fuehrer the formation and now order for the German East shall be guided by the law of Strengthening of Germanism.\nTherefore all specialized plans are to be subordinate to this law.\n..\" (Pros. Ex. 88,NO-3348, Doc. Bk, III, pp.\n53-64) (Underscoring ours) The foregoing shows how each organization and consequently each defendant fits into the general picture.\nwe will now briefly discuss what has been shown with reference to the commission of the particular crimes charged in the indictment. We call the Tribunal's attention to the fact that it would be impossible for us in the appropriate time available for this closing statement to discuss in detail the mass of evidence which has been introduced insofar as it relates to each particular crime and each particular defendant. Here we will confine ourselves to a brief general discussion to show that \n all of the charges in the Indictment have been sustained by the evidence and we respectfully refer the Tribunal to the briefs which have been filed in this case for a more complete and detailed discussion of the evidence as it relates to each of the crimes charged and so each of the defendants.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4806, "page_number": "4799", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "KIDNAPPING The evidence in this case proves that all offices and all the defendants in this case were involved in the crime of kidnapping and Germanizing children from occupied countries.\nThe Main Staff Office, by virtue of Greifelt's infamous Regulation 67-1 (Pnos. Ex. 407, Dec. Bk. VIII-B, p.11), directed the steps to be employed in the abduction of alien children and made provisions for their care, education and placement in foster homes. The Finance Administration of the Main Staff Office, under the defendant Schwarzenberger, financed the operation.\nWhile the order was limited by its terms to Polish children living in orphanages or with foster parents the proof shows that substantially the same procedure was followed with respect to children taken from their natural parents. This program of kidnapping came to include Czech, Polish, Yugoslav and Rumanian children.\nRuSHA conducted the racial examinations of the children and selected the ones suitable for Germanization and, in many instances, gave them German sounding names. After the selection by RuSHA the children were sent to one of the numerous homes operated by Lebensborn. Here they were taught German and indoctrinated with German ideologies while waiting a transfer to German families.\nThe defendant Ebner, as Chief of the Health Division of Lebensborn, carried out physical examinations of those kidnapped children to determine whether they should be adopted. Also, he \n was frequently called upon to establish the ages of the children under his care.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4807, "page_number": "4800", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "This was necesary because in the majority of cases no birth certificates were available as a result of the manner in which the child had been taken from his home and parents.\nThe defendant Tesch, as Chief of the Legal Department of Lebensborn, selected a fictitious place of birth and inserted it in the records along with the age which had been arbitrarily determined. If, for any reason, German sounding names had not already been given to the child by RuSHA, Lebensborn supplied them.\nThe defendant Viermetz was, among other things, Sollmann's special representative. She was also in charge of foreign children who came under the Jurisdiction of Lebensborn and made numerous trips to the Warthegau concerning Polish children. The defendant Sollmann directed the entire Lebensborn program.\nVOMI was also involved in kidnapping and held certain Yugoslav and Rumanian children in its camps where they were subjected to racial examinations by the agents of the Race and Settlement Office. While those children were in the VOMI camps the defendant Viermetz visited the camps and selected certain of the children for Lebensborn. The defendant Ebner passed on the racial qualifications of the children procured by VOMI.\nFrom the foregoing it will be seen that all of the offices, the Main Staff Office, RuSHA, VOMI and Lebensborn, and therefore all of the defendants, participated in those kidnappings.\nABORTIONS The Main Staff Office and RuSHA were both involved in the carrying out of abortions on Eastern female workers.\nWhen a foreign woman worker in Germany became pregnant \n this fact had to be reported to the leader of the labor camp in which she lived or to some one in the factory where she worked.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4808, "page_number": "4801", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "All illegitimate pregnancies of foreign workers were then reported to the Labor Office and an application was made for an abortion; sometime by the doctor and sometime by the factory which employed the women. The Race and Settlement Office then made an examination of the expectant mother to determine whether the child would be racially valuable. If it was decided that the child was not racially valuable the woman was induced to have an abortion. All abortions had to be approved by on agent of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt, as Chief of RuSHA, in August 1943 ordered that the files of all cases in which the Race and Settlement leaders denied abortions were to be submitted to the Main Race and Settlement Office for examination. In March 1944 the defendant Hofmann, as representative of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. issued a letter outlining the procedure to be followed in connection with applications for abortions in the area within his jurisdiction.\nIt has been claimed that these abortions were voluntary on the part of the woman but the proof shows otherwise. These unfortunate women, working as slaves under terrible conditions in a hostile country, found themselves subjected to all manner of pressure, both direct and indirect. They lived and labored under conditions which would not let them take care of their children. Moreover, every pregnancy had to be reported to the dreaded Gestapo. When the Gestapo suggested that an abortion was in order it is not likely that they received an argument from these Polish end Russian women.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4809, "page_number": "4802", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Taking Away Infants of Estern Workers In many instances cases of pregnancy among Eastern workers it was not discovered until it was too late for an abortion to be performed, or until after the child was actually born.\nSince these women were being utilized in the slave labor program the time lost in caring for their children was regarded by the Nazis as an intolerable interference with the demands of labor. So, as in the case of the abortion procedure, racial examinations were conducted by the Race and Settlement Office on both the father and the pregnant worker in order to determine whether racially valuable descendants could be expected. The defendant Hildebrandt, in outlining the duties of the Race and Settlement leaders in this connection, stated:\n\"Though I have already done so in the regulations on the decisions of the interruption of pregnancies, I want to point out once more the grave responsibility which as been assigned to the SS leaders for racial and resettlement matters by this now order, i.e., to especially further all valuable racial strains for the strengthening of our people and to accomplish a complete elimination of everything racially inferior.\"\nIf the racial examination conducted by the Race and Settlement Office showed that the expected child was racially valuable, in some instances the woman was sent to a Lebensborn home were the child was born. The child was then taken and later turned over to a German family. In some instances Lebensborn did not enter the picture until after the child was born. If the racial examination showed that the child would not be racially valuable the expectant mothers were forced to work until a few days, and even a few hours, before childbirth took place and as soon as the child was born it would be \n placed in a \"Foreigners' Childrens Nursing Home.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4810, "page_number": "4803", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "These children were given improper attention and inadequate care and many of them died of starvation.\nThe connection of the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, with the taking away of infants of Eastern Workers is shown by the decree of 27 July 1943 (Pros, Ex. 496, Doc. Bk. X, p 5) which shows that Higher SS and Police Leaders, in their capacity as deputies to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, were charged with racial examinations for these people and that they were the agencies which decided which of the infants of the Eastern workers were to be taken. RuSHA acutally performed racial examinations in connection with this crime.\nPunishment for Sexual Intercourse During the course of the war millions of foreign workers and prisoners of war, particularly from the East, were brought to Germany \n to labor in the fields and factories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4811, "page_number": "4804", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Naturally sexual contact between those people and Germans could not be prevented. This caused great concern among the guardians of the purity of the Nordic race and soon regulations were made up to punish these occurrences. Poles, Czechs and Russians, etc (civilians as well as prisoners of war) were punished for having had sexual intercourse with Germans.\nIf it was discovered that a foreign worker had intercourse with a German woman he was given a racial examination by RuSHA. If he was declaredly racially undesirable he was subjected to \"special treatment,\" which in the language of the Nazis meant hanging, or sent to a concentration camp, a somewhat slower death. If the RuSHA field leader found the foreigners racial characteristics to his liking then his life was spared if the foreign worker agreed to be Germanized. Copies of all reports were sent to the Main Staff Office.\nEastern women who had intercourse with German men were frequently sent to concentration camps. The defendant Hildebrandt, Hofmann and Schwalm were all active in connection with this program, as was the Main Staff Office.\nHampering of Reproduction of Enemy Nationals.\nIn accordance with the entire program of stregthening Germany and weakening enemy nations no means was overlooked whereby the ultimate aim of annihilation of the Slay peoples could be accomplished.\nIn an effort to reduce the birth rate among those people, marriages between certain groups were prohibited. Very strict limitations were placed on marriages between other groups and the minimum age requirements were greatly increased. Of course this did not absolutely prevent reproduction and the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, VOMI and RuSHA all became greatly concerned. A conference was held to deal with the question of illegitimate Polish children and to determine ways and means of reducing the number of children being born. The defendant \n Brueckener attended this conference as a representative of VOMI, and RuSHA was also represented.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4812, "page_number": "4805", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "A memorandum,on this conference made by RuSHA's representative stated, in part, as follows:\n\"*** Because of the raising of the marriage age for Poles the number of legitimate children is reduced re suiting in an increase in the number of illegitimate children.\nThe information most recently obtained showed that the number of illegitimate children is increasing to an even greater extent that the number of legitimate children is decreasing.\nIt must be the purpose of the intended regulation to reduce the number of illegitimate children as far as possible, but in no way to cause a further increase.\n* * * * * * \"..... The demand of the SS Main Race and Settlement Of fice and the Volksddutsche Mittelstelle (Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans) that German interests in an individual case must be determined by the competent higher SS and Police leader in each case, thereby resulting in a decisive intervention on the part of the Reichkommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, was approved.\nIn deciding this matter, it must be determined whether this constitutes a desirable increase in population (Poles suitable for Germanization); this will then be determined by the\nSSMain Race and Settlement Office.\n* * * * * * \"With regard to the question of reducing the number of illegitimate children, it was the general consensus of opinion to allow the unwed Polish mothers a minimum subsistence for the care of the child, the subsistence to be paid for by the Polish fathers and to be paid out only if the care of the child is not assured by either the unwed mother or her family.\nThis was to \n prevent any negligence.", "speakers": [ "SS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4813, "page_number": "4806", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Here it must be the primary principle not to spend one German penny for Polish welfare.\nThis method of putting the illegitimate, racially undesirable Polish child at a definite disadvantage, even though it will not, in general reduce the number of illegitimate children, will at least not encourage a rise in the number of illegitimate children.\nThe Main Race and Settlement Office suggested that the father of the illegitimate child be required to make especially large payments, but that the money become part of a general fund from which the necessary sums might then be paid out.\nIn case where the paternity cannot be established, all potential fathers will be equally liable to payment.\nThis measure is not likely to increase the pleasure of having an illegitimate child; * * *\" Forced Deportations and Resettlement of Populations.\nOf all the different phase of this program for the strengthening of Germany and destroying her neighbors, the cruelest, most far-reaching and the one which involved the greatest number of victims was that which dealt with forced deportations and resettlements of populations. In the resettlement phase of the program hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, some of whom were of German stock, but many of whom were not, and who lived and had their homes in the countries which had been occupied by the German armed forces, were required to register for resettlement in certain other parts of Europe. The idea behind this was to consolidate all of the people of Europe who were of German stock in a solid block. After these people had been registered they were then moved from their homes into camps in Germany. Some were made to stay in Germany as slave labor and others were resettled in the occupied territories. Most of these people were resettled in Poland and inasmuch as Poland was already thickly populated by Polish citizens it was necessary to expel the Polish families from their homes and farms so that the resettlers would have a place to \n live and a means of earning a livelihood.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4814, "page_number": "4807", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Many of the Polish citizens who were expelled from their homes, such as the Jews, were murdered or sent to concentration camps and many were driven farther East. This forced evacuation and resettlement program was a crime both against those who were brought in to be resettled and against those who were expelled to make room for the resettlers. It was a crime against the first category because fraud, deceit and coercive measures were used to make the people of so-called German stock agree to leave their homes and their property and to be resettled. They were promised that they would be given lands and goods equivalent to that which they left behind but upon arriving in Germany many were forced to work in factories and never received homes or farm lands and many who were resettled in Poland did not receive goods and farms of the same value as that which they had relinquished. In addition to false promises, other and more stringent measures were used to get these so-called ethnic Germans to agree to be resettled. We quote from a letter written by the defendant Brueckner on 3 March 1943:\n\"Resettlement is not carried out as a result of voluntary reporting but is ordered by the RFSS.\nTherefore, those ethnic Germans who refused to be resettled shall be deprived of their identification cards, etc.\"\nTo be deprived of their identification cards meant that they could get no ration cards, and therefore no food, and that they would be subjected to possible persecution by the Gestapo.\nThe second phase of this undertaking, the deportation of peoples to make room for the resettlers, was of course the worse. The record is filled with testimony and documentary proof of the horrors which took place when the Polish families were expelled from their homes to make room for the resettlers. The testimony of Dr. Klukowski of Poland concerning the Zamosc deportation showed how ruthless were the methods with which these deportations were carried out. Deaths as a result of these actions \n was a common occurrence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4815, "page_number": "4808", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "This entire program of evacuations and resettlement was planned by the defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Mayer-Hotling and Schwarzenberger of the Main Staff Office. The defendants Lorenz and Brueckner corralled these so-called ethnic Germans and herded them from their homes into camps in Germany and later transported some of them into now settlement areas. The RuSHA defendants Hildebrandt, Hofmann and Schwalm were concerned with the selection of these people through racial examinations and also by racial examinations they decided which of the Poles were to be deported. All of the Main Staff Office defendants above named, as well as the defendant Huebner, also planned and actively participated in the actual resettlement in Poland and other places and consecquently actively participated in the expulsion action.\nForced Germanization of Enemy Nationals.\nForced Germanization was another undertaking involving hundreds of thousands of people and one in which each and all of the defendants participated. This program was carried out in connection with two types of enemy nationals. One procedure was for persons who were considered to be of \"German stock\". This was known as the DVL procedure, the German peoples List. Another program was what was known as re-Germanization and applied to Poles who were never considered to be of German stock but who had good racial characteristics. This was known as the WED.\nThe basic decrees concerning the procedure in connection with the German Peoples List originated in a joint action between the Main Staff Office and other Reich agencies. The actual work was coordinated by the Supreme Court for Ethnic Classifications. The defendants Greifelt, Hofmann and Hildebrandt were members of this court. The court was located on the premises of the Main Staff Office, which provided it with offices, personnel and other facilities. Many Polish citizens were coerced into signing the German Peoples List and thus made to become German citizens against \n their will.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4816, "page_number": "4809", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "One of the most cruel methods of coercion was the constant threat to take the children of those who refused to sign the register. If the parents would not agree to become Germanized under this procedure the children were taken away and brought up in Nazi institutions or in Nazi families where they were taught to become \"good Germans\". After the Poles and other nationals signed the German People List end agreed to become Germans, many, against their will, were taken to Germany and used as forced labor and many of them were conscripted into the German army. The Main Staff Office was responsible for the preparation of most of the decrees in connection with this procedure and supervised the entire program. The people who had been forced to become Germans were transferred by VOMI to Germany for forced labor. RUSHA made racial examinations of those who registered on the list and placed them in various groups.\nThe other procedure, that of selecting Poles who were definitely not of German stock but who had good racial characteristics, was directed by the Main Staff Office. RuSHA also played an important role for this office was in charge of racial selection of the persons to be Germanized. The defendant Hofmann was especially active. He organized the work of RuSHA in connection with this procedure, gave numerous instructions as to how to handle racial examinations and insisted on the great role his office had to play. The defendants Schwalm and Huebner was also active. Those people who were re-Germanized were not free to choose their place of work and they were not free to marry whom they wanted and were, under no circumstances, allowed to marry Poles who were not included in the re-Ger manization procedure. This procedure was also used in connection with the Slovenes and other citizens of Yugoslavia as well as with the peoples of Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. The persons selected as racially valuable by RuSHA were evacuated from their native country. They were processed by the Main Staff Office and that office issued directives as to their treatment. They were transported from their homes by VOMI and kept in \n VOMI Camps.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4817, "page_number": "4810", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Lebensborn was a party to forced Germanization on account of the children which it took from these countries and placed in German homos.\nMR. SHILLER:Mr. Lamm will not continue for the Prosecution.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4818, "page_number": "4811", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "MR. LAMB:May it please the Tribunal, we have just discussed the participation of the defendants in Kidnapping, Abortions, Taking away Infants of Eastern Workers, Punishment for Sexual Intercourse, Hampering of Reproduction of Enemy Nations, and Forced Deportations and Resettlement of Populations, and Forced Germanization.\nLook in the index.\nWe will now take up Slave Labor.\nA great deal of the slave labor for which the Main Staff Office, RuSHA and VOMI are responsible was in connection with their program of forced Germanization. The people were to become Germanized while working in Germany as slave laborers. In addition to this, a special type of peonage which the Main Staff Office and RuSHA particularly indulged in was in connection with the woemn who they deported from Poland and other occupied territories and sent to Germany to be used as housemaids..\nLebensborn also took part in this program for it has been shown that many of the older children whom they brought into Germany were used simply as servants, and were actually being held in peonage.\nConscription of Non-Germans.\nConscription of non Germans into the Wehrmacht was another criminal result of forced Germanization just as slave labor was. The men of Poland, Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine end other countries were forced to accept German citizenship and then they were conscripted into the armed forces and compelled to fight against their allies. Our proof has shown that those who deserted rather than fight for Germany were frequently executed.\nPlunder In the course of their execution of the program of genocide and Germanization, all of the defendants participated in the plunder of public and private property.\nThe Central Land Office, of which Meyer-Hetling was chief, participated in the confiscation of hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Church property was also taken. For example, on 18 November 1940 \n the Superior of a nunnery, Mother Salesia, complained to Cardinal Bertram in Breslau that the convent for sick and infirm sisters had been seized by an agent of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4819, "page_number": "4812", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "When she protested that, the seizure was unlawful the agent replied: \"For us no law exists. We yield only to force. I am using that force herewith and declare this building seized as of the 26th of this month. It is easier for 60 nuns to find shelter than it is for 500 racial Germans.\" This complaint was submitted to the defendant Greifelt who forwarded it to Himmler with the recommendation that the convent remain seized. Himmler suggested that rent be paid but Greifelt replied that a way was found to avoid even that.\nThe Main Staff Office also executed an order for the seizure of all cultural property of Poland. This undertaking was financed by the defendant Schwarzenberger, as Chief of Finance administration. The Main Staff Office and VOMI plundered property in Yugoslavia whom they deprived the expelled Slovenes of practically all their property. As will be shown, the Main Staff Office, VOMI and Lebensborn all participated in the plunder of Jewish property.\nPersecution and Extermination of Jews The Main Staff Office participated in the final solution of the Jewish question, and Hofmann, representing RuSHA, attended the conference of 20 January 1942, where the bloody Heydrich laid bare the whole murder program.\nIn later conferences on this subject the Main Staff Office was represented by Dr. Stier. The Main Staff Office participated further in the Main solution of the Jewish question by bringing hundreds of thousands of Jews into the Government General and a special branch office of the Main Staff office was in charge of procurement of furniture and household goods from the Jewish Ghetto at Litzmannstadt. Moreover, the Main Staff Office supervised the destruction of this ghetto in the fall of 1944 after the last Jew had been sent to his death at Kuschwitz. RuSHA maintained a special card file on Jews and was particularly active \n in compelling part Jews to undergo sterilization.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4820, "page_number": "4813", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Lebensborn was also involved in plunder of Jewish property and the persecution of the Jews. Many of the Lebensborn homes were established and equipped with the property taken from the Jews. For example, the defendants Ebner and Tesch, together with Sollmann, engineered the acquisition of a Jewish sanatorium at Nordrach, Baden in September 1942.\nEuthanasia The defendant Hildebrandt is the only defendant charged with the crime of cut anasia and the proof shows that he reported to Himmler that a unit under him had murderedthousands of insane people in the area of Danzig.\nThis was done in order to make room in the hospitals for German soldiers.\nMR. LAMB:We now come to Count III of the Indictment.\nCount Three: Membership in the SS Under Count Three of the Indictment all of the defendants except Viermetz are charged with membership in the SS, an organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal.\n\"Membership in categories of a criminal group or organization declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal\" is recognized as a crime by Article II (d) of Control Council Law No. 10.\nThe International Military Tribunal held the following with respect to the SS :\n\"The Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organi zation with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by article 6 of the Charter, or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the com mission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to gave them no choice \n in the matter , and who had committed no such crimes.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4821, "page_number": "4814", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The basis of this finding is the participation of the organization in war crimes and crimes against humanity connected with the war; this group declared criminal cannot include, therefore, persons who had ceased to belong to the organizations enumerated in the preceding paragraph prior to 1 September 1939.\"\n1 Specifically included in this declaration of criminality were all members of the Allgemeine and Waffen SS.\nAccording to their own testimony, all of the defendants charged under this Count were voluntary and officially accepted members of the SS and they remained members after the first of September 1939. There were vague and unconvincing insinuations by several of the defendants that they had been drafted into the positions which they held with theRKFDV. Even if this were true it could not excuse them for being members of the General or Allgemeine SS which was always entirely voluntary. Moreover, one who defends on the ground of having been drafted into the SS must show, according to the International military Tribunal holding, that it was done - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War criminals, Vol. 1, p. 273.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4822, "page_number": "4815", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"by the State in such w way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who committed no such crimes.\"1 None of these defendants has even purported to set up this affirmative defense, nor has any one of them rebutted the overwhelming proof of personal complicity in SS crimes.\nThus , the only question that presents itself under Count Three is whether the defendants remained members of the SS with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, or whether they were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes. Theevidence in this case shows that they not only had knowledge that the SS was used for the commission of criminal acts, but also that they personally participated in their commission.\nThese defendants were active, full-time, professional SS men; it was their creed and career. Not only that, but as the principal leaders of the Main Staff Office, RuSHA and VOMI they were members of three of the most important Main Offices or Hauptamt of the Supreme Command (Reischfuehrung) of the SS, and as leaders of Lebensborn they were members of an important department in a Main Office, first RuSHA and later the Personal Staff of Himmler himself. The twelve Main Offices of the Supreme Command of the SS directed the activities of all the members of the SS much as the Supreme Command of an army directs its operations. The International Military Tribunal, in calling the Supreme Command of the SS the SS Central Organization, stated that it \"supervised the activities of these various formations (that is, the Allgemeine SS, Waffen SS and police units) and was responsible for such special projects as the human experiments and 'final solution' of the Jewish question.\"2 We have already pointed out that the defendant Hofmann as Chief of RuSHA and Dr. Stier, representative of the defendant Greifelt and incidentally a witness in his behalf (in this very courtroom,) attended the meeting with Heydrich where the plans for the mass murder of Jews were laid. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 273. 2. Ibid, pp. 271-2.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4823, "page_number": "4816", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The defendants who were members of the Main Staff Office and VOMI, in an effort to beguile and confuse this Tribunal, have had the temerity to swear that these were not Main Offices of the Supreme Command of the SS. While this in no way constitures a defense to Count Three since these self-same defendants admit they were members of the SS and since the declaration of criminality by the International Military Tribunal is by no means limited to members of the Supreme Command, nevertheless, it is important to brand this statement as untrue. Prior to II June 1941, the Main Staff Office and VOMI -- although very much part of the Supreme Command of the SS -- had not been raised to the exalted positions of Main Offices, or, in the German, Hauptamter. But, on that date, Hitler, issued a decree in which he stated that:\n\"The two main Offices (that is, the Staff Main Office and VOMI) are as far as the SS is concerned on an equal level with the offices of the Supreme Command of the SS (SS Reichsfuehrung)\".(Pros.\nEx. 70,NO-4057, Doc. Bk. II-B, p. 12) In his decree of 28 November 1941, Himmler refers to VOMI, RuSHA, RSHA and the Main Staff Office as \"four Main Offices of the SS\". (Pros.\nEx. 24, No-4237, Doc. Bk. II-B , p. 16). Precisely the same information is to be found in the organizational yearbook of the Nazi Party where the Lain Staff Office, RuSHA and VOMI are all designated as Main Offices of the SS, while Lebensborn is mentioned as a department of the Personal Staff Of Himmler. (Pros. Ex, 875,NO-2640, Rebuttal Book A, p. 126) . These offices were all named by high ranking SS officers and were carrying out SS tasks.\nThese defendants seek to support their statements on this point by allusions to the obvious fact that the activities of the Main Staff Office and VOMI were supported by State funds. If this were any criterion as between a Reich and an SS office, then there was no SS. By the beginning of the war, the SS had spread its tentacles into every branch of the Reich government. For example, the whole German police system was \n for all practical purposes absorbed by the SS, and directed first by Heydrich and then by Kaltenburnner as Chief of the RSHA, a Main Office of the Supreme Command of the SS if there ever was one.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4824, "page_number": "4817", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Lamb, the Tribunal will recess at this time.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4825, "page_number": "4818", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument.\nMR. LAMB:We again take up the membership fo these defendants in the SS.\nWhatever these defendants may say and however much they attempt to confuse the issue, the fact is incontrovertible that the Main Staff Office and VOMI were as much Main Offices of the Supreme Command of the SS as the RSHA, RuSHA or WVHA.\nThat each and every defendant well knew of the multitudinous criminal activities of the SS is proved beyond any shadow of a doubt by the evidence in this case. The International Military Tribunal found that knowledge of these activities was \"general\" among SS members and that \"it is impossible to single out any one portion of the SS which was not involved in these criminal activitites.\" (Trial of the Major War Criminals., Vol. 1, pp. 271-2). If there were no proof in this case save the testimony of the defendants themselves, a conviction under Count Three would be mandatory. Their disgusting efforts to shift exclusive responsibility for their own crimes to the RSHA, the dead Himmler, or some other convenient scapegoat is proof itself that they knew the crimes were committed by the SS. They were all high ranking officers with very responsible positions.\nBut these defendants not only had guilty knowledge; they were active and important executioners of SS crimes. As we have already pointed out, the International Military Tribunal, singled out RuSHA. and VOMI as having been ultra-criminal Main Offices of the SS by holding that they \"were active in carrying out schemes for Germanization of occupied territory according to the racial principles of the Nazi Party and were involved in the deportation of Jews and other foreign nationls.\"1 Our proof has conclusively demonstrated that the Main Staff Office was Hiramler's supervising agency for the whole criminal program. The Lebensborn defendants were without any question engaged in the atrocious business of kidnapping and making good Nazis \n out of children from the occupied countries.", "speakers": [ "MR. LAMB", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4826, "page_number": "4819", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "These are established facts and conclusive proof of the guilt of all these defendants under Count Three of the Indictment.\nTHE CHARACTER OF PROSECUTION'S EVIDENCE, DOCUMENTARY AND ORAL\nThe guilt of the defendants in this case has been proved by evidence of the highest known character. The Prosecution has relied almost entirely upon documentary evidence, the authenticity of which has only in the rarest of occasions been questioned by the defendants. In most instances the defendants have taken up the Prosecution's exhibits, document by document, discussed them in detail and admitted their genuineness. They have given various and sundry unconvincing excuses as to why these documents did not incriminate them but it was seldom, if over, claimed that a document was not authentic.\nHere than enough documentary proof has been made a part of the record in this case to put beyond all doubt the criminal activities of these defendants and the offices which they led. Yet characteristically the defendants have from time to time complained that, dark as the picture is, a few documents which have not been found would dissipate this gloom of crime as if by magic, and the pure light of sunshine would bathe the courtroom and show the defendats in all their pristine purity. This veiled insinuation that all has not been said in their behalf which could have been said is a palpable absuridty . The proof documents of these defendants own making cannot be explained away. The guilt is there for all to see and the guilt of these defendants is written in clear and unambiguous language. It does not depend upon inference however compelling but rests upon the letters and memornada written by themselves. If they complain that other documents are not produced, we decline the blame. True it is that other documents once existed, which if now available, would perhaps give an - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol.\n1, p. 270.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4827, "page_number": "4820", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "even more detailed picture of the criminal program of these defendants. Be this as it may, it was the defendant Creutz, not the Prosecution, who burned the secret records of the Main Staff Office a short time before the Americans entered Schweikelberg, at that time the headquarters of the Main Staff Office. We hardly think the defendandants are in a position to complain if they find a few of their documents missing.\nFortunately, for the cause of truth, the Americans captured a few files that escaped Creutz's torch at Schweikelberg. Additionally, some of Himmler's files were captured, some files of VOMI, Lebensborn, RuSHA and the VOMI, Lebensborn, RuSHA and the WVHA. From these available sources our proof has come. In this way many first copies or originals have been found but naturally in some instances only a file copy of a document has been found. For instance, we have to rely on the copy of a secret order which Himmler sent to the Main Staff Office because Himmler's files were captured, but the files of the Main Staff Office, were the original should have been, were destroyed in the bonfire set by Creutz. The same could apply to other situations for often the files of the sender were captured and not those of the recipient. The defendants have seen fit to complain about these socalled copies as if they are somehow not very compelling proof. This is quite a mistaken notion. Those \"copies\" were retained in the file of the writer. They are authentic captured German documents and by reason of the fact that they complete the picture given by the other contents of the captured file, have high probative value. Moreover, Article 7 of Ordinance No. 7 provides that \"copies of any document or other secondary evidence of any document (shall be deemed admissible) if the original is not readily available. and cannot be produced without delay.\" The Prosecution contends that these so-called copies are entitled to the highest probative value in view of the over-all proof offered in this case. There are none of those copies but that fit in by reference, or otherwise, with signed original documents which have \n been introduced.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4828, "page_number": "4821", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Like a jug-saw puzzle, the many separate pieces of evidence fit together to form an irrefutable case.\nMost of the Prosecution's exhibits are orders, letters, decrees, reports, directives and the like. Many of them are signed by the defendants themselves. This is the type of evidence which we have mainly relied on and which we think proves the guilt of all the defendants beyond every reasonable doubt. The few affidavits which we have introduced, including those of the defendants, merely clarify and corroborate what is contained in the other documents.\nSeveral of the defendants found fault with their pre-trial.interrogations. But, for the most part, those self-same defendants assorted on the stand that the content of the affidavits they signed was true and correct. Schwalm, under questioning by the Tribunal, stated that his affidavit was \"...in substance...correct\". (R.3427-8) Huebner never contended the affidavit signed by him did not state the truth. Sollmann took issue with such important matters as whether the English translation of a word in his affidavit whould read \"commissary\" or \"grocery store\". Hofmann stated in his affidavit that it was one of his responsibilities to forward verdicts against Eastern workers who had forbidden sexual relations with Germans to the Reich Governor of Wuerttemberg and that he recalled fifteen to twenty-five cases where such persons were hanged. On the stand, Hofmann demurred to the figure fifteen to twenty-five and said that \"actually, there were probably three to five cases only\". (R. 3221) Whatever the truth of this \"correction\", the Prosecution is still inclined to view the crime as a serious one.\nNone of the affidavits which the defendants signed told any more than had already been told by the other documentary evidence which was submitted. The only thing these affidavits did was to gave a concise statement concerning certain activities of the defendants. For this reason we considered that the affidavits would be helpful to \n the Tribunal, but they said nothing that had not already been expressed in the other documents and by other witnesses and even by the defendants' own testimony.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4829, "page_number": "4822", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "In addition to the documentary evidence, the Prosecution we have introduced a number of witnesses who gave oral testimony. Those witnesses, generally speaking, were divided into two classes. First, there were those who had no connection with any of the offices involved in this case, no connection with any of the defendants and who, for the most part, were citizens of foreign countries who had witnessed or had first hand knowledge of the commission of some of these crimes and who obviously had no interest in tins case other than to see that justice was done. The second class of witnesses that were presented by the Prosecution consisted of a number of Germans, must of whom were members of the SS and had previously been connected in some way with one of the offices involved here and who had known most of the defendants personally. Those witnesses were introduced for the purpose of making more easily understood the documents which described the general organ ization of those offices, their functions and authority, and we think that their testimony served the purpose for which it was intended.\nIt was not expected, nor did we ask, that these witnesses, who were generally hostile to the Prosecution, implicate the defendants personally in the various crimes with which they are charged.\nGENERAL CHARACTER OF DEFENSE As we have said, the case against these defendants has been proven by captured documents, many of them written by the defendants themselves.\nUpon this evidence alone every defendant stands condemned They have admitted that these are genuine and authentic documents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4830, "page_number": "4823", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Most of these documents were written in plain, simple and direct language. Most of them are orders or directives or reports. They are concise, clear and complete. There is little room for misunderstanding in any of them and, again we quote the Tribunal, \"the documents speak for themselves\". Nevertheless, the defendants, realizing how incriminating these documents were, have tried in every conceivable way to brush them aside. The defendants all spent most of their time on the stand attempting to explain away document after document. Documents addressed to, or signed by, them were not read; or if read were not understood; or if understood were imperfectly understood. Official directives were never carried out or were secretly rescinded. Official duties assigned were never performed. Official reports contained in their files were full of factual mistakes. No one ever heard of or read any speeches by Himmler. Reports of conferences, which listed the defendants as having taken part, were in error. They were somewhere else that day.\nOf all of these defendants who attended the Monday conferences of the Main Staff Office, where the entire work of the Main Staff Office and other agencies connected with the strengthening of Germanism was discussed, none knew what was discussed at these meetings. None of them ever gained an insight into the work of the Main Staff Office, and none of them knew what their own offices were doing much less any of the other offices connected with the Main Staff Office.\nThe defendants always blamed someone else, who had a higher position than they, such as Himmler, or some irresponsible subordinate. They would have us believe that Himmler personally attended to every thing connected not only with SS offices involved here but all of the twelve main SS offices over which he had control. They have all testified that they did not approve of Hitler or Himmler and that they did not approve of the objectives of the agencies here involved. But none resigned because of this.\nInasmuch as these defendants have denied absolutely all connection with the crimes here charged and have said that these documents \n which we have introduced do not mean what they say, we think a question of credibility is a principal issue before the Tribunal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4831, "page_number": "4824", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "We submit that it is incredible that all of the many incriminating documents which have been submitted by the Prosecution are mistaken in what they say. This question of credibility is clear out. Either the documents are all entirely wrong or these defendants are guilty. In their testimony the defendants took no half-way measures. They looked incriminating document after incriminating document squarely in the face and simply said these documents didn't mean what they said. They called black white without the slightest hesitation. They read their lines without faltering. It was only on cross-examination that they would sometimes admit that an \"unfortunate term\" had been used.\nThese defendants always blamed someone else yet they were careful never to implicate any of their co-defendants. The obvious reason for this stems from the fact that all of these defendants were engaged in a common cause and each knows of all the work done by the other. So if one defendant had given damaging evidence against another, the jig would have been up because the defendant who was thus incriminated would retaliate by incriminating his accuser. When they inadvertently told an incriminating truth about a co-defendant and were reminded of this fact by the latter's attorney, they always very obligingly said that they had used an \"unfortunate expression\" and didn't mean what they had said. They always blamed someone who is dead or whose whereabouts in unknown, and remained loyal to their fellow brothers in the SS.\nMost of the documents introduced by the defendants are affidavits showing that they had a good character and that they loved Jews, or newspaper articles attempting to justify this criminal program of genocide. By these articles they tried to prove that the Versailles Treaty was unjust and illegal and tried to show that because these crimes or crimes similar to these were committed by other nations in the past that they were perfectly justified in doing the same thing but on a larger scale. In other words, they say that two wrongs would make a \n right.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4832, "page_number": "4825", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "We have been unable to see the relevancy of this documentary evidence.\nMost of the defendants' witnesses were former SS men and practically all of then were Nazis. A typical witness was General Karl Wolff (spelled with two f's) who was head of Himmler's Personal Staff. He testified that he knew most of the defendants personally, that they all were sterling characters, that none of them wanted to work for Himmler but were just victims of circumstances. He further testified that he didn't know the SS was killing Jews. He maintained this even after he was shown a letter over his own signature, in which he said he was happy to hear that 5,000 of the chosen people were being sent daily to Treblinka, a notorious extermination came near Lublin. He gave the same excuse that the defendants always out forward when confronted with a damaging document: he had unsed an \"unfortunate expression\" and the only reason he signed the letter was because after he had dictated it and it had been typed, his secretary could not be found; otherwise he would have rewritten it but being in a hurry he just signed the letter and sent it out.\nA common defense in this case has been that what the defendant did was in accordance with German law at that time. Of course, the German laws after 1933 were nothing except the expression \"Hitler's will\". When, therefore, a defendant says that what he did cannot be a crime because it was authorized by the German law he is in effect saying that what he did cannot be considered a crime because Hitler wanted it done. An example of this is testimony relative to Goering's decree concerning the treatment property of citizens of the former Polish State, in which he said, among other things, that there must be confiscation in the case of the property of Jews. Several of the defendants claimed that this was a law and had to be carried out. But this is obviously no defense; Tribunal III in Case No. 3, the Justice Case, gave a correct statement of the law when it said:\n\"In German legal theory Hitler's law was a shield to those \n who acted under it, but before a Tribunal authorized to enforce international law, Hitler's decrees were a protection neither to the Fuehrer himself nor to his subordinates, if in violation of the law of the community or nations.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4833, "page_number": "4826", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "(R. 10687) Another defense of equal invalidity is that certain territories over-run by Germany, for example parts of Poland and Luxembourg and Alsace and Lorraine, were incorporated into the Reich and must be considered as a part of Germany.\nThe burden of this argument is that since these territories were absorbed by the Reich, the laws and customs of war no longer applied and hence no war crimes could have been committel. This contention was disposed of by the International Military Tribunal in the following language:\n\"A further submission was made that Germany was no longer bound by the rules of land warfare in many of the territories occupied during the war, because Germany had completely subjugated those countries and incorporated them into the German Reich, a fact which gave Germany authority to deal with the occupied countries as though they were part of Germany. In the view of the Tribunal it is unnecessary in this case to decide whether this doctrine of subjugation, dependent as it is upon military conquest, has any application where the subjugation is the result of the crime of aggressive war. The doctrine was never considered to be applicable so long as there was an army in the field attempting to restore the occupied countries to their true owners, and in this case, therefore, the doctrine could not apply to any territories occupied after 1 September 1939. As to the or Crimes committed in Bohemia and Moravia, it is a sufficient answer that these territories were never added to the Reich, but a mere \n protectorate was established over then.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4834, "page_number": "4827", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "1 Military Tribunal III made a similar finding in Case No. 3, saying:\n\"We have expressed the opinion that the purported annexation of territory in the East which occurred in the course of war and while opposing armies were still in the field was invalid and that in point of law such territory never became a part of the Reich, but merely remained in German military control under belligerent occupancy.\"\n(R. 10708) Still another defense put forward in this case has been that the defendants were following superior orders.\nThis defense is declared invalid by Control Council Law No. 10, which provides in Article II 4 (b):\n\"The fact that any person acted pursuant to the order of his government or of his superior does not free him from responsibility for a crime, but nay be considered in mitigation.\"\nThe Charter of the International Military Tribunal contained an identical provision with respect to which it was said in the judgment that: In almost the same language used in Control Council Law No. 2, as follows:\n\"The fact that the defendant acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mi tigation of punishment.\"\n2 Many times during the course of the trial, the defendants testified that they treated their victims well.\nEven if we put to one side the Jews killed by the millions, the hundreds of thousands of the peoples of Poland, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine who died - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1 Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 254. 2 Ibid, p. 224.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4835, "page_number": "4828", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "by the thousands during deportation actions in the bitter cold of winter and as a result of being deprived of all beans of support; even if we forget the citizens of Luxembourg and Poland who were shot because they refused to fight for Germany after being forcibly conferred with German citizenship, and the miserable Poles who were committed to a concentration camp or hanged for having had sexual intercourse with a German. or refusing to sign the DVL List - even if all this is forgotten the contention of good treatment is no defense. The gravamen of the crime of kidnapping or slave labor is not maltreatment. The kidnapper or slaver will not be heard to defend on the ground that he did not commit an additional crime as well. It was not the purpose of taking small children from their parents, homes, friends and guardians to mistreat them physically but rather to Germanize them, make good Nazis of them. This did indeed cause mental pain and suffering to the parents or foster parents and to the child itself. And surely the German foster parents with whom these children were placed have been caused untold suffering in cases where the child has been repatriated since the end of the war. This is a tale of misery which will not end for years to come. But all of that was not the purpose of the program although it was the inevitable result. Whether the child was mistreated is completely beside the point.\nThe same is true with respect to the young women forcibly brought to Germany to work as housemaids and the tens of thousands of other deportees compelled to work for the German war machine. We think it has been shown that these people were certainly not well treated but, even if we assume they were, it is no defense. As Tribunal II said it so well in Case No. 4, the Pohl Case:\nThe freedom of man from enslavement by his fellow men is one of the fundamental concepts of civilization.\nAny program which violates that concept, whether prompt ed by a false feeling of superiority or arising from desperate economic \n COURT NO.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4836, "page_number": "4829", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "I, CASE NO. VIII.\n\"needs is intolerable and criminal. We have been told many times, 'Germany was engaged in total war.\nOur national life was endangered. Everyone had to work'. This cannot mean that everyone must work for Germany in her waging of criminal aggressive war.\nIt certainly can not mean that Russian and Polish and Dutch and Norwegian non combatants, including women and children, could be forced to work as slaves in the manufacture of war material to be used against their own country men and to destroy their own homelands.\nIt cer tainly cannot mean, in spite of treaties and all rules of civilized warfare if warfare can ever be said to be civilized) that prisoners taken in battle can be reduced to the status of slaves.\nEven Germany prior to 1939 had repudiated any such fallacious position.\nAnd yet, under the hypnotism of the Nazi ideology, the German people readily be came complaisant to this strange and inhuman system.\nUnder the spell of National Socialism, these de fendants today are only mildly conscious of any guilt in the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of civilians.\nThe concept that slavery is criminal per se does not enter into their thinking.\nTheir attitude may be summarized thus:\nWe fed and clothed and housed those prisoners as best we could.\nIf they were hungry or cold, so were the Germans.\nIf they had to work long hours under trying condi tions, so did the Germans.\nWhat is wrong in that?\nWhen it is explained that the Germans were free men working in their own homeland for their own country, they fail to see any distinction.\"\n(R. 8062-63) \n Another contention of the defendants was that the so-called \"ethnic Germans\" were In fact Germans and subject to the jurisdiction of the German government.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4837, "page_number": "4830", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "This contention has no basis in law. The so-called ethnic or racial Germans in Poland, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine were citizens of those countries and their allegiance was to them, not to the German Reich. The same is true of the Russians and all other foreign nationals. Even Himmler realized this, for when he examined the question whether a Pole could be prosecuted in a German court, he expressed the following opinion as it is stated in the justice Case:\n\"He (Himmler) also states that as far as racial Germans are concerned, Section 91, para graph 2, of the German Penal Code 'is not di rectly applicable, as racial Germans, according to formal national law were not German, but Polish, citizens.\n..'.\" (Case 3, R. 10894, 10850) There were indeed many traitors, the quislings and their obnoxious ilk, who acted as \"Fifth Column\" agents against their own countries.\nNo doubt these wretched people welcomed German dominion and citizenship in the Third Reich. For them we hold no brief. But there were many loyal citizens whose only desire was to be left in peace, and who were torn from their homes and forcibly subjected to the Germanization proceedures imposed by these defendants. That they may have had a German grandparent is no defense to these palpable crimes. Nor should the Tribunal forget that there were thousands of people in Poland, Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, and elsewhere who were subjected to the Germanization process - or, as the defendants called it, the WED procedure - solely on the ground of their \"racial appearance.\" These people were no more \n German than Tam O'Shanter.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4838, "page_number": "4831", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Another contention has been that certain of the incorporated territories were German territories prior to the Treaty of Versailles and that the Germans were, therefore, justified in treating this territory as German This defense was rejected by the International Military Tribunal, Whatever one's views may be on the merits of the treaty, there can be no disagreement that it could not be validly abrogated by unilateral action of the German government and least of all through aggressive war.\nFinally, these defendants have encumbered the record with all manner of irrelevant evidence which they assert proves that other nations have done what they did. The \"evidence\" in no way supports their thesis, out even if it did the law has yet to recognize the defense that two wrongs make a right, that since some one else committed murders and atrocities the defendants should not be convicted of a like charge. If others have done what these defendants did, they too have committed crimes.\nTHE LAW APPLICABLE TO THIS CASE is continued in The law of this case Control Council Law No. 10 and its terms are conclusive upon all parties to this proceeding.\nThis Tribunal is, we respectfully submit, bound, by the provisions of Control Council Law No. 10, just as the International Military Tribunal was bound by the provisions of the London Charter. It was stated in the International Military Tribunal Judgment that:\n\"The jurisdiction of the Tribunal is defined in the Agreement and Charter, and the crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, for which there shall be individual responsibility, \n \"are set out in Article 6... The law of the Charter is decisive and binding upon the Tri bunal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4839, "page_number": "4832", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "..\"1 It will perhaps be helpful at this point for the Prosecution to outline briefly its conception of the legal principles underlying War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity as defined in Control Council Law No. 10.\nWar Crimes are defined in Control Council Law No. 10 as atrocities and offenses in violation of the laws and customs of war. This definition is based primarily on the Hague Convention of 1929, which declare the law of nations at those times with respect to land warfare, the treatment of prisoners of war, the rights and duties of a belligerent power when occupying territory of a hostile state, and other matters.\nIt has been contended by some here, as it was contended in the trial before the International Military Tribunal, that the Hague Convention does not apply in this case because several of the belligerents in the recent war were not parties to the Convention. In its Judgment, the International Military Tribunal disposed of this contention with the following language:\n\"The Tribunal is of course bound by the Charter, in the definition which it gives both of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.\nWith respect to War Crimes, however, as has already been pointed out, the crimes defined by Article 6, Section (b), of the Charter were already recognized as War Crimes under international law.\nThey were covered by Articles 46, 50, 52 and 56 of the Hague Convention of 1907, and - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol.\n1, pp. 218, 253.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4840, "page_number": "4833", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "\"Articles 2, 3, 4, 46 and 51 of the Geneva Con vention of 1929.\nThat violation of these pro visions constituted crimes for which the guilty individuals were punishable is too will-settled to admit of argument.\n\"But it is argued that the Hague Convention does not apply in this case, because of the 'general participation' clause in Article 2 of the Hague Convention of 1907.\nThat clause pro vided:\n'The provisions contained in the regu lations (Rules of Land Warfare) referred to in Article I as well as in the present Convention do not apply except between con tracting powers, and then only if all the belligerents are parties to the Convention.\nSeveral of the belligerents in the recent war were not parties to this Convention.\n\"In the opinion of the Tribunal it is not necessary to decide this question.\nThe rules of land warfare expressed in the Convention undoubtedly represented an advance over existing international law at the time of their adoption.\nBut the Con vention expressly stated that it was an attempt 'to revise the general laws and customs of war', which it thus recognized to be then existing, but by 1939 these rules laid down in the Convention were recognized by all civilized nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war which are referred to in Article 6 (b) of the Charter.\"\n1 - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, pp. 283-4.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4841, "page_number": "4834", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "The laws and customs of war apply between belligerents, but now domestically or among allies. Crimes of German nationals against other German nationals are not War Crimes, nor are acts by German nationals against their allies. But these crimes are comprehended within the definition of Crimes against Humanity as contained both in the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal and Control Council Law No. 10 for this proceeding. The definition of Crimes against Humanity as contained in Control Council Law No. 10 is:\n\"Atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other inhumane acts committed against any civilian popu lation, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds whether or not in violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated.\"\nThe definition of Crimes Against Humanity is thus considerably broader than that of War Crimes. Crimes against Humanity include atrocities and offenses against any civilian population, while War Crimes are limited to crimes committed against the civilian population from occupied territory. Thus, a War Crime is necessarily at the same time a Crime against Humanity; the reverse of this proposition is of course not true since Crimes against Humanity committed against Germans or allies of Germany are not at the same time War Crimes. This analysis is recognized not only in Case No. 3, the Justice Case, but also in the judgment of the International Military Tribunal - as stated by Military Tribunal III in its judgment:\n\"Obviously, these sections are not surplus age.\nThey supplement the preceding sections on \n \"war crimes and include within their prohibition not only war crimes, but also acts not included within the preceding definitions of war crimes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4842, "page_number": "4835", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "In place of atrocities committed against civil ians of or in or from occupied territory, these sections prohibit atrocities 'against any civil ian population'... Article III of Control Coun cil Law No. 10 clearly demonstrates that acts by Germans against German nationals may constitute crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of this Tribunal to punish.\n\"Control Council Law No. 10 is not limited to the punishment off persons guilty of violating the laws and customs of war in the narrow sense;furthermore, it can no longer be said that vio lations of the laws and customs of war are the only offenses recognized by common international law.\nThe force of circumstances, the grim fact of world-wide interdependence, and the moral pressure of public opinion have resulted in inter national recognition that certain crimes against humanity committed by Nazi authority against Ger man nationals constitute violations not alone of statute but also of common international law.\"\n1 The Judgment of the International Military Tribunal also shows a clear recognition of its jurisdiction over crimes of Germans against Germans as comprehended within the definition of Crimes against Humanity.\nAfter reviewing a large number of inhumane acts in connection with War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, the Tribunal - - - - - - - - - - - - 1. U.S. vs Josef Alstoetter, et al, Case No. 3, M.T. III, pp.\n23-4 & 31.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4843, "page_number": "4836", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "concluded by saying that:\n\"... from the beginning of the war in 1939 War Crimes were committed on a vast scale, which were also Crimes against Humanity; and insofar as the inhumane acts charged in the Indictment, and committed after the beginning of the war, did not constitute War Crimes; they were all committed in execution of, or in connection with, the aggres sive war, and therefore constituted Crimes against Humanity.\"\n1 What we have said with respect to the broad scope of the definition of Crimes against Humanity has primary significance with respect to Paragraph 22 of Count One of the Indictment.\nIt charges the defendant Hildebrandt with the extermination of thousands of German nationals pursuant to the so-called euthanasia program of the Third Reich. All other acts charged as Crimes against Humanity in the Indictment were also directed against civilians from occupied countries, and consequently are also charged as, and constitute, War Crimes. The evidence does not reveal, however, whether the persons executed by the SS unit commanded by Hildebrandt when he was Higher SS and Police Leader in Danzig, West Prussia, were all German nationals, or whether some Polish nationals also fell victim to this action. Accordingly, these murders were charged in the Indictment only as Crimes against Humanity. According to the definition of Crimes against Humanity, as contained in Control Council Law No. 10, this Tribunal clearly has jurisdiction over this crime even though it may have been committed only against German nationsls. - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 254.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4844, "page_number": "4837", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "This very matter has been authoritatively determined by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal when it said that:\n\"Reference should also be mode to the policy which was in existence in Germany by the summer of 1940, under which call aged, insane, and incur able people, 'useless eaters', were transferred to special institutions where they were killed, and their relatives informed that they had died from natural causes.\nThe victims were not confined to German citizens, out included foreign laborers, who were no longer able to work, and were there fore useless to the German war machine.\nIt has been estimated that at least some 275,000 people were killed in this manner in nursing homes, hos pitals and asylums, which were under the juris diction of the Defendant Frick, in his capacity as Minister of the Inferior.\nHow many foreign workers were included in this total it has been quite impossible to determine.\n\"During the war nursing homes, hospitals and asylums in which euthanasia was practiced as described elsewhere in this Judgment, came under Frick's jurisdiction.\nHe had knowledge that insane, sick and aged people, useless eaters', were being systematically out to death.\nComplaints of these murders reached him, but he did nothing to stop them.\nA report of the Czecho slovak War Crimes Commission estimated that 275,000 mentally deficient and aged people, for whose wel fare he was responsible, fell victim to it.\"\n1 - - - - - - -- - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, pp. 247-301.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4845, "page_number": "4838", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Thus, the International Military Tribunal held that the crime of euthanasia, as widely practiced by the Third Reich was a crime within its jurisdiction and not distinction was drawn as to the nationality of the persons who fell victims to it. A similiar result was reached by Military Tribunal I, in Case No. 1, the so-called Medical Case.\nWe will now cite a few precedents to show that the very things which these defendants are charged with have been declared to be crimes.\nAs to the criminality of the acts charged in the Indictment, no novel questions face the Tribunal. That these acts did occur and that they constitute crimes has been authoritatively adjudicated by the International Military Tribunal and by other tribunals which have rendered judgments here at Nurnberg. Article 9 of Military Government Ordinance No. 7 provides that tribunals shall take judicial knowledge of the records and findings of other tribunals of any of the Unted Nations. Article 10 provides that a determination of the International Military Tribunal in the Judgment in Case No. 1 that certain crimes were planned or occurred shall be binding on the tribunals established under Ordinance No. 7, and statements of the International Military Tribunal in its Judgment shall constitute proof of acts stated in the absence of substantial new evidence to the contrary.\nWe will quote a few excerpts from the Judgment in Case No. 1 which are proof of the fact that not only were these crimes planned but they were actually committed in accordance with the pre-conceived plan.\nThe International Military Tribunal has held that criminal acts of expulsion were committed in order to \n make room for German colonization, and the Tribunal stated;\"... In Poland and the Soviet Union these crimes were part of a plan to get rid of whole native popu lations by expulsion and annihilation, in order that their territory could be used for colonization by Germans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4846, "page_number": "4839", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Hitler had written in Mein Kampf on these lines, and the plan was clearly stated by Himmler in 1942, when he wrote:\n'It is not our task to German ize the East in the old sense, that is to teach the people there the German language and the German law, but to see to it that only people of purely Germanic blood live in the East'.\"1 The same Tribunal, referring to the abduction of children of a conquered nation, said:\n\"It was Himmler again who stated in October 1943:\n'... What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type, we will take.\nIf necessary, by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us.\nWhether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we we need them as slaves for our culture, otherwise it is of no interest to me'.\"2 The Tribunal again adjudged that expulsions and deportations actually occurred:\n\"In the West the population of Alsace were the victims of a German 'expulsion action'. Between July and December 1940, 105,000 Alsatians were either deported from their homes or prevented from returning to them.\nA captured German report dated 7 August 1942 with regard to Alsace states that:\n- - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 237. 2. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 237.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4847, "page_number": "4840", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "'The Problem of race will be given first consider ation, and this in such a manner that persons of racial value will be deported to Germany proper, and racially inferior persons to France'.\"1 The International Military Tribunal also determined that plunder has been committed in connection with the program for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nAgain we quote:\n\".... Himmler, as the Reich Commissioner for the 'Strengthening of Germanism', issued a decree.\n..\nfor carrying out the art seizure program. It Stated:\n'To strengthen Germanism in the defense of the Reich, all articles mentioned in Section 2 of this decree are hereby confiscated.\n..'.\" - - - - - - - - - - 1. Ibid, p. 238.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4848, "page_number": "4841", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "They are confiscated for the benefit of the German Reich, and are at the disposal of the Reich Commissioner for the strengthening of Germanism\".1 The International Military Tribunal referred to RUSHA and VOMI as criminal components of the SS Supreme Command, holding that they:\n\"were active in carrying out schemes for Germanization of occupied territories according to the racial principles of the Nazi Party and were involved in the deportation of Jews and other foreign nationals.\"\n2 In condemning the Leadership Corps of the Nazi Party, the Tribunal said:\n\"But the Leadership Corps was also used for similar steps in Austria and those parts of Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Uygoslavia.\n... The Leadership Corps was used for their Germanization through the elimination of local customs.\n...\"3 (Underscoring curs).\nIn its judgment against Hess, the Tribunal said that:\n\"He signed decrees forcing certain groups of Poles to accept German citizenship.\nThe Tribunal however, does not find that the evidence sufficiently connects Hess with these crimes to sustain a finding of guilt.\"\n4 So, although the Tribunal did not pin the guilt for these particular crimes on Hess, it did adjudicate the fact that the forcing of persons to accept German citizenship was a crime.\n--------1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1. p. 242. 2. Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 270. 3. Ibid, Vol. 1, pp. 258-9. 4. Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 284.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4849, "page_number": "4842", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "In citing the crimes committed by the defendant Rosenberg, the Tribunal held that:\n\"He helped to formulate the policies of Germanization ..\nand he set up the administration which carried them out.\"1 And, finally, the Tribunal in its judgment against the defendant Frich said:\n\"Having created a racial register of persons of German extraction, Frick conferred German citizenship on certain groups of citizens Of foreign countries.\nHe is responsible for German9 zation in Austria, Sudetenland, Memel, Danzig, Eastern territories (West Prussia and Posen), and Eupen, Malmedy, and Moresnot.\nHe forced on the citizens of these territories German law, German courts, German education, German police security, and compulsory military service.\"\n2 CONCLUSION In conclusion we respectfully submit that it has been shown that during the course of the late war many heinous crimes were committed by the Nazi regime against the civilian population of neighboring countries.\nIt has been shown that these crimes were committed for the purpose of making Germany strong by making her meighbors weak. It has been shown that with the cessation of Polish armed resistance in October 1939, Hitler and Himmler took steps to destroy the Polish nation and large groups of its peoples. It has been shown that a special office was set up to carry out this gigantic task; that the office was known as the Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism (later known as the Main Staff Office) and that the Nazi Party and SS agencies, RUSHA, VOMI and Lebensborn, were detailed to assist in the execution of the ---------1. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 1, p. 295. 2. Ibid, Vol. 1, p. 301.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4850, "page_number": "4843", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "program, It has been shown that these four offices, working in perfect harmony and in collaboration one with the other and under the overall supervision of the Main Staff Office were responsible for the many criminal acts which were perpetrated in connection with the program. It has been shown that all of the defendants, as important ad high ranking officials of these four offices worked together to effectuate this criminal common plan. These defendants conferred together, discussed together, planned together, and worked together. Each was an expert in his own field. They comprised a team and each member was vital to the success of the whole enormous operation. Their tasks were so interwoven and so interrelated that without complete knowledge of the entire program and without full collaboration on the part of all, they would not have been able to accomplish what they did in carrying cut this criminal program. So we repeat, these defendants constitute a team, they all were involved in one scheme. They are all responsible for the criminal acts which they committed in carrying out the program.\nControl Council Law No. 10, Article II 2 provides that without regard to the capacity in which he acted any person is deemed to have committed a crime as defined in Control Council Law No. 10 if he was (a) a principal or (b) was an accessory to the commission of any such crime or ordered or abetted the same or (c) took a consenting part therein or (d) was connected with plans or enterprises involving its commission or (e) was a member of any organization or group connected with the commission of any such crime.\nWe submit that the proof in this case shows beyond a reasonable doubt that all the defendants have participated in the crimes charged in the Indictment in such a way as to bring them within the provisions above quoted and that they, therefore are guilty of having committed \n the crimes charged.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4851, "page_number": "4844", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until nine-thirty Monday Morning.\n(Tribunal No. I adjourned until 0930 hours, 16 February 1948.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4852, "page_number": "4845", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrtich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 16 February 1948, -0930 - 1630 the Honorable Lee Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendant are present in the Court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument on behalf of the defendants.\nDR. HAENSEL:Your Honors, may I please start with my presentation. I would like to preface my remarks by saying that my plea includes 187 pages of which 75 have been translated up to today. I should like to remind the Tribunal of the fact that during the trial I submitted several legal arguments from my little book entitled \"Crimes committed by Organizations\" and that the Tribunal had asked that all these details should not be translated but that I should give a unified legal argument at the end of the proceedings. This now is contained in my plea which comments in detail on the arguments of the Prosecution as well as the legal arguments. I should like to ask the Tribunal to take note of the parts that are not translated up to now and to have them translated because these parts are very important as well as the arguments of my colleagues. I permit myself to point out that in other Nurnberg trials, proceedings have been handled in such a way that the parts of the pleas which were not read into the record were translated and then, as for instance in Case III, were made a part of the record itself. In the Case III, you find a record in which the complete final pleas are vontained in the record itself even though they were not read in open court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Well now, Dr. Haensel, since you made that statement I \n want to get the Tribunal straight.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4853, "page_number": "4846", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The trouble you got into was following the procedure in Case No. III instead of the announcement made in Case No. VIII. We announced that the final pleas to be read in Court would be turned over to the translator at one tine, and the final pleas or briefs not to be read in Court would be turned over at another tine so that you could divide them. It was not possible to translate the whole book from the time you turned them over until this morning, so that it's no fault of the Tribunal that that situation exists at this time.\nDR. HAENSAL:I did, of course, not permit myself to criticize the Tribunal. I only asked, also on behalf of my other colleagues, that everything be done to take notice of that after we have read it.\nI am beginning with page 7 of my final plea.\nThe Military Tribunal III states explicitly that single deeds against single individuals are not to be classified as crimes against humanity, but only systematic, programmatic acts against the population. It is therefore the case of political excesses, if one may use the correct term, which must be accounted for. A crime comes before the forum of an international tribunal only, if it is directed against principles which are fundamental and without which social life of mankind is unthinkable. This was also understood by the prosecution, which for this reason brought the accusations by claiming genocide.\nThe procedure of ethnic transplantation, of \"resettlement\" which is considered by the prosecution as exterminations of nations - and at that it could only be considered as an unsuccessful attempt at murder, because none of the fighting nations has vanished -- has been conceived and discussed already since the First World War, about 1917, in order to prevent the threatening extermination of nations. The treatment of the people who are to be resettled can be considered, as a whole, as a remedying measure and not as slavery, apart perhaps of a few mistakes. I want to express myself more clearly with the help of examples:\nAs long as there are different living conditions in different states, \n female domestic servants from territories with limited wage possibilities will try on their own accord to get to cities where there are better opportunities.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSAL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4854, "page_number": "4847", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "After the end of the war in 1918, Switzerland had an insufficient number of domestic workers. Germany had become poor. Switzerland needed only to give entry permits and at once as many German women would flock to Switzerland, as it wanted to accept, even from social classes, which at other times would not constitute the domestic class.\nThere had always been women from the Spreewald as nurses and Polish women as domestic servants in Berlin, because living conditions had always been better in Berlin than in the flat country of the East or in the Wendvillages of the Spreewald.\nIf the Nazi Government had published an advertisement in the Lublin papers,3) as many girls from the East would have answered the call as were needed and the selection of the neatest and tidiest girls could have been left to the housewife or the householder.4) But why would such a warped mind as Himmler's have tackled the matter directly and simply, if it could be done in a complicated manner? 5) Domestic servants became \"manual help\" (Gesindekraft), household was termed \"hearth holding\" (Herdstellen); employment became \"allocation\" (Verweisungsbescheid); the interview which usually precede the employment of house personnel was termed \"Sifting\" (Durchschleusung); as we can read in Exhibit 310 (Volume V E, page 1). The re-Germanization (Wiedereindeutschung) or even the Germanization of the women would have been left by an economically thinking man to the young men of Berlin who were desirous of marriage, or to time. Himmler, however, got a staff of men, who could have been used for a better purpose, to bring 521 female domestic servants to Germany.6) Offices were at each others' throats; ------------------------------------3) F.i. the call to report for the Deutsche Volksliste (List of German descendant) 1942 was published in the newspapers, (Page 3576) 4) I refer to the statement of the Mennonite Priest UNRUH of 17 December, afternoon, page 2724.\n5) See HILDEBRANDT's characterisation of HIMMLERZ, 21 January, forenoon, page 4050 ff.\n6) Exhibit 161, IV D, \n labor offices and Gauleiter fought the measures which were introduced by the order of Himmler through his office as Reich Commissar for the strengthening of ethnic entity; the branch office of the RSHA, the only office competent for the selection, had to be advised to fetter its desire for activity and to be particularly careful in the selection of the girls.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4855, "page_number": "4848", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Cases of \"homesickness\" were mentioned in one report which was demanded by Himmler; that cases of suicide had allegedly occupied, has been denied by the writer of the report during this trial.7) The opponents of Germany owe it not only to their superior forces but also to the inefficiency of organizers, such as Himmler imagined to be, that they were victorious.\nNot without reason did Hitler forbid the comic papers to criticize his orders. If the Munich Simplizissimus had still existed, one apt title page would have been sufficient to prevent such absurdities.\n2.) The break-down of the protection of minorities.\nBefore however I go into further details, I would like once more to consider all the aspects and to view with you the facts which included this whole, for Germany, so painful chapter, written in blood by Hitler.\nOn the occasion of the Paris Peace Conference, the European eastern countries, which up to the First World War have been administered by three empires -- (Kaissereichen) Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany--had been newly divided. It was intended to create ethnic homogeneous \"Nationalstaaten\" (National states). But it could not be avoided that states were created again which were polyethnic, which included different nationalities in their state territory. There were folk groups, majorities and minorities, who claimed in the same territory the right to settle. A numerical minority led in Czechoslovakia. A constitutional solution for this interethnic coexistence was not found in Versailles. The stroke of genius, like Talleyrand's principle of legitimacy on the occasion of the Congress in Vienna after the Napoleonic world war, was lacking.\"\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Dr. Haensel, may I suggest that you read more slowly. ------------------------7) page 2113.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4856, "page_number": "4849", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "To get the value of your oral arguments you must talk more slowly because the translation is coming so fast it's difficult to follow you. Frankly, I want to listen attentively to this oral argument and all the oral arguments and get the value that is intended, but the speed is so fast that we can't follow. It's a wasted effort largely.\nDR.HAENSEL: \"The Versailles conference relied on the effectiveness of the agreements for the protection of minorities as far as the Eastern territories were concerned. The first treaty of this sort was forced upon Poland (just the same as later on the present Eastern border of his ethnic space of settlement) against its will be friendly powers.8) The conflicting opinions are proved documentary by the famous correspondence between the Polish State President Paderewski and Clemenceau of June 1919.9) In accordance with this treaty,allied and associated powers (not Germany) on the one hand, and between the agreements for protection of minorities between the respective home-countries of the minorities on the other hand, were made. The League of Nations was commissioned with the task to guarantee that the agreements be carried out. Substance of the legal protection was a minimum of individual national rights of the individual citizen of the states in question who differed (regardless of former nationality) ethnically from the majority, or (as in Czechoslovalia) from the leading folkdom, and out of their own free will wanted to hold on to this cultural separation.\"\nI continue now with my Page 12. ---------------------------8) treaty of 28 June 1919. Greifelt-Document 68, I, page 39, Hildebrandt Doc.\n8, Volume II, page 7. 9) Hildebrandt-Doc. 7, Volume II, page 5.", "speakers": [ "DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4857, "page_number": "4850", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The idea of the \"protection of the minorities\" could not be realized; the attempt to master the problems of the peoples in the East by means of this formula failed. The significance of the problem from the point of view of German politics is evident from the fact that the reliable scientist of international standing. Professor Nawiasky, who is living in Switzerland at the present ascertained that apart from the 62.5 millions of Germans within the Reich frontiers of 1925, a further 30 millions lived outside these frontiers as minorities.10 Volumes could be written about all the various methods of ethnical suppression and forced assimilation by means of ethnical transformations (resettling) which were common occurences in the East as well as in the southern Tirol and elsewhere.\nHidden methods of resettling that is to say planned uprooting, degradation, expropriation, ejection, and transplanting of tehnically unpopular groups played a decisive part in this, although the motives of planned and systematic procedure were seldom publicized. According to thorough investigations made by the well-known anti-national socialist publicist, Dr. Hermann Rauschning, during the years following the First World War, almost one million (of a total of 1.2 millions) of German speaking citizens of the Corridor areas of Posen and West Prussia were already at that time ejected into the already narrowed Germany by means of direct or indirect methods of making life impossible for them. As a primary source I refer to the judgment of the Permanent International Tribunal in the Hague, which stated as early as in the judgment with regard to the question of the settlers on 10 September 1923: \"The measures taken by the Polish government about which an opinion is to be given do not correspond to that government's international responsibilities.\"11 10) GREIFELT-Doc. 68, Volume I, page 38. 11) GREIFELT-Doc. 66, 67. Doc. B.I, Page 30 and following especially page 32.\nHILDEBRANDT-Doc. 5, 9-16, Doc B. II, Page 1 and following.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4858, "page_number": "4851", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The result of the development in the decisive years between 1918 and 1933 was that neither the League of Nations nor the minorities themselves could make any progress with regard to the legal problem of nationalities by means of the methods used up to then. On the contrary, this remained far below the standard reached prior to 1918 in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy which was destroyed by the Allies. Moreover a further rapid decline in the rights of the minorities started in 1930 in the eastern states. The arising of sem-facist regimes in most of the eastern states annulled the Geneva legal protection de facto. Paradoxi cally the friendship pact between Hitler and Pilsudski enabled the Poles to free themselves in every way from the control of the League of Nations in the year 1934.\nNeither space nor time permit more detailed elaboration on these bases of conflicts which determined the entire European History and events of the last decade. In the presenting of the evidence it was also only possible to hint at these or to cast light on them here and there. But and this is without doubt symptomatic - every defendant had to point out this poisoned state of the European situation of the peoples in order to justify his actions and his thoughts; the struggle of the peoples at all European frontiers which were fixed politically is traceable in all the statements of the defendants and witnesses.12 3. The national-socialist resettlement politics.\nIn the course of national-socialist foreign politics, which prior to their later change, were directed towards open imperialism and above all towards the overcoming of Germany's isolation in foreign politics, the presence of numerous German Ethnic Folk Groups, all of which were dissatisfied, surrounding the Reich constituted a serious burden. For a policy which was either based on the Ethnic idea or which referred at least to this idea (often abusively and misleadingly) could hardly renounce the solidarity with suppressed groups whose language and tradition 12) See Statements Graebe, 2 December 1947 and 29 January 1948.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4859, "page_number": "4852", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "was German, although this solidarity had a detrimental effect on the diplomatic relations of the Reich with the states concerned. The fact that the minority problem remained unsolved reduced the freedom of movement of the Reich with regard to its foreign policy in a way which was clearly noticeable.\nAlready in his book \"Mein Kampf\", Hitler stated that he was not interested in the South Tyrolese problem; this in spite of the fact that the people of South Tyrol who were suppressed by the Fascism constituted the best known and most popular German minority in Germany and in most foreign countries. The dilemma which confronted the foreign policy of the Nazis in this test case could only be solved by using the method of resettlemtn that means by withdrawing the people of South Tyrol in accordance with the principle of Ethnic concentration and by settling them in an area which was not desirable for Italy. Hitler's renunciation with regard to South Tyrol with its German-speaking population and its traces of ancient German cultural tradition (a decision made by Hitler already before his assumption of power) was very unpopular with his adherents and even more unpopular with those followers of later years who came from the camp of bourgeois nationalism.\nThere is no doubt that from several points of view serious and fundamental objections can be raised against the attempt of recognized governments, to separate the population from the country, to uproot a whole Ethnic group and to resettle it somehwere else in order to save at least their endangered folkdom and to remove conflicts with another state. But these objections are not objections referring to International Law, but objections with regard to Ethnic problems. It is regrettable that just with regard to this problem a fundamental rule seems to develop like: Cuius regnum ejus populatio. I quote from Swiss sources,13 \"The number of Germans alone who were 'resettled' from the East and have 13) GREIFELT Doc No. 72, Doc. Book I, . 46.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4860, "page_number": "4853", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "to find new living and working space within the territory of the Reich, which has become considerably smaller, amounts to nearly 11 million; 21/2 million from East Prussia, 5 million from Silesia, more than 3 million from Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria. But the fate of other Ethnic groups is similar: Almost 4 million Poles who had lived East of the Russian-Polish frontier were removed by the Soviets to the West.\"\nThese resettlements complete an evolution which had started with the Russian revolution in 1917; as a result of this evolution the whole area west of the Oder which for 1000 years was inhabited by Germanic people or to a smaller part by a poly-ethnical population, is now inhabited by people of purely Slavic origin. The retrogressive movement of Germandom initiated by Hitler's resettlement of the people of South Tyrol has been led to its extreme historical consequence -- against the intention and the will of the author who obviously become nothing but a blind tool of forceful eruptive forces which put mankind on an entirely new basis.\nThe same principle of a resettlement for the purpose of making the relations with a foreign partner smoother and less tense which guided the National Socialist policy in South Tyrol in 1938 - 1939 can also be recognized in the beginning as the motive of the Hitler resettling policy after the 1 September 1939. The movements of populations which Hitler carried out within the area of pre-war Poland and which constitute a main topic of these proceedings were first of all instigated by the tendency of Germany to live on friendly terms with Russia.14 Soviet Russia demanded the creation of a demarcation line running along the Bug and San; this demarcation line divided the Eastern part of central Europe in a German and a Russian zone of influence, this zone of influence was later on called by the Nazi propaganda with the notorious designation: \"Lebensraum\" (living space ). Thus a part of an old settlement barrier of a German diaspora population was added to 14) I refer to GREIFELT Doc. 59 and 60, Book I, pages 6-8.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4861, "page_number": "4854", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "a foreign zone of interests and was lost for German settlers. Since the principle of the totalitarian state which was opposed to the rights of minorities was recognized in Germany as well as in Russia, Germany could guarantee the protection of their folkdom rights for the future to the inhabitants of this area who belonged to the German cultural community only by transplanting these people to their sphere of sovereignty or influence.\nFrom intentions which originally were directed towards completely different goals arose situations which brought about one of the most disastrous calamities of a folkdom in history; according to estimates of the well-known church dignitary Niemoeller these circumstances led to the loss of 5 to 6 million German lives and to the loss of the entire property of 11 to 12 million Germans.\"\nI am continuing with Page 21.\nUlrich Greifelt's curriculium vitas up to the outbreak of war.\nBefore entering into a definition of Greifelt's port in these events, as I am bound to di, and before investigating whether he is charged with personal guilt by the violation of some law, I have to make a few comments on the documentary evidence.\nAs we should expect in view of the unusual nature of the subject matter on hand at this trial, the argumentation in the case in chief is also an unusual one. It essentially consists of documents \n COURT I CASE VIII which, strictly speaking, are no documents in the sense of normal criminal procedure, no original documents, duly dated and signed, but for the most part copies, duplicates, minutes and excerpts the evidential value of which is determined by time and place of their discovery.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4862, "page_number": "4855", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It is not the method of the criminologist, but rather that of the historian who searches the archives as the source of information on which to base his judgment of the dramatis personae. It is my opinion that both the method of the criminologist who in the normal criminal case lets the documents \"speak for themselves\" as well as that of the historian can be productive of good results. But, unlike the documentary proof of the criminologist, the historical documents which are not valid documents in the juridicial sense do not speak for themselves. They always call for careful interpretation and examination of all the circumstances under which they came into existence and under which they were found. The doubts are enhanced if excerpts of documents are presented which have been made by the authority which laid the charge. Inevitably in compiling such excerpts, intended as they are for a definite purpose, essential circumstances are sometimes overlooked or clipped off - even with the best will in the world - on the part of the person making those excerpts. A correspondence may become meaningless or its meaning may be turned into the opposite, unless it is presented in its entirety.\nAs an example I would refer to Doc. Book XIV B, Exh. 622 624.\nWhile the Prosecution presented the NO-Documents 1883, 1884 and 1886 it omitted the NO-Documents 1885 and 1887 which belong to this correspondence.\nI then submitted the latter along with the\nGREIFELTDocuments 80 and 81, I, page 90 and following pages, and only then was it possible to survey the matter in its proper context.\nI would also refer to Exhibit 626 in Book XIV B, where the enclosure was omitted contents of which were decisive for the whole document.\nAnd there is one more thing: The criminologist has the tendency to interrupt his documents extensively. He acts on the assumption that the accused person hid from him as much evidence as he could, and that the few scraps which had been found admit the conclusion that there must be further and yet more incriminating documentary evidence. The historian, however, works the other way round; he views his documents in a spirit of \n COURT I CASE VIII skepticism; he does not give credence to his documents a priori, but is suspicious.", "speakers": [ "GREIFELT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4863, "page_number": "4856", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "He does not go by what the literal sense of the sentences might tell the reader, but by what they were originally intended to convey and, judging by the time and the circumstances of the writing, could convey to the receiver, viz. what effect they were meant to have on the latter. If HIMMLER in his address to SS-generals - which has not been heard by GREIFELT at all - makes mention of his murders, the criminologist will infer that this utterance amounts to a confession and a partial confession at that which must necessarily be known and appear credible to all those present, thus stamping them as accomplices. The historian, however, will start by regarding it as loud-mouthed talk and insist on further proof before believing it implicitly, nor will he deny anybody in the audience this right to have his doubts. He will assume that motives of propaganda, temptation and flattery actuate not only the demagogue, but also the letter-writer, and he will, therefore, give the receiver of the letter the right not to take in everything he roads in the letter. Also to the actors on the stage of history he will concede the right to act on the consideration: \"How do I break it to my child?\" just as in any normal walk of life. Not all that is written in a letter reflects the writer's innermost conviction.\nWith HITLER as he is characterized by the above quoted saying of RAUSCHNING, GREIFELT has only one thing in common: Skepticism for the race ideology. In all other respects an abyss separates GREIFELT from HITLER and the typical National-Socialist. GREIFELT comes from a respectable middle-class environment, all his life he was bound to his family, his father, mother, brothers and sisters and later on his wife by close ties, he regarded such individual happiness as the center of gravity of his life, and in the observance of the tenets of civic morality and Christian ethics he saw the road towards this goal. The idea of collective happiness, the complete merging into the \"confederacy\" around HITLER was alien to him.\nGREIFELT attended a Berlin Grammar school as one of the top boys, \n COURT I CASE VIII he passed the leaving examination at the outbreak of World War I and poined the Army.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4864, "page_number": "4857", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "After the end of the war he became a clerk, first in the civil service of the Reich, later in the Jewish firm of ISRAEL.18) He shared the fate of many Germans who again and again lost the basis of their existence in the economic crises, he lost his job 19) and after HITLER's advent to power he followed his call to help with the rebuilding of a better Germany 20)- \"not out of any political conviction, but practically out of his distress\". Ulrich GREIFELT felt this call to be just as compelling as the call to the colours or, after his return from the front, the call to work for the stricken Fatherland. The principle: \"He that breaks faith with his people will break faith with God\" with which he had been indoctrinated since childhood applied to him with equal force. His comrade-in-arms SEIDEL-DITTMARSCH got him into the SS where at last he again found an occupation.21) He got to know HIMMLER who told GREIFELT of the lofty aims of the SS. We have repeatedly heard of HIMMLER's two faces; he was able to appeal with shining eyes to decency and faith, without anybody being able to guess what was really in his mind.22) His co-workers describe GREIFELT as a very accurate. conscientious worker.23) General WOLFF describes how he treated GREIFELT with reserve at first, because he had joined the SS only after the accession to power. Subsequently, however, he came to know him as a quiet, conscientious man and efficient worker. WOLFF remarks that HIMMLER, too, valued these qualities in GREIFELT, 24)but never entered into relations of friendship - - - - - - - - - - - - 18) GREIFELT Doc. 2, III, p. 1. 19) GREIFELT Doc. 90, IV, p. 14. 20) GREIFELT Doc. 4 and 23, III, pp. 7 and 56. 21) GREIFELT Doc. 21, III, p. 46. 22) Compare statement SCHWALM of 12 January, morning, LORENZ, 18 December, afternoon.\n23) Compare SCHAEFER, pp. 1807 and 1814. 24) P. 2001 \n COURT I CASE VIII with him; they were entirely different characters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4865, "page_number": "4858", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "GREIFELT gave the impression of a typical desk-worker as against the activist daredevil. HIMMLER realized that while he could not use such a man for political purposes he was suitable for economic and purely organisational tasks which presented themselves in over increasing numbers, and GREIFELT saw the same possibility of employment as desk worker and expert administrative official. As referent for purely economic tasks resulting from the Four Years Plan he was attached to HIMMLER's staff in 1937.25)He set up a raw material section which was strictly bureaucratic and organisational in its scope unconnected with police and executive service. GREIFELT was a suitable and, because of his lack of political ambition, harmless man for HIMMLER.\nAs expert in matters of organization GREIFELT was employed by HIMMLER on the occasion of the first resettlement which was carried out from Northern Italy in accordance with the Treaty of 23 June 1939. 26) Under the designation \"GREIFELT Document 71\"26a) I have submitted HITLER's solomn declaration of 7 May 1939 to the effect that this was to delineate a clear border-line. When GREIFELT took charge of this job he saw with his own eyes that HITLER faithfully carried out his promise of 7 May 1938 and that a territory where Germans had lived for 1000 years had been sacrificed to ensure peace between the two nations. GREIFELT could perform his task as it was set him, loyally, without political vindictiveness or racial preoccupation.27) He is given credit for strict adherence to the legal regulations,28) even in trifling matters. He also saw to it that his subordinates acted in the same way and did all he could for the welfare of the resettlers who thanked him by their faithful ---------------25) GREIFELT Doc. 27, II, p. 4. 26) GREIFELT Doc. 14, III, p. 38. 26a) Doc. B. I, p. 45. 27) GREIFELT Doc. 18, III, p. 18. 28) GREIFELT Doc. 91, IV, p. 17.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4866, "page_number": "4859", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "COURT I CASE VIII friendship. He \"never discussed racial ideology and anything connected therewith.\" 29) The same character trait, humane care for the resettlers, is also confirmed for the subsequent time and in connection with later resettlement assignments.30) -----------------29) GREIFELT Doc. 96, IV, p. 25. 30) P. 1989.\nDR. HAENSEL:I continue to read on page 33.", "speakers": [ "DR. HAENSEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4867, "page_number": "4860", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "3. The Staff Main Office was not the \"driving force\" in the sense of the Prosecution par.\n8.\nThe Prosecution sees in the Staff Main Office the \"driving force\" for the execution of the Genocide Program, which quite wrongly they believe to be at the bottom of the entire resettling. With the above explanations, i.e. that the resettling has been a consequence of HITLER'S policy of alliance with Italy and later on with Russia, also the error is refuted that there necessarily must have been some driving force behind the resettling, which used the resettling merely as means to an end for the destruction of other nations. According to the entire organizational structure of the resettlement, the Staff Main Office surely could not even have been the driving force for the tachnica execution of this resettling.\nFor the Staff Main Office only stepped in with the resettlers after the Vomi had brought the people from abroad and after other offices, of whom I will treat in detail later on, had sifted the people and finally declared them to be ethnic Germans. Only then the Staff Main Office was called upon to carry through the settling. The StHA had no influence on the people being returned from abroad, on the selection of these returness or on the shifting of these people. In the individual case as well as with regard to the total, it just had to deal with the results which other offices would leave to it for further treatment. It would mean doing violence to the facts to suspect the motor in the last function. The driving force, the motor, is mostly in front.\nApart from this, the hearing of evidence surely has destroyed the myth that GREIFFLT was the responsible man for the so-called resettlement program. All defendants, which here represented the Main Staff Office are typical civil servants who never drive but do what they are told.\nI have described how HIMMLER called GREIFELT because he needed him for quite a special purpose. For this special purpose GRIFELT then \n established the office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4868, "page_number": "4861", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Later on, other offices like the central land office were affiliated to it because one could not find any other place for them and also because the working method of such offices was purely bureaucratic. The zeal for the service brought forth a complicated organizational plan44) as well as a list of addresses.45) But this merely represents the work of the Chief of the Records Section, a harmless aid to paper war and outgoing mail. This list of addresses contained the ministries (p. 34), the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht (p.39) and finally also the Vomi (p.41), without the Main Staff Office having by this means gained the importance of a driving power for any of these authorities.\nThe Main Staff Office had been conceived by HIMMLER as an office which was to receive his orders and, in some cases, was to act upon them and forward them. But this was only to be the case when he particularly ordered it so. If he had this office intended to be different, he would have had to entrust with it, not the young Party comrade GREIFELT, but one of the old leaders who enjoyed a prestige, but he deliberately did not do it. The witness for the Prosecution WIRSICH has testified that the Higher SS- and Police leaders enjoyed a much higher prestige in the Reich and in the SS than GREIFELT, who was much inferior in rank and junior in service.46) Thus it happened very soon that the big shots of the party to whom GREIFELT would have had to give orders and commands, if he had been the driving force, corresponded with HIMMLER, even if they were officially subordinate to GREIFELT, over his head, one cannot even say behind his back, but one has to admit: openly and without any restraint, just past him.47) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 44) Exh. 18 II A. 45) Exh. 19 II A. 46) p. 305 47) Exh. 211 and 21) V.A.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4869, "page_number": "4862", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Only the completely erroneous identification of the StHA with the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism could have led to the false opinion that the StHA had been the driving force. The numerous letter heads which appear in the Prosecution documents, only have something to do with the Main Staff Office where such is expressly stated. Not only HIMMLER used this letter head \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\"; but also the Reich Main Security Office, the Main Office for Race and Settlement, the Chief of Central Administration, all the offices in the provinces which were agencies of the Reich Commissar.48) Amongst the sub-offices and authorities gathered under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, the StHA was the youngest.\nThe RSHA already had its well founded power position, RuSHA and Vomi had a long history before the Main Staff Office had been established and finally, in 1941, had also been formally recognized as a Main Office, besides these other Main Offices.\nLet us consider, in the Prosecution Documents, the offices to which they are addressed. If the StHA had really been the driving force, it would stand in the first place, which is hardly anywhere the case.\nIn an event which, for representative reasons is as important as the establishment of the Main Office for Questions of Nationality the order of the equal ranking Main Offices of the Reich Commissar - and the StHA only belonged to these \"Main Offices\" since 11 June 1941 49) is as follows: Vomi, RSHA, RuSHA Staff Main Office.50) The StHA therefore is listed in the last place. Also Exhibit 786 51)introduced - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 48) p. 305 49) Exh. 70, II B, p. 14. 50) Exh. 24, II B, p. 18/20. 51) Not attached supplementary DocumentNO 4125by the Prosecution in GREIFELT'S cross-examination on 1 December, confirms this view for, if the StHA had been the driving force, it would not have been necessary that the Main Staff Office should appoint a liaison officer whose task it was to make the collaboration between the offices of equal rank \"running without friction\". Now one only attempts to eliminate frictions when they have occurred.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4870, "page_number": "4863", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The personality of the \"Chief of the Security Police and the SD, SS-Gruppenfuehrer HEYDRICH\" mentioned in this document, who in the whole Reich was one of the most feared men, is a pledge for the fact that he did not allow himself to be \"driven\" by Brigadefuehrer GREIFELT.\nThe juxtaposition of the StHA, Vomi, RuSHA, RSHA can be seen from the chart of the offices gathered under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, which I have submitted.52) This same juxtaposition also appears from the other charts which have been submitted.\nAs the official subordination of the other Main Offices under the StHA cannot be proved, the Prosecution has attempted to point out a certain personnal cooperation and manifold personal ties. It failed to produce any evidence for this fact. GREIFELT saw HEYDRICH only once, as long as the RKFDV existed. His successor KALTENBRUNNER he only met once at the beginning of 1945 in the course of his service. During all the years of the war he only talked briefly two or three times with the Chiefs of RuSHA and Vomi, HOFMANN, resp. LORENZ. As long as HILDEBRANDT was Chief of the RuSHA, he never talked to him personally at all. 53) The Prosecution documents, such as HIMMLER's directive regarding competence, Exh. 24 and the demarcation of tasks ---- - - - - - - - - - - - - 52) Grifelt Doc. 2, I, p. 4. 53) P, 1611 \n between Vomi and the Main Staff Office 54) unquestionably show the strict separation of the domain of tasks between RSHA, Vomi, RuSHA, and Main Staff Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4871, "page_number": "4864", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It is characteristic to read in the documents: \"The Staff Main Office asked for a comment on the question....\". This was the tone of the letter sent by the StHA to RuSHA. It is the tone of the authorities independently placed beside each other and strikingly proves that there were no relations of subordination. Otherwise the information or comment would have been \"requested\".\nThe attitude of the RSHA and the RuSHA, which in its special work was completely independent from StHA, is best characterized by a document which has been submitted as HOFMANN Doc. 132 56). Without even mentioning the Main Staff Office, those two offices make arrangements on the demarcation of their spheres of activity within the thnic policy. There is not even a hint of the StHA, there is no mention of an approval by, or even only information of the StHA. If the StHA had been the driving force, it would have been quite impossible that it should have had no influence on the UWZ and EWZ, a fact which emerges beyond any doubt from evidence which will be commendted upon later on.\nFrom the submitted chart there appear neither organizational nor personal ties of the Main Offices to the Main Staff Office, which would allow any conclusion as to the driving force of the StHA. It only appears that in the provincial section, instructions might converge with the delegate of the Reich Commissar, which emanated not only from the StHA, but also from the other Main Offices. Hence such a delegate, in his sphere of activity, could exercise functions which, on the level of the Ministries, belonged to the domain of takss of the StHA or of one of the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 54) II B; also p. 699 55) Exh. 153, IV C. 56) Book VI, p. 12.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4872, "page_number": "4865", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "other Main Offices. But this does not constitute any connection with this ministerial level; it only proves that on the Provincial level entirely different functions could in some cases be exercised by one and the same person. In the interest of a proper distribution of the matter to be treated, I leave it to my colleague Dr. MREKEL to elaborate on this organizational structure.\nThe only witness who regarded the StHA as a sort of top organiza tion 57)is von dem BACH-ZELEWSKI.\nIn the meantime, BACH-ZELEWSKI has himself disavowed his statement of 27 October, see his affi davit of 29 January 1948.\n- - - - - - - - - - -\n57) P. 383.\n58) GREIFELT Doc. 100, V, p. 7.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4873, "page_number": "4866", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "16 Feb 1948_M_MSD_5_1_Love (Reischer) The inconsistent, nervous, irritated and uncontrolled manner of his testimony proves that no other witness is as unsuitable as he to comprehend a carefully balanced and constructed hierarachy of authoriities.\nFor him, seen from Breslau, everything that came down from Berlin and had anything to do with the RKFDV, seemed to come from Greifelt. He did not make any fine distinctions, although he could have made them. Thus he maintained that he never had received any orders from Himmler in Breslau in matters of the Reich Commissar, although he had been appointed himself by Himmler as delegate of the RKFDV. This statement, amongst others, is refuted by Exhibit 864, a letter of the RKFDV, dated 4 January 1940 addressed to Bach-Zelevwski, \"Breslau 18, Ebereschenallee\". Furthermore, Bach-Zelewski has been forced to admit that he, who, as Higher SS- and Police Leader, in 1940 had his seat in Breslau, only a few times visited the office which had been established in Kattowitz for the tasks of the Reich Commissar. Hence he had no means of judging whether Himmler's instructions as Reich Commissar only came through Greifelt or directly or otherwise. Wherever one goes into it, his statement is in many points incorrect. Thus he declared that, at that time in Silesia, he had had to care for 40 000 SS-men, whilst in fact after the outbreak of war the entire General SS in Germany did not show such figures.59 Bach-Zelewski is one of the most highly incriminated close collaborators of Himmler, who maintained relations of close confidence with the latter and is involved in and incriminated with terrible things.60 Bach-Zelewski has been heard as a witness also in other Nuernberg trials, for instance in case 7, and has had to reply to crushing reproaches in the cross-examinations. In case 9, there are 4 documents in the Rebuttal Document Book which characterize him.\nIt also is wrong to attempt the conclusion of a \"driving force\" ---------59 Wolff's testimony p. 1931. 60 p. 1917.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4874, "page_number": "4867", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "16 Feb 1948_M_MSD_5_2_Love (Reischer) of the StHA from the fact that the Finance Section of the RKFDV, that is of Himmler, was kept in Office V of the StHA. We have heard it from the mouth of the former employee of the Reich Finance Ministry who was competent and responsible for this question, that this was done upon the express wish of the Reich Minister of Finance and for reasons of legal economy. The Finance Section of the office therefore only was a receiving and forwarding office, otherwise the Office V only was responsible for the administrative affairs of the StHA, and therefore it is just as remote from the matters which actually happened as was the administration of the Gestapo or the RSHA, the clerks and employees of which were expressly stated by the IMT verdict to be outside the incriminated circle. This correct realization should also prevail in this trial and relieve the Chief of Office V and all his collaborators from every reproach.\nThe assumption of witness Wirsich that letters with the address of Berlin-Halensee, Kurfuerstendamm 140/142, were almost with certainty originating with the Staff Main Office, is erroneous. The witness Meinewhom I did not want to call into the witness box for just this one question, - has declared in his affidavit as one of Himmler's secretaries, that in Himmler's office in Berlin as well as in the Kommando Office notepaper with this address of the StHA was not only kept pro forma, but actually used.61 In the Rebuttal, the Prosecution has submitted Exh.\n164.62 The inclosure of the letter of 14 January 1940 consists of the minutes of a conference of 2 December 1939 between Greifelt and Ministerial Director Dr. Jamer from the Ministry of the Interior. It was settled between Greifelt and this Ministerial Director that the Reich Commissar should incorporate the results of his planning into the collective planning by the Reich Office for Spatial Planning. In order to bring about this \"collaboration of the Central Offices\", a Senior Government ----------------61 Greifelt Doc. 20, III, p. 43 ff. 62 Rebuttal-Book A, p. 120 \n 16 Feb 1948_M_MSD_5_3_Love (Reischer) Councillor from the Ministry of the Interior is appointed as liaison Referent with the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4875, "page_number": "4868", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "This document characterizes Greifelt's real position in the hierarchy of civil servants. Had not Himmler, out of his power complex, wanted to separate himself from the former Reich Administration and to create a separate office, it would have been the given thing to affiliate Greifelt's office to to the Ministry of the Interior and there to assign Greifelt either as Ministerialdirigent or Ministerialdirektor. His position and his tasks corresponded to those of such a Ministerialdirektor, as is strikingly proved by such an agreement between employees of equal rank in a central office. It was Greifelt's misfortune that Himmler wanted to fry a sausage of his own and, instead of giving him a rank of service which corresponded to his activity, dressed him up as Higher SS-leader and later on even as general of the police. The authority of Greifelt and his office was not greater than that of a normal Ministerialdirektor and of his sections in a Ministry. It is important in this connection to follow the organization of the authorities not downwards, as has mostly been necessary in the trial, but upwards for once. I have submitted several documents in this respect.63 From the directive of the Allied Commandantura of 26 February 1946 the multitude of the highest Reich authorities clearly appears. Of equal rank with the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht, the Foreign Office and the Ministries, are the Reich Plenipotentiaries, Reich Commissaries, General Commissaries, General Inspectors, etc. Amongst those there again appeared the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, that is Greifelt's superior, Greifelt being one grade of service inferior. The second decree for the implementation of the law concerning malicious attacks on State and Party of 22 February 1935 lists everybody who, according to this decree, is to be regarded as a leading State Personality. In the third, place for the first time we find a State Commissar. The Fuehrer decree on the formation of a ----------------63 Greifelt Doc. 54, I p. 48a, Gr. Doc. 25, II, p. 1, Gr. Doc. 28, II, p. 5.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4876, "page_number": "4869", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "16 Feb 1948_M_MSD_5_4_Love (Reischer) council of Ministers for the defense of the Reich, dated 30 August 1939 shows however, that in the hierarchy,above the ministries there was still placed this Council of Ministers to which belonged Goering, the Fuehrer's deputy, the Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht and others. And only above this there is Hitler himself. So far therefore was Greifelt's position removed from the top of the State. This is not attempt to explain away the fact that he hold a responsible and important position, for which he also fully and completely accepts the responsibility. But it must be emphasized that this position was limited and surely did not at all resembel the bearer of a \"driving force\". A normal democratic state organization would have designated Greifelt as Chief of a Settlement Commission with the rank of a Ministerialdirektor, who, however, would not himself have been responsible to Parliament but would have been able to give an account to Parliament only through his Minister or Reich Commissar.\nThe individual points of the indictment I would not like to make any comments on now and I am omitting a whole series of statements because that would lead us too far afield. I would only like to take out a statement concerning the DVL, that is on page 98:\nVI.\nList of Ethnic Germans. (Article 17 of the Prosecution: Forcible Germanization of enemy aliens).\nThe \"Registration, to all intents and purposes, of ethnic-Germans\", was not an invention of the Berlin central authorities, but had to result from the routine of administrative procedure, after the granting of German citizenship had been decreed in principle, but not in a clearly, intelligibly defined manner by the Decree of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, dated 29 September 1939. In Document Exhibit No. 82, III, it is reported on 25 November 1939 that the Reichstatthalter in the Warthegau had ordered, for the time being the opening of a list of Ethnic Germans and the registration according to classified groups \n 16 Feb 1948_M_MSD_5_5_Love (Reischer) of the persons concerned.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4877, "page_number": "4870", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Similar measures were taken in the Gau Denzig-West Prussia, but the two Statthal ter Greiser and Forster, proceed along quite different lines; the one advocated strict selection, the other large scale acception into the list. Upper Silesia too pursued a separate policy, because special conditions with regard to the ethnic groups were dominating there. Himmler's decision to interfere here in order to settle and straighten out the matter cannot be condemned just like that. Only, he interfered here too, as so often, under the erroneous impression that he could rule things the way he pleased. He drafted the Decree of 12 September 1940 which has been submitted to the Court as Exhibit No, 93 IV A. This decree, however, was never implemented. This fact is proved by Exhibit No 99 IV A. The Reich Minister of the Inferior referred, and rightly so, to his competence for persons residing within Germany are subject to the supervision of the internal administration. The Decree on the acquisition of German citizenship in the incorporated Eastern territories dated 5 January 1940222 shows that the Reich Ministry of the Interior was the competent authority.\nGreifelt has aptly explained what is to be understood by this and how the positive and negative tasks of the Reich Ministry of the Interior are discerned.223 Thus the implementation of the List of DVL Germans becomes a routine matter dealt with by this internal administration and not - as the prosecution would like to represent it - by the Reich Commissar or even the StHA. The poly-ethnical structure of the Eastern territories is partly the result of conquests and international acts involving these regions, and partly this medley has been produced by the propogation of religion and culture which started many centuries ago, as well as by peaceful ethnic penetration. In contrast to the intermixture and intimate fusion of the various groups remained segregated and kept their own language and culture. However interbreeding did take place, as well as conversions for 222 Greifelt Document 63, I, page 11. 223 p. 1766 \n economic or political reasons.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4878, "page_number": "4871", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "But the fact cannot under any circumstances be denied that in these Eastern territories there were inumerable persons who did not, in 1939 possess German citizenship according to constitutional law, but who after the collapse of the Polish state and because of the obligation imposed upon them to carry a Polish passport, tried by all means to be recognized as ethnic Germans and to be treated as Germans. It should not be said that this attitude resulted from pan-Germanic tendencies or Germane_ National_Socialist arrogance. Even under Polish rule, \"Wasserpolen\", Huzules, Gerales lived their own individualistic life and were quite willing to enter into the German sphere of culture and economy.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1100 o'clock.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4879, "page_number": "4872", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument.\nDR.HAENSEL (Attorney for the Defendant Greifelt):\nIn the whole world there would have been no state leadership who had not taken measures for ethnic concentration, that is to say for the consolidation of their folkdom. Here one must and can distinnguish between ethnic concentration and the entirely different motive of ethnic expansion.\nAn outstanding expert on the conditions in Eastern Europe, the Russophile Polish Leader Roman Dmowski, was, before the critical year of 1939, of the opinion that in the long run either the Corridor (a considerable part of the incorporated Eastern territories) would become German or East Prussia Polish. None of the defendants here, including Greifelt, could at that time perceive that this question was decided in favor of the former alternative, in view of the war and German-Russian relations and pacts. Everybody considered it as an act of restitution, the regaining of lost territory.\nThe point of view of the Prosecution - regarding the List of ethnic Germans as a means of procuring manpower for the Wehrmacht is not correct. At the time the List of Ethnic Germans was set up it was started as far back as 1939 - there was no lack of soldiers, on the contrary, after the French campaign, Hitler announced a partial demobilization and a reduction in armaments.\nIn his speech held, at Schachen on 6 September 1944224), Himmler dealt at great length with the request of the Wehrmacht that persons of group 3 of the List of Ethnic Germans who had distinguished themselves in the field should be granted unqualified German citizenship. He rejected that request on the grounds stated on page 12 ff. of this document. He took an attitude of mistrust and disapproval towards those people who had been living for 20 years exposed to Polish influence. This is characteristic for the ethnic policy at first pursued by the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 224) Exhibit 264, VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4880, "page_number": "4873", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "National Socialist Government. The Russians, having incorporated and occupied, according to their agreement with Hitler, the Eastern territories formerly belonging to Poland and after having regained them after the Second World War, granted citizenship to all people they permitted to stay on there.225)It is also in accordance with international provisions to grant people of annexed territory the citizenship of the annexing state, e.g. the way the French settled this question in Alsace-Lorraine in 1918-1919. All those officians who were, after September 1939, serving in the Eastern territories could not possibly see a difference, with regard to international law, between these territories and, for instance, Alsace-Lorraine after it had been re-acquired by France 1918. As far as those officials were concerned, the normal course of events would have been for all the inhabitants of these territories to become German citizens. Not taking that course meant that one, as I have described and proved it repeatedly, complicated matters once again - in this case perhaps deliberately so. It was intended to effect simultaneously an ethnic segregation, expecting it to turn out a cure-all pacifying the Eastern territories. That is to say, certain people were not acceptable. One would not germanize and not assimilate the population. On the contrary, one aimed at the exclusion of all elements of the population who according to their descent had no ties with German character and who could not feel as Germans, except that they might possibly pretend to do so.\nIt cannot be said that a state should not have the right to rule who should or should not be granted citizenship, and this principle can not be proved to be contrary to international law. I here refer to the statements made by Hildebrandt on 19 January on his experiences made during his stay in America that is to say on the well known fact that the United States too will not accept an immigrant without a careful check. But in practical life there is no principle which can be - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 225) Compare Greifelt Document 11, III, p. 23/24.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4881, "page_number": "4874", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "realized without compromises. Neither is there a law that can be applied in praxis without concessions and exceptions being made.\nNow could Greifelt oppose this principle. Moreover, it was already contained as such, besides having already been applied in praxis by the Reichsstatthalter, in Hitler's Decree of 8 October 1939 on the incorporation of the Eastern territories.226)The basis of the List of Ethnic Germans was spontaneity.227) As the List of Ethnic Germans constitutes a procedure for the acquisition of German citizenship, the Reich Ministry of the Interior was the first competent authority, which is also proved by Exhibit 96 ff, IV.\nBut it was just as natural for the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism to deal with this matter for technical reasons. Of the agencies and offices of the Reich Commissar it was in turn the StHA which was charged with the supervision of the Germans, that is to say not the foreigners. But since from an official point of view those people who had report ed for registering and had been registered in the List of Ethnic Germans had to be considered as Germans, the StHA had to deal with them too, so much more so because of the effects on their property rights brought about by their having been entered on the List of Ethnic Germans. As the StHA had to deal with the placing of re-settlers, conflicts naturally resulted between re-settlers who had been made custodians of Polish property and people who had originally been considered as Poles, but who later on had achieved their acceptance into the List of Ethnic Germans. The agency competent for such cases was the StHA. It is true, the management of the \"Oberste P ruefungshof\" had been established with the StHA.228)For the rest, the four subordinate authorities dealing with the List of Ethnic Germans were part of the internal administration. Thus actually, the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\" should have been with the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 226) Greifelt Document 32, II, p. 16 227) p. 1574. 228) Exhibit 101, IV A.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4882, "page_number": "4875", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Reich Ministry of the Interior. But at that time, Himmler was not yet Reich Minister of the Interior. Therefore he did not want to entrust to the Reich Ministry of the Interior the management of the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\", but rather entrusted it to the StHA. Here in turn it was attorney Wirsich, examined here as a witness for the Prosecution, who was the official of the StHA in charge of the records. Wirsich was an excellent jurist, so that Greifelt thought he could leave these matters to Wirsich. Wirsich, as manager of the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\" was responsible for these matters. In this capacity he was not only Greifelt's but also Himmler's advisor. The documents, as for instance Exhibit 100 and Exhibit 104 Doc. Book IV A which have been submitted by the Prosecution on the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\" came either from him or his department.\nInstruction 50/I, however, in which the racial check-up of members of category III of the List of Ethnic Germans is mentioned, has nothing to do with the StHA, but is simply an instruction by Himmler.229) Greifelt took just as little notice of the problems concerning marriage between Germans and Poles which have been mentioned in the next documentary note of Book IV, A, Exhibit 103. This is quite clearly proved by the general instruction 12/C 230) coming from Himmler alone and with which Greifelt had nothing to do.231) It is a fact, Himmler was the man with the \"race-spleen\", as Dr. Ebner remarked aptly when he was examined in the afternoon of 26 January, nothing of that sort could be noticed with Greifelt and his StHA, as has been testified to repeatedly.\nThat Greifelt forwarded the instruction 12/C and the directives on the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\" to the delegate of the Reich Commissar 232)that was only office routine and a result of Himmler's authority of command to which I shall refer - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 229) Exhibit 2, IV A. 230) Exhibit 99, IV A. 231) p. 1561 232) Exhibit 98, IV A.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4883, "page_number": "4876", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "later on. The document expressly pointed to the principles laid down by the Reich Minister of the Interior in his Decree of 13 March 1941.\nThe \"List of Ethnic Germans\" offers Himmler the opportunity, welcome to him but hardly understandable to others, to indulge further in his whims for classifying people, as already exemplified by the \"racial selection\". New categories are eliminated from the doubtlessly very mixed population of the \"incorporated Eastern territories\", on the one hand according to \"appearance and deportment\" on the other according to political standards. The former are the \"valuable foreigners\", already mentioned , in his decree of 12 September 1940 which, as I have already shown, was not carried out, the latter are people of German origin who had more or less assimilated themselves to a foreign nation. For these Himmler found the designation \"Renegades\", not a new term, as it were, yet one that did not have a nice ring in the official language.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4884, "page_number": "4877", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "But this circle of persons should not be prevented either from acquiring German citizenship if they so desired. However, the predicate \"valuable\" in connection with \"foreigners\" shows clearly that in Setting up the \"List of Ethnic Germans\" Himmler's imagination was dominated by the intention to distinguish between ethnic groups of equal rights. However and that is of importance as far as the work of the StHA and Greifelt is concerned - these persons coming under the so-called section 4 of the List of Ethnic Germans would not yet, and certainly rightly so, be fully recognized as \"Germans\". But since the StHA had only to deal with Germans, those people came under the jurisdiction of the RSHA. Moreover, the index 12/C - C was the file number of the legal department headed by Wirsich and for which he was responsible - shows that just Wirsich was the responsible expert. His excuse that the C stood only for the reproduction office can be recognized so clearly as such that any closer investigation is superfluous. I should just like to add that in the StHA there was only one reproduction office which was located, as is usual, in the Registry.\nAccording to instruction 12/C 233) issued by Himmler as Reich Commissar the RSHA was supposed to issue a special instruction concerning this category IV. Accordingly, Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, issued on 16 February 1942 234) such a directive which was forwarded to the StHA for information only.\nThe draft, Exhibit 796, submitted to Greifelt when he was cross-examined by the Prosecution is based on this basic decree. This was a draft of implementation directives which had to be issued by the StHA after Himmler had issued the basic decree, Exhibit 108. This basic decree has once more been attached in submitting the document. In the English translation of Exhibit 796 the signature has been given wrongly. This translation reads \"staff headquarters\" instead of \"main staff headquarters\". But also this draft the fate of which, by the way, is unknown shows in connection with Exhibit 108; merely the economic supervision of members of category IV \n who had been entered in category IV by office of the internal administration or the Police, was at a later date made the responsibility of the StHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4885, "page_number": "4878", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "235) The issue was not to impose on the people restrictions in their economic or civic rights.\nThey were people who were applying for German citizenship and who therefore had to submit, according to the principle \"volenti non fit injuria\", to the same restrictions from which the German citizens, concerning housing and work, were not spared either. Everybody had to work at that time and honest work is no disgrace. In the course of the trial as well as by the attitude taken by the Prosecution in their charge the conceptions got somewhat confused. Is it really inhuman if children of 8 to 10 years have to do some weeding in the gardens belonging to the homes they are staying at? Or is it to be condemned if resettlers who were forced by circumstances to live in temporary camps were given the chance to work at their trades? Is not the same applicable to all people who for some reason or other had to give up their original job? including the so-called \"Absiedler\" (persons evacuated from their original residence)? \"The right of choosing one's domicile\" is according to Ralph Baron Perry, who has been quoted here repeatedly 236), the maxim according to which society should be so organized that individuals night enjoy their capability to act according to their own discretion\". It is a maxim, a dream, Man must work, that is the thesis from which we have to proceed. It is no treatment unworthy of human beings if the allocation of housing and jobs to these people, who were entering the Reich from a once foreign country and were therefore unfamiliar with conditions in the Reich, if it was subject to special rules and regulations. These rules were actually of a charitable nature as is clearly shown by the decrees even though those decrees had to be couched, in accordance with Himmler's style, in police language. ____________________________ 233) Exhibit 99, IV A 234) Exhibit 108, IV A 235) Exhibit 109, IV A shows the same 236) American Ideals, II, p. 138 \n The danger for the security of the state, as seen in these persons by the authorities alone responsible for then, is shown by the directive of 1 June 1942 originating from the RSHA 237).That the directive did originate with the RSHA is shown by the file number and the signature.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4886, "page_number": "4879", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "That letters and decrees of the RSHA bore at times the letterhead \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\" is shown by other documents, e.g. Exhibit 470 IX, signed by Kaltenbrunner, the Chief of the RSHA himself.\nHildebrandt confirmed that fact when asked on 21 January.\nIf then for instance the last Exhibit of Document Book IV A, No. 113, speaks of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism then that does in no way prove that the matter was delat with by the StHA.\nThe document proves rather that the RSHA was the competent authority.\nThe document refers already earlier to the Decree of the RSHA, dated 15 February 1942 238). It would be a fateful error to charge all letters in the letterheads or contents of which the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism is mentioned to the responsibility of the Main Staff Office.\nIt would be an error to which the Prosecution has apparently fallen victim.\nThe immediately preceding document, Exhibit 112 is not signed by Greifelt and unknown to him.\nAccording to its contents it is an unofficial opinion which did not originate with Greifelt either.\nThe decision of that question was also up to the RSHA.\nGreifelt never heard of a case that someone had been committed to concentration camp because he had refused to apply for registration on the \"List of Ethnic Germans\". It appears to him impossible according to the entire design and purpose of the List of Ethnic Germans. The Prosecution has submitted as Exhibit 442, VII B a police directive according to which the married couple Zajdel are said to have been committed to concentration camp for rejecting the List of Ethnic Germans. This document was never known _______________________________ 237) Exhibit 110, IV A, 238) Exhibit 108, IV A.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4887, "page_number": "4880", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "to Greifelt, does not concern him either and must moreover be based on some unexplained events which cannot be gleaned from the document. Perhaps Exhibit 360, VI B gives a hint, as it speaks of Police measures against such people who had reported for registration in the List of Ethnic Germans and then when they realized that they were liable to military service, because of their option for Germany and their application to be granted citizenship, tried to evade conscription and now behaved in a provoking manner.\nThis Exhibit 360 does not concern Greifelt either, but it throws a light on the possibilities which could arise from a wrong behavior of persons in the course of such a procedure, without the authorities having anything to do with it.\nWhen Hildebrandt was examined on 19 January he pointed out, and rightly so, that people who wanted to become Germans had to expect to be called up.\nIn this context belongs also the Exhibit 792 submitted to Greifelt when he was cross examined, and which deals with Police measures in a case in which the person concerned had already been registered in the List of Ethnic Germans and then refused to draw the consequences.\nWirsich, in his capacity as manager of the \"Oberste Pruefungshof\" forwarded this case to the RSHA which was competent for it, a proof that these Police matters were only dealt with by the RSHA and that category 4 of the List of Ethnic Germans was outside the sphere of influence of the StHA.\nThat members of the List of Ethnic Germans were, after they bad been called up, treated from a point of view of military policy when they cane up for promotion and that such regulations governing promotions were within the legislative rights of the Wehrmacht is shown by Exhibit 104, IV A.\n The statements of Professor Klukowski (p. 987) refer to the Government General, where, the List of Ethnic Germans had not been introduced.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4888, "page_number": "4881", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Greifelt had nothing to do there. The witness had rejected a request by uniformed officials to have himself put on a list and nothing at all happened to him.\nObviously he confuses several things.\nI should like to refer to the Statement by the prosecution witness Dr. Ehlich 239). On the sole responsibility of the authorities there, Ethnic Germans were registered in the Government General.\nThat had nothing to do with the List of Ethnic Germans.\nWhen the witness Roegner was examined on 27 Oct., he told of people who allegedly were committed to concentration camp because they had refus ed to have themselves entered on the List of Ethnic Germans.\nHowever in the course of the examination it was shown that the said Karzarowski 240) came from Cracow, that is to say from the Government General where Kurtak 241) who was mentioned later on cane from also.\nThese individual cases cannot blacken Greifelt's activity in connection With the List of Ethnic Germans either.\nIn summing up the following is to be said: Greifelt did not participate in creating the List of Ethnic Germans. The implementation was not in his hands, therefore he could not bring any influence to bear on the selection of people who were entered on that list. Members of the List of Ethnic Germans were subject to the economic supervision of the StHA, unless the Police interfered in the case of category 4. The StHA was absolutely powerless against the Police.\nThe INT verdict found the former Reich Minister of the Interior, Frick, guilty. Amongst other things It is said there of him: \"German citizenship in the occupied countries as well, as in the Reich came under his jurisdiction while he was Minister of the Interior.\" 242) According to this statement the StHA cannot now be made responsible for the granting of citizenship. And in Case XI (Weizsaecker and Others). _________________________ 239) p. 619 240) p. 479 241) p. 482 242) IMT verdict , P. 293.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4889, "page_number": "4882", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "STUCKART, former state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, is at present being made responsible, beside other defendants and on top of other charges, for the List of Ethnic Germans and Germanization. This accisation against heads of entirely different offices of having been the driving, responsible force in taking measures, when not all of them could havr been the driving force, contains a contradiction; the effect is cancelled if the same charges are levelled at the same time against different persons.\nI am now coming to page 116, Spoliation, Subsection 20 of the Indictment SPOLIATION (Subsection 20 of the indictment) 1.Facts The indictment charges the defendants of the Stabshauptamt (Main Staff Office,) especially GREIFELT, with special responsibility for the spoliation of private and public property.\nThe indictment classifies as spoliation mainly the use of property belonging to other people for the purpose of the carrying out of the resettlement.\nThe following dates are of importance with regard to this problem:\na) 7 October 1939 - Appointment of HIMMLER to Reichskommissar\nb) second half of the month of October 1939, - Start of the organization of the office GREIFELT, which was able to operate until the beginning of 1940.\nSCHEDULE of confiscation 29 September 1939 decree concerning the appointment of preliminary managers rischer Verwalter) 300.)\n5 October 1939 Seizure of property by military occupation. 12 October 1939 GOERING commissions Dr. WINKLER, the later Director of the HTO with the General trusteeship administration.\n19 October 1939 Creation of the HTO within the Four-Year-Plan. 15 January 1940 Decree about the administration of Polish domains. 20 January 1940 Appointment of a general administrator for the forests.\n300) Order Gazette for the occupied territories #7/39.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4890, "page_number": "4883", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "12 February 1940 Decree about the public management of plants of agriculture and forestry.\n17 September 1940 Decree about the property of the Poles - - - - - - - - - - - - -\nThis schedule shows clearly that the decisive steps for the seizure of Polish property were not taken by the RKFDV but by completely different authorities, and at a time before the office Greifelt had become active at all. Already on 29th September, 1939, the decree concerning the appointment of preliminary managers was issued, and on 5 October, 1939 the order of the military authorities. Chaotic conditions were the result. The Army, the agriculture, the local administration, the Party, and everyone who had an office or uniform interfered. Goering acted and tried to create order; he succeeded by appointing Winkler.\nIt was misleading to list the decree about the property of the Poles of 17th September, 1940 (Exhibit 589) in Volume XIV as first document, before listing the decrees concerning the expropriration measures which were issued before 17th September 1940. In order to give us a clear picture the volume would have to be supplemented by adding the above cited decrees and by listing them in the beginning at least the decrees of 19th October, 1939 which is new listed in the beginning; at least the decrees of 19th October, 1939, which is new listed in the index as the second document would have to be transfrred to the beginning.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4891, "page_number": "4884", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The document Exhibit 590, which is listed in the document book as the third document, does not represent the decree of 19 October 1939. This decree is not contained in the document book at all, but only an announcement of Goering, dated 1 November 1939, about the establishment of the HTO. This announcement mentions the establishment of the HTO as a fait accompli. But the actual establishment had already taken place on 19 October 1939 on the basis of an order of the Four Year Plan.302 In accordance with page 2 of Exhibit 590, seizures, from that time on, could only be ordered by the HTO \"in agreement with the concerned chiefs of the administration.\" The Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, or the office Greifelt, were not mentioned at all.\nAll this gives us the picture of a struggle for power within the occupied Eastern territories. Himmler, after his initial success of 7 October 1939 (Exhibit 20), suffered a serious set back as a consequence of Goering's interference.\nAt the end of 1939 Himmler tried to reassert himself by starting negotiations with Winkler. At the end of November 1939 a confidential discussion took place between the two (p. 1460). Greifelt did not participate, but waited in the antechamber without getting informed about the real purpose and the result of the conference.\nGREIFELT only heard about the result through decrees of HIMMLER which were not issued by the Main Staff Office, but by the Reich Security Main Office. This is evident from the file numbers of the submitted documents.303 Again, the Main Staff Office did not have any decisive say in such matters, let along that it was the \"driving power\".\nIn the mentioned discussion WINKLER conceded to HIMMLER that requisition of agricultural assets, in contrast to trade assets and municipal property ownership, be effected by the Reichskommissar. But ______________ 302 Exhibit 592, XIV A, Page 1756. 303 Exhibit 592: \"S.I.V.......\"; Exhibit 594: \"A I A3.....\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4892, "page_number": "4885", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "the administration and use of the agricultural assets as well, remained in the hands of the HTO; it was to be carried out only \"in accordance with the instructions of the Reichskommissar\" who, however, on his part, had to clear the matter with the Ministry of Food.304 Meanwhile, however, the third rival, apart from HIMMLER and GOERIN G, the Ministry of Agriculture under DARRE, had not remained idle and had also been successful.\nThis resulted in the regularions concerning the public management of agriculture and forestry, dated 12 February 1940.305 The Ministry of the Interior appeared in the form of a further rival through its plan to initiate Reich claim to the Polish communal and administrative assets for the interior administration.\nFurthermore, it extended its endeavors to the procuring, from the assets of the incorporated Eastern regions, of compensations for those ethnic Germans who had suffered losses during the last few years under the Polish domination, on account of their being Germans.306 All these requisitions were not intended to benefit the resettlers; they restricted the possibilities of their settlement.\nThe resettlers; interests which were represented by GREIFELT in accordance with his order, appeared as the last in the plan. One is reminded of the words of Friedrich SCHILLER: \"Late; long after the partition had taken place....\"\nEven the bridge which HIMMLER built between himself and the HTO \"in accordance with necessity, not out of personal desire\", was manned with a guard against GREIFELT, namely GALKE, who had been named Generalreferent and liaison leader to the HTO, directly by HIMMLER, with GREIFELT having been consulted.307 The significance of GALKE's position - - - - - - - 304 Exhibit 590: P. 12 305 GREIFELT Doc. II, 37 306 see GREIFELT Document 46 II, P, 45. 307 Exhibit 595, XIV A.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4893, "page_number": "4886", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "is immediately evident from the next document, Exhibit 596, which, in the same way as all other pertinent documents, bears a file number of the Reich Security Main Office. In Exhibit 597, signed by WINKLER, GREIFELT is again not mentioned at all.\nWithout any connection the prosecution proceeds to introduce a document, dated 1943, as Exhibit 599 of Book XIV-A, which concerns the resettlement events in the region of Laibach. This individual problem should have been treated as such.\nGREIFELT's task to look after the interests of the settlers naturally caused him to be opposed to the wishes and desires of the Germans of the old Reich who wanted to move to Eastern provinces because they hoped formore favorable chances of bettering their living conditions. Trusteeships always have an allure but not always to suitable trustees. In his office GREIFELT coined the nickname \"land hunters\" for such people, (p.1474). Above all, however, the Wehrmacht was a dangerous rival which threatened the enterests of the settlers. The town of Gotenhafen was entirely evacuated since it was a war harbor. The intended accommodation of Baltic resettlers became impossible because of the military measures; on the contrary, the space necessitated for the resettlers was further limited as a result of this military requisition. (Exh. 290).\nOnly if all those conflicting interests are considered, can the Polish assets regulation of 17 September 1940 be understood, which affected the Ministerial Council for the Reich defense as well as the Four Year Plan; that is to say, the highest authorities in comparison with whom GREIFELT was just a small man.\nThis directive regulated the competency of the HTO and the RKFDV. The jurisdiction of this office was restricted to agricultural property. The requisitioning of Polish assets was effected for the benefit of the Reich; that is to say, this requisitioning to the benefit of the Reich \n which, as mentioned above, had been carried out for a long time, was legislated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4894, "page_number": "4887", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Reich became obligated to compensate the requisitioning. At first the RKFDV was commissioned with an independent authoritative function in the execution of the requisitions which, however, were merely of a declaratory nature.\nFor the purpose of internal official use the \"internal directives\" were issue on 15 April 1941 at HIMMLER's express instructions and they were signed by GREIFELT.309 I am now coming to page 136, which deals with the legal aspects:\nThe legal explanations on the \"spoliation\" in the meaning of paragraph 20 by the prosecution must be based on the IMT judgment, which, in chapter 7 in the 3rd sub-section, deals with \"spoliation of public and private property 400). The concept of spoliation, as the IMT judgment deals with it, differs from the common meaning of the word. The IMT speaks of \"systematic spoliation\". The IMT as an International Tribunal is not concerned with the illegal appropriation of private or public property by an individual of the armed power, but with the fact that: \"the territories occupied by Germany were exploited for the German war effort in the most ruthless way\" -- (p. 235); or with the fact that raw materials, machines, transportation facilities etc. \"were all requisitioned and sent to Germany\" -- (p. 236). The IMT quotes a statement by GOERING: \"to got the utmost out of them so that the German People can live.\" (p. 235) Before I draw further conclusions, I briefly want to touch upon the question as to how far Article 10 of Regulation No. 7 by the American Military Government is binding for the Tribunal according to which decisions by the IMT, concerning certain determinations of criminal - - - - - - - - 308 Art.\n9 Par. 5 309 Exh. 600 XIV A. 400 (Americal Journal of International Law, volume 41, p. 235.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4895, "page_number": "4888", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "actions, are binding for the Nuernberg courts and are not to be questioned. International misgivings have arisen against this article since, although the order of the American Military Tribunal is indeed in the position to make rules of procedure for the Nuernberg courts, it may not determine the substantive law for these courts. I refer to the opinion of Military Tribunal No. 4 in the case against FLICK:\n\"We shall indulge no implications therefrom to the prejudice of the defendants against whom thejudgment would not be re judicata except for this Article.\" (Page 10978).\nMay I be permitted, however, to deduce the following in favor of the Defendant GREIFELT from the findings and the legal interpretation of the IMT:\nThe defendant has not been charged with spoliation in the sense of Article 47 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare and the Military Penal Law in all countries. He personally is a man of honor; he did not in any way enrich himself avariciously; he did not harm any person for his own benefit. Nor does the prosecution say or mean this. If, in spite of this, it raises the charge of spoliation against him, it can only refer to the aforementioned explanation in the IMT judgment, which speaks of a systematic spoliation as an international concept, but defines it as the removal of assets from the occupied territories to Germany for the benefit of theGerman war machine.\nBut GREIFELT did not do this either. The prosecution itself charges him: \"Large amounts of private property were confiscated for use by resettlers or for other purposes. \"Thus the assets were confiscated for re-settlers. The prosecution gives no details and makes no specific statements concerning the \"other purposes\", which it mentioned evidently as a precautionary measure and in premonition of the weakness of itsown stand. GREIFELT, on the basis of his assignment, worked for the settlement of the people who had arrived from abroad without his doing. For this purpose he had to use those assets which were at the \n disposal of the Reich in these areas.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4896, "page_number": "4889", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "He could only settle the people at the places prescribed to him. Thus he did not take anything into Germany but only out of it. He did not supply any of the assets, which the Reich had put at his disposal for his official tasks, to the German war machine. On the contrary, we have seen that he was in conflict with GOERING who wanted to divert such assets to the German war machine. Whatever he did, he did for the re-settlers. And those re-settlers, in the opinion of the prosecution, were not Germans.\nI stress expressly that I am arguing against the prosecution and its untenable position only in a legal sense, which does not necessarily mean that I myself refuse to regard the ethnic Germans as Germans. But really and truty GREIFELT cannot be charged, much less convicted, on arguments which, on the one hand, consider the Germanization of such persons or the registration in the people's list or in the Wehrmacht as a crime against international law committed on non-Germans, i.e. \"citizens of other countries\", and, on the other hand, claim that the care for these people with means from territories not belonging to Germany before the war constitutes plundering for the benefit of the German war machine. Clearly, one must decide on one or the other point of view. Either one takes the view the Germans held at the time, i.e. that the ethnic Germans were also Germans and could be naturalized just as the incorporated Eastern territories as former Reich territory again belonged to Germany after the successful occupation, and then it is the case that GREIFELT cared for Germans on German soil, which was under German authority; or one takes the view of the prosecution. (Compare prosecution Art. 17: \"After the outbreak of the war a large number of citizens of other countries.....\"). In that case GREIFELT cared for foreign nationals on foreign soil. thus saving them from extinction and from the danger in which the great exodus from the East would have landed them. It is obvious that in this aid action \n people had to crowd together and that it was necessary to make reshuffles.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4897, "page_number": "4890", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Non-Germans crowded -- according to the logically carried through opinion of the prosecution -- together for the benefit of non-Germans. The aid, into which GREIFELT was placed by an order, according to all official government proclamations, was based on the view: after different nationalities had not been able to get along in this area for centuries, they now were to be settled separately in the interest of a lasting peace.\nTherefore, areas are to be created which are inhabited by those people who profess German folkdom, and other, for the Poles. Whether this view is right or wrong cannot be proved by criminal investigation in the case of GREIFELT; it was a legal regulation outside the sphere of penal law, a regulation made by an administrative power to its best belief, and one which did not let anyone become personally guilty who obeyed this regulation because he was convinced of the beneficial effect of these measures. Otherwise, for the same reasons, every Pole would have to be punished who moved into a farm allotted to him in the Government General.\nIf we emerge from the mire of details with which, in spite of the express warnings of the Tribunal, we have been smothered during this trial, and if we focus our attention on this great aspect, we find (it is like scales falling from our eyes) that such a charge before this Tribunal is simply paradox.\nThe decisive characteristic of any spoliation is the intention of self enrichment. Spoliation is a special case of robbery. The spoliator wishes to gain something for himself or for the group to which he belongs. A soldier is never looting in a foreign country if he takes one coat away from a man who has two in order to give it to another citizen of that country who hasnone. The charge is based on the false assumption that the resettlement had been a profitable business for the Reich.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4898, "page_number": "4891", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "On the contrary, it was a most unprofitable undertaking. The Reich Minister of Finance had to provide from the Reich funds all the money that was needed for the re-settlers (p. 2330). The Reich supplied the money needed by the DUT for the equalization of property (p.2384). When GREIFELT had to negotiate with the Reich Minister of Finance or a ministerial official on that score, he was not the bringer of millions but the one who had to squeeze out hundreds of millions in the course of the year for the needs of his re-settlers as becomes evident from pp. 2387 and following. The witness Landesdirektor FRANKEN, who was at that time expert of the Reich Minister of Finance, stated that he did not consider GREIFELT a good business man. He was not conversant with the ins and outsof finance and confined himself to requesting the means which he urgently needed for his re-settlers. The Reich Minister of Finance did not suspect him of using these funds for political purposes of any kind; the financial records were meticulously kept by GREIFELT. Reich Minister SCHWERIN-KROSIGK therefore trusted him, although his sphere of work cost him a great deal of Reich funds. (p. 2390). Although the Reich was supposed to receive payments out of the re-settlers' property taken over from the Baltic Border States, it received only the first installments, and then these Baltic States were occupied by Russia shortly after the return of the Balts. In 1941 the war with Russia broke out, so that nothing was received from the Russians either beyond the first installments. States like Rumania transferred the amounts to trade, and charged them to trade accounts so that there were no cash payments.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4899, "page_number": "4892", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "All in all, the re-settlement had swallowed up immense Reich funds. It was exactly the opposite of spoliation; it was an investment of German funds in territories which, according to German interpretation of law, were integral parts of the Reich but which have now been torn away from the Reich. Giant industrial installations were established there which have now fallen into the hands of the Polish state in perfect condition. Not Only Greifelt, but all those who knew him have asserted that he had the tendency to care only for his re-settlers.401) If, in the knowledge of international formulae and customs, the re-settlement had been rigged at the outset as a charitable welfare measure as was in line with its real nature, this erroneous concept of the prosecution would never have arisen.\nBut once again we must leave these exonerating aspects, exonerating I hope also in the final outcome of this trial, and immerse ourselves in the jungle of the prosecution's argumentation. Let us assume them that the ethnic Germans were foreigners when they lost something because of the Germans and because of their German origin, but that they were Germans when the German Reich gave something to them. Even then Greifelt cannot be accused of plunderings if one examines the individual measures, for which one wants to hold him responsible, in the light of the law.\nIn the Indictment the charge of plundering is listed under Count 1 -- crimes against humanity. For the same sets the prosecution, under Count 2, also calls for conviction for war crimes. The final paragraphs of these two sections, i.e., 23 and 25, read about the same. Only in paragraph 23, appertaining to crimes against humanity, several articles of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare of 1907 and of the Geneva Convention of Prisoners of War of 1929 are quoted. These quotations would fit better into paragraph 25 than into paragraph 23. During - - - - - - - - - - - - - 401) p. 1989, also Greifelt Document No. 8,9,16,17,18 III, p. 16 and the following.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4900, "page_number": "4893", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "the entire presentation one is reminded of the following sentence from the Flickjudgment: \" a legal concept no more specific than this leaves much room for controversy...\" (p.10998). The indictment overlooks that there is an essential difference between Control Council Law 10, Article II,1, sub-section b and sub-section c, i.e., in that sub-section c does not mention spoliation while sub-section b lists it. In subsection b) spoliation is listed among other offenses which deal with the destruction of property. The Flick judgment of 22 December 1947, which, to be sure, was read only after this charge was made, makes it possible for me to refer to its explanations on this point (p. 11011-11013). The judgment starts with the opinion of the great French lawyer Donnedieu de Fabre, mentions the resultion of the Brussels Penal Law Conference of 1947 and the existing laws of other countries, explains literature and the IMT judgment comes to the conclusion: \"Crimes against humanity always presupposes bodily injury, not damage to property. Offenses against property even though committed systematically and on a large scale, never fall under the concept of crimes against humanity.\"\nI see from the time now that I will have to skip several pages. Therefore, I shall leave the subject of spoliation. I now come to page 159, which is headed, \"Membership in the SS\", Count 26 of the Indictment:\nThe well-known Swiss magazine \"Die *eltwoche\", reputed for its passionate opposition to National Socialism, wrote in its leading article of 23 January 1946 -- that is only a few weeks ago and after an interval of 15 years from these events:\n\"The German homo sapiens , by his character, longs for planning and order ... the planning and pseudo-security, which the Nazis were offering their followers in the years before 1933, are among the main reasons for the spreading of National Socialism, which promised the uprooted and drifters precisely those things the Weimar Republic was no longer able to give them, namely, security and possibilities for constructive work.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4901, "page_number": "4894", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "At that time Greifelt also believed in a new, better order. He interpreted, in 1933, Hitler's appeal to the German people to reshape the German fate anew and better, as a summons directed to the soldier to stand up for his fatherland.\nIn September 1930, when 3 young Reichswehr officers of Ulm were brought to trial before the Supreme Court because they had introduced National Socialist cells into the Reichswehr, Hitler solemnly pledged himself that he strove for power by legal means. And he stood by this oath. Around 1930, the present American Prosecutor, Professor Dr. Kempner, then senior government councillor in the Ministry of the Interior, prepared a memorandum for a circle of high officials in which he expressed the view that the NSDAP was intending to overthrow the State by violence.450) From his watch-tower, which was not accessible to all people, Professor Kempner realized the danger of Hitler correctly, in contrast to his colleagues in the Ministry who did not believe him at the time but found out bytheir own experiences. But in one point Kempner was wrong.\nHitler did not apply force then, and the large masses of the German people were immensely impressed that Hitler did not come to power by a revolutionary act, but by legal means through his being entrusted with the new formation of the government by the Reich President, to whom the German people looked up in devoted respect. I am far from defending the wire-pullers who lent a helping hand in bringing Hitler to power and who induced the aged Reich President to sign his appointment after the decline in the National Socialist votes had offered the possibility of destroying this conspiracy of Cataline. These few wire-pullers are the main culprits responsible for the misery that has emerged. The German people, however, apart from these few men, has been cheated, and one of these cheated men, no doubt, is Greifelt. - - - - - - - - - 450) Research Sutdies of the State College of Washington, Vol. XIII, No. 2, June 1945, P. 120.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4902, "page_number": "4895", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The German longs for planning and order, as the \"Weltwoche\" rightly puts it, and in return he is prepared to make a great sacrifice of personal liberty. Joining the Party and the SS was for Greifelt, as well as for many others, a sacrifice then. In doing so, they deprived themselves of their leisure time, they deprived themselves of their free will. With blind confidence -- but will full confidence -- with a sacred conviction, they surrendered themselves into the hands of a leader who had shown that in a difficult situation he had been able to accomplish a fabulous rise by legal means and who promised them the new fine order. Some people certainly expected of this order alos a consolidation of their personal affairs. The economic crisis had thrownthem out of work. Who can seriously blame a man who, as an unemployed, seizes an opportunity to get a job again where he can work and put something aside? In Germany the number of unemployed people had risen from 3 million in 1930 to 5 million in 1931 and to 7 million in 1932. In the few years from 1924 to 1932 more than 7500 square kilometers of land, that is an area as vast as the German Grand-Duchy of Hesse, had to be auctioned, hundreds of thousands of people thus losing their jobs. After the collapse of the firm of Gebrueder, Israel, Greifelt was one of them. Greifelt certainly did not expect to get a job in politics. His desire was to get another job in business, to be able to return to the manufacture of technical products which he considered ideal, as soon as the promised boom could offer him again a suitable field of activity. His efforts and endeavors in this direction never ceased during the first years of his SS-membership up to the time when he found access to economic and technical problems there also.\nGreifelt up to then far removed from every political bustle and Party activities, was anything but a convinced National Socialist. As late as 1930 he prevented the formation of a National Socialist factory cell with the firm of Gebrueder Israel. In 1933, in his distressed condition, he met an old war comrade by the name of Seidel-Dittmarsch who knew his calamity and made it possible for him to make a modest living \n with the SS.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4903, "page_number": "4896", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Unfortunately, I see that I am so short of time that I cannot fully bring forth mystatements here about the SS membership of Greifelt, and I request the Tribunal to read the parts of my speech which I cannot read in Court.\nI will only read, now, the final chapter of my argument with regard to this very interesting phase. This is the last chapter, III, \"Continuation of Membership in the SS after 1939,\" on page 171.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4904, "page_number": "4897", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "As stated before, Greifelt was an SS leader, and an Obergruppenfuehrer in the end, and eventually also a General of the Police. He was a government official in his capacity of Chief of the Staff Main Office. As a former officer and under mobilization orders he was obliged to obey Himmler's orders like a soldier. The outbreak of the war created for Greifelt the situation of becoming subordinate to Himmler in several respects. If he would not have obeyed these orders he would have been court-martialled and shot. To resign from the SS was possible only with Himmler's consent.\nSuch an application, however, could only have been considered a refusal of further obeying Himmler's orders, and in war time this would have been rated as insubordination in face of the enemy. The high ranks which Himmler had bestowed upon him were particularly heavy fetters and impossible to be stripped off in war time. Greifelt joined the SS in the spring of 1933 under economic pressure,and motivated by idealistic expectations. His continuation of membership in the SS and in his functions, to which moreover he was appointed as a government official, was the consequence of his subordinate position under Himmler, who was his superior officer.\nIt is difficult for an American to grasp the situation of a government official of Greifelt's position in war time. The American's point of view in a free state founded by free citizens is based on the \"Supremacy of the Individual\" - so reads the heading of the first chapter in R.B. Perry's book \"American Ideals\". According to the Statute *---* of Liberty, the Bill of Rights, no government could rescind the most valuable basic citizens' rights by any state authority whatever. Any tentative acts in this direction would have been null and void and would have been disobeyed because of it. But such an order is null and void from the very outset and can never be the basis of any activity. The mere toleration of it would be immoral and illegal. This doctrine goes back as far as the Calvinist conceptions.480)It has - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -480) Book II, p. 155, 5th volume, Chapter VI.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4905, "page_number": "4898", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "been cherished and built up by the political science of America 481) and, by way of section 8 of the London Statute, it was accepted in Article 4 of Section II of the Control Council Law No. 10.\nThe German civil servant, or his ancestors respectively, have not created their state and law, but they have been born into a state which existed already and were elected from among the powerless and lawless subjects by their sovereign master to be his assistants. In the Greifelt Document No. 83 - 85 482), I submitted some excerpts from the Commentary on the German Law Concerning Civil Servants of 26 January 1937, which prove that the obligation of the civil servant of obedience was limited even in times of peace by positive criminal laws only. The first duty and virtue of the civil servant was obedience. If the examples of negligence of duty, as shown in Document No. 85, are examined, only cases of minor offenses will be found. It is fully inconceivable for an American that a German civil servant tolerated presumptions such as were not an innovation of National Socialism but developed to a multiple exaggeration during this regime. This was only possible by the century-long domestication of man, by a continual training -- the training to unqualified obedience. Luther's thesis was propagated in Germany, a thesis which contained the sentence: \"Be subject to the authority which has power over you\".\nIn the international and national literature, opinions widely diverge in the question of whether a subject may be acquitted if he refers to the order of a superior. It is undeniable that this difference of opinions has not been assuaged by the regulations of reference, but has only been strengthened.483) It cannot be denied that a soldier of any nationality will have an understanding for his enemy if he pleads that he acted under orders, and any soldier will then hold responsible him who gave the order and not him who carried it out. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 481) Also see A.V. Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of Constitutionk 1889, pp.\n197, ff. 482) Doc. B. IV, p. 1 and following. 483) American Journal of International law, January 1947, p. 71 \n \"It may be noted in passing that England probably thought the same, since, not long ago, certain wartime commander of German submarines were cordially welcomed by their British colleagues who assured them that they did not deem them responsible for the execution of orders received from the Admiralty.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4906, "page_number": "4899", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "484) In the Keitel case, the IMT expressed its judgment in the following sentence:\n\"Superior orders, even to a soldier, cannot be considered in mitigationwhere crimes as shocking and extensive have been committed consciously, ruthlessly and without military excuse or justification.\"\nThe crux of the judgment is then that ruthless, revolting and extensive crimes were committed consciously which cannot be explained away with superior orders under any interpretation of law. But then it is still an open question how the IMT would have decided if it would have been the matter of an order which could not appear as criminal to the subordinate, but would seem to him like a positive contribution to the reconciliation of the nations.\nThe literature on International Law, prior to the IMT Judgment, is frequently of the opinion that it would have to be left to the discretion of the Court whether the reference to superior orders would acquit the defendant of his responsibility. The Washington Treaty of 6 February 1923, which in section 3 establishes the reference to superior orders, has not been ratified at any rate. And it were American jurists that had objections to certain basic stipulations.\nThe IMT Judgment itself provides a valuable intimation at the end of its elaborations on \"The Law of the Status\" by stating, after an analysis of section 8, which corresponds to Article 4 of Section II of the Control Council Law No. 10, as follows: \"The true test, which is found in varying degrees in the criminal law of most nations, is not the existence of the order, but whether moral choice was in fact possible.\"486) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 484) American Journal of International Law, 1938, p. 256 485) American Journal of International Law, April 1938, pp. 256 ff. 486) loco citato, p. 221 \n If the quoted provision of the Control Council Law is approached in a casuistic manner, we are in danger of deeming that the superior order has definitely ceased to be a reason for the exclusion of guilt, and, moreover, of assuming that any reference to a state of necessity (Notstand) must be excluded on the basis of this positive provision.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4907, "page_number": "4900", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It is a surprise to find that such opinions have been expressed as well.487) But such subtle and exaggeratedly hair-splitting deliberations do not exhaust the spirit of the statement of the IMT as quoted, and are contradictory to the generosity of International Law.\nThe superior order must not be an excuse for brutal and base acts, but it is quite another thing if the man involved had no other moral choice than to act as the order compelled him to act.\nThe principle of \"Necessity knows no Law\" is a basic sentence which has force under any criminal law and under International Law also. Personal guilt may only be established if there was a criminal intention, but not if this intention was guided by an irresistible constraint. The IMT has said: \"Criminal guilt is personal\" (loco citato p. 251). It must be avoided that \"innocent persons will be punished\". The judgment in the Flick case closely investigated the concept of necessity (Notstand) and affirmed its applicability; we read in the judgment in the Milch case: \"It has never been our intention and he has never been asked to choose a way which could have involved the loss of his own life.\" 488) But the true doctrine of necessity (Notstand) makes an existing danger to life or limb a prerequisite, a dilemma of which the perpetrator must be conscious, a spiritual conflict, a choice of whether he wants to save his own life or whether he prefers the sacrificing his own life to the commission of a base deed.\nAs I have come to know Greifelt, I am - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 487) Denazification Court, January 1948, p. 2, column 2. 488) Military Tribunal No. II, Judgment in the Milch Case, p. 96.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4908, "page_number": "4901", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "convinced that he would not have decided for a crime if he had known it to be a crime. But the IMT does not even stipulate that such a true state of necessity exists; it only broaches the question of whether there was a possibility in the individual case of choosing between moral decisions, of whether the superior order left to the subordinate the possibility of deciding against or for the execution of the order. Greifelt had no such possibility because, in consideration of his situation, he was not aware that Himmler's order violated International Law. For this reason he was in a situation of continual emergency and not in an emergency which had become acute suddenly. He was not only completely at the mercy of Himmler, but had not even the possibility of measuring Himmler's presumptions by critic standards. That part of the orders which he had to carry out himself he deemed to be still excusable in the narrow compass of his duties, and things which happened outside could be explained with the state of emergency as he was able to see it when he thought of the general situation. The moral choice of which the IMT Judgment speaks in the quoted sentence must not always be caused by a genuine physical emergency, it can also be reached by intentional deception by the superior. No soldier would be able to go through a war unless he clenches his teeth sometimes, takes a heart and does blindly what he has to do, because, as it would have to seem to him, he has to rely on the better judgment of his superior, although it will be damned hard for him. But he will never allow that bad taste to get the batter of him and will not even let himself get aware of it because otherwise he would have to give up.\nThere is no, and there cannot be, any documentary evidence for such situations. But a judge must not always have documentary proof for looking into the heart of a man who stands before him as a defendant. And he must be able to do so if he does not want to be faced with the reproach which Raskolnikow, in the great epic work of Dostojewski \n expressed in the following words:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4909, "page_number": "4902", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "\"You did not look keep enough into my heart, my judges, not deep enough into my heart\". There are only a few principles in International law which are uncontested and have held good for thousands of years. One of them is the principle: in dubio pro reo. If in doubt, the judge has to believe the defendant if the latter cannot be refuted. And the second principle of International Law, which is still in the phase of development, is the following:\nBe generous. No trivial matters should be threshed out before International Courts, but only matters which are important to the entire mankind, and only the dangerous baseness must be punished, but not the mistake and not the concatenation brought about by fate.\nIn conclusion, I hope to be permitted to say how the position of Greifelt appears to me from merely human aspects after this trial of six months:\nHe is the industrious worker, content with the narrow confine of his duty who had staked all he had on the fulfillment of a duty which he believed to be in concord with the laws and commands of any nature. And at that he is suspicious of anything which is not commonplace, averse to any risk which challenges fate, which searches for the distance, the indefinable.\nHe has never been brutal, but has a good heart and even tact. Whenever he was offended, he did not answer in hate and out of revenge, but became mournful. His sharp intelligence had the force of a strong searchlight but it embraces only that which comes into the are of light.\nHe followed the Pied Piper, that unreal fairy tale figure that is known to the children in all the world, but Hamlin , where the damage was done, is situated in Germany. The Pied Piper allured the mice with his pipe, and the credulous person, who are not strong in faith, followed him to the large river.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4910, "page_number": "4903", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Now another mouse has been caught together with others and has been put into a lion's cage as if she had endangered the world, leaping boldly at mankind.\nBut the entire spell ended with the Piper when he was sunk in the river that would not carry him and deceived him. Do not keep artificially awake the effects of one who is dead, because you suspect the force of evil where there is only the emptiness of despair.\nGreifelt was most certainly not a criminal in everything that is small, near and clear, and he never had the makings for this great superhuman and inhuman venture. He has no part in the guilt of those who are guilty of the big migration of nations.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until one-thirty.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 1330 hours.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4911, "page_number": "4904", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The hearing reconvened at 1330 hours, 16 February 1948)\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument.\nDR.MERKEL (for the defendant Creutz): Your Honor, in consideration of the time limit set for the oral presentation of my final plea, it is not possible for me to present the entire plea in open session. I should like to ask the Tribunal, therefore, to take judicial notice of those parts of the plea that I was not able to read today after the translation has been completed, especially since I have not submitted a closing brief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I can assure you that the Tribunal will read it all.\nDR. MERKEL:Thank you very much, Your Honor.\nMr. President, Your Honors, As defense counsel of the defendant Rudolf Creutz I have the task of summarizing the defense material submitted by me and to comment on it, in order to assist the Court usefully in finding the truth in this case by confrontation with the evidence submitted by the Prosecution.\nI believe I can afford to be comparatively short. Although the prosecution has, in paragraph 1 and 2 of the indictment, charged the defendant Creutz with having instigated , ordered or carried out an extensive program of horrible crimes, the evidence which it submits to support this contention is more than scanty. From an activity of more than 51/2 years, on which a great number of documents must throw light, only 25 appeared suitable to be adduced as supporting the assertions of the Prosecution. Recognizing this defect the Prosecution is trying to construct an incrimination of my client from his position while forgetting that holding of a position alone can never incriminate a person as long as it is not utilized for the commission of crimes. Witnesses for the Prosecution were all clever jurists who are at liberty and hold distinguished positions in contrast to the defendant Creutz and they contributed to his exoneration all endeavors of the Prosecution notwithstanding.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "DR. MERKEL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4912, "page_number": "4905", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "While the Prosecution certainly did not spare any trouble and exertion and also called upon the public to cooperate, Creutz was one of the few defendants against whom it did not produce a single document, not even during cross examination. The name of the defendant Creutz was hardly at all mentioned during the whole trial.\nFor this reason already I choose to be brief in presenting evidence and could essentially confine myself to refuting the few alleged incriminations of the defendant that could be presented. And the Court, balancing defense and incriminations material in arriving at a verdict an evaluation which, I know, will be performed conscientiously and diligently by the Court -- will arrive at the conclusion that the contents of the indictment have been refuted by the defense indisputably and convincingly.\"\nI continue with my page 12.\n\"When Creutz was detached by Himmler to the Command Greifelt in the second half of October 1939, he held the rank of an Obersturmbannfuehrer, that is, of a major, and was one of the many members of the Waffen-SS called up for service with the Wehrmacht for the duration of war. As such he was no more in position to choose his own activities, as was any other of the millions of soldiers called up, but simply had to carry out the tasks for which he had been detached.\nInstead of being given the command of a battalion or of a regiment, he was transferred by Himmler to the Command Greifelt at the request of Greifelt, without his knowing it and without his consent, and thus put before a task for which there was no pattern or precedent, and of which he never could expect in the least that it might be held to be criminal and in violation of international law and thus ever would become the subject of criminal proceedings.\nOn his entering the service, that is, towards the end of October 1939, the new Eastern territories were already incorporated into the German Reich pursuant to the Reich laws, and declared to be a part of the German \n Reich (Engl.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4913, "page_number": "4906", "date": "15 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-15", "text": "transcript, page 4074, Exh. Greifelt 32); at that time the resettlers from Estonia and Latvia were already on route to Germany on the basis of treaties with the states concerned and the first transports were just coming in (Engl. transcript, page 1436), and at the same time the EWZ had already been established by the Chief of the Security Service and had already begun its work of naturalizing these settlers (Engl. transcript, page 3528), and at the same time the evacuations of Poles from the incorporated Eastern territories into the Government General were under way and were already completed to the largest extent. (Engl. transcript, page 588, page 614, Exh. 860).\nFor all these measures, said by the Prosecution to have been taken on the basis of a common design of the defendants, and which have in consequence of the forever valid law of cause and effect determined the further development of those events which now are the subject of this trial, the Prosecution intends to place the responsibility on the defendant Creutz and charge him to have instigated these measures and their effects or to have consented to them and to have participated in their planning and execution.\nThey believe to be able to base their assertions on the testimony of the witness Wirsich (Engl. transcript page 261) who asserts to have once seen in the Main Staff Office a pamphlet of the NSDAP Office for Racial Policy (Exh. 82). This pamphlet which has been justly characterized by the defendant Hildebrandt as the work of a fanatic (Engl. transcript page 3906), however, never was in the Main Staff Office, as stated equally by the defendants Greifelt and Creutz and which, according to Creutz' credible testimony, never was known to him.!'\nJUDGEO'CONNEL: May I ask Dr. Merkel, as I asked Dr. Haensel, to try to read more slowly. The translation has to follow you. At least I find it difficult to get the value of your words when the translater is talking so fast. I am quite sure it would be of more value to you and your client, as well as to me and perhaps the other members of the \n Tribunal, if you would read a little more slowly.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4914, "page_number": "4907", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Thank you.\nDR. MERKEL:Yes, Your Honor.\n\"According to the statement of Creutz, the writings of Himmler, submitted as Exh. 84, became known to him in the summer of 1940. I also refer in this respect to the testimony of the defendant Hildebrandt (Engl. transcript, page 3969) whose characterization of the writings were to the point, and to the testimony of Creutz. The latter as well as the other defendants and also the witness Wirsich state alike (Engl. transcript, page 317) that there had existed no design. This may also be seen from the entire evidence of the defense, according to which Himmler issued orders for measures to be taken from case to case.\nIn any case such a plan of the Reich Government or of Himmler could never have been known or conceivable to Creutz in his position in the Main Staff Office. The assertion of the Prosecution to Count 2 of the indictment has not been proved.\nIn paragraph 4 of the indictment it is stated that the defendant had been Chief of Amtsgruppe A and Chief of the Central Staff Office, although the Prosecution does not repeat the assertion made on page 1 of the indictment that Creutz had been the deputy of Greifelt, evidently in recognition of the fact that the evidence submitted in this respect would not quite be sufficient.\nIn spite of this fact and by way of precaution, I shall nevertheless discuss this point briefly.\nThe point of departure for the statement of the Prosecution seems to be the organizational plan of the Main Staff Office of 1 August 1942 (Exh. 18) in which Creutz appears as the \"representative in office\", as well as the affidavits of some of the defendants and witnesses, in which Creutz is referred to as \"representative\" or \"deputy\" of the office chief.\nThe Prosecution evidently assumes from this capacity that Creutz had \n extensive powers to give instructions and exercise supervision in regard to any and all of the offices incorporated into the Main Staff Office and thus inferred his further responsibility concerning any points of the indictment, in which the Main Staff Office seems to be involved somehow.", "speakers": [ "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4915, "page_number": "4908", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Thus, the Prosecution assigns to Creutz the formal rights and execution powers of a so-called \"permanent representative\" -- rights and powers which Creutz de facto never had and which he never executed -- without even taking the trouble to define this \"representative capacity\" as to time and extent. Already the testimonies of the Prosecution witnesses furnish a picture which differs considerably from the assertions of the Prosecution.\"\nI am continuing with page 17.\n\"The viewpoint of the Prosecution that Creutz was \"deputy chief\" will be completely refuted by affidavits of a large number of prosecution and defense witnesses who in unison declared that the defendant Creutz's power of representation was restricted to the period of the absence of the chief of the Staff Main Office. Greifelt's and Cruetz's testimony are to the same effect (Wirsich Engl. Record page 234, 317, Goetz page 994, Schaefer page 1815, Stier page 1866, and page 2165/66, further Creutz Exh. 24, 26, 27, 28).\nAs far as the indictment is based on the table of organization alone, the defendant Creutz' activity may, at the most, be restricted to the time from 1 August 1942 on, for the table of organization was not established before this date. In its opening statement, however, the Prosecution apparently endeavors to extend Creutz' activity as deputy to the preceding period, but could not produce any evidence to this effect.\"\nI am jumping now to page 23.\nFurthermore, from the position of the defendant Creutz as Chief of \n Office Group A, the Prosecution derives his special responsibility for the offices bracketed together in this office group, namely the Resettlement and Folkdom, Labor Allocation and Central Offices.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4916, "page_number": "4909", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Office Group Structure is supposed to have been borne out, too, by the already mentioned Business Distribution Scheme of the Main Staff Office of august 1942 (Exh. 18). As far as the time factor is concerned, only the period from 1 August 1942, the day the Business Distribution Scheme was set up, is thus involved, since the office groups first put up a paper appearance from that day onward, whilst prior to this, all offices and departments had been under the main Office Chief directly (Engl. Record page 1694/95, 1814, 1926, 2068, 315, 867, Creutz Exh. 1).\nIn actual fact, therefore, this organizational structure is without any importance at all; it was only on paper whereas it never had any actual effect.\nThis is first borne out by the fact that in the execution of the organizational scheme the office groups chief were never given any special powers. (Testimonies of Greifelt, Engl. Record page 1698, Dr. Stier page 1885, Meyer page 2248/49).\nThe regulation concerning signatures as it had been in force according to the Business Distribution Scheme of 15 August 1940 (Exh. 28), which was never repealed or amended, continued to be effective. Outgoing mail, as before, continued to be signed either by the Main Office Chief himself or by the competent office chiefs. Any document of the Main Staff Office bearing the signature of the defendant Creutz, in his capacity as \"Office Group Chief\" has not yet been submitted up till now. Nor can such a document be submitted since Creutz never signed as \"Office Group Chief\".\nNor did the introduction of the office groups result in any changes in the internal work of the offices. Though, pursuant to the organizational scheme of 1942, the main departments I and II were raised to \n the status of offices, their heads, however, were, as before, under the direct supervision of the main office chief, from whom alone they received instructions, to whom, as before, they reported and to whom they submitted their daily work reports without reference to the \"Office Group Chief\" (Dr. Stier).Engl.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4917, "page_number": "4910", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Record page 1886, Dr. Bethge page 2167, 2184: \"Creutz was only concerned with Office II in Greifelt's absence\".\nApart from small organizational changes within the offices or main departments, the organizational scheme of August 1940 (Creutz Exh. 1) thus, also subsequent to 1 August 1942, corresponded considerably more to reality than the new organizational scheme of 1 August 1942.\nThe insignificance of the office groups structure can further be seen from the fact that the office group chiefs had ingoing or outgoing mail of their own. (Meyer Engl. Record page 2248/49). The witness Schuh, head of the main distribution center of the Main Staff Office at the time under review, does not remember of any mail which would have passed through his distribution center for or from any of the office groupschiefs(Creutz Exh. 29). Apart from the mention that is made of it in the organizational scheme, no clue has been found within the Main Staff Office pointing to the existence of the office group structure. The overwhelming part of the witnesses examined on this score has denied that the office group structure ever had any effect or importance (Engl. record page 2167, 2184, Schaefer page 1816, Maeding page 2201, 2214 - Creutz Exh. 24, 26, 27, 28 and 29, also Golling page 1927, 1985, Stier page 1885). According to the testimony of the Prosecution's witness, Wirsich, about one of the best informed collaborators of the Main Staff Office, the office groups' structure could, if at all, only have assumed a certain importance for office group C. (Engl. Record page 225). The witness, thus, expressly denied that the office group A under Creutz was of any importance.\"\nI continue with page 27 at the bottom:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4918, "page_number": "4911", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "\"These statements also apply to the position of the defendant Creutz as Chief of Office Z. The Central Office, as it were, in contradistinction to the other offices, was merely a loose organizational band thrown round the departments: personnel, statistics, law, press relations, reparations and files. These departments had until the setting up of the organizational scheme in 1942 been under the direct supervision of the organizational head, the same as all departments and main departments of the Office. (Creutz Exh. 1.) The rigid centralization in the person of the office heads was not loosed through the reorganization. The most important main department in the office, now called Z, the legal department under Wirsich - retained its own jurisdiction and remained under the direct supervision of the Main Office Chief. Creutz had as little influence on the actual work of the department as he had had before. When the organizational scheme of 1940 (Doc. Creutz No. 1) was still in force, he could not gain any influence either because the legal department was not subordinate to him. (Wirsich Engl. Record page 208, 315, Goetz page 993). Greifelt himself must admit that the legal department worked exclusively under his supervision (Engl. Record page 1696). The witness Goetz declares that \"as chief of the legal department he had nothing to do with Creutz and that this state of affairs did not change until 1942\". (Engl. Record page 992/93). Wirsich stated that when he reported to Greifelt, Creutz never attended (Engl. Record page 313) and in cross examination he adhered to the statement he had made that Creutz had no detailed information of what was going on in the legal department. (Engl, Record page 374).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4919, "page_number": "4912", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "DR. MERKEL:I am continuing with page 33.\nWhen the Defendant Creutz was commanded to \"Greifelt's office\" at Greifelt's request, he only found a provisional office staffed with 20 persons, seemingly inadequate in view of the tasks to be performed. He himself did not possess any knowledge and practical experience for practical work within the scope of the tasks of the staff main office. His skill and experience were, in line with his former jobs, purely in the field of the technique or administration. Thus the purpose of his being called to Greifelt's office was clearly outlined, namely building up and organising a smoothly functioning office as well as regulating the inner administration. He was given these tasks and the emphasis of his main activity from the foundation of the office on until its dissolution was directed towards fulfilling them.\nIn the first years of the war the continuous increase in the amount of work to be done owing to the rapidly rising stream of resettlers was caused by the formulation of the tasks of the staff main office, until, in the middle of 1942 the turning point was reached and a retrograde development started which was just as fast. The work to be done by Creutz with regard to organization and administration was in line with this. The apparatus of officials had to be adapted to the continuously changing tasks. From the original 20 persons in 1939 the office personnel had increased to several 100 persons in 1942. Considering the difficulties to be surpassed in every respect in the middle of the war, it becomes evident that Creutz had to utilize his full working strength in order to create the prerequisites for the functioning of this large apparatus of officials. The defendant Greifelt called him into his office to fulfill these tasks (engl. Transcript pare 1694). Creutz devoted himself to this task, as far he was able to. Also the office personnel regarded him as the deciding authority for organization and inner administration (Creutz Exh. 18, 20, 25 and 26). The prosecution witness Wirsich was correct in calling this activity Creutz's main task (engl. Transcript pages 234, 317).", "speakers": [ "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4920, "page_number": "4913", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "This was also corroborated by the witness Dr. Schaefer (engl. Transcript page 1815). further by the prosecution witnesses Goetz (engl. Transcript page 992) and Hoffmann (engl. Transcript page 869).\nThere sphere of activities was expanded in 1941 in so far as Creutz, with Greifelt's tacit approval, took charge of personnel affairs to an ever increasing decree. The witnesses Mense and Huebner came in contact with Creutz with reference to such questions exclusively. (engl. Transcript p. 1777, 2517).\nApart from these tasks no other definitely and clearly outlined sphere of activity had been assigned to Creutz. He was at the disposal of the person in charge of the office to assist him generally (engl. Transcript p. 1694). Thus individual assignments were given him to be executed from case to case.\nWith the material work of the staff main office as such Creutz had little to do. He was not needed either, as skilled men drafted from other Reich offices to do these jobs were in the departments and main departments of the staff main office. When the defendant Creutz took his position the then Obersturmbannfuehrer Dr. Faehndrich was already available for the most important main department, \"assignment of men and distribution\". He also possessed the necessary knowledge of the subject matter and experience for his task.\nDR. MERKEL:I shall now leave out the various statements and comments concerning the individual points of the Indictment and I recommend them to the judicial notice of the Tribunal. I am continuing with page 112.\nTo sum up it must be stated that the basis for the objective prerequisites for a conviction of the defendant Creutz for his participation in the crimes with which he is charged are not given.\nEven if the question of the participation of the defendant under one of the points of the Indictment could be answered in the affirmative, a conviction according to the Control Council Law No. 10 would only be possible after the establishment of the defendant's guilt according to \n Penal Law.", "speakers": [ "DR. MERKEL" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4921, "page_number": "4914", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The guilt according to Penal Law which is always a personal guilt includes, however, according to the generally recognized legal maxim the knowledge of the illegality. Creutz did not have this knowledge of the illegality during his activities with the STHA. The International Military Tribunal held with regard to the Polish Eastern Territories that the state of the debellatio of Poland did not exist and that in connection with the argument regarding the war of aggression the incorporation of the Eastern territories took place by disregarding the principles of International Law and therefore was illgeal. We did not discuss in detail at this place the question of the legal effectiveness of the incorporation. In examining the defendant's guilt it only has to be decided whether he recognized or had to recognize the legal effect and the nillity of the incorporation. As the witness Wirsich stated, jurisprudence was for Creutz a far too alien subject for him to worry about the legal admissibility of state or administrative action. The complicated problems of the International Law were still even more beyond his experience and judgment. Germany de-facto considered all the occupied territories of the East, the West and Southeast as parts of the German Reich whether they were \"incorporated\", explicitly through legal measures or whether they were so-called CdZ.-territories. According to the statement of the General Governor Frank, the Government General was an independant part within Greater German. The actual position of these territories according to the constitutional law and the international law was not recognizable at least, not for layman. For him there was still less reason to doubt the legality of governmental measures and the effectiveness of the annexation, since at the same time Eastern Poland was incorporated into the Russian State. The question of the legality of these measures was neither raised by a competent side in the press or the radio for public discussion, which would not even have been possible under the circumstances prevailing then, nor was it ever the subject of a discussion amongst the many juridical members of the staff of the STHA \n who had no scruples to offer their services for the tasks of the STHA in the territories, incorporated according to constitutional or administrative law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4922, "page_number": "4915", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Therefore Creutz can not be blamed for not having further considered the legality of the annexation. He was convinced of serving a good cause. Just as the rest of the German people, he also, holding only a small position, was unable to win a deep insight into the real background of the war against Poland, uninfluenced by the propaganda and to take the consequences accordingly. Together with the German public he trusted the Chiefs of the German Government when they expressed their peaceful intentions and also believed in the official announcements with regard to the reasons which led to the outbreak of the war.\nCreutz was known to be sceptical. But the way matters were represented to him, he could not deny the inner justification of the re-incorporation of territories which had been German for centuries and he had no reason to meditate on the legality regarding the International Law of constitutional and administrative measures, which had been prepared and worked out by famous personalities of the Reich and the State, already well known before 1933.\nThe defendant Creutz justifiably holding the opinion that he was right, could not possibly come to the conclusion that he was wrong. Starting from the given facts based on on excusable actual error that the incorporated Eastern territories had become a part of the Reich. Creutz considered the German authorities entitled and obliged to take over the care for orphans who were ethnic Germans and had no connections whatsoever, instead of leaving them to the Polish authorities, thus performing a task with which the German State was charged. Holding this opinion it never could occur to him that the transfer of these orphans of whom the German authorities did take care to guardians as within the Reich could be something illegal.\nAlthough Creutz did not approve the extent and manner of how the \n evacuations and resettlements were effected, he could not, at least in principle, see anything wrong in the carrying out of these evacuations and resettlements in order to clear up ethnical borders, which he considered an internal German affair, particularly as he could not recognize that German policies concerning this problem were in contrast to the opinion and practice of other civilized nations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4923, "page_number": "4916", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The past and more recent history shows many examples of evacuations and resettlement actions, and the conscience of the world never got excited about these violation of international law.\nIn addition to the exonorating reason due to a lacking consciousness of guilt, the defendant Creutz also has available the defense of necessity, whose applicability to Control Council Law No. 10 has already been recognized by the Military Court IV, Case 5, in its judgment of 22 December 1947. Hitler, as the chief of the state, ordered the whole resettlement and Himmler was commissioned to carry it out. He availed himself for a part of the tasks of the Main Staff Office (StHA), which upon Himmler's orders - being binding on it - became operational.\nCreutz did not volunteer for the Main Staff Office, rather, as a member of the Waffen-SS, a military unit also under Himmler's command, he was ordered for service there. As such he was subject to military law and had to obey the orders of Himmler and the Main Staff Office, even though he might not have approved them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4924, "page_number": "4917", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Although Creutz, be it for lack of interest, be it from a sense of repugnance, tried to keep away as far as possible from the actual work at the Main Staff Office, he could not completely extricate himself from collaboration, especially during period when he had to act as deputy. Under no circumstances could Creutz refuse or even delay Himmler's mentioned orders to make available resettler groups for Lublin, without exposing himself to the most serious punishment. For Himmler demanded especially from the Waffen-SS unconditional obedience and complete personal devotion for the attainment of his purposes. He clearly told in his speech in Posen what he thought of disloyalty by SS-men. And for Himmler there was no difference between disloyalty and disobedience. Although German military laws provided very heavy penalties for disobedience, insubordination, etc., the application of military law against members of the SS by SS and police courts was still more severe.\nEvery suspicion of disobedience or sabotage on the part of an SS member against government measures justified in Himmler's eyes the imposition of the most severe punishment.\nAs lightest punishment in case of suspicion of any sabotage or opposition, Himmler provided removal to a concentration camp or to a disciplinary SS company. It would have been senseless self-sacrifice to either openly or silently oppose or sabotage Himmler's orders.\nAs a member of the Waffen-SS there was no chance for Creutz to be transferred out from the SS, or to give notice to quitting his position with the Main Staff Office.\nCount III, figure 26, of the indictment finally accuses the defendant Creutz of membership in an organization, namely that in the SS, which had been declared to be criminal by the IMT. The IMT sentence does not hold membership in the SS to be criminal as such. It precisely describes criminal SS membership as membership in a definite organization or group within the SS. \"Mere membership is not sufficient to be included in these findings.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4925, "page_number": "4918", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "In order to condemn membership in an organization, the sentence assumes that support was given by membership in a certain group or organization of perpetrators, to wit, the deliberate collaboration in a criminal group for criminal purposes.\nConsequently, crimes must be concerned as described in Article 6 of the Statute, of which the defendant received knowledge as having been committed within the frame of the SS organization, or in which he participated within the frame of his organization, and therefore not crimes which were committed outside the SS organization, or in which he participated outside of his organization.\nThe prosecution considers the Main Staff Office as a part, or as a branch, of the SS organization, and apparently deems the alleged criminal participation of the defendant in the measures of the Main Staff Office to be sufficient proof of the defendant's criminal activities within the SS.\nHowever, the Main Staff Office was not a branch office of the SS, and was also not mentioned as such in the IMT sentence. The Main Staff Office, by virtue of its actual position, organization and task, was a Reich agency which did not have to carry out SS-type duties, but state tasks by reason of orders issued by the chief of the state to Himmler. The personnel of the Main Staff Office comprised only a small number of SS members, the preponderant part being Reich officials and employees who had never joined the SS or even the NSDAP. Exclusively professional ability and not SS or party membership were at any time the prerequisites for a position with the Main Staff Office.\nAPart of the officials and employees was commanded or transferred to work for the Main Staff office not on the basis of a voluntary contract but by emergency conscription.\nThe Main Staff Office could also not be considered as a group within the SS. For it was not established by a voluntary union of a majority of persons for a common purpose.", "speakers": [ "A" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4926, "page_number": "4919", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Therefore, the participation in alleged measures of a criminal nature within the sphere of duties of the Main Staff Office could not provide the basis for criminal membership of members of the SS, based upon their activities in the Main Staff Office.\nBut even granted that the Main Staff Office would have been an SS-Agency, the defendant Creutz - in his capacity as member of the Waffen-SS - could not be held responsible for measures taken by the Main Staff office which the prosecution calls criminal; since he did not voluntarily join the group, on the contrary, was transferred against his will to the Main Staff Office and - as a member of the Waffen-SS, had no other choice but to obey orders, and in view of the fact that at least an active participation of Creutz in the allegedly criminal measures has not been proven.\nAside from this, none of the members of the Main Staff Office recognized a criminal aim in their duties, namely the care for resettlers, and the defendant Creutz particularly was not aware of any criminal task of the Main Staff Office.\nAs far as the criminal activities of the SS-organizations as such aside from the measures of the Main Staff Office - are concerned, it must be emphasized that Creutz was drafted into the Waffen-SS since 1 April 1939. When he was taken over by the Waffen-SS his membership in the general SS became passive. He, therefore, no longer had any duties towards the general SS. Not only the fact that he no longer had to pay any membership dues, he was also relieved from any duties in the general SS. He did not have any connections to that group of the SS anymore. Because of his activities for the Main Staff Office it was not possible for him to keep up even as much as a loose contact with them. There is, therefore, no basis for a \"cooperation\" with the general SS for criminal purposes. As far as his membership in the Waffen-SS is concerned, it has to be stated that Creutz, during the period in question was not active for even one moment with a unit of the Waffen SS, he never \n belonged to a unit of the Waffen-SS, let alone was in command of such a unit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4927, "page_number": "4920", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "He, therefore, could not even picture what actually happend with the troops and what particular tasks were assigned to them. His activities concerned exclusively the special duties assigned to him by the Main Staff Office, without being in touch with the Waffen-SS. He, therefore, had no chance whatsoever to learn about the incidents with which the Waffen-SS has been charged. In spite of his position with the Main Staff Office and his rank as officer of the Waffen-SS he did not know more about these events than the German public. Furthermore, the principle applies here, too, that the defendant should be considered not guilty until his guilt has been established beyond any reasonable doubt.\nThe proof for the guilt of the defendant Creutz re. Para 26 of the Indictment must be supplied by the prosecution. This principle has been expressly established by Military Tribunal II in Case 4 in its judgment dated 3 November 1947. In the opinion it is further stated: \"The 'High\" position of the defendant Scheibe alone is not enough to justify sufficient suspicion to find him guilty of conspiratorial knowledge.\nIn accordance with this judgment proof beyond doubt has to be established that the defendant, during his membership in an organization, must have had positive knowledge of crimes within this organization, or, insofar as he was a compulsory member, he himself participated in the criminal acts. It is not sufficient that a defendant outside of his organization which has been declared criminal, at some time and somewhere learned about crimes against the laws of war and humanity of other organizations, but he himself must have been guilty of crimes against the laws of war and humanity (Judgement of the Military Tribunal II, Case 4 dated 3 November 1947). The prosecution could not supply this evidence.\nIt would be difficult, as a matter of fact, to supply such evidence as far as the defendant Creutz is concerned, because as little as he stopped forward in the Main Staff Office, as modest he was during the entire time of his membership in the SS.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4928, "page_number": "4921", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It was not enthusiasn which brought him into the SS. A victim of the economic crisis of 1931/32, he had to accept at first, after Hitler's seizure of power, the small earnings which were offered to him as a clerk in an SS-Agency, until he could find other means of support. A prerequisite for this was the membership in the SS whose task and purpose was not known to him and whose aim he could not recognize. He was always given only clerical and administrative work by the SS.\nThen he finally, in 1939, acquired the rank of a Sturmbannfuehrer (Major), was not due to his devotion shown in the service of the SS. This was only due to the fact that he had been an officer in the old army and that the promotion ensured a sufficient income for him. Even though Creutz was mainly employed in administrative agencies of the SS, he never sold himself to the spirit of the SS.\nWhen he finally succeeded, after repeated attempts, in finding a position in private industry, outside of the SS, it was already too late to separate himself from the SS.\nHis resignation was not accepted and intervention on the part of the authoritive SS-offices prevented taking up the new civilian activity.\nIn spite of all the throats from his superiors he was married in church, and likewise also later on never gave up his church-membership. Having his own way in this matter and the ties he had formed by marrying into the Catholic aristocracy of Austria were evidently such a strong contrast to the conceptions and views of the SS that Creutz was taken to task immediately. The personnel-file of the defendant Creutz (Creutz Exh. 3) shows that Himmler himself was interested in the case and forbade Creutz's activity in the Austrian districts probably, because he was afraid Creutz might succumb completely to the influences under which he had come through his connections with church circles (Creutz Exh. 3).\nAlthough Creutz had got himself into ill-favour through his upright attitude, yet it did not bring him the desired dismissal from the SSService, on the contrary he was transferred to the Waffen-SS (Welfare and Social Security Work), whereby it became practically impossible for Creutz \n to leave the SS, unless he was willing to make such sacrifices as the IMT Judgment had declared could not be expected of a person.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4929, "page_number": "4922", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Because his work in the SS-offices had been exclusively along bureau and administrative technical lines, Creutz had gained knowledge and experience which were desisive for Greifelt when in October 1939 he saw to it that Creutz's transfer to the Greifelt office was ordered.\nHe did not know and at that time also could not know that and whether he was participating in the carrying out of an organized program.\nUndoubtedly Creutz did not agree with many of the measures taken as has been stated alike by the witnesses Goetz, Stier, Wirsich, Bethge and others. But he also did not hold back with his opinion and tried, as far as this was at all within his power, to alleviate or remove the hardships of those concerned, hardships which in the mass-movements of resettlers some-times could not be avoided.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4930, "page_number": "4923", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The statements of the witnesses concerning his irreproachable personal attitude, his decency, his readiness to help at any time and his human conduct, his reserve, his modesty and chivalry by which he distinguished himself to such a high degree in his relations with all his co-workers and employees of the Main Staff Office (StHA) (Creutz Exh. No. 31 - 41) give too clear a picture of the man Creutz, as that one could consider him capable of participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity.\nHe never felt that through his activity in the Main Staff Office he had violated any of the generally recognized principles of international law. Not conscious of any wrongdoing, he remained with his office to the last moment of its existence. He could face the interrogations by CICofficers With a clear conscience and voluntarily placed himself at the disposal for this purpose (Creutz Exh. 32.) Mr. President: Honorable Judges:\nI am coming to the close of my valuation of the evidence. The defendant Creutz as witness in his own case has given you a detailed description of his activity in the Main Staff Office. His assertions there he has substantiated through many documents and through the depositions of numerous witnesses, be it in the form of affidavits or in direct hearing or in cross examination.\nIf you, honorable Judges, in reaching your verdict, conscientiously examine the results of the evidence in his case, you will become convinced, exactly as I am, that the Prosecution with its evidence has not on any point of the indictment succeeded to give conclusive proof for the criminal responsibility of the defendant Creutz. However, every defendant is considered as innocent until the Prosecution has succeeded in presenting to the court evidence to the contrary in such a form as would eliminate any reasonable doubt. Thus, the defendant Creutz is awaiting your judgment with the composure which only a clear conscience cam impart. I place the decision over the fate of my client in your hands confident and knowing that you will render a just verdict, a verdict \n that will only state his acquittal of all the charges brought against him in the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4931, "page_number": "4924", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Thank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:We are now traveling by the time table, Dr. Haensel was kind enough to prepare for the court on behalf of all defense counsel. We are very pleased that he arranged for two recesses in the afternoon. That is true notwithstanding the fact that during the entire morning when he was speaking he forgot to provide for any recess. The time has now arrived for a recess. The Tribunal will recess for ten minutes.\nTHE MARSHAL:The court will be in recess until 1430 hours.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4932, "page_number": "4925", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next argument.\nDR.BEHLING (for the defendant Meyer-Hetling): Mr. President, I am not submitting a closing brief but I am limiting myself to the excerpts exclusively in my final plea. I would like to understand the statement that the President made to us that my entire plea in translation will be made the submect of the verdict and considered in giving your opinon.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I could not assure you that the verdict will be governed by it but we will certainly read it.\nDR. BEHLING:Furthermore, I would like to say that in the program of the complete defense it was my task to work on several topics. I am referring here to the historical statements and surveys and examination within International Law and the purpose of that is the legality of expression. These expressions needed extensive comments which explains the extent of my plea. I would now like to start with the reading.\nYour honors:\nA proper comprehension of the problems discussed in this trial is possible only if the Tribunal is not influenced in its opinion by the period 1939 - 1945 and sees the events under discussion against their whole historical background. I am leaving out the historical comments and I am now coming to the conditions of 1918 and I am continuing on my page 24: I am continuing with page 28:\nIn spite of the minorities protection agreement of 1919, whereby Poland promised equal treatment to \"all Polish nationals, belonging to a racial, religious, orlingual minority\"28 the time from 1919 to 1939 is characterized by a permanent violation of this agreement.29 Up to 1938 approximately 610 000 hectar (1,525,000 acres) of German soil had been lost by liquidation and agricultural reform in the ----------------28 Compare agreement between the Allies and the great Powers associated with them and poland on 28 June 1919.\n29 Compare also testimony Graebe dated 2 December 1947 (transcript p.\n1712) and 29 January 1948 (transcript page 4359).", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "DR. BEHLING" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4933, "page_number": "4926", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "territories surrendered in 1919. This does not include the land expropriated by cancellation of the estates of the Prussian Settlement Commission, or state property and forest lands. These categories cover a further 500,000 hectar (-1,250,000 acres).42 Thus, if the Prosecution now claims43 that the incorporated Eastern territories are not German soil, they either refuse to acknowledge these de-Germanization processes, or purposely conceal this fact.\nIt may be correct that in 1939 only 7% Germans remained in the areas under discussion, while 86% of the population were Poles. But in 1918, for example, there were still 70% Germans there, while only 30% Poles had their permanent residence in West-Prussia.44 The Versailles peace treaty which - as was only recently admitted again by American spokesmen46 never has been a textbook example for wisdom and moderation, could not solve the old problem of national minorities.\nOn the contrary, where the map of Europe had been changed, hotbeds of national conflict had been created. President Wilson's idea of national self-government - doubtlessly based on high moral principles - was used onesidely in Versailles, and more or less as a pretext or instrument to weaken to beaten enemy's position in Europe. This could not but give fresh impetus to the already exaggerated historical and national consciousness of the European nations on our ill-assorted continent. At the same time it inevitably had to lead to new and greater difficulties in the application of the nationality principles, because of the existence of small and even minute language islands and ethnographically mixed areas.\nThe Prosecution considers the conduct of the defendants, in as far as it concerns the so-called incorporated Eastern territories, as war crimes, i.e. infrongements of the Hague Land Warfare Convention. This assertion presupposes that the incorporated Eastern territories did ------------------42 Compare Meyler-Hetling Document No. 41. 43 Indictment page 51. 44 Rauschning same document page 353. 46 The land of the Dead. Study of the Deportation from Eastern Germany.\nNew York City p. 11.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4934, "page_number": "4927", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "not became parts of Germany by virtue of the incorporation, but remained parts of Poland.\nThe Questions as to whether the annexation of these polish territories by Germany was in accordance with international law or in contravention of it, is therefore of decisive importance for the result of this trial. In the now following statements I have examined this topic from point of view of International Law and on the basis of various exam les I have shown the position at that time. On page 39 I now would like to continue with my reading:\nIn support of my legal views I shall now proceed to cite a few examples fr m the law practice of the various nations, and especially those that have appointed the IMT.\nFirst of all the United States. The \"Instructions for the Government of the Army of the United States in the Field\", promulgated in May 1852, whose author was the lawyer Francis Lieber, an imigrant from Europe, end which later formed part of the basis for the Hague Land Warfare Convention, contain the article 33, which I introduced as exhibit No. 54 in the Meyer-Hetling document book. These \"Instructions\" presuppose quite clearly, that the full conquest of part of the enemy country already suffices for the annexation of that part while the war still continues. General Pope's order, issued on the strength of these Instructions (Meyer-Hetling document No. 55) provides that the population of these parts of the confederate states which had been occupied by federal troops were to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, failing which they would be expelled from the occupied area. It is true that this order was strongly criticized in the United States at the time; however, it is not clear whether this criticism was directed against the expulsion clause or the fact of the oath of allegiance. At any rate what is important is that the United States never revoked the order.\nAs the 1 st important precedent, showing the British views on the problem of admissibility of annexations during a war, is the British \n problem of admissibility of annexations during a war, is the British statement on the annexation of Polish territory by the Russians in 1939.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4935, "page_number": "4928", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "This annexation was recognized as legal while the war was still on. In his book: \"Frankly speaking\" the former Secretary of State, James F. Byrnes, quotes a remark which the British Prime Minister, Churchill, made at the Yalta conference, and was printed as follows in the New York Herald Tribune (Europe Edition), of 18 October 1947:\n\"Prime Minister Churchill pointed out, that he supported the Curzon line and the Soviet Union's claim for Lemberg in Parliament. The Soviet Union's claim, he said, 'is not founded on violence but on right'.\"\nI f two countries do the same thing, each annexing parts of a fully occupied country which has ceased to be a powerful factor, then this is regarded as lawful in one case and unlawful in the other, according to whether this indentical act was committed by an ally or an enemy. I am continuing with page 44:\nThe other case seems a particularly good example. In the Potsdam Agreement of 2 August 1945 the Big Four recognized the Soviet Union's annexation of the northern part of the German province East Prussia including Koeniesberg (Meyer-Hetling documents No. 65 and 66). It is true that certain reservations were phrased in such general terms that they can at best be regarded as resolutive clauses. Anyhow, they were meanwhile elim n*ted because of the way in which the other parts of the agreement treat the annexation as final throughout. This is particularly clearly demonstrated by the way in which the elections for the Soviet People's representation were carried out, against which neither the British nor the Americans raised objections.\nThe German province East Prussia was annexed at a time when the armies of one of Germany's allies - Japan - were still in the field, and it is therefore no different from the annexation of Polish territory by the Soviet Union and Germany in October 1939. Against the argument \n that there was that difference between the two annexations, that at the time the Potsdam Agreement was concluded, Japan's surrender was imminent, it must be said that in 1939/40 Germany and her then friend, the Soviet Union, were likewise the undisputed lords of the European continent.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4936, "page_number": "4929", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "As things were then, nobody could have expected that the restoration of Poland through British armies landing on the continent would ever become reality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4937, "page_number": "4930", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The survey on the practice of States as outlined above would be incomplete if I omitted to refer to the most significant document pertaining to this question: It is the \"Declaration of the victorious powers concerning Germany's defeat. dated 5 June 1945\" (Official Gazette of the Control Council, supplement no. 1 page 7) and in the 6th paragraph of the preamble it is stated expressly:\n\"The Governments of the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Provisional Government of the French Republic will hereafter determine the boundaries of Germany or any part thereof and the status of Germany or any area at present being part of Germany.\"\nIn this connection I should like to emphasize, that two months prior to Japan's capitulation, therefore at a time when one of Germany's Allies was still fighting, the victorious powers solemnly and unambiguously permitted the unilateral annexation of parts of a defeated country while the battle was still raging. I hardly consider a more obvious refutation of the legal conception established by the IMT. possible. However, the defendants accused here will, over and above that, have to be given credit for the fact that particularly important reasons led to the conception according to which the Polish State was completely subjugated, and dissolved following the events of September 1939. The war between Germany and Poland, which started on 1 September 1939, led to the complete military collapse of Poland within a few weeks, as I have already explained. The Polish army was dispersed. Its greater part was captured by German troops. A few scattered divisions crossed the border into neutral Hungary, where they were subsequently interned. The Polish government resigned. A new government was only gradually formed abroad. On 17 September 1939 Soviet forces marched into Poland, occupied the parts of Poland not yet in German hands and took the remainder of the Polish army still there prisoner. Thus the \n entire Polish territory was occupied and its army completely annihilated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4938, "page_number": "4931", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The material prerequisites for a declaration of annexation had thus been created. And only that is the crucial point. Thus the diplomatic note of the Polish Ambassador in Washington, dated 27 October 1939, referred to on page 10456 of the official record of the lawyers' trial, - loses its significance. According to recognized practice in international law, the material prerequisites for subjugation or conquest of a state do not include the dissolution of the government and the abdication of the souvereign, after all the territorial and sovereign influence has been eliminated, If the government and sovereign flee to other countries, their activity abroad in connection with the admissibility of the annexation is of no importance under international law, even if they should still be recognized diplomatically by individual states. For instance, it was never doubted that neither the former president of the Transvaal, Ohm Krueger, nor the former Negus of Abyssinia, Hailie Selassie, were able to render the annexation of the Transvaal by England or that of Abyssinia by Italy legally invalid through protests from their Europe an exile. International law, true to its tendency to make established facts legally valid, sees in the actual cessation of state power during a war the authority to eliminate the legal status of a state as well. On the other hand, the possibility of restoring the extinct state cower by future events such as the victory of an ally is not taken into consideration at all. It must be deduced therefrom that the 5th partition of Poland - the events of September 1939 may be seen in that light - was an annexation in accordance with international law. But the fact that not only these two states were of the opinion that the former Polish state had been dissolved, is also revealed by parts of its territory being surrendered to third states. Thus according to the agreement of 10 Oct. 1939 the area of the town Wilna was surrendered to Lithuania by the Soviet Union (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 68) \n and Germany conveyed a strip of land in the Carpathian Mountains to Slovakia as per agreement of 21 November 1939 (the Slovak constitutional Law of 22 December 1939) (compare MEYER-HETLING Document No. 69 and Hildebrandt Document No. 127). Sweden's attitude is also characteristic.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4939, "page_number": "4932", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "On 20 November 1939 the German Foreign Office informed the Swedish Embassy in Berlin verbally that in the opinion of the Reich Government the conditions under which Sweden had assumed the protection of Polish interests in the German Reich had been eliminated by the recent developments and that therefore the protective mandate of the Swedish Embassy could be considered as concluded. The Swedish Government did not contradict this communication and thus revealed that it also recognized the annexation of the Western Polish territory by Germany as well as that of the Eastern Polish parts by the Soviet Union. (Hildebrandt-Document No. 127). In order to summarize this it may therefore be stated that the actual facts justified the conception that the state of Poland which had hitherto existed had been dissolved and that the incorporation of parts of the Republic of Poland into the German Reich and into the USSR was not contrary to the practice of states according to international law. ........... I continue with page 55. But even if the Tribunal should not be convinced that this action was legal according to international law, it would, in my opinion at least, have to deny the defendants' guilt in view of the abundance of the evidence submitted. The legal arguments presented show that the questions under discussion are so involved and difficult, that in support of the German conception numerous weighty reasons can be given from the practice of states and from theory, and lastly that the defendants acted under an excusable error when they assumed that Germany was entitled to the annexation of Poland. Such an error on a preliminary question which has nothing to do with the actual penal law, is an agreement in favor of the defendant and against his conviction by the court according to the generally acknowledged principles of penal law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4940, "page_number": "4933", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "May I also point out the following in connection with the personal aspects of the case: Following a formulation in the IMT verdict, the lawyers' Tribunal stated that the Principles of justice and fairness would have to be fully applied. It then continues:\n\"Applied to the sphere of International Law, this principle requires proof prior to conviction that the defendant knew, or had to know, that in matters pertaining to International Law he was guilty of participating in a system of injustice and persecution organized by the state, which offends the moral code of humanity and that he knew, or had to know, that he would be punished in case of apprehension.\n(page 10391 of the protocol).\" None of the defendants here participated in the relevant legislation.\nNone of the laws submitted by the Prosecution bear the signatures of any of the defendants. The decision of Questions pertaining to International Law was not even within the sphere of competence of the departments represented here by the defendants. When the question of the establishment of German Reich laws in the incorporated Eastern territories became acute, the Reich Ministry of the Interior as the Ministry in charge of the operation, obtained a legal opinion from the Foreign Office, which dealt with the question of legality of such a step under International Law. The former State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Stuckart, confirmed this in his affidavit of 2 December 1947 (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 52). - The Wehrmacht authorities were also doubtful of Poland's position according to Internation Law after she was occupied by Germany. On 15 April 1940 the High Command of the Wehrmacht therefore addressed an enquiry to the Foreign Office, which contained the following statement:\n\"A clarification of this question and all others pertaining to it seems necessary, it concerns the Wehrmacht to a consider able degree (the necessity to adhere to the Hague Rules of \n Land Warfare, treatment of prisoners of war etc.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4941, "page_number": "4934", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "\" (Hildebrandt Document No. 127).\" The formulation of this letter, which was inspired by a feeling of great responsibility and which refers to the possible consequences resulting from the applicability of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare - shows how much importance the High Command of the Wehrmacht attached to the Foreign Office's decision and proves how carefully it sought a clarification.\nThe Foreign Office replied to this enquiry in the following secret letter of 15 May 1940:\n\"On the other hand, the formation of a Polish sham government abroad after the disintegration of Poland is of no legal significance.\n. . . . . . .\nNeither can the further continuation of the Polish state be deduced from the fact that its former diplomatic represen tations have placed themselves in the service of the sham government or because military formations composed of Polish nationals have been established in France and England.\n. . . . . . .\nWith reference to the last paragraph of the letter of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, dated 15 April 1940, the Foreign Office suggests that the Supreme Reich authorities as well as the Generalgouverneur of the occupied Polish territories and the Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia be informed of the aspects outlined above and in the en closure.\"\n(Hildebrandt Document No. 127). In the letter of 22 June 1940, the Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery Dr. LAMMEBS actually distributed the Foreign Office's opinion pertaining to International Law to all Reich Ministries. . . . . . . . The defendants therefore had to assume that the preliminary questions concerning International Law had been conclusively clarified.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4942, "page_number": "4935", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": ". . . . . . . Page 59. They believed this, which was quite natural, since none of then belonged to the closer circle of the Reich Government. The following statement contained in the verdict of the lawyers' case is justified (page 10455 of the official record):\n\"Hitler's and Goebbels' lying propaganda concealed the criminal plans of the closer circle of the aggressors even from many state officials.\"\nNone of these defendants belonged to the closer circle of aggressors, at least I believe that in the course of the proceedings I have clearly proved this as far as my client, the defendant Professor Dr. MEYERHETLING, is concerned. He was an official and as such was bound by the laws. According to the legal system of all civilized nations, he had to respect and adhere to the laws, unless they contained a concrete, intentional crime which was clearly recognizable. . . . . . . . If Hitler was however officially competent to pass laws and issue orders, then these had to be given general recognition as being legally binding, \"as all countries abroad, without exception, reservation or protest acknowledged in him the embodiment of supreme German authority, since he appropriated Hindenburg's position after his death (Laun, Hague Rules of Land Warfare, 3rd edition 1947, page 62)\". . . . . . . . Page 62. I. Professor Meyer-Hetling's appointment to the Main Staff Office. The defendant Meyer-Hetling is a university professor by profession. Until he was called up for the Wehrmacht in the late summer 1944, he was teaching at the University of Berlin as Doctor of Philosophy and Professor in ordinary for Agrarian Science and Agrarian Politics. The female witness Pasie stated in this connection (transcript page 2332/35):", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4943, "page_number": "4936", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\n\"Professor MEYER was first and foremost a university professor and Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Agrarian Politics at the university..... His prime interest, as far as his work was concerned, lay in his activity as university professor and director of the institute..... Professor MEYER continued to deliver all his lectures even during the war.\" The defendant, Professor MEYER-HETLING is one of the best-known and most able German agrarian scientists. His importance is in the field of agrarian economy, social science and the planning of rural settlements. The documents on his personality, which I submitted during my plea, prove that today he is still regarded as a distinguished scientist both at home and abroad. Almost all his German scientific colleagues I mention only the university professors and doctors Schrey, Berkner, Giesecke, Tornau, Boekholt, Mitscherlich, Alten, Lang, Kappert, Noack, Kuehn, Brouwer, Telschow, Kreutz (compare MEYER-HETLING Documents No. 5 - 14, 35, 36, 38, 92) - winners of the Nobel Prize - like the famous atom-scientist Professor Dr. HEISENBERG (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 4,) and internationally recognized scientists, as for instance the worldfamous German surgeon Professor Dr. SAUERBRUCH (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 16) are united in his defense. Then there are furthermore the most distinguished representatives of foreign agrarian science, for instance the Rector of the Agricultural University in Sweden, Professor NILSSON (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 3) and his prominent colleague Professor Torstensson, Uppsala (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 93), the famous Finnish research scientist, Professor Haataja (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 39), the Danish Agricultural Attache' Jakobsen, in Berlin for many years (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 126), the Austrian Senior of agrarian science and world-famous re-discoverer of Mendel's heredity laws, Hofrat Professor Erich von Tschermak-Seysenegg (MEYERHETLING Document No. 37) and many others, who unanimously bear witness to Professor MEYER-HETLING's importance in international agrarian science, his absolutely upright character and his faultless conduct \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4944, "page_number": "4937", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "at all times. The able young scientist, who at the early age of 29 obtained the venia legendi of the mathematics-natural science faculty at the Goettingen University in 1930, (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 1) received his first offer even before Hitler's seizure of power and what is significant, not from a German but from a foreign university; it seems to me that this particularly emphasizes his international importance. He refused this honorable offer at that time because he felt under an obligation to science and not yet in a position to fill such a responsible post adequately. Two years later he was called to Jena and during the same year he was offered a professional chair in Berlin, at that time the largest and most important German university. His was truly a magnificent career, due only to his scientific and far removed from any influence of party politics. No less a person than the Rector of the Agricultural College in Sweden, Professor Dr. Nilsson, states the following in his affidavit of 10 November 1947 (MEYERHETLING Document No. 3): \"On the contrary, I came to know Professor Konrad Meyer as an honorable, most honest and fine person, who would certainly have procured a position as a distinguished scientist even under different conditions from those prevailing in Germany after 1933.\"\nHis old teacher, Professor Dr. Tornau (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 8) stated the following in this connection, on the basis of a friendship lasting more than 20 years: \"In view of his outstanding scientific talent, any vacant professorship would have been available to him and he could have had a much more pleasant job and an equally respected position then without any ties to the party or the SS\".\nProfessor Dr. Meyer-Hetling did belong to the party and he was an Ehrenfuehrer in the SS. As I shall explain in detail under C VI, Professor Dr. Meyer-Hetling felt compelled to believe the new movement to be the only salvation from the desperate situation after the total failure of the German political parties of the Weimar Republic \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4945, "page_number": "4938", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "and he felt concern for the peasantry which was deep in distress and burdened with debt. In the affidavit of university lecturer Dr. Morgen, dated 1 November 1947 (MEYER-HETLING Document No. 107) the following is stated about the motives for his entry into the party: \"Professor Meyer's political ideas and thoughts are rooted in German idealism and can be traced partly to the period of German romanticism. The doctrine of organism connected with the concept of history which he supported, is a clear proof of that. Since National Socialism - aiming at the conversion of the intelligentsia at home - apparently continued where the German intellectual trend in the first half of the 19th century left off, numerous creative persons, among them also Professor Meyer, joined the so-called NS-Movement. He believed it to be a German intellectural movement which would not be forced to accept party doctrines. I am therefore convinced that he did not approve the brutal interference of the party in all human spheres; that was completely alien to him.\"\nHis agricultural work brought Professor Meyer-Hetling in touch with the leaders of the peasantry and led to his appointment in the Reich Peasant Council, a collection of selected number of personalities who strove for the development of agrarian problems in practice and theory\" transcript page 2118). In this connection he was appointed Ehrenfuehrer in the SS (transcript page 2118). I should like to point out to the Tribunal the affidavits Boekholt. (Meyer-Hetling document No. 9), Zschintsch (Meyer-Hetling Document No. 17), Stuckart (Meyer-Hetling Document No. 26) and General Wolff (MeyerHetling Document No. 28) which I have offered to the Tribunal in evidence. He also belonged to this organization later in the capacity of Ehrenfuehrer, but he was never active in the SS (transcript page 2118). That his membership in the SS was purely formal is particularly evident from the fact that he was never sworn into this formation, which was only possible with regard to Ehrenfuehrer, (Meyer-Hetling Document No. 159).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4946, "page_number": "4939", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nIn this connection I should like to refer to a basic error made by the prosecution in the opening statement, where the defendant was said to have belonged to the SS professionally. While the prosecution failed to furnish proof for its allegation, the proof submitted by me clearly shows that it is untenable. The defendant was only connected with the SS inasfar as the departments of the state administration became more and more closely interlaced with the formations of the party and he was given the honorary rank of Ehrenfuehrer (transcript page 2118) which however had nothing whatsoever in common with professional membership of the SS.\nIn the meantime the German Armed Forces had beaten the Polish Army in a campaign which lasted 18 days, the Polish Republic was destroyed, the Government had abdicated and the old German provinces had been re-incorporated into the Reich. These were the historical facts when Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING was summoned one day by HIMMLER in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nThe only important fact in this connection is that the Staff Main Office was not an SS-office but a so-called Superior Reich Office with the character of a Ministry.\nThe defendant when called to the stand as witness in his own case has given an impressive and clear description of his talk with HIMMLER (Transcript page 2124) as has been corroborated by the witness General WOLFF in his examination (transcript page 1928) and in his affidavit (Meyer-Hetling document No. 28), he being then Chief of HIMMLER'S Personal Staff and present during the discussion.\nFollowing this conference with HIMMLER, Professor Dr. MeyerHetling called upon the then Reich Minister of Education RUST to whom as a university professor - he was subordinated.\nThereupon Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING declared that he would agree to take over a supplementary occupation at the Staff Main Office, subject to the assurances as given by HIMMLER.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4947, "page_number": "4940", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nAll these statements leave no room for doubt regarding the fact that Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING exercised his functions at the Staff Main Office in a supplementary as well as honorary capacity.\nThis fact is conclusive proof that Professor MEYER-HETLING never exercised the tasks allotted to him in a professional capacity, and also proves the truth of his statement as a witness, namely that he regarded his activity exclusively and only as a fulfillment of his self-evident duties as a civil servant during the war. II. Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING's functions at the Main Staff Office as Director of the Office for Planning and later as Chief of De partment.\nAbout the middle of 1940 the Central Land Office (Zentralbodenamt) was temporarily formally attached to the Main Department II (Main Department Planning and Estate). This decision was reached for purely organizational reasons that existed then, especially because of the desire to find a place in the government system for the hitherto completely independent Central Land Registration Office. However, the work was not combined either then or later, and the offices remained separate and were never amalgamated. While the seat of the Planning Office was Berlin-Dahlem, the offices of the Central Land Registration Office (Zentralbodenamt) remained in the center of Berlin in the Friedrichstrasse, in other words they were at all times located in different places and locally separated from the Central Office of the Staff Main Office on Kurfurstendamm. After the coordination of the Central Land Registration Office (Zentralbodenamt) in Spring 1941 it soon became an independent office again. At any rate on 1 August 1942 the new task distribution scheme was introduced, which divided the Staff Main Office into 3 Office Groups (Amtsgruppen), each of which was again subdivided into 3 offices (Aemter). Amtsgruppe C, which is the only one of interest here, consisted of the department VI (Planning), VII (Buildings) and VIII (Central Land Registration Office - Zentralbodenamt).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4948, "page_number": "4941", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nI turn now to page 82.\nThe Prosecution obviously overestimates the importance of the office group (Amtsgruppen) chiefs and of the office group (Amtsgruppen) arrangement as such, if it deduces from this position a special responsibility on the part of Professor Dr, MEYER-HETLING for the offices belonging to Office group (Amtsgruppe C) according to the business schedule.\nAlthough the Prosecution probably has at its disposal a very considerable part if not all the files of the Staff Main Office, they were unable in these proceedings to present a single document establishing Professor Dr, MEYER-HETLING's activity as office group (Amtsgruppen) Chief. They found neither a signature given by the defendant as office groups (Amtsgruppen) Chief nor is there a relevant reference to the existence of the office groups (Amtsgruppen) in the distribution list.\nActually the new task distribution scheme did not alter the business procedure in any way. GREIFELT already testified as a witness (Transcript page 1638), that the office group (Amtsgruppen) Chiefs were never officially appointed. He also explained credibly that no vested rights were conferred upon the office groups (Amtsgruppen) Chiefs.\nThe division of office groups as such - according to the unanimous testimonies of Prosecution witnesses Goetz, Hoffmann and Fiedler, was of no importance when the staff Main Office was transferred to Schweiklberg in August 1943. While all the other offices of the Staff Main Office were evacuated from Berlin, the Planning Office and Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING stayed. This completely severed the already loose bond between the Staff Main Office on the one hand and the Planning Office on the other. At the same time the stillborn child of the Office Groups (Amtsgruppen) was buried, and this concluded a development which from the beginning existed only on paper and had no practical significance whatever.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4949, "page_number": "4942", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nIII. Criminal Responsibility of Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING regarding the Charges raised in Count I, paragraphs 11 to 18 and 21 of the Indictment.\nIn my Opening Statement I already pointed out that Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING had to concern himself only with the land planning tasks within the sphere of a specialist department, the nature of which was strictly scientific. Thus his sphere of work - in fact and according to its designation - already precluded a connection with the charges specified in the indictment under Count I, paragraphs 11 to 18, and 21, such charges as kidnapping, illegal abortions, deportations etc.\nThe Prosecution had submitted a wealth of material concerning questions of this kind, without however being able to produce one valid document of documentary evidence, or to call one witness who could have testified against Professor Dr. MEYER-HETLING in this respect. Notwithstanding my dilligent investigations, I was unable to find anything that has even the slightest bearing on the defendant.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4950, "page_number": "4943", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "COURT NO. I, CASE NO. VIII.\nThe legal foundations:\nThe foundation for the legal judgment of the defendant is Control Council Law No. 10 in connection with several provisions of the Hague Rules of Land Warfare. The decisive article TX of Control Council Law No. 19 mentions in too places the word \"Planning\", without however giving a definition of it.\nIn order, therefore, to establish any guilt, the Prosecution ought to prove beyond any reasonable doubt, not that the planning work, of the defendant is criminal - because according to the law this fact is not decisive - but that he \"was connected\" with criminal plans of the Reich Government.\n\"The expression 'to be connected with' a crime implies more than a mere knowledge of it.\nIt means more than working together with the ring leaders or abettors in the same building or even belonging to the same organization.\nThe Inter national Military Tribunal recognized this fact when it limited the criminal membership in cer tain organizations in a certain way.\nThe ex pression 'consenting participation' contains the element of a positive attitude.\nAccording to its application in the wording of the ordinance it certainly means more than 'hot to be opposed to'.In the case of a person who had the power or authority to initiate or to check a criminal act, a knowledge of the facts in conjunction with keeping silent sight perhaps be interpreted as consent.\"\nThe conception of planning:\nThe word \"Planning\" has become more and more of an \n undefinable collective term for all kinds of deliberation; a collective term which, according to the opinion, purpose, and aim of the individual planner and his planning tasks, is to be given different Interpretations depending upon its nature and sphere of influence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4951, "page_number": "4944", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The only thing common to all cases is the aim, pointing to the future and detached from the happenings and requirements of the day or, as expressed by Professor Henselmann in his treatise: \"Planning of the reconstruction\" (\"Aufbau\" Publishing House Berlin 1946, Volume 3, Page 265):\n\"Planning means taking thought for the future\".\nIn the course of the trial we have become familiar with a Four Year Plan and several General Plans, have heard of Planning Authorities, Planning Agencies, Planning Offices, Planning Detachments and Planning Departments, and had to concern ourselves with short-term and long-term plans, \"Large-scale\" and \"Small-scale\" Plannings. If we look at these institutions and Plans side by side, we get the picture of an ambitious, even bewildering facade. But what were the details of the actual facts? What David E. Lilienthal said also comes true in this connection.\n\"The word 'Planning' is used nowadays in such varied meanings that this word has almost lost all sense and has even become a source of con fusion.\"\nThis confusion of terms, which can already be actually recognized, becomes Boundless and even a public danger, if this definition, which actually is not one, becomes an objective element of crime in a criminal law of such eminent importance as Control Council Law No. 10.\nI continue on page 111:\nAll these statements of witnesses show unanimously \n that the \"Planning\" of Professor Meyer-Hettling covered a distinctly restricted sector.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4952, "page_number": "4945", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It was limited Objectively to what, in the Anglo-Saxon sphere of culture, is designated as Town and Country Planning (compare Departments 1, 3 - 6 of the Planning Office) and as Social Planning (compare Department 2 of the Planning Office). This activity is considered by all persons concerned and observers as a specialized science. It has also been pursued on a purely scientific basis and has never gone beyond this conception. Its aim was not destructive, but constructive for the well-being of mankind.\nI refer to the Meyer-Hetling Documents Nos. 18, 19, 25, 93, 102, 103, 107, 108, 110, 116, 118, 120, 124, 134, 135, 137 and to the pages of the transcript Nos. 228, 1616, 1653/56, 1747, 1852, 2129, 2135, 2198, 2200.\nThe Planning Office was really a research office for country planning (Transcript page 2197 and Affidavit Professor Dr. Bulow - Meyer-Hetling-Document No. 94 -). This is also shown by the plan for the distribution of duties which, moreover, only represents a completely empty frame. Lilienthal (elsewhere page 207) calls this activity the \"Idea of Uniform Development\" and this expression touches the vital point of the matter, If the Rebuttal Document No. 5721, Exh. 865, speaks therefore of \"Uniform Planning\" of Rebuttal Document No. 5547, Exh. 867 of \"General Planning\", then this represents the very dame thing as the idea expressed by the American author Lilienthal in \"Uniform Development\". The lecture delivered at Posen by Professor Meyer-Hetling (Prosecution Document No. 3048, Exh. 88) also confirms this opinion.\nThe country-planning referred to the establishment of principles for a systematic development of the settle \n ment-landscape in regional planning.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4953, "page_number": "4946", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "It was a question of clarifying scientific preliminary work for the rural settlement and socisl planning in the Reich territory contemplated for the period after the war, which was independent of the final political development and had no influence on the course of current events. It was work done \"From the green table\", theoretical deliberation of a socialogical and agricultural nature, but in no way preparatory planning for any actions discussed in the course of this trial.\nI continue on page 131:\nThe new German Eastern Territories, but at the same time also the territories of Germany proper, raised, therefore, a number of settlement problems, the solution of which required careful preliminary work in the field of scientific planning. Professor R. Meyer-Hetling and his collaborators devoted themselves from the outset to the clarification of these problems, and studied them during all the years of the war. The planning activity did not therefore serve the intentional furtherance of a number of war events, designated by the Prosecution as criminal, but it served the peace work of the post-war period.\nNone of the participants could have even the remotest idea that work connected with the ideal shaping, development and arrangement of territories, for which Germany had become responsible, was a wrong or that it might ever be considered, as being criminal.\nThe fact, however, that no executive measures were carried out during the war will Confront the Tribunal with the question as to whether any important facts constituting a criminal case fro given at all. Military Tribunal I, in \n the case of the United States against Brandt and others (the Medical Case), examined this problem when discussing the case of Pokorny and decided at that time that the defendant Fokorny was not guilty in the sense of the indictment, because his plans and proposals had never been carried out.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4954, "page_number": "4947", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Tribunal will not be in a position to overlook these statements.\nThe activity of the Panning Office had in fact nothing to do with the original sphere of tasks of the Staff Main Office.\nThis fact already refutes the assertion of the Prosecution that the Planning Office ought to be taken as or regarded as a central directing office, similar to the General Staff of an Army.\nIn summing-up I come to the following conclusion: Professor Meyer-Hetling's activity at the Planning Office was preparatory scientific work in his special field of predominantly agricultural regional and social planning, which remained without any real consequences in the Eastern Territories incorporated by Germany. The results could perhaps be used by other offices after the war. 51) A procedural, or in some other way causal connection between this activity and the tasks and activities of other offices of the Staff Main Office did not exist. In particular, Professor Meyer-Hetling had nothing to do with resettlements or other ethno-political measures. His Planning Office was a research office for regional planning. This Office gave the Reich Office for Regional Planning help and professional assistance by providing general rules of procedure for planning. (Cp. Rebuttal- - - - - - - - - - - - 51) See also Meyer-Hetling documents 102, 116, 118 and \n documentNO-5721, Exh.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4955, "page_number": "4948", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "865) I now come to page 146:\nThe Prosecution has submitted, in Document Book III, the documentNO-2255, Exh. 90. This is an accompanying letter by Professor Meyer-Hetling, in his capacity as Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Agricultural Policy at the University of Berlin, to a document which has not been introduced in evidence by the Prosecution.\nThe evidence has established that not the slightest proof has been brought which would justify the assumption of a serious crime as the Prosecution would lead us to suppose.\nThe so-called \"General-plan Ost\" (general plan East) was a critical examination of the extent of the measures which seemed necessary for the peaceful reconstruction and improvement of the country. It contained a summary of the calculation on the basis of the general regulations, which, as I have proved, were purely professional, theoretical plans. This also applies to the contents of the memorandum, all the more so since so far it was only a summary of these theoretical plans.\nFrom the unequivocal statements by the witness Ehlich it is already apparent that there are no connections of any kind between the General-plan Ost, as mentioned by him, and the plan of the same name as submitted by the Prosecution I therefore submit that the case under discussion was only an expert's purely theoretical and strictly scientific memorandum, which was never put into practice and never resulted in any of those measures as submitted by the Prosecution.\nOther planning Tasks in the East.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4956, "page_number": "4949", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Prosecution now also associates Professor MeyerHetling's activity with some other measures.\nI now come to page 167:\nIn Summing up I can therefore say with full confidence that the Planning Office and Professor Meyer-Hetling have never played the part which is assigned them by the Prosecution. The Planning Office was purely a research institute which had very much closer connections, both by its personnel and by its research work, with Professor Meyer-Hetling's university institute and the scientific research service than with the Staff Main Office. It led its own special life without any research connection with the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism to which it formally belonged.\nThe criminal responsibility of Professor Dr. MeyerHetling as Chief of Department C:\nAs has been stated on page 79 of my final plea, the plan for the distribution of work, which became effective 1 August 1942, provided for a division of the Main Staff Office into three Departments. In this connection we are interested in Department C, consisting of Office VI (Planning), VII (Building), and VIII (Central Land Office). On page 80 et segg., the importance of the Departments has been thoroughly examined and I have come to the conclusion that the division of the Department only took place on paper. In fact it never became a reality. It is therefore difficult for the defendant to defend himself against the charges raised against him in this connection especially as he has only now, here in Nurnberg, learned of the relevant documents produced by the prosecution.\nThe period during which the division of Departments became effective, and from which the Prosecution deduces \n a special responsibility of Professor Meyer-Hetling, is limited in two ways.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4957, "page_number": "4950", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "First I have already stated that in the summer of 1944 Professor Meyer-Hetling joined up as a volunteer in the Wehrmacht. Therefore all events which took place in Department C after that date do not come under our consideration, especially since the Tribunal has stated that no conspiracy existed.\nThe other limitation is given by the period which lies before the introduction of the division of the Department, i.e. the period before 1 August 1942.\nIt is furthermore remarkable that all documents which were submitted by the Prosecution in connection with the activity of the Departments have been signed by other members of the Staff Main Office, namely, either by the experts (Referenten), the then chiefs of office, or the Chief of the Main Office. None of the documents has been signed by Professor Meyer-Hetling, none of them bear any indication that they originate from the office of the Department Chief, and none of them bear any inner relation with Professor Meyer-Hetling's activity as director of the Planning Office. In the true sense of the word the defendant must therefore pay for other people's mistakes.\nI now come to page 170:\nThe Prosecution therefore consciously limits Professor Meyer-Hetling's responsibility to the period of his activity as Chief of the Department. It excludes all events which might have taken place in these Departments before the introduction of the division of the Departments, i.e., before 1 August 1942.\nAs Professor Meyer-Hetling has not been charged with special responsibility for the period in question and for any event which took place during that period, he cannot \n in this respect be sentenced in view of the decision of Military Tribunal I.In case this Tribunal does not agree with this opinion, I hereby, as a precautionary measure, submit the following motion, under reference to article II c of the Ordinance No. 11 of the Military Governor of the American Zone of Occupation of Germany:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4958, "page_number": "4951", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "To suspend the proceedings and to obtain a decision in a plenary session that a trial for a crime is not admissible if in the indictment - against the usual procedure in the case of indictments - a defendant has not been charged with the Special responsibility for this crime.\nI now continue on page 179:\nThe limitation of the Competence of the Central Land Registry in relation to other Departments of the Staff Main office:\nIn conclusion I can therefore state with regard to this point that the tasks of the Central Land Registry -as has been stated unanimously by all the witnesses -- can only be considered as indexing and registering the sequestrated Polish real property of the incorporated Eastern Territories in order to clarify questions concerning land registry. Apart from that it was charged with the formal carrying out of the various sequestratings which had already been pronounced by law. Lastly, it had to cooperate in procedures concerning correction in the land registry, as far as transfer of properties had taken place in exceptional cases.\nThe local competence of the Central Land office:\nThe local competence of the Central Land Office and its subordinate hand Offices was therefore confirmed to the incorporated Eastern Territories, i.e., to the areas \n of the former German provinces Danzig-West Prussia and Posen, as well as Zichenau and Kattowitz.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4959, "page_number": "4952", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The technical competence of the Central Land Office:\nAs is shown by my statements (p. 174 et. segg.) the technical competence of the Central Land Office was limited to Polish agricultural private real estate property. From this it results that numerous documents submitted by the Prosecution regarding the sequestration of non-agricultural property do not concern the Central Land Office at Berlin but the HTO (Haupttreuhandstelle Ost -- Main Trustee Office, Ost).\nI continue on page 203:\nLegal Valuation of the Activities of the Central Land Registration Office:\nWhen examining the legal basis (page 172 of my statement), I leave already intimated that Professor Dr. Meyer-Hetling can only be punished if the Prosecution succeeds in proving his guilt beyond any reasonable doubt, that is \"With moral certainty\" (compare verdict of the Military Tribunal II in the case UNited States against Pohl and others, page 12). This implies proving that Professor Meyer-Hetling's conduct constitutes a violation of the laws and usages of land warfare.\nI have already pointed out, in my opening speech, that the registration of land is irrelevant from the view point of penal law.\nThe same applies to the work of the Central Land Registration Office, which is also irrelevant within the meaning of international law, as far as it was concerned with the execution of the purely formal measures connected with the sequestrations ordered. In my review of the evidence (pages 174 ff. of the Final Plea) I have already \n pointed out that the sequestration of the Polish land had practically been completed a long time before the Staff Main Office took up its duties.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4960, "page_number": "4953", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Consequently, the functions of the Central Land Registration Office never had any constitutive effect but remained purely declaratory in character. It confined itself to the announcement of the general sequestrations already executed or ordered ex lege by other agencies, and this administrative act had no particular legal significance.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel's time has expired. The Tribunal will recess for ten minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4961, "page_number": "4954", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next argument.\nDR.GAWLIK (for the defendant Schwarzenberger):\nTable of Contents to the Final Plea for Otto S c h w a r z e n b e r g e r - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - Introduction page 1 A. It is shown by Schwarzenberger's tasks, activities and his position in the Staff Main Office that he is not involved in the measures taken by the Staff Main Office, for Schwarzenberger did not have \" 3\nI.Any technical functions \" 3\nII.An independent right of disposal concerning the funds of the pay office.\n\" 8\nIII.Knowledge about the purpose of the payments \" 16 B. Schwarzenberger has not made any payments for the ac*ts mentioned specifically in the indictment \" 19 C. Membership in the SS \" 37 D. Summary \" 40 If at this time, at the end ofthe proceedings, one contemplates the result of the evidence, it appears indeed inconceivable and probably puzzling to everyone concerned with the trial, for what reason a man like Schwarzenberger is sitting in the dock while, for example, members of the Staff Main Office, who had worked in responsible positions and were able to issue orders which were binding for Schwarzenberger, have appeared here as free witnesses and, who even at the present time, are again holding high positions in public life with the approval of the American Military Administration.\nThe Indictment is obviously attributable to the fact that the Prosecution \n COURT I CASE VIII has completely misconstrued Schwarzenberger's position within the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [ "I.", "II.", "DR.", "III.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4962, "page_number": "4955", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Schwarzenberger was no more than an official in charge of the pay office of the Main Staff Office, an executive official of the pay-office without the right of making decisions in technical matters, but also pay office official who could not even dispose independently of the funds of his payoffice. It is true that Schwarzenberger had a high-sounding title, namely chief of office and financial deputy. In addition to that he held the rank of an SS-Oberfuehrer. These high-sounding titles, however, must not be misconstrued in such a way as to assume therefrom any responsibility for measures which were carried out by the Staff Main Office or by one of the offices which received funds from the pay-office of the Main Staff Office. It was by no means unusual in National Socialist Germany that officials, who were merely entrusted with tasks ofa purely administrative nature and were not responsible in any way for technical functions, received highsounding titles.\nThis is a realization which was also arrived at by Military Tribunal II in the trial against Pohl and others. The Tribunal has quite correctly expressed this realization in its opinion, by saying that: \"In harmony with the traditional German passion for high-sounding titles, many strictly administrative officials who had performed only insignificant tasks, had been given high-sounding titles which were not consistent with their sphere of tasks end their power\" (page 34 of the verdict). These findings which are absolutely correct apply particularly to Schwarzenberger. Therefore, in judging the responsibility of Schwarzenberger, his official title is of no importance, on the contrary, decisive are solely the tasks and activities which he actually performed. If only on the basis of Schwarzenberger's tasks and activities, it is out of the question that he could have taken a part in the commission of the war crimes and the crimes against humanity with which he is charged in Counts 11 to 18, as well as 20 and 21, of the Indictment, in his capacity \n COURT I CASE VIII as one of the Office Chiefs of the Staff Main Office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4963, "page_number": "4956", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Indictment has deduced this responsibility from the fact that Schwarzenberger had been Chief of Section V and therefore had been responsible for the financial matters of the Reich Kommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. The Prosecution has later stated in the course of the evidence-taking that Schwarzenberger i s n o t c h a r g e d w i t h t h e e x e c u t i o n o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l a c t s but is only charged with the payment for the commission of these acts (transcript page 339).\nI. Therewith the Prosecution itself acknowledges that Schwarzenberger was not engaged in technical activities within the sphere of tasks of the Reich Kommissar. This is also shown from the organizational plan of the Staff Main Office presented by the Prosecution (Doc. No. 4060. Exhibit 18, Volume IIA, page 1 ff.) and from the business distribution plan of Section V which was included in the affidavit by Schwarzenberger, dated 30 June 1947 (Document NO. 4714, Exhibit 31 Volume IIA, page 51 ff) . These documents show that Section V was only in charge of cash transactions and other tasks in connection with the cash transactions, such as the pay rolls for the persons employed in the Staff Main Office and the individual offices of the Reich Kommissar, expenses for travel and transfer for the members of the Staff Main Office, the procurement of office equipment and stationary, the house and equipment administration for the authorities and the motor vehicles necessary for the operational service of the Staff Main Office. These tasks are therefore exclusively such which refer to the interior administration of the authority. These were Schwarzenberger's only tasks. His position therewith differed fundamentally from that of the chiefs of othersections who, as it is evident from the sphere of tasks of the individual sections, were directly concerned with the tasks of the Reich \n COURT I CASE VIII Kommissar, such as the care for and settlement of the resettlers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4964, "page_number": "4957", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The evidence has also produced further proof of the fact that Schwarzenberger was not entrusted with the performance of executive tasks of the individual sections if the performance of these tasks involved costs. Even in such Schwarzenberger's approval was not requested; Schwarzenber was not even informed. This was stated generally for the Staff Main Office by the witness Greifelt (transcript page 1641 German, page 1710 English). The same statements we re also made by the other witnesses who were working in the individual sections; namely, the witness Stier for Section I (transcript page 1811 German, page 1891 English), the witness Bethke for Section II (transcript page 2090 German, pages 2184/85 English), the witness Schaefer for Section III (transcript page 1752 German, pages 1825/26 English), the witness Golling for Section IV (transcript page 1855 German, page 1939 English) and the co-defendant Meyer-Hetling for Section VI (transcript pages 2173/74 German, pages 2269/70 English). Even Wirsich, a witness of the Prosecution, has confirmed this (transcript page 226 German, page 221 English). Schwarzenberger did not have any technical tasks in other agencies either. This applies particularly to the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans (VOMI). According to the plan of organization of the Staff Main Office, Schwarzenberger was responsible there for the direction of the administrative business of the Resettlement Section, to be sure, and had been since April 1941. This was the work which up to that time had already been performed by the witness Hagen as Administrative Leader and which for all practical purposes he also continued to perform until the end off the war, as Hagen himself has stated as a witness (transcript pages 4493-4496 German, pages 4723-4727 English). As Hagen has stated, this work only included the organization of the administration within the above-named office (transcript page 4493 German, page 4722 English). Here, too, Schwarzenberger did not have to concern himself with questions of \n COURT I CASE VIII resettlement.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4965, "page_number": "4958", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "These measures were neither dependent on Schwarzenberger's approval nor was Schwarzenberger informed of them. This has been stated in particular by the witness Hagen, who as Administrative Leader of the VOMI was best informed about the organizational system at the VOMI (transcript pages 4495-96 German, pages 4726-27 English). No objections should arise against the credibility of this witness, especially since the Prosecution has also made use of the testimony of this witness, even if in connection with another matter. This is shown by the affidavit by Hagen which it submitted (DocumentNO 5160, Exhibit 580, Vol. X111 B, page 56 German, page 43 English). Moreover, Hagen's testimony agrees with that of the witness Radunski, who worked as Main Section Head at the VOMI. This witness has not only confirmed the fact that Schwarzenberger performed no business duties at the VOMI (transcript page 2899 German, page 3036 English), but he has likewise declared, just as did the witness Klingsporn who was also a Main Section Head at the VOMI, that Schwarzenberger was not even in evidence in connection with the direction of the administrative business of the VOMI (transcript page 2841 and 2899 German, pages 2982 and 3036 English). Klinsporn even testified that he never saw Schwarzenberger in the offices of the VOMI (transcript page 2841 German, page 2982 English). Nor did Schwarzenberger have any business duties in the individual agencies which received funds through Office V. This has also been proved by testimony. Thus the witness Ehlich, a Prosecution witness, has declared that Schwarzenberger neither took part in conferences with the Reich Security Main Office (transcript page 579 German, page 600 English), nor did he himself have any duties whatsoever in connection with evacuation questions and the like at the Immigration Center and the Resettlement Center (transcript pages 621-624 German, page 640 English). Greifelt has made the same statements concerning the duties with the German Resettlement Trustee Company (transcript page 1646 German, page 1715 English). Schwarzenberger was never consulted in negotiations with this office either, nor with the Main Trustee Office East (Schaefer \n testimony, transcript page 1712 German, page 1825 English). The general opinion of Schwarzenberger's position in the, Staff Main Office is in agreement with this.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4966, "page_number": "4959", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Indicative of this is the testimony of the witness Franken w o has stated that Schwarzenberger has no influence at all within the Staff Main Office. Schwarzenberger merely received orders. Not even at negotiations concerning financial questions did he appear as an independently acting representative of the Stuff Main Office-not even in financial questions which one would have thought belonged exclusively to Schwarzenberger's field of work.\"\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: May I interrupt? I really wish you would read more slowly. It's difficult to weigh your words. It's going to be of some value to know what you are saying orally. We will read eventually what you have said. I would like to get the benefit of the oral presentation, and I cannot get it if you are going to read so fast that the translator has to travel at railroad speed to keep up with you, for it comes through in the translation at railroad speed. There is no need of it. The whole intent ofthe oral argument is to give us some benefit. I don't know why all of you attorneys wish to read so fast. Now try to read more slowly so that we can get benefit from what you are saying.\nDR. GAWLIK:\ncontrary, he always appealed to Greifelt for decisions or only delivered statements subject to Greifelt's approval (transcript page 2266 German, pages 2393-94 English). This testimony is in complete agreement with the statements which the witness Andritzky, who was Schwarzenberger's secretary at the Staff Main Office, made in her affidavit. She, too, declared that Schwarzenberger had no influence in the Staff Main Office (Schwarzenberger Docume nt No. 7, Exhibit 7, Vol. 11, page 22 et seq.). Ihlenz also made a statement to the same effect with the words: Schwarzenberger was not very much in evidence in the Staff in the Staff Main Office (Schwarzenberger Document No. 14, Exhibit 14, Vol. 11, pages 45-46). These statements also enable one to see that Schwarzenberger did not have any executive duties in the \n COURT I Case VIII Staff Main Office in spite of his high-sounding title as Office Chief.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4967, "page_number": "4960", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Obviously as the result of a mistake, the Prosecution has named Office V in the Indictment as the Central Land Office (transcript page 90 German, page 81 English). A glance at the table of contents of the organizational plan of the Staff Main Office, which the Prosecution has submitted as a document (DocumentNO 4060, Exhibit 18, Vol. 11A, page ?), shows right away that this is an obvious mistake, for Office VIII is named there as Central Land Office.\nAnd not Schwarzenberger but Mundt is listed in the organizational plan as its Office Chief. Nor has the Prosecution in any way demonstrated that Schwarzenberger exercized any functions in Office VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4968, "page_number": "4961", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nDR. GAWLIK:I shall now go on to page 8.\nSumming up, therefore, it can be stated in agreement with the Prosecution that Schwarzenberger did not assist in any business task of the Staff Main Office or of other agencies, but that he was merely in charge of administering the funds.\nII. The Prosecution sees a punishable act on Schwarzenberger's part in the fact that he financed the acts mentioned in the Indictment. (transcript page 339 German, page 339 English.) Work of this kind, however, cannot be regarded as assisting in the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity. Concerning this I ferfer to the verdict of the International Military Tribunal on Schacht. The IMT, indeed, stated the following: 1. that the incorporation of Austria in the German Reich was a punishable act of aggression according to Article 6 of the Charter. 2. that Schacht assisted in the financing of this act of aggression. Notwithstanding this the IMT further stated that the financing of this act of aggression constituted such a limited participation that it was not enough for a conviction (IMT transcript page 16580-81 German). In other words: the IMT did not consider the financing as a punishable participation in the act of aggression defined as a crime within the meaning of the Charter, although, for example, Seyss-Inquart was convicted in connection with this act of aggression (IMT transcript page 16607 and 16611 German). The supplying of funds, therefore, is not a war crime or crime against humanity, even if the acts for which the funds were provided are war crimes or crimes against humanity. On the contrary, it is necessary to ascertain an active assistance in the individual acts which are to be regarded as war crimes or crimes against humanity. If not even Schacht could be convicted, how then can the Prosecution \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4969, "page_number": "4962", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "move for the conviction of Schwarzenberger, for there was a very considerable, even a tremendous difference between the position of Schacht within the Reichsbank and within the German economy and the activity of Schwarzenbarger in the Staff Main Office, so that these two persons cannot be compared with each other at all, Schacht was one of the leading financial experts (financiers), if not the financial expert (financier), in Germany, a financial expert with an international reputation. Schwarzenberger was only an insignificant cashier with a highsounding title without the slightest influence. However, there is still the following to be added to this: After all, Schacht had a very considerable power of decision not only over the funds of the Reichsbank, but also over the funds of the German economy, for Schacht was Reich Minister of Economics at the same time. In contrast to this Schwarzenberger could not even freely dispose of the funds of the payoffice of which he was in charge. Schwarzenberger had no power of decision at all concerning the disposal of the funds of Office V. More detailed reasons for this will not be given in the following section. a) The funds which passed through the department pay-office of Office V were provided by the Reich Finance Minister of the Decree of 7.10-1939 (DocumentNO 3075, Exhibit 20, Vol. 11 D, page 1 et seq.). The amount of these sums was not determined by Schwarzenberger, but rather by the Reich Finance Ministry. This is particularly shown by the testimony of the witness Franken, who was the authorized budget referent and specialist in the Reich Finance Ministry for approving the funds to be paid out to the Reich Commissioner. Franken, therefore, possesses the very best technical knowledge concerning the nature and position of the pay-office which was under Schwarzenberger. Accordingly, it can be regarded as proven that the receipts and payments of the Staff Main Office were not determined by Schwarzenberger. On the contrary, they were established by laws by which Schwarzenberger \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4970, "page_number": "4963", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "was bound, the Reich Pay-Office Regulations and the Reich Budget Rules.\nDR. GAWLIK:And I now continue. Schwarzenberger could not, therefore, on his own initiative dispose of funds which were received by the pay-office of his Office. In accordance with Par. 37 of the Reich Pay-Office Regulations he could only pay out money if he had an order from the competent administrative authorities (Schwarzenberger Document No, 1, Exhibit 1, Vol, 1, page 6). As a result of such regulations concerning payment, it was Schwarzenbergers duty to make payment. This too has been expressly confirmed by the witness Franken.\nDR. GAWLIK:I then go into further details and I continue with the next paragraph. Schwarzenberger could not issue such a demand for payment himself, not even for the Staff Main Office. The Chief of the Staff Main Office, Greifelt, or his deputy, and also the individual Office Chiefs, issued these demands for payment for the Staff Main Office and the individual offices respectively. The testimony of Franken (transcript pg. 2282/83 German, pg 2387 English), shows that in particular. Furthermore, Schwarzenberger also had no influence on the issuance of these demands for payment.\nDR. GAWLIK:I now go on to the next paragraph. All of the witnesses examined on this point, including those of the prosecution, have said the same thing in this regard. Greifelt, for example, stated that measures to be taken by the individual offices did not require the consent of Office V, even if these measures involved expenses. He further stated that Schwarzenberger had no power whatever to decide on the payment of these expenses. (Transcript pg. 1641 German, pg. 1710 English).\nDR. GAWLIK:I then add some additional witnesses who additionally collaborated the statement.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4971, "page_number": "4964", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No, VIII.\nDR. GAWLIK:I now continue on page 14, paragraph (b). b) But Schwarzenberger particularly did not have independent judgment in regard to funds which were required by other agencies and which, therefore, had to be paid to the Litzmannstadt branch of the Staff Main Office, the Main Administrative Office of the VOMI and its Gau Offices, the Chiefs of the Administrative Offices of the Deputies of the Reich Commissar, the German Resettlement Trustee Corp. (DUT), the German Colonization Corp. (DAG), the Reich Medical Chamber for Resettlement Problems, the Central Immigration Office (EWZ) and the Central Resettlement Office (UWZ), as well as to the Litzmannstadt branch of the Main Race and Settlement Office. All of these agencies were financed, insofar as they acted for the Reich Commissar, as a result of agreement they made directly with the Reich Ministry of Finance. Schwarzenberger did not participate in any way in these negotiations. The only task Office V had in this connection was to include the estimated needs as reported by these agencies in the budget and then to pay out the amounts required by these agencies after the budget had been approved. The funds were approved by the Reich Ministry of Finance. Therefore Schwarzenberger could not possibly turn these funds back. On the contrary, he was bound by the decision of the Reich Ministry of Finance. 2. The same pertains to the payments to the Lebensborn. Here it is a question of additional payments which were based on a special agreement which the Chief of the Lebensborn Society made directly with the Reich Minister of Finance.\nDR. GAWLIK:I then mention further witnesses.\nI now want to add the following: The statements of the Prosecution on page 15 of the final argument are incorrect. \"Only for the use of resettlement were any funds furnished to the Reich Medical Chamber.\" Only the Field Office at large received any funds from the RSHA. The Lebensborn Society only received one amount on one occasion.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4972, "page_number": "4965", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nNow I continue on page 16, paragraph III.\nIII. It must be added to this that Schwarzenberger had no knowledge of what the money he paid out on these payment demands was used for. a) It could not be seen from the demands for payment what the purpose of the disbursement was. The requisitions contained only general information, like operating expenses, advances, personal or official disbursements. This is clearly shown by the statements of the witnesses Finsterer and Lenz. I refer here to the sample of a payment requisition which I have presented as a document (Schwarzenberger document No. 10, exh. 10, vol. II_, pg. 35). b) In this case it would have little importance if Schwarzenberger found out later on what the funds had been used for, perhaps when closing out the accounts or making a preliminary audit, insofar as the Payment Office of Office V was competent to do so, for by that time the measures had already been carried out and the money already handed out.\nBut it could not even be seen from the final accounts and preliminary examination-what the money had been used for. This has been stated by the witnesses Finsterer and Franken (Transcript pg. 2292, 2295, 2304, German, pg. 2398, 2402, 2412 English.)\nDR. GAWLIK:I then go into some details here.\nI now want to sum up on page 17, my statement. In summing up it can therefore be said that: Schwarzenberger cannot be convicted for the reason that he did not have to take part in any official tasks of the Staff Main Office or of any office connected with the Staff Main Office, and also did not do so. Forwarding funds, which have been made available by the Reich Ministry of Finance, to some agency or other, is not in itself a war crime or a crime against humanity. In Schwarzenberger's case it must be added, however, that he had no \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4973, "page_number": "4966", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "power to decide how these funds were to be used, but that this decision was made by the Reich Ministry of Finance and also did not know for what purpose the agencies which received this money used it. Consequently, for these reasons alone, Schwarzenberger should be acquitted of all charges.\nPart B.\nThe indictment against Schwarzenberger, however, is also unjustified for one more reason.\nIt would be a further prerequisite for a conviction that the pay-office has made payments for any act which is to be regarded as a war crime or a crime against humanity.\nThis prerequisite, too, is lacking; for no funds have bean paid out or forwarded by the Reich Ministry of Finance via the payoffice of Office V for such purposes.\nThe Prosecution made the charge against Schwarzenberger that Office V of the Staff Main Office has made payments for the acts listed under Counts 11-18 and 20-21 of the Indictment.\nEvidence taken to these individual Counts of the Indictment has led to the following results:\nCount 11 of the Indictment: No payments were made for the purpose of selecting racially desirable children from the occupied territories for the purpose of Germanization and of placing them into German faster homes or children homes.\nDR. GAWLIK:I then give further statements for that on page 19, on the bottom of the page, and on page 20. Here I prove that no such payments were ever made.", "speakers": [ "DR. GAWLIK" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4974, "page_number": "4967", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "I shall now continue on page 21 at the beginning of the page 21.\nFurthermore, however, from the accommodation of the children in home schools Schwarzenberger was not able to infer any unlawful act, particularly not a war crime or a crime against humanity.\nI shall give some further details about the matter and will continue on page 21.\nMoreover, the accommodation of the children in home schools came under the technical jurisdiction of Office II. As I explained above, Schwarzenberger had never been called in to perform any technical functions of that office. That Schwarzenberger had nothing to do with such measures has even been confirmed by the Prosecution witnesses Wirsich and Ehlich. Indictment Count 12:\nFurthermore, Office V has not made any payments for the purpose of interrupting pregnancies of female Eastern workers. The surgeons dealing with that were not paid for that activity through the payoffice of the Staff Main Office. The payments made on the basis of an agreement between the Reich Ministry of Finance and the Reich Medical Chamber served only the purpose of financing the care for the resettlers, but not that of interruption of pregnancy of female Eastern workers. I refer to the organization schedule of the Staff Main Office submitted by the Prosecution, where among Schwarzenberger's tasks his obligation is listed to pay out funds to the Reich Medical Chamber for tasks connected with the care for re-settlers. (Doc. No-4060, Exh. 18, Vol. II A, p. 30) These payments could not possibly serve the purpose of financing the interruption of pregnancies of female Eastern workers, because these tasks did not come under the jurisdiction of the Reich Medical Chamber. This is clearly proven by the affidavit Dr. Stein (Doc. Schwarzenberger No. 8, Exh. 8, Vol. II, p. 26 f.). The physician Dr. Stein was the liaison officer in the foreign countries department of the Reich Medical Chamber with the Staff Main Office. He \n has assured that the funds transmitted by the Staff Main Office were exclusively for the medical care of the resettlers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4975, "page_number": "4968", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "But he has furthermore declared that during his entire medical activities in the Foreign Countries Department of the Reich Medical Chamber not a single case had come to his knowledge which would have been connected with the interruption of a pregnancy, and that it had never come to his knowledge that the Staff Main Officeor the Foreicn Countries Department had to deal with such cases at all. It is absolutely credible when Schwarzenberger declares that suchlike measures had never been known to him (Transc. p. 2247 German, p. 2353 English).\nNow have any payments been made for the racial screening of the female Eastern workers. The racial examiners of the Litzmannstadt branch office of the Race and Settlement Main Office, who received funds from Office V, had only the task of examining the re-settlers. No female Eastern workers were examined by these racial examiners.\nThe witnesses Finsterer and Lenz have declared that Office V has made no payments for the examination of pregnant female Eastern workers. The statements made by these two witnesses (Transc. p. 2306, German, p. 2414 English ; and p. 2320 German, p. 2429 English) were confirmed by the Prosecution witnesses Wirsich and Ehlich, who testified that Schwarzenberger was in no way connected with such measures. (Trans, p. 336 and 624 German, p. 337/38 and 640 English).\nBesides, evidence has shown that the racial examination of the female Eastern workers was a matter for the racial examiners with the Higher SS and Police Leaders in Germany proper. But Litzmannstadt did not belong to Germany proper. It belonged to the Warthegau, where the conception of an \"Eastern worker\" did not exist. For this reason alone it is impossible that the payments made to the branch office Litzmannstadt of the Race and Settlement Main Office served the purpose of a racial examination of female Eastern workers.\nLikewise, no payments have been made for the evacuation of inhabitants \n from the occupied territories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4976, "page_number": "4969", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "The Prosecution was not able to furnish any proofs in that respect. Schwarzenberger himself testified to this point that, as far as the purpose of the funds passing through his pay-office became known to him, they were never used for purposes of evacuation. Evidence has shown that Schwarzenberger had to perform no tasks connected with the forceful evacuation. Of the extensive evidence taken I only mention the deposition of the witness Ehlich, a Prosecution witness, who said that Schwarzenberger took no part either in the settlement, or in the evacuation. Furthermore, I refer to the deposition of other witnesses and I want to add the following sentence:\nAnd, therefore, it can't be understood why the Prosecution claims in paragraph 25 of the Final Plea that Schwarzenberger had participated in the planning of deportations, the slightest proof has not been submitted to that effect.\nThen on the following pages I have described that no funds were furnished for acts which fall under Count 17 of the Indictment and then I further stated with regard to Count 18 of the Indictment, Office 5 did not raise any funds for the deportation of workers to Germany. With regard to Count 20 of the Indictment I should say that no funds were paid out through Office 5 for the spoliation of private property in Germany and the occupied territories.\nAnd, I want to continue on page 28:\nLikewise, Office 5 was never a party to the confiscation of Church property or of assets of a cultural value. In any case, it did not make any payments for the administration of such assets during the time Schwarzenberger was in charge of the deportation nor has it accepted any proceeds from the realization of such a property. (Transc. p. 2255 ff. German, p. 2360 ff. English). As evidence has hown, there was only an isolated case in which an amount of 25.000 RM was paid to the German plenipotentiary for Resettlement at Lyublyana at the explicit order of Himmler in his capacity as Reich Commissar, for the purpose of making \n photostatic copies of the contents of church registers of the German villages in the Gotschee region so as to preserve their contents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4977, "page_number": "4970", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "No further proofs could be adduced by the Prosecution in this connection. Still, making photostatic copies of church registers will hardly be called spoliation.\nI now want to add the following:\nThis statement made by the Prosecution in their final plea on page 28 and the measures which have been mentioned in this connection in Poland was pointed out at the time during 1939 and early in 1940 which Schwarzenberger was not as yet employed by the Main Staff Office. The decree on which the Prosecution supports its dates from December 1939 it becomes evident from DocumentNO-5623, Exhibit 620, Schwarzenberger only joined the Main Staff Office in October 1940. At the time these measures had already been carried out.\nThen on the following pages I stated that Schwarzenberger did not participate in any other measures of spoliation.\nNow, I got to page 35, finally. In conclusion, moreover Office 5 made no payments whatsoever for the evacuation, persecution or extermination of Jews. This is Count 21 of the Indictment. Nor has any proof of this been produced by the Prosecution.\nThen on page 36 I gave further details about this matter and I now want to continue on page 37.\nUnder Count III of the Indictment Schwarzenberger is charged with being a member of an organization that has been declared to be criminal through the verdict of the International Military Tribunal.\nIt is true, Schwarzenberger did belong to the SS. But this fact by itself is not sufficient for conviction.\nSchwarzenberger's conviction would only be justified if the following prerequisites were fulfilled: 1. Schwarzenberger, in collaboration with other members, must have supported the tasks and goal s of the SS which have been determined to \n be criminal by the IMT.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4978, "page_number": "4971", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "2. Schwarzenberger must have known about those goals which the IMT has established as criminal.\nThis becomes evident from the verdict of the IMT.\nAccording to the verdict of the IMT, those members who have no knowledge of the criminal goals or acts of the organization, are not included in the group declared to be criminal. 3. Membership after 1 September 1939 must be voluntary. According to the verdict of the IMT as I said before all this becomes evident in the verdict of the IMT.\nI now continue on page 38.\nSchwarzenberger could only be convicted for his membership in the SS if each of these prerequisites were present.\nHowever, not one of these prerequisites is present, To 1):\nIt has not been proven that Schwarzenberger has supported in any way the tasks or activities of the SS which have been labelled as war crimes or crimes against humanity by the IMT. Schwarzenberger particularly did not support any criminal goals or acts of the SS through his work with the Staff Main Office because, as I have already shown at length, there was nothing criminal in his work according to the Control Council Law.\nBesides, his work with the Staff Main Office could not be considered as support for any goals and tasks of the SS established as criminal by the IMT, because the Staff Main Office was not an SS branch but rather a German Reich agency. To 2):\nThe evidence has also not shown that Schwarzenberger knew that the SS was used to commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. To 3):\nI have given detailed statements about the matter. Furthermore, Schwarzenberger was not a voluntary member of the SS after \n 1 Sept.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4979, "page_number": "4972", "date": "16 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-16", "text": "1939. From 1 Sept. 1939 until October 1940 Schwarzenberger was a member of the Army. During this time his membership in the SS was suspended. In accordance with German Defense Act he was declared unfit for military service. As a result of this classification he again became a member of the SS, without any act on his part. Therefore, this affiliation with the SS after 1 Sept. 1939 was not voluntary, but was based on a government regulation which Schwarzenberger could not evade.\nIn general, it must still be emphasized that the contention of the Prosecution in the Opening Statement (Transc. p. 143 German), that the SS was the essence of life to the defendants, does not apply to Schwarzenberger.\nThis contention of the Prosecution has not been proved in any way. Here I want to support myself on the various affidavits which I have listed on page 39 of my final argument. I am now coming to the end. The presentation of evidence has indisputably proved that Schwarzenberger is not guilty under any count of the Indictment. Therefore, Schwarzenberger must be acquitted.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning. (A recess was taken until 0930 hours 17 February 1948).", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4980, "page_number": "4973", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 17 February 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:Persons in the Courtroom, please take your seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all the defendants are present in the Courtroom?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honor, all the defendants are in Court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument on behalf of the defendants.\nDR. DURCHHOLZ:Durchholz for the defendant Huebner.\nMay it please the High Tribunal!\nI.The historical situation in general.\nA short time after the start of the war, when the defendant Huebner started his trip to Poznan, to which he was ordered as a soldier in the Waffen-SS, and which was destined to become such a decisive period in his life, he knew only that many of the problems about which the fight had raged there day after day for centuries, nay even for a thousand years, as every German with his educational background was taught in school and by the experiences of every day life. He remembered from pictures which he had seen, those imposing cities which were mute witnesses of the highly developed culture of the Teutonic Knights, and he had heard that right next to them were located the long, low sections of Eastern architecture. This was to him a symbol of that ethnological struggle which had been waged with changing means and weapons and with changing fortunes but never in a decisive manner, and which resulted in such an interlocking, that each of the parties considered itself for many centuries entitled to the right of demanding for its people a predominant status. He knew, \n because it was said so thousands of times in all languages, that since the end of the first World War, which turned out to be such an unhappy one for Germany, the red-white flag of the Polish Republic had waved over strictly German and also over all those disputed territories.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. DURCHHOLZ", "I.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4981, "page_number": "4974", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "He also had seen with alert eyes at the turn of the second decade of our century those long trainloads which rolled from East to West, filled with those Germans who had decided in favor of their greater home country and who therefore had to leave with little baggage, their smaller one. He knew, likewise, that this was done in the name and under the augury of right and law, because it was frequently reiterated by the former enemy states. Since then the events which took place during those years in the East had often been discussed in Germany, it was recalled that the German names changed and with them also, much slower and often not even noticeable, the people. Everybody, regardless to which one of the many German parties he might belong, was doubtful whether this was still permissible in the name of right and law, namely that a great culture was to be dissipated and to be assimilated, by placing its bearers before the choice either to relinquish their congenital characteristics or to forego their livelihoods. Much was spoken of the inalienable rights of the individual for the unhampered development of his personality, but nevertheless no influential voice was raised abroad which would have spoken against that which was perpetrated in the East. In that way the term \"Polonization\" became a term well-known in the German vocabulary, associated with a sinister, hollow meaning, however, the term \"re-germanization\" was still alien to the defendant Huebner at that time when he started on his afore-mentioned trip. Therefore, he was little aware of that which awaited him and of the task in which he should become a small cog among many others, he knew just as little. He had heard that in the Eastern territories now under German rule a new order was to finally be established, by unraveling the mesh of the \n diverse ethnic groups and by dividing them into a Western, German, and in an Eastern, Slavic,part.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4982, "page_number": "4975", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "It was known that the bordering powers, too, especially Russia, desired to participate in this new order that the ethnic Germans from the territories of those states were to be transferred to the West and that on the other hand the Slavs were to be moved farther to the East. It was known that concerning this fact solemn state treaties had been concluded and that the necessities of life for the other ethnic groups were to be observed in the same manner as the values of German culture were to be held in esteem. All this seemed to be reasonable and good, after all the sinister and doubtful events still remembered from history and the present time of the East, and I am unable to conceive why the defendant Huebner, should not also have considered cooperation in such a task as spiritually rewarding. The more so as Huebner, after undergoing a short training in settlement matters, had been active already before the war in intra-German settlement attempts and that thanks to a certain aptitude for organization inherent in him, he had found in such an occupation success and satisfaction. Those in the main might have been the personal requirements with which Huebner started on his way to the East. Certainly it has to be acknowledged with gratitude that the Tribunal itself offered comparatively early in the proceedings, such suggestions, with the result that the prosecution was obliged to tract its charge of genocide. In whatever way this expression at present so controversial and by no means clearly outlined may be objectively defined it seems to be out of the question that the defendant Huebner could over have been found guilty for subjective reasons on this Count. He, too, like all other Germans living in these decades, had to accept nolens volens, the events in the East as based on formal law, although inwardly he considered them to be unjust. He believed therefore when he entered upon his new work that it was aimed to reach at last a sound and just new solution in the \n East, even after some hardship during the time of transition, and had also no reasons to doubt later on, at least seen from his viewpoint that this aim, to be fair to everyone, would be ultimately attained, even if only in the distant future.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4983, "page_number": "4976", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The above-mentioned statement of the Prosecution makes it unnecessary for me to go into further details concerning this matter at this time.\nII. The position of the defendant Huebner in the Warthegau The charge of having committed concrete, ordinary crimes, makes it necessary to give some attention to the position and the sphere of duties of the defendant Huebner in the Warthegau.\nHimmler as Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism, created for one of these tasks which he had in this capacitor namely for the cooperation in resettlement affairs, a special office, a ministry so to speak, at the Staff Main Office of the RKFDV (Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism), which had to deal with the practical side of this task. The authority of this office extended itself over the entire territory of the Reich. In the Gaue, that is in the intermediate authorities, it was formed after the model of the Reich authority. Therefore, in the Warthegau the Amt of a deputy of the Reich Commissar was established, the duties of which were entrusted in a personal-union to the Reich Governor. Because of the fact that the latter united in his person also the positions (Aemter) of the Reich Defense Commissar and last but not least, also that of the Gauleiter it was just as impossible for him as the intermediate authority as for Himmler as the Reich authority, to direct the office in all the details of its daily business.\nTherefore, he had for his assistance a permanent representative, the representative of the deputy, who was explicitly designated in all official edicts as \"acting representative of the deputy\". As proof that this title is not an invention of the defense, I refer to Prosecution DocumentNO-3934, Exhibit 596 of Document Book XIV A. This official \n designation alone should make it clear beyond any doubt, who actually directed the office in the Gau:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4984, "page_number": "4977", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "the acting representative of the deputy, an Amt which was entrusted to the Higher SS and Police Leader at that time, who was not so occupied with his police duties, which were more of a representative nature and which left him the necessary time for the directing of another office. This new office which had to deal with the executive tasks of the deputy of the RKFDV in the same sector as the Staff Main Office, was the \"Office of the Deputy\" its Chief was the deputy and for the daily business activity, the representative of the deputy.\nThe equality of duties with those of the Staff Main Office resulted in the gradual establishment of an organization similar to that of the Staff Main Office. There the technical tasks were assigned to Aemter, where as the same division in the office of the deputy was made in the form of main-departments. Due to the fact that the Gau office was also not able to attend by itself to the enormous mass of detailed work which it had to face in connection with the resettlements, various settlement - and operational staffs were set up, subordinated to the deputy; their number at the time of greatest pressure was 40.\nIn that way, quite a considerable apparatus of offices was established in the Warthegau, which employed up to 1500 persons. Even if the administrative apparatus had been less cumbersome, it would have become unavoidable to set up a special department and to entrust a special official with the task of keeping such an organization running smoothly. This was even more true for a newly established structure of offices, lacking a well practised and uniformly trained staff of employees. A glance at the table of organization chart submitted as Huebner Exhibit No. 1 - 6 and confirmed under oath by the witness Kuetenbrink, shows who the man was who took care of this certainly not easy job at the office of the deputy in Poznan.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4985, "page_number": "4978", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "That man was the defendant Huebner in his capacity as staff leader with his staff department. Consequently the activity and the sphere of duty of the defendant Huebner results from this description of the structure of the organization. He was the head of the internal organization and in this particular sphere entitled to give orders not only to the departments of the Poznan office and the abovementioned settlement and labor staffs, but he was also obliged to accept orders and instructions from the Chief of the office and from superior officers. The same is true for the main departments and their respective spheres of duties. I can save myself the trouble of going into the finer details any further. It is irrelevant for the evaluation of the activity of the defendant Huebner, whether theoretically Himmler himself or the Staff Main Office were the superiors of the deputy. The only important relevant point here is only that a higher Reich authority existed, that the Staff Main Office took care of the executive functions of the daily business schedule, and that from this Reich authority a direct line of procedure reached down to the deputy, in the Gau authority which in this office branched off again according to the table of organization. Huebner had to accept, to forward and to carry out all orders and directives concerning the organizational work, those pertaining to the technical tasks themselves belonged to the competent main department in each case. The Prosecution tried several times to question these facts, which are only self-evident for everyone acquainted with the structure of German offices. In the indictment and in the opening statement the Prosecution characterized Huebner as the Chief of the field office or the branch office of the RKFDV in Poznan, and during the proceedings it aimed to picture him as the Chief of the office of the deputy. For this its main argumentation is, that the representative of the deputy, although he was the acting representative of the deputy, did not have his own bureau \n in the same buildings where the office of the deputy was located.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4986, "page_number": "4979", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The Prosecution overlooks thereby completely that this fact came about by necessity as a consequence of the establishment of this office. Prior to the establishment of the office of the deputy, the same person who was entrustet with this position (Amt) was already acting as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nIt is therefore not surprising that this person, after having been appointed to the additional Amt, remained in his former office rooms, especially as it was impossible for lack of space, to accommodate the large office of deputy together with all its main departments, in one building, or even in the building of the Higher SS and Police Leader itself. The land office and the Main Department III - economy were located for years in other buildings as the other departments a fact which is incontestable, whereas the active representative of the deputy retained a few co-workers in his office for his personal disposition. One thing can be granted to the Prosecution with respect to this argumentation: due to the distance in locations it was not possible for the acting representative of the deputy to discuss daily all individual cases with all his special advisers. Therefore, nothing was more opportune as to entrust the Staff Leader, who had to take care of the organizational work and who was not interested in any individual sphere of activity itself, with the creation of these liaison duties.\nIn that way it came about that Huebner reported from time to time collectively the transactions of the main departments to the acting representative and vice versa forwarded his decisions to the main departments. The same considerations expediency were responsible for the fact that Huebner, in individual cases - as for instance with regard to the documentNO-4632, Exhibit 199, submitted by the Prosecution - was ordered to sign letters \"For\" (Im Augtrage) which were drawn up at the office according to instructions of the acting representatives \n and delivered there by Huebner himself.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4987, "page_number": "4980", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "However, inasmuch as it did not directly concern his own sphere of activity, that is the internal organization, this happened only in exceptional cases. This activity also did not include the right to act as deputy (Vertretungsbefugnis). In view of his limited sphere of duty, Huebner was not a deputy of the Chief, not even at the time of the latter's absence. Likewise, Huebner was not entrusted with any kind of authority for issuing orders or commands.\nAll the other evidence which the Prosecution submmitted in connection with this question shall be dealt with briefly.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4988, "page_number": "4981", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "In documentNO 3180, exhibit 817 which is a list of the qualification degrees of the male employees of the office the defendant Huebner is listed under the column staff department, as \"Staffleader\"Office Head\" (Dienststellenleiter) The importance of that entry in this connection is clear. If here \"Office Head\" (Dienststellenleiter) would be similar to \"Chief\", it would be a matter of course that Huebner also to all intents and purposes would have had a superior position concerning the various departments, because then he would not belong to one of these departments, but would have been the superior official of all of them. From the standpoint of the staff department table of organization word means only that he was to be designated as the organizational office head, corresponding to the duties, of the staff, department. Beyond that the document, which has neither a letterhead nor a signature, does not show who its author was, so that for this reason alone every possibility of examination is lacking in order to judge whether the person who drew up this list had the necessary insight to evaluate the official position of the defendant Huebner. The many errors in this list, which were pointed out by Huebner even during his examination, confirm only that the person who made up this list was completely unaware of the actual situation.\nConcerning the other evidence submitted by the prosecution, many points could be selected which would refute its own argumentation. Huebner could have been Chief only under the presupposition that the deputy, the representative of the deputy and the office of the deputy, were three whooly different authorities in the Warthgau. However, if this would have been so then one cannot see at all why in the complete documentary evidence, which is at the disposal of the prosecution, does not contain a single document which was addressed to this allegedly independent office of the deputy, by another office. All correspondence coming to the Warthgau intended for this specific field of activity, was addressed to the deputy of the RKFDV, because it was generally customary in Germany at this time until 1945 that the Chief of an office, for instance \n the Senior Public Prosecutor, the District Finance President etc.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4989, "page_number": "4982", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "were personally addressed.\nThe prosecution was really not very fortunate with the testimonies of the witnesses who were supposed to confirm the official position of the defendant Huebner according to the interpretation of the prosecution, although the testimonies were made by people who at least partly had a rather good knowledge of the activity of the Staff Leader Huebner. The two affiants of the prosecution, Rahner and Krumey, who at first seemingly confirmed the position of Huebner as Chief, explicitly corrected this misconception during their cross-examination. All other prosecution witnesses were only able to testify that Huebner was Staff Leader, Your Honors! it cannot be denied that the right evaluation of the official position and the duties of the defendant Huebner constitutes for him the most decisive question in the entire trial. Because if it is true that he was only the chief of the internal organization, in other words the bureau chief of chief for personnel matters, to use terms customary in commercial life, then he could not have taken part in all those actions with which he is charged by the prosecution, because they did not belong to his sphere of activity. Not even a general knowledge of the events could be interpolated in that case, because the liaison activity, too, between the Chief of the office and the main departments was carried out only from time to time and was therefore not a continuous one. I considered it therefore as my duty to stress this question as the most important part of my plea, despite the fact that the argumentation of the prosecution is insufficient in itself and I believe that the evidence proved that I am right.\nI have questioned all persons who had an opportunity to observe the activity of Huebner as Staff Leader from whatever point of view. From all the various groups who expressed themselves from their various points of view, at least one representative was called as witness. I have collected the statements of the others in the form of affidavits. General Wolff, the most competent spokesman for organizational questions of the \n Reich about which he has a unique knowledge from his activity as Chief of the personal staff of Himmler, submitted his expert opinion.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4990, "page_number": "4983", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Several department chiefs of the Staff Main Office, reported their observations gained from correspondence and by visits. Quite a number of members of the office of the deputy in Poznan expressed their views and also the leaders of the labor staffs had an opportunity to voice their opinions certainly unbiassed witnesses, because one is always apt to view members of a superior office with a certain degree of mistrust. The predecessor of the defendant Huebner, Doering and the witness Vietz, who occupied a similar position in a neighboring Gau were also granted hearings.\nAll those witnesses who testified in the main to the same thing confirmed the description given by me at the beginning of this plea down to the smallest detail. Thereby again surprising points highlighted and characterized the situation again and again which could not have been suggested to the witnesses by the interrogator, because he himself had no knowledge of them. Thus for instance, the witness Golling, special adviser at Amt IV of the Staff Main Office, testified that the special advisers at the Office Poznan at personal conferences with him at no time asked Staff Leader Huebner for the necessary directives, although he was in the same building, but that they quested them by telephone from the acting representative of the deputy.\nAll this showed, to what a high degree the outer appearance of a new, slowly developing authority is characterized by its Chief. This man was in Poznan, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe, a man of rare vitality, who directed the office in the decisive years until 1943. His almost unbelievable energy has also been confirmed by witnesses of the prosecution I refer to a statement of the witness von dem Back-Zelewski. The result was that the carefully built up table of organization, which I have tried to describe, had been upset again and again by his unrestrained passion for work. This was the very reason why the liaison activity of the Staff Leader Huebner was so sketchy, because Koppe's temperment, in a great number of cases simply did not permit his waiting until Huebner reported all \n the accumulated transactions to him.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4991, "page_number": "4984", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Again and again, sometimes every day, the special advisers were called to Koppe's office in order to settle everything of importance directly with him.\nA further exception shall be mentioned in this connection. According to the table of organization it would have been in order to draw up the instructions and directives for the subordinated settlement and labor staffs in the office of the deputy, too. SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe however was afraid that in that way he would not be able to keep such a firm grip on the labor staffs as he would have liked to according to his views of a rigid working discipline. The result was that all directives to the labor staffs were drawn up directly in his office.\nOnly after his resignation could the normal channels through the main departments be established. The witness SPAARMANN, a Settlement Staff Leader, characterized KOPPE in a drastic but striking manner when he said that under KOPPE there remained the independence of perhaps a transportation worker for the persons in the Settlement and Operational Staff. If as defense counsel one subsequently becomes familiarized through dozens of statements with the distribution of authority and the personalities of this circle in Poznan one cannot suppress the question whether perhaps the indictment against HUEBNER was nothing but an unfortunate expedient by the prosecution since it could not put KOPPE in HUEBNER's place. But even then it remains quite inconceivable that HUEBNER as a subordinate was indicted while his last superior stayed completely undisturbed for 4 months in Nuernberg, and while none of the other staff leaders who had occupied equal positions in the Occupied Eastern Territories were indicted, although they were in American captivity.\nOnly a few words are to be said concerning the general position of the defendant HUEBNER as RuS leader. As far as his activity in Stuttgart is concerned it can automatically be disregarded in the judgment of this trial. For after 1 September 1939, that is the time with which the prosecution begins, HUEBNER's only activity in the Stuttgart district consisted of directing a recruiting commission for the Waffen-SS. Since \n Spring 1940 when he was transferred to the Warthegau, he no longer did any work in the Stuttgart district.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4992, "page_number": "4985", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Only for pay purposes HUEBNER was carried there without however ever discharging an hour's duty there. One therefore cannot presume even the least knowledge on his part of the incidents that occurred there.\nAlso with few words we can say what HUEBNER did as RuS Leader in Poznan, an office which took over only in 1942. In practice he did not do any work at all in the capacity of RuS Leader since he had no time left to him. His only co-worker, who was a specialist and whose service was at his disposal as RuS Leader - and this only intermittently - had to deal with purely internal matters of the SS - such as preparing the marriage licenses for SS members, investigations for recruiting purposes for the Waffen-SS. The witness STEINHAUS, who for a long time was the only assistant of the defendant HUEBNER as RuS Leader, has described these duties from his own experience very clearly in his affidavit, HUEBNER Exhibit No. 80. He states that during the entire time he talked to HUEBNER only 8-10 times officially. All other tasks, however, which the SS Race and Settlement Main Office had to deal with in the Warthegau, and these are all the duties which are important in this trial, were handled by the Branch Office Lodz of the RuSHA which was directly subordinate. I shall specially repeat this when I come to the specific sections of the indictment although the direct subordination of the Branch Office Lodz to the RuSHA and the tasks of this branch office have been clarified unequivocally in this trial so often that one might almost become loath to repeat it again. It is difficult to understand how the prosecution could ignore this established fact that there were 2 offices of the RuSHA in the Warthegau, the RuS Leader at the SS Administrative District of the Allgemeine SS for internal matters of the SS, and the branch office for the remaining tasks, particularly after this fact had been explicitly and repeatedly stressed in the preliminary investigation. Also the direct relationship of the branch office under the RuSHA could have been clarified without difficulty in the preliminary proceedings. One cannot counter this fact \n by asking why the office of RuS Leader at the SS Administrative District was established altogether if he only was concerned with rather insignificant tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4993, "page_number": "4986", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "It so happens to be a German characteristic to organize everything methodically and uniformly and since there was an RuS Leader at all SS Administrative Districts the custom was also followed in the Warthegau, especially since this RuS Leader existed already since 1939 at the SS Administrative District.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4994, "page_number": "4987", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "As Exhibit 820 the prosecution has introduced a general distribution list which also contains the RuS Leader Warthe. To proceed from this to any conclusions with regard to the activity of that office, however, would be out of place. The distribution of a decree in accordance with such a list is always a routine matter and often means nothing more than that the receiving office can only have a certain general interest in being thus informed. Accordingly, and I would like to stress this particularly in this connection, distribution of a secret document by distribution lists was prohibited by the basis Fuehrer Decree - HUEBNER Document 94, Exhibit 100.\nIn my statements concerning these points I have desisted from going into detail with regard to the evidence, but only discussed it in a few lines. I, moreover, beg to refer to the second part of my written plea in the detailed evaluation of the evidence.\nIII. The specific Counts of the Indictment.\nI shall employ the same limitations in discussing the various counts of the Indictment.\nI shall also desist from going into detail as far as the general legal viewpoints are concerned, which are to be considered in connection therewith. In this respect I can refer to the briefs, which my colleagues, who have volunteered to dealwith the views of the defense with regard to these general subjects, have prepared. At the same time I would not like to fail to point out once more that in my estimation the trial is already decided in favor of the defendant HUEBNER in view of the result of evidence in the Staff Leader question and after proof has been offered that the activity of the RuS Leader POZNAN was limited to internal affairs of the SS. Since, however, the prosecution has brought charges against HUEBNER under the individual counts of the indictment a statement of the facts is due insofar as the Warthegau is concerned.\nThe prosecution has tried to prove that the defendant HUEBNER participated in the evacuation of Poles (Count 16 of the indictment). But it completely overlooks the time when most of the evacuations were carried out.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4995, "page_number": "4988", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "When specifically questioned all witnesses confirmed that many farms, particularly in Western Poland, had already been abandoned by their Polish owners in the face of the approaching German armies. This was to be expected. For it was particularly in Western Poland, which formerly was populated to a large percentage by Germans, that the Polish Agrarian Reforms brought many Poles on farms which originally were German. The present owners were afraid that the Germans would try to reverse this development and by fleeing they tried to escape these unpleasant experiences.\nThe first big wave of compulsory evacuations commences immediately after the beginning of German rule. It was the police who in this way wanted to free the still restless country of those elements, who in their opinion were jeopardizing public security. If on the one hand we take into consideration the world-wide known national pride of the Poles and on the other hand the thoroughness with which German police authorities used to discharge such tasks, then the statement of the witness to the effect that in view of the 2 reasons cited already most of the farms which subsequently served for resettlement had become free, becomes a certainty.\nWhen finally the big resettlement operations began and a total of several hundred thousand ethnic Germans were brought to the Reich, a further evacuation of minor proportions began. It would be useless to conceal that as far as time is concerned there was a connection with the resettlement actions. It is therefore all the more important for this trial to clarify who was responsible for these evacuations, who carried them out, and at what date they went on.\nIn these examinations, however, no consideration shall be given to the question which supreme authorities were involved. In my case where I have to consider only the activity of the Gau level I can confine the examination of the question of responsibility to this intermediate authority.\nThe prosecution itself has offered a very effective proof concerning \n the competencies in evacuation matters by its Prosecution Document NO5322, Exh.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4996, "page_number": "4989", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "No. 805. It is expressly stated in Paragraph 2 of these minutes of a conference, which took place on 30 January 1940, that the Referat IV d 4 of the RSHA had been established for the central direction of evacuation tasks. This document is followed by HUEBNER Doc. No. 62, Exh. No. 68. This order bulletin of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, published by the aforementioned RSHA at Berlin, contains regulations concerning structure and administration of the Immigration and Resettlement Centers of the Security Police. The sphere of duties of such a Resettlement Center is evident from its table of organization which is explained in Art. 2 of the document: Department II of the Resettlement Center was concerned with Evacuation matters, Department III with Police Assignments. The subordination status is clarified once more in Article 28 which reads: \"The activity of Department II Evacuation-and Department III-Police Assignments- is subject to special instructions by the Chief of the Security Police and the SD.\" The Chief of the Security Police and the SD - this is an indisputable fact - were part of the RSHA.\nWe may thus briefly summarize: The RSHA was in charge of central direction of Evacuation matters, while local orders and operations were the task of the Resettlement Center which worked in accordance with instructions from the above mentioned Reich Authorities.\nAll the facts that are evident from these documents also from the subject of many testimonies by witnesses who were able to watch the work of the Resettlement Center from the Operational Staffs. All of them confirm: When the Operational staffs began to operate, their duty consisted in participating in the land registration since in contrast to Germany, Poland lacked dependable records on existing real estate. They handled their job by opening a Farm File Card System for every agricultural property, regardless of whether it was owned by Germans or Poles.\nThe Farm File Cards then went to the Resettlement Center through the Resettlement Staff and there it was decided in line with security Police directives, which were unknown to the Operational Staffs, which farms were \n to be evacuated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4997, "page_number": "4990", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "This represented the final decision. Whatever, else was done by Resettlement Center and Police was only in practical execution of their own decision.\nApplied to the office to which the defendant HUEBNER belonged even though, as I would like to point out once more, he was not connected with these technical duties - the result of the examination as to the competencies in evacuation matters can be summarized as follows: Evacuation measures in the Warthegau came under the Resettlement Center Lodz which in accordance with its subordinate position received its instructions from the superior offices of the Police sector. The Deputy and his office, therefore could not participate and accordingly did not maintain a department which would have been competent for such tasks. The activity of the Operational Staffs, however, was confined to merely land registration, without making dicisions and therefore they did not exercise any influence on the UWZ (Resettlement Center).\nAlso the date when these evacuations were carried out was clarified by witnesses: By the latest these evacuations, which were small in number anyway, were terminated in March 1941; moreover at that time another prohibiting evacuation became effective. When more room was needed, there remained no other solution but to limit the space accorded Poles as well as Germans in the same district. Up to that time, however. HUEBNER had not at all been employed in the Office of the Deputy of the RKFDV (Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism)in Poznan.\nThe prosecution has attempted to disprove these statements. The affidavit Hermann KRUMEY, Prosecution Exhibit714, which was to serve this purpose, was rectified by the witness in this cross-examination to such an extent that the final statements only confirm what has been said here.\nIn the same manner, as I have explained in detail in the written part of my Final Plea. The Prosecution Exhibit817and 818 only give the appearance that the Operational Staffs were connected with questions concerning evacuations. Since the prosecution however seems to lay the greatest emphasis on the implementation provisions for the Black Sea Germans' \n Operation, signed by HUEBNER, I may be permitted to summarize once more my statements with regard to Prosecution Exhibit199:The accommodation of the Black Sea Germans fell into the same period with the beginning of the final catastrophe of the German Armies in the East, it was caused by it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4998, "page_number": "4991", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The ethnic Germans along the Black Sea fled to the rear in order not to fall into the hands of the advancing Russians of whom they expected nothing good after they had been under German rule for a certain time.\nClose to 300,000 people arrived in the Warthegau after a confused flight, provided not even with the bare necessities and after being on the road since winter. There they hit upon a province which was already overcrowded. It was clear that this flood of people could not be tackled by the set-up of the RKFDV which had melted down on account of the decrease in work and the shortage of personnel.\nIn this emergency, GREISER, at the same time Reich Governor, Gauleiter and Deputy of the RKFDV decided on a palliative: The Black Sea Germans were no longer to be settled, but were only to be accommodated by the Party Organizations and assigned to work. The latter was the job of the Regional Employment Office and was bound to be within the scope of duties of this authority. This office tried to make jobs available by obliging Poles to work in France. It all remained an attempt, because France was no longer in German hands before even the first Pole could be sent there. But what was on hand, was the order which the Reich Governor, Department Labor, had issued concerning the assignment of Poles to work in France, and this order, like any other which was connected with the Black Sea Germans' Operations, was collected by the Office of the Deputy. This office had been instructed to do so, in order that all authorities were kept informed uniformly about the actions of any of the authorities connected with this matter. If that would not have been done, the confusion which already ruled during this operation would have increased immeasurably. These collections of regulations from all participating authorities, which briefly were called implementation provisions, were signed \n from time to time by HUEBNER on specific instructions from the acting deputy.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 4999, "page_number": "4992", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The prosecution bases its charge that HUEBNER in this case signed an evacuation decree on his own responsibility on the form of the implementation provisions. This is wrong. The difference becomes obvious from a comparison between the introductory sentence of Section I and that of Section II. Section I, concerning the evacuation of Poles starts as follows: \"As an amendment to the 11th Implementation Provisions....it is ordered....\"\nIn contrast herewith, Section 2 which concerns the accommodation of Germans reads as follows: \"I order\". The use of the passive in the first sentence obviously was meant to convey that this was the order of another authority.\nHowever, definite clarification as to who is the author of this order follows from its contents: It was absolutely impossible that HUEBNER issued such an order concerning labor allocation since neither he nor the Deputy exerted any influence at all on any viewpoints connected with labor allocation, much less outside the Warthegau.\nIt was already mentioned that the date alone of the order is proof enough that so shortly before the invasion no Pole could any more be sent to France. If, however, the prosecution attempts to draw the conclusion from these implementation provisions that HUEBNER previously signed similar provisions, then it commits an error from the very outset. The Black Sea Germans operation was an operation to accommodate refugees, thus nothing but an emergency action and no resettlement action. It had its own laws and does not permit of any comparison with former resettlements.\nDocumentNO 5559, Exhibit 871, as is evident from its very designation as \"Circular Letter\", especially however from its contents does not contain an order but a comminication concerning regulations which another office, the Office of the Reich Governor, had issued. The operational Staffs are only being instructed to follow these provisions as they are put into force by the Landraete.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5000, "page_number": "4993", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "A further discussion of this document is superfluous for the very reason that it lacks any value as evidence. In the original which is offered it is neither signed nor initialed. The signatures are merely entered in typewritten letters. Here must be said that there existed no such name as Dr. SCHMITZ at the office.\nIf we however cast back a glimpse at the result of our examination concerning the evacuations in general and apply it to the defendant HUEBNER, the following becomes evident:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5001, "page_number": "4994", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The evacuations had already been completed by the time Huebner took over the post of the Staff Leader in June of 1941. From the standpoint of time alone he cannot have been involved, That he was also not involved from jurisdictional consideration may be seen from the fact that the deputy had no jurisdiction for such questions, as well as from his own sphere of work as Staff Leader.\nWith this, I could conclude my remarks on the count \"Evacuations\", but let me add a word for the many efficient, conscientious and tireless men who helped in the lowest offices with the settling of the ethnic Germans. In cross examinations the prosecution has repeatedly tried to establish a connection between their activities and the evacuation by stressing the fact that the resettlers were quartered on the farms which had previously been evacuated. This is of course correct to the limited extent in which such evacuations were undertaken. But is this then really a crime punishable by law? What exactly was this thing in reality which we generally call \"evacuation\"? The witness, Dr. Hertha Suadicani, herself a scientific worker in these questions, has given us the answer to this question: the overall plan was an exchange of rings, so to speak, the ethnic Germans were to move from where they lived outside of Germany into the Warthegau, the Poles who had lived there up to that time into the Government General, and the non-Polish Slavs living there, into the country appropriate for their ethnic group, mostly to Russia. This was the great plan for clearing up ethnic groups in the East; if it had been carried out in this manner - one can say this today in retrospect - it would have led to a sensible solution in the long run, and as the witness, Dr. Suadicani has already testified, it was already laid down in national treaties. It failed because the Slavs living in the Government General for the most part preferred not to go to Russia, and the principle of voluntary action which was established in the treaties prohibited the use of force. Was this the fault of the Germans? Could not at least those who did not work in the highest circles, and who did \n not see what eventually happened to the evacuees rest assured that not only was their own share in the work no crime, but that the overall plan, so well and reasonably begun, would lead in the last analysis to an ultimate good, in spite of many difficulties?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5002, "page_number": "4995", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "And another thing: it will also not be possible in this trial to banish the memory of those dreadful years, 1945 and 1946, in which millions of Germans, expelled from territory which from the beginning of our history has been purely German, moved into western Germany, often under circumstances of unspeakable misery. The vision of those endless caravans will surpass everything said here about the evacuation of 235,000 Poles. One should not say that miseries inflicted on mankind are not justified by the fact that others suffer similarly? I do not mean by this, however, the legal side of the problem. But law is felt to be only that which is carried through somewhat equitably. History will certainly not require of the German people, and least of all of the defendants here, that they consider the punishment for an act higher justice, when the same act, similar in proportions, but committed by others, is continued elsewhere and tolerated by civilized nations.\nThe question as to whether the settlement, the admission of the ethnic Germans as such can be a crime, has already been cleared up for one most part by the statement of the prosecution that it excepts the taking in of ethnic Germans on the basis of national treaties. What remains for the Warthegau are two operations: the Cholm-Lublin exchange settlement and the accommodation of the Black Sea Germans. That the reception of the Black Sea Germans cannot be considered a crime either requires only a brief explanation: It came about only because the Russo-Germans were fleeing from the Russians. It was, therefore, a reception of refugees and it must be admitted that this can never be a crime. And much can also be said for the legality of the Cholm-Lublin resettlement, the only one in which the mutual exchange of farms between Poles and Germans would be completely carried out, because everyone participating lived \n within the territory under Germany's domination.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5003, "page_number": "4996", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "I can dispense with discussing this, however, because another defense counsel will do it for all of us. I only want to mention here in general a few subjective points which again concern the executive agencies of the lower authorities. We shall only consider here that which concerns the reception of the ethnic Germans, not the so-called looting. The operational staff were, as I believe to have proved conclusively in the evidence which I have submitted, involved in the settlement only insofar as they temporarily housed and cared for the settlers who were being transported to the district cities (Kreisstaedte). Huebner had taken on the supervision of this care as a special duty. The labor staffs and Huebner knew and saw every day that the ethnic German settlers came voluntarily, many from genuine enthusiasm, others because in any case they preferred German domination to Eastern. Under which of the acts, generally recognized as criminal, were these men to pigeon-hole this reception of ethnic Germans who came voluntarily? They surely would not have known, and jurists would not have known either, and the prosecution did not say during the whole trial. Caring for these ethnic Germans, over-exhausted from the journey and their stay in camp, was a good deed, and everyone who participated in any way felt it to be so. Let us also not forget that the feeling of having ties in common with these ethnic Germans, which often found such cordial expression in this routine work, was perhaps promoted by National Socialistic propaganda, but was certainly not weakened by it. Decades before, poets had said:\n\"But be reminded, oh our father land, Forget them not, our brethern far from home!\"This feeling of belonging together remained the object of German sentiment throughout the entire last decades, more than ever after the Versailles Treaty multiplied the number of these brethern far from home in a manner so injurious to future world events.\nNot a man in Germany would have regarded the care of these ethnic brethern as a crime, and \n Huebner could not do so either, because he is just as bound to the spiritual currents of our time, consciously and unconsciously , as all of us.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5004, "page_number": "4997", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "With regard to the subject \"Looting\", count 20 of the indictment, any kind of connection at all - and then only a very superficial one may be established with Huebner only if by this one understands the activities of the office of the deputy within the limits of the settlement. For this reason the so-called \"looting\" will be discussed here.\nThe confiscation and ultilization of the non-agricultural property subject to the Polish Property Decree, was , according to Article 12 of this decree - prosecution exhibit 589 - under the jurisdiction of the Plenipotentiary for the four Year Plan, who was represented here by the Main Trustee Office East. The Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism was not consulted at all as to the confiscation, and in the matter of utilization only insofar as the so-called SS-Deputy General, and in cases of smaller property, his deputy in the Warthegau, could make suggestions for staffing the industries with settlers, thus suggestions regarding personnel. Later this SS Deputy General was taken ever as a matter of organization into Amt III of the Staff Main Office, and his local deputy in the Wartehgau into Main Department III of the Deputy of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism, but he retained,particularly in the Warthegau, his old independence. The confiscation of agricultural property was taken Care of independently' in the Central Land Office and in the Land Offices of the Deputy. Even the correspondence between the two offices was handled directly, as may be seen beyond question in detail in prosecution document Exhibit 600. The confiscation resulted in the fact that the property fell to the right of disposition of certain settlement societies not subordinate to the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism. The utilization of this agricultural property consisted in its being turned over in pa*t to settlers. I have already indicated that in this connection the activities of the labor staffs were limited to \n accommodating the settlers temporarily on these farms, with which not even a transfer of the enterprise in trusteeship, not to mention a property transfer, was connected.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5005, "page_number": "4998", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The latter did not take place at all, the agreement that the property would be taken into custodianship was concluded between the settlement societies and the settlers, by which the latter became sub-custodians of the settlement societies.\nThe cooperation of the Office of the Deputy was limited in this case to the consent of Main Department IV to the property custodianship agreements, if it was a question of larger farms. From this description it may be seen even at this point that consultation of the deputy of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism was limited to bringing pressure to bear on the selection of settlers, in which connection, as I have established in my case in chief by a great number of witnesses, the office of Main Department IV, and in particular that of Main Department III, was extremely independent. However, in connection with this point I want to be sure to call attention once more to the fact that the defendant Huebner could never exert an influence on the decision of both main departments by virtue of his position within the office.\nThere could be a personal connection to Huebner in this subject \"looting\" only insofar as Huebner, by virtue of the special assignment already mentioned, supervised thefurnishing of the settlers with objects of everyday need. I have therefore devoted particular attention to this very point, and have learned the same thing from all witnesses whom I questioned about it, and that was no small number, namely, what Huebner had already told me: All settlers, at any rate within the sphere of the defendant Huebner's activities, were provided only with the articles they required, which was produced by factories in Germany proper and delivered brand new from the factory.\nThere is no consideration of personal enrichment from Polish or Jewish property for Huebner, if only for the reason that the acquisition \n of such property was generally forbidden to all office personnel, as has been confirmed by a great number of witnesses.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5006, "page_number": "4999", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "It is expedient in this connection to go into count 21 of the indictment - persecution and extermination of the Jews. By the Reichert affidavit, the prosecution wanted to charge Huebner with reporting that SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Koppe had confiscated furniture repaired in a ghetto shop in Lodz by Jews or Poles in 1940. I do not know whether this is correct, but for purposes of my defense it does not need to be discussed, because the assumption of Reichert that Huebner was included in this duty is completely impossible, if only from the point of view of time. Huebner, as has never been contested, did not come to Poznan to the office of the deputy until the middle of 1941. The fact, however, that the later commissions to the gheto shops in Lodz were effected by the branch office of the staff Main Office directly subordinate to the Staff Main Office has also been confirmed by the prosecution affidavits witnesses Reichert and Sollbik.\nUnder the name \"Second Ghetto Operation\" the preparatory work which aimed at making the property in the already cleared ghetto in Lodz available to the settlers was discussed in the trial. The facts which came out in this connection were in brief outlined the following:\nIn the course of the year 1944, the ghetto in Lodz - this may be clearly seen from prosecution exhibit No. 362 - was gradually cleared of Jews and stood empty. Reich Governor Greiser considered himself justified as chief official of the Reich Administration in disposing of the objects left behind in the ghetto. He offered part of them for sale to the Staff Main Office. Negotiations were conducted concerning this, at first in Poznan without Huebner's participation. Once when Huebner was in Schweikelberg, the final location of the Staff Main Office, on another matter, he was invited to a discussion of this question, in which he took part only as a listener. Further negotiations followed, without Huebner's participation or knowledge. Although they agreed basically \n on the possibility of such a purchase agreement, they did not succeed in bridging the basic differences of opinion as to the extent of the property to be purchased and the amount of the purchase price.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5007, "page_number": "5000", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The events of the war finally rendered further negotiations superfluous.\nDuring these negotiations , the ghetto, which could be only poorly guarded owing to its size, was wide open to theft. This moved Amt III of the Staff Main Office, which had always had the jurisdiction for procuring furnishings for settlers, to pass a temporary measure. It directed the local offices in Lodz via Main Department III of the deputy to begin temporarily with the dismantling and securing of the property.\nI have taken it upon myself to submit to this Tribunal a plan of the city which acknowledgement I do not want to introduce in evidence. This happened on a very modest scale, in all, as can be seen from the prosecution exhibit No. 566, it was a matter of 18 houses of the approximately 7.5 square kilometer ghetto, the extent of which in relation to the entire city is illustrated by the photostatic copy of the plan of the city of Lodz submitted to the court. In the prosecution document , a certain Hauptsturmfuehrer Grehl reports a statement of SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Hirschboeck who directed this dismantling work in Lodz. According to him, Hirschboeck is alleged to have said he was commissioned for this work by Huebner. I succeeded in finding the witness Hirschboeck, so that I could question him personally on the meaning of this statement. His answer was clear: it did not enter has mind that by saying this he could arouse doubts concerning the jurisdiction exercised by Amt III of the Staff Main Office in the matter, which he took for granted. By his statement he only meant that he personally had been selected for this work by the acting deputy at that time, Reinefahrt, upon Huebner's suggestion, Huebner's activities, therefore, had no connection with the actual work, but only with the procuring of personnel. No further arguments are necessary, I presume, to show that this explanation completely agrees with my detailed investigations as to the sphere of work of the defendant Huebner.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5008, "page_number": "5001", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Thus, the evidence on this point as well may be summarized to the effect that Huebner took no actual part in such measures as those with which the prosecution charges him. I can dispense therefore, with going into the legal side of the problem, except for making a limited number of references.\nInsofar as it is a question of the use of the ghetto property, thus of the dismantling of houses, the claim of the prosecution that this is Jewish property is not substantiated. From prosecution exhibit 860 it may be seen that the houses of that quarter of the city in which the ghetto was situated, had been previously found in the hands of the most varied owners, in part even in German hands.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5009, "page_number": "5002", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "That the property was transferred in the register of landed property to the new Jewish inhabitants is wholly improbable. The Prosecution has not even attempted to clarify this. In addition to all this, at the time in which negotiations concerning the use of the property were being carried on, the ghetto had already been cleared of Jews, and this without the slightest connection with the offices which later conferred about the utilization. Thus, at least this one thing can be said; By this scheme not a single Jew suffered a loss in addition to that which he had already lost.\nWith regard to all these questions connected with the use of Polish or Jewish property, I would like to bring still another subjective viewpoint to the fore:\nIn the law schools of every university, not only in Germany, it was taught as a basic principle of continental law that even the judge was only required to verify the formal validity of a law, but that he was not obliged to ascertain whether a law which had been passed in accordance with the constitution, agreed with international law or even with natural law. In the Krupp trial, General Morgan reconfirmed this just recently. What applied to the judge applied even more to every other citizen. All measures taken with regard to the property of Poles or Jews in the incorporated Eastern territories were based on a formal Reich law, the Polish Property Order, which was officially published in the Reich Law Gazette, and not even in secret orders or decrees. Could not anyone, then, who had anything at all to do with the law, rest assured that it was not his affair to question whether it was actually justified? I would like here to put in another word for the many members of the labor staffs whose activities, to be sure, were only indirectly connected with the utilization of Polish property. If even jurists are still arguing today on both sides of these problems with good reasons, can a man from the field of economics be expected to find his way in the undergrowth of these questions which are still debatable today? Could he as early as that time recognize his \n own personally decent activities as collaboration in a crime, especially since a definitive regulation was provided by law for the question of indemnification?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5010, "page_number": "5003", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The statements which are made now with regard to Counts 11, 12, 13 and 15 of the Indictment, I shall not read, and I ask the High Tribunal to accept them without any verbal presentation. Further more, I must assume that the Prosecution realizes that it cannot bring the defendant Huebner into connection any more with these points of the Indictment, or that it wants to do so, because it has not mentioned them with one word either in their final plea or in their closing brief.\nI shall continue my oral presentation now at the top of page 28.\nCount 11 of the Indictment - kidnapping of foreign children brings up another subject, regermanization. Here the Prosecution submitted decree 67/I of the Staff Main Office and hoped by this to incriminate Huebner, because this decree provides for cooperation of the deputy of the Reich Commissar in the regermanization of unattached orphan children. Concluding from this decree that there was cooperation on the part of Huebner misses the mark not only according to my representation of the facts, which sees in Huebner only the organizational leader of his office, but also according to the argumentation of the Prosecution itself - they obviously overlook this fact. For even if the deputy of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism and his office had been separate authorities, as the prosecution maintains, unsuccessfully to be sure, it would not be conclusive if at this point it now wished to adduce from a collaboration of the deputy, such a collaboration on the part of the office of the deputy.\nAlthough here too it is decisive for the defendant Huebner that he could not have been concerned with this duty on the basis of his sphere of work, I would like to refer to the testimony of the witness Dr. Bartels, who not only confirms this fact but also explains in more detail that Decree \n 67/I was never observed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5011, "page_number": "5004", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "For the small extent which this entire operation covered it was much too complicated to be observed in practice. In particular, the question of regermanization did not need to be decided first by any special authority, since the question of the German origin of the children had already been taken care of by the expert opinions and documents which had been collected. It would likewise have been senseless if for the small number of children which the Lebensborn took over, a special liaison office to the Lebensborn had been set up. This led to the situation that the acting deputy of the Reich Commissar at first announced his general interest in the matter by ordering his personal referents to the conferences. It is impossible to assume that Huebner had any real knowledge of the discussions between Koppe and his personal Referent. In view of this evidence which proves with respect to Huebner that he was neither actively engaged in the matter nor had he any knowledge thereof, I can leave the discussion of the remaining numerous questions to other defense counsels. Thus, it need only yet be stressed as a closing remark that the whole operation aimed only at the transfer of unattached children of German descent to German care. I do not believe that such a set of facts can at all be termed elements of a crime. My evidence pertaining to Counts 12 and 13 of the indictment - abortions and taking away of infants from female Eastern workers - brought about a clear conclusion Two competent witnesses were produced. Haessler, a former employe of the Reich Main Security Office and there in charge of the Referat which dealt with these questions, and Vietz, RuS field leader in Danzig-West Prussia confirmed concurrently that the decisive ordinances introduced by the Prosecution were not effective in the Warthe Gau because the specific group of persons to which they referred was not at all found in this Gau Female Eastern workers classified as such could be found only in Germany proper; I have proved this by documentary evidence through Huebner Document No. 82, Exhibit No. 88. Among the Polish women likewise only the \n who had been allocated to labor in Germany proper were affected because the purpose of the ordinances was the conservation of manpower which was important only in the case of these women employed in work of war importance, the so-called P-Poles, because they were compelled to wear the \"P\". As to this point no clearer statement can be imagined than that of the witness Vietz, whose Gau was made up of districts of Germany proper and of incorporated Eastern territories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5012, "page_number": "5005", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Therefore, he is the person to know in which parts of his Gau the ordinances were in force, and he, in particular, has confirmed my defense statement. From this it appears that the possibility that Huebner as RuS field leader occupied himself with these questions must be eliminated; such occupation in his capacity as staff leader of the RKFDV was not even alleged by the Prosecution. I now intend to deal briefly with the rest of the charges with which Huebner is being incriminated. The Prosecution has dispersed the names of the various defendants over the entire indictment, and if it is compared with the evidence introduced by the Prosecution one is inclined to think the names were often left in the places where they landed by chance.\"\nI shall not read the next paragraph; I shall now go to Forced Germanization of foreigners, Court 17 of the Indictment.\n\"Also the so-called forced Germanization of enemy foreigners, Count 17 of the Indictment, by which the Prosecution refers to the procedure of the German People's List, was a concern of the Reich administrative authorities, that means on top level the Reich Ministry of the Interior. Accordingly, on Gau Level the Reich governors, the Regierungspraesidenten, and the Landraete together with the agencies set up for this particular purpose were responsible. In this respect it is of no interest to me whether any cooperation with the office of the RKFDV was operative on Reich level. On Gau level at least the deputy of the RKFDV was interested in the aforesaid measures only in so far as the supervised, through the \n appropriate main department, that the property benefits connected with the admission to the German People's List were really made effective for the individuals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5013, "page_number": "5006", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "I believe I have demonstrated this convincingly through numerous statements of witnesses. The allegation of the Prosecution that the classification in Group III or IV of the German People's List involved restrictions of the rights of these persons is actually reversing of the true facts. On the contrary, it is quite obvious that legal restrictions affecting persons who were Polish citizens were partly or entirely abolished, for such persons when they were admitted to the German People's List. As to the other charges of this Count I believe I need not state my opinion at all. With the drafting of these persons for the Wehrmacht, with their committal to concentration camps, and with the taking away of children the deputy could have no connection for this reason alone that he had no influence on the drawing up of the German People's List. I also entertain considerable doubts as to whether the quoted punishments for refusing to accept admission to the German People's List were ever applicable in the Warthe Gau. For it is generally known that in distinction to other Gaue actual German descent and willingness were there in particular maintained as points of the greatest importance.\nThat Huebner also as RuS leader neither took part in the measures of the German People's List nor could have any knowledge thereof, appears incontestably from Prosecution Exhibit NO-4743, Exhibit 882, which was submitted as rebuttal. In this document the RuSHA branch office in Lodz reports that they had implemented these examinations for the German People's List in the Warthe Gau and had completed them already at Easter 1942, in other words at a time when Huebner was not at all yet RuS leader.\nAlso it must once more be pointed out here that no connection with the activity of Huebner has been proved as far as this point is concerned, neither did any such connection actually exist so that no evidence is found to indicate that he was an accessory after the fact.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5014, "page_number": "5007", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "I shall not read my statement with regard to Count 18 of the Indictment, Slave Labor. However, at this time I must add something in reference to the closing brief of the Prosecution the 11th of February, 1948, which however, was submitted only a short time before the end of the afternoon's session; that the Prosecution in the Indictment and during the entire presentation of evidence described the defendant Huebner confidently as chief of the agency at Poznan, now, it apparently has realized that it cannot maintain this allegation any more as a result of the proof which has been submitted, and after all in the closing brief the Prosecution speaks of Huebner only as a Staff leader and the personnel chief of Koppe in order to maintain incrimination of Huebner at all this time. They now believe that they have come to that conclusion, and, therefore, in its closing brief under Point 3 it seriously maintains the claim that Huebner as the head of the Labor Staff Personnel Leslau and Schroda and as the head of the settlement staff, Poznan, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, there is no proof whatsoever for this assumption, and I would like to point out that nothing of it is mentioned in the indictment, nor has the Prosecution submitted any material about this during the presentation of evidence, and consequently the defendant Huebner is not incriminated in any if the Prosecution attempts only at this time to compare this activity with other agencies outside of the Warthegau, and in this way at least to construe some sort of incrimination; then, I cannot reply in any way to this attempt by the Prosecution.\nI shall not read page 31 of my statement. I shall now begin with the last paragraph on page 32.\nDuring his entire period of membership Huebner did not hold any office in the Party part from that of RuS leader in the SS. Which activity he performed here, which knowledge he could acquire in this activity, I have elucidated exhaustively in my preceding statements. It need only to be pointed out that in these internal SS matters no relation to a criminal \n act can ever be found.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5015, "page_number": "5008", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Neither did he ever command an SS unit nor possess other powers of command. Huebner's activity as staff leader, however, was an activity within a Reich authority since Himmler as Reich Commissar was entrusted with a State task. For this reason already activities and knowledge acquired by Huebner in this connection must be left out of consideration. But I have also here demonstrated that Huebner did neither personally take part in criminal acts nor could he in his position as organizing leader of an office acquire knowledge of such criminal acts. To maintain that Huebner's official rank as Standartenfuehrer of the SS implicates a knowledge of the special activities of the SS which are considered criminal, as enumerated by the IMT verdict, would be an error. This rank as a leader of specific skill was conferred upon Huebner during his term of office with a Reich authority, the deputy of the RKFDV. Therefore this official, rank is not a proof of particular activity within the SS but was granted in consequence of the infiltration of personnel existing between the authorities of the RKFDV and the SS, in acknowledgement of service performed with the deputy of the RKFDV. Because of assignment Huebner during the years of the war most probably had less connection with the Party and its organizations than most Party members from 1937.\nOn the other hand, already the rather modest rank of Standartenfuehrer within the SS hierarchy in itself shows that Huebner never belonged to the authoritative class of leaders in the Third Reich, and it is a strange turn of fate that now he is here being held responsible just as well as many of the actually leading personalities who would formerly by no means have reocgnized him as their equal in power. All communication with the top leaders of the SS was out of the question as far as he was concerned, about their utterances and measures he heard only as much as any other German. And neither did he hear about the misdeeds of which there was whispered among the people more Fuehrer order directing that everybody was allowed to hear as much about any fact which had to be kept secret as \n he had to know for his immediate official.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5016, "page_number": "5009", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Naturally Huebner had also heard about measures against Jews just as almost any other German, but as in the case of these other Germans the actually executors as well as their true actions were unknown to him. Like many others he believed that the actions against the Jews were measures of the Gestapo and the SD, which was a very natural conclusion considering the complicated system of authorities which the police in particular had developed. It has been proved by witness that Huebner did not all take part in these measures but denounced them unreservedly.\nIt is true that Huebner belonged to the SS but to none of its criminal groups, and he did not acquire any knowledge about the activity of these groups either. As regards his activity as RuS Leader, however, I have proved quite incontestably that the Germanization in particular, with which the IMT verdict charges the RuSHA, was entirely outside his own field of work. If they would punish the defendant Huebner for his membership in the SS, they would do this only because of a formal membership which involved nothing but a vague knowledge of presumable misdeeds, a knowledge which was shared by any other German, and which was not due to his membership in the SS. This does not answer the requirements which are necessary for such conviction, and therefore I am convinced that in this question they cannot and will not arrive at a conviction.\nIV. The Personality of the Defendant.\nAs to the question of the trustworthiness of the statements of the defendant Huebner I may be allowed to mention only one thing;\nWhen the documentNO-5839, Exhibit No. 872, submitted in the rebuttal,a transcript of an interrogation on 14 May 1942, (sic!) is supposed to weaken Huebner's allegation that he has been exposed to undue coercion during interrogations by Dr. Schwenk in the preliminary proceedings, then this document was certainly not the cleverest choice, for from Question 147, even from the wording rendered in the transcript, which in the opinion of \n the defendant Huebner is only fragmentary, it appears irrefutably that a threat of extradition to Poland has been used.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5017, "page_number": "5010", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "However, the threat, which was especially censured by Huebner on the witness stand, dated back 9 May 1947, as it appears from German transcript p. 2435, English transcript. The transcript of this interrogation the Prosecution did not at all venture to introduce.\nBesides, if the Prosecution wants to dispute Huebner's trustworthyness in general, this could have been refuted in no better way than through this very transcript. For in this interrogation in which Huebner was not assisted by any attorney, and in which he did not at all yet know what was the final purport of the whole matter he did already make exactly the same statements which he was able to uphold during the trial following the presentation of the evidence of the Prosecution. Through the transcript of this interrogation the trustworthiness of Huebner's statements on the witness stand is not only unimpaired, on the contrary it is directly enhanced.\nI shall now go on reading on page 36 at the center of the page.\nThus a picture of this man as I have come to know him during these last months is put together out of many minor traits.\nA man who sacrifices himself for his duty in the conviction that all the good he kind-heartedly achieves, caring for the people entrusted to him, served a good purpose eben in a larger view. A man who maintains humane and honest principles even when it is difficult to resist other tendencies. Alperson who is prepared to serve his country with a warm heart but who nevertheless possesses the level-headed courage necessary to oppose any injustice done by this State as far as he can perceive it.\nIs it just to accuse such a man in the name of humanity? Every citizen of every state must somehow rely on this, that his state will not lead him into crime. It will always be like this that only a small number of leading men knows the way which the state will finally choose. But for the others their personal irreprochable work within a system which they from \n their point of view must consider good must be their personal justification.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5018, "page_number": "5011", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "To hold a person responsible beyond this would be punishing him not for personal guilt but for a tragic fate.\nThis can and must not be the task of a tribunal. Justice is the yearning of the world, but it demands that every punishment is preceded by personal guilt.\nIn the conviction of having refuted every personal guilt of the defendant Huebner I therefore trustfully place his fate into your hands and beg you to draw the only possible conclusion: and that is, that the defendant Huebner is not guilty of any of the counts of the Indictment.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5019, "page_number": "5012", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next argument.\nDR.SCHUBERT (Counsel for the defendant Lorenz): May it please the Court:\nThe prosecution has considered the defendants of this trial as participants of a mighty scheme. It has considered all the crimes of which the defendants are accused of as part of a plan, the principle aim of which was the alleged expansion of German domination by means of expulsion and extermination of other nations, I will agree with the prosecution insofar as I also am of the opinion that all events which are subject of this trial can be understood only if all aspects are taken into consideration. I cannot agree with the prosecution however, insofar that the crimes were committed according to a planned and premeditated scheme, nor can I perceive that any shred of evidence could be brought forth by the prosecution. The history of the Third Reich and the numerous data of this trial prove, quite to the contrary, that the measures of the national-socialistic regime were characterized just by their very want of planning, their inconsistency, and their lack of method. Characteristic is for instance, that the first resettlements from the Baltic states were ordered without any previous indication,1 that no organization had been prepared for this purpose and only afterwards had to be established on a temporary basis. Numerous examples of the same kind can be given for instance: 1934, the signing of a Non-Agression-Pact with Poland and 1935 a naval agreement with England: 1939, cancellation of this pact; 1939 the signing of a friendship pact with the Soviet Union after years of sharp political disagreements; 1941, war with Russia; September 1938 Hitler declared that, after the settlement of the Sudeten German question he had no further territorial claims in Europe; 1939 he incorporated Memel and occupied Czechoslovakia, later on he claimed Polish territory. 1) see hearing of Lorenz, transcript page 2750.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5020, "page_number": "5013", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "These expositions coincide completely with the statement of the German expert on foreign affairs, Erich Kordt, in his recently published book1 I quote :\n\"A study of the foreign policy, as handled by Hitler after his rise to power, confirms that he considered extreme utilitarianism as the highest art of diplomacy and that he relied on his \"intuition\" to reveal to him what was the most profitable of the moment.\"\n2 Whether Hitler himself had a plan, I have to leave undecided. The defendants of this trial, and in particular the defendant Lorenz, were not in a position that they could have had knowledge of any possioble plans of Hitler for which, moreover, the prosecution has not submitted any evidence whatever.\nWhen I spoke, at the beginning of my final plea, of larger aspects in the light of which all the data discussed at this trial have to be taken into consideration, I meant the historical aspects. The term \"Resettlement \" presumably has been coined only in the course of the last decennia and got its special significance. Resettlements have in fact taken place as long as mankind can remember, and such movements of nations were mostly in connection with wars, sometimes also with oppression of nations or parts of nations, taking place either in the wake of military conquests or as a result of a war or coercion. Such movements of nations, on a larger or seller scale, for the most varying reasons, have taken place very frequently in the European continent. Due to the peculiarity of the historical development in Germany, it so happened that, in particular, people of German origin crossed the borders of their fatherland and emigrated to foreign countries. That happened at a time when national states, in the very sense of the word did not exist and the immigration of German colonists was welcomed by the rulers of foreign countries. The 1) Illusion and Reality, Stuttgart 1947. 2) same, page 35 \n rising of national consciousness, which appeared more and more in the course of the last century, the establishment of consolidated national states from a widely split up structure of single small countries, had the result that those Germans who had, protected by the authorities, kept their cultural characteristics, were considered in the course of the new development as outsiders and became obvious as such.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5021, "page_number": "5014", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Discords resulted between the German minorities and the majority of the respective nation, discords which carried in themselves the danger of international conflicts. Such discords did not only exist with regard to German minorities, but also with regard to minorities of many other nations, for instance, Italians, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, and others. Therefore, it was a very reasonable tendency to remove the danger of such discords by means of exchanging such minorities and to secure a peaceful development in Europe.\nThe well-known American, Sumner Welles, critized, justifiedly, in his book \"The Time for Decision\", the fact that one did not regulate the problem of minorities by resettlement after the first World War, and I quote:\n\"The minority problem could have been corrected only by courageous and radical steps providing for the orderly transfer of populations. Only in one instance, however, where Greek and Turkish minorities were involved, was such a transfer undertaken.\"\nSuch exchange operation have already taken place before and the resettlements as of 1939 have a number of precedents, in particular at the time after the Balkan-wars and after the first world war so for example, as resettlement of the Greek population of Asia Minor took place in Europe in accordance with the treaty of Lausanne which ended the war between Turkey and Greece in 1923, which affected nearly one and a half million Greeks. Through the peace treaty of Neuilly in 1919, Bulgaria had been obliged to accent Bulgarian re-settlers from the neighbouring countries. One hundred twenty-five to 200,000 people were affected by this measure. When, through the peace treaty of Versailles, various eastern \n provinces of Prussia, belonging to Germany had been coded to Poland, a large number of Germans about 1,000,000 Germans who would not decide to vote for Poland, had to leave their homeland.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5022, "page_number": "5015", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Because of that they lost their property, and their rather problematic claims for compensation were referred to the German Reich.\nThe League of Nations in Geneva and the permanent Court for International Justice at the Hague had to deal continuously with complaints and grievances of the national minorities in Europe after the end of the first world war. The decisions made by those institutions could, of course, not satisfy any of the participants since they were by compromises. There was, therefore, tension between the various countries of Europe because of the minority problem, which could lead to war, and very nearly led to war in September 1938. It had to be obvious, therefore, to anybody who experienced or observed the developments after the war himself, that a resettlement of the national minorities on a large scale could and had to lead to appeasment in Europe. This motive was officially publicized as the decisive factor when the first resettlements tooks place in 1939.\nHitler expressed that in his fundamental speech of 6 October 1939 as follows, and I quote:\n\"The most import ant task, however, is anew order of ethnographic conditions, that is to say, a resettlement of nationalities, so that at the conclusion of this development better demarcation lines will result than is the case today. However, this is not a problem which is limited to this very space, but it is a task which goes far beyond that, for the whole East and the whole Southeast of Europe is partly filled with untenable islands of German ethnic groups, and they are exactly the cause for continuous international tensions.\nIn an age of the principle of nationalities and the thought of race, it is Utopian to believe that these members of a racially valuable people could be assimilated without further ado. It is, therefore, one of the tasks of a far-sighted order of European life to carry out resettlements here in this case in order to \n eliminate at least part of the causes for European tensions in such a way.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5023, "page_number": "5016", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have agreed to mutually help themselves in this problem.\"\nThe also well-known fact that the peace treaty, signed with the cooperation of the Allies, sanctioned such resettlements already after the last world war and had even been stipulated, proves clearly that resettlement as such does not constitute a violation of international law: because these peace treaties should, after all, serve the establishment of conditions based on international law. The Potsdam agreement of the heads of the Allied Governments of August 1945 has also taken into consideration the resettlement in Germany of German parts of the population from territories where the Germans had been settled for centuries. I do not wish to examine in this respect the question of whether or not Germany is entitled, after its unconditional surrender, to be treated in accordance with the Hague convention and, if this question is answered in the negative, whether or not the same conclusion will be reached on the basis of the general international common law. I only refer to the decision of the IMT according to which the principles of the Hague convention, even though they have not been accepted by some states, have just the same become established principles of international law, and I cannot believe, that the Allies wanted to disregard acknowledged principles of international law or humanity with regard to the treatment of German after the capitulation. 1 1) The verdict of the American Military Tribunal in case III (page 9), which will not apply the Hague rule of land warfare to the occupation of Germany, emphasizes however that, in view of the complete collapse of Germany, the \"Allies had been faced with a far greater categoric human duty \" then is the case in a normal occupation during a war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5024, "page_number": "5017", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The Potsdam agreements of August 1945 state explicitly that the resettlement should take place according to plan and in a humane manner. This should be an important clue, how the signatory powers of the Potsdam agreements stood in reference to the problem of resettlement and international law.\nThey apparently did not consider resettlement as such, indeed not even the evacuation because this is what was intended by the Potsdam agreement -- as a violation of international law, nor, without doubt, as a violation of the principles of humanity; they only made the reservation that the resettlement should be effected by orderly and humane procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5025, "page_number": "5018", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nConsequently it might be quite justified to argue that resettlement can be objected to only if the limits of orderly conduct and humanity have been surpassed.\nThe Prosecution5) has stated that it does not want to object to resettlement based on treaties between states. According to my opinion the Prosecution is carrying coals to Newcastle with this argument. It goes without saying that two states can conclude a treaty about giving their citizens the possibility to choose another state and to settle there. As, however, the Prosecution made its declaration with the reservation that it applies only to valid state treaties, and since--according to information received--it does not recognize treaties concerning the resettlement of parts of the population from the area occupied by the Soviet Union, arrived at between Germany and the Soviet Union, i.e. agreements with a state allied to the United States during the war, consequently this statement of the Prosecution is worthless. It appears redundant to discuss in this place the question to what extent the Prosecution considered treaties concluded between the German Reich and other states at that time valid or non-valid. It is sufficient in this case to point out that, at any rate, the defendants could not be expected to doubt the validity of such treaties, that they did not have such knowledge of International Law, as to be able to differentiate, for instance, between the resettlement treaty with Latvia concerning Ethnic Germans on Latvian territory, and a resettlement treaty with the Soviet Union concerning the future resettlement of Ethnic Germans from the Latvian territory which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in the meantime. The defendants rightly presumed that these treaties between the authorized representatives of their own countries and the representatives of other states, especially of the later Allies of the United States -- that is, the Soviet Union -- were valid and binding on both parties. Besides that, the National Socialist -----------------------5) Record, Page 1418 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5026, "page_number": "5019", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "State would have answered any doubts as to the validity of its treaties with adequate counter-measures.\nSuch state treaties were concluded for all resettlement actions during the years from 1939 until 1941. All these treaties contain the principle of voluntary option. The wording of these treaties is contained in the Document Books of the Defense.\nSome of the resettlement operations were only on a very small scale, as for instance those from Greece to Germany, which were merely welfare actions and were undertaken in full agreement with and even upon the desire of the persons concerned. A violation of International Law or the laws of humanity cannot be seen there; for it has never been illegal to emigrate voluntarily to another country and acquire its citizenship.\nThe movements of populations from Russia, Roumania, Hungary and the Balkan States to Germany during the years of 1943 until 1945, mentioned by the Prosecution in this connection cannot be called organized resettlement. These were movements of fleeing, they were flights before the advancing Russian Army, whereby the refugees were under the impression that their existence was endangered if they remained on the spot. The Vomi merely granted assistance to the refugees. This was especially described by the witness PIEGER,6) who gave this Tribunal an impressive picture, in an absolutely credible way, why these men left their homes and pressed toward Germany and what fate awaited them if they remained on the spot. Even the church promoted this movement at that time. These people did not need to be forced, because they knew from previous experience, especially from the treatment of the WolgaGerman population, what fate to expect; unfortunately nothing has ever been heard about the lot of those minorities which remained there. The evidence offered in this case for the voluntariness of these retreat movements is convincing and weighty to such an extent that the misleading --------------------------6) Transcript, Page 2933, and following, 2938 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5027, "page_number": "5020", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "formulation of one or two teletypes7) submitted by the Prosecution is comparatively unimportant.8) Also, the fact that HIMMLER ordered9) the evacuation of territories threatened by the enemy where Ethnic Germans had been settled does not mean anything. It is not a matter of what HIMMLER had in mind when giving his orders, but what actually happened. Actually, nobody was forced and nobody needed to be forced, as shown by the entire situation.\nIn the great movement which I have just described, the Vomi and its chief, the defendant LORENZ, played their role. The Vomi was not an institution created first during the war; it had already been established in 1936 and even then it was nothing new, entirely unknown, but it was an institution which was supposed to maintain and unite organizations and institutions serving the same purpose and perhaps even to take them over. Its original purpose was to take care of the Ethnic Germans abroad. It goes without saying that this welfare work did not consist merely in empty phrases, but called for energetic help, including financial assistance. These donations ware destined for cultural work of the individual Ethnic Groups.10) The Vomi did not pursue political aims. At that time the Vomi was a small agency with hardly more than 20 employees. The institution gained in importance only when, in 1939, it was charged with the task of becoming active within the framework of resettlement. When contemplating the work of the Vomi during war-time, one should not lose sight of the fact that -----------------------7) Prosecution Exhibit245, and Exhibit 746 8) Statement Professor UNRUH, Transcript Page 2594, LORENZ Exhibit 70, and Exhibit 72 9) Prosecution Exhibit877, 878, - For the rest from both documents results the fact that a great number of people remained behind, who consequently were not forced, e.g. Exhibit 877 BATSCHKA:\n\"Due to enemy propaganda a considerable number of Germans remained at home\", Exhibit 878 Hungary:\n\"...the result, unsatisfactory in number, or the evacuation from Swabian Turkey.\n...\" 10) Statement KUBITZ, Record, Page 2850 and following; FABRITIUS, Record, Page 3069 and following, PIEGER, Record, Page 2931,\nLORENZExhibit 9 and 71.", "speakers": [ "LORENZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5028, "page_number": "5021", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nthe welfare work for the Ethnic Germans was the actual task and that the Vomi was put to work in this field of welfare work. Consequently the task and the competency of the Vomi was positively terminated at the moment when the resettlers became German citizens by way of the socalled \"EWZ (Central Immigration Office) procedure\", and therewith had gained the right of a permanent residence in Germany. Of course, the Vomi had to see to it that these re-settlers were billeted in camps, as their resettlement took considerable time in most cases. But actually their task was terminated at the moment when these resettlers, by gaining German citizenship, were no longer Ethnic Germans in the technical meaning of the word, that is, Germans of foreign nationality.\nIn this case it has been discussed quite often whether, according to the well-known decree of HIMMLER of 11 June 1941,11) the Vomi was an SS Main Office since 1941 or not. As far as I am concerned this question is unimportant. According to my opinion, in this connection it is not important to know whether this office was part of the SS, but whether this office carried out its task decently and humanely, and I believe that there is no evidence in reference to the latter which could lead us to presume the contrary or any possible evidence of the Prosecution to this effect having been refuted by evidence of the Defense.\nI am omitting the balance of this paragraph, and I now read starting at the beginning of the next paragraph.\nSince the beginning of 1937 the Defendant LORENZ was chief of the VOMI. Before that he had occupied the post of Gruppenfuehrer of the General SS in Hamburg. That LORENZ at that time gave up this post which had become dear to him, is to be ascribed presumably to the differences between him and HIMMLER, which had by this time already appeared. The position in the VOMI which LORENZ did not at all want to take over at first was conferred on him, not so much in order to gain his objective work for the VOMI, for he was neither expert in -----------------------11) Proesecution Exhibit 23, Volume 2, B.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5029, "page_number": "5022", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nthe field of folk-groups abroad nor administration expert, but rather for the reason of letting certain representative tasks in the Reich capital be executed by him.15) At that time he was also appointed president of the Union of the so-called inter-state unions, to which belonged a number of societies for the promotion of friendly cultural relations between Germany and other countries, as, for example, the German-Polish, German-Italian, German-English Societies, and for which purpose a representative man was likewise needed.\nThe Defendant LORENZ is soldier and farmer by profession. His military career ended after the first World War, when Germany's Army was limited to 100,000 men. Thereafter he managed a farm in the region of the Danzig Free State, which had been newly formed according to the Versailles Treaty. Administration work never appealed to his simple soldierly nature. Nor did he have preparation for such work, and therefore, when the management of the VOMI was conferred on him, he considered it of decisive importance to turn over the particulars of the official administration to an experienced and capable co-worker. This came about when Dr. BEHRENDS, who is often mentioned in this trial and is now sentenced to death by a Yugoslav government because of an activity which in no ways had any bearing on the VOMI, was placed at his side.16) Up to the time of his separation from the VOMI in 1943. BEHRENDS was the actual chief administrator.17) He signed himself as \"The Deputy Chief of the Office for the Repatriation of Ethnic Germans\". It depended mainly on him to what extent LORENZ was informed about the office matters of the VOMI.18) This does not mean that LORENZ did not concern himself at all or very little about the VOMI. Only at the moment when a great and also humanely beautiful task was turned over to the VOMI in the form of resettlement did LORENZ become active for the VOMI on a large scale, but not so much in the Berlin offices as ------------------------15) Cf. Statement WOLFF, Court Record, page 2010 ff. 16) Cf. Statement LORENZ, Court Record page 2736 f. WOLFF Court Record, page 2011 17) Cf. Statement ELLERMEIER, Court Record page 2906, WOLFF Court Record, page 2011, LORENZ Exhibit 7. 18) Cf. Statement ELLENMEIER, Court Record, page 2921.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5030, "page_number": "5023", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. 1, Case No. VIII.\nright on the spot, that is, there where resettlers had to be received by the German organization, there where it was a question of lending first aid in an active manner, where the transport had to be organized, where it meant solving innumerable practical problems, in one word, at the front lines. Office-work was not for him. He left it to his trained co-worker who was experienced in the technique of administration, Dr. BEHRENDS, and evidently he was approached for his decisions by the latter only in the most basic problems -- and, for that matter, not always then, either.\nIt is also indicative that in the voluminous Prosecution material there are only very few letters signed by LORENZ. This picture did not change after the great resettlement operations had been concluded. The witnesses have informed us on how LORENZ inspected the camps, permitted grievances to be presented to him, and attempted to provide redress.19) Then new events took place again, and they required LORENZ'S activity and made mandatory his presence at the front lines of the practical job, namely, the retreat of the German armies in the East and the flight of the Germans in Russia and the Balkans.\nIn time the VOMI became an organization of large dimensions. At the climax of its activity it administered between 1,500 and 1,800 camps.20) This organization had been set up during the war. Thus it did not only suffer from the deficiencies which afflicted every office set up in the Third Reich, namely, the indistinctly defined regulations of competency, thus shaped up by the highest ruling powers, especially HIMMLER, evidently on purpose, it also suffered from the personal problems conditioned by the war. As a result it is understandable that the right man was not always at the right place, and that events took place which were not desiredby the administration. So far as the administration heard of such incidents, it always intervened.21) In most cases it probably did not hear of them at all. -----------------------19) Statements ELLERMEIER, Court Record page 2910, LORENZ-Exhibit 11 and 18.\n20) Statement KLINGSPORN, Court Record page 2955. 21) Statement KLINGSPORN, Court Record page 2953, LORENZ Exhibit 56.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5031, "page_number": "5024", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. 1, Case No. VIII.\nThis ascertainment leads to the question as to what extant LORENZ can be made responsible according to criminal law for the actions of the parsons subordinated to him, presuming that the activity of his subordinates comes under any given Criminal Law including the Control Council Law. This question necessitates a definition of the concept of participation, as contained in Section II, 2 Control Council Law. If a subordinate of LORENZ committed an action, which, as I propose, represented a war crime or a crime against humanity, than in any case LORENZ himself cannot be considered as a perpetrator or as an accomplice in the sense of Section II 2a and b. If he did not know of the act, then he could also not have participated in it through his consent (Section II 2c) nor could he have been then related to the planning or the carrying out of an action (Article II 2d) the intent and execution whereof he did not know. There remains therefore solely the question, whether in such cases Section II 2e of Control Council Law has an application in this case, that is to say, whether LORENZ belonged to an organization or association, namely the VOMI, which was tied up with the execution of the crime. The wording of the law shows that the organization or association must have had such a relation to the crime, whether its entire purpose was a criminal one, or whether it resorted to criminal means in the execution of its tasks. The criminal aspect thus must stick to the organization as such; individual excesses on the part of subordinates, the overstepping of the sphere of competency in isolated cases, all the acts of subordinate elements, insofar as they did not systematize and thereby draw the organization as such into the chain of crimes, do not make the chief of the organization responsible according to Section II 2e. Moreover, since Section II 2e belongs to the participation definitions, the accomplice must have assumed into his volition and, therewith, into his consciousness the criminal success which was to be brought about by another.22) Insofar as crimes of subordinates should thus exist, it depends on LORENZ's ------------------------------------22) HAENSEL \"The Organizational Crime\" 1947, page 36.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5032, "page_number": "5025", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I. Case No. VIII.\nknowledge. For this reason all verdicts of the American Military Tribunals to date have attached decisive weight to this knowledge. As the verdict of the American Military Tribunal II against POHL among others, states:23) a consenting knowledge in the sense of a positive attitude is essential. The premises for this must be proven by the Prosecution. The principles also apply to the relation of LORENZ to BEHRENDS. BEHRENDS was a very independent, ambitious worker. LORENZ did not know, and could also not foresee, what steps BEHRENDS would resort to and which position he would take to particular problems. A responsibility of LORENZ for possible actions on the part of BEHRENDS, which would be relevant before this High Court, can thus be established only then, if LORENZ knew the measures taken by BEHRENDS and approved them. In this respect also the burden of proof lies with the Prosecution.\nIII.\nOn the basis which we have reached now concerning the relationship between the evacuations and re-settlements and International Law and the responsibility of LORENZ, we are able to state the following:\nThe Prosecution has not produced any evidence for the assertion that re-settlements in the true meaning of the word were carried out by the VOMI and with full knowledge of LORENZ in a manner which was not regular or inhumane. On the other hand, the defense has abounding material which proves that under the prevailing circumstances everything possible was done for the care of the resettlers on their way from their former home to the new one and during their stay in the camps in sanitary, human and cultural respects.24) The same applies to the re-settlement drives of the years of 1943 to 1945 -- drives which I have called flights. It is important to point out in this connection that the so-called Russia-Germans were, until -----------------------23) POHL, Court Record, page 8111. 24) LORENZ Exh. 8, 10 - 21, 55 - 67.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5033, "page_number": "5026", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\ntheir arrival in the Reich, under the care of an agency which was named VOMI, to be sure, but had nothing in common with that VOMI which was headed by LORENZ and located in Berlin, except for the name. I mean, the office of HOFFMEYER in the Ukraine, South Russia and Transnistria. This office was completely separated from the Berlin VOMI, in space as well as in organization. It was under the orders of the Superior SS and Police Leader PRUETZMANN as regards Russia, and of HIMMLER directly as regards Transnistria.25) These so-called evacuations must be subjected to a specially close scrutiny.\nObviously, the Prosecution is of the opinion that they violate the Hague Convention on Land Warfare. But the very superficial evaluation of the legal aspects of the indictment do as not provide us with any definite indication. At most, the sections 43, 45 and 46 of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare could be taken into consideration. I should like to leave the question open as to whether or not such regulations forbid any evacuations from the occupied enemy territories or not, and also the question of whether or not the development of International Law which in particular emerges from the Potsdam Agreements of August 1945, which I have already quoted, have not passed over any possible prohibition of the Hague Convention on Land Warfare long ago. I can content myself here with the statement that the VOMI had no part in effecting the evacuations.26) The only thing which the VOMI had to do in this respect was the transportation of evacuated persons within the German borders, and their stay in camps.27) Without deciding this question I want to assume, just for arguments' sake, that there are objections under International Law to the evacuation of nationals of a country which are occupied during the war.\nBut then another question will arise, the question of whether ---------------------------25) Statements of LORENZ, transcript pp. 2761 ff.; ELLERMEIER transcr.\np. 2916; RADUNSKI transcr. p. 3024; PIEGER, transcr. pp. 2932 ff. 26) See pp. 58 ff. of this plea 27) See pp. 58 ff. of this plea, in particular the statements of KLINGSPORN, transcr.\np. 2955 ff., ELLERMEIER, transcr. p. 2914.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5034, "page_number": "5027", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nsuch objections under International Law also apply to all additional measures taken in the case of the evacuated persons. After these people once ware driven from their homes, somebody had to look after them after all. As it was not possible to allocate them at once to new working places or to other positions there was no other possibility than to put them at least for the time being in a camp. As the VOMI had at its disposal the biggest camp organization in Germany it was quite reasonable to assume and to entrust the VOMI with the housing of the evacuated persons. The VOMI attempted to get rid of this task because this was a matter with which the VOMI was not familiar as the evacuated persons ware not Germans. But that was of no avail, and the VOMI had to put its organization at the disposal for the housing of the evacuated.28) The temporary accommodation of the evacuated is, in my opinion, not a violation of the regulations of International Law; if there was such an offense at all then it happened earlier, and the offense of the evacuation had already been completely executed prior to this time. Any other viewpoint would lead to consequences which are completely inadmissible. Any dealings of an authority or of private persons with evacuated persons, even if in their favor, would be an offense under International Law and any employer, for instance, of such an evacuated person, even if he took the utmost pains for his well-being, would be liable to arraignment and, perhaps, punishment under International Law because he employed an evacuated person. This theory refutes itself. The possible offense under International Law was a closed matter after the execution of the evacuation. In this connection I refer to a passage in the Judgment of the American Military Tribunal II versus POHL et al, which says as follows:29) \"If we are not inclined to have recourse to the principle of the collective responsibility and to hold the entire German people guilty of such --------------------------28) Statements of LORENZ, tr.\npp. 2765 ff., 2769 ff.; ELLERMEIER, Tr.\npp. 2908 ff, 2912 ff; KLINGSPORN Tr. pp. 2955 ff; RADUNDSKI Tr. pp.\n3025 ff; EHLICH Tr. p. 606, 648 f, STIER Tr. p. 1887 ff. 29) POHL, Transcr. p. 8113.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5035, "page_number": "5028", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nwar crimes and crimes against humanity, then there must be a line where the criminal respon sibility finds its end.\"\nThe activity of the VOMI lies beyond this line. LORENZ had no consenting knowledge of the evacuation and he was not connected with the evacuation drive in the meaning of article 2 of section II of the Control Council Law. Everything that happened to the evacuated person after the evacuation can only be considered from the angle of crimes against humanity, meaning that only he is liable to become guilty of a crime against humanity in the sense of Section II, 1 c of the Control Council Law, who grossly violates the Laws of Humanity in the treatment of evacuated persons.\nThe salient point will then be the treatment of the evacuated by the VOMI. If it was humane, no member of the VOMI can be held responsible then, but if there were gross violations of the laws of humanity, then LORENZ would be responsible if he had information and approved of these actions.\nThe Prosecution has submitted only two exhibits which are to prove the inhumane treatment of the evacuated. They are first the so-called Slovenian Order of HIMMLER's30), and then the testimony of the witness KASEL concerning the treatment of the evacuated Luxemburgers.31) HIMMLER'S Slovenian Order which threatened a run-away Slovenian and his family with death, and ordered the VOMI to submit to the security agencies reports which were necessary for the recapture of the run-away and for the punishment of his family, was rejected by the management of the VOMI and not passed on to the individual camp commanders.\n32) HIMMLER's Slovenian Order of 22 September 1942, submitted as Exhibit No. 319 by the Prosecution, has been found by the Allies in the archives of the personal staff of the Reich Fuehrer SS. The document discovered --------------------------30) Prosecution Exh. No. 319 31) Transcr. pp. 1162 ff. 32) Testimony of KLINGSPORN, Tr. p. 2956 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII is the original which was signed by HIMMLER, and, in accordance with the customs of German authorities, stayed with the files after copies had been made which were forwarded to the addressees.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5036, "page_number": "5029", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The document submitted, for this reason, only proves that HIMMLER signed the order, which, according to the distribution roster was to be sent to the VOMI in Berlin among others. But it is not a proof for the assertion that the VOMI passed on this order and exacted from the local VOMI agencies to carry it out. The communication of the Bayreuth Regional \"Einsatzfuehrung\" which mentions a Slovenian Order33) is not a letter covering the secret order of HIMMLER concerning the treatment of the Slovenians. This fact emerges beyond any doubt from the affidavit of the camp commander WURDEL34). For the rest, there is no proof that any camp commander acted in accordance with this order of HIMMLER'S and that any Slovenian had to suffer discrimination under HIMMLER's order, nor that the VOMI had any part in this. On the other hand, there is ample evidence of the defense to prove that the camp commanders did not submit any reports concerning the removal of Slovenians.35) As regards the conditions in some camps in Silesia as mentioned by the witness for the Prosecution KASEL, they obviously were isolated cases of which KASEL had partly knowledge only from hearsay and which were vastly exaggerated by him.\nKASEL's testimony, as well as the exhibits submitted by the defense, prove that the management took steps to remedy the grievances stated by KASEL.36) There can be no question whatsoever of the management of the VOMI violating the principles and laws of humanity, as orders were given to treat the evacuated persons just like the re-settlers.\n37) For -----------------------------33) Pros. Exh. No. 335. 34) LORENZ Exh. 57, also see p. 62 of this plea. 35) See p. 62 of this plea. 36) Testimony KASEL, Transcr. p. 1185; KLINGSPORN, Tr. 2961 ff;\nLORENZExh. 56. 37) Testimony ELLERMEIER, Tr. p. 2910 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [ "LORENZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5037, "page_number": "5030", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "the rest it was not within the powers of the VOMI to shorten the stay of the evacuated in the camps; this depended on the measures of other authorities which had to decide on the evacuation of those persons. With respect to the isolated cases which the Prosecution has mentioned, I refer to the Judgment of the American Military Tribunal in case III, which says:\n\"We hold that crimes against humanity as defined in Control Council Law 10 must be strictly construed to exclude isolated cases of atrocities or persecu tions whether committed by private individuals or by a governmental authority.\"\n38) The problem of the Slovenian children who were housed in the Vomi camps for a time is part of the evacuation problem.\nIt is an established fact that the Vomi did not participate in segregating the children and their parents and in transferring the children from their old homes to Germany.39) Furthermore, it is also an established fact that the two camps used for the reception of Slovenian children after their segregation from their parents, namely Fronleiten and St. Veit, were not Vomi camps.40) Taking away the children and separating them from their parents may be regarded as a war crime or crime against humanity. The reception of these children in the Vomi camps is certainly no war crime, because, same as in the case of evacuation of grown-up persons, the offense, if any, had been committed and was concluded with the actual taking away of the children. Somebody had to take care of these unfortunate children and this task was assigned to the Vomi to begin with. It would, of course, have been a violation of the laws of humanity if these children had been treated badly in these Vomi camps. The prosecution has, however, not been able to produce any evidence to this effect; whereas the defense has submitted substantial evidence that the children were treated well, that they were reared and nourished in a preferential manner, that they were -------------------------38) Transcr. case III, p. 10646. 39) Compare p. 37 ff. of same final plea 40) Statement ROEDEL Prot. p. 3039, KLINGSPORN, Prot. p. 2955, ELLERMEIER, Prot.\np. 2911.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5038, "page_number": "5031", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nallowed to use their mother-tongue, and had to a certain extent lessons from teachers of their own nationality, that particularly LORENZ had issued directions to treat these homeless children with special care, and that the VOMI on LORENZ's initiative strove to bring children and parents together again.41) The VOMI has never attempted to Germanize these children.\nApart from Slovenian children only father and motherless children from the Banate in Roumania have come to the VOMI camps.42) The charge referring to the children from the Banate is a particularly instructive illustration of how harmless incidents often turned out to be which had been demonstrated by the prosecution as severe crimes. These children from the Banate were poor Ethnic German orphans who were badly looked after in a Rumanian orphanage. They were shipped to Germany on HIMMLER's instruction and in agreement with the Rumanian Government in the ordinary course of resettlement. There they were provided with new clothes, the good food which had given them altogether a new lease of life. Not a word of it is true that they were' assigned to the Hermann GOERING Werke or to the SS.43) IV.\nMuch has been said in this trial about compulsory Germanization and procedures of re-Germanization etc. This term certainly has been applied frequently to incidents which did not concern technical Germanization in the least, for Germanization can only be applied to persons of non-German race but not to Ethnic Germans. One cannot speak of compulsory Germanization or re-Germanization if Ethnic German resettles were eventually naturalized as Germans on their own option exercised before a mixed commission. Moreover, this was a perfectly legal affair in conformity with the wish of the re-settlers and in agreement with their previous government. Besides, the naturalization ------------------------41) Statement ELLERMEIER, Prot. p. 2911, KLINGSPORN Prot. p. 2958/59,\nLORENZExh. 12, 16, 18, 58. 42) Pros. Exh. 436-438, Vol. 8 C 43) Statement KUESTER, Prot. p. 2817 ff.", "speakers": [ "LORENZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5039, "page_number": "5032", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nwas not performed by the VOMI but by the Central Office of Immigrants (EWZ) which worked under the Reich Security Main Office.\nAs far as Germanizations of non-Ethnic Germans took place, the VOMI has always objected to these measures.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5040, "page_number": "5033", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The VOMI's task was the care of Ethnic Germans, but not of Poles, Yugoslavs, Frenchmen and other members of alien races. It would have been contrary to all VOMI tendencies to make Ethnic Germans or German Nationals of such aliens through the medium of the List of Persons of German Descent or similar methods. This would have destroyed the conception of German Folkdom which was the special trust of the VOMI, and it is therefore only natural that the VOMI in view of its basic tendencies, could not agree to such measures. The VOMI has always resisted these measures as soon as it came to hear of it. Whenever the VOMI was made to help in preliminary work by other agencies whose tendencies were not at the moment clearly discernible as e.g. in the case of the Luxembourg folkdom card index, it procrastinated the matter and achieved eventually that no definite measures were adopted. The VOMI had nothing to do with the DVL or with other Germanization procedure Outside agencies visited the camps and made inquiries of or took measures for re-Germanization of Slovenians and other re-settlers from the West. The fact that some of the documents -- partly also originating from the VOMI or its employees -- speak of differentiations between persons suitable and not suitable for re-Germanization is no proof of the VOMI's participation in re-Germanization procedures per se or applying differential treatment.44) The VOMI was bound to take note of these classifications which had originated from other agencies, in view of their ultimate effects, e.g. in the question of settling these persons, or, more so, in the question of labor assignment, because prospective settlers were to be assigned to work only as a temporary measure.\nThe prosecution has maintained in connection with re-Germanization affairs, that the VOMI had been instructed to influence U.S. prisoners of war with the object of winning them back to their folkdom. 45) It is not evident which of the regulations of the Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of prisoners of war has hereby been violated. No such regulation can be found in the Geneva Convention, and the prosecution has not made ------------------44) Statement ELLERMEIER, Prot. p. 2911; LORENZ Exh. 14-18, 55-58, 78,79 45) Pros. Exh. 179, Vol. IV D.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5041, "page_number": "5034", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "reference to any relevant regulation in their argumentation. All belligerent nations of the last was have used political influence on their prisoners of war, not only Germany, but also Russia, England and the U.S.A. The Tribunal is probably aware of the fact that the French government even today retains German prisoners of war and gives them the option to stay in France and to become French citizens. If this is in agreement with international conventions concerning the treatment of prisoners of war, then the tasks assigned to the VOMI cannot he contrary to international laws either.\nBesides, this tasks was never carried through by the VOMI. The VOMI went to work on it only reluctantly and hesitatingly and eventually reported the complete failure to Himmler. The VOMI itself has never had any prisoners of war in its own carps, and the Kobenz camp , stated in Pros. Doc. 179, was, if at all, handed over to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD without any prisoners of war in it, i.e. empty.46) The Prosecution links the VOMI also with the charge of compulsory labor.\nIn the case concerning actual re-settlers, no objections can be raised against their being brought into Germany to work, because the Hague Convention concerning war on land is not valid for the class of re-settlers. The prosecution have not contended that the VOMI has used any inhumane measures in this respect.\nIn the case of the so-called Absiedler (deported persons) i.e. persons who did not come voluntarily, the prosecution seem to assume a violation of Article 52 of the Hague Convention concerning land-warfare, according to which the population of occupied territories can only be assigned to work required by the occupying military forces. This provision of the Hague Convention concerning land-warfare, however, obviously refers to persons residing in the occupied territories but not to citizens of the occupied country living outside of their country. A violation of the Hague Convention on land warfare, if any, can only be seen in the fact of evacuation ------------------------46) Statement LORENZ, Prot, p. 2774 ff., KLINGSPORN Prot. p. 2964 ff.,\nLORENZExh. 7.", "speakers": [ "LORENZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5042, "page_number": "5035", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "per se, but not in the fact that the evacuated persons were assigned later to work in Germany. This view conforms to Art. II, 1 b of the Control Council Law which enumerates the following examples:\n\"Deportation for slave labor or for other purposes or the utilization of slave labor in the occupied territory itself.\"\nDeportations were not carried out for the purpose of forced labor but for political reasons. The assignment to work was the inevitable legal consequence of the residence of these deported persons in Germany. The actual fact of labor assignment constitutes, therefore, no violation of international law, and is therefore no war crime; it may however, eventually be an offense against humanity.\nIn the trial against POHL and others the Military Tribunal II sees the distinguishing criterium of slavedom in the fact that men are deprived of their liberty by coercion and without any legal process47). This definition does not apply to the so-called \"Absiedler\" (deportees). For these had lost their homeland but not their personal liberty. The camps of the VOMI were no concentration camps. There was no barbed wire and no guarding. The emigrants could move freely within and without the camps. But as they were in Germany they were subject to labor conscription just like any other person residing in this country. Such a general labor conscription is not against the law. In fact, it has been newly established by the Control Council for Germany, in 1946.48) If the assignment of a deportee were to be punished as slave labor in every case, ever employer, every small German peasant or artisan who employed a deportee would be punishable, even if he had treated him just like his own laborers, or even just like his own family. That would lead to that kind of collective responsibility, which amonst other things, the verdict against POHL objects to.49) Therefore the question can only be whether the labor assignment of ------------------47) POHL Transcript, page 8065 f. 48) LORENZ Exhibit 46 49) POHL Transcript, page 8113.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5043, "page_number": "5036", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "the deportees took place in a humane manner. In this respect, the Prosecution has not produced any relevant evidence material. Even the statement of witness KASEL does not reveal that the deportees were forced to work, or treated during their work, in an inhumane manner. On the other hand, the evidence material of the Defense shows, that the deportees were treated in the sane manner, as the re-settlers, with respect to labor assignment. 50) In this connection, the statement of witness ELERMEIER about his visit in a Slovene Camp together with LORENZ is rather interesting. According to his statement, the Slovenes not only liked to work, but they even were envied by the German laborers, because, owing to the lower costs for their board and lodging, they were better off than their German comrades.51) The same picture appears from a whole series of state tents in the various industry trials in Nuernberg.\nThere can be no question of any slave labor by the Germans from Russia; for instance, the domestic servants, or female interpreters. It may be sufficient to point out the statement of witness PIEGER, 52) who unmistakable declared that those Germans from Russia were most eager to get a position in the Reich, and that many more persons volunteered for work in the Reich and that many more persons volunteered for work in the Reich than could actually be taken care of. Although certain complaints resulted in one single case of labor assignment of Germans from Russia in the airplane industry, complaints which, owing to the conditions in 1944, in the last stage of the war, and under the effect of uninterrupted air-attacks and gigantic destructions, could not be avoided at all, nevertheless the VOMI immediately took action as soon as it got knowledge of them.53) The Prosecution reproaches defendant LORENZ and the VOMI with having participated in the military conscription of inhabitants of the occupied territories.\nArticle 23 of the Hague Convention directs:\n\"It is also prohibited to the belligerent to force members of the opposite party to participate in the war enterprises against their own country.\"\n---------------------50) Statements KLINGSPORN, Transcript, page 2953, f. ELLERMEIER, Transcript, page 2910, LORENZ, Exhibits 12, 14, 17, 55, 56, 57, 78, 79.\n51) Statement ELERMEIER, Transcript, page 2910. 52) Statement PIEGER, Transcript page 2933, and following 53) Prosecution Document, Exhibit 293, 294, in Volume V D.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5044, "page_number": "5037", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "besides, article 45 directs:\n\"It is forbidden to force the population of an occupied territory to render the oath of allegiance to the hostile power.\"\nHence, it is merely forbidden to force members of the opposite party; i.e. members of an enemy state to war service. Therefore all military conscriptions which took place in Hungry, Rumania and Slovakia may be left out of consideration, because these states were not hostile to Germany, but allied with Germany. Consequently there is no violation of International Law, neither is there any violation of the principles of humanity apparent.\nThe conscriptions in Croatia and Serbia, were carried out in territories which were parts of the Yugoslav state. But Croatia was not an occupied territory in the sense of Article 45 of the Hague Convention. After the war against Yugoslavia, Croatia had established itself as an independent state in compliance with the desire of a considerable mart of its population, which at all times had shown a strong tendency towards political autonomy and independence. The Coratian state had been recognizer by the German government. Croatia was not under German military administration and therefore was not an occupied territory in the sense of the Hague Convention.\nBesides, the entire contention of the Prosecution regarding the participation of the VOMI in military conscriptions is irrelevant for the foil owing reasons: The evidence has proved that the VOMI was not empowered to carry out military draftings; that neither did it foster such draftings, but only considered it as its task, to protect the German Ethnic folk groups under its care from illegal or excessive military conscription. Lorenz and the VOMI most definitely held the opinion that the conscription of Ethnic Germans of foreign nationality was only to take place on a legal basis; i.e. after the conclusion of state treaties and that the conscription on this basis was carried out in a manner which did not endanger the existence of the Ethnic Group. Furthermore, the VOMI advocated a regulation of the allotments and pensions to the families of \n the soldiers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5045, "page_number": "5038", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Their whole interest, therefore, belonged to the ethnic group but not to the obtaining of the highest possible number of conscripted laborers, without regard to the legal situation. It is understandable that LORENZ expressed his joy about the fact that the ethnic Germans uttered the wish to serve in the German Amy. Neither does volunteering or the acceptance of this volunteering in any way offend against the Hague Convention, because the latter only forbids the compulsion for military service of members of the opposite party. But the VOMI, and LORENZ in particular, always opposed the exertion of any illegal pressure -- as far as such a thing should have occurred at all -- and they did so with success as is proved especially by the conclusion of the so-called eight-point agreement between LORENZ and General BERGER. 54) All the Prosecution documents can be invalidated on the basis of this attitude of LORENZ' and the VOMI's with regard to the problem of the conscription of ethnic Germans -- an attitude which has been confirmed by the witnesses.\nAs far as the VOMI has also been reproached with robbery and spoliation it must be stated first that the VOMI had no part whatever in the main complex, namely the Polish property.\nThe VOMI had no jurisdiction whatever on the basis of the so-called decree on the treatment of property of members of the former Polish State, dated 17 September 1940. In connection with the re-settlement, the activity of the VOMI was limited to the transportation of the re-settlers and their accommodation in camps. It had no influence at all on all the measures which later on were connected with the settling of the re-settlers, nor could it arrogate for itself such an influence and therefore cannot be held responsible ----------------------54) Statements LORENZ, Transcr. p. 2781 ff., KUBITZ, Transcr. p. 2996 ff., ELLERMEIER, Transcr.\np. 2918 ff., BERGER Transcr. p. 3858 f.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5046, "page_number": "5039", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The Prosecution evidently also considers the requisitioning of estates for the reception of the re-settlers as robbery and spoliation. Requisitioned were hotels, schools, hostels, institutions, empty castles and also buildings which were the property of the Church. But the Prosecution,with an obvious tendency, only submitted documents which refer to the confiscation of Church property.54a There is no proof that any property outside the old Reich was confiscated by the VOMI for such purposes. Therefore there can be no offense against the provisions of international law, nor any war crime. Therefore it only remains to be examined whether a crime against humanity can be assumed. To ask that question is to deny it. The Prosecution documents originated in November 1940, i.e. at a time when great multitudes of re-settlers were streaming into the Reich, whose accommodation was exactly a command of humanity. The temporary use of ecclesiastical institutions was obvious because, owing to their set-up, they were particularly well suited for the accommodation of re-settlers and because it is exactly a task of the Church and of the ecclesiastical institutions to serve for charitable purposes. It is quite irrelevant in this connection whether or not the provisions of the German law concerning general requisitions were fully complied with in all cases of such a requisition. Under no circumstances is there an offense against humanity. The Verdict of the American Military Tribunal IV, in the case against FLICK a.o.55) arrived at the same conclusion for reasons of law, I quote:\n\"Not even under a proper construction of the section of Law 10, relating to crimes against humanity, do the facts warrant conviction.\nThe \"atrocities and offenses\" listed therein \"murder and extermination\", etc.\nare all offenses against the person. Property is not mentioned.\nUnder the doctrine of ejusdem generis the catch-all words \"other persecutions\" must be deemed to include only such as affect the - - - - - -54a) I disagree with Rebuttal Doc.\nExh. 873, because it is not a refuting of any evidence material produced by the defense.\nThe Document merely refers to the return, not to the requi sitioning of property.\n55) FLICK Prot. page 11013 \n life and liberty of the oppressed peoples\".Expropriation of capital is therefore not a crime against humanity.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5047, "page_number": "5040", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The Vomi has further been charged with receiving the possessions of Jews, whose unfortunate fate ended in a concentration camp, especially their clothes and bedlinen and making use of same for the re-settlers. What has been proved, however, is merely the fact that the Vomi received a small amount of such objects though they had not been requested. The by far greater proportion of clothing and bedlinen, mentioned in the documents of the Prosecution, was destined for the Ethnic Germans in Russia, who were not cared for by the Vomi Berlin, but by the agency HOFFMEYER, which was subordinated only to local authorities, in Russia itself. Whether these shipments did in fact reach the agency HOFFMEYER is not evident from the documents of the Prosecution.\nThe 10-12 wagons, cars, which were shipped to Vomi in Bad Berka, had been termed \"stolen goods and receiver-goods56). It was therefore quite impossible for any one not initiated, to find out the origin of the stuff. Evidence has clearly shown that LORENZ had not been informed about this matter57). In the same way, neither he, nor any other employee of the Vomi was informed about a shipment of 15,000 watches58) which evidently did not even take place59). Therefore, no reproach can be levelled against LORENZ, in connection with the socalled operation REINHARDT.\nVIII Finally, LORENZ has been charged with having been a member of a criminal organization.\nAs Obergruppenfuehrer, LORENZ held a high position in the SS. The SS has been charged by the IMT with having participated in the persecution and extermination of Jews, brutalities - - - - - - 56) Pros. Doc. 572, 580 in Vol. XIII B. LORENZ Exh. 8 57) Statement LORENZ Record page 2792 Exh. 8 Statement ELLERMEIER Record page 2907 Statement HAGEN, Record page 4729-4731 58) Pros.\nExh. 629 in Vol. XIV B ELLERMEIER Record page 2907 59) Statement LORENZ Record page 2792 \n and executions in concentration camps, abuses with regard to the administration of occupied territories, the carrying out of slave-labor programs, the maltreatment, mistreatment, of PW's and their executions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5048, "page_number": "5041", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "A member of the SS is only punishable if he had knowledge of these criminal intentions. This knowledge must be proved by the Prosecution, according to the verdict of the American Tribunal II in the case against POHL and others.60). The Prosecution, was mainly satisfied with proving the high position and rank that was held by my client in the SS. This, however, does not mean that the Prosecution is absolved from the obligation to bring proof to the effect that my client did indeed have that knowledge, as, particularly in the case of LORENZ, high rank did not coincide with special political influence or political recognition. The witnesses von dem BACH ZELEWSKI and WOLFF, who themselves were highranking SS officers in important positions, testified that LORENZ' political position was an unimportant one. The relationship between LORENZ and HIMMLER was by no means a happy one; on the contrary, it deteriorated already during the pre-war period and did not improve since. In particular, due to his ecclesiastical attitude, did LORENZ have serious arguments with HIMMLER62). I might say that he belongs to the very few SS leaders who did not secede from the church, who, on the contrary, stressed their ecclesiastical attitude. As a result, it is unlikely, if we assume that LORENZ enjoyed HIMMLER's special confidence. The contrary was the case, as is evident by LORENZ' testimony63). As LORENZ neither in his private, nor in his official capacity as the leader of the Vomi did participate in any criminal activities of the SS, he could not have had knowledge of any criminal actions of the SS as determined by the IMT, other than by having been informed of such by a - - - - - - - 61) Statements von dem BACH ZELEWSKI, Record page 428f., WOFF Record page 2010 ff.\n62) Statement by LORENZ Record page 2754 f 63) Record page 2744 ff \n third party.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5049, "page_number": "5042", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "In this connection, the Prosecution has not indicted him with any crime other than participation in HIMMLER's Posener speech. This, however, happens to be a very poor piece of evidence. LORENZ himself, as well as the Defendant HILDEBRANDT and the witnesses EHBRECHT and BERGER, stated in the witness stand and their testimony was substantiated, that the text of the Posener speech as contained in Pros. Doc. Exh. 92, Vol. 3 was not a correct wording, that HIMMLER did not read it, but that he spoke from memory, and that the statements attributed to HIMMLER and contained in the Pros. Doc. pertaining, in particular, to persecution of Jews, had not been made, in this form64). Thus, also the Posener Speech cannot have given LORENZ a clear knowledge of the crimes of the SS, such as is demanded before anyone can be convicted of participation in criminal organizations. LORENZ did not hear any other speeches that HIMMLER made, for instance in Metz or in Bad Schachen.\nThere is the additional factor, that a personal impression of LORENZ conveys exactly the oppositeof those qualitiesone is led to expect of any member of the SS, according to the definition of the IMT verdict. LORENZ opposed irregular acts. Brutalities, persecutions for racial reasons, murder and ill treatments were, owing to his ecclesiastical and humane attitude and willingness to help others, which has so often been praised by various witnesses, contrary to his nature. He did not send anyone to concentration camps, on the contrary, he has released quite a few from such camps, and in particular, did he use his influence for many persecuted Jews65).\nThis honorable Court is no denazification panel. Its task is the punishment of criminals, and it is to punish membership in criminal organizations, if the member of the said organization has himself participated in the crime or if he had approved of it by possessing - - - - - - - 64) Lorenz record page 2764 HILDEBRANDT Record page 3981 of EHBRACHT Record page 3829/30 BERGER Record page 3849 ff, 3871 65) LORENZ Exh.\n2, 3, 53, 74, 75, Statement LORENZ Record page 2776 \n previous knowledge of the crime about to be committed or if he remained a member after its commission.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5050, "page_number": "5043", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Therefore, punishment is to be meted out for a guilty knowledge66). It would be in contradiction to these doctrines if the Defendant LORENZ, who in his official capacity acted in unobjectionable way and who as a human being and as an official always opposed the tendencies of the SS determined as criminal according to the IMT verdict, would be punished, merely because he joined this organization from a point of view of pure idealism and remained in it for the same reason.\nI have therefore come to the conclusion that the Defendant LORENZ is not guilty within any count of the indictment.\nDR. WERNER:I am pleased that I wasable to leave some time from the allotted time to me over. However, I would like to ask permission to state to the Court the following: I have divided my plea into two parts, one part which I wanted to read and another part which is only an evaluation of the evidence submitted, and was therefore to be submitted only for reading by the Tribunal and was supposed to be submitted only in writing to the Tribunal. Unfortunately, by the ruling of the Tribunal, it was impossible up to now that the second part, that the so-called part brief was to be translated. Therefore, I should like to request the Tribunal to give me permission to have the second part of this brief also Translated.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will be translated and delivered to the Court. You have filed it with the Translation Department, have you?\nDR. WERNER:Yes. Yes, it is filed.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.) - - - - 66) HAENSEL \"Das Organisationsverbrechen\", 1947 page 41", "speakers": [ "DR. WERNER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5051, "page_number": "5044", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Take your seats please.\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next item.\nDR. DOETLER:Dr. Doetler for the defendant Brueckner.\nMay it please your Honors.\nThe prosecution states that my client, BRUECKNER, has committed crimes against humanity, war-crimes and has, as a professional SS man, been a member of a criminal organization.\nAs evidence it has presented captured documents, only.\nThe prosecution has examined many witnesses who have watched BRUECKNER's activity for many years but ut has called none of them to the witness-stand. It could not act otherwise as none of the witnesses examined by it had confirned the statements of the prosecution. We, therefore, have very good reason for examining with special care the incriminating evidence against BRUECKNER. It consists almost without exception of isolated documents which, by selecting them from the voluminous material available are thus presented without due consideration of their extent. It has for instance, presented letters in reply and BRUECKNER's considered opinions without submitting the relevant letters and reports to which they refer. Important basic orders and decisions of the deputizing chiefs of the VOMI - SS-Brigadefuehrer Dr. BEHRENS to BRUECKNER are missing, and so on.\nThis does not mean that the Allied troops have access only to these captured documents which have been presented by the prosecution; the defense counsels have no doubt that all the documents giving information about BRUECKNER's activity in the VOMI - he himself had given strict orders not to destroy them - were handed over to the American troops and are at present, no doubt, deposited in the central archives in Berlin to which the defense however, has no access. The defense has also, up to the present, been unable to put in a request for the missing documents as it cannot find cut how the documents which are kept there are filed, numbered and registered.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. DOETLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5052, "page_number": "5045", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The defense has, therefore, tried to find another alternative. As one can see from one look at the document books of the prosecution, the NO numbers mentioned there do not run consecutively. Thus it seemed the obvious thing to do to ask the prosecution for the missingNO numbersat the same time claiming that they contained certain evidence for the defense. - This attempt was also without success. This disadvantage for the defendant BRUECKNER is all the more serious as the prosecution and there is a difference from the German criminal procedure - is presenting in court only such documents which are incriminating for the defendant. Thus these among the captured documents which might have served as evidence for the defense are being held back. Such a procedure would have been without harmful effect only if the defense had had complete knowledge of the whole documentary material on hand. Under prevailing circumstances all the defense could do was to call witnesses and present affidavits. The defense was, therefore, especially anxious, when the witnesses were examined, and especially when the defendant was examined on his own behalf, to get information about the evidence for the defense contained in the captured documents and to register them both according to nature and contents. The transcript shows that the prosecution has never pre tested against these attempts. According to the views of the defense this means an acknowledgment of the fact that these documents were held back.\nAccording to my views the evidence of the presucetion against BRUECKNER has proved the following: 1) The 47 year old defendant, married and father of three children who had been dismissed from his position in 1933 as an official employee in a labor office after the seizure of power by the NSDAP in accordance with the law for the reconstruction of the civil service because of his political unreliability, was drafted into the VOMI on 9 November 1939 as an emergency measure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5053, "page_number": "5046", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "BRUECKNER had neither sought this employment nor did it help him economically. As an official employee, he had to follow the order issued to him by the president of the police in Berlin to enter the services of the VOMI just as though he would have been called up for active military service. Had he refused to comply with this emergency service order issued by the police he would have been severely punished for refusal to work and would have been taken to a concentration camp. With a view to this generally known situation he, as many thousands of other people, had no other choice he had to work in the office to which the emergency service order had directed him. He Was in the same position as all other people under the emergency service order and, during the following period, he held a position in the VOMI which caused him to be put on trial before this Tribunal after the collapse of the German Army. 2) The indictment claims that BRUECKNER by helding the position of Chief of Ant VI of the VOMI, had made himself liable to punishment, He held this position only from 1943 on and by no means immediately after his drafting into the emergency labor-service. Only a very few documents produced by the prosecution contain any information about this activity carried on by him within the framework of basic instructions on the part of his superiors. By far the greater part of the prosecution-exhibits date from the years between 1939 and 1942. During this period, up to April - May 1941 he held a subordinate position in the resettlement command (Kommando) and after that up to end of 1942, he was one of the \"Referenten\" and section chiefs of the deputychief of the VOMI, Dr. BEHRENDS, without a strictly defined sphere of duties and without authority to make decisions. He had to ask for Dr. BEHRENDS orders in each individual case.\nThe statement of the prosecution that BRUECKNER acted as liaison officer between the VOMI and other offices in connection with resettlement activities and deportations is wrong and has not \n been proved.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5054, "page_number": "5047", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "1.\nThe defendant BRUECKNER was never one of the leading personalities in the VOMI. Very few of his fellow workers even knew of his existence. Up to the beginning of this trial he was completely unknown to the public in Germany and abraod. Neither press nor radio reported about his activities before. He was simply one of that vast group of men, who dutifully and conscientiously carried out the tasks which had been imposed upon them. His fellow workers and these among the group of members of a German minority, which was under his care, with whom he came into personal contact, appreciated his ready helpfulness and care. They respected his humane and tolerant attitude. His open adherence to the principle of individual and free decision. In connection with this it is characteristic that when he first took over, he re-christened the former \"referat\" \"Work for the Protection of Ethnic Germans\" (Voelkische Schutzarbeit) \"Work for the Promotion of Comradship\" (Kameradschaftsarbeit). He proved to his fellow workers in Amt VI of the VOMI the justification of his working principle:\nLove for one's own Folkdom.\nRespect for Alien Ethnic Groups (Volkstum) Rejection of all compulsory measures.\nThis personal and official attitude of BRUECKNER's makes it understandable that the prosecution was unable to find witnesses against BRUECKNER. It finds its strongest confirmation in the statement of the defense-witness, PURM. At what time during all these war-crime trials was there a man like the Jew, PRUM, whose family had been gassed in Auschwitz, who would have gone into the witness stand and testified for the defendant? The defense thought, therefore, that it could dispense - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1) Prosecution exhibit 30 and 32 (affidavits SCHWARZENBERGER and CREUTZ) Engl.\nTr. Translater's note: Engl. transcript page No. missing. German transcript 2268-72 (cross-examination of SCHWARZENBERGER) Engl. transcript 2373-2377) German transcript 2054-55 (Cross-exam. CREUTZ) English t. 2148-2149) German transcript 563 (Testimony prosecution witness EHLICH (E.t.p.57) German transcript 2830 (Testimony KLINGSPORN (E.t.p. 2971) \n with any further evidence concerning the basic attitude of BRUECKNER in his work for the VOMI.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5055, "page_number": "5048", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "There can remain no doubt about this.\nThe prosecution documents can in no way abscure this picture of his personality, for anybody who takes a reasonable point of view and, in cases of apparent discrepencies with this basic attitude, takes into consideration the usual contrast between principles and deliberate measures of expediency, which is unavoidable in every sphere of life. In BRUECKNER the appeal of his conscience and commonsense was not even silenced by the repeated attacks which the Reich Main Security Office launched against him because of his basic attitude which was denounced by them as intolerable, and not even when his fellow worker, Professor SCHOEPKE was sent to jail on HIMMLER's order because of this very sane attitude. 3) Under sub-section 11 of the indictment BRUECKNER is charged, in connection with prosecution exhibits 707, 712, 723, 724, Dec. Book VIII-D and 831, with having taken part in the abduction of children of alien nationality or of having participated in it by giving his consent.\nThese documents which have all been separated from their context are, however, unable to support the statements of the prosecution. They merely prove that the defendant did not hear of the existence of the Slovenian children until a long time after they had been taken into the VOMI camps, i.e. in February 1943. 2) He had nothing at all to do with the seizure, transport, housing or feeding of these children.\n3) - - - - - - - - - - 2) German tr. 2715 (testimony of the defendant BRUECKNER) Engl. tr. 2848) - - - - - - - - - - 3) German transl. 2718-19 (testimony BRUECKNER) (E.t. 2853-2854) Prosecution exhibit 36, Dec.\nBook II B Table of organization of VOMI, which proves that XI is competent for this.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5056, "page_number": "5049", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "However, after he had been informed about the presence of these children who in Corps Area XVIII were subordianted to the full jurisdictional powers of the Higher SS and Police Leader, he intervened energetically despite the lack of his own competency in order to reunite the children with their relatives, in case the latter were still alive.)4 The event started in exhibit 712 of the prosecution is not known to the defendant BRUECKNER.\nDetails should be found in the reports and directives not submitted with this document. The contents of the teletype messages shows that BRUECKNER was engaged with the forwarding of reports and orders. Whether and which measures had been ordered by Himmler is not made clear.\nThe prosecution exhibits 437,439 and 440 dealing with German orphans from the Banat, became known to BRUECKNER only in the course of this trial. The documents themselves do not furnish any kind of clue sifficient enough to raise any doubt, as to the accuracy of BRUECKNER's testimony.5) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4 Prosecution exhibit 711, document book VIII B Germans transcript Page 2819-20 (testimony KLINGSPORN) (English transcr.\np. 2958German transcript p. 2717-18 (Testimony BRUECHMER) (Engl. transcript p. 2852-2853) German transcript p. 2638, 2657-58 (testimony LORENZ) (Engl. transcr. p. 2768, 2788-2789) German transcript p. 2773 (Testimony ELLERMLIER) (Engl. transcr. p. 2911) German transcript p. 2763, 2765 (Testimony SCHAFHAUSER) (Engl. transcript p. 2902, 2904) German transcr. p. 2924 (Testimony of witness LORENZ (Engl. transcript p. 3058* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5) German transcr.\npage 2818/19 (Testimony BRUECKNER) (Engl.\ntranscr. page 2853-2854) \n All in all, it might be said that the prosecution did not fulfil its obligation to furnish proof in such a way as to exclude any reasonable doubt.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5057, "page_number": "5050", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The conduct of BRUECKNER in this case only confirms his basic attitude as described by him.\n4) The subsection 12, abortion, no documents have been submitted by the prosecution against my client and therefore it did not prove his guilt.\n5) Whereas no charges are made against BRUECKNER concerning subsection 13, kidnapping of infants of Eastern workers 14, punishment for sexual intercourse he is charged with hampering reproduction of enemy nationals according to subsection 15. As evidence the prosecution documents 419, 832, 833 and 834 are introduced.\nProsecution exhibit 419 is the transcript of a conference held on the Reichministry of Jutice, made subsequently by a participant in that conference under the chairmaship of Ministerialdirektor ALSTOETTER, who was acquitted of the charges of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Military Tribunal III. Thus, the prosecution did not introduce, as one would. expect, the official minutes of the conference in the Reich Ministry of Justice, but a memorandum written after the conference by a member of an office of the Reich Main Race and Settlement Office. These notes may be correct, but they may just as well contain errors, or be incomplete. The course of the conference was described by ALTSTOETTER in his affidavit, BRUECKNER Exhibit, No. 12. It shows on the one hand that the notes of the participant in the conference contain quite important commissions and errors. On the other hand it establishes irrefutably that BRUECKNFR's affidavit is true. (German transcript page 2719-20, Engl. transcript page 2853 - 55). In which he maintained that the VOMI had no authority in the discussed problems and that he clearly and distinctly in the presence of all participants spoke against the contemplated measures.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5058, "page_number": "5051", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The other prosecution exhibits 832, 833 end 834 introduced by the prosecution during the cross-examination of BRUECKNER do not furnish any definite proof either. They concern some of the events and are incomplete in themselves. The documents are not signed, Not even the prosecution claims that they had been drawn up by BRUECKNER. The documents deal with measures for the handling of which the VOMI and BRUECKNER not only were competent but which he (BRUECKNER) always emphatically opposed, as has been confirmed by all witnesses. 6) Consequently, the prosecution has not proved that BRUECKNER was guilty of hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals, insofar as the term participation may be interpreted according to Control Council Law.\n5). Concerning the forced evacutaion and resettlement of populations according to subsection 16, the prosecution excludes such resettlements which were carried out by virtue of valid state agreements, although without specifying those resettlements in detail. 6). German transcr. P. 2748, 2755-56 (testimony BRUECKNER) (English transcript. 2886, 2892-94). German transcript. p. 2924-25 (testimony of the witness LORENZ) (Engl. Transcr. p. 3058-59) BRUECKNER exhibit No. 14. German transcr. 2750. 2752-54 (testimony BRUECKNER) Engl. transcr. 288789, 2891-92. German transcript page 2922-23 (testimony of the witness LORENZ) ( Engl. transcr. 3057-58). German transcr. p. 2930 (testimony PURM) Engl. transcr. p. 3063).\nBRUECKNER was subordinate assistant at the time of the resettlement of the German minority from the areas of Wolhynia-Galizia and the Narew, according to the agreement he was a assistant during the negotiations concerning the resettlement of the German minority from Bessarabia and Northern Bukowina, representative of the VOMI at the time of the resettlement of the German minority from Lithuania, according to the agreement and asssisted in the drafting of the technical part of the agreement \n concerning the resettlement of the German minority from Croatia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5059, "page_number": "5052", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": ". In all these agreements and at the time of their execution it had been stipulated that the members of the German minority in question were given an opportunity to deliver before a parity commission, voluntary resettlement declarations, if they so desired. Because of the fact that the prosecution did not introduce any kind of evidence contesting the validity of these resettlements, which had been carried out pursuant to the agreement it is hardly necessary to discuss the situation with regard to concepts of international law. 7). German transcript page 2698, 2721, 2738 (testimony BRUECKNER) Engl. Transcr. P. 2830-31 2855. 2875). German transcript p. 2623, 2625, 2627, 2663 (testimony LORENZ) (Engl. transcr. p. 2752, 2755, 2758, 2793). German transcript page 2780 (testimony ELLERMEIER) (Engl. transcr. p.2918). German transcript p. 2826, 2829 (testimony KLINGSPORN) (Engl. transcript. p. 2967, 2969). German transcript p. 2884 (testimony RADUNSKI) (Engl. transcript p. 3022). German transcript page 424 (testimony BACHZELEWSKI) (Engl. transcr. 428). German transcript p. 359 (testimony WIRSICH) (Engl. transcript. 363-364). BRUECKNER Exhibits No. 1, 2 and 4.\nIt remains only to point out that BRUECKNER as a non-jurist was of the opinion that his activity in these resettlement operations was in accordance with the concepts of international law and that he was not aware of any essential facts which would have given him cause to recognize his conduct as a criminal one. He considered the resettlements to be relief operations for the German minorities to save them from total extermination. His colaboration was based on a humane attitude and readiness to help which assistance he did not deny to persons not belonging to the German minority who asked to be taken along in such resettlement operations, stressing the fact that their very lives were endangered in view of their political opposition to Bolsehivism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5060, "page_number": "5053", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "BRUECKNER; who like all defendants of the resettlement - Kommandos, was always under the surveillance of the NKWD, the former GPU, granted these requests. He acted in that way contrary to the orders issued by HIMMLER as Reich Commissar and jeopardizing seriously his own life. In that manner he saved the lives of human beings of foreign nationality and citizenship, Lithuanians, Jews, Swiss, Swedes etc., and took care of repatriation measures to their countries of origin. They were humanbeings unknown to him, because because of the fact that they needed his help in order to save their lives, he rendered then assistance. Therefore, he, as an individual, did exactly what RAPHAEL LEMKIN, the UNO and the VIIIth conference for the unification of penal law at Brussels from 10-11 July 1947, tried to achieve by legislative means, namely the prevention of murder for ideological (weltanschaulichen) reasons.\nIt remains, therefore, merely to examine to what extent the defendant BRUECKNER participated in 1.) The carrying out of the resettlement of German minorities;\na) from Southeast Europe and Russia, as well as;\nb) from France. 2.) The evacuations of Alsatians from Alsace, Lorrainians from Lorraine, Luxembourgians from Luxembourg as well as Slvenes from Yugoslavia, Ad 1.) The so-called resettlement of the German minority from Southeast Europe concerned a flight in the face of the advancing Red Army.\nProsecution exhibit 244 introduced against BRUECKNER shows that he had to take care in the territory of the Reich of these people who fled to Germany, as far as they were not accomodated in the VOMI camps. In the scope of his department - comradeship work -, (Kameradschaftsarbeit) he had to take care of their accomodation and financial support and had to furnish them with identification certificates. 8) 8) German transcr. p. 2722-23 (testimony BRUECKNER) (Engl. transcr. p. 2855-57). German transcr. p. 2639 (testimony LORENZ) (Engl. transcr. p. 2709).", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5061, "page_number": "5054", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "German transcr. p. 635 (testimony LORENZ) (Engl. transcr. p. 650-51). German transcr.p. 2778-79 (testimony ELLERMEIER) (Engl. transcr. p. 2917). German transcr. p. 2833-34 (testimony KLINGSPORN) (Engl. transcr. p. 2973-2976). BRUECKNER Exhibit No. 2.\nAccording to the irrefutable results of the evidence, the so-called resettlement of the German minority from Russia was a flight in the face of the Red Army. These people wanted to go to Germany voluntarily and at that, by virtue of their right to repatriation. It was not necessary for any German authority to induce them or even to coerce them to return to their old home country. Thus it can be explained that the prosecution was not able to find despite a public announcement in the press, even one member of the German minority from Russia, hundreds of thousands of whom are living now in the Western zones, who allegedly was evacuated by force to Germany. BRUECKNER neither instigated nor coerced the resettlement of these refugees nor did he participate in carrying out of these measures by directing, or ordering, them, or in on executive capacity.\nThe exhibits of the prosecution 258, 259, 260, 745, and 747 show that he was active in individual causes as an official for forwarding telegrams and letters. The handling of these questions, however, insofar as the VOMI participated in them at all, never belonged to his own duties or to those of Amt VI. 9) - - - - - - - - - 9). German transcript 2633-34 (testimony LORENZ), Engl. transcript 2764 German transcr.\n2770 (testimony ELLERMEIER), Engl. transcript. 2908 German transcr.\n2770 (Testimony RADUNSKI), Engl. transcr. 3024 - 25, German transcr.\n2920 (Testimony of the witness LORENZ), Engl. transcr.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5062, "page_number": "5055", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "see also German transcript 2592 -95, 2600 (testimony of Professor UNRUH), Engl. Transcr. 2719-23, 2727-28. German transcr. 2790, 2794 (Testimony of Prelate PIEGER), Engl. transcript 2929-30, 2933-34. German transcr. 2723-24, (Testimony of the defendant BRUECKNER), Engl. transcr. 2859-61, 2876-79.\nOnly the teletype message dated 3 March 1943 from the defendant BRUECKNER to Dr. WALLRABE in Smolensk Prosecution Exhibit No.746seems incompatible with the finding that the German minorities without any coercion on the part of German offices had fled before the Red Army and were then repatriated to Germany.\nIf the Prosecution would have submitted the entire set of documents and, in particular, the teletype message dated 2 March 1943, to which BRUECKNER refers in Prosecution Exhibit No.746, - it might be a question of procuding DocumentNO-5333which has not been submitted - then it wouldhave appeared immediately ad unequivocally that Prosecution Exhibit No. 746 was made up in this particular form by the deputy leader of the VOMI, Dr. BEHRENDS, in order to force army offices refusing to release members of German minorities working for them as interpreters, etc., for voluntary repatriation, to do so. BRUECKNER passed on this teletype message by order of BEHRENDS only for the protection of the German minority. He was not chief of the small VOMI Einsatzkommando Northern Russia and Central Russia. These groups were directly subordinate to Dr. BEHRENDS as confirmed by the leaders of these Kommandos in their affidavits, BRUECKNER Exhibits No. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. He had no power to issue instructions of any kind or in any form to them. He only know that they had the duty to save members of the German minorities from being annihilated in the combat or partisan area. Neither had BRUECKNER official or personal contacts with the SD - Einsatzgruppen. Only in two cases did he write to them as channels of communication as prescribed by the distribution list of the communication net work and because the VOMI \n Einsatzkommandos did not have their own receiving or transmitting stations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5063, "page_number": "5056", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "10) Ad-2.) Re-Settlement from France.\nAs Prosecution Exhibit No.282- Document Book V D - the Prosecution has submitted a copy of a letter to the Foreign Office which contains a copy of an ordinance issued by HIMMLER concerning re-settlement of Ethnic Germans from France. This letter carried the type-written signature of the defendant BRUECKNER. It appears that the Prosecution wants to conclude from this fact that he had a decisive influence on the implementation of this re-settlement. But nothing could be more erronous than this conclusion. On the contrary, BRUECKNER had been expressly commissioned by Dr. BEHRENDS, deputy chief of VOMI, who had reserved for himself the handling of the western questions, to prevent this HIMMLER measure with all tactical means, which the VOMI considered to be wrong.\nIf the entire set of documents had been submitted, this fact would simply have appeared from the instruction given by Dr. BEHRENDS. But it appears sufficiently also from the Prosecution Exhibits No. 280 and 285 in Document Book V D. These two documents prove that in pursuance of the task given him by Dr. BEHRENDS, BRUECKNER affected the intervention of the Foreign office in order to prevent the re-settlement. Therefore, BRUECKNER did not support the re-settlement of the German minority from France which HIMMLER had planned, on the contrary he opposed it. - - - - 10) German transcript 2724-27, 2732 (testimony BRUECKNER), Engl. trans cript 2860-64, 2869.\nGerman transcript 2632-33 (Testimony LORENZ), English transcript German transcript 2929 (Testimony PURM), Engl.\ntranscript 3063.\nGerman transcript 2793 (Testimony of Prelate PIEGER), English transcript 2931-2933.\nBRUECKNERExhibits No. 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.\nLORENZDocument No. 51.", "speakers": [ "LORENZ", "BRUECKNER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5064, "page_number": "5057", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Quite part from this he did not work in France, neither was he in charge of the Paris office of the VOMI. He had nothing to do with the care of the German minority in France.11) Neither washe concerned with the labor allocation of the Ethnic German from Northern France, Prosecution Exhibit No.828.12) Ad 3.) Evacuations from Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, and Yugoslavia.\nThe Prosecution has produced Prosecution Exhibits No. 269, 271, 275 Document Book VF - 693, 694, 695, 698, 699, and 703 - Document Book V G against BRUECKNER.\nAlso these are mostly individual documents which have been taken from the context. Each of these Prosecution Exhibits considered alone or all of then taken as a whole do not constitute consclusive evidence to the effect that BRUECKNER participated in planning, ordering, or implementing these evacuations. As a matter of fact the opposite has been established through the presentation of evidence by the Defense: He was a vehement opponent of such forced deportations. He was always called upon to prevent them when they had not yet been carried out. But if they had taken place he made an effort to bring about the return of the evacuees to their homes or an improvement of their situation. This - - - - 11) German transcript 2709-11 (Testimony BRUECKNER), English transcript German transcript 2714 (Testimony BRUECKNER), English transcript German transcript 2640 (Testimony LORENZ) English transcript 2770.\nGerman transcript 2873-74, 2880 (Testimony KUBITZ), English transcript 3012-13, 3018-19.\nGerman transcript 2895-98 (Testimony RADUNSKI), English transcript 3031-33.\nGerman transcript 2922 Testimony of the witness LORENZ.\nEnglish transcript 3057-58.\nBRUECKNERSExhibit No. 3 ad 4. 12) German transcript 2837 (Testimony KLINGSPORN), English transcript 2977-78.\nGerman transcript 2746, 2755, (Testimony BRUECKNER), English transcript 2884, 2892-93.", "speakers": [ "BRUECKNERS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5065, "page_number": "5058", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "attitude was well known and caused him considerable difficulties and personal risks.13) The evacuation of the Luxembourt people from Luxembourg for reasons of security was ordered in August 1942 by the Chief of Civil Administration and carried out by the police.\nMy client had nothing to do with the commitment of the Luxembourg people to VOMI camps. They were never subject to his authority.\nBRUECKNER was by order of Dr. BEHRENDS in Luxembourg only for two days in August 1941 in order to prevent an evacuation planned already at that time. This order was also found among the BRUECKNER's document but it has not been introduced. He carried it out in the only possible way, that is according to the advice given by Dr. BEHRENDS, by suggesting the establishment of a nationality register. But that had nothing to do with the evacuations subsequently effectuated as the evidence has proved - - - - - - 13) German transcript 591, 592, 600-601, 611, 612, 636, 712 (testimony EHLICH) English transcript 606, 607-608, 615-617, 627, 628, 651, 735.\nGerman transcript 241, 255, 258, (Testimony WIRSICH), English transcript 236, 253, 256.\nGerman transcript 1802 (Testimony STIER), English transcript 1885.\nGerman transcript 2921 (Testimony of the witness LORENZ), English transcript 3055.\nGerman transcript 2930 (Testimony PURM), English transcript 3063.\nGerman transcript 2881 (Testimony KUBITZ), English transcript 3019.\nGerman transcript 2898-99 (Testimony RADUNSKI), English transcript 3037-3039.\nGerman transcript 2831-32 (Testimony KLINGSPORN), English transcript 2971-73.\nGerman transcript 2774-75 (Testimony ELLERMEIER), English transcript 2912-13 German transcript 3019 (Testimony GROTZ).English transcript 3159 German transcript 2713, 2714, 2720-21, (Testimony BRUECKNER), English.\ntranscript 2846, 2847, 2854-2855.\nBRUECKNERDocuments No. 1 and 4.", "speakers": [ "BRUECKNER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5066, "page_number": "5059", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "incontestably. 14) Also the evacuations from Alsace were carried out by the chief of Civil Administration in agreement with HIMMLER.\nExhibit No. 275, Document Book V F, submitted by the Prosecution, is no proof of any participation by the defendant as a abettor. BRUECKNER's basic attitude against the evacuations prevailed in the discussion in the Main Staff Office described in this document on this occasion as it appears from the document itself he attempted a large scale sabotaging of this plan.15) The same tactical attitude adopted by BRUECKNER appears from Prosecution Exhibit No.694, Document Book V G, which the Prosecution has submitted as referring to BRUECKNER's participation in the evacuation of Lorraine.\nThis document which in itself is evidence of BRUECKNER's attitude of opposition has been fully confirmed by the subsequent evidence.16) - - - -14) German transcript 1117-34, 1155-56 (Testimony KASEL), Engl.\ntranscr. 1162, 1182, 1200-1201.\nProsecution Exhibit No.269, pp. 40-44.\nGerman transcript 1158 (Testimony METZGER), Engl transcr.\n1205.\nGerman transcript 713 (Testimony EHLICH), English transcr. 736.\nGerman transcript 2701-04, 2712, 2714 (Testimony BRUECKNER), Engl.\ntranscr. 2833-38, 2845, 2847.\nGerman transcr. 2572-73 (Testimony KUBITZ),Engl. transcr. 3011-12.\nGerman transcr. 2896 (Testimony RADUNSKI), English transcript 3033.\nGerman transcr. 2834-36 (Testimony KLINGSPORN), Engl. transcr. 2976-78.\nGerman transcript 2639-40 (Testimony LORENZ), Engl. transcr. 2768-70.\nGerman transcript 2745, 2754-55 (Testimony BRUECKNER, English transcr.\n2883, 2891-92.\nBRUECKNERExhibit No. 2. - - - - 15) German transcript 601, 741, 744 (Testimony EHLICH), Engl. transcr.\nGerman transcr. 1777-81, 1807-09, (Testimony DR. STIER), English transcr.\n1853-58, 1887-89.\nGerman transcr. 2873 (Testimony KUBITZ), Engl. transcr. 3012.\nGerman transcr. 2987 (Testimony GROTZ), Engl. transcr. 3121.\nGerman transcript 2897 (Testimony RADUNSKI), Engl. transcr. 3034 German transcript 2705-08 (Testimony BRUECKNER), Engl.\ntranscr.2838-42. - - - - 16) German transcript 1809 (Testimony Dr. Steier) English transcript 1889.\nGerman transcript 2713 (Testimony BRUECKNER), English transcript 2846.\nBRUECKNERExhibit No. 1 and 3.", "speakers": [ "BRUECKNER" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5067, "page_number": "5060", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Also in this connection the humane and helpful attitude of the defendant BRUECKNER towards non-Germans al ready demonstrated deserves special attention. Against the opposition of the Reich Main Security Office and the Chief of Civil Administration he made a successful effort to make it possible that the students of the Strassbourg University, who had been evacuated by the French to the interior of France at the beginning of the German-French war, could return to their old university.17) The defendant BRUECKNER is further accused by the Prosecution of having participated in the evacuation of the Slovenes, who were brought from Yugoslavia to VOMI camps in Germany, The Prosecution Exhibits No. 675, 676, 677, and 680 in Document Book V G, which have been produced against him in themselves show even detached from the context that he did not participate in the preparation, the ordering, or in the implement tation of these evacuations.\nIf all the documents had been introduced, the extensive presentation of evidence by the Defense would have become superfluous. It showed that BRUECKNER was not placed in charge of the Slovenes accommodated in the VOMI camps until the latter urged on improvement of the situation of the Slovenes and their repatriation, in which BRUECKNER was partly successful, as is shown in the Prosecution Exhibits 321, 322, 323, 324, 328, 327, 329, 330, 331 - Doc. Book V F.18) 6.) In subsection 17 of the Indictment BRUECKNER is charged with the participation in the compulsory Germanization of enemy nationals. - - - - 17) German transcript 1809-10 (Testimony Dr. STIER), English Transcript 18) G. Tr. 587, 588 (EHLICH) (Engl. Tr. 602, 603, 605)\nG.Tr. 2096, 2095, 2102-04 (Dr. BETHGE)(Engl. Tr. p. 2190, 2189, 2196-98)\nG.Tr. 2816, 2832-33 (KLINGSPORN) (Engl. Tr. p. 2955, 2973)\nG.Tr. 1810 (DR. STIER) (Engl. Tr. p. 1890)\nG.Tr. 2759 (SCHAFHAUSER)(Engl. Tr. p. 2897)\nG.Tr. 2773 (ELLERMEIER) (Engl. Tr. p. 2997)\nG.Tr. 2889 (RADUNSKI) (Engl. Tr. P. 3027)\nG.Tr. 2903 (REDEL) (Engl. Tr. p. 3039-40)\nG.Tr. 3016 (GROTZ) (Engl Tr. p. 3156)\nG.Tr. 2636 (LORENZ) (Engl. Tr. p. 2766)\nG.Tr. 2714-18 2716-17 (BRUECKNER) (Engl. Tr. p. 2847-2853) BRUECKNER exhibits Nos.\n1 and 2.", "speakers": [ "G." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5068, "page_number": "5061", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The presentation of evidence has established that neither the VOMI nor BRUECKNER participated in the preparation of and conference on the German People's List.19) These are preliminary negotiations took place at the end of 1940 or in the beginning of 1941.\nDuring that period BRUECKNER was in Lithuania. - -- - - 19) G. Tr. 271 (WIRSICH testimony) Engl. Tr. 269 - 70)\nG.Tr. 941 (GOETZ testimony) (Engl. Tr. 980-81) \n Brueckner and the VOMI neither had anything to do with application of the German People's List and with the care of the group of persons belonging to groups III and IV.", "speakers": [ "G." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5069, "page_number": "5062", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "20) If the VOMI occasionally received a regulation concerning the German People's List for its information then it was filed in Amt VI of the VOMI, No actions were taken as is for instance shown by Exhibit 829 and Brueckner's adirective \"to the files\".21) No other sense was attached to the words of the VOMI table to organization with Amt VI \"German People's List.\"\nNeither did the competency with regard to the German People's List \"Ukraine\", rest with the VOMI but with the civil administration of the Ukraine.22) The Prosecution Exhibits 128 and 129 in Doc.\nBook IV B submitted against Brueckner bear the typewritten words \"signed Brueckner\". They show that the VOMI opposed the plan of a racial examination of the Russia Germans who had fled to Germany. The presentation of evidence has further shown that when Brueckner, in 1944, during his care of the Russia. Germans staying in the Reich territory, learned that non'Germans as well had been accepted into the German People's List by the civil administration in the Ukraine, he immediately and successfully urged a cancellation of these names.22 -------------------20) G. Tr. 345 (WIRSICH Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 347)\nG.Tr. 940 (GOETZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. P. 979)\nG.Tr. 1624 (GREIFELT Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 1692)\nG.Tr. 2732-33 (BRUECKNER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2869-71)\nG.Tr. 2780 (ELLERMEIER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2917-18)\nG.Tr. 2820, 2645 (LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2750 -51, 2776) Pros.\nExhs. 96,97, 98, 99 , 102, 103, 108, 109, 112, 113 in Doc.\nBook IVA 312 in Doc.\nBook V E 21) G. Tr. 2747 (BRUECKNER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2885)\nG.Tr. 2929 (PURM Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 3062) 22) Pros. Exh. 124, 130 in Doc. Book IV B\nG.Tr. 274 (WIRSICH Testimony) (Engl. Tr. 272 -273) \n In connection with the so-called racial Germans operation (Deutschstaemmigkeitsaktion) in the Government general the Prosecution in addition, introduced the Pros.", "speakers": [ "G." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5070, "page_number": "5063", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Exhibits 670 and 671 in Doc. Book V. G. the matter involved is a correspondence between the Immigration Center and the VOMI which concerns itself with a report by the Immigration Center. It proves that Brueckner had nothing to do with these measures which he sharply rejected. An opinion of later origin contained in the same Brueckner documents, which by its nature and content evidences more strongly his opposition was not introduced by the Prosecution.23) The Prosecution Exhibit223in Doc.\nBook IV B also shows that the VOMI was not competent for these measures.23) Neither can the Pros.\nExh. 709 in Doc. Book VIII D change anything with regard to this statement. As the document show in connection with the statement made by the defendant Brueckner on the witness stand German Transcript 2735 - the matter involved is a discussion or the guardianship for German orphans who came to Germany in their flight from the Red Army.\nBrueckner thus neither participated in the Germanization nor in the \"Regermanization procedure. Rather he was an opponent of any Germanization altogether. His refusal which was generally known resulted in considerable difficulties for him caused by the Reich Main Security Office, which declared him politically unreliable.24) ---------------------22) G. Tr. 2773 (BRUECKNER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. 2911)\nG.Tr. 2646 (LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. 2776-78)\nBRUECKNERExhibits Nos. 3 and 9 23) G. Tr. 2734 (BRUECKNER Testimony (Engl. Tr. p. 2872)\nBRUECKNERExhibit No. 3\nG.Tr. 603 (EHLICH Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 618)\nG.Tr. 2886, 2898 (RADUNSKI Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 3024, 3037)\nG.Tr. 2640-41 (LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2770-71) 24) Pros. Exh. 38 in Doc. Book II B\nG.Tr. 2096 (BETHGE, Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2190)\nG.Tr. 1811, 1815 (Dr. STIER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 1892-1896)\nG.Tr. 2815 (KLINGSPORN Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2954)\nG.Tr. 2992-3003, 3018, 3021 (GROTZ Testimony) (Engl.\nTr. p. 3136-39, 3158-59, 3161-62)\nG.Tr. 28?8 (RADUNSKI Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 3035)\nG.Tr. 2922 (Witness LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 3058)\nG.Tr. 2733 (BRUECKNER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2871)\nG.Tr. 2642 (LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2772-73)\nBURECKNERExhibits 1, 2, 3 and 4 \n In section 18 of the Indictment Brueckner is charged with the special responsibility for and participation in the crime of slave labor.", "speakers": [ "BRUECKNER", "BURECKNER", "G." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5071, "page_number": "5064", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "He is alleged to have deported to Germany select foreign nationals, especially those of non-German origin, for slave labor and for possible later Germanization. Such foreigners as resisted are alleged to have been taken to concentration camps.\nAs evidence the Prosecution submitted the Pros. Exhibits 296, 292, 293, 294 in Doc. Book V. D, 739 in Doc. Book XV.\nThese documents, on the one hand, deal with the labor allocation of Russia Germans who stayed in the Reich territory as refugees and, on the other hand, they deal with a planned allocation of members of the German minority in Russia for labor as domestic servants in Germany. The latter procedure has nothing to do with the measures adopted by other offices mentioned in the Pros. Exhibits 156, 158, 162, 157, 159 and 161 in Doc. Book IV D which were concerned with Polish domestic servants suitable for Germanization.\nJudging from the proceedings before the Tribunal Brueckner was not concerned with the allocation for labor of those people who were in VOMI camps.25) The labor allocation of the Russia.\nGermans accommodated outside of the VOMI camps was, as well, carried out in principle by the agencies of the Reich labor administration and certainly not by the VOMI or by Brueckner. Within the scope of his office he had, however, to see to it that these refugees were treated in exactly the same manner as German nationals, to investigate possible complaints and to redress the abuses. The Pros. Exhibits 292, and 293 refer to just such an incident -. The presentation of evidence by the Defense has proved convincingly that the group of persons dealt with in these Prosecution Exhibits are members of the German minority in Russia who voluntarily endeavored to obtain work in Germany and who in every respect were placed on entirely the same level --------------------25) G.Tr. 2931 (KLINGSPORN Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2971-72) G.Tr. 2905 (ROEDEL Testimony) (Engl.\nTr. p. 3040) Pros.\nExh. 278 in Doc. Book V F \n with the German nationals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5072, "page_number": "5065", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "By no means are persons involved here who came to Germany under the slave labor program carried out by Sauckel.26) A little illustration of Brueckner's basic attitude toward the members of the German minority, who had come to Germany, is Pros.\nExh. 830, which was identified by Brueckner in the cross-examination and in which he protests against measures he did not regard as right.27) Even in the case of those counts the Prosecution has not found a single witness among the hundreds of thousands of Russia Germans or South-East German refugees living in the Western Zones for substantiating its assertions.\nThere is no better proof than this fact. These persons were not compulsorily taken to Germany and pressed into work by Brueckner or other German offices.\nTHE PRESIDENT:It will be necessary to suspend for just a few minutes until the sound system is repaired. -------------------26) G. Tr. 2092-95 (Dr. BETHGE Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2186-2190)\nG.Tr. 2926-27, 2920 (Testimony by the witness LORENZ) (Engl.\nTr. p. 3-59-60, 3054.)\nG.Tr. 2722, 2728-29, 2731-32 9Brueckner Testimony) (Engl.\nTr. p. 2858, 2864-66, 2868-69)\nG.Tr. 2596 (UNRUH Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2723-24)\nG.Tr. 2795 (PLEGER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2935)\nG.Tr. 2642 , 2648-49 (LORENZ Testimony) (Engl. Tr. p. 2773, 2779-80)\nLORENZDocument No. 40 27) G. Tr. 2748 (BRUECKNER Testimony) (Engl. Tr. P. 2885)\nG.Tr. 2846-47 (KLINGSPORN Testimony), (Engl. Tr. p. 2936-38)", "speakers": [ "LORENZ", "G.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5073, "page_number": "5066", "date": "07 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-07", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:It seems the best way out of the situation is to take a fifteen minutes' recess. The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5074, "page_number": "5067", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "17 Feb 1948_A_MSD_Sampson (Garand) _17_1\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument.\nBY DR.DOETZER: (Attorney for the Defendant Brueckner) They were neigher deprived of their freedom nor were they forced to perform forced labor against their will and without pay or at a smaller pay than Reich Germans.\nBut in order to establish the characteristics constituting slave labor, it is a prerequisite that such conditions are found to exist.\n8.) According to Sub-section 19 Brueckner is suppresed to have forced persons of non-German descent to join the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS, the police, and similar organizations.\nThe Prosecution has introduced against the defendant Prosecution Exhibits No. 678, 685, in Document Book V G, and No. 347, 345 and 346 in Document Book VI A. All these documents do not establish conclusive proof.\nFrom Prosecution Exhibit No.678it appears that through his strategem Brueckner prevented the drafting of Slevenes for the police. The evidence submitted by the Defense confirmed this.28 All other documents refer to Ethnic Germans who either served voluntarily with the German Wehrmacht or the Waffen SS, or who in pursuance of interstate agreements with their native countries were serving as soldiers not in the armies of their native countries but in the German Wehrmacht or in the Waffen-SS.29 Brueckner was neither responsible for the drafting of non-Germans for the Wehrmacht nor did he support any such measure.\nBeing no lawyer he had no objections to voluntary enlistment for military service by members of the German minority, and no objections either to the validity of the concluded inter-state agreements. The lawyers employed 28 German transcript 2715-16 (Testimony Brueckner), English Transcript 2848-52.\n29 Brueckner Exhibits No. 1 and 11 German transcript 2597 (Testimony Unruh), English transcript 2724-25.\nGerman transcript 2788-89 (Testimony Pieger), English trsc. 2927-29.\nGerman transcr. 2652-55 (Testimony Lorenz, English transcr. 2783-86.\nGerm. Transc. 2735-36 (Testimony Brueckner) Engl. Transcr. 2873-75.\nGerm. Transc. 2936 (Testimony Fabricius) Engl. Tr. 3070 Lorenz-Doc.#51.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5075, "page_number": "5068", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "with the Vomi, who confirmed that such measures were permitted by international law, strengthened his conviction. He had no reason to question the correctness of their legal views and had to rely on their expert judgment. Even in the event such agreements and measures should he unlawful according to international law, which I do not believe, Brueckner cannot he charged with the responsibility for this.\n9.) The Prosecution has introduced no evidence against Brueckner pertaining to Sub section 20 Speliation, and under Sub-section 21 they did not accuse him of persecution and extermination of Jews.\nII According to the evidence Brueckner is not guilty of having committed a crime against humanity as defined by Control Council Law No. 10. The acts which he is proved to have committed cannot be termed atrocities against human life, degradation of human dignity, or destruction of human culture.30 They do not involve humiliation of human beings through misuse of political power regardless of which political, economic, cultural, or ideological nations would be made the basis of a judgment.\nNeither did he take any part in issolated cases of atrocities or persecution which constitute no crime against humanity in the opinion of Military Tribunal No. III, page 38 of the verdict versus Altstoetter et al, contrary to the resolution on the criminal facts which shall in the future constitute the crime of genocide, passed by the VIII. Conference for Unification of Criminal Law in Brussels on 10 and 11 July 1947.\nHe carried out the work in the VOMI which was forced upon him according to the following principle:\n\"Love of his own nationality, respect of other people's, nationality, repudiation of all forcible measures\". Being no lawyer he allowed himself to be guided by human considerations in his work. He wanted to behave in a way at any time acceptable to ethical judgment, and the profession of Kant, the wise philosopher: \"There is nothing at all in the world, indeed it is impossible also to imagine anything outside \n 17 Feb 1948_A_MSD_17_3_Sampson (Garand) the world which could be considered good without qualifications except solely a good will\", had become his own true conviction.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5076, "page_number": "5069", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "But at the same time his influence and his position were of small importance. Tens of thousands of persons in Germany found themselves in the same situation. He was neither an influential SS leader nor a powerful official He who actually fought to prevent genocide and who took care of the members of the German minority when they took refuge in Germany, he was accused of this crime because the Prosecution linked together crimes against humanity and genocide. The theory implied by this inadmissible combination, which is open to legal objections, necessitates a strict interpretation of the concept of crime against humanity in accordance with the verdict of Military Tribunal No. III, page 38 versus Altstoetter et al with reference to the recent statement by the French I.M.T. judge, Dennedieu de Fabres, who has rightly pointed out the danger involved in the theory of crime against humanity. Neither must be overlooked that, as elaborately expounded by Hyde (International Law, 2. Revised Edition, Volume I, pp. 38, 249, 250 and Note 3) it cannot be a matter of indifference to the family of nations how a state treats racial, linguistic, and religious minorities, as e.g. the German minorities. When Brueckner within the limits of his position was concerned about the German minorities as a fellow-being and as employee of the Vomi, he thereby fulfilled a duty against which no objections cout be raised from the point of view of international law. Even when it is refused to assume this, he must be given the benefit of his credulity as justification in his particular case. This is emphasized especially by the fact that whenever he had contacts with persons of foreign nationality he supported them at the risk of the religious prejudices. He was not aware of violating any laws.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5077, "page_number": "5070", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Neither did he know nor was he obliged to know that in matters connected with international law he made himself guilty of participation in an organized system of injustice and persecution. Neither had he any reason to believe that through his behavior the ethical sense of humanity could be violated. Neither did he know, nor was he by virtue of his position bound to know, that in the event of his being arrested he would be punished. All these prerequisites enumerated by Military Tribunal No. III in its verdict versus Altstoetter et al on Page 32a, concerning the awareness of having violated the law, are not found in his case. Quite apart from and in addition to this, the Defense is of the opinion that even if Brueckner had acted in violation of international law from an objective point of view, he was not in a position to commit a punishable crime against international law. The opinion of Military Tribunal No. III that the behavior of all individuals must comply with international law in preference to state laws -- conceding that only the independent judge is to be excepted -- can be acknowledged as a future requirement but by no means can it be accepted as applicable to nationals of the U.S.31) and of European states with reference to the past. Neither am I of the opinion that the I.M.T. has clarified this question incontestably. This tribunal, when returning its verdict, had to do only with persons who had acted by virtue of the sovereignty of the State. If the statements of the membersof the Prosecution before the I.M.T. speaking on behalf of their respective states, are compared, e.g. the opening statement of the French member of the Prosecution, de Menthon, - - - - - - - - 31) Law of Belligerent Occupation J.A.G. Text No. 11. The Judge Advocate General's School ANN ARBOR Michigan of 1 June 1944, pp.\n246 and following.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5078, "page_number": "5071", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "on 17 January 1946, among other similar statements32), then the principle of personal responsibility based on international law appears to me to apply only to the leading personalities whose actions are carried out according to international law.\nNeither is Brueckner guilty of a war crime as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10. Such crime must be directed against the civilian population of occupied territories, against prisoners of war, or persons on the high seas. The evidence introduced by the Prosecution has not proved that Brueckner did commit such crimes in violation of the laws of war, neither as principal or abettor nor as a person who ordered, instigated, consented to, planned or had any connection with the execration thereof. He neither murdered nor illtreated the civilian population of the occupied territories. He took no part in any deportation for forced labor or for other purposes. He hasseized neither public nor private property, nor had he anything to do with slave-labor in the occupied territories. War-law and warusage do not prohibit the reception of, and care for, refugees from - - - - - - - 32) An individual responsibility involving all persons who committed acts of violence cannot with reason be deduced from what has just been said.\nIt is obvious that in a state with a modern organi zation the responsibility is restricted to those acting directly on behalf of the State since they only are capable of judging the lawfulness of the given orders.\nThey alone can and must be prosecuted.\"\nSir Hartley Shawcross, chief English member of the Prosecution on 4 December 1945:\n\"Humanity and justice will find the means to mitigate possible injustices arising out of a collective punish ment.\nGenerally, much disaster can be precluded if those persons are punished who were themselves directly responsible for the criminal behavior of their State.\"\nThe American member of the Prosecution on 23 January 1946 stated with reference to Fritzsche:\n\"He is in the dock particularly in his capacity as -- a Nazi Propagandist.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5079, "page_number": "5072", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "occupied areas. His activity for the amelioration of the situation of the Slovenes compulsorily evacuated cannot be termed a war-crime, simply because the prosecution, in opposition to my own legal interpretation as set down in theopening statement, as to the admissability according to international law of compulsory transfers33) of the whole sections of the population, haspronouncedit a crime. War usage and warlaw concede the right to the belligerent nations to accept into their ranks volunteers of alien nationality no matter whether they are fighting on the side of the enemy or not. It is also not contradictory to war-usage if allied states agree upon arrangements for compulsory drafting of men into their respective ranks, and it is in accordance with the reality of war and general war usage if the occupying power immediately takes up contact with those members of the indigenous population of the occupied territories who are friendly disposed towards it, employs them, and if it has to withdraw from the occupied territory, offers them protection and help. No matter from which angle one looks at Brueckner's activity, which was of only secondary importance and merely loosely connected with the war, he has certainly not committed any war crimes.\nUnder sub-section 26 Brueckner is accused of having been a member of an organization which has been declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal, i.e. the SS.\nThe evidence hasproved the following:\nOn 9 November 1939 Brueckner was drafted into the WOMI for emergency service. In the summer 1940 he was employed as an unskilled laborer by the resettlement Kommando. As the USSR had made the request for the members of the resettlement Kommandos to wear uniform, he was, - - - - - - 33) Law of Belligerent Occupation J.A.G., text No. 11. The Judge Advocate General's School ANN ARBOR, Michigan of 1 June 1944, p. 102 ff.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5080, "page_number": "5073", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "without submitting an application of his own, issued the uniform of an SS-Untersturmfuehrer. When he was appointed \"referent\" to the deputy-chief of the VOMI, SS-Brigadefuehrer Dr. Behrends, he was given the uniform of a Hauptsturmfuehrer and, as Chief of Amt VI of the VOMI, that of an SS-Sturmbannfuehrer, a co-ordination of rank and activity which has already been found by the IMT judgment as having been in use in the police and which was also in general use with German authorities in similar cases. In 1941 he was called up for compulsory service in the Waffen-SS and was, in 1943, like all the rest of the World- war combattants in the Army and the Waffen-SS, promoted to the rank of a non-commissioned officer, that is, Unterscharfuehrerc. In addition, following the general practice in the Wehrmacht, he was also given the rank of a Fachfuehrer (specialist leader), the equivalent of his civilian activity.\nAccording to the evidence Brueckner did not volunteer for the SS. He never was an SS-applicant nor an SS-man. He neither took an SSoath nor paid a membership-fee. He did not belong to any SS-unit; he never served with theSS and hadno right of command over members of the SS. He was only obliged to wear the uniform, His pass differed from the passes generally in use in theSS insofar asit had a \"V\" on it. This \"V\" stood for \"vorlaeufig\" (temporary).34) - - - - - - 34) German tr. 2993-95 (testimony Radunski)(E.p.page 3029-32) \" \" 2854 \" Kubitz (E.p.page 2993) \" \" 2847-2848 (testimony Klingsporn)(E.p.page 2938-40) \" \" 612 (testimony Ehlich)(E.p.page 628) \" \" 448.\n464 (testimony Bach-Zelewski)(E.p.page 451, 468-469) \" \" 2693-96,2742/43 (testimony Brueckner) (E.p.page 2824 29, 2880-81) \" \" 2617 (testimony Lorenz)(E.p.page 2746) \" \" 2930 (testimony Purm) (E.p.page 3063) Brueckner Exhibit No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 11.\nMeyer-Hetling Doc. No. 30.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5081, "page_number": "5074", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "According to Article II, I-D of Control Council Law No. 10, in connection with the IMT verdict, all those persons are punishable who were officially accepted members of the SS, had joined the SS or remained with the SS in spite of being aware of the fact that the SS had been assigned to perform criminal acts, or who had actually participated in the execution of such crimes. An exception is made in favor of such members of the SS upon whom membership was enforced in such a way by the State that they could not evade it, provided that they had not participated in any such crimes.\nThe fact that he was given a pass with a \"V\", meaning temporary, stamped on it, seems to speak against this assumption. There is also missing the most essential condition for official membership which is, according to the statements made by the prosecutor. Major Farr of the IMT trial, page 1638, the swearing in. It must be added that he did not pay a membership-fee, did not belong to an SS-unit, was neither drilled nor trained, never took part in meetings, roll-calls or parades, and had no rights in the SS.\nAccording to the order issued to him, he was only obliged to wear the SS-uniform. As far as this was concerned he was, because of his activity in the resettlement Kommando of the VOMI, into which he had been drafted by an emergency order, a compulsorily elected \"Ehrenfuehrer\" of the SS who had, in addition to this and contrary to other \"Ehrenfuehrer\" an identity paper with a \"V\" stamped on it. If his emergency service had been terminated by the end of the war and if he had left the VOMI, he would have had to take off theSS-uniform. This statement is not an artificial differentiation or juridical sophistry. The IMT verdict itself points out that the SS was a completely voluntary organization Only up to the year 1940. The Bavarian State-Ministry for Special Tasks, which was set up in the American occupied zone for the implementation of the Law for the Liberation from National Socialism and Militarism of 5 March 1946, has very definitely differentiated between \"Fuehrer\" of \n the SS and so-called \"Ehrenfuehrer\", as may be seen from an ordinance to Article 12 of this law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5082, "page_number": "5075", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The permanent legal Committee for uniform interpretation and implementation of the denazification law in the U. S. Zone had adopted this view in a resolution (R. C.32/46).\nAccording to this \"Ehrenfuehrer\" honorary leaders, were persons who did nothing more than wear uniforms. This leads us up to the statement that Brueckner wasnever an officially elected regular member of the SS. His compulsory service with the VOMI made him a compulsory wearer of the uniform, He was also compulsorily drafted into the Waffen-SS. He could in no way avoid this.\nIn addition, Brueckner also had no knowledge of the crimes of which the SS has been accused in the IMT judgment. As far as government measures against Jews, Alsatians, Slovenes, Luxemburgers, Lorrainians, and Poles are concerned, the evidence hasproved Brueckner's unantagonistic, humane and tolerant attitude and his freedom from racial, religious and political- prejudices. His own desires were therefore directly opposed to such activities and it is this personal desire and not the mere awareness of the historical facts which is defined as \"awareness\" in the sense of the question of membership in a criminal organization.\nBrueckner is therefore not guilty on this count either.\nIn its opening statement, page 134 of the German transcript, (English transcript, p-141), the prosecution has predicted that: \"We shall soon hear, from the defendants, alibis and excuses of various descriptions giving the most heterogenous reasons....\" By this an attempt, although ineffectual, has been made to prejudice my client's statements at the very outset. The prosecution has done so in spite of the fact that, judging from the result of the examination of the witnesses and the presented evidence for the defense, it must have had considerable doubts about the value of the documents which it has itself presented.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5083, "page_number": "5076", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Contrary to this, the defense has at no point during the proceedings tried to glossover the true picture of the character and the activity of the defendant Brueckner by hushing up, playing down, or advancing excuses. It hasallowed itself to be guided only by the defendants own desire for truthfulness. Even though human knowledge is necessarily imperfect, there is one thing of which we may be sure, which is that a man as decent and unbiased as Brueckner, whose attitude is a basically ethical one, cannot be a criminal no matter how his attitude may be judged according to legal standards set up by man, for mankind.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5084, "page_number": "5077", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next document.\nDR.SCHWARZ (Counsel for the defendant Hofmann): Before I read my part of the plea, I would like to draw to the Tribunal's attention the fact that I have taken the quotations of evidence from documents and various things, and I have presented them in footnotes. In order to save time, and in order to give you a better survey, I will not read these footnotes. However, the footnotes, and various other notes, are of the utmost importance because of the information they contain. Therefore, I should like to ask the Tribunal to consider the footnotes, as well as the parts of the plea which I will not be able to read.\nMr. President; Your Honors:\nPrior to discussing the individual charges raised against the defendant HOFMANN and the question of his criminal responsibility, I should like to make some brief comments on the broad aspects of this case. Otherwise we might easily get lost in the maze of the material involved in this proceeding and be diverted from those fundamental principles of criminal and international law which alone should govern this trial.\nThe criminal responsibility of the defendant is based on Control Council Law No. 10. According to article I of this law, the Moscow Declaration dated 30 October 1943, \"concerning the responsibility of the Hitlerites for committed atrocities\", and the London Agreement dated 8 August 1945, \"concerning the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European axis\" are integral parts of Law No. 10 and equally binding. In this connection, the opinion of the Tribunal in case No. III contains the following passage:1) \"As thus established, the Tribunal is authorized and empowered to try and punish the major war criminals of the European axis and those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for, or have taken a consenting part in, or have aided, abetted, ordered or have been connected with, plans or enterprises involving the commission of the offenses defined in Control Council Law No. 10.\"\n- - - - - - 1) Tr. dated 3 December 1947, case No. III, page 10366 of the German version, page 10613 of the English version.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5085, "page_number": "5078", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "From this, it follows that this law applies to the members of the European axis and to those of the NSDAP exclusively. This group of persons only is subject to criminal prosecution under this law. For the purpose of this prosecution, a Military Tribunal of the United States of America has been set up, in other words a tribunal of the victorious powers, and it is the task of this tribunal to try war crimes committed by the vanquished. This situation, Your Honors, calls for an extraordinary effort on your part to remain unbiased and thus to establish the truth and to render a just verdict.\nOf the offenses enumerated in Control Law No. 10, only war crimes and crimes against humanity connected with the war are involved in this case. It is well known that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. This particularly applies to warfare. In war, killing is permitted in international law; hence, it is unavoidable that both parties overstep, the limit of what is still permissible. This applies even more to modern warfare, and it is obvious that modern wars can only be waged in the form of total war. Already in the first World War, the previous customs of war as laid down by the Hague Convention on Land Warfare (HKLO) were violated by the use of poison gas and by the economic blockade; in the second World War, all this has been greatly surpassed by the enhanced capacity of the armaments industry necessarily involving compulsory labor, by bomb warfare which does not spare women and children, by the so called Vweapons, by the atom bomb, and last but not least by the biological issues involved in the conflict with the Slavonic peoples. The provisions of the HKLO, The Hague Land Warfare Convention cannot do justice to this development.\nOn the other hand, humanity must protect itself from a repetition of these horrors. A German edition of the opinion of the IMT has the sub-title: \"The fundaments of a new International Law.\" The sovereign rights of a state are not considered any longer a justification for war crimes committed by the heads of the state and by government officials. And it may be true that, according to Anglo-Saxon conceptions, individuals \n could long since be called to account for acts which were offenses in the meaning of International Law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5086, "page_number": "5079", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "And I quote:\n\"England has coined the principle; International Law forms part of the Law of England.\nIn practice, this principle does not apply.\nAs established in the opinions of her high courts.\nInternational Law is, in England, too, binding only provided it is expressly embodied in the National Law.\nSimilarly, it is provided in the Constitution of the U.S.A. that the rules of International Law are, as such, binding on the citizens.\nExactly as in England, however, this rule is not adhered to in practice.\"\n2) The principle that the Hague Land Warfare Convention, as such, is binding on states only follows from paragraph 5 of this preamble of this Convention.\n\"According to the views of the High Contracting Parties, these provisions, the wording of which has been inspired by the desire to diminish the evils of war, as far as mi litary requirements permit, are intended to serve as a general rule of conduct for the belligerents in their mutual relations and in their relations with the inhabit ants.\"\nFrom Article I of the Hague Land Warfare Convention I quote:\n\"The Contracting Powers shall issue instructions to their armed land forces which shall be in conformity with the Regulations respecting the Law and Customs of War on Land, annexed to the present Convention.\"\nIn any case, it was an established conception in Germany and on the Continent that political demands or legal claims based on International Law could be addressed to states only, because the International Law then existing affected only states. This principle has been deliberately rescinded by article 7 of the Charter of the IMT, which reads and I quote:\n\"The official position of defendants, whether as Heads of State or responsible officials in Government de partments, shall not be considered as freeing them from responsibility or mitigating punishment.\"\nNow, it follows from the nature of a modern state that it sets up a large and efficient and highly involved administrative machinery. As usual in totalitarian states, this machinery was much larger in the National Socialist State than it is in the Western democracies. Practically - - - - - - - 2) Waltzog, Recht der Landkriegfuehrung (The rules of land warfare), available in the library of the Military Tribunals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5087, "page_number": "5080", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "everything was organized and even over-organized. It is obvious that an enlarged organization also implies a higher degree of division of labor and at the same time a dilution of responsibility. On the one hand, we find the dictator who undertook the responsibility in bulk, with a few other leaders in whom comprehensive responsibility was concentrated, such as GOERING, HIMMLER, and others. All these men are dead. On the other hand, we find the gigantic set-up of the administrative machinery of the state. Certain cogs of this machinery you find as defendants in this Court.\nThe truth is, of course, that those actually responsible were not in a position to attain their aims without the administrative set-up. On the other hand however, the individual officials of the numerous departments belonging to that set-up were practically not in a position to exceed the functions specially assigned to them and to keep themselves informed of the activities of the other departments; even less were they in a position to check on the lawfulness of their actions, On the contrary, the Germans were brought up in a way which caused them to presume as a matter of course that state measures were lawful and legal, and to feel that it was improper, to question them. This applied even more to the national socialist dictatorship, under which the German nation staked all their trust on HITLER and invested him with all-embracing powers, It applied still more in war time, when it was not only considered an improper interference to question the measures of other departments, but when this constituted at the same time a violation of the secrecy regulations then in force.\nIn this proceeding, the only charge is the participation in a systematic Government program of genocide. The question in issue is, therefore, whether and to what extent participation in the meaning of criminal law can be established. The relevant provisions in article II paragraph 2 of Control Council Law No. 10 read as follows--but I shall omit reading them, and continue at the end of the quotation.\nThese forms of participation are defined in such a sweeping way that \n they could apply to all branches of the entire set-up of state and party authorities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5088, "page_number": "5081", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Such interpretation, however, is barred by the London Agreement of 8 august 1945, according to which only the \"major war criminals\" are to be punished. In my opening statement I have already referred to the definition given by the French Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution in the IMT. According to this definition, the responsibility is restricted to those persons who are acting as the direct representatives and organs of the state, because they only are in a position to judge on the legality of the orders given. The criminal offenses in question are international in character and concerned with the inter-relationship of the co-existing states. I am quoting Eugene Aroneanu:3) \"Similarly, crimes against humanity should be defined by those qualifications and elements only which correspond to their real character, in other words they should be governed by conceptions of International Law of the same order which covers the conception of sovereignty in International Law.\n\"If the crime against humanity belongs to the realm of International Law, then its commission constitutes an international crime, because it violates statutes forming part of International Law.\"\nA typical representative of the German conception is Max Wenzel, who states:4) (Page 369:)\n\"The commands of International Law are not addressed to individuals but only to the states as corporate bodies;through the medium of the states as corporate bodies they are addressed not to the whole bulk of the officials representing the state, but only to the supreme authorities representing it.\"\n(Pages 380-81:)\n\"Let us now consider whether the behaviour of 'officials and subjects of the state' - as far as it is governed by agreements forming parts of International Law - is it self within or outside of the scope of International Law.\n\"The rules of International Law can be obeyed only by those to whom they are addressed, in other words only by the - - - - 3) \"The Crime against humanity\", excerpt from the \"Nouvelle Revue de Droit International Prive, No. 2, 1946.\n4) Excerpt from \"The concept of Law\" by Dr. Max Wemzel, lecturer at the university of Bonn, Berlin 1920, available in the library of Erlangen university.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5089, "page_number": "5082", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "competent supreme state authorities, not by the 'officials and subjects of the state.\n' The latter obey only those decrees which have been issued by the supreme state authorities in order to fulfil the requirements of International Law.\nAs the rules of International Law are not addressed to the 'Offi cials and subjects of the states', they can on the other hand, not forbid them to obey those decrees issued by the supreme state authorities which are inconsistent with International Law.\nIn consequence, the legal effect of decrees issued by the supreme national authorities is not affected by the fact that they are inconsistent with the commands of International Law.\nThe 'officials and subjects of the state' must obey such decrees in the same way as those which are consistent with the commands of International Law.\nThe terms of obedience or disobedience do, therefore, not applyto the 'officials and subjects', as far as the rules of International Law are concerned.\nAs an example for further development of these ideas in continental jurisprudence, I am now quoting a statement made by Professor Dr. Rittler 5) --that is to say, I shall omit reading it, and shall continue reading on page 9.\nThis, too, shows that in the meaning of International Law criminal participation in a Government program must be subject to certain limitations. In the first instance, it is the concern of the individual state to determine the individuals responsible in International Law. Secondly, it has been an axiom at all times that the occupying power must apply the law of the occupied country. The main purpose of this principle is the protection of the defendant. It is also based on the consideration that habits and customs in the different countries vary; the same applies to another aspect which I consider particularly important in this connection, namely, to the fact that the set-up of the administration and the division of responsibility vary in the different countries. They apply different standards. In this case, Your Honors, you are applying a law which overrides the national laws of the individual states. But except for common crimes committed in war, this law can affect only those persons whose special responsibility puts them apart from the ordinary cogs of the machinery of administration. It can only apply to those to whom the - - - - 5) Lecture delivered at the General Meeting of the Zurich Law Association, entitled \"The political crime\", published in Neue Zuericher Zeitung No. 2284 dated 20 November 1947 \n rules of International Law are addressed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5090, "page_number": "5083", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "It cannot be considered the task of this Tribunal to go out its way in order to follow up the exgreme ramifications of the administrative set-up. This must be left to the national courts, in this case to the denazification courts established for this very purpose.\nAs I shall explain in due course, the defendant HOFMANN was, in his capacity as Chief of the Main Race and Settlement Office (RuSHA), not a responsible government official. It must be admitted that this fact alone cannot relieve him from the criminal responsibility which he would incur in the implementation of Government orders even in his capacity as a citizen. But this circumstance may well be of decisive importance for the imputation that the defendant knew of a criminal program of the government, and this knowledge -- the defendant s state of mind - - is one of the elements constituting criminal responsibility. For a man whose entire activities were outside of the governmental set-up, it was obviously all the more difficult to check on the lawfulness of measures such as the security police (SIPO) measures, particularly as no legal adviser and no legal department existed in the RuSHA, In case No. 4 the following was established:\n6) \"Unless we are willing to resort to the principle of group responsibility and to charge the whole German nation with these war crimes and crimes against humanity, there is a line somewhere at which indictable criminality must stop.\"\nIt will be the difficult task of the Tribunal to find this demarcation line in the present case. In this connection, I should like to point out that even translating is a source of difficulties. In the course of a spot - check, I have found that the transcript of the examination of the witness PANCKE contains no less than 16 translating errors and mistakes, I have, therefore, submitted a written motion dated 15 December 1947, and asked to have the transcript compared with the sound track. No decision has come forth yet. Can Hofmann, in his capacity as Chief of RuSHA, really be considered one of those individuals to whom the rules of - - - - 6) Opinion in case No. 6 (POHL and others), page 74 of the German version, page 70 of the English version.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5091, "page_number": "5084", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "International Law are addressed? In order to answer this question, it is necessary first to explain the functions of RuSHA and the tasks incumbent on Hofmann.\nThe tasks of RuSHA are briefly summarized in the pocket almanac, \"The Soldier's Friend\"7) and I quote: - - - - - 7) Hofmann, Exhibit 7, Document Book I.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5092, "page_number": "5085", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\n\"The SS Main Race and Settlement Office deals in its offices with the racial selection of the rising genera tion of the SS, guides the choosing of marriage part ners of the SS men and promotes the creation of hered itary-biologically valuable, large-sized families.\nSS men willing and suitable for settlement will be given the opportunity to own their own farms.\"\nI am leaving out the next comment and shall continue with Page 12 at the bottom:\nBefore the war and up to 1938, RuSHA was entrusted with the ideological training of the SS. It extended to the subjects of history, art, housing conditions, agricultural problems, hereditary qualities, hygiene and the like. This was also the purpose of the manuals (LEITHEFTE). They show that RuSHA did not emphasize, but avoided anti-semitism, as this would have been inconsistent with the real aims and purpose of RuSHA, The conception of a \"master race\" was neither coined nor propagated in the SS; this has been stated by Caesar, the previous head of the training office.16) It is particularly noteworthy that according to Caesar the SS did not propagate anti-semitism with a view to physical extermination, but that the Jewish problem was merely treated historically as an ethnic problem, whenever it was necessary to broach it at all, Caesar, too, emphasized particularly that the SS did not approach its task under the negative aspect of the fight against the Jews, but that it stressed the positive attitude toward the own bloodstream. Even the prosecution witness BACH-ZELEWSKI was forced in cross-examination to admit this.16a) As early as in June 1938, long before the war, the training office was removed from RuSHA and transferred to the SS Main Office which was put in charge of all branches of training.17) It follows that HOFMANN did not influence the training and that he cannot be held responsible for it because of his activities in RuSHA. In order to implement DARRE's ideas, Race and Settlement Leaders were appointed in the administrative districts of the SS. They selected the new SS --------------------------------16) HOFMANN Exh. No. 9, doc. Book I 16a) Tr. page 435 of the English version 17) Affidavit CAESAR, HOFMANN exh. No. 9, doc. book I page 2 \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5093, "page_number": "5086", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "generation with the assistance of Racial Examiners. The standards used ware those physical characteristics forming a type which were above the average standards of the German people. It was intended to shape an ideal type of men. Within the RuSHA, several offices were set up for the co-ordination and direction of the various tasks.\n\"The Genealocial Office ... attends to application requests of SS applicants with respect to genealogy and hereditary health characteristics.\nFurther, the Genealogical Office handles the engagement and marriage requests of members of the SS.\nOne of the first tasks of the Race Office is the carrying out of the selection of young men who will apply for membership in the SS .....The Settlement Office has the main task to register all those members of the SS who are willing to set tle in the country.\n18) This is a short excerpt from the statement made by the defendant HOFMANN on 6 November 1941, in which he gives a detailed and fairly accurate picture of the tasks of the RuSHA.\nIt is obvious that all these tasks were of a positive character and restricted to the SS as such; they can, therefore, never constitute a criminal offense in National or International Law, even if the SS has been declared a criminal organization by the IMT. This has been recognized by the Tribunal in case No. I (medical case):\nTestifying before this Tribunal. POPPENDICK stated that the Nazi racial policy was two-fold in aspect;one policy being positive, the other, negative in character.\nThe positive policy included many matters, one being the encouragement of German families to produce more children.\nThe negative policy concerned the sterilization and extermina tion of non-Aryans, as well as other measures to reduce the non-Aryan population.\nAccording to POPPENDICK's testimony he was not concerned with the execution of negative, but only of positive policy.\nHowever, criminal responsibility in the realm of International Law could possibly be constituted by the co-operation of the RuSHA and its departments in the sector of the Reich Commissioner for the ---------------------------------18) Prosecution exh. 50, doc. book II C \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5094, "page_number": "5087", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Strengthening of Germanism (RKF), because this is a governmental sector and part of the administration of the State. But this would apply only under the condition that the activities in question were of an executive character, in other words if they involved the authority to issue directives. If, however, these activities were restricted to routine inter-departmental co-operation (Amtshilfe), if they concerned only the lower level of the administrative set-up, and if they were similar to the activities of the labor offices, health offices, traffic offices and similar departments, then it is impossible to establish criminal responsibility in the realm of International Law.\nThe directives contained in the basic decree of 7 October 193919) were addressed to the following departments only: the Liaison Office for Racial Germans (VOMI), the RuSHA and the Staff Main Office. According to section III of this decree, it was a matter of course that the departments of RuSHA could be called upon for co-operation in the same way as all other existing agencies:\nOtherwise the Reich Fuehrer SS will use the services of Reich, County, and Local Authorities and institu tions as well as those of other public corporations and already existing settlement organizations for the execution of his task within the territory of the German Reich.\nIn the first order dated 17 October 193920) the RuSHA is expressly mentioned as one of these institutions, together with the Reich Health Leader, the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture and the German Labor Front (DAF); this enumeration was, however, not exhaustive, HIMMLER himself retained the power of shaping and issuing general decrees (AO) and directives with the assistance of the office GREIFEELT. This is shown by prosecution exh. No. 22, doc. book II B. In this exhibit, it is also emphasized that the co-operation of other agencies is nothing but the usual inter-departmental relationship and that it did not imply any change of competence. It was only a matter --------------------------------19) Prosecution Exh. 20, doc. book II B 20) Prosecution Exh. 21, doc. book II B \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5095, "page_number": "5088", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "of assistance given to the competent authority by other departments.\nIn the decree dated 11 June 1941,21) only the Staff Main Office and the VOMI are mentioned as departments of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. These main offices and later on also the RuSHA were entitled to use the letter head \"Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism\". Similarly, the ordinance of the Reich Fuehrer SS dated 28 November 1941 concerning the setting up of the Main Office for Ethnic Questions mentions the RuSHA only as an advisory and executive office for all questions of racial selection.22) There exist no ordinances or decrees issued by RuSHA which had to be followed by other departments.\nThe practical tasks of the departments of the RuSHA evolved in the course of the re-integration into the Reich of Polonized previous German territories. It was the task of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism to establish a more suitable borderline between the different ethnic groups, in particular between Germans and Poles.23) As the ethnic groups in the border areas were intermingled, it was not always practical simply to apply the standard of origin, or to rely on cultural, linguistic or political considerations only. Many doubtful cases occurred, and they were submitted to the Racial Examiners for further clarification.\nAs a first step, the Racial Examiners were attached to the Immigration Center (EWZ). There, they co-operated in the procedure by which it was decided whether the resettlers were to be settled in the East or in the West. Though the EWZ was supervised by the RuSHA, its activities in the sector of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism were practically independent. Within the EWZ, the Racial Examiners were merged into a special Race and Settlement department. In practice, their activities were completely absorbed by those of the EWZ. --------------------------------21) Prosecution Exh. 70, doc. book II B 22) Prosecution Exh. 24, doc. book II B 23) Prosecution Exh. No. 20, doc. book II B \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5096, "page_number": "5089", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "The Branch Office Lodz (ASTL) was created in the framework of the Re-Germanization (Wed) Procedure. It was finally consolidated by a HIMMLER decree dated 9 November 1940.24) It then became a department of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, and it was practically as independent as the EWZ. Its activities were financed by the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism,25) whereas the RuSHA as such was financed by the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP. The statistics concerning the activities of the Field Office Lodz were not kept by RuSHA, but by the Main Staff Office.26) The cooperation between the Field Office Lodz with the Main Staff Office was particularly close in regard to the selection of Poles to be deported from their homes, and to the employment of female domestics suitable for Re-Germanization.27) Evidence to the effect that the RuSHA as such had very little to do with the racial screening of the deported Poles, is furnished by the fact that it was not represented in the basic conference of 30 January 194028), whereas altogether about 50 representatives of all departments concerned attended. It appears that it was in this conference when the Higher SS and Police Leader of the Warthegau, KOPPE, suggested for the first time that the Poles to be evacuated should be selected in camps. HEYDRICH announced that a racial selection would be carried out in the UWZs. It is also noteworthy that a Re-Germanization Procedure had already been planned as early as in a memorandum of the NSDAP Office for Racial Policy (RPA) dated 25 November 1939,29) and that this plan seems to have been kept top secret, so that it was unknown to the defendant HOFMANN. I also want to rectify a statement made by the prosecution in their closing statement (beginning of page 6). The so-called \"Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Race in the East\", pros, document No1880, exh. 84, doc. book III, were composed before the 25 March 1940, ---------------------------------24) Pros. Exh. No. 139, doc. book IV C 25) Deposition Schwarzenberger, tr. page 2248 German version 26) Deposition Hofmann, Tr. page 3195 27) Pros. Exh. 156, 159, 160, 161, doc. book IV D 28) Pros. Exh. 805, doc. book V G 29) Pros. Exh. No. 82, Doc. book III \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5097, "page_number": "5090", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "and they had not yet been transmitted to the RuSHA when HOFMANN became its chief, viz. after 9 July 1940, HOFMANN had no knowledge of the memorandum. In any case, it is an established fact that RuSHA was neither the inventor of the Re-Germanization Procedure nor in a position to influence it in practice.30) The Field Office Lodz was subordinated to the RuSHA only with respect to technical supervision (fachlich) and to questions of personnel. In the field of inter-departmental co-operation, it was under the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, This interdepartmental relationship is also indicated by the table of organization of the Main Staff Office. There, the Field Office Lodz is mentioned as a department which cooperates directly, in the same way as the Race Office and the Settlement Office.30a) The Field Office of Bohemia and Moravia, which was set up in 1941, fulfilled its tasks in complete independence.\nThe documents show that it received its immediate directives from the Reich Protector and/or the Higher SS and Police Leader in his capacity as Delegate of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism.31) Insofar as tasks concerning race and settlement were concerned, the Race and Settlement Leader Bohemia and Moravia was available for these tasks.\nOther war time tasks accrued when the Racial Examiners were called in for the selection of those children of female Eastern workers who were considered suitable for Re-Germanization; they were also concerned with proceedings by which female Eastern workers were prohibited from abortions; they dealt with cases in which forbidden sexual intercourse resulted in the initiation of Re-Germanization proceedings, and they handled certain privileged cases concerned with the DVL. However, all these activities of the Racial Examiners do not pertain to the tasks of the RuSHA, but to those of the Reich Main Security Office ---------------------------------30) Pros. Exh. No. 19, doc. book II A 30a) Pros. Exh. No. 19, page 72, doc. book II A 31) Pros. Exh. No. 173, doc. book IV D \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5098, "page_number": "5091", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "or to normal governmental tasks (innere Verwaltung). The standards applied for the racial examinations were those of the Re-Germanization Procedure. In this respect, the Racial Examiners were subject to the directives of the Race Office. For wuestions of personnel, they were still maintained on the table of organization of the RuSHA, although their activities were completely absorbed by the tasks of those departments to which they had been attached. It was unavoidable that this state of affairs caused much disagreement over the question to whom the Racial Examiners were subordinated. In fact, such quarrels occurred again and again, as stated by the defendant HOFMANN in detail.31a) A further field of war time activities accruing to RuSHA was the care for the welfare of disabled members of the Waffen SS and the General SS and of the dependents of those killed.\nThis task practically absorbed the whole working time of the Race and Settlement Leaders.31b) In order to determine the extent to which HOFMANN can be held responsible for the activities of the Racial Examiners and the Field Offices in the governmental sector, it may also be indicated to consider the number of the directives issued by him in this respect.\nApart from an internal office regulation for the Race and Settlement Leaders issued by HOFMANN shortly before he left his post,32) practically not more than two documents exist: One of these documents is a letter dated 25 January 1940 and addressed to the Racial Examiner DIETRICH, who was working in the EWZ. By this letter, HOFMANN transmitted a ruling of HIMMLER dated 16 January 1940, according to which the category III of the resettlers was to be included in the so-called O-cases. The reference given in the letter shows that Heinrich HIMMLER had previously issued this ruling on the spot, viz. in Lodz, where the Immigration Center was located, so that HOFMANN'S letter was only a --------------------------------31a) Tr., page 3199 English 31b) Tr., pages 3472, 2545 32) Pros. Exh. 55, doc. book II C \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5099, "page_number": "5092", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "confirmation in writing.33) In the other letter dated 16 March 1943, HOFMANN instructed the Race and Settlement Leader KUENZEL of the Immigration Center to the effect that the selection should be carried out in accordance with the attached directive issued by PANCKE.\n34) This directive was confirmed as correct by HOFMANN'S signature, in other words approved by HOFMANN.35) However, I shall explain later that the directive was not carried out in this form. As the document shows, it is only a draft. HOFMANN signed the two letters in his capacity as acting chief of the Race Office. The deposition of the witness PANCKE36) has shown that HOFMANN was only responsible for the disciplinary supervision of the Race Office which was then without a chief. For the substance of the activities, the official in charge (Sachbearbeiter) KLINGER was responsible. It appears that the prosecution has taken this into consideration, for the defendant HOFMANN is, in the indictment, only charged in his capacity of Chief of RuSHA and of a Higher SS and Police Leader.\nEven this short summary is sufficient to show that no responsibility in the realm of International Law can be constituted by the activities of the Defendant HOFMANN as Chief of a Main Race and Settlement in the sector of HIMMLER as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, in other words with regard to the charges in Count I section 2 to 18 of the indictment.\nI am now leaving out my comments concerning the individual points of the indictment and I shall continue with Page 48: The Legal arguments.\nLegal Arguments The following facts evolving from this participation of RuSHA offices in tasks coming within the sphere of the Reichkommissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism (RKF) can be reduced to a --------------------------------33) Pros.\nExh. No. 227, doc. book V B 34) Pros. Exh. No. 140, doc. book IV C 35) Pros. Exh. No. 141, doc. book IV C 36) Tr. Page 737.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5100, "page_number": "5093", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\ncommon denominator and be subjected to a summarized legal evaluation.\nI am now leaving out the first point of my legal argument and continue with II, which will be found on Page 51, second paragraph.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5101, "page_number": "5094", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "II.The decrees of HIMMLER were put into practice on the lowest level. It was on this level that the racial examiners did their work. Their real tasks was to examine the SS-members with regard to their fitness for joining the SS. As they had been trained in the Office for Racial Policy and had also been give their advanced training from there, they were carried on their rosters or on those of the Personnel Department of RuSHA. Furthermore, they were given their instructions concerning their professional activities by the Office for Racial Policy, that is to say, directives with regard to racial examinations.\nThey did their practical work at the various offices and agencies where they had to carry out examinations. These offices gave them their official instructions as to when and where an examination was to be carried out, in particular they were called upon by the SS Main Office which was responsible for the selection of SS candidates, or by the representative of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, as for instance ROEDEL in Slovenia, or by the Health Office who requested their services for purposes of pregnancy interruptions, or by the State Police in cases of forbidden sexual intercourse. These relations are shown quite clearly by the activities of the RuS-Office attached to the Immigration Center. The Immigration Center was under the supervision of the Reich Security Main Office. The decision regarding the final settlement of the resettler was made by the Chief of the Immigration Center Commission. The same principle also applied to the work of the Field Office in Lodz which was carried out exclusively within the frame work of the Office of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism, RuSHA only had an influence on matters of personnal and on technical matters. But even in the technical field the branch office had made themselves rather independent of the Office for Racial Hatters, and SCHWALM had evolved his own selection method, as was shown by the testimony of SCHWALM and of the witness RUEBEL.", "speakers": [ "II." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5102, "page_number": "5095", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Now the legal question arises as to how far HOFMANN is responsible for personnel matters, i.e. for providing the racial examiners, and how far for the technical supervision of the Office for Racial Policy in cases where the racial examiners participated in the carrying out of unlawful orders. III. In order to answer this question it is necessary to ascertain:\na) In how far the orders were unlawful.\nb) In how far the activities of the racial examiners could have actually achieved the effect which must be considered a crime.\nAD IIIa) It is true that your Honors have made it clear on several occasions that you are not interested in the actions of other persons.\nAnd I do not intend to justify the decrees of HIMMLER; of the Staff Main Office, or the Reich Security Main Office in themselves.\nI can only discuss the question here as to how far HOFMANN was in a position to judge the lawfulness or unlawfulness of these decrees in his own mind.\nHOFMANN was no lawyer, neither did he have the possi bility of examining the lawfulness of acts committed by high authorities, such as HIMMLER or the Reich Security Main Office.\nThe full purport of many of HIMMLER's acts could only be recognized after the war.\nIn addition to this there was a war on.\nIt is a matter of common knowledge that in wartime an interference with personal liberty or infringe ment of certain human rights are justifiedif the situation demands them.\nAnd this state of emergency is recognized by Anglo-Saxon Law.\n151 - - - - - 151 Sir James STEPHEN in Digest of the Criminal Law 7.E. p.36-38.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5103, "page_number": "5096", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "\" \"An action which would otherwise constitute a crime may be excusable in some cases, if the defendant can prove that the action was only committed for the purpose of avoiding results which could not have been avoided in any other way, and which, if they had occurred, would have done the perpetrator or other persons whom he was obliged to protect an inevitable and an irremediable harm.\nThe perpe trator, however, may not go further in his action than is reasonably necessary for the purpose outlined, and he may only inflict damage which is not out of proportion to the damage avoided.\"\nAlso Article 2, paragraph 1 b of law number 10 provides an indication with regard to this point.\n\"(b) Atrocities or offenses against persons or property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including but not limited to, murder, ....or devastation not justified by military necessity.\"\nIf one looks at the whole matter of the war from a biological point of view, as was done in the East, one would have to come to the conclusion that the cause for the two world wars was in the last instance the biological superiority of the Slav peoples.\nThat the Slav peoples are extremely prolific is a well known fact, They were even encouraged by political measures, I here refer to the testi mony of Professor Doctor SCHOEPPLE152.\nAccording to this testimony the Polish clergy used their endeavors during this war to induce the Polish civilian workers living in Germany to have as many children as possible, and, if possible, with German partners, in order to harm the German race in this manner.\nIt cannot be my task here to present exhaustive - - - - - 152 HOFMANN Exhibit 165, Document Book 8.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5104, "page_number": "5097", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "evidence on this point. Rather would I refer to the contents of the decrees of the Reich Security Main Office themselves which were submitted by me, and which sufficiently prove the necessity for these regulations.\n153 The fact in itself, that millions of foreign workers, and these mostly members of enemy nations, were living in the Germany proper (Altreich) constituted a great danger for Germany's internal security, There was the threat of sabotage acts, hostile propaganda, espionage, insufficient protection of the women and children and old people at home, and last but neb least there was the danger of in filtration of foreigners, that is to say, the biological undermining of the German people.\nTo avert, in this emergency, these dangers emanating from the presence of the foreign workers, this was solely the task of the Reich Security Main Office.\nThis sphere of activities, however, was completely alien to HOFMANN.\nThe fact that the measures taken against these dangers had to be ruthless was clear to every German.\nWhat measures, however, were necessary in each individual case, and what were the dangers that actually existed, this question could only be judged by the expert, that is to say by the police expert in the Reich Security Main Office.\nThat was the competent state authority and the citizen had to abide by:\nits judgment and by the measures it had taken.\nEven in Anglo-American Law it is an established principle that the courts themselves were bound by the political decisions of the competent State authorities.\n- - - - - 153 HOFFMANN Exh. 58, 59, 60, Document Book IIIb 20.\n55, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 IIIb \n I will not quote the quotes I have put down there and will continue with Page 57.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5105, "page_number": "5098", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "This applies even more to a dictatorship, under which a criticism of State measures cannot be tolerated. This is one of the characteristics of a dictatorship.\nMay I refer in this connection to a treatise in the American Journal of International Law of July 1947, page 586 156) , according to which the relations between occupying power and inhabitants of the occupied territory may be subject to the laws of war. Furthermore, I refer to No. 288 of the Basic Field Manual, according to which the occupying force is entitled to issue such new laws and regulations as the military situation demands, as also new laws against crimes and offenses, which may be necessary for the protection of the armies during a state of war.\nHOFMANN, in any case, had to rely on the fact that the racial examiners were working for a purpose which the State considered necessary. So far, at any rate, it must be denied on the grounds of limited knowledge that HOFMANN was criminally responsible by reason of his providing the personnel and supervising the technical activities of the Office for Racial Matters.\nAdd III b Beyond this, however, it can be shown that the activities of the racial examiners were not at all such as could achieve the result which the prosecution has charged as criminal.\nIn this connection it must be examined which is the result that must be regarded as relevant from the viewpoint of penal law.\n- - - - - 156) HOFMANN Exhibit 168 VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5106, "page_number": "5099", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Let us take the case of the forbidden sexual inter course:\nIn the case of the result of the racial examinations being negative HIMMLER personally could pronounce a judgment, by which the delinquent could be sentenced to death by hanging, concentration camp etc.\n, if the other constitutent elements, such as criminal facts like rape for instance or the behavior of the perpetrator, or the health examination etc.\n, were also unfavorable.\nI want to stress in particular that the sexual intercourse between the foreign workers themselves, for instance, was not prohibited; this shows that not their procreation was to be prevented, but that it was only intended to counter the dangers recognized by the Security Police157).It must further be taken into consideration that the foreign workers had to sign a statement saying that they had been instructed about the prohibition.\nThus they acknowledged this regulation and were aware of the consequences if they not adhere to the prohibition.\nThe prohibition of sexual intercourse was necessary for reasons of military security on theone hand, as it is well known that sexual intercourse presents most opportunities for espionage and thus considerably endangers the military interest.\nThe soldier at the front, furthermore, must be sure that his dependents at home, such as sweethearts and wives, will refrain from all sexual intercourse with members of a nation which he considers as an enemy.\nOn the other hand, there were reasons of national policy, as it had become apparent, that a mixing of German and Slav nationals would lead to new frictions and finally to an infiltration of foreigners in the old Germany (Altreich) itself, by reason of the biological superiority of the Slav peoples.\nThe reasons - - - - - - - 157) Hofmann Exhibit 72, Document Book IIIA Hofmann Exhibit 65, Document Book IIIA Hofmann Exhibit 160, Document Book VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5107, "page_number": "5100", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "and misgivings were partly the same as those which have induced other States as well to forbid sexual intercourse between members of their race and nationality and people of a different kind.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5108, "page_number": "5101", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Thus, for instance, a number of states of the U.S.A. have issued laws forbidding marriages between Whites and Negroes, which are considered and punished as offenses and even as crimes.158) In the South African Union every intercourse between Whites and Negroes outside of marriage is punishable by imprisonment on the basis of the so-called Immorality Act No. V 159) In the same way the Allies, England and the U.S.A., have issued so-called fraternization laws 160). There is a well known case in which a German Prisoner of War in England was punished by imprisonment for having offended against this law161).\nIf the Court reaches the conclusion that this whole procedure, as laid down in the general collected decrees, or the threatened punishment, must be regarded as measures exceeding the actually necessary security measures, then the result is undoubtedly unlawful. If, however, the racial (examiner's answer was positive, the delinquent was usually saved from these unlawful consequences. If his other circumstances, in particular the examination of his whole family, showed that he was of German decent, that, therefore, the dangers of sabotage etc., and in particular the biological danger of infiltration of foreigners, did not exist in his case, then he was included in the Re-Germanization procedure, provided that he declared his willingness. In this case, these people were treated as Germans. They received a considerably better treatment than the other foreign workers. Apart from this, I refer in this connection to the statements of my colleague, Dr. Heim, who will deal with the lawful ness of the re-Germanization procedure. I therefore suggest that this result was not unlawful.\nIn point one, No. 8, of the indictment, the following conclusion has been reached:\n\"Since negative results of racial investigations and examinations led to the extermination or imprisonment in concentration camps of the individuals concerned, the Main Staff Office, as well as VOMI, RuSHA and Lebensborn, acted in close cooperation with the SS-Reich Main ---------------------------158) Hofmann Exhibit 61 Document Book III a 159) Hofmann Exhibit 62-63 \" \" III a 160) Hofmann Exhibit 81 \" \" III a 161) Hofmann Exhibit 75, 83 \" \" III a \n Security Office (SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt, commonly known as the \"RSHA\"). The RSHA imposed capital punishment and imprisonment in concentration camps upon individuals designated by RUSHA, after examination.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5109, "page_number": "5102", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": ".....\"\nThe Prosecution, therefore, also only considers the final result, represented by the security police measures, as criminal. To prove the correctness of their deductions, the prosecution has submitted affidavits or reports which bear out these deductions.162) The questions of the prosecution in the cross-examinations were mostly on the point as to whether the examinations of the racial examiners had been decisive for the negative result. In contrast to this, we have the testimonies of the prosecution witness, Breder163), of the defendants Hofmann, Hildebrandt, and Schwalm, according to which the opinion of the racial examiners was decisive for the re-Germanization procedure and thus prevented further penal proceedings.\nThe argumentation of the prosecution, however, must necessarily fail, as it misses the crux of the matter. It is based on deductions of witnesses who could not help following the arguments of the prosecution, as was, for instance, stated by Vietz on the witness stand.164) Their testimonies are, therefore, without value, as they are not based on their own observation.\nA testimony on that point is not possible at all, as it is a question of a deduction. One can only use the laws of logic for that purpose. The personal reports submitted by the prosecution are equally unsuitable as documentary evidence, as they, also constitute deductions. These reports are misleading, anyway, as they were made for quite a different purpose, and from quite a different angle, than that suggested by the prosecution post factum. If they mention the decisive importance and the decisive part played by the individual Nationals, this does not mean that the racial examiner alone ------------------162) Affidavit VIETZ Prosecution Document No. 5126 Affidavit SPOERING, Exh.\n494, Document Book IX Affidavit PROKSCH, Exh.\n537, Document Book XI Testimony of witness BACH, Transcript page 400 of the English.\n163) Transcript page 775, 777 of the English wording 164) Transcript page 3776 of the English wording.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5110, "page_number": "5103", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "had to make the decision concerning the fate of the resettler or the person suitable for re-Germanization. This was actually impossible, if for no other reason than because the scientific knowledge in this field was not yet sufficiently far advanced, and also because the number of experts available (about 50 to 80) was quite inadequate for dealing with the millions of people concerned. The word \"decisive\" could only mean in this connection that in doubtful cases, i.e., in cases where the records as to descent, such as language, political attitude, cultural and political connections with Germany, were not irrefutable, the opinion of the racial examiner could turn the scales one way or the other.\nThus the cases in question were doubtful ones, borderline cases, which therefore required an additional criterion. Greifelt also stated that these racial examinations were confined to a minimum. The total number of persons selected as fit for re-Germanization, amounting to about 20,000, within five years, also shows how negligible was the effect of the racial examinations in comparison to the millions of people inhabiting the border territories of the East, and just how \"decisive\" they were.\nThose words, so often used, and perhaps just for this reason no longer consciously used in their true meaning, can only be reasonably interpreted in this way. For how could a racial examiner pronounce a decision by giving his opinion? The decision could only be made by a State authority, such as the State Police, or Himmler, in case of forbidden sexual inter-course, or the Consulting Office of the Reich Medical Association in cases of abortions, or the representative of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism in cases of re-Germanization of children within the framework of regulation 67/1, as also in cases of children born of foreign female workers in Germany proper -- the Reich proper. In cases of resettlement or deportation there was from the very start no question of any decisions by racial examiners, or by officials of the Field Office Lodz, as they only came into the picture after the deportation had already been carried out. In this case it was only a question of whether the person \n concerned was to be included in the re-Germanization procedure or not.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5111, "page_number": "5104", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "In order to achieve a practical evaluation from the point of view of penal law, one must consider the purpose of the racial examinations. Their aim was in every case to determine whether the person concerned was suitable for being included in the re-Germanization procedure, or not. The technical directives given by the Office for Racial Policy only referred to that point. If the question was answered in the affirmative, then the security measures which had been laid down on principle, were not carried out, nor were the usual measures affecting all female Eastern workers, if it was a case of children born of female Eastern workers. If the question was answered in the negative, the result of the racial examinations did not provide any new facts, nor did they have any consequences. In this case the causal chain with regard to the fundamentally fixed measures against foreigners was not broken.\nIn this connection, too, the clear borderline between the spheres of activities of RuSHA on the one hand, and the Reich Security Main Office on the other hand, becomes apparent, as it is also stressed again and again in the official documents. In particular, I refer to Himmler's speech concerning the purely positive tasks of RuSHA and the negative ones of the Reich Security Main Office 165), and to the clearly outlined agreement between Kaltenbrunner, the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, and the defendant Hildebrandt 165).\nThe work of the racial examiners was purely that of positive selection. From the very start they had been given the task of selecting from the number of SS-candidates those who were tallest, strongest, and came nearest to the average German specimen. ------------------165) Hofmann Exhibit 159 Document Book VIII 165a) \" \" 127 Document Book VI.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5112, "page_number": "5105", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "This can never be regarded as a criminal task, for the reason, say, that the non-selected SS-candidates had thus been left to their fate. On the other hand, the activities of the racial examiners within the sphere subordinated to the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism were such that they could prevent the Security Police measures. On no account, however, were they causal. They did not constitute a conditiosisine qua non, as far as these measures were concerned, as these measures would have ensued, anyway, without the activities of the racial examiners. If, however, there is no causal chain leading up to a criminal action, then the examination of guilt or responsibility is of no interest.166)\nDR. SCHWARZ:I will not read my comments concerning the point of abortions, the DVL, the spoliation, and persecution of Jews.\nI will continue with the membership in the SS, on page 105 of my plea. It is the bottom half of that page.\nI have tried so far in my arguments to demonstrate that the defendant Hofmann does not bear any penal responsibility to be judged by this Tribunal.\nDR. SCHWARZ:I beg your pardon. It is the lower half. In the course of this trial it has been shown that various findings of the IMT judgement cannot be substantiated, particularly as far as RuSHA is concerned:\n\"The main organization of the SS was composed of 12 main offices, the most important were:\nRSHA, WVHA, RuSHA, together with auxiliary offices for the resettlement of racial Germans (VOMI).\"The evidence has shown conclusively that not all of Himmler's organizations are to be considered as components of the SS.\nFor instance, RSHA was a state agency and did not have any other \n connection with the actual SS offices, such as SS Main Office, RuSHA, Personnel Main Office than the fact that Himmler was the head of all of them.", "speakers": [ "DR. SCHWARZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5113, "page_number": "5106", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "Likewise, the Main Police Office, the Staff Main Office and VOMI were state agencies. They were main offices of the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, but not of the SS organization. Unfortunately, the defense could not produce, during the trial, the required evidence. General Wolff, who was put on the witness stand in the course of the present trial, and who, as Himmler's personal aide and chief of his staff had the very best knowledge of conditions, was not heard then. Furthermore, the IMT findings which follow have been shown as being incorrect:\n\"Through the control of the police organization, particularly of SIPO and SD, the SS was implicated in all those crimes which have been outlined in the chapter of this judgment dealing with Gestapo and SD.\"\nAs stated above, RuSHA, was a separate state agency. The SS rather was supervised by the police than the contrary. In the course of this trial it has doubtlessly been proved that the following findings of the IMT have been rebutted:\n\"RuSHA of the SS, jointly with VOMI, was active in the carrying our of germanization plans in the occupied territories, in unison with the racial principles of the Nazi party and, furthermore, in the deportation of Jews and other foreign nationals.\"\nFurthermore, the witnesses Wolff, Schallermeier and von Eberstein have rebutted the following findings:\n\"The SS was eminently active in the persecution of Jews. The SS was directly implicated in the occurrences of 10 November 1938.\"\nThe persecution of the Jews was the sole affair of RSHA, office Eichmann, thus of a police office and not of the SS. Accordingly, the following findings of IMT cannot be substantiated:\n\"The evacuation of Jews from the occupied territories was carried out, according to the directives issued by the SS, with the help of SS police units.\nThe extermination of the Jews was carried out under the leadership of the SS central offices.\"\nA large part of the erroneous findings were caused, as stated by the witness Wolff, by the fact that an outsider could hardly distinguish between the uniforms of a member of the SS and of a member of the RSHA.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5114, "page_number": "5107", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "If some individual criminal acts have actually occurred, they have been committed by various small units of the SS, as e.g. the excesses of some Waffen SS units, the activity of the Einsatzgruppen and of certain concentration camp commanders and guards. The activity of these small selected groups was so secret that \n only specially informed people could be in the know.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5115, "page_number": "5108", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "I have already stated that the notorious Posen speech has no evidential value in this connection.\nIt is contrary to the principle that all penal guilt should be a personal one, if Hofmann is made responsible for the activities of those criminal SS groups, although he did not know anything about them. Nor can this knowledge be replaced by his position as a SS-Obergruppenfuehrer, chief of a SS main office, by construing an assumption that, in such positions, he must have known about those activities.\nRather, his activity as chief of RuSHA within the SS was actually quite unobjectionable. It remained so insofar RuSHA had to deal with war assignments ordered by the state. The aim always was to preserve life, not to destroy it. Himmler's words, when transferring RuSHA to Pancke, are significant:\n\"I transfer RuSHA to you, as it is the most beautiful, office which the SS can confer; indeed, it has purely positive tasks, whereas RSHA has the negative ones.\nWhile RSHA has to combat evil, RuSHA has to promote good and valuable things, wherever this is possible.\"\nThe defendant Hofmann has interpreted his activity in the same sense. Neither was he implicated in criminal activities of the SS, nor has he held any knowledge thereof. Insofar he had known of the persecution of the Jews through RSHA, this knowledge is not criminal within the meaning of Law No. 10, as such knowledge did not exceed what every German knew, and as, moreover, this activity was not carried out by the SS, but by the police. Rather, Hofmann was involved, since 1932 already in a violent conflict with Streicher, one of the auctores spirituales of the persecution of the Jews.47) Neither had he anything in common with him, nor did he read his rag \"Der Stuermer\". I request, therefore, to declare the defendant Hofmann not guilty within the meaning of the - - - - - - - - - - 47) Hofmann Exh. 112, Doc. Book V.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5116, "page_number": "5109", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "indictment. If the Tribunal should, nevertheless, pass sentence, I would request to take into consideration the following personal cir cumstances:\nHofmann joined the SS only for idealogical reasons. In the course of the general rapid rise of the NSDAP and of the SS, he rose uncommon ly fast.\nBut his activity was exercised above all in the positive sphere of Race and Settlement, viz.\nfamily genealogy matters (Eugenics Sippenpflege). If he was appointed later on HSSPF, this did not mean by any means a police duty.\nThe tasks of the HSSPF have been described by the witnesses von Eberstein, Paulus, Ebrecht and Wolff.\nThe affi davit of Bomhardt, the competent official in the Police Main Office, seems to be clinching.\n48) It results therefrom that Hofmann did not possess any executive police authority.\nIn fact, he did not have any training for such a task.\nIn this connection, his activity was, above all, concerned with air-raid protection and welfare work.\nHe cared particularly for the foreign workers when the debacle was approaching, although he was not at all competent for this.\n49) He helped where he could and when members of offices subordinated to him did something wrong, he intervened, as soon as heknew about it.\nThus, Amberger and Kasere were discharged from their posts owing to their having trans gressed their competencies.\nThe members of the Race Office, Prof.\nSchulz and Harders, had stated plans vastly transgressing their com petencies.\nThese plans were not carriedout.\nRather, Hofmann considered as his duty to act through his own good example and not through the police bludgeon, his family life was ex emplary, as shown by various statements of witnesses.\nHe was a good comrade and was interested in the personal life of the least of his subordinates.\nOn the other hand, his relations with Himmler were not good.\nHofmann had obviously joined RuSHA through the intermediary of Pancke, who knew him from Hamburg, and had been appointed chief of Ru SHA owing to his seniority, at any rate, Hofmann and RuSHA had to be - - - - - - - - - - - -48) Hofmann exh.\n12, doc. book III b.\n49) Hofmann exh. 123, doc. book V.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5117, "page_number": "5110", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "reserved during the war, by an explicit order issued by Himmler, and he had been appointed chief only for the duration of the war.\nHof mann tried, therefore, to be active particularly in welfare work.\nHe remained true unto the last to the ideals of the SS, when he voluntari ly surrendered to the Allies.\n50) He did this at a time when the SS was accused by newspapers and radio of the gruesomest crimes and called a criminal organization and when Montgomery stated that SS members would remain in captivity for 20 years.\nHe submitted a letter to General Eisenhower, which says at the end:\n\"If I surrender inthese days to the Military Government, Ido this because I cannot bear any longer to be in hiding somewhere, when many thousands of SS members are being detained, often , as I hear, under very severe conditions.\nI am ready to share their fate.\nBut I also surrender because I am convinced that I can correct many prejudices against the SS and the party.\"\nLike many other leaders, Hofmann felt himself responsible for the SS after Himmler's suicide.\nHe wanted to promote understanding, believ ing that the SS was a chivalrous enemy in battle.\nIt is no wonder that at last he became a victim of his good faith.\nHe was not equal to the methods of interrogation.\nHe only had the honest desire to give assistance to the interrogators in the investigation of crimes which had been committed, without being conscious of the fact that such material, particularly his own affidavits could be used hi self.\nNor is such a procedure known at all to German law.\nAs late as June 1947, he was denied an interview with defense counsel.\nHe was imprisoned for more than two years without being told for which acts he was detained.\nHe was interrogated concerning matters which he only knew from hear say.\nBelieving that things were as presented to him by the interroga tors, he signed affidavits, although he did not actually knot about the matters concerned.\nInsofar, his affidavits which he signed and - - - - - - - - - - - -50) Hofmann exh.\n3, doc. book V.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5118, "page_number": "5111", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "which have been presented here are devoid of value. Equally valueless is Hofmann's affidavit of 30 November 1945 presented in crossexamination. This affidavit was given under great moral pressure, Hofmann was not even permitted to make changes in the affidavit which he had to sign. He tried, nevertheless, by desiring to change, in chapter 7, \"P.o.W.-camps\" into \"prisoner camps\". But the interrogator has again voided this in the original. Further changes in the original have been made, which nobody has certified. Accordingly, the document has no value as evidence.\nThe interrogation transcript of 19 May 1947-52) submitted during the rebuttal is significant, per se, of the honest will of Hofmann to dear up the entire complex of problems, But various expressions stated there cannot be his own, as they are entirely outside his vocabulary, such as \"Konferierung\", page 3 of the original. In the transcript itself the protentous threats against Hofmann are missing. They ought to be there, about page 14. The transcript is by no means complete. Missing too is the signature of the registrar, being the author of the document. The correctness of the transcript has been certified by Dr. Schwenk and Mr. Wolff only on 6 January, 1948, thus more than 7 1/2 months after the interrogation and quite a short time after the examination of the defendant Hofmann on the witness stand. The prosecution has not offered for rebuttal the best evidence, viz. the sound track and the interrogation of the witnesses present at the interrogation at that time. When Hofmann could show initiative of his own, he has done good things. This was the case in the sphere of geneology and welfare in RuSHA, and in the sphere of the protection of the civilian population against aerial warfare, as HSSPF, and, later, as Senior Commander of P.o.W. matters. In this position he has given many - - - - - - - - - - - 51) Prosec. exh. 837. 52) Prosec. exh. 883.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5119, "page_number": "5112", "date": "17 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-17", "text": "proofs of his understanding of the lot of the P.o.W.s.53) I cannot find any better words than those of an American P.o.W., which I submit to the Tribunal:\n\"My personal experience with general Hofmann was that he was a godfearing humane and just man.\nHe could not have treated us better.\nMay God help him and guide his counsel in this trial. May justice be our goal!\" 54)\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 9:30 tomorrow morning.\n(A recess was taken until 0930 hours 18 February 1948.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 53) Hofmann exh. 14, 119,120,121, doc. book V. 54) Hofmann exh. 122, doc. book V.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5120, "page_number": "5113", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 18 February 1948, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, Presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:All persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, will you ascertain if all the defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the court room.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next argument.\nMr. President, Your Honors:\nJust before the conclusion of the case in chief, the prosecution in the session 2 February 1948 made the following statement: I quote: \"We wish to have it clearly set forth in the record that for the period from 1 September 1939 until April 1943 the only charge against the defendant Hildebrandt is the Euthanasia charge contained in paragraph No. 22 of the Indictment. We make no other charges against him for that period when he was Higher SS and Police Leader and representative of the RKFDV in Danzig-West Prussia.\"", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5121, "page_number": "5114", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "This statement per se could be a source of gratification in the defense of the defendant Hilderbrandt which, if meant seriously, could be regarded as an expression of the resent viewpoint of the prosecution with reference to the inculpability of Hildebrandt, However, the defense of Hildebrandt could he accused of acting irresponsibly if it limited its argumentation accordingly to the activity of Hildebrandt as Chief of the Main Race and Settlement Office.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt has not forgotten that on 4 September 1946 he was taken from the hospital of the internment camp Regensburg by a Polish officer, and transferred to Roland with a transport of 60-70 men.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt is familiar with the physical mistreatment and humiliation to which he and his fellow prisoners - farmers, officers, and clergymen - were subjected in the Polish prisons in Warsaw, The defendant Hildebrandt knows what it means to have to wait 3/4 of a year, nine months, for a court trial, completely uncertain as to his fate.\nThe Polish law administration had nine months' time to put Hildebrandt before the forum of a Polish court. In Article V of the Control Council Law of 20 December 1945, of the \"writ of habeas corpus\" of German war criminals, promulgated and signed by the four signatory power it states, and I quote:\n\"If within six months the extradited person has not been convicted by the Court of the Zone or country to which he has been delivered, then such person shall be returned upon demand of the Commander of the Zone where the person was located prior to extradition.\"\nThe fixed time elapsed without the Polish government having made any efforts whatsoever to utilize this time to initiate and carry out proceedings against Hildebrandt.\nIn July 1947, Hildebrandt was again returned to the USA Zone in a completely enervated condition. A few weeks later he received the indictment for this trial.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5122, "page_number": "5115", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Hildebrandt, father of three young children, and living in happy marriage, did not only command the highest esteem in the ranks of the SS, as has been confirmed concordantly by many witnesses. In his activity as Higher SS and police Leader in Danzig-West Prussia he also won for himself the trust and respect of wide circles of the Polish population. He had an open ear and tender heart for the needs and troubles of his fellow human beings. There is no blood upon his hands. It cannot be a matter of indifference to him, a man whose irreproachable and hypersensitive character has been described with the moving words of women as well as with the honest conviction of men who were his colleagues and subordinates, whether henceforth his good name in the life of his children shall be burdened with the stigma of an inhuman war criminal.\nHis self-respect, the consideration of his and his family's reputation demands justification before a Tribunal to the judges of which he has entrusted in full confidence the decision over his fate, and therewith honor. This is, and I need not give particular emphasis to this fact, the case here before the American Tribunal, Even today Hildebrandt does not hold any feelings of malice towards the Polish people and its citizens. But after his experiences of 1946/47 he cannot accord the same trust to a court in Poland, which following the political developments of recent weeks and months has today become a satellite state of Moscow, and tomorrow will perhaps represent one of the strongest powers of the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics. The word of the Roman poet, Horace \"Vestigia terrent\" from Aesop's Fables in the story of the fox and the lion induces Hildebrandt to consider whether behind the mask of a statement, submitted with apparent loyalty, and which promises to release him of the grave accusations, there is perhaps concealed another motive which would deprive him of the judgment of this court.\nRealizing the possibilities which could arise from this statement, it has become necessary for the defense of Hildebrandt to discuss the question as to what significance is attached to that statement from the \n standpoint of criminal law and what consequences would ensue for the proceedings.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5123, "page_number": "5116", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "B.\nThe right of the defendant to defense constitutes an integral part of the irresfutable principles of the regular criminal proceedings of every civilized nation. This right should enable him to refute the charges brought against him and clear himself of these charges. This maxim applies to petty as well as severe criminal cases. He was right to a more worthy consideration of his person when, on the basis of international laws, charges are raised before an international Tribunal accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.\nThe knowledge of the charge publically raised against him constitutes the prerequisite for the regular defense compatible with the selfrespect of the person accused. In consequence thereof, Ordnance No. 7 in Article III imposes upon the chief prosecutor before the Military Tribunals the obligation to represent the United States, and to submit to the defendant a copy of the indictment prior to the trial. Thereby, the indictment has become the very basis of every trial before the Military Tribunals. Its submission to the Secretary General's office signifies that the decision of these courts has been requested for the judgment and punishment of the defendant for a specific criminal act.\nAccording to Article IV of Ordnance No. 7, this criminal act is to be described in the indictment in sufficient detail so as to inform the defendant of the nature of the criminal act of which he has been accused. According to Article VI of Ordnance No. 7, the adjudgment of the case is to cover these indictment counts. Within the framework of and according to this indictment, the high judgeship of the military tribunal is entrusted with the public charge by the prosecution and a decision thereon requested.\nIf once this appeal to the Tribunal has been made, it does not seem admissible to allow the development of the case, in particular, the extent, subject or interpretation of the counts contained in the \n Indictment to rest upon the exclusive discretion of the Prosecution to make some restricting or elaborating statements, This is evidenced from the following considerations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5124, "page_number": "5117", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "If an action has been brought against a defendant, the defendant has the inviolable right to restore his honor and reputation which are at stake or at least i*perilled through the charges preferred against him. After the trial has been opened the reputation can no longer be restored by a unilateral declaration made by the Prosecution but only by a legal judgment. The unilateral withdrawal of an action by the Prosectuion after the Trial has been opened would deprive the defendant of his right to know that he in case of his innocence has been exonerated from this charge by a final decision of Tribunal.\nBy the withdrawal of a criminal suit the right to bring an action based on the offense is not \"exhausted\". The same applies to any declaration by the Prosecution which in its effect means a withdrawal.\nThe exhaustion of a criminal suit, i.e. the inadmissibility of its being brought in anew can only be effected by a final decision of the Judge which refers to the criminal culpability of the act. If such a dicision has been passed, there exists no possibility for any repeated trial in this criminal case according to the generally valid legal principle which has also been included in the USA constitution: \"Ne bis in idem\".\nAny other settlement of the criminal case would give the Prosecution the chance of renewing the criminal action or to bring it in or have it brought in with another Tribunal from which it expects a decision more favorable to the prosecution in its considered judgment, Thus the defendant would be deprived of the possibility of appealing to the principle just mentioned.\nAfter the trial has been opened; the defendant thus is entitled to demand a legal judgment on the charges contained in the Indictment in spite of an apparently accommodating declaration by the Prosecution.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5125, "page_number": "5118", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "In addition to these reasons founded on the rights of the defendant a further viewpoi t speaks against the view held by the Prosecution in the session of 2 February 1948.\na) It is inherent in the nature of a criminal case that the violation of social or human order requires expiation through the punishment of the perpetrator. It is incumbent upon the Prosecution to occasion the expiation by bringing in an action, the pronouncment of the punishment, however, is incumbent upon the Tribunal by passing a decision in the form of a judgment. The assertions of the Prosecution within the limits of the Indictment which it has submitted are opposed by the assertions of the defendant. Guilt or non-guilt are weighed according to the result of the case in chief. The judgment is based on the summing up and evaluation of all the documentary evidence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5126, "page_number": "5119", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "b) Whatever the Prosecution asserts in the Indictment, whatever it has proved or the defendant has refuted wholly or partly, is evaluated by the Tribunal, whose decision the Prosecution applied for. No matter, whether the Prosecution tries to extend or restrict the criminal action or to renounce the further prosecution of certain parts of the case as not, pr no longer, being covered by the counts: it is exclusively the Tribunal which decides on the justification or nonjustification of these assertions, be it by returning a verdict of guilty or not guilty. This conception alone comes up to the dignity and authority of the Tribunal which imperatively calls for the submission and investigation of the action in its entirety before the tribunal as it is worded in the Indictment.\n4.) Thus the point at issue can only be whether according to the Indictment Hildebrandt was charged before this Tribunal with his activity in Danzig-West Prussia or South Russia.\nI compiled the evidence for this on pages 10-14 of this plea, I simply refer to it.\nI would only very briefly refer to two points. In the Indictment it was expressly mentioned that the occupied territories were important. Furthermore, the Indictment mentions the connection of the defendant Hildebrandt with VOMI and Lebensborn and repeatedly mention is made that Hildebrandt was Higher SS and Police Leader, and the Prosecution in their opening statements mentioned Hildebrandt many times in his capacity as Higher SS and Police Leader and especially made mention of resettlement with which Hildebrandt came into contact. Also, in their case in chief Prosecution has repeatedly also brought witnesses into the witness stand that corroborated these various points.\n6.) In the course of the trial, Hildebrandt's position as Higher SS and Police Leader was discussed and clarified through questioning in direct and cross-examination by the defense as well as by the Prosecution:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5127, "page_number": "5120", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "a) The Prosecution questioned a number of competent witnesses.19)\nb) During the hearing of evidence, which lasted through 2 1/2 days, the defendant Hildebrandt had an opportunity to discuss in detail the charges brought against him in the documents and the statements of witnesses as Higher SS and Police Leader and deputy in the alleged settlement, in the settlement and alleged shipping of people concentration camps, The Prosecution raised no objections to this.\n7.) Following all these developments, the text of the indictment, the opening statement, the documents and the case in chief, there can be no doubt that the charges contained in the indictment are meant to embrace Hildebrandt's entire activity in Danzig-West Prussia as well as Chief of the RuSHA and as Higher SS and Police Leader in South Russia. All the events described in the indictment and discussed during the trial represent a uniform, homogenous activity on the part of Hildebrandt within the framework of the alleged systematic program of genocide aiming at the extermination of alien peoples and ethnic groups. This activity forms the subject of the indictment, The identity of his activity in Danzig-West Prussia is linked with the charges contained in the indictment. Therefore, the subject for the findings of the court constitutes the entire activity of Hildebrandt in accordance with the indictment, as represented in the course of the trial.\nC.\nThe result of the legal examination is also based on legalpolitical considerations.\n1.) Control Council Law. No. 10, as was expressed by the judgment in the Justice trial, implies a legislative act of international authority.\na) Whether this view is correct remains an open question.\nThe future will perhaps strip this so-called law of its legislative character and disclose its true meaning, \n namely that of an agreement among the victor nations for the implementation of punishment of the alleged German war criminals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5128, "page_number": "5121", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "b) However that may be, the judgment in the justice case was forced to concede, and I quote:\n\".......that the Germans were not theonly ones who were guilty of committing war crimes; other violators of international law could, no doubt, be tried and punished by the State of which they are nationals.\"\n\"In application of these principles,\" -- it goes on, -- \"the authorization to punish violators of international law evi dently does not depend on the issue of material provisions of penal law which are valid only in Germany.\"\nc) In conjunction with this, the judgment, which has been frequently mentioned, states, and I quote:\n\"Only by giving consideration to the extraordinary and temporary situation in Germany can the procedure here be harmonized with established principles of national sovereignty.\nIn Germany an international body (the Control Council) has assumed and exercised the power to establish judicial machinery for the punish ment of those who have violated the rules of the common international law.\nd) This attempt to justify all the trials brought against only so-called German war criminals fails to manifest itself convincingly.\nIn Germany, for lack of its own national government, there first had to be constructed with great effort an ad hoc legislative machinery based on a Control Council Law.\nIn the countries of the victors, where govern ments have been installed according to constitutional law, criminal Prosecution proceedings could be initiated without any trouble on the basis of the existing criminal provisions.\n2.) Notwithstanding, this has not happened in one of the victor nations. Only in the vanquished country do we find thousands of men \n and women, separated from their families and deprived from taking their part in the work of reconstruction which is so necessary, who have been languishing for almost 3 years in prisons charged with war crimes which they either allegedly or actually committed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5129, "page_number": "5122", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Then at least equally as numerous war criminals in the lands of the victor nations are enjoying now as ever their liberty without any information coming to Germany that criminal proceedings had been initiated against them.\nThis fact, which appears odd to the mind of every German, makes understandable the resigned statement of one of the best known German minds on the subject of international law when he remarks, and I quote:\n\"From this time on two types of positive international law shall apply:\none for German citizens.......and another for the rest of the world.\"\n3.) Laun is not alone in his conclusion. The foreign press as well has frequently characterized the Control Council Law in the light as it is understood by many Germans and foreigners, namely that it is a law of exception in international law that is directed exclusively against Germans.\n4.) In recent weeks there have appeared a number of articles, in the foreign, but above all also in the American press, dealing with the Nuernberg trials. The attention of the world was focused repeatedly on the trial procedure. Trenchant criticism was not lacking in this respect.\n5.) In connection with the request of the Polish government, of which the defense has been informed, to turn over the defendant Hildebrandt following the close of this trial, the statement of the Prosecution in the session of 2 February 1948 assumes alegal-political aspect in consideration of the questions of criminal law which I have just discussed. It gives rise to the assumption that an attempt is being made, through knowing and willful restriction of the indictment counts \n against Hildebrandt with respect to his activity as Chief of the RuSHA, to make possible the transfer of Hildebrandt to Poland so he may be judged there for his activities in Danzig-West Prussia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5130, "page_number": "5123", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "a) For months the Prosecution haswithheld its statement and has not refuted the text and extent of the evidence deemed necessary by the defense.\nWith respect to the indictment, Hildebrandt found himself forced to consider all the events the discussion of which has given rise to vital problems in the relations between Germans and Poles, Hildebrant did not defend himself as a private individual, Hildebrandt, as a former official of German Reich authorities, spoke for these offices when he provided information for the benefit of the court and his own defense.\nb) Morals and morality in the law requires the unlimited opportunity for defense.\nThis was granted HILDEBRANDT by the court, HILDEBRANDT made use of this opportunity.\nHowever, he could not anticipate that the testimony which he made here as a witness might be used against him following the conclusion of this trial in another new trial against him as a defendant before a Polish court.\nThe prosecution maintained silence as to his statements.\nFair conduct on the part of the prosecution would at least have demanded some hint.\nThe pro cedure followed by the prosecution towards HILDEBRANDT is not in harmony with the principle as emphasized by me.\nc) The defense does not wish to impute to the prosecution that the text of its statement of 2 February 1948 does not conform with their convictions regarding HILDEBRANDT's activity in Danzig-West Prussia.\nIn the event of a judgment from this court with respect to Danzig-West Prussia, the defense does not wish to contest the anticipation of the prosecution of hearing the statement:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5131, "page_number": "5124", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "'I find him not guilty.\"\nFinally, the defense does not wish to deprive the prosecution of its belief in the weight of its statement that hereby a judgment for HILDEBRANDT's activity in Danzig-West Prussia can be obviated.\n6.) However, the defense is convinced that the prosecution is just as unaware of the desireof the Polish Government to have HILDEBRANDT extradited today as the subsequent obligation of the American extradition authorities, to reject the desire for extradiction of the Polish government following the proclamation of the judgment for HILDEBRANDT's activity in Danzig-West Prussia, because respect for the American constitution compels the American authorities to this action.\n7.) It is consistent with the spirit of the American constitution, but not consistent to circumvent fundamental provisions in an unfair manner. Ralph EMERSON one said and I quote:\n\"Morality is the ultimate goal of the State. A hundred years ago the American people attempted to establish the charter of human rights with almost ideal per fection.\nObligations to humanity are incumbent upon the state.\nIt is our duty to fight for liberty and justice to the very last, at home and abroad:\nSince the world should be ruled by common sense and morality, it is the obligation of our nation to be noble.\nAmerica should not be as were the old nations, greedy, exclusive, intolerant, but a Samaritan as no other land.\n......\nThe legislation of this broad land must be more magnani mous than that of any nation.\nIt must become cosmopolitan.\" To entrust a human life in such way to another power, as is contemplated by the prosecution, is not consistent with the words of this great American philosopher, expressed with the high feeling of responsibility.\n8.) The prosecution wants to wash its hands of the matter. It would transfer the responsibility for the legalization of extradition to the court for the opportunity of which it anticipates the decision of this court. By its statement the prosecution demands nothing more or \n less than a confirmation by the court for the benefit of its own secret motives.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5132, "page_number": "5125", "date": "13 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-13", "text": "Such a legal policy is not in harmony with American justice. My fight for HELDEBRANDT's life, this \"pure, unselfish character of courageous and humane attitude\" is dierected against this policy.\n9.) However, the action of the prosecution is also ill-advised. The prosecution is about to add its voice to the threatening voices abroad against its own trial procedure, and to make out of the RuSHA trial the \"Case HILDEBRANDT\", which would increase the mistrust of this system to a point of intolerability.\n10.) In this moment who does not remember an incident of almost two thousand years ago, albeit of dissimilar great dramatic power, when the Roman Provincial Governor, by Kaiphas was induced to surrender the guiltless to death, whose blood should not stain his own hands?\nI have trust in the court that it will contain such an intention, based on the law, Following all my statements, no significance can be attached to the statement made by the prosecution on 2 February 1948 from the standpoint of criminal law. In spite of this statement, the judgment must decide as to the culpability or inculpability of HILDEBRANDT for his activities in Danzig-Test Prussia which was requested by the prosecution with the submission of the indictment.\nII.\nIn its statement, the prosecution limits the charge against HILDEBRANDT to his activity in the RuSHA, South Russia, as well as to his membership in the SS.\n3.) I should like to limit myself here to a few important and leading aspects.\n1.) RuSHA, a name, which, according to the intent of the prosecution, shall be condemned in history for all times in connection with the alleged program of murder and the debili tation of other races and peoples, emerges today, as shown by the case in chief, only as a false label for an office (Amt) \n which neither ideologically and propagandistically nor from a point of view of publicity, had anything in common with racial and settlement policy, in particular as it affected other peoples, not to speak of genocide.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5133, "page_number": "5126", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "2.) The sphere of duties of this office was limited to purposes peculiar to the SS within the limits of genealogical research and the training of SS members as German farmers of the future. Any anti-Jewish tendencies were foreign to it as well as to Hildebrandt.24) In Hildebrandt's time, the activities decreased more and more because of the war, the independence of the individual technical offices united in it, above all of the Racial Office under the all-too-busy Harders, increased more and more. The policy of decentralization introduced by Hildebrandt supported the tendency toward independence and afforded Harders the opportunity of misusing the name of his chief on many occasions.\n3.) There was hardly any contact or influence upon these offices on the part of Hildebrandt owing to the changing conditions and the difficulties of transportation facilities, but also owing to lack of inclination. Hildebrandt's activities applied for the most part to caring for SS members and their families.\n4.) The Prosecution, probably not unintentionally, included many decrees of the Reich Main Security Office in the document books against the Main Race and Settlement Office, Actually, the RsHA was not a close partner, as the Prosecution maintains, but in reality the RsHA was not a close partner as maintained by the Prosecution, but the counterpart of the RuSHA both in the field of organization and actual work. The negative task of the extirpation carried out by the Reich Main Security Office was in juxtaposition to the positive task of selection made by the Main Race and Settlement Office, For this reason their respective field of duties had been ------------------------24) - Hildebrandt Exh. 21, 22, 31, 35, 53.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5134, "page_number": "5127", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "limited on Hildebrandt's initiative by a special decree, during his tenure of office.\n5.) Hildebrandt does not dispute the responsibility for his Amt excepting the limitations due to various assignments in 1944 and 1945, and the differences in time and place. Most of the pertinent documents concern the time prior to the beginning of his active duty on 20 April 1943. Hildebrandt's activity consisted in executing the orders and directives given to him by his superior offices. Is it feasible that an official, a subordinate, can be held responsible for them from the standpoint of international Law? Where are the limits of responsibility according to international law? Who is responsible for the horrors and distress of bombing attacks? Is it the pilot of the plane, or the commander of the airforce, if for example, by pressing the button on a panel board an atom bomb is released, which transforms a Japanese city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants in a few seconds to rubble and cinders?\n6.) During the war the Main Race and Settlement Office came into touch with problems of the East. Racial examiners and RuS Leaders, which up to then had served with the Racial Office were now placed at the disposal of other offices as experts for the carrying out of racial examinations. 25) This induced the Prosecution to suspect the Main Race and Settlement Office as the motivating force behind the alleged war of extermination against the peoples of the East, and to make the men who had leading positions in that office, office or who where active as its deputies in the Eastern territories, responsible for their participation.\n7.) Out of this historical unique and final program of an ethnic readjustment in the East, intended to serve the pacification of Europe, the Prosecution selected specific measures as for instance, evacuations, 26) ---------------------25) - Hildebrandt Exhibit 31, 41, 42, 43, 44. 26) - \" \" 31, 52.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5135, "page_number": "5128", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "regermanization and germanization, German Peoples List27) and welfare for orphans and branded them, as crimes against humanity distorted and marred with the mark of Gain of genocide and the curse of unscrupulous slave owners.\na) The Prosecution made germanized Poles out of persons who were Germans by virtue of extraction and sentiment, who had the misfortune to suffer and endure for 20 years Polish subjugation and who were happy of becoming at last German citizens again.\nb) In contrast to this, the Prosecution painted persons who were chauvinistic Poles by extraction and sentiment who only recently perpetrated the most monstrous atrocities against Germans, as peaceful subjects living under Germans sovereignty, who in no way were endangering the security of the Reich.\nc) The prosecution pictured the accomodation of hapless children, whose German parents had been slain as kidnapping, if German men and women took pity on them, and brought them to German children's homes.\nd) The prosecution marked the racial examiners and RuS Leaders, carefully trained in ethnology, officials which in a similar capacity are also employed by the U.S. imigration authorities28) as tools of a policy aimed at the debilitation of foreign peoples. The prosecution misrepresented their life sustaining activity, which were purely police measures, as for instance the cases of abortions and illegal sexual intercourse, as life destroying actions.\ne) The Prosecution described legally executed confiscations with the provise of future compensations, as plunder and pillage.\n8.) All those measures had nothing in common with war crimes or crimes against humanity. Otherwise, and even to a much higher degree, all the expulsions of millions of Germans from ancient German territories -------------------------27) - Hildebrandt Exhibit 31. 28) - \" \" 37, 38, 39, 40.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5136, "page_number": "5129", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "carried out since 1945 by Poles and Czechs, - all the deportations of millions of Germans into the industrial regions of the Far East carried out by the Russians under the camouflage of treaties of convenience, and the dismantling of German factories working for export purposes by the occupation forces of the East - and West zones which endanger Germany's minimum living standard, and which are executed under the eyes of the Control Council and without its opposition, would have to be characterized as crimes against humanity as well.\nThe activity of Hildebrandt in Southern Russia, I dealt with on page 29 and 30 of my Final Plea, I simply refer to it.\nB.\nActivity in Southern Russia.\n1.) In the same manner, the Prosecution tried to construe an organized man hunt from Hildebrandt's activity as Higher SS and Police Leader in Southern Russia during the evacuation of the civilian population, who were fleeing from the Russian Army, in order to misuse these unfortunates as slave laobrers in Germany. It believed to have found in the witness Gerbel the witness for its assertions.\n2.) Upon defense remonstrations Gerbel was obliged even as a witness to curtail considerably his initial testimony which was lacking any intimate knowledge of the actual war situation. Voluntarily he corrected his statements, in a subsequent affidavit, which up to then were still unclear thus resulting in Hildebrandt's complete exoneration.29)\n3.) Beyond that, it was possible to establish through the witness Pieger30), Hildebrandts unselfish readiness to render aid and assistance to French nuns of the convent of Notre-Dame at Galatz, which attests his highly developed sense of humaneness, and which will serve in an unequivocal manner to destroy the attempt of the prosecution to characterize -------------------------------29) - Hildebrandt Exhibit No. 52. 30) - \" \" No. 51.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5137, "page_number": "5130", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "the defendant Hildebrandt as a \"brutal commander\" by submitting prosecution exhibit 849, a document which in itself is incomprehensible.\nC.\nMembership in the SS.\nFinally the Prosecution demands the sentencing of Hildebrandt and all other defendants with the exception of Viermetz, for their membership in the SS as a criminal organization.\n1.) Hildebrandt was not aware of the commitment for criminal purposes of even the smallest SS units, who although they wore SS uniforms, never were SS men in the ethical sense of the word.\nThis has been established in contradiction to the testimony of the chief of anti-partisan operations von dem Bach-Zelewski, which has been branded as a slander of his SS-comrades, by the testimonies of the witnesses Wolff, Ebrecht, Berger and v. Eberstein.\nThe accused General of the Waffen-SS, Hildebrandt, confirmed in the closing words of his examination a profession of loyalty to the order of the SS. There is nothing which I could add in characterizing Hildebrandts high motives, which would be able to create a better impression than Hildebrandt's own words. I simply refer to them.\n2.) According to the verdict of the IMT31) that group of persons belonging to the SS had been designated as criminal, which was involved in committing crimes covered by article 6 of the statute. It remains therefore to examine whether this was the case.\na) The prosecution stated, in order to refer again to the session of 2 February 1943, that with the exception of euthanasia, it did not make any charges against Hildebrandt for the time from 1 September 1939 to April 1943, Viewed strictly formally, this statement would mean that the Prosecution does not either intend to charge the defendant for member--------------------------31) - The Nuernberg Verdict a publication, German Version, page 113.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5138, "page_number": "5130", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "ship in the SS for this period. Thus the prosecution would deviate from the judgment of the IMT which declared as criminal the continuation of membership in the SS of any such person after 1 September 1939.\nb) If this interpretation be a false one and I assume this is to be the case - then the Prosecution must logically include Hildebrandt's membership during this time in count III of the indictment. However, the defense must be given the opportunity to introduce exonerating evidence that Hildebrandt during this time was not involved in any criminal activity of the SS.\nc) Such criminal acts on the part of the SS according to the indictment, are Resettlement32), Evacuation, ReOGermanization, Compulsory Germanization and Deportation in order allegedly to perform slave labor. According to his statement, Hildebrandt was partly in contact with these events.\nd) The contention of the prosecution, therefore, that it does not intend to incriminate Hildebrandt on the basis of his position as Higher SS and Police Leader and Deputy in Danzig-West Prussia, cannot be maintained. This group of questions is to be submitted for the judgment of the court when it examines the evidence for the defense against Count III of the Indictment.\n3.) The prosecution has accused Hildebrandt of participating in the Euthanasia program. The Prosecution attempted to construe a connection with this action from the power of command which Hildebrandt is said to have exercised over the Sturmbann \"Einmann\". Again it was Hildebrandt's position as HigherSS and Police Leader in Danzig-West Prussia, on which the Prosecution bases its accusation.\n4.) The position of the Higher SS and Police Leader was clarified by the defense in the case in chief through a number of testimonies and affidavits. -------------------------32) - Hildebrandt Exhibit No. 45, 46, 47, 48.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5139, "page_number": "5132", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "a) From the inferiority complex that Himmler, as Reichsfuehrer-SS and Chief of the German Police concealed under his lust for power, sprang his intention to mark the imprint of his domineering position in German state affairs on all spheres of life of the Reich. A high official with a pompous title was to represent Himmler's person everywhere and make him appear in the eyes of the population as the all-powerful Leader of the SS and the Police.\nb) In reality this Higher SS and Police Leader had no means of power which would give him a backing and authority. One could not say of him that he was in charge of the SS or the police forces within his district.. Neither the Waffen-SS, nor the Constabulary or the Security Police - with an exception on the occasion of representative gatherings - nor the Secret State Police were subordinate to his command. Merely the Allgemeine SS, which on account of wartime conditions lost in number and importance at an increasing rate, belonged to his sphere of authority in his capacity as Leader of an Administrative District the offices of which were combined with those of the Higher SS and Police Leader on the basis of his dual functions.34) -----------------------34) - Hildebrandt Exhibit 6, 31.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5140, "page_number": "5133", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "a) Nor were any of the concentration camps35 subordinate to the Higher SS and Police Leader, such as Stutthof, to which that legendary relative of the witness von dem BACH-ZELEWSKI is claimed to have been taken under HILDEBRANDT's influence., Furthermore, the Selbstschutzberbaende (SelfProtection Organizations) were not subordinate to him either, such as the Selbstschutz Danzig-West Prussia, founded by the RSHA or the Sturmbann \"Eimann\" which Gauleiter FORSTER had formed for their own purposes in the field of public safety. b) The prosecution's charge that HILDEBRANDT in view of his power of command over the Sturmbann \"Eimann\" was to be held accountable for the liquidation of mental cases was refuted by the witnesses EBRECHT and VIETZ as well as by a number of affidavits. The same witnesses confirmed HILDEBRANDT's indignation about the use of this Sturmbann for the liquidation of mental cases and his successful efforts in Berlin with regard to an immediate discontinuation of this action. c) HILDEBRANDT and EBRECHT credibly explained the signing, drafting, cause and contents of that report on the activity of the Sturmbann EIMANN as extensively as is possible after a lapse of almost 10 years, particularly in view of the fact that the prosecution withheld the documents that had been requested. Thus, also this charge by the prosecution concerning HILDEBRANDT's participation in the Euthanasia Program has been refuted. 5) In addition, the prosecution has charged in the indictment all defendants, thus also HILDEBRANDT, with participation in the systematic program of genocide which had as its aim the liquidation of foreign peoples and ethnic groups. It sees this participation in the committing of war crimes and crimes against humanity as they are listed in Counts 11-21 of the indictment. 6) The defense of the defendant MEYER-HETLING has pointed out the historical events37 which led to dangerous tension in the formerly German and later Polish provinces in the East and which ultimately resulted in the catastrophe of 1939. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 35) HILDEBRANDT Exhibits 26, 29, 31, 32. 37) \" \" 1, 17.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5141, "page_number": "5134", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "7) Through his knowledge of the history of the nations HILDEBRANDT to an increasing degree became convinced from 1918 on that the shortsightedness of the statesmen of that era would preclude a pacification of Europe. To him it was clear that long before the outbreak of World War I Russia's urge for expansion appeared as a storm cloud on the political horizon. Had the Allies in the Peace Treaty of Versailles treated the Germans properly and led them back to recovery - to use a word of Bernard SHAW - a man like HITLER would not have been able to seize power. 8) Humiliations are not easily forgotten in the course of a nation's existence. HILDEBRANDT regarded as a turning point in the European play of forces the fact that the USSR, which up to that time had been the largest agricultural country of Europe, combined her development to an industrial state with the ideology of bolshevism, skillfully seizing upon the social problems in other countries, and created the Red Army which was ready to thrust itself on the heart of Europe at the given moment.\nAlso HILDEBRANDT found himself confronted with the alternative of self-destructions by submission to the idea of bolshevism or defense of the occident with its Christian culture, when upon his return from the USA he realized with his own eyes how his fatherland had become torn by strife and when on the other hand he sensed the uniting idea of National Socialism.\nHILDEBRANDT decided for the latter and joined the SS. 9) It was clear to HILDEBRANDT as a member of the SS that continued defense was only possible through a united Europe which preserved the sovereignty of the individual states. The prerequisite for a united Europe was a voluntary union of the states concerned, and the will to defend depended on the consolidation of their national unity.\nThe Versailles Treaty had not only destroyed the economic structure of Europe, it had also changed the political map by creating a number of nationality states, particularly in the East. Poland with its position at the demarcation line between the European occident and the Asiatic bolshevism could become in a union with Germany Europe's bulwark against \n bolshevism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5142, "page_number": "5135", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "After PILSUDSKI disappeared from the political scene, Poland unfortunately turned against the West in an aggressive way. Her entente with France and Czecho-Slovakia in connection with the treatment of the German minorities prevented an agreement which would have been in the interest of both peoples. The result was war and the elimination of the nationality state of Poland. The term \"Irredenta\" (minority) had to disappear if the new order was to last. 10) In full understanding of the justified necessity of the new order in the East, the then SS-Gruppenfuehrer HILDEBRANDT devoted himself after the subjugation of Poland to his task: To safeguard the new Reich frontier by German people. His activity as Deputy was directed at the pacification of the East as purported by the Fuehrer - Decree of 7 October 1939, and appointed a Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism. 11) Whatever position one may take with regard to HITLER his concept to reorganize Europe along ethnographical lines, backed by a Germany united in itself, and to place it on this organically strong basis of the occident, in a strong defense position against the threatening danger from the East, was dictated by history, and therefore a necessity. It shall not be disputed that mistakes were made in the execution of this plan, but an error in method does not brand the idea a crime. 12) Roosevelt and Churchill also believed in Yalta that they could create a new world order together with Stalin. They delivered to him weapons and ammunition to defeat Germany and by the Invasion made possible STALIN's victorious march on Berlin. Both were disappointed. It is the irony of history that the powers of the Western Democracies, who a few years ago entered into partnership with the Asiatic bolshevism for the alleged \"rescue of Europe\" from National Socialism now no longer can repulse this Moloch from Europe, because Germany, once the decisive factor in the continental balance of power, now has been reduced to an insignificant phantom in international law. 13) The same Churchill, who in his speech before the Commons on 15 December 1944 gave Poland, and thus the USSR, a carte blanche to seize German \n land 38, on 16 January 1948 posed in the Commons the pessimistic question, and I quote:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5143, "page_number": "5136", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "\"Who would ever believe that there will be lasting peace in Europe and the World as long as the frontiers of Asia lie along the Elbe river?\" 14) It is a deep tragedy in the life of nations that they do not want to see the truth in the decisive hours. If truth makes free, it must not be made dependent upon what serves only one people. In our time the nations are increasingly interconnected in political and economic respect and there can be no fortune of one at the expense of another, but there is either one fortune for all or one misfortune for all. Nothing good and lasting can be created if problems of the first order require solution by second-rate brains.\nAfter the rejection of the German proposal to return the small German Free State of Danzig behind which-as HITLER had realized-the problem of Europe's safe-guarding against bolschevism lay concealed, the basis was created due to England's unextinguishable guilt for the current catastrophe, which finds its dreadful expression in the Oder-Neisse-Line and which will determine the fate of Europe and perhaps of the entire world. 15) Germany started the war. That was her guilt - (Pause!) in the opinion of the victors. The guilt of a war which had been predicted by far sighted men of their countries as early as 1919 in view of the handling of the Polish frontier question. As late as March 1938 the Times wrote, and I quote:\n\"It would be much safer to allow Germany to expand in conformity with her natural laws of destiny.\"\nCause must not be confounded with motivation. To maintain an unnatural and immoral state of affairs despite numerous protests is in the life of nations also tantamount to a guilt. Political catastrophes just do not come out of nowhere. In the life of the nations every guilt is the guilt of either all nations or many nations. 16) Germany has lost the war. That was her crime. Thus it was laid down in law by the victors in accordance with which today hundreds of so-called - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 38) HILDEBRANDT Exh. No. 49 \n war criminals are being sentenced and in accordance with which hundreds of thousands have to resign to another law which tore them, who had acted in good faith, out of office and position.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5144, "page_number": "5137", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "17) Far be it from me to palliate or excuse acts that are punishable under law, or inhuman. Where criminal acts were committed they may be punished. In Germany and in the victor states. But what does it mean, crimes against humanity? Is there an absolute law which defines such a conception? 18) Is law in the name of humanity only what is decreed to the vanquished? Is it law in the name of humanity when the countries which belong to the victor states have expelled 12 Million German people from German territories and when flourishing provinces are turned into lands of death?39 Is it law in the name of humanity when the vanquished is deprived of the economic prerequisites which alone would facilitate reconstruction? Is it law in the name of humanity, to hurl the charge of crimes against humanity against the vanquished for having employed foreign labor in a war for life or death, while a power of the victor states, which has affixed its signature to that law, expells 14 Million people from farm and home and still retains three years after the termination of the state of war Millions of prisoners of war?40 19) The German has had to learn that passiveness and silence out of weakness does not cancel responsibility. Who in time to come will assume the collective guilt for the current misery and the threatening chaos? Where is now the protest of the world conscience? Where is action? 20) If there existed an absolute law there ought to be a World Tribunal which would have to pass judgment in the millions of cases from the German land against murder, pillage, robbery, rape. All law is limited to time and serves political and social ends. What to-day is right, may be wrong tomorrow. Therefore, one should not pass judgment law in the name of all humanity if humanity is no conception behind which the absolute truth is manifest..... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 39) HILDEBRANDT Exh. No. 28 40) \" \" \" 16 \n 21) 41HILDEBRANDT's life stood in the service of an idea which aspired to the liberation of Europe from the danger of bolshevism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5145, "page_number": "5138", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Only under this world-wide aspect can creative judgment be pronounced over his actions, not as the result of human theory but as the voice of conscience which views the convictions out of which the action was born. HILDEBRANDT's convictions were supported by pure idealism, incorruptible integrity and absolute truthfulness.\nI ask for an a c q u i t t a l.\nThank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:In the opinion of the Tribunal, Dr. Froeschmann, representing Hildebrandt, poses a rather important legal question: and, that is the right of the Prosecution, after the evidence has all been concluded, to carve up the Indictment, and simply restrict the Court to a consideration of a certain portion of it. That is a legal question to which the Court has already given considerable thought. It is one that the Tribunal is of the opinion you are entitled to have decided now, rather than in the Judgment itself. The Tribunal will give more thought and consideration to this question and rule on it before this Argument is concluded, probably just after the recess we are now to take.\nThe Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5146, "page_number": "5139", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Shiller, the Tribunal has determined at this time to make a ruling on the legal question raised by Dr. Froeschmann. At your request, we have decided to allow you to state your position very briefly, and \"briefly\" means \"briefly\".\nMR. SHILLER:May it please the Tribunal, the position of the Prosecution on the legal question involved--that is, the question of the charges against the defendant Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader for Danzig-West Prussia--is as follows:\nOur position is, first, that the Indictment contains no charges against the defendant Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader for Danzig-West Prussia. As clearly set forth in the beginning of the Indictment in the description after the individuals named as defendants, whereas after the defendant Hofmann the Indictment gives later Higher SS and Police Leader for Southwestern German after the name of the defendant Hildebrandt there is no description given of his position as Higher SS and Police Leader.\nFurthermore, in Paragraph 22 the defendant Hildebrandt is especially charged with responsibility for and participation in the extermination program, known as the Euthanasia Program, from September 1939 to February 1940. No mention is made of the fact that he was then Higher SS and Police Leader, and the sole charge in that paragraph is in connection with the Euthanasia Program.\nThe Prosecution claims that by construing these sections of the Indictment, and the careful exclusion from the Indictment of the position of the defendant Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader for Danzig-West Prussia, that no charge was therefore made.\nThe second position of the Prosecution is that if the Tribunal should determine that, nevertheless, charges were included in the Indictment which cover the defendant Hildebrandt as Higher SS and Police Leader, that the withdrawal, or rather, the clarification by the Prosecution on the 2nd of February 1948 of the charges, should be construed as a withdrawal of these charges; and the Prosecution maintains that this withdrawal of the \n COURT I CASE VIII charges, even though it came after a time when all the evidence had been submitted both by the Prosecution and the Defense, should nevertheless be accepted by this Tribunal.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5147, "page_number": "5140", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "I know, and will be in a position, if the Tribunal so wishes, to cite instances where charges have been withdrawn after the evidence has been submitted both by the Prosecution and the Defense in cases before other Military Tribunals. I refer specifically to Case No. I, the Medical Case, before the previous Tribunal I.\nThank you.\nTHE PRESIDENT:On February 2, 1948, the Prosecution, through Mr. Shiller, made the following statement in open court:\n\"May it please the Tribunal: The Prosecution at this time would like to make a statement with reference to the defendant Hildebrandt. We wish to have it clearly set forth in the record that for the period from 1 September 1939 until April 1943, at which time the defendant Hildebrandt became chief of RuSHA, the only charge against the defendant Hildebrandt is the euthanasia charge contained in Paragraph No. 22 of the Indictment. We make no other charges against him for that period when he was Higher SS and Police Leader and representative of the RKFDV in Danzig-West Prussia.\"\nThis statement was made by the Prosecution after the defendant had been formally arraigned and after he had filed his plea of \"not guilty\" to all of the charges contained in the Indictment. It was, likewise, after all of the evidence had been submitted both by the Prosecution and Defense without any such limitation. The defendant Hildebrandt, therefore, had clearly been placed in jeopardy insofar as all of the charges in the Indictment are concerned, before this motion was made.\nIt is the opinion of this Tribunal that at this stage in the proceedings the Prosecution did not have the right to thus limit the Tribunal in its consideration of the case. This Tribunal will therefore decide the case, insofar as Hildebrandt is concerned, taking into consideration all of the charges contained in the Indictment and the \n COURT I CASE VIII evidence adduced upon those charges in the trial of the case, and the Prosecution will therefore not be permitted to thus limit the scope of this investigation.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5148, "page_number": "5141", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Proceed with the next argument.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5149, "page_number": "5142", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nDR. HEIM (For the Defendant Schwalm): Your Honor, since it is only possible for me to read a part of the plea, I should like to ask the Tribunal to read the whole plea and to make it a basis of judgment against the defendant Schwalm: YOUR HONORS, According to numerous reports, the meaning and purpose of the Nurnberg trials is the prosecution of such persons who held responsible and leading positions in public life in Germany prior to 1945, in the NSDAP or its affiliations, and who made use of their high positions to prepare and carry out the crimes set forth in the indictment, Whilst I fully appreciate, and do justice to these high objectives, I cannot help but feel that SCHWALM does not fall into this category.\nIf the aim is to enforce the law rigorously against those persons actually responsible, others should be placed in the dock, not SCHWALM, whose power was nil, and the scope of whose influence was extremely limited. The knowledge that the Prosecution has made a mistake as far as SCHWALM is concerned, is even more strongly confirmed after a critical examination of the charges made against him. I therefore think that I can and may be permitted to be brief in my statement, in view of the weak basis of the indictment, the inadequacy and lack of probative value of the evidence produced against the defendant SCHWALM, and the arguments which are completely in his favor.\nYour Honors, before I discuss the indictment, in detail, I take the liberty of illustrating the human, professional and political career of the defendant SCHWALM. I am convinced that personality and the cause for which it stands are an inseparable entity and I therefore think that with a thorough knowledge of SCHWALM's character, development, professional and political objectives, influence of environment, as well as experience and intellectual motives of his entire personality, the High Tribunal will be in a better position to understand and also to evaluate his political activity justly.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5150, "page_number": "5143", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nProfessional and political career The defendant Fritz SCHWALM was born at Marburg/Lahn on 11 May 1910.\nHis early youth was spent during the starvation years of the first World War, in his childhood and adolescence the post-war difficulties and crisis made a deep impression on him. Civil war, riots, strikes, wide-spread unemployment, complete economic collapse, inner-political tensions and failure of the old parties becoming more and more obvious in face of beginning chaos, these are characteristic of the period in which he grew up. As an active and impulsive man he could not ignore the problems of his time. Soon he felt compelled to face the situation, to form an opinion of his own about domestic and foreign affairs and to consider how the tormented German people might best be helped. He was certain of his desire to cooperate actively in the shaping of German destiny; what remained to be determined was only as to what parties or tendencies were most in keeping with his plans and ideals. His education, family tradition and friends, made him a member of the middle classes; the moderate middle class parties were, however, obviously in a state of disintegration. Therefore he had only the choice between right and left, between Communism or National Socialism. He rejected Bolshevism from deep inner conviction; he was an earnest idealist and therefore felt repelled by the materialistic ideology and the ruthless oppression of human and personal freedom for the sake of collectivism. Thus it was no wonder, that SCHWALM found his way to the NSDAP at an early stage, as it fought Bolshevism most resolutely and seemed to combine the deepest values of the dying middle-classes with the high ideals of a moderated Socialism. So he joined the SA in 1929 (Affidavit STENGEL Doc. SCHWALM No. 4; Affidavit VERHOFF Doc. SCHWALM No. 5; Affidavit BOHLENDFR Doc. SCHWALM No. 6). After the final high school examination (Abitur) (1929) he went to the Universities of Marburg, Tuebingen and Munich and studied anthropology, history, German and georgraphy. The anthropological study enlarged his horizon with respect to wider biological associations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5151, "page_number": "5144", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\nWhen the selective principles of the SS became known in 1932 and, when an organization thus endeavored to apply anthropological biological principles on a large scale for the first time in Germany, he felt so attracted that he joined the SS the same year. Until 1934 he served in this organization as a simple SS-man and Unterfuehrer like everyone else; then he accepted an offer of full time employment in the Rasse and Siedlungshauptamt (Race and Settlement Main Office) which was about to be established. He became SS Fuehrer in Race and Settlement affairs, abbreviated RuS Fuehrer, in the SS-Oberabschnitt (main sector) \"Rhine\". SCHWALM held this position until war broke out, when he was conscripted for the Wehrmacht. As Battalion-Adjutant he took part in the campaign in the West and returned to Germany with his Division in the fall of 1940. While his Division was sent on Wirtschaftsurlaub (leave for economic purposes), he was transferred to the Waffen-SS, but not at his own request. Two periods of that time are subjects of the indictment: 1. The period from October 1940 to October 1941 when he was Chief of the Field Office Lodz.\n2. The period from 1 March 1943 to 1 March 1945 when he was Stabs fuehrer (staff leader) in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nActivity at Lodz as Chief of the Field Office of the RuSHA, October 1940 - October 1941 and as Chief of the RuS agency of the EWZ (Immigration Center). Count 18: Slave Labor After this transfer to the Waffen-SS, SCHWALM was ordered to report to RuSHA where he was to receive his first assignment for the new tasks planned for him.\nOn this occasion he was informed of the new tasks of the RuSHA in connection with the creation of the RKfdV (Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism) for the first time and only verbally. It was furthermore here that he had the fundamental decree on the setting up of office \"Reichskommissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and tasks in connection with it, submitted to him for the first time as the basis of his work. (Document No.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5152, "page_number": "5145", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Court No. I, Case No. VIII.\n3075, Exhibit 20). No discussion of this order, or comment on its contents, took place. Neither on this occasion nor later, did SCHWALM obtain an insight into the memorandum of the NSDAP's Party Office of Racial Policy. (Document No. 3732, Exhibit 82). And HIMMLER's memorandum \"Reflections on ethnic aliens in the East\" (Document Book No. 8080, Exhibit 84) was neither submitted to him nor verbally brought to his knowledge.\nThe official directive for Lodz given to him verbally amounted to this: The annexation by Germany of the new Eastern provinces Upper Silesia, Posen and Danzig-West-Prussia after the victory over Poland cannot be considered spoliation of alien territories but reversion to the Reich of regions age-old in German folkdom and civilization. All these territories had already in the Middle Ages belonged to the German Reich, Following a period of 3-500 years, during which their history was German, these regions came into the possession of various Polish ruling families on account of purely dynastic events, inheritance settlements, purchase, seizure and so on, all these families inviting German settlers in order to advance the economy and civilization of this still thinly populated land. Therefore, without exception, all the towns of this area are of German foundation, inhabited by German citizens, administered by German law - even under Polish masters! Moreover, among the villages of this country there are only very few which have been built by Polish initiative and where Polish hands turned a wilderness into arable land. After this interlude lasting approximately 300 years, the whole district, in 1776 and 1792, reverted to Germany, that is to say Prussia, in order to be surrendered once more to the new Poland following the Treaty of Versailles.\nWhen SCHWALM took up his work at Lodz, this district had been under Polish rule for a little under twenty years; everywhere among the population the memory was still fresh of their former inclusion in Germany, nearly all the older men had served and fought in the German army, often with distinction. Almost everyone still referred \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5153, "page_number": "5146", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "approvingly to the exemplary order of legal security, of economic prosperity during the time of German rule as against the disorder, insecurity and \"Polish confusion\" (\"polnische Wirtschaft\") of the last 20 years. The German nation has never consciously regarded these districts as Polish, and towns such as Danzig, Posen, Gnesen, Bromberg, Thorn, Hohensalza, are in the mind of each German, inbued with German history and tradition. (Compare Document SCHWALM No. 126, 130, 157, 158). In spite of the indisputable German fundamental character of this whole area, German folkdom in 1940 presented only a minority within the total population. Already during the centuries of German weakness, approximately between 1600 and 1750, German folkdom established here for ages has been polonized to a large extent and during the period of the last German rule (1776-1918) German folkdom was still further weakened through renewed polonization, biological degeneration, superior fertility of the Poles, mass-immigration of cheaper and more frugal non-Polish workers, so that by 1918 the German percentage of the total population was reduced to approximately 48% in all areas. The short Polish dominion of twenty years, from 1919-1939, threatened to wipe out German nationality completely. Compulsory evacuation of 800,000 Germans, suppression of the German language, interdiction of German schools and German cultural activity, conversions to catholicism enforced under duress and thereby Polonization by way of religion, such have been the manifestations of Polish politics with regard to German nationality - in the face of agreements reached at Versailles to safeguard the protection and rights of minorities.\nWhen, in 1939, these regions were once more incorporated in the German Reich, the fatal controversy arose whether this new area should be made German politically, yet allowed to retain the characteristics of Polish folkdom, or whether an attempt should be made to regain for the German people the lost, polonized German blood. The government decided on the latter. One of the offices sharing in this important and far-reaching task was subsidiary Office Lodz of RuSHA, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5154, "page_number": "5147", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "established by HIMMLER's order of 9 September 1940. (Document No. 1682, Exhibit 139). It was entrusted with the lofty endeavor to bring hundreds of thousands of former Germans back to German folkdom, on an absolutely voluntary basis; or, technically expressed, to \"re-germanize them\".\nSCHWALM received no detailed directives on the nature and method of the work expected from him at Lodz. He simply received an order to go to Lodz, make himself familiar with the work and study separate tasks in their proper locality. In obedience to this order, SCHWALM entered upon his service at the subsidiary office Lodz in October 1940, and familiarized himself with the work of directing the office under KUENZEL, the then Office Chief who on account of illness had to resign in January 1941.\nScruples, with regard to the constitutional legality of his own activity and the entire German policy in this area could not afflict him. He had never been a law-student and his approach could therefore not be that of a legal expert. Moreover, his intelligence as a layman, and his own sense of justice, prompted him to believe that the present measures would merely right a former wrong on a purely voluntary basis and without resorting to violence, very much in opposition to the Polish reign of terror. Besides, this district had originally been German land and had, also constitutionally become an integral part of the German Reich by its re-incorporation into the Reich. It was ruled by the law of the Reich and the German Reich alone - according to valid international law - had the right of discharging sovereign duties in it. One of the sovereign rights of a sovereign people was undoubtedly the prerogative of determining and selecting sections of the population on whom its nationality was to be bestowed. A negation of this right pertaining to a sovereign state would also invalidate the complete immigration-laws of the U.S.A., Austria and New Zealand or, at least, pronounce them as legally unfounded.\nSCHWALM's particular and main activity at the subsidiary office Lodz was of a twofold nature. It was his right and his duty, \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5155, "page_number": "5148", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "jointly with the then Office Chief KUENZEL, to check the aptitudetesters assigned to the office with regard to their proficiency and pertinent judgment. He was in a special measure adapted and suitable for the carrying out of this task on account of his anthropological studies. Furthermore, in conjunction with KUENZEL, he to begin with carried out the so-called final deduction (Statement SCHWALM, German transcript page 3128, English transcript page 3342).\nAs mentioned above, the subsidiary office Lodz was to concentrate its activity on the re-germanization, that is to say, in the regaining for German folkdom of originally German sections of the population, which had subsequently been entirely or partly polonized. It must be emphasized here once more that this re-germanization was effected on an entirely voluntary basis, without duress, promises or other inducements, without propaganda and free from pressure by the state, the authorities or Party-politics.\nIn detail, re-germanization took the following course: The UWZ (Umwanderungszentrale - Resettlement Center), an office of the Main Office for the Security of the Reich without personnel or technical contacts with RuSHA, evacuated certain districts in the new Eastern Provinces incorporated in the Deutsche Reich. After completed evacuation the evicted inhabitants were assigned to UWZ camps, collected, registered and checked by security police and with regard to their personal data and financial status. This completed all legal and practical measures for their eviction. Up to this point there had been no participation by RuSHA direct, or by one of its agencies or offices or one of its aptitude-testers. The subsequent move of the evacuees to the Generalgouvernement, also effected by UWZ, cannot be considered as part of the eviction, but as a consequence of the previously executed and concluded eviction.\nIt was only after the termination of all these formalities by UWZ in the UWZ camps, that is to say after the legal and practical conclusion of the eviction, that aptitude-testers of RuSHA undertook \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5156, "page_number": "5149", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "a so-called preliminary selection of entire families (Document No.4324/25, Exhibit 140/41). This preliminary selection aimed at chosing a certain number of families for the purpose of re-germanization (Doc. No.-1682, Exhibit 139, number 1). These people were therefore not taken to the Generalgouvernement by UWZ, but were sent to the camp of the subsidiary office Lodz, where they had to submit to a final examination of their health and their engenic and social aptitude for re-germanization. (Doc. No.-5148, Exhibit 148). This examination (mentioned in Document No.-1682, Exhibit 139, number 2 and 3) was the so-called special selection which included a detailed appreciation of anthropological characteristics, later used for the so-called final deduction in connection with employment-date. This final deduction was by no means merely the addition and classification of separately established characteristics. With tact and discrimination and with due consideration of potential variations, a whole family-unit had to be interpolated; and human sympathy for each individual family and their situation on the strength of their anthropological, medical, social and character examination had to be used in making a decision as to their future branch of employment. On termination of these investigations, that is to say after the final deduction and after selection of vacancies for employment in the Reich, a report was sent to the RKFDV (National Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism) where preliminary arrangements were made for the final re-germanization by his \"deputies\" that is to say higher SS-and police leaders according to the decrees and regulations issued in this connection (compare informations for the defendant SCHWALM, page 7; Affidavit FERSCH, Document SCHWALM No. 149, number 1).\nThe aptitude-examination for re-germanization by subsidiary office Lodz was in each case effected on a voluntary basis. On arrival at Lodz, people were told quite frankly that their good-will and consent were the indispensable basis for the introduction and execution of measures with regard to re-germanization. In some rare cases people \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5157, "page_number": "5150", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "refused to be included in the procedure for re-Germanization. (Compare statement RUEBEL, German transcript pages 3453/54, English transcript pages 3627/28). They were neither punished nor penalized for it, but simply returned to the UWZ camp from which they had come. It is wellknown that, in many cases, expediency was the motive of those having proved their aptitude for re-Germanization; but this does not preclude the principle of good-will. The Prosecution has been unable to produce even one witness stating that he had been regermanized against his will. This fact is all the more important in consideration of the fact that even today there are tens of thousands of so-called \"forcibly displaced\" Poles in Germany of whom many a one must have come to the Reich by way of re-Germanization at Lodz. If the Prosecution, in spite of intensive search for witnesses for the testimony of duress in connection with the re-Germanization, has been unable to find witnesses even among these people then this disproves more than anything else the practice of violence in connection with re-Germanization. Moreover, witnesses for the Defense, WOLFGRAMM and ADAMCZYK, both having been regermanized, have clearly and distinctly given evidence that they were taken to Germany by way of the regermanization-procedure on the basis of a voluntary report, without duress or threats; that they knew of many such cases but not of a single one where pressure or duress had been applied (see also Affidavit STOLL, Doc. SCHWALM No. 103, number 5). Over and above this, the very documents of the Prosecution clearly establish the voluntary basis of regermanization. A certain Dr. REMBATEZ, a Polish doctor, states that no duress was exerted in connection with regermanization (Document No.-5266, Exhibit 378). The transfer by the State Police of evicted inhabitants into the Generalgouvernement, as mentioned in this affidavit, was however not the task of the subsidiary office but, as mentioned in detail above, merely of UWZ. The activity of subsidiary office Lodz was limited exclusively to the establishment of aptitude for regermanization (compare Document SCHWALM No. 151). On the alien passport of those suitable for \n Court No. I, Case No. VIII.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5158, "page_number": "5151", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "regermanization there was a stamp with the following wording: \"Male or female bearer of this passport has been declared suitable for regermanization following examination by subsidiary office Lodz of the Race and Settlement Main Office-SS\". This entry on alien passports was not effected by the subsidiary office itself, but by the Reich authority concerned (President of Police) (compare Document SCHWALM No. 151).\nThose having proved their aptitude for regermanization were provided with employment in the Reich proper by higher SS-and Police Leaders as deputies of the RKFDV, and were subsequently looked after by them as well. They benefitted by receiving the same food, treatment and wages as the Germans. The subsidiary office and RuSHA were no longer responsible for the regermanization, once a transport of those having proved their aptitude had left the office Lodz. All personal or technical contact between subsidiary office and those having proved their aptitude for regermanization ceased from this moment. (Compare Document HOFFMANN No. 87, Document No.-5148, Exhibit 138).\nThe legal aspects of regermanization (Count 18 of the indictment) are the following: Those having proved their aptitude for regermanization came from a region which, pursuant to Reich law, had become sovereign territory of the German Reich. (Compare Document SCHWALM No. 127-129). There can be no doubt that the German Reich was entitled to declarethis region Reich-territory. The following comparison willprove, more than lengthy legal statements, the legality of these measures: After Germany's capitulation, the age-old district east of the Oder and Neisse, having always belonged to the German Reich, was ceded to the present-day Polish state, in this \n becoming the sovereign territory of the Polish, state.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5159, "page_number": "5152", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The fact that this decision is based on the Potsdam Agreement cannot lend a different legal interpretation to this incorporation into the Polish state.\nWhether the occupying state incorporates the acquired region into its territory or whether this takes effect following a decision by a majority of states in favor of a third state, is legally irrelevant, the state or several states pronouncing judgment in their own interest. If the surrender to the Polish State of the district East of the Oder and Neisse is in agreement with international law - and of this the Allies are not in doubt - then, on the other hand, the incorporation into the German Reich of this old German territory with its German population and German towns, was certainly not contrary to international law.\nThe occupying state, however, is always entitled to its own regulations regarding the nationality of the inhabitants in this region. With the termination of the war (debellatie), the German Reich took over the territory and power of the State, extending its territorial power to the fragments of the former Polish State.\nA subject liable to international law in this case no longer existed. (Compare also Document Schwalm No. 153 and 1954).\nThe evictions which took place in these regions do not enter into the subject since they were never, not even indirectly, the task of the subsidiary office of RuSHA, but were exclusively carried out by the UWZ.\n(Compare Affidavit Stoll Document Schwalm No. 103 number 5). In support of this statement in the indictment, the Prosecution was merely able to quote the questionable witness von der Bach-Zelewdki.\nBachzelewski stated that in connection with each settlement staff there was a settlement-commission composed of leading members of RuSHA which, according to RuSHA-directives, checked the population and divided it into categories. Persons considered racially inferior were then deported to the General governement. On the other hand, the witness Huebner, Krummy, Suadicani and Sparmann agree in their statement that neither RuSHA nor the Lodz Branch \n Office had any connection with these Settlement Staffs.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5160, "page_number": "5153", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "As evidence, Bach- Zelewski's statement is to be taken for what it is worth. It is completely refuted by the depositions of all other witnesses made with reference to this point and Bach-Zelewski's lack of credibility is clearly evident.\nUntil October 1941, the time when Schwalm left Lodz for service at the Eastern front, the number of persons re-germanized by the Lodz Branch Office did not reach 7,000 (as is apparant from Document No. 5309 Exhibit 894, for the current number corresponds to the number of persons suitable for re-germanization). This figure includes the children and all members of the family. Up to 1945 approximately 20,000 persons in all may have been re-germanized by the Branch Office (statement Schwalm German Transcript page 3189, English page 3350). This fact alone proves the indefensibility of the Prosecution's assertion to the effect that these people were transferred to the Reich for the purpose of \"slave-labor\". For approximately three fourth of this number of 20,000 were old people and children i.e. people unfit for work, so that, judging the number and suitability, slave-labor is quite out of question.\nEvidently the Prosecution confuses the operation of re-germanization with the enlistment of workers in the occupied territories of which Sauckel as Plenipotentiary General for Allocation of Labor was exclusively in charge. (Compare docu ment Schwalm No. 132-139). Suackel's operation has no connection at all with the re-germanization.\nFurthermore no proof has been submitted by the Prosecution that the re germanized persons - even if they were quite fit for work - have been used for slave-labor.\nUnder slave-labor we understood work without remuneration or insufficient remuneration, as well as work which is performed under compulsion or at least, where personal liberty is noticeably restricted.\nIt is presumptuous to talk of slave-labor here when today, almost three years after the end of the war, there are still millions of German prisoners of war and civilians, men and women forced to hard labor, \n far from their homeland, in the territories of France, under the burning hot sun of Egypt, in the mines of the Ural, on the plains and tundras of Siberia, in the virgin forests of Kardia and near the arctic, and also partly worked to death in Russia, forced to do so by the Allies who signed Control Council Law No. 10.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5161, "page_number": "5154", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "(compare document Schwalm 159 - 162).\nThe statement of all witnesses heard on this point, especially however the depositions of the two female witnesses Wolfgramm and Adamczyk, suitable for re-germanization, have definitely and clearly proved that each individual suitable for re-germanization had the same rights as a German citizen and the effect of this equality of rights with regard to profession and general human status was such that the re-germanized enjoyed the same working conditions, the same wages, the same vacations, the same food rations, the same procurement vouchers as every Reich citizen. It is therefore incomprehensible to me on what the Prosecution bases its charge of slave-labor, especially since it could not procure the least proof either by documents or witnesses for worse or even different treatment of persons suitable for re-germanization in comparison to Reich citizens (compare document Hofmann No. 87). Naturally, the equal rights of the persons suitable for re-germanization brought also equal duties to these of the Reich citizens; however they wer exempt from two of the most important duties of a citizen which effect his personal life most: from Reich Labor Service and military service. The re-germanized person was, therefore, not only placed on an equal footing with the Reich citizen with regard-to privileges, he also enjoyed personal advantages. He was not obliged to spend one year of his life in the labor service and two years of his life-in peacetime - in the army like very Reich German; during the war he did not have to fight at the fronts and therefore enjoyed personal security and liberty to a much higher degree than the Reich citizen. On the other hand, the person suitable for re-germanization was obliged to work. But this fact does not infer slave labor either in theory or practice. Every German was obliged to work by \n Reich Law.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5162, "page_number": "5155", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "(Compare document Schwalm No. 164). The laws and decrees concerning the compulsory service of all - I emphasize all - persons fit for work were emergency measures of the German Reich necessitated by the war.\nThis obligation to work still exists to-day for every German as provided by Control Council Law No. 2 and 3 (Document Schwalm No. 142).\nIf the persons suitable for re-germanization are looked upon as slave laborers on the basis of the law concerning labor service, then there is all the more justification to regard every German as a slave-laborer today. Neither can the fact that the entry under \"citizenship\" in these persons' passports read \"not clarified, German?\" (Compare document Schwalm No. 151) prove any prejudice. It is customary in all civilizated states of the world and it is left to the state by international law, not only whether it wishes to accept anybody as a citizen, but also when it intends to grant citizenship to such persons. With regard to the re-germanized persons, provision was made to grant them their citizenship after 5 to 10 years. From this fact no disadvantage arose for the re-germanized persons for they did not have fewer rights than the Reich citizens, yet had the undeniable advantage of exemption from compulsory military service or labor service. Furthermore, the immigration laws of other states, particularly the USA, also stipulate a certain time limit before full citizenship is granted.\nIt is wrong and by no means proven that these persons were brought into the Reich in order to be called up for military service in the German army and to serve as a cheap cannon fodder. As explained above, the regermanized persons were obliged to work like all the Germans, yet they were not subject to compulsory military service or labor service as they were not yet fully naturalized. (Statement Schwalm German transcript page 3195; English page 3356).\nIn connection with the re-germanization (count 18) the Prosecution accusses the defendant Schwalm, who was chief of the Lodz Branch Office from October 1940 to October 1941, of participation in the dis \n placement of individual children by sending them to Germany.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5163, "page_number": "5156", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "In support of this count of the indictment, the Prosecution submitted (as Exhibits 183-191) certain index cards of re-germanized children. These index cards, which were made out by the Branch Office, were taken from the folders each of which contained the index cards of a family i.e. the entire family circle. On superficial examination, therefore, the impression might be gained that individual children were actually brought into the Reich. Yet, these index cards separated from the set they belong to, by no means prove the accusation. It is felt that the \"evidence\" is rather farfetched in order to construe a charge at all, all the more since on close examination it is evident from the submitted cards as such that the other members of the family are also recorded (compare also affidavit Grotz, document Schwalm No. 148). All the cards submitted moreover originate from a later period - namely the years 1943/44 - when Schwalm no longer had any connection with the Branch Office.\nWith regard to the so-called house-maid-operation no blame can be placed on the defendant Schwalm at all. The basic instruction which initiated this so-called house-maid-operation is dated 1 October 1941 (Document No. 3938 Exhibit 159). At the time the instruction was issued or rather disseminated, Schwalm had already transferred his duties at the Lodz Branch Office to his successor Dongus so that he could not and actually did not have any knowledge of this instruction (statement Schwalm, German transcript page 3195, English page 3356). It may be true that already prior to this period domestic servants in the incorporated Eastern territories were enlisted for work in Germany. This, however, was effected exclusively by the national labor offices which were in charge of the recruitment and enlistment of these domestic servants.\nCount II of the indictment: Abduction of foreign children. Whether orphans were re-examined by the Lodz Branch Office at a later date is not proven and therefore remains undecided. However, the proof has been established that not a single such re-examination took place during Schwalm's management of the Lodz Branch Office (compare statement Schwalm, \n German transcript pages 3195/96, English pages 3356/67; statement Ruebel German transcript page 3454, English page 3628). The instruction 67/I (Document No. 1615, Exhibit 407) is dated 19 February 1942, at a time when Schwalm had long been a soldier at the Eastern front.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5164, "page_number": "5157", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Merely for the sake of completeness, I am referring to the statement of witness Bartel with regard to the execution of instruction 67/I (Document No. 1615, Exhibit 407). In this connection Bartel states (German transcript pages 4427/28): \"It was a measure limited as to time and subject. It followed the closing of Polish orphanages and the reexamination of Polish foster parents. On the basis of the data furnished by the state authorities of the Reich Governor we expected right at the beginning that the number would not exceed 300.\nAt the time of the evacuation of the Warthegau, this measure was practically concluded.\nIn fact it would already have been concluded in 1944 if the Lebensborn had been in a position to procure foster parents for the children assigned to it more speedily, thus enabling us to transfer the children more quickly.\nThe home in Kalic with directorate and personnel had already been intended to act as a training school for childrens' nurses throughout 1944, and as such it was already included in the budget of the Gau self-administration for 1944\". As witness Bartel furthermore explained, the introduction of the Lods Branch Office of the Rusha by Dongus, e.e. after Schwalm's time, was a restrictive measure.\nThe object was to be able to recognize with greater certainty such children as were ascertained or supposed to be of German stock by the Municipal Youth Offices, as being German children.\nIn connection with this re-examination of orphans in Lodz the name of a certain Dr. Grohmann appears in the documents. Witnesses of the Prosecution confirm, that they were examined as orphans by Dr. Grohmann in Lodz. This fact is irrelevant with reference to the defendants here and to defendant Schwalm in particular. Dr. Gorhmann was not a member of the Rusha; he was chief of the Public Health Office in Lodz (statement Schwalm, \n German transcript page 3197, English page 3359). Dr. Grohmann had no connection with the Rusha nor with the Lodz Branch Office (compare affidavit Becker, Document Schwalm No. 147). Even the documents of the Prosecution confirm that Grohmann office in Lodz was in Petrikauerstrasse 113 while the Branch Office of the Rusha was in Landsknechtstrasse.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5165, "page_number": "5158", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "This fact was confirmed by the witnesses Wolfgramm and Adamczyk. Also for these allegations under count 11 of the indictment the Prosecution failed to furnish any proof whatsoever concerning the defendant Schwalm.\nDuring this examination witness Bartel admitted the possibility that the racial examiners either re-germanized the names of the children, or if they were not translatable, replaced them with a new German name.\nThis possibility suggested by Bartel is a clear proof that these children - with regard to their name and the so-called re-germanization - were treated, differently from the adults and families suitable for re-germanization hitherto dealt with.\nThe lists of transports (Document No. 5817 Exhibit 893 and Document No. 5309 Exhibit 894) clearly shows that no name was changed.\nIn the course of the normal Re- Germanization it was not customary and not provided for; this the Prosecution neither alleged nor did it furnish any proof of it.\nIf in individual cases of Polonized former German orphans, a translation of the names into German was proposed or effected this was done for the simple reason that in all probability these children had also been given Polish names when they were taken over by Polish foster parents.\nThis also applies to the children of Lidice. The documents ( Document No. 4173 Exhibit 397; Document No. 4171 Exhibit 398; Docu ment No. 435 Exhibit 399) submitted by the Prosecution in this connection are by no means adequate proof that Schwalm was either responsible or even participated.\nThis incident happened at a time when Schwalm had no connection with the Rusha or with the Branch Office.\nA single glance at the dates of the relevant documents proves this incontestably.\nThe attempt of the Prosecution to connect the Lodz Branch Office with the \n racial examination of the Poles in the General Government by submitting a letter of the chief of the Rusha of 21 January 1941 (Document No. 4650, Exhibit 146) also failed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5166, "page_number": "5159", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The evidence has clearly shown that the three troop training grounds mentioned in the document, were established before the Rusha was introduced and that it had no connection whatsoever with them later on.\nBesides, while Schwalm was in charge of the Lodz Branch Office, it performed no tasks in connection with the General Government at all. ( Statement Schwalm German transcript, pages 3196/97; English page 3359).\nCount 16 of the indictment: Compulsory evacuation and re settlement of sections of the population.\nAlmost at the same time that Schwalm was appointed chief of the Branch Office of the Rusha, namely on 15 January 1941, he was also put in charge of the Rus Branch Office with the EWZ (Immigration Center) Lodz, so that he simultaneously directed both agencies.\nHis activities that the Immigration Center were twofold: Firstly, he was concerned with facts: he had the right and the duty to cancel or to correct obviously wrong judgments by reviewing the decisions of the examiners:\nSecondly, he had the technical task of organization, namely to see to it that examiers were appointed to the commissions set up by the Immigration Center (Statement Schwalm, German transcript page 3197/98 English transcript page 3359; statement Malsen, German transcript page 3365/66, English transcript page 3533/34). The commissions of the Immigration Center had usually one, in exceptional cases two examiners.\nAltogether about 25 examiners were sent wherever the VOMI had established resettlement camps. In these camps the so-called \"screening\" of the resettles took place. The evidence, in particular the interrogation of the witness von Malsen, Chief of the Immigration Center, has provided sufficient information about the structure, organization and purpose of the Center. The Immigration Center was an office established by the Chief of the Security Police and the SD; it was directly subordinated \n to him as he had been commissioned by Himmler with the execution of the resettlement plan which had been initiated in 1939 and was based on interstate agreements.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5167, "page_number": "5160", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "It was the purpose of the Immigration Center to direct and to safeguard centrally the naturalization and settlement of the re settlers (compare document Schwalm No. 98). All the Ministries and Reich Offices which were officially concerned with the naturalization procedure, had their representatives in the Immigration Center (statement von Malsen, German transcript page 3360, English transcript page 3528). Among them were the Reich tabor Ministry, the Police Authorities, the Department for Naturalization and Health Questions of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, the Reich Ministry of Finance and finally also a department of the Race and Settlement Main Office (statement von Malsen, German trans cript page 3361/62, English transcript page 3529). These departments were exclusively subordinated to the directives of their respective Ministries and main offices (Statement von Malsen, German transcript page 3362, English transcript page 3530). Coinciding with the information given in this testimony, the organization of the Immigration Center is also described in the draft of a directive isued to the Immigration Center which has been submitted by the Prosecution (document No. 3495, exhibit 44), and in fact it is this document more than any other which gives a clear picture of the organization and tasks of the Immigration Center.\nAs Schwalm was Chief of the Race and Settlement Department with the Immigration Center from 15 January 1941 to October 1941 and after this date, i.e. after October 1941, had no longer anything to do with the Immigration Center, the activities of the Race and Settlement Department at the Resettlement Center (UWZ) after October 1941 cannot be considered here.\nBy this argument it is, however, not intended to describe the subsequent activities of this Department as criminal in the sense in which this term is used in the indictment.\nUp to October 1941 the Immigration Center dealt exclusively with the naturalization of those resettlers who come to Germany as a result of inter-state agreements and who were to be \n settled in Germany (statement von Malsen, German transcript page 3363/64, English transcript page 3531/32). Following the provisions of international law concerning option and in connection with the agreements concluded between Germany and their respective countries of origin, these people had voluntarily left the country where they had lived hithert and had renounced their nationality by this action.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5168, "page_number": "5161", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Thus, as they crossed the borders of their countries of origin they became stateless, both in the eyes of international law and in accordance with the agreements which had been concluded between the states concerned.\nThese persons were now gathered in the camps of VOMI in order to receive here their German Reich citizenship.\nIt was in these VOMI camps that the Resettlement Center began its activities.\nAs the Prosecution has declared that resettlement resulting from interstate agreements cannot be described as criminal and as at the time when Schwalm was Chief of the Race and Settlement Department with the Immigration Center only those persons who had come as a result of interstate agreements were bring naturalized, it only remains to deal with the question in how far the naturalization of these resettlers who were entering the Reich as a result of state agreements can be considered as criminal and against international law in the sense of the indictment and in particular how these terms can apply to the part which the Race and Settlement Department played in this operation.\nThe work of the Immigration Center must, however, be considered as part of the resettlemen resulting from state agreements - with which the indictment does not concern itself at this work constituted the necessary conclusion of the settlement based on inter-state agreements.\nThe work and the training of the examiners are not a subject of the indictment. The Prosecution has not tried in any way to describe the wo* of the examiners as an offense against international law or humanity. Analogously to this examination the immigration laws of the USA provide for a similar examining procedure (statement Hildebrandt German transcri \n page 3738/39; affidavit Gieseler document Schwalm No. 196). The intro duction of such an examination for the resettlers was only due to the obscur folkdom conditions in the countries from which they came (statement Schwalm, German transcript 3200, English transcript page 3362). In the majority of cases the resettlers groups could not clearly assert their folkdom nor was it possible for the immigration authorities to come to a definite decision regarding their folkdom, as during the last decades or centuries they had intermingled with the people in whose midst they were living (statement Schwalm German transcript page 3200). Large sections of the formerly purely German population had not only become partly Polish but had in other areas even succombed to some extent to Russian of Rumanian influence, whilst elsewhere German folk groups had been completely absorbed by their country of hospitality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5169, "page_number": "5162", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "In all these people the memory of their German origin was still alive, many of them were decidedly conscious of being German. Due to their heritage of German and European blood and culture these ethnic Germans usually held leading positions in the economy, and in the social and cultural life of their countries of hospitality and wherever their country was taken over by the Bolshewik regime these people had to fear particularly severe persecution and acts of violence from the hands of the Bolschewik.\nWhen in 1939 Bessarabia, Bukewina, Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the whole of Eastern Poland became Russian, large numbers of Germans or people of German origin who had been living in these areas, fled to receive the protection of the German Reich, after they had been granted the right of option in accordance with inter-state agreements.\nThus every resettler had opted for Germany.\nThey were therefore received into the camps of VOMI as stateless persons and there they were screened by the above mentioned Immigration Center commissions and in the course of this operation they were also examined by one of the examiners of the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nThe racial examination of the resettlers which has been dis \n cussed here so frequently in only one section of the over all opinion which the examiner had to give on each individual resettler, or each resettler's family unit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5170, "page_number": "5163", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The examination covered, apart from the racial estimate, an estimate of character, intelligence, social achievement, power of resistance, and other ascertainable qualities (statement Ruebel, German tr. page 3432, English tr. page 3610), the examination was, there fore, a psychological estimate of the resettler's personality.\nThe opinion expressed by the examiner was then used by the chief of the commission, together with the opinions expressed by the other agencies concerned with the naturalization process, in order to arrive at an over-all opinion (Statement Ruebel, German tr.\npage 3440, English tr. page 3614) and on this over-all opinion of the chief of the commission was then based the so-called settlement decision, i.e. the assignment of the resettlers to one of the three groups of A, O, or S cases.\nThe opinion of the first examiner had, therefore, no decisive influence on the final settlement decision regarding the resettler, nor was his the only opinion on which this decision was based, but one among many.\nThe opinions of the physician, the employment service, and the office concerned with naturalization, all carried the same weight (statement von Malsen, German tr.\npage 3368/69, English tr. page 3536).\n\"S\" was the designation for all these resettlers who did not fulfil the conditions for naturalization and whose application for naturalization had to be re-examined. To this category belonged also these resettlers who had not applied for naturalization and who wished to return to the territory whence they had come (statement v. Malsen German transcript page 3367; English transcript page 3535).\nIt must always be left to the country of immigration - and in practical politics no objections have been raised to this so far - whether and where the person desiring to immigrate should settle.\nNeither international law nor the recognized principles of humanity demand that a state should permit large masses of resettlers to \n move to one restricted area within its territory, because again and again the social, economic and employment conditions must be considered.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5171, "page_number": "5164", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Every state tries to admit only these persons to its territory who in its opinion will become good citizens and who in all probability will adapt themselves to the life of the country.\nExactly the same principles which governed in its time the Immigration Center, could also be found in the immirgration laws of all the civilized countries of the world and it was just the U.S. A. which created Immigration laws which were determined in the last instance by racial and biological considerations (compare Document Schwalm No. 116).With regard to the problems of immirgration and the laws connected with it in the U.S.A. I would refer particularly to Stoddard's \"Reforging America\" (Document Schwalm No. 125). I take the liberty of quoting some passages of this document which require no further comment:\n\"...One thing is certain: Immigration is in the most literal sense of the word, a supremely \"vital\" problem.\nFor immigration signifies not merely business or politics or dividends; in the last analysis immigration means men and women, and their children, and their children's children - in ether words, the nation's blood and sould. For a \"nation\", in the true sense of the word must possess a national spirit and that spirit is inevitably determined by the blood of its people.\nFor every phase of national activities is just as much the result of the racial structure of a nation as is \n human activity the result of the blood and temperament of an individual.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5172, "page_number": "5165", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Laws, institutions, ideals, the whole fabric of national life - these are but the outward manifestations of the creative racial spirit within. But if the nation's racial structure changes, the national fabric can no longer fit people of different temperament and outlook; consequently, the laws the institutions, the ideals, and all the rest of it are either radically transformed or are done away with altogether. Unlike the individual, a nation is potentially immortal. Yet there is one sure way of killing a nation - to destroy or fatally to dilute the blood of its creators....\nEvery factor therefore, which concerns the blood of the people is of vital importance.....\" (page 94 - 96 of the original).\n\".....The question of the relative size of the racial groups is of great importance. Scientific evidence shows convincingly that races do not only exhibit considerable differences, but that they can also be classified qualitatively.......\" (page 101 of the original).\n\"....America welcomes diversity - but diversity within limits. America should not encourage differences so great that assimilation is difficult or impossible. In other words: we want people who can understand us, accept our way, and become wholehearted partners in the great task of perfecting our America. ........ \" (Pages103/104 of the original).\nFurther I would refer to the document Schwalm No. 166.\nThus the sole purpose of the change in the quota laws in the U.S.A. in 1921/24 was to restrict the immigration of certain races and peoples in favor of other, particularly the so-called nordic, races. (Compare Document Schwalm No. 124 and 125.) As far then as the legal estimation of classification of persons into group \"S\" is concerned, and consequently the part which the opinion of the examiners played in the settlement decision, one thing is certain, that no resettler was refused citizenship due to the work of the examiner (compare Document Schwalm No. 80). And the Prosecution itself has not been able to adduce any \n evidence to the contrary.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5173, "page_number": "5166", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "With reference to Schwalm's statement (German tr. page 3278/79, English tr. page 3444), it seems correct to me that I should clearly emphasize once more that although Schwalm was no longer able to exert any direct personal influence - the actual work of the racial examiners come in the entire official sphere of the Racial and Settlement Main Office was, after all, based on the prinicples which he worked out in Lodz. However, the racial examiners were more or less trained by Schwalm and Dr. Ruebel and thus were experts who were free from shortsighted scientific dogmatics and who in the end based their opinion on their human perception.\nUntil 1944, as can also be seen from the documents submitted by the Prosecution, a few impracticable theoreticians were able to remain in the Racial Office (I refer in this instance to all documents bearing the name \"Harders\". Stoddard (Doc. Schwalm No. 125) writes on page 172 of the original English version \"Re-forging America\" and I quote:\n\"To the trained eye, the physiognomy of certain groups unmistakably reveals the inferiority of the tupe. I have seen gatherings of foreign born people among when low and receding foreheads were the rule. The short and small shape of the skull was clearly noticeable. There were many unimpressive faces. Except for the transitory bloom of girlhood, the women lacked all beauty. In every face there was something objectionable, such as thick lips, coarse mouth, an upper lip which was too long,\"...... and things of that sort.\nSchwalm's activity as Staff Leader (Stabsfuehrer) in the Race and Settlement Main Office.\nAfter the defendant Schwalm was at the front, resp. in hospital from October 1941 to the end of February 1943 (compare aff. Dr. Fischer, Doc. Schwalm No. 9), he was appointed Stabsfuehrer in the Race and Settlement Main Office on 1 March 1943 (compare aff. Korduan, Doc. Schwalm No. 23, section 3). Thereby Schwalm was given a completely new mission which in no way linked up with his former activity in Lodz from October 1940 to October 1941. He was given the \n task of establishing the office of staff leadership (Stabsfuehrung) for which the witness von Rautenfeld had done the necessary preliminary work (compare statements Schwalm, German transcript page 3210/11, English transcript page 3373, statement von Rautenfeld, German transcript page 3389, English transcript page 3560, aff.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5174, "page_number": "5167", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Poppendick Doc. Schwalm No. 18, section3, aff. Korduan Doc. Schwalm No. 23, section 7,) Apart from the name, this staff leadership had nothing in common with the office of Stabsfuehrer in the RuSHA existing until 1937; until 1937 Darre was chief of the RuSHA and, as Darre was mainly Reich Minister of Food and Reich Peasant Leader, the then Stabsfuehrer, as deputy of Darre in the RuSHA was in fact the actual chief of the RuSHA. With the appointment of Pancke as Main Office Chief, this Stabsfuehrer became superfluous and the office of Stabsfuehrer abolished (statements Schwalm German tr. page 3211, Engl. tr. page 3378, statements Rautenfeld, Germ. tr. p. 3389, Engl. p. 3560, aff. Poppendick Doc. Schwalm No. 18, sections 1 and 2.).\nThe staff leadership of the RuSHA reinstituted as of autumn 1942 became necessary for several reasons. In the course of 1942, the Reichsfuehrer had already issued the order to evacuate the competent offices and agencies from Berlin, in view of the air raids. This evacuation of the offices necessitated the recreation of a central administrative organizational agency in the RuSHA which worked directly under the thief of the RuSHA.\nThe directives pertaining to the actual work were issued by the offices, and Schwalm had no influence on them (statements Fersch, Germn. tr. p. 3420, Engl. tr. p. 3592, aff. Schulz, Doc. Schwalm No. aff. Poppendick Doc. Schwalm No. 18, section 4).\nDR. HEIM:I, with regard to the subject of Staff Leader, would like to refer to the corresponding description of my colleague Dr. Durchholz on behalf of the defendant Huebner, which also applies to the defendant Schwalm.\nCount 14 of the Indictment: Punishment for sexual intercourse with Germans.", "speakers": [ "DR. HEIM" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5175, "page_number": "5168", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Count 14 of the Indictment also deals with questions concerning foreign races exclusively, and for which the RSHA was again the only competent authority. (Compare documents Schwalm Nos. 66 and 67.) As the documents show, the employment of racial examiners was decreed only in July 1941 in an order issued by Himmler. But this order involved only co-operation between the offices of the State Police or the State Police District Headquarters on the one hand and the racial examiners working in the respective districts on the other.\nThe documents presented by the Prosecution itself refute the evidence given by the witness for the Prosecution Bach-Zelewski, who contended that he had received such expert opinions given by an RuS leader in May or June 1941, when he was still Higher SS and Police Leader in Silesia. As in Silesia from June onwards, but was in Russia, he could no longer have acquired any knowledge of the decree issued by the RSHA ordering the employment of the racial examiners; this quite obvious contradiction on the part of Bach-Zelewski again proves his unreliability as a witness.\nIt must be noted in particular that it was not the expert opinion given by the racial examiner which caused a mere severe or more lenient punishment to the pronounced, but that the degree of punishment was already generally fixed by the infringement of the actual prohibition. A favorable expert opinion given by the racial examiner could only have a favorable effect, as has also been shown clearly in the course of the proceedings, namely by helping the foreigner, who was already liable to the full punishment, to obtain a more lenient sentence. Schwalm only knew that a general prohibition of sexual intercourse between foreign workers and German women and in force, and he knew that in the case of an infringement of this prohibition a racial examination by a racial examiner was demanded by the State Police. Schwalm did not know then of the instructions issued by the RSHA at that time. Since the Presecution has failed to bring any proof of the defendant Schwalm's share of responsibility on this count of the indictment also, \n and was not even able to prove his knowledge of the matters covered by this count, it is attempting to prove Schwalm's connection with this count of the indictment by maintaining that the defendant Schwalm had been familiar with the term \"Special Treatment\", and that by this term he understood the punishment of these culpable foreign workers by the Gestapo in that connection.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5176, "page_number": "5169", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "It has submitted the document NO. 2864, exhibit 524 for that purpose. This document fully corroborates Schwalm's statement (German tr. pages 3227 and 3275; English tr. pages 3393 and 3442/43), that to RuSHA and consequently also to Schwalm the term \"Special Treatment\" meant \"the racial examination of workers belonging to foreign races whom the state Police had found to have had illicit intercourse with Germans\". Schwalm hadpreviously expressed it in this way in both documents submitted previously by the Prosecutions both and also in the document submitted by the Prosecution dating from 1943. The witness Fersch and Stoll, too, confirm (statement Ferch, German tr. page 3418. English tr. pages 3590/91, aff. Stoll doc. Schwalm 103, paragraph 3* that the conception of the term \"Social Treatment\" held by the RuSHA was quite different from that held by the Gestapo, namely that which Schwalm gave when he was examined and also in the document submitted (No-2864, exh. 524).\n\"Special Treatment\" as used by the State Police, was only known to the Special Department of the corresponding Group IV D of the Gestapo, and apart from that not even to the other members of the State Police, let alone to the members not known to any other group of persons but the members of Office IV D of the RSHA is indicated by by the general order No. 1 (doc. Schwalm No. 32) which decreed the strictest secrecy.\nWhen giving evidence before this Tribunal, Schwalm drew attention to the latent danger of biological undermining (German tr. page 3222/23, English transcript page 3386).\nHow great this danger of an undersirable mixing of the population was, is proved by a testimonial which is certainly above suspicion.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5177, "page_number": "5170", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "In his work Re-Forging America, Stoddard as early as 1927 described the same situation which 15 years later Germany had to face. In his work he says inter alia: (Doc. Schwalm 150): I quote: .....\"A glance at the European homeland is enough to explain why the New Immigration differs so profoundly from the old. The basic reason is, of course, the vast difference between Northern Europe, on the one hand, and Eastern and Southern Europe, on the other. As compared with the other portions of the continent, Northern Europe displays marked simplicity and stability. Racially, culturally, and politically, this is equally the case.....\" (page 119 of original) \"..... Furthermore, racial mixtures in Northern Europe are relatively stable, because mass-migrations in that part of Europe ended long ago. When we turn from race to culture, we find similar conditions of stability and basic unity. Northern Europe has possessed the same general culture since the early Middle Ages. Therefore, despite a rich variety of cultural forms, they are on the whole harmonious, because the basic ideals and intellecutal standards are on the same general plane. Turning to the political aspect, we find that the national groupings of Northern Europe are mostly old and well-established.\nHow different is Eastern Europe! It is the direct opposite of that we have just discussed. Conditions in Eastern Europe can be described in two words: complexity and instability. Eastern Europe is next door to Asia, and time after time Asiatic Merdes have swept over it, upsetting its political cultural life and altering its blood.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5178, "page_number": "5171", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The \"Slavic\" peoples ... belong technically to the Alpine race, yet they are very different fromthe Nordicized Alpines of Germany and Switzerland, because they are all more or less impregnated with Asiatic Mongol or Turkish blood. \"Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tarter\" is a saying which applies not only to the Russians but also in varying measure to the other Slavic peoples, from Poland to the Balkans. Again, these mixtures of widely unlike racial stocks are relatively recent, and hence unstable...Lastly, large blocks of people have remained for centuries quite distinct from the surrounding population, from which they are sundered by deep religious and cultural gulfs as well as be differences in blood. This is notably the case with the East European Jews; who, by the way, are not Semitic \"Hebrews\", but are descended either from best Asiatic stocks, akin to the Armenians, or from a Central Asiatic (Mongoloid) folk - the Khazars, Eastern Europe thus presents a bewildering complexity of races, creeds and cultures, which reaches its climax in the Balkans ... Eastern Europe, therefore, does not possess anything approaching Northern Europe's basic unity in ideals and cultural standards, and nothing like its relative simplicity of blood........\"\nCount III of the Indictment.\nApart from the alleged commission of/or participation in crimes against humanity and war crimes, Schwalm is also accused of membership in an organization which was declared criminal by the IMT. Schwalm was already a member of the General SS prior to 1939. But when the war broke out, he was called up for service with the Wehrmacht. While he was in the Wehrmacht until the fall of 1940 and in the Waffen SS until the capitulation, membership in the Party and the General SS was suspended in view of these facts, the judgment of the IMT concerning the General SS does not apply to Schwalm. Although Schwalm was a member of the Waffen SS from the fall of 1940 onwards, he however belongs to the group of \"those who were drafted into this organization by the state in such a way that they had no other choice, and who did not commit crimes\". In the \n fall of 1940 Schwalm was transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Waffen SS without any move on his part (compare statement Schwalm page 3179; English transcript page 3339).The International Military Tribunal states the following:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5179, "page_number": "5172", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "\"A criminal organization is analogous to a criminal conspiracy in that the essence of both is cooperation fro criminal purposes.\nThere must be a group united and organized for a common purpose.\nFurthermore, the group must be formed for the purpose of or used in connection with the commission of crimes as defined in the statute.\nSince, as already emphasized , the declaration with res pect to the organizations and groups will ascertain the criminality of its members, that definition should exclude persons who had no knowledge of the criminal purposes or acts of the organization and those who were made members by the State, unless they, as members of the organization personally participated in the commission of acts, which were declared criminal under Article 6 of the Statute.\nMembership alone is insufficient for the application of this statute.\" Since the Prosecution has not proved in any way that Schwalm committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, he is not guilty in the sense of section III of the indictment. Besides, so far it is an unproven assertion of the Prosecution and an unproven assertion in the verdicts of other Military Tribunals and the IMT that the whole SS was an entity established and organized for the purpose of preparing and committing crimes. Even the e vidence in this case 8 has at least shown clearly, that - quite apart from the private association Lebensborn - the 3 indicted main offices had hardly any official contact with each other and that common activities, if any, could only have been the result of an explicit exceptional order by Himmler himself. What applies to these 3 main offices - Stabhauptamt (staff main office) VOMI and RuSHa - on a small scale, is still more true as applied to the SS generally. The General SS actually had no connection at all with \n the Waffen SS as to organization and common objectives, apart from a certain link in Himmler's person.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5180, "page_number": "5173", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "But even the various main offices and offices within the SS had, as has been revealed in the meantime, only one point in common, i.e., all of them were called \"Main Offices of the SS\". In reality, however, no main office knew anything of the others activity. I expressly refer to the verdict in the POHL case which, while acquitting three Standartenfuehrer (SS Colonels), explicitly confirms that these 3 SS Fuehrer, although they had worked under the same roof, could not have known anything about the other departments in this main office which dealt with the concentration camps, and that they actually had no knowledge of the matter. If this applies to the same main office, it must apply even more to the agencies which were completely separated from the main office as to location, organization and personnel. This explains why there were agencies and main offices in the SS which until the capitulation neither knew nor could know anything at all about the commission of crimes. It is therefore obscure why the Prosecution has produced documents concerning the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in Document Book B in rebuttal. There is no personal or material connection between these documents and my client, nor with the other defendants in this proceeding. It is incomprehensible why the Prosecution produced these documents in this case, unless we suppose it was done purely for the purpose of exerting influence. Submission of these documents at the end of the trial is just as out of place as the attempted introduction of the Lidice film at the beginning.\nAs I have pointed out, in the course of the proceedings Schwalm's guilt in the sense of the indictment has not been proven, since he himself did not commit or participate in any way in war crimes or crimes against humanity, neither did he order them or supervise their execution. According to the IMT his membership in the SS cannot be considered punisable.\nBefore I conclude this plea, I should like to point out the following \n Three representatives of RuSHA were tried before this Tribunal.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5181, "page_number": "5174", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Prosecution did not hesitate to submit as evidence, all seemingly impeachable material from the Race and Settlement main Office as an agency, regardless of whether any actual connection with the various defendants could be established or not. The connection was simply taken for granted, \"ex officie\".\nYour Honors, after the verdict has been pronounced, the military or civilian agencies will take exactly the same attitude toward the former members of RuSHA who are still in internment camps. If even the offer to testify for the Defense led to threats and deterioration of treatment in individual cases, it is obvious that your judgment will be prejudicial in some form or another.\nAnd now, Your Honors, when you pronounce judgment on Schwalm, consider not only the defendant, but also Schwalm as a person. From the age of 19, when his father died, he has been struggling for his existence; although the general ecomonic situation was most difficult, he succeeded in earning his livelihood in the profession he had chosen. hen his mother died in 1934 and he thus lost his home, his only desire was to have a family and a home of his own as soon as possible. His wife is the daughter of a clergyman of the city of Nurnberg. There were four children by this happy marriage, the eldest son is 12, the youngest daughter 4. Since his entire property was seized according to the Control Council Law, the wife of defendant Schwalm has for three years been struggling for their existence quite alone and without any assistance.\nThe defendant Schwalm has been interned for nearly three years; from 1939 onwards, he has been constantly separated from his family. The children have not seen their father for three years.\nIf, Your Honors, you are now going to decide between guilt and innocence, please consider these facts. And then pronounce your judgement on a man who, as an idealist, believed it his duty to serve his people and who, from 1939 - the outbreak of the war - onwards, did his \n duty at the front and later when he was no longer fit for active duty, in official positions at home.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5182, "page_number": "5175", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "MR. SHILLER:If the Tribunal will give me one moment, I merely wish to point out that the Prosecution's brief against the defendant Hildebrandt naturally did not cover his activities as Higher SS and Police Leader in any other connection than with euthanasia. I therefore respectfully request that the Tribunal allow both the Defense and Prosecution to submit their supplemental briefs covering such charges only.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal, two to one, is of the opinion that this is not necessary and will not be permitted.\nProceed with the next item.", "speakers": [ "MR. SHILLER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5183, "page_number": "5176", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "DR.RATZ (For the defendant Max Sollmann): Mr. President, Your Honors, without any connection with my final plea I would like to inform the Tribunal that I have submitted a list to the SecretaryGeneral of 18 typewritten pages which contain the most important mistakes which have been made in the translation of the testimony given by the defendant Sollmann on the witness stand and my client insists on that being corrected.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Unfortunately the Court is not very good at translation and will, therefore, have to depend upon the translation.\nMR. SHILLER:May I point out to the Tribunal that the usual procedure is for the defense to submit these to the Prosecution and usually we reach an agreement. I have not yet received these and no doubt will and the defense and Prosecution will probably come to an agreement.\nTHE PRESIDENT:All right. Go ahead.\nDR. RATZ:Your Honors, as far as my plea itself is concerned I only want to read the first 28 pages of it. I will request the Tribunal to study the second part of my plea without it being read in Court.\nMay it please the Court!\nI.\nThe thoughts and feelings of perhaps the greater half of mankind are not concerned with money and power and glory, but revolve about the child; and all men and nations know that there is no more precious possession, no greater hapiness, than the child. Every mother will fight for her child at the risk of her life, men go off to war for the sake of their wives and children, and every nation jealously protects its children in the struggle of nationalities. If two nations go to war which have been engaged in a struggle of nationalities with each other for centuries it is perfectly obvious that the victorious occupant of the enemy country will look for the children of his own nationality who for any reason were threatened in their nationality under the previous domination of the enemy. This will only appear reasonable and improper to him who in his nationalistic one-sidedness describes \n anything which his enemy does as unjust on general principles.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "MR. SHILLER", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5184, "page_number": "5177", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Therefore, in this trial one should not forget that it is not nationalistic considerations and claims of nations which are victorious today but rather only objective relfections on justice and injustice and clear ideas which can be the foundations of a judgment of the actions and behavior of the defendants in this trial.\nBut the discovery of justice in this trial is threatened by a danger from a second quarter, too. In order that the participation of the defendants of the Lebensborn in the alleged crimes of kidnapping children who were presumably of foreign nationality may be made to appear evident the Prosecution places a wrong emphasis on the work of the Lebensborn in advance. The Lebensborn never practiced human breeding, either in the sense that it assisted in mating racially desirable persons or even merely disseminated propaganda to this effect , or in the sense that it practiced a kind of racial selection in admitting expectant mothers to its nursing homes. There was no racial competition among the expectant mothers who knocked at the doors of the Lebensborn in search of help; the only form of discrimination was that care was taken not to admit any mothers who had any hereditary or moral defects or were physically unhealthy, for these there were enough other sources of help outside of the Lebensborn. If the Lebensborn, following the law of nature, made no distinction between children born in and out of wedlock and opened its door wide even to unmarried mothers, indeed, even cared for the unmarried mothers with special pleasure and satisfaction because they were in special need of help and protection, then one cannot hold this up against it as a charge of encouraging immorality, or even make it appear especially predestined to the commission of crimes such as are now charged against it. It is also not true that the Lebensborn was an establishment for the SS, or was otherwise exclusively National Socialist, since far more than half of all the children born in Lebensborn homes were not \n born to members of the SS.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5185, "page_number": "5178", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "And as far as its National Socialist attitude is concerned it is enough to point out that the majority of its 700 employees were not members either of the SS or of the Party. The auspices for a role of the Lebensborn in kidnapping racially desirable children in any case, therefore, are not present under these points of view. The Lebensborn was a great public welfare enterprise, the ideal task of which was to provide help at the fount of the nation's life, where help by word and deed was a human and even national necessity. It can hardly have been assumed that anything objectionable\n1) could be found in such activity and in such a task.\nThe jurisdiction of the Lebensborn in no way lies within the scope of the SS, still less is it correct to say that with reference to children the Lebensborn was the deciding authority for all measures taken by the SS. However, it seems necessary to discuss briefly the question whether the SS had a program with regard to foreign children, and if so, what it was. For this purpose I should like to pick out a few documents of entirely different character.\nOn 11.7.1941, that is, immediately after the beginning of the war with Russia, Himmler issued an order to take care of German ethnic\n2) children in Russia. It would certainly be an unfounded suspicion if behind this order one should try to scent the starting of a program for a crime of kidnapping children. Even from a hostile nationalistic point of view it ought not to be regarded as a criminal action to take care of children of one's own nationality in a hostile country without going into any considerations of citizenship in advance. One year later, on 19.7.1942, a report was written from the Central Russia territory concerning a secret experiment which the Sonderkommando Pflaum had carried out in Bobruisk and the object of which was the - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1) See Charter of the Lebensborn e.V. in Sollmann Document Book 1, Sollmann Doc.\nNo. 1, Prospectus of Aims and Tasks of the Lebensborn, Sollmann Document Book VIII, Sollmann Doc.\nNo. 69; Sollmann Document Book 1, Pollmann Doc.\nNo. 5-8. 2) Prosecution Document Book VIII C,NO-4274, Exh. 442", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5186, "page_number": "5179", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "3) selection of 30 children. We can readily suppose that this was a germanization experiment which was carried out with Russian children and can readily state that this went beyond the bounds of what can be defended. The fact that this was an experiment, in which, moreover, the Lebensborn in no way participated, is again insufficient, however,\n4) to justify the suspicion of a criminal program of kidnapping children.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 1:30.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3) Prosecution Document Book VII C ,NO-3727, Exh. 443 4) Prosecution Document Book VIII C,NO-2218, Exh. 447 \n COURT NO.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5187, "page_number": "5180", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "I, CASE NO. VIII.\nAFTERNOON SESSION The Hearing reconvened at 1330 hours.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the argument.\nDR. RATZ:Still one more document: (4- Prosecution Document Book VIII C,NO-2218, Exh. 447) a letter from Himmler of 20 May 1944 in which he says: \"I consider it very important that the orphans, in the entire Balkan areas be collected by our divisional commanders. We are Germans and cannot look on while innocent children belonging to a nation which is in itself decent and fine are neglected and perish due to unfavorable circumstances. I have endowed scholarships for these poor orphans in schools and will even establish special schools for them, so that later, when order and stability are restored, they will be given back to the Croatian State as decent men and women and desirable citizens.\" Himmler looks out for foreign orphans in the Balkans. One can perhaps say: Of course Himmler did not have any humane matives and intentions in doing this, he was planning to kidnap these children. There is only one thing to be said against this, namely, that at that time it was by no means necessary for Himmler to camouflage his intentions of kidnapping foreign children through humane remarks. Once again it must be mentioned in connection with this that the Lebensborn was completely ignorant of this matter too and in no way involved in it, which indeed even the Prosecution has not claimed.\nTherefore, it would doubtless be a pure construction to try to reduce the subject \"foreign children and the SS\" to one common denominator and say: In this field, too, all the thoughts and actions of the SS agencies were dominated by exaggerated and overlapping ideas of blood and race, by \n ideas which finally degenerated to a criminal covetousness of children of foreign nationality.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. RATZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5188, "page_number": "5181", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "However, instead of seeing Himmler's ideas and notions as part of a criminal program one could put them on a scale which shows the following notations: 1.) humane solicitude for children of foreign nationality, 2.) a solicitous interest based on nationalitistic motives in ethnic German children far from their homeland, 3.) nationalistic tendencies, and finally, 4.) romantic ideas about the value of German blood, which then degenerated in wild plans and actions. However, it is quite certain that the Lebensborn was never in any way involved in a criminal program. It set out upon its course guided by the most humane and natural idea which one can imagine, and remained true to this idea, which constituted its highest law and program, as long as it existed: the idea of chivalrous protection for the expectant mother and loving care for her child. The Lebensborn had already been established for a long time and had its own firm tradition of service to child life when Himmler's ideas concerning the child of foreign nationality were perhaps going hither and yon in their own peculiar channels or actually degenerating. The Lebensborn did not permit anybody to make improper use of its installations, especially at the time when Max Sollmann was its supervisor. And today it does not have to be ashamed that it gave the benefit of its help to the children who were brought to it without its instigation; it never did anything but serve its own idea, which was at the same time its program and its plan.\nJust as there was no general plan for the abduction of foreign children for the purpose of germanization, so the Lebensborn never possessed any jurisdiction either concerning children in connection with the so-called \n regermanization process or in any other way concerning children of foreign nationality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5189, "page_number": "5182", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Lebensborn was a registered association and therefore an independent legal entity; its sphere of tasks was determined by its charter. Witnin the framework of the SS departments it figured as OfficeL inthe Main Office of the Personal Staff of the Reichfuehrer SS: The chief of this office was the defendant Max Sollmann, who was at the same time supervisor of the registered Lebensborn society. May Sollmann was directly subordinate to Himmler and could be given orders, authorizations and jurisdiction only by him, or under certain circumstances also by General Wolff, Chief of the Main Office Personal Staff, but on the other hand not by\n6) any other agency of the Party or the State. In the entire documentary material which the Prosecution has submitted we look in vain for anything to show that Himmler transferred a jurisdiction of the above-mentioned kind to the Lebensborn; but we also look in vain for facts which would permit one to infer such a jurisdiction, perhaps transferred in secret.\nHowever, one thing is true: The Lebensborn not only had a general renown in SS circles and far beyond these for its blessed work, but its name actually summed up everything which concerned looking after children. It was therefore obvious that soon a Party agency, soon a Government office, in order to save themselves further inquiries and action, should name the Lebensborn in their decrees and correspondence as the office having jurisdiction over any urgent matters concerning children. As one example I shall mention a file note concerning the - - - - - - - - - - 6) Karl Wolff's testimony on 5 December 1947, transcript p. 1917;\n conference in the Reich Ministry of Justice on 10 March 1943 where it was proposed in all seriousness that the guardianship of racially desirable children born out of wedlock whose fathers were Poles should be transferred to", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5190, "page_number": "5183", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "7) the Lebensborn. This suggestion never became a reality and the Lebensborn never learned about it! A zealous Referent in the Race and Settlement Main Office went still farther and reported on 17 September 1942 to the branch office of this Main Office that \"the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism - Staff Main Office, Office L (Lebensborn) - was solely responsible for the\n8) question of parentless children\"; the appearance thus created of a jurisdiction on the part of the Lebensborn \"for carrying out the germanization of parentless children of foreign nationality\" becomes immediately untenable by calling attention to the fact, which has been frequently pointed out in the course of this trial, that there is, to be sure, an OfficeL inthe Main Office Personal Staff Reichsfuehrer SS, but never in the Staff Main Office; any suspicion of a jurisdiction on the part of the Lebensborn over children in connection with the tasks of the Staff\n9) Main Office is thereby refuted at the same time. Another Referent of the Race and Settlement Main Office has even more fantastically reported in his report of 6 October 1942 that the Lebensborn intended to take racially desirable children out of German orphanages for resettlement in the East; these children were to be given to foster parents in the East. Once again it must be stated: - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7) Pros. Doc. Book VIII B,NO-1126, Exh. 419; 8) Pros. Doc. Book VIII A,NO- 946, Exh. 385; 9) Wirsich testimony on 24 October 1947, transcript p. 367/\n368; Sollmann Doc. Book VIII, Sollmann Doc. No. 71;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5191, "page_number": "5184", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Lebensborn knew nothing about all this correspondence.10) An example full of lessons, but also an urgent reason for the defense to ask the High Tribunal not to judge entirely on documents, especially in this case; often documents do not even show real intentions, to say nothing of actual facts.\nII Now I shall turn to the charge against the defendant Max Sollmann concerning alleged abduction of Polish children.\nTo be sure, the prosecution emphasizes in its indictment that the crime of kidnaping is in many ways worse thay any other crime, as perhaps the mass murder of Jews, the atrocities of the concentration camps, the inhuman medical experiments etc.. But the prosecution has not sais what it understands by the crime of kidnaping, what the characteristics of a crime of this sort are. According to German law that man is guilty of kidnaping who takes away a monor from its parents, guardian or foster parent by means of deceit, threats or force. (Section 235 of the German Reich Penal Code) The Prosecution will hardly want to oppose this definition with a different definition. I, for my part, would not contradict, if the prosecution were to say: The reason kidnaping is so detestable is that helpless children are deprived of the love of their parents and in this way are perhaps damaged for life in mind, spirit and body; further: This crime is especially detestable if the children are taken out of their native land and surroundings and forcibly placed in a foreign country, and if this should happen in large numbers that the ethnic group concerned is weakened as by letting of blood. However we are not dealing here with the moral evaluation of abstract facts, but rather \n with the deeds of Max Sollmann and his co-workers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5192, "page_number": "5185", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5193, "page_number": "5186", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Consequently, these deeds have as little connection with such a criminal act or with any other punishable offense than the proper acts of a doctor have with bodily injury or some such offence.\nWhat really happened in regard to the Polish children from the Warthegau?\nIn a decree of 19 Fe. 1942, the socalled Decree 67/I,11) Greifelt announced that the Poles had previously systematically placed all orphans of ethnic German origin in Polish orphanages or with Polish foster parents as \"foundlings\", that these children had been given Polish names and that there were no records showing the ancestry of these children; these children had to become German again for this purpose there had to be a screening process and the children, that were between 2 and 6 years of age had to be placed with German families through the Lebensborn Society, the Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education was to care for the children over 6 years of age in so-called homes schools (Heim-schulen).\nThe fact that this decree was sent without the safety measure of secrecy to numerous agencies certainly does not speak in favor of the assumption of kidnaping, much less does the procedure as prescribed by the decree; it was not an SS agency that layed hands on these children and then transported them to Germany proper without much ado, but rather the competent State Youth Agencies; then the children were sent to a German children's home in the Warthegau, from there, after the decision of the Reich Governor, i.e. the highest Reich agency, to a home of the Lebensborn Society or of the Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education for the purpose of being placed with a German family; in the meanwhile there were various tests such as are usually given to children today, not in order to separate the loot according to wheat and chaff, but to make sure that this expensive process which had such - - - - 11) Pros. Doc. Bk VIII B.NO-1615, Exhibit 407.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5194, "page_number": "5187", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "important consequences for the well being of the child, would only be used in the case of children who actually were ethnic Germans.\nSince the records were missing, a racial examination had to be used, an emergency measure, it is true, but the only means by which it was possible, according to the science of that time, to find out with approximate certainty the nationality of the child in the absence of records.12) To say the government of the Third Reich did not, after the occupation of Poland, turn its attention first of all to the orphans of ethnic German origin that were in Polish orphanages, but had by force taken children without regard to this, children that were of Polish origin but had a Germanic appearance, because of the German-like appearance, would be to fundamentally misunderstand the the nationalistic attitude of the leading circles of the Third Reich and to accuse them of betraying their own ideology of Blood and Race.\nAs has been noted, it was not some SS agency which took charge of children which remained here and there after the Polish orphanages had been dissolved, because it was thought that they were of ethnic German origin, but the State Youth Agencies, which were obligated by law (Reich Law for the Welfare of Youth of 9 July 1922) to see to it that the children within their territory were given an upbringing of bodily, spriitual and social excellence and particularily to take care of the so-called foster children that is children who have been sent to orphanages, childrens homes or families to be taken care of. - It was not easy to carry out this task in the Warthegau, because it meant clearing up and cleaning up the conditions that existed up to - - - - 12) Testimony Dr. Bartels on 29 Jan. 48, transcript p. 4403 ff \" Dr. Bartels on 30 Jan.\n48, \" \" 4441 ff \" Heinz-Wiswede 27 Oct.\n47, \" \" 486 ff \" Dr. Schulz on 5 Nov.\n47, \" \" 1016 ff \" Dr. Staudte on 29 Jan 48 , \" \" 4384 ff \" Roedel on 23 Dec.\n47 \" \" 2908 ff Doc.\nBook Sollmann II, So. No. 11-22.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5195, "page_number": "5188", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "then under Polish supervision. For there were not only orphans in the orphanages, but also children whom the parents either no longer could or would support.13) There were also parentless or abandoned children and children in need of education in welfare homes and in private foster agencies, and among these children there were above all also children of ethnic German origin whose ethnic origin could not or was not to be respected under the Polish rule, despite the existing minority rights which were guaranteed by international law. I believe that it is not only a German conception if I say that it was one of the main tasks of the State Youth Offices to also protect the ethnic rights of these children. If ethnic German parents under Polish rule often sent their children from Poland to Germany to be brought up, so that the child should not become Polish by going to Polish schools and associating with Polish friends, then there was no less reason and justification for the State Guardians i.e. the Youth Offices - to protect the ethnic German orphans, who had already been more or less Polonized, from a final total loss of their nationality by transplanting them to German surroundings.\nHowever, the cause of contention and thereby the reason for the charge on this point does not seem to be the question of whether such a measure was justified, but rather the difference of opinion of what an ethnic German, or more specifically, what a German and what a Polish child is.\nIf we consider the opposite, it seems that today the commissions classify as Polish children to be sent back to Poland from Germany all children born in Polish territory, that is, also the children of such parents who once belonged to the German minority in Poland and who, if they were still alive today, undoubtedly would have been turned out of the Polish territories of today with their children. The desires of the children themselves are also not considered. who are already 16 or 17 - - - - 13) Doc. Bk. Sollmann II, So. No. 17.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5196, "page_number": "5189", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "years old today and still have only the one desire, namely to remain in Germany, that they had at the age of 12 or 13 when they wanted nothing more ardently than to come to Germany, the land of their fathers. What standards did the Germans use after they had the power in Poland after 1939 and presumably were intent on weakening the Polish nation by abducting Polish children?\nA person is \"ethnic German\" who is of pure German stock and commands the German language and identifies himself with the German nation. Persons with three German grand parents and one foreign grand parent, are only regarded as ethnic German.14) It is not only a National Socialist conception, but a common phenomenon with natural causes:\nA country that is large and strong wants to keep the number of those who want to participate in the honor and advantages that accrue to such a strong and largo nation, as small as possible. From this point of view, the suspicion that Decree 67/I had as its purpose, for some unfathomable reason, the abduction of children of foreign countries, is an illusion.\nToday's official definition of membership in the German nation is by no means so narrow as it was during the National Socialist regime. I shall quote the definition from the Bavarian Refugee Law of 8 July 1947 (Bavarian Legal Gazette 1947, No. 12), to wit: \"German nationality exists if the native language or one parent is German.\"15) According to the marriage order of General MacNARNEY of 19 Dec.\n1946 for the American troops, everyone is a German who has a German father, or in the case of an illegitimate child, a German mother; furthermore, every inhabitant of Germany who previously had belonged to an ethnic German groups in Poland Czechoslovakia etc, shall be considered a German. If one of the young girls who have testified before this - - - - 14) Prosecution document book II C,NO-3495, exhibit 44, pg. 20. 15) Doc. bk, Sollmann II, So. No. 24.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5197, "page_number": "5190", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "High Tribunal waited to marry an American soldier tomorrow, she would undoubtedly be a German according to the American conception; I hardly believe that the High Tribunal can look upon this same girl as a stolen Polish child and convict the defendant Max SOLLMANN on account of this girl and about 250 of her comrades, both boys and girls, from the Warthegau.16) The objection will be made:\nthe question whether the children were Polish or German cannot even be discussed, because the children had been born on sovereign Polish territory and therefore were almost certainly Polish citizens, In this regard I must say: I can omit entirely to present legal arguments of whether, since the occupation of Poland in 1939, there existed a Polish citizenship de facto and de jure at all. The following, rather, is of decisive importance: Contrary to the promises of the right of the peoples to self determination, which were made in the preliminary treaty of 5 November 1918 for the later peace treaties, millions of Germans, as is well known, came under foreign rule after the peace treaties of 1919, including two million Germans under Polish rule. To establish conditions which might be somehow acceptable under international law certain fundamental rights of national minorities against the countries in which they were incorporated were recognized and guaranteed by the League of Nations in the so-called minority treaties of 1919/20, including the freedom to use their language in private and commercial matters, the right to establish their own welfare organizations and schools etc. Because the League of Nations gave no guarantee against national minority and a legal demarkation of such membership were avoided in the minority treaties, and finally because the League of Nations only provided very poor legal protection, for these reasons the word and the spirit of these treaties were not respected and the minority groups subjected to a relentless assimilation - - - 16) Doc. bk. Sollmann II, So. No. 25.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5198, "page_number": "5191", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Policy. (see Textbook of International Law by Prof. Hold-Ferneck, teacher of international law at the University of Vienna, published 1930 and 1932, Part II, pg. 41).\nThe testimony of the 70 year old witness GRAEBE, given before this High Tribunal on 29 Jan. 1948, sounds not like a defense, but more like an accuastion.17) The witness, who himself traveled the path of sorrow of the German minority in Poland, aid for years was the authorized representative for the interests of his ethnic group at the League of Nations. I would like to repeat, briefly, the testimony of this witness before this High Tribunal:\nThe Polish government, and also the Polish associations, did everything possible to Polonize as many German children as possible. Polonization efforts consisted mainly in making the building of German schools difficult or impossible, closing existing German schools and forcing the children to go to the Polish schools. In the Polish schools the children were inculcated with hatred for German things. In regard to orphan children, the right of the representatives of the minority recognized by international law to represent these children.was contested. Children who had become orphans often dissappeared from sight, without the knowledge of the representatives of the German minority: German orphans were removed from German influence by placing them in Polish families and Polish orphanages. The protests GRAEBE made to the Polish Minister of the Interior and the Polish Minister President were unsuccessful. Graebe, no doubt the most informed witness available on the situation of the German minority in Poland, says further: there was no definition of the term \"ethnic membership\" (Volkszugehoerigkeit) recognized by international law. For the national groups which were included in the congress of the nations of Europe, their own profession of allegiance was decisive. Neither language nor name was an authoritative criterion. - - - 17) Testimony of 29 Jan. 1948, transcript pg. 4359 ff.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5199, "page_number": "5192", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "There were a number of inhabitants whose principal language was Polish and not German, but who nevertheless professed allegiance to Germany. In the Polish orphanages the children were punished if they spoke German, they could not learn German at all. The Polish agencies used all means to Polonize the names, what with the reigning terror it was almost impossible to do anything against it, and after the parents were dead there was no one left who could do anything against it.18) In spite of these historically indisputable facts the prosecution today contends that it had been the highest German agencies, and the Lebensborn Society as it authorized helper, who wanted to increase and strengthen the German nation through the abduction and Germanization of Polish children who were allegedly ethnic German.\nThey say: In spite of these arguments the charges of the prosecution, that the Lebensborn Society dealt in the abduction of foreign born children for the purpose of Germanizing them, are proven because there is repeated mention in the documents of \"Germanization\" of \"Polish Children\", of \"foreign born children capable of being Germanized\" and other similar matters.\nIn this regard I would like to state the following: 1.) In the operation based on Decree 67/1 Polish children might have been involved insofar as they might have possessed Polish citizenship until 1939; Polish citizenship, however, does not in any way mean Polish nationality, because there was an internationally recognized Group whose members, although Polish citizens, happened to be ethnic Germans and not ethnic Poles. Certainly, Polish children were also involved insofar as some of these children had actually been Polonized in their name and speech, in many cases even in their yound thinking and attitudes, but against every natural law and against the provisions of international law. The main point is this, and it is the only one, that - - 18) Statement of Dr. BARTELS on 29 Jan. 1948, trans. pg. 4406 ff.\nSollmann doc. bk II, So. No. 15 and So. No. 18.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5200, "page_number": "5193", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "these Polish children of ethnic German origin were to be put back into their earlier status; it was not a matter of weakening the Polish nation, but of adjusting an unjustified enlargement and strengthening of the Polish people.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5201, "page_number": "5194", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Even if the German minority in Poland was unable formerly, through its legitimate representatives, to get relief through the Polish government or the League of Nations concerning the disregard of the minority protection treaties, the measures of the German authorities based on Decree 67/1 cannot be adjudged as illegal or even as punishable today in a reversal of the real situation in regard to the facts and the law. These measures were a legal act of self defense.\n2.) So far as the expressions \"Germanization\" and \"capable of being Germanized\" are concerned, it would be a mistake to assume that these could logically be applied only to the members of a foreign nation, for the reason that what is already German cannot be Germanized. In order to illustrate the right conception I would like to refer to a document which has nothing to do with the charges brought against the employees of the Lebensborn Society; it is a letter by the Higher SSPolice Officer in the Gouvernement General, the State Secretary for Health and the Deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism dated 20 July 1943, to the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS concerning the \"German Racial Policy in theGouvernement General\".19 Here it is expressly stated that the Germanization policy in the Gouvernement General had nothing in common with the Germanization policy in Danzig/West Prussia; it was not intended to Germanize Poles, but rather to win back people of German origin for the German nation. It further says: whoever voluntarily reports himself as a racial German and can prove this through records back to his grand parents, will undergo a screening process; he will be examined in regard to 1. race, hereditary and physical health, ethnic background and the Security Police, in regard to his attitude towards his country and his character; - - - - - - - - 19) Prosecution document book IV B,NO-3994, exhibit 122.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5202, "page_number": "5195", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "only he who is recognized as capable, i.e. capable of being Germanized, through this procedure, is included in the Germanization process. In this way, only about 50% of the Germans come into consideration for Germanization. This letter shows beyond a doubt that the only purpose and goal of this Germanization is to recognize those Germans who are worthy according to these requirements, but only those racial Germans, as Germans and to endow them with the full rights and duties of a German citizen. \"Germanization\" pertains, although it may not seem so at first glance, to persons of German descent.\nIf under these circumstances there can hardly be room for doubt that there are no mysteriousconditions that pertain to Decree 67/I, or that the suspicion of a crime cannot be seriously entertained, then such a suspicion disappears completely in regard to the activity of the Lebensborn Society. A survey of the role which the Lebensborn played in this affair shows the following:\n1.) The Lebensborn Society was not an agency of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism and was not subordinate to or dependant on this office. Naturally, the reverse was also not the case20). The same is valid for the relationship between the Lebensborn Society and the Race and Settlement Main Office, which, to be sure, was active in Operation 67/I, i.e. in the selection of children which had been certified by the Youth Offices as racial Germans, but which had no official connection with theLebensborn Society.21) - - - - - - - -\n20) Statement WIRSICH of 24 October 1947, transcript pg. 367/68;\ndoc bk. Sollmann VIII, So. No. 71.\n21) Statement Hofmann on 7 Jan. 1948, transcript pg. 3110-3114, Statement Hanke on 29 Oct.\n1947, transcript pg. 639.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5203, "page_number": "5196", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Lebensborn, as already mentioned, had never anything to do with the process of Regermanization (Wiedereindeutschungsverfahen) or similar matters, the men and women of the Lebensborn had hardly any more knowledge thereof than any other average citizen since this was entirely beyond their spheres of task and technical fields. The fact that the staff of the Lebensborn also used terms like \"suitable for Germanization\" etc. proves at the most the vague notion prevailing in the Lebensborn in respect to these ideas. If the Prosecution, however, wants to interpret the Germanization of the children under the care of the Lebensborn as perhaps meaning a more or less radical National Socialist education, it is nevertheless clearly proven from the numerous statements by the former staff membersof the home Oberweis22)and above all from those given by the foster children and foster parents themselves23) that the Lebensborn had no ambitions in this field whatsoever; moreover, in respect to selection and instruction of the foster parents the Lebensborn has shown a complete lack of political interest; it is by no means true that the children were placed predominantly in the homes of SS-families, they were given a Christian and religious education by their foster Parents and were in no way influenced the National Socialist theory. The Lebensborn, requesting reports about the children's education, has never put up a single question to this effect or even raised a protest or a warning. Its sole aim was that the children were cared for with particular love and grew up under the best possible external conditions.\n2.) The children from the Warthegau for whose care and transit the Lebensborn had been used against its will and intent, were described in the decree 67/I and by the children's home Kalisch of the Gau selfadministration which had sent the children, as Ethnic German orphans who had been exposed to attempts of Polonization in Polish orphanages - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 22) testimony of SIMANOWSKI, dated 14 January 1948, pages 3529-3935;\ntestimony of HEINZE-WI-SWEDE, dated 27 October 1947. Transcript page 521 ff.\nDocument Book Sollmann II, So.No. 22 Document Book Sollmann VI, So.No. 58 23) Document Book Sollmann IX and X.\n and Polish foster homes, who particularly had been given Polish names and about whose origin no sufficient data is available24). The Lebensborn could have been satisfied with the fact that there was no reason whatsoever to doubt these statements.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5204, "page_number": "5197", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "This it could not do and did not want to do for three reasons.\na) From the beginning, the Lebensborn considered it its obvious task to care for the children under its protection not only physically and educationally but also to represent the legal interests of the children which in the first place included the clarification of the personal status, as for example also the filing of the paternity suit against the illegitimate father.\nb) However, an ignoring of the specific deficiencies in regard to name and personal data of the children who had come from the Warthegau was not possible in view of dealing with the authorities, for the essential coupons for food and clothes could be obtained only by presenting specific documents, in which connection the authorities varied in their demands with respect to the documents, Besides that, it was the main task of the Lebensborn with regard to the children from the Warthegau to place them in good foster homes. For this important matter too, certificates and documents had to be made available in the interest of the children which, in view of the obscurity of the circumstances and the lack of reliable data, certainly meant an extraordinary burden for the members of the staff in respect to their sense of responsibility. Whenever it became necessary the Lebensborn, to the best of its knowledge and belief and strictly within the scope of the law, has helped the children in spite of this. In a few cases, only 15 to 20, was it necessary to issue provisional birth certificates in accordance with the paragraphs 25 and 26 of the law concerning the personal status;25 in numerous cases one resorted even to so-called - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 24) testimony of HEINZE-WISWEDE, dated 27 October 1947. Transcript page 486 ff.\n25) Document Book Sollmann VII, So. No. 63;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5205, "page_number": "5198", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "foster home certificates which were given an official character through the use of envelopes from the staff main office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Termanism;26) in other cases again, ordinary certificates of the registered association Lebensborn were sufficient. Since it was notorious that in numerous cases the names of children had been polonized or were unreliable because of the lack of personal data and were therefore worthless or even obviously false27), one had to face additional difficulties namely, the question concerning the names these children were to be given in these documents. In as far asit did not appear to be essential otherwise, here too, the children could retain the already Germanized names. In cases, however, where it was requested by the foster parents or where, owing to other reasons of expediency, it was found advisable, the children, if only in consideration of a possible subsequent adoption, were in a few cases temporarily given the surnames of their foster parents, in the same way as this is still handled by the German authorities.28)That in such cases one cannot talk either of concealment or even of falsification of the names or the personal status of the children is shown by the fact that the very names the children had at the time of arrival were false and that, with bureaucratic accuracy, it was seen to it that the names the children had carried up till that time, even though false, were preserved in the documents and that the names of the children's foster parents were reported back to the registration office Kalisch from where the children had come to the Lebensborn. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 26) Document Book Sollmann IX, So. No. 84; 27) testimony of Saenger, dated 28 January 1948, transcript page 4350 ff.\ntestimony of Dr. SCHULZ, dated 5 November 1947, transcript page 1016 ff.\n28) Document Book Sollmann VII, So. No. 66.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5206, "page_number": "5199", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Beyond that, t was furthermore seen to that the police registration offices in the childrens' places of origin were informed accordingly.29 c) However, the Lebensborn was not satisfied with the given information for a third reason as well. It did not regard the taking over of Ethnic German children from the Warthegau as a mere business matter. The defendant Max Sollmann and the other principal members in the staff of the Lebensborn felt before their conscience a personal responsibility, that these valuable goods which they were to care for should not be harmed, in spite of all, through an erroneous conception of the conditions which led to the childrens' arrival. It is a fact that they themselves participated in the intensive investigations for the purpose of obtaining the records, and for that purpose undertook difficult journeys; above all, the door to the Lebensborn was wide open for everyone who could give any useful information about the origin or national extraction of the children. If it was found that there were still legitimate relatives by blood, that is not the mere existence of former foster parents, the child was released without objection if it was so desired. The Lebensborn was even more pleased at being relieved of one more case of burden and responsibility if it could be subsequently ascertained that, in spite of all precautionary measures, the child was not of Ethnic German but of Polish origin after all; in this case too, the child was immediately released and returned to a Polish foster home.30 The defendants of the Lebensborn are accused, as their countribution to the crime of kidnapping, not only with concealing the childrens' names and therewith suppression of their identity, but also with withholding their true origin from the German foster parents,31 and finally with inclusion of the children in a mysterious system of secrecy which already existed.\n----------------29 Document Book Sollmann IX, So, No. 81a, 81b and 82; 30 Document Book Sollmann II, So. No. 22; 31 Prosecution opening speech, page 106, dated 20 Oct. '47.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5207, "page_number": "5200", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "It evidently means that the Lebensborn had allegedly played the role of the receiver of kidnapped children. As far as the alleged withholding of the true origin from the German foster parents is concerned, there is no need for me to waste a word after having been able to submit two document books33 containing affidavits not to mention at all the witnesses who testified directly before this Tribunal - all of which clearly prove exactly the contrary, namely, that the Lebensborn, in the most conscientious manner, has transmitted to the foster parents its entire information about the children.\nThe following is to be added in regard to the system of secrecy:\nThe Lebensborn was a place of refuge for pregnant woman. In my document book I have submitted the recent articles of two Swiss Authors on scientific matters34 who confirm that discretion, perhaps even the preservation of anonymity of the mother -- the latter, by the way, was not practiced by the Lebensborn - is in some cases irremissible in order to keep the mother from despair, abortion and infanticide. In its homes the Lebenborn had its own police registration offices, and own registrar's offices, partly for reasons of mere technical expediency; partly however, in order to erect the protecting walls of the Lebensborn also around the public-legal sector. In this narrow sector the private association Lebensborn managed to obtain rights of state authority not in order to conceal crimes or immorality but to preserve the secrecy of motherhood and give protection against prying and ill-disposed outsiders.\nThe Ethnic German children in the Lebensborn were not included into the possibilities of secrecy.35a On the contrary by explicit order of the defendant Max Sollmann the children were permitted to correspond as and with whom they liked.36 ----------------33 Document Book Sollmann IX and X 34 Document Book Sollmann I, So. No. 3 and 4. 35 Document Book Sollmann I, So. No. 8. 35a testimony of Dr. Schulz, dated 5 November 1947, page 1016 ff. 36 Document Book Sollmann II, So. No. 22 \n Max Sollmann, who, be explicit order, rescinded contrary directions of other authorities -- which, by the way did not have any criminal motives either -- does not scorn to have been an expert in the trade of kidnapping.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5208, "page_number": "5201", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "May it please the Tribunal. We are not dealing here with inanimate objects and, in the final analysis, not with abstract ideas either, political speeches of official decrees or correspondence taken out of context cannot be decisive. We are dealing with young human beings of flesh and blood who have allegedly become the victims of a serious crime. The main argument of our defense are these young people themselves, and it was the tactics of our defense in the first place to let these young people speak for themselves. We have presented as witnesses to the Tribunal a number of these so called displaced Polish children who at the time of the \"kidnapping\" were already 12 years of age and over;37 besides that, we have produced a number of affidavits by other persons of that age who likewise at that time had already reached an ago in which, under normal conditions, a child graduates from school in order to choose a profession.38 Consequently, one cannot say that these witnesses could not give correct information. On the contrary, they are in a position to give the best description of the history of their displacement and about their knowledge and opinion in regard to everything of importance in this case. Out of a total of 250 children we have not presented any specially selected cases of exception but those cases which were accessible to us in view of our limited possibilities. I am certain that the Tribunal, from the clear faces and the firm bearing of these young witnesses, has already gained the right impression.\nHowever, I should like to have pass before the memory, of the members of this Tribunal some important testimonies on typical cases, ------------------------37 testimony of Gisela Luser and Lotte Sucher, dated 22 January 1948.\ntranscript pages 3977 - 4004, furthermore Lucie Bergner, Meier-Rethel, Julie Semter, Therese Michael and Anna Michel, dated 23 January 1948.\ntranscript pages 4015 - 4081 38 Document Book Sollmann IX and X.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5209, "page_number": "5202", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "congruent in all essential aspects with the scores of cases compiled in the document books.\nIt seems to me that the testimony of the witness Anna Michel in regard to her fate which was given on 23 January 1948,39 is particularly revealing and typical. She knows that her mother was German, she has herself once seen the birth-certificate of her mother, who was born in Dresden. From her second until her twelfth year of age she was placed in a Polish orphanage in Alexandrowo, which was directed by Polish nurses. There she was treated badly because she was German; whenever the German children -- three more German children were there--spoke German they were punished; her name was to be Polanized into Michalak, but she continued to use her German name. When the Germans came, she and the other three girls, who made themselves known as Germans, but not the others, were examined as to their German ancestry. The men seeking out the German children had thought that there were more german children there. In the German children's home in Kalisch, there were, as Anna Michel further testified, only German and Ethnic German children. She heard of no child that wanted to go home, or that was separated from its parents. These German children could converse in the Polish language in Kalisch; this was not forbidden to them. One of the three German children that had come from Alexandrowo to Kalisch, came back, although it had light blond hair and blue eyes, obviously because further investigation did not substantiate the supposition of German descent. After that the witness Muichel came to Oberweis, the home of the Lebensborn; here she was also given religious instruction and was not trained for National Socialism. Then she came to German foster parents. She never wants to return to Poland again. One more short look at the testimonies of the children heard on the same day -- that was on 23 January 1948-- when the Germans came, they were in Polish orphanages, that is Polish foster-homes. Most of them have 39 Protocol Page 4071 - 4081 \n definite clues for their German decent.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5210, "page_number": "5203", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "although they have not even a memory of father and mother; none of the children knows anything about forced separation or coercion against them, or that Polish comrades should have been among them who were separated from their parents or relatives, something the children certainly would have told one another. In the homes, including the home Oberweis, they were not prevented from speaking Polish; the witness Hilde Meier- Rethel has testified that under supervision of their nurse they were allowed to sing Polish songs and present dramatic plays in the Polish language, and all of them have given evidence to that fact that the children's correspondence also was not interferred with, insafar as correspondence was possible and desired by the children.40 My document books IX and X contain affidavits of more allegedly abducted children, which agree in essential parts with these testimonies, but also numerous affidavits by German foster parents.\nEverywhere the children came into natural, materially and morally equally good conditions; everywhere a realtionship of loving care and hearty understanding between children and foster parents. If towards these allegedly abducted children the intentions would have been of the kind as imputed by the Prosecution, they certainly would not have been brought into these well-to-do families, but into institutions fashioned after the model of the Prussian military orphanages, perhaps with a National Socialist variation. The foster-parents loved and cared for these children as though they had been their own, and the Lebensborn, when it demanded educational reports, was only interested to know if the children were well off physically and mentally, but not whether the child had already been properly \"Germanised\", or had become a good National Socialist. The foster parents also suffered with the children and felt the pain, if a child disappointed them, like Frau Anna Mehnert the foster mother of Hilga Anczak;41 this child caused her much trouble on account of her inclination to lie and to steal; still -------------40 Protocol on 23.1.1948, Page 4030 - 4055. 41 Document Book Sollmann IX, So. No. 94, Page 48;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5211, "page_number": "5204", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "she stood up for her like a real mother for her child. and Hilga Antczak only on 24 July 1947, has expressed her hearty gratitude to her hearty gratitude to her \"aunt Mehnert\" through a letter from Lodz identified on the witness stand.42 That this same Hilga Antczak could manage to testify about her foster parents before this High Tribunal in an untruthful and hateful manner can only be explained by pathological considerations or by presuming uncontrollable influences. May it also be mentioned here that at instigation of the foster mother of Alina Antczak, a sister of the aforementioned, an investigation was conducted by a specially instructed person regarding the family conditions of these sisters in Lodz.43 The result permits us to say that obviously the preconditions for a Public upbringing were given, because of the neglect towards the children on the part of their parents; furthermore that the parents were in complete agreement that their children should be placed so well in Germany. This visit of Frau Berlinghof in Lodz is also revealing for the reason that it is quite unusual for foster parents of abducted children to arrange for such visits together with the delivery of photographs and letters. In conclusion I wish to refer to the fact that today that Military Government in numerous cases leaves these allegedly abducted children with their foster parents,44 and that in many cases these children are being adopted only now, because it was continually and on principle refused by the Lebensborn, since for such an incisive act a further clarification of conditions was to be awaited.\nIn view of the terrible suspicion of abduction of children I should like at this point once more to direct the attention of this Tribunal to the Lebensborn itself.\nThe Lebensborn, represented by the defendant Max Sollmann, never was an organization within the framework of a program for the denationalization of parts of an alien enthnic group. Alien peoples. -----------43 Document Book Sollmann IX, So. No. 95a, Page 54; 44 Document Book Sollmann IX, So. No. 99, Page 67;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5212, "page_number": "5205", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "alien children never belonged to its field of interest. It had, with the exception of the mentioned reporting - and registry offices, neither from the State nor from the Party any authority of a sovereign or public law nature. It had no organization that could permit the inference of criminal tasks or aims, it had no other principle \"but that of aid and social care. It had no intentions of fighting or conquering towards alien peoples. It fought against the forlornness and desperation and distress of the child-bearing women and against the helplessness of newborn life; its battle-fields were its exemplary delivery homes and children's homes. It is true; it demanded from the mothers-to-be also the proof of heriditary soundness and aryan descent; it has placed at the head of its prospectus the motto: \"Holy shall be to us every mother of good blood\". This solemn obligation cannot be charged against the defendants, since according to the fundamental claim of the indictment itself, the defendants have devoted their interest only to the children of good blood and they would have been scoundrels, if they ever had forgotten the mothers on account of the children and so viciously betrayed their principles.\nIf the physician being under a similar sacred obligation: \"Always to help and never to hurt\" is granted the presumption to have acted decently and morally also where because of ignorance of facts or because of erroneous considerations or because of superior power a beneficial success was not granted, then this presumption must also be granted to the defendants of the Lebensborn, for also they felt to be bound by nothing but their conscience and to nothing but sacrificial aid. Where a handful of men, even though in SS-uniform, were together at work with many hundreds of women year in and year out to serve the mysteries of life, and where one if filled only with one duty and one happiness, to prepare the road for a healthy future to new human life, no inner relationship and no inner attitude towards abduction of children and genocide is possible, there even the remotest intimation and the slightest suspicion may on the ground of a clear conscience be rejected with indignation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5213, "page_number": "5206", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the next argument.\nDR.THIELE*Fredersdorf (Counsel for the defendant Gregor Ebner): Your Honors, in consideration of the tine limits that Ihave, I will not read the last pages of my plea, but I would like to recommend them to the judicial notice of the Court.\nI am now beginning with the second paragraph of the first page of my plea.\nMay it please the Court:\n\"The Lebensborn took in its fold children from Norway, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, the Yugoslavian border regions, and above all, from the Warthegau. The reception of children from Rumania has not been included in the indictment as Kidnapping, as these children came to Germany following a state treaty between Germany and Rumania, with the full knowledge and approval of the Rumanian authorities, and thus, no doubt, also with the approval of their legal guardians. As to the Norwegian children, the evidence has sufficiently clarified this matter insofar as to rule out the charge of abduction, since the mothers and the authorized Norwegian officials agreed to their being placed in Germany. I shall have to exclude the Czech orphans and the children from the Yugoslavian border regions from my survey, since the defendant Ebner had no knowledge of their existence in the Lebensborn, nor could he possibly know about them, which in turn eliminates the changes against him in this respect. Therefore, I shall only deal with the matter concerning the reception and care afforded to the children from the Warthegau. It is this particular point which forms the basis of the prosecution charges against the Lebensborn, not only as regards to the numbers involved, but also in reference to the systematic execution of the program. In this respect the following essential points emerge in connection with the Lebensborn, and especially regarding the defendant Dr. Ebner:\nPursuant to decree 67/I (Prosecution Exh. 407) of the Main Staff Office, the state authorities were instructed to cast about for unattached orphans of ethnic German descent, who were in Polish orphanages or in the \n care of Polish foster parents in the Warthegau.", "speakers": [ "DR.", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5214, "page_number": "5207", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Following a prescribed procedure the state authorities had been directed be examine the children's ethnic German descent, and to send those children, whose ethnic German descent had been ascertained, to German families in Germany proper as foster children, with the ultimate aim of possible adoption at a later date. Only for the later task, and for nothing else, i.e. to find suitable foster parents for the children, the government provincial authorities had been instructed to enlist the assistance of the Lebensborn Society. Being a private society, the Lebensborn was not a party to this decree - it has not even been proved that the Lebensborn had been consulted previously whether it was prepared and in a position to receive those children at all. As it is, the defendant Dr. Ebner, never saw this decree; he was merely given some general information concerning its text. However, the Lebensborn placed a number of children with foster parents, as scheduled, after part of them had been temporarily admitted an one of its homes before sending them on. The Lebensborn had no hand at all in selecting them; it did not learn about those children until they were in a home of the provincial administration, paid the Lebensborn did not collect them, but the staff of these governmental provincial authorities, as far as the children were sent to the Lebensborn hones at all, accompanied them there. By no means did Dr. Ebner participate in working out the decision that those children were to be cared for by the Lebensborn.\nJudging by the evidence the Lebensborn made the very best arrangements for the children entrusted to its care. Contrary to the instructions given in decree 67/I it was not interested at all in placing those children with SS families, and evidently did not take any action conducive to securing a National Socialist education for the children. After those children had been admitted to Lebensborn homes, it was the duty of the physician Dr. Ebner to supervise their health, which equally applied to all the children under the care of the Lebensborn. The prosecution did not state that the defendant Dr. Ebner had at all fallen down on this obligation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5215, "page_number": "5208", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Because of variousother reasons Dr. Ebner had to deal with those children in his capacity as a physician. In approximately seven cases he was asked to give his opinion on the age of some children, after doubts had been voiced concerning the authenticity of the existing records, which were based the fact that those particular children were mentally or physically far retarded, or when, in one case, records mentioned two different birth dates. If any records concerning the birthdate were missing, the Reich Ministry of the Interior had decreed that the date should be established based on the opinion of a medical specialist. In all those cases referred to, except in the one mentioned, Dr. Ebner's opinion and that of the specialist who had been consulted were instrumental in confirming the age as stated in the particular records. The defendant Ebner, in his capacity as physician, was also consulted in other cases, i.e. in such cases when health reasons seemed to make it inadvisable to recommend surrendering a child to the care of his prospective foster parents. Parents who had decided to adopt a strange child could be blamed for insisting on taking a physically and mentally healthy child. The Lebensborn took this natural desire into account. From a physician's point of view Dr. Ebner had to decide when Lebensborn children, i.e. such children who were born within the Lebensborn were to be placed either for adoption or as foster children, whether those children were healthy, and whether they could be safely recommanded to their foster parents. He had to give his decision in those cases when there were any such doubts regarding orphans from the Warthegau. According to his memory and the documents, he gave an opinion of this kind in one particular case. (Prosecution Exh. 433). He also remembered that this was the only case of its kind.\nThese are essentially the facts pertaining to 67/I, as far as they can be brought in connection to the Lebensborn and Dr. Ebner.\nThe prosecution is likely to stress some additional points in this respect. It will refer to Prosecution document Exh. 414, according to which the Reich ministry of the Interior intended to make it difficult for the Polish relations or friends of the children to get in touch with \n them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5216, "page_number": "5209", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "However, the prosecution did not prove that the Lebensborn or even Dr. Ebner had any knowledge of these intentions. Furthermore, the Prosecution is likely to point out that some of those children had Polish relatives, and that they had been taken away from their relatives against their wish. Only twice did the prosecution succeed in proving this fact. If one considers that the prosecution was able to employ the most farreaching methods and had years to prepare its case, it can be safely assumed that those individual cases were the only ones of this kind. But even in those individual cases the prosecution did not exclude the possibility that the state youth offices had very good reasons to disallow Polish relatives of essentially ethnic German children to care for those children, because they were obliged to protect the children from being neglected morally and otherwise according to the valid law in Germany, which is probably the same in all other civilized countries. Unfortunately, the defense has not been able to examine and clarify this question with the means at its disposal. In this respect, therefore, there is a certain doubt which, however, should speak for the defendant in accordance with the principle in dubio pro reo. On the other hand, in all those cases the Lebensborn was not aware of the fact that those children had any relatives at all, since the government authorities had given definite assurances that all those children were children without families, that is children who had no parents and no relatives, and there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of this assurance, which most decidedly applies to the defendant Dr. Ebner. Finally, the prosecution can be assumed to mention the fact, regarding the defendant Dr. Ebner, that he was a temporary official in charge of Main Office A, deducing therefrom that during this period he concerned himself with other matters relating to ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau, and outside his medical duties, i.e. with the placing of children in foster homes. However, the evidence proves that this is an erronous assumption. All witnesses have testified to the effect that Dr. Ebner, also during that period, had nothing to do with placing Warthegau children in foster homes. I want to mention \n especially the affidavit given by Emilie Edelmann, who should be the best authority on this matter since she herself was in charge of the placing program, (Ebner Exh.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5217, "page_number": "5210", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "1, Doc. No. 1); and finally, the same can be seen from the prosecution documents, none of which shows that the defendant Dr. Ebner had a hand in the placing program for the Warthegau children. On the contrary, they clearly establish the fact that even during the period when Dr. Ebner was in charge of the Main Office, it was not he but various other persons who were responsible for this program.\nI could confine my statements to the fact that Dr. Ebner was only engaged in his medical capacity that he never passed any decisions in another field, and that he hardly engaged in any activities at all, in any case not in connection with the children referred to. It appears selfevident that a physician, even though he worked in a concentration camp where the most heinous atrocities were committed before his very eyes, or in a prison where innocent people were detained with his knowledge contrary to all conceptions of law and right, cannot be accused of having participate in crimes perpetrated against the above-mentioned human beings, if he confined his activities to conscientiously administering medical aid to the persons concerned. If the opposite were assumed, and if a physician were not allowed to undertake such work, this would be tantamount to depriving innocent prisoners of any medical assistance. Therefore, in order to judge Dr. Ehner's criminal responsibility it would be quite irrelevant to assume that those children, to whom he accorded medical treatment and who were under his care, had actually been abducted, as has been claimed by the prosecution. Even then this charge -- that is Dr. Ebner's participation in the kidnappings, because in actual fact he confined his activities to medical care for the child -- would have to be ruled out.\nHowever, there are other reasons which make it expedient in the interest of the defendant Dr. Ebner to show that the Lebensborn cannot be charged with the crime of kidnapping, and that he, Dr. Ebner, in no case had knowledge of any such crime.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5218, "page_number": "5211", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Lebensborn started its activities based upon and in accordance with the decree 67/I of the Main Staff Office. The Main Staff Office was a supreme Reich authorities i.e. it was on the same level as a Reich Ministry, and had been authorized in accordance with the constitution, to pass decrees in its particular field like any other ministry, which were legally binding.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5219, "page_number": "5212", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Consequently, the decree 67/1 both to the German citizen and the Lebensborn was nothing less than a law endowed with guaranteed obligations as such. Therefore, the first aspect to be dealt with is the question whether this fact in itself cancels the criminal responsibility for the Lebensborn, as it pursued no other course but dutifully abiding by and following a German law which was binding for it. This question is closely linked to the general problem; i.e. to which extent or whether at all, reference can be made to a National law, and whether this is a suitable argument of ruling out any criminal responsibility in the light of international law as applied to individual persons, or whether each individual citizen is obliged under international law personally to examine his government's laws for their legality and validity under that international law, and to adjust his actions in accordance with whatever result he has arrived at--whether he should obey the law or resist it, considering the consequences which would arise for him by his actions as a matter of course.\nAs the most recent achievement in its development, international law has construed a criminal responsibility of the individual under international law. Control Council Law No. 10 in article II, subsection 1c, according to the prevailing views a partial codification of the currently valid international law--which specifies the criminal responsibilities as applicable to the individual--has answered the above-mentioned Questions; i.e. whether referring to National laws excludes a responsibility under international law as applied to crime against humanity, in the negative. This rejection of an extenuating circumstance based on national law requires, however, a restrictive interpretation because of reasons connected with international law. In keeping with its character, international law is not so much a product of abstract casuality, but rather the general precept which common sense prescribes for all human activities. Cardozo's question: \"How does the precept work? Is it a sensible rule for the governance of mankind?\" is far more justified in the face of the difficult attempts to codify international common law, than anywhere else. One \n criterion for determining whether a principle can be approved in the light of international law is the question; among others, if it can be reasonably consistent with the practical functioning of any national constitutional systems:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5220, "page_number": "5213", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "in other words, the question of security under the law. This, however, would be totally incompatible with the fact of demanding of each individual citizen without exception that he himself was under the obligation to examine the valid national laws by which he had to a bide for their value under international law. Logically applying this ruling, it would be found that any such unrestricted interpretation would bring about a lessening of soverignty for national states, and in turn, would establish a situation of legal vaccilation and insecurity under the present constitution of international law. This state of affairs would not be confined to jeopardizing the existence of national states, but would even imperil the structure of human society altogether. This consideration in itself appears to be serious enough to demand a less sweeping classification of such persons who would be eligible to examine their government's laws in the light of justifiability under international law. The famed American legal expert and scholar Benjamin N. Cardozo, in his publication \"The Groth of the Law\" (8th Edition 1946, p.49) proposes how to draw the line: \"If there is any law which is back of the sovereignty of the state, and superior thereto, it is not law in such a sense as to concern the judge or lawyer, however much it concerns the statesman or the moralist.\" It will be left to legal findings and the continued development of international law to determine and specify those boundaries. However, one aspect appears to be certain: i.e. that the man in the street--the ordinary common man--will have to be excluded from this list of persons, where only statesmen and leading personalities in public life should be registered. And I believe that this farflung boundary will suffice to arrive at the conclusion that the defendants of the Lebensborn Society are not in the category of such persons who because of their position had this particular obligation which reaches into the sphere of international law. I am of opinion there \n fore, that the Lebensborn defendants have no such criminal responsibility, because they acted within the law which was binding for them, and which they were not obliged to examine for its legality in the light of international law, irrespective of the fact whether this law violated international law or not.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5221, "page_number": "5214", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "I shall now deal with another problem; i.e. whether the decrees 67/1, and the acts committed by it, were at all in contradiction to international law or not. To start with, this answer is connected with another problem; i.e. whether Germany's occupation of Poland actually took place after Poland's debellatio in the light of international law, and whether or not the incorporation of the former German provinces, namely the Warthegau returning into the German Reich, could be considered legally and legitimately valid; for, if this incorporation was legal, there could not have been any objection, based on international law, to this degree 67/1, which specifically refers to those provinces. The verdicts passed by the High Nuernberg Tribunals, formerly the IMT, assumed that Poland was not in a state of Debellatio as Poland's Allies still had fully mobilized armies in the field, and that therefore the incorporation of the above-mentioned provinces as an act of national legislation had no sequence in the light of international law. My colleagues have advanced important new facts and arguments which deem it advisable to revise those decisions. However, no matter which decision will be passed by the High Tribunal in this particular question, it is certain that it was highly disputable and precarious to judge such complicated international law matters and events at a time when there were neither precedents of any kind nor all the pertinent facts had been disclosed, which was even conceded by prominent neutral lawyers. Therefore, it cannot be conceivably expected of a German average citizen and layman that he correctly judged these complicaed international legal matters in the years 1939 to 1945: certainly not, if it is considered that normally the German citizen did not have access to the actual facts which were decisive for correctly judging this problem. In a synonymous problem of international law; i.e.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5222, "page_number": "5215", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "which legal status applied to the occupation of Germany by the Allies, Tribunal No. III, in the Jurists' Trial, arrived at the decision that Germany could not be technically termed an occupied country in the sense of this term. In a well substantiated Dissenting Opinion a member of the very same Tribunal, however, voiced opposite views; i.e. that the occupation of Germany by the Allies was an occupation in the sense and meaning of the Land Warfare Regulations. I mention this fact in order to show that the scholarly jurists also disagree on legal problems of this kind. Conceding this, can the Lebensborn defendants be accused of having incorrectly adjudged a difficult international legal problem in the light of our present knowledge? Therefore, I am bound to arrive at the conclusion that the awareness of committing acts in violation of international law did not apply to the Lebensborn defendants, simply because they were not in a position to assess the international legal rulings on the incorporation of the Warthegau in the German Reich, and because they therefore could never have regarded the decree 67/1 as an illegal statute, but were bound to accept it as the law.\nEven though it could be assumed that the incorporation of the Warthegau in the German Reich at that time was not legally effective under national law, this does not imply that the decree 67/1 was in contradiction to international law, As it is, it should be examined whether this decree and the actions in pursuance to it violated the international legal rulings concerning the rights and obligations of an occupying power.\nThe decree 67/1 provides that unattached ethnic German children who were accommodated in either Polish orphanages or Polish foster homes for purposes of polanization were to be accorded the benefits of a German education with German families.\nEthnic Germans with Polish citizenship who automatically received Polish citizenship under the Versailles Treaty voluntarily or involuntarily--these persons amounted to some 2.2 millions the majority of whom lived in the Warthegau or West Prussia--received in accordance with international \n agreements a right guaranteed by international law to a preservation of their ethnic German existence both for themselves as well as for the following generations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5223, "page_number": "5216", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The League of Nations was to guarantee the inviolability of these rights. The extent of this right was open to dispute, However, the right of every ethnic German to speak the German language, to attend German schools, and to enjoy a German education was completely indisputable. With the establishment of this right, international law recognized the relative importance of specific ideal values resulting from emotional ties based on the sentimental bonds of family affinity without consideration of national boundaries and citizenship. Simultaneously with its guarantees and special protective measures, international law desired to accord limited consideration of a further fact; namely, the extreme nationalism, the intensity and willingness of sacrifice of which, as well as the intolerance, have become maxims in Poland.\nThe German occupation authorities in the Warthegau were obliged to respect and protect the personal right of the inhabitants, that is, not only the civil rights but naturally and justifiably so, the rights according to international law as well. It was also their duty to make the right of the members of the German minority to the preservation of their national characteristics, education in the German language, German culture, German schools and German families, a reality, particularly in those cases where the Polish authorities in violation of international law and international, agreements grossly disrespected this right, as in the cases of the ethnic German children in Polish orphanages and Polish foster homes.\nI am not disposed to discussing the question whether perhaps the placing of ethnic German orphans in Polish institutions and Polish families must be regarded as a kind of kidnapping, because these children were intentionally deprived of the welfare and supervision of this minority through governmental authority and suppression of the fact of their membership in the German minority. It is indubitable, however, that the \n Polish foster parents who took such ethnic German children for purposes of polanization intentionally violated a right of these children, end that they themselves could never acquire any kind of right to these children because, as they must have known only too well, they violated thereby not only a personal right but also an obligation inherent in international law embodying all guarantees and sanctions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5224, "page_number": "5217", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "However, the decree 67/1 is consistent with the obligation in accordance with international law insofar as it prescribes the transfer of unattached ethnic German orphans from Polish orphanages and Polish foster homes to a German environment. Consequently, decree 67/1 cannot in this respect be in contravention to international law, much less be considered criminal.\nAn action contrary to international law could be inferred from the procedure, according to which the government authorities, pursuant to the decree 67/1, selected the ethnic German children, as well as from the fact that they brought them to Germany proper. Since the Lebensborn was not a party to all these measures, and had absolutely nothing to do with these measures, I wish to limit myself to stating that an illegal deportation of the children could be a. subject of discussion only if their transfer to Germany proper had been in opposition to their interests. However, education in a German environment to which the children had a right and which was in their interests could not be guaranteed in a country which had just experienced war, in which conditions of normalcy were non-existent, and where above all there were no suitable German educational institutions to be found at all. A second relevant ex-post facto consideration is of importance for the moral judgment of these problems. Had the ethnic German orphans remained in the Warthegau and been taken on the spot into ethnic German families, and grown up as German men and women, then today they would be subjected to the dreadful circumstances-with respect to which I wish to refer to the documents contained in Hildebrandt Exhibit 28--of being driven from Poland because of their being ethnic Germans; for the Potsdam agreement provides with respect to the ethnic Germans \n in the Warthegau:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5225, "page_number": "5218", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "\"The three governments having considered the question in all its aspects, recognize that the transfer to Germany of German populations or elements thereof remaining in Poland....will have to be undertaken.\" The defendant Dr. Ebner, knew, just as every German citizen in the years from 1919 to 1933, that as long as there was a democratic free press in Germany many Germans in Poland had suffered injusticesinjustices under international law. Almost daily, the sympathies of the Germans for the fate of their compatriots on the other side of the border were fostered by the German press of all parties. He, Dr. Ebner, was also fully aware of the struggle of the ethnic Germans for their rights guaranteed them by international law, for their schools, for the German education of their children, including the orphans. He learned that ethnic German orphans from the Warthegau were to be cared for by the Lebensborn.\"\nTHE PRESIDENT:Counsel's time has expired. The Tribunal will recess for 15 minutes, (A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5226, "page_number": "5219", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Take your seats, please.\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:There remain two arguments to be made, according to the schedule prepared by Dr. Haensel - both to be made to day, which would run us pretty late. Dr. Haensel is a young man and doesn't think about the length of hours so much. The members of the Tribunal, not being quite so young, have decided to hear one of the arguments this afternoon and the last argument on the schedule in the morning.\nProceed with the next item.\nDR. SCHMIDT:Dr. Schmidt for the defendant Tesch.\nIf Your Honors please, after the conclusion of the hearing of evidence I believe I may say that the Defense Counsel of the Defendants Sollmann, Ebner, and Dr. Tesch have submitted a trial brief, a trial brief giving a survey of all arguments with probative value for the whole complex of Lebensborn. Insofar as I am informed, an English translation of this trial brief has already been submitted to the Tribunal, too. Therefore, I ask to be permitted to recommend to the High Tribunal to kindly read this trial brief. I, in my final arguments, will at various points refer to this trial brief.\nTHE PRESIDENT:I can assure you and the other Counsel that the Tribunal will very carefully read all of your briefs.\nDR. SCHMIDT:\nHonorable Court!\nAfter the conclusion of the hearing of evidence, I believe I may say: It is a clever feat of the Prosecution, and not a simple one, to represent the Lebensborn and its former collaborators as kidnappers. While, when dealing with an organization created for the sole purpose of helping other people whose collaborators concerned themselves day in day out with nothing but the same theme: how can I protect this unmarried mother against the attacks of her environment, how can I manage it that no harm comes to her child, that both have material \n security, what can I do for this war-widow, for that orphan-child, etc?", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DR. SCHMIDT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5227, "page_number": "5220", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "one can, and in fact, must assume of such activity, that every action is inspired by readiness to help, the Prosecution wants to apply the opposite standard to the Lebensborn. It is enough for them that someone dons the SS uniform to transform him from a Samaritan into a robber. Now he is no longer the helpful person but the man who assumed Himmler's thoughts at the same time as his uniform, who wears the same coat as the Gestapo official and must therefore have his information and the sharp-sightedness of the criminal official.\nThe defendant Dr. Tesch came to the SS only in 1941, but in the eyes of the Prosecution, he was as a jurist specially predestined for a speedy transformation even if his special sphere was tax law and he had been a soldier at the front until then.\nTherefore the defendant Dr. Tesch with the other Lebensborn defendants sees himself placed in a position which is peculiar in more respects than one. Are the defendants to dispute among themselves as to which cared for the children more or better or which less, whether, for example, the doctor's or the jurist's contribution was the greater? For that the children were well cared for, that everything was done for their well-being, the hearing of evidence has indeed proved absolutely beyond doubt and the Prosecution, even in its Opening Statement, conceded this to Lebensborn.\nWhat is now supposed to have happened in the sense of kidnapping, with the help of Lebensborn and the defendants? The Prosecution has submitted no evidence to prove that any of the defendants was active where kidnapping could take place or that the Lebensborn had in itself such far-reaching disposal authority to effect something of the kind. Expedients such as speeches of Himmler referring to the future had to be resorted to which no one with the Lebensborn knew and which did not refer to Lebensborn either, or expressions of opinion exchanged between other authorities concerning competency and activity of Lebensborn and which, moreover, reveal less specialised knowledge than \n zeal on the part of bureaucrats to show off with factual knowledge which in truth lacks all real basis.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5228, "page_number": "5221", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "What remains for Lebensborn are accusations which were accepted by the Prosecution without being checked and which were presented as Prosecution Documents. I think that the defense, on the other hand, has taken the only proper course, namely, to clarify the confusion and to furnish the Court with a frank picture of Lebensborn activity which is true to fact.\nThe statements of the defendants themselves in the witness box must already have made it clear down to the smallest detail that everything that Lebensborn did was in accord with the most simple and most natural principles generally applied in caring for children in need of help.\nWithout any justification, the Prosecution assumes that Lebensborn is an exception here, that, for instance, in its case, the measures taken for the good of the children and which had to be taken in the interests of the children simply because of the lack of particulars, served the purpose or were meant to serve the purpose of withholding the children from any persons entitled to care for them, of whose existence the Lebensborn defendants knew nothing. For the fact that such an intention was pursued neither by the defendant Sollmann nor by any other Lebensborn collaborator, nor therefore by the defendant Dr. Tesch either, the Prosecution itself has furnished proof in the statements of the witnesses for the Prosecution Dr. Schulz and Heinze-Wisswede. If the foster parents got a look at all the documents at the disposal of the Lebensborn, as the witness Dr. Schulz deposed who himself was present when the referent Heinze was placing children and if, in the case of the slightest suspicion that relatives might exist investigations were started and the children given back without delay in the event of relatives or persons entitled to care for them actually being in existence, then there is no occasion to perhaps evaluate the \n issuing of birth certificates or other certificates as anything other than necessary measures which were essential just in view of circumstances at the time so as to care for the children in their best interests.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5229, "page_number": "5222", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Only from this point of view of care for the children, which was a matter of course for the Lebensborn, can the whole activity of its collaborators be considered. There is nobody who has deposed anything to the contrary or who could do so.\nThe documents, too, submitted by the Prosecution against the defendant Dr. Tesch are no proof in the sense of the allegation of the Prosecution, insofar as they must still be subjected at all to a critical evaluation in this direction, in the face of the statements of the witnesses for the Prosecution and further evidence of the defense as for instance of the witness Dr. Bartel.\nI have already pointed out in my Opening Statement that the Indictment against Lebensborn and therefore against the defendant Dr. Tesch lacks conclusiveness in all counts. Therefore, in my opinion additional evidence furnished by the Defense would not have been required at all to invalidate the assertion of kidnapping as regards the defendants of Lebensborn. If, nevertheless, the Defense has clearly represented the real state of affairs to the Court in the hearing of evidence that was so as to disperse even the last shreds of suspicion.\nA detailed evaluation of all the results of the evidence is to be found in the Trial Brief presented by my colleague Dr. Ratz, to the contents of which I refer expressly for the Defense of the Defendant Dr. Tesch as regards the alleged kidnapping as well as with regard to the removal of children of foreign female workers. I should like here merely to go into the position of the defendant Dr. Tesch in Lebensborn and to concern myself with some documents of the Prosecution relative to his person. The defendant Dr. Tesch was a jurist in the Lebensborn and at first indeed one of several directly under the Vorstand of the Lebensborn's standing members. From 1 August 1943 he \n took over the management of the newly established Main Department Legal Matters.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5230, "page_number": "5223", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Insofar as the defendant became active in the course of time as deputy for the defendant Sollmann, he did not carry his own decisions into effect but those of the defendant Sollmann who, according to his own statements, took the necessary actual decisions in the Lebensborn himself. For independent activity as representative of the Vorstand, obviously assumed by the Prosecution, the necessary formal appointment was lacking, moreover. (Comp. Prosecution Exhibits 16 and 74, statement of the witness Wolff, German records page 1939, Dr. Staudte, German records page 4393, Saenger, German records page 4346.\nConcerning the sphere of work of the Main Department Legal Matters, I have introduced a detailed statement of a former female legal collaborator in the Lebensborn. It is before the Court as Tesch Document 12 and confirms and amplifies the statements, made about this by the defendant himself. From this statement, in conjunction with the affidavit of the defendant (Prosecution Exhibit16) and the declaration of the witnesses Dr. Schulz and Dr. Staudte (German records page 1034 and 4373) it appears, moreover, that for the establishing of the Main Department Legal Matters, considerations quite different from those imputed by the Prosecution were decisive. As regards Standesamt L (Registry L), it may be noted that, from an organizational point of view, this was indeed attached to Main Department Legal Matters, that the Standesbeamte (registrar) Dr. Schulz, however, was not subject to the technical instructions of the defendant Dr. Tesch as he himself deposed in the witness box (Comp. German Records page 1034). According to that, there existed for the defendant Dr. Gesch no authority to issue instructions as Deputy of the Defendant Sollmann.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5231, "page_number": "5224", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "In the Trial Brief mentioned by me above, the limits within which the Lebensborn worked are clearly defined. These limits held for the defendant Dr. Tesch too. He too was concerned with the children who were not born in Lebensborn Homes, only in so far as it was a question of attention to and care of these children after they were taken over by the Lebensborn. From the point of view of time, the defendant Dr. Tesch was associated with this task in the spring of 1943, when difficulties arose after the placing of children in foster homes because there was either no official support at all or else only inadequate official support for the children and this entailed considerable disadvantages both for the foster parents and for the children themselves. I may mention the fact that at this time the so-called Jugoslav children from the Upper Carniola were already in a Lebensborn Home and the Lebensborn had undertaken to assist the Gau Self Government in Posen in the care of the so-called Czech children. Instruction 67/1 of the Staff Lain Office (Prosecution Exhibit 407) the origin of which neither the defendant Dr. Tesch, nor Lebensborn generally, had anything to do with (Statement Dr. Tesch, German Record page 4232, Statement Creutz, German Record page 2027), had already been in existence for a year at this stage and the measures decreed in it were already in operation.\nIn the case of all children, the Lebensborn had to rely on the statements made to them by the offices which had first taken care of the children. These statements were throughout to the effect that it was a question of ethnic German orphan children who had no relatives. Even in the area from which the children come were not known to the collaborators in the Lebensborn, and therefore not to the defendant Dr. Tesch either. This is clearly evident from the letter of the defendant Dr. Tesch to the Stabsfuehrer of the Personal Staff RFSS dated 19 July 1943, and submitted as Prosecution Exh. 392, from which we see that he too had to depend on the statements of other offices and that the motive and obligation involved \n in the taking ever of the children by Lebensborn were not known to him even at that time.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5232, "page_number": "5225", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Further we see from Himmler's Order that is under assumption of the defendant Dr. Tesch that Himmler had ordered the taking over of certain children by Lebensborn was not in accord with the facts; for in the Order dating from 25 June 42, there is not a word about Lebensborn. Therefore the Document is confirmation of ignorance rather than knowledge on the part of the defendant of events with which Lebensborn had nothing to do. That the defendant Dr. Tesch did not even got to see the Order subseauently either is evident from the fact that a reply to his question was not contained in it. Apart from that, the Court has before it an assertion of the deputy of Himmler's personal referent, concerning treatment of secret orders of this kind within the personal staff (This is Sollmann Document 33, Your Honor). In this connection, I refer to Hitler's well-known secrecy order submitted as Sollmann Document 35.\nThe same state of affairs existed for the defendant Dr. Tesch as regards the so-called Lidice-Children who were in the Home of the Gau Self Government in Puschkau. Just for this reason, the defendant Dr. Tesch had no reason to connect them with the Lidice action comprehensively described by the Prosecution. Even if he knew the letters exchanged between the manageress of the Puschkau home and the Lebensborn officials (Prosecution exhibits 715, 716, 718, 719, 720, 721, 722, 725, 726, 727) and had heard of the destruction of Lidice, he would have been unable to draw any conclusions of the kind as are possible to-day, from the designation \"children from the Protectorate.\" The case of the Samal children, who came from Prague instead of from Lidice, and was described in every detail by the defendant Sollmann, proves, incidentally, that there was no intention whatsoever on the part of the Lebensborn to deprive a mother, if there was one of these children.\nAs far as the children from the Warthegau were concerned, the defendant Dr. Tesch had to gain the impression, on the basis of the assurances made \n by the Gau self-administration of Posen, that they were children who were in the care of the German child and youth welfare authorities, and that the youth welfare offices had, at least by a third person, to be regarded as being the authorized legal guardians of the children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5233, "page_number": "5226", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "May I, in this respect, refer to the testimony of the witness Dr. Bartels, who, incidentally confirmed that some of these children too were immediately returned to the Gau self-administration in case they were subsequently found not to be racially German, and from this to the pertinent youth welfare offices or, if relatives were found, to these. (See German transcript, p. 4434, 4439).\nAnother document connected with the person of the defendant is the Prosecution document Exhibit 288, a file notice dealing with vital statistics (Personenstandmassnahmen) which became necessary through the lack of documents concerning the children. The defendant commented to this on the witness stand, and there is ample and detailed evidence cited in the trial brief about the need for, and the expediency of, this procedure, which was not individually supervised by the defendant - he was only informed about the volume of the activity of the registry office L. Here I refer only to the most important depositions, namely those made by the Prosecution witness Dr. Schulz and the witness Saenger, which leave no doubt about the fact that in the absence of existing documents a falsification of birth documents was quite impossible, that the registry officeL madeinvestigations on its own initiative and nobody dreamed of concealing anything. (S. German transcr. p. 1032, 1038, 4352.) That the interposition of the registry officeL wasa step taken only on the spur of the moment, rather than a measure planned in advance, is also shown by the date of the afore mentioned file notice, which was written on 4 June 43, that is to say almost one year after the measures for taking over the children had been started.\nWith regard to the certificates signed by the defendant Dr. Tesch as \n a deputy of the defendant Sollmann on the letter-headings of the Staff Main Office of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, evidence has shown that those certificates can give no cause for connecting the defendant Dr. Tesch in any way with the Staff Main Office and its tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5234, "page_number": "5227", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "He has never conducted any negotiations with the Staff Main Office, its chief or any representative of this office, neither before the issue of the decree 67/I, nor at a later date for any other reason, either verbally or in writing. As far as those certificates are concerned, it must be maid that they were issued by the Lebensborn only for reasons of expediency and that they had also become necessary owing to the absence of documents. Their purpose was certainly not to change the names of the children, yet they were rather essential, as is shown by the document Sollmann 84, only in order to serve the children in the place of the genealogical record which the children themselves needed for their most elementary material wants, such as clothing and food. Moreover, they served the foster parents on the occasion of applications for remission of taxes, education grants, and additional allowances for children as a proof that there were no persons who were responsiblr for the maintenance of the children. With regard to the names indicated in the certificates it may be pointed out that they showed the names, by which the children had been handed over to the Lebensborn. Thus, there can be no question of a falsification of vital statistics or of a concealment of origin.\nThe ethnic German foster children were, after the creation of the Main Department Legal Matters, after 1 August 1944, placed in foster homes by its section R IV, which was in July 1944 transferred to the Oberweis home nr. Gmunden on the Traunsee. With regard to the informations available to the head office of the Lebensborn and thereby also to the defendant Dr. Tesch in individual cases, it is best to refer to the statistical reports mentioned by the Prosecution witness Heinze Wisswede as well as to \n the feet that a great part of the children came to foster homes from the home schools, or the so-called Lidice children from the Puschkau home of the Gau self-administration, the Lebensborn being, sooner or later, approached to recommend or to screen a foster family.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5235, "page_number": "5228", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "The Lebensborn only admitted these children to the collective health insurance which it had negotiated. Thus, not a single one of the children who were presented to the Court by the Prosecution, had ever been in a Lebensborn home, which explains that no child (with the exception of Aline Antczak) knew anything \n of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5236, "page_number": "5229", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "All these facts are, incidentally, shown by the evidence submitted by the Defense. Since in the case of those children who had not been in the Lebensborn homes and consequently had not been placed in foster families by the Lebensborn itself, the possibilities of information and checking-up were even smaller than in the other cases, no birth certificates nor attestations were issued on the letter sheets of the Staff Main Office in the instances presented by the Prosecution. In as far as the children testified that they were given the names of the foster parents in the foster homes, the reason is that the foster parents used their own last names for the children of their own accord, as is generally customary according to the statement of the expert witness Dr. Bartels, or that e.g. - as resulted from the deposition of the witness Weinbrenner the pastor confirmed the child under the family name of the foster parents. I already mentioned that on the letter heads of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism not the names of the foster parents were indicated, but rather the names, under which the children had been reported to the Lebensborn. Your Honors, that brings me to the count of the indictment dealing with spoliation. I want to stress in the first place that the Lebensborn, being an incorporated association, had no executive possibilities whatsoever, that means, it was not in a position, neither as a legal entity, nor through the persons of its members, to order any confiscation or removal of other people's property in the Reich territory or in the incorporated or occupied territories on its own independent initiative. This applies both to movable and immovable property of other people, and to the period previous to Dr. Tesch's membership with the Lebensborn as well as to the time of his collaboration. During this period, incidentally, he was only connected with the purchase of some plots of land, which were owned by the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany and situated in Germany proper. The Prosecution submitted as Exhibit 582 a teletype from the defendant, dated 30 July 1942, which he di \n rected to the Reich Main Security Office on orders from the defendant Sollmann, and in which he asked for an order from the Reich Security Main Office to the Reich Association of the Jews for the transfer of the ownership of the vacant TB-sanatorium at Nordrach to the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5237, "page_number": "5230", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "It may be supposed as generally known that the property of the Reich Association of the Jews was under the supreme control of the German Reich and that the Jewish owners of landed property were unable to transfer their property without the consent of the authorities. The jurisdiction rested in this case, as is shown by Prosecution Exhibit581, with the Reich Main Security Office. Besides, I refer as far as this incident is concerned, to the statements made by the defendants Sollmann and Tesch on the witness stand (German transcr. p. 4137, 4259) according to which purchase agreements were concluded at Munich with regard to that plot of land and several other plots between the Lebensborn and the representatives of the Reich Associations of the Jews, and/or the Munich Jewish Community, without any transfer of ownership, however, being effectuated in any case, (see Sollmann documents 45-50). All these cases cannot be viewed under the point of view of plunder, neither within the meaning of a war crime, nor of a crime against humanity. The assumption of a war crimes is ruled out by the fact that owners and possessors were German nationals and that the property was situated in Germany proper. The assumption of a crime against humanity is ruled out by the fact that the plots of land had already been vacated at the time when the defendant Tesch asked for the afore-mentioned order, from the Reich Main Security Office. (see Prosecution Exhibit582). The act in which the defendant Tesch was participating in this case, was, consequently, not directed against the freedom and the physical integrity of a person.\nAnd, that brings me to count III in the Bill of Indictment.\nIII.\nThe question, whether or not the defendant Dr. Tesch comes as a former \n member of the SS, under Count III of the Indictment (membership in a criminal organization), can only be judged within the compass of the Lebensborn, since the defendant was, during his membership in the SS, apart from his private activities as a lawyer, acting exclusively within the Lebensborn and on behalf of the Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5238, "page_number": "5231", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "This also applies to the period after the middle of 1944, after his appointment as SS-judge, for this appointment did not result in any activity of his with the criminal SS and Police Courts, but was rather limited to a distinct sector of non contentious jurisdiction, namely, the recording of recognitions of paternity, and maintenance obligations of illegitimate fathers (Prosecution exhibit 895, letter from the Main Office SS-Court of 27 April 1944.) This activity too was performed exclusively within the framework of the Lebensborn. It has already been explained above that the activity of the Lebensborn did nor constitute any participation in a crime. But also the connection the defendant maintained in a general way with the SS through the Lebensborn, is of a nature which does not meet the prerequisites necessary for regarding membership in the SS as a punishable offense according to the sentence of the IMT. It should be taken into consideration that the defendant was taken over by the SS only on 30 January 1941, when he was already under military law and had served 11/2 years with the army; consequently he did not swear a special oath, nor did he receive any schooling or training within the SS. (Tesch documents 1, 2 and 5). The idea that the defendant had himself of his relationship with the SS is particularly clearly shown by a letter to Professor Dr. Boettcher, of 28 July 1941, submitted in original, in which he emphasizes the nature of his activity, planned from the beginning to last only for the duration of the war, as a free collaborator, without concealing that all his efforts were directed to the aim of continuing his professional training as a lawyer and tax consultant, in order to thus make up for the time lost by his front line service (Tesch doc. #3). This aim was consistently pursued by the defen \n dant until the end of the war.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5239, "page_number": "5232", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "This is shown by the feet that he turned the offer down to be taken over into full-time service of the SS (see testimony of the defendant, German transcr. p. 4223, and Tesch doc. # 5) This fact needs particular emphasizing in this connection, for a full time employment with the SS, had, just as any civil service employment, the advantage of entitling to claims for a pension in case of incapacitation and of care for the family in case of the death of the breadwinner. Such an offer ought to have been particularly attractive for a young lawyer with wife and child (Prosecution exhibit #895), who had not yet acquired any fortune, but had, in time of war, to expect any day to be re-assigned to the front line, since it would, had he accepted it, have relieved him from any responsibility for the sustained of his family. In spite of this, the defendant Dr. Tesch did not choose this road, but never renounced his admission as a lawyer and tax consultant, and he was satisfied with the payment of monthly fees as a compensation from the Lebensborn (see Tesch doc. 5, 6, and 7). The SS promotion certificates (see Prosecution Exhibit895) which the Prosecution has presented in the rebuttal, are not a refutation, but rather a confirmation of the statements the defendant has made of his own accord in this matter (see Prosecution Exhibit16), Various proof has been brought to show that incorporation into the Headquarters Company of the Main Racial and Settlement Office occurred only for reasons of administrative expediency, but in no way resulted in a subordination to the Main Racial and Settlement Office and also did not have any connection with the tasks of the so-called aptitude examiners (see testimony of witnesses Dr. Schulz, German transcript p. 1026, Wolff, German transcript p. 1931/32, Hofmann, German transcript p. 3111/12, also Sollmann document 9 and Tesch doc. 5). It was also for administrative reasons and reasons of deferment from military service that the defendant Dr. Tesch was once attached to the Personal Staff of the Reichsfuehrer SS, then to the Main Racial and Set \n tlement Office and finally to the Main Office of the SS-Court.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5240, "page_number": "5233", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "Only in the last case did an actual necessity for this exist, resulting from his work with the Lebensborn Society, as has already been shown. Besides this, the Prosecution document confirms the defendant's declaration that he was not a full-time employee of the SS, because his last rank was not as a regular officer but as a reserve officer (See Prosecution Exhibit895).\nThere is nothing, in regard to Dr. Tesch, from which a knowledge of, or an approval, of crimes as defined by the IMT verdict could even be inferred. The promotion certificates which have been offered cannot in themselves justify such a conclusion.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5241, "page_number": "5234", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "They only show that the defendant Dr. Tesch held a rank in the SS that corresponded to his professional position.\nIV. Your Honors! I have attempted to give briefly as complete a picture as possible about the work of the defendant Dr. Tesch at the Lebensborn Society, of his position within the SS and his relationship to the SS, which is to make it possible to come to a decision about whether the defendant is guilty of the crime he is charged with. I can declare The person and deeds of Dr. Tesch, as they have come to light in this trial, are subject to a higher conception, under which all of his work at the Lebensborn Society can be brought, namely the willingness to help and of actually helping. To help, however, is not a political conception; it belongs to the world of moral values, not to politics At the Lebensborn Society the defendant Dr. Tesch used that which nature had endowed him with and the knowledge and abilities his traning had given him, in the service of the unfortunate and of these in need of help, Wherever such assitance is rendered, whosoever renders it, it is always an act of humanity and social justice, a virtue, which in the last analysis determined the actions of the Lebensborn Society in all its fields. The defendants Dr. Tesch is a lawyer; therefore he stepped where the help of a man trained in law became necessary. In the case of the ethnic German children he found a situation, however, in which he simply had to get busy if the children and foster parents were not to incur great, unavoidable, social difficulties. Who can say with justice that Dr. Tesch' work was immoral or served an immoral prupose? As a result of the evidence presented I believe that I can emphatically assert the opposition, that the defendant attempted to solve the task given him with a decided tactfulness, with a great deal of sentitivity towards those moral demands which are the background of this trial. He was not a politician and also not an ice cold calculator who interfered \n pitilessly with the fragile network of human relationships.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5242, "page_number": "5235", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "His mature and his personal and professional career clearly contradict this. But this seems to me even more important: The activity under discussion here was not, in its essence, a political one and the defendant was also very careful not to fill it with a political meaningagainst its very nature. He, like every other worker at the Lebensborn Society, was convinced that the data on the children given by the com petent official offices were correct.\nWhen he heard of a case in which a child turned out to be not without family and a relative wanted to claim it, it was a matter of course, from his owm view point and from the instructions he had that such a child had to be returned to its family without delay, which also happened in every case.\nThe defendant knows what it means to stand up for others; he has proved this at the front. (see Tesch doc. 1,2). If he had the opportunity to risk his life for his conrades there, then he offered his professional abilities at the Lebensborn Society to serve the weak and the helpless. Certainly, he would have gladly dome more for the ethnic German childre, but the conditions tied his hands. He gave such help as he could, and such assistance as he, as a man conscious of his responsibility, should and had to give.\nTherefore, if the leadign motive of the defendant at the Lebensborn Society was the principle of serving social justice through social service then the affairs of the ethnic German children also fit harmoniously into the larger scheme of his total work at the Lebensborn. Aside from political considerations the Lebensborn, and in it Dr. Tesch, quietly performed a job which he with right could assume was morally justified and even humanly imperative. The defendant neither desired, strove for nor did anything else, and therefore, I request the High Tribunal to acquit the defendant of all charges brought against him.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5243, "page_number": "5236", "date": "18 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-18", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:There will be one more argument which will be the first thing in the morning at 9:30. When that argument has been concluded, the defendants will immediately make their final statements, which have been limited, as you know, to ten minutes each.\nWe have no portable microphone in this courtroom to use for the purpose of the defendants making their statements from the dock; therefore, the defendants will be permitted to make their statements either from the microphone used by the attorneys, or, from the witness stand -- as they prefer. If you should suse the attorneys' microphone we will not hold that fact against you.\nThe Tribunal will recess until tomorrow morning 9:30.\n(The Tribunal adjourned until 0930 hours, 19 February 1948.", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5244, "page_number": "5236", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 19 February 1948, 0930-1630, Justice Wyatt, presiding.\nTHE MARSHAL:All persons in the court room will please find their seats.\nThe Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal I.\nMilitary Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this Honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the court room.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Proceed with the Argument.\nBY DR.ORTH: (Attorney for the Defendant Viermetz) Mr. President, may it please the Tribunal!The decision regarding the Case of the Defendant VIERMETZ lies beyond laws and paragraphs.\nA sound common sense and a genuine heart of humanity reach the correct judgment.\nA sound common sense: It investigates the difference between the nature of man and of the peculiarity of woman. Without a regard for woman's realm of thought, without the knowledge of her feelings every judgment against a woman is deficient and, in the last analysis, unjust because it does not fathom the depth and fails to take into consideration the motives.\n\"Beloved of the Prototype of Love\" DANTE addresses Beatrice. \"Ambassador of the Prototype of Love\" we would fain call woman in our days of unmercifulness; for in woman the outstand spiritual value is her union in feeling with her fellow-man in his grief and oppression. The genuine and great deeds of Christian love of fellow-man, the acts \n of true humanity, which require a sacrifice, are ever and ever fulfilled by women.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY DR." ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5245, "page_number": "5237", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "From the beginning of the world to the end of time, the Women's Manifesto proclaims: Service to the want-stricken, service to life over against the eternal metamorphosis of the material. The mind of man has layed back gigantic stretches:\nFrom the primitive sacrificial stone to the towering Gothic Cathedral, from the pine-torch to the electric light wave, from the blare of the tube to the radio concert, but also from the club to the atom-bomb. Woman, however, throughout all the centuries lot her benevolence prevail, the benevolence which is the nobility of her nature, the benevolence which builds up where others tear down, which turns also the evil to good, the benevolence which does not ask for the cause of want, not for right and laws, but helps blindly where help must be administered.\nThis most beautiful property of every woman, this merciful kindness, this loving compassion is crowned by the love for the child. In troth: That woman no longer deserves the name of woman whose soul is so coarse that the troubles of a child would pass her without ruffling her.\nThis nature of woman is the foundation on which we must build, from this insight we must investigate with a watchful heart of genuine humanity, whether in the case of the Defendant VIERMETZ such a fundamental position also was the mainspring of her actions. I hear the objection of the Prosecution: She did not want to help people, she only wanted to serve the Third Reich and its criminal ideas: Is this objection actually justified? No, it isn't. How could this woman have a particular interest in the SS or in the Party? She, who at no time belonged to the Party anymore than her husband did; she, who was dismissed without notice from the Lebensborn one day because of \"conduct prejudicial to the SS\"? And if this does not suffice for evidence, then Your Honors, would you read the affidavit of Margaret STEIN?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5246, "page_number": "5238", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "\"It is not only in relation to myself that I found Frau VIERMETS to be so full of love for people and so ready to help them.\nNo one who came to her while I stayed with her, has left without help or advice.\nOften she gave away things she could use herself, because she could not refuse anything to a person in need,\" Read the affidavit of Rosa SPANRAD:\n\"Frau VIERMETZ was not merely a competent worker within the Lebensborn but devoted herself rather, far beyond her professional obligations, to the full extent of her womanly understanding and her kindness of heart, to the women entrusted to her care and attention.\nShe helped untiringly, shunned no trouble and fought many diffi culties to afford social help to the women to meet their economic difficulties to give them new and secure possi bilities of life.\n......\"\n\"I know of no less than four cases in which Frau VIERMETZ received women with their children for months in her own household to make it possible for them to live for a transitional period.\n........\"\nAnd if all this is not yet sufficient evidence for the attitude of Frau VIERMETZ, then we read further yet in the affidavit of Hilde LAUBMEISTER:\n\"I remember a similar good deed that Frau VIERMETZ performed around the turn of the year 1944-45, when the Lebensborn turned down the application of a mother.\n....\"\nHere we have it on black and white: Even after she had long separated from the Lebensborn, and the Lebensborn denied its assistance or had to deny it, Frau VIERMETZ helped. This fact proves with crystal clarity that Frau VIERMETZ did not help in order to support the Third Reich, but that she helped, in order to help.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5247, "page_number": "5239", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "So the fact remains: The foundation on which the judgment must rest is woman's prototype of love.\nIn the fact of this realization one may scarcely dare to scrutinize the actions of the Defendant VIERMETZ closer, for one ought not lay the works of mercy on the balance-scale. For counter-weight they do not have laws and paragraphs, but only the imponderable human heart. One must not examine them with the scalpel; otherwise they lose their meaning.\nIf I do it nevertheless, it is only because the Prosecution forces me to do so; and only for the reason that even this testing cannot destroy the value of the aid services anymore today.\nB.\nThe charges of the Prosecution against Frau VIERMETZ are the same as have been brought against the defendants SOLLMANN, TESCH, and EBNER. The counsels of these defendants have convincingly shown that neither in material nor in legal respects can the Lebensborn be charged with having committed crimes against the laws of war or against Humanity. In order to avoid repetitions, I make reference to their expositions, thus being able to restrict myself to the more confined subject of the particular charges against Frau VIERMETZ.\nI.\nGENOCIDE The question, Your Honors, whether or not a systematic program of genocide did exist at all in the Adolf HITLER Reich among the leading men of this time -- this question need not be examined here; for even if such a plan, such a program did exist:\nInge VIERMETZ did not take part in it even could not take part in it because she had no knowledge of it. For this her position in the hierarchy of the National Socialist State was by far too insignificant. In my opening statement I already stressed, and I am repeating it here: the Prosecution has exaggerated Frau VIERMETZ' position, has represented it as far more important than \n it was in reality.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5248, "page_number": "5240", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "If the Lebensborn in itself was merely a small appendage of the SS, Frau VIERMETZ was merely the fifth wheel to the cart at the Lebensborn. At no time of her activity there was she authorized to make any decisions that reached even slightly beyond everyday happenings. Her job was noen other than that held by a series of other women and men who have not been accused, who exercised functions not different from her's, or even more important functions than Frau VIERMETZ', but who have, in spite of this, been called by the Prosecution as witnesses or affiants. Is this - by the way - not an injustice which might induce us to take special care in confronting the allegations made by the Prosecution?\nNor did Frau VIERMETZ ever direct a labor office. As far as she did have any contact at all with the labor offices, this concerned welfare measures for mothers who had given birth at Lebensborn hospitals. This is proven by the affidavits made by RUMELIN and FITTING.\nFrau VIERMETZ' actual position was described and confirmed in almost all the affidavits submitted by me, as having been of a subordinate nature. The same is evident from the statements made by the defendant herself and from the testimony by SOLIMANN, who again and again emphasized just how he had \"given directives\" or \"issued orders\" at the Lebensborn, how much \"his\" associates were dependent upon him, how \"his\" lawyers had counseled him and how he had had to decide in all questions.\nWhoever knows anything about conditions in the Third Reich, and in particular the SS conceptions concerning men and women, is well aware that women did have no say in public life and in politics, that they were not initiated in the plans and intentions of the government and itsorgans. -- Thus the defendant VIERMETZ could not know anything of a plan of genocide, of a program of kidnapping, of a scheme of oppression directed against nations. In consequence, she could not participate, knowingly, in such plans either.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5249, "page_number": "5241", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "II.\nKIDNAPPING The specific charges brought against the defendant VIERMETZ and contained in a series of paragraphs, refer to kidnapping.\nI would like to discuss these charges in their geographic sequence, beginning with the Warthegau.\n1.) The treatment of the children from the Warthegau is based on the directive 67/I dated 19 February 1942 (NO-1615, Exh. 407). It has been established that this directive was issued without any participation on the part of the Lebensborn. This directive shows a seriesof important facts:\na) The directive refers exclusively to orphans;\nb) It deals with orphans of German racial stock, with children of \"nordic\" parents -- as the directive puts it.\nc) Even these children were to undergo two examinations and tests, in order to prevent the selection of Polish or other non-German children.\nd) The Lebensborn did not have anything to do with the selection of the children, the examination and tests.\nIt was not before all this had been done that the children who doubtlessly were Germans, were to be handed over to the Lebensborn.\nThis must be clearly borne in mind because Frau VIERMETZ' statement that one had always mentioned orphans of German racial stock to her, is thus substantiated and proven correct; for if the directive referred only to orphans of German racial stock, then it would occur to no one to exceed this directive and sent \"Polish\" or \"foreign\" children to the Lebensborn or even to speak of such children.\nBut the correctness of the statement, made by the defendant VIERMETZ is not confirmed by this directive alone. Many of the documents submitted by the Prosecution likewise speak of \"Children of German \n racial stock\", of \"orphans\", of \"children without any ties\". If, in contrast to that, the affidavits taken by the interrogators of the Prosecution speak of \"polish\" or \"foreign\" children, a series of testimonies and affidavits for the Defense have explained how these designations came to be used and that these formulations are exclusively those of the Prosecution.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5250, "page_number": "5242", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5251, "page_number": "5243", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "It has been said that the affiants referred regularly to the children of German racial stock who were taken over by the Lebensborn and that it was only on the instigation of the interrogators that they spoke of \"Polish\" or \"foreign\" children, because the territories from where these children originated are now part of the Polish State. None of the affiants can and wanted to maintain that these were children of Polish nationality. The children from the Warthegau who were taken over by the Lebensborn thus were in fact orphans of German racial stock. In this I do not want to exclude the possibility that, due perhaps to incomplete documents, to an error on the part of a racial examiner, or perhaps because of some other mistake, also a Polish child might have been brought into the Warthegau at some time or other, without the knowledge of the Lebensborn. Since in this case also 'to err is human', no one can be blamed for this, at any rate not the Lebensborn, and least of all the defendant Viermetz who came in contact with these children only when they had been selected and were already within the territory of the then German Reich, namely in the Warthegau, And even there Frau Viermetz did nothing what might be called criminal. Or is it a crime to clothe those children, is it a crime to provide these childrenas is evident from the testimony of the witness Keit - with toys, or are the efforts criminal to find hones for these children where they were adequately taken care of? And solely in such activities consisted the task of the defendant Wiermetz. Upon my question she rightly declared in the witness box that she would have taken care of these children also if they had been polish children; for once these children were there, since they were in need of care, some one had to care for them, no matter what had brought them there. Perhaps these questions, which are under examination here, would have to be treated differently if the Lebensborn, or even Frau Viermetz herself had caused these children to be sent to Germany, if they had participated in the selection of these children, if they had done something going beyond the scope of welfare measures. This, however, was \n not the case.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5252, "page_number": "5244", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Their activity consisted of assistance only.\nFrau Viermetz might refer to the fact that not more than about 30 children from the Warthegau were taken over during her activity at the Lebensborn, while the rest of the children were taken care of by the Lebensborn only when Frau Viermetz had terminated her activity. She does not do so; for even had she assumed these tasks for a longer period, she would have taken care of all the children from the Warthegau - they may have totalled 200-300. For as a matter of principle and with the best will in the world could she detect nothing criminal in what she did. And neither was it a crime! Therefore, the defendant, along with Joan of Are whose conviction World History has recognized as a miscarriage of justice, can put this question to her judges:\n\"..... must I be punished because I was human, is pity sin.\n...\"*)\n2.) Even if the number of the Czech children who were taken care of by the Lebensborn is by far smaller than the number of the children from the Warthegau, the charge brought by the Prosecution against the Lebensborn because of those 7 to 10 children is much more substantial then the charge with regard to the children from the Warthegau; for that case concerns orphans of German racial stock and here we are dealing with Czech children. This shall not be disputed. But my fellow-counsels have already presented elaborate proof that in this case also, the Lebensborn acted in an unobjectionable manner.\nThe manner in which Frau Viermetz acted in this particular case is shown by the welfare measures for the Samal-children. Permit me to recall the facts cleared up by the interrogation of Frau Viermetz and by the affidavits made by Frau Weiss and Fraulein Edelmann:\nThe Lebensborn is being informed that a brother and a sister from ------------------------------*) Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5253, "page_number": "5245", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Prague, of German extraction, live in Puschkau; their parents are dead and they are to be farmed out to a family through the Lebensborn. Frau Viermetz endeavours to find a home for these children where they would be well cared for; for she knows from her own experience, if any man over knew it, how sad is the lot of orphaned children. She informs the wife of a doctor that the may have the two orphans and that they may be adopted later on, as the parents were dead and no other relatives were likely to take care of them. Having in view the projected adoption the Lebensborn endeavours to procure documents for these children. First of all it endeavours to ascertain whether the particulars submitted are correct, that is whether the children are actually ethnically German and without family ties. In the course of these investigations it appears that the children are of Czech nationality and that their mother was still alive in a KZ. Frau Viermetz advises the official in charge to inform frau Weiss at once of these facts and to let her know that an adoption was out of question under these circumstances, because the children would have to be returned after the mother had been released from the KZ or after the end of the war. Frau Viermetz was so anxious to have the matter settled that she did not content herself with giving the advice to write to the foster mother, because the thought the letter might take 2 or 3 days; in fact, she was in such a hurry that she got Miss Edelmann to put through a call. As arranged, the children were returned to their relatives, after the war, and they like to think of the good time they had with their foster mother, as we now know.\nAnd now I ask: Do not all these facts prove how scrupulously Frau Viermetz has acted? Are they no proof that there was really no intention of germanizing Czech children? Do not these fact prove, on the contrary, that the Lebensborn and Frau Viermetz as well as the official in charge, Fraeulein Edelmann, were inspired by the endeavour to help those children that they had no intention whatever to take these children away from \n their mother and, what is more, that they wanted to reunite them with their mother?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5254, "page_number": "5246", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Frau Viermetz does not know the fate of the other Czech children. She does not know whether and to what places they were farmed out, because that was none of her business. She only knows that the children were in Puschkau, she only knows that at one time she endeavoured to get clothing for them from the Lebensborn and that the Lebensborn cared for their well being to the best of its ability. And as already mentioned in my opening plea - there is one more thing which has been established beyond doubt: The few children from Lidice or, as the Samal-children from Prague who were taken care of by the Lebensborn are still alive - all of them. The fate of many other Lidice-children, however, is enshrouded in impenetrable dark. Is it not a thousand pities, having regard to this fact, that only so small a number of Czech children were entrusted to the Lebensborn, that Sollmann refused to accept more children? Would it not have been a thousand times better to entrust the Lebensborn with the care for the other children as well? There can be only one answer to this question: yes.\nSo far as the Czech children are concerned, therefore, it is quite irrelevant for the decision as to the guilt of the defendant Viermetz whether these children came to Germany in consequence of a crime - a crime to which Frau Viermetz was not party - or for any other reasons. For anybody who calls Frau Viermetz's motherly care for these children a crime might as well call the Seven Dwarfs criminals because they sheltered Snow-White when she sought refuge with them because of the bad Queen's crime.\n3.) The case of the Upper-Carniola children has been clarified to the last detail by the statements of the witnesses Roedel and Klingsporn and by the interrogation of the defendant Sollmann. They all confirmed the fact which Frau Viermetz related in the witness box.\nIt has been established that the Lebensborn and, above all, Frau \n Viermetz, know nothing of the secret order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS concerning the bandits in Upper Carniola and that they could not possibly have any knowledge of it, that order having been a \"top secret\". Moreover, it is obvious from the statements of Roedel that the children who were found in the St. Veit camp were not bandit children at all, but children of re-settlers who were later taken over and cared for by the VOMI (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle-Liaison Office for Ethnic Germans).It has also been established how frau Viermetz came to deal with these children at all.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5255, "page_number": "5247", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "One day the Lebensborn was informed that there were children in the St. Veit camp who had to be cared for. In order to obtain more detailed information, to learn who those children were, whether boys or girls, what ages and how many herr Sollmann sent Frau Viermetz to Salzburg. There, she ascertained that only a visit to the camp itself could give her the necessary information. Above all, we have heard from the witness Roedel himself how much this kind-hearted man out of a humane feeling endeavoured to care for the children who were not properly looked after in the camp, and how he regretted that Frau Viermetz was not in a position to give a binding promise in regard to the children. We have heard that Frau Viermetz herself had the desire to care for the children, but could not make a binding promise in accordance with Sollmann's instructions and that she herself was sorry to find that the Lebensborn was not even in a position to provide satisfactory accommodation for all these children; for the number of children - although only 100 er 200 - was too large for the Lebensborn to accommodate them, considering that all its children's homes were fully occupied by its own regular commitments.\nThe origin of the children has never been mentioned during the conversations which Frau Viermetz conducted, and still less was there any reference to their being bandit children. What I said before of the Warthegau and Czech children applies with equal force in this case; even sup \n posing it had been a matter of children whose parents had been shot by some agency, may, even, if they had been kidnapped children or children of non-German nationality- it was everybody's bounden duty to help those children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5256, "page_number": "5248", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "That is why Frau Viermetz did not bother to ask where these children came from. She only saw their distress and that settled it: help had to be provided.\nOne might charge the defendant Viermetz with inhumanity, because on taking charge of the Oberkrain children, according to the statements of the witnesses Roedel and Klingsporn, she showed such reluctance. But we have heard already that the Lebensborn was enable to help for shear lack of space and because it wanted to adhere to its principle to care only for children without family ties. That is why Frau Viermetz so insistently asked for documentary proof showing conclusively that they were actually orphans.\nThe Prosecution has presented a number of documents which apparently admit of a different conclusion both in the case of the Oberkrain and the Warthegau children. But only apparently!", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5257, "page_number": "5249", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "In reality the conditions were as I have described them; above all, the Defendant VIERMETZ did not see things any differently. Bu virtue of the position which I described at the outset she could not have seen them differently at all. If the presentation of the Prosecution were correct it would mean that the Lebensborn and Frau VIERMETZ were included in a great kidnapping program. That this was not so in actual fact, i.e. that the documents are deceptive, is proved alone by the fact that the Lebensborn took over only very few children from the Warthegau as well as from the Upper Carniola. The witness Dr. BARTHELS, for one, confirmed that these were approximately 15,000 waifs, orphans, and foster children in the Warthegau, and that of these 15,000 children about 3,000 were ethnic German orphans; and it also emerges from the testimonies of the witnesses ROEDEL and KLINGSPORN that from the South-East, too, at least several hundred children in all came to Germany. On the other side, it is established that the Lebensborn looked after about 200 to 300 children from the Warthegau and about 20 children from the South-East. In the face of these figures, can anyone seriously contend that the Lebensborn had intended to kidnap children in order to strengthen the German nation? Who can assort that these 200 to 300 children perceptibly strengthened the German nation at all? Who would claim that the Lebensborn, which left the care of the greater part of these children to the NSV, participated in a program of kidnapping? If it has been stated and proved a hundred times over in this trial that the Lebensborn cared only for children without kith or kin and that it inquired and searched again and again for the documents of these children, then it is established that the Lebensborn was not intent upon kidnapping children at random in order to Germanize them; rather, it is established that the Lebensborn wanted to care for children without kin, i.e. waifs who were in need of especial care. But a kidnapper does not act as did the Lebensborn; he kidnaps the children whether they have relatives or not. His motive is to appropriate \n the child, not to care for it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5258, "page_number": "5250", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Let us hear what SOLLMANN stated in the witness stand:\n\"It was not the Lebensborn's intention to kidnap children-\notherwise I would have sent out my chief physician and my first legal expert, and not Frau VIERMETZ.\nI delegated VIERMETZ for such tripsbecause a woman was best able to judge what the children needed and how they could be helped\".The Lebensborn, then, did not kidnap children, not even from Upper Carniola.\nPossibly the attempt was made to misuse the Lebensborn, but it did not succeed, certainly not with Inge VIERMETZ. To speak with SHAKESPEARE and SCHILLER, \"the milk of human kindness\" did not turn to venom in her veins.\nI continue on page 18:\nFurthermore, the defendant VIERMETZ is accused with having participated in taking away children of sound racial stock born to nonGerman female workers who had come to the Reich for labor allocation.\nIn the witness stand Frau VIERMETZ stated that she did not know of the decree by the Reichsfuehrer SS dated 27 July 1943 --NO-1383, Exh. 496 -- Nor could she have known of it, since this decree was issued at the end of July 1943, and she had already resigned her position at the Lebensborn at the beginning of August 1943. Thus the time factor alone rules out her participation in this crime asserted by the Prosecution. But, moreover, it is impossible also from the basic view of the defendant VIERMETZ that she participated in such actions. The way the Lebensborn again and again strove to find the background of the children, who were entrusted to it, in order to determine whether relatives of the children could still be located to whom the children could be returned, runs like a thread of scarlet through the entire evidence, through all the witness' testimonies and all the affidavits. The Lebensborn did not shy from any work or effort to procure these documents as to the background of the children. For this purpose Dr. \n STAUDTE, for instance, traveled in the Warthegau from town to town and from one court of guardianship to another on behalf of the Warthegau children; for this purpose the prosecution witness Dr. SCHULZ, as he confirmed in the witness stand, made all possible investigations; for this purpose the Lebensborn carried on an immense correspondence.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5259, "page_number": "5251", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "The reason for these investigations was only to bring the children together with their relatives, if there were any, and to leave the children in the Lebensborn or to transfer them to a foster home or even to an adopted home only if these investigations remained fruitless. How may I ask, could an organization, holding such views, do exactly the opposite with the children of the female Eastern workers? How could Frau VIERMETZ have lent a hand to such a deed, she of whom it is said in the affidavit of Hilde LAUBMEISTER:\n\"A year later Frau VIERMETZ, who for a long time had been in charge of a maternity home in Belgium, again brought a young Lebensborn mother and her child, back with her.\nThis was a young Flemish woman by the name of Celina de Roeck, who expected a child by a German soldier.\nIn her case, too, she could not go back to her parents' home and did not know what to do.\nAgain it was Frau VIERMETZ who jumped into the breach, took care of mother and child at her own expense, and kept them with her until the reconciled parents of Celina de Roeck allowed their daughter to return home and mother and child could go back to the grandparents.\"\nHow could Frau VIERMETZ have come to do such a thing, when the lawyer Hilde HONOLD asserted in her affidavit:\n\"This employment work of the Lebensborn was purely internal and intended to secure for Lebensborn mothers professional work, which, after the child was born, should make sure that she could live together with the child.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5260, "page_number": "5252", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "SOLLMANN submitted as a document, that American families in their great-heartedness declared themselves willing to accept and adopt European orphan children. I gather from the article that in 10 cases the parents later made themselves known, and that except for one case, the children may remain in the United States of America with the consent of their parents. If now, after the arrival of the children, a woman employed at the American care committee cares for these children, supplies them with clothing and brings them to the foster parents, then this humane act can never be a crime. Who would blame this woman if she acts without checking whether these children really are orphan children, and who could blame her if it emerges later that one or the other of the children actually still has parents? The case of the defendant VIERMETZ, However, is no different. Thus, no charge of kidnapping can be raised against her either.\nI now continue on page 22:\nFrau VIERMETZ was painfully affected by the charge brought against her by the prosecution-affidavit BRANDMEIER. S he, who sacrificed a large part of her own property for the benefit of her ideals, is said to have enriched herself by taking the property of others, by taking objects which were destined for the children and mothers entrusted to her care. However, this also -- than God! -- has been clarified. BRANDMEIER has rectified his statements; the lodgings, into which he had taken the objects he spoke of, were abandoned by Frau VIERMETZ at the time BRANDEMEIER first set foot in them. She had nothing to do with these lodgings anymore. This was confirmed by BRANDMEIER in his supplementary affidavit, which was submitted as VIERMETZ-Document No. 26. Frau Rosa SPANRAD and Hilde LAUBMEISTER and others likewise testified in their affidavits to this effect.\nAnd as for the fur coat, which BRANDMEIER stated that Frau VIERMETZ had got from supplies of the Lebensborn, let us hear the words of his own statement:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5261, "page_number": "5253", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "\"In the aforementioned affidavit\". \"I declared further that in my assumption the fur coat, which Frau VIERMETZ owned, came from the supplies of the Lebensborn. I know of no evidence for it; during my interrogation I also told MAYER that I do not by any means know whether the fur coat was from the Lebensborn. Herr MAYER said then that I may assume that much and that I may express this assumption. In this way did this assumption come into the record of my interrogation.\"\nIn the face of this statement, which is substantiated by the testimony in the witness box of the defendant VIERMETZ and by a series of further affidavits, one cannot help reproaching the Prosecution with careless procedure. This is not the way of correct procedure if the Prosecution elms at justice, not at revenge.\nFrau VIERMETZ did not spoliate, neither for herself nor for the Lebensborn.\nMay it please the Tribunal: I have tried to give the picture of the defendant VIERMETZ just as it was. If the picture still shows imperfections, please pardon me: I am -- to stick to the metaphor -no TIZIAN and no REMBRANDT. And the defendant VIERMETZ is nothing else than we are all of us -- a human being, a woman. Thus she may also have, just as any one of us, defects. But a truly human heart beats in her bosom. She understood the language of misery and of children's tears better than any man ever can.\nBattles however many a general may win, books however incomparable a poet may write, an artist create works as perfect as it is unimaginable to make more perfect -- the womanly charity for the forlorn child stands above everything that is earthly. Such love was and is the virtue of the defendant VIERMETZ.\nFor the sake of this love, the great number of mothers whom Inge VIERMETZ gave her aid, the children she took care of, through me, ask, you, Your Honors, to find her not guilty. And in the name of justice I endorse this request.\nMay I ask that the other parts of the plea be read by the Tribunal?", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5262, "page_number": "5254", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal announced yesterday afternoon that there was no portable microphone in this courtroom, and for that reason the defendants would have to make their final statements from either place where the lawyers stand, or from the witness stand. Our very efficient corps of engineers have remedied that situation over night, so that now we do have a portable microphone in this courtroom, and the defendants will therefore make their final statement from the dock, at this time.\nThe defendant Greifelt will now make his final statement.\nDEPARTMENT ULRICH FREIFELT:May it please the Tribunal:\nAfter suxty days of procedure before this Court, the Prosecution, in its final plea, basically speaking, just repeated its assertions with which it had opened this procedure and has not considered any of the material we have submitted to the Tribunal in our case in chief. The closing briefs of the Prosecution, up to now, do not exist in the German texts as yet. However, to the extent that I could see from the English copy, here also hypothetical charges are made, hypothetical charges to which I can no longer explain my position. I really endeavored, to the best of my ability and to the utmost possibility, to clarify and give the true connections of the whole matter. I did not base my case on merely negative denials. I stated, in a positive manner, how matter were, why matters were that way, and explained the overall connection of the measures which my agency had taken.\nIn the final please of my defense counsel, the individual arguments of the Prosecution have been refuted one by one. There are only three things I would like to say:\n1. I am assisted by my good faith. In the same way as I followed the appeal of my Fatherland in 1914 and enrolled in the ranks of the soldiers, in the same way as I endeavored to serve the new German Republic in 1919, just in the same manner I followed Hitler's appeal when, in 1933, he promised to help the German people.", "speakers": [ "DEPARTMENT ULRICH FREIFELT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5263, "page_number": "5255", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "No man can thrive without his Fatherland. That is what the German poet Theodor Storm said when he had to leave his Fatherland on account of personal prosecution. In October 1939 I assumed my functions in the firm conviction that the Reich Government had established a law which could stand firm in every international investigation.\n2. I am also assisted by my conviction that I always wanted the best. The task given to me was the care for German human beings who were channeled to my agency from other parties and on the selection of whom I had no influence. I devoted myself to this task with all my forces. I felt myself to be a servant of these people who were unprooted from their previous homes. I devoted myself to the foundation of a new life for them, to the consolidation of their existence, and thereby of their Germanism. That was my task. At no time did I even have a spark of an idea to do harm to other human beings on account of them, to torture or to destroy them.\nOn the contrary also for people of foreign nationality who had been struck in the some way by the war, I intervened to the fullest extent of my possibilities and attempted to alleviate their fate. If, today, measures taken by ether agencies are brought into connection with my activities and, as a whole, are to be considered incriminating, then all that is far removed from my own intentions. If such a conclusion was to be reached, then counsel for the Prosecution, who was certainly not benevolent toward me, would have found the right criteria when in pre-trial investigations, he said, \"Why did you let yourself be used like that?\" If I can claim for myself to have been in good faith and to have had the best of will, how far mere can my collaborators then do so. Not only the collaborators who are with me today here in the defendants' dock, but also all those whose denazification procedure depends upon the outcome of this trial. For all of them I request, without consideration to my own person, that full recognition should be granted them as to these two viewpoints.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5264, "page_number": "5256", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "3. Thirdly, I am assisted by my clear conscience. During almost three years of custody, and to a large extent on the strength of the documents submitted in this trial, I have consientiously investtigated myself and my activities without any regard. My views into the happenings of the world have received a large scope. As a result of this thorough investigation I can say in all thruthfulness of my heart, before God and man, that I always believed that I contributed to the best of humanity and that I acted in that direction. I committed no war crimes and no atrocities. I opposed injustice wherever I encountered it, and, from a deep human feeling of duty, I did whatever I could against all cases of hardship which I noticed. The number of witnesses who saw in me a decent man, ready to help, who was far removed from every act of force, could easily be augmented. The Tribunal will fund whether my way of life and my acts of commission or commission represent the picture of a criminal. I myself knew that I always acted with a pure heart, and in this knowledge I believe that if I made mistakes -- and after all, who among human beings does not make mistakes--then it is only a case of human imperfection. In that case, however, my thinking and my actions should not be tried by a human court, but they belong in the sphere of eternal justice. The words \"He who has not sinned shall cast the first stone\" have value before the court of eternel justice. I do not feel guilty.\nYour Honors, in your verdict, do not let us be smitten by a ban of dishonor. Honor is the last good that remains to us, and I ask for your just verdict.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Creutz will new make his statement.\nDEFENDANT RUDOLF CREUTZ:Your Honors:\nAgainst the charge proceedings were the result as a systematic, consistent, and criminal plan, I want to state the following:", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT", "DEFENDANT RUDOLF CREUTZ" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5265, "page_number": "5257", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "The events discussed here constitute only a minor part of the total tasks of the Staff Main Office. Those tasks of the Staff Main Office--namely, to accomodate the ethnic German immigrants as far as possible in the same way as they had lived in their former surroundings--ware extensive and most difficult. In contradiction to the opinion of the Prosecution, it is not easy to judge the importance of these tasks, and little has been said about it during these proceedings in order not to complicate the material presented even more. The difficulties standing in the way of the final solution of this task could, for the most, not be overcome as long as Germany war at war. But never could this task be called criminal, and none of the many workers in the Staff Main Office regarded it as such.\nIf international law, existing or still to be established had been violated in any way by the measures taken by other persons in higher positions or by official authorities, I was in no position to know it at that time. I have never any written law--and in cases where my own legal conscience fought against measures coming from above, I could charge the course of events only within the sphere of my insignificant influence.\nMy legal conscience is all the more apposed to the fact that the Prosecution will now burden me with the responsibility for those events, and with the fact that I am being charged with having instigated them and carried them out by means of a program of planned annihilation.\nDuring the war I could no more relinguish my post at the Staff Main Office, which I had not chosen, than any soldier of any army could have relinquished. It was my belief that I must forego any wish, any desire, and any opinion of my own, as long as millions of German soldiers were offering their very lives.\nHowever, if the Tribunal should see a guilt in that, then I will take this guilt upon myself without fear.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5266, "page_number": "5258", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The defendant Meyer-Hetling will now make his statement.\nDEFENDANT KONRADMEYER-HETLING: If your Honor please, I have only very little things to add to the plea of my defense counsel in a factual way. The witnesses called by the defense and the documents submitted by the defense and also the witnesses of the prosecution here clearly shown my activities. The additions necessary to that, I had the possibility to give myself in the witness stand. I have not withheld anything and I had nothing to withhold. What I was as a man and as a German college professor, and what I still am, has been shown to the Tribunal by a multitude of evidence from Germany and from abroad. All this testimony was made by men who were neither members of the Nazi Party nor in any wan connected with it.\nI was raised in the belief that history is the primary condition for all thoughts and actions. A long peasant tradition of my family and the events of the First World War and the consequences which were dooming for my fatherland were decisive for my own fate. The whole work of my life was intended for social pacification and progress of humanity, the preservation of peasantry and rural basis of my fatherland, and the renovation of its spiritual and moral values. Science was my task. I served it for more than two decades. I had devoted myself to science with the whole passion of a scholar and above all, I devoted myself to the development of such discipline, the most exquisite aim of which is to serve welfare and to prepare a better future. Some fruits of my work have even lasted over the storms of these last years, and it's to hope that they will not perish in the future either.\nThe Prosecution during the proceedings have tried to mark me as a good Nazi. But after I emerged from this muddle of fever and hatred, of truth and distortion, and after I gained knowledge which I did not have before and could not have before, I know one thing: I was always a bad Nazi but a good National Socialist. I looked for my own way, and from a theory or doctrine, but only and alone from a conception based on social \n justice, and seeing in it the essential moral value.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT KONRAD", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5267, "page_number": "5259", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "Therefore I claim for myself that I always made the distinction between the fact when nationalism stone to be a virtue and when it still is. To be a national man signifies for me not to despise or even hate other countries but to love my own country, and to know it, and to derive from that the esteem and the consideration for foreign countries. If in the hour of danger I rut myself at the disposal of my fatherland without regard to personal danger or personal privileges, then I aid nothing else than what thousands of others did silently themselves and for which innumerable human beings lost their lives in good faith. To serve one's fatherland during the war is in the whole world still considered the natural duty of a citizen, a right and an honor.\nIn this hour I assert again that the activities for which I am called upon here to render account did not serve any temporary solutions connected with the war, and not as the Prosecution to make believe, did it serve destruction. Only and alone it served the preparation of a definite peace--a happy period for all human beings--in this eastern space which had already so often decided the fate of the Occident and which rightly may be called the \"Devil's Belt of Europe.\" No Pole, no Czechoslovakian, and no Russian suffered any harm by my doings during the war. If in its plea, the prosecution brings me into connection with ideas of Himmler concerning the treatment of aliens or the evacuations, or wants to hold me responsible for confiscations, then quite apart from the plea of the defense the prosecution is already in contradiction with its own case in chief and the documents submitted by it and the witnesses called.\nOnly and alone as a German citizen did I comport myself in my activities and in no other capacity did I act. My activities were only based on the sense of duty of a German university professor and connected with the ever-increasing care for the maintenance of a venerable European heritage. These motives were binding enough for me. Only my conscience \n was my boss and nobody else.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5268, "page_number": "5260", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "It's bitter that after years of custody and internment I am faced with a charge which distorts the best motives of a man whose way of life was straight and clean--in such a way that they mark him as a criminal or as a member of a criminal group. The prosecution uses every means for that purpose. In a completely distorting manner, and in a completely distorting translation they quote in their final plea extracts of my Posen speech which I made in the university there before a circle of interested personalities who had been invited. Beyond that the prosecution tries to use the fact that I have the same name as a Dr. Meyer who is mentioned in Exhibit 766, and to show that I had a connection with the DAG as a member of the supervisory board. But the case in chief has shown quite clearly that I am not that Dr. Meyer. The use of DocumentNO-5711is in the same line.\nBut even more bitter and more painful than personal dishonor, which can, however, not deprive me of my inner dignity, is the recognition on my part that even today, three years after the arms have been laid down, the world has not found yet the long hoped-for peace and the freedom from want and fear that had been promised. I mention that because my very work and my aims were intended for the doing away of sorrow and need. I trust that this Tribunal will consider the intent in my activities--the intent which was without trying to derive any advantages for myself and which was clean, and that it takes into consideration the conditions that prevailed during that period. If the endeavor for welfare and progress of man--this aim to which I devoted myself--is supposed to be a crime today, then I will take upon myself whatever judgment may be pronounced, and I will take it upon myself with a pure heart. However, before my conscience I acquit myself as I did in the first hour of this trial because right is always on the side of the conscience.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess until 11 o'clock.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5269, "page_number": "5261", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Persons in the courtroom find their seats, please.\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Schwarzenberger will now make his statement.\nDEFENDANT OTTO SCHWARZENBERGER:Your Honor, may it please the Court, after the final plea of my Defense Counsel I would like to stress again -- that I never financed any crimes as had been alleged by the Prosecution -- charged, it is true, by statement, but did not submit any evidence at all.\nNot one document shows that I have financed crimes.\nInsofar as crimes have been committed, they were carried out by agencies which received no money from my treasury.\nToday, in the same way as at the beginning of this trial, I can state that I do not feel guilty.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Huebner will now make his statement.\nDEFENDANT HERBERT HUEBNER:Your Honor, may it please the court, if I m now today expecting your judgment after almost three years of custody, then I would not like to discuss factual questions in my final word again -- factual questions which have already been discussed here.\nFrom the first day of my pre-trial interrogation onwards until now I always spoke the truth and nothing but truth and I was never refuted not in one single point.\nI can't change it if the Prosecution did not take into consideration my statements and if in particular in its closing brief they describe matters in a way which distorts the picture given in the case in chief.\nI cannot understand it either that from this distorted picture again they draw conclusions denuded of every logic.\nBut I do believe that these constructions of the Prosecution do not become truth by simply repeating and repeating their old assertions all over again.\nWhat can be brought to refute these assertions has already been explained clearly by my Defense Counsel.\nWhen I came to Poznan there was an Army of resettlers waiting there for welfare measures.\nThe welfare for them was my duty and this task was the task I devoted myself and my strength to.\nI was firmly convinced \n that on my part I was serving a good purpose, and I have never believed that on account of this humanitarian activity and in the name of this same humanity I would be brought to trial.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "DEFENDANT HERBERT HUEBNER", "DEFENDANT OTTO SCHWARZENBERGER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5270, "page_number": "5262", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "If what I did was punishable, then I am taking upon myself this punishment it the same time for the many resettlers and refugees who still today thank me for my welfare measures and my help. However, I have full confidence that this High Tribunal will distinguish between the description of the Prosecution and will see the immense gap between these charges and the results of the case in chief, that it will recognize the truth and render a just verdict.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Lorenz will now make his final statement.\nDEFENDANT WERNER LORENZ:If your Honor please, when in Autumn 1939 I received the assignment to organize and carry out the resettlement of German ethnic groups from abroad into the German Reich, it was specifically pointed out to me by Hitler at the same time that this agency of mine had to carry out the work of peace in the middle of the war. We wanted to carry out a deed of peace. Whereever we came we were welcomed as saviours by the Ethnic Germans. Never in my life have I experienced so much thanks and so much love as on the part of those human beings whom we wanted to help. Welfare and comradeship for all these men was a matter of course for us. That was the sense in which I assumed my functions at that time and carried out my task and that was the spirit also in which the whole work of my organization was carried out. I feel free of guilt and therefore I take over full responsibility for whatever his happened at the VOMI with my knowledge and my will. End.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Brueckner will now make his speech.\nDEFENDANT HEINZ BRUECKNER:If it please the Tribunal, the prosecution \n from its opening speech until its final plea always tried to shake the credibility of all defendants and also my credibility.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT WERNER LORENZ", "DEFENDANT HEINZ BRUECKNER", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5271, "page_number": "5263", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "To that I have to make the following statement: Already when during the pre-trial investigation I was charged repeatedly with speaking the untruth by the interrogator and threatened with procedure for perjury I stressed that it was my endeavor to speak the truth and that that was the very reason why I had to refuse to constantly testify with regard to matters which I couldn't even know on account of my former position. When I was called as a witness in the course of this trial I did not try to embellish anything and I did not withhold any truth; I described my activities as they actually were. I believed that I had succeeded thereby to destroy a network of misunderstandings and distorted combinations. At the end of this trial now I have again to object to these unjustified attacks by the Prosecution. I have to do it because these attacks are not in line with the truth. After the final plea of the Prosecution it seems that in this trial there was no case in chief at all. If the Prosecution, for instance, still charges that what they call the so-called Ethnic Germans were caused to submit to resettlement by swindle and by deception and had been driven away from their homesteads like heards of cattle, then this is a conscious distortion which is in contradiction with the objective reason of the case in chief in every way. Finally, without any evidence, the Prosecution charges that the withdrawal of identity cards of persons who did not submit to resettlements in Central Russia had resulted in the withdrawal of Russian cards from those persons also. It is true that in this connection the Prosecution have not taken into consideration that a withdrawal of Russian cards was impossible because in these areas there were no Russian cards.\nIffit please the Tribunal, there are two matters that cause me to look into my future without any fear and with confidence. One is the conviction I have gained after a very conscientious scrutiny that before my own conscience I am not guilty. For the other, the fact that in spite of the \n proclamation of the Prosecution and press and radio, nobody -- not a single racial German -- appeared as witness against me; that, however, Ethnic Germans, without being asked and without knowing me, are helpful to me and my family during these very difficult days.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5272, "page_number": "5264", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "As a German I was born into this fateful century. In this century I did my duty towards every human being and the Ethnic Germans who were in my special care. Thus, I will know how to hear the fate which is my destination.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Hoffmann will now make his statement.\nDEFENDANT OTTO HOFMANN:If it please the Tribunal, your Honor, when in May 1945 the German Amy surrendered, a section of my life had finished. If I gave myself up to the American Military Government on the 7th of July 1945 of my own free will, this was not lastly caused by a feeling of responsibility to render account for my activities and omissions and eventually in order to refute the tremendous charges and prejudices with which the SS was charged. As much as my own fate is one of my worries, as much I take a part in the fate of the innumerable SS members who on account of the IMT judgment had to take upon themselves very severe disadvantages. As a former higher SS officer I always considered it my duty to protect the SS men -- those SS men who in the best of belief of their good ideals and in their leaders risked their lives, and to protect these SS men of unjustified hardship. The black day in this trial was for me, therefore, the 29th of October 1947, when the former SS Lieutenant General von dem Bach-Zelewski was a witness for the Prosecution and tried to charge not only the inner circle of his former comrades, but beyond that the whole SS , with tremendous crimes. The attitude of von dem Bach-Zelewski would not have to be considered in a very strong light if it only charged assmall circle of the persons here accused, but in the age of de-Nazification it occurs that the authorities responsible for this de-Nazification consider these unjustified conclusions to be the truth. The negative results in the form of further automatic arrests, pronouncing of punishments in labor camps, seizure of property, and pronunciation of disciplinary measures, and other disadvantages, strikes innumerable former SS members and brings tremendous hardships to their women and children.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT OTTO HOFMANN", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5273, "page_number": "5265", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "In a period where large circles start to reject the spirit of revenge and hatred and urge an action caused by reason and by a large insight in the future the attitude of a von dem Bach-Zelewski must be considered irresponsible. I consider that it is my duty to state it again.\nNow I would like to speak of the few charges in the Prosecution's indictment. If there the Prosecution tried to prove that the defense had tried all the possible means to shirk the responsibility and to diminish the value of the documents, then I may be permitted to say the following: Purely mechanically the Prosecution has gathered all the defendants in the dock as chiefs of various main offices and departments of Himmler without consideration of personal responsibility and guilt. The Prosecution have constructed a connection between them which never existed to that extent. Under a decree of the Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor of 7 October 1939, Article II, it was one of the tasks of the RKFDV to eliminate the damaging influences of alien ethnic groups. The Race and Settlement Main Office was charged with this task but the RSHA, it did not receive any direct task in this decree. All the events with which the Prosecution deals in Points 12, 13 and 14 were only and alone dealt with by the basic decree of the RSHA, settled by them and decided in their course. In other words, it is doubtlessly the case that the building constructed by the Prosecution is an artificial construction because the representatives of the RSHA are missing in the defendants' docks of this office which was doubtlessly the most powerful and most important arm of Himmler. But in this main office all the questions of alien racial groups were decided. Looked at in that manner this misconstruction also influences the documents which are torn out of an organical connection and thus render a distorted picture. Therefore, it wasn't the point to deny the value or contents of a document but it was to be tried to find out the true connections and thereby the actual value or relevance of the document. As far as Point 14 of the Counts of the Prosecution in connection with my own person as Higher SS and Police \n Leader are concerned, in the course of the methods of interrogation at that time and in order to avoid even the slightest charge of using a lie as a way out, I stated that during my period, about 15 to 25 such cases may have happened.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5274, "page_number": "5266", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "In the witness stand I rectified my statement to the extent that at the most there could have been 3 to 5 cases. A individual case, however, I could not remember at all. Today, on the strength of the bilateral cases in chief, I can assert that in fact that not one such case actually occurred. This statement may be a proof for the fact that was my endeavor to state in cases of doubt rather against myself as to diminish the statements or to deny something. It may not be forgotten in this connection that during the period when I was working as Higher SS and Police Leader in my area alone seven towns were practically levelled and that the air terror in the rural areas increased more and more; that during the day not a train and not a vehicle could be on the road without being in danger of being shot at; that peasants in the field and children on their way to school were attacked by low flying aircraft and were not secure in their life any more. The losses amongst the civilian population increased in a tremendous way. Whoever judges and takes into consideration the situation of that period in a somewhat objective and just way has to admit that I had other worries than to ascertain whether and when a racial examiner was requested for an expert opinion. It may be more important that in spite of the enemy airraids I took more and more care of the prisoners of war, in spite of the fact that they were the compatriots of those who attacked us by air day and night and brought terror into our areas. If today I look back on my work in the Race and Settlement Main Office and on my activity as Higher SS and Police Leader, then I have to ask myself whether I always acted in a just way and whether I could have acted in any different way. I think that I may say that at all times I acted in good faith that all the decrees were based on law and that there was no reason for me not \n to comply with them.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5275, "page_number": "5267", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "The misuse made of parts of the SS and the crimes against humanity, of which I heard after the surrender, moved me all the more, as at all times I was guided by idealistic viewpoints and saw a sort of an order in the SS where allegiance and knighthood, loyalty and honor and an exemplary family life was upheld. As much as I always declare myself ready to do away with prejudices and errors and to stand up for my ocn activities, as little can I take upon myself the guilt of a Himmler. He betrayed the SS without the knowledge and will of most of us. Therefore, it is a cheap procedure if the Prosecution charges that we try to get everything back to the deed Himmler. I feel free of the guilt to have done or ordered anything inhuman and with quiet confidence in the justice I therefore forward to the verdict of this High Tribunal.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Hildebrendt will now make his statement.\nDEFENDANT RICHARD HILDEBRANDT:Your Honor, if it please the Tribunal, it is a nice truth that a man's life is closely linked with the history of his nation, and the attempt to isolate the individual out of this context means to violate this facts.\nIt is not easy - without an interval of time - to distinguish cause and effect in matters with which this trial is concerned. The historical meaning of these proceedings can only be accomplished if this is understood and recognized.\nThe longwinded plea of the Prosecution which was made here on Friday last - a transparently pettifogging document - goes to show that the desire for truth does appear not to exist at all on their part.\nIf I endeavored to contribute myself a share to the discovery of that truth, as far as it concerns me as a man and as a German, it was done foremostly because my conscience told me so. My conscience which now, as then, \n I consider a driving and regulating force of my life.", "speakers": [ "DEFENDANT RICHARD HILDEBRANDT", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5276, "page_number": "5268", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "I never did anything, or gave orders for anything to be done which would have brought me into conflict with my conscience.\nI can therefore not recognize any guilt according to criminal law for the men under my leadership,, for they only acted out of confidence in me and were tied by their oath. Their actions could only spring from the belief that my orders were necessary and lawful.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5277, "page_number": "5269", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "For then as well, as for myself, the well-known quotation for the letter to the Romans held good:\n\"Let every soul be subject into the higher powers which are set above him, for there is no power but of God.\"\nField Marshal Lord Montgomery depressed the same idea seen from the officer's point of view, as follows, in 1946:\n\"It is the soldier's duty to obey unquestioningly all orders issued to him by the Army, that is, the nation.\"\nI therefore an passionately opposed to the outrageous injustice of the IMT verdict against the General and the Waffen-SS and the branding of millions of women and children on the basis of it. It would be a delusion to expect that the blessing of the Lord will rest upon such doing.\nLet nobody think that the German people or the service agencies under my command would have offered resistance against an overwhelming majority of enemies for five years, if criminal aims had been demanded. That would have run counter to verybody's nature, and not, least, my own.\nIt must have been something entirely different that made the overwhelming majority of Germans carry on to the end. Undoubtedly there were irrational force and a conviction to be locked in a fight for life and death.\nFor thirty years we have known Soviets in our own country and in the East and have seen their doings. We knew only too well what is behind it. Our sick prisoners of war returning from Russia, only a fraction of the total, brought renewed proof to us and I hope to the world as well.\nIt is a tragic error to think that this conflict started in 1941. Plainly visible for everyone, it began after the First World War, when the power politics of Soviet ideology originated and its deepest roots spring from the unsolved social problems of the 20th Century \n Since then, the world has known no peace and shall know no peace as long as the Soviets transgress their own natural borders with crimes dressed up as a Messianic mission.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5278, "page_number": "5270", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "The truth of this view has been experienced a millionfold in Germany since 1945, and this experience is being made a new each day.\nWhile up to 1939 the whole of Germany suffered under the unsolved material and ideological problems of the East, today the whole of Europe is suffering from them in a much greater degree, thus proving the threatening of that problem and hence Moscow's treason against its former allies.\nI do not believe that the soldiers of the Western democracies fought for the Oder-Neisse Line or for the destruction of the most primitive human rights east of the Stettin-Triest Line. I even less believe that these soldiers wanted to abandon the West, the home of their forbears, to the deadly of being subjected to the anti-Christian and anti-humanitarian forces.\nGermany's and Austria's struggle has to be appreciated and judged from these aspects. We ourselves were, after all, only a small fraction of this world-wide conflict. In reality, the confusion and poisoning of Western Europe continues under the guise of democratic terminology.\nA real charter of the rights of human beings would have to guarantee a world in which many ideologies could exist side by side. Values, social ideals, and cultural differences would have to be respected. This liable dream of humanity, however, cannot find fulfillment as long as the aggressive spirit and intolerance of the Bolschevistic world revolution threatens the liberty of the nations through the methods of inquisition. I therefore, do not believe in a law of nations recognized generally, but only within certain geographical limits, and that only on the assumption that egotism, distrust, and indifference give way to a new spirit.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5279, "page_number": "5271", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Feb.48-M-GJ-9-3-Arminger It is my innermost conviction that the future, which is still veiled belongs to those who will know how to combine the meaning of love and courage, and the realization of their own shortcomings.\nIn the world conference for moral reconstruction held in October 1947 at Caux on the Lake of Geneva, Harry Wickham, the organizer of the Labor Party, said the following, and I quote:\n\"A feeling of shame rests upon me, that during the past twenty years we in England did sc little realize the many possibilities to help the Germans in order to forge a working democracy. I shall live, work, and fight together with my German comrades in order to rebuild Germany and England.\"\nThose were Mr. Wickham's words.\nYou, too, gentlemen of the Tribunal are placed at a decisive post in the struggle for a new world. If the battle for the soul of Europe is lost, then all our battles will been in vain. This does not only concern myself. It involves much more. The stakes are to break the vicious circle of prejudice and hatred at last and give to back to the world its belief in justice.\nMay I be able to convince you that also the German people are filled by a deep longing for a truly just order. How is that renaissance to take place without liberty and peace?\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Defendant Schwalm will now make his statement.\nBY THE DEFENDANT SCHWALM:Your Honors, convinced that my life and my actions would stand up to any inquiry, I volunteered as a witness in November 45 for the defense counsel in the IMT as a witness for the SS, for that part of its organization into which I believed to have an insight and also especially for those men, unterfuehrers and leaders who were confined internment camps and who joined the SS for idealistic reasons as I did and now are still benumbed by that blow of fate, the German collapse, and were a almost unable to defend themselves against a proceedings which was even intended to rob them of their honor.", "speakers": [ "BY THE DEFENDANT SCHWALM", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5280, "page_number": "5272", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Feb.19-M-GJ-9-4-Arminger To what extent the IMT verdict was just with respect to the organizations will only be proven, by history.\nWhen in the spring of 1947, I again came to Nuernberg as a witness for the defense, I found a large number of last year's witnesses as defendants in the various trials. Not even then did I think of the possibility that charges could or would be preferred against me. Well, that was a mistake on my part, and, as of the 2d of July, 1947, I also was one of the number of witnesses of former trials who was subsequently put into the dock.\nThis, however, has not changed my attitude, not only to defend myself again before this Tribunal, but above all, the organization and the many of my comrades who are today still held in camps having been brought to trial. A name and a concept, which the prosecution suspected of evil actions was to be attacked: The Main Race and Settlement Office of the SS.\nI am grateful to the tribunal for having permitted statements and elucidations, which perhaps are apt to render a picture different from the one which was suspected. This picture, rendered in the course of the trial, could not even be obscured by the argumentation of the prosecution although instead of the former distortions found in the indictment the prosecution has tried to establish new and incorrect assertions, which in no way were proved in the course of the trial.\nA decision of a racial examiner never resulted in a deportation to a concentrate on camp and sterilization, abortion, kidnapping, or destruction of human lives. It was not the racial examination that resulted in the so-called special treatment, but this \"special treatment\", the significance of which, as a measure of the State Police was not know to the RuSHA, was already being dealt with as a result of the State Police. The Main Race and Settlement Office neither directly nor indirectly dealt with the compulsory evacuation and racial examination of population which was to be compulsorily evacuated, was never implemented.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5281, "page_number": "5273", "date": "", "date_iso": "", "text": "Feb.19-48-M-GJ-9-5-Armingerand the classifications into the Groups, 1,2,3, and 4, of the German People's List was not the business of the Main Race and Settlement Office not even as a result of the racial examination, but an ethnographic classification by the state authorities, and when finally the Jewish card index which, according to assertions of the prosecution up to new, generally was supposed to have supplied the data for the tracking down of the Jews, now is defined as the basis of sterilization and then this new assertion is just as hypothetical as the first one.\nAs is in compliance with the trial, which only deals with a definite period of time, up to now only the past has been discussed. Yet we are not only faced with the imperative demands of the present, but also with the imperative demands of the future. We, the young Germans, have drawn a very sober conclusion from this second collapse within not even thirty years and that is the following: We now have to look for the causes within ourselves, but not for the guilt. If we, nevertheless, still remained omptimistic and continued to have the courage to go on living, then it is because of the knowledge which biology especially gives us. The theory of evolution has not only widened our view of the historic of the past, but it particularly gives us new hope for the future. If uncounted millions of years were necessary to create man out of primeval life, then compared with these periods of time, man is at the beginning of his development and has approximately the same scope before him.\nThe greater our achievements in these fields of knowledge become, the harder the work will be to banish what today we still call misfortune. And yet this science conveys hope. This science and the belief in an eternal divine law can also spur us to action. This udea was recently expressed by the President of UNESCO, Julian Huxley.\nI conclude with a sentence from Steddard' Book, \"Referging America\", who briefly says with regard to America what we also claim for ourselves in Germany. I quote:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5282, "page_number": "5274", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "\"The American people have grasped the fundamental fact that no country can be a nation wihtout the spirit of unity, and that such a spirit cannot exist without a fundamental consistency in the way of thinking of its citizens. This in turn can only develop in case of essential racial homogeneousness.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5283, "page_number": "5275", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:The defendant Sollmann will now make his statement.\nBY THE DEFENDANT MAX SOLLMANN:Your Honors, about a year ago I looked to the day when finally the indictment would be handed to me, the indictment which in my case commenced with the words: The United States of America vs. Max Sollmann. The impact of these introductory phrases I never considered to be oppressive at any time. Rather, I was conscious at the time that even in this unusual situation of being a German citizen indicted by the United States, I was under the same protection as any other American who would be in the same position. I have been able to experience the significance of this protection ever since this trial started. This conception culminates in the word \"fairness\". I have felt no difference between the fairness of this Tribunal and the fairness which I experienced as a free man living for five years in the United States, where it was extended to me as a matter of course.\nBefore this Tribunal I have been able to get everything off my chest which I had to say with regard to the inconceivable assertions of the Prosecution, assertions which will for all time remain incomprehensible to me.\nI await the Judgment of this Tribunal with composure and calmness.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Ebner will now make his statement.\nBY THE DEFENDANT GREGOR EBNER:Your Honors, when as a young man I decided to become a physician, I did not do that in order to -gain prestige, nor in order to collect riches, but,I did that prompted by a inner urge to help ill people needy of assistance. When I entered the party and the SS, I did not do that in order to gain personal davantage. At that time I had everything which seemed desirable to me in life. I had a happy family life inmmy own home; I had the confidence of my patients. I did that because I recognized the bad situation which was prevailing in the country, and because I sympathized with the members of my nation who were suffering in the wave of inflation and unemployment, and when finally I went to Lebensborn, I did that promoted by my love to the medical profession and promoted by my compassion with mothers and children who because of wrong \n moral conceptions were not or could not be cared for by their own people and were covered with shame.", "speakers": [ "BY THE DEFENDANT GREGOR EBNER", "THE PRESIDENT", "BY THE DEFENDANT MAX SOLLMANN" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5284, "page_number": "5276", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "All the motives which prompted me in my life in any actions, I have examined throughout my life. It may well be that my opinions were not always correct; it may be that I did not always see properly the realities of life, considering the one-sidednessof my professional activity; but, one thing I do know today is that I am free of guilt; that I am free of guilt of having committed a crime or having assisted in the commission of any crime.\nMy fate, Your Honors, and therewith the fate of my wife and my children, are in your hands. I have within no the inner peace of the philosopher, and I rely upon your justice.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Tesch will now make his statement.\nBY THE DEFENDANT GUENTHER TESCH:Your Honors, what had to be said with respect to the assertions of the Prosecution has already been stated before. I regret very much that our work of explaining the entire situation in many respects did not fall on fertile ground. I have been able to find out that even translation mistakes which we have corrected are still now taken over by the Prosecution; names have been struck out, etc.\nThe activity of the Lebensborn, however one may understand it, consisted of care for other people. Mistakes may have occurred, errors which one may only be able to judge today in retrospect. The basic motives, however, the basic motive for helming and assisting other people was predominant in every case. I personally at no time had any other motive nor did I at any other time follow any other intentions.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendant Viermetz will now make her statement.\nBY THE DEFENDANT INGE VIERMETZ:Your Honors, I am not in agreement with the Final Plea, of my Defense Counsel. I did not help women and children in order to be praised for it. I helped them because I wanted to help them, and because I had to help them. I never expected any thanks for that; but that I would be placed before a court because of my helping activities -- that is something I never comprehended and I still cannot understand it at the end of this trial. In the future it will never be \n comprehensible to me because I cannot believe that my work was ever a crime.", "speakers": [ "BY THE DEFENDANT GUENTHER TESCH", "BY THE DEFENDANT INGE VIERMETZ", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5285, "page_number": "5277", "date": "19 February 1947", "date_iso": "1947-02-19", "text": "THE PRESIDENT:So far as we know, there will be no reason for this Tribunal to reconvene until the Judgment has been prepared and is ready to be read. Of course, we do not know now when that will be. For that reason, when this Tribunal adjourns at this session, no date will be named for reconvening. However, when the Tribunal does again reconvene, everybody concerned will have due notice.\nUntil such time as notice is given that the Tribunal will reconvene, the Tribunal now stands adjourned.\n(Thereupon the Tribunal adjourned at 11:55 A.M., 19 February 1948 in accordance with above notice.)", "speakers": [ "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5286, "page_number": "5278", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Official Transcript of American Military Tri bunal I in the matter of the United States of America against Ulrich Greifelt, et al, defend ants; sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 10 March 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable Lee Wyatt, pre siding.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the judges of Military Tribunal I. Military Tribunal I is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal.\nThere will be order in the court.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Mr. Marshal, have you ascertained that all defendants are present in court?\nTHE MARSHAL:May it please your Honors, all the defendants are present in the courtroom.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The record will so indicate.\nThis Tribunal has convened at this time for the presentation of its opinion and judgment. The original will be filed in the office of the Secretary General. If there is any variation from this original in the reading of this opinion or in the mimeographed copies, the original shall constitute the official record of this Tribunal.\nWe shall now proceed with the reading of the judgment.\n\"The constitution, powers, jurisdiction, and functions of this Tribunal are fully stated in the Judgment of the International Military Tribunal and the following subsequent cases: The United States of America v. Brandt, et al. Case No. I; the United States of America v. Alstoetter, et al, Case No. 3; and the United States of America v. Pohl, et al, Case No. 4. We deem it sufficient to say that this case was submitted to this Tribunal, and the trial conducted, in accordance with the laws rules of procedure applicable to the Tribunal.\nWhen it is considered that the oral and documentary evidence in this case consists of approximately 10,000 pages, it becomes readily apparent that any effort to even summarize the evidence would be impracticable. We shall, in the main, therefore record our findings. Those interested in the \n details of evidence must be referred to the record.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5287, "page_number": "5279", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "During the course of the trial several witnesses, including some defendants, who made affidavits that were offered as evidence by the Prosecution, testified that they were threatened, and that duress of a very improper nature was practiced by an interrogator. The affidavits referred to were excluded from the evidence and have not been considered by the Tribunal.\nConsiderable evidence on the part of the Defense was adduced to the effect that certain functions, and actions and measures taken, were Party matters while others came under the competency of offices of the Government. In our opinion this attempted differentiation of spheres of competency makes no difference. In practice the Nazi Party and the Government in Germany under Hitler were one and the same thing. In fact, the law in Germany under date of 1 December 1933 declared the unity of the Nazi Party and the German State.\nThe indictment in this case is framed in three counts. The first and second counts charge the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes, respectively. Count one alleges, in substance, that between September 1939 and April 1945, all of the defendants \"were principals in, accessories to, ordered and abetted, took a consenting part in, were connected with plans and enterprises involving, and were members of organizations or groups connected with:\natrocities and offenses, in cluding but not limited to murder, extermination, en slavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, persecu tions on political, racial and religious grounds, and other inhumane and criminal acts against civilian popu lations, including German civilians and nationals of other countries, and against prisoners of war.\"\nCount one further alleges that these \n \"Acts, conduct, plans and enterprises.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5288, "page_number": "5280", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "...were carried out as part of a systematic program of genocide, aimed at the destruction of foreign nations and ethnic groups, in part by elimination and suppression of national cha racteristics.\nThe object of this program was to strengthen the German nation and the so-called 'Aryan' race at the expense of such other nations and groups by imposing Nazi and German characteristics upon individuals selected there from.\n....and by the extermination of 'undesirable'racial elements.\nThis program was carried out in part by:\n\"(a) Kidnapping children (b) Abortions (c) Taking away infants of Eastern workers (d) Punishment for sexual intercourse with Germans (e) Preventing marriages and hampering reproduction of enemy nationals (f) Evacuating enemy populations from their native lands by force (g) Forced Germanization of enemy nationals (l) Slave labor (h) Plunder (i) Persecution of Jews\" Count two, which charges the defendants with war crimes, alleges that all the defendants between September 1939 and April 1945, \"Were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, were connected with plans and enterprises involving, and were members of organiz ations or groups connected with:\natrocities and offenses against persons and property constituting violations of the laws or customs of war, including but not limited to \n plunder of public property, murder, extermination, en slavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, and ill treatment of and other inhumane acts against thousands of persons.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5289, "page_number": "5281", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "These crimes embraced, but were not limited to the ten specifications made in Count one, and were committed against prisoners of war and civilian popu lations of countries and territories under the belli gerent occupation of, or otherwise controlled by, Ger many.\"\nThe fourteen defendants in this case were, in various capacities, connected with four organizations, namely, Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism, Main Staff Office (commonly known as the \"Main Staff Office of RKFDV\", and hereinafter referred to by that designation); the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (commonly known as VOMI, and so referred to hereafter); the SS Main Race and Resettlement Office (commonly known as RuSHA, and hereinafter so designated); and the Well of Life Society (commonly known as Lebensborn, and so referred to hereinafter). These organizations were under the supervision and direction of Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler, as Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism. Each organization had certain well-defined tasks, which after 1939 were modified or expanded as the recent war progressed. The organisations worked in close harmony and cooperation, as will later be shown in this judgment, for one primary purpose in effecting the ideology and program of Hitler, which may be summed up in one phrase: The two-fold objective of weakening and eventually destroying other nations while at the same time strengthening Germany, territorially and biologically, at the expense of conquered nations.\nIn the execution of this broad program, Hitler selected Himmler, the notorious leader of the SS. The decree issued by Hitler on 7 October 1939, appointing Himmler, states, in part:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5290, "page_number": "5282", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"The consequences which Versailles had on Europe have been removed.\nAs a result, the Greater German Reich is able to accept and settle within its space German people, who up to the present had to live in foreign lands, and to arrange the settlement of national groups within its spheres of interest in such a way that better dividing lines between them are attained.\nI commission the Reich Fuehrer-SS with the Execution of this task in accordance with the following instructions:\n\"Pursuant to my directions the Reichsfuehrer-SS is called upon:\n\"1.) to bring back those German citizens and racial Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return into the Reich.\n2.) to eliminate the harmful influence of such alien parts of the population as constitute a danger to the Reich and the German community.\n3.) to create new German colonies by resettlement, and especially by the resettlement of German citizens and racial Germans coming back from abroad.\"\nHimmler lost no time in promulgating measures to be applied in effectuating the Germanization program, Poland had just been overrun by the Nazis; and by a Hitler decree territories in Poland had been annexed to the Reich. These territories, in numerous decrees, were referred to as \"the Incorporated Eastern Territories\". The balance of Poland was known as the \"Government General\".\nAs early as 23 November 1939, Himmler had received a forty-page treatise entitled, \"The Problem of the Manner of Dealing with the Population of the Former Polish Territories on the Basis of Racial-Political Aspects,\" which had been compiled by the Racial-Political office of the \n NSDAP (Nazi Party). A few excerpts from this lengthy treatise are sufficient enlightenment as to the proposed manner of \"dealing with the former Polish territories\". After lengthy quotations of statistics on the population of these territories, the treatise states:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5291, "page_number": "5283", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"If follows from these statistics, that in the districts until now under Polish sovereignty, there were 86% Poles and 5% Jews, compared to only 7% Germans.\nConsequently, the necessity arises for a ruthless decimation of the Po lish population and, as a matter of course, the expulsion of all Jews and persons of Polish-Jewish minced blood.\n\"If the transfer of Poles from the Reich territory is not effected in a ruthless manner, it has to be feared that the Polish population will increase more or less at the same rate as before the war and up till now.\"\nWith reference to a classification of the population and their treatment, the treaties states:\n\"Who is a German?\n\"A german is, who, in folkdom, custom and family community, lives as a German, if he is of German or related blood.\nThese Germans are to be included in a German People's List.\n\"We have to have such an awe and respect for the blood witnesses since 1918 and the distress of these Germans who were conscious of their people that we will not be unne cessarily generous.\n\"All Germans, beyond doubt established as German nationals, are to be registered in a German People's List.\nThey received the German citizenship.\nOnly these Germans have the right to be Reich citizens.\n\"All other persons are not entitled to the right to be Reich citizens and therefore have no political rights.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5292, "page_number": "5284", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"In the future Germans are to carry exclusively German names; that is, family names which in their root and etymology are of German origin.\nNames which are only Germanized in the written form, but show their Slavonic origin, cannot be regarded to be German names.\nThey too are to be changed.\n\"The official language of all authorities, in cluding courts, is exclusively German, \"Economy and culture.\n\"Poles cannot be business owners. The real ex tate, also the farms they possessed up to now, are being expropriated.\nPoles are not permitted to exercise an independent trade and cannot be masters of a trade; all existing apprentice con tracts ere annulled; promising Polish appren tices can be taken to Germany proper as appren tices.\n\"As to the treatment of the population remaining in the Eastern territories - mainly of the Polish and the German-Polish nixed population - it is con stantly to be born in mind, that all measures of the legislature and administration have but one purpose, namely, to achieve a Germanization of the non-German population by all means and as quickly as possible.\nFor this reason a continuation of a national Polish cultural life is definitely out of question.\nThe Polish orientated population, in as far as it cannot be assimilated, is to be deported, the remainder to be Germanized.\nThere \n fore, a basis for a national and cultural autonomous life must no longer exist.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5293, "page_number": "5285", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "In future there will be no Polish schools in the Eastern territories. In general there will be only German schools with emphasis on National Socialist racial teachings. Poles and members of the German-Polish mixed population who are not yet completely Germanized are not permitted to attend German universities, trade schools or high and secondary schools. Children of the members of this part of the population are only admitted if they are members of the Hitler Youth and are reported by it. \"Any religious service in Polish is to be discontinued. The Catholic and even the Protestant religious service are only to be held by especially selected German-conscious German priests and only in German. Considering the political importance and the danger of the Catholic-Polish church connected with it, one could get the idea to outlaw the Catholic church entirely. However, one has to keep in mind that the population is strongly attached to the church and that such a measure could perhaps result in the opposite of Germanization. Specially selected, German-minded Catholic priests could probably gain not unimportant a success for the Germanization by a clever influence on the Catholic-Polish part of the population. The probability that especially Catholics of German extraction who were Polonized in the \n past centuries, could, with the help of suitable German priests, be brought back to the German people, is very great.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5294, "page_number": "5286", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "In case of the Protestant Church the priests, who during the Polish time, especially during the last year, tried to betray the German people in a hatefulness which can hardly be described (under the leadership of their bishop Bursche), are ruthlessly to be removed as enemies of any national conviction and of National Socialism. Polish church holidays are to be abrogated. Only the holidays of both denominations permitted in the Reich are to be observed. \"In order to prevent any cultural or economic life, Polish corporations, associations and clubs cease to exist; Polish church unions are also to be dissolved. \"Polish restaurants and cafes as centers of the Polish national life are to be closed down. Poles are not permitted to visit German theaters, variety shows, or cinemas, Polish theaters, cinemas and other places of cultural life are to be closed down. There will be no Polish newspapers, nor printing of Polish books nor the publishing of Polish magazines. For the same reasons Poles must not have radios and should not possess a phonograph. \"The aim of the policy in the East. \"The aim of the German policy in the new Polish territory in the East must be the creation of a \n racial and therefore intellectual-psychical as well as national-political uniform German population.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5295, "page_number": "5287", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "This results in the ruthless elimination of all elements not suitable for Germanization. \"This aim consists of three interwoven tasks:\n\"First, the complete and final German ization of the population which seems to be suitable for it.\n\"Second, deportation of all foreign groups which are not suitable for Ger manization; and \"Third, the re-settlement by Germans.\n\"Our Germanization policy has the aim to extract the Nordic groups from the remaining population and to Germanize them, and, on the other hand, to keep the racially foreign Polish strata on a low cultural level and to deport them from time to time to central Poland. \"Treatment of the mixed population. \"These thoughts make it most recommendable to transfer these persons, who were not included in the German People's List but who live in a racial mixed marriage with Poles or who are of mixed German-Polish descent, to Germany proper, if they are not especially active for the Polish ideology. The final Germanization can be achieved in Germany proper. Children from such GermanPolish racial mixed marriages have, whenever \n possible, to be educated in Germany proper and in German surroundings (educational institutions). The influence of the Polish parent must be excluded to the greatest possible extent.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5296, "page_number": "5288", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"Germanization of the Polish population. \"Probably only a small part of the Polish population within the new Reich territory can be Germanized; the easiest way will be to transfer them, and especially their children, to Germany proper, where, as a matter of course, a collective employment or settlement is completely out of question. \"Special treatment of racially valuable children. \"A considerable part of the racially valuable groups of the Polish people, who, on account of national reasons are not suitable for Germanization, will have to be deported to the rest of Poland. But here it has to be tried to exclude racially valuable children from the re-settlement and to educate them in suitable educational institutions, probably like the former military orphanage at Potsdam, or in a German family. The children suitable for this are not to be over 8 to 10 years of age because, as a rule, a genuine ethnic transformation, that is, a final Germanization, is possible only up to this age. The first condition for this is a complete prevention of all connections with their Polish relatives. The children receive German names which etymologically are of accentuated teutonic origin, their descendant certificate will be kept by a special department. All racially valuable \n children whose parents died during the war or later, will be taken over in German orphanages without any special regulation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5297, "page_number": "5289", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "For this reason a decree prohibiting the adoption of such children by Poles is to be issued. \"Any keeping of biologically health children in church institutions is prohibited. \"Children of such institutions, if no older than approximately 10 years, are to be transferred to German educational institutions. \"Poles with a neutral attitude, who are willing to send their children to German educational institutions, do not need to be deported to the rest of Poland. \"As already related, the final aim must be the complete elimination of the Polish national spirit. Those Poles who cannot be Germanized must be deported to the remaining Polish territory. \"In all cases of eviction of classes which are racially equivalent to us and valuable, the possibility of a retention of the children and their special education is to be considered. \"If the Eastern territories are to be Germanized it is necessary that all the land, also land which was handed down from generation to generation by its Polish owners, be expropriated in favor of the German settlers. Thereby the Polish peasant loses the basis of his existence and is therefore to be deported \n to the remainder of Poland, if he cannot be Germanized.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5298, "page_number": "5290", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"Jews, regardless whether they are Jews by creed or baptized, are to be deported to the remainder of Polish territory by cancellation of all their obligations, ruthlessly and as soon as possible.\n\"Persons of mixed Polish-Jewish blood, regardless of their degree, are to be placed on the same level, without any exceptions and under all circum stances, as Poles and Jews who are to be deported.\"\nDealing with the problem of resettling the area from which the Polish were to be transported, the treatise states:\n\"Efforts are to be made to repatriate all Germans without exceptions from the remainder of Poland and the territories falling to Russia, into our new Eastern territories.\n\"With reference to Germans overseas and their settle ment, this question can only be solved after the war, in view of transportation facilities, if for no other reason.\"\nUnder the sub-head \"The treatment of Poles and Jews in the remaining Poland,\" the treatise states:\n\"Independent of the not yet published future solution of the problem regarding the legal State structure of the remainder of Poland, one must start from the fact that the remainder of Poland will also in future be under the ruling influence of the Reich.\n\"The population of this territory is composed of Poles and Jews and in addition of a large number of Polish-Jewish half breeds.\nA part of the population must be considered as definitely of alien blood from a racial point of view, at any rate as \n unsuitable for assimilation.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5299, "page_number": "5291", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Under the circumstances it must be stated in principle that the German Reich is in no way interested in raising the Polish and Jewish parts of the population of the remainder of Poland to a higher racial and cultural level, or in their education.\n\"The inhabitants of the remainder of Poland must be given their citizenship.\nHowever, they are not to have any independent political parties and associations which might provide a possible nucleus for a future national concentration must be forbidden.\nNon-poli tical clubs should not be allowed either, or only from very special points of view.\nCultural associa tions, for instance, vocal societies, clubs for the study of the home-country, gymnastic and sport clubs, social clubs, etc.\ncan by no means be regarded with out misgivings, as they can easily promote national ism amongst their members.\nIn particular, the gym nastic and sport clubs also lead to a physical strength of the population, in which we are not in terested.\n\"Medical care on our part should be confined to pre venting epidemics from spreading to the Reich terri tory.\n\"All measures serving birth control are to be admitted or to be encouraged.\nAbortion must not be punishable in the remaining territory.\nAbortives and contracep tives may be publicly offered for sale in every form without any police measures being taken.\nHomosex uality is to be declared as not punishable.\nInstitutes and persons who make a business of performing abortions should not be prosecuted by the police.\nHygienic \n measures from a racial point of view should not be encouraged in any way.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5300, "page_number": "5292", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"It will be the task of the German administration to play up the Poles and Jews against each other.\"\nFrom the quoted excerpts it may be seen that in the very beginning the Germanization program envisioned certain drastic and oppressive measures, among them: Deportation of Poles and Jews; the separation of family groups, and the kidnapping of children for the purpose of training them in Nazi ideology; confiscation of all property of Poles and Jews for resettlement purposes; the destruction of the economic and cultural life of the Polish population; and the hampering of the reproduction of the Polish population. This policy was put into practice in all of the countries, twelve in number, as they were ruthlessly overrun by Hitler's armed forces.\nFollowing receipt of the treatise quote, Himmler issued a directive, entitled \"Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East,\" which stated:\n\"Within a very few years -- I should think about four to five years, the name of the Cashubes, i.e.must be unknown, because at that time there won't be a Cashubian people any more (this also goes especially for the West Prussians.)\n. I hope that the concept of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony.\n\"Within a somewhat longer period, it should also be possible to make the ethnic concepts of Un crainians, Gorals and Lemken disappear in our area.\nWhat has been said for those fragments of peoples is also meant on a correspondingly larger scale for the Poles.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5301, "page_number": "5293", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"A basic issue in the solution of all these problems is the question of schooling and thus the question of sifting and selecting the young.\nFor the non German population of the East there must be no higher school than the fourth-grade elementary school.\n\"The sole goal of this school is to be:\nSimple arithmetic up to 500 at the most;\nwriting of one's name; the doctrine that it is a divine law to obey the Germans and to be honest, industrious and good.\nI don't think that reading should be required.\n\"Apart from this school there are to be no schools at all in the East, Parents, who from the begin ning want to give their children better schooling in the elementary school as well as later on in a higher school must take an application to the High er SS and the police leaders.\nThe first considera tion in dealing with this application will be whether the child is racially perfect and conforming to our conditions.\nIf we acknowledge such a child to be as of our blood, the parents will be notified that the child will be sent to a school in Germany and that it will permanently remain in Germany.\n\"The parents of such children of good blood will be given the choice of either giving away their child; they will then probably produce no more children so that the danger of this subhuman people of the East obtaining a class of leaders which, since it would be equal to us, would also be danger ous for us,will disappear; or else the parents pledge themselves to go to Germany and to become \n loyal citizens there.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5302, "page_number": "5294", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The love towards their children whose future and education depends on the loyalty of the parents will be a strong weapon in dealing with them.\n\"Apart from examining the applications made by par ents for better schooling of their children, there will be an annual sifting of all children of the General Government between the ages of six and ten in order to separate the racially valuable and non-valuable.\nThe ones who are considered racially valuable will be treated in the same way as the children who are admitted on the basis of the approved appli cation of their parents.\"\nIt might be well to remember that these measures, in the early days of the war, were among the first of many to be adopted and laid down in hundreds of decrees and directives; and as the ferocity of the war quickened, more drastic decrees and barbaric policies were adopted. For instance, as will be subsequently shown, the solution of the question of dealing with the so-called \"racially inferior\" population was solved not so much by deportation as by the adoption of extermination measures, thus bringing about a speedier elimination of undesirable foreign elements by death.\nJudge O'Connell will continue with the reading of the Judgment.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: Besides Hitler, Himmler entrusted knowledge of his directive to only a very select group of persons, including the defendant Greifelt. That Himmler was fully aware of the diabolical nature of the proposed program is evidenced by the fact that on 28 May 1940, in a handwritten memorandum, Himmler said:\n\"On Saturday, 25 inst., I handed my report on the treatment of people's of alien races in the East to the Fuehrer.\nThe Fuehrer read the 6 pages and \n considered them very good and correct.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5303, "page_number": "5295", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "He direct ed, however, that only very few conies should be issued; that there should be no large edition, and that the report is to be treated with utmost secrecy.\n\"One copy was given to the chief of my office, SS-Brig.\nGreifelt in his capacity as Reich Com missioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\nI shall give him the order to inform in turn all chiefs of the Main Offices.\nThe notification to the Chiefs of the Main Offices shall be effected by a SS-leader who will have to wait until the con cerned chief of the Main Office has read the report and has acknowledged it by his signature.\nAt the same time everyone has to confirm that he has been informed of the fact that this is to be considered as a directive, but that it shall never be laid down in an order of one of the Main Offices; neither in form of a mere excerpt nor from memory.\n\"Moreover SS-Brig. Greifelt is authorized to bring the contents of the report to the attention of the town Mayor Winckler and his own main collaborators;the latter he shall suggest to me.\"\nPrior to the distribution of his directive, and shortly after his appointment, Himmler had entrusted to Greifelt the responsibility of carrying out tasks connected with the Germanization program by a decree, reading in part:\n\"1. By the Fuehrer decree, dated 7 October 1939, I have been appointed Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism.\n\"2. For the direction and promulgation of general orders and directives and for the execution of certain tasks which can only be dealt with \n centrally, I establish the office of the Reich Commissar.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5304, "page_number": "5296", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "I have placed SS-Oberfuehrer Grei felt in charge.\n\"3. I wish to mention particularly some of these tasks as well as the institutions and agencies which are charged with the solution and execu tion of these tasks:\na) VOMI and Foreign Organizations bring in the Germans and ethnic Germans.\nb) Reich Health leader and RuSHA examine all Germans from the Reich and abroad in the new areas in town and country.\nc) The Security Police in cooperation with the chief of the Civil Administration establishes and takes care of foreign elements dangerous to the German Folkdom.\"\nImmediately after his appointment as RKFDV, and prior to the issuance of the directive on the treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East, Himmler had already inaugurated certain measures. One of the first steps was an order, marked \"urgent decree,\" issued on 16 December 1939, concerning confiscation, and reading:\n\"1) To strengthen Germanism and in the interest of the defense of the Reich, all articles men tioned in section II of this decree are hereby confiscated.\nThis applies to all articles located in the territories annexed by the Fuehrer's and Reich Chancellor's decree of 12.\n10.39 and in the General Government for the occupied Polish territories.\nThey are confis cated for the benefit of the German Reich and are at the disposal of the Reich Commissioner \n for the Strengthening of Germanism.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5305, "page_number": "5297", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Provided always that this does not apply to articles which are fully or for more than 75% the property of German citizens or persons of German race.\nIn particular are confiscated all articles mentioned in Section II which are in archives, museums, public collections or in the private possession of Poles and Jews if their protection and expert safekeeping is in German interest.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5306, "page_number": "5298", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "II \"1) Historical and pre-historical articles, documents, books, which are of interest for questions of cultural value and of public life, specially for the question of the German share in the historical, cultural and economic development of the country, and documents which are relevant for the history of present events.\n\"2) Articles of art of cultural value e.g. pictures, sculptures, furniture, carpets, crystal, books, etc.\n\"3) Furnishings and jewelry made of precious metal.\nIV \"All confiscations made before this decree by authorities of the Reich Fuehrer SS and Chief of German Police and the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism are hereby confirmed.\nThey are to be regarded as made for the benefit of the German Reich and are at the disposal of the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Germanism.\"\nOn 11 June 1941, Himmler, in his capacity as RKFDV, changed the name of the office of the RKFDV to the Main Staff Office of the RKFDV, with the defendant Greifelt remaining as its chief. At the same time Himmler provided that the Main Staff Office and VOMI, with the defendant Lorenz as chief of that office, should be \"on an equal level with the Main Offices\" of the SS Supreme Command.\nMany orders and instructions were issued concerning the spheres of activity of the four offices charged with the execution of the Germanization program. It would serve no practical purpose to quote extensively from the various decrees; but, briefly, it may be stated that the four organizations involved were charged with, and participated in,the following activities:\nAccording to an ordinance issued by Himmler on 28 November 1941, \n \"The task of the Staff Main Office comprises the whole planning of settlement and development in Germany and in the territories under German supremacy as well as the realization of that planning.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5307, "page_number": "5299", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It includes also the cultural and admini strative planning and the propaganda for the idea of settlement.\nThe Staff Main Office is thus in charge of all questions of allocation of German people for settlement in Germany and in territories under German supremacy including all questions of an administrative and economic character connected with settlement.\n\"As far as economic questions arise in connection with resettlement the Main Staff Office deals with them.\"\nThe Main Staff Office was actually the directing head of the whole Germanization program, coordinating the activities of the other organizations. Before the end of the war, the activities of the Staff Main Office involved, among other things, the expulsion and deportation of whole populations; the Germanization of foreign nationals; the deportation of foreigners to Germany as slave labor; the kidnapping of children; and the plundering and confiscation of property of enemy nations.\nThe defendant Greifelt was chief of the Main Staff Office; Creutz was his deputy; Meyer-Hetling was head of the planning Office of the fain Staff Office; and Schwarzenberger was chief of the Finance Office of the Main Staff Office.\nAs to the competency of VOMI, the ordinance stated:\n\"The VOMI carried out the whole ethnical work for the Strengthening of Germanism in Germany and in the territories under German supremacy.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5308, "page_number": "5300", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "This work includes also the accomplishment of measures for the reception of persons and of foreign nationals considered fit for German ization (German ethnical Register III and IV) into the German racial community.\n\"Under its supervision is placed the evacuation within the framework of eventual resettlement of ethnical Germans from their former homes and the whole administration and care of the camps.\"\nVOMI came into existence prior to the commencement of the war, and after Himmler's appointment as RKFDV he utilized this office primarily as an agency charged with the evacuation of ethnic Germans, as well as foreigners of non-German blood, from their former countries and the transportation of these persons to collecting camps, known as VOMI camps. In the course of those activities, VOMI became directly or indirectly involved in the forced expulsion of the populations of various countries; conscription of enemy nationals for the SS and the armed forces; compulsory Germanization of enemy nationals; the utilization of foreigners as slave labor in the Reich; and the kidnapping of alien children.\nThe defendant Lorenz was chief of VOMI; and the defendant Brueckner was head of Amt VI - Safeguarding of Germanization of the Reich.\nAs to RuSHA, the ordinance provided:\n\"The RuSHA is an advisory and executive office for all questions of racial selection.\nIt has to handle the examination of the racial Germans who are to be resettled in Germany as well as the examination of the settlers in the last coming from Germany.\nThe RuSHA also has to carry out the racial selection of the groups of foreign nationals with regard to the fitness for Germanization of single families and \n persons and the racial examination for marriages with foreign nationals.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5309, "page_number": "5301", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "RuSHA, which existed long prior to the war, was originally concerned primarily with checking on candidates for admission to the SS, as well as marriage applications of SS members, the purpose of these functions being to safeguard the SS against alien blood and the making of the SS into a Nazi aristrocracy. But with the advent of the war, the original aims of RuSHA were largely abandoned; and entrusted to that organization was the task of screening millions of people in carrying out the Germanization program. RuSHA conducted, through racial examiners, racial examinations in connection with Germanization; the transfer and expulsion of populations; abortions; slave labor; persecution of Jews and Poles; punishment for sexual intercourse between Germans and nonGermans; and the kidnapping of foreign children. The racial examination determined the treatment to be accorded the person to be examined.\nThe defendant Hofmann was chief of RuSHA from July 1940 to April 1943; when Hofmann left that office in 1943, the defendant Hildebrandt took over and continued as chief until the end of the war.\nIn connection with the re-Germanization of Poles, a field office was set up in 1940 in the incorporated territories of Poland with the defendant Schwalm in charge. He became chief of the branch office at Lodz in January 1941 and remained in that capacity until September 1941. Also, during this period, he was chief of the RuSHA agencies in the EWZ. After a term of military service, Schwalm became staff leader of the RuSHA, serving in that capacity from 1 March 1943 until February 1945.\nThe defendant Huebner was RuSHA field leader in the Warthegau, with headquarters in Posen, and was chief of the resettlement staff Posen as well as labor staffs.\nThe Lebensborn Society existed long prior to the outbreak of hostilities. This society was primarily a maternity home. Included in its activities, before and during the war, was the placing of children born in the maternity homes in foster homes.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5310, "page_number": "5302", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Evidence produced by the prosecution discloses that since the cessation of hostilities, IRO, an agency engaged in tracing foreign children brought into Germany, has located approximately 10,000 foreignborn children in the American Zone of Germany. Of this number, according to the prosecution's evidence, Lebensborn had been connected with only 340 in any manner.\nSollmann was managing director of Lebensborn; Teach was Sollmann's deputy and head of the Main Legal Department. Ebner was head of the Main Health Department, and Viermetz was in charge of the department dealing with homes and adoptions as well as the employment department, and later. Main Department A.\nWe have attempted to give an overall picture of the organizations charged with participating in the Germanization program. We shall now deal with the specific crimes charged in the indictment, and the participation or non-participation of each organization in the crimes charged; and, in part, we shall discuss the role played by certain defendants in the Germanization program and in connection with particular crimes.\nKIDNAPPING OF ALIEN CHILDREN The Nazis, soon after the invasion of Poland, began an extensive campaign of kidnapping foreign children.\nAlthough at first these kidnappings were confined, principally, to so-called ethnic Germans, it soon became apparent that sufficient children were not being secured to satisfy the Nazi aims; and the program was therefore extended to include all children of \"good racial characteristics\"; that is, physical appearances, such as blond hair and blue eyes, indicating that the child might have some \"Nordic\" blood or might make a good German. Racial examiners of RuSHA performed these examinations to determine whether the child was of good or inferior blood.\nHimmler, in a speech to Party comrades, outlined his aims. He said:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5311, "page_number": "5303", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"....Closely linked to this problem 'children and people;\nfor this coming and now shaping great, empire which has recently been much enlarged by the addition of the Eastern territories and which gradually becomes an empire of Germanic greatness which has been created for us by the Fuehrer; linked to this problem is now a second problem, that is my task as Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism.\nHere, too, this task is one which deals with the question, how we can add to the victory of the sword the victory of the blood, of the blood of our kind.\nHow will the organization be carried out, after the victory over the enemy, the real Germanization of the land, how will the real occupation of the new provinces from the racial point of view be carried out.\nI have received orders to carry out this task on October 7th, from the Reichsfuehrer SS, as Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism.\nWe must see to it that at least in the Provinces which belong to Germany now, the problem of a Polish \n minority is liquidated and eliminated, the problem must be liquidated.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5312, "page_number": "5304", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"We have to see to it that now, in these days when we are strong, people who are of our blood will be brought back to us, as much as is in our power and that we see to it that none of our blood is ever lost to the outside world... The manner in which this is to be achieved will be different every time. At the beginning it was necessary - and this, if you please, should not go beyond our small circle - to carry this out in a very ruthless fashion, especially in West Prussia, where the atrocities committed by the Poles were worst, and where German blood was heavily shed....\"It is a matter of course that Germany will bring back ethnic Germans from all countries after the war, all people who are of ethnicGerman good stock, I would even say, of good blood...\"\nLater, in a letter dated 18 June 1941, Himmler made his plan quite clear in unambiguous language when he said:\n\"I would consider it right if small children, of Polish families, who show especially good racial characteristics were apprehended and educated by us in special children's institutions and children's homes which must not be too large. The apprehension of the children would have to be explained with endangered health....\n\"After half a year the genealogical tree and documents of descent of those children who prove to be acceptable should be procured. After altogether one year it should be considered to give such children as foster children to childless families of good race...\"\nIn furtherance of Himmler's pernicious kidnapping plans, Greifelt lent his assistance by issuing \"Regulation 67/1\". This order was sent to numerous offices, including the Higher SS and Police Leaders, as deputies to the RKFDV, in the occupied territories and in Germany, and RuSHA. The decree, which was immediately placed into operation and which resulted in many kidnappings, declared:\n\"In order to be able to regain for German Folkdom those children, whose racial appearance indicates nordic parents, it is necessary that the children, who are in former Polish orphanages and with Polish foster \n parents, are subjected to a racial and psychological process of selection.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5313, "page_number": "5305", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "These children, who are considered to be racially valuable to German Folkdom, shall be Germanized...\"\nThe decree further provided, in great detail, for the registration of the children, their racial examination by RuSHA, a medical examination and their subsequent handling, stating in part:\n\"My representative at Posen will report all children from 6 to 12 years of age who have been considered suitable for Germanization, to the Inspector of the German folk schools. The Inspector of the German Folk Schools will accommodate these children in special folk schools, which answer the children's needs. Those children, who leave the German folk schools with positive results, are to be lodged in rural homes of Germany proper.\n\"Special attention is to be given that the expression 'Polish children suitable for Germanization' may not reach the public to the detriment of the children. The children are rather to be designated as German orphans from the regained Eastern Territories.\"\nOn 16 February 1942 Himmler issued a decree dealing extensively with the kidnapping of foreign children.\nIn part the decree states:\n\"Politically heavily incriminated persons will not be included in the resettlement action. Their names are also to be submitted by the Higher SS and Police Leaders (Inspectors of the Security Police and of the SD) to the competent State Police (Main) Office for the purpose of transfer to a concentration camp. The wives and children of such persons are to be resettled in Germany proper and included in the procedures for Germanization.\n\"If the wife, too, cannot be included in the resettlement action because she is politically badly incriminated, she, too, is to be named to the competent State Police (Main) Office for the purpose of transfer to a concentration camp. In such cases the children are to be separated \n from their parents.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5314, "page_number": "5306", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "..Persons to be considered politically heavily incriminated are those who committed the most serious offenses against Germandon (For example, participation in persecution of Germans, economic destruction of racially pure Germans, among other things).\n\"The children are to be admitted to the local German public schools and included in the Hitler Youth. Attendance at a local school of higher education is prohibited.....\n\"The Higher SS and Police Leaders are to pay particular attention that the re-Germanization of the children does not suffer as the result of detrimental influence by the parents. Should such detrimental influence be determined to exist, and should it be impossible to eliminate them through coercive measures by the State Police, accommodations are to be found for the children with families who are politically and ideologically above reproach and ready to take in the children as wards, without reservation and out of love for the good blood present in the children and to treat them as their own children. The same thing is applicable to children who must be separated from their parents in accordance with paragraph II A 3 of this regulation.\n\"They are to take into protective custody persons in whose cases the Higher SS and Police Leader has ordered the revocation of nationalization, and to transfer them to a concentration camp.\"\nTen copies of this decree were sent, for information, to the Main Staff Office.\nA graphic example of the kidnapping of foreign children, and the procedure followed is contained in correspondence covering a period of more than a year, concerning a number of persons. This correspondence occurred between Himmler's office, RuSHA, VOMI, and the Main Staff Office. After a decision had been made to perform a racial examination on the subjects of the correspondence and the examination had been conducted by RuSHA, Himmler reached the following decision in a memorandum marked \"Secret\" and sent to VOMI, RuSHA, and the Main Staff Office:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5315, "page_number": "5307", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"1. Maria Lambucki and Stanislaw Koch are not to continue to remain in protective custody.\n\"2. Jachwiga Koch is to be assigned to a German Folk School.\n\"3. Brunhilde Muszynski is to be taken into protective custody. Her two children, aged 4 and 7 years, are to be sterilized and lodged somewhere with foster parents.\n\"4. Ingeborg von Avenarius is also to be taken into protective custody. Her children too are to be lodged somewhere with foster parents, after sterilization.\"\nSpeaking at Bad Schachen in October 1943, Himmler reiterated his policy of kidnapping children in the following langauge:\n\"I consider that in dealing with members of a foreing country, especiall some Slav nationality, we must not start from German points of view and we must not endow these people with decent German thoughts and logical conclusions of which they are not capable, but we must take them as they really are.\"\n\"Obviously in such a mixture of peoples there will always be some racially good types. Therefore I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment, if necessary by robbing or stealing them...Either we win over any good blood that we can for ourselves and give it a place in our people or...we destroy this blood...\"\nThe defendant Cretuz, who was deputy to Greifelt, was also involved in the kidnapping of foreing children, Even before Greifelt issued his decree \"67/1\" in 1942, Creutz in writing to Reich Governors declared:\n\"There are a great number of children in former polish orphanages who, on account of their racial characteristics, must be considered to be children of Nordic parents. These children must be subjected to a racial and psychological selection procedure. Children found to be biologically valuable for the Germandom are to be biologically valuable for the Germandom are to be Germanized.\"\nIn this correspondence Creutz further gave detailed suggestions and \n instructions as to the Procedure to be followed in the Germanization of the foreign children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5316, "page_number": "5308", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The evidence establishes beyond all doubt that Creutz issued instructions for the carrying out of a \"children's operation\", which meant the bringing of children into Germany for Germanization; and for this activity, as a part of the Germanization program, he bears full responsibility.\nRuSHA actively participated in the kidnapping of alient children. To this organization was delegated the task of making racial examinations and upon the basis of these examinations, and racial evaluations, many children were wrested from their parents and relatives and sent to Germany. These examiners were working directly at different intervals under the control and supervision of Hofmann and Hildebrandt respectively, who had knowledge of their activities; and for the participation of RuSHA in this program, both these defendants bear full responsibility.\nHofmann, a s chief of RuSHA, and Hildebrandt, who later became chief of RuSHA, knew as early as the summer of 1941 the details of the proposed program. Both defendants were sent a copy of the letter from Himmler, to which we have already adverted, in which he said he would consider it right if small children of Polish families, who show good racial characteristics, were apprehended and educated by the Reich.\nFurther proof of Hofmann's knowledge and participation in the bringing of children into Germany for Germanization is contained in a file note sent to Hofmann concerning two Russian boys who had been deported to Berlin and were being cared for by RuSHA.\nOn 12 February 1942, Hofmann, in a memorandum concerning actions to be taken against foreigners who made difficulties, said:\n\"At another occasion, SS-Gruppenfuehrer Greifelt was ordered to submit a directive according to which Germanizable Poles, who make special difficulties, are to have their children taken away from them. These children are to be sent to special homes, etc. The Reichsfuehrer expects \n an especially educating effect from this measure.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5317, "page_number": "5309", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The defendant Schwalm participated in the kidnapping program, as is shown by several exhibits.\nIn January 1941, Schwalm became chief of the Staff Office at Lodz and remained in that position until September 1941. Also, in January, 1941, he became chief of the RuSHA agencies in the EWZ at Lodz. He had authority ever racial examiners, who were constantly engaged in making examinations and evaluations of children. There is evidence in the record showing that Schwalm, while chief of the branch office at Lodz, trained racial examiners: and the evidence irrefutably shows that Schwalm, in this position, was the person who had the power to change racial decisions.\nAt a meeting of the offices for Race and Settlement, attended by Schwalm, and at which time he was appointed chief of the RuSHA agencies in the EWZ at Lodz, the following illuminating decision was made:\n\"Oberfuehrer Kaaserer then said that, by an order of the SS-Personnel Main Office effective 1 December 1940, he was transferred as Chief of the Ancestry Research Office of the Main Office-SS for Race and Settlement and, therefore, as Chief of the Office for Race and Settlement would resign from The Central Office for Immigration on 15 January 1941. SSSturmbannfuehrer Schwalm was appointed his successor....\"The racial sentence once passed on a resettler by an expert may not be altered by any office.\nThe judgment of an expert is an expert diagnosis just like that of a physician. Only Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm, in his capacity as Chief of the Offices for Race and Settlement, has the power to alter a judgment after a thorough investigation which is best done by looking over the resettler personally... \"\nJUDGEO'CONNEL: The reading will now be continued by Judge Crawford.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5318, "page_number": "5310", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "THE MARSHAL:Persons in the court room will please find their scats.\nThe Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Judge Crawford will continue with the reading of the judgment.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:\n\"Schwalm's activities and participation in kidnapping is established beyond doubt by a number of reports signed by him cocerning transports. Writing with reference to the 288th transport, 239th transport, 340th transport, and 432nd transport \"of families and individuals to be re-Germanized,\" Schwalm gives a long list of persons transported, as well as the date and place of birth of the individuals; and in quite a number of instances the reports show that young boys and girls unaccompanied by family members were being transported. Girls of 15 years of ago were shipped and there were quite a number of 18 and 19 year old girds.\nThe participation of VOMI in the kidnapping of foreign children is clearly established by a number of exhibits from various officials of VOMI concerning the disposition of relatives of Slovenes who had been executed. Typical of these memorandums is the following from the VOMI office in Berlin to the VOMI office in Bayreuth: \"Subject: Relatives of the bandits executed in Lower Styria -- resettler's child, Albin Wipotnik, born 26 dune 1937, at present in Camp Kastl near Bamberg. Released to family Zozej at Geislingen.\" This letter states:\n\"In conclusion of the above matter, I wish to notify you, that the resettler's child Albin Wipotnik may be released.\n\"I request, that you state the above file number \n on the release certificate, which is to be forwarded to this office, and that you make a full report to me, since I have to contact the Lebensborn yet.\"", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "JUDGE CRAWFORD", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5319, "page_number": "5311", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Knowledge on the part of both Lorenz and Brueckner, and their participation in kidnapping activities, is established by a teletype message, signed by the defendant Brueckner, in which he urgently requested information as to the number of children separated from their parents. He said:\n\"Regarding separation from their parents of children whose ethnic characteristics are in jeopardy, the decision of the Reichsfuehrer-SS was announced by the letter from this office dated 28 August 1942 and it was ordered that lists of such children and orphans are to be submitted to this office for forwarding to the Reichsfuehrer-SS.\nDespite a reminder no report has been made.\nAs the Reichs fuehrer-SS repeatedly demanded the report from SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz, I expect at once information by teletype as to when lists will arrive here.\"\nMany children were concentrated in VOMI camps outside of Germany, separated from their parents, in many instances, and usually they were finally transferred to VOMI camps in Germany. These children, who unquestionably had been forcibly taken from their parents, were subjected to racial examinations in VOMI camps, and then disposed of according to racial evaluations. The evidence indisputably establishes that these incidents occurred particularly in regard to \n Yugoslav children and also in Czechoslovakia.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5320, "page_number": "5312", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It is quite clear that both Lorenz and Brueckner are inculpated in crimes connected with the kidnapping of foreign children.\nABORTIONS ON EASTERN WORKERS The policy of abortions on Eastern workers began in 1943, and had its basis in a decree issued by Himmler in March 1943, which provided:\n\"...that in those cases, where pregnancy is caused by sexual intercourse between a member of the SS or the Police and a non German woman, residing in the occupied Eastern territories, an interruption of pregnancy is to be carried out positively by the competent physician of the SS or the Police, unless that woman is of good stock, which is to be ascertained in advance in every case.\n\"The Russian physicians or the Russian Medical Association, which must not be informed of this order, are to be told in individual cases, that the pregnancy is being interrupted for reasons of social distress.\nIt must be explained in such a way, that no conclusions to the existence of a definite order may be drawn.\"\nFollowing the Himmler decree on abortions, Dr. Kaltenbrunner, from the office of the RKFDV, issued detailed instructions on the subject of abortions, stating:\n\"In cooperation with the offices concerned, the Reich Health Leader has decreed in his \n Order No. 4/43, dated 11 March 1943, that in the ease of Eastern female workers, pregnancy may be interrupted if the pregnant woman so desires.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5321, "page_number": "5313", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "...\n\"The consent for abortion of Eastern female workers on the part of the offices of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism is valid herewith as retroactively granted in the cases in which the father was a man of foreign race (not Germanic).. In these cases, the office for expert opinion will, therefore, not obtain the consent of the Higher SS and Police Leader as Deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism, but may order the abortion on its own authority.\n\"Obtaining the consent of the Higher SS and Police Leader as Deputy of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism is, according to this, necessary only in the cases in which it is maintained or is probable that the father was a German or a member of an ethnically related (Germanic) race.\n\"The Higher SS and Police Leader will then be informed of those cases.\n..\"\nThe decree provided for the taking of personal histories and racial examinations by the RuS--Fuehrer, and further provided:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5322, "page_number": "5314", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"...If it is found by this racial examination that a racially valuable is to be expected, then the consent for abortion is to be denied.\nIf on the basis of the racial examination the offspring is expected not to be racially valuable, the consent for abortion is to be granted.\n\"The racial examination is to be carried out rapidly.\nFurther directives concerning the carrying out of the racial examination and the treatment of the cases in which the consent for abortion is to be denied are issued by the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, or by the RuS -- Main Office SS.\n..\"\nIt appears from the evidence that basic decrees and memorandums on the question of abortion were principally issued by offices and defendants other than those here involved, with the exception of RuSHA. That RuSHA participated in the abortion program is clearly shown. The role played by RuSHA was principally in conducting racial examinations of the pregnant worker as well as the suspected father to determine whether a racially inferior or satisfactory child might be expected; and upon the basis of this examination it was determined whether an abortion should or could be performed -- orders being to the effect that no abortion could be performed where a child of good racial characteristics might be expected, and that an abortion should be performed where such a child was improbable. Upon these racial examinations depended also the future treatment of a child \n in those cases where a pregnancy interruption was not practicable because pregnancy was in too far an advanced stage at the time of the examination.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5323, "page_number": "5315", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "In the event the racial examiner determined that a racially inferior offspring was to be expected, the child was assigned to a \"foreign children's home\", which meant that it would be reared under adverse, conditions without the benefit of the normal necessities of life and culture, while in the event the racial examiner found that a racially suitable child might be executed, such a decision meant that the child would be subjected to Germanism through adoption by foster parents.\nThat a child evaluated as of good racial characteristics would be wrested from its mother and subjected to Germanization is clearly shown in a letter from Himmler's office to RuSHA, in which it is stated:\n\"The reception into the care of the NSV or of Lebensborn of the child of good racial stock will necessitate in most cases its separation from the mother who remains at her working place.\nParticularly for this reason the reception into that care of the child of good racial stock is only possible with the mother's consent.\nShe has to be made to consent to it through interpretations by the caretaking office which set forth the advantages but not the ends of this procedure.\n..\"\nWhile it may be noticed that this letter states that such a child can be taken from its mother only by her consent, the letter proceeds to state that the mother \"has to be made \n to consent.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5324, "page_number": "5316", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Of course, through no stretch of the imagination can the forced agreement of a slave laborer in the Reich, working under the conditions to which these laborers were subjected, be termed a \"consent\".\nThe role of RuSHA in the abortion program was principally carried out, so far as basic directives are concerned, by the defendants Hofmann and Hildebrandt. On 13 August 1943, Hildebrandt wrote, concerning abortions:\n\"I should like to emphasize especially that the necessity for the racial examinations, which takes place upon the suggestion of the Main Race and Settlement-Office-SS, also applies here.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5325, "page_number": "5317", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"The directives for the RuSHA field leaders' decision in the racial examination are the same as the ones laid down by me through the ordinance of 13 August 1943 to be applied in decisions about applications for pregnancy interruption for Eastern female workers.\n\"All files of cases, in which the RuSHA field leader refuses the pregnancy interruption, are to be submitted to the Main Raice and Settlement Office together with photographs and addresses of their relatives, so that they may be examined in the light of inclusion into the re-Germanization program.\"\nAnd ten days later, Hildebrandt, in a memorandum marked \"Secret\", stated:\n\"Enclosed find the Order of the Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police of 27 July 1943, which has been issued in agreement with the Main Office for Race and Resettlement, for your compliance.\n\"The carrying out and the decision on the treatment of the pregnant women, as well as of the expected children, is the responsibility of the SS-Leader for Racial and Resettlement matters.\nThe regulations issued by me, in regard to the decisions on applications for interruption of pregnancy, also correspondingly apply to the decisions of the SS-Leaders for Racial and Resettlement matters.\n...\"\n\"Naturally the opinion of the SS-Leader for Racial and Resettle ment matters is the decisive one in the judgment.\n...\n\"Though I have already done so in the regulations on the decisions on the interruption of pregnancies, I want to point out once more the grave responsibility, which has been assign ed to the SS-Leaders for Racial and Resettlement matters by this new order, i.e. to especially further all valuable racial \n strains for the strengthening of our people, and to accomplish a complete elimination of everything racially inferior.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5326, "page_number": "5318", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The desired result of this systematic program of abortions was: (a) to keep the Eastern laborers available as slave labor: and (b) to hamper and reduce the reproduction of the population of the Eastern nations.\nSince one of the main defenses to this specific charge is the contention that abortions were performed in all cases only on a voluntary basis, by the express consent of the women involved, we quote another document which clearly refutes this contention:\n\"It is known that racially inferior offspring of Eastern workers and Poles is to be avoided if at all possible.\nAlthough pregnancy interruptions ought to be carried out on a voluntary basis only, pressure is to be applied in each of these cases.\n...\"\nTAKING AWAY INFANTS OF EASTERN WORKERS Closely linked to the program of abortions was that of stealing children born to Eastern workers.\nNotwithstanding the abortion program, it often happened that a case of pregnancy was not discovered until it was too late to perform an abortion or the child was born before pregnancy was actually discovered. Therefore, the Nazis conceived it to be necessary to deal with this situation. They solved it by simply, in many cases, stealing the child and sending the mother back to labor for the Reich.\nThe procedure of taking away infants of Eastern workers is clearly outlined in a decree issued by Kaltenbrunner on 27 July 1943. This decree, among other things, provided:\n\"Relative to the question of the treatment of pregnant \n foreign woman and the children born in the Reich by foreign working women, I give the following directives in accordance with the respective central offices which, on their part, will give corresponding instructions to their subordinate offices:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5327, "page_number": "5319", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"After giving birth the foreign working women have to resume work as soon as possible according to the instructions of the Plenipotentiary for the assignment of Labor.\n...\n\"The children born by the foreign working women may in no case be attended by German institutions, be taken into German children's homes, or else be reared and educated together with German children.\nTherefore, special infant attendance-institutions of the simplest kind - so-called 'foreigners' children's nursing homes' - have been erected within the billets where these children of foreigners are attended to by female members of the respective nationality.\n..\nForeign population is emphasized by the human sacrifices in the war.\nIt is therefore important that the children of foreigners who, partly , are of a similar race and bearers of German blood and may therefore be considered as valuable are not assigned to the 'Foreigners' children's nursing home' according to figure 3, but, if possible, they are to be saved for the German nationality and to be educated as German children.\n\"For this reason an examination of the racial character istics of the father and mother has to be carried out in cases where the father of a foreigner's child is of German or of kindred race (Germanic)....\"The decree then provides for racial examinations by RuSHA, and further states:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5328, "page_number": "5320", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"In cases where on the basis of the racial examination and of the expert opinion as to the health stock both of the father and the pregnant woman racially good descendants can be expected, the children, in order to assure their education as German children.\n.. will be put in the care of the National Socialist Public Welfare Association (NSV) which will place them in special children's homes for foreigners' children of good racial stock or in private families.\nShould the examination prove negative then the children will be treated according to figure 3.\"The Higher SS- and Police Leader is to submit as quickly as possible:\n\"To the Youth Offices the result of the racial examination, respectively the decision on all cases reported by them.\nIn cases of a positive result of the racial examination the summons has to be added to bring about the appointment of a guardian at the appropriate time.\n\"In cases of a positive result of the racial examination, to the competent Gau Office of the NSV moreover the summons to have the child of the foreign woman adopted at the appropriate time under the care of the NSV for children of good racial stock.\n...\n\"The reception into the care of the NSV or of Lebensborn of the child of good racial stock will necessitate in most cases its separation from the mother who remains at her working place.\nParticularly for this reason the reception into that care of the child of good racial stock is only possible with the mother's consent.\nShe has to be made to consent to it through interpretations by the caretaking office which is set forth the advantages but not the ends \n of this procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5329, "page_number": "5321", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "...\"\nA copy of this decree went to RuSHA.\nRuSHA's role in the procedure for taking infants from Eastern workers was similar to that in the case of abortions. RuSHA's evaluation of the racial value of the child determined the fate of the child. The fate of those determined to be of racial value is plainly stated in a memorandum to Himmler, suggesting the disposition of these children:\n\"... Polish women and Eastern female workers should, in every case of pregnancy, be examined by the Main Race and Settlement Office.\nTheir children, if they are proven to be of good race, should be handed over to the institutions of the NSV.\n\"If the pregnancy of an Alien female worker has been caused by a German man, normally no procurement of abortion is necessary, but an investigation of the racial purity of the mother and the father will be conducted by Plenipot entiaries of the Main Race and Settlement Office.\nThe Alien woman will be re-allocated to labor after the birth.\nAll children proved to be racially pure will be sent to the children's institutes, which are to be established for these children who are to be educated as Germans.\nThe approval of the mother is only required, if the mother is a national of an independent state.\nChildren of impure race (schlecht-rassisch) would be handed over to children assembly centers, in order to prevent German children growing up together with foreign children, and to make the mother available for labor allocation.\nChildren assembly centers, which would be managed by members of foreign nations, could be set up in almost every village and without exception in every Alien camp.\n...\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5330, "page_number": "5322", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Himmler agreed to the suggestions made, but in the case of foreign children, he considered \"it proper to introduce a pompous souding designation for the assembly centers for foreign children.\"\nThe fate of those found not to be of racial value, and accordingly sent to foreign children's homes, is disclosed in a report of investigation of such a home. This report, which was made directly to Himmler discloses that:\n\"... This home was founded some time ago for a trial period on the basis of your correspondence of 9 October 1942 with Gauleiter Eigruber.\nOn the basis of the order you gave then SS-Oberfuehrer Langoth founded the home.\n\"During this visit I found that all of the babies located in this home were undernourished.\nAs I was told by SS Oberfuehrer Langoth only 1/2 liter milk and 1 1/2 cubes of sugar per baby per day are furnished to the home on the basis of a decision of the Land Food Office.\nWith this ration the babies must perish from undernourishment in a few months.\nI was informed that this agreement exists concerning the raising of these babies.\n..\n\"I have already asked SS-Oberfuehrer Langoth to inform Gauleiter Eigruber of this condition and to ask him to assure sufficient nourishment of these babies until your opinion is obtained.\nI consider the manner in which this matter is treated at present as impossible.\n\"There exists only one way or the other. Either one does not wish that these children remain alive - then one should not let them starve to death slowly and take away so many liters of milk from the general food supply; there are means by which this can be accomplished without torture and pain.\nOr one intends to raise these children in order to utilize \n them later on as labor.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5331, "page_number": "5323", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "In this case they must be fed in such a manner that they will be fully usable as workers.\n..\"\nA decree emanating from Himmler's office, and previously quoted, shows that an Eastern worker was unable to resist the forcible taking of her child, and it was decreed that although, in the case of racially valuable children, the child could not be taken without the consent of the mother, in the same breath the decree voices the mandate that \"she has to be made to consent\".The defendant Hofmann, as Chief of RuSHA, was fully conversant with this atrocious program.\nHe was sent copies of suggestions adopted by Himmler, as well as Himmler's decision to introduce a pompous souding name for assembly centers for foreign children. Not only did he have knowledge, but he issued instructions, which coincided exactly with Himmler's ideas and views. On 24 March 1944, in a letter of instructions marked \"Secret\", dealing with the \"treatment of the pregnant foreign working women and of children born of foreign female workers in the Reich\", he said: \"If the evaluations indicate that the children are good from the viewpoint of race and hereditary health, they are transferred to the care of the NSV in children's homes for foreign children or in private families. In negative cases children are sent to institutions for foreign children\". There can be no doubt Hofmann actively participated in this criminal program.\nHildebrandt, who succeeded Hofmann as Chief of RuSHA, is equally guilty with Hofmann in this specific charge. On 25 August 1943, Hildebrandt sent to all RuSHA leaders Kaltenbrunner's decree of 27 July 1943, giving basic instructions on the treatment of children born to foreign workers. In an accompanying letter dealing with the subject \"treatment of pregnant foreign workers and of children born in the Reich to foreign female workers\", Hildebrandt emphatically issued instructions, and stated in part: \"Naturally the opinion of the SS-Leaders for Racial and Resettlement matters is the decisive \n one in the judgment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5332, "page_number": "5324", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": ".. I want to point out once more the grave responsibility which has been assigned to the SS-Leaders for Race and Resettlematters by this new order: that is, to especially further all valuable racial strains for the strengthening of our people, and to accomplish a complete elimination of everything racially inferior.\"\nThe prosecution seeks to attach responsibility for the taking of infants from foreign workers on Lebensborn and the defendants connected with that institution. In this respect, the prosecution rests its case upon the ground that in two memoranda or decrees issued by various persons and offices it was mentioned that children of good blood should be placed with Lebensborn. The defense asserted emphatically that Himmler rescinded this part of the decree and no children of foreign workers were actually taken into Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5333, "page_number": "5325", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "As to this defense, the prosecution strongly contended that the defense was absurd and untenable, stating that \"Himmler's sole purpose in creating Lebensborn was to obtain 'blood' for the Third-Reich\".\nWe think the position of the defense is not only tenable, but correct for three reasons:\n1. The prosecution introduced numerous exhibits in which it was stated that children of good racial blood would be transferred to NSV homes and those of foreign blood to foreigners' children's homes. Either these decrees are absolutely erroneous or those mentioning transfer to Lebensborn are erroneous;\n2. The prosecution has failed to show that a single child of a foreign worker was ever transferred to Lebensborn;\n3. Although the decrees mentioned Lebensborn were sent to a number of offices and individuals, according to the distribution list Lebensborn was not included on the list.\nFor these reasons we exonerate Lebensborn and the defendants connected therewith, in connection with this phase of the charges lodged against the named defendants.\nThe defendants connected with VOMI were not charged with this specific crime; and as to the defendants connected with the Main Staff Office, the evidence was insufficient to implicate any of them in this criminal activity.\nPUNISHMENT FOR SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH GERMANS During the war hundreds of thousands of workers from foreign countries, particularly from the East, were brought into Germany as forced laborers in factories and agriculture.\nWith this advent of foreigners there naturally followed incidents of sexual intercourse between the foreigners and Germans. The Nazis, in order to meet this situation, began the issuance of numerous decrees concerning the \n treatment of foreigners who had sexual intercourse with Germans.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5334, "page_number": "5326", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Foreign nationals, particularly from the East, including Poles, Czechs, and Russians, were subject to these decrees (both civilians and prisoners of war).\nAs early as 3 July 1940, Pancke, then Chief of RuSHA, sent a report to the office of Bormann, Deputy to Himmler, suggesting the issuance of laws to protect German blood. Pancke said:\n\"At present, there are hundreds of thousands of prisoners in Germany of all nationalities and degrees, partly in camps, but for the most part, however, as workers.\n\"...The dangers of inter-mixing and bastardizing of our people are extraordinarily grave.\nThey lie to a great extent in the almost unlimited lack of knowledge throughout our nations of the problems of blood.\"\nFollowing Pancke's suggestion, the Reich Main Security Office, known as RSHA, and under Himmler, began dealing with the problem by promulgating decrees which provided that in the event a foreigner had sexual intercourse with a German woman, he should be arrested, and examined by a racial examiner of RuSHA. Upon the basis of this examination depended the treatment accorded the foreigner. Those determined to be racially inferior were subject to \"special treatment\" or a concentration camp; those found to be racially valuable were subject to Germanization. In order that the term \"special treatment\" might not be misunderstood, we quota from a decree issued by RSHA:\n\"Special treatment is hanging....\n\"Sexual intercourse is forbidden to the manpower of the original Soviet Russian territory.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5335, "page_number": "5327", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"For every case of sexual intercourse with German countrymen or woman, special treatment is to be requested for male manpower from the original Soviet Russian territory, transfer to a concentra tion camp for female manpower.\n\"When exercising sexual intercourse with other foreign workers, the conduct of the manpower from the original Soviet Russian territory is to be punished as severe violation of discipline with transfer to a concentration camp.\n\"The intercourse between other foreign workers employed in the Reich and the manpower from the original Soviet Russian territory also brings great dangers to be dealt with by the security police, therefore, it should also be fought with measures against the foreign workers.\n..\"\nThe principal participants in carrying out measures relating to this charge were Himmler's organization, RSHA, which issued decrees and had the final decision on punishment after racial examination; and RuSHA which made the racial examination and evaluation upon which depended to a large extent whether the offender should die or receive a lighter punishment.\nThat RuSHA was an active participant in these measures cannot be denied, for practically every decree or piece of correspondence concerning this subject either originated in the office of RuSHA or was sent to that office, or else the correspondence or decrees mentioned RuSHA's role in the matter.\nWe need quote but a few documents to show the close connection RuSHA had with this program.\nOn 14 September 1942 a letter, originating from the office of RuSHA while Hofmann was chief of that office, stated:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5336, "page_number": "5328", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"It is requested, that in all Special Treatment cases, where German woman have become pregnant by men of alien races, the offenders be racially examined without delay.\n\"The Reich Main Security Office has instructed its Branch Offices to present these cases immed iately to the Commissioner of the Main Race and Settlement Office-SS.\"\nJudge Wyatt will now continue the reading of the Judgment.\nBY THE PRESIDENT:\nIn a report sent to Hofmann in October 1942, we find the following:\n\"The order given by the Reichsfuehrer of the SS on the Special Treatment of Poles is extended to the Czechs too.\nThe Reich Main Security Office continues to complain that a quicker decision must be reached concerning suitability for German ization.\nIt proposes a short course of instruc tion for all the Heads of the State Police Regional Offices and afterwards the inauguration through these of a system of rough racial selection of the civilian workers suggested for Special Treatment.\nOn account of principal considerations this con sent to the Reich Main Security Office had to be refused.\nIt then remains for us, however, on the other hand to guarantee that the examination pro cess will be speeded up.\nOnce more reference must be made to the regular submission of the expert opinions to the Higher SS and Police Leaders.\n..\"", "speakers": [ "BY THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5337, "page_number": "5329", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Hofmann's complete familiarity with and participation in this program is shown by instructions he himself issued while Higher SS and Police Leader, after he left RuSHA. He said:\n\"With regard to illicit sexual intercourse of laborers of foreign stock the following ordin ances are in force:\n\"All serious offenses such as assault and sexual offenses and sexual inter course with German women and girls are to be reported at once to the Security Service (Security Police); as a matter of principle the department of justice will not be contacted in the beginning.\nAs a rule both parties will be arrested.\n\"After being investigated as to his nationality the party of foreign race is subject to a racial evaluation by the competent RuS Field Leader; a po tential suitability toward Germaniza tion is to be explored.\n\"When a case of sexual intercourse is detected, the Amtsarzt (official phy sician) has to ascertain whether the participating German woman is pregnant.\nIt is to be stated how far the pregnancy is advanced and whether another and what person beside the one of foreign stock in question might have fathered the pro spective child (this investigation to be made by the Youth Office). If the \n person of foreign stock is fit for Gar manization and if both parties are evaluated favorably under the racial viewpoint, mar riage is possible under certain conditions, however, marriage between laborers from Serbia, or other Eastern laborers, and German girls are not permitted for the time being.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5338, "page_number": "5330", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "A female worker of foreign stock, caused by the German man (in abuse of his position) to submit to sexual intercourse, will betaken into protective custody for a brief period, thereafter assigned to a different job.\nIn other cases the female worker of foreign race is to be confined to a concentration camp for women.\nPregnant women are to be sent to a concentration camp only after they have given birth and stilled the baby.\"\nIn 1943 Hildebrandt succeeded Hofmann as Chief of RuSHA. The measures with reference to punishment of foreigners for sexual intercourse continued thereafter. During the time Hildebrandt was chief, two copies of Kaltenbrunner's decree of 10 February 1944 were sent to RuSHA. This decree, marked \"secret\", was a ten-page detailed order covering the procedure in cases involving foreigners who had had sexual intercourse with Germans. With reference to \"special treatment\" the decree states:\n\"Especially acts of sabotage, crimes of violence and immoral crimes as well as sexual intercourse with German women and girls are to be considered as severe offenses.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5339, "page_number": "5331", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"On principal, the cases will not be handed over to Justice.\nOnly those cases are to be transmitted there, where a court sentence ap pears to be desirable for reasons of political disposition of the public and where it has been ascertained by previous sounding that the court will pass the death sentence.\n..\"\n\"Carrying out the special treatment shall serve especially to intimidate the foreign workers inside the Reich, this, however, will only be completely achieved if the expiation follows the deed at once.\nTherefore the inquiries have to be completed immediately.\nIt must be made pos sible for the reports to be submitted to RSHA in the case of B 1 to 4 days at the latest, B II 2 months at the latest, B III 3 weeks at the latest after the event.\nThese offices which are involved in the process, are to be informed of this fact.\"\nHildebrandt, while on the witness stand, first denied that he comprehended the menaing of the term \"special treatment\", but later admitted that he knew that in the case of \"special treatment\" hanging might result.\nHildebrandt's familiarity with \"special treatment\" procedure is clearly shown in one of his own orders. On 31 March 1944, he appointed Dr. Turner as a Deputy with powers to act in his absence. This appointment, according to the order, was made because Hildebrandt's assignment in the East would last a little while longer. In the order of appointment, Hildebrandt said:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5340, "page_number": "5332", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"As before, I reserve the right to make long range decisions, as well as decisions of a fundamental nature.\nHowever, I again express ly decree that the official channel to me leads only via my deputy.\n\"Petitions for engagement and marriage permits and special treatment cases for submission to the Reichfuehrer-SS are from 1 March 1944 to be sub mitted every week to SS-Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner, when in Berlin, for dispatching to the Reichs fuehrer-SS, or to the Reich Main Security Office.\nWhen SS Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Turner is absent from Berlin, the chiefs of the marriage Office and the Race Office retain the right of signature as order ed in Point 5 of letter of 16 December 1943.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5341, "page_number": "5333", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Thus, not only did Hildebrandt have familiarity with the term \"special treatment\", but he, and those deputized by him and under his express orders, actually handled special treatment cases.\nHAMPERING THE REPRODUCTION OF ENEMY NATIONALS.\nPreliminary to a discussion of a specific charge now dealt with, we might mention the German People's List, known as the DVL procedure, which played an important part in measures taken to hamper the reproduction of enemy nationals, as well as many other Germanization measures. The DVL procedure will be further dealt with later; but for present purposes we point out only that under this existing procedure Polish citizens, and later other foreign nationals, were divided into four groups, numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4. According to the decrees establishing the DVL procedure, and according to Nazi conception, group 1 included so-called ethnic Germans who had taken an active part in the struggle for Germanization of Poland; group 2 included those ethnic Germans who had \"preserved\" their German characteristics, though they had not taken an active part in the national struggle; group 3 comprised persons of alleged German stock who had become \"Polanized\", but who it was believed could be won back to Germanism, and also persons of non-German descent married to Germans and members of non-Polish groups who were considered desirable so far as their political attitude and racial characteristics were concerned; group 4 comprised persons of German stock who had become politically merged with Polanism.\nUpon registration in the German People's List, persons listed in groups 1 and 2 automatically became German citizens; those listed in group 3 acquired German citizenship subject to revocation; those listed in group 4 received German citizenship through naturalization proceedings.\nPersons ineligible for the German People's List, and residing within the incorporated territories, were considered ineligible for consideration as protectees, and were classified as stateless; those Poles residing in \n the Government General were classified as non-protectees.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5342, "page_number": "5334", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "As a part of the gigantic program of strengthening Germany while weakening, and ultimately destroying, enemy nations, measures were taken to hamper and impede the reproduction of enemy nationals. These took the form of various decrees, all aimed at one purpose: to greatly reduce the birth rate among enemy nationals and thereby gradually bring about the des truction of the entire national group. These decrees were mainly directed toward drastically curtailing marriages. They were aimed at all Polish groups, protectees and non-protectees, as well as all groups of the German People's List.\nBy a decree dated 25 April 1943 protectees were allowed to marry among themselves, unless restrictive measures should later be imposed. Such restrictions were imposed by Himmler, by raising the marriageable age to 28 for men and 25 for women. According to the decree of 25 April 1943, protectees and non-protectees were prohibited to marry each other, except that the RKFDV had the power to grant exemptions. Such exemptions were permissible, for instance, to \"enable a protectee who is particularly valuable for racial and other reasons to marry a German, in order to gain him over to the German ethnic community.\" And in the case of a male protectee such exemptions depended on his becoming naturalized or Germanized in order that the German women should retain her German nationality.\nDecree 12/C, issued by Himmler on 9 February 1942, provided that marriages and adoptions by the persons classified in group 3 of the German People's List with each other or with Germans was permissible but further provided that restrictive regulations might be issued by the Main Staff Office. The decree further provided that persons in group 3 were prohibited to marry persons in group 4, persons of alien race, or with German holding citizenship subject to revocation who were not classified in group 3. There were further restrictions on persons of group 3, prohibiting marriages to an enumerated group of persons, such as civil service \n employees, without a special license.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5343, "page_number": "5335", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "On 6 August 1944, in a memorandum issued by the Prague Office of RuSHA, it was stated that persons of Polish descent and persons of Ukrainian descent were to be prevented from marrying each other \"as a matter of principle,\" because \"experience has shown that such marriages do not tend to split up, but rather to camouflage the Polish factor; thus the children of these marriages usually are brought up as Poles.\"\nNotwithstanding the many decrees enacted to hamper reproduction, the Nazis suddenly awakened to the realization that their measures, as occurred in other cases, were not bringing forth the desired results, and in the words of the Nazis, as shown by the report of a conference on the question, attended by the defendant Vrueckner of VOMI and representatives of RuSHA, it was discovered that \"because of the raising of the marriage age for Poles the number of legitimate children is reduced, resulting in an increase of the number of illegitimate children. The information memorandum recently obtained showed that the number of illegitimate children is increasing to an even greater extent than the number of legitimate children is decreasing.\"\nThe conference met this problem in the following manner:\n\"With regard to the question of reducing the number of illegitimate children, it was the general concensus of opinion to allow the unwed Polish mothers a minimum sub sistence for the care of the child, the subsistence to be paid for by the Polish fathers and to be paid out on ly if the care of the child is not assured by either the unwed mother or her family.\nThis was to prevent any ne gligence.\nHere it must be the primary principle not to spend one German penny for Polish welfare.\nThis method of putting the illegitimate, racially undesirable Polish child at a definite disadvantage, even though it will not, \n in general, reduce the number of illegitimate children, will at least not encourage a rise in the number of il legitimate children.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5344, "page_number": "5336", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The Main Race and Settlement Of fice suggested that the afther of the illegitimate child be required to make especially large payments, but that the money become part of a general fund from which the ne cessary sums might then be paid out.\nIn cases where the paternity cannot be established, all potential fathers will be equally liable to payment.\nThis measure is not likely to increase the pleasure of having an illegi timate child; all surplus money might be turned over to German youth welfare.\n...\"\nEven further and more far-reaching measures were thought necessary as is clearly shown by an exhaustive file note, initialed by the defendant Brueckner in his own handwriting, as well as a \"strictly confidential\" memorandum to Brueckner. Both memorandums are in essence the same, dealing with the same subject. The file note dealt with the subject, \"Immediate Reich measures to decrease the dangers from infiltration in view of the numerous births of alien races in rural areas.\" After discussing the high percentage of births to alien women working on farms in Germany, the file note, with reference to emergency measures, mentioned the following:\n\"Comprehensive sterilization of such men and women of alien blood in German agriculture who, on the basis of our race laws - to be applied even more strictly in these cases - have been declared infe rior with regard to their physical, spiritual and character traits.\n\"A ruthless but skillful propaganda among farm workers of alien blood, to the effect that neither they nor their children, produced on the soil of the German people, could \n expect much good, in other words immediate separation between parents and children, eventually complete estrangement; sterilization of children afflicted with hereditary disease.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5345, "page_number": "5337", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "....\"\n\"A quiet distribution of contraceptives among farm workers of Alien blood.\n\"General and strictest compliance with the principle of taking away for good from their mothers all new born children of female farm workers of alien blood as well as children of German women if the father is of alien race, at the latest 4 weeks after their birth, and then sending them to geographically remote homes.\n.\"\nAccording to the report these measures were considered to be necessary because \"to leave the children with the mother of alien blood for a prolonged period would mean a continued and increased bother to the German farm wife; and even the German housewife and members of her family\"might become attached to the child. Also \"it must be constantly on the mind of the female farm worker of alien blood that to give birth to a child in Germany would mean to lose it at the same time.\"\nThe memorandum further disclosed that \"homes for alien children\" were to be established, to which a child was to be sent upon separation from its mother, and that one such home had already been established and in operation.\nThough we have not exhausted the subject, we think the facts outlined give a sufficiently clear picture of the extent of the pogram inaugurated to hamper the reproduction of enemy nationals.\nThe offices of RuSHA, VOMI, and the Main Staff Office bear particular responsibility for this criminal activity. Representatives of RuSHA and VOMI actively engaged in discussions and made suggestions concerning measures to be enacted. These representatives demanded, and received, the \n right for determination of individual eases by Higher SS and Police Leaders, which would result in a decisive intervention on the part of RKFDV.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5346, "page_number": "5338", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It was further agreed that in deciding eases it should be determined whether the child constituted a \"desirable increase in population (Poles suitable for Germanization); this will then be determined by the SS Main Race and Settlement Office.\"\nThe Main Staff Office prepared decrees concerning marriages. Greifelt under his own signature, forwarded decree 12/C, dealing with the question of prohibiting marriages; and representatives of the Main Staff Office participated actively in conferences in which drastic regulations were discussed and agreed upon. The defendant Greifelt bears full responsibility for the activities of the Main Staff Office, as well as his own individual acts, which contributed in a large measure toward the program of hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals.\nThe defendant Lorenz, as chief of RuSHA, and the defendant Brueckner, as chief of Amt. VI (safeguarding of German folkdom in the Reich, which was an office of RuSHA) are also responsible for the atrocious crimes committed in the furtherance of this program. Being an office which dealt primarily with ethnic questions, VOMI naturally was drawn into this program, for it was peculiarly within VOMI's field of activity. We have already shown quite clearly that Brueckner was active and energetic in conferences and decisions. His chief is responsible for his acts.\nIn preliminary conferences leading to the issance of decrees, RuSHA, while Hofmann was chief, had an active representative present. Afterwards, when Hildebrandt became chief of RuSHA, Klinger, acting \"for the chief of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office,\" issued decree after decree, on the basis of existing decrees, outlining prohibitive measures to be followed in carrying out the program.\nHofmann and Hildebrandt had full knowledge of all the details of this program and willingly assisted in its execution. Practically all corres \n pondence, and the various decrees issued outside the RuSHA office, went directly to RuSHA; and by the decrees it was provided that RuSHA should play an important part in measures to be taken; for instance, it was expressly provided that RuSHA should examine those coming within the prohibitive marriage decrees.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5347, "page_number": "5339", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "And as the evidence shows, RuSHA with determination guarded its right to make these examinations. Since both Hildebrandt and Hofmann were chiefs of RuSHA while these measures were being enacted and carried into effect, they both bear responsibility for the criminal acts committed against the populations of occupied territories.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5348, "page_number": "5340", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "FORCED EVACUATIONS AND RESETTLEMENT OF POPULATIONS:\nFORCED GERMANIZATION OF ENEMY NATIONALS: SLAVE LABOR Within the framework of the gigantic program undertaken by Himmler and office's subordinated to his command, three aims were paramount:\nTo evacuate and resettle large areas of the conquered territories; to Germanize masses of the population of the conquered territories; and to utilize other masses of the population as slave labor within the Reich. These aims, and the procedures and measures adopted to carry them out, are so interwoven and interrelated that one can hardly be mentioned without at the same time referring to the others. Accordingly, these specifications of the indictment will be considered and discussed together.\nIn the execution of the Germanization program, the measures taken in regard to these three specifications of the indictment utilized, as a basis of operation, the DVL procedure, already discussed in this judgment, or the WED procedure.\nIn making examinations for the purpose of resettlement of socalled ethnic Germans, the RuSHA racial examiners used the DVL procedure, dividing those considered acceptable in the German People's List into four groups, as already explained. In the case of resettlement of populations, the groups were further subdivided into \"A\" cases, \"C\" cases and \"S\" cases. The evidence establishes that \"C\" cases were those determined to be racially and politically reliable; \"A\" cases were those who were determined to be less politically reliable but still of racial value; \"S\" cases where those found to be of alien blood and not racially valuable.\nGenerally, \"C\" cases (those politically and racially valuable) were transferred to the incorporated Eastern territories, it being assumed that such persons would aid in a speedier Germanization of that territory; \"A\" cases, being less reliable politically, were transferred to Germany proper, the idea being that these persons could be indoctrinated with Germanism much faster in the environment of Germany and could \n be, from a security angle, under closer surveillance.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5349, "page_number": "5341", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The \"S\" cases, being in the conception of the Nazis of no racial value, were transferred to the dumping ground of the Government General or sent back to their native countries.\nOf all the measures taken in the vast Germanization scheme, those connected with the forced deportation and evacuation of populations and the resettlement of other populations were perhaps the most far-reaching and in some respects the most cruel. These measures resulted in death, misery and destitution to thousands upon thousands of the citizens of conquered nations. The scheme was simple in its frame-work, but cruel in its execution.\nWith the incorporation of the Eastern territories of Poland, evacuations and resettlements immediately began. According to the plan, all Poles and Jews living within the incorporated territories, except those considered fit for Germanization and registered on the German People's List, were to be evacuated to the Government General.\nWe have already cited many decrees which clearly establish the general plans for evacuation and resettlement. Numerous decrees and documents on this subject are contained in the record, but a reference to all these decrees and documents of various kinds would be impracticable. The evidence unquestionably establishes the aims and measures taken in the execution of this program.\nPoland, being one of the first nations over-run by the Nazis, became the first nation to be effected by this program; and it was within the incorporated territories of Poland that evacuations and resettlements were carried out on the largest and most ruthless scale. However, before the end of the war, these measures had been extended to practically all conquered territories, encompassing, for instance, Yugoslavia (whose citizens were known as Slovenes) and French citizens of Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. While evacuations occurred principally in the countries named, resettlers came from many countries, including \n Russia, Poland, and Greece.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5350, "page_number": "5342", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Some were transferred by virtue of treaties entered into by Germany and the country concerned by the resettlement action; and with those resettlements, insofar as the removal of the resettlers is concerned, we need not deal. Hundreds of thousands were removed, however, from their native land, not by virtue of a treaty but simply by virtue of Germany's armed might as an occupying belligerent. Many of these resettlers were, according to irrefutable evidence, forced to sign the DVL procedure, and were forced to leave their native lands. Intimidation and deceit in various forms were employed to force registration of the populations on the German People's List and after registration, to force the population to remain on the List. Typical of the measures taken in this coercion of the population was: The threat of German authorities to take the children of those refusing to sign, and the actual taking of such children from their parents; the threat of placing persons refusing to sign in concentration camps, and the actual placing of such persons in concentration camps. Many of these resettlers were deceived into believing that they would find much better living conditions in the land to be resettled and would receive condensation in kind for property left behind; but, instead, they found themselves for months in VOMI camps, enduring hardships and living under very unfavorable conditions. Hundreds of thousands were never resettled, but remained in VOMI camps until the end of the war, and never received any compensation whatever for their property; and by the thousands others of these resettlers, instead of resettlement, were forced to work within the Reich in industry and agriculture.\nMany of the resettlers, who had steadfastly refused to succumb to threats and deceit, were nevertheless placed on the German People's List without their knowledge and notwithstanding they had not applied to authorities to be placed on the List.\nBy January 1944, nearly three million Poles alone had been \n registered on the DVL procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5351, "page_number": "5343", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Hundreds of thousands had been deported to the Government General or to the Reich to labor in factories, in agriculture, and other enterprises. These Poles had no choice, but their disposition was governed entirely by the whim of the conquerors. As Poles were deported, a corresponding number of resettlers were evacuated from their homeland and resettled on the Polish property left behind by those Poles who had been evacuated, These resettlement actions were so immense that many times it was necessary to await an evacuation of Polish citizens before the resettlers could be accommodated. And in addition to those hundreds of thousands going to the incorporated Eastern territories, other hundreds of thousands of resettlers went directly to the Reich as laborers. They, too, had no choice in the matter and were allocated to such jobs as those in authority desired to place them.\nThe enormity of the crimes committed in the evacuation and resettlement actions are shown by reports made by high German officials during the period when these actions were taking place. Shortly after Poland was conquered, the Commander in Chief East, in his own notes made for the purpose of reporting to the Commander in Chief of the Army, describes the chaotic conditions attending those evacuations as follows:\n\"The resettlement scheme is causing particular and steadily increasing alarm in the country.\nIt is quite obvious that the starving population, strugg ling for its very existence can regard the wholly destitute masses of evacuees, who were torn from their homes over night, as it were, naked and hungry, and who are begging shelter from them, only with the greatest anxiety.\nIt is only too understandable that these feelings are intensified to immense hatred by the numerous children starved to death on each trans port and the train loads of people frozen todeath.\n..\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5352, "page_number": "5344", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Himmler himself, in a speech to Party comrades, acknowledged that in evacuations people froze to death on transport trains in the East, but he said: \"I imagine that we have to be ruthless in our settlement, for these provinces must become Germanic, blond provinces of Germany.\"\nFrank, Governor General of Poland, made a lengthy report directly to Hitler on 25 May 1943, in which he described in detail the harsh treatment of the Poles and the conditions prevailing in the resettlement districts of Poland. This report, a copy of which went to Himmler, stated:\n\"...the newly settled area and, unfortunately, the nearer and even the farther surroundings, have for a long time been in a state of open rebellion.\n\"According to my own conviction, the reason for the complete destruction of public order is to be found exclusively in the fact that the excelled persons were in some cases given only 10 minutes and in no case more than 2 hours, to scrape together their most necessary belongings to take with them.\nMen, women, children and old people were brought into mass camps, frequently without any clothing or equipment; there they were sorted into groups of people fit for work, loss fit for work and unfit for work (especially children and aged persons), without regard to possible family ties.\nAll connec tions between the members of families were thus sev ered, so that the fate of one group remained unknown to the other.\nIt will be understood that these mea sures caused an indescribably panic among the popula tion affected by the expulsion, and led to it that \n approximately half of the population, earmarked for expulsion, fled.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5353, "page_number": "5345", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "They fled, in their despair, from the expulsion district and have thus contrib uted considerably to the increase of the groups of bandits which existed for some time in the Lub lin district and which act with continuously in creasing audacity and force.\nThis movement has extended, like waves in a pond, also to the inhab itants of those rural districts which were not in any case not yet - intended for expulsion.\nIn the course of these events it has even happened that the newly settled ethnic Germans, forces by casualties inflicted on them by bandit actions, frequently banded together into armed troops and pro cured for themselves from the surrounding villages, with alien population, on their own initiative and by force of arms, the necessary implements for their farms.\n\"This chaotic situation was further aggravated by retaliatory measures by the constabulary in the Lub lin district to forestall additional attacks on ethnic German villages.\nThese retaliatory measures consisted among other things, in mass-shootings of innocent persons, especially of women and children and also of aged persons, between the age of 2 and over 80.\n\"...In connection with the execution of the reset tlement plan described by me, the point of view has often been maintained that all humanitarian consid erations must be completely neglected.\nMay I give the assurance that I, too, share this view utterly and completely.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5354, "page_number": "5346", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The Tribunal will recess for one hour and fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken until 1330 hours)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5355, "page_number": "5347", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "AFTERNOON SESSION (The Tribunal reconvened at 1330 hours)\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:Judge O'Connell will continue with the reading of the judgment.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: It is established by the evidence, including the testimony of inmates of concentration camps, that persons who refused to sign the DVL procedure were incarcerated in these camps, and after their confinement were still subjected to coercion in an attempt to compel them to enroll on the German People's List.\nThere existed a close connection between resettlements and evacuations. Almost all correspondence and decrees concerning evacuations and resettlement actions discussed both subjects, and detailed measures to be taken in regard to both evacuation and resettlement. While at first there was not such a close connection, in point of time, the Nazis, finding that to leave a farm unattended often resulted in thefts and loss of property left on the evacuated premises, adopted a procedure whereby the person to be evacuated was given only a few hours notice. He was permitted to carry away only a meager amount of personal possessions; and the evacuations took place only after resettlers were in a VOMI camp and in a position to move onto the evacuated premises immediately.\nThese evacuations were carried out without regard whatever to military necessity. While there were instances where property was confiscated for military purposes, in the greet majority of cases, vast areas, comprised of farms and various enterprises, were evacuated for the sole purpose of ridding the incorporated Eastern territories of those persons the Nazis regarded as unsuitable and to make room for those persons the Nazis hoped would speedily make of the incorporated areas a Germanic stronghold.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE", "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5356, "page_number": "5348", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "In the gigantic undertaking, comprising evacuations and resettlements, Germanization, and committment to slave labor of foreign nationals, the Main Staff Office, VOMI and RuSHA held significant roles. Greifelt, as chief of the Main Staff Office and also as deputy to Himmler, issued decree after decree concerning measures to be taken in the evacuation and resettlement of populations.\nGreifelt's intimate connection with, and active participation in, evacuations and resettlements as well as Germanization and slave labor, affecting the populations of various countries, may be clearly shown by reference to several decrees.\nOn 7 July 1941, Greifelt issued a directive concerning \"the evacuation from Southern Carinthia of elements of alien stock\", in which it was directed:\n\"The Slovenian intelligence will be submitted to a racial examination.\nThe racially valuable elements (groups I and II) will not be evacuated to Serbia but will be transferred to Germany proper to be Germanized.\n\"The above change does not effect the ordinance to the effect that a sharp selection will be made from among the native popu lation of Southern Carinthia and that the undesirably population must be evacuated in accordance with existing directives.\"\nGreifelt, in writing Himmler on 22 September 1941, regarding the completion of racial examinations of inmates of Baltic refugee camps, reported that 70 percent were \"fit for immediate labor service\"; 20.5 percent were \"foreign elements which should be brought back to their land of origin\"; and 1.5 percent were \"considered as politically incriminated or suspected or asocial, and as such to be handed to the Chief of the Security Police for committment to a concentration camp\".\nIn discussing the settlement of Luthuanian Germans, Greifelt in a report to Himmler on 19 November 1941 proposed:\n\"In order to be able to give the German peasants profitable hold \n ings, the following is suggested:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5357, "page_number": "5349", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"1. Resettlement of Lithuanian peasants in former German holdings in Eastern Lithuania.\n\"2. Evacuation of Poles and resettlement of Lithuanians in the former Polish holdings.\n\"3. Immediate requisition of Polish, Russian, and Jewish property.\nIn an order dated 3 October 1942, marked \"Secret\", and concerning \"the treatment of labor allocation of the persons evacuated from Alsace, Lorraine and Luxembourg,\" Greifelt decreed:\n\"Evacuees who\na) express their wish to be sent to France,\nb) refuse to accept German citizenship,\nc) show by gross insubordination other than the above that they feel as Frenchmen and intend to remain such,\nd) for those reasons refuse to accept reasonably-suitably work or housing, are to be reported to the competent Gestapo Regional He for de portation to a concentration camp or, in the case of racial in feriority to be deported to France.\"\nCreutz, deputy to Greifelt, was also active in resettlement and evacuation actions as well as the Germanization and committment to slave labor of various foreign populations.\nCreutz issued instruc tions concerning these matters to various persons and made detailed reports directly to Himmler.\nOn 30 July 1941, in reporting to Himmler on deportations from Lorraine, Creutz said:\n\"...it has become clear during the time following the conclusion of these evacuations that \"1) further evacuations to France, although affecting only a smaller number of people are yet to be carried out (mainly priests and members of the in elligentsia);\"2) there still remain about 2000 families which, although not suited for deportation to France, cannot remain in the Westmark, \n if we want to clear up the situation in that region.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5358, "page_number": "5350", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"According to information from SS-Gruppenfuehrer Berkelmann, these 2000 families represent members of a variety of vocations, and are, generally speaking, entirely decent people, who, however, have to be removed from their present environment in order to win them back for Germanism at another place and to remove them from the current unfavorable influences.\"\nThe defendant Creutz, in correspondence directly with Himmler on 3 July 1942, requested permission to utilize a portion of the Government General for the resettlement of ethnic Germans; and on 10 October 1942, Creutz issued an order designating the district of Lublin as the area for resettlement of resettlers from Bulgaria, Serbia and Leningrad. The order stated:\n\"Will you, please, immediately move the above mentioned re-set tlers into Camp Litzmansstadt and put the necessary documents im mediately at the disposal of the delegate of the Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism, Lublin Office.\"\nCreutz, in other orders, also designated the district Lublin as the area of resettlement for resettlers coming from other countries.\nCreutz' full knowledge of, and active participation in, deportation and resettlement actions is clearly shorn by a report he made to Himmler's secretary on 7 August 1943. He reported in detail the exact number of persons settled in various districts, which represented \"a grand total of 546,000 resettlers.\" He reported that:\n\"... there are 55,500 resettlers in the camps of the repatriation office for ethnic Germans, of which 31,500 are O-cases, further 44,000 evacuees, together a total of 99,500.\nAll are working tem porarily in Germany proper with the exception of 22,000 who are in the camps in Litzmannstadt.\nRemaining capacity of camp another 40,000 persons.\"\nA prolific source of labor for the Reich's war efforts was supplied \n by the re-Germanization or WED procedure.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5359, "page_number": "5351", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Notwithstanding, hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals ware pouring into Germany by virtue of the DVL procedure, Himmler, in order to make use of those Poles not eligible for the DVL procedure, introduced the LED procedure. This procedure was somewhat similar to the DVL procedure, differing principally only in tire fact that while the DVL procedure applied to so-called ethnic Germans, the WED procedure applied to those who were admittedly not of German descent but whose racial characteristics appeared to be satisfactory. The prime purpose of this procedure was to bring labor to Germany, at the same time depriving Poland of masses of its citizens and attempting to effect a forced Germanization of these foreign citizens.\nOn 9 May 1940 Himmler, in preliminary remarks to decree 17/11, the basic decree of the WED procedure, made his aim quite clear when he said:\n\"Among the people of alien (not German) nationality in the annexed Eastern districts as well as in the Government General there are often such who are eligible for Germanization on the basis of their racial suitability.\nI therefore ordered that a selection of the racially most valuable families of nordic nature be made, according to directives issued by me, and I intend to put them into plants in the old Reich.\nSince this is not a question of utilization of labor in the ordinary sense, but an extremely important national political task, the accommodation of this group of persons cannot be done in the usual way through the labor offices.\n\"For this reason I entrust the Higher SS and Police Leaders in their capacity as my deputies for the Strengthening of Germanism with this task of the \n distribution of people and at the same time with the utilization of this group of persons.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5360, "page_number": "5352", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "....\n\"...it should be endeavoured to accommodate able bodied sons and daughters, who are not necessarily needed in the same plant, in other, more distant places.\"\nBoth Greifelt and Creutz actively participated in the slave labor program connected with the WED procedure. On 4 June 1941, Greifelt, in a supplement to Himmler's decree 34/1, which extended the WED procedure to Southern Carinthia and Lower Styria, issued these specific instructions:\n\"The number of persons suitable for re-Germanization to be expected from Southern Carinthia and Lower Styria is not yet determined, but in the very near future if the transport difficultiescan be overcome, an extensive number may be expected.\n\"Supplementing Decree No. 34/1, I therefore state:\nI ask that the competent Laender Labor Offices be contacted as well as the other offices participating according to the hitherto customary procedure.\nI attach the greatest importance to closest cooperation with the Party Offices.\n\"All the labor locations which you have already selected and not yet filled will not be settled by persons from the former Polish territories suitable for re-Germani zation, but by those from southern Carinthia and lower Styria.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5361, "page_number": "5353", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"Once again I call attention to the fact that according to decree no.\n34/1 for the allocation of the persons from southern Carinthia and lower Styria who are suitable for re-Germanization, the procedure already used for the persons from the eastern territories capable of re-Germanization is to apply to the fullest extent.\nThis additional group of people is to be treated in the same manner.\"\nIn an eight-page report, dated 25 March 1943, Creutz outlined the entire re-Germanization program, giving details as to the measures that had been taken. A few extracts from this report are sufficient to show Creutz' familiarity with the procedure and his participation therein:\n\"The selection of the persons is made by the branch office of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office, Litzmannstadt.\n\"The persons found suitable for being Germanized will be turned over to the individual Higher SS and Police Leaders in Germany proper according to the plannings to be drawn up by the Staff Main Office.\n\"The Higher SS and Police Leaders are competent for the selection of the work assignments.\nThey are willing to consider proposals of other offices also (District Directorates, National Food Agricultural Estate, Labor Offices); the definite decision, however, is theirs exclusively.\n\"The families suitable for Germanization will, after their transfer to Germany proper, first be lodged for a short period in transit-camps, which are subordinated \n to the Higher SS and Police Leaders.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5362, "page_number": "5354", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "At those camps a thorough examination takes place, in order to find out for what kind of the approved work assignments the individual families are best suited.\n\"Until 31 January 1943, 14,592 persons from the former Polish territories have been selected by the Branch Office of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office and were transferred into Germany proper.\n\"The Staff Main Office is not able to concur fully with the statements of the Reich Main Security Office regarding the willingness to be Germanized.\nAccording to experiences gained here, the willingness to be Germanized is lowest in such persons who came to the Reich as single individuals and whose families were left behind in the Eastern territories.\n\"A low degree of readiness to be re-Germanized also prevails in those who left behind larger properties.\n\"...it is emphasized that the care of the persons suitable for re-Germanization shall not degenerate into an exaggerated kind of welfare.\nIt was also often necessary to discipline some obstinate persons in the harshest manner and to keep them in line through the use of compulsory measures.\n\"If there still exists, as is understandable, a lack of willingness for re-Germanization, it is nevertheless to be expected that the next generation, on account of its racial orientation, will have almost completely merged with Germanism.\nThe care and education of juveniles is therefore considered the main task in the procedure of re-Germanization.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5363, "page_number": "5355", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"On the basis of the decree 34/1 of the Reich Fuehrer SS of 4 June 41, 10,121 persons have been transferred to Germany proper until 31 January 1943, to work and live there.\n\"Approximately 6,500 Slovenes, which still are in camps, are at present available for allocation in the district of Lublin.\n\"According to reports of the Immigration Center, the Slovenes have an aversion against settlement in the district Lublin.\nThey try to influence the Immigration Center by all means, so that they will not be declared worthy of settling in the East.\nAmong the Slovenes al ready settled in Germany proper, a strong uneasiness can be observed also.\"\nGreifelt, as the active directing force, and Creutz, acting by reason of Greifelt's directions, were instrumental in bringing into Germany young girls to be used as domestic workers in German households. Himmler, in a decree, issued on 1 October 1941, had pronounced his purposes in this respect. He said:\n\"One of the greatest calamities is at present the shortage of female domestic help, especially in families with many children.\n\"I therefore order that girls of Polish and Ukranian descent, who meet the requirements of the racial evaluation groups I and II shall be selected by the racial examiners of the Main Race and Settlement Office and shall be brought into the Reich territory.\nThe selection is not to be limited only to those persons who are to be evacuated but, as far as possible, to all available girls.\nIn this connection not only the \n Warthegau but also the other incorporated Eastern Terri tories, the General Government, and, after prior under standing is reached with locally competent offices, the former Esthonian, Latvian and Lithuanian territories are to be considered.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5364, "page_number": "5356", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"Assignments may only be made to households of families with many children who are firm in their ideology and fit for training such girls.\"\nThe defendants Greifelt and Creutz assisted in fulfilling Himmler's ambitions, as is shown by the report of Creutz, a few months after the issuance of Himmler's decree. In reporting to Himmler on 20 February 1942, Creutz said:\n\"Regarding the status of the allocation of female domestic help eligible for re-Germanization I wish to report as follows:\n\"521 female domestics suitable for re-Germanization were allocated to non-farming households until 31 December 1941 (total number of allocated persons including children:\n10,520).\n\"The selection of the persons eligible for re Germanization is made by the Field-Office of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office in Litzmannstadt.\nThe allocation in the Reich is carried out by the locally competent Higher SS and Police Leaders.\n\"The Field Office of the SS-Main Race and Settlement Office makes its selections primarily from among the evacuated Poles.\nIn addition, pursuant to the personal order of the Reichsfuehrer-SS, it has the responsibility of removing qualified female domestics, eligible for \n re-Germanization, from the re-incorporated Eastern territories (especially from the Warthegau), and of transferring then to the Reich proper.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5365, "page_number": "5357", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It receives the names of girls in the Warthegau through my deputy.\nFurthermore, it contacted the local employment offices and welfare offices in the allocation of the girls.\"\nSubsequently, less than a year later, Creutz reported to Himmler that the total number of re-Germanizable domestics and agricultural workers was 6,318, of which 1,127 were allocated to urban households. The number of persons suitable for re-Germanization allocated to the Reich up to 30 November 1942 was estimated at 26,000 in a memorandum by Greifelt, dated 12 December 1942, and addressed to Higher SS and Police Leaders.\nRuSHA held a prominent role in the adoption and enforcement of measures taken to evacuate and resettle foreign populations, Germanize enemy nationals, and utilize enemy nationals as slave labor. In all three of these closely connected procedures, RuSHA was the organization charged with, and upon which depended, the selection and evaluation of so-called ethnic Germans and foreigners. Upon the decision of RuSHA depended the future treatment of the persons examined.\nWe have already detailed the mass resettlement actions from numerous countries and the mass deportations of Poles and Jews from the incorporated Eastern territories, as well as the forcible evacuations by the tens of thousands from Yugoslavia and Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. In all these actions RuSHA was involved, the duties of that office varying in accordance with the action being taken in each instance; but in all cases the fundamental role of RuSHA was to racially examine and classify the persons involved in the various actions.\nIn the case of resettlement actions, the resettlers, after being removed from their native lands by VOMI and transferred to VOMI camps, were examined and classified by racial examiners; and on the basis of \"A\", \"O\", or \"S\" classifications, some resettlers were allowed to resettle \n in the Eastern territories, some were taken to Germany as laborers, and some were sent directly to the Government General.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5366, "page_number": "5358", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "RuSHA's responsibility for examinations and evaluations in this connection is clearly outlined in a draft of instructions for the Immigration Center, where the resettlers were assembled and screened. The instructions provided:\n\"The face and settlement office (RuS) determine the racial suitability of the resettler according to general directions by the Reichsfuehrer-SS.\nThe results are listed in a card index. This race and settlement card index is also centrally stored in Litzmannstadt and is consulted when determining the final settlement.\"\nRuSHA's responsibility also extended to the Government General. The procedure followed and the ultimate results of racial examinations in connection with the expulsion of Poles from the Government General is described in a report made directly to Himmler by Mueller on 31 \n October 1942.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5367, "page_number": "5359", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "This \"secret\" report from a Gestapo office, concerning evacuations from the Lublin district, stated:\n\"The Polish families classified in groups I and II will be separated and taken to Litzmannstadt for Germanization or screening. In as for as no settlers are available at present, a small group of these families will be retained to be settled on the so-called 'Z-farms' which are to be formed by combining larger and smaller Polish farms.\n\"Of those classified in groups III and IV the children together with the Poles above the age of 60 will be segregated, i.e. as a rule children together with grandparents and will be taken to the so-called 'pensioneers' villages'. Sick and infirm Poles under the age of 60 who are unable to work will also be taken to the 'pensioneers villages'. The age limit for children should be fixed at 14 years of age (not 10 years) since children under the age of 14 cannot be taken to Germany proper to work there. The able-bodied members of group III between the ages of 14 and 60 years of age, without their disabled family members will be taken to the Reich as laborers...\n\"Individuals in Group IV between the ages of 14 and 60 are to be sent to Concentration Camp Auschwitz.\"\nAll three of the defendants connected with RuSHA -- Hoffmann, Hildebrandt and Schwalm -- lent their assistance and active support to measures formulated and carried out in connection with the three specifications of the indictment being considered.\nHofmann was informed by RKFDV as early as 10 January 1941 of proposed evacuation actions in Poland. In a letter to Hofmann from the RKFDV, after a description of certain evacuation actions, it was stated:\n\"....in the near future a particularly large number of evacuations will be carried through, also in the Warthegau, Danzig-West-Prussia and Upper-Silesia. I request that there, too, the racial examination should be made sure.\"\nHoffmann complied with this request. On 21 January 1941, Hofmann answered:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5368, "page_number": "5360", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"Please be informed that during my stay in Litzmannstadt, on 20 January 1941, I discussed and established, with SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm, chief of the branch office, the employment of racial examiners for the racial examination of those Poles who will be evacuated. SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Schwalm will remain in contact, personally and through representatives, with SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Krueger, or with the authoritative agencies in the Government General as far as the start of the action is concerned.'\nIn writing concerning the status of Dongus, Chief of the branch office of RuSHA in Litzmannstadt, Hofmann outlined the activities of RuSHA in Poland. He said:\n\"From the beginning of 1941, SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Dongus has been directing the branch office of the Main Race and Settlement Office in Litzmannstadt. The branch office was commissioned to select from the new Reichsgauen the Polish families which were racially most valuable from among the Poles being evacuated. This commission was in the meantime extended to the area of the entire Government General. On the instructions of the Reichsfuehrer-SS-Reich Commissar for Strengthening of Germanism.-this selection process has to be carried out with particular care. To carry out this work, therefore, I must have at my disposal a man who has the necessary knowledge in the fields of anthropology and psychology. In the case of Dongus we have in addition a man who has considerable experience and practice. Dongus' qualifications make it possible for me to appoint him, over and above his commission, as instructor and trainer for the new specialists in the sphere of anthropology.\n\"I beg you to consider that, through the work of the branch office at Litzmannstadt, most valuable families are gained by the Reich; at the moment they can be employed as acceptable labor forces, and their children, as can be seen even today, are growing up in the youth organizations as valuable blood of Germandom.\"\nHofmann, in a letter to RuS-Field Leaders and \"all racial \n examiners\" emphasizes the importance of racial examinations being made by examiners from the RuS office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5369, "page_number": "5361", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "He declared:\n\"The racial evaluation made by the branch office Litzmannstadt of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office, is binding in every case. The reversion of a decision made by the branch office can only be executed, upon an order of the SS Main Race and Settlement Office. Grievance cases can be decided on by the Chief of the SS Race and Settlement Office only after detailed facts have been submitted.\"\nContinuing with a report about racial examinations made by racial examiners from a replacement office, which had \"turned out to be completely unsuitable,\" Hofmann said:\n\"In this connection it is to be considered, that the branch office has part of the persons which are to be re-Germanized at the camp Litzmannstadt, under observation for weeks and that the racial selection can be made from naked persons. The racial examiner - as in the above mentioned case - is only able to see these persons for a short time. Moreover, it is possible that he may see only parts of a family, but never the whole family, as it is the case in Litzmannstadt.\"\nA lengthy report and survey made in the Main Office of RuSHA on 31 July 1942, and forwarded to Hofmann for transmission to Himmler, covers the entire field of RuSHA activities. This report gives complete figures on the number of persons undergoing Germanization as well as the nationality of such persons, such as Poles and Slovenes. It also contains reports on deportations and the activities of RuSHA in that regard; it being stated that RuSHA had intervened with examinations to determine whether persons \"represent a racially desirable increase in the population or the reverse.\" According to the report, those found racially valuable were to be settled in the Old Reich; those racially inferior were to be evicted to France. With reference to the committment to labor in the Reich of those found fit, the report stated:\n\"The Reich Governor of Posen, department of Labor, and the Race \n and Settlement Field Leader Vietz-Danzig are striving in *---* *---* junction with the Labor Offices to bring about the necessary transfer of workers suitable for Germanization to the Old Reich.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5370, "page_number": "5362", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"The Race and Settlement Main Office cannot shut its eyes to this necessity in view of the fact that it is the 4th year of the war and considering the problems of armaments and food confronting us in the Eastern sector too and has made the Staff Main Office corresponding promises.\"\nThe reading will not be continued by Judge Crawford.\nJUDGE CRAWFORD:Hildebrandt, after becoming chief of RuSHA, was informed of the deportations being conducted. On 8 December 1943, in writing in regard to planned deportations of students from the University of Strassbourg a RuSHA field leader in France informed Hildebrandt:\n\"In the course of a larger action by the Security Police against the students of the former university of Strassbourg at Clermont-Ferrand, I examined there 107 male and female students along racial lines. It is well known that among the students there are many persons of German descent. Their political opinion, however, is in direct contrast to their descent. 37% of the students were classified as having biologically valuable characteristics, and it is intended to transfer them to the Reich....\"\nIn actively directing racial examinations of French citizens, Hildebrandt ordered, in a letter to Higher SS and Police leaders on 5 August 1943:\n\"All matters pertaining to resettled persons are to be handled centrally by the SS-Main Race and Settlement Office.\n\"Insofar as the persons to be resettled have not yet been registered, they will be reported to the SS-RuS-Main Office by the Higher SS and Police Leader or by the (Office for Ethnic Germans). The order to carry out the racial examination will be issued to the competent RuS \n Field Leaders by the SS-RuS-Main Office, and the family-cards to be used, will be included.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE CRAWFORD" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5371, "page_number": "5363", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The results of the examination are to be forwarded to the SS-RuS-Main Office. It is not permissible to inform the offices of the Deputies of the Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of Germanism of the results from there.\n\"The decisions will be made by the SS-RuS-Main Office, on the basis of the complete family evaluations, and the competent offices will be informed of them\".\nThe evidence establishes that Schwalm, while chief of the branch office at Lodz, supervised racial examiners in that area, and Schwalm not only had full knowledge of the activities of his subordinates, but he himself was active in this field. We have already referred in this judgment to Schwalm's report in which he gave a complete list of persons being transported in a number of transports for Germanization from his area of command. Within Schwalm's jurisdiction examinations were carried out for the purpose of resettlement, evacuations, Germanization, and slave labor; and for the activity of his many subordinates, he bears full responsibility.\nThe organization VOMI was deeply involved in the forceful evacuation and resettlement of populations as well asthe Germanization and committment to slave labor of foreign nationals.\nDuring the course of the war, hundreds of thousands of persons went through VOMI camps for various reasons. Documentary proof has already been quoted to give some idea of the vastness of the VOMI operations. It is disclosed by the evidence that VOMI actually operated some 1500 to 1800 comps; and at the end of the war there were still hundreds of thousands of persons confined within these carps. VOMI camps held resettlers, evacuees and slave laborers.\nBoth Lorenz and Brueckner occupied high positions in VOMI, and in the course of the immense VOMI operations became deeply involved in measures carried out under the Germanization program. Both defendants \n are responsible for a systematic and organized expulsion and evacuation of masses of the population throughout the invaded countries of Europe.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5372, "page_number": "5364", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Immediately after his appointment as RKFDV, Himmler commissioned VOMI to carry out evacuations, resettlements, and the \"whole ethnical work for the strengthening of Germanism.\" VOMI was charged with the \"whole administration and care\" of the VOMI camps.\nLorenz, from the date of the decree conferring such responsibility upon him and his organization, until the end of the war, was an energetic worker in the Germanization program; and he bitterly contested any encroachment by another organization upon activities Lorenz regarded to be within the realm of his duties.\nBrueckner, likewise, was an energetic participant in the activities conducted by VOMI.\nThe evidence conclusively shows that VOMI was responsible for transporting thousands of resettlers and deported persons to VOMI camps; that these persons were subjected to the harshest kind of treatment and hardships; that they were herded into VOMI camps, several families assigned to one room, and for months forced to live without adequate food and clothing. Within these camps some of those subjected to these hardships died.\nThe close connection between VOMI and expulsion and resettlement actions may be seen from the fact that Himmler, just four days after his appointment as RKFDV, issued an order on 11 October 1939 regarding resettlements in Poland, in which he stated that \"a preliminary condition for the populating of these cities is the deportation of Poles and the evacuation of their dwellings.\" Himmler then ordered:\n\"The selection of the population will be carried out by the Chief of the Security Police in collaboration with SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz. A prelininary condition for re-populating these cities is the deportation of Poles and the evacuation of their dwellings.\n\"Members of the Polish Intelligentsia are to be deported in the first place.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5373, "page_number": "5365", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "From that time onward during the war. Lorenz, Brueckner and VOMI were closely connected with all such undertakings.\nOn 10 December 1942 Lorenz reported to Himmler that 16,932 persons had been transported from Bosnia to VOMI camps. On 15 January 1943 Lorenz wrote the following letter to Himmler:\n\"Einsatzgruppe D reports that the North Caucasian territory had been cleared of Ethnic Germans owing to military developments. Transport of Ethnic Germans was channelled from Kursawka to Jeisk where 2000 Ethnic Germans were scheduled to arrive on 9 January. Transport leader requested further directives. Suggested that Oberfuehrer Hoffmeyer should settle Ethnic Germans in Halbstadt territory. Hoffmayer acknowledges this possibility under the condition that the appropriate number of Ukrainians be evacuated. Request approval.\"\nHimmler approved this plan, and on 18 January 1943, Brueckner \n wrote the Higher SS and Police Lender in Russia-South:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5374, "page_number": "5366", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"In consequence of a report to the effect that a transport of approximately 2,000 ethnic Germans from the Caucasus has arrived in Jeisk,\nSSObergruppenfuehrer Lorenz suggested to the Reichsfuehrer SS to settle these people in the Halbstadt region and to expel simultaneously a corresponding number of Ukranians.\nThe Reichsfuehrer approvied this suggestion.\n..\"\nBrucekner, in writing to the Reich Minister for the occupied Eastern territories on 14 April 1943, said in regard to the competency of VOMI:\n\"The registration, and the welfare of ethnic Germans within the Reich are matters failing exclusively within the competence of the Reich Fuehrer-SS in his capacity as Reich Commissar for strengthening of Germanism who has commissioned his Main Office, (Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans) to carry out this program.\nIn pursuance of this commission the (Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans) registered the above mentioned group of people already.\nThe welfare service is provided through our ethno-political agencies.\nThe racial examination of ethnic Germans takes place in pursuance of the directives of the Reichsfuehrer-SS through the SS Main Race and Settlement Office.\n\"On this occasion it may be further pointed out that in the course of the discussion which took place some time ago in the Reich Ministry of \n the Interior, concerning the German People's List procedure, it was decided that the (Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans) will have competence to report ethnic Germans from the Reich Commissariat of the Ukraine to the appropriate Peoples List Offices.\"", "speakers": [ "SS" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5375, "page_number": "5367", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "As previously stated, Lorenz jealously guarded his field of competency, which often lead to disputes with those he thought were encroaching upon his duties. He even complained to Greifelt with reference to a jurisdictional dispute concerning labor allocation and the handling of resettlers; and he suggested to Greifelt that if Greifelt's office would desist from certain functions and leave them to his agency, he could bring in laborers to Germany by the tens of thousands. The text of this complaint reads:\n\"I am, of course, quite prepared to let your office in the future solely handle the labor allocation for the supply industries of the Luftwaffe, if you attach any importance to that matter; in that case, however, I wish to ask you even now to let my office complete the pending allocation operations.\n..\n\"Yet apart from this, may dear Greifelt, there seems to me that something is wrong with the entire setup of the labor allocation and I would ask you to give this matter some thought.\n\"Practically, the setup is like this: the actual labor allocation, that is, the selection of the resettlers, the screening of the resettlers, the formation and execution of the \n transports, is handled by my camps, whereas your deputies tell my camp offices where the shipments are to go, or they negotiate in my camps with the companies concerned.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5376, "page_number": "5368", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "This situation applies particularly to Lodz, and in this connection I may add the following remark:\nyour 5 deputies in Lodz were able to complete the allocation of only 500 - 600 resettlers within roughly 4 months, or to discharge them in order to join relatives.\nThat is an output which certainly cannot have absorbed all of their time.\n\"The procedure in Germany proper is to report the B-cases by name to the competent Higher SS and Police Leaders and to place them in camps made available by us, and only then to have them allocated by the Higher SS and Police Leaders.\nThis procedure might have had certain advantages during the last few years.\nUnder the current conditions, however, when again many thousands of resettlers have come to the Reich it is, in my opinion, too clumsy to be practicable, not to speak of the immense paper work that it entails.\n\"The following, in my views, might be an expedient solution:\nSince today we can anyway no longer speak of a settlement according to plan, but are, - if for no other reason than due to the housing shortage, - concerned only with a temporary war time placement of the resettlers to be handled still now, the allocation should be made directly \n by my office.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5377, "page_number": "5369", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "From my subordinate offices I know that in agriculture alone we could place tens of thousands of resettlers and at the same time this would be of immense importance from an ethnological view-point, since we thus could proceed with deportations in villages which today have an alien population of 60, 70 and 80%.\"And still fighting for the right to handle and allocate workers, Lorenz wrote a bitter protest to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Gau Upper and Lower Silesia.\nWithin this area, the Higher SS and Police Leader had ordered that every allocation for release of resettlers or evacuees should have his approval. In protesting this order, Lorenz said:\n\"Therefore, you purely local order must necessarily lead to confusion and uncertainty, especially since it does not take into account the thoroughly incorporated existing plan of procedure.\nFor example, you also overlook the fact that the labor allocation of Slovenes not suitable for re-Germanization and other similar groups of evacuees is entirely my job.\nThe fact that I am not dependent upon a single Gau in the allocation of these cases, but can execute relocation measures into other Gaus according to economic necessities, guarantees speedy completion of these labor allocation measures.\n\"I request of you, with respect to these facts, to retract the order issued by you on the 18th of this month.\nIt is not in accordance with the Reichsfuehrer-orders and therefore cannot be \n recognized by me.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5378, "page_number": "5370", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Furthermore, it leads to unnecessary difficulties which especially at the present moment must be termed undesirable.\n\"Since I am aware of the efficient cooperation between you and the Local Allocation Headquarters of the Repatriation Office for ethnic Germans in Breslau, I am somewhat amazed how such an order ever came into being at all without my having been consulted.\nTherefore, I am returning to you your letter of 18 August of this year and request, contrary to the intentions expressed therein, that in the future you give my Local Allocation Headquarters the opportunity to carry out their duties on the basis of instructions issued to them by me without any difficulties.\nThe nature of the camps operated by VOMI may be seen from a drastic order issued to Lorenz by Himmler on 21 September 1942 after it had been reported to Himmler that Slovenes had escaped from the VOMI camps. Himmler decreed:\n\"The escape of a Slovene is to be reported immediately by the Camp Commander of the VOMI to the Gestapo.\nThe Gestapo, in turn, will notify immediately, the Higher SS and Police Leader Alpenland.\n\"The family of the escapee as well as his relatives will be removed immediately from the camp and be taken to a concentration camp.\nTheir children will be taken away from them and sent to a home.\n\"At once investigation has to be made in the camp \n in order to determine who know of the proposed escape and aided it.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5379, "page_number": "5371", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "All men who knew about the escape and lent a helping hand will be hanged in the camp.\"\nIt has been established beyond any doubt by voluminous evidence that both Lorenz and Brueckner had knowledge of, and actively engaged in, actions carried out to evacuate and resettle foreign populations, to Germanize enemy nationals, and to utilize enemy nationals as slave labor within the Reich.\nCOMPULSORY CONSCRIPTION OF ENEMY NATIONALS INTO THE ARMED\nFORCES Both Lorenz and Brueckner are charged under this specification of the indictment.\nThe evidence discloses that tens of thousands of foreign nationals, after registration in the DVL procedure, were conscripted into the Waffen SS or armed forces. There is an abundance of evidence, in the form of periodical reports, disclosing the extent to which foreign nationals were drafted for military service. For instance, in an information bulletin by RLD on 28 September 1943, the following information is given about the drafting of ethnic Germans for military service:\n\"The first more extensive recruiting of ethnic Germans for the Waffen-SS took place in Rumania in 1940.\nThis was done under the pretense of recruiting labor for the Reich.\nIn a later, second action, a thousand men belonging to this ethnic German group in Rumania were recruited.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5380, "page_number": "5372", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "At that time those recruitments were not made for the purpose of strengthening the German army but with the idea -- strongly backed by the Repatriation Office for Ethnic Germans (VOMI) and the present SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Berger, that the participation of the ethnic Germans in the war within the ranks of the Waffen-SS would cause a still closer union between these ethnic German groups and the German people, and, especially after the war, in territories settled by ethnic Germans, lead to the development of a vote ran's generation like those in the German Reich.\n..\n\"The political situation in the Serbian Banat made it possible, after the dissolution of the Jugoslav state, to collect the ethnic Germans living there into a unit, called the SS-division \"Prinz Eugen\". Above and beyond this all further available men of the ethnic German group in the Banat fit for service, were drafted into the police forces or served as temporary policemen in the Banat.\nOf the ethnic German group in the Banat and Serbia, counting approximately 150,000 ethnic Germans, 22,500 are serving in the aforementioned units, that is to say, more than 14% of this whole number.\"\nThis report gives a list, country by country, of the \"allotment of German ethnic groups\", enumerating the total number of persons in the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht. Typical of these listings are the following: Rumania, \"Waffen-SS, 54,000\"; Slovakia, \"Waffen-SS, 5,590\"; German Wehrmacht, 257\".", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5381, "page_number": "5373", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The status of the aforementioned SS-division \"Prinz Eugen\", composed of ethnic Germans, is classified in a letter from Reinecke to the SS Main Office, dated 12 July 1943. Writing on the subject of \"compulsory military service for racial Germans of foreign citizenship\", the writer says:\n\"... the SS and police court in Belgrade reported on 14 August 1942 that the E.g. volunteer division Prince Eugen no longer was an organization of volunteers, that on the contrary, the ethnic Germans from the Serbian Banat were drafted to a large extent under throat of punishment by the local German leadership, and later by the replacement agency.\"\nOrder after order was issued, in which it was expressly stated that those who were registered on the German People's List and who attempted to shirk military service should be severely punished. For instance, one order discussed cases which had arisen where such persons had claimed \"polish affiliation\" when it was sought to induct them into the army; and in other cases persons in groups from 1 to 3 had tried, when it was sought to induct them into the army, to have their registration changed to group 4 in order to avoid military service. It was ordered that such persons should be transferred to a concentration camp.\nToward the end of the war, more drastic measures were taken, as is shown by a letter dated 20 September 1944 from the Higher SS and Police Leader Southeast to deputies of the RKFDV, in which it is stated;\n\"In the individual case of a member of group 3 \n who refused acceptance of the German People's List identification card in order to avoid being drafted into the army the Reichsfuehrer has decided that in this and similar eases firm action will have to be taken and has ordered the execution of the individual in question.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5382, "page_number": "5374", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"If, in spite of having been properly instructed, persons enrolled in the German People's List should refuse acceptance of their German People's List identification cards a motion for special treatment will have to be submitted in future.\"\nIt is quite clear from the evidence that Lorenz was an activ e and willing participant in the forced conscription of enemy nationals. One document in the evidence discloses that he had suggested such conscriptions. Another document, from which we shall quote, should suffice to show his close connections and active participation in this matter: On 21 December 1942, in a report to the Assistant Secretary of the Foreign Office by Berger, head of the recruiting office of the Waffen SS, a lengthy account is given concerning the activity of Lorenz and others in the induction into the Waffen-SS of members of \"compulsory labor service of Croatia.\" It appears from this report that some dissension had arisen among officials with regard to this proposed induction, and it was finally decided \"to postpone a decision about the labor service until SS Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz visited Croatia.\" This report then continues:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5383, "page_number": "5375", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"During this visit to Croatia SS Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz informed the officer commanding the Reserve Command that he desired the induction of all the men of the Labor Ser vice who were fit for the SS.\nOne third of the leaders could join as well, otherwise, however, the Labor Service should be maintained as arranged.\nSS Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz made an identical statement to the Racial German Leaders, as Minister Kasche himself states in a teletype message of 7 November 1942.\nSS Obergruppenfuehrer Lorenz stated furthermore that he would inform Minister Kasche of the state of affairs.\"\nAccording to farther details of the report, a transport was supposed to leave on 5 November 1942 with inductees, but difficulties arose when the German Labor Service and the German Legation failed to give their approval to the release of the laborers. Thereupon, according to the report, the following occurred:\n\"SS Obersturmfuehrer Heermann told SS Standartenfuehrer Ruschka that troop trains for the transportation of the Labor Service men, who had been drafted into the Waffen SS, had already arrived, and that the transport escort troops had already been assigned.\nSince the Minister him self had proposed that the decision about the induction of the Labor Service men should be left to SS Obergruppen fuehrer Lorenz, and since the Latter had decided that the men had to join, he, SS Obersturmfuehrer Heermann, was obliged to regard ti as sabotage if the draft orders were withdrawn by command of the Legation one day prior to the scheduled departure of the transport trains, particularly as the orders had been submitted as early as a fortnight beforehand.\n...\"\nThus, Lorenz' activity, not only by way of consent but by way of \n direction, in the compulsory induction of foreign nationals is made quite clear.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5384, "page_number": "5376", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The thousands of foreigners inducted into the armed forces of Germany came principally from VOMI camps, which were under the supervision of Lorenz. By his activities in forcibly inducting these foreigners under his jurisdiction and supervision, he forced foreign nationals to fight against their own country and their own allies. He bears full responsibility for these deeds.\nWhile Brueckner is shown by the evidence to have at one time submitted a draft of an order, under the terms of which \"auxiliaries\" under certain circumstances were to be inducted into the army, the evidence fails to disclose that the proposed order was ever adopted or carried out. No other evidence of an incriminating nature has been offered against the defendant Brucekner with regard to this specification of the indictment,. We find the evidence insufficient to prove Brucekner guilty on this specification.\nPLUNDER OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY As country after country was overrun by the Nazis, the plunder of public and private property was carried out on an immense scale in practically every conquered territory.\nThe plunder seized consisted of various objects - from cultural property, such as paintings, carpets, and crystal, to agricultural property consisting of millions of acres of land.\nGreifelt, as deputy to Himmler, was deeply involved in the plunder and confiscation of this property. He issued decrees, directing that confiscations be carried out; and after confiscations had taken place, he refused to return the property to those from whom it had been confiscated. He was directly involved in the confiscation of many churches, hospitals and sanitoriums as well as agricultural property. These confiscations were not carried out by reason of \n military necessity, but mainly were a part of a preconceived plan to strip the Polish population of the Eastern territories of all their property and in turn to make the property available to resettlers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5385, "page_number": "5377", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Greifelt made periodic reports to Himmler, in which he gave detailed accounts of the stages reached in resettlements and confiscation of property. Some conception of the extent of those confiscations may be gained from a report made by Greifelt to Himmler as early as 3 August 1942. Following page after page of statistics, the report reveals that in four Eastern Gaus alone the total number of confiscated farms and estates amounted to 626,642, with a total area of 5,849,987 hectars. Roughly, the land confiscated consisted of more than 14,000,000 acres.\nNone of the land confiscated was ever paid for; and although it is claimed in defense to these confiscations that it was intended to pay for these properties after the war, it is quite plain from the evidence that no such intention existed, for in reporting in a memorandum on a conference held with Hitler on 12 hay, 1943, Greifelt stated:\n\"The Reichsfuehrer SS has pointed out that the property in question in the incorporated Eastern territories was formerly German property which was robbed in 1918 and for which no one can demand compensation.\nOn the other hand, the situation in the Government General is different since the Poles there are still owners of their property.\nIn so far as tills property will be utilized for German resettle ment measures, one could, therefore, consider a compensation for the previous owner.\"\nTHE PRESIDENT: The Tribunal will recess for fifteen minutes.\n(A recess was taken.)", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5386, "page_number": "5378", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "THE MARSHAL:The Tribunal is again in session.\nTHE PRESIDENT:With regard to property confiscated from Jewish owners, no compensation at all was contemplated, as is disclosed by a memorandum by Greifelt, written in December 1948, which he sent to Himmler's Secretary. This memorandum revealed that \"The Reichsfuehrer SS had signed a general directive whereby the entire Jewish real estate is to be placed at the disposal for the ofice for Strengthening of Germanism.\"\nWe have previously shown in this judgment that in reporting to Himmler, Greifelt recommended the \"Immediate requisition of Polish, Russian, and Jewish property.\" Greifelt, on other occasions, voiced his opinion that requisitions should take place. For instance, on 23 February 1941, he wrote Himmler?\n\"After having issued your carrying-out decree concerning the treatment of the popul tion in the Eastern occupied countries of 12.9.1940, you will find it necessary to issue instructions concerning the treatment of the property belonging to persons included in Groups III and IV of the 'List for the Repatriation of German ethnic Groups' and this for the agricultural as well as for the trade sections....\n\"In the interest of Germanizing the country as fast and as effectively as possible and of separating for both these groups their property located in the occupied Eastern territories as soon as feasible, my office is ofthe opinion that real estate situated in the annexed Eastern areas, and belonging to members of Groups III and IV of the List should be expropriated....\"\n\"My office proposes to expropriate the property of these persons under the law concerning the treatment of property belonging to nationals of the former Polish State.....\"\nWhile in that correspondence Greifelt further voiced the opinion that in the case of Group III compensation should be paid, and in the case of Group IV partial compensation should be paid, this procedure was never \n COURT I CASE VIII followed; and, as we have shown, future measures adopted explicitly provided that no compensation at all should be paid for confiscated property.", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5387, "page_number": "5379", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "As early as 4 October 1940, Greifelt expressly ordered the comfiscation of property. In an order to the Central Land Office he declared:\n\"I wish to inform you that real property of people of Polish citizenship but who belong to other ethnic groups, is on principle subject to requisition and confiscation in pursuance of the pro visions of the decree concerning the handling of property of citizens of the former Polish State.\nThis applies particularly to real estate of owners belonging to the Czechoslovakian, Russian, and Lithuanian ethnic groups.\n\"I request that the Land Offices be instructed accordingly and that the necessary action be taken.\"\nConfiscation of property was carried out in such a ruthless and indiscriminate manner that it caused the Reich Minister of Justice to enter a protest against the extent of confiscation of Polish property. In a letter directly to Himmler on 22 Lay 1942, the Reich minister of Justice complained that a sudden action had talon place whereby all live and dead stock belonging to former owners of Polish property had suddenly been seized. He reported:\n\"During the execution of this order, of which neither the Gauleiter nor the Landrat of the Kreis Bielitz had any knowledge as it was probably initiated by the decision of the head of the Gau Office Strengthening of Germanism, the Poles were robbed not only of their technical appliances but also of their food and personal articles and clothes.\n\"The Polish inhabitant who has beery left practically without means after the extent of the confiscation, has become very agitates, which might result in further expressions of hate and acts of sabotage against Germans.\nThe action will also have bad effects \n as far as nutrition policies are concerned.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5388, "page_number": "5380", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Greifelt Answered the complaint of the Reich Minister of Justice on 8 July 1942, And he sought to justify such seizures with these remarks:\n\"Since these Poles began to steal the fodder for their animals after they had lost their Agriculture enterprises, and furthermore because the resettlers were in want of the missing live and dead stock which belonged to the farms, it became necessary for economic reasons to confiscate this stock and to return it to the now German farms, to which it belonged.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5389, "page_number": "5381", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The confiscation of property with which Greifelt dealt extended to both public and private property. In a \"secret\" report to Himmler on 21 October 1943, Greifelt, in opposing a loan plan which had been suggested by the Reich Minister of Finance, stated:\n\"The plan will endanger the execution of plans repeatedly outlined by the Reich Fuehrer-SS in conversations with the undersigned. In these plans it was foreseen to utilize the entire amount of confiscated former Polish landed property in the incorporated Eastern territories, including as far as possible municipal and industrial property under the administration of the Main Trustee Office \"Ost\", as separate property of the Reich Commissar in order to make the financing of subsequent settlement tasks in the new territories at least in part independent of the Reich finances...\"\nGreifelt further opposed this plan because certain aspects of the plan would reveal to the world the secret aim of the Nazis to confiscate all Polish property, and would make useless an ordinance previously issued for the purpose of camouflaging the aim of the Nazis in regard to Polish property. Greifelt reminded Himmler that:\n\"On the basis of this figure it would be possible for everybody in foreign countries to calculate that the entire Polish house property without exceptions has been confiscated. The reasons for hesitation dictated by international law and foreign policy which in 1940 were conclusive for formulating the ordinance concerning Polish property in such a way that it could not be realized by any uninitiated person that actually all Polish property was supposed to be confiscated, would thus be thrown overboard,\" For the ruthless and indiscriminate confiscation of property, without regard whatever to military necessity, Greifelt bears full responsibility.\nThe evidence, on this specification of the indictment, is insufficient to prove the guilt of the other defendants connected with the Main Staff Office.\nVOMI was directly connected with the plunder and confiscation of property, for the evidence unquestionably shows that many confiscations \n were carried out for the very purpose of using the confiscated property for the housing of resettlers.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5390, "page_number": "5382", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "These confiscations particularly occurred with reference to church property and hospitals and sanitoriums.\nThe defendant Lorenz, as chief of VOMI, confiscated property for use of VOMI, and he was opposed to the return of confiscated property to its original owner, the church.\nGreifelt, in a letter to Himmler dated 17 December 1940, gives the following account of VOMI's activities with reference to the confiscation of property:\n\"Realizing the impossibility of providing temporary housing accommodation for the resettlers by normal lawful means the Office for the repatriation of racial Germans was empowered by an authorization issued by the Reich Fuehrer on 30 December 1939 to requisition lodging space suitable for the communal housing of Racial German resettlers.\n\"On the strength of this authority the Office for the Repatriation of Racial Germans has requisitioned a large number of inns, hospitals, sanatoria, old people's homes and especially convents. To a large extent this requisitioning was done with full collaboration of the minor administrative authorities.\"\nIn June 1943 Lorenz wrote Brandt, Himmler's secretary, concerning an inspection of certain camps, and in giving reasons for the full maintenance of the camp apparatus although the camps were only partly occupied, Lorenz said:\n\"...Another reason for the maintenance of the camps...is the following:\n\"The buildings confiscated there for the accommodation of resettlers mainly come from former church property. An unrestricted surrender of this property to the Wehrmacht, the National Socialist Public Welfare organization, etc, undoubtedly would result in this property gradually returning to the hands of the previous clerical owners. In order to prevent such a development, which is undesirable to the Reichfuehrer-SS, I have so far, persistently opposed the surrender of these camps.\"", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5391, "page_number": "5383", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The evidence has clearly established the responsibility of Lorenz for the plunder and confiscation of public and private property belonging to enemy nationals, without regard to military necessity; and for these acts Lorenz is criminally responsible.\nOn this specification of the indictment the evidence is inadequate to prove guilt on the part of the defendant Brueckner, Though he might have had knowledge of confiscations it has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that he actually was connected in any manner with confiscations.\nOn this specification of the indictment, the evidence is insufficient to prove the guilt of any of the defendants connected with RuSHA.\nThe four defendants connected with Lebensborn -- Sollmann, Ebner, Tesch, and Viermetz -- are charged under this specification of the indictment. While it appears from the evidence that Lebensborn utilized certain property formerly belonging to Jews, such as several hospitals old people's homes, and children's homes, it further appears that these properties had already been confiscated by other agencies and were empty at the time Lebensborn took them over. Furthermore, it appears that Sollmann, as chief of Lebensborn, deposited one million Reichsmarks of Lebensborn's funds for the purpose of paying for these properties upon transfer. Although the evidence discloses that no compensation was actually paid for these properties, this occurred by reason of an order of the Reich Minister of Justice, suspending land registration entries, and not by virtue of any refusal to pay on the part of Lebensborn, While there is evidence to the effect that in isolated instances Lebensborn also utilized a small amount of personal property for the welfare and maintenance of children under Lebensborn's care, it has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt that Lebensborn actually confiscated such property without payment; nor has it been established that any defendant connected with Lebensborn was connected with any plan or program to plunder occupied territories.\nThe burden of proof rests upon the prosecution; and the evidence by which it is sought to criminally implicate the defendants connected with \n Lebensborn is, in the opinion of the Tribunal, insufficient to justify a conclusion of guilt on this specification.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5392, "page_number": "5384", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "PERSECUTION AND EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS INsofar as the evidence might connect the individual defendants with this charge in the indictment, this specification has heretofore been dealt with, particularly under specifications relating to punishment for sexual intercourse with Germans, plunder of public and private property, and evacuations of foreign nationals.\nPersecutions, upon racial grounds, were directed particularly toward the Poles and Jews, and both the Poles and Jews were the victims of similar measures, as we have heretofore shown in this judgment.\nWAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Judged by any standard of proof, the record in this case clearly establishes crimes against humanity and war crimes, substantially as alleged in the indictment under Counts 1 and 2.The acts and conduct, as set forth in this judgment, and as substantially charged in the indictment, constitute crimes against humanity as defined in Article 2-C of the Control Council Law No. 10, and are violative of international conventions, and particularly of Articles 23, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, and 56 of the Hague Regulations (1907), and are violative of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations and of the internal penal laws of the countries in which such crimes were committed.\nThe acts and conduct set forth in this judgment, and as substantially alleged in the indictment, also constitute war crimes, as defined in Article 2-b of Control Council Law No. 10, and are violative of international conventions, and particularly of Articles 23, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55, and 56 of the Hague Regulations (1907), and are violative of the general principles of criminal law as derived from the criminal laws of all civilized nations and of the internal penal laws of the countries in which \n such crimes were committed.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5393, "page_number": "5385", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "During the course of the trial defenses common to all defendants have been urged.\nIt has been insisted repeatedly by the defendants that numerous activities were not within their sphere of competency but on the contrary \n some other person or some other organization was charged with the performance of these various tasks.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5394, "page_number": "5386", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "We have given careful consideration to these assertions, and in instances we have determined that certain assertions of this nature were creditable; and in such instances the defendant has not been hold responsible for those activities. However, a complete and irrefutable answer to many of these assertions is found in the words of the defendants themselves in many orders, directives and memoranda issued under their own signature while the barbarous Germanization program was in full swing. We can give no credence to such defenses when the words of a defendant absolutely refute the contentions now urged. It is no defense for a defendant to insist, for instance, that he never evacuated populations when orders exist, signed by him, in which he directed that the evacuation should take place. While in such a case the defendant might not have actually carried out the physical evacuation in the sense that he did not personally evacuate the population, he nevertheless is responsible for the action, and his participation by instigating the action is more pronounced than that of those who actually performed the deed.\nAnother defense urged is that, in performing certain functions, the defendants were acting under superior orders. By Control Council Law No. 10 it is expressly provided that superior orders shall not free a defendant from responsibility for crime but this fact may be considered in mitigation of punishment. We have, in passing judgment on all the defendants, given due consideration to this defense as it might affect the punishment of the individual defendants. It is our view in this respect, that justice demands a fair consideration of the fact that each and all defendants occupied a subordinate position, being answerable to Himmler, and several of the defendants were even subordinate to other defendants at bar.\nStill another defense often asserted is to the effect that if certain events happened, or certain orders or memoranda were issued, the \n defendant knew nothing of these transactions.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5395, "page_number": "5387", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Such a defense is of no avail when it appears, as it does in many instances, that the defendant urging such a defense actually issued an order or memorandum, or actually received it, or otherwise had full knowledge, at the time, of the commission of various acts.\nIt has been urged and argued at length that certain territories, such as the incorporated Eastern territories of Poland and parts of Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine, were incorporated into the Reich and thereby became a part of Germany during the war. Hence, it is urged, the laws and customs of war are inapplicable to these territories.\nAny purported annexation of territories of a foreign nation, occurring during the time of war and while opposing armies were still in the field, we hold to be invalid and ineffective. Such territory never became a part of the Reich but merely remained under German military control by virtue of belligerent occupancy. Moreover, if it could be said that the attempted incorporation of territories into the Reich had a legal basis, it would avail the defendants nothing, for actions similar to these occurring in the areas attempted to be annexed also occurred in areas which Germany never professed to have incorporated into the Reich.\nCount 3 of the indictment charges all defendants, except the defendant Viermitz, with membership in a criminal organization, namely, the SS. This charge will be dealt with in passing upon the guilt or innocence of the individual defendants.\nWe shall now consider and determine the individual responsibility of the defendants.\nULRICH GREIFELT The defendant Ulrich Greifelt, as Chief of the Main Staff Office and deputy to Himmler, was, with the exception of Himmler, the main driving force in the entire Germanization program.\nBy an abundance of evidence \n it is established beyond a reasonable doubt, as heretofore detailed in this judgment, that the defendant Greifelt is criminally responsible for the following actions:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5396, "page_number": "5388", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Kidnapping of alien children; hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals; forced evacuations and resettlement of populations; forced Germanization of enemy nationals; the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor; and the plunder of public and private property.\nThe evidence submitted is insufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant Greifelt's guilt upon the following specific charges: Abortions on Eastern workers; taking away infants of Eastern workers; and the punishment of foreign nationals for sexual intercourse with Germans.\nThe defendant Greifelt is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Greifelt was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of die indictment, RUDOLF CREUTZ Rudolf Creutz, as deputy to Greifelt, was an active participant in certain phases of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment; and it has been established beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant Creutz is criminally responsible for, and implicated in, the following criminal activities:\nThe kidnapping of alien children; the forced evacuation and resettlement of populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; and the utilization of foreign nationals as slave labor.\nUpon the following specific charges the evidence is insufficient to justify a conclusion of guilt: Abortions on Eastern workers; taking away infants of Eastern workers; punishment of foreign nationals for \n sexual intercourse with Germans; and hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5397, "page_number": "5389", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The defendant Creutz is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Creutz was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nKONRAD MEYER-HETLING Konrad Meyer-Hetling was Chief of the Planning Office within the Staff Main Office.\nDuring his entire period of service in this position, he was a part-time worker only, still retaining a professorship at the university of Berlin, Meyer-Hetling is a scientist of considerable world renown - an agricultural expert.\nThe prosecution's case rests principally upon the \"General Plan East\", a survey and proposed plan for the \"reconstruction of the East\", prepared by Meyer-Hetling at Himmler's request and submitted to Himmler on 28 May 1942. It is the contention of the prosecution that this plan formed the basis for the measures taken in the incorporated Eastern territories and other occupied territories.\nA consideration of General Plan East, as well as correspondence dealing with this plan, reveals nothing of an incriminatory nature. This plan, as contended by the defendant, envisaged the orderly reconstruction of the East - and particularly village and country - after the war. The plan plainly states: \"According to plan, the achievement of the work of reconstruction will be spread over five periods of five years each, totalling 25 years.\" There is nothing in the plan concerning evacuations and other drastic measures which were actually adopted and carried out in the Germanization program. As a matter of fact, it is made quite plain by the evidence, as the defendant contended, that \n this General Plan East was never adopted and no effort was made to carry out its proposals.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5398, "page_number": "5390", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Actually, Himmler, instead of an orderly reconstruction, decided upon and pursued a drastic plan which in all its cruel aspects sought the reconversion of the East into a Germanic stronghold practically overnight. Of course, Meyer-Hetling is not responsible for these measures which he did not suggest.\nSimply by virtue of his position as chief of planning, the prosecution would have the Tribunal assume that Meyer-Hetling was the person responsible for all planning and, consequently, the drastic actions taken must have had their origin in his planning. The difficulty with such an asseumption is that there is no proof to support it. He is charged, for instance, with such criminal activities as kidnapping alien children, abortions on Eastern workers, and hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals. Yet in thousands of pages of documentary and oral evidence, there is not a single syllable of evidence even remotely connecting him with any of those activities.\nUpon the evidence submitted, the defendant Meyer-Hetling is found not guilty on Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Meyer-Hetling was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nOTTO SCHWARZENBERGER Otto Schwarzenberger was Chief of Finance in the Main Staff Office.\nAs such, he dealt with the operational finances and expenses of all organizations charged in the indictment with participation in the Germanization program. He also handled operatational finances of other organizations, such as DUT, DAG, EWZ, and UWZ.\nSchwarzenberger has contended throughout the trial that, as Chief of Finance, his duties consisted almost entirely of paying out funds on \n lump-sum requisitions submitted to him by various organizations, and that, as Chief of Finance, he had no power to approve or disapprove requisitions for funds, which was a duty resting solely with the Reich Minister of Finance.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5399, "page_number": "5391", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "He contends, furthermore, that not even in the requisitions and bills submitted to his office was there anything indicating the purpose for which the funds were to be used or had been used, and he never had knowledge of the purposes for which these funds were being dispersed. Schwarzenberger's contentions are supported by an abundance of evidence. It would appear from the evidence that Schwarzenberger's principal task was to submit to the Reich Minister of Finance a budget containing the estimated operational needs of the various departments; and upon approval by the Reich Minister of Finance, the funds were deposited with Schwarzenberger's office for payment to the various organizations.\nVolumes of documents have been introduced by the prosecution in this case - hundreds pertaining to the various organizations involved and Schwarzenberger's name is conspicuous in its absence among these documents. No documentary evidence of an incriminatory nature has been offered against this defendant; yet the prosecution would have the Tribunal assume, as it is argued, that he hold numerous conferences with all departments with reference to all financial matters and was intimately acquainted with all activities of the various departments. This is an assumption which the prosecution bases wholly upon the position held by the defendant and which is not supported by proof.\nUpon the evidence submitted, the defendant Schwarzenberger is found not guilty on Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Schwarzenberger was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5400, "page_number": "5392", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "HERBERT HUEBNER As Chief of Labor Staffs and the Resettlement Staff in Posen, Herbert Huebner was concerned in the forcible evacuation and resettlement actions as well as the slave labor program.\nWithin the area under his jurisdiction and supervision, these actions were carried out on a large scale. One document, written by him, suffices to show his connection with these actions. Huebner on 29 August 1941 wrote to the SS Settlement Staff at Lodz and Posen as follows:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5401, "page_number": "5393", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"According to the newest order of the Reich Governor, the Poles who will have to be dis placed in the course of the settlement must under no condition leave the Warthegau,-e.g.in order to be allocated for labor in Germany proper via the employment offices, - since the Poles will probably be needed later on as man power (in this area). The Landraete (Chiefs of District Adm.)\nwill have to provide emergency work for them until large-scale projects will provide the possibility to make use of all available Polish manpower.\n\"The Reich Governor will instruct the Land raete tomorrow by circular letter to make all provisions to prevent the displaced Poles from leaving the Gau.\nThe Landraete also were again urged to support the displacement measures in every way.\"\n\"I request you to comply with this order under all conditions and, where necessary, to in struct the Landraete to provide housing for the Poles to be displaced.\nIn all cases they are to be informed in time of any planned displacement measures.\"\nIt has been established by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Huebner actively participated in the forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign populations and the use of foreign nationals as slave labor.\nThe evidence is insufficient to authorize a conclusion of guilt \n on the part of Huebner with regard to the other specifications of the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5402, "page_number": "5394", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The defendant Huebner is found guilty on Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Huebner was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nWERNER LORENZ The defendant Werner Lorenz, ns chief of VOMI, was an active participant in practically every phase of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment.\nThe evidence establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that Lorenz is criminally responsible for am implicated in the following criminal activities; The kidnapping of alien children; hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals; the forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor; the forced conscription of non-Germans into the SS and armed forces; and the plunder of public and private property. The evidence is insuficient to authorize a conclusion of guilt with regard to forcible abortions on Eastern workers.\nThe defendant Lorenz is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Lorenz was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined \n and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5403, "page_number": "5395", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "HEINZ BRUECKNER Heinz Brueckner, as head of the Amt VI of VOMI, actively participated in certain phases of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment.\nIt has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is criminally responsible for and implicated in the following criminal activities: The kidnapping of alien children; hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals; the forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; and the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor.\nThe evidence is insufficient to authorize a conclusion of guilt on the part of Brueckner with regard to the other specifications of the indictment.\nThe defendant Brueckner is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Brueckner was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nOTTO HOFMANN Otto Hofmann, as chief of RuSHA from 1940 to 1943, actively participated in the measures adopted and carried out in the furtherance of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment.\nThe evidence establishes beyond any reasonable doubt Hofmann's guilt and criminal responsibility for the following criminal \n activities pursued in the furtherance of the Germanization program:", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5404, "page_number": "5396", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "The kidnapping of alien children; forcible abortions on Eastern workers; taking away infants of Eastern workers; the illegal and unjust punishment of foreign nationals for sexual intercourse with Germans; hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals; the forced evacuation and resettlement of foreign populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; and the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor.\nThe evidence is insufficient to prove this defendant's guilt with regard to the plunder of public and private property.\nThe defendant Hofmann is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Hofmann was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nRICHARD HILDEBRANDT Richard Hildebrandt was Higher SS and Police Leader at DanzigWest Prussia from October 1939 to February 1943, and simultaneously he was Leader of the Administration District Danzig-West Prussia of the Allgemeine SS and Deputy of the RKFDV.\nFrom 20 April 1943 to the end of the war, he was chief of RuSHA. From 1939 to 1945, while serving in these capacities, he was deeply implicated in many measures put into force in the furtherance of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment. By an abundance of evidence, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant Hildebrandt actively participated in and is criminally responsible for, the following criminal activities: The kidnapping of \n alien children; forcible abortions on Eastern workers; taking away infants of Eastern workers; the illegal and unjust punishment of foreign nationals for sexual intercourse with Germans; hampering the reproduction of enemy nationals; the forced evacuation and resettlement of populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; and the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5405, "page_number": "5397", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Hildebrandt, as the sole defendant, is charged with special responsibility for and participation in the extermination of thousands of German nationals pursuant to the so-called \"Euthanasia program.\" It is not contended, that this program, insofar as Hildebrandt might have been connected with it, was extended to foreign nationals. It is urged by the prosecution, however, that notwithstanding this fact, the extermination of German nationals under such a program constitutes a crime against humanity; and in support of this argument the prosecution cites the judgment of the International Military Tribunal as well as the judgment in the case of the United States of America vs. Brandt, Case No. 1. Neither decision substantiated the contention of the prosecution. For instance, in holding defendants guilty in the Brandt judgment, the Tribunal expressly pointed out that the defendants, in participating in this program, were responsible for exterminating foreign nationals. The Tribunal expressly stated:\n\"Whether or not a state may validly enact legislation which imposes euthanasia upon certain classes of its citizens, is like wise a question which does not enter into the issues.\nAssuming that it may do so, the Family of Nations is not obliged to give rec ognition to such legislation when it manifest ly gives legality to plain murder and torture of defenseless and powerless human beings of other nations.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5406, "page_number": "5398", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "\"The evidence is conclusive that persons were included in the program who were non-German nationals.\nThe dereliction of the defendant Brandt contributed to their extermination.\nThat is enough to require this Tribunal to find that he is criminally responsible in the program.\"\nIt is our view that euthanasia, when carried out under state legislation against citizens of the state only, does not constitute a crime against humanity. Accordingly the defendant Hildebrandt is found not to be criminally responsible with regard to this specification of the indictment.\nThe evidence is insufficient to implicate this defendant on the specification regarding the plunder of public and private property.\nThe defendant Hildebrandt is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Hildebrandt was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nFRITZ SCHWALM The defendant Fritz Schwalm was an active participant in certain phases of the Germanization program, as has heretofore been set forth in detail in this judgment.\nIt has been established by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is criminally responsible for and implicated in the following criminal activities conducted in the furtherance of this program: Kidnapping of alien children;", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5407, "page_number": "5399", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "the forced evacuation and resettlement of populations; the forced Germanization of enemy nationals; and the utilization of enemy nationals as slave labor.\nUpon the other specifications of the indictment the evidence is insufficient to justify a conclusion of guilt on the part of this defendant.\nThe defendant Schwalm is found guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Schwalm was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nMAX SOLLMANN The defendant Max Sollmann, as chief of Lebensborn--together with that institution -- is charged with criminal responsibility in three specifications of the indictment, namely, the kidnapping of alien children, taking away infants of Eastern workers, and the plunder of public and private property.\nWith two of these specifications we have already dealt. We now consider the charge concerning the kidnapping of alien children.\nIt is quite clear from the evidence that the Lebensborn Society, which existed long prior to the war, was a welfare institution, and primarily a maternity home. From the beginning, it cared for mothers, both married and unmarried, and children, both legitimate and illegitimate.\nThe Prosecution has failed to prove with the requisite certainty the participation of Lebensborn, and the defendants connected therewith, in the kidnapping program conducted by the Nazis. While the evidence \n has disclosed that thousands upon thousands of children were unquestionably kidnapped by other agencies or organizations and brought into Germany, the evidence has further disclosed that only a small percentage of the total number ever found their way into Lebensborn.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5408, "page_number": "5400", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "And of this number only in isolated instances did Lebensborn take children who had a living parent. The majority of those children in any way connected with Lebensborn were orphans of ethnic Germans. As a matter of fact, it is quite clear from the evidence that Lebensborn sought to avoid taking into its homes, children who had family ties; and Lebensborn went to the extent of making extensive investigations where the records were inadequate, to establish the identify of a child and whether it had family ties. When it was discovered that the child had a living parent, Lebensborn did not proceed with an adoption, as in the case of orphans, but simply allowed the child to be placed in a German home, after an investigation of the German family for the purpose of determining the good character of the family and the suitability of the family to care for and raise the child.\nLebensborn made no practice of selecting and examining foreign children. In all instances where foreign children were handed over to Lebensborn by other organizations after a selection and examination, the children were given the best of care and never ill-treated in any manner.\nIt is quite clear from the evidence that of the numerous organizations operating in Germany who were connected with foreign children brought into Germany, Lebensborn was the one organization which did everything in its power to adequately provide for the children and protect the legal interests of the children placed in its care.\nUpon the evidence submitted, the defendant Sollmann is found not guilty on Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Sollmann was a member of a \n a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5409, "page_number": "5401", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "GREGOR EBNER Upon the evidence submitted, the defendant Gregor Ebner is found not guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Gregor Ebner was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nGUENTHER TESCH Upon the evidence submitted, the defendant Guenther Tesch is found not guilty upon Counts 1 and 2 of the indictment.\nThe Tribunal finds that the defendant Guenther Tesch was a member of a criminal organization; that is, the SS, under the conditions defined and specified by the judgment of the International Military Tribunal, and he is, therefore, guilty under Count 3 of the indictment.\nINGE VIERMETZ Upon the evidence submitted, the defendant Inge Viermetz is found not guilty on all Counts of the indictment with which she has been charged.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5410, "page_number": "5402", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "This concludes the reading of the opinion and judgment, which is concurred in by all members of the Tribunal. The sentences presently to be imposed are concurred in by Judge Crawford and Judge Wyatt; Judge O'Connell concurring in part and dissenting in part, His views will be expressed by him at the conclusion of the imposition of the sentences.\nWe shall now impose, upon those defendants who have been adjudged guilty in these proceedings, sentence. As the name of each defendant is called, he will rise and remain standing at his seat.\nThe Defendant Greifelt.\nUlrich Greifelt, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to life imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nRudolf Creutz.\nRudolf Creutz, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 15 years imprisonment.\nBe seated.\nKonrad Meyer-Hetling.\nKonrad Meyer-Hetling, you have been convicted on Count 3 of the Indictment, membership in a criminal organization, namely the SS, with knowledge of its criminal activities. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the time you have already s pent in confinement pending trial, namely, since 27 May 1945, is sufficient punishment for this offense. It is the order of the Tribunal that you shall be discharged from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Schwarzenberger.\nOtto Schwarzenberger, you have been convicted on Count 3 of the Indictment, membership in a criminal organization, namely, the SS, with knowledge of its criminal activities. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the tine you have already spent in confinement pending \n trial, namely, since 2 May 1945, is sufficient punishment for this offense.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5411, "page_number": "5403", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It is the order of the Tribunal that you shall be discharged from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.\nYou will be seated.\nHerbert Huebner.\nHerbert Huebner, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 15 years of imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nWarner Lorenz.\nWerner Lorenz, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to twenty years of imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nHeinz Brueckner.\nHeinz Brueckner, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 15 years of imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Hofmann.\nOtto Hofmann, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 25 years of imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Hildebrandt.\nRichard Hildebrandt, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 25 years of imprisonment.\nYou will be seated.\nFritz Schwalm.\nFritz Schwalm, on the counts of the Indictment on which you have \n been convicted, the Tribunal sentences you to 10 years of imprisonment.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5412, "page_number": "5404", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "You will be seated.\nMax Sollmann.\nMax Sollmann, you have been convicted on Count 3 of the Indictment, membership in a criminal organization, namely, the SS, with knowledge of its criminal activities. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the time you have already spent in confinement pending trial, namely, since 6 July 1945, is sufficient punishment for this offense. It is the order of the Tribunal that you shall be discharged from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Ebner.\nGregor Ebner, you have been convicted on Count 3 of the Indictment, membership in a criminal organization, namely, the SS, with knowledge of its criminal activities. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the time you have already spent in confinement pending trial, namely, since 5 July 1945, is sufficient punishment for this offense. It is the order of the Tribunal that you shall be discharged from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Tesch.\nGuenther Tesch, you have been convicted on Count 3 of the Indictment, membership in a criminal organization, namely, the SS, with knowledge of its criminal activities. The Tribunal is of the opinion that the time you have already spent in confinement pending trial, namely, since 13 May 1945, is sufficient punishment for this offense. It is the order of the Tribunal that you shall be discharged from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.\nYou will be seated.\nThe Defendant Viermetz, having been acquitted, shall be discharged \n from custody by the Marshal when the Tribunal presently adjourns.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5413, "page_number": "5405", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "Be seated.\nJudge O'Connell will now read his concurring opinion.\nJUDGEO'CONNELL: With all findings of the Tribunal and disposition of indictments as applicable to all defendants, I concur, except in respect to sentences of imprisonment imposed upon the defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Lorenz, Brueckner, Hofmann, and Hildebrandt. I dissent from the majority of the Tribunal in the extent of terms of imprisonment as applicable to the aforesaid defendants and for reasons hereinafter stated.\nIt is my reasoned judgment, based upon 19 years of judicial service, related in large measure to imposition of prison sentences, that in respect to each of the above-named defendants the sentence imposed is too extreme in fixed duration of time when consideration is given to the character and scope of the duties each performed. Severity of Sentence is erroneously believed by many to be a preventine of future crime by others. I do not subscribe to such a belief. These six defendants, associated with the other defendants, some of whom have been found not guilty of the crimes alleged in Counts 1 and 2, were essentially employed in civilian capacities. Their duties related almost exclusively to direction or aiding in direction of bureaus subordinate to governmental control, springing from power Himmler exercised, as delegated by Hitler, and accompanied with all its ruthlessness, as disclosed by the evidence before us. Their guilt, as fixed by the findings heretofore set forth, is in line with military mandates and superiority of direction. Grave difficulty exists in effecting separation of dominant governmental and military superiority of direction from civilian association and support.\nAll governments engaging in war, of necessity, must have the aid of civilian bureaus operating under governmental direction and \n functioning closely with the armed forces.", "speakers": [ "JUDGE" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5414, "page_number": "5406", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It is difficult to draw a line fixing to what extant punishment can be inflicted upon those associated with civilian bureaus, also how far down the line of authority in the direction of bureau activities responsibility is to be fixed in degree and punishment, and the extent of punishment the civilian invites for himslef or herself in participating in actual war activities.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5415, "page_number": "5407", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "It is also most difficult to determine to what extent the civilian bureau official joins in spirit or without definite objection or protest against acts calculated to further the perpetration of criminal acts. These defendants cannot rightly he held accountable in degree of participation in the war crimes alleged and of which they have been found guilty, as would be warranted if they respectively had been wholly or substantially acting upon their own initiative. It is, therefore, a warranted judicial conclusion that the sentences imposed upon these civilian oficials, even though all enjoyed military titles awarded as established in greater and perhaps more efective prestige in executing their civilian duties, should be less in severity than as fixed by the majority of the Tribunal.\nIn no instance as afecting these defendants do I believe that a sentence of life imprisonment is warranted; neither is it warranted to fix upon sentences which in duration carry the person to an age which based upon normal life expectancy is the equivalent of a life sentence. I believe also sound reasoning in respect to decreeing of imprisonment should include a stated direction that the sentence imposed is to be reduced by subtraction of the period of time covered by imprisonment while awaiting trial.\nI concur with the majority of the Tribunal in respect to the sentences imposed upon the defendants Huebner and Schwalm. As applicable to the defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Lorenz, Brueckner, Hofmann and Hildebrandt, the sentences which I believe should be decreed and in respect to which I record my judgment are as follows:\nOne: The defendant Greifelt, 20 years.\nTwo: The defendant Creutz, 10 years.\nThree: The defendant Lorenz, 15 years.\nFour: The defendant Brueckner, 10 years.\nFive: The defendant Hofmann, 15 years.\nSix: The defendant Hildebrandt, 15 years.", "speakers": [], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" }, { "seq": 5416, "page_number": "5408", "date": "10 March 1947", "date_iso": "1947-03-10", "text": "And furthermore that in each and all instances the period of sentence be reduced to the extent as disclosed by the prison records the defendants respectively have heretofore beer imprisoned.\nTHE PRESIDENT:The defendants will all retire with the guard.\n(The defendants are excused.)\nThis Tribunal now stands adjourned without date.\nTHE MARSHAL:The Tribunal has adjourned without date.\n(The Tribunal adjourned without date.)", "speakers": [ "THE MARSHAL", "THE PRESIDENT" ], "trial_id": 10, "trial_name": "NMT 8 - RuSHA Case (Ulrich Greifelt et al.)" } ]